by Sara Bennett
“Harry?” she whispered, as she rose up on shaky legs. “Are you all right?”
Which was a stupid question. Of course he wasn’t all right. How could he be? He was leaning against the desk and he wouldn’t look at her. She saw him surreptitiously wiping his face with his sleeve.
“Hardly noticed it,” he muttered.
It broke her heart that he felt he had to be so stoic. With her usual impulsiveness, she flung her arms around him. His body was taunt, stiff, holding everything in. She was old enough to know by now that Harry’s life wasn’t a happy one. She wanted to make it better for him, but she didn’t know how.
“I’m all right,” he insisted, but his voice was choked and when he dropped his head into the crook of her neck she felt the warm salt of his tears on her skin. “Don’t cry,” he said, his voice muffled. “Don’t cry for me, Soph.”
“I’d like to hit your father the way he hits you,” she admitted, holding him tight. “Hit him and hit him until he said sorry to you.”
He snuffled a laugh at her suddenly violent turn. “Thank you,” he said. “Just … don’t do it, not really. I wouldn’t want you to go to gaol.”
Sophy wasn’t sure what gaol was like but she knew it wasn’t a good place. “Do they have lemon syllabub in gaol?” she asked him. That was her favourite dessert in all the world.
He laughed again, and when he lifted his head his brown eyes were gleaming in response to her silliness, just as she’d meant them to. “I’m sure I could have some brought in,” he said. “Just for you, Sophy.”
She beamed back at him. Harry was the best boy in the world, she told herself. She loved him and would always love him, no matter what.
Chapter 2
HARRY
1801, Pendleton Manor, Oxfordshire, England
Summer had been long and warm, and on these sorts of days the lake at Pendleton was always the best place to be. Twelve year old Harry tossed the ball and watched his spaniel jump in, throwing up a huge splash of water, and making Sophy squeal. Making Sophy squeal was currently his favourite pastime.
“Harry!” Ten year old Sophy scolded him, wiping water from her face and tossing her long fair braid over her shoulder.
She was seated on the stone pathway on the edge of the lake, her bare feet and skinny legs dangling into the water. Her shoes and stockings were set neatly behind her. Harry had noticed that Sophy was generally neat. Perhaps it was because her mother had died when she was very young and although her father did his best, most of the time she had to take care of herself.
Harry met her angry blue eyes and grinned. He knew he shouldn’t have done it but lately, for some reason, seeing Sophy glare at him and tell him off was a lot more fun than it used to be. Especially when she had informed him after he came home from school that she liked Adam best.
Those words seemed to tip something over inside him.
It was true that before he arrived home from his boarding school he’d made the decision he was too old to play with Sophy now. She was a little girl, two years younger than him. What would his school friends say if they knew that every night when the lights went off he lay there and thought of Sophy’s smile? What would his father say? He began to doubt the rightness of his own thoughts and feelings, and for the first time in his life he allowed himself to be swayed by the probable opinions of others.
He’d come home on the verge of breaking off their unlikely friendship, and then she had said that she liked his brother Adam best. Instead of being relieved he’d been shaken in a way he had never been shaken before. All of his steady, level-headed emotions had promptly begun to rattle and pitch, and then they tipped over.
Not that he let her know that. At the time he’d shrugged and said that he didn’t care because she was just a little girl, and no one cared what little girls said. Especially little girls of so little importance. Adam, of course, had enjoyed the whole thing immensely, soaking up her attention, putting his arm around Sophy’s shoulders and grinning at Harry. Adam wasn’t attending school until next year. He knew how annoying he was being, but Harry had swallowed down the urge to shove his brother over and kick him. Instead he’d turned away as if he didn’t care.
But he did care. He began to take great pleasure in teasing Sophy, playing mean tricks on her and driving her to distraction. Sophy was such an even-tempered girl, so that making her cross was a victory in itself, and every time she stamped her foot and glared at him, Harry was the winner.
His spaniel had paddled to the edge of the lake with the stick held firmly in its mouth and scrambled up next to Sophy. The dog dropped the stick but before she could pick it up the animal shook itself vigorously, water flying everywhere, making Sophy squeal again. Adam doubled over with laughter but Sophy wasn’t finding it funny. She stood up, glaring from one brother to the other, her hands fisted onto her hips. She opened her mouth as if to shout, but nothing came out, and then she turned and snatched up her shoes and marched off.
Not before Harry glimpsed the hurt in her big blue eyes.
His smile slipped. Suddenly what had seemed funny a moment ago now made him uncomfortable. Adam was still laughing, but then Adam was an idiot. Harry picked up the stick and threw it at him, barely noticing when the dog sprang on his brother, knocking him to the ground. Adam tucked himself in a ball, cursing and still laughing. Harry didn’t stop to see if he was hurt—really, he didn’t care—and instead hurried off after Sophy. He caught up with her just as she reached the entrance to the white walk, and grabbed her arm.
She pulled away from him, turning her face, but he’d seen the glitter of tears on her cheeks. “Soph,” he groaned.
“Go away. You’re horrible,” she hissed, hurrying down the wide avenue between the hedges. White flowers grew here in long borders, and in the middle of the lawn was an old sundial, the grey stone embedded with lichen. Sophy hurried around it on one side and Harry on the other.
The sight of her so torn up by what he had done was too much. “I’m sorry, Sophy,” he blurted out. “Really sorry.”
She stumbled, dropping a shoe, and bent over to pick it up. He stepped in front of her. She straightened and jerked back, went as if to turn the other way, but he gripped her arms in his hands to stop her. At twelve years old he was so much taller than her now, so much bigger in every way. That made what he had done feel so much worse.
“Forgive me, Soph,” he mumbled. “I’m such an idiot.”
She shot him a brief glance and then stared down at the ground. “Yes, you are.”
He sighed. He felt a little sick now. It occurred to him that this might be serious. What if she never forgave him? What if he lost her friendship forever? He and Sophy had been friends since she first came to Pendleton Manor with her parents, a tiny toddling girl with a grin that made his heart burst open every time he saw it. When her mother had died he had felt as if the lack of a mother’s influence in both their lives gave them even more of a connection. To think of them not being friends … Well, it hurt.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, desperate to make amends.
Finally she lifted her head and looked at him. Her eyes, her big blue eyes surrounded by those thick dark lashes, were bright with angry tears. There were dirty tracks on her cheeks where she’d tried to rub those tears away. All he could think was that he had caused this. He had made her cry. It was time to make it better.
“I was jealous,” he said, dropping his hands and clenching them into fists.
A wrinkle creased her smooth brow. “Jealous?” she repeated.
“You said you liked Adam better.”
She stared at him blankly, and then colour rose in her cheeks. She looked away, toward the sundial. “I didn’t think you’d care,” she said. “You didn’t seem to want to be friends anymore. You acted as if you were too grown up for me and Adam anyway.”
Harry groaned again and turned his back. He was an idiot. He’d thrown away his best friend because he was jealous of his brother. Because of the
opinions of others who didn’t even know Sophy and how much she meant to him. Because his father was always saying girls like Sophy were only good for one thing, and Harry already knew what that thing was.
“Harry.” Her hand was on his arm and she gave him a little tug. “Harry!”
With a sigh he turned around. She had her head on one side, looking up at him. “I’m sorry,” he said again, barely a breath. He hadn’t cried in a long while but he felt like doing it now.
And she smiled, and her smile lit up the world around her.
At once he felt everything inside him calm. The rattling and shaking stopped. He was all right again. He knew, if he hadn’t known it before, that Sophy smiling was a sight he’d never grow tired of.
“Can we start again?” she asked him. “Pretend you’re just back from school?” She held out her hand to him. “Hello, Harry. I’m so glad you’re home.”
Harry looked at it for a moment. Sophy didn’t have to do this, but she was kind and generous. It was he who was mean. Tentatively he reached out, his bigger hand enclosing her smaller one. Everything about Sophy was insubstantial. She was a fairy in a book, a will o’ the wisp. He stared into her face, into her smile, and her shining eyes. She wasn’t trying to hide anything from him. Sophy really was glad he was home, and knowing it made Harry feel better.
He nodded, his hair falling into his eyes. “Sophy,” he began, no longer caring if he sounded like the idiot he was. “While I was away I missed you.”
He’d been sent to school when he was eight years old, the same school as his father had attended and his father before him. It wasn’t Eton, but Sir Arbuthnot wasn’t a big fan of the Classics. All Harry needed, in his opinion, was a solid grounding in most subjects, and then perhaps a few months in London to get some gloss, before he came home to Pendleton and learned the more important business of being the master of his estate.
“I wanted to write to you but I thought your father would open the letters and tell my father.”
“Oh?” She thought a moment. “What would you have said, if you had written to me?”
He didn’t hesitate. “About my lessons and my friends, and that I could hardly wait to come home to Pendleton. I missed my home and I missed you. And then when I did come home all I did was make you cry.” He bit his lip, the swear word that bubbled up not suitable for the ears of a ten year old girl.
There was a silence while she mulled over this, and then she said softly, “I wish you could write to me.” She reached out and took his hand in hers, and he tightened his grip. Once again the turmoil inside him stilled and steadied.
“If my father found out he’d do something to keep us apart,” he explained, turning them both down the white garden walk. Sophy squeezed her bare toes into the soft green lawn, clearly enjoying the sensation. He’d noticed how Sophy found joy in the simple things—for her the sun on her head and the grass beneath her feet was enough.
“Sir Arbuthnot doesn’t think the heir to Pendleton Manor should be friends with the lowly estate manager’s daughter,” she said the truth for him in a teasing voice.
He pulled her in closer, bumping her shoulder with his. “When I am the master here I will be friends with whomever I want,” he declared.
“You may not want to be my friend by then,” she reminded him, with a quizzical look. “You may be far too grand.”
He shook his head at her in disbelief. “Sophy,” he promised her, “I will always want to be your friend.”
Chapter 3
SOPHY
1806, Pendleton Manor, Oxfordshire, England
“Harcourt! The field in the east corner is flooded again.”
Sir Arbuthnot frowned at Sophy’s father, as if the low lying land was his fault instead of a fact of nature.
Her father cleared his throat nervously. “I will see what can be done.” George Harcourt did not want to lose his job as manager of the estate, and Sophy had long suspected he would say anything to keep it.
Sir Arbuthnot nodded sharply, the lines on his handsome face deepening. Harry looked like him, she often thought so, only Harry was so much nicer in every way. “See that you do, Harcourt. I want it drained before we plant next season’s crops.”
Her gaze flickered to Harry now, standing by his father’s side. He had grown a great deal since last she saw him, and at seventeen he was far more of a man than a boy. He was slightly taller than Sir Arbuthnot now, and his shoulders were broader. And when his father spoke to him he focussed his full attention on what he was being told as if it was of vital importance. He would make a fine master, everyone said so, and whenever she heard the words she felt a warm sense of pride on his behalf.
Father and son had been riding the estate, as they did whenever Harry was home from school, and it just so happened that Sophy had been with her own father today, on her way into the village. Sir Arbuthnot had flagged them down and directed them to the field, as always expecting them to put his own concerns before theirs.
Sir Arbuthnot was a baron, and the Baillieus were landed gentry. Their ancestors had come over with William the Conqueror in 1066 and they were proud of their place in history. Even Harry was slightly insufferable on this point at times, and Sophy felt it was up to her to tease him down from his high horse.
All the same, she knew that one day Harry would step into his father’s shoes. One day he would be the one issuing orders. Not that Sir Arbuthnot would release the reins until he had to—Pendleton was his pride and joy and he was stubborn enough to remain in charge as long as there was breath in his body. He was a widower, his wife having died when their two sons were quite young, and had never remarried, so he had few distractions when it came to his estate. Sophy had heard the servants talk about ‘other women’ and she was aware of the gossip surrounding Sir Arbuthnot’s regular visits to Oxford, and less regular ones to London, but clearly none of his paramours had been tempting enough for him to consider remarrying.
The two older men were still talking, heads together. Sophy met Harry’s eyes. She hadn’t spoken to him since he returned from school last week and she desperately wanted to. Had he changed? Since she had come to live at Pendleton Manor, they had been firm friends. He’d sought her out every time he was home, and although it was not as straightforward as it had been when they were children—how could it be?— he always made time for her.
She’d been looking forward to spending time with the boy who, last time he was home, lay on his back in the clearing in the woods and laughed aloud as she pointed out shapes in the clouds above them, each one sillier than the last.
As if he had read her mind, Harry’s mouth twitched into a smile, and his brown eyes warmed on hers.
“Come, Harry!” His father snapped his fingers as if his own son were a dog as he returned to his horse.
Harry followed, but glanced over his shoulder at her again. She saw his mouth move to form silent words: The usual place? She nodded, smiling back at him before she thought to stop herself. She looked at her father nervously, but he was checking his pocket watch with a frown, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
It wasn’t until they were back in the carriage that he spoke to her, and she realised he had noticed her interaction with Harry after all.
“Sophy.” He shot her an uncharacteristically stern glance. “You are fifteen now, no longer a child. I have done my best, but I know you miss the influence of a mother. Perhaps I have allowed you too much freedom.”
“What do you mean, Father?” She put a hand to her straw hat as the wheels of their vehicle bumped and rattled over the road to the village.
“It is all very well to dream, my dear. We all have dreams. Real life is different. It is stark and sometimes rather unforgiving.” He glanced at her sideways, and for a moment she saw something in his eyes that threatened to ruffle her usually sunny nature. Before she could ask what he meant, he went on. “Sir Arbuthnot has plans for his eldest son, and you will never be more than a servant in his eyes.” His voice gen
tled. “Harry Baillieu is not for you, my dear.”
“Harry and I are friends,” she protested. “I don’t expect anything more.”
“That’s as may be, but he will grow into the sort of arrogant young gentleman I see all the time. He will leave you behind because you are no longer important to him, just a memory from his childhood. Men like Sir Arbuthnot and Harry are not interested in us, not in the way you like to imagine, and I don’t want to see you hurt. You deserve better, Sophy.”
“Harry would never hurt me!”
Her certainty made him grimace at her, and she looked away, not wanting him to read the truth in her face. Despite her assertion to her father, lately she had begun to think that maybe she wasn’t just friends with Harry. Perhaps it was more than that, on her part, at least.
“Maybe you’re right,” he admitted at last. “He wouldn’t hurt you, not on purpose. But you should be wary in his company. He is a young gentleman and you are a very pretty girl. I was a gentleman once, too, and though my fortunes have fallen low, I still consider myself to be of that class. But Sir Arbuthnot does not—he has decided opinions—and I doubt Harry does either. There is a divide between us that will never be crossed. You may believe him to be your friend, but be on your guard. Harry may inadvertently abuse your friendship.”
Sophy couldn’t believe he was saying such things. Harry was not like the young gentlemen her father was talking about. The ones who seduced their servants and then boasted about it. Even Adam, who had gained a reputation among the local farmer’s daughters, would never treat her with anything other than respect.
“No, father,” she replied, moderating her tone. “Harry and I will always be friends. He promised me we would and I believe him.”
Her father sighed and looked at her pityingly, but Sophy refused to be swayed. Harry was her friend; he would always be her friend. In this, her father was wrong.