by Anne Ashley
"There were several, Mama," she admitted softly. "I was secretly hoping that Lord Nicholas would still be here. Unfortunately, as you probably heard the housekeeper remark after I had enquired, his lordship returned to London this morning." She shrugged. "But,, no matter. I can see him on our return to town. In the meantime I am determined to enjoy the fresh country air. It will be pleasant to be away from the capital's noise and smells."
Her ladyship did not doubt that her daughter was being perfectly truthful as far as it went, but she suspected that there was much Sophia was keeping to herself. She refrained from probing further, however, and merely said, "I sincerely trust we all benefit from this short sojourn in the country, child. But I think I should point out that by encouraging your father to accept Sharnbrook's totally unexpected invitation, you have in all probability put the notion of you achieving a truly splendid match into his head."
There was a faint reckless quality in Sophia's shout of laughter. "Well, and why not?"
"Because by your own admission you prefer footmen to marquises." Her ladyship could not resist reminding her, and then smiled at the astounded expression. "Yes, I did hear the rumour on the evening of our very own ball," she admitted, "and had a fairly shrewd idea from where it had sprung."
"That I could ever have uttered anything so idiotic!" Sophia exclaimed, utterly ashamed. "How you have put up with my foolishness all these years, Mama, I shall never know." A wistful smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "Perhaps it has all been a judgement on me, then," she murmured, hardly aware that she was speaking aloud. "No more than I deserved."
The Countess, suddenly alert, detected a look in her daughter's eyes that she had never seen there before. "What is it, child?" She began to fear the worse. "Is there something wrong?"
"When we first arrived in London, Mama," Sophia answered, turning away to stare out of the window at the vast area of parkland, as though seeking solace there, "I recall Papa was concerned that I should not fall prey to some fortune-hunter. I don't suppose that he ever considered for a moment that his precious daughter might turn out to be the one found wanting, the one who could not quite meet the necessary requirements to make her the perfect wife."
Turning her back on the magnificent view, she moved swiftly across to the door, fearing that that iron self-control was beginning to show signs of strain. "Oh, if only frogs could turn into princes!" she cried. "Well, I cannot have my frog, Mama, so I must be prepared to settle for second best. A duke would suit me as well as any, I suppose." And before her mother could gather her scattered wits together sufficiently to enquire what on earth she had meant, Sophia had left the room.
For several minutes her ladyship, prey to tumult of conjecture, sat perfectly still, staring in dawning wonder at the closed door, then she flew into the adjoining room to discover her husband, himself standing before one of the tall windows, hands clasped behind his back, contemplating the magnificent views.
"Thomas, we must leave here at once!" she announced, not mincing words.
"Eh...?" Startled out of his reverie, the Earl turned to see his normally placid wife pacing the room like some demented creature. "Deuce take it, we've only just arrived! What ails you, Marissa?"
"Nothing. But I very much fear Sophia is ailing. And I also very much fear that if Sharnbrook makes her an offer, she'll accept him!"
This was music to his lordship's ears. "Well, and what of it? It would be a splendid match."
"Not if she's breaking her heart over her frog, it won't."
"Frog...?" His lordship's jaw dropped perceptively. "What the deuce are you talking about, Marissa?" He cast her a sympathetic smile. "I tell you what it is, old girl. All that gadding about in London has over-tired you, has been a bit of a strain. You need a rest."
"There's nothing at all the matter with me!" she snapped, for perhaps the first time ever coming perilously close to losing her temper. "It's Sophia you should be concerned about." She ceased her pacing. "I should have realised. I detected the changes in her...knew someone was exerting a beneficial influence... But I never imagined for .a moment that she was falling in love... God, what a fool I've been!"
"Fallen in love? Sophia...? With whom, pray?" His lordship was utterly bewildered now. "With the possible exception of young Risely, she ain't shown a ha'p'orth of interest in any man since we arrived in town, as far as I'm aware."
"No, I know she hasn't," her ladyship agreed, concern clearly writ across her pale features. "And that is precisely what worries me, for I very much fear she has lost her heart to—to someone you would find totally unacceptable."
"Ha! So that's the way of it, is it!" His lordship bellowed, bringing his fist down none too gently on a conveniently positioned occasional table. "I might have guessed the little minx would do something like this just to annoy me."
"If you truly believe that, Thomas, then you do our daughter a grave injustice," her ladyship countered, surprising her husband out of his ill-humour, and swiftly gaining his full attention. "If you had not been so wrapped up in your own misery, so uninterested in most everything that was going on about you of late, except your own private concerns, you could not have failed to perceive the changes in Sophia. She has dealt with your megrims and unreasonable behaviour with such a wealth of patience and understanding that I have felt proud to be her mother. Not once did she come even remotely close to losing her temper when you foolishly paraded every buck and dandy you could find before her. And little wonder the poor child remained totally unimpressed with all those candidates you found for her hand, when her feelings were engaged already!"
"Yes, but who is this man, may I ask?" the Earl demanded, not unreasonably.
"I don't know!" Striving to maintain her composure, the Countess seated herself in the nearest chair, and took a moment or two to try to make some sense of her disordered thoughts. "If I had not been so concerned about you in recent weeks, I might have been more observant where Sophia was concerned. Evidently she's taken great pains to keep the truth from me. Perhaps, in her heart of hearts, she has known all along that by marrying this man she would be making a great mesalliance."
Raising her head, she looked across the room at the Earl who was looking no longer angry, just merely thoughtful. "In truth, Thomas, I do not know what has been taking place right under our very noses during these past weeks. The only thing I'm certain of is that our only daughter is desperately unhappy and striving not to betray her feelings to anyone. If there is a possibility that a marriage to this unknown man who has won our daughter's affections could take place, are you prepared to sit back and permit her to marry someone whom she could never love merely to please you?"
A long silence, then, "No, Marissa I am not." There was no mistaking the old steely determination in his voice. "Come, let us find our daughter, and discover precisely what has been going on!"
Sophia, blissfully unaware that both her parents were in hot pursuit, was at that present moment walking along the gravel paths at the back of the mansion, and rapidly coming to the conclusion that the strain of the past few days was finally beginning to take its toll. Not only had she come perilously close to breaking down in front of her mother, but now she was convinced her eyes were playing tricks on her, for she had just seen someone who, had she not known better, she could have sworn was none other than her old groom Clem Claypole, mounted on the most magnificent black, heading in the direction of the stable block.
"Unutterable madness!" she muttered, entering a huge conservatory and finding herself amid garlands of fragrant blooms, most of which she did not recognise.
Finding the humidity a little oppressive, but the heady scent quite delightful, she stood for a moment gazing in wonder at the wonderful exotic collection, before focusing her attention on a tall specimen in a huge terracotta pot just a few feet away."
"Be careful with that," a beautifully modulated and startlingly familiar voice warned, as Sophia stretched out tentative fingers to touch one leathery, ovate leaf. "It
has travelled a very long way. From the Carolinas to be precise. It is the only specimen on the estate, and so is being treated with the utmost care."
"Quite understandable," Sophia responded, quickly withdrawing her hand as though she feared it might get burned, and then turning sharply to see a tall, immaculately attired figure emerge from between the dense foliage. The fact that some detached part of her brain had instantly recognised something achingly familiar in the deep voice should have been sufficient warning, and yet she still found herself gaping like a halfwit when she raised her eyes to see that beloved face, now clean-shaven, and with its crowning golden mane cut to a more acceptable length, smiling down at her.
"Ben!" she gasped, still reluctant to believe the evidence of her own eyes, as she took in every detail of the faultless attire: the well-starched cravat, which despite the humidity managed to retain its crispness, the expensive linen shirt tucked into the waistband of tight-fitting breeches, and the black-leather top-boots with their looking-glass shine. What he was doing here and dressed like a gentleman were the first of many questions amassing in her poor throbbing head, but before she could begin her inquiry an interruption occurred, and she found herself gaping yet again at the equally familiar figure who suddenly appeared in the doorway.
"Clem," she murmured faintly, wondering if she were truly running mad.
"Hello, my lady. It is good to see you again." Her ex-groom's lopsided grin faded as he turned to his new master standing directly behind her. "I'm sorry for the intrusion, your grace, but would you be wanting Sultan saddled again today?"
"No, not today, Clem. I envisage my time will be fully occupied with—er—mother and more important matters."
Even in her hopelessly confused state, where she refused to face the one fact that was becoming patently obvious, Sophia could not fail to detect the note of amusement in that well-remembered, beloved voice.
"By the by, has Trapp recovered from the shock of coming face to face with me yet? I hope you've taken good care of him."
"He's sharing my room above the stable, your grace. We'll perhaps have a tankard or two of ale later and talk over old times." Clem chuckled. "Never fear, your grace, he'll be as right as rain by morning."
Somehow managing to respond to her ex-groom's farewell, Sophia remained staring fixedly at the spot he had just vacated. "I know this is going to sound incredibly foolish," she said with dangerous restraint, "but why did Clem refer to you as your grace?"
A brief silence, then: "All my employees grant me that courtesy," Benedict responded softly. He could almost hear those tiny white teeth grinding together, and wanted nothing more than to take her into his arms and kiss away the rising anger before there was the understandable explosion of wrath, but he remained resolutely standing those few feet away.
"I know how you must be feeling at this precise moment—hurt, angry, perhaps a little foolish for not having guessed the truth long ago. Maybe even bitterly resentful because you believe I've been playing some May game at your expense."
All those things and more, she thought, but said, somehow still maintaining that admirable self-control of which her mother had become so justifiably proud, "Well...and haven't you?"
"No, my darling. From the start I've been in deadly earnest, wanting only to get to know you a good deal better."
She did turn to look at him then, and he held the openly sceptical gaze levelly, instinctively knowing what she must be thinking and feeling, and not blaming her in the least for the contempt he saw mirrored in those lovely green eyes. "I'll own, I did not go about achieving my objective in the most sensible way. In fact, it was damnably foolish of me to pose as a groom."
"So why did you do it?" she put in, nowhere near ready to believe him yet, nor forgive him, either, for that matter.
"Because of something Nicholas had mentioned about you—about your aversion to titled gentlemen, and because...Oh, I don't know!" He ran impatient fingers through his hair, still annoyed with himself, if the truth were known, for embarking on such tomfoolery in the first place. "I suppose because I gave way to a moment's sheer irresponsibility, a desire to enjoy just one last madcap venture before I took upon my shoulders the huge responsibility of becoming the head of the noble Risely family. God only knows what madness possessed me! I knew I couldn't hope to maintain the pretence for very long."
His sigh was so heartfelt that she could not fail to be moved by it. She regarded him in silence, realising in those moments what ought to have been abundantly clear to her from the start—that he was every bit as much in love with her as she was with him. Did anything else really matter?
"I love you, Sophia Cleeve—have done so from the first moment I set eyes on you that morning in Bond Street," he freely admitted, which merely confirmed what she now knew in her heart of hearts to be true. There was a great deal more she needed to know, but she was prepared to wait. All that mattered was that he was here now.
Something in her expression gave her away, and he was not slow to hold out his hand. "Will you be my Duchess?"
"Yes," she answered, willingly surrendering her fingers. "But only because I intend to spend the rest of my life making you suffer unimaginable torments for the abominable trick you have played upon me!"
His triumphant shout of laughter was muffled in a tender embrace that dispensed with the need for further explanations. They clung to each other, exchanging kiss for kiss, caress for caress, until a staunchly disapproving voice demanding to know what the deuce was going on brought them down from the heady heights of their mutual passion with a jolt, and they fell apart half amused, half shamefaced to see the Earl glowering at them from the doorway, and the Countess looking not just a little confused as well.
"Loath though I am to contradict you on anything, Marissa, but I feel your reading of the situation in this instance is grossly inaccurate," said his lordship ominously. "Far from suffering a broken heart, it would seem our daughter is fast becoming a trollop!"
Sophia's only response to this unflattering assessment of her morals was to burst out laughing, and it was left to Benedict to take charge of the delicate situation. Suggesting that his future wife escort her mother back to the house, and arrange for a tea-tray to be brought to the yellow salon, he set about soothing his future father-in-law's ruffled feathers which he did so successfully that his lordship's laughing comment on first rejoining the ladies was, "My dear Marissa, does it all not make you feel incredibly old? Our groom of all things!"
"Not at all," she responded, bubbling with mirth herself. "My only concern is that the gossips will get to learn about it all."
"I took great pains to ensure that I wasn't recognised," Benedict assured her. "But in the unlikely event that someone did penetrate my disguise, I suggest a quiet engagement here at Sharnbrook, which can easily be arranged in a very few days. The Ton will then believe that it was a clear case of love at first sight... Which, of course, is no less than the truth." He went across to Sophia. "Are you agreeable to a swift engagement, my love?''
Her glowing smile was answer enough. She was more than happy to fall in with any plans he wished to make, which included a Christmas wedding to be held in the tiny church at Abbot Giles. The Countess was slightly disappointed, for she had dreamed of a truly magnificent wedding for her only daughter.
"It is what they both want, my dear," his lordship remarked, watching the happy couple wander out on to the terrace a short time later. "They can, as Sophia suggested, do all the lavish celebrating and entertaining they wish to when they go to London next spring."
"Yes, of course they can. And I mustn't forget that dear Beatrice and Harry's wedding was a truly charming affair. I see no reason why Sophia's shouldn't be too. They're very much in love, that's plain to see." She drew her attention away from the glowingly happy couple to glance up at her husband's profile. "You must be overjoyed by the turn of events."
"Very," he assured her, then with an abrupt change of subject said, "I shall return to London a
fter the party, and arrange for a notice of the engagement to be placed in' the newspapers. I see little point in remaining in town until the end of the Season, so I shall return to Jaffrey House at the beginning of June."
"You mean you won't be returning here?" She was both surprised and disappointed. "But you heard me promise Benedict that I would remain here with Sophia for several weeks."
"And so you shall, my dear." The Earl drew her arm through his. "It is just that there are one or two matters requiring my attention which I have left unresolved for far too long. Nothing for you to concern yourself about."
Her ladyship was not so certain, but kept this reflection to herself, and merely allowed him to lead her out on to the terrace to rejoin their daughter and future son-in-law...