Something that would never happen now that she was Mrs. St. Claire.
Sophia had known she would have to face her family one day, but not now, so unexpectedly,
on such a nice day.
Her steps faltered, and for one wild second, she considered lifting up her hem and
running away through the park like a hoyden. As if that would solve anything.
“Sophia, what is it?” she heard Dominic ask, just as her mother glanced up and saw
them there.
Allison Huntington froze, as if she was as shocked as Sophia was. But her surprise
was concealed in an instant, as a lifetime of social training took hold and she concealed
every emotion with a polite mask.
“That is my mother,” Sophia said quietly. “I haven’t seen her for some time.”
“Well, I suppose we can’t escape the meeting now,” Dominic said. “Shall we go say
hello?”
Sophia glanced up at him from under her parasol. For the merest glimmer of an instant
she saw a tiny smile on his lips, as if he looked forward to the confrontation. Then
it vanished, and he squeezed her hand.
“Yes, I suppose so,” she said. “At least my father is not here. My mother, much like
yours, is always scrupulously polite.”
Sophia hardened her resolve as she watched her mother come closer. The gossip in that
morning’s papers had shown her the futility of trying to be respectable. Whenever
she tried, it never worked out well. And now she had a husband to match her. It was
either let the pain overwhelm her or use it as she always had, to act out. Sophia
pasted on her brightest smile and drew Dominic with her as she went to meet her mother.
“Sophia,” her mother said. Her tone betrayed no hint that they had been apart so long
or so acrimoniously. “Such a surprise to see you here today, my dear.”
“Mother,” Sophia said. Her mother leaned toward her for the merest brush of lips against
cheek, a whiff of the lemon verbena perfume that brought her childhood back to her
so vividly. The loneliness and longing of it. “Didn’t Elizabeth tell you I was back
in England?”
“Your cousin has already dashed off on her travels
again. She cannot stay still since her husband died,” Allison said with a sigh. “You
young people, I don’t understand you. In my day, we were content to stay at home,
where we were meant to be.” Her gaze flickered to Dominic.
“Mother, this is my new husband…”
“Mr. St. Claire. Of course,” Allison said with her most painfully polite smile. “I
have certainly heard of you.”
Dominic gave her a short bow, a tight smile. “And I of you, Lady Huntington.”
“And this is my new daughter-in-law, Edward’s wife,” Allison said. Her smile grew
warmer as she drew the young lady in pink forward. The girl gave a shy smile. “She
has been a most welcome addition to the family. We are all so very fond of her.”
After a few innocuous comments on the weather, Sophia’s mother sent her daughter-in-law
back to the carriage to fetch a shawl. Once she was gone, Allison stepped closer to
Sophia and said through her unfaltering smile, “I am glad to see you are well, Sophia.
But I hope that you and your husband have no thoughts of calling at Huntington House.”
Sophia fought to hold on to her own smile. That was more direct than she would have
expected. She felt Dominic stiffen beside her. “Why should we wish to go there, Mother?”
“Because you always did enjoy causing a scene, even when you were a child,” Allison
said in an exasperated tone. “Your uncle was most displeased to learn you were back
in London. We had thought you were settled abroad.”
“I supposed he would be, with Aidan safely disposed of in Edinburgh with
his
St. Claire spouse,” Sophia said.
“But none of you have anything to fear from me. I am just trying to live my life and
be happy in my own way.”
Allison shook her head sadly. “I never did understand you, Sophia. You throw away
all your advantages until we can no longer help you.”
“I haven’t asked for your help, have I?”
“I must go now.” Allison gave her one more cool kiss and backed away. “I hope that
you will be happy, Sophia.”
“And I you.” Sophia watched her mother slowly walk away, never looking back. During
all her time away from her family, she had sometimes imagined what might happen when
she met with them again. And even though that brief meeting had gone as well and peacefully
as could be expected, Sophia couldn’t help but feel wistful.
She felt Dominic’s hand on her arm, and she turned away from her mother’s retreating
figure to smile up at him.
“Is that how your family has always treated you?” he asked.
His voice was so gentle that Sophia was sure her momentary pang of sadness showed
on her face. She smiled harder and turned around to walk away. “No, indeed. That was
my mother being kind. We’re fortunate she talked to us. She wouldn’t have if my father
was there.”
“Sophia,” he said, holding tightly to her arm. “What was it like for you before you
married Westman?”
“I don’t want to talk about ‘before.’ It’s much too pretty a day to waste on my family,”
she answered. “Let’s go have an Italian ice before you have to leave for rehearsal.”
Dominic nodded, and they walked on in silence toward their carriage waiting at the
park gates. As she climbed up
the step, she noticed a couple who had been at the Devil’s Fancy. She gave them a
smile and a wave, but they turned away. It saddened her even as she expected it.
Don’t be ridiculous
, she told herself sternly. She was worrying about things that weren’t even there.
Her mother and the hovering threat of Lord Hammond were making her fearful when she
should be thinking about forging ahead in her new life.
When she should be thinking about her new husband.
That sanctimonious witch
, Dominic thought furiously as he led Sophia back to their carriage. She smiled, as
she always did, but he could see the bright sheen of her eyes, the fierce way she
set her lips. Sophia’s laughter, that spontaneous, infectious gaiety he loved so much
about her, was gone. And all because of her mother.
Any outsider who happened to witness that little exchange would surely have thought
it was the height of refined politeness. But Dominic had seen it for what it was.
A forced encounter, tinged with ice and ringed around with the barbs of years of rigid
expectations.
He thought of his own parents, of how his family all fought and bickered and disagreed,
but at the end of the day they were all there for each other. They would fight for
each other to the last drop of blood.
And he remembered that when he and Lily and Brendan and the twins were children, their
parents would always tuck them into bed before they left for the theater. There were
hugs and cuddles, stories, laughter, and no matter what, there was love.
Once, in his bitterness toward the Huntingtons, he had
imagined their children growing up amid lavish splendor, like little princes and princesses,
reveling in all they had stolen. But today, as he saw the coldness in Lady Huntington’s
eyes as she looked at her own daughter, he knew that he had grown up as the fortunate
one.
And Sophia’s pain hit him like a burning bolt of lightning to his own heart. She had
hinted that all had never been well in her family, but today he saw the full extent
of what she must have gone through, growing up in a family that could never see her
true beauty. Her true worth.
His lovely, laughing Sophia, so full of life that she almost burst with the light
of it all—her own family had tried to extinguish all of that. They had forced her
to run away, to make her own way through the world alone, and yet she had never let
them break her. She had been too stubborn to ever give in.
They were two of a kind. He could see that very clearly now. Neither of them could
fight their natures. “She was wrong, Sophia,” he said as he helped her into the carriage.
She gave him a puzzled little frown. “Wrong about what?”
“About everything,” Dominic answered. He climbed in after her and took her into his
arms. For an instant she stiffened, as if seeing her mother had drawn her back into
the cold Huntington world. But then she melted against him and hid her face in his
shoulder.
“You are an amazing woman, Sophia,” he said. “And a strong one, to have stayed true
to yourself for all these years.”
“I don’t feel so very strong,” she answered, her voice muffled and thick as if she
held back tears. It made him even angrier at anyone who would hurt her. “Once I only
wanted them to see me, to
know
me, but all they could see was how they wanted me to be. And I could never be that.”
“I see you, Sophia,” he said fiercely, holding her against him. “I know you, because
we are alike in so many ways.”
Sophia shook her head. She pulled herself out of his arms and turned her head away
to swipe her hand over her cheeks. “Perhaps we are. But I fear you will only see me
as a Huntington, just as they will always see me as not good enough.”
“Sophia…” Dominic began, reaching for her again. Somehow it felt as if she was slipping
away from him, like a ghost or a dream through the mist, and he wanted to hold on
to her.
But she turned away from him. She stared out the carriage window as the streets of
London rolled past, her back held rigidly straight. “I was such a fool. I thought
we could make something of our marriage, that we were as you said—two of a kind. But
Isabel told me that your family has hated mine for a very long time.”
“But you are not your family,” he protested. “You are only Sophia. The way your mother
behaved toward you today was not right.”
“Did you not want that to happen?” Sophia suddenly swung around to stare at him. Tears
shimmered in her eyes, but they were blazing with anger. “Did you not want us to cause
gossip that would embarrass them?”
For once in his life, Dominic had no easy words. He had nothing at all, for he couldn’t
deny what she had said. He had wanted to embarrass the Huntingtons with their daughter’s
scandalous marriage.
Somehow, without his even noticing what was happening,
the game had changed on him. The hand he had been dealt was completely different from
the one he expected. He had stolen away a Huntington—but she had stolen his heart.
Sophia, with her bright laughter and her vivid, spontaneous heart, had burst into
his life and completely changed it. What he had thought was one thing was something
else entirely, something infinitely more rare and precious.
Something he hadn’t even known he was missing, and now it was all he wanted. Sophia
was all he wanted.
But she stared at him with such anger and hurt in her eyes, and he couldn’t find the
words to tell her of his sudden confused realization. He, who made a living with language
and the counterfeit emotion of the stage, was struck down by the most real moment
of his life.
He reached again for Sophia, but she turned away. Her arms crossed tightly across
her stomach, holding herself apart from him.
“You got what you wanted,” she said. “You have embarrassed my family. But now you
are trapped with me as your wife.”
“Sophia, it is not like that at all,” he said firmly. “If you would only listen to
me…”
“No!” she cried. “Please, Dominic, please don’t lie to me now. Not on top of everything
else. I can’t bear it. I need to think.”
The carriage drew up outside their lodgings, and as soon as the footman opened the
door, Sophia leaped down and ran up the steps.
Dominic’s first instinct was to follow her, to catch her in his arms and
make
her listen. Make her see how things had changed. But he sensed that she wasn’t ready
to hear him yet, that she would just push him away. And he had
to have time to find just the right words. To try to build a new life.
He climbed out of the carriage, too, but he didn’t follow her into the house. She
said she needed time to think and so did he. And he did that best in the theater.
He sent the carriage away and started walking toward the Majestic.
It was a walk he had made dozens of times in his life. Yet today everything around
him looked completely different.
John has returned to Court with the duke, leaving me here again. But he took bags
of coin and jewels with him, I pray all goes well and that he returns soon, happy
again. I do not think I am with child yet.
S
ophia knew something was amiss the moment she stepped into the Majestic Theater.
For the last few days, ever since the uncomfortable meeting with her mother, she had
tried to settle into her new life as Mrs. St. Claire, trying to find her way. She
went to the Devil’s Fancy club at night to learn how it was run, and during the day,
she left their lodgings to bring Dominic his lunch so he would remember to eat during
the long rehearsals. It was one of the few times she saw him, as the new production
of
Two Gentlemen of Verona
was due to open tomorrow night and he was always at the theater.
Except for at night, when he climbed into their bed and took her in his arms.
Then
they were together. Then she was sure she had done the right thing in marrying him.
Until she woke in the morning and he was gone.
She tried to find useful ways to fill her days. She called on her new mother-in-law,
ran lines from the play with Isabel, did some shopping for things to make Dominic’s
lodgings more like a home. She tried to help at the club, but James and the manager
had things well in hand.
She thought about calling on some of her old friends
or even her family, but then she remembered her mother’s frosty reception and couldn’t
work up the courage to try it. She knew her marriage had moved her even further from
them all, despite her old, futile hope to return to them. Dominic urged her to write
to them, but she wasn’t sure why. He had seen what happened in the park, and she remembered
too well what Isabel had said about their two families.