Meant To Be (Pendleton Manor 1)

She finally found her voice. “I came to see you. I am not married, why do you think—”

Her words were like a spark to his tinder. His face was dark and angry, so close she could feel his warm breath on her skin. This was a side of Harry she had never seen, and she wasn’t sure what to say to him. So she stayed silent.

“You’re a liar and you need to go,” he told her, hanging onto his temper by a thread. “I announced my engagement to Lady Evelyn Rowe tonight. She is my future. You are in the past. I’m going to do my best to forget you.”

Still she stared into his eyes, numb, wondering if this was really Harry Baillieu, the man she had loved all her life, the man she still loved, who was telling her he didn’t want her. He didn’t want her.

Over his shoulder she noticed a footman hovering—perhaps he had seen Harry leave the room or someone else had sent him to check on the situation. Lady Evelyn Rowe. The woman Harry, her Harry, was marrying.

“Find my driver and tell him he’s to fetch my coach and take this lady home,” Harry told the man. “She will give him her address. And inform Sir Geoffrey Bell that she has left.”

“Very good, sir.” The footman hesitated. “Should I take the lady to wait somewhere convenient,” he said, “or will she be returning to the ball?”

“She won’t be returning to the ball. I don’t want her in the same room as me.” He stopped but he was breathing hard. “Put her in the green parlour until the carriage is ready. She’ll be out of sight there.”

One more stab to her heart. She met his eyes and he stared her down. “Goodbye, Sophy,” he said, then turned and walked away.

Beside her the servant shuffled nervously. “This way,” he said, almost as if he was sorry for her. He must think she looked as ill as she felt.

“It’s not Sir Geoffrey Bell,” she whispered. “Mrs Harding is my chaperone.”

He nodded, and she followed, docile, broken, and not actually caring where they were going. After a short wait in a dimly lit parlour, where the sounds of the ball reached her in waves of incongruously happy sounds, she was taken to a coach and driven away.

The shadowy streets of London slid by, but she had stopped noticing anything. Her heart was shattered and she didn’t think she could ever repair it. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to.

HARRY

Harry left the garden to get back to the ball. To Evelyn. He was expected to play the part of besotted fiancé and he had been that person, he really had. And now here he was, chasing after the girl who had betrayed him and should mean nothing to him.

Then why did he feel sick down to the very bottom of his heart?

He slid his hand into his pocket and found the ring. His signet ring. He turned it over and over, feeling the worn metal, reminding himself of Sophy’s lies. That she had abandoned him first.

When he’d looked down into the ballroom and she’d been standing there, it was as if she had appeared out of thin air. Alive and beautiful and just … just Sophy. He’d wondered if he was seeing things.

He used to think of her all the time after she left him, but he never spoke of her again once he knew the truth. He never mentioned her to anyone apart from his brother, and that wasn’t often. He sometimes dreamed about the night he had taken her virginity and she had shown him how mistaken he had been for putting her on a pedestal. More mistaken than he could ever have imagined.

And yet knowing that didn’t stop the dreams he had of her. Warm lips and moans and fingers stroking his skin. It didn’t seem to matter what he did. He’d even gone to Oxford after he found out the truth about her and drunk too much brandy and spent the night in the arms of a woman he’d paid for the privilege. Instead of feeling as if he’d banished Sophy, he’d felt disgusted with himself.

She’d injured him so badly that for a time he had wondered if he’d ever recover. Why had she come here, on this night or all nights?

And stared up at him with those big blue wounded eyes. As if he was the one at fault. As if he had betrayed her.

Well, she’d gone now, back to where she’d come from, and he never wanted to see her again. He had his future to consider. He was marrying into the Rowe family. When he’d announced his decision, his father had been over the moon. Evelyn would bring wealth and prestige to Pendleton, and when she bore his children there would be another generation of Baillieus at the manor.

The Sophy he had loved had never existed. He’d loved a dream. And it was about time he woke up.

Chapter 13

SOPHY

As soon as she saw her grandmother, Sophy burst into tears. She had never cried like this before—not when she was forced to leave Pendleton and Harry behind, not even when her father had died. There had always been a kernel of hope then but this time there was none. It was as if there was a spring inside her that wouldn’t stop flowing, while she was gasping for air, her throat aching and her chest heaving from the violence of her sobs.

She might have been dying, and for a little while she thought she was.

Eventually, she was able to explain what had happened. Her grandmother held her fiercely, as Sophy clung on, wishing she had chosen another path. If she hadn’t gone to the ball she would never have known. Would that, she asked herself, have been better? They did not move in the same circles. Could she have lived without the knowledge that the love of her life was marrying another woman?

She must have spoken the words aloud because her grandmother answered. “It’s always best to face the truth. Even if it hurts so much you think you can’t. My poor dear.”