Chapter Seven #3
He leaned his forearms on the table, and she waited for him to begin the conversation. He opened his mouth a few times, but nothing came out. Sensing he was struggling to come up with a topic of conversation, she racked her brain for something to say, but her mind was astonishingly blank.
His gaze flicked to the left and then the right as hot tingles ran over her skin. What was she even doing here with this man?
When she thought she might die from the embarrassment of the complete silence, he asked, ‘What was it that had you running late? Or is that too impolite a question?’
She was so grateful that he had spoken that she would have told him anything.
‘Not at all. I was trying to write a letter to Robert.’ She waited for him to exclaim about the impropriety of it, but he didn’t.
She supposed a man who raced pigs wasn’t too much of a stickler.
‘I wanted him to hear the news from me before he hears the rumours.’
‘I still think you should not tell him. No, I can see you are about to protest and obviously I find your honesty admirable, but you should trust me on this. A man wants what he cannot have. As soon as your Robert hears that you have been swept up and by a Dashworth brother no less—’ Christopher waggled his eyebrows ‘—he will come running. I will probably get challenged to a duel, but I shall decline. Despite my broken heart, I know Robert will make you a more worthy husband than myself. After my noble relinquishing of your hand, I will take myself off to the country in a flood of tears where my spirits can only be recovered by a house party put on by one of my dear friends.’
A waiter placed a pot of tea with the most delicate porcelain cups in front of them, pouring them both a cup before fetching their ices and adding them to the table. Sophia ran her fingers along the glass dish, leaving a trail in the condensation.
‘And you accuse me of being dramatic,’ she said when they were alone again. ‘I take it your friend is already hosting a party that you are keen to go to.’
‘He is and as I do not get much time away from my family commitments, it would be helpful if this Robert of yours could make his move before June.’
‘It needs to be much earlier than June. Our wedding is to take place then, unless you had forgotten.’
‘Of course not. I promise you that it is at the forefront of my mind all the time.’ He took a sip of tea, the fragile cup looking tiny in his large hand.
‘Our plan cannot be to wait for Robert to turn up and demand an end to our engagement.’ As much as the idea pleased her, she was doubtful it would happen. ‘There needs to be more to it.’
‘There is no need to sound frantic; I want to marry you as much as you do me, which is to say not at all. We will not leave before we have it all worked out, even if that means we must try every ice on the menu.’ He placed the cup back down in the saucer, his movement precise.
‘Although I am willing to bet that I am right. He will come and he will want to fight me for you. Perhaps he will suggest an elopement.’
The hope in Christopher’s eyes was impossible to miss.
‘You are placing a lot of faith in a man you have never met. He is not the sort of man to pick up a sword or a pistol and ask you for the name of your second. I cannot believe he would suggest an elopement either.’ She was about to pick up her spoon, when she added, ‘And I like that about him. I would not want to marry a volatile man.’
‘I do not mean that we will actually take to arms over you. I mean that he will use whatever sway he believes he has over you, to make his case. I know the nature of men, and I have seen you. A man would be a fool to turn away from such a prize.’
Her heart gave a strange lurch at his words before reality sank in. ‘You are.’
‘If I were the marrying kind, we would already be on our honeymoon.’
She couldn’t help her eyeroll. He really was the most audacious man she had ever met. ‘We only became engaged two days ago.’
‘Precisely.’
‘You are absurd.’
‘No. That is how beautiful you are. Now tell me, how are we supposed to eat this?’
There was no time to dwell on his quite astounding compliment.
No one had ever called her beautiful before.
She was no antidote. She had a mirror and could see that, with the right hairstyle and outfit, she was attractive.
But next to her more bubbly sisters, she did not feel it.
If it wasn’t self-indulgent, she might ask him to repeat himself, but she had manners and besides, the quizzical look on his face quite distracted her from it as he regarded the sweet treat in front of him. ‘To eat it, you use a spoon.’
She picked hers up to show him and he frowned as if the utensil were an exotic concept for him.
‘Really? The ice is not solid then?’
‘I fail to believe that this is the first one you have ever seen.’
‘It is the closest I have ever been to one.’ He tapped it dubiously with the edge of his spoon, his eyes widening ever so slightly when it slid into the food. ‘And the very name for it suggests it is hard.’
‘I would have thought ices were frequently served at Glanmore House. It is the sort of food one would use to show off.’ His eyes gleamed with amusement. ‘Not of course that I am saying your family is pretentious,’ she floundered. ‘I mean only…’
‘You can say what you like about my family. I am not easily offended. In fact, I did not know my brothers all that well until recently.’ He took a tiny piece off the top and tried it. ‘Goodness, it is extremely cold.’
Laughter gurgled out of her. ‘What were you expecting?’
‘Not something this odd and delicious.’ He took a bigger scoop. ‘This is wonderful. How is yours?’
‘It is as lovely as always.’
‘Cherry is your preferred flavour then?’
‘I have it every time. I know that is boring of me.’
‘Not at all. If you enjoy it, why not have it?’
Her heart fluttered oddly, which had to be due to the temperature of the food she was eating and not because of what Christopher had said.
She did not need his permission to enjoy having the same flavour on every visit.
Yet, it was something her family teased her about and somehow hearing someone tell her that it was not silly or dull warmed something inside her.
‘How is it that you did not know your brothers well until recently?’ she asked. She could not imagine not knowing every detail of her sisters’ lives whether she wanted to or not.
‘My parents died when I was very young. I do not remember them at all. Guardianship of my brothers and me fell to our aunt, Miss Dunn. She was a horrible woman who loathed children and should not have been put in charge of a picnic let alone five boys.’
‘It is unusual for there not to be a man involved in the guardianship of male heirs.’
‘Oh, there were male trustees put in charge of running the dukedom until Tobias came of age. They would have had overall responsibility, I suppose. But they did not want to deal with children and therefore we were left to her. Fortunately, I was quite young and managed to escape the worst of her abuse, but she raised us apart from one another and punished us for any minor infraction in her long list of rules. We may have been close as children had it not been for her; as it was, I only really spent time with my…’ He cleared his throat, patting his chest a few times as if something were stuck there.
‘Sebastian. One of my older brothers spent time with me when I was a child. He is the one I remember the most from that time. The others…’ He shrugged, and a smile that did not show his dimple crossed his face.
‘I did not see as much of them. Sebastian left, moving to America for reasons I am not sure I ever knew, but by that time Tobias had reached adulthood and had Miss Dunn removed from Glanmore House. I have not seen her since.’
‘What did His Grace do with her?’
Christopher grinned. ‘He did not have her killed, if that is what you are thinking.’
‘Of course not.’ The thought had crossed her mind. Damn her for listening to her sisters’ lurid tales. ‘He is a peer of the realm.’
‘I am not sure someone having a title automatically makes them a good person. But even so, Tobias had her moved to one of his country houses. It is large enough for her to keep busy and far enough away that none of us need see her again. After that, Tobias brought in tutors for Edward and me and then we went away to school. There was no time for ices.’
Somehow this larger-than-life man, whose ready smiles lit up a room, had once been a child starved of love.
Oh, that was not what he was saying. Perhaps he wasn’t even aware of it himself, but it was the truth.
Her family might be loud and sometimes obnoxious, but she had no doubt that her parents loved her, her sisters too, and as exasperating as she occasionally found them, she loved them too.
She couldn’t imagine a life without them, and it had nothing to do with sweet treats but with the warmth that always surrounded her.
She wondered if Christopher had received anything like it as he’d grown up, because it certainly did not sound as if he had.
She swallowed past an unexpected lump in her throat. Striving to keep the conversation light in the same way he was, she asked, ‘What about when you had your own lodgings?’
‘I never thought about it. I did not know I was missing such deliciousness.’ He scooped up a large spoonful, his eyes rolling back in his head as the ice hit his tongue. ‘Besides, I was not in lodgings long.’
‘You were on your Grand Tour?’
‘Unfortunately, no. I was planning to go, but I wanted to set up my investments first. It seemed prudent to have money growing while I was away so that I did not have to come back and throw myself on the mercy of my brother.’ He shuddered theatrically.
‘That would be worse than humiliating. Then, when I had finally made plans to go, Lotte arrived and now I must stay.’