For some reason Adelia’s flush face paled. “As you wish,” she said again. She glanced over at Sophie. “I wish you joy of this . . . this monster.”
“Oh, she’ll receive a great deal of joy, I promise you,” he murmured.
Adelia strode from the room as abruptly as she entered it, her massive bosom heaving in indignation, and Alexander turned to look at Sophie in the candlelight. “I do regret foisting that creature on you, but I find that ignoring her works fairly well. I plan to rid this house of her as soon as I discover what happened to my brother.”
For some reason Sophie felt a moment of pity. “She’s just lost her son—it’s no wonder she’s a little . . . difficult.”
Alexander’s sardonic smile only annoyed Sophie more. “Trust me, my dearest, Adelia was always, as you say, a little . . . difficult. I’ve always had the strong suspicion she tried to poison me when I was fourteen, and my father had grown disillusioned enough to consider it a possibility. Hence the arrival of Dickens. You’d best watch your step with her.”
She stared at him in shock. “Tried to poison you? You must be mistaken. And if your father believed it a possibility, how could he have allowed her to remain in the household?”
Alexander shrugged. “He was infatuated with her. I’m assuming she was very talented in bed.”
Sophie flushed, remembering just how untalented he’d claimed her to be. “Then why have you allowed her to live in your house once your father was gone?”
“Ah, you’re getting curious about your new family, my pet. My brother happened to adore her, and I respected that. But I have no illusions—she’s a dangerous woman, and you’d be wise to watch your step around her.”
Sophie stared at him. At least that was one thing she wouldn’t have to worry about. She had no intention of ever seeing the woman again. Once in London she would run—there were a dozen ways to escape. So she simply nodded, rising.
“I’m tired, my lord,” she said. “And if you truly mean me to go to London then I’ll need to pack. I’m afraid you’ll have to eat the rest of your meal in solitude.”
She half expected him to stop her, to take her arm and drag her back down into the chair. Instead he took the little silver bell and rang it, and Tim appeared immediately.
“Escort Miss Russell to her room, Tim, and see that she has everything she needs,” he said, and Tim replied with a dutiful nod, holding out his liveried arm.
“Miss Russell?”
She had no qualms about taking it, and she hoped Alexander would remember her reluctance to take his. “Good evening, my lord,” she said, sinking into the merest hint of a curtsey.
“À bientôt, my precious.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SOPHIE WOKE EARLY THE next morning, just after dawn. Her tenure in the kitchens must have ruined her ability to sleep in, she thought, surveying her closet and the dresses she had once loved so much. There were a number in the lemony yellow she adored, but she hesitated. Surely that color was far too cheery. She pulled out a gray-blue ensemble that wasn’t a far cry from demi-mourning, but really, why was she bothering?
She’d already lost any semblance of proper behavior—her adherence to the etiquette of mourning was a waste of time. She’d been compromised, both in the eyes of the world and in her own heart; she’d lived under the roof of a bachelor, even if no one knew about it. She’d spent . . . time in his bed. She was a ruined woman and she might as well defy convention completely. After all, she’d never been one for simply following along, obeying the rules.
She could only hope one of her sisters had returned to London. If worse came to worst she could always take the train to Plymouth and a hackney to Devonport, assuming they even had hackneys in Plymouth.
She looked down at the blue dress in mild disgust. She’d always hated the dress, but Bryony had insisted she needed something subdued for funerals.
She hadn’t had it for the small, shabby ceremony they’d held for their father in Marylebone. But then, she’d worn black, the same hated dress she’d been wearing for the last few days.
She wanted to burn it. She was leaving her old life behind, the hidden, shamed, mournful part. And she was leaving the Dark Viscount in the dust—it didn’t matter what she’d felt two nights ago, that strange, restless longing that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in the pit of her stomach. She wasn’t going to take the life he thought he could force on her, for whatever odd notion of propriety he might have, and he struck her as someone who didn’t give a damn about propriety.
She could always get another job in a kitchen. She could certainly write her own brilliant references, and a cooking job could provide a safe haven for her until she could find her sisters.
Her first act when they got to London would be to secure a newspaper and see what positions were available. But first, she had to find a pair of shoes.
She shoved the gloomy dress back into the cupboard and took out a new dress of lemon yellow, with matching petticoats and froths of lace. Her French-made undergarments were all there as well—Alexander must have simply moved in with all their belongings still intact, and no one had bothered to get rid of them. Someone, however, had bothered to get rid of her Italian leather shoes, and her annoyance grew.
She opened the door quietly, half expecting someone to be standing guard, but the hallway was shadowed and empty, and she knew exactly where the service staircase was. She disappeared behind the baize door and made her way down into the cheerful chaos of the morning meal.
The moment she stepped down into the kitchen everyone stopped talking, and they all rose from their breakfast, standing at mute attention, and for a moment Sophie wanted to cry.
It was Prunella who came forward. “I do beg your pardon, Miss Russell. We hadn’t realized you’d be up quite so early, or Gracie would have brought you a tray.”
Yesterday afternoon she had still been one of them. This morning she wasn’t, and she felt her heart break. “I rather thought I might have breakfast down here. With all of you.” She ought to go away, she thought, feeling defeated.