‘But you haven’t?’ he asked, anxious, seeming a good ten years younger than his age. When she shook her head he sighed, once more the sober adult male she had come to know.
‘You are not making a lot of sense, Ralph.’
‘I know. I told Cal that he ought to marry you.’
‘You did what?’
‘You would make an excellent duchess. That’s why I – He is attracted to you.’
‘How do you know that?’ She ought to wave it aside, laugh it off, but she couldn’t. ‘Has he said so?’ she demanded sharply. Along the terrace a few heads turned. Sophie made herself laugh, shifted so she was looking out from the balustrade across the gardens with their lantern-lit walks. The cousins had been discussing her.
Ralph moved to stand beside her. ‘I have eyes in my head. He is attracted and you have the breeding, the looks, the intelligence and the upbringing.’
‘Do you think he will consult the stud book, want to look at my teeth, calculate how many good breeding years I have left in me?’ she enquired sweetly. ‘I do have nice strong fetlocks.’
‘Sophie!’
She had shocked him with her frankness. Well, good. She had begun to have expectations and she strongly suspected that he hadn’t known his own mind, had been testing the waters for both of them. Now that his cousin had come along, a man who outranked him, was infinitely more wealthy and rather better-looking, he had decided she was not worth fighting for.
It occurred to her, rather guiltily, that she was as bad as he was, that she had been thinking seriously about Ralph as a potential husband, had been trying him out in many ways, before the Duke of Calderbrook had come on the scene.
‘I do not look for a duke as a husband,’ she said with perfect honesty and leaned a little against Ralph’s shoulder. No duke would consider her a suitable vessel to bear his precious heirs, not when she confessed her past, as she would have to. There were ways of feigning virginity, apparently, but she felt revolted at such deception. What a sordid way to begin a marriage.
The truly wretched thing about it was that she did not think herself ineligible. She had made a mistake, been too trusting and romantic and she had suffered for it. Now she had a secret to keep. None of that made her poor duchess-material. She was older now, wiser. But a man would dismiss her out of hand for that one slip. Hypocrites, the lot of them.
But Ralph was still puzzling her. ‘Tell me why you were seeing me, inviting me out driving, partnering me so often at dances if you were not serious.’ A sudden explanation came to her. ‘It isn’t because you wanted me as camouflage because you are not, er…’ Oh Lord, she had blundered into quicksand now. Best to say it quickly and then sink with embarrassment afterwards. ‘Not, um, interested in women?’
Ralph’s expression was answer enough. ‘No! That is not it. You shouldn’t even know about things like that, Sophie.’ He took a few agitated paces along the terrace away from her and then back. ‘Lord, I do not know when I have been more put out of countenance.’
‘Why, when you are not that way inclined?’ she demanded. ‘You owe me an explanation, Ralph. If I was to complain to Step Papa that you had been raising false expectations then there would be the d
evil to pay.’ It was blackmail, but she was determined to get to the bottom of this now.
‘Can you keep a confidence, Sophie?’ He leaned on the balustrade, his mouth set.
‘Of course.’ Now it was her turn to be affronted.
‘I am heir presumptive to the dukedom, after my father.’
‘That is no secret.’
‘No, but with Calderbrook abroad for so long, in such remote, dangerous places, my father wanted me to marry, and marry well.’
‘And produce another in the line of heirs in the event of Cal’s death? That is… calculating.’ She found that she was shocked.
‘He would say it was prudent. My father is a very prudent man, careful, with an eye to securing the future as well as the present. He has served the dukedom for almost my entire life. It is not any desire for personal gain, you must believe that. It is simply…’
‘Prudent. Yes, I see.’ She must not judge, she had no responsibility for an ancient title and name, for vast estates that must have the security of a master and an heir after him. ‘But why, if you set out to find yourself a wife, did you not look for someone for whom you could feel more definite about than me?’
‘Because I am already in love,’ Ralph said bleakly. ‘And if I cannot marry her, then better to find someone with whom I can be friends, for whom I have a liking.’
Sophie swallowed a number of heated, hurt, words and waited until she had her voice under control before she spoke. ‘I think I am exceedingly angry with you, Ralph Thorne. To be courted in that lukewarm way and then for you to consider marrying me even though you harboured such feelings for another woman – Why, that is downright deception.’
‘But most aristocratic marriages are not love matches,’ he protested.
‘No, they are not, but they start with basic honesty and, I hope, without one partner yearning for someone else.’ I would have been honest with you about my past. ‘Who is she, that she is so unsuitable? An actress?’
‘No, nothing so very shocking. Eva is the daughter of Calderbrook’s tenant at the Home Farm. She is intelligent, educated, warm, lovely. And she is of honest yeoman stock without a drop of blue blood in her veins.’