Page 3 of A Dreamy Match Made in Heaven
Lady Silsby turned to her daughter, but Adrianna was already seated beside Sophia and placing a hand upon her shoulder.
“We shall demand that he make this right,” Lady Silsby declared.
“He shall realise his mistake and come back to you. I’m sure of it. He pursued you and he must love you,” Adrianna reasoned.
But their words fell upon deaf ears. Sophia did not want their pity. She wanted the Earl to have loved her enough not to make this mistake.
But it was too late. He had made his choice. And now, she would have to pay for it.
Chapter 2
Two months had passed and Sophia remained forlorn. It had turned out that the maid had heard the truth. In the months that had passed, a series of misfortunes had overwhelmed her.
The Earl of Bastion had been a weak man. He had been a fool. And through it all, he had made Sophia look as though she had been the one to make a mistake. After all, there must be something wrong with her if she was not enough for a man like him.
The young woman he was supposed to have eloped with was a simple girl from the countryside. No matter how society viewed the matter, Sophia was the one who was publicly humiliated. She was the one who was stuck with the consequences.
But the true pain was not the embarrassment. Rather the true pain that she felt was the heartbreak of rejection. It was hardly the first time she had felt the rejection of a man she had cared for, but it was the most recent and it caused her a great deal of pain to know that she could not keep any man happy no matter how she might try.
A small part of her had felt that she had loved the Earl. Whether or not that was true love, she could not say. After all, it was the only form of love she had ever known with a man. Well, that was not true. But it was what she had long tried to tell herself.
But if this had been love, then love was something that she never desired to know again. She had been close enough to the sense of love to know that it was painful and existed only to wound one due to another.
On more than one occasion Sophia had sat with Adrianna and her mother, listening to what was spoken about in society. Sophia had made every effort to avoid the gossip and rumors as they were told by others, but she still wished to know what was being said.
It was easier when the truths were coming from them rather than from other ladies with whom she was less familiar.
Her mother had sat with her the evening after everything had come out and explained what she had heard about the Earl, and the details she had learned. But they had been few as there was still little certainty of what had led him to such callous actions.
In the weeks that followed her mother had managed to glean other pieces of information, although the majority of it was in reference only to the present.
Primarily it all had to do with the Earl’s recent actions. He had shamed his family. He had abandoned his title for the sake of the young woman that no one knew anything about.
It seemed as though no one was ever going to put the pieces together.
Sophia had hoped in the very least that the Earl might write her a letter, explaining himself. But he had remained silent. He had not given even a moment’s thought to explain matters to her, and it was agonising for Sophia to know that he did not even care enough to speak with her about what had occurred.
She would have to move on, alone, and try to understand what had been so terrible about her that he could not even find it within himself to communicate his abandonment. She would have to live with the heartbreak of his lack of affection for her.
But the weeks continued to move forward and, finally, more of the story unfolded. Adrianna had come to spend time with Sophia, but she had warned her that more information had come to light and it might be difficult to hear.
Sophia agreed to hear it anyway, thinking that any explanation was better than nothing at all. She needed to understand why this had all happened.
Adrianna had made every effort to calm Sophia before she launched into the explanation that she had heard regarding what had happened with the Earl and why he had acted so terribly through all of this. But Sophia knew how evident her sadness was, and she allowed her friend to simply comfort her for a while before anything else.
“I am so sorry that you have had to face this terrible pain,” Adrianna had said to her. It was nice having the companionship of her friend, but it did not make things right.
“I know,” Sophia mumbled, unwilling to make more of an effort to speak. She closed her eyes as if this enabled her to will the world away and give her a semblance of solitude.
She had spent a great deal of her time in the quiet of her room, and she was scarcely one for conversation in those days that had followed.
Adrianna had not forced her to pretend to be upbeat or to try to be alright. She had simply sat with her and listened and taken care of her friend who was suffering these terrible pains and living with such a burden.
“Can I call for anything to be brought to you? Would you like a bit of custard? I imagine Miss Honeycutt could have it brought for you. I know you are a fan of it,” Adrianna suggested.
“I cannot eat right now,” Sophia replied, allowing herself to collapse on the bed. She had tried to maintain a proper posture, tried to greet her friend in the parlour as was expected, but nothing seemed to do her any good.
She had preferred to simply remain upon the bed, resting and thinking and trying to forget the state of her affairs.
