“Pritchard,” she said with a smile.
He ushered her in. “It is wonderful to have you home, miss.”
Miss. Did he not know of the charade her parents had enacted? Or was it just a slip of the tongue?
“We had no idea you were coming to visit.” He took her bonnet and pelisse, directing a footman out to grab her trunks.
“It is only a small bag,” she corrected. “I intend to stay just tonight. I must be in London tomorrow.”
“Well, we will take you for however long we can. Let me send a servant to find your parents.”
Her chest became inexplicably tight at that, and she nodded. “I will await them in the drawing room.”
She did not have to wait long. In hardly a minute at all, Mother came in, chin high, and Sophie’s father just behind her.
“Sophia,” Mother said. And if Sophie had managed to imagine some warmth in that tone over the course of six years apart, the illusion was now shattered. “You might have told us you were coming.” She kissed Sophie’s cheek, grasping her fingers with cold hands.
“I did not know until last night.” And she’d not wanted them to have time to concoct more lies to cover their previous. She turned to her father. “Father.”
Father only nodded. Theirs had never been a close relationship—Sophie expected it was because Sophie had been the last chance at him gaining an heir, and instead, he’d gotten a third daughter. But the chill between them had grown insurmountable following her failures in society. He’d not written her once in her absence, though she had tried every few months for that first year. She masked the pain of those recollections with well-honed practice.
A maid brought in the tea, and no one even attempted polite conversation. That was well enough—Sophie had a point for being here and had best get to it. “I have come to ask why all my neighbors believe me married.”
She’d expected shock or at least surprise. But Mother simply sipped her tea, and Father met her gaze with only the slightest raised brow. The silence grew uncomfortable, and Sophie itched to end it, but she knew her parents. They would speak eventually.
Sophie counted eighteen ticks of the clock before Mother gave in. “We did you a favor, Sophia.”
A handful of tart responses nearly sprang to her lips, but they would not work with her parents. “Might you explain that?”
Mother pursed her lips then, setting down her cup with hardly a clank of porcelain on porcelain. “You would have been the laughingstock of the town. Everyone kept asking why you had gone, and so it was easiest to let them believe what they would.”
“So, they all simply believed I was married?”
Mother nodded, all regal contentedness.
“And you never encouraged that belief?”
“Oh, certainly, we had to every now and again. But you know how gossip is, these things do spread.” Mother tossed her hand in the air to exhibit her point.
Sophie bit her tongue. Somehow, their placid unconcern over the affair made her blood grow hot. It was as if they were entirely devoid of emotion, because she’d siphoned it all for herself. Her hands tightened on her teacup that she’d yet to drink from; the grip tilted it, spilling some of the tea onto the saucer in her lap. As carefully as she could manage, she moved it to the table beside her, forcing herself not to back down from this conversation. She was not the same fifteen-year-old daughter that they had tugged this way and that to accomplish their own means.
“I do not believe it,” Sophie said with a calm and serious face, forcing herself to meet Mother’s eyes, then Father’s.
Mother scoffed. Father quirked that brow of his again. He was balding. It gave her a strange sense of satisfaction to see the way he’d changed the combing of his hair to hide that fact. To hide his perceived failing. That was what this was—just her parents hiding another failure with a temporary solution. Because had they truly not thought ahead to what would happen when Sophie inevitably returned unmarried? It was just like them to choose an easy, quick solution without thought. Like a new dress to distract from Sophie’s horrid freckles, or turning down an invitation when Sophie had slouched her shoulders one too many times at dinner the night before, not realizing how that would be perceived by the neighborhood. Even sending her to Grandfather because they couldn’t be bothered with her for a month or two, without thought of how it could alter her future.
Sophie had not always been a failure to them. But it had long since grown hard to remember a time when she’d not been.
She straightened her dress. “I will go ahead and correct everyone, then, if it was all a simple misunderstanding.”
A flash of something—some minor emotion—passed Mother’s eyes. “I have an even better idea, my dear.”
Oh,my dear, was it? That little pet name only came out when Mother was trying to placate her.
“I cannot imagine a better idea than the truth, Mother,” Sophie said, blinking innocently. She could play this little game as well as they. After all, they’d taught her.
Her mother’s mouth twisted with displeasure, but she did not comment on Sophie’s words. “Your sister has a new neighbor. Or will. A man—unattached—is said to have let the house just down the lane. A wealthy man. Titled.”
Just like the man Sophie was reported to have married. Convenient.
