For All Eternity

by Heather Cullman

  Aware that this might be one of those instances, he gently countered, “I’m sure you’re as fit as you say. Still, I would rest much easier if you would allow me to examine your face.” When she sniffled and lowered her hem enough to eye him warily, he smiled and added, “In truth, you will be granting me an immense favor by letting me do so.”

  Her tear-drenched eyes widened. “Huh? How”

  “By saving me from your mob of admirers, that’s how.”

  Her eyes were so wide now, they looked ready to pop from her head. “What mob of admirers?” Another sniffle.

  “Why, the ones who shall no doubt rise up and tear me limb for limb should I allow your beauty to be marred through neglect.”

  She gaped at him dumbfounded for several beats, then giggled and dropped her hem. “Git on, now, my lord. You’re teasin‘ me.”

  His smile broadened as he cupped her chin in his palm and tipped her tear-streaked face into the sunlight. “Me? Never! I speak only the truth. You have only to notice the way men watch you to see that it is so.” Pleased by her grinning response, he quickly examined her face. Aside from a bruise blossoming on her left cheek, she appeared unharmed.

  Relieved, he smiled and released her. “There seems to be no serious damage, though your left cheek is turning a rather interesting shade of purple.”

  Fancy sniffled and gingerly prodded the area.

  “Never fear, Miss Jenkins,” he said, handing her his handkerchief. “The bruise shall be healed in plenty of time for you to dazzle your admirers at the Midsummer’s feast.”

  Rather than look pleased, as he’d expected, she burst into tears again. Utterly bewildered, he glanced at Sophie for help. She was staring at him in a most peculiar manner. It took but a second for him to realize that she stared at his face, and another for him to become thoroughly discomfited by her scrutiny. What had prompted her sudden fascination, he didn’t know, but he had an uneasy feeling that he wouldn’t like the reason were he to discover it.

  More self-conscious than he’d ever been in his life, he ducked his head, instinctively hiding his disfigurement. Praying that he sounded calmer than he felt, he said the first thing he thought of. “I’m sorry, Fancy. I only meant to cheer you.”

  The chambermaid shook her head. “You ain’t to blame, my lord. I am. I bragged to everyone — sniffle! — how Charlie loved me and how he was gonna announce our engagement at the feast.” She paused to blow her nose, loudly. Wiping it as if trying to rub it off her face, she exclaimed, “And it were true! He said he loved me and wanna’d to git engaged. When people hear that he was only jollyin‘ me to git under my skirt — ” She broke off, weeping in earnest.

  “There, there, now, Fancy. Everything will be fine, you shall see.” He awkwardly patted her arm. “The only thing anyone will think is that Charles is a bastard, and that they are glad he’s gone. The gladdest of all shall be your mob of admirers. I shan’t be a whit surprised if they clamor at the door day and night, pleading for the privilege to court you.” Damnation! He hated it when women cried. It always made him feel slightly guilty, as if he should have been able to do something to prevent their distress.

  To his dismay, she wept harder. “No man ain’t nivver gonna want me … well, exceptin‘ for a quick game of hide the quimstick. Charlie’s right. I ain’t nothin‘ — “

  Nicholas seized her shoulders and silenced her with a shake. “Don’t say such things.” Hearing her pain, so raw and familiar, clawed his own festering wounds, making him suffer for her with a keenness that almost brought him to tears. Suddenly desperate to ease her torment, and his, he tightened his grasp on her heaving shoulders and gave her another shake. “Look at me, girl.”

  When she continued to hang her head, sobbing and wailing as if her life were over, he shook her again, this time with a force that made her drop his handkerchief. “I told you to look at me, damn it! I want to be sure that you listen to what I’m about to say.”

  The instant she obeyed, he regretted his command. Looking in her eyes was like gazing in the mirror, their depths reflecting the same shattered doubt and bruised self-esteem that haunted his own. The sight wrenched his gut.

  Oblivious now to everything but their mutual pain, he stabbed his gaze into hers and growled, “I know how it feels to be publicly spurned, Fancy. Believe me, I know. I’m intimately acquainted with what you’re suffering. It’s devastating, that’s the only word for the feeling; devastating in that it cuts to the core of your being and eats at your soul. You feel inadequate, and undesirable, and helpless.” His voice dropped to a ragged whisper, “Worst of all, you doubt yourself and wonder if you are truly as unworthy of love as the other person says.”

  There was a gasp, but not from Fancy. Sophie. He’d been so caught up in his rush of emotions that he’d forgotten she was there. Nicholas gritted his teeth. Bloody hell. She couldn’t help but to know that it was she who had so thoroughly crushed him. No doubt she delighted in his words and now gloated over her success. To his deepening chagrin, she ejected an unintelligible utterance — a smothered laugh, perhaps? — and moved nearer.

  Well, he’d be damned if he’d let her keep the upper hand. Nicholas refocused his attention on the chambermaid, actually seeing her for the first time since beginning his fevered discourse. She’d ceased weeping and stared at him in a manner that could only be described as shocked.

  Forcing his lips into a tight smile, he hissed, “Never let anyone destroy you like that, Fancy. Never! A person vicious enough to deliberately wound another possesses neither the depth of character nor the clarity of mind to form an accurate judgment, thus rendering their opinion worthless. Moreover, it is he who is inadequate and unworthy of love, not you. His lack of sensibility makes him so.”

  “Lord Lyndhurst is right, Fancy. About everything,” Sophie quietly interjected.

  Had Nicholas not been sitting, he’d have tumbled over in his astonishment. The last thing he’d expected Sophie to do was agree. Perplexed, he dropped his hands from Fancy’s shoulders, stealing a glance at Sophie as he did so.

  She still stared at him, but in a way that was thoughtful and rather sad. Had she been anyone else, he’d have said that she looked contrite. But, of course, the shallow Miss Barrington was incapable of such noble emotions …

  Wasn’t she? More confused than ever, he looked away.

  “Why’d you care what I think or feel, Miss Hoity-Toity?” Fancy scoffed, blowing her nose with hurricane force. “You don’t like me, and you ain’t nivver had no bones in lettin‘ me know it.”

  There was a beat of silence, then Sophie sighed. “You’re right. I don’t like you any more than you like me, nor am I trying to pretend otherwise now. I agree with his lordship because what he says is true.”

  Fancy sniffed. “Sure you do. Next you’ll be tryin‘ to tell me that you dinna agree with what Charlie said about me.”

  “As a matter of fact, I don’t.”

  Another sniff. “Could’ve suckered me.”

  Nicholas heard the whisper of grass and the faint rustle of muslin as Sophie moved nearer to where he and the maid sat. “See here, Fancy. I admit that I haven’t been exactly cordial, but, then, neither have you. You’ve shown me nothing but contempt since the very first moment we met. Why, I wasn’t at Hawksbury more than five minutes before you started flinging barbs.”

  “That’s ‘cuz you was lookin‘ down your nose at me like I weren’t no better ‘n yesterday’s spit slop.” “Which is the very same way you looked at me,” Sophie returned in a reasonable tone.

  “That’s a fib! I ain’t the one that started the trouble between us.” Fancy turned at the waist and jabbed an accusing finger at her foe. “It were you. You and your I’m-the-daughter-of-a-bieedin‘-baron airs. And don’t you go sayin‘ that you don’t put on airs, ‘cuz you do. You know you do!”

  “I never claimed not to put on airs. I do, which I admit has contributed a great deal toward perpetuating our silly feud, I still maintain, however, t
hat it was your airs, not mine, that first sparked our enmity.”

  “Ha! That proves that you’re lyin‘, ‘cuz I don’t put on airs.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No! I ain’t the one that’s always queenin‘ around and actin‘ like I’m too good for everyone else.”

  More whispering of grass and rustling of skirts, then Sophie’s dusty hem appeared at Fancy’s other side. “If you don’t queen around, then what would you call the way you constantly lord both your superior position and service skills over me? And what about the way you’re always ridiculing me, and how you never miss a chance to tell everyone how silly and useless you find me? If you’re not acting like you’re too good for me, then what, pray tell, are you doing?”

  Fancy shrugged one shoulder. “Why’da you give a pig’s arse what the likes o’ me thinks or says? You’re a lady, and I’m just a chambermaid. No one pays me no mind.”

  Nicholas stole a glance at Sophie’s face, interested to hear her response. Though he was loath to admit it, he found her handling of Fancy’s animosity rather admirable. He smiled wryly at that thought. Imagine. Him, admiring Miss Barrington for something other than her looks. Amazing.

  As he watched, Sophie sat next to Fancy. Solemnly returning the other woman’s gaze, she murmured, “I care because I’m a person, just like you. And don’t all people want to be liked and accepted by their peers?”

  Fancy made a vulgar noise. “Peers? My arse! We ain’t peers. You’re quality and you nivver let me, or anyone else, forgit it. Not with the way you’re always showin‘ off your fine ways and puttin‘ us all to shame with your pretty talk.”

  Sophie seemed to consider her retort for a moment, then nodded. “You’re right, we’re not peers. Not if you use birth and breeding as a measure. But if you strip away the standards set forth by society, you’ll see that beneath our differences of speech, manner, and appearance, that we are much alike. You yourself showed me that just now.”

  The genuine humility in her voice sparked a startling ember of warmth in Nicholas’s chest; an ember that caught and kindled his heart when she looked at him and added, “As did his lordship.” Her soft gray gaze met his, and she smiled a sweet, rather wistful smile. “Thank you, my lord,” she whispered.

  Utterly nonplussed, he tipped his damaged cheek from her sight and jerked his head in acknowledgment. To his growing discomfiture she didn’t look away, but continued to gaze at his face and smile.

  “How’d we show you?”

  Sophie gave him one last, lingering look, then shifted her attention to Fancy, a blessing for which he fervently thanked God. Her expression sober, she replied, “When I saw your devastation at Charles’s betrayal, I saw myself. When his lordship described his pain, he described my own. You see, I, too, have been spurned.”

  “Bugger my uncle! You?” the chambermaid squealed, gaping as if she’d just confessed to dancing naked in the town square.

  Sophie smiled and nodded. “Yes. Me. And when I saw that we all hurt in the same way and over the same things, I realized that we shared a common bond. That bond is that we’re all people with feelings. I also learned how badly a carelessly uttered word, or a thoughtless action can wound a person.”

  Damn it. She was looking at him again, but this time she wasn’t smiling. She regarded him gravely, her beautiful eyes shadowed by what? Remorse? Before he could decide for certain, a fierce hubbub arose in the distance, drawing all three gazes.

  Flying from the church, shrieking at the top of her lungs and shedding pieces of her gown as she ran, was Miss Mayhew. Hot on her heels was the viscount. The rest of the congregation poured out behind them, though his father and Reverend Martin were the only ones giving chase.

  “Boyne, Mayfly. We’ll go to River Boyne immediately and appeal to the salmon of knowledge. He’ll know how to appease the fishing god,” he heard Brumbly bellow.

  “S-sacrilege! I’m guilty of sacrilege!” The last of Miss Mayhew’s skirt panels fell away, revealing a pair of long, puffy trousers that looked to be made of canvas. Another of Brumbly’s inventions, no doubt. “S-see?” she keened. Another sign. Aquaticus will never forgive me. Never! “Oh! I should have guessed something dreadful w-would happen if I washed away my angling aroma.” Her stuttering had all but vanished in her distress.

  Like the good host he was trained to be, Nicholas nodded to the women at his side, then jumped to his feet and joined the pursuit. Pacing his gait to his father’s, he jogged at his side, shouting, “What happened?”

  The marquess panted several times, then replied, “It was the damnedest thing I ever saw. Miss Mayhew stood up for a prayer and her — Huff! Puff! — gown dropped apart at the seams. She and Brumbly are sure it’s a sign of anger from the fish god, or some such Mayhew madness.” His father wheezed out a chuckle. “Who knows? Maybe there’s something to this fish god rot after all. Can’t imagine what else — Puff! — would do that to the poor girl’s gown.”

  What indeed? Nicholas shifted his gaze from the retreating back of the fleet-footed Miss Mayhew, who wailed something about a lucky fishing bonnet, to where Sophie now stood. She was flanked on the left by a woman — Rose? Daisy? No, Pansy — who wore yet another of her bonnets. Both women had their hands pressed to their mouths as if in horror.

  He grinned. What indeed.

  Chapter 15

  It was a day of sunshine and fragrant breezes, the rare, perfect kind that thrilled the heart and made a person rejoice in being alive. Smiling her pleasure, Sophie paused inside the garden gate, reveling in the pageantry around her.

  Painted from the rich, bold palette of late spring and gilded by the afternoon sun, the Hawksbury gardens stretched into an endless panorama of dreamlike splendor. Before her stood a walk of cherry trees, their branches twining and arching overhead in a flowering canopy of fragile pink lace. To her left lay a rose-covered arbor; to her right a sunken garden, its topiary walls bordered in tulips and forget-me-nots. As far as the eye could see swept wonder after wonder.

  Certain that the Garden of Eden couldn’t have been more of a paradise, Sophie started down the cherry-tree walk toward the graceful crescent of forcing houses in the distance. Lady Beresford had expressed a desire for a special variety of strawberries called Francesca’s Delight, and she had been sent to fetch them.

  Of course she was thrilled with the assignment, for not only did it allow her a stroll in the garden, it granted her a few moments of leisure to ponder the curious twist her life had taken since Sunday. Exactly where that twist was taking her, she didn’t know, but wherever it was, it was a vast improvement over where she’d been. Especially in regard to her position.

  As she stopped to await a pair of peacocks to strut from the path, she puzzled over her new duties. Though no one had mentioned a change in her station, most of her time of late had been spent doing the tasks of a lady’s maid that Miss Stewart was no longer able to perform.

  Hence, her days were spent mending and maintaining her ladyship’s wardrobe, fetching cures from the stillroom, selecting books from the library, bringing the marquess refreshment when he visited his wife, and running dozens of other errands to ensure her mistress’s comfort. While she enjoyed her new position, there was one chore she found unnerving to the extreme: reading aloud.

  Oh, it wasn’t the reading itself that disturbed her. Skilled as she was at dramatization, she was no stranger to performing in company. No. Her disquiet stemmed from her ladyship’s far too avid curiosity in her person. Exactly what had prompted the woman’s sudden interest in her, she couldn’t say. All she knew was that more times than not the selected reading material ended up tossed aside while her ladyship grilled her on every facet of her life.

  Of course Sophie couldn’t help but to reveal a bit about herself and her once lofty position in society in replying. Aware as she was of that fact, she tried to evade the woman’s questions. Her ladyship, however, was a slyboots, and somehow always managed to loosen her tongue. Thus, more times th
an not, she ended up spilling the very details she sought to conceal. To say that the situation was disturbing was a vast understatement.

  With the peacocks now out of her way and pecking at the hollyhocks bordering the path, Sophie picked up her skirts and resumed her errand. As she did so, she glanced down at the crisp, blue-sprigged muslin in her hand.

  One of the best things about her new duties was that they required her to dress in a manner fit for Somerville eyes. That meant that she now wore one of the modest yet reasonably becoming gowns issued to all female servants who waited upon the family. And wait upon them she did, constantly it seemed, all except for the one member she desperately wished to see.

  Lyndhurst.

  Since witnessing his courtly tolerance of Miss Mayhew’s gaucheness, and the charming gallantry with which he’d consoled Fancy, a mere servant, she’d developed the most curious feelings for him, ones oddly reminiscent of a schoolgirl crush. Why, the man she’d seen on Sunday wasn’t at all the utterly insufferable aristocrat she’d jilted. Indeed, had she not known for a fact that that man was he, she’d have thought him a complete stranger.

  An exceedingly exciting and intriguing stranger.

  A compelling handsome stranger.

  Lyndhurst? Handsome? Shaking her head in amazement, she passed the last of the cherry trees and stepped onto an arched Palladian bridge. The last thing in the world she’d expected to admire about his lordship was his looks. Yet, as she’d watched him smile and tease away Fancy’s tears, she’d gazed past his scar and discovered an unexpected beauty in his face.

  Granted, he wasn’t beautiful in a conventional sense, not like Julian and Quentin with their angelic prettiness. No. His beauty lay in his warm smile, the intelligence in his eyes, and the thoughtfulness of his expression. As for his actual features, well, they were roughly hewn versions of his stunning brother’s finely chiseled ones.

  Thus, Lyndhurst’s jaw was squarer than Quentin’s, his cheekbones higher, and his nose a hint more aquiline. Then, there was his mouth. She couldn’t help but to smile her admiration. While it resembled that of his brother, sensually shaped and generously full, his lips were firm rather than soft and pouting. Add his thick, straight eyebrows, sun-bronzed skin, and of course, those marvelous dark eyes, and even she, the most discriminating of women, had to admit that his lordship was attractive in a bold, aggressively masculine way.