Page 131

"You have a caller, Your Grace."

Confusion swept across Arthur’s face. The only gentlemen who ever visited Winworth with any regularity were already beneath his roof; Laurence was standing before him, and Radnor was confined to the guest chambers. His mother, his only remaining family, was equally accounted for, no doubt somewhere in the West Wing, crucifying some unfortunate musician over a misplaced note in preparation for the ball.

Beside him, Laurence raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“She is waiting in the drawing room under Mrs Clapton’s escort,” Ellis continued.

Arthur gave a barely perceptible nod. Ever since Malcolm Eapley's unwelcome visit, no guest was left alone within Winworth until a member of the household had received them.

"Did they give a name?"

Ellis hesitated.

“A Miss Weatherly, Your Grace.”

Chapter 37

For a single heartbeat, the room fell utterly silent. Arthur did not move. He stared at his valet, certain he had misheard.

Laurence looked from Ellis to Arthur, immediately noticing the colour drain from his friend's face.

"...Weatherly?" he heard his friend repeat carefully.

"Yes, Your Grace."

His pulse hammered hard enough to blur the edges of his vision.

Arthur felt his legs move almost of their own accord, carrying him from his office towards the drawing room. They grew strangely heavy beneath him, each step more reluctant than the last. By the time he reached the grand staircase, he could not feel his feet at all.

It was absurd. He had faced death with steadier nerves. Yet as he descended the stairs, he felt like a condemned man walking to the gallows.

He paused outside the drawing room. Instinctively, he straightened his cravat and brushed an imaginary crease from his waistcoat before drawing a slow, measured breath.

Mrs Clapton stood discreetly to one side. Seeing him enter, she offered a respectful curtsey before slipping quietly from the room.

Arthur barely noticed. His attention had already settled upon the woman standing at the window. She had her back to him, slight of build, modestly tall, dressed in a lilac gown delicately embroidered with tiny flowers. Her hair, unmistakably golden, had been arranged into an elegantly neat knot at the nape of her neck.

For one fleeting, impossible moment, he allowed himself to believe Ellis had been mistaken. He cleared his throat.

The woman turned.

Time seemed to stop.

It was her.

"Arty," she breathed, a radiant smile spreading across her fair face as bright hazel eyes found his. Before he had the chance to react, she crossed the room and wrapped him in a brief embrace.

"Goodness..." she laughed softly. "You have hardly changed at all."

"Sophia..." The name barely escaped him.

For a moment, he found himself entirely bereft of words. Standing before him was the face he had loved since he was nineteen years old. He had known every contour of it so intimately that he could have traced each one from memory with perfect clarity. It had haunted him on lonely nights on campaign, on endless rides across the countryside, and even through the fevered haze that followed the duel.

Before him stood the same bright hazel eyes that had once sparkled with endless mischief whenever she succeeded in making him laugh. The same gentle half moon of her smile that had once convinced him, with all the determination only youth could possess, that he had already found the woman he would grow old beside.

And yet, time had touched her too. There were fine lines beneath her eyes now, and her cheeks had sunk a little lower. This did not diminish her beauty. If anything, it spoke of a life fully lived, a life that had continued whilst his own had become sharply divided into before and after her.

His chest tightened unexpectedly. The last time he had looked at her face, it had not worn a smile. Her father had bruised Sophia’s cheek, and her eyes had been swollen from tears she had tried, and failed, to conceal. Arthur remembered reaching for her, and he remembered her stepping away after he failed to protect her that night.