Courtship and Curses (7 page)

Goodness, he was truly upset, wasn’t he? “Was it clumsiness that saved my father and Lord Palmerston?” she asked.

He shrugged impatiently. “It was clumsiness that might have injured
you
. That is what I can’t forget.”

Another flutter in her midsection. Why did the thought of having hurt her, even accidentally, trouble him so? “But you didn’t, sir.”

“But I might have. How could I have been so careless? You, of all people.…”

“Please don’t alarm yourself! You didn’t at all hurt me.…” Then his words sank in—words that raised a sudden horrid suspicion. “Me of all people? What do you mean?”

“Oh, er, nothing … nothing at all. Please forget I said it.”

Her previous tongue-tiedness had vanished. “I am afraid my memory is quite unbiddable, sir. Pray say what you meant.”

Oh yes, now he was definitely uncomfortable, suddenly absorbed in contemplation of the toes of his polished Hessian boots.

“I’d rather not,” he muttered.

“Perhaps not, Lord Woodbridge, but you can scarcely stop now. Why is it that you felt it necessary to be so careful of a young lady who was a perfect stranger to you … or was she?”

He stared at his boots a moment longer, then sighed. “No, she wasn’t.”

Of course she wasn’t. “Rumor travels faster in London than I thought,” she muttered.

“Rumor? What rumor?” he asked innocently—too innocently. “My mother is—was—a good friend of your mother. I believe they were out together, though I expect my mother is a year or two older. She didn’t come to London until she was nearly twenty, because—”

Sophie cleared her throat gently.

“Anyway, she was most shocked by you—by your mother’s—by your family’s…” He swallowed and looked even more uncomfortable. “She had to stay in Suffolk to nurse one of my brothers who is home from the war, but when she heard that Lady Lansell’s daughter would be making her come-out, she asked me to look out for you and try to be especially ki—”

Sophie felt her face redden. “Try to be especially
kind
to the poor unfortunate child. Was that what she told you?”

“But that’s not the only—I wasn’t expecting you to be…”

So that was why this beautiful young man had been staring at her so intently last evening—except that he hadn’t seen
her
at all. She remembered that he’d addressed her by name before Lady Whiston had introduced them. Of course he had, if he’d been on orders to “be kind” to the crippled daughter of his mother’s old friend. Good God, she’d feared the Lady Lumleys of the world being gossipy and unpleasant to her and had heard just what that gossip might entail, but it hadn’t occurred to her that people feeling
sorry
for her could hurt just as badly.

Maybe even worse.

“To be so normal?” she finished for him. “Lord Woodbridge.” A tremble in her voice only made her angrier. “Just because one of my legs is twisted and shorter than the other, it does not follow that I require your or your mother’s or anyone else’s condescension or pity … oh, I’m sorry. I meant to say your
kindness
.”

It was his turn to flush. “She did mean it kindly, whether you believe it or not. And I was surp—that is, I was only concerned that I’d hurt you. You cannot be strong—”

“No? In fact, I am anything but fragile. If I had been, I would not have survived to be here, would I?”

He frowned. “I … I’d not thought of it that way. Still—”

Sophie resisted the urge to ball up her handkerchief and throw it at him, since sobbing into it just then would not have been acceptable behavior. Here she had been dreaming that perhaps he had, just perhaps, spoken to her last night and called today because he found her attractive … at least a
little
. But that hadn’t been it at all.

Well, he wasn’t the only one who could say hurtful things. Something Lady Parthenope had mentioned last night about him popped into her head. “Please, sir. You may save your kindness for someone else—though it might not be so easy to find someone to be kind to who also has a father with connections in Whitehall.”

He stood up so quickly that his chair was nearly knocked backward. She caught it as he stalked to the window behind them and stared out into the street.

“That was unfair, Lady Sophie,” he said, not turning.

“Was it? I am sorry. Cripples don’t often get to go out in society and talk to other people, you see, so my conversation is perhaps not as polished as it might be.” So there!

“You have no right to make assumptions about me.” His speech was punctuated by another
rat-a-tat
from the front door.

Oh, lovely. More callers. Just what she wanted right now. “Nor do you about me, Lord Woodbridge.”

“Sophie?” Amélie’s voice drifted from the sofa, gentle as always but unmistakably inquiring. Sophie looked up and saw that she was looking at Lord Woodbridge with lifted eyebrows.

“We were just…” Sophie took a breath and hoped she wouldn’t falter. “That is, we were discussing the Duchess of Kellings’s picnic tomorrow, and Lord Woodbridge was just looking at the sky to see if it might not be coming over rain.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t think so,” Aunt Molly said comfortably. “My aspidistra would be drooping if it were, and it isn’t. Rain always makes my aspidistra droop.”

“Ahem.” Belton coughed gently from the door. “Her Grace the Duchess of Revesby and Lady Parthenope Hardcastle.”

He bowed the two women into the room—or tried to, but Lady Parthenope swept past him and up to Sophie. She wore an elegant short gray cloak lined with red satin and edged with fur, and a matching bonnet in red silk.

“How are you—no, pray don’t stand up,” she said breathlessly. “Did you try the oatmeal and angelica root on your poor ankle? Mama, here’s Lady Sophie with the foot that my cousin quite stomped on—isn’t she as pretty as I said she was? Oh, Perry! I say, I didn’t see you there at first. How civil of you to call! London must be agreeing with you if you’ve learned to observe the niceties—”

She fell into abrupt silence as the duchess, who had been exchanging courtesies with Amélie and Aunt Molly, turned her head and ever so slightly raised one eyebrow before smiling and nodding at Sophie. Sophie scrambled to her feet to curtsy properly—one did not neglect to be polite to a duchess—and thought that Lady Parthenope’s mother looked at her a little more keenly than the situation perhaps warranted.

But she was distracted by Lady Parthenope’s coming round behind her and turning her chair slightly away from the others, then plonking herself down into the chair Lord Woodbridge had vacated. “Perry, you don’t have to stand over there, you know. I promise I’ll behave myself,” she said, giving him a radiant smile. “Do bring up a chair and talk to us.”

He bowed stiffly. “Thank you, but I think it is time I took my leave. Lady Sophie.” He gave her the barest nod, then went to give the duchess a dutiful kiss.

“Huh.” Lady Parthenope watched him make his farewells. “
That
was interesting. What’s put him into such a temper? I barely had a chance to speak to him this time.” She frowned and drummed her fingers on her knee, then turned to Sophie. “Anyway, now we can have a comfortable coze. How is your foot? I’m glad someone found you a cane to use till it’s better.” She nodded at Sophie’s cane, hooked over the back of her chair.

Sophie folded her hands in her lap so that the other girl could not see that they shook. First that hideous encounter with Lord Woodbridge, and now this.

“Um … thank you, Lady Parthenope, but it’s not going to get better,” she said carefully.

While she’d tossed and turned last night, Lady Parthenope and the “injured” foot had been among the things she’d thought about, almost as much as wondering about Lord Woodbridge. She could not let the girl go on thinking her lameness was a transitory condition—the truth would out sooner or later. Probably sooner. It was time to confess her lie, but did it have to happen now, when she was still agitated from dealing with the abominable … the abominable
pity
of that man?

“I didn’t really hurt it last night,” she continued. “Well, it got a little wrenched, but nothing to speak of. I—um, I’m lame, you see. I have this cane because I need it, and was … I was too vain to bring it with me last night.” If she was going to do this, she’d do it properly.

“Oh!” Lady Parthenope’s cheeks grew pink.

“And I must beg your pardon for leading you to think otherwise,” Sophie added conscientiously. “I have a frightful limp. I always will.”

There. She’d said it. Now Lady Parthenope could gabble a few incoherent words of pity—more pity!—and think of an excuse to get her mother out of the house as rapidly as possible. And then Sophie could persuade Papa and Aunt Molly to take her back to Lanselling and never set foot in London again.

But that was not what happened. Instead, Lady Parthenope’s eyes suddenly grew suspiciously bright.

“No—that is, I should be begging your pardon, Lady Sophie. I should not have been so…” She paused as if struggling to find the right words. “I was far too bossy last night trying to drag you off to fix your hair without stopping to ask whether you even wanted my help.”

“You were very kind to offer.” Sophie lifted her chin. “But I should also confess that my hair didn’t look that way because of my fall. That’s how I wore it last night, to please my aunt. She did my hair the way she’d worn hers at
her
first party … except that was over twenty years ago. I know I looked ridiculous, but it was my choice to do so. Or maybe just my folly.”

“No, it was all my folly! I had no idea that your mother—that she—wasn’t there last night when I dragged you off to find her. Mama told me after, and I felt just—just horrid! Like I’d blundered all over everything, and made a mess of my first London party, and behaved just
dreadfully
to you.” She blinked several times, then looked away.

Oh
. Sophie felt her own eyes prickle with tears. “It doesn’t bother you?” she asked abruptly.

“What doesn’t bother me?” Lady Parthenope was digging in her reticule.

“The fact that I am crippled.”

“Why should it?” She found a handkerchief—a ridiculous scrap of lace—and eyed it with misgiving before blowing her nose energetically into it. “Did my barging in and trying to take charge before I quite know all that I should and asking where your poor mother was bother you?”

Sophie hesitated. This was a delicate moment. She could be polite and effacing, or she could take a chance—

“Frightfully!” she said, making her face as disapproving as possible. “I declare, it was simply …
horripilatious
.”

Parthenope met her eyes, startled. Sophie struggled not to giggle at her expression, but her mouth
would
begin to quiver at the corners … and Parthenope burst into laughter. Sophie joined her and felt a large part of the worry and tension that she’d been cradling against her heart like an ugly, fretful baby melt away.

“Oh my goodness. I am so glad you said that,” Parthenope declared, subsiding into giggles. “I positively
swore
any number of solemn oaths to myself that I would be all elegance and repose once I arrived in London, but being a languid miss just isn’t possible for me, I think. And here you are, looking as cool and serene as I wanted to be, yet I find you’re quite as naughty as I am, underneath. Now, tell me about your lameness,” Parthenope commanded when they finally regained their breath.

To her surprise Sophie found herself telling her, much as she had Amélie. Parthenope listened without interrupting, to Sophie’s further surprise, even when she added what had happened with Lady Lumley in the dressmaker’s shop—leaving out the magic she’d done, of course.

“Your poor mama,” Parthenope said, her voice gentler than Sophie had yet heard it. “And your little sister.… I can’t imagine how dreadful it would be losing one of my brothers forever, even though I sometimes wish a few of them could be temporarily mislaid. And then that loathsome toad of a woman saying those things right to your face—it’s a wonder you didn’t box her ears or do something equally vengeful.”

“Oh, er…” Sophie hoped she didn’t look too guilty. “Don’t think I wasn’t tempted.”

“I expect that I would have given in to temptation.” Her eyes twinkled mischievously. “I know what we should do. We’ll tell everyone that you injured yourself when attempting to save your father, and you can spend the rest of the season languishing on sofas being pale and interesting and ordering all the young men to bring you restorative glasses of champagne.”

Sophie grimaced. Except for Lord Woodbridge, of course. Then again, if he were to bring her a glass of champagne, she’d probably throw it at him. “It’s a lovely thought, but I don’t think my aunts would approve.”

Parthenope looked over at Aunt Molly. “Mm, perhaps not. What a shame. I expect you could have been quite the thing.”

Sophie looked down at her hands in her lap. “Sometimes … sometimes I wish, if I had to be crippled, that it had happened when I was riding breakneck to hounds or something dashing and romantic like that. Then I suppose I could have tried your sofa and champagne idea. But having been ill is scarcely dashing. Besides, if I drink too much of anything, I won’t be able to spend much time on the sofa, will I?”

Parthenope giggled. “Oh, I know. D’you know what my Macky told me? She said that I should eat and drink as little as possible when I’m out in the evenings, because I’m sure to muss something up about my dress if I have to use the convenience. I think you and I ought to make a pact—if we’re at the same party, we’ll neither of us go to the privy alone, just in case we get our petticoats in a twist. All I need to do is disgrace myself in public—I’ll never hear the end of it from Perry.”

“From—oh.” She meant Lord Woodbridge, of course. Sophie hesitated, then said, choosing her words carefully, “I … um, I know he’s your cousin, but … I must confess, I came very near just now to poking him in the eye.”

“Really? Not Saint Peregrine! What did he do? I thought it rather interesting that he’d called—”

“He called so that he could tell me how sorry he was for me.”