And what was more, it might cause a rift between the two families.
‘That is, I am fond of him, of course...’
‘Oh, I see,’ Aunt Agnes broke in when she hesitated. ‘In the way a girl thinks of a brother.’
‘Um...’
‘Well, naturally a girl cannot marry someone she thinks of in that light.’
‘Um,’ she said again, but they both looked so relieved and then Uncle Ned leaned over and patted her knee.
‘Glad you explained that,’ he said. ‘Thought I’d bungled it. Bungle just about everything, according to most people.’
‘That’s not true, Ned,’ said Aunt Agnes. ‘There’s not another man would have supported my decision to bring Sofia up as one of our own, the way you have done.’
‘Did nothing, really,’ he blustered.
‘Oh, yes you did. Never raised a single objection, even though you knew there was bound to be talk about the way my brother...’
‘Pooh,’ he said scornfully. ‘Didn’t we cause our own scandal when you married me in the face of all that opposition from your family? What did your brother do that was so very different? Eh?’
‘Ned, you are the best of men,’ said Aunt Agnes, giving his hand a squeeze.
‘Well, well, glad you think so old girl,’ he said, squeezing back. ‘And what of you, Sofia?’ he said, startling her by asking her opinion. ‘No hard feelings over me getting it so wrong about Jack, eh?’
‘None at all.’
‘So I can wish you well of your Duke with a clear conscience, then?’
Ah. Well, that was another matter entirely.
By making the most of her time in the water rather than striking out for the shore straight away, she’d worried everyone. And someone who put her own wishes first wasn’t the kind of woman he’d want to be a mother to Livvy.
The carriage swept into the courtyard, and, as Sofia looked up at the massive edifice over which she might have presided, had she not been so silly, her stomach turned over.
What if he didn’t wait until the end of the house party to hear her answer to his proposal? What if, instead, he selected one of the others? Someone more sensible? And better behaved?
‘Sofia, Sofia!’ Aunt Agnes was peering at her intently. ‘What is it? You have gone so pale.’
She felt pale all of a sudden. Pale and hollowed out. How could she have been stupid enough to insist Oliver wait for her answer? All she’d achieved was to give him the chance to come to his senses and realise, like practically everyone else already had, that she was just not cut out to be a duchess.
Chapter Twenty-Two
By the time Peter tracked down Dr Cochrane, Sofia had taken a warm bath and, at her aunt’s urging, put on nightclothes and got into bed.
After giving her a brief examination, and listening to the history of her winter ailments, the doctor was happy to agree with Aunt Agnes that it was essential she stay warm and rest in bed until everyone was satisfied she was not going to take another chill from her wetting.
In spite of believing it was a totally unnecessary precaution, Sofia did not argue. Being sent to bed felt like a completely reasonable punishment for frightening everyone and arguing with Oliver, and finally, allowing her aunt and uncle to believe an untruth about Jack. Even if she had only done so to spare their feelings. Because she really didn’t regard Jack in a sisterly fashion.
Unless sisters absolutely loathed their brothers as a matter of course.
However, she soon found that it wasn’t much of a punishment at all. First of all, a friendly, smiley little maid came to her room with all sorts of interesting books from Oliver’s library. And then, at dinner time, instead of having to go downstairs and face anyone, the same maid brought up a tray laden with a tempting array of dishes. And, later, dessert and tea.
Which all had Sofia writhing with guilt. And not only about what had happened today. Her aunt and uncle might not have known how to deal with her grief when she’d first gone to live with them, but in their own way they appeared to have become fond of her. And after today’s conversation on the way back from the lake she had a better understanding of the way they’d treated her. To be perfectly honest, the way her father had lived had not been very respectable. Looking back, she could see that all the lectures about impropriety and the importance of making a good impression on people had stemmed from a wish to undo the evil to which they believed he had exposed her. And her aunt’s insistence that she never do anything that anyone might interpret as loose behaviour must have been because rumours of her father’s irregular relationships with the ladies he’d brought in to look after her had been running rife. She could see now how careful they’d been to demonstrate that even though she had been exposed to a certain type of sin in her youth, it had not rubbed off on her—which she’d interpreted as them being stiflingly strict.
And Uncle Ned wasn’t as uninterested in her as she’d thought, either. Now she came to think of it, he’d had as little to do with Betty and Celia’s upbringing as hers. He really did believe it was Aunt Agnes’s role to raise the girls.
Everything they’d done had been from a determination to do their best. She just knew it. It certainly explained the way they suddenly seemed to have done such a complete about-face regarding Jack’s suit since Oliver had started showing an interest. After all, the Duke certainly wasn’t a fortune hunter. And he was so high on the social scale that her own slightly scandalous background meant little to him. He could have married his actress, had the fancy taken him, and nobody could have done anything about it.
Not that it had any bearing on the matter. She lifted her plait up off the back of her neck as she heaved a doleful sigh. Instead of growing cooler as darkness fell, the air was becoming so sultry it felt as if it was pressing down on the roof of Theakstone Court. And, by the sound of the footsteps pacing back and forth in the room above hers, robbing at least one of the other inmates of sleep.
* * *
So, the next morning, when Aunt Agnes came in to ask how she was feeling, just as the smiley housemaid was bringing in her breakfast tray, she couldn’t help telling the truth.
‘I feel wretched.’
Aunt Agnes didn’t ask her to explain in what way she felt wretched, she just placed a hand on her forehead, saying, ‘You do seem a trifle warm.’
Well, that wasn’t surprising considering she’d hauled the blankets over her legs the moment her door had opened. And the temperature outside was already as hot as anything she could remember experiencing as a girl, in far more southerly climes.
‘You had best stay in bed until the doctor has seen you again,’ said Aunt Agnes decisively, before leaving her to go down for her own breakfast.
The moment she’d gone, Sofia pushed the tray aside and got out of bed. She went to the window and flung up the sash. Some air did trickle into the room, but it wasn’t any cooler than what was already inside. She leaned on the windowsill and gazed yearningly in the direction of the beech wood, the treetops of which she could just make out above the opposite wing of the Court. There would be some shade there. And more of a breeze, up on that rise—but she couldn’t leave this room.
It was a fitting punishment for her, only she wished Snowball didn’t have to suffer, too.
Would anyone think of taking her dog for a walk? The kennel man exercised the hounds daily, but she didn’t think he’d allow Snowball to run with them.
It didn’t seem fair for Snowball to suffer because of her own misbehaviour. She chewed on a bit of loose skin beside her thumbnail. Could she ask Peter to take Snowball for a walk? Or would he not be allowed to shirk his other duties? Would Snowball even go with him? Nobody but Sofia had ever taken her for a walk before. Snowball did have some shade in her run and she would have food and water. But it wasn’t enough for a dog used to being with her mistress every hour of the day.
V
ery well. This must be the last day she spent hiding in her room. She would have to persuade the doctor, and more importantly Aunt Agnes, that she had taken no harm from her unexpected dip in the lake and then summon up some courage from somewhere and go and face the other house guests.
And Oliver.
She’d thought she couldn’t bear to watch him selecting any of the other candidates, if he really had thought better of asking her to marry him. But she rather thought that in future years, when she looked back on this week, she would feel far worse if she simply let him go without putting up a fight.
It was high time she stood up for herself instead of hiding away whenever anything got hard to deal with. Running away and hiding had never done her any good, had it? It was what she’d done when she’d overheard Jack, rather than facing up to the truth.
But if she’d faced Jack down, got it all out into the open...
She shuddered. There would have been a terrible scene.
But at least she wouldn’t have ended up practically lying to her uncle and aunt, who didn’t deserve that sort of treatment after all they’d done for her.
At least she had managed to tell them point-blank that she could never, ever marry Jack. It was only the why she’d shied away from bringing into the open.
And telling them even that much had certainly cleared the air.
She drew in a deep breath of air that was far from clear, as it struck her that in finally speaking up for herself, she was starting to grow up. She was no longer that frightened, lonely little girl who would have done anything to win the approval of the only people who’d been willing to take her in, even though she had looked such a disgrace.
As the word slipped into her mind, her thoughts diverted from herself, and directly to Livvy—a little girl who felt much the same as she’d done once and with far greater cause. Because someone in this household had told her, to her face, that she was a Disgrace.
She clenched her fist. If there was anything she could do while she was here to ease the plight of that poor little girl...
She could do it by marrying Oliver himself. That was what he wanted—or had wanted, before she’d made such an exhibition of herself.
But...he couldn’t withdraw his proposal. It wasn’t the done thing. It was for the woman in question to do that.
So, if she didn’t let him...if she insisted he stuck to his word...
The others were prepared to fight for him. Why shouldn’t she?
Because it would be to sink to their level, that was why.
She pounded the window frame with that fist. She’d hated him proposing simply because she could mother his child. It had hurt almost as much as hearing that Jack was only pretending to be interested so that he could feather his own nest.
She wanted...she wanted...someone to love her, for herself.
A man who loved her enough to defy convention, flout the rules of two religions and ignore the censure of his family, to make her his; who would think her such a fine woman that, should she die, he would never wed another.
In short, a man who would love her the way her father had loved her mother.
She sighed and pressed her head to the cool glass of the windowpane in misery. For how she was to achieve that goal, when she’d got entangled with Oliver and his daughter, she couldn’t begin to imagine. If she went downstairs, for instance, and reminded him he was honour-bound to stick to his proposal, not only would she be just as bad as the others who’d stop at nothing to gain his title, but she’d never be sure he had any real regard for her at all. Let alone the kind of love she’d just discovered she truly wanted.
Still, she—
A knock at the door broke her train of thought. A knock unlike that of the maids, or the housekeeper. If anything, it sounded like a very timid attempt to attract her attention, as if whoever was on the other side of her door was hoping she wouldn’t even hear it.
So instead of calling out to let whoever it was know they could come in, she walked to the door and opened it herself.
To see Lady Margaret standing there. Sofia’s first shock at receiving such a grand visitor, before she’d even washed and changed out of her nightgown, soon gave way to concern when she saw the way Lady Margaret was wringing her hands and looking as though she was about to burst into tears.
‘Whatever is the matter? Oh, you’d better come in,’ she added, as Lady Margaret gave a little sob and tears began flowing down her face.
She pulled the sobbing girl over to a chair and went to her dresser to find a handkerchief, since Lady Margaret didn’t have a reticule with her.
‘Th-thank you,’ she said as Sofia pressed the hanky into her hand. ‘I n-never knew that you had been so ill,’ she said, wiping her cheeks. ‘I n-never thought you m-might die from some sort of infection. I n-never meant you to f-fall into the lake, c-come to that.’
‘I know you didn’t,’ said Sofia soothingly. ‘It was all the most stupid accident. I missed my footing, that was all.’
‘B-but everyone is saying I p-pushed you in out of spite! And this morning, at breakfast, your aunt was telling everyone how delicate you are, how you’ve been ill all w-winter and were at Burslem Bay taking the c-cure...’
‘Well, that just goes to show how silly it would be to try to kill me by pushing me into the lake, even if that had been what you were trying to do, which of course you weren’t,’ Sofia responded, going to her drawer to fetch another hanky, since Lady Margaret had already soaked the first one. ‘I mean, why should dunking in sea water be a cure, yet dunking in lake water be lethal?’
‘Oh. Yes, I...’ Lady Margaret sniffed. ‘I never thought of it like that.’ She took the second hanky and blew her nose.
‘And to let you into a little secret,’ she said, snatching up a shawl to drape round her shoulders since her summer nightgown was rather insubstantial, ‘I have suffered no ill effects at all. The only reason I am staying in my room today is because...’ She paused, feeling her cheeks heating up.
‘You need not explain. I can quite understand how mortifying it must have been when everyone saw more of you than they should, what with your gown going completely transparent after its soaking, and how hard it must be for you to come down and face everyone.’
Oh. That was an aspect she hadn’t considered before. Although they wouldn’t have seen much more than her legs, surely? After all, her corset was a robust affair of canvas and whalebone, which wouldn’t become transparent no matter how wet it might get. And Oliver had kept her close to his chest, and walked very, very fast to the carriage, so that people would not even have had more than a glimpse of her legs and that from a distance. And then he’d covered her with his own jacket.
Once more, she looked back upon a person’s actions from a new perspective. Perhaps he hadn’t been so angry with her that he wanted her out of the way as soon as possible. Perhaps he’d been trying to shield her from embarrassment.
Or, perhaps getting an embarrassing person out of the way?
She sighed. There was always two ways to look at everything he did.
‘And with some people saying that you staged the whole thing to attract the Duke’s attention, the way some sluts in town damp their skirts so that men can see their legs better.’
‘What?’
‘Of course, I know that cannot be true, since it was my fault you went into the water...’
‘By some people saying I did it on purpose, you mean Lady Sarah, I suppose?’
A frown flickered across Lady Margaret’s face. ‘Well, yes, but I soon put her right, explaining how it was. Only now...well, I’ve begun to wish I’d never defended you, because everyone’s saying I pushed you in out of spite, when I’m not spiteful. I’m not! I’d never have done it on purpose...’
Lady Sarah’s work again. It must be.
‘Oh, dear. You make me even more reluctant to l
eave my room and face all that gossip. But I shall,’ she vowed. She’d already decided it was time for her to grow up and stop being such a coward; to become a woman her father—and Aunt Agnes, she rather thought—could be proud of. ‘If the doctor permits, and Aunt Agnes agrees, I shall come down to dinner this evening and I will show everyone that I bear you no ill will over the incident.’
‘You will?’
‘Yes. Why not? Because, actually, just before you came to talk to me on the jetty, I had been thinking how hot and uncomfortable I was and how I wished I could take a swim.’
‘Really?’
‘Of course, I would have preferred to have had leisure to change into more suitable attire and done it without an audience, but...’
Lady Margaret, who now had a sodden hanky in each hand, stared at her. ‘You...you are making a jest out of it?’
Sofia shrugged. ‘Why not?’
‘Because, if you chose, you could ruin me over this. You could play the victim and tell His Grace that I tried to drown you.’
‘Why on earth would I wish to do that?’
‘To eliminate me from the competition, of course.’
‘Ah. No, that is not my way.’
‘No, I can see that it is not,’ said Lady Margaret, shifting in her seat. ‘And in spite of what some people say, you are not ineligible at all, are you? Mama says your grandfather was an earl.’
‘Yes, that’s right. The Earl of Tadcaster.’
‘I...well, if... That is... I mean, I am supposed to be in my room, consulting with my maid over the outfits I mean to wear during the course of today. I...’ She got to her feet. ‘I ought not to linger here any longer. If I am missed, someone is bound to accuse me,’ she said resentfully, ‘of doing something clandestine...’
A Duke in Need of a Wife Page 19
