The Heart That Wins (Regency Spies Book 3) Read online

  She said it quietly, as if she did not want him to know, but she had said it and John was satisfied, even though he had no right to be.

  Sint Stefaan was a small village, made up of a few houses, a church and a bakery gathered around a square. The landlady of the house Edmund had chosen seemed to understand their situation exactly, but John offered her more money than the rooms were worth to ease her conscience. They were shown upstairs by a very curious servant. John gave her another large sum of money and required that Madame Langlois receive constant attention and the little delicacies that she loved. The maid, who had apparently never seen anything quite as abandoned as Sophia, fled with an embarrassed giggle.

  The rooms, a sitting-room and a bedroom, were small, but comfortably furnished. It was not really the kind of place in which a wealthy man could be expected to install his mistress, but John did not doubt that Sophia had a story prepared to explain it. Neither the landlady nor the maid would expect him to know whatever stories Sophia told them.

  Whilst Sophia unpacked her few belongings in the bedroom, John tested the sofa in the sitting-room. It was far too short for his long frame, so he decided the floor would be a more comfortable place to make his bed.

  The servant, Jeanne, brought them a meal which they ate in silence. Afterwards they sat side by side on the sofa, with their coffee. John found it unexpectedly intimate. They had been alone many times in the past, completely alone, unsupervised by chaperones or servants, but this was new. He could not work out what it was. His love for her was an old companion and his lust a slightly newer one, but he had never been as uneasy as he was now.

  “Tell me what you did to earn your reputation,” said Sophia as she put her cup and saucer aside.

  “You know my reputation?”

  How could she bear to be in the same room as him if she knew it? Perhaps she did not understand. John’s hand started to shake and he put down his own cup and saucer before they could start to rattle.

  “Edmund encourages his agents to listen to gossip,” she said. “He says there’s usually some truth to be learned, either about the teller or the subject.”

  “Franz told you.”

  “Franz told me. The night you rescued me from my mother.”

  Two months! She had known for two months, yet she sat calmly beside him as if nothing was wrong.

  He looked away and she took his hand causing him to look back at her.

  “I don’t believe it,” she said more gently. “I know you too well.”

  Something broke within John. It had never occurred to him that she would not simply accept what she had heard as everyone else did. Despite what he had done to her, Sophia still believed in him. He became aware that she was waiting for him to say something.

  Thinking it would be better for her to be disillusioned he said, “Isn’t it possible you don’t know everything about me?”

  “I know I don’t know everything about you, but I do know you’re a man who could never contemplate taking a child to his bed.”

  So she did know. He shut his eyes, but she touched his face. Part of him rejoiced that she knew him so well. Part of him wanted to shout that he had betrayed her. All of him wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her until he forgot the things he had seen and done.

  Her fingers stroked his face so gently that he thought he might cry with relief.

  “You’re shaking at the thought of it.”

  “Because it makes me angry.” He opened his eyes again so that she could see. “And so sad.”

  “Then tell me.”

  He shook his head. How could he tell her something so sordid? She was looking at him, her face so full of trust that he could not bear it. She did trust him, though. She trusted him enough to ask for the truth. This was his Sophia. She was afraid of nothing; he was afraid of everything on her behalf.

  “Very well.” He said the words unwillingly, as if they had been wrenched out of him. “It started a few days after I joined the army. When Uncle George brought your letter asking me to come home, I would have done so, except for Lizzie.”

  “Lizzie?”

  “The rumours,” he admitted, “are grounded in truth of some kind.”

  He pressed her fingers to his lips and kissed them.

  “Are you sure you want to hear this, Sophia? There are things you shouldn’t know, not about me, but about men, about what happens when there is neither money nor love.”

  “I’m not as innocent as you think me and I would rather know the truth about you.”

  John tried not to think about the loss of her innocence and what it might mean.

  “Lizzie was ten years old. I heard her screaming as she was being raped.”

  Sophia laid her head on his shoulder and stroked his arm. Strange, he had not thought he would be the one needing comfort, but he did. It was easier to talk when she was not looking at him.

  “It was dark and, by the time I found her, the man who had done it was nowhere to be seen. He’d beaten her and she was lying in the rags that had once been her clothes. I had no idea then that she was a child. It was... it was bad enough as it was.”

  His voice trailed off as he recalled what he had seen in the moonlight: Lizzie lying senseless and unmoving. Without thinking about it he had picked her up and taken her to his lodgings. Although a private soldier, he had money enough to have a room to himself.

  “Once I got her into the light I could see that her injuries were serious and, as I washed her, I had confirmation of what had happened to her. I could also see how young she was.”

  He had cleaned the child and bound her wounds the best he could and placed her in his bed. When she did not die the first night, he knew that he would need some help. In the end he approached his landlady and told her what had happened. The old woman was full of compassion and agreed to sit with the girl while he was gone.

  “She came round while I was out and was terrified the first time she saw me, but we managed to convince her that I meant her no harm. Now I had to think what to do with her. I couldn’t let her go back. Sophia, her father had sold her to the soldier for the night.”

  When Lizzie had told him this in the same matter of fact way she talked about the beatings and other kinds of abuse she had suffered, at the hands of her father and other men, he had been numb with the shock. Later he had wept at the horror and injustice of it.

  “I understand,” said Sophia, but he did not think she could.

  “In the end I wrote to my mother. When my uncle came I gave him the letter. I wanted to go back with him, but even then...”

  “Even then?”

  “Even then I had begun to think that Lizzie might not be alone.”

  This was the most terrible thing of all.

  “There were more like her?”

  Sophia raised her head to look at him. There were tears on her cheeks and he brushed them away.

  “There were… are… so many more. My mother suggested that I buy Lizzie from her father. She would take her in, teach her enough to be a maid and find her a position. We did that three more times before I left England.”

  “But it became known that you had children in your lodgings.”

  “Yes. Mother was the one who realised that I would have to give up my reputation if I was to help them. I’d already lost you, so I had no use for it.”

  It had not been what his mother had intended. She had meant for him to find another way to help the girls and had been disappointed when he had gone to Spain without seeing Sophia.

  “And in Spain?”

  “I continued. It was more difficult without Mother’s help, but I put the girls into convents. They had to be as far away from their fathers, brothers or whoever it was that had sold their bodies as possible.”

  “And in France?”

  “The Revolution destroyed most of the convents and the war means that few outside the largest towns can afford servants. I didn’t do so well in France.”

  “The carter’s daughter.�
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  “The carter’s daughter?”

  “The girl we brought from Paris. It wasn’t just your charger you put into our care.”

  “Claire. She was my last in Paris. She cost me Edmund’s bad opinion. He was so relieved that I wasn’t what he believed me to be that he almost gave me away that night.”

  “Then you are still the man I believed you to be.”

  “No, Sophia, I’m the man who has a reputation for despoiling children. You can’t have anything to do with me.”

  He must make her understand this. He was afraid she thought they could pick up their friendship, but they could not. Could she not see that that was why he had kept away from her?

  “But you could tell the truth.”

  John lifted her chin so that she was looking at him.

  “You don’t understand. I’m still doing it, only here it’s not just the soldiers who buy young girls. I don’t think it ever was. I simply didn’t see it before. I go to places where I can find these girls. If people knew what I really did, I couldn’t do it anymore.”

  “Then let me help.”

  John pressed a kiss to the top of her head. As soon as he had known he would tell her his story, he had known this would be her reaction.

  “I can’t let you. I can’t let your reputation suffer.”

  “I don’t need a good reputation.”

  “Yes, you do. You owe it to your husband and children.”

  He managed to keep his voice steady as if it were the most natural thing in the world that she should marry someone else and have his children.

  “You have given up any hope of marriage or children.”

  Now she understood what it had cost him. Her voice showed her horror at the prospect. Then she squeezed his arm.

  “You could change your name and live quietly somewhere.”

  He had considered this, of course.

  “But I don’t want to live quietly. There are so many girls.”

  “Then let someone else do it!”

  John stood, unable to bear what she seemed to be saying. Then he felt bereft because she was no longer holding him. They had not embraced one another since childhood and it was wrong now, to be away from her.

  “It made my life worth something. For years the only thing I wanted was to marry you. When I realised that you didn’t love me, there was nothing.” There was no way to make her understand how wretched he had felt, how wretched he still felt. “Once I started I never even considered a different future. I had nothing and I was no one without you… I am no one without you.”

  Sophia stood and faced him. There were still tears on her cheeks and her lip trembled.

  “You told me you loved me still,” she said.

  He nodded.

  “It’s only fair that you should know that I love you.”

  John opened his mouth to say something, he did not know what, but Sophia placed her mouth over his and kissed him. Without another thought he pulled her into his arms and kissed her back.

  Chapter Nine

  Sophia was not sure how it happened, but she found herself stretched under John on the sofa. His kisses were gentle and tender and she melted under them. She responded in kind; she had been waiting for a very long time to show him her love. They became more passionate, almost frenzied as his tongue pushed past her lips and into her mouth.

  She was vaguely aware of his hands moving over her body, now touching a breast, now a thigh. It was the intense pleasure of it that filled her. Nothing had prepared her for this. She was content to let him do as he pleased even as he raised her skirts and skimmed his hand up the length of her leg. He touched her between her thighs and she almost lost consciousness as she screamed her pleasure.

  It was a moment before she realised that John was no longer with her, but standing on the other side of the room. Sitting up, she saw that he was shaking. She stood unsteadily to go to him, but he stopped her with a raised hand.

  “I’m sorry, Sophia. I should not have done that. I...”

  “Wasn’t I doing it right?”

  Sophia was confused. She knew she was inexperienced, but she had thought that John was enjoying it, too. She had not given as much as he had, perhaps, but he had not seemed to mind.

  “Of course you were, but we shouldn’t have been doing it at all.”

  “Why not? You said you love me and I love you.”

  “I told you, I can’t marry you.”

  “Then let us make this pretence a reality.”

  She said the words without thinking and even from the other side of the room she saw him grow pale.

  “I can’t ask that of you.”

  He was so quiet, she could barely hear him.

  “You’re not asking, I’m offering.”

  She crossed the room, despite his protest, and took his hands and kissed them. Everything should have been alright once he knew that she loved him, but clearly it was not.

  “I don’t care about your reputation or my reputation,” she said. “I only care about you.”

  “Find someone else, Sophia, someone you can love.”

  The slap surprised her as much as it did him.

  “I love you. How can I love someone else?” she demanded, noting with satisfaction the growing redness on his cheek where she had slapped him.

  “You used to love Edmund.”

  His voice was little more than a whisper.

  “You think I’m fickle.”

  Her arm rose to slap him again, but she thought better of it. Her worst fear was being realised.

  “It was Edmund who came and told me that Lord Meldon wanted to get you out of the army. I asked him to ask your uncle to take a letter to you, which was what he’d come to ask me to do. I asked you to come back and if you couldn’t come back to write to me as you had when you were at school. But you didn’t come back, you didn’t write and you didn’t even send a message with Lord Meldon. I knew then that you had stopped loving me. That you didn’t even want to be my friend. You didn’t even write from Spain to tell me you were still alive.” She turned away so that he wouldn’t see her tears. “You don’t really want me at all,” she said.

  “It might be easier for us both if that were true. I carry your letter with me all the time.”

  She heard a rustle of paper and turned back to him. The sheet of paper he held in his hand looked worn.

  “It got wet, so I carry it in a small pouch around my neck. Even though I have it by heart, I take it out sometimes just to look at your writing.”

  “Why didn’t you write to me? Why couldn’t we have been friends again?”

  “I think I hated you for a while. I thought my uncle had told you what to write, until I remembered that nothing could have made you write what wasn’t true. But that was much later, when it was too late.”

  She could see him struggling with his thoughts and she wondered what he could have to tell her that was worse than that he had hated her.

  He sighed and leaned against the wall to which he had retreated.

  “I thought we understood one another. You told me all your secrets. When you were sad, you wanted me to cheer you up and not anyone else. When you were happy, you couldn’t wait to tell me why. When you cried, you wanted me to hold you. And then you fell in love with Edmund. Your letters were so short I almost returned to London to find out what was wrong. When I did return I watched you seek out his company rather than mine. You became secretive and you were only really happy when you were with him. I feared to lose you completely. So I asked you to marry me. I see now that it was foolish. I’m not an emotional man and you’re the only person I’ve ever allowed to see my feelings and I poured out my heart to you that day, convinced it would make you understand your own feelings for me, but it didn’t.”

  Sophia recalled that terrible day, when she had laughed at him.

  “You hurt me,” he said.

  “I meant to.”

  She could scarcely get the words out past her tears.

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nbsp; “Damn Edmund Finch!”

  John hit the wall behind him with such force that the pictures on the picture rail jumped.

  “So you decided to hurt me in turn,” she said.

  “God help me, but I did.”

  Unable to support herself on her legs any longer, Sophia sank to the floor and surrendered herself to her tears. John made no move to comfort her and that was the worst blow of all.

  John could not move as Sophia crumpled onto the floor. Everything within him screamed that he had to hold her, to comfort her, but they were no longer children and holding her would lead to kissing and touching. Now that he knew she loved him he should have been happy, but this was even more wretched than not knowing. Now he had to acknowledge that he had not just ruined his life, but had ruined hers as well. Sophia had learned to love him and, despite what he had done, she would continue to love him. She had spoken truly; as much as there could be no one else for him, there could be no one else for her.

  He was ashamed of his lack of control earlier. Sophia deserved more. Sophia deserved everything. He slid down the wall until he, too, was sitting on the floor. It did not surprise him in the least that he had tears in his eyes; Sophia’s pains had always hurt him more than his own and she was in a great deal of pain now.

  He had been stupid not to understand what he had done or why. He could easily have told his uncle about Lizzie and she could have returned to London with them. He could have discussed with his parents how to help her and others like her. If he had bided his time, Sophia would have come to love him. He had thrown it all away with a boy’s petulance. Sophia was right; he had never been a man with her.

  Her sobbing stopped and John crawled across the floor so that he sat next to her. Sophia seemed to be asleep. He could not take away her anger or his stupidity, but he could make her comfortable.

  He got to his feet and went into the bedroom. It took a moment to light a candle and pull back the covers on the bed. Then he returned to the sitting-room and lifted Sophia into his arms. She stirred as he did so, but he pressed a soft kiss to her forehead and she made herself more comfortable in his arms and slipped into a deeper sleep. He was tempted to sit on the sofa and simply hold her all night, but she was angry with him and it would not be right to put his pleasure before her feelings.