Chapter Three
It was such a lark,’ claimed Marrisa over bacon and eggs, mid-morning the following day.
‘Not a single soul could understand how Lord Christopher and Soph could have formed an alliance. It was all anyone could talk about. Lord Christopher is so handsome and Soph is incredibly pretty; they looked like a prince and a princess when they were making the announcement.’ Marrisa sighed theatrically, as though the whole thing were a romantic escapade and not a living nightmare. ‘They will have beautiful babies.’
Marrisa smiled as if children between Sophia and Lord Christopher were a foregone conclusion and not something that would never happen even if Sophia lived to be one million years old.
Good-looking though he undoubtedly was, her betrothed was not the sort of man one married.
He was all fun and frolics and challenging pigeons to duels, if that rumour were to be believed.
If it wasn’t for Marrisa and her absurd plan to catch the duke, Sophia wouldn’t have even met the man, let alone become engaged to him.
Someone should reprimand Marrisa for her behaviour, but it wasn’t going to be Mama, who thought the thing as great a joke as Marrisa, and it wasn’t going to be Papa, who was watching his daughter with an indulgent twinkle.
Sophia toyed with the end of her fork, trying to formulate a speech which told them how unhappy she was without becoming the boring daughter yet again.
The problem was that Marrisa was genuinely happy for Sophia; her wide, innocent smile was completely without guile.
As far as her sister was concerned, Sophia’s life was a thousand times better than it had been yesterday, for who wouldn’t want to be marrying into the esteemed Dashworth family?
For most people that would be true. The Glanmore title was old and venerated.
It was rumoured that the family could trace their origins back to the first dukes of the land.
Their wealth was known to be vast and it was probably hard for any of her siblings to understand that having access to these riches was not a motivation for Sophia.
From a young age, she had decided that sensible, thoughtful Robert was the ideal husband for her, and accidentally getting engaged to someone else was a nightmare.
But seeing Marrisa’s genuine happiness for her made it impossible to be annoyed with her sister, despite it being Marrisa’s fault Sophia’s life now lay in ruins.
‘I wish I could have been there,’ Annie, Sophia’s middle sister, claimed, a hand placed above her heart, her eyes shining.
‘I know. I would have loved it if you were there too. We all had such a jolly good time; the whole thing was so romantic. Who would have thought the plan would actually work? Soph is engaged!’ Marrisa clapped her hands together as if the whole point of yesterday evening had been to get Sophia betrothed to the youngest Dashworth brother.
If Sophia’s head hadn’t been trying to split itself in two, she might have pointed this out, or she might not.
Despite being as different from her family as a mouse was to a goldfish, she did adore her sisters.
As she’d tossed and turned all night, trying and failing not to think about every excruciating detail of the ball, the brandy had twisted itself through her body, making her one minute scorching hot, the other curled in shame.
She’d added the worry over whether or not Marrisa would be angry with her to her list of things to panic about.
Finding out her sister thought the whole thing was a great escapade was mostly a relief even if there was a tinge of annoyance through that feeling.
As the conversation rambled along around her, each sister trying to outdo the other with the romance of it all, not one of her siblings thought to ask whether getting married to Lord Christopher was something she wanted.
Her betrothed was, as far as they were concerned, perfect.
They would not be able to see that he was far from what she wanted in a spouse and that getting forced into marriage because you’d both been found in a conservatory was about as romantic as a used chamber pot.
Sophia slathered butter over a thick slice of toast, its salty goodness a balm for her churning stomach.
The brandy was not helping her clear her head or find words that might explain all of this.
In truth, all she could do was eat the hearty breakfast in front of her and try hard not to die.
She plucked another slice of toast from the rack and reached once more for the butter.
The post arrived on a silver tray and she watched its progress as Peterson took it first to Papa and then Mama.
Mama flicked through the remaining post, collecting all the letters and dropping them onto the tablecloth next to her, before smiling at their butler and asking him about how his gout was faring.
News of the betrothal would not have spread outside of London.
There was no need for a hot sweat to cross her brow at the idea of Mama’s dear friend Mrs Harber writing to her to question her about it.
It was probably Mama’s turn to write anyway, and as she was an inconsistent correspondent, it might be a while before the news reached Robert, Mrs Harber’s son.
Robert was a sensible young man, a couple of years older than Sophia and someone she had admired for a long time.
He was perhaps too young to consider a wife, but she had been happy to wait for him.
No one else in the Seasons since she had made her come out had appealed to her in the same way his calm learnedness did.
But although he had hinted that he would commit to her, he had never outright said it to her or anyone else, which was yet another reason why she was in her current mess.
If he had asked to court her, perhaps that would have been reason enough why she could not have become betrothed last night, or maybe that was wishful thinking on her part.
Having never been caught in an awful scandal before, she did not know how these things resolved themselves.
When Peterson left, Mama began to open the envelopes addressed to her; Sophia slid further down in her seat, the sharp crunch of the toast only slightly raising her spirits.
‘You and I have been invited to Glanmore House this afternoon,’ said Mama, addressing her and waving a short missive in the air.
Her sisters squealed as the toast lodged itself in Sophia’s throat. After a moment of coughing, she managed to croak, ‘So soon?’
Couldn’t she at least have a day to recover from her first encounter with strong alcohol?
A plan on how to get out of this would be useful, but her brain was too foggy to come up with one.
Although, going to meet the Dashworth family at any time was too soon, even if it were planned for a year from now.
How was she to face any of them, particularly the man to whom she was supposed to be betrothed?
First she had insulted him by implying he was a loose screw and then she had drunk so much brandy, she had been incoherent on the floor of a library.
Sweat was gathering along her hairline and she dabbed at it with her handkerchief.
All she wanted to do was finish her food and fall back into bed, preferably never to emerge again, but as her sisters cooed over the thick paper used for the invitation, it was clear she was not going to get her wish.