Jilting the Duke

by Rachael Miles

  “Call what?”

  “The salon.” He started doing something tantalizing with his fingers.

  “Why would I need to call it anything? It’s simply a salon.”

  “It needs a name.” To accompany the movement of his hand, he blew hot breaths in her ear, then followed the line of her jaw with kisses.

  For a moment she couldn’t think, her passion rising. Then she remembered Tom’s teasing name. “Muses. We would inspire each other. The Muses’ Salon.”

  “Would you allow men?” He leaned farther and kissed a line from her ear down her neck.

  “Only if they are as clever as you.” She felt the need for him strong once more.

  “At what?” He stopped all kisses and touches at once.

  “I’ll let you know.” And she kissed him back with a fervor that matched his.

  * * *

  Sophia was trapped in tormented dreams, a scream unvoiced in her throat.

  Ian was missing. He wasn’t in the nursery or in the kitchen. In the dream her anxiety grew, until she met Tom in the garden. An unfamiliar garden with hedges where there should have been beds. In the half-light of shadows, Tom pointed down an avenue. She ran into the hedged walk, toward the center. There Ian floated lifeless in the pool; his hair—dark and curling—waved in the water as his body bobbed face down. She ran forward, but arms pulled her back. A knife intricately designed flashed against her neck, then she herself was falling to the water, joining her child.

  She awoke, panting, feeling her heart still pounding in her chest.

  She turned to take solace in Aidan’s arms, but he was gone.

  But of course he would be gone. She shook her head at her foolishness. Had she expected him to stay and be found in her room by the servants?

  She touched her cheek where he had kissed her.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  It had been three days since they had become lovers. Their passion, denied for so long, ran strong. Reclaiming some of the past they had lost, they revisited every place they had made love in their youth and made love there again. And they talked, gingerly at first, of things not likely to endanger their growing trust, then voraciously, on every topic they could imagine, so hungry were they for each other’s thoughts. Eventually they would have to travel on to Aidan’s estate or return to London. But neither raised the question. It was an interlude, one to talk, and laugh, and learn to love again.

  Early that morning, they had walked to Sophia’s studio, leading a mare carrying paints, boards, and other supplies, and pausing only to talk with two cottager’s children, fishing on the banks of the stream.

  “Sit there.” Sophia motioned toward a chair in front of the large picture window.

  “I wish I had not been so precipitous in having your housekeeper remove the dust and spider webs.” Aidan groaned, but obeyed.

  “It was a kind and generous act to have my portraits moved to the manor house.” Sophia countered gently.

  “For which I am now being thoroughly punished.” He seated himself, his body all petulance.

  “No, sit up straight, shoulders back. Pretend you were once an officer in His Majesty’s army.” She moved to arrange his body. “Turn your upper body like this. Move your right leg a bit. There.”

  “Where should my left arm go?” He extended his arm and let his hand hang from the wrist like a marionette.

  Ignoring his extended arm, she placed her hands to either side of his head and tilted it just so.

  “Do. Not. Move.” She looked him in the eyes.

  “I can’t agree not to move without moving my mouth.”

  Shaking her head, she began to push the large table toward his side.

  “Wait.” He started to rise.

  “Do. Not. Move.” She pushed with her hip once more.

  “But I can help.”

  “Whatever for?” Sophia pulled her shoulders back. “I’m perfectly capable.”

  “My self-sufficient Sophia.”

  Her face softened. “I haven’t felt sufficient . . . for some time. But I’m starting to again.” She maneuvered the table under Aidan’s still-outstretched arm and tapped his elbow for him to lower it. “I want your arms bent out from your sides to form a sort of pyramid.”

  “With my head at the top?”

  Sophia pulled a bit of his white shirt cuff past the end of his coat.

  “So, not with my head on top?” Aidan feigned concern.

  Continuing to ignore him, she set a globe behind his shoulder.

  “With a globe on top?”

  She batted his head lightly. “Portugal and Spain will appear obliquely behind you to acknowledge your service in the Peninsular War.”

  “You seem to know exactly how you wish for me to appear.”

  “When I was a girl, I collected engravings of famous naturalists. And I always thought you looked a bit like Sir Joseph Banks, as Joshua Reynolds painted him.”

  “Do you have the picture still?”

  “I didn’t take the album with me to Italy. . . .” Turning to the bookcases behind her, she flipped through several volumes. “So, perhaps. Brilliant!” She held the engraving out to him.

  “I should sit . . . thus?” Aidan mimicked Banks’s position.

  “Yes. Pretend you are welcoming someone to your study.”

  “I would never welcome anyone wearing this . . . cravat.” He pulled roughly at its lace edges. “It’s bad enough we pillaged Seth’s closet for the waistcoat, but you have made me look like a dandy! Barlow will be mortified.”

  “You claimed the coat was originally yours, borrowed for a ball and never returned. As to the cravat, I need a sense of its folds.” Sophia pushed his hand away as she reshaped the knot. “Hold still, or I’ll paint you strangled by it. You fidget more than Ian.”

  “If you wish for me not to fidget, then you must entertain me.” He shifted his hips in the chair without moving his upper body.

  “How can I entertain you while I paint? Is it sufficient to describe what I do as I paint or must I do something else?” She set his hand sideways across the end of the armrest.

  “I want you to describe what you are doing and something else. A story from your life, perhaps?”

  She looked to the sky in supplication. “In the last three days, we’ve discussed everything.” At her easel, she perched on a tall stool. “Or do you not remember?”

  “I remember. In Italy you became fluent enough to read the dramatists Goldoni, Alfieri, and Metastasio and the poet Parini in the original language.” The surprise in her eyes pleased him.

  “While I block in your outline, should I test you on the rest of our conversations?”

  “Oh no, I am happy to volunteer it. Both of us have little use for magazines. I find Gentleman’s Magazine pompous; you find Lady’s Magazine vapid. Our only exceptions are the Monthly Review for advice on new books and the Edinburgh Magazine for politics and science.” He smiled broadly. “I can summarize all our conversations in equal detail. Would you like me to start?”

  She set the crayon down and looked carefully at him, but not—he suspected—to determine how to sketch him. “No, I concede; you have listened—and carefully. Which begs the question: what else can you possibly wish to know?”

  “Everything. Who you became when we were apart. The shape of your mind.”

  “I’ve never thought of my mind as having a shape.” Her eyes lit with humor. “Hmmm. I choose a quatrefoil.”

  Aidan groaned. “Never ask an artist about shapes. What is a quatrefoil?”

  “Four overlapping circles sharing a big middle.” In the air, Sophia drew a sort of four-leaved clover. “You see it in heraldry and architecture.”

  Aidan stuck out his tongue. “I wished to know your mind, not its geometry.”

  “No, I answered fairly.” Sophia sketched his outline in broad strokes. “If your mind had a shape, what would it be?”

  “A rectangle: orderly, predictable, clean edges. Like a square, but more inte
resting.”

  “No, Tom’s mind would have been a rectangle . . . or perhaps a cube because he was a man of depth.” Sophia used her charcoal as a gauge. “But you didn’t answer fairly. Your mind is nothing like a square, and you know it, so you have to choose another shape.”

  Her marriage to Tom was a subject they had avoided since they had become lovers. Now was the time for that to change. “What was the shape of your life with Tom?”

  She answered without pause. “An octagon. I expanded his rectangle; he structured my quatrefoil. He was perhaps the kindest man I have ever known . . . and certainly the most stubborn.” Her charcoal settled in her lap as she spoke. “We had the best conversations, and on everything—politics, art, science, music, rearing Ian, propagating plants.” Her voice wavered, and she brushed her eyes with the back of one hand. She began to sketch again, and when she spoke again, her voice was firm. “We were friends and partners. A marriage of minds, Tom always called it. I miss that, him.”

  She did not mention passion. Aidan wondered again about Tom’s mistress and whether Sophia had known. But he was happy she had felt valued. “Someday—not today—I would like to know about his illness, his death.”

  “Of course. Up to the day of his death, he spoke of you, your friendship, with great fondness.” From two porcelain pots of pigment, she dabbed a white and a very deep brown on her palette. “Now, over my charcoal sketch, I will paint a wash of lights and darks to create depth.”

  “Can I move?”

  “Arms and legs, but not your head.” She mixed pools of color across her palette. “I know it is foolish, but sometimes I feel like Tom still watches over us. For the last year, I dreamed scenes of our life together, but since the opera, I often dream he’s warning me about some danger.”

  Aidan stiffened, but kept his voice level. “Danger?”

  She dipped her brush in the darkest colors. “When I wake, I never can remember what it is. But Tom was always so protective, and I have been anxious. It makes sense I would dream of him.”

  Aidan stared at a place on the floor beyond his boot and kneaded his outer leg with his hand. “Do you not dream things that come true? After I returned from the wars, I dreamt repeatedly of Benjamin, wounded and separated from his men, and of Colin, searching the battlefields, but always missing the cave where Benjamin lay broken. I wrote letters, warning Benjamin and Colin, but the letters arrived weeks too late.” Without thinking, he stood up and walked to the fireplace. Throat tight, he kept his back to Sophia, not wishing to see the disbelief or pity on her face. A heavy knot of grief filled his belly.

  “It isn’t your fault.” She leaned against his back, slipping one hand around his waist to his chest. With the other hand, she caressed his back in slow soothing strokes. “When your father called you both home, Benjamin refused to return. And you don’t know if he were in some cave alone. You only know that is how you dreamed it. It’s what you fear happened.”

  Without turning, he forced himself to tell her the rest. “But now I dream he is alive, watching me from the shadows, but refusing to come home . . . as if I failed him somehow.” The truth, finally spoken, eased a bit of the grief.

  “Oh, Aidan, my love.” She turned his body toward hers, and he buried his face in the curve of her neck. She stroked his hair. “Benjamin would never have thought you failed him. He was always so proud of you. The ‘best duke among us,’ he wrote Tom time and again. The letters are in one of the remaining trunks. I’ll give them to you.”

  His stomach still tight, Aidan pulled her against his body. “I resented Benjamin for sending me home. He was the heir after Aaron, not me. Then when I discovered how badly overspent the estate accounts were, I resented him more. I had even planned the drumming I would give him on his return. Then he didn’t come home. It took me years to return the estate to sound footing.”

  “But your brothers never said anything about the estate being troubled.” She brushed his hair back and searched his face, still wet with tears. “Because you didn’t tell them. You took up the responsibility before it was yours. And you told no one.”

  “Not no one. Judith made me tell her. Then she helped me repair the damage. For years we met each month, reviewing the accounts, making whatever changes we could, until the estate began to flourish.” As he spoke, Sophia looked past his shoulder, her eyes focusing far away. “Benjamin was wrong; Judith’s the best duke of us.”

  But Sophia appeared to no longer be listening. He watched her expression grow speculative, some awareness spreading across her face.

  “Aidan.” She raised her arm, pointing out the window. In the near distance, between the folly and the two manor houses beyond, a column of black smoke grew and thickened. “Fire.”

  She moved out of his arms. “Look at the trees. There’s a strong wind—across my uncle’s lands toward Tom’s manor. It’s been a dry season. If the hay meadows catch fire . . . Take the horse. Warn them.”

  “Ride behind me.” Taking her hand, he pulled her toward the door.

  “The mare can’t carry us both and run with any speed.” She squeezed his hand. “Go. The servants will need your skill at marshaling troops. I’ll follow on foot.” She pulled him into a hard kiss.

  “We are upwind. It’s safe here.” He looked hard into her eyes, then smiled tightly. “Do. Not. Move.”

  * * *

  Sophia watched Aidan ride toward the manor house. The column of smoke grew broader, then it seemed to slow and stand. The trees, however, still rustled in the breeze. She squinted to see the direction of the leaves. No, the wind had shifted toward the land between the folly and the manor. If it shifted a bit farther, the folly would be caught in the fire’s widening path. And if the fire caught the hay meadow before she was across . . .

  From living below Vesuvius, she knew the dangers of breathing the hot air, filled with ash and debris. She pulled her fichu over her head for protection, covering her mouth and nose. Then she ran for the footbridge.

  After a hundred yards, she looked over her shoulder. Behind the folly rose a wall of smoke. She could see nothing else. The fire was moving too fast. She ran faster, stumbling, tripping, falling to the ground. Her knees and palms hit hard. The fire crackled behind her, breathing heat. It wasn’t sweltering, not yet. But it would be, and soon.

  The thickening smoke, like fog, enveloped her. Feeling suffocated, she stooped to see below it. Over the last several days, they had tamped down the grass from the stream to the folly. As long as she could see her feet and the ground below, she should be able to follow the path to the bridge and safety on the other side.

  With no landmarks but the flattened grass below her feet, she had no idea how far away the stream still was. She walked, half hunched over, knees bent low. If the smoke thickened nearer her feet, she might have to crawl to find her way, and if she crawled, she might run out of time. Her legs and back cramping, she heard the gentle rush of the stream. And the sound of crying.

  Her eyes burning above her fichu, she continued toward the sound of the crying, still following the trail of beaten-down grass. She remembered the cottager’s children and prayed they had remained on the bridge. The smoke grew thicker with each minute. She would never find the path again if she had to leave it to find the children.

  The children or the bridge? Their lives or hers. She pushed the thought away. She had to find them, whether they were near the bridge or not, even if it meant that she left Ian an orphan. She closed her eyes against the smoke and her tears.

  It would be easier to find them if she could call their names. Aidan had given them a half-pence each in exchange for their names and ages. And they had been delighted to tell him. One—the girl—was four, the boy six. She remembered that clearly. Think, Sophia, think. Margaret? The child’s pronunciation had been inflected with the lilt of her Welsh heritage. Margaret wasn’t quite right, but it was close. Perhaps close enough that the child would respond? “Margaret? It’s Lady Wilmot. I gave you and your brother apples
this morning. Margaret? Answer me, and I’ll come find you.”

  Nothing. Sophia’s back and legs ached. To relax them somewhat, she closed her eyes and held her breath, then she stood up straight into the thick smoke. Then, hunching back down once more, she inched forward. Another few feet of slow movement and she heard it, a child’s voice, too faint to position easily. But a voice.

  “Aye.” Then coughing, loud enough to follow.

  She pushed forward another ten feet, the ground descending sharply. The bridge. She had made it. Relief felt like a drug. The stream was, thankfully, in a small declivity, and the smoke had not descended as low near its banks. But even so, she could not see past the landing of the bridge.

  She stepped forward and found Margaret huddled in the bridge’s middle. Alone. The child flung herself at Sophia’s knees weeping. And Sophia knelt beside her, wrapping her arms around the thin child. “I’m here, Margaret. Where’s your brother?”

  Wide-eyed, the child pointed toward the bank Sophia had just left.

  “Which way did he go?”

  Margaret pointed down the stream.

  “Did he go to get help?”

  The child nodded.

  “Did he tell you to stay here?”

  The child nodded.

  “Let’s go find him. And take you home.”

  The child held out her arms to be carried. Sophia’s legs and back ached at the thought of carrying the child while hunched over. But she couldn’t risk the boy’s having been overcome by the smoke somewhere, perhaps only a few feet away. She looked at the water flowing below, its cold keeping the thick hot air from descending too low. If she went to the deepest part of the stream, she might have enough visibility to walk upright.

  She knew roughly where the fire had started, and from her youth, she remembered something of the river’s course. In parts it was quite deep. At some point below her studio, the stream turned, leading away from Tom’s and her uncle’s estates and away from where she thought the fire had begun. But she couldn’t be sure. If she were wrong about where the fire had begun, she might be walking into the fire, not away from it. But it didn’t matter. That was the direction the boy had taken.