The Kent Heiress

by Roberta Gellis

  The tsar, Perce wrote, continued to be almost completely a recluse, except for a most unwise liaison with Madame Maria Naryshkin. Rumors abounded, principally that Alexander was growing more and more unstable, like his father, bursting into unpredictable angers and then succumbing to deep depressions. He told her, too, about the reasonably successful campaign Admiral Dmitri Senyavin was waging against French outposts in southern Dalmatia.

  Sabrina smiled tenderly as she read. Perce must have known that all this information would have come through the diplomatic post. He simply could not stop writing, because it was a form of contact with her. She understood. She felt the same. Having finished reading, she turned the sheets over and began again. The words did not matter, only that Perce had written them. Then a sense of anxiety took hold of her. Once more she read Perce’s letter, trying to perceive meanings he did not wish to state openly. At once something came—there was no hint of any intended return. In fact, the overall impression was that he expected to be in Russia for some time.

  Yes, there it was. “Spring comes very late in this country and, I am told, with great suddenness. I will be interested to see this, although I do not look forward to the heat of another Russian summer.

  But Sabrina knew there were negotiations under way for peace. Had Perce simply not received orders yet? Had he decided to stay in Russia in spite of orders to return to England? Or did the secretary of war have opinions different from those of the Foreign Office? If so, he could have sent secret instructions for those agents who were not readily identifiable to continue their work. Impatience swept through Sabrina. She had to get back to Russia. She stood up.

  “I think I will go to London,” she announced.

  Leonie raised her brows. “Before breakfast?”

  Color flooded into Sabrina’s face, and she sat down again, reaching for her cup.

  “Let me pour another cup for you,” Leonie said. “That must be stone cold. Your Russian acquaintance writes an absorbing letter.”

  The servants put the mail, out and Leonie was too polite to pry by peering at Sabrina’s letters. Thus she had not seen Perce’s handwriting. Sabrina’s mind jumped one way and then the other. She would not lie to Leonie, not for any reason.

  “It’s not a Russian. It’s Perce,” Sabrina said, and flushed again.

  “Perce?” Leonie sounded stunned. Her mouth opened again, but she shut it on whatever almost popped out—a miracle of self-control for Leonie. “I hope he is well,” she remarked blandly after a short silence.

  “He doesn’t say,” Sabrina replied in a small voice.

  Leonie’s mouth opened again, and again shut soundlessly over a caustic remark that his health seemed to be the only topic he could possibly have omitted in a letter of that length. But Sabrina did not notice. She stood again looking worried. Leonie’s casual question, asked only to cover an awkward silence, had raised a specter for Sabrina. Was Perce ill? Was that why he had not mentioned his health, why he said he did not look forward to the hot summer? One part of her mind laughed at her. There was no reason for Perce to mention his health; a normal young man would never think of doing so. The other, silly part of her mind was frightened to death.

  She felt an immediate need to write to him. Fortunately she had an excellent reason to do so. Perhaps in the change of administrations, whoever was responsible for giving Perce his orders had been dismissed or transferred. When Philip had gone to France in 1804, he had been responsible only to the foreign secretary himself, and there had been no written orders, only Philip’s report after he had returned. Could it be that Mr. Pitt’s outgoing war secretary had forgotten to mention Perce to Mr. Windham, the current war secretary? The situation had not been normal, after all. There had been great confusion in the aftermath of Mr. Pitt’s sudden death. It was possible that Perce had left St. Petersburg before Fox’s moves toward making peace were known.

  Sabrina’s letter was fully as long as Perce’s. She told him how Foreign Minister Fox had been informed of a plot to assassinate Bonaparte, and Fox had passed the information to Bonaparte’s foreign minister, Talleyrand, on February twentieth. From this opening, negotiations had been initiated using as an intermediary Lord Yarborough, who had been interned in France in 1803. Lord Lauderdale had just been sent to Paris, so it seemed that there was a real chance for peace between England and France.

  As she wrote this, conscience stabbed Sabrina. Roger had nearly had a fit when Lauderdale was sent. He found it incredible that so clever a man as Fox could fall victim to the same tactics that Bonaparte had used so often. The Corsican had made a regular practice of using the period in which he was negotiating peace to build up his army to make war more effectively. But if she said that, Sabrina knew that Perce would never consider coming home.

  Clearly stated, Sabrina’s guilt was too plain for her to ignore. Duty was duty. Biting her lip, she described Roger’s conclusions and then added, “I do not know when, if ever, we will return to Russia. I understand that William is advising the ministry on Austrian-Russian relations. There is a conviction here that the tsar will make peace. In that case, the British legation in Russia will be much reduced.” She could not say, Come home to me. That would be very wrong, but she knew Perce would understand, as she had understood his I miss you.

  Eventually she ran dry and signed and sealed her letter. Writing it, however, had crystallized her need for action. The peace of Stour Castle, which she had found so soothing, now smothered her. In her need for action, a confrontation with William faded into insignificance. Many, many wives looked the other way while their husbands played. Sabrina would merely become one in this numerous group. She did not care. She needed to be closer to what was happening. This was easy enough to accomplish. Sabrina had only to tell Leonie, ask Katy to have her clothing packed, and move to her husband’s house in London.

  Sabrina was grimly amused that William was shocked, and none too pleased, to see her. However, his attitude changed when he discovered that she had not come on the warpath. There was another sharp shift back to dissatisfaction when he discovered that Sabrina had no intentions of resuming conjugal relations.

  They had just returned from a grand gala given by Earl Fitzwilliam, and Sabrina was still glowing with the pleasure of returning to the social whirl. She looked exquisite. William signaled the footman away and removed her cloak himself, bending his head to kiss her bare shoulder. She whirled away from him, unconsciously rubbing her shoulder as if to wipe away the feel of his lips.

  “Don’t touch me,” she breathed.

  William blinked “Don’t touch you,” he repeated. “What in the world do you mean? You’re my wife. Don’t sound like a silly shopgirl.”

  “Oh, have you taken to chasing them, too?” Sabrina snapped “I thought your taste was degenerating when you took off after Countess Latuski, but I didn’t know how far downhill you had gone.”

  “Sabrina! Don’t be indecent!”

  She opened her eyes to their widest extent. “Indecent? I? I haven’t been chasing shopgirls—you have.”

  “Hold your tongue, Sabrina,” William growled.

  “Certainly,” she said, and flounced down the hall toward the staircase.

  William threw her cloak at a chair and followed it with his outer garments. He caught her halfway up the stairs, but she wrenched her arm out of his hand, repeating her, “Don’t touch me,” in a vicious hiss.

  “Stop being ridiculous,” he snarled, reaching for her again.

  “If you put your hand on me again,” Sabrina said coldly, “I’ll scream the house down. If Katy doesn’t kill you, Roger will when I tell him.”

  William dropped his hand “What the devil is wrong with you, Sabrina? I just want to talk to you, and you have insulted me and threatened me—”

  “Since when do conversations begin with an intimate kiss?’ she interrupted.

  “I cannot think that very exceptional between a husband and wife who have been apart for so
me time,” William said softly, smiling.

  “I’m amazed that you noticed,” Sabrina remarked with weary disgust.

  “Oh I noticed,” William purred, completely misinterpreting his wife’s tone “You’re a silly girl to be so jealous.”

  Sabrina paused and looked at him. She was irritated by his assumption and decided that this was as good a time as any to clarify the terms upon which she was willing to act as his wife. William was really not a political creature but a member of the diplomatic service. Nonetheless he had received his initial appointment and various promotions during Pitt’s administration. Because Fox was not a fool and his party had not been in power for many years, he was calling upon any experienced men who were willing to serve under him. However, Fox had no reason to back William up under adverse circumstances. If William were involved in any scandal, Fox would dismiss him.

  Because she was somewhat tired, angry and apprehensive, Sabrina made a mistake. Instead of turning and going downstairs again, she went on up and into her dressing room. It was a natural place for her to go. In the drawing rooms and parlors of the main floor, the lights had been extinguished and the fires allowed to die. Her dressing room and William’s, on opposite sides of the double bed- chamber, were still lit and warmed.

  It would never have occurred to Sabrina to go to William’s room. That was fitted out as an additional bedchamber, and William had often slept there, even before any differences had arisen between them or at least any that Sabrina had known about. She had never liked it. Roger and Leonie never slept apart unless they were in different parts of the country. William had insisted it was because he could not bear to wake her when he came in late from all-male meetings and conferences. Later Sabrina realized that he had probably been unfaithful all along and that many late nights had actually been spent with other women. Most likely he did not want to come to her bed because he was afraid she would want to make love, or because he thought she might notice the scent or see evidence of cosmetics on him.

  However, Sabrina was not thinking of that, and it would not have troubled her if she had thought of it. Her mind was busy arranging what she would say, and she opened the door of her room and walked in, not realizing she had just confirmed William’s impression that she was jealous. Worse, he believed that her invitation into the dressing room was an invitation to far more.

  Although there was no bed in the room, nothing more suggestive then a chaise lounge for Sabrina to rest on, William knew that the room would be empty. Sabrina never allowed Katy to wait up for her when she would be late. Before Sabrina was married, she and Katy had had many tussles on the subject of waiting up. Afterward, Katy had agreed readily. It was much more interesting to have one’s husband help with undressing than one’s “nurse”. Over the year in which Sabrina thought she was happily married, this had grown to be a custom. Katy still did not wait up after ten or eleven o’clock when William and Sabrina were together.

  Knowing this, William leapt to the conclusion that Sabrina was subtly suggesting that he overpower her and prove that her jealousy had no foundation. After all, why else would she invite him into a place where she would be totally unprotected, especially after saying she would scream if he touched her. Screaming in the corridor would have made sense. The servants would have heard her. Someone would surely have come running to find out what caused the disturbance.

  In Sabrina’s dressing room the chances of screams being heard were much smaller. All the bedchambers on the floor, except their own, were empty. The doors and walls were well built. Neither the menservants in their quarters below nor the maidservants on the topmost floor would hear a muted cry. Even Charlot, waiting in William’s dressing room to put him to bed, would hear very little, if anything, with the large bedchamber and two dosed doors between them.

  Obviously Sabrina had returned because she found him irresistible. On the other hand she could not, without damaging her pride, take him back to her bed. If he overpowered her she could weep and call him a brute and have what she wanted all along. He was smiling when Sabrina turned stopped, and said, “William we—” But he did not stop. He took two steps more and seized her in his arms. Before she could cry out, he had dammed her lips. She struggled, twisting and bending, making furious muffled noises but her arms had been caught down by her sides. Although she managed to bend her elbows and grasp at his coat, she could not get enough leverage to push or pull him effectively.

  Surprise also made Sabrina’s struggle ineffectual. Aside from the single attempt he had made to discipline her with a blow nearly two years previously, William had never used violence of any kind, and certainly not in lovemaking. As far as Sabrina knew, her husband was a seducer, not a rapist. Thus, although she tried to get away, she made no attempt to hurt him, merely wrenching her head free to gasp, “Let me go you idiot.”

  Encouraged by her ineffective struggles, William murmured, “You are far too beautiful, far too desirable for me ever to let you go.”

  As he spoke William shifted his arms, raising his right hand to grasp Sabrina’s neck and hair so that she could not move her head and he could plaster his mouth on hers again. The grip was strong and painful. Shocked and frightened, Sabrina cried out under the gag of his lips. They had been quarreling the last time be tried force to tame her, and she had been so angry she had hardly felt the pain when he hit her. This time her temper had no time to flare, and the bruising grip paralyzed her so that even when he relaxed his left arm to grasp her breast with his hand, Sabrina did not immediately realize she had been granted some freedom. Instead of twisting around to the right and wrenching herself loose she continued to try to free her mouth.

  Further convinced by this seeming lack of initiative, William pulled sharply downward on the minuscule bodice of his wife’s evening dress. It was in the height of fashion and barely covered the large pink areolas around Sabrina’s nipples. The yank thus drew the fabric below Sabrina’s full breasts to where the material could stretch more. This pushed the breast upward so that the nipple was tilted provocatively. William could not see this, but it was scarcely the first time he had used the technique He opened his fingers, felt for a purchase, and pinched and rubbed Sabrina’s nipple gently.

  In the next moment all hell broke loose. The intimate caress roused Sabrina from fear to fury. Pain could no longer terrify her. She was nauseous with disgust, revolted by the physical sensation his fingers had generated. In a hysteria of rage she stamped violently on William’s foot, grasped his hair with her free hand, and tore his mouth from hers. William squawked with agony, letting go of her head and involuntarily jerking his foot out from under hers.

  This movement, plus Sabrina’s violent pull on his hair, propelled them apart. William’s hand, coming away from Sabrina’s breast, caught in her dress and ripped it. The sound and sensation, seeming to continue the assault on her, further stimulated Sabrina’s resistance. Finding both arms free, she pushed William so fiercely that off balance as he was, he staggered back. Sabrina did not delay an instant but ran to her desk and seized the heavy inkwell, which she threw as hard as she could.

  Since they were no more than ten feet apart and the target was large, Sabrina did not need much aim. The inkwell caught William in the chest painfully, completely overbalancing him and spattering him with ink. His arms windmilled in a vain attempt to find support, but there was none, and he sat down hard on the floor. Sabrina now had the sander in hand, and her arm cocked to throw a second missile.

  “Are you crazy?” William roared.

  “Filth!” Sabrina shrieked. “How dare you!”

  “How dare I? What did you come back for, if that wasn’t what you wanted?”

  “Wanted?” Sabrina gasped, horrified. “Fool! You’ve read too many books written by men for men. If you ever try to force me again, I won’t wait for Roger to kill you. I’ll geld you myself before I cut your throat.”

  Nonetheless her arm dropped, and she allowed the sander to come to rest o
n the writing table. Her husband made no move to attack her again, and the affronted indignation on his face, crying aloud that his questions were quite sincere, cooled her rage. She knew his huge conceit. She should have foreseen the conclusion to which he had leapt. She should have written to him first. It was really not his fault. Her unannounced and unexplained arrival must have seemed the result of an irresistible urge.

  Well, so it was! How was William to have known the urge was not toward him? Even if she had told him she was in love with another man, William probably would not have believed her, Sabrina thought. He would have assumed her confession was another jealous attempt to reawaken his interest in her. Then, how in the world was she going to convince him to leave her alone? He was so sure he was the Casanova of the British diplomatic service. Sabrina watched as he climbed painfully to his feet. He had jarred his tailbone when he sat down so hard. Poor Casanova!

  “Resistance is one thing,” William said indignantly, “but you have gone too far. I will just leave you to reconsider your silliness. I was willing to play your ridiculous game, but not to have you think you have the upper hand. When you are ready to say you are sorry and beg me to forgive you and promise to behave like a proper wife and cease your interference in my affairs, then…we will see. I might pardon you.” He turned to go.

  “Wait William,” Sabrina cried as she pulled her dress together and hid her exposed bosom.

  He turned back so eagerly and looked so comical in his ink-spattered clothes with his neckcloth all rucked up the side that Sabrina felt sorry for him. William was not stupid. That speech was a cover for his shock and embarrassment. He knew she had made him look foolish. Perhaps even his monstrous conceit was a form of protection. If so, Sabrina felt no need to puncture it for revenge; she didn’t even care enough for him to want revenge. And she didn’t want to be on bad terms with him. Let him think her jealous.