Authors: Judith McNaught
Tags: #Man-Woman Relationships, #England, #Historical Fiction, #Americans - England, #Contemporary, #Fiction, #Romance, #Americans, #Amnesia, #Historical, #English Fiction, #General, #Love Stories
Until You (20 page)
A proud smile trembled on her lips as she thought of her own contributions toward bringing this moment about. Her eyes sparkled as she thought of the names she'd placed on the list of suitors Stephen had asked her to prepare, and his thunderstruck reaction to her candidates. They'd all been so
old
that Stephen hadn't even realized they were also infirm. "
I did it
!" she thought.
Beside her, Hugh Whitticomb was observing the same sight and thought of the long-ago nights that Alicia and his own Maggie had kept Robert and himself on the dance floor until dawn. As he watched Sherry and Stephen moving together, he chuckled with delight at how successfully he had manipulated the situation. True, there were going to be some rough seas when she recovered her memory, but she loved Stephen Westmoreland and he loved her. Hugh knew it. "
I did it, Maggie girl
," he told her in his heart. Her answer floated through his mind. "
Yes you did, darling. Now, ask Alicia to dance. This is a special moment
."
"Alicia," he said dubiously, "would you like to dance?"
She turned a dazzling smile to him, as she placed her hand on his arm. "Thank you, Hugh! What a wonderful idea! It's been years since we danced together!"
Standing off to one side of the dance floor, Miss Charity Thornton tapped her toe in rhythm to the magic of the waltz, her faded blue eyes bright with pleasure as she watched the Earl of Langford perform his first official function as Sherry's future husband. As the other dancers finally moved onto the floor, Nicholas DuVille spoke at her ear, and she turned in surprise. "Miss Thornton," he said with a lazy, white grin, "would you honor me with this dance?"
Stunned with pleasure that he had sought her out at this momentous occasion, she beamed at him and placed her small hand upon his sleeve, feeling like a girl again, as one of the handsomest men in the room led her onto the floor. "Poor Makepeace," she confided without a hint of sympathy, "he looks quite devastated over there."
"I hope
you
are not devastated," Nicki said with concern, and when she seemed confused, he added kindly, "I had the impression you were very much in favor of
my
suit."
She looked charmingly flustered as he whirled her around and around, adjusting his steps for her diminutive size. "Nicholas," she said, "may I confide something to you?"
"Certainly, if you like."
"I am old, and I nod off when I don't at all wish to sleep, and I am dreadfully forgetful at times…"
"I hadn't noticed," Nicki gallantly replied.
"
But
, dear boy," she continued severely, ignoring his disclaimer, "I am not enough of a
ninnyhammer
to have believed for more than the first hour that you were besotted with our dear Sherry!"
Nicki nearly missed a step. "You… did not think I was?" he said cautiously.
"Certainly not. Things have worked out exactly as I planned they should."
"As
you
planned they should?" Nicki repeated a little dazedly, completely reassessing her and coming up with answers that made him feel like shouting with laughter and flushing with embarrassment over his own naiveté.
"Certainly," she said with a proud little wag of her head. "I do not like to boast," she tipped her head toward Sherry and Langford, "but I did that."
Uncertain if the unbelievable notion forming in his head was correct, Nicki studied her closely from the corner of his eyes. "How did you do whatever it was you think you did?"
"A little nudge here, a little push there, dear boy. Although I did wonder tonight if we should have let Sherry leave with Langford. He was jealous as fire over Makepeace." Her little shoulders shook with merry laughter. "It was the most
diverting
thing I've seen in thirty years! At least, I
think
it was… I shall miss all this excitement. I have felt so very useful from the moment Hugh Whitticomb asked me to be chaperone. I knew, of course, that I wasn't supposed to do a good job of it, or else he'd have gotten someone else to do it." She looked up inquiringly after Nicholas's long silence and found him staring at her as if he'd not. seen her before. "Did you wish to say something, dear boy?"
"I think so."
"Yes?" '
"Please accept my humblest apologies."
"For underestimating me?"
Nicki nodded, grinning, and she smiled back at him. "Everyone does, you know."
"I
feel like a guest in my own house," Stephen remarked ironically to his amused brother as they waited for the women to join them in his drawing room so they could leave for the opera. He had not been alone with Sherry since he'd announced their engagement last night at the Rutherfords' ball, and he found it absurd that his change in public status to being her fiancé supposedly had to mark the end of all possibilities for the slightest intimacy.
At his mother's suggestion, he'd moved into Clayton's house, and she had moved into his, where she planned to remain with Sherry during the three days before the wedding—"to absolutely eliminate any possible reasons for gossip, since Sherry is under the very nose of the ton here in London."
Stephen had graciously agreed to her suggestion only because he had every reason to expect Whitticomb to maintain his earlier position that Sherry would require the security of his reassuring presence, and that Charity Thornton was an adequate chaperone.
Instead, the unreliable physician had agreed with Stephen's mother that Sherry's reputation might suffer now that Society knew Stephen was personally interested in her.
Tonight, his brother and sister-in-law were playing chaperone, accompanying Sherry and him to the opera, while his mother attended her own functions, but she would be there when they returned, she'd promised.
"You could always move Sherry in with us," Clayton pointed out, enjoying Stephen's discomfiture and his healthy eagerness to be alone with his fiancée, "and then you could stay here."
"That's as absurd as this arrangement. The point is that I'm not going to preempt the damned wedding and take her to bed when there are only three more days to wait—"
He broke off at the sound of feminine voices on the staircase, and they both stood up. Stephen picked up his black coat and shrugged into it as he strolled forward, then nearly walked into his brother, who had stopped to watch the two women rushing into the hall together laughing. "Look at that," he said softly, but Stephen was already looking, and he knew what Clayton meant even before he added, "What a portrait they would make."
Their musical laughter made both men grin as they watched the Duchess of Claymore and the future Countess of Langford trying on each other's capes and bonnets in front of the mirror while Colfax and Hodgkin stood with hands clasped behind their backs, staring straight ahead, as if oblivious to the girlish antics. Hodgkin wasn't as good as Colfax at hiding his thoughts, and his gaze kept sliding to Sherry and a smile kept tugging at his cheek.
Whitney had been wearing a bright blue gown when they arrived. Sherry had said she intended to wear a bright green gown even though, she'd softly added, as she looked at the huge sapphire Stephen had given her that afternoon for a betrothal ring, "sapphire blue is my favorite color of all."
They had evidently changed their minds
and
their gowns upstairs because Whitney was now wearing Sherry's green gown and Sherry was wearing her deep blue one.
As both men started forward, they heard Whitney gaily predict, "Clayton will never notice the change, mark my word."
"And I doubt Lord Westmoreland paid the slightest heed to my comment about which gown would look best with my ring," Sherry said, laughing. "He was preoccupied with—" She choked back the word "kissing," and Stephen stifled a laugh.
"Shall we?" he said to his brother.
"By all means," Clayton agreed, and without further communication, Stephen walked up behind Whitney while Clayton offered his arm to Sherry, startling a peal of laughter from her as he joked in a low voice, "Did I tell you earlier how lovely you look in green, my love?"
Whitney was pulling on her gloves when masculine hands touched her shoulders and Stephen's voice whispered tenderly in her ear beside her bonnet. "Sherry," he whispered, and beneath his hands her shoulders shook with laughter as she carefully kept her face hidden, "I've arranged with my brother to leave us alone for a while when we return from the opera, so we can be private. He'll distract Whitney—" She whirled around and had already begun her indignant reprimand before she saw his knowing grin. "Stephen Westmoreland, if you
dare
to even—"
Outside Number 14 Upper Brook Street carriages paraded in dignified pomp, their lamps glowing and flickering like a procession of golden fireflies. As the conveyance belonging to the Duke and Duchess of Dranby passed by the house, her grace looked admiringly at its splendid Palladian facade and sighed. "Dranby, who shall we find to wed Juliette, now that Langford is taken? Where will we find his equal in taste and elegance, in refinement and—" She broke off as the front door of the house opened and four laughing people erupted from it—the earl running down the front steps in pursuit of his new fiancée. "Sherry," he called, "I knew she wasn't you!"
The American girl called a laughing reply back as she headed straight for the Duke of Claymore's coach, which was pulled up behind the earl's. The duke and duchess pressed closer to their coach window staring with disbelief as the Earl of Langford caught his new fiancée by the waist as she climbed into the duke's coach, swung her into his arms, and firmly deposited her into his own coach.
"Dranby," said the duchess, "we have just witnessed the most delicious on-dit of the year! Wait until I tell everyone what we saw!"
"If you'll take my advice, you won't bother," said the duke, leaning back in his seat.
"Whyever not?"
"No one will believe you."
A
steady stream of luxurious conveyances were packed into Bow Street, waiting to pull up before Covent Garden's brightly lit facade to unload their passengers. "It looks like a Grecian temple!" Sherry exclaimed in delight as she peered out the window of their coach. "Like the painting hanging in your library."
Her enthusiasm was so infectious that Stephen actually leaned over and looked at the Royal Opera House's facade with her. "It was modelled after the Temple of Minerva at Athens."
Careful to lift her beautiful skirts, Sherry took Stephen's hand as she alighted from the coach and paused to look about her before they went inside. "It's wonderful," she said, ignoring the amused glances being cast her way as they made their way across the expansive vestibule and proceeded up a grand staircase past imposing Ionic columns and glittering Grecian lamps. It was the fashion in London to appear quite bored and blasé at all times, but Sherry didn't care. Her face glowing with pleasure, she stopped in the lobby that led to the lower tier of boxes and looked about at the graceful pillars and arched recesses that contained paintings of scenes from Shakespeare.
Loath to rush her, yet conscious they were blocking the other patrons, Stephen touched her elbow and said softly, "We'll stay late so that you may look around at your leisure."
"Oh, I'm sorry. Only, it is hard to imagine that people can walk by all this without pausing to notice it."
Stephen's box was located for maximum view, and when they entered it, he actually peered around to get a look at Sherry's face, but she was gazing in admiration at the identical tier of elegant boxes opposite them, each with its own chandelier and with gold flowers and stars painted on the box's front.
"I hope you like the opera," he said, sitting down beside her and nodding casually to friends in the box on their right. "I try to come every Thursday."
Sherry looked up at him, so happy that she was almost afraid to trust it. "I think I do. That is, I feel excited, which must be a very good sign." His eyes had been smiling into hers, but as she spoke she saw their expression change and his lids lowered, his gaze dropping to her lips, lingering long on them, then lifting.
It was a kiss! she realized. It was a kiss, and he'd meant for her to feel it, to understand that was what he was doing. Without conscious volition, her hand moved imperceptibly, seeking his as it had the first day she'd returned to consciousness.
It was a tiny movement, one he might have missed, even if he had been looking instead of turning to greet friends who'd stopped into the box. And yet, as Sherry turned her head to do the same, his hand slid into her open palm, covering it, strong fingers lacing with hers. A jolt streaked up Sherry's spine as his thumb slowly rubbed her palm, brushing left and right, then back again. It was another kiss, she realized, her breath catching. This one slower, longer, deeper.
Her heart swelling, she looked down at the beautiful male hand partially covered by the open fan in her lap, watching his finger stroking while her body seemed to melt from the touch.
Below, in the gallery and pits, the crowd was noisy and curious, openly studying the occupants of the boxes, and Sherry tried to look perfectly casual, while the simple touch of a finger on her palm made her pulse continue to escalate.
When the movement finally stopped and her pulse slowed to normal, she felt very foolish to be so susceptible to what was very probably an idle touch on his part. Partly out of curiosity and partly for mischief, Sherry experimented. While he chatted with his brother, she stroked her thumb over Stephen's knuckles, concentrating far more on that than the conversation. It had no noticeable effect on him. In fact, he opened his hand, and for a second Sherry thought he was going to pull it away. Since he left it there instead, palm up, she dipped her gaze and thoughtfully traced each long finger from its tip to the vee where it met his wide palm, while he continued his absorbed conversation with his brother. Since he seemed not to notice or object, Sherry touched his palm, her fingertip following each intersecting line.
I love you
, she thought helplessly, telling him so with her fingertip.
Please love me too
. Sometimes when he kissed her or smiled at her, she was almost certain he did, but she wanted to hear the words, needed to hear them.
I love you
, she told him through her fingertip as it stroked his open palm.
Stephen gave up all pretense of trying to carry on an intelligent conversation and slid a glance at her bent head. He was sitting in a noisy public place, with a bulging arousal that felt as if he'd been indulging in an hour of intense sexual foreplay instead of merely holding hands with an inexperienced virgin. His heart was beating in the heavy, insistent tempo that came with denying himself a climax while he maximized his pleasure, and still he did not stop her. Instead he opened his hand more, fingers splaying in willing submission to his own torture.
He could not believe what she was doing to him, and he was deriving almost as much pleasure from knowing she
wanted
to touch him as from her sweet stroking.
In the glittering, sophisticated world he inhabited, the roles were clearly defined: wives were for the breeding of an heir; husbands were a social and financial necessity; mistresses gave and received passion. Couples who had nothing in common with their own spouses had affairs with other people's spouses. Stephen could think of perhaps twenty couples, among the thousands he knew, who shared anything stronger than mild affection. He could think of hundreds who shared nothing at all. Wives did not yearn for a husband's touch, they did not deliberately incite a husband's yearning for theirs. And yet that was
exactly
what Sherry was doing.
Beneath lowered lids, he gazed at her profile as she delicately traced something onto his sensitized palm, then traced the same thing again. The third time she did it, he tried to distract himself from the desire that was flowing from the nerve endings in his open palm throughout his entire nerve stream, and to concentrate on what she was doing. With her fingertip she drew an open circle on his palm and then two perpendicular lines joined at the bottom:
C L
Her initials.
Stephen drew a ragged breath and lifted his gaze to her profile while in his mind he dragged her into a darkened corner and covered that soft mouth with his…
He was mentally kissing her breasts when a commotion below heralded the beginning of the opera and he wasn't certain whether he was relieved or sorry to have her distracted, but distracted she was.
Sherry leaned forward expectantly, watching as the crimson draperies swept open beneath a graceful arch with painted figures of women holding trumpets and wreaths of laurel. And then the orchestra began to play, and she forgot the world.
Stephen held her hand on the way home, feeling a little foolish for his boyish pleasure in the simple touch. "I gather you liked the performance," he said idly as he walked beside her to the front door of his house, their path illuminated by a bright full moon.
"I loved it!" she said, her eyes filled with excited wonder. "I think I
recognized
it. Not the words, but the melody."
That piece of good news was followed by another: as Colfax helped Sherry off with her light cape, he volunteered the gratifying information that Stephen's mother had retired for the night. "Thank you, Colfax, I suggest you do the same," Stephen hinted flatly, his mind instantly replaying his fantasy at the opera. The butler took himself off down the hall, snuffing out all but the candles in the entry, and Stephen looked down at Sherry as she started to bid him good-night.
"Thank you for a wonderful evening, my lor—"
"My name is Stephen," he told her, wondering how in God's name he could have forgotten to ask her to use it.
Sherry tried it out, loving the strange intimacy of it. "Thank you, Stephen." There was little time to relish it, however, because he took her elbow and guided her firmly down the dark hall into a moonlit salon, closed the door, and turned to her instead of walking further into the room.
With the door behind her and his body in front of her, Sherry looked at his moonlit face, trying to imagine what he intended to do in the dark. "What—?" she began.
"This—" he answered. Bracing his flattened palms on the door on either side of her head, he leaned his body into hers and lowered his head.
Before Sherry could react, his mouth seized hers, stealing her breath while his hard body pressed into hers, his hips moving slightly, and the effect on her senses was stunning. With a silent moan, she slid her hands around his neck and kissed him back, welcoming the invasion of his tongue, glorying in the rasp of his breath as he kissed her harder, helplessly yielding her body to the insistent movements of his hips.
C
arrying the morning
Post
in his hand, Thomas Morrison strolled into his cozy dining room and looked cautiously at his new wife, who was toying with her breakfast, staring out the window at the noisy London street. "Charise, what has been bothering you these last few days?"
Charise looked up at the face she'd thought so handsome on the ship, and then at the tiny little dining room in his tiny little house, and she was so furious with him and herself that she didn't deign to reply. On the ship he'd seemed so dashing and romantic in his uniform, and he'd spoken to her so gallantly, but all that had changed as soon as she'd said her vows. After that, he'd wanted her to do that disgusting thing in bed with him, and when she told him she hated it, he'd been cross with her for the first time. Once she made him understand that she was not going to put up with him or that, their brief honeymoon in Devon had been pleasant enough for her. But when he brought her back to London and she saw his house, she'd been dumbstruck. He'd lied to her, misled her into believing he had a fine house and an excellent income, but by her standards, this was near-poverty, and she despised it, and him.
If she'd married Burleton, she would have been a baroness; she could have shopped in the fabulous shops she'd seen in Bond Street and Piccadilly. Right now, right this very minute, she'd be wearing a beautiful ruffled morning gown and paying a morning call on one of her fashionable new friends who lived in those splendid mansions along Brook Street and Pall Mall. As it was, she'd spent all her money on a single gown, and then gone for a stroll in Green Park, where the Quality walked in the afternoon, and they'd ignored her as if she didn't exist! She hadn't realized what a necessity a noble title was until she'd strolled in the park yesterday afternoon and witnessed the sort of tightly knit, closed society that existed here.
Not only that, when her loathsome husband asked the cost of the gown and she told him, the man had looked as if he was going to cry! Instead of being admired and praised for her excellent taste and lovely figure, all he'd thought about was the money.
She was the one who had a right to cry, she thought furiously, glancing contemptuously at him as he read the newspaper. At home in Richmond, she'd been the one whom people envied and imitated. Now she was nothing—less than nothing—and she was consumed by envy every day when she went to the park and watched the ton promenading about, and ignoring her.
The problem with Thomas Morrison was that he didn't realize she was special. Everyone in Richmond had known it, even her papa, but the tall, handsome clod she'd married didn't grasp it. She'd tried to explain that to him, but he'd insulted her by saying she hadn't been behaving as if she were special! Furious, she'd informed him that "people behave as they are treated!" That remark had been so clever that it sounded as if it came straight from Miss Bromleigh herself, and still he didn't respond as he should have.
But then, what could she expect from a man so lacking in refinement and taste that he didn't know the difference in desirability between a paid companion and an heiress?
At first, he'd paid more attention to that Bromleigh woman than Charise herself, and no wonder—Sheridan Bromleigh didn't know her place at all. She read romance novels about governesses who married the lord of the house, and when Charise had mocked that ludicrous idea, she'd boldly said she didn't think titles or wealth would or should matter between two individuals who
truly
loved each other.
In fact, Charise thought bitterly as she stabbed a slice of ham with her knife, if it hadn't been for Sheridan Bromleigh, she wouldn't be in this heartbreaking mess! She would never have felt compelled to draw Morrison's attention away from her lowly paid companion when the two of them seemed to like each other, would never have eloped with him to show everyone on the ship, especially Miss Bromleigh, that Charise Lancaster could have any gentleman she wanted. Her awful life was the fault of that redheaded witch who'd put all that romantic nonsense in her head about love and fairy-tale marriages where money and titles didn't matter!
"Charise?"
She hadn't spoken to him in two days, but something about the odd note in his voice made her respond by looking up, and when she saw his incredulous; expression, she almost asked him what he was reading that made him look so foolish.
"Was there anyone else aboard our ship whose name happened to be Charise Lancaster? I mean it is not an extraordinarily common name, is it?" '
She glared at him contemptuously. Stupid question. Stupid man. There was nothing common about her, including her unique name.
"According to this newspaper," he said in a dazed voice, looking at her, "Charise Lancaster, who arrived in London three weeks ago aboard the
Morning Star
, has just become betrothed to the Earl of Langford."
"I don't believe you!" Charise said with blazing scorn, snatching the newspaper out of his hand so she could read the announcement herself. "There was no other Charise Lancaster on the ship."
"Read it for yourself," he said needlessly, because she'd already snatched the newspaper from him.
A moment later, she flung the paper down on the table, her face mottled with fury. "Someone is impersonating me to the earl. Some scheming, vile, evil…"
"Where the deuce are you going?"
"To call upon my 'new fiancé.' "
H
umming softly to herself, Sherry took out the gown she was going to wear for her wedding in an hour and laid it across the bed. It was still too early to change from her day dress into the dressier blue gown she was going to wear later, and the hands on the clock above the mantel seemed to be moving at half speed.
Since it had been impossible to invite some of their friends and omit others, the decision had been made to limit the wedding guests to immediate family only, which avoided offending the sensibilities of friends who were not invited and also kept it a quiet intimate affair, which Sheridan preferred. It also enabled the family to wait a few weeks before announcing the marriage so that it didn't look too sudden.
According to the dowager duchess, who had gently asked Sherry to call her "Mother," last night, hasty weddings inevitably brought on a storm of gossip and conjecture about the reasons for the haste. Miss Charity had been invited because no one had the heart to exclude her, and she was due here any moment. Dr. Whitticomb was the only other non-family member asked to attend, but he'd sent word this morning that a patient of his was in urgent need of him, and that he'd come round later for a glass of champagne.
According to the plan, the Duke of Claymore was to escort his mother and Whitney here in an hour, and Stephen would arrive a half hour later, precisely at eleven a.m., when the wedding was to take place. English weddings, she had learned, traditionally took place between eight o'clock in the morning and noon, so that the bridal couple had the benefit of bright daylight and a full night's sleep to contemplate for the last time the import of the step they were about to take. The vicar was obviously aware of the import of his own role in the marriage of the Earl of Langford, because he'd arrived an hour ago to make certain he was on time—a precaution that Colfax clearly found a little amusing when he imparted the information to Sherry. Clad in formal livery for the occasion, as were all the servants she'd seen downstairs earlier, Colfax had also imparted the information that the household staff wished to sing for her, on this momentous occasion, an old and traditional song they had been rehearsing in the kitchen. Touched by their thoughtfulness, Sherry had instantly and delightedly agreed.
Based on what Sherry had witnessed so far, it appeared that only the butler and the bride were taking things in stride. Her maid was so nervous that she'd fussed half the morning over Sherry's bath and hair, dropping pins and mislaying towels everywhere, until Sherry finally sent her off in order to savor her anticipation in solitude.
Wandering over to the dressing table, Sherry gazed down at the diamond and sapphire necklace lying in a large, white-velvet-lined jeweler's case that Stephen had sent over to her this morning. Smiling, she touched the necklace, and the triple band of diamonds and sapphires seemed to sparkle happily back at her, matching her mood. The lavish piece was more formal than her gown required, but Sherry intended to wear it anyway because it was from Stephen.
Stephen… He was going to be her husband, and her thoughts drifted inevitably to the minutes she had spent in the dark salon with him after the opera. He had kissed her into mindless insensibility, his hard body pressed into hers, and shock waves of sensation had rushed over her with every grinding shift of his hips, every deep demand of his tongue, every possessive, intimate stroke of his hands over her breasts. By the time he moved away a little, his breathing sounded strangely ragged, and Sherry was clinging to him in helpless abandon. "Do you have any idea," he'd whispered in a rough voice, "how passionate you are, and how unique?"
Not certain how to answer that, she searched her empty memory for some specific cause for the uneasy guilt she felt for allowing him to kiss and touch her. Finding nothing in particular, she'd slid her hand around his nape and pressed her cheek against his hard chest. With a half-laugh, half-groan, he'd gently pulled her hand down and stepped back. "Enough. Unless you want the honeymoon to precede the wedding, young lady, you're going to have to content yourself with a few chaste pecks…" She must have looked disappointed, because, laughing softly, he'd leaned into her and kissed her again.
Sherry's thoughts were disrupted by a knock on her door and she called for whoever it was to enter. "Your pardon, milady," Hodgkin said, his narrow face pinched and pale, as if he were in pain. "There is a young—I hesitate to use the word 'lady' in view of the sort of language she used—woman downstairs who insists she must see you."
Sherry looked at him in the mirror above the dressing table. "Who is she?"
The elderly under-butler spread his hands and they trembled with the force of his reaction. "She says she is you, miss."
"I beg your pardon?"
"She says
she
is Miss Charise Lancaster."
"How very…" Sherry's heart began to thunder for no apparent reason, and her voice strangled on the word "odd."
Sounding as if he were begging her to claim the other woman was a mystic or a fraud, he added, "She is… is in possession of a great many facts that might seem to prove her claim. I—I know this to be true, my lady, because I was once employed by Baron Burleton."
Burleton… Burleton… Burleton… Burleton
. The name began to howl like a banshee in her brain.
"She—she was demanding to see the earl, but you have been very good to me… to all of us, and I would hope that were our positions reversed, not that they ever could be, you would at least come to me with any possible falsehood, instead of carrying the tale to the earl… to someone else. I will, naturally, have to tell him of the woman's wish to see him when he arrives for the nuptials, but if you perhaps had a chance to see her first and she were to be more calm…"
Sherry leaned her hands on the dressing table for support, nodding to him to show the woman who claimed to be her upstairs, and she closed her eyes tight, concentrating.
Burleton… BURLETON… BURLETON.
Images and voices began to flash through her mind, speeding up faster and faster, spinning so quickly that the next one appeared before the other had spun away.
… A ship, a cabin, a frightened maid. "
What if Miss Charise's fiancé thinks we killed her, or sold her, or something evil like that? It would be the baron's word against yours, and you aren't nobody, so the law will be on his side. This is England not America
…"
… Torchlight, stevedores, a tall, grim man standing at the end of a gangplank. "
Miss Lancaster, I'm afraid there's been an accident. Lord Burleton was killed yesterday
."
… Cotton fields, meadows, a wagon filled with goods, a little girl with red hair… "
My papa calls me 'carrot' because of my hair, but my name is Sheridan. There is a rose
—
a flower
—
called Sheridan, and my mama named me for it
."
… A restless horse, a stern-faced Indian, the smell of summer. "
White men are not as good as Indians for giving names. Not flower, you. Fire, you. Flames. Burn bright
."
… Campfires, moonlight, a handsome Spaniard with smiling eyes and a guitar in his hands, music pulsing in the night. "
Sing with me
, cara."
… A tiny, neat house, indignant little girl, angry woman. "
Patrick Bromleigh, you ought to be horsewhipped for the way you've reared that child. She can't read, and she can't write, her manners are deplorable, and her hair is wanton. She announced to me, as bold as brass, that she 'fancies' someone named Raphael Benavente and she'll probably ask him to marry her someday. She actually intends to propose matrimony herself and to some Spanish vagabond who cheats at cards. And I haven't even mentioned her other favorite companion
—
an Indian male who sleeps with dogs! If you have any conscience, any love for her, you will leave her here with me
."
… Two solemn men standing in the yard, a third one in the doorway, his face tense. "
You mind your aunt Cornelia, darlin'. I'll be back for you before you know it
—
a year or two at most
."
… A distraught child clinging to him. "
No, Papa, don't! Don't leave me here! Please! Please, I'll wear dresses and fix my wanton hair, just don't leave me here. I want to go with you and Rafe and Dog Lies Sleeping! That's where I belong, no matter what she says! Papa, Papa, wait
—"
… A stern-faced woman with gray hair, a child who was supposed to call her "Aunt Cornelia." "
Do not try to stare me out of countenance with that expression, child. I perfected that very look long ago in England, and I'm quite immune to it. In England, it would have served you well, were you Squire Faraday's acknowledged granddaughter, but this is America. Here, I teach deportment to the children of people whom I would have once regarded as my inferiors, and I am lucky to have the work
."
… Another woman, stout, pleasant, firm. "
We may have a position for you at our school. I've heard some very good things about you from your aunt, Miss Bromleigh
."
…Little girls' voices. "Good morning, Miss Bromleigh." Miniature young ladies in white stockings and ribbons practicing their curtsies while Sheridan demonstrated.
Her palms were perspiring on the dressing table's top, her knees were turning to liquid. Behind her, the door opened and a blonde girl stalked in, her voice raised in fury. "You unspeakable fraud!"
Reeling from the fleeing visions, Sherry forced her eyes open, lifted her head, and stared into the mirror above her dressing table. Framed beside her own face was another face, a FAMILIAR FACE. "Oh, my God!" she moaned as her arms began to shake and give way, forcing her to either straighten from her hunched position or fall to the floor. Slowly, she lifted her palms off the dressing table, and very slowly, she turned, while terror began to hammer through her, banishing weakness and lethargy. Her entire body vibrating with panic, she faced Charise Lancaster, and felt each of her enraged words as if it was a blow to her head:
"You
evil
, despicable, scheming
slut
! Look at this place. Look at you!" Her eyes were wild as she looked around at the luxurious green and gold suite. "You've actually taken my place."
"No!" Sheridan burst out, but her voice was unrecognizable, brittle and frantic. "No, not on purpose. Dear God, don't—"
"It will take more than prayer to save you from prison," her former student snapped, her face contorted with fury. "You've taken my PLACE… You tricked me into marrying Morrison with all your talk of romance, and then
YOU TOOK MY PLACE
. You actually intended to MARRY AN EARL!"
"No, please, listen to me. It was an accident. I lost my memory."
That only made her more infuriated. "Lost your memory!" she screamed contemptuously. "Well, you know who
I
am!" Without another word, she swung on her heel. "I'll be back with the authorities within minutes, and we'll see how they feel about your memory loss, you vile—!"
Sherry ran without realizing she was moving, clutching the other girl's shoulders, trying to make her listen before she did the unthinkable, her words tumbling over themselves. "Charise, please, listen. I was hit in the head—accident—and I didn't know who I was. Please wait—just listen to me—You don't know, don't understand what it would do to them to have a scandal."
"I'll have you in a dungeon before nightfall!" she raged, flinging off Sheridan's hands. "I'll have your precious earl exposed for the fool he is—"
Blackness rose up before Sheridan's eyes. Black on white. Headlines screaming. Scandal. Dungeons. "
This is England, and you aren't nobody, so the law will be on his side
."
"I'll leave!" she cried, her voice plaintive and demented and confused as she began backing toward the door. "I won't come back. I won't cause trouble. Don't bring authorities. Scandal will kill them. Look at me—I'm leaving." Sherry whirled and ran. She fled down the staircase, nearly knocking over a footman. A lump rose in her throat at the realization that Stephen was going to walk into this hall in an hour, thinking he was about to be wed, only his bride would have deserted him. Her heart hammering, she raced into the library, scribbled a note, and thrust it at the stricken elderly butler, then she tore open the door, and raced down the steps, down the street, around the corner.
She ran and ran until she couldn't run anymore, and then she leaned against the side of a building, listening to a voice of her more recent past—a beloved voice—a beloved voice explaining things that had never happened to a woman he'd never met: "
The last time we were together in America, we quarrelled. I didn't think about our quarrel while you were ill, but when you began to recover the other night, I found it was still on my mind."
"What did we quarrel about?"
"I thought you paid too much notice to another man. I was jealous."
Staggered by yet another shock, Sherry stared blindly at a passing carriage as she wandered slowly down the street. But he hadn't been jealous. His attitude had hardened from the moment she'd asked him if they were "very much in love."
Because they'd never been in love.
Her mind went numb with confusion and shock.