Midnight Pleasures by Eloisa James
Chapter 11
Sophie pushed open the door to the nursery and found Charlotte, the Countess of Sheffield and Downes, sitting on a stool next to the fireplace while a small, very round girl seriously pulled a comb through Charlotte’s curly black locks.
“Pippa! Ouch! Sweetheart”—Charlotte twisted about slightly so that she could look into her daughter’s eyes—“you must be very gentle if you wish to become a lady’s maid someday.”
Sophie laughed. “Charlotte, aren’t you afraid that Pippa is looking above herself?”
Charlotte looked up and beamed. “Look who’s come to visit us, Pippa!”
The intent hairdresser dropped her comb and threw herself violently against Sophie’s knees.
“Lady Sophie! Lady Sophie!”
Sophie leaned down, laughing, and swept Charlotte’s stepdaughter, Pippa, into the air. “My goodness, Pippa. If you grow any larger, I won’t be able to pick you up like this!”
Pippa clung tightly to Sophie’s side. “Did you know that I’m going to be three soon, Lady Sophie?”
“Is that true?” Sophie dropped a kiss on Pippa’s nose. “And here I thought your birthday wasn’t for a long time … until the summer had come and gone.”
“Summer’s happening soon,” Pippa replied in a serious voice. “Why, Christmas is almost here, and then it’ll be summer again before you know it!”
Sophie laughed again. “When did you become so wise, Pippa?”
Pippa’s little chest swelled with pride. “Sometimes I’d rather have been born a bird, ‘specially a swallow, but Mama says she likes the way I was born, like this.” She pulled disparagingly at her rosy lawn dress.
Sophie gave Pippa a tight squeeze and put her down. Her eyes met Charlotte’s, brimming with laughter.
“So, Charlotte, you’d rather have a daughter who wears a gown than one who wears feathers, hmm?”
Pippa plumped herself down on the floor next to her mama’s knee.
“Mamas are like that, Lady Sophie,” she announced. “They like their babies to wear dresses and stay clean. Someday you’ll have your own baby, and then you’ll know!”
“What if I have a little boy?”
“Little boy?” Pippa’s brow wrinkled. There wasn’t much thought about little boys in the nursery. “Mama and Sarah are girls,” she said reprovingly. “And so is Katie.” Sarah was the baby, and Katie was the girls’ nanny.
“I know that, Pippa.” Sophie’s eyes were dancing. “But what if I have a baby and it’s a little boy? He may not wish to wear dresses forever.”
“You won’t.” Pippa was absolutely positive. “You’ll have a little girl, just like us. Do you think you’ll have one soon, Lady Sophie?”
Charlotte giggled.
“No!” Sophie said hastily. “No, I’m not planning to have any babies, girls or boys, in the near future.”
“Why not? Katie said that the party Mama gave was for your ‘gagement ‘cause you’re going to move into your own house, and then you’ll have lots of room for a baby. Who are you marrying? Is he nice?”
Sophie sat down in a chair, her eyes twinkling at the little girl leaning on her mama’s knee.
“I was planning to marry a very nice man named Braddon.”
From the corner of her eye Sophie saw Charlotte’s head swing up, her eyes narrowed.
“Well, won’t nice man Braddon want to have a little girl right away?”
Charlotte laughed, breaking in. “Pippa will persist all night once she’s got hold of an idea, Sophie.” And then: “Did you say was planning?”
“The truth is, Pippa,” Sophie said, carefully not looking at Charlotte, “I’ve changed my mind about marrying Braddon, so he’ll have to find a baby somewhere else.”
Charlotte grinned exuberantly, and Pippa stopped her line of questioning and clambered over, on her knees, to pat Sophie’s hand.
“You know, Lady Sophie, since you’re not going to have your own little girl soon, perhaps Mama would let you take Sarah home. Since she’s got two girls, she could give you one.”
“Pippa, I told you to stop offering to give Sarah away!” Charlotte wrinkled her nose at Sophie, her eyes twinkling. “I’m afraid you aren’t the first recipient of Pippa’s generosity. So far she’s offered Sarah to Katie’s sister, to most of the servants, and, several times, to my mother.”
Sophie tried hard not to laugh at the unrepentant child before her. “If I do have a little girl someday, I’ll borrow you occasionally. You could visit us and teach her how to keep her dresses clean.”
Pippa scrambled to her feet, revealing the creased and messy front of her dress. “I can do that, Lady Sophie! When you do decide to get married, I’m going to wear my best dress and be very good.”
The nursery door opened and Katie’s plump face appeared. “Here’s the little lamb now, my lady,” she crooned, cradling a sleepy bundle. “Just woke up.”
Charlotte stood up and lovingly took Sarah. “Time to feed you, sugarplum. And”—she swung around and leveled a mock glare at her best friend—”I would like to speak to you, Sophie York. So why don’t we take tea in my sitting room?”
“Me, me, I want to go too,” Pippa shouted enthusiastically.
“But, sweetheart, I think Katie needs her hair attended to,” Charlotte said to Pippa, who scooted over and picked up her comb, torn between the idea of tea downstairs with Lady Sophie and practicing the beloved art of hair design.
“Now do look at that gown, Lady Pippa!” said the girls’ nanny.
Pippa looked down inquiringly and carefully straightened out a few of the creases. “Well, I was careful, at first, Katie. Then I forgot.”
“Oh my goodness,” Katie exclaimed. “There’s me with my hair all a mess, and I didn’t even know it! Thank goodness Lady Pippa is here to help.” She sat down and plucked off her cap, and Pippa began carefully pulling pins from the smooth coil of Katie’s hair.
Sophie stooped and rubbed noses with the little sprite. “May I borrow you for an afternoon soon? We’ll have ices, and you can tell me how a lady goes along. It will be good practice for when Sarah needs your help.”
“All right, Lady Sophie,” Pippa said happily. “Papa says ices are my vice. Do you know what that means?”
“It means that you like ices very, very much.”
“What’s your vice, Aunt Sophie?” Pippa’s black eyes looked at Sophie inquiringly, her beautifully arched eyebrows the picture of her father’s—and her uncle’s.
The wish for a little girl who looks just like you, Sophie thought, unbidden. And everything that might lead to that wish.
“She shares your vices, Pippa.” Charlotte’s voice came from the door. “Sophie wishes for ices, and that’s enough of vices!”
“Vice … ice … mice!” little Pippa shouted, waving her silver comb.
With a final wave Sophie slipped from the room, following Charlotte’s slim figure down the stairs to the countess’s sitting room on the first floor.
The minute Charlotte was inside the door she dropped into a rocking chair by the fireplace and arranged her loose morning gown so that she could nurse Sarah. Sophie wandered restlessly around the sitting room, a room entirely without the manicured formality of the majority of ladies’ sitting rooms. Of course, this wasn’t where Charlotte did her real work—she had a painting studio on the third floor—but the rose sitting room was the center of their family life. It was a warm room that tolerated a certain tumbling of books on the shelves and an occasional litter of papers by the fireside. It also tolerated the unprecedented affront of a mistress, a countess, who nursed her own child and without retiring to the darkest recesses of her bedchamber to do it.
Finally Charlotte looked up, bright eyes expectant.
“Well?”
Sophie had been watching wistfully as Sarah snuggled against her mother’s breast, one small fist clutching a stray piece of bodice lace.
“Well …” Sophie repeated teasingly. “I jilted Brad-don.?
“Oh, Sophie, that is so wonderful!” Charlotte crowed. “Braddon wasn’t intelligent enough for you. He would never have understood you, and in his own way he is quite strict in his notions, you know. You would have scandalized and terrified him at once. He is a very nice man, of course, but not the right one for you.”
“And who is the right one?” Sophie’s eyes were full of mischief.
Charlotte was prudently silent. If Sophie didn’t want to marry her brother-in-law, that was all there was to it. Never mind that they were perfectly suited to each other, at least to Charlotte’s mind.
“Oh dear,” Sophie said with mock lamentation. “I’m afraid you won’t approve of my new betrothed.”
“Your new betrothed!”
“You couldn’t possibly think that the most talked-about woman in all of London—at least since you’ve become so domestic and stopped making scandals—would settle for being unengaged for a whole twenty-four hours!” Sophie giggled as she danced tiny pirouettes around the sitting room. “Naturally I discarded Braddon only when I had a new applicant in hand.”
Charlotte wrinkled her nose. “Don’t, don’t be so cynical, Sophie! It isn’t like you at all, and I hate it when you put on the airs of a matron twice your age.”
Sophie stopped pirouetting and smiled, acknowledging Charlotte’s rebuke. “I don’t mean to be flippant,” she said, then stopped. It was so embarrassing to admit that she had agreed to marry Patrick after all her protests to the contrary.
So she flew over to Charlotte’s armchair and bent over Sarah. “Oh, look at Sarah’s little ear!”
There was a moment of silence as they both looked at Sarah’s fuzzy round head and Sophie traced a delicate caress with one finger.
But Charlotte looked up, frowning in mock admonishment. “Don’t try to change the subject, Sophie York! You tell me whom you have promised to marry.” Then she looked dismayed. “You didn’t accept Reginald Petersham, did you?”
Sophie laughed. “No. He’s an agreeable man, but the oddest creature! Any other suggestions?”
Charlotte pressed her lips together. She was not, not, going to bring up Patrick’s name again, given that Sophie had so firmly dismissed him as a possible candidate only a few nights before.
“What do you think of the Duke of Siskind?” Sophie asked impudently.
Charlotte looked aghast. “Oh, Sophie, you didn’t! Why, he’s ancient, and he has eight children!”
Sophie stroked Sarah’s head again. “But I love children, Charlotte,” she crooned, hiding her eyes so that Charlotte couldn’t see her merriment.
“No, no,” Charlotte moaned. “He must be sixty-five if he’s a day!”
“I didn’t accept him,” Sophie admitted. “I’d like to have my own children.” Child, she silently corrected herself. “Actually, I decided to take Patrick,” she said carelessly. “He seemed quite insistent.”
For a moment Charlotte didn’t understand her. Then she half shrieked with delight. Startled, Sarah began to wail, so Charlotte had to stop talking and jiggle her babe until she settled back at the breast.
Finally, Charlotte was able to look at Sophie. She threw her arm around Sophie’s shoulders, drawing her close.
“Now you’re my sister,” she said, her face alive with joy.
As an only child, Sophie had longed and longed for a sister … and now she had one. “Sister,” Sophie agreed softly.
Questions were bubbling up inside Charlotte like a wishing well hit by an early spring storm. “But how? And when? Where will you go on your wedding trip? Oh, and did you tell him about your languages? And what does your mother say about it?”
“Mother,” Sophie said wryly, “had approximately three fits of hysterics over my ingratitude yesterday, but today the affront has shifted to my future husband’s stubborn nature, given that Patrick thought to hold the ceremony one fortnight from today. Mama refused to contemplate a ceremony earlier than three months. In the end, it appears we will be married in six weeks. We are being married by his uncle, the Bishop of Winchester.” Sophie looked confused for a second. “Actually, I suppose you know that your uncle-in-law is a bishop.”
As Charlotte smiled, Sophie held her breath. Was Charlotte going to delve into the reason for their scandalously brief engagement? Was there ever such a thing?
She rushed back into speech. “Mama is frantically planning a grand wedding. My father did his best to dissuade her, but she is convinced that flamboyant display is the only way to save me from certain social ruin. All the maids are making horse blankets from pink taffeta. Mama wants the invitations delivered in proper style.”
Charlotte was drawing her own conclusions about Patrick’s demand for a hasty marriage. “My goodness, Sophie.” A smile lurked at the corners of her mouth. “When Henrietta Hindermaster broke her engagement to Baron Siskind, even she allowed three months to go by before she married her parents’ butler!”
Sophie felt an uncomfortable pink rise in her cheeks. She had adapted an exterior sheen of sophistication for so long that it was surprising to find how very much she minded making a scandal. Lord, her scanty dresses had been scandalous ever since she attended her first ball.
Charlotte smiled sympathetically. “Poor Sophie. I shouldn’t tease you. The only wonder is that Patrick didn’t climb up the balcony to your room and sweep you off to Gretna Green!”
As the color in Sophie’s cheeks deepened, Charlotte’s dark eyes widened. “Sophie! He didn’t!”
Crazily, Sophie was caught between an impulse to laugh and one to blush even harder. So she quickly rose and took a few steps back from Charlotte, brushing her curls behind her shoulders.
At her silence, Charlotte caught and forcefully held her gaze. “Sophie York,” she demanded, “I want to know everything!”
At that very moment Patrick was looking anywhere rather than at his brother’s face, as he tried to figure out how much to tell him. Damn! Why hadn’t he asked Sophie what she planned to tell Charlotte? He had the hazy sense that women told each other everything. Did that mean that Sophie would regale Charlotte with all the details behind their hasty marriage?
Alex and Patrick were sitting in the changing room of Jackson’s Boxing Salon, relaxing after a punishing bout of sparring practice with Cribb himself. They had washed, and an attendant now stood alertly at each of their sides, waiting to aid them with their attire. Gentlemen who padded their garments, for example, invariably needed a final twitch here or there to make sure that their calf pads were lying evenly.
Granted, little Billy Lumley had figured out with one glance that these two particular men had no need of padding anywhere, but there was still the possibility of a tip, so he waited patiently, holding one of their coats. Damned if he knew which one the coat belonged to, since their lordships looked as much alike as those heathen Indians he’d seen, the ones imported from America. In fact, they didn’t look so different from the Indians, given that their skin was an odd golden color, not pasty white like most of the men they had in there.
But Patrick stretched out his long legs, drew in a long breath, and waved Billy and his fellow attendant off to a safe distance. Alex looked at him inquiringly as he pulled a fresh shirt over his head.
“I’m getting married in six weeks,” Patrick said, a smile biting at the corner of his mouth. “I thought you might like to be there.”
There was a moment of silence. “Daphne Boch?” Alex finally offered, his tone noncommittal.
“No. Your wife’s choice, in fact. Sophie York.”
Alex’s mouth curled in a smile uncannily like his twin brother’s. “I like Sophie, not that it matters. Mother would have liked her too.”
“She would, wouldn’t she?” For a moment both men thought of their effervescent mother, and the way she would run laughing into the nursery, gathering them up in a hug that smelled like bluebells. Until she died giving birth to a stillborn brother, and they were left with a taciturn, gouty father who promptly sent them awa
Alex was the first to stand up. “Why so soon?” he asked mildly.
“I have a fancy,” Patrick drawled.
“A fancy?” Alex’s tone was meditative.
He waved Billy over and took the coat from his hand, slipping into it without a bit of trouble, to Billy’s sorrow.
“Well, you’re a fine one to talk,” Patrick retorted. He put on his own coat, absentmindedly giving both attendants a healthy tip.
A smile lightened Alex’s eyes. “And then?”
“We’ll take a trip down the coast on the Lark.”
Alex looked at him sharply. “Down the coast?”
Patrick nodded. “From the Lark I can discreetly check Breksby’s fortifications in Wales. This seems as good a time as any.”
Alex grimaced. “The whole notion that Napoleon might invade Wales is absurd. Napoleon—if he got the boats together to do it—is sure to head for Kent or Sussex. For God’s sake, he only has flat-bottomed boats! He’ll go straight from Boulogne to Kent.”
Patrick shrugged. “It’s a good excuse for a wedding trip.”
“One doesn’t need an excuse, Patrick.” Alex hesitated. He had destroyed his own wedding trip by falling into a desperate fit of jealousy. “Don’t repeat my mistakes,” he added lightly.
Patrick grinned. “I’m not such a lobcock as that. I’m looking forward to it. Besides, I’m not planning to have the same kind of marriage that you have, Alex. Oh, I’m not saying it won’t be a good marriage—but remember, Sophie wanted to marry Braddon Chatwin. I shouldn’t think we’ll share the paroxysms of emotion that you and Charlotte indulge in.”
Alex looked at him silently, one eyebrow raised.
“I told you. She wanted Braddon’s title.”
“What did she say about your becoming a duke?”
“I haven’t told her.” Patrick’s calm answer admitted no questions.
But twin brothers are not known for reticence. “What do you mean, you haven’t told her? Are you waiting until you’re married?”