Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
“All right, now, tell me what happened,” Sophia’s mother asked tenderly.
Sophia looked down at the untouched tea cooling between her hands.
Across from her, her mother sat by the small fire in Sophia’s old bedchamber, wearing a dark green dressing gown over her nightdress.
She had dismissed the maid nearly half an hour earlier and closed the door herself.
She had not asked whether Benedict had behaved improperly or whether there had been a quarrel. She had simply sat down and waited.
Sophia traced one finger around the rim of her cup. “Nothing happened.”
Her mother raised one eyebrow. “I have raised three daughters, Sophia. I can see on your face that something has happened.”
Despite herself, Sophia smiled. Then, she sighed and looked into her tea. “We… kissed.”
Her mother blinked. Sophia immediately wished the floor would open.
Then her mother said, very calmly. “I see.”
Sophia covered her face briefly with one hand. “This is dreadful.”
Her mother smiled. “My darling, you are married.”
“That does not make discussing it with one’s mother pleasant.”
“No. But it makes the event itself considerably less alarming.”
Sophia lowered her hand. Her mother’s mouth twitched faintly. Then her expression softened.
“And after?”
Sophia’s smile disappeared. “Afterward, Benedict changed. He began spending more time in his study. He stopped lingering after meals. When we met alone, he was perfectly polite, but…” Sophia swallowed. “Different.”
“How?”
“Formal.” The word hurt even now. “He was kind,” Sophia continued quickly. “That was almost worse. If he had been angry, at least I might have understood it. But he was simply… careful.”
Her mother leaned back slightly. “And you believe he regrets kissing you.”
Sophia’s fingers tightened around the cup. “Yes.”
The fire settled softly. Outside, wind moved against the windowpanes, carrying the faint rustle of the trees surrounding Keswick. Sophia remembered Benedict beneath the chandeliers and his eyes when she asked him whether this was how their marriage would always be.
“He reminded me of what we agreed,” she said.
Her mother’s expression sharpened faintly.
“Our marriage was arranged for Amelia and Marjorie. We both knew that from the beginning. I was the one who insisted that it remain in name only. I… thought it would protect me.”
“From him?”
Sophia hesitated. “From… expectation, perhaps.”
Her mother considered that. “And did it?”
Sophia laughed quietly. “No.”
The admission hurt less than she expected. Perhaps because there was no longer any point denying it.
She placed the cup upon the table before her hands could begin trembling.
“I love him, Mama.”
Her mother’s face changed. Her lips were not smiling, but her eyes seemed to be.
“I love him,” she repeated. “And I do not know what to do with that.”
Her mother reached across and took her hand. Sophia looked down at their joined fingers.
“I thought I understood what I was agreeing to,” she confessed. “I thought it could be enough. The girls, the house, being useful somewhere. Benedict would be… Benedict. Dependable, kind, a little impossible.”
“Impossible?”
“He notices everything,” Sophia whispered. “Or he did. He noticed when I was uncomfortable before I said anything. He knew when I wanted to leave a crowded room. He listened when I spoke as though I had said something worth hearing.”
Her voice began to fail. Sophia drew a breath.
“And then suddenly he was teaching himself not to notice me at all.”
Her mother squeezed her hand. “That hurt.”
“Yes.”
Sophia looked away. “I could not bear being beside him every day and pretending I wanted nothing more.”
“So you came here.”
“Yes.”
“To stop loving him?”
Sophia looked at her. Her mother’s question contained no mockery. That somehow made it worse.
“I thought perhaps distance would help.”
“Has it?”
“No.”
The answer came instantly. Sophia stared into the fire.
Keswick had not given her distance from Benedict.
It had merely stripped away everything except her thoughts of him.
She missed his voice, his ridiculous solemnity over household matters, his habit of frowning at the newspaper and the way he tried not to laugh when Marjorie said something outrageous. She even missed his rules.
Sophia had spent four days trying to escape pain and had discovered that pain traveled remarkably well.
Her mother sat quietly for another moment. Then she released Sophia’s hand.
“I have one question.”
Sophia looked at her warily. “That sounds ominous.”
“It is very simple.”
“Simple questions are often the worst kind.”
Her mother smiled faintly. “Perhaps.” She adjusted the sleeve of her dressing gown. “If the Duke arrived at that door tomorrow morning and asked you to come home, what would you say?”
Sophia stopped breathing. Her gaze went to the door. For one foolish second, she imagined him there, tall, grave and tired, perhaps, standing on the threshold with one hand upon the frame, asking her to return to Rivermere.
Her heart responded before her mind did, with a painful, immediate leap. Sophia opened her mouth, but nothing came. Her mother did not rescue her. She did not repeat the question. She simply waited.
Sophia stared at the closed door. Her eyes burned. The answer was there, so obvious that speaking it became unnecessary.
She would go. Of course she would go.
She would be angry. She would be frightened. She would still have no idea what their marriage might become. But she would go, because Rivermere was home now.
It would not be merely because of Amelia and Marjorie, nor even because of Benedict, but because somewhere along the way, Sophia had built a life there.
Her books were there, her flowers, the girls’ laughter, Admiral’s ridiculous fortress, her place at the breakfast table and Benedict… always Benedict.
Sophia closed her eyes. “Oh.”
Her mother smiled sadly. “Yes.”
“I have made a mistake.”
“I did not say that.”
“I ran away.”
“You took several days to think.”
“I left him a note.”
“That was perhaps less impressive.”
Sophia looked at her.
Her mother shrugged delicately. “I am your mother. I am permitted one criticism.”
A laugh escaped Sophia. This one became a tear. She wiped it away impatiently.
“I should have stayed.”
“Perhaps.”
“I should have spoken to him again.”
“Almost certainly.”
Sophia leaned back in the chair. “What if nothing changes?”
Her mother’s expression became serious. “Then at least you will know you remained long enough to discover it.”
Sophia looked down. “And if he cannot love me?”
“Then that will hurt,” her mother replied. “I cannot promise otherwise. But there is a difference between being hurt by the truth and being hurt because both of you are too frightened to speak it.”
Sophia stared at her mother. She had not expected that, perhaps because she had spent years believing her mother valued propriety above all else.
Tonight, she saw something else beneath it.
She saw a woman who had loved, a woman who understood that marriage could be governed by rules and duties yet still be ruined by everything left unsaid.
Sophia stood. “I shall return tomorrow.”
Her mother rose, too. “That seems sensible.”
“I thought you might argue.”
“My daughters very rarely listen when I argue.”
“That is because you usually argue about gloves.”
“Gloves matter.”
Sophia kissed her cheek, while her mother wrapped both arms around her. For a moment Sophia allowed herself to be held.
“You will be all right,” her mother whispered.
Sophia wished she felt certain. Still, when she climbed into bed half an hour later, the decision had settled something inside her.
Tomorrow she would go home. She would speak to Benedict. No more carefully avoiding the truth, no more pretending the arrangement had remained untouched merely because they once intended it to.
At eleven, she was still awake.
At half past eleven, she turned her pillow over.
At quarter to twelve, she attempted to read.
At midnight, she realized she had read the same paragraph nine times.
Sophia dropped the book.
“This is ridiculous.”
The room offered no argument. She sat upright.
Tomorrow suddenly seemed an intolerably distant country.
Rivermere was scarcely more than a short carriage journey away.
She knew the road. The night was clear enough.
And if she remained here until morning, she would only spend another six hours imagining every possible conversation with Benedict until none of them sounded remotely human.
Sophia threw back the covers. Twenty minutes later, she was dressed. The household objected. Her father appeared in the entrance hall wearing a robe and an expression of complete bewilderment. Her mother appeared behind him and took one look at Sophia’s cloak.
“You are going now.”
“Yes.”
“It is after midnight,” her father frowned. “You cannot simply set out in the middle of the night.”
“I shall take the carriage.”
“That was not the difficulty I meant.”
Her mother touched her husband’s arm. “Henry.”
He looked at her. Something passed silently between them. He sighed.
“I want two footmen with you.”
“Of course.”
“And the driver is to take the main road.”
“Yes, Father.”
“And if there is fog—”
“There is no fog.”
“If there is fog, you return.”
Sophia kissed his cheek. “I love you.”
“That is not agreement.”
“It is very close.”
Her father looked profoundly dissatisfied. Her mother kissed Sophia’s forehead. “Go.”
Sophia smiled, then she did. Several minutes later, the carriage lamps were throwing trembling pools of gold over the road. Sophia was sitting alone inside, wrapped tightly in her cloak while Keswick disappeared behind them.
The countryside lay dark and silver beneath a thin moon.
Hedgerows moved past in shadow. Bare branches reached over stretches of road where the trees grew close, and now and then the carriage wheels struck a rut hard enough to shake the glass.
Sophia scarcely noticed as Rivermere grew nearer.
So did Benedict. Her courage rose and fell accordingly.
What would she say?
I was wrong.
No, that was too simple.
I love you.
That was too terrifying. Perhaps both.
Sophia pressed one hand against her stomach. She suddenly felt slightly ill. The carriage rounded a bend. In the distance, beyond a stretch of trees, she could see the dark outline of Rivermere’s western boundary.
Home.
Her heart tightened. A few more minutes. Then the horses startled and the carriage jerked violently. Sophia caught the window frame.
“Whoa!” The driver’s shout came from above.
The horses slowed, harness jingling sharply in the darkness.
Sophia leaned forward. “What happened?”
No answer came immediately. Then she heard a cry. It was high and frightened. Sophia froze. Another cry tore through the darkness. This time she heard the words.
“Help!”
Sophia’s blood went cold. The voice came from somewhere among the trees.
And it sounded like a child.