Most Improper Miss Sophie Valentine

by Jayne Fresina

  Sophie quietly suggested they might all return to their discussion. As a founding member of Sydney Dovedale’s Book Society, Sophie was also the most enthusiastic reader. These days she no longer skimmed pages but read books from cover to cover, having far more time on her hands to do so and no lively beaus to drag her away from them. The other women, she suspected, joined the book society for tea and gossip as much as they did for any intelligent, insightful conversation about novels. Maria would read the beginning and the end; Miss Osborne read the cover and ascertained from that what the story was about; Mrs. Flick fluttered through the pages for any passages that would allow her to condemn the book; Mrs. Cawley, while making a valiant attempt to read every chapter, usually found too much else to take her attention away from it and could never quite “get to grips with the story.”

  Sophie glanced around the small parlor and thought what a pity it was that Mrs. Cawley’s niece, Ellie Vyne, was not there. At times like these, Sophie missed the distraction provided by her dear young friend very much. Ellie always had plenty of opinions to express, usually contrary to those of her fellow society members, even though Sophie suspected Ellie never read the books either. If Ellie were here today, she would have mocked them all for being so intrigued by the stranger. She would probably have cornered him already and found out everything there was to know about him, including his shoe size, thereby ending all the silly speculation. Although she was five years younger than Sophie, she was far bolder, quite dangerously fearless at times.

  But Ellie would not be back to visit her aunt until the summer, and Sophie must plow bravely forward without her. It’s not every day a girl is proposed to by a perfect stranger, and she could use her best friend’s counsel.

  As she opened her mouth to begin the discussion, she was interrupted before the first sound formed on her tongue.

  “He has a scar upon his chest,” Jane Osborne sputtered. At once all the ladies turned to look at her. “The Misses Dawkins saw him with his shirt off, mending his gate.” She, too, returned to the table, and the other ladies followed, gathering eagerly like pigeons around bread crumbs. “It is a little bump,” she added, “right by his heart.”

  Immediately, they were all agog, and Sophie watched her younger sister begin to perspire, fingers working frantically at the tiny, much-abused buttons on her gloves.

  “It seems to me,” said Mrs. Flick curtly, “the Misses Dawkins spent rather more time than is proper, inspecting the fellow without his shirt. They should have turned their eyes away at once.”

  They all agreed aloud the Misses Dawkins were quite at fault.

  “And how is dear Finn?” Mrs. Flick suddenly inquired of Sophie.

  Relieved by the change of subject, she replied, “My aunt is quite well, thank you.”

  But Maria exclaimed, “All this business about this new person coming to the village has upset her. Strange men coming to mar—” Sophie nudged her, and she stopped with a small yelp.

  “I shall take Finn some calves’ foot jelly,” Mrs. Cawley exclaimed, beating her knees with her fists as if she ought to have thought of it long before now. “There’s nothing like it for strengthening the blood.”

  Sophie ground her lips into a smile, but Miss Osborne, who couldn’t care less about Finn Valentine’s state of health, exclaimed merrily, “His name is Lazarus! Of all things…Lazarus!”

  Her nerves scattered, Sophie studied the carpet. She could almost feel the building tremors of her sister’s righteous indignation shaking her Hepplewhite chair.

  “What will my dear Mr. Bentley think of a name like that?” Maria grumbled. “It might be a biblical name, but it’s not a solid, plain name like Peter, Paul, or John. Lazarus—he who was raised from the dead.” She shuddered. “I can’t imagine what my dear Mr. Bentley will have to say, but surely he will not approve. Of course, I’m never one to judge, but such a name…and dark as a gypsy he is. The moment I knew Souls Dryft was let to a single man, I said to my dear Mr. Bentley, It will only be trouble. The admiral cares nothing about this village. If he did, he wouldn’t let his house to people called Lazarus.”

  Sophie licked her lips, desperately searching for another subject, but Maria picked up speed, her flighty gaze dancing back and forth in a rowdy jig around Mrs. Cawley’s cozy, tranquil parlor, her breath coming in little spurts like steam from a nearly boiling kettle.

  “A stranger—a single man—all alone…moving into that house…Well, it’s none of my business, and I take no interest in his comings and goings. Henry says he wouldn’t be surprised if he was”—she lowered her voice—“from the colonies. Those are not the hands of a gentleman…not even a glove in sight…I wouldn’t be surprised…not a bit…An advertisement for a…well, really! Who ever heard of such a thing?”

  Sophie cleared her throat. “If we might return to the book—?”

  “I suppose he made a fortune in investments.” Maria mowed over Sophie’s words as if they were nothing more than the drone of a fly.

  Wilting in her chair, Sophie tried desperately to restrain her sister with little nudges of the knee and elbow, yet nothing worked. One may as well strive to uncurl a pig’s tail as stop her now. Maria was about to burst out of her stays.

  “It could be money smuggled out of France,” she exclaimed. “He must be a mercenary soldier. Hence the wound.”

  “Very few men of wealth came by it honestly,” said Mrs. Cawley. “Show me a man with great fortune—as my dear Captain Cawley would always say—and I’ll show you a thieving tinker. Ah, my dear captain. God rest his soul.”

  The clock on the mantel wheezed out another soft, steady thunk, and the departed captain’s old parakeet, recognizing his master’s name, gave a proud squawk from his tall cage by the window.

  Maria raised her chin another inch, ignored her sister’s polite request for more tea, and then out it came.

  “He has come to find a wife.” It fell into the quiet, comfortable air of the room like clumsy, hobnail boots dropped from a careless hand. “He has come to marry Sophia, because she advertised for a husband in the Farmer’s Gazette.” With every eye now turned in their direction, Maria assumed an innocent face and sipped her tea, unblinking. She might as well have disowned the very statement her lips just delivered, leaving Sophie to take the brunt of their amazement and disbelief.

  Miss Osborne opened her mouth, but perhaps it was simply the size and placement of her teeth that prevented it from closing again when no words emerged. Mrs. Flick looked smug, as if she could possibly have had an inkling of it, while Mrs. Cawley blinked in astonishment, bearing more than slight resemblance to her husband’s bird, whose crest was now raised as he jumped from one foot to the other in agitation.

  The secret undone, Maria had nothing left to lose. It could not very well be put back under her tongue. She consoled herself out loud with the reassurance that “nothing ever remains secret very long in Sydney Dovedale. I suppose you would all have found out soon, in any case.”

  Mrs. Flick nodded, her lips pressed tight, and Mrs. Cawley’s expression drooped with pity for the poor, desperate, scarred woman in their midst. Jane Osborne covered her mouth with one small hand, and Sophie suspected she was struggling to restrain a spiteful giggle, one she would let out as soon as she had the chance to relate this story to another.

  Sophie wished fervently for a trapdoor under her chair and someone braver than her to pull the lever. There was no one, of course. Making a hasty and nonsensical excuse of being needed at home to make jam tarts, she leapt to her feet and left Mrs. Cawley’s parlor.

  ***

  Lazarus whistled softly as he strode down the narrow, muddy lane, arms swinging. His thoughts were so far away he didn’t see anything in his path until the toes of his boots hit the edge of a deep, wide puddle. He stopped abruptly and looked up to assess whether he could make it over with one jump.

  And then he saw Sophie Valentine on the other side of the puddle, apparently pondering the same problem. She carried a bo
nnet in one hand, a book in the other. Her coat was unbuttoned, her face flushed, and her hair in disarray, as if she’d been running again and was in considerable temper. Her eyes widened when she saw him at the exact moment he saw her. She stepped back, her heels squelching in mud. He followed the path of her gaze as it tracked from left to right and measured the verge on either side. There was only a narrow strip of grass before the stone wall on one side and a high, steep bank of weeds and thistles on the other. Finding dry footholds would require the balance of a circus acrobat.

  Well, he couldn’t let her get her petticoats wet, could he? Lazarus rolled up his shirtsleeves and sloshed forward into the water, his stride long and determined. Alarm and surprise took turns possessing her pretty face. It seemed she was too stunned to move away, and when he finally reached the spot where she stood, he swept her up easily into his arms, swung around, and carried her slowly across the puddle. They did not speak. Her arm reached across his chest, her hand resting on his shoulder, clinging to the ribbons of her dangling bonnet. He felt her breath, unsteady and shallow, as it trembled through her light form. His own heart thumped away, beating in his ears and boldly disregarding the metal lodged nearby.

  Carefully, he set her down. He wondered if he should say something, but he didn’t want to spoil the peaceful moment.

  At first he thought she meant to walk away and say nothing, but apparently her temper—something he’d already witnessed being released on a sack of feathers—got the better of her.

  “What made you think I needed your help?” she demanded primly, chin up and eyes aflame. “I suppose you assumed I was just waiting to be rescued.”

  He scratched his head. “You were standing there looking desperate.”

  “Desperate? Desperate?” Something about that word raised her temper another notch. Whatever had put her in a bad mood already, his sudden appearance in the lane had done nothing to appease it. “I’ll thank you to know, sir, I am quite capable of finding my own way around a small obstacle. I am twenty-nine years of age and managed to survive quite well on my own all these years. Do you suppose I was waiting all this time for you?”

  He said nothing but rubbed his jaw slowly with one hand, taking her in from muddy feet to the wayward straggle of honey-colored hair.

  “I might not have wanted to cross the puddle,” she added. “I might not be going this way. You didn’t even ask.”

  He cocked his head to one side.

  “Why do you look at me in that manner?” the haughty madam demanded.

  “Miss Valentine, may we—?”

  “Don’t speak to me!” She held up her hand, palm in his face. “I cannot converse with you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s most improper. You’re a single man and a stranger.”

  “But you’re speaking to me now,” he pointed out.

  “Indeed I am not,” she exclaimed boldly with the aplomb of a woman accustomed to telling fibs.

  His gaze swept down to her feet again. “You’ve got mud on your gown.”

  “I know that, for pity’s sake. Don’t you think I have enough people to point out my faults already?”

  “Well, I—”

  “If there’s one thing I do not lack, it’s other folk trying to direct my life.”

  “I only pointed out the mud—”

  “I may be a woman, but that does not make me an imbecile. Neither am I crippled. I am perfectly capable of negotiating a puddle. Things may be different wherever you come from, sir, but here in Sydney Dovedale, gentlemen don’t sweep ladies off their feet.”

  He smirked. “I’m sorry for the ladies, then. Good thing I’m here, ain’t it?”

  “That is not what I meant, and well you know it.” Her cheeks darkened another shade. “They do not put their hands all over ladies without permission.”

  “I’ll ask first next time, then.” And one of these days, he mused, his blood roused, he’d make her beg for his touch. “Ma’am.”

  “Well, you are refused—”

  “I didn’t ask yet.”

  “—in advance,” she sputtered, wrapping her bonnet ribbons around her fingers. “Besides, your hands are dirty,” she added with a grand flourish, as if she’d been searching for more insults. “Dreadful, impertinent man.”

  His hands were dirty? Was that the best she could do?

  He gave her a moment, and when that produced no further comment, he took matters into his own filthy hands.

  Bending his knees slightly, he scooped her up again, this time vertically, with his arms around her hips, and carried her back across the puddle. He set her down again, doffed an imaginary hat, and left her there as he walked onward down the lane. He had no doubt the ungrateful wench watched him go, so he kept his gaze forward and resumed his merry whistle.

  Chapter 7

  As the day wore on, the sky brightened, not a cloud in sight. Then, slowly, it began to soften, like a watercolor painting that became too wet and crinkled the paper. By late afternoon, Lazarus’s view of the horizon from the roof of the farmhouse rippled with merging, fuzzy layers of blush-pink, cobalt blue, and burnished copper. The busy birds still chirped, but less frantically now, their notes dampened and warped like the sun.

  Lazarus was taking a short break and sitting astride the peak of his roof, when he spied Henry Valentine arriving at his gate to yank impatiently on the bell rope. He’d expected this visit yesterday, but evidently, Valentine had decided to make him wait. Fine. If that was the way he wanted to play. Lazarus would let Tuck deal with him first. He’d finish his work and then go down. Mr. Henry Valentine could take his turn waiting.

  In answer to repeated clangs of the bell, Tuck finally emerged from the house, his ambling, crooked gait in no hurry.

  Henry bellowed through the iron bars of the gate, “I haven’t all blessed day. Where is he?”

  “Hold yer horses,” Tuck exclaimed, moving no faster, plainly careless of Valentine’s noble pretensions.

  Lazarus smiled as he felt the hot blast of Henry’s frustration even from that distance. Tuck unlocked the gate, and Henry barged ahead into the house, leaving the old man to hobble after.

  Almost half an hour later, Lazarus strolled leisurely through the farmhouse door, a jolly whistle on his lips. He saw Henry seated by the window, gripping his cane in both hands and rattling on about his time being very important. At the sound of the door opening and Lazarus’s careless whistle, Henry stiffly turned in his seat. Shock and horror quickly consumed his features, and Lazarus wondered if it would have been proper to put his shirt on before he came in. It hadn’t occurred to him. He tried to keep that shirt as clean as possible, so he never wore it when working around the house and farm.

  Henry’s gaze fell to the small bump on Lazarus’s bare chest before it swept back upward. Recognition must have slapped him hard and quick when he realized this was the man he’d recently encountered lurking under a lantern outside Morecroft Gentleman’s Club. The man who knew he was in debt.

  He rose quickly. “Kane, I presume!”

  Still wiping his hands on an old rag, Lazarus nodded his head. “And who might you be?”

  Henry tapped his stick indignantly upon the flagstones. “I, young man, am Henry Valentine.”

  “Ah,” Lazarus said slowly. Of course he knew who it was standing in his house, but he made the man admit it this time. “Please forgive my state of undress…” He extended a hand toward Henry, the great bulk of muscle in his arm and shoulder making the gesture rather more menacing than welcoming.

  “I’ve waited here long enough,” Henry snapped. “I have many other matters of business today, so I shall tally no longer and get directly to the point.”

  Lazarus retrieved his unaccepted hand. “I’m grateful for your haste, Valentine. I, too, am busy.”

  Henry’s face grew redder with every breath. “I understand you came here with plans to marry my sister. Had you consulted me first, I could have saved you the trouble. Sophia will n
ot marry. I must ask you to forget you ever read that advertisement.”

  “Oh?”

  “My sister is prone to whimsical ideas, all in the purpose of her own amusing sport. The advertisement was merely a result of that same regretful impulse for mischief, which has, in the past, caused us similar trouble. Sophia is a difficult, contrary creature, her temper as changeable as the wind. That advertisement, written in one mood, she now already wishes retracted.”

  A sharp pain stabbed his chest. Lazarus caught his breath, placing his hand over the little bump there. “Why does she not tell me this herself?”

  “It is not fitting for a well-bred lady to speak with a bachelor like yourself, in any matter.” He paused. “I regret you came all this way for naught. You’ve traveled a great distance?”

  Lazarus gave no answer but walked to the window and turned his back to Henry, trying to get his thoughts in order, his temper under control.

  “You were a soldier, Kane?”

  “I’ve been many things.” He looked back at the red-faced man, who seemed to inflate further with every angry breath. “The lady changed her mind, is that it? Perhaps I don’t suit her fancy.”

  “My sister has no wish to marry. She’s resigned to spinsterhood.”

  “’Tis an odd thing for a young woman like that to be so resigned,” Lazarus replied steadily. “I’ll talk to the lady myself.”

  “You certainly will not approach my sister,” Henry exclaimed, breathless and perspiring. “I warn you to let the matter rest.”

  Lazarus stared at the flagstones under his feet and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. Every sore muscle in his shoulder heaved then settled. He should have known there’d be trouble. Nothing worth having in life was easy. “I see how it is,” he said finally. “How much do you need to pay off your debts? What will it cost me?”

  “You misunderstand, sir, and willfully, I suspect,” Henry blustered, almost exploding out of his waistcoat.

  “Oh no, sir, I understand you perfectly.” Lazarus looked up again, smiling slowly. “You’re disinclined to give your sister away for free. Can’t blame you for that. I’ll buy her from you.”