“Yes, but—” He looked at Tarasai. “Bring me my writing box. I must send a letter to Lucia at once. Sapphire says nothing of her godmother or Angelique. They must still be in London. I have to know if she’s all right, if this man is a good man.”
Tarasai reached out and covered his hand with hers. “Mon chèr, with the winter coming and the mail so unreliable, it could take many months for letters to cross the ocean.”
He looked into her eyes, understanding what she said. He might not have months left. But he smiled and placed his hand on her expanding abdomen. “My letter box please, Tarasai.”
“You look tired.” She stroked his cheek. “You should rest first.”
He closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them, rallying his strength. “First I will write Lucia a letter and you will take it down to the wharfs,” he said firmly. “Then I will be able to rest.”
She lowered her head to kiss his hand and then rose, walking away from his bed, wiping the tears from her eyes.
24
Sapphire knocked on Blake’s door, truly feeling foolish about this entire farce they had created out of their own stubbornness. For three nights in a row, he had ordered that he be served dinner on the balcony off his bedchamber and that she serve him. No one, not even the staunch housekeeper, questioned the master’s orders or his intentions with the new maid. Three nights in a row she had come to his private rooms, shared a meal with him, made love with him and then had redressed in the ridiculous maid’s clothes and had taken the dishes back to the kitchen before retiring to the attic to sleep alone under the eaves.
When Blake didn’t answer the door tonight, she knocked again, this time with the toe of her shoe as she shifted the weight of the tray in her arms. The smell of fresh bread wafted from beneath the domed silver lids and her stomach grumbled.
Myra had said nothing more to her about Blake or the time she was missing between serving him dinner and midnight, but as Sapphire crawled into bed on her hard pallet each night, she could feel her friend’s eyes on her through the darkness.
The door opened and Blake appeared barefoot, wearing only dark trousers and a white linen shirt half unbuttoned. He’d cut his hair shorter after their arrival in Boston, but tonight it looked pleasantly unkempt. He must have been reading on the windy balcony before she arrived.
It was all he seemed to do these days whenever he had a free moment. Books on geology were stacked everywhere in his bedchamber, as well as in his office. Last night, the entire household had searched for half an hour for a particular book on mechanical pumps he was certain someone had moved while cleaning, only to find it in the carriage.
“I carried this all the way up the stairs,” she told him. “Then I had to knock twice.” She was perturbed with him tonight and she didn’t know why.
Perhaps she was annoyed with herself for allowing this stalemate to continue. As it was now, Blake was getting much of what he wanted. He had dinner companionship and a good roll each night. She was even supplying first-rate maid service. Why would he ever want to change anything between them now?
“I’m sorry,” he said, taking the tray from her. “I must not have heard you. It’s windy on the balcony tonight.”
“Reading?” she asked, softening her tone, not meaning to be such a shrew. She hadn’t seen him all day and she missed him.
“Yes, and there’s something I want you to hear. I think we should go to Pennsylvania to see this. I’ll read it to you over dinner.”
He carried the tray out onto the balcony, and she halted in the doorway, pulling her mobcap off her head and letting the breeze ripple through her hair. She breathed deeply, filling her lungs with the tangy, evening air that blew off the bay. “What a relief. It’s cooler tonight than it’s been.”
“Weather’s finally turned.” He set down the serving tray and began to lift the silver covers off the dishes. “A few weeks of nice weather and then the chill will set in. Wait until you see how much snow falls.”
“I’ve never seen snow,” she said wistfully. “Not a lot of it in Martinique.”
“No, I don’t suppose there is, but then we have no coconuts.” He looked up at her, seeming more relaxed than usual. “Nothing like a snowy day to stay wrapped up in bed with a good book and a better woman.”
When she looked over to him, there was a hint of devilry in his eyes and she couldn’t help but smile. But all he referred to was his desire for her and that wasn’t enough. She’d decided sometime over the past few days that for some, for people like Angelique, perhaps, it was enough, but not for her.
“Let’s eat,” she said, walking toward the chair he had pulled out for her. “I’m famished. You can read to me about your rock oil while I dine on these oysters. Wait until you taste them. Mrs. Porter has—”
An insistent banging on the bedchamber door startled Sapphire and she looked through the doorway into the room, then back at Blake. No one had disturbed them on previous nights. If anyone knew she was here alone with him, the household certainly pretended otherwise. It was as if when she passed over a threshold, she and Blake existed in their own world.
“Sir…Mr. Thixton,” Mrs. Dedrick called from the other side of the door, her voice higher in pitch than usual.
Sapphire leaped out of the chair, pulling on her mobcap.
“Sapphire,” Blake intoned.
She ran for the door. “Mrs. Dedrick,” she said, pulling it open, dipping a quick curtsy. “I was just—”
“Mr. Thixton. You have a guest, sir.” Mrs. Dedrick said. “Mrs. Sheraton—”
“Step aside,” ordered Mrs. Sheraton from the corridor.
Sapphire recognized her from the dinner party.
The forty-year-old woman walked into the bedchamber in a swish of blue organdy. “Send them away, please, Blake,” she cried, red-eyed, a lace handkerchief knotted in her small hands.
Sapphire turned to Blake. He stood in the doorway to the balcony and she realized that they had reached a defining moment in their relationship, if a relationship was what they had.
“Come at once,” Mrs. Dedrick hissed at Sapphire, snapping her fingers as if calling a child or a pet. “Come.”
“Oh, Blake, you cannot believe what Rufus has done,” Mrs. Sheraton moaned, putting out her hand to him.
“What’s wrong, Grace?” Sapphire heard him say as she followed Mrs. Dedrick out of the bedchamber.
“The tray and covers from the meal,” Sapphire mumbled.
“Leave ‘em.” Mrs. Dedrick snapped, her keys jingling at her waist. “The mastah’s bechambah is not the place for you.”
“Oh, Blake,” Grace Sheraton sobbed, putting her arms over his shoulders.
He stood stiffly in the center of his bedchamber, unsure of what had just silently taken place between him and Sapphire. The ticking of the case clock on the mantel and Grace’s sniffles filled his head.
What had Sapphire expected him to do, turn Grace away? “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Has Rufus fallen ill?”
“Fallen ill?” Tears ran down a face that was still pretty for a woman almost ten years older than he. “If only I could be so fortunate.”
“Do you want to sit down?” He was more than a little uncomfortable with her body draped over his.
They had carried on their affair for more than five years. Her husband cheated on her with society women and maids alike and generally ignored her. It had seemed harmless enough, Blake’s liaisons with his neighbor. Grace was discreet, emotionally undemanding, and he enjoyed her company in bed. But since his return to Boston, he had avoided her invitations. He felt as if their time together was done and he had hoped it would just fade rather than having to come to a tearful, ugly ending, the way it was sometimes did with women. He had hoped to avoid a scene such as the one that appeared to be unfolding. Blake didn’t deal with crying women very well, certainly not crying women who were other men’s wives. He was never sure when the distress was genuine or when he was being manipulated.
Reluctantly, he wrapped one arm around her waist, but as he caught a whiff of the perfume that had once tantalized his senses, all he could think of was Sapphire and how differently she smelled than other women. Even back in London, she had rarely worn perfume. It was her hair that he smelled when he drew her close, her soft skin, her essence that beguiled him.
“What has Rufus done now?”
“He wants an annulment,” she murmured, pressing her face to his chest.
“An annulment?” Blake laughed. “You’ve been married twenty-five years. You’ve given him three children—”
“Then a divorce. He doesn’t care, he only wants to be rid of me now that I’m of no use or interest to him.” She began to cry in earnest, her tears dampening his shirt. “He says he’s fallen in love with another and that he’s leaving me to marry her.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t mean it.” Blake patted her shoulder. “You know how Rufus can be, especially when he’s been drinking.”
“He hasn’t been drinking,” she sobbed. “It’s…it’s some whore. A child from the pub where he takes his midday meal. I should have known there was something wrong when he stopped returning home for his nap.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Blake muttered.
“I don’t want you to say anything.” Grace looked up at him, her face sad and wet with tears.
Though he knew she cheated on her husband, he also knew that she loved her husband and that she was truly devastated.
“Just hold me,” she whispered. “Make me feel something good, just for a little while.”
She kissed him on the mouth and, at first, he resisted. In the back of his mind, he thought of Sapphire and of the word they had talked about the other night. The word that scared him more than he could admit to her or himself. He had asked her if she wanted him to say it, to say that he loved her. She hadn’t answered him and he didn’t know what that meant. Did she think she loved him, or was this part of her game to get what she could from him?
Blake didn’t know how he felt about Sapphire. But even if he did love her, if he gave in to her and said so, where would it lead him? How long would it last before she left him? Or saw him for the man he really was, leave taking what she could and then move on to the next man?
Grace’s insistent mouth slowly pushed aside his thoughts. She was a beautiful woman whom he had made love to many times. What reason did he have not to make love to her again?
“Blake,” she whispered, grasping his shirt, looking up at him with teary eyes. “Love me,” she begged.
He kissed her back and closed his eyes.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Sapphire busied herself cleaning up after the evening meal. Next, she began to clean off the old wooden table Mrs. Porter used to make bread each day. As she scrubbed viciously with a rag, she fought her tears.
In time, Myra appeared and moved to stand beside her, scraping damp flour off the table with a flat-edged blade. More than an hour had passed since Mrs. Sheraton arrived, and she’d still not left by the front door.
“I heard Mrs. Sheraton pushed her way into the master’s bedchamber,” Myra whispered.
“How do you know that?” Sapphire glanced at her friend. Unlike the others on the household staff, Mrs. Dedrick was not a gossip. She took her post as head housekeeper too seriously for that.
“Felicity saw her go bargin’ up the stairs.” She looked sideways at Sapphire. “Said you were still inside with the master.”
“Myra, I knew Blake from London.” Sapphire’s voice was thick with emotion.
“Thought as much,” Myra said. “So you come already in love with him?”
Sapphire nodded, afraid to speak for fear she would start to cry.
“Poor thing.” Myra put out one arm and gave her a quick hug. “And now he’s upstairs dallyin’ with Mrs. Sheraton.”
Sapphire threw down the washrag. Myra was only voicing what Sapphire had already feared. She had seen the look on Mrs. Sheraton’s face when Mrs. Dedrick closed the bedchamber door. She knew what the older woman wanted from Blake.
“You think so?”
Myra looked up as if she could see through the timber and plaster walls to the upstairs rooms. “It’s t’ be expected. You know, she’s been comin’ to his bedchamber for years. Everyone in the house knows it.”
“I didn’t know—” Sapphire’s throat caught. All her silly hopes seemed to disappear in an instant. Blake didn’t love her. If he did, he wouldn’t have allowed Mrs. Sheraton to stay. He wouldn’t have allowed Mrs. Dedrick to lead Sapphire downstairs so he could be alone with his guest.
“Even when I still worked for her, we all knew. Some of us even said ‘good fer her.’ You know, what being good for the gander.”
Sapphire wiped her nose, trying to form a plan in her head. “I need you to help me.”
“Of course.” Myra clasped her arm. “You want to find a job elsewhere, I can see what I can do. More than likely Mrs. Dedrick would even help you, considerin’ the circumstances. She’s mostly bark, you know. Underneath, she’s got a good heart.”
Sapphire shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. I’m not a lady’s maid.” She lifted her lashes to look into Myra’s eyes. “I’m a lady,” she whispered. “And I need to return to London to my family.”
Myra stared but didn’t question her. Somehow she seemed to know that Sapphire was telling the truth. “I haven’t much money—most I give to my mama for the babies—but you can have what I got.”
“I wouldn’t take your money, Myra. I just need some clothes, a few other necessities.”
“I don’t understand. How will you get on a ship to get back to London without coin? Maybe you could ask Mr. Thixton—”
“No,” she insisted. “I won’t ask him.” She looked into Myra’s pretty face. “I don’t want a thing that belongs to him, not a stitch of clothing, not so much as an apple, do you understand me?”
“The others’ll help out. When you goin’?”
Sapphire pressed her lips together, refusing to cry. “The sooner the better,” she said stoically. “Tonight. I cannot abide to remain in his house another minute.”
It was well after dark, close to ten thirty, when Sapphire stood in the kitchen courtyard and accepted the canvas bag that Myra offered.
“You look good,” Myra said, tears causing her cheeks to glisten in the rising moonlight.
Sapphire looked down at the canvas trousers and rough, darned cotton shirt she wore. When Myra had agreed to find her clothes, Sapphire had insisted it would be safer for her to travel as a young boy rather than as an unescorted woman. There were enough dangers on the road for a young man, but those for a woman were even greater.
“You think so?” Sapphire asked. “Do I look like a boy?”
“Like a handsome stable boy.” Myra reached out and pinched her cheek.
Sapphire laughed, feeling her own tears begin to well. “I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for me.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“I mean it.” Sapphire squeezed her hand. “You’ve been as good a friend to me these past weeks as I’ve ever had.”
“Haven’t done nothin’ you wouldn’t ’ve done for me,” Myra said almost shyly.
“True enough. Now I have to go and I want you to go inside and get to bed so no one is suspicious.”
“But where will you go? The coins I collected are barely enough to buy a few loaves of bread.”
“It’s better if I don’t tell you where I’m going—that way you won’t know if you’re questioned.”
“You’re prob’bly right. Better I don’t know a thing to tell Mr. Thixton when he starts his bellowin’.” Myra rolled her eyes. “He scares me a little when he starts hollerin’ the way he does sometimes.”
Sapphire smiled. “He may not holler at all
. He might not even ask for me.”
“Oh, he’ll ask. Mr. Thixton’s like that, like any man. He wants to be in charge, not just of himself, but everyone else, too.”
Sapphire hugged Myra one last time, adjusted her cap and walked through the gate. “Bye, Myra.”
“Bye, Molly. I hope you find your way home,” the maid called after her, tearfully. “I hope you find happiness.”
Happiness? Sapphire was beginning to think happiness was beyond her reach, but she was determined to go home.
“Gone? What do you mean, gone?” Blake demanded, setting down his newspaper. “Gone to the market? Gone to the dairy? What?”
“No, sih,” the housekeeper said, keeping her gaze fixed on the carpet in the small dining room.
Blake had chosen to have breakfast this morning in the dining room, rather than his bedchamber, so that when he spoke with Sapphire, she would remain calm.
“Where has she gone, Mrs. Dedrick?”
“I don’t know. Quit.”
“Quit?” He hit the table with his fist. “She can’t quit. Where did she go? This is preposterous! Ask the servants—the dark-haired one—they seemed to be friendly.”
“I’ve already asked them. All the house gihls—boys in the stable, too. No one’s seen heh. Not since last night, Mr. Thixton.”
He snatched his coat off the back of the chair. “Call the carriage.”
Mrs. Dedrick stepped back out of his way. “Yes, sih.”
“She couldn’t have gotten far in this city alone with no money, knowing no one,” he said under his breath as he strode out of the room. “She couldn’t have.”
25
Sapphire didn’t want to remain in Boston and run the risk of Blake finding her. She cut through the elegant properties on Beacon Hill and headed south. She didn’t know how long it would take her to find a job and save the money she would need to book passage to London, but with the coming of winter, she surmised, a girl who had grown up in Martinique would survive better in less frigid temperatures. Especially a girl who, presently, didn’t even have a place to live.
So, dressed like a young man, canvas satchel thrown over her shoulder, she followed the coastline south and tried not to think about Blake or her broken heart. Instead she entertained herself with memories of growing up in Martinique and of the love and laughter she had shared there with her family.
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