The Firstborn

Chapter Seventeen

"I cannot begin to describe how much I have missed you!" Lucy took a step back, and her blue eyes alighted on George, who had begun to squirm and fuss in Sophia's arms. "And my darling boy!" Without another word, she swept the child into her arms, ignoring his cries as she peppered his face with kisses. "Now, you must come inside at once! We'll have tea and cakes, and I'll tell you everything that is new and wondrous in Bath. Oh, my beautiful boy!" She placed another kiss on George's cheek, a moment before he squeezed his eyes shut and let out a piercing yowl. "Come along, Soph!"

Sophia watched her sister disappear into the cottage with George, the latter kicking and screaming his discomfort the entire way. As Haughton's men came up with her things, she found her voice long enough to direct them inside and inform them where they should deposit her trunk. Once the carriage departed, Sophia made her way into the sitting room, where she found Lucy attempting to bustle over a tea tray while George sat in the middle of the floor, making his discomfort known to all and sundry.

"You must tell me where you've been!" Lucy began, speaking over George's cries as if he weren't howling loud enough to shake the dust from the rafters. "Here I return from Bath, all covered in dust and exhausted from travel, with expectations of enjoying a warm welcome from my sister and my son, and what should I find but an empty house! Locked up and cold as a grave, without a note or a single clue as to where I might begin to look for you!"

Could her sister be so obtuse as to not realize how well her words applied to her own behavior? Sophia pressed her lips together as she picked up George from the rug and placed him on her hip, where he immediately began to quiet.

"And whose men were those? Certainly nothing the likes old Rutledge can afford!?" Lucy flounced onto an armchair and tossed her curls over her shoulder. "Here I thought I'd be the one living a life of some interest, and I return to the sight of you stepping down with the aid of someone dressed in enough finery to look after a Duke!" She bit into a cake and chewed noisily. "Do, tell!" she prompted, a bit of icing still clinging to the corner of her mouth.

"So you were in Bath all this time?" Sophia said, ignoring her sister's interrogation. She would not allow the girl to disappear for several months and then return again as if she had only been gone for morning calls. "A letter would have been appreciated."

"Oh, really!" Lucy rolled her eyes and huffed out a breath, as if she were still a twelve year old girl rather than a fully-grown woman. "And this is the welcome I receive? Perhaps I should not have returned at all!"

No, Sophia would not bite on her sister's hook. Lucy wanted an argument, wanted people to flatter and praise her until she calmed down again, but Sophia would not fall for it this time. "If you'll excuse me, I need to feed your son. And unfortunately cakes and sweets will not suffice."

She could not help being rude. Each word sharpened itself to a point before flying out of her mouth, but Lucy's sudden appearance on the doorstep had shaken her. Already exhausted from the journey home, her mind awhirl with thoughts of packing up and taking George to live with Haughton's sister at Denton Castle, she could not now turn her attention to her wayward sister's sudden decision to once again make an appearance in their lives.

In the kitchen, she set George on the floor, handed him a wooden spoon and a cast iron pot with which to bide his time while she searched through the jars of canned fruits and vegetables for something to prepare for him. Lucy followed her, as Sophia knew she would. If there was anything her sister abhored, it was being left without an audience.

"So is it a gentleman?"

Sophia spun around, the jar of peach preserves she held nearly tumbling out of her grasp. "I beg your pardon?"