by Mary Balogh
“I got you that time, Martin,” Vincent said. “Admit it.”
“A chicken punch,” Mr. Fisk said, and Vincent pummeled the padded arms, moving in close, using both fists hard.
“Just say when you have had enough,” he said, panting. “I would not want to leave you with too many bruises. Or crack a rib or two. I might be accused of abusing my servants.”
He laughed and Mr. Fisk laughed too and swore foully—before looking up and seeing her despite the darkness in which she sat.
“We have company,” he said, dropping his voice. “My lady?” He lowered his arms and ducked out of sight.
“Sophie?” Vincent turned unerringly to the staircase, his eyebrows raised.
“Oh.” She scrambled to her feet, horribly chagrined. “I am so sorry to disturb you. I was curious.”
She had intruded upon a purely masculine domain, she realized too late.
He had found his way to the foot of the stairs, one hand reaching out to touch the wall, and looked up.
“I did wake you after all, then, did I?” he asked. “Forgive me. I tried not to. How long have you been there?”
He started up toward her.
“I have been sitting and watching,” she said. “I ought not to have been. I ought to have gone away.” The words his valet had just spoken—not intended for a lady’s ears, of course—were still ringing in hers. She knew they were foul and profane—she had heard them back in her father’s day, though never from her father himself.
He stopped a few stairs below her. His hair was plastered to his head and hanging in wet curls along his neck. He was all sweaty. He ought not to have looked appealing but he did. Though truth to tell, she could hardly see him for the dark.
“We have finished for today,” he said.
“I am leaving,” she said at the same moment. “I am going to step outside and look around.”
“I’ll go and get bathed and dressed,” he said, “and join you there. The family of one of the scullery maids took in a stray cat a week or so ago but does not know what to do with it, since they already have several of their own. He is a tabby, a bit on the thin and scruffy side, a year or two old, probably not a great beauty.”
“Oh,” she said, “you asked already?”
“And the cook’s brother, one of the tenant farmers,” he said, “has a litter of collies. Their mother is a good sheepdog, and the father is one too. They are recently weaned, and all but one of them are spoken for. Perhaps that means he is the runt of the litter, but she assured me he has all his limbs in the right places as well as his eyes and ears and bark.”
“And now they are all spoken for?” she asked him, clasping her hands to her bosom.
“And now they all are.”
She beamed at him.
“I do not want to come any closer to you, Sophie,” he said. “I reek. I can even smell myself.”
“Yes,” she agreed, “you do. I am going.”
And she turned and left the cellar.
She was going to have a cat. A thin and scrawny tabby, which was not at all beautiful. She loved him already.
And he was going to have a dog. A sheepdog, which would guide him instead of sheep and give him back much of his freedom. She was sure it could be done.
She smiled at the thought, and the footman, the same one, who was back in the hall, smiled a little uncertainly back at her and opened the double doors when it was obvious to him that she wished to go outside. As though she could not have opened one of them for herself! No one had ever opened doors for her either at Aunt Mary’s or at Sir Clarence’s.
It was a fresh morning, she discovered, and she would probably be more comfortable wearing a cloak, but she did not want to go all the way back to her dressing room to get it. It did not occur to her to send the footman.
She stood at the top of the steps looking around. The park stretched in every direction, as far as her eye could see and beyond. It was designed for visual splendor and for the leisurely exercise and pleasure of those who could see where they were going. It had certainly not been designed for a blind man. More important, in the three years Vincent had been here, it had not been modified for a blind man’s use. Could it be?
She looked about with closer attention.
Vincent stood out on the top step, his cane in his right hand, Sophia’s cloak in his left. It was only half past seven or so. The rest of his family would not be up for a while yet.
Martin had been surly, a result of acute embarrassment, Vincent had realized.
“I am not wearing any more than you are,” he had said after the cellar door closed behind Sophia. “And she heard what I just said.”
“We were two men together with no expectation of being either seen or overheard by any woman,” Vincent had reminded him. “She will understand that. I will apologize for you.”
Martin had grunted as they left the cellar and had handed Vincent his cane before hurrying off ahead of him to make sure the bathwater had been brought to his dressing room.
“I am here.” It was Sophia’s voice. “In the parterre garden.”
Interestingly, she did not come hurrying toward him to help him find his way there too. Dash it, but he liked that.
He counted twelve steps down and then crossed the graveled terrace—ten medium strides or twelve shuffles. He did it in ten and felt the side of the stone urn, which, with its companion on the other side, formed the entrance to the formal flower gardens. There were no steps here. Nothing to fall down or collide with except the urns themselves.
“Oh, you have brought my cloak,” she said from close by. She took it from him. “Thank you. The air is a little brisk.” She slipped an arm through his when he offered it. “Do you wish to stroll or sit on the seat here?”
“Stroll,” he said and turned them to the right, feeling for the edge of the graveled walk with his cane. “The roses are blooming.”
“They smell lovely,” she said. “And there are so many colors, all of them beautiful. I cannot decide which is my favorite.”
“The yellow ones,” he said.
“Do you think?” He could hear the smile in her voice.
“Sunshine,” he said. “To match you.”
“That is a very kind compliment,” she said.
“What?” he said. “No reference to mirrors and what they tell you when you look in them?”
“I am under orders,” she reminded him.
“And I was a very ferocious military officer,” he said. “Men jumped to my command even before I barked it out.”
They both laughed. Ah, yes, he liked having her here with him. Life felt—different.
His cane lost the edge of the path suddenly and discovered only loose soil ahead. A corner. He turned it and strolled south. She had not hauled him about the turn. Bless her heart.
“When you come outside on your own,” she said, “what are the bounds of the park?”
“The parterres,” he said, “and the topiary garden. I can negotiate them without breaking my neck or feeling as though I had wandered off the edge of the universe. I can find my way to the stables and back too, though I sometimes need my nose and the enticing smell of manure to keep me on course. I am not confined to the house.”
He sounded a bit defensive, he thought.
“Perhaps the dog will make the park larger for me after I have trained it,” he said, “so that I do not have to call upon you or Martin or my mother when I fancy walking farther afield.”
“You may call upon me anytime,” she told him. “But you should not need to. Has anyone thought of modifying the park?”
“Modifying?” They had reached another corner. He turned east. There was a bench just here, positioned to face back toward the house. “Shall we sit for a while?”
“Three more steps,” she said.
They sat, and he propped his cane beside him.
“If a graveled path or even a paved one was set out between the terrace and the lake,” she said, “and i
f a fence or a rail was constructed along it, you would be able to walk down there whenever you wished. Do you swim? Yes, of course you do. You used to swim in the river at Barton Coombs—at night. Have you swum here?”
“No,” he said, “though I have been out in a boat. Twice.”
“All your exercising is done in darkness, then,” she said.
“Yes. Always in darkness.”
“Oh.” She sounded mortified. “I am sorry. But I meant underground as opposed to rooms aboveground, where a window can be opened. Or, better yet, outdoors, where there are all the sounds and smells of nature and nothing but fresh air.”
“I walked and climbed and rode in the Lake District,” he reminded her. “And rowed. It all felt wonderful. Movement—forward movement—is so much more exhilarating than static exercises. We even galloped our horses once, Sophie. You cannot imagine how thrilling that felt. And you cannot imagine how I long to stride out and even run.”
He frowned at the tone of his own voice. He did not usually allow himself to sound wistful. People who pitied themselves were not particularly attractive to others.
“Oh,” she said, “how wonderful it must feel just to ride! To be on a horse’s back, up on top of the world, being borne along by all that power and beauty.”
There was wistfulness in her voice too.
“You have never ridden?” he asked her.
“Never,” she said. “But I scandalized Lady Trentham’s dressmaker by having a riding outfit made with breeches as well as a skirt. I thought perhaps you could teach me.”
“To ride? Astride?” He grinned at her. Who but Sophia would believe a blind man could teach her to ride? “Of course I can. And will.”
“And the path to the lake?” she said. “It will not spoil the look of the park, I assure you. Indeed, if it bends with the undulations of the lawn, it will look very attractive. And with a wrought iron rail, it will be elegant. Will you have it built?”
How freeing it would be to be able to walk all the way to the lake and back on his own if he wished. Why had no one thought of such a thing before? Why had he not thought of it?
“I will,” he said. “I will be seeing my steward this morning. I need to have a talk with him. Many talks, in fact. I need to take more of an active hand in the running of my estate even if the bulk of the work will still be his. I’ll mention the path and rail and give the order for it to be started.”
“I am to spend the morning with your mother,” she told him. “We are to meet with the housekeeper and see the whole house and…” Her voice trailed away.
He searched for her hand, found it, and held it.
“My mother will come to love you, Sophie,” he said. “She will want to do it for my sake, but she will end up doing it for yours. You must not worry. Please do not. I am not sure she has ever truly enjoyed being mistress here. She was happy at Covington House. She talks about it frequently. All her dearest friends are at Barton Coombs. She came here because she thought I needed her. And she was right. I did. But she will be quite relieved to turn over her responsibilities.”
“Will she?”
“Feeling overwhelmed?” he asked.
“We are sitting here,” she said, “and I can see the house. It is … vast. And behind us is the village, and all around us are neighbors who must be called upon and conversed with and invited here. And I am looking over at the state apartments and remembering that there used to be grand entertainments and balls there and that we are now master and mistress here. And I am thinking that we really ought to put on some of those entertainments again, and I am—I do not rightly know what I am.”
“Overwhelmed.” He squeezed her hand. “I know the feeling. But everything does not have to be done in a day, you know. Or even a week or a month. Shall we pay our first visit this afternoon? Just one? To the vicarage, perhaps?”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Very well. Perhaps the vicar and his wife are as kind as Mr. and Mrs. Parsons.”
“I have met them,” he told her. “They are amiable.”
He squeezed her hand once more and released it.
“Shall we go in for breakfast?” he suggested. “Ah, and I promised to apologize abjectly on Martin’s behalf—both for his appearance this morning and for his particular choice of vocabulary in your hearing.”
“It looked to me,” she said, “as if you were both thoroughly enjoying yourselves.”
“Oh, we were,” he assured her. “We always do. There are worse parts of one’s body to lose, Sophie, than one’s eyes.”
Perhaps it was even true. He thought of Ben Harper and the rages he had sometimes been unable to control during those years at Penderris Hall because his legs were useless and unwilling to obey his commands.
He stood and picked up his cane and offered his arm.
“You may inform Mr. Fisk that he is forgiven,” she said, “and you will beg his pardon from me, if you will, for I ought not to have been there. I will not go again. I will respect your privacy and his. You may assure him of that.”
Trust Sophia to be concerned about the feelings—and privacy—of a servant. For that was what Martin was officially, though in reality he was Vincent’s dearest friend. Or coequal with the Survivors, perhaps, though he spent considerably more time with Martin than he did with them.
16
The first month of her new life at Middlebury Park was exhausting, often bewildering, for Sophia. She learned to find her way about the house; she became acquainted with the servants, particularly the cook and the housekeeper, with whom she had dealings almost every day; she studied household inventory and accounts until she understood them and could even talk intelligently about them; she visited her neighbors with Vincent and was visited in return. She got to know her new family. Ellen and her husband and children had arrived three days after them, and Ursula and her family came one week after that.
She had tramped alone about the huge park and viewed every part of it with a critical eye. Construction of a graveled path to the lake was almost complete despite a wetter-than-usual month. There had once been a wilderness walk through the hills behind the house, she had discovered, though by now it was far more wilderness than walk. It could be cleared out again, though, she decided, made safe and level underfoot, and bounded by a wrought iron rail—or perhaps a more rustic wooden one would be better for terrain that was supposed to resemble a wilderness. And there could be fragrant trees and bushes planted there—rhododendron, lavender, and others. She wished she knew more about plants. But fragrant plants would be important since picturesque prospects from the hill over the park and surrounding countryside were not going to mean anything to her husband.
Vincent meanwhile was no passive member of the family and household, as he seemed to have been before his marriage. He spent a great deal of his time closeted with his steward and various tenants or traveling about the estate with the former. And he was becoming acquainted with neighbors he had scarcely known before.
They were doing for each other what they had agreed to do. Sophia was well cared for. She was no longer the mouse, though often she longed to be quiet and alone. She was Sophia or Sophie or my lady. And Vincent was no longer cosseted at every turn. Soon he would be able to move about far more freely.
Their marriage could be deemed a success. And there were the times they spent alone together, though they seemed rare enough to Sophia—except for the nights, of course, which had continued lovely. She had even accepted the incredible fact that he found her attractive.
One afternoon Vincent’s sisters and their families had taken a picnic tea to a castle a few miles distant, and Vincent and Sophia were in the music room, where he had been giving her a lesson on the pianoforte. It had not been much more successful than the others, though she had learned how to pick out a correct major scale no matter which note she began on. Why there had to be both white and black notes to confuse the issue, she did not know.
Miss Debbins, Vincent’s music teacher, was spendin
g some time with her brother in Shropshire, though she was due back soon. Vincent was sure she would be delighted to take on Sophia as a pupil too.
“More than delighted actually,” he had said. “You can see and she will be able to teach you to read music. She has had to be endlessly patient and inventive with me.”
He was playing his violin now while Sophia sketched fairies at the bottom of a garden. She found them more difficult to do than a dragon and a mouse but not as difficult as Bertha and Dan, who never looked on paper quite as she imagined them in her head. But she would persevere. The children loved the stories she and Vincent told them almost every evening, and they screamed with glee over the pictures.
Once in a while she stopped to watch her husband and to stroke a hand over Tab’s back. Her scrawny, ugly tabby cat had turned sleek in the weeks he had been here.
Shep was not living with them yet. When the farmer who owned the dog had known what Viscount Darleigh wanted it for, he had insisted that the animal would need some basic training first and that he was the best one to do it, since he had a lifetime of experience. Once that was done, then he would come over daily, with his lordship’s permission, and together they would work out the finer points of the training while dog and master familiarized themselves with each other.
He was enthusiastic about the idea and did not see any reason why it would not work though he had never trained a dog for just such a purpose before.
“If a dog can be trained to respond to a whistle or a shout of command and take a whole herd of sheep to a particular spot over a long distance and past all sorts of obstacles and even through narrow gateways,” he had said, “then there is no reason he cannot do it for a man holding his leash, is there? I’ll stake my reputation on it as the best sheepdog trainer in the county. And no one ever accused me of modesty.” He had laughed heartily and pumped Vincent’s hand up and down and beamed at Sophia.
“That sounds a good enough guarantee to me, Mr. Croft,” Vincent had said. “Thank you.”