To Kiss a Thief (16 page)

But he had read the note. He had come to Haverhythe. He had found his wife.

His allegedly duplicitous, surprisingly determined, undeniably desirable wife.

Damn
.

“May I take Clarissa and help her look for her mother?” he offered, wondering just what the widow gathered—or knew—about the state of affairs between him and Sarah. “That way, you can walk along the quay and enjoy the sights.”

Although he had expected her to reject his suggestion, Mrs. Potts gratefully set Clarissa's sweaty palm in his. “Aye. Keep a good grip on 'er. She's quick.”

Hardly had St. John time to laugh at her admonition when Clarissa jerked his arm with surprising strength, and they were off through the crowds. He soon understood the reason for Mrs. Potts's fatigue. The girl could dart easily where an adult could not pass, and in a blink, she had slipped from his hand and was lost to sight.

His height and bearing proved a distinct advantage over Mrs. Potts's efforts to keep Clarissa in check, however. Knots of people parted to let him pass, and he could see far enough into the crowd that her course was not difficult to track.

He found her in front of Mr. Beals's stall, eyeing a bun dotted with currants.

“You and your ma,” Beals marveled, wrapping the treat in paper and handing it to her with a smile. “My best customers. Speaking of—”

“Say ‘thank you,' Clarissa.” St. John stepped up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder, looking down with what he hoped was a stern frown at a face already covered in sticky crumbs.

“Why, good morning, Lieutenant. I was just saying that I hadn't yet seen Mrs. Fairfax today.”

“We're on a quest, Mr. Beals—if she can be found in this mass of humanity, we mean to do it.”

Clarissa giggled and tugged on Mr. Beals's apron. “Meg 'n' Thomas?”

“What's that, child? Bright Meg? Why, she's just fine—I'll tell her you asked after her.”

“An' Thomas?”

Beals sent St. John a puzzled glance.

“The gray kitten,” he supplied.

“Ah, of course. Why, he's growin' bigger every day. Won't be long before you can take him home with you.”

Clarissa beamed. “Thank you.”

While he rather thought Clarissa was thanking the baker for the kitten and not the bun as she had been prompted, St. John opted not to press the matter. Instead, he scooped her up and settled her on his shoulder. Perhaps a better view of the crowds would make her less tempted to escape.

“You're welcome, little miss,” chuckled Beals. “Though I can't say as I think Mrs. Potts'll take kindly to a kitten scamperin' around underfoot,” he added with a confidential wink.

St. John managed a wry smile, although the baker's words raised an uncomfortable question in his mind.

What sort of future did he imagine for this child who might be his?

He could go back and tell his stepmother he had been unable to find Sarah or the Sutliffe sapphires. Immerse himself in London life—alone, for even if he pretended to accept the story of Sarah's death, he could never marry another, knowing what he knew. Leave his wife and her daughter in Haverhythe, in Primrose Cottage, in peace, as she had once asked.

He wanted to believe his own peace would also be served by such an arrangement.

But he was beginning to wonder if it might not be destroyed.

Or, he could take his wife back and claim the child as his. But without proof of Sarah's innocence, they would still have to contend with the wagging tongues of Mayfair. Whatever he did or said, there would always be questions, always be doubts.

Suddenly, he caught a whiff of Sarah's scent on the air, slipping through the festival odors of food and ale and bodies. He turned sharply, a bloodhound on the trail of its quarry, and saw Mrs. Kittery standing nearby, unwrapping a pretty bar of soap to show to passersby.

Tightening his arm around Clarissa's knees, he strode toward Mrs. Kittery, who greeted him with a smug smile.

“Why, Lieutenant, good day to you.” She acknowledged Clarissa with considerably less enthusiasm. “How generous you are with the child, sir. I do hope Mrs. Fairfax fully appreciates how fortunate she is. Few gentlemen would be willing to overlook certain—indiscretions.” One brow rose, and she gave a telling nod in Clarissa's direction.

Although the woman had given voice to those dark suspicions in his hearing before, he had the distinct impression when she spoke now that something had changed. Or perhaps it was that he had at last come to understand the corrosive power of gossip where a small child was concerned. Glad for perhaps the first time in his life of the resemblance he shared with his father, St. John leveled his iciest glare on the woman.

The look set Fanny Kittery back on her heels, just as it had done to him countless times when he was a boy.

“I have not the pleasure of understanding you, ma'am,” he said stiffly.

But Mrs. Kittery, it seemed, perfectly understood him. She blanched. “I—er—that is, I was only thinking that there are those gentlemen who can't abide to be around the little ones, more's the pity.”

As if seeking some meager security against his wrath, she stepped around to the back of the stall and made a project of neatening the little pyramids of soap. St. John's eyes fell on the stack nearest him, the one from which wafted the maddening scent of bluebells.

He fished in his coat pocket for a coin and snapped one golden guinea against the board he himself might have hammered into place just days ago. “I'll take the lot, Mrs. Kittery.”

“I—I beg your pardon?” she stammered.

“Every bar of the bluebell soap, if you please.”

He had no notion what he would do with it all. Pitch it off the quay, perhaps. He only knew he could not bear the thought of the scent on some other woman's skin.

Even less did he want to contemplate the thought of another man smelling it on Sarah's.

Clarissa squirmed and leaned forward, stretching out one chubby hand for the shining coin and knocking his hat askew. To placate her, he reached back into his pocket for another and gave it to her. Clarissa chortled, turning the gold disc into the sun and watching it sparkle.

Mrs. Kittery's eager eyes followed the money.

“Have you any more of this soap at the shop?” he demanded.

“Why, I don't recall,” she replied coyly.

“For that price, I believe I have a right to expect every bar, ma'am.
Every
bar. And,” he added, thrusting his hand once more into his pocket, “I'll thank you never to make it again.”

“But it's a favorite of so many of my customers—” she protested.

He laid a £10 note onto the makeshift counter. Fanny Kittery's eyes goggled. “I think this should more than repay your losses.” As she reached greedily for the banknote, St. John pinned it in place with one long finger. “Just one more thing. After this, you will have no further need to speak to—or of—Mrs. Fairfax and her daughter again. Do we have an understanding, Mrs. Kittery?”

Her cheeks heated. “Of course, Lieutenant.”

“Very good.” He snatched up one of the bars and handed it to Clarissa, exchanging it for her other prize just before the coin made its way into her mouth.

Clarissa took the soap and gave it a noisy sniff. “Mmmm.”

St. John choked back a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “Mmmm, indeed. Now,” he said, straightening his hat, “let's go find her.”

D
usk had settled over Haverhythe and the crowds had thinned considerably by the time he found her. She was standing to the side of the improvised open-air ballroom, in earnest conversation with Mrs. Norris, who was seated in a chair while Mr. Norris hovered nearby.

And St. John realized with a start that he might have glimpsed Sarah a half-dozen times that day and never recognized her.

It could have been the new dress. Or the fashionable little hat perched jauntily atop a pile of loose curls. Perhaps even the air with which she carried herself. Whatever it was, she seemed transformed. It would not be difficult to imagine her in a London ballroom, surrounded by her peers.

Gerald Beals approached her, bowed his head, and held out his hand. To St. John's surprise, Sarah smiled and took it, stepping onto the dance floor without hesitation. Tamping down a prickle of possessiveness, St. John scanned the other faces around him, searching for a partner of his own. But there were very few ladies of his acquaintance nearby. Mrs. Potts had long since taken Clarissa home. Clearly Mrs. Norris did not mean to dance. That left Mrs. Kittery and the ungainly Georgina Mackey.

St. John stepped across to the publican's daughter and bowed. “Will you favor me in the dance, Miss Mackey?”

Georgina blushed to the roots of her ginger hair. “I didn't think you or Mrs. F. would like to speak to me again, and that's a fact.”

“If you are referring to the unfortunate incident on the quay, surely you don't believe we blame you?” He extended his hand, palm upward, and Georgina reluctantly laid her hand in his.

Her dancing was better than he'd hoped, if not exactly the sort to inspire poetry. When the figure brought them together again, she gave a nervous giggle.

“It's awful kind of you, Lieutenant. My pa was right angry when he saw what happened with Clarissa. He licked me good, don't you know.”

They stepped apart again, and in the interval, St. John realized what his partner had said.

“You don't mean to say your father struck you, Miss Mackey?” he asked when she took his hand again.

“Oh, aye.” She shrugged. “No more'n I deserved, I suppose.”

“Clarissa's fall was an accident,” St. John ground out, nearly forgetting the steps. He had thought that three years in the West Indies had inured him to violence. He had been wrong.

“Still 'n' all, I shouldn'ta had the little ones out on the quay,” she said with a shake of her head. “Anyway, I'd as lief it be Pa as Henry.”

“Is Henry one of your brothers?”

“Naw. He's my intended. But I know no man wants a woman who don't know how t' mind the flock.”

As luck would have it, the intricate steps of the dance brought Sarah into his path at just that moment, and his scowl fell fully upon her. There was hardly time for a nod of acknowledgment before they were drawn apart again and Georgina Mackey's hand was back on his arm.

He considered briefly the efficacy of giving Colin Mackey a taste of his own medicine.

But he knew it would do little good. Doubtless few in the village would understand—to say nothing of share in—his wrath. Even Georgina seemed oblivious to the wrong that had been done to her. In her world, such correction was a father's prerogative and, afterward, a husband's.

And it was in this world that darling little Clarissa was being raised.

What kind of treatment could she expect to receive at its hands? He thought of Mrs. Kittery's glower of contempt. What kind of treatment had she already endured?

Well, no longer. Not if he had anything to say about it—and by God he did, whether he was her father or not. Whatever snubs she might endure from polite society could not be worse than the suspicions that dogged the child in this narrow-minded little fishing village.

When the dance was ended, he returned Georgina to her mother's side. Mrs. Mackey, a washed out–looking woman long past her youth, thanked him twice for his goodness. In his haste to extricate himself from the burden of her gratitude, St. John backed into Mr. Gaffard.

“Evening, Lieutenant. Have you been enjoying the festival?”

“It's had its moments,” he said, thinking of his small triumph over Fanny Kittery.

“I'm glad to hear it,” Gaffard said, nodding. “I almost didn't ask, given the rumors . . .”

“Rumors?”

He cut a glance at St. John's scar. “I'm not certain I should say anything more. I know how you military men like to settle your differences,” he said. But when St. John scowled, he cleared his throat. “Mrs. Kittery would have it that you didn't go to his lordship about the festival at all, but rather because he's the magistrate. That you accused Mrs. Fairfax of theft, and . . . something worse.”

The features of Sarah's dancing partner swam before St. John's eyes, to be replaced by those of David Brice.

“A lot of nonsense, I'd say,” Gaffard continued. “There
were
questions about her, o' course, when she first came to Haverhythe, but I feel certain Mrs. F. would never have done something that wasn't proper.”

Not the Mrs. Fairfax they knew, at any rate
.

But what if there had only ever been one?

“You'll excuse me, Gaffard.” St. John was already moving away from the nervous shopkeeper. He knew what had to be done.

“I say, Lieutenant,” Gaffard called after him. “I didn't spread that gossip one step further than it had already gone.”

But St. John had stopped listening. Like a bullet released from a pistol, he shot across the dance floor in four long strides. “Mrs. Norris. Norris. Beals. Ma'am,” he said, with a curt bow to each of them and eyes only for his wife.

Sarah blushed. “Lo-Lieutenant Fairfax.”

She had very nearly called him “Lord Fairfax.” And at the moment, he would have welcomed the misstep. He was heartily tired of playacting.

“It is my dance, I believe, Mrs. Fairfax. If you will excuse us,” he said to the others.

“Oh, of course,” said Mrs. Norris, papering over the awkwardness with good cheer.

Sarah laid her fingertips on his arm. She would not meet his eye.

As the musicians took up their instruments, St. John glanced at the other couples gathering on either side of them and stopped short. “On second thought, Mrs. Fairfax, I believe I'd prefer a walk.”

* * *

The sounds of the festival followed them up the cobblestoned street and had only just begun to fade when noise and light burst from the Blue Herring, where those who chose not to dance had gathered. Farther along, the street was quiet and dark. Here and there, Sarah saw a candle flickering in a cottage window, but they met no one. She released the arm she had taken only for propriety's sake and clasped her hands behind her back.

The sense of lightness and freedom with which she had greeted the day was gone. For a foolish moment, she had trusted St. John, and he had rewarded that fledgling trust by going to Haverty Court and exposing her as a thief and a whore. With Fanny Kittery on the case, how long before all the missing pieces of the puzzle that had been her identity fell into place? The life she had so carefully built here was about to be torn down.

To unsuspecting eyes, she had spent the evening joking with Mr. Gaffard, fussing over Mrs. Norris, and dancing with Mr. Beals, but beneath that calm façade, her mind had been whirling, searching for a way to escape, a place where she could take Clarissa and start over. She glanced up thankfully at the nearly full moon. By its light Bert Thomas could safely take them across the bay tonight, after the merrymaking had subsided. She had hated to behave as if he owed her some recompense for the assistance she had given his family, but she had nothing of value left to offer him in exchange for making the trip.

She did not even know whether her parents would take her in.

At last, St. John spoke. “You must be pleased by the success of the festival.”

The festival?
Digging the nails of one hand into the palm of the other, she mustered a civil reply. “I am pleased that so many in need will be helped, yes.”

“And did you enjoy yourself?” he asked.

Sarah shook her head. “My enjoyment is entirely beside the point.”

“That is not an answer to my question, Sarah.”

The slight edge to his voice spurred her annoyance. “Very well, then. No,” she snapped. “I did not enjoy myself.”

“I am sorry to hear it,” he replied. “Everyone else seemed to find it great fun.”

They walked a few further steps in silence and paused when they reached the archway that led to the alley behind the long row of seaside cottages.

“How could you?” she cried. “You promised not to interfere. How could you go to the earl?”

“How could I—” He shook his head, as if trying to clear it of the echo of her outburst. “I went for the people of Haverhythe. I went to save your festival, Sarah,” he said, his voice soft, as if he did not quite believe the explanation himself. “I went . . . for you.”

For me?
She could no longer imagine he had intended it as a kindness, but even if he had, it little mattered. The results would be cruel nonetheless. “Did you not realize that by revealing yourself, you would expose me?”

“Harold Bessmer and I were at school together. I had considered that a sort of advantage. I imagined I could . . . persuade him to do the right thing.” He paused. “The
Widow
Fairfax was a perfect stranger to him—still is, I don't doubt. But unfortunately, he remembered all too well what
Lady
Fairfax, my wife, did three years ago.”

She resumed walking, as if she could escape the simple logic of his explanation. “Well, now Mrs. Kittery knows, and soon the whole village will have heard what I am believed to have done. By tomorrow morning there will be nothing for me in Haverhythe but cold faces and cutting words.” She meant never again to suffer that fate—and never to subject her daughter to it, either.

“I know.” His long fingers curled around her elbow, slowing her agitated steps. “Gaffard told me what he had heard, and I guessed what must have happened. Please believe that was never my intent. I'm sorry.”

She froze upon hearing the unexpected apology. “What happens now?”

She had asked the same question once before—would he give the same answer?

“I have been thinking all day about the best thing to do. I had almost determined to leave you here—to leave you in ‘peace', as you asked.” Despite herself, Sarah gasped. Was that still what she wanted? “But even before I knew what Mrs. Kittery had done,” he continued, tucking her arm in his and walking as he spoke, “I had come to the conclusion that Haverhythe is no place for Clarissa.” He paused, but she could not determine if uncertainty or reluctance halted his speech. “Nor for you, it seems. I thought, perhaps, you might be more comfortable in Hampshire . . . ?”

“At Lynscombe?” she whispered. They were nearly to the back door of Primrose Cottage.

His chin lifted in a cautious nod.

She very nearly forgot to breathe. Was he really offering to take her and Clarissa to his family home? To accept his child?

What would be her own role in this new arrangement?

“And,” she began, unsure how to ask what she wanted to know. “Would I . . . that is, would we . . .”

He opened his mouth to speak, as if he anticipated her question. But before the words could pass his lips, he stumbled in the near-darkness of the alley. With the toe of his boot, he pushed some large, heavy object into the open so that it could be identified.

The brass banding of her traveling trunk gleamed in the starlight. St. John let out his breath in a low whistle. “Well, well, what have we here? I guess Harold Bessmer isn't the biggest fool in Haverhythe after all.” He turned to face her, and in the moonlight, his eyes were as pale as seaglass. “Were you expecting my offer, ma'am, or has someone else made you a better one?” When she did not answer, he shoved the trunk against the wall with a muttered oath and moved closer to her still. “Tell me, Sarah, is there somewhere else you'd rather be?”

Fear licked along her spine. “I did not mean—I was angry and frightened, and I—”

“And you were going to run away, just as you did before,” he finished. She could feel the heat of his body through the thin muslin of her gown. “Do you know, for the briefest of moments, I imagined I had caught a glimpse of the woman you really were—generous, creative, loyal. I actually feared I had misjudged you,” he confessed with a wry shake of his head. “But now I remember why I was so reluctant to believe in you.” Tossing up a hand, he brushed her aside. “Well, go then. Do as you please, Sarah.” He began to make his way back down the alley.

She would survive this. She had survived starting over once before, although she did not think she could have, had it not been for her daughter.

Then he spoke the words that she had dreaded hearing from the start.

“But Clarissa comes with me.”

The tongue of fear became teeth. Raw, ragged pain tore through Sarah's heart, like nothing she had ever felt before. She scurried to catch up to him, stretching out a hand to claw at his coat sleeve. “No!” she pleaded. “You can't take her away from me.”

His steps faltered only slightly. “I can, and I will.”

He was right, of course—or at least, within his rights. The law gave women no say in what happened to their children, especially not women who had been accused of crimes.

And keeping a nobleman from his child was the one crime of which Sarah was actually guilty.