The Firstborn

Chapter Twenty

Sophia opened her eyes, only to find herself gazing up at a shadowed ceiling she did not recognize.

London, she reminded herself, as her eyes fluttered closed again. Her fingers found their way to her forehead, kneading above her left eye where a headache throbbed with enough strength to make her feel as if she were still being bounced around in Lady Rutledge's carriage.

Her hands gripped the edge of the bed as she sat up, her breath hissing between her teeth as the pain in her head shifted and brought a surge of bile to the back of her throat. A deep breath, followed swiftly by another, and she dared to open her eyes again.

Someone had banked the fire during the night, though the candle she'd left burning in its holder on the nightstand had drowned in its own wax some hours before. The room was not cold, but as she swung her legs over the side of the bed, her bare feet sought out her knitted slippers and she took up her wrapper from the back of a chair where she'd abandoned it before falling asleep.

She shuffled towards one of the tall windows and pulled back the curtains. A faint green cast to the sky told her that dawn would soon be on its way, and also informed her that she must not have rested for more than a few hours since burrowing her head into the overstuffed pillows on Bess's bed.

The sill pressed into her hips as she leaned forward, until her forehead pressed against the cool glass and the throbbing in her head subsided. She needed to eat, having only picked over the tray of cold meats and sandwiches sent up to her room after Haughton had wished her a good night. For a moment, she considered slipping down to the kitchen and searching for a snack, but then reminded herself that not only was it not her home, but with a new day on the verge of beginning, no doubt the lowest of the servants had already risen from their beds, cleaning out the previous day's ashes in preparation for another round of cooking for an entire household.

The maid had put her things away in the wardrobe, though her luggage had only amounted to a few gowns and accessories, everything that could be fit into one bag. She took down a plain gown, washed her face and neck and under her arms with the cold water and cake of soap beside the basin, and dressed before the sky had taken on a more pinkish hue. Her hairbrush was still in her hand when the bedroom door opened, and a maid—not the same girl as the previous evening, and not the girl Lady Rutledge had provided to her for propriety's sake—poked her head into the room.

Before a minute had passed, the maid had introduced herself—Maggie, her name was—taken over the task of brushing and pinning up Sophia's hair, and informed her that she could break her fast there in her bedroom, the morning room, or the dining room. That was, if she didn't mind sitting down to enjoy a repast in a large room without anyone to accompany her.

"Has Lord Haughton risen?" Sophia asked, as Maggie pushed a pin into the fashionable knot at the back of her head.

"Oh, I don't believe he went to bed, Miss," the young girl admitted, another half dozen pins clutched between her teeth. "If I'm not mistaken, he's kept to his study all night."

"Thank you," Sophia said, and once the girl had finished with her hair and fussing over the folds of her gown, she left the bedroom and attempted to retrace her steps to Haughton's study. 

She knocked lightly when she reached the door, one hand already on the knob as she pressed her ear against the wood, listening for a reply. When a second knock elicited no response, she dared to open the door and step inside the dimly lit room. She found Haughton immediately, though not in any stance or pose she had anticipated.

He sat at the desk. Or, more accurately, he sat slumped over the desk, his head resting on his right arm, while his left had at some point knocked over a bottle of ink, staining the cuff of his sleeve and several documents scattered about beneath him. She glanced up at the nearest window, which stood wide open, letting in a pale light along with a chill to the air that made her shiver slightly as the fire had been allowed to die down to dead coals and ash.