Her fingers went to her neck, and Tristan knew instinctively she was grasping for the locket that was no longer there. For reasons he didn’t understand, he found it unbearable to watch the panicked movement of her hands. “Don’t. Stop it, Sophia.” He seized her wrists and dragged them away from her throat.
“You saw Jeremy, Tristan.” Her voice broke on his Christian name. “You saw what they’d done to him. Is the law working for him? Do you fool yourself into thinking he’ll see justice? A man who doesn’t even understand the crime of which he’s accused, condemned and sentenced to die. Isthat justice?”
It was true. Every word she said about Jeremy was true. Justice wasn’t perfect. It never would be, yet it was all they had, and it served more people than it hurt. Tristan leaned over her, and let his forehead touch hers. “I don’t fool myself, no, but the answer to an injustice isn’t another crime, Sophia. Would you free every prisoner at Newgate?”
“No! Just one. The one I know to be innocent.”
“If everyone in London did the same, what then?” He released her wrists to cup her face in his hands. “Flawed justice is preferable to no justice, Sophia.”
“For some people, there’s little difference between the two.” Her green eyes were dark with anger, but her lips were soft, and still parted for him, and there was nothing more to say, nothing he could do but cover her mouth with his own.
This wasn’t a soft, tentative exploration. It wasn’t gentle. Tristan took her lips hard, his tongue insistent, demanding she take him into the slick warmth of her mouth. She opened to him at once, meeting him stroke for stroke, the kiss angry and desperate, each demanding the other yield and both of them resisting, their lips clinging together in a battle of wills that threatened to drive Tristan to the edgeof his sanity.
He wasn’t a man who allowed his passions to overrule his logic, but he hadn’t counted on Sophia Monmouth, the wild temptation of her. He was on the edge of tumbling into a madness where he dragged her to the settee in the middle of Lady Clifford’s drawing room, hiked up her skirts, and covered herbody with his…
“No.” Tristan tore his mouth from hers with a gasp.
They stood there staring at each other, both of them panting for breath, until he forced himself to turn away from the temptation of her swollen pink lips. He dragged in a few calming breaths until he subdued the demands of his body, then he turned back to her. “Where’sIves, Sophia?”
“He’s safe,” she whispered.“Safe at last.”
Tristan dragged a hand through his hair. “Tell me where he is. For your own good, you need to tell me where you’ve taken him.”
Her face grew as hard as stone, but underneath her coldness she was trembling, her chest heaving as she struggled for breath. “I don’t know what you mean, Lord Gray. I haven’t taken him anywhere. I told you. JeremyIves is dead.”
Tristan knew she’d say no more about Ives, but he wasn’t yet finished with her. “None of this was really about Sharpe, was it? It wouldn’t surprise me to discover I was your target all along.”
“My target?” She looked puzzled for an instant, but then her face drained of color. “No! It wasn’t…you weren’t—”
“You must have realized only I would be able to see you on the roof of Lord Everly’s pediment.” Tristan had promised himself he wouldn’t touch her again, but his hand seemed to move without his consent, reaching for a loose lock of her hair. He rubbed it between his fingers, his gaze holding hers. “Perhaps this was about me from the start.”
She opened her mouth, but he dropped her hair and held up his hand before a word could pass her lips. “No. I don’t want to hear any more.” Because a part of him was afraid she could make him believe anything she said.
“Tristan—”
“No. This ends here.”
For her, itdidend here. Sophia’s part in this business was done. Jeremy Ives was innocent of the crime of which he’d been convicted, but he was free now, and all of London believed him to be dead. It had all ended just as she’dhoped it would.
But it hadn’t ended for Tristan. It would never end for him until Henry’s murderer was swinging from the end of a rope. Henry had been a good man, a just man, and a loyal friend. He and his wife and son deserved justice.
But none of that had anything to do with Sophia Monmouth. “You should be pleased, Sophia. Jeremy is safe. Isn’t that what you wanted all along?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know what I want.”
Tristan had no answer for that, other than that it didn’t matter what either of them wanted. He didn’t say it. Instead, he reached into his coat pocket and drew out her locket. He cradled it in his hand for a moment, warming the silver against his skin, then he held it out to her. “I took this from Hogg yesterday. I thought you’d want itback. Take it.”
Her hand trembled as she reached for it. He dropped it into her palm. “There’s nothing more that needs to be said between us, and no reason for us everto meet again.”
She said nothing, just closed her fingers tightly around the locket.
“Goodbye, Miss Monmouth.” Tristan offered her a formal bow, then went through the door without another word, and without a backward glance.
The housekeeper, Miss Browning, was nowhere to be seen, but the three young ladies were still hanging over the edge of the railing on the landing. Their eyes followed him as he came down the hallway and let himself outthe front door.
They might as well look their fill now, because he had no reason to ever return to No. 26 Maddox Street, or see SophiaMonmouth again.
He went directly back to Great Marlborough Street, where he ordered Tribble to say he wasn’t at home to any callers, not even Lord Lyndon. After that, there was nothing to do but wait for the long, empty day topass into dusk.
