My Seductive Innocent

by Julie Johnstone

  He met his aunt halfway down the spiral stairs.

  “Scarsdale, where are you going in such a rush?”

  “To fetch the physician. Sophia is sick.”

  “Send a servant, for pity’s sake. The staff will think your tragic little wife has you besotted if you go yourself.”

  “I don’t give a goddamn what the servants think,” he snapped and turned on his heel to make his way down the rest of the stairs. He was the best equestrian in this house, and he’d reach the physician faster than any of his servants.

  Within minutes, his horse was made ready and he dashed off into the night to fetch Dr. Maddox. Each time the horse’s hooves made contact with the hard dirt, one thought pounded into Nathan’s head. He wasn’t good enough for Sophia.

  She was an innocent despite her circumstances.

  He was jaded beyond repair because of his circumstances.

  She held hope in her heart.

  His heart contained bitterness.

  She assumed the best of him always.

  He was such a cynical bastard that he was all too willing to assume the worst from her, even though she’d only shown kindness and love.

  She trusted him.

  He didn’t even trust himself.

  She claimed to love him and want his love in return.

  All he could claim was that he was sure she would snatch back all that she offered the minute he failed her.

  But damnation, he didn’t want to let her go. And even worse, she had somehow managed to stir an undeniable desire to try to simply feel again. For her.

  “Poison?” Nathan repeated with disbelief.

  Dr. Maddox nodded. “Seems so. I cannot say for certain, but all her circumstances indicate she was poisoned.”

  Nathan gripped the bedpost and glanced down at Sophia, who was finally resting peacefully after hours of retching. She looked so small and fragile. A large lump settled in his throat and his blood turned cold. What if he had been the target and she an innocent victim as before on the road when he’d been shot? Someone was trying to kill him, after all. He knew that for a fact.

  He cursed under his breath that he had not gotten to see Sir Richard in London. He had wanted to hire the man because he was known and admired for his investigation skills, but just as importantly, he was known for his discretion. And Sir Richard had been a personal friend of Nathan’s father.

  He yanked his hand through his hair. Had he made a grave mistake by waiting to hire an investigator and given whoever wanted him dead another opportunity to try to kill him? Or Sophia? He tugged the bell cord to call a servant, and within seconds, Mary Margaret appeared.

  She dipped a curtsy, her gaze darting between him and the physician. “How may I be of service?”

  “Summon all the servants to the courtyard,” he clipped in a cold, hard tone.

  Her eyes widened considerably. “But it’s snowing.”

  “I don’t give a damn if it’s lightning, thundering, and hailing. Summon every servant to the courtyard from the stable boy to my valet. And tell them that if they do not appear within fifteen minutes, they can consider their employment terminated. I’m going to find out who poisoned Sophia.”

  Dr. Maddox gripped Nathan’s arm. “Scarsdale,” he began, pausing when Nathan glanced at the man’s hand clutching his arm. Dr. Maddox released his hold before continuing. “I didn’t mean to imply someone had purposely poisoned your wife. I selected my words without proper thought. I’m sure she simply ate or drank something bad. I cannot tell you how many cases I see every week of people violently ill from consuming tainted meat.”

  Nathan wasn’t convinced it was a simple case of tainted meat, but to avoid having to explain his doubts, he said, “Then I will find out which of my servants was so careless as to serve such meat, and they will be let go.” Dr. Maddox didn’t need to know that Nathan might also be looking for an accomplice to his attempted murder. “Go summon them, Mary Margaret.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  Dr. Maddox made to follow the lady’s maid out, but he stopped at the door. “I’ll come by tomorrow to check on Her Grace, but I suspect she will sleep soundly. I gave her a fairly strong tonic to help her sleep, and the herbs eventually did the trick in calming her stomach. If she should happen to worsen, then I suggest we bleed her tomorrow to rid her body of the poison. Might I suggest you have her lady’s maid sit by her side tonight?”

  “I’ll sit with her,” he replied, his voice gruff. He didn’t want to rely on anyone else to do the job. Besides, he’d never sleep wondering if she was still doing all right or if she had taken a turn for the worse.

  “Very good, Your Grace,” Dr. Maddox agreed and left.

  Nathan sat down beside Sophia and steepled his hands in front of him. Who held such a grudge against him that they wanted him dead? It could be Lord Peabody, he realized. Nathan considered the fool and his anger over his mistress comparing their performances in the bedchamber. He supposed men had killed for less, but the idea seemed somewhat absurd. Still, he’d keep Peabody on the list.

  Then it hit him. The most likely candidate and the one person he knew for a fact hated him and had the bollocks to try to kill him was Peyton Ravensdale. Nathan didn’t like to think back to the time in his life he’d almost destroyed himself, but he cast his mind there now out of necessity.

  His spiral into darkness had started after the carriage accident that had killed his parents and had left him with a severely broken right arm. The physician had given him laudanum for the pain, but Nathan had become addicted to the stuff. It had been a nice little way to forget the real pain that was in his heart. His parents’ deaths had unleashed memories of the love he’d never felt from his mother and the disappointment he’d felt in his father for forgetting about him, and nothing Nathan had done could quiet the memories.

  But the laudanum did, for a time. Eventually, it wasn’t enough, so he mixed the laudanum with alcohol. When Nathan became so nasty and difficult to be around, and he destroyed all his other friendships, Ravensdale seemed to be the last friend standing, though up until that time he and Nathan had been more acquaintances than friends. When Ravensdale offered to get Nathan into the Order of the Dark Lords, a club known for its accessibility to all sorts of promising drugs, Nathan had eagerly accepted.

  He spent the next several years in a haze, until the morning he awoke in Marguerite’s bed with laudanum covering his face. His only memories of the previous night had been shocking ones of things he and Marguerite had done and a vague recollection of Ravensdale, who had been a Bow Street Runner at the time, putting on a hood that matched that of the Hooded Robber, who’d been robbing the ton in their carriages at night. And the next night, when Nathan had seen Ravensdale hiding a hood and an emerald necklace, Nathan had confronted him, but Ravensdale had denied it.

  Nathan had fallen so far, he was sure he could not climb out of the personal hell he’d created, but that moment had made him realize he’d lost his honor, and he’d slowly and painfully gone about the business of putting the pieces of his life back together. Nathan had even gone to the authorities and told them what he suspected. Of course, he had no proof, and they’d been unable to find any evidence that Ravensdale was the robber. Yet, Nathan was a duke, though a fallen one, and his word still held some weight. Ravensdale lost his position as a Bow Street Runner and a great deal more. Yes, if anyone had a reason to want him dead, it was Ravensdale.

  He stared for a long time at Sophia. What would she think of him if she knew how utterly wicked he’d really been? He shoved the useless pondering away, rose, and made his way downstairs. His aunt was turning the corner as he came into the main hall, and her pinched face alerted him to her anger.

  “Am I to assume you also want me in the courtyard, Scarsdale?”

  Nathan started to shake his head but then paused. “Did you know that Sophia was drinking a glass of wine at night?”

  “Yes. I instructed the butler to ensure there was a glass of Madeir
a by her bedside every night,” his aunt replied. “I put myself in her place, coming to a town I do not know, marrying a man I just met, enduring the humiliation of my reputation having been ruined, having no mother to guide me through my days before my wedding, and I thought how nervous I would be, how nervous she must be. Was it so wrong?”

  Nathan’s first instinct was to question his aunt’s claim. The woman was rarely nice. But he remembered how he had just unfairly believed the worst in Sophia, and he bit back the acerbic response on the tip of his tongue and shook his head. “That was thoughtful of you, but it seems the wine was poisoned or simply bad.”

  “Poisoned?” His aunt snorted. “Don’t be absurd, Scarsdale. Maybe the little tart simply drank too much. You did say her father owned a tavern.” She said the word tavern with a disdainful tone, as if the place were the breeding ground of sinners.

  Clenching and unclenching his teeth, he didn’t speak until he knew he could do so without yelling. “I think perhaps it’s best if you leave in the morning.” One jaded person in this house was far more than Sophia deserved. There was no need for her to have to put up with him and his aunt.

  “Leave?” An incredulous look passed across her face. “How do you purport to make your new duchess into a lady such as me without my help?”

  “I don’t mean to make her into a lady anything like you, Aunt.”

  Her face flushed and she turned on her heel, but he caught her at the elbow. “Who poured the wine and took it to Sophia?”

  “The Madeira was poured by the butler,” she snapped.

  The last thing he saw as he turned on his heel and left his aunt was her gaping jaw.

  Nathan located his butler, who had been in his employ for twelve years, and after questioning him, he bade Gibson to show him the Madeira decanter he’d used to prepare Sophia’s drinks. Nathan smelled the Madeira and all seemed well, but then he decided to taste it, despite Gibson’s protest and offer to taste it himself. Nathan was a large man, more than twice Sophia’s size and weight. If the wine had not killed her, it was not about to kill him, and he would not rest easy until he knew, without a doubt, if she had been poisoned. He swigged the glass down and then stormed to the courtyard to speak with the other servants.

  From ten to midnight, Nathan personally interrogated each servant. Then, from midnight until the sun started to rise the next day, he oversaw his staff as they checked the entire stock of the kitchens. They uncovered nothing untoward. By the time the sun was fully in the morning sky, he still had not experienced the slightest signs of illness from the Madeira, so he ruled the spirits out as the culprit.

  Whatever had made Sophia sick, he could not determine, but he was damn sure going to see Sir Richard as soon as he returned to London and hire him to uncover not only the men who were after him but also whoever did this to Sophia. Until then, he would instruct his staff to be on their guard for any strangers, and he’d instruct a footman to keep a watchful eye on Sophia in his absence. He didn’t want her going anywhere alone. The idea of her dying made his stomach roil.

  As he trudged up the stairs to Sophia’s bedchamber, he considered how wrongly he’d judged her. He wanted to make up for it, yet he wasn’t sure how to do it. He sat down in the chair he had placed beside the bed last night so he could properly watch her, and he gazed at her innocent, sleeping face.

  “Good morning, Your Grace,” Harry said. Nathan looked up at the sound of the boy’s voice and saw him shuffling into Sophia’s bedchamber as he rubbed his eyes with his fists.

  Nathan smiled at the fact that Harry had not stuttered once when uttering the greeting and that the boy didn’t hesitate to show himself into his sister’s room. Though it was absolutely improper, Nathan couldn’t bring himself to scold the boy. He rather envied him. It was obvious how comfortable and secure Harry felt with Sophia, who really was the boy’s surrogate mother, something with which Nathan was unfamiliar.

  He silently motioned to Sophia as she slept. He stood as quietly as possible and waved Harry out the door. The boy had no idea what had occurred last night, and Nathan intended to fill him in and also to explain that they would leave within the week for Eton. Nathan was anxious to get to London to see Sir Richard, but he wanted to ensure Sophia was completely well before departing.

  Once in the hall, he knelt down so he could look Harry in the face. “Your sister was very ill last night, but she is going to be perfect when she wakes up.”

  “Oh. That makes sense. Sophia didn’t appear in my room this morning.”

  Nathan frowned. “Were you expecting her?”

  Harry grinned. “I was expecting a gift.”

  “A gift?”

  The boy nodded vigorously. “’Tis the Christmastide season, Your Grace! Sophia always gives me one gift on each of the seven days leading up to Christmas.”

  “Does she now? Well, what sort of gifts does she give you?” His heart constricted and the desire to please Sophia filled him.

  “Well...” Harry scratched his head. “I can’t remember everything, but last year I got a new pair of socks. I didn’t love those because that don’t seem too exciting, but Sophia said since Frank was such a blackguard and didn’t care if my feet were warm or not, she had to ensure they were.”

  “That makes perfect sense,” Nathan agreed, wondering what Sophia had sacrificed to get Harry the socks.

  “She also gave me a book and made me learn to read it real good.”

  “A very wise gift and a most judicious endeavor,” Nathan said, his heart aching in his chest, much to his surprise.

  “On Christmas Day she was going to give me a coat,” Harry stated.

  “Was going to give you?”

  “Frank found out she’d been hiding some money for the coat, and h-he gave her a right proper whipping and took it all.”

  Nathan had the sudden urge to hunt Frank down and give the man a blow for each one he’d ever given Sophia, mental and physical.

  “She cried and cried.”

  “Over the whipping?” Nathan said, his voice suddenly low and throbbing. He tried to clear his throat but something felt lodged in it.

  Harry shook his head. “Naw. She took Frank’s whippings without so much as a blink. She cried ’cause I didn’t have no coat.”

  Christ. She was good, wonderfully kind, and caring. He swallowed against the hard lump in his throat. “She cried because you didn’t have a coat. If you are going to be an Eton man you must endeavor to speak proper English.”

  Harry nodded.

  Nathan stood and contemplated the thoughts swirling in his head. He’d not celebrated Christmas since he was six when his mother had decreed he didn’t deserve to, but this Christmas he wanted to celebrate it for Sophia’s and Harry’s sakes. He glanced down at the child, who was staring back up at him. “I have an idea. Let’s surprise your sister. Shall we decorate the house and make it festive for Christmastide?”

  Harry grinned. “Yes! And let’s buy her a gift for each day before Christmas!”

  “That’s an excellent idea,” Nathan agreed, feeling his cheeks pull into an answering grin. “I shall go out this afternoon and purchase the first gift.”

  Harry tugged on Nathan’s trouser leg. “May I stay here until Christmas is over?”

  “Certainly. We will postpone our trip until then.” But no longer than that. It made him far too uneasy that someone out there wanted him dead. He didn’t fear for himself really. He feared for Sophia and Harry. Sophia had already been put in harm’s way because of it—twice. He tensed, waiting for his gut reaction to shove back at the affection that was tugging at his heart, but it didn’t come. Letting out a breath, the tension released with it, and he smiled.

  Two days after falling ill, Sophia woke up feeling marvelous. As she sat up and stretched, she noticed a large package at the foot of her bed. She pushed the covers back, crawled toward the package, and picked it up. A sheet of foolscap was folded atop it, with her name written on the outside. She opened the paper
and smiled when she saw the signature at the bottom was Nathan’s.

  Don’t open this until Mary Margaret has done your hair.

  That seemed a strange request, but having never received a present in her life, she was thrilled to do whatever the instructions demanded. Grinning at the carefree feeling in her heart, she jumped out of bed to summon Mary Margaret and struggled for the next half hour to sit patiently as her lady’s maid fixed her hair.

  Her mind was racing with what might be in the package, but from the looks of it, it certainly appeared to be large enough to hold a gown. And it would make sense for him to request she have her hair done, if that was, in fact, her gift. The rest of the gowns from Madame Lexington should be done by now, and Sophia really did want something lovely to put on to see Nathan for the first time since she’d taken ill. Mary Margaret had told her that Nathan had found her almost unconscious in that scandalous night rail Madame Lexington had created. She also knew that he had sat by her bedside two nights in a row to make sure her condition did not worsen, and she wanted more than anything to be the duchess Nathan deserved. Her love for him was so powerful it felt as if it would burst her heart. She may never be a grand beauty, but she would make sure she was as presentable as possible.

  Sophia turned in her chair, regarded her reflection in the looking glass, and smiled. Her dark hair curled softly against her skin, which actually looked more creamy than sallow. Her eyes seemed bright and rather sparkly, and Mary Margaret had crushed some berries and dabbed the juice on her lips to stain them. She puckered her dark-ruby lips and giggled. “Do I look presentable?”

  “You look lovely, Your Grace. It’s hard to believe you were so sick. You look the picture of health.”

  Sophia stood and retrieved the package from the bed. “Hopefully, Nathan will not remember how I disgraced myself and how awful I must have looked.”

  Mary Margaret clicked her tongue and scowled, which she quickly corrected. It only flittered briefly across her face, but Sophia caught her maid’s disgruntled look. “What is it?”