“What is this?”
Sophie didn’t release him, merely turned slightly to see Leah now on her feet, staring at them.
“What is what, you foul-tongued fishwife?”
“Don’t you dare speak to me that way, you ignorant spoiled brat! You are betraying your sister just as I saw her betraying the prince yesterday, kissing Devlin Monroe at the top of the stairs. All know your precious aunt is to wed the prince, no one else, certainly not the future Duke of Brabante, whose family would not allow her through the door.
“Yes, all know you want the prince, but he doesn’t want you. He wants Roxanne. So what are you doing kissing him? Marry him? What the devil is going on here?”
Sophie said slowly, “Roxanne told me about your tirade yesterday when she was with Devlin. She laughed and laughed, said you didn’t understand, and it was really quite funny. But it isn’t funny, is it, Leah?”
Julian, never releasing Sophie, said quietly, “This is why Richard had Roxanne kidnapped yet again. He thought I was going to marry her, and he wanted me to know the pain he knew when Lily died.”
“Your precious Lily didn’t simply die. Richard swore to me that you murdered her, you shot your very own wife!”
“Richard is quite wrong,” Sophie said. “And you are a credulous fool, Leah.”
“What do you know, you ignorant little twit?”
“I am not a twit, nor will I be ignorant for much longer. I am magnificent.”
Leah waved her fist at them. “What is this, Prince? You can’t make me believe you will wed this pathetic little girl.”
“I am not a little girl. I am twenty years old.”
Julian laughed. “She will be my wife. I quite like the sound of that, Sophie. My wife.”
“That is not possible.” Leah stared hard at Julian. “Not Roxanne?”
“No, not Roxanne. She and Devlin are going to wed.”
“She is not worthy to marry a duke’s heir! She is only a baron’s daughter.”
“She is an heiress, Aunt Leah.”
“She is no more an heiress than I am!”
Sophie smiled up at Julian. “When she was only seventeen, her father, Lord Roche, realized she had a knack for selecting profitable investments. He gave her her entire dowry, and she tripled it by the time she was my age. My grandfather told me of this himself. He is so very proud of her. So, yes, I know she is an heiress.”
Leah shouted, “I don’t believe that. I never heard of such a thing. Father simply said that to make her sound more important than she is. An heiress? Impossible.”
“I wonder why your own father did not tell you, ex-relative.”
Leah paused, regrouped. “Even if she is an heiress, it makes no difference, the Monroe family will never accept her. She will be spat upon, turned away; she will probably become his mistress. She should excel at that role, what with her wicked red hair.
“Of the three Radcliffe sisters, I am the most beautiful, the one most sought after and admired. I am Lady Merrick. Why, look at who Bethanne married—that ridiculous vicar who proses on and on, boring everyone senseless. And he only managed to produce you, a simpleton girl with no pretensions to anything at all. Your mother was a fool.”
Sophie felt violence brim to overflowing, rising up to choke her. She tried to jerk away from Julian, but he held her tight. She shook her fist at Leah. “Don’t you talk about my mother like that. She was magic, my mother, and she was good and kind and loving. She never said a bad word about you, even when you deserved to have your rear end kicked.”
Leah’s breasts were heaving with anger. “Be quiet, you idiot. Magnificent? You’re nothing but a bad jest; the prince will see the truth of you soon enough, hopefully before he weds you.” She whirled away from them and began pacing the drawing room, muttering to herself over and over, “Everything is wrong, everything. What am I to do?”
62
EARLY MORNING
Roxanne gingerly touched her fingers to her jaw, and that made her realize she wasn’t bound, much to her relief. Her jaw wasn’t broken, thank God, but it hurt. She realized she was lying on a dirty narrow cot, shoved up against a wall. She slowly sat up, felt the room spin a bit, and held perfectly still until it passed. She swung her legs over the edge of the cot, rose, weaved like a drunkard for a moment, then the punch of dizziness passed.
She was in a small room, with only one old slatted chair and a filthy chamber pot in the corner. There was a single window, so dirty she couldn’t see clearly through it, could see only that it was daylight. Nothing else. Where was she?