in the hallway. Not that she could account for a man claiming to be a duke turning up and asking after her. As far as she was aware, she’d never met a duke in her life.
‘Yes, yes, show him in here, then,’ said Uncle Ned impatiently. ‘Must be some mistake. Get it cleared up in a trice, I dare say. Ah, good morning,’ he said, tossing his newspaper aside and getting to his feet to greet the man who strolled in. As though he owned the place. Which was what he was claiming, though he couldn’t possibly. For this was no duke. This was the waiter from the evening of the fireworks that had gone wrong.
The waiter nodded to her uncle, then made straight for her, his ferocious brows lowering into an expression of concern.
‘Your poor face,’ he said, stretching out a hand as though he would have stroked her black eye, only withdrawing it at the very last moment, as though suddenly recollecting his manners.
But she felt as though he’d touched her all the same. Which gave her a very odd feeling. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had looked as though they had wanted to touch her with affection. Or concern. Certainly not Aunt Agnes. On first seeing Sofia, she’d shuddered with revulsion before sending her off to be stripped and scrubbed clean by a very junior housemaid. And had held her at arm’s length ever since.
‘Try to remember you are a lady born,’ was her most frequent refrain. Which had swiftly supplanted her first maxim: ‘You are in England now and must act accordingly.’
Although last night, after seeing Sofia’s ruined gown and not seeing Betty’s cloak, she’d bombarded Sofia with just about her entire arsenal of verbal weaponry. And this morning, when she’d arrived at the breakfast table sporting a black eye, far from reaching out to her the way this man had just done, she’d raised her hand to her own brow. ‘Just like your father,’ she’d moaned. ‘Never happier than when he was neck deep in mischief.’
Which was most unfair. Sofia had worked so hard to become a Proper English Young Lady that nowadays everyone within ten miles of Nettleton Manor thought she was a dead bore.
‘Has your niece,’ said the waiter who was masquerading as a duke, ‘received medical attention since the night of the bonfire?’ He rounded on her uncle, looking distinctly annoyed.
‘It is only a few bruises and scratches, nothing more,’ said Aunt Agnes in self-defence.
He then raised one of those eyebrows towards her aunt in a way that would have shrivelled Sofia, had it been directed at her.
For a moment, Sofia thought about telling Aunt Agnes that there was no need to quail under the force of those eyebrows. They might look lethal, but they adorned the forehead of a mere waiter. Not a duke.
However, it wasn’t often that anyone took her part against her uncle and aunt. And so she remained silent while Aunt Agnes flushed and began to stammer excuses.
‘She sees a doctor regularly. She is here for her health, after all. For the sea bathing.’
‘Her health?’ His voice dripped with such disdain even Sofia could see how he could pass for a duke. ‘Then what was she doing out at night, in the chill air?’
‘It’s all moonshine, the notion that Sofia is invalidish,’ broke in Uncle Ned. ‘This trip to the seaside is all down to my wife’s brother putting a lot of ridiculous ideas into their heads.’
Sofia blushed and hung her head, since Uncle Ned was closer to stating the truth than he knew. And she still felt a bit guilty about the way her Uncle Barty had manipulated them into bringing her here.
‘What you need,’ he’d said, the last time he’d been over to visit her, ‘is to get away from this devilish dull backwater and meet some people other than rustics. Go about a bit. Attend some dances. That will put the roses back into your cheeks,’ he’d prophesied. And then he’d proceeded to harangue his sister for neglecting Sofia to such good effect that they’d all decamped to the fashionable seaside town of Burslem Bay, to see if a course of sea bathing might help restore her appetite, so that she’d regain the weight she’d lost over winter.
‘Now, Ned, that isn’t fair,’ said Aunt Agnes. ‘Poor Sofia was wasting away...’
Uncle Ned snorted. ‘You wouldn’t have dreamed of spending all this money on a cottage by the sea if your pestilential brother hadn’t started throwing his weight around.’
‘But he is as much her guardian as either of us, Ned. Of course he thinks he has a say in her welfare...’
Sofia was beginning to curl up with embarrassment. It was bad enough when they argued about her as if she wasn’t there. But to do so in front of a stranger, as well?
The so-called Duke gave the bickering couple another look of disdain, before sauntering across the room and taking the chair next to hers.
‘You must wish to know how Mrs Pagett is faring,’ he said.
‘Mrs Pagett?’ Lord, but her voice had come out all squeaky. But then he was a bit overwhelming, up close. He exuded so much confidence and vitality.
Just as if he really was a duke.
‘The woman whose aid you went to when her dress caught fire.’
‘Oh, yes, thank you! How is she? Did you find a doctor for her—?’
‘Sofia, really,’ her aunt interrupted, roused from her quarrel with Uncle Ned by the sound of Sofia actually conducting a conversation which she was not supervising. ‘Remember your manners. Please forgive her, Your Grace. I am sure she does not mean to be so impertinent, peppering you with questions like that.’
‘Not at all,’ said the waiter-Duke. ‘She is merely expressing a very feminine curiosity and concern for someone whose unfortunate accident has clearly shocked her very much.’
Sofia promptly decided she liked him, no matter whether he was a waiter or a duke, or something else entirely. For nobody, apart from Uncle Barty on the rare occasions he could be bothered to visit, had ever defended her from one of her aunt’s criticisms, not to her face like that. Not in all the years she’d been living under her roof. The locals had all, without exception, expressed sympathy upon hearing that Lady Norborough had taken in the orphaned offspring of her scapegrace younger brother. And prophesied that she’d have her hands full taming the result of such a scandalous match as he’d made.
Having delivered his set-down, the waiter who claimed to be a duke turned back to Sofia. ‘My personal physician is overseeing her treatment. He thought it best to install a nurse in her home, for day-to-day care. He informs me that her injuries are not so severe as you might suppose, given the spectacle she made when her gown caught fire. The damage was confined mostly to her clothes and the lower part of her legs, particularly her right leg. And her hands when she tried to beat out the flames. There is some blistering about the face and the loss of some hair, but I am informed it will grow back. Her hair, that is.’
Sofia shuddered. ‘Oh, how awful. The poor woman. But thank goodness you got to her so quickly.’
He dipped his head in acknowledgement of the part he’d played in Mrs Pagett’s drama.
‘How I wish... I mean, is there anything I can do?’
‘Of course there is nothing you can do, you foolish girl,’ said
