Julia London 4 Book Bundle (172 page)

Will cocked his head at that. He had been ill, and perhaps a bit slow, but he at least recognized it was unusual for his son to address a lady by her given name. “Sophie?” he asked, glancing at the pretty young woman on the settee.

“Actually, I should say Mrs. Hamilton,” Caleb clarified, and smiling proudly, extended his hand toward her. “We married yesterday.”

Will’s heart surged to the point of bursting. But … Caleb’s lack of legitimate name was more than anyone could hope to overcome—Will jerked his gaze to Julian Dane, one brow lifted. “You approve?”

The Earl of Kettering lifted his hands, and laughing, shook his head. “It was not my decision to make or approve, my lord; I assure you my sister has made that quite clear. But yes, whether she wants it or not, she has our blessing. Her happiness is paramount to any other issue, and I think you can see from her silly grin that she is quite happy.”

She rose from the settee, her eyes shining, and glided to where Will sat. “Happy? I think the word does not do justice to my feelings, my lord.”

“I know these words. My Sofia, she loves him very much,” Honorine said, laughing.

Will’s eyes suddenly misted; he looked down at his gnarled hand, and remembered, with painful acuity, the many times he had cried for this son, had wished for him all the happiness he had so surely taken from him with the manner of his birth. It was more than he had ever dared hope for Caleb—to simply be accepted for the man he was. To be loved, to be honored, to be cherished for what was in his soul, and not to be spurned for his lack of name. To fly.

It was, he thought sadly, the perfect antidote to Trevor’s betrayal.

He looked up, saw the way his son looked at Lady Sophie, and smiled. He motioned her to him. “Come …”

Later that evening, when they sat around the long dining room table, Julian sat admiring his youngest sister. Anyone could see, looking at Sophie now, that she was a changed person. The happiness shining in her big brown eyes made her appear lovelier than he had ever remembered seeing her. She was vibrant, alive—drawing laughter from everyone as she cheerfully regaled them with stories of her travels with Madame Fortier. The stories were, naturally, punctuated with Honorine’s disavowal of strange places and even stranger events, much to their collective amusement, and particularly, that of Lord Hamilton. He, too, looked like a new man. And Caleb, well, good God, a man’s chest could positively burst with so much pride.

But as Julian sat beside Sophie now, he took her hand in his, leaned toward her, and whispered, “You are the luckiest of us all, you know.”

She laughed brightly at that, patted his knee. “Now I know you’ve had too much wine, Julian.”

He shook his head. “I am quite serious, pumpkin. Only you have the luxury to do as you please, you know that? The women in London, they are bound by society’s many expectations and rules. When I look at you, I see a woman freed of such earthly bonds, free to be who she pleases, free to love as openly and completely as she desires. For years, you felt imprisoned by your scandal, and I think, buried in your remorse. I so hoped that you would come to see your freedom. I prayed you would find happiness. I suppose I never thought it would be in England, but when I see you sitting here like you are, wearing a smile that could light the night sky, I realize,
you
are the luckiest among us all.”

Sophie smiled, glanced at Caleb across from her, the love shining in her eyes. “I know,” she said softly. And when she turned to look at Julian again, her eyes were shining with tears of joy. “All my life, I was never really certain of who I was or where I belonged. But I know now, Julian, I know who I am. I am Sophie.”

Epilogue

I
N THE WEEKS
that followed, Sophie and Caleb said farewell to her family, made arrangements through Julian for the house in Regent’s Park to be finished and sold—knowing that they would build their home anew—and left a smiling Honorine standing next to Lord Hamilton and Ian at Hamilton House.

Sophie and Caleb had decided that, given their dubious past, they would do better to start fresh in Europe. With his father’s help, Caleb had made contact with a group of men in France who were investing in the construction of a railway there. “It’s a whole new era of opportunity, Sophie,” he told her one evening as they lay in bed.

Sophie smiled, placed a hand on her belly, where a child was in the first stages of development. “A whole new era for us,” she reminded him.

It was the discovery of her pregnancy that had prompted Caleb to approach his father about the will that had torn Trevor from his father, and convinced the viscount to leave his holdings to his grandchildren. “I’ve always made my own way, Father, and I always will. I would that you consider our children before you consider me.”

Lord Hamilton had smiled sadly at that, but had agreed. “I r-remember, you know,” he had said, his hand on Caleb’s shoulder. “I remember how p-proud I am of you. How proud I have always been.”

Caleb had smiled, kissed his father’s cheek. “I will never betray your pride,” he had vowed.

And he never did.

Their destination was France, in the company of a very sullen Fabrice and Roland. As much as the two men adored Honorine—and even Lucie Cowplain—they had determined that they could not abide England, and had therefore agreed to look after Honorine’s château. “This will make my Pierre very happy,” Honorine had said of her grown son, laughing as she imagined how perturbed the stiff aristocrat would actually be with the arrival of the strange pair.

Lucie Cowplain returned to London. Honorine offered to send her along to France, too, but she refused. “I rather think not, mu’um,” she said with a snort. “I hear there are many of the limp-wrists there.”

As the years unfurled in France and Belgium, Sophie and Caleb built a new life for themselves and the three children they produced. They began in a set of rooms above a small patisserie, where Sophie quietly built a demand for baked goods, and in particular, fig tartlets. Her business grew so quickly, that she eventually sent a letter to one Lucie Cowplain, requesting her considerable assistance.

She did not hear a word in response until one sultry afternoon a weathered and twisted old woman arrived with two battered portmanteaux, dispensed with all pleasantries, and demanded at once to be shown to the kitchens. In the course of a few years, Sophie and Lucie Cowplain had four patisseries bearing their name. One of them happened to be in a village near Burgundy, near the old Château de Segries, where a pair of very odd and very effeminate men resided as proprietors.

In those years, Sophie corresponded frequently with Nancy Harvey, keeping her abreast of her life and her children. Nancy, in turn, responded with all the activities of the House on Upper Moreland Street. In one letter, she wrote Sophie that a woman named Charlotte Pritchet Macdonald had come calling. Charlotte’s mother, Lady Pritchet, had passed away that spring, and Charlotte, now free of her mother’s oppressive control, had taken her inheritance and donated the whole of it to the little house. The happy result, Nancy wrote, was that they had moved to a larger, grander house, along with Charlotte. Moreover, she wrote, they had set up a small shop in the basement of the house where they sold gowns and slippers and reticules and very colorful bonnets. Nancy even boasted that their hats, which they took in donation and enhanced in a variety of colorful ways, were becoming all the rage among women who had donated them to begin with.

Ann visited Château la Claire each summer to see her sisters, always bringing plenty of news from London. One year, she brought Sophie the unsettling news that Sir William Stanwood had been found beaten to death at a seedy port town. That hardly shocked Sophie—she had always imagined he would meet a violent death. But the fact that he was dead was liberating in a strange way. While she had not thought of William Stanwood in several years, the knowledge that he would no longer prey on anyone made her feel she was finally quite free of him.

The other piece of titillating news Ann brought that year was that Miss Melinda Birdwell, the
ton
’s most famous old maid, had found herself in the very uncomfortable situation of bearing a child out of wedlock. It had gone undetected, apparently, because Melinda had gained an inordinate amount of weight—no one suspected she was also with child. Even more outrageous, Ann whispered, was that there were a handful of men of questionable character rumored to be the culprit—and not one would own up to it. All in all, Ann assured Eugenie and Sophie, Melinda Birdwell had created the most vulgar scandal in Mayfair in many, many years. She had been sent, with her bastard child, to Ireland to care for an elderly aunt.

This news, Sophie found rather sad. She harbored no good feeling for Melinda Birdwell, but she would not wish that scandal on even her worst enemy.

Ann would also bring letters from Honorine and Lord Hamilton. Honorine, as usual, spoke in poetic terms, boasting proudly of Ian’s accomplishments, now that he was a young man. It was plain for Sophie to see that in Ian, Honorine had found the son that Pierre could never be for her. In Lord Hamilton, she finally had found the man who could make her happy.

Lord Hamilton had, thankfully, regained the use of his limbs and his mind with years of work, although he still walked uncertainly at times. He had lent his experience to the research of maladies, working with a team of doctors who attempted to understand how the mind was so inexplicably seized. Honorine and Will never married, for reasons Sophie and Caleb never understood, but remained entirely devoted to one another and Ian for the rest of their lives.

The missing piece—Trevor—never contacted his father again.

In the years that followed, Sophie, Caleb, and their three children flourished. Caleb’s investment in the railroad proved to be quite lucrative for them. They traveled all over Europe in pursuit of the rail business, exposing their children to different cultures and events.

But it was during a visit to his home in Scotland in 1861 that Caleb solved the mystery of Trevor. It happened that an old friend in Edinburgh was hosting him for supper. That evening, Caleb dressed in his best finery, and took a coach to the exclusive address of his friend. After dinner and a little port, the two men decided to visit a gaming hall.

As they walked into the establishment, Caleb happened to see a group of men—ruffians, it seemed—around a card table. One of them in particular caught his eye—he was disheveled, a whore on his knee, and he looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. But Caleb recognized the cut of the man’s jaw. It was the same as his own.

He excused himself from his friend and walked over to where the men were playing—they all looked up, instantly suspicious. The whore smiled licentiously. Trevor was slower than the others to notice him, but his recognition of Caleb was instantaneous, and he quickly looked away.

Stunned, Caleb could not move. “Trevor—”

“Leave me!” Trevor snarled without looking up. “We don’t want your kind here!” The other men looked up at that and eyed Caleb even closer.

“But how—”

“You’ve no right,” Trevor hissed. “I don’t want you here! Leave before I throw you out!”

Caleb stepped away.

Trevor said nothing, but threw a coin onto the table. “Call,” he said gruffly, refusing to look at his brother.

Slowly, Caleb backed away, too stunned to think. He desperately wanted to know how Trevor had come to be here, where he had been … but he turned on his heel, rejoined his friend, and feigned fatigue, asking that they leave.

He never told anyone about his encounter.

As the years passed, the Hamilton children went on to lead their own lives. The oldest, Will, became a doctor. Honor married a wealthy vintner, and young Geoff followed in his father’s footsteps, building a railway across Europe. Those same years took loved ones from them; Lord Hamilton was the first to go, followed soon thereafter by Honorine, who had at last lost her lust for living with his passing. Ann died suddenly of a strange fever, much like Valerie had.

But through all those years, the love between Sophie and Caleb remained strong. It changed, grew with them, anchored them and their children. The home they had created was one of happiness and love, a place where anyone felt welcome and safe.

And as Sophie lay dying with Caleb at her side in the year 1894, he remembered what she had once written to her brother Julian and marveled at how prophetic she had been. They had indeed loved one another desperately until they were ancient and exhausted and it was time to sleep.

And as he watched her slip into that eternal sleep, wrenching his heart from his chest and taking it with her, his eyes misted. The profound loss paralyzed him for several minutes; he sat just gazing at her, seeing the same sweet face that had greeted him these fifty years, and wondering if he just might lay down beside her, relinquish his right to live, and go with her. But a sound from outside called him back, and finally, he stood, crossed to the window, and looked out at the manicured lawns of their home.

His sons were down on the lawn, Geoff pacing anxiously, Will sitting with his hands folded, his head bowed.

Caleb turned away from the window and looked again at his love. With a weary sigh, he walked over to her, laid his hand on hers, now gone cold, and leaned down, kissed her lips for the last time. “Soon, my love,” he whispered. “Wait for me by the pond. I’ll join you soon.”

THE SECRET LOVER

A Dell Book

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Dell mass market edition published May 2002

Dell mass market reissue / September 2008

Published by
Bantam Dell

A Division of Random House, Inc.

New York, New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2002 by Dinah Dinwiddie

Dell is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

www.bantamdell.com

eISBN: 978-0-440-33803-1

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