“I don’t know what to say,” Sophia said. She wanted to touch the painting. The hair, the eyes, the tilt of her head — the likeness was uncanny. “Thank you, your grace.”
“You are protective of her. I want you to know that she will always be safe here. I quite understand.” Her grace gestured to another portrait of a poodle. “Figaro lived to be eighteen years old. He was perhaps a little spoiled. But not a day passed that he did not love me. And I realize we humans cannot always say that about one another.” She laughed at herself then, a little self-consciously.
“Your suites will always have the conveniences you will need for Peaches to make herself at home, wherever you and Harold stay.”
Sophia reluctantly backed away from the painting and turned toward the duchess. “Your gift warms my heart,” she said.
The duchess nodded at Sophia’s compliment. Her grace had said that she, too, had been overwhelmed when marrying into the dukedom. Had her marriage been an arranged one, Sophia wondered?
After staring at the painting for a few more moments, the woman gestured toward where they had come.
“Your mother must be wondering where we’ve wandered off to. Shall we return and finalize the details of this wedding of yours?”
What could Sophia do? She smiled. “Of course, your grace.”
The duchess turned back and led them out of the gallery, sliding the gate closed behind them. Sophia was not marrying into a family of monsters! Lord Harold, except for those few moments he’d shown her his irritation, had been nothing but kind and gentle toward her.
But he had indicated an affection for her, even though he was supposedly in love with another woman.
If this was, in fact, the truth.
Could the captain have been mistaken?
Self-doubt encroached again.
Was she imagining the unfairness?
The corruption?
The manipulation?
Even the duke himself had never so much has uttered a single threat toward her.
And what part did Devlin play in all of this, really?
Oh, God, for the millionth time she reminded herself that she’d blurted out that she loved him!
Everything had felt so romantic, so tragic, as they’d stood in the pavilion, his arms tightly wrapped around her. Was that the love her mother had warned her about? The kind that caused her to see an upcoming wedding as a prison sentence? The kind of love that caused her to stand in a frigid rainstorm, telling a man she’d known less than a fortnight that she loved him? If it had been possible, in that moment, she knew she’d have given herself to him.
He affected physical, emotional — egad — even spiritual feelings that altered her perspective of the world. Was that a good thing, or was it a very, very bad thing?
Even Rhoda could find no fault in Sophia’s future in-laws. They presented a united front to the world, they lived together quite peaceably — if one discounted Devlin, of course, — and they were free from scandal.
In addition to all of this, it appeared that St. John was respectfully courting Rhoda. Rhoda was of a well-connected family, just as Sophia was, but nobility did not exist in her ancestry. In fact, both girls had lived most of their lives near the shadow of hovering poverty.
Did not these facts reveal compassion and a liberal-minded attitude within the Brookes’ family?
Had the payments to her parents been, perhaps, merely an exaggerated gesture of charity on their part?
Again, sitting amongst Harold’s womenfolk, Sophia tried to concentrate on tying the ribbons at the base of the paper cutouts of wedding bells. The paper was of the finest parchment, the ribbon of the finest silk.
She looped and tied and stacked, listening to the casual conversation floating around her, until her mother stood, indicating it was time for them to leave. Rhoda had not attended this meeting. Lord St. John had offered to escort her and her sisters to the tower this afternoon. Rhoda had expressed interest in a temporary exhibit, and he’d quickly offered his escort.
His offer showed a gentleman of kind spirit, did it not? And such a gentleman would not be of an evil family.
Sophia glanced around before they made their goodbyes and was forced to admit something she’d been resisting. Her fiancé and his family were not, in fact, ogres and demagogues.
So, what did that make her?
