by Lara Temple
‘Oh, stuff! I like her. She’s different.’
Max gave a short laugh.
‘That sums it up nicely.’
Hetty looked at him and put aside her book.
‘Come sit down and tell me what happened,’ she invited.
Max remained standing, but gave her an expurgated version of the events in the park and an even briefer account of his discussion with Sophie. He just hoped she wouldn’t question him too deeply about why he had felt it necessary to tell Wivenhoe Sophie was engaged to him. No one in his family other than his parents knew what had really happened with Serena and he preferred to keep it that way.
‘Why do you and Wivenhoe hate each other so?’ Hetty asked when he finished his story. ‘Does it have to do with Serena? I was sixteen and it was all hushed up, but we knew something terrible had happened and I overheard Mama and Papa say something about Wivenhoe later.’
‘That is not what is at issue at the moment.’
‘I see,’ Hetty said carefully, clearly still curious. ‘Well, I know this isn’t what you planned, but I must say I’m glad. The more I think about it, the less I think Lady Melissa will do for you.’
‘And that madcap will?’
Hetty frowned at the bite of frustrated anger he could not keep out of his voice. He breathed in, calming himself. It was done. There were other things to think about now than this incomprehensible disconnect between his body and his mind.
‘It’s damnable that I have to go to Southampton just now, but it can’t be put off. I’ll be back in three days at the most. Everyone will just have to stew for a few days until I publish the formal announcement. Meanwhile, I know you have to go back to Somerset by next week, but I need your help before you do, Hetty.’
‘Of course, Max. Shopping and things?’
He nodded. ‘And things. Once the announcement is out the sooner we introduce her to people the better.’
‘Of course. We should start by introducing her at the Seftons’ ball—’
‘That’s in four days’ time!’ he interrupted.
‘Precisely. We shall take the warehouses and modistes by storm and I can guarantee she will look completely fashionable once we are done.’
‘Can you do the same with her manners?’
He could have kicked himself as Hetty’s smile was erased and her soft grey eyes hardened, making her look more like their mother.
‘I will make allowances for your vexation at being pushed into an engagement that was not part of your well-thought-out plans, Max, but if the best you can do is insult her then I suggest you bite the bullet and call it off now. It would be better.’
He turned away from her.
‘I would still have to marry someone.’
‘If this is who you mean to be, then Lady Melissa is the perfect choice for you after all. When you make up your mind, let me know. I am going to my room.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Hetty, don’t sulk.’
‘I am not sulking. You are.’
This incontestable truth deflated his bubble of confusion and anger. He held out his hand.
‘You’re right. About Lady Melissa as well. I don’t know if I could have done it. Maybe it’s a blessing not knowing what I am getting myself into. Will you help?’
She grasped his hand.
‘Of course I will, Max dear. And don’t worry so, everything will be just fine.’
Max refrained from saying aloud just what he thought about this inane attempt at reassurance. He had no clear idea what he had let himself into, but somehow the words ‘just fine’ did not seem adequate to describe possible future scenarios of his life with Sophie.
Chapter Eleven
‘Well! That was delightful!’ Hetty announced merrily as Sophie sank wearily into one of the very comfortable dark blue velvet armchairs in the drawing room of Harcourt House. ‘Shall I have Gaskell bring up some tea? Shopping always make me hungry.’
Sophie had no idea how Hetty managed to look so cheerful and full of energy. Over the past three days of being swept up in the whirlwind of shopping orchestrated by Hetty she felt as if she had walked from one end of Exmoor to the other. Which was rather close to the odyssey they had undergone. Sophie had not been in the least prepared for the campaign her future sister-in-law had led her on. For three days silk warehouses and milliners were interspersed with gems like a visit to a lovely little market specialising in ribbons and buttons, then there were gloves and sandals and dancing slippers for balls and a charming shop selling fans and reticules and all kinds of bric-a-brac. But the most wearying had been the long sittings at Madame Fanechal’s where a small army of seamstresses had surrounded her while Hetty and Madame discussed necklines and waistlines and hues with all the seriousness of field marshals.
At first Sophie tried to protest the expense and then guiltily tried to keep track of the cost of their acquisitions, but Hetty had cleverly countered Sophie’s protests with the argument that the money spent was of more use to the shopkeepers and seamstresses than to the coffers of the bank where it sat. And just when Sophie had begun to hope that it was over, Hetty and Madame whisked her into a discreet backroom where she was ordered to strip behind a screen while a very sour-faced old woman brought her an array of the most amazing silk and satin and lace petticoats and nightgowns and robes that seemed far too fragile to even try on, but which Hetty had insisted were an absolute necessity for a bride-to-be.
It was only at this point that the reality of what was happening began to sink in. That if everything Hetty had forced upon her until that point were to make sure she made Max proud in public, here were items that only he would see. That there would come a moment when she would have to stand in front of him dressed in these transparent, floating gowns that were almost more indecent than sheer nudity because of the coy pretension to conceal while leaving very little to the imagination.
Looking at her body in the long mirror in the gently lit room, Sophie had remembered what she had told Max that day at the exhibition. That there was no reason for women to be embarrassed by female nude paintings because it was something they saw every time they undressed and had a decent mirror nearby, but standing in these seductive shifts and with the realisation that Max would see her like this, she felt thoroughly embarrassed and inadequate and as close to terrified as she had been in her life. There was no possible way someone as thoroughly unremarkable as herself might appeal to him, beautiful nightclothes or not. And she wanted to appeal to him in a way that was utterly foreign to her. She had turned, raising her arms and watching as the diaphanous silk floated about her before sinking back, clinging to her like liquid poured over her flesh. His hands would be touching this silk, her skin through it, pulling it off her...
The heat had rushed upwards through her even before she saw the flush stain her cheeks and she had turned away from her image, trying to steady her breathing. She had never known she was so wanton. How was it possible that she had lived twenty-four years without realising her body had a...a life of its own? That it wasn’t just a vessel to serve her, but part of what she demanded from life? She felt Max had cast some fairy-tale curse on her, like those princesses forced to dance the night away against their will, enthralled and appalled as body ruled will. No, not will, just what everyone tried to convince her should be her will.
Her body was still tingling when they sat down in the drawing room in Max’s house. It was decorated in a strict classical style, its symphony of blues and silver-grey a sharp a contrast to Aunt Minnie’s red, green and gold cacophony. Despite the comfort of the armchairs it thoroughly reflected Max’s character—tasteful, uncluttered, austere and blatantly wealthy. Sophie thought it looked beautiful, but she felt utterly out of place. All the more so because the room seemed designed as the perfect backdrop for the likes of a Lady Melissa.
She wished Ma
x would return, but she dreaded the moment. The memory of the way he had kissed her in Aunt Minnie’s parlour followed her about more closely than her shadow, feeding her yearning and her fear and making it hard for her to fall asleep in her little room. There it seemed to swell and fill the narrow, stuffy space and she would stare into the dark, occasionally squeezing her eyes shut tightly. She needed him to come back so she could escape herself and this conviction that she was being unbearably and foolishly selfish and that she would pay for her greed like one of her father’s sermons that she had always secretly scoffed at.
The worst was when she tried to think what might be going through Max’s mind during those hours. Whether he, too, was kept awake, only with regret at the rash move he had made. But then the thought of him in a bed, in the dark, brought with it images of slipping between those sheets, seeking the heat of the hard body she had felt beneath her hands, and she would turn over with a groan and shove her face into her lumpy pillow and beg her brain to let her sleep. Something in her had awakened that she had never even guessed existed and it was rapidly taking her over.
The door opened and she straightened, between hope and dismay at the thought that it might be Max. But it was just Gaskell, the butler, who placed the tea tray in front of Hetty.
‘Max is always off on some business,’ Hetty explained as she poured. ‘In that sense he is just as industrious as Papa. Not that Papa would have deigned to go to places like Southampton or the City himself, he was far too proud, but he was never indolent like some gentlemen. It was all about responsibility with him. He was very disappointed he had so many daughters and only one son. As if it was a personal failure. Poor Mama was, too. I think I was the crowning disappointment because after me there was some complication and she could not have any more children which meant there was no chance of another boy. They never said anything, they were much too proper, but we knew. It put a lot of pressure on Max, as you may imagine. Especially since my eldest uncle, who is Max’s heir, is quite as shatter-brained as Papa was scrupulous.’
Sophie drank her tea and absorbed Hetty’s words. This was not the first time Hetty had fed her little titbits about their life at Harcourt and Max’s many responsibilities. It was very clear this wasn’t just idle talk. Hetty was preparing her for her new role and to do her credit she was doing it in a very palatable manner.
‘Do they get along? Max and his uncle?’
‘Oh, goodness, yes. Mortimer is a dear and so is his son, Cousin Barnaby. But neither of them is very dependable except when it comes to horticulture. Max is closer to my other uncle, Charles. I told you about him, didn’t I? The painter. He was as much a father to us as Papa ever was and when he wasn’t off somewhere in the world or in London, he would be with us at the Hall. I think you will like him. He will certainly like you. He was very much against the idea of Max—’ She broke off with a little cough and reached forward to choose a biscuit. ‘Well, never mind all that family nonsense. Or, rather, tell me if you have had any news from yours yet?’
Sophie hesitated, wondering what Hetty had been about to say, but there seemed no polite way to ask. She nodded.
‘I received a letter from home this morning. It took a little deciphering since not only Papa and Mama, but also two of my sisters and one of my brothers, insisted on adding their opinions, crossing each other’s lines like a horde of stampeding ants. Cautious approval on my father’s part was mixed with a concern that this development, as he put it, was related to the excessive liveliness he has warned me against and if that was the case then he hoped I would not see this as a sign that such behaviour was being rewarded. My mother was delighted to discover that there were at least some offers I was not too fastidious to discourage and if she had known I was holding out for a duke she would not have bothered introducing me to all the perfectly eligible young men she had gone out of her way to find for me in north Devon, and that if I wished she would come help me choose my bridals, but that it would have to wait until after the Ashton Cove Women’s League meeting because if she is not there, Mrs Stinchcombe is sure to rule the roost. I won’t bother sharing my sister Augusta’s advice on entering matrimony, because it is thoroughly depressing. Mary’s suggestion was that letting men think they have won an argument is her best advice for a happy marriage, which is useful, I suppose. George, who is one of my favourite siblings, had the most positive contribution. He informed me that he has heard of Max and that he is a bang-up whip and as handy with his fives as anyone who frequents Jackson’s saloon and he was glad I wasn’t going to marry some namby-pamby dandy, but that he was most proud of me for beating Cousin Arthur’s record and winning his bet for him and that Arthur and Aunt Seraphina were as blue as a megrim about the whole thing. His last line was that he wanted me to ask Max something about a prize fight that was to take place in a few weeks. And then he ran out of paper.’
Hetty had fallen into a fit of giggles halfway through Sophie’s account and Sophie, who had not felt very amused while reading the letter, started laughing as well. Somehow talking to Hetty was putting everything into proportion.
‘Oh, dear,’ Hetty gasped. ‘I’m so sorry...but it is so very absurd... And please forgive me, but your mama sounds just like mine...’
‘That’s a frightening thought,’ Max said from the doorway, surveying them as he entered the drawing room. ‘What is so amusing?’
Sophie felt the familiar inner expanding heat that always accompanied his appearance. It reminded her of the mirror opposite of that moment of slipping into the cold waters of the bay—a first slap of physical shock and then the body adapted to the cold water and the tension eased, but never completely.
‘Max! Welcome back!’ Hetty exclaimed, holding out her hands and Max walked over to her with a smile and bent to kiss her cheek lightly. Sophie put down her teacup carefully.
‘Sophie was telling me about the letter she received from her family.’ Hetty explained as Max turned towards Sophie. She had forgotten how blank his expression could be. There was no hint in that distant, hooded scrutiny where his thoughts had taken him these past three days. But there was also something unnervingly intimate in the steadiness of his gaze as she approached her and it did nothing to calm the flickering heat that had remained on a low burn since trying on the nightshifts and petticoats at Madame Fanechal’s. She could still feel the slide of the silk against her skin and she hoped he attributed her flush to their laughter.
‘Hello, Sophie.’ He stopped in front of her and she held out her hand automatically and he took it. Even through her gloves she felt its strength and heat, and everything, her confusion and fear and yearning, became edged and present, like a physical threat. His hand tightened slightly as she remained silent and she forced herself to respond.
‘Hello, Your... Max. Did you have a good trip?’ she asked, feeling infinitely foolish, and even more so as a faint smile touched his mouth.
‘Yes, thank you. So, what was so amusing about this letter?’ he asked as he turned away and sat down on the sofa, draping his arm over the back. Sophie wished she had chosen to sit on the sofa instead of the armchair. She wondered what they would think if she stood up and went to sit beside him. Lady Melissa certainly wouldn’t do anything so obvious and undignified.
‘Sophie?’ he prompted and she straightened.
‘I’m not sure amusing is quite the right word. It was just that they were more occupied with other matters, though my brother is very interested in your knowledge about some upcoming prize fight and in the fact that Cousin Arthur and Aunt Seraphina are blue-devilled about my breaking their record.’
‘So your coup with Mad Minnie is more exciting than your upcoming marriage? That’s not very encouraging.’
She shrugged and Hetty leaned forward to pour him some tea.
‘Sophie’s mother seems to regret you are not from north Devon, Max. It reminds me of what Mama said when she heard I wanted
to accept Ned’s offer. Remember?’
Amusement softened Max’s expression.
‘But he’s only a baronet, dear. And from some wild place up north. Must you really?’ he mimicked and Hetty burst into giggles again and Sophie smiled, ignoring the little spurt of jealousy at the easy affection between Max and his sister. The truth was she liked him even more when she saw them together. Something about Hetty’s presence softened that hard shell that made her so wary and gave her hope that perhaps with time she could reach that place herself.
He turned to Sophie.
‘Hetty’s husband Ned is from Somerset, but my parents tended to think the world suffers a severe decline in intelligence once one leaves the South Devon coast and only picks up again in the safety of London.
Sophie smiled.
‘I think in my mother’s case it is pique rather than prejudice, since she is convinced she personally had a hand in all my elder sibling’s marriages. She likes managing things.’
‘I’m afraid to ask what your father wrote.’
Sophie tried very hard to keep her mouth prim.
‘I’m afraid he is likely to be suspicious of anyone who contemplates marriage with me. Still, he says your father was known to be a very worthy man and that he has heard no ill of you.’
‘Fulsome! How will I live up to that? And your siblings? Are they similarly flowery?’
‘Mary says I am to let you win arguments.’
‘I applaud her advice, but I think Mary clearly doesn’t know you very well. Or perhaps she does, which is why she is giving you this advice. Does it get better?’
‘Indeed it does. Augusta warns me to keep my expectations low and promises to send me a volume of sermons she finds very improving for brides-to-be.’
‘So it does get better. You should probably skip the sermons. Was that the lot? Remind me, how many siblings do you have?’
‘Eight. But most know better than to add to a letter Papa will likely read before it is sent. Except George because he doesn’t care. He is most interested in your knowledge of prize fights and winning his bet with Cousin Arthur. That was it.’
