His One Woman. Paula Marshall

Miss Hope was comparatively young, and had proved to be a lively and amusing companion. He thought that Sophie’s manner to her verged on the unpleasant, particularly since it seemed to be quite unjustified. He felt, however, duty-bound to defend Sophie, of whom he had previously spoken warmly, when Alan supported Charles in deploring Sophie’s conduct.

      ‘I thought that you liked her,’ he told Alan. ‘She’s usually a charming little thing, and one cannot expect her to be interested in the weighty topics which engage her elders.’

      ‘No, indeed,’ said his brother. ‘But one might expect her not to show her displeasure quite so plainly. She was openly rude to Charles, and to Marietta, more than once. My regard for Miss Marietta led me to try to placate the young miss, even at the expense of losing some good conversation. It is not for me to advise you, Jack, but I should go easy in that direction if I were you. Spoilt young beauties are likely to turn into shrewish women when their looks begin to fade.’

      Charles nodded at this in his thoughtful way, while Jack said easily, ‘I think that you’re both making heavy weather of the poor little thing,’ but when they mounted the steps to the Envoy’s office, he was thoughtful himself.

      It was a good thing for Sophie, he decided, that Marietta was so patient with her. It might encourage her to improve her company manners if she were to follow the sterling example her cousin set.

      He looked forward to seeing them again in the near future. He had promised to support the stall which they were running at the coming Bazaar to raise money for an orphans’ home. He would try to persuade Charles and Alan to accompany him. Hardworking Marietta deserved all the support she could get, what with being the Senator’s right hand and Sophie’s duenna as well.

      He would make sure that he provoked that attractive smile again: when offering it to him, she no longer seemed to be at all plain.

       Chapter Three

       ‘J ack says he’s bound and determined to support me at the Bazaar this afternoon,’ Sophie told Marietta in as patronising a manner as she could. ‘I don’t suppose that you will want to come, will you? Not your sort of thing at all. Aunt Percival and I are perfectly capable of running the stall without you.’

      ‘On the contrary,’ said Marietta coolly. ‘Seeing that I have done the lion’s share of the work needed to gather together enough bric à brac, needlework, bibelots and trinkets to make a good show, I have no intention of being deprived of the pleasure of selling them. Besides, I should like to meet Jack again— I found him a most interesting companion.’

      Sophie’s pout was a minor masterpiece of displeasure.

      ‘Oh, I’m sure that he would like an afternoon when he didn’t have to waste time discussing boring topics with you,’ she said sharply. ‘Besides, if you do come, you will have so much work cut out making change for our customers to spend much time talking to anyone. You know that Aunt Percival and I aren’t very good at sums.’

      ‘In that case, you really will wish me to accompany you—seeing that I will be useful after all.’ Marietta smiled.

      She was beginning to enjoy wrong-footing Sophie, whose spite was becoming unendurable. Aunt Percival had berated her the other evening for ‘allowing Sophie to walk all over you’ and had advised her to stand up for herself a little more. ‘You are doing her no favour by letting her use you as a doormat,’ she had ended, trenchantly for her.

      Well, I wasn’t a doormat this morning, far from it, thought Marietta, looking around the crowded church hall to see whether Jack was present. He had apparently told Sophie that he would arrive early, but it was already four o’clock and there was no sign of him.

      Nor was there any sign of Sophie, either. After two hours of waiting for Jack, she had flounced off to take tea in a back room, telling Aunt Percival to be sure to fetch her if he should suddenly arrive. Aunt Percival’s answer to that, once she had gone, was to remember a sudden necessary errand which she needed to run, leaving Marietta alone in blessed peace at the stall.

      She had just sold an embroidered pocket book to Mrs Senator Clay when she saw Sophie returning with a man in tow. She was chattering animatedly to him, even though he was not the missing Jack. He was someone whom Marietta had once known very well and whom she was surprised to see at this unassuming event.

      ‘Guess who I found?’ bubbled Sophie at Marietta. ‘He says that he knew you long ago when you were young.’

      Marietta looked at the handsome blond man who was bowing to her before offering her a faint smile. ‘I don’t need to guess,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s Avory Grant, isn’t it? I would have known you anywhere.’

      Marietta had not seen him for seven years and those years had changed them both. There were grey streaks in his fair curls and lines on his classically handsome face, even though he was still only in his early thirties. She wondered what he saw when he looked at her.

      ‘You haven’t forgotten me, I see,’ he said quietly, bowing to her.

      ‘No, of course not,’ she told him, smiling at him. He might once have proposed to her and been refused, but that was no reason for them to be uneasy with one another.

      He smiled. ‘And I would have known you, even though you have become handsome after a fashion which must cause heads to turn in your direction these days.’

      ‘Now, Avory, you must not flatter me. You know as well as I that I am past my first youth.’

      He shook his head. ‘I meant what I said. I am delighted to see you again, and to find you looking so well.’

      She did not tell him that he had not changed, for he had, even though he was essentially still the young man who had asked to marry her—something which Sophie did not know.

      ‘I arrived in Washington yesterday and my aunt told me that I would find you here this afternoon—and so Miss Sophie confirmed when I encountered her.’

      Sophie slipped a proprietorial arm through Avory’s, and her smile for Marietta was that of a crocodile hanging on to its prey. ‘Avory and I first met when Pa invited him to dinner this time last year,’ she announced sweetly.

      Avory nodded agreement, adding, ‘I am having a short holiday in Washington, renewing old friendships, before I join the Army of the Potomac—’

      He was not allowed to finish. Sophie exclaimed, ‘Oh, no—do not say so. It is not even certain that there will be a war.’

      ‘Would that that were so,’ he told her indulgently, ‘but I am afraid that war is now inevitable.’ He turned to Marietta. ‘I am sure that the Senator would agree with me. May I compliment you again on your appearance, Marietta—it is as though no years at all have passed since we last had the good fortune to meet.’

      Marietta’s thanks for this compliment were coolly polite but genuine. For the first time in months, nettled by Sophie’s constant criticism of her, and a little on her high ropes because of the Dilhorne party’s open admiration of her, she had dressed herself with some care.

      She was wearing a fashionable green velvet gown decorated with gold buttons and a certain quantity of discreetly placed gilt lace which showed off her glossy chestnut hair to advantage. More to the point, she had abandoned her normally severe coiffure in favour of one which allowed her glorious locks to hang loose a little before they were confined by a black velvet bandeau round her forehead. In the centre of it she had pinned a small topaz brooch. Her mirror had told her how much this unwonted care had improved her appearance.

      Sophie tossed her head a little. Plain Jane had no business to be receiving praise—that was for her. ‘Oh, Marietta always looks the same,’ she said, as though that were some major fault. ‘I suppose that your wife is still recovering from your journey from Grantsville and would find a visit to a Bazaar too exhausting.’

      Marietta threw Sophie a glance so withering that even that careless kitten quailed before it, while Avory, his face shuttered, said in a low voice, ‘My