The Secret Lover (35 page)

Sophie and Caleb chose a rarely traveled back road, hoping to gain some ground on Trevor.

It had been years since Sophie had ridden horseback, and while it took her a few miles to find her equilibrium, she soon rediscovered the exhilaration of riding with the wind in her face. She felt free, wanted to ride faster, harder, into the space before them.

The events of the last three days had, by some miracle, transformed her into the woman she had always wanted to be. She felt invincible, unconquerable, the queen of her own world—an independent woman, capable of making her own decisions and turning her back on the collective prejudices of the
ton
. She had never felt quite so strong in all her life—if she wanted, she was certain she could lift mountains.

They decided to stop in the small village of Peakirk and inquire if anyone might have chanced to see the gig carrying Honorine and Lord Hamilton, and assure themselves that they were on the right path. After all, Sophie reasoned, they had only the word of a small boy, and he had been rather angry. Caleb agreed that it was conceivable that the child might have lied.

Feeling quite formidable, Sophie insisted on conducting the interview of the dry-goods proprietor herself. Prepared to make quick work of him, she marched into the small shop.

The proprietor, as it happened, was not a man at all, but his large and jovial widow.

"Have you perhaps encountered a woman about my height, her hair dark with a bit of silver? She is wearing it long and unbound, I am quite certain," Sophie explained with a slight roll of her eyes, "and a skirt of…

ah… very vivid colors. You've undoubtedly never seen such colors on one bolt, I'd wager. Oh yes, she is driving a gig for a gentleman who can't come down off the bench—he's had a seizure of some sort, you see—and she was probably speaking half-English, half-French. You'd surely know it, because you must listen very carefully to make any sense of it at all."

The shopkeeper blinked.

"She's French," Sophie added.

The woman's burst of laughter startled Sophie; her large belly jiggled as she laughed. "You are quite serious, are you, mu'um? Oh no, we've not had anyone of that description through Peakirk, I can assure you, for we'd all know it." She laughed again with her hands on her belly, as if to contain the jiggling. "Ooh, I must compliment your bonnet! Rather colorful, isn't it?"

Sophie touched the brim of the hat borrowed from Honorine and smiled.

She became so engrossed in the telling of the story of Honorine in Dieppe and the dozens of hats distributed there that it was several moments before she or Mrs. Clevely saw Caleb, his arms folded across his chest, leaning casually against the door frame. Mrs. Clevely's pudgy hand floated to her double chin. "Oh
my
," she said, blushing. "Won't you come in, sir?"

"Thank you, madam, but I've just come for my ward there."

"Oh." Sophie glanced at the watch pinned to her breast and realized she had been talking more than a quarter of an hour. "Oh dear," she muttered, and smiled sheepishly at Mrs. Clevely. "It would seem I have taken too much of your time."

"Not at all, not at
all
," the woman crowed as she eyed the full length of Caleb, sizing him up like a side of beef.

Sophie hurried to the door, bustled Caleb out in front of her before he could respond. "Thank you again, Mrs. Clevely! A lovely day to you!" she called over her shoulder, and practically fell through the door in her haste to get outside.

Laughing, Caleb caught her by the elbow. "Did you perchance learn anything, or was the entire visit focused on your hat?"

"Yes, I did indeed," Sophie responded with mock arrogance. "I learned that Mrs. Clevely's husband has been gone for five years now, and she desires a new mate." She glanced at Caleb from the corner of her eye.

"Judging by the way she looked at you, I would advise you to set your mount to a bit of a gallop."

Their luck was not improved in Thurlby or Morton. But in Ingoldsby, a diminutive fishmonger remembered Honorine quite vividly, describing her perfectly in great, poetic terms.

"Did she happen to mention where they were bound?" Sophie asked, cutting off his rather lengthy description of Honorine, the lone daisy in a field of dead grass.

The man placed a finger alongside his nose, and thought hard. "Yes, yes… I
do
recall! They were to Billingborough and the pottery market there! She had in mind some platters."

"Platters?" Caleb asked, his skepticism evident. "But Billingborough is in the opposite direction of Nottingham."

"Yes sir, it was Billingborough," the fishmonger said, nodding adamantly.

Caleb looked to Sophie; she was as skeptical as he was, but it was a true fact that one never knew quite what to expect with Honorine. The woman definitely did whatever suited her. "I wouldn't be terribly surprised," she said truthfully.

With a glance at the midday sun, Caleb sighed. "All right, then. To Billingborough."

They thanked the little man, fetched their mounts. As they began to ride away, the fishmonger called after them. "You'll give her Mr. Ickham's kindest regards, will you?
Mr. Ickham of Ingoldsby
!" he shouted.

Sophie nodded and waved; she and Caleb rode on, their laughter trailing behind them.

At Billingborough, no one had seen a Frenchwoman with an ailing man.

They agreed they obviously had been thrown off track. The only plausible explanation, Ian's uttering aside, was that they were headed for Nottinghamshire and Hamilton House. They returned the way they had come, veering to the north in Ingoldsby, toward Nottinghamshire. Neither of them remarked on the time they had lost and rode at a comfortable pace, quietly relishing one another's company in spite of the circumstance that had brought them here. Without conscious thought, they slipped into the fairy-tale world they had created all those afternoons in London and had found again in the English countryside. It was not hard to do; the day was simply gorgeous—bright sunshine, summer flowers blanketing the fields, picturesque vistas of hamlets and an occasional old keep. Neither of them wanted to leave the magic.

Outside of Grantham, they stopped for a time to feed and water the horses. Sophie took the opportunity to stretch her limbs, wandering around the little meadow picking flowers.

As he watched her, Caleb fell into a thoughtful silence. Last night's lovemaking had bewitched him, stayed with him all day. He wanted to believe it had been the same for her. Sophie had a way about her, a subtle air that swept a man in, allowed him to rest, to feel safe. But while he felt all those things and more about Sophie, she had refused his offer of marriage. In all his thirty-five years, he had never so much as had the inclination to offer for a woman, much less act on it. He realized, of course, that was in part because he had never loved like he had come to love Sophie—completely, deeply, and with all that he had.

Which was why part of him now feared this warm, dreamy association, for another rejection such as she had handed him before would be devastating, if not paralyzing, destroying a piece of him that he could never reclaim.
Still
… she had apologized, had made him believe with her words and her body that she would rescind the words she had uttered that night, return them both to the blissful happiness they had known in London.

He watched as she stooped to pick a handful of wild daisies. When she stood again, she was smiling at him as she had the first time he had ever seen her across the little pond. He loved that smile, loved it with all his heart. Moreover, he had
trusted
that smile.

He trusted it now, didn't he? Last night had restored his faith, had it not?

She was walking toward him, her skirts lifted in one hand, free of the cumbersome petticoats, which she had, apparently, discarded in the course of her liberation. She stepped carefully, her trim calves lifting above the tall grass. Her bonnet dangled, forgotten, down her back. She had tied her hair simply at her nape; it trailed almost to her waist in shimmers of gold and mahogany. As she neared him, she dropped her skirts, let them drag the grass behind her, her smile growing brighter as she handed the wild daisies to him.

Caleb took them, examined the small petals for a long moment.

"Are we quite ready to continue?" she asked. "The horses are feeding—"

"I would know something, Sophie," he blurted, and lifted his gaze from the flowers, feeling the grip of uncertainty close around his heart. "There is something I must know. The night of the Fortier ball, I asked that you marry me." He paused, gathered what was left of his courage. But Sophie said nothing, simply drew her bottom lip between her teeth and looked at him with no small amount of trepidation.

It was too late to go back, too late to snatch his heart back from the abyss into which it had suddenly plummeted. "You refused me," he said flatly. "You rejected me on the grounds of my birth, I think."

A small sigh escaped her; she bowed her head. "Oh my, I've made quite a mess of things, haven't I?"

God. Oh God.

"I suppose you will never forgive me, will you?"

"Pardon?" he asked dumbly.
Breathe
. He could not seem to breathe.

"You shall never forgive me, I think, nor would I, in your place."

Forgive
… could she not forgive him the circumstance of his birth?

"There is nothing to forgive, Sophie. If you feel strongly in your conviction

—"

"But that is just the thing, Caleb, I
have
no conviction. Not about that, at any rate. Quite honestly, I feel hardly anything a'tall about the circumstance of your birth, other than I am rather glad you are here. I have no excuse for what I did, not after what we shared, but I would ask that you please consider my upbringing and please forgive me this terrible mistake.
Please
forgive me."

Caleb's heart leapt to his throat; he tried to swallow it, tried to keep the hope from surfacing because he could not quite believe her—he had spent too many years a bastard, known too many ladies of the Quality.

"It's just that… it's just that appearances are quite important to members of the
haut ton
," she continued, obviously flustered, "and while I would not want to dishonor my family again, I cannot be unfaithful to myself, can I? Oh honestly, I am making such a mess of things! What I am trying to say is that what matters most of all is that you love me, exactly for who I am. And while I won't pretend to understand it, the past seems not to make a whit of difference to you. Actually, I'd rather not delve
too
deeply into why, because the Lord knows I am desperately in love with you, and I could not bear to hear a single disapproving word. Do you see?"

Caleb nodded solemnly as he took a step toward her.

"Honorine always says, 'Love is like good French wine—one simply cannot live without it, whether it comes in a brown bottle or a green bottle.' I understand that—well, in one way, perhaps—but you might therefore ask yourself, 'Well then why would you refuse the offer of a man who loves you if you believe all this talk of bottles?' I don't know other than to say I reacted as I supposed I ought. I said what I thought would meet everyone's approval, what everyone would expect of me…" She paused to catch her breath and looked up at him with great longing. "I did not speak my heart, Caleb—I spoke the
ton's
drivel. I hope you will forgive me. I hope you will allow me to speak my heart now, and believe me when I tell you that I love you, more than I love my very own life."

His heart was pounding now with hope fresh and raw. He caught Sophie by the hand, pulled her into his embrace. "Then may I take it that if I were to ask again, you would accept the offer to be my wife?"

She startled him by firmly shaking her head. "There remains the problem of
me
. Have you considered how your own good reputation might be compromised by consorting—
marrying
—a divorcée?"

It was so absurd that the laughter rumbled up from his chest, bursting and spilling into the meadow around them. "Sophie, the things you say! I may be rest assured I shall never want for laughter!
No
, my darling, I do not worry that my reputation will be compromised. Quite the contrary—

every gentleman from here to the moon shall wish himself so fortunate as me!"

Sophie opened her mouth to speak, but Caleb seized her, kissing the very breath from her lungs. When he lifted his head, the glitter of happiness had returned to Sophie's eyes.

"But you must know there will be talk. What Trevor said this morning is only the beginning," she warned.

"I have been the subject of gossip and unkind conjecture all my life, Sophie. I hardly care anymore." He kissed her again, and reluctantly looked at his timepiece. "Come on then, we must be on our way."

But as they rode away from the meadow, his thoughts full of her promise, Caleb remarked idly, "I rather think Kettering will not approve."

Sophie sighed wearily. "I suppose not. He's always been quite rigid about these things."

"Will he forbid you?"

"Hat" she exclaimed defiantly. "And what if he does? I am a grown woman—he cannot dictate my life to me."

"Nonetheless, he is your brother. And the Earl of Kettering. I suppose he could dictate
my
life if he were of a mind."

She shrugged. They rode in silence for several moments before she asked, "Where shall we go, do you suppose? To the house at Regent's Park?"

Caleb did not answer immediately, as he rather imagined that would be impossible now, his dream of it notwithstanding. The two of them would cause quite a stir there. But where
would
they go? He had been so intent on his heart's desire that he hadn't really thought through the details of it, had he? His house in Scotland, in dire need of repair, was little more than a hovel by Sophie's standards. There was his mother's property in France, but he hadn't seen it in years and scarcely knew if the château was still standing. His work, the railroad—it kept him moving. Did he keep Sophie moving, too? And what of children? How would they bring a family into this world with his name and her reputation and no home?