and I have a feeling that the ale, or some other spirituous liquor, may have played a part in it. There can be no other reason for the fireworks to have all gone up at once like that.’
‘Unless someone did it deliberately.’
That was the second time someone had raised suspicions about the causes of the explosion. ‘Why would anyone wish to do anything of the sort?’ He wondered if he’d been right to so quickly dismiss the rumours that had reached Perceval’s ears about a shadowy figure loitering behind the scaffolding not long before the fireworks display had started. He shook his head. ‘The town council put on an event for the benefit of the townspeople, paid for by the local landowners.’
‘We had to pay for our tickets.’
‘You are not locals. Those holidaying in the area were allowed to attend, if they would subscribe. That seemed fair.’
‘I suppose it was,’ she conceded. ‘Mrs Pagett still got hurt, though. And, oh, yes, you were going to tell me how she does.’
‘I fear her road to recovery may be a long one. Although this one,’ he said in disbelief, ‘is not.’
He clearly hadn’t been paying enough attention to the route along which he’d been driving because they were at the end of Marine View already. And he hadn’t said the half of what he’d meant to say to her.
‘Do you attend the assembly,’ he asked her as he brought the curricle to a halt at the foot of her front steps, ‘at the Marlborough Hotel this evening?’
‘Oh, no, the very idea!’ Sofia indicated the bruising on her face with a wry smile. ‘I could not possibly go about looking like this.’
‘Your view, or your aunt’s? No, you need not bother to reply. I believe you would be bold enough to attempt anything, without giving a rap what anyone else were to say of you.’
* * *
Sofia’s heart skipped a beat. Once upon a time, her papa had praised her for being full of pluck. But her aunt had done her best to suppress that side of her. She’d warned Sofia that, because of her background, she needed to be much more careful in her behaviour than most young ladies. And, determined to please her, she’d done her utmost to stop behaving like a ‘hoyden’—she’d curbed her language and followed all the rules, no matter how strange she’d found them.
She’d ended up so repressed that nowadays, in company, she didn’t really speak unless she was spoken to, but was more likely to sit quietly in a corner doing embroidery. The only time she allowed her deepest, truest self to emerge was when she was out walking Snowball, deep in the woods, where nobody else was about.
She’d become the sort of girl who cared so much what people thought of her and might say about her that they all found her as dull as ditch water.
But this man did not believe so. He’d seen something in her that nobody else had seen for years. And in doing so, he had reminded her of who she’d once been. Before she’d started trying so desperately to please the only people who’d been willing to take her in.
She turned to observe his expression. He looked annoyed. But then those eyebrows made him look slightly annoyed all the time. And why should she wish to know whether his observation was meant as a reproof or a compliment, anyway?
And yet, somehow, it did matter.
Perhaps because if there was one person who liked the real her, then she might find the courage to be herself, instead of the pattern card of virtue her aunt had tried to make her into. The version of herself that nobody much liked, least of all herself.
‘In that case,’ he bit out crisply, ‘I shall have to take you out for a drive again tomorrow.’
‘What? I mean, why? I mean, I’m sure that is very kind of you—’
He shook his head. ‘I am not kind, Miss Underwood. I will take you for another drive because I have not had the time today to say all I wished to say to you,’ he said irritably. ‘And because it would be impossible to have any meaningful conversation in the confines of that house.’ He glared up at the drawing-room window, through which Sofia could make out the outline of her aunt through the net curtains.
Well, in that she could agree with him. She had never had a single conversation within her aunt’s hearing that had been truly meaningful. Or in which she had dared to express her own opinions. At least, not after the first month or so of living with her, by which time she’d discovered that her manners had more in common with the sort of women who followed the drum than a Proper Young Lady.
The groom had now reached the horses’ heads, so the Duke climbed down and came round to help Sofia down. Since it was far too high for her little dog to jump down, she handed Snowball to the Duke. He received the bundle of fluff with astonishment, before bending to deposit her on the pavement with a faint grimace of distaste, though he’d wiped it from his countenance before straightening up to extend his arm to Sofia.
‘I cannot think what you can possibly have to say to me,’ she said, glancing nervously at the drawing-room window. She’d enjoyed her outing, but she was already bound to get a dreadful scold for going off with this man alone. How much worse would it be if Aunt Agnes discovered he meant to repeat the offence again the next day?
‘Mrs Pagett, if nothing else,’ he replied, following her line of sight. ‘There was not enough time to discuss...’ His brows drew into a heavy scowl. ‘Next time I call for you, do try to stick to the topic at hand rather than digressing so much.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ If he was so annoyed with her, why was he bothering to waste any more of his precious time with her? And why hadn’t he kept the conversation going in the direction he’d wanted, come to that? She’d felt as if he’d been positively encouraging her to ask questions. But then, what did she know about what dukes considered good conversation? What any single man thought, come to that. She’d only really mixed with people carefully selected by her aunt and uncle. And the only single man they’d thrown in her way had been Jack, Uncle Ned’s nephew.
The Duke of Theakstone escorted Sofia to her front door, but did not come in. For a moment, she resented the way he’d abandoned her entirely to the mercy of Aunt Agnes.
Although, she reflected as she took off her coat, even if he had come in it would only have postponed the confrontation, not spared her from it altogether. She had flouted her aunt’s wishes and escaped her strict scrutiny. There was nothing anyone, not even a duke, could do to prevent her aunt from lecturing her.
But she was not going to take it lying down like a...a doormat. She would do better to spike Aunt Agnes’s guns.
So she entered the drawing room in what she hoped looked like an apologetic manner.
‘I do hope you are not angry with me, Aunt Agnes,’ she said while her aunt was still drawing breath. ‘But the Duke of Theakstone is such a forceful man that when he told me to go and put on my coat, it felt like a direct order. And I didn’t know how to disobey him.’
Her aunt regarded her through narrowed eyes for a moment or two before appearing to accept Sofia’s explanation. But then, why wouldn’t she? Sofia had worked so hard to conform to her aunt’s exacting standards that for the last couple of years she’d behaved like a veritable milksop.
Until the day she’d heard Jack
