Page 21 of To Woo and to Wed
Without breaking eye contact, he said after a moment, “Is the plan still to announce our betrothal at dinner tonight?”
And Sophie, after a slight hesitation—an acknowledgment of all that had been said, and all that hadn’t, and the weight of the words that had been spoken—nodded. “I’ve been thinking, though—we’ll need to tell them when we plan to hold the wedding.”
West went still. “The wedding.”
Sophie blinked. “Yes. As we are betrothed—or we will be, as of this evening? They’ll likely want to know all of our plans.”
West frowned, considering. “I don’t think we need to worry about that—they’ll be so caught up in wishing us happy, they won’t think to ask about something as frivolous as the wedding.”
Sophie smiled sweetly at him. “If I needed proof that you’ve not spent much time with women in the years we’ve been apart, you have very kindly just provided it.”
“Have you been paying attention to my romantic exploits, then?”
She faltered. “Of course not,” she said quickly. “It’s none of my concern, whom you spend time with.”
He nodded. “Just as it’s none ofmyconcern that you went to bed with Jeremy for the better part of the Season last year, I presume?” Sophie’s eyes widened, and he immediately wished the words unsaid. “I’m sorry,” he said stiffly. “That was abominably rude.”
“It did seem rather out of character,” she agreed, then froze, like someone giving evidence at an inquest who belatedly realized they’d said something incriminating. “Not,” she added, “that I presume to know your character.”
Anymore.
The word hovered between them, unspoken but somehow thunderously loud as they rattled through Cumberland Gate and back into Mayfair.
Whatever streak of madness had provoked him to speak so bluntly apparently still had him in its grip, for he leaned forward, braced his elbows on his knees, looked evenly at her, and said, “If you do not know my character, then no one does.”
A long, heavy silence fell before she found her voice at last. “You’ll call for me at seven, then?”
And West, not trusting himself to say anything else, merely nodded.
West had been prepared for many reactions to his announcement of his betrothal that evening, but he had not been prepared for the weeping.
He was standing at the dinner table of Lord Julian Belfry and his wife, Emily; he had just informed the assembled group that Sophie had done him the immense honor of agreeing to be his wife; he had proposed a toast; and now, Emily was weeping.
This was, he supposed, not entirely surprising, given that she was expecting a baby; expectant mothers were prone to wild fits of emotion, he understood (mercifully not from firsthand experience). Still, it was rather disconcerting.
He had no further time to contemplate this, however, because—
“West!” His sister-in-law was out of her seat in a flash, and the next thing West knew her arms were around his neck so tightly that he became somewhat concerned for the amount of air flowing to his lungs.
“Violet, let the man breathe,” James said after a minute or so of this, and Violet drew back enough for West to see that his brother was grinning like an idiot. James seized him by the shoulder and gave him a rough, back-slapping sort of hug, and West blinked back a strange rush of emotion.
It’s not real,he reminded himself.
Across the table, Sophie was simultaneously having her hand wrung by her sister Alexandra and being heartily congratulated by Penvale and Jane. Penvale’s sister Diana, meanwhile, was expounding to anyone who would listen—at the moment, merely her husband—that she had known this all along, that the seeds for this union had been planted whenshehad forced West and Sophie to go on a walk together the previous summer at Jeremy’s country estate.
“Didn’t they go on a walk inspiteof your machinations, rather than because of them?” Jeremy pointed out. “Weren’t you trying to convince me to go on a walk with Sophie instead?”
“I haven’t the faintest notion of what you are referring to,” she informed him, and then became conveniently deaf to her husband’s voice, joining Jane in her well-wishes.
“How did this come about?” Violet asked, clasping her hands like an eager child; she had allowed James to tug her back down into her seat, though she continued to regard West and Sophie as though they were the products of a particularly cherished dream come to life.
West shrugged, as if it were not a terribly interesting story at all, and one that certainly did not involve feigning a romantic attachment in order to trick two of the people in this very room into marrying. “We were able to spend some time together, whilst we were in Cornwall,” he said, with a nod at Penvale and Jane.
Jane brightened at this. “Was it when she hit a cricket ball into your—” She broke off, frowning, appearing to belatedly realize that this was not, perhaps, the most appropriate dinner table conversation.
Jeremy and James both suffered simultaneous, conveniently timed coughing fits.
“I doubt West’s—er—delicate cricket injury was the specificinciting incident for this romance,” Penvale informed his wife solemnly, his mouth fighting a losing battle against a smile.
