by Mary Balogh
She was right, of course. They had presumed. But from the best of intentions. And those had been stronger than a simple dislike of Pinter. All four of them had seen her reaction to him in the Shelby dining room, and he had seen more. He had seen her falter in the waltz and come to a complete and sudden halt so that he had trodden on her foot. She had been horrified to see Pinter. Not only displeased, but—frightened. Was that too strong an interpretation of what they had seen?
He did not believe that Pinter was her friend.
But he had no right to argue with her. If she chose not to tell him the whole of it, then that was her prerogative.
“No, you did not,” he said. “Pardon us for caring, Sophie.”
“Your caring caused me deep embarrassment,” she said.
“Sophie.” He gazed at her, his head tipped slightly to one side. He had spent all night thinking about his own anger, his own grievance against her. He had not really thought of the humiliation he had caused her. “It will not happen again, my dear.”
“No, it will not,” she said, “as I have just finished telling your friends in the park.”
“You saw them there?” he asked her.
“I told them what I am telling you now,” she said. “I want no more interference in my life. Not from any of you. I do not want your friendship any longer. Or even your acquaintance.”
The words seemed to come at him one at a time. It took him several moments to fit them together so that they had meaning. While he did so, he watched her eyes falter for the merest moment and then look steadily into his again.
“We should all have been content with that one meeting in the park,” she said, “the morning I was with Sarah. I should not have gone to Rawleigh House. I should not have allowed you to escort me home. I should certainly not have invited you inside, Nathaniel. It was a mistake. All of it.”
It was what he had been thinking all night. His heart felt like a heavy, giant ache in the center of his chest.
“Our friendship is a thing of the past,” she said. “It flourished under a certain set of circumstances and was precious at the time. It is still precious in memory. But that was a long time ago. We have all changed, and we all have lives of our own now—very separate and very different lives. I cannot fit you into mine and I will not allow you to try to fit me into yours. Go back to Lady Gullis, Nathaniel. She can offer you what you need better than I can.”
“Go back to her?” He frowned.
“I know where you spent last night,” she said, flushing again. “And your face this morning tells a story of a sleepless night. It does not matter. I have no claim on you and have renounced any small claim I had. I wish you well. And I will bid you a good morning.”
The collie, sensing an end to the visit, clambered to its feet from its reclining position before the fireplace, looking eager. Sophie bent and picked up her bonnet.
“You cannot so easily kill a friendship, Sophie,” Nathaniel said. “You can stay away from me and mine, ignore me when you do see me, live your life without any interference or any caring attention from me—we have a difference of opinion, you see, on what happened with Pinter. You can behave as if we are not friends, as if we never have been. But it is there, you know—the concern, the affection, the lifting of the spirits at the mere sight of the other. If this is the end of our friendship, it is so as a result of a one-sided decision.”
And yet she had merely said what he had been planning to say—and what he never could have said, he realized now, once he had seen her again.
“Damn you, Nathaniel,” she said, shocking him both with the unladylike language and the vehemence of her tone. Her eyes were suddenly swimming in tears. “Damn you. If you cannot keep chains about me, you will use silken threads instead. I will not have it. Oh, I will not.” She was trying to tie the ribbons of her bonnet into a bow beneath her chin with visibly shaking hands.
The collie was standing at the door, whining eagerly, its tail a waving pendulum.
“Allow me to escort you home?” he asked quietly, averting his eyes at last so that she could the more easily complete the task.
“No!” she said. “No, thank you. I want no more dealings with you, sir.”
It should have been a mutual, rational decision, he thought. But suddenly he could not bear the thought of life without Sophie—which was an alarming realization. For three years he had been quite content neither to see nor to hear from her—except that one letter in response to his own.
“Don’t upset yourself, then,” he said, taking her hand in his and raising it to his lips. “I will not argue. But if you have need of me, Sophie, I am here.”
She snatched back her hand, caught up the side of her dress, and whisked herself past him. He stood with his back to the door, listening to it open, listening to the scratching sound of her dog’s paws on the marble floor of the hall, and then listening to the silence that succeeded the closing of the door.
They had not even said good-bye.
He had kissed her left hand—her bare left hand.
Eden had gone to White’s alone for breakfast. But he might have saved himself the trouble, he thought as he left there an hour or so later. He had not been hungry and Nat had not shown up. Perhaps he could have cheered himself up if he could but have listened to an account—a strictly expurgated account, of course—of Nat’s successes the night before. But then he would have had to tell Nat about the meeting with Sophie in the park—a meeting that had disturbed and even upset them all considerably.
Sophie had acted in a way so damnably unlike Sophie—and had left them all feeling like whipped and guilty schoolboys. Damn it, they had been trying to help her—because they liked her and Walter was no longer around to do the helping.
Eden had walked to White’s after riding home. He was glad to be on foot as he took a path back through the park. A brisk walk would perhaps blow some cobwebs away. He was trying to decide whether to call at Upper Brook Street to see if Nat was home yet. It would be very interesting indeed if he was not. But then he probably was. Nat had become damnably respectable and he had those young relatives of his to fire off into marriage—though who would take the prickly redhead heaven alone knew. And perhaps even heaven did not have the answer.
And then he frowned and stopped walking. Talk of the devil! There were several people out and about in the park, it being well into the morning by now. But the one walker in the middle distance was quite distinctive. For one thing she strode along like a man, though even from this distance it was very obvious that there was nothing else whatsoever about her that looked masculine. For another thing, she was quite, quite alone. There was no escort, no companion, no maid, no footman this side of the horizon. And for a third thing, she was Lavinia Bergland or he would eat his hat.
Eden changed direction and increased his pace. He set out on a collision course with her and it almost came to that too, since she was so intent on reaching her destination, wherever it might be, that she was not looking where she was going. She jerked to a halt when he appeared before her, sweeping off his hat and making her a mocking bow.
“Oh,” she said, “it is you, is it?”
“It is I,” he agreed. “I must advise you, ma‘am, to slow your pace so that your maid might puff into view.”
“You might try not to be ridiculous, my lord,” she said.
“Yes, I might,” he conceded, “but it would be tedious. I take it there is no maid?”
“Puffing along behind me?” she said. “Of course not. I am four and twenty, my lord. Good morning to you. I must be on my way and cannot stand here chatting.”
He thought for a moment that she was about to proceed straight through his chest, but she lost her nerve at the last moment when it became obvious that he intended to stand his ground. She stayed where she was. She raised haughty eyebrows and assumed a sour expression that suited her admirably.
“Excuse me,” she said.
“Certainly,” he said. “Might I ask your
destination, Miss Bergland?”
“My destination is absolutely none of your concern, my lord,” she told him.
“Then I suppose,” he said, “it must be Upper Brook Street. I had half made up my mind to go there myself. Do take my arm.” Upper Brook Street lay in the exact opposite direction from the one she had been pursuing.
“Of course the wolves of Hyde Park will all eat me up if I proceed alone,” she said. “I am not going home, Lord Pelham. I am going to see Sophie.”
Ah.
“I suppose,” he said, “Nat waved you on your way.” After whisking her away from Sophie and Pinter just the evening before.
She tossed her glance skyward. “Nat looks this morning as if he had not a wink of sleep last night,” she said to Eden’s intense satisfaction, “and he has the mood to match. I merely mentioned Sophie’s name to him and he barked. I am going to see her.”
“Is it wise?” he asked. “One was given the distinct impression last evening that Nat considered it inappropriate for you to have an acquaintance with Sophie‘s, ah, friend.”
“But I am not paying a call on Mr. Pinter,” Lavinia said. “I am visiting Sophie. My friend, sir. And what does Nat have to say to the matter?”
“Ah, let me see.” He frowned. “Everything?”
She made an impatient and utterly derisive clucking sound. “I am not going to cut my acquaintance with Sophie merely because Nat has a grudge against Mr. Pinter,” she said. “Are you planning to stand there all morning, my lord? If so, I shall turn around and take another path. Unless you plan to detain me by force, of course. But I must warn you before you decide upon that course that I shall embarrass you horribly by squawking very loudly.”
He did not doubt that she would do it too. And on another occasion he might have been delighted to put the matter to the test. But not this morning. He had a choice—perhaps two. He might step out of her way. He might sling her over his shoulder and carry her forcibly back home to Nat. Or he might at least see her safely to Sophie’s. It would be interesting to discover how Sophie would deal with her female friends—Miss Bergland, Catherine, Moira. He executed an elegant bow and offered his arm again. “Shall we compromise on our difference of opinion?” he suggested. “I will escort you to Sophie’s.”
She gave the matter some consideration and then nodded curtly. “Thank you.” She took his arm.
“I understand that you do not like Mr. Pinter any more than Nat does, my lord?” Lavinia asked after they had walked in silence for a while.
“We had an acquaintance with him in the Peninsula,” he explained. “He was a lieutenant, two ranks below us—and Walter Armitage. Walter—Sophie’s husband, that was—blocked his promotion to captain on one occasion. Need I add that he had no fondness for Major Armitage after that?”
“Oh pooh!” she said. “Boys’ games. War is a game for unruly boys who have not grown up, you know.”
“Yes,” he said. “Thank you for the compliment.”
Nat should be a candidate for sainthood, he thought. All gallantry aside, Eden was not sure that if she were his ward he would not have bent her over his knee long before now and given her a good walloping. Not that he approved of woman beating. But she certainly knew how to get beneath a man’s skin like an annoying itch.
He wondered as they approached the house on Sloan Terrace if Sophie would receive Lavinia Bergland. He would wait around and see, he decided, though he would not, of course, try to gain admittance himself. Sophie had made herself very clear just a few hours before.
But less than a minute after Lavinia had sent her name up with Sophie’s butler, he came back again with the request that she follow him. Eden bowed and would have bidden her a good morning but she had stridden off toward the stairs without a word or a backward glance.
Well, Eden conceded as he left the house and settled his hat firmly on his head again, she had not asked to be escorted, had she?
Sophia had had a hearty good cry as soon as she had arrived home. She had virtually collapsed facedown on her bed and given in to abject self-pity. But she had got up again after less than half an hour, bathed her face in cold water, and smiled rather ruefully at her red-faced image in the glass.
The end of the world, she decided, had not quite come. Not yet, anyway.
Little more than a week ago, apart from worry over the renewed demands concerning the letters, she had been quite content. The worry had been no small thing, of course, but she had been living quite happily without them. Without him.
She would be happy again. She had a very pleasant circle of friends and just enough social activities to prevent her from feeling her loneliness or turning her into a hermit. There was nothing in those people or those activities to arouse the spite of an evil man, surely. It had been a shock last evening to discover that he meant to take away her peace of mind, her enjoyment of ton events, and her past friends as well as her money.
Well, she still had not been destroyed and would not be.
You cannot so easily kill a friendship ... it is there, you know—the concern, the affection, the lifting of the spirits at the mere sight of the other.
Sophia grimaced. Trust Nathaniel to have been so much more than just the gentleman. At least the others had had the grace to tip their hats to her and ride away, the perfect gentlemen, as soon as she had said her piece. But he had refused to accept her severance of their friendship. Not that he had raged at her or argued with her. He had done worse. He had been gentle and kind and dignified.
Did his spirits lift at the mere sight of her?
She hated him today for the very qualities she loved in him—had always loved. Even though she had not really been conscious of it before, she could see now that he had always been a little less selfish, a little more genuinely caring than the others. Perhaps it was why she had found him irresistible, why she had always loved him whereas she had only ever been half in love with the other three.
But she did not want to think of any of them any longer. She had released herself of one complication in her life today and she must live with the resulting unhappiness and loneliness. She would not let either drag at her spirits.
The news that Lavinia was downstairs wanting to call upon her seemed particularly poorly timed, but she could hardly turn her away. Besides, she felt a painful lurching of pleasure to know that Lavinia had come—that she had come from there, from that elegant, unostentatious house on Upper Brook Street. And perhaps, she thought foolishly, Lavinia had brought some message from him.
She stretched out both her hands when her visitor was shown into the sitting room and squeezed Lavinia’s hands. “I suppose,” she said, “this is a secret visit. I do hope it will not get you into dreadful trouble.”
“Lord Pelham came charging across the park like the cavalry officer he once was when he saw me walking alone,” Lavinia said. “I informed him I would squawk very loudly if he tried to take me back home. Oh, very well, Lass. There. Now you have been noticed.” She pulled the collie’s ears and Lass, contented, padded back to her place before the fireplace. “Lord Pelham took fright and escorted me here instead. So I daresay if Nat needs to find someone to rip up at, it will be Lord Pelham.” She smiled brightly.
Sophia laughed. “Lavinia,” she said, “how delightful you are. And how very pleasant it is to see you. Come and sit down and I will ring for tea.”
“Thank you,” Lavinia said, removing her bonnet and setting it aside. “Now you really must tell me about your friendship with Mr. Pinter. He is actually rather handsome, is he not? I understand that Nat and his friends—and your husband too—did not like him, perhaps because he was an inferior officer and they saw him as an upstart. Men can be quite childish about such matters, as I just remarked to Lord Pelham. He did not like it above half—he looks deliciously toplofty when he pokers up. Anyway, what I wish you to know is that if Mr. Pinter is a friend of yours, Sophie, then he is a friend of mine too, and you may present him to me anytime you wish.”
> “Oh dear,” Sophia said, sitting down. “I truly would not wish to do that, Lavinia. He really is not my friend at all.”
“Oh?” Lavinia had sat down too. She leaned forward now, interest lighting up her face.
She ought not to have said that, Sophia thought. But how could she have encouraged Lavinia to defy Nathaniel on the question of an acquaintance with Boris Pinter when all the right of the matter was on his side? What was she to say now?
She smiled. “Mr. Pinter is not a well-liked gentleman,” she said. “Despite his good looks he has an unfortunate personality that repels rather than attracts. Perhaps I feel a little sorry for him. Or perhaps I merely wished last evening to assert myself against Eden and Nathaniel, who had gathered close to save me from his attentions, and against Rex and Kenneth, who were only a few feet away with a similar purpose in mind. I have been too long independent to enjoy having men take me under their wing.”
Lavinia seemed satisfied. “Men are an abomination,” she remarked. “If I were you, I would gather the four of them together and treat them to a thorough scolding. I only wish I could be there to hear.” She laughed.
“I have done it already,” Sophia said. “I have gone further, Lavinia.” She was going to know it soon enough anyway. “I have ended my friendship with all of them. I have told them I wish to have no more dealings with them.”
Lavinia looked at her blankly.
“So I do not believe Nathaniel will encourage you to continue your friendship with me,” Sophia said, pouring the tea, which had just arrived. “And you must not feel obliged to do so. He is, after all, your guardian, either until you marry or until you are thirty—all of six years in the future.”
“You have broken off entirely with them?” Lavinia said just as if she had not listened to the last speech. “But, Sophie, they are so fond of you. And you of them. And annoying though they can be—Nathaniel and Lord Pelham anyway; I do not know the other two well—they are not ... Well, I... That is, they mean well, surely. Oh, this is none of my business. Shall we talk of something else?”