“I told you before the magistrate’s arrival that Lady Colette used the hidden passageways to come and go as she pleased without notice.”
Sophia shifted in his arms so she could see his face. Reign lifted her up and positioned her so that she sat on his thigh.
“For all of these years, your mother has watched over you like a benevolent ghost. In her own way, she loved you.”
“Love?” Reign sneered. “No loving mother would abandon her son to her husband’s tyrannical and often abusive whims. And let us not gloss over the fact that my mother was a cold-blooded and calculating murderer. Lady Colette almost killed you when she discovered that you were going to ruin her plans. She murdered your mother, who was nothing more than a passing fancy of my father’s lust. Your father was killed because he was an inconvenient witness to her crime, and, lastly, my father died for his arrogance. He thought he could lock away a woman that he no longer desired, and never considered that one day she would claim her revenge.”
Sophia bowed her head. “I know. I cannot explain the workings of her mind but somewhere, twisted in that web of madness, was love. Love for her only son. She watched over you when you came home. She was there when you took up residence with Beatrice at your side.”
Reign stilled, chilling at the thought that his unstable mother had quietly observed his disastrous marriage from afar. How many times had Lady Colette listened to Beatrice and him fighting? Or the nights when he had tossed aside his pride and begged Beatrice to love him again as she had before their marriage? How many suppers had ended with Beatrice sobbing in her locked bedchamber while Reign had drowned his rage with brandy in the library?
“My mother was there that last night when I told Beatrice she could not leave the house,” he said tonelessly.
Sophia caressed his bare chest as if to soothe him. “When your mother learned that Beatrice carried another man’s child, she saw it as a betrayal, not only to you but to the Rainecourt name. I am so sorry, Gabriel. While you were downstairs, your mother confronted Beatrice and murdered her.”
“For eight years, I have lived with the weight of accusations and private doubt about the odd circumstances surrounding Beatrice’s death.” Reign stared down at his hands. “The morning I was told that my wife had had an accident, I noticed the bruises marring her neck and I said nothing. I let the magistrate rule Beatrice’s death an accident, and I tried to get on with my life.”
“You were entitled, Gabriel.”
He chuckled softly. “Was I? The truth is, I barely recall much about that night after I told Beatrice that she was to remain at Addison Park until she delivered my child.” He pulled Sophia closer, needing her warmth and proximity. “Beatrice tried to tell me that the babe was not mine, but I was convinced that she would have said anything to free herself from me. It was later, when my head was clear, that I realized she had been telling me the truth. At the funeral, a nasty confrontation with Lord Burrard gave me more insight into the lady I had married, and the fool Beatrice, her parents, and even Enright had made of me.”
Sophia laid the side of her face against his shoulder. “All these years, Beatrice’s family and Mr. Enright have encouraged the rumors within polite society that you had murdered your wife. The magistrate seemed to be willing to allow Lady Colette the peace in death that she was denied in life out of respect for your family. Nevertheless, if you let the truth be told about your mother and—”
“No.”
His wife straightened at his curt dismissal. “But Gabriel—”
Reign kissed Sophia’s pouting lips. “Listen, our families have been entangled longer than I care to remember. I do not give a damn if the ton continues to believe the Burrards’ claims that I murdered their daughter. I have learned to live with the whispered accusations and disapproval. However, I will not allow you to be fodder for the gossips.”
“You are being unreasonable,” Sophia argued, her forehead furrowing with her increasing agitation. “When I married you, I became a part of it.”
Her argument was valid, though he loathed admitting it. He should have stayed away from her, and had every intention of doing so until Ravenshaw had foolishly provided Reign with the opportunity of claiming Sophia for his own.
“Do you honestly believe the truth will make a difference to Lord and Lady Burrard?” Reign cupped Sophia’s face and nudged her to meet his gaze. “They have hated me for eight years, and I doubt the fact that my mother murdered Beatrice will wash the blood from my hands. The Burrards will always hold me responsible since their daughter was in my care.”
The delicate arch of her right eyebrow lifted inquiringly. “I cannot change your mind?”
“No.” Reign kissed her forehead. “No more arguments.” He lifted the sheet, ignoring his nudity. “Come now, into bed, Sophia.”
His wife dutifully crawled off his lap and slid under the bedding. Reign aligned his body against hers and covered them both with the sheet. With the top of her head tucked under his chin, his hand curved around Sophia’s waist.
Silence descended in the room, leaving Reign with his dark thoughts. His brain was a jumble of images of Sophia, Ravenshaw, Lady Colette, and the very deadly pistol that she had held to his wife’s head. “Sophia?”
“Hmm?”
“Before you fancy that I am being noble, I want to be clear. If anything had happened to you, if my mother had managed to—” He coughed to conceal the tightness in his throat. “—I would not be feeling so generous. I love you, Sophia.”
Reign tensed, bracing himself for her reaction.
The faint snore coming from Sophia indicated that he would have to declare himself again when his wife was not so exhausted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Two weeks later . . .
The evening was ruined!
Sophia clutched her stomach as she hovered over the chamber pot for this latest bout of nausea to pass. She was blaming the rich food the cook had prepared for her miserable predicament.
Reign had warned her that their return to London did not warrant a celebration, but she had wanted to do something special for her husband. Since that fateful night when she had been at Lady Colette’s mercy, Reign had seemed reluctant to leave her side during the evenings. He had only visited his club twice, and both occasions had been at her insistence.
A supper seemed an inspired solution.
Nothing too large or fancy, she had promised her husband. Just an intimate gathering of his friends and hers. When she had proposed the idea to Fanny and Juliana, both ladies insisted on helping, and Sophia had been grateful. She even had a special dress made for the occasion.
Sophia stared down at the splatters of fish and juices decorating the front of her dress and despaired.
“She seemed fine earlier,” a feminine voice whispered just beyond the door of her bedchamber.
The voice belonged to Lord Sinclair’s wife, Juliana.
Humiliated, Sophia braced her hands on either side of the commode and prayed the woman would go away.
“No, no . . . I should be the one to check on her,” Fanny said anxiously. “Sophia gets sensitive about these delicate matters. She does not like it when people fuss about her.”
Fanny was right. Sophia did not want to see anyone after her appalling behavior at the dining table.
She listened to the sounds of the door opening and closing. Perhaps if she just ignored the two ladies, they would take the hint and go away. Sophia started when Reign’s strong and familiar arms encircled her waist.
“Your friends tried to stop me from coming in,” her husband murmured against her ear. “They were worried about your delicate sensibilities.”
Sophia made a sound in her throat that was part groan, part laughter. “Oh, Gabriel, I ruined everything.” She turned in his arms and gestured at her dress. “Just look at my beautiful dress!”
Reign retrieved a handkerchief from the inner pocket of his coat and offered it to her. “If the dress is ruined, I will buy
you a dozen to replace it. Come now, love, there is no need to cry. No harm has been done, and Frost will forgive you. Eventually,” he added with a wry smile.
Lord Chillingsworth.
Sophia cringed. The man was going to be hard-pressed to forgive her for her insult. “I was so nervous this evening. Your friends mean so much to you, and I wanted to impress them.”
She tried to pull away from Reign when he started to laugh.
“Forgive me for laughing, love, but you did make an impression no one at the table will forget. Least of all, Frost.”
Sophia delicately blew her nose. “How can you laugh? Good grief, Gabriel, I knocked a platter of stuffed trout onto floor, and then threw up on one of your dearest friends.”
Up until that moment, the evening had been lovely. It was only when the footman had placed the large silver platter of fish under her nose and she gazed down at the open mouth and lifeless eye that her stomach had lurched. The awful scent was her undoing. Blindly, she had shoved the platter away and leaped to her feet in a futile attempt to distance herself from the offensive dish. The startled footman had dropped the platter, and chaos ensued as everyone tried to assist her. Lord Chillingsworth had the misfortune to have been seated to her right. He had grabbed her arm to steady her, and she had rewarded his chivalrous gesture by throwing up into his lap.
Sophia wondered if anyone had ever perished from shame.
“Would it help if I told you that the Lords of Vice merely tolerate Frost? Or that Vane and Saint would make you a wealthy woman if you would come back downstairs and do it again?”
“Your friends are insane.”
Sophia bit back a smile as Reign led her over to one of the chairs near the fireplace. He sat down and pulled her onto her lap.
“Do not think you can charm me into returning to the dining room, Lord Rainecourt,” she said, trying to sound stern.
“I would not think of it,” Reign replied, cuddling her closer. “This way I get to keep you all for myself.”
“I am never leaving this room.”
Reign raised his eyebrows at her declaration. “Come now, you are made of sterner stuff, Sophia. Frost will survive, and you have provided our friends with an entertaining tale that Vane and the others will likely regale the ton with for months just to annoy Frost.” He sobered. “What is it? Are you still ill?”
Sophia wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “No, my stomach started to settle after—well, you know.”
“Frost will be pleased that his sacrifice was not in vain,” Reign said, not bothering to hide his amusement. His hand slid from her arm to rest possessively against her stomach. “When were you planning to tell me that you are carrying our child?”
Her lips parted in surprise. “I was just beginning to suspect. Your mother—”
“My mother! What does Lady Colette have to do with this?” he demanded.
“It was something she said that night,” Sophia said, mentally sorting through the countess’s muddled ramblings. “She mentioned a babe, and I thought she had confused me with Beatrice.”
“Impossible,” Reign said flatly. “You resemble her neither in looks nor temperament.”
Although she had been told that Beatrice had been quite beautiful, Sophia assumed her husband had been paying her a compliment. “Perhaps she was referring to my mother. There were moments when she called me Lady Ravenshaw. Or . . .”
“Or?”
Sophia sighed. She should have kept her own counsel when it came to the subject of Lady Colette. Reign seemed unwilling to discuss what had happened at Addison Park or speak his mother’s name. With the exception that he and Stephan had declared a truce, she suspected even his friends were unaware of the awful truths they had learned from his mad mother.
“Or?” Reign nuzzled her ear, which resulted in tingles that she felt all the way to her fingertips. “Tell me.”
She glanced away and shrugged. “Despite Lady Colette’s tenuous hold on her sanity, she was very observant. I think she had her suspicions that I was carrying your babe. This is merely speculation on my part, but I would wager the news upset her. It might have been the reason why she decided to reveal herself to me. In her confused state, I became Beatrice, the deceitful wife who was determined to leave you, or I was my mother, a rival for your father’s affection.”
“Good God!” Reign said, his arms tightening around her.
Neither one of them spoke for several minutes. Both were aware that it did not matter which incarnation of Sophia had driven Lady Colette to act. Whether it was Beatrice, Lady Ravenshaw, or Sophia herself, who had married Reign to escape her brother’s dictates, his mother had planned to murder her in a misguided attempt to spare her son from the pain of another false-hearted lady.
Sophia sensed the sadness pouring off Reign. Knowing him well, she suspected that he was still blaming himself for Lady Colette’s treachery. Her finger idly twirled the ends of his hair, which was tightly bound into a queue at the nape of his neck. In an effort to distract him, she gave his hair a playful tug. “You are not to blame, husband.”
“I do not know if I agree.”
“Absolutely not,” she said with resounding conviction. “You were a child when your father decided to fake Lady Colette’s death and lock her away. If anyone is to blame, it is your father, and he paid dearly for his sins.”
He thought about her words, and wearily nodded. “I suppose you are right.”
Sophia planted a kiss on the side of his jaw as a reward for not arguing with her. “Besides, I prefer to discuss more pressing matters. Tell me, how long have you known about the babe?”
Reign gave her a suspicious glance, suggesting that he knew exactly what she was doing. He shrugged. “Since we departed Addison Park. If you recall, you were ill for most of the trip. I was worried that I had pushed you too hard about London, and that you were still too weak to travel. Then I recalled that you told me that you were not fragile, a weak creature who needed coddling.”
“Good of you to notice,” Sophia said wryly.
“It was later that I noticed other changes,” Reign said, cupping one of her breasts.
His dark blue eyes heated at Sophia’s soft gasp. The tenderness in her breasts had increased in the passing weeks, and her nipples reacted to the lightest touch.
“The most important clue was the fact that you have not had your monthly courses.”
Sophia blushed. “Gabriel! To talk about such things!”
“I would wager our babe was conceived on our wedding night,” he said huskily.
“You do not mind?” she asked, suddenly worried. Their marriage had been precipitated from necessity rather than love. Sophia had never doubted that children would be part of their lives when she accepted his offer of marriage. Nevertheless, she never expected to be carrying his child so soon.
His hand lovingly caressed her belly. The stomach muscles beneath his hand fluttered in response, as if the thick corset and layers of fabric were not barring his access to her sensitive flesh.
“Mind? Why would I?” he replied, kissing her tenderly on the mouth. “After all, I did nothing to prevent such a delightful outcome.”
“Did nothing—” Sophia’s eyes narrowed as he grinned unrepentantly at her. “Do you mean there are ways to—to—and yet you did nothing?” She slipped out of his grasp and stood so she could glare at him for his typical high-handed behavior.
Although she was thrilled to be carrying his child, Reign should have been more forthcoming. In the near future, she was going to have to have a private chat with Juliana, since Sophia’s education was woefully lacking in these personal matters.
Sensing her peevish mood, Reign stood and approached her with a wariness that soothed her pride. “Sophia, I told you that I wanted children from this marriage, and you agreed. Are you unhappy with our bargain?”
Sophia did not resist when Reign pulled her into his arms. The uncertainty she heard in his voice tore at her heart. While Sophia was ir
ked by the unflattering comparison, she knew her husband was worried that, like Beatrice, she would come to resent their marriage.
His vulnerability was her undoing.
“Of course not! I already love this child,” she said passionately. “Almost as much as I love—” Sophia bit down on her lip, vowing not to burden Reign with her confession.
He had told her that he required a faithful wife, and that he wanted children. He had not asked for her love. It was a fickle emotion that he had learned not to trust.
Reign stalked her as Sophia edged away from him. “Love . . . what do you love, or rather, should I ask, who do you love?”
Trapped by her own words, she blurted out, “You. I love you, my lord.”
Sophia shrieked when Reign all of a sudden swept her up into his arms so that they were nose-to-nose.
“Tell me again.”
She squinted at him, wondering if he was teasing her. “I-I love you, Gabriel.”
Her husband issued a celebratory shout and spun her around. Sophia’s head and stomach both whirled. “Again.”
“I love you. I have for some time,” she confessed, relieved that she could express what she had tried to hide even from herself. “But I thought that you did not want—”
Reign smothered her words with a kiss. “I lied. To you and to myself. The first time I kissed you in Lord and Lady Harper’s garden, I longed to carry you off into the night and claim you for my own.”
“What stopped you?”
He shifted his stance, rocking her gently. “Ravenshaw. Your connection to him troubled me for some time.”
Sophia could not blame him. She had been equally alarmed when she learned that he was Lord Rainecourt. “Then Stephan was suddenly agreeable to marrying me off to Lord Mackney because he viewed the match and my dowry as a means to settle his own considerable debts.”
“You needed the devil on your side,” he said, pivoting on his heel before he carried her toward the bed. “And I was happy to oblige since Ravenshaw’s stupidity gave me the one thing that I craved.”
Till Dawn with the Devil Page 20
