by Mary Nichols
‘He feels as I do about the need to help the men.’
‘Which only goes to prove how well suited you are. He is blind if he cannot see it.’
‘He is guided by that ridiculous list of requirements and the only one I conform to is that I have a fortune, which he knows nothing about. It is a vicious circle, Charlie, without an end.’
‘Then the circle must be broken. The first thing is to tell Lady Fitz and throw ourselves on her mercy. She might see a way out.’
‘You are no doubt right, but I must be the one to do it. I won’t have her giving you a jobation over it.’
But that was easier said than accomplished, as they soon discovered when they returned to the drawing room. The invitation to Lady Braybrooke’s ball had come while they had been changing and her ladyship was in high dudgeon.
‘She thinks she has stolen a march on us,’ she said, tapping it furiously against her chin. ‘Putting Emily’s come-out before yours and the chit barely out of the schoolroom. Well, she will come home by weeping cross, for it is such short notice that no one will go.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Sophie said. ‘I fancy a summons to attend the Duke of Rathbone’s mansion will be a huge inducement to cancel all other engagements. It is sure to be the event of the Season.’
‘But your ball was meant to be that,’ her ladyship wailed. ‘We had it all arranged, the musicians, the food, the flowers and everything.’
‘I cannot see that anything has changed,’ Charlotte said. ‘Does it matter which comes first?’
‘Of course it does. Philippa Braybrooke will have her nephew shackled to her daughter before they ever get to our ball. They will come together. Or not come at all.’
‘But the invitations went out before Lady Braybrooke came to town, did they not? And Lord Braybrooke accepted.’
‘Yes, but I was obliged to include Philippa and Emily as soon as I knew they were here.’
‘Well, I do not think it is anything to get into a quake over,’ Sophie said. ‘I do not think Lord Braybrooke will allow himself to be bullied into offering for his cousin if he does not want her.’
‘You are a goose if you think that,’ her ladyship said. ‘He is no different from any other man. He will give in if he is nagged enough.’
‘Then I should hope that Charlotte would be glad of her escape,’ Sophie said. ‘I know I should not want to be married to a man who is so weak that he can be persuaded into something he knows is wrong.’
‘And you, young lady, have not the first idea what you are talking about. Pray, keep your thoughts to yourself. Now, Charlotte, we must devise a way…’
‘No, my lady,’ Charlotte said, very loudly and very firmly.
‘No? How can you say no?’
‘Easily. My lady, I beg of you to forget all about Viscount Braybrooke. We should not suit.’
‘But he is the catch of the Season.’
‘I do not think so.’
‘How can you say that? He will be a duke one day and the Rathbone estates are vast. Even Madderlea pales into insignificance beside them.’
‘Wealth does not guarantee happiness, my lady. I would rather have a poor man who loved me that a rich one who treated me like a chattel. Sophie agrees with me, don’t you, Sophie?’
‘Naturally, she would,’ her ladyship put in before Sophie could speak. ‘But she is not required to put it to the test.’
‘Neither am I. I am determined on another.’
Her ladyship looked startled. ‘Who is that?’
Charlotte looked at Sophie and received a small nod before answering. ‘Mr Harfield.’
‘Mr Harty? I never heard of him. And no title either. Has he prospects of one? A fortune? When did you meet him? Oh, Mr Hundon will be so displeased.’
Charlotte tried again, louder. ‘Mr Frederick Harfield, ma’am.’
‘Harfield! But I thought he was dangling after Miss Hundon. Everyone said he was. She fainted at the sight of him. And he has been much in her company.’ She turned to Sophie. ‘Did you know about this?’
‘Yes, my lady.’ She took a deep breath and went on. ‘You see, we have been engaging in a ruse.’
‘Engaging a what?’
‘In a deception, my lady.’ It was so difficult to confess while shouting; Sophie would rather have whispered her guilt. ‘We have been pretending to be each other, making believe that Miss Hundon is the heiress.’
‘Miss Hundon an heiress? I do not understand. Everyone knows who you are and certainly Mr Harfield must, for he comes from your own part of the country. If you have been putting it about that you are the heiress, Sophie, then you have been very foolish indeed.’
‘I know that, my lady,’ Sophie said. ‘But you have not understood…’
‘As if anyone would believe such a Banbury tale! The Roswells are a well-known aristocratic family and the Hundons, respectable though they may be, are certainly not one of the ton. And if Mr Harfield is such a cake as to believe such tarradiddle, more fool he.’
Sophie tried again. ‘You misunderstand, my lady. I am…’
‘Not another word. You are supposed to be young ladies with a modicum of good sense and I find you have been indulging in schoolgirl pranks. I shall make quite certain that any rumours that Miss Hundon is an heiress are quashed. No wonder Viscount Braybrooke is confused.’
‘Is he confused?’ Sophie asked, diverted for the moment from her task of trying to tell her ladyship something she did not want to hear.
‘Indeed he is. Why, he has been paying as much attention to you as to Charlotte, as if he could not make up his mind.’
‘But you said his mind would be made up for him by his grandfather.’
‘Oh, that is enough, you are confusing me now. There is nothing for it, but we shall have to work on the Duke.’
‘To what purpose, my lady?’ Charlotte asked. ‘Do you think he would condone Sophie?’
‘Oh, you are talking in riddles, both of you,’ her ladyship said in exasperation. ‘I can only pray you will come to your senses by the time we attend the Braybrooke ball.’
The girls looked at each other and gave up.
The morning of the ball came in wet and windy and Lady Fitzpatrick was gleeful. ‘She will not be able to have the musicians on the terrace and lanterns in the garden,’ she said. ‘We shall be cooped up in the ballroom and it will be a dreadful crush.’
‘I thought that was a good thing,’ Sophie said, watching the raindrops sliding down the windows of her ladyship’s boudoir where they were drinking their morning coffee. She had been planning a visit to Maiden Lane, but could find no excuse for going out in the rain. ‘The greater the crush, the greater the success.’
‘Yes, but there are crushes and crushes. One must be able to breathe and converse and dance.’
‘But you said you did not think many would attend.’
‘Perhaps they won’t,’ Lady Fitzpatrick said perversely.
Her ladyship was wrong on all counts. The ballroom at Rathbone House was large enough to contain a hundred guests in comfort and a hundred was about the number who had accepted. Whatever the tattlers’ private opinions of her ladyship, she was known as a first-rate hostess and it was worth going for the food alone. Add to that the chance of a juicy snippet of gossip, such as the announcement of a betrothal or, more telling, the lack of an expected announcement, and the invitation was impossible to refuse.
Sophie had dressed in what she considered her plainest evening gown. It was made of a filmy pale green gauze which floated over a silk slip of a slightly darker green. It had a round neck, ruched with dark green and little puff sleeves, slotted with ribbon. Another ribbon was threaded through the high waist and was caught up under the bust, from which the ends floated free. More of the same ribbon and a few pearls were strung through her red-gold hair, which was drawn up and back into a Grecian knot that emphasised the long curve of her neck where a single string of pearls nestled against her creamy skin. The Madderlea family jew
els, too ostentatious for a young lady not yet in Society, had been locked away by her uncle until such time as her engagement was announced.
This understatement had the opposite effect from the one she had intended. Instead of being dismissed as too plain, she was revealed as a young lady of stunning beauty. And Richard was stunned. She was poised and elegant and that bright hair shone in the light from the chandeliers so that he saw her as a flame of unmatched brilliance, drawing him like a moth. He was consumed with a desire so strong, he could hardly wait to have her to himself. But that was not possible until he had finished greeting their guests.
‘Miss Hundon,’ he said, bowing as she reached where he stood with his grandfather, his cousin and his aunt.
‘My lord.’ She was vaguely aware of a black satin evening coat and muscular legs clad in black kerseymere trousers strapped under the instep, a white shirt and an elaborately tied cravat as he bowed over her hand. It was not his clothes which took her breath away, but the touch of his hand as he raised it to his lips and the look in his brown eyes which were scanning every inch of her face as if trying to commit every tiny feature to memory.
‘I hope I see you well?’
‘Yes, thank you, my lord.’ So formal, so unnatural, when they had shared so much—the work at Maiden Lane, the accident with the curricle, the dawn encounter in Hyde Park, that kiss, the memory of which still sent shivers of desire through her. But he was being very correct and she supposed the ball marked the end of that easy relationship. Now he meant to keep his distance. Was that what his eyes were telling her?
He took her card from her and scribbled his name against two dances, before she followed Lady Fitzpatrick and Charlotte into the ballroom which was ablaze with light and colour. The air was heavy with perfume and the scent of hothouse flowers which stood in bowls in the window recesses.
Dowagers sat in chairs surrounding the floor, peering through quizzing glasses at everyone else’s charges, comparing notes, their tongues as sharp as razors. Young men, dressed like peacocks, stood in groups, eyeing the young ladies in their flimsy gowns, deciding which to choose, as the musicians, on a dais at one end of the room, struck up the first dance.
As soon as Sophie and Charlotte appeared they were besieged by young men wanting to mark their cards, including Martin Gosport and Freddie Harfield, who whirled Charlotte away before she even had time to draw breath or smile at her other admirers, all of whom believed she was Miss Roswell. Sophie found herself facing Martin Gosport.
He swept her an elaborate bow and held out his hand. ‘Will you do me the honour?’
She allowed him to lead her into the country dance, noticing as she did so that Richard had come into the room with his cousin and was dancing with her. Emily was beginning to look more mature, more assured and she was smiling. Did she know Richard’s intentions? If she did, she did not seem too unhappy about it.
‘May I congratulate you, Miss Hundon?’ Martin said, after they had taken their places and were moving down the room in step with the other dancers. ‘I do believe you will break every young man’s heart tonight. There is no one to hold a candle to you.’
‘Mr Gosport, what a hum!’
‘I mean it. If it were not for your lack of a fortune, you could have any man in the room.’
‘Now you are being very foolish, Mr Gosport. Have you not been told that compliments should be more subtle than that?’
‘I have always believed in being direct, Miss Hundon. It saves a deal of misunderstanding.’
‘How right you are! But supposing it is not compliments you wish to impart, would you still be so outspoken?’
He smiled, circling round her. ‘I think I might remain silent.’
She laughed. ‘I shall remember that if you become mute.’
‘Miss Roswell is in fine form, too,’ he went on, having seen Charlotte in the next set, laughing into the face of Freddie Harfield, who was grinning happily. ‘If I were Richard I think I would nail my colours to the mast before Harfield steals a march on him.’
Sophie forced herself to sound light-hearted. ‘You think it is Charlotte his lordship has fixed upon then?’
‘Who else fits his criteria?’
‘Oh, that list. We have all heard of it. Tell me, is it true she must have a fortune?’
‘Oh, I do not think that is of prime importance. He said it so that he would not be besieged by penniless fortune hunters. Why do you ask?’ He looked down at her suddenly. ‘Oh, surely you do not have aspirations in that direction yourself?’
‘Certainly not!’ she retorted. ‘I was merely curious to know how a man can be so cold-blooded as to set out his requirements in so exacting a fashion.’
‘Oh, it was only a joke. He did not mean any of it. A more warm-hearted and sensitive man I have yet to meet. Why, he has stood buff for me many a time.’
‘Then you think he is capable of falling in love?’
‘Oh, I am sure of it, given the right lady.’
‘And would he be a faithful husband?’
‘There would be none more constant and true. If you are worrying about your cousin, Miss Hundon, then do not. If he offers for her, she could not marry a finer man.’
Sophie was glad the dance ended at that point because she wanted to run away and hide. If what Mr Gosport said was true, Richard Braybrooke would not be proposing to Charlotte because he thought she had a fortune, but because he loved her. As soon as Martin had returned her to Lady Fitzpatrick, she excused herself and left the ballroom to find the ladies’ retiring room.
Richard, who had been doing his duty by dancing with the most important of the young ladies, including Emily, Verity Greenholme and Martin’s sister, as well as Charlotte who was pretty as a picture in rosebud pink Italian crepe, could hardly wait to claim Sophie for the next dance. He escorted his last partner back to her mama, bowed low to them both and turned to see the object of his desire disappearing from the room.
Now, what deep game was she playing? He went over to Lady Fitzpatrick, who was looking after Sophie with an expression of exasperation on her face. ‘My lady, is Miss Hundon not feeling up to snuff?’
‘Oh, my lord, I did not see you there.’
‘I was expecting to have the next dance with her.’
‘Were you?’ Her ladyship sounded vague. ‘I dare say she will be back soon. Why don’t you stand up with Miss Roswell instead?’
‘It would give me the greatest pleasure, my lady, but I believe Miss Roswell’s card is already full. Please excuse me.’
As he hurried after Sophie, he found himself wondering if Lady Fitzpatrick knew about the deception. Was she part of it? It was a new thought and one which puzzled him. What had she to gain by it? What had anyone? Was it Charlotte’s idea or Sophie’s? Did they think it would increase Charlotte’s chances of finding a husband? But that did not ring true, for that young lady had set her cap at Freddie Harfield.
He did not believe Sophie was capable of harming anyone, but surely a hoax of this magnitude was doing a great deal of harm. Had she been forced into it? Had it been conjured up specifically to test him? Did the whole ton know he was being gulled? Why? Why? Why?
Chapter Ten
The music faded behind Sophie as she made her way up to the next floor. The corridor in which she found herself was thickly carpeted and lined with doors. Which one had been set aside for the lady guests to recuperate, she did not know.
She wandered along its length, hoping to hear female voices which would help her, but everywhere was silent. She pushed open one of the doors, to reveal a bedroom, sumptuously furnished with a bed draped in muslin and lace, striped silk curtains, mahogany wardrobes and chests, a striped upholstered sofa and a long cheval mirror. Afraid to be caught prying, she withdrew.
‘Looking for a place to sleep, Miss Hundon?’
She swung round guiltily. Richard was standing so close to her she could feel the warmth of him. ‘Oh, you startled me.’
‘Obviously. Are you
unwell? Did you wish to rest?’
‘Not at all. I did not mean to pry. I was looking for the ladies’ room. My hair needs attention. I…’ She stopped because he had put a hand on each of her shoulders and was looking down at her with an expression on his face she could not fathom. Concern? Tenderness? No, that could not be. It must be annoyance.
‘Your hair looks perfect as it is.’ He reached out and touched a tendril which was too short to be included in the Grecian knot. ‘You are in superb looks tonight.’ The touch of his fingers on the soft flesh of her neck was devastating; she felt as if her whole body had become boneless and was a quivering jelly of desire. Her breathing became fast and shallow as if she was being deprived of air. She wanted to grab the hand away in order to stop the torment, but like someone mesmerised she could not move.
‘Don’t you know the effect you have on me?’ His voice was hardly more than a whisper.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, forcing herself to react as he expected her to. ‘I exasperate you.’
He threw back his head and laughed. ‘You never said a truer word. Just when I think I have your measure, you confound me again.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Oh, I am sure you do. Tell me you are not at playing cat and mouse with me.’
‘I would not dream of doing such a thing.’
‘Then why do your eyes say one thing and your words another? I could have sworn…’ He stopped. ‘No matter. Why did you run away just when it was my turn to dance with you? Am I so repugnant to you?’
‘No, no, I had forgotten it was our dance.’
‘You find it so easy to forget me?’ He put his hand on his heart in a melodramatic gesture. ‘I am deeply wounded.’
‘Now who is teasing?’
‘This is no tease.’ He put his forefinger under her chin and lifted her face to his. Taken by surprise, Sophie opened her mouth slightly and then his lips were on hers, gently at first and then with more urgency, as his arms went round her and he held her fast against his body. She was helpless. Caught in the trap of her own desire, she responded with every fibre, putting her hands about his neck and pulling him towards her, wanting the kiss to go on and on, uncaring that she was betraying her innermost longings to this man who held her in thrall and who had every intention of marrying someone else.