Which meant his first order of business would be working with Bell to investigate Malcolm’s death. There were many questions, so many questions Phillip didn’t yet know the answers to. But he knew one thing for certain…anyone involved in his brother’s death, and anyone who might hurt Sophie, would pay.
Chapter Six
“Valentina, please sit down. You’re wearing a hole in the rug,” Sophie said as her stepmother passed by her seat for what felt like the hundredth time that morning. The three of them were in Papa’s gold salon, where Valentina had just finished reading the paper and had turned it over to Papa with a disgusted grunt.
Papa was sitting on the sofa busily studying the Society pages, while Valentina continued to walk back and forth in front of him, her eyes narrowed and a sour expression on her face. If you asked Sophie, pacing was a completely useless endeavor.
“I cannot sit down,” Valentina replied, turning again with a sharp flip of her bright pink skirts. Her fists were clenched at her sides, and she was nearly shaking with nerves. “Your entire future…our family’s entire future is at stake here, Sophia, and you act as if nothing has happened.”
Last night in the lady’s retiring room at the Cranberrys’ ball, Valentina had seemed unconcerned by Phillip’s return. This morning, she was nearly unstrung, and Sophie suspected her stepmother’s conversation with Lord Hillsdale was the reason for her change in temperament.
“What can we do about it?” Sophie replied, wanting to sigh, but not daring to. Valentina didn’t take kindly to her sighs. “Worrying won’t solve the problem,” Sophie pointed out.
Valentina glared at her. “Do you hear this, Roger?” she asked Papa, plunking her hands on her hips.
Sophie lowered her gaze to roll her eyes. Another reaction Valentina didn’t care for, and whenever Valentina didn’t like something that Sophie said or did, she complained to Papa.
“I’m trying to read, dearest,” Papa replied, in his appeasing-Valentina voice, still intently studying the paper.
“Well, read faster,” Valentina snapped. “This problem will not solve itself.”
Sophie turned her attention back to the horticulture book she was pretending to read. She didn’t care a whit about horticulture, but tending a garden seemed like a lovely pastime and if she were going to pretend to like something, it might as well be horticulture. Besides, books one didn’t care a whit about were the perfect choice of reading material when one could not concentrate.
Sophie had spent a sleepless night in her bed, a bevy of thoughts racing through her mind one after another. They were still racing. She might not be pacing like Valentina, but that didn’t mean Sophie wasn’t every bit as anxious.
Last night, she and Valentina had ridden home from the Cranberrys’ ball in complete silence. For once, her normally overly talkative stepmother didn’t say a word. She’d just sat in stony silence, staring out the window, her arms crossed over her chest. That had been Sophie’s first clue that whatever Lord Hillsdale had told Valentina hadn’t pleased her.
Sophie had been grateful for Valentina’s silence. She’d had her own thoughts to contend with. Besides the dread she always felt in a coach because of the space being so tight and close, a riot of emotions had streamed through her last night, leaving her feeling like a used handkerchief. She wanted to climb into bed and sleep until the Season ended. She wanted to rage against the unfairness of life. She’d wanted to step on Phillip’s foot after he’d had the audacity to say, “It appears I am too late,” when she’d asked him if he’d intended to offer for her. And why had she asked him such an outlandish thing? The words had just spilled from her lips without examination. Her anger had reached a boiling point when she’d remembered that the last words he’d said to her before they parted on the Miltons’ balcony—just before he’d gone to war—and they had come back to taunt her last night. “I cannot ask you to wait for me, Sophie, but if you do, I will offer for you the moment I return.” Those words ripped at her heart, making a mockery of all her dreams.
She’d been so hurt by his reply last night, she’d run from the salon like a coward. She hated herself for doing that. Lady Clayton had followed her and tried to speak with her, but Sophie had steadfastly refused, asking the viscountess to return to the party without her.
In bed later, however, Sophie had plenty of time to think about what a fool she’d been for being so hurt and angry. After all, she was betrothed to someone else. Phillip’s first cousin, no less. She certainly never would have agreed to the engagement if she’d known Phillip was still alive. But Phillip didn’t know that. The whole thing was maddening. Maddening, dispiriting, and awful. It was all three, and that was all there was to it.
Sophie had always counted herself a positive person. She preferred to be pleasant and look on the brighter side of any issue. But even a positive person was hard-pressed to find the bright side of this debacle. What were they to do now? Any of them? It wasn’t as if she could cry off from Hugh and declare her undying love for Phillip. She didn’t even know Phillip any longer. Apparently, she never had, if he was the sort of man who would deceive her about something as important as his own death. Besides, Phillip hadn’t given her any indication that he still felt the same for her. It stood to reason that he did not. A man in love would hardly keep the news of his survival from his beloved. And if that wasn’t confusing enough, then there was Hugh.
Hugh had never arrived last night. At first, Sophie hadn’t been able to decide if that was a good or a bad thing. After much consideration during the wee hours of the morning, she’d finally decided on good. She couldn’t have stood it if she’d had to face him, too. Hugh was an odd duck. The man had been pursuing her for some time now, ever since he arrived in town and took up the title last year. Sophie had thought little of him during his first several weeks in town. But somehow, he and Valentina had become thick as thieves, and Valentina had pushed Sophie and Hugh together at every opportunity.
It had ended in Valentina and Papa forcing Sophie to accept Hugh’s suit a fortnight ago. And Sophie had agreed, mainly because it was easier to become engaged than to argue with Valentina about it any longer. And if Sophie were betrothed, she could at least attend social events without Valentina constantly bringing up the fact that she wasn’t engaged. With Phillip no longer alive, Sophie cared little about who she was betrothed to. But she had asked both Papa and Valentina about a nice, long engagement. Perhaps she would at least develop a friendship with Hugh. She didn’t know him well, and what she did know about him wasn’t particularly attractive. Oh, he was a good enough looking man, though hardly as handsome as Phillip. But Hugh was arrogant and could be tactless. He was prone to lying to make himself look better. And on more than one occasion she’d heard him be outright ill-mannered to people, usually servants and those he considered beneath him socially.
It wasn’t unheard of for a betrothed couple in their set to be as unfamiliar with each other as she and Hugh were, but it certainly was not Sophie’s preference. She’d always had her heart set on marrying for love. And she’d believed that Phillip would make that dream come true.
Sophie continued to stare unseeing at the pages of the large book opened on her lap. She didn’t want to think about Phillip. Every time she did, it felt as if her heart were in a vise, and she couldn’t breathe. Instead, she would focus her thoughts on Hugh. Hugh who made her feel nothing more than mild distaste. She could breathe just fine when thinking about Hugh.
What would Hugh say when he did finally show his face? No doubt he would have a slew of questions for her, beginning with why was she seen talking to his cousin soon after his entrance to the ball last night? What would she tell him? She had told no one about her past with Phillip. Not Valentina or Papa. Valentina wouldn’t have been happy. She’d always told Sophie she would be a duchess one day and marrying the younger brother of a duke was not the way to go about it. Why her stepmother was so obsessed with the idea of Sophie becoming a duchess, Sophie would never know. Valentina often prattled on about her own missed opportunities and the need to be connected to the ‘right’ sort of people. Whatever that meant.
Sophie hadn’t given a toss about being a duchess. All she’d ever wanted was to be loved and love someone completely in return. And she had loved Phillip. So much. Her chest ached when she thought about how very much she had loved him. How devastated she’d been the day she’d learned of his death. But now…now she didn’t even know who he was. Or where he’d been all these months.
Her emotions were bouncing about. She was angry. She was sad. She was—ecstatic? For one heart-stopping moment when she’d seen Phillip standing there at the front of the ballroom, alive and well, her heart had hammered so hard in her chest she thought she might faint. But she wasn’t a fainter, and soul-simmering anger had quickly swept through her, replacing her joy at once more seeing the face she’d loved for so long. It hadn’t been a choice, really, the decision to approach him. Her feet had moved of their own accord.
She glanced over at Valentina again. The woman was still pacing and fanning herself so rapidly that Sophie thought the fan might snap in half. Sophie closed her eyes and sank back into her seat, letting the book fall against her chest. Her head was throbbing, and she felt vaguely ill. How in the world would all of this end?
“It says here you must have confronted Phillip Grayson for ruining your chances of becoming a duchess,” Papa reported from the sofa, the paper splayed wide in front of his face. “It says you looked quite angry.”
Sophie groaned. Valentina had been right. The ton had assumed the worst. The thought made Sophie want to growl. She took a deep breath and reminded herself that it would give everyone something to believe, at least. She and Phillip knew the truth, so what did it matter?
“They wonder why Hugh wasn’t at the ball last night,” Papa reported next. “They guess he may have known that his cousin Phillip was returning.”
“Yes,” Valentina said, her fan still shaking in her hand, anger simmering in her voice. “I have the same question myself. I intend to ask Hugh the moment he arrives.”
