The Arrangement (29 page)

“I am,” she said now.

He took her hand.

“This has been a very busy day for you,” he said. “A rather lengthy journey and then a new home and a new family.”

“Yes.”

They loved him, his family, and he them. They had hung on his every word at dinner when he had described his weeks in the Lake District. So had she. He had actually climbed steep hills. And ridden a horse.

“The children are a delight,” she said. She had almost no acquaintance with children. She had been surprised by their energy, their affection, their very brief attention span, their very direct questions. “They adored the stories, did they not? I am going to draw illustrations for them and put them into books with the stories. Do you think they will like them? Though I am sure they will always prefer the stories you tell straight from your imagination.”

“The stories
we
tell,” he said. “I think the Bertha and Dan story was their favorite.”

“We are going to have to rethink that one,” she said. “We must not be in a hurry to marry them and doom poor Bertha to an earthbound existence for all of the rest of her days, poor thing. It was good that we did not mention their marriage this evening.”

“They ought to have more adventures, then?” His head was turned her way, and he was grinning. She liked that expression of his. It made him look boyish—and handsome, of course.

“Like the time the kitten ran up the tree,” she said.

“Because it was so adorable that everyone wanted to pet it and it just had to get away somewhere to be alone?”

“Yes, precisely,” she said. “And of course, no one could coax it down and it was mewing most pitiably and night was coming on.”

“Enter Bertha, stage left?”

“At a trot,” she said. “And up she went after the poor kitty. It was not easy. The tree was very tall, but whereas the trunk was sturdy most of the way up, it was thin and not at all sturdy looking at the top.”

“But she got there, swaying in the breeze, and tucked the kitten under one arm, and then froze.”

“But the kitten did not,” she said. “It was still unhappy about being touched, the ungrateful little thing, and it wriggled free and ran down to the ground. Which left Bertha in the same plight as the kitten had just been in. Except that she could not simply run down. Or even look down.”

“Dan to the rescue?”

“He had to be
very
brave,” she said. “For though he could not see how high they were and how far away the ground was beneath them, he could
feel
the tree swaying. In fact, by the time he got to the top and had an arm firmly about Bertha’s waist, the wind was howling about his ears and the tree was bowing from side to side just like a giant rocking horse. In fact—”

“—it rocked so far over,” he said, “that it bowed almost to the ground, and all of Bertha’s friends were able to pluck her from Dan’s arms to instant safety before he shot up to the vertical again.”

“And he stayed up this time,” she said, “because there was less weight for the trunk to bear and the wind suddenly died. And he climbed down safely and was rewarded with a great round of applause and a great deal of backslapping, and a great big hug from Bertha.”

“And a kiss?”

“Definitely a kiss,” she said. “Right on the lips. The end.”

“Amen.”

They chuckled, and their shoulders touched.

“All those people are going to be strangers,” she said.

He looked mystified for a moment at the abrupt change of subject and tone.

“Our neighbors?” he said. “They more or less are to me too. But we will remember who we are—Viscount and Viscountess Darleigh of Middlebury Park. We are by far the grandest family for miles around. Under normal conditions they would have expected me to be in the very forefront of social life the day after my arrival here three years ago. I have been a disappointment. That must change. And perhaps I will be forgiven. I was, after all, a single man dealing with a relatively new affliction. Now I have a young viscountess. Everyone will be dying of curiosity and hoping that things will change here.”

“Oh, dear,” she said. “I am not at all sure—”

He squeezed her hand.

“I have no idea how to be a viscountess and mistress of somewhere so vast and stately,” she continued in a rush. “And I have
no idea
how to be gracious and sociable.”

“I have every confidence in you,” he said.

“It is a good thing one of us does,” she said—and laughed.

He laughed with her.

“I realized something this afternoon at tea,” he said. “And it would partly explain why I have never been quite … happy here at Middlebury Park in three years, despite the fact that I have been surrounded by family, who have lavished their care on me and whom I love dearly. It has been a place without laughter, Sophie. Everyone has been oppressed by my blindness and the necessity of being
cheerful
. I laugh a great deal when I am at Penderris Hall. I have laughed with you, almost from the time we met. And you and I are not the only ones who have laughed here since our arrival.”

“Everyone did at tea,” she said, “when I was describing standing on a raised dais while the dressmaker and her helpers poked and prodded me with pins. It was not funny.”

“But you made it funny,” he said, “and we all laughed. It felt good, Sophie. We used to laugh as a family.”

“I suppose,” she said, “Miss Dean was pretty.”

“I was assured that she was beautiful.”

“They wanted someone lovely for you,” she said. “Because you are beautiful too.”

“And instead,” he said, smiling, “I found for myself a wife who definitely does not look like a boy, despite what some people from Barton Coombs might have said, but who does look very young. And like a little elfin creature, someone told me on our wedding day.”

“Oh, who?”

“Never mind,” he said. “It was a compliment.”

She sighed and changed the subject again.

“Are there any dogs here?” she asked him. “Or cats?”

“There are probably some mousers in the barns,” he said. “Domestic cats, do you mean, though? And house dogs? They were never allowed when we were growing up, though Ursula and I were forever begging our parents to allow them, a cat for her, a dog for me. My mother used to say that there were enough of us to look after without having our pets underfoot too.”

“There should be a cat,” she said, “to sit on the windowsills in this room, sunning itself. And to sit purring on your lap or mine. And a dog to lead you about so that you need not be dependent upon a human guide or even your cane.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Lady Trentham and the Countess of Kilbourne have a cousin whose daughter has been blind from birth,” she told him. “She has a dog who leads her about and stops her from colliding with objects or tumbling down steps or coming to grief in a hundred other ways. She did not really train it and it is sometimes unruly and does not always keep her from harm. Her father is training a larger dog to be less exuberant and more obedient and responsible. Imagine having a dog to be your eyes, Vincent.”

Just talking about it made her feel excited.

“And they let her go about on her own?” he asked.

“Not on her own. With her dog. Her father is the Marquess of Attingsborough.”

“What sort of dog?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Not anything too small and excitable, I suppose. Not a poodle. Perhaps a sheepdog. They herd and guide sheep and have to be intelligent and resourceful as well as obedient.”

“There must be sheepdogs around here,” he said, half turning in his seat. “There are certainly sheep. And the cat for you? You told me before that you would like one.”

“There was an old cat at Aunt Mary’s—Tom,” she told him. “He was not allowed out of the kitchen area. He was to keep mice away from the pantry. But sometimes I sneaked him upstairs and we would purr together with contentment. But he got to be too old to catch mice. He was of no further use to anyone. He was … taken away.”

“Poor Sophie,” he said. “We will find a kitten, will we?”

“Yes,” she said. “Oh,
may
I have one?”

He sat back on the sofa and sighed.

“Sophie,” he said, “you may have anything in the world you want. You are not poor any longer.”

“A kitten or even an older cat will do,” she told him. “For now, anyway.”

“And a dog for me.” He lifted his free arm and rubbed his brow just above his eyes with the back of his wrist. “Will it work, do you think? Oh, do you think, Sophie?”

She bit her lower lip hard and blinked her eyes. There were such wistfulness and longing in his voice. Oh, she was going to give him back his eyes, or the next best thing, if it took her the rest of her life to do it. He wanted her to help him become independent so that he would no longer need her. Very well. She would do it. She would find a hundred ways or more. He had given her so much already—nothing short of her life, in fact. She would give him his independence in return.

“I do indeed,” she said. “And we can but try.”

He released her hand, slid his arm about her shoulders, found her mouth with his own, and kissed her.

“I think you are going to be good for me,” he said against her lips. “I only hope it can work both ways.”

His words filled her with such yearning that her throat ached.

“Is it time for bed?” he asked. “Do not, please, look at a clock and tell me it is too early. Just say yes.”

“Yes.”

It was twenty-five minutes past nine.

W
hen Sophia half awoke and tried to snuggle back into the warmth that had been next to her all night, she discovered only a cool emptiness. She woke all the way up and opened her eyes.

He was gone. There was daylight, but it had an early look to it. She lifted her head and peered at the clock. A quarter past six. She grimaced and lay back down.

Wherever—?

But she knew the answer. He had gone down to the cellar to exercise. Why it had to be the cellar when there must be any number of unused rooms aboveground she did not know, but he had told her that was where he always went.

She considered closing her eyes and drifting back to sleep. But now that she was awake her stomach churned slightly. Not with hunger. Indeed, she could not even think of breakfast yet. But there was a new life to be lived out there beyond their private apartments, and she had committed herself to living it rather than to creeping into a corner and observing it through a satirical eye.

She pushed back the bedcovers and sat up on the edge of the bed—and shivered in the early morning chill. Sleeping without even a nightgown was fine until there was nothing to cover one at all.

She pulled on her sadly creased nightgown, which had been discarded beside the bed again, and crossed the room to pull back the curtains from the one long window.

It looked southwest. She could see the stable block over to one side and a wide expanse of lawn dotted with ancient trees. It sloped away gradually to the lake. Centered in the view was the little island in the middle and its temple folly. The other side of the lake was dense with trees, lushly green at the moment. They must be a sight to behold in the autumn.

The lake, large though it was, must be man made. It had been very carefully positioned, as had the island and temple, to create just this view from the master bedchamber.

Sophia was smitten with a sudden and unexpected wave of grief for her husband, who would never see it.

On a more practical note, though, how could he ever get to that lake unless someone took him? The lawn undulated in rises and dips that were pleasing to the eye and even to someone strolling over it, she guessed, provided that person could see.

She frowned and considered the problem.

The window in the other bedchamber, nominally hers, must look in the other direction, southeast across the formal part of the park, the parterres and the topiary garden. She would look through it sometime, but right now there was something else she wanted to do. She wanted to go and see Vincent and find out what sort of exercises he did. She had no idea where the cellar was. She had no idea where almost anywhere was, but there was no point in feeling daunted. She would find out. She had a tongue, and it struck her that the servants here would not simply look through her as though she did not even exist. She was Viscountess Darleigh, their mistress.

Somehow it was not a reassuring thought.

She did not summon Rosina to help her dress. The idea seemed rather absurd when she had been dressing herself all her life. Besides, it was still not quite half past six. She washed her hands and face in last night’s cold water, put on one of her new ready-made dresses without stays, and pulled a brush through her hair.

The cellar was beside the butler’s pantry in the kitchen area. It was easy to find. She merely walked along to the main hall and startled a footman, who was unbolting the front doors, and he took her himself and showed her the cellar door.

“Shall I call his lordship up, my lady?” he asked her.

“No, thank you,” she said. “I do not want to disturb him.”

The staircase was very dark, but there was light below. Sophia crept down a few of the stairs until she could see all the way down and then sat on one of them, hugging her knees.