Her father, the younger son of a baronet, had been one of those gentlemen who had looks and charm and even intelligence to spare—he had taught his daughter to read and write and figure—but who lacked any ability to cope with life. His dreams had always been as big and wide as the ocean, but dreams were not reality. They did not put a permanent roof over their heads or a regular supply of food in their stomachs.
Sophia had adored him, occasional drunken sprees and all.
She had been content to be invisible to Aunt Mary, her father’s elder sister, to whom she had been sent after his death, even though she was fifteen at the time. For Aunt Mary had raked her from head to toe with one contemptuous look upon her arrival and pronounced her impossible. She had proceeded to treat her accordingly—she had virtually ignored her, in other words. But at least she had allowed her to stay, and she had provided her with the basic necessities of life.
And being ignored was actually better than being noticed, experience had taught her during those years with Aunt Mary. For the only friendship she had ever enjoyed, the only romance that had ever stirred her heart, had been brief and intense and ultimately soul-shattering.
And then Aunt Mary had died suddenly after Sophia had lived with her for three years, and Sophia had been taken in by Aunt Martha, who had never pretended to look upon her as anything more than a glorified maid who must nevertheless be suffered to dine and sit with the family when they were at home. Only very occasionally did Aunt Martha call her by name. Sir Clarence did not call her anything except, sometimes, the mouse. Henrietta seemed unaware of her very existence. But she did not want to be visible to any of them. She did not like them, even though she was grateful to them for giving her a home.
Sophia sighed, careful to make no sound. Sometimes she might almost have forgotten her own name if it were not for the fact that she was the mouse only to the depth of her skin—not even so deep, actually. Inside, she was not a mouse at all. But no one knew that except her. It was a secret she rather enjoyed hugging to herself. Except that she worried sometimes about the future, which stretched long and bleak ahead of her with no prospect of change—the lot of poor female relatives everywhere. Sometimes she wished she had not been born a lady and could have sought employment on the death of her father. But it was not considered genteel for ladies to work, not while they had relatives to take them in, anyway.
“Viscount Darleigh will no doubt be more than happy to marry you, Henrietta,” Sir Clarence March said. “He is not quite a marquess, heir to a dukedom, as Wrayburn was, it is true, but he is a viscount.”
“Papa,” Henrietta wailed, “it would be intolerable. Even apart from his wrecked face and his blind eyes, the very thought of which make me feel bilious and vaporish, he is Vincent Hunt. I could not so demean myself.”
“He was Vincent Hunt,” her mother reminded her. “He is now Viscount Darleigh, my love. There is a world of difference. It still amazes me that his father lived here all those years as the village schoolmaster, the not very well-to-do schoolmaster, I might add, and we never suspected that he was the younger brother of a viscount. We might never have known it if the viscount and his son had not been obliging enough to die and leave Vincent Hunt the title. Why they stood up to a gang of highwaymen instead of simply relinquishing their valuables, I will never understand. But it is your good fortune that they did and were shot. This is a perfect opportunity for you, my love, and will enable you to hold your head high in society again.”
“Again? She never had to hang her head,” Sir Clarence said sharply, frowning at his wife. “That dashed Wrayburn! He thought to cut our Henrietta in the middle of a crowded ballroom. Well, she showed him!”
Sophia had not been present at that particular ball. She had never been present at any ball for that matter. But she had been in London, and she had pieced together what she believed to be the real story about Henrietta and the Marquess of Wrayburn. When Henrietta and her mama had approached him at the Stiles ball, he had turned his back and pretended not to see them coming, making a loud remark to his group to the effect that it was sometimes near impossible to avoid determined mamas and their pathetic daughters.
After Henrietta had spent half an hour in the ladies’ withdrawing room with her mama, where the latter had had to be plied with smelling salts and brandy, she had emerged in order to slink off home—several people had heard that remark, and doubtless by then everyone knew of it—and had the misfortune to come face to face with the marquess himself. To her credit, she had stuck her nose in the air and asked her mother if she knew the source of that nasty odor. Unfortunately for her, because it might well have been a splendid set-down, the marquess and his cronies had seen fit to find her remark uproariously funny, and doubtless the whole ballroom found it hilarious within a quarter of an hour.
Sophia had felt almost sorry for her cousin that night. Indeed, if Henrietta had told the full truth of the incident—which Sophia learned from listening to the servants—she might have felt all the way sorry for her, at least for a while.
“I shall call at Covington House without further delay,” Sir Clarence said, getting to his feet after consulting his pocket watch, “before anyone else gets there first. I daresay that bore of a vicar will be there before luncheon with one of his speeches and that fool of a Waddell woman will be there with her welcoming committee.”
And you will be there, the mouse commented silently, to offer your daughter in marriage.