Julia London 4 Book Bundle (158 page)

Chapter Sixteen

W
HEN THE SUN
had reached the top of the sky the next day and cast a bright sliver across Sophie’s face, she made the mistake of moving. The instant pain was excruciating, forcing her eyes open. As her vision adjusted to the midday sun, another sharp pain shot across her forehead.

Oh God, she hoped she was dying.

Only death could possibly make her feel better than this. Her head felt enormous, one hundred pounds or more, and her mouth tasted like dirty figs. Little wonder, given that she had consumed a half-dozen or more in something of a frenzy, washing them down with two glasses of champagne before finally succumbing to mind-numbing sleep.

The sound of the door being shoved open sliced painfully through the fog on her brain; she closed her eyes, hoped death would come sooner rather than later.

“Do ye intend to lie about all day, then?”

The grating sound of Lucie Cowplain’s voice only made the pain worse. “I am dying,” she muttered thickly.

“Ye ain’t dying, although ye ought after all that champagne. Come on now, be up with ye.”

Swallowing back a wave of nausea, Sophie murmured, “I can’t. If I move, I shall expire.”

“London would not be so fortunate as that. Here now, take a sip of this.”

She opened her eyes, winced at the pain in her head as she slowly turned to focus on Lucie Cowplain. The old woman was standing next to her bed, holding a glass of some milky concoction.

“What is it?”

“Raw egg, goat’s milk, and a bit of whiskey—sure to mend what ails ye.”

Lucie Cowplain was trying to kill her—the nausea was so great that she quickly closed her eyes, swallowing hard.

“Drink it. Ye’ll feel yourself again.”

But she didn’t
want
to feel herself again, not that befuddled, mousy, helpless little spinster!

Slowly, gingerly, Sophie pushed herself up on her elbows, felt her stomach roil in protest, and quickly lowered herself down again.
She had never drunk so much in all her life.
Bloody hell, she had never
drunk
in her life, save a glass of wine with dinner and the occasional Yuletide nog. Yes, well, she had never had such a night in her life, what with Trevor practically marrying her in the main salon and Caleb … 
Caleb!
 … looking as if he hoped he would never be forced to lay eyes on her again. Honestly, she had the two of
them
to blame for her misery—it had been the most perfectly wretched, ghastly evening of her entire life.

Had it really happened?

A firm hand on her shoulder forced Sophie up. At least she managed to sit up without dying.

“Drink,” Lucie Cowplain said, and forced the glass to her lips. The substance went down uneasily; Sophie could hardly swallow it. But she managed to choke it down, then sat hunched over, her hair shielding her from the sight of Lucie Cowplain’s self-satisfied smirk until she felt her stomach might settle.

Perhaps it was all Honorine’s fault. It was a wonder she hadn’t come banging in here, full of vigor and new French ideas this morning. Perhaps she was abed herself—perhaps even she was feeling a bit embarrassed that Sophie had been so very,
very
right in her assessment of the ball—a complete disaster, just as she predicted, thank you very much.

Food.
What she wouldn’t give for something substantial, something to take the taste of fig from her mouth. At the moment, she rather thought she would never so much as look at a fig again, much less eat one.

“I’ve drawn a warm bath for ye, lass,” Lucie Cowplain said in a voice that was uncharacteristically sympathetic. Sophie nodded, shoved one leg over the side of the bed, and carefully inched the other one over before testing her full weight on her wobbly legs. She stood slowly, moaned at how the room was spinning, and gripped the bedpost until the spinning had stopped. When she at last felt as if she could maneuver about well enough in her body, she limped to her bath.

When she emerged a full hour later—fifteen minutes of which had been spent with her face floating in a basin of cold water—Sophie felt somewhat more herself, physically speaking. But her mood had not improved in the least, and as she stomped heavily down the long corridor, a deep frown furrowed between her eyes.

The guilt was consuming her, eating her from the inside out. Caleb, dear Caleb—she
loved
him! But marriage? It was impossible. Julian, her sisters—they would never allow her to wed a baseborn man, no matter how charming or gracious or very handsome he was. So what exactly, then, had she believed would come of their daily meetings? What had she been doing, tempting fate so openly and brazenly? Had the foolish little Sophie really thought that she could live in her make-believe world with her secret lover and expect him to do the same?

She despised herself. Her actions had been no worse or no better than William Stanwood’s, really—he had lured her under false pretense. Had she not done the same to Caleb? It was a nauseating thought, and tears filled her eyes as she imagined what Caleb must think of her now. The whole thing made her wholly miserable—her heart was literally breaking into pieces.

It wasn’t the first time it had broken, but it certainly felt like the worst.

Tears blinding her again, she determined she could not think of it now, not with a headache the size of England. Grabbing the railing, she bounced unevenly down the winding staircase, silently berating herself with each heavy step. But when she landed on the ground floor, she forgot her woes as she looked around her.

The house looked as if a violent ocean wave had crashed through it.

She moved slowly through the foyer, being careful not to step in the spilled champagne, or on the expensive, gold velvet cape that had been carelessly dropped on the marble tile foyer. The corridor was worse—empty crystal flutes, china plates littering the consoles was to be expected, and even the occasional hair ribbon and neckcloth, she supposed, but the gentleman’s shoe in the middle of the floor was an object of some curiosity. She picked her way around the debris until she reached the door of the main salon, where she paused to debate whether or not she dared to look inside.

She dared.

The room didn’t seem quite as battle-strewn as the rest of the house, but the furniture was all askew and an abundance of pillows were scattered about. More important, Fabrice and Roland were lying at opposite ends of one long couch, their stocking feet entwined with one another’s. She watched them for a moment until Fabrice snorted in his sleep and she was certain they were quite alive.

And exactly where was Honorine?

Food.

Sophie moved on, making her way to the kitchen, where she stood, hands on hips, frowning at the lack of immediate food sources. With a sigh of great irritation, she threw open the cupboard and began to rummage.

Claudia and Ann found Sophie slicing a loaf of bread. Butter and preserves were piled into bowls in front of her, and she had just removed boiled chicken from the kettle hanging over the hearth. Hardly in the mood for callers, Sophie mumbled a greeting as they walked in.

Claudia’s nose wrinkled slightly as she looked around; a hand went protectively to her swollen stomach. “We looked all over for you.”

“I was hungry.”

“Really, don’t you have someone who can prepare that for you?” Ann asked. “It’s so unseemly for a lady to be rooting about a kitchen.”

“I should think it more unseemly for a lady to expire from hunger,” Sophie muttered irritably.

“Now Ann, don’t be so stern,” Claudia said as she examined the jam. “Trevor Hamilton won’t have his wife toiling away in a kitchen, will he?”

That remark earned a glare from Sophie; Ann and Claudia chuckled. “Oh come now, you mustn’t be so cross!” exclaimed Ann, still laughing.

“And you mustn’t think Mr. Hamilton will have a wife,” Sophie returned smartly.

That effectively chased the smile from their lips. Both women looked at her as if she had lost her mind. Sophie shrugged, tore a piece of boiled chicken from the carcass, and stuffed it into her mouth.

“You could not possibly mean what you imply,” Ann said incredulously.

“I could and I do.”

“But why on earth would you refuse his offer?” Claudia asked, confused.

“What offer? He has made none to me. I heard of his desire just like everyone else—in the main salon with dozens looking on,” Sophie flatly informed them, and went about the business of spreading jam on a slice of bread.

Ann and Claudia exchanged a wary look. “Naturally, he should have spoken to you first,” Claudia said carefully. “But what harm is there really? He meant well, I am certain. Perhaps he was carried away with the excitement of the moment.”

“And perhaps he had simply lost his mind!” Sophie exclaimed, waving her bread and jam in the air to emphasize her emphatic belief of that. “But it hardly matters, for it will be his own shame to bear. I had no say in it a’tall.”

“But what if he were to give you a say in it?” Ann asked, pushing the jam bowl away from the edge of the table. “You would most certainly accept his offer, would you not?”

Sophie shook her head, munched on a bite of bread and jam.

Ann made a sound of exasperation and muttered something unintelligible under her breath. Claudia sank onto a stool, propped her chin on her fist, and studied Sophie thoughtfully for a moment before asking, “Why would you not accept? His credentials are impeccable.”

“His credentials?” Sophie exclaimed incredulously, and tossed down the bread and jam. “Is there nothing else than that? A man’s pedigree is all that should recommend him to me?”

“I didn’t say—”

“Why should I not hope for more? Why should I not expect to admire and esteem the man I would marry?” she demanded.

“You do not admire and esteem Trevor Hamilton?” Ann asked, looking very perplexed. “But why on earth
not
?”

“He is quite tedious and boring!” Sophie all but shouted, and yanked another piece of meat from the chicken carcass. “He speaks of nothing but the weather! And that child of his despises me!”

“But he is only a boy, and Trevor is an upstanding citizen—”

“I don’t care!” she interrupted Claudia.

“And someone who would care for you well, Sophie, you mustn’t overlook that. Your inheritance after all …”

“I shouldn’t worry about that if I were you. Honorine compensates my companionship quite nicely, thank you.”

Ann snorted at that; she yanked a piece of chicken from the bird and popped it into her mouth, chewing fiercely as she glared at her younger sister. “That may be, Sophie Elise, but you’d be a fool to refuse an offer because you think him a bore!”

“Why would you ask me to marry someone whom I could not make happy? Why should you want me to marry for anything less than love?
You
did!”

Ann moaned, shook her head. “Of
course
I didn’t marry for love! I have come to love Victor over time, but I married him because he was a good man, a good provider—”

“And met the expectations of society,” Sophie said, mimicking her sister.

“Sophie!” Claudia exclaimed disapprovingly. “Ann is right! You must think of your future. You must realize that you likely will not have an opportunity like this again!”

That, in a nutshell, was the sum of it for them—she was nothing if not married to someone of suitable stature. She was a burden, an embarrassment, an old spinster who would need to be looked after all her days. She carefully put aside the knife she was holding and looked Claudia in the eye. “What you must think of me, Claudia. How pathetic I must appear to you—do you think I will perish an old spinster? That I shall have no opportunity to experience love? Am I as hopeless as that?”

The color drained from Claudia’s face. “Of
course
I don’t believe that! I just know society—”

“I have had opportunity,” Sophie continued, ignoring Claudia’s attempts to explain herself. “Honorine has shown me a world of opportunity, actually, and I need not settle for a tiresome country gentleman.”

“I should have known Madame Fortier was behind all this,” Ann muttered as she picked at the sliced bread.

Sophie suddenly lost her appetite. Honorine, with a heart the size of the moon, was not tolerated because of her unique person, not even by her own family. And that same attitude, that same closed-mindedness, had caused Sophie to send Caleb away last night, out of her life and out of her heart. The clarity was almost blinding—at last, at long last, she understood. Having been part of the society that would, among other things, condemn a man for the uncontrollable circumstance of his birth, having been a prisoner of that society, then cast out of it, only to be miraculously welcomed into their fold once again for the sheer novelty of it …

Sophie finally understood.

And she did not want to be a member of that society, not now, not ever.

Caleb, oh Caleb.
Her head was pounding … or was that her heart? She began walking for the door.

“Wait … where are you going?” Claudia called after her.

An excellent question—she felt adrift, no sense of direction, not certain of who she had become overnight. “I couldn’t really say,” she said truthfully, and walked out of the kitchen, leaving her family and the
ton
behind.

Chapter Seventeen

S
OPHIE FOUND HERSELF
at the house on Upper Moreland Street that afternoon.

It was that or propel herself into complete insanity. As the day had worn on, she had grown more ashamed by what she had done, particularly since her actions were exactly what she despised about the
ton
. It had been a rote reaction; she had been thinking the way she was supposed to think, behaving the way she was expected to behave.

The hypocrisy between her thoughts and deeds had forced her to take a hard look at herself today, and what she saw made her, impossibly, even more miserable.

She had toyed with the idea of going to Regent’s Park, if only to catch a glimpse of him. That was the only place she knew to go, for in all her brilliant maneuvering in her affair with Caleb, she had never asked him where he lived, knew only that it was generally in the area of Cheapside. Knowing the exact direction would have been too concrete for her carefully constructed fantasy, wouldn’t it?

But she could not go to Regent’s Park, at least not yet. She simply didn’t have the courage to see the look of disappointment—or disgust—on his handsome face.

She had instead come to Upper Moreland Street, the one place she felt free of scrutiny. And Nancy knew the entire story of the two brothers—she was the one person Sophie had trusted with the truth. Well, at least half of it. When she told Nancy the events of Honorine’s ball, she had left out any mention of cleaving Caleb in two.

She sat in the tiny parlor, slumped in an old and worn overstuffed armchair, watching morosely as Nancy made small repairs to the batch of gowns she would sell the following morning at Covent Garden. In its first day, the little booth Caleb had built met with astounding success—six of the seven gowns Nancy had taken had sold to women for more than she had hoped, and all of the hats and slippers had been snatched up before midday.

Nancy was quite pleased with the success of Sophie’s idea, but made it clear they were no longer in need of her help. “We’ll manage on our own, thank you,” she had said when Sophie had offered to accompany her to the booth the next morning. “We’ve scarcely room for Bette and myself, in truth. And you’ve undoubtedly more important matters than this.”

“Hardly,” snorted Sophie, and idly picked at the bit of stuffing that was peeking out of a hole on the arm of her chair. “Other than, I suppose, determining how one goes about refusing an offer of marriage made to a room full of society’s most favored people.”

“Why, you say to the bloke, ‘No thank you, milord, for my heart belongs to another,’” Nancy offered, clasping her hands dramatically over her heart, then laughed at her own jest.

Sophie frowned.

“Oh there now, luv, you mustn’t look so sad. The bloke will pick himself up by his bootstraps, you’ll see.”

“I really don’t know how he will accept it, but I rather think my family will never forgive me …”—she winced, glanced at Nancy from the corner of her eye—“or Caleb.”

That caught Nancy’s attention. “Caleb?” She put down her sewing and looked curiously at Sophie. “
Our
Mr. Hamilton? But he should be very pleased indeed!”

Sophie shook her head, picked even more intently at the stuffing. “He isn’t very pleased with me a’tall. Actually, I will be quite surprised if he should ever speak to me again.”

Nancy’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “Why ever should he not?”

She did not want to say it aloud, did not want to hear her betrayal again. “Because I refused him, too,” she muttered.

That was met with stunned silence from Nancy. She peered hard at Sophie, as if she were trying to see what was in her mind, and a distinct look of aversion crossed her features as she slowly leaned back in her chair. “Mr. Hamilton, he loves you. You
know
that, do you not?”

Oh yes, she knew it. Knew it by heart.

“And you love him, it is plain to see.”

Of course she did. With all her heart. But—

“What a wonderful man he is, your Mr. Hamilton. Really, I thought you were different than the rest of that lot,” Nancy uttered irritably as she picked up her sewing. “I thought you understood that there is more to this world than the fancy parlors of high society, and their titles and servants—”

“But I
do
understand it!” she protested, knowing how empty that sounded. “That is why this is so very hard, because I
do
understand it, and all too well!”

“Apparently not as hard as doing the right thing by a body, it would seem.”

The truth of that stung. Sophie abruptly shoved to her feet and moved restlessly to the bay window. All rational thought scattered into oblivion as she sought a justification for her actions that Nancy would understand. But there was nothing, no excuse, no reason for her to turn Caleb away. She loved him; he loved her. Theirs was a meeting of the minds, a joining of spirits. How could something as simple as the manner of his birth change that?

And, lest she forget, there was plenty about
her
Caleb could find objectionable. Yet the ugly taint of her past actions had never deterred him, had never seemed to even enter his thoughts. He genuinely loved her for who she was, and she had returned that respect by refusing him. She had been too afraid to stand up to her upbringing, to make her own decisions. Too uncertain of herself to believe she could.

Sophie had never in her entire life felt so low as she did at that very moment.

She glanced over her shoulder at Nancy. She was busy with her work, the needle flying angrily in and out of the fabric.

“If there is nothing more for me to do here, there is something I really must attend,” she said.

Nancy did not look at her; she merely shook her head.

“Well then. I’ll come again in a day or two.”

“As you wish,” Nancy said, and glanced up. Her disappointment was clearly evident, and it sliced across Sophie like a knife.

She could not escape that house or her shame quickly enough.

At Essex Street, she waited impatiently for a hack to take her to Regent’s Park. By the time a hack arrived, she knew it was too late; the sun was already beginning to slide into the western horizon. But when they reached the park, she nonetheless hurried to the little pond, hoping that by some small miracle, he would be there.

He was not.

His house stood as a silent behemoth, dark and empty. Cold.

How long she stood there, she had no idea, but she had no right to go inside without him. Yet she did, compelled by an overwhelming need to be near him—or at least, the essence of him. She found the key he always left for her beneath a flagstone and stepped carefully in the dim afternoon light, wandering from one unfinished room to the next, feeling her heart constrict with every step.

Every moment they had spent in this house came rushing back to her. She remembered each place they had picnicked—in the foyer, the ballroom, and the library. She remembered their gay conversations, where they had pored over plans and tried to imagine what the finished rooms would look like.

In the ballroom where the muslin sheets still covered the floor, they had lain on their backs and looked at the newly finished ceiling, studying the elaborate frieze like so many puffy white clouds. In the master suite, they had succumbed to their mutual desire, and he had made tender love to her there, taking his time to bring her to fulfillment, then just as tenderly taking his own … a memory that made Sophie shiver.

But it was the morning room that undid her. When she stepped into the room, she gasped lightly and stood, her mouth agape, staring at the west wall. He had planned to hang a portrait on that wall, let the light come in from the east. But the north wall looked out over the little pond, and Sophie had jokingly suggested that he put a small window there so that he might watch for her.

Caleb had chuckled at her idea, idly mentioning the expense of adding another window.

But there it was. Her window. Caleb had put it in for her.

Sophie walked slowly to the window and peered out at the little pond, felt the tear sliding from her eye down her cheek. What a mess she had made of everything!

Caleb, Caleb!

Sophie sank down on her knees in the empty morning room and covered her face with her hands, sobbing. What would she do without him? How could she live?

It was an hour or later that she finally emerged from the dark and empty house, replaced the key, and slowly made her way home, feeling the weight of her life on her shoulders. She climbed wearily up the steps and into the foyer of
Maison de Fortier
, pausing to deposit her bonnet.

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

Trevor’s voice startled her; Sophie whirled around to see him standing at the edge of the corridor, in the shadows. It was funny, she thought for a single mad moment, how she had hardly spared him a thought all day, other than the need to remove any notion of marriage from his mind.

“H-how long have you been here?” she asked, despising the quiver in her voice.

“Long enough to know that Madame Fortier and my father are not here,” he said coldly. “Where has she taken him?”

“Taken him? I don’t know—have you inquired—”

“I have not had the pleasure of actually
seeing
a servant here, other than your housekeeper,” Trevor snapped, and walked out of the corridor into the light of the foyer. “Not that I should have any reason to hope any one of them would be particularly useful.”

The bitter edge in his tone was disquieting; she noticed that he looked ragged, with dark circles beneath his eyes. Something about his appearance caused an old spring of fear to rise in her and she unconsciously took a step backward, bumping into the entry console. “I have not seen Madame Fortier today. I would surmise they have gone picnicking as they often do. Did you not see your father this morning?”

A strange expression fell over him; Trevor planted his hand on his waist and glared at her. “I said I do not know where he is!”

“I am sure there is no cause for worry—”

“No cause for worry, indeed? And what would you know of worry, Sophie? My father requires medicine for his condition, and I shudder to think what might happen if he doesn’t receive it.”

Frantically trying to think when she had seen Honorine last—the ball, but
when
?—Sophie shook her head. “Surely they will return very soon, Trevor—they always do.”

He made a guttural sound of disagreement and stalked past Sophie toward the door. “I pray that you are right,” he said, and reached for the door. “Father is unwell.”

“Trevor, wait! I … I—”

“What?” he demanded sharply.

“I thought we should speak of last night.”

That seemed to stun him as much as it apparently aggravated him. “I beg your pardon, but this is hardly the best moment for that. I shall call in the morning.” He yanked the door open. “Good evening.”

He disappeared through the open door without another word, closing it loudly behind him. Hardly the sort of exit a gentleman ought to make—Trevor did not seem himself. But who did? Certainly not her.

With a weary sigh, Sophie turned from the door and glanced around. Someone had picked up the debris from yesterday’s ball. She assumed Fabrice and Roland had somehow managed to survive, and with Lucie Cowplain’s rather obnoxious prodding, had gone about the business of cleaning up.

Where was Honorine? It really wasn’t like her to be gone so long. Sophie walked to the curving staircase, trudging up to her suite of rooms as she pondered the question. Certainly wherever Honorine had thought to take Lord Hamilton, she would return this evening. She always did. And please, God, let her be fast asleep when Honorine did come blustering in, for Sophie was in no mood to discuss the events of last evening or today with anyone.

She went through the motions of her evening toilette and sneered at the early evening sky, wishing the sun would go ahead and slip behind the earth so that full night would come. After brushing her hair and braiding it, Sophie read for an hour. When she glanced at the window, she groaned with dismay. The sky was a slate gray; the sun had not yet taken its leave. In a fit of pique, she stood abruptly, marched to the window, and drew the shutters tightly closed.

When she at last laid her head down—after taking her great frustration out on her pillow—she offered up one more prayer, begging God for a few hours of complete respite, a few hours of a sleep so deep that nothing could find its way up from the dark pool of her conscience to torture her in her dreams.

Apparently she got what she had hoped, for the next thing Sophie knew, someone was banging on something quite loudly.

With a moan, she pushed herself out of bed and padded over to the windows. Pulling open the heavy shutters, she blinked at the morning sky and pushed open the heavy counterpane window. Below her, Roland was toiling away in the garden; Fabrice was sitting nearby, his legs casually crossed, a book open in his lap. He glanced up when Sophie leaned out over the sill and waved cheerfully.

The banging persisted—it was coming from the front door. “The door!” she called down to Fabrice, but he merely waved again, pretending not to hear her.

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” she muttered irritably, and hurried to her dressing room, where she donned a simple day gown, passing up the petticoats and crinolines in favor of tackling the dozen or more buttons as she rushed out of her room.

As she stepped onto the staircase, the banging got louder—it sounded as if a king’s army wanted entry. She flew down the staircase—where was Lucie Cowplain? Honorine? Honestly, had she not hired a host of servants?

She reached the door, yanked it open, expecting to see at least a troop. But the army consisted of only Trevor and Ian.

“Trevor!” she exclaimed, surprised. “When you said you would call, I—”

He startled her by pushing past her into the foyer, dragging his son behind him. “Do you know what she has done?” he demanded, his hard gaze sweeping the length of her.

“Who?” she asked stupidly.