Never Courted, Suddenly Wed (31 page)

They hurried after the dog.

Duke drew in great, big snorting breaths, and then seemed to tire of chasing the crow overhead. Instead, he’d identified a new game.

“No, Duke,” she pleaded when he danced back and forth on his short legs.

He barked, then set off down the drive.

Sophie grasped the edges of her skirt, and ran after him.

“Sophie?”

That one, shocked word brought her to a sudden, jarring halt. She spun around.

Emmaline stood on the front steps alongside her husband, Lord Drake, her mother, the Duchess of Mallen, and brother, the Duke of Mallen.

Sophie’s gaze collided with the duke’s, and all the humiliated hurt she’d carried since she’d discovered Christopher’s betrayal rushed to the surface.

Then, Duke gave an excited yelp and she made a desperate grab for the dog, just as Bennett reached for him.

Sophie and Bennett collided with a solid bang.

Sophie grunted. Swaying on her feet, she threw her arms out to catch herself from falling.

Alas, she landed with a solid thump upon the gravel drive. Bits of dust and pebble bit into the soft flesh of her palms. Duke must have taken Sophie’s fall as indication that whatever pug-game he’d played had officially ended. He licked her cheek.

“Sophie!” Emmaline called out and raced toward Sophie.

“Emmaline, you shouldn’t be running. Not so soon after…” Lord Drake called sternly. His words ended on the exasperated sigh of a man who knew he had no real control over his wife’s actions.

The duke started after Emmaline. To help? He must have seen something in Sophie’s eyes for he jerked to an immediate halt. A dull flush stained his neck, and she suspected that he’d gathered the reason for her visit.

Bennett had just helped Sophie to her feet when Emmaline hurled herself into Sophie’s arms.

Sophie held on tight to her friend.

“Oh, Sophie, I’ve missed you,” Emmaline whispered into her ear. “I missed your wedding.”

And because Sophie had felt oh so very alone, and because she feared her heart would never mend from the damage inflicted by her undeserving husband, Sophie promptly burst into tears.

“Sophie!” Emmaline pulled back and took Sophie’s hands in hers. “What is it?” She looked over Sophie’s shoulder toward the conspicuously empty carriage. Sophie knew the moment her friend had pieced together the reason for her visit. Her dark brown brows knitted into a single line. “What did he do?”

Sophie glanced over at the trio on the steps.

Emmaline followed her gaze. “Come, we’ll speak inside.”

Again, the imposition she posed registered. She pulled back. “I shouldn’t have come. You’ve just had the babe. You should…”

Her friend shot her a dark look. “Don’t be daft, Sophie. You are my dearest friend in the world. Is your opinion of me really so low?”

Sophie shook her head. “No. It isn’t that. It’s just,” she held her hands up. “I’ve intruded.”

“You
are
daft. I’ve been away in the country for months. Drake forbade me from doing nearly all physical activity.” A blush stained her friend’s cheeks, and Sophie now having known Christopher’s touch, understood the subtle meaning to Emmaline’s words. “I’ve missed your company.”

Sophie swallowed. “Oh, Em. I’ve missed you so.”

They reached the front of the house.

She curtsied to the duke and duchess. “Your Grace, please forgive me for intruding. Lord Drake,” she turned to Emmaline’s husband, “my apologies. Though, please allow me to congratulate you on the birth of your daughter.”

“You’re always welcome to visit,” Lord Drake said.

A generous smile formed on the Duchess’ lips. “Hello, Sophie. I understand congratulations are in order.” Her brow wrinkled. “Where is Christopher?”

Sophie’s heart contracted. Then the blasted tears flooded her eyes. She blinked them back. She’d thought she didn’t have any more to shed for her husband.

The gentlemen were gracious enough to glance away from her tell-tale misery, but not before Sophie detected a flicker of guilt in the duke’s eyes.

“Come,” Emmaline murmured. Taking Sophie by the elbow, she guided her inside. “We must talk. And you must meet my sweet Regan.”

The enormity of her selfishness hit Sophie all at once. “Forgive me. I should have asked after her. I…I…” Her words tapered off.

Emmaline gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “Don’t be silly. I’m certain Waxham has done something absolutely horrid.”

“Why do you say that?”

Emmaline stole a sideways glance at Sophie. “You forget. I had my heart broken once, as well.”

Yes, she had. Betrothed as children, Lord Drake had taken great pains to avoid Emmaline over the years. There’s had been a turbulent courtship.

“Would you like to visit the nursery? If you’re too tired from your travels…”

Sophie expected she should be exhausted, but whenever she closed her eyes, Christopher’s pleading face surfaced and robbed her of rest. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than meet Regan.”

“Are you certain?”

At the thought of seeing Em’s new daughter, Sophie felt the first stirrings of something other than grief. “Absolutely,” Sophie assured her.

They made their way abovestairs, to the main living quarters, and down the hall to the nursery.

Em opened the door.

“Hullo, Prudence.”

A stunning woman with dark brown hair, and a smattering of freckles along her high-cheekbones stood with a tiny bundle in her arms. “Hello, my lady. She’s just asleep.”

Emmaline waved her hand. “How many times must I insist that you call me Emmaline?”

Color suffused the woman’s cheeks. “It wouldn’t be proper.”

“Bah, I’m not one for proper. Isn’t that right, Sophie?”

Sophie managed a smile. “Neither of us are, Em.”

“Forgive me,” Em said. “Allow me to introduce Regan’s nursemaid, Prudence. Prudence, this is my dearest friend, Lady Waxham.”

Sophie hugged her arms at the chest, a meager attempt to protect herself from the pain of that reminder. “Please, just Sophie.” The reminder that she would forever be tied to Christopher, a man in love with another woman, a man who’d wed her for her fortune made her heart drop.

Prudence rushed forward with the silent babe, and handed her over to Emmaline.

Emmaline’s entire face lit like she’d been bathed in a summer sun. “Sweet baby,” she cooed, rocking Regan in her arms.

For one ugly, awful moment, envy gripped Sophie in an unrelenting hold. Her friend had a husband who loved her and a beautiful baby. What did Sophie possess? Nothing more than a sham of a marriage.

Emmaline pat Regan on her back. “That will be all for now, Prudence.”

The nursemaid dipped a curtsy. “Very well, my lady.”

Emmaline didn’t speak again until Prudence had gone.

“Now tell me everything, Sophie.”

A porcelain doll with golden curls and a white dress trimmed in pink rosettes caught Sophie’s notice. She wandered over to the child’s toy and picked it up from the bureau, studying the fragile doll. It was hard to remember a time when her life had been so blissfully uncomplicated. Sophie set the doll down. “I fell in love with him, Em.”

Emmaline rushed over. “Oh, Sophie that is wonderful.” Lines creased her brow. “Or it should be wonderful. What happened?”

Sophie hesitated and told her friend nearly everything. She went all the way back to the night of Lord Thomas’s masquerade and her mystery Odysseus. The only part she took care to leave unmentioned was the Duke of Mallen’s role in helping Christopher. She didn’t want to create tension between brother and sister and Sophie knew without a doubt that Emmaline would have words for the duke if she learned the truth.

Nor did Sophie mention what Christopher had shared with her about his difficulty reading. For all the pain he’d brought her, she still would never bring herself to break that confidence. Whenever she closed her eyes, she still saw the shame, exposed in every tortured line of his face. She tamped down all sympathy for her husband.

“He married me for my dowry, Em.” Sophie hardly recognized that bitter voice as her own. She didn’t like what she’d become.

“Your dowry?”

“It would seem I was worth a fortune. One-hundred thousand pounds to be precise,” she finished under her breath.

Emmaline choked. “Did you say….?”

Sophie nodded. “Imagine how vastly different my Seasons would have been had gentlemen been aware of my dowry.”

“You wouldn’t have wanted that, Sophie. You deserved more.”

Except, in the end, that was all Sophie had ended up with—a husband who’d wed her for her fortune.

“It’s as you said when you severed your betrothal to Lord Drake, at least I would have no grand illusions as to their motives.” And she never would have been fool enough to believe that Christopher loved her.

She looked away at the pity in Emmaline’s chocolate brown eyes. Em continued to rock baby Regan back and forth in her arms. “Is it…possible, that he did in fact come to love you? After all, there is no reason for him to lie. Not any longer. If his ultimate goal was your dowry, then he is already in possession of that.”

Faint stirrings of hope whirred in her heart. She’d considered that same thing on the long carriage ride to Meadowbrook Estate.

Regan let out a single, mewling cry, diverting Emmaline’s attention back to the baby. “Would you like to hold her?”

Before she could respond, her friend came over and handed the baby over.

With a woman’s intuition, Sophie cradled the baby close to her heart. The heart she’d thought so thoroughly shattered, warmed as Regan’s vacant eyes sought out hers. “Oh, Em,” she breathed. “She’s utterly perfect.”

She gazed at the downy-haired babe, and an age-old yearning stirred within her for a child of her own. In her imaginings the babe would possess Christopher’s dark locks, and hazel eyes. Tears clogged her throat.

“You can stay as long as you desire, Sophie but surely you’ve considered that you must eventually reconcile with, Waxham. He is your husband.”

A knock sounded on the door, saving Sophie from answering. “My lady, Cook has a question about the evening menu.”

“I’ll be along in a moment.” She looked to Sophie. “Will you stay with her until I return? I can send along Prudence.”

“We’ll be fine, won’t we?” Sophie cooed to Regan.

Emmaline sailed from the room, her garnet skirts swirling about her feet.

“It seems it is just you and I, little angel.” Regan’s wide-eyed, glassy stare wandered until it settled on Sophie’s face. “What beautiful blue eyes you have, sweet.”

The babe began to fuss, a little cry spilled from her pink lips. “Oh no, sweet. No need to cry,” she soothed. Her movement seemed to calm Regan, for the babe’s eyes grew heavy; her lids drifted closed, and then opened. “You will not miss anything, angel. I promise. Rest.”

The quiet, click of the door filled the now silent room, followed by the soft thread of footsteps, which seemed to jolt Regan. The baby let out another sputtering cry. Sophie’s gaze remained fixed on the precious bundle in her arms. “Shh, sweet,” Sophie whispered. “I have her, Prudence,” she assured the nursemaid. “I…” She glanced up and her voice trailed off as she faced the Duke of Mallen. “Your Grace.”

He clasped his hands behind his back. “Miss W…Lady Waxham.”

Sophie chewed at her lower lip, careful to avoid the duke’s eyes. Despite his lofty title, there had been a time when she’d been so at ease in his presence. Now, humiliation burned strong at the mere sight of him. He served as a reminder of Christopher’s indifference, and the lengths both gentlemen had gone to circumvent a marriage between Sophie and Christopher.

“You left Waxham,” he said, with bluntness that made her flinch.

She rocked Regan back and forth until her eyes again closed.

“I owe you an apology.”

Sophie raised a brow. “Just one?”

He walked over, and came to a stop in front of her. “For whatever value it has, I told him it was a deplorable idea.”

“There is no value in that,” she said. “Tell me, Your Grace. Did you truly find me so unacceptable that you sought to deceive me or were your actions motivated by boredom?”

Color crept up his neck. “It would cause me much pain if you truly believed that, my lady.”

The rancorous laugh that burst from her lips caused Regan to stir. Sophie tamped down her ill-amusement. As a duke, he needn’t answer to anyone. Let alone, her, the Incorrigible
Lady Waxham
. Yet Sophie said, “Tell me what I should believe?”

He made an impatient sound. “When Waxham first came to me, I thought him mad for having concocted such a plan.”

“And yet, you still agreed to help him.”

His square jaw hardened. “I don’t know how much Waxham has shared with you. He didn’t have a pleasant childhood. His father found fault with nearly everything he did. When Waxham struggled in his studies, the marquess beat him. I learned as much at Eton. I began to…assist Waxham with his studies.” He trained an unrelenting, ducal stare on Sophie. “I make no apologies for having helped him through his schooling.”

Sophie hugged Regan close, trying to imagine what manner of parent could ever inflict pain upon their child. Her heart clenched at the thought of a young Christopher, struggling to read and being met with his father’s scorn and physical abuse.

“I’ve always tried to protect him, my lady, and I will not apologize for that, either. I’m sorry you were hurt, but my motives were good. I believed Waxham in fact cared for you, and I could…encourage him to court you.” His gaze wandered to the window. “What I failed to consider was that I would come to care for you.”

“As Emmaline’s brother…”

“No,” he said, his tone sharp. “My feelings derived not from your relationship with my sister…but from the woman I came to know.”

Sophie’s head snapped up.

The duke walked over to the window, and he made a show of looking down into the grounds below. “I’m still sickened by my greed. I’d made a silent pledge to help Christopher make a match with you, and even knowing he cared, mayhap even loved you, I courted you with the most selfish of intentions.”

With the tip of her tongue, Sophie traced the seam of her lips. “I...I would have made you a terrible wife. Lady Ackerly is correct, I really am quite incorrigible. I say all the wrong things. I have a disastrous tendency to fall down, I—”