Most Improper Miss Sophie Valentine (12 page)

James held out his gloved hand. “Perhaps you will allow me to take you and your sister home. If you've concluded your business here.”

It was a timely offer, since the first sprinkles of a summer shower had just made their presence known on her sleeves, and a fresh bite in the air warned more was to come.

Maria declined, since she had only a short distance to the rectory and preferred to walk. Thus, Sophie climbed up alone to ride with him in the curricle.

The horses charged along, just missing Henry once again, who stumbled into the verge, holding his hat and cursing. Sophie squinted against the rain and looked back over her shoulder. The ribbons of her bonnet slapped her cheek. “I didn't expect you to see that advertisement, James,” she murmured apprehensively as her hands clung to the seat for dear life.

“Really? I thought perhaps you wanted me to read it and come back again.”

Her lips parted with a quick, startled exhale. A spark of panic sputtered to life in her chest. That damned advertisement!

“All the way here,” he muttered, “I told myself it was merely a nice, quiet ride in the country, but my horse somehow made its way along the lane toward Souls Dryft, and as that old flint stone wall came into sight, the memories came back to me.”

She relented with a small smile. It was good to see him again after all this time. When they were young, he used to come out to Souls Dryft and take her for rides like this. In fine weather, she would sit on the flint wall, waiting eagerly for him.

“Just like old times,” he said, mirroring her thoughts aloud.

His genuine smile, which suddenly appeared, gleamed just as brightly as she remembered, and his eyes were that dazzling clear blue she imagined must surround tropical islands, those she only read about in books. The years between had been kind to James. They had mellowed his boyish, slender good looks into something more solid, something warmer. He always had charming manners, but now there was an ease about his gestures. He'd grown into his skin. Youth had its advantages, without a doubt, but there was also much to be said for maturity.

The wheels jolted hard over a deep rut, and her bonnet slipped back off her head. She grabbed the ribbons but didn't bother replacing it. Her pins had all come out, as usual, and cramming the straw bonnet back on her wet head would be pointless.

“I think your hair is darker now,” James observed. “And—good Lord—it's positively wild!”

Flustered, threading her fingers through it, she replied, “Well, I have no ladies' maid, and I—”

He interrupted to exclaim, very gallantly, that she looked more beautiful now than she did at nineteen.

She looked away, her face so warm raindrops dried soon after they touched it.

“Henry is married now, I hear,” he said jovially, as if he'd not noticed her embarrassment or the fingers suddenly raised to cover her scar.

“Yes, indeed. The house is rather crowded now and—”

“I must say, I never thought Henry would succumb. Where did he find her?”

“In Norwich,” she replied curtly. “With her trotter stuck in a grate. I wish he'd—”

“Aha! Is she that bad? I did wonder why I never see her.”

They rode on a while in silence, and then he stirred up the memories again, reminding her of the day
they
met, when he offered to climb a tree and pick a pear for her, but she calmly pushed him aside and climbed the tree herself. “That was the very first time I was rendered speechless by the sudden sight of your ankles. I decided immediately I was in love with you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, you did like to be in—”

“But you were surely a worthy target of my affections, a diamond of the first water.”

He was full of sayings like these. Words were James Hartley's specialty, and he had some for every occasion. “Oh, really!” she chortled. “Even in my best year, I was never a great beauty, as you—”

“You stole my heart, Sophia. I could never tell what you were thinking.”

Well, perhaps if he ever let her finish a sentence, he might know, she thought with a sudden spur of annoyance.

“You intrigued me from the start,” he admitted. “Funny, scowling creature, often found behind a potted palm and flicking pieces of fruit from the punch bowl at people you disliked. Always plotting some mischief and taking that horrid little girl under your wing when she came here to stay with her aunt—what was her name?”

“Ellie Vyne,” she replied curtly, knowing he remembered her young friend's name well enough, but since the Vynes and Hartleys had been feuding for years, he pretended ignorance.

James urged the horses even faster. She clung to his arm to save herself from being thrown out and crushed under the wheels.

“You decided you were
in
love
with me, James Hartley, largely because your grandmama fiercely disapproved. As the niece of Finn Valentine, a notorious scarlet woman, I was the very last sort of girl Lady Hartley wanted for her grandson.” She smiled slowly. “But you did like to tease and torment her, as far as— ”

“I disobeyed the old dear to run after you to London. I suppose I was utterly spellbound by those mysteriously sad eyes of yours. Always hiding secrets. And when I asked you to marry me, you laughed, as if it were the funniest thing you'd ever heard, and said, ‘Yes, let's! Let's do it soon, before I change my mind. We should elope to Gretna Green!'” He paused, the laughter gone. “I should never have let you slip away.”

Sophie breathed deeply, sucking in the damp rustiness of the wet earth. “Young people grow up. You found other women to fall in love with.” She hoped it was true. She wanted him to be happy.

Lips pursed, James nodded. “Just as my grandmama says, there are a great many women in the world. It would be foolish to pine over just one.” He turned his face toward her again. “But quantity is not the same as quality, Sophia.”

She thought of the young, raven-haired housemaid smiling wistfully up at him as he tweaked her dimpled chin. Had he been “in love” with that girl too? Perhaps she should mention what she'd seen that night at Lady Honoria Grimstock's ball, while she waited on the balcony and pondered her future. But what would be the point now, all these years later? Back then, everything seemed significant, every happiness so thrilling, every sadness completely dire, and every slight utterly unforgivable. How silly she was then.

She played with her wet bonnet ribbons, getting them in a tangle. “Souls Dryft is let again.” They were just passing the tall iron gates of the farmhouse. The yard was empty today. Raindrops pricked the surface of the water trough and shined on the ivy that climbed the flint wall.

“Really? Let again? No one stays there long, it seems.”

Her heart tripped. “No. Not for—”

“Damned place is haunted, if you ask me. Don't know why anyone would want to live in the drafty old place. Value's in the land, of course, not the old building.”

She swallowed a small sigh.

“Do you suppose Henry will invite me to stay for dinner?” he chirped, grinning broadly, one subject exchanged for another without a second thought.

***

From his own gate, Lazarus had a clear view of the crumbling old Norman fortress and the gatehouse that once kept out the marauding enemy, not to mention curious natives. Even in the rain, he watched for a good half an hour and waited for that fancy carriage to leave. But now the candles and torches were lit. It was plain the popinjay had stayed to dine.

“Ye comin' in or stayin' out all night?” Tuck hollered from the door of the house, stooping sideways under the low lintel. “Supper's gettin' cold.”

The drizzle had now turned into a real “pelter,” which got in his eyes and ran down the back of his shirt. “I'll be in.”

He didn't like this. Not a bit. Jane Osborne had told him who the man was in the market square that day…Sophie's old flame. And when he saw them riding off together, the tightness in his chest became unbearable. He'd set out that day to make her jealous. The tables were turned.

***

Outside, the rain fell heavily now, and during silences in the conversation, it could be heard rattling against the shutters, burbling along the bumpy cobbles of the yard and splattering from the stone gargoyle spouts.

The precious beeswax candles, even in extravagant array down the length of the pitted old trestle table, were not enough to light the entire great hall, only the very center of it. The flames, under periodic bombardment from the many drafts, seemed almost ashamed of themselves and constantly bowed in apology for their woeful inadequacy. In the corners, dark shadows remained and closed in the dinner guests. A fire was lit in the massive hearth, but there was such a wind down the chimney, the flames ducked and danced, providing more smoke than heat. The faces of the dinner guests came and went in the unreliable light.

On this grim evening, Mrs. Dykes's dour, mournful appearance was oddly apt, as if she were another element of the storm. Henry's mother-in-law was a formidable creature in her severe black widow's weeds. She wore her graying hair pulled back in a tight knot that lifted the corners of her eyes and mouth into a rather terrifying grimace. While she dressed plainly, content to merge with the walls, her daughter preferred flamboyant colors and frills to accentuate her bosomy figure. This proclivity lent her the look of a dancing girl from the Drury Lane Theatre.

The two women stared at James Hartley in a fierce way, taking their attention from him only when Wilson brought around tureens and platters of food. Then they both looked away just long enough to choose greedy portions.

Mrs. Dykes had sold her house in Norwich to be closer to her daughter, and she now rented rooms in Morecroft. Like most things, they were deemed unworthy, falling far short of her expectations. She never failed to mention, during every visit to her son-in-law, the discomforts of her living quarters.

“It hain't in me to complain,” she said, smiling distantly across the table at James Hartley, “although the rooms are
hawfully
damp in the winter and hot in the summer. They are, at least, in the better part of town, and one is close enough to visit one's daughter. When the roads are passable. It hain't so great a distance, even for an old woman with bad hips and weak blood. Traveling with the mail coach hain't no comfort, very often cramped with unsavory characters, but one withstands any trial to visit one's only daughter. I should love a private carriage, even just a small, jaunty little curricle, like what you own, Mr. Hartley. But one makes do.”

Sophie looked at Henry, who merely slurped at his consommé and offered nothing to the conversation. Fortunately, the Bentleys had also been invited that evening, and Maria could always be counted on for some conversation.

“What news from Morecroft, Mrs. Dykes? Have you seen any new fashions there?” she politely enquired above the soup tureen.

The lady answered in a faint, disinterested voice. “One don't follow fashion these days, Mrs. Bentley, now one's a widow, of course.” She sat very straightlaced and stiff in her black bombazine.

Maria's shoulders drooped in disappointment. Since she relied on news from larger towns when it came to keeping abreast of trends, Mrs. Dykes was really useful only as a conduit to such news. Loath to abandon the subject, she exclaimed, “I hear waistlines continue to fall. I'm sorry for it, as I do hate to wear tight stays!”

Aunt Finn declared herself heartily glad for the return of stays. “I never gave mine up, of course, but I saw many a young lady discarding stays who would be far better off”—and here she cast Lavinia a sly glance across the sputtering candles—“keeping herself restrained. Some bosoms are better off not being seen flopping about.”

Sophie thought she would explode with laughter. The insult went over Lavinia's head, but not her mother's.

Mrs. Dykes glared at Aunt Finn with an intense, burning hatred. “Hain't the soup too spicy for you, Finnola dear? Lady Sadler recommends nothing but bland food for the helderly. It don't do no good to get them too lively with heavy seasoning, she always says.”

Aunt Finn, who was surely no older than Mrs. Dykes, raised another spoonful to her mouth and, cooling it with her breath, blew several bubbles that spattered across the table.

“Such a pity you hain't got a French cook, 'Enry,” Mrs. Dykes muttered as she dabbed at the spilled consommé with her napkin. “Lady Sadler swears to the proficiary of a French cook above any other.”

Lady Sadler was a familiar name on her lips. Indeed, she used any excuse, stretched any topic, to include some anecdote about Lady Sadler, the wife of a retired judge and a former employer of Mrs. Dykes. The Sadlers, it seemed, were the authority on all things proper.

Sophie stole a glance at James and saw he was thoroughly entranced by Mrs. Dykes. Led by a wickedly dark sense of humor, he asked the lady many questions about the Sadlers, which she was only too glad to answer.

“Indeed, I've some right splendid news,” she announced grandly. “The Sadlers have took a place along the seafront in Morecroft this summer for Lady Sadler's health. They bring all their daughters, Mr. Hartley, all unwed and at present unengaged,” she simpered. “I defy you not to be in love with one of 'em while they're here. Wherever they go, they're much hadmired. Of course, they hain't got my daughter's complexion or her fine bones, but not everyone can be as fortunate as my Lavvy.”

Sophie felt the tremors of James's stifled laughter. “I'm intrigued already, madam.”

Now Mrs. Dykes turned her gimlet eyes to Henry. “I took the libertary of mentioning to Sir Arthur Sadler our particular problem with Sophia. He'll soon sort her out.”

Sophie exhaled. “Sort me out?”

“Sir Arthur will find Sophia a governess post.” Mrs. Dykes smiled ghoulishly.

Sophie wondered why this dormant subject was suddenly raised again, but even as the question formed in her mind, she knew the answer. The scandal of her advertisement for a husband suddenly made it even more prudent she be sent away.

Mrs. Dykes continued, “It hain't like me to speak out of turn, but disciplinary is somewhat lax in this house, 'Enry. A really well-regulated family like the Sadlers hain't never suffered with scandal like what this one does.”