by Joan Smith
“I shall go alone first and break the news that I’m—I don’t suppose you would care to see her first and explain?”
It was a highly unsavory chore, but one that had already occurred to Haldiman as necessary. For a ghost from the past to suddenly appear in Miss Wood’s saloon would in all likelihood cause her to faint dead away. “I’ll see her, and tell her the facts. It will be for you to do your own explaining. I’ll call tomorrow morning.”
“Papa!” a small voice called from the bed. “We didn’t say our prayers. Hurry up. Beau is falling asleep.”
“Yes, yes, I’m coming.”
“We’ll talk in the morning,” Haldiman said. With his hand on Peter’s arm, he added, “Sorry I cut up stiff, Peter. Shock, I expect. It’s nice to have you home.”
“It’s been six years. I thought I shouldn’t wait longer, or I’d be declared legally dead.”
As he returned to his office, Haldiman was surprised to discover that there was some truth in what he had just said. He had missed Peter. Anger and shame had deposited a thick layer of ill feeling over the natural bond of brothers, but it was still there. If only Peter would settle down. Haldiman had an intuition those two curly-headed tots in the nursery might accomplish what common sense and common decency and lecturing had failed to do.
It must be wonderful to have sons. It was high time he married and set up a nursery of his own. He would go to London for the Little Season in the autumn and find himself a bride. He knew from years of looking that none of the local ladies appealed to him. The only one he ever had the least partiality for was Sara Wood, and that was half pity. Now that Peter was home, he was very eager for a match between them. She would make a charming sister-in-law, and he’d find himself a wife.
Chapter Three
At Whitehern Mrs. Wood sat with her daughters in the breakfast parlor, lingering over a cup of coffee. “So Idle wants to paint your picture, eh Sara?” she said. “I have nothing against it, so long as it is done here, either in the garden or the salon. Mary can play propriety. Idle is a tame enough animal.”
“I have no intention of posing for the silly rattle,” Sara said, not for the first time.
“But you must!” Mary urged. “He’s having a ball, Sara, with all his London friends coming.”
“Pray what has that to do with painting my picture?”
“Nothing, but—oh very well then, I shall tell you. He won’t have it unless I talk you into posing.”
“You mean the ball is a reward?” Sara asked.
“Exactly.”
Mrs. Wood’s eyes narrowed. “He must be extremely eager to paint you, Sara.” Idle’s early return, his wanting to paint Sara—it was beginning to seem his mama had hounded him into getting married and settling down. High time for it, too, the man must be in his thirties. “Idle is an excellent parti.”
“Yes, if only one didn’t have to live with him in order to marry his money and estate,” Sara replied blandly.
“You’re growing cynical in your advancing years, Sara,” Mrs. Wood said, with a weary shake of her head.
“Just realistic. I’m contented to be single. Let Mary marry him. She’s the one who is eager to meet his smart London friends.”
“I won’t meet them if you won’t pose for him,” Mary pointed out. “I’ll stay with you every minute. I’ll distract him if he tries to flirt with you. Please, Sara. Pretty please.”
“Oh very well. But I refuse to dress up in any silly costume.”
As the ladies were about to leave the table, the servant came and announced Lord Haldiman. This threw the group into consternation. “What on earth can he want with us?” Mrs. Wood asked.
There had been plenty of traffic between Haldiman Hall and Whitehern at the time of Sara’s betrothal. After Lord Peter’s disappearance, the visits had continued for some months to discuss the tragic mystery, gradually petering out as it became clear that Peter was not returning. Lady Haldiman still dropped by occasionally, but a call from Lord Haldiman usually had some serious reason. He came at election time to introduce his member, and after Mr. Wood’s death, he had stopped around a few times to offer his assistance in business matters. The family considered him a good neighbor, but not a close friend.
“He wishes to speak to you, ma’am,” the servant informed Mrs. Wood. “Alone,” he added ominously.
“Good gracious! I thought his mama must have taken ill, but he would not want to see me alone if—” Her questioning eye slid to Sara. Surely he hadn’t come to offer for her! He was always very careful to stand up with Sara at all the assemblies. It was taken as a mark of respect for her association with Peter, but his name was never linked with any other lady. Lady Haldiman often mentioned that her son wished to marry. Perhaps he had decided to choose a local bride and save himself the bother of running up to London. Really, she could think of no other possible reason for this call.
Sara looked at her mother, and some silent message passed between them. Their thoughts ran in the same groove. What other possible reason could he have for coming? Mrs. Wood noticed that Sara had turned dead white. Of course she said nothing, the oyster, but her staring eyes told the tale. “What shall I tell him?” she said.
“First you must hear his question,” Sara answered in a voice trying for calmness.
“If he—if it’s an offer ...”
“An offer of marriage! Don’t be absurd,” Mary exclaimed, and fell into a noisy peal of laughter.
This reaction restored the group to reality. Mrs. Wood bustled into the salon and listened with racing pulse while Lord Haldiman opened his budget. Gradually shocked disbelief yielded to credulity and soon escalated to joy. “I decided I should speak to you first,” he said, when he was finished. “Shall I tell Sara, or would it come better from you?”
Mrs. Wood was beyond thinking. “But this is wonderful!” she exclaimed a dozen times. “She will be so thrilled. And he still wants to marry her?” she asked, a watery smile lighting her eyes.
“Yes, but he has been married already. He’s widowed and has two sons,” Haldiman repeated. “That will surely quench her ardor somewhat.”
“Yes, of course. She will be in a snit at first, but she will forgive him. There has never been anyone else, Haldiman. Just this very morning she repeated her vow to remain single. I’ll let you tell her, as you are in possession of all the details.
“Shall we get on with it then?” he suggested, steeling himself to the unpleasant interview. If Sara was still that madly in love with Peter, she would take his marriage harder than her mother had done. But Sara was a perfect lady. Whatever her private anguish, her public display would be a model of restraint.
Mrs. Wood asked the servant to call Sara to the salon. She waited till her daughter arrived. “Sara, Haldiman has something astonishing to say to you,” she smiled.
Sara saw the look of dazed joy on her mother’s face, and her first wild surmise was confirmed. Haldiman had come to offer. She stood trembling with emotion as she gazed at him. What answer should she give him? If she could ever love any man, it would be Lord Haldiman. She didn’t love him—yet, but she sensed that she could, without too much effort. Indeed, it had taken some effort to restrain her growing interest in him at the time of Peter’s death, when he called fairly often. Haldiman was a man of good sense and good character. One never heard of him carrying on with his servants.
He had something of Peter’s good looks, with the air of recklessness tempered to sobriety. His dark head rode at a proud angle. Deep blue eyes studied her nervously. She noticed a muscle twitch at the corner of his jaw and realized with shock that he was nervous. It seemed ludicrous that he should be nervous of her. Did he actually care for her then, love her?
“What is it you have to say, sir?” she asked in a breathless voice.
Mrs. Wood discreetly slipped from the room, to dart back and tell Mary the news.
“I fear this will come as a great shock, Miss Wood—Sara. Perhaps you had best sit down.”
She sat with her eyes lowered to conceal her emotional turmoil, but her nervous fingers, fussing with her skirt, betrayed her. Haldiman gazed a moment wondering how she would react. Sara was such a quiet, withdrawn woman, he never knew what she was thinking. Whatever her feelings, she wouldn’t make a scene.
He cleared his throat and plunged in, “I know that when Peter left six years ago, you were totally undone. So were we all.” She lifted her eyes, listening. They were a soft, dove gray, fringed with long lashes. He read the sadness there and felt an overwhelming desire to strike Peter. Sara looked like a sorrowful Madonna. It was infamous to have served her such a stunt; and now to have to confess the rest of it, the marriage in America, the sons.
“Yes,” she said briefly. It was her customary response, designed to get over the heavy ground of unwanted pity and get on with business.
Haldiman threw up his hands in frustration. “There’s no easy way to say it. Peter is back,” he said. “He’s come home.”
“Back?” It was not even a whisper, but the echo of a whisper, light as a baby’s breath.
He watched in dismay as her eyes rolled up, her face turned as white as paper, and she slid back against the pillows. Like his mama, she had fainted dead away. Haldiman lunged forward and took her hands. He should be calling for brandy and for her mother. Before there was time for any of this, Sara opened her eyes and gazed at him with wild bewilderment. His head was close to hers, his dark eyes full of emotion. His fingers clung tightly to hers. For a moment they just gazed at each other, speechless. Some unspoken word hovered in the air between them. Sara raised a hand to shade her eyes from the torment of that look.
“Forgive me,” she said in a small voice. “I—I thought you said Peter was back. So foolish of me.”
Haldiman tightened his grip on her hands till her fingers ached. He studied her, gauging her emotional state, and finally spoke. “I did. Peter is back. He returned last night. He’s been in Canada.”
“But how is it possible? He’s supposed to be dead.”
“He will come and explain all that himself. I feared you might be overcome if he came in person. I’m sorry I made such a wretched botch of it, Sara. I should have prepared you in some manner ...”
Her gray eyes looked huge in her pale face. She hadn’t realized yet what it meant. Haldiman was uncertain whether to give the bad news first that Peter was widowed, or the good news that he wanted to marry her.
Slowly the situation percolated through Sara’s mind. He was back. Like Nemesis, Peter had returned. If this meant that their betrothal was still intact, she would run away. That’s all. She would just disappear from the parish forever. She became aware that Haldiman was staring at her. She must say something. “How did he come to be in Canada?” she asked.
“It’s a long story.”
“He was taken by the press gang?” If Peter had been suffering all these years, waiting to escape and come to her, she would be a perfect beast to jilt him.
“Not exactly.”
“Kidnapped? What?”
“He’ll tell you the details. But there are a few things I must say, Sara. Peter still wants to marry you.” Despair robbed her of thought. She felt as if a noose was being lowered over her head. “He feels very badly about—about the past. The thing is, he was married in Canada. He has two sons.”
“Married!” she exclaimed. “Married?” Joy lent a wild edge to her words. A laugh, high-pitched, loud, almost maniacal, came from her lips. Sara didn’t know if she was laughing or crying. She only knew she was free. The noose fell from her neck and in her mind she soared high, free at last of Lord Peter.
Haldiman heard the wild sound of her laughter and feared for her sanity. Was this how love handled betrayal? It refused to accept the burden. It drove the betrayed to the very edge of insanity.
“He loves you, Sara,” he said earnestly, though Peter had certainly not used the word love. “His wife is dead. He wants to marry you. He’ll be here this afternoon to tell you himself.”
Sara felt as if the clock were rolling back six years and her nightmare was beginning again. She must act swiftly to forestall it. The laughter ceased, she rose from the sofa and turned a flaming eye on her caller. “Does he indeed? A widower with two sons! Well, you may tell your widowed brother for me that I do not wish to marry him. If he dares to show his face at this house, I will—” She sought for a fate bad enough for Lord Peter. “I will take that poker and lay his head open,” she declared, pointing at the iron poker by the grate. “Tell him that for me.”
Haldiman rose and went to her, grasping her hands. “Sara, you don’t know what you’re saying. I’ve explained the matter badly.”
She shook him off violently. “There is no good way to explain this matter, sir. Your brother jilted me. He left me all but standing at the altar, while he skipped off to Canada and married someone else. And now he has the infernal gall to think I would still have him, as if I were a dog’s breakfast he may taste when he will.”
“But you’ve waited all these years. There was never anyone else.”
“There will never be anyone else,” she said very firmly. “I am well out of the business of marriage. Lord Peter did me one good turn in his worthless life. He opened my eyes to what men really think of women. We are an adventure. You marry us, or if you happen to see a ship with its sails set, you hop aboard instead. Go to Canada and marry some other poor unsuspecting soul.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“No? Then how was it, Haldiman? Perhaps you, being a gentleman, can explain it to me, for I assure you I do not understand. He wasn’t kidnapped. He went of his own free will, did he not?”
“He went freely. He felt you didn’t really love him.”
“He was right about that!” she declared. How good it felt to say it at last. “I never loved him, I wish I had never met him.” Her voice rose wildly.
Haldiman felt she was merely exhorting at fate. Anger, jealousy, something caused her to deny her love for Peter. And what a love it must have been, to cause the cool Sara to turn into a vixen. How could Peter have been such a fool as to give up this woman? The heat of her anger raised Haldiman’s blood, too, till he felt a strange passion growing in him. The completely irrelevant thought came to him that he wanted to grab her into his arms and kiss her while her passion was high. “You must do as you feel best, of course,” he said coolly. “No one would expect you to honor the betrothal after what has passed.”
Sara heard him out with interest. Of course! How foolish of her. She didn’t have to marry Peter now. No one would expect it of her. She was still free. As her nerves settled down, Sara realized that she had been ranting like a bedlamite. What must Haldiman think of her? She gave an embarrassed look and said, “You must forgive me. I was so upset when you told me. Naturally I am happy for you that Peter is back.” She went to the sofa and wilted onto it.
“You look done in, poor girl. Let me pour you a glass of wine.”
Haldiman poured two glasses and joined her.
“Tell me all about it. When did he arrive?” she asked. The monumental piece of news was of great interest to Sara, as long as she wasn’t expected to marry the returned scoundrel.
“Last night—rather late, in fact.”
“How does he look, how does he seem? Has he changed?” she asked, with apparent interest.
“He has, somehow. I think it’s the boys that have done it. Settled him down, you know. He called the elder after me.”
“Does little Rufus look like a Haldiman?”
“He has the coloring, certainly. And he’s a horseman, he tells me.”
Sara displayed an eager curiosity in all the details of Peter’s past life. She inquired for the late wife.
“Fiona Harvey was her name. Her folks own timberlands in upper Canada. If we can judge by her sister, she was a managing hussy, but rather attractive.”
“Sister? You cannot have met her sister. Did Peter not describe his wife?”<
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Haldiman cleared his throat. “Er, actually he brought the sister back with him. To help with the lads, you know. It seems Miss Harvey was eager to visit England.”
“Good God!”
“They traveled with a chaperon!”
“I should hope so!” Sara frowned pensively and said, “There must be something between them, Haldiman, for him to have brought her home.”
“He assures me he wishes to marry you.”
This thorny subject was brought to a quick halt. “It is not to be thought of. Don’t let him offer.”
Haldiman unwisely took her demures for maidenly pique. “I shall caution him Miss Wood is not interested—yet.”
“Not now, not ever.”
“You loved him once,” he reminded her, with an arch look.
“I loved my dancing master once, too. That does not mean I would marry him if he turned up again. What’s past is prologue. Mr. Shakespeare was a very wise man, was he not?”
“Certainly he was, but you must ferret out a different quotation for the present situation. What’s past is back on our doorstep.”
“Your doorstep, and I hope you will keep it there.”
“You must at least let him come and make his apologies in person, Sara. He plans to settle at the Poplars. It is only five miles away. You will be meeting him about, here and there. It is best to have the first meeting in privacy.”
She considered this inevitable interview and agreed reluctantly. “I daresay you’re right. I must let him come—once.”
“You will want to see the boys, I expect. And Miss Harvey.”
This creature was naturally of some interest. “Pretty, is she?”
“She’s no match for you.” Gallantry was the farthest thing from his mind. He was merely stating a fact and was surprised that Sara blushed prettily. “Her manners, you know, are not quite what we are used to.”
“Nor have mine been this morning, I fear. You must have thought me quite mad, laughing like a hyena.”
“You disported yourself uncommonly well as we have come to expect from Miss Wood,” he assured her. But to himself he added that she had not displayed her usual sangfroid. He liked her better without it. “It must have been a dreadful blow for you, Sara, after all these years.”