For Love Alone by Shirlee Busbee Page B

Anne would be staying with them indefinitely. After their initial shock, they had taken it well. Phoebe had been her usual sweet self, shyly welcoming the other girl and making Anne feel instantly at ease. Marcus had been almost indifferent to Sophy’s stray, but he had bowed politely and murmured that he hoped she would enjoy her stay with them.
    It was not until the next morning that the ramifications of what she had done were brought home to Sophy. After the stress of the previous evening, she had slept in. She had just finished a leisurely morning tea, Phoebe and Anne sprawled indecorously on her bed, when the unpleasant message was brought to her that her uncle and an unidentified lady were waiting for her in the blue saloon.
    Anne gasped and jerked upright. “It is my aunt. I know it is. She has come to drag me back to Russell Square.” Brown eyes imploring, she had gazed beseechingly at Sophy. “Oh, please! I beg of you, do not let her take me away!”
    â€œNonsense,” said Phoebe stoutly, despite the faint shadow of unease in her gaze. “Sophy will not let anyone wrest you away from here. You are safe. Sophy will protect you.”
    â€œYou do not know my aunt,” Anne replied piteously. “She is most determined, and she has brought him with her.” A sob came from her. “If I am returned to her, I am lost! No one will be able to save me from the horrid fate that was almost mine last night. I am doomed.”
    It was not too dramatic a reading of the situation, as Sophy knew full well. It occurred uneasily to her that she might have acted hastily. She had brought Anne into her house, but she had no legal right to keep her there. If her aunt demanded Anne’s return, and it was very probable that she would, legally Sophy would have to comply or find herself on the wrong side of the law.
    Her thoughts jumbled and unpleasant, Sophy reassured Anne as best she was able and, once both girls had been shooed from her room, hastily scrambled into her clothes. Feeling decidedly apprehensive about how to proceed, she descended the stairs not half an hour later. One thing was very clear in her mind. She would not desert Anne.
    The memory of her own desperately unhappy marriage came back to her. Law or no, she could not stand helplessly by and allow Anne’s aunt to thrust her into the arms of a blackguard like Edward. A militant gleam entered the gold eyes. There had been no one to save her from Simon, but Anne was not without protectors. She would see to it that no one forced the girl to suffer the same ugly fate she had endured at Simon’s hands.
    Her color high, her back rigid, she marched toward the blue saloon. Righteous determination carried her into the room. Spying Edward lounging in sartorial elegance against the marble fireplace mantel in a plum-colored coat of superfine and buff breeches, she plunged into battle.
    Boldly she said, “Strange, I distinctly remember telling Emerson that persons with a certain lack of morals were not allowed entrance to my house. What are you doing here? And how did you manage to force your way past my butler?”
    Edward sent her a look of pure dislike. “That is a rather nasty tongue you have, my dear. Someday someone is likely to clip it for you. I only pray I live to see the day.”
    â€œWell, it will not be you, will it? You only prey on the weak and defenseless,” she said sweetly.
    Edward’s face mottled with rage, and he actually took a threatening step toward her, when he was brought to a standstill by the other occupant of the room. Rising to her feet from the sofa where she had been sitting, the woman said calmly, “My lord Scoville, do not, I pray you, allow this poor, misguided creature to deter you from the reason we are here.”
    Meeting Sophy’s unfriendly gaze, she said coolly, “I am Agnes Weatherby. I understand that my niece is here. I wish to have her brought to me