Sophia's Gamble

by Hilly Mason

  Gaming clubs seemed to be an obvious choice. There would always be people willing to give up their money in the hopes of getting more in return. Some men and women had bigger hopes than others. Those were Alex’s best patrons.

  He took a letter out from the chest and opened it, scanning its contents.

  How are you, dear Lydia?

  I have missed you fiercely.

  Shall we meet again when the jay cries noon?

  Yours,

  M

  Alex’s throat suddenly went dry. What in God’s name was he reading? He put the paper aside and picked up another letter. This time his hands were shaking, making the words difficult to read.

  Lydia,

  Sometimes when I lay down to sleep at night, I imagine you still near me. It makes these lonely nights much more bearable.

  Let’s meet soon.

  Yours,

  M

  “What are you reading?”

  Alex jumped at the sound of Diana’s voice, and dropped the letter. He stared into the chest, his heart pounding wildly. There were at least thirty, if not more, of these letters stashed neatly away.

  Diana picked up one of the letters and read through it. Her eyes widened as she looked at her brother.

  “Oh Alex,” she whispered sympathetically.

  “Does it sound like what I think it is?” Alex asked quietly. He sat down and leaned back against the foot of the bed. He gazed toward the wall, but his eyes were unseeing, blinded by the pain and heartache that tore through his heart.

  “You had no knowing? No inkling that she could have done this?”

  Alex shook his head. Of course, there were married couples who would agree to such affairs, if kept discreetly, but Lydia had never mentioned wanting to ever do such a thing—not that he would be fine with it to begin with. In fact, she had never seemed unhappy or unsatisfied with their marriage.

  Or had he been blind?

  His sister continued reading the letters. She then looked up him, her dark eyes troubled.

  “I’m sorry, Alex.” she said, handing him a letter.

  This one was in Lydia’s handwriting.

  Dearest M,

  I know France isn’t too far away, and you are gone only for a few days, but to me it feels like eternity. I pray that you are safe from danger and that this war will end soon.

  Please come home soon! Our baby boy is soon to arrive (I just know he’s a boy!), and I would love for you to be nearby during my delivery.

  With much love,

  Yours, etc.

  Lydia

  Alex felt as though he was about to lose his lunch.

  “These letters go back four years or so,” Diana remarked, shuffling through the papers.

  Four years: just as long as they’d been married.

  “Oh, God,” Alex said. “Do you think Annie…?”

  He saw his own pain reflected in his sister’s eyes. She shook her head. “Whatever had happened back then, she is still your daughter. You raised her and loved her. Whether she has the same blood as you matters not.”

  Yes, of course he would still love Annie if she wasn’t his. But how could his wife keep something like that from him? Was she so unhappy in her marriage? What had he done wrong?

  Alex nodded numbly. “I had no idea. She would travel to London and stay for days—to her friend’s house, she would tell me—and I believed her. How could I not? I thought we were both in love with each other.”

  But had it actually been love? He had married Lydia in haste after being rejected from Sophia. There had been tears in Lydia’s eyes at their wedding, but were they from happiness or despair?

  Had he been delusional all of these years?

  Diana rested a hand on his shoulder.

  “I’m here for you, Alex,” she told him.

  “Thank you.” He put a hand on top of hers and gave her a weak smile. He didn’t want her to worry about him. “Who do you think M was? The only clue we have is that he went off to battle sometime in the past,” he looked at the last letter he read. “I wonder if he ever returned.”

  “Does it matter?” Diana asked, taking the letter from his hand and tossing it back into the chest. “Your wife is dead, and perhaps it would be better for you to move on from this.”

  “It does matter,” Alex said. “I want to meet the man and kill him.”

  “That is not going to change what happened.” Diana said sharply. “And you know it.”

  Alex’s head still hurt. He glanced around the room, realizing suddenly that the woman who had occupied these walls was starting to become a stranger to him. A deep well of anger was rising inside of him. How many times had she come into his room to make love to him only to then run to her lover for a second act?

  Alex slammed the chest and slammed it shut, making Diana jump.

  How could he have been so foolish? So gullible?

  “I do not care what happens to the trash in this room,” he said, standing up and straightening his long legs. “I will tell the servants to burn it all.”

  “You can’t mean that.” Diana said, shocked.

  “Why not?”

  “You are not going to bloody burn down Ramsbury.” Diana told him firmly. “At least not until I have my first ball here.”

  Alex didn’t know ether to laugh or cry. He ran his fingers through his thick, dark hair and gave her an attempted smile.

  “Fine,” he said.

  Diana’s eyes brightened. “Do you mean you will host a ball here?”

  “Yes. Why not?” He walked over to the door, where he almost ran into a servant.

  “Milord,” the footman said. “The Butlers are here for dinner.”

  “What?”

  “The Butlers are here for—”

  “I heard you,” Alex groaned. “I just had forgotten about them.”

  “Do you want me to ask them to come at a later date?”

  “No, that would be terribly rude.” He turned and gave his sister a pleading look.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll stay the night,” she said to him. “We’ll go to Auntie’s tomorrow after your lawyer leaves. I’ll help you deal with the Butlers.”

  The Butlers were distant cousins who lived in Kent. In a recent letter they mentioned that they would like to stop by to Ramsbury on their way to do business in London. However, Alex knew their real motive for wanting to dine in Ramsbury’s halls. Michael Butler wanted his sister Ellen to marry the Lord of Ramsbury, Alexander St. George. Alex had deduced this from the letter he had received a week prior, but at the time he was desperate for some diversion that had nothing to do with his business or investments and agreed to the dinner.

  Now, however, he would rather disappear into walls of his house than entertain guests.

  After they had left Lydia’s bedroom, Diana went downstairs to welcome the guests as he escaped to the stables to saddle his stallion and take a ride to the nearby woods, shotgun in hand. Being alone with only the trees and the bubbling sound of a nearby stream, he had some time to finally think.

  Four years of marriage. Four years of naivety. His wife had been an adulterer, and she hid it well, playing the dutiful wife and mother to Annie. She had lied to him, and she had lied to their daughter.

  His daughter. Annie would always be his.

  You will not take Annie from me too! He thought fiercely. But whether he was directing those words to Lydia, to God, or to himself, he knew not.

  Lost in his thoughts, he had not been paying attention to where his horse was going until he came to an abrupt stop. As though time had slowed, he tumbled over his horse’s and fell supine onto the grass. The wind knocked out of him, he stared up at the tree-lined sky for a moment, wondering if he had taken his last breath, if he would suffer the same fate as his father and uncle. He wanted to chuckle at the irony but instead his body shook. A shadow flew above him. A grouse, he realized, as the muscles in his ribcage finally contracted, allowing air back into his lungs. His hand found his shotgun. He lift
ed the weapon up, his fingers shaking on the trigger as he fired.

  The grouse fell from the sky like an angel from heaven.

  His guests had already arrived when he came back from his hunt, dirty, his hair wild, and a bloody bird hanging limp in his hands, dripping blood onto the grass. He stared at them mutely, having expected them to be in the drawing room and not still in the gardens—especially in the chilled spring afternoon.

  Diana was quick to fix the situation. “Alex, how lovely it is that you caught our own dinner. Why don’t you hand that over to the cook and wash up before joining us?”

  “Um. Yes,” he mumbled, and turned around and left.

  He cleaned up quickly, and looked longingly out the window to where his horse was now stabled, wondering if any of them would notice if he jumped out of his window and escaped back into the woods.

  No, he had to remain strong for his daughter. He was all she had left.

  He sauntered down the stairs and sat down to dinner. He was a master player at piquet and knew how to keep an impassive face. He answered a few questions and threw out a few more to keep the conversation going. It was only Diana who gave him worried glances, knowing that something was still a little off.

  After dinner they moved into the drawing room. Mr. Butler lit him a cheroot as the two ladies strolled over to take some tea and cakes.

  “Lord St. George, would you care to listen to me play the pianoforte,” Miss Butler asked him from across the room, batting her lashes demurely.

  “Oh, please listen to Ellen,” her brother exclaimed, hopping from his seat with exuberance, almost spilling the tray of tea and biscuits onto the floor. “She has been practicing every day for years now. Her skill rivals that of Princess Charlotte.”

  “So I have heard all night,” Alex said dryly. “Very well, let’s hear it.”

  “Alex,” Diana warned under her breath.

  Miss Butler blushed furiously as she sat down at the bench. “Well, I don’t know if I’m that talented,” she said, clearly embarrassed.

  “She is just humble,” Mr. Butler reassured Alex, who nodded dumbly. At this moment in his life he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a pianoforte and a barking dog. His mind was far away, wondering what he had done wrong, what he could have done differently, to make his wife not stray from him for another man.

  As Miss Butler began to play, Diana noticed her brother’s far off gaze and stood up. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him aside, out of earshot from the guests.

  “Are you going to be all right?” she whispered to him as they casually looked out of the window. The gardeners were tending to his hedges under a light drizzle of rain.

  “I’m not so sure, Diana,” he admitted. “What would you do if you realized the past four years of your life had been a lie?”

  He didn’t like seeing the piteous look that crossed over his sister’s face. He turned away from her.

  “Never mind,” he said swiftly. “Give me a day or two, and I will be over it.”

  “Miss Butler fancies you,” his sister observed, turning to watch the young woman play the pianoforte with graceful fingers. “She is an agreeable woman, and would be a good mother to Annie.”

  “I do not have any intention of marrying again,” he said, shaking his head. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t want to be married to a ninny like her.”

  “I think Miss Butler is nice. Besides, Annie needs a mother,” Diana told him firmly. “Isabel cannot suffice.”

  “I have no interest in going through the mad dealings of a woman’s heart again.”

  “Well,” his sister said quietly as they walked back to the pianoforte to listen to Miss Butler sing. “Perhaps now is not the right time to speak of such things. At least hire a governess for the girl. Annie is not going to learn how to be a well-bred woman through you. That is for certain.”

  “Fine,” Alex said. He glanced at the clock. “Tell the Butlers that it was lovely to see them but... what is it that women always say? Ah, yes. My head hurts, and I am going to retire for the night.”

  Diana stuck her chin out and made to argue, but he had already turned and left the drawing room. He looked forward to not having to speak to anybody for the rest of the night.

  Chapter Five

  Sophia woke up in a panic, having no inkling as to where she was. In her half-asleep awareness she believed she was back at her prison cell in Newgate. The room was dark, and only a few tallow candles burned, creating terrible shadows against the wall. A figure in the darkness, cloaked in black, hovered above her, holding something long and large in their hands. For a moment Sophia was frozen in place, her heart thumping in her chest. It was as though the Grim Reaper himself was coming for her, as it had come for her late husband.

  This is what you deserve, girl, he said to her. This is what you deserve...

  Was it now her turn? She shielded herself from the dark figure, the moth eaten blanket clenched tightly in her hands.

  “What’s the matter with ye, lass?”

  Sophia lowered the blanket and blinked in confusion. She was no longer at the entrance to Hell with Death hovering just above her, but in the dingy apothecary next to the river Thames. Miss Baxter was standing over her with a broom in her hand and not a scythe. Definitely not hostile, but the glare she gave Sophia could perhaps cut through her flesh if the old lady tried hard enough.

  “Huh?” Sophia asked. She rubbed her eyes and looked for Joyce, but her side of their bed was empty, the blankets pulled up over the makeshift pillow, and the Persian cat (which Joyce had named Soot) sleeping innocently on top.

  “Ye high class people are good for nothin’,” Miss Baxter muttered, tossing the broom at Sophia, who caught it before the handle could hit her head. The lady walked away, mumbling to herself. It was then that Sophia saw Joyce toward the back of the room, sitting on the floor and stirring a cube of sugar in her tea cup, looking at her with an apologetic smile.

  “You could have awoken me,” Sophia said, using the broom to help her get up off the floor. Her back creaked in places she never thought possible, and she couldn’t quite straighten her neck all the way.

  “I figured you needed to catch up on some sleep,” Joyce said practically. “Here, have some toast and cheese with me, please.” She set up a plate of rye bread with lukewarm tea as Sophia sat down next to her.

  Sophia grimaced after taking a bite out of the rock-hard bread. She took a sip of the weak tea to wash it down.

  “You’d think an apothecary would have better quality tea than this,” Sophia said. She opened her mouth again to say some choice words about the food as well, but stopped herself. This is still better than sleeping out in the streets, she reminded herself. I am strong. And I can get through anything. Indeed, she had spent four long months in Newgate Prison—a place only slightly more dismal than this apothecary (although she did have her own bed at Newgate). There were many days and nights where she thought she could not stand the discomfort of the drafty cell and terrible food, but in the end she survived.

  Just as I am going to survive my new life.

  She finished her breakfast quickly. With renewed resolve, Sophia clenched the broom tightly in her hands and swept the floors with vigor. Once the floors were free from dust, cat fur, and broken glass, she and Joyce filled a bucket of water from the well outside, found some rags, and spent the morning scrubbing the stone floors until they shined almost like marble.

  “Do you like doing this kind of work?” Sophia asked her maid as she paused to rest. Her lower back ached terribly. She eyed Miss Baxter’s concoctions on the shelves, wondering which one would help to dull the pain. “I’ve never once heard you complain ever since you came into my service.”

  Joyce leaned back to wipe a bead of sweat from her forehead with her arm. “I wouldn’t say I love this kind of work,” she said. “I keep the complaints mostly to myself if they do come.” She shrugged. “But mostly I am thankful. You’ve always been kind to me. The las
t lady I worked for used to beat me just for looking at her. I was forced to stare at her feet all day long.”

  “Well, I must be an angel compared to her,” Sophia said. “But I know I haven’t been the greatest employer.” She paused. “It’s not too late for you to find work elsewhere. You shouldn’t feel obligated to stick with me through this.”

  Joyce laid a hand on Sophia’s arm. “I’m staying with you. And there’s nothing you’re going to say that’s going to change my mind.”

  Sophia couldn’t think of anything to say as tears prickled her eyes, but gave Joyce a smile instead, hoping that would suffice.

  They were silent for a moment while they cleaned.

  “Do you miss Lord Gibbs?” Joyce finally asked.

  “I feel like it would be incriminating for me to say no, Joyce,” Sophia began. She smiled wryly and shook her head. “But it is just you and me here, and you perhaps know me better than anyone alive. No, I don’t miss him. I was never in love with him.”

  “I figured as much. Why did you marry him, then? If it is not rude for me to ask,” she added hastily.

  To get revenge on Abby, Sophia thought. No, she did not have the strength and courage to tell Joyce that. She did not have the strength to admit that deceiving her friend caused Abby’s death. She would expect Joyce would not want anything to do with her after such a revelation, and who would she have left? She would be all alone in the world.

  She remembered her vision of the Grim Reaper that morning. This is what you deserve, he had told her. Yes, this all did seem like her repentance for living such an ungrateful life.