Do you want to know that I was saved from a fate worse than death when I arrived in London? That I was polished, preened and beautified until I shone and then sold to save my life? The reason I landed in a duke’s bed is because lies and gossip travel faster than the truth. By the time St. Ives found me, I had a notorious reputation for dazzling men in their bedrooms—all lies but lies that helped me stay alive.”
All was quiet for a time, Sophia’s chest rose with each breath she heaved in and then whooshed out. Why did he do this to her? Slumping to the ground, she rubbed a hand over her face and stared into the fire. “Believe what you will. I have nothing to lose by telling the truth.” Well, some of the truth. There was more to it but she would never reveal it. Ever. What would he do to her if he knew that when she arrived in London, she carried his father’s baby, his own half brother? He would never speak to her again. Even in anger.
“Do you ever feel regret?”
She did. All the time. Regret that she hadn’t run sooner. Regret that she hadn’t been able to truly trust Blake and Matthew to save her. Regret ate away her defenses each time she peered into the face of a baby knowing she would never have one of her own. Nothing in her life had so far gone to plan, but she had been happy, or at least some version of it. “Regret is a luxury I cannot afford,” came her eventual reply.
“Some would call that denial.”
“I define it as the intelligent option. And denial has its uses.”
“One day you will have to face it all, Sophie. What will you do then?”
She didn’t hesitate. “I’ll face it when it comes. But that won’t be this day or any other day soon.”
“How do you know? You can’t keep it at bay forever.”
Staring into the mesmerizing flames, she muttered. “Oh, yes I can.”
Chapter Eight
The distant sounds of horses’ hooves drifted through Blake’s mind, threatening to bring him more fully awake, to take him from a place where he was content. Beneath floating apple flowers, his hands molded her curves as his mouth brushed her jaw, her ear lobe, her cheek, consigning her taste to the deepest parts of his memories. In this place, in his dreams, Sophie was his wife and life was perfect.
He didn’t want to wake up, but the drumming of hooves meant a customer. His delirious dreams could wait.
He flexed his fingers and stretched but the woman of his nighttime invention didn’t move. She didn’t disappear when he opened his eyes, her apple scent continued to tickle his nose. Her warmth still filled his arms as he held her tightly to his side, heat radiating from both their bodies.
His sleepy gaze shifted as he remembered where they were. Who she was. Right about the same time she did.
A sudden stiffness infused Sophie’s body. Her head rose and her back straightened.
Shit.
Pulling his hands away from her, Blake cried out when pain exploded in so many parts of his body at once he thought he might die. The dream must have been God’s idea of a nasty joke.
The skin on his arm pulled, pain from ribs that were surely broken took his breath away, and a thousand other little hurts made themselves known. He couldn’t feel his sleeping lower limbs at all.
Before Sophie could berate him for his actions, before he could explain that he’d dreamed of happiness while holding her tight, she was on her feet and in the middle of the road.
“Sophie,” he called out to her.
“Don’t you dare say a word!” The finger she held out to him, the accusation in her eyes as she pointed in his direction, flustered and embarrassed him and made him click his mouth shut with a snap.
In the cold light of the morning, he was right. He wasn’t a duke and she wasn’t interested.
As crude as the truth was, Sophie sold her body to the lord with the deepest coffers. The very idea of sleeping with her head on his shoulder had to be causing no end of inner turmoil for her.
The silence between them intensified, the thumping in his ears testified to his weakened state, his aroused state. He’d lost enough blood yesterday to fell the mightiest of men and anything remaining had flooded south at the mostly innocent sharing of body