To Claim the Long-Lost Lover

by Jude Knight

  Nate heard the hesitation. Had they beaten her, too? He looked over his shoulder to make sure the other occupants of the room could not see, and took her other hand in his free one. “I hate to think of you sick and in pain, and me not there to help.”

  “When I was well enough, my father and my grandfather tried to browbeat me into marriage to one of my father’s friends, but Mama and Aunt Georgie stood up for me. I think, too, that by then they had spent my dowry, and I was harder to get rid of than they expected. And then Elfingham died and we were all in mourning.” She shrugged. “I just kept saying ‘no’, whomever they suggested.”

  “You were very brave,” Nate told her.

  “Why didn’t you write?” she asked. Then, looking up at him through her lashes, she made it a question. “Did you write?”

  “To my cousin. I begged my cousin to find out how you were and to let me know. I even wrote to my father when I didn’t hear from Arthur. Neither of them ever wrote back. I wrote directly to you, too, though I thought it would be useless. I assumed your father would keep any letters from you., but I still I posted letters whenever we were in port. I never got a reply.”

  “He isn’t in Lesser Lechford. I rode over three years ago, after Mama and Charlotte and I retired to the dower house at Swinwood Hall. They told me he was accused of embezzling funds and corrupting minors. The bishop removed him from his post and nobody knew where he went. Nate, Grandfather must have done that to him, as revenge. Your poor cousin!”

  Nate frowned. No wonder the man had never answered. He never received the letters. Then Nate had another thought. “I left our marriage lines with him for safekeeping. I wrote again last night to ask him to send them to me. I will find him, Sarah.”

  “We are really married?” Sarah asked, leaning towards him, and he smiled and nodded.

  Just then, someone called Nate’s title. “Bentham!” Lord Hythe, whom he’d met at White’s and again at various entertainments, crossed the room from the doorway. “Your father was looking for you, Bentham. He wants you in the ballroom for some kind of an announcement.”

  Even as he spoke, they heard the music draw to a close, and someone began calling for silence. As the post-dance chatter died away, the last half of a sentence came to them, loud and clear: “...ado, I’ll hand the floor over to Lord Lechton and Lord Tremaway.”

  “What is the old man up to now?” Nate wondered. He leapt to his feet and, with Sarah close behind him, hurried back into the ballroom.

  11

  Sarah had a bad feeling about this. Nate’s father had used one tactic after another to control the son he didn’t understand. In the long litany of tyranny, enrolling his only son in the navy in order to remove him from a marriage he had not approved was merely the last and worst example.

  Sarah still didn’t understand why Nate was back in England, working as a doctor and, if not living with his father, at least on speaking terms with him. But clearly Nate expected another assault on his freedom of choice, and in any conflict between him and the earl, Sarah was on Nate’s side.

  Lechton was meandering on about his pleasure in the future of his title and his family; about how the ‘fruit of his loins’ was about to make him very happy. Sarah couldn’t see him, but she could hear him, and she could just see Nate, disappearing between shoulders and skirts, making his way to the far end of the room where his father pontificated about the importance of marriage and children and impeccable reputations.

  Sarah stopped, her bad feeling coalescing into a nasty suspicion. He sounded as if he was about to announce that she and Nate were married. It was too soon! Nate hadn’t told her the rest of his story. She had avoided telling him about Elias. Besides, her family needed to know before anyone else!

  Charlotte came up beside her and linked an arm with hers. “Do you know what is going on?” she whispered.

  Sarah shook her head. “I do not. Shh. Let us listen.”

  Drew touched her arm, a silent support on the other side, and beyond him the duke her uncle. They moved as a group back towards the wall, where they could just see the tops of the two lord’s heads, and the face of Lord Framington, standing to one side.

  “Here, Lechton,” said Lord Tremaway. “My turn. My ladies and my lords, gentlepersons all, I am delighted to announce the betrothal of my daughter, Miss Tremaway, to the son of the Earl of Lechton, Lord Bentham.”

  Uncle James muttered something under his breath, shooting Sarah a look of alarm. “It isn’t true,” Sarah told him, her voice drowned in the response from the ball goers—clapping, chatter, and a few cheers, as footmen began to move around with glasses of wine.

  Every sound in the room ceased as Nate roared, “No!” in a voice pitched to be heard above a storm. In the tense silence, he must have reached the musicians’ platform, for suddenly she could see his head across the crowd. “Miss Tremaway, Lord Tremaway, I regret to inform you that I have not consented to this betrothal. Indeed, I knew nothing of it until you, sir, announced it.”

  What Sarah could see of Tremaway purpled. “Your father has made a promise, sirrah, and you shall honour it.”

  “I cannot, my lord, and I will not. My word is already given elsewhere.”

  Tremaway turned on Lechton, and began shouting about breach of promise, but Lord Framington moved forward and said something to the three angry men. He must have suggested that they take their dispute to a more private setting, for they followed him from the room, and in moments Lady Framington spoke from the platform, her delight at the scandalous doings at her ball only slightly disguised.

  “Please let us move on to supper, my friends. It seems the Lechtons and the Tremaways were a little beforehand with their announcement.” She giggled. “One must leave them to have their conversation, and await developments!”

  “We should go,” Uncle James said.

  “But Nate—” Sarah protested. “I should wait... We haven’t finished our conversation. We were going to have supper together.” And she had hoped for a waltz to replace the one they’d missed in order to talk. She yearned to be held in his arms again. But she was being silly. He was unlikely to get out of the trouble his father had fomented in what remained of the evening.

  Her sister, as so often, had followed her thoughts. “He will be under intense scrutiny for the rest of the night, Sarah. You know he will. Being seen with him will make you part of the story, too.”

  The duke nodded, and Sarah could see their point. Until she and Nate knew whether they were married; until they decided what they wished to do about the future; they should avoid making their relationship fodder for the ton’s gossip machine.

  * * *

  Tremaway was justly angry. So was Nate, come to that. Miss Tremaway was in tears. Lady Tremaway held her daughter in her arms and glared at Nate. Libby sat on the other side of Miss Tremaway, watching the three men with worried eyes.

  Lechton insisted he’d done nothing wrong. “You are my son. You are required to obey me. I told you yesterday that I was choosing a bride for you.”

  “And I told you,” Nate snapped, “that I would not accept any bride you chose. That I could not, because I am already committed.”

  “No betrothal has been announced,” Tremaway complained. “Your match with my daughter has been announced, and your honour demands that you marry her.”

  “No, Lord Tremaway,” Nate said. He would repeat his refusal as often as he needed to do so. He wished he could just tell the man that he was married, but he wouldn’t take her choices away from Sarah.

  “You have no honour, then,” the viscount sneered.

  “I have made no agreement with you or your daughter, my lord,” Nate pointed out. “My father has given his word, not mine. He does not have the power to give mine. I knew nothing of my father’s intentions or yours until you made the announcement. Without my signature, any agreement is unenforceable. You have every right to be angry, but with my father, not with me.”

  The conversation kept going round and
round in circles, Nate alert to cut his father off whenever he was about to mention Sarah’s name or the youthful marriage. In the end, Lady Tremaway begged to be allowed to take her daughter home, and the Tremaways retired, still angry.

  Lechton went on the attack as soon as they closed the door behind them. “You are a fool, Bentham, allying yourself to the Winshires. Do you know what I heard today? That brat your Sarah Winderfield took out of the workhouse is actually the son of her own sister and brother! Yes, they say Charlotte Winderfield, the one they call a saint, actually seduced her own brother and he killed himself because of it!”

  Nate ignored most of that vile nonsense, but he turned to Libby and asked, “Sarah took a boy from the workhouse?”

  “Elias, they call him,” Libby confirmed, “and it is true that some believe him to be a Winderfield born on the wrong side of the blanket.”

  Nate felt as if everything in him had come to a stop: his breath, his thoughts, even his heart. He choked out his next question. “How old is Elias?”

  * * *

  The Winshire mansion was mostly in darkness. Nate thought of climbing the fence to check for a back door or an accessible window, but undoubtedly the grounds were patrolled. Nate was willing to back himself in a fair fight, but those guards of Winshire’s were trained warriors. His courtship wasn’t going to be helped if he annoyed the duke by injuring one of his men, nor did he fancy a beating if he encountered two or more.

  Perhaps he should wait until morning. No. He had to speak with Sarah tonight. He knocked on the front door, and was surprised when it was opened by Lord Andrew. The young lord opened the door and waved him in, saying over his shoulder, “You were right, Kaka. Bentham is here. Come in, Bentham. My father said you wouldn’t be able to wait until morning.”

  The duke lounged against a door frame, propped on one shoulder, his arms folded. “My niece has gone up to her suite, Bentham. I take it you wish to speak with her?” He turned to his son. “Drew, would you see if Sarah wishes to come down and talk to Lord Bentham?”

  He stepped back and gestured into the room behind him. “If you could indulge me in a couple of answers to questions, Bentham, while we wait for my niece.” It was phrased as a question but the tone made it a command.

  Nate obeyed, stepping into a comfortably appointed study. “I will answer what I can, Your Grace.”

  “I am in Lady Sarah’s confidence, young man,” the duke commented. “Or should I say, Lady Bentham’s?”

  “That needs to be her choice,” Nate said, resisting the primitive surge of possessiveness and pride that wanted to accept the title that proclaimed her his own.

  “You will walk away if she chooses not to acknowledge the marriage?”

  Nate hesitated. “That was my intention, though I hoped to persuade her to at least allow me to court her again. But I just found out about... Your Grace, the boy? Is he my son?”

  “Ah yes. Elias. You will need to talk to Sarah about Elias.” He leaned against the desk, steepling his hands and tapping his forefingers against his lips. After a moment, he asked another question. “Can you prove that the marriage took place? Sarah says that is your plan.”

  “I believe I can, sir. Your brother or my father may have destroyed the marriage register at Lesser Lechford, but I doubt they knew that the marriage was also recorded at Sutton-Under-Swinwood, where the banns were also called. I believe that made the marriage legal, Your Grace, since my lady was born at and recorded as a resident of Swinwood Hall, and therefore a parishioner at Sutton-Under-Swinwood.”

  The duke nodded thoughtfully. “I see. And Sutton-Under-Swinwood was even then a refuge for women in hiding, and therefore it was unlikely anyone would speak of the banns to those who might inform my brother or my father.”

  “Yes, sir. Also, my cousin, if I can find him, may still have my copy of our marriage lines. I do not know, though, whether Lord Sutton or his father obtained an annulment.”

  The duke inclined his head. “I have seen no evidence of that in the duchy’s files. I will ask our solicitors to check their records. I suspect, however, that they would not have wanted the existence of a marriage to be made public. Tell me, if you had come back to find Sarah married again, what would you have done?”

  “Nothing, Your Grace. What could I have done without hurting my wife?” That was, in fact, the situation he expected, and the reason he had not wanted to come to London even after he was forced back to England.

  “From what I know of my brother and father, they would have gambled on exactly that reaction from you, and left well enough alone. I will check with the solicitors, but I consider it likely there was no annulment.”

  Nate turned as Sarah spoke from the doorway. “So, we are probably still married,” she said, “and certainly were wed all those years ago.” She was still in her ball finery, except she had removed her gloves. She came to him with her hands out, and he took them in his.

  “I lost faith in you, Nate. I am so sorry.”

  He gazed down into the beloved eyes, still adjusting to the new difference in perspective. Last time he was this close, he had not reached his full adult height. “You had cause, dearest heart.” The endearment he had always used came easily back to his tongue. “You are not to blame. Forgive me for giving up on reaching you with word of my survival? For not coming back to you as soon as I was free?”

  “We shall forgive one another, then,” Sarah said. She looked down, pressing her lips between the teeth, that endearing little crease between her brows deepening.

  “You can say to me anything you wish,” Nate prompted.

  She met his eyes, then. “Can I? I do not know you now. You do not know me. We have both changed in seven years, Nate. How could we not? You call me ‘dearest heart’, but how can you love someone you do not know?”

  It was a fair question. Nate frowned in his turn, trying to find the right words. “I know I admire what I have heard of you, Sarah. I know I want you—more, I think, than I did when we were wed, though my younger self would not have believed that possible. You have my respect and my desire, which is a good start, I think?”

  * * *

  Sarah had to acknowledge the point. In fairness, she should admit to her body’s response. It bothered and confused her. In seven years, she had convinced herself that her memory of their reaction to one another must be false; that she was, by nature, cold, for she had met many attractive men since she entered Society, and none of them moved her in the slightest.

  She heated to melting point when she saw him on the other side of a room. Standing so close, her hands in his, it was taking all the discipline she had to keep from draping herself over him and demanding that he did something about the fire he had ignited.

  Uncle James! They had been standing here almost embracing. What must her uncle think of her? But when she looked around for him, he was nowhere to be seen, and the door she had left open behind her was closed.

  “Sarah,” Nate said, “I am willing to court you, to give you time to know me again. I was prepared to walk away, if that was your choice, though it would be like tearing my heart out all over again. But what of Elias?”

  It is because of Elias that I must be sure. Sarah tried to pull her hands away, but he held on, firmly but gently. She couldn’t think of anything to say except, “You know.”

  “I only found out about him this evening, when my father tossed the fact of his existence at me as an argument against you. He thinks you are covering up the sins of your sister, but as soon as I heard, I knew.” His fingers relaxed and his jaw firmed. “Did you not intend to tell me?”

  This time, she did pull loose, and turned away to hide her flush. “I wanted time.” Time to find out if this new harder version of the boy she had loved would be kind; to find out if Nate could be trusted.

  It seemed they were truly married, which increased the risk. As Sarah’s husband and Elias’s father, he had every legal right to take his son. She could trust her family to fight for her free
dom if she found marriage to Nate unbearable, but in that case, she would lose Elias. She could not imagine Nate had become brutal enough that the courts of England would not find in his favour if they fought over custody.

  She chanced a glance back at him, to see how angry he was, and was disarmed by his thoughtful nod. “You wanted to protect our son. I can respect that. I am not a danger to him, dearest heart, nor to you. I will give you the time you need to find that out.”

  He rubbed at the back of his neck. He used to do that when he was much younger, when he was deeply moved and concerned, and trying to hide it. “You have been looking for a husband this Season, they tell me. Were you looking for love? Or for a companionable marriage?”

  Sarah noted the past tense but didn’t challenge it. He was right, of course. Her husband hunt was over. She gave Nate the truth. “I was seeking a father for Elias.”

  Nate spread his hands. “Then let me show I can be what you both need,” he begged.

  He was asking when he had the right to demand. That was in his favour. Hard as Sarah found it to trust anyone other than Charlotte, he deserved the chance he asked for. “Shall we start with a meeting in St James Park tomorrow? At the Chinese Bridge?” she asked. “Elias likes to feed the ducks.”

  His smile lit his eyes and softened every line of his face. “I would like that. Shall I see if Libby and my sisters would like to join me? We should avoid a public show of our... connection. Just while Society is getting over my father’s mad start, and while you are deciding our future.”

  He was right, and his willingness to avoid forcing her hand added another mark to his credit. “Tell Lady Lechton to bring bread,” she advised. “Shall we say noon?”

  “Shall we say Fournier’s afterwards, for some of his little cakes?” Nate countered.

  “I expect your sisters would enjoy that,” Sarah teased.