Strangers at Dawn (23 page)

“Of course, darling.”

Sara abruptly rose, went to kneel by Anne’s chair and hugged her. It was something that she’d been doing all her life. She barely remembered their own mother, but she remembered comforting Anne after their father had gently told them that their mother was in heaven now and they had to be brave little girls.

She’d always been stronger than Anne, not emotionally, but physically. Anne had been susceptible to every childish ailment and had spent a good deal of time in the sickroom. And she’d spent time there too, not only to keep Anne company, but because she was so afraid the angels would take her sister to live in heaven with their mother. Childlike, she’d made up her mind that she wasn’t going to let that happen, not even if she had to fight the angel Gabriel himself.

But Anne wasn’t weak. It took a woman with stronger nerves than Sara’s to live with William Neville as his dutiful wife.

Sara held Anne at arm’s length. “You should have written more often.”

“I know, but as you said yourself, I never was much of a letter writer.”

Sara smiled. “You had plenty to say about Mr. Thornley. You like him, don’t you?”

“He’s been kind to me, if that’s what you mean.”

“I thought,” Sara hesitated, then went on, “from the tone of your letters, that it might be more than that.”

Anne looked down at her clasped hands. “How could that be? I’m still a married woman. We don’t know what happened to William, and until we do, I’m not free to love anyone.” She looked at Sara with an anguished expression. “Sara, if you only knew-”

A shiver of apprehension brushed over Sara’s skin. “What?”

Anne’s eyes fell away. “It doesn’t matter.”

“No, tell me.”

“It’s only that I wish I could remember what happened that night.”

“Nothing happened. It was just as I told you. I put you to bed. I gave you laudanum. I stayed with you the whole night through. William did not come home that night.” Sara got up. “Listen to me, darling,” she said. “What if I told you that I … that Max and I are thinking of settling in America. Would you come with us?”

“You mean, leave Longfield forever?”

“We could come back for holidays.”

Anne smiled sadly. “I’m happy for you, Sara. I like the look of your Max. Of course, you must go. But I can’t leave Longfield.”

“Can’t or
won’t?”
said Sara, suddenly turning fierce.

Anne touched Sara’s hand. “Sara, please-”

But Sara wasn’t ready to be placated. “Your devotion to a husband who abused you is pathetic! He doesn’t deserve it. And what if he’s not dead? What if he comes back? What kind of life will you have then? If you come with me to America, we’ll both be free of William. Don’t you understand that, Anne?”

Another sad smile briefly touched Anne’s lips. “You’re trying to fix things for me, Sara, just like you always did. But this is something you can’t fix. No one can.” Anne rose. “Let’s join the others. I want to get to know your Max.”

Despair welled up in Sara. “But …”

“You can’t fix it, Sara,” Anne said softly. “You can’t change me or what I feel. So please, leave it alone.”

O
N THE SURFACE, THOUGHT SARA, IT WASN’T
a bad evening as evenings went in Longfield. Max and Constance played cards; she and Lucy amused themselves at the piano; Simon and Martin eventually turned up, and Martin was persuaded to sing a duet with Anne.

Not a bad evening at all if she had not sensed the brooding tension in Max. Whenever she chanced to glance his way, she found his eyes on her, watching, assessing. It made her tense. She couldn’t relax. The muscles in her neck seemed to freeze, and her stomach churned. She wasn’t sorry when the tea tray arrived and shortly after everyone began to drift off to bed.

Max caught up with her on the stairs. “Anyone would think,” he said pleasantly, “that you’re trying to avoid me.”

“Mmm?”

“Avoid me, you know, as in running away.”

“No.” She held the candle high to light their steps. “I’m just tired, Max, that’s all.”

When they came to her door, she turned to bid him good night, but he spoke first.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in? We are engaged to be married, you know. That entitles me to a few privileges.”

“Like what, for instance?”

He gave her a big, lazy smile. “You figure it out.”

She already had, and if she hadn’t been holding the candle, she would have slapped him. Then she smelled the brandy on his breath, and everything became clear. “You’re drunk!” she said.

“Drunk!” He looked dumbfounded. “I’m a gentleman, and a gentleman knows how to hold his liquor.”

“Where,” she asked ominously, “did you get it?”

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “A gentleman never carries tales out of school.”

“What makes you think,” she asked sweetly, “that you’re a gentleman, Max?”

In a move that was too inept to worry her, he boxed her in with one hand on either side of the door. “Don’t you remember the night we met? I wasn’t a gentleman then, Sara. I was a bloody saint! And I’ve regretted it ever since.”

“That night-” She heard the quaver in her voice and strove to even her tone. “That night is best forgotten.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You got your reward. But look at me.” He held out his hands and made them tremble. “I’m reduced to a shivering jelly. Isn’t it time I got my reward too?”

She showed him her teeth. “More than time, and if I had a whip in my hand, I would give it to you.
Goodnight,
M
ax?”

She turned the doorknob and whisked herself into her room, but tipsy or not, Max was too quick for her. His foot connected with the door, sending it back on its hinges, and he sauntered into her room. Sara put down the candle and hastened to shut the door, just in case anyone loitering in the corridor would get the wrong idea.

When she turned around, he was propping himself against one of the bedposts. “Do you mind
if
I smoke?” he asked.

“You mean … you smoke as well?”

“I smoke. I drink. I make love to beautiful women.” Though his posture remained relaxed, there was a challenge in his eyes. “Do you have a problem with that, Sara?”

She was beginning to see the humor in the situation, and might have laughed if he hadn’t mentioned making love to beautiful women. “Frankly, I don’t care what you do.”

“Thank you!”

With that, he strode to the fireplace and used the candle to light his cigar. As he exhaled the first puff of smoke, Sara coughed delicately. Max smiled.

“You don’t approve of me, do you, Sara?”

“I don’t approve of your methods, Max. I don’t like to be coerced into doing what I don’t want to do.”

“And I’m here on sufferance.”

“I didn’t invite you here.”

“But Drew Primrose, well, you welcome him with open arms.”

Her brow puckered. “What?”

“Drew Primrose. He’s the kind of man you really admire: prissy, straitlaced, a prude, in fact.”

“You’ve been listening to my brothers.”

“And your stepmother. You hero-worshiped him, she told me.”

“That was when I was a child. But Drew is a worthy person. I respect him.”

She was standing in the center of the floor, and he began to circle her, puffing away on his cigar, giving her the peculiar sensation that she was a statue in some musty museum and Max was studying her for flaws.

“Drew is a worthy person,” he mimicked. “Now that puzzles me. What about William Neville? Was he a worthy person too?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“Yet you had an affair with him.”

Her eyes flashed then darkened. “Do you have a problem with that, Max?” she asked, throwing his own words back at him.

“As a matter off act, I do.” He threw his cigar in the grate, and crossed to her in two strides. “I’m a worthy person. Maybe not as worthy as your precious Drew, but a damn sight better than William Neville.”

“So?”

“So, what about it?”

She went rigid. “So what about what?”

His hands grasped her shoulders and his mouth lowered to hers. He said huskily, “So why don’t we finish what we
started that night in Reading, when I climbed through your window? Sara, I know you want it as much as I do. So why are you holding me off? What have you got to lose?”

In the next instant, he went staggering back when she shoved him violently with the heels of her hands. Before he could recover his balance, she shoved him again.

“You crude, loathsome, drunken lecher.” She fairly spat the words. By this time, she had him up against the door. Trembling with fury, she glared up at him. “Is this an example of how you make love to a woman? With insults? If that’s the case, I’d be very surprised if you’re not a … a …”

“
A
what?”

“
A
virgin, that’s what! A callow youth could do better than you.”

“Now, just a minute, Sara. I wasn’t insulting you.”

“No! You just a minute!” She was so furious, the words were practically choking her. “Don’t you know it’s bad form to cast a woman’s past lovers in her face before you ask her to go to bed with you? It might have worked in the past for you, Max, but it does not work with me.”

He said moodily, “You’re a spitfire when you’re angry, aren’t you?”

Air swished from her lungs. “And you’re a jackass when you’re drunk.”

“I am not drunk!”

“Then what are you?”

“Restless. Hot. Feverish. If I can’t have you soon, I think I’ll go insane.”

She was speechless.

“Look,” he said reasonably, draping his inebriated arms over her shoulders, “I don’t see what the problem is. You rigged yourself out tonight in that beautiful gown just to seduce me, didn’t you? Well, I’m seduced. So why don’t you let me take you to bed, and I’ll show you what worthy really means.”

She choked over her words. “You … I …
what?”
Then,
on an earsplitting crescendo, “Out! Out!
Out!
If you don’t leave me at once, I’ll scream the house down.”

She didn’t give him time to obey her command, but hustling him aside, opened the door and propelled him into the corridor. Then she slammed the door on his bewildered face and quickly locked it.

After a moment, the doorknob rattled. “Sara!”

No response.

“I don’t have a candle. It’s as dark as pitch out here. How am I supposed to find my way to my room?”

“You can’t miss it,” she hissed through the door. “Your room is next to mine.”

There was a moment of silence, then the doorknob rattled again. “Do I turn right or left, north or south, east or west? It’s all so confusing. Why aren’t there candles in the hall? I’ve heard of thrift, but this is ridiculous. Anyone would think you didn’t have a penny to your name.”

She ground her teeth together, but a few moments later, she opened the door and thrust a candle into his hand. “That way,” she said, turning him around and pointing him in the right direction. “And,” she added ungraciously, “mind you don’t set the house on fire.”

“Thank you.” And with as much dignity as he could muster, he sauntered off.

Sara slammed her bedroom door and locked it. The room stank of Max’s cigar, so she marched to her window and opened it wide. A light winked in the darkness, fluttered, then went out.

Drew must be working late, she thought, for the light had come from his office, the converted gardener’s house where he’d been born and raised. He was conscientious to a fault. He often worked late into the night on estate business, and would occasionally sleep at the cottage, though he had a home to go to in Stoneleigh. And Max Worthe,
special correspondent,
had the gall to look down on Drew? Well, she knew who her friends were, and Drew was a true friend.

But if Drew was there, it would be safer not to go out tonight.

She raked her fingers through her hair, dislodging pins. Nothing was going as she hoped it would. She’d tried
talk
ing to Anne again. They didn’t have to go to America, she’d said. They could find a nice little house in Ireland or Scotland. But Anne would not budge.

And if Anne would not leave Longfield, neither would she.

Then there was Max. He was turning out to be more of a complication than she had anticipated.

She looked down at the pretty gown she’d worn that evening, made a face, and began to wrestle her way out of it.

I
N THE CONVERTED GARDENER’S COTTAGE, CONSTANCE
stretched, catlike in the confines of the small trundle bed, replete after their feverish lovemaking. She laid her hand on her lover’s bare chest. “We’re taking an awful risk meeting here, Beckett. Now that Sara is home, Drew won’t be able to stay away.”

Beckett rolled to the edge of the bed, rose, and lit a thin cigar from the candle on the mantelpiece. The cigars were a present from Constance. Not many footmen were treated so royally, he thought, and grinned. Courtesy of Constance, he had an endless supply of the finest cigars and brandy that money could buy, as well as personal trinkets that were easily turned into hard cash. She wasn’t bad in bed either, though, like Sir Ivor, he preferred more tender flesh. He’d rather be banging the young daughter, Lucy, than the mother. But this wasn’t only pleasure. This was a means to an end.

He, and no one else, was going to claim the reward for finding William Neville’s remains.

When he turned back to the bed, she had covered herself
with the sheet. “You think he’ll start staying over at the cottage now that Miss Carstairs is home?”

Constance watched him through half-lowered lashes. He was unashamedly naked, and muscles rippled in his arms and shoulders. He was young and strong and beautiful. She didn’t care that he was Lady Neville’s footman. He made life bearable in this godforsaken place.

Her voice thickened. “I don’t know, but I don’t want to take foolish risks.”

“Are you still in love with him?” he asked whimsically.

She wished she’d never told him about Drew. But Beckett was so easy to talk to. He’d come into her life when she needed a friend, after Drew had rejected her. “I never loved him,” she said. “We were both lonely, that’s all.”