Chapter Two
Brandy was a drink for men, so strong, they drank it without the presence of women around them.
Not once in her one and twenty years had Sophia Jacobs thought to break the rules and taste it.
Not, that is, until tonight. After the grand announcement of her sudden change in circumstances, during which the entire ballroom had stopped to stare at her and Lord Christopher, a man she had never once had the desire to speak to let alone marry, Sophia had grabbed her best friend, Tabitha, by the hand and dragged her from the ballroom.
Wending their way through the large townhouse, they’d stumbled across Beauvarlet’s library, a dimly lit room with large comfortable settees for curling up with a good book.
Sophia had ignored those and had headed straight to a tray which contained many interestingly shaped bottles and cut crystal glasses.
‘Do you think that is wise?’ asked Tabitha, watching as Sophia poured herself a large measure from one of the bottles.
Her eyes watered as she brought the drink closer, but she did not stop, not even when the liquid burned her throat as it went down.
All her life she’d been well-behaved, following the rules as befitting a young woman of her status, while her younger sisters came close to breaking them all the time.
Well, as life had kicked her in the stomach, she was throwing caution to the wind.
What she was doing right now was definitely inappropriate; it may also count as theft, but who really cared?
She’d already weathered one scandal this evening; it could not get much worse.
A whole lifetime of following the rules and look where it had got her: into an absolute disaster, that was where.
‘It is delicious,’ Sophia lied; she’d never been one for alcohol.
She did not like the taste nor how it changed someone’s personality.
Her family got even louder and more confusing after a glass or two of wine and that was something she preferred to avoid at the best of times.
‘Would you like some? We should celebrate my engagement.’
‘I am finding this all quite hard to understand. How is it that you are engaged to Lord Christopher? I would not have thought you and he would have a single thing in common.’
Her best friend stared at her, a small frown marring her forehead.
Sophia could understand her confusion; the betrothal wasn’t something she had been expecting either and certainly not to a man who took nothing seriously.
Being married to someone as chaotic as he would be like marrying into her own family, admittedly without the incest. Life would be loud and tumultuous; everything that she wanted to move away from.
There had to be a way out of it. There had to be something she could do to put a stop to it, but she could think of nothing that would not be ruinous for herself and for her family.
‘It all happened rather quickly.’
‘But… but, it does not fit in with The Plan.’
‘No. You are quite right, it does not.’ Sophia took another sip of brandy, the strong flavour coating the inside of her mouth.
‘It is very far removed from The Plan. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the events of this evening have destroyed it, no matter what Lord Christopher thinks.’ Her heart began to race again, so she took a long, long sip of the brandy.
Her stomach warmed as the liquid hit it, reminding her that she had not eaten in hours.
‘I wish you had arrived at the ball earlier, Tabitha. This whole thing may have been averted if you had been around to talk some sense into me.’
‘I wish I had arrived here sooner too. I would not have missed the drama. What is it like? The brandy that is, not the engagement. We will get to that in a bit.’
‘It is horrid.’ She took another long sip.
‘But I do believe I feel slightly less sick than when I began, so I am not going to stop.’ Her glass was nearly empty.
She had no idea how strong brandy was, but it was certainly helping to keep the panic at bay.
The library had taken on soft edges, as though everything was coated in a layer of wool.
The sensation was decidedly more pleasant than the sharp, alarming world she had been living in before the brandy had hit her bloodstream. ‘Would you like some?’
Tabitha was even more straight-laced than she was, so Sophia was surprised when her friend took the proffered glass and took an unladylike glug.
‘Ooh,’ she spluttered, her whole body shuddering.
‘That really is quite disgusting. I cannot understand why men like it as much as they do.’ She took another long sip. ‘It is truly revolting.’
Before Tabitha could finish Sophia’s drink, she took it back from her. ‘There is another glass over there. You could have your own.’
‘That does not sound like a good idea. At least one of us should remain level-headed.’ But Tabitha was making her way over to the tray, selecting her own drinking vessel and pouring some of the golden liquid into it.
Sophia joined her, refilling her glass so that liquid was spilling over the top.
Not pausing to consider her unladylike behaviour, she leaned down and sipped up the top, marvelling at herself at how quickly her personality could change.
This was what men like Lord Christopher did.
They made you break the rules. That he wasn’t in the room with them didn’t matter.
Tabitha and she would never have sneaked off from a ball and drunk the house owner’s private supply of brandy before.
Yet, less than an hour after becoming engaged to him, she was doing just that.
When they both had full glasses, they settled on the floor, the bottle of brandy between them so they would not have to get up again, their backs to shelves of books.
They ignored the cushioned chairs in favour of the hard ground.
It seemed fitting after everything else that had happened.
It was yet another flouting of the rules, but Sophia could not find it in herself to care.
‘Tell me everything,’ said Tabitha.
‘My sister, Marrisa that is, not Annie, Georgie or Cressida’—as the last three were not out yet, that part should have been obvious, but nothing was clear any more—’decided a few days ago that she is going to marry the Duke of Glanmore.’
Tabitha tapped the edge of her glass. ‘Does he know?’
‘As far as I can gather, he has no idea that she exists. You know what Marrisa is like. Once she has set her mind to something, she is tenacious until she moves on to her next big thing.’ Sophia loved her sister, but she’d be the first to admit that Marrisa had a butterfly mind, flitting from one beautiful idea to another.
‘Last week, she saw him at a ball and liked the way his shoulders filled out his jacket. You would not believe the number of times I have heard her describe him to me. It has reached the point where I almost feel as if I saw it for myself.’
‘As good a reason as any to get married.’
Sophia snorted, some of the brandy coming back out of her mouth and making a reappearance on her dress.
She wiped it off with the heel of her palm, realising that the brandy was definitely making an impact.
An action like that would normally mortify her.
‘As you know, Mama never reins in any of Marrisa’s ideas, which she should sometimes, because this one was particularly bad. ’
Tabitha rolled her eyes, familiar with the workings of Sophia’s family.
For whatever reason, perhaps the ill health she had suffered as a young child or maybe because she was often described as the prettiest Jacobs daughter, Marrisa was her parents’ favourite out of their five daughters.
Or at least, that was how it seemed to Sophia.
They doted on her, especially Mama. Not that Mama was harsh to any of her children.
Sophia was aware she was loved, just as she was aware she was different from the rest of them.
If she didn’t look so much like her mother, she might think she had been swapped at birth.
Neither her sisters, nor her parents appeared to have a coherent plan for anything, from what they were going to eat that week, to whether or not they needed to hire more staff, and Sophia loved order and plans.
‘Over the last few days, Mama and Marrisa hatched a mortifying idea to trap the duke into marriage. I wanted…’ What was it that she had wanted?
Did it make her a bad person that as soon as she heard about it, she had not wanted the ploy to work?
As a sister, shouldn’t she want Marrisa to get her heart’s desire?
But the thought that the duke would get no say in his choice of wife had not sat right with her.
No matter that women rarely got to choose their life partners either.
‘I tried to talk them out of it, but they would not listen. I thought it was only fair to warn him. Does that make me bad?’
Tabitha shook her head far more vigorously than necessary; perhaps the brandy was a lot stronger than she’d thought. ‘You should not trap someone into marriage. Getting married to someone should be moochfully… mutabilly… mootially.’ Tabitha wrinkled her nose. ‘What is the word I am trying to say?’
‘Mutually.’
‘That is it.’ Tabitha wobbled slightly, which was odd as she was sitting on the floor. ‘I wonder why it would not come out. Marriage is something that is a moochfully decided thingy.’