Page 50 of Dukes for Dessert

“They are little hellions,” Eleanor said. “Like their father and uncles. But yes, quite lovely.” She patted Sophie’s arm and smiled. “How wonderful that you’ve come. We will have a fine time, I know it.”

Eleanor kept Sophie in such a whirl over the following weeks that she scarcely distinguished one day from the next. They planned soirees, musicales, and garden parties—bringing the garden parties indoors if the weather did not cooperate.

When not hosting her own gatherings, Eleanor took Sophie with her to balls and suppers, the theatre, and the opera. During daylight hours they visited museums and libraries and met other ladies for tea.

Sophie was trepidatious about these outings at first, but Eleanor’s friends—who must have been hand-picked to make Sophie comfortable—welcomed her into their circle. Among these were Eleanor’s sisters-in-law, Isabella, Ainsley, and Beth, and Hart’s niece Violet, none of whom seemed to be as busy as Eleanor’s letter had suggested. Sophie especially liked Violet, an intelligent young woman, very much in love with her husband, with a knack for mechanical devices.

All these ladies had been touched by scandal or the dark side of life, Sophie learned—Beth had grown up in a workhouse; Isabella had eloped with Mac Mackenzie on the night of her come-out; Ainsley had been seduced at a very young age; and Violet had been a faux stage medium to make a living, though she claimed that her mother appeared to have a true gift for clairvoyance.

The McBride wives—sisters-in-law of Ainsley—who rounded out the group had similar stories, and Louisa, Isabella’s sister, had fallen so low as to marry a policeman. This last was told to Sophie with merriment—Detective Superintendent Fellows was no mere policeman.

None of these ladies found the impending breakup of Sophie’s marriage scandalous at all. They surrounded her on outings, befriending her in truth, and kept more unforgiving members of society away from her. With the Duchess of Kilmorgan and the ladies Mackenzie at Sophie’s side, no one dared to shun her.

Eleanor had said she’d protect Sophie, and protect her she did.

The one person Sophie never saw on these rounds was David.

“He’s still in Hertfordshire,” Eleanor told Sophie when Sophie finally summoned the courage to inquire about him. “He is not supposed to come to London, according to Fellows—not that it stops him. But he’s being careful. I’m very glad to see it. David is finally taking his position as landed gentleman seriously. He has been a loyal friend to Hart all these years, but good heavens, David needs his own life.”

Sophie remembered the cozy evenings she’d spent in David’s home, the camaraderie from the vicarage almost renewed. Not quite—there had been a strain since the night he’d kissed her so passionately at the edge of the garden. Even so, Sophie thought longingly of those evenings around the fire, talking of anything and everything.

David accepted Sophie for who she was, a rare gift, she was coming to understand. She missed him.

Interestingly, ladies of the London ton had heard about Uncle Lucas’s find of the Roman villa in Shropshire. Stories about it had been printed in several newspapers, including the Illustrated London News.

At a garden fete at a house in Mount Street one afternoon, Sophie heard both her uncle’s name and David’s in conversation. Pretending indifference, she wandered toward the ladies speaking about them, as though only admiring the hostess’s lovely spring flowers.

“Griff is frightfully doleful,” one woman in a dull lavender gown said. “He is unhappy about appearing in court, but that awful Mr. Fleming did try to kill him.”

“I heard Mr. Fleming denies it with every breath,” another lady said brightly.

“He would,” the first woman said. “But my Griff says Mr. Fleming shot at him and then punched him in the face when the shot missed. Horrible. Mr. Fleming was arrested but then allowed to retreat to the country.”

Sophie surmised that the first woman was Mrs. Griffin, and Griff, the man who’d accused David of attempted murder.

“I heard Mr. Fleming helped Dr. Pierson reveal the Roman villa in Shropshire,” another lady said. “It was in the newspapers.”

“So unfair,” Mrs. Griffin said. “The Illustrated London News, no less. They barely sniffed when Griff found that Saxon gold in Suffolk. He offered to fund a full excavation, but no one would take it. Griff sits in his chamber, running his hands through the coins he turned up, quite morose. This trial will upset him too much. Mr. Fleming should admit guilt and go quietly to prison.”

Sophie thought David should do nothing of the sort, but the exchange gave her an idea.

She continued across the garden as though seeking the shade of the house, but once inside, she excused herself to the hostess, returned to Eleanor’s home, and asked the duke’s butler to dispatch several urgent telegraph messages for her.

“Telegram for you, sir.”

Fortescue, tall with his graying hair brushed to cover the thin spot on top of his head, bent down with a salver in his hand, an envelope squarely in its center. He enjoyed playing the perfect servant, complete with white gloves and upper-crust accent.

David lounged deep in a chair with his nose in a book about farming a vegetable called a swede. It was unbelievably technical. He’d always thought one dug a hole, dropped in a seed, and walked away, to pluck up the fully grown vegetable in the fall. But things such as the soil’s content and consistency, average rainfall in the county, and field drainage apparently were all very important if a man wanted a fine crop of rutabagas.

At Fortescue’s words, David happily shoved the book onto a table without bothering to mark his place.

“Miss Tierney has sent for me, declaring her undying love,” he said in hope.

Fortescue looked down his nose. “I believe the message came from London, sir. From your solicitor.”

“My solicitor?” David’s light mood evaporated. “Not McBride, my barrister?”

“No, sir. I imagine Mr. Basher McBride is too busy to send his own telegrams.”