Most Improper Miss Sophie Valentine

by Jayne Fresina

  “It depends by what means he became a gentleman,” Henry replied as his fingers ran over his straining waistcoat buttons.

  “Quite!” his wife agreed. “What sort of gentleman travels so far—on foot—to marry a woman he’s never met and knows nothing about?”

  If they only knew he’d already kissed her, she thought mischievously. Oh, if they only knew how his hand had touched her, stroked her spine and the nape of her neck. She was all goose bumps at the mere memory of that, not to mention the brazen shape of his arousal as her hip pressed up against it. He’d taken possession of her mouth as if she owed it to him, as if he’d waited a long time to claim it, and she hadn’t offered up the slightest argument to dissuade him of that amorous notion.

  Of course, strangers were rare in Sydney Dovedale, and they were most often merely passing through. She certainly hadn’t expected him to creep up on her again a few hours later with marriage in mind.

  “The stranger has leased the property at Souls Dryft from the admiral, they say, for a considerable sum,” Maria exclaimed. “He must be quite rich.”

  Henry sighed deeply and disdainfully. “If it’s true he has money, it’s only new wealth. The fellow may be rich, but he clearly has no social standing, no rank, or he would not seek a wife in the Farmer’s Gazette.” He glared across the room at Sophie and added with icy calm, “I know exactly why she posted that advertisement. She wrote it for the same reason she wrote those letters to the newspaper about why women—women, of all things—should be permitted the vote. To cause mayhem and make me look ridiculous. Well, she might have caused a ruckus with her preposterous opinions and misguided wit before this, but she shall not goad me into an apoplexy, no matter how she tries.”

  When Sophie pricked her finger and cursed aloud, her aunt exclaimed, “Are you cold, my dear? You look pale. I hope you’re not coming down with a chill. I promised my dear brother, God rest his soul, I would look after you all!”

  Sophie smiled. “Another cup of tea, Aunt Finn?”

  “No, no, my dear, or I shall need the chamber pot again. You know it goes right through me.”

  Lavinia sighed loudly. “Well, I’m sure I don’t want to hear about your bodily functions. Henry, tell her!”

  But they all knew whatever one said to Aunt Finn generally went in one ear and came directly out the other, or, if it chanced to linger, was misinterpreted en route in some way that might be deliberate. Parsimonious with his time and speech, Henry wasted none on ladies from whom he could gain nothing. He leaned back in his chair and fumbled for the watch chain in his waistcoat pocket. “I must be going, my dear. Life continues as usual, despite everything.”

  Nobody ever asked Henry what he had to do with his day, but he was more often out than he was home, with no real occupation and no inclination for any. From their father, he inherited the ancient fortress and land upon which they lived, but he took little interest in the management of it, leaving all that to his steward.

  Sophie watched as he stooped to kiss his wife’s fleshy pink cheek, and Lavinia informed him of her need for a new parasol. Henry promised to purchase the item for her on his next visit to the town, even though he must know this would appease her for no more than half an hour, until the newness of her parasol wore off and she spied something else she must have.

  Needs. Sophie sighed and studied her clumsy stitches. Some women knew what they wanted—or thought they knew—and demanded it at the top of their lungs. Some women kept their needs to themselves, afraid of them. Of course, as a consequence, the second sort of woman never got what she wanted, while the loudest voice, accustomed to getting its own way, never felt the value of what it had. It was never satisfied, never content. With the acquisition of a silk parasol agreed upon by her husband, Lavinia now returned her thoughts to the true cause of her upset that morning. Abruptly her tone changed from wheedling and cooing to the sharp bark of a discontented lapdog. “You should call on this stranger, find out who he is and where he comes from, Henry!”

  He studied his pocket watch, lips pursed. “I shall consider what must be done. In the meantime, I expect discretion from all of you. Sophia”—he fixed her in his hard glare—“you will not go near the man until I have spoken with him and ascertained his true purpose.”

  She looked up from her sewing with as much innocence as might be mustered, and bowed her head in mute agreement.

  “We don’t want this spread about the village,” he added, his stern gaze turning to their younger sister. “Do you pay heed, Maria?”

  Maria was tying her bonnet ribbons under her chin and not listening to Henry at all. She checked her reflection in the silver teakettle. “Oh, Sophia,” she exclaimed, “the flowers in the church are quite tired and miserable. You’d better bring some new before Sunday. I see yours are blooming so well already, and yet my garden is in a very sad state. You’ve been quite lax at seeing to the church flowers lately. I cannot think why, as you have little else to do. Lord! When I think of how busy my day is compared to yours. If you had my life…with two children to raise…you would be rushed off your feet with no time for that little school of yours.”

  No one in the family considered Sophie’s teaching of the village children to be a worthwhile enterprise. Henry disapproved the very idea of a school that would distract the local children from their work in his fields, and had tried in the beginning to make her abandon the enterprise. But she dug in her heels, and eventually, having far less energy than his sister to pursue a cause, he gave up and merely resorted to the occasional scornful comment about the damage an education could do where it was unwarranted. Maria, on the other hand, distantly indulged the subject of her elder sister’s school with the mellow forbearance of a busy mother tolerating a small child’s collection of dead insects. She patted Sophie’s clenched hand and kissed her sullenly proffered cheek before hurrying after their brother, who continued with dire warnings about holding her tongue.

  While Lavinia returned to her listless, lounging pose on the couch, Sophie cleared away the tea things and wondered what Henry meant to do about the stranger. It would, no doubt, take him a few days to decide. The only impulsive choices Henry ever made were those regarding racehorses and hands of cards.

  Chapter 5

  Sophie escaped into the walled garden, eager to gather her thoughts in peace. She carried cake crumbs in her apron to disperse for the industrious spring birds, and then sat on a small bench in the shade of the wall. She was so still and quiet the birds landed within a few inches of her feet, pecking for the crumbs she’d thrown and finding the bonus of an occasional worm. One bird was a big, bossy fellow with a speckled chest. He bobbed about and supervised the others—all noise and strutting with very little productivity. Another bird flew in and perched on the garden wall, watching slyly, assessing his competitors with a keen eye. He had shiny black feathers, slightly ruffled by the playful breeze. He twitched his head and winked at her, just as the stranger did that morning.

  It was almost as if he saw inside her, to where all her ideas and daydreams clicked back and forth. Almost as if he knew her, and she, somehow, knew him.

  Her thoughts turned suddenly to James Hartley, the man to whom she was once, very briefly, engaged. She’d not seen him in many years. In the beginning, when she first came home after the accident, he wrote to her almost daily. But over time, his letters became shorter, his handwriting more slanted and hurried, as though hastily slathered across the paper in a last-minute dash. Finally, they stopped altogether. She couldn’t resent him for it. After all, she was the one who broke off the engagement.

  James lived in London now, returning occasionally to visit his grandmother in Morecroft. Although he had a very handsome yearly allowance, she held the purse strings to a vast portion of his fortune until he reached the age of thirty-five—an extremely stringent, but probably wise precaution written into the terms of his inheritance. Whenever Sophie asked about her old beau, Henry would say only that James was “still insufferab
le and still richer than Croesus.” Henry blamed James for giving her one too many cups of punch at the Grimstock ball ten years ago, when she was unaccustomed to the heady effects.

  The scandalous events of that tragic evening were still occasionally spoken of, although time exaggerated many “facts” about it. This included the number of witnesses to their brief coupling on a billiard table, which grew from a mere two to an incredible dozen. The latter number included Lady Rosemary Grimstock-Pritchett, who swore she could no longer look at green baize without needing a sit-down and a tonic. Yet, in truth, she was not even present at that particular ball.

  All that happened in another lifetime. Today came a new man, a very different sort of man. She felt an odd flutter in her breast. The stranger was nothing like James Hartley. His hair was distinctly unkempt, just as unruly as those eyes. He dressed well, the fabric of his clothes obviously of luxurious quality, but there was something about him…something…misplaced, like an off-key note.

  He was altogether too…altogether too…

  The blackbird on the wall suddenly took flight, skimmed low over her head, and landed on the willow arbor.

  Wild. That was it. Wild. Only masquerading as tame.

  Showing off for her, the blackbird dived down into the shrubbery and plucked a worm out from under the speckled bird’s complaining beak.

  The stranger was trouble. No doubt about it. His hands were large, square, and restive. Like his eyes, they held an unquiet spirit. And promise.

  She glanced over at the cookhouse to be sure no one was watching, and withdrew her copy of Fordyce’s Sermons for Ladies from where it was folded up in her woolen shawl. Inside the pages of that worthy tome, she kept another—one propriety required disguising in such a sly fashion. This second book was a small, slim volume she’d once found hidden in her aunt’s sewing box. With each perusal of its illustrated pages, Sophie felt anew that little thrill of venturing into a forbidden world. Now she examined it again with the eagerness of a truly irretrievable hussy, too lost to be saved from her own wickedness by the estimable Mr. Fordyce and his sermons.

  Her nervous fingers rediscovered a much-thumbed page. Chapter three, figures i and ii - The Male Anatomy in Repose and Erect. She studied the sketches, her lively imagination transposing a pair of breeches over the detailed drawing, comparing it to what she saw that morning. The stranger was neither figure i nor figure ii, but had the latter occurred, it would definitely strain the confines of his breeches. Her imagination drew a new sketch: figure iii - The Male Rampant. She snapped the book shut, quite disappointed in herself for having such a prurient interest in the poor man. He didn’t deserve her mental undressing. And what must he think of her already, having seen the sort of book in which her interest lay? Not to mention her zealous, uncalled-for abuse of a sack of innocent chicken feathers.

  Sophie shook her head, disgusted with herself. Under no circumstances could she ever think of the stranger again or yearn for what she thought he might give her. Marriage was completely out of the question. She knew nothing about him, except he was darkly handsome and altogether too forward. At her age, she must think practically.

  Now, if it was an elderly gentleman in a bath chair who had answered her advertisement—someone in need of tender nursing in his dotage—well, then she would consider it. But marriage to a daring, vigorous young man like him? Impossible. Ridiculous, even.

  She could almost hear her brother exclaiming in hushed, brittle tones, “What will our noble relatives, the Grimstocks, think of this?” That would be his first concern. The Grimstocks’ easily offended sensibilities must always be considered.

  Thirty-six years ago, when Lady Annabelle Grimstock eloped with Jeremiah Valentine, a respectable, hardworking gentleman farmer with only modest savings and no title, the Grimstock family never forgave her. Jeremiah was a solemn fellow, what might be called “plodding” in nature, whereas Sophie remembered their mother as being full of ups and downs, veering from tragedy to airy delight, often all in the space of one afternoon. Her daughters took after her in spirit, while Henry resembled their father, growing up to be a stern fellow with graying temples and a prematurely receding hairline. When Annabelle and Jeremiah died within a year of each other, the children had only one adult remaining in their immediate family, Jeremiah’s spinster sister, Finn. But it was Henry who ruled the household, taking miserly delight in ordering his sisters about, especially Sophie. In his opinion, she’d always got away with far more than she should.

  Henry was eager for his sisters to make advantageous marriages and, therefore, no longer be a burden on his finances. He had written a groveling letter to his mother’s Grimstock relatives, offering an olive branch. They agreed, most condescendingly, to send the girls to a ladies’ academy and then, should they turn out to be presentable, invite them to London for a Season.

  This turned out to be a very unfortunate idea. The Billiard Room Incident and The Accident sent Sophie back to Norfolk within a month. Maria, two years younger than her sister, didn’t wish to stay in London without her, so they returned together to Sydney Dovedale. It would seem as if Henry were stuck with the burden of his sisters once again. Only a few years later, however, exuberant chatterbox Maria surprised everyone by falling in love with quiet, unassuming Mr. Bentley, the rector, and bullied him mercilessly until he married her.

  Sophie smiled as she thought of her little sister. Maria, like their mother, had a very romantic view of life: everyone deserved to be happy. In their childhood, when the volatile tempers of Sophie and Henry clashed, it was Maria who ran to tell tales and get help. Though she was usually caught in the middle of their squabbles, she was also, on occasion, the unwanted peacemaker. Her nosy curiosity was exceeded only by an inability to keep secrets.

  With this in mind, Sophie severely doubted her sister would manage to hold her tongue about the stranger’s purpose in Sydney Dovedale. It probably would not be very long at all before the mortifying truth was out.

  Chapter 6

  As Sophie was daydreaming through Mrs. Cawley’s parlor window the following afternoon, she suddenly saw the stranger appear between two cottages and cross the market square. She moved quickly away from the window and tripped, almost dropping her teacup. Anxious to see what was causing her sister such distress, Maria nudged the drapes with her shoulder and peered out.

  “There he is,” she exclaimed. “The stranger!”

  Maria was immediately shoved aside by the impertinent shoulder of Miss Jane Osborne, a determined, horse-faced creature, who considered any unmarried gentleman in the village to be her own personal property until she declared him unsuitable for herself.

  “He’s too dark for an Englishman,” the young woman neighed through her ponderous buckteeth. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear he’s a foreigner. Amy Dawkins said he’s a Spaniard.”

  “He has no accent,” Mrs. Cawley assured her. “I heard him speak already.”

  “As did I,” agreed Mrs. Flick, taking smug pride in the fact. “I detected no accent at all, and if there was one, I assure you I would know it. Amy Dawkins wouldn’t know a Spaniard from a Scot.”

  They clustered around the window and watched the stranger pass, each falling silent as they greedily assessed his appearance. Even Sophie cautiously looked out again, unable to resist temptation.

  He was pronounced by the room in general to be “exceedingly tall,” although Sophie was sure it only seemed that way because of his confident manner of walking. His shoulders, it was also decided by the other ladies, were uncommonly broad. With this statement, she could brook no argument. They all agreed his profile had a certain interesting and unusual quality; it was not, by any means, unpleasant to look upon. While Mrs. Flick declared his nose lacked nobility, she could also allow it was not too large and showed no signs of overindulgence in the Demon alcohol. His black hair was rather long, but then, as Miss Osborne pointed out, it might be the fashion these days for gentlemen to wear their hair longer and som
ewhat tousled. Sydney Dovedale being so far from London, it was often the case that fashion had already come and gone before it arrived in the village. This was a great frustration to younger ladies like Miss Osborne, who pondered sketches of fashionable gowns in old copies of La Belle Assemblee with the awe and amazement other folk might reserve for detailed accounts of new discoveries in science and medicine.

  “He could be a Russian Cossack,” Jane whispered. “He has that look about him.”

  “What look would that be?” demanded Mrs. Flick. “What Russian Cossack have you ever seen?”

  Miss Osborne had nothing to say to that, having never been outside the county of Norfolk, let alone the country.

  “Walking about in his shirtsleeves,” Mrs. Flick muttered. “What can he be thinking?”

  “He could catch cold,” said Mrs. Cawley, although that was, of course, not the reason for the other lady’s concern.

  “He looks as if he’s about to burst out of his clothes,” Jane Osborne exclaimed.

  Again they all fell silent, watching as he walked away in his shirt and waistcoat, his narrow hips and tight buttocks not remarked upon but certainly observed. By Sophie, in any case.

  “He’s hosting a party at Souls Dryft,” Mrs. Cawley muttered as she lifted her spectacles to watch the fading figure. “He called here yesterday to invite me in person.”

  Maria swiftly snapped her lips shut and looked across at her sister. Even as Sophie frowned and shook her head, she saw Maria struggling with their secret, so full of stifled energy. The sudden announcement of a party being planned without their brother knowing would surely bring her to the bursting point. Henry Valentine considered himself the most important person in the village, and no party of any kind ever happened without his permission.

  In a huff, Maria left the window. She resumed her seat at the table and fidgeted with the buttons on her gloves, her countenance peevish.