She skidded to a stop. “Yes. If it is still raining, I shall need my umbrella.” She glanced down at her bare hands.Drat it all.She would have to go upstairs and fetch a pair of gloves too. Heaven forbid anyone should see her outside the house without them. “I don’t suppose my gloves from earlier are still down here, are they? Has Marie already taken them up?”
“I shall recover them for you, my lady. And yes, it is still raining. Shall I have Marie select a cloak for you as well, and should I also summon the carriage?”
“No. No carriage. And thank you, Thornton, it would be lovely if you could see to my gloves and a cloak. I shall wait in the library.” She didn’t want to be discovered fidgeting in the hallway by the abominable Nash or Maman. The parlor would be just as hazardous, but surely the library would be safe. She hurried inside it and thumped the door shut behind her.
“You cannot hide from him,” her mother said from somewhere deep within the multi-level room.
Sophie caught a hand to her chest and sagged back against the door. “Maman, really? Today has been filled with enoughstartling surprises without your adding to them.” As the pounding of her heart calmed, she pushed away from the door and squinted around the dim interior. “Where are you, and why are you sitting in the dark? Is this your hiding place as well?”
A heavy sigh came from the vicinity of the windows. It helped Sophie locate her mother’s silhouette against the soft gray day outside. “Maman?”
“I am not hiding. Merely thinking. Did you compare the handwriting on each of the letters? Have you discovered any additional information?”
Sophie joined her mother and stared out at the drizzly day. “They all came from the same author, but I cannot discern if the writer was male or female.”
“And still no sign of the marked banknotes you included in each of the payments?”
“No. And I was so certain that would be the way to discover the blackmailer. Even Mr. Anderly at the bank thought it a brilliant trap.”
“What did young Bromley think?”
Sophie chewed on her lip and wished Thornton would hurry and return with her cloak and gloves so she could make her escape.
“Sophie? He found you, did he not? I had Thornton show him to your workroom.”
“Oh, he found me.”
“Your tone suggests something ill is afoot. What have you done?” Maman shifted her attention away from the rainy street and pinned it on her. “Answer me, young lady.”
“I merely kneed him in his manly pride and left him writhing on the floor.”
“Sophie.”
The disappointment in her mother’s voice made her heart hurt. Maman had always been so proud of her, so loving and supportive, but at the moment, she was not pleased.
“I had to,” Sophie said. “He kissed me without my permission.”
The dowager exhaled another long-suffering huff and started massaging her temples. “If he brutishly forced himself upon you, then you should have shot or stabbed him as you have been trained to do. I assume that since you merely took him to the floor, his behavior was not entirely unwelcome.” She dropped her hands to her sides and leveled a burning glare on her. “In other words, you set a trap for him.”
“I did not.”
“Then I shall go shoot him myself.”
As her mother stepped away, Sophie caught her by the arm. “Do not shoot him. He might have been slightly provoked. I made him a little angry.”
“And so he channeled that anger into a kiss rather than striking at you?”
Sophie recalled the moment, and a hot surge ofoh dear heavensflashed through her, making her wish she had her fan. Thankfully, the room was dim enough that Maman could not see the furious blush burning across her cheeks. “I believe that is what he did. Yes, indeed. Kissed me in anger.”
Maman shook her head, and even in the low lighting, Sophie could tell she rolled her eyes. “Nash Bromley is to be your husband. Do you truly wish to live the rest of your life in a state of constant conflict?”
“The queen had no right to command that!” It was the same thing she had bemoaned all the way home from Kew, but maybe, just maybe, saying it while standing on Rydleshire property might make her mother finally agree. “She took it all and gave itto him. Tohim, Maman. He deserves none of it! All he deserves is what I gave him in my workroom.”
“You once loved him.”
And there it was. Out in the open between them. Sophie swallowed hard, her throat aching with tears of anger that frustrated her to no end. Why in heaven’s name did she always cry whenever she got angry? She sniffed and squared her shoulders. “I was a love-struck child smitten with an older boy. A ridiculous infatuation that was never returned, and thankfully, I outgrew it.”
“You cried into your pillow every night,” Maman said. “For him. My heart ached as you softly wept his name over and over into the darkness.”
