Happily Ever After (3 page)

And, yes, indeed, she had been a young girl when
Harlan had left Boston, but she was twenty-three now, and no longer some giddy
school-miss with girlish dreams meant to be broken. No longer was she content
to make do with straggled letters intended to keep her on a shelf!

Harlan thought he was so smart, did he?

Jonathon’s company was the only company he sorely
missed, was it?

Well, Sophie had more pride than to allow him to
discard her at will, only to reclaim her when it pleased him! She wasn’t about
to give him the satisfaction!

“Please believe me… I never intended to join him,
Sophia,” Jonathon reassured her, his tone reproachful of Harlan. “I could
never
join in his unconscionable sophistry
against your father!”

Sophie narrowed her eyes at Jonathon. She was just
about tired of hearing about her father! Why was everything always about her
father, his money, his connections, his name? She decided in that instant that
she would never again allow herself to be party to such an
arrangement—even if it meant she would spend every day of the rest of her
life completely alone! If a man could not love her for herself, then she just
didn’t want him!

In fact, she rather liked the idea of being alone!
And why shouldn’t she? She didn’t really need a man in her life!

She only wished Harlan were here so she could rip
up his letter and toss it into his face—along with his wretched
engagement ring and a few well-chosen words.

She felt almost giddy at the thought, empowered
with the decision to forsake the wretch.

“Sophia,” Jonathon pleaded. “Please don’t weep, my
dear.”

Startled by his request, Sophie straightened her
shoulders. Weep? Oh, but she wasn’t weeping!

Though she could certainly understand why he thought
so, with her back to him and her head bowed as it was. Her brows drew together
suddenly as a thought occurred to her.

Why, indeed, wasn’t she weeping?

Maybe she was simply in shock?

Yes, that must be it; she would break down later
when Jonathon left. And then she would sit down and write a scathing letter to
Harlan, breaking off their engagement once and for all—she only wished
she could be there to see his face when he read it—the rat! She wasn’t
about to wait about like some ninny for her fiancé to deign to return, simply
to tell him to go to the devil. She absolutely would not put her life on hold
one instant longer!

It was Sophie’s father’s money and connections
that had won Harlan his prestigious grants, and Sophie had supported Harlan
with all her heart, wishing him to be happy in all his endeavors, and now it
just wasn’t good enough to simply see his grants declined.

Resentment sidled through her.

Perhaps he wouldn’t regret losing her, but he
would
regret losing her father’s
support—although she didn’t precisely know what her father would say
about all this. She had no idea if he would support her or if he would endeavor
to convince her that Harlan meant no harm... that all men strayed... that it
bore no reflection on his feelings for her... but for the first time in
Sophie’s life, she intended to take a stand. She was quite untreatably weary of
being the good daughter!

A devilish thought suddenly occurred to her.

Why, indeed, should she wait for Harlan to return?
Furthermore, why should she twiddle her thumbs until her father and mother
returned from Paris to convince her everything was fine? Why shouldn’t she see
Harlan’s face when she tore up his damning letter? In fact, why should she
send
the letter at all when she could
take
it to him?

She turned slowly to face Jonathon, her thoughts
stewing, her eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t crying,” she assured him.

“It seems y-you’re angry,” he sputtered.

Sophie lifted a brow. “Quite!”

“Sophia, my dear... I-I’ve never seen you like
this,” he managed to say.

Sophia had never felt quite like this.

With Harlan’s betrayal, something snapped inside
her, something slightly terrifying and exciting all at once. The simple fact
that she wasn’t huddled in a weepy pile at her desk and sobbing should have
alarmed her as much as it seemed to shock Jonathon. The poor man was staring at
her, mouth agape.

Sophie tried for an even tone as she dismissed
him. The sooner he left her, the sooner she could begin making plans. “Thank
you so much, Jonathon, for bringing this matter to my attention.” She
straightened the parchment against her breast, ironing it neatly, resolved in
what she must do.

She wanted to see Harlan beg for her father’s
money! She wanted him to fall at her feet and endeavor to convince her to stay
with him. And most of all, she wanted to rip his letter into a thousand little
pieces, and then walk away forever.

“Sophia,” Jonathon began, taking a step backward
as she neared. Sophie couldn’t help but note his confused reaction. He’d
obviously expected a far different response from her. “I think perhaps you are
in shock,” he said, recovering himself, and planting his feet firmly.

Sophie smiled thinly. No doubt he thought so.

Certainly it was unheard of that a woman should
respond to such a case with anything other than pure hysteria, she thought
irately.

“I’m perfectly fine,” she assured her fiancé’s
best friend, flashing him a smile meant to placate, even if her eyes burned
with wrath. “You may go now, and please, please, do not trouble yourself
further, Jonathon.”

“Oh, but I must stay!” he protested at once. “How
can I come to you bearing such horrid news and simply leave you disconsolate?
You need comfort, my dear—comfort and friendship! And I am here to give
it to you!”

Sophie folded the letter with cool deliberation.
“As you can see ... I am hardly disconsolate.”

“But Sophia, my dear... this is quite unlike you!”

Sophie smiled. “Why, yes, it is!” she agreed, and
batted her lashes at him, feeling quite the shrew, though with ample
justification. Men! Her father included, all of them were despotic by nature!
Well, she was quite through being a door mat!

She went to Jonathon, laying a hand upon his arm.
She gripped him firmly and pulled him toward the door. “Thank you, dear Jon,
for considering me in this.”

He had no choice but to follow... or make a scene,
and Jonathan, like Harlan, had no stomach for embarrassing spectacles.

Her mind at once began to make plans. First she
would pay a visit to this Jack MacAuley Harlan had mentioned in his letter.
Someone at the university would know how to locate him. Then she would need to
pack. And money—she would need money, of course. And she would write a
letter to her mother and father so they wouldn’t worry when they returned and
found her gone. Come to think of it, they probably wouldn’t even notice, but
she should write them anyway. It was the proper thing to do, and, of course,
she always did the proper thing.

She wondered about Jack MacAuley. She’d heard his
name mentioned before—a controversial fellow her father had called him,
and had heartily disavowed his theories—though Sophie didn’t much care if
he thought himself descended from blue monkeys; he’d do very well for her
purposes. If he could be bribed to take her aboard his vessel, she certainly
had the means to do so.

She hurried Jonathon along. “My father will much
appreciate your ... integrity,” she told him, seeing him to the door, “and you
can be certain I will tell him how sweet you were to consider
my—our—interests.”

“Of course,” Jonathon replied, nodding, confusion
furrowing his brow. And then he looked down his nose at her with that familiar
mocking arrogance that always managed to clench her jaw. “My dear... would you
like me to return and bear witness while you tell your father?” His tone was
quite hopeful, but she knew his offer had nothing to do with any concern for
her. He wanted her father to know what he had done—that he had betrayed
Harlan for his daughter’s honor—for Vanderwahl honor.

“Oh, no, no!” Sophie replied, patting his arm
reassuringly. “It will go
much
better
if you are nowhere near when he reads Harlan’s letter, Jonathon. Trust me, he
will be quite apoplectic, I assure you! I would sorely regret it if you were
the one to endure the brunt of his wrath in Harlan’s stead. After all, you were
only looking out for my best interests ... isn’t that true?” She gave him a
canny glance. Sophie hoped the question filled him with guilt, although she
knew a moment’s discomfort was the most she could hope for. She was coming to
understand that women meant little to men like Jonathon and Harlan. Women were
mere pawns—expendable for the greater good.

She smiled to see that he nodded jerkily. “Yes ...
yes, indeed ... that wouldn’t be good at all.” And he withdrew a kerchief from
his pocket, dabbing his brow.

Sophie nodded portentously. “As you know, Father
is quite protective.” And he was, indeed, fiercely protective of their name.

“Of course,” Jonathon replied as Sophie opened the
door. “As it should be... as it should be.” His brows drew together, and he
hesitated, clearly uncertain over the fruit of his labors. She knew it had not
gone quite as he’d hoped. She ought to let him be there when her father read
Harlan’s letter. It would serve him well to witness Maxwell Vanderwahl’s
wrath... except that Sophie wasn’t about to show her father the letter... not
yet.

She lifted Jonathon’s hat from the rack by the
door and set it atop his head, smiling up at him. She patted it firmly. “Goodbye,
dear Jon!” she declared.

Her mother would have been quite proud to see how
well she kept her calm.

She opened the door wider, barely restraining
herself from shoving him out into the street and rushing up the stairs. She was
suddenly eager to begin preparations.

Her parents would be in Paris until the end of the
month. By the time they returned, it would be too late to stop her. She was no
longer a child and she certainly had every right to deal with her fiancé any
way she felt appropriate—even if it wasn’t quite appropriate.

Jonathon took a step out the door, then stepped
back over the threshold, barring her from closing the door. “B-But if your
father isn’t here, Sophia, then perhaps I should stay! To be certain you don’t
become too disheartened.”

Sophie pushed him gently out the door. “No, but
thank you!”

Harold, God bless him, made himself known in that
instant, standing like a sentinel at the end of the hall. He said nothing but
cleared his throat discreetly, and Jonathon remembered himself at once.

“Goodbye!” she said firmly when he opened his
mouth to protest.

“Yes... very well, then... goodbye,” he stammered,
and left at last.

Sophie slammed the door behind him. She turned to
lean against it and in an instant of weakness, tears pricked at her eyes as she
clutched the letter. She felt ill-used and trampled, but she refused to feel
this way for long.

Harold stood looking at her with his hands behind
his back.

“If I may be so bold to say so, Miss Sophia, I
have never liked that young man!”

She smiled gently at him. “I know. That will be
all, Harold,” she said, dismissing him. When he was gone, she hurried up the
stairwell.

The one thing she had determined long ago was that
one could lose anything at all—anything, except one’s pride—and
come back relatively unscathed. She wasn’t about to carry this scar throughout
her lifetime, only to end up bitter and alone at fifty and stealing brandy from
her father’s cabinets.

No, that wouldn’t do.

She went to her room, closing the door behind her.
It was meticulous, except for the drawings posted everywhere—on the
dresser mirror, on the walls. They were her drawings, and much to her mother’s
dismay, she hung them everywhere. It was Sophie’s one small rebellion, but she
was proud of every sketch and couldn’t bring herself to bury them in a closet
or in a drawer.

Sophie never drew things as they actually
appeared. She never truly saw anything the way others did. Everyone—every
thing—had a soul, and she felt it her mission to capture its essence in
her sketches.

She made her way to her dresser, and touched a
finger to a sketch of her mother she had posted there. Unfortunately, sometimes
her portraits weren’t particularly flattering. She smiled to herself at the
memory of her mother’s expression when she’d first gazed upon her portrait.
Poor dear, she’d practically fainted at the sight of it. Sophie had sketched
her mother’s eyes abnormally large, because she was ever vigilant, and often
affronted. And her mouth was big as well, and her ears... and her nose. Sophie
just hadn’t been able to help herself. Her mother seemed to hear everything,
smell everything, know everything—or at least she made it a point to try.

Sophie’s sketches would never hang in an art
gallery, but she loved them all—from her re-interpretation of the Mona
Lisa, with her teeth bared in laughter, to the tiny sketch of her cherished
shark’s tooth that hung over her bed like a halo-crowned portrait of the Virgin
Mary. Sophie turned to consider the sketch. It was all she had left of the
shark’s tooth. Her mother found the tooth one morning and discarded it long
before Sophie had awakened—because it wasn’t seemly to play with the
dirty teeth of dead animals, she’d been reprimanded.

Sophie still missed her little talisman. In some
strange way, the little tooth had embodied all her hopes and dreams—not
the ones she had been schooled to, but those she’d tucked away in the farthest
reaches of her soul, deep down inside where not a single ray of light could
expose their imperfections ... or hers. The truth was that she wasn’t
perfect—never would be—and she knew it.

Just once, she wanted someone to look beneath the
facade and see all the imperfections ... and cherish her anyway.