Good God in heaven! What had they just done? What had happened? She didn’t wish to contemplate what it might mean. Or the right and wrong of it. For now, she simply wanted to remain safe in his arms, awash with this peacefully languid feeling.
“Sara?” he whispered at last.
“Hmm?”
“You fell asleep.”
“No, I didn’t.”
He chuckled. “Open your eyes.”
“Don’t,” she pleaded softly. “Not yet.” She simply couldn’t move, even though she knew he was right.
He kissed her cheek. “We can’t stay in this carriage forever.”
“Can’t we though?”
“I’m afraid not.” He shifted and gently lifted her off his lap, positioning her on the seat beside him.
As the carriage rocked along, they both began adjusting their clothes in silence. It was going to take some work to get her hair back in order, but she hadn’t the energy for it just now. Christopher reached for her hand, his fingers intertwining with hers. Bringing it to his mouth, he placed a soft kiss on her palm, then he held her hand to his heart. The sweetness of the gesture touched her deeply.
“It seems I owe you yet another apology,” he said slowly.
“Please don’t or I shall cry again.” She couldn’t bear for him to feel sorry for what they had just done.
“Well, it needs to be said. I don’t know what happens when I’m around you, Sara. I lose all sense of decency.” He gave her a rueful smile and kissed her hand once more before bringing it back to his chest. “I ought to marry you after what we just did.”
The lump returned to her throat and Sara felt as if she were suffocating. “I can’t marry you, Christopher.”
“I am aware of your position,” he said, his voice edgy. “I can’t marry you either, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t know that this situation warrants a proposal. You’re a lady. A woman I care for deeply and hold in high regard, as well as being the cousin of my oldest friend. I am supposedly a gentleman.” He scoffed at himself. “But I haven’t treated you as a lady at all. I’ve done things only a husband should do with you, Sara.”
All she heard him say was, I can’t marry you either. An irrational flash of jealousy stabbed her in the chest. It was ridiculous. She was going to marry Alexander Drake in a matter of days. Why should she care that Christopher said he couldn’t marry her?
Yet she did.
But why though? Why would he say that he couldn’t marry her? That’s what had her wondering. Was he in love with someone else too?
The very idea shocked her to her core. She’d never considered what his feelings were before and for that she felt like a fool, as well as for feeling jealous.
“It’s fine, truly. I’m fine. Please don’t worry. I wanted this just as much as you. There’s no need for you to propose to me, either, although you are sweet to think you should. I’m not completely naïve. I know there’s more to it than that and that I’m still chaste enough.”
She made a vague gesture with her other hand to indicate the rest, for she was not strong enough to say the actual words aloud. Of course, she knew what sex was and that she had not technically crossed that line over to the primrose path. “And please don’t tell me that you’re sorry. It cheapens what we did.” She gazed into his warm brown eyes. “It was much too special to be sorry about, Christopher.”
“In spite of your sweet words, this was wrong, Sara.” He leaned over and kissed her with great tenderness. “For all that, I agree with you.”
He still held her hand in his. She did not wish to let go either. They rode in silence for a few moments.
A thought suddenly occurred to her. Puzzled, she asked, “Shouldn’t we have reached Devon House by now?”
“About that . . .” He looked a bit sheepish. “Well, the thing is I wanted to give you my apologies uninterrupted, so I told my coachman to drive around until I gave him word to head to Devon House.”
“Do you mean we’ve just been riding to nowhere in particular all this time?” Sara couldn’t help but laugh. “Where are we?”
“I’ve no idea,” Christopher said, shrugging carelessly. “The park, perhaps? Shall I tell him to drive toward Devon House now?”
Sara squeezed his hand. “Not just yet.”
He squeezed her hand back. “I thought you were in a hurry to get home?”
It was funny. She had been quite anxious to get home and write to Alexander. Now that all seemed so far away and not quite real. Nothing in her life seemed as real as what just happened between her and Christopher Townsend.
Slowly she shook her head. “Not so much anymore.”
This unexpected encounter with Christopher had turned her day upside down. Her thoughts had been of Alexander Drake all afternoon, until she was alone with Christopher in this carriage. She had the oddest desire to just ride away with him. Again, the thought entered her head. I can’t marry you either. Why couldn’t he marry her? Irritated by the fact that it bothered her so much that he couldn’t marry her, she was about to question him.
“So you’ve heard from him then?”
Christopher’s voice pulled her from her thoughts.
She nodded. “Yes.” Was it her imagination or did his whole body tense up?
“Is he here in London?” he asked.
“He will be soon.” Sara wasn’t sure why she evaded his question. She simply didn’t want him, or anyone else for that matter, to know that Alexander Drake had arrived just yet. Since she had no idea what their plans were together she thought it best to involve as few people as possible.
“And you’ll marry him when he gets here, won’t you?”
She nodded, unable to utter the words. He knew this already. Why must he ask her about marrying another man at this moment? After what they had just done together?
He grew quiet. As did she.
Letting go of her hand, he reached across and slid open the panel and spoke to the coachman. Slowly Sara brought her hand to her cheek. It was still warm from where he held her.
After speaking with the driver, he turned back to her with a helpless shrug. “Apparently, we’ve traveled to the other side of town, but we’ll head toward Mayfair now.”
Time to go home. Their magical little interlude was coming to an end.
Reluctantly, Sara began to repair the damage to her hair. Wishing she had a looking glass with her, she managed to scoop up as much of her hair atop her head as she could. Christopher handed her a few hairpins that were on the floor of the carriage, and rather deftly helped her arrange her hair with an ease that astounded her. Placing her peach bonnet atop her head for her, he flashed her an enigmatic smile and winked. Again, she didn’t wish to know just how he gained such knowledge. The very thought of him with another woman put a funny little knot in her stomach. Yet the idea of her being jealous was quite preposterous, for she was madly in love with Alexander.
“Do I look respectable enough now?” she questioned, posing a bit, smoothing her dress.
He captured her chin with his hand, and held her face for a moment, his brown-eyed gaze suddenly quite serious. “You, my beautiful Sara, have touched my heart in ways you cannot imagine.”
Finding it difficult to breathe, she again fought an unbearable sadness and felt that she might cry. “I don’t know what to say, Christopher.”
“There’s nothing to say. I did not intend for this to happen today, any more than I did the night of the storm. Any more than you did. I can’t explain it, for I’ve never felt this way before. This was something special between you and me alone. Something beautiful, as you described it. No one else need ever know about it but us.” Placing a kiss on her cheek, he released his hand from her chin and sat back on the seat beside her with a heavy sigh.
It made no sense. What was happening made no sense. The sad feelings welling inside of her made no sense. She straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. It was time to go home and put this behind her. Like he said, no one would ever know about it
but the two of them. And without a doubt she knew she would cherish this time with him for the rest of her life.
It occurred to her then that once she married Alexander Drake and sailed back to New York, which was just a matter of days now, she would most likely never see Christopher Townsend again.
Sara reached for his hand, clasping her fingers with his. Again he brought their hands to his lips and kissed her palm. All the way back to Devon House, he held her hand next to his heart and uttered not a word until the carriage stopped.
He lifted her easily down from the carriage in one graceful motion. They stood there briefly for a moment, before he whispered close to her ear, “Good-bye, my beautiful Sara.”
Afraid to look back at him, Sara hurried up the steps to Devon House with tears welling in her eyes once more.
16
Below Deck
“Well, I gave it to her,” she announced.
“You’ve been gone long enough,” Alexander Drake uttered, rising from where he’d been reclining on the large bed when Lucy Camden entered their room at the elegant Savoy Hotel. “It’s been hours. I was beginning to worry about you.”
Lucy gave him a superior smile and a little wink. “I can take care of myself, Drakey. You know that.”
“I do know that. But what did she say?” Alexander asked, his eyes watching her every movement, appreciating her curvy figure and graceful gestures. “Do you think she’ll still go through with it?”
“I didn’t stay around long enough to ask her. Remember? That was the plan. Not to cause suspicion. I just gave her the note and left the bookshop as quickly as I could,” Lucy explained, sounding a bit peevish.
She stood in front of the large gilt-framed mirror in their hotel room, preening and posing, admiring herself in the smart violet gown she bought before leaving New York. She played with a feathered hat, tilting her head to one side, then the other, while adjusting the long veil that adorned it. Removing the hatpins, she carefully placed the dainty black and white silk concoction on the table. Then she began smoothing her artfully arranged blond curls. Her every motion seemed provocative and erotic somehow, and Alexander was hopelessly captivated by her.
“She’s much prettier than I remember her being.” Lucy turned and faced him with an accusatory glance.
Alexander never said that Sara Fleming wasn’t beautiful. No one could deny that. “What she looks like is irrelevant, my love. We’d be here even if she weighed a ton and had a face like a shovel, and you know it. All that matters are the millions of dollars in her bank account. What’s important now is how did she seem? Do you think she’ll be there tomorrow with a note for me?”
Lucy thought for a moment, biting her lower lip, which she knew drove him mad. “She seemed more surprised than anything to see me. Almost as if she didn’t believe that I was your sister. Maybe she even recognized me.” She smiled ruefully. “I guess she’s a little smarter than we thought, isn’t she?”
With languid movements Lucy moved to the bar area and poured herself a glass of champagne from the open bottle that lay in a bucket filled with melted ice on the table near the window. They had celebrated a little prematurely this afternoon before she left to deliver the note to Sara. Rising from the bed, Alexander joined her there. They sat across from each other at the elegant table. She poured him a glass of champagne as well.
When they’d first arrived in London, he’d been hesitant to contact Sara at her aunt and uncle’s rather large mansion in Mayfair. Afraid to risk her parents learning of his presence and once again spiriting their daughter away, he’d spent the better part of a week carefully watching the house and the comings and goings of Sara Fleming. When he discovered that Juliette Fleming’s family owned two Hamilton bookshops in town, it had taken some doing on his part to figure out that the pampered and spoiled Sara Fleming was actually working in one of the stores. That was when he knew the bookshop was the perfect venue through which to contact her.
The champagne was a little warm and flat now, but they drank it anyway.
“I saw her get in a carriage with a man.” Lucy paused with a knowing expression. “A very tall, handsome man.”
Alexander raised an eyebrow. “Well, it’s probably nothing. It could have been one of her cousins or an uncle. There are scores of them.”
Shrugging a delicate shoulder, she said, “I just thought you should know.” Then she sighed. “I would have followed that carriage if I could have, because it was right after I gave her your note. I wanted to know where she was going. I watched the shop for a while, wondering if she would come back. Nothing happened. So I wandered around Mayfair for a bit. I bought myself that little hat over there.” Smiling brightly, she asked, “Do you like it?”
“Everything looks beautiful on you,” he replied.
Alexander tried not to be annoyed, but it seemed as if they were going through their money far too quickly since they arrived in London. They’d each had to steal from the other guests in the hotel to pay for their stay and Lucy certainly didn’t need another expensive hat, and he was positive it was expensive, not after the wardrobe she acquired before leaving New York. However, once he had his hands on Sara Fleming’s millions, Lucy could have as many pretty little hats as she wanted.
But he had to marry the chit first.
All he wanted to know now was what Lucy thought Sara would do. How did she seem? Was she still willing to marry him? Lucy, however, seemed intent on telling the story in her own time, almost taunting him with it.
“So then I got to thinking . . .” Lucy sipped her warm champagne and then ran her pink tongue along the rim of the glass. “What would I do if I were her and just received a note from you, my true love? I’d want to go home and write you back immediately, of course. So I wandered over to that big white house where her family lives and I watched for a while.” She paused dramatically in the breathless way that Lucy had. “And what do you think I saw?”
Alexander sighed, but was beginning to feel a bit uneasy. “What did you see?”
“I saw our little Miss Fleming come home in that same carriage, with that very same tall, handsome gentleman.”
“So? What’s wrong with that?”
“Well, Drakey, you know me. I can tell things about people. I have an eye for noticing things. Even the smallest, seemingly insignificant, details.”
Alexander couldn’t help but smile. He knew that Lucy was exceptionally good with her observations of people. It was what made her such a cunning little thief. And part of why he loved her so much. “What did you see?”
“First off, I noticed that the handsome gentleman certainly didn’t act like a cousin or an uncle and he didn’t live in that house, because he rode away after Sara got out.”
“So?”
“So, it was how they were with each other. I had my suspicions when I saw the two of them in front of the bookshop. Just a feeling. It was the way he looked at her, how he moved with her. They didn’t see me through the window of a shop across the way, watching them. But when I saw Sara Fleming get out of that carriage when she returned to the big white house, I just knew.” She paused expectantly, waiting for him to react.
“Knew what, Lucy?”
She beamed at him in triumph. “Her hair was completely different.”
Not having a clue what she meant, he was beginning to lose patience with her. “Lucy . . .”
“You men can be such dunces.” She smiled at him wickedly as she slowly shook her head. “Drakey, what happens to my hair when you kiss me? When you really kiss me? In bed? Does it stay all neatly arranged? No. It comes down, because men like a lady’s hair to be down. They like to run their fingers through it and feel it in their hands while they kiss us. But afterward, we ladies have to put our hair back up in a hurry, don’t we? Especially if we don’t want anyone to know that we were being kissed.”
“What are you saying?” Feeling a bit horrified, Alexander didn’t want to believe what Lucy was insinuating.
Sa
ra Fleming was a sweet, innocent, virtuous girl. And she was madly in love with him. She was ready to defy her parents to be with him. He’d taken great care to treat her with the utmost respect, giving her nothing but a few chaste kisses to lure her into believing that he was a proper gentleman who idolized her. He couldn’t even imagine her with some other man. Acting like a loose woman. Not his Sara. No. It was not possible. He didn’t believe it.
Lucy drained her glass of champagne and licked her pouty lips slowly. “I’m saying that Sara Fleming’s hair came down sometime this afternoon while she was with that tall, handsome man, and she had to put it back up in a rush. And if I’m not mistaken, I think he whispered in her ear, too. Before she went into the house.”
Alexander let out a very long sigh. “What do you think it means?”
She gave him a very frank look. “I think it means she may have found someone new. And you should have listened to me, lured her into bed, and gotten her pregnant first. Then her parents would have had to let you marry her.”
He’d tried to do things the right way. He’d played by the rules with Sara Fleming and had treated her like a lady for six months, and he refused to be cheated out of marrying her by some other man! He had worked too hard at this to lose her and her millions now.
By God, he wouldn’t stand for it!
“You have to go back there and talk to her, and make her believe that I love her. You and I have too much at stake, have spent too much money, and have come too far to lose her at this point. It’s not fair. I won’t have it!” Alexander shouted, and flung his glass against the wall. The crystal shattered in a magnificent crash, spraying the rose-covered wallpaper with the remains of his champagne.
Lucy didn’t flinch. With a steady gaze, she offered him her champagne flute. Overcome with fury, he threw that against the wall with a splintering crack. Then, with a wicked smile, she gave him the empty champagne bottle. The resounding clatter it made when it smashed against the wall satisfied them both.
Slowly, one by one, Lucy began to remove the pins from her hair, until the thick blond tresses fell in luscious waves around her shoulders. Alexander watched in fascination, his sudden anger turning to lust.
The Heiress He's Been Waiting For Page 17
