Tempting Sarah

by Gayle Buck

  TEMPTING SARAH

  Gayle Buck

  About the Author

  Publishing Information

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  An unusually heavy snow two days earlier had cast drifts to each side of the narrow road. Ice frosted the fields and hedgerows. The horses’ breath trailed smoky streams as the antiquated coach rumbled heavily over the rutted road.

  The occupants of the coach were fairly warm. The Misses Sommers had hot bricks to their feet and numerous rugs tucked around them. They were attired in warm woolen pelisses over their traveling dresses and had tucked their hands into large fur muffs. Their maid, sitting opposite them with her back to the horses, appeared to be asleep.

  “Surely we are almost there? Can you see anything out of your window, dear Sarah?”

  Miss Sarah Sommers was short of stature, her figure trim. Beneath her velvet bonnet, a riot of dark curls framed her face and accentuated the piquancy of a pair of laughing hazel eyes set under winged brows, a short nose, and well-formed mouth. Sarah smiled at the eager note in her younger sister’s voice. Their first journey out of their own county was exciting for them both, but for Margaret, it was imbued with all the trappings of a fantastical adventure. Sarah was the eldest by only two years, but sometimes she felt much older.

  “No, I cannot see a thing. The window is too glazed over,” said Sarah. “We went through the last village only a bit ago. Even if we could look out, there would be nothing but hedgerows and fields to see, I daresay.”

  Miss Margaret Sommers had been emancipated from the schoolroom scarcely a year past. She was just turned seventeen and was taller than her sister and more beautiful. She peered unsuccessfully through the whimsically frosted window. With her gloved palm she vigorously rubbed a spot on the glass until it was clear and then pressed her face to it. “Surely we are near London!”

  Sarah laughed. “Come, Margaret, that is what you have been saying since we left home two days ago.”

  “Then most assuredly we must be close by now!” exclaimed Margaret, turning an animated countenance toward her sister. Her vivid blue eyes sparkled. “Oh, I know that you think me foolish, Sarah, but truly, truly, it is a grand adventure and I do not wish to miss a single moment of it.”

  “You shan’t, goose. Grandmama promised in her letters to treat us to the Season, which hasn’t yet begun. So rest easy, Margaret,” said Sarah.

  “Aye, miss, give over, do,” said the maid, suddenly opening her eyes. “You’ll have fretted Miss Sarah to flinders with your excitement and questions before we ever arrive if you keep on so.”

  “Oh, you’re awake, Holby!” said Margaret, delighted.

  “No, miss, I am not,” said the maid with finality, closing her eyes again.

  Sarah chuckled again. “There, Margaret! You have exhausted poor Holby.”

  “I am sorry. But, truly, I can’t help it, Sarah. It is all so prodigiously exciting. I never thought Papa could actually be brought to consent to our going up to London to stay with Grandmama,” said Margaret. She made haste to clarify herself. “Not that Papa isn’t every bit of a saint. But he will put his head in his books and not come out for days. I sometimes think that he doesn’t even recall our names when he does see us.”

  “Yes, Papa can be rather absentminded,” agreed Sarah. She chuckled. “But I think even Papa must have begun to realize that he had to do something with us. It did not matter so much when I emerged from the schoolroom, for I was able to keep busy managing the house. But then you outgrew your lessons, too.”

  “Even Papa could not expect us to spend the rest of our days living in virtual seclusion,” said Margaret, nodding. “I made certain that he knew my thoughts on that!”

  “Yes, poor Papa scarcely had any peace at all once you found out from Lucretia that she was going to the assemblies,” said Sarah, shaking her head.

  “Well, if Papa had let Mrs. Bagnold take us more often, I might not have teased him about it,” said Margaret reasonably.

  “You know very well that the Bagnolds are considered very good-natured, but can be rather vulgar in their manners on occasion. That is why Papa was reluctant to allow us to spend more time in their company,” said Sarah.

  “I didn’t see any harm in Lucretia and Theo and Tiffany,” said Margaret, tossing her head. “But Miss Spoonsby agreed with Papa, so I suppose that it must have been true.”

  “Poor Papa! He explained it so patiently. He did not wish us to pick up any mannerisms that would stigmatize us as dowdies in more exalted company,” said Sarah. She sighed suddenly. “As though we ever had the opportunity to run in any other circles. Other than our friends such as the Prices and the Bagnolds, there were hardly any other families with whom we could associate that had the least claim to gentility.”

  “That is why Grandmama’s invitation was such a godsend for us. Why, we know scarcely anyone and now we shall be introduced to all of the ton!” exclaimed Margaret.

  “I’m certain Papa thought that Lady Alverley’s invitation was a godsend, as well, Margaret. I have suspected for some months now that the question of our future had begun to weigh upon him, especially after Miss Spoonsby informed him that she had taught you all that she could and that it was time for her to find another post,” said Sarah. “But Papa has become such a recluse of late years that he didn’t have the least notion about how he was to provide for us.”

  “I have often wondered how Mama ever came to marry him,” said Margaret reflectively.

  “Margaret! What a thing to say,” said Sarah, laughing again.

  “No, no, I mean it, Sarah. You will admit that there is nothing at all dashing or—or extraordinary about Papa. Sometimes I suspect that he cares more about his scholarly endeavors than about living, breathing people,” said Margaret.

  Sarah couldn’t deny that there was some truth in her sister’s observation. She had thought much the same thing, though a little guiltily. She held her father in true affection, but she was not blind to his most glaring fault. The world practically had to force itself upon him before he could be brought to notice anything beyond his library. That was what Margaret had meant when she had said that she had to badger him about going up to the assemblies. Sarah knew that must have been when Sir Francis had begun to think about his daughters’ futures.

  Far more than Margaret, Sarah could recall a time when their father had not been more interested in writing his books than in life outside the walls of his library. Margaret had scarcely passed out of leading-strings when their mother had died of a fever. “It is a pity. I think Papa might have been different if Mama had not died,” said Sarah regretfully.

  “Yes, well, that is as may be, Sarah. But it is of no use thinking about what might have been,” said Margaret with unexpected pragmatism. “At this moment we are on our way to a perfectly splendid adventure! I wonder what Grandmama is like? Do you recall anything about her, Sarah?”

  Sarah shook her head. “Very little, except that she seemed to me to be a very grand lady. I recall that I was a little frightened of her.”

  “Well, I shan’t be frightened of her, no matter how grand she may be. She has invited us to stay with her and that must surely mean that she is kindly disposed toward us, don’t you think?” asked Margaret.

  “Yes, I do,” said Sarah, smiling at her eager sister.

  Margaret rubbed the glass with her gloved hand again and looked out. “Oh, why doesn’t John Coachman whip up the horses? It can’t be far now!”

  “John Coachman knows his duty, miss, and it is not driving neck-or-nothing down an icy road,” said the maid without opening her eyes.

  “Holby, you cannot possibly be asleep! You are shamming it,” said Margaret accusingly. “It’s my belief that you don’t wis
h me to address anything to you and so you have been pretending all along.”

  The maid gave a loud snore.

  Sarah broke out laughing. “Never mind, Margaret. I am listening to you and—”

  There was the sound of a sharp crack. The coach lurched violently, then began to tilt over on its side. Sarah and her companions were tossed from their seats in a welter of furs and arms and legs. Sarah cried out in surprise and in the same instant heard her sister’s frightened squeak.

  Once the carriage stopped moving, the door was forcibly yanked open above them. John Coachman’s anxious face appeared in the opening. “Miss Sarah! Miss Margaret! Be ye all right?”

  The women untangled themselves. Sarah called out in reassurance. “Yes, John, of course we are. At least—Margaret?”

  “Oh, yes. But I fear that I fell on poor Holby,” said Margaret, helping the maid right herself.

  The maid wheezed for air. “The wind was knocked out of me, is all. I’m fine, miss.”

  “Thank God. Here, John, help us out,” said Sarah, helping both her sister and the maid to the canted door of the coach. When she had also been helped up through the door and had scrambled over the side onto the road, she looked at the coach in dismay. “What happened, John?”

  “An axle broke, miss,” said the coachman grimly.

  “Oh, dear.” Sarah looked at the coach tilted on its side. The trembling horses were standing in the twisted traces, rolling their eyes so that the whites showed. In the excitement Sarah had forgotten her muff and she wrapped her arms around herself to conserve warmth. Cold was beginning to seep into her boots from the iron-hard frozen ground.

  A flake touched her cheek and Sarah looked up, startled. The clouds were high and thin and slate colored, becoming indistinct even as she watched. Sarah realized that it was beginning to snow again. The gray twilight was turning swiftly into the black of night. Sarah knew that their plight was grave.

  “What are we going to do, Sarah?” asked Margaret, a breathless quality in her voice. Her eyes were round as she stared at the coach.

  “I don’t know yet, Margaret. But we will be fine, I know we will,” said Sarah with a reassuring smile. She turned to the coachman, who had bent over to assess the damage again. She heard him muttering under his breath. “What do you think we should do, John? How far are we from the next village?”

  The coachman straightened. His wrinkled face was worried. “I don’t know for certain what lies ahead, miss, not having been up to Lunnontown before this. We’ll need to have a wheelwright put on a new axle and that can be had only in a village.”

  “Yes, of course. And it is late, too, so it is unlikely that it can be done this evening,” said Sarah.

  The coachman nodded. “Aye, that’s it in a nutshell. Miss Sarah, I’m thinking that you and Miss Margaret will want to bespeak a room this night and so it seems best to me that we go back to the last village that we passed through. There was a respectable inn. I noted it particular on account of its sign— The Rook and Crane.”

  “Oh, no, no! I could not bear to go back when we have already come this far,” exclaimed Margaret. “Can we not hire another coach and go on, Sarah?”

  Sarah inwardly agreed with her sister. Her heart had plunged to hear John Coachman’s verdict. She also was anxious to make their destination. However, Sarah felt herself to be too unworldly to judge exactly what they could afford to do or not do. The expenses of the trip had been entrusted by their father to John Coachman. “John?”

  The coachman frowned as he thought things through. “It’s not what I like, Miss Sarah, hiring job cattle and all. Then there still be the possibility of the added expense of putting up another night at an inn if the cattle are real slugs and can’t make it to Lunnontown tonight as we’d set out to do.”

  “But we can afford a chaise?” asked Sarah.

  “Oh, do say yes, John Coachman,” said Margaret pleadingly. “I do so want to continue on our way.”

  The coachman was not impervious to her coaxing. “Aye, Miss Margaret. There be adequate for a chaise. Now mind”— he held up a thick gloved forefinger in warning—”it won’t be what ye’re used to, with a nice brick and all.”

  “I don’t care a fig for that, as long as we are still going toward London,” said Margaret.

  “Then it’s settled. We’ll walk back to the inn and hire a chaise,” said Sarah.

  “Begging your pardon, miss, but that is all of five miles. It is coming on for dark now. Ye’ll not want to be stumbling about on the ice. It’d be better if I ride back and send the chaise to fetch you,” said John Coachman.

  “There is the baggage to consider, too, Miss Sarah,” said the maid. “You’ll not want to leave it all unguarded on the public road.”

  “No, I suppose not. Very well, John, you ride back and send a chaise for us, while we wait,” said Sarah. She shivered and glanced up at the darkening sky. “I do hope that you are not delayed. We shall have to wrap up in the rugs to keep off the chill.”

  “We can build a fire to keep warm,” suggested Margaret. At her sister’s expression, she said, “Why, it is all part of the adventure, Sarah! We can pretend to be tinkers or gypsies. I daresay it will be quite exciting.”

  “I hope so, Margaret,” said Sarah.

  John Coachman cut the team loose from the traces. Sarah held the bridles of the horses, speaking calmly to them as she led them forward through the slippery snow, freeing them of the entangling leathers.

  The coachman shook his head. “That one be lamed, Miss Sarah,” he said heavily. “I’ll go faster if I leave the poor beast with you.”

  “We shall manage, John,” said Sarah quietly, her hand still on the bridle of the lame horse.

  Preparing to mount, the coachman chuckled suddenly. “I know that, Miss Sarah.” He heaved himself onto the bare back of the horse.

  Suddenly a postchaise swept round the corner, pulled by a matched team of bays. Twin lanterns hung from its sides and burned yellow. It veered to one side of the scene of the accident. The chaise stopped, the high-strung team stamping nervously. A window was let down and a pleasant male voice said, “Is everything quite all right? May I be of assistance?”

  “Thank you, sir, but there is really nothing that anyone can do,” said Sarah. She gestured toward the coach lying on its side. “We have broken an axle.”

  At once the postchaise door was flung open. A gentleman alighted. He came forward, his boots crunching on the icy ground. He was attired in a voluminous greatcoat and a beaver was pulled well over his brow. He appeared to be of medium height and carried himself gracefully, with the lithe movements of an athlete.

  “I am Lord Gilbert Eustace. Pray allow me to express my regrets over your misfortune. I will render whatever assistance that is within my power, of course,” said Lord Eustace. He bowed politely.

  “I am Miss Sarah Sommers. This is my sister, Margaret. Thank you for your concern, my lord. We are on the point of sending our coachman back to the last inn we passed, in hopes of hiring a chaise,” said Sarah.

  Lord Eustace bowed to Miss Sommers’s sister, who dipped a schoolgirl’s curtsy. He surveyed the maid and the coachman and the direction that the coach was pointed, coming at once to a conclusion. “I apprehend that you are journeying up to London, no doubt to enjoy the beginning of the Season. You are expected, of course?”

  “Yes. Lady Alverley is our grandmother,” said Sarah.

  “Ah! I am vaguely acquainted with her ladyship. Does Lady Alverley expect you yet today?” asked Lord Eustace. He frowned slightly. “Her ladyship will be unhappy that you have been delayed.”

  “I fear that our journey will be delayed slightly,” said Sarah. Her finely drawn brows drew together over her hazel eyes as she steadily regarded Lord Eustace. She wondered at his lordship’s passing observation regarding their grandmother. It was almost as though he implied that Lady Alverley was ill-tempered, she thought.

  “Do you mean that our grandmother will be angry with us
for coming to her late?” asked Margaret forthrightly.

  Lord Eustace shook his head. Gently, he corrected her. “I did not say so, Miss Margaret. It is my observation that while you are waiting for your coachman to return with a chaise, you will be left standing about in this chill wind. I have a better notion. Let me offer a seat to you both in my chaise. And also to your maid, naturally. I can easily convey you to the next town, which is not above half an hour away. There is a respectable inn, I believe, where you may bespeak a room or hire a chaise.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” said Sarah. She was surprised and hesitant. “I scarce know what to say.” She was naturally grateful for the invitation, but she was not certain that it would be wise to entrust themselves into a complete stranger’s hands. Of course, Lord Eustace did appear to be respectable and he had offered a seat to their maid. He was at least fully aware of the conventions. But still, the gentleman was unknown to her and Sarah was unsure of what she should do.

  Apparently her sister felt no similar constraint. “Thank you, Lord Eustace, for your most obliging offer. We are indeed most anxious to resume our journey,” said Margaret. She looked at her sister. “Are we not, Sarah?”

  Lord Eustace threw a glance in the elder sister’s direction. “I would consider it an honor to be of assistance. Miss Sommers,” he repeated.

  Despite her reservations, Sarah consented to accept Lord Eustace’s offer. In short order she and Margaret, with their maid and some of their baggage, were settled into Lord Eustace’s chaise.

  Before they left, Sarah talked with John Coachman again. It was arranged that he would bring the carriage horses, together with the rest of their baggage, to the inn that Lord Eustace had told them about. There, John Coachman hoped to engage the services of a wheelwright to repair the coach. The coachman would leave instructions for the wheelwright and the care of the team while he engaged a chaise to convey his charges the remainder of the way to London.

  “Then I’ll drive the hired chaise back to the inn. The wheelwright will be done with the repairs, no doubt, and if I can manage with the lamed one, I can drive the coach back home,” he had said. Sarah agreed that would be best.