To Kiss a Thief (17 page)

“You claim she is mine,” he said, looking down at her, his gaze pitiless. “Did you imagine that once I knew of her existence, I would allow her to grow up in Primrose Cottage, to live out her life in Haverhythe, never knowing the truth?”

No
.

But a part of her had hoped.

Then again, was it right to condemn the daughter of a nobleman to a life of penury in some obscure fishing village? She had been determined to do whatever it took to keep her child, but that did not mean she had never wondered how it would feel someday to watch a beautiful young woman who might have been the toast of the
ton
instead marry Bertie Thomas or one of the Mackey boys and then walk the quay at night, dreaming of something better.

Sarah shook her head.

“What I propose will be best for her,” St. John concluded, in a voice that did not invite challenge.

“How can it be best for her to be separated from her mother?” She was teetering on the brink of hysteria, but she managed somehow to keep herself from screeching, knowing that her neighbors could hear every word.

She could have sworn that he flinched at her words, but when he replied, his voice was as cool as it had ever been. “Your actions have decided the matter,” he said.

He had kept his promise to her about the festival. He had asked for nothing in return.

But now the day of reckoning had come.

Curling her fingers against his arm, she recalled Fanny Kittery's bitter accusations. Despite her new dress, she felt dirty and tattered. There was no use fighting with him any longer. She could not stay in Haverhythe. She could not surrender her daughter. What choice did she have?

“Please,” she whispered. “Take me with you.”

“I
can't believe it, Mrs. F. I never thought I'd see the day that I'd finally get a look at what's beyond Haverhythe—and in Lord Haverty's coach and four at that, with Lieutenant Fairfax for an outrider.” Emily Dawlish turned shining eyes away from the window only long enough to smile at Sarah, and then turned right around again.

“I don't wish to seem unwelcoming, Emily,” Sarah began. And, indeed, she was very glad of the company and the help on this awful journey. “But how is it that Lieutenant Fairfax came to ask you to join us?”

Emily pulled herself from the lure of the passing landscape at last, and her place at the window was quickly taken by Clarissa. “Well, last night, after the festival, I come across the lieutenant walkin' up-along. He seemed out o' sorts. Angry. A cold kind of anger—gave me a chill just to look at him, you know?”

Sarah nodded. She was quite familiar with the expression.

“Still, he asked after me all the same, polite as always. Truth be told, I was in a right huff, too, and I guess I was so distracted I started natterin' away, told him that
some
folks think I'm too green to understand the way the world works, too young to know my own mind—my own heart.”

“Who could have said such a thing to you, Emily?” Sarah's first guess was the girl's mother, whose resentment of her daughter's gifts was sometimes thinly veiled. But something about the flush high along Emily's cheekbones made Sarah think that this time the hard words had been someone else's, that some man had at last succeeded in turning the beautiful young seamstress's head—while his own remained unbowed. Poor Emily.

“Oh, don't you mind about that now, mum. I didn't really think Lieutenant Fairfax was listenin' to me rattle on, either. But then he stops me and says, ‘Miss Dawlish'—not ‘Miss Emily,' but ‘Miss Dawlish,' right proper, like—‘Miss Dawlish, you've given me an idea.' Well, I didn't see how that could be, but I says, ‘Yes, sir?' And he tells me that somethin' important had happened, and he was leaving Haverhythe first thing to go on a long journey. On his way to ask his lordship for the use of the carriage, he were. But he'd been worryin' what to do with the wee one. ‘If you, Miss Dawlish,' he says, ‘was willing to come along, it would solve a problem, it would. The girl would like to have a familiar face by.' ” Emily dipped her chin toward Clarissa. “ ‘And it'd give you a chance to see a bit more o' the world, besides.' ”

There was something almost amusing about hearing St. John's precise aristocratic voice filtered through Emily Dawlish.

But Sarah did not smile. “So here you are,” she said. Had he hired Emily as nursemaid because he feared Sarah would not see out the trip to its end?

“Aye, here I am.” Emily ran one cautious, curious hand over the plush carriage seat. “Then the lieutenant told me to get along home, and I began to think it were all a grand joke. But first thing this morning, afore the sun was even up, a footman from Haverty Court come a'knockin' on the door and told me to follow him! Carried my bag and everythin'!”

“Ah. How thoughtful.”

“Did he come for your things, too, mum?” she asked, eyes bright and unsuspecting.

“No. Lieutenant Fairfax was, er, kind enough to carry my trunk himself,” Sarah confessed, remembering the way he had hoisted the trunk to his shoulder in the alleyway last night and walked off toward the Blue Herring without a backward glance. She had taken it for the answer to her plea.

Suddenly exhausted, she leaned back against the squabs and closed her eyes, feeling as if she had made this journey once before—three years past, to be precise. Then, too, she had wondered and worried what lay at the end of the road.

What had made St. John relent and agree to bring her along? She supposed he meant to divorce her, as he had suggested on the night of his arrival. By removing her from Haverhythe, he ensured that the coming war would be waged in a theater of his own choosing, with friends and family arrayed for battle on his side.

A divorce would scar them both, but for her the scars would be permanent. She must resign herself to living out her life despised and despising. Perhaps alone. Certainly lonely.

And what of her child? Would he keep Clarissa with him, accept her as his own? Or would he shunt her aside, leave her with some caretaker—Emily Dawlish, perhaps?

She had allowed herself to imagine that the years had changed him. But this was the familiar coldness, the familiar heartlessness, she had come to expect from him. She could have persuaded herself that the intimacies they had shared in the watchman's hut were only another of her foolish dreams, if she had ever known enough to dream of such a thing.

Hours later, she felt the carriage slow as they approached an inn, and Clarissa squealed when St. John cantered into view on a dapple-gray gelding.

“Look, Mama! Sijin!”

“What's that?” Emily asked, peering over her shoulder.

“My husband,” Sarah explained with a nod as he cantered past. She felt vaguely resentful of the fact that her attention had been drawn to his figure on horseback. “
St. John
is his given name.”

Emily's eyes grew wide. “Why, I never heard the like, Miss Clarissa. Why don't you call him Pa?”

Clarissa turned and gave a questioning look. “Pa?”

It was beyond the child's understanding, of course. Some of her playfellows had fathers. Others did not. That was simply the way it was. Susan Kittery had once innocently asked after Clarissa's papa and been told by her mother, in both Clarissa and Sarah's hearing, that Mr. Fairfax—if, indeed, there had ever been such a person—had likely been a scoundrel. Sarah had said nothing to contradict her.

But she realized now that she could maintain her silence no longer. Emily deserved to know something of the history of the woman to whom she had connected herself. She deserved to know where she was headed.

And Clarissa deserved to know her father.

Sarah cleared her throat softly. “I believe, Emily, there are a few things I should tell you before we reach the inn.”

* * *

When he opened the carriage door, he was caught full in the chest by a curly-haired cannonball weighing all of two stone, and he leaned backward in surprise.

But it was not until she spoke that he almost lost his balance.

“Papa!” Clarissa shouted, clutching his neck and babbling about his horse, the carriage horses, all the horses in the inn yard.

He ought to have expected it, he supposed. The child could hardly go on calling him by his Christian name. And there was a joy he had not anticipated in hearing Clarissa call him “Papa.”

But the joy he felt was accompanied by a curious sort of pressure in his chest that was almost, but not quite, pain. Would taking her away from Haverhythe really protect either of them from heartache?

Miss Dawlish exited next, ducking her head and dipping into a curtsy so low she nearly toppled into the muck. “Yer honor,” she mumbled.

So, his days as “Lieutenant Fairfax” were over. Well, he could not say he was sorry. It had been a foolish, dangerous game to play, and he was lucky to have escaped with only a few more scars than he'd started with.

Finally, Sarah passed through the carriage door, without touching his hand or meeting his eye.

“I've arranged for rooms for the night, and a meal of some sort,” he told her. “But, as it won't be ready for another half an hour, I propose we take a walk into the village.” He gestured them away from the bustle of the inn yard. “Clarissa must be tired of being cooped up.”

“Oh, aye,” Emily Dawlish eagerly agreed, taking Clarissa by the hand. “An' I'm dyin' to stretch my legs.”

With obvious reluctance, Sarah took his offered arm and they set off toward the village green. “It was kind of you to suggest a stroll. It is always hard on children to be confined,” she said after a moment, nodding toward Clarissa, who had gamboled ahead with Miss Dawlish and was now spinning circles on the green until she collapsed in a dizzy, laughing heap. “But you needn't walk with us, after riding all day,” she added, releasing his arm.

She clearly intended it as a dismissal, but St. John walked on beside her nonetheless. After another stretch of silence, she spoke again, but it seemed she had decided to move beyond mere pleasantries. “How long is it since you were last at Lynscombe, my lord?”

“More than fifteen years,” he replied without hesitation.

He could not see her expression, as her face was hidden from his gaze by the brim of her bonnet. But her surprise was evident in her voice. “So long as that? I wonder you wish to return now.”

Truth be told, he did not. His feelings for Lynscombe were . . . well, he imagined they were not unlike the memories inspired by the items Sarah kept in that trunk of hers. Precious and painful all at once. He would rather keep them locked away entirely.

“I passed a happy childhood there, ma'am.”
Or part of one
. “Clarissa will, I hope, do the same.”

“And will I—?” He heard again the convincing catch in her voice, the same sound that had captured his ear that night on the quay. “Will I be permitted to share any of it with her?”

He stopped walking. “Is that your wish?”

“Oh, yes. It is.” The slightest hesitation. “But will you—?”

“I shall return to London as soon as you both are settled at Lynscombe.”

Although she was no longer touching him, he could feel the tension ebb from Sarah's body. “For how long, my lord?”

He answered her whisper with firmness. “Forever, ma'am. My family owns several houses. I see no particular need for us to share one. So, as we have been doing for the past three years, I shall live my life and you may live yours—in Hampshire, if it suits you. Lady Clarissa Sutliffe, however, will remain at Lynscombe until it is time for her to enter Society.”

It was not the offer he had been on the verge of making just last night.

Twice now, fate had intervened and prevented him from making a rash mistake where Sarah was concerned. Three years past, just as he had begun to realize that she was not at all the sort of woman he had imagined his father would choose for him, had begun to feel some spark of interest in her, had begun to suspect—no, fear—that he could care for her, she had been found in the arms of another man and then disappeared in a cloud of scandal. And he had been glad of the reprieve.

The past week had shown him he was still not out of danger, however. There was something undeniably attractive to him about the woman he had discovered in Haverhythe—her extraordinary musical gift, her concern for the people of the village, her fierce love for her daughter. It suggested a deeply passionate nature of the sort he could never have imagined in the woman he had married. And for a moment, he had allowed himself to be drawn to that passion. Like a moth to the flame.

Fortunately, he had stumbled over her trunk in the alley behind Primrose Cottage before he could suggest that they try to make something of their marriage. She had been going to leave him without a word, disappear again, just as she had once before.

He ought to have been relieved by the discovery. While she might not be a thief, she still was not to be trusted. If he had allowed himself to grow closer to her or the child, he inevitably would have been hurt.

Yet he could not fairly describe what he felt now as
relief
.

He heard Sarah's lips part, heard her quick intake of breath. At first, though, no words came. Finally, she said, “You do not intend to petition for a divorce, then.”

“Do you mean to present me with the requisite proof?” he asked coldly.

“You refer to the gems, I suppose,” she said, glancing up at him at last.

“Or something else.” Knowing her eyes were upon him, he allowed his gaze to travel across the darkening green and come to rest on the child.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her head bow. “No, my lord.”

“Then it seems I have little choice. Ours will not be the first marriage lived separately, nor the last, I'll wager.”

“I suppose not,” she agreed, a note of something very like sorrow in her voice. “And you will not . . . wish for an heir?”

He stiffened. Everywhere, God help him. “If such a need becomes pressing, rest assured, my lady: You will be the first to know.”

Emily Dawlish chose that moment to take Clarissa's hand and begin their ascent of the grassy slope. Seizing the opportunity, St. John gave a brusque bow. “I trust you will find the arrangements at the inn to your satisfaction. We leave again at first light,” he said, as he turned and walked away.