St. John shrugged, feigning a sort of casual indifference to his surroundings. “Oh, not long. A few more days should see matters to a close.” He had been diverted from the purpose of his visit long enough. With a glance toward the narrow, leaded panes of a rain-spattered window, he added, “I thought I might pass a bit of time at this festival the village is abuzz about.”
Haverty cleared his throat and gave a shake of his head. “Sorry, old chap. Had to put a stop to it. It had a very bad look. Dancing on m’uncle’s grave and all that,” he said, patting his black armband—the only sign St. John had seen that this was a household in mourning.
It was difficult to claim to be sorry for the man’s loss, when Haverty’s every action proclaimed his satisfaction with all he had gained thereby. Nevertheless, St. John put on a somber face. “Oh, certainly, certainly. My condolences. Still,” he added after a moment’s pause, allowing a quick frown to dart across his brow, “it’s unfortunate. I’m sure a great deal of effort was put into the planning.”
“Effort?” Haverty grumbled. “Extortion, more like.” St. John narrowly avoided wincing at hearing an allegation that seemed too often associated with Sarah. “Why, my uncle—”
“What is that horrible woman’s name, Haverty?” clucked her ladyship. “For shame, hounding someone as old and ill as dear uncle, implying he didn’t do all he could for the people of this village.”
“I believe Mrs. Norris is one of the principal organizers of the event,” St. John supplied, hoping to lead Lady Haverty off Sarah’s trail.
“Norris?”
“The vicar’s wife.”
“Ah yes, the vicar. Rather prosy sort for my taste,” Haverty huffed. “Glad I won’t have to hear his sermons more than twice a year.”
So the new earl meant to tear down the ancient edifice of Haverty Court, erect some modern monstrosity in its place, and then leave the running of it to his steward? There was nothing so very unusual in all that. It was what his own father had done, after all. Still, St. John began to think that Sarah’s words about landlords who failed to do their duty might prove prescient where Harold Bessmer was concerned.
But he also knew that her finger had not really—or at least, not only—been pointed at the Earl of Haverty.
“Norris,” Haverty murmured to himself. “No, that’s not the name.” He rose and went to his desk, rummaging through the papers strewn across its broad mahogany top. “Ah, here’s the letter,” he exclaimed, squinting at the writing. “Fetch my spectacles, won’t you, m’dear?”
Lady Haverty rose. “I’ll ring for a footman.”
“Michaelmas will have come and gone before the servants of this house would answer a bell.”
“Yes, dear,” the countess acknowledged with a defeated sigh. “I won’t be a moment.”
The two men stood in awkward silence, waiting for the arrival of Haverty’s spectacles. “Has it really been three years, Fairfax?” the earl asked after several minutes had passed.
“Rather more, actually.”
“You’re brown as a berry, I’ll say that! But you said you’ve been abroad—you must’ve left right after, er . . .” A tap at the door signaled the arrival of a footman. Haverty took his spectacles from the man’s hand, curled the wire rims around his ears, and picked up the letter to peruse it once again.
“Fairfax!” He looked up at St. John, then back at the letter. St. John took some comfort from the fact that the Harold Bessmer he had known had struggled quite literally to put two and two together. It simply was not possible that he could deduce the truth. “That’s an odd coincidence, eh?” Haverty continued after a moment. “Sarah Fairfax. Vicar says she’s not even a local.”
“All the more remarkable, then, that she should show such concern for the people of your village,” St. John replied, mustering an expression somewhere between surprise and bemusement.
He did not share Sarah’s faith in the power of penitence, but he could not deny that the people of Haverhythe needed help. And he did not think the man standing before him was likely to offer it. So, despite his reluctance, he would ask the favor he had come to ask. For the sake of the village.
“I understand your reluctance under the circumstances, but the people here would doubtless think well of the new lord for allowing the festival to be held tomorrow as planned, Haverty. It’s all to the good of the local fishermen. And there can be no question that times here are hard.”
“Aye, they’re that. Gamekeeper says half my pheasants have been lost to poachers.” Haverty appeared to weigh St. John’s suggestion. “By jove, you’re right. If this Fairfax woman is so eager to do the dirty work, why not let her?” He began to rummage about for pen and paper. The footman turned to leave, but Haverty waved a hand. “Stay a moment. I have a message for you to carry into the village.”
The footman inclined his head and took up a position near the door.
“Mrs. Fairfax,” Haverty muttered, turning his attention to the letter and scrawling as he spoke. “Having considered matters further, I . . .” The earl tapped his lip with the feather of his pen. “A young widow, Norris says. I wonder if she’s a comely sort? Maybe she’d fancy expressing her thanks to me in person.”
St. John could not keep his jaw from clenching. “I could not say, Haverty.”
Another pause as the earl wrote, his lips moving soundlessly as his quill scratched out the words. He signed with a flourish and tossed the pen aside, spattering various papers with ink, but by some small miracle missing the letter he had just finished. “I didn’t like to say so in front of Lady Haverty, but as I recall, you were in a spot of trouble before you left, Fairfax.”
St. John cut a speaking glance toward the footman but made no other reply.
“Some family heirloom stolen by your bride, as I remember it. Didn’t you call a man out?”
“Yes,” St. John reluctantly confessed. He had hoped that the old scandal had been erased by Sarah’s supposed death, or at least replaced by something new over the years. What a timely reminder that even on the wild coast of Devon, seemingly out of Society’s reach, he still was not free of the past. Under the right circumstances, sins might be forgiven. But forgotten? That was another matter entirely.
In a little less than a week, he had grown surprisingly comfortable with the role of Lieutenant Fairfax. It had felt right, somehow, to work with his hands building stalls for a charity bazaar, to trade barbs with the village baker. To sit beside the fire in a simple cottage and tell stories to the golden-haired child curled against his side.
But he would do well to remember he was supposed to be playing a part. Amateur theatricals staged for an unwitting audience.
“Risky business, duels.” Haverty sanded his letter, folded it, sealed it, and held it out to the footman, who stepped forward, expressionless, to take it. But the earl did not immediately relinquish the missive. “Yes, you’re lucky to be here—and luckier still that the thieving strumpet drowned. I mean, fancy having to give your name to another bloke’s get, eh?”
A vision of Clarissa’s golden-brown curls and violet eyes rose before St. John, and the annoyance in his gut twisted and coiled into something stronger, something very like fear.
In daring to think of the future, he had neglected to consider the Havertys of the world and the damage they could do. It did not matter whether he forgave his wife, or even whether he’d begun to believe there was nothing to forgive. Society had not forgotten Sarah’s disastrous debut performance. And Clarissa would be the one to suffer for it.
“Much obliged, Bessmer.” With a stern frown he snatched the letter from Haverty’s plump fingers and slapped it into the footman’s hand as he strode past him and out the door.
By opening himself to Sarah and her daughter, he was opening himself to heartache.
And that was a pain he meant never to feel again.
* * *
“I finished it. Wednesday teatime, just like I promised, Mrs. F.,” a beaming Emily Dawlish announ
ced as she stood on the front step of Primrose Cottage, extending a paper-wrapped parcel. At Sarah’s puzzled look, she added, “The new dress.” And winked.
Sarah stepped back to let her in. “I hope it’s nothing too fancy, Emily. I don’t think it would suit, under the circumstances.”
“And which circumstances would that be, then? Your husband’s bein’ alive—and as beautiful as one of God’s angels—and a lieutenant?” she asked as she unwrapped the dress and held it out for Sarah’s inspection.
Sarah reached out to touch the blue-sprigged muslin, but her fingertips hesitated in midair. It looked so delicate, so elegant. And the flowers. Sarah had thought never to wear blue again, although it had always been her favorite color.
“Don’t you like it?” Emily sounded hurt.
“Oh, Emily.” Sarah shook her head. “It’s beautiful.”
“Mrs. Gaffard had a new Lady’s Magazine in—said this is all the rage now. I copied the style as best I could from the pictures. Seems awful plain to me,” she confessed, frowning slightly, “but I thought you might like it.”
“It’s perfect.” Sarah studied the dress’s unfamiliar lines, the higher waist and softly gathered neckline. “What does one wear—underneath?”
“Not much and that’s a fact. I made a petticoat to go along with it—bit of extra cambric from one of Lieutenant Fairfax’s shirts, don’t you know,” she added with a sly smile, indicating a silky garment trimmed with wide sapphire ribbon that must have cost a pretty penny. Sarah hoped that St. John was particularly unobservant when it came to paying his bills.
“This dress means more than you can imagine,” she said, taking the mound of fabric in her arms.
“Oh, pshaw, Mrs. F. It’s just a trifle,” Emily insisted. “Not more’n you deserve, and that’s a fact—you, who’s always thinkin’ o’ somebody else.”
“Yes, well. I wanted to do what I could to give back.” Sarah’s gaze wandered out the window to the sky, which had been filled with leaden clouds all afternoon, although the rain had diminished. To her surprise, the sand and water glowed with the pinkish-red light of a setting sun. “Would you look at that?” she marveled.
Emily darted a glance toward the window. “Oh, aye. Tomorrow’ll be fine. No cause for worry there.”
Sarah swallowed against the lump in her throat and then picked up the note lying on the table beside her, running her finger along the crease and pausing to finger the Haverty seal, pressed deep into the disc of red wax. “I suppose you heard that the new Lord Haverty intended to call off the festival?”
She still did not know what had happened to change his mind. Perhaps Mr. Norris had talked further with him. Surely Abby must have been as distraught as she at the idea that their efforts to help had been so abruptly forestalled.
“Oh, aye. And that Lieutenant Fairfax went to him and asked him to have it on again. That’s been all around Haverhythe twice, you can be sure.”
“Lieutenant Fairfax?” Suddenly nervous, Sarah clutched the note to her chest. His generosity seemed out of character—at least where she was concerned.
“So they say, mum.”
“Why would he have done such a thing?”
“Ain’t it obvious, Mrs. F.?”
She had tried all afternoon to restrain a mind, a heart, and a few other parts quite enthusiastically determined to relive the memory of the pressure of his fingertips tangled in her hair, the heat of his palm against her breast, the brush of his lips against her flesh. She had tried to forget—and had failed utterly.
Desperate to avoid Emily’s knowing smile, Sarah darted her eyes away. Unluckily, her gaze fell on the book he had given Clarissa, and she recalled first the charming story he had told their daughter, and then the terrible story he had told her later. His time in the West Indies had certainly changed him. In many ways, he was not the man he had been when he left.
But had he changed in the ways that mattered?
He had gone to the earl and persuaded him to allow the festival to continue. One nobleman to another. She wished she could believe that either of them really understand what the festival meant to this village. As a wealthy young woman in a thriving port town, she had been largely unaware of the hardships plaguing rural Britain. Now, however, she knew firsthand how people suffered, and how indifferent the landed aristocrats seemed to be to their plight.
Things cannot stay as they are, he had vowed.
Did the unexpected kindness St. John had shown toward the people of Haverhythe foretell a changed heart regarding his own responsibilities as the future Marquess of Estley?
Did last night’s embrace mean his feelings toward her had begun to change, too?
Or were those things, even his time in Antigua, just paltry gestures of penance, while the larger problem at their root remained untouched?
Chapter 14
“Mama!” Clarissa looked up from her bowl, as much porridge on her face as on her spoon. “Pretty dress.”
Sarah smoothed her palm down the sprigged muslin as if to reassure herself it was still there. The fabric draped over her limbs with unaccustomed softness. She felt rather naked out of mourning—although admittedly, not as naked as she had felt in the watchman’s hut. And she had never really been a widow, of course, even with the black dress. Now all of Haverhythe knew it.
Today, they—and she—would discover who she was without it.
Mrs. Potts cast an appraising eye over her. “You do look fine. But where in God’s creation did you get that hat, if you don’ mind me askin’?”
Wishing she could have seen a bit more of herself in the small square looking glass over her washstand, Sarah reached up a hand and gave a little smirk of satisfaction as her fingers brushed the new flowered trim of the tiny chip bonnet. “Oh, that’s Emily’s doing. But I promised I wouldn’t tell her secret.”
“Looks like the kinda thing Fanny Kittery would sport—only on you it looks all right,” she added. It was perhaps the closest Martha Potts had ever come to giving a compliment. “’Tain’t very practical, though.”
Sarah’s smirk widened into a genuine grin. “I know. Isn’t it wonderful?”
In a bid to recapture her mother’s attention, Clarissa chose that moment to proclaim that she was not hungry and pushed her bowl away.
With a practiced hand, Mrs. Potts caught the half-full vessel before it clattered to the floor. “Wee ones who don’t eat their breakfast shouldn’t expect to go to the festival,” she reprimanded, taking a cloth to the girl’s face.
“Mama!” protested Clarissa.
Sarah shook her head. “Mrs. Potts is right, dear one. Although,” she added, eyeing the tea and toast askance, “I don’t feel terribly hungry myself.”
“Nerves, mum,” Mrs. Potts said, guiding Sarah to her recently vacated chair. “That’s all. But you couldn’t ask for a nicer morning. It’ll all turn right th’ end.”
Sarah choked down a few bites, then drained her teacup. Mrs. Potts was right. Especially about the nerves. Still, she could not help but wonder what it would be like to see St. John today. Her forgiving heart wanted to believe he had avoided her the day before because he felt too much. But she ought to know by now that it was far more likely he felt too little.
Standing, she leaned across the table to kiss her daughter’s forehead. “I’d best be off, Mrs. Potts.”
“All right. I’ll bring Clarissa down in an hour or so.”
Sarah stepped out into the crisp, clear late-September morning and walked down the narrow lane that ran in front of the row of cottages overhanging the strand. In the miscellany she had borrowed from Abby, she had read several descriptions of out-of-the-way spots travelers deemed picturesque and charming. It had been one of the things that had given her the idea for the festival. This morning, she tried to imagine she was seeing it all for the first time—the colorful boats and wattle-and-daub houses and gray-green water. A rough pen-and-ink sketch touched in places by an artist’s brush. Would the festival visitors
see Haverhythe as she had come to see it? Or would their hearts remain untouched?
How badly she wanted to believe that a week in Haverhythe had forced St. John to realize she was not the kind of woman he had once imagined her to be. Innocent, he had called her. How badly she wanted to believe he had meant it in all the ways that mattered.
Surely, if he felt nothing at all for her, he would never have bought those gifts for Clarissa, would never have gone to the earl, would never have . . .
As she felt a girlish blush heat her cheeks, she gave herself a determined little shake. Hadn’t she seen enough of life to abandon that old dream of a fairy-tale romance?
She had never stopped loving him, and she did not think she ever would. But that did not mean she needed to wander around with her head in the clouds and her eyes half-open.
He had broken her heart once, and she had run from the pain and humiliation, found a place to lick her wounds, and managed—somehow—to piece herself back together. Perhaps he had changed. Time would tell. But if she allowed him to break her heart again, the damage would be severe, for she would have lost not only her husband, but also her child.
As for allowing him to make love to her? Well, it was done, and she did not regret it now.
There would be ample opportunity for regret later, whenever she was alone and the memories of his touch refused to be contained.
The first person she spotted on the foot of the quay was Mr. Norris, looking a trifle bewildered as he watched several of the village shopkeepers set out their wares on the newly made stalls. A handful of strangers already walked among them.
“Is Mrs. Norris here?” Sarah asked, coming to stand beside him.
As if surprised to see her, Mr. Norris turned and shook her hand. “Why, Mrs. Fairfax! No, Abigail’s feeling a trifle under the weather this morning.”
Sarah frowned. “Again? Not another headache, I hope.”
“Well, er—no. That is . . .”
Sarah had never known the vicar to be at a loss for words. Impatiently, she waited as he watched a young couple stroll past them and up the quay. The bright morning light picked out the silver hairs at his temples. He was a good deal older than his wife, nearly old enough to be Sarah’s father, but Sarah had never doubted for a moment that the Norrises were deeply in love. She did not know what to make of his behavior. Was Abby seriously ill?
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