A Love Match

10 - Sophie

Towards the end of April, Jonathan came to visit us in Winchester just as Frederick left for London. Violet and the children were overjoyed to have him here and we all had a wonderful week full of family excursions. I still received my daily letters from Nicholas, which I now started keeping in my desk drawer. Some days I would see or think something that I would want to share with him, and my hands would itch for a pen, but I restrained them with needlework or watercolours. On the Sunday when Jonathan left, Violet excitedly summoned me and Isabella into the drawing room for tea.

"I have a delicious story to tell you two!"

Isabella and I both burst out laughing, since this was very typical behaviour for our older sister. But her stories were good, so we simply settled in and listened.

"Jonathan was the one who told me about this. Do you remember his young cousin Henry? Fairfield? Tall, dark, kind of looks like Jonathan?" Upon seeing our blank faces, she continued: "No? Alright, never mind. Dear Henry has been working at a lawyer's office this past year, as a secretary, and the lawyer just so happens to be your dear husband's lawyer, Sophie."

She smiled triumphantly, whereas I only raised an eyebrow at her.

"So one afternoon, Jonathan is at his gentleman's club and he sees cousin Henry with the Earl of Pembroke, who we all know is Nicholas' best friend. He approached them to say hello, and they ended up dining together.

Upon Jonathan's inquiry as to how the two gentlemen were acquainted, Earl Sinclair told him the most interesting story."

Here Violet paused with a naughty glint in her eyes, knowing fully well that now we were both hooked by her story.

"Good Lord, Violet, don't torture us!" Bella exclaimed. "Pray tell what the Earl said!"

"Alright alright I see you are getting impatient. Turns out that the Duke of Ashbury had enlisted both of them to help him with a very special project – namely, the financial ruin of one Lady Victoria Waltham," she looked at me triumphantly and I was sure my mouth dropped open at the information.

"Sinclair was, for some reason," here she shot me another significant look but I was still stuck on her previous sentence, "very generous with the information he shared with my dear husband. Turns out, Lady Victoria had overstepped and inappropriately approached someone very important to the Duke, which caused him to buy up all of her late husband's debt, take her town house from her, and force her to move to an estate she has in Scotland. Says she screamed like a banshee when they told her," Violet then primly lifted her teacup and took a sip as if she hadn't just turned my whole world upside down.

"So he ruined the witch? And forced her out of town? Oh, this is so romantic!" Isabella squealed and I couldn't help but smile at her interpretation of things.

"Don't you see, Sophie! He loves you! Look at his actions," she half-mocked as Violet nodded along.

"I don't know what to think," I gasped as soon as I was able to speak again.

"Well, my dear, luckily you have all the time in the world to find out," Violet concluded sagely and took another sandwich.

When Nicholas came back from London a few days after that, I couldn't stop looking at him, hoping to get some insight into his behaviour. I had worked so hard to make peace with his actions during our first ball, and I had, in the end, managed to convince myself that I knew what the man wanted from life. All that was left was to adjust my own expectations accordingly. Now, however, I wasn't so certain of anything any more.

In the morning, we naturally fell back into our routine of walking together and I secretly enjoyed it.

"Sophie, I have something I'd like to ask of you," he'd said that first morning back. "It is a big ask, so I completely understand if you refuse."