With Sophie he felt an almost mystical connection, though he refused to believe in such things. He’d felt it the first time he’d seen her, and been fighting it ever since. He loved her anger, her sweetness, her smart mouth, and her fierce sexuality. And by God, he loved her cooking. He could worship at her feet if he wasn’t afraid she’d stomp on him. And that was still another reason why he loved her. She was afraid of no one; she would do anything, risk anything.
She was also damned volatile, and she could have viewed their long night together with belated embarrassment, and he hadn’t been there to soothe her. She might have decided he was pond scum once more, and try to escape, particularly since he’d given back her shoes.
But he trusted her. If she left he would find her. If she left he had the very strong suspicion she’d find some reason to come back. She was as drawn to him as he was to her, and he didn’t think she could just walk away, any more than he could.
He’d lef
t her alone with Rufus. For some reason the notion troubled him, making him quicken his pace. There was something off about Rufus in the last few years, something strange and excitable that worried Alexander. There was no reason why Rufus would harm her, though he’d made it clear he thought the idea of Alexander marrying her was insane. Then again, Rufus was his heir, and Alexander had sworn off marriage after Jessamine’s death. Rufus could have gotten used to thinking of himself as the future Viscount Griffiths.
No, Rufus wouldn’t hurt her. He wasn’t like his vicious mother. He could blacken Alexander’s character with his malicious tongue, but Alexander could take care of that by taking Sophie in his arms and speaking the words he was so wary of. Words that were so easy and so hard.
He quickened his pace. The house was too close to get a hackney, too far to get there fast. He strode through the streets at something very close to a run.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“ARE YOU READY?” RUFUS ducked his head inside the door, his charming smile leaving Sophie unmoved. She was about to make her escape over the rooftops of London from the man she loved, the man who had either abandoned her or, if she were to believe Rufus’s outlandish tales, might even kill her, and the only person she could turn to was Rufus Griffiths, a man she disliked and distrusted.
She couldn’t shake the agitation Rufus brought out in her whenever he was near. Perhaps it was simply her confusion about this entire situation, and it had all devolved onto Alexander’s hapless brother.
But there was nothing hapless about Rufus; she had no doubt of it. From his charming, self-deprecating smile to his one perfect curl on his forehead, he was artifice personified.
He was offering to help her, and she couldn’t afford to be picky, to let an unexpected queasiness get in her way. She rose, feeling like her old self in her dress, with the almost-new corset Gemma had found among her belongings. She’d lost some weight, probably from the missed meals, and Gemma had been set to tighten that instrument of torture still further when Sophie had begged her to stop. At Renwick she wouldn’t have to wear a corset, or shoes, or do anything she didn’t want to do. At least, not in the perfect Renwick she pictured in her mind. She could even take off everything and slip into the pool. She wanted that glorious feeling of the cool water all around her again, this time with bright sunlight overhead.
But that was all a fantasy, and she was much better off not thinking about it. She had to look ahead, not behind.
She followed Rufus, watching the slight limp that he’d tried to disguise, and she wondered how he’d been hurt. That had never been explained, nor had his connection to pirates, but presumably he’d shared the story with Alexander. She didn’t need to know. Forward, she reminded herself. Not back.
“This way,” he said, opening a door toward the end of the hallway that she hadn’t even seen. It was cut into the wall, and she realized it was a servants’ entrance. “We don’t want to risk anyone seeing us—they’d try to stop you.”
The steps were narrow, winding, and he reached behind her to pull the door shut, his arm brushing against her body. Even with all the layers of female armor she felt a flinch of fear shake her, and she wondered what would happen if she simply went back, if she ignored Rufus’s warning and faced Alexander whenever he returned. Rufus was undoubtedly lying about some of the things he’d told her. Everybody lied at some point or another, and it was clear Rufus was jealous of his brother.
“Come along, Miss Russell,” he whispered, and she turned forward, ready to follow him. But for some reason, purely instinctive, she gave a little kick backwards, and the door opened just a crack.
Rufus didn’t notice, and she hadn’t an earthly idea why she did it, but for some reason it seemed necessary as she followed Rufus up into the darkness.
It ended in a large, barren room. There were windows at either end, boxes and odd pieces of furniture in storage, but the shadows were too deep under the eaves to see. There were probably a thousand rats up here, she thought, shivering. She could feel their eyes on her in the darkness.
There was a narrow door beside one of the windows, and Rufus had already pushed it open, hurrying her along, as if he didn’t want her to look too closely into the darkness. I’m not afraid of a few rats, she thought defiantly, but followed him nonetheless. The less she thought about it, the easier it would be.
She walked out the door and immediately froze, slamming herself back against a brick chimney. She’d been envisioning a nice, flat rooftop, easy to traverse, but this one was slanted at a fairly sharp angle, the next roof was too far away to jump, and she could see no way down, even if she managed to get across them without falling.
Rufus had already pushed the door closed behind her, or Sophie would have turned around and dived back inside. She wasn’t afraid of heights, but this was different, with all of London laid out before her, the street miles below. She glanced behind her, and the garden seemed equally far away.
A wind was whipping through the rooftops, pulling at her hair, tugging at her voluminous skirts, and she clung tighter to the brick. Alexander’s house was one of the few with a hut-like wooden entrance on top of the roof, presumably so the climbing boys could get to the chimneys. A window looked out over the roof, and once more she felt beady, ratlike eyes watching her.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” She had to raise her voice a bit for Rufus to hear her. A light drizzle had begun, and she wondered if it would make the slate tiles slippery. That was all she needed.
“Done it a dozen or more times,” Rufus said cheerfully, his hair flopping in the wind. “Just give me your hand.”
He held out his own, but for the moment she couldn’t move. “Just let me gather myself,” she said shakily. “I hadn’t realized it was this high.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a peculiarly sweet smile. “Don’t even think about it. It won’t take but a minute.”
She reached out and put her hand in his and began inching across the pitch of the roof. Her heart was pounding wildly, and she realized she was afraid, terrified, in fact, when she’d never been afraid before. She looked up at Rufus, and she knew for certain that she’d been a fool.
“Come on,” he called to her, lifting his voice above the wind. “You’re better off on the far side of the roof. You don’t want people seeing you up here—they may make a fuss, call attention to us, and then the servants would try to stop you. It could be dangerous up here if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
She glanced down, way down, into the street. There was some kind of commotion going on right in front of their house—people milling about, angry voices rising up to her. And then someone turned his face up, way up, to the roof, and even from that distance she knew it was Alexander. Alexander, coming for her. Alexander, who cared for her.