Moriah Densley Read online

  Song for Sophia

  By Moriah Densley

  Avon, Massachusetts

  This edition published by

  Crimson Romance

  an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

  10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

  Blue Ash, Ohio 45242

  www.crimsonromance.com

  Copyright © 2012 by Amber White

  ISBN 10: 1-4405-4605-3

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4605-1

  eISBN 10: 1-4405-4606-1

  eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4606-8

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art © istockphoto.com/peter zelei, Stefanie Timmermann, 123rf.com/Anna Yakimova

  To Sir John the Charming, who never complained even once.

  You totally deserve an NSX, baby.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Acknowledgments

  For a ridiculous amount of ego stroking and hand holding, I am greatly indebted to family, friends, critique partners, and beta readers. These saintly people kept me goin’ when the goin’ got tough. I owe you all a trip to Greece.

  Laura:

  You were the first to tell me you couldn’t put it down. You said it was publishable, so I kept writing.

  Susannah:

  This means you won’t have to eat your socks.

  Bobbette:

  I still have you on speed dial. Oh, how I miss you.

  To my Linguistic Hot-Shots:

  Thank you for fixing my “fake” translations. I’m the luckiest girl in the world to have friends who speak German, French, Italian, Spanish, Greek, and Latin.

  Mutineers:

  My undying gratitude for your generous encouragement, savvy, eagle eyes, and for making me look good. Arrgh.

  Jennifer Lawler, my editor:

  Thanks for giving me a chance. I liked you before discovering you are a ninja; now I like you even more.

  Author’s Note

  With so many generous, candid people willing to share their stories, I found no shortage of research on savant syndrome. Lord Devon, my autistic savant hero, is based on factual cases. Little was understood about the condition in the nineteenth century, and sadly, many were denied their rights and put away in asylums. My attempts to portray a savant character are in sympathy and admiration of those who struggle with the gift and burden of an extraordinarily brilliant mind. Any errors are my own. — Moriah Densley

  Chapter 1

  In Which A Housemaid Manhandles Lord Devon

  Anne-Sophronia jolted awake into darkness, a choked sob coming from her throat. She fought a battle with twisted ropes of sheets she finally realized were not restraining, cruel hands. A frantic brush over her arms, and she found them slicked only with sweat. No blood. No cuts and glass shards, only scars. She trailed her shaking fingers over the embossed lattice of fine lines on her wrists and the underside of her forearms. The motion stoked her anger as she emerged from her dreamlike state to wakefulness.

  She thought of the locked traveling case under the bed, containing her stolen three thousand pounds, her mother’s estate jewelry, and a bundle of letters from her one remaining acquaintance. The letters all contained some variation of, He is still searching for you, stay hidden, and she read them in moments of weakness as a reminder that her plight could always be worse.

  Yet what she wouldn’t give for the latest Wilkie Collins novel. Or chocolate-dipped strawberries, to eat while reading in a shady garden. All morning long, undisturbed. Followed by a jaunt on a fast, sleek Arabian quarter, then a dinner party with a controversial gathering of artists who laughed and argued over music and politics until dawn —

  A stab of longing ached in her chest. Oh, no, none of that! She rolled out of bed and lit a candle, catching her own gaze reflected in the tarnished hand mirror. Uncomfortable, she looked away. She hardly recognized the woman with the haunted, frustrated cast to her eyes.

  Sophia dropped the back of her dressing robe and her heart sank as it did every time she discovered it there in the reflection, the chaotic web of ropy scars across her back. Whip marks, still reddened by the slightest irritation, even the gentle rasp of clothing. The purple-grey lines and puckered, glossy texture of her skin had not improved despite months of healing. She chanted to herself as she had the past several weeks, I am not vain, I am not vain, I am not —

  The choice between pacing the six steps it took to cross her servant’s attic quarters or lying on the lumpy child-sized mattress became untenable. Her window facing the east garden mocked her with the illusion of freedom. She blew out the candle, knowing what she would do next despite her better judgment. She draped a shawl over her shoulders and slipped barefooted into the service passageway.

  Sophia made no sound as she padded across the grand entrance, perfect planes of cool mosaic marble beneath her feet. Great shadows and dull gleams highlighted the magnificent pillars, balustrades, and dormant chandeliers, but Sophia took romantic pleasure instead of fright at the cavernous monochromatic space.

  Lord Devon’s ancestral pile rivaled Olympus: grand, consummately styled, and free from the remotest threat of decay. She saw to the latter personally, one of his forty-member staff motivated by the threat of his legendary wrath. He detested having the order of his house disturbed. Rumor had it Lord Devon was as brilliant as he was mad, an idea she found fascinating.

  She twirled around the pillars, imagining hundreds of blazing lamps and the glitter of jewelry and polished brass buttons. In the silence she conjured the sound of a Viennese waltz competing with the buzz of a hundred voices gossiping and laughing. Ages since she had danced at a ball. Her unbound hair fanned as she spun on the balls of her feet. This occasional midnight rebellion cured the angst of day pent up from skulking in dank servant’s corridors, averting her eyes and mumbling obedient niceties.

  As she passed the gallery, she gave his framed lordship a jaunty salute and waltzed out the west entrance, which was strangely left unlocked. Midnight had long passed. Guessing by the chill air and the lull in the breeze, it was a few hours yet until dawn. Fritz and Dagmar, two in a pack of guard dogs and her only friends, came charging from the courtyard garden to greet her. She scratched their enormous waist-level heads and cooed praise in the German phrases they understood as she wandered into the garden, following a hedge-lined path.

  She stubbed her toe on a large mass; it moved, and she stumbled. Her hands grasped futilely for support as she fell and landed on a person. Sophia shouted in surprise and reached out to right her balance. To her horror, she discovered the tips of her fingers wedged against a rock-hard thigh and her palm gripping what could only be a whole lot of — Oh my!

  Furious cursing in a raspy tenor voice accompanied the sensation of being grip
ped by the waist and dumped on her backside. Sophia twisted and scrambled to pull her nightgown over her legs, then tried to crawl away without crashing into a hedge. She wasn’t even sure which direction to flee; her eyes saw only shadows.

  “Bloody hell, woman! What the deuce are you about?” The man coughed. “Who the hell are you?”

  His aristocratic accent, along with her noticing that the blasted dogs were wagging their tails, made Sophia comprehend she had likely just committed the worst blunder of her life. She stifled a gasp and patted along the ground to find the path. Hedges to the right, so she crawled left. A swift yank on her ankle, and she dropped to the grass with an undignified oof.

  “Answer me, wench, or I’ll have you jailed for trespassing.” His steel-edged voice made her feel cold. “Who are you?”

  “Trouble,” she grated, scrambling out of the way while her blasted nightgown wound around her knees.

  The imperious language and unmistakable burning spice scent of Dudognon cognac could only belong to the reputedly cantankerous Lord Devon. Her heart ratcheted in fear — what would he do to her? She found the path to her left and dashed for it, leaving her shawl behind. She had barely made three strides when she was tackled from behind and got a mouthful of grass again.

  A heavy arm pinned her to the ground, and instinct blanketed her with horror. She shrieked in terror and clawed mindlessly, reduced to the primal desperation of escape. She couldn’t discern what was real or imagined, fought the hysteria —

  The horrid feeling fled. She had been freed. The quiet sobbing was her own, and her entire body trembled. Without protest she allowed gentle arms to gather her in an embrace. She clutched the open halves of a linen shirt and tucked her face against a hard, grainy throat. It was oddly calming, as was the leathery-spice scent. Lord Devon.

  “Let me go,” she breathed, not sounding as indignant as she should, and scrambled out of his lap, bolting down the path towards the house. She heard him curse as she ran with swiftness borrowed from Hermes himself. She stumbled, then recognized the pursuers were four-legged. Fritz and Dagmar danced circles around her, pleased with the game of chase. She shoved their wet noses out of the way and ran through the dark house, up three flights of stairs, shutting the door to her room behind her. She fumbled with the bolt twice before she managed to slide it in place, then slumped against the door. He wouldn’t find her out. Could he?

  What on earth was Lord Devon doing, lying in the garden in the dead of night?

  Sounds like something I would do.

  Dreadful man.

  Sophia felt too tightly wound to sleep, and she didn’t dare risk lighting a candle to read. She waited for dawn, pacing the six steps it took to cross her cramped room. She dropped onto the bed but fidgeted, berating herself for her stupidity.

  When she first arrived at Rougemont under the guise of “Rosalie Cooper,” housemaid extraordinaire, Mrs. Abbott, the housekeeper, had taken one look at her and vehemently warned her away from the bachelor earl. “He doesn’t dally with the help, so don’t you go gettin’ any ideas,” Mrs. Abbot had scolded.

  It might have been unwise, but Sophia had laughed in response. Even if she had not already passed the portrait in the gallery of his distinguished lordship in all his mature, hairy and stern glory, she would not have “dallied” with her employer. Sophia had told her, “I am as aloof as the most pious nun, in regard to all men.”

  Mrs. Abbott had looked at her like she was an impertinent schoolgirl, then unceremoniously dropped a stack of soiled linen into her lap. Her first lesson in submissive behavior. Subsequent ones had not come any easier.

  Every day she dusted books she dare not be seen reading, polished a magnificent piano she was not allowed to play, and listened to elegant dinner conversation she pretended not to understand. Sophia rubbed corn husk oil into the cracked skin over her knuckles and chanted the creed that kept her afloat these past months: I am not vain, I am not vain … .

  Chapter 2

  On Scrutinizing Underclothing

  Sophia placed stacks of folded linen in the master suite wardrobe. Emboldened by her solitude, she shook out a pair of Lord Devon’s silk drawers, dyed a rich pearl-gray sheen. Frivolous. Not nearly the size of the corpulent man in the portrait. Had he decreased with an illness recently? Sophia had only seen him in oil on canvas despite being three months in his employ.

  On the table next to an austere mahogany bed lay a stack of books. Sophia squinted at the titles and noted Dostoyevsky, Jules Verne, Darwin, and oddly, Jeremy Bentham, the liberal egalitarian philosopher. Yesterday she remembered Homer and Gothic horror novels. No spectacles nearby, no bookmarks. Did he read every book or merely browse them?

  More puzzling: the assortment of bottles stashed in bizarre hiding places around the room. Did Lord Devon fear a pirate raid on his cognac supply? Inside the clock, under pillows, atop a bookshelf. Enough spirits to pickle a regiment.

  Just past seven in the morning, and the sheets were already cold. Even keeping country hours, what lord rose before noon? And she never saw more than one indentation on the mattress, meaning Lord Devon was either too old for bed sport or went elsewhere for it. Perhaps he was a deviant, according to the whispers about him.

  Sophia placed pure white lawn shirts in symmetrical stacks on the shelf, careful to space them equally as Lord Devon demanded. Then she made his bed, the starched sheets wrinkle-free and corners tucked under the mattress at ninety-degree angles. The reason she had this position in the first place was because the previous chambermaid had failed to do so and was sent packing.

  Sophia went to the writing desk, and the title on a manuscript caught her eye: a Gounod opera. Debuted only weeks ago, according to the newspapers she stole from the kitchen — fish wrappings. She studied Lord Devon’s elegant script, a flawless notation with an artistic flare to the beams and stems while every notehead maintained a perfect elliptical shape. Sophia thought her notation was better than most, but his was as precise as machine print, only prettier.

  She scanned the notes and hummed the melody, an aria she didn’t recognize, because it was unpublished. Astounding — Lord Devon had transcribed the music from his head, supposedly after hearing the performance. She made a soundless scoff, wondering how it could be possible. Who had such a memory? Pages and pages of perfect script … . Half-mad with envy, she set the manuscript down and straightened it.

  Despite Lord Devon’s reputed eccentricities and his dreadful disposition, Sophia wished, not for the first time, that she could make his acquaintance. She imagined cozy fireside arguments over brandy with a grizzled, fatherly gentleman who sparred with her about Parliament and Balzac as though she were a man. His intellectual equal.

  A lovely vision, one that vanished as she toppled a bottle of fragrant sable ink onto a card. Sophia cursed, dabbing the ink first from the polished leather mat, then the ruined card. An unfinished letter, which Lord Devon had dated two weeks prior. That made sense when she saw that next he had penned, Dearest Aunt Louisa, then nothing else.

  If the last maid was discharged over a creased bedsheet, then Sophia had just done far worse. If she were found out. She sighed, knowing it was when, not if. Better to discard the letter or forge a duplicate?

  Sophia had fooled the eagle-eyed bankers in Zurich the past spring when she forged her father’s hand and stole three thousand pounds.

  She studied Lord Devon’s penmanship upside down and sideways, memorizing the loops and slashes. He had to be left-handed. Sophia stifled a groan, then angled the pen the way she imagined he did. Her first attempt was obvious and too careful. But the second, more flamboyant and aggressive, looked identical. She compared the tell-tale S’s and E’s, pleased that she had successfully reproduced his hand. A small deception in the grander scheme of maintaining her disguise.

  Sophia sorted the papers, pens, and wax on the desk then noticed a smudge of film on the full-length dressing mirror, the mark only visible from a sideways angle. She wiped it clean, sighing
in relief for noticing the discrepancy, then double-checked the walls for scuff marks before leaving Lord Devon’s wonderland of brilliant madness. She polished the door handle for good luck on her way out.

  Next on her list of tasks was the dreaded tray service from the kitchen. Sophia bumped the swinging half-door with her hip and gave the flirtatious French chef Msr. Girard a wan smile as she passed through the scullery, cutting off his greeting. She loaded the tray with wrapped silverware and propped it against her waist to keep the sudden surge of male passersby at bay, but it failed. Botts the coachman whistled low as he passed and made a rude gesture. At least he didn’t touch her, but David, an irritating handsome groomsman, palmed her thigh through her skirts and attempted worse before she darted aside.

  Imbeciles. Years of fending off advances like these, and she was beyond tired and angry. She wanted to do something about it. A man could beat the stuffing out of his opponent in the boxing ring and earn a pat on the back afterward. Where was her vindication? She wore a skirt, therefore her lot had to be forbearance?

  It seemed she had been marked for persecution, and the men grew more brazen by the day. She refused to stand by while the groping escalated to rape — perhaps the time had come to leave Rougemont. But she had nowhere else to go.

  • • •

  Houseguests for Lord Devon’s aunt arrived, keeping Sophia occupied until midnight. When she finally returned to her attic quarters, she startled to find David the groomsman waiting across the hall from her door. She ignored his silent threat as she fetched the key from her skirt pocket and unlocked the door. If he meant to attack her, he would have done so already.