“I can put a few stitches in, if it’s not quite right on you,” Allen said.
It was a trifle short, for Sophia was taller than the duchess, but Sophia could see from her sisters’ eyes and her mother’s nodded approval that she looked well in it. Even the rather grainy looking glass on the dressing table showed her a more fashionable and elegant Sophia. Then there was just the matter of ornaments, and the dressing of her hair, and Augusta lent her ivory fan for the occasion, which was a perfect match. Mama donated her own cashmere shawl to add a touch of colour. Sophia descended the stairs with her sisters feeling that if Lord Daniel had any attachment to her at all, he should appreciate her appearance tonight.
He was almost alone in the White Drawing Room tonight, Mr Godley the only other person present. Judging by their expressions, conversation was somewhat laboured.
“Ah, ladies!” the chaplain said, his face lighting up with a broad smile. “Mrs Merrington, how charming you look tonight. Allow me to procure you a glass of sherry.”
Lord Daniel stood as if transfixed, that strange expression on his face again. The sisters stood uncertainly. Sophia did not like to put herself forward, yet he made no move towards her. What was she supposed to do?
It was Charlotte in the end who rescued them all by stepping forward towards him, and enquiring if he had received the letter he was hoping for from his mother.
“Robert went into Brinchester especially, despite the weather, for you mentioned that you were concerned about your father.”
He nodded, and spoke to her in a low voice, his words rapid, leaning towards her so that Sophia could not hear what he said. She felt oddly excluded. Should she have stepped forward? Yet it would have been presumptuous to assume that he would only wish to speak to her. They were not betrothed, so she must not expect to monopolise his attention. It was for the gentleman to make his intentions plain, after all.
Augusta and Maria sat together on a sofa near Mama, where they quickly became a target for Mr Godley’s ponderous gallantry. Sophia was not minded to sit, so she wandered away to the high windows, where plush curtains shut out the incessant rain, and thence to a collection of miniatures on the wall, staring unseeingly at them as she puzzled over Lord Daniel’s behaviour.
Gradually the room filled up, the duke’s booming voice shutting out even the low murmur of Lord Daniel’s conversation with Charlotte. Mr Payne was one of the last to arrive, looking rather flustered. Scanning the room, his eyes lingered on Sophia, and he frowned. He looked at Lord Daniel and the frown deepened. Striding across the room, he interrupted the cosy chat with Charlotte. Sophia could not hear what was said, but a few moments later, all three of them walked towards her.
“Good evening, Miss Sophia,” Mr Payne said. “How charmingly you look tonight. Your sister tells me that this is one of her grace’s gowns.”
“Indeed it is, for I have nothing so fine,” Sophia said. “Her grace is very kind.”
Froggett announced dinner at that moment, Mr Payne offered his arm to Charlotte, and Lord Daniel turned expectantly to Sophia. For the rest of the evening, he never left her side, but he seemed subdued.
Her own feelings were too muddled to bear close scrutiny. She liked him, naturally, for there was nothing to dislike in him. He was adequately handsome, a fashionable dresser, if one cared for that, and his rank made him eligible, although she had no idea what his income would be. In conversation, he was… well, adequate would be the word again. His manners were gentlemanlike, although with those odd lapses that were hard to account for. He disliked dancing — she remembered his words at Marshfields, where he had said he would prefer a good slice of mutton! Still, not everyone liked to dance and she would not hold that against him.
But ignoring her, when she had put on the finest dress she had ever worn, and looked as if she would not be out of place in Grosvenor Square — that she could not quite forgive. And so, even as he exerted himself to please her, she was unmoved. She would accept him, of course. There could be no doubt on that point. But she felt that it would be some time before she could forget the way he had whispered to Charlotte, and it had been as if Sophia were not even there. It was not the action of a man on the point of a proposal, to slight his intended in that way, and she wondered greatly what he meant by it.
***
Simon made his excuses to the card players and made his way swiftly to Juliet’s room. He knocked, but there was no answer. He went in anyway, to find the fire burning low and the single candle guttering badly. He attended to these matters first, then went to the small figure curled up in the bed.
“Are you feeling any better, sister?”
As she shook her head, he could see tears glistening on her cheeks.
“Did you eat any of your dinner?” He scanned the tray on the bedside table. “Nothing touched. Come now, we will survive this, you know we will.”
“Lodgers, Simon?” she hissed, abruptly sitting upright. “Strangers in the house? Aunt Tabitha will turn in her grave.”
“I shall find employment. As a secretary, perhaps. Or I could teach… we could set up a small school. At least we have the house, Juliet. If all else fails, we could rent it out, and take rooms somewhere for ourselves.”
“Lodgings! Are we sunk so low? I cannot bear it, truly I cannot.”
Sighing, he sat on the edge of the bed. “This is not like you, sister. Was it not you who always found some good in every setback? We will survive, you always said. Every time a prospective client faded away, you cheered me up and assured me that one day I would succeed, and then we should have all the money we needed for life’s little elegances. I do not like to see you so cast down.”
“It is finding out about my mother,” she said, sniffing slightly, and mopping at the tears. “Divorced! How can I hold my head up in public with such a blot on the good name of my family? I could suffer the deprivations of our life perfectly well, knowing that I was the daughter of the Earl of Edlesborough, with a long, distinguished lineage. I could be proud of my heritage, even as I despised the current occupant of the family’s honours. But the daughter of a woman so scandalous that her husband divorced her — how can I possibly live with the shame of that? It is beyond my capability to raise my spirits in such a situation.”
“You are the same person you always were. Her disgrace is not yours, and if your father had protected you as he ought—”
She sat a little more upright. “Yes! Perhaps one cannot blame him for sending me away but—”
“Of course one can!”
“Well, you may be right, but even if he wanted me gone from Edlesborough, he could have paid Aunt Tabitha an allowance to look after me. We shouldbothhave had an allowance. Nasty, vindictive man! We will survive, brother, if only to spite the old weasel. I could take a position as a housekeeper, for no one could say I am not well qualified. We could both find living-in positions, which would save the cost of lodgings. It would be horrid, but we should not starve, I suppose. The world is full of evil men, Simon. It is so dispiriting. Papa is bad enough, but Mr Thwaite seemed like such a pleasant man. Two years he has had us dangling and it was all a hum. Wicked, wicked man to keep us on a string all this time, and now this!” She rattled the letter at him.
He took it from her, reading again Thwaite’s uncompromising words.‘Very much liked your designs but have decided not to proceed… expense… bad time… many apologies…’He sighed. “Should I bill him for my time? There have been half a dozen full drawings, and innumerable sketches. I spent a month just on ceilings.”
