‘She’s the only one left, sir, and my father says he’ll drown her if I can’t find someone to take her in.’
The voice coming from somewhere outside the bedchamber sounded both very young and very unhappy to Sophia as she dressed hastily, pulling on the same shabby old gown she’d worn to flee Fenwick Manor. A tentative rap at the cottage’s front door had woken Fell at once and she’d only been able to watch blearily as he cursed and left the warm seclusion of their bed. Now as she drove pins haphazardly into the fiery pile of her hair she wondered who would have been brave enough to rouse Fell so early, lifting the door knocker at barely past dawn and sending him stumbling into the pale morning light.
After what happened last night, however, that person might have done me a favour. Will I be able to look Fell in the face again, having told him in so many words the secret workings of my heart?
‘That would be a real shame, but are you certain there’s nobody else? I don’t know your father would like your asking me.’
Fell sounded equally troubled, his voice growing louder as Sophia left their chamber and moved through the cottage. Poking her head into the hall, she saw him at the open front door, looking down at whoever stood on the outside step concealed by his towering frame.
‘No, sir. Anyone else who wanted one already came forward. I just thought, with you being known in the village to love your dogs like people...’
A misplaced foot on a creaky floorboard made Fell turn, catching sight of Sophia peeping into the hall. For a moment their eyes met: one long look filled with such wordless understanding it chased away all other thought, the simple cosiness of the cottage and the sunshine streaming in through the open door fading away beneath the power of two unwavering stares. Whatever had happened in the soft darkness had meant something to Fell, too, Sophia realised with a sudden flare of heat deep inside; the words his torment had torn from him had loosened her tongue to speak the truth she couldn’t conceal, her feelings surely now laid bare for him to do with as he would.
‘Good morning, Sophia. May I introduce you to our visitor?’
Fell broke the taut instant between them with a self-conscious smile and Sophia came forward with a shyness she wished she could have left behind in their chamber. Standing on the step was a little girl holding a large lidded basket, who looked up at Sophia with such bright hope in her blue eyes that Fell laughed.
‘This is Sarah, the thatcher’s daughter. She’s got a sorry tale to tell and by the looks of it I think she’s decided already you’re just the person to hear it. I’d wager she can sense a soft heart from a mile away.’
Sophia mustered a smile for the child, although the soft heart in question leaped at Fell’s fond description and a feeling of curious warmth swept through her right down to her toes.
‘Oh? What tale is this?’
She crouched to bring herself level with the little girl’s earnest face. The poor mite couldn’t have been more than six or seven and she looked at Sophia with the complete lack of judgement only a child could manage—the first person in all of Woodford to peer at her with anything other than curiosity or distaste.
Sarah clutched the basket tighter to her chest, whatever lay inside shifting suspiciously. ‘My Duchess had her pups on May Day, miss, and all but one were taken by people wanting a good dog. Only the runt was left behind and now my father says if I don’t find somebody to take her he’ll drown her in the maidening tub. He says now she’s weaned and not feeding from Duchess any more he doesn’t want to pay to keep another dog around the house.’
‘Drown her—?’ Sophia glanced up at Fell in horror, who confirmed her fears with a grim nod. ‘Surely not!’
‘He will, miss. He said he’ll do it and I know he will.’
Little Sarah’s china-blue eyes filled with tears and without thinking Sophia reached to stroke her hair, moving instinctively to offer comfort in a way nobody had bothered do for her at the same tender age. She smoothed the russet curls, sensing Fell’s gaze on her downturned head, but not daring to look to see what expression danced in his mismatched eyes.
‘Well? What do you think?’
From the way he asked the question Sophia knew he had already guessed her answer, but still it gave her quiet pleasure to gently wipe the girl’s eyes with her apron and deliver her unsurprising verdict.
‘I think you already took in one stray in need of a home. Why not another, given the alternative?’
‘Why not indeed?’ He sounded pleased and a swift cut of green eyes towards black-hazel showed approval that made her flush to see. ‘There’s your answer, then, Sarah. You can hand her over and be done with it.’
The girl’s face lit up and she all but pushed the basket into Sophia’s arms, watching with delight as the lid was lifted and Sophia saw for the first time what changeling she had agreed to take into her home.
‘Oh!’
The sandy puppy barely filled both hands as Sophia lifted her out, a tiny wriggling shape covered in downy fur and made up mostly of paws and a flapping pink tongue. One leg looked slightly stunted and she was a deal smaller than most pups Sophia had seen, but the little dog evidently had the heart of a lion as she strained up to lick Sophia’s glowing face.
‘She’s beautiful!’
‘I think so, too, miss, but nobody else wanted her. Because she was the runt and had a twisted leg.’
Sarah patted the squirming creature’s head with a gentle finger and picked up her basket to leave. ‘You’ll take good care of her, won’t you? I would have kept her if I could...’
Sophia straightened up, catching the wistful tilt of the child’s head. ‘Of course. And you’re free to come to visit her whenever you wish. Would you like that?’
Beside her she thought she heard Fell murmur a quiet word, but other than the tingle that skittered down her spine at the sensation of his breath on her neck she paid him no mind as Sarah’s smile returned and she nodded, skipping away down the path and out through the gate like a lamb in a hand-me-down shawl.
Left alone with her husband, Sophia kept her gaze fixed on the dog cradled against her chest. Now there was nobody to act as a buffer between them her uncertainty came back with a vengeance, a steady pulse of heat spreading under her skin she knew must have reached her cheeks. Would he say something about what had passed between them in the warmth of the night? She hardly knew if she wanted him to acknowledge her honesty or to turn a blind eye to the outpouring of her soul, not quite saying the three words she longed to, but surely obvious to anyone with a particle of sense.
I love you. That’s what I’ve wanted to say for so long and still do now—if I could only summon up the courage I found the day Ma returned.
He had opened up to her in telling her of his private thoughts, the innermost working of his mind, and why would he have done that if he didn’t esteem her in some real way? It might not be love for him, but it was a start, and only the faint memory of Mother intruding at a moment she was least wanted stopped Sophia from throwing caution to the wind entirely and sinking into Fell’s well-muscled arms.
‘Why would a man like that want you?’
‘Stupid, useless girl!’
‘How you’re my daughter I’ve never understood. What did I do to deserve you as punishment?’
The picture of that scornful face, so twisted with malice it obscured all hint of the beauty for which Lady Thruxton was famous, came to halt Sophia’s wild desire in its tracks. The same old flurry of shame and doubt threatened to wash over her again, trying to steal the tentative hope Fell’s night-time confession had stirred in her soul.
Stupid...useless...a waste of precious time...
No.
She gritted her teeth on the spiteful whispers, driving them back with sudden force.
Fell himself said I’m none of those things. He thought it was Mother who was in the wrong, who spoke out of turn, not me—if I hope to earn his love I should do him the favour of listening when he speaks his mind, just as he did last night.
The puppy gave a sigh and without preamble relaxed against the worn bodice of Sophia’s dress. The next moment she was sound asleep, worn out by the excitement of the morning and so delightful she managed momentarily to distract her new mistress from the unpleasant thoughts that worried at her with sharp teeth.
‘I’m not sure the thatcher will like the idea of his daughter coming here to visit.’
Fell had stepped out into the sunny yard and now he stretched languidly, long arms straining above his head and the movement lifting the hem of his old shirt. It rose an inch or two above the waist of his breeches, revealing the same tantalising glimpse of his toned abdomen that always made Sophia want to stare despite the churning in her stomach.
She shrugged, feigning indifference she didn’t feel. ‘I doubt she’ll tell him. I wouldn’t have—no doubt another sign of the disobedience Mother was always at pains to squash.’
Fell huffed a short laugh, sounding almost dog-like himself in his wry amusement. ‘I believe the word you used was spirited. Would you have kept a dog hidden away if you’d thought you could have got away with it?’
‘Quite possibly—before I was given good reason not to rebel any longer. I always wanted a pup of my own, but Mother would never allow it.’
‘I remember you saying. It must feel good to be able to do all the things you wanted when you were younger, but never had the chance.’
Sophia paused in gently stroking the silky top of the puppy’s head.
I never considered that before. I suppose he’s right about that, too.
‘Do you know, it does. I confess it will take time to get used to the feeling of being free from any mistress but myself.’
‘That’s the truth. Nobody will ever order you around or make you feel deliberately unhappy ever again. Please believe that I won’t allow it.’
When she looked into Fell’s face Sophia saw any trace of humour had faded, replaced by a seriousness she’d rarely seen there before. The sculpted lines of his brow and jaw were firm, so resolute it raised a lump in her suddenly dry throat. He was strong and kind and hers, somehow, by some bizarre twist of fate—on paper at least. He was her husband and she was his wife, and as they watched each other in the quiet brightness of the sunlit yard Sophia felt the urge to utter those three little words pulling at her again so irresistibly it was like a siren’s song in her ear.
Say it now. Now is the time!
But then the moment was gone.
Fell’s mother came into the hall, hair tumbled from sleep, and Sophia excused herself with a stiff smile to light the kitchen stove for tea. It seemed the chance always slipped through her fingers like sand, drifting away on the wind and laughing at her attempts to take hold.
I will tell him. Just...not today.
By the time Ma went in search of Fell that evening a slight chill had wended its way into the air. August had almost run its course, September teetering on the brink of starting and the first hint of autumn hanging in the breeze that raised goosebumps on Fell’s skin.
He looked up from the charcoal clamp he had almost finished constructing from earth and wood, his face streaked with dirt and hands ingrained likewise. Ma’s footsteps barely made a sound on the dry grass as she walked behind the cottage, coming towards him with a smile that didn’t quite touch the lines at the corners of her dark eyes.
‘Did you need something?’
She shook her head, but the curve of her lips still didn’t light the rest of her face and Fell felt a flicker of unease. ‘No, no. Sophia has been looking after me very well. I just hadn’t had a chance to speak with you alone yet since I returned.’
Fell nodded, carefully laying his axe down as if he wasn’t suddenly alert to the hesitation in his mother’s voice. ‘Was there something in particular you wanted to say that meant you couldn’t speak in front of Sophia?’
There was a pause that said more to Fell than words and he sighed heavily.
I suppose I should have expected this.
Whatever had been on Ma’s mind since she met Sophia was evidently too much for her to keep hidden any longer, her close study of her startling new daughter-in-law revealing something she now wanted to discuss. ‘Whatever it is, I’d have you say it now rather than make sheep’s eyes at me the rest of the evening.’
‘Sheep’s eyes indeed. Insolent boy.’ Ma tried to laugh, but it fell false and flat as she gathered her skirts around her and perched on a pile of stacked logs next to the clamp. ‘I ought to box your ears for that.’
‘A little late to curb my tongue now, I think.’
He pushed his hands into the small of his back and felt the muscles release some of their tension from a day spent working bent almost double. An early night would take care of the rest, but there was no chance of that as Ma sat in uncharacteristic silence, looking away from him across the darkening yard.
Fell followed the direction of her gaze to where Sophia stood before the old outbuilding beside the forge that had been pressed into use as a stable. Bess and Camlo peered out over the split door and Sophia was speaking to them, too far away to hear her words, but easy enough to guess. She held the puppy out to each in turn and even from a distance the glow of her smile as the horses carefully sniffed at the little dog made Fell’s heart turn over in his chest.
‘She’s named it Letty, I believe. Strange name for a dog.’
Fell nodded, although a glimmer of recognition sparked at the back of his mind.
After her friend. The only one she ever had.
The thought took him back to the day she’d revealed her shame, tears standing out in her green eyes to taunt him mercilessly, and he tried to set it aside before the urge to cross the yard and take her in his arms called too loudly. She was much happier now by the looks of her: cradling Letty in one arm while the other hand stroked the top of Lash’s head, spreading her affection equally between the two with the fairness he’d come to expect from her.
Ma watched Sophia likewise, although when she spoke it was clear she didn’t follow the same train of thought as her son.
‘She’s no farmer’s daughter, is she?’
It wasn’t a question. Fell heard the note of something in her tone but couldn’t quite put his finger on it, knowing only that it wasn’t delight.
‘No.’
‘So who is she? In truth?’
Essea turned to Fell and regarded him with quiet concern, black eyes fixed on him so immovably for a moment he felt like a boy again, waiting to find out if he was in trouble.
But he wasn’t a boy any more. He was a man and a husband besides—and the wife he had come to accept that he loved with every fibre of his being had dropped the smallest hint she might be growing to feel the same and for that Fell owed no apology to anyone, not even Ma.
‘She’s the woman I chose to take as my wife. Isn’t that enough for you?’
An unwavering stare was all the reply he received and with a rough sound of irritation he glanced over his shoulder. Across the yard Sophia finished whatever conversation she’d been having with the horses and turned back for the cottage and Fell waited until she was safely inside before he answered.
‘Her name is—was—Sophia Somerlock of Fenwick Manor. You must have heard of it. She ran away and I found her injured in Savernake Forest, so brought her back here to recover. Will that satisfy you?’
He spoke more sharply than he meant to, but he could see in which direction Ma’s thoughts had strayed and he didn’t care for it one bit.
She doesn’t like it that Sophia was born a lady. I can see it in her face.
She’d certainly paled, her lips tightening into a straight line and brows slanting down in a look so close to dismay it made Fell bridle a little. What could be her objection? They were an unlikely couple, it was true, but surely there was no need for his mother to look as though she’d heard some news she had been dreading.
‘Gentry?’
‘Aye. Her mother remarried to a Lord Thruxton. No love lost between them, from what I gather.’
‘But why did she stay on and marry you? Why didn’t she leave when her leg was better?’
Fell kept his voice as level as he could despite the unease building in his insides. ‘We came to an understanding. There was an agreement between us—I married her to keep her from a forced connection she wanted to escape.’
‘A bargain of sorts? That’s all it was?’
‘If you want to call it that.’ Said out loud his marriage to Sophia sounded almost distasteful. He’d always known it wasn’t a romantic tale, but the twist of Ma’s mouth only underlined the fact.
‘But you care for her now.’ It was another statement that wasn’t really a question, Essea’s shoulders tense and back ramrod-straight on her uncomfortable wooden perch.
‘Of course I do. She’s my wife.’
‘You know what I mean. You care for her—more than just out of mere obligation.’
He could hardly deny it. Surely even the most dull-witted of people would have seen how often his lips turned up in Sophia’s presence, or how his body instinctively curved towards her seemingly without his awareness. Ma was as far from a simpleton as it was possible to be and there was no chance she hadn’t noticed the new gleam of life in her only son’s eye.
‘What if I do?’
Ma’s own eyes closed then, her head drooping as though Fell had just confirmed her worst fears. When she peered up at him through the gathering dusk it was with sorrow so deep it stung him, the terrible unhappiness of a mother in anguish.
‘Guard your heart,’ she muttered so softly the words were almost lost amid the evening’s chill.
Fell’s brow creased into a frown. ‘What?’
‘You heard. I like Sophia very much. She’s a sweet soul and pretty with it, but...’
‘But?’
‘Remember Charity.’
If Ma had dropped a lit match into a heap of gunpowder, it still couldn’t have blown a bigger hole in Fell’s stomach. He stood completely still, only able to watch as his mother reached for his hand and held it with fingers cold with worry.
‘Remember how your heart broke for her? I would do anything to spare you that pain again, of loving a woman you cannot truly have. I can see the same thing happening now and it makes me want to weep.’
Fell shook his head mechanically. With one short sentence Ma had uncovered his most secret fear and dragged it out into the light, leaving him with nowhere to hide from her scrutiny. He wanted to cast her doubts aside and did so as best he could, his reply sounding hardly human coming from his abruptly dry mouth.
‘It’s different this time. We’re already wed.’
‘You said yourself it was a bargain, not the meeting of two hearts. I wouldn’t have you risk yourself again, at the mercy of one not meant for you...’
‘My own mother thinks I don’t deserve her?’ Anger leapt to circle in his gut, hot and determined to chase away the weakness of uncertainty. ‘Is that how you feel?’
After all the years he’d suffered loneliness and rejection, never thinking to find a spare ounce of happiness, she was trying to throw cold water over the fledgling flames of his hope for the future? It was more than he could bear and he knew his face must have set into a rigid mask of ire.
But Essea Barden was made of sterner stuff than to quail. Years spent living on the road had tempered her courage until it shone like burnished brass and she met her son’s eyes with unblinking determination. ‘That’s not what I meant. I just couldn’t bear you to know that grief again. You admitted your marriage was one of necessity, not feeling—she’s another kind of creature completely, no better and no worse, but so different I don’t know how there can ever be real feeling between you. You’re from entirely separate worlds that do not usually combine.’
She still held Fell’s hand and he withdrew it to rake stiff fingers through his hair. There was truth in her words—that couldn’t be denied—but still he turned from it.
Sophia is nothing like Charity. She’s given me no reason to doubt her and I won’t insult her by comparing the two so different in every respect.
‘Why are you so sure it could never work between us? What have you seen of marriage between two different worlds to think you can possibly predict that outcome?’
Ma cut her eyes fleetingly to the side, hesitant in the face of his question. Even with biting dismay running its claws through Fell’s innards he found her pause suspicious, only increased by her low mutter in reply.
‘More than you know.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Nothing. Forget I spoke of it.’
‘No, Ma.’ Fell heard the edge to his voice, but couldn’t hold it back, seeing the surprise that crossed Ma’s face at his forcefulness. The same frustration that welled up whenever she shut her mouth like a clam overcame him again and suddenly he couldn’t stand it any longer. Whatever she thought to hide wouldn’t escape him—she owed him that much, some explanation for the shadow she was so determined to cast over his happiness. ‘Not this time. If you’ve something to say, some secret you’re trying to keep, this time I want to hear it. You’ve kept things from me for too long and I won’t accept it any more. I’m not a child—whatever you have to say I am grown enough to hear.’
In her defeat Ma looked so much older that for a moment Fell felt a flicker of guilt. Perhaps he shouldn’t have pushed her so far—but then the image of Sophia flitted before him and he hardened his heart on thoughts of mercy.
‘You won’t like it.’
‘Even so. I’ll hear what you’re thinking all the same.’
Ma smoothed down the front of her dress, its bright red faded to dull crimson in the dusk. She had the distinct air of one trying to prolong the inevitable, but at Fell’s raised brow she heaved a sigh.
‘Your father, Fell. He was a gentleman far above me in station and our relationship shattered like glass. That is why I fear for you—I’ve been where you stand, loving one out of my reach, and I’ve seen the sorry outcome of this story with my own eyes.’
Fell stilled. Like a statue carved from ice he stood quiet, turning his mother’s words over as if to force them to make sense.
Finally, some part of the truth. After all these years... But I never once suspected...
‘My father was gentry?’
He almost choked on each syllable, disbelief only growing at Ma’s curt nod.
‘Yes. To take a farmer as my man would have been ambitious enough; a gentleman was sheer madness. I don’t think I need explain the hundred reasons it didn’t work, or why I fear for you following in my footsteps.’
At any other moment, on any other night, Fell knew he would have pushed for more. The tantalising hint of his father’s identity was more than Ma had dropped in thirty years, a clue he might gather up in the quest to make himself whole. On this night, however, Sophia’s face was all he could think of, his determination to prove his mother wrong blinding him to his powerful curiosity, and he couldn’t turn from the path he had chosen until he reached the bitter end.
‘I am not you and Sophia is not my father. There’s nothing to say history will repeat itself with us.’
Ma’s answering question was direct and unflinching.
‘Have you told her you love her?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Then I ask you to wait until you’ve truly thought about what I said. Your happiness is the most precious thing in the world to me. If you’re right and Sophia is the kind of woman you claim, waiting a while to confess your feelings won’t make a difference. Just...please. Please think twice on what you do.’ His mother’s voice shook a little with valiantly suppressed feeling that cut like a knife through the cacophony of Fell’s thoughts.
He looked down at her, hardly seeing her sitting on the pile of wood and surrounded by darkness growing thicker with each minute that passed. They regarded each other in silence, each aware of the pain of the other, but powerless to make it go away.
She was right. I almost wish I hadn’t heard her thoughts. But I did and I can’t forget them—although I trust Sophia not to take me down the same path Charity led me a merry dance on.
What of the revelation about his father? That was something he would need time to digest, coming out of nowhere to make him question things he’d never considered before. His name, his rank, his position in society...all things Fell wanted to know, but with Ma’s doubts stirring the fire inside him he had no attention left to spare for anything other than defending his wife.
‘Very well. I’ll think about what you said. But know this: Sophia is nothing like Charity and in time I hope you’ll see it.’
He turned for the cottage, leaving his mother to stare after him with heartache dulling her ebony eyes. She’d acted out of love for him, Fell knew, and yet he couldn’t seem to manage to look at her as he walked away.