“Actually,” cut in Mr. Chartwell, fixing the marquess with a stern eye, “I was hoping to have a word with you later, Miss Winterton. In private. However, such as it is, I pray you’ll consider my suit, too.”
Sophie thought she heard a smothered snort, but before she could decide who was responsible, Mr. Marston had claimed the floor.
“Miss Winterton, you will be much happier close to your family in Leicestershire.”
“Nonsense!” Huntly exclaimed, turning to confront his rival. “No difficulty in travelling these days. Besides, why should Miss Winterton make do with some
small farmhouse when she could preside over a mansion, heh?”
“Chartwell Hall is very large, Miss Winterton. Fifty main rooms. And of course I would have no qualms in giving you a free hand redecorating—there and at my London residence.” Mr. Chartwell’s attitude was one of ineffable superiority.
“Marston Manor,” Phillip Marston declaimed, glaring at Huntly and Chartwell, “is, as Miss Winterton knows, a sizeable establishment. She shall want for nothing. My resources are considerable and my estates stretch for miles, bordering those of her uncle.”
“Really?” returned the marquess. “It might interest you to know, sir, that my estates are themselves considerable, and I make bold to suggest that in light of my patrimony, Miss Winterton would do very much better to marry me. Besides, there’s the title to consider. Still worth something, what?”
“Very little if rumour is to be believed,” Mr. Chartwell cut in. “Indeed, I fear that if we are to settle this on the basis of monetary worth, then my own claims outshine you both.”
“Is that so?” the marquess enquired, his attitude verging on the belligerent.
“Indeed.” Mr. Chartwell held his ground against the combined glare of his rivals.
“Enough!” Sophie’s declaration drew all three to face her. Rigid with barely suppressed fury, she raked them with a glinting, narrow-eyed gaze. “I am disgusted with all of you! How dare you presume to know my thoughts—my feelings—my requirements—and to comment on them in such a way?”
The question was unanswerable; all three men shuffled uncomfortably. Incensed, Sophie paced slowly before them, her glittering gaze holding them silent. “I have never in my life been so insulted. Do you actually believe I would marry a man who thought I was the sort of woman who married for money?” With an angry swirl, Sophie swung about, her skirts hissing. “For wealth and establishments?” The scorn in her voice lashed at them. “I would draw your attention to my aunt, who married for love—and found happiness and success. My mother, too, married purely for love. My cousin Clarissa will unquestionably marry for love. All the women in my family marry for love—and I am no different!”
Sophie blinked back the tears that suddenly threatened. She was not done with her suitors yet. “I will be perfectly frank with you gentlemen, as you have been so frank with me. I do not love any of you, and I will certainly not marry any of you. There is no earthly use persisting in your pursuit of me, for I will not change my mind. I trust I make myself plain?”
She delivered her last question with a passable imitation of Lucilla at her most haughty. Head high, Sophie looked down her nose and dared them to deny her.
Typically, Phillip Marston made the attempt. As startled as the others, he nevertheless made an effort to draw his habitual superiority about him. “You are naturally overwrought, my dear. It was unforgivable of us to subject you to such a discussion.”
“Unforgivable, ungentlemanly and totally unacceptable.” Sophie wasn’t about to quibble. Mr. Chartwell and the marquess shuffled their feet and darted careful, placating glances at her.
Heartened, Mr. Marston grew more confident. “Be that as it may, I strongly advise you to withdraw your hasty words. You cannot have considered. It is not for such as us to marry for love; that, I believe is more rightly the province of the hoi polloi. I cannot think—”
“Mr. Marston.” Sophie threw an exasperated glance at the heavens. “You have not been listening, sir. I care not what anyone thinks of my predilection for love. It may not be conventional, but it is, I should point out, most fashionable these days. And I find I am greatly addicted to fashion. You may think it unacceptable, but there it is. Now,” she continued, determined to give them no further chance to remonstrate, “I fear I have had quite enough of your company for one afternoon, gentlemen. If you wish to convince me that you are, in fact, the gentlemen I have always believed you, you will withdraw and allow me some peace.”
“Yes, of course, my dear.”
“Pray accept our apologies, Miss Winterton.”
Both the marquess and Mr. Chartwell were more than prepared to retreat. Phillip Marston was harder to rout.
“Miss Winterton,” he said, his usual frown gathering, “I cannot reconcile it with my conscience to leave you thus unguarded.”
“Unguarded?” Sophie barely restrained her temper. “Sir, you are suffering from delusions. There is no danger to me here, in my great-aunt’s summer-house.” Sophie glanced briefly at Mr. Chartwell and the marquess, then returned her gaze, grimly determined, to her most unwanted suitor. “Furthermore, sir, having expressed a desire for your absence, I will feel perfectly justified in requesting these gentlemen to protect me—from you.”
One glance was enough to show Phillip Marston that Mr. Chartwell and the marquess would be only too pleased to take out their frustrations on him. With a glance which showed how deeply against the grain retreat went with him, he bowed curtly. “As you wish, Miss Winterton. But I will speak with you later.”
Only the fact that he was leaving allowed Sophie to suppress her scream. She was furious—with all of them. Head high, she stood by the table and watched as they clattered down the steps. They paused, exchanging potent looks of dislike, then separated, each heading towards the house by a different route.
With a satisfied humph, Sophie watched them disappear. Slowly, her uplifting fury drained. The tense muscles in her shoulders relaxed. She drew in a soft breath.
It tangled in her throat as she heard a deep voice say from directly behind her,
“You’re wrong, you know.”
With a strangled shriek, Sophie whirled round. One hand at her throat, she groped with the other for the table behind her. Eyes wide, she stared up at Jack’s face. “Wh—what do you mean, wrong?” It was an effort to calm her thudding heart enough to get out the words.