No. She couldn’t.
Not after everything she had been through. Sophia was the family she had found, the one who had adopted her when she thought she would never have a family of her own, and she would not let anything happen to the girl.
She forced her limbs into movement. Her legs were shaky, but she put them one before the other…Faster, faster…
The man had broken into a run. Isadora watched, anger boiling in her chest, as he whisked Sophia off her feet, tucking her under his arm as though she were nothing more than a bag of flour. Sophia screamed, struggling, and Isadora screamed, too, so frustrated at her own ineptitude.
All she had to do was run a little faster.
The man disappeared around the side of the house, Sophia in tow.
Isadora forced herself to move more quickly despite the pain. In the scuffle, she had lost one of her shoes, and the gravel bit at her stockinged foot. Her hair felt damp and sticky, and her head throbbed like no tomorrow. It was all she could do to stay on her feet.
A chest materialized before her, and she couldn’t stop herself in time before slamming into it. A familiar curse sounded in her ear, then a hand was curling protectively around her elbow.
“Dora?” Nicholas said, his voice twisted with an emotion she couldn’t name. His face came into focus before her, oddly bruised and smeared with blood. “What happened?”
“He has Sophia! You must get her back!” The words slurred on her tongue. Isadora wasn’t even certain she had said them right. But he must go, hemust.
Nicholas took hold of her shoulders and eased her to the ground. “Stay with me,” was his gruff, almost pained command, and then he was off, running around the side of the house as though his life depended on it.
Isadora closed her eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Nicholas’s face throbbed from the beating he had received at the tavern, yet his entire body pulsed with a new, primal sort of terror. The moment he’d arrived from the back of the house and smelled smoke, he had known something was wrong, but the sight of Isadora’s stumbling run, blood soaking the back of her neck, had made an entirely new terror break free.
He could not lose her. He could not.
But first, he needed to find Sophia.
As soon as he crested the side of the house, he saw Sherborne sprinting with Sophia under his arm.
Such rage. Nicholas had never known such rage.
It didn’t matter whether Sophia was of his blood or not; he had no right to steal her. And Nicholas would bring the full forceof the law down on his head. There would be no escaping his wrath. Everything he did from now on, he would do to ensure Sherborne never saw the light of day.
All the threats, the doubts, the uncertainty, they all came crashing into Nicholas now. He bellowed out a primordial roar and launched himself after Sherborne. Unlike the other man, he was bigger and stronger, and he was not encumbered by a small child he was in the process of stealing.
It took him a handful of seconds to reach Sherborne’s side, spin him around, and plant a facer right in his mouth. Sophia slipped to the ground, and Nicholas caught her arm with one hand.
“Are you hurt?”
Sherborne attempted to rise, and Nicholas tripped him again without so much as looking at him. He scanned Sophia’s face for any sign of pain, but he found none.
“He said he was my father,” Sophia mumbled, her voice catching on a sob.
“Iam your father,” Nicholas said fiercely. “And I will never let anyone take you away from me.”
Two figures ran across the lawn to them. A gardener, followed by a footman. After taking one look at the burly gardener, Nicholas nodded and pointed to where Sherborne was already scrambling to his feet again, running across the field. “Catch him and puthim in the cellar, then send for the magistrate. I will deal with him later.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Nicholas scooped Sophia into his arms and jogged back toward where he had seen Isadora, his heart contracting in his chest. “It’s almost over now,” he told her.
Sophia let out another hiccupping sob, and Nicholas wished he could go back and beat Sherborne into a pulp. “He scared the kittens…”
So that was what had been in her arms. Nicholas might have smiled for her had he not rounded the corner and seen Isadora where he had left her, though rather more slumped over than before, her face terrifyingly pale.
