“How are you—no, pray don’t stand up,” she said breathlessly. “Did you try the oatmeal and angelica root on your poor ankle? Mama, here’s Lady Sophie with the foot that my cousin quite stomped on—isn’t she as pretty as I said she was? Oh, Perry! I say, I didn’t see you there at first. How civil of you to call! London must be agreeing with you if you’ve learned to observe the niceties—”
She fell into abrupt silence as the duchess, who had been exchanging courtesies with Amélie and Aunt Molly, turned her head and ever so slightly raised one eyebrow before smiling and nodding at Sophie. Sophie scrambled to her feet to curtsy properly—one did not neglect to be polite to a duchess—and thought that Lady Parthenope’s mother looked at her a little more keenly than the situation perhaps warranted.
But she was distracted by Lady Parthenope’s coming round behind her and turning her chair slightly away from the others, then plonking herself down into the chair Lord Woodbridge had vacated. “Perry, you don’t have to stand over there, you know. I promise I’ll behave myself,” she said, giving him a radiant smile. “Do bring up a chair and talk to us.”
He bowed stiffly. “Thank you, but I think it is time I took my leave. Lady Sophie.” He gave her the barest nod, then went to give the duchess a dutiful kiss.
“Huh.” Lady Parthenope watched him make his farewells. “That was interesting. What’s put him into such a temper? I barely had a chance to speak to him this time.” She frowned and drummed her fingers on her knee, then turned to Sophie. “Anyway, now we can have a comfortable coze. How is your foot? I’m glad someone found you a cane to use till it’s better.” She nodded at Sophie’s cane, hooked over the back of her chair.
Sophie folded her hands in her lap so that the other girl could not see that they shook. First that hideous encounter with Lord Woodbridge, and now this.
“Um … thank you, Lady Parthenope, but it’s not going to get better,” she said carefully.
While she’d tossed and turned last night, Lady Parthenope and the “injured” foot had been among the things she’d thought about, almost as much as wondering about Lord Woodbridge. She could not let the girl go on thinking her lameness was a transitory condition—the truth would out sooner or later. Probably sooner. It was time to confess her lie, but did it have to happen now, when she was still agitated from dealing with the abominable … the abominable pity of that man?
“I didn’t really hurt it last night,” she continued. “Well, it got a little wrenched, but nothing to speak of. I—um, I’m lame, you see. I have this cane because I need it, and was … I was too vain to bring it with me last night.” If she was going to do this, she’d do it properly.
“Oh!” Lady Parthenope’s cheeks grew pink.
“And I must beg your pardon for leading you to think otherwise,” Sophie added conscientiously. “I have a frightful limp. I always will.”
There. She’d said it. Now Lady Parthenope could gabble a few incoherent words of pity—more pity!—and think of an excuse to get her mother out of the house as rapidly as possible. And then Sophie could persuade Papa and Aunt Molly to take her back to Lanselling and never set foot in London again.
But that was not what happened. Instead, Lady Parthenope’s eyes suddenly grew suspiciously bright.
“No—that is, I should be begging your pardon, Lady Sophie. I should not have been so…” She paused as if struggling to find the right words. “I was far too bossy last night trying to drag you off to fix your hair without stopping to ask whether you even wanted my help.”
“You were very kind to offer.” Sophie lifted her chin. “But I should also confess that my hair didn’t look that way because of my fall. That’s how I wore it last night, to please my aunt. She did my hair the way she’d worn hers at her first party … except that was over twenty years ago. I know I looked ridiculous, but it was my choice to do so. Or maybe just my folly.”
“No, it was all my folly! I had no idea that your mother—that she—wasn’t there last night when I dragged you off to find her. Mama told me after, and I felt just—just horrid! Like I’d blundered all over everything, and made a mess of my first London party, and behaved just dreadfully to you.” She blinked several times, then looked away.
Oh. Sophie felt her own eyes prickle with tears. “It doesn’t bother you?” she asked abruptly.
“What doesn’t bother me?” Lady Parthenope was digging in her reticule.
“The fact that I am crippled.”
“Why should it?” She found a handkerchief—a ridiculous scrap of lace—and eyed it with misgiving before blowing her nose energetically into it. “Did my barging in and trying to take charge before I quite know all that I should and asking where your poor mother was bother you?”
Sophie hesitated. This was a delicate moment. She could be polite and effacing, or she could take a chance—
“Frightfully!” she said, making her face as disapproving as possible. “I declare, it was simply … horripilatious.”
Parthenope met her eyes, startled. Sophie struggled not to giggle at her expression, but her mouth would begin to quiver at the corners … and Parthenope burst into laughter. Sophie joined her and felt a large part of the worry and tension that she’d been cradling against her heart like an ugly, fretful baby melt away.
“Oh my goodness. I am so glad you said that,” Parthenope declared, subsiding into giggles. “I positively swore any number of solemn oaths to myself that I would be all elegance and repose once I arrived in London, but being a languid miss just isn’t possible for me, I think. And here you are, looking as cool and serene as I wanted to be, yet I find you’re quite as naughty as I am, underneath. Now, tell me about your lameness,” Parthenope commanded when they finally regained their breath.
To her surprise Sophie found herself telling her, much as she had Amélie. Parthenope listened without interrupting, to Sophie’s further surprise, even when she added what had happened with Lady Lumley in the dressmaker’s shop—leaving out the magic she’d done, of course.
“Your poor mama,” Parthenope said, her voice gentler than Sophie had yet heard it. “And your little sister.… I can’t imagine how dreadful it would be losing one of my brothers forever, even though I sometimes wish a few of them could be temporarily mislaid. And then that loathsome toad of a woman saying those things right to your face—it’s a wonder you didn’t box her ears or do something equally vengeful.”
“Oh, er…” Sophie hoped she didn’t look too guilty. “Don’t think I wasn’t tempted.”
“I expect that I would have given in to temptation.” Her eyes twinkled mischievously. “I know what we should do. We’ll tell everyone that you injured yourself when attempting to save your father, and you can spend the rest of the season languishing on sofas being pale and interesting and ordering all the young men to bring you restorative glasses of champagne.”
Sophie grimaced. Except for Lord Woodbridge, of course. Then again, if he were to bring her a glass of champagne, she’d probably throw it at him. “It’s a lovely thought, but I don’t think my aunts would approve.”
Parthenope looked over at Aunt Molly. “Mm, perhaps not. What a shame. I expect you could have been quite the thing.”
Sophie looked down at her hands in her lap. “Sometimes … sometimes I wish, if I had to be crippled, that it had happened when I was riding breakneck to hounds or something dashing and romantic like that. Then I suppose I could have tried your sofa and champagne idea. But having been ill is scarcely dashing. Besides, if I drink too much of anything, I won’t be able to spend much time on the sofa, will I?”
Parthenope giggled. “Oh, I know. D’you know what my Macky told me? She said that I should eat and drink as little as possible when I’m out in the evenings, because I’m sure to muss something up about my dress if I have to use the convenience. I think you and I ought to make a pact—if we’re at the same party, we’ll neither of us go to the privy alone, just in case we get our petticoats in a twist. All I need to
do is disgrace myself in public—I’ll never hear the end of it from Perry.”
“From—oh.” She meant Lord Woodbridge, of course. Sophie hesitated, then said, choosing her words carefully, “I … um, I know he’s your cousin, but … I must confess, I came very near just now to poking him in the eye.”
“Really? Not Saint Peregrine! What did he do? I thought it rather interesting that he’d called—”
“He called so that he could tell me how sorry he was for me.”
“What?” The smile on Parthenope’s face vanished.
“It seems his mother knew my mother and told him to be kind to her old friend’s crippled daughter. That’s what he was trying to do last night at Lady Whiston’s when you—er—”
“When I lumbered in on your conversation,” Penelope finished for her. “Hmmph. He’s usually a lot more diplomatic than that. I would have thought that he wouldn’t say, ‘I’m here to be kind to you’; he’d just … do it. There’s a reason he wants to find a position in the diplomatic corps—he’s good at being tactful and politic. So why be such a blunderbuss all of a sudden?”
“He claimed to be concerned that he’d hurt poor fragile me.” Sophie shrugged. “I’m about as fragile as an old boot. Being crippled is not for the feeble—my leg may be too short and weak, but the rest of me has had to make up for it.”
“I’d not thought of it that way, but you’re right, aren’t you?”
“Not everyone thinks so. My Aunt Isabel disapproves of my not behaving like a drooping blossom about to fall off its stem.”
“What a dreadful way to want someone to behave.” Parthenope looked thoughtful. “May I ask—can … that is, do you ride?”
Sophie hesitated, then told herself not to be touchy. Even many noncrippled ladies did not care for riding, after all. But on a horse’s back was one place she didn’t limp. “You should see my new riding habit. Aunt Isabel disapproves of it, too.”
“I’ll bet it’s just splendid, then. Have you been riding in Hyde Park yet? It’s quite the place to see and be seen. I say, let’s ride there tomorrow. ’Tis a pity it’s not last year, when the czar and the king of Prussia and half of the continent were here, but that doesn’t mean London is quite empty. Do say you will!”
“Monsieur le Comte de Carmouche-Ponthieux,” Belton intoned from the doorway.
“Oh, he came!” breathed Sophie. She hadn’t even heard the door knocker, engrossed as she had been in talking with Parthenope.
“Goodness!” Parthenope murmured. “Who is that?”
The comte had entered and was bowing elegantly, though his eyes had gone straight to Aunt Molly. What a mercy Aunt Isabel wasn’t here!
“It’s a terribly romantic story,” Sophie murmured back. “He’s the Lost Love of my aunt’s youth, come back from France after more than twenty years.”
“Really?” Parthenope watched as the comte seated himself next to Aunt Molly on the sofa. “He’s not already married and the proud papa of twelve back over there, is he?”
“Oh!” Why hadn’t she thought of that possibility before? “I hope not! If he isn’t, I am determined to see that they get the chance they didn’t have twenty-whatever years ago.”
“Playing matchmaker, are you?” Parthenope grinned. “That sounds like fun. May I join you?”
Sophie hesitated, then smiled back. “Please do!”
Chapter
5
At twenty-five minutes past four the next afternoon, Sophie and Parthenope on horseback, along with an elegant little barouche containing the Comte de Carmouche-Ponthieux, Aunt Molly, and Amélie, clopped through the gate at Piccadilly into Hyde Park and toward Rotten Row, the roadway that ran along the southern side of the park. It was before the magic hour of five, when the fashionable portion of London thronged the park to take the air, see, and be seen. But Sophie observed that there were already a number in carriages and on horseback as well as elegantly dressed strollers enjoying the pale afternoon sunshine shimmering down from a pearly sky.
Sophie had been delighted when the comte arrived at the house to take Aunt Molly and Amélie driving. Though it might have been preferable for him to take just Aunt Molly, she couldn’t help liking him for including Amélie as well. This would do to begin with.
“It’s perfect! We shall cut quite the figure together!” Parthenope had nearly shrieked when she saw Sophie’s sapphire blue velvet riding habit. Hers was very similar, though in a reddish purple the color of a plum. Both were dashingly military, with frog fastenings and epaulettes and tall ostrich-plumed hats much like the shakos worn by soldiers. “Though I saw a lady two days ago with a habit rather like ours, but she’d gone and had gold braid put on it, so it looked like she’d pilfered it from an officer somewhere. Too much.” She shuddered delicately.
“Lady Parthenope is a young woman of taste, I can see,” observed the comte, with a twinkle in his eye. But Sophie had noticed that even when he smiled there was a sadness about his expression that made her feel sorry for him. Was it from being disappointed in his youth?
“Would you tell my Macky that? She hates half my new dresses and would much rather I was still in pinafores, I think.” Parthenope looked disgusted.
“Try as I might, I simply cannot picture you in a pinafore,” Sophie said to her.
“Oh, good. That makes me feel better.”
“Unless it was quite grubby and had at least two fresh tears in it.”
Parthenope laughed. “How did you know? Come on, let’s canter.”
Sophie glanced back at the carriage. Aunt Molly and Amélie sat side by side, facing the comte. It would have been better if Aunt could have sat next to the comte, but that would not have been proper. She and he were chatting happily, which was wonderful. Aunt Molly had always been a little vague, a little in her own world, but today she was obviously very present. Sophie hoped that Amélie would not be bored and caught her eye. Amélie smiled and gave her a slight nod. Reassured, Sophie touched her horse on the flank with her crop and then cantered after Parthenope.
They had slowed after a few minutes—the increasing traffic made only short bursts of speed feasible—when Parthenope’s face lit into a grin that was decidedly mischievous. “I say, could that be…? Why, Cousin Peregrine! What a pleasant surprise!”
Peregrine! Sophie nearly groaned aloud as a rider a short distance ahead of them reined in his horse and turned. Why, of all people, did they have to meet Lord Woodbridge today?
Parthenope, however, had already trotted up to him, so there was no avoiding him. She made herself look at him and nod slightly—drat it, why did he have to be so good-looking in that dark blue coat, his hair tousled as he removed his hat? Cutting him dead would not be a polite thing to do in front of his cousin, much as she would like to.
“But … you’re riding!” she heard him say as she drew in beside Parthenope. “I’d assumed—”
“That Lady Sophie could not ride, my lord?” she finished for him. “Lady Sophie can most certainly ride. She’s ridden her entire life, and being lame hasn’t altered that.”
He flushed, and she saw his eyes turn toward Parthenope with an expression part pleading and part angry. Hmm. They hadn’t arranged this meeting, had they? But why? Parthenope knew quite well what a bad impression her cousin had made. She glanced over at her new friend and saw that Parthenope looked exasperated as well as amused. Yes, very suspicious.
“Of course we’re riding, dear Cousin Clunch,” she said. “How else could we show off our habits? Aren’t we dashing? I think we cut quite a figure here this afternoon.”
Lord Woodbridge seemed to have somewhat regained his composure. “You quite outshine anyone else here,” he said, and Sophie realized that he was looking directly at her.
“Let’s ride,” she said, and encouraged her horse forward. No need for anyone to see the telltale warmth surely flushing her cheeks.
To her discomfort, he managed somehow to maneuver himself into riding between her and Parthenope. She sa
t stiff and tall in her sidesaddle and did not move her gaze from between her horse’s ears.
“I think we should do this every day, don’t you, Sophie?” Parthenope said. “It’s hard being shut up inside so much, here in London. I say, Perry—who is that young man there? On the bench on the far side of that tree, reading—in the green coat. See him?”
Peregrine looked in the direction she’d indicated. “Who? Oh, that’s Leland—James Leland, I mean. Very pleasant fellow, when he pulls his nose out of a book long enough to talk to you. He gets his share of ribbing for it at Boodle’s, but never takes the least offense. From Hampshire, if I recall—old family. He’ll come into a viscountcy eventually. Why do you ask?”
“Oh…” Parthenope paused to flick a fly off her horse’s neck. “Just wondering. Anyway, Perry, it’s lovely to see you here. Do you ride often?”
“As often as I can,” he replied promptly.
“Perfect! You can be our escort, then—”
“Escort?” Sophie could hear the frown in his voice. “You can’t mean you’re here alone without even a groom—? Parthenope, this is London, not—”
“Oh, pooh. Sophie’s aunt and her friends are here too. We’re not total madcaps,” Parthenope said. “At least, I don’t think we’re madcaps, though it might be fun to—”
“Madcaps? Where? I adore madcaps. Bring ’em on!” a cheerful male voice called from behind them. “Oh, good day, Woodbridge. I thought it might be you selfishly claiming the attention of two such fair ladies.”
Sophie suppressed an exclamation. She knew that voice, had heard it only a day or two ago, from behind a statue at the Whistons’ ball, discussing her fortune and whether it would be worth making a try for it … and her.
“Underwood,” Lord Woodbridge acknowledged shortly. He didn’t seem particularly pleased.
The man pulled up next to her and swept his curly-brimmed beaver hat off his fair hair. He was handsome in a narrow-faced, foxlike way, and she guessed that he smiled a great deal—at least with his mouth. His green eyes, on the other hand, were cold and very alert as they swept over her.
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