Meant To Be (Pendleton Manor 1)

He could be happy with her—he was happy with her. And if sometimes his brain played tricks on him and he caught glimpses of another woman walking in the white garden, or

flitting among the dark furnishings of the library, then he had the strength to dismiss them, and shake his head at his own stupidity.

Right at this moment he wasn’t sure what he felt. It was as if his world had been shaken and buffeted about. All those emotions he had buried had come alive again and now threatened to resurrect themselves, dragged struggling into the light, despite him doing everything in his power to bury them.

Harry leaned against the wall and stared blindly into the ballroom. The noise of so many people tickled at the edges of his mind, but he was somewhere else, replaying the conversation he’d just had with Digby and Sophy. Digby’s behaviour shouldn’t have surprised him. The man who had once been his friend had ceased to surprise him years ago. His current dilemma was entirely about Sophy.

She looked different. Last time he had confronted her he’d been aware that she’d grown into a woman but he’d had other things on his mind. Now he could see she was indeed a beautiful woman. Perhaps not classically beautiful the way Evelyn was, but there had always been a sweetness to Sophy’s smile, and a warm light inside her that shone through. She drew people to her without even trying.

Just now, in the alcove, she had not been smiling. She’d been cold, forbidding even, demanding he leave her alone. He’d obeyed her, although he hadn’t wanted to.

As for her being unmarried … Harry didn’t know how to react to this information. Should he doubt what his own eyes had seen? He’d been telling himself that she was married for so long that to believe she was not seemed to scramble his brain even more. When he came back from his uncle’s estate in Essex and found her gone, and his father had told him about George stealing from them, he had been shocked and disbelieving. The stealing had turned out to be true enough. His father had stood up in court and sworn to it, and no matter what Harry thought of his father’s morals he couldn’t imagine him committing perjury. And yet he hadn’t believed that Sophy had married someone else, no matter how Sir Arbuthnot insisted. Sophy would never do such a thing to Harry. Betray him like that.

He’d searched for her, but no one could tell him where she’d gone. There had also been no word from her, although he suspected his father had had a hand in her silence. After all letters could be intercepted and destroyed. And then over a year later, George Harcourt made contact. He was being transported to New South Wales, and had sent back Harry’s ring. His father had handed the ring to him, eyes alight with malicious glee. He had also allowed him to read George’s words, obviously thrilled that he could add solid proof to the story he had been peddling all this time.

Sophy doesn’t need your son’s ring, Baillieu, and I would rather not be accused of stealing that as well. You may have destroyed me but you will not do the same to my daughter. She is now happily settled in Lambeth, and Pendleton Manor is but an unpleasant memory for us both.

Harry had set out as soon as he could, desperate to see her. Lambeth, once a rural village outside London, had grown and been overtaken in the sprawl of the capital. He had known that hunting down Sophy would take some work but he was prepared for that. After a visit to the prison, where he learned George Harcourt had not been transported to New South Wales after all, but had died, he finally found the clue he was looking for.

He’d stood with Sophy’s address in his hand, feeling as if the grubby piece of paper was made of gold and studded with rubies. As he set off toward the street in Lambeth where he hoped she still lived, his heart had thudded wildly in his chest and he had kept swallowing, because his throat was so dry. And then …

Harry sighed. And then his world had come crashing down and only blackened ruins remained. Because he had never known her at all and she had never been his.

Now … he didn’t know what to think.

At that moment Harry longed to go home.

The ache in his heart grew and he rubbed his palm against his chest, as if he could ease it away. He wondered whether he could slip off to Pendleton for a week or so, just to find himself again. But he couldn’t. He had committed to this engagement and to spending time with Evelyn, and he must see it through.

He comforted himself with the thought that in the years to come he would be able to stay at the manor and play the country squire. Although Evelyn would not want to stay there all year round. She was a social butterfly and she would want to return to London. It would be a juggling act between them but one that, until now, he had been content to negotiate.

The dancing stopped and there was an announcement regarding supper. Harry had been standing there long enough and it was time for him to return to his fiancée. He hadn’t come to any conclusions, except that he needed to remind himself he was no longer the boy who had loved Sophy Harcourt. Married or otherwise, he still felt an obligation to her. Well, he had discharged that obligation.

As if to mock him, an image forced itself into his mind. Sophy, ten years old, with her hair tangled, a smudge of dirt on her cheek, kneeling by the lake with her hands in the water, trying to catch a fish. She had given him a sideways grin and he’d chuckled as he watched her futile attempts, water splashing up and soaking her clothing. She hadn’t cared a jot for the sight she made, revelling in the moment, enjoying the freedom. The girl in his memory seemed more authentic than the one he had seen a moment ago dancing with Digby.

Time to let her go, he told himself.

With a determined step he made his way back to his party. Evelyn looked up and he noticed the flash of relief in her eyes. It surprised him.

“There you are!” Evelyn declared, but now the expression in her eyes changed to something else. Annoyance. “I thought you had found some friends to play cards with. I know you find these events tedious, Harry.”

Apologetically he took her hand in his. “Not always,” he said. “And what sort of man would I be if I didn’t enjoy the envy of others when you are on my arm?”

She smiled, but there was an edge to it. She had seen him with Sophy and Digby, and he called himself every sort of idiot for his impulsive need to save a girl who did not need saving.

If he and Evelyn had been alone he would have kissed her in reassurance. He’d found her warm and responsive, and he was sure they would be well matched when it came to the bed chamber. Evelyn would be a passionate partner, and Harry needed passion in his life. He needed a wife who could fulfil his physical needs because of his private concerns that he might stray.

It was only later, in his coach on the way home, that she turned to look at him, no longer trying to hide the hurt in her eyes.

“I saw you,” she said accusingly. “Others saw you too.”

“Saw me what?” he evaded her accusation. It was the last thing he wanted to discuss with her given that he was still confused by his actions.

“The way you went after Digby. Or was it the girl?”

Harry frowned out of the window. “Digby and I don’t get on, you know that. I told you.”

“And the girl?” Evelyn wasn’t going to let this go. “I saw you looking at her before that, when she was with James. I’m not a fool so don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”