Behind the Courtesan

by Bronwyn Stuart

  “I’m glad to hear it.” There was an awkward pause where Blake simply didn’t know what to say. They hadn’t seen each other in six years. Not even a letter had been exchanged in the three since the old duke’s death. What could he possibly have to say now to the man sleeping with the woman he loved?

  “I met your cook earlier,” Daemon said with a chuckle as he settled into the chair opposite Blake’s desk, seemingly oblivious to the roiling tension in the room.

  “My cook? I don’t have one.”

  “Sophia said she has to cook the meal before she can sit down to eat it.”

  Blake scowled. Of course she revealed that part of their story. “It was her fault. She is still as stubborn now as she was at ten years old.”

  “You’ve known her a long time then?” Daemon asked. The question seemed an innocent one, but Blake knew better than to fall into that trap.

  Daemon was a lot like a cobra. He lulled you, dazzled you and made you feel comfortable just before he moved in for the fatal bite you never saw coming.

  “I’ve known Sophie since she was born.”

  “Sophia?” Her betrayal had run so deep he hadn’t even told his brother about her. For most of the fourteen years she had been absent, he had refused to even say her name.

  “Her name isn’t Sophia. It’s Sophie Martin.”

  “I know that, but she prefers to be called Sophia.”

  Not lately. “Yes, she does now.”

  “How did it come about? That she is working in your kitchen?”

  “You don’t want to hear about that,” Blake groaned.

  “I do want to hear about it. The tale sounds humorous.”

  It wasn’t. There was nothing funny about what had transpired. “She said that my work was easy and that she could do it without an ounce of effort.”

  Daemon laughed. “She did not.”

  “Aye, she did.”

  “And you couldn’t let it stand? Let me guess, she stood with her hands on her hips, her eyes shooting fire and told you she was better than you?”

  “She already told you about this, didn’t she?”

  “No. But I know Sophia and she is not one to back down from a fight or a challenge. Therein lies your first mistake.”

  “And not the last, let me tell you.”

  The two men spent the next hour renewing their friendship and apprising the other of what they’d missed over the years. Each time Daemon mentioned Sophie, Blake would maneuver the conversation back to neutral ground. He truly liked Daemon and didn’t want to hear about his relationship with Sophie even if he was blissfully happy. Especially if he was blissfully happy.

  “Tell me about Blakiston’s auction,” Blake said once all the other mundane conversations were out of the way.

  “Since he inherited, he’s done everything possible to bankrupt the estate. The man wants to gamble with the finest, but can’t hold his liquor or his tongue. Five years of neglect and debt finally prompted the King to take an interest.”

  “He’s been sniffing about Sophie in the past few days,” Blake told him.

  “Damn,” Daemon swore. “I should have questioned her more about where she was going. Does he know about her connection to me?”

  Blake nodded.

  Daemon breathed deep. “Does he know about ours?”

  Blake shook his head. “Even Sophie doesn’t know about that and I don’t want her to. You aren’t to tell her anything.”

  “I won’t. Yet.”

  “You had better not. Ever. Just make sure it doesn’t come up in the bedroom or anywhere else you may find yourself in a weakened state.”

  Daemon laughed again, though this time the action was strained. “Weakened state? I don’t know who you’ve been consorting with, brother, but no woman has ever led me to that state in the bedroom.”

  Blake swallowed. It would be the perfect time to reveal his betrayal. But then there was never a perfect time to tell your half brother that you’d slept with his paramour.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t tell her.”

  The look on Blake’s face must have been a serious one for Daemon to suddenly get serious in return. Blake nodded his thanks, but didn’t speak.

  “I won’t be telling her any secrets from now on anyway.”

  The way Daemon spoke, Blake would have to be deaf not to apprehend something wasn’t right. “You won’t?”

  “We parted ways some months ago.”

  Blake’s mouth fell open.

  “She didn’t tell you?”

  He shook his head and snapped his mouth shut. Why hadn’t she? He had been torturing himself for nothing? Maybe not nothing, but she should have let him know.

  “I met someone,” Daemon said.

  “You did?” he replied but he was still reeling. Sophie was available? Nothing tied her to London or any man? What was it that held her back? He could offer her a life in Blakiston, yet she hadn’t shown the slightest interest. She spoke of returning to the city at every opportunity she could.

  “You don’t have to be so dramatic. It had to happen one day. I have to marry eventually and take care of the business of succession.”

  “What about Sophie?”

  He misunderstood the question. “I can’t marry Sophie and we all know that. Anyway, she wouldn’t marry me even if I begged.”

  “How do you know that?” Blake’s head swam with the possibilities and his conscience let go a half of a fraction.

  “Because I already asked her.”

  “What?” He felt as though the floor had just disappeared under his chair.

  “I asked her to be my wife shortly after we first met. I thought I could save her and I wanted to upset both dukes in the process, my birth father and my cuckolded one. Could you imagine the aftermath?”

  “And she said no?” The woman was so damned confusing.

  “Don’t worry about a thing, Sophie isn’t the type of woman to make a scene. We can peacefully exist in the same space. We parted as the best of friends, so your inn will stand come morning.”

  Blake nodded but there were no words. God, how he wished there were. The mess just got thicker, deeper and messier. He recalled the words he had said to her that very morning about wanting to be a duchess and wished the floor had swallowed him whole.

  “What the inn might not withstand is the other reason I came to see you.”

  Blake’s mind was slow catching up, but the intent in Daemon’s eyes caused him more worry than the enigma that was Sophie.

  “The other reason? I thought you were here for Blakiston?”

  “I am. I’m here for the real Duke of Blakiston to finally come out of hiding and take his rightful place.”

  “Why would you say that? What if someone were to overhear you?”

  “I wish someone would overhear me, then they could talk some sense into you.”

  “You can’t prove anything. We burned the evidence a long time ago. Do you think anyone would listen?”

  “There are some privileges to being a duke. One of them is that when you speak, others listen and take notice. It is quite rude to call a duke a liar. Not many would dare.”

  “I would.”

  Daemon leaned forward in his chair and placed his glass on the smooth surface of the desk. The turbulence of the liquid drew Blake’s eye and held it while his brother spoke. “Would you denounce the truth if it became public knowledge?”

  Blake continued to stare at the glass as he answered, “To my last breath.”

  “What if I told you there was still evidence?”

  “I would call you a liar right now. We watched them burn. You lit the spark that dissolved my birthright.”

  “I didn’t want to.”

  “But you went along with my wishes. Where is this going, St. Ives?”

  His half brother didn’t miss his use of his title and not his name. “I sent my man on a wild goose chase to keep him busy earlier last year and he uncovered dozens of sets of documents.”

  “
Impossible.” Blake shook his head as his hand slashed through the air. “We burned those records to ash. Why would the clergyman make a second set?”

  “Apparently the vicar had problems sleeping and spent his time monastically copying papers. He replicated the most important documents and kept them at a different location.”

  “What location?”

  “I won’t tell you that.”

  Blake rose from his seat, put his hands on the desk and leaned in close so his brother wouldn’t miss the sincerity of his next words. “I’ll kill you before I let you release those papers. I don’t want to be a duke. I’ll never enter that house for as long as I live.”

  Daemon watched him for a moment before nodding and indicating for Blake to sit back down.

  Blake sat, but his heart wouldn’t stop racing and his nerves wouldn’t sit still. The repercussions of the two of them even having this discussion were so far reaching it actually terrified him.

  “I went to see the old man before he died,” Daemon said.

  “You did?” Blake didn’t care. He didn’t want to think of that sorry excuse for a man. He didn’t want to think of his brother having a relationship with a man who should have had a sword run through him the first time he took advantage of an innocent. He shook free of murderous thoughts. A man couldn’t die twice.

  “He thought I was the vicar come to offer absolution. The things he told me, the things he was sorry for, they made my stomach hurt.”

  Blake didn’t want to know if his mother was one of those he sought forgiveness for. It no longer mattered. It was all too easy for contemptible men to beg leniency when about to meet their maker.

  “Did you forgive him?” Blake asked, despite not wanting or needing to know the answer.

  “I said the words he wanted to hear,” Daemon said with a shrug.

  “That was not my question. Did you forgive him?”

  “I forgave him a long time before that.”

  “Then why don’t you be the duke? One word from your mother or one more set of documents would solve everyone’s problems.”

  “I made a promise to my mother that I would never reveal the truth in any form, that she had an affair with Blakiston. It would kill her and what would become of the dukedom I already claim? What would become of the villagers depending on me if they knew my father is not actually my father? I’ve worked hard for them and they for me. I don’t want or need more titles even if it were possible.”

  Blake sighed. Some of the tension left his body in sheer defeat. Daemon laughed.

  “What could you find so hilarious about this situation?”

  “In the eyes of God I am the true bastard here, not you. You are the only one of us who has a legitimate claim to any title since you are the only one of us born in wedlock to your rightful parents. If my parentage were to emerge, my dukedom would be contested and I would probably lose everything. This one is yours and yours only and you have to step up to it.”

  “I don’t want it,” Blake said for a second time. Or maybe it was the third? He’d say it a hundred times if he had to.

  “I don’t think you have a choice anymore.”

  He surged from his seat again. “The hell I don’t! We all have choices, I made mine and I won’t go back. Not you or any other man will force my hand in this.”

  “That’s where you have it wrong. Do you think Sophia had a choice?”

  “This has nothing to do with her.”

  Daemon ignored his words and went on regardless. “One of the gruesome truths our father shared with me is a story about Sophia. Do you want me to tell it to you?”

  “I don’t need to. She already told me.”

  Finally Daemon showed some emotion in the shocked look on his normally nonchalant mask. “I don’t think she would have told you the full story.”

  Had she? Or did she only share the parts she thought he needed to hear? He wasn’t going to share any of her secrets with this man, but one of the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “That’s why you have her.” It was a simple statement, no need for questions.

  “I already had her. I just didn’t know exactly who I had until then.”

  “She sold her body to you, and you expect me to believe you didn’t know where she came from?”

  “She gave her body to me. And no. I didn’t know. She kept her secrets very closely guarded.”

  “Yet once you did know, you didn’t bring her out of her degradation. You didn’t save her, you just kept her in the same state you found her, only more comfortable.”

  “What Sophia and I had is none of your business. I offered to marry her and she refused me. She still has no idea who I am. Her reputation and her beauty and her unavailability are what led me to pursue her. It seemed a betrayal of who she had become to tell her everything, to dredge up the nightmare and cause her to once again look over her shoulder every day. You’ve seen the light in her eyes, the vibrancy of her soul, I couldn’t remind her of her past and dull that light.”

  “It’s not right. She should know who you are.”

  “She should know who you are.”

  “I am a tavern owner, and in her eyes, a pig. She wouldn’t believe your lies any more than Charles or the magistrate would.” For more than a few minutes, Blake’s treacherous mind stumbled over the truth and all its possibilities. She had said no to a duke. Here was an honorable man offering her a way out, offering a life devoid of labor and filled with comfort and coin, and Sophie had said no. There were so many questions and a less than zero chance for the answers.

  “So you won’t even think about it?” Daemon’s softly spoken words interrupted Blake’s thoughts as they chased each other from one side of his mind to the other, from one side of the argument to the other.

  He had thought of it. He’d thought of little else since Charles had taken the Blakiston name and dragged it into the mud. When the Branson child died because Charles refused the loan of his carriage to fetch her to the doctor, he’d thought how differently he would have handled the situation. When the taxes continued to rise, but the roads remained in their sad state of disrepair, the bridge to the south almost crumbling into the creek it sat over, he’d thought of nothing else. There were so many things he would have done differently had he been duke, but it wasn’t that simple. It could never be that simple. And he’d made a promise to his mother all those years ago. Even though she’d left him and never looked back, he would honor the promise and stay true to himself.

  Great wealth warped the minds of those who held it. It made strong men weak and great women greedy and conniving. It made those in high positions think whatever they wanted was theirs for the buying. The untitled may not be rich, but they were happy. He was happy. Or at least he had been before Sophie had re-entered his life and thrown it into chaos.

  Blake shook his head. He didn’t need a dukedom. He didn’t need wealth or an estate atop a hill. He simply needed to remember who he was and who he wanted to be. Sophie was right when she spouted off about choices and decisions. His wasn’t even a hard one to make.

  “No.”

  “No, you won’t think about it, or no, you won’t do it?”

  He sighed and looked directly into Daemon’s unwavering sea-green gaze. “I will never be a duke. Not ever. Burn the remaining documents and forget what you know. Forget that I should have been Duke of Blakiston and wait for Charles to go to hell so you can find a new successor. If you can’t do that, forge some new documentation and thrust it on another man, because I don’t want it.”

  “Do you understand what you’re giving up? You could have it all. A wife with an entrée into society, children, a fortune.”

  “I do understand. I don’t want any of that. I have never wanted that kind of power or responsibility.”

  This time it was Daemon who shook his head as he stood to leave. “You’re making a mistake here, brother.”

  “A mistake is something you grow to regret,” Blake muttered. This was one decision regret wo
uld never sink its claws into.

  * * *

  A duke? Blake was the rightful Duke of Blakiston? Sophie couldn’t have heard right. She couldn’t have. But that wasn’t even the worst revelation of her eavesdropping. Daemon and Blake were half brothers? Why hadn’t she ever known that? Daemon had asked her questions only hours earlier and hadn’t let on one little bit that the two were related.

  She turned from Blake’s office door with a hand pressed to her suddenly fluttery stomach. No wonder Blake never wanted to talk about his sire. No wonder he’d gotten so angry when she’d asked him why he didn’t want to be a duke. But he’d told her bastards don’t inherit. He’d said it over and over. She thought for a moment that she would cast up her accounts right there on the floor. Everyone had their secrets, but this? This was a flat-out lie. A betrayal of everyone whose life depended on work from the estate, on the duke, on the word of a man who had apparently been born on the right side of the blanket after all.

  This was it. This was the moment she could either confess to what she’d heard and confront the two men who claimed to care something for her. Or she could take the new information away and think on what she could and would do with it. She felt her head would explode from the pressure.

  She fisted one hand in the skirts of her gown, and with the other, pushed the door to Blake’s office open. Daemon saw her first and began to rise, but Sophie stopped him with a curt gesture. Blake was slower to her presence and didn’t make to stand, didn’t make a move at all.

  “Sophia.” Daemon addressed her warily. “Is it luncheon already?”

  She drew breath, opened her mouth and asked, “Blake would you fetch more wood for the fire in the common room? That rain is still falling and it’s bringing a chill with it.”

  Both men stared at her for a moment too long, and she wondered if one would call her on her hesitation or her flimsy lie. Blake rose without a word and Daemon picked his glass up and drained the amber contents in one swallow before addressing her.

  “You heard all of that, didn’t you?”

  She gave a shake of her head, another curl breaking loose from the knot she tried to tame them into. “Heard what?”

  Daemon smiled then. It was a lifting of lips that for as long as Sophie had known Daemon, he reserved just for her. Only today there was something else there—a weariness he didn’t normally let show.