They did. What Harry really wanted to do was run upstairs to Sophy’s bedchamber and beg her to forgive him, but he knew that he would have to get past her formidable grandmother first.
“I’m surprised you had the nerve to call here after the damage you have done,” she began, standing up and dusting off her hands. Adam made an amused sound, but quickly recovered when Mrs Jamieson glared at him. “When Sophy first came to live with me, she was so certain you would come for her. While her father lay rotting in prison she waited, and you didn’t come. And still she had such faith in you. But you didn’t come. She had begun to make a new life for herself, a piece at a time, when your brother informed her you were in town. On the night of the ball at Albury House, she was so sure you would only have to see her and everything would be all right. But once again you let her down. What I am telling you, Mr Baillieu, is that I will not have her heart broken again now that it is starting to heal.”
Harry let her say what she wanted to, without interruption. His head throbbed and his nose still ached but he ignored both. “I was searching for her too. I made a mistake and gave up too soon. But that is no excuse, you are right. I’ve been a fool and I want to spend my life making it up to her.”
She ignored him. “Sir Geoffrey Bell and I are hoping she will marry James Abbott. A good man. A stable man. You coming here will only throw a spoke in that wheel.”
“My former fiancé, Evelyn Rowe, was meant to marry James Abbott. She is free too. They have a future of their own to make, if they will take the chance. Do you really want Sophy to marry a man who is in love with another woman?”
She made an impatient sound. “If you had an interest in her wellbeing—”
“I do have an interest in her wellbeing,” he said, knowing he sounded as desperate as he felt. “I want to make her happy. I want that more than anything.”
“If you cared about my granddaughter you would not have left her waiting for you for three years and then engaged yourself to someone else, only to reject her when she finally had the courage to make herself known to you. You ruined her life, Mr Baillieu. And then, just as she is on the verge of putting you behind her, you interfere in the cruellest way possible. By dancing with her in front of hundreds of guests before being accused of lying and cheating. I’m assuming you did that on purpose. You do not seem to me like a man who does anything without a purpose.”
“The dancing was a mistake. I admit that.”
“You seem to have made a great many mistakes.”
He sighed, and then looked her in the eye. Mrs Jamieson wanted to eviscerate him. And if he wanted to see Sophy before it was too late then he would have to be prepared to bleed.
SOPHY
At first she thought she was dreaming. Harry was speaking and she was back at Pendleton, sitting by the ruins of the old Baillieu stronghold, half asleep under the warm summer sun. Bees buzzed and birds sang in the ancien
t trees in the wood. The beauty and peace of the place seeped through her skin and into her blood. Pendleton was in her blood, and so was Harry.
She had tried so hard to be free of him, to put him aside and make a new life, but it seemed that he was not done with her after all.
She shook off the haze of sleep and sat up. There was movement downstairs and a door closing. The dream voice came again and that was when she realised that this wasn’t a dream after all. Harry was here in her grandmother’s house. She had waited and waited for him to come to her for so long and now he was here.
Sophy reached for her robe with trembling fingers as she climbed out of bed. Her hair was a tangled mess and her feet were bare, but none of that mattered, because Harry was here. She didn’t know what to think, only that she had to see him. She needed to speak to him. She needed to hear him say that what he had done at the Darlington’s Breakfast really was for her.
Light spilled from under the parlour door downstairs. Her grandmother’s voice was a low murmur, and then Harry’s followed. It was him. He really was here. Taking a breath she put her hand out and opened the door.
Grandma sat by the fireplace in her nightgown, a frown on her face as she stared at her clearly unwelcome guests. Harry sat on the sofa with his back to her, but Adam was sitting in a chair opposite, one leg crossed over the other, booted foot swinging impatiently. She saw the relief in his eyes as she entered.
“Sophy,” he said.
At the sound of her name Harry jumped up and turned to face her. She didn’t know what she had expected. She knew he had been injured, but now, seeing the state of him for the first time since she had left him yesterday afternoon …
For a moment she couldn’t breathe. His nose was red and swollen and there was a bruise on his cheek. Another circled his eye so that it was half closed.
He swallowed as if he was struggling to find the right words, but before he could do so her grandmother spoke sharply.
“Sophy, my dear, go back to bed.”
She barely heard her. She was still staring at Harry. “Your poor face,” she whispered, eyes stinging.
“He was always too good looking, Soph,” Adam said. “This should add a bit of character.”
She shook her head and rested her hand on the back of the sofa for support. “Why are you here?” she asked, looking from Harry to Adam. “Grandma?”
Grandma Susan spoke sternly. “Sophy I am not averse to you speaking with Mr Baillieu, but I think it would be best if he came back at a more appropriate time of the morning. When you are dressed and have thought on your future. And perhaps when he has slept on this matter he may see sense.”
“See sense?” Sophy repeated, her brow wrinkling in confusion. Then, focussing again on Harry. “Why are you here?”
“Because James Abbott is going to propose to you and I didn’t want you to say yes, not before I spoke to you first,” he said. “It had to be now.”