Mistress or Marriage? by Elizabeth Rolls

Author:Elizabeth Rolls
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2012-05-15T04:00:00+00:00

For the next week it rained without ceasing. The countryside lay dripping under a grey, sodden sky, an apt reflection of Sophie’s depression. She longed to get out of the house and go for a long walk to burn off some of her fidgets, but Thea would not hear of anything of the sort.

“Dear Sophie, you would catch an inflammation of the lungs, I am persuaded, or a putrid sore throat!” she protested. “It cannot rain forever after all, and then you may go out again.”

Sophie forbore to comment on the likelihood of its raining until at least Christmas and submitted with a docility which made Thea wonder if she were sickening for something. She had fully expected her erstwhile pupil to don a heavy cloak and boots and be off into the meadows.

Fanny came to play with Kit and they nearly turned the house upside down with their chasing and romping, which served to cheer Sophie up insensibly. Helford’s tiger, Jasper, ensconced himself in the kitchen and held Anna spellbound with his tales of the army and Vienna.

He viewed with equanimity little Miss Sophie’s presence in the kitchen. She was as good as ever twanged, she was and asked as many questions about his foreign travels and army days as what Mistress Anna did. He noted sapiently that she never asked about the master, but if he happened to enlarge on the more respectable exploits of his noble employer she listened with great attention. A shame and a pity it was that his lordship seemed not to have noticed what a good ‘un Miss Sophie was, but had settled with that Lady Lucinda.

The new closed stove was installed with the maximum of confusion and upheaval, but afterwards Anna was like a child with a new toy, hardly daring to cook on it lest its gleaming newness should be sullied.

“Never seen nothin‘ like it, Miss Sophie, Miss Thea, not in all me days. Why, the fuel it saves on! An’ when you think it was his lordship’s wood we was buying—well, I can’t see where ‘is profit’s comin’ from!”

It occurred to Sophie briefly that perhaps his lordship was trying to ingratiate himself, but it didn’t match her knowledge of him. He was not the sort to entice a woman with anything except himself. He wouldn’t have to.

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