“Do you mind if I sit with you for a while?” she said, her hand resting on the sherry decanter. “Sleep eludes me, too. Jessica often behaves oddly the night before Dr Goodwin arrives.”
“Behaves oddly? How so?” Focusing on the case helped divert all amorous thoughts.
Sophia removed the crystal stopper and poured a glass of sherry. The air thrummed with suppressed tension, which was no doubt the reason she drank the contents before refilling the elegant stem glass.
“Jessica becomes restless. She starts pacing and mumbling.” Sophia came to sit on the sofa. “She radiates a strange energy. Excitement mingled with apprehension.”
Finlay pondered the information. “Has Dr Goodwin suggested moving her to an institution?” Those with fragile minds were often highly perceptive. “If so, might she have overheard the conversation?” Though that did not account for her eagerness to see the physician.
“Dr Goodwin believes if she were to reside at a place where he could attend her daily, he might have more success managing her condition.”
“An asylum?”
“No. A private hospital near O
xford, some five miles from Godstow. He raised the subject recently and seems loath to accept my refusal. Persistence is his middle name I fear. During his last visit, I threatened to find another physician if he continued his pestering.”
“And how did Dr Goodwin react?”
Sophia raised her chin, offering a glimpse of the confident lady who commanded every man’s attention in the ballroom. “With arrogance and cool aplomb. He called my bluff and told me to hire someone else while reminding me another physician would have her committed.”
Dr Goodwin wasn’t exaggerating.
Most women confined to asylums were sane.
“Maybe Jessica has formed an attachment to the doctor. Maybe she fears this might be his last visit.” Finlay relaxed back in the chair. “Though in my experience, obvious assumptions are often wrong.”
“I have learnt to take nothing for granted.”
“Indeed.”
Silence—that seemed as long as the years they’d been parted—stretched between them.
Sophia’s gaze turned reflective as she studied him in the dim light. “Can I ask you something?” She didn’t wait for a reply. “Why do you do this?”
“Do what?” He knew exactly what she meant.
“Why do you work as an enquiry agent? Your father was a decorated Major General in the Royal Fusiliers. Having saved the life of Viscount Morley’s youngest son, most men consider you a war hero. You have wealth, intelligence and an impeccable reputation. Why risk your life trying to catch a deserter or solve the murder of a maid?”
He could offer several reasons. Namely, he had nothing else to live for. In saving others, he hoped to save himself. Death might bring the peace he craved. But he refused to reveal his motives, refused to revisit that dark place despite the devil’s calling.
“You’ve kept abreast of my cases, Sophia,” he said in the playful tone that sounded foreign to his ears. “Dr Goodwin might say such an interest borders on obsession.”
The lady swirled the sherry in the glass. “I have an unhealthy interest in everything you do, Mr Cole.” Her gaze rose slowly to meet his. “It’s how I know you don’t have a mistress. You rarely visit gentlemen’s clubs and discard invitations to balls and soirees unless attendance is pertinent to a case. When you’re not working, you spend your nights alone at home.”
He suffered from the same obsession and knew as much about her habits and tastes.
“You failed to mention brothels,” he teased. “If you’re confident I don’t have a mistress, where do you suppose I take my pleasure?” Between her soft thighs was the only place he’d dreamed about of late.
Sophia’s chin dropped, but she regained her composure. “I cannot imagine you visiting a bordello.” Her gaze slipped over his chest with the same fervent hunger he’d witnessed this morning. “I thought you preferred your women more … wholesome.”
“Not always. But I would rather feel something for the women I bed.”
She swallowed deeply. “So there has been no one since Hannah?”
He might have told her to mind her own damn business, but said, “No. No one since Hannah.” Though he was not short of offers.
“Envy is like a crippling disease, is it not?” A sad sigh left her lips. “I have never coveted anything in my life, but I desperately wanted what she had.” Her hand shook as she raised the glass to her lips.