Chapter 13 #2
He stopped walking and looked at her sharply.
“Not that you are not handsome. I did not mean that. You know I think you are lovely. But I am certainly not a wealthy heir pursued by beautiful women for his money.” What an idiot he was.
He should know better than to open his mouth around women—especially one he found attractive. Especially his wife.
Sophie ducked her head, and a becoming blush stained her cheeks. “Thank you for clarifying.”
Perhaps he had not botched things so badly after all.
She looked up and said, “May I ask, Captain, if you have ever been in love, or considered marriage before? Perhaps with . . . Jenny?”
Shock squeezed Stephen’s chest. He felt his mouth part. “Where on earth did you hear that name?”
“You . . . em, said it in your sleep on our wedding night.”
He winced. “I would prefer not to talk about that, if you don’t mind.” Especially not when Sophie was just beginning to warm to him, to change her earlier assessment of his “black” character. Abruptly, he said, “Shall we rejoin the others?”
She looked away and forced a smile. “Of course.”
They turned and strolled back toward the picnic blanket.
There, Miss Blake was talking to his former lieutenant. “Keith . . . Is that a Scottish surname?” she asked.
Carlton nodded. “In my case, yes. Though my family has lived in England for several generations.”
“Angela has been to Scotland,” Kate interjected.
Keith looked at Miss Blake with interest. “Oh? What took you there?”
Angela sketched a little shrug. “I traveled there with my aunt once. She had always wanted to see the Highlands.”
“When was this?”
“Five years ago.”
Kate added, “She was gone for months.”
“Well, we saw more than Scotland,” Angela explained. “The north of England, the Peak, and then on to the Highlands. A bit of a grand tour, but here in old and relatively safe Britain, rather than abroad as young gentlemen do.”
“Or soldiers shipped to foreign parts. Scotland sounds better than the battlefields of Spain, ay, Captain?” Keith winked at Stephen, then returned his gaze to Miss Blake. “Did you enjoy the trip?”
Miss Blake shook her head, eyes distant. “I can’t say that I did.”
“I am sorry to hear it.”
“Then why did you stay away so long?” Kate pouted. “I missed you terribly.”
Warm eyes focused on Miss Blake, Keith said quietly, “Yes, I can understand that. . . .”
Stephen noticed the way Keith’s gaze lingered on Angela, and felt uneasy. A woman like Angela Blake—an accomplished young lady from a leading family of gentry—was not likely to return the affections of a disabled former lieutenant with no fortune and few prospects.
Finding Mr. Keith looking at her, Angela ducked her head self-consciously. Also strange, for Angela was never shy or retiring.
She shifted and changed the subject. “And you, Mr. Keith? Did you enjoy being an officer and all it entailed?”
Keith screwed up his face. “Not in the least. I never wanted to be a soldier—wasn’t cut out for military life. I had about as much right to wield a gun as Marsh has to wield a paintbrush. Really, it was ridiculous.”
“I don’t agree,” Stephen grumbled. “I am quite effective with a paintbrush. Painted the barracks singlehandedly one year.”
Keith replied, “Only because Major Wilson wanted to put you in your place.”
But Angela ignored their little exchange, her eyes fastened on Keith. “Then . . . why choose that profession?”
“Because when my father died, every farthing of his fortune was gone, gambled away, except for the commission he’d purchased for me. He left me no choice.”
Stephen could relate. He’d been given little choice in his career either.
Keith glanced over and saw Kate and Miss Blake hanging on his words. Something flashed in his eyes as he continued.
“I know you ladies like the notion of a brave soldier. But if a woman was tempted to look at me that way—to idealize me, or romanticize this—” He lifted his empty sleeve. “Then she is certain to be disappointed. Isn’t me. Never has been, and never will be.”
Miss Blake watched him closely. “Then what will you do with your life? You have been honorably discharged, and your father isn’t here any longer to force you to do anything. Can you not choose what sort of man you want to be?”
Keith held her gaze. “I’m afraid the man I want to be seems far from reach, Miss Blake.” He poured another glass.
Sophie watched the volley of words between Mr. Keith and Miss Blake like a spectator at a shuttlecock match.
So much reverberated beneath the words—those said, and those not said.
Sophie had never before felt sorry for Carlton Keith, but seeing the bleak longing in his eyes when he looked at Angela Blake, she thought she just might.
Mr. Keith rose and ambled somewhat unsteadily toward the wagon.
Miss Blake watched him go—part wistful, part irritated. “My father warned me about him,” she said in a low voice. “He was some acquainted with the elder Mr. Keith—a heavy drinker and gambler. Like father like son, I suppose.”
Sophie glanced at the captain, wondering if he would contradict her, but he did not. Probably could not.
A few minutes later, Keith walked back, two fishing rods in hand. The men had packed gear in the wagon along with the hampers.
“Care to fish, Captain?”
“In a minute. You go ahead.”
Keith yanked off his boots and stockings, baring his calves, and then stepped into the shallows in knee-length pantaloons. “Hang me, that’s cold!” He lifted his knees in a little jig as he cast his line into the current.
Kate and Angela discreetly rolled off their own stockings beneath their long skirts and tucked them into their shoes at the side of the blanket.
Together they giggled and walked across the stream on a series of rocks spaced apart almost like a path.
Sophie could imagine them as younger girls doing the same, against the warnings of their mammas or governesses.
“Sophie, come and join us!” Kate called, arms outstretched like a tightrope walker.
She waved at them. “I shall find it more diverting to watch you two.”
“Hear, hear,” Keith agreed.
“Come on. Don’t be a spoilsport,” Kate cajoled.
Sophie turned to Captain Overtree on the blanket nearby. “Is it deep?”
“Only about three or four feet, depending on recent rains.”
She glanced down at the dress she wore. “Your mother had this dress altered for me. I wouldn’t want to spoil it.”
“Sophie!” Kate called again.
“Oh, very well.” Sophie set aside the parasol and pulled off her gloves. “Just a moment!”
“Be careful,” he warned. “The rocks can be slippery.”
Remembering her shoes and stockings, Sophie hesitated.
Noticing the direction of her gaze, he patted the blanket beside him. “Come closer. I’ll help.”
Her face heated. “Thank you, but I can do it myself.”
He said in a low voice, “No one is near. And we are playing roles, remember?”
He slid nearer, grasped her half boot, and—laying one ankle onto his own outstretched leg—began untying and loosening the laces.
Embarrassed, Sophie protested, “That’s quite all right, Captain. I am perfectly capable of—”
“Shh.” He made quick work of removing one half boot, then shifted to the second. Her face burned at the thought of him reaching up her skirt to roll down her stockings. No. That would not do. Not here. Not . . . anywhere. When he set aside the second boot, she scrambled to her feet.
“Th-thank you, Captain.”
She stepped behind a stout evergreen for privacy and removed her stockings herself. Avoiding his gaze, she discreetly tucked them into her boot tops before turning toward the bank. The captain, she noticed, had yanked off his own boots as well.
By now, Kate and Angela had reached the other side of the stream and were waving her over.
Sophie stepped carefully onto the first rock, then to the next with ease.
But the farther out she went, the farther apart the rocks were spaced, something she had not realized from shore.
She hopped from one rock to the next, and wavered, stretching out her arms as Kate had done to balance herself.
She judged the distance to the next rock—it was even farther away.
How had Kate and Angela made it look so easy?
She felt suddenly dizzy and off-balance.
She would go back. But when she tried to turn on her narrow perch, she teetered, almost losing her balance.
The rock she had just come from suddenly seemed too far away.
What was wrong with her? Perspiration itched along her brow, and she tasted bile.
Splash, splash, splash. Footsteps slapped through water and suddenly Captain Overtree was there, hands on her elbows, steadying her, heedless of the water darkening his buff trousers.
“Steady. I’ve got you.”
“Oh no, your clothes. I’m sorry. I have lost my balance and my nerve. Foolish of me, I know. It’s only water.”
“Are you all right?”
“Of course. I . . .” Her skin prickled, and spots dotted her vision like a lace curtain. She felt herself sway.
A moment later she found herself lifted in his arms. She uttered a little cry of protest and, fearing she might fall, wrapped her hands around his neck.
His arms supported her knees and back, her side pressed to his abdomen.
She was in Captain Overtree’s arms—her husband’s arms, she reminded herself—and felt off-balance for an entirely different reason.
“What’s wrong?” Kate called. “Is she all right?”
Sophie faltered, “I am well, just—”
“Just a ploy to get me to take her in my arms,” the captain called back in teasing tones.
Sophie looked at him askance, but inwardly applauded his tact in easing Kate’s anxiety, and her own.
Well played, Captain. Well played.
The picnic ended soon after that. The footman and groom packed up, and Mr. Keith returned to shore empty-handed, not managing a single catch—fish or female.