Saving Sarah

by Gail Ranstrom

  “Run!” he yelled, and Sarah knew he meant her.

  She was desperate for reassurance that he was uninjured. She wanted to ignore him and go to him, or shout her question across the distance, but her instincts told her that Ethan knew what he was doing. She pivoted and headed back the way she had come at a dead run. More whistles and shouting, growing louder, converged on the sweep’s house. She hadn’t gone more than a quarter of a mile before she realized she did not have a destination.

  Dodging down a side lane, she came upon Ludgate Hill and realized she’d been heading for the safe familiarity of St. Paul’s. Her lungs were burning by the time she collapsed against one of the smooth white columns of the porch. Panting, her back against the column, she slid down to a crouch. Tears stung her eyes as she began praying for Ethan’s safety. She had seen that Benjamin was uninjured, and that Ethan had thrown himself between the boy and danger, but that was not altogether reassuring. Ethan’s back as a shield was still Ethan’s back.

  She covered her mouth to muffle her sobs, her heartbeat still hammering in her ears. “Please, Lord, oh, please,” she wept aloud, “let them be safe. Keep them from harm’s way, I entreat Thee. And—”

  “You must have God’s ear, Sarah,” a hushed voice said in her own ear.

  She squealed and jumped, so caught up in her fear that she had not heard his approach. Before she could prevent herself, she threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. “Ethan! Thank heavens! Where is Benjamin? Is it Benjamin?”

  “It had better be, after all of this,” he said with a hint of humor. “He’s in the coach. Come on.”

  “How…how did you know I’d come here?” she asked.

  “You have good instincts, Sarah, when you use them.”

  Good instincts? Like the one that had led her to walk down that darkened path with Richard Farmingdale? Or the one that had led her to give herself to a traitor? Oh, yes. She could trust her instincts—to be wrong! She released him and stepped back, embarrassed by yet another bad instinct. She was far better off to rely upon reason and intelligence.

  Ethan’s face registered a flash of anger before he said, “Hurry, Sarah. The watch may be in pursuit. Pray the son of a bitch with the pistol is not.”

  She braced herself and followed him down the steps and into a waiting hired coach. Huddled in a corner with his knees drawn up to his chest, the small boy from the sweep’s yard sniffled and wiped his nose on his coat sleeve. She recognized the crystal-blue eyes sparkling with unshed tears from Mrs. Whitlock’s miniature.

  Sarah took a seat beside him, facing Ethan, as the coach started off again. “Hello,” she said. “My name’s Sarah. Are you Benjamin?”

  He nodded, his lower lip trembling.

  “Your mother sent me to find you. She misses you very much, you know.”

  “M-Mama? She didn’t d-die?”

  Sarah caught Ethan’s glance and guessed that they would both like to punish Mr. Whitlock for what he’d done to this small child. She took her handkerchief from her jacket pocket and wiped at the dirt and grime on the boy’s face. “No, Benjamin. She is quite well but for missing you so terribly.”

  “Can we go see her now?” he asked hopefully.

  “Not tonight, dearling. Tomorrow.”

  “I’ve made arrangements for you tonight,” Ethan contributed. “Somewhere you will be safe and no one will think to look for you. You wouldn’t want your mama to see you this way, would you? We are taking you to a nice woman named Mrs. Grant. She has a warm tub and clean clothes waiting for you.”

  “B-but I want to go home.” The tears finally spilled over and ran down his cheeks, leaving clean streaks in their wake.

  “Tomorrow, Benjamin,” Sarah promised. Ethan smiled and nodded at her. “Mr. Travis will bring you to me, and I will take you home.”

  “What about ‘Minta?”

  “Araminta is safe with a friend of mine, and Teddy is at my home. You will all be together with your mama very soon.”

  His lower lip trembled when he looked up at her, as if afraid to believe. Sarah opened her arms and, after a moment’s hesitation, he threw himself into them. She held the small warm body against her chest and didn’t mind the smell of smoke and soot at all. After a brief storm of relieved weeping, the child grew silent and relaxed against her. Worn-out with despair, fear and now hope, he’d fallen asleep.

  She noticed that Ethan was looking down, his jaw tightening in anger. When she followed his line of sight, she saw that the bottoms of Benjamin’s trousers were singed. Lord, she could not even imagine the horror this little boy had endured. If she had not felt completely justified in sending Mr. Whitlock away before, she certainly did now.

  Within a quarter of an hour, the coach stopped outside a small house in a quiet neighborhood. Ethan took the still-sleeping Benjamin from her arms and brushed a lock of hair away from the boy’s forehead. His lips curved into a small smile when the child swatted at his hand in his sleep. Ethan’s unaffected smile touched Sarah’s heart. She remembered that gentleness quite well.

  Mrs. Grant answered his knock at the door and made sighing and clucking sounds over the boy. After a hushed conversation, Ethan handed the lad over and returned to the coach.

  “Thank you, Ethan,” she said after he gave the driver the address of Hunter Hall, along with instructions to drive once around Hyde Park before going there. “I will not ask you how you found him so quickly.”

  Ethan settled back in the facing seat, his arms crossed over his chest. “Just as well. I don’t think you’d like it.”

  She could only imagine. “Mrs. Whitlock will be very grateful. She will want to thank you in person.”

  “I’d much rather you kept my name out of it.”

  “If you wish.”

  “I do. And now that you owe me yet another favor, Sarah, shall we talk about Broxton and your impending nuptials?”

  Ah, so this was why he wanted to detour around Hyde Park. She would have to account for herself. “I’d rather talk about the favors I owe you and what I must do to repay you,” she said.

  His lips quirked, but she would not have called it a smile. “Of course. Wouldn’t want to carry that debt into your new marriage, would you? Have you told him about us?”

  “There is nothing to tell.”

  “I do not remember it that way. I wonder if we were in the same place, Sarah. My bed, I believe?”

  She felt the heat steal up her cheeks. “Reggie arranged the marriage. I do not know what he told Cedric.”

  “Did Reggie know about us?”

  “No.”

  “Hmm. Then he cannot have told Cedric, can he?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “You suppose not,” he repeated slowly, as if tasting the evasion on his tongue. “Have you always been so ambiguous, Sarah, or am I just now noticing?”

  She shook her head and a tendril of hair slipped from her cap to tickle her cheek with a touch as light as Ethan’s finger. “I do not know what to say to you, Ethan, or how to talk to you. I fear I did not know you at all. You are a stranger to me.”

  Before she realized what he was doing, he was beside her on the seat, holding her arms in a firm grip, his lips mere inches from hers. “You think you do not know me? You are wrong. You know everything that you need to know.”

  Uncertainty clouded her mind. What did she need to know? His mouth lowered the rest of the way and the soft urging of his lips caused a bittersweet burning at her core. His clean, provocative scent, his primal masculine energy, overwhelmed her. The heat, taste and intimacy of his mouth compelled her and she begged for more by wrapping her arms around him and fondling the curls at the back of his neck. She wanted him despite her fears, despite her disillusionment. His mouth moved lower, finding a spot, low on her neck just to the right of her collarbone, that made her gasp with pleasure.

  “Tell me,” he murmured against her flesh, “how you can marry Broxton when you take fire in my arms. A few nights ago I was inside yo
u, Sarah, loving you, cherishing you, teaching you not to be afraid. Does Broxton’s kiss ignite you? Will he—”

  Cedric’s kiss? The very thought worked like ice water on her passion-fogged brain. “I’ve never—” She stopped herself, but it was too late.

  Ethan gave her a sardonic smile. “I thought not. Yet that is what lies ahead. He will kiss you. He will be inside you. His seed will ripen in you. Your babies will look like him.”

  She shriveled inside at the thought of carrying Cedric’s child. Thank God Reggie would get her out of that mess.

  “I want to know why, Sarah. Why would you agree to wed Cedric Broxton when the mere thought of him disgusts you? Think what you will of me, but do not fall into Broxton’s arms to spite me.”

  “I won’t,” she whispered, more to herself than to him.

  “See that you do not. I do not like to think how Broxton would abuse that privilege.”

  Something dark in his voice gave her pause. “Why do you hate Lord Cedric? What has he done to you?”

  Ethan seemed about to answer and then shrugged. “He is a dangerous man. Do not trust him.”

  “ He is a dangerous man?” she asked. “Yet you are called the Demon of Alsatia. You are the one under suspicion of treason. You have warned me about him before, but you have never said why. What should I believe?”

  His hesitation was longer this time before he spoke. “Believe what you will, Sarah.”

  His curt refusal to answer cut her deeply. “Then what of Mr. Whitlock, Ethan?”

  “Your duty is done now that you have Benjamin. Mine will not be done until I have found the threat to him, and kept him safe from it. My honor depends upon it.”

  Sarah’s stomach twisted and she scooted away from him. “Your honor? Safe? You are to keep Mr. Whitlock safe?”

  “Of course. Did you think I meant to kill him?”

  “I…I did not think at all,” she admitted. She had been so focused on her plan, so single-minded in purpose, that she had not even questioned Ethan’s goal beyond his doing a favor for a friend. “Is Mr. Whitlock in danger?”

  “More than he knows,” Ethan snarled. “Do you think you were hit over the head because someone wanted to pick your pocket? Or that the gunman tonight was taking aim at me because I’d just gotten a shipment of olives?”

  Sarah grew cold with the memory. “What has he done?”

  “Aside from abusing his wife and children? I do not know, Sarah. That is none of my business. I am simply to keep him from harm until he can be…dealt with.”

  Ethan’s words caused a shiver up her spine. “You must have some idea.”

  He leveled his gaze at her. “I believe it may have something to do with blackmail. My…friend is looking for the blackmail evidence.”

  “What is it?”

  He frowned at her, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Do you know something about this, Sarah?”

  She recalled her conversation with the Wednesday League. Mrs. Whitlock had told them she suspected he was blackmailing someone, but they had never discussed who or why. Could the victim be Ethan’s friend? Still she knew nothing for certain. “No, Ethan.”

  “Then stay clear of it, and out of my way. That was our bargain.”

  Yes. But at the very moment that Ethan was rescuing Benjamin, she had been working against him, breaking her promise. There would be no Mr. Whitlock for Ethan to keep safe. What would happen to his friend now? How would he ever redeem his honor?

  “What time is it?” she asked. Perhaps it was not too late to stop Mr. Renquist!

  Ethan removed a pocket watch from his vest. “Half past four.”

  Half past four. Too late. Whitlock’s ship had sailed.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sarah knelt on the window seat in the parlor overlooking the private back garden. Tears stung her eyes as she watched Gladys Whitlock embrace her children. Earlier that morning, Annica had brought Araminta, and Ethan’s coach had delivered Benjamin minutes later. Within half an hour, Mrs. Whitlock and her children would be home together, with a limitless future ahead of them. But Sarah’s moment of triumph was bittersweet.

  She glanced down at the folded letter on her lap that told her of the success of the Wednesday League’s plan. Harold Whitlock had been intercepted on his way to his favorite pub, dragged into an alley, bound and gagged and carried aboard an anonymous vessel bound for Java. Mr. Renquist had waited until the ship had hoisted anchor, entered the Thames and caught the current—“Once burned, twice shy,” he’d said. A failure to be certain when investigating Lady Sarah’s case had cost a member of the Wednesday League her life and had nearly cost Lady Annica hers, as well.

  Whitlock was gone—no longer a threat to his wife and stepchildren. She should feel elated, or at least some satisfaction in a job well-done, but all she could think of now was that Ethan had failed because of her betrayal. And why did that thought sadden her? Why did she still care about a traitor?

  Mrs. Whitlock looked up at the window and waved at Sarah, an expression of pure joy on her face. Sarah waved back, tears filling her eyes. Mother and children disappeared around the side of the house where a coach was waiting to take them home. Tonight, at the Thackery musicale, she would give her final report to the Wednesday League.

  Sarah felt suddenly empty. The chase, the nights of danger and the excitement of being with Ethan, had so completely consumed her that she did not know how she’d spend her time now. Society—everything—seemed so pointless.

  “Sarah?” Reggie called.

  “In the parlor,” she answered. She wiped her tears away with the back of her hand.

  Reggie came through the door, his face registering deep sadness. He took her hand and led her to a settee. “I see you’ve heard.”

  “Heard what?” she asked.

  “About Lord Nigel.”

  Foreboding squeezed her heart. “Tell me, Reggie.”

  Reggie’s voice was gentle. “You looked so sad, I thought you knew. He died last night.”

  She bowed her head and let her tears flow. Reggie offered her his handkerchief and slipped his arm around her. “It is not unexpected. He had been failing for quite some time.”

  “I shall miss him.”

  “Did you know he made an offer for you?”

  Surprise and pleasure made her smile through her tears. “He did? When?”

  “After I announced your engagement to Cedric. He came to me later and said that he thought you and he were more compatible than you and Cedric. He was prepared to be quite generous with you.”

  She snuggled against his broad chest and stroked the soft fold of his cravat. “Reggie, he did not suffer, did he?”

  “It was sudden, Sarah. I am certain he was at peace.”

  Nigel’s kindly face rose to her mind. His gentle prodding for the truth just weeks ago, his sympathy and acceptance, had been quietly reassuring. His response had given her the courage to tell her brothers what had been done to her. Oh, if only she’d made the time to tell him how much he meant to her!

  The Scotsman had said, Life is brief, Lady Sarah…you may think you have all the time in the world, but the course of your life can turn in an instant. Try to waste as little of it as possible, eh?

  She heaved a shaky sigh. “Nigel was a good friend. I loved him dearly. I wish I had told him that. I fear I shall live with that regret for the rest of my life.”

  “He knew,” Reggie said with quiet certainty.

  She wiped at her eyes again and sat straighter. “I wish I could believe that.”

  “Believe me,” her brother said. “He knew.”

  “But how do you know?”

  He lifted her chin with one finger so that she was looking into his face. “Some things you just know, dearling. They defy reason or explanation. You just know.”

  “I dare not have that sort of faith,” she murmured. “I have been wrong too many times.”

  “We are bound to be wrong occasionally. Instinct, Sarah. Women pride themselv
es on that. Surely you’ve drawn conclusions from observations and feelings?”

  Instincts? Yes. Knowing Nigel, and him knowing her history, she could well believe he had tried to rescue her from a loveless marriage.

  You have good instincts, Sarah, when you use them, Ethan had said. So, then, how could she reconcile Ethan the traitor with Ethan the man she knew? One had to be a lie. “I—if you had to choose between your instincts or popular opinion, Reggie, which would you rely upon?”

  “Why, my instincts, of course.”

  “Yes,” she said, wincing and pressing her temples. “I suspected you would say that.”

  “What is wrong, Sarah?”

  Wrong? Just that she’d turned her back on a man who had been nothing but kind to her. Just that she’d denied her heart because of the gossip of people she neither knew nor cared about. “I am a fool. I’ve done a friend a grave injustice and I do not want to waste my life in regrets. I must find a way to make it right.”

  Sarah, Annica, Charity and Grace all lifted their glasses in a discreet toast in one corner of the Thackery music room while the low tones of conversation swirled around them. The drone of the musicians tuning their instruments provided a warning that it would soon be time for them to take their seats.

  “Justice,” they all whispered as they touched the rims of their glasses.

  “What next?” Charity asked. “Have we any other cases at the moment?”

  “None,” Annica said. “I think we have earned a well-deserved respite.”

  Sarah smiled with a nervous glance at the other guests. Would he be here tonight? No respite for her yet. She had a confession to make, and amends, if possible. But that was personal. The Wednesday League had no part in how conscienceless she had been in her use of Ethan Travis, and it was up to her to right that wrong.

  A discreet bell rang, and the guests began taking seats facing the piano. She and her companions claimed chairs in the back row as the musicians arranged themselves for the piece they would perform.