“No! It’s not that.” She wandered behind one of the leather chairs near the fireplace, her hand resting briefly on the tufted back. “At least, it’s not only that.”
Ned regarded her from beneath lowered brows as she walked back to the bookcase. “I thought we agreed you were going to leave that particular burden with me.”
“It’s not so easy to relinquish it. Not when I’ve been carrying it for as long as I can remember.”
“Sophie…” He followed after her, slow and cautious. As if he were stalking one of the wild does in the woods outside Appersett House. “I’ve been meaning to ask you…”
She turned to re-shelve Mr. Darwin’s book. “Yes?”
“The morning we walked together, you said you hadn’t wished to marry when you were nineteen, nor when you were twenty, nor one-and-twenty. That it hadn’t mattered to you when your father took your dowry.” He came to stand behind her. “Why didn’t you wish to marry?”
She stilled for an instant, her fingers frozen on the spine of the book. And then she turned back to look at him. “I suspect you already know the answer.”
“You’re needed here.”
“I’m needed here.”
Ned’s face was grim. “You help to manage things for your family. To keep them from ruin.”
“It isn’t so heroic as all that. My mother and I haven’t that much power. All we can do is make little economies. Carve up the household budget to trim away any fat. Dye our gowns, remake our old hats, that sort of thing. As for the rest…it all comes down to our powers of persuasion. We’ve been trying to convince Papa to sell his hunters. To retrench. But he’s disinclined to make any sacrifices at present.”
“He makes no sacrifices at all, that I can see. Nor does your sister.”
“We spare her the worst of it. She’d take it too much to heart. It matters so much to her how she looks and what people think of her.” Sophie’s gaze dropped. She didn’t have to look at Ned to know what he was thinking. “You believe she’s spoiled.”
“Isn’t she?”
“A little. But you must understand…Emily is the beauty of the family. The one most likely to marry well—and the one most likely to drain the family coffers if she remains. It only made sense to see her properly outfitted and given a season.”
“The family beauty, you say.” Ned’s voice was deep and warm. “Yet she can’t hold a candle to you.”
Her heart fluttered. She tried her best to ignore it, even as she raised her eyes back to his. “Yours is the minority view, sir.”
Ned rested his hand on the bookshelf at her side. He was so close that her skirts bunched against his legs. “When it comes to you, I’d like to think that, one day, my view will be the only one that matters.”
“Second to my own, surely.”
His mouth hitched in a fleeting half smile. “You’ll not find me a dictator.”
It was so absurd, that she smiled, too. “You’re making light of it, but I’ve been independent for a very long while. I’m set in my ways and not likely to change anytime soon.”
“You call it independence to live here with your family?”
She lifted her shoulder in a delicate shrug, fully conscious of how his body caged hers against the shelves. It was almost protective the way he loomed over her, his head bent and his arm at her side, surrounding her in the subtle scent of lemon verbena, polished leather, and linen.
One step and she’d be pressed to his chest, her frame engulfed by his much larger one. What might that feel like? Thrilling, she supposed. And dangerous, too. She really didn’t know. But the very idea of it made her pulse throb.
“I read what I like and I’m free to come and go as I please,” she said. “Within reason.”
“Books are important to you.”
“Very much. I read whenever I can find a spare moment.”
“There haven’t been many of those these past days. Since that morning in the woods, I’ve scarcely seen you outside of the company of the other guests. I’d begun to despair of ever catching you alone.”
“You’ve been no more available than I have. My father commands all your time.”
“And my mother, yours.”
It was true. She’d been making a special effort to keep his mother entertained. To make her feel at home. Nevertheless…
Sophie sighed. “I don’t think she approves of me.”