Behind the Courtesan

chapter Nineteen

Blake had had more than enough of the rain. He’d had enough of Daemon’s smug, superior grins of victory and he’d definitely had enough of Matthew’s scowls. Admitting that he’d slept with his best friend’s sister wasn’t the smartest move. Not that any of his actions in the previous week could boast of intelligence or even a glimmer of cleverness.

The villagers showed the illusion of happiness and prosperity, but the truth was unattractive. He’d known it all along, but he didn’t want to believe it anymore now than he had two weeks, a year, even ten years ago. Sometimes the lies helped you sleep at night, helped you put one foot in front of the other. What other choice did they have?

Just like Sophie.

But perhaps in his anger at the world, at his parents and at Sophie, maybe he’d missed the point of everything. His mother had run to save her life and he’d thought her selfish when he looked back at his abandonment. Rather the truth was that she was ill and scared for her life and couldn’t drag her child into the unknown with her. His father had never claimed him. Even on his deathbed and before, the old duke had tried to destroy his supposedly illegitimate child. Probably because the truth could do so much more damage than their lies ever could.

Then there was Sophie. Her betrayal had hurt more than the others because he believed her to be his salvation. Life with her would have brightened every dark day that had gone before. Or maybe that was the ultimate lie.

They could have been happy or they could have been miserable. Who knows? But he had to go to her. He had to find her and have it out with her once and for all. She had to know what was in his mind before he lost his head again. Words always seemed to come out wrong when she raised his temper to a boiling point. He used to be rational.

Perhaps he could gag her so she couldn’t argue? It was a warming thought as he climbed the stairs to her room.

He knocked lightly on the door. If she was still furious with him, he would have to tread very carefully. “Sophie?” he called.

No answer.

“Please don’t do this. I want to speak to you, apologize, explain what happened.”

Still no answer.

Blake’s anger began to grow and he took a deep calming breath before grabbing hold of the handle and throwing the door wide.

His next words fell out in a rush. “I know you don’t want to see me but I have to explain. There are things you need to understa—” She wasn’t there.

Cursing beneath his breath, he left the room and went back down the stairs. Maybe she was in the barn? She seemed to enjoy it there. As he stomped through the tap to the kitchen, Matthew called out to him, breathless and obviously worried.

“Sophie is gone. We found your horse and her carriage out by the bridge, but she wasn’t there.”

“Did you look for her? She probably went to find you. Did you check your house?”

Matthew shook his head. “The bridge is gone, I couldn’t get across.”

Blake didn’t have to be a mind reader to know the possibilities Matthew considered.

Sophie could have been on the bridge when it washed away. She could have got there too late and done something reckless—she was certainly angry enough when she left—like swim across. “She wouldn’t do that, would she? She wouldn’t try to cross the river if the bridge was out.”

“She could be anywhere,” Matthew said. “She may have tried to go around, but why would she do that on foot? She knows the way back to London but we don’t know which way she went all those years ago. And the landscape has changed around here. With all the flooding and shifting soil, she could be in real danger.”

Damn Charles and his tightfistedness. If only the cur had fixed the bridge.

You could have fixed it.

And damn his own conscience too!

“You take the east and I’ll take the west and we’ll circle back. If you find a safe place to cross, do it and check your place. We have to hope she made it across the river or is searching for a way over somewhere else.”

“The closest crossing is miles away and it’s getting dark.”

Blake sighed. “Then we better hope to find her quickly.”

Within minutes the pair, along with Daemon, were stocked with the essentials for a search and set out into the blinding rain. Blake couldn’t help but remember the other time they’d searched in the dark for a girl who didn’t want to be found.

He only hoped in this instance they were more successful. Sophie would not be so lucky a second time around.

* * *

“Do you believe things happen for a reason?” Violet asked, her face pale as sweat dripped from her brow.

Sophie shook her head. “Not really. Do you think this happened for a reason? That I was out here because Matthew was not?” No need to explain that Matthew wasn’t there because of her.

“No, I mean that you are here at all.”

“As in alive?” Sophie asked. Were they to get philosophical at a time when Violet wore nothing more than a nightshirt and Sophie’s hands were covered in her blood? There was so much blood.

Violet braced for yet another contraction, a long groan filled the air to drown out the pattering of rain on the roof. Once the worst was over, she continued, “No, I mean here, in this house, in this moment. When Matthew wrote you, you didn’t reply. We thought you refused to come.”

“I didn’t want to put you in this position. I didn’t want to taint you or the babe with my presence, but he’s my brother. I could no more deny him than my next breath.”

“You twist my words. It’s not that I didn’t want you to come. I did want to meet you. I just didn’t think you actually would.”

Sophie was about to reply when another contraction gripped her sister-in-law. They were getting closer, but still no baby. Only blood. With every contraction more trickled out to stain the sheet. “Violet, is there supposed to be blood?” She hadn’t wanted to ask but she was ill equipped for any of this.

Violet nodded but didn’t shed any light. Instead, she went on. “Why did you come?”

“I had to. Matthew asked.”

“You didn’t have to. Please, be honest with me. From one woman to another, why did you come?”

Sophie’s hands rested against her own stomach as her heart skipped a beat. “I was pregnant.”

“Was?”

“I lost the baby. I couldn’t face another party, another ball, another man.”

“I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you say something?”

Another contraction passed before Sophie answered. “It was for the best. A woman like me has no business raising a child.”

“A woman like you?”

“A courtesan. A harlot. A common prostitute.”

“There is nothing common about you. You did what you had to to succeed. I see that now. That makes you unique and cunning, not common.”

Sophie could almost believe Violet respected her, the decisions she’d made. Almost. “You are kind, Violet, but we both know the truth. It’s why you wouldn’t have me in your home.”

“You’re right and that is my shame to bear. I didn’t want a courtesan in my home, around my baby. I am truly sorry for that.”

“Thank you, Violet.”

She’d been wrong about so much. About life in the country and about being accepted somewhere where people did know her name. Could she have been so wrong about Blake too? She doubted it, since he was the one who had started so many of their fights. Perhaps they were both too stubborn to see what was in each one’s way? If she could change her perceptions of him, then perhaps she could change his perception of her?

“Oh, God, oh God, oh God.” Violet’s moans filled the air along with her blasphemy and Sophie had no more time to think about Blake or his thick head.

“Is it coming?” Sophie asked. “Is this it?”

Violet nodded and made the strangest sounds. Sounds Sophie would never in all her days forget.

She held the toweling for what felt like forever until finally a fuzzy head appeared. “Oh, I can see it, I can see the baby’s head.”

“What... What color is...his head?”

Through all the muck in the hair and on his skin, it took a few seconds to see but eventually she replied, “Pink. His head is pink.”

Only ten minutes later and Sophie held the baby in her hands, staring at her red face as she screamed her little lungs out. “It’s a girl, Violet. A beautiful baby girl.”

Violet held her arms out and Sophie laid the baby against her chest. Her eyes welled and a tear rolled down her cheek as she stared at her niece in awe.

“Thank you. Thank you for being here for me, with me.”

Sophie nodded but couldn’t say a word. The lump in her throat had grown so big, she feared it would choke her.

So many things were different here, where strong women gave birth on their kitchen tables. A city woman, noble or not, would have screamed for a doctor and probably held their legs closed until one arrived.

As her hands went to her stomach again, Sophie thought about the baby she had lost. Would she have had the strength to deliver a baby in the midst of a storm? If she was the country woman she was meant to be, would she have been able to carry the baby all the way rather than lose it early? So many thoughts went through her mind, it was impossible to pin one down and concentrate on it.

“There is another baby, Sophie.”

Sophie shook her head. “Not for me. I won’t do it. I’ll not bring a child into a world where his mother is with a different man every other season. I won’t do it, I can’t.”

“No, I mean there is another baby to come.”

Sophie snapped her gaze to Violet’s and ran to take the baby from her. She put the girl on the floor on a mass of linens and covered her with a soft woolen blanket.

“How do you know?” Sophie asked.

“I can feel another. He still kicks.”

The next thirty minutes were filled with Violet’s screams, this baby so much harder to bear, and the occasional roll of thunder. When Sophie thought perhaps Violet had been wrong, that something had gone wrong, another head appeared.

“What color?” Violet asked, her barely there voice coming out in exhausted huffs.

“Not pink. I think, almost blue. Violet, you have to push, you have to push now.”

“I can’t.”

“You have to. Please, please push.”

She would not lose this baby. “Violet, push,” she yelled.

One more contraction, one more almighty push and the body fell into her hands. Sophie didn’t have to ask what to do now. She’d seen this with sheep in the years before she’d left the country. It all came flooding back as fast as the river had taken the bridge.

“He’s not crying,” Violet said, her voice shaky. “Why isn’t he crying?”

“Give me a moment.” Sophie gently placed the baby on the table between Violet’s legs and placed her fingers around his little neck. Once she had the long, bloody cord away from his throat, she cleared the muck from his mouth and breathed into it with short puffs. She turned him over in her hands and patted firmly between his tiny shoulder blades, once, twice, the third time even harder.

With a little splutter, a short breath and an almighty wail, he clenched his fists and screamed his complaints long and loud, his skin turning three shades of pink.

Sophie fell to her knees on the floor, tears now flowing unheeded down her face to drip on the crying infant she clutched to her chest. “Looks like we are both stronger than we thought, little one.”

* * *

“Any sign?” Blake roared to be heard over the rushing river.

Matthew shook his head and cupped his hands around his mouth. “We have to go back. We’ll never find her in this.”

“I’m not leaving her out here.”

“You’ll kill yourself looking,” Daemon said as he pulled his horse to a stop in the mud.

Blake ignored the freezing sting of the rain as it pelted his head and face. He should kill himself looking for her. It was his fault that she’d left. He could have made her welcome. He could have ignored her own barbs and acted the gentleman he knew was in him somewhere. It was all his fault.

He looked Matthew in the eye, the dark making it difficult to read his friend’s gaze, but he knew it would mirror the anguish he felt. “I can’t lose her again.”

“I know, but we can’t hope to find her in this. We’ll have to wait till morning.”

“We did that last time and we lost her.” At the time he’d thought he’d lost her forever.

“We won’t lose her this time, Blake. She’s a big girl and she’s strong. She’ll probably be up a tree waiting out the storm and wondering why she went out in it in the first place.”

Blake shook his head, droplets spraying back into the still falling rain. “I can’t lose her again,” he repeated, but more to himself and in complete defeat. Matthew was right. If they hadn’t found her the first time she’d fled on a cool, clear night, then they wouldn’t find her in the middle of all this either.

She was a strong woman. She was too clever for her own good. His heart sank. When they did find her, and they would, she would be even angrier with him. He was sure of it. He’d had trouble forgiving her for what she’d done to him fourteen years ago, but the tables had turned. Everything was different now.

He only hoped she found it in her heart to forgive him for being a fool.

* * *

Violet was the picture of radiance as she sighed and settled farther into the mattress, her adoring eyes only leaving one cherubic face to glance to the other.

Sophie still couldn’t believe it. Two babies? Who would have guessed? She suspected Violet had. “Why did you never tell Matthew that there were two babies?”

“I wasn’t certain. It was only a feeling I had and he would have only fussed more.”

“He may not have left your side if he’d known.”

Violet half groaned, half laughed. “Thank the Lord I didn’t mention it, then.”

She couldn’t help but chuckle, but the laugh soon turned into a yawn.

“You should get some rest,” Violet told her, her own eyelids drooping despite the effort to stay awake.

“You are the one who should rest. I should get back to town and let Matthew know he is the father of not one baby but two.”

“You can’t go back out into this storm. Even if you made the bridge, it would be treacherous.”

Sophie had forgotten about the bridge. Even if she wanted to get back, she couldn’t. There was only one other way back to Blakiston and she wouldn’t make it in the dark let alone the rain and flooding. “You’re right,” she sighed. “The bridge was washed away, so I guess it’s just the four of us tonight.”

“They know where you are anyway, so they won’t worry.”

“Uh, no they don’t.”

“What happened? Sophie, what were you doing on your way out here?”

She bit her lip. The woman had just given birth. How much could she burden her with? In the end, she decided everything. Violet had the right to know.

“Do you know much about Blake’s history?”

“I know a bit.”

“None of us really knew anything at all. His mother was married to the old duke.”

“So he is the rightful heir?”

Sophie nodded. “St. Ives came to make him a duke.”

“What did Blake say?”

“He refused. He is the most stubborn, fool-headed, idiot of a man. He could have made things so much better around here and instead he lied. Lied to everyone.”

“He must have had his reasons.”

“I don’t care what his reasons were. He made a decision to fool everyone so he didn’t have to take on the responsibility of the estate.”

“There had to be more to it than that. A man doesn’t do something for no reason, especially not a man like Blake.”

“Sometimes decisions made under duress have no reason, you choose the smoother of the paths at the fork in the road.”

“Is that what you did?” Violet asked in a small voice as she leaned back against the pillows once more.

Sophie sighed. It’s exactly what she did. At one turn there was her father and the duke and at the other, London. She’d had no idea what living in the city would entail. If she had, things might have been different. “I made the choice between the lesser of two evils. You all pity me my life, but between the hardest of hard lives or death at the hands of a vicious man, I would always take life.”

“But at the time, when you thought those were the only two choices, you neglected the third. I’m not sure if it was intentional or not, but why did you not ask Matthew or Blake for help?”

“It was too late. I never thought my father would actually go through with the deal.”

“What deal?”

She’d forgotten that Violet didn’t know as much as everyone else. For a second time, she poured her story out and hoped for empathy rather than disgust.

Violet gave her neither, in fact she radiated indignation. “And after? Could you not have gone to Matthew before you fled?”

“I didn’t want him to have to run with me. I was so ashamed and humiliated and terrified. I would have ruined everyone’s lives. He wouldn’t have been able to stop Blakiston from dragging me back.”

“How do you know that? Perhaps Blake would have embraced his birthright if it had meant saving you.”

“He wouldn’t have done that for me.” As soon as the words were out, Sophie knew them for the lies they were. Of course he would have saved her. Matthew and he would never have allowed anything to happen to her, but it had taken so many years to come to the realization and by then, too much time had passed. Too much had happened.

Her mind drifted back to the night she fled—the pain she was in, the humiliation that her innocence had been taken so violently. She hadn’t wanted to face anyone at all, let alone the man she would have married had he asked. And then what of revenge? What if Blake or Matthew got it in their heads to avenge her honor and wound up swinging from a rope? Yes, she’d taken the lighter fork in the road.

“He would have saved you then and he would do it now.”

“I don’t need saving.”

“Are you sure?”

Sophie looked away from the question in Violet’s eyes.

In the sense of immediate danger she did not need rescuing, but she had turned out to be her own worst enemy. Who would save her from herself? She enjoyed London. The bustling metropolis always delivered something different. No two days were ever the same and she had her life mapped out there. She had the clinic and the children they helped; she had her friends and her wealth. Everything was easy.

Except for the men.

Despite the fact her reputation was mostly gossip, she had slept with men for housing and gowns. It was a necessity she’d accepted very early on, but she was older now. She liked to think she was wiser. She hadn’t made a rash choice in years.

What do you call fleeing into the driving rain?

Blake had really hurt her. She’d never realized how much the man could hurt her. Why should she stay somewhere like that with a man like him?

The question of what she would do once she returned to London still lingered. Since there was no lower legal occupation than the one already pinned to her, she was at a loose end.

“Damn,” she muttered.

“He loves you,” Violet put forward gently.

“He certainly has a fine way of showing it.”

“It killed him when you left all those years ago. He was a wreck for months, picked fights with his uncle, Matthew, anyone who could give him a different type of pain than what you left him with. Even then, it was you he loved.”

“How do you know that? I can’t imagine Blake poured his heart out to you.”

Violet shook her head. “He didn’t tell me any of it but Matthew knew it all. What Blake told him and what he didn’t.”

“And he just told you?” Wasn’t there an unspoken bond between best friends? Between men? Would Blake be embarrassed to know that Matthew told his wife all of his dark secrets?

“A husband and wife have no secrets.” She smiled. “Matty tells me everything.”

Sophie rather doubted it. “Even if he does love me, we can’t talk for more than five minutes without nearly declaring war. If I were a man, we would have chosen our seconds and had it out at dawn already.”

“If you were a man, he wouldn’t argue with you so. If you were a man, your leaving would have only left him angry rather than devastated.”

Devastated. The word rattled around in her head. If he was so devastated, why had he never written to her? Matthew had her address in recent years. Why hadn’t he come to the city to declare his love and bring her home? It’s what she secretly waited for all those years of men and gambling and the never-ending night life. In the back of her mind she’d replayed the fairy tales endlessly and hated the princesses and damsels in distress for their knights. She especially hated the trusty steeds for not carrying a prince to her rescue to live happily ever after.

She’d almost given up on happily-ever-afters but sometimes, when she saw a couple like Matthew and Violet, her hope would be renewed. At least until the next blow came to knock her back to reality. Like losing the babies. For a few weeks, she had been in the happiest of places, had even begun to consider her return to Blakiston as the new start she’d needed for herself and her child. But that wasn’t meant to be either. Things did happen for a reason, but the reasons were usually irrational, unexplainable and devastating. There was that word again.

“Do you love him?” Violet asked.

“It doesn’t matter anymore. He could never respect me, he could never forget the fourteen years in between and the things I’ve done.” She looked up into Violet’s eyes, her own misting with hot tears she’d held back for days. “I’ve done things, Violet, things I could never forget or forgive, so why would he?”

“You don’t have to forget. Those years made you who you are today. You will have to forgive yourself before you can expect his forgiveness, but I suspect you don’t need his. I think he’s already given it to you. The arguments are his way of telling you he’s still hurting but I’m sure if you could understand where the pain comes from, you can take care of it. You can take care of it, him and you.”

“What if I don’t have the strength?” It was the scariest question she’d ever asked out loud. What if she didn’t have the strength? Would it all fall apart? “What if I can’t be that strong?”

“Maybe it’s time you stopped being needed and started to need. Perhaps you should let a big capable man be strong enough for the both of you?”