Jilting the Duke

by Rachael Miles

  Sophia refused them his aid. “So, in other words, your birds are not only named after hell, but they sound like they are personally acquainted with the region?”

  “Well, yes!” Ralph agreed, then fell into silence when John elbowed him in the ribs.

  Sophia patted each one’s arm. “Tom would completely understand.”

  * * *

  Sophia soon learned that Ophelia’s idea of a family dinner extended beyond Sophia’s handful of blood relations to include Tom’s family, Aidan’s brothers, the local clergyman, several spinsters, the magistrate, and a handful of families whose daughters, though still too young for the London season, needed experience navigating social situations with strangers. Ophelia, eschewing precedence, had created a playful and original seating arrangement, based, she claimed, on drawing names from an envelope. But Sophia could see that it intermingled rank and gentry artfully, instead of sequestering her with Aidan, his brothers, and her cousins at one end of the table.

  Sophia was seated at dinner between the parson and the magistrate, but happily both men were congenial companions, adapting their conversation to her interests and experiences. The parson had read Tom’s Systematical Botany and applied Tom’s observations to his own botanical pursuits. The magistrate was interested in Sophia’s perceptions of the state of Italian politics.

  Aidan was seated far to her right, surrounded on all sides by the daughters of her ever-affable cousin Hal Elliot, the twins’ eldest brother and her senior by almost a dozen years. Across from her Hal conversed to his left with a dignified, gray-haired woman in her sixties whom Sophia remembered to be Tom’s aunt Millicent and to his right was Malcolm’s wife Audrey. Sophia could hear only snatches of a conversation that centered on the relative merits of various writers for the stage, but she kept finding her attention drawn to Audrey, whom Malcolm had introduced as his fair-haired gypsy.

  The food was generous, the conversation jovial. By the end, Sophia realized that Ophelia had not lied: the people she had invited were Ophelia’s family if not by blood, then by proximity and affection.

  After dinner, Kate and Ariel played a duet on violin and cello, joined by the twins who were surprisingly accomplished baritones. The mill-owner’s two daughters, singing in tightly harmonized voices, led the whole company in several popular songs.

  Sophia’s dance card, for Ophelia insisted on the convention even for a family dinner, filled quickly. Country dances with the twins were followed by a reel with the magistrate, whose round cheeks grew red with the exertion.

  Malcolm had reserved the first dance after the break. “I believe this dance is mine,” he said, holding out his arm to Sophia.

  The local brewer offered a regretful good-bye as Malcolm led her to the dance floor. “You seem to have won his heart.”

  “I only asked some questions about the variety of his hops.” Sophia leaned into Malcolm’s arm.

  “He’s sending you a hogshead of his finest porter,” Malcolm rebutted. They stopped at the edge of the dancing floor, waiting for the musicians to retake their instruments.

  “I asked very good questions.” Sophia stepped back to regard Malcolm intently. “But let me look at you.”

  Malcolm submitted to her inspection, straightening his crimson waistcoat and deep gray jacket, then standing straight.

  “Marriage suits you. Your eyes are still that devastating green that drove the local girls mad, but the loneliness is gone.”

  “Of all the cousins, only you ever knew I was lonely.” Malcolm placed his hand behind her back as the musicians finished tuning, and they stepped into the space reserved for the dances. “But you are right: marriage does suit me, though getting Audrey to the parson all in one piece almost eluded me.”

  “Tom and I were concerned when you wrote of her injuries, but she seems to have recovered fully.”

  He looked adoringly across the room at his wife, dazzling in a rich salmon satin. “Yes, thank heavens. I would never have forgiven myself otherwise.” At the first strains of the waltz, he began to lead Sophia in circles around the floor. “Audrey has convinced me it would be bad form to reject your gift, that I would not have refused had it been a bequest in Tom’s will.”

  “That’s the perfect way to think of it: as a belated gift from Tom.” Once more Sophia found herself in the uncomfortable position of having no idea what gift she had given, and this time Aidan was not present to offer her help. Remembering the twins’ birdcage, she offered, “And it’s not so great a gift that you couldn’t have purchased it yourself.”

  He shook his head, but never missed a step of the waltz. “No, I could never have raised the funds to buy it.” He pressed his hand against her back to lead her into a spin outward, then lifted his arm to bring her back. “But you, sweet cousin, never forgot all our hours planning what we would do if we owned it. We’re partners now, Sophie, whether you expected to be or not.”

  She squeezed his hand. She knew what his gift had been. “Your father sold that land to make his fortune in Kentucky; now it’s yours again, to build your fortune here. It’s a gift that cost me nothing; it was part of an inheritance Tom received before he died. From what I’ve seen of Audrey tonight, you don’t need any other partner.”

  She watched Malcolm’s eyes focus behind her and light up with love. On the turn she saw Audrey, talking with Aidan’s brothers, her blond ringlets tied up with a wide green brocaded ribbon to highlight the green accents in her salmon gown.

  “When we were young, I always wanted to marry someone like you: clever and funny and brave.” He paused. “But I’d given up finding someone like that, until I found Audrey.”

  “I’m not sure I remember how to be brave, Malcolm . . . if I ever was.” She heard the music drawing to a close.

  “You’ll remember, Sophie.” He spun her out for one more turn. “I know you will.”

  At the last turn, they stopped in front of Aidan. It was to be his dance, a rousing Scottish reel, but taking his leave of Malcolm, Aidan took Sophia’s hand and drew her away from the dance floor.

  “I have some intelligence you will find helpful. Shall we take some air on the terrace?” He led her to the curtained glass doors of the terrace.

  Outside the night was cool, the light of the evening fading gently on the horizon.

  “I’m hoping you plan to tell me what other gifts I’ve given . . . and to whom.”

  He considered the other couples on the terrace, but none were close enough to overhear. “It took some coaxing, but eventually Ophelia confessed.” He held out a list in Tom’s hand, with more than two dozen names, each one accompanied by instructions for a gift.

  Sophia read it over. “This includes everyone in our circle before we left England: my cousins, your brothers and Judith, Tom’s sisters. But how?”

  “Tom was wealthy. Most of the gifts are not extravagant. In each case, Tom picked something the person desperately wanted, but for some reason could not or would not buy for themselves. Ariel’s cello, Kate’s violin, Hal’s new hounds, Clive’s set of Malone’s edition of Shakespeare, Colin’s landscape of Dedham Vale by John Constable. The only gift I think he got wrong is Judith’s; I can’t imagine her wanting anything so impractical.”

  Sophia read down the list again to Judith’s gift: a robust collection of novels from the Minerva Press. “That makes perfectly good sense to me,” she said, laughing.

  The last name on the list caught her attention. “Benjamin Somerville to receive William Stansby’s 1634 printing of Malory’s Morte D’Arthur.” She grew sober. “Even a gift for Benjamin.”

  Aidan nodded, but said nothing.

  “Tom never believed Benjamin was dead. He couldn’t have left him out.”

  Aidan took the list from her hands, then folded it, and slid it inside the top of his boot. “Now you can enjoy the rest of the evening without the fear of exposure.”

  “But how? And why?” Sophia frowned into the growing dark.

  “According to Ophelia, the
gifts were originally intended as bequests. In many cases, Tom had chosen the gift, but for the others, he enlisted Ophelia’s aid. Ophelia contacted your agent Aldine, and together they determined what each person would receive, suited to the person’s temperament and desires. In most cases, Tom approved the choices, but he died before the bequests were written into his will,” Aidan explained gently.

  “That answers how, but not why. Why did Ophelia pretend the gifts were from me?”

  “During mourning you withdrew, even from those who would have eagerly offered you comfort. By making the gifts into a game, Ophelia hoped to remind you of your deep connections with your cousins and my family.”

  “Like brother, like sister.” Sophia grimaced. “The temptation to manage is irresistible.”

  Aidan heard the bitter undertone in Sophia’s voice. As the diplomat he had been, he took a moment to consider the situation. Ophelia had felt keenly her sister-in-law’s isolation, and though she had not intended to be cruel with her game, she had caught Sophia off guard. Similarly, Tom had not considered that Aidan might be cruel as a co-guardian; instead he had foolishly entrusted his wife and his child to Aidan’s better nature. In each case, Sophia’s actual well-being had been ignored in pursuit of what Tom or Ophelia might deem a higher good. Aidan finally broke the growing silence. “I suppose it doesn’t help to say that they only manage those they love.”

  Sophia sighed. “I know. Tom believed any problem could be solved by the application either of reason or affection. Ophelia is like him in that. . . .”

  She paused, and he saw the faintest hint of tears in her eyes. Unexpectedly he felt his heart move in sympathy, but before he could console her, she straightened her shoulders and prepared to return to the saloon.

  “May I see that list again? I have other gifts to give.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The proofs for Tom’s final book—a catalogue of European plants suitable for English gardens—had arrived the day Aldine had informed her of the guardianship. But with Aidan a new presence in their lives, Sophia had been unable to address them. This morning Aidan had taken Ian to St. John’s Wood to watch a cricket match with some boys already in residence at Harrow. In the quiet of the house, she turned to her task. Laying the manuscript next to the printed proof pages, she began to compare them, line by line.

  The proofs to the first volume had been so accurate that she’d been tempted to send the rest of the pages back without reading to the end. But her sense of obligation made her read every page. By noon, she’d realized that her task would not be as easy as she first imagined. In the second volume she found small but unexplainable errors on almost every page. Random bits of Latin interrupted sentences that made perfectly good sense without them. An easy solution would have been to remove all the Latin, except for the fact that Tom sometimes quoted Latin as part of the sentences.

  It made no sense. She groaned in frustration and rubbed her forehead with her fingers. Then, breathing deeply, she returned to her task.

  When Dodsley arrived with a pot of tea, she realized with chagrin that it was almost two. The warmth of the tea felt good against her hands.

  However frustrating, the proofs were useful in focusing her mind on something other than Aidan. Since they had met to discuss the guardianship, Aidan seemed always to be interrupting her—every day, he’d found a way to engage her in conversation, about Ian mostly, and what plans he had made with her son for the following day. She couldn’t complain; he never took Ian even as close as the park without making sure she knew and approved. His attention to her opinion was flattering, but it only made her thirst for more: for more engagement with his quick mind, for more chances to be near him. And her desire made her feel foolish.

  Forcing herself to turn back to the proofs, she saw an error far worse than all the others. According to the text, plate 48 was supposed to be an engraving of a rose, Rosa chinensis Mutabilis—simple enough. Her illustration of the rose had been one of her favorites, single flowers opening a rich red, ripening to a salmon pink, then fading to yellow.

  But here was an engraved illustration of a far different plant. She knew the plant—the agave. She even knew the original engraving, a large foldout that had fascinated her as a child. Sophia pushed back from the desk and walked to the bookcases behind her easel. She kept her father’s copy of Philip Miller’s 1763 Gardener’s Dictionary near her prints and paints. Her father had avidly admired Miller, the gardener at the Apothecaries’ Physic Garden at Chelsea, and its pages still smelled like her father’s study, reminding her of the hours she’d spent as a child tracing the book’s full-page botanical illustrations. She found the illustration in an instant and laid the proof beside it. It was the same. Not just the same plant, but the same illustration.

  Unfortunately, finding where the image had come from did nothing to make the proofs correct. This last mistake had surely come from Tom’s hand. He had even signed the illustration according to the common practice: he’d used Latin for the verb made, or in this case drawn: Fecit T. G. W. Why hadn’t he asked her to draw it for him?

  If the incorrect image was from Tom’s hand, what of all the bits of misplaced Latin. Had Tom “made” those errors too?

  She couldn’t imagine that the Latin phrases had been added accidentally by the press. No, setting Latin phrases added another step into the process of composing the type. The compositor would have to work from one type drawer for the English and another for the italicized Latin. And no compositor would just “add in” Latin arbitrarily, unless the publisher had an angry or malicious compositor intent on making Tom’s book a financial failure—and that was unlikely. Could Tom have added nonsense letters to the fair copy he had written out neatly for the publisher?

  In the case of a malicious employee, she could alert Mr. Murray.

  But if Tom’s fair copy was the problem, continuing to read the proofs was useless. She would have to wait for Mr. Murray to retrieve Tom’s fair copy from his printer to finish her task.

  But the agave print she could track down on her own. She removed the image from the proofs and folded it small enough to fit in her reticule. Though Tom had drawn the image, he hadn’t engraved it. If she could find the engraver, perhaps she could discover what Tom had been thinking.

  * * *

  Aidan was in his study, catching up on correspondence, when his younger brother Edmund opened the door.

  “Hey-o! Haven’t seen you at Brooks’s for days.” Edmund chose the most comfortable chair, then turned it backwards.

  “Ian and I spent the day at St. John’s Wood, watching cricket with some boys already at Harrow.” Aidan blotted the remaining ink from his pen and set it on the rest. “Drink?”

  Edmund nodded at the whiskey. “How do you find your new ward?”

  Aidan poured two shots of whiskey and handed one to his brother. “Reserved, but not shy. Like Tom, he is a thoughtful observer of people.” At the cricket match, Aidan had watched with a certain amount of pride as Ian drew his social circle wide, including those who were good-hearted and congenially holding at a distance the ill-natured boys. Signs that—like his father—Ian had the makings of a statesman. “We’re going to Smithfield tomorrow. You’re welcome to join us, though I’m sure you and Clive already intended to be there.”

  “I might. I’d like to see Ian. I haven’t seen him or Sophia since the last time I came to town with Seth.” Edmund brushed a wave of dark hair from his face. Of all the brothers, he and Aidan shared that feature, but there the resemblance ended. Edmund’s disposition was as sunny as June. “In fact, I called on Sophie this afternoon to apologize for missing Phee’s dinner, though I suppose three Somerville brothers is enough for any party. But she’d already gone out.”

  “Women often call on one another in the afternoons.” Aidan turned back to his papers, annoyed. He’d known that Seth, as the Wilmot estate manager, visited Sophia, but he hadn’t realized his other brothers visited as well. And he wasn’t sure what rank
led more: the visits or his not knowing.

  “On foot? Without a maid? I arrived after she left the house, but I could see her walking at the end of the street.” Edmund inhaled the aroma of the whiskey, then drank. “I found it somewhat odd.”

  Aidan folded the paper and met his brother’s eyes. “Did you offer to accompany her?”

  Edmund turned serious. “No. There was something about her carriage. I don’t know. I thought that as Ian’s guardian you might prefer if I discovered where she was going.”

  Aidan raised one eyebrow and waited.

  “She went to the British Institution.”

  “She’s an artist. Perhaps she went to see the old masters on display?” Aidan turned back to his papers.

  “She didn’t go to the public galleries.”

  Aidan sat silently, waiting, saying nothing that would reveal interest.

  “She was downstairs in the Institution office. A man was examining a document for her with a magnifying glass. At some point Sophia wrote what he told her on a slip of paper. The man folded the document she’d brought and started to place it in his overcoat, but she objected and he returned it. She put both in her reticule.”

  “Could you see what the document was?” Aidan was suddenly interested.

  “No. Do you want me to find out?”

  “Can you do so without garnering attention?”

  Edmund smiled broadly. “What do you think?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Aidan was considering his next move. His men were positioned along the top of a tree-covered ridge. From that vantage point, they could see most of the valley below. Ian’s troops were gathering on the ridge on the opposite side of the valley, hiding behind rocks. They had been playing this engagement for the last several afternoons, and the next few minutes would determine the course of the battle. Aidan was running scenarios in his head. To move his troops there would put him at risk of . . .