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Was this the reason Sophie visited him tonight? Did she suddenly have second thoughts on the scandal this would cause? Wild thoughts crossed his mind. She’d said his life was in peril. Was that just her way of stopping him from going? Or did she already know what Miss Littlebury was planning but had promised not to speak of it. None of the mad ideas in his head made any sense.
The door opened and Lord Middleton entered the room. Nicholas pushed Miss Littlebury away forcefully.
“Ancroft, what is going on here?” Middleton demanded.
“Bloody hell,” Somerton exclaimed as he walked into the room. “How did she get in here?”
“A secret passage,” Nicholas muttered as he dropped into a chair. He covered his face with his hands.
“Dammit,” Somerton muttered. “Why didn’t you listen to her?”
Why didn’t he listen to Sophie? Because he was a goddamned fool. He only thought to prove to her that her intuition wasn’t always right. Instead, he’d been caught in a compromising position by a friend of his father’s.
He never felt so angry with another person in his entire life.
Chapter 19
Sophie paced the small confines of her bedchamber until she finally heard a knock at her bedroom door. Her heart pounded so loudly she was certain the maid on the other side of the door could hear.
“Yes?”
“Lord Somerton is here, ma’am.”
Sophie dropped to the bed. She glanced over at her clock on the nightstand. It was nearly one in the morning. Deep in her heart, she knew this would not be good news. “Put him in my study. I’ll be there presently.”
Inhaling a long breath, she slowly exhaled, trying to calm her frayed nerves. She took a moment just to feel the sensation. He wasn’t dead, she was certain. Nonetheless, something was dreadfully wrong with Nicholas.
With leaden feet she walked toward her study. Her mind continued to bounce with questions. Why hadn’t she just accepted his proposal? Why hadn’t she told him that she was carrying his child? Why hadn’t she told him that she was falling in love with him?
“Sophie,” Somerton said as she walked into the room. “You look like hell. Sit down before you faint.”
She barely saw her brother standing in the middle of the room. But quickly, he was there, holding her elbow and leading her to the divan.
“What happened, Somerton?”
“In a minute,” he said, fanning her face with a book.
She grabbed the book from his hand and hurled it across the room. “I need to know now.”
“Very well.” Somerton clasped her hands in his. “Nicholas attended the ball.”
“I assumed that. What happened at the ball?”
“I did everything I could to prevent it, Sophie.”
“Somerton, tell me what happened,” she demanded. “Is he alive?”
Somerton scowled at her. “Alive? You thought this was life or death and didn’t tell me? Had I known that I never would have left him alone in Middleton’s study.”
“I wasn’t certain what any of this was about,” she admitted slowly. She told him about Lady Cantwell’s death and the blackness she saw when she read Nicholas. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
“He went into the study to give his father’s note to the man. I checked the room before I left him and no one was in the room. When Middleton and I entered the study, Miss Littlebury was in the room with him, kissing him. The back of her dress was undone.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered. “How did she get into the room?”
“A secret panel.” He moved away from her. “I blame myself, Sophie. You warned me to watch his back and I failed you. I should have insisted on staying in the room with him.”
Sophie stared down at her dressing gown. “You couldn’t have known about the panel. I wonder how she knew.”
