“I wasn’t—Why wouldn’t we have another baby?” Patrick’s strained voice punctuated Sophie’s sobs as she fought to control herself. She had lost all wish to hide anything.
“Because,” she said with devastating honesty, “you are tired of being married, and so we won’t have any more children since you don’t care whether you have an heir. When I got pregnant, part of me resented the child because it meant the end….” Her voice trailed off exhaustedly.
“Sophie.” Patrick’s voice was rough, strangled. “What are you saying? Don’t you know that I lay in my room, night after night, in agony because I couldn’t come to you? You’re not making sense! If I was going mad wanting to make love to you while you were carrying a child, what on earth would make me stop longing for you after the child was born?”
Sophie blinked. It had all made perfect sense, before. “But … but in the last month you weren’t home five nights out of seven.” She gulped, remembering all the tears she had shed at home alone. “I know about your mistress,” Sophie said painfully. “The black-haired woman.
“I’m not blaming you,” she added hastily. “I knew what it would be like when I married you. I just didn’t understand how much it would hurt.”
Patrick’s arms tightened so roughly that she gasped and was silent. “That’s not true,” he said fiercely, tipping up her chin and looking into her eyes. “As God is my witness, I haven’t wanted to be with another woman since I kissed you at the Cumberland ball.” Sophie stared at him, stunned. “I haven’t slept with any woman other than you since that night. There is no black-haired woman in my life. I haven’t even looked at another woman, for Christ’s sake! All I’ve thought about is you, and your body. Oh, Sophie, you’ve ruined me for a rake’s life, don’t you see that?”
Sophie didn’t say a word. She was too emotionally exhausted to take in the enormity of what he was saying. But she grabbed at one strand.
“Does this mean that you’ll still, that you still want to—”
“God yes!” Patrick’s voice was harsh with suppressed emotion. His grasp tightened convulsively.
Sophie didn’t say anything. She just put her head against his shoulder. She was still confused, but one idea was clear in her mind: Patrick still desired her. That was what he had just said. And that meant that when her body was completely mended he would come to her bed again and they could make love and perhaps, perhaps have another baby. Her body involuntarily relaxed, melting against his body as nerves and muscles which had been strung as tightly as violin strings began to ease.
“You really mean it?” Her voice was muffled against Patrick’s shirt. “You really want to make love to me? You’re not bored?”
“Bored! In God’s name, Sophie, where did you get that idea?”
“I thought you had a mistress. You stayed out night after night, Patrick.” His eyes dropped before her clear gaze.
“I was torturing myself,” he admitted shortly. Patrick couldn’t bring himself to raise the issue of Sophie’s Thursday jaunts. Even as his stomach twisted with jealousy, he fought the idea of hearing her talk about her feelings for Braddon. He couldn’t bear it, and he was almost certain that she had never betrayed him sexually. What was the point of making his wife admit she cared for another man? Sophie was honorable, and she hadn’t betrayed him—so what right had he to demand her love as well? Especially given the way he’d seduced her into marriage.
Sophie was still waiting for a longer answer. “Why would you torture yourself? I was here—” Her gaze dropped to her hands. “I was waiting for you,” she finally whispered.
Patrick felt as if he were strangling. What was he to say? I didn’t want to see you, to eat supper with you, to speak to you—because I know you don’t love me? His wife would laugh out loud.
“I don’t know what I was doing,” he finally admitted, his voice a bleak thread of sound. “But I wasn’t sleeping with other women, Sophie, I swear it. Mostly I walked the streets; sometimes I went to my offices in the warehouse.”
Sophie’s ear caught the unmistakable sincerity in her husband’s tone.
“I’m … I’m very glad,” she whispered. “Even if—I know it won’t be like this forever, but—”
“God damn it, Sophie!” Patrick’s voice was harsh. “What makes you think I’m such a despicable character? What did you hear about me?”
Suddenly Sophie woke up to the fact that she had insulted her husband. “I didn’t mean anything in particular about you, Patrick,” she said anxiously. “But I know what men and women are like, or what men are like anyway,” she said with some confusion. There was no point in pretending that she would ever lose interest in Patrick’s body. “I know that you won’t be satisfied with just one woman forever, but I will not be a troublesome sort of wife. I wasn’t, was I? I never complained when you stayed out.”
“That’s certainly true,” Patrick said through clenched teeth. “I thought you didn’t give a damn whether I was around or not.”
“Oh.” Sophie gasped. “But I didn’t want to make you feel trapped—”
“Because I might never come to your bed again, am I right?” Patrick was beginning to see a pattern here. A family pattern, as it were.
When Sophie nodded, he said gently, “I’m not your father, sweetheart. And you are not at all like your mother. I have complete confidence that I will still be coming to your bed every night when I am eighty-four years old. In fact, I think I’m going to burn your bed in your room, and then we’ll just have one bed. What do you think?”
Sophie looked at him, dazed. “Why?”
“Because I want to sleep with you every night,” he said fiercely. “We haven’t talked enough, Sophie. We should have been talking, all those hours when I was walking the streets, sweating at every pore with longing to come back and climb into your bed.”
Again Patrick shied away from talking about Sophie’s feelings for Braddon. Yes, they had to talk—but time enough when she was well and when he himself felt less battered. Then he could bear to hear her tell him about Braddon. The important thing was that Sophie wanted him, Patrick, in her bed.
Patrick bent his head, pressing butterfly kisses all along the line of Sophie’s jaw. “I was an idiot,” he admitted, achingly. “Will you forgive me? Will you let me sleep with you for the next sixty years or so, Sophie mine?”
Sophie’s small hand slipped up Patrick’s cheek. “Yes. Oh yes.” She turned her head a fraction of an inch and his mouth hovered above hers, just hovered until she gave a little lurch forward and brought her soft lips up to his. It was a kiss not without passion, but more about love.
Finally Patrick drew back, looking down at her drenched eyes. “There’s one thing I have to tell you, Sophie.”
She swallowed and nodded, small teeth clamping down on her bottom lip.
“I do want children. I wanted this baby more than I can say.”
There was a heartbeat’s silence.
“Then why were you so cruel? Why did you say those things?”
“My mother.” Patrick paused and cleared his throat. “After my mother died, I didn’t ever want to make some-one—my wife—go through that pain, perhaps not even survive. I know it’s not rational, but after she died, Alex and I were alone. We had no home to go to. During school breaks we went to whoever would take us. It was better than going back to that empty huge house. I swore never to have children. And I never wanted them until I met you.”
Sophie wound her arms around Patrick’s neck and gave him a silent hug. “Alex and I were alone” spoke eloquently of the life of children brought up by servants.
“But I would love to have children with you,” Patrick whispered, his voice roughly tender. “We’ll have another babe, Sophie. I’m not saying that I will stop fearing for you, but we can have as many as you want—three or four, even ten.” His voice took on a teasing lilt, remembering Sophie’s vow to Braddon that she wanted ten children.
Sophie pressed silent kisses into his n
eck. She was afraid to speak, afraid that she’d blurt out hysterical vows of love. Patrick had said he lusted for her, and he didn’t want to sleep with other women. He’d said that he wanted to have children. That was enough; that was enough.
“I love you,” she whispered, unable to stop herself from saying the words. “I love you.”
Patrick drew back a little and raised her chin. “You don’t have to say that, Sophie. I know how you feel. We’ll have more babies.”
Startled and ashamed, Sophie’s eyes slipped from his. He knew how she felt? After all the pretending and masquerading, he’d known all along that she was in love with him? She felt a sickening pulse of humiliation, but then she bit her bottom lip and sank back against his shoulder. What else could she do? She did love him. She was frantically, hopelessly in love with her husband.
For his part, Patrick felt as if daggers were piercing his heart. After all the time he had thought he wanted to hear those words, he found he didn’t want to hear them after all. He didn’t want love that was really gratitude, based on his promise to father another child. He didn’t want the tenderness that had blossomed between them since the babe was lost—or at least, he didn’t want that labeled “love.” He wanted her to feel the same fierce burning love as he felt, the raging certitude that he would go mad if anything ever happened to her.
“Sophie,” he said into her hair, his throat suddenly tight again. Sophie waited, but Patrick didn’t say anything else, just kept kissing her hair and her ear. When he finally spoke, it was on an entirely different subject.
“Do you still want to leave for Downes today?”
Sophie glanced at the window. Miraculously, even though she felt as if they’d been talking for hours and hours, the sun was still shining. She took a deep breath.
“Yes, please.”
“I’ll make arrangements,” Patrick said quietly. There was a moment’s pause. “May I come in a few days, Sophie?” Patrick’s voice was humble.
Sophie buried her face in his neck. “Come now, Patrick.” Her voice trembled. “Come with me.”
Patrick couldn’t stop himself from capturing her soft lips again. “I’ll come with you. I’ll always come, anywhere you ask me to.”
When Sophie woke up a few days later, tucked in a large bed at Downes Manor, she felt as if a breath of grace had poured healing balm over her heart. Her baby—their baby—was gone, but there would be other babies. And there was her husband, sprawled next to her on top of the covers. He was wearing a silly lace-trimmed nightshirt that his brother insisted he wear, for some unknown reason. Patrick’s face looked lean and exhausted, and stubble darkened his chin. She thought he’d never looked more beautiful in his life.
Chapter 28
Someone was tickling her nose. With a flower, Sophie found as she opened her eyes. Then she smiled drowsily.
“How long did I sleep?”
“Around an hour,” her husband said, leaning over her, his smoky eyes caressing her face.
Sophie stretched, feeling the prickling grass under her shoulder blades. Patrick’s eyes dropped to her breasts as they strained against the soft cotton of her gown. The daisy left her cheek and stroked its way down her throat and paused at her breasts.
“This dress needs ornamentation,” Patrick said, his voice slightly hoarse. Nimble brown fingers turned the daisy into a shower of silky white petals that drifted over her bodice.
Sophie shivered instinctively and looked up at her husband.
Patrick’s hair was standing in wild disorder. He must have napped as well. They had eaten a light picnic … elegant trifles and a bottle of lightly sparkling wine.
It had been two long months since Patrick and Sophie arrived from London, sick at heart.
They found their child’s grave and chose a simple white tombstone for her. They had her name, Frances, and one other word engraved on it: “Beloved.” One day Charlotte and Sophie went to the family cemetery and planted dozens and dozens of snowdrops on the grave while Charlotte’s gardener hovered, scandalized at the idea of ladies getting their hands dirty. But still Patrick and Sophie didn’t go back to London.
The thought of their town house, with its memories of speechless days and chilly nights, was not a happy one. They settled into one of Downes Manor’s huge bedrooms like two slightly wounded birds.
It was a healing time. Charlotte and Alex were a comforting, laughing presence. Indeed, Downes Manor was no longer the empty cavernous place that Patrick had hated as a child. The summer term at Harrow ended and Henri arrived, to Pippa’s delight. Now the manor’s hallways rang with children’s laughter and grown-ups’ chuckles.
But, more important, wherever Sophie turned, Patrick was there. He helped her out of chairs. He wouldn’t let her carry anything larger than an embroidery hoop. In the evening he delighted in dismissing Simone and brushing Sophie’s hair with slow, seductive strokes.
At night they slept in a sweet heap together, Patrick’s face buried in Sophie’s neck. If she rolled away in the night, she would wake to find his arms pulling her back. Even in his dreams, Patrick wouldn’t let her go.
That evening, guests were due to arrive at the manor for a small house party. Seeing the confusion generated by the preparation of some ten or twelve bedchambers, Patrick had seized Sophie and almost flung her and a picnic basket into the carriage.
“Where’s the coachman?” Sophie said lazily. Looking about, she could see the blanket Patrick had spread on the grass, and the assorted remains of their lunch, but she didn’t see the carriage.
Patrick didn’t look up. He was intent on his daisy caresses. “I sent him home,” he said absently.
“Home? How will we get home ourselves?” Sophie asked. It was so beautiful by the river, basking in the idle, warm sunshine, that she didn’t feel much interest in the response.
Patrick didn’t answer. He had discovered a new game. Their rosy blanket lay in the shade of a honeysuckle hedge, and Patrick was pulling small tendrils of honeysuckle off the hedge and tucking them into his wife’s bright curls.
“Patrick?” Sophie smiled lazily and stretched again, enjoying the way her husband’s eyes turned coal black.
“Yes?”
“My nurse used to pull the petals off daisies, the way you do,” she teased.
“Why?”
“You can tell whether someone is in love with you,” she said. Feeling suddenly a bit shy, she sat up. Curls and honeysuckle blossoms hid her face. But a strong hand silently presented her with a perfectly formed daisy.
“He loves me,” she said slowly, pulling off a petal. Tender fingers pushed away the curtain of tawny curls that sheltered Sophie’s face.
“He loves me not,” she said. Teeth nipped her ear. Sophie trembled as she chose another petal.
“He loves me.” In a sudden movement, Patrick slipped behind her, pulling her onto his lap.
“He loves me not.”
“He loves me.” Strong arms encircled her, and Sophie relaxed back against Patrick’s chest. Whisper-smooth lips caressed her forehead. Petals fell gently from her fingers.
“He loves me not.”
And: “He loves me.” The last petal drifted to the ground.
“He loves you,” Patrick said, his deep voice unquestioning, strong, there for her life and beyond.
“Do you know how much I love you, Patrick Foakes? I’m in love with you.”
Sophie’s soft words sank slowly into Patrick’s brain. There was a moment’s pause, as if the whole warm lazy afternoon held its breath. For a second Patrick didn’t hear the chirping burr of crickets and the singing hum of bees. The world narrowed to his wife’s vivid blue eyes.
He didn’t want to speak, to disturb the moment.
“You do?” His voice came out hoarse, disjointed. “You are?”
Sophie’s face had turned a rosy pink, color stealing up from the creamy bodice of her dress.
She twisted about, placing her hands on his face. “Of course I do.” And
then: “Why do you look so surprised? I thought you knew. You said you knew.”
“I thought …” Patrick’s voice was still a little hoarse. “I thought you were in love with Braddon.”
“Braddon!” Sophie’s eyes were sharp, shocked, Patrick thought dizzily. “How could I be in love with Braddon? He’s in love with Madeleine!”
“It doesn’t follow that you couldn’t be in love with him,” Patrick insisted. It was time they straightened all this out.
Sophie’s hands fell from his face. “How on earth did you get such an odd idea?”
“Odd idea?” her husband said, an ironic note in his voice. “Braddon said you were madly in love with him, and you seemed to be. You insisted on eloping with him, for God’s sake. And then when he announced his engagement to Madeleine, you cried.”
“I cried?”
Sophie tried desperately to remember. “Well, I can’t have been crying over Braddon’s engagement,” she said practically, “because to be honest I don’t give a hang whom Braddon marries, and I never have.”
There was a second’s pause. “Braddon told you that I was madly in love with him?”
Patrick nodded.
Sophie’s eyes turned a fierce, midnight blue. “That pompous, egotistical worm! Me! In love with him!”
Patrick pulled her back onto his lap. Happiness was beginning to sing in his chest. “Let me see,” he said teasingly, “if I’ve got this right, he said that you adored him madly.”
“I’ll have his skin,” Sophie shrieked. Then she laughed. “I’ll tell Maddie to take revenge on him. As soon as they return from their wedding trip.”
“I like Madeleine,” Patrick said. “Where did you say you first met her?”
“Oh,” Sophie said weakly, “I think it must have been at the Cumberland ball.”
Patrick shook his head. “It can’t have been. She told me that her first ball was the one Lady Commonweal gave in honor of Sissy’s engagement, and you had Madeleine to dinner long before that.”