Page 42 of A Counterfeit Engagement

“Sophie, I have been so terribly wrong,” Jonathan said, looking pleadingly into her eyes.

“I have never been so humbled as when I heard your defence of me, or so honoured. You know me, body and soul, as I have never been known by another. I would trust you with anything — my life, my honour, my heart. What is this, if not love? I was a fool not to see it, and doubly a fool to deny it when you tried to show me.”

All Sophie’s old instincts told her to accept the apology, or better yet, to reassure him it was unnecessary, to proclaim her own wrongness. Sophie shoved them down violently. Instead, she brought Jonathan’s hand to her lips, softly kissing it. She met his eyes, a challenge.

“Say it, then,” Sophie said gently.

He drew in a deep, shuddering breath, but did not hesitate.

“Sophie. You are my darling wife, my dearest heart, my treasure. Once, you gave me the gift of sharing your love with me, and like a madman, I threw it away. Worse still, I denied that such precious feelings could even exist. I know better now. I loved you then, though I could not yet say it. I loved you even before we wed, and my heart is now irrevocably yours. I love you, body and soul, and I will love you until my dying breath.”

He looked at her, something of fear coming into the set of his mouth.

“Have I ruined everything, Sophie? Please do not tell me I have destroyed everything that could have been between us. Give me a chance to show that I have opened my heart to you truly. You need not say it now, but I will not rest until the day that you can again freely say that you love me.”

Sophie blinked a stray tear away, and Jonathan’s eyes widened in fear, no doubt attributing her emotion to a very different answer than the one she intended to give.

“You will not be waiting long,” Sophie said, and went to him, wrapping her arms around him and relishing in the feeling of being crushed to his broad chest. “I love you with all my heart, Jonathan. Nothing could change that.”

He kissed her again then, a kiss of more tenderness and less frantic emotion than before — a kiss that had all the time in the world. Sophie thought she might have lived in that kiss forever without regrets.

At last, they slowly drew apart. Jonathan leaned down to rest his forehead against hers, his arms still lightly wrapped around her.

“I shall never forget this night, Sophie,” he murmured. “I have missed you.”

“And I, you,” Sophie whispered into his ear. “But the night is not yet over.”

He held her at arm’s length, a smile beginning at the hint of mischief and challenge in her voice.

“No, indeed it is not, Duchess. Tell me what you have in mind.”

Sophie smiled brilliantly at him. “It is the first ball at Haverly House in many years, and we have not yet danced together. Let us go and enjoy the evening properly.”

Jonathan laughed aloud. “An excellent idea, my love.” With that, he offered her his arm, and they turned back towards the house.

A sudden hush rippled over the crowd as those nearest the door saw them enter. A country dance had only just ended, and the next was to be a waltz.

“Strictly speaking, I suppose we ought not to dance with each other rather than our guests, but I find I do not care,” Sophie said, leaning close to Jonathan’s ear.

He laughed. “Nor I,” he said, and placed his hand on her waist in anticipation of the waltz’s first chords. Only moments later, the musicians began to play, as though they had been waiting for his signal.

From the first steps, Sophie felt as though she were floating.

The quick, spinning steps of the waltz made Jonathan the only constant in her vision, as he already was in her heart.

She felt they might have gone on forever, whirling through the night until the sun rose, without growing tired.

The relief of knowing the division between them was at an end was too great to allow for weariness.

“Stop!”

The voice was loud and shrill, cutting through the sounds of the musicians and the murmur of many voices. Like the others on the dance floor, Jonathan and Sophie stumbled to a halt, looking around them for the source of the disturbance.

They were not left in uncertainty for long.

Standing on the dais by the musicians was Lady Phoebe Ferrars.

She gripped Mary Collins’s hand in hers, raising it in the air like a pugilist’s manager showing off her champion fighter, while her son lurked behind them, a look of mingled triumph and uncertainty on his face.

Jonathan put his head in one hand. “Oh no,” he muttered. He raised his head, only to shake it in dismay. “Sophie, I am so terribly sorry. I had only just sworn never to hurt you again, when my family engages in such nonsense. I shall deal with this as quickly as I can.”

“No,” Sophie said suddenly, surprised by her own certainty. “No, Jonathan, I thank you, but you must allow me to deal with this. Lady Phoebe and my cousin have made this a woman’s matter. Therefore, I shall handle it.”

“Sophie —” He reached out to her, as though to stop her, before dropping his hand.

Jonathan smiled brilliantly at her. “Sophie, my darling, they won’t know what hit them.

” He kissed her hand, then released her.

Sophie gave him one more smile, full of all her love and confidence, before she ascended the dais.

“Lady Phoebe,” Sophie said in a low, clear voice that carried to the farthest corners of the room. “Perhaps you might explain yourself. Why have you interrupted the ball? Are you in need of some assistance?”

“I am in very great need of an explanation!” Lady Phoebe thundered. “What Miss Collins has just shared with me has shocked me beyond what I can well bear!”

“I am very sorry to hear that, Lady Phoebe,” Sophie said sympathetically. “Shall I call a doctor for you? If you have been shocked beyond what you can bear, perhaps you ought to lie down.”

“I do not require a rest, I require an explanation,” Lady Phoebe hissed. “Miss Collins, tell them what you have told me!”

“Miss Collins, are you quite sure you wish to do that?” Sophie asked gently. She would offer her cousin one last chance at mercy, for the sake of old family ties. If Mary did not choose to take it —

She did not. To judge by the malicious sneer spreading over Mary Collins’s face, she was far beyond thoughts of propriety and consequences. Sophie’s triumph had become her failure, and she would do what she could to destroy it, cost her what it may.

It was a shame, for Sophie would have given her the priceless gift of silence, if only Mary Collins would have accepted it.

“You would like me to say nothing, wouldn’t you?” Mary Collins said with gentle malice. “That would suit you, acting like the perfect duchess. Well, I will not be silent.”

“Tell them, Miss Collins,” Lady Phoebe urged her.

“This was no love match!” Mary Collins exclaimed, pointing at Sophie as though to accuse her of a crime.

“You have all been exclaiming over the Duke and Duchess of Belford as though you had never heard of anything more romantic! Well, I tell you it is all a sham. Those first rumours of their engagement were false. There never was such an engagement. I know it beyond a doubt, for I started the rumours myself.”

“Could I keep such an affront to myself, when I had once heard of it?” Lady Phoebe exclaimed, looking about her. “It is impossible! You have been lying to us all, Miss Anderson! Can you deny that you have done it? I knew you were not a fit match for my nephew!”

“Mother —” Sir Owen reached out to his mother, but she twisted away from his hand. He blanched in horror, turning to Sophie and holding up his hands in apology.

So. One of the Ferrars, at least, has sense enough to know which way the wind was blowing.

“’Miss Anderson’ is my younger sister, Lady Phoebe,” Sophie said.

“ I am Lady Sophie Haverly, Duchess of Belford. It is true that the engagement between the duke and myself was once only the merest fiction. I shall always be grateful to my cousin for introducing the duke and myself, however little I cared for her method of introduction. For the sake of that gratitude, I shall allow my cousin to choose whether she leaves this ball under her own power, or escorted out by a footman. Miss Collins, you may make your choice now.”

Miss Collins looked about wildly, but Sophie only inclined her head. The nearest footman had only taken a step forward when Mary Collins broke. Hurriedly, and not daring to look behind her, she ran from the room.

Under the cover of the exclamations and not a little jeering that followed her, Sophie leaned close to Lady Phoebe and her son, speaking too low for anyone else to overhear.

“For the sake of family feeling, Lady Phoebe, Sir Owen, I shall offer you some grace as well. Mary Collins intended this plot to subdue you, you know — you and your opinions of what kind of marriage the duke ought to make. I think it would be best for that part of these events to remain just between ourselves, do not you?”

Though Sophie would have thought Sir Owen could not turn any paler, it seemed that she was wrong. One of the Ferrars, at least, had sense enough to know how the crowd was likely to take such a revelation.

“I shall see to my mother, duchess. I thank you for your kindness. We will not trouble you again,” he said, almost tripping over his words in his hurry to get them out.

Sophie smiled at him. “Very good, Sir Owen. Perhaps we may yet become friends.”

He hurried away, drawing his mother with him. Sophie looked about her, drawing a deep breath, when Jonathan strode up beside her.

“My love, you were brilliant,” he breathed in her ear.

“Brilliant, magnificent, perfect…and I do not believe I have ever struggled more not to interfere.” He smiled at her before turning to the crowd.

“My duchess, everyone! The grace of my house, and the strength of Belford! I already knew myself to be a very lucky man — and now, you know it, too. I had always intended this ball to be a proper introduction for the new Duchess of Belford. It has succeeded quite beyond my dreams, do not you think?”

With that, Jonathan seized Sophie’s hand and kissed it before the assembled crowd.

They broke out into a roar of exclamations that did not end until Sophie waved at the crowd in a plea for quiet.

She looked out over the assembled guests, recognising so many faces: new friends, old acquaintances who had dropped them when the family money was lost, fashionable people she knew to be troublemakers as heartless as Mary Collins herself, and even a few friends of the heart.

“Thank you, everyone,” Sophie said. “I believe the evening has been disrupted long enough. Let us dance!”

The crowd roared its appreciation, and Jonathan nodded to the musicians. They began to play again, as sweetly as ever, if somewhat more loudly, and Sophie and Jonathan could at last make their way back to their family.

“Well done,” Mrs Anderson said quietly. “Very well done indeed.”

“You do not object, mama?” Sophie said in relief. “It was hardly genteel to say so much, so openly. And Mary is my cousin.”

“She remains your cousin, more’s the pity,” Mrs Anderson said firmly, “but she is no family of ours. No, my darlings, I have no objection.”

“Thank you, Mrs Anderson,” Jonathan said gratefully. “I appreciate the indulgence.”

“It required none,” Mrs Anderson said tranquilly, and stepped back to allow Sarah and Isabel to race up. Sarah tightly embraced her brother.

“They will be talking of this for a year!” she exclaimed. “Mary Collins will never be able to show her face in London again. I do not know if she would even be accepted in Bath. She may have to leave England entirely.”

“I should probably be sorry, but I find I am not,” Sophie remarked cheerfully.

“No, you should not be,” Isabel insisted. “I, for one, shall feel much more at ease in society if Mary Collins is nowhere near it.”

Sophie hugged her little sister. “Then I shall cease even to think of regrets.”

Arthur joined them, limping a little. Jonathan looked at him in concern. “I put you under a great deal of strain tonight. I hope it has not worsened your leg,” he said.

Arthur chuckled. “Not at all. I thought it best to accompany your footman and see that Miss Collins did not turn back before reaching the gate. She kicked me in the shin on the way out — that is all. I was sorry to see such unladylike behaviour, but it was more than worth any pain in my leg to see her off to a hired carriage. I believe the lady thought it beneath her, but as she would neither call for her carriage, nor accept the use of mine, there was little choice.”

Isabel laughed. “It is just like Mary Collins to think that a hired carriage is beneath her. And may that be the last any of us sees of her!”

He smiled at her. “I should not be at all surprised if it was.”

Sophie looked at them curiously, glad to see a moment free of the odd tension that had always seemed to exist between them.

Yet in the next moment, it was as though each recalled that they were determined to dislike the other, and they both turned away, Isabel to speak with Sarah, and Arthur to pay a compliment to Mrs Anderson.

Jonathan was grinning crookedly at her. “The ball was not quite as I imagined, Sophie, but I find I am rather pleased with it. And you?”

She took his hand and squeezed it. “It presented some surprises, to be sure. But do you know, I do not think I would change a thing.”

At the look in his eyes, she caught her breath. “Nor would I, Sophie. Nor would I.”

And with that, he leaned down and kissed her, slowly and lingeringly, as though he could never bear to be parted from her.