“Forster, what are you doing at my sister’s bedroom door?” Ophelia demanded with mock seriousness.
“It’s her dressing-room door, sweet ladies. And you would both approve. Help me convince her to wear the dress her modiste has delivered.” Aidan stepped aside to let Ophelia and Audrey see the dress.
“Oh, it’s lovely. Of course you must wear it,” Audrey exclaimed.
“Yes, there’s no choice,” Phee agreed.
“Come now. It won’t take long. We’ll help you into it.” Audrey took the dress from Sophia’s hands and laid it out gently over the ottoman.
“And you”—Ophelia turned back to Aidan as she shut the door in his face—“you go down to entertain any guests who arrive early.”
* * *
The fire was low, but still burning when Sophia returned to her dressing room hours later. The house, which only an hour ago had rung with the sound of voices, was now quiet. Exhilarated by the conversation and the success of the party, even if it were not one she would have chosen to give, she had thought she would be too awake to sleep. But the moment the last guest had taken his leave, she found herself spent. Ophelia and Sidney had chosen to return to Kensington rather than spend the night, so she was alone.
The design of her dress made it simple to remove on her own: the black sash under the bodice covered a drawstring that tightened the dress to fit, and covered buttons secured the bodice in the back. She undid the buttons, then loosened the sash, and stepped from the dress. She laid it over the ottoman, smoothing out the fabric.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn a dress so lovely. Of course she would pay Elise for the gown. It was time to set a limit to Aidan’s liberties.
As she changed into her nightdress, she thought of Aidan. All evening, aware of Phineas’s watchful eye, she’d taken care not to look in Aidan’s direction. But she could not be unaware of him, her ear always listening for his voice. A number of the guests had spoken highly of Tom, several claiming his friendship from Harrow. Phineas had increased the guest list, inviting a number of men whose names she did not know. One, a slender man with a thick raised scar across one hand, had told her a tender anecdote of Tom’s school days that had brought tears to both their eyes. It had gratified her to hear Tom spoken of so well. She’d felt almost guilty to have Aidan present.
She covered the nightdress with her favorite Italian robe and picked up the book Mr. Murray had sent her that afternoon: George Crabbe’s Tales of the Hall, out only a month.
Artemisia came howling, pushing open the door between the bedroom and the dressing room. The cat headed for the ottoman. “No, no, no, you don’t. No walking on the beautiful dress.” Sophia caught the old tortoise shell in her arms and turned her belly up to scratch her chest. “What has sent you from your balcony before breakfast? Is it raining again?” She looked to the window, but saw no rain. Odd. “Well, you and I are going to read before bed.” Holding book and cat together, she entered the bedroom, kicking the door to the dressing room shut with her foot.
Inside her bedroom, she caught the fading notes of a cologne, not hers. She stiffened. The smell was too strong to have lingered from Ophelia or Audrey.
To be alone in the family suite now felt less like a luxury. She looked to the bell pull at the fireside. No, that’s foolish, and what would she say? Dodsley, would you mind checking under the bed for a monster? Even if she pulled the bell, Dodsley wouldn’t know to hurry.
The low fire illuminated the seating area in front of it. Two tall Queen Anne chairs fronted the fire, facing each other, both empty. She raised the wick of the oil lamps on the wall until they illuminated all the corners of the room.
The curtains on her bed were tied close to the posters; no one there. Nothing. Silly.
Murmuring to the cat, she carried Artemisia to the balcony. The door was open, as usual, but as she drew near, the hint of cologne strengthened. She drew away from the balcony, just as curtains moved.
Two hands caught her, one at the waist and the other over her mouth. She was pulled in against the intruder’s body, dropping the cat, which ran under the bed.
She barely heard the rough whisper, “don’t scream.” She bit the man’s hand and stomped with her ankle flexed back hard on the man’s foot. He released her. She fell forward, running to the fireplace and grabbing the iron poker.
The intruder followed her. She turned, poker held high, ready to strike.
“Sophia, it’s me.” Aidan stepped back, hands extended in submission. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I was waiting by the fire, but I heard your voice in the dressing room and thought your maid might be with you. So I hid.”
Still holding the poker, she walked toward him, fear now turned to anger. Her hands shaking, and her breath ragged. She slapped him across the face, hard.
“I take it you didn’t get my note?” Aidan rubbed his face where she’d hit him. “Could you put down the poker?”
“Note?” Glaring, she replaced the poker.
“On your dressing table. I told you I was waiting.” He sounded sincerely apologetic.
Sophia was unmoved. “You left a note on my dressing table where any of the servants, or nosy guests for that matter, could find it, saying you were waiting in my bedroom? Are you mad?”
“I didn’t say I was waiting in your bedroom.” Aidan leaned on the edge of her bed, rubbing his foot with the hand she hadn’t bitten. For a moment she thought he looked pleased.
“Then what did you do?” Sophia glared. “Write it in code?”
“In a way. I wrote ‘what light through yonder window breaks.’ I assumed you would fill in the rest. Or at least remember.”
“I don’t want to remember.” But she did, without wanting to. Aidan’s using bales of hay to convert the barn loft into a makeshift balcony, then reciting lines from her least favorite Shakespeare play, before he climbed the ladder to kiss her. “I always hated that play; star-crossed lovers, my foot. Just foolish children playing at being in love.”
Aidan’s eyes flashed. He crossed the room in only a few steps. Taking her shoulders in his hands, he pulled her against him and kissed her hard on the lips. She could taste his anger. “I was never playing, Sophia.” He set her back away from him.
She retreated to the other side of one of the chairs in front of the fireplace, increasing the distance between them. She began to say something, but stopped. She touched her lips and breathed deeply, one long breath.
Aidan breathed the next breath with her. “I must apologize. I returned to tell you how beautiful you looked tonight, luminous. And to congratulate you on a deft handling of the conversation, particularly when Lord Craven joined Malcolm and Sidney’s debate on the economic practices of the Bank of England, and the whole started to turn heated. But I arrived before the last of your guests left.”
“So you hid in my bedroom.” She was not mollified.
“Not intentionally . . . Well, yes, intentionally. I didn’t wish for your guests to wonder why I’d returned.” His voice had returned to the level calm she had grown to expect. “I thought this would be the room where I was least likely to be discovered. So, I wrote you the note, and I fell asleep before the fire. I only woke when I heard your voice. Will you forgive me?”
“How did you get here?”
He looked at the balcony.
“You didn’t.”
“It’s a useful skill, you know.”
“Tomorrow, I’m having that trellis taken down.” She held her arm out and pointed to the window. “But you can use it tonight—to leave.”
He took her hand, though she resisted, and placed it over his heart. “First let me accomplish the task I came for. You looked beautiful. Your handling of the guests was skillful. The meal exceptional. If Phineas doesn’t thank you profusely, he’s more of an ass than I would expect, even from him.” He kissed her gently on the cheek and walked to the balcony. “Until the morrow, my lady.” And he slipped over the edge.
She
followed him out, listened as he climbed silently down, and watched him walk away in the darkness of the garden. After he had disappeared into the shadows, she returned to her dressing room.
She found the note—written on her own notepaper—exactly where he had said it would be.
Chapter Twenty
The following afternoon, Aidan walked through the garden to see that Sophia had more than kept her word. Perkins had trimmed the climbing rose, removed the trellis, and begun to dig a small pond at the base of her balcony.
He entered the library to find it filled with flowers. He groaned. He should have realized it would happen. A number of the male guests were bachelors or widowers, and Sophia was a young widow of means. Even had she not been beautiful in the dress, its gray and black calling into relief her dark hair and eyes, she would have had suitors. Her cool distance had warmed over the last weeks into a soft reserve. Any of the men of rank would have seen her as a fine match.
As for Aidan, he’d spent the evening making sure not to look at her, not to respond each time he heard her voice. Phineas was openly suspicious, and it didn’t suit Aidan’s purposes for Phineas to meddle. Aidan had left early to avert speculation, but he’d slipped back through the mews, hoping to capitalize on her success—and on Ian’s absence—to begin their affair earlier than he’d promised.
Somehow he’d let the night, the nearness of her, the smell of her skin, all carry him away. But he was not a young man to be carried away by his passions. He could wait. For, in her room, angry and wielding a poker, Sophia had resembled the spirited woman of his youth, and he’d known that retreat would be his best strategy. But this new Sophia—certain of herself and her limits—was a woman worth seducing.
He picked up the stack of calling cards and began to sort through them, making two piles. No and maybe.
“Separating the sheep from the goats.” Sophia looked over his shoulder as she walked past him, a vase of flowers in her hand. “That’s thoughtful of you, but unnecessary.”
“Unnecessary? Your remarriage would affect Ian. Therefore it’s my obligation to offer my advice.” Aidan felt unexpectedly provoked. He wanted her to have nothing to do with any of them, but could do nothing to stop her if she so wished. He held up the cards one after another, assessing their senders. “Blakey, inveterate gambler; Debenham, old enough to be your grandfather and opposed Wilberforce and the abolitionists; Ratchett . . .”
“Why don’t you just focus on the ones who are acceptable? It’s the smaller pile.” Sophia seemed to be enjoying baiting him. She had placed the vase on a table near her easel and taken out some pieces of charcoal.
“By my count, six.” He drew close to watch her pick out a piece of large paper, turn it to the unused side, and attach it to the easel.
“So many. Surprising. Tell me their names, nothing more.” Her manner had changed in the last several days, more vibrant, less weary. It wasn’t the success of her party last night, though that was part of it. At last she appeared at ease with him.
“Montmorency, Bentinck, Courcy, Desmond, Montalbert, and Sinclair.”
“Excellent. Now if you could throw all the cards in the bin, I would be grateful. I intended to be away from home if any of them called, but I’ll be especially careful to avoid those six.” She began to sketch, long lines and short curves, looking to the vase and back to her paper.
“Whatever for? All have either substantial fortunes, or peerages, or talent, connections, ambition, education.” He stepped to stand directly behind her. He resisted the urge to put his hands on her shoulders. The memory of last night’s kiss was still too present in his mind.
“I have no intention of remarrying. Besides we’ll be gone in less than a week; it would be silly to encourage any of them, only to have to correspond with them for months.” The first of the flowers came clear in the lines of her drawing, then the next.
“Well, you’ll have to remember that tonight when they crowd my box at the opera wanting to talk with you.”
“Tonight?” She set down her pencil and looked over her shoulder at him. She looked longingly back at the still life, barely begun. “Ian is staying in Kensington until tomorrow with his cousins, and I thought to spend the evening here, painting.”
“It’s Kate’s birthday; Ophelia and I discussed the outing last night, but you were busy with your guests. I picked up the remainder of your wardrobe this morning at Elise’s, so you have no excuses. Your maid is putting the clothes away as we speak.”
He watched her face transform with suspicion.
“Don’t worry. These are the dresses you ordered. And Elise is sending you the bill. I just served as delivery man.”
“Not a single party dress was ready yesterday, but today the whole wardrobe is done?”
“Odd, isn’t it?” He ran his hand through his wavy dark hair and feigned innocence.
“More than odd.” She held his eyes to emphasize her point. “But if it’s likely to happen again, I will need to find a modiste more interested in my trade.”
“I’m certain this was a special circumstance.” It was neither an admission nor a promise, but it was a retreat of sorts.
Nodding knowingly, she turned back to her painting. “I didn’t realize Kate liked the opera.”
“If you must know, Ophelia suggested the new water drama at Sadler’s Wells. I hastily proposed the opera instead.” Aidan met her eyes and smiled, disarmingly. “You once confided that you wished to see the opera.”
“Oh, but when we first got to Italy, we went many times,” Sophia objected.
“But I have never taken you, and you have never been to the opera in London.” His voice held a hint of sternness, then he lightened it. “Besides, you have grown too used to seclusion these past months, and after last night’s success, you should celebrate with an evening out.”
“Even so, what would Kate prefer for her birthday?” Sophia looked at the unfinished image with clear regret.
“Kate will enjoy being wherever her suitors can easily find her,” Aidan reassured. “And as for your painting, I promise that when we arrive at my country house, I will set up a studio where you can paint all day if you wish.” He watched her expression turn from disappointment to pleasure. He wanted to tempt her, to make her look on their trip with eager anticipation.
“Well, then, I suppose I cannot refuse.”
“I’ll pick you up in my carriage then. Three hours from now will allow us to slip into my box just late enough to avoid interference from your new beaux.” He threw all the calling cards in the dustbin as he left.
* * *
Aidan’s box had one of the better views of the stage. The first row was taken by Ophelia, Kate, and Ariel, who chattered excitedly and waved at their friends in other boxes until the music began. Sophia and Aidan were seated in the second row.
Their bodies concealed behind the three women, no one could see Aidan’s subtle liberties. A leg that leaned against Sophia’s gently, a hand lingering on hers as he handed her the program or the opera glasses. Had there not been the kiss in the garden, that exquisite moment of passion, even she might have believed him unmoved by her nearness, and she suddenly saw their last trip in a carriage in a new light. Had the passion been present all along—and not just on her side? Before she had steeled herself to ignore his touches, but now each glancing touch reminded her of his lips against hers; the touches kept her off-balance.
Before her marriage, she had imagined just such a night at the opera, the swell of the music surrounding them, feeling its rhythms echoed in her chest. But she’d never imagined she and Aidan would be sitting in a box together; no, she’d imagined being crowded into his side in the crush of the upper galleries. She closed her eyes, listened to the intricate harmonies of the singers. She felt the nearness of him, imagined she was once more a young girl in the first flush of love and he was the charming boy who had stolen her heart. Then, she let the present moment replace the past longed-for one. It might have been ten years
too late, but in every other way, it was almost perfect.
At the intermission, all gracious good manners, he offered to retrieve lemonades for them all. Sophia accepted with a grateful smile, but Kate and Ariel had already identified another box they wished to visit. “We’ll be back before the next act.” And they—with Ophelia in tow—slipped out of the box, laughing and whispering behind their fans.
Aidan stood. Sophia watched her dream of him merge into the real man standing before her. “I’ll be back shortly. But let me give you some privacy while I’m gone—or rather conceal you from all those suitors you insist you don’t want.” He smiled and drew the curtain partway.
* * *
As Sophia waited, she wondered what her life might have been like if she’d married Aidan instead of Tom. In the past weeks, Aidan had been considerate, kind, and often even charming, and in his garden . . . Even the memory made her flush.
But she often caught glimpses of another, harder man under his charming façade. Was the change in him the result of his experiences during the wars, or just the natural consequence of aging? If they had married, would he have retained more of his youthful good humor? Or would the strain of living on little money (for neither of them had fortunes) have evoked the same sternness she puzzled over now? Or would none of it have mattered? Was their character as adults somehow predetermined and not fully a creation of the events that had transpired to separate them?
She heard a footfall behind her and began to turn. But a gloved hand covered her mouth from behind, and an unknown person pulled her chair back into the darkest part of the box. She grabbed the arms of her chair to keep from falling, but before she could react, fight, or scream, she was stunned into silence by the glitter of the knife blade as it moved to her neck. With one hand on her mouth and the knife in the other, the man whispered.
Jilting the Duke Page 17