“I did not.”
The answer seemed to satisfy Mrs. Abernathy for the moment. “Can’t say as I blame you. Have you been in London while he was gone, then?”
“I—I have been in the West Country,” Sarah replied.
“With your parents.” It was not a question, and no one in the little circle seemed inclined to correct Mrs. Abernathy’s mistaken assumption.
“Well, your return has generated no little interest, Lady Fairfax,” Lord Harrington assured her. “I’m sure we have you to thank for my daughter’s sudden willingness to come down to the country. She is forever telling me that Wyldewood is dull as death.”
“Oh, Papa,” Eliza scolded with a laugh, rising from her seat and coming toward them. “You know Lady Estley was most insistent about me accompanying her.”
St. John could not help but remember that his stepmother had described things the other way around.
“Really, what else could I do?” piped his stepmother insistently from the far corner. “I cannot bear to pass the day alone, and I knew I would be positively abandoned by my husband the moment we arrived.”
“Perhaps Miss Harrington looks forward to the ball tomorrow night,” suggested Squire Abernathy from the other table, tossing in his hand as he spoke. “I’m sure there’s at least one young bachelor here who would be willing to go down the dance with her.”
Interpreting his father’s remark to apply to him, the spot-faced young Abernathy gave a squeak of alarm.
“A ball?” Eliza murmured. “How exciting!”
“Really more of a dance,” the squire’s wife amended as she plucked a card from her hand and laid it down. “In the assembly rooms above the Red Lion Inn. To celebrate the harvest, you know.”
“The harvest dance,” echoed St. John’s father, looking thoughtful. “It was held here at the manor when I was a boy. Perhaps next year, it will be again,” he suggested with a glance toward his son.
“Here, my lord?” his stepmother echoed in alarm. “Really, whom could one invite beyond the present company?”
“Surely, ma’am, our circle of acquaintance, even in the country, is somewhat larger?” his father suggested with one raised eyebrow.
“Of acquaintance, yes. But one must be careful with extending invitations to Lynscombe that imply a greater degree of intimacy with the family.”
Mrs. Abernathy, who must have recognized her place on the fringe of his stepmother’s vaunted circle, did not seem to know whether to nod or shake her head. Eliza’s mouth quirked in an expression of amusement that was not quite a smile.
Dr. Quiller suggested a few families, but the names were met with pursed lips.
“Yes, yes. I am sure they are very fine people in their way,” his stepmother acknowledged, “but I cannot imagine they would be comfortable in the ballroom here.”
“A harvest ball should take place where all who had a hand in the harvest will feel welcome.” Sarah spoke so quietly that at first no one seemed to realize from whence the words had come. All eyes came to rest on her. “But mightn’t some members of the family attend the dance in the village?” she continued. “As a gesture of goodwill?”
Resounding silence met the suggestion. His stepmother’s eyes were round with shock. Eliza swallowed a smirk before darting a glance of sympathetic incredulity toward him. The rest of the guests seemed to have developed a sudden interest in the fan of cards in front of them or the pattern of the Turkish carpet at their feet.
After a moment, his father said, “I am intrigued, Lady Fairfax. Go on.”
“She spoke too hastily, my lord,” Mr. Pevensey interjected, stepping forward. “She is remembering the frolics she used to have at the Christmas dances I hold for my clerks, that is all.”
No, St. John wanted to say. He was certain Sarah was thinking of Haverhythe, the festival, his own words about the dance being held where all would enjoy it. He was less certain what to make of the connection, however. Was she also recalling their conversation about a landowner’s obligations to his tenants? After what she had seen, she could no longer be naïve enough to imagine that an appearance at a village dance would make up for years of mistreatment.
Mrs. Pevensey hastily confirmed her husband’s opinion. “Not the sort of entertainment to which your family is accustomed. Sarah must learn not to be so forward with her opinion,” she said with a scolding frown for her daughter.
His father continued to regard Sarah with something like curiosity for a long, silent moment before saying, “I find it an excellent suggestion, Lady Fairfax. We shall all go,” he proclaimed in that voice that brooked no opposition.
For a moment, everyone stood or sat in stunned silence.
Sarah pulled her hand free and smiled quietly to herself as she moved to examine the stark winter landscape that nearly filled one wall.
She knew the dance was a small thing, especially in comparison to a school. But they both represented necessary changes if things in Lynscombe were going to improve. The Sutliffe family might imagine her dowry was all that was needed to restore what had been lost through the neglect of generations. In her experience, however, it would require something more.
A bit of genuine concern for the people involved, as she had once told St. John.
In other words . . . love.
Still raw from the pain of leaving Haverhythe and its people, she did not know whether she was ready to open her heart again. In time, though, she could learn to love this place. Perhaps St. John would, too.
It was not exactly the love match of which she had once dreamed, a dream whose death she had spent most of the day mourning all over again.
But it was a life in which she could feel fulfilled—sometimes, perhaps, even happy.
In a world in which so many had so little, could she really ask for more?
And she would have a school! It had been her fondest wish to start one in Haverhythe, but a wish far beyond the limited means of Mrs. Fairfax. As Lady Fairfax, however, what could she not do? A marriage like hers might have its advantages, after all. She imagined little heads bowed over their lessons. Practical lessons, yes, of course. But she would make sure there was a space in the curriculum for music . . .
Behind her, snippets of conversation began to erupt around the room once again. The card games ended and the pairings broke up as all awaited the announcement of supper. Lord Estley, Lord Harrington, Squire Abernathy, and Dr. Quiller gathered at one end of the room to discuss the local sport; both St. John and her father stood near them, but neither joined that conversation nor started one of their own. Closer to the fire, poor, sweet Mr. Pickard’s ear was being bent by young Philip Abernathy.
The ladies clustered near where she stood, at the opposite side of the room from the gentlemen. Pleading a headache brought on by the fatigue of travel, her mother decided to retire.
Lady Estley, who had not moved from her comfortable lair, drew Eliza down to her side on the horsehair sofa just wide enough for two.
“Sweet, dear?” the marchioness asked, proffering a tin of crystallized pineapple. “Fairfax brought them from Antigua,” she added as Eliza chose. “They are delectable. I do wish he had brought me a little black page to serve them, though. I delight in those exotic touches.”
Sarah bit her tongue as she spied Mrs. Quiller approaching her.
“I must say, my dear, I found your suggestion of having the family attend the harvest ball in the village most interesting,” the rector’s wife said in a low voice.
Or rather, in what she no doubt had intended as a low voice. But as Sarah had gradually realized over the course of the evening, Mrs. Quiller was quite hard of hearing, with the result that her attempted whisper carried easily to the other ladies.
Lady Estley drew in her breath in an audible gasp. “ ‘Interesting’? I for one cannot imagine what could have inspired her to suggest that the chief family of this neighborhood would dance in the public rooms in the village.”
“But you must admit, ma’am
,” Eliza said, “the balls in which Lady Fairfax is involved are always interesting.” Seizing on the bewildered faces of Mrs. Abernathy and Mrs. Quiller, she dusted the sugar from her fingers and leaned forward as if to share a secret. Time had not dimmed the woman’s flame-colored hair or the wicked sparkle in her eyes. “You see, at the last ball attended by Lady Fairfax, she was wearing the famed Sutliffe sapphires, and they simply . . . disappeared.”
Mrs. Abernathy gasped. “Good gracious, Lady Fairfax! What happened to them?”
Turning her back on the picture, Sarah folded her hands behind her back so that no one could see her nervous fingers twisting in her skirts. “Unfortunately, ma’am, I do not know. Lady Estley seemed certain they were stolen.”
Eliza sent Lady Estley a glance.
“Ten to one the clasp broke and you simply did not notice,” Mrs. Quiller suggested with an encouraging nod, much to Lady Estley’s amusement.
“Perhaps,” Sarah acknowledged. “On that occasion, I was a trifle—”
“Disguised?” the marchioness supplied wryly.
Recalling the empty wineglass and her stumbling footsteps across the library floor, Sarah felt her face heat. “I was going to say distressed.”
“Distressed?” scoffed her mother-in-law.
“You, who had just captured the ton’s most eligible bachelor? What on earth could have distressed you?” seconded Eliza.
The oft-relived memories pricked her consciousness with the sting of a needle: Eliza’s whispered words in her husband’s ear. Lord Estley’s patent regret at the necessity of his son’s having to marry so far beneath him. Lady Estley’s assumption that Sarah had been too dull-witted to realize how she was disdained by everyone around her.
This time, however, Sarah pushed those memories aside. It was ridiculous to continue to fixate on things that had happened so long ago. Had nothing else of importance or interest occurred in the last three years?
That might be true for Eliza or Lady Estley, but thank God, Sarah could not say the same.
She had spent a great deal of the last few days contemplating how the passage of time had changed her husband. She had almost forgotten it had changed her, as well.
If she was really going to be Lady Fairfax again—with all the privileges, and all the sacrifices, the role entailed—she was going to need to bring a bit of Mrs. Fairfax’s toughness to the part.
“Do you know, Miss Harrington,” she declared with a shrug, “I simply cannot recall.”
Eliza opened her mouth, but before her reply came, another voice interrupted.
“Lady Fairfax?”
Sarah turned and found the Marquess of Estley at her elbow, offering his escort to supper. With a lift of her chin and a smile for Eliza, she curtseyed and accepted his arm.
Chapter 21
Music was coming from the pianoforte in the sitting room adjacent to his bedchamber. A Mozart sonata. The piece suited the instrument’s bright tone. It suited the player, too, with its precise rhythms and intricate patterns—staggering complexity in the guise of simplicity.
As the sound of Sarah’s playing had done once before, it drew him to the door. For a long moment, he stood and listened before lifting his hand to the knob and entering the room.
Instantly, the music stopped. “My lord,” she said as she pushed away from the instrument and rose, her quicksilver eyes darting over him. “I was not expecting you.”
When the music began, he had been reading. Or, rather, thumbing idly through a stack of novels someone had left on the bedside. As soon as supper had ended, Sarah had left to look in on Clarissa. He had lingered—over port, over conversation, over any excuse he could find. Anything to keep him from the temptation of crossing the single room that now separated them and coming to her tonight.
Yet sleep had eluded them both, it seemed. Here he stood in his dressing gown and she clad only in a night rail, her feet bare, her unbound hair cascading over her shoulders.
Her chin lifted defiantly beneath his regard. “Though I might have guessed that an extra ten thousand pounds would recall you to your duty.”
Duty. In the nights following their wedding, it had led him to her bed.
What he felt now was not duty.
It was desire. A flame that had been kindled—rekindled—in an abandoned hut in Haverhythe. Despite his reputation for iciness, she had left him burning. And if he thought about that night for one second more, she would see exactly how much he still wanted her.
“No,” he whispered, ruthlessly banking that fire, but still not daring to step closer. Nothing could happen between them until he felt certain it was also more than duty to her. “I came because of the music. Will you play once more?” he asked. “For me?”
At first he thought she meant to refuse. But after a moment she returned to the instrument and began an unfamiliar melody. He could not find the words to describe it—it was not beautiful, exactly. But forceful. Haunting. As changeful as the tides. All at once he realized that she was playing the music that had surrounded her in Primrose Cottage, the rhythms of the ocean just outside her door. And he knew it must be a piece of her own composition.
What other treasures did this woman contain? He longed for the key to unlock them all.
Everything he had been forced to imagine while eavesdropping on the Norris’s doorstep, he could now observe firsthand: her bright eyes open but unseeing, never once glancing toward the keys, arched fingers that never stumbled, the graceful curve of her wrists and her neck, the soft flush of her cheek, the way her whole body became one with the music.
“You are an artist,” he said when she paused.
Her hands collapsed onto the keys and sour notes echoed through the otherwise silent room. “I am the daughter of a Bristol merchant,” she whispered, lifting her eyes at last to look at him. “Surely you had not forgotten, my lord. It mattered enough to you once.”
“It did.”
Dishonesty now would get him nowhere, and he could hardly deny the truth of her words. She had been chosen as his bride because of her father’s money. And although he had complained bitterly about having to marry someone so far beneath him, a part of him had been grateful for the distance between them. He had imagined it would make it easier to hold himself apart. Not to want her. Not to care.
“It is not all that matters to me, however.”
With a huff of humorless laughter, she trailed her fingers over the keys, sounding a few random notes. “No, of course not. There is also the matter of my being a jewel thief.”
The words jarred him, pushing him forward. Even if he were afraid of what he felt, that was no excuse for acting a coward. He could not allow her to continue to take the blame for what had happened between them all those years ago.
“A successful jewel thief could have done better than that cheap black dress.”
As the implication of his words settled over her, she stilled. “Surely you do not expect me to believe that something has persuaded you of my innocence?”
Hesitating only for a moment, he crossed the room to her side. “You persuaded me.” When she would not meet his eye, he knelt on the floor beside the stool on which she sat. “And Primrose Cottage. Mrs. Potts and Mr. Beals. Susan Kittery’s lessons on the pianoforte. A guilty woman would not have done all she could to better the lives of everyone around her.” Oh, if she would only look at him. “To say nothing, of course, of Clarissa.”
Her head jerked around and her eyes snapped to his. “What of Clarissa?”
“She looks very like my mother. I was reminded of that when I saw an old portrait here. But even before that moment,” he hurried to assure her, “I knew she was mine.” He lifted his hand beneath hers where it still lay against the keys, turning her slightly so he could lay her palm against his chest. “I felt it here.”
Good God, how had she played so beautifully with fingers of ice?
“Forgive me, Sarah,” he whispered, covering her hand with his. “Forgive me for believing the
worst of you then. I was wrong.”
“I ran—”
“I was the one who ran away,” he spoke across her. “Not you. Whatever these last three years have been . . .”
Her fingers curled against the silk of his dressing gown, as if seeking warmth. “They were meant to be my punishment, I believe.”
“Yes,” he conceded with a wry smile. “I’m quite sure my stepmother never would have believed you if you had insisted that marriage to me was punishment enough.” At her frown of incomprehension, he reminded her of her words. “That night on the quay. When I asked if you feared to face your punishment. You said that the thing you feared most was a life lived—”
“—without love. Yes, I did say that,” she whispered, a note of wonder in her voice. “And you remembered.”
“At any rate, I hope that life at Lynscombe will not be a punishment to you,” he ventured. “You will have your daughter with you. And your music,” he said, laying his other hand on the pianoforte case. “Whenever you wish it, without having to walk to the vicarage. Oh, and Pickard’s school.” He knew he had not imagined the light that flickered into her eyes with his reminder. “It is a scheme well-suited to your gifts—so well-suited, in fact, I regret not having been the one to think of it.”
“Thank you,” she replied warily. “But I do not wish to get my hopes up. My mother was right. Your father is unlikely to agree to it.”
“He will,” St. John declared, hoping he would not have to say anything more. But she only looked back at him expectantly, as if curious about the source of his confidence. “First thing tomorrow, I plan to meet with my father’s steward and learn how things really stand. Have a look at the books, tour the estate, meet the farmers. And then, I will talk with my father.” He hesitated. “I intend to ask him to give me the management of Lynscombe. My stepmother will wish to return to town before long, and I—well, it is time someone looked after this place.”
Because Sarah was right. Despite the risk, he could not continue to hold himself apart from the people and places that mattered.
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