Chapter 17 Friends #2
At the back of her mind was the niggling thought that he was the only man who had ever wanted to marry her, and that she was a fool to turn him away just because he had no money.
He had never pretended to be rich, had never truly deceived her, and if he wanted to marry her for her ten thousand pounds, what was so wrong with that?
She would have a husband who kissed her with an ardour that set her pulse racing and warmed her inside, and they would have enough money to live on without too much scrimping.
And one day, he would be a famous architect, and none of it would matter.
He wrote her a kind little letter, thanking her for the book and the idea of publishing his own work, which he hoped to do very soon.
He had addressed her as ‘Miss Merrington’, which was sadly formal after he had whispered ‘Sophie’ into her ears, but he signed it ‘Yours, Simon Payne’, which was much more promising.
Was he still hers? If she reached out to him, would he smile and hold her and kiss her again?
She shivered. The letter was safely hidden in her reticule during the day, and tucked under her pillow at night, and the maid had contrived to get it to her without Mama or her sisters knowing anything about it.
It was her little secret, and somewhere, deep in her heart, was another secret — that if ever Simon should offer for her again, she would snap him up at once and never let go of him.
***
For several days, Simon kept out of the duke’s way by rarely venturing beyond his own room or Juliet’s.
He went early to the breakfast room, seeing only one or two of the men, who treated him with cool civility.
That was reasonably safe, since the duke breakfasted in his own apartments.
Dinner was too dangerous, so he dined with Juliet in her room, trying to tempt her appetite with the delicious treats sent up by the kitchen.
They, at least, showed nothing but good-natured respect towards them.
He went for a walk in the garden after breakfast, keeping out of sight in the woods and seeing no one but the gamekeeper.
The rest of the time, he sat with Juliet, reading to her as she huddled listlessly by the fire, swathed in a shawl, or else compiling some of his drawings into groups suitable for inclusion in a book.
He was fired with enthusiasm to have a book of his own.
Richard’s cottages were all very well, but there must also be a market for more ambitious schemes, and while he awaited a response from the publisher, he played with ideas for such a book.
He had sent a short note to Sophia to thank her for the suggestion and let her know that he would pursue it.
He received no reply, but he did not expect it.
He knew there could be no further contact.
Perhaps, one day soon, he would leave Staineybank and never see her again.
It was a grief too deep to be borne, but bear it he must, by keeping busy, occupying his mind and his hands, avoiding anything which reminded him that she was lost to him forever.
One day was so wet that he could not take his usual walk in the gardens. There was nowhere in the house that he could walk without the risk of bumping into someone he had sooner not see, so he bethought himself of the chapel gallery. At least it had happy memories.
As soon as he opened the door, he knew she was there.
Even before he saw her, he was aware of the faint hint of her perfume, and the rustle of her gown as she turned towards him.
And there was her sweet face, and all the anguish inside him boiled up and tore at him with such pain that he could only stare at her, drinking in the wonder of seeing her again.
“Simon?” she said tentatively. Her voice was calm, with no trace of the anger which had infused their last encounter.
“I—” Somehow the words would not come.
“Come in,” she said. “I promise not to snap your head off.”
He carefully shut the door, then sat himself at the furthest edge of the bench.
“How is Lady Juliet?” she said. “They would not let me see her. Is there anything I might send, to cheer her up?”
“She is a little better, but still not well. I do not know what she might like… some bonbons, perhaps. She is very fond of bonbons, but we cannot afford them very often.”
“I shall buy her some next time we go to Brinchester. And you? Are you well?”
How to answer such a question? Honestly, he supposed. “I am… well enough.”
She nodded, her face pale even in the gloom of the screened gallery. “So am I — well enough. Getting through the days one by one. Simon — I am sorry I said those things. I did not mean any of them.”
“Oh!” It was more of a long sigh of surprise.
“I do not hate you, not at all, and even if you only wanted to marry me for my fortune, what is wrong with that? It is what everyone does, after all.”
“But I did not!” he cried, stung into speech at last. “It was not only about money, Sophie. It was never that.”
“Oh, I know,” she said, with a quick smile.
“Richard told me everything you said, how you denied it vehemently when the duke accused you of being a fortune hunter, but you did not deny kissing me. And…” She looked down suddenly, her fingers pleating and unpleating the folds of her skirt.
“When you kissed me… that was… not about my fortune. That was how you truly felt.”
He nodded, his throat tight. She understood! She knew how much he loved her.
She looked up at him, and oh, that smile! He was so grateful for that smile of reconciliation. Even if they could never marry, at least she did not hate him, and they could be friends.
“In fact,” she went on, “nothing happened between us until Lord Daniel left and you consoled me. Well… I suppose if we are being honest, something almost happened at Marshfields, did it not? But there again, you were consoling me, trying to reassure me that there was at least one person who admired me. You were comforting me, not trying to secure my affections to yourself.”
“I only ever wanted your happiness,” he said slowly, still unsure whether he could trust his voice.
“Was that why you never interfered when Lord Daniel was around?” she said, laughing suddenly.
“I did interfere, in a way. I helped him, when he could not recognise you.”
“Not recognise me? What do you mean?”
“Did you not notice? When he saw you with all your sisters, you look so alike that he could not tell which was you. I gave him a little hint when I could. ‘That blue dress suits Miss Sophia’, that sort of thing.”
She sat up straight, the smile wiped from her face. “I do not look a bit like any of my sisters.”
“There are differences, certainly, but they are not enough to tell you apart. Usually with four sisters, there is a plump one, a tall one, a plain one and one with yellow hair, but the four of you all have the same colouring and shape and size. In fact, if it were not for a few wrinkles around her eyes, one might take your mother for one of you, too, and your habit of always going around together makes it worse. I had terrible trouble distinguishing you from your sisters at first. It was not until after Marshfields that I knew you every time, and I still make mistakes with your sisters. So when I saw Torbuck having the same problem, I helped him out.”
“Oh! So that was why he sat and talked to Charlotte that last evening, and ignored me, and I had put on quite my finest gown, too. I was mortified. But when you arrived, you brought him over to me, I recall. You saw that he had made a mistake and… oh! How foolish I feel now! But it never occurred to me that he would not know me.”
“How should it? To you, your sisters are all very different, but I assure you, when you are assembled as a group, you look very alike.”
“But you can recognise me?”
“I can. I would never mistake you for your sisters now.”
“That makes me wonder if that is why he ran away,” she said, with a low chuckle.
“Poor man! Now I feel sorry for him. I recall a set of brothers in Norwich who looked very much alike to outsiders, although two of them truly were identical — twins, you see. But I used to make a joke of it — especially with the youngest, who had bright red hair and was quite different from the rest. ‘Now tell me, which Foster are you?’ I would say to him, and he always laughed about it. But how foolish not to mention it, if he truly could not tell us apart.”
“It is awkward, if one is supposedly courting a girl, yet cannot pick her out of a crowd.”
“Hmm. I suppose you are right. Well, he is gone, and I cannot say I am heartbroken over him. Whereas you…”
Simon’s breath froze. The sensible part of him deplored such talk, but he was finding it very difficult to be sensible, when she was so close, looking at him in just that way, her head tilted speculatively to one side, and such words in her mouth!
And then she made all rational thought fly out of his head by sliding down the bench to sit right beside him, placing her tiny white hand in his larger one.
“Simon, I do not want us to be enemies.”
“Nor I!”
“But nor do I want us to be friends.”
“Oh!”
“At least, not just friends. I know we cannot marry, and perhaps we will never be able to. Where money is concerned, Richard is implacable, and now that he has you labelled as a fortune hunter, he may never approve of you sufficiently to release my dowry, and you may never earn enough to offer for me anyway. I understand all that. But I cannot — I will not — simply let you go, as if you had never existed… as if we had never shared those wonderful kisses. What I should like is for us to be betrothed — no, do not speak yet, I implore you. Not publicly… a secret betrothal, only known to the two of us, so that I can sleep soundly at night knowing that there is one man in the world who would marry me if he could. And we can meet here occasionally and… and share kisses again, which would be lovely, would it not? And you need not tell me that it is improper, for I know all that, but at my advanced years, I feel a little pushing at the boundaries of propriety is not too heinous a crime. And when you go home, as you will before too long, we will have pleasant memories to keep us warm.” She squeezed his hand. “What do you say?”
How could he speak? His heart was overflowing with joy at her words, and even a simple affirmative was too difficult. So he answered her in the only way he could, by leaning across the narrow gap between them and pressing his lips firmly on hers.