Her sister and the duke were standing in another corner of the square tower. The baron took her hand as it rested on the parapet. Sophie pulled away and looked at him with reproach.
“Surely you must know how deeply I admire you, Miss Edwards,” he said, his eyes earnest. “Frank is not going to have the power to avoid this marriage to your friend. Do you not think you ought to resign yourself to the fact?” He put his hand up to her face. “The wind is going to be the ruin of your coiffure. With your hair streaming about, you resemble a Diana, plunging into battle.”
At his words about Frank, Sophie’s heart skittered down to her middle and she turned her face aside so he would not see her tears. “I love Frank,” she said. “You do not understand. I cannot switch my allegiance in the way you expect. I am not a fickle person. I love few people in my life, and all of them deeply.” After a moment, she faced him. “I do not know what I will do if he marries Melissa. But I am a strong person. I have had to be. I will probably go back to Derbyshire.”
“And what a waste that would be.” His eyes were soft as he looked at her. “I just want you to know that I am in the wings, waiting.”
“Your wait may be endless,” she said.
“I am a patient man.”
Elise came to Sophie’s side. “The view is rather spectacular, is it not?”
“Which was Peter’s college?” Sophie asked.
“Balliol, like Frank.”
After a few more moments, they descended from the tower and again boarded the carriage. It took them through the gently rolling landscape of the picturesque Oxfordshire Sophie was coming to love. Wistfully, she took in the grazing sheep dotting emerald hills, honey-stoned cottages with varicolored roses climbing their fa?ades, quaint villages set neatly in the river valleys.
After a while, she resumed Elise’s novel and tried to read, but her sore heart distracted her and her vision blurred. She sat staring at the same page, reading the words over and over. But her thoughts were far away from the satire, amusing though it seemed.
How I would love to live in this beautiful country. If only it were possible. If only Frank had never made that illfated visit to my room.
Was Shrewsbury right? Was it inevitable that Frank marry Melissa?
~~*
Chipping Norton was a bustling town. Unfortunately, it was market day, and all the world seemed to be in the square. The stalls sold strawberries, blackberries, gooseberries, raspberries, rounds of cheese, fish and fowl, peas, lettuce, and bolts of woolen fabrics, as well as yarns and knitted and woven apparel. A stall-owner held out a Liberty wool shawl with a design in powder blue, pink, and red.
“Miss, this would look fair beautiful on you.”
“Oh,” said Elise. “She is right. Buy it, Soph!”
Sophie consulted her purse, then bartered a bit with the woman. Moments later, she was the owner of quite the most beautiful shawl she possessed.
However, she found the walking this morning and this afternoon was taking a toll on her knee.
“Elise, would you mind if I returned to the White Hart for tea while you shop and the men go about their business?”
Her sister looked at her with concern. “Oh, Sophie, are you in a great deal of pain?”
“Not a great deal.” She smiled apologetically. “I am certain I will recover if I can just sit for a while and have a cup of tea. Put out of your mind any image you might have of Poor Little Sophie. The shopping is so enjoyable, I would not limit your fun.”
“To tell you the truth, a cup of tea sounds very good to me at the moment.”
Once they were settled in the comfortable dining room of the White Hart, their hostelry for the night, they ordered tea and cakes. Sophie relaxed.
“My heavens, this is a busy place,” she said.
“Peter says it is a market center for the woolen industry. It may very well be just the place for a girls’ orphanage.”
Sophie could feel her sister studying her face. “What is it, Elise?”
“I noticed that Shrewsbury was importuning you on the tower. I am sorry we left the two of you alone. I suppose he took the opportunity to declare himself.”
“In a way. He is convinced that Frank will not escape from this marriage. Last night, he did me the favor of informing me what consequences Frank would face if he were to cry off.” Sophie looked around her at the formal dining room with its lace tablecloths and brass chandeliers and felt decidedly dull. “I must stop living in a dream world, Elise. I cannot stand to be in London longer than necessary if Frank is to marry Melissa. After my concert, I will retreat to Derbyshire.”
“Coward,” Elise said. “Frank will feel you have given him up, that you no longer love him.”
“I do not want him to ruin himself socially and politically. I could bear to live out of Society, but Frank is a social person. He would be dreadfully bored with only me for company! And he is too much of a gentleman to submit poor Melissa to such disgrace. Imagine being ruined and jilted!”
“I remember very well the letter he wrote you, Sophie. He is deeply in love with you. I assume you still feel the same?”