by Jo Manning
“Where did you ever learn to—” Sophia’s face flushed, and she could feel the heat traveling south in a great, flooding pool of warmth. In a calmer tone, she said, “You have deceived me, sir. I thought you an innocent in the ways of physical love between man and woman!”
“Do I displease you, my lady?” Charles raised his head, his hair tumbling over his forehead, his lips quirking with pent-up smiles. His gray eyes shone with mirth.
“Hardly, sir, but that is not the point!” She waggled her finger at him and he—the wretch! Sophia thought— playfully bit the tender pink tip. She winced in mock pain. “I fear that there is more to you, sir, than meets the eye.”
“Yes, I think you will soon discover that.”
“You rogue! Where did you go on your Grand Tour?”
“Italy, Greece…Turkey,” Charles answered.
“And what did you there, in Turkey, sir?”
“I had many interesting adventures, my lady, among them the opportunity to speak with an elderly man, a eunuch, if I recall, who served many years in the caliph’s harem. But surely we have more important things to do now than to discuss my scholarly interviews in the mysterious east?”
“It is a good thing we are to be wed very, very soon, Charles, for I fear you will ruin me tonight, ruin me utterly and entirely.” Sophia sweetly chastised her lover as her eyes devoured his face, her fingers tracing his soft mouth.
“Ah, my lady,” Charles laughed, “from your sweet lips to God’s own ears!”
Sophia’s voice was muffled as Charles laid her gently back upon the carpet. “And do stop ‘my-ladying’ me, you…you…”
She never finished her sentence.
Epilogue
We are all so framed, that our understandings are generally the dupes of our hearts, that is, of our passions…
—Lord Chesterfield, Letters to His Son, 1774
London, The Little Season, 1811-12
Lady Stanhope’s large drawing room favored the archaeologically inspired decor of Thomas Hope, a style drawn from classical discoveries in furniture, sculpture, and painting during the many excavations of the last two decades. The Etruscans, Romans, Greeks, Turks, Egyptians—all these served to influence Hope’s eccentric ideas of decoration. Sir Isaac Rebow winced at one of the more atrocious of the man’s designs, a candelabrum composed of a lotus flower emerging from an enormous bouquet of ostrich feathers.
Equally hideous was a wine cooler shaped like a lavacrum, an antique Roman bath, which stood on a triangular pedestal of green bronze. Overhead, a massive chandelier of gilt bronze sported large-winged sphinxes and fanciful, exotic plant forms spewing wild, feathery fronds. Rebow shuddered at the excess; he was a conservative gentleman in all things.
“Isaac! I never thought I would see you here. What a lovely surprise!” Lady Sophia Rowley was garbed in a stunning blue high-waisted, low-cut, gown that displayed her charms, its color almost matching the warm blue of her eyes. She beamed happily at her former paramour.
Sir Isaac Rebow blinked. The very last person he had expected to see in Town during this season was his onetime lover, Sophia Rowley. No, he remembered, she was now Mrs. Charles Heywood. She had recently remarried, according to the on-dits. Number four! The woman, he vowed, would set a record rivaling that of the Wife of Bath for the greatest number of husbands, before she departed this blessed earth. He took her hand and brushed his lips over her soft fingers.
“My dear, you are looking more beautiful than ever. Marriage seems”—his dark eyes twinkled—“to become you.” Always a beauty, with features of classical perfection, there was now something new that emanated from her. She was stunning, bright, her hair, the color of burnished moonlight, a veritable halo shining around her oval face.
“This marriage does, Isaac,” she replied, her voice low. She blushed, the color staining her cheeks pink, emphasizing the perfectly angled bones.
Now Isaac’s eyes were wide open. Never during their long liaison had he seen Sophia blush! He observed her more carefully. She had changed from the inside out, he decided. The brittleness that had always been part of her persona had disappeared. She was warmth and happiness. This Sophia was truly mellowed, softened.…
Had the new husband been the miracle worker? Lord, she seemed at peace! Isaac had regretted the abruptness of the breakup of their relationship. He knew he’d been cruel, uncharacteristically so. In the ensuing few months of his great happiness with his new bride Mary, he had not thought of Sophia often, but when he had…Ah, but he had behaved badly toward her, and he regretted it. She had not deserved such treatment from him.
“Sophia,” he began, trying to make amends, “I regret our last meeting. I was harsh and cruel. You did not deserve that, not any of it. I beg your forgiveness.”
She seemed taken aback. “Isaac…that was so long ago, my dear.…”
Isaac frowned. “’Twas scarce five months, Sophia!”
Sophia smiled benevolently, patting his shoulder affectionately. “A lifetime, my dear.”
“You have changed,” Isaac Rebow told her, assessing her even more frankly. “You are a different person, I vow.”
“Isaac—” she hesitated. She had never been honest with her former lover. The old Sophia rarely told anyone the truth, rarely expressed her deepest feelings. “Isaac, I am in love for the first time. And I never knew before what that could be.” She wet her lips and looked into Isaac’s eyes. “I thought I loved you, my dear, but I did not. I had no idea what true love was.”
She looked across the room, fixing her gaze upon a slim, handsome gentleman with curling brown hair that he was even now running a hand through, tousling it. Sophia smiled, and Isaac further noted that the look in her eyes was one he had never seen fixed on him. Sophia, in love! Remarkable. He gazed at her in wonderment.
The young man caught her look across the wide room and returned a smile of great sweetness. Isaac took a deep breath. A love match! All was possible, he realized, all things were possible in this world.
Sophia turned back to Isaac, the smile softening the contours of her serenely beautiful face. “That gentleman with Charles sent him a tract on atheism written by a Mr. Percy Shelley, who was ejected from Cambridge rather summarily for writing it. The fellow is asking Charles his opinion on the subject, I believe, and Charles will tell him!” She laughed.
Isaac looked her up and down, his gaze lingering on her abdomen. Did he see there a slight, soft swelling?
“My dear, are you increasing?” he asked, with the familiarity of a past lover.
Sophia blushed again. “Does it show, Isaac?” she teased, looking down at herself and the contours revealed by the sheer silk gown. “And early days, too! I shall be a behemoth before long!”
Now it was Isaac’s turn to blush, but it barely showed under his tanned skin. He shook his head. “Nay, not at all, my lady, not at all! I noted it first in your features, where I saw a look I have also seen recently on the sweet face of my lady wife.”
“Oh, Isaac!” Sophia’s answering smile was wide and genuine. “Never say! Oh, I wish you and Mary happy.” It was the first time, Sophia realized, that she’d said the name of her former rival in the game of hearts aloud, acknowledging her. She truly wished her well, her and Isaac both. He deserved to be happy, and she was glad the girl had made him so.
Isaac took Sophia’s hands in his. “I am so happy for you, my dear, so very happy.” His eyes reflected the sincerity of his words. “Your husband is indeed a lucky man.” He looked over at Charles, who was still engaged in animated debate with the other gentleman.
“No, Isaac,” Sophia Heywood disagreed, her voice soft and low, “it is I who am the lucky one.”
Music swelled behind her as Lady Stanhope’s German chamber group picked up their instruments and began to play Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik with exuberance, if not skill. The charming strains flowed about and around the former lovers, who had found the true mates of their hearts and minds and had each made their
separate peace with the past.
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Jo Manning, a native New Yorker, is a graduate of Queens College and Syracuse University. She has worked as a librarian and researcher and currently lives in South Beach, Miami with her husband Nick. They are the parents of two children and grandparents of five. She is the author of My Lady Scandalous, a biography about Grace Dalrymple Elliott.
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