Malcolm blinked at the sheet as if he’d forgotten he held it. “Ah—yes. You said you’d like to see it.” Reaching over the desk, he handed the sheet to Charlie.
Charlie took it, opened it, and kept his attention and comments focused on matters financial for the rest of Malcolm’s visit.
When Malcolm eventually rose and took his leave, Charlie saw him out, then inwardly sighed. He scrubbed a hand over his features, trying to obliterate the last traces of the contemptuous—contemptible—role he’d been playing. Rigid, controlling, unforgiving, ruthless in his protection of the earldom and its reputation, and prepared to ride roughshod over his wife’s feelings in pursuit of that goal—he’d led Malcolm to believe he was that sort of man…even though it was all pretense, he felt besmirched.
Almost guilty by association.
Shaking off the feeling, he set out to find Sarah—to reassure himself, and her, that he wasn’t that sort of husband at all.
Two days passed before their efforts bore fruit in the form of a solicitor’s clerk, dispatched from his employer’s offices in Wellington to lay what the solicitor had plainly believed was a straightforward offer to buy Quilley Farm for a mildly staggering amount before the Earl of Meredith and his countess.
Charlie sat in an armchair in Sarah’s sitting room, battling to hide a grin as he watched her, seated on the chaise, give the hapless clerk a pointed lesson on the proper way to approach a countess over a piece of property said countess owned.
Once the clerk was reduced to babbling, all but groveling at her dainty feet, she deigned to haughtily accept the written offer he held out to her.
Sarah glanced over the papers, noting the sum and the absence of any client’s name. She looked up, and waved the clerk away. “Wait in the front hall—I wish to discuss this matter with my husband.”
She waited until Crisp, who had lingered by the door, escorted the obsequiously bobbing clerk away, then handed the papers to Charlie. “No name, but the amount is larger than last time.”
Barnaby had been standing before the French doors, ostensibly looking out; now he joined them, going to the armchair to look over Charlie’s shoulder, scanning the pages as Charlie turned. “Wellington—that’s west of Taunton, isn’t it?”
Charlie nodded. “About ten miles.” Finishing with the last sheet, he flipped the others back. “Other than the lack of name, this is a simple enough offer.” He glanced up at Barnaby. “What do you think—should we run with your plan?”
Nodding, Barnaby reached for the papers. They’d spent hours discussing their options—or rather their lack of them. “I’ll take your answer back to this solicitor. Doubtless he has no more real information than the others, but if the villain follows his usual pattern the agent will appear to learn your answer. When he does, I’ll be there. I’ll follow the clerk back—we’ll let him ride ahead alone in case the agent approaches him along the way.”
Charlie studied Barnaby’s face. “Be careful.”
Barnaby smiled sweetly. “I will be.” He glanced at Sarah. “You’ll need to be careful, too, and keep up the pretense of being exercised over the orphanage. With a villain like this—one who may well appear perfectly respectable—you can never tell when he, or someone he knows, will be watching.”
Sarah grimaced, but nodded. “If you’re going to ride to Wellington, you won’t be able to return to night.”
Barnaby’s grin grew intent. “No matter—I’ll stay in Wellington until I meet this agent.”
Later that night Charlie lay beside Sarah in the downy comfort of their bed, and prayed that Barnaby had met with success. The sooner he could dispense with the role of domineering, disapproving husband the better.
With Sarah all warm feminine limbs, boneless in the aftermath of the plea sure they’d shared, snuggled against him, her head nestled in the hollow of his shoulder as if it were made just for her, his arms loosely yet definitely holding her to him, satisfaction was a rich drug sliding through his veins.
The taste of innocence transformed, rich, passionate, and even more addictive. He wanted to secure it forever, to know that it would always be his.
He would do anything, literally anything, to ensure it was.
That impulse—that commitment—clashed badly with the role the current situation forced on him.
The sensation of her resting so trustfully against him only strengthened his welling resistance to the pretense they’d enacted over recent days, whenever any outsider was present. Sarah had summoned Mrs. Duncliffe and Skeggs to inform them of the dean’s visit and ensure that the staff ’s good names remained unblemished, just in case the villain thought to start a whispering campaign to further pressure her into selling. But mindful of the need for secrecy, they hadn’t been able to tell either the vicar’s wife or Skeggs the full truth; instead, they’d had to convey, not by word but by suggestion, that Charlie was privately insisting that Sarah turn her back on the orphanage.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Worse, his assumed role demanded he behave in a manner that ran directly counter to his needs. To how he wanted, now and forever, to behave with her.
To how he knew and accepted he needed to behave if he wanted their marriage to be all that it could be.
They’d laughed after Mrs. Duncliffe and Skeggs had gone; as if sensing his discomfort, Sarah had smiled and teased, easing the emotional cuts and scrapes the interlude had inflicted, both on her and him. Yet he couldn’t help but feel—irrationally perhaps—that in even acting as he was he was betraying her and their love.
He still inwardly flinched at thinking of that word in relation to himself.
Which illustrated why he needed to end the charade, to be free of the villain’s unexpected influence so he could concentrate on overcoming his ingrained reaction to admitting to love. To letting it show, to letting it weave through his interactions with Sarah regardless of the where and when. Fighting free of the mental conditioning of decades wasn’t a simple matter; he was still too frequently conscious of the prodding of the latent belief that love was too dangerous an emotion to let loose in his life.
Yet he was determined to succeed, to overcome and eradicate that entrenched resistance and so give Sarah and their marriage what both needed from him to not just survive but thrive.
Perhaps if he could say the words aloud? He hadn’t—he knew he hadn’t. That was a milestone he could aim for and achieve.
A small milestone, perhaps, but didn’t the philosophers argue that if one could articulate a commitment, one stood a better chance of meeting it? That certainly held true for investing; why not for marriage?
So he needed a declaration, something that rang true, that she would know came from his heart.
Words, the right words.
He was reasonably certain they weren’t “Are you pregnant?” even though he suspected she might be. She hadn’t said a word, and he wasn’t sure he had the right to ask, at least not yet…and it might be better if he waited until she told him; he had a suspicion that was one of those feminine declarations at which wise men feigned complete surprise.
Back to the right words. His mind circled, examined, wondered…until he fell asleep.
Two days later, with the afternoon light softening over the hills, Sarah set out from the orphanage on Blacktail’s back to ride home to Morwellan Park. She smiled at how quickly she’d adjusted to thinking of the Park, Charlie’s home, as hers. From her first day as his countess, it had felt right—like a comfortable glove sliding about her, fitting perfectly.
Eager to get back, she let Blacktail’s reins ease. Behind her, Hills, the groom Charlie had insisted she take, kept pace.
She’d ridden to the orphanage purely to check, to reassure herself that everyone was safe and that there’d been no further accidents. There hadn’t been, and everyone was coping with the increased level of vigilance they’d all deemed the best way to guard against further attacks.
Charlie had intended to come with her, but Malcolm
Sinclair had called to discuss some reports on investment banking that Charlie had promised to share with him. Although they’d preserved their charade before Sinclair, Charlie had been torn; he’d patently wanted to send Sinclair packing and ride north with her instead.
She grinned, holding the moment close, clutching to her heart all that it meant. The wind whipped her hair back; she laughed and leaned forward to pat Blacktail’s sleek neck.
A faint whiz was all she heard before fire lanced across her back.
She gasped, and pain sliced through her. She stiffened, trying to breathe, to ignore the spreading agony.
From behind she heard a cry—Hills. Blacktail’s reins slid from her weakening grasp; the gelding thundered on. Something had hit her on the back; through the fiery pain she could feel something there, stuck to her, bouncing with Blacktail’s gait. Anchoring one hand in his flying mane, she clung; with her other hand, she groped behind her, trying to feel what had struck her—she felt a shaft, and feathers. Just touching it made her gasp, made her head swim.
When she opened her eyes again, she saw blood, wet and red, on her glove. An arrow?
Her mind could barely take it in.
Flailing to catch up with her, Hills drew alongside. “My lady!” His face ashen, he reached for Blacktail’s reins.
“No!” Sarah gasped. “Don’t stop. Whoever shot it—they’re still there.”
If she hadn’t leaned forward…
She let herself slump onto Blacktail’s neck. “The manor.” Her voice was weak, but Hills heard. “Let him run and he’ll take me there.”
Keeping her eyes open was too hard. She let them close, but forced her mind to follow their progress—she’d ridden this route countless times; she knew every inch of the way.
She knew when Blacktail swerved to take the path to the back of the manor. Sensed the change as he moved off the grittier bridle path onto the beaten earth running between her father’s fields.
Then came the wooden bridge over the stream; each step jolted her. She cried out, nearly swooned, but managed to cling to the last remnants of consciousness…until cobbles rang under Blacktail’s hooves and he halted.
Snorting, tossing his head, in the manor’s stable yard.
She heard shouts, calls, a confusion of voices, then hard but gentle hands were lifting her down…
Sighing, she let them have her, and slipped into shrouding darkness.
Sprawled in an armchair before the fire in his library, Charlie studied Malcolm, who was seated in the other armchair across the hearth reading one of Charlie’s investment banking reports from London—and willed him to read faster. Still, it no longer truly mattered. He glanced at the windows, saw the afternoon closing in. Sarah would soon be back. Indeed—he inwardly frowned—he would have expected her back by now.
Had there been some problem at the orphanage?
He shifted, surreptitiously glancing at the clock. Nearly four o’clock. She should be back by now. Perhaps she’d returned but hadn’t thought to look in…
His inner frown deepened; she’d know he’d want to know—he couldn’t believe she wouldn’t at least look in to tell him all was well.
The impulse to rise and go and find out—if she was home, and if she wasn’t, to ride out to meet her and find out what had delayed her—welled, but…Malcolm was still a valuable source of information, and he had promised to go over the intricacies of investment banking in return for Malcolm’s insights into railway financing.
Another two minutes ticked by in silence. Charlie was assembling the words to excuse himself to at least go and learn if Sarah had come home when heavy running footsteps echoed in the corridor outside the library.
Startled, both he and Malcolm turned to the door as it burst open.
Crisp rushed in. The man had actually run down the corridor; Charlie was on his feet even before Crisp said, “My lord, it’s Lady Sarah. Hills has just ridden in saying she was shot while riding home from the orphanage.”
A desolate chill clutched Charlie’s heart. “Shot?” He was already moving to the door.
Crisp turned with him. “Hills says with an arrow, my lord. He’s quite sure of that. She was struck in the back. It happened before the manor—she’s there. Hills says she swooned, my lord, but her father said to tell you the wound isn’t life threatening.”
Charlie was striding rapidly down the corridor. Then he remembered, halted and turned back. And saw Malcolm following some paces behind, his face pale, his expression as drawn—as grimly horrified—as Charlie felt.
Malcolm brusquely waved him on. “Go! Don’t worry about me.”
Charlie didn’t wait for more; he turned and ran for the stable.
On Storm’s back, Charlie thundered north across his fields, taking the fastest route to Conningham Manor and Sarah.
Five minutes later, Malcolm Sinclair left Morwellan Park by the drive; on his black gelding he also turned north, keeping to the road.
Sarah woke to the gentle, soothing touch of her mother’s hand smoothing her hair back from her forehead. The fiery pain in her back had eased, faded; the sensation now felt like a large raw scrape.
Opening her eyes, she blinked. She was lying on her side, her head in her mother’s lap. Gingerly she raised her head and slowly pushed herself up, registering the slide of her blouse over a bandage across her back.
“Gently, now.” Her mother helped her up; when Sarah sat straight and steady, she released her. “There now.” She looked across the room. “Miss Twitterton, perhaps you could ask Cook to send up that chicken broth now.”
Consulting her head and discovering it steady, feeling stable enough on the familiar window seat in the back parlor, Sarah looked around, saw Twitters’s skirts disappearing around the door, and Clary and Gloria, both with eyes wide, regarding her avidly from across the room. They looked as if they had questions ready to burst from their lips. Before they could decide which to ask first, she looked at her mother. “Was I really shot with an arrow?”
Lips thinning, her mother nodded. “A quarrel from a crossbow. Your father’s ropeable—there’s simply no reason anyone should have had such a weapon out, not in this season.”
Sarah tried to reach behind her; she winced as skin and muscle protested.
“No need to touch it.” Her mother caught her hand and drew it away. “As luck would have it, Doctor Caliburn was here talking to your father. He cleaned the wound and said it was little more than a deep scratch.” She patted Sarah’s hand, then released it, drew in a breath and let it out with, “He said you were very lucky.”
Hearing the quaver in her mother’s voice, ruthlessly suppressed though it was, Sarah summoned a smile and squeezed her hand. “I’m all right—truly.”
Other than the painful scrape on her back, she was. Shifting around, she looked out the window at the gathering dusk. “What time is it?”
“A little after four. We sent your groom to inform Charlie, of course.” Her mother shook out the short jacket Sarah had been wearing, and the remnants of the blouse that had been beneath it. “The jacket can be washed and mended, but the blouse isn’t worth the effort. That’s Clary’s you have on.”
Sarah glanced down at the fine linen decorously covering her, then flashed a smile at Clary. “Thank you.”
Clary waved dismissively. “Never mind that—what did it feel like? The arrow going in, I mean.”
“Clary!” Lady Conningham bent a severe frown on her blood-thirsty daughter.
But Sarah grinned and thought back. “Like a burn, actually.”
“That’s enough, girls.” Lady Conningham quelled Gloria with an even more dire frown as Twitters reappeared bearing a tray with a bowl of Cook’s famous restorative chicken broth.
“You need to build up your strength,” the diminutive governess sternly advised as she laid the tray on a small table before Sarah. “No doubt the earl will be here shortly and you won’t want to swoon again.”
Hiding a smile at Twitters’s ab
ility to always know just what argument to employ to get her charges to do anything, Sarah dutifully picked up the spoon and sipped.
She’d never swooned before; somewhat to her surprise, she did feel in need of sustenance.
Just as she laid the spoon in the empty bowl, the crunch of hooves on gravel drew all eyes to the forecourt—to Charlie as he flung himself out of the saddle and strode to the front door.
Her mother regarded her, a worried frown in her eyes. “Are you well enough to stand?”
Carefully Sarah got to her feet; Twitters hurriedly removed the table and tray. Other than a twinge across her back, she felt no lasting ill effects. Her head remained steady; reinforced with chicken broth, she felt tolerably normal. “I’m perfectly all right.”
And she wanted to go home. With her mother and Twitters hovering, ready to fuss, let alone Clary and Gloria straining at her mother’s leash, wanting to demand every gory detail, while the manor was comfortable it was no longer her place.
The realization crystallized in her mind—then the door was flung open with such force it nearly hit Clary, who yelped and caught it.
Charlie didn’t seem to hear. Framed in the doorway, his eyes, darkened and burning, raked her—cataloguing every tiny detail from her head to her toes. Reaching those, his gaze flashed up to her eyes. With the same painful intensity he scanned her face, her eyes, her expression. “Are you all right?”
Surprised—faintly stunned—to see him so shaken, to be able to so openly see his emotions, raw and naked in his face, displayed without thought before her mother, Clary, Gloria, and Twitters, she mentally shook herself and hurried to find a smile and hold out her hands. “Other than a wound on my back—and I have it on excellent authority that that’s little more than a deep scrape.”
He muttered something—she thought it was “Thank God!”—then he crossed the room in two strides, took her hands only to draw her nearer, then gently folded her in his arms, careful not to touch her wound, the fingers of one hand tracing oh-so-lightly over the bandage across her back.