Most Improper Miss Sophie Valentine

by Jayne Fresina

  She knew, of course, this was a falsehood. The man she met earlier in the church had made his intentions clear, and they did not match Henry’s words. But she did not want her brother to know she’d defied him by speaking to Kane against his express wishes. Better she stay silent in the matter. Perhaps it might all die down and be forgotten in a day or two.

  Ha!

  She turned her eyes turned back to her sewing and shook her head, knowing she was trying to fool herself with vain hopes. Thanks to Maria’s flapping tongue, the entire village would now know why the stranger had come. There could be no hiding it.

  In that moment, she saw herself again at the balustrade, setting down a cup of punch and preparing to leap into the darkness to embrace the unknown. If only she’d stopped and reconsidered, she wouldn’t have this scar today, and many things might be different. She could be safely married to James by now and have a handful of children to fuss over. There would be no time for mischief, then.

  She closed her eyes tight and sought the past through that soft, velvety darkness. She saw James’s sly glance over one shoulder, followed by the stolen caress of a blushing cheek. She heard the music, just as it played that night years ago while she stood outside in the chill September air. Her heart had raced as she watched the maid’s lashes flutter and her tray of glasses tremble. And again, she caught the edge of James Hartley’s knowing smile. He’d never touched her so fondly as he caressed the cheek of Lady Grimstock’s young housemaid.

  Perhaps, like other wives, she might have learned to overlook his dalliances. On the other hand, perhaps she could never have turned the necessary blind eye.

  Sadly, if she was there again, hovering on the precipice, there was every likelihood she would still jump, even now.

  ***

  That evening while it was still light, she walked out to the gatehouse with a small, shallow bowl of water for the hedgehogs. If she left her shutters open when she went to bed, their little mating snuffle could be heard every night. She stood a while, staring down the lane to the dark, ungainly shadow of Souls Dryft. They had no candles or torches lit, yet. Tuck, she remembered with a smile, always waited as late as possible before he lit the candle in the lantern under the door arch—ever the good economist.

  The sun, like a playwright with all the winding threads of his imagination exhausted, put down his quill and dipped his weary head to rest. Long shadows slowly crept across the ground, the bronzed fingers of sunset stretching to ease the cramp of a long day’s writing.

  And, stirred out of its dreams as if it felt her watching, the house down the lane appeared to open one eye, a flickering orb against the inky shadows. It was Tuck, of course, lighting the first candle of the evening and setting it on a window ledge where the shutters were left open.

  As that house squatted there, waiting, its eyelids—all but for that one—closed and its mouth half-sunken into the earth, it might easily be mistaken for a dead thing, which is what it wanted any casual observer to believe. Only by lingering long enough might one witness that bowed belly move, softly exhaling, unsettling the weeds around it. Some might mistake that exhalation for a breeze that shattered the delicate puff of dandelion seeds by the wall, or else a mouse, moving through the tangled grass. But they would be wrong. It was the house letting out a gentle snore.

  Sophie had spent the happiest years of her life in that house. She knew every inch of it, had whispered all her secrets and dreams into its walls.

  Well, it seemed she would never go back there again. One day it would have a new mistress—someone bold enough to accept the rough hand of mysterious, reckless Lazarus Kane. It couldn’t be her, of course. After all her daydreams of dark warriors riding to her rescue, in the end, she didn’t have the gumption to leap into his arms. He’d called her bluff.

  With a sigh, Sophia left the bowl of water and went to bed.

  Chapter 9

  “You’ve heard, of course, what she’s done now?”

  “My dear Mrs. Flick, of course I heard. Poor Sophia.”

  “Poor Sophia, indeed! She makes her own trouble, does that creature. Fancy placing an advertisement in the newspaper! We’re fortunate only one man came. We might have been overrun. At my time of life, the less of that there is, the better.”

  “Henry must be at his wit’s end.”

  “He should have reined her in before now. We reap what we sow.”

  Just then, Lazarus—hiding under the arch of the bridge—saw the very object of their animated discourse moving slowly down the lane toward them. Immediately, her critics turned, still gathered in a knot, and headed for the church gate.

  Whether she saw them or not, her face betrayed nothing, and her gaze wandered along with the bubbling stream. She came to a halt and looked up into the branches of the blossoming hawthorn tree at the foot of the bridge. Something had caught her eye and held it. She used the bridge wall to boost her height and reached up into the tree, leaning precariously. Intent on the elusive object she sought with her fingers, she failed to see the man below, half-hidden in the shadow of the bridge, watching and listening.

  For a brief moment, Lazarus took her for a spirit or an angel again, so ethereal was her appearance framed by the sharp light of that May morning. But the whispered curses coming from her lips were not the words of an angel.

  She leaned farther, and a few tendrils of amber hair fell loose from the knot in which it was kept. Her slender arm stretched out, and her face colored with the effort of reaching. He feared she would fall, but if he called out a warning, he’d give his presence away.

  Her lips broke apart with a sigh of frustration, and he saw the pink tip of her tongue before her teeth closed upon it. Her slender eyebrows lowered. Her eyes—the rich, unusual color, visible even from a distance—considered their prey with fierce determination. As she leaned and stretched, her body dipped, her back arched, and the low collar of her coat parted, the motion causing the weight of her breasts to nudge the material. It was a slight swell at first, but the farther she reached, the more it grew, her ladylike corset apparently unable to contain the complete fullness.

  Lazarus drew back and suffered considerable agony of a sort most inappropriate for a Sunday. Still, he mused, God made her to be appreciated. He was, therefore, doing the Good Lord’s will.

  Aha! She had what she’d sought and, victorious, tucked it under the peak of her bonnet. Out of all the flowers, many closer to her reach, she’d chosen that one in particular for some reason and put herself to all that trouble for it. To him, the flower looked just like all the others, but she had set her heart on it and would have no other. Now she slid back, out of his view, leaving the sky above him empty again and dull.

  ***

  That sprig of hawthorn flowers peeking out from Sophia Valentine’s bonnet was surely a sign of defiance and rebellion. The fresh white petals, newly blossomed, stood out like luminous clouds as she came down the aisle and took her place in the pews. She stared up at the stained glass window, so deep in thought she must be somewhere else entirely. Her body was merely holding a place on the pew beside her brother. Lazarus sat at the very back of the church in a seat from which he could unobtrusively observe Miss Valentine and her nodding posy…and the back of her brother’s head with its crimson-tipped ears.

  Several faces turned to look at him on that first Sunday, but theirs did not. Arms folded, he leaned back and studied the Norman arches of the little church as he breathed in the dampness of the ancient stone and listened to the dull echo of the rector’s sermon.

  Suddenly, he became aware of a face turned his way—a pale blur amid the bonnets. It was a young woman with a bland face, very prominent teeth, and large eyes that blinked rapidly now as she inclined her head in his direction. A little way farther on, two more ladies turned to nod in greeting until the elderly woman seated between them hastily drew their attention back to the sermon with quick pokes of her elbow.

  He looked ahead to watch three little boys giggling in a pew
across the aisle, making faces at one another, fighting and paying no heed to their mother’s frantic whispers and threats. They all looked to be under the age of ten, and as sharp-eyed as fox cubs. One of them saw Lazarus watching and stuck out his tongue. He would have stuck out his tongue in return, but at that moment, Sophia Valentine, seated in front of the boys, turned her head and dropped a folded piece of paper into the ringleader’s lap. Disregarding Henry’s stern frown, she whispered something to the boy, and he quickly relayed it to his companions. All three looked at the folded paper and then settled down considerably.

  After the service, the rector waited at the door to see his parishioners on their way. At his side stood his wife, a rather noisy, restless creature—another Valentine—whose lips were in constant motion in a conversation that trailed on without pause and with little encouragement from the reluctant listeners. Although she wore the pert look of someone disinterested, her husband was obliged to introduce her. She had dark hair, unlike her sister, and her eyes held no haughty air of mystery. They pinned him to the spot with a demanding curiosity, as if she could measure each limb just by looking. When she opened her mouth, that breathless speech tumbled out like apples from a dropped basket, rolling all around him in every direction. Meanwhile, Henry Valentine steered his other sister hurriedly away down the path, not allowing her to stop and greet anyone.

  At last, Lazarus managed to interrupt Maria with, “I hope you will attend my party next Friday, madam? I mentioned it to your husband when we met.”

  She glared at the rector, who immediately crumpled in weary apology, aghast at having forgotten to tell her of the invite.

  “Oh, really!” She bounced on her small feet. “Frederick, you’re so forgetful. I’m always the last to know anything!”

  “You will come, I hope? All of you?” Lazarus persisted.

  “Well I…” She looked at her sad, repentant husband.

  “I think we might attend, my dear,” he offered gently.

  “Yes, I suppose so.” And her eyes narrowed as she sought the figure of her brother, who was now almost out of sight, vanishing under the lych-gate. “If I am able to come…”

  “I hope to see you there.” Lazarus bowed and walked on, leaving her to nag at her husband, probably for another five and twenty minutes about being so absent of mind.

  As he passed through the gate, he glanced right and saw Sophia by the stream with the three little boys, helping them float that paper boat she’d made for them in church. In answer to their eager pleas, she showed them how to fold more boats, using pages torn from the back of her prayer book. Soon, each in possession of their own vessel, they proceeded to race them down the quick-flowing stream while she perched on a worn stone marker that pointed the road to Norwich in one direction and Yarmouth in the other. The boys ran back and forth, tripping over the grass and shouting to one another and to the smiling woman who watched, that nodding sprig of hawthorn flowers reflected in the glow of her cheek.

  Her pose, seated on that marker, was very prim and ladylike: her gloved hands gathered in her lap, her shoulders pressed back. But there was something about that woman, something that warned she was not what she appeared to be. However somber her appearance, however determinedly she sought to pass herself off as a meek, virginal spinster, she utterly betrayed that act by giving in to an apparently greedy appetite for misbehavior. She couldn’t help herself, it seemed, and had a wanton disregard for her own safety. The same spirit that caused her to write an advertisement for a husband had also set her mind upon the retrieval of a blossom far beyond her reach, when any other, much closer and easier to attain, might have done just as well. There was also the matter of two secretive hazel eyes, which claimed dutiful timidity even as their mistress privately flaunted the rules by climbing trees and studying naughty books. Finally to be considered: the undeniable existence of an extremely well-made figure that could not be disguised, even by stiff stays and an ugly coat. Miss Sophia Valentine was a wolf in lamb’s fleece.

  But she refused to acknowledge the existence of that wild creature inside her. It was up to him, therefore, to lure it out. He’d warned her he would.

  He took only one step in her direction before he was unfortunately apprehended by a young woman who leapt in his path, dragging with her a startled-looking elderly gentleman with thick, fluffy white sideburns.

  “Oh, Mr. Kane, I know this is most improper, and I should wait for an introduction, but I shall plow ahead in any case and cock my nose at the ensuing scandal!” She tittered gleefully while he squinted down at her. “My name is Miss Osborne, sir, and this is my dear papa.”

  Her father, it turned out, was a prosperous dairy farmer, the owner of a property he’d passed and admired upon his arrival in the village. Within a few minutes, he was invited to Sunday luncheon, and Miss Osborne would take no excuse. She hastily linked her arm under his, and with her father on her other side, she drew them back down the lane away from Sophia.

  Chapter 10

  When Lazarus put his heart and mind to a project, there was no stopping until it was complete. He worked on the repairs to that farmhouse—so Tuck observed aloud—as if he had a demon nipping at his heels.

  To which Lazarus replied, “Not a demon, just an angel.”

  One morning as the old man stumbled out into the yard, still not quite fully awake, he remarked that his master must have more energy than he could ever expend in a full lifetime. “Will ye never rest, lad?”

  “When I’m dead, Tuck. Plenty of time to rest then.”

  Tuck shook his grizzled head. “Ye’ll be dead soon enough, lad, carryin’ on like this.”

  Lazarus laughed as he made his way down from the roof. He was already sweating so early in the day, having been up since cockcrow. He saw Tuck glance sideways at the wound on his bare chest, but the old man never asked about it. Instead he said, “’Tis supposed to be the master watching the servant at work, not the other way about.”

  “Once I’m awake, Tuck, I can’t lie abed. Mind’s too busy, body’s too restless.”

  Tuck gave a low chortle, much like the cooing doves currently watching from the flint wall. “When ye get to be my age—if ye do, lad—ye’ll welcome a few extra hours abed in the morn.”

  Lazarus shrugged. “When I have a wife to delay me.”

  “I told ye—wife makes woe, and ye’re best off without one.”

  He turned away to wash his arms in the water trough. “Perhaps.”

  Sophie occasionally passed along the lane beyond his gate. He never let her know he saw her. Instead, he threw himself frantically into his work.

  Still washing off his chest and arms in the water trough, Lazarus asked, quite casually, “Sophia Valentine has lived with her brother ever since the accident that left her scarred?”

  “Aye, and none too happy with the arrangement now that harpy wife of his moved herself in.”

  “I’m surprised she never married.”

  “Oh, she were engaged, but after the accident, nothing came of it. Fellow was too fine and dandy, I reckon. Couldn’t do with a scarred wife.”

  He straightened up and pushed back from the trough. A sharp pain stabbed his gut, like a sneaky punch delivered before he was prepared. He hadn’t known about any other engagement, and now he wished he hadn’t asked. Perhaps that was why she refused to consider him—her heart was with another man.

  “She keeps herself busy,” Tuck added, “with the schoolhouse in the village.”

  “The schoolhouse? She’s an educated woman, then.”

  “Only by chance. When they lived here, Master ’Enry had a tutor for science, geography, and whatnot, but the young lad never cared much. It were Miss Sophie who read all the books and sat listening when she weren’t supposed to. She were always studying books. Liked them better than dolls. Frustrated her mother, it did. Miss Sophie always wanted to make use of herself. She’d say to me, ‘I won’t sit about and be stupid, Tuck. I’ll do something useful with my life.’”
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br />   Lazarus glanced again toward the gate as he slowly trailed the fingers of one hand over that scar by his heart. He’d been searching for a way to win her over. Like most things, he thought, there had to be a trick to it.

  Tuck had just given him a clue.

  ***

  “Matthias Finchly, pay attention. I hear you whispering…” She’d just hurried between the rows of benches to reprimand her most trying pupil, when a terrible clattering noise startled the entire class and set her heart into a gallop. “What on earth…?”

  A bird had come down the chimney and now flew madly about the small schoolhouse, swooping over heads and scattering little white droplets all over the place. The children leapt to their feet and ran about screaming. Few had the good sense to clamber out of the way, under benches and desks. Most danced about, trying to evade the bird’s aim or else attempting to capture it.

  Sophie ran to the window and flung it open. She hoped the bird would find its way out. Instead, it fluttered up to the beams under the thatched roof, perched there, and chirped excitedly. She opened the door and grabbed the broom from its corner, meaning to shoo the creature out. The Finchly boys, meanwhile, attempted to reach the bird by standing on each other’s shoulders, despite her angry shouts at them to sit down. Little Molly Robbins lay flat on the earthen floor, screaming she feared her eyes would be pecked out.

  The bird flew from one beam to the next, apparently in no hurry to leave. It occasionally swooped down again, narrowly missing a head and causing another chorus of screams and shouts.

  Into this chaos came Lazarus, who must have heard the ruckus and then quickened his pace down the horse path to stand in the open doorway and look in.

  She was horrified. He was the last man she expected to see in that moment…the very last man she wanted to see her as a helpless female again.