Wicked Company (58 page)

“’Tis over,” she said, her belief in her words settling on her like a mourning cloak. “He will never think well of me again.”

“Sophie—” Lorna began, staring at her friend worriedly.

“I love Hunter with my life,” she said with hollow resignation, “…but ’tis finally finished between us. If I think anything else, I shall drive myself mad.”

Book 5

1768-1769

At Stratford-on-Avon what doings! Oh rare—

What poetry, music, and dancing was there!

—
The Cambridge Magazine

Twenty-Three

A
PRIL 1768

Sophie watched numbly as two burly men, obeying the instructions of bookseller Thomas Davies, carted the last of Ashby’s inventory out the door of her shop.

“Did I purchase these?” Davies asked, pointing to a pile of tomes resting on the windowsill.

Sophie glanced at the volumes of Shakespeare, along with a few other of her favorites that she’d culled from the shelves, and shook her head in the negative. Then, suddenly, she snatched a copy of
Richard III
from her private reserve and handed it to Davies.

“Here,” she said abruptly. “Take this. I don’t want it.”

She couldn’t bear to have the stinging condemnation contained in the play’s pages among her few possessions upstairs.

Long mayst thou live to wail thy children’s death.

Hunter’s curse would be forever imprinted in her skull, she thought, watching her fellow bookseller toss the leather-bound play into a nearby bin.

Rather than wailing, she had been silent—practically mute—these last two years, unable to write, unable to carry on a coherent conversation, accomplishing little aside from the odd printing job that occasionally came her way.

She had found it impossible even to run the book shop and was glad to find a buyer in Tom Davies, whose establishment at Number 8 Russell Street was a couple of blocks from Drury Lane. The proceeds would sustain her for a year or two while she decided what to do… or where to go. For the moment, she’d kept her lodgings, but The Duke of Bedford, who owned the freehold on the shops along Half Moon Passage, had let out the lower chambers to a staymaker who hoped to attract the same prostitutes who patronized Mrs. Phillips’ Green Canister next door.

She stared gloomily at the motes of dust floating in the shaft of April sunshine pouring through the shop’s front window and wondered how Lorna Blount was faring. That first summer following Danielle’s death, Lorna had sought work at Sadler’s Wells where she had taken up the art of tightrope walking. It was a dangerous occupation. Thus far, Lorna had not been injured; at least Sophie had not heard that she had, and for that she was grateful.

Smoothing her hand over the leather surface of one of her few remaining books, Sophie knew she should make the effort to locate her friend and bid her farewell before another summer season at Sadler’s began. However, the mere thought of venturing beyond Half Moon Passage prompted familiar feelings of suffocating despondency. The only blessings she could contemplate were that Mary Ann Skene had long since departed her lodgings to enjoy the patronage of her wool merchant, and Peter Lindsay had kept a safe distance from his estranged wife.

For months, Sophie had been avoiding David Garrick and everyone else at Drury Lane. She’d been grieved to hear that Frances Sheridan had died in September, eighteen months past, of a sudden fever while living in France with her ever-impecunious husband Thomas, the Great God of Elocution.

As for Roderick Darnly, he had departed for an extended tour of the Continent and she’d heard nothing from him either.

“Good God, Davies!” boomed a voice, shattering Sophie’s reverie. “I assumed you were joking! She really
is
giving up Ashby’s! Sophie McGann, I can’t imagine you without a book shop, but I’m deuced glad to see you, nonetheless!” said James Boswell. He strode through the door and bussed her heartily on both cheeks as Tom Davies bid farewell, taking the last of his purchases with him.

“Jamie,” she replied, using every ounce of willpower to summon a welcoming smile. “What are you doing in London?”

He pulled out a book from a wide pocket sewn on the inside of his brocaded cuffed coat and waved it at her. “I’m here to promote my
Account of Corsica.
I see you haven’t heard I’ve become a full-fledged book author,” he chided her. “’Tis been a great boon since I’ve been raising money to fund arms for the independence campaign.”

“You’re raising money to buy arms for Corsica?” she said incredulously.

“You don’t see me as a soldier of fortune, wagering my life for a good cause?” he asked with an injured air.

“No, I do not!” she replied, trying not to smile at such an absurd notion.

“Well, you’re right. I just send money to General Paoli when I can.”

“Well, that’s a relief. How has your sainted father taken to your career as a published author?”

“Even
he
admits I’ve taken a toot on a new horn!” he exclaimed proudly. His eyes were shining. “Ah, Sophie… I am no longer a carriage dog, running after the wheels of the great. I’ve written a book and people are
reading
it! Davies tells me he thinks ’twill go to another printing!”

“I’m happy for you, Bozzy,” she said quietly.

“And what of our old friend Hunter? Have you heard from him?” Boswell asked carefully.

“I— No,” she replied, the familiar suffocating feeling tugging at her throat. “Have you?” she asked, and then cursed herself for probing an old wound.

“Aye, when he was playing Comely Gardens outside Edinburgh. I had to pry it out of him, but he told me something of what transpired between you.” Boswell looked at her unhappily and blurted. “I
tried
to tell him you would never deliberately endanger your child, but—”

“Please, Bozzy,” Sophie interrupted, feeling her rigid control beginning to slip, “please don’t speak of him again.”

At that moment, outside, a coach with a gold crest on its polished black door drew up in front of the shop. A footman wearing red livery stepped through the door and handed Sophie a note sealed with wax. The servant waited patiently for an answer to his master’s missive.

Would you do me the honor of celebrating my return to London by dining with me this evening at seven? My coach will return to call for you at the proper hour.

The Honorable Roderick Darnly

“Dining with an earl’s sprig?” Boswell said, unabashedly reading the note over her shoulder. “Don’t tell me you’ve taken up the harlot’s trade! Not
you!”

“Don’t be absurd!” Sophie snapped. “Roderick Darnly has been abroad for more than a year. And for your information, he’s been kinder to me than
anyone.
He arranged for my daughter’s burial and even paid for her coffin.” She turned to the lavishly attired footman. “Please tell Mr. Darnly I would be delighted to accept his thoughtful invitation.”

***

Everything in Roderick Darnly’s dining room seemed to glisten. The highly polished table was set with cut-crystal glasses filled with sparkling champagne. Tall tapers flickered like evening stars in the five-branched candelabra and the diamond-paned windows overlooking St. James’s Street glimmered with pinpoints of light as Sophie sipped her wine and considered her host’s startling proposal.

“I’ve already seen to preparing the gardener’s cottage for you,” Roderick said calmly. “’Tis hidden behind a grove of trees in the parkland behind Evansmor House. You can have peace and tranquility and a place to ply your quill—if you’re ever of a mind.”

Sophie gazed at him down the length of the long dining table. She was still recovering from her surprise that she was his only guest.

“I’m both touched and flattered you should think of arranging something so kind for me,” she said. “But why ever should you wish me to accompany you to Wales?”

Roderick Darnly’s unruffled demeanor seemed suddenly strained, as if he wished to divulge a secret and then thought better of it. He signaled his scarlet-clad footmen to grant them some privacy. “Let us just say that whenever I am summoned home by my coal-obsessed father, I find I am very soon in need of good companionship.”

“I am certain there are many other women in Covent Garden far more suited to such a mission,” Sophie said a little more tartly than she intended.

Roderick chuckled and leaned back in his chair.

“Now I’m the one who is flattered, my dear Sophie,” he replied. “I would not presume to think you would consider sleeping in my bed,” he continued smoothly. “When I say
companionship,
I mean exactly that. Wales, as I hope you will soon discover, is a beautiful, untamed land, and the Glamorgan region, where my father has his estates and coal fields, is wilder yet. There are few entertainments of the type one might expect to find in London, and I merely thought we might both profit from a joint expedition to that back-of-the-beyond place. I can’t avoid this visit, after so long a sojourn abroad, and now that you’ve given up Ashby’s Books and have severed all personal entanglements, I assumed a much-needed change of scene would do you good. If you assent to come with me to Glamorgan, we shall be rendering each other a service, I assure you.”

Sophie was momentarily nonplussed. Obviously, Roderick Darnly had lavished considerable thought on her particular circumstances and was extending a tempting invitation. At that same time, he made it clear she would actually be doing him a favor. But was that all there was to this proposal?

“You’ve been very kind on several fronts, but—” she began.

“Well, here’s your chance to show your appreciation,” he interrupted deftly. “I could face my godforsaken homeland far more cheerfully, knowing I had someone there to converse with about theater and writing and all the artistic pursuits we both enjoy.”

“And what would the Earl of Llewelyn think of such an… arrangement? Mightn’t the sight of a female scrivener living at the bottom of your garden unsettle your father?”

“I am the second son,” Roderick explained with an ironic smile. “As long as I attend the requisite number of dinners at Glynmorgan Castle and pay appropriate respects to my brother, Vaughn, and my mother, the countess, his lordship couldn’t care less what I do.”

“I fear it could still prove awkward for both of us,” Sophie mused, taking another sip of champagne.

“But why? Evansmor, where I live, is my mother’s former family seat—it’s a good mile from my father’s castle gates. You could pass the entire summer and autumn without ever laying eyes on the earl.”

“Well, I—” Sophie hesitated. She was running out of excuses, especially because the notion of escaping from London and its painful memories had great appeal.

“As I’ve said before,” Roderick intervened, “I do believe you would enjoy being looked after. In my case, I have an army of servants in Wales, so you needn’t worry ’tis a burden on my part, and I truly would enjoy your company. ’Tis as simple as that.”

For an instant, Sophie reflected on her darkest days these last two years when she truly thought she would go mad with the double loss of Danielle and Hunter. Darnly’s offer was a chance, at last, to put the tragedy of her daughter’s death and its aftermath behind her, and to bury forever all thoughts and feelings and memories concerning a certain brash Scotsman.

“Wales in the summer…” Sophie responded softly. At length she met Roderick’s gaze. “It sounds delightful.”

***

Sophie allowed Roderick to support her arm as she sank onto her trunk which had been unloaded at dockside. A stiff breeze blew off Swansea Bay, the same wind that had made the trip by boat from Bristol to this small port city in Wales a nightmare of tossing waves and seasickness.

“Feeling better?” he asked cheerfully.

“Yes, much, thank you.” Sophie smiled wanly.

Actually, now that her feet were back on land, both her stomach and her spirits were improving by the minute. She scanned the long, low warehouses near the docks where bales of wool and bins of coal were stored before being shipped to myriad ports in England and Ireland, thus creating enormous wealth for the likes of Roderick’s father. As with so many powerful Anglo-Welsh aristocrats in South Wales, Basil Darnly, the Earl of Llewelyn, had the good fortune to possess vast tracts in the Glamorgan region. Among his holdings were forty thousand acres of coal-rich land that stretched from the treeless mountains called Brecon Beacons to the Vale of Neath whose river emptied into Swansea Bay.

The luggage was loaded into Darnly’s waiting coach, and an hour later they had crossed the river Tawe and begun a slow, gradual climb up the hilly road that ultimately wound through dramatic crags, gorges, and wooded glens.

“Are you sure your coachman is on the proper route?” Sophie gasped after five miles of being tossed about in the wildly rocking vehicle.