A short time later found them both dressed and standing awkwardly outside her building, trying to delay their separation as long as possible.
“I shall—“ he began at the same time she said, “You must—“
They laughed and he said, “You first.” She shook her head.
“It was nothing. What were you going to say?”
“I want to know when I can see you again. May I come this evening?”
She bit her lower lip and for a heart-stopping moment, he thought she would say no. But then she nodded, her eyes bright with anticipation.
“Damn,” he said.
“What is it?” she asked with a frown.
“I should have kissed you goodbye upstairs.”
“There wasn’t a goodbye kiss amongst all of those earlier?”
“Certainly not! Those were good morning kisses and getting dressed kisses and because-you-were-standing-there kisses.”
She smiled a wide, beautiful smile that lit her entire face up. “Of course they were,” she agreed. “Yes, it is a pity one of them wasn’t a goodbye kiss. Still, perhaps it’s for the best.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“Well this way, we won’t say ‘goodbye.’” She leaned very close to him and whispered, “We’ll simply say, ‘I can’t wait to see you soon.’”
He grinned at that, feeling as if the world were the most perfect place just then. “I can’t wait to see you very soon,” he murmured in his deepest, huskiest voice.
She shivered visibly. “Me either,” she whispered, staring at his lips.
They were frozen in place, staring at one another until a man driving a cart yelled at a group of boys who’d run across the street in front of him, startling his nag.
Sarah jumped and blinked rapidly. She looked at him one last time and then turned and walked quickly down the street. Sam watched the sway of her hips until she was lost to sight, then took off in search of a hackney coach.
His day was a whirlwind of planning and arranging. And no small amount of shopping. He scarcely stopped to eat, but by the time the sun was making its way to the western edge of the city, he’d accomplished all he’d set out to do and was looking forward to presenting his achievements to Sarah.
Once in The Mint, he gathered his armload of packages from the coach and struggled not to drop them as he made his way to her door.
“Good heavens!” she exclaimed upon opening the door to the pounding of his booted foot. “What is all of this?”
“Supplies,” he said succinctly, looking around the room for the largest horizontal surface. Deciding on the bed, he quickly crossed the room and dumped his armload.
“What kind of supplies?” she asked, standing beside him.
His hands now free, he turned and grabbed her to him, kissing her with an intensity that felt like he’d not seen her for months instead of hours.
She held still for a moment in surprise, then returned his embrace with equal fervor. Several long minutes later, they surfaced for air, their faces flushed, their eyes sparkling.
“Now that is a proper hullo,” he said with a grin.
“Indeed,” she replied primly and he laughed aloud. He stared at her face, soaking in her beauty, delighted to see that the tenseness he’d noticed before about her eyes and mouth was gone, the former soft and happy, the latter lush and damp from his kisses. He grinned at her, absurdly pleased to think he was the reason for her relaxed and open expression.
He finally, reluctantly, released her to show her what he had brought.
“Where is that—aha! Here it is.” He opened a tin and presented her with a delectable assortment of sugared biscuits.
“Take one,” he urged, gesturing with the tin. She reached a hesitant hand forward to select one. He grabbed three and popped them in his mouth as she slowly nibbled hers. She closed her eyes in enjoyment but they flew open as her tongue registered the flavor.
“Lemon!” she exclaimed.
“Yes,” he said, grabbing two more. “I was inspired by that lemon cream dessert at the Chalcroft’s. However, unlike that night, we can eat as many as we want!”
She laughed and he took advantage of her open mouth to feed her another biscuit. This caused her to laugh harder, spraying crumbs everywhere, which elicited still more giggles.
His love for her swelled to the point he could scarcely breathe. He wanted to make every day like this for her, full of laughter, free of worry.
She struggled to chew the mouthful of sweets while stray giggles escaped. While she did so, he reached into another packet and pulled out a bottle of wine, which he uncorked. He found the cups they’d used the night before and filled them. He handed her one and she took a swallow, her eyes widening at the rich taste.
“Good, isn’t it?” he asked, and she merely nodded as she sampled it again, letting it roll over her tongue, smooth and fruity.
He watched her, taking a greater delight in her enjoyment of the treats than he was in the actual taste of them. He couldn’t wait to pamper her every day. He caught her in between sips and stole a kiss, finding the wine even sweeter when tasted on her tongue. He chuckled at that. He was completely besotted.
“What do you find amusing??
He smiled at her. “I’m happy.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Is that such a rare occurrence?”
“No, of course not, but this is a different kind of happy.”
She gazed at him, a soft smile curving her mouth. “I understand. I’m happy too.”
Tell her, a voice in his head urged. Tell her you love her now. He didn’t doubt the feeling, and was reasonably sure she felt the same. Still…he’d never said the words to a woman before. It was a bit unnerving.
“What else is in these packages? Don’t say it’s all wine and biscuits!”
He sprang into action, simultaneously relieved and disappointed to have been distracted from his thoughts.
“As promised, a rack of hairpins,” he said, presenting the papers of crimped metal.
“This isn’t a rack,” she exclaimed. “It’s—well I don’t know what it is, but it’s at least a lifetime supply!”
“You have a wealth of beautiful hair,” he said, tugging a tendril loose from her chignon. “I wanted to make sure I got enough. Besides,” he finished sheepishly. “I have no idea how many pins a lady actually needs to do her hair. It is perhaps the only thing I didn’t learn while I accompanied my sister on the endless shopping trips leading up to her wedding.”
Sarah still seemed amazed at the multitude of pins, but she laughed and said, “I thank you for these. They shall come in handy.” She studied him for a moment. “That was kind of you to take your sister shopping. Most unusual, as well.”
He shrugged. “She didn’t really know anyone here other than Trowbridge himself and I couldn’t bring myself to send her out on her own.”
“Lord Trowbridge’s mother couldn’t lend guidance?”
Sam grimaced. “She wasn’t initially supportive of their engagement. I didn’t trust that she would give the best advice.”
“What possible fault could she ascribe to your sister? Caroline is perfectly lovely!”
“Well, she can be a pain in the arse as well, but the dowager had never even met Caro when she voiced her opposition.” He briefly explained about Lady Trowbridge’s objection to an uncouth American until she had realized she needed that American’s hefty dowry to save her estate.
Sarah grimaced. “It’s ridiculous, the nobility’s abhorrence to marrying anyone other than a fellow Englishman. We are all essentially the same people, after all.”
“I’m glad to hear you say so,” he murmured under his breath.
“How many shopping trips did you accompany your sister on?”
“At least a thousand,” he said with a heavy sigh.
“One thousand?” This with a disbelieving raised eyebrow.
“Easily a hundred.”
“One hundred shopping trips? That must have
been quite a trousseau.”
“Well it felt like a hundred,” Sam said with an unrepentant grin.
“I’m sure it did. Perhaps you can take heart in the knowledge that you undoubtedly know more about current ladies’ fashion than I do.”
“As it so happens,” he said, reaching yet for another package. “I do know a thing or two.”
He quickly unwrapped the bundles, revealing a pile of chemises and undergarments, three ready-made gowns, and an assortment of hair brushes, perfumes, gloves, and shawls.
He turned to look at her expectantly, but her expression was not at all like when he’d handed her the hair pins.
“What is all this?” she asked in a low, hoarse voice.
“Uh…just a few things I picked up. For you,” he clarified, and then felt like an idiot. They clearly weren’t for him.
“I asked you not to buy me garments. I am able to clothe myself.” There was no inflection in her voice and he was starting to wonder if he had made a crucial judgment error. Striving to keep his voice soothing, he said, “I know that you do. I simply wanted to give you a gift. I thought you would want them for when we travel. To, er, the States.”
At that her blank expression cracked and she looked at him in shock.
“I beg your pardon?” Her voice was like the crack of a whip. “What do you mean, ‘When we travel to the States?’ When did we make plans to do such a thing?”
He saw her fists clench and in his head, he could hear Caroline chiding him for arranging people’s lives without their permission. Trying to backtrack, he said, “It’s only that I, er, assumed we would marry after…” his voice trailed off as he glanced at the bed.
“But you didn’t assume you would need to ask me?”
“Well of course I was going to ask you,” his own temper sparking. “I just didn’t expect you to overreact to a few pieces of clothing quite so strongly.”
Her eyes widened and she sputtered, “Overreact? Overreact?! Do tell me what I should have done when you purchase personal items for me after I specifically told you not to, and then offhandedly toss out that I’ll be leaving my home for another country and, oh yes, we will be marrying. You’re right. I don’t see how I could have reacted to all of that with anything but delight!”
Put that way, Sam decided, she had a point. He felt a bit of a fool and no small part of the bullying boor his sister had accused him of being time and again.
“Look, this all came out wrong. Allow me to begin again. What I should have started with was telling you I lo—“
“Telling me again!” she shouted. “May God save me from another man telling me what to do. You are all alike.”
He knew she was referring to Peter Greene and the comparison to that gutless cad infuriated him. “All alike, are we? What, did Greene ask you marry him, then? Did he intend to save you from yourself?”
“Save me from myself?” Tears sprang to her eyes and though it seemed she wasn’t even aware of them, they hit Sam like a punch to the gut and he instantly regretted his impetuous words.
“Sarah—“ he said, reaching for her. She knocked him away and covered her face with her hands.
“Please just go,” she said.
“Sarah, I love you,” he said urgently. “Please let me—“
She jerked her head up at his confession, but he could see in her eyes that she didn’t believe him. She thought he was only saying it to convince her to do his will.
He turned his hands up in supplication, at a loss for what to say to untangle the mess he had made of his proposal.
She stared at him with eyes that bespoke pain and betrayal and for the life of him, he couldn’t understand how he had earned such a look.
He picked up his hat and left the room.
He attempted to contact her the next day, sending a carefully worded letter trying to explain his intentions, but she returned it, crumpled and unopened.
Two days later he left England.
Chapter Eleven
For Sarah, the next weeks passed in a fog, and she went through her days like an automaton. If the ladies at the kitchen noticed her distraction, they must have realized it was not the same as when she’d been lost in sensual daydreams of Samuel James, because they said nothing, just stirred the porridge she’d begun cooking before it boiled over, and fetched the bread she’d put in the oven before it burned.
She alternated between two emotions: there was the anger at the high-handed way Sam had tried to take over her life. Buying her clothes after she’d specifically asked him not to was bad enough, though she probably would have gotten over that rather quickly. She fingered the frayed cuff of her grey dress. Her wardrobe was in a deplorable state and it was only her pride that had made her balk when he first mentioned buying her a silk chemise. She’d taken care of herself for five long years, pouring every cent she raised into her work and relying on the annuity from a tiny inheritance she’d received from an aunt for her personal living expenses.
She thought of the silk chemises with a shiver of longing. She had packed away all of the clothing he’d brought and the memory of the way the chemises had rippled against her fingers, nearly transparent in their delicacy, had made her long to try one on. But the notion seemed to smack of hypocrisy and so she’d folded them neatly and tucked them into the trunk with the other garments.
She should have distributed all of the items to those women she knew who needed new clothes more desperately than she did. She knew she should have and she hated herself for keeping them. She just…couldn’t part with them. Not yet, anyway.
But when she thought of how he’d planned an entire life for her—in America, no less—without even consulting her. Her blood still boiled when she thought of that. She had barely recognized that she loved him when they tumbled into bed. And if that wasn’t the most reckless thing she’d ever done, she didn’t know what was. With Peter Greene at least, she’d been a naïve young girl certain her childhood sweetheart would marry her. She frowned as she bound the twisted ankle of one of her kitchen helpers.
What on earth had made Sam think that he could present her with marriage and leaving her home as a fait accompli? Did he really think she would jump for joy and so readily turn her back on everything she had built here?
And that led her to the emotion that had been battling the anger in her heart and in which she spent as many hours: bitter regret.
She regretted her instant indignation; she regretted her angry words. She regretted not giving him the chance to propose to her properly, and she regretted not opening that letter. Mostly she regretted not telling him she loved him in return.
As the days progressed into weeks, the anger had less and less a hold on her and the regret spread like a bruise over her heart, not actively painful, but an ever present ache. She would be fine all day, focused on her work or one of the dozen new projects Eleanor had suddenly acquired funds for, and then something, some memory or sound, a scent would bump that bruise and her eyes would flood with tears.
For a woman who had prided herself for five years on maintaining a stoic front, it was humbling to suddenly become an uncontrolled watering pot. “Oh bother!” she said on one of those inconvenient occasions. “It’s not as if I even knew him that long,” she chided herself. She’d been taking inventory in the storage room of the kitchen. The influx of donations thanks to Eleanor’s work with the Ladies’ Compassion Society meant that they were now able to put food boxes together for families instead of only feeding them at the kitchen, but she was still figuring out a system to ensure that each box had complementary ingredients.
Suddenly she recalled the first time Sam had kissed her in the back of the pub, and before she knew it, she was wondering what life would have been like if they’d not had such a ridiculous row…if they had figured out a way to be together. To marry.
“Dammit,” she said, wiping a tear away with her knuckles.
“Goodness, Sarah!” Eleanor exclaimed, entering the room. “Did you hurt
yourself?” Eleanor appeared to be looking her over for injuries.
Sarah turned aside and cleared her throat. “No, of course not. I simply got something in my eye.”
“Of course,” Eleanor said, unconvinced. She’d never mentioned the tiff they’d had—or rather, the spat of foul temper Sarah had vented on her cousin—and if Eleanor wondered what had become of Mr. James, she forbore from asking. Still, she had been unusually solicitous of Sarah lately, which unfortunately had the effect of making Sarah feel even more maudlin.
She simply had to snap out of this mood. She shook her head and turned a bright smile on Eleanor.
“There now. I seemed to have blinked it out. What brings you in today? I thought your mother had conscribed you for wedding business?”
“I am here on official wedding business,” Eleanor declared. “I am here to officially invite you to the festivities. There’s even an engraved card here somewhere,” she said, digging in the rather large reticule on her wrist.
“Oh and to inform you that you are to accompany me to the modiste on Thursday. My mother insists that you have your own new gown for the wedding instead of borrowing another of Juliette’s. Not,” she added hastily, “that Juliette minds one bit. She insisted I relay that message.”
Sarah smiled. Lady Chalcroft had always been uncomfortable around Sarah when she would donate old gowns and jars of jam, but since Eleanor’s two-year absence and recent return to her family, Lady Chalcroft had been positively maternal toward Sarah, insisting she dine with them weekly and urging Sarah to take better care of herself.
It had been years since Sarah had experienced a mother’s concern and the effect was as unnerving as it was heartwarming.
“Very well, but it must be something I can wear more than once. It must serve—“
“Yes, yes,” Eleanor said, laughing. “It must serve many purposes to be worth the expense.”
Sarah smiled grudgingly. She supposed she had become a bit of a stick when it came to economizing.
Giving into a spontaneous urge, she hugged Eleanor tightly.
“Good heavens! What is that for?” her cousin asked, a delighted grin on her face.
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