The key was never, never to let Patrick know that she had developed a foolish tendresse for him. If Patrick didn’t know the truth, then she could play the role of the sophisticated woman who watched her husband come and go with ease. But the humiliation she would feel if he ever found out that she loved him—it chilled her blood.
“I shall never tell,” Sophie whispered, her breath momentarily fogging the glass window. Somehow comforted, she realized that her toes were cold, curled against the chilly wood under her feet. She ran back over the warm carpet beside her bed and tucked herself under the blanket.
When Sophie next woke, great golden swashes of sunlight lay across the tangled roses that bordered her carpet. Sophie turned over and blinked sleepily at the canopy. She had been dreaming in Italian, something she hadn’t done since she’d learned the language some four years ago. It was an odd little dream, and it slipped away even as she tried to bring it to mind. Something about a masquerade ball in which she was to be dressed as a gypsy, with a straw hat tied under the chin. Sophie grimaced. Today was the beginning of a masquerade, in a way. She reached out and pulled the rope next to her bed, swinging her legs out of bed yet again.
Eloise York felt a warm glow of satisfaction in the pit of her stomach as she looked discreetly over the mass of gentlefolk occupying St. George’s chapel at three o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon. She had rummaged up every single relation she and George could lay claim to, and had, in essence, done the same with Patrick Foakes’s family, given that it consisted of one brother (Alex), an uncle, and an aunt. However few in number, they were all prominently in view. Patrick’s uncle would conduct the ceremony, and his aunt, Henrietta Collumber, had been given a place of honor next to the bride’s mother.
“Stop peering, Eloise,” Henrietta said, with the freedom of a rather crotchety woman on the far side of seventy. “They’re all here, no need to worry. Thinking it’s the love match of the century, no doubt!” She positively cackled.
Eloise looked at Henrietta with a pang of extreme dislike. Could she risk giving the old harridan a sharp set-down? No. Instead, Eloise turned her head back toward the altar. She had been very pleased to learn that the Earl of Slaslow was standing up for Patrick. That should put a sock in the gossips’ chatter! Slaslow looked a bit peevish, but then he was the peevish sort anyway. In fact, the more she’d thought about it, the more it seemed clear that Sophie would be better off with Patrick Foakes.
Patrick looked imperturbable, standing in front of the church with his twin brother. Unlike Braddon, who was nervously shifting from foot to foot and yanking at his vest, the two Foakes brothers stood like rocks.
Just then the brief hush and hum that always precedes the entrance of a bride fell over the chapel. Sophie appeared in the recessed columns at the side of the chapel, her hand resting lightly on her father’s sleeve.
Eloise had persuaded her to wear white, and as Sophie walked quietly beside her father, her gown gleaming palely in the late afternoon light, she looked innocent, fragile, otherworldy. No one would think that she was a young woman who drew scandalous attention like a magnet to the true north. Even the most vicious imagination must hesitate to speculate why this marriage had happened with such speed. Sophie’s hair spilled down her back in a glowing flood, adorned only by creamy rosebuds tucked among the amber curls. She was the snow princess from a Russian folk tale, the guileless fairy queen from an Irish love story.
Her dress was made of pearly ivory satin, caught up under the bodice, and laid over with a shimmering overdress that extended into a train at the back. The sleeves were short, the bodice modest, and Sophie was wearing high satin gloves. When Madame Carême produced the gown, Sophie had wailed that she would look a veritable dowager.
In truth, it was probably the most conservative dress Eloise had seen Sophie wear since her daughter’s debut. But Madame Carême’s seamstresses had sewn frantically to add the one touch that turned the dress from conventional to enchanting. Madame added golden Brussels lace to the bodice, to the line of the overskirt as it fell from Sophie’s bosom, to the border of the shorter gown, and to the longer flow of the train. The lace caressed Sophie’s creamy skin and emphasized the curve of her breasts and the length of her slim legs.
And, Lord, but Madame Carême did know how to make a woman look enthralling. The gold lace echoed Sophie’s hair, making her look like an enchanting ivory and gold icon. A blasphemous icon, of course. No man in the chapel looked at her with reverence; the pure wanton lust rising in their loins fought so pallid an emotion. Against ivory silk and ivory skin, the blood beat in Sophie’s cheeks in a way that spoke of life, pagan life, life in the meadow, not the church, life in the bed, not the tomb.
Patrick’s breath caught in his throat as Sophie moved toward him without meeting his gaze. She raised her eyes only after she and the marquis reached the altar.
Then, for a brief instant, Sophie’s eyes met Patrick’s and she colored, looking down at the roses in her hand. A smile trembled on Patrick’s lips but the intent, languorous heat rising from his body stifled any impulse to laugh.
At least he knew why he was getting married. He had never experienced, nor would he ever experience again, a desire as profound as that which he consistently felt for Sophie York. Unbidden by the priest, he reached out and drew her small hand into his.
Bishop Foakes cast his nephew an admonishing look from under bushy eyebrows. He’d agreed to lead the service out of respect for Patrick’s dead father, his own brother. Lord knows the boys had caused Sheffie grief. But Sheffie would have been happy to be here today, Richard judged. Get ‘em both married and they’ll calm down, that had always been his advice. Not that Sheffie had paid any attention, packing the twins off to the Continent and the Far East rather than sewing them up in a couple of solid marriage contracts. He was lucky that the boys had returned safe and sound. Although his brother hadn’t managed to see either of ‘em before he died, now that Richard came to think of it.
Well, time to get on with the ceremony. Richard surreptitiously adjusted his high bishop’s hat. It had a tendency to ride backward and look like a ship listing in a storm.
“Dearly beloved,” Richard intoned, “we are gathered here together in the sight of God …”
Sophie began to tremble like a leaf as the bishop’s deep voice jerked her out of a dreamlike state. Her hand was engulfed in Patrick’s large one, which made her feel a longing wave of desire for him. And that feeling made her want to run from the chapel. Her life seemed to stretch ahead of her, gray and fruitless, marked by anguish and embarrassment as her husband dallied with other women.
As Richard wound through the familiar words of the marriage service he noted that the groom was still holding the bride’s hand. Ah well. It would probably be taken as a romantic gesture by the guests, and Lord knows they needed to emphasize romance in order to get through this particular wedding without scandal.
The bishop turned his attention to his nephew. My goodness, Patrick has sarcastic-seeming eyebrows, floating half up his forehead as they do, Richard thought. It makes the boy seem satirical even as he stands in a holy place.
Finally he turned to Sophie with the command, “Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together …” But Sophie’s head was thronged with images of her mother crying. Suddenly all the lies her father had asked her to tell about his whereabouts reverberated in her mind, ugly specters of a marriage in shreds and tatters, run—and ruined—by falsehoods. She looked up at Patrick, her eyes asking an agonized, unspoken question.
Patrick’s hand tightened, almost as if he knew what she was thinking. And his eyes smiled at her: those lovely black, black eyes with small crinkles at the corners from the sun. Sophie straightened her backbone and said, clearly, “I will.”
Well, at least Patrick seemed to be marrying into a good family, Richard thought. He, for one, approved of Sophie’s white face and trembling fingers as she swore on the prayer book. Brides should be meek and s
mall. Yes, small and meek, that was the best sort of bride. Richard clapped the prayer book shut, suddenly realizing that he’d droned his way through the whole service.
“I pronounce that they be Man and Wife together,” he said, deftly adjusting his hat.
Sophie’s lips moved, but no noise came out.
Richard frowned. Could it be that the blushing, trembling bride muttered “Merde”? No, surely not. She looked a wee, refined creature, not capable of swearing in any language. Richard smiled at the pair before him in a jovial fashion. “You may kiss the bride,” he told Patrick.
Patrick turned Sophie to face him. He felt very pleased with himself. The whole transaction felt right. He had had the same feeling when he purchased a Baltimore clipper from that new American company. Sure enough, the ship had weathered a hurricane off the shore of Trinidad and was on her fifth voyage now.
Sophie looked up at him, her blue eyes so dark as to look almost black. For a moment Patrick was startled by the enormous reserve he glimpsed in them. He drew her to him and lowered his head. Sophie rested passively against his chest, her lips cool and unresponsive.
Oh hell, Patrick thought to himself. He needed to coax a romantic kiss from Sophie’s lips in order to emphasize the idea that true love had dictated their brief engagement. He slid his large hands up her back and drew her more sharply to him, his lips demanding. Then suddenly Sophie’s lips softened and she melted against him, her breath a caress that set his blood on fire. Patrick’s head swam and his body turned to flame as a surge of heat rushed up the back of his neck.
As they drew apart, husband and wife looked at each other for a moment. Patrick was shocked, his breath coming fast, his body urgently aware of every facet of Sophie’s body. Sophie was aware only of the wanton way she had pressed against Patrick. Had anyone been able to see her knees buckle?
There was a little rustle in the chapel. Members of the ton were used to couples who turned briskly and trotted down the aisle together to the sound of trumpets, couples who wasted little time looking at each other.
“Oh my, I could almost think that it was a love match,” Lady Penelope Luster said to her best friend. “Just look at the way he’s looking at her! It’s enough to make me swoon, I do declare.”
“Oh, don’t be such a widgeon, Penelope,” her companion replied, in a whistling half-shriek. “That’s the same look he was giving her when I found them together at my ball a month or so ago, and let me tell you, that look has nothing to do with love! You wouldn’t know, since you were never married.”
Penelope shot her friend a look of near hatred. What did Sarah Prestlefield know of “looks”? She was a stout dowager of fifty-some and Penelope would eat her hat if Lord Prestlefield had ever looked at Sarah the way in which Patrick Foakes had just looked at his new wife. “I don’t care what you say, Sarah,” Penelope stated. “They appear the most romantic couple in the world to me.”
Lady Prestlefield turned up her nose in a gesture of patent disbelief.
“I’ll tell you something, Sarah,” Penelope persisted. “Only a slow-top would think that any woman in her right mind would choose Slaslow over Patrick Foakes.”
Sarah cast her another long-suffering look. “You’re a fool, Penelope,” she said shortly. “Slaslow is an earl. No woman in her right mind would turn him down for a younger brother, no matter how rich Foakes is.”
The newly married couple was nearing their pew, and the way in which Patrick Foakes had folded his wife’s arm into his, making her walk very close to him down the aisle, only strengthened Penelope’s belief in the love match.
Besides, the Earl of Slaslow was walking directly behind his former betrothed, and his mild resemblance to a bulldog made her shudder. To Penelope’s mind, Patrick’s sooty eyes had distinct precedence over Braddon’s plump amiability. Wealth and titles had nothing to do with this … this air of sensuality that breathed from Patrick Foakes.
“Look at that,” Lady Prestlefield said. “Erskine Dewland is walking again. I thought the doctors said he would never walk.”
Penelope watched Erskine—Quill, as he was known to his friends—make his way down the aisle with disinterest. Then she twisted about to watch the newlyweds leave. The great doors stood open and the Foakeses were standing at the top of the marble steps with their backs to the chapel. A ray of lazy sunshine caught them there, turning Sophie into a slim golden flame and Patrick into a dusky winter god next to her summer glow. As Penelope watched, Patrick bent over to kiss his bride again.
“You can say what you like,” Penelope Luster said fiercely to her closest friend. “But I shall always maintain that this is a love match! And I don’t intend to entertain anyone else’s opinions on the subject.”
Sarah cast a sideways glance at Penelope’s tightly closed lips. Penelope was a mild woman most of the time, but when she took a notion, she clung to it like a cur.
“All right, Penelope, all right,” she whispered. Sarah patted Penelope’s hand. “I’ll agree with you, of course. And you know that Maria loves a romance. Look at her—she’s sniffing into a handkerchief.” The Countess Maria Sefton was one of the most influential ladies of the London ton.
And so it was that Patrick Foakes was able to sweep away the reigning beauty of London, steal her from his own best friend, marry her out of hand, and escape with impunity. Rather than turning up their noses or whispering cruel commentary out of the corners of their mouths, the London ton glowed with consciousness of their own generosity. Such sweet, beautiful children, Patrick and Sophie! Lovers will be lovers, people reminded themselves.
Braddon manfully did his best, swallowing his resentment at losing yet another perfectly good woman to the Foakes brothers.
“It was like Romeo and Juliet,” he said carelessly, as Lord Winkle sidled his way over to him at the ball following the wedding and asked how it felt, having his closest friend steal his betrothed. “Couldn’t stand in their way, could I? Like Tristan and …” He felt a bit uncertain. What were the names of all those confounded lovers they had to learn about in school?
“Tristan and Isolde?” Miss Cecilia Commonweal, commonly known as Sissy, said helpfully.
“Yes, exactly.” Braddon smiled at her in a grateful sort of way.
“Although,” Sissy added punctiliously, “Tristan was Isolde’s uncle, so that example is not quite as romantic as Romeo and Juliet. Abelard and Eloise were another famous pair of lovers you might consider, except I believe that something quite unfortunate happened to Abelard, so that wouldn’t be a proper example either.”
Braddon’s eyes glazed over. Sissy wasn’t a bad girl, except that she was getting a little long in the tooth, and spoke in the oddest, breathless fashion. A week ago he might have considered her for a bride. But all that searching was over.
When Braddon didn’t respond, Sissy continued. “As a matter of fact, Romeo and Juliet make a rather melancholy exemplar, wouldn’t you think, Lord Slaslow? Given the fact that he poisoned himself?”
Braddon smiled at Sissy again and cast a haunted look about the room. Where was his mother? Or rather, was she in this room, in which case he had better flee?
His mother had taken the news of his broken engagement badly, fainting onto a couch and calling for restoratives. But when Braddon tried to steal away, leaving her to the ministrations of his sisters, she had bounded to her feet and unleashed a flood of speech designed to impress upon him his duty to marry immediately.
Well, he was going to marry. Just not the kind of girl his mother had in mind. Thank goodness he’d never invited any of his friends to meet Madeleine! Now he needed to have a quick talk with Sophie before he could gracefully bow out of the ball. He’d done everything possible to convince all of London that Sophie and Patrick had married for love. Trouble was that the town was very empty of news lately, and with nearly a dozen gossip columns published every day, they all needed something to talk about.
Suddenly Braddon stiffened like a hound on the scent. He had caugh
t sight of something alarming.
“Miss Commonweal.” Braddon bowed deeply. He had been trained by an expert (his mama), and his bows were so low as to be positively alarming. Sissy watched with some interest as the bald spot on his head fell and rose.
She laid a gloved hand on his arm, cutting off his excuses. “Will you escort me to my mother, my lord?” Sissy had no more wish to marry Braddon than he did her, but she loathed being deserted in the middle of a ballroom.
Braddon involuntarily bit the inside of his lip. “I can’t do that, Miss Commonweal,” he finally said, realizing that she was staring at him in surprise. “Your mama’s talkin’ to my mama, and …”
Sissy gave him a wry smile. She knew all about irate mothers. In fact, she doubted that the mother of a late-marrying son was half as angry as the mother of a late-marrying daughter.
Braddon’s eyes brightened. “Would you like to speak with the bride and groom for a moment? They just entered the room.”
“I would be very pleased to do so, my lord,” Sissy said, relieved.
Braddon wound his way through the crowd and before she knew it Sissy had been planted in front of Patrick Foakes, a man she scarcely knew.
“Excuse us for a moment, won’t you, Patrick?” Braddon whisked Lady Sophie around to the far side of a large pillar.
Sissy felt consumed with embarrassment. What on earth was Braddon speaking to the bride about? And what would Sophie’s husband think about it?
Patrick Foakes had the trick of turning his face coldly expressionless when he wished to, but Sissy felt that she wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of this particular man. She peered up at him anxiously.
“I understand that you are taking a wedding trip? I trust you are not going to the Continent, given the inclement political situation.”
Patrick smiled at the girl before him. What was her name? Sissy, wasn’t it? Why on earth was she wearing those ridiculous plumes on her head, long after every woman in London had discarded them?