she did her best to stay out of the quarrels which erupted on the slightest pretext. Especially if they concerned her. But during that last visit, she’d seen that he was the one person who could give her the answers to all the questions she’d been reluctant to ask Aunt Agnes for fear of offending her.
‘Is it a lot, the money that will come to me when I marry?’ she’d asked him, linking her arm through his as they’d strolled down to the rose garden.
‘Good Lord, yes. You’ll be rich enough to buy an...that is, yes—yes, it is.’
She’d begun to suspect as much, upon hearing how keen it had made Jack to marry her, in spite of what he thought of her. She’d never truly felt like an heiress before that day under the jetty in spite of hearing the word bandied about. In fact, she’d felt far more like a charity case, considering the way her cousins passed down their gowns from the previous Season to her each year when they went to buy new ones.
‘And what will happen to it if I don’t marry,’ she’d wondered aloud, ‘or if I die?’
‘You ain’t going to die, my girl, so stop thinking along those lines.’
‘But if I did?’
‘Well, in such a case, it would all go back to your mother’s family, where it came from,’ he’d said. Just like that. His honesty had stunned her, for everyone else had said, in the days when she’d still tried to talk about her parents, that it was better to let sleeping dogs lie.
‘You...you know how to contact them, then?’
‘Of course I do,’ he’d said with a puzzled frown. ‘Why should you think anything else?’
‘But I thought that all contact was lost when...when Mama married Papa.’
‘Ah. Well, it was given out that was the case. On account of them being Catholic and your father refusing to allow you to be brought up in that religion. They had to appear to cut their daughter out of their lives. And you, as the offspring.’
‘Mama was a Catholic?’
‘What did you think she was?’
‘Well, I don’t know. I was so little when she died. Papa could not bear to talk of her and Aunt and Uncle won’t have her name mentioned. So I thought...well, the only thing I did hear was that she was some sort of...trader.’ The only words used to describe her mother’s origins had actually been of such a derogatory variety that Sofia had been half-afraid to find out any more.
‘No, no, very good sort of people, the Perestrellos. They do own vineyards and their wine graces the tables of the wealthy all over the world. But they come from aristocratic stock. The mismatch was one of religion, not class. Unless you consider her race, which some do, the fools.’
Fools like Jack. Who’d always appeared to be sympathetic to her for being of what he called mixed heritage.
‘And if I never marry,’ she’d persisted, determined to get the full facts. ‘What then?’
‘Not marry? Pretty little thing like you?’ He’d pinched her chin. ‘Course you’ll marry. Fellers’ll be queuing up to court you.’
‘No, but seriously, Uncle Barty, I really want to know. Will I ever be able to have it? Just for myself? To do with as I please?’
‘Well, if you reach the age of thirty without getting hitched, then, yes.’
Thirty? She was going to have to wait another eight years before the law considered her fit to take charge of her own money?
‘Can’t imagine why nobody has explained it all to you,’ Uncle Barty had said with a frown. ‘Nor why you couldn’t have just asked your Uncle Ned...no, actually,’ he’d said, making a motion with his hand as though swatting away a pesky fly, ‘I can see exactly why you couldn’t talk to that dolt. But I shall talk to him, never fear. I mean to tell him how shocked I am by your appearance. Inform him that he clearly hasn’t been taking proper care of you. That I very much fear you will fade away altogether if they don’t take steps to stop this decline.’ He’d chuckled with glee at the prospect of gaining another rod with which to beat his brother-in-law.
But this time, she hadn’t crept up to her room to hide until the worst had blown over. Instead she’d gone back inside with Uncle Barty and said, albeit rather timidly, that she rather liked the sound of spending some time at the seaside, if nobody would mind too much. And since it had been the first thing she’d shown any interest in since well before Christmas, Uncle Ned had grudgingly conceded that for once Uncle Barty might have the right of it.
And so here she was, bowling along the seafront, in a curricle driven by a duke, no less, with the wind whipping her curls from her bonnet.
Hah! That would show Jack when he found out, which he was bound to do because Uncle Ned or Aunt Agnes were sure to inform him.
Her lips curved into a smile.
She could hardly wait.
Oliver watched a little smile curve her lips and wondered what had put it there. For the first time in his life, he found himself striving to think of some topic that would keep a woman’s mind focused exclusively on what he had to say and not on whatever stray thought might pop into her head next.
‘I separated you from your relatives so that we may speak freely about Mrs Pagett,’ he bit out. It had the effect he’d hoped for since she turned inquisitive brown eyes up at him.
‘Oh, yes. Of course. How does she do? But before we get on to that, there is something I need to say first. I am sorry for speaking to you the way I did.’
‘What way was that?’
‘Well, when I first saw you. I ordered you about. You did look very offended, when I look back on it. I don’t suppose many people speak to you that way, do they? Only, the thing is, you see, I thought you were a waiter. You dressed the way the man who served at our table was dressed.’
‘That night, I was acting as a waiter.’
‘Acting? Whatever for?’
‘It was decided...that is, the committee who organised the event to celebrate the Peace with France felt that, um, it would be a good idea for men such as myself to wait on the lower orders.’
‘You mean,’ she asked, wide-eyed, ‘that all the waiters were dukes?’
‘No. I mean, all the waiters hailed from the better families about these parts.’
‘That is very radical.’
‘You disapprove? You think men of my rank should always stand on their dignity?’ His father would certainly never have demeaned himself by waiting at table. It was one of the factors that had made the experience so very satisfying, showing the world that he was nothing like the man who’d sired him.
‘Disapprove? Oh, no. I was just a bit surprised, that is all. Was it...a sort of...oh, I forgot, I’m not supposed to pepper you with questions, am I?’
Normally, he would agree. But Miss Underwood looked so contrite and the way she’d stopped before actually asking her question had piqued his interest.
‘Asking me one question is hardly peppering me with them, is it? What did you wish to know?’
‘Oh.’ She darted him a look of relief. ‘Well, I just wondered if the act had some sort of religious significance. You know, like...when Jesus washed the disciples’ feet.’
He winced. ‘Nothing so noble,’ he confessed. ‘The decision was taken for purely practical purposes. You see, what with the amount of ale supplied, there were fears from some quarters that there might be...unruliness. That it might all end in disaster.’
‘Well,