Pamela Sherwood (13 page)

“That’s good to know,” Robin replied. “I’ve retained my own staff at the Hall, but wherever possible I’ve hired local men and women for additional positions. From domestics to wait staff,” he added, nodding toward a pair of liveried men now approaching the table with what appeared to be the first course.

Silence reigned for several minutes as the waiters set baskets of fresh baked rolls on the table, filled their glasses with a pale sherry, ladled out portions of steaming oyster soup from a silver tureen for each of them, and then withdrew with the same quiet efficiency with which they had entered.

Sophie sipped from the spoon, aware that Robin was watching her closely. The first taste of the soup fulfilled every expectation. “Oh, this is lovely! And richer than what we usually have at home.”

He relaxed, just enough for her to sense the faint anxiety lingering under his surface calm. “Chef Renard adds a dollop of cream, and sherry to make it so.”

“Well, you can present my compliments when next you see him,” Sophie declared.

The others murmured their approval, spooning up their soup with enthusiasm. The fish course that followed was just as delicious: a whole poached salmon served upon a bed of tender asparagus, prawns baked in tiny pastry shells, and boiled lobsters with drawn butter. But where could one possibly find fresher fish than in Cornwall, with the sea at one’s doorstep, Sophie mused as she finished the last of her salmon.

“I think even the most particular appetite in London would be satisfied with this dinner,” James remarked, laying down his fish fork.

“I adore the lobster,” Aurelia said, extracting another morsel from a scarlet claw. “I don’t think any of the hotels in Newport could produce anything better.”

Robin laughed, the sound warming the very depths of Sophie’s heart. “Well, it’s not perhaps on the same level as the Savoy, but I think it’ll do nicely. And there’s more to come,” he added, nodding toward the returning waiters.

More was a roast duck in a delicate orange sauce, and fricassee of chicken with truffles, succeeded by spring lamb with mint sauce and new potatoes.

“My favorites,” Sophie said with a sigh of pleasure as the laden plate was set before her.

“So I’ve been told.” Robin smiled at her. “Many happy returns, Miss Tresilian.”

The same words he’d said to her before, but the tone was different: intimate and warm, a caress of velvet against her ear. Sophie suppressed a shiver, her skin deliciously atingle beneath the silk of her gown, and stole a glance at Robin beneath her lashes. Her pulse quickened when she saw that his eyes held some of that hazed, slumberous look she’d remembered from their first kiss in the garden. She dropped her own gaze hastily, half wishing it could be just the two of them dining alone together, rather than with her entire family looking on and—in the case of her mother, at least—speculating on how matters stood between them.

Robin tapped his fork against his wine glass, making the crystal chime, and his guests looked up at once from their plates. “If I may interrupt you for a moment,” he began, “I should like to propose a toast. To Miss Sophie Tresilian, on the occasion of her nineteenth birthday!”

“To Sophie!” they echoed, and drank to her health while Sophie blushed, laughed, and then could not seem to stop smiling—grinning even—for all her attempts to appear serene and ladylike.

They all drank to the hotel after that, and the hard work of the partners and staff. And the dessert course was brought in, just as delectable as the courses that had preceded it: hothouse fruits, lemon and raspberry ices, exquisitely tinted petit fours, and most striking of all, a spun sugar and meringue confection in the shape of the Pendarvis Hotel itself. They drank another round of toasts, this time with an excellent French champagne that Harry, who prided himself on his cellar, insisted on knowing more about so he could purchase a case himself.

Sophie sipped at her own glass, savoring the fizz upon her tongue. A delectable meal, a beautifully furnished room full of the people dearest to her, a party in her honor held by the man she loved, on Midsummer Eve, no less—what could be more magical than that?

***

She found out soon after the last dishes had been cleared away and Robin led them from the Grand Salon to the ballroom.

Much to Sophie’s pleasure, the walls were the same delicate green, and the curtains still made of oyster satin, though a bit richer and heavier than the ones she remembered. Unshrouded from its holland cover, the crystal chandelier blazed forth in full magnificence, the light of its shining prisms reflected in the polished floor. More roses here too, snowy white alternating with soft damask pink, arranged in graceful celadon vases. And up in the gallery sat the musicians—a string quartet and a pair of flautists, Robin informed his guests. At his signal, they immediately struck up a lilting Strauss waltz.

“Not quite enough people for a quadrille,” Robin explained. “But then, that’s one advantage of an informal dance such as this. There can be as many waltzes as one likes.”

“And everyone knows that one can never have too many waltzes,” James remarked, exchanging a knowing smile with Aurelia. Watching them, Sophie wondered if, someday, she and Robin would share that sort of wordless intimacy. “May I have this dance, loveday?”

Her smile was answer enough, and soon they had all paired up, with the exception of John and Peter, the two spare gentlemen of the party, though Peter claimed not to mind. At sixteen, he still regarded dancing with any female as a penance rather than a pleasure.

Harry claimed Sophie as his partner for the first waltz—an older brother’s prerogative, he said—and she danced with John, James, and Arthur before Robin stepped in, sweeping her into a waltz with that breathtaking new assurance of his.

“You’ve improved,” Sophie observed with delight, as he led them into a graceful turn.

“Thank you. I did get some practice in while you were away.”

“Oh?” Sophie raised her brows. “Might I inquire who your partner was?”

“No need—she’s here tonight.” He nodded toward Aurelia, circling the floor in James’s arms. “Lady Trevenan did the honors, at least until the last part of her confinement.”

Sophie couldn’t restrain a smile. James and Aurelia always waltzed as though they were one person, not two. “I shall have to thank her as well. You’re a credit to her teaching—I haven’t enjoyed a waltz this much in, oh, ages!”

“With the cream of London Society vying for your dances? I find that difficult to believe, my dear.”

“Oh, but surely you know that enjoying a dance has nothing to do with Society,” she said lightly. “And everything to do with… finding the right partner.”

He stilled for a moment, his eyes gone as dark as midnight as he gazed at her. “I would say the right partner can make all the difference in the world.”

Sophie smiled up at him. “Then we’re in perfect accord, aren’t we? Although,” she added, “since you
have
mentioned London, I’ve got some news to share.”

His expression lightened. “Good news, I trust?”

She nodded. “I had a letter from my voice teacher yesterday. He wants me to go on a singing tour with several other pupils.”

“A tour? When would it start?”

“In autumn. September or October, lasting until December, and we’d be performing mostly in England, though we might travel up to Scotland as well. Getting our feet wet as professional musicians,” she explained. “The biggest draws will be singers who are already established, but we’d support them—and a few of us will perform solos as well. And we—the ladies—would be duly chaperoned at all times, so that needn’t be a problem.”

Robin’s eyes warmed. “That’s wonderful news, my dear. Shall you go?”

“Perhaps,” Sophie temporized. “I haven’t written back yet. I felt I had to discuss this with my family first. And you.”

His mouth firmed. “You should go, Sophie.”

“Robin—”

“I mean it, my dear. You’ve worked too hard and have far too much talent to give up a chance like this.”

“But everything’s so unsettled right now!” Sophie protested. “Your hotel, and that
other
situation—”

“Will still exist whether you are in Cornwall or on tour,” Robin broke in. “I have hopes of things being resolved before too long, but even under the best circumstances, it will still take time to… disentangle myself.” He took a breath. “This could turn ugly—divorce often does—and I don’t want you in the middle of it.”

It was on the tip of Sophie’s tongue to argue that she was already in the middle of it, but she stifled her protest when she saw the bleakness in his eyes. “Very well,” she conceded. “I’ll talk this over with my family, and if they have no objection, I’ll go on the tour.”

“Good.” He relaxed then, the warmth creeping back into his eyes. “You’ll take the rest of England by storm, I have no doubt. And Cornwall will still be here when you return—as will I.”

Relief escaped in a gurgle of laughter at the familiar words. “You sound like
me
!”

“Do I, then?” He guided her into a swirling turn. “Your optimism must be rubbing off on me at long last.”

“Better late than never,” Sophie teased.

“Indeed. So let us maintain our optimism, and trust that all will turn out for the best. Are you enjoying your birthday celebration?”

“You know I am.” She smiled up at him with all her heart. “It’s been a wonderful night, Robin. Thank you—I feel just like a princess in a fairy tale.”

“You look like one.” Robin’s gaze swept over her gown—a confection of rose-pink silk trimmed with ivory lace—and then up to the budding roses woven in her hair. “I’m partial to you in green, but you’re lovely in this color too. Like a rose coming into bloom.” He drew her closer to him as they danced, his voice low and caressing. “The fairest rose in the garden.”

It seemed impossible to be happier than at this moment—this sure of him, and of herself, and the future before them. Wonderful, Sophie thought, her senses pleasantly blurred with love and champagne. This night could not be more wonderful…

Greatly daring, she let her head rest for a moment upon his shoulder, then pulled back in surprise when something hard pressed against her cheek.

“What’s this—in your pocket?”

He smiled. “Something that might become you even more than that pretty locket you’re wearing now.”

“My locket?” Sophie’s hand went to her necklace. While only a trinket, it had belonged to her mother and grandmother before her, and she was quite fond of it.

Robin stepped back, reached into his breast pocket… and an unfamiliar voice assailed them all, rising above the lilting music from the gallery.

“
Mesdames, m’sieurs
… can someone ’elp me?”

A woman’s voice, clear, imperious—and not at all English. Robin’s head snapped toward the sound, and the color drained from his face. Her own heart pounding, Sophie followed the direction of his gaze and felt her blood turn to ice.

A fair-haired woman—dainty, almost fairylike in her proportions—stood on the threshold… with a child of perhaps three clinging to her skirts and another, little more than an infant, slumbering in her arms. Straightening to her full height, diminutive as it was, she addressed the room at large.

“
Pardonnez-moi
, I am looking for a Monsieur Robin Pendarvis. I am Madame Pendarvis.”

The ghost of folly haunting my sweet dreams…

—John Keats, “Lamia”

Madame Pendarvis.

Forewarned should have meant forearmed, but Sophie felt as dazed and stunned as if she were hearing of Robin’s marriage and Robin’s wife for the very first time. And all around her were people who were indeed hearing this for the first time, now staring transfixed at the woman before them. Even the musicians had stopped playing; Sophie wouldn’t have been surprised to find them peering over the balustrade to get a closer look at the scene unfolding below.

Concentrate
. With an effort, she forced herself to remain composed as she studied the self-styled Madame Pendarvis more closely.

Contrary to Sophie’s secret perception of her, Robin’s runaway wife did not wear the tawdry finery of a fallen woman, but a plain traveling dress of demure blue-grey twill. The only claim to frivolity was a slightly bedraggled ostrich feather on the crown of her otherwise undistinguished-looking hat. But even such drab apparel could not dim her ethereal beauty. The baby in her arms was swaddled in a heavy blanket, over which a tuft of fair hair was just visible.

The baby… Sophie darted a glance at Robin, whose face was still pale and set. How painful this must be for
him
, having to deal with not just his wife’s reappearance but the all too evident fruit of her infidelity.

Madame, by contrast, appeared to feel neither shame nor discomfiture. Her gaze swept the ballroom and lighted at last upon her estranged husband. “Ah, Robin, there you are!”

“Nathalie.” Robin’s lips barely seemed to move; it was as if a stone had spoken. “What are you doing here?”

Silvery blue eyes, almost opalescent in hue, widened with an assumption of childlike innocence. “You ’ave been trying to find me, ’ave you not?”

“I tried to stop her, sir!” Praed, breathless and shaken out of his usual composure, burst into the ballroom. “I told you,
madam
,” he emphasized the last word with chill formality, “that Mr. Pendarvis and his guests were not to be disturbed. I told her to wait in the reception room while I sent a footman to inform you of this, sir,” he explained to Robin, who held up a hand, his gaze still intent on his wife. The butler subsided but continued to eye “madam” with suspicion and distrust.

“Nathalie, the children,” Robin began hoarsely. “Whose—?”

“
Mon
Dieu
,” she broke in on a breathy little laugh. “Do you not recognize your own daughter? Sara,
ma
petite
, this is your
bon
papa
.”

Sophie stifled a gasp. For the little girl clinging to the woman’s skirts now lifted her head… and the eyes that gazed mistrustfully at the room of strangers were the exact same color and shape as Robin’s. And her hair, cut in a short straight cap, would almost certainly be the same shade of dark brown in the sunlight.

“Papa.” The word was scarcely more than a breath, but it seemed to echo through the now silent ballroom. And the look in Robin’s eyes as he stared at his daughter—shock, followed by a dawning recognition… and a hunger that Sophie had never seen, not even when he looked at
her
, she realized with a flash of pain.

“And this is Cyril,” Nathalie continued, folding back a corner of the blanket. The child in her arms stirred languidly. His skin was porcelain pale, his half-open eyes the same misty blue-grey as his mother’s. His hair was perhaps a shade darker, but in all else he was her very image. Hard to guess his age—six months, perhaps, or very little older.

This couldn’t be happening. This
couldn’t
be happening. The ballroom swam and flickered before Sophie’s eyes. She clenched her fists, feeling the points of her nails dig into her palms through her silk evening gloves, and forced herself to remain upright. Never in her life had she swooned like some milk-and-water miss, and she wasn’t about to start now.

Robin’s face was still pale under its summer tan, but his posture was erect and unbending, his voice completely level when he spoke. “Praed, will you escort—Mrs. Pendarvis to my study? And ask Mrs. Dowling if she would be so good as to take the children upstairs to my wing? The bedroom at the end of the passage will do, and a hot drink should be brought for them as well.”

Praed recollected himself. “Very good, sir.” He turned to—to Mrs. Pendarvis, his face once more unreadable. “Madam?” His voice was as cool and colorless as Robin’s own.

For a moment, Nathalie eyed the butler, clearly taking his measure, then she gave a little shrug—so French, that gesture—and exited the ballroom with the children, Praed following her purposefully.

Robin looked at his guests—the friends and neighbors whose trust and friendship he’d striven to earn this past year—all staring back at him. His face was as closed and shuttered as Sophie had ever seen it, as if he hadn’t been laughing and dancing with her mere minutes ago. “Pray excuse me. I have some important business to attend to.” He paused, then resumed with that same excruciating courtesy. “Perhaps it might be best if you were to take Miss Tresilian home now.”

***

She sat in the chair by the fire, hatless now, her platinum ringlets loose about her shoulders, her feet and legs curled up beneath her like a cat’s. Her silver-blue eyes were kitten-wide and innocent.

Deceptively innocent, as Robin had cause to know. He schooled his own features into impassivity as he walked toward her, feeling as if he were approaching a coiled adder.

“Well,
mon
cher
, I ’ave come home to you.” Despite her ever-present French accent, she spoke impeccable English, the native tongue of her long-dead father. She tilted an exquisite cheek toward him, as though expecting a kiss. Robin made no attempt to bestow such a salute upon her.

He raised a skeptical brow instead. “Cornwall was never home to you.”

Her eyes widened. “But Robin, where else would home be but beside my ’usband?”

He’d used to love the way she spoke his name, with that tiny lisp that made it sound almost like “Wobin.” Now it grated on him. And so did those too-wide eyes, that butter-wouldn’t-melt expression. A naughty little girl trying to cozen her parents into forgiveness. At nineteen, those mannerisms had been charming; at twenty-four, they were much less so. Almost grotesque, given their history. How pitiful to grow older, without ever growing up.

So different from Sophie, always candid and honest in all her dealings. But the thought of Sophie felt like a knife in his heart, so he pushed it away. “Your husband in name only,” he reminded her. “We have not lived as a married couple in nearly four years.”

“So long? I ’ave forgot how fast the time does fly.”

“No doubt,” Robin said dryly. “But for those of us with less—convenient memories, the time had passed more slowly. Though
I
have attempted to put that time to good use.”

She regarded him more narrowly, with less kittenish innocence and greater shrewdness. An assessing look that took in his immaculate evening clothes, of a cut and a quality he could not have afforded in Rouen. “I can see that,” she acknowledged at last. “You look prosperous, Robin. But I am glad you ’ave not become fat.”

He said wearily, “What do you want, Nathalie?”

“Why,
chèri
, I only want what is my proper due. The rights and station of a wife.”

He heard himself laugh, short, sharp, and humorless. “You tired of those within a year of our marriage. Why do you claim them now?”

She made a little moue. “May not a woman change her mind, Robin? Especially when—circumstances change as well.”

The shoe dropped with predictable force. “You mean now that I am a successful hotelier, instead of a penniless architect, you find me a far more appealing prospect.”

A little to his surprise, she actually blushed. “You make it sound so… mercenary,
chèri
.”

He crossed his arms. “I believe in calling a spade a spade.”

She tossed her head, her ringlets dancing about her shoulders. “You say ‘mercenary’—a horrid word. I say ‘practical.’ There is no woman on earth who would not prefer a man of means to a mere dreamer.” Her gaze roved around his study, decorated in subtle coffee and cream tones, taking in the padded leather armchairs, the glass-fronted bookcases, and the mahogany writing desk, glossy with polish. “
Alors
, I am so glad that you ’ave chosen a more—lucrative career. We did not live so, in France.”

“We did not live in squalor either,” Robin reminded her. “I saw to that. You might have as well, instead of sulking over what we could not afford then.”

Her lower lip, soft and full as a child’s, quivered piteously. “I was young, and perhaps foolish! I ’ave learned better since, I swear!”

“So have I. And what I have learned is not to take a word you say at face value.” Leaning against his desk, he regarded her with cool appraisal. “I suppose you thought
Raoul
—a better prospect? And after him,
Philippe
? And God only knows how many others after him.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That wretched little man you sent to find me knows too, I am sure.”

“And the rest of the world may soon know as well, since I intend to bring a divorce suit against you,” Robin informed her bluntly.

Nathalie gasped, one hand fluttering to her throat in a dramatic gesture worthy of Drury Lane. “Divorce! But you cannot!”

“On the contrary, it would be all too easy to divorce you on the grounds of infidelity.”

“You would not! You would brand yourself a cuckold.” She made a gesture of horns upon her head. “You would be a laughingstock among the English!”

“Perhaps. But I would also be free, and that matters a good deal more.”

“Free!” She almost spat the word at him. “Free to marry that little
ingénue
? That simpering English miss you were dancing with?”

“You will not speak of her.” Robin scarcely raised his voice, but the tone was enough to silence Nathalie, at least for a moment.

Then she rallied, her eyes filling with tears. So had she twisted him round her little finger before, in the early days of their marriage. Now he watched the performance, unmoved. “But what am I to do then?”

“That is your own concern,” Robin replied evenly. “But I daresay we can come to some sort of arrangement that will benefit us both. I do not believe you are any more desirous of living with me as my wife than you were four years ago.”

“That is not true! I would be all that you required of me!”

“Including faithful? Loyal? A companion and partner, not a spoiled child who must forever be indulged?” He shook his head. “I do not believe you have that in you, Nathalie.”

Silvery tears tracked down her cheeks. “You are so cruel, Robin.”

“I did not say those things to wound you.” How tired he was. “I am done with being angry with you, Nathalie. You are—as you are. But we were ill-suited then, and we are worse-suited now. Let’s make a civilized end to our marriage and move on with our lives apart.”

“Apart? But I ’ave children to think of!” she protested. “
Your
children.”

“My child,” he corrected her. “Singular. The girl may be mine, but you know as well as I that the boy cannot be.”

She grew still. “And so you would throw him out in the street, and his mother with him?”

Her eyes challenged him to reply in the affirmative. Robin strove not to rise to the bait, knowing that if Nathalie suspected he cared for or felt any interest in either child, she would exploit that mercilessly.

“I will see that both children are provided for,” he said at last. “And you as well. In exchange for the divorce, I am prepared to offer fair terms and a generous settlement.” His solicitor would probably have an apoplexy when he heard the amount Robin had in mind, but it seemed a small price to pay for his freedom—and the children’s security.

Because
that
mattered just as much. There had been nothing in Norris’s reports about either child, Robin recalled; Nathalie had somehow concealed their existence all too well, even from him—
especially
from him. He had never once suspected that their brief, ill-starred marriage had borne fruit, but he’d seen the proof tonight: that tiny scrap with her dark hair and startling blue eyes, so huge in her tiny, almost elfin face… his daughter. Again he felt that fierce surge of protectiveness that had gripped him in the ballroom when he’d heard her call him “Papa.”

Nathalie must have been with child when she fled with her lover. The age would be about right—he supposed it was possible that his estranged wife might be lying about her daughter’s paternity, but there was such a look of his own mother about the little girl’s eyes and mouth. Not to mention her name—what had prompted Nathalie to call her after the mother-in-law she had never met?

More importantly, what sort of life could Sara and her brother have known, dragged hither and yon at Nathalie’s whim? Had there been nurses to look after them while their mother was—otherwise occupied? Or had Nathalie convinced her various lovers to provide care for the children, as a condition of their liaison? Well, whichever it was, that was about to end, Robin thought. Both children were little more than infants; they needed and deserved a more settled existence than their flighty mother had given them.

“Generous!” Nathalie echoed with a tinkling laugh that set Robin’s teeth on edge. Once that laugh had sounded like fairy bells to his besotted ears, but there was a harsher note to it now, a discordancy that reflected the years and experiences between. “So I am to forfeit my reputation, my rightful place as Madame Pendarvis, and slink away like a thief in the night for a pittance that will barely keep body and soul alive?”

She was speaking in French now, the better to express her outrage and indignation. Robin replied in the same language, “You willingly forfeited your reputation and your position as my wife years ago when you first left. As to the settlement, it should suffice to keep you if you exercise some prudence and restraint.” Neither of which Nathalie could be said to possess even on a good day, he reflected wearily. “And I will be providing whatever
both
children require. The boy may not be mine by blood, but he should not be made to suffer for your conduct.”