Page 5 of To Woo and to Wed
Sophie suppressed a smile. “Indeed. And would you be so kind asto enlighten me as to the identity of this gentleman caller?” She could barely get the expression “gentleman caller” out with a straight face; she felt like a maiden aunt.
Alexandra sighed, putting on a show of exasperation, but a soft smile played at the corners of her mouth as she said, “The Earl of Blackford.”
Sophie blinked. “Belfry’s brother?”
“The very one.”
“He’s awfully handsome,” Harriet said thoughtfully, “though I do think his brother is perhaps evenmorehandsome.”
“They both have those blue eyes,” Betsy said with a wistful sigh; she considered it a great tragedy of her life that both she and Sophie—as well as their absent sister, Maria—had been blessed with golden hair, but without the accompanying blue eyes that one might expect, theirs being a middling shade of brown.
“I was not aware that you and Blackford were acquainted,” Sophie said to Alexandra, ignoring Betsy and Harriet as they lapsed into a dreamy contemplation of the precise shade of the eyes of the Belfry brothers.
“We must have been introduced at some point, but I’d never exchanged more than a few words with him, until we were both guests in the same box at a performance ofThe Talk of the Ton.” This was a new production at the Belfry, the somewhat-scandalous theater owned by Blackford’s younger brother, Julian; the show was unique in that it featured only female performers, and was a somewhat ruthless—albeit amusing—skewering of theton.Shows had been sold out for weeks.
“We struck up a conversation,” Alexandra continued, “and… well, we rather hit it off. He’s escorted me to a few balls and dinnerparties—we go riding on the Row.…” She spoke all of this very nonchalantly, but there was a telltale hint of color in her cheeks and a softness about her as she spoke of him that told Sophie that this was not a mere lark, nor the beginning of a simple affair. And yet… something about her voice, some slight note of restraint, gave Sophie pause.
Sophie took a sip of tea, giving herself time to think. Blackford was, from everything she had observed, a true gentleman—she had met him at several events that Emily and Belfry had hosted. Alexandra was not the type to rush into love at a moment’s notice, so Sophie had few concerns about the match—but whatdidconcern her, at the moment, was her sister’s rather strange demeanor as she relayed this information. To be sure, her face lit up and her voice softened upon uttering Blackford’s name, but there was something oddly constrained in her manner as she informed Sophie of this development. Alexandra was the quietest and most demure of Sophie’s sisters, particularly compared to the boisterous twins; and yet, recalling Alexandra’s courtship with her late husband, Sophie couldn’t help but think that something seemed to be troubling her sister now, by comparison. Was it guilt at finding happiness again after being widowed, or was there some other concern at play?
“Alex,” Sophie said carefully, “are you in love?”
All at once, something in Alexandra’s face shifted—whatever softness had been there seemed to vanish, and her features were at once schooled into a look of bland unconcern that was bafflingly at odds with the expression she’d worn just moments before.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Alexandra said with a wave of her hand. She lifted her teacup to her mouth; Sophie was aware that Harriet and Betsy were watching both of them quite closely. “We barely know each other.”
Sophie glanced at the twins, in time to see Harriet frown, and Betsy open her mouth to protest; this was enough to confirm for Sophie that this was not at all in line with what Alexandra had told them previously.
“I like Blackford, Alex—if he makes you happy, then I think this would be a wonderful match.” Sophie kept her voice as gentle as possible, feeling as though she were approaching an easily spooked horse. She liked all of her sisters’ husbands—even Maria, the second-eldest, had married Edgar Grovecourt, a man who, while perhaps a bit priggish for Sophie’s taste, was fundamentally decent. And in the past, her approval had always seemed important to her younger sisters—a hurdle any suitor needed to clear.
But Alexandra appeared unmoved by this offering on Sophie’s part; instead, she waved a hand airily once more, and Sophie was tempted to swat it out of the air; something about the studied casualness of this gesture irritated her. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves—I don’t know that I’m going tomarryhim.”
Sophie frowned. “Why not, if your feelings are mutual?” She paused, then added more gently, “Is this about Colin?” Colin had been Alexandra’s first husband—a younger son who’d bought a commission in the army and died at Waterloo barely a year after he and Alexandra had wed. Alexandra had been devastated by his death three years earlier; coming as it had within a year of Sophie’s husband’s death, their widowhood had brought the sisters even closer.
Alexandra’s face softened at the sound of her late husband’s name. “No,” she said, a tinge of sadness in her voice. “I loved Colin—I still miss him every day—but I know he would want me to remarry, if I found someone I wished to spend my life with.”
Sophie reached across the table and placed her hand onAlexandra’s. “Still, it would be entirely normal if you were to feel some guilt about falling in love again—and I’m certain Blackford would not wish to rush you into anything, if you did not yet feel ready to remarry.”
Alexandra turned her hand palm up so that she might give Sophie’s a quick squeeze. “I know,” she said, her gaze on Sophie affectionate, before shaking her head as if to clear it. She then added, in a more businesslike tone, “I’m just not entirely certain that Blackford is that man, though he—” Here, she broke off abruptly, as though she’d been about to disclose something she’d rather not share.
“Hashe asked you?” Sophie was beginning to have grave concerns about the wisdom of attending country house parties in the future, if one month away from town was sufficient to see her sister receiving marriage proposals, of all things. Clearly she should not allow herself to be removed from their presence for so long—they might be adults, but they still needed her guidance, as this conversation proved.
“Not yet,” Alexandra said cagily; seeing Sophie’s gaze boring into her, she sighed and relented. “He might have… hinted.”
“And what do you intend to say to him, when hedoesask?” Sophie pressed.
“I’m not certain.” Alexandra’s tone was carefully light, in a way that seemed artificial. “I’m very fond of my life the way it is now, you know—I mean to say, I wouldn’t be able to pop over here for breakfast half so often if I were married to an earl and living in some mansion in Grosvenor Square.”
Sophie frowned; while she had, in some ways, come to appreciate the independence that her widowhood had offered her, she had never got the impression that Alexandra fully embraced it. She had been deeply in love with her husband, and stunned by his sudden death—and, too, she was four years younger than Sophie, and had found itsomething of a shock to leave her parents’ home at nineteen only to find herself a widow little over a year later. Once her official mourning period had ended, she had never, so far as Sophie was aware, displayed much interest in flirting with the many eligible gentlemen who had looked her way, and she had certainly never done something so bold as embark on an affair.
Something that Sophie herself had done the previous summer. And while Alexandra had certainly not been disapproving—unlike their sister Maria, who had made more than one snide comment once the gossip had reached her ears—she had seemed more than a little bit mystified by the proceedings. And so, for Alexandra now to be seriously contemplating refusing an offer of marriage—from a future marquess and, more importantly, a man she was obviously very fond of, despite her odd attempts to downplay the affection that so clearly existed between them—struck Sophie as somehow…wrong.
Alexandra, meanwhile, had taken this opportunity to engage the twins in conversation on other matters—the Northdale ball was in a few days’ time, and Harriet offered a lengthy monologue about the neckline of the new rose silk gown that she was debuting—but Sophie was only half-listening, chiming in when a response was clearly expected, but otherwise preoccupied by her thoughts.
Her mind was stuck on one offhand sentence Alexandra had uttered:I wouldn’t be able to pop over here for breakfast half so often if I were married to an earl.
And the more she thought about it, the more a niggling suspicion began to grow—and grow.
Alexandra wouldn’t refuse an offer of marriage forher,would she?
