Chapter Fourteen
Sophia’s uncertainty over Roxboro, the freckle that might have not been a freckle, the bloody bergamot scent that seemed infused into his skin now, but hadn’t been the night of at the Perswick ball and that…kiss, persisted during the entirety of the wedding breakfast.
The panic would grow by leaps and bounds, then dissipate, only to return more forcefully moments later. The sense that something was…wrong persisted. Sophia stared at Roxboro’s nose for so long while toying with her poached chicken, he finally leaned towards her and asked if she was foxed.
“That is more your area of expertise, Your Grace,” she said, trying to avoid looking at his nose.
“Just so,” Roxboro gave her a roguish wink. “A rather pleasant state of being. I’m well on my way.” His mood was…friendly today, which left Sophia even more unsettled. She’d expected Roxboro might ignore her. Or be unkind.
A glass of scotch remained at her husband’s elbow the entire meal, never once allowed to go empty. Whenever the amber liquid dipped, even slightly, Lord Damon would wave for one of the footmen to refill his nephew’s glass.
That unsettled Sophia nearly as much as Roxboro’s mood. Did Lord Damon want his nephew stumbling about, mind fogged by spirits all the time?
Laughter came from the other side of the table where Mara sat beside Lord Caster. Lady Rose was on Caster’s other side, while Violet sat directly across from Sophia. In a mild breach of conduct, Roxboro had insisted Sophia take the chair to his right instead of the opposite side of the table.
Every so often, Violet would leave the conversation between Caster and the other two women, so that her shrewd gaze could linger on Sophia.
Given the circumstances, it was hard to blame her.
Clearly, Violet didn’t believe the tale her cousin and Sophia had been courting in secret, and had questions.
But the most interesting thing about Violet, outside of the throaty way she laughed, was the way she kept her distance from Damon Viceroy.
Violet was polite, of course. Courteous. But she did not engage her father in conversation. Nor once after offering a greeting, look in his direction.
She doesn’t like Damon. Something we have in common.
“I regret our first meeting is over aspic and an overly large fruitcake, Your Grace,” Violet said to Sophia. There was no malice in her dark eyes, so like her father’s, though Violet’s were far less calculating.
She didn’t respond immediately, not realizing that Violet was addressing her.
Roxboro kicked her under the table.
“Stop doing that,” Sophia said under her breath, before kicking him back. “I too am chagrined we could not be acquainted earlier.”
Violet watched the exchange between Sophia and Roxboro, lips twisting upward just slightly. “Poor of you, Xander, not to introduce us sooner, given you were…courting.”
“I’m poor at a great many things, Vi.”
“Not everything, Xander.” A fleeting emotion crossed her features. “You do have some talents.”
Roxboro snorted. “Hear, hear.”
Violet took in Sophia for another moment. “Tell me, Your Grace, do you have hobbies?”
Roxboro nudged her thigh. “She’s speaking to you.”
Sophia grabbed her knife. “I’m aware.” She gave him a cutting look before turning to Violet. “I like to read,” she replied to Violet. “A great deal as it happens. I might be something of a bluestocking according to Lady Canterbell. Museums interest me.”
“Do you ride?” Violet’s lips twitched once more.
“Far too bouncy,” Sophia answered without thinking.
“That’s probably for the best,” she glanced at Roxboro once more. “Needlework?”
“No, I’m afraid not. I kept pricking my finger. Blood everywhere. Nor gardening, I’m afraid. I’ve tried with violets, but they often end up dead. I was once advised to start a collection of seaweed by a group of academics I met at the museum.”
“Seaweed?” Violet’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“Apparently it is nearly as popular as the collecting of ferns. The ladies had formed a club to discuss the techniques of collecting seaweed. They found the task to be…stimulating.” Sophia took a sip of her wine.
Champagne had been offered, but she’d declined.
“But alas, I found seaweed collection to be boring. I’m entirely unexceptional, I fear,” she smiled at Violet.
Sophia could hurl a good insult. Punch decently as Mara could attest. Throw books, hairbrushes, rocks and the occasional slipper with varying degrees of accuracy, but those were all useless skills for a young lady.
“Oh, I disagree, Your Grace.” Violet cast one more look at Roxboro and then returned to the conversation with Lord Caster, who Mara was questioning about the Dunkirk house party.
“You’re a bluestocking. I should have guessed,” Roxboro drawled in that silky, bored tone.
“You might try a book instead of spirits,” Sophia retorted. “They are the rectangle shaped things covered in leather and full of words.”
Violet, across the table, placed a hand over her mouth as if to stifle a laugh.
“God,” Roxboro, her husband—a strange, wildly terrifying thought—rumbled in a low tone. “You are terrible. With a tendency to fall into melancholy.”
“I will agree to terrible. Nor do I suffer from melancholia. I am merely considering whether I should drown myself in the white wine sauce covering the turbot.” Sophia was suddenly, intimately aware that she would not be leaving with her parents and Mara once the meal was over.
The same sensation had struck her earlier, when she and Roxboro arrived, as she looked up at this magnificent house.
This was now Sophia’s home. Even now, Ann, her maid, was upstairs unpacking her things.
“I did offer you my flask on the way. You declined.”
“It is still quite early in the day, Your Grace.” She turned to her parents. Mama was engaged in conversation with the Dowager Marchioness of Caster and Papa was speaking to Damon and Lady Falmouth. Neither were overly concerned with Sophia. Or that she’d possibly wed Roxboro under false—
It is impossible, Sophia. Stop thinking of it.
“Time.” Roxboro flicked his wrist. “A social construct. Scotch tastes the same no matter when you have a glass, my unwanted wife.” The hint of a smile on his lips took the sting out of his words. Teasing her again.
“Tell me about your cousins, my sot of a duke,” she returned, nodding just slightly to Rose and Violet. “And Lady Falmouth.”
“Lady Falmouth,” Roxboro said, “isn’t related to me. She is the sister of Damon’s late wife, May. She and my uncle have never really got on.” He tilted his head towards her. “She begged May not to wed him.”
“Hmm.”
“Lady Falmouth feels, strongly, that it is her duty to take Rose and Violet under her wing in the absence of their mother. A direct reflection on her feelings that Damon lacks the skills to parent his daughters. May died,” he closed his eyes in thought.
“Eight years ago. I adored her.” He looked down into his glass of scotch and took a slow breath.
Roxboro had loved May Viceroy.
“In any case, Lady Falmouth faces quite a challenge given the temperaments of my cousins.”
Sophia mulled that over. There were rumors, of course, about the Viceroys, but outside of Roxboro, Rose and Violet had done nothing that was considered reputation damaging.
Not yet. But Sophia could see the arrogance in them both, much like their cousin.
Bred into them. A confidence that the world would simply do as they asked.
Given their looks and pedigree, it likely would.
“My uncle has received numerous offers for them both but has refused them all, though that earl is still mooning over Violet.” Roxboro snapped his fingers. “Woodstone? Woodberry?” He shrugged. “The name escapes me, only the image of a rather timid gentleman resembling a parrot.”
“A parrot?”
“Tuft of hair.” He pointed to the top of his head.
“Sprouting out like feathers. Wouldn’t survive a week with Violet.
She’d have him thrown in a sack and tossed onto a ship bound for India.
Damon’s most fervent desire is that Lady Falmouth cease being a widow and remarry, but she is not inclined to do so probably out of spite. ”
“Why would it matter to him?” Sophia wondered.
“She’s always underfoot and as I said, she and my uncle are amicable, but little else.
Rose,” Roxboro nodded to the dark-haired girl laughing at something Mara imparted.
“Is my uncle’s favorite of my cousins, though he would never admit it.
I suppose because she is the most like him.
” He didn’t elaborate what it meant to be like Damon Viceroy.
“Violet, however, is…less agreeable. Scathing temper, which she loses as frequently as she does at whist.”
Violet had been listening to their conversation, as evidenced by her turning to give Roxboro a pained look. I’m bored; she mouthed.
He lifted his glass to her. “Too bad.”
Violet turned away.
“She’ll likely come to a bad end one day,” he murmured. “She’s quite terrible. Much like you, Your Grace.”
“I’m not terrible. Nor will I come to a bad end. Though I’m certain marriage to you won’t help my prospects.”
Roxboro chuckled into his glass of scotch. “A matter of opinion. I happen to like terrible.” He watched Sophia for a moment, the silver bits in his eyes glowing against the green. “Then there is Uncle Damon.”
“He doesn’t like me,” Sophia blurted out.
“You have a blunt way of speaking, after all, why need to overthink things. But you aren’t wrong. Damon doesn’t care for you at all.”
“That’s rather impolite.” It was one thing to think it, another to hear Damon’s opinion of her voiced aloud.
“To be fair, Your Grace.” An odd look crossed Roxboro’s features. “There are times I don’t think he likes me much either. But do not fear. You won’t see him often. Damon hates the country, so he won’t be coming to The Pillory.”
“The Pillory?” Oh, yes. The somewhat alarming name of Roxboro’s ducal seat.
“It’s a lovely estate, despite the name.
The Romans once had a fort near there and a general, whose name escapes me at the moment, built a series of stone towers.
The towers still stand. None of my ancestors had the desire to tear them down.
The house was built around them. The general kept his wife captive in the largest of the three towers. ”
“Captive?”
“He was gone often, commanding his troops. She was flirtatious and quite beautiful, according to the tale. The tower he locked her in has no windows, only holes large enough to stick one’s head out or perhaps your hands or feet.
Originally, I believe the holes were for defensive reasons.
I’m not sure. But when he took off on one of his campaigns and shut her inside, the only contact with the outside world were those holes.
A prior Duke of Roxboro decided the tower reminded him of a pillory, the sort you use for punishment.
Which is fitting, because being locked in a tower for weeks on end couldn’t have been pleasant.
Up until then, The Pillory was known as Roxboro Woods which isn’t intriguing at all.
” He leaned over, smelling of warm bergamot with a hint of scotch.
Sophia’s pulse instantly quickened. Why must he be so…alluring? She had the urge to push her nose into his chest.
“Good grief,” she choked out loud.
“Don’t worry, Lady Serpent. The tower isn’t habitable.” Roxboro wiggled his brows at her before draining his glass as another was immediately placed at his elbow. “But renovations could be made.”
Sophia looked down at her plate, deciding how to answer. But her husband had already turned away to strike up a conversation with Lord Caster. He ignored her for the remainder of the meal.