“Oh Emily, I—”
“You don’t have to thank me. I’ll consider it thanks enough when you resume your life as it was before. You were happy then. Happy and free. And now, you shall be so again.”
Very slowly Walter turned to face Ned, his mouth open as if poised to offer his apologies—or his condolences.
“Don’t,” Ned warned.
But Walter couldn’t be silenced. “Damnation, Ned. I didn’t think.”
Ned could summon no words in reply. He was too stunned. Too utterly dumbfounded. Because he hadn’t thought either. He’d never once considered.
With Walter Murray offering his wealth to save the Appersett family, what need would anyone have of Edward Sharpe?
Christmas Eve dawned bright and clear, the sun shining weakly over the snow-covered Derbyshire landscape. The windows were frosted with ice, the fires going full force in the grates. The servants had been running up and down the stairs since dawn, hauling wood and coals and hot water for the guests.
Sophie spent most of the day overseeing activities with the younger ladies and gentlemen. They wrapped last-minute gifts, built snowmen, and some of the more daring had gone sledding. Later, they played a game of charades while drying out in front of the drawing room fire.
Meanwhile, Papa had taken the rest of the gentlemen hunting. Did Ned shoot? Did Mr. Murray? Sophie hadn’t the slightest idea. All she knew was that it was a dratted nuisance. What was Papa thinking, spiriting Ned away when she most wished to speak with him?
She’d seen the way he looked at her last night in the library. He’d become cold and remote before her eyes, clasping his hands at his back and standing apart from them all.
He’d overheard Emily, of course. All her little gibes about Sophie being free and not having to make a sacrifice. It was so much silliness, but Ned wouldn’t know that. He had no reason to doubt Emily’s assertions.
When at last he returned to the house, he kept his distance from her. He was never rude. Indeed, he was unfailing civil—just as he’d been in London. He was also stern and reserved and so infuriatingly reluctant to utter five words together that Sophie felt as if they’d fallen right back to where they’d started.
It intimidated her a little, just as it had done during the early months of their courtship. And yet, she now understood that beneath that icy exterior, Ned was probably simmering with hurt.
She wished she was bold enough to simply grab his hand and pull him into an alcove as he’d done to her the day before. But she didn’t want a stolen moment with him. She needed more time. More privacy. And she knew just how to get it.
Her mother had organized sleigh rides for the evening and, for once during the course of this accursed house party, things went according to plan.
The sleighs arrived in front of Appersett House in the early evening, just as the sun was beginning to set. The horses had bells on their bridles and the sleighs themselves were draped in red velvet bows and greenery.
It had stopped snowing for the moment and, as the sky darkened, the stars slowly made themselves visible.
Sophie was bundled up in her cloak and fur muff, her hair twisted up into an invisible hair net trimmed in velvet. Emily and Mr. Murray had already climbed into one of the sleighs and trotted off, leaving her waiting at the bottom of the steps. She saw Ned standing at the doors to the house, listening to something his mother was saying. His head was bent, his face somber.
Mrs. Sharpe looked equally grim. And when, a moment later, she and Ned turned and looked at her, Mrs. Sharpe’s lined face seemed to grow grimmer still.
Sophie raised a gloved hand to them. When coupled with her weak smile, she was sure she looked as if she was going to be ill. She certainly felt that way. A sickening sense of foreboding roiled heavily in her stomach. It was nerves, she told herself. The knowledge did little to calm her as Ned descended the stairs.
“Are you waiting for me?” he asked. Like her, he was bundled up against the cold, his black wool overcoat buttoned up over the suit he’d worn to dinner. She could just make out the top of his cravat as it brushed the line of his jaw.
“I assumed we would go together,” she said. “Unless…I suppose I could wait for one of the other gentlemen to take me. The sleighs only seat two, or else I would have already gone with the vicar and Mrs. Lanyon. They left right before Mr. Murray and my sister.”
“You shouldn’t be standing out here in the snow. You’ll catch your death.”
“I didn’t want to miss you again. I was hoping we might have a chance to talk.”