A Duke for Christmas (7 page)

With a glance, Sophie saw that this last revelation had been perhaps too shocking. Mrs. Lindel had her hands up to her cheeks, her mouth agape. “What sort of horrible people did Broderick introduce you to?”

“Oh, there were many people who were much, much worse. Six months ago, I met a poet who’d run off with his wife’s sister and was traveling through Italy with her and his wife and his wife’s new paramour, who was a poet also, as well as all their multitude of children. They seemed very satisfied with the arrangements.”

“Horrible, immoral people.”

“I quite liked the sister, though she suffered from melancholia. Couldn’t stand the poets. I suppose I had had too much of the artistic point of view by then.”

“So I should think. Thank God you are home now among decent, well-bred folk.”

“Oh, Mother, I do. I never thought I should see England again with or without Broderick.”

“You should have written to me about all this! I had no notion your situation was so dire. If I had, I should have come to Italy myself to bring you home.”

Sophie clasped her mother’s hand. “I know, my dearest. That’s why I didn’t write. I couldn’t bear for you to worry, being so far away. No, I had resolved to stay in Rome so long as I was married to Broderick. I knew we could never afford a divorce proceeding and, even if we could have, to be so gossiped about would have been torture for both you and me.”

“Dear me, I hadn’t thought of that.”

“So long as I was so far from here and living among a set of people whom no English tourist ever sees, I could hide what had happened. Once he was dead, there was no need. I’m a respectable widow now. No one ever need know what a miserable failure my marriage was.”

“Rest assured, no one will ever hear one word of this from me. I won’t even tell Maris.”

“No, indeed. She’s so happy, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is. Dear Kenton worships the ground she walks upon and now that she is expecting their first child, well... you can imagine.”

“Yes. Tell me, have they passed through that sticky phase when they were kissing in corners every minute?”

“Not yet, I’m afraid. One must always cough before entering a room here at Finchley.”

“That reminds me,” Sophie said. “Why are we here instead of at home? Are you living here now?”

“Heavens, no. I’m having the lower rooms painted and the ceiling in the dining room replastered. I wrote you, I think, that a whole corner fell during my dinner party in September?”

“Did it? The last letter I had from you came in May and was dated in May.”

“Oh, of course. Well, anyway, Colonel McMullen was all but brained. I had no notion that a water jug overturned in my room would cause such a disaster. Fortunately, the Cosbys have a cousin who does painting and plastering. He was staying there while he worked. He’s all finished now, but the house is in such disorder that Maris invited me to stay until the Cosbys come home. They went to visit their niece while the house was in disarray.”

“How long before we can go back?”

“The Cosbys are coming home just after the New Year. If it were up to me, I should prefer to go home, but Maris and Kenton are pressing me to stay over Christmas. Of course, if you want to go back to Finchley Old Place, I will go with you. The two of us should be able to manage the housework.”

“To be honest, I should like to draw out this period of luxury as long as I can, Mother. I have had enough of doing for myself.”

“So I see by your hands,” Mrs. Lindel said, taking the cold reddened hands into her own. “I have a pair of chicken-skin gloves I will lend you. Rub goose grease well in for a week and sleep every night in the gloves and soon your hands will be as white and lovely as before.”

“I’m afraid I’ve forgotten all such secrets,” Sophie confessed. “I’d like to stay on over Christmas. You have no idea how I have longed for an English Christmas. The Italians celebrate so differently.”

“I do hope those girls won’t feel too strange here. You say they speak no English?”

“A few words only.”

“Well, I’m sure I shall make myself understood. You go and take some dinner. I’ll see to the girls.”

“You don’t want me to come along and translate?”

Mrs. Lindel shook her head. “I must be able to communicate without you. You won’t always be about.”

Sophie wondered where her mother thought she would be except at home. She’d learned her lesson. Hard taught, yes, but less likely then to be forgotten. Her future might contain many things. Love would not be among them. Never again.

“Come on, Dom,” Kenton murmured, glancing over his shoulder at the women huddled together on three armless chairs, discussing changes in the village with great intensity. Every now and again, laughter rang out, bright against the background of hushed voices. “Brandy in the library.”

“Brilliant thought,” Dom said. He sighed happily after one sip. “Wonderful stuff. You must introduce me to your smuggler.”

“Quite legally acquired, actually. Half the profit is gone from smuggling now that the wars are over.”

Dominic settled himself in a leather armchair, the twin of the one that Kenton sat in. At Finchley, they kept the civilized custom of dressing for dinner even when
en famille,
and Dominic wondered why his own black coat did not fit nearly so well as Ken’s, even though they went to the same expensive tailor. He slid down onto his tail, his long legs up on a convenient footstool, his feet toward the fire.

At ease, he asked himself what more any man could need than a comfortable chair, an excellent glass of wine, and a good friend. A scratch and whine at the door made him peer around the swooping arm of his chair. The door swung open and a black dog with a milk-white tip to his long tail trotted in, a bright inquiry in his eye as if asking if he, too, might sit in the bow window at White’s.

“Down, Tip,” Ken said as the dog came forward to take a fascinated sniff at Dom’s hand.

“He’s a nice old chap, isn’t he?” Dom said, reaching around lazily to tug at a silky ear, giving much gratification to its owner.

“Not good for much, I’m afraid,” Kenton said. “Maris spoils him, and I’ve seen the servants slipping him bits of bacon when nobody’s looking.” Tip went to his master and lay down, his paws delicately crossed at the wrists.

Dom relaxed once more into the embrace of his most comfortable chair. The firelight flickered on the mellow leather spines of old books. The mulberry red curtains blocked the cold so well that one could almost forget the whiter. Both men and dog sighed with bone-deep contentment.

“Now you can tell me the truth,” Ken said. “Was it a very difficult trip?”

“I told you the truth already. There was nothing to it. Sophie fell in with whatever I suggested and never
complained about a thing.”

“Well, she wouldn’t, would she? Not with you playing King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid over every mile. Good God, man, you bought her a horse!”

“For my pleasure. If you had seen her eyes when she talked about how long it had been...”

“I don’t doubt the necessity. I’m only at a loss to know how to convince you to let me reimburse you for it.”

Dominic chuckled. “I’ll cut the cards with you later. High card pays.”

“Done. I’ll keep her here for Sophie. The stables at Finchley Old Place are rather a disgrace. One couldn’t put a well-bred little mare like that in such a place.”

“Well, repair them. You are the landlord.”

“Only at a peppercorn rent. I don’t fancy charging my mother-in-law for the whole amount.”

“No, indeed. She might choose to save the rent by moving in here.”

“She’ll be here often enough once the baby comes. Maybe we should ask her to make her home here. Then I could rent Finchley Old Place to some new tenants.”

“Or to Sophie.”

“Sophie? It’s a thought.”

“No more money for you, though she might pay you out of pride. She is proud.”

“It runs in the family,” Kenton said with a reminiscent smile. “It can work in your favor if you know what to do.”

“Oh, indeed?” came a woman’s voice, full of both pride and laughter. “If you are giving instruction, my lord, may I sit at your feet?”

Maris Danesby waved to them to keep their seats. She perched on the arm of her husband’s chair. His arm came up around her waist to support her.

Though one was not supposed to notice such things, Dominic rather thought that even in the two weeks he’d been gone her figure had changed. The child was not due to make an appearance for a minimum of two more weeks. However, women’s fashions were not designed to hide fecundity.

Even more than the changes of body, a new glow had come into her face, a sense of peace that seemed to spread around her like the ripples in a pond. Ken had some of that quality as well. They seemed so satisfied in their union that nothing of rancor or vexation could survive against it. Dominic, taken aback by the surge of jealousy that swept over him, couldn’t look at them. He addressed himself to his brandy, letting the aromatic heat burn the feeling away.

He had to force a smile as he looked up. After he met Maris’s concerned eyes, though, the smile became more natural. His friend could have so easily married a horrible girl. Others of his friends had done so. Though Maris was quite young, she had a balanced view of life. Unlike other brides, she’d never interrogated Dominic about her husband’s past life or the women appertaining thereto.

“I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you for taking the time to escort Sophie home. It is as though I had the brother I always wanted.”

Dominic saw Ken give Maris a tiny head shake. Her smile became even more innocently beatific. “Well, I shall leave you two to your drinking.”

“We won’t carouse too long or late. Dom looks tired.”

“Did you really ride all the way from Dover? Wouldn’t Sophie let you ride inside?”

“The weather was good so I never asked,” Dominic answered. “I don’t get enough exercise anymore. It’s not like the old days when I would have walked from Dover to London. I should be the most ungrateful dog alive if I complained.”

Tip opened a lazy eye upon hearing the word “dog.” Seeing that nobody was offering him any food, he went to sleep again.

Dominic put his glass down on the table at his elbow, then stretched, one fist out, the other by his head. “I am tired.”

Now Kenton shook his head at his friend. “You’ll never send the polite world mad after your particular style of coat until you have it made tight enough to pop seams when you stretch.”

“True, true. But what would you? I care more for comfort than for a neat appearance.”

“For that, who can blame you?” Maris asked rhetorically. “I had thought men would forget all notions of dandyism upon marriage, but I have been sadly disillusioned. Kenton becomes more occupied with his attire with every season that passes.”

“I strive only to be a credit to you, my love.”

“Indeed you are.” She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. Then, a trifle awkwardly, she stood up and left the room.

“I don’t know if I should warn you or not, Dom,” Kenton said after a few minutes.

“Warn me?”

“When a wife gets that matchmaking gleam in her eyes, all a husband can do is hide in the library and suggest his friends do the same.”

Though Dominic fancied his posture became no less relaxed, inwardly he felt an increase in tension. He took up his glass before he spoke. “Who is the fortunate female Maris has in mind for me? Some friend from the village?”

“No. Who else but Sophie?”

The ringing of the crystal as Dominic’s glass bounced gently on the carpet was like the muffled ringing of fairy bells, soft but very clear in the paneled silence of the room. “It’s all right,” Dom said, leaning forward to pick it up. “The glass was quite empty.”

* * * *

Sophie was sitting up in bed, plaiting her hair before retiring, when the knock she expected sounded at her door. Maris popped her head in. “May I come in and talk to you? Or are you too tired?”

“No, I’m not tired at all.” Under the covers, she moved her legs over to make room.
Curious,
she thought,
we are so different, yet no one could mistake us for anything but sisters.
Their coloring was the same and their noses. Maris’s hair was a deeper gold, her eyes a brighter blue. Though she’d put on some weight, naturally enough, her face hadn’t changed very much. It retained the piquant interest in everything that had always been her leading characteristic.

Sophie, younger and shorter, couldn’t help comparing their lives as well as their appearances. One had an adoring husband, a child on the way, a place in the world that was hers irrevocably. She would remain Lady Danesby until the end of her days. For herself, she had a dead husband, no children, no place except that of a fallen leaf, wafted by a wind into a river, there to float unmemorably until sunk. At most, she would rate a footnote in some future writer’s history of Broderick Banner’s brief life and tragically early demise.

Maris had by now absorbed the details of Sophie’s appearance. “Do you have your dressing gown on? In bed?”

“And my thickest knitted bed socks and two petticoats.” “But it’s quite warm in here,” Maris said, glancing at the fireplace with a housewifely eye.

“Would you believe I’d quite forgotten how beastly the winters are in England? When I think how I used to complain when the temperature would fall to forty!”

“I suppose your blood became rather thin living there. But think of all the lovely sunshine in the summer. We had nine wet days in a row in the middle of June.” She sat down on the edge of the bed.

“I’m hard to please,” Sophie confessed. “I always found the summers too hot.” She didn’t add that it was because her stuffy little room never felt a breeze and all the heat from the stoves, along with all the torturing smells of good Italian cooking, collected there. “But enough of my nonsense. Tell me about you. What does Dr. Richards say?”

“About what one would expect. Stay quiet, no violent exercise, drink milk. How tired I am of milk!”

“But all is well?”

“So far as anyone can tell. What I hope is that once the baby is born, people will start fussing over it and not me. Between Mother and Ken, I hardly dare move without one or the other of them reminding me I should sit down.”