by Julia Ross
He gave Rachel a glass. “Did you show Croft Mrs. Siskin’s letter, or mention her at all?”
“No!” Rachel’s long lashes swept down over her eyes as she stared into the glass. “He frightened me. I just said I’d heard a rumor.”
“But why didn’t you wait for me to come home from Birchbrook? You know I’d have helped you.”
“I didn’t want you to know the truth. Sarah understands.”
Perhaps she did. Rachel may have believed that Guy loved her, but she loved another man and always had. She’d been alone in the house with the chimneys when she’d first learned that their baby had lived, after all. Any woman might have thought it better to make a clean break in the circumstances, though perhaps not such a cruel one.
“So when you couldn’t get anything further out of Mr. Croft, you hid in London?” Guy asked.
“Yes,” Rachel said. “I didn’t know where else to go. And I did try your townhouse, Guy, but they said you’d gone down to Wyldshay and they didn’t know when you’d be back.”
Guy leaned both shoulders against the wall, his gaze hawk-dark. “You could have written.”
“No! I couldn’t write, not after the note I’d left you in Hampstead. And I am sorry about that. Truly! When I read Mrs. Siskin’s letter, I felt frantic, desperate. I couldn’t think. All I could imagine was getting down to Devon as fast as possible to find my baby.”
He tipped his head back and closed his eyes. Tension drew taut lines at the corners of his mouth.
“Yet I think what you wrote was the truth,” he said. “Though it’s best forgotten now.”
Rachel had the grace to blush, a charming warm glow that suffused her peerless skin like a sunrise.
“So Mr. Croft rebuffed you and you came back to London empty-handed,” Sarah said quickly. “Then when someone began attacking you, you wrote to tell me how frightened you were.”
“Yes, because I realized then that Mr. Croft must have talked about me to the man who really had my baby. I thought he must want to kill me in order to keep his secret.” Rachel’s blush deepened and she set down her wineglass. “I didn’t mean to deceive you, Sarah—”
“Yes, you did,” Sarah said. “But it’s all right. I understand. When you first fell in love at Grail Hall, it must have felt far too overwhelming to share with anyone, even me, though you poured out all those feelings into a tale about remembering Mr. Devoran on the yacht. But once you’d begun to spin such a network of falsehoods, at what point could you possibly retreat?”
“It was like falling into a well,” Rachel said, “where all you can do is keep falling.”
Sarah met her cousin’s gaze, filled with genuine remorse, and fought to find her higher self. Whatever it cost her, she could not let herself give way to ignoble jealousy or resentment. Especially not for the cousin she’d grown up with!
“And a great love can feel very private,” she said. “Something to treasure secretly deep in one’s heart, especially if you fear that a future together may prove impossible.”
Rachel dropped to her knees at Sarah’s feet. “I knew you’d understand!” A new note of excitement colored her voice. “A love like that! I’d never imagined, never known—Can you ever forgive me, dearest? Though I did make up stories, my heart’s always been true!”
Sarah caught her cousin’s hands. “I’ve never doubted your heart, Rachel.”
“His name’s Claude d’Alleville,” Rachel said. “His father owns a chateau in France.”
Guy’s dark eyes, fathomless and quiet, met Sarah’s gaze. They both recognized the name from Lord Grail’s guest list.
“He was at Grail Hall for the Egyptian gathering?” Sarah asked.
“Yes. I was asked to attend the meetings to take notes. Claude’s English is perfectly fluent and I speak as much French as any other lady, but we fell in love before we’d even spoken. He’s the handsomest man you ever saw, Sarah! It was love at first sight. Can you believe that?”
“Yes,” Sarah said. “Yes, of course.”
Guy walked up to the table. “I’ll ring for dinner,” he said. “And an extra plate.”
Rachel rose with a small, nervous laugh, and allowed him to help her to a seat. Sarah followed. His hands brushed briefly over her shoulders as she sat down, sending a little shock like an electric current through her veins.
Some of Guy’s men brought in the supper dishes, a slightly rough crew to serve at table. As soon as they left the room, Guy turned back to Rachel.
“Monsieur d’Alleville disappeared, though you wrote to him every day?”
“He said when he left England he was going on a new expedition to Egypt, but his father would forward my letters. I don’t doubt him,” she added. “He’ll come for me as soon as he can.”
“But it’s been over two years,” Sarah said gently.
“So? He’s probably in Nubia by now, and my letters won’t reach him until they all arrive together in a bundle—carried on camels!”
Guy seemed fascinated by the candles on the table. “Meanwhile, in your reluctance to seek me out directly, you sent Sarah those letters filled with panic. Though you traveled back here to Devon from Goatstall Lane several days before she arrived.”
Rachel pushed some boiled cabbage to the side of her plate. “I was too afraid to wait. A wall fell down and almost killed me. And the man who had my baby would never suspect that I’d come here to live right under his nose, would he? So I sold most of the rest of my jewels and dressed like this—only more respectably, of course—then rented a little out-of-the-way place on the moor. No one suspected me.”
“And you visited Barristow as soon as you could?” Sarah glanced at Guy. “Mr. Norris said that a young man had met his little boy in the garden.”
“Yes,” he said. “I overheard. I just didn’t know at the time that it might be important.”
He poured himself more wine and turned back to Rachel. “Thus you hid in plain sight. Which of my men found you and didn’t tell me?”
Rachel pursed her mouth like a rebellious child. “It was my fault. You can’t blame him.”
“I don’t. No male could ever resist you. I assume it was Oliver?”
She colored. “He probably guessed you’d understand.”
“Then he’s right. And, fortunately for him, he’s young enough to be unafraid of my retaliation. So was Master Norris your son?”
“Oh, no! That’s why I never went back there, and anyway the nurse panicked. No, when I did find my little boy, his nursemaid never breathed a word to anyone.”
“Which nursemaid?” Sarah asked.
“Betsy Davy, of course! I went to Moorefield Hall next, because I discovered that Mr. Croft had moved there from Barristow Manor. As soon as I saw my little boy, I knew for sure.”
Guy had become very still, as if his heart had slowed. “How did you get access to the child?”
“I hid in the gardens. Betsy was scared the first time she saw me, but I pretended to have wandered into His Lordship’s grounds in pursuit of a goldfinch. Though she soon realized that I wasn’t really a boy, she didn’t mind. She’s lonely.”
“You told her who you were?”
Rachel shook her head. “No, I just made up another story about running away from a vicious husband: a terrible man who beat me and threatened my life. I said he’d sent my own babies away, so I’d never see them again. It wasn’t so very far from the truth. Betsy even cried a little when she heard it. She doesn’t have any real friends at the Hall. After that we met almost every week, whenever she could sneak out with Berry into a concealed part of the grounds.”
Guy pushed his chair back from the table. “Then you’re quite sure that Lord Berrisham is really your son?”
“Oh, yes!” Rachel bit her lip and blushed. “He looks just like Claude.”
“We believe you,” Sarah said gently. “But don’t you see? All the witnesses to what really happened are dead.”
“Why does that matter? I know that he’s
mine and I already have a plan to take him.”
China rattled as Guy sprang up and strode away across the room.
“For God’s sake, Rachel! There’s no proof. Successfully steal Moorefield’s baby by yourself, and you could end up on the gallows. Make the attempt and fail, and at the very least Betsy Davy will face dismissal, when she’s all the little boy has.”
“But I know that he’s mine!” Rachel’s eyes filled with tears, as if for the first time she was on the verge of hysteria. “I know it, Guy!”
Sarah caught her cousin’s hand and squeezed her fingers.
“We’re all worn out,” she said. “We’ll finish talking in the morning. It’s time to go to bed.”
To bed! As she said the words, she felt that white, sick pain and tasted her wine in her mouth again. She’d been sharing Guy’s bed ever since the Anchor, but her cousin had no idea of it. Would Rachel assume that she could ensnare Guy again, body and soul, exactly as she had in Hampstead in the house with the top-hatted chimneys?
The situation was hideous: hideous and scandalous and excruciating.
“I have a slight headache,” she said and realized it was true. After all, she and Guy had been traveling for days, and though she’d been unable to eat much, she’d had four glasses of wine. “I think I’ll go up right away.”
Giving Guy an awkward smile, Sarah fled the room.
Once in the hall, she had no idea where to go, but the man who had met their carriage on the moor stepped out of the servant’s hall, carrying a tray with some sliced fruit.
“I need to go up to my room,” Sarah said. “Is there a woman who can show me?”
“Third door on the right at the top, ma’am,” Peters said, jerking his head. “Your boxes have already been taken up.”
She stumbled up the stairs and pushed open the designated door. A large four-poster dominated the space. Her cases sat in one corner. Guy’s trunk sat next to them. Some helpful lackey had already unpacked his shaving kit and laid it out on the washstand.
Sarah crossed to the window and opened it. Mist still hung low over the moor, shrouding the entire world, trapping her in this nightmare.
A great love can feel very private.
It could undoubtedly grow privately, and perhaps it ought to die the same way?
But what if one knew now with absolute certainty that this love would never, never die, not until verses of repentance and the hope for salvation were engraved on one’s tombstone? What then?
The summer night wasn’t truly cold, but it was damp. Sarah shivered and closed the window. The bed waited, fresh sheets already turned back. Her nightgown lay across the pillows. But what if he didn’t come to her? What if, right now, he and Rachel—
Sarah couldn’t lift her boxes by herself, but she pulled out the bare essentials for the night and grabbed her nightgown from the bed. Carrying the small bundle in her arms, she walked out into the hallway and opened door after door.
There were five decent-sized bedrooms, and the clean linen was stacked in a cupboard at the end of the hall. She chose a pleasant chamber facing east, made up the bed, and crawled exhausted between the covers.
Yet she lay awake for a long time. It was horrific to contemplate Guy’s finding her in his bed if he were secretly wishing she wasn’t there. Even worse to wait for him there, her heart eager, her blood on fire for him, then have him never come at all.
This way, if he wanted to find her, he could easily do so. The choice was his.
At last she fell asleep, dry-eyed and desolate, and in the morning he still hadn’t come.
BRILLIANT sunshine blinded her when Sarah woke up, as if to mock her misery. She washed and dressed, then stood at the window for a moment, gazing out at the purple heights of Dartmoor basking beneath a clear blue sky. In spite of the bright sun, it was still early. A small band of native ponies grazed in the far distance.
She had been madly, overwhelmingly in love and let those giddy emotions cloud her judgment. It had all been remarkable, wonderful, as if Guy had magically transported her to the wood near Athens ruled by Titania.
Now, however much it hurt, she must return to dull reality. She could allow herself some grief at the wrenching loss, yet she must also find the determination and courage to stand aside and let Guy rescue Rachel once again.
If Sarah Callaway had not initiated it, he would never have taken a plain widow to his bed. Contemptible to let anger or pain override compassion for the fragile cousin she had grown up with, and especially for the innocent baby Rachel had borne and lost in so much agony.
Yet it hurt, it hurt, and her heart burned with indignation and pain.
No one else seemed to be up, so Sarah walked downstairs and into the unkempt garden. Water gurgled somewhere out of sight. She followed the sound, winding along a stone path through the dense greenery. Flowers and shrubs struggled against a rampant growth of weeds.
A little stream trickled over rocks into a damp, mossy hollow, thick with watercress, the banks brightened by a clump of purple loosestrife.
Guy sat on a fallen log staring at the water.
Her heart failed. She turned to flee, but he spoke without turning his head.
“Sarah! Please stay!” Sunlight fired highlights in his dark hair and danced over the entrancing lines of his face, though his gaze was lost in shadow. “Does that take so much courage?”
Courage? Perhaps it was only weakness that prevented her from turning and running away.
“Where’s Rachel?” she asked.
“Presumably still in her bed. You’ll notice that I said her bed, not mine.”
“But I thought—”
“No, you didn’t think, you feared.” He rose and gestured to the log. “Will you sit here with me?”
She forced herself to walk forward, one foot, then the other, and sat down. The stream plopped and rushed merrily as it wove between the stones.
He dropped down next to her and rested a forearm on each thigh, his fingers relaxed, his hands shaped so beautifully. A desperate longing seized her heart: to undo the past, to undo everything, to spin life into a fairy tale, where a redheaded schoolteacher might truly win the heart of a man like Guy Devoran.
He gazed into the water in silence for several more moments, making no move to touch her. Sarah sat in a kind of suspended agony and waited.
“You should know this,” he said at last. “I told you once that I had been infatuated with your cousin. I was certainly hurt when she left me. In fact, I was enraged by her desertion, but I know now that it was the hurt of wounded pride, not that of a broken heart.”
“Yet you felt desperate?”
“I certainly felt responsible. I told you the truth about our day on the yacht. I did not tell you that afterwards I hunted for her for several months. The memory of Rachel standing in that breeze at the bow of the boat haunted me. Jack knows all of this—and Ryder. They might even tell you that I was a little demented when I couldn’t find her.”
“Because she was hiding in Knight’s Cottage by then. How could you have known where she was?”
He picked up a pebble and tossed it into the stream. “I couldn’t. I don’t blame myself for that. With the money Jack paid her, she could afford to live anywhere, until—though you were still sending her what funds you could spare—she ran out of money and turned up on my doorstep.”
“That winter must have been terrible for her,” Sarah said. “To be alone with her grief, while writing to me as if she were still working as a governess.”
“I know it hurts, Sarah, that Rachel didn’t confide in you—just as it hurts that she and I became lovers, though I discovered very quickly that I’d built up an image of her based on a fantasy. Yet she seemed so damned fragile, standing there in the rain on my doorstep, trailing a broken wing like a ringed plover.”
Sarah stared at the stream, the delicate froth of bubbles where the water was trapped for a moment behind a rock, though it was the stone that would be worn away.
“That’s one way of putting it.” Guy tossed another pebble. “But what your cousin is at the core, Sarah, is self-centered.”
She felt flayed. “No! If Rachel’s been selfish or deceitful, it was only for the sake of her baby—or sometimes for her own survival after her lover abandoned her.”
“I don’t deny that she’s suffered very terribly, or that she deserves our care. But the plover is a trickster, offering an illusion of broken feathers. As soon as she thinks she’s safe, she flies off. This is not to my credit, Sarah, but what I felt for your cousin was always a great deal closer to pity than love, and it still is.”
“Then you deny her courage?”
“No, but I assume that you fled my room last night because you feared that I wished to be with Rachel, instead of you. I can imagine no worse fate. I shall protect your cousin to the best of my ability from the results of her own foolishness, but my heart—unreliable as you seem to believe it—is yours and always will be.”
Sarah closed her eyes against the sun, then glanced back at the tumbling stream. The water laughed and sparkled as sudden tears blinded her.
“You didn’t say so on our journey,” she said. “Not once.”
He glanced down at her and smiled. “Did I need to?”
She hugged her arms about her waist, remembering, remembering. “Perhaps not.”
“I rather thought that I’d been proving my love for you day and night ever since we left the Anchor. Or do you still believe that a man’s passion can have nothing at all to do with his heart?”
A little breeze moved along the stream. The tall spikes of purple loosestrife swayed.
“No, it’s not that. Not any longer.”
“Then you’re abandoning some very basic female wisdom,” Guy said dryly, “for that’s very often true—except in this case.”
Sarah dropped her forehead onto her knees and laughed. “Yet when you tell me that you love me, it’s as if the sky parts to show me a glimpse of heaven, though a new trap yawns at my feet, one I can’t begin to fathom.” She looked up. “I can’t explain it, Guy. I only know that I’m afraid.”