[AN: I do love a bit of Georgette Heyer, she is one of my favourite comfort reads; frivolous, pretty undemanding, but full of wit and attention to detail. I have often thought her novels end a bit too abruptly and the Grand Sophy is one that feels particularly curtailed. This is my attempt to continue from where Heyer left off]
The Grand Sophy - epilogue
"Charles this is crazy! Did you come in your curricule? What if it should begin to rain again? I shall be drenched!"
"Then you shall be well served!" retorted her unchivalrous cousin.
"Charles!" uttered Sophie, shocked, "You can not love me!"
Mr Rivenhall pulled the door to behind them, and in a very rough fashion jerked her into his arms and kissed her. "I don't: I dislike you excessively," he said savagely.
Entranced by these lover-like words, Miss Stanton-Lacy returned his embrace with fervour and meekly allowed herself to be led to the stables.
Their arrival at the stables was delayed by Charles' continued vexation, which appeared to only find relief in repeated crushing embraces and fierce kisses; and the rain, that had so prostrated Lord Bromford, which was starting to fall as Charles strode towards the stables, shouting for his groom. This gentleman was engaged in the task of rubbing down the first of Charles' famous greys, whilst the rheumy pensioner, charged with the running of the Lacey Manor stables, enthusiastically performed the same office for the second, all the while regaling his younger colleague with a catalogue of similarly high bred 'Uns that had been in his care when Sir Horace had last been in residence.
'Hitchin!" barked Charles, "have the curricle made ready immediately, Miss Stanton-Lacy and I are returning to London at once!"
"At once, sir?" faltered the groom, "but the greys have just done 30 miles straight at full pace. You can't be planning to put them to straight off?
"I said at once" retorted Charles icily. "Do as you are bid!"
Seeing nothing for it, Hitchin nodded briefly at his employer and muttered, "be ready for you in five minutes sir, just need to get this pair back in harness and we'll be ready for off." He stopped his current task and made towards the rear of the stable, there to retrieve the recently discarded tack. To do this, he needed to pass Sophie, who was stood, critically surveying the horses.
"Begging your pardon, miss, I just need to get past", he said, in respectful tones.
"Oh, of course, I beg your pardon, most foolish of me to obstruct your way in this fashion", returned Sophy, with an easy smile. As the groom edged passed, she murmured in an undertone, "These are beautiful horses, Hitchin, and we must not allow Charles' fit of temper to do them any lasting damage."
Hitchin lifted an eyebrow at this and grunted noncommittally. Whilst he had full knowledge of Miss Sophy's dominance within the Ombersley household, he bore no real hope that she could persuade his master to abort a journey he was so clearly set on taking. Mr Rivenhall was in as dangerous a mood as Hitchin could ever remember seeing him in. The drive down to Lacey Manor had been accomplished at a breakneck speed, the driver paying scant heed to the safety of himself, his horses, or other road users, regardless of the feeble protestations that Hitchin had occasionally found himself obliged to utter. Sir Vincent Talgarth, on one of his visits to the henhouse, had paused to exchange desultory gossip with the stables. Consequently, Hitchin knew full well that Mr Rivenhall had met his betrothed in the house. Every encounter with Eugenia Wraxton in recent weeks, had led Charles to drive ferociously thereafter. Hitchin knew that she could only have added extra fuel to his Master's barely simmering temper.
Consequently, Hitchin moved to fulfil Charles' order as swiftly as he could. Charles, after staring fiercely at his groom's retreating back, became aware of the curious gaze of the aged overseer of the stables, and the laconic curiosity of Talgarth's groom, who had wandered into the yard to see what the commotion was. He turned towards Sophy and, meeting her enquiring smile, ground his heel into the ground and flung his arm out to grasp hers.
"Well, let's not stand here indefinitely, providing amusement for the yokels!" He barked. "Come here Sophy, this is no place for a lady to be lingering."
Sophie smiled broadly at this, but allowed herself to be dragged angrily away from the stable yard, back towards the house. After a minute or so, Charles appeared to recollect the danger that lay therein and stopped abruptly. As they were skirting the edge of the kitchen garden at the time, and the rain was now coming down with some force, Charles pulled Sophy into a nearby outbuilding.
"There," he said, harshly, "at least you can't blame me for giving you a soaking yet."
Sophy, who had found, in the last half hour, that being kissed by Charles was far more exhilarating than she had been imagining in recent weeks, smiled up at him and asked, with a, far too studied, air of innocence, "I wouldn't dream of doing so, Charles. How sensible of you to think of taking shelter from the rain like that. We'd better just stay here for a few minutes whilst we wait for your greys to be led out. How shall we pass the time, do you think?"
"Sophy, you devil," murmured Charles, cupping her chin in his hand and kissing her. His lips had touched hers quite softly to begin with but, as Sophy wrapped her arms around his neck and started to wind her fingers through his short locks, his kiss deepened into something more urgent and fiery.
"Good God, Sophie!" He muttered, between kisses, "do you have any idea what you do to me?"
Sophy, who had found Charles' fierce embraces as instructive as they were exhilarating, smiled sweetly up at him and said, innocently, "well Charles, I thought I had some idea, but I see now that I was someway short of the mark." She then leaned towards him, dropping a soft kiss on his cheek, before whispering, "but have you stopped to reflect, dearest Charles, on what you might be doing to me?" She followed this with a nibble on his earlobe; this elicited a visible tremor from Charles, who responded by clasping Sophy even more tightly about her waist and kissing her with an open-mouthed ferocity that quite took her breath away.
It was some minutes before Charles recollected his purpose and pulled himself, reluctantly, away from Sophie, picking up her hat, which had been removed and hurled across the room during his earlier onslaught. He gave it a cursory dusting, before handing it to Sophie with a curt, "here, put that back on. We ought to be leaving."
Sophie smiled, and placed the battered headpiece once more atop her disordered curls, before following Charles, meekly, back to the stables. The curricle was waiting for them in the stable yard, with the two, still sweating, greys in harness. Charles handed Sophie up into the carriage and then leapt into the seat alongside her, taking the reigns from a silent, and disapproving, Hitchin.
The greys, having been pulled from a welcome rub down and bucket of oats, tossed resentfully. Charles, equally agitated, jerked furiously at the ribbons, causing the horses to set off with a start, throwing Sophie back into her seat and making Hitchin, riding on the rear footplate, clutch anxiously at the strap. Charles, grimly aware of everything his passengers weren't saying, jabbed again, heedless of the delicate months of his disgruntled cattle; furious with himself for compounding his error of judgement, in having his prize horses set to again, so soon after a long, bruising drive, by such a cow-handed display of driving.
Sophie, sitting demurely by Charles side, said nothing, very eloquently. But his display of temper sharpened her resolve to carry out a line of activity that had been developing since their first, angry, visit to the stables. They had gone scarcely a mile when she turned to Charles and said sweetly, "My dear Charles, you know how I long to drive your Greys, might now be a good opportunity to try?"
Charles gave a short bark of incredulous laughter at this blatant attempt at disingenuousness. "Don't be ridiculous Sophie, my horses are in no temper to be tooled by a novice."
"A novice, Charles?" murmured Sophie, with dangerous sweetness, "surely not a novice?" Sophie's raised eyebrow added emphasis to her italics.
"Well, you know what I mean, Sophie," muttered Charles, "of course you are not a beginner with the ribbons, but this pair are fractious at the best of times, they will not respond well to unfamiliar hands."
Sophie forbore to point out that the highly strung horses were not responding at all well to the familiar hands on the reigns, she merely directed a pointed stare at the mouths of the snorting, twitching cattle and cleared her throat, softly.
Charles, feeling the force of this silent attack, carried war into the enemy camp, exclaiming, "and anyway Sophie, what on earth makes you think that, after an evening like the one you have just put me through, I would reward you with the opportunity to handle my greys."
"May I remind you," returned Sophie, pointedly, "that my evening's work has resulted in Cecelia returning home engaged to Charlbury, and that you, my dear Charles, are no longer engaged to Eugenia."
Charles stiffened at the mention of his former betrothed's name, jerking the reigns involuntarily and setting off a litany of snorts and huffs from the indignant greys.
"Right that's enough," snapped Sophie, decidedly. "You are far too cross to be handling such delicate horses, give the ribbons to me." With that, she leaned across and took the reigns from Mr Rivenhall's, surprisingly unprotesting, hands.
Behind them, Hitchin stifled an incredulous gasp, as he watched that renowned whip, Mr Charles Rivenhall, cede command of his prize pair, unresistingly, to a passenger. And a female at that. But then, the groom reflected gloomily, the master had been in damned queer stirrups all day, dashing down to Lacey Manor at a moments notice, driving fit to burst for mile after mile, raging and fuming the whole way. And then, not content with wringing a furious pace out of his prize pair for three whole stages, to demand that they repeat the journey, with scare enough time for precious pair to get a sniff of oats, well that was not what Hitchin expected of a man who was noted, not just for his judge of horseflesh, but for his care of his cattle as well. Nothing, thought Hitchin indignantly, could surprise him now.
Despite his morose projections, Hitchen was destined to be further shocked before the night was out. Sophie, having secured the reigns, drew the greys into a brisk trot and addressed herself to her irate lover, who was seething, damply and impotently, alongside her.
"Charles, I refuse to drive almost 30 miles in an open carriage in this weather," she announced, decidedly. "Have you considered what a ridiculous spectacle we would make of ourselves, turning up in Berkley Square, well after dinner, soaking wet? And hungry." She added, as an afterthought.
"Well pardon me for not making alternative dinner plans," snapped Charles, "My only thought was to get as far away from that rabble you have assembled, before I was induced to make an evening party with a sneezing Bromford, my former fiancé, and that bloody poet!"
Sophie smiled a little at this flood of indignant invective. She slowed the horses to a jog trot, as they entered Lacey village and, at the sign for The Green Man, pulled off the high rise and into the inn yard. Hitchin leapt down from his perch and ran to the greys' heads, where he was joined, moments later, by an interested looking ostler.
"Take them and see them comfortably bestowed, Hitchen," commanded Sophie, "they won't be travelling again tonight. You can bring the curricule back to London tomorrow."
Hitchin glanced fleetingly at Mr Rivenhall, who was beginning to expostulate but, as Sophie had given him an order he was very much inclined to follow, he quickly looked away and busied himself with the horses.
"Charles," continued Sophie, inexorably, "stop fussing and hand me down, we will dine here before hiring a more appropriate vehicle to convey us back to London. Excuse me please?" This last to the grinning ostler.
"Can you have a post chaise and four," Sophie glanced briefly into her reticule and then hastily corrected herself, "no, a pair, ready in an hour?"
The ostler grinned again and nodded. Noticing that the irate gentlemen had not yet exited the curricule, he extended a grimy paw to the commanding female above him. Sophie took his hand, gathered her skirts around her and jumped lightly down. She turned to address the, still stupefied, Charles.
"Well Charles, are you eating dinner in the stables or the dinning parlour? Because I don't intend to linger in this damp yard for a moment longer, if you are planning to join me, you had better move."
With that, Sophie turned on her heel and marched into the inn.
[I don't plan to leave this here. I expect there will be a couple of chapters to follow, but I update very slowly, so the next instalment may be a while coming.]