Two Sinful Secrets

by Laurel McKee

  “Oh, thank goodness someone else is awake!” she called. “I was going crazy with loneliness here all by myself.”

  Isabel’s friendliness dispelled Sophia’s qualms, and she smiled in return as she sat down in the other deck chair. “Surely one can’t be completely alone on a ship.”

  “Perhaps not, but it certainly feels like it,” Isabel said. “I know this is a very short voyage, but I always feel somehow sad on a sea journey. All that water and no end yet in sight—it’s terribly lonely.”

  Sophia studied the horizon beyond the polished railing. It did seem like an endless expanse of purple-black, broken by ripples of cracked moonlight on the waves.

  “It does seem rather melancholy,” Sophia agreed.

  “But not when you’re here!” Isabel said happily. “You must think me silly for my lonesome fancies. Dominic says you’ve traveled a great deal.”

  “Yes. In France and Germany mostly, a little in Italy. It seems strange to be going back to England now.”

  “Especially as a new bride, with your husband’s crazy family waiting to meet you?” Isabel said, a teasing lilt to her voice.

  Sophia laughed. “Especially under those circumstances. But if they are all like you, I’m sure I have nothing to fear.”

  “My mother is always perfectly kind and correct. You have nothing to fear from her. And James already adores you, though I think he will be terribly jealous of Dominic,” Isabel said. “My father might snap and snarl at first, but he will quickly be distracted by a new play and will forget all about you. And Brendan is still in France. So you have nothing to worry about.”

  Sophia’s head spun thinking about all the new family dynamics she would have to learn. At least it all seemed completely different from her own family. They might not “snap and snarl” but they never forgot. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “And I’m happy you’re here. I’ve missed Lily so much since she left. It will be nice to have a new sister.”

  “And I’ve never had a sister at all,” Sophia said, something warm and welcome touching her heart at Isabel’s words. “It will all be very new to me.”

  “I’m glad for Dominic, too. When poor Jane died, we feared he would never marry. One wouldn’t think it to look at him, as he is all smiles and charm, but he is really rather lonely. I’m afraid he keeps too much bottled up inside.”

  Sophia nodded. She had seen that as well, the flashes of some hidden emotion in Dominic’s eyes, quickly suppressed and hidden by his beautiful smile. She wished she knew how to bring those emotions out. “I’ll certainly do my best to make him happy.”

  “Well, if anyone can do it I’m sure it’s you. I wish I could feel like that for someone.” Isabel suddenly looked wistful.

  “Have you never had feelings for anyone?” Sophia asked softly. She well remembered what it felt like to be young, to have so many emotions swirling around in her heart that she couldn’t make sense of them. And Isabel was beautiful, passionate, an actress.

  “Perhaps once,” Isabel said softly. “But it was nothing. Just a man I saw once at an assembly. I am quite sure he didn’t even notice me, and even if he did—well, it couldn’t be. I am me, and he is someone far above an actress. A man with a great title, as I am sure you know in your family. But he was very handsome, and he seemed so different from all the silly young men I usually meet. He seemed so serious and intense.” She laughed. “I sometimes keep him in my mind when I need to pretend love onstage. Isn’t that silly?”

  “No,” Sophia answered. “That isn’t silly at all.” For hadn’t she kept Dominic in her mind all that time after their kiss at the Devil’s Fancy? It was surely no different for Isabel to harbor a dream of a man she once saw. Sophia wondered who it could be, to have caught the attention of such a remarkable young woman.

  “But I fear my babble is keeping you from your reading!” Isabel gestured toward the book in Sophia’s hand. “What is that? It looks terribly old.”

  “It is rather old, about two hundred years,” Sophia answered as she held up Mary’s diary. “It’s a journal I found on a dusty shelf in my uncle’s house years ago. I read a little bit at a time. It keeps me company when I’m feeling alone.”

  “How intriguing,” Isabel said. “I do love old books and journals. They’re like discovering characters in a play.”

  “She feels like an old friend to me now. Though I’m afraid her life was not always a happy one.”

  “Really? Who is it? What’s her story?”

  Sophia remembered how Dominic had tried to get the diary from her, how he had seemed so strangely interested in Mary’s story. She could see why, now that she had read further in the yellowed pages and seen the unfurling of a St. Claire woman’s misery caused by a Huntington man. But the St. Claires were meant to be her family now, too, and Mary’s history was also theirs.

  “It belonged to an ancestress of yours,” Sophia said. “A woman named Mary St. Claire Huntington.”

  “Mary St. Claire?” Isabel gasped. Her smile faded, her eyes wide as she looked down at the book. “That is her diary?”

  “Yes. Do you know of her?”

  Isabel gave a bitter little laugh. “I have heard of her since the day I was born. Our father drilled her story into all of us.”

  Sophia held on tighter to the book. Once, before she met Dominic, she had thought Mary was hers alone. That she was forgotten by everyone else. But now it appeared she belonged to many other people. And that they used her story for reasons of their own.

  “What story were you told?” Sophia asked quietly.

  “That long ago, back in the 1600s, a young lady named Mary St. Claire fell in love with a man named John Huntington, whom Charles II made a duke. They were not of the same social station, as Mary’s family was only country gentry, but they fell passionately in love. They married, but it ended sadly. They separated for some reason—no one ever will tell me why, so it must be something terribly scandalous. Mary died of a broken heart at being rejected by her husband, and the duke used his social position to ruin the St. Claires. They were cast out of their country home and had to fend for themselves in the world. All because of a love affair gone so wrong. Is that not terribly sad?”

  Isabel paused for a moment, staring out at the black sea before she finished, “And my family has never forgotten that. I think it is our theatrical natures.”

  “Yes,” Sophia murmured. “Very sad.” The St. Claires felt the Huntingtons had ruined their lives. No—they didn’t seem to merely feel it. They felt it in their bones. It was part of their identity as a family, just as stories of ducal greatness and responsibility were part of the Huntingtons.

  But the ruination of Mary St. Claire was not part of any Huntington legend. Sophia could hardly be shocked by that. To her family, the Huntington name, the ducal title, was everything. Anything could be sacrificed to it, and the hearts and minds of mere women could be destroyed in an instant if they stood in the way of family honor. Sophia had known there had to be a reason for Dominic’s desire to get the diary from her. She saw the dark and powerful enmity his family bore for hers. It had perhaps been cracked by Aidan’s marriage to Lily, but it was certainly not broken. Maybe it never could be. It had been rewoven and strengthened far too much over the years.

  Could she be strong enough to break it? Sophia looked down at the book in her hands. Even Mary, with her great love for her husband, hadn’t been able to do it. And it had destroyed her in the end.

  Sophia knew she had to find a way to be stronger than that. Yet she couldn’t keep the doubts from creeping in like tiny hobgoblins to chip away at the rare happiness she had felt in Dominic’s arms. His proposal had been so quick, so convenient, their marriage so hasty. Why had he really asked her to marry him? What could he plan for her in London?

  And how could she face his family?

  Isabel studied Sophia’s face closely, her eyes—so very green, just like her brother’s—wide. “Didn’t Dominic tell you about all of this?�
��

  “He told me something of it, I suppose,” Sophia answered carefully. “He did seem quite interested in the diary. But I had no idea there was such a complicated tale.”

  “Oh, my brothers can be such fools sometimes!” Isabel suddenly burst out. “I blame the steady diet of Shakespeare we’ve been fed ever since the nursery.”

  Sophia had to laugh, despite all the dark worries and fears swirling in her head. “Shakespeare?”

  “Yes. All those feuds and revenge. It’s affected how they see everything. But they never remember how those things always turn out—with everyone dead or mad.”

  “Surely no one had died because of this feud.”

  “Not yet. But I think heartbreak and lives wasted in sadness can be even worse.”

  Before Sophia could answer, the ship’s captain strolled across the deck to tell them it shouldn’t be much longer until they reached Dover.

  So England, home, was very near. The place she had fled so many months ago, and had started to return to with a tentative spark of hope.

  From the Diary of Mary St. Claire Huntington

  My brother Nick was very right about why the duke came to visit. He broached the subject of his money-raising plan while he was out hunting with John today. John seems interested. It is something that has the royal backing, after all, and as John pointed out it also has the backing of my family since Nick has brought our father and uncle into the idea as well.

  I told John I was not sure it is something we should be involved with, but he just laughed and said I should not worry myself about such things. That I must only concern myself with creating an heir again. Yet still I worry. I can’t help it—he is my love, and I want our lives together to be all we envisioned when we wed.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  This is your family’s house?” Sophia said as she peered out the carriage window at the residence that loomed into sight. “It isn’t what I expected.”

  “What did you expect?” Dominic said. “That my parents lived backstage at the theater? That it would be painted red and hung with satin curtains and gold tassels?”

  “I’m not really sure what I expected,” Sophia said with a laugh. But she wouldn’t have picked out this particular house, a tall, narrow, eminently respectable house of red brick and black-painted shutters on a quiet square, as belonging to the St. Claire family. “I must say I’m rather disappointed it’s so ordinary.”

  Dominic smiled at her. “Then you can choose something as garish as you like when we go house-hunting.”

  “House-hunting?”

  “We can’t stay in my lodgings forever. And I doubt you would want to move in with my parents.”

  “No,” Sophia murmured as she looked up at the house again. It was so stolid, so placid and quiet, giving away no clue to what might be hiding behind its walls. She doubted his parents would want her, a Huntington, to take up residence in their house. What Isabel had told her about the St. Claires’ long and bitter enmity for the Huntingtons had nagged at her on the journey from Dover, and she couldn’t quit thinking about it all.

  Marrying Dominic had seemed so right, so natural, when he asked her in Paris. But would another hasty decision come to haunt her?

  Sophia supposed she would know more once she met Dominic’s parents, but the thought of that imminent encounter had her stomach in knots.

  “I rather like your lodgings, Dominic,” she said.

  “Do you? What is it you like so much? The faded rug with the burn marks?” he teased. “The ill-tempered landlady shouting up the stairs at us? The tiny fireplace that smokes?”

  Sophia laughed. “The fact that there is little to keep clean. And there’s a cupboard big enough for my clothes.”

  “It won’t be nearly big enough when I’m done with you.” He raised her gloved hand to his lips for a quick kiss. “I’m glad to hear you laugh, Sophia. You’ve been much too quiet since we arrived in England.”

  “There’s a lot to think about, I suppose,” she said.

  “Soon there won’t be time to think at all,” Dominic answered. “With Brendan gone for the time being, the Devil’s Fancy is all ours for a while. There’s much work to do there.”

  “I can’t wait,” Sophia said, and truly she couldn’t. She wanted to work. She wanted to keep busy and feel useful. Thinking didn’t seem to get her anywhere.

  Dominic climbed down from the carriage and reached back to help her. As Sophia peeked up at the house from under her hat, she saw a curtain at an upstairs window twitch. Then all was still again. Dominic offered her his arm and led her up the polished marble steps just as the door swung open to reveal a black-coated butler.

  “Welcome home, Mr. Dominic,” he said with a bow. “I trust your journey was an enjoyable one.”

  “Most enjoyable, as you can see,” Dominic answered. “I have brought home a new bride.”

  “We did hear the good news, Mr. Dominic. And all the staff wishes you every happiness,” the butler said, a smile threatening to break through his stern facade.

  “Dominic!” Isabel cried. Sophia looked up to see her running down the stairs in a cloud of white muslin. “Sophia! You are here at last. It seems we’ve been waiting ages for you to call since we got home.”

  Dominic laughed and kissed his sister’s pink cheek. “We’ve only been back two days, Issy. Sophia needed time to settle in a bit.”

  “You needed time for Papa to calm down, more likely,” Isabel said.

  Sophia swallowed hard and forced herself to keep smiling at those words.

  “And has he?” said Dominic.

  “Oh, you know Papa,” Isabel said vaguely. “And Mama is rather unhappy at being deprived of planning a grand wedding.”

  “Mama can wait for your nuptials,” said Dominic.

  Isabel gave an unladylike snort, completely incongruous with her fairylike appearance. “That surely won’t be for quite some time. But Papa is waiting for you in the library, Dom. You go in and talk to him while I take Sophia to have tea with Mama.”

  Isabel took Sophia’s hand and led her toward the stairs. Sophia threw a startled glance back at Dominic. She didn’t want to meet her new mother-in-law for the first time all alone! On the other hand, William St. Claire sounded rather more fierce than his wife, so perhaps it was better she didn’t have to meet him just yet.

  Dominic’s face looked shadowed and serious, but he gave her a quick smile. Just before he disappeared from her view, he turned toward a closed door just off the foyer.

  Isabel chattered away as they moved down a corridor, talking of the new play at the Majestic, a production of The Tempest where she was to play Miranda. Sophia hardly had time to think before she was swept in Isabel’s wake into a pretty, sunny drawing room.

  It was a welcoming space, all pale blue and white walls hung with portraits and pastoral landscapes, dotted with comfortable-looking sofas and chairs. There were china figurines clustered on the fireplace mantel and a writing desk littered with letters and invitations, but nothing like the newly fashionable clutter that took up every inch of her own mother’s drawing room. This was a bright, airy space, welcoming, and Sophia felt a little less nervous as she looked around.

  A table was set up by the window and laid out with tea things, fine china and polished silver gleaming in the sunlight. A lady rose from behind it, her blue plaid taffeta skirts rustling and a tentative smile on her lips. She looked rather like an older version of Isabel, her red-gold hair only lightly sprinkled with gray, her eyes very green in a delicate oval face.

  “You must be Sophia,” she said, coming slowly forward. “Dominic’s new wife. Isabel has told us so much about you.”

  Sophia summoned up all her ingrained social training to give a smile and a nod. “Yes. I am Sophia.”

  “And I am Katherine St. Claire. Welcome to our home.” Katherine gave her a gentle hug, and at first, Sophia was startled. She would never have expected such a thing from someone she had just met, and she stood stiffly for
an instant, unsure of what to do.

  But Katherine’s smile was kind as she drew back. “Please, have some tea, my dear. Knowing Dominic and his father, and the way they are when they start talking about the theater, they won’t be in for some time.”

  “Thank you very much, Mrs. St. Claire,” Sophia said. She followed Katherine and Isabel to the table and sat down as Katherine reached for the silver teapot.

  “Oh, please, do call me Katherine! Or we shall both be calling each other Mrs. St. Claire and it will be terribly confusing,” she said. Though her smile was gentle, her green eyes were bright and probing as she looked across the table. Sophia remembered hearing that she was a trained actress, who surely missed little that went on around her. “You must tell me how you met Dominic in Paris. I’m sure it is terribly romantic.”

  “I told you, Mama! She came to the theater,” Isabel said, helping herself to a cucumber sandwich. “When we had the dinner backstage. They couldn’t quit staring at each other.”

  “My dear,” Katherine said gently. “You should let Sophia tell her own story.”

  Sophia laughed. “No, that is the tale. We met at the theater, and at my friend Madame Martine’s home, and—well, I had never met anyone quite like Dominic before. He is quite extraordinary.”

  Katherine smiled, and for a moment, she looked very much like her son as well as her daughter. “So he is, though I confess I’m prejudiced. He must have found you quite extraordinary as well. We thought he would never marry, and now—well, this has all been so sudden.”

  “It was sudden for me, as well, I confess,” Sophia said carefully. “But it felt like the right thing to do.”

  “I did not know my husband very long when we married either.” Katherine offered a plate of cakes. “I was seventeen and appearing in my first play, as Cordelia opposite my father at Covent Garden. William saw me there one night and wanted me to play Juliet at his new theater, and one thing led to another. My parents didn’t care for him, didn’t think I was ready to be married, but I couldn’t quit seeing him. It was terribly romantic, and I have never regretted my choice.”