by Sara Bennett
Sophy reached for her grandmother’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “James loves Lady Evelyn.”
Grandma looked crestfallen but quickly rallied. “Surely you don’t think he will try for her again? Her dreadful brother will never allow it. No, James is yours for the taking, my love.” She eyed Sophy a moment, biting her lip. “Don’t let him slip away,” she added in a rush.
Sophy sighed. “He is going to his home in the north to try to forget her.” But quietly, to herself, she wondered if James would try again. It seemed a pity that two people who loved each other should stay apart. She stifled a yawn. All this emotion and excitement had made her tired.
Her grandmother’s face softened. “Go to sleep,” she said gently. “What is done is done and cannot be undone. Everything will look brighter in the morning.”
Sophy was finally allowed to go to bed. She undressed, barely noticing as the maid unpinned her hair and brushed it out, and then pulled up the covers. The silence was heavy, crushing. Like a portent.
Her grandmother’s words were well meant, but Sophy had always known that in her heart she did not want to marry James. James was desperately in love with Evelyn, she knew it. Why else would he sacrifice his own happiness for hers?
She closed her eyes and for a moment she was back on the east lawn. Harry was there, being struck by that monster Oscar. Harry was a strong man. She had seen him brawling with Digby. He could have fought back, but he hadn’t. It sounded as if he had wanted to be hit, as if he needed to be struck. It was penance.
Forgive me, he had whispered in her ear, right before that woman arrived. Harry had taken matters into his own hands, freeing himself from his engagement and accepting all that came with it. He had risked everything, including his father’s wrath.
And he’d done it for her.
Now Sophy needed to trust him to make things right, but she wasn’t sure she did.
Chapter 28
HARRY
“This is insanity,” Adam grumbled.
It was very late, the street was dark, and everyone in Lambeth was abed.
Harry looked up at the darkened house. “Are you sure this is it? I don’t recognise it.” Which wasn’t surprising, since last time he was here he was suffering from a broken heart.
Adam gave him a droll look. “I’m sure. At least, according to the pretty maid at Mrs Harding’s house. Now are you going to knock or are you planning to scale the wall to her window? And no, I don’t know which one it is.”
Harry gave him an irritable look, then marched down the path to the front door and knocked. Then he thumped his fist against it. Hard. It still took several minutes for someone to answer—a dishevelled servant with wide eyes and a candle. Her eyes grew wider when she saw the state Harry was in, as if she thought she was about to be robbed and assaulted by a footpad.
“I need to see Miss Harcourt,” he said, as if it was perfectly all right for a gentleman with a battered and bruised face to call upon a young lady in the middle of the night.
The servant had begun to stammer a response when another female appeared in the gloom behind her.
Harry had never met Sophy’s maternal grandmother. He remembered her saying that her father hadn’t approved of the elderly woman and that she had a scandalous past. Now here she was, a tiny woman in a voluminous nightgown, a shawl thrown over it, and her white hair in a braid that fell over one shoulder. Even by candlelight he could tell her eyes were as blue as Sophy’s.
“Who are you?” she said without preamble, although there was something about her unsympathetic expression that made him think she already knew.
“Harry Baillieu,” he said, “and this is my brother, Adam. I need to see Sophy.”
She gave him a long hard look, taking the candle from the servant and lifting it so that she could see the damage to his face. Her eyes were expressionless. “Why should I let you see my granddaughter at this hour, or any hour, Mr Baillieu? Your reputation is in tatters and if anyone knew you were here now, hers would be no better.”
Harry knew he had nothing more to lose. “Because I love her and what I did I did for her. I’d do anything for her.”
“You waited three years to say all of this? You’ve left it rather late, Mr Baillieu.”
He stared back at her. “I hope to God I haven’t,” he said in a voice he hardly recognised. “Please, let me talk to her. I know James Abbott is going to ask her to marry him, and I have to talk to her first. She can’t make the same mistake I did.”
She continued to stare at him and it was only after a cab rattled past that she spoke again. “I can’t have the neighbours seeing this,” she muttered. To Harry’s relief she stepped back and allowed him inside.
“You will speak to me and then I will decide whether or not you are worthy enough to speak to my granddaughter,” she told him, leading the way to a small room. The fire in the hearth was almost out. She set the candle on the mantelpiece and bent to rekindle it. She glanced over her shoulder at the two men standing in the doorway. “For heaven’s sake, sit down,” she said impatiently.
They did. What Harry really wanted to do was run upstairs to Sophy’s bedchamber and beg her to forgive him, but he knew that he would have to get past her formidable grandmother first.
“I’m surprised you had the nerve to call here after the damage you have done,” she began, standing up and dusting off her hands. Adam made an amused sound, but quickly recovered when Mrs Jamieson glared at him. “When Sophy first came to live with me, she was so certain you would come for her. While her father lay rotting in prison she waited, and you didn’t come. And still she had such faith in you. But you didn’t come. She had begun to make a new life for herself, a piece at a time, when your brother informed her you were in town. On the night of the ball at Albury House, she was so sure you would only have to see her and everything would be all right. But once again you let her down. What I am telling you, Mr Baillieu, is that I will not have her heart broken again now that it is starting to heal.”
Harry let her say what she wanted to, without interruption. His head throbbed and his nose still ached but he ignored both. “I was searching for her too. I made a mistake and gave up too soon. But that is no excuse, you are right. I’ve been a fool and I want to spend my life making it up to her.”
She ignored him. “Sir Geoffrey Bell and I are hoping she will marry James Abbott. A good man. A stable man. You coming here will only throw a spoke in that wheel.”
“My former fiancé, Evelyn Rowe, was meant to marry James Abbott. She is free too. They have a future of their own to make, if they will take the chance. Do you really want Sophy to marry a man who is in love with another woman?”
She made an impatient sound. “If you had an interest in her wellbeing—”
“I do have an interest in her wellbeing,” he said, knowing he sounded as desperate as he felt. “I want to make her happy. I want that more than anything.”
“If you cared about my granddaughter you would not have left her waiting for you for three years and then engaged yourself to someone else, only to reject her when she finally had the courage to make herself known to you. You ruined her life, Mr Baillieu. And then, just as she is on the verge of putting you behind her, you interfere in the cruellest way possible. By dancing with her in front of hundreds of guests before being accused of lying and cheating. I’m assuming you did that on purpose. You do not seem to me like a man who does anything without a purpose.”
“The dancing was a mistake. I admit that.”
“You seem to have made a great many mistakes.”
He sighed, and then looked her in the eye. Mrs Jamieson wanted to eviscerate him. And if he wanted to see Sophy before it was too late then he would have to be prepared to bleed.
SOPHY
At first she thought she was dreaming. Harry was speaking and she was back at Pendleton, sitting by the ruins of the old Baillieu stronghold, half asleep under the warm summer sun. Bees buzzed and birds sang in the ancien
t trees in the wood. The beauty and peace of the place seeped through her skin and into her blood. Pendleton was in her blood, and so was Harry.
She had tried so hard to be free of him, to put him aside and make a new life, but it seemed that he was not done with her after all.
She shook off the haze of sleep and sat up. There was movement downstairs and a door closing. The dream voice came again and that was when she realised that this wasn’t a dream after all. Harry was here in her grandmother’s house. She had waited and waited for him to come to her for so long and now he was here.
Sophy reached for her robe with trembling fingers as she climbed out of bed. Her hair was a tangled mess and her feet were bare, but none of that mattered, because Harry was here. She didn’t know what to think, only that she had to see him. She needed to speak to him. She needed to hear him say that what he had done at the Darlington’s Breakfast really was for her.
Light spilled from under the parlour door downstairs. Her grandmother’s voice was a low murmur, and then Harry’s followed. It was him. He really was here. Taking a breath she put her hand out and opened the door.
Grandma sat by the fireplace in her nightgown, a frown on her face as she stared at her clearly unwelcome guests. Harry sat on the sofa with his back to her, but Adam was sitting in a chair opposite, one leg crossed over the other, booted foot swinging impatiently. She saw the relief in his eyes as she entered.
“Sophy,” he said.
At the sound of her name Harry jumped up and turned to face her. She didn’t know what she had expected. She knew he had been injured, but now, seeing the state of him for the first time since she had left him yesterday afternoon …
For a moment she couldn’t breathe. His nose was red and swollen and there was a bruise on his cheek. Another circled his eye so that it was half closed.
He swallowed as if he was struggling to find the right words, but before he could do so her grandmother spoke sharply.
“Sophy, my dear, go back to bed.”
She barely heard her. She was still staring at Harry. “Your poor face,” she whispered, eyes stinging.
“He was always too good looking, Soph,” Adam said. “This should add a bit of character.”
She shook her head and rested her hand on the back of the sofa for support. “Why are you here?” she asked, looking from Harry to Adam. “Grandma?”
Grandma Susan spoke sternly. “Sophy I am not averse to you speaking with Mr Baillieu, but I think it would be best if he came back at a more appropriate time of the morning. When you are dressed and have thought on your future. And perhaps when he has slept on this matter he may see sense.”
“See sense?” Sophy repeated, her brow wrinkling in confusion. Then, focussing again on Harry. “Why are you here?”
“Because James Abbott is going to propose to you and I didn’t want you to say yes, not before I spoke to you first,” he said. “It had to be now.”
He came around the sofa and took her hands. His fingers were warm despite the chill in the room and he looked down at her. Seeing her bare feet and tangled hair, his mouth almost twitched into a smile, and then sobered again.
“I heard your voice,” she said before he could say anything, suddenly nervous, suddenly afraid he would hurt her again. “I have been waiting to hear your voice in this house since the day I came to live here. Because I believed the promises you made to me. No doubt that made me naïve and innocent and a fool …”
“No,” he interrupted, his voice soft and deep. “You’re Sophy, my Sophy.”
She looked at him, not seeing the bruises, just him. Harry. “Am I yours?” she asked. “Am I really, Harry? Because it seems to me that I have not been yours for a long time.”
“Sophy, I know I can’t make up for the past. I let my father’s lies colour my actions. Your father died in prison.” He took a shaky breath. “I walked away from you. I had you and I walked away. I regret every stupid thing I’ve done. Please, let me show you how much you mean to me.”
She could see he was hurting, but she had been hurt too. Once, years ago, she would have forgiven him instantly and been willing to trust him with her heart all over again. But she had changed, and she knew she had to protect herself from such follies.
“How are you going to do that?” she asked. A chilly note entered her voice. “By asking me again to be your mistress after you promised to make me your wife?”
Her grandmother gasped and even Adam sat up straighter, but Harry did not let her go. “I deserve that, Sophy,” he said. “I was desperate that night, wanting you so much and not knowing how to extract myself from my engagement. I am ashamed to say that for a moment I became my father—but once I understood what had to be done …”
“And now you have hurt Lady Evelyn as well as me.”
He shook his head at her. “What happened was with Evelyn’s blessing. The thought of long years married to someone she didn’t love and who didn’t love her brought her to her senses. I couldn’t hurt her for the sake of seeking my own happiness, so I made sure I took the blame. You must see that, Sophy. I set her free and now we can both follow our hearts.”
“You have given my granddaughter much to think on,” her grandmother said. “You should go now.”
Sophy wasn’t listening. “My father told me once that boys like you don’t marry girls like me. I didn’t believe him then but now I think I understand. Harry, you are the heir to Pendleton and I am nothing. We were children when we thought we could have a happy ending. I admire you for what you’ve done for Evelyn, truly I do. It was a grand gesture. But do you really think you can make up for everything else? You’ve worn out my heart, Harry. Maybe it’s time we both let go.”
“Please, Sophy. Just listen to me.”
“I have. I’ve listened. But I keep remembering those years of waiting for a man who never came, and when he did he believed his father’s lies over the woman he was supposed to love.”
Suddenly she couldn’t bear it any longer. The expression in his eyes, the ache in her heart. She pulled her hands from his and ran from the room. As she fled, she heard Adam say, “Go after her, idiot.” And a moment later, Harry was behind her, grasping her shoulders, holding her back.
“Sophy.” His voice was hoarse with pain. “My love, please. Please listen to me.”
“Sophy?” Susan was standing in the doorway.
“Let me speak to your granddaughter alone,” Harry begged. “Just for a moment. Please.”
Susan gave him a stern look. “You can talk here but the door will remain open. And I will be listening.”
As soon as she stepped back into the room, Harry drew her against his chest. She let him put his arm around her waist, the other around her shoulders, and his face was pressed into the crook of her neck. His breath was warm, reminding her of other times and places, and she knew how easy it would be to give in. Self-preservation was all that kept her from doing so.
“I don’t want to listen,” her voice was breaking. “I don’t want to hear how sorry you are and how marrying you will make it all better. I don’t want that, Harry, because I don’t believe it. Can’t you understand that?”
“Sophy, I am sorry,” he whispered. “So sorry. But I don’t want to marry you to make amends for all the stupid things I’ve done. I want to marry you because I love you. Because you have always been the only one for me. I can’t have Pendleton and not you, it doesn’t make sense to me. I’d rather give up the estate and everything in it if you won’t marry me and live there with me. Give me a chance, let me show you just how much I love you.”
She turned in his arms so that she could see his poor bruised face. “You’d give up Pendleton?” she whispered in amazement. She knew how much his home meant to him.
He met her eyes, reaching up to stroke her cheek, then cupped her face gently in his hands. He looked in love, totally in love, and she held her breath. “Yes,” he said. “You mean more to me than anything else.”
“Oh Harry, yo
u can’t—”
“I don’t want it if you’re not by my side. I abandoned you when you needed me most and it almost destroyed me. I engaged myself to a woman I knew my father approved of hoping to rebuild my life, only to realise that she was only a substitute for you.” He shook his head. “I’m done with that. Now all I want is for you to say yes so that I can take you home.”
Take her home? It sounded like a dream come true. But home was Pendleton and how could he give it up? She wasn’t sure she could let him do that for her. He would only come to hate her for it.
Sophy turned her head toward the parlour, meaning to return to the safety of her grandmother, but Harry turned her back and bent down and captured her lips with his. His kiss melted everything inside her. Her hands clung to his shoulders and she pressed closer to him, unable to help herself.
“You love me?” she said when she could speak. As if hearing the words again would make them real. A tear ran down her cheek and he kissed it from her, before gently kissing her mouth again.
“Desperately,” he said. “Always.”
For the first time she smiled, a wobbly little smile. Her breath gave a hitch as hope sprung new within her. “Always?”
“Even when I thought I didn’t, I did. I’m an idiot, as Adam likes to tell me. Please don’t say it’s too late, Sophy. Marry me. I don’t think I could bear not to have you be my wife for the rest of my years. I’d only be half alive.”
Sophy gently brushed her fingers over his swollen eye. “Oh Harry.”
“It was worth it,” he assured her. “I’d do it again.”
She met his eyes, reading them, taking in his seriousness. He loved her, he wanted to marry her. His talk of giving up Pendleton … She wasn’t sure what to do about that. Or his father …
“Sir Arbuthnot,” she murmured.
He groaned. There was regret in his eyes now, and also a resolve she hadn’t seen for a long time.
“I hate him for what he did to us. To my father,” she added softly. “But he is your father and this will make him so angry.”