And then Dickens spoke up. “Gracie, set a place for Miss Russell, will you? Up here by Prunella and myself. I’m sure we can all squeeze in to make some room. We’re having porridge and kippers, miss. What would you like Prunella to prepare?”
Gracie quickly brought a place setting as the rest of the servants moved down. “I’d like what everyone else is having,” she said, switching the plate so that she was on the far side of Prunella on the bench, rather than taking one of the chairs. “And a cup of coffee strong enough to strip paint, and I want to hear what the latest gossip is. And does anyone know where my blasted shoes are?” She put the blasted in purposefully, just to relax things a bit, and after a moment everyone sat down again, and conversation resumed.
It wasn’t as comfortable as before, but it was worlds better than dinner with the viscount and his stepmother popping in. Before she left, Gracie presented her with a pair of shoes. She’d outgrown them, and they were a bit small on Sophie, but they would do in a pinch. Then Prunella looked at her uncertainly, but Sophie simply grabbed her and hugged her. She did the same with Dickens, much to his horror.
“Don’t let him terrorize you, Miss Russell,” he said in a choked voice. “And we’ll be looking forward to your return.”
But she wasn’t going to return, not to these kind, hardworking people, not to the house she grew up in. She was running so far and so fast that no one would ever find her.
Two hours later she curled up on the seat of the elegant brougham, closing her eyes and pretending to sleep. Not that she would normally have been so indelicate as to draw her legs under her skirts, but Alexander had failed to return her shoes, and when she’d protested he’d simply picked her up and carried her out the door and across the drive to the waiting carriage, dumping her inside with a total lack of ceremony. The borrowed shoes were tucked away inside a shawl so he wouldn’t take those as well, and she didn’t want Alexander looking at her feet—it felt far too intimate. It didn’t matter that he’d touched almost everything else; he hadn’t actually seen her body. The room had been
dark, thank God.
He was reading a newspaper, and she wondered how she would get it away from him to look for suitable positions until she could catch up with her sisters. He seemed to be taking his own sweet time about it, and she wished she’d brought something, anything, to keep her mind off her predicament.
Failing that, she could do nothing but brood and come up with far-fetched plans. First she would need to discover where Bryony had worked. The Earl of Kilmartyn had a house somewhere in Mayfair, but of course Sophie had never paid any attention.
And Maddy was somewhere near the coast, in Devonport, an area of Plymouth. She had been gone for more than a month—it was anyone’s guess whether she was still there. If she wasn’t, wouldn’t she have tried to return to Nanny Gruen’s house? And what would she have found there?
No, Sophie needed a bolt-hole, someplace safe from Alexander’s ridiculous plans for her. For some reason it seemed paramount that she avoid marrying him, though if she sat down to consider it rationally she couldn’t come up with a good reason. In fact, he was exactly what she’d planned to find, only better. He was titled, he was wealthy, and on top of that he was beautiful, or at least she found him so. He’d given her a taste of pleasure so exquisite in his bed that she felt a little damp and dizzy when she thought of it. What was the problem?
“Are you plotting nefarious things, my sweet?” came his dulcet voice, and she raised her eyelashes to survey him, looking for something to criticize, such as his eyes were too close set, his nose was too big, his teeth were bad.
His eyes were beautiful, that lovely dark gray astonishing her once again. His nose was straight, his teeth were fine, his mouth . . . his mouth . . .
“Doing my best,” she said briskly.
“Plot all you wish. It won’t do you any good.”
She looked at him. “Why are you insisting on this marriage?”
He set the newspaper down and leaned back. He was properly dressed, with stiff collar and cravat, watching her with amusement. “Why do you think?”
She considered it. “I really cannot imagine why. Oh, I’m beautiful. It would be a waste of time to deny it, but I expect you could find someone equally as pretty without too much difficulty.”
“I didn’t think you considered anyone to be equally pretty,” he drawled.
“I’m not vain; I’m realistic,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow.
“All right, I’m vain and realistic,” she amended. “But the fact remains that if you want a beautiful wife, there are others just as qualified.”
“Perhaps I like your particular arrangement of features?” he suggested.
She made a face. “Marriage is hardly a temporary proposition. Within a year or two you won’t even look at my face.”
“Try a week or two.”
She glared at him. “You clearly don’t like me; you found me dull in bed, though how in the world you could expect me to be anything else is beyond me. Where was I supposed to learn the fancy tricks I expect are necessary to keep your . . . interest aroused? They aren’t in books, or I would have read them.”
“Maybe you haven’t been reading the right sort of books.”
She ignored that, though her curiosity was piqued. Were there really books like that? She forged ahead. “Maybe I haven’t. I have no reputation to begin with, thanks to my father and whoever tried to—” Belatedly she remembered that he was, technically, one of the suspects, and she halted.
“Go on. I’m finding all this fascinating. You have no reputation, thanks to your father and . . . who? Do you suspect things weren’t as they seemed?”
“Of course I do,” she snapped, thoroughly cross. “And you needn’t act surprised—anyone connected with the Russells knows we’re protesting the findings of the police and the court.”