Sleepless in Southampton by Chasity Bowlin
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The carriage rolled along the road at a good pace, despite the late hour. In the dim interior, Sophie thought how very different it was to be headed in that direction with Effie.
“So you and Viscount Marchwood have an arrangement,” Effie said. “And he’s very explicit that he means marriage. Are you prepared for that, Sophie, and all that it entails?”
“Effie, most of the girls in the school have spent a significant amount of time on the streets. Suffice it to say, I probably have gleaned more knowledge from one single eavesdropped conversation than most young women will ever have, much less prior to their wedding night,” Sophie said.
“I don’t mean that,” Effie said. “I mean, have you given any thought to what it means to be the wife of a peer? You’ll have responsibilities you’ve never dreamed of. I think perhaps the first thing we need to do is have you talk to Willa. Not Lilly. Good lord. She’s a terrible example. But then so is Lord Seaburn. Indeed, Willa. Calliope has her hands full with that horde of children.”
“You think I can’t do it,” Sophie mused, somewhat hurt at what she saw as her mentor’s lack of faith.
“I think you are very young and the notion of running a household of any sort, much less one so exalted as that of a viscount, is something you have not been prepared for. I want you to be prepared for that. I’m not trying to dissuade you, Sophie. I want you to succeed at this. And I want all of those who had the audacity to think you less than they are because of your birth and station; I want them to eat crow perfectly served on the finest of china… at your table,” Effie stated fiercely.
Sophie considered that. In the aftermath of her abduction at the hands of Dr. Blake, of narrowly avoiding a truly terrible fate time and time again as she made her way back to Lady Hemsley’s, the snobbery of the Duke and Duchess of Thornhill, their easy acceptance of any narrative that painted her a villain, had been all but forgotten. “I don’t care. They may be as elitist as they wish. They are Henry’s family and I will not hold grudges that would complicate his life.”
“Then I will hold one for you,” Effie said.
Sophie surveyed her teacher and mentor carefully. “We’ve addressed the fact that I am quite thoroughly compromised from traveling alone with Henry. What about your traveling alone with Lord Highcliff?”
“I am older, Sophie. I am well recognized as a spinster. The rules are different for me,” Effie denied.
“Is that why your bodice is misbuttoned and you have a bite mark on your neck?”
Immediately, Effie was reaching for her reticule and the small mirror she carried with her there.
“I lied,” Sophie said. “Not about the misbuttoned bodice but about the bite mark. Still, you seemed quite concerned about the possibility. What exactly were you and Lord Highcliff doing in the carriage?”
“Things that are not your concern,” Effie fired back.
“Effie, you are the only family I have. Of course, it’s my concern. You haven’t been yourself for months and I am not the only one who noted that it was about the time you had your falling out with him. I do not wish to see you hurt.”
Effie looked away for a moment, her hands clenching and unclenching on the reticule to the point that the small accessory was horribly crumpled. “I will be hurt. I know that. But it hurts already, you see? Wondering about what might have been is its own kind of torment. So, Highcliff and I have reached an understanding, one that will allow me to satisfy my curiosity. But I harbor no illusions. Neither of us do. Happy endings are not for us. They are for you and your Viscount Marchwood. For Lilly and Valentine. For Willa and Lord Deveril. For Calliope and her earl. But not for me. And that’s fine. I have work to do still. There are girls out there who need me. A husband would only get in the way of that.”
Sophie noted that she said it almost as if she believed it. But for the tiny quivering of her voice at the end, it had been quite convincing. She started to comment on that, but there was a loud and thunderous crack that rent the air. Immediately the carriage lurched terribly.
“Not again!” she cried out.
“Halt!”
The voice outside was rough and commanding. It was also unknown to them.
“This is getting ridiculous!” Effie stated.
“Now are we to be robbed at gunpoint on top of everything else?” Sophie mused. If it weren’t so terrifying, she might have laughed.
“Not today, we are not,” Effie said. With little effort and more than a hint of familiarity with the process, she kicked the decorative panel at the front of the carriage seat where she was perched. The panel moved sideways and inside was a treasure trove of weaponry. “Blades or pistols?”
“Both,” Sophie answered. “Definitely both.”
*
Henry became awarethat he was being followed midway between Landford and West Wellow. He was still an hour or so from his uncle’s home in Southampton proper. Every slight shift in the horse’s gait, there was an answering shift in echoing hoofbeats behind him. Whoever it was was staying well enough back to avoid being seen, but on a still summer night, sound carried and had given them away. It begged the questions of who and why?
Had someone overheard their plan at the inn? Did the doctor have associates throughout all of Hampshire? If so, were there others in pursuit of Sophie and Miss Darrow? Henry patted the pocket of his coat, feeling the weight of the pistol and shot that Highcliff had passed to him before his departure. There was only one way to find out the answers to those questions.
After rounding a bend in the road, Henry slowed the horse ever so slightly. He eased out of the saddle and slid to the ground. The soft earth at the roadside cushioned his footfalls. The horse walked on. It would go to the next coaching inn up the way, expecting hay or oats. Concealing himself behind a large tree, he pulled the pistol from the pocket of his coat and waited for his pursuer to show himself.
It was not a long wait. Moments later, a man in a large hat, pulled low to conceal his face, rounded that bend. He was on horseback but clearly not at home there. His seat marked him for a city dweller. No man raised in the countryside would sit a horse like that.
When the man looked up, he noted the riderless horse ahead of him and let out a curse. “Bloody ’ell.”
London it was, Henry thought. Stepping out from the trees, just behind the man, Henry raised the pistol and leveled it at him. “Dismount. Now.”
The man glanced back over his shoulder. Henry could see that he meant to run, but he didn’t try to stop him. If the man did spur the horse, he’d fall off it within a matter of seconds. No sooner had the thought occurred than the would-be brigand kicked the horse. It shot forward and the villain simply rolled off the back of it to land in the dirt with a thud.
“On your feet,” Henry demanded. “Who sent you?”
“Call ’im the ’ammer,” the man said grudgingly.
“Does he work for Dr. Blake?”
The man clamored to his feet, dusting off his clothes as he did so. “Don’t know no doctor. The ’ammer works for Miss Ruby out of Brighton.”
It didn’t matter what strata of society one was in. Everyone knew who Miss Ruby was. Moneylender, madam, queen of the criminal underground along the southern coast of Britain, she was notorious. “What does Miss Ruby want with us?”
“Don’t know. The ’ammer runs for ’er and collects for ’er between Brighton and Salisbury.”
The memory of Sophie’s tearful confession about her abduction and narrow escape from Dr. Blake came rushing back. She’d told him Blake was going to turn her over to a woman who would likely use her in a brothel. Just the thought of it made his blood run cold. But it wasn’t any stretch of the imagination to think the woman in question was Miss Ruby. If Blake had exhausted the moneylenders in Southampton, he might have had to go further afield to borrow funds. Or he might have been willing to turn Sophie over to her in lieu of a portion of his debt.
“Did he send anyone after the women?”
The man clammed up, not saying a word.
Henry raised the pistol and pulled back the hammer.
“Go ahead. Kill me. If I talk, I’m good as dead anyway,” the man spat out.
“Oh, I’ve no wish to kill you. But I am going to shoot you. The real question is how much agony do you wish to suffer? Now, I can shoot you in the leg and leave you by the roadside. It’ll hurt but you’ll live. Or I can shoot you in the gut and drag you into the woods to slowly bleed out unless someone happens to find your worthless carcass first. So talk and suffer a flesh wound that will leave you limping for a few days, or keep your silence and die alone with your guts spilling about you.”
“Aye. ’e sent another bloke after the women and ’e went after the other gent ’imself,” the man finally offered. “Now, either shoot me or piss off.”
It was a first for him, shooting another human being. But he couldn’t afford to be followed. So Henry did just that. He aimed the pistol, fired and watched the man crumple to the ground clutching his thigh. “Sorry,” Henry offered. “If I send help it will only bring the magistrates down on you. There’s an inn two miles up the road. You can hobble there, but it’ll take you a while.”
Then Henry simply left him sitting in the road, bleeding and cursing as he made his way toward that inn so he could acquire another mount. He needed to reach Sophie and Miss Darrow. The doctor would simply have to wait. And Lord Highcliff, well, for the time being he was on his own.
