by Mary Balogh
“I am as delighted as you,” Sophia said. “Oh yes, Lass, standing around is very tedious, I know. Until tomorrow then, Lavinia.”
And she went striding off along the street. She had something to do, and she wanted it done now, this afternoon. She would know no peace until it was accomplished.
She would have enjoyed her long walk with Lavinia immensely, she thought, if that other thing had not been hammering constantly against the back of her consciousness. But she was becoming almost accustomed to the feeling. She had enjoyed the walk regardless. She liked Lavinia very much indeed and felt that she had just made a friend who could become very dear to her if the friendship was given a chance to blossom.
It was strange really that Lavinia admired her—for following the drum and enduring all the discomforts of life with a constantly moving army as well as all the very real dangers. She admired Sophia for living independently now when she might have chosen to spend most of her time in the homes of her male relatives.
“And all this you have done before your thirtieth birthday,” Lavinia had added with a sigh.
It was strange because Sophia as a girl had wanted only marriage and motherhood. She had been no different from almost any other young lady of her acquaintance both then and now. It was only circumstances that had shaped her and strengthened her and made her into the sort of woman who could and would stand alone—though that might change very soon, she thought with a sharp intake of breath. She hauled back on Lass’s leash, judging that the four large horses pulling a ponderous carriage along the street must be allowed to take precedence over one eager collie.
“Sit!” she commanded, and Lass sat, tongue lolling, and watched the horses go by.
Lavinia felt no general hatred of men despite some bitingly witty remarks about several of the gentlemen who had tried to pay court to her at last evening’s ball. She even conceded that she dreamed of one day finding that one and only man with whom her soul as well as her body could mate—she spoke her mind quite boldly. But he would have to be someone, she explained, who would recognize that in addition to being a woman, she was also and first and foremost a person.
“Sometimes, Sophie,” she had said quite candidly and quite without conceit, “I think it a curse to be beautiful. Especially a beautiful redhead. One is expected to be strong-willed and fiery-tempered when one has red hair, of course, but you would not believe the flights of wit on which gentlemen take wing with the accompaniment of the most odious smirks when they speak of dousing fires. They believe I am waiting with trembling hope for the advent of some man strong enough to tame me.”
“Yet all you are really waiting for,” Sophia had said, “is some man strong enough to allow you to be you.”
“Exactly!” Lavinia had said, stopping on one of the paths of Hyde Park and gripping Sophia’s arm while she smiled dazzlingly at her. “Oh, Sophie, that is exactly it and no one—absolutely no one until now—has understood it. Oh, how I like you!”
But Sophia was not able to bask in the pleasure of a new friendship. There was too much else crowding out her memories of a pleasant walk in bright, warm sunshine and of the interesting, intelligent conversation of Nathaniel’s cousin.
Had Nathaniel seen Boris Pinter leave her house? At the time she had convinced herself that if he had, he would have said so immediately. But the more she had thought of it since, the more she was convinced that not enough time had elapsed between the departure of Mr. Pinter and the arrival of Nathaniel and Lavinia. Surely the two men must have seen each other. And yet Nathaniel had said nothing. And she had foolishly lied. She had told them she had been alone and bored.
What if he mentioned it tonight? It was none of his business, of course. She might say anything she pleased to any question he chose to ask or even nothing at all. But she did not want to lie further to him or have him think she was keeping secrets from him—she laughed aloud and then looked about self-consciously to see if anyone on the street had noticed. Keeping secrets from him!
Boris Pinter’s visit had not been unexpected, of course. Indeed, she would have been surprised if he had not come today. And the price had not been totally unexpected, though her knees had grown weak beneath her when he had named it.
“Where do you expect me to find such a sum?” she had asked him before she could stop herself. One could not expect compassion from a blackmailer, and she had resolved never to beg, never to show weakness to him.
“Why, Sophie,” he had said, smiling and revealing those large, white, perfect teeth of his—she always found herself looking idly to see if his eyeteeth had yet grown into fangs, “you have a brother-in-law with estates in Hampshire and a brother who, though no gentleman, is said to be rich enough to buy up all of Hampshire with the loose change in his pockets. Is it not time one of them was called upon to support old Walter’s widow?” She and Walter had been “sir” and “ma‘am”—with the accompaniment of a salute or a deferential bow—during the war years, of course.
She had looked at him with cold contempt. It might come to that, of course—in fact, it undoubtedly would—but not until she was quite desperate. And that would be next time. an inner voice had said loudly and clearly. But she would not involve Thomas in something that was really not his concern unless she had no alternative, and she hated the thought of involving Edwin, of telling him ...
“I just happened to find this one more letter, Sophie,” Boris Pinter had said, taking it from his pocket. “It had fallen down behind a drawer just when I thought I had returned them all to you. It makes one shudder to realize that I might have left it there to be discovered by a future tenant of the house, who might immediately feel it his duty to make it public, does it not? You really would like to have them all, would you not, Sophie, as a final memento of old Walter?”
He had always brought one of the letters with him. He had always put it into her hands, while hovering close enough to be sure that she could not destroy it before it had been paid for. She had read the first one from beginning to end. It had been unmistakably in Walter’s hand. She had found herself strangely relieved to discover that there was no vulgarity in the letter, nothing shockingly graphic. Only a deep, poetic tenderness—she would never have suspected that Walter was capable of anything approaching poetry. It had been perfectly obvious that Walter had been passionately, irrevocably in love. She had looked at the name at the top of the letter, at his signature at the end. She had not read any of the subsequent letters in detail. She had only glanced at them to ascertain that they were indeed love letters written by Walter.
“I always had a great respect for old Walter,” Boris Pinter had said that first time—and every time since, “and for you too, Sophie. I knew you would not wish this letter to get into the wrong hands and so I have brought it straight to you. In light of the extreme bravery of his final act and the grateful adulation of a nation, it would be sad indeed if it were suddenly learned that for a full two years before his death he was, ah, unfaithful to his wife.”
It was always the same speech, give or take a word or phrase.
“You will have your money,” she had said earlier this afternoon. “Within one week, you said? You will have it long before then. You will leave now.”
“No offer of tea, Sophie?” he had asked. “But I can understand how upsetting it must be to discover that Walter preferred someone else to you—though not nearly as lovely as you, of course. One can only wonder at his poor taste. You do realize, of course, that old Walter’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse would be the very last to offer you sympathy if they could take one glance at any of these letters?”
“You will leave now,” she had repeated quietly.
And a scant five minutes later—perhaps not even as long—Samuel had appeared at the sitting room door with Nathaniel’s card and a request that he might be received with Lavinia.
It would have taken a miracle indeed for him not to have seen the other man.
Sophia found the jeweler’s shop she wa
s looking for and went inside after tying Lass’s leash to a post outside the door. She had at first intended to go to a pawnshop, but she had rejected the idea for two reasons. She did not believe she would be able to get enough money at a pawnshop. And there was no point in giving herself false hope. There was no chance that at any future date she would be able to redeem her pearls. No, she must sell them.
She emerged from the shop ten minutes later, untied Lass, who was standing and eager to be on her way, tail waving in the air, and proceeded to take the shortest route home.
“Well, Lass,” she asked her dog briskly when they came to the familiar streets close to home and she had bent to remove the leash, “what is the best story to tell Beatrice and Sarah and anyone else who is likely to notice my bare neck at the next evening entertainment and remark upon it? I broke the string and am having it mended? How long does it take to have pearls restrung? I misplaced the pearls? How long would it take to search my house from attic to cellar? I forgot to wear them? I am tired of wearing them? I lent them to Gertrude? Poor Gertrude.”
Lass had no suggestion to make. She was sniffing at the boot scraper outside someone’s door. Sophia waited for her to resume the journey home.
And how am I going to explain that? she asked herself silently, half withdrawing her left glove and seeing in some dismay her bare finger, the base of it shiny and pale and indented from the impress of the ring she had never removed since her wedding day—until this afternoon. How foolish she was. She had expected that the pearls would bring a far greater price than they had. She had hoped there would even be some money left after the payment of this new demand. But what she had actually got for the pearls and the wedding ring combined would only barely cover it.
Well, she decided, she would simply tell anyone who asked that after three years it was time to put her marriage and her memories behind her. That might sound heartless. She would say, then, that it had become too painful to be reminded of Walter every time she looked down at her hand. That would sound too extravagant.
She would think about her answer when the question came. For now she had the money she needed. But she had nothing left except the bare wherewithal to make it through to the day of her next quarter’s pension. And that in its entirety would not nearly cover the cost of the next letter.
She wondered exactly how many of them there were. She had never suspected that Walter was a letter writer. Or that he could write so eloquently of his deepest emotions. She bit her lip hard. But then there was a great deal about Walter she—and most other people—had not known. She had not suspected the affair, though clearly it had flourished for two whole years before his death—two of those difficult years during which she had scrupulously kept her end of their agreement.
She had even felt mildly guilty about the infatuation for the Four Horsemen that almost every other military wife had shared with her. She had been definitely troubled by the secret love for Nathaniel Gascoigne that she had always refused to call love—and she had never allowed herself to indulge in any except very mild fantasies or to flirt with him in any way at all.
Yet all the time Walter had been writing those letters—during the times when he had been unable to indulge his sexual passion in deed. And he obviously had done that plenty—the letters, though not graphic, made that very clear. His affair had been flourishing all the time he had been taking her, Sophia, his “old sport,” wherever Wellington’s armies went.
“Sometimes, Lass,” she said as her dog trotted ahead of her and turned without having to be told up the steps to her house, “I am so filled to the brim with pent-up anger that I think I might explode into a million pieces. Poof! Gone! No more Sophie. No more troubles.” She smiled as Samuel opened the door, and hoped he had not heard her voice when she had no one with her except Lass with whom to converse.
But she did not want to die, she thought, even though the idea of oblivion was sometimes enticing. She ran lightly up the stairs, Lass panting at her heels, undoing the ribbons of her bonnet as she went. She had the money this time. Last year there had been only two letters. This year there had been two already. Perhaps he planned to space them out over a number of years, two a year. Perhaps there would be freedom at least for a few weeks or months. She did not believe he would have come as soon this time if it had not been for the irritation of last evening.
She would live as if she were free for a while. One day ata time. And she had tonight to look forward to. Nathaniel was coming. She should feel guilty, she supposed. There was something ever so slightly—or perhaps ever so greatly—sordid about what they were embarking upon. But she would not feel guilty. For years and years—for her whole youth—she had kept herself strictly disciplined in order to keep up appearances, in order to be respectable.
There had been so little joy in her life.
But the night Nathaniel had spent with her had been joyful.
And tonight would be joyful. She would not consider morality. And she would not think ahead to the end of the spring and the nightmare his departure for home would bring her.
Joy was always a fleeting thing. Life and experience taught a person that. It could not be grasped and held on to for a lifetime. She would no longer deny the little joy that was offered her.
One day at a time.
TEN
IT FELT A LITTLE AWKWARD, Nathaniel found. He had kept mistresses occasionally in former years and had visited them by appointment. There had never been anything awkward about it. He had called on them for one purpose only. Neither he nor the woman concerned had expected anything else or thought anything else necessary.
It was somewhat different with Sophie. She was not his mistress. She was his friend. She opened the door for him before he had a chance to knock. She was wearing a long loose dressing gown over her nightgown and her hair was down, though it was caught back with a ribbon at the nape of her neck. But she greeted him with her usual smile and bade him good evening before turning to lead the way upstairs, a single candle in a candlestick in one hand.
He had not known whether to bend his head and kiss her. He had not done so. She had not looked as if she expected it. He half expected that she would pause at the first landing and lead him to the sitting room, but she continued on her way to the next floor and took him to her bedchamber. Her dog, lying on the rug before the hearth, thumped its tail several times in greeting and made not even a token objection to his appearance there. That collie, he thought, would win no prizes as a watchdog or as a sheep-dog—it would doubtless welcome the wolf into the fold.
There was another single candle burning on the dressing table—she set hers beside it. The bedcovers were turned neatly back from the bed. The scene had been carefully set.
It had not felt awkward the first time. That had not been planned. This had. And it felt damned awkward. He did not know whether to engage her in social conversation or to proceed to the business at hand. They had not exchanged a word since their initial and rather formal greetings at the door.
“This does not feel right, Sophie,” he said, running one hand through his hair after he had set down his hat and cane and removed his cloak. He smiled ruefully at her.
“You would prefer to leave, then?” she asked quite calmly. “You may do so, Nathaniel. I shall not protest.”
She thought he did not want her.
He reached for her hand and drew her closer to him. She watched him with steady eyes and expressionless face. He lifted his other hand and untied the ribbon at the back of her neck before dropping it to the floor.
“I find it hard to treat you only as a woman I wish to bed,” he said, “although I do wish to bed you. I see you as Sophie, someone I have liked and respected for years.”
She half smiled before closing the distance between them and setting her face full against the folds of his neckcloth. He could hear her drawing a slow breath. He could smell her hair. She must wash it in the same soap she used on her skin. He could see it in tight, heavy ripples all down h
er back.
She looked lovely, he thought suddenly. And it was not only her hair. He realized what it was then. Her dressing gown was a very pale blue. The nightgown beneath it was white. She looked different—delicate, very feminine—in light colors. Not that she ever looked unfeminine, but ...
He lowered his head, turning it so that his cheek rested against the top of her head. He set his hands on her shoulders.
“What do you want?” he asked her. “Straight to bed? Straight into action, so to speak?” He did not believe he would be capable of going into action if she answered in the affirmative. He wondered if this was going to become downright embarrassing.
She lifted her head and looked into his face only inches from her own. “This is a mistake, is it not?” she said, sounding like the sensible, practical Sophie he had long known. “I thought it would feel like the other night. It does not. Yet I do not want you to leave.”
No, he did not want to leave either, though he could not feel sufficiently aroused to do what he had come to do. She was not—damn it all!—his mistress.
He touched his lips to hers. She made no move to deepen the kiss, though she did not draw away either.
“Let us just lie down, shall we?” he suggested. “There are no rules for relationships of this sort, you know. There is no rule that says our bodies must be joined within five minutes or half an hour or an hour of my arrival. Or at all in fact.”
“No.” She bit her lip. “You would not prefer simply to leave, Nathaniel? You are not staying because I said I wished you to?”
“Let us lie down,” he said after kissing the end of her nose. “I will blow out the candles, if I may, and remove some clothes.”
It was in some way laughable, he supposed. She removed her dressing gown; he stripped to his breeches. She climbed in on one side of the bed; he climbed in on the other after dousing the candles. They were behaving just like a couple of virgin newlyweds. He reached across and took her hand in his. Their fingers curled about each other’s and clung. The collie on the hearth heaved a deep sigh.