Tracking ruby, p.20
Tracking Ruby, page 20
“I thought you never wanted to see me again.”
She pulled her hands away hiding her face from him. “I must be dreaming, I have to be.”
“Sophie, you aren’t dreaming, I am here. Just look at me,” he whispered.
Her face did not emerge, reaching forward he pulled her hands away.
“Please believe me, Sophie.”
She only looked at him, as if she could see through him. “It just doesn’t feel possible; how can you really be alive? I just...I need to go home. I have to go.”
In a minute she was running from the room, he followed her. But she was out the door and into a passing cab before he could catch up to her.
Mrs. Ellington left to go after her, he and Jane could not leave their guests, and her friend seemed loathed to leave the side of the man she walked in with. James found he couldn’t focus, the conversations were dull, he needed to see her again. The long night of torture was at last drawing to a close, and her friend was standing before him, on Andre’s arm.
“Andre and I are going out for a walk tomorrow before lunch, of course, Mamma and Pappa will accompany us. I have a feeling that Sophie won’t want to come, so she would be open to company I am sure, we’ll be home before tea though. Goodnight.”
“Thank you,” muttered James not really absorbing the information until after she was gone.
Sophie alone. That wasn’t what he really wanted but...if there was to be any theatrics like there was tonight. Maybe it was best, to bring along Jane or even Ruby if one of them would come...perhaps it would be better. Though he had a feeling he would not sleep all night.
Slowly the hour hands dragged around the clock, and Jane was talked into accompanying him.
SOPHIE LAY ON THE WICKER couch in the little arboretum.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come for a walk Sophie?” sighed Elizabeth, for what seemed the hundredth time that morning.
“No, I don’t wish to go out today.” We might meet him in the streets, and I can’t face him, not now, not yet. It still feels so unreal, so impossible.
“Suit yourself,” she said with a shrug and walked away.
Alone. Completely alone at last. Sophie took a deep breath, when Elizabeth had returned in the early hours of the morning, she had assured that what had happened was not a dream, that it had turned the whole town on its ear and that by noon what had happened would probably be the talk of the city.
Why can’t busybodies sleep in once in a while? Sophie sighed.
But since he was real, and it wasn’t a dream or a nightmare. She had to say something to him when, or if she ever saw him again, her mind was reeling. All of this seemed impossible.
The house was silent, Sophie lay looking up at the glass ceiling through the palmed branches, just trying to breathe.
There was the sound of Jaques clearing his throat.
“Two people to see Mademoiselle.”
She sat upright, “Tell them I—”
It was Jesse and Jane.
“Come in,” said with a curtsy, the warm feeling of awkwardness swarming her.
Slowly, they came in and she invited them to sit, mechanically if the wanted tea.
Jane said yes, and Jacques was sent away for it, strangely it arrived in record time. The only sound that came from the three was the sound of the china cups and saucers meeting.
“How is your brother Simon?” asked Jane.
“Simon is doing very well, he’s in school, he says he wants to be a minister, Papa is happy about that. How-how is Ruby.”
“She is doing very well in Parisian school here. She loves it, and I know she would love to see you.”
“I would love to see her. I am sure she has grown.”
“Yes, she has, which reminds me I had an appointment with the seamstress that I can’t miss. She needs some new dresses, she is growing like a weed, not even her hems seem to be made long enough,” Jane laughed nervously. “Well I should go, I’ll see the two of you later.”
They both watched her go in stunned silence. Sophie turned back to her teacup, picking it up she gingerly took a sip and laid it down. Her fingers trembling. His hand was closing over hers.
“Sophie.”
She looked him in the eye.
He released one hand and standing up he came to her side of the table, never for a moment loosening his grip on the other; he knelt kneeling beside her.
“Are you angry with me Sophie?”
“No,” she said hiding her face behind her one hand. “Why did you do it?”
“It seemed the only way to free you completely from even the memory of me and what had happened. I wanted you to be free Sophie, free to do whatever you wanted, I didn’t want to stand between you and anyone else if I was gone it was simpler.”
“What, what if there wasn’t anyone else?”
“Sophie, I...”
“What if the person...was you?” she left the last two words drift off softly.
THE WORDS THRILLED him or was he that desperate that he was hearing things?
“Look at me please Sophie.”
Her hand came away from her face, but she did not turn to face him. Reaching forward her softly took her chin, pulling it towards him. Her blue eyes opened, looking into his filled with tears.
“Please don’t leave like that again,” she whispered.
“I won’t. I won’t. I promise I won’t.”
“I’ve missed you.”
“So, you don’t hate me?” he said slipping onto the couch beside her.
“No, I don’t, I am so sorry for all those things I said, I shouldn’t have said them. Thank you for all that you did, for coming back for me. For...telling me it was okay to live.”
James smiled, “Thank you for being there each step of the way. I wouldn’t have been able to do without you, Deputy.”
Sophie cracked a smile, and her gaze dropped, “I haven’t heard that in forever.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Maybe.”
“Really?”
She giggled, “I don’t know.”
“Does this mean we can be friends?” James asked leaning closer.
Sophie nodded.
“Forever?”
“Yes.”
James took her hand and kissed it tenderly.
“You’ve changed so much,” whispered Sophie.
“Have I?”
She nodded.
“Maybe it’s because everyone calls me James now.”
“James, it sounds so different from Jesse.”
“Do you like it?”
Sophie’s head tilted to one side, “I think it suits you.”
“Then will you do the honor of calling me James?”
“Yes, James,” she said, the color of roses warming her cheeks.
There was a long silence, where they kept glancing each other, each trying to find the words they wanted to say. There was so much to say, where did they even start?
“What are you thinking?” asked James.
“That calling you James, seems like the perfect way to start a new chapter in our lives.”
He smiled, “Speaking of chapters, I have something for you.” He reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out a brown paper package. “I’ve been saving this for you.”
“What is it?”
“Open it.”
With trembling fingers, she unwrapped it and gasped.
“How! Where? It’s almost just like...James!” tears of joy started to fill her eyes.
“Do you like it?”
“Yes! But how?”
“I bought it, one rainy day in England when I made one of the stupidest choices in my life, and sent a telegram to you.”
“You’re the one who sent it?”
“I did. Jane could never say it the way I did.”
“I’ve cried over that telegram a hundred times,” she whispered. “I didn’t know how much I cared about you, how much you meant to me, until you were gone.”
“Let’s not talk about that anymore just now, we are here together now, and we shall be parted far less than we have been. Besides don’t you want to read?”
“Not right now,” Sophie whispered. “Not when someone better than Mr. Darcy is here.”
“Then I get to study a pair of fine eyes as we talk?”
“You’ve read it?”
“Indeed, I have. What else did I have to do when I missed you?”
The End
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Jessica Greyson, Tracking Ruby
