Sophie’s own lady’s maid had given notice the moment Laurie’s solicitor had informed Sophie of the divorce proceedings, and after so many months she found it disconcerting but comforting to have someone procure all tickets, snap orders for the luggage to be carried, and see that Sophie was taken care of all the way to Eleanor’s front door.
They approached London from the north, Regent’s Park green with spring. The park at Grosvenor Square was also tinged green, studded with nannies and children enjoying a spate of fine weather.
The Grosvenor Square home of the Duke of Kilmorgan was far grander than any London house Sophie had ever visited, including her husband’s. The Earl of Devonport’s townhouse paled against the double mansion with tall windows whose black fan-lighted door opened to a vast hall.
The lady of the house appeared on the landing of a lavish staircase in pursuit of two boys with red hair, both of whom hurtled toward Sophie with blood-curdling yells.
“Do catch him!” Eleanor shouted as the smaller of the pair shot toward the open front door, evading the footmen and the lady’s maid who lunged to stop him.
Sophie stretched out her arms and caught up the child before he could race out into the street. He was heavy and squirming, but her heart warmed as she held him close and looked him in the face. “Good evening, little man. Where are you rushing off to? I’ve only just arrived.”
The boy ceased struggling and stared at Sophie. He had blue eyes like his mother, his hair dark red, his face freckled.
“I’m Malcolm,” he announced in a voice that carried to the lofty ceiling. “Are you mum’s friend come to stay? Do you play draughts? Or poker? Cousin Danny taught me.”
“I am a mean one for draughts,” Sophie promised. The door had been closed behind her so she set the lad on his feet.
The slightly older boy waited politely in front of Sophie. “I am Alec Mackenzie,” he said, holding out his hand. “How do you do?”
Malcolm snorted. “Prissy-prissy.”
“There’s nothing wrong with good manners, Mal,” Eleanor said as she came off the stairs.
Sophie shook Alec’s hand solemnly, then said to Malcolm, “And of course I know how to play poker. My uncle taught me.”
“See?” Malcolm yelled at Alec. He took a swing at his brother then bolted toward the back of the house.
Alec’s formality dropped in an instant and he raced after Malcolm with a scream of a Highland warrior ready for battle. Two footmen, who must be charged with keeping the boys alive, hurried after them.
“You see why I find photographing ancient tiles in dark holes so refreshing,” Eleanor said to Sophie. “Alec is home from school for a short holiday, and there has been no silence in the house since.” In spite of her words, the look she turned to the vanishing boys held so much love that Sophie’s heart squeezed.
“They are lovely children.”
“They are little hellions,” Eleanor said. “Like their father and uncles. But yes, quite lovely.” She patted Sophie’s arm and smiled. “How wonderful that you’ve come. We will have a fine time, I know it.”
* * *
Eleanor kept Sophie in such a whirl over the following weeks that she scarcely distinguished one day from the next. They planned soirees, musicales, and garden parties—bringing the garden parties indoors if the weather did not cooperate.
When not hosting her own gatherings, Eleanor took Sophie with her to balls and suppers, the theatre, and the opera. During daylight hours they visited museums and libraries and met other ladies for tea.
Sophie was trepidatious about these outings at first, but Eleanor’s friends—who must have been hand-picked to make Sophie comfortable—welcomed her into their circle. Among these were Eleanor’s sisters-in-law, Isabella, Ainsley, and Beth, and Hart’s niece Violet, none of whom seemed to be as busy as Eleanor’s letter had suggested. Sophie especially liked Violet, an intelligent young woman, very much in love with her husband, with a knack for mechanical devices.
All these ladies had been touched by scandal or the dark side of life, Sophie learned—Beth had grown up in a workhouse; Isabella had eloped with Mac Mackenzie on the night of her come-out; Ainsley had been seduced at a very young age; and Violet had been a faux stage medium to make a living, though she claimed that her mother appeared to have a true gift for clairvoyance.
The McBride wives—sisters-in-law of Ainsley—who rounded out the group had similar stories, and Louisa, Isabella’s sister, had fallen so low as to marry a policeman. This last was told to Sophie with merriment—Detective Superintendent Fellows was no mere policeman.
None of these ladies found the impending breakup of Sophie’s marriage scandalous at all. They surrounded her on outings, befriending her in truth, and kept more unforgiving members of society away from her. With the Duchess of Kilmorgan and the ladies Mackenzie at Sophie’s side, no one dared to shun her.
Eleanor had said she’d protect Sophie, and protect her she did.
The one person Sophie never saw on these rounds was David.
“He’s still in Hertfordshire,” Eleanor told Sophie when Sophie finally summoned the courage to inquire about him. “He is not supposed to come to London, according to Fellows—not that it stops him. But he’s being careful. I’m very glad to see it. David is finally taking his position as landed gentleman seriously. He has been a loyal friend to Hart all these years, but good heavens, David needs his own life.”
Sophie remembered the cozy evenings she’d spent in David’s home, the camaraderie from the vicarage almost renewed. Not quite—there had been a strain since the night he’d kissed her so passionately at the edge of the garden. Even so, Sophie thought longingly of those evenings around the fire, talking of anything and everything.
David accepted Sophie for who she was, a rare gift, she was coming to understand. She missed him.
Interestingly, ladies of the London ton had heard about Uncle Lucas’s find of the Roman villa in Shropshire. Stories about it had been printed in several newspapers, including the Illustrated London News.
At a garden fete at a house in Mount Street one afternoon, Sophie heard both her uncle’s name and David’s in conversation. Pretending indifference, she wandered toward the ladies speaking about them, as though only admiring the hostess’s lovely spring flowers.
“Griff is frightfully doleful,” one woman in a dull lavender gown said. “He is unhappy about appearing in court, but that awful Mr. Fleming did try to kill him.”
“I heard Mr. Fleming denies it with every breath,” another lady said brightly.
“He would,” the first woman said. “But my Griff says Mr. Fleming shot at him and then punched him in the face when the shot missed. Horrible. Mr. Fleming was arrested but then allowed to retreat to the country.”
Sophie surmised that the first woman was Mrs. Griffin, and Griff, the man who’d accused David of attempted murder.
“I heard Mr. Fleming helped Dr. Pierson reveal the Roman villa in Shropshire,” another lady said. “It was in the newspapers.”
“So unfair,” Mrs. Griffin said. “The Illustrated London News, no less. They barely sniffed when Griff found that Saxon gold in Suffolk. He offered to fund a full excavation, but no one would take it. Griff sits in his chamber, running his hands through the coins he turned up, quite morose. This trial will upset him too much. Mr. Fleming should admit guilt and go quietly to prison.”
Sophie thought David should do nothing of the sort, but the exchange gave her an idea.
She continued across the garden as though seeking the shade of the house, but once inside, she excused herself to the hostess, returned to Eleanor’s home, and asked the duke’s butler to dispatch several urgent telegraph messages for her.
* * *
“Telegram for you, sir.”
Fortescue, tall with his graying hair brushed to cover the thin spot on top of his head, bent down with a salver in his hand, an envelope squarely in its center. He enjoyed playing the perfect servant, complete wit
h white gloves and upper-crust accent.
David lounged deep in a chair with his nose in a book about farming a vegetable called a swede. It was unbelievably technical. He’d always thought one dug a hole, dropped in a seed, and walked away, to pluck up the fully grown vegetable in the fall. But things such as the soil’s content and consistency, average rainfall in the county, and field drainage apparently were all very important if a man wanted a fine crop of rutabagas.
At Fortescue’s words, David happily shoved the book onto a table without bothering to mark his place.
“Miss Tierney has sent for me, declaring her undying love,” he said in hope.
Fortescue looked down his nose. “I believe the message came from London, sir. From your solicitor.”
“My solicitor?” David’s light mood evaporated. “Not McBride, my barrister?”
“No, sir. I imagine Mr. Basher McBride is too busy to send his own telegrams.”
“Cheek. But you are no doubt right. Then it is either to do with my trial or some other tediousness.” David eyed the envelope on the tray with distaste. “Read it to me, Forty. My eyes are glazed by my intense study of soil composition.”
Without a word, Fortescue set down the salver, slit the envelope with a silver knife he kept about his person, slid out the missive, unfolded it, and cleared his throat.
“I am pleased to report that Mr. Griffin has withdrawn all charges of assault and attempted murder,” Fortescue read in a monotone. “The Crown has dropped the prosecution, citing lack of evidence.”
Chapter 15
What?” David came to his feet, his mouth hanging open.
“All restrictions on your movements have been lifted,” Fortescue finished. “Congratulations, sir.” He didn’t change expression, but David had known the man long enough to see the relief in his eyes.
David snatched the paper from Forty’s hand. He read the message through—the words indeed said he no longer had to worry about Griffin and his accusations.
“How?” He demanded of the page, then he raised his head. “No—I don’t care how. This changes everything. Pack my bags, Fortescue. We are racing to London tonight.”
“London?” Fortescue’s brows climbed the faintest bit, his version of excitement. “I’ve only just come from there.”
“Well, we are going back. The swedes will have to wait.”
“It is too early to plant them in any case,” Fortescue said.
“Is it?”
Fortescue neatly folded the telegram David had dropped on the book and slid it back into the envelope. “Yes, sir. They prefer soil that is above forty degrees Fahrenheit, and my almanac says we will have several more frosts before the weather warms.”
David dragged his thoughts back from Sophie’s beautiful smile and focused on Fortescue’s bland countenance. “How the devil do you know that?”
“I have had a lifetime to read as many books as possible, sir. When I understood that your interest had shifted, at long last, to what is growing in your own fields, I refreshed my knowledge of crops that thrive in this part of England. In case you had questions about them.”
David laughed. “Forty, you are the most impertinent, presumptuous manservant I’ve ever had the misfortune to be saddled with.”
“So you have said many times, sir. But as I am the only manservant you have ever been saddled with, the comparison can hardly exist.”
“It is my way of saying I love you, Fortescue. Now, let us have those damned bags packed. I have a lady to woo. She’ll turn me down flat, I’m certain, and soon I’ll be back, trying to soothe my broken heart with research on fertilizer and crop rotation.”
“She might say yes, you know,” Fortescue said as David charged from the library to the stairs. “Then you can read to her all about tilling the fields. She will never regret her choice.”
“Ha. She already thinks me the greatest fool in Christendom. Besides, she’s still married at present, not to mention far more interested in Roman ruins than a ruined Englishman.”
“Very poetic, sir.”
“I thought so.” David caught his breath at the top of the stairs. “A few small bags are all I need. Come and watch a lady trample me into the dust.” He beamed at his long-suffering valet. “I cannot wait to see her.”
* * *
Sophie stood on a stool in her bedchamber while Eleanor’s dressmaker pinned a skirt in place, making tiny marks on it with chalk.
Eleanor had insisted Sophie have new dresses made, nothing drab or nondescript, she said severely—Sophie had nothing to be ashamed of. Thus, within a short time, Sophie found herself attired in deep blue silk evening gowns, bottle-green walking dresses, and dusky pink tea gowns.
Why Eleanor thought Sophie needed yet another ballgown, she wasn’t certain, but Eleanor had rattled off a long explanation that Isabella had insisted it be done for the grand ball at the Grosvenor Square house and Sophie could not be seen in something she’d worn before. The Queen and the south of France had come into the speech somehow, and before Sophie could do more than blink, the dressmaker had arrived. Now Sophie stood in her underthings while swaths of silk enfolded her body.
Eleanor swept in, her blue eyes alight, her smile wide. “Mr. McBride is here. Dear Sinclair. He is so happy now that he has Bertie and more little ones. His eyes are softer, though not, I gather, when he is in court with a criminal squirming on the dock before him. He wants to see you—it must be to do with your marital state. I told him you’d be down at once.”
The dressmaker, no doubt used to Eleanor’s abrupt ways, began to calmly unpin the skirt. Eleanor assisted, apologizing profusely to the dressmaker and promising that Sophie would be back to continue the fitting forthwith.
Sophie restored her everyday skirt and shirtwaist, but her fingers shook so that Eleanor and the dressmaker had to help with her buttons. Eleanor hooked her arm through Sophie’s and led her out, patting her hand as they descended the stairs. Sophie had thought to explain she could face Mr. McBride alone, but then decided against it. A friend at her side was just what she needed.
She was glad she hadn’t insisted Eleanor leave her when they entered the front parlor. Mr. McBride, a handsome blond Scotsman, came to his feet at their entrance, but he wasn’t alone. Next to him, already standing, was David.
Sophie’s breath left her. David’s gaze was all for her, his blue-gray eyes filled with his biting wit and a strange apprehension.
Eleanor stopped, as surprised as Sophie. “David, what are you doing here? The majordomo didn’t announce you. Did you slide in under the moldings?”
David gave her a bow. “I bade your good man not to say a word. I was afraid neither of you would darken the door if you knew I lurked. I had rushed to London to visit McBride about my own situation, and he declared himself on his way to visit you. Naturally, I invited myself along. He has news.”
Sinclair shot him a look. “They likely discerned that from my presence alone.”
“Tell her.” David folded his arms and stepped back, rocking restlessly on his feet.
Sinclair opened a case that lay on the table next to him and withdrew a long document, folded lengthwise. “I am pleased to inform you that Lord Devonport has been granted an annulment to his marriage to Miss Sophie Tierney. The marriage is declared invalid and nonexistent, and both parties are at liberty to marry another if they so choose.”
Sophie’s jaw loosened, and the next thing she knew, she was in a chair, Eleanor and David on either side of her. David shoved a glass under her nose, and Sophie inhaled the sharp bite of whisky.
“Drink it,” David advised. “Trust me. Down it in one go.”
David had to steady the glass for her, but Sophie obeyed. Whisky filled her mouth, and she forced herself to swallow. Liquid burned fire down her throat but it settled her roiling stomach and let her draw a breath, her vision clearing.
Sinclair gazed upon her in sympathy. “Forgive me for springing it on you so abruptly, Miss Tierney. Barristers can b
e sharp, so my wife likes to tell me.” His expression softened a long way when he said my wife.
“Not at all.” Sophie tried to speak briskly, but her voice was breathy and wrong. “I needed to know. But … are you certain? Laurie—or rather, his solicitors—told me he could not annul the marriage, and that divorce was the only way he could be rid of me.”
David’s hand tightened on hers before she realized he’d been holding it. Warm, anchoring David.
“I’d never have brought this to you if I weren’t certain.” Sinclair held up the papers and then laid them carefully on a table. “The marriage has been annulled on the grounds of physical incapacity.”
Sophie blinked. “Physical …” Bile touched her throat, and she longed for another gulp of the whisky. “You mean my inability to carry a child.”
“By no means—”
David cut off Sinclair’s gentle answer. “Not on your part, love. On Lackwit Laurie’s. The evidence finds your husband incapable of siring an heir, a spare, a daughter, or anything else. Of completing the act at all. His soldier is always at ease, and by about … oh, now … several unscrupulous journalists will be announcing this fact to the world, using very circumspect wording and no names so they can’t be charged with libel.”
Sophie’s mouth hung open again. She shut it with a snap. “You did this,” she said rapidly to David. “You did all this.”
“I did.” David raised her hand to his lips, then he released her. “I am a monster. You may hate me for the rest of your life for making a complete fool of your husband and a mockery of your marriage. But I would do it again.” His voice turned hard. “What matters is that you are free of him—free to choose your life, without a shadow of disgrace.”
“Annulment is still a scandal,” Sophie said, voice weak.
“Usually, yes,” Eleanor’s brisk tones broke in. “But with your husband declared impotent, it means that, in the eyes of the world, you are untouched, unsullied. Perhaps unwise in your choice to marry him in the first place, but everyone knows about Lackwit Laurie. He’s a charmer with nothing behind the charm. You will be quite forgiven, and also unstained.”
A Rogue Meets a Scandalous Lady: Mackenzies, Book 11 Page 15
