‘In my eyes,’ declared Joshua, ‘you are the prettier.’
Miss Challoner seemed to consider this. ‘Yes?’ she said interestedly. ‘But then, you chose puce.’ She shook her head, and it was apparent she set no store by the compliment.
When Sophia returned from her party it was long past mid-night. She shared a bedchamber with her sister, and found Mary awake, ready to hear an account of the night’s doings. While she undressed she prattled on of this personage and that, of the toilettes she had seen, of the supper she had eaten, of the secret walk she had stolen, and the kiss she had received, of how Eliza had come upon them, and been near sick with jealousy, and much more to the same tune.
‘And I’ll tell you what, Mary,’ she ended jubilantly, ‘I shall be my Lady Vidal before the year’s out, you mark my words.’ She curtsied to her own reflection in the mirror. ‘‘Your ladyship!’ Don’t you think I shall make a vastly pretty marchioness, sister? And everyone knows the Duke is getting very old, and I daresay he can’t last very long now, and then I shall be your grace. If you don’t wed my cousin, Mary, maybe I shall find you a husband.’
‘What, have I a place in all these schemes?’ inquired Mary.
‘To be sure, you need not fear I shall forget you,’ Sophia promised.
Mary regarded her curiously for a moment. ‘Sophia, what’s in your mind?’ she asked suddenly. ‘You’re not fool enough to think Vidal means marriage.’
Sophia began to plait her hair for the night. ‘He’ll mean it before the end. Mamma will see to that.’
‘Oh?’ Mary sat up in bed, and cupped her chin in her hands. ‘How?’
Sophia laughed. ‘You think no one has brain but yourself, don’t you? But you’ll see I shan’t manage so ill. Of course Vidal don’t mean marriage! Lord, I’m not so simple that I don’t know the reputation he bears. What if I let him run off with me?’ She looked over her shoulder. ‘What then, do you suppose?’
Mary blinked. ‘I’m too mealy-mouthed to hazard a guess, my love.’
‘Don’t fear for my virtue!’ Sophia laughed. ‘Vidal may think I’m easy, but he’ll find he’ll get nothing from me without marriage. What do you think of that?’
Mary shook her head. ‘We should quarrel if I told you.’
‘And if he won’t wed me,’ Sophia continued, ‘then mamma will have something to say, I promise you.’
‘Nothing is more certain than that,’ agreed Miss Challoner.
‘Oh, not to Vidal!’ Sophia said. ‘To the Duke himself ! And I think Vidal will be glad to marry me to prevent the scandal. For there is my uncle as well as mamma, you know, and he would create a rare to-do. Vidal will have to marry me.’
Miss Challoner drew a deep breath, and lay back on her pillows. ‘My dear, I’d no notion you were so romantic,’ she drawled.
‘I am, I think,’ nodded Sophia innocently. ‘I have always thought I should like to elope.’
Miss Challoner continued to observe her. ‘Do you care for him?’ she asked. ‘Do you care at all?’
‘Oh, I like him very well, though to be sure, I think Mr Fletcher dresses better, and Henry Marshall has prettier manners. But Vidal’s a marquis, you see.’ She took a last complacent look at her own image, and jumped into bed. ‘I’ve given you something to think of now, haven’t I?’
‘I rather believe you have,’ concurred Miss Challoner.
It was certainly long before she fell asleep. Beside her Sophia lay dreaming of the honours in store for her, but Mary lay staring into the darkness, and seeing before her mind’s eye, a black-browed face, with a haughty thin-lipped mouth, and eyes that seemed to her fancy to look indifferently through her.
‘You’re a fool, my girl,’ Mary told herself. ‘Why should he look at you?’
She could find no reason at all, being singularly free from conceit. She could find very little reason either why she should want the gentleman to look at her. She took herself to task over it. What, was she to turn into a languishing miss? A bread-and-butter schoolgirl, sighing for a handsome face? God help the woman Vidal’s fancy lighted on! Ay, that was a better tune. Like father, like son. The old Duke’s affairs had been the
talk of the town. He had a pretty-sounding name once; though he might be as virtuous as you please to-day. Satan, was it? Some such thing. They called the son Devil’s Cub, and not without reason, if the half of the tales told were true. Lord! Sophia was no match for the man. He would break her like a china doll. And how to prevent it? Again there seemed to be no answer. The plan the chit had in mind would have been laughable had it not been nauseating. To be sure Vidal deserved to get paid in his own coin, but that – no, that was nasty work, even if it succeeded. And what a plan it was! Faith, it seemed mamma was as foolish as Sophia. What would the noble family of Alastair care for one more scandal added to their list? The plague was, mamma and Sophia would never be brought to realise that they would come off the worst from that encounter. Uncle Henry? Miss Challoner grimaced in the darkness. From Uncle Henry to Aunt Bella was no great step, and from Aunt Bella to the world a shorter one still. Miss Challoner had no desire to publish Sophia’s indiscretions abroad. She began to nibble one finger-tip, pondering her problem, and so, at last, fell asleep.
The morrow brought his lordship before her again, this time no picture of the mind. Nothing would do but that Sophia must go walking in Kensington Gardens with her sister to meet Eliza Matcham. When Mary perceived the Marquis approaching them down one of the paths, she understood the reason for this unwonted desire for exercise.
As usual, he was richly, if somewhat negligently dressed. Miss Challoner, incurably neat, wondered that a carelessly tied cravat and unpowdered hair could so well become a man. Not a doubt but that the Marquis had an air.
Sophia was blushing and peeping through her eyelashes. His lordship possessed himself of her hand, kissed it, and placed it on his arm.
‘Oh, my lord!’ Sophia murmured, casting down her eyes.
His smile was indulgent. ‘Well, child, what?’ he said.