Sweet as the Devil (37 page)

“And I’m just saying you’re completely demented,” Sofia pithily replied.

Rosalind grinned. “There’s always Dex, I suppose.” “Very funny. He’s not my style.”

“Then you’ll have to find someone who is, won’t you?”

“I suppose I must,” Sofia murmured with an air of feigned docility. “Do you have any candidates in mind?”

“I have a couple,” Fitz cheerfully said, appearing around the side of the pavilion. “Hello, darling. Hello, Sofie.” Bending low, he kissed his wife’s cheek. “How are you feeling?” he whispered.

“Better.” Reaching up, she touched his arm. “Monty was asking for Papa.”

“I’m on my way up to the nursery. I just wanted to see how you were first.”

“Fine, fine. Sofia is entertaining me. But we must find her some entertainment now that she’s back in London.”

“The line is long, darling, for the lovely Sofie.” He grinned at her. “Dark or blonde, sportsman or intellectual. You have but to name your choice, my dear.”

She smiled back. “Surprise me.”

Fitz laughed. “Now there’s an order. You know everyone.” He glanced at his watch. “Monty will be up from his nap.” He lifted his hand. “Ladies, enjoy your afternoon.”

Rosalind watched her husband walk away with such love in her eyes, it cast a further pall over Sofia’s pesky megrims. Not that she actually admitted Jamie’s absence was of any real consequence. But she couldn’t muster her usual cheerful spirits either. And as if she weren’t disconsolate enough, Rosalind’s next words only added to her lowered mood.

“In case you’re wondering what that was all about, I’m pregnant again,” Rosalind said, her smile euphoric. “I’m so blessed; I never thought I could have children. And Fitz is such a dear,” she added, with the besotted look of a wife truly in love. “He stopped by because I was nauseous this morning when he left.”

“Congratulations,” Sofia managed to say in a normal tone, when the news only aggravated an issue of her own. “I should have known. You’re fairly blooming, as the saying goes.”

Rosalind put her hands to her cheeks and smiled. “I’m so
very
happy. We both are. Fitz is a devoted father. He adores Monty, and Monty’s first word was
papa
. They’re practically inseparable.”

Two years ago, no one would have bet a shilling that the Duke of Groveland would give up his bachelor ways, fall head over heels in love, and completely dote on his wife and child. In fact, several members at Brooks’s had lost a considerable sum on the shocking events that transpired.

“We must find someone equally wonderful for you,” Rosalind cheerfully said. “Really, dear, I shall set my mind to it forthwith.”

Out of sincere regard for her friend’s happiness, in the course of the next fortnight, Rosalind engaged herself in supplying eligible dinner partners for Sofia. Sofia, in turn, obliged her friend and occupied her evenings with a number of handsome men. The Season was in full swing, dinners and dances abounded, and in an effort to rid herself of the glorious, beguiling memories of Jamie, Sofia did her best to enjoy herself. And forget she’d ever met Jamie Blackwood.

To no avail.

No matter how delightful, handsome, or attentive her companion, she always made some excuse at the end of the evening and slept alone.

It was truly shocking and unsettling to a woman who prided herself on living in a man’s world with equal boldness. Sexually and otherwise. She was beginning to fear for her sanity.

She began painting with a frenzy, working long hours, slashing paint on her canvases with abandon, never quite satisfied with the outcome, always beginning again on a fresh canvas. And so it went, frantically socializing at night, wildly painting every day, fretful and brooding throughout.

Until Oz finally took her in hand.

They were out on the moonlit terrace of Groveland House, the heady scent of roses in the air, the ballroom behind them awash with dancers and music and hilarity. Oz was drinking as usual, though more judiciously now since his marriage; he lifted the glass in his hand and jabbed it in Sofia’s direction. “You’re pining, my dear. I never thought to see you so blue deviled. I fear you’re falling into a decline,” he said with a grin.

“Perhaps if I was some lily-livered, faint-of-heart damsel from another century I might fall into a decline,” she snapped.

“My, my, and snappish, too. Would you like my drink? It calms the nerves.”

“I’m perfectly calm,” she snapped again.

“Perhaps you really shouldn’t go to see him,” he sweetly said, “if you’re going to be nasty to him. He’s only just crawled out of the grave, I’m told.”

She swung around, skewered him with her gaze, and whispered, “Grave?”

“I thought you knew. Jamie’s been at death’s door.”

“I didn’t know.” She was finding it hard to breathe.

He set his drink down on the marble balustrade and took her hands. “Forgive me,” he softly said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“Rosalind never said anything.”

“She must not have known.”

“Did Fitz know?”

“I’m not sure. I thought it was common knowledge.”

“How did you hear?”

With a banking business that spanned the globe, Oz had a hundred sources of information. “A business associate in Athens, I think, but surely others in London have heard. His cousin no doubt and his uncle, too.”

“No one told me.”

“Ah—and you wish they had.”

She didn’t reply for so long, he bent and kissed her gently on the cheek. “If it’s any consolation, darling,” he said, looking down on her in the silvery night, “I had the same struggle with love or the meaning of love, with personal freedom or the lack thereof. It isn’t easy to accept change in your life. But if you’d like my advice, I’d say go to him.”

“He may not want to see me.”

“Don’t be foolish. There’s no man alive who wouldn’t want to see you.”

“There might be one.”

He smiled. “You won’t know unless you try. At least you’ll find out one way or the other. As a betting man, I’d lay odds you get what you want.”

“If I want it.”

He shrugged. “That’s a different matter.”

She softly sighed. “You’re happy now, aren’t you?”

“Over the moon, darling. And I abhor such rubbishy expressions, but it’s true.”

“So then.”

“So then,” he softly echoed. “Nothing ventured—et cetera, et cetera. Would you like me to see you through the hopeless train schedules in southern Europe? It’s not really safe for a woman alone.”

“Isolde wouldn’t appreciate you going.”

“She’s so busy with her fields this time of year I doubt she’ll notice I’m gone. She’s a farmer.”

“And you’re not?”

He smiled. “I’m a banker who’s learning to farm in England. A novice at the moment. Let me talk to her. Stay here. This won’t take long.”

Sofia lifted one brow. “So sure Isolde will oblige you?”

“We always accommodate each other in every way.” He grinned. “It seems to be working.”

Oz found his wife in a salon adjoining the ballroom where she and a small group of men were deep in a discussion of the price of corn, and he felt as he always did on seeing her. As if he were the most fortunate of men. “If I might speak with you for a moment, my dear,” he said, with a gracious smile for the gentleman surrounding her. Taking her hand, he drew her away.

“Lucky fellow, Lennox,” one of the men grumbled. “Don’t find women like the countess every day. A damned good farmer and a stunning beauty, too.”

Everyone nodded, and a few
hear, hears
were uttered along with one wistful sigh. Not everyone was there to discuss the price of corn.

“He’s a demned lucky dog if you ask me,” a middle-aged squire muttered, watching them walk away. “Cocky young buck.”

“So how is the price of corn?” Oz cheerfully inquired as he threaded his way through the clusters of conversing guests to a quiet corner of the room.

“Better. How’s Sofia doing?”

Oz’s glance drifted right. “Are you a mind reader?”

“I am of yours.”

He grinned and came to a stop. “What am I thinking now?”

Isolde slapped his arm lightly with her folded fan. “Behave, darling. People are looking.”

“I always worry about that,” he softly mocked. “But very well, I’ll behave,” he added in deference to his wife’s quelling gaze. “I have a favor to ask.”

“And I as well. When you see Blackwood, will you give him a good tongue-lashing for me? Poor Sofie’s been brooding over him ever since she returned to London.”

“I tremble before your prophetic vision,” Oz said with mock alarm.

“Pshaw. How could I not know? She’s been steeped in melancholy since her return like some tragic opera heroine. More to the point, she’s been celibate despite any number of men who’ve tried to tempt her otherwise. One doesn’t have to be intuitive with such blinding evidence. And,” Isolde said with a benevolent smile, “I know how you like adventure.”

“Thank you, darling. I’ll make it up to you when I return.”

“Just don’t stay long.”

He grinned. “Yes, dear, whatever you say, dear.”

“Very funny,” she murmured. “Now give me a kiss, then go and tell Sofie the good news.”

 

 

S
OFIA AND OZ left the next morning and traveled through Europe by private railcar staffed with a full retinue of Lennox servants. Oz was by turns consoling and bracing, supporting Sofia when she wavered, giving her the confidence that she’d made the right decision.

“We’ll rent a yacht in Trieste and continue by sea. The roads in the Balkans are atrocious, and the railway doesn’t come within fifty miles of Jamie’s home. There now, give me a smile.”

She’d invariably laugh; he in turn would flash her a grin, refill his glass, and lift it to her in salute. “I’m betting on you, darling. Don’t let me down.”

When they arrived at the small port near Jamie’s estate, Oz tactfully chose to remain on the yacht and send her ahead in a rented carriage with an escort from his staff.

“My people will wait for you in his drive,” he said after handing her into the carriage. He didn’t say,
In case Jamie kicks you out
, but that’s what he meant.

She felt like some shy, tremulous maiden on the journey, the narrow road skirting the Adriatic seemingly endless. Her nerves were all aflutter, her heart was beating in double time, and she kept smoothing the silk muslin of her skirt as if it mattered that she look her best.

When, at last, the carriage came to rest before an apricothued palazzo that could have graced the Grand Canal in Venice, she alighted and gazed up a long, wide marble staircase leading to huge doors bracketed with polished brass fittings. The splendor was off-putting, as was the sprawling Roman palace behind the pastel palazzo that soared like a monstrous, ancient monument up the ragged escarpment.

She almost turned around and reentered the carriage. In fact, she was about to do so when a familiar voice called her name and she turned to see Douglas hurrying down the stairs.

“I’m so pleased to see ye,” he said, smiling broadly as he came to a stop before her. “Ye came alone?”

“Oz is waiting in port. In case I’m thrown out.”

He grinned. “I might have a wee something to say about that.”

“How is he?”

“Difficult and quarrelsome, with a tongue like an asp. But himself’s on the mend, and he misses you.”

“Did he say that?”

“No, but he does.”

“If only I could believe you. Although,” Sofia said with a smile, plucking up her courage, feeling a measure of her old assurance, telling herself she’d already once brought the mighty Blackwood to heel, “I might like to see if my womanly wiles still work.” Untying the ribbon on her straw bonnet, she took it off and shook out her pale curls. “There, I’m ready.”

Douglas laughed. “Aye and ye have my blessing. He’s like a man with an itch. Come, I’ll take ye to the monster in his lair.”

D
OUGLAS ESCORTED HER to Jamie’s bedroom and quietly said, “He’s awake. I’ll leave ye here. Much luck to ye, lass.”

She watched him walk away, waited until he disappeared, and nervously ran her palms over the peach silk of her skirt. Douglas’s last words weren’t exactly encouraging. Then she reminded herself that she’d come a very long way for this and discretion had never been her strong suit anyway, nor the sensibilities that passed for virtue in the timid. So fie on useless apprehension.

She opened the door without knocking.

Standing in the doorway, she gazed at the dark-haired, handsome man lying in a magnificent rococo bed of bleached wood. “I came to see you,” she said.

“I see that.” She could have been at a picnic outing, he thought, in her bright summer gown, a straw hat dangling from its ribbons in her hand.

“I’m thinking of staying.”