“He deserved much worse,” Sophie said.
The chuckle became a laugh. “Right on his backside in that pool!”
Sophie joined her sister in laughter. “Poor fish!”
“Oh, I hope he’s put off fish forever!” Sera giggled. “The cook is French, with a particular skill for poisson!”
They laughed together for an age, brushing tears from their eyes before reality returned, and they grew serious once more. Sophie turned to her sister. “I would do it again,” she confessed. The events of the Liverpool soiree had brought her to King. And she wouldn’t ever change that.
Sera squeezed Sophie’s hand and nodded, then repeated her question. “Do you love him?”
The tears returned, this time without a hint of laughter, pricking the backs of Sophie’s eyes with honesty. “I do,” she whispered. “I love him quite desperately.”
More than she’d ever thought possible.
She lied to me. How broken he’d been when he confessed that. How devastated.
She couldn’t do this.
She couldn’t lie to him. What a monster that would make her. Ariadne in the labyrinth, undeserving of him.
And she desperately wanted to deserve him. She’d never deserve him like this.
Sera turned to her then, taking both her hands in hers and giving voice to Sophie’s thoughts. “You mustn’t do this.”
“But if I don’t—what of you? What of Sesily and Seleste and Seline? What of Papa?”
Sera smiled. “We climb like ivy. Think you one harsh winter will end our journey?”
“You can say it . . .”
Seraphina nodded. “I can. Because my life is cast in stone. I am Duchess of Haven. And I carry the future duke inside me.” Sophie watched as her sister’s gaze grew sad. “Because of that, I can tell you that if you love him, you should tell him.” She shook her head. “I never told Haven. And look at the mess I’ve made.” She lifted Sophie’s hands to her lips and spoke to them. “Tell him, Sophie. Give yourself a chance at happiness.”
I can’t love you.
Sophie shook her head. “He doesn’t want love.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t know he already has it.” Sera’s eyes swam with unshed tears. “I never told him, Sophie. And by the time I thought to . . . I’d already lost him.” She took a deep breath. “What Father asks . . . it’s so much. Yes, it might save him. Might save Sesily and Seleste and Seline. You’ll be a marchioness and a duchess and that title might help us all. But Eversley—he’ll hate you for it.”
She couldn’t bear the idea of King hating her. But what of the family she loved?
“You cannot protect us all, Sophie. Not forever.”
She looked to Seraphina, her eldest sister, whom Sophie had always considered her most kindred sister. “I love you.”
Sera pulled her close, wrapping her in a tight embrace. “I know. We know. Why do you think we came to you? But you love him as well. And love does not come in half measures—you shall hate yourself forever if you trap him. I know it better than any.”
She didn’t want him trapped.
She wanted him to want her. As desperately as she wanted him.
She couldn’t do it. Not even for the family she loved. There had to be another way.
“Sophie . . . please. Tell him you love him and see what comes of it.”
Sophie looked to the door beyond which he slept, hope and terror warring for position in her chest. “What if he laughs?”
“I’ll toss him in the nearest fishpond,” Seraphina vowed.
Sophie gave a little huff of humorless laughter at that. “What if . . .”
I can’t love you.
“What if he doesn’t love me?”
Sera was quiet for a long time, and then said, “What if he does?”
Sophie nodded. “If he doesn’t . . . I must leave. Mother and Papa—”
“I shall help you.”
“With what money?”
“There are benefits to being the Duchess of Haven,” Sera said with a little smile. “I shall help you. Wherever you wish to go. Wales. The Outer Hebrides. America. Wherever.”
Far from here. Far from him.
Free from him.
As though she would ever be free of him.
Sophie nodded. “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.”
She nodded and stood, knowing that she could not have him forever. Wishing that she could at least have him tonight. She tightened the belt on her extravagant dressing gown, festooned with feathers and brocade. “This is a ridiculous gown.”
Sera chuckled. “Sesily would tell you it makes your bosom look wonderful.” She reached up and pulled the pins from Sophie’s hair, loosing it around her shoulders and arranging it this way and that. When she was satisfied with the work, she met Sophie’s gaze. “He shan’t know what’s struck him.”
Sophie took a deep breath, eyeing the adjoining door as Sera moved to leave the room.
“Sera,” Sophie called, staying her sister as she opened the door.
Seraphina turned back.
Sophie did not know what to say, but the eldest Talbot seemed to understand nonetheless. Her hand moved to her swelling midsection, stroking over it. Protecting it. “Tell him. And let the road roll out before you.”
Sophie nodded.
She would. For her sister.
For herself.
The door closed behind Seraphina with a soft click, and the sound propelled Sophie across the room, to where she’d been standing before her sister had arrived. Her heart pounded nearly unbearably; she’d never been so nervous in all her life.
If she did not knock now, she would lose her nerve.
She’d promised Seraphina she’d knock.
What if he doesn’t love me?
What if he does?
She lifted her hand, willing herself to knock.
Perhaps he wasn’t even in the room.
Perhaps he was a sound sleeper.
She wouldn’t like to wake him.
Stop being a cabbagehead and knock on the ruddy door.
Sophie took a deep breath, willing her heart to stop its racing, and knocked.
The door opened instantly, as though he’d been standing on the other side, waiting for her. She gave a little yelp of surprise at the instantaneous response, and he raised a brow. “Did I scare you?”