Behind the Courtesan

chapter Twenty-One

“Charles is fleeing,” Sophie stated, her voice low despite the distance between them and him.

“That was the original idea.”

“Where do you think he will go?”

“The Continent? The Americas? He’s lucky he isn’t being shipped off with the criminals. But as long as it isn’t here, I don’t care.”

They stood and watched as he drew closer. Blake held his breath and hoped the man kept going, that he wouldn’t find the need to stop.

But Blake’s luck had been used up in finding Sophie and as the carriage came to a stop, Charles threw the brake on and jumped to the ground, eyes positively glinting with malice.

Blake swore under his breath.

“This is all your fault,” Charles screeched, his fists at his sides as he advanced.

Blake sighed. “I hardly see how any of the blame can be laid at my door.”

“If you had kept your mouth shut, the King would never have discovered the details of your birth. I would still be a duke and you would still be a nobody.”

Blake didn’t like the wild look in Charles’s eyes but this confrontation had to come. Be it now or when the rat crawled back from the hole he would find to hide in. “I didn’t tell the King anything. Do you really think he would have listened to me, anyway? I’m a nobody. Nobodies do not get heard by the King of England.”

“Then how did he find out? I’ll kill the man who took this all away from me.”

“Does it matter? Your gambling put you here. Not the man, not the King and certainly not me. I don’t even want to be a duke.”

Charles roared. “It shouldn’t even be a choice for you! From the sounds of it, your mother was nothing more than an ambitious slut. What did she do to get the old duke to marry her?”

The words stung. They stung more for the fact that he’d said the exact same words to 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 able to charm her himself. She had to keep him talking until she found her moment.

“I don’t care where you got the gun,” Charles yelled. The sound echoed and for a second Sophie hoped Daemon or Matthew would hear the commotion and come back and rescue them.

“Is it yours?” Blake asked. “Because if you took it from the house, the authorities will know of its origins.”

“She could have taken it from the house at the auction.”

“I never went to the house.” She would never set foot in that house again. Ever.

“Yes, you came there to meet me. You wanted to thank me properly for rescuing you on the road that day.”

“I don’t think so,” Sophie said adamantly. But perhaps that angle would work for him. She was a courtesan. All he had to say was that she was soliciting a new protector and it would put her in the house. Even with all of the witnesses at the inn, his word would mean more than all of theirs put together. But then again, his credibility was cracked. As was his mind evidently.

“What have I got to lose?” Charles said with a shrug and a smile.

Sophie took that moment, when his grip relaxed in her hair and his boot still pressed into Blake’s chest, to brace her legs and push with all her might.

Charles overbalanced and the gun dropped dangerously close to Blake’s body, but then he was falling. He couldn’t regain his balance, but neither did he let go of her. In a tangle of arms and legs, Sophie fell over Blake’s feet and into Charles’s chest. The impact knocked his hand loose of her head until he could wrap his arm around her and hold the reclaimed gun to her cheek. “That was not smart,” he hissed, spittle flying everywhere.

Blake was on his feet in a second, but stopped at the sight of the pistol pressed to her head.

“Let her go, Charles. This has nothing to do with Sophie. It’s between you and me.”

“Oh, no. There are more players in this game than the three of us. St. Ives has the ear of the King. If I’m to lose my position, then he must lose too.”

“That is why you wouldn’t leave me alone? You were trying to steal me from him?”

“If you were a typical slut, I would have offered you more money than him, but it’s clear you are different. I haven’t yet worked out what motivates you.”

Certainly not money, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. “If you kill us both, Daemon will hunt you down. He won’t rest until he finds you.”

Charles began to laugh again. “I’m counting on it.”

It didn’t make sense. Was he after all three of them for getting in the way of his title or was there more behind his hatred for Daemon? Perhaps he was shooting the messenger, literally. Sophie gulped. The cool hard metal of the gun made her cheek hurt and the rumble of Charles’s laugh at her back made her want to retch. She suddenly felt as though she would turn into an aristocratic lady after all and faint.

The notion held appeal. Since her back was to Charles and he couldn’t see her face, she closed her eyes for a few seconds and then opened them wide. Blake shook his head. She held out her left hand and counted one, two, three and then with a forced groan, she dropped like a sack.

Charles was caught off guard and wasn’t strong enough to hold her up with one hand. For a second his arm tightened painfully about her throat as he cursed but then he was forced to drop her. Sophie hit the ground and rolled away from the maniac. A flash of dark boots filled her vision as Blake jumped over her and slammed his body into Charles’s. The gun flew from his hand to land in the dirt not far from where Sophie tried to catch her breath for a second time. Without hesitation she launched herself at the gun, picked it up in two hands and, aiming it into the sky, pulled the trigger.

* * *

The shot was deafening but it did make Charles pause, obviously waiting for pain. Blake had been in enough hand-to-hand fights to know never to hesitate.

He squeezed his arms around his distant cousin to roll him and started punching. He saw nothing but red that this bastard had held a gun to a woman. To his woman. When pain exploded in his knuckle with a vicious crunch against Charles’s cheek bone, he should have stopped, but how could he? If the bastard got up, he would be a danger to them all again.

Charles gave as good as he got and Blake was surprised. For his sliminess and slight stature, he would have thought the man wouldn’t have much of a fight in him.

Blake took a hit to the chest followed by a flyaway fist to the side of his head that put stars in his eyes. It shook him long enough for Charles to get the upper hand and roll him onto his back. He took more blows to the head but the way they sat, Blake couldn’t get his arms back far enough to swing. His own punches weren’t doing enough damage. Suddenly Charles was gone, the pressure on his chest eased, but his head hurt and his vision darkened. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sophie’s skirts flash.

By the time Blake lurched to his feet, Charles had rearmed himself with a small, but wicked-looking knife.

“Can’t face me like a man?” Blake huffed as he wiped blood from his lip with the back of his dirty hand.

“I’m a duke. I don’t have to fight like a man.”

“You think they aren’t one and the same? Being a duke and a man?” As they swapped words, they moved in circles, their shoes leaving imprints in the mud.

“Only if there are two types of men,” Charles said with a wild swipe.

The time for small talk was over. Blake went to step forward, but at the last minute threw his body left, his hand wrapping around the handle of the knife, around Charles’s fingers to pull on the blade. He pushed his other arm across Charles’s chest but then his leg folded and they went down again. They landed with a thump, with a whoosh of combined breath. Only Charles wore an expression of complete bewilderment.

Both men looked down at the same time, at the hilt sticking out of the chest of the former duke of Blakiston.

Charles drew a shaky breath, coughed once and then twice, his hands rising only to fall by his sides with a soft thud.

Blake scrambled back, back in the direction of Sophie’s screams. Horse’s hooves vibrated against a ground that suddenly seemed so close. Try as he might, he couldn’t right himself. Just as he was about to have a second try, two pairs of hands reached out for him. Sophie’s were soft and warm, Daemon’s large and strong. Then the world darkened until everything was black. He stopped hearing their voices. He could no longer feel their comfort. Even as he thought the thought, he could no longer hear the beating of his own heart.

* * *

Sophie didn’t look away from Blake’s face. She should have said yes. When he’d asked her to marry him, she should have said yes. Why had she hesitated? In the face of losing him, she didn’t care where his intentions were when he asked her to be his wife. Fear of loss did feel a hell of a lot like love. It made her stomach flip-flop and her heart race so hard and fast she thought it likely to burst from her chest. Maybe it was the same way he felt when she disappeared? Twice. Only this time she’d been found safe and sound, and he only had part of the night and the morning to worry for her. Last time he’d had months and even when he knew she was alive, his fear and grief had twisted to anger. It was little wonder the feelings he’d had for her all those years ago hadn’t dried up and turned to hatred.

And he’d said he loved her. Those three little words instilled more shock in her than any other moment that had gone before. In her darkest nightmares and brightest dreams, she had never held out the hope that someone would love her. She’d clung to her ideals, her decisions and choices, and never let anyone get close enough to truly feel for her. The one man she tried to hold at arm’s length, the one man above all others she thought would never forgive her the things she’d done—he was the one to fall in love with her.

Somewhere out there in the heavens was a deity with a twisted smile on his face.

Before Daemon could hoist the still unconscious Blake over the saddle of his horse, Sophie pressed her lips to his and whispered, “I love you.”