A Lady's Desire (The Townsends)

by Lily Maxton

  “It’s all right,” Sarah said again.

  But as Win turned her head to catch Sarah’s lips, she couldn’t help but think that the sweet, soft kiss tasted like farewell.

  Chapter 12

  Win’s lips were trembling against hers, and Sarah felt a peculiar numbness spread across her body, like she’d been dipped in ice.

  This sensation. She recognized it.

  Six years ago, she’d experienced the same peculiar lack of feeling, when she’d watched her best friend marry someone else. And then, about a fortnight later, she’d sent that first letter to Win, marking the chasm in their relationship, and she’d sobbed like her heart was shattering.

  But back then, Sarah had let Win go. She hadn’t known what to do so she’d done nothing, and there were times, later, that she’d very nearly hated herself for it.

  This feeling…this lack…it was fear, holding her still. It was being frozen in place because she wasn’t sure how to step forward.

  Her hands curled, bunching the bedsheets in her hands.

  Not again.

  She wasn’t going to let the same thing happen again. Not now. Not when she finally had everything she’d ever wanted close enough to grasp.

  She plunged her hands into Win’s red curls, and the kiss changed. Her lips moved over Win’s greedily, hungrily, hard enough to bruise.

  She pulled back, just far enough to whisper, “Don’t marry anyone.”

  “Sarah?” Win asked breathlessly.

  Sarah’s grip tightened on her hair. Her mouth slipped down Win’s jaw, felt her quivering pulse. “Promise me. Promise me you won’t.”

  “I…I promise. But how…”

  “Just give me a little time to contemplate this.” She would figure things out. She didn’t know how, but she had to believe that she would.

  It didn’t matter if she didn’t know where the path led. She only needed the courage to take the first step.

  Win’s teeth dug into her lower lip. She looked bemused, and her mouth was wet and bruised red, but she nodded. “All right.”

  “Do you trust me, Win?”

  “I trust you,” she said, with no hint of hesitation.

  And Sarah’s heart soared. She kissed her again, this time more gently. “You’ve always had to look out for yourself. I think it’s time someone else did it for once.”

  Her cheeks flushed pink, and Sarah fought back a smile. Win wasn’t so brazen when she was given a compliment.

  Or, for that matter, when she was taking off her clothes, emerging like a goddess from a false skin, revealing her true form, rosy and glorious in the candlelight.

  The memory sent waves of heat coursing through her.

  Win must have noticed some shift in Sarah’s expression. “What?”

  “I was thinking about last night. I want more nights like that.”

  “I do, too,” Win said. “A thousand. A hundred thousand.”

  Sarah smiled wryly. “I’m not sure the last one is possible, unless we’re immortal.”

  Win lifted a shoulder. “Numbers,” she said, as if they didn’t mean much at all.

  And maybe they didn’t. Maybe a thousand nights would feel like a hundred thousand if they were filled with love. But Sarah was greedy—she wanted as much as she could hold on to, as much as she could claim.

  And she wanted it all.

  They parted after one last kiss, but it wasn’t anguished or desperate. This one was as soft and steady as a vow.

  James and Eleanor MacGregor sat on a sofa in their drawing room. Sarah noticed the furniture was not quite so spindly and delicate as fashion demanded, probably because James was too large and too fidgety for that type of furniture to last very long.

  “I need to find a profession,” Sarah announced calmly. “Sooner rather than later.”

  She wasn’t used to having to ask for help. She had to breathe deeply before she could speak the words in an even tone.

  But if she had to ask anyone, she would ask James and Eleanor. It wasn’t only because they were the most unusual of her acquaintances and might have access to people she didn’t, but because she felt like she could be herself around them, without polish and without artifice, and that was a powerful thing.

  “And I may need a place to stay until I gather my bearings,” she added quickly. “Win as well.”

  They looked at each other, communicating silently, then back at Sarah.

  “You will stay here, of course,” Eleanor said, very matter-of-factly.

  “Are you certain we wouldn’t be imposing?”

  Eleanor shot her a look that said that question was beneath contemplating. “You have been a tremendous asset to the society—”

  James cocked an eyebrow and Eleanor looked down at her hands. “And a good friend to me, as well,” she finished. “We’ll help you however we can.”

  She’d thought they would ask why she wanted a profession, or why she might need to stay there, but they didn’t. A flush of gratitude swept through her. Sarah had had many acquaintances in her life, but other than Win, James, and Eleanor, no one she was truly close to. It was a wonderful feeling, to have friends who accepted that something was important to you without needing to know why.

  “What sort of profession were you looking for?” James asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. The things they’d been taught—singing, music, embroidery, dancing—they were only things that were useful in a very small corner of the world. Here, in the real world, the world separate from high society, she wasn’t sure if they’d matter at all. “I know how to organize a household and plan dinners, which doesn’t do one very much good without money. I can play the pianoforte and sing, but I’ve never played or sung for a large crowd before. I can embroider pillows and handkerchiefs, but no one buys that sort of thing.”

  Eleanor’s lips were pursed, her brow furrowed in a way that said she was thinking rather ferociously.

  “What is it?” James asked her.

  “Did Mrs. Smith say something about one of her friends owning a dressmaker’s shop?”

  “Did she? Mrs. Smith says a lot of things…I don’t always listen.”

  Eleanor tried to hide a smirk and didn’t quite manage it.

  “But I’ve never made a dress,” Sarah pointed out.

  “I’ve seen your embroidery. It’s immaculate,” Eleanor pointed out. And Eleanor wasn’t a woman who used words like “immaculate” lightly. “Could you, if you were taught?”

  Sarah realized this was a question she’d never been asked before. If you were given the chance, what could you do?

  “Yes,” she said, quietly at first, and then more firmly. She could. She would.

  The alternative was being separated from Win because they had no means of their own. And that wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t going to allow it to happen.

  Not ever again.

  Chapter 13

  Sarah set the valise down by her feet. Her mother, reading in an armchair by the window, looked up first, and frowned.

  “I’m leaving,” Sarah said, without preamble, without warning, without taking a breath. Best, she thought, to pull this thorn from her skin quickly.

  Her father, who’d been writing a letter, set down his quill. “Leaving?”

  “You haven’t misheard,” she said. The end of her statement wobbled, but she ruthlessly flattened her voice. She needed to do this. Needed to get through this. She couldn’t slip away in the night, though some frightened part of herself wanted to. She loved them too much to not try one last time…though she felt more dread than hope. “The things you desire for me are…they are not what I desire for myself.”

  “What things?” her father said sharply. “Marriage? A future? A place? Good God, Sarah, I never thought I’d have to say this, but stop being ridiculous.”

  “Sarah,” her mother began, more quietly, cutting through the earl’s anger with her calm. Sarah felt her lip tremble and had to bite down until the pain distracted her. “
Don’t make a hasty decision. You should know better than to let your emotions rule you.”

  “Hasty,” she repeated numbly. She remembered what Win had told her…that her mother suspected. Or maybe she knew. Maybe she’d always known. “It’s been years,” she whispered. She hadn’t felt whole in years.

  Her father glanced at her mother with a puzzled expression, clearly oblivious. Her mother’s mouth flattened to a thin line as she gazed at Sarah.

  “I’m tired of being practical,” Sarah forced out. “I want to feel like I’m…awake.”

  This somewhat incoherent explanation was greeted by a sarcastic laugh from her father. “Then you’ll simply have to feel awake in London.”

  “I’ve already told you I won’t marry,” she said. “There’s no point in a London Season.”

  He ignored her, gestured vaguely at the valise and then turned back to his letter. Her chest ached, and she had to ball her hand into a fist to keep from touching the brittle spot. “We will depart for London in two days’ time. Until then, you will remain here,” he said. “Have one of the maids put away your things.”

  Sarah closed her eyes and steeled herself. It felt very much like she was about to tear out a piece of her own heart, still bleeding, still beating.

  Then she knelt carefully and picked up her valise. Her hands gripped the handle so tightly that her palms stung. “I’m leaving,” she repeated, no emotion in her voice. No, it was all underneath the surface, roiling, violent.

  Her mother’s calm was starting to deteriorate, though. She flicked an anxious glance between her husband and her daughter.

  She knew them both so well, Sarah thought miserably. She must have known by now that neither of them would give.

  Sarah was not entirely surprised when her father threw down the quill, ink spattering across the table’s surface. “Then you’ll go without my support. Without any money to your name. How long do you think you can survive on your own? You know nothing.”

  “Perhaps—” Sarah’s mother began, but Sarah’s voice cut through, sharper, clearer, stronger: “I can learn.”

  And she wouldn’t be on her own. She had friends. And she had Win, who was both a friend and not a friend. Who was something more. Who was everything she’d ever wanted.

  It hurt—Lord, it hurt—but before she turned away, she looked at them both, memorizing their faces. This wasn’t how she wanted to remember them, pale and shocked and angry, but if this was what she was given, this was what she would take. They were too close and too dear. She forced herself to look at them before she left. She forced herself to look at them, one last time.

  And then she quietly gathered the broken pieces of her broken heart and went to find the only person who could help put them back together.

  Win hadn’t had her morning tea yet. She turned away from the washstand and blinked, confused, at the sight of Sarah standing by the bed, a valise resting atop the mattress.

  “What is that?”

  “The things I couldn’t bear to leave,” Sarah said.

  Win wrapped her dressing robe more tightly around herself. “We’re going?”

  Sarah nodded. “I’ve been employed.”

  She stepped closer to Sarah, dizzy with the sensation that everything was happening too fast. “Employed?”

  Sarah smiled slightly. “You don’t have to make it sound like some strange nonsensical word.”

  But it was strange. Sarah was the daughter of an earl. A wealthy one at that. Employment and Lady Sarah Lark were somewhat paradoxical in the same sentence.

  “I’m going to make dresses,” Sarah said. “I admit I had some help, getting the position, but I think I can learn.”

  Win shook her head, feeling dazed. Dressmaking? Rows and rows of stitches. Hours spent hunched over fabric with cramped hands and tired eyes. It sounded like hard work. “This is because of me.”

  “Yes,” Sarah agreed. “You’ve made me realize what I’m willing to sacrifice and what I’m not. What I’m willing to do and not do. You’ve brought me clarity.”

  But… “You won’t be able to travel. You’ve been dreaming about traveling for so long.” She wasn’t sure why that was her first thought…it seemed an easier thing to latch on to, but she forced herself to ask: “And your parents? Sarah?”

  Sarah’s silence was her answer.

  Fear rose in Win’s chest. “You’ll have to give up so much. Too much. I’m not worth it. I’m not. I—”

  Sarah touched the back of her wrist, making her fall silent quite abruptly. “I’ve been dreaming of you longer,” Sarah said simply. “I’ve been dreaming of you since the day we met. That day…it was like the whole world came into bloom.”

  Win was almost startled by the intensity she saw in Sarah’s eyes, the depth, the promise. But then, why should she be surprised? This was the woman she’d fallen in love with—proper on the outside, with a will of steel at her core.

  When they’d been younger, everyone had thought Win was the bolder girl, and Sarah the more timid one, but it wasn’t true, really. Win might have charged ahead with her wild schemes, dragging her best friend along for the ride, but any confidence she’d displayed was more veneer than anything else.

  Sarah was the one whose poise went beneath the skin, down to her bones, down to her heart.

  And she wanted Win. Enough to give up everything else. It was a hard thing for Win to fathom, but she trusted Sarah, with every inch of her soul.

  “Will you come with me, Win?”

  Yes, yes. She would follow her anywhere. All she had to do was ask.

  “It would look odd if you left and I stayed behind, wouldn’t it?”

  Sarah’s mouth lifted. “True.”

  “So I suppose I must,” she said airily, as if her heart wasn’t threatening to burst from her chest. “But I do have one condition.”

  “What is that?”

  “I’m going to look for employment, too.”

  Sarah’s hand slipped away. “You don’t have to.”

  “I do have to,” she said. “I can’t let you take all the burden on yourself. I can’t let you sacrifice everything for me and not help. From now on, we need to take care of one another, or this isn’t going to work.”

  Sarah cocked her head, smiling slightly. “When did you get so wise?”

  Win laughed. “I’ve had a lot of time to think, these past few years.”

  They packed a valise for Win, and to her surprise, they went out the back, into the garden.

  “I wanted to see it, one last time,” Sarah said softly. “This is where we first met.”

  The grass was damp from a recent rainfall, the fresh bright green of spring replacing the withered yellow of winter. The soil was black. There was a tension in the humid air, an electric charge, as if one spark might set the world on fire.

  Win breathed deeply of rich dirt and new growth. “Will you miss them?”

  Sarah paused. She knew what Win was asking. “Yes,” she said.

  There were no reassurances or platitudes that Win could offer. Sarah loved her parents, but she’d made up her mind, and when she made up her mind, she didn’t falter.

  Sarah stepped toward the rose bushes that lined the house. They were black and gnarled, all violent thorns without leaves and petals to soften them. But she bent down, carefully parting a branch to reveal a small red rose, hidden from prying eyes.

  “It’s bloomed too early,” Win said.

  “It has,” Sarah agreed. “But it might yet survive.”

  “It might, with a little patience.”

  “And a little strength.”

  Sarah straightened, and they looked at each other. When Win examined the feelings tangling inside her, she recognized fear—of a new life, of the unknown—but far, far greater than fear was hope.

  It lifted her heart. It made her look at Sarah and smile, all the love in the world shining in her eyes. When Sarah held out her hand, the same love reflected back, Win took it without hesitation.


  It had taken them so long to get to this point, but if felt like, finally, they were exactly where they were meant to be.

  They would meet the future. They would conquer it. They would make it their own.

  Together.

  Epilogue

  Six months later

  Their days went like this: Sarah woke up early and fixed herself coffee—a thing she’d never had much of a taste for until she’d begun to work. Sometimes Win was awake when Sarah left, sometimes she wasn’t.

  Not long after Sarah had started working at the dressmaker’s, Win had been hired as an assistant to Mrs. Smith. She helped her move the ungainly telescope, took down notes, and double-checked Mrs. Smith’s math equations. So she was up late on clear nights, and subsequently slept in late the next morning.

  They were both satisfied with their positions. They even liked them, to an extent. But what they lived for was cloudy nights and Sarah’s day off per week. The times when it was just the two of them, in the little home they’d made together.

  They were busy often, and sometimes they were tired, but they were happy, too.

  When Sarah thought of the two paths she could have taken—the first one, a life of comfort but no love, a life where she had to keep Win at a distance; or a more difficult life, with Win at her side, her best friend, her lover, a place of their own, a home for the two of them…

  There was no contest.

  She’d known when she’d made the decision that she was making the right choice. Time hadn’t shaken her conviction, it had only made it stronger.

  Win came to the morning room in a dressing robe, red hair gloriously tousled and lips slightly swollen, as if she’d woken up from a night of fairly vigorous lovemaking.

  Which, of course, she had. Last night had been a cloudy night.

  Sarah hid her smile behind her cup.

  Win went to the fireplace and poured herself some coffee. Sipped it. Wrinkled her nose and dropped no less than three sugar cubes in before she sat down at the table across from Sarah.