After Innocence (9 page)

Edward eyed her. But his tone was equally polite. “Good enough. How is your daughter today? Is she feeling better?”

Suzanne’s heart sank like a rock, making her feel quite ill. “Sofie is just fine.” She forced a smile and walked to
him, touching his arm lightly, flirtatiously. It was a gesture she used often with men. “You need not worry about my daughter, Mr. Delanza. I can assure you of that. Sofie overdid it yesterday, that is all. I am sure she will be fine today.”

His smile pasted in place, he said, “Then you haven’t seen her yet.”

She shook her head. “She has not come downstairs.”

His nostrils flared, his eyes darkened. “Perhaps she does not feel any better this morning. Perhaps you should check on her, Mrs. Ralston.”

She laughed softly, but the sick feeling in her chest ballooned. “I know my daughter, sir. I really do. Nothing is wrong with Sofie, but if it soothes you, why, I will check on her in a few minutes.”

“It would soothe me enormously,” he said, a muscle in his cheek ticking.

“Mr. Delanza, you are overly concerned about my daughter!” Suzanne exclaimed.

“Your daughter was not feeling well last night; need I remind you of that?”

Suzanne summoned up another smile. “Mr. Delanza, might we be frank?”

“By all means.”

“Your concern for Sofie … You are not really interested in my daughter, are you?”

He stared. His blue gaze was chilling, and she felt a frisson of fear. Like Jake, this man was far more than a rogue—he was dangerous if provoked. “I am very interested in your daughter, Mrs. Ralston, but not in the manner you suggest.”

She was not relieved. “In what manner, then?”

“In the manner of any wormy gentleman towards any proper young lady.”

Suzanne picked over his words.

“Contrary to public gossip, I do not pursue eighteen-year-old debs.” He was grim. “Have I set your mind at rest?”

He had not, not at all. He was angry and unable to hide it. She decided against correcting the error he’d made
regarding Sofie’s age; if he thought her so young, maybe it would protect her from him regardless of what he avowed. “I was hardly disturbed,” she lied.

He raised a brow.

Removing his gaze from her, he strolled about the room, inspecting bric-a-brac. He turned, flashed a seductive grin. “Now I’ll be frank, Mrs. Ralston.”

Suzanne tensed.

“I’m having a lot of trouble understanding why no one made any effort on behalf of your daughter last night when she got up from her chair and cried out in such pain.”

Suzanne drew herself up straighter. “What?”

“Why was I the only gentleman to come to Sofie’s aid?”

Suzanne drew her shoulders back. “Perhaps you have erroneously judged us, Mr. Delanza, as well as the situation. Everyone in our circle is quite aware that Sofie is a cripple, so no one was taken by surprise by her infirmity—unlike yourself. Obviously you reacted instinctively, thoughtlessly, while the rest of us chose
not
to humiliate Sofie, by
ignoring
the fact that she is a cripple.”

His smile was twisted and brief. “That’s such an ugly word—
cripple.
Can’t you find a better one?”

“But she i
s
a cripple, Mr. Delanza.”

His eyes blazed. “That’s the third time in the space of as many seconds that you’ve cast that particular stone,” he said, his smile hard and forced.

But Suzanne was afraid and angry—and tired of pretense. “I do not cast stones at my own daughter, sir.”

“Then call her anything but a cripple.”

Suzanne took a breath, reminding herself that he was not Jake and that he was a guest and that so far, nothing untoward had happened.
Yet.
“She has a deformed ankle, Mr. Delanza.”

Edward paused, too. His left brow cocked up high. “Really? I massaged it last night and didn’t find it deformed. Unless you call a small bump on the bone deformed?”

Suzanne’s eyes widened. “Surely you jest! Are you making some kind of game out of my daughter, Mr. Delanza? Or of me? Are you amusing yourself at our expense?”

Edward stared, his eyes narrowed. “No, but I see that I’m going up against a brick wall.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Abruptly he said, “She told me some of what happened. Why would a little girl with a broken ankle suffer rather than go to her mother for help?”

Suzanne paled and stiffened. “It is not your affair!”

His voice dropped low, became distinctly dangerous. “But I made it my affair last night—when no one else did.”

Despite the fact that she knew him for what he was—another Jake—or maybe because of it, Suzanne felt her own heart flutter wildly in her breast in response to his soft, menacing words. More than that, she felt the blood in her loins, pumping more insistently now. She did not want to feel desire, and she stood very still, willing this feeling to leave her body. And because he was only a very attractive, younger man, because he was not Jake and never would be, the moment passed, her blood slowed and subsided.

Suzanne found her voice. “What is going on here?”

“I would like to ask that question myself,” Edward said grimly.

“I have every right to know your intentions, sir.”

“And I have every right to show compassion to another human being.”

Suzanne gave up any further attempt at politeness. “Hah!” Her gaze flayed his groin. “I know exactly the kind of compassion you would like to show my daughter, Mr. Delanza! Your compassion was evident last night!”

He was still, his eyes blazingly blue, but a faint pink color tinged his cheeks, giving him away.

“You cannot possibly tell me your motivation is compassion. You think to seduce my daughter, do you not?” Suzanne heard the high, slightly hysterical pitch of her own voice.

He inhaled loudly. “No, I do not. I take offense at the mere suggestion. Jesus! I would not seduce an innocent.”

“No?” She laughed, incredulous.

“No.” He was firm, his jaw flexed. “I do not destroy innocence, Mrs. Ralston, despite what you may have heard.”

Unfortunately, Suzanne was struck by an image of him embracing Sofie, and it felt like a premonition, seemed like a harbinger of doom. “So you wish to court her and one day propose matrimony, then?” she mocked.

His eyes widened. “No.”

“I didn’t think so!” she cried.

“You are overwrought without cause,” he said flatly.

“No! I am not! You have gall—utter gall!” Suzanne had lost control, something she rarely did—except with Jake. “I know you, Mr. Delanza; do not fool yourself for an instant. You see, you are exactly like my first husband, who was nothing but an oversexed, philandering adventurer, and a Johnny-come-lately, too. So divert your charm elsewhere. Divert your lust elsewhere. I am warning you!”

“You are so fiercely maternal, Mrs. Ralston. Yet somehow I question the nature of your concerns.”

“She
is
an innocent, Mr. Delanza. I do not wish to see her hurt.” Suzanne trembled, thinking of Jake. “A man like you could only hurt her.”

“I am not going to hurt your daughter, Mrs. Ralston, and that is a promise.”

Suzanne laughed. “Men like you make promises only to break them. Listen closely, Mr. Delanza. Sofie has been unaware of men until now, and you are going to awaken urges in her that are better left dead. I forbid it.”

“What has you so scared?” he demanded sharply. His gaze was hard as the diamonds his reputation was based upon. “If Sofie hasn’t noticed men, then she should damn well start. Maybe she’d give up her ridiculous notions to remain unwed. I’d think you’d
want
her interested in marriage. If she’s not interested, how are you going to find her a husband and convince her to wed?”

“That is not your affair.” Suzanne was furious—and even more frightened of his interest in Sofie than before. But she added tersely, “For your information, sir, I support Sofie’s decision to remain a spinster.”

He started. “What?!”

“Sofie’s only passion is art. She has no wish to marry—not ever—thank God. It is for the best, all things considered.”

He was incredulous. “That is certainly very caring and maternal of you, Mrs. Ralston!”

Suzanne had had enough. She marched forward. “I am protecting her from bounders like yourself, and from far worse—from facing the fact that no man is prepared to take a cripple to wife. So leave her alone, Mr. Delanza, before you put impossible dreams in her head.” Suzanne added, mockingly, “Unless you wish to marry her yourself?”

Edward continued to stare at her as if she were a two-headed monster.

Suzanne continued harshly, “I think it would be best for everyone if you left. You are interfering in Sofie’s affairs, and I do not like it. I am sorry, Mr. Delanza—but I am asking you to leave.”

A long pause ensued, Suzanne hard and determined, Edward expressionless. Finally he said, “If you really don’t wish to see her hurt, stop calling her a cripple—stop treating her as one.”

Suzanne gasped.

Edward’s smile was cold. He bowed. “As you have not been reassured, Mrs. Ralston, I will leave immediately.” With that, he made his exit, his strides long and hard and angry.

Edward waited for the carriage to come round to the front of the house to pick him up and take him to the depot in town. He leaned one shoulder against the white clapboard wall of the house, smoking. The starkly white driveway, composed of crushed seashells, stretched ahead of him, winding past the carriage house, stables, and servants’ quarters, to finally reach the eight-foot-tall wrought-iron gates, now open. On the main road beyond, Edward watched several pairs of bicyclists go by, a half dozen horses and carriages, and finally a gleaming black “bubble,” driven by a grinning young man in a duster, cap, and goggles. There were three young ladies in the backseat, similarly clad, screeching in both fright and laughter.

Edward smiled slightly, the sight of the automobile momentarily diverting him from his feelings of guilt. He had not seen Sofie as he’d hoped to, he had not said good-bye
to her. She had not been at breakfast that morning, nor had she taken a morning perambulation with the other guests. He recalled her terrible limp last night, remembered how swollen her ankle had been, and guessed that she was still abed. He told himself it hardly mattered that he was leaving without a proper good-bye now; he would see her again in the city. He would make a point of it.

Edward was giving in to the strangest compulsion—to champion her. For it was abundantly clear to him that Sofie needed a champion.

He winced, thinking of Suzanne Ralston. There was nothing unusual in her desire to protect her daughter from hurt; indeed, Edward would have been appalled had she not rushed forward to intervene once she saw his concern for Sofie. But there was far more to Suzanne Ralston than the maternal instinct of protectiveness. Edward could not decide if she was aware of the extent of her own cruelty. He hoped it was not deliberate. Yet how could she flagellate Sofie so callously with the epithet of cripple? Did she really believe that? Did she have something to gain from that? And how could she agree with Sofie’s decision not to marry? It was absurd. Every mother hoped to see her daughter safely and securely wed.

Edward inhaled hard. Despite himself, he was swept back to southern Africa. The plain shimmered in front of him, glowing from the unworldly heat. An acrid stench bit into his nostrils—the stench of burned flesh, both human and animal, of charred wood and crops.

The scorched-earth policy had been begun by the British, but it had quickly been copied by the Boers. And its victims were the innocent. Edward had seen bodies burned to death of both sexes, all ages, all sizes. He knew firsthand that life was both fragile and precious.

And he had seen cripples. Real cripples. He had seen men blinded from the battlefield, men missing arms or legs. He had even seen one shockingly pitiful wreck who had lost all four limbs. It was one of the most horrid sights Edward had ever seen. It was a sight that he would never forget.

Sofie was not a cripple. Edward remembered how she had fell in his arms last night for that one single heartbeat of time. Warm, womanly, wonderful. He recalled her pronounced limp. She was not perfect, but then, no one he knew was. She was young, lovely, very talented, and preciously alive. But she had yet to really live.

She might think she was devoted to her art—and he sensed that was true—but he also sensed it was partly a way to avoid what she feared—the kind of rejection he had witnessed last night in the salon. How stupid everyone was.

So it seemed that Edward was going to rescue Sofie from herself. And why shouldn’t he? Wasn’t it time for him to atone for some of his own sins? His whole life had been nothing but self-serving; he was a hedonist through and through. Wasn’t it time to take on someone else’s cause? To do something noble and worthy for a change? Edward wouldn’t mind proving, even if only to himself, that his reputation was half-wrong. Perhaps he might even redeem himself as a man.

And in the process, he would set Sofie free. He would liberate her from her own inaccurate self-perceptions, fostered by her mother, perhaps even encouraged by Suzanne for her own selfish ends. When the day came that Sofie realized just how whole she was, he would walk away, satisfied. Or would he?

Last night he had hardly slept. Concern for Sofie had consumed him. There were so many questions he wished to ask about her, each and every one far too intimate for a stranger to pose.

Hilary had tried to pry, but he was not about to share his thoughts of Sofie with his mistress. She had finally given up and left his room sometime before dawn.

Edward grew uneasy, recalling how soundly and heatedly he had taken Hilary last night. While he was making love to his mistress, he’d had images of Sofie filling his mind, images that were thoroughly erotic and vastly carnal.

Very firmly, Edward shoved his darkest thoughts aside. Sofie needed a friend, or an older brother, and it was going to be him. He would champion her and he would ignore
the more depraved wanderings of his mind—and his libido. After all, self-control was what separated mankind from base bestiality. If he could not control himself, he was no better than his reputation claimed.