“You knew all along, didn’t you? How my father died, that is, how Constance Winstead died. It was you who fed her the lie about a carriage accident. I can understand why you did it, at first, for she was still little more than a child three years ago. But when she started talking about a Season? Why didn’t you tell her the truth then?” he asked, wheeling to face the maid.
The maid? Oh, no. Oh no, no, no. A talented courtesan. A woman who enjoyed men—knew how to use them, how to manipulate them, how to dazzle them, all while not respecting them any more than she would a dog bringing her a freshly killed pheasant. She was all of this. But never a maid. “How could you have let her come here,” he ended bitterly, “let her dream of a debut, a marriage?”
“You seem to have trouble saying her name, but we speak now of Sophie, oui? You speak of debuts, of marriage. She doesn’t deserve either? Is that what you’re saying, monseigneur, even as you agreed to sponsor her? I confess, I had hoped for more from you.”
“Hell and damnation.” Bramwell groaned, pushing his fingers through his hair, totally disrupting all of Reese’s good work. “Of course she deserves a Season. She wasn’t the one scandalizing all of England. But sometimes, regrettable and unjust as it is, the sins of the mother—”
“And the father, monseigneur?” Desiree interrupted archly.
“Yes, and the father,” Bramwell went on, then stopped, unable to finish whatever in blazes he had been trying to say. He was sure it had something to do with a quiet debut in Bath or somewhere, a small round of even smaller parties, a mere brush with the fringes of Society, and then a marriage, if possible, or a retreat back to Wimbledon and a future spent raising cats or some such nonsense.
But was that what he had done? No, it was not. He had marched straight into Society the moment the mandatory mourning period had expired, his title to protect him, his own consequence to buoy him, and dared anyone to snicker, to giggle behind a fan, to embarrass him with innuendo or snide jokes.
But he had a title. He was a man. He was not without defenses.
Sophie had nothing. Nothing but her innocence, her grand love of life, her dreams of a Season that had been fostered by her mother, encouraged by her maid. She had just that, and her sincere belief in her ability to dazzle.
And now, thanks to the threat of exposure by the ton gossips, she also had the whole truth, which had been nearly enough to crush him when he’d heard it.
“How is she?” Bramwell asked, subsiding once more against the high stool.
“Then you do care, monseigneur? At least, as much as any man can care? I had thought as much, hoped as much, which is why I am here.” Desiree sat down in the chair Bramwell had vacated, lifting one foot onto her other knee, rubbing at a sore instep.
“But, then,” she went on brightly, “how could you help it? She is a lovable scrap, my small Sophie. I raised her, you know. Oh, Constance loved her, loved her dearly. But, from the time she was a small child, it was I who raised her, monseigneur. Ah, but you asked how she is, how she feels after you told her what she needed to know. She wept, of course. Wept for nearly half the night, as if her tender heart would break, until she at last fell asleep in my arms. But she will weather this latest storm, as she has weathered all the others. However, as I saw it then, and as I see it now, monseigneur, it would be easier, oui, if she had help?”
“Meaning me, I imagine. Which, if I might hazard another guess, is also why you’re here now, scandalizing my valet,” Bramwell said, longing to kill anyone who could make the sunny, smiling Sophie cry, even himself. “You’ve been counting on me since the beginning, haven’t you? Since the thought of Sophie having a Season first occurred to you. Otherwise, you would never have allowed her to come within ten miles of me, not if you could help it. Am I correct?”
Desiree’s smile was brilliant, turning her, for an instant, into the girl she had been. “Perhaps smarter than your father, oui? I do not much like men, monseigneur. I have enjoyed them, I’ll not lie and say I have not. You men are amusing, at least for a space. And women, too, have appetites. But I am no fool, monseigneur. Men use and discard. This I have always remembered. Ah, but Constance? Mon Dieu, how she could never see this, and how she did love them! How blind she was to their faults, their failings. Sophie is a little of both of us, monseigneur. A hard head, but still, alas, with the soft heart. And, for me, much too high an opinion of her fellow creatures. But you won’t hurt her, I begin to hope. I begin to hope for many things, which proves me a female with a foolish, wishful heart after all, no matter how hard I try to be like you men. That, perhaps, or I grow old and foolish. You said the oncles were coming today, oui?”
“Yes, they are. And this worries you? Why?” Bramwell looked at Desiree closely, trying to penetrate the woman’s speech, see into her mind. The more he learned about Desiree, he felt sure, the more he would understand Sophie. “Are you thinking they might try to hurt her?”
“Think, monseigneur. Men use and discard. It has always been so. And they don’t like looking behind them, to see if their discards still follow, if you take my meaning. Upchurch? He is simple enough, a fool of a man. The other two worry me, monseigneur. If you care at all for my Sophie, as I’ve begun to think you do, they should perhaps worry you a little as well.”
She stood, walked to the door, then turned to him, one hand resting on the latch. “So this, monseigneur, is why I came to visit today. To warn you of the oncles, oui. For that, and to see for myself this gentleman who has made my Sophie so happy, so sad. You are a formidable enemy to all of my teachings, I believe. I have told Sophie no man knows how to love, but only how to want. It would please me very much, monseigneur, if you were to prove me wrong. Bon jour. You may call the rabbit back now, for I am gone.”
But Bramwell didn’t call Reese back into the dressing room. Instead, he sat on the chair in the corner for a long time, thinking, wrestling with his thoughts.
The French mentor-cum-maid, Bramwell decided a few hours later, had been worrying for nothing. Watching Sophie with her oncles was rather like watching a farce in which only one of the characters knew her lines, with the others forced to look hopefully to each other for clues as to what to do, what to say next.
They had come bearing presents, as all good uncles should, and Sophie, showing no outward signs of her unhappy night, had responded with oohs and aahs, tearing into each package like a favorite niece on Christmas morning. She held up ivory-sticked fans and silver-filigree nosegay holders and lace-edged handkerchiefs, then bestowed kisses on each of her uncles’ cheeks—all while keeping up a running monologue on how handsome the uncles were, how well she remembered them, how none of them had changed a bit. Not a bit.
Giuseppe had been paraded front and center, tipping his hat, then reaching into Lord Upchurch’s waistcoat pocket to find the sugary treat waiting for him there, just as if it hadn’t been a few more than a half dozen years since last the two had met. “He remembers me!” His Lordship had shouted, beaming, and then frowned in almost comical apprehension. “You don’t take him into society, do you, Sophie, child? I don’t think that would be good, you know.”
Ignatius had also been presented, the paisley shawl lifted from the cage so that the bird blinked itself awake, protested at being disturbed, then surveyed the company. When the parrot’s eyes lit on Sir Tyler, it said, in a near-perfect imitation of the man’s voice: “Demned coachie! Squawk! Quick! My flask! Secrets to tell! Squawk! Squawk! Demned coachie! Secrets to sell! Quick, my flask! Squawk!”
“Now that’s funny. Sounds just like you, you know,” Lord Upchurch commented, looking to Sir Tyler.
“Demned bird!” Sir Tyler had returned quickly, hotly, nearly squawking himself before he manfully calmed himself, laughed. “As if Constance would ever tell anyone about us. What say you, Buxley? Would our Constance ever do that?”
Lord Buxley vehemently shook his head. “Sell our secrets? Not Connie. Had more than enough money to go on with. Some of it ours, too. A good bit of
it ours, now that I think on it. Money, land, trinkets. But all of it given freely,” he ended, looking to Bramwell.
“I’m sure it was,” Bramwell answered, wondering how much of the Selbourne fortune now resided in Constance Winstead’s daughter’s pockets, and finding that he didn’t begrudge her a penny of it.
And then Sophie was off again, gently teasing her uncles with remembered stories of their visits to Wimbledon and the fun they’d all had in their turn, leaving Bramwell to consider what he’d heard. Sir Tyler hadn’t looked pleased to hear the parrot mimicking him. Lord Buxley had perhaps protested too much about the unimportance of the money that had changed hands with the woman who had also changed important, prominent bed partners so many times.
Did they see Sophie as just the young girl they recalled from their visits to Wimbledon? Or did they look at the daughter and remember the mother? Did they dread exposure as Constance Winstead’s previous paramours? Did they worry that Constance had whispered secrets to her daughter, tales of incidents, of failings, of foibles, that they feared she might use as a lever against them someday? And, furthermore, did Sir Tyler have to keep staring at Sophie, his expression caught somewhere between avuncular sympathy and an admiring leer?
“Selbourne here giving you a ball, Sophie?” Lord Upchurch asked, the sound of his own name snapping Bramwell back to attention. “You should have one, you know. Or a small party, at the very least. Balls are expensive. All that bunting looped to the rafters, you know, and candles, and musicians, and extra servants. M’wife near but broke me, popping off our daughters, you know.” He looked to his two companions. “Maybe if we all anted up?”
“Dickie, you’ve the brains of a flea,” Lord Buxley snapped, giving the man a swift backhanded slap across the top of the head. “Why not just hire a crier to go around the city, telling all the world and his wife—all the world and our wives—we had our turns riding Connie to hounds?”
“Discretion, Willy, remember? Discretion,” Sir Tyler whispered, but loudly enough for Bramwell to hear.
“Oh, my goodness!” Sophie cried out, her hands flying to her quite attractively burning cheeks as she looked to her uncles in turn. “You’re embarrassed, aren’t you? Poor uncles! How could I not have seen it? You’ve been so kind, so very kind. But I’m an embarrassment to you, yes? Perhaps you’re even afraid of me, of what I might say if I were to meet your wives? Oh, you poor, sweet dears!”
She hopped to her feet, beginning to pace the carpet, her winsome brown eyes bright with sympathy and unshed tears, her tumbling curls and rather childish pink gown—had it been a deliberate choice? Of course it had—making her look so young, so beautiful, so defenseless. So—well, so not very intelligent, or sharp, or in the least bit venal.
Bramwell had been ready to defend her, protect her—toss the uncles out on their collective rumps if they so much as hinted at an insult. But now he sat back, crossed one leg over the other, and contented himself in watching a master work.
“You are all frightened of me, yes?” Sophie went on, wringing her hands as she sat down again with a small thump, as if collapsing in despair of being so badly thought of, so misjudged by her beloved uncles. “You think I might mean to harm you, to embarrass you. My own beloved Uncle Dickie, Uncle Willy, Uncle Tye.” A single tear slid down her cheek, caressing its perfection, making even the knowing Bramwell feel an absolute, unmitigated cad, just because he was one of the world’s most lowly creatures, a man.
She spread her hands, giving an eloquently apologetic shrug. “But what can I say? What can I do? How can I convince you that I mean no harm? It’s not possible. I must leave London, yes? I must give up any hope of a Season, of a marriage, of—of children of my own.” She lifted her chin; brave, resolute, the perfect martyr, even as her bottom lip wobbled heartbreakingly. “And so I shall! For you, for my beloved uncles!”
Bramwell fought the urge to applaud. What a daring, masterful game of cards the girl played. She’d called them, called them all, and he was willing to wager they’d all fold. He looked to Lord Upchurch, sure he would be the first to go down to defeat.
Lord Upchurch pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and knelt in front of Sophie, offering it to her even as he glared at Buxley and Sir Tyler, the fire of fatherly protection blazing in his eyes. “Are you happy now, gentlemen, eh? Pleased with yourselves? Just see what you’ve done!”
As Lord Buxley ran a finger around his collar, looking ready to bolt at this display of feminine tears and maidenly sacrifice, Lord Upchurch took up Sophie’s hand, awkwardly patting it. “There, there, sweet little Sophie. Don’t cry. You’re not going anywhere. Is she?” he said warningly, shooting his companions another dark look.
Lord Buxley found his tongue, and his feet, standing up quickly as he concurred with Lord Upchurch. “It’s like I said all along. A fox can’t help being a fox. Ain’t the chit’s fault,” he said, glaring at Sir Tyler Shipley.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Sir Tyler purred smoothly, smiling at Bramwell. “The child’s overset, and rightly so. Perhaps she’s right, to a point. We are worried that she might say something—in all innocence, of course—that could, um, get us into some trouble at home, as it were. That is what brought us together, brought us here, am I right? But surely, as I now feel, we have nothing to fear from dearest little Sophie. Her mother was always discreet—until Selbourne, of course,” he added, looking at Bramwell, his expression one of pity, so that Bramwell longed to punch him. “Have your Season Sophie. I think we can leave here today secure in the knowledge that we’re safe, that our secrets are safe.”
“Oh, Uncle Tye, thank you!” Sophie exclaimed, jumping up to kiss his cheek, then Buxley’s, before throwing herself into Lord Upchurch’s arms. “I’m so happy now! You are all just as I remember you! And I’ll make you proud of me, you’ll see. I’d never do anything to hurt my dearest uncles, yes?”
Bramwell sighed. It was a dazzling performance. Simply dazzling.
Sophie felt the welcome warmth on her cheeks as the sun at last broke through the clouds of a gray London afternoon. Delighted to have the excuse, she immediately opened her parasol, pressing its gilded stem against her right shoulder as she tilted it coquettishly above her head. Twirling the thing lazily, so that the tassels tied to the spines were set to dancing, she smiled at the duke of Selbourne, awaiting his compliment on her fine choice.
Not that this was her only parasol. Oh, no. She had a dozen of the things—or perhaps two dozen. She couldn’t recall. She only knew that she had bullied Lady Gwendolyn into having a very nice young man come to Portland Square with a selection of the things for the pair of them, then fairly well told him to leave them all, as she and Lady Gwendolyn couldn’t possibly pick and choose among so many pretty contraptions.
“I’m beginning to know how to interpret those smiles of yours, you know, Sophie. And you’d like nothing more at the moment than to beat me into flinders with that thing. Not that you ever become angry, right?” Bramwell asked, indicating the parasol.
So much for compliments. Well, she’d try again. Sophie popped her quizzing glass out of the parasol handle on a hidden hinge, then held it to her eye, looking at him in genteel surprise. “Me? Beat at you? Don’t be ridiculous, Bramwell. I’m quite in charity with you, as a matter of fact. It was above all things considerate of you to invite me for this lovely drive in the Park. Even if you haven’t spoken above two words to me in the past quarter hour.”
“Oh, yes,” he said, shaking his head and smiling as she replaced the quizzing glass. “Beat me, pour hot oil down over my head, plaster me with chicken feathers, and then have me rolled out of town and into the nearest deep pit. In fact, if you were being any more pleasant to me, Sophie, I’d say you might just be planning to murder me. Which is why, even though I definitely wanted to speak with you privately after your visit with the gentlemen yesterday, I decided to do so in this very public place. Being, at heart, a prudent man, I considered it safer.”
Sophie tu
rned to her right, the parasol moving along with her, pretending to look at a passing curricle in order to hide her pain. Because Bramwell was right. She did want to murder him. Murder everyone in London. Everyone who had known what she had not. Everyone who had snickered, and giggled, and made horrible, snide jokes about the circumstances surrounding her mother’s death.
In fact, it had taken everything that was in her yesterday, employing all her lessons learned over the years from Desiree in the art of concealing how she really felt, what she really thought, that had gotten her through that ridiculous interlude with the uncles. Having Bramwell there as well, as if guarding her from those three clearly selfish and frightened old men, had only heaped insult on her emotional injuries.
Because they knew. They all knew. Her uncles, Bramwell, the whole condemning world. Her mother had fallen to her death in the midst of a romantic liaison. unclothed. Lying on the ground, her limbs entwined with the equally exposed eighth duke of Selbourne. What a sight they must have made! Poor Maman, poor Uncle Cesse!
Poor Sophie…
She squeezed her eyes shut. Yes, that was it. Poor Sophie. She didn’t really feel all that sorry for her mother and the late duke. They had lived well, they had died unfortunately—but probably had been greatly happy until their second to last moment. She had already mourned their passing, mourned it deeply. In the three years since their deaths, she slowly had come to grips with those deaths, and begun to think of her mother and the duke with affection, with the fondness of wonderful memories, happy memories.
Now she was stinging with her own pain, her own embarrassment. That was the reason she had spent most of the night crying into Desiree’s plump bosom, at least half of last night pacing her floor, unable to sleep. And she loathed herself for feeling this way, was so deeply ashamed. It was as if she, like the rest of the world, like this man sitting up beside her, was now condemning those two reckless, beautiful people.
The Straight-Laced Duke Selbourne Page 17