by Nichole Van
Thanks to Captain White’s iron will, the packet boat had made excellent time on the journey southward.
Rafe had spent most of the trip in his private berth, sorting through the emotions his altercation with Cuthie had raised, the pain and hurt of Kendall’s behavior.
Rafe’s fists and side were still bruised, a solid reminder of what had happened on that wharf in Aberdeen.
He reeled from the implications of those minutes in that alleyway.
The blinding hatred taken too far. The soul-rattling understanding of himself. The knowledge that Captain Cuthie had survived the wreck.
If not for his smarting hands, he might have convinced himself that he had imagined the whole thing.
But no, Cuthie had been there. Someone had survived the sinking of The Minerva. Who else had lived?
Cuthie said Jamie had died . . . but was that to be believed?
If Jamie had survived—and that was a truly enormous if—the youth would have contacted one of them by now, particularly Kieran. Knowing Jamie’s sense of loyalty as Rafe did, Jamie would never allow the Brotherhood to assume the worst. Their lost friend would have found a way to get a message to at least one of them.
Nearly four years of silence was proof enough of Jamie’s death.
Regardless, they would hunt for answers. Cuthie would not remain at large for long. The Brotherhood had time, money, and power on their side. They were no longer helpless passengers on the far side of the world. Cuthie had been wise to keep his existence a secret from them.
Rafe would write the Brotherhood as soon as he finished speaking with his father, apprising them of what had transpired.
As for his father . . .
Rafe had no idea what he would say. His stomach knotted at the thought of facing the man, but Rafe had to do it, if nothing else than to check on his mother’s welfare.
Fortunately, he was well-heeled at the moment. He had stopped by his rooms for a quick bath and change of clothing, allowing his valet to give him a careful shave and thoroughly brush his clothing.
But when he reached Gilbert House, the butler informed him that his mother was no longer in residence in London. His Grace had decided that the duchess needed some country air.
The man refused to tell Rafe where his mother had gone.
Rafe was no fool. His father wished Rafe to have no contact with her, to heighten the perceived threat to her person.
And now, staring at the door before him, Rafe paid the price for his journey north.
Straightening his shoulders, he rapped on the door.
“Come,” Kendall’s voice called.
The duke looked up from his desk as Rafe walked in.
As usual, the duke oozed power and arrogance. Kendall’s pale-ice eyes glittered in the gloomy light. The ducal seal flashed on his finger as he drummed the desktop.
“Ah, the prodigal returns.” His father raked his gaze over him from head to toe, posture rigid. “You have been quite busy, I understand. Beadle and Grant have sent me reports of your activities.”
Rafe said nothing.
He had been busy, desperate to salvage something of his future.
All for naught.
Sophie’s green eyes flashed through his head, the warmth of her laughter.
After accepting the pain behind his hate—knowing that he needed to change the way he thought about his father—Rafe had spent every minute of the past four days thinking through how he would behave once faced with his sire. He expected to feel that same visceral anger, the same clenching bite in his chest.
And those sensations certainly were there, but mingled within it was a sense of Sophie’s trust, of her strength and determination for him.
Harness your hate and anger for something good.
He liked the sound of that. He wanted to do it.
But it was the how of it all that got him. How could he fight his father when the man held all the cards? When his mother’s very sanity hung in the balance?
Kendall sat back in his chair. “I must say, tying up Grant was hardly sporting of you, boy. Not particularly gentlemanly.”
That, Rafe could not let pass.
“Well, given that Grant was firing upon me at the time, it seemed a prudent course of action,” Rafe replied, holding his sire’s gaze.
If Kendall was surprised by this, he didn’t show it. Instead, the duke studied Rafe intently, as if searching for something. Perhaps some sign of remorse?
Rafe refused to give the man anything. He was done allowing Kendall the ability to control his emotions; it was one area that Kendall could not affect—Rafe’s attitude.
“Did you reach Drathes Castle then?” Kendall asked.
There was no point in denying it. “Aye.”
The duke pinched his lips. “And did you find what you sought there?”
Rafe paused. It was an odd question for Kendall. How to answer?
“I found . . . enough,” Rafe replied.
“But not all?”
Rafe did not reply. His silence was answer enough.
The tense quiet between them stretched and stretched, a band about to burst. Kendall continued to search Rafe’s gaze, eyes narrowed and shrewd.
Finally, the duke gave a small smile and relaxed slightly into his chair. “You know how I hate it when you force me to be cruel to you, boy.” The nearly gleeful look in his father’s eye said he was more delighted than disappointed. “Shall I jump right to the point? Your mother is gravely ill.”
The duke’s smile widened. It was not a pleasant expression.
But instead of flooding anger, Rafe only felt pity as he stared at his father. How would it be to live one’s life so devoid of love? Of basic human compassion?
“It distresses me greatly to see her so indisposed,” Kendall continued. “I have spoken with her physician, and we both agree that a strict regimen of restraints, ice baths, and bloodletting are the best course. She is en route to a sanatorium even as we speak. The treatments will begin in three weeks’ time. Unless, that is, you have something else to offer me in exchange for altering the course of her . . . treatment . . .”
Rafe said nothing for a moment. His father knew Rafe’s wishes. The old man likely wanted to hear Rafe beg.
Instead, Rafe shifted on his feet and said the thing that truly haunted him:
“Who hurt you?” The baffled wonder in Rafe’s voice astonished even him, the genuine sincerity of his tone. “Who formed you into such a hate-filled, spiteful man? What horrid events occurred in your past to have this outcome?”
Kendall’s nostrils flared. Something flashed across his granite-like face. Had Rafe struck true?
Silence.
Kendall firmed his jaw. “Lord Sykes’ house party begins Thursday next.” His father leaned forward. “Let us discuss how you are going to repent of your behavior over the past few weeks, shall we?”
After a week at Drathes Castle, Sophie knew it was time to return to London.
Catharine had continued to avoid her. Sophie didn’t know what to make of it. Looking at Catharine was to see thirty-odd years into her own future. Sophie longed to know the woman better. Was Catharine disinclined to others’ society? Or did she simply find Sophie’s company distasteful?
Regardless, any real friendship or touching familial reunion with the woman appeared unlikely. How odd, to have an aunt who was nearly one’s twin, and yet be unable to forge a connection of any sort.
Would Sophie end her days like Catharine? Keeping house for a dotty older brother, all her personal dreams dried up?
She hoped not.
She would not.
Sophie had survived a disastrous marriage to Jack. She would survive losing Lord Rafe Gilbert, too. She would continue breathing. She would move forward.
Tenacity, after all, would prevail.
She made arrangements with Ian to return to Edinburgh, hiring several people from Aboyne to accompany her to Alex’s residence. Once there, she could return home with Martha a
nd her father’s men. Sophie would surely have to reassure Martha that she had not been sold into a harem, nor captured by highwaymen (though there had been a close call or two which she would definitely not mention).
The afternoon before her departure, Sophie sat with John one last time. The dreary skies of the past week had evaporated, sending cheery sun streaming through the windows of the great hall, illuminating the space.
The sunlight improved John’s mood, it seemed. He smiled more and kept calling her Catharine, watching Sophie pet the kitchen kitten, who had clearly decided that she needed to be a great-hall kitten and insisted on a place in Sophie’s lap whenever she sat before the fire.
Sophie watched the creature stretch and yawn, curling its orange tail upward.
“Ye’re not Catharine,” John abruptly said at her elbow.
She turned her head to him. “Pardon?”
She noticed instantly that something was different. John was alert, the unfocused, haziness in his eyes gone. Instead, she met the gaze of an intelligent, focused man.
“Ye have her look, but ye are not her. Ye’re not Catharine,” he repeated.
She swallowed. “No, sir. I am not Catharine. I am Sophie.”
“Sophie?” John frowned. “Sophie who?”
“Lady Sophronia Sorrow.”
She expected that her name would mean nothing to him. That he would nod and reach for some yarn to tease the kitten.
But instead he froze, eyes going so very wide.
“Sophronia?” he whispered, voice wondering and astonished. “My wee Sophronia? Anne’s child?”
Sophie gasped, the world going blurry in an instant.
He looked her up and down, gaze so very wide-eyed. “Ye grew up, lass. Last I held ye, ye were a tiny, wee bairn in my arms.”
He reached out and caught a tear from her cheek.
“You r-r-remember,” she hiccupped.
“Aye.” He swallowed. “For the now.” His eyes skimmed her face, as if greedy to memorize every last inch. “I made it a point, over the years, tae keep track of ye. I saw ye once, from a distance, riding in Hyde Park. Ye’ve a fine seat in the saddle, lass. And I hear tell that ye have an affection for the natural sciences, aye?”
Sophie was crying in earnest now. Not soft sniffles or polite tears, but embarrassing gusts and sobbing snuffles. She couldn’t speak, only nod her head in agreement. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pressed her face into his chest.
“There, there, lass. ’Tis no need to weep over me, greetin’ away.” He patted her shoulder, the motion at once so tender and so fatherly-awkward, Sophie couldn’t stem another bout of tears. “Most ladies find me quite handsome and charming, ye know.”
She choked out a laugh, made more painful because she would never know this version of John. Her father as he had been.
Sophie was not foolish enough to think that John’s lucidity would last long. She had minutes, at most.
Sucking in a stuttering breath, she lifted her head, smiling through tears. She pressed a kiss to his grizzled cheek.
“It is l-lovely to meet you.” She swiped at her wet cheeks. “I have longed to know you for so many years.”
“Aye, lass. It was my deep regret that yer birth happened as it did. I would have liked tae have known ye over the years.”
Ah, heavens. How was she to stem the flood of tears?
He waited patiently as she retrieved a handkerchief and dabbed and wiped until she felt equal to the task of speaking again.
“Th-thank you,” she finally said. “I should like to have known you better myself.”
“Has Mainfeld been a good father to ye? He promised me he would be.”
“Pardon? Lord Mainfeld promised you?”
“Aye. After ye were born, I didnae want tae let ye go. I wanted ye for my own, tae raise you myself. Yer were my wee girl. I couldnae part with ye.”
What—?!
John had wanted her? As his own?
Yer were my wee girl.
Sophie hiccupped a sob.
His eyes went soft. “I loved yer mother . . . from the first moment I set eyes on her all those years ago in Naples. She was such a beautiful, vivacious thing . . . so full of life.” He brushed a tear from Sophie’s cheek. “Ye had the look of my family from birth, what with all yer dark hair. I knew instantly that no one would ever think ye tae be Mainfeld’s. I wanted tae raise ye as my own daughter. But Mainfeld . . .” John paused, shaking his head before clearing his throat.
Sophie pressed her handkerchief to her face, futilely trying to mop up her tears.
“M-Mainfeld?” she prompted. What had Lord Mainfeld to do with this?
John smiled. “Mainfeld is a good man. He loves your mother and, because of that, he loves her children. Never met a man quite like him. He pointed out that if I were tae raise ye, ye would never escape the stigma of being illegitimate. But with his name, he could protect ye, give ye a true family, raise ye as a fine lady. He said he wanted ye tae be with him. It was the life ye deserved.”
She crumpled into a sobbing mess, her mind stuttering to take in the onslaught of information.
Lord Mainfeld had fought to raise her as his own?! He had deliberately chosen to be her father?
She had been loved.
She had been wanted.
Not by one father . . . but by two.
The knowledge swelled within her, a balloon of joy.
Finally, she managed to raise her head.
“There, there, child.” John surveyed her. “I can see it all turned out a’right.”
Affection and love surged through her heart for this man, John, who had sired her.
But also love for Lord Mainfeld, the man who raised her, who never once made her feel like anything other than his own child.
She had been so fixated on finding her natural father, she had lost sight of that fact.
“Lord Mainfeld has been a good father to me. The best of fathers.” She felt the truth of it spread through her chest, a glimmering blossom of light. “But I have so longed to know you—” Her voice cracked at the end.
“Well,” he huffed a laugh, “I am here for the moment, it seems. What would ye know?”
A thousand questions ran through Sophie’s mind, all the things that she wanted to know about him, about her.
What had he felt at her birth?
When had his love of medicine begun?
What did he adore most about being a scientist? What was his greatest struggle?
But instead, the words that tumbled out were, in the end, not about her.
“What would you recommend as a treatment for melancholy brought on by childbirth?”
John sat back, clearly nonplussed by the sheer randomness of her question.
“It’s for a friend,” she clarified. “To help his mother.”
Because if Dr. John Ross had a moment of lucidity, Sophie realized that she would use it to help Rafe. His happiness and his mother’s happiness were directly related to Sophie’s own. So the question was actually monumentally selfish and not nearly as altruistic as it appeared.
She loved Rafe. She wanted to be with him.
“Melancholy brought on by childbirth?” John repeated. “Does the patient appear tae suffer from a surfeit of anxiety, as well?”
Sophie thought back to Rafe’s descriptions of his mother. “I don’t believe so.”
He pondered that for a moment. “I’m not sure there is a cure, per se. But the symptoms can be eased. I know my methods have been considered unorthodox, but I have seen them work time and again—”
“One moment. Allow me to fetch pen and paper.” Sophie scrambled for the small desk sitting on the opposite wall.
Returning with pen and paper in hand, she wrote down John’s recommendations. They seemed so simple—remove worries and troublesome situations, create an environment where the patient feels safe and loved, administer a strong tincture of distilled St. John’s wort and willow bark. He gave her meticulous ins
tructions.
“The tincture is unusual in its preparation, but I find that the process creates a more robust medicine that eases the symptoms of depression of spirits.”
Sophie blew on the paper when she was done, drying the ink, tucking it safely into her pocket, determined to see it delivered to Rafe as soon as she arrived in London.
John remained clear-minded. They moved off to speak of other things. Sophie told him about her research with barn cats, and he told stories about his travels and work in medicine.
An hour passed. And then two.
He forgot her name once.
And then he lost the thread of a story midway through telling it.
She watched the dementia claim him—one tiny piece at a time—until he was a stooped elderly man again, no recognition in his eyes.
It was agony to witness, to know the brilliance that John had once been.
But, despite the pain and tears, she wouldn’t trade those hours of lucidity. The incredible gift of finally meeting her natural father.
Her mind stuttered to accommodate everything she had learned about herself over the afternoon.
John had loved her. He had wanted her as his daughter, to raise her.
But Mainfeld had stepped in. He had claimed her as his own.
Sophie let that settle deep into her soul.
All her life, thinking herself an outcast . . . unwanted by her natural father, foisted upon her legal father . . .
And now . . .
She felt a little like a ship righting itself after a lifetime of storms.
She didn’t have a lack of fathers . . .
Selfish, foolish woman.
She had an abundance.
Memories flitted through. Lord Mainfeld—oh bother, her father, as she had always thought of him—trundling her out to the barns on an autumn morning, lifting her before him on his horse. Listening with a bemused expression that she now recognized as love, not just tolerant fondness, as she explained her theories about barn cats. Opening his arms to hold her when she arrived back home after her disastrous marriage to Jack. Traveling to Yorkshire to retrieve a feral tomcat because he thought it might help ease her melancholy.
He had always been there, always supported, accepted, and loved her in the only way he knew how. He had shared with her the things he adored—hunting and horses and dogs. And she, in her stupidity, had not seen those actions as love.
