by Laurel McKee
“Excusez, madame,” a couple said as they brushed past her into the store. She stepped back out of their way, and suddenly caught a glimpse of a man’s reflection in the window. He was watching her intently with a half-smile on his lips.
A smile she knew all too well now. Dominic St. Claire.
“Considering new employment, Sophia?” he said. “Or do you just have a sweet tooth today?”
Sophia was caught between anger and the desire to laugh. He always seemed to catch her in her most off-guard moments. “Both, I suppose,” she answered. She turned to him with a polite smile, hoping she could maintain her facade with him today. “Who doesn’t like chocolate?”
“I am not so fond of it, I confess, but my sister Isabel loves it,” he said. “I thought I might fetch her a little treat today.”
“Don’t let me keep you then,” Sophia said quickly.
“There is no hurry. If you intend to apply for another position, you may need assistance.”
Sophia shook her head. “I don’t think I will be making any inquiries today.”
“Then maybe you would do me the honor of walking with me for a while? It’s a very fine day.”
It was a fine day, sunny and warm, the streets crowded with people enjoying themselves. Sophia was even tempted to go with him, too much so. She knew she shouldn’t be with him, that he was too dangerous for a woman’s good sense, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.
“Why?” she asked with a teasing smile. “To warn me away from your brother again? Or perhaps to try to buy the old diary—which still is not for sale.”
Dominic threw back his head and laughed. The sunlight caught on his bright hair, and several passing ladies faltered in their steps to watch him.
“No more, Mrs. Westman,” he said. “I think we understand each other on those scores now.”
“Indeed we do.”
“Then let me make amends for my behavior. Let me buy you a cup of tea in that café over there. I think we do still have things to talk about.”
Sophia glanced over at the café. It looked crowded, noisy, and affable, not a place where much trouble could happen. It was such a lovely afternoon, just begging to be wasted away at a café with a handsome man. And if she was to be honest with herself, she had to admit she wanted to know more about Dominic.
“Very well, one cup of tea,” she said. He gave her a brilliant smile and led her to the tables arrayed outside, where they found a quiet spot in the shade of a red awning. Dominic summoned a pretty waitress with one flashing smile, and she seemed to spend an inordinate time giggling at him until she brought the tea.
“So why do you want to work in a chocolate shop?” Dominic asked when the waitress sashayed away. “Do you enjoy working so much?”
Sophia slowly removed her gloves before she answered. “I would enjoy working at something, I think. But my experience of the culinary arts is rather… limited, I confess.”
Dominic laughed. “I would never have guessed,” he said.
Sophia smiled and studied him closely for any sign that she was boring him, but he watched her closely, attentively. “But when I was a child I would often sneak down to the kitchens, where our cook would give me treats. She taught me how to make a cup of chocolate by careful stirring and measuring, and—well, it sounds odd, but those were some of my happiest moments. The smell of the chocolate, the warmth, the patient attention of the cook, who never belittled my efforts even when I spilled or burned the chocolate.”
“A duke’s niece taking refuge in the kitchen?”
“Yes, exactly. Those days ended when my mother found out what was happening and forbade me to go to the kitchens,” Sophia said. She still felt a pang of that old disappointment. “I still make a very fine cup of chocolate though.”
Dominic laughed, and somehow she sensed he was in a lighthearted mood today. Usually, even though he smiled and was charming, there was some sort of cloudy watchfulness behind his eyes. Maybe his play was going very well.
Then she noticed the waitress smiling at him through the window, her pretty dimples flashing. Maybe his good mood was due to something else entirely.
Sophia stirred slowly at her tea, not looking up at him.
“I’m surprised you wanted to spend so much time in the kitchens,” he said teasingly. “Aren’t duke’s nieces usually tied up in ribbons and lace in the drawing room?”
Sophia had to laugh. If only he knew how true those words were. “Something like that. But I was always interested in talking to people, all sorts of people. Finding out about their lives. I couldn’t always do that trussed up like a porcelain doll by my family.”
“You like to build characters in your mind,” he said.
Sophia peeked up at him from beneath her hat brim. “Yes,” she said. “Exactly. I liked making pictures of their days in my imagination. What they did, what they thought. Like a play, I suppose.”
“People are endlessly fascinating, I agree,” Dominic said. “And the theater is like life amplified, explained. Have you ever thought of becoming an actress?”
Sophia was startled. “I—no, never. An actress?”
“You said you were looking for work. The milliner, the chocolate shop. Why not a theater?”
Sophia could feel herself blushing. He, Dominic St. Claire, thought she could be an actress? For one wild moment she let herself imagine it. “I am so flattered you think so, but I’ve only done some amateur theatricals at family house parties. I’ve never learned how to really act.”
Dominic shrugged. “There are things you can be taught, like projecting your voice and movement. But some things can’t be taught. Natural interest and insight into people, for one. Presence is another. You must know how beautiful you are.”
Sophia laughed. She could feel her blush deepening, turning hotter as it spread across her cheeks. “You are too kind.”
“Not at all. I’m always honest about the theater. You should try acting.”
“I think I would enjoy that, but…”
“But what?”
“But I am sure my family would not like that, if I am ever to be reconciled to them.” Even as Sophia said the words, she could see that her hopes of returning to the security of the Huntingtons seemed further away than ever. “All my attempts at respectability seem to fail!”
Dominic leaned back lazily in his chair. “Respectability is overrated, I think,” he said. “Yet you wish to go back to your family?”
Sophia shrugged and took a sip of her tea. “It seems like the right thing to do at this point in my life. Even black sheep must settle down eventually. I have surely caused them enough trouble.”
“Have you indeed?” Dominic said quietly. He was silent for a long moment, as the laughter of the other patrons flowed around them. He studied her closely until she feared she would start to fidget, and then suddenly he smiled again. “How very interesting you are, Sophia Westman.”
“Not as interesting as you, I think,” she said. “Tell me more about your play.”
Dominic nodded and followed her lead in the change in subject. But even as they chatted lightly about the theater, she couldn’t shake the sense that something between them had changed.
Sophia Westman really was a great beauty, Dominic thought as he watched her laughing in the sunlight. Her black hair, coiled neatly beneath her hat, gleamed like rare ebony, and her pale skin was touched with rose-pink over her high, sculpted cheekbones. He had never seen eyes quite the color of hers before, almost like the sugared violets in a patisserie window.
Even as she tried to hide under her drab, dark clothes, that beauty showed through. He hadn’t lied to her. If she could recite a line with any conviction at all, she would be a sensation on the stage.
And if her being an acclaimed actress shocked her family, all the better. A woman like her should shun convention, shun anyone who tried to stifle her.
Surely she had once thought that, too, or she wouldn’t have eloped with Westman. But she want
ed to return to her family now.
His mind often seemed to work like the plot of a play, and now one was forming in his imagination as he watched Sophia smile at him. The beautiful, disgraced daughter of an ancient family, thrown out onto a cold world. All her efforts at reconciliation rebuffed, until her heart hardened toward them and she threw herself into a life of scandal.
Or perhaps a future life on the stage? With a notorious family like the St. Claires? Perhaps even as his mistress? How the Huntingtons would hate that.
Chapter Twelve
Sophia rubbed her hand over her eyes and stared down at the column of numbers in the account book. Surely they had not moved, but they seemed to swim in front of her. Her skill at bookkeeping obviously had not improved, but after her failed attempt at finding other employment she needed to find a way to earn her keep. She kept remembering Dominic’s words, that she could be an actress, and she was intrigued by them. She had always loved the theater. But how her family would hate that.
After she returned from the café, Sophia had reluctantly gone along with Camille and her friends to a new restaurant. She hadn’t been in the mood for champagne and oysters, but after all that had happened that day, she hadn’t wanted to be alone. Thinking too much was obviously not good for her. Among that noisy, convivial company, she had begun to forget.
And neither was too much champagne good for her. Sophia reached for her glass of soda water and took a long sip, yet it didn’t seem to help much. The numbers still persisted in wriggling around on the page.
Suddenly there was a knock at the office door. “Yes?” Sophia called, glad of the distraction.
Makepeace, the English butler, stepped into the room. Sophia wasn’t sure where Camille had found him, but he was the perfect major-domo for an exclusive gaming club. Quiet, watchful, and unfailingly discreet. He saw everything and revealed nothing, including his own thoughts.
Sophia wished she could be more like him.
“You have a visitor, Madame Westman,” Makepeace said. “In the salon.”
“A visitor? At this time of day?” Sophia said. So early in the afternoon, everyone she knew was either still sequestered in their chambers, as Camille was, or out buying flowers to apologize for whatever had happened the night before. They were seldom out paying calls.
Perhaps it was Dominic? Sophia’s heart beat a little faster at the thought even as she told herself she was being ridiculous. She had just seen him yesterday at the café; he wouldn’t be calling on her now.
“She won’t give her card, or even a name,” Makepeace said with a sniff at such a breach of etiquette. “But she was rather insistent that she must see you.”
A woman. Not Dominic after all—of course. Whoever it was, Sophia had to see her off quickly and then try to get back to the accounts. Perhaps it would be something interesting to break up the quiet day and distract her.
“Thank you, Makepeace. I will be down in a moment.” As the butler bowed and left, Sophia quickly smoothed her hair and snatched up a shawl to wrap around her shoulders. The day had grown chilly, and no fires were lit.
With the club closed and all the merrymakers gone, the old rooms were silent and cold. The main salon seemed cavernous and echoing, almost ghostly in the faint light that streamed from the one uncurtained window. A woman in a short, jet-beaded black velvet cape and a veiled bonnet sat on a sofa at the far end of the room with her back to the door, and she was so very still she could have been a ghost herself. Sophia saw that the butler, ever efficient, had left a tea tray on a table, but the woman hadn’t touched it.
Oh, dear, Sophia thought. She hoped this was not some disgruntled wife whose husband had lost too much at the faro tables or flirted too obviously with one of the pretty dealers. Whatever it was, surely it was best to deal with it quickly. Sophia pasted on her brightest, most charming smile despite her aching head and hurried across the room. “I am so sorry to keep you waiting, madame. How may I help you?”
The woman slowly turned around. The heavy veil was tucked back to frame a pale, perfect oval face and silvery-blonde curls. Sophia froze in her tracks. It was her cousin Elizabeth.
“Hello, Sophia. It’s good to see you again,” Elizabeth answered as she rose to her feet. The rustle of her silk gown seemed inordinately loud in the silent room. A tentative smile touched her lips, and for an instant, Sophia glimpsed the Elizabeth she had known long ago.
When they were girls, Elizabeth had been sweet and a little shy, a beautiful example for Sophia’s parents to hold up as model behavior for a Huntington female—a model Sophia, with her wildness, simply couldn’t follow. But there had been a hidden streak of mischief to Elizabeth as well, and a wonderful silvery bell of a laugh that made everyone want to laugh with her. Elizabeth, Sophia, and their cousin Aidan had come up with many ridiculous larks during stuffy family holidays.
Then, when Elizabeth was only eighteen and Sophia sixteen, all that had ended. Elizabeth suddenly vanished for several weeks and then was quickly married to Lord Severn, a man decades her senior. She had appeared at the ducal estate for family occasions again, but the laughter was gone. Elizabeth had become silent and vague, as if she was off in her own little world where no one could follow.
Sophia hadn’t seen Elizabeth since before she married Jack, though she had heard that Lord Severn had died. Now here Elizabeth was, in Paris, sitting in Sophia’s own salon. Her blue eyes were bright as a summer sky, with flashes of the old Elizabeth.
But her smile slowly faded when Sophia couldn’t move. She felt frozen and awkward with surprise.
“Cousin Elizabeth,” she finally managed to say. “What a surprise.”
“Yes, I suppose it must be,” Elizabeth answered. “I didn’t know you were in Paris until I saw you at the theater last night. You are looking well.”
“So are you,” Sophia said truthfully. Elizabeth had always been beautiful, but now she had lost that doll-like stillness. It reminded Sophia of the days when they were girls together, of times with her family when it hadn’t been all battles or frosty silences. She had no idea what she should feel in that moment, as she stood there looking at the only member of her family she had seen in months. Part of her longed to rush forward and hug Elizabeth. Yet part of her wanted to turn and run, to deny that she was a Huntington.
“I heard about Lord Severn,” Sophia said. “I am sorry.”
Elizabeth nodded. “It was mercifully quick, at least. I’m also sorry about Captain Westman. You hadn’t been married very long.”
“No. Not long.”
“Yet you must have loved him a great deal, to be brave enough to do what you did.”
Sophia wasn’t sure what to say to that. Love Jack? Once she had thought she loved him, that he would rescue her from her family and from herself. Instead he had taught her only that she had to rely on herself alone.
“Yes,” she said simply. “How—how is everyone? I have heard from no one but Aidan in a long while.”
Elizabeth smiled, and her beautiful face became transcendent, like a sunbeam. “Ah, yes, Aidan. He is disgustingly happy, writing his plays and living with his new wife, as he deserves to be, even though he is quite ostracized by the family. And everyone else is much the same. Edward is engaged to be married any day now.”
“Edward is engaged?” Sophia said. She could hardly be surprised. After a series of youthful peccadilloes, her brother had learned to toe the family line. He had always ended up doing what was expected of a Huntington, outwardly anyway.
“Yes, to the daughter of one of your father’s neighbors. Our uncle the duke is quite happy about it.”
Sophia nodded. So, since her brother was properly engaged and the two black sheep, Sophia and Aidan, were in exile and out of sight, all was well in the Huntington world again. But what had brought Elizabeth here? “Why are you in Paris, Elizabeth?”
There was a tiny flicker of unease in Elizabeth’s eyes. “I thought a little holiday might help me get some things in order.”
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In order? As far as Sophia knew, nothing in Elizabeth’s calm life had ever been in the slightest bit disordered. “What sort of things?”
Elizabeth shrugged. “I’m just learning to manage widowhood, I suppose. I have never had to be on my own before. And Paris seemed like the best place to do that. I was glad to see you were here. You seem to be doing well with your—your business ventures.” She gestured around the room at the card tables and roulette wheels. “So very exciting.”
“It’s a living,” Sophia answered. She reached for the tea tray for something to do and carefully poured out two cups.
“I envy you,” Elizabeth said, drawing off her kid gloves. As she took the cup from Sophia, the dim light caught on her large diamond wedding ring—and on a long scar that bisected the back of her hand.
It was something Sophia had never seen before, that stark pink flaw on her cousin’s perfect skin, and it startled her. But Elizabeth was sipping at her tea as if nothing was amiss at all. “Why should you envy me?” Sophia murmured. “You were always the perfect one, the one who knew exactly what to do and how to behave.” Who was content with her life, while Sophia was always leaping before she looked.
Elizabeth gave a bitter little laugh. “I am only a good actress. I have had to be. But you, Sophia—you know yourself. You stand up for what you want.” She studied the room over the edge of the china cup, an unreadable expression on her face. “You are free.”
Sophia hardly knew what to say in the silence that hung between them after those strange words. “Anyone could do what I did.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “No. A coward like me could never run away like that. Whenever I try to be free, it ends up in something very bad. I am trapped where I was born.”
“Is your life so very terrible, Elizabeth?” Sophia asked quietly, concerned. “What has happened?”
“My life is not bad at all. Especially now,” Elizabeth said with another sudden, sunny smile. “It is the strangest thing, Sophia. I had a letter from your mother only a few days ago.”