‘In other words, you were protecting me?’ Cal enquired, looking every inch the duke, from the scorn in his voice to the rigid lines of his face.
‘It was my error in the first place, my lack of judgment. It was for me to deal with.’
‘Sophie, you are betrothed to me. I protect what is mine. If I cannot do that, I am less of a man than I should be.’
‘I have wounded your pride, for which I apologise.’ Her tone was not conciliatory, but she was as angry as he was now. Male pride be damned. Why should I fight to save this marriage? ‘I assume you wish to call off the engagement? I will explain to all and sundry that I found myself over-faced by the splendour of this place, unable to meet the high standards expected of the wife of a duke. You will receive much sympathy, I am sure.’
‘I had not thought you a coward, Sophie. Nor cruel – what will Isobel think? She has lost her mother, now you do not feel you can take on that role.’
‘I could be very happy raising Isobel as my daughter. But spending my life married to you? I think not.’
‘You will marry me, Sophie. You have got too close, you know too many secrets. Besides, I want you, and we dukes, we get what we want, do we not?’
‘It would appear so. How do you intend to force me?’
‘Who said anything about force? You told me that you would regret lying with me before our wedding day. Well, you have been lying to me, Sophie, so I think you will lie with me now, regrets or not. You are no lightskirt, you expect to marry the men you sleep with.’
‘You intend to force me?’
‘No, Sophie. I intend to seduce you tonight. Not now, we have kept our guests waiting quite long enough for their luncheon, don’t you think?’ He went to the window and threw it open, then jerked the bell-pull, waiting in silence until Mary appeared. ‘A cat got in through the window with a bird that it caught. It has created chaos and Miss Wilmott was hurt falling over chasing it out. Clean it up, please – and mind the broken glass. Come along, Miss Wilmott.’
‘You – ’ She wrenched her arm away the moment they were out of the door. ‘You will not seduce me. I will not allow you to.’
Cal merely smiled.
The tale of the cat and the sparrow explained both the delay and Sophie’s ruffled appearance to the entire satisfaction of the group gathering around the luncheon table. Two young ladies declared themselves terrified of birds in the house, Lady Peter expressed her displeasure at a stable cat being allowed anywhere near the mansion and Sophie’s mother shook her head over the thought of her daughter chasing animals around her bedchamber in such a harum-scarum manner. ‘You should have rung for a footman, Sophie,’ she chided.
‘Oh, and Ransome will not be joining us,’ Cal said as Jared came in, face expressionless as he straightened his cuffs and took his place with a word of apology. ‘He did not appear to be feeling very well. He seemed abstracted to me and certainly luncheon was the last thing on his mind.’
Sophie was close enough to overhear her mother murmur to Lady Peter, ‘No loss to the company, in my opinion. I always thought there was something not quite right about that young man.’
I wish you had said that to me, Mama. Although I was probably too in love with being in love to have paid any attention.
‘Too handsome for his own good,’ Lady Peter observed. ‘Gives them an inflated opinion of their own charms.’ She frowned down the table at two of the bridesmaids who were lamenting the absence of that nice Mr Ransome. Despite everything Sophie was amused to see their eyes turn towards Toby, happily unaware that he was about to become the object of their flirtations.
For Sophie the afternoon dragged into evening on leaden feet, although all the guests appeared to be enjoying themselves, from the flirtatious bridesmaids to the gentlemen who had ridden out when the drizzle eased. Cal was the perfect host, teasing the younger ladies, charming the older ones and finding entertainment for every gentleman whether they wanted to read in the library or borrow a hack.
She chatted, strolled on the terrace and spent an hour with Isobel helping her with her embroidery. Whenever she went downstairs Cal appeared as though by alchemy and she was conscious of his heavy-lidded, sensual gaze upon her. She responded by smiling sweetly whenever their eyes met and tried to hide the quiver of anticipation as the hands of the clocks crawled round their dials.
That furious refusal to marry him had been nothing but shock and reaction, she knew it perfectly well and she suspected that Cal did too. She loved him, she was certain of that now. Loved him, was in love with him, desired him. Rejecting him out of pique because he was angry with her, did not appreciate her motives, would hurt only her and would punish him simply because he had felt deceived and lied to.
She felt uneasy too about her motives for refusing to make love fully before their wedding day. The suspicion that she had not fully committed herself to this marriage kept nagging at her. She had no virginity to lose, and she had been as intimate with Cal as it was possible to be, without that final act of joining, so had she insisted on holding back until the wedding night in a pretence that the fiasco with Jonathan had never happened? It felt like hypocrisy to have insisted on denying them both, as though respectability and doing the “right thing” were more important than their feelings for each other.
Restless, Sophie abandoned the small drawing room, leaving the older ladies to a hushed discussion of the latest crim.con. case and the younger ones to a thorough dissection of the latest issues of La Belle Assemblée, and went in search of the housekeeper.
She found Mrs Fairfax in the Chinese Drawing Room, arranging great bowls of red and
white roses. ‘I was hoping you might have time to talk to me about the management of the house,’ she explained. ‘Not detail yet, of course, but to give me some idea of what is involved for the mistress of something this large, and with an experienced housekeeper such as yourself on the staff.’ It was a declaration, a commitment, that she knew she had been avoiding making.
The housekeeper beamed. ‘Of course, Miss Wilmott. I would be only too happy, if you do not mind me putting the finishing touches to these.’ She snipped a few stems, adjusted some fern fronds and stood back. ‘What do you think?’
‘They are a very striking colour combination.’
‘One of our Calderbrook traditions.’ Mrs Fairfax swept the trimmings into the basket that had held the roses. ‘It is such a joy to have the Duke back in residence and to observe them all again. These are for the red rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York that were combined into the Tudor Rose to mark the end of the Wars of the Roses. The first Earl of Calderbrook was ennobled by King Henry VII and the family always displays red and white roses in tribute to the Tudors whenever they are in bloom.’
‘What other traditions are there?’ Sophie rescued the flower snips and the unwanted fern fronds and followed Mrs Fairfax out into the hall.
‘There’s the garland of ivy from the old castle that decorates the coat of arms up there.’ The housekeeper pointed to where an ancient and battered shield hung high on the wall, wrapped in fresh green strands of ivy. ‘The venison roast from the park herd on the first Sunday of every month, the fetching of water from the Duke’s Spring, the raising of the flag whenever the Duke is in residence and the annual Duke’s Bounty which is a great celebration on the anniversary of the creation of the Dukedom on the first day of September, 1662.’