Page 60 of To Woo and to Wed
He made as if to turn and leave, and Sophie was sorely tempted to let him; she did not know what to say to him anymore. Had not known for years now, in fact. She’d seen him at a Venetian breakfast a week earlier and they’d made polite, tortured conversation about the quality of the blackberries being served, for heaven’s sake. But—they were to be here for a fortnight, inhabiting the same house. It was a very large house, but they could not avoid each other indefinitely.
She opened her mouth to say—well, she wasn’t entirely certain what she intended to say. But before she had to work it out, he stopped mid-turn, blew out a frustrated breath, and took a step toward her.
“I want you to know,” he said, his voice low but perfectly audible in the echoing silence of the room, “that I do not think James should have drawn you into his and Violet’s problems. It was—it was badly done.”
Sophie blinked, startled; this was not what she had been expecting from him. West’s brother had, the month before, flirted with her a bit to make Violet jealous—but it had been harmless, and he’d apologized afterward. She still had the very courteous note he’d sent her tucked away in a desk drawer somewhere; only now did she pause to wonder if the man before her might have encouraged his brother to such an action.
She knew of no way to ask—not without making this conversation more intimate than she wished it to be. She and West could never be intimate in any way again.
“Your brother apologized, and there was no harm done,” she said, a bit stiffly. “I certainly was eager enough to help Violet exact revenge.”
He nodded. “Right. Well. I merely thought to… tell you. That it’s not how he normally behaves.”
She regarded him contemplatively for a moment. “He’s an adult, West.” His nickname felt strange on her tongue. “You don’t need to apologize for him.”
“Yes. Of course.” She thought, for a second, that he wasn’t going to say anything further—that he would leave the room on this stilted, awkward note. Instead, he tilted his head to the side and added, “Though I would think that you, of anyone, would understand a firstborn’s perhaps unreasonable concern for a younger sibling.”
She sucked in a breath, but did not avert her eyes from his. “Is this how it is to be, then?” she asked softly. “We cannot exchange more than a few sentences without delving back into the past?”
He had the grace to look ashamed. “That was unnecessary,” he said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “We’re to be here for a fortnight, you know. We might at least attempt to be less uneasy in each other’s company.”
“Shall I ask you about the weather, and your journey here, and whether it is your first time visiting this county?” His voice was skeptical.
“It might be a nice start,” she said shortly; he was not inspiring much desire in her, at the moment, to ease things between them. “If we can’t discuss anything of import—anythinginteresting—then we might at least try small talk.”
He looked at her for another long moment. “You and I have never made small talk, Lady Fitzwilliam.”
It was true, Sophie realized; from the night they had first met, they had skipped the inconsequential, dull chatter that passed forpolite conversation among theton, and had plunged headfirst into a frankness and intimacy that had only halted with his accident and her marriage. They didn’t know how to be polite acquaintances—they’d never been that to each other.
And now, it was all they could be. That, or nothing at all.
“We might as well attempt it,” Sophie said, lifting her chin.
After another brief pause, he nodded. “All right.” He inclined his head toward the door. “Might I escort you back to your room? Perhaps you can tell me how you are finding Elderwild so far—this is your first visit, is it not?”
“It is,” Sophie agreed, and walked toward him until they were side by side, separated by a careful, safe couple of feet. In unison, they began to walk; at that moment, in a motion that seemed to be almostcompulsive, against his will and better judgment, he flicked a quick glance over his shoulder, at the portrait Sophie had been looking at when he’d found her.
The portrait of Jeremy… and David.
He looked away again a moment later, fixing his glance steadily ahead, and Sophie continued to chatter mindlessly as they left the room, filling the silence between them with a lengthy monologue on her impressions of Jeremy’s estate thus far. Only once, as they walked, did she dare allow her gaze to rest on his profile for a moment, and she quickly dropped it—but not before she’d seen the expression of pain written upon it.
She did not alter the casual babble pouring from her mouth almost unbidden, and he seemed content to listen in silence. But for a brief, sharp moment, she wished with a frightening fierceness that she might be able to say something—anything—to ease that pained expression on his face.
But while there was a time when she might have done such a thing, years earlier, those days seemed nothing but a distant memory to her now; the West and Sophie of then, and who they’d been to each other, had no bearing on the West and Sophie of today, who no longer had anything of import to say to each other.
It was a good reminder, she thought determinedly, whenever she found herself tempted by the green eyes and broad shoulders and sharp jawline and the hundred other pieces that combined to make the man—dangerously alluring to her still, after all this time—who now walked beside her.
Their past was not one that bore revisiting—and his pain was no longer her concern.
And if she told herself this often enough, perhaps one day she’d truly believe it.
Chapter Twenty
“I still don’t see whythis is necessary,” Sophie said as she was helped out of Violet’s carriage by a footman and ushered into Madame Blanchet’s shop.
“Sophie, you are gettingmarried,” Alexandra said rapturously, sweeping past her through the doorway and into the modiste’s small, elegant establishment. “Were you planning on showing up to St. George’s wearing a pillowcase?”
