Julia London 4 Book Bundle (143 page)

“Excuse me, madam?” the woman said.

Oh God.
Sophie gripped the seam of her skirts tightly, forced herself to pause and smile. “Yes?”

“I beg your pardon, but don’t you recognize me?”

No.
No … but perhaps? Sophie cocked her head to one side and looked closely at the woman.
Melinda. Melinda Birdwell.

The woman smiled. “Why, Della, I do believe Lady Stanwood has forgotten me! Oh, I beg your pardon—” She laughed, exchanged a glance with her friend. “I’m afraid I’m not sure of the proper address.”

The earth seemed to shift beneath Sophie’s feet. “Ah … S-Sophie,” she stammered, trying desperately to find herself. “You … you have always known me as Sophie, Melinda. How do you do?”

“Oh,
very
well, thank you,” Melinda said, and looked at her friend. “I was acquainted with Sophie many years ago … we made our debuts in the same Season.”

They had been acquainted, all right—Melinda had terrorized her that year. Of all the people she should meet, Melinda had to be the most disastrous.

Her critical eye quickly assessed Sophie’s gown and hair. “I had not heard you were in England again. I thought I understood you were living abroad?”

Sophie’s throat felt parched, the smile on her lips tremulous. “Actually, I’ve come home for a time.”

“Ooh,” exclaimed Melinda, “how very nice for your family.” She grasped the arm of the woman accompanying her, took two steps back. “Well then. Welcome home,” she said, and turned quickly with her friend. The two of them, holding tight to one another, hurried down the path, Melinda looking back over her shoulder for one last glimpse of Sophie before whispering into her friend’s ear.

As she watched them scurry away, Sophie could feel herself sinking into the same black hole of humiliation that had all but drowned her the last time she was in London. It was all coming back in a rush of dull pain. Melinda Birdwell had never been a friend; in fact, in the Season of Sophie’s debut, she had delighted in stealing her first promised dance and humiliating her. It had been easy to do—she was full of false charm, and Sophie had been … well, she had been Sophie, for Chrissakes!

Here it was, exactly what she had feared—oh, but she could just imagine how Melinda would regale her family over supper this evening!
“You will never believe who I chanced to see! You remember poor Sophie Dane, do you not?”

Oh yes, they’d
all
remember, and at that moment, Sophie vowed to avoid the
ton
at all costs. She would not endure such humiliation again. She would not be their laughingstock. Her heart was too full of the old painful memories to add any new.

She survived the remainder of the afternoon by staying close to Ann’s side, avoiding conversation and most of all, avoiding Melinda Birdwell. That was not the easiest thing to do—in the first place, Melinda had gained two stones or more in eight years and was a commanding figure, to say the least. And in the second place, Sophie had the terrible feeling that Melinda was pointing her out to others.

It was, all in all, a horrible affair.

When her sister called over the next several days, Sophie made it a point to be absent under the pretense of staffing Honorine’s house. At least the endeavor kept her fully occupied—the Season was beginning in earnest, and there wasn’t any good help left to speak of. Their situation was looking increasingly grim, so grim, that Sophie silently rejoiced when Fabrice announced that a woman had called inquiring about the position of housekeeper and cook.

But she was not exactly heartened by the sight of her first applicant—bent with age, she had a foreboding beak nose and a generally unpleasant demeanor.

“I been sent to do yer cleanin’ and cooking,” she flatly informed Sophie, and thrust a list of references at her. Sophie glanced at them, noticed two names she vaguely recognized. “The name is Lucie Cowplain.”

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Cowplain,” Sophie said politely.

“Not
Mrs.
Cowplain.
Lucie
Cowplain,” the woman said abruptly.

“Ah … I see. Where have you served before, Lucie?”

The woman pressed her lips so tightly together that they all but disappeared. “
Not Lucie.
Lucie Cowplain. Seems rather simple to me, mu’um.”

Now
that
was a different response than Sophie was accustomed to and she hardly knew what to make of it. “Oh,” she said, nervously rubbing her palms on her gown. “Ah … where might you have served before, Lucie Cowplain?” she asked carefully, cringing a bit when the woman’s lips disappeared again.

“Ye got the paper right in yer hand, ye do,” she said, motioning impatiently to the references Sophie held.

“Umm, yes, so I do indeed.”
Heavens, was this the best the placement agency could do?
She glanced blindly at the list of references as she tried to think of how to politely send the woman on her way. “Let me see … you served Lady Kirkland. I would suppose she’d entertain quite frequently.”

Lucie Cowplain’s eyes hardened into tiny rocks of coal. “Will ye want me for yer employ or not?” she asked.

“I … I—”

“Have it yer way, then. But there ain’t too many willin’ to work for ye and the Frog,” she said, and shoving her battered bonnet onto her head, pivoted tightly on her heel, prepared to quit the study.

Stunned by what she had said and awed that someone could be so impossibly rude, Sophie could only gape as the woman began her uneven march to the door. But as Lucie Cowplain reached for the brass handle, it occurred to Sophie that Honorine was never in the company of such an unbending woman and would not have the vaguest notion how to bear her.

Something about that made Sophie smile. “Lucie Cowplain, please!”

Lucie Cowplain paused; her shoulders stiffened as she turned slowly to glare at Sophie.

“I should very much like it if you would consider our offer of engagement.”

Lucie Cowplain’s frown deepened. “Do ye indeed? Then ye’ll kindly show me to yer kitchen.”

Having no desire to be the one to deny her, Sophie gestured lamely in the general direction of the kitchen, and Lucie Cowplain marched crookedly in that general direction, mumbling to herself.

This, Sophie thought as she followed the woman’s slanted walk toward the kitchen, would be
most
entertaining.

She was not to be disappointed. In spite of all outward appearances to the contrary, Lucie Cowplain turned out to be a fine housekeeper and an even better cook, producing an array of dishes with sauces as delicate as any Sophie had learned in France. Though she thought it rather odd that someone as hard and bitter as that old woman could make such delectable food, Sophie was eager to learn from her, and Lucie Cowplain was, surprisingly, eager to teach.

Fabrice and Roland, however, were not particularly pleased with Sophie’s choice, at least in the beginning. From the moment Lucie Cowplain hobbled into their midst with a tray of tea and biscuits, they were taken aback by her.

It didn’t help matters at all that Lucie Cowplain practically laughed at them as she set the tray down. “Now then, what’ave we here?” she asked, peering at the two of them seated side by side on the divan. “Blimey, I ain’t seen a bonnier pair of lassies in me life,” she remarked, then cackled at her own jest.

Fabrice gasped with astonishment and came quickly to his feet, one hand on his hip, the other waggling a finger at Lucie Cowplain. “You do not speak to
me
thus!” he insisted.

Lucie Cowplain merely laughed and waved an old hand at him. “There now, don’t be getting yer knickers into such a knot, laddie. Have a spot of tea and see if that won’t cure yer vapors,” she said, and still chuckling, hobbled out of the room as a stunned Fabrice and Roland gaped at her departing back. They spent the rest of the day and that week avoiding her.

Honorine, however, seemed oblivious to the juxtaposition of the woman’s personality and culinary skills, much less her severe countenance, and made the mistake of trying to engage her in conversation. Lucie Cowplain did not respond to Honorine’s endless chatter, but merely glowered at her, until the evening she apparently reached her limits. “Madame Fortier,” she said in a gruff voice, “ye’ll pay me to work, not to speak. If ye want me in yer employ, I’ll thank ye kindly to leave yer prattling to the likes of her,” she said, waving bent fingers at Sophie, “or find yourself another. I ain’t hired on to be yer nursemaid, no I ain’t.”

That clearly took Honorine by surprise. For once she was speechless, her mouth open and wide blue eyes blinking. Lucie Cowplain shifted from one hip to the other, regarding her calmly, waiting for Honorine to decide. After a moment, Honorine said softly,
“Oui, madame.”

Satisfied, Lucie Cowplain nodded her ancient head and wobbled like a crab from the dining room.

Honorine turned to Sophie, tears brimming in her eyes. “So cruel is this woman!” she whispered, and quit the dining room almost as dramatically as Lucie Cowplain.

For Sophie, Lucie Cowplain’s arrival signaled a slowdown to the rhythm of her life. Worried that Ann would see her idleness as new opportunity to take her round to the drawing rooms, she was suddenly desperate for an occupation. In similar circumstance in other cities of the world, she had turned to charity work. In London, however, that seemed a rather daunting prospect, as there were more charitable organizations than one could count, and many women of the
ton
involved in all of them.

There
was
one charity that interested her above all others—the house to which Claudia had taken her when she escaped Stanwood. But Sophie could not quite bring herself to mention the house on Upper Moreland Street, much less find it. Those jarring memories were always on the fringes of her consciousness, and she wasn’t very sure she wanted to resurrect them.

So she spent her time wandering Regent’s Park each day, usually carrying a small picnic made up of the delectable treats she was learning to make from Lucie Cowplain. Having discovered a small pond she thought particularly pretty, she took her picnic there each day, along with a book. But more times than not, she spent her afternoon gazing across the small pond, to where a house was being constructed, fascinated by the building of it. Well, actually … she was far more interested in the men who built it than the structure itself.

Men had become something of an enigma to her; strange creatures that made her skin flush with just a look, or tingle with a careless touch. Her dreams of them,
oh Lord … 
they were decadent, sensual, and so very close to satisfying as to drive her mad.
Close
, they were, but not quite. Tormenting was more like it.

One man in particular had caught her eye—she gathered he was a foreman of sorts, as he always appeared on horseback, in a gentleman’s suit of clothes. He would gracefully leap down, and arms akimbo, stalk about surveying the work done that morning. At that point, he would inevitably shed his coat and waistcoat, roll up the sleeves of his lawn shirt, and wade into the middle of the work, directing the others.

She would watch him for what seemed like hours. The man had wavy, sandy blond hair that brushed the top of his collar, impossibly wide shoulders, and narrow hips conveniently outlined for her viewing pleasure by the fabric of his tight trousers. He was truly a magnificent sight to behold from all angles, and Sophie did indeed behold him, locking his image away in the corner of her mind. He was delectable, a work of art. Watching him move about, hammering things, carrying large timbers … could she help it that she imagined him completely naked? It
had
been eight years since she had been so much as kissed by a man, unless one counted Arnaud, which she certainly did not. She was a woman, for heaven’s sake, a living, breathing woman, and she could hardly help the churn of desire in her when this man would appear. Desire? Bloody hell, it was a slow burn. She had not felt a burn like that since …

All right, then, it was a fact that after she had escaped William, she had spent several years trying to rid her mind and body of the memory of him, and had convinced herself, completely and irrevocably, that she would never desire the touch of a man again.
Never.

A prime example, apparently, of why one should never vow
never
, as she had been flat wrong.

It had returned, unexpected, two years ago.

She could still remember the moment. It had been in the markets of Stockholm; a gentleman with hair as white as her petticoats had walked up to the butcher and requested a flank of beef. He had stood beside Sophie, his arm lightly brushing hers, and she had felt herself begin to melt, starting somewhere deep inside and quickly spreading throughout her body. He was gone before she could breathe again, but she could not shake the surge of desire he had sparked in her.

It had happened again and again after that, and with increasing frequency, each incident seemingly more intense than the last, until she began to fear there was something quite seriously wrong with her. She longed to speak to someone about her condition of wantonness, but she could not bring herself to admit that, much to her horror, when she saw an attractive man, her gaze was immediately drawn to the square of his jaw, the breadth of his shoulders, the trim of his waist, and … 
and to the bulge between his legs
.

The man across the pond certainly was not lacking in that regard.

So Sophie watched him, pretending to read, feeling the heat creep into her skin as her gaze feasted on him, imagining him in various activities. Lewd activities. Activities that crept into her dreams at night. And she was watching him move about one day—well, watching
it
, actually—when she suddenly realized he was
looking
at her. Looking right at her looking at him. It unnerved her so badly, her book flew halfway across the park. She didn’t return for two days.

But she could not stay away, and she finally crept back to the pond like a sinner returned to God, taking care to arrange herself just so in a way that she wouldn’t appear to be looking. She thought herself quite clever.