by Sara Bennett
The usual place where Harry had said he would wait for her was within the ruins of the old Baillieu stronghold. The stones were crumbling, those that hadn’t been overgrown by weeds and the encroaching woods. Once upon a time, Harry’s ancestors had conquered this land and built a stone castle. They had ruled from it, long before the more modern manor had been constructed in the time of the Stuarts, and a fortress was no longer necessary.
Normally, Sophy didn’t think of such things. The past was just that. But today, because of her conversation with her father, she found herself contemplating Harry’s family history. Could their long friendship be coming to an end? She’d believed it would always be there, but if she looked at matters with cold pragmatism, as her father would, she could see the sharp contrast between the worlds in which they lived. How impossible it seemed for this to last.
She was the only child of a bankrupt landowner, a man who had been forced to seek out a living or watch his family starve. Her mother’s background was even less salubrious. Ellen Harcourt’s mother was Susan Jamieson, a woman around whom rumour and innuendo swirled like a tempest. After her husband died far too young, leaving her with two small children, she had become a rich man’s mistress. Sophy’s mother had declared herself ashamed and disgusted by Susan’s behaviour, so much so that after Ellen died and Susan begged to be allowed to take charge of her granddaughter, George had refused.
Her father was right when he said there was a wide social gap between herself and Harry, but Harry had never even mentioned it. Never lorded it over her. Apart from his efforts to keep their friendship secret from his father, he didn’t seem to care a jot about Sophy’s social status.
Now she found herself anxiously wondering how much longer she would have him in her life. How could she have been so blind when it came to her father’s bankruptcy and her grandmother’s scandalous past? Just because Harry didn’t mention such things didn’t mean he was oblivious to them. The idea of not seeing him ever again made her feel sick.
After making her way through the woods, to the boundary between the new Pendleton and the old, she stopped, scanning the ruins. Harry was there, halfway up a broken section of wall, leaning against the warm arched stone of what had once been a window. His boots were crossed at the ankles and his arms were folded across his chest. His shoulders looked so much broader and his jaw so much more manly. She reminded herself again that he was only seventeen. Sophy at fifteen still felt like a child a lot of the time, although adult feelings stirred inside her. Such as those that stirred now when she looked at Harry.
Sophy broke cover from the trees and ran toward him, trying not to skip with joy. Her father was wrong, he must be, because Harry was here, waiting for her, just as he said he would.
He looked up, having heard her approach, and dropped his lazy pose. His mouth widened in an amused smile as she scrambled up the wall to reach him, finding the familiar foot and hand holds in the aging stones. She plonked herself down at his side, catching her breath and pushing her hair out of her eyes. The braid she had fashioned so neatly this morning had barely lasted an hour, and she was tempted to pull out the ribbon and set her hair free. Perhaps she would have, but once again her father’s words sounded a warning in her head, making her uncharacteristically shy.
Harry had no such problem. He caught her hand in his, squeezing her fingers. Even sitting down, she had to look up much further than she had last time he was home because he had grown so much. And he took up more space, too, making their perch a bit of a squeeze.
“Sophy,” he said. His voice had changed, it was deeper than she remembered.
She tried to shuffle back, but he wouldn’t let her fingers go. “I’ve missed you,” he said, and meeting the warm glow in his brown eyes she didn’t doubt it. He had missed her, just as she had missed him, and in an instant everything was right in the world.
She asked him about school and he spoke easily about his lessons and the other boys he had made friends with over the years. The idea of an education like his made her a little jealous, but she was grateful her father thought enough of her, and was enlightened enough when it came to female learning, to have given her the opportunities he had. As if he read her mind, Harry wanted to know if she was still attending the small private academy she had been enrolled in after she finished her days at the village school. “I’m helping to teach some of the younger children now,” she said, neglecting to mention that otherwise her father could not afford the fees. “They can do basic sums and spell simple words, and soon I will be starting them on Lessons for Children. Although the authoress, Mrs Barbauld, is not pretentious enough for some people, the children respond to her very well. I think it is because she deliberately writes at the level of a beginning reader.”
She broke off, noticing the surprised admiration in Harry’s face. Sophy rarely boasted about her achievements, and she was not doing so now. Besides, her life was so different from his, and she was more than ever anxious not to draw attention to that fact. “Other than that, I have been keeping house for my father and, in my free moments, reading. Thank you,” she added with a smile, “for the books you sent to me, by the way.”
Harry grinned. “I wasn’t sure you’d enjoy them all, but I knew you’d read them regardless.”
“I was a little surprised to receive a parcel from Harriet Bayley, but luckily no one asked me who she was until I realised it was you. Then I said she was a friend from the academy.”
“When I come home for good you will be able to read anything you like from our library,” he said firmly. “In fact, I dare you to read every single book.”
“My dream is to write a book of my own,” she said, her heart thumping, waiting for his response. The same wish, expressed to her father, had been met with astonished silence.
“Some weighty tome, do you mean?” Harry asked. “Or a gothic romance?”
She looked at him a little suspiciously but found him completely accepting of her words, as if he was perfectly willing to believe she was capable of such a feat.
“I think I am better at fiction,” she admitted. “I’m still deciding.”
“Could you write a history of the Baillieu family?” he mused. “With a family tree in the endpapers starting with me and going back to Charlemagne.”
“You’re teasing me.”
“A little,” he admitted.
The truth was Sophy would probably have to find more mundane work. She enjoyed teaching, so perhaps she could be a governess. Unless she married, but that thought made her brain fuzzy and her hands sweat, because Harry was the only man she would ever want to marry.
It had been so much easier when they were children. She could pretend that their differences did not matter, but now they were growing up. Her father was right. Hard facts would have to be faced.
“When will you be home for good?” she asked, her voice trembling a little.
He turned toward her. “In a couple of years, I hope. I’m not going on to university like some of my friends, or into the army, like Adam.”
“Don’t you want to go to Oxford?” she asked, curious.
He shrugged. “It isn’t an option. I won’t be entering the church or any of the other professions set aside for gentlemen. I’m lucky I’m an older son. I will inherit Pendleton Manor, and Father needs me here. That’s all I want to do. All I’ve ever wanted to do.”
“Sir Arbuthnot will insist you marry an heiress,” Sophy said, remembering again what her father had said.
Harry laughed and shook his head as if she were making a poor joke. “What would I want with an heiress? The Baillieus have enough money already, or they would if Father agreed to change some of his old-fashioned thinking when it came to the estate. He keeps me and Adam on a tight rein, although Adam …” His voice trailed off.
“What about Adam?” Adam had been attending the same school as Harry, waiting for an army commission to be purchased for him, and Sophy missed his friendly face and silly jokes. But Harry shrugge
d. He didn’t want to discuss the matter.
He leaned closer, and she looked down at her lap, feeling that odd squirmy feeling in her chest. His warm breath was on her cheek, stirring wisps of untidy hair. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“If you like,” she answered softly, still shy.
“I want to marry you, Sophy. I can’t imagine living here without you by my side.”
Her heart soared. She closed her eyes and when she opened them again he had dipped his head so that she could see him, and his face was earnest and honest. She almost told him what her father had said, almost laid out all of her doubts and concerns before him, but in the end she decided that was a conversation for another day.
“I feel the same,” she whispered. “I can’t imagine being here with anyone but you.”
He lifted his hand and smoothed back another stray lock of her hair. He was looking at her so intently now. “Never leave me,” he said, “and I will never leave you.”
And then he kissed her, his lips warm and tender against hers, his breath mingling with hers, and Sophy knew nothing had ever felt as wonderful.
HARRY
Her lips were as soft and sweet as they looked. Sophy gave a little gasp, as if he had taken her by surprise, but when he leaned back her eyes were closed. With her golden hair and pale skin she looked like one of the angels in the stained glass windows of Pendleton Church.
Sophy was too good for him. If she guessed the kind of feelings he had for her now, the base urge he was struggling against, would she even want to be his friend? If she could see inside his head, see the inappropriate things he was thinking of doing to her, would she let him kiss her?
And yet he couldn’t lose her. She was all that was keeping his hold firm on the man he wanted to be, and not the man he feared he was becoming. The lecherous man his father had always been, and the man he suspected Adam was turning into.
Last month, Adam had taken him into the nearby town to a house where women did almost anything for money. He and Adam had been drinking, and his brother hired out a room and brought two women into it. Harry had found himself in bed with one of them. What they did, what he felt, sickened him afterwards, but he wasn’t sure it would be enough to stop him from doing it again. Most of his friends would laugh at him if he told them he’d planned to save himself for Sophy. He was a Baillieu, and expected to sow wild oats before and even after marriage, just as his father had done and his father before him.
Sophy had been with no one, he was certain of that, and he accepted that he couldn’t tell her what he’d done. She wouldn’t understand. She would look at him with wide, hurt eyes and he would feel even worse than he already did.
The act itself had been exciting and enjoyable at the time, but it was the knowledge that, while he had been engaged in it, he had been imagining Sophy in that woman’s place, that filled him with repugnance.
Harry worried he was becoming corrupted, like Adam, and he couldn’t seem to stop it from happening. Even when the school found out and told his father, Sir Arbuthnot had dismissed it with a smirk. He thought their behaviour was a natural progression of young Baillieu men. He’d rambled on about ‘When I was your age,’ and went into a story that made Harry cringe.
Harry had loved his mother. She had died when Adam was little, but he still remembered the arguments between his parents. Bitter words clashing with hot tears. He was under no illusions as to Sir Arbuthnot’s fidelity. Was he going to end up the same? Like father like son? He didn’t want to be. He didn’t want to hurt Sophy the way his mother had been hurt every time his father strayed outside the marriage bed.
“I’ve never been kissed before.”
Her soft voice pulled him back from his dark thoughts. Sophy’s eyes were open now, looking at him in the way she always did, as if she could see right through to the boy inside.
“I like it when you do it,” she added shyly.
Harry’s heart was beating hard in his chest and he could feel the heavy sensation in his groin he’d been noticing a lot more lately. Adam had lost his virginity years ago but Harry had held on to his, and now he couldn’t seem to go back to the way he was, no matter how he tried.
“I like it too,” he said huskily.
He came closer and cupped her face in his hand, his fingers sliding into her silky hair, his thumb caressing her skin. “When I come home for good,” he said, “I’ll kiss you as much as you’d like.”
“Can’t we practise now?” she asked, her lashes shielding her eyes in a way that seemed strangely coy for his forthright Sophy. He could see her pulse beating in her throat, and he wanted to put his mouth to it.
The weight between his thighs was turning into a hard ache, and he had a sudden vision of the woman Adam had brought back to the room for him, her mouth hot around his cock. Before he could stop himself he groaned.
Sophy’s eyes widened. “Harry?”
He dropped his hand, shaking his head. “You should go,” he said.
“But I’ve only just got here,” she protested.
“I’ll walk back with you,” he said firmly, and slid down from his perch, holding out his hand to help her as she followed. Sophy shook out her skirts, glancing at him uncertainly. She had to be wondering what was wrong with him but he told himself it was better he didn’t tell her. To him, Sophy was everything pure in the world, and he didn’t want her tarnished by his thoughts and actions.
“Come on,” he said, starting off toward the wood that divided the ruined castle from the more recent house and gardens of Pendleton Manor. He heard her hurry after him, and then she was at his side. Her hand slipped into his and she gave him a squeeze, and he felt his heart squeeze as well.
This girl was everything to him and he wasn’t going to ruin what lay between them. He wasn’t going to ruin her. He helped her over a fallen log and made a mental note to instruct the groundsman to deal with it.
“I’ll be leaving next week.”
“Already?” she complained. “Will you write to me? You can continue to be my friend Harriet.”
“I’ll try.”
She seemed content with that. Harry walked with her, making the most of these precious moments, telling himself that when they were married, when he was the master of Pendleton Manor, he wouldn’t need anyone but her. She would help him conquer this new lecherous element in his nature and, with Sophy at his side, he knew he would never want another woman.
Chapter 4
SOPHY
Christmas 1808, Pendleton Manor, Oxfordshire, England
Christmas was always a grand affair at Pendleton Manor. The Baillieu family celebrated as they had done for centuries, like feudal lords, and Sophy’s father was called upon to supply beasts for roasting and greenery for decoration. Sophy felt her excitement rising as the day drew closer. Most of that excitement was due to the fact that Harry was home again, possibly for good.
This time Harry had brought a friend with him. The Honourable Digby Abbott, younger son of the Earl of Hayes.
“I’ve already had complaints,” Sophy overheard her father say to Aunt Anna. Anna Harcourt was the widow of his elder brother, who was visiting from Devon.
“What sort of complaints?” Anna asked, before her father, noticing that Sophy was listening, sent her to fetch more cream for the apple crumble, but as soon as she was out of sight she lingered by the door.
“Servant girls interfered with,” her father murmured. “You know the sort of thing. I’d thought better of Harry—this so-called friend of his is a bad seed.”
“Boys must sow their wild oats,” Mrs Arnold responded with a sigh of resignation. “Thankfully, Arnold thinks far too highly of himself to fraternise with farm girls and servants.”
Arnold was Sophy’s cousin but she barely knew him. The two families had never been close, at least until this unexpected visit from her aunt. Sophy knew her father harboured strong feelings of resentment toward his dead brother for his extravagant habits, which had lost them their family
lands.
“As long as they’re not sown in my house,” he said now, ignoring the fond mother’s boasting. Sophy leaned to peek around the door and was instantly spotted.
“Sophy! The cream,” her father scolded, and Sophy hurried off.
She stood a moment, alone in the gloomy pantry. She could still hear the two of them talking but their voices were too low now to make out more than a sentence or two. Her aunt was talking about Arnold again, and how he felt he had been denied his rightful inheritance. “If we could find some way to pay off the remaining debts and buy back the estate Arnold believes we’d soon be solvent. Surely such a thing would benefit us all, George. My son and your daughter …”
Sophy stopped listening. She was still thinking about Harry and his friend and their wild oats. She was not quite the innocent miss they thought her to be. She knew what young gentlemen got up to—when she was at the academy the older girls had loved nothing more than to whisper warm stories to each other, the more lurid the better. She didn’t know the specifics of what was involved in ‘sowing wild oats’ but she had a fair idea. Being a country girl, she saw first-hand when the farm animals mated.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t considered taking part in such physical acts somewhere in her future, it was just that when she did, they were always between her and Harry.
She touched her lips, closing her eyes so that she could remember the sensation of his soft lips upon hers that time at the ruins. He had kissed her since then, but it had always been in a restrained way, and not in the desperate manner he had kissed her that first time. She evoked his warm breath and the groan that came from deep inside him, as if he wanted so much more from her. As if he wanted all of her.
Didn’t he know she wanted all of him, too?
Was it her fault that Harry was ‘sowing wild oats’ with other girls? Did he not think of her the same way as he did those others? They were friends, of course, but he had said he wanted to marry her once he was home for good.