‘There is a place for him in the graveyard of the church here, beside my mother and his second wife. It will be a plain slab to cover the grave, with his name and dates and nothing more. He had designed no grandiose monument for himself, rather to my relief, and I am not inclined to perpetuate any untruths in stone. No conventional pieties or expressions of affection and regret that nobody feels. Just the bare facts, and let future Wyvernes make what they will of it.’
Future Wyvernes, she thought: his children and his grandchildren. But not mine. ‘It sounds a full enough day for you,’ she said. ‘We should get up.’
‘Yes, I fear so. But most important of all, I must see my grandmother. Will you come with me, Sophie?’
‘Would she not rather you were alone together? But I will come, of course, if you think I am wrong in that.’
He considered, lying back on the pillow and looking up at her. ‘You may be right. Not because she does not care for you or trust you, but just because it cannot be easy for her, this situation we find ourselves in, and she may feel obliged to put a brave face on it for your sake if you are present, when it must be better that she does not, and tells me exactly how she feels. We have no secrets from you, my dear – it’s not that.’
‘You would be entitled to them if you did,’ she told him.
‘I disagree. But we cannot speak of this now. And it seems I must leave you alone again today, for which I am sorry. At least I can reassure you that you are free to walk where you please. One of the many things I did yesterday was seek out the men Wyverne had employed to patrol the estate, pay them off and send them on their way. The ones Mr Smith had bribed or otherwise suborned had already taken their leave with extreme promptness. This was one of the many things Rosanna upbraided me for – she is furious that I have no intention to make any further search for the jewels. I expect I haven’t heard the last of her grievances, and that she will have thought of more overnight, but I hope you at least can manage to avoid her. Let’s go and have breakfast. This is not a day I can face without sustenance, and I can reassure you that it is her habit always to take breakfast in her own chambers. She will not disturb us.’
It would be the first time they’d eaten together in the public parts of the mansion, apart from that appalling dinner party; all the other meals they had shared had been taken in the privacy of this room and he had brought them to her on a tray. She could hardly blame him in his distraction for wanting simply to sit down and eat at table in the house he now owned. It was a less straightforward matter than it might appear, though. It might be more than a little awkward for her, to be waited on in formal fashion by the servants for the first time since she’d been revealed as his mistress. And she didn’t want him to think itset any kind of precedent for a future together. But this was the nature of the trap she found herself in, and she would not flinch at it. She agreed.
A short while later, then, Sophie sat in the breakfast room – a light, airy chamber that looked out across the lawns to the lakes – and poured Rafe his coffee. There was a bizarre normality about the domestic scene. They were attended by James and William, and if either of them had any thoughts about her new and most ambiguous situation, they kept them to themselves, and off their faces. They were impassive, and so, as far as she could manage it, was she.
They were just about to rise from the table to go their separate ways when the door opened, and a young gentleman in travelling dress burst in, followed by a plainly scandalised butler who had, it seemed, tried and failed to announce him in a normal manner. At a glance from Rafe, Kemp shooed out the footmen and closed the door firmly behind them and himself, so that the three of them were left alone.
‘Good day, Charlie!’ he said, rising and embracing the young man. ‘I’m glad to see you, though I had not looked for your arrival quite so soon. Miss Delavallois, may I present my brother, Lord Charles? Charles, Miss Delavallois is our grandmother’s companion. Grand-mère is well, Charlie, but does not join us for breakfast.’
It was smoothly done, thought Sophie, and gave a spurious air of regularity to what could not be other than an unusual situation. Gentlemen and unmarried ladies did not spend time alone, whether at breakfast or in any other circumstance. But then, it could not be said that Rosanna’s presence would have lent a greater respectability to the scene, given her reputation and the rumours that swirled about her and her stepson. Matters in this house had strayed very far from the norm, and her presence as Rafe’s mistress would not help to get them back to it.
She greeted Lord Charles, and thought as she did so how little he resembled his half-brother, save in colouring and in the unusual dark blue shade of his eyes, which seemed to be a Wyverne trait. He was a young man of medium height and slight build, and, like so many young gentlemen at the universities and elsewhere, he appeared to be addicted to dandyism: his shirt points were alarmingly high, his coat of an exaggerated cut with peaked shoulders and a nipped-in waist, and his waistcoat was bright enough to make one blink. It was odd to see a countenance that so resembled the late Marquess’s – and for that matter also bore a fair likeness to that of Mr Nathaniel Smith – and yet was so youthfully ingenuous, and bore an expression of somewhat vacuous amiability.
‘You said in your note that you were writing to the old man’s lawyer after your screed to me,’ Lord Charles informed his sibling, sinking into a chair and helping himself to a cup of coffee. ‘You told me you wrote in haste so that you could send both letters to Oxford by the same messenger. Aha! I thought. So I went round to see him at the crack of dawn and found him just setting off here in his old-fashioned chaise, and got a ride with him. Thought it was damn-dashed cunning of me, but soon wished I hadn’t – devilish dull fellow to spend a few hours with. But here I am, all right and tight.’
‘Where is Mr Barnaby?’ asked Rafe. ‘I must go and see him.’
‘Kemp put him in the library,’ Charles said, his words somewhat muffled, as he had loaded up a plate for himself and set to it with a will. ‘The old stick didn’t think it decent to interrupt the Marquess at his breakfast. Devilish odd to think of you as a Marquess now, I must say, Rafe!’
‘It must always have been so eventually,’ said his brother drily, ‘unless you’d planned to put a period to my existence by some cunning means and take on the title yourself. Which you still could, I suppose. If that is your desire, I beg you not to delay,and thenyoucan have the unalloyed joy of dealing with our revered stepmother and all the funeral arrangements, my young cub.’
Lord Charles laughed uproariously. ‘As if I would think of such a thing! You are the most complete hand, Rafe!’
‘Charlie, I must leave you to what I assume is your second breakfast,’ the new Marquess said, rising to his feet once more.
‘Third,’ said his brother indistinctly. ‘Travelling makes me hungry. Had a bite or two when we changed horses. But nothing to touch the food here, naturally.’
Rafe smiled. ‘Naturally. Perhaps you will go up and visit Grand-mère once you are done with it; she has seen you so rarely that it must be a surprise and a pleasure to her, and a sign that life at Wyverne is changing for the better. Mademoiselle Delavallois, I hope I shall see you later, and that you pass a pleasant day.’
‘Thank you, my lord,’ she murmured. ‘I hope your duties do not prove too onerous.’ She could say no more, with Lord Charles present.
Rafe was almost at the door before he turned back and said expressionlessly, ‘Charlie, do try if you can to avoid being alone with Lady Wyverne – with your stepmother. We’ve spoken of this, you may recall.’
‘Anything you say, old fellow,’ replied his brother cheerfully, chewing on one of the famous Wyverne sausages with which he had piled his plate.
‘He seems to think she’s going to leap on me like a wild beast from the menagerie the minute she gets me alone,’ the young man said as soon as the door had closed. ‘He may be right, of course. Makes a fellow dashed nervous, to tell the truth.’
‘I expect he has his reasons,’ Sophie replied cautiously.
‘You seem to be deep in my brother’s confidence, I must say. Have you been here long, ma’am? Thought m’grandmother hadanother companion last time I sneaked in to see her. Elderly, dusty-looking female. Hard to keep track, though, I admit.’
‘I’ve been at Wyverne just a few weeks,’ said Sophie. ‘But it’s been an eventful time. It feels as though it’s been much longer.’
‘I’ll wager it does. Not…’ He coughed, and Sophie thought he was embarrassed, unless it was the sausage. ‘Not what you’d call a respectable household, this, is it? Not with m’father and his ladybird playing off their tricks. Even at Oxford we hear rumours – fellows tease me awfully about the goings-on here. Is she thinking of leaving, do you know? Because I’d imagine Rafe will want to come and settle at Wyverne, and have us with him, m’sister and me. Get us all here together with our grandmother. But he can’t do that, not while that woman’s under this roof. Amelia makes her come-out next year, you know. I can’t claim to be awake upon all suits, like Rafe, but even I know that an innocent chit of seventeen shouldn’t be spending any time with a woman like that. Not at all the thing, set all the tabbies gossiping. Come to think of it, not right that you should, either. You’re not an ape-leader like the old lady’s other companions.’
‘I don’t know anything about the matter,’ said Sophie a little stiffly, acutely uncomfortable and refusing to address the matter of her own status. If only she’d had the strength to leave before Lord Charles arrived, as she should have realised he was bound to. ‘If Lady Wyverne has plans, I’m not sure she’s shared them with your brother. And he can’t put her belongings out in the street, after all. Not that there’s a street here to put them in, but you understand my meaning. Your stepmother may be… whatever she is, but your father only died yesterday. It’s not been twenty-four hours, my lord.’
