by Katy Madison
Later, as she made her way down the front stairs—no point in trying to sneak out a back entrance, she didn't know the lay of the house—the knocker sounded. She paused, gripping the rail to avoid pitching down with the overlong boots. The socks stuffed inside only kept the boots from sliding off if she held her toes up with each step. Her shins already burned from her practice steps in the hallway.
The butler opened the front door, and Sophie peered down, trying to see.
"Is Mr. Davies home?" The tense female voice drifted up to Sophie.
She bent down and caught a glimpse of dark hair.
The butler replied with a large dose of starch, "Mr. Davies is not at home."
"Please, would you tell him I need to speak with him? It's urgent."
There was a pregnant pause. "Madam, he has not returned home this morning. Would you care to wait in the drawing room?"
"Oh." There was another drawn out pause. "I'll wait in my carriage."
"Would you like me to see if Mrs. Davies is at home?"
The question seemed to surprise the visitor. "I . . . yes."
Sophie could either hope they didn't notice her and make a break for it when the butler led the caller to the drawing room, or she could just go forward and learn who sought out her husband at such an unfashionable hour.
"This way, Mrs. Keeting," said the butler.
Mrs. Keeting? George's wife? The woman Victor implied bore her husband's child. Curiosity got the better of Sophie. Instead of retreating while she had a chance, she watched the woman step inside the entry hall.
Her sable hair was piled on top of her head in a sleek, smooth, loose swirl, the kind of soft demure style that Sophie's hair would never tolerate. The visitor shed her green pelisse and gloves and gave them to the butler.
Her simple white morning gown adorned with a green ribbon covered a slim figure. Amelia glided across the floor and only paused as her blue eyes met Sophie's. Her elegant hand rose to her throat. Her dark eyebrows lifted in a delicate arch of surprise while her cherry lips moved into a soft "O" of surprise. Even the expression of shock on her porcelain perfect features was elegantly understated.
This woman was everything Sophie was not: strikingly lovely, delicate, dainty and disgustingly demure.
A rush of pure hatred flowed through Sophie and shocked her with its intensity. She wanted to turn and climb the stairs, but with the boots felt like a clod. The moment stretched to an eon before they heard the scrape of a key in the lock.
Keene stumbled in, his evening clothes wrinkled, his cravat flat. His hair was mussed, his dark eyes glazed, and he was in dire need of his razor. A wide-eyed anticipation replaced his tired expression when he noticed the visitor in the hall. "Amelia."
"Oh, Keene, he . . ." She moved toward him, her hands outstretched. She bit her lip rather than continue the sentence she started.
Keene took Amelia's hands in his. "Blythe, would you have coffee brought to the drawing room."
The butler bowed and disappeared into the back of the house.
Keene didn't even close the front door before he stepped forward to take her hands in his. Was he so enamored of her that he forgot the gaping door and the cold air rushing inside?
"He has banished me. I'm sorry. I did not know where else to turn." Amelia's words caught on a sob. "He insisted I leave her with him. I don't know where to go or what to do."
"Come, we'll talk about it."
Victor entered, then shut the door.
A turbulent sea of impressions washed over Sophie.
Amelia's head turned in Victor's direction. After a glance at his friend, Keene tightened his grip on Amelia's hands as if to keep her to himself. Sophie saw a hint of yearning on Victor's face before his expression closed off.
"Go home, Victor." Keene tugged Amelia toward the library.
Victor stepped toward the stairs. "My clothes—"
"—will be here tomorrow." Keene said.
"My clothes!" Victor stared up at Sophie.
No hope for it now. Sophie stepped down, the boots clumping like leaden buckets on her feet.
Keene glanced up at her and then clenched his eyes shut as if removing her from his sight could banish her from his life.
Sophie turned to run back up the stairs, but the empty toe of the boot caught on a riser, and she pitched forward.
THIRTEEN
Victor, being closer to the staircase, reached Sophie first. Not that she had slid down more than a couple of steps, but Keene's heart jolted with each thump. He pushed Victor out of the way and reached for Sophie. He guided her shoulders as she moved to sit on the stairs.
She shrugged away from him. "I'm all right."
"This is your wife?" asked Amelia with not quite an air of condescension in her tone, but a mix of shock and disbelief.
"Hard to believe, is it not?" Keene rose to his feet.
Sophie sat on a stair by his knee. "Well, I shouldn't be wearing these clothes if Keene had left me anything to wear last night, but he took my dress off to heaven knows where, and none of my other clothes are here."
Keene winced.
Victor coughed politely and turned slightly.
Amelia looked at Keene, Sophie's clothes, and then at Victor. Two tiny lines formed between her flyaway eyebrows, while a flush crept up from her neck.
The last thing Keene wanted was to leave Victor and Amelia alone together, but a private moment with Sophie would require leaving the two former lovers together.
When he entered the house and saw Amelia standing in the entry hall he'd been tempted to shut and lock the door before Victor entered the house, or pull Amelia into the drawing room out of sight, but he hadn't had time to do either.
"Go upstairs, Sophie. I'll send your dress up to you," Keene whispered.
"It's an evening gown."
"She has you there. She is at least wearing morning clothes. Although I have to say we are getting shockingly loose with our apparel," said Victor. "Perhaps Amelia would care to contribute."
"You don't have any dresses to wear?" Amelia half turned toward the door, her hand raised in an uncertain gesture. "I do have my bags in my carriage."
"I'm leaving," said Sophie with a mulish cast to her expression.
Keene closed his eyes and wished them all to perdition. He reached under Sophie's arm and lifted her to her feet. "You're not leaving. Don't make me restrain you. Now go upstairs and get out of Victor's clothes."
"They're your clothes? I am sorry." She gave Victor a sheepish smile. "They were lying over the chair, and I didn't know."
Hounds of fury nipped at Keene's feet. His wife couldn't spare him more than a surly line, while Victor got a pretty apology and smile. Keene begrudged that smile more than anything.
Amelia was doing her best not to stare, and Victor had developed a fascination with Sophie's display of his breeches.
Keene jostled Victor's shoulder. "Do you mind, sir?"
Victor's gaze fastened on the pantaloons stretched across Sophie's flat belly, accommodating the soft flair of her hips. They fit her far differently than when he wore them. "Not at all. She doesn't look a bit—"
"Don't say it."
Victor looked him square in the eye and finished, "—like a chap."
"I don't? I thought with the short hair and everything I might pass for a youth." She tugged the bottle-green jacket down. She turned her head up toward Victor with a plea in her expression.
Keene felt a mixture of rage and relief . . . and frustration. There wasn't the slightest hint of a protruding belly. "No, she doesn't. I hate your hair short."
"Well, I shall be about my way, and you shan't have to see it."
"Upstairs, Sophie, or I shall carry you."
She flashed him a defiant look and started down the stairs.
"Damn it, Sophie." Keene caught her arm, looked directly at Victor and pointed toward the morning room, while nodding in Amelia's direction.
Victor placed his hand on the small of Amelia's back and led he
r into the front room. The heat of her skin reached him through her muslin gown. Victor wanted to both hold her and run away as fast as he could.
He glanced back in time to see Keene tip Sophie over his shoulder and carry her up the stairs.
Victor shut the door on Sophie's protest. He wanted to issue his own protest to have a care for Sophie's condition. Which reminded him of the shared child he had with Amelia. "How are you?"
She ducked her head and stepped away from his hand. "I am well."
"And the baby?"
She drew a swift breath, and looked away. Victor noticed the sheen of moisture in her eyes.
"She is healthy, isn't she?"
"Yes, she is fine."
There were a dozen questions that begged to be asked. Does she look like me? Is she really mine? Why didn't you tell me? Instead, Victor gestured toward a chair. "I'm sure Keene won't be long."
"Oh."
There was a wealth of confusion and speculation in Amelia's soft response. And the truth of the matter was, if Keene had an ounce of sense in his head, he should stay abovestairs a long time and let the waters be as murky as possible.
In Victor's opinion, knowing Amelia's child was his made the situation more awkward. If he hadn't known, if George had been a candidate for fatherhood, there would have been only the occasional twinge of uncertainty.
"I should leave. I think Keene has enough on his hands." Amelia swiveled away from Victor.
Why had she turned to Keene instead of him? After all, it was his actions that got her into this brouhaha. "No, sit, Amelia. 'Tis well and good that Keene has a glimpse of the other side."
"What?"
"Never mind." Victor shifted restlessly from one foot to the other. "The child is well?"
"Yes." A hint of impatience colored Amelia's tone. She gingerly sat on the edge of a chair.
"What do you plan to do?"
Amelia's head tipped down. "I don't know. I suppose I might stay with my mother, but she is newly settled in the gatehouse as there wasn't a dower house on my father's property and the estate now belongs to my uncle." Amelia raised her head. "I shouldn't wish to be so far from my daughter, and I had hoped that my mother might stay at our house."
The only thing that occurred to Victor as Amelia spoke was that he didn't even know his daughter's name. "Things have reached a pretty pass, have they not?"
A single tear trickled down Amelia's alabaster cheek. Pain welled up under Victor's breastbone. He stepped toward Amelia's chair. He had held her once, comforted her once when she despaired of her situation—and brought her to this catastrophe.
She flew out of her chair, and in an uncharacteristically determined stride, avoided him. She steered toward the drawing room door. Her voice trembled, "I shouldn't have come here. I just thought Keene . . ."
"What did you think?" That Keene would protect her? Shelter her? House her as his mistress? Jealousy tore at Victor.
She shook her head as she reached for the knob. The door opened. Keene stood in the doorway, confronted by Amelia. Both of them froze. She drew a deep, shaky breath as if she meant to halt the tears freely running down her cheeks.
Keene stepped forward and placed his hands on Amelia's upper arms. "Everything will be all right," he soothed.
"Nothing will ever be right," sobbed Amelia, and she stepped straight into Keene's embrace.
A pit of black yawned before Victor. He folded his arms across his chest to keep himself from punching something. Irony laced through him. That night in the carriage, he had wondered if he was a substitute for Keene, a role he knew well. "Very touching."
Amelia backed out of Keene's arms, the graceful downward slope of her neck calling out her own swan song.
"I suppose you should just move in here." Victor heard the words leave his mouth without making a stop in his brain first. "You will stay close to your baby and won't be imposing on your mother. What do you say, Keene? Amelia could stay here, couldn't she?"
Keene looked startled by the notion. He frowned.
"I mean with your wife in residence, there is no impropriety, is there?"
Amelia cast her doe-like expression in Keene's direction. Hope glistened through her tears.
Keene looked back and forth between them, crossed his arms and leaned against the door. Victor couldn't fathom what was happening behind Keene's closed expression.
"I daresay it is a good answer for the time being. What do you say, Amelia? Should you prefer to stay in London with my wife and me?"
How she restrained herself from nodding in glee was beyond Victor. But she managed a mild response with that innate grace that was all her own. Her outstretched hand was the only sign of her nervous tension. "Would your wife be upset?"
Victor had learned a few things about Amelia that night in the carriage, more than he wanted to know. Unless he missed his guess, she was desperate to stay here. Why, though? Did she trust Keene to avoid taking advantage of her situation? Or did she hope he would?
Keene didn't bat an eye. "Sophie should be delighted to have a guest."
Victor wasn't so sure.
Keene turned to him with a look as sharp as shards of glass. "We shall have to fetch her trunk from the . . . post inn."
"You let your wife come in on the stage?"
"I don't think let had much to do with it," said Victor.
Amelia glanced back and forth between the two men and then ducked her head in the ultimate gesture of humbleness. And why not, thought Victor. She had achieved everything she wanted, hadn't she?
* * *
Sophie rubbed her stomach where it had rested across Keene's shoulder on the trip up the stairs. Not that it hurt, just tingled.
The silent maid held Keene's dressing gown. Sophie slid her arms into the sleeves.
The back of her legs where his hand had rested tingled, too. All of it was for naught. He'd left the room quickly, but not so quickly he hadn't managed to say he was sending her back to the country as soon as possible. He didn't want her here in his home.
That suited her just fine. She wanted nothing more than to leave behind her husband's smoldering looks that led to insubstantial ashes of nothing. She would go back to his father's house with all her fine new clothes and impress the cattle. She'd done what she'd set out to do, see London. So why did she feel so unhappy?
No time to stew, she thought. The play had been fun until Algany got out of hand. But she needed to leave. Now that she was married and capable of moving about with a little independence, she wouldn't stay where she wasn't welcome.
The first order of business was to find clothing to wear. She wouldn't be held back by Keene's refusal to return her dress. Her decision made, she was impatient to be on her way.
"I need a pair of scissors, a needle, and a spool of white thread, pins, lots of pins. And a ribbon, preferably red," she said to the maid. She dropped the dressing gown on the floor.
The girl bobbed a lopsided curtsy and nearly stumbled into the door.
Sophie ripped back the covers on the bed where she'd spent a long, lonely night, and wrestled the sheet from the mattress.
A short time later a knock on the door startled her. Was the maid back already? "Enter."
Keene stepped into the room, took one look at her and his step faltered. "What are you doing?"
"Amusing myself."
He took a look at the pile of brocade and silk on the floor and back at her. Leaning against the door his eyes traveled over her scantily clad form. "You object to my dressing gown?"
"Not if you're wearing it."
He picked it up and held it out to her. "Humor me."
She snorted and crossed the room to retrieve it from his grasp. His nostrils flared and his eyes glittered as she drew close, but she didn't miss his fully extended arm and the way he pressed back against the door as if she had some dreadfully contagious disease.
"Sit down, Sophie."
"Shouldn't you be downstairs with your guests?"
Keene ru
bbed a hand across his face. "Devil take it, yes. But we need to talk."
"I can't see that there is any need."
"Put the dressing gown on and sit down, Sophie."
"I'm not a leper, you know. I assure you I shan't infect you with my nature. It is not contagious."
The knave grinned. "I assure you, that is the least of my concerns. Now, sit, before I have to force you."
"You could at least ask." She flounced toward the bed and perched on the edge of it.
He winced as if she had not followed his directions as he liked. "Please, Sophie, drape my dressing gown around you."
He had at least tacked please onto this command, so she complied, leaning forward and stuffing her arms into the sleeves. Keene closed his eyes and set his jaw.
Sophie sighed. Talk must be Keene's word for a lecture. She supposed one's father's strictures were simply preparation for the rebukes of a husband. Impatient to be done, she turned to the window and stared out at the gray London sky.
"Why did you come to London?"
It was an odd way to start a lecture. She turned her attention back to her husband. In many ways he felt more like her cousin than a husband . . . except for the few kisses they'd shared. Heat crept up her chest. Her dreams of impressing him with stunning gowns and winning his heart were too raw to share.
He remained silent while her hopes for a loving marriage collided with his determination to send her back to the country.
"I needed new clothes," she finally answered.
"Whatever for?"
To make you notice me, want me, love me. She shifted her eyes away, all too aware of the heat in her face. "For my trousseau. Mama gave me money to buy what I needed in London. You are very fashionable, and I thought you would want me to be so, too."
Keene folded his arms across his chest, his dark gaze spearing her. "What did attending the theater have to do with furnishing your wardrobe?"
"I just thought it should be fun."
"Why would you choose to attend in the company of one of the most notorious rakehells in London? A man known to ruin women for the sheer joy of it."
Each word he added stabbed her. "I thought since Sir Gresham introduced me to him and would be there, it would be acceptable. I didn't ever plan to be alone with either of them."
"Not with Gresham, either?"
She shook her head.
"You're lying."
Had he thought she was seeking a lover? Was that why he was so angry with her?
She wouldn't even know the first thing about how to seek a lover. Besides she wanted him to continue her education in that regard, not some stranger. She shivered. "I thought it was a respectable event. I thought that with two gentlemen in the party it was perfectly proper. I thought Victor wouldn't take me alone because that wasn't all right, but with two . . ."