She watched him speak to several ladies and recognized his mother and sister. He stood abruptly and made his way towards Sophie. She had no desire to engage in conversation with him, but she had promised her father that she would be nice and she would keep that promise. Besides, Alphonse wasn’t a bad man, just very average and not stimulating.
“My dear Sophie.” Alphonse came to her, smiling.
He took her hand in his and gestured a simple kiss, though in reality he barely touched her. “I am stunned to see you here. I would not have thought a cricket game would interest you in the least,” he said.
Alphonse had blond hair, though prematurely balding, with pale blue eyes set in a pudgy face. He had always been chubby, even as a child. He was a few inches taller than Sophie and had been a companion since childhood. Eugenie liked him and wanted a match between them. His grandmother on his mother’s side was a baroness.
“I could say the same for you, Alphonse,” she replied. “But you are correct. This game is not something I would have chosen myself. The duke invited me.”
“The duke? Of Dorset?” Alphonse frowned.
“Yes. We met by chance at Madame Necker’s salon and he invited me.”
“Madame Necker’s salon? Indeed? Sophie Gauvreau, you surprise me.”
Sophie smiled. “It was my father’s invite to the salon, and he asked me to attend as well.”
“I am jealous, if anything. Madame Necker has the most celebrated and esteemed intellectuals surround her. To attend her salon is prestigious.”
“I did enjoy it,” she admitted.
“Your father and grandmother are well?”
“Yes. Your mother and sister?”
“Also well.” He smiled.
Alphonse was dressed simply in a black coat, waistcoat and breeches, and looked like a clergyman. He accompanied Sophie to the tent and she placed him in the company of her grandmother, who fussed over him like a lost grandson.
When Sophie left the tent again, a light rain had fallen and the game seemed to be postponed. The tree which had provided shelter before was not so accommodating. Players were running inside the tent and all of a sudden there seemed to be no one on Earth but Sophie.
She closed her eyes and breathed in the cool scent, in complete blissful solitude. It was a decadent feeling to be entirely alone in the world, she thought happily.
“You’re going to catch a cold,” came a deep voice.
Sophie whirled around to find a man standing near her underneath another tree.
Her palms were flat against the trunk as she steadied her breath. “So are you.”
The man smiled. He looked like he might be French but there was something dark and foreign about him. His wavy brown hair was caught back with a silk ribbon but his brown eyes looked hotly at her. He was not dressed in the silks, satins and pastels that she so often saw in Paris. Instead, he wore dark brown breeches, a white waistcoat and a navy blue coat. He looked like a military man.
“You should go back inside. Your lover might be missing you,” he said, his back against the trunk of his tree and his arms crossed over his chest.
“My lover?”
“The priest.”
“Alphonse?” Sophie asked.
He shrugged.
“He’s a childhood friend,” she said, irritated with the entire conversation and not wanting to give this stranger any detail.
“Children grow up.”
“Apparently not all,” she said, becoming more annoyed by him.
He laughed. “Did you just call me a child?”
Sophie shrugged in return.
He looked over the auburn-haired beauty dressed in a pink gown, looking delicious and fresh. He had seen her briefly in the tent with Madame Necker and then again outside talking to the priest. She was a woman who could inspire lust, but also a feeling of protection. She had an innocent look about her, but also a tart tongue.
“You should be careful, mademoiselle. A grown man will not like being called a child,” he admonished.
Sophie dismissed him and their conversation. “Then don’t assume things that you know nothing about.”
Suddenly he was standing beside her. His hair was wet from the rain and the drops clung to him, dripping onto his navy blue coat.
“I think for the insult of calling me a child, you owe me something.” He spoke softly.
In the rain she could smell the grass and a scent that clung to him. It was a masculine smell of tobacco and wood.
“I owe you something?” She laughed lightly. “I think not.”
She was sure this handsome stranger was used to having women do anything he wanted. But she would not be one of those women. In fact, the more she pondered it, the more arrogant the man appeared and the more that annoyed her.