by Lara Archer
“Of course, I mind, cara Salomé,” said the Spaniard, but he kissed her hand obediently, and backed away. “Yet, I must bow to your will, if you wish to dismiss me. Such is ever the fortune of a loving, loyal heart like mine.”
“Indeed, sir,” said Mr. Rapson, switching to Spanish with equal ease, and entering into the deception with surprising fervor. “Love is well known to be cruel to the true of heart.”
Mr. Rapson watched the Spaniard go, then turned to look back at her, wonderment still plain on his face. “It is you,” he repeated, whispering, “isn’t it? Sarah?”
“Shh!” she said, her heart fluttering, and took his forearm to guide him a little distance away, where they would not so easily be overheard. “Yes,” she replied quietly, hoping it sounded like an admission, not a lie. She gave him a sultry smile.
“I’m sorry for blurting out your name just now,” said Mr. Rapson, very low. “I was caught by surprise, that’s all, suddenly seeing you again, after so many years. I should have addressed you as Mademoiselle Mirabeau from the start.”
“You—knew of Salomé?”
He glanced down at her rather scandalous gown now, with all its vulgar display of her bosom, and blanched and brought his eyes quickly upward again. “I am aware of what mode of life you have been obliged to follow these past few years.” A flush began inching its way up from his neckcloth. “Please understand I’ve never judged you for it. I know the London streets offer few choices for—for a young woman with no family to protect her.”
Regardless of his gentle words, her cheeks flamed. She fought to tamp down her embarrassment. She had to be Salomé, to protect both herself and him. “You must pretend to be flirting with me,” she scolded him, playfully tapping at his forearm with her fan. “People may not be able to hear us, but they are watching.”
“Flirting?” Mr. Rapson blinked, looking rather alarmed.
“Surely you’ve learned how by now. A handsome young man, suddenly in possession of a fortune—women must flock to you.”
The flush had reached his cheekbones now. “That is not within my repertoire, I’m afraid.”
“Then you will ruin my reputation. For me to be seen talking seriously with a clergyman, I would lose every client I have.”
His brows drew together, a pained expression on his face. “Great heaven, Sarah. None of that will be necessary now. Don’t you understand?”
“Whisper,” she reminded him in an undertone. “And try to smile. Regardless of my profession, these are uncertain times for an Englishman in Spain. If you look too serious, rumors will spread that you are here for reasons other than pleasure. That you are perhaps a spy.”
His eyes widened in astonishment at the idea, but he lowered his voice still further. “Please, listen,” he said. “Rachel and I looked for you, for a very long time after you left your great-aunts’ home. When I came to London, I kept at it, hoping that somehow you were still alive. My deepest regret is that I did not find you sooner. So that your choices might have been . . . well, other than they were.”
“My life has been complicated,” she answered, with the sort of archness Salomé should use, and hoped he would leave it at that. “And you are still not flirting.”
“Of course I am not.”
“Here, I will help you with a mild sort of question a flirtatious woman would ask: what about you, Mr. Rapson?” She waved her fan to indicate his snowy neckcloth, its linen far finer than anything he could have afforded when she knew him before. “Clearly, your life is not what it was when I left home. I am fascinated to hear more.”
“Please, my friend. Don’t make a game of me. It is unworthy of us both.”
Shame twisted in her gut. She’d become all too used to feigning and lying. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be the person she used to be with her good-hearted tutor. How very different it was from talking to Sebastian, who seemed to know nothing but deception and irony and evasion and games.
The temptation to tell him who she really was became almost unbearable.
“Forgive me,” she said sincerely.
Mr. Rapson’s vexation lasted only a moment more, and then he gave a little rueful laugh. “You know I always will. And you are quite right. My life has changed nearly as much as yours. Fortune has been strange to both of us, I suppose.”
“Tell me. I do want to know, truly. What has Fortune inflicted on you?”
“This title I now hold. It belonged to an uncle of mine—a great-uncle, once removed. I scarcely knew he existed. He had two sons, four grandsons, more than enough insurance against fate.” Mr. Rapson’s expression grew somber. “But within the past two years, a house fire took one son and two of the grandsons. The other son died of a fever, and the remaining two grandsons were lost together in a sailing accident less than a year ago—a sudden storm off the coast of Cornwall.” He looked down at his feet, abashed. “That was a morbid recitation, I’m afraid. But I find I am Lord Fairholme now, and I do what I can to pray for the souls of those who should have held the title in my stead.”
How very like Mr. Rapson to see things that way. For all his poverty, Mr. Rapson had never desired riches or power, merely the freedom to study his books as many hours a day as he wished without starving outright.
He looked up and directly into her eyes now, a particularly earnest look on his face. “Have you heard anything of Rachel? She left home while I was away in London, just before the news of my inheritance came to me. I’ve searched and searched for her after she left Rookshead, but she seems to have vanished into the ether. I must believe she left a letter for me with the Reverend Cadwallader before she went away, but he denied its existence and would tell me nothing about where she’d gone. His mind had long been poisoned against her.”
Rachel had to school her face to hide the relief she felt at those words. Sebastian had been wrong: Mr. Rapson hadn’t forgotten about her, or Sarah. He’d tried to find them both. But his very sincerity, his very decency, meant she could not be honest with him now. He would be unable to keep her secrets. Her disguise as Salomé Mirabeau had never felt so stiff, so heavy. “My rebellion cannot have helped her case,” she said. “Imagine if Mr. Cadwallader had learned what came after the running away—how fully I immersed myself in sin.”
Mr. Rapson nodded ruefully. “Your aunts and the Reverend never forgave your defiance. Though you must believe me, Sarah—I did. I understood what you were running from. False piety. Discipline without mercy, religious observance without true spiritual intent.” His eyes shone with their old familiar kindness. She remembered all that she had valued about him. His intelligence, his seriousness, his efforts to make moral distinctions that truly mattered.
An odd thought flashed into her mind: if she’d brought those papers with her tonight, the ones with the black symbols, she could have Mr. Rapson’s help in deciphering them. Of course, she could never show him such sensitive documents. But the idea tempted her far more intensely than she could have imagined. Allies were proving to be few and far between out here. “Thank you,” she said. “Your understanding matters more to me than you can know.”
“You have it, always.” For a moment, his fingers stretched towards hers as though he might take her hand, but he let his own fall to his side again. He had always been so careful with her and Sarah. Always so proper. “But neither of us has found Rachel.”
It was not hard to bring a genuine look of regret into her eyes. “We never spoke again after the day I left home. I—I never told her where I was.” Her face flushed, though she hoped her friend would attribute her rising color to feelings of guilt rather than pain. “I was ashamed of the life I had come to lead.” Just saying the words, was oddly soothing. To have to face Mr. Rapson, kind as he was, and speak of the life of Salomé Mirabeau, made it clearer to her why Sarah hadn’t wanted to contact anyone from her old life.
“You need not remain in this life, you know,” said Mr. Rapson gently. “Redemption is always possible. It is never too late.”<
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“Thank you, Mr. Rapson. I mean, Lord Fairholme.” She could not resist grinning at him. “It will take some getting used to, calling you that.”
“It has taken some getting used to responding to it, believe me. I feel perfectly ridiculous to myself. And it’s strange for me, trying to call you Miss Mirabeau.”
“I would much prefer that you call me Sarah,” she said, feeling a twinge of guilt at the continued lie.
“Do you still study the ancient languages?” he asked suddenly.
“I do.”
He beamed. “I am very glad to hear that. It assures me there is great promise for you yet.”
“I hope there is.” She smiled at him again, and all at once the oddness of their situation struck her in full force. “I cannot express how lovely it is to see you again. But why on earth are you in Spain? At a time like this?”
He cocked his head at her, a puzzled expression on his face. “But don’t you understand? Sarah, I came here for you.”
“You what?”
“I came to Spain looking for you. All those years when I searched, as a poor curate, I could find nothing. Every door slammed in my face. But you cannot imagine the difference holding a title can make—not to mention having gold in one’s purse. As I learned from other peers about the way they lived their lives, the debaucheries in which they engaged, it occurred to me that perhaps there were other avenues in which I might search for you beyond orphanages and workhouses. I began to ask about women fitting your description who . . . well, labor in your profession. When I spoke of the color of your hair, and your eyes, several men mentioned the name of Salomé Mirabeau, and I hoped, and I prayed—” He broke off, clearly embarrassed, but then his smile beamed. “And my prayers have been answered. You are here—and alive. How ironic that it should turn out to be easier to find you than to find Rachel.”
Oh, far more ironic than you think, my friend.
“Yes,” she said, “I am here. But you should not be. Napoleon is on his way, and you cannot possibly hope to pass as Spanish or French. This place is full of very bad sorts, and you are—”
Mr. Rapson gave a small, self-deprecating laugh. “A bookish curate. Yes, I know.”
“I don’t mean to insult you. I honor your virtue, believe me, and your courage in coming after me. But I am not worth the risk to your safety.”
“Sarah! You know as well as I do that virtue cannot hide safe at home and call itself virtue. Of course I came to find you. Nothing could have prevented me.”
“How did you even you even learn I was in Spain?”
“Lord Henry Walters. He told me.”
Her flesh chilled. “Lord Henry Walters?” So that’s why she’d seen them together at the Countess of Leeds’s ball. They’d been talking about her, or rather, about Sarah. Spain was dangerous enough for the unworldly clergyman, but Lord Henry Walters—of the razor-sharp fencing blades and mercurial anger—posed far too great a threat for him to safely handle.
“Several people told me he knows everyone, and indeed he knew of you, and had seen you just days before, and understood that you were heading here. Thanks to him, I’ve found you.”
Good Lord. Mr. Rapson was like a child walking too near the kitchen fire, oblivious to the danger. Thank heaven Lord Henry was still on British shores.
But the clergyman seemed oblivious to his peril. He grinned at her, purely happy. “You can come home now, Sarah. To England. To your true self. We will find Rachel, and this money that has come to me will bring freedom to us all.”
Her breath caught, and her heart gave a pulse, half joyous, half painful. Freedom to us all? He would want to do that, for Sarah, for her? She could not bear to tell him how impossible it was. “My lord, I don’t think—”
“Oh, do not call me ‘my lord.’ I cannot hear it from you. Though I suppose I am not Mr. Rapson anymore, either. My given name is John—can you manage to call me that?”
“John,” she repeated, after a short, heavy pause. “We cannot rely on your charity like that.”
“What charity would it be? I’ve no better use for my wealth.” A burning intensity came into his eyes. “Please, Sarah. I have no more family. You and Rachel, you are as close to a family as I have. You were all that made life in Rookshead livable for me—or almost livable. There’s nothing I could want more than to have the three of us safe and free to live our lives as we see fit, and only as we see fit. With no one else to dictate to us ever again.”
Involuntarily, she squeezed shut her eyes. The idea made her chest ache with longing.
“Please,” he said again. “If you will not scruple to share the main house with me, there is a lovely cottage on my estate, with gardens full of sunshine. You and your sister might live there, just the two of you, and join me in the afternoons whenever you wished to talk of books. Would that not be better than the life you live now?”
Rachel had to bite down on her lip to keep from bursting into tears.
“I always promised you both that life would get better someday,” he said, low and fervent, his eyes were bright with that hope. “I want to keep that promise. For both of you.”
She found herself clasping his arm and saying, “Oh, John! You are too good. Far too good!”
He stiffened slightly at her touch, modest as ever, but when she stepped back and looked at him again, his eyes were twinkling. “Promise me you will think about it,” he said.
“Very well.”
“And think quickly. I hear Spain isn’t safe for the English now.” He lifted a brow. “Not even for English who can pass themselves off as French.”
She felt light-headed. What would she have done if he had found her in Lancashire just a few short weeks ago, and made her such an offer? It would have seemed like heaven.
From his pocket, he drew out a thin silver case and gave her his calling card. A tiny pencil hidden in the lid let him scratch out an address. “Here. You can find me at this residence. I won’t leave Vigo until you come to me. Do you promise you will, at the first moment possible? Tomorrow? We must get away from this city quickly, before the French army reaches us.”
“I will,” she said. “Of course I will.” She tucked the card into her reticule. In truth, tomorrow she would have to send him word that she could not come with him, and beg him to return home, for his own safety. If he got hurt on her account, she could never forgive herself.
Perhaps once Victoire de Laurent was dealt with, she could come home to England. And see about that lovely little house on his estate. And those afternoons talking about books.
If only Sarah had lived . . .
“You must excuse me now,” she told him, trying to hold on to some thread of a courtesan’s sophistication. “I have neglected Don Andrés shamefully.”
Mr. Rapson—John—grimaced. “Please, Sarah. You have no more need of men like him. Stay alone tonight. What is it Hamlet said? Assume a virtue if you have it not.” His gaze touched briefly on her gaudy gown again. “Better still, leave with me right now. There can be nothing from this life you need to take with you. Leave all that empty frippery behind right now.”
His words made her heart swell painfully against her ribs. “Oh, John. I cannot. At least, I cannot come tonight. You must accept that.”
“Then come to the address on that card at first light, and we can be on a ship to England before the sun is high. I beg you, Sarah. Let me take you home again.”
“I will think about it,” she said. “I promise I will.” And, with her whole chest aching, she slipped away as quickly as she could before she began blubbering and gave everything away.
Chapter Nineteen
Don Andrés was nowhere to be found, nor was the duc du Bourge. Rachel searched room after room, stumbling upon scenes of wanton abandonment in nearly every alcove, on every couch. The lords and ladies of Vigo seemed determined to live this night as though it were their last.
Her footman bodyguard had surely lost track of her in the crowd, but she couldn’
t afford to look for him. Time was too short.
And then as she made her way into a small, unlit study on the ground floor, she stopped in her tracks.
A man stood in the shadows. Tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired. “Salomé,” he beckoned in a hoarse whisper. “Come quickly. You are in danger here.”
Du Bourge at last. His signet ring, with all its fat rubies, winked in the bit of moonlight that came through the window.
What on earth was the guest of honor doing hiding in such an obscure room? Fulfilling some command of his French masters, no doubt.
“Quickly!” he insisted, waving her towards him, and the rubies winked faster. “You must come now.”
Rachel forced herself to step closer.
Du Bourge was on her in three strides, and she braced herself for the blow of a weapon, but instead he wrapped her in his arms and pressed a passionate kiss to her lips. “Chère Salomé, mon vrai amour,” he declared when he came up for air. His fingertips stroked her temples with surprising tenderness, and it took all her discipline not to recoil from his embrace. “What are you doing mixed up in a business such as this?”
Before she could ask what business he meant, he pulled her towards the far corner of the room, beyond the last of the windows. He tapped at the wall there, and a baize door of the sort servants used clicked open.
Musty air buffeted them. Du Bourge pulled her into a narrow corridor behind the plastered, painted interior wall, with bare loam walls and exposed wood beams. A servants’ passageway.
There was no way to summon her guard or inform Sebastian or the Black Giant–she could not afford to lose du Bourge. So she steeled herself and followed him inside.
Du Bourge shut the door, closing them into the narrow, dim space, and as the bright candlelight vanished, her lungs closed in on themselves.
Something hissed—du Bourge lit another candle.
She locked her eyes on its glow.
Du Bourge set off down the passage, and the bobbing light seemed to draw and stretch black shapes upon the walls, which shrunk and elongated like creeping men in black robes.