Mary Balogh (25 page)

“Marry me,” he said. “Tell me you love me, Soph, and that you will marry me. And then on our wedding night you can tell me all the things to stop doing so that I can keep on doing them.”

“Francis,” she said. “Please. Do you think I don’t remember all the times you deceived me years ago?”

“I love you,” he said.

She sighed. “Well,” she said, “you always won every contest, did you not, Francis? You always made me believe you and then you called me idiot for being so gullible. Why should anything have changed? Why not this time, too? All right, then. I do love you and I will marry you. And now it will serve you right if I do not release you from our betrothal but marry you and plague you for the rest of our lives.”

“Plague me, Soph,” he said. “And stop pulling away like a frightened rabbit. Let me kiss you properly.”

“Frightened?” she said. “Of you? Who do you think you are?”

“Your betrothed,” he said. “The man who loves you. The man you love. Let me kiss you properly.”

“Francis,” she said, setting one hand over his mouth and looking wistfully into his eyes, “do you mean it? Tell me now if you do not. Please? I will not be able to bear it if you kiss me and tell me those things again and then laugh at me and run away from me.”

“If I don’t mean it, I am playing a pretty dangerous game, aren’t I?” he said. “Parson’s mousetrap waiting to snap its jaws?”

“Do you really love me, then?” she asked.

“I really do, Soph,” he said.

“Really and truly?”

“And that, too,” he said.

She pulled herself away from his hold suddenly and jumped to her feet. She looked at him with shining eyes.

“I have to go back to the house,” she said. “I have to find Mama and Papa. I have to tell them that we are betrothed.”

“Soph.” He scratched his head. “If I were to whisper the word ‘Bedlam,’ you would not start ripping up at me, would you?”

She looked blankly at him and then chuckled. “We
have this moment become betrothed,” she said, “and no one knows.”

“It will be our secret,” he said. “Sit down here and let me kiss you properly.”

She sat. “Will we have to stop quarreling now?” she asked.

“And lead a dull respectable life forever after?” he said, horrified. “Heaven forbid. Let me see now, where was my hand? It was somewhere warm and comfortable. Here?”

“Did you mean it when you said it was small?” she asked as his hand covered her breast again.

“I have seen many larger,” he said. “And, ah, touched a few, too.”

“Have you?” she said tartly. “Am I to be compared to your—to your pieces of muslin for the rest of my life?”

“Only when I want to start a quarrel,” he said. “My hand feels good there, though, does it not? Admit it, Soph.”

“You would love me to do just that, would you not?” she said. “You conceited …”

He kissed her.

“… toad,” she said.

“Hush, Soph,” he said. “I have waited long enough. And you are the loveliest kisser, my love, that it has ever been my privilege to kiss.”

“Oh,” she said. “Mm.”

“And you have the loveliest bosom, too,” he said without removing his mouth from hers. “No answer needed or allowed.”

“Mmm,” she said.

“T
HIS CRAVAT IS TOO TIGHT
,” L
ORD
F
RANCIS COMPLAINED
to Claude, pulling at the offending garment and twisting his head from side to side.

“It is your usual size?” his brother asked.

“Of course,” Lord Francis said.

“My guess is that it is a quite normal wedding cravat, then,” Claude said.

“Eh?”

“Made exactly the same size as all your other cravats,” his brother said, “instead of a couple of inches larger to accommodate the swelling of the throat that comes with wedding days. Your shoes are probably going to be too tight, as well. Now, are they?”

“Ah, I see how it is,” Lord Francis said. “I am to be the butt of everyone’s wit on the very day when I cannot think up one witticism to hurl in return.”

“The cook always puts a dose of poison in the breakfast, too,” Claude said. “Just the groom’s, of course, not anyone else’s. Is your stomach feeling queasy, Frank?”

Lord Francis smoothed the lace at his wrists over the backs of his hands and took one final look at himself in the mirror.

“If I could plan this all over again,” he said, “I would choose an unmarried man for my best man, Claude, just as any sensible groom would do. The chances are, he
would not be standing there cackling at me. I did not crack one stupid jest when I was your best man.”

“You were too busy wondering how long it would take Henrietta’s cousin Marianne to fall under your spell during the wedding breakfast,” Claude said. “I have been told that she fell under it when we were all still at the church, though I did not notice myself, my attention being otherwise occupied.”

“She was too plump for my taste as it turned out,” Lord Francis said.

“She was too
eligible
for your tastes,” his brother said. “That was the problem, Frank. Her papa all but asked you your intentions, did he not?”

“By Jove,” Lord Francis said, “that was it, too. It was never safe to flirt with a girl of reputation, was it?”

The two of them were in the dressing room adjoining the bedchamber where Lord Francis had spent the night. It was at the home of a neighbor of the earl’s, it not being at all the thing for bride and bridegroom to spend the night before the wedding beneath the same roof or to set eyes on each other before they met at the altar. Claude had ridden over early.

“I am glad you use past tense,” Claude said. “You are crying off all women except Sophia for the future, Frank?”

“Good Lord, yes,” Lord Francis said. “She would make a road map of my face with her fingernails if I should take it into my head to start looking about me.”

“For no other reason?” his brother asked.

Lord Francis thought a moment. “I intend to start setting up my nursery,” he said. “It would be too confusing to be setting up more than one. And far too expensive.”

“The same old Frank,” his brother said. “One never gets a straight answer out of you. It’s not that Sophia kept on pursuing you and you just got tired of running?
Bertie and Dick and I were talking last night. We were a little worried.”

“The chase continued until quite recently,” Lord Francis said, pulling on his shoes and wincing. “Until two days ago, in fact. But the direction changed. Have you ever watched a cat deciding in the middle of a wild flight from a dog to stop and face the battle? Almost inevitably the dog takes fright and flees with the cat in hot pursuit. Let us say that I am the cat of the story. Devil take it, but these shoes must be a size too small.”

His brother laughed. “Time to go, Frank,” he said. “It would not do to keep the bride waiting, you know.”

“Soph?” Lord Francis said. “Oh, Lord, no. I would never hear the end of it. We would quarrel over it all the way to Italy. I would far prefer to quarrel over something I knew myself in the right over.”

“You aren’t intending to spend your married life quarreling, I hope?” Claude said, frowning as his brother passed a hand nervously through his hair and turned to the door.

“I intend to be happy,” Lord Francis said. “I shall see to it that I quarrel with Soph every day of our lives, Claude. What was that you said about cooks poisoning breakfasts? Were you serious? I hope my stomach is not going to continue this gurgling when I have it inside the church. It could be a trifle mortifying, don’t you agree?”

“The poison loses its effect as soon as you clap eyes on your bride,” his brother said.

“Ah.” Lord Francis opened the door.

“H
OLD STILL ONE
more minute, Sophia,” Olivia said, down on her knees in the middle of her daughter’s dressing room. “There, it is perfect.” She sat back on her heels and looked up. “Oh, you look so very beautiful.”

Sophia’s wedding dress was of a very pale blue muslin;
the silk sash and the embroidery at the neck, short puffed sleeves, and scalloped hem white. The housekeeper, with the assistance of one of the gardeners, had woven a posy of flowers for her hair and a smaller one to wear at her wrist. Altogether she looked exactly what she was—a young and innocent bride.

“Mama,” Sophia said, her eyes wide and frightened. “Oh, Mama.”

Olivia got to her feet, smiling. “We talked yesterday, Sophia,” she said, “for an hour or more. You know exactly what is facing you and appeared very eager—yesterday. But a wedding day, of course, is different. There are so many conflicting emotions to be dealt with, are there not?”

“He says he loves me,” Sophia said, her eyes large with tears suddenly. “He has said so over and over again in the past two days. Do you suppose he means it, Mama? One never quite knows with Francis. He always has that annoying twinkle in his eye.”

“He must have been saying so for far longer than two days, Sophia,” Olivia said. “And of course he must mean it. Why else would he be marrying you? He has been under no pressure, as far as I know, to find himself a bride.”

“Maybe there are other reasons,” Sophia said. “Maybe he felt himself trapped and decided to be gallant about the whole thing. Though it is quite unlike Francis to be gallant. Oh, Mama, what if he does not love me?”

Olivia took her hands and squeezed them. “Before you panic, Sophia,” she said, “look inside yourself. Deep inside. That is where you know the truth. You know whether he loves you or not. Does he?”

Sophia looked down at their hands. “Yes,” she said at last. “He does. Mama, he does.” She looked up again, her eyes shining. “He loves me and I did not even suspect it until two days ago. I thought he hated me. He
always used to say the most lowering things about me and about the possibility of being trapped into marrying me. But he was doing it just to have fun with me, just to goad me. He likes to see me angry. He likes to quarrel with me. He says we are going to quarrel every day for the rest of our lives. He loves me. Oh, Mama, he loves me.”

“Sophia?” Olivia smiled and frowned simultaneously at this strange speech. But there was a firm tap on the dressing room door and it opened before she could say more.

“Ah,” the Earl of Clifton said, “my two ladies. A haven of sanity in the middle of a madhouse. Rose is weeping already; half the children have escaped from the nursery and are playing some sort of spirited game that necessitates a great deal of running and shouting on the stairs; Claude’s wife is trying to herd the children back to the nursery; Wheatley has inexplicably lost his coat; there have been no fewer than three inquiries from the stables about the exact time we want the barouche brought around; and Cynthia is reputedly having the hysterics because as bridesmaid she should be with the bride but instead has to stand still to have her hem turned up because it is too long after all. Need I continue?” He grinned.

“Papa,” Sophia said. “Oh, Papa, I am so frightened.”

“Well,” he said, “perhaps a very little haven of sanity. What is it, Sophia?”

“It has all been so sudden,” she said. “Everything has happened so fast. And now it is my wedding day before I have had a chance to think.”

“The month has gone fast, has it not?” he said. “But both you and Francis were adamant that it not be delayed any longer, Sophia. Has it not been long enough?”

“But we decided to get married only two days ago,” she said.

The earl and his wife exchanged glances.

“It was a pretend betrothal,” Sophia said. “A counterfeit passion, Francis called it. To bring the two of you together, to give you a chance to patch up your differences. We were to put an end to everything once we had succeeded. And it worked, did it not? I will never be sorry that we did it because it worked. I was not quite sure until two mornings ago when I went into Mama’s room and saw you …” She blushed. “Then I was finally sure. But then when I told Francis that we must call everyone together to tell them that there would be no wedding, he said that yes, we must marry because it would be too troublesome to stop all the preparations at such a late date.”

“Sophia!” the earl said.

The countess merely looked at her, aghast.

“And he said he loved me,” Sophia said quickly. “He said that he had planned it all from the start, that he had known all along how it would be, and that he had always planned to marry me no matter what happened with you. He said he loved me and so we decided to marry after all.”

“Sophia!” the earl said again.

“And I love him, too,” she continued, the color high in her cheeks. “I always worshiped him when we were younger, but I did not know that I still did so until I started to wake up at nights with my cheeks wet because I had been dreaming of our betrothal ending and of never seeing him again.” She was breathless with the speed of her confession. “I would die if I never saw him again.”

The earl passed a hand across the back of his neck. “Perhaps no haven of sanity after all,” he said. “I am speechless. I do not know what to say.” He looked to his wife for help.

But Sophia had darted between them and had taken
an arm of each, being careful not to squash the flowers at the wrist she had passed through her father’s arm. “It is all like a fairy tale, is it not?” she said, looking at first one and then the other, her face alight with love and happiness. “You are together again as I have always dreamed of your being and I am about to marry the man I have loved for as far back as I can remember. And he loves me. And we are to marry in the very church where you married. And the sun is shining after all the unsettled weather of the past week or so. And … oh, and, and, and.” She laughed excitedly.

“Yes, the three of us together again,” the earl said, covering her hand with his own. “You are right, Sophia. It is a wonderful day—despite the most hair-raising scheme I have ever heard, you little minx. We are going to be having Francis pacing at the altar if we do not get moving, you know. I have a little gift for you before we leave the room.”

She looked up at him expectantly.

“I had them sent especially from London,” he said, “since a young lady should graduate from pearls on her wedding day.”