Never Courted, Suddenly Wed (Scandalous Seasons #2)(63)

“Waxham?”

He winked at her and then looked over at the Duke of Mallen, who’d asked him a question.

Sophie studied her husband. Husband. She rolled the word around her mind, testing the feel of it. She, Sophie Winters had a husband. Not just any husband. She’d wed the much sought after Earl of Waxham. She, the incorrigible Sophie Winters, the source of gossip in Lady Ackerly’s Tattle Sheet, had secured a match.

A smile played about her lips. Since Sophie had been in the nursery, she and Christopher had spent their lives tormenting one another.

Odd, her destiny had been within her fingertips and she’d never even suspected.

Not for the first time she considered the ugly possibility; what if he’d wed Emmaline? What if Lord Drake had not fought for her friend’s hand?

A chill stole through her as she considered how their lives would have been forever altered.

Christopher froze mid-conversation, seeming so very in tune with her body’s responses. He leaned down. “Are you all right?” he whispered.

She nodded.

“Are you certain?”

“Truly,” she promised. And she was. For the first time in a very long time, she was more than fine. She was blissfully contented; her life complete when she’d never before realized it was incomplete.

The remainder of the meal passed in a blur. Then, they were making their way to the carriage.

She expected there would be laughter…or…something from her mother or brother. Alas, even though Christopher had wed her, Sophie’s family appeared unable to forgive her great transgression at Lady Brackenridge’s. Her throat worked up and down.

Christopher made to hand her up into the conveyance.

“Wait!”

Sophie spun around. Her mother raced down the townhouse steps. The normally proper, leading Society matron’s chest heaved up and down from her exertions.

“Mother?” Sophie had used to tease her mother and say that if their townhouse was ablaze, Mother would have walked out with slow, deliberate, ladylike steps. She glanced around at the passing ladies and gentlemen who eyed her mother with no small bit of curiosity. “Lady Ackerly…”

“Oh hang, Lady Ackerly,” her mother cried. She wrapped her arms around Sophie. “I just want you to be happy,” she whispered into her ear.

“I am happy,” Sophie hurried to assure her.

Mother pulled back and looked at her through tear-filled eyes. “Do you love him?” her mother blurted.

Sophie glanced over at her husband, who was in conversation with the Duke of Mallen. Did she love him? She knew even the thought of him filled her with a euphoric joy that she’d never before known. She knew when he wasn’t near, she ached at the loss of his presence.

Sophie staggered back a step, feeling as though she were falling slowly.

Her mother caught her by the arm, a smile on her normally stern lips. “I think I have my answer.” She pressed a kiss to Sophie’s forehead. “Know that everything I’ve done has always been to protect you.”

“I know that, Mother.”

“Everything,” her mother added. She looked over Sophie’s shoulder to Christopher. “Your husband is waiting for you.”

Sophie battled through the sheen of tears that filled her eyes.

Geoffrey stepped past the Duke of Mallen and the Marquess of Milford, a familiar bundle in his arms. “Are you forgetting something?”

Duke all but leapt into her arms and lapped her face with his coarse, pink tongue. “I could never forget you,” she said against her dog’s fur.

He gave a small yap.

Christopher groaned, and eyed Duke like he were Cerberus, with its serpents tail and mane of snakes and not the too plump, precious bit of joy that he was.

Geoffrey managed his first real smile of the day. He held a hand out to Christopher. “Take care of her,” he said.

Her husband eyed Geoffrey a moment, and then accepted the unstated offer of a truce. “I give you my word.”

The marquess made his way over. Before he spoke, Christopher all but heaved her up and tossed her inside the carriage. “We’re going,” he bit out. Without waiting for the servant, he pulled the door closed, wrapped on the ceiling of the carriage, and set the conveyance into motion.

It lurched forward.

Sophie pulled back the curtain and saw the faces of her loved ones fade into the distance. She hugged Duke close; the pug represented one, small reminder of home. Odd, she’d spent many years of her life with the dream of being free of Geoffrey and her mother’s irritation. She had imagined a life without their constant rebuke.

Only, now with the carriage separating Sophie from her youth, a bittersweet wistfulness swept over her.

***

Christopher sat back against the velvet squabs of the carriage. For the better part of a week, he’d held his breath anticipating that the carefully crafted lies he’d built his relationship with Sophie upon, would tumble to the ground and leave him exposed for the schemer he was. Instead, the days had passed with a surprising uneventfulness.

Even his meeting with Mallen several days ago had gone unexpectedly well. He’d sought out his friend and made his apologies, asking him to stand up with Christopher when he wed Sophie. Mallen had been gracious and agreeable. Oh, the easy camaraderie that had always existed between him and Mallen was no more. Instead, their exchanges were stilted and cautious…but they’d taken steps to move forward from the scheme in which Christopher had involved the duke.