by Mary Balogh
“Sophia,” Sebastian said with that characteristic emphasis on the final letter that she had once found heart-warming. “You have certainly grown up since I last saw you.”
She felt as if all the blood must have drained away down to her toes.
“Sebastian?” She clasped her hands before her as he stepped down onto the terrace. He was broader in the chest than he had been six years ago. He was even more handsome than he had been then. He looked even more confident. His smile was even more charming.
“I could not resist coming with Father,” he said. “I wanted to see what Viscountess Darleigh looks like. She looks quite as fine as fivepence.”
“I hope you do not mind, Sophia,” her uncle was saying. “Sebastian was quite eager to see you again. Darleigh, meet my stepson, Sebastian Maycock.”
Sophia had never seen Vincent look icy cold. His nostrils were flared, his lips pressed into a thin line. His eyes looked very directly in Sebastian’s direction. Sebastian was moving toward him, his right hand extended, an easy smile on his lips.
“Maycock,” Vincent said, and the ice was in his voice too.
Sebastian’s hand fell back to his side.
Sophia wondered if her uncle had noticed the change in Vincent’s manner.
“Of course we do not mind, Uncle Terrence,” she said. “We are happy to have both of you here, and there are several empty guest rooms. Aunt Martha and Sir Clarence arrived a while ago with Henrietta. They will be coming to the drawing room soon for tea. Shall we go directly there, or would you like some time in your rooms?”
She slid an arm through his.
“They came, then, did they?” he asked, sounding amused. “I am surprised you invited them, Sophia. But, then, I am surprised you invited me. Surprised and grateful. I am very ready for some tea. Are you, Sebastian?”
“Lead the way,” Sebastian said.
Sophia could see that he was debating with himself whether to lead Vincent in or not. But Vincent turned without waiting for him, and found his way to the steps and up them with his cane, Sophia and Sir Terrence just in front of him. Sebastian brought up the rear.
Sir Terrence Fry sounded like a sensible man. He knew how to keep a conversation going, and it seemed, on a first impression anyway, as if he was genuinely glad to be here and to have met Sophia at last. Sebastian Maycock sounded confident and charming. He soon had Vincent’s mother and grandmother eating out of his hand, so to speak, and Lady March and Miss March both simpered when they spoke to him, which led Vincent to conclude that he must indeed be handsome and was probably wealthy too.
Teatime in the drawing room passed without incident. Vincent was delighted for Sophia’s sake. If there could be even a small measure of civility between her and her family, he would be glad for her. But perhaps there could be more than just that, as far as the uncle was concerned, anyway. Vincent could detect no similarity of tone or mind between him and his sister.
Of course, the man still had a great deal of explaining to do.
Vincent found the hour trying for one particular reason. He could have conversed with Sir Terrence with interest. He could have derived amusement from the often barbed remarks of the Marches. But he seethed with impotent fury over the fact that he had been forced to receive Sebastian Maycock beneath his roof and play genial host to him. But what choice did he have? The man had come uninvited, and he had come with Sophia’s uncle. He had a claim to be here. He was Fry’s stepson.
Vincent could cheerfully have slapped a glove in his face.
It had all happened several years ago, he tried to tell himself. Maycock might well have changed since then. He had been just a young man then. But he had been twenty-three, dash it all. He had not seemed one whit abashed when he had met Sophia again out on the terrace. He did not seem abashed now in the drawing room. Was it possible he had forgotten? Or that Sophia had exaggerated what he had said to her? But if he had said even half of what she remembered, his words would be unpardonable.
“I have to know,” Sir Clarence said, his voice hearty and jocular, as though he spoke to a child or an imbecile, “in what way your dog is your eyes, Darleigh. The apple of your eye and all that, is he? Or is it a she? You had better not say that too feelingly in the hearing of your wife.”
He laughed at his own joke, and Vincent smiled.
“Shep is a collie, a sheepdog,” he explained, “and has been trained by an expert to lead me about just as surely as he would lead a flock of sheep if he had been differently trained. I suppose that means I am not very different from a sheep, for which fact I am more than thankful. I have regained a large measure of freedom since I have had him.”
Sir Clarence laughed some more.
“One day he will spy a rabbit,” he said, “and be off in pursuit, and you will collide with a tree or fall off a cliff, Darleigh. Wherever did you get such a mad idea?”
“From my wife, actually,” Vincent said. “She heard of a child blind from birth who has a dog to lead her, and persuaded me to try one too. I have said that Shep is my eyes. But in truth it is Sophia who has that distinction. She brought me Shep, and she has had the railed path to the lake built and the wilderness walk in the hills behind the house cleared and railed. It should be finished before winter. And it is she who suggested the riding track that is being constructed inside the perimeter of the park so that I can ride safely and even go for a gallop. I heard you say, Sir Terrence, that your brother called Sophia his treasure. She is mine too.”
“I am delighted to hear that she is showing a proper gratitude for your great condescension in responding to her rather bold advances when you were staying at Covington House, Lord Darleigh,” Lady March said. “I am consoled. I was a little embarrassed and ashamed of her, I must confess, being both her aunt and her guardian at the time.”
“On the contrary, ma’am,” Vincent said, smiling in her direction. “It was I who was bold in my advances to Miss Fry, who declined my marriage offer more than once before I finally persuaded her to take pity on me.”
“We are extremely happy,” his grandmother said, “that she did. Sophia is like a bright little angel descended upon my grandson’s home, Lady March. I commiserate with you for having lost her from your own home, but a girl must be expected to marry, you know, when she reaches a certain age. Vincent was fortunate to find her before anyone else did.”
“Aunt Martha,” Sophia said, getting up from her seat beside Vincent, “Henrietta, you must be longing for a breath of fresh air after your journey. Let me show you the parterre gardens and the topiary garden. The weather is being very kind to us for late September, is it not?”
“I will come too, if I may, Sophia,” Sir Terrence said.
Vincent spoke quickly before his stepson could decide to join the party too.
“Maycock,” he said, “my dog will be ready for some exercise after being cooped up in our private apartments most of the afternoon. Stroll down to the lake with me, if you will.”
“Delighted,” the man said—and he sounded it too.
20
“Good old Sophia,” Sebastian Maycock said, putting a peculiar emphasis upon the last letter of her name. “The dog was a brilliant idea of hers. I would scarcely know I was walking beside a blind man.”
They were striding at a normal walking pace along the path to the lake. Maycock walked on the side with the rail. Vincent had Shep.
“I will not say I scarcely know I am blind,” Vincent said, “but I will say my dog has given me back much of my freedom and confidence. And yes, it was Sophia who discovered that it could be done and persuaded me to give it a try.”
“And you are having a riding track constructed?” Maycock said. “The park seems big enough to take it, I must say. You have a beautiful home here.”
“Yes,” Vincent agreed. “I am very fortunate.”
They talked aimlessly and pleasantly as they walked. Under other circumstances, Vincent thought, he would probably like the man. He was friendly and goo
d-humored. And perhaps he was judging him too harshly. Perhaps he had not intended to be cruel. Perhaps he had not known how those careless words spoken on one isolated occasion had hurt.
“Sophia always did have a lively mind,” Maycock said when Vincent told him of her plan to have fragrant herbs and trees planted along the wilderness walk so that he could enjoy it even without sight. “I always found her rather amusing. I would take her to a gallery, and she would stand looking at an acclaimed masterpiece, a frown on her brow, her head cocked a little to one side, and comment upon some detail that could be improved. This was soon after she went to live with that dragon, Aunt Mary, and just before I went to Vienna to join my stepfather.”
Shep had stopped walking, and Vincent understood that they had reached the bank of the lake.
“Yes,” he said, “she has told me about you.”
“Has she?” Maycock chuckled. “She was a funny little thing.”
“Funny?”
Maycock must have bent down to pick up some stones. Vincent could hear one skipping over the water.
“She was rather scrawny,” Maycock said. “Thin with a pale, peaked face and big eyes. She would have looked like a boy if it had not been for all the hair. I think there was as much hair as there was Sophia, and she seemed quite incapable of taming it.”
He laughed.
“Ugly too, I believe,” Vincent said, turning to walk to his right along the bank.
“Eh?”
“She was ugly,” Vincent said. “Or so you told her.”
“Did I?” Maycock chuckled again. “And she remembers? She must do, though, if she told you. She was ugly, you know. I had promised my stepfather I would keep an eye on her, and I did. Aunt Mary was not doing it. She was a cold fish if ever there was one. Sophia amused me. I rather enjoyed taking her about London and talking with her. But I don’t mind confessing that I was offended when she imagined I had fallen in love with her. I mean, it was ludicrous, Darleigh. My mistress at the time was one of the acclaimed beauties of the demimonde. I was the envy of all the clubs. And there was Sophia … Well.” He laughed again.
“She was fifteen,” Vincent said.
“I beg your pardon,” Maycock said. “I did not mean to be offensive, laughing like that. She does not look half so bad now, I assure you. You have bought her decent clothes, as Aunt Mary never did, and her hair is under control. She has put on a bit of weight too. I daresay it does not matter to you that you did not marry a ravishing beauty, though, does it?”
“I believe I did,” Vincent told him.
Maycock laughed and then fell silent.
“Oh, I say,” he said when Vincent said no more, the laughter still in his voice, “I have offended you. It was unintentional, old chap. She is a pleasant little thing. As soon as I knew my stepfather was coming here, I thought it would be good to come and to see her again. I liked her until she tried to make an idiot of me. I daresay you are fond of her. It is hard not to be fond of Sophia. She was fortunate to find someone to whom looks are not everything. I am happy for her.”
Did he mean to be offensive? Amazingly, Vincent thought he probably did not. He was an amiable fellow, probably handsome and attractive to women. He was lacking only in the character department. Vincent stopped walking again and turned his way.
“Sophia had recently lost her father in a rather cruel manner,” he said. “He had been her only rock in a precarious sort of life, and he was not much of a rock at that. She was being ignored by the aunt with whom she had been sent to live. She was fifteen with all the insecurities and vulnerability of youth in addition to everything else. And suddenly she had a friend, someone who talked to her and listened to her and took her about to interesting places. Was it surprising that she fell in love?”
“Oh, I say—”
Vincent held up a staying hand.
“Of course you did not love her in return,” he said. “She was little more than a child. She put you in an embarrassing predicament when she declared her love. You had to explain reality to her. You could not let her continue in her delusion. And yet you did not want to hurt her. Did you?”
“She was a little scarecrow of a thing, Darleigh,” Maycock said, chuckling again. “You ought to have seen her as she was then. You would have had a good laugh, especially at the idea that she imagined I was in love with her. I laughed about it afterward. I was deuced annoyed at the time. Good God, all those afternoons I had given up for her. I thought she would be grateful.”
Vincent opened his mouth to say more. But what was the point? Even now Maycock could think only of the effect Sophia’s declaration had had upon him. Did the fact that she still remembered not alert him to the fact that she had been deeply hurt?
How did one avenge that poor little fifteen-year-old Sophie? By pushing the man in the lake? It could probably be done. There would be the element of surprise, after all. But it seemed somehow childish. And it would not be satisfactory.
How else, though? He was blind.
And then he had the germ of an idea. He put it aside for the moment.
“There are boats in the boathouse,” he said. “Perhaps you would like to take one out one day if the weather holds.”
“I may do that,” Maycock said. “There is nothing like a bit of exercise to get the blood pumping. I may take Henrietta with me. She looks decorative even if she does have a sharp tongue.”
“What do you do for exercise?” Vincent asked. “Ride? Spar? Do you go to Gentleman Jackson’s when you are in London?”
“I am one of his star pupils,” Maycock said. “I always drop my man. Sometimes he grants me a round or two with him, which he does not do with everyone, I would have you know. There is nothing like watching a decent mill, is there? Oh, sorry. You cannot watch, of course.”
“You must come down to my exercise room one morning,” Vincent said, and he indicated to Shep that they would return to the house. “My valet, once my batman, is also my trainer. He loves to spar. He is good at it too—he is built like a barn. It frustrates him that he almost never has anyone worthy of his skills close by. Perhaps—”
“It sounds as if he is my man,” Maycock said. “You had better tell him to bring the smelling salts along, though, Darleigh. He will need them.”
“I shall tell him.” Vincent smiled. “Though it may be his opinion that you will need them.”
Maycock laughed.
“I am glad I came,” he said. “I am going to enjoy being here. And I must remember to assure Sophia that she is no longer ugly. Decent clothes and a decent hair style can do wonders, can they not?”
Martin would call him an idiot and a nincompoop and lunatic and other, even less complimentary, things, Vincent thought. Though, no, he would probably not when he knew the circumstances. The only thing Martin would not like was the fact that he would not be the one sparring.
It was the middle of the following afternoon before Sophia was alone with her uncle. She had shown the state apartments to her aunt and uncle and Henrietta, all of whom had agreed that they were really quite impressive, even if it was a shame that they were wasted upon an owner who was blind. She had had a brief conversation with Sebastian when he walked into the music room after luncheon while she was stealing a half hour to practice a particularly challenging exercise Miss Debbins had set her. Why her fingers had the annoying habit of turning into ten thumbs as soon as she sat on the pianoforte bench, she did not know. But if Vincent could conquer the harp—and he was well on his way to doing so—then she could conquer the pianoforte. She could at least learn to be competent.
“Sophia,” Sebastian said, “you are becoming quite the accomplished lady.”
“I doubt I will ever display these particular skills in public,” she said.
“You used to sketch,” he said. “Some of your drawings were wickedly clever.”
“I illustrate stories now,” she told him. “Children’s stories. Vincent and I make them up together for the amusement of his nieces and ne
phews. And I sketch the pictures and make books of them.”
“Do you?” He smiled, and his eyes crinkled attractively at the corners. “You must show them to me. I went to Vienna to visit my stepfather, you know, and stayed longer than I intended. The entertainments there were endlessly distracting. By the time I came home, the dragon was dead and you had gone to live with Aunt Martha. It must have felt a bit like being tossed from the frying pan into the fire. I ought to have gone to see you. We were fond of each other, I remember.”
“I did not know you had gone away,” she told him, turning on the bench to look more fully at him. “But I was glad you stopped coming, Sebastian.”
“Because I called you ugly?” He pulled a face and then smiled again. “But you were, Sophia. Someone has done something with your hair since then and you have pretty dresses, and you are not quite as thin. Your looks have improved. I would not describe you as ugly now.”
“But you see, Sebastian,” she said, “I liked you, and I believed you.”
“How could you not?” He laughed, a sound of sheer amusement. “Your glass must have told you that I spoke nothing but the truth. That was a long time ago, though. You come very close to being pretty now.”
Ah. Praise indeed. She smiled back at him.
“You will be relieved to know,” she said, “that I no longer love you, Sebastian. I must go and fetch my bonnet. I am to go walking with Uncle Terrence.”
“Well,” he said, opening the door for her, “I am happy to know you feel no lingering disappointment, Sophia. Darleigh must be more to your taste.”
“Because he cannot see me?” she asked.
He laughed as though she had made a joke.
It was amazing what a difference five years could make to one’s understanding. He was handsome; he was charming; he was amiable. He lacked all empathy for others.
Her uncle was waiting for her in the entry hall.