“Your mother will plan a summer wedding,” Sir Clarence added, clasping the lapels of his coat with both hands and looking pleased with the world. “Perhaps in London with half the ton in attendance. Though almost everyone leaves town in the summer, I am sure they would return for such an illustrious event.”
Sophia was going to the assembly too. She had not been told she might go, and she had not asked. But the village assemblies were for everyone. No invitations were sent out. She was going to go even if she had to walk to the inn. In fact, that was what she would do anyway, for if Aunt Martha knew she intended to go, she might try to stop her. They could not stop her from going if she was already there, could they? And how could they even express annoyance afterward when everyone else would be there too? And it was not as if she was going to create a scene. She would be going strictly as an observer. She would find an obscure corner and fade into it. She was an expert at that.
She was going to go. Her heart thudded in her chest as soon as the decision had been made while she was sitting at the breakfast table, for she never went anywhere. Not to any social event, anyway. She had gone to London for the last two Seasons, for the simple reason that she could not very well have been left alone at Barton Hall. But she had not attended any of the parties or concerts or balls her aunt and Henrietta had gone to every day. How could she? Aunt Martha had said on the only occasion she had alluded to the fact. It was hard enough being the sister and niece of a gentleman who had been killed in a duel for cuckolding an earl, a shocking and humiliating event that had only been the final chapter in a less than illustrious career. They would never be able to hold up their heads if they were seen to be harboring his daughter, especially when she looked as she did.
Sophia had one dress that was marginally suitable for evening wear. It had been made for Henrietta when she was fourteen or fifteen and had been worn once, to her birthday party that year. It had not needed to be altered quite as much as the other hand-me-downs that had come Sophia’s way. It was a pink-and-cream striped muslin and still had some shape even after Sophia had shortened it and taken it in at the seams. It was not ravishingly pretty, and its design was no doubt woefully out of date, but this was no grand London ball that she was going to attend. It was a village assembly. There would surely be other women more plainly dressed than she, or at least as plainly.
She walked to the Foaming Tankard after the other three had left in the carriage, thankful that it was neither a cold nor a wet night. Nor windy. She felt rather excited.
She did not expect to dance, of course. Or to converse. Nobody knew her in Barton Coombs even after two years. She had never been introduced to anyone and had only ever received some genial nods after church on Sundays. But all she really wanted to do anyway was watch people interacting and having fun.
Oh, and—admit it, Sophia!—to see the beautiful Viscount Darleigh again. To worship from afar.
And to make sure, if she possibly could, that Henrietta, aided and abetted by her mama and papa, did not trap him into any compromising situation that would compel him as an honorable man into marrying her. She had never cared about the other gentlemen they had tried to ensnare in London. They had been perfectly capable of looking after themselves, she had always thought, and events had always proved her correct. But was Lord Darleigh as capable? If he was lured outside the inn, would he know if he was led away out of sight of other guests? And would he know that Sir Clarence and Lady March would make good and sure that everyone else noticed the length and impropriety of his absence with their daughter?
It took considerable courage to step inside the inn when she got there and ascend the stairs to the assembly rooms, from which a great deal of noise was spilling down to the ground floor and out onto the street. It sounded as if a merry jig was in progress and as if every inhabitant of the village and its neighborhood was trying to talk to every other inhabitant in a voice loud enough to be heard. And it sounded as if every listener—if there was anyone left to listen—was finding the conversation brilliantly funny and was showing appreciation by laughing uproariously.
Sophia almost turned about and scurried home.
But she reminded herself that she was not really a mouse. And that she was, in fact, a lady, and socially at least on a level with more than half the people here. She was not even sure she was naturally shy. She had never had the chance to find out.
She went on up.
She was confronted by the vicar almost as soon as she passed through the doorway. He beamed at her and extended his right hand.
“I do not have the pleasure of your acquaintance, ma’am,” he bellowed above the music and the conversation and the laughter. “But may I presume upon the fact that you have sat in a pew in my church every Sunday for a couple of years or so and listened most attentively to my sermons, which put all too many of my parishioners to sleep, alas? I am Parsons, as you must know. And you are—?”
Sophia set her hand within his. “Sophia Fry, sir.”
“Miss Fry.” He patted the back of her hand with his free one. “Let me have Mrs. Parsons pour you a glass of lemonade.”
And he led her past crowds of revelers to a table laden with food and drink. He introduced her to his wife, who nodded genially, tried to say something, and shrugged and widened her eyes and laughed when it became obvious that it was impossible to make herself heard.
Sophia took her glass and went to find a corner of the room to sit in. Well, that had been easier than expected, she thought, sinking gratefully onto a vacant chair. Her aunt was some distance away—there was no mistaking her nodding royal blue plumes—and was gazing at her in some astonishment. Sophia pretended not to notice her. Aunt Martha could not really send her home, could she? And she would be quite happy to be a mouse for the rest of the evening. Well, almost happy. Sometimes her capacity for self-deception disturbed her.