Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

S ophia kept her head down, stealing sneaky glances around herself. The dining table was enormous, and everyone had a regular table’s worth of open space in front of them. She had switched the table for the smaller one in the breakfast room during her redecoration spree, but it appeared that Thomas had switched it back.

It is the only change he made, at least.

And her work had not gone unnoticed.

“That painting is sublime, Thomas!” his mother, Harriet, declared. “I can’t stop looking at it. Wherever did you find it?”

Thomas dabbed the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “You would have to ask my wife.”

Sophia’s stomach lurched. Why was he drawing attention to her when she clearly wished to be left alone?

“ You chose it?” Harriet clapped her hands together, smiling with surprising warmth. “Why, you have such excellent taste. Please, do tell me where you found it. Do you know the artist’s name?”

Sophia stabbed a green bean. “It was… in the attic, Your Grace. There is an entire gallery up there.”

“Your Grace?” Harriet clicked her tongue. “Heavens, no. That will not do. You must call me Harriet. I insist on it.”

Sophia mustered what she hoped was a polite smile. “Yes, Harriet.”

“Did you know we had paintings in the attic?” Harriet spared her from further awkward conversation, turning to Thomas’s uncle Gregory.

“I confess, I did not,” he replied. “But I quite agree, it is very becoming in this room. It gives one something to observe and admire while dining, which is always of benefit in a quiet moment.”

William—the man who might have killed Samuel if he was a better shot—snorted. “Much chance of that in our household.”

He had a point. Sophia had expected the Pratts to be a quiet and serious lot, but that could not have been further from the truth. There had barely been a lull in conversation or good humor for the past two courses, the family possessing an easy comfort with one another, even with an interloper in their midst.

She stole a glance at Thomas. Ever since he had threatened punishment two days ago—and she had secretly willed him to do it—in the drawing room, they hadn’t exchanged more than a few words.

He had retreated into his study, and she had continued to redecorate the manor to her tastes, finding her own sliver of peace in Penny’s company. Anything to take her mind off her husband, and the traitorous daydreams of what other sensations he could make her feel. Anything to distract herself from wanting to find out.

For a moment there, she saw the fleeting semblance of a soul in him as he smiled at William’s joke. He almost seemed human. Handsome even. He almost…

No, remember, he is a Pratt—they all are.

She could not allow herself to feel safe.

“What are you expecting for the deal with the Summertons, Uncle? Are they actually interested, or is it a lost cause?” Thomas asked Gregory, amidst the light clinking of silverware and sounds of eating.

“I know Lord Sebastian well,” Gregory replied. “He is not one to take negotiations lightly. If we are at this juncture, then it means he is interested, and he has stock that needs to be dealt with but no desire to deal with it himself. We can use this to our advantage.”

“We won’t.”

“Nephew—”

“I’m sorry, Uncle, but this isn’t up for discussion. We will offer him the standard rate. Word goes around that the Pratts are taking advantage of deals, and we are going to end up with no one wanting to talk.”

Gregory nodded quietly, his gaze settling back on the countryside landscape that now adorned the wall.

Sophia returned her attention to her plate, pushing around the limp piece of sole and occasionally swallowing down a piece. She felt like a sheep hidden amongst wolves, despite Harriet’s friendly demeanor. Every now and then, she caught a disapproving gaze from William and averted her eyes.

“So, how has life at Heathcote Manor been for you, Sophia?” asked Gregory with what seemed to be genuine interest.

To her surprise, he had been nothing but friendly and polite to her, even at the wedding—what she could recall of it. Harriet had been colder then.

“Oh, it has been… fine. Some difficulty adjusting—you know how such things are… But the servants have been very accommodating. They are all tremendously helpful.”

“Glad to hear that.” Gregory smiled. “You should know, I hired them myself. I made sure my nephew only had the best for his family home. If any of them give you trouble?—”

Sophia swallowed down a flake of fish quickly so she could talk. “Oh no, no, they are all wonderful. I could not have done half of what I have done here without them. Please, don’t even think about it. I’d hate for someone to lose their job because of me.”

William and Harriet chuckled.

“They are servants, my dear,” Harriet said. “If you don’t keep them in line every now and then, they will give you a reason to dismiss them. Take it from me, it takes a strict hand and a stern face to run a household. You are a proper lady now, so you should get used to it.”

The earlier friendliness and insistence on informalities had ebbed, replaced by a haughty look on the older woman’s face, as if to say, I know better than you, so do as you are told.

Gregory looked disappointed by Harriet’s words but didn’t say anything. Sophia realized help wasn’t coming, so she surrendered for now.

“Thank you for the advice, Harriet.”

The Dowager Duchess seemed pleased by that. Emboldened even. “Speaking of, when are you going to update your wardrobe, my dear?”

“My… wardrobe?” Sophia blushed. “Apologies, Harriet, but I didn’t realize there was anything wrong with it. It is all of recent popularity.” She glanced down at her pea-green day dress, dotted with embroidered sunflowers. “I picked all of my clothes myself.”

Now, if my mother had selected my wardrobe, I might agree with you.

She did not say that out loud, not wanting to give the Pratts any ammunition against her family.

“It is a little too… eccentric, my dear.” Harriet spoke as if she was addressing a child. “The color, I mean, and that odd pattern. It looks like you have stains. Not befitting of the lady of the house.”

William chuckled again, but Gregory did not sit back this time.

“Something amusing to you, William?”

“Eccentric? Eccentric is putting it mildly. I know we are all trying to be polite—we must be if you are complimenting the changes she has made to the house—but she clearly got her taste from her mother. Have you seen how that woman dresses?” William wiped his mouth with a napkin as his mother stifled a chuckle. “Did you see what she wore to the wedding?”

It appeared that the Pratts already had plenty of ammunition, and Sophia cursed herself for not seeing it coming.

“Oh, why did you remind me of that? Ugh.” Harriet laughed even harder. “For a moment, I thought a peacock with a briar bush stuck to its head had escaped from the Kensington Palace gardens.”

William followed up with his own laugh, the two of them cackling like the wretched harpies that they were.

The only people who were allowed to mock Lydia Kendall’s choice of attire were her family.

Sophia glared daggers at the nasty pair and breathed heavily, twisting her napkin into tight knots, but she kept her mouth shut. Clearly, they were trying to antagonize her, so they could call her uncouth and confirm what they thought they knew about her.

She would not give them the satisfaction.

Gregory shook his head but also remained silent.

Thomas didn’t.

“Mother. William,” he said in a strict tone.

William waved a dismissive hand. “What? You know it’s true. Everyone in England knows her mother has the fashion taste of a blind court jester?—”

“William, that is enough! ” Thomas roared.

William immediately fell silent, blinking in chastened submission.

Sophia could tell this was not the first time Thomas had to act like this with his brother. She remembered his breathy rant in the library about how he felt bitter towards his brother, how he was always the one being loaded with responsibility while William was allowed to do as he pleased, spoiled and undisciplined. He expressed the weight of that experience in his voice.

“Thomas, I’m just—” William tried to say.

“I did not ask for an opinion nor an excuse. Your comments are unacceptable. You are talking to the Duchess of Heathcote. She outranks you, William. Get that through your head immediately. Both of you—you too, Mother.” Thomas’s wolf-like eyes blazed, stirring something in Sophia’s chest that made her twice as breathless, wringing the napkin to suppress a very different feeling.

Harriet gasped. Not the fake high society gasp when one just witnessed something slightly scandalous. The real gasp of someone who genuinely didn’t expect someone else to talk to them like that.

“She is my wife now.” Thomas’s growl reverberated through Sophia, making her think of a lion protecting his lioness. “We all agreed on this. And we should respect it. I have not married my wife so you can continue the ridiculous feud in a different fashion. You will be civil, or you may consider this the last time you can enter this house— me and my wife’s house.”

William placed his cutlery on his plate and got up with a jarring scrape of his chair, his face a picture of irritation. It looked like he was weighing his options, whether he’d speak again or not. But he remained silent, and then, he left with a childish slam of the dining room door, leaving no doubts behind as to his thoughts on the matter.

After that, Thomas quickly changed the subject and returned to the conversation he was having with Gregory before Harriet interrupted with her ‘advice.’ The older woman remained completely silent, her demeanor sullen, occasionally dabbing her cheek with her napkin. Presumably to draw her eldest son’s sympathy. But he offered none, and eventually, she gave up and ate the rest of her fish.

Sophia also returned to her food, stealing a glance here and there, expecting Thomas to talk to her or give her some attention, but he seemed to be ignoring her too.

Very well. I shall not mind it.

After his fierce defense of her, she needed something more familiar to quiet her racing mind, and his lack of attention was something she knew all too well by now.

After dinner, there were no pleasantries and games in the drawing room, everyone dispersing to separate wings of the manor. Sophia might have thought it unnatural, a world away from her family’s home and habits, but she had something greater on her mind.

Approaching one of the two doorways that remained a mystery to her, she took a steadying breath before knocking lightly.

It is the right thing to do. It is what a duchess would do.

She could not think of what a duke might do—her duke, in particular—with such privacy.

“Come in!” Thomas called gruffly.

She almost lost her nerve, drawing in another deep breath as she stepped into the room.

He looked up from the ostentatious mahogany desk.

“Sophia?” He sounded surprised, but he quickly returned his attention to the stack of papers in front of him. “Is something the matter?”

Probably for the best if you aren’t looking at me.

Sophia steeled herself. “No, everything is quite all right. I just wanted to… well, I just wanted to thank you. Sincerely.”

“What for?”

“For defending me. Against your family.”

“I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. Their manners were atrocious. Rules and propriety are the same for everyone. They are not a joke to me.” He only took his eyes off the papers for a moment to stare at her, making sure she understood.

Sophia just nodded slightly.

The rules were above all. Above him and his family. She wouldn’t admit it openly, but she found his adherence to them somewhat comforting. Everyone was equal, although she had to wonder where touching her, kissing her, setting her body on fire with desire and pleasure fell into that staunch code of honor. He had not been particularly proper in the library, by any social standard.

Perhaps the rules are different for a wife…

No one had given her a manual, though one would not have gone amiss.

“Nevertheless… I want to thank you,” she said.

“You can thank me tomorrow when we visit the modiste,” he replied.

Sophia felt her stomach drop. “What? Why? There is nothing wrong with my attire.”

“While my mother’s comments were incredibly inappropriate, she was right. You are going to need a new wardrobe befitting your new position. Remember, you reflect on me, and when we return to Society, I don’t want there to be any trace of the spinster you were before,” he said and put his papers down, looking at her directly now.

“But… there is nothing wrong with my dresses!” she reiterated, her frustration breaking through her nerves. “If I am wearing them, then they are befitting a duchess because I am one.”

“They are perfectly fine, like you said.” He got up and walked towards her. “A duchess shouldn’t be satisfied with just fine , however.”

She held her ground. “Why are you pretending to care, when you actually don’t? Do you always do as your mother tells you? Is that it? Are you a high-and-mighty duke who can’t disobey his mama?”

“Careful,” he said in a thrilling rumble.

“It is a valid question.”

He tilted his head, taking her in slowly, from head to toe and back again. “Perhaps you need to be shown instead of told.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

He smiled darkly. “Let me educate you. Let me show you the power you would be relinquishing if you stay the way you are—your wardrobe, at least.”

She still did not understand, but he came closer still.

“Are you secretly a modiste?” she mocked breathlessly, her body already responding to the touch he had not yet graced her with.

“No, but I think this needs a man’s touch. You get to transform my manor, I get to transform your attire.”

He traced his fingertips up the long sleeves of her day dress, her skin desperate to be rid of the material so she could feel his touch properly. As if hearing her wishes, he tugged hard on the seam beneath the peak of her shoulder.

The fabric tore with a titillating rip .

“Thomas!” Sophia gasped.

“I am not done yet,” he replied, tearing her other sleeve too, and dropping the remnants to the floor. “Capped sleeves show off your slender arms. And this…?”

He reached behind her neck, unfastening the buttons of the gauzy collar that she wore to be conservative. He ripped the additional garment away, letting it float to the ground.

“I doubt I need to tell you why it’s better this way,” he said softly, trailing his fingertips down the column of her throat and over the swell of her breasts to her neckline. “All the gentlemen will want to be me. All the ladies will want to be you.”

She gasped as he rent the front seam of her dress in two, exposing her short stays and the flimsy chemisette beneath. Yet, rather than rail at him for ruining her dress or storming out in a fury, she searched his face, the hunger in his eyes awakening a craving within her.

“Improved stays will be purchased, too,” he told her. “I want to look at you and be so distracted that I will agree to anything, even changing the table in the dining room.”

“There is nothing wrong with my stays eith?—”

His head dipped, his hand tugging aside the top hem of her stays, his lips closing over an erect nipple. As he sucked lightly, a splinter of promised pleasure leaped into her chest, rippling down her stomach. She stumbled into him, and his arm encircled her waist, her neck arching as he continued to pull desire out of her and into her with each suck.

She almost cried out in indignation as he drew his mouth away, kissing up the column of her throat while his hands made swift work of her stays, tossing the garment away.

His strong hand kneaded the plump flesh of her breasts through the thin fabric of her chemisette, his lips finding hers in a fierce kiss as he walked her backward to the desk.

The small of her back nudged the lip of mahogany, seemingly acting as a cue for him to lift her and set her on the edge of his desk. Papers scattered, a quill rolled off, but he either didn’t notice or didn’t care—strange for a man who liked everything in its place.

“I hate this color,” he growled, his hands ripping the rest of her dress to the hem. “It dulls you, dims you, and I would see my wife shine. So radiant that no one can take their eyes off her, including me.”

“But… I was told it was… the fashion in Paris,” Sophia gasped, stirred into a frenzy by the feel of her petticoats being pushed up to her hips.

He halted, his eyes narrowed in a half scowl. “There is only one thing I tolerate about the French…”

He bit his lip as his hand slipped between her legs, caressing the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh, edging towards the part of her that had made her see stars before.

“And what is that?” she panted, grateful that she rarely bothered with drawers.

His fingertips glided through her folds, slick with desire, as he kissed her neck and whispered, “Their pursuit of pleasure.”