Chapter 37

37

The new Marquess found Sophie asleep on his bed, still wearing the demure grey gown she had put on – it felt like months ago – to go to their meeting with Nate Smith. Uncle Nate Smith. No wonder she was exhausted. It was the longest day he’d ever experienced. He’d known many weeks that had passed more quickly.

He hoped she’d dined with his grandmother; she’d know if Delphine had gone to her rest, he supposed. If the Dowager was still up, he would need to go and speak with her this evening, see how she did, even though he had not the least desire to leave Sophie’s comforting presence.

It seemed a shame to disturb her, but he must. ‘Sophie,’ he said gently, and reached out and touched her cheek. She woke quickly, and lay gazing up at his face, her expression undecipherable to him. He thought she was pleased to see him, perhaps a little surprised, but he couldn’t be sure.

She sat up, and said, ‘I’m so sorry, Rafe.’ But she didn’t touch him, and he so wished she would. ‘I know you weren’t at all close to your father, but to lose him so suddenly must still be a shock. How are you feeling?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, realising the truth of it. ‘I’ve been so occupied, I have not had time to think. And if I had, I’d still be in sad confusion, as was poor Simon Venables, who’s been here in his capacity as parish priest, but scarcely knew what to say to me. I’m sure there are words of consolation he would in the normal run of things give to anyone, prince or pauper, who has lost a parent, but none of them seem to apply to my situation. I hated him, Sophie, and I’ve been wishing him dead since I was fifteen. I can’t put on a grieving face now. I won’t go into mourning as if he were a normal father.’

She did put out her hand now to take his, and he held it, grateful for her warmth. ‘Is there anybody who will expect you to?’ she asked. ‘Do you have uncles, or relatives of that nature, who might come here and make themselves disagreeable if you do not behave as they think fit?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘No uncles or aunts still living on the Wyverne side. There are cousins only, most of them much older than me, and they won’t expect to be invited to the funeral, and probably wouldn’t come if I did ask them. My grandmother had another son, and two older daughters, but none of them had anything to do with Wyverne for years – you scarcely need to wonder why – and their children have continued the estrangement with great enthusiasm. It’s possible they believe the rumours about me, too – I cannot say, I barely know them. I do have aunts and uncles and cousins from my mother’s family, with whom I am in contact, but they would be horrified to be invited, I think, and I can hardly blame them. The Wyverne name,’ he finished wearily, ‘does not carry a great deal of lustre, you must know.’

‘That can begin to change now,’ she said. ‘Will you call your brother back from Oxford?’

‘I’ve written to him, and to our sister Amelia. If he wishes to come, he may, of course, though she I am sure will not, with her cousin’s wedding imminent. But I wouldn’t think to insist on Charlie’s presence. I shouldn’t imagine he has set eyes on Wyverne five times since his mother died. At least my worries for the children’s future are at an end now – nobody can question my right to have a care for them. And he can no longer hurt them, with his indifference or in any other, worse manner. We shall not have that concern hanging over Amelia’s come-out next year.’

‘That’s what your grandmother said,’ she told him. ‘“He can do no more harm” – a sad epitaph.’

‘You have been with her all afternoon.’ She nodded. ‘Thank you. I’m glad you were there when I could not be. I had a deal of trouble keeping Rosanna away from her; I didn’t think she would have enjoyed that, nor should she be obliged to endure it. How is she?’

‘Subdued,’ Sophie said. ‘Sorry that she is not sorrier, just as you are, and sorry too that her son’s life should have come to this. Relieved, and perhaps a little guilty that she is. She’s gone to bed, hours ago – she was understandably tired. Marchand will stay with her tonight, I think. She was a little exercised, though, about what would happen to his widow, where she will go. You’re quite right, she doesn’t want to see her.’

‘I didn’t want to see her myself,’ he said, still holding her hand. ‘But obviously I had to.’

‘What will she do?’

‘I had not known, not being on such terms of confidence with… with my father, what provision he had made for her future. I hadn’t seen the will, knew nothing of its contents apart from the fact that most of the property is entailed, thank God, and I did not quite have the heart today to look for his copy of the document. But she experienced no such qualms, and straight away laid her hands on it among his papers so that she could show it to me. He had made reasonable arrangements for her, which knowing his character he might not have done, but he did not give her a life interest in the Brook Street house. This she had apparently expected, claims she was promised, and as a result she is simply furious.’

‘Would it have been usual for him to do so? I confess I don’t know how such things generally work.’

He shrugged. ‘Probably it would have been. The fact that they didn’t have children together makes a difference, and – being who she is – she had no father or brother to insist on such matters on her behalf. There were no marriage settlements in the normal sense, and of course she brought no dowry. But he has ensured that she will have enough to live on in some comfort. Whether she is capable of managing within her means is another question entirely. I foresee a future in which I am obliged publicly to repudiate her debts. And of course she has few jewels to pawn now.’

‘I can’t feel guilty about that.’

‘I wouldn’t expect you to. I think she knew – she all but admitted as much today in her anger – precisely how the baubles she adorned herself with came into his possession. They were already long married, let us not forget, when Wyverne took the Stella Rosa from your father. I cannot doubt he boasted of it to her. There are probably other similar stories we do not know, and now never shall. She does not deserve our pity, or anyone’s. She tried – my God, Sophie, with her husband lying dead in his bed, not yet cold, she tried to seduce me again. As if after all these years and all we witnessed the other night I could possibly want her. Jesus!’ He put his head in his hands, realising suddenly how close to collapse he was.

‘Let’s go to bed,’ said Sophie. ‘I don’t think you need to speak about this any more. You must be exhausted.’ He raised his head and looked at her, and something she must have seen in his face made her move to his side and set about undressing him, not with any amorous intention but in a matter-of-fact way, as if he were a child who needed the assistance. In that moment, he found he did. She removed his coat, waistcoat and shirt, and he sat passively and let her do it. When she sank to her knees and began to pull off his boots, it was very much unlike the time she’d done the same thing before, though the image of her naked at his feet would always be seared on his brain. He stood, once she had set them aside, and she began to unbutton his breeches fall. But that, suddenly, was different.

Rafe put his hand on hers. ‘Sophie!’ he grated out. It seemed he didn’t need to say anything else. They were kissing now, clinging to each other in a sort of frenzied desperation that came from both of them, not just from him. Their weariness was forgotten in the sudden mutual need that possessed them. He undid her gown with such urgency that several of the tiny buttons were ripped off, and she urged him on as he stripped her of her undergarments, tearing another chemise in his haste. When at last they were both naked, save for her stockings, they fell onto the bed, embracing, lips locked, her hands tight on his back, his on her buttocks. His hard thigh was between her legs, their bodies pressed together, close as they could be without joining.

He kissed his way down her throat to her breasts, and she fixed her hands deep in his dark hair as he worshipped them with his lips and tongue. ‘I want to be inside you,’ he groaned against her hot skin, ‘as I have never been. Will you take me, if I promise not to spend there? Do you think you might want that too, my love?’

‘Yes,’ she said with utter certainty. ‘Now, Rafe. Do it now!’

He moved over her and she opened herself to him, the sudden rush of pure, fierce sensation as he thrust into her wetness making them both cry out. She locked her heels into his buttocks and they moved together, and the sheer rightness of it made him want to weep, and to forget his promise to her and know the glorious release of spilling inside her as they came together. But he did not. When his orgasm was so close he could scarcely bear it, he pulled out from her and spent himself on her belly in a couple of powerful thrusts. He allowed himself a brief moment of sweet oblivion, his face buried in her neck, murmuring broken endearments, and then he moved down to lose himself in another manner, licking and sucking at her delicious secret places and letting her waves of pleasure engulf him until the last spasm died away and left them both gasping.

He lay with his head on her belly for a while and neither of them spoke – he wasn’t sure he still had the ability – and then he dragged himself to his feet and went to get water to wash her, and very tenderly to untie her garters and peel off her stockings. It was dark now, they’d lit no candles, and he could not see what was written on her face in the fitful moonlight that came in through the open window, nor did he know what his own expression would have revealed to her if she could have seen him. They didn’t tidy away the scattered clothes, and they fell into bed and let sleep claim them, wordless, spooned together, his hand on her damp skin and her hand covering his. He drank in her scent – not perfume, just Sophie, like a drug to him, an addiction. He could still taste her on his lips, and his last thought before he sank into slumber and left this longest of days behind him was, I cannot lose her. I cannot. Nothing in this world means anything to me if she is not here to share it.