Gayle Wilson

by Lady Sarah's Son

  “Where is he?” Sarah asked.

  “In his rooms, my lady. What’s left of ’em,” Mrs. Simkins added almost under her breath.

  Sarah knew what that meant. Her father had always had destructive tendencies in his anger, but during the last three years, these rages had grown increasingly more violent.

  “I’ll see to him,” Sarah said, ignoring the last comment. “May I have your keys?” And when the ring had been handed over, she smiled at the housekeeper before she dismissed her. “Thank you, Mrs. Simkins. That will be all, I think.”

  Sarah waited until the woman retreated toward the kitchen before she allowed herself to react. She closed her eyes tiredly, dreading what she would find when she went upstairs. But this was why she had come home, she told herself, and putting off the confrontation wouldn’t change anything. At least Andrew wasn’t here to witness what went on.

  Unconsciously she placed the tips of her cold fingers against her lips, pressing them there tightly to still their trembling. She was a coward, she thought in disgust, opening her eyes. And she had never in her life been called upon to face real disaster. Not like Justin.

  The catalogue of what her husband had endured would have defeated a lesser man. Her supposed betrayal of their love and the broken engagement. Surviving years of war and the loss of friends, and then, at the very end, suffering such a devastating injury. And finally coming home to face the loss of his entire family and the threatened loss of everything he held dear.

  Still, when she had found him last night at the foot of those treacherous stairs, Justin had managed to jest about the cause. of his fall. That was the kind of man she had married. The kind she had chosen to guide Drew to manhood. And here she was, surrounded by a house full of servants, afraid to face her own father. Trembling with dread over what lay ahead—which would be nothing more than a few moments of unpleasantness.

  Justin was looking after Drew. He would keep him safe. The rest of it was up to her to deal with. Her father. And David Osborne. Little enough, she told herself again. Resolutely, she walked to the stairs and then slowly began to climb them.

  Sarah knocked on the door of her father’s room, putting her ear against the solid wood. There was no sound. And, although she waited, perfectly still, there was no answer to her tap. She wondered if her father had finally fallen asleep, exhausted by what had, according to Dawson’s message, been three days of almost endless ranting and raving.

  “Papa,” she called, listening again for a response. There was nothing. She found the right key on the housekeeper’s huge ring. After she had unlocked the door, she laid the keys on the hall table and put her hand over the doorknob, saying a silent prayer before she forced herself to turn it.

  The room was dark and still. There were no candles, of course. And no lamps. Her father’s tendency to throw things precluded those. Although it was twilight, there should have been some light coming in from the tall windows. Instead, the draperies had been pulled across them, making the chamber almost as black as night. And as silent.

  Gathering her courage, she stepped inside and closed the door behind her. There was a thick stench to the darkness, a combination of unwashed body and unemptied chamber pot. She swallowed against her nausea, although the smell was not unexpected. Or unfamiliar.

  She stood a moment, trying not to breathe too deeply, her back against the door, and allowed her eyes to adjust to the dimness. Eventually they did, but she was able to distinguish the features of the room and its furnishings only because she was very familiar with them.

  She put her hand on the massive chest that stood beside the door, the solid wood reassuring under her fingertips. She could make out the tall, old-fashioned bed with its hangings. And her father’s desk and chair, which stood near the shrouded windows.

  “Papa,” she called again.

  She knew her voice wouldn’t awaken him if he were sleeping. The exhausted slumber he fell into after one of these episodes was as deep as a coma. He seemed unaware of noise or light around him. Once he had slept for three days, awakening, she remembered, uncharacteristically docile, almost childlike.

  She walked toward the windows, intending to draw the curtains just enough that she could make sure her father was all right. As she moved, broken glass or porcelain crunched under her feet. Once she stumbled, tripping over an object she hadn’t seen and couldn’t identify. When she reached the windows, her fingers hesitated only a second before she reached up and pulled the drapery aside.

  A murky twilight filtered into the devastated room. There was nothing standing on the tops of any of the tables or chests. Every object had been thrown or swept off onto the floor. There was an overturned tray of food, obviously left from the last time Dawson had tried to get her father to eat. Clothing had been scattered across the room. Some of it appeared to have been cut or torn to shreds. Knowing her father’s unnatural strength at times like these, she did not doubt the latter.

  Steeling herself, she walked toward the high bed. She had hoped her father would be there sleeping, but he wasn’t. The bed seemed almost the only undisturbed feature of the room, its damask cover bizarrely smooth amid the chaos.

  “Where is the whoreson bastard?”

  Sarah jumped at the question. She turned, guided by its sound, and found her father coming toward her from the darkest corner of the room, blue eyes peering out from under thick brows. His face was contorted, spittle trailing from the corner of his mouth. Drew? she thought. My God, he means Drew.

  “He isn’t here,” she said, trying to pitch her voice to be low and calm. “There is no one here but me, Papa. It’s Sarah. I’ve come to take care of you.”

  “You’re the one who brought him here,” he said.

  In spite of her resolution, Sarah shrank from the menace of his tone. He looked frail and thin, and he was both barefoot and coatless, but his voice seemed as strong as it ever had.

  “There’s no one else here, Papa,” she said again. “No one but you and me.”

  “You’re hiding him from me. All of you are hiding him.”

  “No one’s hiding.”

  “They’re all hiding,” he said. “They’re hiding because they know what I’ll do to them.”

  “No one’s hiding,” she said again.

  She took a step nearer, and he lunged toward her. Instinctively, she dodged the object he thrust at her like a rapier. It was a cane, she realized. A fine ebony walking stick with an etched silver head—one her mother had given him. He was using it as if it were a foil, the classic positioning of his body making the mimicry obvious.

  “It’s Sarah, Papa,” she said, regretting that all she felt was terror. She wanted to do what she had done last night—run away from something she didn’t understand. From something that frightened and confused her. Something unknown.

  But this was her father. Who had once loved her. Who had loved her mother. He had loved her so much that he had never been the same after her death. Never again the man she and Amelia had adored when they were children.

  “I’ll kill him,” the old man said. “I swear on your mother’s grave I’ll skewer him like the whoreson bastard he is.”

  “He’s not here, Papa,” Sarah said softly, taking another step nearer to him. “No one else is here. Why don’t you let me help you into your bed? You must be tired.”

  “You won’t fool me with your sweet ways, whore,” he said. “You won’t ever fool me again.”

  He turned the cane, executing another perfect fencing maneuver. It was a grotesque ballet. A mad old man, barefoot, performing, with what seemed to Sarah a nearly flawless precision, moves he had learned more than half a century before.

  “Let me turn down your bed,” she said, moving still closer.

  He thrust the point of his imaginary sword toward the center of her chest. This time she stood her ground. She could see his eyes, pale, watery, and almost luminescent in his fevered insanity, shining at her through the dimness.

  “Take me to hi
m,” he demanded, the tip of the cane poised, if it were a blade, to pierce her heart. “Take me to him now.”

  “Papa,” Sarah whispered, holding his eyes, trying to find something of her father still within them. “It’s me, Papa. There’s no one else here. If you’ll lie down, I’ll call Dawson. He’ll see to everything,” she promised. “He’ll make it all better.”

  He cocked his head, as if evaluating her tone. She forced herself to remain motionless. She was near enough that she could smell him, the odor of an aged, unwashed body. sickeningly combined with the scent of the perfume he had worn since the days he had spent at court, when he had been one of the old king’s favorites.

  “Aren’t you tired, Papa?” she asked softly.

  Moving slowly and very carefully, she put her hand up and touched the tip of the cane, which was only inches from her breastbone. His eyes, feral as an animal’s, watched her. He was like an animal, she thought, wild and untrusting.

  “Let me take this,” she said.

  She gripped the cane more firmly and tugged on it. Surprisingly, he released the handle, and then he straightened from the fencer’s lunge. As she watched, his body slumped, losing the youthful swordsman’s grace it had assumed.

  “Aren’t you tired?” she asked again. “It’s been so long since you’ve slept. Dawson told me. Your bed is here.”

  Still gripping the end of the cane, she turned, using it to point toward the inviting smoothness of the counterpane. Her father’s eyes followed the movement.

  The bed did look inviting, she realized. And once he was there, he would fall asleep. That had always been the pattern before. She had no reason to doubt that after a three-day-long rampage he wouldn’t follow it again. As soon as he had closed his eyes, she would dispatch Dawson to see to the room. Dawson really would take care of everything.

  Except getting her father to calm down. Sarah was the only one who had ever had any success at that when he reached this stage. This had been the easiest of her encounters with him, but her father’s strength had been exhausted in the time it had taken the message to reach her and for her to get home. Never before had she allowed him to go on as he had this time. She had always tried to intervene before his rage had run its course.

  She had been afraid that to do otherwise would lead to apoplexy or stroke. Then, when his fit was all over, she would wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to let fate take its course. Death seemed preferable to this madness. It would have been preferable for her father, if he had been in his right mind.

  “Come to bed, Papa. It’s time to rest,” she said.

  She held out the hand that was not encumbered by the walking stick. Almost as if he couldn’t resist its invitation, her father put his spotted, vein-gnarled hand in hers. ‘It was trembling, she realized. And hers was not.

  She was no longer afraid of him. She was the one in control now. She was the parent, luring the tired, fretful child to his rest. She closed her fingers around his hand and pulled. He shuffled toward her, and she led the way to the bed.

  She wished she could bathe him and put him into his nightshirt. Of course, none of that mattered now. He would sleep, and as he slept, the servants would clean up the devastation he had wrought. She bent, laying the walking stick on the floor beside the bed.

  With the hand that had held it, she pulled back the covers. Obediently, the old man stepped past her, up onto the first of the two low steps that had been placed beside the high bed. He crawled under the covers she had lifted, and then Sarah drew them back over his body.

  He was shivering. For the first time she became aware of how cold the room was. The bed warmer that was always placed between her father’s sheets each night wasn’t there, of course. Dawson would see to the fire when he came up, but for now she tucked the covers around her father’s shoulders.

  “Cold,” he whispered, his body trembling.

  “I know,” she said. “I know you are.”

  With the hand that had warded off the thrust of the cane, she smoothed back the wildness of his hair. It was almost as long as Drew’s now, she thought, because he hated to have it cut and so she didn’t force him to.

  “Dawson will see to the fire while you sleep. Close your eyes, Papa, and when you wake up again, it will be warm,” she promised. She was talking simply so he should hear the sound of a human voice. Perhaps he would even recognize it as hers.

  His eyes were on her face. They seemed as unseeing, as unknowing, as those of Meg Randolph’s baby. Sarah smiled into them, wondering if he would ever know her again. If he would ever speak her name.

  “Go to sleep,” she whispered.

  “A good child,” her father said.

  Given the context, Sarah wasn’t certain of his meaning, but she smiled at him again, her hand stroking his hair. Slowly his eyelids drifted downward. His eyes opened once or twice more, holding on hers a moment, before the lids fell and stayed closed, finally hiding the lost emptiness that was in their faded blue.

  Sarah bent and put her lips against his forehead. His hand stirred beneath the cover, fighting its way outside. It patted her shoulder awkwardly, and when she lifted her head to see his face, his eyes were open again.

  His fingers, cold and trembling, cupped her cheek. “You’re a good child, Mellie,” he said distinctly.

  Mellie. It was what her father had called Amelia when she was small. His sweet Mellie. And she had been, of course. His baby girl. His favorite.

  Sarah put her hand over his, holding it there a long heartbeat, and then she lifted his fingers, limp and unmoving, and put his arm back under the covers. His eyes were closed, sunken under the discolored, paper-thin skin of their lids.

  She waited a long time beside his bed, keeping watch over him until the last of the fading daylight had slipped away into night. Then, stiff with the cold and with her long journey, she straightened.

  She did not look back at the old man who had once been her father. She crossed the debris-strewn room and opened the door, taking a long deep breath before she picked up Mrs. Simkins’s keys and went downstairs to find Dawson.

  Chapter Ten

  “Sarah!” Drew shouted. “We’re home, Sarah! We’re home!”

  He scampered into the estate office almost before the sound of the words had faded. Sarah had only had time enough to move around her desk before he was in the doorway. Suddenly he was in her arms, his small body flung against hers as if it had been months since he had seen her, instead of days.

  She hugged him fiercely and then held him away from her, a hand on each shoulder, so she could look at him. His cheeks were reddened from the cold, and his eyes were bright and clear. And happy, she realized. Incredibly happy. Sarah pulled off his cap, running her fingers through the disordered curls and feeling the burn of tears. She hugged him close again to hide them.

  “Are you very glad to see me?” he asked.

  “More glad than you can ever imagine,” she said truthfully.

  “Wynfield said you would be. He said you would hug me to pieces, and you are.”

  Drew struggled a little, and she released her hold, allowing him to step back. “You’ve grown a foot,” she said.

  He did seem taller. And older. Of course, it might be that when she had had him constantly at her side, she hadn’t noticed his maturing. Not even when “I’m no longer a baby” was his most frequent rejoinder to her every comment.

  He wasn’t, she realized. He was a little boy who was growing up. And growing away from her as he did. Away from her and toward Wynfield, which was exactly what she had wanted.

  “Look,” Drew said, ignoring her hyperbolic comment about his size as too ridiculous to answer. He held out for her inspection a small leather crop, its stock wellworn. “It was Wynfield’s,” he explained, the words rushing over one another in his hurry to get them out. “His very own first crop, which he has given to me for Christmas.”

  He looked up from his treasure, eyes widened and mouth opened in amazement, waiting, she
knew, for her equally excited response. She wouldn’t have disappointed him for the world.

  “His very own?” she said, her tone properly awestruck.

  Solemnly, Drew nodded.

  “Oh, my goodness,” she breathed.

  She reached out and touched its smooth handle, running her fingers admiringly over the surface.

  “And just my size,” Drew said.

  “It does seem to be,” Sarah agreed.

  “What a lucky boy I am, Sarah. Don’t you think I am?”

  She almost missed the question. She had been listening instead, as she had been since Drew’s precipitous entrance, she realized, for the sound of the uneven footsteps that were now coming down the hall. Her eyes lifted from the crop and over Drew’s head to focus on the doorway. Again, her heart seemed to beat in her throat, its pulse strong enough to be visible if anyone were looking. A sweet rush of moist heat stirred in her lower body as the limping footsteps came closer.

  And then Wynfield was in the doorway, wide shoulders almost filling the frame. His hazel eyes found her face before they considered anything else in the room. Like Drew’s, his cheeks were touched with red. He had taken off his hat, a tall, handsome beaver, which he held in one hand, leaving his thick chestnut hair almost as tousled as Drew’s.

  “Hello, Sarah,” he said softly.

  She fought the urge to throw herself into his arms as wildly as Drew had sought hers, the urge to tell him how much she had missed him and had longed to hear him say her name. Instead of doing any of those things, she said, “Did you have a good trip?”

  He nodded, almost imperceptibly, his lips compressing a little before he answered. “Considering the season.”

  “It’s been snowing here for three days,” she offered.

  She realized she was still on her knees, looking up at him as they discussed the weather. She put her hand on the floor and pushed herself up. Her knees were trembling as she walked back behind the desk and sat down again in her chair.