“Excuse me, I do believe you did the greater part of the teasing growing up.”
She ignored the comment, though her lips looked suspiciously like they held back a smile. “As I said, you are ever the gentleman. That is a great part of why I sought refuge in your home that first night.”
His mirth dipped, and his responding smile was tight. He did not feel the gentleman. Not with this heat coursing through him at every look from her.
“I am glad you recalled the location. Your family only stayed a handful of times with us.”
She pressed her palms against the seat on either side of her. “Oh, I never forget numbers. Faces and names, often, but not numbers.”
He chuckled at that. She’d always had a penchant for sums and figures. He recalled many a childhood vacation from school spent with her, requiring him to tell her all he’d learned, then allowing her to see how she could measure up. She nearly always had, often beating him at the sums and exercises they did. Butwhen had she gone on to further her knowledge so immensely that she was now considered at the level accepted for the Whitcomb project?
“You always have had that skill—but I do recall your parents working hard to steer your talents in other directions.”
Her nose wrinkled. “You refer to the governess debacle.”
He nodded. He remembered well the day the pinched-faced woman had arrived at Sophie’s home. She’d not been allowed to spend unaccompanied time with him after that—though another had reminded him that they were coming to an age where it was not entirely appropriate any longer, with him fifteen and her fourteen.
Her sigh filled the space between them. “Did I ever tell you the entirety of that?”
Andrew glanced out the window to see that they were not much past the mews south of the bank. The rain must truly be impeding their progress. “I do not know,” he responded. “Perhaps?”
“My parents gave me a fair amount of leeway growing up—as well you know; I spent as much time in trees with you as I did in the nursery. I believe they expected me to follow in my sisters’ footsteps without much effort, and I also believe they’d grown rather weary of raising children, as Elizabeth and Cecilia were so much older than I, and long married by the time I left the nursery.”
Andrew affected a shiver. “Your sisters terrified me. I swear they appeared more like wax dolls than young women.”
Sophie nodded. “You and me both. Well, Mother thought I was old enough to begin visiting with the neighbors—I recall being incredibly excited as Anna Dearsly had been allowed out for almost a year, and she was only a month my senior. But Lady Alderton took a dislike to me for my bookish ways, and Mother evidently came home crushed and humiliated. Father’s solution was a governess, stating that Nurse had been too lenient with me. They’d allowed me my head for far too long and made up for it by not giving me an inch for the next half a decade. Lessons all day, and then dinners with Mother and Father turned into my exams—if I failed, I could not go to the next town event. I began to feel chained to that schoolroom.”
Andrew winced. “So that was why you refused to catch frogs any longer.”
She sighed, eyes reminiscent. “And sailing paper boats and climbing trees. When you were home from school that summer, and invited me to the pond with a friend of yours that had come to visit…”
“You turned your nose up at me and said young ladies did not participate in such childish endeavors.” He’d been hurt—excited to introduce Sophie to Ambrose, who was there just a fortnight. But he’d seen her at an assembly three weeks later, and she’d been her usual lively self, so he’d forgotten the exchange.
“I was too embarrassed to tell you the truth: that I’d so disappointed my parents they’d felt the need to procure a governess so close to my come out, and that she held me more strictly than a child in leading strings.”
“It must have been devastating for you. And I, an absolute clod who was meant to be your friend, did not even realize the strictures you were under.”
“Oh, you were my friend,” she assured. “The best times I had were with you. I ached for your school holidays—my parents grew more relaxed around those times, because whenever you were home, with your brothers, your family held so many social engagements that I was allowed to take part in. And you never made me feel as if I fell short of the mark.”
She never did. He’d only fallen more in love with her as she grew older. With her wit and quiet humor, and that intelligence that was ever-present. “I am sorry I was not home more often.”
“Me as well.” She pressed entwined hands to her lips, thinking. “They did not allow me to summer with Grandfather any longer after that—they blamed him for my bookishness. Which I find particularly humorous, because it was he who ultimately freed me from their grasp.”
“Oh?”
She nodded, pushing the hangings on the window aside to see the wet world beyond. “It was only a couple of months after you and your friends left for your Grand Tour—I was unbelievably jealous, by the way. Not only had one of my dearest friends abandoned me to the boredom of the country… but to know what it was you were doing? The fun you must have been having while I remained stuck to the confines of my home?”
Andrew nearly snorted, thinking of the nearly disastrous trip with his friends. “I recall a great many larks, yes, but also the time Tristan nearly had us thrown into prison by flirting with the wrong woman, and when Rowan treated us to Shakespearean recitations as a form of entertainment. And then the trip home nearly killed us all.” He could remember it clearly—the waves crashing against the ship, the way they tipped and pitched in the dark sea. The bet one of them had made that they would return and settle down after so much excitement.
The wager that was now coming back to haunt him.
Her smile was crooked and wide. “It sounds horrid and delightful.”
He shook his head with a chuckle. “I suppose it was.”
“Then my jealousy was not misplaced. I was so bored, not knowing when next you would return, and my governess growing ever more strict as my official Season was meant to be the following spring. And then Mama grew sick—rheumatic fever—and the governess, whose own mother had died from such an illness, fled. Father could not be bothered by me: a young woman meant to be coming out in Society, but with a mother unable to undergo the task. And at that exact time, the invitation came from Grandfather. Mr. Grenton—the mathematician—was to be quartered in Bristol for two years, and he had secured the man to teach me. Me. Before I knew it, I was undergoing an apprenticeship of sorts in Grandfather’s home. The man taught me alongside several other students when he could, and privately in the evenings as well. So much came from that—my entire life today is built on that invitation. Grandfather gave me an escape.”
“And your parents did not call you back?”
