Sophie's mind raced as she faced Cole. "Isn't it obvious?" she tossed out, stalling. But he refused to be drawn, merely shaking his head. Sophie noticed with dismay that the colour in his cheeks had begun to fade and knew it wouldn't be long before his logical mind began to apply itself to the mystery of her spinsterhood.
"I don't quite see why you're so interested in so trifling a matter," she said, affecting a yawn and watching his reaction through lowered lashes.
"If it's so trifling, why not just tell me?"
"Perhaps because I barely remember it."
Which was a lie. She remembered that day vividly. It had happened in this very drawing room. She remembered a fearful suitor standing in front of a window, fumbling his way through a rehearsed speech; family, honour and mutual esteem. Long, pale fingers clutching an unscratched walking stick. Listening hard, trying not to think about how a halo of spring sunshine revealed a thinning patch in fine blonde hair. Or how much she wanted to be breathing in a familiar scent of mingled leather and bay rum soap instead of Roger's flowery cologne. Far from insensible to the compliment that was being paid to her, Sophie had sipped tea and grown more sad with every timid word.
After Stephens had bowed a confused Roger from the room, Sophie had sat alone in the darkening parlour. When night began to draw in, one of the braver maids tried to creep in to lay a fire in the cold hearth, only to be ordered sharply out.
It was deep in that shadow-soaked vigil when Sophie had first understood the bittersweet truth. Her soul was not her own but Cole's. And Cole was married. She had wept until dawn.
A loud snort pulled her from the past.
"You "barely remember" receiving a proposal of marriage from the eldest son of one of the wealthiest landowners in the county, a man feted by every match-making mama in England and you -" Stopping abruptly, Cole coughed and grabbing up a piece of the neglected gingerbread, stuffed it into his mouth. Chewing hard, he waved one hand airily at her as though she had been the one to stop speaking.
Sophie knew what he had been about to say. Three years ago, she had been very nearly "on the shelf". For a woman of advanced age and only moderate expectations, an offer of marriage from one such as Lord D'Argent should have been considered a miracle. It was nothing she hadn't thought a thousand times since - why was her throat burning to know that now Cole thought it too?
