Sophia North was painting in the music room when her sister, Lou, found her. With its large windows overlooking the south side of the house, it had the best light of any room on the ground floor of Melfield Abbey.
“That’s very pretty,” Lou said, coming and looking over Sophia’s shoulder.
Sophia stood back and looked critically at her watercolor. It was of a city covered in snow. A gray trodden street with a few black smudges to represent carriages slashed across the painting, and she’d just begun the bright red brick of St. Basil’s Cathedral. It didn’t look too bad, considering how long it had been since they’d been in Moscow.
Her older sister tilted her head. “Do you miss it?”
“I miss Mama and Papa,” Sophia said honestly.
Lou enfolded Sophia into her arms, ignoring her painting smock and the brush still in her hand. “I miss them, too.”
As Sophia gave Lou a quick squeeze, she could feel the bump of her sister’s pregnancy press against her own abdomen. They moved apart.
“I came to ask about Christmas,” Lou said, changing the topic.
“What about it? I’ll be fine—”
“I don’t want you here alone,” Lou interrupted her.
“Well, I wasn’t invited to the Detmores’ Christmas party.”
“No, but you were invited to Nik and Hope’s.”
“If I’d known how sensitive Miss Detmore was, I would never have said anything about her flounces,” Sophia started, remembering the hurt when she’d received a letter from her friend, Miss Pentworth. The girl had gone on and on about all the gentlemen she was hoping to meet at Miss Detmore’s house party. She’d been so certain that Sophia had been invited as well, but a quick check with the butler and Sophia’s brother-in-law confirmed that there had been no invitation. Sophia still hadn’t written back to her friend with that painful explanation.
“It doesn’t matter, Sophia, truly,” Lou said, rubbing Sophia’s arm consolingly. “While you may not have been invited to Miss Detmore’s, none of your friends can boast about being invited to a house party that will be attended by the Prince of Aachen-Düren. You will have so much to tell Miss Pentworth in your next letter to her.”
“But I don’t—”
“Sophia, I am not going to leave you here by yourself while Anthony and I go to Everston for Christmas. It’s just not going to happen.”
Sophia opened her mouth to argue with her sister, but Lou held up a hand to forestall her. “Why don’t you want to go?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to—I like Prince Nik, Princess Isa, and everyone, but…”
“But?” Lou prompted when Sophia paused.
How did she explain to her sister that she felt so left out when she was among so many happy couples? Lou and Anthony had met when Lou had—at Sophia’s insistence—pretended to be Isa when the princess had gone missing over two years ago. All they’d known at the time was that Princess Isa had gone to search for Prince Nik when he’d been declared dead. Princess Isa had known in her heart that her brother wasn’t gone from this world. What she hadn’t known was that he was in hiding because his cousin, Graf Adenheim, had tried to have him murdered. Adenheim had then come after both Princess Isa and Lou.
Princess Isa had met Lord Ranleigh, now her husband, at that same time. They now had a sweet baby boy, Ricky. And Prince Nik had met and fallen in love with Lady Hope Clemens while she’d helped him discover who was trying to kill him and his sister. Prince Nik had finally graduated from Oxford, and two years after their engagement, Prince Nik and Lady Hope were now, finally, going to marry. This house party was the English celebration of their upcoming nuptials, which were going to be held in Aachen-Düren early next spring.
Sophia sighed. “All I want, Lou, is to try to find a husband. I can’t do that at Everston.”
“Well, you can’t do it sitting here all alone, either,” her sister pointed out.
“No, but I was thinking that perhaps I could ask Miss Pentworth to apologize to Miss Detmore for me and perhaps ask if I might join—”
“You cannot go to that house party!”
“But—”
“Sophia, I won’t be able to be there to chaperone you. You would not be able to go even if you are invited.” Lou was beginning to sound exasperated, but Sophia felt no less frustrated.
“Hope and Nik are going to have a New Year’s Eve ball where the haut ton will be present, although I doubt Miss Detmore has been invited. In fact, I am certain a number of people will actually leave her party for the ball, for who would turn down an invitation from a prince—except a silly young lady named Sophia North?” Lou was really beginning to lose her patience as she raised her voice.
Sophia just kept her gaze down on her hands clasped in front of her. “I hadn’t heard about the ball,” she said quietly.
Lou let out a loud breath. “Yes, there is going to be a ball.” She was sounding calmer already. Thank goodness she didn’t maintain her anger for long.
“There will still be the three weeks prior,” Sophia said.
“Yes, and you will just have to do your best. My mother-in-law will be there, and… I do not know who else, aside from Nik, Hope, Isa, and Ranleigh. Presumably, there will be a number of members of Hope’s family in addition to her brother and mother. Perhaps there will be some nice, eligible gentlemen—a cousin of Hope’s.”
Sophia sighed. “I haven’t heard that she has any cousins. I do like Lady Melfield, though. A sweeter, kinder woman there never was.” Sophia remembered how the lady had come to Lou’s defense so often when they’d been living at Buckingham Palace, and it had been her who’d convinced Anthony to look beyond his immediate hurt at having been lied to and think only of how he truly felt about Lou. Without her, Lou and Anthony would never have married.
“Well, we will find out who will be there, won’t we?” Lou said with meaning.
Sophia raised her gaze to meet her sister’s eyes. “I don’t have a choice in the matter, do I?”
“No, you do not.”
“And you’re sure you should go in your condition?” Sophia asked, making one last attempt to get out of attending the house party.
Lou laughed; it was so obvious what Sophia was doing. “Yes, I’m only five months along. It’s perfectly safe for me to travel. And I’m looking forward to speaking with Isa about… well, everything involved in having a baby, and seeing her little Ricky who we haven’t even met yet.”
Sophia nodded. “Maybe he can be my dinner partner,” she said with a smile.
Her sister chuckled. “I think he’s still a little young for that. He’s only fourteen months old.”