Apparently his mother and Sofia agreed on those grounds. He helped himself into the hallway without waiting for anyone to answer. The Dower House was a quiet bustle of activity. He knew the sounds of packing when he heard them. For a woman too ill to take supper, Sofia had found the energy to prepare for tomorrow’s journey. Was this how it was done, then? Packing her trunks without a farewell? Annie spied him and stopped in mid-step on the stairs, linens in her hands. ‘Milord, Miss Northcott isn’t receiving. It’s practically the middle of the night!’ She looked scandalised.
‘Annie, it’s ten o’clock, and I wouldn’t need to be here if Miss Northcott and I had settled our business earlier. Now, you can either ask Sofia to come down or I will go up.’ Between Sofia missing dinner and his mother’s misplaced concern, his patience was running thin.
There was movement at the top of the stairs. Sofia emerged on the landing. ‘Annie, it’s all right. Go on up and finish, I’ll talk to Lord Taunton.’ Sofia sounded weary. Defeated. Her energy was gone. She wore a satin dressing gown, her hair a loose cloud at her shoulders. Whatever recriminations he might have rehearsed on the way down faded in the wake of the obvious. She would have been lovely but for the telltale signs of crying.
‘Sofia, what has happened?’ His mind sorted through options. What could have occurred in the time since she’d left him to bring on tears? Then he remembered the letter. ‘Is it bad news? Is Helena all right? The baby?’
‘They’re fine,’ she assured him, coming down the stairs. ‘What has happened is none of your concern. I need you to accept that without question and you need to let me go in the morning.’
Conall folded his arms across his chest. ‘What do you think the chances of that are going to be?’
Next to none. ‘This is why I didn’t come up to the house for dinner,’ Sofia said sternly. She had too much fighting to do, she didn’t want to fight Conall as well.
‘Because I would want you to explain why you were leaving without saying goodbye? That’s what you intended, isn’t it?’ Conall prodded bluntly, grey eyes like charcoals. Now he would press and she very much feared she would give in to the temptation to lay this latest disaster at his feet like she had the night of the break-in, although this was so much more.
Conall nodded towards the basket. ‘Freddie and Cecilia packed up dinner for you. Freddie wanted to come down and play backgammon.’
The thought of Freddie and Cecilia brought the sting of tears. He did not fight fair. She didn’t want to think about all she was leaving behind. Instead, she would think of all she was protecting. If Giancarlo was going to find her, he wasn’t going to find her with this family. She would not have them used as leverage against her.
Conall moved to the basket and began to set out cold chicken pie and a bottle of wine, a sure sign he was entrenching. She had to prevent that. Sofia moved to the table. ‘I’ll eat later, I promise.’
Conall angled a speculative dark brow at her. ‘You also said you would come to dinner. Forgive me if I doubt your word on that.’ He poured a glass a wine.
She tried again, hands on hips this time. ‘Don’t ignore me, Conall. I want you to leave.’
He poured a second glass in direct opposition to her request and then sliced into the pie. ‘I will leave, once you’ve answered my questions.’
‘I am trying to protect you, Conall. You and your family.’ If he wouldn’t listen to reason out of respect for her, perhaps he’d listen to caution on behalf of those he loved.
He pulled out a chair and sat, crossing his booted feet at the ankles before fixing her with a grey stare that brooked no rebellion. ‘Then tell me the truth, Sofia. What was in that letter that has you running like a frightened rabbit?’
She was going to have to tell him. She recognised defeat, but she also recognised a chance to turn the situation into victory. Once he understood, he would also understand there was no choice for him but to let her go.
Sofia tightened the belt of her robe and sat, taking the plate of chicken pie before she said with all the calm she could muster, ‘My husband is here in England. He wants me back.’ She willed back the panic the words engendered. Saying them out loud made them more real than they’d been in the last three hours. But she could not let Conall see the depth of reaction they wrung from her. He could not be tempted to fix this, to wade in where his efforts would be useless. He would only endanger his family and himself.
Conall’s body stilled at her words. ‘Why does he want you back?’
‘Why does he do anything? There are two reasons he does anything: the promise of more wealth and to torture me.’ She looked down at her barely touched pie. ‘In this case it’s both. The new Piedmont King has offered him great wealth if he restores his marriage,’ she explained dispassionately. She couldn’t let herself think about all that return would entail. She would be utterly destroyed if she did.
‘The new King will not recognise the divorce?’ Conall asked.
‘He does not wish to. It cuts against the grain of his personal beliefs.’ She played with her fork. ‘My husband is hunting me, Conall. He’s been hunting for a while. At first by letter and then by proxy. Now, he has come himself and my husband will not leave England without me.’
‘Don’t call him that. He is not your husband, not at the moment, nor at any time in the last three years.’ Conall’s voice was harsh, perhaps with the desire to protect tinged with a bit of jealousy. ‘Proxy? How do you know?’
Sofia bit her lip. ‘The burglary. It was a warning to me. You commented on it as well. Nothing was taken. Common thieves don’t break in and not take anything.’ She reached into the pocket of her dressing gown and took out the clipping. ‘This was in the letter from Helena.’ She paused and sipped at her wine, giving him time to read.
Conall looked up, eyes sharp. ‘He doesn’t know where you are. He’s all but begging for information. This is the act of a desperate man.’
‘Yes. It’s why I must leave. He cannot find me here. You cannot be put in jeopardy.’ This was the argument she needed to win with him. Any other man would be more than willing to put her on a train and gladly see her far, far away.
But Conall would disappoint in that regard. He was not any other man. ‘I disagree, it’s precisely why you must stay. Here you can be protected. Out there...’ he made a gesture to indicate the whole of England ‘...you are in the open, exposed.’ Conall’s hand covered hers where it rested on the table, warm and strong, lending her his strength in a single touch. ‘Look at me, Sofia,’ he commanded softly. ‘I will not let him take you. We can have men posted at the house. We can make sure no one approaches the house without permission. I am a viscount. I am not without resources.’
Sofia gave a sad laugh. It took all her willpower not to fall into that strength, to take the offer. He made it sound so easy to stay. ‘No, I don’t want more jailers, even benevolent ones. I don’t want to live my life surrounded by guards.’ But the temptation was there. The lamp limned his face, calling out its strength and masculine beauty in its flame.
‘Those guards stole your freedom. These guards would protect it,’ Conall argued. ‘Don’t be stubborn about this, Sofia.’ Her glass was empty and he filled it, a subtle reminder that he looked to her needs even in the simplest of things.
The most perilous whisper of all started in her mind: What if you trusted him? What if he could prevail against Il Marchese? What if you sent him to fight...? With his words, his resources, his title...what a champion Conall Everard would be. She had to stop. That was not the deal she’d struck with herself when this day had begun.
‘It’s not only that,’ Sofia said, tamping down the temptation. ‘I can’t allow it. It’s too dangerous. The last thing I want is for you to be hurt, for your family to be hurt. You don’t know him the way I do. He will use anything and anyone for leverage. I am not worth risking Freddie or Cecilia. He’s made me a p
oison.’ Her voice trembled. ‘I destroy everything I touch.’
In her heart she knew she was better off alone, where no one could be leveraged against her, where there was nothing that could be destroyed. That was the deal she’d struck. She would come to this glorious man once and then she would leave before the poison could claim him, too. Even if Giancarlo caught her, even if she was somehow forced back to Piedmont, she would have a memory Giancarlo could never touch, never take, never destroy.
‘Sofia,’ Conall said. ‘I can protect you, even without guards.’
She shook her head, her gaze wistful and sad. ‘Oh, Conall, if only that were true.’
‘It could be, if you married me.’
Chapter Fifteen
Sofia froze. Dear God, one look at Conall’s unwavering grey gaze and she knew he was serious. ‘I don’t need a hero, Conall. What I need is to get on the train and re-invent myself.’
‘Until the next time he finds you?’ Conall answered smoothly. ‘You said yourself he wasn’t going to give up.’ She’d meant for those words to be her defence, her weapon for driving him off, but he’d managed to turn them to his benefit. ‘Maybe it’s time to stop running and stand and fight. It would be much harder for him to claim you with a marriage certificate in your hands and a husband beside you.’
‘Paper won’t stop him.’ Had Conall missed that part?
Conall laughed. ‘It might not stop him from an outright kidnapping, but I hardly think the King of the Piedmont would want to see your lawful husband show up in his court crying that one of his noble courtiers is now a bigamist.’ He sobered, slipping his fingers between hers until they were interlocked. ‘I would come for you, Sofia. He would not have you for long if it came to that.’
‘And your family? Would you sacrifice them as well? Viscounts cannot think just about themselves.’
That got a rise out of him. Anger flashed in his eyes and the leash of reason slipped just a fraction. ‘And don’t I know it? Everything I have done this past year has been for others! Can’t there be one thing that is for me? Can’t my marriage be for me? Because I want to? I want to do this for you, Sofia.’
The realisation came hard and fast: she wanted to do it, too, for herself, if things were different, if she was different. If she wasn’t afraid of losing her freedom, if she wasn’t afraid of what Giancarlo might do to Conall, to his family, maybe then she would have said yes. ‘I’ve already told you I won’t marry again.’
‘I would not take your freedom. Do you think that I would?’
‘No. But I would take yours. You can’t imagine what society might do,’ she said. She’d lived with the ostracising for three lonely years. She’d overheard the girls at the ball, seen the way the women and the men looked at her.
‘They might forget,’ Conall cut in. He came around the table and knelt before her. ‘They’ve forgotten before. No one seems to remember how early Helena’s first baby was. No one recalls that the Duchess of Cowden’s father was a notorious gambler who lost his estate in a card game. Shall I go on? There are more examples. The ton can polish any diamond they choose. They will choose to polish you once you’re my Viscountess. Helena and the Cowdens will champion you, my mother will champion you, although it’s hardly needed. Once people get to know you, get to hear your story and understand you had no choice, all will be forgotten.’
Might it? It wouldn’t happen overnight, not even Conall could promise that. But what if Conall was right? A little seed of hope, of possibility, began to sprout, watered by the image he painted.
‘Think what you could do, what we could do. You are not the only woman trapped in or escaping from a bad marriage. We can advocate for changing the marriage laws, for more equality in marriage for women. It’s high time those archaic codes were revisited. You are the woman to lead that fight and I will lead that fight with you.’
Did he know how potent his argument was? How much she longed to make the world a better place for women, for children, those with no voice of their own under the law. All she had to do was say yes and she would be protected from Giancarlo, she would have a family, a real family, and access to real change. It was too good to be true... The thought brought her up short. When something sounded too good to be true, it probably was. Where was the flaw? When she looked into Conall’s eyes, when she felt the eager, assuring pressure of his grip, saw his face shining with anticipation, she couldn’t find flaws.
‘Why would you do this for me? What do you get out of it?’ she asked. ‘A good man who could do better than a ruined woman doesn’t throw himself away without cause.’
‘I get you. I get a wife who looks at me and sees me, Sofia, not my title. How could I endure a London Season, picking through debutantes who only see my assets, after being appreciated for so much more?’
Sofia smiled at that. ‘At least you aren’t offering protestations of love. Then I would have known you were lying.’
‘Those may come in time.’ The solemnity of those words sent a warm trill down her spine, her body recalling the intimacy of the afternoon on the river bank. ‘We may not start out as a grand love match, Sofia, but we do start with respect and hope between us. We’ll have the mill and the alpaca, we’ll have our political cause. I think those are good starting places. We can build a meaningful life from those things.’
‘It would be a marriage of convenience, then?’ Sofia prompted softly.
His eyes were steady on her. ‘There is more than convenience between us, though, isn’t there? We proved that today.’ He smiled. ‘There is plenty to build from and plenty to look forward to.’
‘You should have been a barrister. You never would have lost a case,’ Sofia hedged. She was running out of reasons to object. Only one reason remained. ‘It may not be necessary, this grand sacrifice of yours. Giancarlo may never come. He may never find me and you risk much on that gamble.’
‘Maybe I would want to marry you regardless of Giancarlo.’
‘Maybe you should test the waters first.’ She was thinking fast, looking for an option that could satisfy him without ruining him, that left him an option if he changed his mind once this fit of gallantry passed, once he truly understood what this would cost him, even if he were right.
Conall nodded. Perhaps he sensed he had to concede something to her, that she had to control something, that his plan was overwhelming to a woman used to making her own decisions, used to trusting no one. ‘What do you propose?’ His eyes crinkled at the pun.
Sofia held on tight to her courage. She had not trusted another the way she was trusting Conall right now. ‘An engagement. If Giancarlo poses a real danger, we can wed. But if he does not find me, you will not be shackled to a ruined woman without good cause.’ The engagement could be broken. Society would support him in jilting her if something sordid were to come out, something he could claim to having not known beforehand. Divorced women were expendable and handsome, marriageable viscounts were easily forgiven.
Conall looked down at their hands joined together in her lap and his words nearly broke her heart. ‘My dear Sofia, I think you just said yes.’ She could have wept with joy, with a sense of being complete with this man. He understood in the most intrinsic of ways what the compromise had cost her. After thirteen years of distrusting men, it was as close to yes as she could get. She’d trusted Conall with the shame of her divorce. If they were to marry, they’d at least start with honesty between them. He could not accuse her of coming to him with secrets.
* * *
He’d not been honest with her. The thought kept Conall awake. Yes, he’d offered a convenient marriage to keep her safe. Yes, he was willing to sacrifice whatever needed sacrificing to protect her from her husband. All of that was true. But he’d not told her about his financial situation, that the coffers were all but empty except for her investment.
It wasn’t supposed to have mattered. She was supposed to
secure the loan and leave. It was supposed to have been business only. His conscience could live with that arrangement. As long as the mill was successful and her loan was repaid, his personal finances were not relevant. But it had become more than business. In fact, business and money had not factored into his rather unplanned proposal tonight. Yet, if she were to discover that omission, she might misunderstand his motivations. He’d seen the way she’d looked at him, with a rare consent of trust in her eyes. He knew how hard won that consent was, what a struggle it must have been for her to give it.
He would tell her tomorrow. After he explained this latest development to his mother, after he went in to town to arrange a civil licence at the registrar’s office so that he was prepared on a moment’s notice. Tomorrow would be a prickly day. There would be nerves to navigate and feathers to smooth. But in the end, Sofia would be protected. And he would be, too. This marriage of convenience would protect them both, she from a dastardly ex-husband and he from the blinding illusions of romance.
He would not fall into his father’s trap of being motivated by love and blinded by sentiment to the realities of living. His mother thought he was an idealist. But she was wrong. He might have been at one time, but he was a realist now. He would have a marriage built on respect and shared interests. There was room for intimacy within those parameters as he’d experienced today. There was room for feeling, too. He was not without emotion where Sofia was concerned. But it was not all-obscuring. It did not obliterate his good sense. There would be no illusions.
A Marriage Deal with the Viscount--A Victorian Marriage of Convenience Story Page 14