“He isn’t the butler,” Alex answered. “There is his butler.”
Sophie gaped at the man coming down the hall. “That’s my butler!”
“Yes, I know.” Alex stopped before a set of French doors. He dropped her hand, gripped the handles, and pushed the doors wide open.
“William!” Alex roared.
“Ah, Alex, my boy.”
“Sophie, dear.”
“Mrs. Summers!”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Fletcher, sir.”
“His Grace, the Duke of Rockeforte!”
And then all hell broke loose.
Twenty-eight
Alex let mayhem reign for about two minutes. It seemed fitting in his mood, and he rather felt Sophie had the right to rage a bit. Of them all, she had been the most ill-used.
Eventually, however, he grew impatient to find out just how ill-used she had been. That, and she had begun sliding in and out of a foreign language. Insults were always less fun when you couldn’t understand them.
“Sallings!” he snapped in his best officer’s voice. “You’re dismissed!” Then, “James!” he barked in his best ducal voice. “Bring tea for the ladies and make sure we are not disturbed.” And finally, “Sophie,” he cajoled in his best husband-to-be voice. “Sit down, love, and let us get some answers.”
He turned to Mrs. Summers, intending to use his best future-employer voice but stopped short at the raising of one supercilious eyebrow.
“Do not attempt it, young man,” she warned in her best governess voice. “I have seen the best and the worst this world has to offer, and you are neither so terrible nor sufficiently wonderful as to hold me in your awe.”
Feeling uncomfortably like a chastised boy, Alex held his tongue and offered her a chair in a gesture of truce.
Mrs. Summers nodded regally and accepted the seat. “Tea would be lovely. Thank you for thinking of it.”
“My pleasure,” Alex ground out. “Now,” he declared turning to William, who had wisely taken his own seat, “start explaining.”
“It’s a bit of a long story actually,” William hedged.
“Shorten it,” Alex advised grimly.
William took the hint. “Right. Well the shortest possible version, I suppose, would be to say…,” he took a fortifying breath. “There was not originally a suspected plot of treason. You were both led into what was intented only as a ruse in order that I might fulfill a deathbed promise I made to Alex’s father.” His words tumbled out like a well-rehearsed speech—which, as it happened, it was.
“What promise?” Alex demanded.
“Your father was a spy?” Sophie asked in surprise.
“I’ll explain later,” Alex assured her.
“They prefer ‘agent,’ dear,” Mrs. Summers commented.
William slumped in his chair. His plan for revealing the truth hadn’t gotten any further than that last little recitation. The rest he would have to improvise. William hated improvising.
“What promise?” Alex repeated. “I thought you told me everything my father said the night he died.”
“I did, save the final vow I made, and to be honest, he fairly tricked me into it. I promised to make certain you as well as several others…” and at this point the head of the war office actually blushed a little, “find love.”
“What?” Both Alex and Sophie cried at the same time.
“Yes, well, that was very near to my own reaction, I assure you. But a promise is a promise, especially one made to a friend on his deathbed. He wished for his son the happiness he had with his beloved Anna.”
“My mother,” Alex explained to Sophie before returning his attention to William. “You still have a good deal of explaining to do.”
William nodded. “For many years, I watched you flit from actress to opera singer without evincing the slightest interest in a woman of good breeding. Had you shown a particular preference for one of your paramours, I might have searched for a woman for you amongst the demimonde—I agreed to help you find love after all, not a wife—but you went through mistresses the way some dandies go through cravats…Terribly sorry, Sophie dear.”
Sophie shrugged. “I’ve already heard the gossip. Don’t censure yourself on my account.”
“So you took it upon yourself to find me a life mate, is that it?” Alex asked incredulously.
William nodded.
“Why Sophie?” he asked, then, feeling it might be wise, quickly added, “Not that I oppose your choice.”
“Mary…that is, Mrs. Summers, gave me the idea. You wouldn’t remember me, Sophie, but I met you the day Mary arrived at Whitefield to be your governess. I was responsible for her obtaining the position.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t—”
“No, no, quite all right. You were very young and, if I recall correctly, rather preoccupied with several stitches you received on your arm from a dog bite. You were quite proud of them.”
Sophie smiled at that. “Harry. We became the best of friends after that little misunderstanding. But how is it you knew Mrs. Summers?”
“She and I met in this very office.”