By the time summer came again, grief had changed its shape.
It had not left De Montfort. It had not vanished into the stone walls, nor been carried away by wind, nor softened so completely that the household no longer felt its absence. Theodore's loss still lingered in rooms, in portraits, in the way certain subjects could silence an entire table. Yet sorrow had become less like a storm and more like a weight everyone had learned, however unwillingly, to carry.
And life, which had paused where it could but never truly stopped, had begun once more to press forward.
Sophia was almost a year older now.
Nearly twelve.
And for the first time in what felt to her like forever, she was excited with something bright and almost unbearable.
Her birthday was approaching.
But more importantly—
Laurence had finally finished university.
He would not be returning this time merely for summer break, not as the absent elder brother who arrived after term with books, stories, and companions before disappearing again into study and duty. He would return now as something else entirely.
He would return home.
Home, not as a visiting son.
Home as Duke.
Though the title had not yet fully settled in law and ceremony in the way the world liked such matters to be settled, the house already knew. The staff knew. The surrounding estates knew. The Duchess knew. Laurence himself knew, whether or not he said it aloud.
De Montfort was his now in everything but the final technicalities.
To Sophia, however, he was still Laurence first.
And this year — at last — he would be there for her birthday.
Not arriving late, not after the candles had been blown out and the ribboned gifts opened, not after the special cake had already been cut and the day reduced to memory.
He would be there.
That knowledge filled her with a restless joy she could barely contain.
And beneath that joy, folded carefully into it like a secret letter tucked between pages, was another hope.
If Laurence was bringing guests…
Then perhaps—
Perhaps—
Florian.
Laurence had sent word a week in advance that he would be arriving several days before Sophia's birthday and that he would be bringing guests with him.
Guests.
Plural.
She had read that word far more times than necessary.
The paper itself had not changed. The sentence did not grow more revealing under inspection. Yet each time she read it, her heart made the same foolish leap.
Who were the guests?
Could one of them be Florian?
Why should he not be? He had come before. He had been Laurence's companion through university life. He had written to her. He had sent gifts. He had—
At that point her thoughts always became too heated, too tangled, too embarrassing even to herself, and she would stand up abruptly and walk about her room as though motion might quiet feeling.
It did not.
The day of Laurence's arrival found her almost impossible to live with.
She could not sit still.
She moved from one room to another for no practical reason. She checked the clock too often. She asked servants questions they could not answer. She looked out of windows so repeatedly that Arthur told her, with brotherly cruelty, that if she stared much harder down the drive she might wear a hole through the glass.
She ignored him.
By noon she had already changed twice.
Not because anything was wrong with the first dress, nor even the second, but because each, once put on, suddenly seemed inadequate to the occasion. Too girlish. Too plain. Too eager. Not elegant enough. Not calm enough. Not becoming enough for a young lady who wished very much to appear not merely pretty, but composed.
That was the difficulty now.
At ten she had been a child with a child's fervour, flushed and dreamy and unable to hide what she felt. But two years had changed things. She had been taught more carefully, watched more closely, and corrected in all the thousand subtle ways by which girls of standing are drawn toward womanhood. She knew now how to sit, how to enter a room, how to lower her voice, how to let silence serve her rather than fill it anxiously.
She had learned posture. Conversation. Deportment. Grace.
And if Florian was indeed coming—
Then she wanted him to see that she was no longer the same girl he had left behind.
She stood before the mirror for the third time that afternoon, smoothing the line of her dress and adjusting the ribbon in her hair with almost painful care.
Not too much.
Not too little.
Elegant.
Natural.
As though she had made no effort at all, even though she had thought of little else since waking.
She turned slightly, studying the fall of the fabric from shoulder to waist.
Would this do?
Would he notice?
Should he notice?
At that very moment the sound reached her.
Horses.
The grind of wheels over gravel.
Voices outside.
The sharp, immediate stir of servants moving toward the entrance.
Sophia's heart leapt so violently she pressed one hand briefly to her chest.
They had come.
All thoughts of mirrors, ribbons, and measured dignity vanished.
She flew toward the door — then slowed halfway down the corridor.
No.
No, she must not rush breathlessly into the entrance hall like a child in a nursery story.
She stopped, drew a careful breath, smoothed her skirt once more, and composed her face as best she could.
When she entered the hall, the Duchess and the boys were already gathering.
Charlotte — Mama, always Mama in Sophia's heart — stood with that calm beauty grief had not erased, though it had made her more fragile at the edges. She watched Sophia's attempt at composed excitement with unmistakable amusement.
Maxim, now older again, stood straight and reserved, his fair hair catching the summer light from the open side windows. Fredrick and Arthur were there too, no longer the constant noisy whirl they had once been. They still disputed plenty, but not in the same childish way. They had both grown, and the house's long year of mourning had pressed something quieter into them.
Charlotte's mouth curved faintly as she watched Sophia stop just short of over-hurrying herself.
"If you continue trying so hard to appear calm," she said softly, "you shall turn to marble before the carriage door opens."
Sophia flushed.
"I am perfectly calm."
Arthur snorted.
"No, you are not."
Fredrick added, with elder-brother cruelty sharpened by intelligence, "Your pulse is practically visible."
Sophia ignored both of them.
Outside, the carriage drew to a halt.
The front door remained closed for the moment, preserving the coolness of the hall, while everyone waited in that peculiar held breath that accompanies arrivals one has anticipated too long.
Then at last the door opened.
A footman stepped back.
And Laurence descended first.
Sophia's eyes lit instantly.
No matter how many times she prepared herself for the sight of him, the reality always shifted something inside her. Laurence was fully a man now. Not merely older, not merely more serious, but unmistakably complete in his growth. Tall — strikingly tall — broad in shoulder, lean in strength, dark-haired and self-contained. Time and responsibility had sharpened rather than softened him. The set of his mouth, the line of his jaw, the stillness before his movements — all of it carried the authority of his father and yet remained distinctly, undeniably Laurence.
He stepped down from the carriage not as Master Laurence returning from study, but as the future Duke come home to the house that was already beginning to answer to him.
The servants greeted him accordingly.
"Your Excellency."
"My lord Duke."
The titles, not yet fully settled by formal passage, still seemed to gather around him naturally.
Even Charlotte, when she stepped forward, greeted him with the dignified respect due his place.
Sophia did not.
She saw him, and for one bright foolish second all thought of rank vanished.
"Laurence!"
She crossed the space between them and embraced him.
He caught her at once, one arm steady around her as though it had always belonged there. The faintest smile touched his face.
"You have grown," he said.
"So have you," she replied, then realized how absurd that was and flushed faintly.
He greeted the Duchess properly then, and she him. Maxim stepped forward next. Arthur and Fredrick followed. For a few brief moments Sophia let herself be folded into the warm relief of his return.
But her attention would not remain there.
The carriage door.
She looked toward it almost immediately.
Only one guest had been mentioned when Laurence first sent word. No, more than one. Guests. She had not imagined that. She knew she had not.
Please.
Please.
A foot appeared.
Then a leg.
Then the full form of one of Laurence's companions emerged — respectable, pleasant enough, but not Florian.
Sophia's heart dropped.
Only for a second.
There were more.
Surely there were more.
She fixed her gaze once more upon the open carriage.
And then—
Yes.
Florian.
He stepped down lightly, gracefully as ever, and for one dizzying instant the entire hall seemed to recede behind the simple fact of his being there.
He had changed too.
That struck her at once.
Not changed beyond recognition — never that. He was still Florian, still carrying that same ease of manner and brightness of expression, that same cultivated courtesy which seemed to follow him as naturally as scent follows a flower.
But he was older now.
More finished.
Whatever softness of youth had once remained in him had settled into a distinctly masculine elegance. His shoulders were broader. His features stronger. His hair, catching the light, still held those warm brown-gold tones she remembered, but his whole face now seemed more assured, more defined.
And somehow, impossibly, even more handsome.
Sophia's mind raced in twenty directions at once.
He is here.
For my birthday.
He came.
He is more beautiful than before.
Do not stare.
Do not blush.
You are not ten.
You are nearly twelve.
Florian approached the house with Laurence's other companion, and when he crossed the threshold he greeted everyone with the same warm ease he always had.
There was nothing overdone in it.
Nothing false.
He greeted Charlotte with respect. Maxim with friendliness. Arthur and Fredrick with easy familiarity.
And Sophia—
Sophia he greeted in a way entirely proper and entirely destructive to her composure.
"Miss Sophia," he said, smiling in that attentive, gentle way that always made her heart seem to catch upon itself.
She managed her greeting politely.
Her voice, she thought with inward horror, sounded almost normal.
That alone felt miraculous.
Soon Charlotte ushered everyone inside properly and had the staff attend to trunks, coats, and the various needs of newly arrived guests. The drawing room was prepared with summer refreshments — tea, lemonade cooled with ice from the stores, delicate savouries, sweet biscuits, fruit, and small cakes.
Everyone settled.
Or seemed to.
Sophia was very conscious of where she chose to sit.
Not too near Florian.
Not too far.
But fate, or perhaps the arrangement of furniture, placed her in an armchair near the settee on which Florian sat. Laurence and the other men spoke first of the journey, then of the heat, then of university matters. Arthur and Fredrick, both older and more articulate now, entered the conversation in ways they once could not have managed without ruining it.
Sophia sat quietly and listened.
The room buzzed with masculine conversation — politics, rowing, examinations, clubs, the absurdity of one professor, the arrogance of another, things that made the men laugh in low voices while Charlotte listened with an expression of tolerant amusement.
Sophia suddenly became aware of herself in relation to all of them.
Where did she belong here?
Not with the boys anymore exactly.
Not with the men either.
Not in the easy movement of their talk, not in their confidence, not in their stories of the world beyond De Montfort.
She folded her hands in her lap and kept still.
As though sensing her quietness, Florian glanced toward her.
Their eyes met.
He smiled — not flirtatiously, not deliberately, but with that same caring warmth that seemed always to say I have noticed you.
The old pang returned at once.
Her cheeks grew warm.
Florian, seeing she was the only one silent, turned slightly toward her and began speaking to her directly, drawing her into a smaller conversation beside the greater one.
"How have you been, Miss Sophia?"
"Well, thank you."
"And the summer so far?"
"Very warm."
"Warmer than the north, certainly," he said. "I nearly forgot what southern heat felt like."
That made her smile.
From there the conversation grew easier.
He asked about her studies. She answered, somewhat shyly at first and then more readily as she realized he was truly listening. He asked what she had been learning now that she was older. She mentioned history, French, music, household management, reading, and all the useful accomplishments expected of a young lady.
"And do you enjoy them?" he asked.
"Some," she admitted.
"And the others?"
"I endure them gracefully."
That made him laugh.
"Then you have already learned one of the most useful arts."
Her birthday soon came into the conversation, naturally enough, and Florian asked, with gentle seriousness, "What would you like for it?"
Sophia froze.
What would she like?
The truth rose instantly and absurdly: you.
Your company.
Your attention.
A day beside you.
Anything touched by your hand.
She lowered her eyes quickly.
What could she say that would not sound foolish? What was proper? What could be asked and granted without shame?
After a moment she said, quietly but clearly, "I should like to have afternoon tea with just the two of us in the garden. As we once did before."
Florian's expression brightened with immediate warmth.
"I should be delighted," he said. "Though I think that hardly counts as a gift for you. It sounds more like a gift for me, if I am to have such company."
Sophia felt her entire face grow hot.
His words lodged in her chest like a spark.
A gift for him.
For him.
She nearly said nothing at all after that.
Instead, desperate to fill the silence before her own feelings consumed her, she added quickly, "Then perhaps… perhaps you might write me a poem."
Now it was Florian's turn to look amused.
"A poem?"
"Yes. I would have it framed."
He laughed softly.
"I fear you place too much faith in me. You must not compare me with men more proficient."
"I would never," she said at once, far too earnestly. "I should value it because you wrote it. That would be enough."
There was a pause after that.
She realized, too late, just how intimate the sentence sounded.
Her cheeks deepened further when she added, in a smaller voice, "You have beautiful handwriting."
Florian blinked once, genuinely surprised.
"I do?"
That he had never thought to hear such praise only made her more embarrassed.
She excused herself soon after, claiming she needed a moment before dinner preparations.
The truth was simpler: she felt that if she remained another minute under the full force of his face, voice, and attention, she might truly faint.
Her birthday approached in a whirl of increasing activity.
For once, De Montfort was dressed for joy again.
The house, which had gone so long under shadow, seemed almost relieved to welcome ribbons, flowers, polished silver, sweet scents from the kitchens, and the mild chaos of celebration.
Sophia received gifts from her brothers and from Charlotte. There was a beautiful spread of food laid out, and at the center of it all a magnificent cake with strawberry filling, decorated with such care that she almost pitied the knife that must eventually cut it.
The day itself passed in a blur of delight.
She was praised, kissed, presented with gifts, laughed over, fussed over, and, in moments, genuinely happy in the innocent way only birthdays can make one.
And she received, from Florian, exactly what she had asked for.
The poem.
Written in his beautiful hand.
She spent the remainder of the day reading and rereading it, touching the page as though his thoughts might still be warm upon it. Whether the poem was great in any literary sense she could not have said. To her, it was perfect because it was his.
That evening, when the house had quieted somewhat and the birthday festivities had settled into more adult patterns, Laurence and his companions gathered in the lounge much as they had two years before.
Cigars.
Liquor.
Low masculine voices.
The atmosphere of men relaxing into conversation after dinner.
The topic, as though it had been waiting patiently in the wings for exactly such an evening, turned once again to marriage.
Sophia had not meant to listen.
Truly, she had not.
She was passing the partly open door and heard the word itself — marriage — spoken in a tone that immediately made her stop.
Something in her knew she ought to keep walking.
Something stronger rooted her to the spot.
Inside, one of the mutual friends laughed and said, "Well then, Florian — have you decided at last?"
Sophia's breath caught.
Florian.
She stood just beyond the threshold, unseen for the moment, every nerve suddenly alive.
Inside, Laurence said little, as was his habit. He sat and listened.
Florian, however, was as honest as ever, and honesty did not always protect a man in such company. Sophia could hear the faint discomfort in his voice, hear how questions of this sort brought a warmth to his cheeks that made the others merciless.
He admitted — with hesitation — that he had given the matter thought.
That now he had graduated and would soon return north to assume more serious responsibilities in his house.
That marriage, therefore, was not merely some distant abstraction but a necessity he could no longer postpone indefinitely.
The others pressed him, laughing.
And then—
Florian, in all his fatal sincerity, named the young lady he intended to ask.
Laurence immediately, almost enthusiastically, expressed his approval, saying how pleased he was that Florian had kept to the sensible match he had once spoken of.
Sophia felt as if the floor had opened beneath her.
The name struck her not because she knew the girl well, but because she understood at once what it meant.
Real.
Chosen.
Not someday in imagination but now in intention.
No matter what all her secret hopes had whispered to her over two long years of letters and gifts and waiting.
No matter what she had made of his kindness.
He had chosen someone else.
The force of it was too much.
Before she could stop herself — before propriety, pride, or sense could catch up — she pushed the door open and said, with tears already rising, "No."
Every head turned.
The room fell instantly silent.
Sophia stood in the doorway, face flushed, eyes bright with humiliation and pain.
Laurence was on his feet at once.
He crossed the room quickly, his expression tightening not only with alarm but with immediate displeasure at the scene she had made.
"Sophia," he said sharply under his breath once he reached her. "What are you doing?"
She could not answer coherently.
Everything in her chest felt broken and burning at once.
He tried to draw her back, tried to quiet the spectacle before it became worse.
But all she could manage, half crying already, was, "It isn't fair."
Then she turned and ran.
Back through the corridor.
Up the stairs.
Gone before anyone could properly stop her.
A terrible silence followed.
Laurence closed his eyes briefly, once, then looked back at the others.
"I beg your pardon," he said with cold precision. "She should not have interrupted."
Florian, who had gone pale with sudden understanding, stood as though he might follow.
"I could speak with her," he offered quietly.
Laurence's expression hardened.
"There is no point."
Florian hesitated.
Laurence continued, lower and more final:
"She must come to terms with the fact that you have chosen elsewhere."