His spaniel had paddled to the edge of the lake with the stick held firmly in its mouth and scrambled up next to Sophy. The dog dropped the stick but before she could pick it up the animal shook itself vigorously, water flying everywhere, making Sophy squeal again. Adam doubled over with laughter but Sophy wasn’t finding it funny. She stood up, glaring from one brother to the other, her hands fisted onto her hips. She opened her mouth as if to shout, but nothing came out, and then she turned and snatched up her shoes and marched off.
Not before Harry glimpsed the hurt in her big blue eyes.
His smile slipped. Suddenly what had seemed funny a moment ago now made him uncomfortable. Adam was still laughing, but then Adam was an idiot. Harry picked up the stick and threw it at him, barely noticing when the dog sprang on his brother, knocking him to the ground. Adam tucked himself in a ball, cursing and still laughing. Harry didn’t stop to see if he was hurt—really, he didn’t care—and instead hurried off after Sophy. He caught up with her just as she reached the entrance to the white walk, and grabbed her arm.
She pulled away from him, turning her face, but he’d seen the glitter of tears on her cheeks. “Soph,” he groaned.
“Go away. You’re horrible,” she hissed, hurrying down the wide avenue between the hedges. White flowers grew here in long borders, and in the middle of the lawn was an old sundial, the grey stone embedded with lichen. Sophy hurried around it on one side and Harry on the other.
The sight of her so torn up by what he had done was too much. “I’m sorry, Sophy,” he blurted out. “Really sorry.”
She stumbled, dropping a shoe, and bent over to pick it up. He stepped in front of her. She straightened and jerked back, went as if to turn the other way, but he gripped her arms in his hands to stop her. At twelve years old he was so much taller than her now, so much bigger in every way. That made what he had done feel so much worse.
“Forgive me, Soph,” he mumbled. “I’m such an idiot.”
She shot him a brief glance and then stared down at the ground. “Yes, you are.”
He sighed. He felt a little sick now. It occurred to him that this might be serious. What if she never forgave him? What if he lost her friendship forever? He and Sophy had been friends since she first came to Pendleton Manor with her parents, a tiny toddling girl with a grin that made his heart burst open every time he saw it. When her mother had died he had felt as if the lack of a mother’s influence in both their lives gave them even more of a connection. To think of them not being friends … Well, it hurt.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, desperate to make amends.
Finally she lifted her head and looked at him. Her eyes, her big blue eyes surrounded by those thick dark lashes, were bright with angry tears. There were dirty tracks on her cheeks where she’d tried to rub those tears away. All he could think was that he had caused this. He had made her cry. It was time to make it better.
“I was jealous,” he said, dropping his hands and clenching them into fists.
A wrinkle creased her smooth brow. “Jealous?” she repeated.
“You said you liked Adam better.”
She stared at him blankly, and then colour rose in her cheeks. She looked away, toward the sundial. “I didn’t think you’d care,” she said. “You didn’t seem to want to be friends anymore. You acted as if you were too grown up for me and Adam anyway.”
Harry groaned again and turned his back. He was an idiot. He’d thrown away his best friend because he was jealous of his brother. Because of the
opinions of others who didn’t even know Sophy and how much she meant to him. Because his father was always saying girls like Sophy were only good for one thing, and Harry already knew what that thing was.
“Harry.” Her hand was on his arm and she gave him a little tug. “Harry!”
With a sigh he turned around. She had her head on one side, looking up at him. “I’m sorry,” he said again, barely a breath. He hadn’t cried in a long while but he felt like doing it now.
And she smiled, and her smile lit up the world around her.
At once he felt everything inside him calm. The rattling and shaking stopped. He was all right again. He knew, if he hadn’t known it before, that Sophy smiling was a sight he’d never grow tired of.
“Can we start again?” she asked him. “Pretend you’re just back from school?” She held out her hand to him. “Hello, Harry. I’m so glad you’re home.”
Harry looked at it for a moment. Sophy didn’t have to do this, but she was kind and generous. It was he who was mean. Tentatively he reached out, his bigger hand enclosing her smaller one. Everything about Sophy was insubstantial. She was a fairy in a book, a will o’ the wisp. He stared into her face, into her smile, and her shining eyes. She wasn’t trying to hide anything from him. Sophy really was glad he was home, and knowing it made Harry feel better.
He nodded, his hair falling into his eyes. “Sophy,” he began, no longer caring if he sounded like the idiot he was. “While I was away I missed you.”
He’d been sent to school when he was eight years old, the same school as his father had attended and his father before him. It wasn’t Eton, but Sir Arbuthnot wasn’t a big fan of the Classics. All Harry needed, in his opinion, was a solid grounding in most subjects, and then perhaps a few months in London to get some gloss, before he came home to Pendleton and learned the more important business of being the master of his estate.
“I wanted to write to you but I thought your father would open the letters and tell my father.”
“Oh?” She thought a moment. “What would you have said, if you had written to me?”
He didn’t hesitate. “About my lessons and my friends, and that I could hardly wait to come home to Pendleton. I missed my home and I missed you. And then when I did come home all I did was make you cry.” He bit his lip, the swear word that bubbled up not suitable for the ears of a ten year old girl.
There was a silence while she mulled over this, and then she said softly, “I wish you could write to me.” She reached out and took his hand in hers, and he tightened his grip. Once again the turmoil inside him stilled and steadied.