Cheryl St. John

by The Mistaken Widow

  Nicholas glanced across the crowded area unconcernedly. “Found someone to dine with, I’m sure. Here, I brought you a piece of pie.”

  Sarah groaned. “I can’t eat another bite.”

  “At least try it.”

  He extended his fork, a succulent bite of red filling and flaky crust on the tip. Sarah had no choice but to accept the offering. She opened her mouth, and he fed her the bite.

  She caught a bit of crust with her tongue. It melted in her mouth, and she savored the sharp tang of rhubarb. “Mmm, it’s wonderful,” she said appreciatively.

  His eyes darkened and his gaze focused on her lips.

  Sarah’s heart skipped a beat.

  Heat flooded her cheeks.

  She met his eyes and knew he was thinking of the inflaming kisses they’d shared. She remembered her reactions to his touches, and embarrassment scorched her face. She glanced at Leda, but the woman had finished her meal and was playing with William.

  “Want another bite?” he asked.

  Sarah shook her head and lowered her gaze.

  “I guess I’ll have to finish yours then.” He finished eating and sat relaxing, one arm resting on an upraised knee. Leda chattered to William. After a few minutes, Sarah relaxed and placed the sultry moment out of her thoughts.

  “Are you enjoying yourselves?” a female voice asked.

  Sarah glanced up and discovered pale green eyes set in a vaguely familiar face, framed by the underside of a white parasol. She felt she should know where she’d seen the woman before. She clung to the arm of a muscular young man with chestnut-brown hair and eyes.

  “Yes. It’s a lovely day,” Sarah replied.

  “Sorry,” the woman said, and extended a hand to Leda. “We haven’t met before. I’m Judith Marcelino.”

  “Of course,” Nicholas said, his voice not altogether welcoming, and Sarah understood he hadn’t recognized her at first either. “You didn’t move on with the theater group?”

  That was it! They’d met her at the restaurant in Youngstown after the theater.

  “No. I decided to stay a while.” She patted the young man’s arm.

  “J.W.,” Nicholas acknowledged.

  “Mr. Halliday,” the young man returned with a polite nod.

  She’d stayed because she’d met an iron worker?

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Judith,” Leda said. “And you know Claire?”

  “Oh yes. We go back a long way. Don’t we, Claire?”

  Sarah merely blinked.

  “I knew Claire in New York. Before she ever met Stephen, of course. She did the costumes for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I had a lead.”

  “O-oh,” Leda said with interest, making the word two syllables.

  “Claire designed a lovely blue gown with hundreds of seed pearls.” Judith’s piercing green eyes held a silent message. “Remember, Claire?”

  Her eerie inflection made the hair on Sarah’s neck stand on end. The food she’d eaten turned to a hard ball in her stomach. Panic rose in her throat, and her heart thudded a few sluggish beats as though it would stop altogether.

  What was she saying? Good Lord, what was her purpose? If she knew Claire and meant to expose Sarah, why hadn’t she done it the last time they’d met? She obviously expected Sarah to go along with her taunting questions.

  “I—I…” she stammered.

  “It was a cobalt blue,” Judith prompted.

  “I—yes, of course I remember that dress,” she replied.

  Nicholas looked at her curiously.

  “And who is this?” the girl asked, kneeling gracefully beside where Leda sat holding William.

  “This is my grandson, William Stephen Halliday,” Leda said proudly.

  “Oh!” Judith looked him over. “William Stephen Halliday,” she repeated, rolling the name from her tongue as though she were trying it out. “Well, what do you know?”

  Sarah wanted to jump up and push the woman away from her son, but she commanded her body to stay put. She set down her plate.

  “Do you think he looks like Stephen?” Judith asked Leda.

  Sarah’s heart jumped.

  “Somewhat,” Leda responded with a rich smile. Anyone who took an interest in William won her over. “But he’s the very image of Claire. All that pale hair, and see his chin?”

  “Oh, yes,” Judith agreed as if it really were important to her.

  Nicholas and the fellow he’d called J.W. exchanged a look. “Will you join me in getting something to wash down that meal?” Nicholas asked.

  A smile spread across the young man’s face as though he were honored. “Sure.”

  The two of them headed toward the area where barrels of beer sat on the tailgate of a wagon in the shade.

  “You go enjoy yourself now,” Leda said to Sarah. “William and I have some ladies to impress.”

  Sarah helped her to her feet and watched helplessly as she walked back to the sewing circle.

  With trepidation weighing her heart, Sarah turned back to the young woman who had made herself at home on the blanket. Judith patted the spread beside her. “We may as well catch up on old times, don’t you think, Claire?”

  Sarah’s knees shook, so she sat quickly. “What are you doing?”

  Judith appeared stricken. “What am I doing?” She splayed her hand over her chest dramatically. “Why, I’m just being an old friend!”

  Her smile gave Sarah a cold shiver.

  “And authenticating your story, of course.”

  “You know as well as I do that I’d never seen you before that evening at the restaurant.”

  “You and I know that. But the Hallidays don’t.” She raised a haughty brow and looked at Sarah through her kohled lashes. “Yet.”

  Sarah couldn’t catch her breath.

  “And I assume you want it to stay that way.”

  Sarah stared at her. “What is it you want?”

  Judith adjusted a ring on a finger of her right hand, straightened her bodice and patted her hair. “Why the same things you want, of course. A rich husband. Lots of fine clothing and jewelry.”

  Heat rose in Sarah’s face. She was sure it must appear that way. “What do you want from me?”

  Judith looked her square in the eye. “I’ll be happy to have the Hallidays go on thinking you’re their precious Claire. If that’s what you want, then that’s what I want.”

  Sarah waited.

  “I’m sure you’d be more than happy to support the arts this season. A donation toward the refined things we both love.”

  “I have no money of my own,” Sarah said bluntly.

  “Of course you don’t. Isn’t that why you’re here? But you have a good thing going with the Hallidays. If you play your part well, you’ll have his ring on your finger before you’re out of those widow’s weeds.”

  “I mean—” Sarah glanced around “—I don’t have any money to give you. Can’t you just leave us alone?”

  “How stupid do you take me for? They think you’re a Halliday, for crying out loud! I’m confident you can handle it. Until you figure out the cash, there’s that lovely emerald bracelet.…”

  Stricken, Sarah stared at her. “That was my mother’s!”

  “I’m sure she’d think it was a good cause. There’ll be plenty more where that came from, after all.”

  “Please, you don’t understand—”

  “Oh, I understand. I understand quite well. And if you don’t want your fish on a hook—Nicholas there—to understand, too, then you’ll do exactly as I say.” She stood.

  Sarah stared up at her in horror, unable to make her body move.

  “I’ll come calling morning after tomorrow. And I’ll leave richer than I came. Got that?”

  Sarah nodded dumbly.

  “And if I don’t—Mr. Halliday will have his eyes opened. Opened wide. Got that, sugar?”

  Sarah nodded again.

  Judith straightened her skirts. “Well, I must go after my amusing partner. He doesn’t
have money, but his robust, homespun talents almost make up for it.”

  She opened her fringed parasol and sauntered away.

  Sarah didn’t know whether to cry or faint.

  The sounds of conversation and children calling blended into an accusing drone in her ears. She was being blackmailed. Only murderers and thieves were blackmailed. She pressed her fingertips to her temple.

  No. Someone with something equally ugly to hide could be blackmailed. And she had a secret. A big one. An ugly one.

  Each day had been leading her a little closer to this moment. She’d been on stolen time since the minute she’d arrived. It was only a matter of time until Celia blundered or she herself did something to give the ruse away.

  But she would not steal from the Hallidays to pay Judith. And the bracelet was her only means of providing for William’s future; she certainly wasn’t going to turn that over.

  She had to leave.

  Sarah pledged that her last day in Mahoning Valley would be a day to remember, a day to hold close to her heart when the days ahead grew long and lonely. She threw herself into the festivities, joining Milos in a ringtoss competition and watching the fathers and sons run three-legged races.

  She watched and she laughed and she forgot for a few hours that she was Sarah Thornton, and that tomorrow she’d be totally and completely on her own, and that everyone here would remember her only as the woman who’d deceived them all.

  Chapter Fifteen

  She wouldn’t be able to leave on Sunday. She’d be discovered. Gruver always drove them to church and then had the afternoon off with his family. Sarah spent Sunday carefully laying her plans for stealing away after Nicholas left for the foundry the next morning. That would give her all day to travel and be as far away as possible before he came home.

  She would leave Leda a note saying she’d gone to the Cranes’ for the day and taken William.

  Somehow she struggled through her last hours with them on Sunday. She and Leda made a cold supper, and they shared it with Nicholas in his study.

  She avoided his eyes and never allowed herself to be alone with him. Leda came to her room that night, and Mrs. Trent brought them tea.

  “This is generous of you, Mrs. Trent,” Sarah said. “Now you go rest. I’ll clear this away and see to William if he should wake.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Your leg is much stronger,” Leda commented. “I noticed at the picnic that you hardly favor it any longer.”

  “It’s much better. It only aches a little at night.”

  “It’s probably still healing.”

  “I’m sure that’s so.”

  “You know how dear you are to me, Claire,” Leda said.

  Sarah tensed, praying Leda wouldn’t go on about how she and William were her life source. She didn’t think she could handle the remorse tonight. She nodded.

  “You’ve become like my own daughter.” She hurried to say, “I don’t mean to offend you. I know you have your own mother.”

  “I’m not offended. I know what you’re saying.” Leda was the closest thing she’d had to a mother in many years. Leaving her was nearly as difficult as leaving Nicholas.

  “Since you know how fond I am of you,” Leda continued softly, “I don’t believe you’ll take this wrong.”

  Sarah prepared herself. “What is it?”

  “I loved my Stephen as much as any mother could love her son. As much as you love William.”

  “Of course you did.”

  “I overlooked much of his foolishness. At first I forgave him because he was young. And after that because Nicholas treated him like a child. And after that I forgave him simply because he was Stephen. Just as I forgive Nicholas for being domineering and aggressive. Because they are my sons. A mother turns a blind eye to those things she doesn’t wish to see.”

  “I think I understand, but I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”

  “That’s because I’m doing it poorly. It’s just that—you don’t seem suited to Stephen to me. There, I’ve said it.”

  Sarah blinked and absorbed the woman’s quickly spoken words.

  “Oh, I know opposites attract and all that, and I’m not saying Stephen didn’t have a hundred reasons to admire and love you. Heaven knows you’re easy to love.

  “And I’m not saying Stephen wasn’t easy to love, either—everyone loved him. But he could be a difficult person to be around. He was…overstimulating. One had to be on one’s guard and ready for anything. There wasn’t much relaxing to be done when he was about.”

  Sarah didn’t know what to say.

  “I haven’t hurt your feelings, have I? I didn’t want to say it all wrong.”

  “No, Leda. You could never hurt my feelings.” She leaned forward and closed her hand over hers. But I will surely hurt yours. She lowered her gaze before Leda could see the betrayal in her eyes. “I understand perfectly.”

  They sat in companionable silence a while longer. Sarah wanted to reassure Leda somehow. Stephen had been a kind, generous man. It was because of his goodness that he had died. Finally she gathered her chaotic thoughts to speak. “Leda, I told you once that Stephen was the kindest man I’d ever met. That was the truth. Please don’t ever forget that.”

  Stephen, though unknowingly, had made the ultimate sacrifice out of the goodness of his heart. “He was a good man. Kind. Generous. And he had so much love in his heart. I know he loved you dearly.”

  Tears pooled in Leda’s soft gray eyes. She turned her hand over and clasped Sarah’s firmly. “I know he loved you very much, too, dear.”

  “Don’t ever forget how grateful I am to you and your sons,” Sarah said around the lump in her throat. “And always remember that I’m here because of Stephen’s good heart.”

  “I’ll remember.” Leda patted her hand and stood. “We need to rest now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Fighting tears, Sarah gave her friend a lingering hug. She would never forget her kindness. She’d learned much about love from Leda. Much about being a mother. Much about being a woman.

  Leda patted her back and pulled away, and Sarah let her go. She wouldn’t understand if Sarah broke down and clung to her. Closing the door, she covered her mouth with her fingers and sat on the edge of the bed. It wouldn’t do to lose control now.

  William woke and she changed and nursed him. She wouldn’t have another opportunity, so she carried him with her as she went to check on Celia.

  The woman sat in her usual chair by the fire, a stack of rumpled newspapers at her feet, a glass of amber liquid on the nearby table.

  She looked up as Sarah entered. “That the boy?”

  Sarah nodded. “This is William.”

  Celia leaned forward and inspected him. She didn’t seem terribly drunk this evening, but Sarah hung on to her baby all the same.

  “Don’t look so fierce,” she said. “I ain’t gonna snatch him and drop him on his head.”

  Sarah ignored her comment and sat across from her.

  “I can see why they’re so all-fired crazy over him,” she said. “He’s a fine-lookin’ one.”

  “Thank you.”

  Celia gave a nod. “I had a boy once.”

  Sarah recalled reading the Pinkerton’s report about Claire’s brother, who’d been killed in a street fight.

  “His name was Walt.”

  Sarah waited for something more.

  “Named him after an old beau. I think that jinxed him, though. The first Walt was killed, too.”

  She met Sarah’s eyes, and Sarah remembered Leda’s words vividly: A mother should never have to lose a child. Never. Celia had lost a son. Sarah couldn’t help wondering if that loss had anything to do with the woman’s inability to cope with life in a sober state. And now she’d lost another child.

  “New York ain’t no place to raise kids.” She sipped from her glass.

  “I imagine not.”

  “This here. This’ll be a fine place to raise your boy.” />
  “Yes.” Safe. Secure. If only she were staying. Mahoning Valley would be a good place to live. “What about you, Cele? You could live and work here, too. You could probably have a job as a seamstress if you wanted one. It would give you something to do.”

  “I’m too old to start something like that.”

  “You’re not too old. Afraid maybe.”

  “What do I have to be afraid of?”

  “You tell me.”

  They stared at each other.

  “It’s not fair you’ve lost both of your children,” Sarah said. “You have a right to your feelings. But you’re still alive. And in order to live, you’ve got to pull yourself together and go on.”

  “You’re a fine one to give advice. You’re doing so well with your life.”

  Sarah accepted the criticism with grace. “I didn’t mean to condemn. I just want what’s best for you.”

  “I guess I know what’s best for me.”

  “Okay. Do you have everything you need?”

  “You see to that.”

  She couldn’t worry about what would happen after she left. Nicholas and Leda would care for Celia. The woman was, after all, Claire’s mother. “Good night, then.”

  “‘Night. Thanks for bringin’ him.”

  “You’re welcome.” She hurried back to her rooms and put William to bed. He fussed for a few minutes, then fell asleep.

  Sarah stacked the flannels and gowns and blankets she would take for William and made a list of everything she could fit into two bags.

  Sitting at the small desk, the weight of her secret goodbye pressing on her heart, she dipped the pen in ink and wrote the note she’d been planning for weeks.

  Nicholas and Leda,

  I know what I have done is unforgivable, so I don’t ask for your forgiveness. All I ask is that you do not hate me. I planned to tell you the truth from the very minute I awoke in that hospital. But when I saw your grief, Nicholas, and when you offered protection and shelter for my son, I could not bring myself to speak the words. I thought perhaps they’d be more easily spoken to your mother.

  And then, dear Leda, when I saw your tears, and your expression as you looked at my son, I could not bear to say the words then, either. I am still too much of a coward to speak them to your face, so I am leaving this letter.