Irresistible (23 page)

But Sarah had been with Viscount Perry, looking young and innocent and happy....

There was
something
she could do, though, and she was going to do it. She was no longer in Spain. Those days were long over. She was a different person now. She had been on her own, ordering her own life for three years. Did they not realize that? It was high time they did.

She had been so very
happy
to see them. She had thought old times could be recaptured, but they could not. Her life had only become more complicated, and much more unhappy.

Very much more.

She remembered the time of the morning when she had met them in the park with Sarah. She wondered if they rode there at the same time every morning. She rather believed they did. Someone had mentioned it at Rawleigh House that first evening. It would be very much more convenient if she could see them all together and soon. Then at least she could begin to put part of her life back together again.

She would perhaps have the illusion of control for a short while. Until he “discovered” the next letter and she was forced to face the reality of the fact that there was no money with which to pay him and nothing to sell.

She would think of that when the time came.
One day at a time.

And so Sophia went walking early and alone in the park, except for Lass, of course. Samuel had asked if she wished him to summon Pamela to accompany her and looked disapproving when she said no, but her servants were not her keepers either. She would take charge of her own life and she would do it today.

It was all illusion, of course.

She had been walking for all of three quarters of an hour before she saw them off in the distance, riding toward her—three horsemen, not four. She wondered which one was absent and prayed silently that it was not Nathaniel. She did not wish to have to talk separately with him.

But it was Nathaniel. Fate was against her, it seemed.

They had seen her, of course. They were all smiling gaily when they came close just as if last evening had not happened. But then to them, perhaps, it had not seemed such a momentous incident after all. She would not let that possibility deter her, however.

“Sophie,” Kenneth called while Lass pranced all about them just as if the horses and riders were her long-lost friends. “Good morning. And a fine one it is for a change.”

“All alone, Sophie?” Rex asked, looking about him as if he expected to see a maid bob up from behind the closest bushes.

“You will notice, Sophie,” Eden said, grinning down at her, “that we are all present and accounted for except Nat. As are you. You will help us tease him, no doubt. He escorted
LadyGullis
home from last night’s soiree.” He winked at her.

“For which piece of information Sophie will be eternally grateful, Eden,” Rex said dryly. “You had better not be planning to share it with Catherine too.”

“Sophie is made of sterner stuff,” Eden said. “And I have to boast of my matchmaking skills before someone who will appreciate them.”

They were all mightily pleased with themselves and with the absent Nathaniel, Sophia noticed, given the circumstances of his absence.

She stood looking up at them, unsmiling. “We are not in the Peninsula any longer, Eden,” she said. “I am no longer Walter’s wife, no longer
good old Sophie.
Those days are gone and I would thank you for remembering the fact.”

Kenneth grinned. Eden looked embarrassed.

“Oh, I say, Sophie,” he said. “I am most awfully sorry. I thought you would enjoy the joke.”

“I have not enjoyed it,” she said. “Neither have I enjoyed your determination to treat me as someone who cannot possibly live her own life or think her own thoughts or choose her own friends.” She was looking from one to the other of them, and they were all serious now. “I do not appreciate unsolicited interference in my life.”

“You refer to last evening,” Rex said after an uncomfortable silence. “We did not wish a repetition of what happened on the night of the Shelby ball, Sophie. We did not want him frightening you.”

“I was not frightened,” she said curtly. “The supper room was stuffy and I almost fainted. Mr. Pinter is a friend of mine. None of you ever liked him in the Peninsula. Neither did Walter. I am me, Sophie, and I like him. I choose to have him as a friend and I deeply resent the embarrassment of last evening, when you made it apparent to both him and me that you saw yourselves as my bodyguards to keep him at a distance from me. I will not have it.”

“Sophie—” Eden began, but she whipped around to glare at him.

“I
will not
have it,” she repeated. “If I must choose between the four of you and him, then I choose Mr. Pinter. He has done nothing to offend me. You have. Perhaps you have meant well, but you have treated me as a child. No, worse than a child. You think, Eden, that I enjoy your ribald remarks, that I am just a jolly fellow. I am not. I am a woman with a woman’s sensibilities just like Catherine or Moira or any other
lady.
I may not be a lady, but I do have the same feelings as one.”

“Sophie—” It was Eden again, sounding quite distressed now. “My dear.”

“I am not your dear,” she said. “I am nothing to you, Eden. I am nothing to any of you. I believe it would be as well for you all to remember that. We were once friends, and I have enjoyed meeting you all again. I enjoyed reminiscing at Rawleigh House, Rex. I thank both you and Kenneth for presenting me to your wives. But times have changed. I want no more dealings with any of you.”

They all stared fixedly at her as if, she thought, they expected her to burst into song at any moment or explode into dance.

Kenneth was the first to straighten up. He touched the brim of his hat with his whip and inclined his head to her. “My deepest apologies, Sophie,” he said. “Good day to you.”

The other two murmured something similar and the three of them rode away. None of them looked back, which was just as well, Sophia thought, or they would have seen her both rooted to the spot and shaking like a new sapling in a stiff breeze.

She had not intended to say half of what she had. She certainly had not intended to go for Eden’s throat with her accusations of ribald vulgarity. And she had accused them all of treating her as less than a lady merely because she was
not
a lady. She had never even
thought
that. The words had seemed to come from nowhere.

She had intended to end the friendship in a perfectly calm and rational manner—if it was possible to end a friendship in that way.

Now she felt bereft, she thought, trying to bring her limbs and her heartbeat under control.
This
was what it felt like. Did it feel better or worse than last night’s misery? But she could not make the comparison. She had not yet talked to Nathaniel. It seemed a cruel fate that this morning of all mornings he was not with his friends.

He was with Lady Gullis. He had spent the night in her bed, doing to her and with her the things he had done with
her
the night before. It was a horrifying realization, not just because of the intense jealousy it aroused—though to her mortification there was that too—but because it made her feel cheap.

He had been in London just a short while, yet already he had spent a night at a brothel—had not Eden said that at Rex’s?—two nights with her, and one night with Lady Gullis.

And she had thought there was something beautiful, something special about their nights together? She had even humiliated herself by suggesting that they have a long-term affair. How he must have laughed at the ease of his conquest of her.

How she hated him. And herself. Herself most of all. Would she never learn that dreams—or the fulfillment of dreams, anyway—just were not for her? She was just too plain and ordinary and unexciting. Unfeminine. She
hated
her lack of self-esteem.

And when she did dream of a man, she chose a blatant
rake.
He had never been anything else. Had she learned nothing in her years with the army?

Should she assume that her morning’s task was now completed? she wondered. Would they go and tell Nathaniel what she had said? She did not doubt that they would. She did not need to subject herself to any more of this.

But no. Perversely, there had been something marvelously satisfying to her bruised heart in that confrontation. It would be even more satisfying to hurl her defiance and her scorn in Nathaniel’s face. She could still see his cold eyes boring into hers last evening just before he turned away disdainfully with Lavinia, leaving her with one hand outstretched, a smile on her face, and her mouth open to begin the introductions.

She turned her steps determinedly in the direction of Upper Brook Street.

NATHANIEL HAD GONE IN for an early breakfast, discovered that he was not hungry, and considered going to White’s to read the morning papers. He did not feel like reading the papers. To see if any of his acquaintances were there, then. Ede, for example. He did not want to see Eden—he would want to know all about last night and what had happened with Lady Gullis.

But it was a lovely morning, he saw, standing at the breakfast-parlor window, looking out. It would have been perfect for a ride. He should have got up and gone as usual—he had not slept anyway. But he did not want to see his friends. They would
all
want to know about last night. And they would want to discuss Sophie.

There was nothing to say about Sophie.

“Yes, what is it?” he asked when his butler came into the room behind him and cleared his throat. One could always tell by the throat clearing the nature of the message. This was an embarrassed throat clearing.

“There is a lady to see you, sir,” the butler said. “Unaccompanied, sir. I asked if she wished to speak with the young ladies though they are still abed, but she said no, sir, that she wished to speak with you.”

A lady? Alone? Lady Gullis? But she would not be so lost to propriety, surety—or so willing to appear more eager than he.

“And does this lady have a name?” he asked.

“Mrs. Armitage, sir,” his butler said.

“Thank you,” he said. “I will come. Show her into the visitors’ salon, please.”

“Yes, sir.” His butler bowed and withdrew.

Sophie? What the devil? He frowned. Well, he had wondered if he needed to talk to her, to put a definite face-to-face end to their affair. Now the decision had been taken from him. He could do it now. But why had she come here—and so early and alone? Was there trouble? Had his first instinct—and that of his friends too—been right and it was fear that had impelled her last night as it had at the Shelby ball? Had she needed their help after all? Did she need it now?

He strode from the breakfast parlor to the visitors’ salon.

She was standing across the room from the door, facing it. She had removed her bonnet. It lay on a chair beside her. She looked as usual—neat and plain and practical in a mid-blue walking dress, her hair slightly disheveled. And she looked different from usual—far from appearing placid and comfortable and cheerful, she looked determined and almost belligerent.

She looked beautiful, he thought, bending absently to scratch the ears of the collie, which had come trotting across the room to greet him with wagging tail and lolling tongue—though he did not take his eyes from his visitor.

“Sophie?” he said. “May I summon a maid?”

“No,” she said.

“Did you come to see Lavinia?” he asked. “You are at least a couple of hours early, I am afraid.”

“No,” she said. It sounded almost like a declaration of war. Was she going to
quarrel
with him? he wondered, his interest piqued.

“What is it?” he asked, taking a few steps closer to her and clasping his hands at his back. “How may I be of service to you, Sophie?” He listened to his own words with some inner amusement. Was he the man who had decided quite firmly to finish with her? But when all was said and done, she was still his dear friend.

“I believe,” she said, and her head went back and her chin jutted and she looked even more hostile, “I owe you an apology. I ought not to have tried to present Mr. Pinter to your niece. I should have directed his request to you.”

It sounded very trivial now that it had been put into words, the incident that had so angered him last evening and that had kept him awake all night determining to be finished with her.

“Sometimes,” he said, “we are taken by surprise and do not have time to think out a wise course of action. I drew attention to you by reacting as I did. I should perhaps have simply spoken up. But I would have refused. I do not consider Pinter a suitable acquaintance for Lavinia.”

“You accept my apology, then?” she asked, her cheeks flushed.

“Of course,” he said. “And will you accept mine?”