by Jo Goodman
"And you have not. I am only compromised if we are found out."
"I should have let you scream."
She flushed a little at the harshness of his words and the picture they presented in her mind's eye. She refused to look away, however, and kept her gaze steady on his. "You are Mr. Corbett here, are you not? Unknown to anyone except by that name?"
"I used that identity so Tremont might not trace my path to Chipping Campden."
"And Sampson announced me as Miss Barbara Hyde-Jones expressly for that same purpose. You must see the convenience of it. You did not apply to Sampson for assistance when you arrived, but came straightaway to this room. Much as you might like to think otherwise, my lord, we are not yet compromised."
Eastlyn fell silent a moment as he took note of the ache beginning to make itself felt behind his eye. "Can the idea of marriage to me really be so abhorrent?"
"It is marriage to anyone I find distasteful."
"Yet you accepted Mr. Heath."
Sophie wondered what she could tell him. "Mr. Heath did not present the same temptation as you," she said at last.
"I cannot think how I am supposed to take your meaning."
"Any way you like." She hoped he would accept her words in the most obvious way possible and flatter himself into thinking she did not want to be forever beguiled by him. It was not the manner in which she meant the words, but he did not have to know that. His money was the temptation. Her family would only let him live long enough to get her with an heir. She would be a very rich widow, and he would be dead. In the case of Mr. George Heath, she had judged him of insufficient fortune to inspire such avarice, or at least she had hoped it was so. It was perhaps in every way for the best that Mr. Heath chose to make Miss Rebecca Sayers his bride.
Eastlyn searched Sophie's face, but she had thrown up her guard, and he could not divine her thoughts. What he knew was that she did not yet trust him and that he could not accept her words at face value. "You say things that are the truth," he said, "and yet not the truth. It makes for peculiar conversation and certain misunderstanding."
"I will not marry you," she said. "That is plain, I believe."
"Indeed it is."
"Then we are settled."
Eastlyn thought that was the very last thing they were, but he did not disabuse her of the notion. Had North had such a time of it getting Elizabeth to agree to marriage? It seemed to East that once a lady was thoroughly compromised, even if it was not yet all anyone could talk about, she should have the good sense to make a march on the altar.
There was one gambit left to him. "You have considered, have you not, that you might conceive a child by me?"
Sophie nodded and did not tell him how foolishly late she had been in arriving at that consequence. "Should it occur, you may depend that I will not hide the truth of it from you."
"That, at least, is gratifying."
She ignored the sardonic lift of his brow and his tone that was as dry as dust. "There are many places I can go where I am not known and live comfortably with my child. I believe it is done quite often. Clovelly, perhaps, in Devon might suit me very well, and you would not find the expense of a small cottage burdensome."
Eastlyn regarded Sophie for a long moment and spoke only when he knew he would not raise his voice. "You will remember this, Sophie: that as much as I am provoked by you, I have not once raised my hand or caused you to abase yourself by kneeling on a bed of stones."
Slapping her would have been less painful. Sophie almost reeled with the intensity of the quiet anger in his voice and his eyes. She watched him dress from where she stood, making no move to return to the bed or block his way. He did not speak again, not even upon leaving her, and when she heard the commotion belowstairs she knew he meant to quit the inn. To go to the window and throw it open was a temptation. She felt a light tremor in her legs and fingertips as she resisted the urge, and was only aware afterward that it was the slamming of the door beneath her that was its source.
She was alone again, still afraid, but perhaps not so much as she had been. Sophie returned to the bed and sat for a time, her mind empty of all thought. When she grew cold she lay back and found herself taking the side of the bed Eastlyn had claimed as his. She breathed in the scent of him there, in the sheets, on the pillow. The heat of his body still lingered in the quilt.
Drawing it closely around her, Sophie finally surrendered to her need to cry, then to sleep.
* * *
Enough laughter erupted from one of the private theatre boxes at Drury Lane to stop the lead actress from delivering her line. The loud prompt that was given to her from the wing brought silence from every quarter except that box. The audience's attention shifted from the stage to where the Marquess of Eastlyn was entertaining his friends.
"I know the line," Miss India Parr said without rancor. "What I cannot know is if I will be permitted to speak it." This had the effect of raising sympathetic chuckles among the largely male audience and finally wresting quiet from the Compass Club.
"Now you've done it, East. I believe she is speaking to us." North indicated the stage where Miss Parr was standing with her fists resting on the wide panniers of her gown and her elbows cocked sharply outward. Her painted lips were pursed in a perfect bow, and her darkly drawn eyebrows were arched so high they fairly disappeared into the fringed curls of her powdered wig. This exaggerated demonstration of impatience would have been more amusing if it had not been directed at them.
East turned and gave his attention to the actress. He made a good show of appearing much struck by this turn of events. He forced a carelessness into his voice that he had no feeling for. "Why, so she is. Odd, that. Doesn't she have a line?"
Sitting at East's side, it was Marchman who answered, "You can't expect me to save you, Hortense."
This prompt, offered as it was in dry, uninflected accents, lifted more chuckling from an appreciative audience. East saw that South was preparing to make amends for their unfortunate lapse of manners. It was Southerton's ribald aside that had put East into a paroxysm of laughter that had been as contagious as it was ill-advised and ill-timed. He did not blame them for being unaware that his laughter was strained or that it had gone on too long. He might apply, he thought, to the director of this Drury Lane production and see if there was a part at the ready for a fool.
He watched South stand and Northam grab him by the tails as if there was some fear he might pitch himself over the side of the box. East merely shook his head, a tad impatient now, and waited for South to speak the correct line to the actress.
"You cannot expect that I will always save you, Hortense."
On stage Miss Parr's eyes narrowed. "You have it exactly. Shall you go on or must we?"
"I must humbly beg your pardon," South said, inclining his head in an apologetic gesture to her, then the audience. "For myself and my friends. Pray, continue."
East remained with his friends for the remainder of the play, though he had little interest in it. Afterward he made the mistake of contemplating aloud what sort of retaliation Miss Parr was likely to make if they presented themselves at her crowded dressing room. "Polite slap, do you think? Or a blow?"
North saw where this would lead and decided that his recent marriage lent him certain insights into confrontations with the female sex. "Three shillings that it's open-handed."
East heard himself agree, but he imagined that in this same situation even the sainted Sophie would be moved to use her fist. After Marchman also agreed it would be a slap, South took the opposing view. It was then left to them to decide who would beard the lioness in her den and finally settle the wager.
North held up his hands palms out, eliminating himself from consideration. "I fear I cannot be the one. Elizabeth would hear of it before the night was over, and I am not up to explanations involving actresses. It is not the kind of thing that is generally well accepted."
Marchman snorted. "You have only to say that you were with us. She knows
that any manner of things can happen."
"My wife is with my mother," North said. "I can appease one, but not both. It is the very devil of a fix when they join forces. Like Wellington and Blücher at Waterloo."
Eastlyn felt a tug of sympathy for his friend. His own situation was just as pitiable. "I'm afraid I must also refrain," he said with feigned lightness of feeling. "I'm in a damnable coil as it is. No sense in tightening the spring."
Marchman grinned wickedly. "You're referring, I take it, to your engagement."
"I am referring to my non-engagement, West."
"Non-sense. The announcement in the Gazette was pointed out to me by... well, by someone among my acquaintances who attends to such things. The wags have the story. There is betting at White's. There must be an engagement. Your mistress says it is so."
"My mistress—my former mistress—started that particular rumor." East actually felt his jaw tightening and the beginnings of a headache behind his left eye. "The only thing Mrs. Sawyer could have done to make it worse was to have named herself my fiancée."
God help him, East thought, he didn't know if that were true any longer.
Chapter 9
"Oh, dear." Cara Trumbull caught her lip after this whispered utterance and looked down the table to see if she was overheard. Four pairs of eyes were turned expectantly in her direction. Two of those pairs she had some leverage over, and she glanced at their plates and saw they were near to being cleaned. "Go on, children. Mr. Barnard will be waiting for you in the schoolroom. You might astonish the man by appearing before the appointed hour."
Jon regarded his mother with patent disappointment and saw that she was quite unmoved by this ploy. His uncle had taken some pains to show him how pulling this particular face could be used to wrest sympathy from his mother. Jon decided he had not the way of it yet and more practice was in order. He took his sister's hand and helped her down from her chair. Julia did not seem at all put out by the prospect of attending Mr. Barnard in the schoolroom, which supported Jon's view that females were clearly not right in their upperworks. His father had begged him not to share this view with his mother if he wanted to see his out ninth year, so as Jon passed that worthy on the way to the door he merely winked.
Cara frowned and regarded her husband suspiciously. "What was that in aid of, Mr. Trumbull?"
"I couldn't say. Our son comes by peculiar notions from time to time."
Sophie sat quietly during the exchange that followed. Her hosts traded opinions as to whose side of the family was more burdened by eccentricities, and while Sophie did not keep a running tally, she thought the Whitneys might have a slight edge on the Trumbulls. It seemed clear, though, that whatever Jon's peculiar notions might be, he came by them naturally enough.
Not that Sophie saw such evidence before her now. Her experience with Cara and Benjamin Trumbull was quite the contrary. Eastlyn's sister and brother-in-law were possessed of sound judgment so that even when one was given to a flight of fancy, the other could be depended upon to indulge it only as long as it was practical.
A less gracious and accommodating couple would not have welcomed her into their home so readily. It was East's letter that had provided her entree, Sophie knew, and not her own character or circumstances. She did not know what he wrote to his sister, for she had never read the correspondence, nor had she asked Cara to share the content.
Sophie's stay had not yet numbered a score of days, but she acknowledged that the largest part of her discomfort vanished early on. She was taken in with such force of good will that she was made quite breathless by it. Cara Whitney Trumbull clearly loved her brother dearly, and it made no difference what manner of problem the scapegrace had encountered, she told Sophie, but that she would do whatever was required to assist him.
It was impossible not to like Eastlyn's sister, though it might have been better if it were otherwise. Sophie found herself content in the house at Chipping Campden in a way that she had never been on Bowden Street. Cara was not given to lying abed for days on end, as Lady Dunsmore had been wont to do. She was often about town, quite happy to have Sophie in tow as she shopped for hats and ribbons. Neither did she seem to have any compunction about introducing Sophie as one Miss Barbara Hyde-Jones, a cousin visiting from Stoke-on-Trent. The relation was on her dear husband's side, she was fond of adding, and she confided to Sophie the embellishment was necessary as her own family was well known to the townsfolk.
Sophie evinced no objection to being Miss Hyde-Jones but privately thought the deception unnecessary. Her cousins would not look for her in the Cotswold Hills, if they even roused themselves to look at all. She suspected that the subterfuge was merely Cara's desire to share in her brother's intrigues. Mr. Trumbull indulged his wife's fancy because Cara was so thoroughly delighted to lend her help, and her happiness made such indulgences eminently practical.
Sophie noted some resemblance between Cara and her younger brother, though it was largely confined to mannerisms and disposition. In looks they were not so similar, with Cara being petite and pleasantly rounded and her coloring being a good deal more fair than East's. She was possessed of the same strong-willed nature, though, and was not easily moved from a course once it was set. She was fair with her children, doting on them in a fashion that was not given to excess, even with the youngest of the three who was still in the nursery.
Benjamin Trumbull was as evenly tempered as his wife. A hoodsome, strapping man, he was content to let her have the run of things as long as she did not forget that he was in charge. It was that peculiar notion of his that Cara found practical to indulge. From Sophie's perspective, the arrangement seemed to work very well.
Sophie became aware of a lull in the volley of words served from each end of the table. She looked up from her plate to see that her hosts were both regarding her as if expecting that she should make a reply. The thing of it was, she had no idea of the nature of the question they had put to her. Sophie's eyes darted from one to the other, and when they came to rest again on Cara's inquiring countenance, she nodded a trifle uncertainly.
"Very well," Cara said, accepting Sophie's response as an affirmation. "I shall read it to you." She picked up the neatly folded paper at the side of her plate, the same paper that had caused her surprised utterance earlier and moved her to excuse her children from the table. "It is very brief."
Benjamin Trumbull cleared his throat, causing his wife's attention to be diverted to him in a way that did not bode well. "Perhaps you will agree that I am not required here since I have already been apprised of the news."
"Yes," Cara said. "And it was very bad of you to say nothing and allow me to read it myself. The decent thing to do would have been to warn me. I might very well have choked, and then wouldn't you have had cause for regrets?"
"Indeed I would, dearest." He was already pushing his chair back from the table and folding his napkin. "I cannot think how I would manage without you managing me."
"A very pretty answer. You may go."
Benjamin rose and skirted the table to stand at his wife's side. He dutifully bent and kissed Cara's proffered cheek. As he passed Sophie on his way to the door, he winked.
"Peculiar man," Cara said affectionately, watching him go. "Our Jon is most definitely his father's son."
"I should count that as a very good thing," Sophie said. "Mr. Trumbull is much to be admired."
Cara smiled. "He is, isn't he?" Her gaze dropped to the paper in her hand. One corner of the Gazette was dipping alarming close to her coffee. She gave it a shake to snap it to attention and regarded Sophie again over the top. A more serious mien replaced her easy smile. "You were woolgathering earlier."
Sophie admitted it was true.
"There is something in this London paper that you will want to know," Cara said. "I asked if you would like me to read it to you. I think I should inquire again. Mayhap you will want to read it for yourself."
So that was the question that had been put to her. And whatever
Cara had seen in the Gazette was of sufficient consequence that her husband had declined to broach the subject himself. Sophie was less certain than Cara that she would want to know the particulars. To that end, the manner in which the news was delivered was scarcely of any import. "Please," she said. "I should be obliged if you would read it to me."
Cara's dark blue eyes narrowed in their study until she was satisfied as to Sophie's sincerity. "As I said, it is very brief. "The engagement of Lady S____ C____ to G____ W____, Marquess of E____, was made public yesterday evening at the home of Lord Barlough. The announcement was greeted with enthusiasm by those attending the debut vocal performance of soprano Miss Harriet Mathews. Miss Mathews chose a selection of arias, difficult in both their range and phrasing and...'" Cara stopped and put the paper down. "The rest of it does not matter, though it appears Miss Mathews was judged to be a success. I trust you can complete the blanks." She stretched her hand toward Sophie, willing her to take it a moment. When she did, Cara squeezed her fingers gently. "It is a scandal sheet. Nothing more. You must not be overset by what is printed there."
Sophie nodded unconvincingly. She felt compelled to point out, "You announced yourself that you could well have choked on the news."
"Yes, but I am given to fits. I do not possess your singular composure."
"I'm afraid that at the moment I am not in possession of it either."
Cara squeezed Sophie's hand again. "You will find it, just see if you don't." She drew back and pointed to the offending column. "Gabriel may very well have cause to send his solicitor around to the Gazette. This is gossip of the worst sort, and one can't help but take exception to it." She glanced at Sophie again and saw the younger woman had paled alarmingly. "I did not mean that I would object to the engagement; never say you thought that was my intent. On the contrary, I would approve of such a match since I cannot help but believe it would be advantageous for both of you. I confess, however, that my hope for such a thing dwindles daily as Gabriel has yet to make his promised visit here."
