An Ideal Husband? (23 page)

‘I didn’t want a necklace. I never wanted a necklace.’

‘I wanted to give it to you, to mark our first dinner party. I wanted it to be something you would always remember.’

‘I shall always remember it.’ Sophie clenched her fists. ‘I tried so hard. All I wanted to do was to show you that I was worthy of being a viscountess. Quite frankly, that doesn’t matter any more. I am who I am and I like me. I am through with tying myself in knots for anyone, most especially you!’

‘Have I ever asked you to?’

‘But you are ashamed of me. I read the letter …’

‘I meant to burn that after I wrote to my aunt, telling her a few home truths. But I have been so angry about it that every time I sit down to write, I can’t.’

He held out his arms as if he expected her to walk straight into them, lay her head against his chest and forgive him.

Sophie put her hand to her head. ‘It doesn’t change a thing.’

‘Sophie!’

She forced herself to turn her back and walk to where she had placed her valise. She’d packed it this afternoon in readiness for the wedding
trip, a trip which was not going to happen now. A huge lump formed in her throat. She swallowed hard and, when she felt in control of her emotions, turned to face him.

‘The only thing you wanted to share was sex, Richard. I refuse to have a marriage based on that. Desire always fades without something real and solid behind it. You are right. I was in a dream of love. I have woken up and discovered that I am worth it. It is why I am leaving now. I am going to spend my life living it as it was meant to be lived, rather than existing and hoping for a few crumbs of praise from you.’

‘I forbid it.’

Sophie kept her back ramrod straight. The old Sophie would have crumbled, but Richard had given her her self-respect back. She knew now what she wanted and why she wasn’t going to settle for this second-best marriage. ‘You can forbid nothing, Richard. Not any more.’

‘Where are you going?’ he asked in a ragged voice.

‘Where I am safe,’ Sophie answered, knowing he’d never guess what she planned on doing or where she was going. She would start living her life on her terms now. ‘Where no one cares what my reputation is or what title I have, but what they do care about is me.’

R
ichard stood in stunned silence. Sophie couldn’t really be about to leave him. Not Sophie, not when he needed to forget about today. He wanted to hold her as she lay sleeping and look into her face. But mostly he wanted her there, beside him, talking to him about little ordinary things and worrying about little details that most people never even noticed. She was his refuge from the storm which had engulfed him. He needed her.

‘Don’t go,’ he whispered. ‘Stay with me, please. I … I care about you. I need you.’

The sound of the quietly clicked door echoed through the now-empty rooms. He wandered through the rooms aimlessly, leaving the bedroom
until the last. It was as if all the light and joy had been sucked out of them.

Beside the bed, he sank down to his knees and buried his head in his hands. Tears flowed down his face. Sophie had gone. She had walked out of his life. And she would not be back.

His gut ached as if it had been torn out and roughly stuffed back in. A great black emptiness filled him. Sophie had abandoned him.

This black emptiness was far worse than when, as a boy of seven, his mother had left him with Hannah in a small glade while she ran away with her lover. When the light had faded and it was clear that no one was coming for them, he had carried the crying toddler back to Hallington and told her that he would look after her. He found his father in the study, drinking. His father had engulfed him and Hannah in a big bear hug, and told him that they would be a family together.

However, one day a few months later, he had returned from a ride to find the nursery empty. He’d gone again to the study and asked his father where his sister was and had his ears boxed for his trouble. He was never to mention his sister or mother again, his father declared, going into the first of his fearsome rages. Richard had gone
back to his room and cried himself to sleep. It was the last time he had wept.

Two weeks later, he was on his way to Eton and his father had always had an excuse as to why he couldn’t be there. Richard had pretended at first he didn’t care and in the end he hadn’t cared. He wanted to think it would be the same with Sophie, but he knew that was a lie. He’d always care. He’d always want to know where Sophie was and that she was happy. Sophie was as necessary as breathing to him.

Richard looked up at the bed and grabbed a pillow. Her faint scent of lavender and citrus clung to it but it made the ache worse and he put it from him.

‘Sophie!’

The word echoed around the chamber, mocking him.

Would she have gone so quickly if she cared for him? He’d been right to keep from confessing how much he needed her in his life and how much his happiness and well being depended on her. She didn’t care about him, not truly.

He started to get up, but an abandoned book under the bed caught his eye. He reached out and brought Sophie’s sketchpad out.

He flipped through it. Page after page was filled with sketches of him. The first ones were
hesitant and obviously done from memory early in their relationship. Later in the book, she must have drawn him while he slept. His favourite was him asleep with his face turned towards her. She had sketched his back and the way the coverlet had slipped to his waist.

Each line of the drawing screamed how much she cared about him. A tiny light flickered in the black emptiness deep within him and he knew the truth he’d been avoiding. She cared for him, deeply and passionately, and he’d refused to see it before, preferring to think that she was in love with new sensations because it meant he did not have to face his own feelings for her. He didn’t want to give her the power to hurt him and in doing so, he had hurt her—deeply and irrevocably.

Richard closed his eyes, knowing he had killed whatever glimmer of love she had for him. He should have trusted her with his family, with his whole being, because she was his life. He was the one who had wronged her, dreadfully wronged her. There had been no marriage to leave, because he had not been prepared to give of himself.

He tore the drawing from the book, carefully folded it and put it in his pocket. It was a slim hope.

‘I will get you back, Sophie, and I will spend my life showing you my finer feelings. I will show you that I know where you are going. I will always be there for you if you want me. And I do want you to stand beside me. If you need me to say words, I will, but I am scared.’

He put his hands to his eyes. Where had she gone? She had accused him of not knowing her and not caring. He had to prove that he did know her, far better than she thought.

He would find her without anyone else’s help but he had to do it quickly.

‘I want to see Lady Bingfield, Mrs Montemorcy,’ Richard said, keeping his voice steady as he stood on the doorstep of the imposing country house in Corbridge that afternoon. ‘Please tell her I am here.’

It had taken him several hours and a painful interview with his father, where he’d been accused of all manner of things when he confessed that Sophie had left him. Richard had not given him the true reason, but he had persuaded his father to stay until he found Sophie. His father had given him twenty-four hours. The instant he left his father, he knew where Sophie must have gone.

All the way to Corbridge on the train, he had
prayed his hunch was correct. But if it wasn’t, he’d keep searching. He refused to give up.

The slender brunette stared daggers at him. If looks could kill or maim, the formidable Mrs Montemorcy’s certainly would.

‘There is no such person as Lady Bingfield.’

He knew then what Sophie and the Montemorcys intended—an annulment. Difficult, but not impossible and the last thing he wanted.

Heart thudding in his ears, he held out his hands and begged, ‘I would speak with Sophie. Your friend Sophie. Let me speak to her, please.’

She tilted her head to one side, assessed him and found him wanting. ‘And if she doesn’t want to speak to you?’

‘I am her husband.’

Mrs Montemorcy’s eyebrow shot up. ‘That remains to be seen.’

Richard’s stomach clenched. He was expected to go, but he refused to give in to expectations.

‘Sophie! Sophie! I will stand outside this house and scream your name until you come out. You decide. But you never need to hide behind anyone’s skirt. You simply need to tell me to go away. But it has to come from you.’

‘You are making a spectacle of yourself, Lord Bingfield. Cease it at once!’

‘I want my wife, Mrs Montemorcy. I want to
speak with her. I want to know she is safe.’ Richard held out his hands and willed her to agree. ‘My wife’s well being is very important to me.’

‘You presume much, Lord Bingfield.’ Mrs Montemorcy started to close the door.

Richard stuck his hand and foot in the doorway, blocking her. Sophie was there.

‘All I want to do is talk with her. Sophie is fully capable of telling me to go to the devil, Mrs Montemorcy. You know that as well as I do. Sophie has no need of protection from you, from anyone.’

‘If you speak to her and she tells you to go, will you go? Quietly?’

‘Yes, I will go,’ Richard said, bowing his head, giving in.

‘Henri, it is fine. You can stop standing guard over me.’ Sophie came out from behind her friend. ‘Richard is right. I am a grown up. I fight my own battles now.’

Richard’s heart lurched. Her eyes were mere slits, practically swollen shut from crying; her nose was red and her hair hung about her shoulders like snakes. She had never looked more beautiful to him. He wanted to throw her over his shoulder and hurry away from there. He wanted to kiss her feet. He forced his body to
remain completely still and devoured her with his eyes.

‘Sophie,’ he said.

She gave a reluctant nod. ‘I’m here. Say what you like, Richard.’

‘You may speak in the drawing room, unless you wish to converse outside where all might hear,’ Mrs Montemorcy said.

Richard kept his eyes on Sophie. She might be capable of fighting her own battles, but he wanted to be there for her. He had to hope that she wanted to help him fight his battles. ‘It is Sophie’s choice.’

‘We can risk the drawing room.’ Sophie took two steps into the house before stopping and fixing him with her eye. ‘But, Richard, if you try anything, anything at all after I tell you to go, Henri’s footmen will throw you out on your ear.’

‘I understand.’ He gulped a breath of life-giving air. Silently he prayed, as he had not done since he was a young boy in that wood, that she’d listen and understand what he was truly saying. He was going to bare his soul and hope.

Her legs like jelly and her head throbbing, Sophie staggered into Henri and Robert’s drawing room. The last person she had expected to see
today was Richard, but he was here. Her traitorous body wanted to go to him and be held, but that was how the trouble had started in the first place.

She took a steadying breath. It was the shock of seeing him.

If he came at all, she had expected it to be within a week’s time after he’d managed to get the probable destination out of her stepmother. She had expected her stepmother to be more closed-mouthed. She’d given Robert her assurance of that which was why he had stayed in Newcastle at his office, rather than travelling to Corbridge to be here with her. She should have remembered that her stepmother had a soft spot for Richard.

‘Remember, Sophie, I am here if you need assistance.’ Henri gave Richard a hard look. ‘And my husband will return shortly.’

‘My wife is perfectly safe with me,’ Richard said firmly. ‘You have my solemn word.’

Sophie motioned to Henri to go. With one last troubled glance backwards, Henri left the room. Sophie forced her shoulders back and waited.

Richard said nothing. He simply stood there, looking at her with a haunted expression as the silence grew and threatened to suffocate her.

‘I suppose it is my stepmother I can thank for
you finding me so quickly.’ Sophie pressed her hands together to keep them from trembling. ‘She has a romantic soul, but she has gone too far this time. There was no need for it.’

‘I have not seen your stepmother today. In fact, I have not seen her since the day before yesterday. You wrong her and me if you think that.’ A muscle jumped in his jaw. ‘I knew where you must have gone. And if you had not been here, I would have kept on searching until I found you. There are things which need to be settled between us.’

Sophie’s eyes widened. She rapidly sat down. He’d known where she’d run to. He hadn’t seen her stepmother. ‘How did you find me? How did you guess?’

‘When we first conversed after the item appeared in the newspaper, you said that if things became very bad, you would go to Corbridge. Once here, I learnt where your friends lived.’

‘You remembered that?’ Sophie trembled. It was when she’d been so sure that Richard hadn’t cared for her.
If he didn’t care, why remember?
asked a little nagging voice in the back of her mind. She quashed it, just as during her train journey here she’d quashed it every time it spoke up, reminding her about the little things Richard had done. Richard had wronged her. She believed
in a person who did not exist and it was time for her to stop believing in fairy stories and romance.

‘I try to remember everything about you, Sophie, because you are necessary to me.’

Necessary to him
. Sophie put her hand to her mouth. ‘Why did you come here?’

‘I took the second train this morning and came to find you. I need your help, Sophie, and I need it urgently. I am sorry that I can’t pander to your tender sensibilities and allow you to revel in your hurt, but this matter refuses to wait.’

‘You need my help with what?’ she asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. Pander to her tender sensibilities, indeed. Of all the nerve! ‘I will end this interview right now if you wish to be rude.’

‘I need you to help put things right. I can’t do this on my own, Sophie.’

‘Things are never going to be right between us,’ she said. ‘I made that perfectly clear last night and I am even clearer on it today. We can never go back to what we had or what I thought we might have. I have done a lot of thinking.’

He paled at her words. ‘Hear me out, Sophie. We are married. Lawfully man and wife. I never wanted it to be like this. I intended to protect
you and keep you safe. I thought I could fight your battles for you.’

‘I know our legal status to my cost. Robert has already pointed this obstacle out, but things can be done.’

He flinched as if she had struck him with her hand.

‘All I ask is this one thing and I will let you go if that is what you want.’ He bowed his head. ‘I will even help with the annulment, false pretences or whatever is the most expedient. I will play the villain, if the law requires, but first I require this one thing of you.’

Sophie’s insides trembled. Richard was not going to try to hold her to the marriage. He was going to let her go. He probably wanted her assurance that she wouldn’t sell her story to the papers or some such nonsense.

She wanted to break down in fresh tears again, but she had cried herself to a standstill already. It was worse, somehow, seeing him again and knowing that his arms had given her comfort before. She’d never again be able to lay her head on his chest and listen to his steady heartbeat. And, despite everything, she loved him and cared about him.

‘What is this one thing?’ she asked between numb lips.

‘I want you to listen to my story and then I want your advice on how to proceed.’

‘My advice?’ Sophie hated the way her heart leapt. ‘You have never wanted it before. You kept things from me, rather than asking me.’

‘I am asking now.’ His voice became ragged. ‘Please. You are my last hope, Sophie. No, that’s not right. You are my only hope.’

Sophie sank down on the sofa. ‘I will listen.’

‘My mother left Hannah and I in the woods when I was no more than seven and Hannah was a toddler, barely able to walk on her own.’ Richard’s voice held little emotion. ‘We were supposed to be on a picnic. The first picnic of the summer, just my mother and her two children. Three of us left Hallington that day, only two returned. My mother ran away with Hannah’s father.’