My Charming Earl

Her voice travelled over the distance and the thundering of their horses’ hooves as though she was right beside him.

“Will you forfeit?”

“Never!”

A sparkle came to Sophia’s eyes as her lips curved upward.

“I shall be lenient if you surrender now.”

“Never!” Henry repeated, pulling his stallion around another thickly growing monster barring his path.

Sophia’s delightful laughter, like a brook babbling in the early morning air, reached his ears, almost making him reconsider. As much as he loved her, he had never granted her an easy victory.

So he urged his horse on and soon pulled up alongside her. Seeing him next to her, she too spurred her horse onward.

“Dear Henry, for sure you will not make me lose face.”

He laughed. “It is only us. And I swear I will not breathe a word should you lose this once, Sophia.”

Biting her lower lip, she leaned forward as the wind whipped through her hair and caught in her long skirts.

“Sophia Astor does not lose!” Her eyes twinkled as she glanced at him. “Never! Not even once!”

Although he knew how furious she would be with him if he allowed her to gain ground, his heart just wasn’t set on winning this race, but on seeing her win instead.

As the distance between them grew once more, Sophia called to him over her shoulder. “Do not disappoint me, Henry. Have you no honour?”

Her playful insult burned in his heart, and he once again urged his horse on. The path soon levelled out, leaving behind bordering trees and opening up to green pastures, glowing in the early sun.

Henry felt his horse’s flanks move as he pursued her. Soon, she was almost with

in his reach, and he playfully swatted her horse’s behind.

Laughing, Sophia looked at him. “Not bad, dear Henry! But will it be enough?”

As they flew across a sea of grass, swaying softly in the breeze, Henry’s gaze softened, seeing her slender figure clinging to her mare’s back, moulded together as though one. Her eyes sparkled with mischief as she turned to look at him.

For a moment, a long moment, they flew onward, side by side, eyes fixed on the other. A perfect moment. A moment that would stay with her until the end of her days. A moment that she would curse all the same. A moment so dear that it hurt to think of it. A moment she would see in her dreams. Again and again, hoping for a different outcome.

As they dashed across the fields, Sophia was laughing as she was ahead of Henry. She jumped over a difficult hedgerow that was decidedly deceptive in its width. She turned around to smile at her beloved only to see him flung from his horse who hadn't taken kindly to the jump.

She jumped off her horse and ran towards Henry, but she knew by the way his neck was twisted and his eyes wide open that he was severely injured. It all happened in slow motion.

Others gathered around him, and Sophia made her way through. She remembered calling his name as though willing him to jump up and come back to her. But he was dead.

She cried for Henry but also for the loss of the life she was going to have. Sophia was lucky that she had loved him. She hadn't wanted to marry just for life security. She was a romantic at heart.

She knew her parents wanted her to get past her sadness, but how could she ever love again? She couldn't open her heart to that kind of heartbreak again. The mourning period was over, and it was time for Sophia to return to normal. She reckoned it was probably easier if there was no love between people. Time hadn't healed anything for her.

Chapter Two

Sophia sighed happily to herself and settled back a little more against the cushions of the window seat in the library. Looking out of the window at the beautiful gardens below for a brief moment, she let her mind drift to thoughts about life and love, picturing herself as the heroine in the book she held in her hands.

Her parents would be horrified if they knew she was reading such a book, considering these novels to be entirely unhelpful to a young woman of quality.

Sophia could not agree. The books opened up a world far beyond the trappings of society, where one could find someone of worth who sought love over expectation. They told her that matrimony could happen between two individuals who held a deep and long-lasting love for each other.

It was certainly not what she saw in her own parents’ marriage. There might be affection of sorts, but nothing akin to love existed between them.