Page 28 of A Counterfeit Engagement

The next morning saw their tour resumed again directly after breakfast. They had nearly finished when the butler came with a message.

“Your Grace, Mr Arthur MacCraig is calling. Shall I say that you are at home?”

“I should like to see him again,” Sophie said quickly.

“As would I,” Jonathan agreed. He turned to the butler. “Yes, please tell our guest that we are at home. We shall meet him in the parlour directly.”

They hurried to keep the appointment, eager for the first meeting since their wedding.

Arthur rose from his seat as they entered the room. “Duchess, Jonathan. It’s good to see you both.”

Sophie smiled. “Please, you must call me Sophie.”

“Thank you, Sophie,” Arthur said in his soft burr. “And thank you, likewise, for making one of my dearest friends so happy.”

“I cannot accept thanks for something that has been a gift to me as well,” Sophie said. “Now, what has gone on in town during our absence? Have you had word from Viscount Jones?”

Arthur shook his head. “Not a single letter, I’m afraid. But don’t fret yourself.” In his accent, it came out rather more like dinna frech yerself. “It’s a long voyage, and the post takes many weeks to get here.”

Jonathan shook his head. “It’s strange to think that Nathan doesn’t even know of our marriage yet.”

“I’m not sure if he’ll be more or less surprised, having heard the rumours Mary Collins spread!” Sophie pointed out, and they all had to laugh at the strangeness of the situation.

When the room quieted, Arthur got down to business.

“I’m glad to visit with both of you, but I came with a purpose.

I have taken a box at the theatre tonight.

Would you care to come with me? It will be a comedy by Sheridan, and the lead actors are said to be quite fine.

” He paused for a moment, and something odd passed over his face.

“Of course, the invitation includes Lady Sarah, Mrs Anderson, and Miss Isabel Anderson.”

“We would be delighted,” Sophie said immediately. “I shall send word to my mother and sister directly, but we spoke only last night, and I am sure they have no fixed engagements. I believe I may venture to accept the invitation on their behalf as well.”

“I shall look forward to their company,” Arthur said gallantly. Jonathan eyed his friend. There was something off in his tone, he was sure of it. Now if he could only find adequate privacy to discuss it with him.

Sophie rose. “If you gentlemen will excuse me, I will write the note to my mother and sister this moment. I would be disappointed indeed if they were to make other plans through my delay.”

The gentlemen made no objection, and Sophie went upstairs to write her note. As soon as she was well away, Jonathan turned to Arthur.

“Is something wrong? Did something happen while we were gone? Truly, you sound troubled.”

“It is nothing,” Arthur said shortly.

“I am sure that it is not nothing.”

“Very well. It is Miss Isabel Anderson.”

Jonathan eyed him. “You have not gone and fallen in love with my sister-in-law, have you?”

Arthur snorted. “Far from it. It is not — I do not think ill of her. That is too strong a word. But it is evident that my company is unpleasant to her, and that, in turn, makes her company somewhat unpleasant to me.”

“I think you judge her too harshly,” Jonathan said.

“Truly, my old friend. She did behave oddly to you at the dance, I do not deny it. But she is a young woman visiting London for the first time, in society she has never known before, and in a rather odd situation at that. And she must do all this with a face so beautiful it makes most men look at her with desire and most women with envy. Is it not unsurprising that with so much to balance, she would sometimes act a little odd?”

“As you like,” Arthur said. His tone made it clear the topic was closed. “You need not worry, Jonathan. Of course I will be civil to her, and include her in any invitations made to the family. I like your new wife very much. I should not wish to make her unhappy for the world.”

“Sophie is an angel, is she not?” Jonathan said smugly. “My dear, practical girl. It is good to be married, indeed.”

Arthur laughed. “You need not say the rest. I can tell all the bits that one cannot say in polite society, just from looking at the satisfaction on your face.”

Jonathan chuckled. “I would not gainsay you, my friend.”

∞∞∞

That evening, their party hushed in happy anticipation, snug in Arthur’s private box in the darkened theatre.

Sarah and Isabel were at the far end of the row, momentarily silent after much excited whispering.

Mrs Anderson, who dearly liked a good play, was watching the stage, intent on seeing the first moment the curtain opened.

Jonathan was holding Sophie’s hand in his, glad of the privacy that allowed him to do so.

And Arthur was looking at his friend, who appeared thoroughly satisfied with his lot in life, and smiling.

From the moment the curtain opened, they were transported. The actors were superb indeed, good enough to bring their audience both uproarious laughter and quiet tears. It was a happy party that made their way home some hours later, well-satisfied with their evening.

“Oh, Jonathan, it was wonderful,” Sophie said laughingly as he closed the bedroom door behind them. She sat down heavily on the bed, nearly sprawling out. “What an evening! Do you know, it had never occurred to me that being married would be so diverting?”

Jonathan smiled at his bride. “I am glad you find it so. We shall have to see if I can keep you equally well entertained tonight.”

“I am certain of it,” Sophie said, a little shyly. She paused a moment. “Jonathan. There is something I have wanted to say to you.”

He came and sat on the bed next to her. “What is it, Sophie? Tell me.”

She took a deep breath. “It is only this, Jonathan. Ever since we first met, despite all the embarrassment of our strange circumstances, it has been so easy to talk to you. And now, being your wife…well. We wed to preserve our reputations and our family’s good names, and though I did not anticipate any displeasure in our union, it has been so much more than that.

I love you, Jonathan. I love you, body and soul, with all I have, and I always will. ”

Jonathan smiled at her, and Sophie’s heart pounded in joyful anticipation of his response.

“Sophie, you don’t have to pretend with me,” Jonathan said gently. “We like and respect each other well. We enjoy each other. That is more than most people have. There is no need to go around making up a lot of poetry about it.”

For a long moment, Sophie was shocked numb and speechless. When she had regained some semblance of self-control, she spoke slowly.

“You do not love me, then?”

Jonathan chuckled. “There is no need to make it sound so tragic, my dear, sensible Sophie. What is love, after all? Merely something poets write songs about. You and I don’t need it to live a happy life.”

“I — I had thought you would deny it,” Sophie blurted out.

He only smiled at her, as patronising as though addressing the foolishness of a child. “I see nothing to deny.”

For a moment, the pain of disillusionment was so great that it carried a sense of unreality with it.

Sophie felt almost as though she was caught in a terrible dream, and might hope to wake.

But that there was no hope was all too obvious.

She clutched the fabric of the bedcover in her hand, crushing it into wrinkles.

The moment was all too real. The dream had only been in imagining things could have been otherwise.

“I am a fool,” Sophie said blankly. “A complete and utter fool. All this time, I thought you saw me. Understood me. Even wanted me, fool that I am. No. It is more of the same. I am merely adequate, merely sensible, and certainly not someone to be loved.”

Jonathan’s tone grew heated. “I would that you calm yourself. I am not some villain who has made promises and broken them. You might remember I married you, when I could have dared the opinion of the ton and left you to do as you would with them.”

No sooner were the words spoken than he regretted them, but it was already too late. Sophie rose from the bed and stood looking levelly at him. Her face was frozen into carved lines, a look of controlled rage and pain that he could not have imagined on her gentle face.

“Indeed, I shall not forget it,” Sophie replied with glacial calm. “Nor will I forget the proposal you made me then. I realise now that I saw what I wanted to see in it. In you. I thought you were making me a declaration of great regard. I see now that you were merely martyring yourself.”

Jonathan snorted. “It is not as bad as all that. I am the duke. I have always known that I must marry and have an heir. There is nothing in you, Sophie, that would cause me to hesitate when acting would secure both the future of my house and our own reputations.”

Sophie shook her head. “I am glad to hear it,” she said with heavy irony. “Jonathan, is this truly what you believe? That love, or at least love of me, is at best a fairy tale and at worst an impossibility?”

“It is not what I believe, it is what I know,” Jonathan spat. Visions of his father swam before his eyes.

The time he had judged Jonathan too timid on his first ride, and had deliberately spooked the horse to punish him. The times without number he had snapped at young Sarah for childish games and pranks too mild to even deserve the name. The bruises on his mother’s face, inadequately concealed.

All this, in the name of love.

“I do not love you. I am proud to say it. I respect you as my wife. I have enjoyed you as my companion, though certainly not tonight. I have esteemed you, particularly the good sense which has seemed wholly absent in this conversation. But love you, no, I do not. Now, Sophie, will you be sensible?”

He saw a glimmer of tears in her eyes. Slowly, she said, “No, Jonathan, I don’t think I will.”

And with that, she left him and went into the duchess’s bedchamber without looking back.