by Jude Knight
Lady Charlotte spoke before he could. “My sister is in the country. She is seeking a husband this Season, and hopes to narrow her shortlist.”
A shortlist of potential husbands? The room spun for a moment and Nate spoke before his brain connected with his tongue. “Me! She doesn’t need another husband.” Lady Charlotte raised her brows at him, and he realised he was shouting. He lowered his voice, but he couldn’t retract anything he had said. “Just me.”
“You.” Lady Charlotte’s scorn dripped from the word in edged icicles. “You left, seven years ago, without goodbyes.”
“Not of my own volition,” Nate protested.
Lady Charlotte’s nostrils flared, but she commented only, “For seven years? And not a single word, then or later?”
Sarah did not receive any of my letters! Nate forced his fists to relax. “I wrote.”
“Not a word,” Lady Charlotte repeated, raising an eyebrow.
The lady has a right to her doubts. And Sarah, too, if she in truth heard nothing from me.
“I owe Lady Sarah an explanation, my lady,” he said, hoping his voice sounded much calmer than he felt. “I hope to have the opportunity to give it to her.”
Lady Charlotte surprised him with a wry smile. “You do not owe me an explanation, you mean.”
That was exactly what he meant. He couldn’t resist a smile of his own. “Your sister said you were smart.”
She folded her hands in her lap, composing herself back into the model of an ice maiden she had appeared at the outset. “Very well, my lord. I am to join my sister in a couple of days. We shall be back in town in two weeks. She will decide whether or not to give you a hearing once we return, but I will tell her everything you have said.”
“But what if…?” Nate had been about to ask whether Lady Sarah was going to choose a husband before he could see her again. Narrow the shortlist, she said. I still have time.
His thoughts must have shown on his face, for Lady Charlotte said, “I do not expect my sister to be betrothed when she returns to London, if that is what bothers you.”
Nate couldn’t deny her point but didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing she had him to rights. He bowed instead. “Thank you for seeing me today, my lady.”
It was a polite nothing masking his irritation that she had told him very little, and by the twinkle in her eye, she knew it. Sarah is choosing a husband. That thought dominated all others, and he had been escorted to the door by a footman and was out on the street again before he was fully aware of being dismissed.
His childhood sweetheart, his first love, was planning to choose a husband. His reaction—the sheer revulsion at the thought of her with anyone else—had been unexpected. Yes, he had wanted to meet her again, let her know what had happened to him, make peace between them.
He had planned to do whatever was needed to resolve any difficulties their past actions might make for her future. He had even hoped to find out whether the grown Sarah and the grown Nate might be able to find some sparks of the fire that once burned when they touched.
Nearly a third of my life has passed, and I have changed. She must have, too. Perhaps they would meet and dislike one another, or meet and agree to part as friends. But his immediate reaction when Lady Charlotte mentioned that damnable list was to claim his long-lost love as his own.
Nate had walked seven blocks and had passed the street he was meant to turn down. He backtracked to the missed corner. Nothing has changed. Everything has changed. He still could not move on with his own life until he knew whether the unbroken connection between him and Sarah Winderfield was all on his side, or whether she felt it too. But the clock is ticking. She means to take a husband!
He needed to meet Sarah, clear up her misconceptions about his disappearance and presumed silence, find out if he still wanted the role that had once been his greatest ambition, and convince her to love him again. And all before she chose another husband.
A thought occurred and stopped him short. She had a shortlist. I am not competing against a love match. He stepped out towards his father’s townhouse, a smile spreading as he considered that fact. He’d put the next two weeks to good use, using Libby and her contacts to find out who was courting Lady Sarah, who she favoured, and what they were like.
The clubs, too. He’d buy horses and play cards—whatever it took to be accepted into the conversation men had when women were not around. By the time I see her again, I’ll be armed for the battle ahead. He’d know what she looked for in a husband, and also what was wrong with the suitors she was considering.
* * *
Nate found that Sarah’s interest in finally choosing a husband had attracted attention. It fascinated the bored young men who inhabited the clubs, moved in packs to entertainments in both high and low society, and whiled away their hours by wagering, gossiping, and competing within their set: Corinthians, Dandies, Young Blades, Peep-O-Day Boys.
“The Winderfield Diamond?” said one rakish gentleman, when Nate managed to bring her name into a conversation over brandy. “Nothing there. She looks lovely, I’ll grant you, but not safe. Even before those terrifying cousins arrived, a man ’d risk his future offspring getting too close. Seems very sweet, right up until she freezes you into an ice block.”
“And her sister!” His friend shuddered. “Cut you into little strips with her tongue, that one.”
“Anyway,” Rake One commented, “she’s looking for a groom. Don’t know why this season, when she’s turned down more proposals than any other female on the Marriage Mart. Truth to tell, I only chanced my arm because of that. I usually leave the virgins alone, but I thought she’d decided on spinsterhood.”
“Anyone would have,” his friend commiserated. “Did myself.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t like men.”
“Then why is she getting married?” the first rake asked.
They considered the perplexing conundrum of a woman who did not find their advances appealing while Nate thought about how satisfying it would be to punch them.
Someone sitting nearby interrupted their silence. “Bit of a honey pot all around. Looks, money, connections. A man could do worse. And if she doesn’t warm up in bed, that’s what mistresses are for.”
“Good luck with that,” another opined. “She’s already turned away don’t-know-how-many fortune hunters. The war office should hire her mother and her aunt. Their intelligence gathering is unbelievable.”
The topic drifted and circled, but kept coming back to what gossip had gleaned about Sarah’s intentions and expectations. Nate didn’t have to say a word. He sat and sipped his brandy, and before an hour had passed, he had a list of eight men that, the company agreed, the Winderfield Diamond was considering.
Other conversations added two more, and rounded out a picture of a settled man with interests beyond fashion, gambling, and sports. Of the seven landowners, four were peers and three untitled gentlemen. The three younger sons all had independent incomes from their own successful enterprises, one as a Member of Parliament in Commons, one an architect, and one a barrister. Nine of the ten preferred country to London living. Four were widowers, two with children.
One factor they had in common was that all had a name as philanthropists, in some measure. That was another thing Nate learned about the Winderfield family in general and Sarah and her twin in particular. They not only supported good causes, they actively worked in charitable ventures as diverse as barefoot schools, orphanages, and support for military widows and their children.
Most of the useless fribbles who gossiped in his hearing were contemptuous of such efforts. “Not going to be able to make silk out of that kind of sow’s ear.” The young viscount expressing that opinion was only saying what his fellows thought. “Those who are born in the gutter belong there. Don’t have the brains for anything else, and will rob you soon as look at you.”
Nate kept to his corner and sipped his drink. What would these idiots say if they knew where he was heading tomorrow? Out of curios
ity, he had walked past the ragged school that Lady Charlotte not only sponsored but taught in. In an adjoining street, he had seen a medical clinic that offered care to anyone who came. On an impulse, he had gone in, introduced himself, and asked for a tour.
They’d been in the process of politely refusing when several people were carried in from the street in fast succession, bruised, broken and bleeding from an encounter with a runaway dray. “Let me help,” Nate had offered to the harried doctor who came hurrying down from upstairs in his shirtsleeves.
He’d been grilled about his experience and training in between terse commands to hold this, pass that, and tie the other thing. “You know what you’re doing,” the doctor conceded after they’d passed quickly down the line of patients, checking breathing and bleeding and providing immediate emergency care. “Carry on. You take the big man with the broken femur. I’ll sew up the split eyebrow.”
An hour later—the ambulatory on their way home, the remaining two who needed overnight medical supervision in beds in a clean ward upstairs—they finally introduced themselves. “Nate Beauclair,” Nate said. His courtesy title would only get in the way. “Late of Edinburgh University, where I read medicine, and before that, apprentice to a ship’s surgeon in the Royal Navy.”
The other doctor grasped the hand Nate offered. “I’m Blythe, the resident physician here. We have others who come in on regular clinic days: Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Even the founder, when she is in town. Cup of tea?”
Nate nodded his agreement, and Blythe led the way across the hall that divided the upper floor into two halves. He unlocked a door and showed Nate into a comfortable sitting room. “My apartment—comes with the residency. Are you looking for a job, Beauclair?”
He busied himself with stirring up the fire and moving a kettle close to the flame. “I’ll warn you, mine is the only paid position. Most of our doctors are volunteers.”
Nate passed him the tin of tea that perched on the mantlepiece. “I already have a position, but it is only part time. Do you need another volunteer?”
Blythe measured three spoons of tea into a waiting teapot. “We always need another volunteer. The lines get longer week by week. I’ve been telling the founder that we should add another clinic day, but we don’t have the doctors. If you’re serious, I’ll put in a word.”
Over tea, the conversation turned to their medical training. Blythe had his degree from the University of Oxford, and had finished his study with practical experience at St Bartholomew’s in London. Nate had had the practical experience first, and sat the second-year examinations at Edinburgh based on what he’d learned from his shipboard mentor, Dr Macintosh.
It had been Macintosh who had kept him alive and put him back together when he was first thrown aboard ship, and who had taken him on as loblolly boy once he recovered enough to do a few tasks around the hospital room to show his gratitude.
After several years, Macintosh talked the navy into sending him to university to get his qualifications. Nate had just been reassigned to a ship when his father interfered, and the Admiralty, curse them, accepted the argument that the welfare of the kingdom required the earl to have an heir to his estates and title.
Mind you, had they not, he would not have been here, in London, just in time to seize the chance for a future with Sarah, if there was one.
“Come back tomorrow, if you can,” Blythe suggested, as they parted. “It’s a clinic day, and you might like to meet some of the others.”
Nate agreed. He’d tell Libby that he wouldn’t be available for afternoon calls, but he would escort her to the theatre that night. For the first time since leaving Edinburgh, he was looking forward to the next day.
5
After three days at the house party, Sarah was fighting the urge to order her carriage and escape. Charlotte had not arrived, instead sending a message to say that something had come up concerning the school and she would be there as soon as she could.
Some of the more disreputable house guests had taken Charlotte’s absence to mean Sarah would be susceptible to their charms, which was more than a little insulting. Jeremy Parkswick was typical. He found her on her own in the stables when she lingered to feed an apple to her mount. “I am pleased to see you here without your twin, lovely Sarah,” he said in a husky voice that she presumed she was meant to find appealing.
As if Sarah, without Charlotte, would not have the brains to see that Parkswick was all glitter and no substance! She moved away from the corner to which he was trying to herd her. “And why is that, Mr Parkswick?”
He shifted to block her exit. “I mean no offense, dear lady. Lady Charlotte is very worthy, I suppose. But she is a bluestocking and a prude, and out to spoil a man’s fun.”
In their first year as debutantes, Society had dubbed Sarah the Diamond and Charlotte the Saint. They seemed to think Sarah’s fashionable colouring and figure were the sum total of her person, and being beautiful must necessarily mean being stupid. Charlotte’s preference for a quieter social life and her dedication to educational causes meant, in their eyes, she was some kind of a religious fanatic, determined to spoil their fun.
Parkswick’s fun, in this case, fetched him sore toes from Sarah’s riding boot. The fool did not take the hint, spreading his legs to move his feet away from her stamp and wrapping her in an embrace that stank of an over-floral cologne, male perspiration, and brandy. “Clumsy, clumsy, my pet. If you want to play, I have some better ideas.”
“Release me immediately, Mr Parkswick, or I shall ask my cousin Drew to teach you some manners,” Sarah informed him. The threat would provoke less gossip, if a lower degree of personal satisfaction, than a sound punch to his mating equipment.
Drew’s marksmanship had become legendary in his first months in England, when he had shot the buttons off an opponent’s jacket in a duel, then repeated the feat at Manton’s with a succession of volunteers. He was equally skilled with a sword and with his fists. Parkswick let her go and slunk off muttering that he only meant to steal a kiss, and she was as cold as her sister.
Sarah hadn’t, in fact, told her cousin. Drew presented as an affable easy-going young man, slow to take offence and always ready with a joke to diffuse a tense situation. But scratch that surface, and the warrior lurked beneath. As her escort, Drew would take any threat to her seriously, and—while Parkswick probably deserved to be thrashed—any such intervention would itself generate gossip. Sarah had no wish to become an object of pity or, for that matter, the villainess of the piece, luring hapless rakes into fights with her formidable relative.
Besides, on their way to the house party, she had asked Drew to give her space to get to know the three gentleman guests who were on her husband shortlist, and she hated to have to admit that was a mistake. However, if the rakes and scoundrels refuse to take my ‘no’ for an answer, I shall have to enlist Drew to have a quiet word with them.
Sarah sighed. Her husband list was shrinking, too. Out of three candidates at this party, two had disqualified themselves already. Drew had taken her aside after dinner on the second day. “Lord Hurley is a dedicated gambler, cousin. Most of the men here will not play with him, as he is falling further and further into debt, and has already sold the estate he inherited and much of his other property. He needs a wealthy wife to fund his habit.”
Sarah had no objection to a man marrying her for her dowry, but not if he was likely to wager it away and leave her and Elias penniless.
Lord Colyford had seemed promising. He wanted a wife to mother his little girls and provide a son or two. Since Sarah wanted a father for her son and more children, it would be an even bargain. He was pleasant to talk to, treated her as if her opinions had value, and showed no signs of descending into sentiment. This was to be a practical marriage, with respect and affection certainly, but Sarah had done with love.
The twinge when she thought of Nate was a scarred-over wound, mostly sound but subject to the occasional phantom pain. That was what she had b
een telling herself, trying not to build anything on the visit her sister had written about, or his expressed desire to explain himself.
Then, yesterday, she had been out for a walk with Colyford and several other guests. They had rounded a hedge and come across the nursery party. Elias had run to meet Sarah, his face alight with pleasure. What a far cry from the nervous little creature Mrs Wakefield had brought her just eight months ago. Sarah returned the child’s bow, then crouched to present her cheek for a kiss.
“Ladies, gentlemen, may I make known to you my ward, Master Elias Winderfield?”
Several of the ladies bent for a word with the little boy. Some of the gentleman, too, bestowed a smile on him from their various heights. Not, Sarah noted, Colyford.
“What are you up to today,” Jessica Grenford asked Elias. Jessica was one of the Duchess of Haverford’s three wards. They were all, though the ton pretended not to notice, base-born daughters of the Duke of Haverford, and therefore half-sisters to one another and to the Marquis of Aldridge.
Jessica’s attention proved too much for Elias, who muttered something unintelligible.
“Oh, he is shy,” one of the other ladies cooed. “How sweet.”
Sarah stood and claimed the child’s hand. “Time to return to nurse, dearest,” she suggested, and led Elias a few paces away to where the nurse waited. Another kiss, and the child and nurse re-joined the rest of their group, Elias recovering enough to turn to wave to Sarah.
As they continued on their walk, the ladies chatted about how handsome Elias was, and how sweetly he bowed. “You haven’t had him for long, have you?” commented one of the silliest debutantes. “I thought he would be rougher. Because of...” she trailed off, as one of her friends poked her.
Sarah thought it kinder to ignore the remark, and the whispered aside to the helpful friend. “Well, everyone knows that she took him out of a workhouse.”
Jessica, bless her, said, “I believe we are to have dancing after tea tonight, and a picnic at the ruins tomorrow, if the weather holds.”