‘No,’ he assured her. ‘It’s healthy. Carrying around a full, thick coat in the summer can lead to heat complications. That’s why England is such a prime location. The climate doesn’t get too hot for too long. We’ll shear a third of the flock this year. June is the best month for shearing, that way there’s time for the coat to grow back before winter.’ Conall sobered. There would be a ‘we’. He and his tenants and Freddie. But she would be gone by then no matter how this deal went.
Sofia stroked the soft side of the patient alpaca. ‘Tell me again, how much did you want?’ It was the merest of whispers, as if asking too loudly increased her level of commitment.
Conall’s answer came back in a whisper only slightly louder. ‘Fifteen thousand pounds.’
Sofia let out a low, unladylike whistle. ‘Are they worth it?’
‘Wool is life,’ Conall answered without hesitation. ‘Wool brings work and regular wages that aren’t reliant on the caprices of a good harvest or weather, it brings industry and progress, not just with factories and mills but with roads and transportation, both of which are needed to get products to market.’
‘Taunton already has mills,’ she ventured in quiet rebuttal. But he was ready for her argument. He grinned and opened the bag he’d slung over his shoulder and pulled out a blanket.
‘Madame, I give you exhibit one.’ He shook it open and laid it out on the grass.
‘No! Don’t do that,’ Sofia protested quickly. ‘The grass is still wet from the rain, it will get soaked.’
He gave her a game smile and did it anyway. ‘Please, sit.’
Sofia looked at the square sceptically, unwilling to get her skirts wet. For encouragement, Conall sat and patted the space next to him. ‘You won’t get wet, I promise. Trust me, Sofia.’
* * *
Trust him. She wanted to, Sofia realised. It had been a long time since she’d trusted anyone. It would be nice, just this once, to be able to trust someone; to trust that he spoke the truth, that he wasn’t hiding something from her, that he wasn’t just after the money or her body. And maybe she could trust him. Since she’d been here, he’d not importuned her in any way, he’d not made suggestive remarks, had not treated her the way men usually did once they knew of her divorce.
* * *
Sofia gathered her skirts and prepared to sit. She would put Conall to the test. If she was wrong, she’d only have wet skirts. She’d paid higher prices. Did Conall realise how much more than money was riding on this? A verse from childhood surfaced. A man honest with little, is honest with much, but a dishonest man with little, is dishonest with much. It was the smallest of tests, but for her it had become a defining moment that would mark the quality of Conall’s character. Sofia sat, fearing that she would find the very flaw she’d been looking for, that all along Conall Everard had been nothing but a handsome, charming, overly optimistic viscount with no head for business.
Her skirts were dry! Sofia let out a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding. She knit her brow, running her fingers along the surface of the soft wool in puzzlement. ‘How can this be? Wool absorbs water, it gets wet,’ she argued against the proof of her eyes.
Conall gave an enigmatic smile. ‘Alpaca wool is waterproof. Look.’ He reached into his bag again and brought out two samples. ‘This is alpaca wool. Do you see how the fibre is hollow? Now look at the sheep’s wool.’ He held out the second fibre. ‘There’s air pockets. It’s not entirely hollow. Here’s what that means. The hollow alpaca fibre traps heat better and, thus, it has better wicking capabilities.’ He flipped up a corner of the blanket and exposed the underside. ‘This is wet. But we’re not. The alpaca fibres keep it from our skin. The wetness never reaches us.’
Sofia fingered the wet wool, deep in thought, seeing the possibilities: mountain climbers, travellers, explorers would want this product. Even the day-tripper on a picnic would want this given the rather fitful quality of English weather in general. The Royal Geographical Society would be interested in including it on expeditions, there would be prestige in that. Carriage makers could include a blanket with purchase. Perhaps they could design a crest to go in the corner of the blanket, make it a status symbol. They. She’d best be careful with her pronouns. There would be no ‘they’.
‘Is it a better insulator, too?’
‘Absolutely. Again, all thanks to the hollow tube,’ Conall replied.
She could see the possibilities, his vision, her dream, all rolled into one neat package. It was time to gather her courage. ‘Very well, then, I’ve made my decision. I have a proposition for you.’ She could feel Conall’s body tense in the space between them as he waited for her verdict. ‘I don’t want to offer you a loan. I want to offer you a partnership.’
Chapter Nine
To his credit, Conall took the offer thoughtfully. ‘What are your terms of partnership?’
‘I’ll purchase the mill. You may have daily oversight of the mill, but I will decide how it’s run. There will be no employing of children, no long hours. The mill won’t run on Sundays and only a half-day on Saturday. There will be a decent wage. There will be a school for the children whose parents work there.’ She outlined her terms, her eyes steady on his, watching to see if he’d flinch, to see if she’d misjudged him.
She’d never met a man like him before—a titled man with a selfless vision. She’d been touched by his talk of jobs, to build something useful for the region. When it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Except when it was.
She’d been persistence itself these past weeks, digging through research, looking for a flaw, for his flaw. Surely, there had to be one. There always was. She’d worked with enough men to know and yet she hadn’t found one.
Conall had questions. ‘What of the profit, then, if you’re giving it all away in wages and infrastructure? Wool will only sell for so much.’
‘Sheep’s wool will only sell for so much,’ Sofia corrected easily, unbothered by the debate. ‘Alpaca wool is a luxury, as you’ve pointed out. It’s new. It can command any price it wants if we market it right.’
‘We? Where will you be in all of this? Do you mean to stay indefinitely?’
What did she hear in his voice? Worry that she would taint him by long-term association? Or did she hear something different? Intrigue as to what the possibility of staying might hold? He did like her. Of that, she was certain.
She’d seen the signs, been aware of his gaze lingering as they worked. Her conscience was quick to play the pessimist. Of course, he doesn’t know what you’re running from. If he did, he wouldn’t like you so much. He couldn’t. Viscounts aren’t made for social lepers. But this one needed money and she needed protection. He’d protected her once already. Perhaps he would do it again. Protection seemed to come to him innately. In exchange for investing, he could protect her dream. He would oversee the mill and its development according to her plans. He could be here when she could not. That was what this proposal was about—protecting her dream of building a safer world from Giancarlo. To do that, she needed Taunton to be her steward in her absence.
That was all. It was most definitely not about her. Sofia’s ever-present conscience put a fast halt to that line of thought. She wasn’t going to marry again. She wasn’t ever going to give a man that kind of power over her. It made no sense to marry one man in order to escape marriage to another. She’d fought for her freedom for too long. Besides, Conall would never forgive her for the scandal, for tainting his family if she stayed. It was too much to ask of any man, even a good one. So she said simply, ‘I will check in from time to time, but I have other business interests to look after as well.’ But she wasn’t sure if that was regret or relief she saw on his face.
Instead, she determined to make the most of this glorious day. The sun was warm on her face and the blanket was dry. There was no better place to be than right here, in this meadow, right now. She leaned ba
ck on her hands, contemplating the man beside her. ‘How is it that you know so much about alpaca? I think it must come from more than reading tracts.’
‘Is this an interrogation, Miss Northcott?’ Conall teased, accommodating her change of conversation.
‘I like to call it curiosity.’ She laughed. She was curious about him in a way that went beyond business, a way in which she’d thought she might not ever be curious about a man again. Perhaps it was good to know she wasn’t dead inside, that Giancarlo hadn’t destroyed that part of her. But it was terribly inconvenient. She’d grown used to complete objectivity. One could not be objective while mentally stripping one’s client out of their clothes.
‘Well then, for the sake of curiosity.’ Conall indulged her with a smile. ‘I did my Grand Tour in the Americas. While my friends were sightseeing in the great museums of Europe, I was hiking in the Appalachians, sailing in the Caribbean and climbing the Andes in South America.’
‘Why did you go to America?’ Sofia picked at a blade of grass, suddenly self-conscious of their proximity on the small blanket in conjunction with her earlier thoughts. Conall Everard had been one surprise after another from the moment he’d walked into the Duchess’s sitting room and these revelations had only heightened his appeal.
‘My father preferred it. He told me once that this world of ours was dying. How long did we think the aristocracy could hold out against technology if we didn’t adapt? He always encouraged me to look ahead. He believed we couldn’t afford to live in the past.’ He chuckled and gave her a stern look. ‘I spent three years over there, arguably the best three years of my life, to date.’
‘A very different three years from mine,’ Sofia mused. That explained why he did not recall her—more specifically, why he didn’t recall the scandal of her. ‘While I was being hustled out of the schoolroom and into a hasty marriage, you were packing your trunks for America. Yet another difference between English men and women. At eighteen, a woman is deemed ripe for marriage. At twenty-one and unmarried, she is deemed nearly ready for the shelf.’
Conall laughed. ‘You and Cecilia think alike.’
She gave him a coy look and continued her argument. ‘Perhaps because it’s true. A man at eighteen is continuing his education and at twenty-one is on a Grand Tour, still transitioning from adolescence into adulthood, a role, by the way, which society doesn’t expect he’ll fully take on until his thirties while a woman in her thirties is well past her prime, her children nearly grown themselves.’
‘I won’t say you’re wrong, or that the condition is right,’ Conall acceded graciously and then asked solemnly, his eyes meeting hers, ‘Was your marriage awful?’
She looked down at the grass. They’d not spoken of anything personal; not her marriage, or the burglary, since the train. But the desire to travel a little further down those paths lingered despite their best attempts to ignore it. What could it hurt now that business was nearly concluded? She would be gone in a few days, vanishing into England, somewhere Giancarlo couldn’t find her, somewhere no one could find her. It was a condition of the latter. To escape Giancarlo, she had to give up the few friends she had for fear he might find her through them.
‘Yes,’ she said after a while. ‘I would not leave my marriage on a whim. No woman would choose this if there was anything to redeem in her marriage.’ Sofia waved a hand to indicate the half-world of divorce.
‘I didn’t mean to imply you would,’ Conall said softly, waiting for her to continue.
She picked at the grass again. ‘There was nothing to redeem. No children, no affection. Nothing that mattered. He was unfaithful, but that was the least of his failings.’ Towards the end she had welcomed his infidelities, as long as they kept his attentions elsewhere.
Against her better judgement, she let her eyes drift to his face, her gaze lingering on his mouth—on the thin, sensual aristocratic line of his lips, the straightness of his teeth, the slight crook of his smile. What would it be like to kiss a good man? They were so close, nearly touching, their fingertips inches from each other on the blanket. All she needed to do was lean in and she could taste that mouth, taste him—his trust, his goodness, his truth. Maybe she could taste him, as long as she was the one doing the kissing, as long as the kiss was her choice. That was the one thing her marriage had taken from her. She’d had no choice, no consent in what was done to her and all else had crumbled from there.
Sofia leaned in.
His lips were there, as if they’d been waiting for her, warm and welcoming. She’d meant for it to be a light buss, but she couldn’t resist the temptation to sink into the invitation of his mouth, into the strength of him for the briefest of moments. He smelled of starch and sunlight, the scents of spring and clean man.
‘What was that for?’ Conall breathed the words against her lips, his mouth hovering just above hers. He was in no hurry to move away. His hand was at the nape of her neck, tangling in her hair, keeping her close while letting her drive the interlude.
‘An apology.’ She sighed. ‘I was wrong about you. You could have charmed me, flirted my approval out of me, or at least tried. A lesser man would have.’ She kissed him again, slowly, deeply, wanting it to last.
‘And this kiss?’ She could feel Conall’s smile against her mouth.
‘That was “thank you”. Thank you for not lying. For telling the truth about what I’m investing in,’ she murmured, her body wanting more; one kiss might have given her a taste, but now she was hungry for the feast.
Conall let her take his mouth in a third kiss, as if he understood the kiss had to be hers. But the response could be his. He answered this kiss with an assertiveness that surpassed the previous kisses. Where they had been gentle, this kiss was insistent. Where they had contained an element of the tentative, this was all bold certainty. She knew the message. Here was a man who knew the pleasures of a kiss, who wanted to share those pleasures with her. For a moment, she let him. It was her decision to relinquish the kiss to him, to see where he might lead them.
He drew her with his tongue, his hand at her nape guiding, his mouth deepening the kiss until it became a languid duel between them. She answered, letting her body be swept away on the current rising between them like the lazy swirl of a summer river.
Her own fingertips found his face, they traced his jawbone. This was what afternoons were for: long, slow kisses of exploration. Now she knew what it felt like to be kissed by him and that had to be enough. She pulled back slowly, unwilling to relinquish the moment, but knowing that if it continued it would lead to a place she did not want to go. This could not happen again. It could go nowhere. ‘My apologies, I should not have,’ she said. ‘Sometimes it’s hard to remember there are good men in the world, that not everything has a rotten core.’
She gave a tremulous smile and took one last look at his face. It was time to end this foolishness. She stood up and brushed at her skirts. ‘Thank you for indulging me. You needn’t worry this will get in the way of our business. I will write the necessary letters tonight.’
Conall gripped her arm gently, as they walked to the gig. ‘But first, we’ll celebrate.’ He grinned. ‘You never did ask me if I accepted your terms. Were you that sure of yourself?’
‘Is that a yes?’ She gave him another smile, one meant to be brighter. She hoped it succeeded.
‘It is indeed. I’d suggest we seal it with a kiss, but it seems we’ve already done that.’
Tonight they would celebrate. Then she’d be free to leave. He would have his mill and her dream would have its steward. They’d both be safe from her fantasies. It was too bad the solution didn’t make her feel happier. Deep down, she had to admit she was in no hurry to go for reasons that had nothing to do with business and everything to do with their kisses. Today she’d invested fifteen thousand pounds—nearly all she had—in those reasons, perhaps both business and pleasure. It was a small fortune.
A woman could live comfortably off that sum for years. Or, she could build a future. She’d decided to build a future for herself and for others. It was a great gamble, trusting this man. But even if he failed, she’d still have the mill, still have some semblance of her dream intact. It was as safe as gambles got.
Sofia shielded her eyes against the brightness of the afternoon sun on the drive home. She could see the house from the top of the hill. At a distance, Everard Hall was the embodiment of security. It was impenetrable, as if nothing bad could touch it. And it might even be true, Sofia thought. She’d gone through the papers and the research on alpacas, looking for some sign that all was not as it seemed. But she’d found nothing alarming. There was no investment scam here. Conall Everard and Everard Hall were everything they claimed to be.
The idea was intoxicating and part of her wanted to believe in it. What if this place was truly impenetrable, truly a place where her husband wouldn’t find her? What if she could be safe here? They were foolish notions. Conall would not tolerate anyone, not even her, putting Everard Hall in jeopardy. If he knew she was hunted, if he knew the magnitude of her husband’s depravity, he would not allow anyone to draw such evil to this place. He would turn her out at once. It was one of the reasons for her haste. She wanted to leave with the illusion intact, not with Conall furious that her very presence had endangered his family and his home.
There was no sanctuary for her. There was an irony that her dream was to provide sanctuaries for others but there were none for her. What sanctuary she had was behind the flimsy protection of Barnham’s name and the ability to run at any moment. Of course she couldn’t stay in Somerset. She could stay nowhere for long, not with Il Marchese hunting her. A piece of paper declaring them legally parted would not stop him. Her husband would simply take her if he found her.
A Marriage Deal with the Viscount--A Victorian Marriage of Convenience Story Page 9