Sophia felt the unpleasant sensation of every eye following her as she moved down the cobbled street, her audience’s curiosity regarding the mysterious newcomer growing with each limping step she took. It was a relief to duck into the sanctuary of the grocer’s shop and take a moment to collect herself, her breath quickened by both the effort of walking and the feeling of inquisitive stares boring into the back of her skull.
Fell followed her inside and flicked her a small, swift smile that managed to twist Sophia’s stomach despite the nerves already coiled there. When not dressed in his work clothes he looked smart—or as smart as a man with soot beneath his nails could look—and the power of a well-pressed shirt to enhance the charms of an already handsome male wasn’t lost on her.
‘You look flushed. Did the walk from the forge tire you?’
‘A little, I confess. I’ll be glad to rest my leg for a moment.’
The curve of his lips increased a fraction, lifting the corners of his unusual eyes. A woman in the queue in front of them had subtly shifted position to catch a glimpse of Sophia, but now turned away again hastily at Fell’s enquiringly raised eyebrow.
‘You’ll have plenty of chance for that. The grocer considers anything less than two hours of conversation with each customer a personal slight.’
Sophia only nodded, the anxiety pooling in her core threatening to overcome her courage. It had taken every ounce of bravery she possessed to leave the cottage and hobble through the middle of Woodford Common, every step requiring new determination. The stark, faintly unfriendly stares would have been bad enough without the accompanying fear any one of the villagers might recognise her or suspect she didn’t belong, the prospect of a reward surely tempting to those with no reason to resist it.
She had taken precautions, of course, to foil anybody with dangerous intentions. The first time she had seen her hair in the glass after washing it with the compound Fell provided she’d stopped and stared, open mouthed with shock at the stranger gazing back at her—the pungent mixture of willow bark and vinegar had turned her distinctive mane from copper to black, and when combined with a little pencil through her fair brows she could have been another person entirely. Set in papers each night to encourage a reluctant wave the ebony tresses hung heavily down her back, another bright Romani gown contrasting with their darkness. All things considered, it would be difficult to identify Sophia as a lady born and bred in a manor house, but fear still gnawed at her as she smoothed down the skirt of her loaned dress.
If somebody was to see through her, to wonder where she came from, all might be lost. Mother and Septimus would be upon her before she could as much as draw breath to scream, their malice doubtless increased tenfold by her daring to disobey...
‘Stop your fretting. Nobody here has a clue who you are and you’ll raise less suspicion if you’re seen out and about behaving as though you belong.’
It was as though Fell had read her mind, hunching slightly to murmur into her ear. The feeling of his breath against her neck cast an alarming ripple of delight through her body, softly stirring sinew and nerve to make them sing the melody his presence provoked with no effort at all. Ever since her rash action of a week before, when she had lost her head and lurched forward to kiss him, her body’s unconscious awareness of him had flowered into full bloom, his every movement capturing her attention and making her want to curve towards him like a moth to a flame. She didn’t want to feel such an unfathomable attraction, heaven knew, yet there was nothing she could do to stem the desire to touch him again, to feel the warmth of another person she’d never known until that night could be so sweet.
And now we are to marry, as soon as the rector reads the final banns. Less than a fortnight and then he will be my husband and I his wife—I still can’t believe he agreed to it.
Sophia slid him a sideways glance, taking in the sharp lines of his profile as he fiddled with his cuffs. He seemed too big to be folded neatly into the tiny shop with shelves stacked and goods hanging from the ceiling, far more suited to the free-ranging space of his forge or yard, and she was once again struck by a combination of dread and wonder that it was him to whom she would soon be bound. All her life she’d assumed her husband would be a man of Mother’s choosing, some uninspiring, well-bred gentleman Sophia would have to learn to tolerate—and who would certainly never love her. At least Fell was not malicious or unkind, contrasting completely with Septimus’s cold cruelty, and perhaps in time they might even become something like friends. A few stares from the villagers seemed a small price to pay to ensure her safety from the Thruxtons’ persecution, although it still remained to be seen what life as Fell’s bride would truly entail.
Still with the unpleasant sensation of eyes on her Sophia watched as someone passing the door caught Fell’s attention and his dark brows drew into a frown.
‘That’s Mrs Lake. I wanted to catch her about her grey mare—I’ll be back in a moment.’
Sophia stiffened in sudden alarm as Fell made to move away. She would be left alone among the strangers who peered at her with sharp curiosity she took for dislike. Almost from the first step she’d taken out of the safety of the cottage she’d been aware how the villagers glanced at Fell, some dismissive and others merely cool, but none much friendlier than that. She didn’t want to stay there in the crowded shop to face their interest alone and besides...
Any one of them could speak up and spoil everything. It would only take one person to see through my disguise and then I’d have to start running again. Didn’t I overhear Phillips say he had a cousin in this village?
She took a breath, trying to force herself to release her set jaw, but then a spark kindled beneath the skin of her wrist and she glanced down in surprise to see a large hand resting where her pulse now leaped.
Fell eyed her for a moment before dropping his voice lower, delightfully intimate in its deep murmur. ‘There’s nothing to fear. I wouldn’t leave you otherwise.’
Sophia nodded, but nothing could distract her from the heat suddenly radiating from that hand to creep higher along her arm, raising every fair hair as it went. If his touch was supposed to calm her it had completely the opposite effect, instead rallying every nerve to react to the light pressure setting her ablaze.
I must put a stop to this—and quickly.
The perturbing reaction of her body whenever Fell as much as brushed against her was becoming too worrisome to ignore. When she had been nothing but a temporary guest in his home it had been bearable, if unsettling, but now their association was to deepen she would have to fight harder against the pull of that unthinking weakness for his ironic smile and the way his odd eyes crinkled at the corners in harmony with the curve of his lips. He would never have a similar penchant for her, she knew without a doubt; why would he, when she brought nothing to the table other than the ability to give him a child? She was under no illusions he was marrying her for any reason other than to gain a family and any fonder feelings she might entertain for him would be pure foolishness to indulge.
And yet...
It’s so difficult to remain impartial when each day he shows himself to be better in every respect than any man I’ve ever known—excepting Papa, of course. Fell agreed to the marriage so he could become a father, yes, but also in part to save me from my fate. How many other men would make that sacrifice and take a woman with no money or real value to shield her instead of collecting a reward?
The more Sophia allowed those kinds of thoughts to circulate through her mind the more confused she became, in turn finding it all the more difficult to remain unmoved by the small kindnesses Fell showed her each day. It was the tolerance and warmth she had longed for since she was a child, crying out for it in the lonely confines of her room. Fell’s attentiveness was dangerous, drawing her closer to a man she couldn’t hope to have, and unless she managed to rein herself in Sophia knew she would soon wish she had tried harder to free herself from its grip. Even his parentage didn’t seem to matter to her disobedient emotions. Where others were scandalised and repulsed by his illegitimacy and Roma blood, Sophia couldn’t bring herself to mind. Perhaps once she, too, would have had stronger feelings, but all she could see now when she looked into Fell’s tawny face was the man himself—strong, capable and willing to stand with her in her distress. His background seemed irrelevant when set against the flesh-and-blood person they described, a blacksmith surely the equal of a penniless disappointment of a woman below him in every way other than status.
Fell retreated in search of his quarry and Sophia watched him go, striding head and shoulders above everyone else in the shop—including the cluster of women standing near the door, who followed his exit with sharp eyes and dissolved into rapid whispers that made Sophia swallow a groan.
Out in the burning heat Fell shaded his eyes from the sun and cast up and down the street, alert for any hint of which way his prey had walked. Mrs Lake had suggested she might be selling her steady grey horse when Fell had seen her in church the past Sunday and he wanted to be the first to put in an offer. He’d shod Bess since she was little more than a foal and her sweet temperament might be a good match for Sophia. A married man with a family needed a dependable horse, after all—a thought that made Fell unsure whether to smile or frown.
A married man with a family. I never would have dreamed that would be my future.
It was simultaneously the most wonderful and terrifying prospect Fell could imagine and he felt the weight of it settle across his shoulders like a heavy cloak. Ever since Sophia had come to him like a spectre in the night he had struggled to believe their bargain, convinced he would wake at any moment to find none of it was real.
Mrs Lake had apparently disappeared from the face of the earth and with a grunt of annoyance Fell turned back, noting as he did the increased scrutiny that followed him. There could be no doubt it was Sophia’s sudden existence that piqued the fresh interest in him as the village curio. To the residents of Woodford it must seem as though Sophia had appeared from nowhere, a black-haired beauty unexpectedly among them just as had happened thirty years before; no wonder there was so much muttering and eyes hastily averted when Fell caught them following his soon-to-be bride.
She could almost pass in that dress and with her hair made so dark. A long summer spent in the sun rather than a parlour will tan her skin and in time I’d challenge anyone to prove she wasn’t at least part Roma—in that spirit she thinks she has to hide, if nothing else.
Walking back through the grocer’s open door and out of the dense heat he felt another flicker of admiration, twin to one that had flared as he strode beside her from the forge into the village. Sophia had been clearly afraid as she waited to see if she would be unmasked, but had kept her composure, braving the weight of the stares on her and responding with nothing but a polite—if shaky—smile. There was more courage lurking beneath that quiet exterior than he’d first thought, Fell would admit, and it was with the embers of his growing respect for her glowing brighter that he joined her in the barely diminished queue.
She angled her head away at his approach as if to hide her face, immediately putting Fell on his guard. Sophia didn’t speak, but one look showed her hands tightly gripping the handle of the basket she held, her chest seeming to rise and fall more quickly than might be comfortable.
‘Is something amiss?’
‘No, no. Not at all.’
Still her fingers maintained their painful lock on the basket and Fell caught a fleeting flick of a glance in the direction of a group of women standing nearby.
The village gossips. They’ve been ogling her half to death—I’d wager a guinea.
Sophia’s mouth was set in an unhappy line and her face was pale as he gritted his teeth on his irritation. The nosy busybodies couldn’t help themselves, he knew from bitter experience, and he’d expect nothing else from them; but he disliked that they had brought a downward curve to Sophia’s lips and found himself reaching for her before he had time to consider the wisdom of such a thing.
‘Come on. I’ll take you back and return alone later.’
The fabric of her dress was smooth beneath his fingers and a contrastingly jagged shard forced its way between his ribs the moment he touched her. It was a flicker like a stray spark escaped from a firecracker, taking him by surprise—or so he told himself, a lie he couldn’t for one second sustain. In truth, the desire to once again feel Sophia’s warmth had taunted him ever since she’d stolen all sense from his mind with the gentle movement of her lips on his, the feelings she had unleashed dangerous but more enticing than Fell could believe. It was foolish to indulge them and could lead to nothing but trouble, a fact his accursed weakness for her shy smile didn’t seem to understand.
She started a little, eyes fleetingly widening at his touch before dropping away to fix again on the heads turning in their direction. A new hint of colour crept into her cheeks, but she didn’t pull away—instead seeming to draw a fraction closer as if to accept his protection, a glimmer of hesitant trust in him that made Fell’s heart leap in both confusion and pleasure.
I suppose I needn’t read anything into that. Anyone might cling to a man my size for safety, especially if he’s skilled with a hammer.
He drew her closer to the gawping group and guided her limping steps between them, offering a curt nod to any inclined to return it. They weren’t even through the open door before he heard the muttering start up, voices lowered, but still easy enough to understand in their ravenous hunger for gossip.
‘So? Do you think she’s—?’
‘Another like him? Could well be. Looks like one at any rate.’
‘We’ll be overrun before long. First his mother appearing from who knows where, leaving us with the fruit of her shame to go off running about the country again, and now a wife for him just the same. It’s disgraceful.’
‘We’ll see how soon after the wedding comes the first child; I’d bet it’ll be a swift confinement, if you grasp my meaning. The apple won’t fall far from the tree and that lad was never likely to amount to much with his parentage in the gutter.’
Fell felt the muscles of his face tighten at the hissed words that hit his back in stinging flecks of malice. As always the temptation to answer their slander gripped him, but he forced himself to resist, the wisdom Ma had passed on to him years before surfacing at the front of his mind.
Never give them satisfaction. Words are all they have and the only person who can give them the power to hurt is you.
The memory helped calm him a little, although his anger only dimmed rather than disappeared. It was very well for Ma to say such things, but wasn’t she at least partly responsible for the whispers that swirled about him in the first place? If only she’d reveal his father Fell wouldn’t seem quite so mysterious and worthy of comment, the uncertainty surrounding his lineage confusing for him and fascinating to others...
There was silence at his side and he glanced down to see Sophia turning to look back at the whisperers. The pink spots on her cheeks glowed brighter and a new crease of her brow nipped at him somewhere in the last unprotected place in his chest. She was clearly thinking something, although what was happening beneath those black tresses he had no way of telling.
And so now she knows the truth.
She would have heard the whispers eventually, but still shame lapped at him like icy waves to think graceful, ladylike Sophia now knew without any shadow of doubt how low he stood in the eyes of the world. The hissed words of his neighbours mercilessly illustrated how far beneath her she was stooping in marrying him, just as Charity had always secretly felt, and it was as though somebody had removed the foundations of his already precarious pride to send it crashing to the ground. All of a sudden he wished more than anything she hadn’t witnessed his humiliation—then felt alarm spread through him at how much he realised he cared what she thought. Guarding himself for so long against the wounds words could inflict had left him too jaded to waste time with such sentiment, or so he’d thought; the notion of Sophia somehow intruding into the carefully guarded part of him still vulnerable was worrying in the extreme.
He unconsciously tightened his grip on Sophia’s arm, attempting to help her over the threshold and away to escape—but found she didn’t move.
‘Wait a moment.’
Before Fell could reply she stepped back towards the muttering group, cheeks still burning, but a spark of something moving in the depths of her green eyes he couldn’t quite place. He could only watch as the women fell silent at her approach, unfriendly as a gaggle of suspicious old geese.
‘Please excuse the interruption, but I couldn’t help overhear. Am I to understand you’re well acquainted with the Barden family?’
The leader, a bitter creature Fell recognised as a Mrs Cairn, drew herself up to her full height in offended dignity. ‘Why, no, indeed. None of us has the smallest connection to them.’
‘Not friends at all?’
‘Of course not!’
Still mystified, Fell saw Sophia’s half-smile. It was a little uncertain, but the strange light still danced and with a rush of shock Fell realised it was the faintest pinprick of challenge—another intriguing hint of the hidden spirit beneath the controlled exterior. ‘Oh. Forgive me. I assumed from your manner of speaking that you must be an intimate acquaintance.’ She paused to give a rueful shrug as though dismayed by her own foolishness and Fell saw he hadn’t imagined that fascinating glint of irreverence. ‘Imagine my surprise to find your conversation therefore based on no knowledge, truth or reason whatsoever. I shan’t take up any more of your time. Good afternoon.’
Without waiting to see the outrage on Mrs Cairn’s face Sophia turned and stepped smoothly away, one hand finding the crook of Fell’s elbow and bearing both of them out into the sunshine. Behind them the voices rose again at once, but this time Fell hardly heard them, too transfixed by the quiet satisfaction that flitted over Sophia’s features to pay them any mind.
‘What was that?’
Sophia allowed him the swiftest of upward peeks, cut off abruptly by the sweep of fair lashes as she looked away. The high colour at each cheekbone was the deepest Fell had seen there although she ignored it with a shake of her head. ‘I didn’t care for what they were saying. It was unforgivably rude.’
‘Aye, well. I can’t disagree with you there.’
He lifted his hat and pushed the hair back from his forehead with the brim, busying himself so Sophia might not see the utter surprise that wreathed his face.
Did she...speak out for me?
He couldn’t remember a time when anybody had challenged the slander spread about him on his behalf. Ma would simply sail past with the confidence the villagers found so offensive, far too secure in herself to pay any mind to the whispers that followed. That it would fall to Sophia, of all people, to take up his cause was something he never would have expected—surely she was too mild for that, too careful in concealing whatever flare of temper might lie within that quiet soul?
‘You’ll have to get used to that kind of talk if you’re set on wedding me. It won’t ever stop—and it won’t ever grow kinder, no matter what you do. It’s as well you learn that now.’
Sophia still looked away, only the top of her hand-me-down bonnet visible to Fell’s searching gaze, but there was no mistaking her wariness at what he realised too late could have sounded like a rebuke. ‘Are you angry? Would you rather I hadn’t said anything at all?’
‘Of course not. I just...’ He cast about for the right words, surprise and confusion clouding his mind to make it damnably hard to think. That fleeting gleam of light in her usually guarded eyes had spun him like a hurricane, leaving him unsure which way was which and stumbling for the path. ‘I wouldn’t want you to expect anything to change. This is my life—and it will soon be yours. I’d rather you were prepared.’
To his relief the bonnet bobbed up and down in a short nod. ‘I understand and I’m glad I didn’t irritate you with my lapse of control. My mother would have been beside herself if I’d spoken like that in her hearing. It’s just the sort of insolence she wanted to knock out of me.’
Fell couldn’t help a wry huff of a laugh despite the uncomfortable sensations executing swirls in his stomach. ‘Unsuccessfully, apparently.’
‘I’m not so sure. Certainly not for want of trying.’
He looked down at the edge in her voice, but still only a straw brim peered back, shielding Sophia from his concern. From that angle he could see nothing but the tip of her nose and a few raven waves that gave nothing away about whatever was running through that busy mind.
What was it she said her ma called her? An expensive disappointment? Fine words for her own daughter.
Whatever had made her run from Fenwick Manor had evidently left its mark, a thought Fell found he disliked. Probably he shouldn’t want to know what mysteries Sophia carried within her that made her the way she was, so unsure of herself and concealing a glint of spirit she seemed determined to suppress, but there was no denying Fell’s interest in the past of the woman who was to be his wife—and his growing desire to help her see he at least could be trusted not to harm her in the way he feared she imagined.
They had almost reached the forge with their strange combination of long strides and ungainly shuffle and as they neared the familiar sight of his cottage tension still coiled in Fell’s chest. Anger at the muttered malice towards his mother echoed to combine with his amazement Sophia had spoken against it, an action he couldn’t deny—however much he tried—thrilled him as much as it astounded. She’d set aside her usual caution and put herself out for him...although why she’d bothered was something he had no way of knowing.
Aside from to ask. Which I have no intention of doing.
He opened the gate he’d wrought himself many years ago, back when he’d been so foolish as to believe it would please Charity each time she turned up the path to their cottage. The memory of her face the first time she’d seen it appeared out of nowhere to catch him unawares, abruptly twisting his insides in momentary pain before fading back into nothingness. The pang was sharp, but he was almost glad of its sting—it reminded him of the folly of hoping for a woman’s love, a reminder he was in danger of needing now more than ever with Sophia hobbling at his side. It would be all too easy to lose his head again with such temptation before him, another woman he would need to guard against letting get too close and opening himself back up to the inevitable rejection that had followed him all his life. The only beings who might ever love him for himself were Ma and Lash, he knew with certainty—the former he hadn’t seen in months, having left to travel wherever the road took her and the latter now padding towards him with a wiry tail swaying in welcome. They were who he should look to for affection and for confirmation he wasn’t a wastrel, not a beautiful high-born lady bound to him by fear of her future and a bargain struck for the convenience of both.
‘Afternoon.’ Fell ran his fingers over the sun-warmed fur of Lash’s head in the reflexive movement of a lifetime of practice. The dog squinted up at him with a pink-tongued grin and turned to greet Sophia, nudging her with his long muzzle until she, too, traced the contours of the brown markings by his ears.
‘Hello. Did you miss me?’
Sophia’s voice was returned to normal now, the curious edge of bitterness left behind on the sweltering road through the village. Whatever she had been thinking at the mention of her mother had been enough to make her shrink a little, unhappiness Fell found he wanted to protect her against, just as she had leapt so unexpectedly to his defence against Mrs Cairn and her coven.
Too intent on her face, Fell didn’t realise their hands had met until Sophia withdrew her fingers from Lash’s fur with almost guilty speed, snatching her hand away from the dog’s head as if he’d tried to bite her. A fresh blush rushed in to chase away her pallor and Fell felt similar heat climb his own neck at the realisation it was her fingers he had stroked by mistake, entirely too absorbed by the complex thoughts turning his brain to custard to pay attention to his movements.
I ought to be more on my guard, he chided himself, watching as Sophia backed away with uneven steps and her hands held to her chest. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I did these things on purpose.
She stopped just outside the cottage door, throwing him a fleeting look over her shoulder that caught him somewhere beneath his ribs.
‘I truly wish they hadn’t said those unkind things about you and your mother. I don’t know much of your history, but I know enough to realise there’s nothing of the gutter about you—in fact, far from it.’
Before he could reply Sophia flipped up the latch and stepped over the threshold into the shaded calm of the cottage, leaving behind only an impression of a bright skirt, black hair gleaming in the sun—and a man filled to the brim with hopeless confusion.