Page 9 of Love’s Refrain at Roslyn Court (Noble Hearts #2)

Nine

SOPHIA

L ady Poole did not seem pleased.

She was getting out of the carriage just as Sophia and Isaac returned to the house, having been out visiting a neighbour. She stopped as she saw them, and stared for a moment, before opining that the major must be feeling much recovered.

“You have come from the lake, I see.” There was no need to tell her they had, in fact, been to the village. “Louisa was to take you there.”

Isaac stood tall and returned an unblinking gaze, suddenly every inch the soldier he claimed no longer to be.

“The air here is invigorating and restorative and I wished to take some exercise. Miss Bradley was kind enough to show me the way.” He, too, told the truth, but left out a great deal of information. Sophia tried to hide a swallow.

“Well…” her aunt said at last, clearly not wishing to be too rude to the future viscount. “I can understand that. I do hope this will not interfere with your planned outing with my daughter tomorrow. She was to show you the arbour with the vista, but if you have seen it…”

“I am looking forward to our adventure very much, ma’am. We did not explore the arbour at all, but merely walked a while and turned back.” Another truncated truth.

“And what of you, Sophia? Were you not to go to the village to see about the candles? The ones we received last time were not acceptable quality.”

Sophia let out a short puff of air and pulled her shoulders back.

“I did go, Aunt. I walked with Louisa to the school and continued to the chandler after I left her. The issue with the candles has been sorted out, and Mrs Oswald will soon be in possession of a better set.” Let her aunt assume she met the major after returning from her errand. She would not breathe a word.

“Very well. Speak to Mrs Oswald at once about them. Off you go.”

She bobbed her head in parting to Isaac, and thought she saw, behind his stern military expression, a glint of amusement in his eyes.

Likewise, at dinner, her aunt’s eye kept roving between Sophia, sitting near the far end of the table, and Isaac, seated closer to her uncle.

At a large dinner party, they would have no opportunity to talk or even acknowledge each other, but here, with only six of them at the table, they were almost face-to-face.

The lady said nothing of Sophia and Isaac’s walk, but directed her entire conversation to Louisa, admonishing her to take every care with the major’s health the next day and hardly speaking at all to Isaac himself.

“It will not do to allow the poor man to take ill again. We must ensure that there are pillows on the benches at the arbour should you wish to sit, and have Cook pack a good basket of food. Ginger beer, perhaps, or lemonade, and a nice selection of pies and cheeses.”

Lady Poole turned to her niece at last. “Sophia, I can entrust this to you. Susie can accompany them to serve, so you will not be needed, but I do have some tasks for you. We have been invited to the Wrights, as you know, and I must reciprocate, so we shall discuss the details then.”

And so, the evening went. Louisa, who was at the centre of this scheme, was allowed not a word of objection, and Sir Neville sat with a bemused expression and likewise said nothing, only occasionally glancing at the listings in the newspapers about the most recent races and which horses would be running closer to home.

Sophia was commanded to play music after the meal whilst the others were at cards—a perfect foursome since Diane was not interested in the diversion, accompanied by Haydn—and then the whole party were sent to their rooms for the night, without giving her and Isaac a moment to say so much as good night to each other.

She closed the door to her little bedroom at the end of the hall and placed her lamp on the mantel over the fireplace. It was mild and the grate was empty, but the light from the lamp was enough to fill the space.

She unlaced her gown—all her clothing, save the full dress she wore when she must appear with the family, was of a style that required no maid—and slipped the tiny round buttons at the sleeves from their loops, mulling over this strange notion.

Could her aunt really imagine an attachment between her and Isaac? It seemed quite impossible.

Isaac was no one important now, to be sure, but barring the unlikely, he would one day be a viscount. He would dine with earls, command a great estate, sit in Lords, and be so far above her as to be quite unreachable.

And she, Sophia, would still be the shamed daughter of a wastrel and a suicide, whose shockingly behaved mother’s only saving grace was to have a sister married to a baronet, thus saving Sophia from starvation.

She had no prospects, no connections to speak of, and no expectations of ever marrying at all.

After all, she could manage a house and play the pianoforte, but these were accomplishments that would serve her better as a governess or companion than as a wife and mistress of any sort of house.

As a viscount, Isaac would not even contemplate her.

That she found herself admiring his features more and more all the time, or thinking of their conversations, or looking forward to their next meeting, was all nothing.

A mere diversion, not even a flirtation.

She could not consider him, and he certainly would never consider her.

No, it was more than clear that her aunt had every intention of matching Isaac with Louisa. What mother did not have dreams of her daughter marrying into the nobility, after all? And Louisa was certainly pretty enough and raised with the appropriate graces and manners.

Louisa’s own wishes were, to her mother, irrelevant.

Sophia was not entirely sure of the nature of Louisa’s friendship with Jeremy, but they seemed determined.

Louisa was still young—only nineteen—but certainly not too young to marry, and Jeremy was twenty-two.

He was educated and had a prosperous, if not esteemed, future ahead of him.

Only Lady Poole’s ambitions stood in the way of their happy union.

But none of this had anything to do with her, Sophia. She was quite extraneous to this matter. Why, then, was her aunt so unhappy at the thought of her and Isaac talking to each other?

She folded her clothing and set it all aside for Sarah to take to the laundry in the morning, then plaited her hair to keep it neat whilst she slept. In a moment, she was under the covers, her head resting on a soft pillow.

No, she had no cause to complain, no need to marry.

She had a comfortable home here with everything she needed: a room all her own, a warm bed, plentiful food, and no onerous or excessive demands on her time.

She had the freedom to go where she wished, as long as her tasks were completed, and access to a good library and supply of music, not to mention the fine instrument in the music room.

And she had it from her cousin Ned that when, hopefully many years from now, Sir Neville passed on and Ned became the next baronet, she would be welcome to remain under the same easy conditions: secretary to the family, companion to Ned’s wife, governess to his children, cherished cousin.

Why should she ever need to leave this to marry?

Why would the idea not leave her head?

She turned over under the sheets, trying to find a comfortable position, and then rolled over again. Sleep teased her, but would not come, no matter how she shifted or thought about ledgers or tried to settle her mind.

Somewhere in the house, the big pendulum clock chimed two. Two o’clock in the morning was no time to be lying awake! Perhaps it was too hot in here. The weather had been warm of late, and even without a fire heating her chamber, it gathered heat during the day. Was her window open?

The still draperies suggested it was not, and Sophia climbed out of her bed to amend that.

She stood by the now-open window, letting her eyes rove absently across the darkness outside.

The half-moon picked out faint outlines of the trees down by the lake, reflecting off the water in the fountain in the gardens. It was still, silent…

What was that? A shadow moved across one delicate moonbeam. As Sophia watched, the shadow formed into the shape of a man, standing out in the empty dark garden behind the house. It must be Isaac. What was he doing there, when he ought to be in his bed, asleep?

With no expectation of reaching that state herself, Sophia pulled on her robe and then threw a shawl over her shoulders.

With the current fashion for pale skirts, her nightgown looked little different from what she might wear had she been dressed to walk to the village.

Of her feet, unstockinged and only in slippers, peeking out from beneath her hem, she could do nothing. So be it.

Tucked as it was at the end of the hall in the family’s wing of the house, Sophia’s room stood beside the small staircase that led to the solarium near the kitchens.

She used these stairs often when she did not wish to disturb the family, and she used them now, making her way first down towards the small office used by Mrs Oswald in her duties as housekeeper, and then through the kitchens to the door leading outside.

Isaac must have come this way as well, for the lock was unbolted.

He turned when he heard her approach. All she could see was his silhouette, black against black, but from the drape of his garments, he, too, must be wearing a coat over a banyan.

“I saw you from my window,” she explained without preamble. “I could not sleep. It was too warm.”

“I seldom sleep well. Tonight was… particularly difficult.”

His voice was tight.

“The nightmares? You have spoken of them.”

His shadow moved. Was it a nod?

“There are times when remaining awake is the better choice,” he whispered.

“It is peaceful here, out under the stars. The breeze blows away the bitter smoke in my mind. The sky offers me an escape.” Then, suddenly, he asked, “Will we not disturb your relations if we speak? I cannot wish that. Your aunt…”

Sophia shook her head. She wondered if he could see it, or if she were as much a shadow in the darkness to him as he was to her.

She approached a little closer, to see him better.

“No. The family’s suites all face the front of the house, with the hall running along this side.

My room is the exception, for it is at the end of the hall, there. ”

She pointed at a window, glinting dully in the faint moonlight, just one of a series of identical panes.

“When I come out here to escape my dreams, I shall look at that window and breathe more easily.”

She led the way to a bench by the fountain. It was still now, just a circle of water reflecting back the star-studded sky.

“Are the nightmares really that bad? No, do not answer. I know they are, else you would be asleep like the rest of the world. I would help, if I can. Does anything make them easier?”

Isaac shifted on the cold bench, and for a moment, Sophia imagined he might put an arm about her shoulders and pull her towards him. He did not. But his voice was warm with emotion when he spoke.

“Nothing… nothing until I… until I heard your music. That night, I slept. Not soundly, perhaps, but I slept. If it would not wake the household, I would beg you to play for me now. You bring me something so precious. If I could sell it, I would be the wealthiest man in England. You bring me peace.”

Moving without her conscious agreement, Sophia’s hand reached out to find Isaac’s, as it had earlier by the church. She stared at it, fingers now entwined with his, but neither released the grasp.

“Come with me,” she breathed. “Perhaps I might be able to help after all.”

She pulled him along the path, fingers still laced together, not towards the trail leading down to the lake but in the opposite direction, to a small building barely visible through the trees that encircled the gardens, now almost disappearing into the night.

The door was unlocked, and she pushed it open, then groped along a wall until her fingers found what they were seeking.

“This is an old outbuilding that Sir Neville had made into a little playhouse for us as children. When first I came here, and was so very sad and lonely, it was my refuge. My uncle is very kind when he remembers matters beyond his horses. He found an old clavichord in one of the attics and installed it here for me, so I might have my music when I was in no mind for company. We keep the instrument tuned, although I do not play it often now.”

Letting go of Isaac’s hand, she opened the instrument and let her fingers dance a few notes on the keys. It would do.

“Here, along this wall, there should be a chair. Can you find it? Good.”

She heard him settle into the old armchair, which she knew was also from the attic, with frayed upholstery and scratched wood, but solid and more than suitable for children at play, and then she made her way back to the clavichord.

It would never do for anything by Beethoven, with his thunderous notes and expansive range, but Haydn or Clementi would sound well, as would some of the simple airs she often played before dinner.

Searching her memory for something she knew by heart and could play entirely by touch, she let her fingers find the notes and soon music, delicate and quiet, poured out into the small dark room.

Sophia played until she had exhausted her repertoire of memorised pieces, and then repeated one or two.

There was now a faint band of light at the horizon, just enough to suggest that morning was on its way, and she knew she must return to her room.

The kitchen staff, at least, would wonder why the door was unbolted.

A faint sound tickled her ears, slow and rhythmic, the sound of a man’s soft breathing. He was asleep. Loathe to wake him, she found an old throw to drape over him as a blanket, and crept from the room, leaving him in peace.