“Good morning, Laura. You are up early,” Sophia said, producing a smile, though her expression was wary.
“It is not all that early. You look like you did not sleep a wink. Your eyes are all shadowed. May I come in?” Laura added when no invitation was immediately forthcoming.
“Of course.” Early training prevailed and the younger girl stepped back, though with palpable reluctance. “I had a headache last night and did not sleep well.”
“Was the headache named Mildmay?”
“What do you mean?”
Laura did not reply at first. Her eyes were searching her cousin’s, which skittered away as Sophia gestured to a chair.
“Sit down.”
“Not yet. Look, cousin, if I am overstepping the bounds, do not hesitate to slap me down, and I promise it will not happen again. Are Sir Cyril Mildmay’s attentions to you unwelcome?”
The blunt question seemed to paralyse Sophia. her lashes veiled her eyes and she became entirely still. To Laura’s fancy the silence stretched until it fairly screamed.
“Very well,” she said with a sigh. “Forgive me.” She turned to the door.
“Wait!”Sophia’s voice, though desperate, was pitched barely above a whisper. “Don’t go, Laura. Yes, yes, they are unwelcome! I … I find them — him — completely repugnant.” Suddenly the words came forth like a torrent from a breached dam, and her stillness erupted into uncontrolled movement. She rubbed her temples with white-tipped fingers and dropped on to a chair, only to bounce off it the next instant, twisting her fingers together while she paced angrily. “At first I was polite, then when I understood… I tried to discourage him. I refused his invitations when I could, and talked to others, and ignored him sitting there like a vulture waiting to swoop. I —”
“Have you told your father how you feel?”
Sophia’s eyes evaded hers and she shook her head. “At first I thought it was simply a matter of making my indifference clear to Sir Cyril; then when Papa announced that we were to go to the theatre as his guests, I intended to tell him that I dislike the man, but there was never a moment when I could work up to thesubject. He was always too busy to listen to me. And then last night…” Her voice trailed away and Laura saw the dread in her huge dark eyes.
“You are afraid that your father looks with favour on Sir Cyril’s suit?”
“Y … yes, but howcouldhe when my actions — I can scarcely believe that … that —”
“You are torturing yourself with uncertainty. Ask him.”
Sophia’s brown eyes sought Laura’s in trepidation. “But what will I do if he … if… ?” Again she could not finish.
For a moment Laura bit her lip and was silent, then she said softly, “When I was seventeen my father tried to make a match for me with the son of our nearest neighbour.” Her mouth twisted in pain. “Does that sound like Lucinda’s case? It isn’t. I had always detested the man and refused to marry him.”
“What happened?” Sophia stared, wide-eyed.
Laura’s were hard as flint, did she but know it, but her voice was uninflected. “From the moment he had to accept that I would not budge, until he took his last breath, my father treated me as if I were a loathsome object he wished he could ignore completely.”
Sophia shuddered. “What did you do?” she whispered. “How could you bear it?”
Laura shrugged. “I acted as if I despised him as much in return, which was not true, and kept reminding myself that a wretched marriage would be even worse. I am not advising you to do what I did, only to know what consequences to expect from whatever decision you make before you make it.”
“Did you?” A tiny smile trembled on the younger girl’s lips for an instant.
“No.” Laura’s answering smile was rueful. “But I learned.”
Sophia was no longer looking haggard but thoughtful. “Thank you for telling me this, Laura. I believe I will wait a bit longerbefore talking to my father. Perhaps Sir Cyril will decide that an unwilling bride is a bad bargain in the long run.”
“I hope so,” Laura said, concealing her fears on this head behind an encouraging smile as she headed for the door again.
“Laura, I am grateful to you and Aunt Annabelle for your assistance last night. I would have dearly loved to shove the odious creature over the wall of that box!”
“No, no, you did right to refrain — too many witnesses,” Laura observed, laughing as she went out of the room.
The laughter ended on the other side of the door. It was not a laughing matter, nor could she claim to have accomplished anything tangible by barging in on her cousin uninvited and forcing her confidence. Unless it helped to learn that one was not alone, that others had gone through similar experiences and emerged more or less intact.
Except to her mother, Laura had never spoken of her battle of wills with her father. Something — pride or shame, or family loyalty, perhaps — had kept her lips sealed until now, but she had wanted to offer her cousin some human comfort and support. She told herself that Sophia had appeared more alert and hopeful when they had parted just now.
