Midnight Pleasures (17 page)

Eloise stood with all the stillness of a terrified rabbit. It was a moment for courage. But the courage to overcome years of estrangement is hard to come by. Her breath burned in her chest. Words clogged in her throat. She bent her neck, helplessly ashamed.

But George merely spread his hand a bit wider and rubbed his thumb in a small circle, dropping his hand only when Carroll opened the drawing room doors to usher Sophie into the room.

Chapter 13

S
ophie woke up so early that it was barely light outside, clambering out of her bed to see the first gray streaks of dawn. What does one do on the morning of one’s marriage? Sleep, her mother would say. Sleep so that you look your best. But Sophie couldn’t sleep.

Her heart was pounding with excitement. She leaned on the windowpane where Patrick had come into her room, and told herself for the sixtieth time that she was doing the right thing. If she looked closely, Sophie could see faint white scratches on the windowsill: the marks where Patrick’s ladder had rested.

Two men trundled by, driving a large open wagon. The night-soil men were heading out of London with their loads of fertilizer. The city was waking up; down in Covent Garden the fruit merchants would be arriving, and in Spitalfields the bird sellers would be opening their shops. When she was a girl Sophie used to love to look at the rows of goldfinches and woodlarks, linnets and greenfinches. Today the thought of small birdcages caught at the back of her throat and made her want to cry.

“Stupid, don’t be stupid!” she whispered to herself furiously. Some marriages work; some don’t. What right did she have to dramatize her upcoming nuptials, as if she were Juliet being forced to marry Paris?

Sophie wrapped her arms around herself, hugging her breasts through the thin chambray of her nightdress. Ah, but she wanted him, she did. She wanted Patrick Foakes as much as Juliet ever wanted Romeo. Probably more, given that she had already experienced a night of leisured bliss before marrying Patrick.

So really, what was she worrying about? Sophie leaned forward, planting her forehead against the chilly glass, her eyes fixed on the street below. Two sturdy delivery carts rounded the corner and steered their way carefully into the alley running alongside Brandenburg House. The first phaeton of the morning clattered its way along the street.

If it had been an ordinary morning, Sophie would have rung for hot chocolate and then worked at her desk for two hours before ringing for a bath. For a moment she let her mind laze over the idea of returning to her study of Turkish verbs. But her mother’s scornful words echoed in her head. Childhood play doesn’t belong in marriage. As she watched, the housekeeper sailed out of the house to finger vegetables in a cart stopped before the door.

Mama was as embarrassed as I was, Sophie thought, her forehead still pressed against the cool glass. But she gave me good advice. If knowing about my languages will give Patrick a dislike of me, then he must never know. It was very hard to imagine not welcoming Patrick to her bed, and Sophie quickly dismissed that part of her mother’s advice as warmth crept up her cheeks.

The key was never, never to let Patrick know that she had developed a foolish
tendresse
for him. If Patrick didn’t know the truth, then she could play the role of the sophisticated woman who watched her husband come and go with ease. But the humiliation she would feel if he ever found out that she loved him—it chilled her blood.

“I shall never tell,” Sophie whispered, her breath momentarily fogging the glass window. Somehow comforted, she realized that her toes were cold, curled against the chilly wood under her feet. She ran back over the warm carpet beside her bed and tucked herself under the blanket.

When Sophie next woke, great golden swashes of sunlight lay across the tangled roses that bordered her carpet. Sophie turned over and blinked sleepily at the canopy. She had been dreaming in Italian, something she hadn’t done since she’d learned the language some four years ago. It was an odd little dream, and it slipped away even as she tried to bring it to mind. Something about a masquerade ball in which she was to be dressed as a gypsy, with a straw hat tied under the chin. Sophie grimaced. Today was the beginning of a masquerade, in a way. She reached out and pulled the rope next to her bed, swinging her legs out of bed yet again.

Eloise York felt a warm glow of satisfaction in the pit of her stomach as she looked discreetly over the mass of gentlefolk occupying St. George’s chapel at three o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon. She had rummaged up every single relation she and George could lay claim to, and had, in essence, done the same with Patrick Foakes’s family, given that it consisted of one brother (Alex), an uncle, and an aunt. However few in number, they were all prominently in view. Patrick’s uncle would conduct the ceremony, and his aunt, Henrietta Collumber, had been given a place of honor next to the bride’s mother.

“Stop peering, Eloise,” Henrietta said, with the freedom of a rather crotchety woman on the far side of seventy. “They’re all here, no need to worry. Thinking it’s the love match of the century, no doubt!” She positively cackled.

Eloise looked at Henrietta with a pang of extreme dislike. Could she risk giving the old harridan a sharp set-down? No. Instead, Eloise turned her head back toward the altar. She had been very pleased to learn that the Earl of Slaslow was standing up for Patrick. That should put a sock in the gossips’ chatter! Slaslow looked a bit peevish, but then he was the peevish sort anyway. In fact, the more she’d thought about it, the more it seemed clear that Sophie would be better off with Patrick Foakes.

Patrick looked imperturbable, standing in front of the church with his twin brother. Unlike Braddon, who was nervously shifting from foot to foot and yanking at his vest, the two Foakes brothers stood like rocks.

Just then the brief hush and hum that always precedes the entrance of a bride fell over the chapel. Sophie appeared in the recessed columns at the side of the chapel, her hand resting lightly on her father’s sleeve.

Eloise had persuaded her to wear white, and as Sophie walked quietly beside her father, her gown gleaming palely in the late afternoon light, she looked innocent, fragile, otherworldy. No one would think that she was a young woman who drew scandalous attention like a magnet to the true north. Even the most vicious imagination must hesitate to speculate why this marriage had happened with such speed. Sophie’s hair spilled down her back in a glowing flood, adorned only by creamy rosebuds tucked among the amber curls. She was the snow princess from a Russian folk tale, the guileless fairy queen from an Irish love story.

Her dress was made of pearly ivory satin, caught up under the bodice, and laid over with a shimmering overdress that extended into a train at the back. The sleeves were short, the bodice modest, and Sophie was wearing high satin gloves. When Madame Carême produced the gown, Sophie had wailed that she would look a veritable dowager.

In truth, it was probably the most conservative dress Eloise had seen Sophie wear since her daughter’s debut. But Madame Carême’s seamstresses had sewn frantically to add the one touch that turned the dress from conventional to enchanting. Madame added golden Brussels lace to the bodice, to the line of the overskirt as it fell from Sophie’s bosom, to the border of the shorter gown, and to the longer flow of the train. The lace caressed Sophie’s creamy skin and emphasized the curve of her breasts and the length of her slim legs.

And, Lord, but Madame Carême
did
know how to make a woman look enthralling. The gold lace echoed Sophie’s hair, making her look like an enchanting ivory and gold icon. A blasphemous icon, of course. No man in the chapel looked at her with reverence; the pure wanton lust rising in their loins fought so pallid an emotion. Against ivory silk and ivory skin, the blood beat in Sophie’s cheeks in a way that spoke of life, pagan life, life in the meadow, not the church, life in the bed, not the tomb.

Patrick’s breath caught in his throat as Sophie moved toward him without meeting his gaze. She raised her eyes only after she and the marquis reached the altar.

Then, for a brief instant, Sophie’s eyes met Patrick’s and she colored, looking down at the roses in her hand. A smile trembled on Patrick’s lips but the intent, languorous heat rising from his body stifled any impulse to laugh.

At least he knew why he was getting married. He had never experienced, nor would he ever experience again, a desire as profound as that which he consistently felt for Sophie York. Unbidden by the priest, he reached out and drew her small hand into his.

Bishop Foakes cast his nephew an admonishing look from under bushy eyebrows. He’d agreed to lead the service out of respect for Patrick’s dead father, his own brother. Lord knows the boys had caused Sheffie grief. But Sheffie would have been happy to be here today, Richard judged. Get ‘em both married and they’ll calm down, that had always been his advice. Not that Sheffie had paid any attention, packing the twins off to the Continent and the Far East rather than sewing them up in a couple of solid marriage contracts. He was lucky that the boys had returned safe and sound. Although his brother hadn’t managed to see either of ‘em before he died, now that Richard came to think of it.

Well, time to get on with the ceremony. Richard surreptitiously adjusted his high bishop’s hat. It had a tendency to ride backward and look like a ship listing in a storm.

“Dearly beloved,” Richard intoned, “we are gathered here together in the sight of God …”

Sophie began to tremble like a leaf as the bishop’s deep voice jerked her out of a dreamlike state. Her hand was engulfed in Patrick’s large one, which made her feel a longing wave of desire for him. And
that
feeling made her want to run from the chapel. Her life seemed to stretch ahead of her, gray and fruitless, marked by anguish and embarrassment as her husband dallied with other women.

As Richard wound through the familiar words of the marriage service he noted that the groom was still holding the bride’s hand. Ah well. It would probably be taken as a romantic gesture by the guests, and Lord knows they needed to emphasize romance in order to get through this particular wedding without scandal.

The bishop turned his attention to his nephew. My goodness, Patrick has sarcastic-seeming eyebrows, floating half up his forehead as they do, Richard thought. It makes the boy seem satirical even as he stands in a holy place.

Finally he turned to Sophie with the command, “Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together …” But Sophie’s head was thronged with images of her mother crying. Suddenly all the lies her father had asked her to tell about his whereabouts reverberated in her mind, ugly specters of a marriage in shreds and tatters, run—and ruined—by falsehoods. She looked up at Patrick, her eyes asking an agonized, unspoken question.

Patrick’s hand tightened, almost as if he knew what she was thinking. And his eyes smiled at her: those lovely black, black eyes with small crinkles at the corners from the sun. Sophie straightened her backbone and said, clearly, “I will.”

Well, at least Patrick seemed to be marrying into a good family, Richard thought. He, for one, approved of Sophie’s white face and trembling fingers as she swore on the prayer book. Brides should be meek and small. Yes, small and meek, that was the best sort of bride. Richard clapped the prayer book shut, suddenly realizing that he’d droned his way through the whole service.

“I pronounce that they be Man and Wife together,” he said, deftly adjusting his hat.

Sophie’s lips moved, but no noise came out.

Richard frowned. Could it be that the blushing, trembling bride muttered
“Merde”?
No, surely not. She looked a wee, refined creature, not capable of swearing in any language. Richard smiled at the pair before him in a jovial fashion. “You may kiss the bride,” he told Patrick.

Patrick turned Sophie to face him. He felt very pleased with himself. The whole transaction felt
right
. He had had the same feeling when he purchased a Baltimore clipper from that new American company. Sure enough, the ship had weathered a hurricane off the shore of Trinidad and was on her fifth voyage now.

Sophie looked up at him, her blue eyes so dark as to look almost black. For a moment Patrick was startled by the enormous reserve he glimpsed in them. He drew her to him and lowered his head. Sophie rested passively against his chest, her lips cool and unresponsive.

Oh hell, Patrick thought to himself. He needed to coax a romantic kiss from Sophie’s lips in order to emphasize the idea that true love had dictated their brief engagement. He slid his large hands up her back and drew her more sharply to him, his lips demanding. Then suddenly Sophie’s lips softened and she melted against him, her breath a caress that set his blood on fire. Patrick’s head swam and his body turned to flame as a surge of heat rushed up the back of his neck.