He located a fire poker and some lavender oil and rushed back to where he’d left her. As he approached, he could hear her talking to Peaches. “Telling me not to go anywhere. Does the addle pate not see I would do just that if only I could? Aw, you’re a sweet baby.”
“Sophia?” he said, crouching once more. She could not turn her head to look at him, and he decided that would be the first thing he would address. “I’m going to open the gate, so that I can get around to the other side. Can you move sideways on your knees so I can move it, just a few feet?”
“I can. Just get me out of here before morning. I’d rather the duchess and duke not discover me here on their way to breakfast.”
It was the least of his concerns. But if it bothered her… “We’ll get you out, love.”
He rose again, unlocked the gate, and then, slowly inched it open just enough to slip through to the other side.
When he got to the other side, he sat down on the floor, legs crossed in front of him, and pulled the oil out of his shirt pocket.
“Look up, Sophia,” he said. She did so, and he saw tearstained cheeks rubbed nearly raw on the sides. “You’re rather pitiful, aren’t you?” He warmed some of the lavender oil on his palms before raising his hands to the sides of her face. Leaning forward, he kissed her softly on the lips.
“This ought to calm any swelling but also help you slide through. Don’t move, that’s a good girl. Relax.” He watched her eyes close and noticed a few more tears escape through her lashes.
“Devlin, I know you were going to help me. I know that you and Harold thought you could get us out of this, but I’m not… I’m not…”
“Shh…” He would set her racing mind to rest. “The idea of testing for your maidenhood is a medieval one. The law does not do that. The church does not do that. There is not one damn soul on earth who I would allow to do that to you. Not now, not ever.” Was that what this was about? Was she simply afraid of such a thing? Or was she afraid because she had already lain with a man?
That thought brought him up short. Did it matter? He supposed, on some base level, every man liked to think he was the only one. But had she been in love with somebody else? Was she still?
“Is there somebody else?” he asked, even as he rubbed the oil on her cheeks, her neck, her ears.
She shook her head slightly, moving what little she could, from side to side. “There is not,” she said seriously. “But, I am not… untouched.”
He moved his hands down her neck to her shoulders, which were rigid and tense. “Did you love someone before? You don’t have to tell me, if you do not wish to do so…” A part of him wanted to know, and another part did not. He was tired of all the miscommunications though, and the secrets. She seemed to have been worrying over this for some time. Best to get it out now.
“It was a long time ago,” she said.
“How long?” he asked. Hell and damnation, she was barely twenty. Some cad most likely had taken advantage of her naiveté when she first had come out. Young innocents, not chaperoned properly, were easily susceptible to a well-practiced, unscrupulous rake.
She seemed to be mentally counting back. “Nearly seven years.”
What the hell? “You were a child!” He rose abruptly from the floor. A burst of violence shot through him. Grabbing the fireplace poker, he looked for a strategic place where he could secure it between the bars. He needed to free her now.
Touching her hair, almost without thinking, he soothed her as he wedged the bar into place. “I’m going to pry these apart so that you can slip back out. Tell me when you are ready.”
Had she been raped? Goddamn it! She must have been. Who? Had the bastard been punished?
“All right,” she said, “I’m ready.”
“Who was it, Sophia?” he said as he put all his weight into leveraging the rods apart. “Now, Sophia, try now.” He watched carefully as she wiggled a little. “Don’t flinch. Relax your face. The muscles will stop you from sliding through.”
She did as he’d said, and before he had to release the bars, her head slid backwards and out. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
She rubbed the sides of her face and then stretched her neck from one side to the other.
“You were a child.” He extracted the poker from the gate. He’d barely moved the rods at all, but it had been enough.
“I’m safe now. I got good at that. And now it’s over.” She winced as she attempted to stand up. Rushing around the gate, Devlin assisted her the rest of the way to her feet.
“How long have you been down here?”
She shrugged and then winced again. “I came down a little after midnight. Did Peaches find you?” It had been someone she’d known. Someone she’d trusted.
“Scofield?”
She glanced at him quickly and saw the question in his eyes. “You mean my stepfather? No, no. Leave it be, Devlin. Please?”
