Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Everything and yet nothing in Sophie’s life seemed to have shifted over the course of the night. It was like a heavy snowfall that blankets the world in white while one sleeps, transforming everything outdoors, though one’s indoor life did not change in the least.
She was engaged to be married. To Andrew Langford of all people. She would be a wife… and yet her day-to-day was unlikely to change a whit.
Her eyes traced the woodwork on the ceiling. What would it be like to have someone who supported her goals? To have Andrew, her dear friend, by her side as she navigated the future that had always appeared murky and uncertain, most especially since Grandfather had died.
Bless Andrew for saving her future. For improving it.
The foreign bed she lay in was impossibly plush and warm, and maybe if she did not move, she would not have to face this puzzling new world outside of it.
Yet, minutes of closing her eyes tight shut only conjured up images of sitting on the horse with Andrew’s arms around her, and the odd twisting in her stomach told her perhaps she needed to break her fast before meeting the day.
As she pinned her hair and dressed herself in the quiet, spacious room, the disparity of her situation and Andrew’s became all the more stark.
His family and hers were of a similar level of wealth and prosperity, but she had turned her back on hers, preferring to make her way in the world.
Even Grandfather did not live in such luxury.
Yet now she found herself back in the exact world she’d abandoned, and it felt as uncomfortable as an incorrect integer in a complicated equation.
Would she make a good wife? Even one in name only?
Would she fit in Society enough to help Andrew reach his goals?
It was all rather unsettling.
There was a light tap on her door, and she strode across the room—it took far longer than crossing her small quarters at the Bristol Seminary would have—and pulled it open.
Andrew stood there, his dark hair swept back in waves from his temples, holding a tray of food, and appearing for all the world as if he was just as discomfited as she felt.
That would not do. They had never tiptoed around each other before, and he was the one person she could count on these days…
so she was wroth to allow this strange energy to remain between them.
“May I come in?” he asked in a whisper, his blue eyes on her hair and not her face. “I know it is not exactly—”
She pushed the door wider, gesturing him in. “Of course. My husband ought to have access to my rooms.”
He passed her, eyes still averted, and she would swear that was a blush creeping up his neck. Perhaps a bit of teasing was all they needed. Levity to lighten the situation she’d forced them into.
“Should you like to kiss my cheek while we are at it?” She tilted her head, offering the side of her face. “I admit, though it would evidently surprise a great many, I have never before been married… and I am not entirely certain how to proceed.”
She’d expected at least a chuckle, but instead, his eyes finally fastened on hers, surprisingly intense. Had they always been so blue? “We should discuss the… ah… specifics of the arrangement, yes.”
“I jest, Andrew. You need not kiss me.”
In that moment, his gaze dipped down to her lips. Wholly unexpected, a wave of warmth twirled through her midsection, setting her off balance.
“Apologies,” he said, his voice rather rougher than before. “I admit I am not entirely certain how to proceed.” He set the tray on her dressing table, running a hand across his jaw.
“We need not do it at all, you know. You do not need to marry me.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper to match his.
He shook his head. “No. No, that's actually why I came. I wanted to let you know I have obtained the license. I will tell my brother and father when we return so they can act as our witnesses. We can leave whenever you wish.” He watched her, open hands on his hips.
He’d already managed it? At what time did the man wake in the morning?
She grabbed some fruit from the tray. “I suppose I am ready then.”
He eyed her meager choice. “Nothing else?”
She shook her head. Where before she’d thought she might be hungry, now she thought perhaps her stomach was unsettled instead.
“Might I carry your bag, then?”
“Ah, so you are to be the solicitous sort of husband?” She tried for humor again, and this time, he caught on.
“I suppose so,” he said with a crooked grin as he stepped around her to grab the bag that lay packed on a chair. An actual grin on the stoic Andrew Langford’s face. It transformed his already handsome visage to something rather boyish. She liked it. A great deal.
“Why are you looking at me in that way?” Andrew had paused and was staring at her as she stared at him.
“I was just thinking about how handsome you are,” she said, slipping a hand around his upper arm and leaning in, trying not to notice just how solid the muscles beneath his coat were. “How lucky I am to have captured myself such a pretty husband.”
He spluttered. “Did you sleep well last night, Sophie? I fear our horse ride yesterday may have jostled you overmuch.”
The horse ride. Yes. For some reason, her cheeks heated at the reminder. Goodness, but maybe more than just the appearance of her life had changed overnight. She didn’t feel at home in her own body anymore.
Andrew opened the door for them, using the hand that also held her bag, and doing so with impressive speed. He glanced out, then led her into the deserted hallway, eyes back on hers in a questioning manner.
She shrugged a shoulder, playing off her internal warfare as nothing above trifling. “I am simply grateful to you for saving me. I think I must have been unaware just how much the last week had been weighing on me. I feel lighter now.”
He stopped at the edge of the hall, just shy of turning onto the landing. Those clear blue eyes focused on hers, flitted away, then back. “I need to tell you something about that, Sophie.” He swallowed. “You need not feel such gratitude to me.”
Her brows lifted at his evident discomposure. “I cannot see how I should not,” she returned. The man was quite literally altering the course of his life for her.
He adjusted his hold on her bag. “It is only that this benefits me as well.”
Huh. She released his arm, turning so she could see him better.
He adjusted his cravat.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said.
Look at him how? She was only curious. “How does it benefit you?”
He scratched the back of his neck. “You see, there was this wager with some of my school friends. Ridiculous, really. The stupid stuff of young, frightened men… but I have to marry soon or else I would owe my friends a small fortune.”
Her brows pulled together. “You wagered on your own marriage?” She’d never have taken him for a betting man. With his background in banking and mathematics, he would know better than most how unreliable those probabilities could be.
“Not exactly. Or, well, yes, I suppose so. The last of us to marry owes a forfeit to the rest, and I suppose you could say the gauntlet was rethrown just last week.”
Sophie processed that, lips bit together. Did it change how she felt about him helping her? Marginally—but only because it made her feel less in his debt. This was a mutual benefit to them both. A marriage in name only, both to reach their goals.
A business transaction, such as he would enact at his bank.
It all made sense to her now. Andrew was logical and honorable. He saw a friend in need and a logical solution to both of their problems, and acted accordingly.
Something squirmed in her at that, which was highly illogical. She should be relieved, not… dismayed? No, she was not dismayed in the least. Of course not.
She shifted, meeting his eyes, which flickered with anxiety. “Very well,” she said.
He squinted at her. “That is all?”
“Thank you for telling me.”
Still, he did not move, except to shift his feet. “You do not feel that I’ve used you ill or otherwise?”
“Ought I to?”
“I certainly hope not.”
She smiled. “Then I do not. Now, based on how each of our exchanges has been whispered, I imagine you do not wish to wake the household on our way out?” Did he have a poor relationship with his family?
She did not recall them being estranged—quite the opposite.
But a great deal could happen in six years.
After all, she’d become a true mathematician, taught at a school, been mistakenly given a job under the impression she was a man, and, evidently, been married twice—both falsely.
“Oh, well, I do not mind if—”
“Sneaking off, are you brother?” Andrew’s older brother appeared on the other side of the landing, at the edge of what she assumed to be the family wing of the home.
He walked with a stick he clearly did not need, and his waistcoat was as bright as Andrew’s was monotone.
His eyes swung to Sophie. “Father told me we had a guest that you would be escorting back to London today.” Then they swung back to Andrew, mouth twisting.
“‘I have to return to the bank,’ he says.” He winked with a chuckle.
Andrew looked heavenward, apparently seeking divine help.
“Miss Renard,” Geoffrey Langford added, stopping in front of them with a bow. “I was under the impression you’d married in Bristol. What is the proper surname to call you?”
Sophie glanced at Andrew, but he was watching his brother with a guarded expression. Still, before she could speak, he did so on her behalf. “Miss Renard is the correct address.”
“I am sorry to hear it.”
Sorry for what, though? Did he assume her husband was deceased? That she had been unsuccessful on the marriage mart? Something else entirely?
“We require an early start, Geoffrey; it has been—well, I will see you soon, I am sure.” Andrew began to take Sophie’s hand again, threading it through his arm.
“Might I have a word before you leave? In private?” Mr. Langford seemed suddenly far more serious than usual.
Andrew noticed the change as well, if his lift of a brow was any indication. “I will meet you in the carriage,” he said to Sophie, though it came out rather like a question, to which she nodded.
But walking away from the brothers brought about a second wave of emotion she was unaccustomed to, and frankly, struggled to interpret. Was she relieved or bereft?