“No, you are known for your kindness.” Skye nodded as if coming to a decision. “Very well, then. As I said, it will help if you understand Jack. You need to realize he will go slowly in any courtship. He is not likely to risk his heart easily. Not after the trauma he endured as a child.”
“Trauma?”
“You know that Jack was the love child of my aunt, Lady Clara Wilde?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he was only six when he watched his mother be killed by a Paris mob during their bloody Revolution. He spent that night holding her body, until a corpse wagon finally came and took her away.”
Shock filled Sophie at the gruesome revelation. Her brush faltered as she met Skye’s somber gaze in the mirror. “How terrible.”
“Indeed it was, but his story gets even worse. Jack lost his direction trying to find his way home to their lodgings, and when he at last managed it, all the servants had fled, English and French alike. By then Jack’s father had returned to his own country—a principality bordering France—since the Revolution was growing more dangerous by the day. So young Jack had no one to turn to. For nearly a week, he lived on the streets, scavenging for food and trying to fend for himself, until a tavern-keeper finally took him in.”
“Thank heaven,” Sophie murmured hoarsely.
“Actually it was quite the opposite,” Skye replied, her tone grim. “The tavern-keeper’s scheme was to get rich. He knew Jack had wealthy English relatives, and if he couldn’t be ransomed, then he could be sold. Jack was a handsome child and would have brought a high price in the flesh trade. So he was locked in a garret and half-starved for months as punishment for attempting to escape.”
“Oh, my God.” Sophie turned fully in her seat to stare at Skye. “He was only six years old?” she breathed in horror. “I cannot even imagine.…” And yet sadly she could. The image brought an ache to her throat … a young child, grieving for his dead mother, alone and terrified, being held prisoner for ransom or worse.
“Indeed,” Skye agreed quietly. “You won’t hear about his ordeal from Jack, for he never, ever speaks of it. Our family only pieced together his story small fragments at a time.”
“How did he survive?”
Skye answered in a low voice. “It was many weeks before news of my Aunt Clara’s death got back to our family in England. One of her English friends wrote to notify us of her passing and of her young son’s disappearance. Of course my father and my Uncle Stephen—Lord Beaufort—immediately went to Paris to find Jack. They searched everywhere frantically, but by then he had been missing for nearly two months. The Parisians were very little help. At that time, British citizens could still move freely about France, but they were intensely disliked, especially noblemen like my father and uncle. Another fortnight passed before finally—miraculously—they found Jack and rescued him from the tavern-keeper. A sympathetic serving girl had risked her position to tip them off.”
“Thank God. They brought him home to England?”
“Yes. I wasn’t even born at the time, but when I was old enough to understand, Quinn and Ash told me about meeting Jack for the first time. Sophie, it was heartbreaking. When Jack arrived at Beauvoir, he was pitifully thin and practically mute, shying away from even a gentle touch, clinging to the little dormouse he had befriended. That mouse was his only consolation during those horrible months of captivity, my father said. Jack kept it safe in his pocket and would never let it out of his sight. Then his pet died when I was a baby, and I became his substitute. Jack made it his mission to watch over me—as if he was determined to protect me from anything bad happening. But even I couldn’t make him let down his guard when we were children, not even with those of us who loved him dearly. I think he was afraid to care for anyone after he lost his mother so brutally. And his defensiveness was only compounded when he also lost his adopted parents some years later.”
Sophie felt her eyes burn with tears. “That is understandable.”
“Yes.”
“How did he come to be adopted?”
“His natural father eventually came to England to fetch him, but Jack refused to have anything to do with him. After that, my Uncle Stephen legally recognized Jack, but it took many years for him to feel as if he belonged. Ours is a tight-knit family, very loving and devoted to one another, and our bonds helped to heal him for the most part. But there are still little signs that he never fully recovered.”
“Such as?”
“His stomach is a bottomless pit, for instance. He endured near starvation, so now he eats frequently, and he always keeps food handy—nuts or fruit or cheese.”
Was that why he had brought her
breakfast early that morning when they met by the bridge? Sophie wondered. And why he had eaten an apple so shortly after tea when he’d come to her bedchamber last night?
Her speculations were cut short when Skye went on with her disclosures. “Jack also learned how to excel at fighting in order to defend himself. He is extremely skilled at fisticuffs and a master with swords, pistols, knives … even better than Ash and Quinn. Jack once admitted to me that he was determined never to be helpless again.”
Skye paused as if recalling a painful memory. “It hurts to remember how driven by fear he was as a boy.” Then she forced her mouth into a semblance of a smile. “But the effects of his suffering are not all adverse. It has made him more compassionate, certainly. Jack has long supported a London orphanage, and he regularly visits the stews of London to deliver food and clothing to the street children there, especially in the dead of winter.”
And he helps to finance a home for unwed mothers, Sophie thought to herself, something Skye probably didn’t even know about.
“But the most crucial thing is, Jack is leery of trusting anyone but family. He has buried all his feelings so deeply, he won’t let anyone in. He may act the lovable rogue and indulge in reckless, even outrageous exploits, and he rarely appears serious, but his devil-may-care image is deceptive, Sophie. Under all that irreverent charm lie hidden depths that he conceals from the world.”
Sophie found herself nodding in agreement. She had sensed his reticence to share his own past, but now she knew why he hid his emotions behind a roguish mask.
“Jack is a wonderful man,” Skye added earnestly, “and I believe he can learn to love and trust again. However, it will require a special kind of woman to make him open his heart. The kind of woman I think you are, Sophie. He will be very well worth the effort, I promise you.”
She held Sophie’s gaze for a moment longer. Then suddenly some of Skye’s somberness disappeared. “Please, don’t tell Jack I told you any of this. He would murder me if he knew I was revealing his secrets. And he would never tolerate coddling or sympathy, much less pity.”