“Not personally, no. I haven’t the talent.”
Sophie shook her head. “It doesn’t signify,” she stated, mostly for her own benefit. “Once my father arrives, they’ll only serve as one more piece of evidence of your guilt.”
“Do you think so?” He asked in such a pleasant tone that Sophie found her fingers crawling toward the paperweight of their own volition. His next words, however, stopped her cold. “Awful detailed things, those letters. All kinds of interesting bits about you and your father’s daily life in any number of distant lands. Once you work through the nonsensical babble of course. Seems rather unlikely just anyone could have written them. One had to have been there. And it would seem very unlikely that one would forget having written them, unless of course one was a bit touched, don’t you think?”
The knot in Sophie’s stomach started to burn. “I told you about our lives,” she whispered, or said, or maybe shouted. She really didn’t know because the burning sensation had traveled up to her chest, then throat.
“You were a most dedicated correspondent.”
It reached her face, her ears. “You’re beyond despicable.”
“Thought I made myself clear about the name-calling. Better learn to bite your tongue now, m’dear, unless you’d like to find yourself on the street and your father with you,” Loudor said with a nasty smile. “Or he would be, if he weren’t half a world away.”
In one swift motion Sophie moved around the desk and came to stop before her cousin. Hands clenched at her sides in fists and jaw tensed so tightly she feared cracking a tooth, she managed one word.
“Out.”
Loudor’s eyebrows rose, but he made no attempt to speak or move.
Sophie raised a shaking finger and pointed clearly at the study doors. “Get. Out.”
Still no movement. Taking a step back to keep herself from using her still clenched fist to knock him into action, she took a deep breath and started talking. Slowly and clearly. “Whitefield still belongs to my father, and this house will always belong to me. It has never been my father’s for you to steal. And you are no longer welcome here. So stand up and get out.”
Loudor looked like he might argue, but Sophie cut him off before he could start. “If you do not remove yourself from my presence and my house this instant, I will see you thrown out in the street like the very trash you are.”
Sophie turned to move toward the bell pull to make good on her threat. Loudor was on his feet and had her wrist in a painful grasp with a speed that surprised her.
She reacted purely on instinct. Grabbing her skirts with her free hand, she pulled them up far enough to allow her right leg to strike out and connect powerfully with Loudor’s knee.
He howled and released her arm, collapsing to the floor in an undignified heap. Swiftly stepping back to the desk, Sophie snatched up a letter opener. Keeping the sharp end of her makeshift weapon directed at Loudor, she edged around the room toward the bell pull, taking care to stay out of his reach. For a moment she regretted not having strapped her knives to their usual place above her ankle, but she never imagined she might need to take such precautions in her own home.
She was more than halfway around the room when Loudor raised his eyes to hers and made a move to stand. “You little—”
Sophie tossed the letter opener up and caught it deftly by its tip. Perfect for throwing at his nasty little head. She smiled at the thought and said, “Make no mistake, cousin dear, I can and will use this. Unlike you, I am just full of hidden talents.”
Loudor paled and remained seated. She reached the bell cord and yanked. Hard. Two footmen and the butler arrived on the scene so quickly that there was no question that they had been hovering outside the door. She could have just yelled for assistance, Sophie realized, but then she would have forgone the pleasure of kicking Loudor.
“Miss?” All three servants addressed her at once. Sophie’s tension eased greatly at the arrival of the men, who, she could not help noticing, had looked to her for direction and completely ignored the felled Loudor.
“I want Lord Loudor, and whatever of his personal possessions he can pack in fifteen minutes, out of this house. He can pay to have the rest sent on. If he gives you any trouble, call a constable.”
“Very good, miss.”
Sophie gave herself exactly one hour to come up with a viable solution to her problem. The first half hour was spent pacing her bedroom floor, listening to the distant chaos of Loudor being relieved of his residence, and alternating between bouts of sheer fury and utter panic. She was going to lose Whitefield whether she accomplished her mission or not. She was going to lose everything.
Damn. Damn. Damn him.