Romancing the Past

by Darcy Burke

  When he finally broke the contact, the world snapped abruptly back into focus, and she heard the cat-calls, wolf-whistles, and applause of their audience, which had expanded to include not only Brunell and Montague, but half the crew of La Sereia, who had gathered at her rail to watch, and dozens of bystanders on the dock.

  And she still didn’t care.

  “You’re needed aboard, mademoiselle,” Captain Souza shouted from above.

  Sabine waved her hand to indicate she had heard him and would be coming soon. Steeling herself, she wiped away the last of her tears and looked up into Thomas’s beloved face one last time. “Good-bye, Thomas Chadwick Pearce, and Godspeed.”

  Then she turned on her heel and ran for the ship before she could make a fool of herself by bursting into heartbroken tears.

  Chapter 26

  London, England – February 22, 1806

  “Oh, do stop pacing, Sabine,” Winifred Langston Pearce chided. “You’ll wear a groove in my father-in-law’s favorite carpet, and I shall never hear the end of it.”

  Sabine stopped, looked down at the Aubusson rug in the sitting room of the Pearce family’s London townhouse, and frowned. The tan-and-blue pattern might once have been pretty and even vibrant, but the colors had faded with age to a dull, dishwatery hue. “This is his favorite carpet?” she asked dubiously.

  Freddie threw up her hands in mock exasperation. “Anything I have a hand in damaging is his favorite thing, starting from the day I married his son.”

  Despite her current unhappiness, Sabine laughed at her best friend’s irreverence. Within two weeks of Sabine’s arrival in London, a footman had delivered Freddie Pearce’s calling card, and the two had met for the first time the following day. As Thomas had predicted when he had first mentioned his childhood friend and sister-in-law to Sabine, the women had found much in common and quickly became boon companions. For Sabine, who had never had a truly close female friend before, their camaraderie had been both a revelation and balm for the pain of losing Thomas. The fact that Freddie also knew Thomas and loved him—albeit purely platonically—only strengthened their bond.

  And now she had another loss to mourn. Privately.

  It had been just under a month since the untimely death of William Pitt. Sabine still had a hard time thinking of him as her father, though as soon as she had laid eyes on him some eleven months previous, the fact that he was her father had been an unmistakable truth. The shape of their eyes, the height of their foreheads, the color of their hair—though his had grayed considerably in comparison to hers—and their shared facial expressions and mannerisms were testament to the blood connection between them.

  A connection Pitt had been unwilling to reveal publicly, given the current climate, a decision Sabine had understood and even supported. Admitting he had a half-French daughter, given Britain’s current hostilities with Bonaparte, would be political suicide. There would be time later, once he had retired from public life, which he had sworn he would do as soon as he felt the safety of the commonwealth was assured. He had managed to make arrangements to ensure her financial security for the foreseeable future, settling the sum of eight thousand pounds on her. With these funds, she had purchased a property near Swindon for herself and her horses while having plenty left over to cover her living expenses until her business became profitable, although she had already earned stud fees from several nearby farmers who owned Shire or Suffolk Punch draft horses and wanted to experiment with crossing them with a Percheron.

  For the most part, she was happy in England, certainly happier than she had been in France after Maman’s death. The food was a trifle bland, the language was a bothersome barrier at times, the weather was damper and chillier than she was accustomed to, and her relationship with the man who had sired her was neither as close nor as uncomplicated as she might have wished, but one could not have everything.

  And then that man had died.

  His death should not have come as a surprise. He had been in poor health for years, and the collapse of the Coalition after the defeats at Ulm and Austerlitz had worsened his condition rapidly. Sabine was also of the opinion that the large amount of port he drank on a daily basis on the recommendation of his doctor had precisely the opposite of the desired effect. Nonetheless, she had been unable to convince him to limit himself to two glasses a day—as opposed to his typical minimum of two bottles. Still, he had only been forty-six years old, and so it had come as a surprise.

  And all of this explained why she was here on the morning of her father’s state funeral at Westminster Abbey, dithering over whether it would be appropriate for her to attend or not. Because as things stood, she was no one. What possible reason could a single young woman of no political or personal standing with the premiere have for attending his funeral? Perhaps, given the size of the Abbey and the likely size of the crowd, no one would notice her. But if people did notice, would they also spot the uncanny likeness between her and the deceased? If they did, would tongues wag? Would she be responsible for starting a horrible scandal that would tarnish his name in some way?

  She gave Freddie a look of despair. “I still cannot decide what I should do. I feel as though whatever choice I make, I am likely to regret it. And I do not wish for you and your husband to gain notoriety if anyone who sees me realizes I might be related to the Pitts. I have read enough of the Society pages in the Times to know that would not be pretty for you.”

  Freddie shook her head, jostling the dark brown ringlets that framed her face, and laughed. “If you had read enough of the Society pages in the Times, you would know Conrad and I are already notorious. Well, not so much Conrad as me, but he is notorious for putting up with my hoydenish ways. You should have seen what they said about me when I climbed that tree in Hyde Park to rescue a young boy who’d got stuck there. You would think every lady doesn’t occasionally wear men’s clothes beneath a pelisse when the weather is cold. But perhaps they do not realize how much warmer it is!”

  Sabine’s smile was wobbly but real. Her friend truly was incorrigible, but that was why Sabine loved her. She could just imagine the gossip that particular incident must have spurred.

  “In any event,” Freddie went on, waving a hand, “after the stir that caused, you certainly needn’t worry that Conrad and I cannot weather any storm that erupts. You should make the decision purely based on your own feelings. Do you wish to attend, or don’t you? We will support you either way.”

  And just like that, a lump crowded Sabine’s throat and tears collected in the corners of her eyes, gratitude at Freddie’s unwavering loyalty and anguish over her own indecision crowding out any amusement she had felt just moments before. She really wished she could stop careening from emotion to emotion like a Dionysian maenad, but it was impossible to maintain any stability when she was not even sure what she felt about her father’s death.

  In the time since she had arrived in England, she and Pitt had spent no more a handful of days in one another’s company. He was, after all, incredibly busy in London with matters of state, while she had been settling into her new home in the country. How was she supposed to grieve the death of a man she had scarcely known but had imagined she one day might know very well? And which would she regret more: going to the funeral and possibly drawing unwanted attention? Or not going and wondering if she had missed something that might give her more clarity about her own feelings?

  How on earth could she know?

  At least when she and Thomas had parted, she had known how she felt. And wasn’t it ironic that she had spent more time with him in less than two weeks than she had in ten whole months with the man who had fathered her?

  Exasperated with herself, she rolled her eyes up at the decorative moldings that graced the ceiling and sighed. “That is just the problem. I can’t decide.”

  “You should go.”

  At first, Sabine thought the male voice behind her must belong to Conrad, Freddie’s husband and Thomas’s elder brother.

 
; When she had first met Conrad, she had seen the family resemblance between the two men immediately, even though they did not look particularly alike. Where Thomas had fair coloring and finely etched features, his older brother was darker and rougher, as though God had made them from the same basic plan, but had rushed Conrad through without quite putting on the finishing touches and then over-baked him in the oven. But the first time she had heard Conrad speak, she realized she would have known they were brothers even if they had not shared a single physical feature in common. From the timbre of their voices to the rhythm of their speech—at least in English; Conrad’s French was not nearly as refined as Thomas’s—to certain turns of phrase, they sounded so alike that sometimes, if she closed her eyes when Conrad was talking, she could almost imagine it was Thomas in the room.

  Almost, but not quite. The differences were subtle, but she could hear them. And this male voice was not Conrad Pearce’s.

  She whirled to face the source of the voice, certain who she would see before her gaze found him. “Thomas!”

  He stood just inside the doorway between the first floor sitting room and the corridor, perhaps eight feet from her. Clad in black breeches, black tailcoat, and a grey velvet waistcoat, he looked breathtakingly elegant yet somber. His hair was much shorter than it had been when she’d left him on the dock at Le Havre, the severity of the cut emphasizing the familiar angles and curves of his handsome face. He looked older to her, not physically, but in some other intangible way. As if, in the time they had been parted, he had truly and irrevocably grown up. But war could do that to a man, even if the man in question never saw action on the front line.

  The expression on his face took her breath away: joy, desire, love and a hint of uncertainty. As though he was not quite certain she would welcome his return.

  How could he doubt that?

  Sabine flew into his embrace, or it felt as if she did. If her feet touched the floor, she was unaware of it. All she knew was that one second, she was standing alone in the middle of the faded carpet, and the next, she was pressed against Thomas’s warm, broad chest.

  His relief was palpable as he closed his arms around her. She twined her arms around his neck and rose up on her toes. When his lips closed over hers—hot and searching—she groaned with satisfaction. She had dreamt of his return a thousand times, conjured this moment in her imagination a thousand more, but this time, he was real and solid and here. She knew, because never—not even in her most vivid fantasies—had she been able to feel that hard heat of his body molded to hers or taste the salty sweetness of his mouth with her tongue or smell the mint and clove and honey scent of him.

  Oh, how she had missed him. Missed this. Nothing mattered but that he had come back to her and was kissing her as if both their lives depended on it. Which they very well might. She was sure now that she had not drawn a full breath in eleven months, that she had been gasping for air all this time without realizing it. The fact that his kisses were making her even more breathless and dizzy was only evidence of how deprived she had been.

  Someone behind Thomas cleared his throat. “This is all very touching,” a basso voice rumbled in sardonic amusement, “but at this rate, Sabine will not have to decide whether to attend the funeral, because we will have already missed it.”

  Conrad.

  Sabine and Thomas sprang apart like guilty children.

  Her cheeks flaming with embarrassment at having put on such a public display of private emotion in front of her best friend and Thomas’s older brother, Sabine strove to gain her composure. As rational thought returned, insight struck and with it, betrayal. She turned and pointed an accusatory finger at Freddie. “Why did you not tell me he was here?”

  Her friend opened her mouth to answer but was cut off by Thomas’s gentle words. “She didn’t know. I got in very late last night, so late that until I saw Conrad in the hall a few minutes ago, no one but the footman who was up when I arrived knew I was here. And I asked her not to tell you that I was trying to be here in time for the funeral, because I did not want you to be disappointed if I did not make it.”

  Sabine blinked. “Oh. I am sorry, Freddie.”

  Cheery as ever, Freddie grinned. “Happy to see him, are you?”

  Oh, yes. Yes. She had never been happier in her life. Except…what did it mean? “So, you came for the funeral?”

  The direct question, “Are you home for good?” failed to exit her throat, because she feared the answer. If it was no, she might not ever breathe properly again.

  “Yes,” he said, “and to request for a transfer to the London office for the duration of my service with the Foreign Office.”

  Her heart fluttered with hope. “Do you think you will get it?”

  He dragged her back into his arms again and brushed her lips across his forehead. “I can’t make any promises, but I believe the odds are good. My superior in Lisbon wrote a letter to the Foreign Secretary indicating that he felt my talents were wasted in a posting where I only had to speak one foreign language every day, and that I would be of more use to the crown if I were in a position that required me to exercise the full range of my abilities. And there is the little matter of securing your safety now that your father can no longer do so.”

  Sabine raised her eyebrows at that. “But…why would my safety be at issue now?”

  “Because the very fact that you escaped France before you could be arrested suggests that you were cooperating with the British spies and the French resistance, just as your uncle alleged. If Bonaparte or, more likely, Fouchet, thinks he can get his hands on you to wring information from you, he might be motivated to try.”

  “And you hope to be assigned to protect me?”

  Thomas huffed a wry laugh and shook his head. “No. I hope to convince the Foreign Secretary that if we are married, he will not have to assign anyone to protect you, as I will be doing it at no charge to the government. Lord Harrowby is a practical man when it comes to the crown’s purse.”

  If we are married.

  Her heart stuttered to a hard, clutching stop before resuming its rhythm. Rapidly. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

  “Do I have to ask?”

  “No,” she admitted. “You know my answer.”

  He leaned in close and whispered in her ear so neither his brother nor sister-in-law could hear him. “I love you, and I will find a way to be with you. One way or another.” Then he lifted his head and said, “Now, I believe we have a funeral to attend.”

  Epilogue

  Sabine Marie Rousseau and Thomas Chadwick Pearce were married by special license three weeks later in St. Mark's Church in Swindon. The groom's childhood friend and current vicar of Grange-Over-Sands, Walter Langston, officiated the ceremony, which was attended by the groom's brother and sister-in-law, the vicar's wife, the Foreign Secretary, the bride’s paid companion, and a brooding gentleman by the name of George Brunell. There was not a dry eye in the house.

  After the ceremony, the party repaired to the bride's country home, Elmsley House, for the wedding breakfast. There they were joined by a few families from several neighboring properties, as well as by the bride's head groomsman—of the equine variety, not the husbandly variety—Monsieur Fabron, who had arrived from La Perche in the company of Mr. Brunell just three days earlier.

  As the festivities dragged on from midmorning into midafternoon, with none of the guests showing any particular signs of flagging, Thomas drew his wife into one corner of the noisy dining room for a moment of privacy.

  His wife. Oh, how he liked the sound of that!

  “Do you think they will ever leave?” he asked a little plaintively.

  “Most of them are not leaving at all,” she pointed out with a laugh. “Everyone but my neighbors either lives here or is staying the night.”

  Thomas groaned. “I have scarcely seen you in the past three weeks, and when I have seen you, between Freddie and Conrad and that infernal Mrs. Poole, we are never alone. I thought getting marr
ied was going to change that, but I see I have been sold a bill of goods.”

  “Do you want an annulment?” she teased, her bright blue eyes sparkling with amusement.

  “I want,” he growled near her ear, “to take my wife to bed.”

  “La, sir, are you mad?” She tapped him lightly on the shoulder by way of playful remonstration. “It is the middle of the day.”

  Heedless of anyone who might be watching them, he caught her around the waist and hauled her close until the ridge of his erection pressed tightly against her abdomen. “I am mad,” he said, nuzzling her neck. “For you.”

  Sabine melted into him with a sigh. “I know. But we can hardly just disappear on everyone. What will they think?”

  “At this point, I do not care. We are married. They can think what they like. It probably won’t be half as much as we get up to.”

  Her cheeks turned pink, but she didn’t try to pull away. Instead, she turned her head and whispered in his ear, “Our room is at the end of the hall on the left. Give me a few minutes to slip away and meet me there. If anyone asks, say you are going in search of me. It will have the benefit of being true.” Then, with a brush of her lips on his, she slid from his arms and floated away in a whisper of pale blue silk that sounded like a secret.

  It took Thomas longer than he expected to escape the dining room. People—some he knew and a few he didn’t—kept intercepting him to shake his hand, to congratulate him, and in one case, to ask him when he could be expected to return to work in the London office. Lord Harrowby being his boss, Thomas could hardly demur and escape, so he gave the man a detailed accounting of his plans for the next few weeks. When he finally managed to break free, he overheard Freddie and Walter’s wife, Artemisia, remarking on Sabine’s prolonged absence. If he didn’t break free before they caught up with him, he would have no choice but to find her and bring her back down. Freddie was not to be gainsaid.