She was a different person now.
“I’ve everything packed, my lady.” Penny had somehow slipped inside without Sophia hearing a sound. This was not the first time she’d done that. The Prescott servants were all that way, like a camp of sleuths and spies, loyal in all matters to the duchess.
“Very good, Penny,” Sophia said. How on earth had she and Harold and Dev managed to fool all of them?
“Do you wish to change into traveling clothes? Your riding habit, perhaps, since the first part of the journey is to be on horseback?” Sophia glanced down at her dress. It was made up of a stiff, black crepe material. It had none of the style of any of the new gowns Madam Chantal had made up for her before the wedding. Her new habits were all made up of bright colors — yellow, one red, and one an emerald green.
“I will wear black,” she said. “I want you to burn everything else. Better yet, leave them here.”
“Of course, my lady, but I’ve already packed—”
“Leave them,” Sophia said forcefully. “Bring only the mourning gowns. I never want to see the other dresses again.” Her voice forbade any argument.
Her maid looked aghast. Sophia knew it was a common practice to hand down one’s unwanted gowns to servants, but she did not wish to ever see any of them again. They were reminders of her selfishness, her own greed to manipulate life in her favor.
“Leave them,” she said again. And then on a sigh. “You can retrieve them for yourself the next time you are here.” Let her maid believe they would not be going to waste. Sophia, knew, though, that she would never return to Priory Point.
Ever.
Penny grimaced. Perhaps the maid wished to never return either. Of course, the servants experienced their own grief.
Grief was everywhere.
Oh God…
One would have thought that the private, collapsed road was the height of London traffic, for all of the carriages and horses and activity. Dev arrived just as the duchess and Sophia were being carefully led around the landslide.
Of course, they would be going to London. He’d passed the caravan of coffins a few hours earlier. The coffins had been packed in ice and the coaches covered in black.
The duke and St. John.
And his father.
Dev dismounted and made his way around the awaiting vehicles. His aunt, he recognized easily by her posture and the dignity with which she carried herself.
Behind her, he’d had to search behind the black veil, in order to recognize Sophia. Peaches was tucked beneath her chin.
Burly servants escorted the ladies around the nearly non-existent road.
This was where it had occurred.
The dried mud preserved the marks where the wheels had slid over the side, and others, from the rescue effort — until the next rainstorm anyhow. Apparently, a large rock had given way from below, destabilizing the road above it. They hadn’t stood a chance.
His aunt, he noticed, avoided looking in the direction of the sea. She stared forward, and therefore, saw him first.
“Dev,” she said.
He rushed toward her and took her hands in his.
“Oh, Dev. Such a loss, such a devastating loss for us all!”
He bent forward and kissed her cheek. She stood rigid. She had dawned the mantle of the duchess. “Aunt, I am so sorry, so very sorry.” For everything. God, how sorry he was.
He turned toward Sophia, who had finally torn her gaze away from the large gap where the road had once been. “My lady,” he said. He tried to speak to her with his eyes, if ever he could.“This is not your fault,”he would have them say.“I will find Harold,”he would want her to know.
I love you.
He could barely see her eyes, hidden by the black veil. She curtseyed in his direction. “Captain,” she said softly.
