Cold stew was a better alternative to starving. She hoped. No sooner had she thought the thought then Blake appeared, a thunderous expression on his face. Perhaps he read her mind about his stew. She smiled again.
“You can’t be down here.”
“I have already been informed of that fact, but I am hungry and wish to eat.”
“Dominic can serve you in the private parlor.”
Sophia shook her head. “No, thank you. I’ll eat right here.” In London she was never obtuse; she didn’t have to be. She was also not usually sarcastic, but Blake was beginning to make her feel it wasn’t the taproom that was at fault so much as her presence in it. “Unless there’s something wrong with the food?”
“There is nothing wrong with my food.”
“Excellent.” She linked her fingers on the tabletop and relaxed back in the chair.
“You still can’t eat in here. You are a single woman with no chaperone and this will soon be a room filled with men.”
Her sharp smile softened and for a moment she felt real humor. “A chaperone? I am almost thirty years old, Blake. Well past needing someone to watch out for me.”
“These aren’t the nabobs you’re used to, Duchess, these are working men—rough, uncouth, impolite to say the least. I can’t have you in here with them.”
“Oy, that’s a bit harsh.” The first man who offered to buy her a drink jumped to his feet and puffed his chest out.
“Sit down, Peter, this doesn’t concern you.”
“It does if you’re insulting us, or saying that we’d be anything but perfect gennel-men to the lady. It’s not every day one of her kind comes a callin’.”
Sophia bristled. What happened to just being nice?
“This doesn’t concern any of you,” Blake told them again.
One of the men circled around to the back of her chair and gripped it between her shoulder blades. “If Blake here is going to be rude, you could always come stay wiv us.”
So the heat from the stranger’s hand wouldn’t penetrate her dress, she leaned forward and shook her head slightly. “Thank you but I’m sure Blake will rediscover his manners at any moment.”
“Murray, go and sit down.”
Murray took a menacing step in Blake’s direction. “Are you going to make me?”
“Do you want to be barred again?”
Murray thought about it, his bloodshot gaze switching from Sophia and then to Blake. He eyed her again one last time, up and down with a look that turned her stomach, and then finally sat back down.
“I make the rules here and the rule is, no unescorted females, lady or otherwise, in my bar.”
“The sooner you bring me something to eat, the sooner I shall return to my room.” This time she meant it. Wounded pride and hunger had fueled her to impulsiveness, but now she longed for the solitary confines of her room.
Blake’s hands crashed down on the table as he leaned over her. “Have you no use for manners at all?”
“I said please the first time I asked,” she pointed out, his loud display only slightly frightening.
Just then the taproom door slammed open, a healthy gust of damp cold air blowing across the scene inside. “What’s going on here?”
Sophia peeked beneath Blake’s arm. “Matthew?”
Blake muttered something beneath his breath that sounded a lot like another insult but Sophia ignored him, forcing him to step back as she rose to greet her brother and the woman half-hidden in his shadow. “What are you doing back?”
Matthew folded her into his arms for a second time, squeezing her hard. “I wanted you to meet my wife and didn’t want to wait for tomorrow. This is Violet.”
Sophia took in the girl with a golden halo of curls framing a perfectly flawless face. She wondered what Matthew had said to his wife to prompt her visit, especially as they had not previously met. “It’s lovely to meet you, Violet.”
“And you,” she returned, but made no move to embrace her or kiss the air by her cheek.
Sophia understood Violet’s reaction and didn’t press a situation that would make the heavily pregnant woman more uncomfortable. It was the same notion of scandal and propriety that had kept Sophia from attending their wedding. Or at least that’s the excuse she had given at the time she declined their invitation.
Regardless of the rising tension now, she didn’t want them to leave. “I was about to have an early supper, would you care to join me?”