Badcock by Debra Glass Page B

he’d ruined her and, worse, he couldn’t get her out of his mind—or out of his dreams.
    She’d called Wisbech a brute. Jack found it difficult to imagine that foppish dandy acting brutish at all but he recalled how Sophia acted in Wisbech’s presence. She shrank from him. When she’d thought he, Jack, was a highwayman, she’d climbed onto his horse and had left with him with only one look back at Wisbech . He’d traded her for a ring.
    A ring.
    What sort of gentleman traded his fiancée for a jewel, heirloom or not?
    And then her thoughts turned back to Jack.
    Love.
    Sophia didn’t love him. If she did, she wouldn’t be marrying a brute who’d traded her for a bauble. She’d consent to become his mistress and live out a life of pleasure and ease in Paris, far from Wisbech and society.
    Jack drew in a sharp breath and even as he called himself mad, he yanked the bell pull to call for a servant to saddle Armageddon.
    * * * * *
    It was all Sophia could do to keep from falling apart as Lady Huntingdon dragged them mercilessly from manor to manor.
    Sophia had learned to remain in the company of Miss Markham, who seemed to genuinely like her companionship. As long as she was with the other ladies, Lady Huntingdon’s thinly veiled but sharply aimed barbs lost most of their sting.
    Besides, Sophia didn’t need Lady Huntingdon’s reminders that she would never be anything more than a common doxy to Jack. It was good that Jack had told her she’d been a mistake. It was good that he’d been so cruel. Now, she could walk down the aisle and marry Lord Wisbech without her…love—mortified, she remembered how she’d expressed her love for Jack. She cringed every time she remembered it but now, she could marry without some silly notion of love getting in her way.
    By the time the carriage pulled up in front of her house, Sophia was exhausted.
    She bade her farewell to Lady Huntingdon and to Miss Markham but Miss Pettigrew snored soundly from her position slumped in the corner of the coach.
    “The next time I see you, you’ll be Lady Sophia, Duchess of Wisbech ,” Lady Huntingdon said snidely.
    Sophia ignored the remark. She took the footman’s hand and descended the coach steps.
    Before the footman could close the coach door, Lady Huntingdon leaned forward and smiled without mirth. “That is, unless something unfortunate happens.”
    * * * * *
    “He’s impoverished!” Jack’s friend, Hugh Darlington, exclaimed as he sank into a leather chair at their gentleman’s club.
    Jack sipped his brandy. That would explain why he was so desperate to marry Sophia despite the fact that she’d been spoiled.
    “He’s the scorn of society,” Hugh said, rising to refill his snifter. “Everyone knows some highway robber had his fiancée.”
    “Yes,” Jack said. It panged him with guilt to no end. “I heard about that. Most unfortunate. But if he is so impoverished, then what of his servants?”
    Hugh scoffed. “He can’t keep them in his employ.”
    “Why not? No funds?”
    Hugh shook his head. “He’s known to have a foul temper. Rumor was that when his father was alive, Ralph beat a servant girl so badly she died later.”
    Jack stared at the paneled walls without really taking in the richly waxed wood and the plush crimson carpeting of the club. “Why was he not brought up on charges?”
    “His connections to the Duke of Gloucester, as far as I know.”
    “ Wisbech is a brute ,”Sophia’s voice echoed in Jack’s head. Had Wisbech already shown her his wrath?
    Jack heaved a sigh and swirled his brandy around in the snifter watching the legs of the amber liquid cling to the crystal before cascading downward. This revelation complicated matters. Greatly. He’d decided to end it with the girl, to let her have her grand title and her place in the haut ton .
    But now?
    She’d wanted to marry him and instinct told him she was holding out for just that. But there was still no way he could marry her. For God’s