He was after the kite in an instant, running hard to grab the trailing ball of string as it unravelled. At last, he grabbed the string and brought the kite back to the blanket. ‘My offering, dear lady.’ He knelt on one knee, giving the kite and string to Sofia like a knight of old, and she laughed, watching him sprawl on the blanket beside her. He propped himself up on an elbow, head in his hand. ‘I haven’t done that for ages. When we were younger, Freddie and I would let the kites go on purpose and run after them.’
‘Did you catch them?’ Her hands deftly sorted through the tangle of string.
‘Usually. I’m a fast runner, in case you didn’t notice.’ Conall laughed and lay back, his hands tucked behind his head.
‘You’re a good brother to have flown kites with Freddie when he would have been so much younger than you,’ Sofia said softly, imagining Conall nearly full grown, on the cusp of manhood, out in the fields still flying kites. ‘How much younger is Freddie?’ Sometimes she marvelled at how much she felt for this man when she knew so little about her husband and his family. And then were days when she felt like she knew all she needed to know.
‘Fourteen years. But I was glad to have a brother and a sister. Being an only child is lonely. I played with Freddie every chance I had when I was home from university. I missed him those years I was in America. I didn’t want him growing up without a brother, especially when he didn’t have to. He had Cecilia, of course, they are only two years apart, but it’s not the same.’
‘Your family makes me envious,’ Sofia admitted with a sigh. ‘My brother and I were close in age, but never close otherwise. I was simply...trouble...an expense to be borne in the pursuit of having another son, a calculated risk. But there wasn’t another son.’ Her hands stopped working. ‘There was another boy after me, but he died and then my mother couldn’t have any more children. My parents wished I had died instead. I think that’s when I first knew I was nothing more than a commodity for them to broker. But I never really believed they would, until they did.’ She shook her head. ‘Even then, it took me a while to admit to myself what they had done.’ She paused. ‘That’s my great failing, I think. Even when I know better, it takes a powerful amount of evidence for me to believe the worst of someone. There’s a part of me that just can’t imagine evil even when I know it exists.’
Conall rolled to his side and propped himself up on an arm. ‘I think it’s called optimism, Sofia. And it’s not a weakness, but a great strength. It’s been your phoenix, not your albatross. We are married because of it.’ He reached for her then, drawing her down to him so that she lay alongside him on the blanket. ‘We’ll have a family of our own one day, you’ll have children to lavish all that optimism and love on and you will be a spectacular mother.’
The words took her breath away. Not because they conjured an image of sitting with children—Conall’s children—a blond-haired boy and a dark-haired girl on a blanket like this one, tablets on their laps, pencils in their hands as they practised their letters. It wasn’t because the words were an approbation of her attributes, or an absolution of her past, but because the words spoke of the future, a private future she and Conall would build together outside the mill and the alpaca and all the people who counted on Taunton for their welfare.
She stroked his face. ‘We’ve never talked about a family before.’ She gave a tremulous smile that belied how deeply his words had touched her. All their plans had centred on the good works they’d do externally for the greater good. Never had they spoken of their private life and how that life would be built between them.
‘You promised me an improper picnic, Conall Everard. What exactly did you have in mind besides flying kites?’ She moved into him, sliding a hand up one long leg to where his body quickened for her.
In a swift move, Conall rolled her beneath him. ‘I envisioned this: a slow loving beneath the sun, a light breeze caressing skin and you beneath me, skirts falling back, thighs bare.’
He kissed her hard as he entered her. She moaned beneath him, her back arching, her eyes fluttering shut as she gave herself over to the pleasure. This was what she wanted to believe in—pleasure and peace always, with Conall. She felt his body gather as she climaxed against him in a soft spasm and he followed her moments later.
* * *
Sofia hummed softly to herself as she sat behind Conall’s big desk in the estate office, patiently looking through drawers. Cook had brought her the receipts from the market shopping and she thought to enter them in the household ledgers while Conall’s mother was out visiting a neighbour with Cecilia. Eventually, the transition between Dowager and the new lady of the house would be complete. For now, Sofia was happy to let her mother-in-law run the house while she focused her efforts on the mill. Still, Sofia felt it was important to do her domestic part whenever possible so that the servants would come to respect her authority as well as the Dowager’s. It was a good sign today, she thought, that Cook had sought her out instead of waiting for Conall’s mother to return.
Ah ha! Success! Sofia drew a long, brown ledger out of the drawer and opened it, flipping to the most recent page only half-filled with receipts and purchases. She began to write down the day’s entries when a something further up the page caught her eye. A minus sign, an indication of a deficit. She furrowed her brow and flipped back a page. Another deficit. Then an entry marked: sale of china and an addition of funds; sale of upstairs painting. She ran her finger up the ledger, finding the pattern. The household was running in the red, only the sale of items kept the accounts balanced. She traced back to March and then rose and combed the bookcases for another. The ledgers were quarterly records and she wanted to see the rest of the year. A suspicion was taking root. She hoped she was wrong.
She pulled the other ledgers down from the shelves and settled at the desk, horror growing with each turned page. The Viscountcy had run in the red for over a year. A year spent in mourning. That triggered another thought. Conall’s father’s death. She pulled the previous year and then a sampling of the earlier years, a sense of panic giving speed to her fingers as they ran through the columns, her mind assimilating the facts at lightning speed.
Sofia sat back in the chair, her heart pounding. Two facts were clear: the Taunton coffers were empty, far emptier than she might have guessed on her own, and they had been for a while, long before Conall had inherited; second, everything that could be leveraged had been for the purchase of the alpacas back in November. She did the maths; the purchase would have been arranged over the winter, the alpacas transported when the winter seas stilled, arriving the end of March, perhaps. In April, Conall had come to London to seek funds from the Prometheus Club for his mill, for his syndicate.
She sighed and closed her eyes, remembering that first walk in the garden. He must have been desperate by then, knowing he had no resources left and no place to make the wool. He needed that mill. He’d taken an enormous gamble and he’d been out on a limb and unable to crawl back to safety. Her heart wanted to weep for him. How difficult it must have been for him. And how strong he’d been, not letting on at all how he must hurt, how he must have panicked. And yet, he still found time to dance with her, to take care of her when her house had been burgled, when she’d sat alone in the church amid her enemies.
But her mind had other ideas about what she should feel. Logic taunted her. Of course he found time for you. You were eager to invest, you had money, piles of it. Silly girl. When it sounds too good to be true, it probably is...
Sofia gripped the edges of the desk, her knuckles white as she tried to push back the rampaging thoughts. He’d taken a gamble large enough to countenance the trade-off of marrying her. So large, in fact, he’d risk Cecilia’s Season against his ability to win over society with his success and perhaps his charm in order to make others forget the inappropriate history of his new wife. Marriage certainly suited him far better than merely arranging for the mill.
The full import of that took her like a punch to the stomach, nearly winding her. Why stop with a mill, when he might solve all his problems by marrying her for all the money? Her rational brain laughed at her. All this time, she’d been so sure he hadn’t been seducing her. It was a most crafty seduction with those manners and courtly gestures of restraint all the while making it clear he wanted her. He’d been stoking her curiosity—how would it be to be with a good man, to be cared for by a good man? But he wasn’t a good man, was he? Not entirely. For the greater good of his family, his Viscountcy, he’d lied to her in the worst of ways. He’d made her believe he cared for her, even loved her, that they would build a life together. Our children, you will be a spectacular mother. He’d been building that fantasy even yesterday as they’d lain together on the picnic blanket. Giancarlo had never pretended that. But who else had pretended? Cecilia? His mother? Freddie? Had all the warmth and acceptance been an act?
Another wave of horrible thoughts came to her. Now that Conall had what he wanted, would he still protect her if Giancarlo came? Or would he step aside and wash his hands? What would be the greater scandal? Would Giancarlo simply buy him off with enough money to make the loss worth it? Conall had already proven, hadn’t he, that he had a price.
Her fearful mind came to life after so many dormant weeks. She had to leave. She had to go before she found out the answer to the horrible question. She didn’t want to know the answer. The optimist in her wanted to hold on to at least a shred of memory, a shred of what happiness felt like, even if it was feigned, so that sometimes she could take out the shred and pretend that perhaps for moments the happiness had been real.
She steadied herself, forcing deep slow breaths into her lungs. She would just concentrate on the next step and then the next. She would turn her attention away from the big picture. She would go upstairs and pack. She might even make the evening train if she hurried. It didn’t matter where it went, only that it did. She had to be away from here. Conall wasn’t due back from town until supper.
Sofia only made it halfway across the room before the door opened and Conall blew in, his hair windblown. ‘Sofia!’ Excited energy radiated from every pore, a grin on his face, a paper in his hand. Damn, but she didn’t want to remember him this way, looking as if she was his world.
At the sight of her face, though, the excitement faded. His gaze scanned the room, his own energy dampening. ‘What is going on?’ The exuberance was caged now, replaced by wariness.
‘Perhaps I should ask you that.’ She’d not wanted this confrontation.
Chapter Twenty
He did not want this confrontation. One look at the room told him all. She knew. Sofia had discovered his one guilty secret. He’d convinced himself telling her didn’t matter any more. They were together now in all ways. There was no need. He’d been wrong there. There was every need.
‘You saw the ledgers.’ He folded the letter in his hand and put it in his pocket. His news could wait. From the stricken look on Sofia’s face, this was far more important.
‘Yes.’ Her voice was polite, cold. He’d heard that tone before in the rail car on the journey from London. They were going to be civil and do their best to talk about the situation in business terms devoid of emotional attachment. ‘It seems the Viscountcy was facing financial hardship and had been for quite some time. You needed my support badly.’
‘Yes. There had been a series of poor investments, but my father had said nothing. We only discovered the state of the books after his death.’ The old anger surfaced, anger that had nowhere to go, no one to direct it at because that person was gone.
‘Thankfully, you’re twice the businessman your father was.’ Sofia’s eyes were hard sapphires again, the way they’d looked when he’d first met her. ‘Why stop at a mill partnership when you might have so much more.’
Conall’s brow furrowed. ‘What are you implying?’
‘You married me for my money and you put on quite a show to get it, you and your perfect family.’ Conall froze. The depth of her anger showed through those words. The ruse that had so long ago ceased to be a trick was coming back to haunt him.
‘It’s not like that, it hasn’t been like that for a while.’ Would she believe him? Conall could feel the threads of his new marriage unravelling.
‘Ah ha! But it was like that in the beginning, wasn’t it?’
‘There was never any intention to force you into a marriage,’ Conall argued. ‘Do you want me to admit to needing the money? Yes, I needed it. Yes, we arranged for you to see the best of us, the best of Everard Hall in the hopes it would influence a favourable outcome. But that was all and it didn’t last long.’ He paused, slowing his words. ‘We came to like you, Sofia. I came to like you, to respect you, to admire your fight, and that admiration grew into something much more. What I feel for you is not a ruse. I proposed marriage for your protection because I could not imagine you in the hands of that bastard again.’
The debate in her eyes nearly broke him, her sharp businesswoman’s mind against her optimist’s heart. ‘You still don’t believe in me.’ This was not her tragedy alone, but a tragedy for their marriage. He hated being the one who had put the doubt there, hated the realisation that for how far they’d come together, they still had not come far enough for her to trust him. At the first sign of trouble, it was easier for her to think the worst of him, instead of what they were building together. ‘I have always thought the best of you, Sofia,’ he said solemnly. ‘I wish you would do the same of me.’
‘How can I when there is evidence to the contrary? The ledgers don’t lie. You need money and I had it to give.’
‘You needed protection and I had it to give,’ Conall answered. ‘This was a marriage of convenience from the start, your terms, your preference, and now you are angry over the truth.’ He had her there. A hot blush crept up her cheeks. ‘Your own anger should be proof enough I speak the truth, the new truth between us, that there is more than convenience between us now. What might have started as a trade of services, if you will, has given birth to true affection. I think that’s what scares you. If you can’t be angry with me, you might have to love me and you’re afraid to do that.’ He clenched his fists at his sides, his own emotions roiling. He’d never wanted to throw something so badly in his life. The shattering of a crystal vase against the hard marble of the fireplace would be most satisfying right now. As would taking Sofia in his arms and kissing her hard and senseless until she saw the nonsense of her fears.
‘I’m not the only one who’s afraid,’ Sofia retorted. ‘You’re scared, too.’
‘Yes, I am. I am afraid you’ll run, Sofia. That you won’t believe in me enough to let me keep you safe, to let us build the life we could have together.’ After the bliss of yesterday, he should have expected some kind of resistance like this. She’d flown so close to the sun on that picnic and now she was warning herself to beware. He wanted her to stop looking over her shoulder and live in the present fully. ‘If you don’t let go of the past, Sofia, I cannot save you. I cannot save us.’
* * *
‘And I cannot save you.’ Something in her was letting go, was relenting in the wake of his words, and she feared it. She would lose this battle if she stayed much longer. ‘I am not the only one living with the past.’ She’d seen it in the ledgers, the ghosts he fought against. ‘Do you think I don’t see the grief, see the anger behind your efforts? You love your father and you hate him, too. You haven’t forgiven him for...something.’ She groped for a word there. She hadn’t figured that out yet. It wasn’t the debt that angered Conall. It drove him, but it didn’t anger him.
‘The illusion,’ Conall said tightly. ‘He created a world that didn’t exist and he built it on money that didn’t exist either.’
‘We are not so different then.’ Sofia swallowed. ‘We’ve both been chasing illusions and we created one between us.’ The anger was gone out o
f their fight now, leaving the ash of shredded emotions. As always with them, they had started with business and meandered into the intimate. ‘I will leave and that will be one less illusion for you to worry about.’
She moved to pass, but he would not allow it. His hand gripped her arm. ‘Damn it, Sofia. It’s not supposed to end this way. You are my wife.’
Her eyes flashed. ‘I am sorry to spoil your idea of a happy ending.’ But he did not let her go.
Instead, he tugged her to him, his mouth hungrily finding hers and the madness broke out between them. Her cool reserve was gone. Her hands were in his hair, her body pressing hard against him as a sob escaped her, her hands at the waist of his trousers, fumbling in their haste with the fastenings. He lifted her then, pushing back her skirts and balancing her against the wall. This would be swift and powerful.
She was all gasps and moans as he entered her, his name a cry on her lips and he thought for a moment as they surged towards an abrupt, overpowering climax, that he might have a chance, that they might have a chance. She felt a shudder run through him. He buried his face against the arch of her neck as release took him. She dug her nails into his shoulders, their grip raw and strong. She fantasised he would have marks even through the fabric of his coats. Raw desire took her. She wanted nothing more than to mark him, a reminder that he’d marked her, too, in ways not visible.
Still rooted in her, he carried her to the sofa near the fire and sat with her astride him. He kissed her softly then, the storm of their passion receding in the wake of something gentler. He kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, the puffiness of her lips, his hands framing her face and tangling in her hair. ‘I have one last secret and then all will be out in the open. I love you, my sweet Sofia. Whatever you believe about me, believe that.’ His words were coming fast now and his voice was thick. ‘You don’t have to go. We can make our illusion real.’
A Marriage Deal with the Viscount--A Victorian Marriage of Convenience Story Page 18