To Kiss a Thief (14 page)

L
istening to the droplets of rain as they rolled from the brim of his hat and pattered onto the flagstone floor, St. John found it nigh impossible to believe that the weather would improve in time, even if permission to hold the festival could be restored. He had come on a fool's errand, then.

Fitting, perhaps, for unless he had changed markedly in the years since St. John had seen him last, Harold Bessmer was a fool.

The footman who had opened the door had gone to fetch the butler, leaving St. John dripping where he stood, in the cold, dark, medieval hall of Haverty Court. Two massive fireplaces bracketed the room, but a fire had been lit in neither; the rugs were up and the tapestries down. On occasion, a servant scurried across the far end of the hall without glancing his way, as often out of livery as in it. He settled in for a long wait and allowed his mind to wander.

The earthy smell of dampness leached from the stone walls surrounding him. He had never found it a particularly erotic scent, until last night. With a shudder that had nothing to do with the chill in the air, he drew his greatcoat more tightly against him, but as he did, he could swear her scent rose from it—the sweetness of bluebells, overlaid now with a more sensual musk. Smell her, after so many hours had passed? Aye, and hear her, feel her, taste her, too.

He shifted awkwardly, adjusting himself. He was tempted to blame today's lingering frustration on the vicar's untimely arrival with a dose of chilly reality, preventing him from finishing what he had started.

Except that he had never intended to go so far. In the nights after their wedding, he had spilled his seed inside her body, but had otherwise ruthlessly held himself in check, as if he had known, instinctively, that to give anything more of himself to this woman would be to give her everything.

Last night, he had not meant to do even that much, imagining, he supposed, that by keeping his breeches buttoned, he had kept the most important part of himself secure. He had focused on Sarah's pleasure quite deliberately, imagining somehow that such an act would be less intimate.

It hadn't worked quite as well as he had imagined it would.

In giving her pleasure, he had got a great deal of his own. In baring her body to his gaze and his touch, he had also bared a part of himself to her, a part he had never meant to expose. Now he found himself plagued by a feeling that was equal parts unwelcome and unexpected.

Desire for the woman his father had coerced him into marrying.

Desire for a wife who had dishonored him.

Her reaction to his touch in the watchman's hut had been all innocence—the innocence of a virgin bride on her wedding night. If she had indulged in a dalliance since their marriage, it had been a brief and—dare he say—unsatisfying one, long ago.

To his shock, the jealousy he had once felt at the thought of another man's knowledge of her body now paled in comparison to the jealousy he felt at the possibility she might have shared something deeper with Brice. Something she had kept hidden from her husband three years ago, although he had caught tantalizing glimpses of it over the past few days.

Her soul, perhaps.

“Fairfax!” St. John's musings scattered when the newly ennobled Earl of Haverty himself strode across the floor with hand outstretched.

The years had not changed Harold Bessmer. Of course, since he had had at seventeen the thinning hair, fleshy jowls, and sagging paunch of a man of middle age, this was not saying a great deal.

Clasping his hands behind his back, St. John jerked his chin in a polite but aloof bow. He could not very well despise Bessmer for having done what he himself had done—along with almost every other young man of his acquaintance: living well and gambling recklessly on the mere promise of an inheritance. Having been a few years behind him at Eton, however, St. John knew of several other very good reasons to despise him.

Haverty was not the sort of man of whom he wanted to ask a favor, but as he had come to do just that, he would have to do his best to swallow his disdain.

“Good God!” Haverty boomed, turning the spurned offer of a handshake into an awkward invitation to precede him down a corridor off the central hall. “How long has it been?”

“More than three years,” St. John replied as they negotiated a maze of twists and turns that led at last to a wood-paneled study. “I've been abroad.”

“Well, and what brings you here?”

An excellent question. He had told himself that it was in his own best interest for the festival to go on tomorrow. Otherwise, Sarah might hold him to his promise, insist on staying longer.

But he was beginning to fear that the truth was somewhat more complicated—as truths are wont to be.

“I had . . . family business in the area.” St. John bowed to Lady Haverty, who rose from her place near the hearth, where a meager fire did little to heat or light the room.

“Business. Figured as much—not a place to tempt a man like you, eh? You remember Fairfax, m'dear,” he said, turning to his wife.

“Of course. How pleasant to see you again, Lord Fairfax.” The countess curtsied with a mild smile. “I saw Lady Estley in town just as we were leaving,” she added. “And the lovely Miss Harrington was with her. It always struck me as a shame you did not marry Miss Harrington, you seemed so perfectly suited.”

St. John greeted the notion with an absent nod. Eliza knew, and at one time had claimed to share, his reservations about his stepmother. Now, however, it seemed the two had grown quite inseparable. Had something happened to inspire a change in Eliza's feelings? Or was she merely acting the part of a good friend, attempting to keep his stepmother's more extravagant tendencies in check?

“Of course, I understand that your late wife, God rest her soul, was a great heiress—even if the fortune was made in trade,” Lady Haverty continued. She spoke with the air of one whose own fortune had been amassed in a far more suitable manner, even if it were far less substantial. “But perhaps, now that you've been given a second chance . . .” She cut him a sly glance, as if embarrassed by the forwardness of her own suggestion.

St. John could make no reply. He had been given a second chance, all right, just not quite in the way the countess imagined.

“Where are you staying, Fairfax?” Haverty interjected, clearly bored by the direction the conversation had taken.

“The Blue Herring. The rooms are”—he hesitated before deciding upon the most generous adjective he could safely apply—“dry. Mostly.”

Lady Haverty gave a theatrical shudder. “Oh dear. If only we'd known. I do wish we could offer you better hospitality, but things here are in
such
disarray. This drafty old pile . . .” she said, her eyes wandering about the room. “Really, had we realized the house was in such a state of disrepair.”

“I've half a mind to tear it down and start fresh,” proclaimed the earl. Whatever the years had given Harold Bessmer, good sense did not seem to be among the accretions. “Something in the modern style,” he added, “rather like you've done at Lynscombe, what?”

Simpering, Lady Haverty gave an eager nod of assent.

“My father would no doubt be honored to hear you express such approval,” St. John replied with the slightest of bows. After almost a lifetime spent away from his family home, Lynscombe was little more than a hazy memory to him. He wondered sometimes why he had given in to his father's demand that he wed a fortune to save it. “But as the improvements of this century were made necessary by a fire in the last, I cannot recommend such extreme measures.”

His hosts laughed rather uncertainly, and after a glance at her husband, Lady Haverty seated herself again, freeing the gentlemen to follow.

After a moment's uncomfortable silence, Lady Haverty asked, “How long do you mean to stay?”

St. John shrugged, feigning a sort of casual indifference to his surroundings. “Oh, not long. A few more days should see matters to a close.” He had been diverted from the purpose of his visit long enough. With a glance toward the narrow, leaded panes of a rain-spattered window, he added, “I thought I might pass a bit of time at this festival the village is abuzz about.”

Haverty cleared his throat and gave a shake of his head. “Sorry, old chap. Had to put a stop to it. It had a very bad look. Dancing on m'uncle's grave and all that,” he said, patting his black armband—the only sign St. John had seen that this was a household in mourning.

It was difficult to claim to be sorry for the man's loss, when Haverty's every action proclaimed his satisfaction with all he had gained thereby. Nevertheless, St. John put on a somber face. “Oh, certainly, certainly. My condolences. Still,” he added after a moment's pause, allowing a quick frown to dart across his brow, “it's unfortunate. I'm sure a great deal of effort was put into the planning.”

“Effort?” Haverty grumbled. “Extortion, more like.” St. John narrowly avoided wincing at hearing an allegation that seemed too often associated with Sarah. “Why, my uncle—”

“What is that horrible woman's name, Haverty?” clucked her ladyship. “For shame, hounding someone as old and ill as
dear
uncle, implying he didn't do all he could for the people of this village.”

“I believe Mrs. Norris is one of the principal organizers of the event,” St. John supplied, hoping to lead Lady Haverty off Sarah's trail.

“Norris?”

“The vicar's wife.”

“Ah yes, the vicar. Rather prosy sort for my taste,” Haverty huffed. “Glad I won't have to hear his sermons more than twice a year.”

So the new earl meant to tear down the ancient edifice of Haverty Court, erect some modern monstrosity in its place, and then leave the running of it to his steward? There was nothing so very unusual in all that. It was what his own father had done, after all. Still, St. John began to think that Sarah's words about landlords who failed to do their duty might prove prescient where Harold Bessmer was concerned.

But he also knew that her finger had not really—or at least, not only—been pointed at the Earl of Haverty.

“
Norris
,” Haverty murmured to himself. “No, that's not the name.” He rose and went to his desk, rummaging through the papers strewn across its broad mahogany top. “Ah, here's the letter,” he exclaimed, squinting at the writing. “Fetch my spectacles, won't you, m'dear?”

Lady Haverty rose. “I'll ring for a footman.”

“Michaelmas will have come and gone before the servants of this house would answer a bell.”

“Yes, dear,” the countess acknowledged with a defeated sigh. “I won't be a moment.”

The two men stood in awkward silence, waiting for the arrival of Haverty's spectacles. “Has it really been three years, Fairfax?” the earl asked after several minutes had passed.

“Rather more, actually.”

“You're brown as a berry, I'll say that! But you said you've been abroad—you must've left right after, er . . .” A tap at the door signaled the arrival of a footman. Haverty took his spectacles from the man's hand, curled the wire rims around his ears, and picked up the letter to peruse it once again.

“Fairfax!” He looked up at St. John, then back at the letter. St. John took some comfort from the fact that the Harold Bessmer he had known had struggled quite literally to put two and two together. It simply was not possible that he could deduce the truth. “That's an odd coincidence, eh?” Haverty continued after a moment. “Sarah Fairfax. Vicar says she's not even a local.”

“All the more remarkable, then, that she should show such concern for the people of your village,” St. John replied, mustering an expression somewhere between surprise and bemusement.

He did not share Sarah's faith in the power of penitence, but he could not deny that the people of Haverhythe needed help. And he did not think the man standing before him was likely to offer it. So, despite his reluctance, he would ask the favor he had come to ask. For the sake of the village.

“I understand your reluctance under the circumstances, but the people here would doubtless think well of the new lord for allowing the festival to be held tomorrow as planned, Haverty. It's all to the good of the local fishermen. And there can be no question that times here are hard.”

“Aye, they're that. Gamekeeper says half my pheasants have been lost to poachers.” Haverty appeared to weigh St. John's suggestion. “By jove, you're right. If this Fairfax woman is so eager to do the dirty work, why not let her?” He began to rummage about for pen and paper. The footman turned to leave, but Haverty waved a hand. “Stay a moment. I have a message for you to carry into the village.”

The footman inclined his head and took up a position near the door.

“
Mrs. Fairfax
,” Haverty muttered, turning his attention to the letter and scrawling as he spoke. “
Having considered matters further, I . . .
” The earl tapped his lip with the feather of his pen. “A young widow, Norris says. I wonder if she's a comely sort? Maybe she'd fancy expressing her thanks to me in person.”

St. John could not keep his jaw from clenching. “I could not say, Haverty.”

Another pause as the earl wrote, his lips moving soundlessly as his quill scratched out the words. He signed with a flourish and tossed the pen aside, spattering various papers with ink, but by some small miracle missing the letter he had just finished. “I didn't like to say so in front of Lady Haverty, but as I recall, you were in a spot of trouble before you left, Fairfax.”