* * *
* * *
One more day was over, and the duke still breathed. Ruth warned that death often came in the still hours before dawn, but James was convinced the old man was clinging to the year and would not go until it ended. Tomorrow night, then, or the following morning.
There was a comfort in gathering with family. Even his sole remaining son and his daughter did not like the old tyrant, but his death would be a change, for all of that. New burdens to bear. Regrets for opportunities lost. The duke’s sitting room had almost taken on the atmosphere of a chapel as they waited, talking in hushed whispers.
The reverent quiet was barely disturbed by the butler, who sidled into the room and approached Papa sideways. James would not have taken notice of the man, except that he kept his eyes fixed on James from the time he entered.
Papa beckoned James, and he went, trailing the butler and his father out into the hall.
“Were you expecting the Marquis of Aldridge to deliver something for you?” Papa asked.
“Aldridge? Here?”
His father raised his brows and inclined his head. “Yes. Haverford’s son. Here. With his brother and two women, one apparently a gentlewoman.”
Could hearts bound? Apparently they could, and he started toward the stairs without another word.
Papa hurried to catch up. “Your lady, you think?”
“I hope, Papa.”
“And with a man like Aldridge?”
He stopped to prevent whatever calumny his father was thinking, but the warmth of expectation was spreading. “She is the noblest of ladies, Papa. You will see.”
And he waited no longer but hurried to the stairs and down around the curve until he saw her, and only her, his Sophia, drooping with tiredness in the middle of the marble hall.
“Sophia!”
She looked up, and in her eyes, he saw it was not just tiredness that made her wilt, but the same doubts about her worth that had stood between them these months. So brave she was, to come to him anyway, even unsure of her welcome.
“Sophia,” he said again, pouring all his longing and his joy into her name as he hurried down the last of the steps, and the flame spread from him to her, igniting her own joy, so she hurried to meet him. “Sophia,” he said one more time as he crushed her in his arms and met her lips, trembling with his own name.
“James.”
For a long moment, he forgot himself and his surroundings, his whole being focused on absorbing the smell, the taste, the feel of her, his hands shaping her back, her waist, her…
He reluctantly drew away, suddenly aware again that they had an audience: his father, a small smile playing around his lips; Lord Aldridge, looking benevolent; Lord Jonathan, grinning broadly; the butler and a girl who must be Sophia’s maid, both attempting to pretend they were elsewhere.
“James, I have come to give you my answer.”
“After that kiss,” Papa suggested, “I must assume it is yes. My dear, I am Sutton, and soon, I collect, to be your papa. And you are the lovely Lady Sophia, with whom my son has fallen in love.”
Sophia blushed as she held out the hand James did not retain firmly in his possession.
“Yes, my lord,” she agreed, sliding her beautiful eyes sideways to look up at James. “My answer is yes. As soon as you wish, James.”
“Tomorrow, if I can manage it, my heart.”
“It seems we owe you a debt, Lord Aldridge.” Father’s colorless tone, all courtesy and no substance, hinted at the discomfort he felt at being beholden to the son of a man he hated.
James countenanced no such reserve. “Yes, Aldridge, Gren. My everlasting thanks for bringing my lady safely to London.”
“We were coming, Elfingham. Bringing Sophia was a courtesy to my mother, who is fond of her goddaughter.” Amused hazel eyes turned to Papa. “You owe us nothing, Lord Sutton. And now we have delivered her safely, we shall be on our way.”
Papa recalled his duty of hospitality. “Refreshments before you go. A bed. Food. A wash. A stirrup cup.”
“Thank you, sir,” Aldridge replied, “but we must not keep the horses waiting in the cold. Perhaps another time?”
They made their bows and left, and Papa whirled into action, commanding a room for Sophia, a hot bath, and food to refresh her. “We shall not inflict the entire family on you tonight, Sophia. May I call you, Sophia? Rest, and you shall meet them in the morning.”
* * *
* * *
Sophia stopped at the door of her room to kiss James again, too tired and too happy to care what the servants thought. Tomorrow they would be wed, and she would not need to leave him at the door. That put her in mind of the duchess’s letter, and she fetched it from her reticule, which he claimed meant she deserved another kiss.
“You should be kissing Her Grace,” Sophia pointed out. “It is her letter.”
“I would not enjoy it nearly as much,” he murmured against her mouth before claiming it again.
They tore themselves reluctantly apart. Sophia washed in a daze of exhaustion and fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow to dream of kisses and James.
Chapter 14
When she woke, Sophia was disoriented, dazedly wondering where she was. The room was richly but heavily furnished in dark depressing colors that did not much improve when she sat up and lit the candle beside her bed with the tinder and flint left ready.
The fire was burning merrily, and hot water steamed in a jug on the washstand. Someone had clearly already been in the room. Sophia slipped out of bed and wrapped herself in the shawl from the foot of the bed.
The door opened, and a maid entered with a tray containing a teapot from which a luxurious aroma rose. “There you are, my lady. Feeling better, I’ll be bound.”
“Yes, thank you.” She was aching and bruised from the travel, even in the well-sprung and luxurious Haverford coach. “The maid who came with me? How is she?”
“Still asleep, my lady. Lady Sutton said as how we was not to disturb her, such a day she had. So I am to do for you, my lady. Shall I lay out your clothes? Do you wish for me to bring breakfast?”
Lady Sutton was the dowager countess, widow of the dead heir, and mother to James’s twin cousins Charlotte and Sarah Winderfield, whom Sophia knew slightly from London’s ballrooms.
Sophia could see through a chink in the curtain that it was light outside, so it must be after eight o’clock. “Perhaps I should go down to breakfast,” she said.
“The family has had theirs, my lady,” the maid explained.
Sophia sent the maid for breakfast while she washed and dressed as much as she could without someone to do her buttons.
The next knock at the door was not the maid, but Charlotte, Sarah, and a dark slender girl of around the same age whom the twins introduced as James’s sister Ruth. “Rosemary would be here, but she is sitting with Grandfather,” Ruth told Sophia. “She is most anxious to meet her new sister.”
“James left at first light to visit the archbishop,” Charlotte said, “and swears he is not coming home until he has a license.”
“Charlotte, I hope you do not mind…” Sophia trailed off. What did one say to the woman whose potential husband one had stolen?
“Mind? You marrying James, you mean?” Charlotte enveloped her in an enthusiastic hug. “I could just kiss you. I was never going to agree to Grandfather’s plan, of course, but now Grandfather will stop suggesting it. And Mama and James’s father, too.”
Another knock at the door brought the twins’ mother, who asked to be called Aunt Grace, and James’s other aunt, the duke’s only daughter.
“Call me Aunt Georgie, Sophia,” that lady said, “as the other girls do.”
“What do you have to wear for your wedding, Sophia?” Charlotte asked.
Sophia had packed the dress she had chosen for the charity ball, but when she showed it to the ladies, they were at one accord in rejecting it.
“It is the wrong color for you, Sop
hia,” Sarah said decisively. “What do you call it? Brown? Cream? We can do better than that.”
In short order, Sophia found herself in the middle of preparations for her wedding, as the ladies brought one dress after another for her to try on until Aunt Georgie and Aunt Grace whispered together and left the room, returning a short while later with an elegantly dressed lady of a similar age to the two aunts. She was carrying a gown in a light silk the soft blue-gray of the sea at dusk, figured with shapes woven so they gleamed in the light against the muted background. White lace trimmed the low curve of the bodice and the high waist, and finished the cuffs and the flounce below the multiple pleats in the skirt.
They held it up in front of her, and she smiled at her reflection in the mirror. Yes. This one.
“And we will not need to alter it,” the other lady said with a satisfied nod. “You and I are much of a size and height.”
“I cannot wear your dress, my lady!” Sophia faltered. “I do not think we have been introduced?”
“Dash it.” Aunt Georgie sighed. “I left my manners in Somerset, Letty. Lady Sophia Belvoir, Miss Letitia Matthewes, my dear friend. You had better call her Aunt Letty.”
“The dress is quite new, Lady Sophia,” said its owner. “And it looks better on you by far than it did on me. I liked the color when we saw it at the store, but Georgie should have had it made up for her, not for me.”
“Wrong blue for my eyes, Letty. I said that at the shop. But I quite agree; it is just the thing for our new niece. You will be kind enough to let us give it to you, will you not, Sophia?”
What could she say? She managed to stammer her thanks, and Ruth said, “Now all we need is James and a license.”
James was a long time returning home.
Washed, perfumed, and with her hair elegantly dressed, but still in her own gown rather than the one chosen for her wedding, Sophia was taken upstairs to meet Rosemary and the two schoolroom boys and to pay her respects to the duke.
“For we do not know how much he can hear, though he is unconscious,” Ruth told her.
Everyone welcomed her, even the servants smiling as they passed her in a hallway or entered the duke’s sitting room where she sat with her new family, sharing in their vigil.
Lunch was served, and still no James, but as the food was cleared, he appeared, a small rotund cleric trotting at his heels. He crossed directly to Sophia. “I have it, my heart, and the archbishop’s own chaplain to perform the ceremony.”
After that, things moved very quickly. James proposed marrying in the grand salon downstairs, but Sophia suggested the duke’s bedroom. “For Ruth says he may be able to hear us, and surely it will give him comfort to know that you are safely married, James.”
“And to an English girl of impeccable heritage,” the Earl of Sutton—Papa—said, grinning. He winked at Sophia. “Even if she is more than half French.”
The ladies carried Sophia off to prepare her, producing fine clocked stockings and delicate slippers in white silk, and a corset richly trimmed with lace and ribbon plus a fine lawn petticoat intricately tucked and embroidered white on white.
Sophia had never worn anything so delicate and feminine. “I cannot,” she protested, even as she stroked the offerings.
“You don’t want Elfingham taking off your gown to see the plain things you have with you,” said Aunt Georgie bluntly. “Give the boy a thrill.”
“Georgie!” Aunt Letty scolded.
At the same time, Aunt Grace warned, “Remember the girls.”
Sophia consented to the shocking garments, blushing at the thought of James seeing them. Perhaps touching them? Her color rose higher as her imagination considered what might come next, with little to go on but the occasional careless comment from matrons who considered her too old to protect from their more salacious discussions.
Aunt Georgie said shrewdly, “I imagine young James knows what he’s about, Sophia. Leave it to him.”
* * *
In the gloom of the room, the old man lying still on the bed, James’s bride shone like the star over the nativity, and everything faded except for her.
James hoped she heard the joy in his voice as he said his vows. She repeated hers with firm assurance. The ring he placed on her finger was a Winderfield ring, worn by one of the duchesses of his line. Would she have preferred a new one? He would shower her with as many as she wished, he vowed to himself as he bent to kiss her, keeping the salute light and brief so he did not embarrass her in front of their interested audience.
Ruth crossed to the bed and peered at the duke’s face. “He is breathing more easily and… is he smiling?”
James saw no change, but the chaplain was impressed. “My Lord Archbishop shall be pleased to hear that Lord and Lady Elfingham have received His Grace’s blessing. I shall pray for an easy passing for the poor man, you may be sure.”
His sisters and cousins swept Sophia off into the next room, Rosemary exclaiming over the ways this wedding differed from the ones at home in the mountains. The chaplain, after a torturously long exchange of courtesies, announced that he could not stop for a meal and must get back to Lambeth Palace, and Andrew volunteered to take him.
At last! James started through to the sitting room, with every intention of extracting his new wife and taking her off to their room, but the duke coughed and then fought to take another breath, setting off a flurry of activity. Was this the end? He cast an anguished glance at Sophia and joined the group praying in the sitting room.
The crisis passed, the duke sinking back into the slowed breathing that had been his state for days. James examined Sophia hopefully but hesitated at the dark smudges under her eyes. “You are exhausted, my heart. Go to sleep, and I will send a servant if there is any change.”
* * *
In the duke’s bedroom, James had greeted her with such joy that her doubts seemed foolish, but they came back to her that night after he sent her to bed alone, while he kept vigil with his brothers and sisters.
A servant came for her in the early hours of the morning. As soon as she was called, she knew.
“Lady Sutton, Lord Sutton asked me to fetch you.”
The old man had gone out with the year, and she—who had woken less than twenty-four hours ago as Sophia Belvoir—had been Lady Elfingham for fewer than ten hours.
Chapter 15
The next few days were busy. “There is no duchess, and you are the wife of the heir,” her new father-in-law told her when she protested that she should not be leading the preparations for feeding and housing the guests who would come for the funeral. Each night, she went to bed exhausted, but surely there would have been time for James to introduce her to marital intimacies? If he truly wanted her?
There were no more drugging kisses, no more protestations of desire. He still called her “my heart,” but at night, he came to bed after her and slept chastely on his side of the mattress, while she lay awake and burned with lust and doubt.
He had his Belvoir, using her social connections to draw people to the funeral, efficiently coaching his family through the rituals of English mourning. And it seemed that Hythe had been right all along. That was all he wanted.
She would not let him see that she cared, and if a few tears stained her pillow in the night, she managed to keep still and silent so that he never knew.
* * *
Sophia was tired. James had tried to make sure she rested as much as possible, but he had been so busy, managing the arrangements for a ducal funeral and helping his father with a smooth transition. The duke was dead, and the new duke faced many challenges, not least proving to Society that his children belonged among them.
Yes. She was tired. That explained the shadows in her eyes, the effort she made to smile at Hythe and Felicity, who arrived in time to join them for the funeral and returned to the house with them when it was over.
He attempted several times to cross the room to her side, but half of London wanted to talk to him it seemed, includ
ing Hythe who wanted to come the next day to sign the marriage settlements they had agreed the previous day.
James refused. “Sophia and I will be leaving early for Oxfordshire. Why not stay for dinner tonight? We shall meet about the settlements after.”
Soon, he and Sophia could be alone. Soon, soon they could escape to the manor his father had settled on him. Soon, he could make his bride fully his, instead of snatching a few hours of uncomfortable rest snuggled next to her, unwilling to disturb her sleep by his importunate demands. For her first bedding, she deserved his full attention—his full, devoted, dedicated attention.
He went up to their bedchamber that evening after an uncomfortable interview with Hythe. Sophia was already in bed, as she had been, he realized, each night since his grandfather died, sitting propped against pillows, reading a book. What a sad state he was in that, even in her flannel nightgown and demurely covered by a pale blue bed cape, she was the most alluring sight he had ever seen.
Was Sophia unhappy? Did she have regrets? Hythe seemed to think so, and even Felicity had grabbed his arm as they said goodnight and commanded him to find out what was wrong with Sophia. Before he pulled the ribbons on that cape and unbuttoned the modest gown, they needed to talk.
* * *
Sophia made herself smile calmly when her husband entered the bedchamber a good hour before she expected him. “The water should still be warm, James,” she said, and she waited for him to go behind the dressing screen to wash and change into his nightshirt.
Instead, he crossed the room and perched beside her on the bed. “What are you reading, my heart?”
When he called her “my heart” in the deep tone that thrilled all the way to her most intimate places, she could almost forget that he didn’t want her. She met his dark eyes and then could not look away. “Don’t, James,” she begged.
Holly and Hopeful Hearts Page 34