by Sara Bennett
Sophy didn’t want to humour Harry and she certainly didn’t want to be this close to him. Her skin prickled with awareness and she couldn’t bear to look at him because everything about him was so familiar, so dear to her, and yet he wasn’t hers any longer. Knowing that made her heart break all over again.
So she kept her eyes straight ahead as Digby led her off the dance floor. Behind her the music continued and she knew if she had to make her choice again she wouldn’t have agreed to dance with him at all. It didn’t matter that he was James’s brother, he wasn’t anything like James. She should have swallowed her pride and refused.
She had noticed the alcoves around the room, half hidden by draperies and marble busts on pedestals, and it was to one of these that Digby was taking her. She almost dug her heels in when he pulled aside the velvet draped curtain, and then bowed politely, indicating that Sophy should go first. She wanted to say no, but to object would only make things worse. Although she did not trust Digby, Harry was here, and despite everything that now lay between them, she was surprised to realise that she still trusted him.
A moment later she was in the enclosed space with the two angry men facing each other in front of her. If Sophy had been a young lady of good family with a proper chaperone, she would never have been left here alone with one gentleman, let alone two.
“What is your game?” Harry growled at his former friend. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Digby showed his teeth in a smile that was more like a snarl. “I’m dancing with the prettiest woman in the room, but that’s none of your business, Harry. I think you know that. Go back to your fiancé.”
Harry stiffened. “My fiancé has nothing to do with this.”
“Hasn’t she?” Digby laughed softly. “You had your chance with Sophy and you changed your mind. Too late, Harry. She no longer needs your help and she certainly doesn’t want it.”
“What about her husband? Does he trust you with his wife?” Harry demanded.
Digby blinked and Sophy could not hide her shock. Adam had warned her about this, she remembered, but she hadn’t paid the thought enough attention. “Sophy isn’t married,” Digby said.
Harry frowned, flicking a glance her way, before returning his attention to the other man. “She is married to Sir Geoffrey Bell.”
Digby smiled. “Sir Geoffrey Bell?” he shook his head. “The man could be her grandfather. Who told you that, Baillieu?”
For a moment longer they stared at each other and then, reluctantly, Harry turned to Sophy. She could see the angry confusion in his handsome face. “You told me that you—”
“You didn’t give me a chance to explain,” she said plainly. She really didn’t want to be having this conversation in front of Digby. “Sir Geoffrey is my grandmother’s friend and my sponsor. I am not married to anyone. I never was.”
“Why are you lying?”
“I’m not lying,” she hissed, with a sideways glance at Digby.
He seemed to be having difficulty processing the words. Up close like this he did look three years older. A man and not a boy. She met his familiar brown eyes and saw the struggle to believe her in the shadows underneath. He looked conflicted, and still angry, but whether that anger was directed at Digby, Sophy or Harry himself, she wasn’t sure.
He appeared to pull himself together. “Sophy, married or not, you should not dance with this man. Don’t trust him. Don’t believe a word he says.”
Was he worried that Digby was going to take advantage of her again? That he cared hurt, just as everything about his presence seemed to hurt her now, and she wanted him to go away so that she could breathe again. So that she could regain some of her hard-won equilibrium.
“Digby is right,” she said in as cold a voice as she could manage. “We were simply dancing and I am enjoying myself. There’s no need for you to rush to my defence, not anymore. I don’t need or want your help, Harry. Please go back to your fiancé.”
Harry’s eyes darkened. He stared deep into her, perhaps searching for the girl he’d once known. Well he wasn’t going to find her, she told herself, staring back. When he still didn’t move, and she read in the hard line of his lips and the stubborn jut of his chin that he wasn’t going anywhere, she could feel her façade begin to crumble.
“Please,” she added softly, the plea barely a breath.
His gaze faltered, and for a moment she thought he was going to refuse. Then he turned to Digby.
“I’ll be watching,” he warned. “This isn’t about you and me, Digby. Whatever friendship was once between us is long gone. This is about Sophy, and if you hurt her again, I will punish you.”
Digby laughed. “You always thought you were better than the rest of us,” he sneered.
Harry didn’t respond. Pushing the draperies aside, he walked out.
“He’s jealous,” Digby said, and he sounded pleased. “What do you think of that?”
“Why would he be?” She tried to sound indifferent, but inside her chest her heart was pounding. Jealous! It seemed like a victory, and yet it made her feel queasy. She reminded herself again that he was going to marry someone else, and she wasn’t allowed to care what he thought anymore.
“Perhaps he still has feelings for you,” Digby went on thoughtfully. He smiled at Sophy. “James said he did but I didn’t believe it until now. Although when I remember him from that night …” He smiled again. “I have the urge to cause him as much pain as possible, Sophy. What about you? Don’t you feel the same after what he did to you?”
“He did nothing to me,” she retorted.
Her mind was reeling. What did Digby mean when he said James believed Harry had feelings for her? Had the two brothers been discussing her?
He was still smiling at her. “I don’t believe you.”
Sophy pushed past the curtain and out into the ballroom, speaking over her shoulder in a voice meant for him alone. “I don’t care what you believe. Stay away from me.”
She kept walking, head held high, hoping he didn’t follow, and was glad to spot Mrs Harding seated with another middle-aged woman. They were gossiping, and Sophy was relieved she hadn’t been seen behaving improperly. She sat down beside Sir Geoffrey’s sister, and although the woman gave her a curious glance she didn’t ask what the matter was.
Sophy didn’t want to talk. Her mind was too full of confusing thoughts. Harry had come to rescue her, though his gallantry had seemed to have been against his will. He had seen her in Digby’s arms and had come to save her, despite himself.
That made sense if he was the man she once loved. On the other hand, maybe it was just that he couldn’t bear to think of Digby besting him. They had been very competitive when they were boys and she remembered that Digby brought out the worst in him.
Harry had always had that Baillieu arrogance, that high handedness. Well, he wasn’t going to use it on her.
Chapter 19
HARRY
Harry knew he looked forbidding. He had received several uneasy glances as he passed through the ballroom, back toward his party. He could see Evelyn, chatting with her friends, and he knew he needed to pull himself together. What he was doing was ridiculous and totally out of character.
No, he couldn’t face Evelyn yet—she’d see there was something wrong and want to know what it was. He veered away in the opposite direction. He needed to get a grip on himself.
When he had asked Evelyn to be his wife the timing had been perfect. His past had receded enough that he rarely thought of what, at the time, had been an extreme heartache, something he had once doubted he would ever recover from. He was thinking clearly again. He knew he was doing the right thing. He knew it. He was looking forward to a time when he and Evelyn would make their home at Pendleton Manor and bring up their family and carry on the Baillieu name.
He could be happy with her—he was happy with her. And if sometimes his brain played tricks on him and he caught glimpses of another woman walking in the white garden, or
flitting among the dark furnishings of the library, then he had the strength to dismiss them, and shake his head at his own stupidity.
Right at this moment he wasn’t sure what he felt. It was as if his world had been shaken and buffeted about. All those emotions he had buried had come alive again and now threatened to resurrect themselves, dragged struggling into the light, despite him doing everything in his power to bury them.
Harry leaned against the wall and stared blindly into the ballroom. The noise of so many people tickled at the edges of his mind, but he was somewhere else, replaying the conversation he’d just had with Digby and Sophy. Digby’s behaviour shouldn’t have surprised him. The man who had once been his friend had ceased to surprise him years ago. His current dilemma was entirely about Sophy.
She looked different. Last time he had confronted her he’d been aware that she’d grown into a woman but he’d had other things on his mind. Now he could see she was indeed a beautiful woman. Perhaps not classically beautiful the way Evelyn was, but there had always been a sweetness to Sophy’s smile, and a warm light inside her that shone through. She drew people to her without even trying.
Just now, in the alcove, she had not been smiling. She’d been cold, forbidding even, demanding he leave her alone. He’d obeyed her, although he hadn’t wanted to.
As for her being unmarried … Harry didn’t know how to react to this information. Should he doubt what his own eyes had seen? He’d been telling himself that she was married for so long that to believe she was not seemed to scramble his brain even more. When he came back from his uncle’s estate in Essex and found her gone, and his father had told him about George stealing from them, he had been shocked and disbelieving. The stealing had turned out to be true enough. His father had stood up in court and sworn to it, and no matter what Harry thought of his father’s morals he couldn’t imagine him committing perjury. And yet he hadn’t believed that Sophy had married someone else, no matter how Sir Arbuthnot insisted. Sophy would never do such a thing to Harry. Betray him like that.
He’d searched for her, but no one could tell him where she’d gone. There had also been no word from her, although he suspected his father had had a hand in her silence. After all letters could be intercepted and destroyed. And then over a year later, George Harcourt made contact. He was being transported to New South Wales, and had sent back Harry’s ring. His father had handed the ring to him, eyes alight with malicious glee. He had also allowed him to read George’s words, obviously thrilled that he could add solid proof to the story he had been peddling all this time.
Sophy doesn’t need your son’s ring, Baillieu, and I would rather not be accused of stealing that as well. You may have destroyed me but you will not do the same to my daughter. She is now happily settled in Lambeth, and Pendleton Manor is but an unpleasant memory for us both.
Harry had set out as soon as he could, desperate to see her. Lambeth, once a rural village outside London, had grown and been overtaken in the sprawl of the capital. He had known that hunting down Sophy would take some work but he was prepared for that. After a visit to the prison, where he learned George Harcourt had not been transported to New South Wales after all, but had died, he finally found the clue he was looking for.
He’d stood with Sophy’s address in his hand, feeling as if the grubby piece of paper was made of gold and studded with rubies. As he set off toward the street in Lambeth where he hoped she still lived, his heart had thudded wildly in his chest and he had kept swallowing, because his throat was so dry. And then …
Harry sighed. And then his world had come crashing down and only blackened ruins remained. Because he had never known her at all and she had never been his.
Now … he didn’t know what to think.
At that moment Harry longed to go home.
The ache in his heart grew and he rubbed his palm against his chest, as if he could ease it away. He wondered whether he could slip off to Pendleton for a week or so, just to find himself again. But he couldn’t. He had committed to this engagement and to spending time with Evelyn, and he must see it through.
He comforted himself with the thought that in the years to come he would be able to stay at the manor and play the country squire. Although Evelyn would not want to stay there all year round. She was a social butterfly and she would want to return to London. It would be a juggling act between them but one that, until now, he had been content to negotiate.
The dancing stopped and there was an announcement regarding supper. Harry had been standing there long enough and it was time for him to return to his fiancée. He hadn’t come to any conclusions, except that he needed to remind himself he was no longer the boy who had loved Sophy Harcourt. Married or otherwise, he still felt an obligation to her. Well, he had discharged that obligation.
As if to mock him, an image forced itself into his mind. Sophy, ten years old, with her hair tangled, a smudge of dirt on her cheek, kneeling by the lake with her hands in the water, trying to catch a fish. She had given him a sideways grin and he’d chuckled as he watched her futile attempts, water splashing up and soaking her clothing. She hadn’t cared a jot for the sight she made, revelling in the moment, enjoying the freedom. The girl in his memory seemed more authentic than the one he had seen a moment ago dancing with Digby.
Time to let her go, he told himself.
With a determined step he made his way back to his party. Evelyn looked up and he noticed the flash of relief in her eyes. It surprised him.
“There you are!” Evelyn declared, but now the expression in her eyes changed to something else. Annoyance. “I thought you had found some friends to play cards with. I know you find these events tedious, Harry.”
Apologetically he took her hand in his. “Not always,” he said. “And what sort of man would I be if I didn’t enjoy the envy of others when you are on my arm?”
She smiled, but there was an edge to it. She had seen him with Sophy and Digby, and he called himself every sort of idiot for his impulsive need to save a girl who did not need saving.
If he and Evelyn had been alone he would have kissed her in reassurance. He’d found her warm and responsive, and he was sure they would be well matched when it came to the bed chamber. Evelyn would be a passionate partner, and Harry needed passion in his life. He needed a wife who could fulfil his physical needs because of his private concerns that he might stray.
It was only later, in his coach on the way home, that she turned to look at him, no longer trying to hide the hurt in her eyes.
“I saw you,” she said accusingly. “Others saw you too.”
“Saw me what?” he evaded her accusation. It was the last thing he wanted to discuss with her given that he was still confused by his actions.
“The way you went after Digby. Or was it the girl?”
Harry frowned out of the window. “Digby and I don’t get on, you know that. I told you.”
“And the girl?” Evelyn wasn’t going to let this go. “I saw you looking at her before that, when she was with James. I’m not a fool so don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
He bit back some irritation of his own. “I used to know her. Her father was the estate manager at Pendleton years ago. I realise I shouldn’t have interrupted their dance, but I was concerned for her safety. I know what Digby is capable of.”
“This girl, she’s no longer any of your business, Harry,” she said, her voice rising in pitch. “Adam told me she was your friend when you were a child, but her father stole from you and … I can’t imagine why you’d want anything to do with her.”
Adam had spoken of that to her? Before he could ask what else Adam had said, she hurried on, her words tumbling over themselves in a way he had not heard from her since that day in the park.
“It was embarrassing. Mother saw you follow them into the alcove and she will tell my brother, and there will be questions asked. He will want to know why and I don’t think I can bear to be lectured to about your behaviou
r, Harry.”
He knew her brother was very protective but he could handle that. He had made a mistake, and it was time to rectify it.
Harry leaned forward and took her hands in his and she let him, but she wore that same anxious expression. If she was worried that something between them had changed then he would do his best to make it right.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “It was impulsive.”
“You are never impulsive, Harry.”
That much was true. He always put a great deal of thought into his actions. His recent behaviour was completely out of character. He needed to marry Evelyn and move on with his life, and perhaps then he would be able to stop dreaming about Sophy.
Evelyn sighed and shook her head at him. “There you are, off in your own thoughts again. That is another thing that seems new. Harry, please, remember who you are and what we have promised each other. We will be married in six months and I am beginning to feel as if my future husband is a stranger.”
He felt shaken by her words but he raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “I’m sorry I upset you,” he reassured her. “You can be sure it will not happen again.”
She sat back. “I’m glad to hear it,” she said wearily and closed her eyes. “I would hate to think I was marrying the wrong man.”
He started. What did she mean by that? The wrong man? Was she thinking of James Abbott? He considered asking her why she had refused his proposal. Harry opened his mouth, only to close it again. Best to let some secrets sleep, he told himself. He could be respectful when it came to Evelyn’s privacy.
The truth was more calculated. He had little desire to delve into Evelyn’s past, and it wasn’t entirely because of his gentlemanly instincts. If he began asking questions of her, then she would ask questions of him, and at the moment Harry had no idea how he would answer.
