She opened the door hidden under the curve of the staircase. ‘Those are the main traditions. If you’d like to come down, Miss Wilmott, I will show you below stairs. Of course, there are other things that are special to this house, like the spice cakes Chef makes for the Duke, the great scale on which members of the family are weighed annually, the strewing herbs I stuff the Duke’s pillow with to promote sleep…’
Mrs Fairfax bustled through the labyrinth, invading Chef’s domains, the butler’s territory, all with a courteous greeting and the news that the new mistress was with her. Sophie grew dizzy with names and posts, the intricacies of the pasty room and the confectionery cupboard, the boot boy’s lair and the coal hole, the silver vault and the wine cellar and had to be revived with cowslip wine in the housekeeper’s own sitting room.
‘I am very impressed, Mrs Fairfax, as I expected I would be, considering how well the house is kept above stairs and how efficiently everything runs.’
The older woman beamed and demurred, praised Lady Peter’s oversight of the house and murmured about the pleasure everyone had at the return of the Duke. ‘And to know that we will be welcoming a new Duchess so soon, now that really puts the cream on top of the cake!’
Sophie was slightly tipsy on the effects of two glasses of powerful cowslip wine and the head-full of information when she finally climbed the stairs with the sound of the dressing gong still reverberating around the hall.
‘Where have you been?’ Toby enquired, falling into step with her half way up the flight.
‘Indulging in a surfeit of domesticity.’
He wrinkled his nose. ‘Sounds dull.’
‘Actually it was surprisingly soothing.’ It had certainly helped her to decide what to do about Cal’s threats of seduction that night. She would meet fire with fire and discover whether they could heal the breach that had opened up between them.
Sophie allowed Mary to undress her, then, when she had bathed, she dismissed the maid.
‘But your hair, Miss. Don’t you want me to take it down and brush it for you?’
‘I will see to that, Mary. It will be soothing.’
Soothing was not exactly what she had in mind, inflammatory was more the effect she was looking for, but she could hardly tell Mary that.
‘Yes, Miss.’ The maid helped her into her nightgown and robe and cleared away the evening dress, locked up the pearls Sophie had worn and took herself off with a bob. ‘Good night, Miss.’
Sophie promptly took out the gown and put it on again. She had chosen it because she could manage the fastenings by herself and it did not rely on tight lacing for its fit, and after a few wriggles she was dressed. She opened the jewel case and put on her pearl necklace, locked her door, blew out the candles and tiptoed through to Cal’s sitting room where she curled up in a chair near the door to the bedroom and settled down to wait.
She had counted on him not lingering over the brandy or the billiard table, not with the promise of seduction on his mind, and she was rewarded with the glimmer of light under the door and the sound of male voices after only half an hour.
‘…looking seedy,’ Flynn said. ‘I told him to stop fishing for sympathy. There’s nothing wrong with him except for a right hook to the face.’
‘He’s a sorry specimen indeed.’
‘Not fit to be around young ladies, that’s for sure…’ The valet’s voice faded, cupboard doors closed, there was the sound of splashing water, voices further away. They would be in the dressing room. After perhaps ten minutes Flynn must have come back into the bedchamber. ‘Miss Sophie’s got backbone, standing up to Ransome the way she did.’
‘She has that,’ Cal agreed. ‘That will be all, Michael, thank you. I’ll let you get back to your seedy prisoner. Hunt will be up to relieve you shortly.’
Sophie heard the bedchamber door close, then the sharp click of the key in the lock. She stood up, shook out her skirts, took a deep breath and opened the connecting door.
Cal turned the key in the lock as the whisper of a draught brushed cooler air around his bare ankles beneath the hem of his robe. Someone had come into his room behind him, opened a window or a door. He moved casually to the chest next to the door and slid his hand under the pile of shirts that lay on top of it. When he turned he was holding one of a pair of duelling pistols. Its mate was under his pillow.
‘Are you accurate with that?’ Sophie asked. She was fully dressed, her hair still up in its intricate formal arrangement, and her voice was perfectly steady. Oh yes, Sophie has backbone.
‘Deadly.’ He eased back the hammer and laid it back on the chest with a silent prayer of thanks that he hadn’t simply spun round and fired.
‘It was Jonathan in your room that night, I think,’ she said, closing the door and coming further into the room. ‘He tried to blackmail me into sleeping with him and I said I spent every night with you. He must have been checking.’
‘One less assassin to worry about. Sophie, what are you doing in here?’
‘Waiting to be seduced.’ She wandered over to the dressing table and began to examine the silver-backed brushes arrayed on it.
Cal felt the remains of his anger with her vanish like a soap bubble in the sunlight. He could not stay cross with Sophie because she simply knocked his feet out from under him with disarming frankness every time. But he was not going to let her get away with it so easily.
‘It doesn’t work like that. You stay in your bed chamber and I come and exercise my wicked wiles on you.’
‘I had no idea there were rules,’ she said earnestly. ‘How complicated.’ She was laughing at him, the little witch.