“Your mother thinks I’m not good enough for you.”
His lips thinned. “She said that?”
“No. But I know that is what she meant.”
“So now you can read minds?”
“I can read people. I do a lot of that when I’m sitting alone at balls.”
“Come here, Sara.”
He held out his arms, and as much as she longed to go to him and nestle against him, she didn’t move. There was that evil emotion hope again.
“If you don’t come to me, I’ll come to you. Either way you’ll end up in my arms.”
“You’re toying with me again.”
“Never. Stop saying that. It angers me that you would think that of me.”
“I don’t want to hope,” she whispered as a lone tear traveled down her cheek.
“Your tears break my heart.”
She wiped them away, having no desire to break his heart. One broken heart was enough between them.
A knock on the door broke the moment. Ross stepped away. The door opened and in swooped Elizabeth. “Ross—” She stopped short and put her hand over her eyes. “Oh, dear Lord.”
“Mother,” Ross said between clenched teeth.
Elizabeth looked at them both in disappointment. “This will not end well.”
“Stop, Mother. This is none of your concern.”
“This is definitely my concern. Lady Sara is here—”
“Enough!”
Sara jumped at Ross’s angry outburst. She hated that she was the cause of disagreement between son and mother. “Your Grace, I was informing Rossmoyne that I will be moving out this afternoon and residing with my good friend the Countess of Blackbourne.”
Instead of looking relieved, the duchess studied Sara closely. She opened her mouth to say something, then must have thought better of it, for she closed it again and looked at her son.
Ross was watching Sara with a tortured expression and a plea in his eyes that Sara had to turn away from. She could not let him sway her. As his mother said, no good could come of this. Ross refused to believe it now, but in time he would.
“There are visitors,” Elizabeth said. “Lady Penelope and her mother have come calling. It would be nice if you were to visit with them, Ross.”
Ross groaned. “Please, Mother. No.”
“Yes. They are waiting.” She turned to Sara. “Lord Henderson and Lord Newport have come to see you, Sara.”
“Me?” The word sounded like a dreadful squeak, and Sara put a hand to her chest. Certainly no one had come to visit her.
“Yes, you. I would ask that you entertain them, seeing as they are here for you.”
Sara glanced at Ross, whose stormy expression didn’t bode well for Lord Henderson or Lord Newport. And poor Lady Penelope. If he looked at Sara like that, she would run screaming from the house.
“I have to finish packing,” she said in an effort to avoid the two lords below. She had no interest in socializing with them. None at all. It got to be so awkward. Long silences when she searched for something interesting to say and came up with nothing but the weather. How mundane. She would rather fold her clothes.
Elizabeth held her hand out. “Come, dear, let us have some tea with our visitors.”
Chapter 24
Truly, Ross needed to stop glaring at them. This was hard enough for Sara without Ross’s dark looks thrown their way.
Lord Henderson and Lord Newport were aware of the looks as well, for they kept glancing at Ross and clearing their throats. He was making things extremely awkward.
Sara sat in the drawing room in misery, a lord on either side of her, and tried to come up with something to say. She was failing miserably. As always.
Meanwhile, she had to ignore the fact that Ross was sitting next to Lady Penelope and her mother while they smiled and simpered over him. Just minutes ago she’d been about to kiss Ross again. They’d been deep into a very important conversation, and now they had to act like they hardly knew each other. Could this day get any worse?
“You were beautiful at the Plainfield ball the other night,” Lord Henderson said.
Sara smiled at him. “Thank you.”
He blinked, and she had the impression that he expected her to say more.
“Thank you very much,” she said.
He blinked again and looked at Lord Newport, whom Sara knew better; his family had been friends with hers for years. She and Meredith and Newport had taken dance classes and suffered through dinner parties together. Although Newport had been more fond of Meredith than Sara.
“How is your mother?” Sara asked Newport.
“Good. She’s doing well.”
“Very good,” she said. Her face felt like it was going to split in half from smiling so widely.
Elizabeth was conversing with Lady Penelope’s mother, leaving Lady Penelope and Ross to converse alone. Sara’s heart lurched at the cozy scene on the other side of the room. She barely managed to quell an urge to march over there and plop herself between the two.
Ross raised his head and their gazes locked. Sara wrenched hers away.
“And your family?” Newport asked. “Are they doing well?”
Sara looked at Newport in surprise. Almost immediately, he recognized his faux pas. His face turned red and he stammered. “My apologies…I didn’t mean…”
“They are as well as can be expected,” Sara said. “Mother is still residing in Bath, and Father is in Hadley Springs doing what he likes to do most.”
“Yes, well. That is good. Good.” Newport looked away and took a sip of tea from a cup much too small for his hands.
“Will you be attending the Oakley ball?” Henderson asked into the sudden silence.
“I don’t believe so.” She knew she was being curt, but what was the reason for letting this go on? She wasn’t interested in either of them as potential suitors. For their part, they were interested only in her wealth. Henderson was teetering on the brink of financial ruin. His father had invested far too rashly in schemes that no sound person should invest in. And Newport had inherited an earldom that wasn’t the richest, though neither was it destitute, like Henderson’s. She wasn’t entirely certain why Newport was here, other than they had been friends for years.
A surreptitious glance at Ross showed that he was appearing to listen to something Lady Penelope was saying. She liked to speak with her hands, and they were whipping through the air. Apparently, whatever she was speaking about was dear to her heart.
The butler entered quietly and made straight for Ross, who tipped his head as the butler whispered in his ear. Ross’s head jerked around to look at Sara. He stood, and with a quick apology to Penelope, who was in midsentence, her hands suspended in the air, he walked out.
Elizabeth frowned after him. Lady Penelope appeared shocked. Lady Penelope’s mother pressed her lips together in disapproval. Henderson said something to Sara, but she couldn’t hear what because her heart was suddenly thundering.
She stood so quickly that both men reared back. “Excuse me, my lords. I have…There is something…” Oh, bother. She raced out of the room, lifting her skirts higher than propriety allowed in order to follow Ross.
He was standing in the entryway reading a piece of paper. She stopped short, dropping her skirts.
“What is it?” she asked a bit breathlessly.
He looked at her with such a tortured expression.
“What is it? What’s happened? Is it my father?”
Ross shook his head. “Not your father.”
“Then what is it?”
His hands were shaking so badly that the paper rattled. She’d never seen Ross so overcome. Normally, he was the stoic one.
“You’re frightening me,” she whispered.
“It’s a…” He cleared his throat and looked down. “It’s another letter.”
Sara froze. For some reason she had not been expecting this; so many other things had been swirling around in her mind. Maybe part of her had h
oped that the letter writer was through with her. Such a naive hope that was. “May I read it?” she asked.
“I’d rather you not.”
“Let me see it.”
“Sara.”
She held out her hand. They stared at each other as some sort of silent battle waged between them. Wits clashing. Stubbornness battling.
With a sigh, Ross handed it over.
I watched God claim her as his. That’s what He wanted. God wanted me to make her His because she was too good for anyone here on earth. Too good for me and certainly too good for the duke.
But now you are with the duke. You didn’t think I would know that. You thought you could trick me by leaving the comfort of Hadley Springs. But you’re here. And I know. And God is calling me again.
Sara staggered back a few paces. Ross jumped to her side to lend a steadying hand, but she waved him away and took a few deep breaths to control the thick fear that was threatening to consume her.
“What do you think it means?” she asked.
“Rossmoyne.” Elizabeth stepped out of the drawing room and closed the door behind her.
“Not now, Mother.”
“This is ridiculous. You all but left Lady Penelope in there alone. And Sara, you abandoned Lord Henderson and Lord Newport. I must insist that you return to the drawing room. I cannot guarantee that they won’t talk about this, and then rumor will spread that Sara raced after you.”
Sara was staring at the letter, at the horrific words of Meredith’s last moments. Images sprang forth of Meredith lying on the ground in the woods of Hyde Park. That was where they had found her. All alone. Her body cold. Sara closed her eyes, but the images remained.
“Mother, that is enough,” Ross said with a harshness Sara had never heard from him. It was enough to silence the duchess for a moment.
“What’s wrong?” Elizabeth asked. “Sara, dear, are you all right?”
“Obviously, she is not,” Ross said. He was standing close enough that Sara could lean on him if she wanted. She desperately wanted to, but the prospect of Lady Penelope and her mother seeing the spectacle stopped her, not to mention Elizabeth standing a few feet away.
“What happened? Did she receive bad news?” Elizabeth asked.
Sara carefully folded the letter and handed it to Ross, who was looking at her as if she might shatter.
“If you’ll excuse me, Your Grace, but I must call off…I cannot…” She waved her hand toward the drawing room.
“Of course,” Elizabeth said in concern. “I will make your excuses. But Sara, please tell me what is wrong.”
“I…can’t.” She looked at Ross in desperation. Her knees were quivering so hard that she feared they would give out on her.
Ross took her by the elbow and anchored her. Elizabeth looked on, partly in disapproval and partly in fear. “Will someone please tell me what is happening?” she said.
“Not now. If you could attend to our guests, I will attend to Lady Sara. Hector, please send for Mr. Montgomery,” Ross said.
It looked as if Elizabeth wanted to say something more but thought better of it. Instead she returned to the drawing room while Ross escorted Sara to his study.
—
“It was sent from a postal office near St. Giles,” Montgomery said.
It had been a few hours since the letter arrived. For a while Ross had feared Sara would faint, but she rallied after he forced her to take a few sips of whiskey, which had done wonders for bringing her color back. She was now sitting quietly on the settee, listening to Montgomery. All outward appearances pointed to the fact that she was calm, but Ross knew his Sara well. Her hands were fisted, and if she moved her fingers, there was a slight tremble to them. Her eyes were wide, and there was still fear in them.
“That’s close to Mrs. Kettles’s establishment,” Ross said.
“I have uncovered another bit of news,” Montgomery said hesitantly.
The fact that he was hesitant made Ross’s gut clench. “What is it?”
Montgomery looked pointedly at Sara.
“Oh, no,” she said with far more spine than Ross expected. “You will not send me out of the room to talk about this.”
Montgomery looked at Ross.
“And you don’t need to look at Ross for permission. I give you permission to speak in front of me.”
“Sara—”
Sara glared at Ross, who shut his mouth and nodded to Montgomery. Whatever Montgomery said, Ross would have told her anyway. She had a way about her that kept him from denying her anything.
“There was a murder in Venice a few months after Lady Meredith’s,” Montgomery said. “I don’t have specifics, but it sounds suspiciously similar.”
“Do you believe the same man who murdered Meredith murdered this other woman?” Sara asked.
“I can’t say at this time. Although from what I have been able to discern, the two women looked alike.”
The three fell silent as they tried to digest this newest piece of information. That there had been another murder made Ross feel sick. Another woman had fallen victim to Meredith’s killer, another family devastated. If they had been able to catch him right away, someone else might still be alive today. How many others were there? How many had this monster left in his wake?
“This Charlie from the nethersken, he said he went on a grand tour two years ago,” Sara said.
“The times match up,” Montgomery said.
“And if the letter was sent from a post box close to the rookery, it stands to reason that he has returned there.” Ross cursed. “Mrs. Kettles said she would tell us if he returned.”
“No doubt he is back in town. Whether he’s at the nethersken, we don’t know. What we do know is that if he is the same person as this Charlie, and if Charlie really did go on a grand tour, then he is not without funds. He could be staying at his home with his family and avoiding the rookery.”
“We need to return to the rookery to find out,” Ross said.
“I’m going with you,” Sara said.
It was on the tip of Ross’s tongue to say no, and Sara must have guessed that, because she shot him another lethal glare. Truly, he would be dead by now if her glares could slice through skin. While he wanted to keep her safe—namely, locked in his house with James guarding the door—he knew that wasn’t possible. Sara wasn’t a piece of fine china to put up on a shelf and admire. She wanted to be involved, and she would be involved, whether he liked it or not. His choices were to lock her in and face her wrath and take the chance that she would sneak out, or bring her with him.
He far preferred to remain in her company and knew most of his reasons were selfish.
Chapter 25
Once again Ross found himself in the close confines of the carriage on the way to a nethersken with Sara. Though he’d had every intention of promptly returning to India, he wasn’t all that upset by where he was now. If only it weren’t because she had received another letter.
“We need a list of gentlemen who went on a grand tour two years ago,” she said.
“I fear no list is available.”
“Then we need to ask around. Maybe we can attend another ball.” She grimaced at that thought. “Or some such event and ask people.”
Ross’s lips twitched. She was forever amazing him. “And how do you propose doing that? Just outright asking every male you come across?”
“Of course not. We would have to be discreet.”
“You despise balls, and by your own admission, you despise making conversation with people.”
“For this I would do it.”
“So why does it look like you’ve just sucked on a lemon?”
Her lips twitched in a smile, and then she laughed and the sound was musical. For a moment he forgot why they were in a carriage and why Sara had entered his life again, and he just enjoyed laughing with her.
Eventually, the laughter died on her lips and then in her eyes and she turned serious. “Do you have friends who went o
n their grand tour in the past two years?”
“I’m afraid I am of no help there. I’ve been out of society for the past two years.”
She tilted her head to study him. “Did you get a grand tour?”
“No. My father died when I was barely fifteen. I’ve been busy running the dukedom since.”
“I’m sorry.”
He lifted a brow. “Sorry because I didn’t get to tour the world?”
“Sorry that you were so burdened at such a young age.”
He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “It was what I was born to and what I had to do.”
She settled more comfortably and looked at him speculatively. He’d been in tough situations in India, but none of them made his insides tremble as much as that look did. She was thinking something, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what.
What intrigued him about her—well, one of the things that intrigued him about her—was that she had no problems making conversation with him. So why did she suffer so in social situations?
“Do you recall any of your friends embarking on their grand tours two years ago?” It wasn’t the question he thought she’d ask, even though he had no idea what she was going to ask.
“No, but I wasn’t living in London at the time.”
“And where were you living?”
“India.”
“India is not the usual place a gentleman travels to.”
“I was asked to go by Queen Victoria.”
“The queen asked you to go to India.” She said this in a flat voice, as if she didn’t believe him.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“There were uprisings against the British, and she wanted someone she trusted to investigate them and report back to her.”
“You were sent to a war zone?” she asked, still unbelieving.
“It wasn’t quite that dangerous.”
He’d always wondered why the request had come at the time it did—right after Meredith’s unsolved murder case was closed. He suspected his mother had something to do with it. Elizabeth had been a lady-in-waiting to the queen for a short time, and the two had been close for a while. He wouldn’t put it past his mother to call in a favor or two. He hadn’t thought much about it at the time. He’d gone because he’d wanted to and he’d needed to. And now he was grateful he’d been given the opportunity, for it had changed him in so many ways.
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