It Happened One Night

by Stephanie Laurens

  Sam’s hair was still thick and dark, though cut short, which was a surprise. He’d worn it long, tied in a queue the last time she’d seen him. The hint of silver at his temples had not been there before, either, and somehow made him even more attractive. And there was a small scar she did not remember, that cut through one eyebrow.

  His eyes had always been a changeable sort of brown, sometimes dark as coffee, sometimes sherry-colored. But now they seemed more golden than she remembered, as if they’d been bleached and polished by the same sun that had darkened his skin.

  That face, so familiar and yet so changed, still had the power to make her weak in the knees, and to set off an explosion of emotions she’d thought long buried.

  Composing herself, she reached out a hand to him. “Sam. How good to see you again.”

  “And you,” he said, and took her gloved fingers to his lips. “It has been a long time, Your Grace.”

  “If you are going to ‘Your Grace’ me, then I must call you Captain Pellow. It is Captain, is it not?”

  “It is. I made post a few years back.”

  “Congratulations, Captain.”

  “Thank you. But I’d rather you called me Sam.”

  “Only if you call me Willie. No one has called me that name for years. I rather like it. Sometimes Wilhelmina is too grand.”

  “Isn’t that why you chose it?”

  She chuckled. “Indeed. Plain Wilma Jepp just did not have the right note of…panache. But I’m older and wiser now and no longer trying to impress anyone. Willie will do quite well, thank you.”

  “Willie, then.”

  He smiled again, and it took some effort for her to breathe properly. That smile did not belong to a man of mature years, but to a boy of eighteen who’d delighted in teasing her and making her laugh.

  “Since we both seem to be waiting out the storm,” he said, “would you care to join me?” He gestured toward a small alcove set slightly above the main floor, where there was a table and two facing benches with high sides, like box pews, that provided a measure of privacy. The rest of the room—it appeared to be a combination taproom and dining room, probably the only public room at the inn—was filled with people, mostly men, crammed shoulder to shoulder around long tables, talking and laughing, tankards clanking, utensils clattering. There were a few other separate alcoves along the windowed walls, all occupied.

  “At least it’s removed somewhat from the general hubbub,” he said. “I was one of the first to arrive—the blasted bonnet of my curricle began to leak like a sieve—so I managed to claim the best seat. I’d be pleased to share it with you. And the duke, too, if he’s with you.”

  Ah. He didn’t know. “His Grace passed away four years ago.”

  “Oh. I am sorry. I hadn’t heard.” An odd expression crossed his face for an instant and was gone. Then he sighed. “I can tell you every maneuver of every battle on land and sea during the late wars, but I confess I did not keep abreast of society news. My condolences, Willie. I know how happy you were with him.”

  Did he? The last time she’d seen Sam—could it truly be ten years ago?—she had been married to Hertford for less than a year. Sam had approached her at a rout party, and she’d been rather stunned to see him there. He was almost always at sea and seldom in London. Plus, he did not approve of her, of the choices she’d made in her life, and so it surprised her when he had deliberately sought her out. He’d seemed at loose ends, a bit uncertain, but nevertheless pleased to see her, which made her heart lurch. She’d politely asked about his voyages and his family, and learned that he’d recently lost his wife. When she told him of her marriage to the duke, the conversation spiraled into a painful awkwardness she’d never quite understood. Had he disapproved? Had he thought she was reaching too far above herself? Or was he disappointed for some other reason? She had never known why, but it had been a decidedly uncomfortable encounter.

  “I was indeed happy with Hertford,” she said. “I could not have asked for a better husband or champion. I miss him. But life goes on, as you know.”

  “Yes, it does, sometimes with the most surprising turns. Like bumping into you here, in the middle of nowhere, after all these years. We have a lot to catch up on, Willie. I’d be honored to share my table with you while we wait for the storm to pass.”

  Wilhelmina smiled. “I’d love nothing better. A nice pot of tea would be just the thing. Thank you, Sam. Just give me time to shake off the dust of the road. I’ll join you shortly.”

  She turned and found her ubiquitous factotum at her side. His thuggish face often struck fear in the best of men, with its large, crooked nose, heavy brow, and a long scar running down one cheek and across his chin. It was, though, a comfort to Wilhelmina, who relied so much on him. Smeaton, who’d once been a pugilist, had been in her employ for more than fifteen years and was now indispensable. Part butler, part steward, part man of affairs, and part bodyguard, he managed everything in her life, whether at home in London or on the road.

  “I have ensured that you have the best room in the inn, Your Grace,” he said in the soft, cultured voice so at odds with his face. “I inspected it myself and believe it will be suitable.”

  “Thank you, Smeaton.” He had no doubt made sure that anyone who might have occupied the room had been moved elsewhere. The dear man tossed around her rank and fortune much more than she ever did. He was a great snob, Smeaton was.

  “I am afraid there is no private parlor to be had in this inn, Your Grace,” he said, his tone dripping with incredulity at such an omission, “but there is a decent table in the bedchamber where you might dine in private.”

  “I am sure it will do quite well for one night,” Wilhelmina said. “But as soon as I have changed out of these clothes, I shall be going down to the public room.”

  A look of horror gathered in his eyes. “The public room? Are you quite sure, Your Grace? I noted a few unsavory-looking fellows in there, and I dislike to think of you exposing yourself to such company.”

  Wilhelmina laughed. “One of those fellows is a captain in the Royal Navy and an old friend. I am going to have tea with him. With your approval, of course.”

  “Your Grace!” He reared back, looking offended. “I would never presume to approve or disapprove of anything you chose to do.”

  “I am happy to hear it. Now, be so good as to direct me to my room, and then send Marsh to me.”

  “This way, Your Grace. And I believe Miss Marsh is waiting for you.” He led her up a narrow flight of stairs that turned back on itself twice before reaching the next floor.

  The bedchamber she’d been given—or that Smeaton had commandeered—was clean and spacious, with a simple stone-fronted fireplace, solid oak furniture, and a bank of diamond-paned windows overlooking the inn yard. The bed—large and plain, hung with old damask bed curtains—dominated the room. Ginny, Wilhelmina’s maid, was making up the bed in the fine linen sheets they’d brought with them. The inn’s sheets lay in a heap on the floor. Marsh, her dresser, was unpacking a trunk and draping dresses over chairs in front of the freshly made fire so the heat might loosen any wrinkles or creases. They both bobbed curtsies when she entered the room.

  “I have laid out a few dresses for you to choose from, Your Grace. I had thought this one…?” Marsh indicated a plain jaconet dress with a high standing collar of Vandyke lace. It was simple enough for a day indoors at a country inn, but not what Wilhelmina had in mind. She shook her head, and Marsh held up another simple dress of sprigged muslin. No, that wouldn’t do, either. Marsh seemed put out of countenance that Wilhelmina should reject her advice for dresses that were perfectly appropriate.

  But Marsh wasn’t having tea with Captain Sam Pellow. Some might think the dowager Duchess of Hertford was past her prime—they would be wrong—but she still wanted to look her best when meeting a gentleman. And this was no ordinary gentleman. This was Sam. Her Sam. Her first love.

  She selected a dress of French figured muslin with long sleeve
s and a crossed bodice and a neckline that provided a hint of cleavage. Wilhelmina was proud of her figure, which did not, she believed, show the matronly sags and bulges one might expect from a woman her age. She might as well show Sam that she still had the makings of a desirable woman.

  Or perhaps she was being foolish. Sam would never desire her again. She might be a duchess now, but there had been a time when her favors had been for sale. And that was something he would never be able to forget, or forgive.

  Ginny helped her out of the bonnet and pelisse while Marsh tried to smooth wrinkles out of the French muslin. Wilhelmina stood like a mannequin and allowed them to minister to her, as her thoughts drifted back to simpler times, when she and Sam were children in the Cornish village of Porthruan Cove.

  Wilma Jepp, as she’d then been called, was the only daughter of the local blacksmith. Sam had lost his parents as a boy and had supported himself as a fisherman from the time he was about twelve. When he was sixteen, he’d suddenly shot up to a great height and become what Willie and the other local girls thought to be exceedingly handsome. But he’d only had eyes for Willie, the village beauty. They fell madly, wildly in love, as teenagers do, and talked of marrying one day when Sam had saved enough money to build a cottage.

  Willie’s mother, a strict Methodist, had not approved of the impertinent young fisherman who lived by his wits and had nothing to recommend him. She had once caught Sam and Willie kissing, and had beaten Willie mercilessly for it. But that hadn’t stopped Willie’s youthful passion for the handsome young fisherman. When she was sixteen and Sam eighteen, they finally gave in to their desire one day and made love in a hayloft in her father’s barn.

  A week later, he was gone.

  Sam had not returned from fishing one day, and the next day his empty boat had washed ashore, damaged, with his gear still on board and a scrap of fabric caught on a nail. Everyone in the village assumed he’d had an accident in the boat and drowned.

  Willie had been distraught with grief and ready to die, until she was befriended by a visiting London artist who was obsessed with her face and painted picture after picture of her. When her mother learned she was posing for a painter, she’d been livid, and eventually threw Willie out of the house. Some months later, having lost her love and her home and figuring she had nothing left to lose, Wilma Jepp had become Wilhelmina Grant and the artist’s mistress. Her face became her fortune, and soon she left the artist for another man’s protection, and then another, until she was courted by some of the highest men in the realm.

  For five years she had cherished memories of the boy she had loved and lost, often dreaming of what might have been. But all those sentimental fantasies had been shattered in an instant when he’d walked into her box at the theater one night—alive, angry, and accusing.

  Wilhelmina had been shocked to the core to see him. She had very nearly swooned, thinking at first she’d seen a ghost. Sam was then a midshipman in the Royal Navy, and she learned that he had been taken by a press gang back in ’89 when she thought he’d died. Though he claimed to have written her, she never received his letters. All that time he’d been alive and she’d never known.

  And so Wilhelmina, by then a well-known demirep, had to face a furious Sam who didn’t understand why she had not waited for him. Even when she explained, he could not forgive her for the life she’d chosen to lead, for giving herself to other men. He had broken her heart when he’d walked away from her, shocked and angry and unwilling to forgive, and had taken a piece of that shattered heart with him. Five years after the wrenching pain of losing him, she lost him a second time.

  Wilhelmina had never forgotten the boy she’d loved, and saw him a handful of times since that awful first reunion. Though she regretted having lost him, she could not turn back the clock. She had to live with the choices she’d made. And she’d done well for herself. She’d been with ambassadors and princes, generals and poets, even a prime minister. And her last protector, the Duke of Hertford, had loved her, and scandalized society when he married her.

  All things considered, she’d had a wonderful life. A better life than she could ever have had if she’d stayed in Porthruan Cove. She had money and position, and now even a degree of respectability.

  But she had sacrificed her first love for it, though she had not known so at the time.

  Many years had passed, and she and Sam had mellowed with age. He no longer seemed to scorn her, and she no longer countered his scorn with arrogant condescension. They were mature adults who’d taken different paths but could perhaps meet in friendship, for old times’ sake.

  Wilhelmina had hardly noticed the actions of Marsh, who’d removed her traveling clothes and dressed her in the French figured muslin dress with the deep vee neckline and the pretty rows of lace at the wrists and the hem. There was only a small dressing table mirror in the room, but it was enough to tell Wilhelmina that the dress flattered her, and she was satisfied. Her hair was still flattened from the bonnet, however, and she sat at the small desk that doubled as a dressing table while Ginny worked her magic. She unpinned the shoulder-length locks that were still golden—nature’s gold, not artifice, as some people believed—brushed them out, then deftly refashioned a French knot at the back, tied up with a ribbon of lace, and teased loose curls over the forehead and temples.

  Wilhelmina nodded her approval as she studied her reflection in the mirror. She would be damned before she’d be caught in a matronly cap, which any right-minded woman of her age would don, and preferred to flaunt stylish coiffures instead. Not too youthful—there was nothing worse than a woman of a certain age trying to look like an ingénue—but fashionable and perhaps a bit dashing. Is that what Sam saw when he looked at her? An older woman with a bit of dash? Or an aging shell of the girl he’d once known?

  “Shall I bring the jewel box?” Marsh asked, eyeing the deep neckline.

  “Yes, please. The cameo necklace and earrings, I think.”

  “Are you certain, Your Grace?”

  Wilhelmina sighed. Marsh was right. She was trying too hard to impress Sam. “No, I suppose not. Something simpler.” She opted for a gold lyre-shaped pendant set with seed pearls, on a delicate gold chain, and plain gold hoop earrings.

  She was ready. Or was she? Would she ever be ready to face his judgment of her? To stand before him without shame?

  How foolish. Shame had never been a part of her nature. She had long ago ceased to regret the life she’d chosen. There was no going back, no reclaiming of innocence or virtue, and to lament the impossible seemed a pointless waste of time. But on each occasion she’d seen Sam over the years, she’d experienced momentary pangs of uncharacteristic regret. If only she’d known he was alive, if only she had received his letters, if only…if only…

  But this time was different. Hertford had made her his duchess and given her back a modicum of respectability. Some high sticklers would never accept her completely; some doors would always be closed to her. But her rank and fortune opened most doors, and in a few of them she’d found good friends whose unwavering support and love had opened even more doors. When she’d married Hertford, Wilhelmina had determined to cast off her old life entirely, to become an asset to the duke rather than an embarrassment. For the seven years of her marriage and the four years of her widowhood, Wilhelmina had become as close to a pillar of society as was possible for a former courtesan. There was no need for shame and regret when facing Sam. She was able to face him proudly, finally, after all those years.

  Wilhelmina glanced out the window as she left the bedchamber. The rain had not let up. It looked as though the storm would last a while longer. Which meant she might have an entire afternoon with Sam.

  She could not decide if the fluttering in her belly was anxiety or anticipation. Or just the idiotic girlish reaction she had whenever Sam Pellow, however briefly, walked back into her life again.

  Chapter Two

  Sam was glad he had not ordered tea right away because, as he ought to
have expected, the duchess had not yet returned after half an hour. He’d spent the greater part of his years living in close quarters with men, and sometimes forgot how long it took a lady to “shake off the dust of the road.” It was one of those things about women that tested the patience of many men, but that Sam always found rather endearing. He liked the idea that ladies always wanted to look their best. But today it only gave him more time to ponder this unexpected encounter. He was encouraged by their brief exchange, which had been neither awkward nor strained. She had been perfectly open and friendly; none of her protective hackles were up, as they sometimes had been in the past. But those hackles had always been thrown up in defense of his own undisguised disdain. It had taken many years for Sam not to feel betrayed by her decision to lead such an infamous life. Discovering what had become of Willie had changed his own life forever. He no longer harbored romantic illusions of any kind where women were concerned. Willie had cured him of that weakness. Or so he’d always thought, until he found himself in London seeking her out. Not once, but twice. It had been a fool’s errand each time, but he’d never been rational where Willie was concerned.

  By the time he’d come to terms with the fact that she had only done what she could to survive after her shrew of a mother had tossed her out on her ear, it was too late to effect the sort of reconciliation he’d wanted. She had married and become a grand lady, a duchess.

  She was widowed now, though. That piece of news had been something of a jolt. This serendipitous meeting at an old country inn might have been an opportunity for that reunion he’d once dreamed about. Except that Sam’s destination, once the storm passed and he was back on the road, put a damper on the various wild fantasies that had been spinning around in his head.

  No, today it would simply be two old friends who hadn’t met for years, catching up with each other’s lives. He would enjoy that. And when they’d grown easy in their conversation, perhaps she would allow him to apologize for his past behavior, for judging her so harshly.