Today, he’d learned just how rare: a family who had bartered her and a husband who had battered her for his own pleasure. Conall didn’t need the details of that to know. Her comment validated he’d been right in not confessing the ruse to her, not now when she’d given her trust to him. Such a confession could only hurt her. His clean conscience wasn’t worth the cost.
‘Perhaps it doesn’t have to be that way,’ Conall said. There were only a few minutes left before they’d be in the drive of Everard Hall, surrounded by servants and family and reality.
‘Yes, it does.’ She cut him off with a sharp glance and severe words. ‘Do you wish me to be your mistress? Because that’s all I can be to you, if I were willing, which I am not. I promised myself when I left Il Marchese that I would not belong to any man again. Not even one as grand as you, Conall. I mean to keep that promise.’ Then she softened. ‘Even if I consented, such an arrangement would be short lived. You are not a man to bring a mistress into matrimony. I know men who would marry and keep their mistresses, but you are not one of them.’ Heartbreaking proof that she indeed understood him too well.
They halted in the drive, the shadow of a groom moved towards them to take the horses. In the final moments of privacy left, Conall kissed her, hard and swift, letting the kiss convey in that short interlude all that his words could not. He did not miss Sofia’s own desperate whisper as they broke apart. ‘Goodbye, Conall Everard.’
It was best they’d said their goodbyes, such as they were, outside. The hall was bright with lights and there was a caged energy that greeted him when Conall stepped through the door. His mother, CeeCee and Freddie all appeared too quickly from the drawing room. They’d been hovering, waiting, with excitement. His gaze went to the dreaded pile of mail on the front console. There they were, in a brown envelope, larger than the rest of the usual notes and letters and newspapers. The contracts.
‘Documents came today.’ His mother nodded towards them, her own excitement barely under control. He felt a sudden twinge of guilt. How many hours had they stared at the envelope, knowing full well what it was while he’d been off fishing, seducing their houseguest and wishing the blasted contracts would never arrive? His mother’s eyes caught his, grey like his own. They shone with pride and hope. Salvation was at hand for all of them. He was a cad for wishing it to be otherwise. This would be a great worry he could lift from his mother’s shoulders.
Conall pasted on a smile and strode forward, prepared to put on a show. He picked up the contracts and sliced open the heavy envelope. He scanned the contents of the cover letter and smiled as he held up the deed. ‘The mill is ours. We can commence shearing.’
Around him, everyone was laughing and clapping. Freddie whooped and grabbed Cecilia’s hands, pulling her into an exuberant dance. ‘We’re going to make wool! The best wool in the world. We’ll be famous everywhere!’ His mother wiped away a subtle tear of relief. Servants smiled on the perimeter of the celebration. All would be well now, their positions secure. Taunton had done his job.
Conall slid his gaze towards Sofia. She smiled at him, the one person in the hall who could understand the bittersweet joy of this moment. He could not look at her for long without fear of betraying the bitter part of that sweetness and he would not ruin others’ joy. He turned his attention back to the pile of letters, seeing one for Sofia. ‘Here, this is for you. It looks like Helena has written.’
‘Thank you.’ Sofia tucked the letter into a pocket for later and nodded towards the celebrating family. ‘I’ll leave you to your family. I can walk myself down to the Dower House.’
‘You’ll come back for dinner.’ It wasn’t a question or even an invitation. ‘Everyone will expect to see you. You’re part of this.’ His stomach tightened. She was really leaving. He could see it in her hesitation. He wouldn’t make it easy for her. She could not slink away in the night. She would come to dinner and face everyone, one last time.
‘Of course I’ll come to dinner, but I won’t stay long afterwards. I have to pack.’ She held his eyes for a long moment. She’d thrown down the gauntlet with those words, drawn the proverbial line in the sand that could not be crossed. This was the end.
* * *
Tonight was a new beginning. Tomorrow, she could go anywhere, do anything. She was entirely free. She could not afford to think of tonight as an ending or she would go mad. She would break down and cry, or worse, she would let Conall persuade her things could be otherwise. She was certain he would try. She’d seen the look in his eye in the hall when he’d pressed her to return for dinner. He read her far too easily these days. He’d been right. She would have preferred to hide with her packing in the Dower House. Instead, she had to wage battle with Conall.
Sofia dressed carefully for dinner, selecting one of her favourite gowns, a deep, almost navy-blue silk with creamy pink-tinged roses and matching cream lace that trimmed the scooped neckline and dripped from the short, puffed sleeves. The gown brought out the blue of her eyes and the ivory of her skin. The maid did her hair in a neat bun, fastened with a matching comb of silk roses, and she wore her pearls. Definitely festive, she thought, smoothing her skirt over the crinoline and taking an experimental twirl in front of her mirror. Tonight was for celebrating. Tonight she would pretend the perfection of Conall Everard’s world extended to her. She glanced at the clock. She still had a little time before they expected her. Time enough to read Helena’s letter. Perhaps it would be just the thing to lift her spirits. She could already imagine a letter full of news of the boys and preparations for the new baby. Maybe they had finally chosen a name.
She retrieved Helena’s letter from the desk. Sofia slipped the letter opener beneath the seal. A newspaper clipping fluttered out from between the folds of the letter. An invisible, cold hand gripped her belly. Newspaper clippings didn’t come with newsy letters about children and babies. Slowly, Sofia bent to pick up the clipping, time standing still as she read the damning five-line story that would change everything. ‘A burglary in Chelsea destroyed the Margaretta Terrace house believed to be the residence of La Marchesa di Cremona. La Marchesa was not at home at the time of the break-in and has not been seen since. Anyone knowing her whereabouts should be in contact with the constabulary.’ Hands shaking, she checked the date of the paper; it was recent, just four days old. Long enough for news to reach Helena in the countryside.
Il Marchese had done this. The break-in was weeks old and it had gone unremarked upon until now. A crime outside Mayfair was standard for London. If The Times reported on every minor crime, the paper would be full of nothing else. And no one she knew—not Helena or Frederick or Conall—would have made a public spectacle of the event, especially not so belatedly. Her hand shook. There was no question Il Marchese had done this. He couldn’t know she had no friends. He was hoping someone would worry enough about her to contact him. Her hands clenched around the newsprint, the larger reality finding her. If he hoped someone would contact him, it meant he was here.
Sofia sank into the nearest chair, clutching the arm to steady herself. Her worst nightmare had been realised. Giancarlo was in London and he was asking about her, making no secret he’d come to take his wife home if only he could find her. Dear Lord, what had the new King promised him that would make him leave his comforts and travel to London, a city he detested, in order to claim her?
With trembling hands, she studied Helena’s letter, forcing herself to go slowly. She needed all the particulars if she was going to be safe. Sofia drew a steadying breath, mentally listing each fact she acquired. Frederick had been in town and recognised the danger. He’d done his research and written to Helena immediately. Il Marchese was at the Coburg. He’d been seen at the theatre and at the opera, always with two women on his arm in an expensive box. He spent his nights at the high-end gaming hells losing good-naturedly at cards while he asked around for her. He’d made no secret of who he was and who she was and what he was here f
or—her—in the hopes of restoring them both to their formerly wedded bliss. Sofia read her friend’s closing line.
Stay in Somerset.
And then the admonition.
Tell Conall everything. He will protect you.
Sofia gripped the arms of the chair, trying to quell the nausea rising in her stomach, the panic rising in her mind, clouding her ability to think. She fought back. Panic had paralysed her for years. She could not give in to it. Panic was her enemy, not Giancarlo. She found the usual litany deep in her mind, where she’d packed it away once she’d thought she was free. Don’t be afraid. You’re safe. Forewarned was forearmed. This was all to the good, a blessing, really. She could make decisions. She had choices. She’d known he was hunting her before this. This was not new. She had known for months now the danger was real. Only now the chase was so much closer, more personal.
He was slowly curtailing her freedom, methodically taking away her choices. He’d destroyed her home. He’d reported the news himself. Not just to flush her out through potential friends, but because he wanted the news to reach her so that she’d feel the net tightening. He could find her any day. But he doesn’t know where you are, came the hopeful reminder. But that did little to belay the fear of knowing he might come upon her at any time. She wouldn’t know if he’d found her until it was too late.
She had to think like him. If he didn’t know how to come to her, did he think she’d come to him? Did he think the article would bring her back to London? That maybe she’d come for whatever might be left of her possessions? Maybe he thought she’d come back for the money and he could accuse her of having stolen it when she left. There would be many who would agree, men who believed whole-heartedly in coverture; that a woman was subsumed by her husband upon marriage, that all she had became his without the reciprocal being true under the law. Never mind that that marriage had been dissolved. Or maybe he wouldn’t bother with a legal battle, after all. Perhaps he’d simply take her. That would be most expedient. She was doubly glad now she’d bought the mill. The money was spent, safe from Giancarlo’s reach and it had its own protector. Giancarlo would not be able to take the dream, even if he managed to take her.
‘Miss, it’s time to go up for dinner.’ Annie hovered in the doorway of the little office, looking nervous. It was past time, actually. She was officially late, but there was no question of eating.
‘Send my regrets, Annie. I suddenly don’t feel well.’ Sofia rose on shaky legs. ‘Then perhaps you could help me change. I want to lie down.’ She’d managed to escape Giancarlo this long, she would manage to continue. Never mind that now he had a reason to find her.
Chapter Fourteen
She would not escape him so easily. Conall listened carefully to the message his footman delivered. Sofia was not coming to dinner. She was feeling suddenly unwell. Unwell? His foot, Conall thought. She’d been perfectly fine when she’d left here an hour ago. She was hiding, avoiding him.
Dinner seemed interminable. His family’s spirits were high and it was only his desire not to dampen them that kept him in his seat, smiling and laughing. But he was restless and aware of his mother’s watchful gaze on him. ‘I should check on Sofia,’ Conall said finally, laying aside his napkin only when the last of the dinner dishes had been cleared.
‘I’ll go with you, maybe she’ll feel like playing backgammon,’ Freddie offered, halfway out of his chair to fetch the board.
‘No, Freddie, she needs to rest,’ his mother intervened smoothly. ‘Why don’t you and Cecilia tell Cook to pack up a basket for her so she’s not hungry down there on her own.’ It was a neatly done dismissal, honed from years of practice in managing the balance of familial relationships. Conall would be impressed if he didn’t know what it meant: his mother had something to say to him alone.
Cecilia and Freddie set off to collect the basket and his mother smiled. ‘You’ve done well, Conall. You’ve eased the burden from all of us considerably. Your brother and sister are old enough to be worried.’
‘We have the investment, not the success, not yet,’ Conall cautioned. ‘We still have to build a business.’
‘Does she know?’ his mother asked, pouring them each a drink. Sherry for her, brandy for him. A long conversation then, unlike the one in Cowden’s study so many weeks ago, but just as telling. When a mother poured a drink for her son it meant she was acknowledging him as adult.
‘No.’ Conall took the brandy.
‘And the ruse? She suspects nothing?’
‘I don’t believe so,’ Conall replied, wary.
‘She’ll leave in the morning, then, none the wiser.’ His mother raised her glass. ‘Cheers to us, we’ve succeeded, against great odds.’ She halted when he hesitated. ‘You can’t fool me, you know. I’m your mother. You put on a good act at dinner tonight and in the hall, but you’re not as happy as you should be.’ She paused. ‘Does your discontent have anything to do with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman staying in the Dower House?’ When he said nothing she set down her glass with a snort. ‘I have eyes, Conall. I see how she looks at you and how you look at her. I am not blind. You were out late tonight, far too late for mere fishing.’ She tapped a long finger on the table. ‘What are your intentions?’
Conall swallowed. ‘My intentions? I didn’t think you were so old fashioned, Mother. It’s 1854, after all.’ Conall tried cajolement. His mother was a tolerant traditionalist.
She smiled at him, always with love even when he sensed she was scolding him. Apparently he would never be too old for that despite the fact that he was now thirty and she was fifty-one. The expression showed the creases at her eyes, her mouth, a reminder that time was marching for them both. ‘What I believe, Conall, and the way the world actually works are often different things. I’m a realist enough to know that. Your father wasn’t. He was an idealist and you are, too, especially when it comes to love. I don’t want to see you or our family hurt. We know nothing about Sofia Northcott. We don’t know her people, where she comes from. Those are no small things when one is a viscount.’
Her ‘people’ had sold her to a sadist. ‘I thought you liked her.’ Conall was surprised by his mother’s reticence regarding Sofia, another reminder of how real the ruse had become for him. When had he forgotten that? A week ago? Longer?
His mother reached out a hand to stroke his cheek. ‘I do like her well enough. There is much about her to be admired. But that was before my son stayed out late fishing with her and she came home with, ah, shall we say, dishevelled clothing?’ She gave a soft laugh. ‘I suppose no mother likes the reminder her son has become a man. We all miss our little boys. Perhaps we miss being the only woman in our sons’ lives.’
‘She fell in the river.’ Conall attempted to assuage his mother’s concerns.
His mother’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Then she probably had to take them off. I hope she didn’t catch a chill. But they looked dry enough this evening when you returned.’ His mother waited. But he would be damned if he was going blurt out into the silence that he’d made love to Sofia on the river bank.
‘Does she mean to compromise you, Conall?’ his mother finally asked pointedly. She held up a hand to stall his protests against the unlikelihood of that. ‘If it hasn’t occurred to you, perhaps it should. You’re handsome, titled; you’re polite, you have a good home, a good family. Those are very attractive qualities, especially to a woman who has nothing but the favour of Lady Brixton and apparently has to work for a living, running errands for a man who doesn’t show his face in public.’
‘She doesn’t run errands, Mother,’ Conall broke in.
‘You’re eager to defend her.’
‘She’s had a difficult life.’
‘Marriage to you would certainly change that. She’d become Lady Taunton, a viscountess with two simple words.’ I do. Two words Sofia was determined never to say to another man.
‘I�
�m sure that’s not what she’s thinking.’ He seldom quarrelled with his mother. In fact, he could not recall the last time they’d argued. But this was shaping up to be a fight he did not want to have.
‘How do you know? Women are strategic creatures, more so than men give us credit for. I would wager she’s hoping you’ll come to the Dower House and check on her. Forgoing dinner is the perfect way to draw you to her in a venue where you’ll be alone and where you can carry on from wherever you left things at the river.’
‘Mother, I must ask you to stop.’ Conall’s tone was stern. He’d never spoken to her that way before and the newness of it took them both by surprise. Conall regretted it immediately. They’d been through so much together in the last year. She had been his bulwark and he had been hers. He did not want a rift between them. ‘I am not a cad who would bed a woman not his wife in his family home.’ Did his mother think he was a callous rake with no regard for propriety? He paused and drew a deep breath. ‘Mother, I am certain Sofia Northcott has no designs on me. She is divorced from her husband, an Italian marchese. It was a poor marriage and she has no desire to shackle herself to another man.’
He waited for his mother to digest the revelation. ‘How long have you known?’ she asked quietly.
‘Since London. We needed the money. I could not be choosy once the Prometheus Club turned me down. But it has ceased to matter to me.’ He reached for his mother’s hands. ‘Weren’t you always the one who taught us that a person’s mistakes should not define them? I think Sofia Northcott has proven herself to be more than the sum of her disappointing marriage.’
His mother patted his hand. ‘Go to her, if you must. But be careful, Conall. You are Taunton now. You have responsibilities, not all of them economic. With your sister set to come out next year and Freddie’s schooling to think of, we could do without the scandal, no matter how lovely the lady is and no matter how unfortunate her circumstances. I suppose it hardly matters. She’s set to leave in the morning.’ Beneath the approbation, Conall heard the warning. He was to make sure, for all their sakes, that they stuck to the plan. Her departure could not be delayed.
A Marriage Deal with the Viscount--A Victorian Marriage of Convenience Story Page 13
