Sapphire

“Really, Aunt Lucia, you’re as daft as he is. Now, are we going to ask Mr. Stowe if he would like to join us for tea or are we going to stand here and talk about my lover?”

Lucia considered carrying the conversation concerning Henry a little further, but then decided that the subject of Angelique’s true feelings for him needed to be dealt with a bit at a time. For Angelique, the thought of loving a man had to be difficult, especially because she had been determined never to love, only to be loved. Lucia knew the young woman needed time to get used to the idea. Why, it had taken a year for Angelique to actually sleep in a bed when she joined them at Orchid Manor. For the first year she was with them, she slept on a mat on Sapphire’s bedchamber floor because, for all her appearance of being enlightened and impulsive, change did not come easily to her.

“Lucia, dear heart, there you are.” Jessup came down the corridor toward them, his arms outstretched. “I thought I heard your lovely voice.”

Angelique looked at Lucia and then rolled her eyes as if to say, This is what I’m talking about, but Lucia only laughed and let Jessup kiss her on the cheek. Unlike the young Angelique, Lucia knew how infrequently true love came in a lifetime.

“I have some wonderful news,” Lucia told Jessup. “We thought you might like to join us for tea, Angelique and I.”

“I would love to join you for tea. And I have news, as well.” He gestured toward his office. “Won’t you both come in? You can tell me your news while I finish up this one task and then we can be on our way.”

“We’ve a letter from Sapphire, at last,” Angelique said, passing the two of them to enter Jessup’s office first. Inside, she turned around, pulling her bonnet off and letting it dangle by the ribbon from her fingers as she studied his floor-to-ceiling bookshelves with interest. “For all our little Sapphire’s priggishness, I think she’s become Lord Wessex’s mistress.”

“We know nothing of the sort,” Lucia contradicted, taking a seat in the red leather chair in front of Jessup’s desk. “Her letter says nothing of the sort.”

“Well, what does it say?” Jessup asked diplomatically as he returned to his chair behind his desk and reached for his spectacles.

“It’s very brief.” Lucia smoothed the paper she had already read at least ten times. “She says that she has gone to Boston with Mr. Thixton, but that we are not to worry. She says that she is having a grand adventure—” emotion rose in her voice but she swallowed it and continued “—and that she will return to London soon.” She folded it, glancing up at Jessup. “She asks that I look after the casket she left behind, where she keeps her mother’s keepsakes, and she asks that I please implore the good-hearted Mr. Stowe to continue his research into the legal marriage of her mother to Lord Edward Thixton.”

“I see,” Jessup said. “So she and Lord Wessex have not settled this matter between them?”

“I told you, Jessup—she wants proof of her mother’s marriag

e. It would do my heart good before I leave this mortal coil to know that my beloved Sophie’s wish was realized.” She began to fold Sapphire’s precious letter on its creases. “You said you had good news. I do hope it’s in reference to my Sapphire’s request.”

“It is, indeed.” He scrawled his name across a document and then removed his glasses to look at her across the desk.

“Well, do tell, Mr. Stowe,” Angelique said, removing a book from one of his shelves and dusting its cover to read it.

Jessup drew himself up with pride. “I believe I have found Miss Sophie Barkley’s residence in Sussex.”

“Jessup, that’s wonderful, mon amour!” Lucia turned in her chair. “Do you hear that, Angel darling. Mr. Stowe has found our Sophie’s family.”

“He didn’t say he found her family, Auntie.” Angelique returned the book to its place and chose another. “Mr. Stowe, have you any books on America? At dinner the other night one of Henry’s friends was spinning an amazing tale about Indians. It’s all Henry has talked about for days. I wonder if they have wild Indians in Lord Wessex’s Boston.”

Jessup chuckled, rising from his chair to walk to the bookshelves that lined one wall of his comfortable office. “I believe I might.” As he began to run his fingers across the spines of a row of books, he glanced at Lucia and then at the books again. “As Miss Fabergine said—”

“Oh, for sweet heaven’s sake, would you please start calling Angelique by her Christian name, at least when we’re alone?” Lucia rolled her eyes. “I cannot imagine how many hours of life you Englishmen waste rattling off titles and these formal names.”

Angelique looked to Jessup, lifting her brows in amusement.

He glanced at her for consent and she nodded. He then cleared his throat and continued. “As Angelique said, I have not located her family. I am sad to say that they are gone, parents dead, some siblings dead, others scattered to the winds.”

“But you’re closer than you were before?”

“I believe I am. I intend to go personally to the village in Sussex where Mr. Wiggins, the gentleman I hired to research this, believes she may have resided.” He offered Angelique a book. “Of course, you should not get your hopes too high, yet. We don’t know if this was your Sophie or if anyone there will remember anything about a young viscount romancing one of the village girls.”

“Oh, they’ll remember,” Lucia said.

“You don’t have to worry about my hope, Jessup. I never understood why this quest was so important to Sapphire to start with. I never knew my father, and that fact certainly does not keep me tossing at night.” Angelique opened the cover of the book Jessup had given her.

“You’re of a different cloth than Sapphire.” Lucia folded her hands in her lap. “Thank you, Jessup.”

“You are welcome, my love.” He came to stand beside her in the chair and took her hand, lifting it to his lips.

“May I borrow this book, Jessup?” Angelique raised it in the air. “It’s about the American West and some people called Lewis and Clark. Henry will adore it.”

“You most certainly may,” he answered as he stared adoringly at Lucia.