“Are you certain this doesn’t bother your leg?” Sophie asked for the second time. West shook his head. “No more than anything else does.” Sophie pressed her lips together, clearly biting back whatever it was she actually wished to say. Instead, she merely offered, “That does not precisely answer my question.” He glanced sideways at her, weighing his words. Nothing about the first thirty-one years of his life had made him feel easy with admitting to even a hint of weakness—but this was Sophie. He had been comfortable unburdening himself to her... once. And the past week had done nothing more than remind him of all that he missed from those days. “If we ride too long, it will be sore later,” he conceded. “But I can tolerate it for a short distance—it’s certainly not any worse than my weekly fencing sessions with Hawthorne.” He expected her to debate him further—to take issue with the fencing, at least, which he was perfectly well aware no doctor would have advised—but she merely shook her head and said, “All right.” Catching his surprised look, she added, “If you think I’m going to waste my time arguing with a man who turns noble suffering into high art, you must have taken leave of your senses entirely.” “Noble suffering?” Sophie nodded, her gaze fixed on their surroundings—they were on Rotten Row at five o’clock, meaning it was positively teeming with aristocrats. It put one in mind of rats on a ship. “You have been raised with the knowledge that you are one day to possess enormous wealth and responsibility, and so you seem to have decided at some point that making a mild martyr of yourself is the best way to offer some sort of atonement for the privilege you inherited on the day you were born.” She ignored his indignant sputtering and offered a cheerful wave to Lady Wheezle, who was out walking one of her alarmingly small dogs and who gave Sophie a mildly suspicious look at this display of enthusiasm. This look quickly melted into one of intrigued delight upon seeing West at her side; he offered her a more restrained nod of the head in greeting as they rode past. “What do you think she does with the other dogs?” he asked Sophie in a low voice. “She only ever walks one at a time, but she must have half a dozen.” “How on earth can you tell? They all look the same—like potatoes with wigs.” West could not suppress an amused snort, and Sophie cast him a sideways glance, a smile cre eping across her own face. “They’re different colors,” he informed her. “There’s a black one, and a tan one, and a white one, and a sort of off-white one—”
“I did not realize that you paid Lady Wheezle sufficient attention to be able to describe her dogs in such detail. She’s a widow, you know. If you are seeking a new inamorata, once our ruse comes to an end.” West gave her an appalled look. “She must be at least seventy.” Sophie sniffed. “That merely means she’s experienced. I like to think that when I’m seventy, I could catch the eye of a dashing young nobleman if I set my mind to it.” “I’ve no doubt,” he said with complete sincerity, but this felt dangerously like flirting, something he did not trust himself to do with her—not when merely being at her side was sufficient to drive all thoughts of every other woman he’d ever kissed out of his mind. It would have been a lovely state of affairs, had they actually been betrothed. “Violet and Audley,” Sophie said in an undertone, interrupting West’s thoughts. He glanced up; his brother and sister-in-law were approaching them on horseback. Violet in particular looked downright delighted when she caught sight of them. “West! Sophie!” she called. “Violet,” West said. “James.” “We were just out for a ride,” Sophie said, smiling radiantly as she tried to nudge her horse closer to West’s. He reached out a hand to seize her by the elbow and steady her when her attempts at nudging threatened to dislodge her from her sidesaddle entirely. “Yes,” James said slowly, looking at Sophie with some perplexity. “We can see that.” “It’s a nice day for it,” West added inanely. Now Violet was looking at them strangely, too, but appeared determined to ignore the fact that West and Sophie seemed to have been r eplaced by two people who had never had an interesting conversation in their lives. “We ran into your father a few minutes ago, West,” she told him. “He was in a bit of a temper. I don’t suppose...” She trailed off, before adding delicately, “I don’t suppose he was very pleased to be informed of your betrothal in a note.” She seemed to be torn between disapproval and amusement. “No,” he agreed. “I don’t suppose he was. But if I were to list the number of things he has done over the years that I have not appreciated, we’d still be standing here at midnight, so I expect he shall learn to manage his disappointment.” Now James, Violet, and Sophie were all regarding him rather strangely. “West, are you feeling all right?” James asked, real concern evident in his voice. “Dearest,” Sophie said through a smile, “I thought you were going to inform him yourself.” “And so I did, my...” He trailed off; the word that had sprung naturally to his tongue was not one he could ever utter to her again. She was not his love—she was not his anything, not anymore. Not in truth, at least. His father had seen to that, seven years earlier. “Potato,” he finished weakly, Lady Wheezle’s rootvegetable-like dogs apparently still on his mind.
James’s eyebrows were approaching his hairline. “Your potato,” he r epeated, sounding as though he was approximately five seconds away from summoning a doctor. “You know how it is,” Sophie said quickly, never once allowing her smile to slip, though there was now a telltale, slightly hysterical twitching occurring at the corners of her mouth. “When one has been reunited with a long-lost love, it all feels fresh and new again, nicknames just... materialize.” “Nicknames in volving... vegetables?” James asked. “Now, James, need I remind you that I have made references to aubergines several times recently?” Violet put in innocently. “Vegetables are truly the height of romance.” West and Sophie both blinked. West leaned forward slightly in his saddle, to confirm that his brother was indeed blushing. “I do not think this is the time for that, Violet,” James said—West was mildly impressed that he was able to speak at all through so tightly clenched a jaw. “In any case,” Sophie said, mercifully interrupting this thoroughly disturbing turn the conversation had taken, “my... potato and I are very happy. I am so sorry to hear the duke does not share in our joy. Perhaps we should go discuss it with him directly?” She reached out to lace her fingers through West’s, a gesture that likely looked more affectionate than it felt, considering she was gripping his hand so tightly that he thought he was likely to lose feeling in it at any moment. Violet and James both looked mildly perplexed by this suggestion—it was not often that one of their set announced an intention to speak with the Duke of Dovington willingly—but West could hardly explain to them that they were attempting to rub an entirely feigned betrothal in his father’s face. Instead, he merely said, “Perhaps,” raising Sophie’s hand to his lips for a kiss; this, it was immediately obvious, was a mistake. The kiss was fleeting, but the smell of her skin was so familiar to him that he was instantly awash in memories—of the feeling of her lips against his, the taste of her skin, the silky weight of her hair in his hands. He dropped her hand as if he’d been burned. Sophie did not look at him as she said brightly, “Well, we’ll be off! Lovely to see you!” West kicked his horse into a trot, not daring to turn around as he and Sophie rode away. If he had to guess, however, he would wager that both James and Violet were watching their retreating backs with utter confusion. “That went well,” Sophie said, her voice positively dripping with sarcasm. “It was a rehearsal,” he said a bit stiffly, his eyes still on the path ahead. “We’ll do better next time, when we see my father.” “Will we?” she asked sk eptically. “You compared me to a root vegetable!” “I was put on the spot.” “You were not! If you cannot even come up with a moderately sane term of endearment without excessive consideration, then I think perhaps this plan might be doomed to failure.”
“Might I remind you,” he said, jerking the reins with more strength than he intended, causing his horse to come to a shuddering halt, “that this was your idea?” “Which you agreed to!” she hissed, reining in her horse as well. “If you don’t think you can play the role convincingly, you should have just told me so from the outset rather than allowing me to waste time and energy on this ruse instead of coming up with some other option.” “As if I’ve just been having a delightful time of it.” He was growing more irritated by the moment, and took a de ep breath, trying to master his temper. This was not a task with which he ordinarily had much difficulty—that was something he’d always prided himself on. But she did have a peculiar way of irking him that no one else had ever quite managed. “No one forced you to do this, you know.” “Perhaps you might have noticed that I have a peculiar difficulty in saying no to you,” he shot back. “Odd, then, that you had no trouble whatsoever rejecting me four years ago.” He could tell from the look on her face that she hadn’t meant to say this— that it had spilled out in the heat of the moment. The gentlemanly thing to do would be to ignore it, to try to steer this conversation onto more stable ground. Instead, what he said was: “Odd, as I seem to recall it a bit differently. I all but asked you to marry me, and you could barely control your eagerness to inform me of all the reasons that would never happen.” “Reasons that I would think you understood better now, given that I explained them to you not two days ago,” she said through gritted teeth. She must have dug her heel into her horse’s side, for it reared slightly—Sophie could have steadied it herself, but before she had the chance to do so his arm shot out, grasping her reins, bringing the horse back under control. Under his hand, one of Sophie’s hands still gripped the reins; he could feel the warmth of her skin through her glove. She looked up at him and exhaled a slow, shuddering breath. And it was at precisely this moment that he heard his father’s voice hailing him, less welcome at this instant than it had possibly ever been in West’s entire life. “West.” He wrenched his gaze away from Sophie’s face to see his father approaching on horseback. His father loved horses and he rode beautifully, his seat as impeccable as it must have been thirty years prior. West loosened his grip on Sophie’s hand as the duke approached, but did not drop it. “Father.” He inclined his head toward the duke. “I believe you remember Lady Fitzwilliam?” Sophie, for her part, offered the duke a serene smile. She was wearing a riding habit of forest green, and a matching hat was set atop her gleaming golden hair, which was combed into an elaborate braided knot at the back of her head. Her spine was straight and she’d loosened her grip on the reins so that they rested easily in her
hands—she might not be a natural horsewoman, but as the daughter of a viscount, she’d been taught to ride and had a good seat. She looked every inch a future duchess, and West knew it would not matter to his father one whit. The thought was enough to send a dangerous current of anger coursing through him; he’d been fighting against that anger for seven years, and was growing less interested by the day in suppressing it, now that he knew the full truth of what had happened all those years ago. “Indeed.” The duke glanced from West to Sophie and back again. “I was intrigued to receive a note from you, West.” “Yes.” West’s tone was careless, even as his grip on Sophie’s hand tightened slightly. “I thought you’d want to know about recent developments. I was so inspired by our discussion last week that I thought it best to take your advice to heart immediately.” “I see.” A muscle in his father’s jaw was ticking; West realized that he was perilously close to enjoying himself, and so pressed onward. “Yes. I’m certain you didn’t really mean to threaten me, but I started thinking about what you said, and all at once, I realized that Rosemere badly needed a mistress—and, eventually, the pitter-patter of small feet.” He managed to utter the words “pitter-patter” with a straight face, but it was a very near thing. He did not dare look at Sophie, but detected a slight stiffening in her posture out of the corner of his eye at these words. “And so you wasted no time in seeing to this matter.” “Exactly.” West offered his father a thin smile, which the duke did not return. “We are, naturally, so thrilled,” Sophie chimed in, offering the duke a smile of such sickly sweetness that West was surprised not to see bees buzzing about her. “My sister is also newly betrothed—to the Earl of Blackford, perhaps you’ve heard?—and we are discussing a double wedding.” These last words were uttered so rapturously that West half-expected to see tears glistening in her eyes as she spoke. “Would that not be lovely, Your Grace?” His father looked as though he’d just swallowed nails. “It would be... an event,” he managed. “The event,” Sophie corrected. “Of the entire Season, I expect! I mean to say —two of the ton’s most eligible bachelors, long causing despair to matchmaking mamas who eyed them like the fattest calves at the county fair, finally settling down to matrimony, both in love matches with daughters of a mere viscount.” She offered the duke another sickening smile, and West realized that—while she was undoubtedly enjoying herself a great deal in the moment—she was also very, very angry. It was a relief, this realization; he wanted her to be angry. She deserved to be angry. And, perhaps, if she was angry... Then she was still as pained by what had happened all those years ago as he was. She had explained the full history to him in even tones, not allowing emotion to cre ep into her voice, almost as if it were a show she’d seen at the theater, those in volved mere players upon a stage. But this thin, constant edge of anger that laced her voice now—this proved that she was not unmoved. That perhaps she still cared for him, beyond the obvious attraction that crackled between them like sparks. He could not suppress the quick surge of hope that rushed through him at this thought. “Truly an inspiring tale, Lady Fitzwilliam,” the duke said. “No doubt the re volutionaries in France would have cheered at this story of peasant triumph.” West glanced sideways at Sophie, whose smile faltered slightly at this, because —he was nearly certain—she was trying not to laugh.
“Quite,” she said primly. “No guillotines in your future, Your Grace! What a relief!” She offered a tinkling little laugh. And then, West witnessed one of the most astonishing things he’d ever seen in his entire thirty-one years of existence: His father’s lips twitched. As if he were amused. Naturally, he quickly wrestled them back under control. But Sophie was not yet done. “And I’m certain my parents will wish to host a betrothal ball, for Alexandra and me—you must attend. I’m sure Papa would be delighted to see you.” “Of course.” The duke was watching Sophie consideringly now, like a man who had gone into battle thinking his opponent armed with knives, only to be confronted with a cannon. “I shall be awaiting my post each day with bated breath.” His gaze flicked to West. “West. You will join me for dinner at my club on Sunday night as usual?” West inclined his head. “I wouldn’t dream of missing it, Father.” “Indeed. You have, after all, been so obedient of late.” The duke gathered his reins in his hands, and nodded at them. “Good afternoon.” And then he kicked his horse into a trot, and was gone. “You know,” Sophie said thoughtfully, “I really rather enjoyed that.”