“But in doing so,” he said, not wanting to offend her or her mother but unable to withhold his thoughts, “She tore apart your own family.”
Sarah sniffed, and it broke David’s heart that he had caused her pain to resurface. But if she wanted to determine the truth, she would have to face this.
“She thought she did what was best,” she said with a shrug as she blinked away tears that welled up within her eyes. “I just wish she had given me more in terms of memories… and family.”
David couldn’t keep himself away from her any longer. He crossed the room, scooped her up in his arms, and sat her down upon his lap. He held her against him, stroking her hair as she finally allowed the tears to fall. He felt a monster that he had caused such pain to come to the surface, but as she clutched the lapels of his jacket, he hoped that, at the very least, she could find some healing, giving some of her pain to him so that he could turn it into something positive.
He had a purpose now—to help her find what she was searching for. He could think of no greater result than bringing her peace.
“If the man turns out to be…” he wasn’t sure how to properly say it, but he was fearful that Sarah’s father would reject her, especially if he had found his way to another family, another life.
“If it turns out that he wants nothing to do with me?”
That wasn’t how he would have put it, but she had obviously determined that this was a possible outcome.
“I suppose you could say it that way,” he said slowly.
“I am not naive, David,” she said. “I am aware that this is likely the most probable outcome. And in that case… then so be it. I will have, at the very least, attempted to find him, to determine that familial connection. If he doesn’t want it, then I will return home and put this all behind me.”
He nodded, though the thought of her leaving created an ache within his heart.
“And just where, exactly, would home be?”
Chapter Twelve
Sarah took a slow breath. What would he think of her, once she shared her home, her upbringing? She shouldn’t care. If he chose to leave, then so be it—nothing would have changed in her life.
Except she knew that was a lie. For in truth, everything had changed. She just didn’t want to admit it.
“America.”
His eyes widened as he sat back in the chair.
“You traveled here all the way from America?”
“I did. My mother had it much more difficult, however, finding her way there as an expectant mother, giving birth in a cabin in the woods.”
“You are not from one of the cities there, then?”
“No,” Sarah shook her head. “Mother had never lived in a city before, and she had no wish to begin to do so in America. We were close enough to Baltimore that we could travel there when needed, but for the most part, we lived in a small village within nature.” She smiled softly in memory. “I loved it.”
“And now you are in the midst of London,” he mused.
“Yes,” she said tersely. “It is… different.”
“You hate it,” he observed, causing her to laugh slightly.
“I do,” she said. “I really do. Thankfully I have found people I am close with, who feel like family.”
“Your friends.”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “They truly are wonderful. Though they have families of their own now.”
“They would still miss you if you left,” he said, and only then did she notice he was softly stroking her arm, his bare fingertips upon her skin.
Suddenly the intimacy of the two of them here together came rushing in. The fact that he cared enough to comfort her, to hold her, to allow her emotions to come to the surface caused the connection between them to feel closer than any physical act ever could. Though now she could hardly deny her yearning to act upon all that she was feeling toward him.
She had already kissed him once, however, and he had pulled back, more interested in her knife than anything else. The next time they came together, it would have to be of his choosing. For she had doubted he felt much toward her besides gratitude, and she had no wish to be rejected or, even worse, pitied.
And the fact he had promised to help her… she didn’t want to get her hopes up, but then, she also wasn’t going to turn away from his offer, that was for certain.
Sarah reluctantly pushed herself off of his lap and stood in front of him.
“I find myself rather tired tonight,” she said, though she forced a smile on her face. “I’m going to prepare to retire for the night. Here, let me fetch some blankets for you.”
She hated to end this moment between the two of them, but she also needed the space.
But as she removed her wrapper behind the privacy screen between them and lay down for the night, David just steps away, beyond the screen, allowed her to feel safe, secure, and cared for. She slept better that night than she had ever since arriving in London.
*
It was interesting, David mused as his carriage came to a stop in front of his parents’ Mayfair home, how one could become so used to such routine. And surprising how it could begin to feel so natural, particularly for a man who had always rather enjoyed the newness each day could bring.
He would have thought that he would miss the carousing each night, but in fact, he began to look forward to darkness because it meant that he had the opportunity to see Sarah once more. Familiar with one another now, there was an unspoken intimacy between them after the night she had shared all with him, but one that they had made an unspoken agreement to ignore. For his part, he was too worried that if he took another step toward the physical intimacy that he knew they could share, it would break everything else that had been growing between them.
For while he had known many women in a sexual way, he had never before experienced such an intense emotional connection.
And it scared him.
He had no idea how to react to it, what it could mean for the future, or how he could protect himself from becoming hurt. One thing Sarah seemed adamant on was leaving. To go back to America. He wasn’t sure how he could handle never seeing her again, particularly if the relationship they currently held developed any further.
Now and again he would arrive at her rooms to find that she was out with a patient, though she always left him a note so that he wouldn’t worry. The odd time when she was summoned to an emergency while he was there, he insisted on accompanying her, watching her while she tended to those who required her attention. Typically they were minor ailments, but he found he enjoyed watching her work, seeing the way she interacted with everyone from children to the elderly. She took payment when her patients could afford it, waived it when they couldn’t. He had tried to pay her a few times himself, but she had refused, saying that his protection, as unwanted as it was, was payment enough.
His daylight hours were spent helping her in the search for her father. He questioned her as much as he could that would help him in his quest. So far he had determined that her mother had grown up in a village where there were nearby church bells and fields of bluebells. Because that could be so many places in England, it would be difficult to pinpoint a location simply with that information.
He had attempted to put off tonight’s dinner for as long as possible. His parents had been pushing for him to join them for some time now, and finally, he had run out of excuses. That, and Sarah continued to gently remind him that he was lucky to have family. He tried not to balk at her words. He knew she didn’t have family of her own, and he couldn’t help that he didn’t like the guilt she unknowingly poured upon him at the fact that his parents were alive and well, yet he hardly ever saw them.
His parents’ butler greeted him with the slightest bit of a smile, and David continued into the drawing room, where his parents, his brother, and his sister-in-law awaited.
In addition to three other people he had never seen before.
“Ah, David, I am so glad you arrived on ti
me,” his mother said, all smiles as she came over to greet him. She leaned in to kiss his cheek, pausing for a moment before pulling away as she whispered in his ear, “Be cordial if you please.”
“Come, Son,” his father said, beckoning him over. “There are a few people we would like you to meet.”
Warily, David approached, though manners engrained on him since youth forced a smile upon his face.
“Lord and Lady Buckworth, I am pleased to introduce my son, Mr. David Redmond.”
The couple, his parents’ age, seemed kind enough as they greeted him.
“This is our daughter, Lady Georgina,” Lord Buckworth introduced the young woman, who rose from the chesterfield to incline her head to David.
David smiled, though his chest began to ache at the introduction. This had been prepared ahead of time. His parents had purposefully not told him who else would be in attendance, for then they knew he would never have come. Why did they care so much as to whether he married or not? He was not yet thirty—nor was he the firstborn. He had plenty of time to settle down.
The poor girl, young and innocent, looked up at him with a hesitant expression.
“Where do you call home?” David asked the family. “I must admit I do not believe I have seen you in London before.”
“We typically remain in Bath,” Lord Buckworth said. “However, your father and I are old friends from youth.”
David nodded, though he could never remember his father mentioning such a man. He wondered if his father had to search beyond London in order to find someone who had not heard of his son’s reputation, who would be willing to sacrifice his daughter to a man such as himself.
“London is wonderful,” Lady Georgina said, a polite, practiced smile on her face. “I have most enjoyed it.”
All David could think of was Sarah and her own response to London, so unlike Lady Georgina’s. Unless Lady Georgina was only saying so in order to maintain polite conversation. It was often difficult to know.
Dinner proceeded in a civil fashion. David was, of course, seated next to Lady Georgina, but she hardly spoke a word to him, despite his attempts to draw her out into conversation. She refused to meet his eye, her gaze remaining on her plate, or straight ahead, as though she was listening with rapt attention to all that David’s parents and her own had to say.
When David caught his brother’s eye, Franklin only gave him a slight shrug, telling him in an unspoken way that he had no prior knowledge of this ploy of their parents, that he had just appeared for dinner himself. David believed him—his brother had no reason to lie, nor even to care whether or not David married.
After the Buckworths finally departed for the evening, David stood with his arms crossed, waiting for his parents’ explanation of tonight’s arrangement. They did not disappoint.
“So,” his mother said as she re-entered the drawing room after seeing out the Buckworths, a smile on her face, her hands clasped in front of her, “What did you think of Lady Georgina?”
“I think,” David said carefully, “That she is a lovely woman, who does not deserve the likes of me.”
“Oh, David,” his mother admonished. “You are the son of an earl! Yes, you are the second son, but do not allow that to discourage you.”
David rolled his eyes.
“It is not my station in life to which I am referring, Mother,” he said. “But I have to tell you that I feel nothing for her but pity, that she was thrust into this situation, believing that something might come out of this meeting between the two of us.”
“Are you suggesting that nothing will?” his father asked now, standing before David, making him feel as though he were eight years old once more, having just been caught in an act of naughtiness, such as placing a mouse in the bed of the butler—something he had done a time or two. “I will have you know that I went to a great deal of trouble in order for the Buckworths to not only agree to have dinner with us, but to be interested in a potential match between you and their daughter!”
“I am sorry you did so, Father,” David said sincerely. “Had you but asked me, I would have told you that I had no wish for such a match.”
“Neither did your brother,” his Father thundered, and David saw Franklin flinch across the room as he reached over and took the hand of his wife. “And that seemed to have turned out just fine!”
“There is no need to involve Franklin nor Andrea,” David said, attempting to keep his voice calm, as Sarah always did when she was faced with a volatile situation while in the midst of her work. It always seemed to help her to diffuse the situation. “Why did you not tell me of tonight’s arrangement?”
“Because you never would have come,” his mother huffed.
“You are correct,” David said with a nod. “I have no wish to ruin the life of that woman. For she could hardly speak to me at dinner. How would a marriage then proceed? We would live separate lives, I am sure, and neither of us would ever be happy. She seems lovely. I am simply not the man for her.”
“You are going to base that supposition off of one conversation?” his father asked, raising an eyebrow.
“If I had said otherwise—that I would marry her after one conversation—then you would likely be more than happy to agree,” David pointed out, to which his father did not respond, telling David that he was correct in his assessment.
He thought of his first conversation with Sarah. It had been one that intrigued him. Had anyone asked him at the time, there was a woman he would be interested in getting to know better, though he would never admit to marriage, as that was stretching things a little too far.
“Please do not encourage the poor woman or her family,” he said with a sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose, as he felt the disapproving stares of his parents and the sympathetic glances of his brother and his wife.
“What do you suppose you are going to do?” his father asked, standing before him, attempting to intimidate David with his full height of authority. “Spend the rest of your life, until you are an old man, chasing women and gambling away all of your money? Money which comes from an allowance that I generously supply you?”
David typically enjoyed throwing his lifestyle back in the face of his parents, for he was aware that while they were disappointed in him, they were equally disappointed in themselves for allowing him to become the man that he was.
But tonight… it was as though something had changed. He was actually regretting the fact that they disapproved of the man he had become. He felt the urge to prove to them that he was more than the rake all thought him to be.
“It is not that I do not want to marry the woman because I do not desire to be married,” he began. “I can tell you, however, that the two of us will not suit. The woman barely speaks. I have no wish for a wife who would meekly do whatever I say.”
“I hardly see the issue with that,” his father said dryly, causing his mother to look over at her husband with a glance that was not particularly friendly, for she was far from a mild-mannered woman, though the two of them still seemed to get along just fine. “I am simply saying that I am sure she will come around in time,” he amended.
“Lady Georgina is a lovely young girl,” his mother said. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps it is best that you do not sully her reputation as well by joining her name to yours.”
David rose, not allowing his family to see how much his mother’s words had hurt. But they did cut deeply. He hadn’t been aware of just how much his family felt they were suffering from the choices he was making.
“I apologize for any hardship I have caused you.” He turned and looked meaningfully at his brother, the one person to whom he truly meant his apology. “All of you. I will strive to do better. But I will not marry that woman simply because you, Father, choose it to be so.”
“I hardly see the issue with marrying a woman of your father’s choosing,” his mother said, changing her tone slightly, as though she felt that he might be convinced by a different approach. “Franklin did
, and is he not happy now?”
A pained expression crossed Franklin’s face for a moment, and David knew he was torn between being the dutiful son and loyal to his brother.
“It is true,” Franklin said slowly, after a brief glance at his wife. “Lady Georgina could be a good match for you, David, if you consider the possibility.”
“I appreciate the thought, Franklin, but it will not work.”
“I know you think she will not suit, but perhaps try once more—”
“I cannot.”
His family looked on at him in silence now. David knew he likely sounded unreasonable—for what harm could one more meeting with the woman bring?
“False expectations,” he finally said, in an attempt to convince both himself and his family. “I do not want her to think that there could be more between us.”
In fact, perhaps he would have to call upon Lady Georgina herself to acknowledge the fact there would be nothing between them, to ensure that she didn’t raise her hopes for a marriage that may never occur.
“No,” his father said dryly. “It wouldn’t do for anyone to imagine that David Redmond, son of the Earl of Brentford, could possibly be mistaken for a man who might try for some semblance of respectability.”
David refused to look any longer at his father, whose words hurt more than he wanted to admit.
“I will leave you now,” he said, as he suddenly longed to be home with Sarah, a longing which scared him but which he nonetheless could not deny. “Goodnight.”
Chapter Thirteen
After such an evening, David could hardly wait for some peace and quiet. While he more than enjoyed conversing with Sarah, she seemed to sense precisely when he needed quiet and was perfectly happy to sit in his company in peaceful silence.
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