Most Improper Miss Sophie Valentine Page 11

  Only half-listening, he replied, “I’m not much of a dancer.”

  “Oh, but you must come!” The most outgoing sister of the two moved closer. “We can tell you all about the people there, and we shall have laughs.”

  “And we saw you dance already, Mr. Kane,” the other sister chided him shyly. “You danced all night long at your party.”

  He was straining to see where Sophie had gone, and then he caught sight of her again. She trailed behind her brother and sister, lingering to watch some piglets. She was smiling today, and on impulse, his hand went to his heart. He took a breath as his fingertips traced over the slight bump where that shard of metal rested under his skin—his Sword of Damocles.

  The Dawkins girls had apparently followed his gaze with their own.

  “I suppose it was a great shock to you, Mr. Kane,” one of them exclaimed while tapping his arm with her netted purse, “when you came here expecting to marry Sophia Valentine and saw that dreadful scar.”

  “I’ve seen much worse.”

  “Worse? How could it be any worse?”

  He knew they would never understand. Their world was a sunny, sheltered one. They couldn’t know of life’s horrors. They would never see some of the places he’d lived in. They probably didn’t even know of the existence of rookeries—the slums of London where he was born. They didn’t know what it was like to beg for food in the streets and alleyways. And they would never fight on a battlefield and see their friends blown to pieces before their eyes.

  To these ladies, it seemed, that scar on Sophie Valentine’s cheek was a hellish disfigurement, the worst thing they could imagine. But they’d never been to hell, had they?

  “She was engaged once before, I understand,” he muttered, low.

  “Yes. Her beau gave her up, and serves her right too.”

  Her sister had the grace to blush at those harsh words. “Poor Sophia. Her heart was broken.”

  “But they say she jumped deliberately from that balcony. Mama says Sophia was always a wayward, disobedient creature. It serves her right Mr. Hartley broke the engagement.”

  Lazarus watched the distant, shapely figure hurrying along, the breeze pulling on her skirt. When she was hiding, he wanted to lure her out of her shell with kisses. When she was angry, he wanted to do more than that. Something about Miss Valentine brought out every ounce of his masculinity, even those parts a gentleman was supposed to bury with good manners. From first sight, his heart, and indeed his entire body, had nursed this curious idea that she belonged to him, needed him…whether she admitted it or not. Of course, his heart was a very unpredictable beast and, by most learned accounts, should have ceased to beat some years past, so he couldn’t trust it to behave wisely.

  “Do tell us, Mr. Kane, what qualities you look for in a young lady.”

  “Qualities?” he murmured, still distracted.

  “What do you consider most attractive in a young lady?” the other Dawkins sister urged, her eyelashes quivering with mock timidity.

  “A lady should have spirit and not be afraid to take chances,” he replied, “or make decisions of her own. She should take control of her life and her own happiness.”

  Forgetting good manners, he abruptly left the two young ladies to follow Sophie through the crowd. So she had a broken heart, did she? This was why she kept her distance. She still pined for an old beau who had abandoned her.

  He was distantly aware of the Misses Dawkins watching him go, and he heard one of them declare she didn’t think him quite so handsome now as she did before. Her sister still allowed him to be an “interesting” fellow, if somewhat brusque and common.

  Their chatter faded as he was submerged in the crowd, following Sophie. He slowed his pace. She seemed unaware of his presence behind her, but suddenly she lifted that ugly straw bonnet, placed it over her hair, and tied the ribbons under her chin, tucking that golden treasure away. Disappointment was as sharp as the broken knife blade lodged near his heart. She stopped suddenly, absorbed by a display of little clockwork ornaments, and he, rather than collide with her, stepped swiftly aside and walked on. As he passed, Lazarus raised his hand, prepared to tip his hat, but she stared down at the goods on display as if she didn’t see him. So his hand dropped again, the gesture never fully developed. He lengthened his stride and hurried onward, furious with himself for being such a fool, but also with her for hiding away under her bonnet, denying him even the pleasure of admiring her hair.

  Miss Osborne soon caught up with him, annoyed to find him gone when she emerged from the gypsy’s tent. “What were you talking of with the Dawkins sisters?” she demanded.

  He thought quickly. “The Morecroft assembly rooms.”

  “Lord! You don’t want to go there, Mr. Kane,” she exclaimed. “They’re always full of the commonest riffraff. All manner of drunks and strumpets go there! It’s the sort of place tawdry, desperate girls go to find husbands. I certainly would never be so frantic to find a husband as some of the women around here. The lengths they will go to…advertisements in the paper…” Miss Osborne’s voice echoed around the marketplace, and he realized Sophie looked over at them. For just a moment, he was the target of her questioning perusal. Then her gaze lowered to her feet again, those disapproving lips pursed tightly. He wished he’d never given Jane Osborne his arm, but it was too late.

  ***

  The rumors were confirmed, then. He was courting Jane Osborne. Folk said he’d dined with the Osbornes at least thrice and showed the young lady a great deal of attention. Jane Osborne was nearer his age, more suited to him in many ways.

  With the noise of the marketplace churning in her ears, Sophie picked up a little clockwork bird in a cage and studied it as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world. It was very delicately painted, the eyes wide and staring, the tiny beak chirping at her.

  “Good gracious!” Maria clutched her sleeve. “Is that James Hartley?”

  She looked up as a jaunty, yellow-wheeled curricle rolled across the cobbles, traveling fast in their brother’s direction. Absorbed in his own reflection in the butcher’s bow-front window, Henry must not have heard his name shouted and was almost run over in the street. The great rumbling wheels came to a juddering halt, the horses close enough to bite holes in his hat.

  “Valentine! I thought that was you. Almost mashed you to a pulp. Where have you been, old chap? Haven’t seen you at the club lately!”

  Sophie, realizing her mouth was open, quickly closed it and set the little caged bird down.

  “It is!” Maria whispered in her ear. “It is he. And he doesn’t look a day older.” She grabbed her sister’s arm tightly and drew her away from the market stall and across the square in unseemly haste. If this was any normal day, Sophie would have resisted, but with the memory of Jane Osborne’s disdainful comment still ringing cheerlessly in her ears, she let her limp self be dragged across the cobbles, dignity be damned. Admittedly, she was almost as curious as Maria.

  James Hartley leaped down from his curricle and exclaimed, “You’re looking a little green about the gills, Valentine. Married life not suiting you? Although”—he paused, standing back to take in Henry’s full figure—“somebody feeds you well.”

  “Bored with London again, Hartley? Aren’t we too dull and provincial for you now?”

  James laughed, the diamond pin in his cravat winking. “Must visit Grandmama in Morecroft once in a great while to replenish the pockets. And I just heard some most astonishing news while I was there, Henry.”

  “Indeed?”

  “That your sister seeks a husband in the pages of the Norwich and Morecroft Farmer’s Gazette.”

  Fumbling in his waistcoat pocket for his watch, Henry avoided the subject of that advertisement. James looked around for something more interesting, and found Sophie and her sister standing nearby. His gaze hardened. It was only a subtle dimming of the merry, careless light in his eyes. Most folk would have missed it.

  “It is all over town
,” she heard him say. “Such a strange thing. Especially since I thought she was resolved not to marry. At least, that’s what she once told me.”

  Henry replied, “Yes, well…it was a long time ago.”

  “I suppose time passes, and we’re all very much older now.”

  “And some of us are wiser. Well, I cannot stay and chat, Hartley. Good day. My regards to your grandmama.” Henry hurried away down the street, obviously keen to escape.

  But Sophie came to a halt on the path. Guilt made it necessary to explain herself. When she’d posted that advertisement, she never thought it might come to James’s notice. He was so seldom in Morecroft, the possibility never occurred to her. He surely never read a publication like the Farmer’s Gazette. Someone must have pointed it out to him, probably one of his friends, to tease him.

  “How pleasant to see you again, James.”

  “Yes,” he answered sharply and squared his wide shoulders under that fine garnet coat.

  “You look…very well.”

  “So do you, Sophia.” His voice shook a little when he said her name, belying his stiff, unyielding demeanor.

  Clouds passed over the sun, and grey shadows rolled at her feet. She was painfully aware of faces turned to watch the encounter, hands pressed to whispering lips and eager ears.

  James held out his gloved hand. “Perhaps you will allow me to take you and your sister home. If you’ve concluded your business here.”

  It was a timely offer, since the first sprinkles of a summer shower had just made their presence known on her sleeves, and a fresh bite in the air warned more was to come.

  Maria declined, since she had only a short distance to the rectory and preferred to walk. Thus, Sophie climbed up alone to ride with him in the curricle.

  Chapter 15

  The horses charged along, just missing Henry once again, who stumbled into the verge, holding his hat and cursing. Sophie squinted against the rain and looked back over her shoulder. The ribbons of her bonnet slapped her cheek. “I didn’t expect you to see that advertisement, James,” she murmured apprehensively as her hands clung to the seat for dear life.

  “Really? I thought perhaps you wanted me to read it and come back again.”

  Her lips parted with a quick, startled exhale. A spark of panic sputtered to life in her chest. That damned advertisement!

  “All the way here,” he muttered, “I told myself it was merely a nice, quiet ride in the country, but my horse somehow made its way along the lane toward Souls Dryft, and as that old flint stone wall came into sight, the memories came back to me.”

  She relented with a small smile. It was good to see him again after all this time. When they were young, he used to come out to Souls Dryft and take her for rides like this. In fine weather, she would sit on the flint wall, waiting eagerly for him.

  “Just like old times,” he said, mirroring her thoughts aloud.

  His genuine smile, which suddenly appeared, gleamed just as brightly as she remembered, and his eyes were that dazzling clear blue she imagined must surround tropical islands, those she only read about in books. The years between had been kind to James. They had mellowed his boyish, slender good looks into something more solid, something warmer. He always had charming manners, but now there was an ease about his gestures. He’d grown into his skin. Youth had its advantages, without a doubt, but there was also much to be said for maturity.

  The wheels jolted hard over a deep rut, and her bonnet slipped back off her head. She grabbed the ribbons but didn’t bother replacing it. Her pins had all come out, as usual, and cramming the straw bonnet back on her wet head would be pointless.

  “I think your hair is darker now,” James observed. “And—good Lord—it’s positively wild!”

  Flustered, threading her fingers through it, she replied, “Well, I have no ladies’ maid, and I—”

  He interrupted to exclaim, very gallantly, that she looked more beautiful now than she did at nineteen.

  She looked away, her face so warm raindrops dried soon after they touched it.

  “Henry is married now, I hear,” he said jovially, as if he’d not noticed her embarrassment or the fingers suddenly raised to cover her scar.

  “Yes, indeed. The house is rather crowded now and—”

  “I must say, I never thought Henry would succumb. Where did he find her?”

  “In Norwich,” she replied curtly. “With her trotter stuck in a grate. I wish he’d—”

  “Aha! Is she that bad? I did wonder why I never see her.”

  They rode on a while in silence, and then he stirred up the memories again, reminding her of the day they met, when he offered to climb a tree and pick a pear for her, but she calmly pushed him aside and climbed the tree herself. “That was the very first time I was rendered speechless by the sudden sight of your ankles. I decided immediately I was in love with you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes, you did like to be in—”

  “But you were surely a worthy target of my affections, a diamond of the first water.”

  He was full of sayings like these. Words were James Hartley’s specialty, and he had some for every occasion. “Oh, really!” she chortled. “Even in my best year, I was never a great beauty, as you—”

  “You stole my heart, Sophia. I could never tell what you were thinking.”

  Well, perhaps if he ever let her finish a sentence, he might know, she thought with a sudden spur of annoyance.

  “You intrigued me from the start,” he admitted. “Funny, scowling creature, often found behind a potted palm and flicking pieces of fruit from the punch bowl at people you disliked. Always plotting some mischief and taking that horrid little girl under your wing when she came here to stay with her aunt—what was her name?”

  “Ellie Vyne,” she replied curtly, knowing he remembered her young friend’s name well enough, but since the Vynes and Hartleys had been feuding for years, he pretended ignorance.

  James urged the horses even faster. She clung to his arm to save herself from being thrown out and crushed under the wheels.

  “You decided you were in love with me, James Hartley, largely because your grandmama fiercely disapproved. As the niece of Finn Valentine, a notorious scarlet woman, I was the very last sort of girl Lady Hartley wanted for her grandson.” She smiled slowly. “But you did like to tease and torment her, as far as— ”

  “I disobeyed the old dear to run after you to London. I suppose I was utterly spellbound by those mysteriously sad eyes of yours. Always hiding secrets. And when I asked you to marry me, you laughed, as if it were the funniest thing you’d ever heard, and said, ‘Yes, let’s! Let’s do it soon, before I change my mind. We should elope to Gretna Green!’” He paused, the laughter gone. “I should never have let you slip away.”

  Sophie breathed deeply, sucking in the damp rustiness of the wet earth. “Young people grow up. You found other women to fall in love with.” She hoped it was true. She wanted him to be happy.

  Lips pursed, James nodded. “Just as my grandmama says, there are a great many women in the world. It would be foolish to pine over just one.” He turned his face toward her again. “But quantity is not the same as quality, Sophia.”

  She thought of the young, raven-haired housemaid smiling wistfully up at him as he tweaked her dimpled chin. Had he been “in love” with that girl too? Perhaps she should mention what she’d seen that night at Lady Honoria Grimstock’s ball, while she waited on the balcony and pondered her future. But what would be the point now, all these years later? Back then, everything seemed significant, every happiness so thrilling, every sadness completely dire, and every slight utterly unforgivable. How silly she was then.

  She played with her wet bonnet ribbons, getting them in a tangle. “Souls Dryft is let again.” They were just passing the tall iron gates of the farmhouse. The yard was empty today. Raindrops pricked the surface of the water trough and shined on the ivy that climbed the flint wall.

  “Really? Let again? N
o one stays there long, it seems.”

  Her heart tripped. “No. Not for—”

  “Damned place is haunted, if you ask me. Don’t know why anyone would want to live in the drafty old place. Value’s in the land, of course, not the old building.”

  She swallowed a small sigh.

  “Do you suppose Henry will invite me to stay for dinner?” he chirped, grinning broadly, one subject exchanged for another without a second thought.

  ***

  From his own gate, Lazarus had a clear view of the crumbling old Norman fortress and the gatehouse that once kept out the marauding enemy, not to mention curious natives. Even in the rain, he watched for a good half an hour and waited for that fancy carriage to leave. But now the candles and torches were lit. It was plain the popinjay had stayed to dine.

  “Ye comin’ in or stayin’ out all night?” Tuck hollered from the door of the house, stooping sideways under the low lintel. “Supper’s gettin’ cold.”

  The drizzle had now turned into a real “pelter,” which got in his eyes and ran down the back of his shirt. “I’ll be in.”

  He didn’t like this. Not a bit. Jane Osborne had told him who the man was in the market square that day…Sophie’s old flame. And when he saw them riding off together, the tightness in his chest became unbearable. He’d set out that day to make her jealous. The tables were turned.

  ***

  Outside, the rain fell heavily now, and during silences in the conversation, it could be heard rattling against the shutters, burbling along the bumpy cobbles of the yard and splattering from the stone gargoyle spouts.

  The precious beeswax candles, even in extravagant array down the length of the pitted old trestle table, were not enough to light the entire great hall, only the very center of it. The flames, under periodic bombardment from the many drafts, seemed almost ashamed of themselves and constantly bowed in apology for their woeful inadequacy. In the corners, dark shadows remained and closed in the dinner guests. A fire was lit in the massive hearth, but there was such a wind down the chimney, the flames ducked and danced, providing more smoke than heat. The faces of the dinner guests came and went in the unreliable light.