Chapter Twenty One

 

 

 

Sophie was grateful that Emma attributed her drained looks and her silence at breakfast to the fatigue and excitement of the ball the evening before. A good night's sleep had obviously revived Emma and she presided over the coffee cups with bright-eyed enthusiasm. Hal looked as impeccably turned out as ever, but his face was set and he had dark shadows under his eyes, leaving Sophie to think that he’d slept as badly as she had.

Grayling entered, bearing a silver salver. ‘The first post, my lady.’

‘Please give it to his lordship, Grayling.’ Emma passed the bread and butter to Sophie who spread conserve on it, cut it into fingers and then discarded it, uneaten.

‘Two for you, Elizabeth,’ John said, passing her pastel-coloured missives. ‘Your friends no doubt, full of gossip about last night’s entertainment.’ Elizabeth fell on her letters and John peered at the next envelope with its florid handwriting. ‘One for you, my dear. One for me: the Archdeacon by the look of it. Nothing for you, Hal, but who is this for? Oh, yes, Sophie, the last one is for you.’

Sophie accepted the letter with a murmured word of thanks and turned it over, expecting that her brother had finally decided to write to her. But the hand was not George’s. For a moment she did not recognise it, but then, with a sinking heart, she recollected the rather mannered italic script. Last time she had seen it, it had been on the note that Henry had sent her containing the detailed plans of their elopement.

She began to slip it surreptitiously under her napkin but, finding Hal’s eyes on her, she realised how suspicious that looked and broke the seal with her butter knife. Before she had time to con the contents of the single sheet, there was a most unchurchmanlike oath from John. ‘Good God!’

‘Lord John! Please, your language. And in front of Sophie and Elizabeth too.’

‘I do apologise, my dear, but I am in receipt of most distressing and scandalous news and must go to the Archdeacon’s at once.’ He dropped his napkin and was gone before any of them had a chance to question him further.

Emma looked at his retreating back with astonishment. ‘Whatever can that be about? I do hope none of our acquaintances have suffered some calamity. Still, we must not speculate. Elizabeth, Sophie, my dears, this invitation is to Lady Cussons’s At Home tomorrow. It seems she is now settled in rooms here to be near her sister, who is in indifferent health, for the remainder of the Season. However, she is eager to renew her acquaintance with you, Sophie. Sophie?’

Sophie was gazing at Henry’s note, which suggested, in a tone which was more a command than an invitation, that they meet where he had first encountered her in York. At eleven of the clock. And do not think of telling anyone else, that really would not be wise.

She pulled herself together and answered Emma, but her mind was on the note. After last night’s revelations that Hal knew Henry was her would-be seducer she had no fears on that score, but she remained deeply uneasy about Henry’s intentions towards Elizabeth and the harm he could do the girl if he embroiled her in some intrigue. Last time they had managed to extricate her from the coils of her foolishness, but Henry was far more devious than Justin Fanshaw.

She folded the letter away, conscious of Hal’s eyes following her movements. She could still not look at him with any composure, all she could think about was the depths of his passion for her last night, the thrilling, shocking strength of his arousal and her own amazement at the strength of her response.

There was an interminable amount of time to pass before her rendezvous with Henry. How was she going to spend it without her companions suspecting something was wrong?

Fortunately Hal excused himself immediately once breakfast was over and Sophie retired to her room with the excuse of a headache. The clock moved incredibly slowly that morning, but at twenty minutes to eleven she put on her bonnet and pelisse and slipped out of the front door without being observed.

She arrived at the meeting place as the clocks in the city struck the hour, but Henry kept her waiting for nearly ten minutes more, by which time her nerves were jangling and she was on the point of leaving.

When he did saunter to her side she snapped at him, ‘You are ten minutes late, I was about to leave.’

‘That would have been unwise,’ he answered coolly, taking her arm. ‘Come along.’

‘Where?’ she demanded, shaking her arm to free it, then stopping when a passing couple gave her a very curious glance.

‘My lodging. It is close by here and we can talk uninterrupted.’

‘Very well,’ Sophie conceded, assuming that his landlady would chaperone her.

The lodgings were respectable, but very quiet and there was no sign of any servants other than the young maid who appeared in the hall and then vanished at a word from Henry.

In the front parlour Sophie sat stiff-backed in a chair, watching while he went through the motions of removing his gloves with agonising slowness. If he wanted her to demand an explanation of his summons she was determined not to satisfy him. Her dislike grew with every second she was in his company. How could she ever have been so deceived? Imagine being tied to him, married to him. The only thing that was keeping her there was her concern for Elizabeth.

Finally he strolled across to a set of decanters and poured himself a glass of pale liquid. ‘A glass of Canary for you, Sophie?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Very well.’ He sat down and crossed his legs elegantly, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle in his immaculate trousers. ‘You are probably wondering why I asked to meet you. You may have observed that Lady Elizabeth is developing quite a tendresse for me.’ He glanced at his well-tended nails. ‘Understandable, of course, I have invested some effort in attracting her.’

Sophie controlled the temptation to upend the contents of the decanter on his head. ‘One word from me to either of Lady Elizabeth’s brothers and you will be horse-whipped.’

Henry tutted. ‘Now that shows a nasty, resentful spirit, Sophie. Our past is in the past, and I have every intention of leaving it there, provided…’ He paused and his tone was as hard as his eyes, ‘Provided you help me.’

‘You have no hold over me, Henry,’ Sophie retorted. ‘The Duke is fully aware of my. . . history with you. Do not seek to blackmail me, sir, it will not work.’

‘No doubt you have spun him some tale,’ Henry said dismissively. ‘But I wonder what his reaction would be if I were to describe your body to him?’

‘There is no need to wonder.’ Hal strode into the room, seized Henry by the shoulder, spun him round and landed him a crashing blow to the jaw. He landed with a splintering of wood on the small side table.

‘You hit me,’ he wailed as he sprawled there. ‘I will have the ecclesiastical authorities on you!’

‘Well?’ said the Reverend Lord John, entering behind his brother. ‘I think I can be said to be representing the Archdeacon. I have just had a very interesting conversation with him about you, Mr Winstanley.’ The amiable cleric that was John appeared to Sophie to have changed into someone else entirely.

Hal, who had been absently massaging his bruised fist in the other palm, strode across and hauled Henry to his feet. ‘You will apologise to Miss Haydon.’

‘I... I am sorry... I did not mean...’ Henry stuttered, then stopped in the face of Sophie’s expression of contempt.

‘You meant blackmail, seduction and mischief, sir, and I look forward to seeing you suffer for it,’ she said coldly.

‘There is more than that, Miss Wyatt, it is so bad that I must request that you leave the room. What I have to say is not fit for the ears of a lady,’ John said.

‘Let Sophie stay, John,’ Hal said. ‘After all, this man has attempted to blacken her character in your hearing: it is only just that she knows what he has done.’

‘Very well. Winstanley, I have to tell you that Maria Jones is with child.’

‘Maria Jones?’ Henry said with an attempt at nonchalance, his brow furrowing as if he could not quite place the name. ‘Maria Jones... Oh, yes, her. What, is the little slut pointing the finger at me? She was any man’s for the taking.’

John took an impetuous step forward, but Hal’s hand on his sleeve checked him. ‘No slut, sir. She was a fourteen-year-old virgin. An uneducated, innocent servant in the vicarage where you were curate, in a position of trust. You seduced her with promises, then discarded her as soon as you had taken what you wanted. She may be a simple child, but she is from a good family of local craftsmen. And she is not the only one you have despoiled, is she?’

‘Oh, poor girl,’ Sophie said impetuously. ‘Is there anything we can do? What has become of her? Have her family cast her out?’

‘Fortunately not,’ John said grimly. ‘They recognise that she has been wronged and who is the wrongdoer.’ He broke off and looked with deep contempt at Henry. ‘The Vicar's wife is continuing to employ her and will do so, even when the child is born. And then there is the little matter of the Squire’s daughter.’

Henry went pale. ‘I... I never laid a finger on her,’ he said swiftly, but his guilt was written all over his face.

‘That is not how the Squire sees it. He writes to the Archdeacon that should you ever show your face in Wrexham again he will take a shotgun to you. You may not have seduced her in body, but you most certainly seduced her from her duty to her family. I am sure it was only a matter of time before you made an assault on her virtue as you did on poor Maria’s. You, sir, are a scoundrel and an offence to the cloth.’

Sophie looked at John’s set and angry face, his mouth hard in a line of disgust. She scarcely recognised him from the affable host and loving husband, instead he seemed like an Old Testament prophet, casting out a sinner. She found her voice. ‘What are you going to do with him?’

John, who had obviously forgotten her presence, threw her a quick look. ‘It is out of my hands now, Miss Haydon. I am going to take him to the Archdeacon, who will decide how this should be handled. Come, Mr Winstanley, I am not prepared to discuss this in front of a lady any longer.’

Silently Henry picked up his hat and followed John. Looking at him, Sophie saw how diminished he was. All the spirit had gone from him, taking his good looks with it. Now he seemed merely weak and insignificant with his bruised face and trembling lower lip.

As they left the room Hal saw her looking at Henry. ‘Are you sorry for him?’

‘No, I am not sorry for him,’ she declared firmly, turning to face Hal. ‘I am sorry for those poor women he deceived and the hurt this will give Elizabeth. I am also sorry that I am such a bad judge of character that I could have been so deceived in him. And even sorrier that I hesitated in warning Elizabeth about his true character. I thought perhaps he had reformed: after all, it has been four years.’

To her surprise Hal did not agree with her. He took a step towards her as though to take her in his arms and then checked himself, opened the door for her and ushered her out of the parlour. ‘You are too harsh on yourself. From what you have told me, I understand that you were much put upon by your brother and his wife.’ He closed the front door behind them and tucked her hand under his arm as they went down the steps. ‘It would have taken a wiser woman than the sheltered young girl you were then to have seen through Winstanley’s wiles.’

Sophie glanced up at his face and thought how much she loved him. After all, it was she who had embroiled the Wyatt family in this unsavoury situation: if it had not been for her, Elizabeth would never have encountered Henry Winstanley. She scarcely dared hope that his feelings for her were warming into love.

‘Thank you for being so understanding, Hal. I still blame myself, but it helps that you do not.’

‘It is not a matter of blame,’ he said. ‘But it struck me that your shared past with Mr Winstanley might be what was holding you back from agreeing to do the sensible thing and marry me. Well, that impediment is out of the way now.’

They had reached the Wyatts’ front door as he spoke. Sophie felt the breath leave her lungs at the calculating way he dismissed Henry and her relationship with him. She had hoped to hear some words of affection at least, not this. ‘You are very misguided indeed if you believe that Henry was the reason that held me back from marriage to you,’ she snapped. ‘It would be wrong to marry you, I do not want to marry you, and I am not going to marry you.’ She swept through the door just as Grayling opened it.

As she ran up the stairs she heard Hal say. ‘I am sorry, Grayling. Pre-wedding nerves, you know.’

‘Quite natural I am sure, Your Grace,’ Grayling agreed imperturbably.

Furious, Sophie stormed into her bedchamber, wrenched off her pelisse and threw it at the foot of the bed. ‘Men. They are all the same. Even the butler feels free to comment on my nerves. I would not have nerves if it was not for Hal.’

She splashed her face with cold water from the ewer, tidied her hair and was suddenly conscious of feeling very hungry. It seemed a long time since breakfast, when she had eaten very little, and a lot had happened since. Surely the luncheon gong would sound at any moment?

Determined to put on a calm face before she met the Wyatt brothers again, Sophie trod downstairs slowly, consciously practising her deportment lessons of long ago. Head up, chin in, back straight, deep breaths, calm thoughts, she recited to herself.

But as she reached the bottom of the stairs it became apparent that two people at least were not experiencing calm thoughts. From John’s study the sound of  raised voices penetrated to the hall.

‘All I am trying to say, Hal, is that it is not as though this man is simply an old friend or acquaintance of Miss Haydon,’ John was saying in an agitated tone. ‘Goodness knows, we heard enough as we entered his rooms to know he could still do her and, by association, this family, great damage.’

‘She was misguided enough to elope with him, it is true, John. I will not try and deny it and nor will she. She has always been totally honest with me on the matter. But she only went with him believing he meant marriage and her brother found her before any further harm could be done.’ Sophie could hear Hal pacing, his boots sounding on the bare boards.

There was a short silence, then John said, apparently with some constraint, ‘Are you certain you have been told everything? After all, you only have Miss Haydon’s word that nothing improper occurred between them, and for a gently bred young woman to admit the truth would be hard indeed. But damn it all, man, he made reference to her... body. To speak in such terms implies an intimacy – ’

He was not allowed to finish. Hal’s voice was harsh and angry. ‘If you were not my brother I would call you out for that remark. You are speaking of the lady I am about to marry. If you will not accept her, then I will take her to London to be married and our association is at an end. You must choose.’

John sounded alarmed. ‘Now, steady on, Hal, I was only trying to point out the difficulties that may lie ahead. If there is a scandal, it will taint the whole family, including Elizabeth’s prospects.’

‘There will be no scandal. I will see to that, and I expect your full support, John.’

The door opened suddenly on Sophie, obviously listening on the threshold. Hal’s angry eyes raked her from head to foot. ‘Eavesdroppers rarely hear well of themselves, Sophie, as you have just discovered. You see, I am prepared to split my family in order to do the right thing by you.’

Hal stalked off down the corridor, his boots ringing on the stone-flagged floor, leaving Sophie and John in an appalled silence. John produced a large pocket handkerchief and mopped his agitated brow. ‘I... Miss Haydon... I must apologise for...’

She liked John, he was a good man and she could well understand and sympathise with his scruples and she tried to find the right words. ‘John, I do understand your concerns. I promise you that nothing improper occurred between myself and Mr Winstanley, beyond my youthful indiscretion in agreeing to elope with him. I would not permit so much as a kiss between us. I would never lie to you in this matter, believe me. I have too much respect for you and for your calling to do such a thing.’

For the first time for a long time John smiled. ‘I know that, Sophie.’