“But you don’t know the whole story.”
Sophy sat in a chair, arranging her skirts about her. “I’m an excellent listener.”
* * *
“What an absolutely vile, despicable trick, Alexander Montgomery,” Sophy said with passion. “That poor woman has two men after her but she doesn’t have one whole one.”
“She plays her own tricks. She tells the Raider she wishes he’d never come to Warbrooke and then she tells Alex the Raider
is the town’s only hope. She doesn’t know what she wants.”
“It sounds to me like she knows exactly. She loves her country, so she helps the Raider; she loves her family, so she marries a man who she thinks can help them, a man who can never make love to her. She took a vow of chastity to save her family. And you have condemned her to this. That poor, poor girl.”
“She was the one who started it. I never meant to play the Raider here, but Jessica laughed at me and made everyone believe I was fat and effeminate.”
“I don’t blame them. You look dreadful. No wonder no woman wanted to marry you.”
“You didn’t believe me.”
“Yes, but it wasn’t long ago that you and I—” She stopped and glared at him. “What is it that you want from this girl?”
Alex took her hands. “Sophy, I love her. Maybe I’ve loved her forever. I know I used to see her following one of my older brothers when she was a child, then I’d play some prank on her. Everything she did enraged me. My mother thought Jessica was wonderful. She constantly told us that Jess was the strength in the Taggert family. I wanted them to know that if I were faced with a similar situation, I’d be the family’s strength. But I was the baby, with a father and two older brothers. Jessica never even looked at me—no matter what I did to get her attention.”
Sophy touched his cheek.
“I can’t tell her I’m the Raider. She’ll do something utterly stupid, I know she will.”
“It seems to me she’s doing that already.” Sophy squinted her eyes at Alex. “What’s your real reason for not telling her you are the Raider?”
Alex smiled and kissed her hands. “I want her to love me. Me, Alexander. I want her to love me for myself, not because I wear a black mask and ride a black horse. Jessica’s love is very important to me and I want to know that it’s mine. I want to know that she’ll love me even when I’m too old to mount a horse. If I end up like my father, I don’t want to think that my beautiful Jessica is going to go running off with the next dashing figure.”
“Alex, you’re asking her to love only half the man.”
“I guess I am, but she did leave the Raider and come to me. Of course she was bleeding and had to get help, but it was better than nothing. But then she told the Raider she’d as soon go to bed with a woman as with me.”
“Alex, you ask so much of a woman. First of your Jessica and now of me. If you want Jessica to love something other than the physical side of you, how will jealousy help?”
“Spend some time with me. Jess only comes near me when there’s a child that needs attention or when she’s hurt. Maybe if she saw another woman, a beautiful, intelligent, wise woman who liked to spend time with me, perhaps she’d be curious.”
Sophy laughed. “I think I might love Alexander, even if she doesn’t. Of course I haven’t seen you as the Raider. Are you terribly dashing and romantic?”
“And fearless. There is no danger too great for the Raider to face. Except Jessica, of course. Say you’ll stay and help me.”
“All right.” Sophy sighed. “Perhaps I feel the woman should sense that her husband is also her lover. I’ll help you make your wife jealous.”
Chapter Nineteen
JESSICA,” Eleanor was saying, her voice straining to remain calm, “that woman is making a fool of you.”
“She’s making Alex happy.”
“Very happy. Don’t you care that they spend hours locked together in his room?”
“Our room,” Jessica snapped. “The room belonging to Alexander and me.”
“Ah, then, so you do care.”
“Eleanor, what would you do if a woman flirted with that big Russian of yours?”