Three Original Ladies 02 - Lord Trowbridge’s Angel (22 page)

“I believe he is still engaged to my friend, Lady Melissa.”

“And likely to remain so. Do you still refuse to entertain my suit?”

“Lord Shrewsbury, I like you very well. However, as soon as my
musicale
is past, I plan on returning to Derbyshire, where I shall remain. I have had enough of London and the
ton.
I am a creature of the country. I fear we would not suit.”

She sat down, hoping now that he would leave. Instead, he paced the room, his hands gripping one another behind his back. “I, too, have an estate in Derbyshire. It is not as grand as Hanford, but it is an elegant house in the Palladian style. Would you permit me to call upon you while you are in the country?”

Since she would not be in Derbyshire unless things were irrevocably finished between her and Frank, she said, “Yes. It would be lovely to see you. I am certain that Elise and the Duke would enjoy seeing you as well.”

“Perhaps we will see each other at Devonshire House.”

“Perhaps we will.”

“Goodbye until then, Miss Edwards. I will see myself out.”

~
~*

Sophie was beside herself with joy on Saturday evening when she, Frank, Elise, Aunt Clarice, and Sukey arrived at Devonshire House. She had never met the Duke, of course, and found him to be a loud and friendly man. As he stood greeting his guests in the sumptuous music room, he kissed Sukey enthusiastically on both cheeks, his eyes alight. Sophie had heard that Devonshire had entertained a
tendre
for the tiny lady even though she had declined his marriage proposal.

“And how does Henry Five?” he asked of the tortoise he had given her.

“You must come and visit him. It has been far too long since he has seen you. Now, allow me to introduce my special friends, who are particular admirers of Mr. Wordsworth.”

The duke cordially welcomed Frank and Sophie, kissing her knuckles as she raised her hand to his. Their party moved to find seats in the mirrored room. There were perhaps twenty chairs, but the poet was nowhere to be seen.

When they had seated themselves, Frank took possession of her hand. Sophie pulled it slowly back, looking up at him. “Remember your engagement. These people surely will.”

To Sophie’s surprise, Shrewsbury entered with Lady Melissa on his arm. If he had intended her to be mortified by the sight of her fiancé with Sophie, he was disappointed. She came over to them immediately.

“Sophie! Is this not exciting! Our favorite poet. I never thought to see him in the flesh.”

“Yes, dear Melissa, this is a treat, indeed!”

A few moments later, a hush came over the small assembly as the duke entered in the company of a distinguished-looking gentleman with a noble profile, cleft chin, and thinning brown hair. His face was set in serious lines. There was no doubt in Sophie’s mind that this was the poet.

He sat down in the chair provided for him, holding in his lap the same book of poetry that sat on Sophie’s night stand.

The duke said, “It is my pleasure to introduce the distinguished poet Mr. William Wordsworth, who has granted my humble request to honor a few of my friends with a reading of his poetry. Mr. Wordsworth …”

There followed hearty applause. Then the poet began, his voice quite ordinary but curiously moving:

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky;

So was it when my life began;

So it is now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

Sophie found that the poet’s inflection lent more to the meaning of the poem than she had supposed. “Bound each to each” clearly referred to the visual ends of the rainbow, natural piety, a reference to the evidence of God in that rainbow. And this, she knew, was the child that was the father to that Ode, “ Intimations of Immortality,” that was so dear to her and Frank.

As he began that next, Frank took her hand and brought it to his lips, then held it in his lap. She did not take it away. The world, at that moment, contained only them and the poet’s voice. Sophie’s heart was singing.

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The earth, and every common sight

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light …

It was not until she was leaving Devonshire House, her arm securely tucked in Frank’s, that she saw Melissa and remembered reality. After the sublime evening with Frank so near, she knew she simply could not bear for him to marry her closest friend.

{ 38 }

FRANK RETURNED
home from the reading in a mixed state of feelings. The poetry had elated him, and having Sophie so near had made his blood run wild in his veins in accompaniment.

How could he possibly marry Melissa?

Lying awake past dawn, he restlessly considered impossible schemes, but all of them would tarnish Melissa and Sophie. His frustration was so great that he rose at nine a.m. without having slept. The only remaining path left to him was to go to Oaksey and explain their situation, tell him the amount of Melissa’s dowry, and tell him he had a clear field to offer for her. It might not work. Oaksey might not want what Frank did not value.

Breakfasting at Brook’s, he waited impatiently for the hour to reach eleven o’clock, the earliest possible hour that the
ton
would receive morning callers. Having previously obtained the man’s direction and sending up a prayer to Providence, he took a hackney to Oaksey’s rooms on Half Moon Street.

“I’m here to see Lord Oaksey,” he told the man’s valet, handing him his card.

“I am afraid his lordship is not at home,” the man said.

Frank felt disinclined to accept this answer after a sleepless night.

“Pray tell me when he will return.”

The valet appeared to consider. “I am afraid I could not say. It might be a week, but then again it might be two.”

Frank lost his patience. Word was that Oaksey was badly dipped. “Devil take it! I’m not here to dun him!”

The valet took umbrage, and viscount or no, he closed the door in Frank’s face.

Returning home, Frank was inclined to think he had lost his last chance. After sitting in his library, staring at his bookshelves for an indeterminate period of time, he set off for his club once more in extremely low spirits.

When he saw Lord Donald Aldridge’s face light up at his entrance, he nearly turned and walked back out.

“Lord Trowbridge,” the excited young man said, bearing a wide grin and sparkling eyes.”Let us take a stroll. I have news I think will interest you.”

Taken aback, Frank allowed Lord Donald to steer him back out through the club’s front door. When they had advanced only a matter of five hundred feet, he said, “This morning at breakfast, there was a note from my sister. You’ll never guess what she has done! Eloped to Scotland with that Oaksey bloke! You are off the hook!”

Frank closed his eyes and felt himself sway a bit. He took a deep breath.

Free, Free, I am Free!
Then a horrible thought. “Your father did not take after them?”

“Are you joking? Oaksey is an earl. You’re only a viscount!”

Frank took off his beaver hat, tossing it in the air with a cry of victory. Clapping Lord Donald’s shoulder, he said, “You are a splendid chap!”

Sleeplessness vanished, Frank stepped out in the street to hail a hackney.

{ 39 }

SOPHIE WAS MASSAGING HER KNEE
when Sally came into her dressing room. “Pardon me, miss, but Lord Trowbridge is below stairs. Mr. Perkins said how I was to tell you that it’s urgent.”

She had not slept well and found herself hoping that Frank was perhaps here with some hare-brained scheme to carry her off. She straightened her gown, looked briefly in the mirror to assure herself that her coiffure was intact, then scurried down to the morning room.

When she entered, Frank turned around and she stopped dead. His eyes were alight, his face wreathed in smiles.

“Yes, I will elope with you,” she said. “I do not care what anyone thinks. If you can bear the censure, then so can I!”

He stepped quickly to her and kissed her soundly. “No need, my love. It is Lady Melissa who has eloped. With Oaksey. He would seem to be her true love. And earl, you know. Her father is said to be pleased.”

Before the words could do more than startle her, Frank had picked her up and was twirling her around the room, singing, “What shall we do with a drunken sailor? What shall we do with a drunken sailor? Earlay in the morning …”

Into this lively scene stepped Buck, recently returned from Kent. “It is you who are drunk, Frank. Put the gel down.”

Sophie had been about to join in the ditty, finally comprehending that her fate was wholly changed. Instead, she ran to Buck and kissed his cheek. “Tell Fan! Frank and I can get married, after all! Melissa has eloped with Lord Oaksey! An earl, you know. Her father is said to be pleased.”

Buck grasped Sophie in an enthusiastic hug. “Drunken sailor, indeed!”

He went off up the stairs, whistling the sea ditty.

Sophie’s eyes welled with happy tears. “I cannot believe it, Frank. I have been quite melancholy, thinking there could be no way we could be together!

“I will obtain a special license,” he said. “We can be married tomorrow if we like.”

Sophie summoned a stern look. “While that should be very agreeable, I would like a terribly long honeymoon, and you are forgetting my
musicale.
The invitations have gone out and the Carstairs are counting on me.”

“I have always wanted to be married by special license,” he replied firmly. “So we shall simply marry and leave the day after your concert.”

“Leave for where?”

“That is my secret,” Frank said, kissing her forehead.

Fanny must have flown down the stairs. Her hug and ecstatic cry of “Sophie, I am thrilled!” finally penetrated Sophie’s heart.

It is really happening! I really am going to marry Frank! Our dream is really coming true!

{ 40 }

THE NEXT WEEK FLEW BY
with rehearsals in the morning, fittings for her wedding gown, packing for her honeymoon, and as many properly chaperoned visits with Frank as could be managed.

Sophie continued her prescribed exercises and massages and found that they pained her less as time went on. Walking also pained her less.

One night, Fanny hosted a dinner, including Elise and Peter as well as Frank. With her family around the table, toasting her and Frank, Sophie said, “I am beginning to feel like this marriage actually is going to take place.”

“Welcome to the family, Frank,” the duke said. “Hanford Hall will make a wonderful home for you and Sophie and your children. I enjoyed our visit there.”

“We are planning on a houseful,” Frank said. “You know how much Sophie loves children.”

Sophie felt herself blush. “I will still be a doting aunt,” she said. “I promise.”

Buck asked, “Has anyone heard from Lady Hatchet?”

“I have,” Sophie said quietly. “She does not plan to come up for the wedding, fortunately.”

“Yes, that is a very good thing,” Elise said. “But what reason did she give?”

Sophie smiled and put a hand over Frank’s as he sat next to her, “Frank is a mere viscount, so she does not see that it is necessary for her to bestir herself.”

“You cannot realize how lucky you are, Frank,” the duke said. “Fortunately, Elise and I eloped to Scotland.”

“And our wedding was also a spur of the moment thing,” Buck said. He winked at Fanny, seated at the other end of the table.

Frank raised his glass. “I propose a toast to the Edwards ladies, who are all beautiful, graceful, good-tempered, and warm-hearted in spite of their hair-raising upbringing!”

“Hear, hear,” echoed Buck and Peter.

~
~*

As Sophie lay in bed the night before her concert, she thought how lucky she was that her sisters had insisted she come to London. She would have dwindled into an old maid in Derbyshire. And how fortunate that someone as worldly wise as Frank would see any merit in her person and fall deeply in love with her in so short a time. Though London still overwhelmed her, she would feel less so when her knee was less painful and more flexible. And she could not wait for her
musicale
the next evening. Performing was a new pleasure, a wonderful harvest time for the talent she had worked so hard to acquire.

And the very next day, she would be married in St. George’s at Hanover Square, with only her family, including her nieces and nephew, present. The idea sent a shiver of pleasure through her. In no time at all, she would be Frank’s wife. She would sleep in his bed and give him children. How very blessed she was!

{ 41 }

FRANK SAT IN THE FRONT ROW
of chairs set up in the ballroom for Sophie’s concert. The room was crowded. His fiancée looked like a princess in her performance blacks. The Carstairs also looked very grand in matching black jackets.

When they began to play, his heart swelled with pride. Sophie was truly marvelous. The piece was appropriately challenging and evidence of Beethoven’s genius. But in his mind, nothing would ever match that first performance of the Mozart he had heard when he had been completely taken out of himself and then reintroduced. Sophie had touched the core of him, and thanks to her and her music, he would never be the same man.

He watched her play an especially difficult passage. She swayed and bobbed and flourished her bow. How very sad that her own mother could not appreciate what a jewel she had for a daughter. Frank vowed to make certain that she had contact with her sisters as often as possible.

Then it was over. The applause was enthusiastic. All three musicians bowed.

He would tell her now. He could not wait. This was the appropriate time.