Page 67 of The Fortune Hunter’s Gamble

“So you married Hinton because he gave you Foxleigh and made your pestilent uncle leave you in peace.”

Sophronia bowed her head. “Yes.”

Though she stared at the linen cloth covering the table, she saw Rowden’s fingers curl around his knife. “So it was about the money. That was the stability you meant.”

Aunt Dobbs dabbed at the corner of one eye. “She married to keep her father in his home. Can you conceive of a more dutiful daughter?”

“But you did not marry entirely for financial reasons, Sophronia?” Lily’s tone held a hint of a plea. “Surely there was some affection involved.”

Sophronia blinked away her tears and regarded the younger woman. Lily, like Sophronia, had come from comfortable and protected circumstances. Like Sophronia, she had lost her mother at a young age, which was one reason Sophronia supposed she had taken the girl under her wing.

But Lily possessed the luxury of a parent who had been careful to preserve his pension and the small annuity his wife left for their daughter, and her only family was a doting spinster aunt who was sure to cry copious tears at Lily’s wedding and tuck as many cakes as she could into her reticule.

Lily could marry for no other inclination than for love, as fragile a reason that was. But as Sophronia observed the newly affianced couple, she could not help but feel a twist in her chest at their happiness. They did not know how quickly their security could be taken away or their entire lives ruined by a sudden loss. They did not know how grief was a bitter salt to every food, a shadow on every future event, a stranger that stood in every doorway, never to be dismissed. She hoped they would never learn.

“Henry and I dealt as well as we could together.” Sophronia managed to find a way to state affairs that would not reveal the truth, but that also would not become a lie to damn her soul. “But you, my dear. I believe you and Giles will devote yourselves to each other’s happiness, and it is my joy to see it.”

“I hope you may find an equal joy, Sophronia, in a new husband who will cherish you,” Lily said. The innocence of her wish was another lash on Sophronia’s flayed heart. Then the gleam in her eye turned impish. “But why have you not proposed yourself as a match for Mr. Rowden, if the two of you were so close before?”

There it was again. Why not Rowden? His eyes held a dark flame as he stared at her.

There was a great deal riding on her response, and Sophronia did not know where to set her foot next. He had offered pleasure but not marriage; a bed, but not in a marital fashion. And he was talking of going abroad to the Continent on behalf of Lord Grenville to spy about the new Helvetic Republic. He would always be leaving her.

She wanted him with a longing that cleaved her down to her soul, but he was not a rock a woman could build her life around, even if she were willing to risk it. He would become bored and restless, as he always had. Adventure would call him, and he would go.

“I hardly think the marital prospects of either Rowden or myself can be of interest to you at this point in time, my dear. Not when we have your own wedding to plan.” Sophronia pasted an encouraging smile on her face, and Lily’s expression eased into a joyful glow.

“Oh, a wedding in the family, at last!” Aunt Dobbs clapped her hands. “I cannot wait to tell Emily. Shall we have you married from Standen, my dear? I worry a bit that old St. Lawrence’s might fall down about our ears one day.”

“I am very interested in who Sophronia might choose to marry next,” Rowden said, but no one paid any attention to him as Lily expressed her affection for Hungerford’s ancient and derelict St. Lawrence’s Church and Giles had thoughts about what to serve at the wedding breakfast, which, of course, Aunt Dobbs would organize.

Sophronia excused herself on account of an appointment and left Lily and Aunt Dobbs to talk of wedding invitations, flowers, and flavors of cake. Rowden caught her on the stairs as she made her way to her room to change.

“You never told me.”

Some dark, low timbre in his voice made her pause, then turn to stare down at him. His eyes were dark again, and he looked so broad and large in the narrow hallway. He was a man who would become armor and shield to the woman he loved, a firm barrier between her and the slings and arrows of the world.

He could also pose a formidable obstacle to anyone who crossed his will.

“Told you what?” she asked, though she knew very well what he meant. The pointless question gave her a moment to stall.

He scowled. He knew what she was doing. “You never told me you were being pressed to marry. Or that you needed someone to come between you and your pestilent uncle.”

“I don’t see what you could have done⁠—”

“You never told me,” he said, and his wrath filled the tight space. “Whether or not you thought I could do anything useful. Why didn’t you trust me, Ro? You just assumed I could or would not take your side, and that was the end of it.”

Yes, she thought bleakly. That had been the end of it.

She pressed her hands to her skirts, smoothing the tabby wool against her thighs, so she did not reach out for him in some pitiful gesture of need. And she told him the truth.

“I thought it was my own problem to solve. Mine and Papa’s. You thought other girls were so silly when they spoke of marriage, I—I could not bear to be silly to you. I did not know it would hurt you. I am sorry.”

He tapped his riding crop against his thigh, and she comprehended, finally, that he had gone riding himself that morning, and he had not chosen to join her.

“Would you now?” he asked roughly.

“Would I what?”