Chapter 30 #2
Before she could, Wesley went on, “We could leave separately. You could say you are returning to your own family. And I . . . on one of my painting trips. Then we can meet and decide what to do next. Find a place to live here in England until the child comes and it is safe to travel. Or if you feel up to it, go somewhere now. To Italy, perhaps. Somewhere we might annul this ruse, and marry before the baby is born. We can still be happy. Live as husband and wife. Parents to our child. As it was meant to be. As it still can be.”
She shook her head. “I am already married. I have a husband. His name is Captain Stephen Overtree. And I shall not betray him.”
“But he is your husband in name only,” Wesley insisted. “The marriage has never even been consummated.”
She gaped at him, clearly stunned. “How do you know that?”
Triumph washed over him. “I was told about your sleeping arrangements, and guessed the rest. Non-consummation may not be grounds for annulment in England, but in another country . . .”
She frowned. “What sort of woman do you take me for? The captain is severely injured. And this is the news you would have await him when he returns? That his wife has run off with his brother?”
“We needn’t tell anyone our plan, if you prefer to keep it quiet. For a time, at least.”
“And you would never see your family again? Or lie to them for the rest of your days? And what about me? Am I to live as a kept woman in some isolated cottage somewhere, spurned by moral society, living for the few days a month you can get away to visit us? Never to see your parents or mine? You think a great deal too much of yourself, Wesley Overtree. That I would give up my family and yours and every last ounce of self-respect simply to be with you.”
“Sophie . . .” He was taken aback. She had never spoken so forcefully before.
“What a vile picture you paint. It won’t be like that.
We will have a loving home somewhere scenic with new landscapes to paint every day.
Our precious, perfect child will grow up with a father and mother who love him or her.
We can travel together. Paint together. Raise our son or daughter to love beauty and art. ”
She raised her hands. “You are heir to Overtree Hall. Do you forget it? How long would you stay with me? Would you give up all of this for some little cottage far from here?”
“Yes, I would.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“But you love me. I know you do.”
“I did love you, Wesley. But that has changed. Everything has changed.”
Wesley bridged the gap between them and grasped her shoulders. “But I love you. I need you.”
His arms looped around her back, pulling her as close as her rounded middle allowed. He tried to kiss her mouth, but she turned her head and pushed at his chest.
“Wesley, don’t. It isn’t right.”
He kept his arms around her, trailing his lips over her cheek. “Yes, it is. It will be.”
“Good heavens. What is going on here?”
Sophie gasped and turned her head toward the door. No. The Overtrees had followed their son upstairs.
Mrs. Overtree stood there, her husband right behind her. “Let her go, Wesley.”
Sophie’s chest tightened, and she found herself suddenly dizzy. Wesley released her but remained close to her side.
Mr. Overtree’s face slackened in incredulity. “Stephen is lying injured in a military hospital and you betray him like this?”
“I feared something like this would happen.” Mrs. Overtree’s cold eyes fastened on her.
“I did not betray him,” Sophie protested.
Mrs. Overtree’s mouth twisted. “No? What do you call it?”
“This isn’t what you think, Mamma.”
“Dashed stupid, Wesley.” His father scowled. “Could you not leave her alone?”
Wesley sighed. “Capital. Mamma blames Sophie. Papa blames me, and Stephen is the poor victim, when nothing could be further from the truth.”
“Are you telling me nothing happened between you? When I find her in your arms. And you kissing her?”
“Nothing has happened. Not since she married Stephen. But we knew each other in Lynmouth. . . .”
Sophie pleaded, “Wesley, don’t.”
Mrs. Overtree whipped open the door with a bang. “It’s time you showed us what’s in that crate, Wesley. I’m through taking no for an answer. That O’Dell fellow was hinting at something unsavory, and it’s time to have it over and done.”
Mr. Overtree frowned. “What are you talking about?”
Wesley’s jaw clenched. “You want to see those paintings, Mamma? Very well.” He snagged Sophie’s hand and pulled her along behind him. “Follow me. All of you.”
“Wesley, no . . .” Sophie moaned.
“It’s time for the truth to come out.” He led her down the stairs and along the corridor to his rooms.
Behind them, his father called, “Wesley, release Sophie. Be gentle with her!”
“I am not hurting her.”
“Yes. You. Are,” she panted out.
Wesley threw back the door to his studio, gestured them all inside, and closed the door behind him—perhaps afraid Sophie might flee the room. She was certainly tempted to do just that.
She saw the crate in the corner and dread mounted.
He pointed to it. “Read the delivery direction, Papa.”
His father bent and squinted at it. “‘Mr. Wesley Overtree, Overtree Hall, Wickbury, Gloucestershire.’ So?”
“And where it came from?”
“Lynmouth, Devonshire.”
“This is the crate of paintings Stephen had delivered home from Devon for me. My paintings from the winter, weeks before he ever set foot in the county. I met Sophie long before he did,” Wesley said. “He should never have married her.”
“Is that what this is about—jealousy?” his father scoffed. “You’re trying to prove you set your sights on her first?”
In reply, Wesley picked up a crowbar lying nearby—as though he’d been waiting for just the right time to reveal its contents.
With a creak and a groan and a splinter, he pried up the lid and laid it aside. He pawed out the paper wrapping and began pulling forth one canvas after another and lining them up along the walls.
Sophie’s stomach wrenched, and she feared she would be ill.
Her body flushed and perspired, and she could look at no one, her mortified gaze flicking from one portrait to the next and recognizing herself in more than she remembered posing for.
From demure, reluctant poses, to private smiles and admiring glances, to the Grecian robes he’d insisted she don, and then slipped from one shoulder . . .
“I think we’ve seen enough,” Mr. Overtree pronounced, his voice as dry as crushed November leaves, his expression as withering. “You said you knew Sophie from Lynmouth, but I didn’t think you meant you’d known her . . . like this.”
Sophie’s face burned, and she ducked her head.
“I’m sorry, Sophie. I don’t do this to embarrass you,” Wesley said gently.
“But yes. I knew Sophie first. I met her last year and spent more time with her this winter, before I left for Italy. We . . . fell in love. Don’t look at her like that, Mamma.
She was an innocent, proper young lady until I came along, I assure you. ”
“And the child . . . ?” his mother asked.
“Is mine, yes,” Wesley replied.
“What?” his father’s face contorted in disbelief.
“I didn’t know she was with child. I left for Italy, and when Stephen came looking for me, he met Sophie and took advantage of the situation. He didn’t even try to find me!”
Mrs. Overtree turned to her. “Why didn’t you tell Wesley you were carrying his child?”
“He left before I gathered my courage to do so. I thought he might ask. Guess.”
“Foolish girl.”
“I left without warning, and she had no idea how long I would be gone,” Wesley defended her. “She felt desperate and believed Stephen’s assessment of my character—that I would not return, and could not be counted on to do the right thing even if I did. He fed her fears.”
Mr. Overtree looked at his son in bleak disillusionment. “How could you, Wesley? How could you leave a girl whose youth and innocence you had seduced, with no help, ignorant of your address? You did what no gentleman of feeling would do.”
“I did write. But that snake, O’Dell, hid the letter. But even if he had not, it would have reached her after she had already eloped with Stephen. For he lost no time in marrying her himself.”
Mr. Overtree shook his head in disgust. “This is the noble character of the son I raised.”
“Do not blame him alone, Mr. Overtree,” his wife said. “I don’t say Wesley is innocent, but what was he to think when a young woman spends time alone with him, posing en dishabille? Painters’ models are known to be loose women.”
“I was not a model,” Sophie insisted.
Mrs. Overtree flicked a hand toward the canvas. “Evidence to the contrary.”
“Only for Wesley.”
Mrs. Overtree glowered at her. “Is it not enough that you slept with one of my sons? But then to prey on the sympathies of the other?”
“It wasn’t like that!” Sophie cried. Her throat constricted, trapping the explanation inside: “He offered to marry me. Insisted. Said it was his duty and his destiny . . .” Instead, all that emerged from her mortified body were tears.
Mr. Overtree sighed. “Poor Stephen.”
“Poor Stephen?” Wesley exclaimed. “What about me? What about Sophie?”
Mrs. Overtree gestured toward the bare-shoulder portrait. “She made her bed. Her choices.”
“Did Stephen know you were with child when he married you?” Mr. Overtree asked.
“Yes.”
“Did he know whose child you were carrying?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t believe it,” he said. “What a sordid mess.”
“Does anyone else know?” Mrs. Overtree asked. “Besides Stephen and those of us in this room?”
“I haven’t told anyone,” Wesley said. “Though Mr. Keith suspects the truth. As does O’Dell.”
Sophie remembered the noise she and Stephen had heard when they were talking in the hall about her past with Wesley, thinking they were alone.
And again later with Wesley, when he suggested sailing away to France or Italy together.
Had Miss Blake been in the passage behind the squint, watching and listening? Or Winnie? Sophie inwardly groaned.
“It’s possible someone else here knows,” Sophie admitted, head bowed.
“Meaning Mr. Overtree and I are not the first to come upon you in such a compromising position?” Janet Overtree’s eyes blazed.
“No, I didn’t mean that,” Sophie said. “But someone may have overheard Wesley and me . . . arguing.”
“What a nightmare. We must endeavor to keep this within the family. And if we can spare Katherine, let’s do. And my father! Heaven help us.”
“Wesley, you must put all thoughts of her from your mind,” his father said.
“I cannot pretend to approve of what’s happened.
In fact, I am shocked and appalled. But what’s done is done.
Shall we add charges of adultery to your sins?
Shall we invite yet more scandal to the Overtree name?
No. Stephen is her husband. And you must abide by that. We all must.”
“What am I supposed to do when the child comes?” Wesley threw up his hands. “Pretend I don’t care? Give the babe a rattle and pat his head like a fond uncle and go on my way?”
“Yes. That is precisely what you must do.”
“I won’t. I can’t.”
“You will. Or you will drag us all down into the mud with you. What about your impressionable young sister? Her marriage prospects? And what about our friends and neighbors? Our church family? Our vicar? What are we to tell them, hmm? Are we to be shunned from the congregation that worships on our very grounds?”
“That’s not my problem.”
“Of course it is.”
“Oh, what are we going to do?” Mrs. Overtree wailed. “We are ruined. All ruined!”
“Be calm, Mrs. Overtree. It isn’t as bad as all that.
Yet.” Mr. Overtree looked from one to the other.
“We will pray and consider what is best to be done.” He gestured toward the paintings.
“In the meantime, put those back in the crate and nail it shut. And, you two, stay away from one another. Do I make myself clear?”
At the door, Mrs. Overtree turned back with a final scathing look. “And don’t think I didn’t see those cats upstairs. Get them out of the house by day’s end—or I will do it myself.”