The Perfect Wife (3 page)

No. No matter the attraction, the spark, the simmering desire, it would not do to become involved with this man. She could not run the risk of allowing him to discover the woman carefully buried beneath the layers of acceptable behavior. A woman hidden for nearly a decade. She could not risk his disapproval.

He held her daughter’s fate in his hands. With one word he could put an end to the marriage plans. That she could not, would not, allow. No, regardless of this compelling and unexpected attraction, Nicholas Harrington must remain no more than the father of her daughter’s
fiancé. No more, no less.

The music drifted to a close. Reluctantly but firmly, Sabrina stepped out of Nicholas’s arms. She needed distance between them, physically and emotionally, and quickly. Already she’d allowed him to glimpse much more than he should.

She glanced up at him, the passion he aroused carefully concealed beneath a calm exterior, the serene mask again firmly in place. “We must speak in depth about the marriage arrangements at some point. Right now, I am certain you will want to see to your other guests, so I shall not detain you any longer.”

She nodded politely and turned away, allowing him no time to respond. But she could not miss the puzzled look on his face and the way his dark eyes smoldered.

Sabrina refused to look back.

Accepting a glass of champagne from a passing footman, her hand trembled. Why did this stranger effect her so deeply? There was no logical reason for it. Sabrina shook herself mentally and headed for the room reserved for card playing. A relaxing game was an excellent idea. After all, tonight as usual, she’d had more than enough practice in the fine art of bluffing.

Nicholas eyed her hasty retreat and annoyance surged through him. Why on earth had the woman cut him like that? Had he done something to offend her? It had seemed as though she was enjoying their flirtation as much as he, at least initially.

Of course; he should have realized it sooner. His suggestive manner had obviously scared her. According to his investigators she was a quiet and reserved woman who ventured into society no more than necessary. Her name had been linked with several men through the years, but no hint of scandal, no improper gossip accompanied the talk. As best he could tell, she had lived a spotless life since returning to London after her husband’s death.

A slow smile spread across his face. She was not merely beautiful but well-bred, reserved, even a touch shy. He pushed aside a vague sense of disappointment. Somehow, he’d instinctively expected more from her.

When his gaze first met hers, he swore he’d glimpsed a spark, a spirit that stole his breath. But apparently his first impression was misleading, his original reaction in error.

He observed her elegant glide across the room, the graceful way she selected a glass. Nicholas narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. In spite of her relationships with men during her widowhood, and who could fault her for that, she was both discriminating and discreet; she might be exactly what he needed. A presentable partner to further his career. An attractive ornament to display on his arm. A perfect wife.

His smile widened to a grin. Such a countess would not inconvenience him at all. She would have little effect on his well-ordered life, his private pursuit of pleasure. And he had not forgotten his immediate attraction to her. Although, a distant voice in the back of his mind pointed out, this was not the kind of woman he usually desired. She was pleasant and pretty, but in spite of his initial reaction she had no real zest, no promise of excitement, no sense of impending adventure. How could his initial instinct be so wrong?

He ignored the tiny doubt. Ignored the questions and concerns that drifted through his mind. He turned to speak to newly arriving guests and firmly pushed away the nagging, nibbling voice.

A perfect wife ... how frightfully dull.

A scant twenty minutes later Sabrina was immersed in a pleasurable and undemanding game of whist with three elderly lords. A good player, steady and unemotional, she never wagered a lot, and never more than she could afford to lose. In spite of that, or perhaps because of it, she typically left the table with more than she’d started.

The winnings were often fairly paltry. The real prizes were the bits and pieces of financial chatter, nuggets of investment strategy and tidbits of political gossip dropped by men who assumed she was uninterested or bored. Men who assumed her lovely, composed facade hid an equally vacant mind. Who assumed she neither cared for nor listened to their talk.

During these games Sabrina likened herself to a fine hunting hound, whose rapt attention was only captured when a red fox was in sight. There were very few red foxes here tonight. The conversation meandered aimlessly, the words drifting past her unheeded. Sabrina kept enough of her mind on the cards to play respectably, but allowed her thoughts to wander to a tall, powerful figure with piercing black eyes.

“Isn’t that right, my dear?”

“Pardon me?” Sabrina’s attention jerked back to the table, and Lord Eldridge at her right.

He cocked his bushy eyebrows in mild reproof. “I was commenting on the news of a proposed expedition to the Americas to search for Spanish treasure. Surely you’ve heard of it?”

“Of course.” Sabrina vaguely remembered having read something about a hunt for sunken treasure in the West Indies, possibly a Spanish galleon wrecked centuries ago. It was not the kind of investment that would have caught her eye. Too speculative, too risky and far too expensive, without a guaranteed return.

“Well,” Eldridge said, “I was just saying that one needn’t go halfway around the globe to find treasure. No one ever did recover Napoleon’s gold from that shipwreck off the coast of Egypt. Twenty years ago, now I think.” His gaze searched her face curiously. “But of course, you’d know more of that than us, would you not?”

Sabrina frowned in puzzlement. “I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Nor do I, Eldridge.” Lord Connelly cut in impatiently. “What are you trying to say?”

Eldridge sighed in obvious exasperation. “Very well. I can’t believe you have all forgotten this story.” He glared at the three sets of eyes staring at him expectantly.

“Get on with it, man.” Lord Rowe said tersely. “We’re waiting.”

Eldridge huffed and grumbled something under his breath before leaning back in the attitude of a veteran storyteller with a good tale.

“It was, as I said before, twenty years ago, in 1798. Napoleon’s troops were in Egypt. A ship set sail from France carrying gold for payroll and various other expenses. It never made it, sunk by one of our own fine ships. According to the stories, officers on board managed to get the gold to land before the ship went down and hid it. Buried it, most likely. Probably planning to return later and claim it for themselves.”

He surveyed the trio with the air of a man who has an audience in the palm of his hand. “And you, my dear,” he paused, lengthening the dramatic moment, “you know where it is.”

“I?” Sabrina laughed. “How on earth would I know where French gold hidden in Egypt is?”

“Yes indeed, Eldridge.” Connolly frowned. “How would Lady Stanford have that knowledge?”

“Because ...” The gleam in Eldridge’s eye matched the triumphant flourish in his voice. “Your husband won the information in a card game.”

“Jack?” Sabrina stared. “When?”

“It was a few years before his death.” Eldridge flushed, apparently abashed at the mention of her husband’s demise. “If memory serves, the game took place at his club; my club as well, you know. Someone at his table wagered a letter he claimed contained detailed directions to the gold. I believe it was passed to him from a French sailor.”

Eldridge paused and drew together his bushy brows thoughtfully. “Or maybe it was a French expatriate. At any rate, everyone thought it was a colossal joke.” He glanced at the men around the table, as if sharing a male secret. “You know how things like this are. Stanford won the pot. Everyone assumed the letter was fake. Stanford even joked about it.”

He turned toward Sabrina and frowned. “You did not know any of this, my dear?”

Sabrina shook her head. “I’m not sure. It sounds vaguely familiar, but...” She shrugged her shoulders in a gesture of helpless femininity. “I really don’t know what ever became of this mysterious letter. And, although the idea of hidden gold is an intriguing one, it is too far-fetched to dwell on.” She tossed the trio an engaging smile. “Now, my lords, shall we continue our game?”

The men settled back into play and Sabrina joined them with a show of modest enthusiasm. But her mind was far from the cards in her hand.

Directions to a fortune. The very thought triggered a rush through her veins such as she had never thought she’d feel again. The longing for adventure buried years ago raised its seductive head. The lure of excitement pulled her as strongly as any tide.

If indeed such a letter existed, it would be the answer to her financial problems. The quest alone would fill a need she hadn’t realized until this moment still lingered within her.

In a split second Sabrina reached a decision: When she returned home she would find that letter if she had to take the house apart brick by brick. And when she found it, in spite of the difficulties, the problems, the obstacles, she would head for Egypt.

And she would permit absolutely nothing to stand in her way.

Belinda fairly danced down the hall, her feet barely skimming the floor. It was an exceptional morning, following on the heels of a truly marvelous evening, spent with an absolutely wonderful man. Erick was all she had ever dreamed of, and she thanked the stars every day for a mother who allowed her to make her own choice of a husband instead of arranging a marriage for her.

Last night Erick’s father said he would put the announcement of their engagement in the
Times
at the beginning of the week. Excitement thrilled through her at the thought. Soon it would be official for all the world to see.

Belinda approached her mother’s door and knocked lightly. No response. She rapped again, louder and sharper this time. Still no reply. Gently, she pushed the door open.

The room stood in perfect order. Nothing was out of place. No discarded ball gown from last night lay strewn across a chair. No jewelry and baubles scattered carelessly over the dresser. No stockings or slips littered the floor. In an ordinary household that would have been to the credit of a lady’s maid. But Belinda’s mother tended to dismiss her maid as soon as she’d been helped out of whatever exquisite gown she’d selected for the evening. She claimed the immediate solitude well worth the inconvenience of waiting until morning for her room to be put in order.

Belinda took it all in with one swift glance. What disturbed her most was her mother’s bed. It was turned down, as if ready for its occupant to retire for the evening. Exactly the way it had looked when she bid her mother good night. It hadn’t been touched. Obviously, no one had slept between its sheets.

Where was her mother? And if she hadn’t slept here last night, where
had
she slept? She’d seemed preoccupied at the party, but Belinda had disregarded that; her mother was typically reserved and quiet in public. Belinda frowned and hurried down the hall, passed the adjoining room, the chamber that was once her father’s. She glanced absently at the open door and gasped, stopping dead in her tracks.

The room looked like the aftermath of a devastating windstorm. Every drawer was open, some completely pulled out of dressers and tossed carelessly on the floor. Clothes were heaped in haphazard mounds. The doors of the wardrobe hung open, its contents scattered throughout the room. Even the feather bed and mattress lay sprawled betwixt the bed and the floor.

What on earth was going on? Had they been robbed? Fear crept to the edges of Belinda’s mind. She swallowed a rising sense of dread and sped through the hall, hitting the stairway nearly at a run, flying down the steps to pull up short at the closed door of her mother’s library. She hesitated for a moment; this was, after all, her mother’s private sanctuary. Belinda took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and, gripping the knob, firmly opened the door.

The sight here was little different than upstairs. The room looked as if a giant hand had picked it up, shaken it roughly and casually tossed it down. Half the library shelves stood empty. Books covered the carpet, escaping from careless piles to devour unsuspecting floor space. Papers littered the room, white punctuation marks liberally scattered over everything in their path.

Her mother sat perched on a desk amid the wreckage. She still wore the gown she’d had on the night before, now wrinkled and dusty. Belinda narrowed her eyes in puzzled concern and studied her mother, impatiently picking up a book. She flipped through the pages, then grabbed the offending volume by its spine and shook it viciously. Belinda couldn’t quite catch the words her mother mumbled in obvious frustration before she tossed the volume behind her and selected another.

“Mother, what has happened here? What are you doing?”

Sabrina’s gaze flew to her offspring’s, surprise scrawled across her dust-smudged face. She wrinkled her nose in a habitual gesture that had broken more than one man but made no impact on her daughter.

“Spring cleaning?” she said.

Belinda sighed in annoyance. She was one of the few people who knew of her mother’s rather unique sense of humor, her way of looking at the world around her. Usually, it was a quality Belinda appreciated, even if she found it somewhat puzzling. But not today.

“Mother, I want to know what you are doing. Why you have ripped apart two rooms.” She eyed her mother sharply. “It is just two, isn’t it?”

Sabrina arched an eyebrow, an amused smile on her lips. She hopped off the desk and brushed an errant cobweb from her ravaged gown. “Yes, my darling, it is just two. However, I cannot guarantee there will not be more.”

“Why?” Belinda wailed, and asked for the third time, “What are you doing?”

Sabrina gestured vaguely at the room around her. “Looking for something that is apparently misplaced. Or well hidden,” she added under her breath.

“Well, I certainly hope you find it before you pull the entire house down around our ears.”

Sabrina’s gaze shot to hers, and a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach warned Belinda that she had just stepped over the bounds of mother-daughter behavior.

Her mother spoke in a voice quiet and controlled, and the knot in her stomach tightened.

“Belinda, first of all, this is my home, and if I wish to pull it down around our ears, I shall do just that. Secondly, I am the parent here, not you, and I do not wish to be addressed as if the positions were reversed.”

“Oh, Mother, I know and I’m truly sorry.” Belinda’s eyes filled with contrite tears. “It’s just that when I saw the room upstairs and now this, and you hadn’t slept in your bed and ...”

“It’s all right, darling.” Sabrina crossed the room and put her arm around her child. Gently she steered Belinda toward the door. “And nothing to be concerned about. However, I think you should know that I may have to leave London for a while.”

Belinda’s mouth dropped open in shocked alarm. “What do you mean? Where are you going?”

“Oh, here and there. Visiting, seeing the sights, attending to a minor matter,” Sabrina said, her manner vague and elusive, all the while continuing to edge Belinda to the door. “It really is nothing to worry about. In spite of appearances, your mother is quite capable of taking care of herself.”

Mother and daughter stood toe-to-toe in the doorway. “You run along and don’t let my activities concern you. You just concentrate on that charming young man and what a wonderful life you will have together.” Sabrina drew back and gave Belinda the tiniest shove into the hall. “I am not quite finished here, so we shall continue this discussion later. Good morning.”

The door shut gently but firmly, leaving Belinda gaping at its paneled face. For a moment she could do nothing but stare. Bewildered, she considered her mother’s words. They simply didn’t make sense.

Why would she leave London so abruptly, so mysteriously? It was not at all like her to be impulsive and secretive. Belinda knew her mother better than anyone, and while she realized there was far more to her than she revealed to most, she had never done anything like this before, tearing the house apart and announcing an unplanned departure. What had come over her?

28

Something was definitely amiss. Belinda glared at the library door, then turned and headed back upstairs for paper and pen. She had no intention of letting her mother take off for God knows where. Not if she could help it.

She snatched a delicate leaf of stationery from the lady’s desk in her room and quickly penned a note. Belinda certainly could not stop her mother on her own, so she did the only thing she could under the circumstances.

She sent for Erick.

Sabrina rested her back on the closed door and pushed a stray lock of hair away from her face. She simply could not tell Belinda what she searched for or what she planned to do when she found it.

In the first place, the child had no inkling of their financial difficulties. And secondly, Sabrina had done an excellent job of raising Belinda to take her place in society, to assume her birthright as the daughter of a marquis. Brought up in the proper surroundings, given the proper education and training, with the expectation of assuming the proper position in life, Belinda would never understand how her mother could even consider searching for something so ludicrous as lost treasure.

Perhaps she had done too good a job. The child was beautiful and charming, with all the social graces, but she didn’t seem to have much of an imagination. The reckless streak inherent in both her mother and father appeared to have bypassed Belinda completely. Realistically, as a concerned and loving parent, that was all for the good, but occasionally it would have been nice to have a daughter with whom one could share one’s more outrageous, even scandalous, dreams. However, there was little she could do about it now.

Sabrina stepped away from the door and surveyed the library. Even when Jack was alive it had been her own private place. He thought of it simply as the kind of room a man of his position ought to have. But from the first Sabrina loved it. Loved the dark wood shelves reaching heavenward, flanking the floor-to-ceiling bowed window. Loved the gray marble mantelpiece and the deep red of the walls. Loved the snug warmth and comfort that seemed to surround and soothe her whenever she stood amid its confines. Even the scent of books and leather and wisdom called to her.

And Sabrina was grateful to have it. Jack inherited the town house years before their marriage, and on his death she discovered it was virtually the only thing he owned free and clear.

The letter had to be here, if indeed he had saved and hidden it. This, and Jack’s bedchamber, were the only rooms that had not been redecorated in the last decade. The letter would have been found years ago if it had been secreted anywhere else in the house.

If it isn’t all a joke
, an annoying voice in the back of her mind chimed rudely. Sabrina ignored the thought. Jack never quite grew up, never quite accepted the responsibilities of adulthood and, real or a hoax, the mere idea of a lost treasure would have appealed to him. She was certain he would have kept the letter, if only for the spirit of the quest.

But where? She clenched her hands in frustration. This willy-nilly search would get her nowhere. She had to take this logically, rationally and methodically. Assess the possibilities and proceed one step at a time.

Sabrina drew a calming breath and turned toward the wall to her left. Paintings covered the crimson surface; Winfield family portraits, landscapes, still lifes, most of them with only sentimental value. Could the letter be hidden behind one of them? Not a far-fetched possibility, but probably not quite clever enough to suit Jack’s sense of humor. And none of the paintings touched on the theme of treasure or gold or even Egypt.

She turned to face the bookshelves, now half empty, their contents lying scattered on the floor. So far, her search here had been futile. Was there a volume still untouched that held his secret? Was a clue concealed in the gold-scripted title on its spine?

The fireplace dominated the third wall, its simple, classic lines revealing no obvious hiding place. Her gaze strayed upward to the portrait of Jack centered over the mantel. His bright blue eyes danced in his strong face, the unruly quality of his golden blond hair captured by the artist. The slight, amused smile playing forever on his lips.

“Jack.” She sighed. “Why couldn’t you have made this easy for me? God knows nothing else was easy after you died.”

Sabrina shook her head and smiled back at the painting. There had been a time when she couldn’t smile at the thought of her husband. When she raged and screamed until her voice grew hoarse at his lack of foresight in leaving her practically penniless. Sabrina had come to grips with those feelings years ago, and if she never quite forgave him, with the passage of time she at least understood him a little better. She gazed at the portrait. Could the letter be hidden behind his painting? Concealed behind his cocky smile, his laughing eyes?

So far she had Jack’s portrait, the other paintings and the remainder of the books left to search. And there was still the furniture. Her cozy library held only the desk and its chair, plus a worn wing chair near the fireplace and her chaise longue. She studied the pieces with a critical eye. All looked their age and should have been replaced years ago. But they were as much a part of this room as the bookshelves and mantel.

Her gaze lingered on the couch, which beckoned seductively. Weariness slammed into her. It wouldn’t hurt to lie down for a few moments. She’d been up all night, and if her head wasn’t clear, she’d never find that bloody letter.

Sabrina sank into the tufted comfort. Through the years her form had left its impression in the worn, scarlet upholstery, and the chaise conformed to her curves like a velvet caress. Her eyes drifted closed.

She’d thought about Jack more in the last few hours than she had in a long time. Now, she remembered how he had bought her this piece. The couch was one of the few gifts from him she hadn’t had to sell after his death. Even her jewelry had had to go.

Sabrina hovered somewhere between awareness and oblivion and the years rolled away. She remembered how Jack presented her with the couch and ceremoniously declared the library her own personal kingdom. She snuggled deeper. Memories wafted through her mind. He said, when she reclined on it, she reminded him of Cleopatra. She smiled to herself, and coherent thought drifted farther away.

Jack always said that on the chaise she looked like a queen ... like the queen of the Nile ...

The queen of the Nile.

She bolted off the chaise, immediately alert, exhaustion forgotten. Sabrina stared at the unsuspecting couch. Could it be? Was it possible?

Swiftly, she ran her hands along the serpentine lines and the curled head, down its velvet length, around to the carved feet. She poked in each seam, every tufted crevice. She prodded and probed every point where clawed wooden feet joined the frame. She perused every surface, examined every inch.

Nothing.

Sabrina stepped back and narrowed her eyes in concentration, studying the puzzle. So far there was no indication of any disturbance, no mended tears in the fabric, nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps if she turned it over and examined the underside ...