The Wife He Always Wanted

by Cheryl Ann Smith

  “You are being unreasonable,” he grumbled.

  “Am I?” She crossed her arms again.

  His body tensed. He reached up and swept out his arm, knocking an entire row of books to the floor. Sarah winced but held fast.

  “Albert was my friend. I would have given my life for him.” He spun and closed the distance between them. “Do you think I wanted to marry you? I did not. But I sacrificed my freedom to fulfill my promise to protect you. Had you not been so stubborn, willing to starve to death to keep your pride, I’d not have lied to you and pressed the matter.” He took a deep breath. “I would marry you again if only out of loyalty to your brother.”

  Sacrificed his freedom? He’d only marry her again out of loyalty to her brother? Deep in her chest, her heart squeezed. She was a duty. His cold words confirmed her fear.

  “I did not want to marry you either,” she whispered. “Though, I would not marry you again given the choice.” With that, she turned and walked stiffly from the room.

  Once in the hallway, she stomped up the stairs and slammed the door to the master bedroom. Childish, she knew, but it felt good to hear the sound rattle through the house. Then, just as quickly, her eyes tipped up. Thankfully, there was no sign that the ceiling was about to fall on her head.

  The damage seemed limited to the upstairs parlor.

  She sat on the bed. “What a tangle my life has become.”

  Everything Gabriel said was true. Well, most anyway. She’d not have married him any other way. Her hurt came from his lack of feeling for her after weeks together. Any affection she’d thought she felt growing between them came from her hope for it to be so and not from any confirmation on his part.

  “Last evening was no different to him than bedding any other woman.” Sarah fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

  * * *

  The sound of her footsteps pounded into his ears as she fled upstairs. He grimaced when the door slammed overhead. Her bitter and somewhat truthful accusations had finally caused him to lash out in frustration. It had pained him to see the hurt in her eyes. The lies he’d battered her with left bitterness on his tongue. Albert was no longer any part of the reason he wanted the marriage.

  He would marry her for no more reason than affection for his shy mouse.

  “Damn!” He raked his hands over his head. He turned and kicked the discarded books aside. Determined to find a secret panel, and wanting to take his frustration out in a productive way, he rapped his knuckles along the back of the shelves for the next hour until his hands ached.

  No luck. He’d gone as far as he could reach. Tomorrow, he’d come back with a ladder.

  In no particular order, he retrieved and shelved the books. Though his aching hands were some penance for hurting his wife, he still felt like a cad. It would take actions, not words, to prove he was worthy of her trust.

  She’d had every right to berate him for his actions. He should have taken it stoically as a man would and then explained that given the chance, he’d choose her all over again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sarah slipped from the town house and took the carriage back to the Harringtons’. She was still angry and hurt over Gabriel’s comment and unwilling to make polite conversation over dinner with him. She feigned a headache and closed herself in her room for the rest of the evening.

  “I brought you a tray, Mrs. Harrington,” Flora said. She laid it out on the table next to the bed.

  “Thank you, Flora.” Sarah didn’t move from the bed after the maid left. The tray remained untouched.

  She wasn’t angry with him for marrying her out of duty, or knowing he hadn’t wanted to marry her. She’d felt the same. What hurt was the implication that had he the chance to choose again, he’d change the outcome and not marry her at all.

  After loving her so tenderly last evening, he still felt weighted down with the chains of their marriage?

  Biting her lip, she vowed not to cry. She’d accept her fate, as it was, with stoicism.

  As Lady Seymour and Noelle predicted, invitations had come in by the dozens since the night of the ball. Every morning, Sarah and the countess went through them all, choosing which to accept with careful consideration.

  The idea of attending fetes left her cold. She’d be required to feign affection for Gabriel.

  Now as Sarah stood and walked to the window, pondering the fight with Gabriel, she wondered how she would get through what remained of the Season on his arm.

  Worse yet, how could she get through the next fifty years knowing Gabriel felt trapped?

  The next morning dawned with no clear solutions. She had to make the best of her life, but how? Then she remembered one of her lessons. A Lady must keep her emotions in check when in public. If she wanted to rail at her husband or throw a book at his head, it must be done in private. Otherwise, she’d present the façade of calm.

  Sarah hated calm. Book throwing sounded much more fun.

  Noelle begged off the next few days, sending around a note that she and Mister Blackwell would be visiting Bath for a short holiday. Sarah and Gabriel, accompanied by his parents, attended a play and a soiree. The effort to come across as carefree left her head splitting.

  After the countess sighed through breakfast one too many times over missing James, and the desire to see her grandson, Lord Seymour dropped his napkin on the table and ordered packing to commence immediately.

  “It is better to go with her whims than to listen to her sigh over how James is growing up without the love of his grandmother,” Lord Seymour teased. He was rewarded with a buss on his cheek. His happy wife hurried off to supervise packing. “We should not be gone for more than a few weeks. When we return, we want a full tour of your town house.”

  “Yes, My Lord.” Sarah hated to see them go but understood their desire to see Lady Brenna and her son. Though Sarah had not yet met the family, she’d heard many, many stories about the smart and handsome little James.

  The earl passed Gabriel at the door and told him of their plans. Gabriel nodded and entered the room. Sarah reached for the paper and pretended to read the headlines while her husband collected breakfast. He sat across from her.

  “Anything interesting in the news today?” he asked. Sarah continued to read.

  “The Duke of Boyton has bought a new coach and four,” she said. “The horses are a matched set of grays. They are noted to be an excellent purchase and quite costly.”

  “Fascinating,” Gabriel said. “Boyton does like to show off his wealth in flashy ways.”

  “Hmmm.” Sarah perused the paper for a few minutes and ignored Gabriel. Most of the stories were about Parliament. She did not discover anything interesting there. No matter how hard she tried, she found politics tedious.

  “Anything else of note?” Gabriel took a bite of eggs.

  Sarah sighed. He was clearly determined to mend the rift. It was impossible to consider throwing something at him while he was so unfailingly polite. “There is a mention about one Lady Tewksbury who left her husband and ran off with his secretary. Rumors say the couple was last seen boarding a ship to America.”

  “Lord Tewksbury is a buffoon.” He chuckled. “How long did he think his wife would accept him tupping his mistress under her roof without either killing him or finding her own lover? I am pleased to see the bastard get his comeuppance.”

  “His mistress lived with them?” Sarah asked, before remembering that she was speaking only to be polite and not for general conversation.

  “He met the woman at a courtesan ball and secretly set her up as an upstairs maid. It took the shamed Lady Tewksbury about a month to hear rumors about the affair and realize she’d been duped. Over the last few months, she tried to get the woman ejected, but Tewksbury ignored her protests. Now he is without a wife, and the scandal should keep him from society functions for many months to come.”r />
  “Then I shall hope for a joyous life for the Lady and her lover, and pray her husband is miserable in his banishment.”

  Gabriel nodded. “He will not be missed. The man was not well liked. He’s a pompous toad.”

  Sarah wondered how many Lady Tewksburys there were out there, forced to suffer the indignities of husbands who openly flaunted lovers without regard for their humiliated wives?

  “Lest you get your mind fixed on how long it will take until I begin the hunt for a mistress, know that I am committed to you and this marriage.” Gabriel leaned back in his chair. “I know you don’t trust me now, but you will never have to suffer Lady Tewksbury’s fate.”

  “Is that a promise?” she said bitterly.

  His eyes narrowed. “I will choose to ignore your tone and instead urge you to ready yourself for a trip to the town house. I plan to search all day for your father’s papers, and every day thereafter, until we find a resolution to the mystery of his death.”

  If she wasn’t so put out by him at the moment, she’d be pleased with his determination to see her father’s murder avenged. In this, they were of a like mind.

  “I shall say farewell to your parents and meet you in the foyer in a half hour. I trust that will be sufficient?”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  * * *

  The town house was largely quiet when they arrived but for the workers on the roof. After a week of long hours scrubbing and dusting, Sarah had given the maids and footmen a much earned day off. When Gabriel had hired them for cleanup the post was meant to be temporary. After spending several days in their company, Sarah had gone and hired them on permanently.

  Today, she’d not planned to return to help Gabriel search the house, so there was no reason for the staff to be present.

  It unsettled her to be alone with him.

  “I covered these shelves here. If you’d like to search behind the lower three on those two walls we should be able to get this done by this afternoon.” Gabriel set a ladder against the bookcase. “Check the books, too. He may have hidden clues inside the volumes.”

  “How clandestine.” She flipped through a book on horticulture and found nothing but drawings of plants. “I still cannot grasp my father as a spy. He was so . . . ordinary.”

  “Ordinary makes the best spies.”

  Sarah pulled out an armful of books and flipped through them, then tapped the wall behind and found nothing. She had a feeling that this search would be less about finding secret panels and more about tedium.

  She decided to give up her ban on conversation. If she had to spend the next several hours in silence, she’d go mad.

  “Do you think my father ever met Napoleon? Or do you think he slipped in and out of the Palace of Versailles without ever passing the emperor in the hallway?”

  “It is possible, if the mistress was secreted in the palace.” He descended the ladder and slid it over. “Would he dare flaunt her under the nose of Marie Louise? Was your father gone long enough to have spent time at Versailles?”

  “I’m not certain.” She picked through her memory. “I do remember him being away two or three times for several weeks. I thought it was for his position as secretary. I missed him terribly when he was gone.”

  Her mind went back to the mistress. “I try to imagine this mysterious mistress. Did my father care for her? How many secrets may he have discovered in her bed?”

  “It depends on how loose-tongued Napoleon was, and the same for the mistress. If she felt affection for your father during their brief affair, he may have learned many useful things.”

  “Enough information to have helped lead our army to victory?” She pondered the thought. “No, he was gone before then. Still, we will never know what he accomplished in those years before his death.”

  “Maybe the missing papers will hold some information,” Gabriel said. He tapped the wall.

  “True. I never suspected he was in danger.”

  Dark alleys, meetings with killers, political intrigue; it was impossible to fit her father into those settings.

  “Spying was a noble thing.”

  Sarah hugged the book against her chest and watched him climb the ladder. “I know. However, the selfish part of me wishes he had been merely a secretary.”

  They spent the next few minutes searching.

  “There are times when, if not for the painting, I have difficulty recalling Father’s face. Ten years have passed since Father, Albert, and I were all together. Each day also further fades my brother’s face from my memories. Thank goodness for the small painting of him at eighteen. I hate to think only a pair of paintings will refresh them all in my mind.”

  “At least you have the paintings.”

  She stared wistfully at her husband’s back. The Harringtons were her family now. Gabriel was her family. Eventually, they’d make a truce and have children, as was expected of men of Gabriel’s ilk. He might never love her, but he’d do his part to continue the Harrington name.

  What a maudlin idea.

  A moment of despondency swept through her. She slid the book back on the shelf and let her gaze drift around the room. This was one of several rooms she’d keep intact.

  “I think we should not change anything in this room,” she said. “I can picture my father here, slumped over his papers, a brandy always nearby.”

  “Do what you wish.” Gabe paused from tapping. He pressed his fingertips against the panel. A small door swung open.

  Sarah froze. He probed the space. “Damn. It is empty.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “How disappointing. However, if there is one hidden door, there may be others.”

  A movement at the window caught her eye. She was startled to see a strange face peering in, shadowed beneath a wide-brimmed hat. Just as quickly, the face vanished. “Gabriel, someone was at the window! He’s fleeing!”

  “Are you certain?” He quickly climbed off the ladder and bounded after Sarah. She ran from the room, down the hallway and across the foyer.

  “I am!” Sarah jerked open the front door. She made it down the steps and around the corner of the house in time to see a figure in black jump the hedge and race into the mews.

  Gabriel’s longer legs took him past her. He slowed slightly, enough to spot the retreating figure, and raced off in his wake. Sarah lifted her skirts and chased after the pair.

  With the disadvantage of her gown hindering her progress, she had to limit her pursuit to the narrow alley and glimpses of the men running between the stables. She did her best to keep an eye on the stranger, a difficult task, as the window peeper possessed extreme speed and surprising agility.

  “Over there!” she called out as the man disappeared between two stables. Gabriel headed in the direction she pointed.

  Unfortunately, the peeper widened the gap between himself and Gabriel. He darted away, weaving in and out of the buildings and climbing over fences. Gabriel tried to keep up, but the wily man could not be caught. He soon vanished over a wall and was gone.

  Sarah caught up to her husband at the end of the alley.

  “Damn. He must have secreted a horse nearby,” Gabriel said. He leaned to put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. She brushed a damp lock out of her eye.

  “He is a ghost,” she replied. “I have never seen anyone with such speed. The man is inhuman.”

  Gabriel tipped his head to peer up at her. “You are incorrect, love. The spy was female and definitely human.”

  Sarah gaped, incredulous. A woman? “This cannot be. He was dressed in breeches.”

  “I assure you that he was a she.” He straightened. “Years carefully studying the female form have given me the expertise to tell the difference between the two.”

  He did have a point. Still, she found the idea of a female peeper befuddling. “I did not see his—her—face clearly
in the window,” she conceded. “But why would she want to sneak around my town house . . . unless she is the one whose boot prints you found in the dust?”

  “That is entirely possible. The prints were not large.” Gabriel led her back down the alley toward the town house. “Up until now, I thought the housebreaker just possessed small feet.”

  There were so many new things to consider. “This means it’s possible that my father was investigating a female spy.”

  “Or a nest of spies,” Gabriel said. They entered the back gate. “We will contact Mister Brown and give him this new clue. He might know of the woman in black.”

  * * *

  Despite Gabriel’s urgent note, Mister Brown did not respond to his plea for a meeting. Impatient, Gabriel traveled to the Runner’s offices on Bow Street. He returned to find her pacing the library. “Mister Brown is out of the city. According to a man there, Brown will not return for several days.”

  “This is discouraging news,” Sarah said. “We shall never find the killer with all these delays.”

  “Have heart, Sarah. Ten years have passed and the case has only recently drawn new attention, thanks to your interest,” Gabriel said. “You must also resign yourself to the possibility of the murder never being solved. The killer may be dead.”

  This was the first time he’d put her own fears into words.

  “I understand your point but cannot think negatively.” She had to cling to hope. “I think I shall travel to where Father was found. I would like to see if the area holds any clues.”

  She walked from the parlor and retrieved her cloak. Gabriel followed. “I shall go with you. Two people are better than one for clue searching.”

  Any other time she might have welcomed his presence. However, she was not feeling up to spending another couple of hours with him, when her heart still stung. Still, his set face told her that arguing over the matter would not change his mind.