A Regency Match (19 page)

Sophy could hardly trust herself to speak. Her insides were quivering in affronted outrage. His explanations meant nothing to her; she couldn't even hear them. That he could imagine her to be so malevolent, so troublesome, so offensive was beyond anything she had anticipated. She was hurt to the bottom of her soul.

But her calm had to be maintained, the dance had to be danced, the amenities of civilized behavior had to be upheld. Somehow she managed to remain in step, to go through the motions without stumbling, to keep herself in time to the music. Marcus kept trying to tell her she'd misunderstood him, but she merely nodded. She couldn't trust herself to say a word. She knew she couldn't have kept her voice steady. At the end of the dance, she walked quickly from the floor, bid her grandmother a brusque good-night and left the room.

Marcus did not attempt to follow her. He was both ashamed of himself and furious with her. He'd known from the first that she was the sort to take offense at nothing. He'd only made a foolish little joke. Perhaps he shouldn't have said it, but he'd meant no harm. Blast the girl! Over-sensitive, overwrought and impassioned, she had an uncanny and provoking way of turning the most commonplace of circumstances into an emotional melodrama. This was just exactly the sort of contretemps he had anticipated all along. She was a tiresome, galling, irksome, infuriating troublemaker, and he would be damned if he would spoil his evening by chasing after her and trying to calm her down!

He threw himself into the activities of the ballroom with a vengeance. He danced twice with Iris, once each with his mother, little Fanny, Mrs. Carrington, and the spectacular Mrs. Ashley-Davies. He played a game of silver-loo with Dennis and Bertie, he told a number of funny stories at the late supper that was served buffet-style after midnight, and he behaved very much like the merriest of bridegrooms.

But the memory of a pair of horror-stricken eyes haunted him. Like an ulcer, it ate at his spirit without pause. Even after he'd gone to bed, he couldn't shut his eyes. That vexatious girl, whether she was aware of it or not, had managed, as usual, to destroy his peace of mind.

As for the vexatious girl in question, she too couldn't fall asleep. She didn't love him at all, she told herself. She hated him more than she would have thought possible. He had made up his mind about her the first moment he'd looked at her, and so great was his conceit that his opinions could not be changed no matter what she did. He thought of her as a zany, histrionic disaster from the first, and that was how she would remain in his eyes. Very well. If that was what he expected, that was what he would get. If he had found her behavior disturbing before, it would be
nothing
to what he would find in the week to come. “There are some possibilities for mischief you wouldn't
dream
of, my lord,” she whispered into the darkness. “Just wait!”

Chapter Fourteen

S
OPHY KNOCKED OVER
the coffee pot the next morning. Marcus had come down to breakfast late, having been unable to fall asleep until well after dawn. His eyes were heavy-lidded and darkly circled, and an unpleasant pain was hammering away behind his left temple. His mood exactly matched his physical condition; sluggish and dyspeptic, he nevertheless had to face a houseful of guests to whom the daily routine was becoming boringly familiar and for whom he would have to concoct some entertaining diversions. To make matters more difficult, the rain was continuing to fall in a depressingly purposeful way, as if it intended to take permanent hold of the landscape.

He found the breakfast room occupied only by Sophy and Bertie, who were engaged in a low-voiced dispute which ceased the moment he appeared. He bid them a brusque good-morning, helped himself to a piece of dry toast, an egg and a cup of tea from the sideboard, and sat down at the table. Taking a quick look at their non-communicative expressions and lowered eyes, he decided that non-interference was the better part of valor, and he picked up his
Times
and buried himself in it. “Would you care for a cup of coffee, your lordship?” Sophy asked with over-bright friendliness.

Marcus regarded her suspiciously from over the top of the
Times
. “No, thank you,” he said, “I've already taken some tea.”

But she seemed not to be listening. She had already picked up a cup and saucer and was reaching for the coffee-pot which was standing on a tray in the center of the table. Belatedly, she looked up at the tea cup he had indicated. “Oh, you have
tea
—” she began, retracting her hand hastily. It clumsily struck the handle of the coffee-pot which she had just too-precipitously set down. The pot toppled over, the spout aimed right at him. The steaming brown liquid flooded the cloth and dripped over the side of the table while they all stared, frozen.

“
Sophy
!” Bertie cried in ill-concealed disgust.

“
Aaaah
!” shouted his lordship as the hot coffee reached his lap. He jumped to his feet muttering a curse and wincing in pain.

“Oh, I'm so
sorry
!” Sophy murmured, staring in apparent confusion at Marcus who, with arms spread wide, the newspaper still clutched in his right hand and soggy with brown wetness, was looking down at the awkward stain which was still spreading on his pale-yellow breeches. For a moment, while the pain still stung, he shut his eyes, bit his lips and remained immobile. But after a moment, Bertie came round to his side and attempted to dab at him with a serviette. Sophy asked, “Are you all right?” in a frightened little voice, and he opened his eyes.

He stared at her furiously but didn't utter a word. She tried to apologize again. “I'm most dreadfully—” she began.

“Spare me, please,” he said abruptly. He threw the newspaper to the floor and strode rapidly from the room. But he cast a sharp glance at the girl as he passed her. Her expression was quite a familiar one. She looked completely contrite, but he'd seen that unfathomable glimmer at the back of her eyes before. The infuriating wench was laughing at him again.

In the afternoon, Mr. Carrington's eyeglasses disappeared. After half the servants in the household assisted Marcus in searching for them for well over two hours, the pince-nez turned up safe and snug behind a cushion on an easy chair which Sophy had occupied all afternoon while she had been engrossed in a novel. She had been, she said, completely unaware of the search.

In the evening, she lost a number of pennies in an easygoing game of copper-loo, and when the reckoning was made, she was so appalled at her losses (a sum of less than half a guinea) that she made a scene and ran out of the room in a huff.

By this time Marcus had had enough. He knew now that Sophy was shamming it, and he didn't like the game a bit. He followed her out of the room and stopped her at the foot of the stairway. “Just a minute, my dear,” he said, catching her by the arm. “I'd like to have a word with you.”

She raised her eyebrows coolly. “Yes, my lord?”

“How many more of these incidents shall we have to put up with before you will have punished me enough?” he asked, giving her a level look.

“Punished you? I don't understand.”

“Oh, yes, you do, my girl. You understand me perfectly. It is
I
who don't understand. What have I done to so mortally offend you? I'm perfectly willing to make amends, you know.”

Sophy tried to wrench herself from his hold. “I don't know what you're talking about,” she said coldly and pulled herself free.

She managed to get up the first step. “Damn you, Sophy,” he said between clenched teeth. He grasped both her shoulders and pulled her down with such violence that she fell against him. “I'd like to give you another shaking!”

She glared up at him furiously. “Go ahead,” she challenged nastily, “if that sort of histrionic, impassioned behavior suits you.”

Though the irony of her tone was not lost on him, it had little effect. He had lost control. He wanted to shake her senseless. He wanted to wring her neck. His pulse pounded in his ears, and he felt as furious as he had the other night when she'd returned from her ride over the downs and had slipped off her horse into his arms. His grasp on her tightened, and he saw her wince. Her lips trembled, and some unaffected part of his brain noted that she had a very pretty mouth. It was full-lipped, soft and very vulnerable. He leaned closer, not quite knowing why. She stared up at him, unmoving, her breath suspended.

The sound of his mother's voice behind him struck him like a pistol shot, even though it was calm, modulated and somewhat amused. “Really, Marcus,” she said, walking past him in her usual, floating way, “you are much too severe with that child. Stop bullying her.” And she continued down the hall without a pause and disappeared into the library.

Shaken, he loosened his hold on Sophy, who made a little sound (was it a laugh? a sob?) deep in her throat, tossed him a completely enigmatic look, and ran up the stairs. But he didn't move, except to look at his hands which were shaking. What had come over him? He had lost his head and had almost wanted to kill her, but he'd
actually
been of the verge of …! He could scarcely believe it of himself. He didn't understand himself at all. He sat down on the bottom step and put his hand to his forehead. What troubled him was that, despite her tricks, despite her taunts, despite his distaste for her character and his own lack of control, he had actually been about to
kiss
her! And what bothered him most of all was that he hadn't done it.

The rain stopped during the night, and the morning brought another perfect June day. Many of the guests rose early, for the rain-washed air was inviting, and the out-of-doors beckoned. Marcus spent a good part of the morning in the stables, seeing that those who wanted to ride were properly mounted. By ten, they had all been dispatched except Iris, who, mounted and ready, was waiting for Marcus to saddle his own horse and ride with her. Just as Marcus was about to jump up into the saddle, Sophy appeared in the stable-yard. She was dressed in her becoming riding costume with its rakish, plumed hat, so her intent was obvious.

Marcus had been dreading the moment when he would have to face her, and the fact that the moment would now take place in front of his betrothed did nothing to make him less uneasy. But Sophy smiled at him with perfect complacency, bid Iris a cheerful good morning and nonchalantly asked if he could mount her.

Marcus rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I have only the mare—which I would not
dare
to suggest—and my Spanish stallion, who might be a bit too skittish—”

Sophy looked at him from the corner of her eye, her brows raised haughtily. Marcus shrugged. “Oh, very well,
take
him!” he said, throwing his arms out in a gesture of hopelessness, “but don't expect a moment's sympathy if you break your neck.”

The groom saddled the stallion, Marcus helped her up, and Sophy rode off with a merry wave. Iris looked at Marcus thoughtfully as he mounted. They rode out sedately and were well along the bridle path before she spoke. “You were almost
rude
to Miss Edgerton, I think,” she suggested quietly. “It is not at all like you, Marcus.”

“It's no more than the wench deserves,” Marcus answered grumpily. “Come down this way. I want to show you the view from the hill.”

Iris recognized that he'd purposely turned the subject, and she said no more about it.

Sophy meanwhile rode her stallion across the fields with real pleasure. He was remarkably fleet-footed and seemed to enjoy as much as she the freedom to run free through the open fields. She gave him his head, and they flew over the ground like the wind. It was not until she saw Bertie at the edge of the field that she drew the stallion to a stop. “I say,” her cousin said admiringly, “that mount is
something like
!”

“Isn't he a beauty?” she agreed with a broad smile, leaning forward to stroke the animal's neck. “It makes one feel amost forgiving toward a certain gentleman.”

Bertie glanced at her with a quick look of relief. “Do you mean it, Sophy? You won't carry on any more—?”

She grimaced and shook her head. “I said
almost
.”

Bertie, annoyed, spurred his horse and galloped off. But after a few minutes he relented and turned back. Drawing alongside her, he asked teasingly, “Where's your new swain?”

“What new swain?” Sophy asked, startled. She felt the tingle of a blush as the memory of her scene with Marcus at the foot of the stairs flooded her mind. Had Bertie seen them? Was this his way of suggesting to her the impropriety of intimate encounters with a man who was betrothed to another?

But Bertie had not seen them at all. “How many swains have you? I mean Stanford, of course.”

“Oh,” Sophy said in well-concealed relief. “He's not a swain, you gudgeon. I saw him on the lawn playing his
gowf
. It seems to be a passion with him.”

“I thought
you
were his passion.”

“Stanford? You
are
a gudgeon.”

Bertie shrugged. “Perhaps I am. I don't pretend to know anything about petticoat fever. But he does buzz about you like a fly.”

“Only flirting, Bertie. It doesn't mean anything.”

They turned their horses to the bridle path that edged the field and ambled along side by side. But Bertie's brow was puckered as if he were wrestling with a knotty problem. “I don't understand,” he muttered at last. “What's the difference between flirting with a girl and … er … something more … more …?”

“More significant?” Sophy suggested helpfully, trying to hide a grin. “Why, Bertie? Are you in the petticoat way, all of a sudden?”

Bertie reddened and looked sheepish. “Don't be a goose. I only thought it was time to … er … practice a bit. One has to learn
sometime
.”

“I see. Well, as to your question, Bertie, I'd say that the difference between flirting and actual courtship is the feeling behind it. Flirting is just for fun—for practice, I suppose, to use your word—and the other is more serious.”