Page 34 of To Woo and to Wed
A thought occurred to Sophie now—one that perhaps ought to have struck her much earlier, before she involved West in this harebrained scheme to begin with. “Did you… have someone in mind? For marriage, I mean?” She tried to ignore the current of dread forming within her as she awaited his reply; she hadn’t heard a rumor of him courting any young ladies, but he was of an age when men of his station began to consider marriage, and he certainly had to be one of the most eligible bachelors of theton—perhaps even more so because of his accident. The slight air of tragedy that had clung to him ever since seemed to have only increased his appeal, even if it made matchmaking mamas a bit cautious. But if he were to make it clear that he was ready to marry at last—well, he’d be beating them off with his cane.
She did not care to dwell on how little she liked that prospect.
“I did not.” There was not a single ounce of uncertainty in his words.
She opened her mouth. Shut it again. Everything about the past hour—everything they’d revealed to each other—was reason enough that she should stand up and walk out of this room. Go home, where it was safe—where she wouldn’t tell him something she shouldn’t. Where she wouldn’t ask him any more questions she didn’t want the answers to.
Instead, she locked gazes with him, and said, “But you’ll need an heir.”
That arrogant lifting of a single brow—did they teach this gesture in duke school? she wondered grumpily.
“I believe I technically already have one,” he said, adding blandly,“Is it not wonderful to be blessed with the soothing balm of sibling affection?”
Sophie laughed in spite of herself. “Is that your plan? Let Audley and Violet worry about providing an heir to the title, and you can go about—what? Raking your way about town?”
This did not actually sound remotely like him, but she was bluffing her way through this entire exchange, feigning a comfort and bravado that she did not feel. It was the only way she knew how to speak to him of this.
“Yes,” West said dryly. “That is indeed perfectly in line with how I have spent the past seven years.” He took a sip of his tea, then leaned forward to place the cup—still half-full—carefully on the edge of his desk, and shifted slightly in his seat so that he was facing her more directly.
“I’ve no interest in marrying whatever debutante fresh from the schoolroom my father thinks has the bluest blood and the best hips for childbearing. I’ve a brother, who is happily married—and if he should not produce a son, for whatever reason, I’ve plenty of cousins. Went to Oxford with the next in line after James, in fact. He cheats at cards, but is otherwise a decent sort.” This was uttered reluctantly, Sophie noted with amusement; she was fairly certain West would rather lose the use of his good leg than cheat at cards.
“The point is, I don’t give a damn what my father hopes for my future anymore—and would very much like him to take his nose out of my affairs.”
She regarded him thoughtfully, considering the questions she wished to ask him, the other half of this conversation that she wished, suddenly quite desperately, to have with him.
The words stuck in her throat, however; somehow, despite all that they’d revealed to each other this evening, she could not bring herself to risk anything further. “It seems to me, then,” she said, “that if we are to teach your father a lesson, we need to make certain that he is forced to watch us be the happiest betrothed couple on earth.”
“Did you have something in mind?”
“I believe I do,” Sophie said, leaning forward in her seat. “I think that we need to make a bit of a scene.” And she felt something close to a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She was, all at once, determined to enjoy herself—to enjoy this ruse, this pantomime of the life she might have lived. She could parade before the duke as his future daughter-in-law, even if she would never hold that role in truth. She told herself that she still felt as certain of this fact as she had seven years earlier. And four years ago, too—the last time she had had cause to consider the prospect of becoming the Marchioness of Weston.
And she ignored the beginnings of the faintest whispers of doubt, lurking at the corner of her mind, and asking,What if?
Chapter Eleven
Four years earlier
Sophie would not have saidthat a graveyard was the ideal spot to commence an affair, but she supposed there must have been stranger settings for such developments. Not that she knew from personal experience—one of the wearying things about being a lady of gentle breeding, the daughter of a peer of the realm, et cetera, was that she had always been uninterestingly well-behaved.
The June sun cast the quiet, grassy graveyard in dappled shadows, and Sophie felt perspiration bead at the back of her neck beneath the heavy black fabric of her dress; she spared a passing mournful thought for the closet full of fetching summer frocks that would not be worn this year, cast aside for the array of mourning gowns that had appeared in her dressing room within days of Fitz’s death. She was wearing a particularly elaborate hat-and-veil concoction this afternoon and, with a surreptitious glance around, Sophie lifted the veil to allow a hint of a breeze to waft across her face.
It was as she was doing so that she caught sight of a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head sharply; her body seemed to recognize him before her eyes did, some tingle ofawareness creeping up her spine, raising gooseflesh on her arms. She hated that, even after three years, he still had this effect on her.
She tilted her head back to take him in: those vivid, arresting eyes; cheekbones that appeared to have been carved by a sculptor. He was clad in the finest of everything, immaculately tailored, boots shined to a gleam. He leaned upon his cane slightly as he gazed down at her.
“Lady Fitzwilliam.”
“Lord Weston.”
His mouth pressed down slightly at the edges at the sound of his title on her lips; he’d told her to call him West on the night they’d met. The use of his title felt strange.
“I wished to offer my condolences.”
“I—yes. Thank you. I received your note.”
The note in question had been written in his own hand, instantly recognizable to her even though it had been years since she’d received any correspondence from him. It had been as formal and stilted as his speech today; she’d read it twice, then filed it carefully away in the drawer in her desk where she kept the rest of the letters of condolence she’d received, like some grim treasure trove she could revisit whenever she was feeling particularly maudlin.
She felt vaguely disgusted with herself—if this was the effect widowhood was going to have on her, she could not in all honesty recommend the state to anyone else. One would have thought this went without saying, except that Sophie had seen a number of women who seemed suspiciously cheerful after their husbands’ deaths. No doubtthosewomen were not keeping a drawerful of ghastly souvenirs in their sitting rooms.
