“Maybe you’re right,” he admitted at last. “He wouldn’t hurt you, not on purpose. But you should be wary in his company. He is a young gentleman and you are a very pretty girl. I was a gentleman once, too, and though my fortunes have fallen low, I still consider myself to be of that class. But Sir Arbuthnot does not—he has decided opinions—and I doubt Harry does either. There is a divide between us that will never be crossed. You may believe him to be your friend, but be on your guard. Harry may inadvertently abuse your friendship.”
Sophy couldn’t believe he was saying such things. Harry was not like the young gentlemen her father was talking about. The ones who seduced their servants and then boasted about it. Even Adam, who had gained a reputation among the local farmer’s daughters, would never treat her with anything other than respect.
“No, father,” she replied, moderating her tone. “Harry and I will always be friends. He promised me we would and I believe him.”
Her father sighed and looked at her pityingly, but Sophy refused to be swayed. Harry was her friend; he would always be her friend. In this, her father was wrong.
The usual place where Harry had said he would wait for her was within the ruins of the old Baillieu stronghold. The stones were crumbling, those that hadn’t been overgrown by weeds and the encroaching woods. Once upon a time, Harry’s ancestors had conquered this land and built a stone castle. They had ruled from it, long before the more modern manor had been constructed in the time of the Stuarts, and a fortress was no longer necessary.
Normally, Sophy didn’t think of such things. The past was just that. But today, because of her conversation with her father, she found herself contemplating Harry’s family history. Could their long friendship be coming to an end? She’d believed it would always be there, but if she looked at matters with cold pragmatism, as her father would, she could see the sharp contrast between the worlds in which they lived. How impossible it seemed for this to last.
She was the only child of a bankrupt landowner, a man who had been forced to seek out a living or watch his family starve. Her mother’s background was even less salubrious. Ellen Harcourt’s mother was Susan Jamieson, a woman around whom rumour and innuendo swirled like a tempest. After her husband died far too young, leaving her with two small children, she had become a rich man’s mistress. Sophy’s mother had declared herself ashamed and disgusted by Susan’s behaviour, so much so that after Ellen died and Susan begged to be allowed to take charge of her granddaughter, George had refused.
Her father was right when he said there was a wide social gap between herself and Harry, but Harry had never even mentioned it. Never lorded it over her. Apart from his efforts to keep their friendship secret from his father, he didn’t seem to care a jot about Sophy’s social status.
Now she found herself anxiously wondering how much longer she would have him in her life. How could she have been so blind when it came to her father’s bankruptcy and her grandmother’s scandalous past? Just because Harry didn’t mention such things didn’t mean he was oblivious to them. The idea of not seeing him ever again made her feel sick.
After making her way through the woods, to the boundary between the new Pendleton and the old, she stopped, scanning the ruins. Harry was there, halfway up a broken section of wall, leaning against the warm arched stone of what had once been a window. His boots were crossed at the ankles and his arms were folded across his chest. His shoulders looked so much broader and his jaw so much more manly. She reminded herself again that he was only seventeen. Sophy at fifteen still felt like a child a lot of the time, although adult feelings stirred inside her. Such as those that stirred now when she looked at Harry.
Sophy broke cover from the trees and ran toward him, trying not to skip with joy. Her father was wrong, he must be, because Harry was here, waiting for her, just as he said he would.
He looked up, having heard her approach, and dropped his lazy pose. His mouth widened in an amused smile as she scrambled up the wall to reach him, finding the familiar foot and hand holds in the aging stones. She plonked herself down at his side, catching her breath and pushing her hair out of her eyes. The braid she had fashioned so neatly this morning had barely lasted an hour, and she was tempted to pull out the ribbon and set her hair free. Perhaps she would have, but once again her father’s words sounded a warning in her head, making her uncharacteristically shy.
Harry had no such problem. He caught her hand in his, squeezing her fingers. Even sitting down, she had to look up much further than she had last time he was home because he had grown so much. And he took up more space, too, making their perch a bit of a squeeze.
“Sophy,” he said. His voice had changed, it was deeper than she remembered.
She tried to shuffle back, but he wouldn’t let her fingers go. “I’ve missed you,” he said, and meeting the warm glow in his brown eyes she didn’t doubt it. He had missed her, just as she had missed him, and in an instant everything was right in the world.
She asked him about school and he spoke easily about his lessons and the other boys he had made friends with over the years. The idea of an education like his made her a little jealous, but she was grateful her father thought enough of her, and was enlightened enough when it came to female learning, to have given her the opportunities he had. As if he read her mind, Harry wanted to know if she was still attending the small private academy she had been enrolled in after she finished her days at the village school. “I’m helping to teach some of the younger children now,” she said, neglecting to mention that otherwise her father could not afford the fees. “They can do basic sums and spell simple words, and soon I will be starting them on Lessons for Children. Although the authoress, Mrs Barbauld, is not pretentious enough for some people, the children respond to her very well. I think it is because she deliberately writes at the level of a beginning reader.”
She broke off, noticing the surprised admiration in Harry’s face. Sophy rarely boasted about her achievements, and she was not doing so now. Besides, her life was so different from his, and she was more than ever anxious not to draw attention to that fact. “Other than that, I have been keeping house for my father and, in my free moments, reading. Thank you,” she added with a smile, “for the books you sent to me, by the way.”
Harry grinned. “I wasn’t sure you’d enjoy them all, but I knew you’d read them regardless.”
“I was a little surprised to receive a parcel from Harriet Bayley, but luckily no one asked me who she was until I realised it was you. Then I said she was a friend from the academy.”
“When I come home for good you will be able to read anything you like from our library,” he said firmly. “In fact, I dare you to read every single book.”
“My dream is to write a book of my own,” she said, her heart thumping, waiting for his response. The same wish, expressed to her father, had been met with astonished silence.
“Some weighty tome, do you mean?” Harry asked. “Or a gothic romance?”
She looked at him a little suspiciously but found him completely accepting of her words, as if he was perfectly willing to believe she was capable of such a feat.
“I think I am better at fiction,” she admitted. “I’m still deciding.”
“Could you write a history of the Baillieu family?” he mused. “With a family tree in the endpapers starting with me and going back to Charlemagne.”
“You’re teasing me.”
“A little,” he admitted.
The truth was Sophy would probably have to find more mundane work. She enjoyed teaching, so perhaps she could be a governess. Unless she married, but that thought made her brain fuzzy and her hands sweat, because Harry was the only man she would ever want to marry.
It had been so much easier when they were children. She could pretend that their differences did not matter, but now they were growing up. Her father was right. Hard facts would have to be faced.
“When will you be home for good?” she asked, her voice trembling a little.