Mary Balogh

by A Counterfeit Betrothal; The Notorious Rake

  Olivia looked in surprise at her daughter, whose face was suddenly chalky white.

  “What have I done?” Sophia said. “All these people, Mama!”

  Olivia took her arm. “Oh, Sophia,” she said, “it is overwhelming, is it not? When you first think of marriage, you imagine that it involves only you and your partner. And then you realize that so much more is involved. It seems to get beyond your control, does it not? Almost as if you could not stop it, even if you wished to do so.”

  “And there are many more people yet to come,” Sophia said.

  Her mother squeezed her arm. “You don’t want to stop it, do you?” she asked.

  Sophia turned at the top of the stairs in the direction of her room. She gulped. “I am just terrified,” she said. “They are all so very happy, Mama.”

  “It can be stopped, of course,” Olivia said. “You must never be in any doubt about that, Sophia. You will not be irrevocably married until the ceremony has been performed and the register signed. You must not feel as if all your freedom has been taken from you. But neither should you give in to panic for its own sake.”

  Sophia drew in a ragged breath. “I did not know it would be like this,” she said. “And Mama, there are two trunkfuls of clothes.”

  “Papa would have been disappointed if you had brought home less,” Olivia said. “Sit down, Sophia, before you fall down. Now, tell me.” She took her daughter’s hands in a firm clasp. “Everything else aside—the clothes, the guests, all the preparations that have been made—do you still love Francis? Do you want to spend your life with him as his wife?”

  Her daughter’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Do you, Sophia? Those are the only two questions that matter. The only ones.”

  One tear spilled over. “But you did not spend all your life with Papa,” she said. “Only a few years.”

  “Is that what you are afraid of?” Olivia asked. “That your marriage will not last? Your papa and I have been very foolish, Sophia. We threw away something very precious. You must learn from our mistake. You must learn not to love blindly, not to expect perfection from each other. You must not be alarmed if you occasionally quarrel. You must learn that your life together is more important than anything else.”

  “Will you stay together now?” Sophia asked, withdrawing one hand from her mother’s in order to wipe away a tear. “You really are happy to be home, Mama, aren’t you? And Papa was happy to see you. You will stay together and love each other again?”

  “We have discovered at least,” Olivia said, “that there is joy in being together with you again, Sophia. Your betrothal has accomplished that. Now that we are about to lose you to a husband, you see, we realize how important those times together can be.” She smiled. “Your marriage will bring us together at least occasionally. Neither of us will be able to resist seeing you whenever possible, and if that means seeing you together, then together we will be. Will that make you happy?”

  “At Christmastime?” Sophia said. “And at christenings?”

  “And for other occasions, too, I daresay,” Olivia said.

  “If I marry,” Sophia said.

  “If you marry.” Olivia smiled. “Have you recovered from some of your terror? There is some color back in your cheeks. Do you love Francis, Sophia? Do you want to be his wife?”

  Her daughter stared back at her and licked her lips. “Of course I love Francis,” she said. “I always have, even though he used to be so horrid to me.” There were tears in her eyes again. “I have always, always loved him, Mama. I wish I had realized that sooner. I would not have been so foolish.”

  Olivia smoothed a lock of hair back from her daughter’s face. “Yes,” she said. “Love is terrifying sometimes, isn’t it? Sometimes it seems safer to run from it rather than face all the joys and heartaches it might bring. Don’t run, Sophia, if you truly love. You will always be sorry, believe me. Do you feel better now that you have answered the essential question? We must be going down. I am supposed to be pouring the tea.”

  “Yes.” Sophia got to her feet. “I will wash my hands.”

  FOR THE REST of the afternoon and most of the evening Lord Francis was called upon to give a full accounting of his days in London to his father, to listen to a detailed description by his mother of all the wedding preparations that had been made in his absence, to allow himself to be quizzed by his sisters-in-law about his courtship of Sophia, and to be teased by his brothers about his betrothal to the very girl he had named the Prize Pest as a child.

  Sophia was faring no better, with two grandmothers and a grandfather to fuss over her, a great-aunt to kiss her and pat her hand, all her future sisters-in-law to want an exhaustive description of her bride clothes, and her future brothers-in-law to tease her.

  “It is still raining,” Lord Francis said, staring gloomily from a drawing-room window late in the evening.

  “The gardens are not very romantic at night when rain is dripping down your neck, or so I have heard, Frank,” Claude said. There was a general chuckle.

  “And it is tricky to hold an umbrella and one’s betrothed at the same time,” Richard added.

  “I am just remembering why I have envied Soph’s being an only child,” Lord Francis said, not turning away from the window.

  “When it rains, Frank,” the viscount said, “one has to improvise. The gallery is still where it used to be, Lord Clifton?”

  “In the very same place,” the earl said, “complete with all the family portraits.”

  “There you are, then,” Bertie said. “Problem solved, Frank.”

  “Just remember that all of Sophia’s ancestors will have an eye on you,” Claude said.

  “Don’t do anything to upset them,” Richard added. “Or anything I wouldn’t do, Frank.”

  “And if he tries to hide from you, Sophia,” Claude said, “come and tell me and I shall tell Papa, and Frank can discover if his hand is as heavy as it used to be.”

  “London was remarkably peaceful, was it not?” Lord Francis said, turning from the window. “No brothers to set up a predictably idiotic chorus. Did you spend all day yesterday rehearsing while we were still away, the three of you? Come on, Soph. Let’s go and stroll in the gallery. There will be no peace for us here if we do not.”

  “Just make sure you keep him strolling, Sophia,” Richard said.

  “Supper will be in half an hour’s time,” the earl said. “You will have her back down by then, Francis?”

  “Yes, sir,” Lord Francis said, and ushered his betrothed out through the door and up the stairs to the long gallery on the top floor.

  They walked side by side up the stairs after Lord Francis had picked up a candlestick with a lighted candle from a hall table. They did not touch or exchange a word.

  “We have to keep up appearances,” he said when they reached the gallery, using his candle to light two set in wall sconces and setting his own down on a table. “We could hardly have said we did not want to be alone after such brotherly concern, could we, Soph? We have hardly had a chance to exchange a word all evening.”

  Sophia was examining a portrait next to one of the wall sconces.

  “Oh, Lord,” he said, sinking down onto a cushioned bench against one wall, “what are we going to do next?”

  “Mama and Papa like being together with me,” Sophia said. “Mama said so. After we are married, they will come together occasionally just to spend time with us. It is better than nothing, I suppose, but I don’t think they will ever live together again, Francis. Too much time has passed. Almost my whole lifetime.”

  “After we are married,” he said.

  “Yes.” She turned to look at him. “We ought to have thought more carefully, ought we not?”

  “That sounds rather like the understatement of the century,” he said. “Lordy, Soph, a family gathering and all in their best wedding humor. And not a suspicion among the lot of them or a single expression of uneasiness about our possible incompatibility consider
ing our childhood relationship. I am beginning to know what a trapped animal must feel like.”

  “We have to end it now,” she said, her voice shaking. “Tonight, Francis. Right now. We have to go down and tell them all that we have had a dreadful quarrel and have put an end to our betrothal. In a few days’ time there will be many more people. It will be harder then.”

  “Do you want me to slap you around a bit first?” he asked. “Do you want me to stand still while you rake your fingernails down one of my cheeks?”

  “Don’t make a joke of it,” she said. “This is deadly serious, Francis.”

  “A joke?” he said. “Have you ever had fingernails down your cheek, Soph, and the blood dripping onto your cravat?”

  “We have to do it now,” she said.

  “I can’t see your person very clearly in this light,” he said. “But if your body is shaking as badly as your voice, Soph, you had better come and sit down. I have told you of my difficulty with vaporish females before.”

  “I am not vaporish,” she said, coming to sit beside him. “Just terrified. We had better do it without further delay, Francis. Let us not think about it longer or talk about it, either. Let us go and do it.”

  “We have not had enough time for such a nasty quarrel,” he said.

  She looked at him in incomprehension.

  “If we go down now, two minutes after coming up here,” he said, “we can hardly expect them all to believe that we have quarreled so violently as to have called off the whole wedding.”

  “Then we shall say we quarreled this afternoon,” she said. “Or yesterday.”

  “Soph!” he said. “Why would we have waited until this evening, and smiled and received everyone’s congratulations in the meantime, if that had happened? Have some sense.”

  “Then we must wait awhile,” she said. “How long? Five minutes? Ten? My courage will have given out by then.”

  He took her hand in his. “Perhaps we should wait a few days,” he said. “Imagine how it would be, Soph. Carriages emptying themselves of smiling, festive guests every hour for the next several days. And we would have to greet each carriageful with the same story.”

  She gulped noisily.

  “It does not bear thinking of, does it?” he asked.

  “Oh, Francis,” she said, “what are we going to do?”

  “The very question I asked you a few moments ago,” he said. “Though I might have saved my breath. You have just thrown it right back in my teeth. And if you gave an answer, it would probably be something corkbrained like suggesting that we stand up at the front of the church, the rector behind us, and make the announcement there.”

  “Don’t be horrid!” she said. “I am the one who wanted to go down immediately and put an end to it.”

  “Or you will be suggesting that it will be easier for all concerned if we get married anyway,” he said.

  “Oh,” she said, jumping to her feet and standing before him, her hands on her hips, “I don’t know why I agreed to this stupid scheme in the first place, Francis. The scheme itself is bad enough. But I must really have had feathers in my brain to have agreed to do it with you of all people. Do you imagine that I am still running after you just because I was always stupid enough to do it when we were children?”

  “The thought had crossed my mind, I must confess,” he said. “You aren’t wearing stays by any chance, are you, Soph? You are about to burst them if you are.”

  “You toad!” she said. “You eel! You …”

  “Snake?” he suggested.

  “Rat! You conceited rat!”

  “Quite so,” he said. “We’ll wait until everyone has arrived, Soph, and then make one grand announcement. Maybe by that time, your mama and papa will have decided that they cannot live without each other after all.”

  “It is just not going to happen,” she said. “I was foolish to think it would. It was stupid to think I could bring them together when they have lived apart forever. This whole business has been stupid.”

  “If we are to wait a few days,” he said, “we had better look when we go down as if we have been doing what everyone thinks we are doing.”

  “Making love?” she said scornfully.

  “Er, I think your papa might be up here with the proverbial horsewhip if he thought that, Soph,” he said. “Kissing is what everyone is imagining us doing.”

  “Well, there is no one to observe us,” she said, “so we do not need to feel obliged.”

  “But there is definitely a just-kissed look,” he said. “Everyone will be looking for it when we return, especially my esteemed older brothers. For the sake of my self-respect, Soph, I can’t take you back down looking totally unkissed, you know.”

  “How foolish,” she said. “Is this how rakes get ladies to kiss them, Francis? The ladies must be very stupid, I must say.”

  “Rakes don’t usually kiss ladies,” he said, “unless they happen to be their betrotheds, and a roomful of brothers belowstairs are waiting to see that they have done their job thoroughly.”

  Sophia clucked her tongue and took a step backward.

  “We are fortunate, too,” he said. “There was a time, you know, Soph, when people used to do it on wedding nights. Flock into the bridal chamber after a decent time, I mean, to view the evidence that the groom had done his job.”

  “Oh!” Sophia said. “They never did. You are making that up just to shock me. Papa would not like it at all if I told him that you had just told me that.”

  “By Jove, no,” he said, getting to his feet. “He wouldn’t, would he? You had better not tell him, Soph. He might forbid the marriage or something like that.”

  “I don’t think you ought to kiss me,” she said. “We are not really betrothed, after all.”

  “But your papa granted us all of half an hour,” he said. “I think I had better, Soph.”

  She tilted her face up resolutely and waited.

  “You are still puckering.” He looked down at her critically. “Ah, that’s better,” he said when she opened her mouth to make some sharp retort. “Mm.”

  Sophia never did make the retort.

  “You aren’t still shaking, are you, Soph?” he said against her ear a few minutes later. He had both arms wrapped about her.

  “Of course I am not,” she said breathlessly. “Why would I be shaking?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But your arms are so tight about my neck that I thought you were afraid of falling.”

  “Oh,” she said, trying to remove her arms but finding herself too closely held to have anywhere else to put them. “No. But what else am I to do with them?”

  “Put them back,” he advised. “Some poor devil is going to thank me one of these days, you know, Soph.”

  “What?” she said. He was distracting her full concentration by nibbling on her earlobe.

  “For teaching you how to kiss,” he said. “I must say you are an apt pupil. This is becoming almost as much pleasure as duty.”

  She bent her arms back at the elbows and shoved hard at his shoulders. “Please do me no favors,” she said hotly. “It is certainly no pleasure to me. And if I do not look just kissed to your brothers now, Francis, I never will. Besides, I am going to be embarrassed. And besides again, I don’t like kissing and don’t intend to do it with anyone else ever again. I want to go back downstairs.”

  “Some poor devil will never know what he has missed, then,” Lord Francis said, strolling across the gallery to extinguish the two candles he had lit earlier, and picking up the candlestick again. “I hate to tell you this, Soph, but any decent lady would not allow herself to be touched anywhere but on the closed lips before her wedding night. I suppose that is some consolation for you, though. You will be spared some shock when your wedding night finally does come along.”

  “I didn’t ask you to put your arms about me and pull me so close,” she said, on her dignity, descending the stairs beside him, a foot of space between them. “And I certainly did not i
nvite you to do that with your tongue. You ought not have started to kiss me when my mouth was open to speak.”

  “Ah, Soph,” he said, “you should have kept it firmly shut when I was so close.”

  “And I certainly did not give you permission to do that to my ear,” she said severely.

  12

  APART FROM THE FACT THAT HE HAD BEEN MISSING his wife and despising himself for doing so, the few days before her return had been pleasant ones for the Earl of Clifton. There was a good feeling to be had from the approach of a daughter’s wedding, he found. He enjoyed the noisy cheerfulness of the duke’s family, and it was good to see his mother and aunt and even Olivia’s parents. Pleased for their granddaughter’s happiness, they had greeted him with warmth and none of the frowns and recriminations he had half expected.

  It was good, too, to see Emma and Clarence and be reminded of the good years of his marriage at Rushton. Clarence had been his friend before he became Olivia’s—the two men had gone to school and university together. But they had not seen each other in ten years.

  Clarence, in fact, was the one guest who somewhat clouded his general feeling of well-being. He had put on some weight about the middle and his blond hair had thinned, though he was by no means bald. But he still had the pleasant good looks that had drawn flirtatious glances from the barmaids of Oxford and more refined glances from the ladies in the London ballrooms. He had seemed impervious to the charms of them all. He was keeping himself for his future bride, he had always said laughingly when teased by his friends.

  Clarence had been Olivia’s friend even before the breakup of the marriage. He had been her close friend since. Her letters occasionally mentioned him, and Sophia frequently referred to him when talking of home.

  And Olivia, he remembered from a certain afternoon in the hidden garden, had become a passionate and experienced lover at some time during the past fourteen years.

  The earl tried not to pursue such thoughts. But the thoughts and imaginings pursued him, it seemed, and were not to be resisted during the evening on her return. She had sat with her parents and Emma at tea before mingling more freely with the other guests, and ended up standing alone with Clarence beside the tea tray for all of fifteen minutes. At dinner, she sat with the duke and her father. And in the drawing room afterward, she talked with the duchess and Richard and his wife. He joined her there himself and sat beside her until she was called away to help Claude’s wife find some music to play on the pianoforte.