Cheryl St. John

by The Mistaken Widow

  “Sarah?”

  “Yes?”

  “We’re starting over with a clean slate here. You owe me nothing.”

  She opened her hand to reveal the bracelet. “But—”

  He silenced her with a fingertip against her lips. “It’s a gift.”

  She drew his hand from her mouth and held it. “I don’t understand.”

  “I want you to have it. And I don’t want you to feel obligated to me.”

  “That’s rather difficult.”

  “But not impossible,” he said. “You already said it. It’s about forgiveness, remember?”

  He turned his hand within her grip and placed his other one over the back. With her hand between his palms, he brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them.

  “Come back, Sarah. Please. Come home with me.”

  The way he asked her made it seem for just a few seconds that perhaps anything was possible. If she was a dreamer, she’d have placed plenty of meaning in his words. But she was a realist, and questions assailed her. Perhaps he felt sorry for her. Perhaps he intended to satisfy his physical craving at her expense. Perhaps he had a worse punishment in store than even she could imagine.

  “Start over, you say.” She drew her hand from his. “Come back home with you.” She stood and placed a few prudent feet between them. And then she asked the question she didn’t know if she was prepared to know the answer to. And didn’t know if his reply would be truthful. But she had to hear his explanation.

  “Why?” she asked. “Why should I? And why have you asked me?”

  Chapter Twenty

  Her earnest expression and the hope in those somber blue eyes tore at Nicholas’s heart. Because I don’t want you to lack for anything. Because I can’t bear to see you sad or alone. Because I need you. “Because Mother needs you.”

  She couldn’t disguise the disappointment that shimmered in the depths of her eyes. “I see.”

  She was wise to keep her distance. He wanted nothing more than to touch her, to pull her against him and never let her go. The change in her appearance broke his heart. She’d lost weight A bluish smudge had appeared beneath each eye. The palm he’d held a minute ago bore blisters at the base of each finger.

  The differences weren’t only physical He sensed her feelings of inadequacy and her resignation. He wanted to reassure her. Restore her optimism.

  But how could he do that? She’d never been able to count on or trust the men in her life. No matter what she’d done it hadn’t been enough to earn their favor. And Nicholas’s own hot-and-cold disposition had given her no stability or ease.

  She had no idea how he felt about her. Even though he’d shown her his most unpleasant side, she had hastened to assure him of his redeeming qualities, endorsement he didn’t feel he deserved at this moment. He’d never told her his feelings.

  “Sarah.”

  She turned that devastating somber blue gaze on him.

  “I want you to come back.” He stood and moved before her. “I need you.”

  A single tear trailed down her ivory cheek. He caught it with his thumb. Her skin was as soft and delicate as he remembered. Her pale lashes fluttered down and swept across her cheeks.

  Ringlets escaped the white dust cap she wore. He reached for one, as he’d wanted to that long-ago day in the carriage, and stretched it to his nose.

  Her lips parted. Her pulse fluttered in her throat.

  Another tear followed the path of the first.

  Nicholas leaned forward and touched his tongue to it. The drop tasted salty. This near, he could smell her hair, her skin, warm from the day and her tasks.

  “Why are you crying?”

  “Because I didn’t think I’d see you again. Because you don’t have it in your heart to hate me or hold what I did against me. Do you?”

  He could never hate her. He couldn’t blame her for the secret she’d kept. “No.”

  “Because you think you’re like my father when you’re the finest man I’ve ever known.”

  She’d obviously not known many fine men. “You thought highly of Stephen.”

  “Stephen was kind and generous. You are, too. But you’re also solid and trustworthy and industrious. You did all the things you were supposed to when your father died. And you kept on doing them. You gave up your own dreams to fulfill his.”

  “I couldn’t understand why Stephen didn’t do the same,” he said. “But he was the smart one,” he added. “I always thought he’d made such poor choices, but now that I look at it differently—him leaving the running of Halliday Iron to me made us a fortune. And he saw his plays produced and married the woman he loved.”

  “Only because you made it possible for him,” she replied. “What about you? Do you have any dreams left to fulfill?”

  “I think maybe I do.” He cupped her delicate cheek in his palm and brought her face up to his. She didn’t resist; she met his kiss full on.

  He kissed her as gently as he knew how, with as much tenderness as he could show her, hoping to express how he felt when he didn’t understand it himself.

  Sarah’s hands clasped his upper arms and moved to his shoulders, their warmth burning through his shirt. She curled her fingers into his hair and pressed her mouth more solidly to his, gentleness obviously not what she desired.

  When he was with her, he could think of nothing but her nearness. He saw only the delicacy of her skin and the softly formed curves of her body. Her scent drove his other senses away. He didn’t care that she’d deceived him. He cared only that she desired to be in his arms as much as he wanted her there.

  Nicholas held her close and rejoiced in the feelings she created in him.

  “Sarah,” he said against her lips. Sarah had never loved Stephen. She had not been his wife. She had not been anyone’s wife.

  Gently she eased away from his hold.

  “Do you love someone else?” he asked, voicing his fear. Perhaps she was still in love with William’s father.

  “No,” she said softly. “There is no one. No one except William in my life.” Sarah smiled, a sad sweet smile, and the sight caught in his chest. She lifted the hair from her neck and plucked the fabric of her bodice away from her chest.

  He pictured her removing this dress—another damned black dress, the only thing about her that hadn’t changed. He imagined her ivory limbs and her lush breasts. The breeze from the window didn’t cool his fevered reaction. His heart slammed against his ribs.

  “I really won’t be working here again?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Come back with me. Please.”

  “Why do you want me to go back with you?”

  “I’ve told you all the reasons.”

  “You have?”

  “I thought I did.”

  She slanted an uncertain glance up at him. “What were they?”

  The ringlets along her neck clung to her damp skin. “I want you with me, that’s why. I need you.”

  She placed her hands against his shirtfront. “How do you know I wouldn’t just be pretending so you’d take care of me?”

  He covered her hands with his. “I’d know.”

  “How?”

  “Do you have to pretend to like it when I kiss you?”

  “No.”

  “Were you pretending that night in my study?”

  Her cheeks flushed prettily. “No.”

  “Some things you just can’t fake,” he said.

  “I’m tired of pretending,” she said. “I’m tired of lies.”

  “No more pretending between us,” he promised.

  She smoothed the fabric of his shirt across his chest, leaned into him and pressed her cheek where her hands had been. “Well, then, what’s the truth?” she asked.

  “About what?”

  “About why you want me to come back with you.”

  “What do you think?”

  “You’ve told me a dozen times how much you want me,” she said, leaning back in his arms to see his face.
“That’s being honest.”

  He knew she could feel the wild beating of his heart beneath her palms.

  “But the truth for me is that—well, wanting me and needing me is not enough. I was foolish once, Nicholas. And I love William with all my heart, but I’ll not repeat my mistakes. I won’t do that to my son or myself.”

  He stared at her for seconds, absorbing the words as well as the heat of her body. He’d told her he wanted her. He’d shown her he wanted her. He’d admitted the need to himself long ago. But until this moment he hadn’t realized why he needed her. Why everything about her drove him crazy and why he hadn’t been able to eat or sleep or work until he’d tracked her down.

  “It’s not enough for me, either,” he realized aloud.

  Her pale brows rose in that inquisitive arch he knew so well.

  “I’m a rude, insensitive fool,” he said. “I press my ideas and opinions on others. I don’t take no for an answer. I like having things my own way, and I have to be hit over the head to see another side of a situation. Up until I met you I thought I knew everything I wanted, and I didn’t think I needed anyone else in my life.

  “Needing you went against my highly inflated opinion of myself. It was…like a weakness. And I don’t like being weak.”

  She raised a hand to his face. Nicholas placed his fingers over hers and pressed her palm to his cheek.

  “I need you, Sarah. Because I love you.”

  Tears welled in her eyes again. “You don’t even know me,” she said, a shaky catch in her voice. “You don’t know the real Sarah.”

  “Yes, I do,” he assured her. “I know the Sarah who loves her son above all else. I know the Sarah who cared enough about total strangers to see their needs and meet them herself. The Sarah who is a capable hardworking person who can deal with people and situations and run a house effortlessly.

  “And I know the Sarah who regretted her mistakes and wanted to bring closure to the Halliday family by finding Claire’s body.”

  He drew her close against his chest. “And I know the Sarah who is passionate and responsive and has a lot of love to give a man who’d never take it for granted.”

  “Nicholas,” she whispered. “Are you sure?”

  “Oh, I’m sure,” he replied with conviction. “And once I make up my mind, nobody changes it for me.”

  Sarah smiled. A smile just for him. A smile he’d craved.

  “Marry me, Sarah. I’ll spend the rest of my life making you happy.”

  “That won’t be too hard,” she said. “Having you love me is all the happiness I can hold.”

  “Oh, no,” he said and kissed her neck. “There’s much, much more happiness where that came from.”

  She brought her arms between their bodies and framed his face in her palms. “I love you, Nicholas.”

  Leda enveloped Sarah in one of her soft violet-scented hugs. After Leda released her, she dabbed at her eyes with her hankie. “You looked so beautiful in this dress,” she said, referring to the pale green confection Sarah had worn as she and Nicholas said their vows that afternoon. “I knew it was perfect for you.”

  “Thank you for having it made for me,” Sarah said. “And thank you for loaning me your necklace. I’m so glad you got all of your jewelry back.”

  “I’m just glad that dreadful girl didn’t get away with stealing from us and making it look like you’d done it. She actually had the audacity to be wearing my ring when Nicholas’s Pinkerton man led the sheriff to her!”

  “I’ll bet she did some fancy talking.”

  “It did her no good. You know the jewels weren’t even important to me. It was just the principle of the crime.”

  Sarah touched the emerald on her chest.

  “I love to see you in pretty things,” the older woman said. “I’d like you to keep it.”

  “Oh, but I couldn’t—”

  “It matches the bracelet that was your mother’s. This way you have something from both of your mothers.”

  Sarah clasped Leda hands. “I’ll treasure it.”

  Nicholas, in his ruffled white shirt and black coat and tie, came up beside Sarah and slid his arm around her waist.

  “Are the women in my life happy?”

  “Very,” Sarah assured him with a smile.

  “You two are striking together,” his mother said. “Nicholas so dark and you so fair. And I love you like my very own.” She dabbed her eyes again. “I couldn’t have made a better choice for you myself,” Leda told her son.

  He chuckled. “Most of the guests are gone,” he said, then added, “A few of them seemed a little surprised that I was marrying my brother’s wife so quickly, but no one seemed to care that you preferred to be called Sarah.”

  “In some cultures it’s a man’s duty to marry his brother’s widow,” Leda said. “And even now marriages of convenience are arranged all the time.”

  “Well, this marriage is convenient,” Nicholas said. “Since Sarah loves me, and I’m mad about her.”

  As he hugged her, she caught sight of Claire’s mother.

  “Celia did just fine, didn’t she?” Sarah said, pulling away.

  “Not even a drop of champagne,” he replied.

  “I’m concerned about her, though,” Sarah said. “She’s not like you, Leda. She has no friends and few interests.”

  Gruver interrupted them just then. “Mrs. Rose is here, sir.”

  Nicholas turned. “Good, show her in.” After Gruver had left, he said, “Celia concerned me, too. And I believe I’ve come up with something.”

  “What’s that?” Sarah asked, and both women looked at him curiously.

  “I’ve hired a companion for her. Someone to keep her company.” He gave her a sidelong smile. “Keep her out of trouble.”

  Sarah and Leda exchanged a surprised glance. “Well, that’s generous,” Sarah said.

  “And William will have a companion, too.”

  “But William has Mrs. Trent,” Leda pointed out.

  “This is a playmate, not a nursemaid,” he explained.

  Leda stared at Sarah, and Sarah shook her head. “I have no idea what he’s talking about. Who is Mrs. Rose?”

  Nicholas moved to the doorway, where he waited only a minute. “I had hoped you would be here in time for the wedding.”

  His broad-shouldered form blocked her view of the person he spoke to.

  “I wanted to, Mr. Halliday, but the train made a stopover and arrived late.” The voice sounded familiar.

  Nicholas stepped aside and led the girl carrying a toddler forward. Sarah recognized her at once. “Hannah!”

  “Sarah!” Hannah hurried to Sarah and hugged her. “This is Amanda.”

  “Hello, Amanda,” Sarah said, smiling at the chubby little girl.

  “Nicholas, this is who you hired to be Celia’s companion?” Sarah asked, incredulous.

  He nodded.

  She’d told him about Hannah losing her husband, and about the child she had to leave at her sister’s. Sarah had also shared the desperation a young woman in that position experienced, and had prayed Hannah wouldn’t have to marry someone horrible just to care for her daughter. The fact that he’d shared her concern and snatched Hannah out of that situation touched Sarah’s full-to-bursting heart.

  “Oh, Nicholas,” she said, embracing and hugging him tightly. “You are the most wonderful man.”

  He cupped her face and smiled into her eyes. “Mother,” he said, without turning his head. “Will you see that Mrs. Rose is settled? Give her a room upstairs.”

  “Call me Hannah, please,” the girl suggested.

  “Come on, dear,” Leda said.

  “I’m going to see to it that you always believe that,” he said and kissed Sarah.

  His warm lips kindled a barely banked fire, and embarrassed, Sarah stepped back and glanced around. There were still a few lingering guests.

  Nicholas took her hand. “We’re newlyweds. We’re expected to leave.” He led her up the back stair
s, which bypassed the foyer and led directly to his wing. “Do you need to see to William?” he asked.

  “He’ll probably sleep until early morning. He’s been doing that. He’s very contented back in his lovely crib.” And well nourished and well cared for, she thought gratefully.

  “I have you all to myself, then,” he said and whisked her into his suite—the suite they’d be sharing now. “And now that you’re my wife, I can tell you how much I want you and not suffer the angst of waiting.”

  Sarah’s heart beat wildly at their newfound liberty.

  “I can show you how much I want you.” He pulled her flush against him, and the length and strength of his hard body pressed along her curves. “How much I love you.”

  Sarah looked deeply into his eyes and needed no further proof. Rising on tiptoe, she took his jaw and guided his mouth to hers. Their kiss held joy and reverence and promise.

  She wrapped her arms around his back and clung to him. He spanned her waist, but her corset prevented her from feeling his touch. Much to her satisfaction he moved to cup her breasts. She leaned into him hard, but he supported her weight easily.

  She pulled back and spanned her fingers across the front of his shirt. Beneath her palms his heart beat furiously. She wanted to touch his skin.

  He covered her hands with his for only the briefest moment, then led them to his tie as though he were a mind reader. She tugged on the bow and let the black silk fall to the floor. She worked on the pearl buttons until he had to help her tug the tail from his waist. He shrugged from the shirt, but she didn’t allow him to drop it.

  She carried the cotton garment to her nose, closed her eyes and inhaled his scent: starch, tobacco, man. The smell loosed an all-consuming craving as strong as that which his kisses created. When she opened her eyes again, he was looking at her, his dark gaze smoldering, and the look made her knees weak.

  She dropped his shirt and caressed his chest, the dark hair springy, his skin hot and smooth. A tremor ran through him, telling her she had the same effect on him.

  Gently, he turned her away and unbuttoned the row of buttons that ran down her entire back. “I imagined you in a color like this,” he said. “Thank you for choosing it.”