The Secret Lover (12 page)

As they approached, Sophie quickly discarded the argument over Lord Hamilton and murmured to Honorine a cautionary "
en garde
."

Lady Pritchet came to an abrupt halt in front of them and eyed Honorine openly and critically. One thing was certain—the woman's bitter countenance had not changed even a whit in all these years.

Shifting her pinched gaze to Sophie, Lady Pritchet practically sneered.

"Lady Sophie," she said, as she took in her gown. "You've been abroad."

"Yes I have, Lady Pritchet, in the company of Madame Fortier."

"
Bonsoir
," sang Honorine.

"
Bonsoir
," responded Charlotte with a smile.

"Perhaps you had opportunity to take in the sights of Rome? I found the Coliseum to be quite grand," Lady Pritchet remarked, now eyeing Honorine.

"We were actually longer in Venice," Sophie clarified.

"Venice?" asked a woman behind them.

Honestly, could this night possibly become any more monstrous?

Apparently so—Miss Melinda Birdwell had seen fit to join them.

"Truly?" drawled Melinda, arching one sculpted brow over the other.

"I've heard Venice is quite decadent."

"
Ooh, oui, oui
," Honorine readily agreed with a little laugh and a wink for Melinda. "
Beaucoup décadent
."

A tiny mewl of surprise escaped Charlotte; Lady Pritchet's sneer deepened. But Melinda merely smiled. "We so look forward to hearing tales of your
décadent
adventure over supper."

All right, then, there it was—this
would
be the longest night of Sophie's life.

In the end, however, she couldn't be entirely certain what was the worst part of the whole affair. The awful supper in which everyone around her attempted to ask—under the guise of polite conversation, of course—about her ignoble past?
Have you by chance seen Sir William? Oh, I suppose he
is still in Spain
? Or Honorine's peculiar and unabashed adoration of Lord Hamilton? Or perhaps Hamilton's seeming fixation with
her
?

In between her attempts to fend off the many intrusive questions put to her, Sophie caught herself exchanging several looks with Trevor Hamilton.

His smile, she noticed, was rather infectious, and she began to feel a little self-conscious of it. Impossible though it was, the man was actually flirting with her! How terribly ironic that was—eight years ago, Sophie would have delivered her entire fortune for just one favorable glance from Hamilton.

Now, it made her feel strange—his attentions were too curious, too uncharacteristic for someone who had once been one of the
ton's
most eligible bachelors. And it didn't help, naturally, that she could not push the image of Caleb from her mind's eye.
Why hadn't he come today
? She could imagine him here, much more comfortable than she, sharing a secret jest with her over some of the things being said, conversing with the others.

But it was Honorine's peculiar and unabashed esteem of Lord Hamilton that fascinated Sophie the most. Even though she could clearly see now that her initial assessment of his ability had been too harsh, he was still hardly the sort of man to whom Honorine was typically drawn.

Not only was Honorine drawn to him, she was making a scene.

She doted on him over supper, monopolized his attention. It was painfully obvious that no one seated around the table could take his eyes from her. Sophie desperately wanted to stand from her seat, walk the length of the table to where Honorine sat cheerfully babbling with Lord Worthington and Lord Hamilton, lean over her shoulder, and inform her that she was behaving like an imbecile. Unfortunately, she could hardly do such a thing without making the scene worse.

The minutes stretched into hours.

After supper, when the ladies had at last retired to the drawing room while the men had their port, Sophie attempted to put Honorine off to one side where it would be inconvenient for her to engage in conversation with anyone. She might very well have succeeded had not the very affable Mrs.

Churchton begun a discourse on the secrets of the Hamilton family, beginning with what sounded like a very unhappy marriage between Lord and Lady Hamilton, and ending with her conjecture that the rumors of an illegitimate son were true.

Sophie's heart clutched at the mention of Caleb; Melinda pounced on Mrs. Churchton's remark with gusto.

"Do tell, Mrs. Churchton!" she exclaimed, smiling conspiratorially at those around her. "I've often heard it said there was a bastard son, but I never thought it true!"

"Oh, it is quite true," Mrs. Churchton sniffed with much authority.

"Lord Hamilton spent several years abroad. They say the mother is French."

Everyone turned to Mrs. Churchton; Sophie, too, inched to the edge of her seat.

"It's been thirty years or more, but when Lady Hamilton was with child, Lord Hamilton took to the Continent, where he remained until little Trevor was three years or so. Only then did he return, though I daresay they never reconciled, not really. Lady Hamilton died a very lonely woman, I assure you."

"But has anyone ever
seen
this illegitimate son?" Melinda pressed.

"Could he possibly be the same man who has recently appeared in town claiming to be the illegitimate son?"

"I wouldn't know," Mrs. Churchton responded as she casually plumped the ringlets above her ears. "There are those who claim Lord Hamilton traveled to France twice yearly to see his bastard son. And there are others who insist that he was actually at home in the country during those periods. I daresay no one can say for certain who this man is, and it hardly matters any longer, does it? The poor viscount can't remember much a'tall, and physically, he is hardly more than an empty shell—"

"Do not speak this of him!" snapped Honorine, who had been uncharacteristically quiet up until that point.

Sophie clamped a warning hand down on Honorine's wrist but she shook it off, startling Sophie with her abruptness and the fire suddenly blazing in her eyes. "This man, he hears your speech, he
sees
how you look to him! He is not dead; he lives and he breathes!"

That heated pronouncement was met with deadly quiet. But the silence hardly quelled Honorine's temper—if anything, it made her angrier. "Look at you!" she continued hotly. "How you sit in his home, eat his food, drink his wine, and still, you say such hateful things!
Mon Dieu
!"

"I beg your pardon, Madame Fortier," Mrs. Churchton said hoarsely. "I certainly did not intend to offend your sensibilities so greatly!"

"Of course not," said Melinda, turning smoothly in her seat to face Honorine with all superiority. "But you do not know Lord Hamilton, Madame Fortier. We have been acquainted with him for many years and we do not deceive ourselves. May the Lord have mercy on him, but he is a mere shadow of the man he once was."

"You are wrong," Honorine said low.

Sophie knew that voice, came instantly to her feet, and stepped in front of Honorine before she erupted. "It is indeed a tragedy," she said quickly,

"but surely nothing on which we should dwell at the moment. Lady Sanderhill, I recall with great fondness your skill on the pianoforte. Would you be so kind to reacquaint us all with your talent?"

That woman blushed prettily, fussed a little with her collar as she stood.

"I should be delighted," she said, and moved to the pianoforte, oblivious to the murderous look Melinda cast Honorine.

But both women had resumed their seats by the time the men rejoined them, and to all outward appearances seemed enraptured by the song Lady Sanderhill played. When Lord Sanderhill stood to join his wife in a duet, Sophie slipped to the far side of the room, away from the ever-watchful eyes of Melinda Birdwell.

Hamilton followed her.

He stood behind her, quietly leaning over her shoulder as the singers began, his spicy scent filling her nostrils.

"Lady Sophie, I should very much like to show you my father's gardens one day," he whispered. "He spent years building them and they are among the finest in all of London."

Caleb's likeness slipped into her mind, and a little shiver ran down Sophie's spine.
Where was he? Why hadn't he come
? "Perhaps one day,"

she whispered.

"I shall consider that a promise."

She couldn't help herself—Sophie glanced at him over her shoulder. His gaze boldly dipped to the low neckline of her gown, and Sophie felt the shiver again, only stronger than before, and shifted away from his pointed gaze. That gaze… she had experienced that gaze before. William Stanwood had looked at her like that, a sort of wolfish look. A thought that perhaps he was more like Stanwood than she knew flitted across her mind—and perhaps, like Stanwood, his interest was really in her bank account, not her breasts.

"Until then," he said, and she watched him move away, his hands clasped nonchalantly behind his back.

But Sophie quickly forgot her vague suspicion and thought of Caleb, wished Hamilton
were
Caleb, and her heart suddenly felt as if it weighed one hundred stone.

As the Sanderhills droned on with their cheerful little duet, she took a window seat, staring into the dark night that engulfed Bedford Square, her heart and mind full of Caleb.

In the middle of Bedford Square, Caleb flicked a cheroot to the path, ground it out with the heel of his boot as he idly watched Hamilton's guests through the enormous windows of the salon. From where he stood, he could see most of their activity and smiled to himself, imagining the agony of sitting through the duet that was being sung. There was a time he might have been jealous of the fine living to which Trevor was accustomed, but at the moment, he only wanted to know about his father.

He shifted his gaze once again to the window seat where Sophie sat staring so wistfully out over the square. He had not recognized her when she first appeared and had peered so forlornly out the window. But she had looked familiar, and he had risen from the bench on which he had passed the evening, walked slowly to the edge of the square to have a better look.

The recognition had unnerved him in a strange sort of way. Even though he knew she lived nearby, he had not realized, had not even thought that Sophie might be acquainted with his father, and certainly not his brother. The very idea made him oddly angry. He did not
want
her to know them, did not want her involved with them in any way. She was the treasure he had found in the park, the woman who had intrigued him above all others, and he did not want her anywhere near Trevor Hamilton.

Even more than that, his curiosity about her was now overwhelming.

Who was this woman, Sophie Dane
?

He had missed her today, more than he would have thought possible after such a short acquaintance, and certainly more than was reasonable in light of his recent attempts to force her from his mind. But he could still taste her, feel her in his arms. Could still feel the uncommonly strong desire to be touching her. Unfortunately, other issues had arisen that he could not avoid—Trevor's unexpected trip to the country park, to a racing meet, to be exact.

Caleb didn't know exactly what he thought he might discover in following Trevor—some clue as to his father's true condition, he supposed

—but he had been overwhelmingly compelled when he had seen him leaving Bedford Square this morning, looking furtively about, as if he were trying to hide. Whatever Caleb had suspected, it had not been horse racing—honestly, he had thought it more sinister than that, given that Trevor had publicly and privately worked so hard to keep him from seeing his father.

But it had been nothing more than a gentleman's foray into a bit of sport, and Caleb would have sent word to Sophie somehow had he known, but by the time he realized how far they would go, it was too late.

He extracted another cheroot from his coat pocket and lit it. Drawing the smoke into his lungs, he glanced up at the bay window again, wished he could see her smile, that guileless, heartwarming smile. Wished even more fervently that he might kiss those unsmiling lips again.

And soon.

Sophie had not even finished her toilette the next day before Ann sailed in and plopped herself down on an overstuffed armchair. "Sophie,
Sophie
," she said with a smile. "I've heard already how Hamilton could not take his eyes from you last evening—you must tell me everything!"

The speed of rumor and innuendo among the
ton
had always amazed Sophie, but this was absurd. She snorted disdainfully and resumed the brushing of her long brown hair. "It was
scandalous
! There were not one dozen guests as he had assured me, but
two
dozen."

"Very amusing. Come on, then, tell me all!"

"All right." Sophie put down her brush. "If you must know, what transpired was a perfectly awful evening. Everyone looked at me as if I had been convicted of high treason. Melinda Birdwell did her best to unhinge me, and Honorine is absolutely besotted with Lord Hamilton! Need I go on?"

Ann sighed, drummed her fingers impatiently on the arm of the chair.

"No one looked at you in any such way, Sophie. Your imagination is far too industrious."

Oh, righto, there it was—she had merely
imagined
everything.

"And Melinda Birdwell is hardly worth your consideration. That woman has the poise of a whale."

That, she could hardly argue.

"As for Madame Fortier"—Ann sighed heavily—"what can one do? But never mind all that!" she said, brightening again. "What of Hamilton?"

Sophie shook her head in bewilderment. "I don't pretend to understand it, but he
does
seem rather infatuated with me."

Ann's instant squeal of glee made Sophie groan; she abruptly stood and moved restlessly to the window, shaking her head. "No, no, Ann, this is
not
good! Honestly, this is Trevor Hamilton! He was the most sought after bachelor in Mayfair the year I made my debut and he scarcely noticed me then. Why now? Why after all that has happened? I cannot help but wonder what he means by it all. Is it my inheritance, do you think?