Deb Marlowe - Scandalous Lord, Rebellious Miss

He had grown older. The broad shoulders she remembered were a little stooped, the dark hair shot with grey.

‘It has been a long time,’ he said.

She inclined her head. There was no polite reply to that.

‘You are doing well for yourself. You’ve shown initiative getting yourself to London.’ He smiled for the first time and looked her over like a horse at Tattersalls. The smile did not reach his eyes; they glittered, reminding her of a hungry spider. ‘Quite a change from the snivelling chit that landed on my doorstep.’

He would find her no easy prey. ‘Indeed,’ she politely agreed. ‘Many changes take place over the course of so many years. The most important one is that I no longer need, or desire, your approval.’

Her rudeness didn’t faze him. ‘You’ve got your mother’s spirit as well as her looks.’

‘Enough of it to tell you that you may go to the devil, which is exactly what she said to you, is it not?’

‘Clever, too. Young lady, you have far more potential than I have given you credit for.’

‘Lord Cranbourne,’ a clear voice rang out, and Lady Dayle materialised behind Sophie. ‘We so hoped to see you tonight. How nice to see that Sophie has at last tracked you down.’

‘She has indeed, and I see how wrong I have been not to search her out sooner. But I shall make amends and call on you soon, my dear.’ He made his bow and departed.

Lady Dayle turned and stroked Sophie’s face, her own dark with concern. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Perfectly.’

‘I am sorry I was not here sooner.’

‘Do not worry.’ Sophie made herself smile for her friend. ‘The worst is over. It will only get easier from here.’

‘I hope you are right.’ She sighed. ‘But he did not seem upset in the least, did he? I had worried that he would resent my interference. Well! Everyone is still at supper. If you have finished, then perhaps we should take a look at the Egyptian Room?’

‘Lead on, my lady.’ But Sophie drew her shawl closer to her for warmth, and tried to ignore the fact that her hands were shaking.

She forgot her discomfort once they entered the Egyptian Room. Sophie’s shawl fell along with her jaw as the door closed quietly behind them. It was unlike anything she had ever seen. She had expected something cold and sterile. Instead her senses were under attack. The vibrant warmth of the vivid blues and oranges contrasted strongly with the antique red and black. It was astonishingly busy, yet the lines were straight and clean. It was alien, spectacular, and oddly compelling.

‘Dreadful, isn’t it?’ asked Lady Dayle. ‘I don’t think this was what Mr Hope meant at all.’

‘In fact, I believe this is quite close to the spirit of some his work,’ came a voice from deep within a lionskin chair. ‘Except for all the odd animal parts. I believe that little touch is all Lady Edgeware’s.’

Charles stood and Sophie’s heart dropped. She was shaken still, and edgy from her encounter with her uncle. Not at all up to dealing with him, or the way he made her feel.

‘Charles! What are you doing in here?’ Lady Dayle’s tone was sharp.

‘I’ve come to see Lady E.’s latest acquisition.’ He gestured and Sophie swept around a sofa with legs fashioned after an elephant’s.

‘Oh!’ she gasped. It was a monstrosity of a stuffed crocodile, frozen for ever in a snarling pose of attack.

‘Good heavens,’ complained Lady Dayle, ‘the woman has gone too far. Charles, you shouldn’t be hiding away in here. Some baron from the north has stolen a march on you and taken Miss Ashford in to supper.’

‘I make it a point to come in here every year. It helps to distract myself from my own folly when I contemplate someone else’s.’

‘Yes, well, perhaps you should not encourage Lady Edgeware. I don’t find this place at all comfortable, but there is an appealing piece here and there. This, for instance,’ and she swept toward the heavily adorned marble mantel.

‘Hold, Mother,’ Charles warned, but it was too late. The short, pearl-encrusted train of her gown had caught in the jaws of the stuffed crocodile. The tear of fabric sounded loud in the room, along with the pinging dance of scattered pearls.

‘Oh, the horrid thing,’ huffed the viscountess. ‘Do untangle me, Sophie, and tell me how bad it is.’

Sophie knelt to examine the hem. ‘I’m afraid it is quite a long tear, my lady. Let me help you to the retiring room and we’ll find a maid to stitch you back up.’

‘No, no, dear. You stay and finish your look around. If you find any of my seed pearls, do be so good as to tuck them into your reticule. No, Charles, you go on to the dining room. I shall be back in a trice to fetch Sophie.’

She was gone from the room before either of them could protest. Neither of the pair left behind would have been comfortable had they seen the crafty smile she wore as she went.

Sophie, who felt that her current mood could rival any of Charles’s most cranky moments, bent again and began to gather the pearls. ‘You should go, my lord. I doubt Miss Ashford would be happy to know you were alone in here with another woman.’

He stood, silent and cold, for a moment. ‘Perhaps you are right.’ He turned to go.

Perverse disappointment bit into Sophie. ‘Incomprehensible.’ She said it just loud enough for him to hear.

‘I beg your pardon?’

Defiant, Sophie lifted her chin. ‘I was remarking to myself that I find you incomprehensible.’ She pursed her lips and shook her head. ‘But upon reflection I find that I don’t even want to try to understand it.’

‘Understand what?’ he demanded.

‘How the boy who faced down Otto, the village bully twice his size, the same boy who climbed the maypole just to win a bet, the man who swam naked in the Serpentine with two of the city’s most famous high flyers—how that person somehow metamorphosed into the pluck-less specimen before me.’

Charles just blinked for several seconds. ‘Did you say pluck-less?’

‘Yes, but I could have substituted faint-hearted, mean-spirited, dandified, or, let us not forget, hen-pecked.’

For a moment he looked as if he might explode. Then he laughed. And laughed. Then he sat down in the lion chair and laughed some more.

‘Damn you, Sophie,’ he said when he had recovered, ‘you always did bully me out of a bad mood. I should have remembered.’

He met her gaze as he smiled in remembrance and Sophie’s breath caught. Here it was, the look, the feeling of friendship and something indefinable, but more. This was what she had been looking for when she found him again. It was sweet to discover it at last, but also painful, because she knew it was fleeting.

‘I? Bully?’ she asked. ‘You are the one who has yelled at, insulted, and ignored me. A little name calling is the least you deserve.’

He grinned. ‘How did you hear about the Serpentine?’

‘The same way the rest of England did—in the papers. I dare say I’ve heard of every scrape you’ve been in since you were fifteen.’

‘Good Lord, I hope not. Some of them were never meant for ladies’ ears.’

‘No one has ever had cause to call me faint-hearted,’ she said with pride. ‘You know I’ve never cared for what people say of me. You never did either.’

The challenge hung in the air between them, and Sophie held her breath. For a moment she thought she had done it, that he would tell her what haunted him, but then he grimaced and the light in his eyes died. The mask was back.

‘Now I do,’ he said, his voice harsh, ‘and it is past time you did too.’

‘I never thought to see the day I could say this with honesty. I don’t like you, Charles. I can’t abide the person you have become. You are closed, cold, and cruel.’

‘Good. It’s better that way.’ His voice was as remote as his expression.

‘Why are you trying to drive me away?’ she whispered.

His eyes closed. He was fighting some inner battle while she waited alone. He knelt and took her hands. His were warm. He smelled of masculine things, smoke and expensive cologne and raw male sensuality. ‘Things have changed,’ he said gently. ‘You are right, I’ve changed. We cannot be to each other what we once were.’

‘Why not?’ She had to fight to keep the anguish from her voice.

‘Don’t, Sophie,’ he said, dropping her hands and rising. ‘If you only knew how hard it has been.’ He was pacing now and she was shaking. ‘And you come along and make it so much more difficult.’ He turned to her. ‘You’re not…I cannot…’ It was panic in his voice and on his face. Something out of proportion for the situation as she knew it. He began to pace again.

He stopped. ‘Listen, Sophie, let’s agree to be friends, then. I cannot offer any more. Please.’

He was hurting and, in some way she didn’t understand, it was her fault. She wanted to ease his pain, wanted to know what it was that frightened him. ‘We have always been friends, Charles. We always will be.’

‘Thank you.’ His relief was palpable.

Confused, she bent back to her forgotten task. The tiny pearls blurred as she fought the tears that threatened.

‘Here, let me help you, then I shall escort you to Mother.’

She blinked furiously. He didn’t truly wish for her friendship either, he just wanted to be rid of her.

They worked quietly for a moment before he said, ‘I believe there are some still trapped in the creature’s jaws.’

Sophie struggled to regain some semblance of herself. Never would she allow him to see the depth of her humiliation. She summoned a smile from some buried vein of strength she didn’t know she possessed. ‘Shall I leave them to you, then?’

He made a face and knelt down, picking a jewel from the crocodile’s teeth. ‘You always did leave the nasty work to me.’

‘How can you say so?’ she protested, leaning back on her heels. ‘I believe it was I who pulled the leeches off you when you would go into the South Bog after those berries.’

‘Very true,’ he returned, ‘but who had to muck out the gardener’s shed when you decided to raise a goat in there?’

Her smile was a true one this time. At least they had not lost this, the ease they felt together. It had been present since their first meeting and was the part of their relationship that she would have mourned most. Perhaps she could be content with this. ‘Poor William,’ she sighed. ‘He’s still a terror, you know.’

He made a strange, strangled noise. ‘William!’ He began to chuckle. ‘I’d forgotten the goat’s name.’ He began to laugh in earnest again. ‘Because Billy was undignified!’ he whooped, and set himself off again into gales of laughter.

This time she joined in, because it was easier to laugh than to cry.

‘Ah, Sophie,’ he said a minute later as he wiped his eye, ‘we always laughed, didn’t we?’ He leaned in close to pass her his handful of pearls, his gaze suddenly serious and locked with hers. ‘I’d forgotten how much I missed it.’

Now it was her turn to experience a twinge of panic. He was close, so close. He looked relaxed, almost happy now that he had settled her firmly in a distant sphere.

Biting her lip, she asked herself just what it was she wanted. She scarcely knew. She’d come to London telling herself she only wanted to renew their friendship. Now he offered just that and she felt—what? Disappointment. Dissatisfaction. She yearned for that connection that lit her insides, ignited her passion, made her feel whole.

Very well, she breathed deep. She would take what was offered. For now.