by Mary Balogh
Henrietta was looking resplendent in another of her London ball gowns.
The dancing resumed, a set of more stately dances this time, and Henrietta and the viscount promenaded until their steps brought them to the door and they disappeared through it. Since everyone, with the possible exception of the dancers, had had their eyes riveted upon Viscount Darleigh since his arrival, and no one could fail to follow the progress of Henrietta’s shimmering ball gown, their exit was hardly discreet.
Sophia lifted one hand to her mouth and bit the knuckle of her forefinger. There must be a number of other people outside the inn. There had been when she arrived, and people had been coming and going ever since. As Aunt Martha had predicted, the assembly rooms were stuffy. There was nothing improper about their being out there. But between them, Aunt Martha and Sir Clarence on the inside and Henrietta on the outside would find a way of making it seem improper. There could be little doubt about that.
Sophia sat where she was and gnawed on her knuckle for ten minutes before doing anything. It was still not too, too long for a couple to be absent from the room. Except that everyone was almost openly watching for their reappearance, and Sir Clarence and Aunt Martha were talking to people they must have deigned worthy of their notice, and all turned to watch the doorway. They were undoubtedly fanning the flames of speculation.
Sophia got to her feet and slipped outside. As she went, she picked up a woolen shawl from the back of a chair. She had no idea whose it was and hoped the owner would not dash after her yelling stop, thief, or something equally alarming. It was unlikely, though. It was unlikely anyone had noticed her leave the room—or even noticed her in the room, for that matter.
There was no sign of Henrietta and Lord Darleigh among the small clusters of people standing outside. A few couples were strolling farther along the street, where they were in full view from the inn, but the two people she was looking for were not among them. Where would Henrietta have taken him to be more private, and therefore more indiscreet?
Fortunately, Sophia’s first guess was the right one. They were strolling along the back alley behind the buildings on the main street, walking on the grassy verge to avoid the deep ruts made by carts along the middle. She could hear Henrietta’s trilling laugh as she hurried up behind them, and the low voice of the viscount.
“Oh, Henrietta,” Sophia called as she drew close, “you forgot your shawl.”
The two of them turned, and even in the faint light of the moon and stars Sophia could see that Henrietta’s eyes were wide with shock and … fury. Viscount Darleigh’s eyebrows were raised.
“I forgot no such thing,” Henrietta said as Sophia held the shawl aloft and waved it in one hand. “And that is not even mine. Take it back to the inn immediately before its owner misses it.”
The viscount had cocked his head to one side.
“You are the lady from last evening,” he said. “The one who fetched Miss March’s music from upstairs. I am sorry—I do not know your name.”
“Sophia Fry,” she said.
“Miss Fry.” He smiled—and, oh, in the near darkness she would swear he was gazing right back into her eyes. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance. How kind of you to bring Miss March’s shawl, even if it has turned out to be the wrong one. I have been concerned that she might be chilly. She has denied it, but I do believe she is merely being polite, since I agreed that a breath of fresh air would be very welcome. I must return her—and you—to the assembly rooms without further delay.”
And he held out his other arm for Sophia to take.
She gazed at it in wonder and astonishment. And she looked at Henrietta, whose eyes were positively burning with fury and hate.
“I would far prefer to remain out here where it is cool and peaceful,” Henrietta said, her voice sweet and quite at variance with her facial expression. “Do let us continue, my lord.”
“By all means, if it is your wish,” he said. “Miss Fry, will you walk with us?”
He was still offering his arm.
It was the last thing Sophia wanted to do. Henrietta would slay her. More important, Sophia found him beautiful to behold from afar but almost impossibly intimidating from close to. But she had come outside to prevent the jaws of the trap from snapping shut.
She took a few steps toward him and slid her hand through his arm. And—oh, goodness—he was all warmth and solidity, and he smelled of some lovely musky and very male cologne. Sophia had never been more uncomfortable in her whole life. It felt as if the very air had been sucked out of the alley.
“We cannot walk three abreast on this lane,” Henrietta said no more than half a minute later, and her voice was betraying her this time. She sounded distinctly petulant. “I am afraid we must go back after all, my lord. Mama and Papa will be anxious at my absence. I did not realize how far you had brought me from the inn. Do let us return.”
“They will see that I am with you and be consoled, Henrietta,” Sophia said. “They will see, as will everyone else, that the proprieties have been observed.”
She could not remember another occasion when she had addressed a whole sentence to Henrietta.
Viscount Darleigh turned his head to smile at her. She was almost sure that she could read relief in his face.
Poor gentleman. Everyone was trying to marry him or arrange for him to marry someone else. During the half hour she had sat alone in the assembly room she had listened to the conversation around her, almost all of which was about Viscount Darleigh. She had already heard again that his mother and his sisters were urging him to marry and were actively matchmaking for him. People here were speculating about who in the neighborhood might suit him, since he had been plain Vincent Hunt until recently and did not appear to be at all high in the instep and might prefer someone who was familiar to him. The names of Miss Hamilton and Miss Granger had loomed large in the speculations. And, of course, the Marches were trying to net him by any means within their power.
Everyone noticed their return to the assembly rooms—and that was scarcely an exaggeration, if it was an exaggeration at all, for there was no set currently in progress to distract even those who would have been dancing. Everyone turned from their conversations to look from Viscount Darleigh to Henrietta to … her, Sophia Fry. Her aunt’s and uncle’s faces were a sight to behold. They looked first identically relieved and joyful as they beheld their daughter returned after so long in the company of Viscount Darleigh, her arm still drawn through his, and then they looked … astonished and chagrined and a number of other things they had not expected to look. For there, her arm drawn through the viscount’s other arm, was … their mouse.
And this time she was invisible to no one. She felt a curious mix of extreme discomfort and triumph.
The orchestra played a decisive chord as a signal to the dancers that a new set was about to begin, and the moment passed. All was well, depending upon one’s perspective, of course. There had been no impropriety after all, for there had been two ladies with the gentleman and so their walking outside, even along a quiet alley, had been quite above reproach.
A fast and furious dance began.
Henrietta hurried toward her mother.
Viscount Darleigh pressed Sophia’s hand to his side when she would have slipped it free.
“Miss Fry,” he said, “thank you for your concern for Miss March’s reputation. It was careless of me to walk so long and so far with her, but she did not wish to return, you see. I ought to have insisted, of course. May I escort you to the refreshment table? I believe I can even remember the way.”
He smiled. And she knew, despite his gallant words, that he was thanking her for rescuing him. He must have understood, almost too late, the danger in which Henrietta had placed him.
“Thank you, my lord.”
She was about to add a but and make some excuse before scurrying away. But she paused to consider. She could walk to the refreshment table with him, perhaps even stand there with him for a few minutes c
onversing while they ate or drank. She might, for a fleeting moment out of her life, be like any normal woman. No, not a normal woman. She might be like a privileged young lady who had attracted the attention of a viscount and a beautiful man, even if only for a few minutes, to be forgotten an hour later.
And then, not having spoken up immediately, it was too late to make excuses. They were on their way across the room together.
Sophia set the shawl over the back of an empty chair as she passed and avoided looking at her aunt and uncle, who were, of course, looking at her, as was almost everyone else.
It was a dizzying, alarming, exhilarating experience—to mention but a few of the emotions she could identify.
He was an utter idiot. Why did he forever allow the women in his life to manipulate him and rule him? Sometimes it was benevolent, or at least intended to be. Other times it was distinctly malevolent. Yet the only time in recent memory he had stood up against it, he had done so by running away. This time, though he might have stopped when he and Miss March were outside the inn, with the firm and truthful explanation that he would not compromise her by taking her any farther into the darkness, he had allowed her to lead him back to what he remembered as a very dark, deserted alley behind the main street of the village.
Was he never to be a functioning adult, able to think and act for himself, free of the influence of any woman? He had not always been like this, surely? He had been a distinctly independent boy. He had allowed himself to grow into a weakling—or at least he was in danger of doing so.
He was more grateful than he could say to Miss Fry, who, he suspected, had come very deliberately to his rescue, though he was not sure why. She was Miss March’s cousin, was she not? Or was it Miss March she had been rescuing? Either way he was grateful—and intrigued. He had been able to hear her quite clearly just now, he realized, when she had said thank you, my lord, though she had spoken in the same low voice she had used to her aunt last evening. She must know the secret of making oneself heard above a din by pitching the level of one’s voice below it rather than trying to shout above it, as most people did.
“Here we are,” she said just as softly.
“Would you care for a drink?” he asked her. “Or something to eat?”
“No, thank you,” she said. “I had some lemonade earlier.”
“I am not hungry or thirsty either,” he said with a smile. He had no wish to attempt either eating or drinking in such a public setting. He had no doubt there were plenty of eyes fixed upon his every move. “Are there any empty chairs nearby? Shall we sit for a few minutes?”
“A new set has just begun,” she said. “There are empty chairs.”
And soon they were seated side by side and he half turned his chair so that he would be close enough to hear her and to make himself heard—and, he hoped, to discourage interruption for a short while. He was finding all the attention both touching and wearying.
“You are Miss March’s cousin?” he asked.
“Yes,” she told him. “Lady March is my father’s sister.”
“Your father is deceased? And your mother?”
“Yes, both,” she said.
“I am sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“I was sorry,” he said, “that we were not introduced last evening.”
“Oh,” she said, “I am not of any importance.”
The music was loud and cheerful, and he could hear the sound of feet pounding rhythmically on the floor. The level of conversation rose above both sounds.
But he had not misheard her. He did not know quite how to reply.
“Perhaps not to your aunt and uncle and cousin,” he said. “But in the nature of things? And to yourself? I am sure you must be.”
He waited for her answer and leaned slightly closer to her. He could smell soap. It was a more pleasant, more wholesome smell than the harsh perfumes he had been smelling all evening.
She said nothing.
“I daresay,” he said, “you are trapped in a life not entirely to your liking by the fact of your parents’ death, just as I am trapped in a life that is not always entirely to my liking by the fact that I lost my sight six years ago. How long have you been orphaned?”
“Five years,” she told him. “My father died when I was fifteen.”
She was twenty, then.
“I was seventeen,” he said.
“So very young.”
“It is hard, is it not,” he said, “to have one’s life develop quite differently from what one expected and to feel not fully in command of it?”
It was strange. He never spoke like this to anyone, least of all to a stranger, and a female stranger at that. But perhaps that made it easier. Tomorrow they would still be strangers. What they said tonight would be forgotten.
“Yes,” she said after a rather lengthy pause.
“What would you do,” he asked her, “if you could reshape your life to be exactly as you would wish it to be? If you had the means and the opportunity to do whatever you wished? What do you dream of being and doing? I suppose you do have dreams. We all do. What is yours?”
She was either not going to answer him at all or she was giving the matter some thought. He suspected that Miss Sophia Fry was not someone who chattered aimlessly about nothing. But then, she probably did not have much opportunity to do that. He did not envy her living as a poor relation with the Marches. He liked the idea that she was thoughtful.
Perhaps she considered his questions idiotic—and perhaps they were. They were the sorts of questions an eager boy asked of a girl. A man and a woman were expected to be anchored in reality.
“I would live alone,” she said. “In the country. In a little cottage with a garden full of flowers that I could tend. With a vegetable patch at the back and maybe a few chickens. With some friendly neighbors and a cat and maybe a dog. And books. And an endless supply of sketching paper and charcoal. And a sufficient income to supply my needs, which would not be extravagant. Perhaps the chance to learn new things.”
He had given her the chance to wish for riches and jewels and furs and mansions and foreign travel and the Lord knew what else. He was touched by the modesty of her dream.
“And a husband and children?” he asked.
Again he felt her hesitation.
“No,” she said. “I believe I would be happier alone.”
He almost asked her why. But he reminded himself that she was a stranger and that the question would be an almost intimate one. He must not be too intrusive.
He wondered fleetingly what would have happened if he had asked Miss Dean about her dreams. Would she have answered candidly? He ought to have given her the chance, perhaps. He still felt badly about her.
“It is your turn,” she said in a voice so low that he had to lean closer yet. He could sense her body warmth. He withdrew a couple of inches. He would not embarrass her or give the villagers any cause for gossip. “What are your most secret dreams?”
“It seems ungrateful to have any when one seemingly has everything,” he said. “I have a title and fortune, a spacious home and a vast park surrounding it. I have a mother and grandmother, sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews, all of whom love me.”
“And a dream,” she said when he stopped talking.
“And a dream,” he admitted. “A dream, like yours, of being on my own, independent and able to manage my own life, even with all its myriad responsibilities. Of being able to send all my female relatives back to the homes they either neglect far too often now or have actually abandoned for my sake. Of not having to have them running my life for me any longer. Of being fully grown up, I suppose I mean, which I would surely have been long ago if I had retained my sight. I cannot regain my sight, and even dreams have to take some reality into consideration. I would live as independently as a blind man can, able to find my way about alone, able to oversee the running of my estate and farms, able to consort with some ease with my neighbors. I dream of a richly lived, inde
pendent life. My life and no one else’s. But perhaps it is not a dream I talk of, Miss Fry, is it, but a goal. Dreams are wishes that will in all probability never come true. I could make my dreams come true. Indeed, I mean to.”
He stopped talking, astonished at all that had come pouring out of his mouth. He was probably going to be horribly embarrassed when he woke up tomorrow morning and remembered this conversation—or this particular monologue, anyway.
“And marriage and children?” she asked him.
He sighed. That was a thorny question. Marriage was something that might appeal to him in the future. But not yet. He was not ready. He had nothing of any value to offer—beyond the obvious. He would always have only blindness to offer a potential wife, of course, but he did not want to impose afflictedness as well upon any woman. It would be unfair to her, and he might come to resent her if he must lean upon her—literally as well as in numerous other ways. At present he was still afflicted. He needed to overcome that.
And children? One of his duties was to beget an heir, and he was determined to do his duty. But not yet. There was no urgency, surely. He was only twenty-three. And he would never be able to play cricket with his son…
Self-pity was something he had taken ruthlessly in hand a number of years ago, but occasionally it could still seep through his defenses.
“I am sorry,” Miss Fry said. “It was an impertinent question.”
“Even though I asked it of you?” he said. “I was thinking, considering my answer. We are speaking of dreams, not reality. We are speaking of what we would like our lives to be if we had the freedom to live them as we chose. No, then. No wife. No women at all. Not that I despise your sex, Miss Fry. Quite the contrary. But women are tenderhearted—at least, almost all the women in my life are. They feel sorry for me. They want to help me. They want to smother me. No, in my dream I am free and on my own—apart, I suppose, from an army of servants. In my dream, I have proved to myself and the world that I can do this living business on my own, that I neither need nor permit any pity.”
