had been terrifying but she had done it, with the assistance of her four friends. Molly, Addison, Caroline and Amy were the closest to sisters she could ever lay claim to. They had supported her through some very, very tough times and she them. But the five of them could be no more different than sisters could. Amy worked in a gaming hell at night as the woman who distracted men so they lost more money to the tables. Addison was a milliner’s daughter, her father owned a shop on Bond street and was far too busy to notice his daughter’s habit of disappearing for days on end.
Molly worked in a brothel, second in charge to the madam who ran the establishment. Molly had been Sophia’s second friend in the world after Caroline. The brothel was actually a lovely building close to Mayfair. From the outside, it was a shop front boasting a fine tailor. Upstairs was an entirely different matter.
Caroline was possibly the most presentable and respectable of them. When they had first met by the pond, Caro crying her eyes out over a boy, she had been a scullery maid. Now she was companion to a gentlewoman, who gave them the majority of their funding. Mrs. Pendleton’s husband had died, leaving her a very wealthy widow. But he had also left her a shell of the lady she had once been. Sadness had taken over her life and turned her into a hermit. Caro was her only window to the outside world.
“How often do you work there?” Blake’s question pulled her from thoughts of her life and her far-away friends.
“About three days a week when Daemon is out of town.” Damn. She hadn’t meant to mention her former lover or indeed anything to do with her occupation.
“Daemon is your duke?” he asked without scorn, without insult. Perhaps they had reached a truce.
Sophia didn’t correct him. Daemon was a duke but never hers. “He is the Duke of Clifton.”
“St. Ives?” Blake asked.
Sophia nodded again. “Do you know him?”
“He was close to the old duke.”
Sophia’s heart skipped first one beat and then another. “No, he wasn’t.”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“You must have your dukes mixed up.”
“I can assure you he was close to Blakiston.”
“They were not friends.” Why had Daemon never mentioned the connection?
Perhaps because you never told him where you came from.
Not even with her first protector, Noah, had she shared all the details of her life before London. The more years that went by, the more she had stuck by her decision, tried to forget. She knew deep down that if ever she was in need of a safe place, the town of Blakiston would be there, undiscovered, undisturbed. But while the old duke and her father lived, she would not have stepped foot anywhere near the town or her borders.
In fact, since she had fled, she hadn’t visited outside of the city at all. Until now. And look how it turned out.
Silence once again engulfed them. They were mere inches away from each other and yet worlds apart. She was a courtesan, and he was a countrified tavern owner.
Never mind that as children they’d seen each other without clothes, that they had lain on the banks of a river and quenched their thirst. They had endured so much, had each known everything about the other, yet the years had borne a gap too wide to breach. Sophia missed the camaraderie they once shared more than she would ever admit aloud. Blake had been a brother to her just as much as Matthew had. But that was over now. They were no longer children, no longer friends. But there were things she wanted to know.
“How long ago did your uncle die?” It was blunt but she didn’t think he would mind much. There had never had been love or affection between Blake and John.
“Six years. Best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Did Blakiston ever try to claim you as his son?” she asked, snapping a twig between her fingers and feeding it to the hungry flames of the fire.
Blake shook his head. “Never. The cur tried to destroy me but it didn’t work. Eventually he gave up trying and let me be but by then it was obvious to all with eyes that he was my sire.”
“What did he do? To try to ruin you?”
“First there was the poison.”
Sophia gasped.
“Not intended for me,” he assured her. “Took down every last cow and chicken I had, nearly got the horses