Jilting the Duke (12 page)

Aidan nodded, but said nothing.

“Tom never believed Benjamin was dead. He couldn't have left him out.”

Aidan took the list from her hands, then folded it, and slid it inside the top of his boot. “Now you can enjoy the rest of the evening without the fear of exposure.”

“But how? And why?” Sophia frowned into the growing dark.

“According to Ophelia, the gifts were originally intended as bequests. In many cases, Tom had chosen the gift, but for the others, he enlisted Ophelia's aid. Ophelia contacted your agent Aldine, and together they determined what each person would receive, suited to the person's temperament and desires. In most cases, Tom approved the choices, but he died before the bequests were written into his will,” Aidan explained gently.

“That answers how, but not why. Why did Ophelia pretend the gifts were from me?”

“During mourning you withdrew, even from those who would have eagerly offered you comfort. By making the gifts into a game, Ophelia hoped to remind you of your deep connections with your cousins and my family.”

“Like brother, like sister.” Sophia grimaced. “The temptation to manage is irresistible.”

Aidan heard the bitter undertone in Sophia's voice. As the diplomat he had been, he took a moment to consider the situation. Ophelia had felt keenly her sister-in-law's isolation, and though she had not intended to be cruel with her game, she had caught Sophia off guard. Similarly, Tom had not considered that Aidan might be cruel as a co-guardian; instead he had foolishly entrusted his wife and his child to Aidan's better nature. In each case, Sophia's actual well-being had been ignored in pursuit of what Tom or Ophelia might deem a higher good. Aidan finally broke the growing silence. “I suppose it doesn't help to say that they only manage those they love.”

Sophia sighed. “I know. Tom believed any problem could be solved by the application either of reason or affection. Ophelia is like him in that. . . .”

She paused, and he saw the faintest hint of tears in her eyes. Unexpectedly he felt his heart move in sympathy, but before he could console her, she straightened her shoulders and prepared to return to the saloon.

“May I see that list again? I have other gifts to give.”

Chapter Thirteen

The proofs for Tom's final book—a catalogue of European plants suitable for English gardens—had arrived the day Aldine had informed her of the guardianship. But with Aidan a new presence in their lives, Sophia had been unable to address them. This morning Aidan had taken Ian to St. John's Wood to watch a cricket match with some boys already in residence at Harrow. In the quiet of the house, she turned to her task. Laying the manuscript next to the printed proof pages, she began to compare them, line by line.

The proofs to the first volume had been so accurate that she'd been tempted to send the rest of the pages back without reading to the end. But her sense of obligation made her read every page. By noon, she'd realized that her task would not be as easy as she first imagined. In the second volume she found small but unexplainable errors on almost every page. Random bits of Latin interrupted sentences that made perfectly good sense without them. An easy solution would have been to remove all the Latin, except for the fact that Tom sometimes quoted Latin as part of the sentences.

It made no sense. She groaned in frustration and rubbed her forehead with her fingers. Then, breathing deeply, she returned to her task.

When Dodsley arrived with a pot of tea, she realized with chagrin that it was almost two. The warmth of the tea felt good against her hands.

However frustrating, the proofs were useful in focusing her mind on something other than Aidan. Since they had met to discuss the guardianship, Aidan seemed always to be interrupting her—every day, he'd found a way to engage her in conversation, about Ian mostly, and what plans he had made with her son for the following day. She couldn't complain; he never took Ian even as close as the park without making sure she knew and approved. His attention to her opinion was flattering, but it only made her thirst for more: for more engagement with his quick mind, for more chances to be near him. And her desire made her feel foolish.

Forcing herself to turn back to the proofs, she saw an error far worse than all the others. According to the text, plate 48 was supposed to be an engraving of a rose,
Rosa chinensis Mutabilis
—simple enough. Her illustration of the rose had been one of her favorites, single flowers opening a rich red, ripening to a salmon pink, then fading to yellow.

But here was an engraved illustration of a far different plant. She knew the plant—the agave. She even knew the original engraving, a large foldout that had fascinated her as a child. Sophia pushed back from the desk and walked to the bookcases behind her easel. She kept her father's copy of Philip Miller's 1763
Gardener's Dictionary
near her prints and paints. Her father had avidly admired Miller, the gardener at the Apothecaries' Physic Garden at Chelsea, and its pages still smelled like her father's study, reminding her of the hours she'd spent as a child tracing the book's full-page botanical illustrations. She found the illustration in an instant and laid the proof beside it. It was the same. Not just the same plant, but the same illustration.

Unfortunately, finding where the image had come from did nothing to make the proofs correct. This last mistake had surely come from Tom's hand. He had even signed the illustration according to the common practice: he'd used Latin for the verb
made
, or in this case
drawn
:
Fecit T. G. W
. Why hadn't he asked her to draw it for him?

If the incorrect image was from Tom's hand, what of all the bits of misplaced Latin. Had Tom “made” those errors too?

She couldn't imagine that the Latin phrases had been added accidentally by the press. No, setting Latin phrases added another step into the process of composing the type. The compositor would have to work from one type drawer for the English and another for the italicized Latin. And no compositor would just “add in” Latin arbitrarily, unless the publisher had an angry or malicious compositor intent on making Tom's book a financial failure—and that was unlikely. Could Tom have added nonsense letters to the fair copy he had written out neatly for the publisher?

In the case of a malicious employee, she could alert Mr. Murray.

But if Tom's fair copy was the problem, continuing to read the proofs was useless. She would have to wait for Mr. Murray to retrieve Tom's fair copy from his printer to finish her task.

But the agave print she could track down on her own. She removed the image from the proofs and folded it small enough to fit in her reticule. Though Tom had drawn the image, he hadn't engraved it. If she could find the engraver, perhaps she could discover what Tom had been thinking.

* * *

Aidan was in his study, catching up on correspondence, when his younger brother Edmund opened the door.

“Hey-o! Haven't seen you at Brooks's for days.” Edmund chose the most comfortable chair, then turned it backwards.

“Ian and I spent the day at St. John's Wood, watching cricket with some boys already at Harrow.” Aidan blotted the remaining ink from his pen and set it on the rest. “Drink?”

Edmund nodded at the whiskey. “How do you find your new ward?”

Aidan poured two shots of whiskey and handed one to his brother. “Reserved, but not shy. Like Tom, he is a thoughtful observer of people.” At the cricket match, Aidan had watched with a certain amount of pride as Ian drew his social circle wide, including those who were good-hearted and congenially holding at a distance the ill-natured boys. Signs that—like his father—Ian had the makings of a statesman. “We're going to Smithfield tomorrow. You're welcome to join us, though I'm sure you and Clive already intended to be there.”

“I might. I'd like to see Ian. I haven't seen him or Sophia since the last time I came to town with Seth.” Edmund brushed a wave of dark hair from his face. Of all the brothers, he and Aidan shared that feature, but there the resemblance ended. Edmund's disposition was as sunny as June. “In fact, I called on Sophie this afternoon to apologize for missing Phee's dinner, though I suppose three Somerville brothers is enough for any party. But she'd already gone out.”

“Women often call on one another in the afternoons.” Aidan turned back to his papers, annoyed. He'd known that Seth, as the Wilmot estate manager, visited Sophia, but he hadn't realized his other brothers visited as well. And he wasn't sure what rankled more: the visits or his not knowing.

“On foot? Without a maid? I arrived after she left the house, but I could see her walking at the end of the street.” Edmund inhaled the aroma of the whiskey, then drank. “I found it somewhat odd.”

Aidan folded the paper and met his brother's eyes. “Did you offer to accompany her?”

Edmund turned serious. “No. There was something about her carriage. I don't know. I thought that as Ian's guardian you might prefer if I discovered where she was going.”

Aidan raised one eyebrow and waited.

“She went to the British Institution.”

“She's an artist. Perhaps she went to see the old masters on display?” Aidan turned back to his papers.

“She didn't go to the public galleries.”

Aidan sat silently, waiting, saying nothing that would reveal interest.

“She was downstairs in the Institution office. A man was examining a document for her with a magnifying glass. At some point Sophia wrote what he told her on a slip of paper. The man folded the document she'd brought and started to place it in his overcoat, but she objected and he returned it. She put both in her reticule.”

“Could you see what the document was?” Aidan was suddenly interested.

“No. Do you want me to find out?”

“Can you do so without garnering attention?”

Edmund smiled broadly. “What do you think?”

Chapter Fourteen

Aidan was considering his next move. His men were positioned along the top of a tree-covered ridge. From that vantage point, they could see most of the valley below. Ian's troops were gathering on the ridge on the opposite side of the valley, hiding behind rocks. They had been playing this engagement for the last several afternoons, and the next few minutes would determine the course of the battle. Aidan was running scenarios in his head. To move his troops there would put him at risk of . . .

“You made Cook very happy with the pistachios. You should ask her to save you a piece when she makes her lemon cake,” Ian announced without looking up from the green felt landscape.

“I'm pleased they made Cook happy.” Aidan placed his next figure. “They weren't that hard to find.”

Ian considered his next move, then shifted a squadron of men to the side. An inconsequential move, Aidan thought with surprise.

“I'd like to find something that would make Mama happy.” The boy spoke quietly, as if to himself. “She doesn't laugh much anymore.”

Aidan paused, giving his brain a moment to shift from one strategy to the next. “I've seen her laugh with you.” Aidan moved some of his men into the brush on the downward slope of the ridge.

“I know. She says I make her happy. But it's not the same. She used to laugh all the time. And not just with me.”

“Do you know when she stopped laughing? Could she just be sad because your father died?”

“No, she stopped laughing before he died. I don't know when. She was in the hall one day, watching the men take away the trunks to come here. I realized I hadn't heard her laughing for a while.” Ian chewed on the end of his finger as he stared at the playing field. He moved his soldiers.

“She sent trunks back before your father died?” Aidan moved some of his soldiers farther down the slope to the point where there was no more brush before them, only open ground to the bank of the river running through the middle of the valley.

“For a couple of weeks. Papa made us promise to return to London as soon as he died.”

Aidan knew this. Sophia had told him as much when they had met to discuss Ian's guardianship. “So, she was packing because she thought your father was about to die? Couldn't that be a reason to stop laughing?” Aidan, paying close attention to the tone of Ian's voice, absently moved more soldiers down the slope.

“No.” Ian sounded frustrated. “We didn't expect him to die yet. She thought we had at least another year. I think she quit laughing because she didn't want to come back here.”

“Do you know why?”

“No.” Ian moved some soldiers farther to the right. “She is happier when she's in the garden or with me. But she can't be with me or in the garden all the time.”

“No, I suppose she can't.” Aidan further solidified his position on the face of the slope. “Is there something you would like me to do?”

“I'd like for you to make her laugh . . . though I think it will take more than a bag of pistachios.” Ian sat back on his heels. He motioned toward the felt, smiling. “I'd also like for you to surrender, Commander.”

Aidan looked at the position of his men, focused for a forward attack, and at Ian's men who had somehow flanked him and were now taking the ridge behind. Disbelief, then recognition, then a touch of admiration. “I see, Commander, that I have been outmaneuvered.”

Aidan stood, stretching. From the nursery window, he could see down into the garden, to Sophia sitting near the newest of the beds, a raucous mix of every-colored flowers that somehow reminded him of Tom. “Perhaps I'll have more luck with laughing. Do you think your mother would like a game of croquet?”

“That should make her happy.” Ian carefully reordered the soldiers in ranks and battalions.

“Why?”

Ian stopped for a moment, a red-coated soldier in his hand. “Because, your grace, she'll beat you.”

Then he turned back to the green felt landscape and began setting up another battle.

* * *

Sophia sat on the garden bench, surveying how her plans were developing. Perkins had found an old sundial under the debris of one garden bed. They'd laughed that the trees had grown up so much that time stopped every day at seven. She would need to find a space to place it.

Her plants were growing well. Next year the perennials would have matured enough to fill their allotted spaces, but this year, while they were settling in, she'd need to supplement with some annual plantings. It was too late to grow from seed, so Perkins was investigating what was available from the nursery gardens in Lower Thames Street.

She let her bonnet fall back, lifted her face up to the sun, and closed her eyes. Without the distraction of her plants, her thoughts turned to Aidan. For the last week, she'd seen him every day, but always unexpectedly. He never sent a note to indicate when he intended to visit. It kept her unsettled, but for Ian's sake, she allowed Aidan's intrusions.

Today he had been reading the newspaper in her morning room when she had come down for breakfast. And no one had warned her. Somehow Aidan had seduced—there was no other word for it—her servants. She'd started to feel like her house wasn't quite hers, but it was only for another fortnight. After that Ian would be gone, and she would have the whole empty house to herself.

At the same time, Aidan's kindnesses to Ian seemed limitless. For the past week, he had been taking Ian with him to events in town, introducing Ian to his circle, particularly those with young boys near Ian's age. Ian had told Aidan of playing bocce in Italy, and with her permission, the pair had set a croquet game up below her garden beds. For the last several days, he and Ian had alternated between playing croquet or soldiers.

On Monday, Aidan had taken Ian to Tattersalls to “help” choose a new horse for his stables and returned with a pony for Ian to ride at Greenwood Hall. The pony was to have been housed in Aidan's London stable, but Ian had grown so attached to the animal—terrorizing his tutor by asking to see it every hour—that Aidan had sent over his own carpenter, groom, and stableboy to repair and ready another stable in Sophia's mews. This morning the pony had arrived at its temporary home. Aidan had even loaned one of his grooms to Ian, so the boy could ride whenever he wished. There had been no way to object without disappointing Ian.

It was a consolation, though, that the ward and the guardian were getting on so well. At least, she wouldn't worry when Ian left with Aidan. There would be ample time to grieve when Ian was gone. For now she tried to enjoy Ian's daily presence, his laugh, his enthusiasm.

At the same time, she could never see Aidan without the clench of longing at the pit of her stomach. It never lessened, but she was growing used to ignoring it. Would she have to grow used to ignoring him all over again when the summer was over?

Something hit her foot, and she looked down. A croquet ball. She reached down and picked it up, feeling its weight in her hand. A game of hide and seek? She waited, not turning around, expecting Ian to steal up behind her as a surprise.

“Ian suggested I challenge you to a game of croquet.”

She started, feeling his voice echo in her bones.

“I'm sorry. I thought you would have heard me approach.” His tone was all solicitude.

She turned to face him, but he stood between her and the sun. “I should have heard. But I was imagining how this bed would grow over time.... What did you ask?”

“Croquet. Ian seems to think I need a break from being beaten at soldiers. He suggested you and I might play a round. He's in the nursery setting up tomorrow's battle.”

“Did he tell you I'd beat you?”

“He did mention that. But I find it difficult to believe him. I'm quite good.”

She stood up and shifted so that the sun stood between them and she could see his face. “You haven't played in a country where bocce is a blood sport and the women in your salon pride themselves on ruthlessness. It makes croquet look like . . . afternoon tea.”

“Then I look forward to the challenge.”

“As do I, but the ground is too wet. That's why I was only sitting here.”

“Watching your garden grow.”

“Imagining it grow.”

“Then you must compensate me for the loss of a game by escorting me to my garden and giving me some advice on how to reclaim it. Your man Perkins delivered some lavender, but I haven't a clue where to place the plants.”

She'd thought he'd forgotten her offer, and her heart leapt.

“I'll need just a few minutes to put on a walking dress. Would you like to wait on the terrace?” She rose and ran her hands down the side of her skirt, straightening and smoothing.

“It's not necessary to change; we could cross behind the garden, around the mews and stable yard, and into the passageway behind my house. Of course, if you would prefer the more conventional route, I'm happy to wait.”

His slight inflection on the word “conventional” taunted her. But she saw nothing in his face save the exceptional politeness that greeted her each time they met. He was right: for convention's sake, she should change clothes and walk properly down the public street, not slip down an alley in a work dress with a known rake. Phineas would be horrified.

“It doesn't make sense to change to go from garden to garden. So, yes, let's slip through the mews. My sketchbook is on the terrace.”

As Sophia walked to the terrace to retrieve her pencil and papers, Aidan watched her walk, enjoying the gentle sway of her hips, the elegance of her carriage. When he'd first come upon her, she had looked so peaceful with her face open to the sun, her bonnet away from her face. Then a look of such sorrow had crossed her face that he felt a surprising sympathy. He wondered what she had been thinking of at that moment.... It was not, he was sure, how her plants would grow.

* * *

The path was not a direct one. Out the gate, around the mews through a short alleyway between the houses directly behind her, then through a paddock, and another alley into a passage behind his house.

“I had no idea one could make that into a path, and I'm a bit disturbed to find that my gate doesn't appear to lock. Is that how you simply appear without announcement?”

“Guilty as charged. But your gate does lock—it's just that the lockmaker for your gate and mine appears to have been a shiftless sort; my key opens your gate, and yours, I assume, opens mine.”

“So it isn't that my servants have lost all sense of loyalty. . . .”

“I never give them the chance to intercept me.”

“That explains a great deal.”

Aidan paused at a wall heavily covered with vines and pulled back a section to reveal a door. “After you.” Sophia passed through ahead of him. The path into the garden had almost disappeared on the inside of the garden wall as well; unmaintained, it was thickly covered with leaves and dead branches. She paused to look around her.

Directly in front of them, about ten feet from the garden gate, stood a hedge thick with years. A gap in the hedge at their right opened to a path she assumed led to the house. To the left in the corner of the grounds was a gardener's shed and a small greenhouse, also neglected and unused. Sophia assessed the view. “You can't see the house from here. This hedgerow nicely hides both the gate we came in and that shed there, so we wouldn't want to interfere with it.”

She turned to follow the path, but her heel caught on a downed branch. Aidan reached out just as she stumbled and pulled her against him to keep her from falling. She stood still catching her balance, then looked up. He was examining her face so intently that she could imagine his lips against hers. Then his face shuttered, and he set her back on her own feet as if setting a vase on a mantel, precise and without emotion.

“That was clumsy of me.” Her waist burned where his hands had caught her.

“No, the apologies are all on my part. I should have had the twigs and branches cleared away. May I offer you my arm?”

Sophia was both tempted and wary. Tempted to feel his body closer to hers, and wary that she might reveal the desire that had flared with his touch. Yet there was no way to refuse without appearing impolite. She took his arm cautiously, maintaining a separation between his body and hers.

The garden showed vestiges of an earlier design. At the bottom had been a small wilderness, with five box shrubs grouped to suggest they had once been topiary, but no hint of their former shapes remained. She could see the upper stories of the house, Palladian in its lines, above another hedge that grew about ten feet in front of them. If she guessed correctly, on the other side of the hedge would be the remains of knot gardens, leading to whatever terrace backed the house.

“Has the property been in your family for some time?”

“No, I acquired it when I returned from Europe—or rather, I won it at cards,” Aidan answered. “It had been empty for some time, and I never saw any reason to hire a full staff. But after I became duke, this house became a sort of refuge.”

“So no one would object to my reshaping the garden to more contemporary tastes?”

“No, when they are in town, all my siblings lodge either at the ducal residence, or—like my brothers Clive and Edmund—at their clubs. As for me, I live here irregularly, so the only expectations you would have to meet would be your own.”

“Other than lavender, are there plants that you particularly like? Colors? Textures?”

“I would enjoy it most if you did as you thought best. My garden is your palette, my lady. My only requirement is that you must share with me what you are planning.”