Page 37

“Yes.” She traced the rim of the teacup with her thumb. “My parents have always loved Belmaine more than life—the estate, in Sussex, that is. Growing up, Edmund and I were largely without discipline.” She shimmied in her seat, sitting taller. “We lived in this little cottage for years while Belmaine was being renovated. I seldom even wore stockings or shoes in the warmer months. I must’ve been fifteen before I ever stood before the looking glass and saw not a bruise or scratch on myself.”

Mr. Balfour rested his chin on his hand and studied her. “Tell me about him.”

The words stole her breath. He wanted to know? About Edmund?

He cleared his throat and peered into his drink. “Only if you wish it. I only thought, well, he must’ve been quite a man, to serve his country when he had a perfectly safe life waiting for him.”

“Yes. Yes, he was … extraordinary.”

It had been a long time since she’d acknowledged that. She almost dreaded the reminders of him: catching a whiff of the exact tobacco he’d smoked by the open window of his bedchamber, seeing a perfectly cooked kipper he would’ve devoured for breakfast, spotting any type of navy-issued uniform. And yet, those were the very things that let her know he had been real. He was still loved.

“He had a ludicrous laugh. And he employed it often.” She peered sidelong at Mr. Balfour. He was smiling at her. “And he and his friends were horrendously mischievous. Think chickens let into the sitting room and my favorite dolls dismembered.”

“That sounds like quite a childhood.”

She matched his smile. “Yes. I wish …” If she continued, she would be revealing yet another thing she’d never bared to anyone. “I wish I could return to that life. The cottage and the chicken feathers on the sofa. Just happy.”

“Perhaps you can.”

“No. My parents would never—it’s up to me, you see, to mend some of what they lost when Edmund passed. They begged him not to enlist, it wasn’t his place, they said, but he wasn’t the listening type. Not when he cared so much about something.” She took a sip. “He eventually ran off to the naval academy in Portsmouth. We all learned to live with the idea, because we had to. And for a few years he was fine. I’d never seen him prouder than when he passed his lieutenant’s examination.”

Less than a year later, he died. She focused on her teacup and let the seconds lapse.

“So, you’ve set out to wed someone who will take your father’s place in an obligation of duty?” Mr. Balfour barely phrased it as a question. She nodded anyway. “So no grand loves, then.”

She laughed dryly. “I would first have to believe in it to seek it. Or perhaps it’s that I have no desire to test whether I believe in it. Loving those we must love is difficult enough. I’d hate to add more strife where choice is concerned.” Now she could taste the careful balance of tang against sweetness, soothing on her palate.

“Hmph. Never thought of it like that.” He took a slow sip of his own. “Anything my father claims to love about me is conditional. If I stopped acting in his service he would certainly see me to the devil.”

“And nothing I do for my parents is ever noticed, but if I were to stop, they should send me to the devil as well.”

He turned his smile on her. The fire sparked somewhere behind him, illuminating the red of his hair. A short lock brushed his forehead, begging to be touched. Between the spiced switchel in her hands and him at her side, it truly did smell like the comfort of a holiday. This sort of candid discussion, this communion of unbridled truths, made even the worst of her problems shrink at the edges. Even if just a little. Even if just for tonight.

Sophie laughed. A small giggle that spiraled into a string of them. She sighed, slid her cup forward, and lay her head down on the table. The rippled wood felt strange against her forehead. “What a wretched mess it all is,” she said.

“Life tends to go that way.”

They were quiet for a long spell, with only the sound of the fire and Mr. Balfour’s cup reconnecting with its saucer for sound. Sophie took a full breath.

“When I told you I was sorry earlier, I meant it. I know it doesn’t change anything. Your loss was enormous. Mine was very different. Not at all the same.” His voice was soft, like it had been when they were in his office, when he’d held her and brushed his lips to her forehead.

God. His lips had been against her skin.

“What little you’ve told me of your brother, I’ve no doubt he was a good man.”

“He was.” She turned her head so that her left cheek pressed against the warm oak. Her line of sight consisted only of his hands, lightly freckled and callous-roughened, loosely encircling his teacup. “He was far better than me. I question every day why it couldn’t have been me.”

His hands moved. The cup and saucer were pushed forward, slowly, until she couldn’t see them anymore. And then, even slower, his head came down to rest on the table. Facing her. Even with the light behind him and the shadows between them, Sophie could see his green. See the nearly imperceptible, raised pattern of stubble above his lip.

“Don’t tell me I oughtn’t to say it,” she said quietly. “You’ll ruin our whole evening.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.” His eyes flitted from hers and traveled, as if trying to take in the whole of her at once. She didn’t notice his hand reaching until it was resting on her cheek, his fingers seizing warmly on her ear, in her hair. “I am glad you’re here.”

Oh.

So that was it, then. Months of unbroken, wretched sameness, and this was the moment to break it: the next forever moment. And this one was far from horrible.

This one, she wanted to keep.