Page 66 of The Fortune Hunter’s Gamble

“I believe you have proposed several candidates already,” Rowden said to Sophronia. He took a large bite of toast, baring his teeth. “The sisters of the Marquess of Arendale, for instance. Wasn’t the purpose of our attendance at the Royal Exhibition so that you could trot them out for my inspection?”

“They are not horses,” Sophronia snapped. “And none of the Falstead women are a fit for you, Rowden. Starria is a natural philosopher who might become consumed with her work and forget about you. Tressie is independent minded and will not bow to your wishes, and you cannot have two parties in a marriage who are stubborn. And Selene is too young for a such jaded man as yourself.” She whacked at her soft-boiled egg with her spoon, driving splinters of eggshell into the soft white interior.

“Who was the girl you introduced to me at the tulip show?” Rowden asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“That is Empyrea Ponsonby, and her mother will want higher for her. Someone with an heir to a title, at the very least,” Sophronia replied, attacking her egg.

“And the young woman at the Automatical Exhibition at Astley’s. The Pennyroyal girl. The family fortunes seem quite restored with the elder girl’s marriage.” Rowden smirked, as if he sensed her rising wrath. “Might follow in the footsteps of my cousin and settle down with the daughter of a military man.”

“She is…” Sophronia trailed off. There was absolutely nothing over which to take exception about any of the daughters of the late Colonel Pennyroyal, whom she had met through Henrietta Bales, the one they called Lady Daring. “The late Colonel Pennyroyal died as the consequence of a tragic bet,” Sophronia recalled. “Their mother will not wish any of them to be associated with a man who runs a gambling club.”

“The Albion is a proper gentleman’s club, with entertainments available to ladies,” Rowden replied. “How could Mrs. Pennyroyal object to that?”

“I forget how well-connected you are, thanks to Mr. Hinton,” Aunt Dobbs said with an indulgent smile. “Do you know, Sophronia, it is strange to think of our Rowden marrying another. Emily, your Aunt Edmons and I, we had always supposed you and Rowden would make a match of it one day.”

Sophronia choked on a spoonful of egg and held her napkin to her face to hide the red that no doubt suffused her cheeks.

Rowden, the cad, continued devouring his toast as if this were all very amusing to him. “One might have thought it, Aunt, with the comfortable way we had of going on together. But Sophronia had her eye on a better life. More sophisticated friends. Financial security, which I could not give her.”

He turned his attention to Sophronia, twisting the knife. “But why Hinton? I hadn’t known you to be entertaining any suitors before he came along. Indeed, I hadn’t known you meant to turn your thoughts toward marriage, and I your best friend in the world. What was it about Hinton? The money?”

Sophronia kept her gaze trained on her plate, certain everyone would see the panic in her eyes if she raised her head. She had told Rowden in confidence the reasons she felt pressed to marry Henry. Why did he want it out in the air now? To make her look calculating? She was choking on that egg, the mass in her throat refusing to be dislodged.

“I think the question that most interested the neighborhood was why Henry should have looked to me at all. Grandmother Feltham certainly could not understand why Henry would have interested himself in a half-wild country girl, as she called me, instead of the proper young ladies he knew from London.”

“Mr. Hinton was too proud to let it be thought that he had bought a bride by bestowing his name and a share in his fortunes on someone known to be destitute,” Aunt Dobbs said. “He liked that your father was established and well-connected, and that Foxleigh was prosperous and well taken care of.”

“So the Felthams encouraged him, do you think?” Rowden asked.

“I would not say that.” Aunt Dobbs shook her head. “None of the Felthams had anything much to do with Tabitha after she married, and they took no interest at all in Sophronia. But as soon as Tabitha was laid in her grave, her brother Donald came around to tell Edward, I mean Mr. Edmons, that he was expected to surrender Foxleigh. When it was his home, and Sophronia’s.” She pushed her egg cup aside. “That Humphrey is a sprig off the same tree.”

“Hold a moment,” Rowden said turning to Sophronia. “I thought that Humphrey proposed to you to regain the property his grandfather dowered to your mother. Your uncle was threatening to take back Foxleigh and turn you and your father out of your home? Where would you have gone?”

“We had nowhere to go.” Sophronia set down her spoon. “My uncle knew this but did not see it as his concern. My father could have taken rented rooms in town, or come to live with me when I married, but he cherished Foxleigh. It was where he spent his happiest years with my mother.”

“They couldn’t have taken your home away. Not legally,” Rowden insisted.

“They could try, and drag us into a tedious and expensive lawsuit. Humphrey’s uncle is a barrister, you know. And Papa was so ill then. Henry made it all go away. He paid off the Felthams, and he found a physician for Papa who was at last able to treat his gout. That was the bargain I made, to keep my father in his home and no longer plagued by his relations. Condemn me for that as you will.”

She pushed away her egg cup. Her breakfast was a lost cause, and she didn’t have the heart to try again.

“Mr. Hinton arranged to have Foxleigh put in Sophronia’s name, and hers alone,” Aunt Dobbs explained. She settled in her chair with her tea, relishing the gossip as she no doubt had when it all first transpired. “So Donald could try to force Sophronia to marry that scamp Humphrey if he wished, but there were so many legal barriers set up around it, Humphrey would not be able to claim the property, only enjoy it for the course of their marriage. Humphrey bowed out as a suitor when Hinton stepped into the scene. I suspect Hinton paid Donald a tidy sum to go away and pester someone else.” She took a long, noisy sip from her cup.

Rowden swung his head toward Sophronia. She could feel the weight of his accusing stare. “You told me none of this,” he said in a quiet voice. Rowden had always shouted when he was angry, or at least, her Rowden had. This Rowden—the mature, self-possessed, so much more masculine version of Rowden—he knew how to assume a low tone of voice that somehow sounded deadly.

She felt the weight of his hurt, too. “You were concerned with preparing for university, and you so longed to be gone. It did not seem fair to entangle you with my family troubles.”

“Ro,” he said, his voice taut. “We were always entangled. I should have known. I could have⁠—”

“Done what?” She lifted her head to meet his stare. The old wound seared. She had thought all of this old, buried, grown over and forgotten like the caved-in opening of a mine. The hole was still there, the emptiness would never leave her, but it could stay buried far below the surface, she’d thought. Now she knew she had only refused to look at the wound because she could not comprehend how it had never healed.

“We went over this. You were leaving.” That burning lump in her throat strangled her words. “That is what you are always doing. Leaving me.”

Just like her mother.

“I could have done something,” he said, her eternally stubborn Rowden. “Asked the Baron’s solicitor for legal advice. Asked for money. Called out your uncle⁠—”

“And gotten yourself killed on the so-called field of honor.” Sophronia snorted. “A fight was always your answer. And you ask why I couldn’t turn to you.”