AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Every few minutes he looked up to his steward, after Browning returned to the room, and he continued to ask, “Has a reply come from Lady Elkins yet?”
* * *
“Your Grace. That reply has come.” Browning offered a letter just as the sun was going down. Jeremy glanced between the setting sun beyond his windows and the letter in Browning’s grasp before he eagerly took it.
“Thank you.”
Browning seemed to sense Jeremy wanted to be alone, for Jeremy kept turning the letter over in his hands, not quite opening it yet.
“Perhaps we have done enough work today, Your Grace.”
“Yes, you are right. Thanks again, Browning.” Jeremy smiled and waited for his steward to leave. The moment he was gone, Jeremy tore through the Elkins seal emblazoned into the red wax, feeling the paper harsh against the skin of his fingers, and nearly cutting him. When he opened it, he found Sophia’s handwriting was not on the page at all.
‘To the Duke of Pemberton,
My sister-in-law is not receiving letters at this time, neither is she visiting theaters. Your invitation is declined.
Yours etcetera,
Lord Elkins.’
Jeremy nearly crumpled the letter beneath his fingers.
“What is going on?” he murmured so quietly that the words weren’t really audible at all. Something was wrong. Hadn’t Sophia been indulging in her freedoms? Had she not talked at length at the ball of how she loved going to the theater and not having a husband to watch over her shoulder anymore?
She did not write this reply. It came from her brother-in-law, which means…
Jeremy flattened out the letter once again, coming to a firm resolution. It was just possible that Sophia wasn’t aware of Jeremy’s invitation at all. Lord Elkins could have intercepted the letter and replied for her. Jeremy knew Sophia so well, that had she wished to turn him down in his invitation, she would have had no qualms about writing to him herself to refuse him.
“Well, I have crept into that estate once before, have I not?” Jeremy said aloud, finding the words filled him with a determination. He folded up the letter and stuck it into his pocket before he hastened from the room.
His movements were so quick and his hessian boots so loud on the tiled floor that his butler appeared within seconds in the hallway, clearly summoned by the sound.
“Your Grace! Are you going somewhere?”
“Yes. Please have my horse arranged. I wish to take a ride.”
The horse was quickly prepared. Within minutes, the horse was brought to the front of the house, saddled up and ready to go, with the stable boy clinging to the reins. Jeremy pulled on a frock coat and top hat, to keep off the chill of the cold evening, and hurried out to the horse.
The moment he was in the saddle, Jeremy felt a sort of freedom. It was as if being behind that desk all day had stifled him. Now, he could do as he liked, and go where he liked.
To Sophia.
He hitched the reins and rode forward, heading through the streets as quickly as he could to Sophia’s home. When the house grew in the distance, a smile crept onto his cheeks. The last time he had crept into the estate, he had traversed the garden wall easy enough, but this evening, Sophia was unlikely to be in the garden. She may be at dinner or retired to a withdrawing room.
Jeremy pulled up his steed to the garden wall where he had climbed before. He looped the reins over a notch in the stonework, then he clambered up, dropping down the other side with ease. The grass beneath his boots crunched, covered in dew and growing frost already.
Jeremy slipped between the trees as quietly as he could, sometimes holding his body behind tree trunks, wary of late-working gardeners ambling the estate. When he reached near the house, and the building appeared between the trees, he hovered behind one tree in particular.
Peering beneath the rim of his top hat, he searched the windows, looking back and forth for any sign of life. He saw a maid wandering to and fro in an upstairs window before she blew out a candle and disappeared somewhere. On the bottom floor, there was a vast window to a sitting room. There was just enough light left in the sky for Jeremy to see the door to the room open, and someone stepped inside, carrying a candle.
Sophia!
She closed the door behind her, showing she was alone, before she placed the candle on the mantelpiece. She didn’t sit down or relax. She merely stood by the fire, shifting her weight beneath her feet, restless.
Something is still wrong.
Jeremy checked the windows another time, and the paths in the formal garden in front of him. He could see no sign of Lord Elkins, nor of any staff who could tell of Jeremy’s presence. Taking his opportunity, he stepped out from behind the tree and hurried through the formal part of the garden. He practically ran on the balls of his feet in order to stay quiet, brushing past rose bushes that had been cut back and pyracanthas that tried to prick him with their thorns as he hurried past.
