‘Your mama feels the need for your support, Sophy.’
His daughter did not enquire about him giving support. Lord Chelmarsh rarely went up to Town, preferring to spend his time in improving his estates. His correspondents and friends were men of similar interests whom he would not find in London except under duress. He immersed himself in cattle breeding and his lady wife was sometimes heard to complain that he held his prize bulls in greater esteem than his children. This was not true, quite.
‘I am not sure that I will not simply be there merely to keep Susan out of mischief.’
‘Of course that is why you will be there. Your cousin is … wilful and innocent, which is a dangerous combination in a girl her age.’
‘You say that, Papa,’ Sophy laughed, ‘as if it were a trait to be bred out, as you do with poor milkers.’
‘Might be easier for everyone if it could be, my dear.’
He invited her to sit, and studied her face. He could not see why she had never ‘taken’. Her hair was somewhere between brown and gold, her complexion healthy and unblemished, and her features good, with a straight nose, naturally arching brows, and remarkably fine, blue green eyes. Her mouth might be considered fractionally too large for perfection, but it was a mouth used to smiling at the world, except when in London.
‘London will surely not be so bad, Sophy. You assuredly will not find a husband here.’
‘You know as well as I do that I do not go for that reason. I know Mama despairs of getting me off your hands. She is now talking of me as a prop for your declining years.’
‘I can think of few things less appealing than to become a prop. Marriage would save you from that. I would like to see you mistress of your own establishment, setting up your nursery, but that does not mean I would see you wed to anyone less than a man for whom you cared deeply, and most certainly I do not seek “getting you off my hands”.’ There was an edge of mild reproof in his voice.
‘I am sorry, Papa, but … if you only knew how much I detest being on show. I hope you realise it is all your fault too.’
‘Mine?’
‘Yes, sir, since it is from you I inherit my excessive inches, and you were mightily remiss in permitting Mama to name me after her godmother, which I know was in some expectation of largesse which never materialised.’
‘The first was beyond my control, and de facto, the second also. It is very difficult to impose a name upon a child, when the mother is in the euphoria of relief at having survived, and simultaneously cast down by the perceived failure of not being delivered of a son.’
‘Yet she did not give Frances a cumbersome name, and it was only after her that Jasper arrived.’ Sophy ignored the idea that her not being a boy was a failure on her mother’s part.
‘Very true. I have to admit that I did put my foot down at her first choice.’
‘Which was?’
‘Euphemia. Sounds like “euphemism” to me. Ghastly name.’
‘And Sophronia is not?’
‘It is easily shortened to Sophy, which I happen to like.’
‘As do I, Papa,’ she laid her hand on his, ‘but in public I am always announced as Sophronia. If only you had been a mere viscount, I could have been simply “Miss Hadlow” and been comfortable.’
‘But by that reasoning, the fault lies with your grandfather for not living beyond his seventieth year, for until then I was a viscount, and at birth you were “Miss Hadlow”.’
‘Being right and reasonable is not fair, Papa. I am neither, but it is how I feel.’
‘And do you “feel” better for having had the opportunity to vent your complaints?’
‘Yes, Papa, for you do at least listen.’ She sighed.
‘I listen, but I do not change things when it comes to matters better understood by your mama. To London you will still go, but try to do so with a more positive outlook. If you are fortunate, Mama will be so taken up with launching Harriet and Susan into Polite Society that she may not notice if you chance upon a suitable beau of your own choosing. You are a good girl, Sophy, and if the world was fair, which it is not, you would undoubtedly find one. Your mother’s efforts were perhaps too self-conscious. See what happens when you leave the matter to fate.’
‘My fate, Papa, will be to be Mama’s scapegoat when my unrestrainable cousin proves to be … unrestrainable.’
CHAPTER TWO
The Honourable Susan Tyneham sat with herhands folded in her lap, deceptively demure. Her brother, some eight years her senior, sat opposite her, his face stony. There had been an altercation when they had set off upon their journey, and it had concluded with each side still holding the same views as at the outset. Lord Tyneham, a slightly stocky but not ill-favoured young man, had withdrawn into dignified silence. Susan had decided that to look daggers at him would be a waste, and frowning would incline her brow to wrinkles, so she taunted him by looking as angelic as he knew she was not.
There was little to mark them as brother and sister, and if the old gossip was true, their relationship did not extend to having the same paternity. Lady Tyneham had been a beauty in her youth, and in the eyes of the world had married well, for Tyneham was an exceptionally wealthy man, although only a baron. Upon his marriage he had lavished that wealth upon his bride; his wealth but not his affection, and affection was what she craved above all things. Lady Tyneham had dutifully presented him with an heir within the year, after which their mutual incompatibility had been denied by neither party.
