“We’re all in a state,” Sesily replied. “None more so than you. Or must we remind you that you and your child are currently without a home?”
“Of course that’s not true,” Sophie interjected.
“No?” Seline asked, “Then you’ve a plan to marry the marquess and rescue us all?”
The casual question reminded Sophie of earlier in the afternoon, when she’d faced the truth about King—that he’d never love her. That he was never to be hers. That she was going to leave him, and spend the rest of her life wishing that their future would be different.
She shook her head, swallowing around the knot in her throat. “I’m not marrying him.”
“Then why are you here?” Seleste asked. “Are you taking up residence as his mistress?”
“That won’t help at all,” Seline pointed out.
“We need discretion!” the countess cried.
Sophie ignored the willingness that flared at the suggestion. If he’d offered her the role of mistress, she would take it. She would take whatever she could get of him. Whatever time he might give her.
She’d take him here or in London, forever or for an afternoon.
She loved him.
Surely, of all the emotions the human heart could explore, love was the worst.
She looked away from her family. “I was returning to Mossband when you arrived. He was returning me to the inn.”
Sesily groaned. “We’re ruined!”
The countess collapsed to her settee once more, dramatic as ever. “I knew all those books would eventually do you in!”
None of the other Talbot girls appeared to mind the accusation in the countess’s words, so Sophie did not linger on it, either. “To be fair, our reputations weren’t the most welcome to begin with.”
“At least we received invitations!” the countess protested. “Your sisters were all being courted!”
Seline’s brow furrowed for the first time since they arrived. “Mark won’t have me, will he?”
Sophie’s frustration could not be kept at bay. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said. “It’s not as though I did anything truly scandalous. The Duchess of Lamont faked her death and married the man thought to have killed her, and the ton can’t get enough of her.”
“She didn’t publicly malign the aristocracy!”
“Oh, yes. That’s quite worse than ruining a man’s life. Whatever will the rich and titled do now that I’ve insulted them?”
“They will ruin our lives!” Sesily said firmly, her trademark dry wit replaced with cool honesty. “Why do you think we’re here? Every one of us has lost our suitor! Because of you!”
“Every one of you has been mistreated by men who could not find their spine if they were kicked directly in it!”
“Those men were willing to have them!” her mother cried. “And they were willing to take you on, as well, Sophie, a welcome spinster!”
“That’s what I was? A future old aunt? Destined to rooms in the castle turret? Hidden away from life?”
“What kind of life could you have possibly planned on?” Sesily asked.
“Well. That was unkind,” Sophie replied.
The room grew quiet. “I apologize. But you must understand, Sophie, this is painful for everyone.”
“I didn’t mean for you all to suffer the residual effects of my . . .”
“Mistake.” Seleste again.
Except it wasn’t a mistake. For all the emotion since the Liverpool summer soiree, Sophie had lived more in the past ten days than ever before. She looked from one sister to the next. “I didn’t ever wish to be your burden. Not before this, and certainly not now.”
“You must have seen that it was a possibility, though,” said the countess, her tone softening the sting of the words. “You’re not the most . . .”
Sesily picked up where she left off. “Marketable.”
“Of us.” Seline finished.
Not beautiful. Not charming. Not exciting.
Unfun.
Except, in these recent days, she’d been all those things. And not because she’d been shot. Not because she’d dressed as a footman. Not because she’d sold away a carriage full of curricle wheels and run from her father’s henchmen. Not even because she’d nearly lost her virtue in a hedge maze.
Because she’d fallen in love with King.
Because he’d fed her strawberry tarts and kissed her senseless and tempted her with a glimpse of a life that was more than she’d ever imagined. Because he’d teased her with the idea that she was more than Sophie Talbot, the youngest and least interesting of the Soiled S’s.
And then her family had arrived, and reality threatened. But she would not return to it without telling them the truth. She looked from one sister to the next. “If they will not have you because of me, they were not worth having.”
“Oh?” Seline said, quick to defend her suitor, “And your Eversley—who will not have you—he’s worth nothing, I assume?”
It wasn’t the same thing at all. He wasn’t turning her out because she’d knocked the Duke of Haven into a fishpond. Indeed, he’d remained at her side after discovering what she’d done.
He was worth everything.
“You did this on purpose,” Sesily was saying. “You never wanted to be an aristocrat. And now you’ve dragged the rest of us back into the muck with you. Look at us, faded and wrinkled after days in a carriage. In Cumbria.”
“It’s beautiful here,” Sophie said.
“If you like sheep,” replied Sesily.
“And green,” added Seleste.
“It’s not London.” Seline sighed.
“Honestly, we should be called the Spoiled S’s.”
“None more than you, Sophie.” The retort was from Seraphina, and Sophie turned to her, shocked by the words. Her eldest sister spoke quietly, the words somehow firm and kind. “Do you know how we responded when we returned home after the Liverpool party to discover that you’d left with nothing more than the word of an alleged footman dressed in stableboy’s clothing? We were so proud of you. You’d turned your back on a world for which you’d never cared. I thought it was quite wonderful.” She tilted her chin toward the other Talbot sisters. “As did they, though they won’t admit it.”
“I’ll admit it,” Sesily said. “You’ve always been the first to defend us. I was very happy to defend you.”
“And I,” Seline said. “Mark thought you were damn fantastic.”
“Seline, language.”
“It was Mark’s language, Mother.”
“Well, I am unable to admonish him.”
Sophie smiled. She’d missed her sisters. Her mother. The whole wild family.
“But it wasn’t so easy to be proud of you when London turned on us. We didn’t expect the aristocracy to simply exile us,” Seline added. “Which I’m sure sounds like heaven to you, Sophie. But . . .”
“It’s not for us,” Seleste finished.
Of course, Sophie knew that. She didn’t wish them the life she wanted. She wished them all the life they wanted for themselves. Happiness in the shape of garden parties and titles and invitations to Windsor Castle.
She sighed. “I am sorry that I have caused such trouble,” she began. “But if the scandal sheets have taught us anything, it is this: when the summer is over and you’ve all returned to London—without me—Society will forget you ever had a youngest sister, and your gentlemen will return. And, if they do not, you’re all young, beautiful, and outrageously wealthy,” she pointed out. “The three most important qualities in a future bride. You’ll find other gentlemen. Who deserve you more.”
Silence fell.
“You deny it?” she said, looking from one to the next. “I assure you, you all remain beautiful, despite my scandalous behavior. I shall ask Papa for my dowry, and fade away. All will be well.” She turned to Seline. “It’s you who always says we’re like cats. You’ll survive this. Easily.”
“Even cats have a limit on their lives,” the Counte
ss said, the sad words strangely familiar. An echo of the Liverpool Summer Soiree.
When everything had changed.
“It’s not beauty that’s the problem,” Sera spoke quietly from her place on the edge of the tableau. “Sophie—”
“It’s the blunt.” The words came from the door, which Sophie hadn’t heard open. Her breath caught as she turned to her father, crop still in hand, trousers still covered in dust and horse sweat.