An Ideal Husband? (22 page)

She had Myers start serving the food, hoping against hope that each noise outside was Richard returning. But he hadn’t, not even when the clock struck ten.

Everyone offered to stay and wait with her,
but she refused them all. The humiliation was far too great.

Henri, as she was leaving, squeezed Sophie’s hand and told her that she always had a place with them.

Lord Hallington muttered about horse whips and how his son ought to know better. He offered to take her straight to Hallington the next morning if she wished.

Sophie kept the tears back until after they had all gone. She had calmly gone through his desk, hoping she’d find a clue as to his whereabouts. She hated herself for doing it, for being the sort of suspicious wife she’d always sworn she’d never be.

She happened on a letter with her name scrawled halfway down, detailing all her faults. Exhibitionist tendencies, overly refined, no taste. The final page was missing as if for some reason Richard had changed his mind about sending the letter to this Marguerite, his confidante.

It was one thing to worry and another thing to see it in black and white. She’d always worried what others thought of her and now she knew what her husband thought. If it had not been for his honour, they would have never married. It was ironic. She had spent the past few years
keeping away from men like Richard because of their lack of honour.

She put her head on her arms and cried. Richard had demonstrated what he thought of their marriage and her. She had tried so hard. In spite of the letter, she still cared about him. She wanted to know he was not hurt or in trouble.

‘I’m sorry, Sophie. I will make it up to you. I promise.’

She looked up and saw him standing in the doorway. His eyes were red ringed and tired, his normally pristine clothes mussed as if he’d stripped them off and put them on again. There were blotches which looked like dried tears on his shirt front. She wanted to murder him for scaring her like this. She wanted to scream at him that she wasn’t too fine for her manner or suffering from an overdose of gentility or given to making an exhibition of herself. Or the half-a-dozen other phrases that had been listed.

Sophie stood up and scrubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Sorry does not even begin to cover it.’

‘Let me hold you.’ He held out his arms and beckoned to her. ‘The thought of holding you has been the only thing which has kept me going through the last few hours.’

‘Really?’ Sophie crossed her arms and moved
so that the table was between her and Richard. Her desire for him had been how all this trouble started. If she hadn’t kissed him in the carriage, they would never have married. She’d still have her self-respect and illusions. ‘You have a funny way of showing it. There again, I don’t suppose you truly wanted to be here and see me make a disgrace of myself with an excess of courtesy.’

Sophie picked out one of the more hurtful phrases from the letter and waited for his reaction.

His hand dropped to his side. ‘I brought you something, a token of my affection. And I wanted to be here … to make sure …’

‘To make sure what? That nothing went wrong? That I didn’t disgrace your name?’ Sophie tapped her foot on the ground. Affection? She wanted more than affection. Affection was for pets and mistresses. She was his wife. She had wanted his regard, if not his love. ‘I don’t want anything from you. And I don’t need your help. I managed the dinner party without you. I managed my life without you before we met.’

‘I bought you a necklace.’ He held out a slender box. ‘A necklace of sapphires to wear at the dinner party. You could never disgrace me, Sophie.’

He placed the open box on the table and the
jewels winked up at her in the dim light, mocking her.

‘You see, they match your eyes.’

Her stomach twisted. He’d brought her jewels, but he couldn’t be bothered to show up for the dinner party, something which was important to her. She wore his ring, but he treated her like a mistress and a not very important one at that. She had thought he might come to love her and appreciate her social skills.

‘Do you think I am little better than a courtesan? To be bought off with presents? I am your wife, Richard, regardless of who my father was or—’

‘I know who you are, Sophie,’ he said in a deathly still voice. ‘I want to explain. The necklace is an important part of the explanation. When I was at the jewellers, Hannah caught up with me.’

‘Hannah?’ Sophie wanted to throw up. Richard was speaking of a woman she barely knew in intimate terms. ‘Hannah Grayson? The woman I met at the cricket? You know her well enough to call her Hannah?’

She sat down heavily. Her entire world crumbled about her. She had thought Sebastian was bad, but Richard was far worse. Stupid, naïve Sophie for believing Richard could be different.
Once a rake, always a rake. First the letter, now this. She should have trusted her head, rather than her heart. She’d stupidly believed that she had enough love for the both of them.

‘Sophie. It is not what you think.’

‘How do you know what I think?’ She stared at the jewels. ‘Do you even care what I think?’

He winced. ‘I do care, Sophie. I care very much. You are my wife. It is why—’

‘It is why what? I found your letter to some Marguerite detailing my faults. How many women are in your life besides me?’

‘Hannah Grayson is my sister, Sophie, and Marguerite is my mother, but I have never written any letter. Why were you looking through my things?’

Sophie put her hand over her mouth. His sister! His mother! Why hadn’t he told her that he had a sister? Why had he hidden it from her? Particularly in the carriage when she had teased him about Hannah Grayson’s brother? ‘You are the brother who enabled the engagement, the one Miss Grayson is so proud of.’

He gave an uneasy laugh. ‘Hannah wasn’t supposed to be there or I’d never have taken you there that day.’

Sophie went cold. He wanted to keep his sister from her. ‘I wasn’t to know? About your sister
being in Newcastle? Ever? What was wrong with me?’

‘Can you let me finish? Nothing is wrong with you, Sophie. You were an unasked-for complication in my ordered existence.’

‘An unasked-for complication?’ Sophie put her hands on her hips as outrage poured through her. He made it seem as though she was a burden! ‘I am sorry to make your life more difficult. You didn’t have to marry me. You were the one who insisted because of what happened in the carriage.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘I wasn’t planning on meeting you when I came to Newcastle. I came up to vet my sister’s fiancé. My mother worried. I wanted to make sure that Hannah would be looked after properly and I know how men can take advantage of women, particularly when they fail to have adequate settlements. Then I met you and certain events followed.’

The news crashed through Sophie. Before Richard arrived she’d been furious, worried and scared for him. Now, she was simply numb. Not only had he kept his sister from her, but his mother as well. If ever she needed proof that he didn’t have any feelings for her, this was it. She struggled to frame the words. ‘Why did you
keep them a secret from me? Why didn’t you trust me? Why were you ashamed of me?’

Richard gave an apologetic smile. ‘My mother is terrified of my father. She worried that something might happen when she heard that we were marrying. She has become quite irrational and hysterical. She chose not to come to the wedding and I hardly wanted to give you an excuse to delay. You see, Sophie, there is a logical explanation. It is not what you thought. Imagine what would have happened if she’d been at the wedding when my father showed up. In the end, it was a minor miracle. I wanted that day to be perfect for you.’

He looked at her with lidded eyes. Even now, he wasn’t trusting her with the full story. His mother had chosen not to go to the wedding because she felt Sophie wasn’t good enough.

‘You were ashamed of me? Is that why you wrote that letter?’

‘My mother can be overly proud. She has no cause to be.’ Richard rolled his eyes. ‘She and my aunt are like that. She wrote to my aunt asking for her opinion, once we were wed. The letter you found was my aunt’s reply, detailing what she wrote to my father after I goaded her. Now you see that this is all a tempest in a teapot.’

‘No, it is far worse. You didn’t trust me. You
still don’t trust me. You married me without trusting me. You only married because we had to, because I forced the issue by kissing you.’ Sophie struggled to take a breath. Her insides were torn to tiny shreds.

‘There were two of us in that carriage.’ He gave a half-smile. ‘I was hardly reluctant. And as for not telling you about my mother … well, my father arrived. You tell secrets readily and without meaning to. I don’t blame you, Sophie, but they just seem to spill out of you. I selfishly wanted to concentrate on my marriage, rather than having the drama of my parents.’

‘I tell secrets!’

‘Look at how our engagement was announced to all and sundry at the Assembly Rooms, how you proclaimed it was a love match.’

‘You know the circumstance.’ Sophie ground her teeth. Of all the accusations, that was the most unfair. She prided herself on her ability to keep secrets. ‘My quick thinking destroyed Sir Vincent.’

‘I never said you did it deliberately, merely that you found it difficult to keep secrets.’ Richard’s tone became overly reasonable. ‘Secrets spill from your lips at the earliest opportunity and then someone else has to deal with the consequences.
I didn’t want to deal with these consequences.’

‘Do they really?’ Sophie narrowed her eyes. She wanted to shake him hard. He knew nothing about her! She prided herself on being able to keep important secrets. She would never deliberately tell anyone anything which would harm them or make them upset. Above everything, it showed how mistaken she’d been to marry a stranger. ‘Richard, I kept the truth about our engagement from the woman who brought me up until after we were married and I was confronted with a glaring lie. I kept the truth from my guardian and his wife. And I share everything with Henri.’

‘You share everything with an unknown.’ He slammed his fists together. ‘There, I rest my case. Precisely why I didn’t tell you. I know what my parents are like.’

‘You are seeking to justify the unjustifiable.’ Sophie’s mouth tasted like ash. He hadn’t even listened to what she was saying. Neither did he care about her feelings. ‘And you obviously don’t want to know me very well. I thought we were friends, Richard, but we are merely strangers who shared a bed. You should have trusted me with this. Instead, you allowed me to blunder about, not knowing what was happening or why
you were distant.’ Her limbs started to tremble. In another moment, she’d break down and cry. She absolutely refused to cry in front of him. ‘What else have you kept hidden from me? I loved you, Richard.’

The words hung between them. Sophie covered her mouth. She hadn’t meant to confess her love in that way.

‘That is unfair, Sophie. Bringing love into it to suit your purposes.’ He gave a half-smile and held out his hands. ‘I did marry you. I do want you, Sophie, as my life’s partner. Being with you has been an oasis of calm in my life. I’m selfish. I know that, but it was done to protect you.’

‘Shall we be honest, Richard? Finally? You married me because you could not have me any other way. Because you wanted me in your bed, but your sense of honour meant that you had to marry me. This was about sex and desire, pure and simple on your part. But I’m not a mistress. I thought I was your wife.’

‘You are making wild accusations. You are overtired.’ He put out his hand. ‘I married you because I wanted you in my life. My whole life. I planned on telling you about my mother and sister when the time was right. I wanted to enjoy you without my family causing problems for just a while longer.’

His pity at her love somehow made it worse. She hugged her waist. ‘No, you only wanted me in your bed. I suppose some should say that I should be grateful that you gave me your name. But you didn’t want me in your life, not really. You were ashamed of me.’

He winced when she said the words, but he did not say anything. He allowed his hand to drop to his side. And she knew her words had hit their mark. She waited for him to deny it, or say something that would fill the great yawning gap where her heart had been. ‘You were the one who wanted to show me off like some prize you’d won. You were the one who planned a dinner party without asking me first. Why is it so important to you what other people think about you and your life?’

The silence became deafening and she knew she had her answer.

‘I’m going, Richard. I refuse to stay here in this sham of a marriage.’

‘You can’t abandon our marriage.’

‘You already abandoned it. You never gave me a chance. You were not interested in me.’

‘Don’t you want to hear why I was late?’ he whispered in a ragged voice. ‘Hear me out before you make your decision. Once you know, you will understand.’

‘I doubt I will ever understand. You are ashamed of me. You only married me because you have your code of honour. I hoped it might be love, but it wasn’t.’

‘Listen, Sophie, before you judge. Please. I never wanted my family problems to concern you. It is not you I am ashamed of, but my family and the way they act.’

Sophie struggled to control her temper. She was married to him. All her instincts screamed that she should grab her valise and go. If Richard touched her, there was every possibility she’d melt. ‘Why were you late?’

‘My mother took an overdose of laudanum. I had to get the doctor. I had to make sure she was going to live. Otherwise our trip would have to have been postponed again. Hannah was beyond hysterical. You do understand why I had to stay.’

‘Why did she overdose?’

‘You would have to ask her.’ He ran his hands through his hair. ‘I had told her about the dinner party and that my father would be leaving in the morning. You and I were going to the Continent. I would see them again when I returned and that I hoped she’d enjoy getting to know you then. I left and went to the jewellers to pick up that blasted necklace for you.’