Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Rivermere Hall was more beautiful than Sophia had expected, and far lonelier. The carriage turned through a pair of iron gates and followed a long avenue bordered by elms, their branches meeting overhead in a green, murmuring arch.
Beyond them, the house rose from the landscape with solemn grace of pale stone, tall windows, a sweep of steps, and ivy trained so neatly along one wing that even nature seemed to understand it had to behave at Rivermere.
Sophia’s mother leaned in before the carriage had fully stopped.
“A very fine estate,” she whispered. “A very fine estate, indeed.”
Sophia kept her gaze on the window. “Yes, Mama.”
“And dukes do not propose every day.”
“No, Mama.”
“Particularly not to young ladies who spend more time reading than being noticed.”
Sophia turned. “Mama.”
“I only speak from affection.”
Sophia doubted this, but said nothing.
The great doors opened before they reached the steps.
Servants stood at attention with such silent precision that Sophia felt her own movements shrink in response.
The entrance hall was handsome, polished, and cold, filled with marble, dark portraits, and a chandelier that looked as though it had been designed to impress rather than to welcome.
Every chair stood exactly where it ought.
Every vase was arranged with mathematical precision.
Even the flowers seemed chosen for dignity rather than pleasure.
Then Amelia and Marjorie appeared at the top of the staircase, and the house changed at once.
“Miss Norton!” Marjorie cried, flying down three steps before remembering she had been told not to run.
She stopped, glanced guiltily toward the hall behind her, and descended the remaining steps with exaggerated slowness.
Amelia came after her more carefully, her smile shy but unmistakably warm. “We are very glad you came.”
Sophia felt her own smile answer before caution could prevent it. “So am I.”
Her mother leaned in again. “You see? Already attached.”
Sophia pretended to adjust her glove. The Duke of Rivermere entered then, tall and grave, composed in the manner Sophia now recognized as both habit and armor. He bowed to her mother, then to Sophia.
“Lady Keswick. Miss Norton. Thank you for coming.”
His voice was perfectly formal. Yet when his eyes moved, almost involuntarily, to the twins, something in his face eased by the smallest degree.
The girls noticed, too. Sophia saw it in the way Amelia relaxed, and in the way Marjorie’s feet began to fidget as if affection, in that house, had to find some secret means of escape.
The visit began with the library. It was a magnificent room, long and high-windowed, lined from floor to ceiling with books.
Sunlight fell across rich carpets and leather chairs.
A ladder ran along brass rails. The air smelled of old paper, beeswax, and faint smoke from the hearth.
Sophia stopped upon the threshold, unable to prevent a soft intake of breath.
Marjorie grinned. “I knew she would like it.”
Amelia looked pleased in a quieter way. “There are more books in the east cabinet, too. Uncle Benedict says we may read from the lower shelves without asking, but not the upper ones unless Mr. Hale approves.”
“Mr. Hale is our tutor,” Marjorie clarified. “He disapproves often.”
Sophia laughed softly. Across the room, the Duke spoke with her mother about a portrait over the mantel, but his attention strayed toward them more than once.
Each time it did, Marjorie straightened a little.
Amelia lowered her voice. The change was slight, yet Sophia felt it like a thread pulled taut.
The girls loved him. That was plain. Amelia looked toward him for reassurance. Marjorie looked toward him for permission, even when she pretended not to want it. But they were careful around him in a way that touched Sophia more painfully than fear would have done.
They did not shrink from him. They trusted him, depended upon him, adored him even.
Yet some part of them learned that laughter must not become too loud, questions must not become too inconvenient, and sadness must be tucked away before it troubled him.
It was not neglect. That made it sadder. It was love disciplined into silence.
Amelia took Sophia’s hand and drew her toward a low shelf. “I thought you might like this one. It has drawings of birds.”
“Birds are dull unless they are stealing things,” Marjorie spoke wisely.
“Birds don’t steal.”
“Magpies do.”
Sophia accepted the book Amelia offered, its cover worn soft from use. “Perhaps birds are like people. Some are quiet, some are adventurous, and some are unjustly accused by their sisters.”
Amelia smiled, delighted. Marjorie laughed as well.
The sound carried a little too brightly across the library.
It made the Duke look up. At once, Amelia’s smile faded into composure.
Marjorie pressed her lips together, though her eyes still danced.
Sophia looked between them and felt something inside her ache.
Her mother leaned near while the girls argued in whispers over whether robins could be vain. “A beautiful library. Think how comfortable you would be here.”
“Mama, please.”
“And the girls plainly need you.”
Sophia turned a page too quickly. “That is not a reason to marry a duke.”
“It is one of the better ones I have heard.”
Sophia could not answer, for Amelia was watching her with hopeful eyes.
After the library, they were shown the music room, the small gallery, and the breakfast parlor, where the twins took most of their meals.
Everywhere, Rivermere was elegant and orderly.
Fires burned at the proper height. Clocks ticked with sober authority.
Footmen opened doors before one had quite decided to approach them.
It was a house managed with excellent care.
It did not feel like a house where children had often been permitted to forget themselves.
In the morning room, Marjorie showed Sophia a collection of pressed leaves, half of which appeared to have been gathered during forbidden expeditions.
“This one is from the south lawn,” she pointed. “This one is from near the stables. This one is from a place I am not supposed to mention.”
“Then perhaps you ought not mention it,” Amelia urged.
“I did not name it. I only gave it mystery.”
Sophia bent over the page, smiling. “A mystery is sometimes more dangerous than a name.”
“I like danger,” Marjorie grinned.
The Duke, from near the window, sighed. “We are aware.”
Marjorie immediately became interested in the ribbon of her sleeve.
Sophia looked at the Duke. His expression was stern, but beneath it lay weariness and fear…
always fear. He was not cold. He was a man attempting to build walls high enough that grief could not climb over them.
The tragedy was that children, unlike grief, needed open doors.
When tea was served, Amelia sat beside Sophia and asked whether heroines ought always to be beautiful.
Marjorie wanted to know whether a lady could be both a heroine and a pirate, if she behaved politely at dinner.
Sophia answered both questions with all the seriousness they deserved.
Amelia glowed under the attention. Marjorie forgot to be careful and leaned against Sophia’s knee.
Sophia’s hand lifted, almost without permission, and smoothed a curl from the child’s temple. Marjorie went still for a heartbeat. Then she settled closer. Sophia looked down, startled by the child’s simple trust. Across the room, the Duke had gone very quiet.
Her mother’s whisper brushed her ear. “You would be foolish to refuse him.”
For once, Sophia did not feel irritated by the remark. She felt frightened because she understood it.
When the visit ended, the girls walked with them to the door. Amelia pressed a folded paper into Sophia’s hand.
“My list,” she beamed. “Of books I have read. So you may tell me what should come next.”
“And I have made a list of trees,” Marjorie added.
The Duke closed his eyes briefly.
“Not to climb,” Marjorie said quickly. “Only to admire.”
“That remains to be determined,” he replied.
Sophia smiled despite herself. As her mother descended the steps, Sophia paused and looked back at the hall.
The twins stood together beneath the great chandelier, two small figures in a house too quiet for them.
Amelia lifted her hand in a shy farewell.
Marjorie lifted both hands, then remembered dignity and dropped one. Sophia returned the wave.
All the way home, her mother spoke of rank, fortune, duty, consequence, and the extreme rarity of ducal proposals.
Sophia heard very little. She was thinking of Amelia’s careful smile, of Marjorie’s weight against her knee, and of a beautiful house where children laughed softly, as though joy itself had been given rules.
The more she thought of them, the harder it became to imagine walking away.
When the question of the final decision arose three days later, it was not posed by the Duke but rather by the girls.
“Miss Norton, will you stop visiting us?”
Sophia had been prepared for many things that afternoon. She had prepared herself for the Duke’s grave expression, for her mother’s hopeful silence, for the dreadful weight of refusing a proposal that any sensible family would call extraordinary. She had even prepared the words.
‘Your Grace, I am honored, but I cannot accept.’
Then Amelia asked her question, and every careful sentence in Sophia’s mind fell apart.
The little girl stood near the tea table with both hands folded before her, so neat and still that she looked almost part of the room’s arrangement.
Only her eyes betrayed her. They were too wide, too watchful, fixed upon Sophia as though she were listening for a verdict already feared.