by Laurel McKee
“A party?” Sophia said, surprised. She hadn’t been sure Dominic’s mother really liked her; she knew his father did not. Would they really want to “show off” the fact that their son had married Lady Sophia Huntington?
“I thought you liked parties,” Dominic said with a small smile.
“Of course I do. I’m just surprised your mother would want to give us a party.”
“My mother will seize any excuse to entertain. Unless you prefer to live quietly for a while?”
Sophia studied his face. He watched her closely, as if he waited for something from her. She hated not knowing what it was or what she should do.
“No,” she answered. “That sounds most enjoyable.”
Dominic nodded, and he tucked her hand in the crook of his arm as they continued on their stroll.
Ahead of them on the winding path, Sophia glimpsed two ladies. They were no different from any other well-dressed pedestrians enjoying the day, an older woman in a conservative dark green walking dress with graying black hair peeking from beneath the frilled edge of her green-and-black bonnet, and a young lady in pink holding on to-her arm. But Sophia knew with one glance that this was not just any older, rigidly dignified lady.
This was her mother, a woman she had not seen in many months. The last time they had met, her mother had been weeping as Sophia’s father slammed the door between them, and she hadn’t heard a word from her since. Only that indirect message sent through Elizabeth, that Sophia should look for a respectable husband who could reconcile her to her family.
Something that would never happen now that she was Mrs. St. Claire.
Sophia had known she would have to face her family one day, but not now, so unexpectedly, on such a nice day.
Her steps faltered, and for one wild second, she considered lifting up her hem and running away through the park like a hoyden. As if that would solve anything.
“Sophia, what is it?” she heard Dominic ask, just as her mother glanced up and saw them there.
Allison Huntington froze, as if she was as shocked as Sophia was. But her surprise was concealed in an instant, as a lifetime of social training took hold and she concealed every emotion with a polite mask.
“That is my mother,” Sophia said quietly. “I haven’t seen her for some time.”
“Well, I suppose we can’t escape the meeting now,” Dominic said. “Shall we go say hello?”
Sophia glanced up at him from under her parasol. For the merest glimmer of an instant she saw a tiny smile on his lips, as if he looked forward to the confrontation. Then it vanished, and he squeezed her hand.
“Yes, I suppose so,” she said. “At least my father is not here. My mother, much like yours, is always scrupulously polite.”
Sophia hardened her resolve as she watched her mother come closer. The gossip in that morning’s papers had shown her the futility of trying to be respectable. Whenever she tried, it never worked out well. And now she had a husband to match her. It was either let the pain overwhelm her or use it as she always had, to act out. Sophia pasted on her brightest smile and drew Dominic with her as she went to meet her mother.
“Sophia,” her mother said. Her tone betrayed no hint that they had been apart so long or so acrimoniously. “Such a surprise to see you here today, my dear.”
“Mother,” Sophia said. Her mother leaned toward her for the merest brush of lips against cheek, a whiff of the lemon verbena perfume that brought her childhood back to her so vividly. The loneliness and longing of it. “Didn’t Elizabeth tell you I was back in England?”
“Your cousin has already dashed off on her travels again. She cannot stay still since her husband died,” Allison said with a sigh. “You young people, I don’t understand you. In my day, we were content to stay at home, where we were meant to be.” Her gaze flickered to Dominic.
“Mother, this is my new husband…”
“Mr. St. Claire. Of course,” Allison said with her most painfully polite smile. “I have certainly heard of you.”
Dominic gave her a short bow, a tight smile. “And I of you, Lady Huntington.”
“And this is my new daughter-in-law, Edward’s wife,” Allison said. Her smile grew warmer as she drew the young lady in pink forward. The girl gave a shy smile. “She has been a most welcome addition to the family. We are all so very fond of her.”
After a few innocuous comments on the weather, Sophia’s mother sent her daughter-in-law back to the carriage to fetch a shawl. Once she was gone, Allison stepped closer to Sophia and said through her unfaltering smile, “I am glad to see you are well, Sophia. But I hope that you and your husband have no thoughts of calling at Huntington House.”
Sophia fought to hold on to her own smile. That was more direct than she would have expected. She felt Dominic stiffen beside her. “Why should we wish to go there, Mother?”
“Because you always did enjoy causing a scene, even when you were a child,” Allison said in an exasperated tone. “Your uncle was most displeased to learn you were back in London. We had thought you were settled abroad.”
“I supposed he would be, with Aidan safely disposed of in Edinburgh with his St. Claire spouse,” Sophia said. “But none of you have anything to fear from me. I am just trying to live my life and be happy in my own way.”
Allison shook her head sadly. “I never did understand you, Sophia. You throw away all your advantages until we can no longer help you.”
“I haven’t asked for your help, have I?”
“I must go now.” Allison gave her one more cool kiss and backed away. “I hope that you will be happy, Sophia.”
“And I you.” Sophia watched her mother slowly walk away, never looking back. During all her time away from her family, she had sometimes imagined what might happen when she met with them again. And even though that brief meeting had gone as well and peacefully as could be expected, Sophia couldn’t help but feel wistful.
She felt Dominic’s hand on her arm, and she turned away from her mother’s retreating figure to smile up at him.
“Is that how your family has always treated you?” he asked.
His voice was so gentle that Sophia was sure her momentary pang of sadness showed on her face. She smiled harder and turned around to walk away. “No, indeed. That was my mother being kind. We’re fortunate she talked to us. She wouldn’t have if my father was there.”
“Sophia,” he said, holding tightly to her arm. “What was it like for you before you married Westman?”
“I don’t want to talk about ‘before.’ It’s much too pretty a day to waste on my family,” she answered. “Let’s go have an Italian ice before you have to leave for rehearsal.”
Dominic nodded, and they walked on in silence toward their carriage waiting at the park gates. As she climbed up the step, she noticed a couple who had been at the Devil’s Fancy. She gave them a smile and a wave, but they turned away. It saddened her even as she expected it.
Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself sternly. She was worrying about things that weren’t even there. Her mother and the hovering threat of Lord Hammond were making her fearful when she should be thinking about forging ahead in her new life.
When she should be thinking about her new husband.
That sanctimonious witch, Dominic thought furiously as he led Sophia back to their carriage. She smiled, as she always did, but he could see the bright sheen of her eyes, the fierce way she set her lips. Sophia’s laughter, that spontaneous, infectious gaiety he loved so much about her, was gone. And all because of her mother.
Any outsider who happened to witness that little exchange would surely have thought it was the height of refined politeness. But Dominic had seen it for what it was. A forced encounter, tinged with ice and ringed around with the barbs of years of rigid expectations.
He thought of his own parents, of how his family all fought and bickered and disagreed, but at the end of the day they were all there for each other. They would fight for each other to the last d
rop of blood.
And he remembered that when he and Lily and Brendan and the twins were children, their parents would always tuck them into bed before they left for the theater. There were hugs and cuddles, stories, laughter, and no matter what, there was love.
Once, in his bitterness toward the Huntingtons, he had imagined their children growing up amid lavish splendor, like little princes and princesses, reveling in all they had stolen. But today, as he saw the coldness in Lady Huntington’s eyes as she looked at her own daughter, he knew that he had grown up as the fortunate one.
And Sophia’s pain hit him like a burning bolt of lightning to his own heart. She had hinted that all had never been well in her family, but today he saw the full extent of what she must have gone through, growing up in a family that could never see her true beauty. Her true worth.
His lovely, laughing Sophia, so full of life that she almost burst with the light of it all—her own family had tried to extinguish all of that. They had forced her to run away, to make her own way through the world alone, and yet she had never let them break her. She had been too stubborn to ever give in.
They were two of a kind. He could see that very clearly now. Neither of them could fight their natures. “She was wrong, Sophia,” he said as he helped her into the carriage.
She gave him a puzzled little frown. “Wrong about what?”
“About everything,” Dominic answered. He climbed in after her and took her into his arms. For an instant she stiffened, as if seeing her mother had drawn her back into the cold Huntington world. But then she melted against him and hid her face in his shoulder.
“You are an amazing woman, Sophia,” he said. “And a strong one, to have stayed true to yourself for all these years.”
“I don’t feel so very strong,” she answered, her voice muffled and thick as if she held back tears. It made him even angrier at anyone who would hurt her. “Once I only wanted them to see me, to know me, but all they could see was how they wanted me to be. And I could never be that.”
“I see you, Sophia,” he said fiercely, holding her against him. “I know you, because we are alike in so many ways.”
Sophia shook her head. She pulled herself out of his arms and turned her head away to swipe her hand over her cheeks. “Perhaps we are. But I fear you will only see me as a Huntington, just as they will always see me as not good enough.”
“Sophia…” Dominic began, reaching for her again. Somehow it felt as if she was slipping away from him, like a ghost or a dream through the mist, and he wanted to hold on to her.
But she turned away from him. She stared out the carriage window as the streets of London rolled past, her back held rigidly straight. “I was such a fool. I thought we could make something of our marriage, that we were as you said—two of a kind. But Isabel told me that your family has hated mine for a very long time.”
“But you are not your family,” he protested. “You are only Sophia. The way your mother behaved toward you today was not right.”
“Did you not want that to happen?” Sophia suddenly swung around to stare at him. Tears shimmered in her eyes, but they were blazing with anger. “Did you not want us to cause gossip that would embarrass them?”
For once in his life, Dominic had no easy words. He had nothing at all, for he couldn’t deny what she had said. He had wanted to embarrass the Huntingtons with their daughter’s scandalous marriage.
Somehow, without his even noticing what was happening, the game had changed on him. The hand he had been dealt was completely different from the one he expected. He had stolen away a Huntington—but she had stolen his heart. Sophia, with her bright laughter and her vivid, spontaneous heart, had burst into his life and completely changed it. What he had thought was one thing was something else entirely, something infinitely more rare and precious.
Something he hadn’t even known he was missing, and now it was all he wanted. Sophia was all he wanted.
But she stared at him with such anger and hurt in her eyes, and he couldn’t find the words to tell her of his sudden confused realization. He, who made a living with language and the counterfeit emotion of the stage, was struck down by the most real moment of his life.
He reached again for Sophia, but she turned away. Her arms crossed tightly across her stomach, holding herself apart from him.
“You got what you wanted,” she said. “You have embarrassed my family. But now you are trapped with me as your wife.”
“Sophia, it is not like that at all,” he said firmly. “If you would only listen to me…”
“No!” she cried. “Please, Dominic, please don’t lie to me now. Not on top of everything else. I can’t bear it. I need to think.”
The carriage drew up outside their lodgings, and as soon as the footman opened the door, Sophia leaped down and ran up the steps.
Dominic’s first instinct was to follow her, to catch her in his arms and make her listen. Make her see how things had changed. But he sensed that she wasn’t ready to hear him yet, that she would just push him away. And he had to have time to find just the right words. To try to build a new life.
He climbed out of the carriage, too, but he didn’t follow her into the house. She said she needed time to think and so did he. And he did that best in the theater. He sent the carriage away and started walking toward the Majestic.
It was a walk he had made dozens of times in his life. Yet today everything around him looked completely different.
From the Diary of Mary St. Claire Huntington
John has returned to Court with the duke, leaving me here again. But he took bags of coin and jewels with him, I pray all goes well and that he returns soon, happy again. I do not think I am with child yet.
Chapter Twenty-three
Sophia knew something was amiss the moment she stepped into the Majestic Theater.
For the last few days, ever since the uncomfortable meeting with her mother, she had tried to settle into her new life as Mrs. St. Claire, trying to find her way. She went to the Devil’s Fancy club at night to learn how it was run, and during the day, she left their lodgings to bring Dominic his lunch so he would remember to eat during the long rehearsals. It was one of the few times she saw him, as the new production of Two Gentlemen of Verona was due to open tomorrow night and he was always at the theater.
Except for at night, when he climbed into their bed and took her in his arms. Then they were together. Then she was sure she had done the right thing in marrying him. Until she woke in the morning and he was gone.
She tried to find useful ways to fill her days. She called on her new mother-in-law, ran lines from the play with Isabel, did some shopping for things to make Dominic’s lodgings more like a home. She tried to help at the club, but James and the manager had things well in hand.
She thought about calling on some of her old friends or even her family, but then she remembered her mother’s frosty reception and couldn’t work up the courage to try it. She knew her marriage had moved her even further from them all, despite her old, futile hope to return to them. Dominic urged her to write to them, but she wasn’t sure why. He had seen what happened in the park, and she remembered too well what Isabel had said about their two families.
So she brought Dominic his lunch and then sat quietly in the stalls to watch the rehearsals. It was enthralling, and for a few hours she was carried out of herself and her worries. She even forgot that Dominic was Dominic, her husband, he disappeared so thoroughly into his role. Sophia had come to find the theater a magical place where everything was transformed.
But not today. Today, when she stepped through the doors from the lobby, the enchanted haven was chaos.
One of the stagehands ran past her, and beyond him she could see the other actors pacing the aisles or slumped in the seats. Onstage, the scenery that was almost finished for Act One was pushed askew. In the half-light, Sophia could see Isabel sitting on a prop throne with her father and Dominic huddled around her. Even from that distance, Sop
hia could see that her sister-in-law’s pretty face was wet with tears.
Sophia saw one of the actors she knew striding out of the nearest rows of seats. She put down her lunch basket and took his arm as he rushed past her.
“Patrick, what is going on?” she demanded.
For a second, he looked at her as if he didn’t know her, but then he gave her a quick smile. “Ah, Mrs. St. Claire. I’m afraid the Majestic has had a bit of bad luck this morning.”
“What sort of bad luck?” Sophia cried. Her gaze flew to the stage, but she couldn’t see much.
“Miss Isabel fell off the stage steps and twisted her ankle,” Patrick said with a sad shake of his head. “She can’t even take a step now, and the play opens tomorrow.”
“Is it broken?” Sophia asked. Even as she spoke, the lobby doors opened again and a man with a bushy white beard hurried in. He carried a black leather case and rushed up the aisle.
“Ah, Dr. Martin! You’re here at last,” William St. Claire called as he rushed to the edge of the stage. “My daughter is quite crippled, such a tragic accident.”
“Papa, that you are an actor doesn’t mean you must be so dramatic. I am sure it is just a twist and I will be up in a moment,” Isabel protested. But Sophia could hear the taut pain in Isabel’s voice, and her concern grew.
“I will be the judge of that,” the doctor said as he climbed the stage steps.
Sophia hurried after him. Dominic gave her a distracted smile, and she went to him to whisper in his ear. “Is Isabel very hurt?”
He shrugged, his attention still on his sister as the doctor knelt in front of her. “It all happened so fast. She tripped and went down the steps before anyone could see what was happening. When Papa picked her up, she was crying and her ankle was already swollen. Poor Issy. She’s sure she has ruined the play’s opening.”
“Oh, stop fussing!” Isabel cried. “You all act as if I am on my deathbed. It was merely a tumble down the stairs. I am perfectly fine.”