by Sophia James
‘Run, Sephora,’ he ordered, wanting her out of the reach of any more violence, but instead she stayed where she was and spoke with feeling.
‘You were there, Terence, there on the street when the man tried to kidnap Anna. I called to you for help, but you disappeared. You didn’t want anyone to see you let alone a small girl who recognised you as the one who had murdered her father.’
‘Prove it, Douglas.’ Terence Cummings was so wrathful now he could barely get the words out, blood pouring down his face from a broken nose. ‘Who’d believe you anyway, with your more-than-questionable reputation and the marks of a criminal around your throat?’
His shout drew others from the main ballroom out onto the terrace and Lucien came to stand beside him. Sally Cummings was there too, but she made no move to stand beside her husband, her face ashen and her eyes sunken.
Then Richard Allerly pushed through to kneel down to his bleeding cousin.
‘If you have killed him, Douglas, I will have you hanged properly this time and a good job, too, you bastard.’
The hushed anger of the gathering crowd was familiar and Francis tried to take in breath to answer, but his throat felt tight. Sephora’s parents stood ten yards away behind him, the horror on their faces reflecting all that they imagined their daughter’s life to have become.
A whole group of people who hated him and would not spare the time to even find out the truth. All of a sudden he could not even be bothered refuting the accusation. His eye ached, his hand and back, too, and one of the damned miscreants had managed to land a punch right on the wound of his healing shoulder.
A voice then rang out across all the others. It was Sephora and she was no longer anything like the girl he had first met. Now she was a furious avenging angel who faced the crowd with all the anger of the wrongfully damned and looked them all straight in the eyes.
* * *
These people thought the Earl of Douglas was the one at fault here, so easily and seamlessly, so without thought, explanation or reason. It was how the ton worked after all. Anyone who did not quite fit within its narrow confines was to be ostracised and excluded, cast out into the role of wrongdoer and disreputable.
Francis looked battered and defeated, the cut across his eyes sending blood onto his damaged cheek and he was holding his right-hand side and breathing harshly.
Well, she would fight every person on this terrace if necessary and then more besides to protect him. The anger pummelled through her like a living bolt of fire, untrammelled and vehement. He had been accused wrongly in the Hutton’s Landing by a crowd baying for his blood and she would never let anything like that happen again here.
‘Terence Cummings is the murderer... You all have it wrong. He was the one who killed Clive Sherborne and tried to kidnap a young child. He is a smuggler who makes money out of others’ misfortunes and it was him who paid men to attack the Earl of Douglas on this terrace and in Kew Gardens. I swear this is true on the hope of my soul in Heaven.’
Lucien Howard and Gabriel Wesley had the men in hand and their presence added to her truths. Sally Cummings was crying profusely but in a softer tone now and she made no effort to refute the accusation.
‘We’ll take him to Bow Street.’ Lucien said this and a murmur ran through the onlookers. She saw a quick communication go between him and Francis.
For so many years her husband had fought alone, managed alone, lived alone. Well, no longer. She would make certain he was seen by others in exactly the same way she saw him. Honourable and solid.
Without thought she faced the Duke of Winbury. ‘Perhaps, Your Grace, you should be more careful about whom you associate with in the future. Your cousin appears to be everything you say he is not and we have the witnesses to prove it. He is a murderer, a kidnapper and a thief.’ Her words were easily heard and she did not falter as she caught the face of her mother. Elizabeth looked shocked and pale. ‘My husband and I will wait to receive your apology, Richard. I hope it will be forthcoming.’
With that she simply stepped back and threaded her arm through Francis’ and without a backward glance they made their way from the terrace, through the colourful crowded ballroom, past the silent watchful musicians and out into the night. Hailing the waiting Douglas carriage, they quickly got in.
‘It is over, Francis.’ Sephora saw that he shook and the pallor of his skin was white.
‘God’ was his only reply and she laughed then, a way to relieve the tension she was to think later, a way to find a pathway through everything that had happened. He had given her breath beneath the bridge all those weeks ago and she was giving him some back right now. A space. A time to regather.
The small and utter truth of love.
This came without reflection or thought. It was the wholeness of them together, two halves that were perfectly melded and undeniably linked.
This was what marriage should be like. A formidable team who would fight everyone who tried to harm them and would be balanced and equal and honest. No one side dominant, no other side weakened. She would never let him down as certainly as she knew he would not disappoint her either.
‘I love you, Francis,’ she said and meant it. ‘You are my heart.’
When he smiled back she placed her hand across his and watched as his bloodied and shaking fingers wound about her own.
* * *
Gabriel Hughes, Daniel Wylde and Lucien Howard came to the town house an hour and a half after they had arrived home and they were jubilant.
‘Those who Cummings had employed to rough you up, Francis, were only too pleased to tell the truth of their part in the proceedings in order to escape heavier penalties. Sally Cummings herself provided the rest of the proof by promising to produce papers implicating her husband in the sale of illicit liquor across many outlets in the city. She said he needed to be locked up for good as he was a threat to each and every one of the upstanding citizens of London town.’
‘Comprehensive, I’d say.’ Francis was astonished. ‘Why did she do it, do you think?’
‘Oh, she told us that and in a voice that most of the ton would have been party to. She’d been bullied by him for far too long, she said. Her father had warned her of the nature of the man, but she had not listened. The Duke of Winbury looked nothing but furious at such aspersions towards his family.’
‘Miss Julia Bingham made short shrift of the night I noticed.’ Lucien Howard said this as he helped himself to a glass of Francis’s best brandy. ‘Your parents too, Sephora, were less than impressed by Winbury’s defence of a man who was so patently lying. Your mother was crying, but this time I think it was at the realisation of her own foolishness in believing in the lies about your husband and the dispersing crowd itself felt much the same, Francis. I think you have been exonerated.’
‘Out of great evil comes a goodness.’ Gabriel Hughes muttered this and they all laughed, the relief of the evening’s tension unfolding in a way they could never have truly predicted.
Sephora took her husband’s hand in her own. If she ever lost him... She stopped herself. Once she had worried about things from dawn to dusk, but now with Francis at her side anything and everything was possible. She could breathe again, easily.
Chapter Fifteen
Two days later they were finally at Colmeade House and everything was back in place. Anna had been overjoyed at being home again and, after sitting down and reassuring her that all her worries were over, had easily settled to sleep that night.
‘Mrs Billinghurst looked the prettiest I have ever seen her appear,’ Sephora said softly as Francis and she lay in bed later that night, the curtains pulled back and the wide summer sky about them.
‘Her husband died a long while ago and left her largely penniless. She is probably as relieved to have a home as Anna is. Timothy seemed well too, and Hopeful looks fatter than when we left him.’
‘Mrs Wilson feeds him the best scraps from the kitchen. I’ve seen her do it. You are beset by a houseful of strays,
Francis, who are all thriving here. Myself included.’
He laughed at that, the lines at the sides of his eyes creasing into humour. ‘A houseful of family,’ he amended, ‘and I should never wish to change it.’
‘What will happen to Terence Cummings do you think? And Sally?’
‘Cummings will stand trial for the murder of Clive Sherborne and his wife will undoubtedly return to her family with a much better understanding of what she needs in a husband. She is still young and wealthy. Let’s hope she chooses a man next time who is honourable.’
‘My parents sent a note to ask if they might come down to visit when we are settled in again. It arrived today.’
‘I’d like that.’
She sat up and looked at him directly. ‘Would you? Even after all that has happened with them?’
‘They were trying to protect you from difficulty and who is to say that I won’t act the same when Anna brings home a suitor and he is not everything I’d hoped for her.’
‘I wish I had known your parents and your sister. I wish they were here too, with us.’
‘Perhaps they are. If I ever lost you, Sephora, I know that you would sit here right next to my heart. You would never be gone from inside me. I swear it.’
‘You see that is why I love you, Francis. You do not parrot the words that mean nothing. You only ever give me a truth and after all the lies I am so thankful for it.’
‘The truth?’ His voice was hesitant, a tone in it so unlike the certainty she usually heard she felt a shift of worry. ‘Can I tell you something, Sephora? Something that sounds...strange?’
He sat up now too, and leaned against the headboard, bringing her in beside him and tucking her there close.
‘When you fell into the water I heard my sister’s voice as clear as day, and as certain as I hear yours now beside me.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She said, “Save her, Francis, and save yourself.” I heard her plainly and that has never happened to me before or since. And she was right.’
‘Right?’
‘We saved each other.’
She nodded. ‘I’ve been writing poems in the book you gave to me. Can I read one to you?’
When he said he would like that she leaned over to the bedside table and opened the small top drawer, extracting her diary from it.
‘It’s not very good and you might think...’
He placed a finger over the words. ‘Go on.’
Clearing her throat she began, though she felt as nervous as she had ever been before.
‘“You brought me from the darkness; And the cold of below; Up into the light of laughter and love; And breath that was mine to live in...”’
‘Breath,’ he whispered when she had finished the next few verses and took her hand into his own. ‘We gave each other breath, and what more from life could you want than that?’
‘I love you, Francis, with all my heart.’
As his hands threaded through her hair he sealed her lips with his, pushing forward to find all that it was he offered.
He was her heart just as she was his. They had both been lost and were now found, the loneliness and uncertainty swept away in a wave of truth.
She had crossed a threshold and everything she had known was changed for finally she was home.
* * * * *
If you enjoyed this story, make sure you don’t miss the first three books in Sophia James’s
THE PENNILESS LORDS quartet
MARRIAGE MADE IN MONEY
MARRIAGE MADE IN SHAME
MARRIAGE MADE IN REBELLION
And look for Christine’s story
Coming soon
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE MANY SINS OF CRIS DE FEAUX by Louise Allen.
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The Many Sins of Cris de Feaux
by Louise Allen
Chapter One
Cris de Feaux was drowning. And he was angry. The realisation of both came with the slap of a wave of icy salt water in the face and he shook it out of his eyes, cursing, while he came to terms with the fact that he had swum out from the little cove without thinking, without stopping to do anything but shed his clothes on the rocks and plunge into the breakers.
It had felt good to cut through the surf out into deep water, to push his body hard while his mind became mercifully blank of anything except the co-ordination of arms and legs, the stretch of muscles, the power of a kick. It had felt good, for once in his life, not to consider consequences, not to plan with care and forethought. And now that indulgence was going to kill him.
Was that what he had wanted? Eyes wide with shock, Cris went under, into a watery blue-green world, and kicked up to the surface, spitting and furious. He had fallen in love, unsuitably, impossibly, against all sense and honour. He knew it could never be, he had walked away before any more damage could be done and now his aimless wanderings across England had brought him here, to the edge of North Devon and the ocean.
Which was about to kill him, unless he was very lucky indeed. No, he did not want to die, however much he ached for what could never be, but he had swum too far, beyond the limits of his strength and what he could ask of his hard-exercised horseman’s body.
Use your head, he snarled at himself. You got yourself into this mess, now get yourself out of it. You will not give up. I am not killing myself for love.
He studied the shore between sore, salt-crusted lids. High cliffs, toothed at their base with jagged surf-lashed rocks, mocked him, dared him to try to land and be dashed to bloody death. But there were little coves between the headlands, he knew that. The current was carrying him south-west along the line of the shore so he would go with it, conserve his strength until he saw a point to aim at. Even in those few minutes as he hung in the water it had already carried him onwards, but he dared not risk just lying there, a passive piece of flotsam on the flow. It might be the first day of June, but the sea was strength-sappingly cold. He could hardly feel his legs, except for the white-hot pain of over-extended muscles and tendons. His shoulders and arms felt no better.
The wind shifted, slapping the water into his face from a different angle. There. Above the nearest towering headland, a drift of something against the blue of the perfect sky. Smoke. Which meant a house, a beach or perhaps a jetty. Swim. Ignore the pain. Dig down to every last ounce of strength and then find some more. Whatever it was that eventually kille
d the fifth Marquess of Avenmore, it was not going to be a hopeless love and a lack of guts.
Time passed, became simply a blur of pain and effort. He was conscious, somewhere in the back of what was left of his consciousness, that he could not stay afloat much longer. He lifted his head, a lead weight, and saw land, close. A beach, breakers. It seemed the scent of wood smoke and wild garlic cut through the salt for a second. Not a mirage.
But that is. In the moment of clarity he thought he saw a woman, waist-deep in the water, thick brown hair curling loose on her shoulders, calling to him, ‘Hold on!’
Mermaid... And then his body gave up, his legs sank, he went under and staggered as his feet hit sand. Somehow he found the strength to stand and the mermaid was coming towards him, her hands held out. The water dragged at him, forcing his legs to move with the frustrating slowness of dream running. The sand shifted beneath his feet as the undertow from the retreating wave sucked at him, but he struggled on. One step towards her, then another and, staggering, four more.
She reached for him as he took one more lurching step and stumbled into her, his hands grasping her shoulders for balance. Under his numb hands her skin was hot, burning, her eyes were brown, like her hair. There were freckles on her nose and her lips were parted.
This was not a mermaid. This was a real, naked, woman. This was life and he was alive. He bent his head and kissed her, her mouth hot, his hands shaking as he pulled her against him.
She kissed him back, unresisting. There was the taste of woman and life and hope through the cold and the taste of salt and the hammering of the blood where his hands rested against her throat.
The wave broke against his back, pushing them both over. She scrabbled free, got to her feet and reached for him, but he was on his feet now, some last reserve of strength coming with that kiss and with hope. He put his arm around her waist and lifted her against him.
‘I do not require holding up—you do,’ she protested as they gained the hard sand of the beach, but he held on, stumbling across the sand, over stones he could not feel against his numbed soles. Then, when they reached the grass, his legs finally gave way, and he went down again, hardly conscious that he was falling on to rough grass and into oblivion.
