The Virgin Who Ruined Lord Gray - Anna Bradley Page 0,115

give in to despair, will we? Indeed, I won’t allow it, Sophia. Now, come here, dearest.”

She held out a hand to Sophia, who abandoned her post by the window to join Cecilia on the bed. “There, that’s better,” Cecilia murmured, patting Sophia’s hand.

Cecilia was making a great effort to remain optimistic, and a less discerning friend might have believed she was. She sat stoically on the edge of the bed, every hair in place, with Sophia’s hand securely between her own.

But Sophia wasn’t fooled.

Cecilia was more unnerved than Sophia had ever seen her. Of all the bad omens and waking nightmares that had made up this night, Cecilia’s disquiet bothered Sophia most of all. If Cecilia was anything less than unrelentingly positive, then things were very bad, indeed.

Sophia spent the next few hours pacing from the bed to the window to the bedchamber door, listening for Lady Clifford’s footsteps in the hallway. She and Cecilia didn’t speak much, but her friend never abandoned her. The sun had just sent its first tentative rays into the sky when Sophia turned from the window to face Cecilia, and broke her silence at last. “I love him, Cecilia. I’m in love with him.”

Cecilia raised her head, and her gaze met Sophia’s. “I know.”

Sophia managed a half-smile and a shrug, but the tears she’d kept at bay all night glittered at the corners of her eyes. “I’m in love with an earl. It’s the most foolish, absurd thing ever, yet I’ve gone and fallen in love with an earl.”

An earl who’s betrothed to a lady in Oxfordshire.

It was on the tip of Sophia’s tongue to say it aloud, to confide everything to Cecilia, but something held her back.

“I know, dearest,” Cecilia repeated with a sigh, then patted the empty space beside her on the bed. “Come here.”

Sophia shuffled over to the bed, dropped down beside Cecilia, and wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. When had it grown so cold? “How did you know?”

Cecilia tucked an arm around Sophia’s shoulders, squeezing her closer when Sophia lay her head against her shoulder. “Because it’s who you are, Sophia. You hang about deserted graveyards at night. You scale earls’ townhouses, hide on their roofs, and break into their kitchens. You’ve never been one to shy away from danger, even at the expense of your own safety. So, why should you behave any differently with your heart?”

“Oh, dear. You do insist on making me into a heroine, don’t you?” Sophia asked, with a forlorn little laugh.

“Of course, you’re a heroine, a wonderfully brave sort of heroine. You always have been.”

Sophia sniffled. “I wish I was a coward. I’d be much better off.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” Cecilia stroked a hand over Sophia’s hair. “Falling in love is a great risk, certainly, but it offers the greatest reward. Why, just look at Adeline and Theodore.”

Sophia closed her eyes and tried to empty her mind of everything but Adeline and Theodore’s happy ending, but the image of Richard Poole on top of Tristan with the knife raised over his head seemed to be painted on the inside of her eyelids. Time and again she saw the knife arc through the air, the blade gleaming in the faint light before it plunged into Tristan’s chest, and the blood, thick and dark, spurting everywhere…

She shuddered, and turned her face into Cecilia’s shoulder. “What reward? He’s going to die, Cecilia. Tristan’s going to die, and I’ll be left alone.”

She’d been alone before. The thought of being so again shouldn’t cause her such despair, yet somehow losing Tristan made her feel more alone than she ever had before.

“Hush. You know better than that. You’ll never be alone, no matter what becomes of Lord Gray.” Cecilia kept stroking Sophia’s hair and muttering words of comfort, but she didn’t try and convince Sophia Tristan would be all right. She didn’t make any empty promises, and she didn’t say he wouldn’t die.

Cecilia was a true romantic, but she never lied. For all her starry-eyed dreams and fancies, she’d seen too much of life to believe every story had a happy ending.

So, Sophia wept, and Cecilia rocked her gently as the hours crawled by. The summer sun, which had chosen this day of all days to shine with unrelenting cheerfulness, was high in the sky before Sophia gave up her struggle to stay awake, and succumbed to an exhausted sleep.

She startled awake sometime later to a soft knock on the door.

When she opened her eyes, Cecilia was hurrying to open