Mary Balogh (15 page)

“Do you think so?” She looked doubtful. She followed his lead out onto the lawn, which led to the distant
stable block. “But we always quarrel, Francis, yet we are not ironing out differences. We are merely quarreling.”

“True enough,” he said. “The terrace is black with people, Soph. I wonder they don’t all run into one another at every turn. They have probably all poured out to catch a glimpse of me stealing a kiss from you.”

“How absurd,” she said. “As if people have nothing better to do with their time.”

“There is nothing more romantic than a newly betrothed pair, though,” he said. “Shall we satisfy them?”

“But Mama and Papa are not out here,” she said. “And they are the only ones we are really trying to convince, Francis.”

“True enough,” he said. “But rumor will soon get back to them if we appear cool, and then they may never settle their own differences.”

“Do you think so?” she said doubtfully. “Very well, then. We had better kiss. But don’t do that with your tongue.”

He sighed. “Your next beau or your next fiancé is going to think you a dreadful innocent if you don’t know how to kiss, Soph,” he said.

“I know how to kiss,” she said indignantly.

“You know how to pucker your lips,” he said. “That is child’s stuff, Soph.”

“Well!” she said, offended. “If you do not like my kisses, Francis, you do not have to kiss me, you know. It is all the same to me.”

“Perhaps you had better learn while you have the chance,” he said.

“From you?” she said. “From a rake?”

“Who better to learn from?” he asked.

Sophia could think of no suitable answer.

“You have to relax your mouth,” he said, “and let me do the leading.”

“Just as in dancing,” she said.

“Just as in dancing,” he agreed. “And never mind the puckers. They are not part of good kissing.”

“Oh,” she said.

He set a hand beneath her chin and raised it. “I have the feeling that it is a good thing it is dark out here,” he said. “What color are you, Soph?”

“Is there a color brighter than scarlet?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “The color of your face right now. Relax your mouth. And your teeth.”

“But they are chattering,” she said.

“Let me worry about that,” he said and set his mouth to hers.

Sophia gripped his shoulders as if trying to inflict bruises as his lips teased hers apart and his tongue began to explore with exquisite lightness the soft flesh behind her lips and the warm cavity of her mouth beyond her teeth. He touched the tip of her tongue with his and circled her tongue slowly. Then he lifted his head away.

“You are a reasonably apt pupil,” he said as her eyes fluttered open. “You can release your grip, Soph. I shall catch you if you fall.”

“You flatter yourself,” she said, her voice shaking. “You think I will fall merely because I have allowed myself to be kissed as a rake would kiss his …? Well, as a rake would kiss?”

“I think there is a distinct possibility, Soph,” he said. “Your knees are shaking.”

“That is because it is cool out here,” she said scornfully. “And I don’t think that was proper kissing after all, Francis. I think it was improper. Oh, it is so hot out here.”

“Somewhere in that last speech,” he said, “there was a minor contradiction. But no matter. You will have some experience now to take to your next beau, Soph.”

“I would never allow anyone to do that to me ever again,” she said. “It was disgusting.”

“Good enough to make the temperature soar, though, was it not?” he said. “We had better go back inside, Soph, before you decide you want more, and before you decide that perhaps you want a lifetime of it.”

“Ohhh!” Sophia’s bosom expanded with her indignation. “The very idea. Do you think yourself quite irresistible to women, Francis, just because you know how to kiss? Yes, obviously you do. I have never in my life known anyone so conceited. Why, I would rather …”

“The old familiar litany,” he said. “The music has stopped, Soph, and it is supper time. I would hate to get back and find all the food gone. Let us walk.”

“By all means,” she said. “Let me not keep you from your supper, Francis. I would hate to be responsible for that cruelty.”

“Thank you, Soph,” he said. “You have a kind heart. But it is not quite elegant to snort, you know.”

“I shall snort if I want to snort,” Sophia said.

“Quite so,” he said. “Go ahead then. Don’t let me stop you.”

“I happen not to feel like snorting again,” she said, on her dignity.

M
OST OF THE EARL
’
S HOUSEGUESTS ANNOUNCED
their intention of leaving Clifton Court within a few days after the ball in order to give their host more freedom to prepare for the wedding. Everyone, though, promised to return a few days prior to the event.

It was just as well, the duchess declared, since there was so much still to do, and Olivia was going to town for a few days with Sophia and Francis. She would like nothing better than to go with them, she said, but how could she leave Clifton Court at such a time? She sent for her personal dressmaker to come to her there.

“You may avail yourself of her services, too, Olivia, if you wish,” she offered. “I am sure you would be pleased with the results. And dear Sophia, too. There is nothing Madame Blanchard loves more than the chance to dress a bride.”

But Olivia had her heart set on going away for a few days. She must get away, she felt. She needed to think. And so they were to leave three days after the ball.

Sophia was despondent. The idea she had had to bring her parents together again seemed to have developed a life of its own and taken itself somewhat beyond her control. The preparations for her wedding seemed unstoppable, and now she was being taken to town to buy bride clothes—all at her papa’s expense.

She had been hopeful at first. After the first awkward meeting, her parents had seemed comfortable, almost happy in each other’s company. And yet in the past few days, and especially since the ball, she had looked at them and wondered. Were they merely strangers being polite to each other? Would the approach of her wedding bring them closer? But how soon would that happen? How much longer could she wait before finding an excuse to end the betrothal?

And
had
they been quarreling during the ball? They had spent no time together at all after the opening waltz.

She was outdoors with Cynthia the afternoon before she was to leave for town with her mother and Francis. Cynthia, who lived only ten miles away, was also to return home the following day. Cynthia wanted to know when the charade was to end.

“It
is
to end, is it not, Sophia?” she asked. “You have not decided to marry Lord Francis after all?”

Sophia’s answer included references to toads and snakes.

“But he is so very handsome and charming, Sophia,” her friend said with a sigh. “Mr. Hathaway has been wondering, too. We both agreed that things have gone so far that they are well nigh impossible to stop.”

Sophia grimaced. But the earl, who had been out riding with some of the gentlemen but had stayed in the stables longer than they after their return, was striding back to the house at that moment.

“There he is now, Cynth,” Sophia said. “I am going to ask him if he and Mama have reconciled.”

“Just right out like that?” Cynthia said. “Is it wise, Sophia?”

“But I must ask sometime,” Sophia said. “They are unlikely to tell me what they decide or do not decide. Perhaps I will not know until after the wedding, Cynth. And yet when I say things like that to Francis, he almost
has an apoplexy on the spot and either bellows ‘
What
wedding?’ in that obnoxious way of his or tells me I should be in Bedlam, which is not at all a complimentary thing to say to his betrothed, is it?”

“Except that you are not his betrothed,” Cynthia reminded her.

“As he tells me ten times a day,” Sophia said. “As if I could ever forget the fact. Who would want to be Francis’s betrothed?”

“Just about every woman between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five who has laid eyes on him,” Cynthia said.

“Don’t let him hear you say that,” Sophia said hastily. “He is too conceited for his own good as it is. I am going to talk with Papa. Do you mind?”

And she waved her arm to her father and tripped across the grass toward him as he slowed his stride and smiled at her.

“What?” he said. “No Francis in sight, love? Is this normal?” He lowered his cheek for her kiss.

“He is playing billiards,” she said. “I came outside with Cynthia.” She linked her arm through his.

“So tomorrow you are off to town for bride clothes,” he said. “I suppose you intend to beggar me, Sophia.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, laughing, “but I daresay Mama will not allow me to, Papa. I wish things were not moving quite so fast.”

He looked sharply down at her. “With the wedding?” he said. “You are not having second thoughts, are you?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I love Francis dreadfully, Papa, and three weeks still seems a frightfully long time to wait. But I just wish … Oh, I just wish we had longer to be with you and Mama. Always I was with one or the other of you but never with both. I can scarcely remember the time when we were all together. There must have been such times, weren’t there, and many of them?”

“Yes,” he said. “We spent a great deal of time together, Sophia, the three of us.”

“And now only three more weeks,” she said, “and I will be married and going away with Francis, and when we come back from our wedding journey, I will be living with him and not with you and Mama any longer. But when I do visit, Papa, will it be the two of you together, or will I have to make separate visits?”

“Sophia.” He covered her hand with his. “You have been dreadfully hurt over the years, have you not? You have never said anything until now. I did not realize it, and neither did your mama. I am sorry, love. I am sorry more than anything that you have been the innocent sufferer.”

“What happened?” she asked. Her father, she noticed, had changed his course so that they were no longer walking toward the house but toward the parterre gardens before it. “Why did you never come back? Why did you not send for Mama? Why did I always come alone when I visited you? What happened?”

“We just discovered that we could no longer live together,” he said slowly.

“Papa,” she said, “I am no longer a child. Something must have happened. Was it Lady Mornington?”

He looked at her sharply. “What do you know of Lady Mornington?” he asked.

“That she is your mistress,” she said. “Though she is not one-tenth as lovely as Mama. Is
she
what happened?”

“No,” he said. “I did not even meet the lady until six years ago, Sophia. And good Lord, she is my friend, not my mistress. Whatever gave you that idea?”

“It was someone else, then,” she said. “Another woman. It was your fault, wasn’t it, Papa? But how could you have wanted another woman when there was Mama? That is what men do, though, is it not? They
marry and then they become bored with their wives and take mistresses. If Francis ever tries to do that, I will kill him. I will take the very largest book from our library and break his skull with it. I swear I will. But how could you have done it, Papa? I always looked up to you. You were my hero.”

“I was your mother’s hero, too,” he said harshly. “I am human, Sophia. You say you are no longer a child. Well, learn that, then, that I am human. But it was not quite as you think. I did not take a mistress. Not until we were irrevocably apart, anyway. And I did not become bored with your mother. Never that. I loved her. I want you to know that. You were a child of our love and the two of you were my world.”

“Then what
happened
?” she said rather petulantly considering her claim to be an adult. “If you loved her, you should have lived happily ever after. Why have you been estranged for most of my life?”

“Sophia,” he said, and he gripped her hand very tightly as she fought to control her tears.

“Don’t you love her any longer?” she asked. “Don’t you, Papa? Are you merely being civil to each other because of the duke and duchess and the other guests? Is it all for show? Don’t you love her?”

“I love her,” he said. “I have never stopped, Sophia. Never for a single moment.”

“Well, then,” she said, brightening instantly and stopping in order to throw her arms up about his neck to half throttle him. “I will have the two of you to come back to after my wedding. My mama and papa together again. Oh, just wait until I tell Francis. Just wait until I do.”

“But it is not as simple as that, Sophia,” he said, taking her gently by the waist. “Life never is, love. What happened, happened. Fourteen years ago. It is a long
time. We have both built and lived new lives since then. We are different from the people we used to be. There is no going back. There never is in life. Only forward. And love cannot bind two people who have lived apart for that long.”

“Why not?” The tears were back in her eyes.

He shook his head. “It is hard to explain,” he said. “Your mother was twenty-two, Sophia. Now she is thirty-six. I was twenty-six. Now I am forty. We cannot resume our relationship just as if those years had not passed.”

“You could if you loved each other,” she said. “I don’t believe you, Papa. I don’t believe you really love her after all. You just say you do because you are talking to me and it would seem wrong to tell your own daughter that you do not love your wife. Nothing is going to change, is it? This past week and a half had been for nothing, and nothing more will be accomplished in the remaining three. There will be Francis with his parents and his brothers and their wives. And then there will be me with you. And with Mama. And the two of you will be wonderfully civil to each other.”

“Sophia,” he said.

“No,” she said, “don’t say it. There is nothing more to say. You must be longing for this nuisance of a wedding to be over so that you can rush back to Lady Mornington. Your
friend
.”

“Sophia,” he said, and he took and held her hands very tightly. “I am sorry in my heart that you have conceived the wrong idea about Lady Mornington. But forget about her anyway. I shall not be returning to her even as a friend. I promise you. And I will tell you the reason why, too. Having seen your mama again, I know that I cannot return to a relationship that has been generally miscontrued—not just by you. Having seen your
mama again, I know that she is the only woman I have ever loved or ever will.” He squeezed her hands even more tightly. “But that does not necessarily mean that we will ever live together as man and wife again, love.”