Behind the Courtesan - By Bronwyn Stuart Page 0,91

Sophie only yesterday. They stung because this is how men viewed women who reached above their station. Never mind if love was involved or not. Never mind if they were beaten, raped, treated as animals. He happened to know very well his mother loved his father until he tried to kill her in a drunken rage.

“My mother and her relationship with Blakiston is none of your business. Be on your way now, Charles. There are no options left here for you.”

The wild gleam grew wilder as he looked between Blake and Sophie—who sat frozen atop the horse.

“Sophie, I want you to leave now.” Blake dropped the reins he held in his hands and willed her to pick them up and leave.

“I want her to stay,” Charles said as he pulled an ivory-handled pistol from the pocket of his greatcoat and pointed it at Sophie.

“Sophie, go!”

But the horse must have finally picked up on the tension between the three and reared up, hooves flying through the air. Since Sophie didn’t have hold of the reins, just the horse’s mane, she teetered and fell.

Blake half caught her, half fell with her. The breath was knocked out of him as she landed with an elbow to his gut, her short shriek punctuating the air only to fall away.

Before they’d gotten to their feet, Charles put his boot squarely on Blake’s chest to push him back to the ground. With his other hand, the deranged man pulled Sophie to her feet by her hair. She screamed again and Blake tried to right himself, but the position he’d landed in made it difficult. One of his legs was under the other and her skirts still lay across them. If he moved, he would become more tangled.

“Get your hands off her,” he growled.

“Or what?” Charles snickered. “I have the gun and you have nothing. Just the way it should have been.”

“You’re mad,” Sophie puffed, still trying to catch her breath. “You can’t possibly go anywhere new from here. Blake is going to be duke.”

“It’s never that simple,” Charles said, tightening his grip in her hair until her scalp smarted and tears filled her eyes.

She met Blake’s gaze, his eyes flicked to the right. He wanted her to run. Well, there was no way. He’d said it himself. They were in this together and together they would get out of it. She just had to distract Charles so Blake could get to his feet.

“I’m telling you, I can’t see how this will work. If you kill Blake, you will go to prison. Perhaps if he had been a nobody, you would get away with it, but not like this. Not with the line of succession in question.”

“Oh, there’s no question. While this son of a bitch holds the title, I’ll go back to being the heir until he spawns a brat.”

“And then you’ll be the nobody,” Blake grunted.

Charles pressed his boot deeper into Blake’s chest and leaned forward slightly.

“Never!” he spat. “I will not let it get that far.”

“But you can’t kill him,” Sophie pointed out again. If she could shove him hard enough with her shoulder, he would fall and then Blake could wrestle the pistol from him. It was risky but it was their only chance. “I’ll tell everyone that you killed him and you will be transported.”

“No one is going to believe you, whore.” Charles laughed, sending shivers down her spine.

“Daemon will believe me.”

“Not if you’re dead too.”

This time it was Blake who laughed. “How are you going to get away with two murders? This is why you were never a successful gambler. You don’t think things through.”

“But you have already set the scene for this little drama,” Charles said. “You two have done nothing but tear into each other since she arrived. There isn’t a soul in town who won’t believe she killed you in a rage. She has quite the temper, you see.”

“Matthew won’t believe that, and neither will Daemon.”

Charles laughed again. This time the sound rose as hysteria took over. “I’m going to tell him that Blake forced himself on you and you killed him.”

Sophie smiled down at Blake. “Now that, neither Daemon nor Matthew will believe. They already know the truth of our relationship.”

Charles tensed, wild eyes once again flicking back and forth between Sophie and Blake. “You bedded him?”

Blake’s smug grin gave him the answer.

“Where did I get the gun?” Sophie asked, not sure they’d done the smartest thing just then. Charles would only get angrier, since he wasn’t