Kasey Michaels (34 page)

“Oh, for God’s sake!” He pushed himself away from the desk and began to pace as Sophie bit her bottom lip to hold back a giggle.

“Tell me more about love, Bram, please. I may not have listened all that well last night, what with objects flying around the room.”

That stopped him mid-pace. “What?” He pressed a hand against his forehead. “How did this happen? I bring her in here to tell her something, something crucially important, and now we’re talking about love? Last night she doesn’t want to hear a word about it—today, she’s asking for a seminar on the subject! I’m being dazzled, that’s what. I’ll probably spend the rest of my life not knowing if I’m on my head or on my heels. I should throw her out of here on her head right now, that’s what I should do.”

Sophie stood up, went to the drinks table, poured him a glass of wine. Poor dear thing, he looked so harassed. She knew how he felt. This hadn’t been an easy night and day for her, either. Coming to life-altering revelations seldom was. “I understand, Bram. You have other things on your mind. But I do want to talk about this. I think we must. So I’ll begin, yes? I’ll tell you what I think, all right? Love between a man and a woman doesn’t exist, I said. Only desire, even lust. I want to be happy, and believing oneself to be in love is the simplest, straightest route to unhappiness. I’ve said all of that, believed all of that. Definitely. But now I’m beginning to have some few second thoughts on the subject.”

“You’re beginning to have—” He threw up his hands. “Why am I repeating everything the girl says? God’s death, Sophie, you certainly do pick your times, don’t you? A man would be a bloody fool to even
mention
the word love around you. I certainly learned that last night, while I was dodging teapots. After all, it was you who told me that a man only speaks of love in order to get what he wants, and then leaves. That men only believe in lust, in desire. And now you’re saying—oh, no. No! We’re not going to get into this now. Not right now.”

“But you were telling the truth last night, yes? You
do
believe in love, don’t you, Bram? You don’t want to, but you do. You want me to believe in it, too,” she said, handing him the glass, which he took. “Except that I very much think you still believe it makes fools of men. It’s even probably why you betrothed yourself to dear Isadora, and why you can’t look me in the eye today.”

“I’m very fond of Isadora!” he pronounced in a fairly impressive bellow.

“Yes, Bram,” Sophie said reasonably. “And that’s terribly sad. For you, for Isadora. Only think of what you both are missing. Much more intelligent to look for real love, even if it makes fools of us, yes?”

“As in your mother and my father, I suppose? Skyrocketing stark naked from a balcony isn’t exactly a sign of intelligence, Sophie,” he pointed out sarcastically. “Divorcing your wife to marry your paramour isn’t—”

“What did you say?”

“You didn’t know that either?” He looked away from her for a moment, muttering something under his breath, then took a deep breath and looked at her. “I found the documents in my father’s personal belongings. He had everything ready to go, just a week before he died. His solicitors had been hard at work, the wording of the petition was in place. The only reason he’d agreed to go to Buxley’s was in order to line up allies who would help him. Otherwise, and for probably every day of their marriage after I was conceived, my parents were only in the same place at the same time by unhappy accident. So, yes, Sophie, my father was on his way to very publicly divorcing his wife, obviously so that he could marry your mother. Just another Seaton scandal.”

“I—I think perhaps I should sit down now,” Sophie said quietly, marveling at the way the room had begun to spin. He took hold of her arm and helped her to a chair as she swayed where she stood. “But he was going to leave her,” she went on, speaking out loud, but really only talking to herself. “Desiree said she found
Maman
crying, which proved Uncle Cesse was about to leave her, just as they all had left, all the uncles, all those times.
Maman
said Desiree was wrong, that she was happy, that she had a secret. He was going to marry her? He wasn’t going to leave?” She looked up at Bram, her eyes swimming with happy tears. “Oh, Bram, don’t you see? This just makes it all even more clear to me, to both of us!”

“How?”

It was a simple question, but Sophie didn’t have a simple answer. What did it change—learning that Uncle Cesse had really, really loved her mother, had been willing to stand up to the scandal of seeking out what would be a difficult, hard-won divorce from his marriage of social convenience in order to wed his one true love? Well, for one thing, it definitely fell into the category of being the miracle of love Desiree had admitted even she still hoped to believe in even after her cynical lessons.

But Bramwell obviously had seen his father’s intentions as just more proof that love made fools of men, that it was better to form a comfortable yet loveless alliance between social peers than to risk his heart—or lose his mind, which was probably what he thought love demanded from a man.

She was beginning to believe she understood love. She was beginning to believe in love with as much conviction as her mother had done, and damn the consequences. She wanted love, desired love above all things, now, and forever. Bramwell’s love. Only his. In or outside of wedlock. Because that didn’t matter. It simply didn’t matter, not when she loved him so much.

But, while she had been about to throw caution to the winds, take Bramwell anyway he wanted to take her—Lord! She was her mother’s child—he was still caught between wanting her and his convictions of these past years, convictions built on his family’s disgrace, his father’s hey-go-mad life, that man’s scandalous death.

Last night she had weakly joked that she and Bramwell were fools. How right she had been!

To Bram, love still meant making a fool of himself, because love made fools of men. And, possibly, quite probably—definitely—of women as well. It certainly had almost made a fool of her, for she’d foolishly been about to declare her love for him, offer herself to him. Just as last night he had nearly been foolish enough to admit his love for her.

A pair of fools seemed rather fun, as her mother and Uncle Cesse had been. But to be a fool on her own? No, that didn’t sound the least bit appealing. Not to her, and obviously not to Bramwell.

She had learned so much. They both still had so much to learn.

So, how did one go about building a pair of happy fools? That was certainly something to think about, wasn’t it? Because she was not about to cry craven at the first hurdle and slink away. Not now. Not when she loved...

“Sophie?” Bramwell prompted, bending down to put a finger under her chin, lift her head so that she had to meet his eyes. “Are you all right?”

She shot him her sunniest smile, the one that crinkled up her nose and made her eyes shine. “Oh, yes,” she said with considerable gusto. “I’m simply fine, Bram. For a moment I was sad, thinking of how things might have been for
Maman
and Uncle Cesse. But they were happy, yes?” She patted his hand, reminding him that he still held her chin, and he let go, straightening once more and looking at her searchingly.

“Now,” she said, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, “I think you said there was some sort of problem? Something more important than our discussion of love?”

“Not more important, Sophie,” he said, still looking at her strangely. She really, really wished he wouldn’t look at her that way. Hungrily. Yet sadly. As if he longed to touch her, but knew he wasn’t free to do so. Yes, he still had so much to learn, poor darling. But that was all right. He loved her. He really did. Now that she understood that, she’d help him get through any remaining problems. Sophie would fix everything, just as she always did. And, if she was very lucky, they’d both have a lot of fun along the way.

“It’s not more important?” she prompted, wondering what he’d do if she lifted up her hand, ran her fingers through his hair. No. Better not. The fellow was hanging by a frayed thread as it was.

“No, it’s not. It’s just—different. This problem is about your mother’s journals.”

“Her—you know about
Maman
’s journals? How?” Sophie was suddenly all attention, thoughts of love and fools and happily-ever-afters flying from her mind.

She could sense that he wasn’t going to tell her the whole truth, even before he opened his mouth. But that didn’t matter for long, not when he began speaking.

“Peggy has been commissioned to bring me anything, um,
unusual
she might find in Aunt Gwen’s rooms,” he said, taking up his wineglass, and his pacing, once again. “When she brought me Lord Buxley’s journal, I confronted my aunt.”

“Oh, dear,” Sophie said, her shoulders slumping. “I never should have mentioned them to her. She does possess a prodigious love of gossip, doesn’t she, Bram? It must have been much like hanging a sugar treat in front of a baby. Lord Buxley’s journal, did you say? Well, that was innocuous enough, I suppose. Unless Aunt Gwendolyn wanted to learn more about the first time his lordship cornered a fox on his own. That,” she ended quietly, “and how he liked to chase
Maman
about the room while she wore nothing but a fox cape he’d given her, with him calling out ‘Yoicks! Away!’”

“I know. I’ve read the journal. But there were also several mentions of many personages in the
ton
, many of them not exactly flattering if anyone were to go about in Society, quoting them,” Bramwell said, one side of his mouth lifting in a smile. “I’ve read four of the journals so far, as a matter of fact. I now understand where you got the idea that led to Wally’s freedom. Very inventive, your mother.”

“You’ve read—did you say four of them? I thought Peggy only brought you the one.”

“And I only intended to read the one,” he told her earnestly, and she believed him. “However, after speaking with my aunt, and learning that she had already read them all? Well, you can see the problem, can’t you?”

He had read four of them? But, obviously, not the one about Uncle Cesse. No, he wouldn’t have done that. Stubborn, stubborn man! Sophie turned toward the window but closed her eyes, able to see the pages of the journals page by damning page. “Uncle Tye’s brushes with the cent-per-cents. Uncle Dickie’s dabbling in cheating during his years at Oxford. Angus McLeish’s sympathies with the French. Horace Autley’s by-blow, set up as a footman at his father’s own country estate. And all the rest. All those little bits of gossip they’d told
Maman
over the years. About Lady Jersey, Lord Byron, two prime ministers, even that business about the Prince Regent, back when he was the Prince Regent, and—”

“Yes, for all the gossip about our new and still-uncrowned king, that one retained the power to startle,” Bramwell cut in. “And now Aunt Gwen knows it. She knows it all, Sophie. And, unfortunately, she’s already nattered a time or two with some of her friends about one or two of the less, shall we say,
incriminating
tidbits?”

“This isn’t good,” Sophie said, knowing she was understating the enormity of what had happened, and by a long chalk.

“Oh, but it gets better, Sophie. Much better,” Bramwell told her as she watched him, her bottom lip stuck between her teeth. “After I sent my aunt and Mrs. Farraday off to Bond Street—buying a new bonnet seems to hold a most miraculous power to cheer my aunt no end, even when she knows she’s been very naughty—I had Peggy help me search her rooms. And we came up with this, sitting right out in the open, on her dresser, so that we know it’s a new addition to her
collection
.”

She took the small object Bramwell held out in his hand, recognizing it as a snuffbox. It was a lovely piece, all gold and polished enamel, with initials engraved on the top lid. She turned it over and over in her hands, then opened it. “She’s done this before, poor dear,” she said. “And you’ve returned things like this before, with no one the wiser. I know you have because you’ve already hinted at it, and Peggy told me the rest. You can do it again, yes? The cover is initialed, like so many of them are. Do you know who it belongs to? I imagine you do. Or is there something I’m not seeing? There is, isn’t there? You wouldn’t be looking quite so stern if there weren’t.”

“Oh, I know who it belongs to, Sophie. And, yes, there is something you’re not seeing. Here, let me show you,” he said. “You already know so many secrets, one more shouldn’t make any difference.” He took the snuffbox from her nervous fingers and, pressing on a nearly invisible button on its lid, opened a secret compartment and pulled out a small scrap of paper, carefully unfolding it before reading its contents aloud. “‘16 Aug. St. P F. Troops ready, per my order. S.’”

“Well, that’s certainly clear,” Sophie said, genuinely confused. “But I suppose it means something to you, yes?”

“Let me refresh your memory, all right? The sixteenth of August of last year marks the day of Peterloo, the massacre of innocent men, women and children in Manchester, at a place called St. Peter’s Fields. It has been said, ever since, that Lord Sidmouth may have planned the whole thing, turning what was meant to be a peaceful protest assembly into an excuse to set government troops on the citizens. Sidmouth, of course, denies this. He also must have never needed to pass the note, and likewise forgot he’d left it in his snuffbox.”

“And he might
still
not remember the note, unless losing the snuffbox jostles his memory. But if he does remember? Bram, that note—if he thought Aunt Gwendolyn had taken the snuffbox, and if you were to personally return the snuffbox, pretending to have found it, and if Lord Sidmouth believed you had discovered the note...” She gave a small shiver. “Lord Sidmouth isn’t a nice man, if I remember
Maman
’s journals correctly.”

“Exactly. There are a great many ‘ifs’ in all of what you say, Sophie—except that business about Sidmouth’s bulldog disposition—and none of them appeal. So, as I see it, we have two problems in front of us right now. The first, my aunt’s gossiping, which may have already prompted at least one of your uncles to wishing you out of London, or underground. We’ll consider that tomorrow, as I already believe I can settle that whole business successfully. And secondly, the return of Sidmouth’s snuffbox. That, I’m afraid, we’ll have to deal with tonight.”