Kate and Sophie both nodded, but after several minutes of considering, then rejecting, various gentlemen as possible husbands, Sophie began to grow nervous again. Apparently, there weren’t many men in a position that would allow their new wife to live on the other side of the world.
“We’re going about this all wrong,” Mirabelle finally declared. She tapped her finger to her chin in a contemplative gesture. “I think,” she said thoughtfully, “that we should limit the list to widowers.”
Kate looked delighted. “Oh! That’s very clever. But not just any widowers.”
“Of course not,” Mirabelle returned.
“Only widowers with an heir,” Kate clarified.
Mirabelle nodded. “And preferably a spare.”
“Naturally.”
Sophie help up her hand. “Why would I want…ooh, that is clever.”
A widower already blessed with two sons was far more likely to accept her offer of a marriage in name only. To Sophie’s understanding, most ton marriages were continued only on paper after the production of heirs. She needed a husband willing to forgo the preliminaries.
“Won’t that just further limit the number of suitable candidates?” Sophie asked.
“Actually,” Kate said brightly, “I rather think there are more gentlemen with whom one might be willing to marry, provided they stay several thousand miles away, than there are gentlemen whose presence one could tolerate on a daily basis.”
Sophie thought so too. “Right. Shall we begin anew then?”
The task proved considerably more challenging than anticipated. After two hours, two pots of tea, and too many biscuits, Sophie’s list of eligible bachelors remained depressingly short. She was tired, frustrated, and beginning to entertain the rather unkind notion that England needed more dead wives.
Her guilt was somewhat assuaged when Mirabelle sighed and said, “There aren’t enough widowers.” Which was really just a more tactful way to say the same thing.
“I wish Evie were here,” Kate said.
“Evie?” Sophie inquired. She had heard the name a few times but had always been too interested in the conversation at hand to request an explanation. Now, however, seemed a very good time to ask about a perfect stranger. Anything for a few moments’ respite from the topics of traitorous family members and an eventual loveless marriage.
“My cousin,” Kate explained. “She lives at Haldon Hall and usually comes to London with us, but she insisted on staying on in the country this year.”
“Why? Is she unwell?”
“Well, she’s mad to hear my mother tell it, but no,” Kate replied, “she’s perfectly well. Evie’s had four seasons already, and she insists she’s not going to marry anyway, so what does one season at Haldon matter?”
“Evie’s painfully shy with people she doesn’t know well,” Mirabelle explained, “and a radical around those she does. She also has a couple of…physical reminders of a childhood accident that I suspect she’s rather sensitive about. All in all, not a matrimonial prize in the narrow view of society.”
“I see,” Sophie replied, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“But she’s very good at this sort of thing,” Kate added.
“What sort of thing?”
“Scheming,” Kate replied, and with such fondness that Sophie could only assume it was meant as the highest of compliments.
“Oh!” Mirabelle cried suddenly, sitting up straighter in her chair. “That reminds me of something Evie said. Write down Sir Frederick Adams and Mr. Weaver.”
Kate looked confused. “Sir Frederick? But he’s not a widower.”
Mirabelle waved her hand dismissively. “He’s perfect, trust me. Put him on the list, Sophie.”
Sophie lifted the quill but hesitated. She looked at Kate, then Mirabelle, then back again. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Mirabelle, she just didn’t know her as well as Kate did. And Kate was looking at Mirabelle as if she’d lost her mind. It would probably be best to err on the side of caution. Sophie was willing to take a few leaps of faith where her new friends were concerned, but they were discussing a potential husband for her, not a new bonnet.
She turned back to Mirabelle. “Why?” she asked, still holding the quill suspended over the paper.
“Why is he perfect, why should you put him on the list, or why should you trust me?”
“The first two.”
Mirabelle took a deep breath, carefully considering her next words. “Sir Frederick,” she began slowly, “is the type of man who…who eschews the company of women.”
“Ohh,” Sophie replied in sudden understanding, her eyebrows rising, and her lips retaining the ‘oh’ position long after the sound was gone.
Kate’s lips did the same thing, but her eyebrows went down in befuddlement instead of up. “How’s that?” she asked.
Mirabelle and Sophie both shifted a little uncomfortably in their seats. Kate looked to Sophie, who quickly busied herself adding the names to the list. She didn’t know Kate all that well either, she reasoned. Surely this sort of enlightenment was best left to an old friend.