Not Quite a Lady by Sarah McCulloch

Author:Sarah McCulloch
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626814431
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2014-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Sophie, when at last he approached her, was a great deal more amenable than he had dared to hope. He had braced himself for battle, supplied himself with a whole armory of argument and counterargument, prepared a set speech of such force and dimensions as not even Sophie, he believed, could withstand: it was none of it necessary. Before he was scarcely a third of the way through his opening, she had capitulated. She wished him to know that she still regarded his action as quite monstrous—still thought it defied description—still believed him to have surpassed himself in folly and forfeited every right to any sisterly regard or consideration for the future—but, however, the thing was done and she for her part would say no more about it. Everything that could be said, had been said. She did not intend to dwell upon it. She would only add that in her opinion it bordered on criminal lunacy and that if she had had her way she would have moved heaven and earth to have the deed overset on the grounds of diminished responsibility, for ‘whatever you say you cannot have been in your right mind and I should not be in the least surprised if Paul Could not be held liable for having aided and abetted. To have allowed you to put your name to anything so infamous! It is beyond all reason! I am not at all sure but what there may not be some law against a man’s legal adviser calmly sitting by and letting him rob himself in such a way, let alone that he actually set his signature as witness. That is as good as saying he condoned it.’

“He did not condone it, however, and neither did he sit calmly by. He remonstrated quite as vehemently as even you could have wished, and now, if you please, let us return to the point. As I was in the middle of saying—”

“Oh, yes, yes!” Sophie waved a hand. “There is no necessity to go on about it. You want me to take the child and find a husband for her. I cannot think why you should do so—indeed, I have quite given up thinking why upon any matter where you are concerned—but if that is what is going to make you happy—”

“It will at any rate satisfy my conscience.”

“Conscience! Well! If it is a question of conscience—note, please, that I do not ask why it is a question of conscience, nor how it is a question of conscience, nor even in what manner it is a question of conscience: I simply accept. That is my brother Matthew: that is how he is—” Sophie hunched a slender shoulder. “I bow to the inevitable. What choice do I have?”

“What ch-” He stared at her. “You mean that you will do it? You will present her and take her about and—and do everything that has to be done?”

He could scarcely believe that victory had come to him so painlessly. Alas, it had not.

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