"What, and you not have children to show you are a normal, lusty man?" she shot back, nonplussed by his threats. She lifted her hand and pressed his to her face as if returning the gesture. Her words were a soft plea as she looked into his eyes. Fear was the most prominent in those smoky grey hues of hers, "I saw you with your pants down in front of one of our boys. I have much less to lose than you do at this point, but I have something much more important to have to resort to this at all. I have a child who needs a father that isn't a psychotic monster, and you need a wife on your arm. Think about it... I would let you take on as many lovers as you wish as long as you afford me the same courtesy..." She leaned in and nuzzled her face against his neck so she could breathe into his ear, "I would let you be you."

Oh, God. She had been there. Even if that night had not been ‘properly’ consummated, it did not take many leaps to guess what he might have done consensually. Her words were like knives.

All he had ever wanted was to be normal.

He had half a mind to declare himself psychotic, but he also had the presence of mind to know that would look as desperate as it was.

His brows rose and he drew away with a bitter, amused look. Let him be him. What did she think that meant? A comfortable lie? A woman on his arm, in his inheritance, so he could ride a man on the side and leave a man he loved with nothing? A child that was not his own, that he pretended was his own, so society would mind its own business?

He did not bother to hide his contempt.

“If you compromise my position – you compromise the generations ahead of you.”

And then a sigh.

“When was this child conceived?”

Was he being asked to be himself as some shameless adulterer, too?

She pulled back and looked away from him, not bothering to hide her shame. "I don't know what else to do, Signore," she blurted out, tears stinging at her wide eyes when she looked back at him. They were not crocodile tears, the girl was genuinely distraught. Then she sighed and looked away again, "Best of my knowledge is a few months before Magnus was shot." And then she began to speak like someone who needed to unload the weight of the world.

She painted a picture of what happened in the months leading up to Magnus III's death, of just how much of a monster the man had been in life behind closed doors... He'd been a murderer, a man who instilled fear into every one of the girls at the brothel. "Not even having a wife stopped him..." she said bitterly, having been friends with some of the girls who had gone missing over the last few years thanks to him.

She spoke then about the day of the shooting, how frightened she had been.

"I don't know what else to do," she repeated. "Please, I beg of you, Signore," she implored, her hand on his.

Dark eyes narrowed, at first. Then, he closed his eyes and drew a breath through a sigh. Wordlessly, he drew a white handkerchief from his breast pocket and held it out to her.

Zechariah, it turned out, was an attentive listener. Carringtons, murder, that senseless case of a man Chris seemed to have both hated and burned for (Zechariah knew the feeling, but yechh! Chris’ tastes). Each tidbit he filed away, patting himself down for a second handkerchief as the tears rained on.

Her hand on his … Zechariah ran calculations. Undefined: a “few” months. He looked at her stomach again – still some time, he presumed. That, or ill-nourished.

The Diamond Pony was the biggest brothel in town. He had learned that belatedly. There was nothing illegal, per se, about a brothel … but nor was it something to brag about owning as a respectable man. So, too, were fallen women: did he bring her home and look like a man who fell for a girl who required regular transactions? Between he and Uriel, the whole damned country would think all it took was a pretty face.

This Sonia was also pregnant. Vulnerable. Vulnerable in more than one sense of the word.

“We have time to figure this out, Sonia.” He clasped her hand in his. “Where are you staying as of now?”

"I am staying in a cottage belonging to someone who left town but said I was welcome, I intend to be out of there soon before he comes home." She gave a shuddering sigh, accepting the hanky and delicately patting at her face. As attentive as he was, he would be able to see the smudges of bruising beneath her eyes, the brackets of exhaustion etched across her lovely face. She looked down at one point and she murmured, "How? I don't have very many choices, do I? Here I am trying to implore a complete stranger to marry me." She gave a humorless laugh.

Gone before he noticed. Would she offer the same service as a wife, too? Zechariah doubted it.

Makeup smudged, and bruising showed. He glanced off to the side, steadying himself with a long breath through his nose. How much of her story was true? If he abandoned her, did he abandon her and an unborn child to death? It was temperate out. How long did it take a pregnant woman to die in good weather?

“My brother has a newly built home,” Zechariah mused aloud. “Not far from here, even. He has a kind soul.”

A woman-loving soul, too. Was he cruel enough to leave the temptation of adultery on his own gentle-hearted brother’s door?

… One word: pork.

“You are young,” he reassured with a gentle touch to her shoulder. “Widowed. You have your whole life ahead of you.”

He was young. Unmarried. He had his whole life ahead of him.

How she loathed what she was doing. How she wished there was another way of doing things. The man she was really attracted to was Darius, and he had given no signs of returning her attraction. Besides, he might get angry when he learned his brother had married her behind the backs of the whole clan. She hadn't wanted to marry Magnus, not ever, but he'd threatened to do to her what he had done to other women, and she couldn't run because his thugs were everywhere.

Disgust roiled in her gut when Zecheriah Meijer tried to pawn her off to his brother. She knew of Uriel and knew that he was not the one for her; he would become either overly attached to someone like her and then that would be messy. It was best for her not to be loved by anyone, as she never knew when she would regain some memory of the distant past. The amnesiac looked down at her hands and gave a shaky sigh.

"No, it must be you..." she whispered. "I don't want love and affection from you, I just want the protection of your name, not a school teacher or a thug," she had done her research. She had to. "I would appear to be your loving wife, I would do anything if you would just listen and understand why I am asking you and not someone else. No, asking is the wrong word, I know... But... Please?"

Not a school teacher or thug. Lovely, lovely. He was swimming in his sweat now. Where on earth had this woman come from!?

… Had Uriel and Menachem gone to see her at the brothel? Maybe Uriel was already having love problems. What if she went after Uriel with ill intent, too? He would deserve it, if only a little … but he was his brother.

The urge to offer Menachem as a sacrifice volunteer was strong, but she had already dismissed that. Hmph.

He steeled himself and tipped his chin up.

“Anything?” he said shortly, smiling. “At the very least, a proper courtship period. You realize, too, that you compromise our standard of living if you estrange us from the Carringtons, do you not?”

He reached out and guided the handkerchief at her face, dabbing unsightly smudges from her tears.

“No wife of mine will be a shrinking violet, running from her problems,” he murmured back in a perfectly pleasant tone, only his eyes hinting at the true rage of being backed into this corner. “I expect the full benefits of forsaking a reputable life and marrying a rich. Whore killer’s. Pregnant, widow.”

She flinched at his words. Sonia looked away then and clenched her jaw, he'd be able to see the muscles working. "So be it," she said miserably. There was not much else she could say. The tears would not stop flowing either even after he cleaned up her face a little. After the longest pause, she finally said, "If that is what it takes, Signore Meijer." The ex-prostitute looked at him again, no joy in those stormy eyes of hers, only anguish. She wasn't happy to do what she was doing either, but she was trying her best to protect herself.

Was there a small part inside that flinched at her misery? Yes. Did it show at this point? Not a chance.

“Bring the ledgers by my cabin Monday,” he said, coolly. “I am certain you know where to find it.”

He rose, leaving the handkerchief with her.