Prince of Ravenscar (Sherbrooke Brides 11)

His mother eyed him and spit it out. “We must go to London because there is a young lady for you to meet.”

“Ah, so this is the truth you must tell me?”

“Yes. You remember Bethanne Wilkie. She was my very best friend. She died two years ago.”

“I’m sorry, Mama. You wrote to me of her death. I remember her as a charming lady, always smiling.”

“Yes.” Corinne sighed. “I still miss her. Do you happen to remember her daughter?”

Julian recalled a skinny little girl with dark braids scraped back from her small face, tall, awkward, never saying a word in his presence. He remembered once when he’d been working at his desk, he’d happened to look up and see her peering at him from behind a curtain in the estate room.

His mother cleared her throat. “The truth is Bethanne Wilkie and I always wished to have our families united.”

His stomach dropped to his dusty Hessians. He had a terrifying image of the skinny twelve-year-old gowned in white standing beside him in front of a vicar, a long veil covering her face, the beautiful Ravenscar ruby ring sliding off her small finger to land on the floor and rolling, rolling—“Good grief, Mama, she’s a little girl! When she wasn’t trailing after me, she was tucked against her mother’s skirts or lurking behind curtains to stare at me. As I recall, I once said hello to her, and she turned pale and ran from the room.”

“Little girls become ladies.”

“Why have you never spoken to me of this young lady before?”

“When you married Lily, she was far too young for you. When Lily died, she was still too young, but it didn’t matt

er, because you sailed from England for three years.”

“I don’t recall her name.”

“Her name is Sophie Colette Wilkie. Sophie is spelled quite in the French way, since her father, a clergyman, adores the French, a people few can stomach, and rightfully so, but so he does, particularly the classical French, particularly the playwright Molière. Sophie even has a French second name—Colette.”

He had no memory whatsoever of the little girl’s name. Sophie Colette—it was enough to curdle his innards. Julian had come home to find peace. And instead, his mama wanted to present him with a bride named Sophie Colette? He said, “I like Molière as well.”

“Yes, he is classical enough, I fancy, but I mean, who cares? Now, I have informed Sophie’s father that I shall present Sophie in London at the Buxted ball Wednesday evening, exactly two weeks from today. You will be there, naturally. I understand dear Sophie will be chaperoned by her aunt, Roxanne Radcliffe, who is one of Baron Roche’s daughters, and they will stay in the Radcliffe town house on Lemington Square. Since Roxanne was Bethanne’s sister, she must be well advanced in her years. Bethanne always told me Roxanne preferred the country, and so I simply must travel to London to assist her in bringing out my dear Sophie.” She paused, raised her dark eyes to his face, the look that always pierced him to his gullet, and had, obviously, pierced his father’s gullet as well, ancient though his gullet was at the time.

He tried once more. “If you tell me Sophie Wilkie is fresh out of the schoolroom, I will board one of my ships and sail to Macao.”

“I don’t know where this Macao place is, but it sounds nasty and foreign. Oh, no, dearest. Since her mama died two years ago, followed quickly by her grandmother, Sophie has worn black gloves forever, poor child. She is well into her twentieth year, not a child at all, indeed, very nearly a spinster.”

Twelve years between them, an acceptable age difference by society’s norms, but too many years for him. She’d been naught but a little girl when the Duke of Wellington finally vanquished Napoléon at Waterloo. She would have no memory of what was happening in the world during his first twelve years. Julian realized he might as well batter his head against the huge stone fireplace in the great hall of Ravenscar. No hope for it. He folded his tent. “When would you like to leave?”

His fond mama wasn’t a fool. She never rubbed her fist in a face when victorious unless it was that of her stepdaughter-in-law, Lorelei. She gave him a sweet smile as she rose to kiss his cheek and pat his shoulder. “Did I tell you she is a beauty? Her hair is dark brown, her eyes a light blue like a summer sky. She is no small mincing miss. Indeed, I find my eyes must travel upward a goodly distance to meet hers.” She patted him again. “You are a remarkably fine son, dearest.”

“Do you think, Mama, that I might have a week at home to see to estate matters?”

She patted his face. “With your exquisite brain, I believe four or five days will do the trick nicely.”

He wasn’t stupid. He had four days.

Julian hadn’t been home in three years. Why hadn’t he waited three more months, until, say, August? The wretched Season would be over. But he hadn’t. He would go to London, he would meet Sophie Colette—spelled in the French way—and he would pat her head and leave her to the younger gentlemen.

4

4 Rexford Square

London

EIGHT DAYS LATER

Lord Devlin Archibald Jesere Monroe, the seventh Earl of Convers and heir to the Duke of Brabante, and only son to Lorelei Monroe, stood quietly in the doorway of his half-uncle’s estate room, watching him study a sheaf of papers, his concentration so profound he hadn’t even heard his butler, Tavish, announce him. Devlin realized he’d missed Julian very much. Three years, it was too long a time.

Julian’s black hair was standing on end, his collar was open at his throat, and he wore a linen shirt nearly as white as Devlin’s face but not quite. Devlin smiled as he cleared his throat.