She wore the black-dyed gown now and thought she looked quite hideous. With black-dyed slippers and a black ribbon threaded through her black cap, there was no mistaking her mourning state. Godard deserved no less from her. She had no jewelry but for the ring Foye had put on her finger in Iskenderun, and that was at present hidden by black gloves bought secondhand and dyed along with her frock.
“May I tell Mr. Brook your name?”
She looked up. Her name. She very nearly said. Miss Sabine Godard. “Lady Foye,” she said. She handed the clerk Foye’s letter to Mr. Brook. “I am Lady Foye, and I have urgent business with Mr. Brook.”
No more than five minutes passed before the clerk returned. An older gentleman in tan breeches, a green waistcoat, and a coat with a ridiculously high collar stood behind the clerk. He held Foye’s letter in one hand. Sabine decided not to stand. Her stomach was not settled, and she was nervous on top of that.
Brook walked to her and extended his hand. “Lady Foye.”
“Mr. Brook, I presume.”
“Yes, my lady.” He nodded at her, taking in her black gown. “My condolences for your loss, Lady Foye.”
“Thank you.”
“May I bring you anything to drink? Tea, perhaps?”
“Yes, thank you.” Not so much because she wanted tea but because when it came she would have something to do with her hands.
Brook gestured, and one of the clerks left his chair and disappeared through an interior door of the offices. “Shall we speak in private?”
“Please.” She put her black-gloved hand on his and stood. Brook said nothing until they were inside his office. It wasn’t large, but he had a window that scattered light across his desk. There was a long table covered with papers along one side of the room. Rain dripped down the window.
She sat down, brought her hands to her lap, and waited while Brook seated himself at his desk with Foye’s letter before him. “I’m sure this is a surprise to you, Mr. Brook. Foye has not returned from Turkey yet, and things have come to a pass here. We had agreed, sir, that I would wait for him to arrive—that is not relevant, I suppose. The fact is that I was reported dead, erroneously as you can see, and at present I no longer have the home at which Foye and I expected to meet upon his return to England.”
“Well.” He cocked his head and returned her smile, but so briefly she wondered at it. “I can see that you are most certainly not dead. Lady Foye.”
“No, sir.”
The clerk came carrying a salver with the promised tea and a plate of powdered cakes. Water speckled his breeches, from which evidence Sabine presumed that he had gone outside to purchase the food. She ignored her tea but did accept one of the cakes. She sat with the plate on her lap.
“Is there anything that can be done to recover my possessions? And my uncle’s.” She explained her situation with Godard and the house in Oxford while Brook stirred milk and sugar into his tea. “I’ve been told the house is let and there is nothing to be done about that.”
His eyebrows drew together. “It is certainly a matter I can look into on your behalf, Lady Foye.”
She smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Brook. I am would be very grateful for anything you can do.”
Brook picked up Foye’s letter and studied it in silence for a very long time. He schooled himself too well. Sabine had no idea what he was thinking. “Have you proof of your marriage, Lady Foye?”
“Yes.” She opened her reticule again and handed over the documents from Hugh Eglender. “We were married in Iskenderun. At the consulate there. Mr. Eglender is a friend of my husband’s.”
He took the papers and examined them carefully. Sabine reached for her tea and held it, letting the cup warm her hand. “There is a great deal that must be done,” the attorney said. “And quickly.” He lifted his head from his study of the documents she’d given him. “There seems little doubt that you are indeed Lady Foye.”
“I should certainly think so,” she said. But her heart beat hard in panic now. Could there be any doubt? Did Brook intend to deny her?
“Forgive me if I am indelicate. Is there any chance that you are with child, my lady?”
She sat very still. “Why do you ask that question now, sir?”
“My dear Lady Foye.” He put the pages on his desk. “You are in mourning.”
“For my uncle, Mr. Brook.”
Brook turned white. “Is it possible? You do not know?”
“What?” She stood up, forgetting the plate on her lap. It clattered to the floor. Her legs shook so hard she had to reach behind her to steady herself with a hand to the back of her chair.
“How am I to tell you this?” he said in a low voice.
“Tell me what?”
“Lord Foye did leave Iskenderun, I presume not long after you did. He took passage on the Hecla.”
“The Hecla. I expected he would sail on the Thunderous. Why the Hecla?” She watched him. “How is it you know what ship he took while I do not?”
“It was in all the papers, Lady Foye. They were caught in a storm off the coast of Gibraltar. A ship of the line, the Thunderous, was nearby. They, too, were caught in the gale. The Thunderous captain was no doubt the better sailor. His account of the wreck appeared in the Times. The Thunderous saw the Hecla founder and go down. When they were able to approach, which you must image they did with all possible haste, it was too late to save anyone.”
Sabine’s world stopped.
The lawyer stood up and started around the desk. “I am very sorry to tell you this, but all the passengers on board the Hecla perished.”
“No.”
“The Marquess of Foye is dead.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
London, England, December 14, 1811
The legal office of Mr. George Brook, solicitor. Mr. Brook was presently disconcerted for the first time in his life. Understandably so. Unfortunately, matters were about to get worse. Far worse. His very livelihood passed before his eyes.
It was, Foye discovered, a massively inconvenient thing to return home a dead man. But once he’d presented himself to his solicitor, the process of resurrection began. Matters had not gone far enough to be dire, thank God. By all accounts, he’d been dead only a few weeks, and Mr. Brook, in whose offices Foye now sat, bless the man’s soul, had been actively working on the assumption that Foye would make a miraculous return to the living, preserving his fortune for future generations. To that end, they were both pleased with the outcome. But there was a deuced lot to take care of now.
The Hecla had indeed gone down. But he had not been a passenger, though he was supposed to have been, and had, in fact, been listed on the manifest. But for Hugh Eglender catching him just as he was heading for the quay, he would have been. Inclement seas had delayed his obtaining alternate passage for another fortnight. Foye leaned back, one leg crossed over the other, holding the cup of tea the clerk had brought him. He swirled the nearly empty cup and watched the tea leaves settle at the bottom. He had a strong urge to upend his cup and read his fortune there. For that, however, he needed Sabine’s expertise.
Brook clasped his hands on his blotter and gave Foye a grim look. “May I say, my lord, welcome back among the living.”
“Thank you.” He didn’t smile. “It’s good to be alive.” He leaned forward. “Did my wife contact you?”
“Yes, my lord, she did.”
“Thank God. We were to have met in Oxford, but her house has been let to complete strangers and the attorney had no notion where she’d gone.” He did, however, and Brook confirmed it for him.
“She is at present at Maralee House.” His lawyer cleared his throat. “Perhaps you are aware that she, too, was reported dead.”
“Yes,” Foye said wryly. “I knew before I left Turkey that a notice had been sent.”
“I am handling the matter of seeing her possessions and inheritance returned to her.” Brook clasped his hands on his desk. “Given her condition, your title and entailments are in abeyance for th
e time being. Now, of course, the abeyance is a moot point, given that you are not deceased.”
“Her condition?” Foye straightened on his chair. “She’s with child?”
“Indeed, my lord.”
“My God.” He leaned back. “I’d no idea.” He looked at his lawyer. “I suspected she could be, but…My will must be changed. Immediately.”
“Understood.”
“What do you need to know? She is to have her own funds and a substantial jointure should I actually predecease her. Payment guaranteed. Invest it, Brook. If something should happen to me, she must not suffer financially.”
“It will be as you wish, my lord.” Brook took up a pen and a clean sheet of paper. “If you will return later this afternoon, my lord, I will have documents for you to execute.”
“How soon?”
“Four o’clock?”
“Three.” Foye started for the door. “She thinks I’m dead, Brook.”
Brook nodded. “Three is agreeable, my lord.”
Foye returned at precisely three o’clock, signed his new will, and twenty minutes later was on his way to Cornwall. He faced easily seven days from London to St. Ives, the nearest town to Maralee House. Seven days before he could hope to see Sabine. He traveled hard, ten hours a day driving, changing teams when he could, through poor winter-condition roads, sleeping in the coach rather than stopping at an inn. More than once he drove the coach while his driver slept inside.
He was six days on the road before he came upon the drive to Maralee. The two posts that marked the road meant he was just under a mile from the house. He rode the rest of the way, hell-bent and as fast as his mount would carry him. Outside the house, with its view of the bay, Foye dismounted, practically jumping off the animal. A groom came from behind the house to take his horse.
The man’s eyes got big when he saw Foye. His face split in a grin. “It’s the master!” he shouted. “The master’s here!”
Foye didn’t wait. He climbed the stairs to the door, and only when he threw it open did he think to wonder how he ought to present himself to a woman who thought he had died. He went inside. “Sabine?” he shouted.
His butler came out from a side room, hurrying to see who could be shouting, and stopped in shock when he saw Foye. “My lord, is it you?”
“Yes, by God, it is me.”
“You haven’t drowned, then?”
Foye heard a door open upstairs, and he called out again, shouting, “Sabine?”
More servants were appearing, having heard from the groom or heard him shouting. Foye pushed past the butler and took the stairs two at a time. When he reached the top, he came full stop, because it wasn’t Sabine waiting for him. If he’d been hit with hammer he couldn’t have been more stunned. Not Sabine, but the Earl of Crosshaven stood there.
“What the hell are you doing at Maralee?” Foye said.
At the same time, Crosshaven said, “Good God, Foye.” He took a half step from the door he’d exited. “We thought you were dead.”
We?
A smile of pure joy turned Crosshaven’s face from handsome to radiant. He walked forward and enveloped Foye in a bear hug that actually lifted him off his feet. Cross released him and pushed his shoulders. “What the devil, old man?”
Foye grabbed Cross’s wrist and leaned in. “What are you doing here, Cross?”
Nightmarish anger flooded through him. Every self-defeating thought he’d ever had rushed back, filled him with self-loathing. Sabine had left him. Fallen out of love with him. My God. The woman he loved beyond anything had left him.
“Where the hell is my wife?”
“Foye,” Cross said. He took a step back, both hands lifted. “It’s not-what you think. Foye, it’s not. And Lady Foye isn’t here.”
“Get out.”
“I didn’t mean—”
Foye grabbed Crosshaven by the lapels and brought him up off his feet. White-hot anger lanced through him. “You never meant. Damn you, you never meant.” He wanted to throttle the bastard. Jesus, he was more than a little tempted to toss him headfirst down the stairs. “What happened because of your lie that night turns my stomach, and for that I’ll never forgive you though St. Peter himself denies me entrance to heaven.”
“I’ll not forgive myself, either,” Cross said.
“Then why are you here?” He released and pushed Crosshaven’s wrist so hard Cross’s arm jerked in the air. “Why the devil are you here?”
“Rosaline,” he said, and he had the effrontery to sound and look angry. “Her parents live near St. Ives. You know that, Foye. Better than anyone” Crosshaven took a step back, pulling on the end of his coat to set it back to rights. “We were visiting her parents when we heard the news about you, and then about Lady Foye. About there even being a Lady Foye.”
“You brought Rosaline here?”
“No. They don’t get on, actually, your wife and Rosaline.”
“But you two do.”
Cross flushed. The bastard. “If you must know, Foye, she’s cold to me as well. I don’t blame her. But Rosaline’s father insisted on calling. Today of all days.” Crosshaven inclined his head toward the open parlor door. “He’s not well, Foye, but he insisted on paying his respects, and since I am home and able-bodied and he is not, I brought him here. He admires you still, Foye, Rosaline’s father. He took the news of your death hard. We’re here, waiting for her, your wife, Foye, so that a man who hasn’t done you any wrong can tell her how sorry he is that you’re gone.”
Foye stared at him. He could hardly believe this was Crosshaven.
“She doesn’t know we’re even here, for God’s sake, your wife.” He grabbed Foye’s arm. “Listen to me. She’s out, Foye. Not even at home yet. She doesn’t talk to me unless it can’t be avoided, and she doesn’t even know I’m here.”
Foye didn’t know where to look, what to do, what to feel. His heart was still pounding in his ears.
“Cross?” called a thin voice from the parlor.
“Come tell the old man you’re alive, Foye,” Crosshaven said. “Please? Not for me. For him.”
Foye took a deep breath and went into the parlor to say hello to Rosaline’s father.
He was frailer than Foye recalled. Too thin, his hair mostly gone. But he gripped the old man’s hand and told him the tale of his survival, and all the time he could hardly concentrate but for thinking about Sabine.
Cross had the decency to stay out of the conversation. He kept to himself on the far side of the room and didn’t say anything unless it was to remind his father-in-law of some name or event he’d forgotten or gently correct him when it became plain the old man’s mind had wandered and had suddenly mistaken Foye for his late father.
He could hardly concentrate, but all the same, he knew the moment Sabine came into the room.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sabine stood in the open doorway, blinking hard. She couldn’t understand why Lord Crosshaven was in her house. He must know he was not welcome. But then another man came forward, and her heart stopped beating.
“Foye?” she said.
It must be someone else, she thought. Someone else as tall as Foye. The stranger came out of the shadows where he’d been. And her entire body flashed hot and then cold as ice. She trembled from head to toe. It couldn’t be. He was dead.
“Foye?” she whispered.
“Sabine.”
It was his voice. His voice. She’d never in all her life fainted, and she would not now. She put out a hand to catch something. The edge of the door. A table. A chair, anything sturdy enough to help her keep her balance when her head was swimming and their legs threatening to crumble.
There was a table by the door, her searching hand hit the edge and that served. She clutched it, hanging on as hard as she could.
“It’s me,” he said. He came toward her, and all she could think was that she must be imagining this. The sun was coming through the window behind him, this man who looked like Foye, and she w
asn’t sure at all of anything. She could not see him well enough. “My love, I wasn’t on the Hecla.”
Sabine held out a hand. “Is it you?” she said. “Is it really you?”
“Yes.” He crossed the room, walking out of the sunlight, and he took her in his arms. And though a part of her still believed Foye was dead, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him tight to her, and their bodies fit exactly as she remembered. Perfectly.
She was dimly aware of Lord Crosshaven helping a frail, elderly man to his feet. She recognized Crosshaven’s father-in-law from church. Since coming to St. Ives she had met everyone who attended their church. She had withstood all the introductions, even the exceedingly difficult one to Lord Crosshaven and his wife, whom she disliked a great deal. At first on mere principle and then because she would not have liked the woman in any event.
Sabine stepped forward, still with one hand on Foye’s coat, stopping Crosshaven by placing a hand on the old man’s arm.
Crosshaven took a breath and said, “He wanted to pay his respects, Lady Foye.”
She nodded. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Prescott.”
He bowed, slowly, and, leaning heavily on his son-in-law’s arm, spoke in a voice that trembled with age. “He’s a good man, Foye.” He lifted his head. “A good man, my lord.”
“We’ll call, Mr. Prescott,” Sabine said. “If we may. Lord Foye and I.”
He chuckled and patted her hand. Mr. Prescott smiled at her, and she was reminded very strongly of Godard.
Not because there was any great resemblance between the men but because of his age and the way Lord Crosshaven supported his arm. Mr. Prescott was older than Godard by several years, and she knew precisely what it had cost the older man to travel so far, how deeply he must have felt his obligation to Foye’s memory. “That would be delightful.”
“We look forward to it, sir,” Sabine said. She pressed his hand and leaned in to plant a kiss on his cheek. “You’ve brought me luck, sir,” she said. “You came to call and brought me back my husband. I’ll never forget that.”
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