“You could publish your works anonymously, and everyone who’s anyone will be all agog to discover who the writer is of your fascinating stories.”
Adaline grinned and fanned herself with her ivory-handle fan. “Sophie, that does sound quite scintillating—perhaps I’ll put my pen to paper and see what comes of it.”
“And if you don’t like writing, you must find some other interest.”
“Yes, yes, enough serious talk,” Adaline said, steering them around a group of older ladies chatting. “Did you hear that Lady Simford is about to become a double duchess?”
“A double duchess?”
“Yes, she is the dowager Duchess of Simford, and the rumor around the city is that she has accepted an offer of marriage from the elderly Duke of Essex, who was her suitor forty years ago. But because of some disagreement they parted, and she married the Duke of Simford.”
“That is exactly the sort of story that would be a great novel.”
Adaline laughed and squeezed her arm. “No more seriousness, Sophie. I’m here to dance.”
They strolled together onto the dance floor, where Adaline was instantly asked to dance by a handsome young man. Sophie had only walked a step farther when Ethan appeared and offered his hand. Once she was in his arms, the familiar comfort and feeling of rightness settled in her chest. Over his shoulder, she saw Lady Watergate leading a very reluctant Sir Thomas to the dance floor. Sophie grinned and leaned in a little closer to Ethan, who tightened his hold on her waist. Together they turned around and around—dancing in perfect synchronization, like the wheels of a clock.
TWENTY-SIX
MARIAH FELT SELF-CONSCIOUS STANDING by Mrs. Miller and Mr. Eustace Miller, welcoming the guests to the party, but Mrs. Miller had been adamant that she be there. Mariah was now her dearest companion and should take her rightful place greeting the guests.
Despite the self-consciousness, the warm feeling of belonging surged again inside her heart. In a few short weeks, Mrs. Miller had somehow become the mother that Mariah had always wished for. She had also selected Mariah’s gown of celestial blue silk with its wide-collared neck that showed off her shoulders and throat. Mrs. Miller introduced her to guest after guest as her “very dear companion, Miss Mariah Carter.” Mariah mechanically held out her hand and smiled, until she saw his profile. Charles was here.
She breathed in too quickly and began to cough.
“Grandfather, Aunt Miller, Miss Carter, how do you do?” Charles asked.
“Fine,” Mariah managed to say between coughs.
“Charles, why don’t you take Mariah to get a drink?” Mrs. Miller suggested with a smile, and then turned back to speak to Aunt Bentley.
He took Mariah’s elbow and guided her into the room. He picked up a glass off a footman’s tray and handed it to Mariah. She sipped the wine slowly, then hiccupped.
“Oh dear,” she said, covering her mouth with her hand. She hiccupped several more times.
“I am so—hic—embarrassed,” Mariah groaned.
“Why?”
“I was so—hic—nervous and—hic—now I can’t stop— hic—hiccupping.”
“Why are you nervous?”
Mariah felt her color rise, but managed to squeak, “You.”
Charles pointed to himself, clearly trying to suppress a smile. “I make you nervous.”
“Yes—hic—yes—hic—”
Mariah could see people around her staring at them. Sophie and Adaline Penderton-Simpson were both watching her.
“I must—hic—go.”
Without sparing another look at Charles, she walked quickly around the groups and out of the room. She passed through the hall, to the kitchen where she set down her wineglass, and outside to the small garden behind the house. She took off her gloves and used her hands to fan her hot cheeks.
How mortifying!
She heard footsteps and turned to see Charles at the door, illuminated by the gas lamps of the kitchen. Mariah turned away from the light. She bit her lip, hoping to stop the tears of embarrassment from falling down her cheeks and ruining her silk dress.
“Allow me,” Charles said quietly. He pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket, but instead of handing it to her, he dabbed at each tear on her cheeks. He then placed the handkerchief in her hands, covering her hands with his.
“I am so—hic—sorry I seem to always—hic—take your handkerchiefs.”
Charles smiled and leaned in conspiratorially. “I only carry them for you.”
Mariah didn’t know what to say, so she blurted out, “I cannot—hic—seem to—hic—stop hiccupping—hic.”
Charles gently touched her neck. “May I offer you a solution?”
She nodded.
He cradled her face with his left hand, then leaned forward and gently placed his lips on hers. Mariah forgot her self-consciousness, her embarrassment, even her hiccups. Nothing existed but Charles and herself and the magic of a first kiss. He lifted his head and looked down at her, smiling, his hand still warm against the side of her face.
“Did I cure you of the hiccups?”
“Most effectively.”
“Mariah, I … I began to say something at the Royal Academy, and I wish to finish it.”
“All right.” She could barely breathe as he stood so close to her.
“Only that I love you, Mariah.”
She couldn’t speak. She was too overcome with emotion. Tears formed in her eyes.
“Oh, I … Please, don’t cry again,” Charles said, and stepped back, his hand falling from her face. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“These are tears of happiness,” Mariah said with a watery chuckle.
He cocked his head at her. “You cry when you’re happy?”
“I seem to cry over everything,” she confessed, wiping the tears from her cheeks with his handkerchief. “I must tell you that I have loved you for so long and so very, very much.”
Charles took her into his arms. His second kiss was nothing like the first—it was hard, passionate, and absolutely marvelous. When he lifted his head, Mariah caressed the planes of his face with her fingers just as she had done to the sketch of him. The curve of his upper lip. The line of his jaw. The arch of his eyebrow. Charles closed his eyes and exhaled slowly.
They heard footsteps approaching and awkwardly broke apart. One of the kitchen maids dumped some liquid on the grass before looking up and suddenly seeing Mariah and Charles. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t see you there, Miss Carter. I am most sorry.”
“We were just going in,” Mariah said.
Charles followed Mariah through the kitchen, past the stares of all the servants, and to the hall. Mariah turned to look at him. “Am I presentable?”
He gently tucked a curl behind her ear. “You are perfection.”
Mariah felt the delightful fluttering of her stomach again … and then hiccupped. “Oh no—hic—not again!”
“I believe we know how to solve this particular problem,” he said.
Mariah smiled and raised her face to be kissed.
EPILOGUE
“I CAN’T BELIEVE I FINALLY DID IT,” Sophie said, her hands clenched into fists in the air. “I’m an inventor—a real inventor. I created a clock that notifies people at whatever time they select. I always hoped, but I began to doubt I would be a success.”
Sophie gently stroked the Notification Clock prototype on the worktable of her very own shop. Ethan came up behind her and put his arms around her. He gently moved her hair and kissed her neck. “I never doubted for even a moment that you were going to be a great inventor.”
She turned around in his arms to face him.
“It’s a very good thing you have your own shop,” Ethan said. “I fear if we shared an office, we would be terribly inefficient … at least at working.”
“Very well, then,” Sophie said, twisting out of his arms. “Mr. Miller, I would like to know when my product will be available on the market.”
“T
ypically, it will take close to a year to complete production.”
“That is acceptable.”
“As your principal investor and manufacturer, I’ve been thinking about the name of your invention,” he said.
“The Notification Clock.”
“I thought perhaps we could call it ‘the Alarm Clock.’”
“Why would anyone want to be alarmed?”
“All right, how about ‘the Timer’?”
Sophie paused to consider it. “‘The Timer’ is much too vague,” she said. “Any clock tells time.”
The prototype began to ding loudly on the desk and Ethan turned off the alarm.
“What was that notification set for, Sophie?”
“To remind me to kiss you,” she said. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him very thoroughly.
* * *
Mariah held the sailboat rope tightly, humming her mother’s favorite song, “I’ve Been Roaming.” The wind was blowing so hard, she had to hold her bonnet down with her other hand. Charles finished letting down the sail and tied his end of the rope to the opposite side of the sloop. Mariah released her hold on her hat—she needed both hands to tie a stopper knot. Taking the loose end of the rope, she tied it around one hand, twice, then tucked the rope under the two loops and let it slip off her hand.
A gust of wind blew her bonnet off her head and out into the waves of the English Channel.
“I never liked that hat anyway,” Charles said, as he came to stand by her side.
Mariah laughed and reached her arm around his waist. He put his arm around her shoulders and dropped a kiss in her hair. They watched the view of the south fields of the Bentley estate become more and more distant as the wind caught the white sail and propelled them forward.
Tomorrow, she would come back and paint this scene.
“Where shall we go today?” Charles asked.
“On an adventure, of course.”
“Every day is an adventure with you, Mariah,” he said, and kissed her.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1851 was a seminal point in British history and industrial predominance. There were exhibits from all over the world, and only a few were highlighted in this book. From the Koh-i-noor diamond to the enormous hydraulic press to Sèvres china to the first public toilets, the Great Exhibition was an unforgettable event. The Crystal Palace was a real building, but it moved from its original location in Hyde Park to Penge Common and unfortunately burned down in 1936.
Sophie Carter is fictional and therefore didn’t invent the alarm clock (or notification clock). That honor belongs to the French inventor Antoine Redier, who was the first to patent an adjustable mechanical alarm clock, in 1847.
Mariah Carter is also fictional, but the Royal Academy of Arts was real, and many Victorian painters debuted their works there. The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square opened in 1838, and you can still visit it today. The Regent’s Zoo, or the London Zoo, was opened to the public in 1847.
Lady Bentley sings the English folk song “I’ve Been Roaming,” lyrics by George Darley.
Sir Thomas Watergate is a fictional character, but the reform movement in art called the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood did exist. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a famous painter, was a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. His muse, model, and (later) wife, Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, was a milliner in Cranbourne Alley, London, before being noticed by the painter Walter Deverell. He asked her to be his model and introduced her to the art world. “Lizzie” did more than model; she was also a poet and an artist, producing many sketches and a few paintings. John Ruskin was her patron and paid her a yearly income to support her art.
John Ruskin was a prolific art critic, writer, and lecturer. He taught several ladies drawing by correspondence and eventually published a book in 1857 entitled The Elements of Drawing. I borrowed lines from that book to serve as John Ruskin’s words and his epistolary advice to Mariah. Effie Gray was his wife at the time this novel takes place, but their marriage was later dissolved.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
SINCE THIS IS A SISTERS’ BOOK, I want to first thank my amazing sisters, Michelle and Stacy. You taught me how to curl my hair, flirt, wash laundry, and pick myself up after a fall. Thank you for reading countless pages of my writing. You are both strong, smart, and capable women and I look up to your examples (even if you’re both shorter than I am).
I often tell people that I married Mr. Bingley because my husband is the nicest, most patient man alive. Jon, I am so grateful for your love and endless support. I couldn’t write without my family; all my love to Andrew, Alivia, Isaac, and Violet. To Mom and Dad, thank you for buying my books by the case and giving them away to everyone you know. You’re the best!
To my longtime besties, Dannielle and Katie: friends can be like sisters and our shared memories make us family.
A huge shout-out to my beta readers: Maren, Erin, Lisa, Nichole, and Susannah. Thank you for being willing to read early drafts and for giving me thoughtful feedback.
I am so grateful for book bloggers, YouTubers, Instagrammers, reviewers, teachers, and librarians around the world who have supported my book. Especially Krysti and Sarah from YA & Wine: You two are amazing, and I’m so grateful for your friendship as well as your bookish support.
The writing community in Utah is incredible, and I’m so thankful for the encouragement I’ve received from other authors. A special thanks to Tricia Levenseller, Kathryn Purdie, Emily R. King, Sara B. Larson, and Caitlin Sangster.
I was blessed to debut with so many talented authors whom I now call friends: Tiana Smith, Addie Thorley, Crystal Smith, Sofiya Pasternack, Erin Stewart, RuthAnne Snow, and Jennieke Cohen. I couldn’t have picked better partners for my publishing journey.
To my agents, Jen Nadol and Jennifer Unter, I can’t thank you enough for your support on this book and I look forward to making more stories with you.
To Sheldon and Tyler, you give the best medical consultations for fictional characters; any mistakes are my own.
I am so grateful for the Swoon Squad (other Swoon Reads authors). Your wit, wisdom, and wonderful books have enriched my life.
I’ll be forever indebted to Jean Feiwel and the Swoon Reads imprint for publishing my stories. A huge thank-you to the rest of the Swoon team: Lauren Scobell, Holly West, Kat Brzozowski, and Emily Settle. Emily, you are a delight to work with and the best editor around.
Katie Klimowicz, thank you for my incredible cover and interior book design. Cheers to my copyeditor, Juliann Barbato, for helping me polish my book until it shined. I appreciate the wonderful work of my production editor, Ilana Worrell. And I’m so grateful for my publicist, Madison Furr, for her enthusiasm and support.
Dear Reader, thank you for joining me on this adventure. May you always have a fresh cup of tea, a new book to read, and enough bravery to sail toward your dreams.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Samantha Hastings has degrees from Brigham Young University, the University of Reading (Berkshire, England), and the University of North Texas. She met her husband in a turkey-sandwich line. They live in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she spends most of her time reading, eating popcorn, and chasing her kids. The Last Word is her debut novel. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
A SWOON READS BOOK
An imprint of Feiwel and Friends and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC
120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271
THE INVENTION OF SOPHIE CARTER. Copyright © 2020 by Samantha Hastings.
All rights reserved.
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-250-23627-2 (hardcover) / ISBN 978-1-250-23628-9 (ebook)
First edition, 2020
The Invention of Sophie Carter Page 21
