Chapter Five #3
“More than anything. She wrote to me often after the wedding, full of plans for the nursery she would one day need, the children she would raise with love and patience and none of Mother’s coldness.
” He took another sip of his wine. “When she discovered she was expecting, she wrote to me of her fears—turning into our mother. But she was nothing like her. I knew without a doubt that she would be a wonderful mother.” Lord Montrose’s hands clenched briefly on the table.
“Rebecca had a difficult labor. The midwife said she nearly died bringing Amelia into the world. But she survived, and when I visited a month later, I’d never seen her happier.
I’ll never forget how she looked at the baby, with such love and awe. ”
Sophia blinked back tears.
“Then, a few months later, she was killed.” The words came out flat.
“They were traveling back from Nicolas’s family estate.
The axle broke. The carriage went off the road.
” He stopped, his jaw working. “They told me it was quick. That they wouldn’t have suffered.
I don’t know if that’s true or if they were simply being kind. ”
“I’m sorry.” She wanted to reach out to him, place her hand on his, but she didn’t dare risk it. If he were to reject the gesture, she would feel humiliated. She must remember this was a business arrangement and nothing more.
“Rebecca’s will was very specific. Amelia was to come to me, not to our parents.
She knew Mother well enough to know what kind of grandmother she’d be, which is to say, the same kind of mother she’d been to us.
” He met Sophia’s eyes, and she saw old pain there, still raw despite the years.
“And so I became guardian to my baby niece. I was left with a child to raise and absolutely no skills with which to do so. No woman by my side to assist me.”
He looked away quickly, as though embarrassed by his own vulnerability.
“What happened to the woman you were to marry?” Sophia asked. “The one your uncle assumed you would ultimately marry?”
For a long moment, he didn’t speak. Then, slowly, he set down his fork and leaned back in his chair, his gaze distant.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Sophia said quickly. “I didn’t mean to pry—”
“No, I should tell you about her. About what happened.” He drew a breath. “You should know what you’re getting into. What my mother is capable of.”
Dread pooled in Sophia’s stomach. “I am listening, my lord.”
*
Henry stood abruptly and moved to the sideboard, pouring himself a brandy. He didn’t drink it immediately, just held the glass and stared down at the amber liquid.
“I was twenty-three,” he began, his back to her.
“I’d come to stay with my uncle for the summer, as I always did.
Eleanor Lawson lived in the village. Her father was the vicar.
She was everything I wanted. The opposite of my mother.
Gentle. Kind. Like me, she loved literature and being outside.
We spent the entire summer together. Walking, talking, falling in love. ”
Sophia’s heart clenched at the tenderness in his voice.
“By September, I knew I wanted to marry her. I wrote to my parents to inform them of my intentions.” He took a long drink of brandy. “My mother arrived within the week.”
“Oh no.”
“She took one look at Eleanor—the vicar’s daughter with no fortune, no connections, no value to the family—and set about destroying her.
” His voice had gone flat, emotionless, which somehow made it worse.
“It was subtle at first. Little comments about Eleanor’s dress, her manners, her unsuitability.
Then she began spreading rumors. Eleanor was a fortune hunter.
She’d trapped me with feminine wiles. She was unstable, prone to fits of melancholy. ”
“That’s monstrous.”
“Yes. It escalated. Mother convinced my father that the match would ruin our family socially. They threatened to disown me, to cut me off entirely if I married her. I was young and stupid and thought I could fight them. I told Eleanor we’d elope, live on my uncle’s generosity until they came around. ”
He turned then, and the look on his face made Sophia’s blood run cold.
“But Mother found out. She went to Eleanor directly, while I was away in London attempting to secure a special license. She told Eleanor I was only marrying her out of pity. That I’d confessed to being trapped, that I resented her, that I would come to hate her in time.
” His hands clenched around the brandy glass.
“She told Eleanor that if she truly loved me, she would set me free before I destroyed my life for someone so far beneath me.”
“No.” The word came out as a whisper. “How could she?”
“Eleanor believed her. As much as I loved her, Eleanor was not strong. Her father, despite the way he preened to his flock, was a cruel and overly critical man, which made it all that much easier for Eleanor to believe my mother’s lies.
Or perhaps the combination of social ostracism, public humiliation, and my mother’s relentless psychological campaign simply broke her.
I’ll never know.” He drained the rest of his brandy in one swallow.
“When I returned three days later with the license, they told me Eleanor had walked into the sea. Drowned herself off the cliffs. The next morning, I found her body washed to shore.”
Sophia pressed her hand to her mouth, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry. I’m so terribly sorry.”
“My mother attended the funeral.” His laugh was bitter. “She stood there looking appropriately sorrowful while they buried the woman she’d murdered as surely as if she’d pushed her into the water herself.”
“And you…” Sophia could barely get the words out. “You’ve been alone ever since.”
“Yes.” He set down his glass with careful precision. “My uncle convinced me to stay here with him and my cousin, Charlotte. They tried to put me back together, but it was impossible. Then, we lost my uncle too. If not for Charlotte and her husband, I do not know what would have become of me.”
He returned to his chair but didn’t sit, instead bracing his hands on the back of it.
“And now I’m bringing you into my mother’s path.
You are a woman who has already suffered more than her share of cruelty.
You should not have to endure more, but I fear it will not be easy with Mother.
If she comes to you or writes to you, please tell me.
We must be united in all things or she will find a way to destroy us. ”
“I can handle your mother.”
“Can you?” His eyes met hers, dark and troubled. “She drove Eleanor to suicide. She is relentless, manipulative, and utterly without conscience when she wants something. And what she wants is control over me, over Amelia, over everything I hold dear.”
“I may look fragile, but I am made of steel. Or I became steel because of what I experienced.” Sophia surprised herself with the firmness in her voice. “You’re not twenty-three anymore, and I’m not some sheltered vicar’s daughter. I’ve survived the Langstons. I’ve survived my last employer.”
Something flickered in his expression. “What do you mean?”
Sophia looked down at her hands, her pulse suddenly racing. She hadn’t meant to say that. But if he’d shared Eleanor’s story, if they were truly to know each other, she should tell him everything.
“Before I came here, I took a post with a family in Sussex. Respectable, or so I thought. The mistress seemed kind, the children manageable.” She swallowed hard.
“The master was… he made advances. Constantly. I rebuffed him, of course. Told him I would inform his wife if he didn’t cease immediately. ”
Henry’s hands tightened on the chair back. “But he did not.”
“No. One evening, he cornered me. The family was out. Just him and the servants, and the servants had learned to make themselves scarce when he was in that mood.” Her voice shook despite her efforts to control it.
“He tried to force himself on me. Pushed me against the wall, said I’d been teasing him, asking for it.
That a governess with no family and no references was in no position to refuse him. ”
“Did he—” Henry’s voice was deadly quiet. “Did he hurt you?”
“I fought him. Scratched his face badly enough that he bled. He was so surprised he let go, and I ran. Locked myself in my room until morning.” Sophia forced herself to meet Henry’s eyes.
“The next day, he dismissed me. Told his wife I’d been stealing, that I’d made inappropriate advances toward him.
She believed him, of course. I was turned out with no references, no character, nothing.
That’s why I gave a false name when I came here.
And why I was so desperate for this position that I would have taken it under any terms. Regardless, had it not been for Mrs. Bromley’s keen intuition about me, I doubt I would have been hired.
Did she ever tell you I cried during the interview?
After she told me what had happened to Rebecca. ”
“No, she did not mention that. But clearly she saw a compassion in you that would be good for Amelia.”
“She must have or I would not be here, sitting at this table with you.”
Henry stared at her, his face carefully blank, but Sophia could see the rage simmering beneath the surface—controlled, banked, but absolutely there.
“What was his name?” Henry asked finally, his voice soft and dangerous.
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“His name.”
“I cannot tell you. Please, you mustn’t make more of this and bring trouble to us? What would you do?”
“Fine. But I would love to call on him.” Each word was precise, clipped. “And make certain he understood that you are now under my protection. That you are to be my wife. And that if I ever hear of him approaching another woman in such a manner, I will make it my personal mission to ruin him.”
Sophia’s throat tightened. No one had ever offered to defend her honor before. Not like this, with such quiet, lethal sincerity.
“You can’t,” she said softly. “It would cause a scandal but I appreciate the thought. Very much.”
He moved around the chair and sat, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his gaze intense.
“I may not be offering you a love match, but I am offering you my protection. My name. Everything I have. That includes defending you from anyone who would dare hurt you—past, present, or future.” His jaw set.
“Eleanor didn’t have anyone to stand between her and my mother’s cruelty.
I let her down. But I swear to you, I won’t let what happened to her happen to you. ”
Looking into his beautiful, troubled, fiercely protective eyes, she believed every word.
“Thank you,” she said.
They sat in silence for a moment. She could almost feel the weight of their confessed pasts between them.
“If we are to pretend to be in love,” Henry said finally, “we must call each other by our first names. I am Henry.”
“And I am Sophia.”
Henry stood and extended his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Sophia placed hers in it. His fingers closed around hers—dry and warm. He raised her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, his eyes never leaving hers.
“Thank you, Sophia. For taking such good care of Amelia. For agreeing to this.”
When he released her hand, the room felt colder. She turned toward the door, her heart racing. It was just this man. He made her stomach flutter and her pulse race. He made her feel almost drunk with desire. What in the world was she to do about that?
“I shall retire, my lord,” Sophia said. “Mrs. Bromley has many plans for me tomorrow, including hiring a new governess for Amelia and a lady’s maid for me. It is strange to think about how much everything is to change.”
“Yes, you will need your rest. Good night, Sophia.”
When she reached the door, he called out to her. “Sophia?”
She paused, looking back.
“My sister wanted Amelia raised with love, not cold formality. With warmth and affection and freedom to be herself.” His expression was earnest, almost vulnerable. “You are that person. I’m glad Amelia will have you. I’m glad I’ll have you.”
“I know,” Sophia said gently. “I’m glad too.”
She slipped out of the breakfast room and made her way up the stairs, her mind whirling. In the space of one dinner, Henry Montrose had gone from being her distant employer to someone she understood, admired, and—God help her—was beginning to care for far more than was wise.
He’d shared his deepest pain with her. He’d offered to defend her honor. He’d looked at her like she was important.
Yet he was still in love with a dead woman.
Sophia reached her small governess’s room and closed the door, leaning against it.
In one week, she would marry Henry Montrose.
She would become Lady Montrose, stepmother to Amelia, mistress of this house.
She would spend the rest of her life married to a man who had promised to protect her, provide for her, respect her.
But he would never love her.
She’d convinced herself that Amelia would be enough. That loving his niece, raising her, giving that motherless child everything she needed—that would fill whatever void existed in Sophia’s heart.
Yet as she pressed her hand to her chest, feeling her heart race at the memory of his smile, his voice, the way he’d said her name, she realized with sickening clarity that it would not be enough.
She could already see the path unfold before her.
As the days continued, one after the other, she would fall more and more in love with her husband.
This yearning in her stomach and chest would grow until one day she would be utterly lost to it.
She was a practical woman. She’d accepted her lot.
She’d told herself it was enough. But standing here, still feeling the ghost of his lips on her knuckles, she knew the truth.
Henry Montrose’s heart was six years dead, buried at the bottom of the sea with a woman named Eleanor. There was no room for Sophia there.
And yet, foolishly, desperately, she wished there could be.