A fierce eyeroll suggested he’d gone wrong again. ‘More importantly, what does Miss Jacobs think?’
It was ungentlemanly to smirk, but he couldn’t help it as Sophia quickly rearranged her features, trying but failing to look normal as the attention switched to her. ‘I think I agree with Lord Christopher. It is a little soon when we do not know each other.’
Sophia’s mother let out a tinkling laugh that had probably been considered charming in her younger years. ‘Oh, my dear, you do not need to worry about that. I’d barely said two words to your father before our wedding day and our marriage has been a blessed union.’
‘But…’
Whatever Sophia had been about to say was cut short by her mother. ‘I am afraid I must also say, bluntly, that leaving it too longmay give those dreadful gossips something to talk about. And, well, I am sure your sisters will weather it all just fine, but I would not want the risk of it harming their prospects.’
Sophia paled but whether that was in horror at the suggestion or anger at the unfairness of it all, Christopher couldn’t tell. He pressed his lips together to stop himself from blurting out that it was one of her daughters’ fault they were in this mess in the first place. Such an outburst would be rude, even if true, and might make life harder for Sophia. Smoothing non-existent wrinkles out of his pantaloons, he realised that it mattered to him if she were upset, which was odd, considering before last night, he hadn’t known her at all.
‘If we settle on a date in mid-June, that will give us eight weeks.’ Christopher was surprised his voice was coming out calm and rational, as if it were an everyday occurrence to discuss something so monumental. Perhaps because he knew it would not happen. Sophia wasn’t looking at him any more, intently studying her fingers, which were resting on her lap – he hoped the message behind his statement was clear to her; they had plenty of time to call it off.
‘It is settled then,’ said Mrs Jacobs. ‘June it is.’ Sophia’s fingers flexed, the only sign that she had heard her mother, but she said nothing. ‘We must not trespass on your hospitality any longer.’
Everyone moved to stand, and panic hit Christopher hard in the stomach. For all their talking, they did not have a plan; that she could leave this room without them formulating one was a very real possibility. ‘If I may have a word with my betrothed before you leave, I should be grateful,’ he said.
He could not let her leave until they had some sort of decision. It would not be easy to break this betrothal, the scandal would have huge consequences, but he did not want it to go on for a long time. In early July, he had plans to travel to the country and stay with William, agood friend of his who had recently inherited a rather large estate and had the wealth to throw an excellent party with no one around to prevent it being an absolute riot. This debacle of an engagement needed to be done and dusted by then.
He half-expected there to be a protest about the two of them being left alone together. But it turned out that the strict rules did not seem to apply now that there was a wedding in the near future. Freddie and Emily led Mrs Jacobs away; both Christopher and Sophia watched them leave, listening until their voices were only a murmur. As the sounds moved away, he could see Sophia’s shoulders tighten until the point they looked ready to snap.
‘I cannot believe you agreed to a date,’ Sophia burst out, her eyes wild. ‘Once she books that church, which she will today or tomorrow because getting one of her daughters married off this Season will be a triumph, getting out of it will be even harder.’ Her hands covered her face and she groaned. ‘I will never be able to show my face at church again after this.’
‘You can find some flaw in my character as a reason to call it off. Nobody will question you because, as you have pointed out, I do not have the best reputation. As for the church, it can be cancelled easily enough. Happily, I have enough money to offer a donation in order to make up for any inconvenience caused.’ His words didn’t appear to cut through her misery, which was probably fair. He was making light of something that was, in fact, an enormous problem. ‘Shall we arrange a date to discuss how we are going to behave over the next few weeks in more detail?’
Seeming to collect herself, she pressed her fingertips together. ‘Very well, that is a good idea. What should you like to do?’
‘Um…’ He racked his brains trying to think of a suitable excursion for a young lady. ‘What is it that you normally do?’
‘I like to visit exhibitions and read about them when I can. I dabble with watercolours, write letters, talk with my sisters, play whist with them, if we can agree not to fall out beforehand, eat ices. You know, that sort of thing.’ A tinge of pink crossed her cheeks. ‘It probably sounds terribly dull to you.’
He found he did not like the despondency in her voice, as if she believed he thought her life boring. ‘Do you know, I have never had an ice.’
The misery that had been evident in her expression disappeared in an instant to be replaced with wide-eyed shock. ‘How is that possible? You must be in your twenties. There must have been thousands of times when you could have had one.’
‘I am two and twenty and there has never been an opportunity.’ Which, now that he said it, sounded faintly ridiculous. He could easily ask for one to be added to the duke’s menu or go to a tea shop which served them by the hundreds. ‘Perhaps we could go to Gunter’s for our first excursion together.’
She clapped her hands together. ‘I should like that. I love ices and I would like to see you try your first one.’ Whether she knew it or not, she had an impish smile that changed her face completely.
Before he had time to dwell on how much it suited her, he said, ‘Very well, I shall call for you on Thursday afternoon, if that suits.’
‘It does, thank you.’
Despite warning himself against indulging in looking at her for too long, he couldn’t help but gaze down at her. A strange pang swelled around his heart as she smiled up at him through long lashes. Just as her smile changed the way she looked, so too did the look in her eyes, which were remarkably beautiful and extraordinarily expressive. A weaker man could lose himself in their depths.
Turning away from her abruptly, he indicated that she should precede him out of the lounge, which turned out to be a mistake. Following her, he noted how some of her curls had escaped from her bonnet and were falling down the back of her long neck. His fingers ached with the urge to brush them off her skin. Damnation. He did not want to start noticing attractive things about this woman. She was as off-limits as any young, unmarried woman; just because they were betrothed did not mean he could kiss her. If he followed through on one, or on any, of the relatively innocent things his mind was suggesting, there would be no way out of this betrothal.
As he led her towards the foyer, he remarked on small, inconsequential things, such as the weather, reminding himself to be careful. Developing a tendre for his pretend betrothed would spell disaster for him. Neither of them had any intention of marrying one another and her heart lay with a man who was, if she were to be believed, nothing like him. A broken heart was something he had promised himself he would never suffer from, and it was not an oath he wanted to break.
Chapter Six
By the time Thursday morning came around, Christopher had managed to convince himself that the strange attraction he’d felt over his fake betrothed was a momentary lapse. He had barely thought about her in the two days that had passed since he had last seen her, and he was only thinking of her now because he was wondering how long he had left in this game of hide and seek before he had to go and get ready.
At around three and a half years of age, his niece, Charlotte, still didn’t quite understand how to play this game. Although they had moved on from the days where she expected either everyone to hide or everyone to seek, there was still some confusion over the rules. He wasn’t hiding in a place that was hard to find, under a chaise longue against a wall, and, after a scare where they had thought they had lost Charlotte last year, his head was free so that he could keep his eye on her and make sure she did not run off. Even so, the game was taking an age. It seemed Charlotte could not begin to seek him until Dolly, her favourite toy, was also hidden. As she was the only one allowed to touch Dolly, it made the whole thing rather pointless, but all he and any of his brothers cared about was that Charlotte was happy. They were going to have to make sure she didn’t become the most spoilt girl imaginable, because they all indulged her far too much.
Christopher didn’t mind. It gave him more time to lie on his back and stare at the ornate painting on the ceiling above him, a scene that never failed to amuse him. He often wondered if his parents had decided to have the design placed there and, if they had, what on earth had possessed the people he could not remember to have it done. It had to be they who had commissioned the illustration, because the alternative was Tobias and that was an impossibility. His oldest brother was as serious as night and would not have paid someone for the frolicking, naked cherubs. The scene was wildly odd and quite disturbing if one pondered it for any length of time.
‘Dolly, you hide there. No, I can see you.’ Charlotte’s laughter rang out, pure and full of joy. Christopher would never admit to his friends, who saw him as something of a rakehell, that his heart squeezed whenever he heard his niece so obviously happy. The soft, gentle emotion didn’t fit in with the image of a Corinthian he had cultivated over the last few years, but it was the part of him that valued her happiness over everything else in his life. His own childhood had been… not as good if one were being polite about it, and to be part of bringing happiness into his niece’s world was one of the best things he had done with his life.
