Page 3 of A Counterfeit Engagement

In later days, Sophie would think how odd it was that she had been so happy at the very moment the trouble started.

It was a glorious, golden autumn day, not too cold.

Though it was a great pleasure to walk with her mother and sister, it was sometimes an even greater pleasure to walk alone like this, lightly buffeted by the wind, looking down the long hills at the play of waves and feeling the gentle warmth of the sun on her back.

There was a warm, soft kind of smell coming off the hills, made of a hundred types of grasses drying under the sun.

It was almost silent walking there, with only the rush of the wind and the calls of gulls for company, and Sophie fell into a perfect ecstasy of peacefulness as she wandered on, heedless of the time.

She came back to the world with a sharp sense of being watched.

Looking around her, she found she was approaching one of the nearest crossroads to her own little cottage.

A gentleman was there, mounted on a fine horse.

Man and horse were fairly glowing with health and prosperity and should have only added to the splendour of the day, but Sophie felt obscurely that she did not like looking at him, and was not sorry that propriety forbade them speaking without an introduction.

She gave him the merest half-curtsey of polite acknowledgement.

His eyes had fixed on her face most strangely.

She was certain that their expression was not one of admiration.

Though Sophie would not have thought it, there was much to admire in her face and person that day.

Long walks over the hills had added to her natural gracefulness of movement, and though her features were too strong to be fashionable, they had a balance and proportion that rendered them appealing.

An infatuated suitor might have written poems to the thick, richly brown waves of her hair, caught up in a braided bun.

More appealing still was the dreamy happiness about her eyes and the soft curve of her smile.

But Sophie had justly sensed that the stranger did not admire her.

He looked at her first with cold assessment, as though trying to recognise someone by description, and then with judgement.

She could feel his eyes fixed on her back with no friendly expression as she walked on.

Sophie shuddered. Much of the pleasure had gone out of the lovely day for her, but she was determined to put the strange man from her mind and recapture it.

A quick walk down to the beach would be best, she decided.

But first, she would fetch Isabel to go with her.

In only a few minutes, she was entering the garden that surrounded their little cottage.

“Isabel,” she called out.

“Here I am,” her little sister replied. Her voice was clear and sweet, as lovely as the rest of her.

She rose from her seat on the stone bench that stood sheltered in a little group of trees and came to Sophie.

She looked at her older sister curiously, the expression as becoming on her elegant, even features as every other.

As so often before, Sophie wished they could but find a way to give her sister a London Season.

Dowry or no dowry, all would honour her as a diamond of the first water.

The gentleman would fall at her feet, utterly stricken.

Lovely, accomplished, and loving as Isabel was, they would have no choice.

“What’s wrong, Sophie?” Isabel asked her. With quick perception, she had read the lingering unease on her face. Sophie had sometimes wished her younger sister less astute.

Sophie sighed. “It’s of no great matter. I saw a gentleman on my walk who made me uneasy, though he did nothing in the least wrong. But let us forget him. I came to ask if you would like to walk down along the shore before tea.”

“Yes, certainly,” Isabel said eagerly. “I will bring my book into the house and be ready at once.” She suited her actions to her words and quickly rejoined her sister.

They set off on their walk, talking of the book Isabel had been reading, one which Sophie had lent to her, and of the noble hawks Sophie had seen during the morning.

At the shore, they slowly fell into rapt silence as they gazed at the waves that rolled in and out.

It seemed all too short an interval before it was time to return for tea.

After such a day of walking, tea was most welcome. Sophie actually had a scone in hand when the maid came into the room. Isabel set down the piece of apple that she had been about to raise to her lips. The usually pleasant and unflappable Mrs Downsy looked almost harried.

“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” she said to Mrs Anderson, “but there’s a strange gentleman here to see you. He was most insistent.”

“How odd,” Mrs Anderson said blankly. “Is he from the post, do you think?”

“No, ma’am,” Mrs Downsy answered firmly. “He’s a gentleman, and a rather fine one at that. I told him you and the young ladies were not at home to company, but he said it was most urgent.”

“Well then,” Mrs Anderson said slowly, “I suppose you had better show him in, and we will find out what it is all about. I shall be glad to do away with the suspense, at any rate.”

The ladies waited with great curiosity until the gentleman was shown in.

Except for a vague alarm that their visitor might be some distant relative or acquaintance bringing bad news, Sophie had formed no sense of who might be coming to see them in such a strange manner.

But as their visitor entered, she saw with surprise and vague disquiet that it was the man who had watched her so oddly on her walk.

His appearance was more lavish than ever.

In the interval, he had changed his clothes for a waistcoat still more richly embroidered, being covered in a pattern of roses that would have better suited a dandy in a London salon.

The rest of his costume was no less sumptuous, though done in a rather quieter style.

To complete the surprise of his appearance, he wasted no time, but promptly turned to Sophie and said to her, “You can have no doubt, madam, as to the reason for my coming here.”

“I beg your pardon,” Sophie said in astonishment. “I am afraid I am utterly unable to account for it. You must forgive me — I do not even know your name.”

“Perhaps not, events have transpired so suddenly,” he said in a manner that was sneering rather than conciliatory.

“Well, then. I am the duke’s cousin, Baronet Owen Ferrars.

You have doubtless heard of my mother, Lady Phoebe Ferrars.

And this will perfectly explain my coming to you.

You could not have thought we would do otherwise when we heard of what you have done. ”

“I thank you for the honour of the introduction, Sir Owen,” Sophie said in bewilderment.

“But I am afraid there is some great misunderstanding here. I am not at all able to understand your meaning. Nor can I think of anything I have done that would have the slightest bearing on yourself or your good mother.”

“I will be forthcoming, Miss Anderson, even if you choose to be otherwise,” Sir Owen said sharply. “I am here to express the family’s extreme displeasure regarding your presumption. There! Now you cannot mistake my meaning.”

Mrs Anderson overcame her bewilderment and broke her silence.

“I will thank you, sir, to stop insulting my daughter in her own home, and to explain yourself,” she said, her voice carefully controlled.

“None of us have the least understanding of what you are saying. What on earth can you possibly regard as my daughter’s presumption? ”

“Madam, I am referring to your daughter’s engagement,” Sir Owen said with stiff formality and a look that clearly doubted her sincerity.

Sophie made herself speak, though she was very much afraid for the steadiness of her voice. “My engagement has been over these five years, Sir Owen. And in any case, what concern is any such former connection between myself and Mr Webb to you?”

“Mr Webb?” Sir Owen said contemptuously. “Of course I am not speaking of that old business, of which it is doubtless better to say nothing. My concern — the concern of all the family — is your artful, sly, and unfit engagement to my cousin, Jonathan Haverly, Duke of Belford.”

Sophie was rendered speechless with shock, although she felt that her look of astonishment should have provided ample contradiction of the idea. Luckily, her mother’s tongue was loosened by rage.

“Sir Owen,” Mrs Anderson said in a tone of cold fury that Isabel had never heard before, and Sophie only once, “I must ask you to leave now. Your behaviour towards my daughter has been unspeakably insulting. Yes, indeed sir, you shall leave now, or the servants shall put you out. I leave the choice to you.”

Sir Owen swept them an abbreviated, contemptuous bow and left the room. It was some time before anybody regained the power of speech.

“Jonathan Haverly, Duke of Belford!” Isabel finally said. “Imagine, Sophie. One might as well say you were engaged to the Prince Regent. It would hardly be more astonishing. Do you think he was mad, telling such a story?”

“I can hardly account for it otherwise,” their mother said. She shook her head. “I have encountered some strange characters in my day, girls, but never one quite as strange as that. Sophie, you must put him right out of your head.”

Sophie shivered and made no reply. Privately, she thought the baronet perhaps a fool, but certainly no madman. Worse still, she felt all but certain that they were going to meet again.