only problem was that it was Jonathon’s money. Sophia hated feeling obliged to him for more than he’d already given her. Dear heavens, he’d spent a fortune on her already, having Wilma select her a new wardrobe and a host of other things. Still, she supposed he must be very rich too and wouldn’t really miss it, so she swallowed and nodded her assent.
‘Good,’ he muttered. ‘For a second there, I thought you were going to be stubborn and foolish. Again.’
Sophia blushed, knowing he was referring to her distress over the price-tags on some of the clothes Wilma insisted she buy. Sophia had telephoned Jonathon at his office in a panic, only to have her protest swept aside with total exasperation. Instead of his admiring her for not wanting to spend his money, he’d seemed angry at her worrying.
She’d since learnt not to complain when he ordered her to buy something he thought she needed. Her dressing-table was covered in jars of cosmetics and bottles of perfume she’d never opened, her drawers full of expensive and very delicate lingerie she felt it a sin to wear on an everyday basis. As if she’d been interested in material things, anyway, when her Godfrey was dying.
Jonathon came forward on his chair and cleared his throat. ‘Now along to the matter of our getting married…’
Sophia sat up straight. She’d been wondering when he’d get round to that. Of course, he wouldn’t want to go through with it. No one could condemn him for that. People said anything to make a person’s last days happy.
‘If you’ll just sign where indicated,’ he said, picking up a sheet of paper, turning it round and facing it towards her, ‘we should be able to get married next month.’
‘You mean you…you still want to m-marry me?’
His coming forward in the chair to pass over the document had brought him into full light, so that she saw the hard glitter in his blue eyes. ‘The word “want” does not come into it, Sophia. I have no other option. I could not live with myself if I did not fulfil my promise to my brother, for it was the first and only thing he has ever asked me to do for him. I realise I am not the sort of man you would choose for a husband, but we only have to go through the motions. It will not be a real marriage. Later on, we can secure a discreet divorce.’
Sophia gulped when he directed a pen her way.
Her hand had trembled as she took it, her signature wobbly. Now, five weeks later, she was signing her marriage certificate on the same desk, and her hand was shaking just as much.
When she’d signed for the last wobbly time, Sophia heaved a sigh of relief and gave the pen to Wilma who stepped forward with her usual brisk confidence. Dressed in a severely tailored brown woollen suit with black patent accessories, her straight brown hair cropped mannishly short, she still exuded a strength of personality that was oddly attractive. In seconds, she’d whisked her distinctive signature in the allotted spaces, followed by an equally dashing Harvey.
Sophia watched them both with a degree of envy. One day, she would be like that, she vowed. Undaunted by any situation, and totally in command of herself.
Her sigh carried a certain amount of disappointment in herself that all Godfrey had achieved with her had turned out to be an illusion. She’d mistakenly believed he’d turned her from a shy, ignorant girl into a culturally informed young woman who would not have been at a loss in any company.
But she’d been wrong, realising within days of her arrival in the cosmopolitan city of Sydney and the elegant grandeur of Parnell Hall that she was still a country bumpkin, with few real social graces and no style at all. Wilma had done her best in the dress department—she’d certainly been given enough money to squander—but a presentable face and good figure could not disguise Sophia’s innate lack of sophistication. Her recognition of her failings had obliterated her self-confidence, everything only made worse by her unfortunate reaction to Jonathon’s bossy, almost bullying nature.
Perhaps if he’d been a bit more like Godfrey…
She sighed again, thinking to herself that she’d never known two brothers less alike.
All the formalities over, Jonathon saw the hearty Mr Weston to the door while the rest of them returned to the sitting-room where Maud was still laying out the buffet supper she’d been preparing all afternoon. Ivy was standing around, looking lost. Wilma immediately pressed a sherry into her hands, Sophia declining. Harvey moved off to pour himself a drink from the selection of crystal decanters lined up next to the food.
‘I wanted to tell you how beautiful you look today, my dear,’ Ivy complimented Sophia.
‘Blue’s not her colour, though,’ Wilma joined in tactlessly before Sophia could say a word. ‘She’d have looked much better in cream with her dark colouring, but Sophia thought it too close to white.’
‘I can understand her not wanting to wear white,’ Ivy murmured. ‘If only poor Godfrey could have been here…’
The words hung in the air, the group falling silent as the wretched reality of the occasion sank in.
‘Then there wouldn’t have been a wedding at all, Mother dear,’ Jonathon inserted drily into the emotion-charged atmosphere.
All heads turned to stare at him, Wilma recovering first.
‘Hardly a fair thing to say,’ was her tart comment, ‘especially when Godfrey isn’t here to defend himself.’
‘Oh I have no doubt that Godfrey meant to marry Sophia,’ Jonathon elaborated, that sardonic edge still in his voice, ‘but he was, at the time of his death, still married to Alicia. It takes twelve months after the initial application to gain a no-fault divorce in this country and Godfrey had instigated nothing in the three years he’d been away.’
‘Do we have to talk about that today, Jonathon?’ Ivy looked quite distressed and Sophia’s heart went out to her. ‘We all know Godfrey meant to divorce that woman.’
Jonathon, however, was not about to be swayed.
‘He didn’t divorce her, though, did he?’ he drawled. ‘But that was just like Godfrey, wasn’t it? Always meaning to do something but never getting round to it.’
‘Jonathon, don’t,’ his mother cried brokenly, a hand coming up to flutter at her throat.
‘I’m sorry, Mother, but I’m the one who’s always had to pick up the pieces whenever Godfrey decided to run away from real life and embrace one of his fancies.’
Sophia sucked in a sharp breath, but Jonathon swept on, seemingly intent on assassinating his brother’s character.
‘The man never grew up, never developed a sense of responsibility. I’m prepared to forget his business fiascos, but when it comes to his personal life I find it hard to be as tolerant. Alicia might be a spoiled, mercenary bitch, but she didn’t deserve being walked out on without a word. She’s been in limbo for three years, for God’s sake. The least Godfrey could have done was give her a divorce. Then what does he do? He takes up with a girl almost young enough to be his daughter and makes her pregnant when he knew, he knew dammit, that he was dying. What kind of selfish stupidity was that, I ask you?’
A hushed silence descended on the room once Jonathon ran out of steam, and it was while the air vibrated with everyone’s tension that Sophia stepped forward and slapped
