Sold to a Laird

by Karen Ranney

  He would’ve responded had a knock on the door not interrupted them. She turned to find Hester standing there, her face twisted by grief, tears bathing her face.

  Without a word, she knew. Her mother had died, and Sarah had not been there.

  Sarah didn’t remember returning to Chavensworth, only that it had begun to rain. The storm was as fierce as promised in the dark clouds and wind. She didn’t care that she was sodden by the time she entered her mother’s room. Someone—she didn’t know whom—placed a towel around her shoulders and patted her face dry. She absently said, “Thank you,” but was unaware of anything else.

  She sat on the chair and wished herself alone, wishing that all the suddenly solicitous people would disappear and the world would be a sweeter and kinder place than it was proving to be on this dark and rainy day.

  Behind her she could hear the sound of weeping and wondered if she were crying. She placed both palms against her cheeks to find them cold from the rain, but dry.

  She pulled her chair closer to her mother. Hester had placed her hands outside the sheet on either side of her body so that it looked as if she were merely asleep. Her eyelids were closed and sunken, her skin as pale as the sheet. But unlike the past days, her chest did not rise with each tortured breath. There was nothing but silence, punctuated by the sound of sobs.

  Sarah could not think. She was incapable of placing a thought in her mind and leaving it there. Someone was pressing a cup of tea into her hands, and she took it and stared down at the amber liquid. A moment later—or was it five minutes, she didn’t know—someone blessedly took it from her.

  Her hands felt as cold as her mother’s. She placed her hands on her upper arms, trying to control her shivers. Did her mother’s spirit linger in the room? Should she say something? Could her mother see that Sarah was here?

  She wanted people to be gone, so that she could say her farewells privately.

  “I think it would be best if you gave Sarah a few moments alone with her mother.”

  Douglas’s voice. She would need to thank him later.

  She felt his hand on her shoulder, his palm brushing against her neck, causing shivers. How strange that she could feel something, anything. His hand was so very warm, and she wanted his warmth, needed it.

  “You can talk to her,” he said softly. “Now is the time to tell her whatever you wish.” He moved to the door and opened it, looked back at her, and said, “When you’re ready, Sarah, come out. Until then, I’ll make sure that people leave you alone.”

  She nodded in response, grateful beyond measure but unable to verbalize it.

  The door shut behind him, and, finally, she was alone with her mother.

  Tears welled in her eyes, and she bent her head, feeling lost. Her mother had been her friend, her confidante, the one person whose advice she valued, whose opinion she solicited. They’d spent hours in conversation, in laughter. Their shared jests would have to be abandoned now because no one else would understand. Her memories would have to be shuttered away because to remember them would be too difficult.

  How could she endure such pain?

  She brushed her fingers against her mother’s cheek, then to her temple, smoothing her graying hair away from her face. Even in death, she was a beautiful woman.

  There were so many things to do; there were so many arrangements she had to make. She had to notify her father, who wouldn’t care. She would have to notify the solicitors. Arrangements would have to be made for her mother’s funeral and burial in the family chapel.

  Her mother would have died on the way to Scotland.

  She had given her mother that, at least. She’d allowed the Duchess of Herridge to die in her own home.

  Her father should be punished for what he’d almost done. God should cause lightning to strike his carriage while he was out on the London street. Let him die in screaming suffering or slowly, with pain eating his joints, so that each day was misery.

  She took a few deep breaths, folded her hands palms together, and blew on the tips of her fingers. Her breath was hot, while the rest of her body felt so cold.

  Hate would have to wait until she was done with the pain.

  She bowed her head. What should she say? If her mother’s spirit lingered in the room, what did she want her to hear?

  “I miss you already,” she said. “How am I supposed…” Her words abruptly stopped. Dear God, give me the strength to do this. Give me the strength to endure this. No one should die without a struggle. A person shouldn’t simply fade away like this.

  At last the tears came, hot and thick. She was a child again, and her mother hadn’t come back from London on the day she was expected. She felt like that lonely little girl now, looking vainly for a ducal carriage approaching Chavensworth. She was bewildered and defenseless, and the sudden agonizing grief cut her in two. Sarah rocked back and forth on the chair, holding her middle lest she break into a hundred pieces, her gaze on her mother’s hand, the slim-fingered hand that lay there so still.

  Her tears were hot and endless. She cried until there was nothing left but a feeling of emptiness inside her. Someone came and placed his arms around her, lifting her effortlessly. She made a token protest with a weak wave of hand, but buried her face against a masculine neck. Douglas. She could tell it was him by his smell, something earthy and tantalizing like sandalwood.

  He took her to a chamber—she didn’t know whether it was the Duke’s Suite or her own room—and unfastened her dress. A woman helped him, a woman whose voice she knew—Hester? They removed her shoes and stockings, dressed her in a sturdy linen nightgown, and tucked her into bed as if she were five and had had a fright.

  Even though she kept her eyes closed, she couldn’t hold back her tears. When he would have left her, she simply stretched out her hand. She felt him sit on the side of the bed, then lie beside her, pulling her close until her head rested against his shoulder.

  She gripped the front of his shirt, burrowed her hand between it and his shirt until she could feel his warmth. He was alive, and she desperately needed to feel alive at this moment.

  “It’s all right if you cry, Sarah,” he said tenderly.

  She clung to him as if he were the only solid object in the sea of her tears.

  An hour later, they were still in the same position, but Douglas had drawn up the counterpane so that she was finally warm. She felt herself drifting off to sleep and clutched his shirt, afraid that he might leave her.

  He brushed a kiss against her forehead, causing her to press closer.

  A knock on the door was an intrusion, but not enough to pierce the haze that seemed to surround her.

  Douglas murmured something to her, a caution, a reassurance, she wasn’t sure which, before leaving the bed. She made a sound of protest, but it was so weak she might have only thought it.

  “She cannot be bothered with that now,” he said.

  She should rouse, long enough to discover what was so important that someone had come to her chamber. She felt herself drifting off again.

  When Douglas returned to the bed, he gathered her up in his arms, and she went without protest, surrendering to a grief-tinged sleep.

  They wanted her to adjudicate some damn dispute among the maids.

  He looked down into Sarah’s tear-ravaged face and wanted to swear. She had just lost her mother, a woman to whom she was obviously devoted, and the damned housekeeper didn’t have the sense—or the tact—God gave a gnat.

  “You need to handle it yourself,” he said, and the woman looked surprised.

  He held Sarah tenderly, even though the position was an uncomfortable one. For now, she needed someone to care for her, to shelter her.

  The next days and weeks would not be easy for her. The initial pain would eventually fade, but it would take its toll. There would be times when she couldn’t bear it, and that was when he was going to be here for her.

  He’d never believed in love at first sight. Perhaps lust, yes, that he could
understand only too well. But love—that made no sense. Until, of course, Lady Sarah had walked into the Duke of Herridge’s study like a gust of wind, and he’d been blown over in the same moment. He’d been unable to speak. He had simply studied her, unbelieving that anyone could be quite so lovely and be real.

  With her flashing gray eyes, and her black hair, she was a Celtic princess, not simply a Duke’s daughter. She was imperious, insistent, stubborn, self-deprecating, and she’d loved her mother like all mothers should be loved.

  She’d agreed to marry him, sacrificing her future for a woman who’d lived only a matter of days and without knowledge of her daughter’s gesture. She would not suffer for it. He would not allow Sarah to rue the agreement, to wish it had never happened. She would come to love him, of that he was certain—as certain as he was of his diamonds. He could not compel another person to fall in love with him, but he could charm. He could cozen; he could convince, and he intended to do all of those.

  For now, however, he would hold Sarah and allow her to grieve.

  Chapter 13

  “Get that look off your face, man,” Anthony, Duke of Herridge, said.

  Simons stiffened, but his eyebrows leveled, and the pull to his mouth lessened.

  Normally, the Duke of Herridge didn’t pay any attention to his servants’ moods, but Simons had the rare effect of irritating him today.

  Morna was dead.

  He held the black-bordered note from his daughter’s husband in his left hand and a port glass in his right. He couldn’t quite decide if he was toasting his late wife or celebrating her passage.

  Thank God she’d finally died. There, the answer to that question.

  “Tell the footman that you’ll return with him to Chavensworth,” he said, glancing at Simons again.

  “Your Grace?” Simons said, his eyebrows elevating once more. “Will you not be attending Her Grace’s funeral?”

  He really should, shouldn’t he?

  However, he’d always prided himself on the fact that he wasn’t an out-and-out hypocrite. He’d grown tired of Morna, and bored with her as well. Why should he now play the part of grieving widower?

  The tongues would wag if he didn’t attend Morna’s funeral.

  Who the hell cared about society gossip? He was the Duke of Herridge. Let them talk. A little spice merely meant that his name was mentioned more, his company sought out, his presence requested more often.

  His search for an heiress might even be made easier if people talked about him.

  “I think not, Simons,” he said. “You’ll stand in my stead.”

  He placed the note on the footstool in front of him, sat back in the high-backed chair, and savored first the color of the port, then its taste. Through it all, Simons stood tall as a tree and twice as proud. He’d often thought Simons had the demeanor to be a duke himself.

  He waited a few moments before speaking again.

  “While you’re about it,” he said, catching Simons in midbow, “bring back her jewel chest.”

  “Your Grace?”

  “She had some rubies left, I believe, in that ugly brooch her mother gave her. And a few sapphires here and there. Bring those to me.”

  “Your Grace,” Simons said, completing his bow.

  As Simons made his way from the room, Anthony called after him. “There’s no need actually to attend the service, man. Just get the damn jewel chest.”

  Simons halted but didn’t turn. He’d insulted the old boy, evidently. One of the few enjoyments he got from life.

  “Yes, Your Grace,” Simons said, and closed the door firmly behind him.

  Anthony smiled and reached for the note from Douglas Eston once more before taking another appreciative sip of his port.

  “Tell the steward I’ll meet with him shortly,” Douglas said, consulting his small notebook.

  The footman nodded.

  “And tell Mrs. Williams that she’s to carry on as she always had. There are no new instructions at the moment.”

  Once again, the footman nodded.

  “We should have a large post going out this afternoon,” Douglas added, closing his notebook.

  “What time would you like me to return for the post, sir?” the footman asked.

  “At two,” Douglas said.

  The footman clicked his heels together, turned, and walked down the corridor with the stiff bearing of a Chavensworth servant.

  Douglas closed the door of the Duke’s Suite and turned to face Hester.

  “It’s uncanny, isn’t it, sir? First the mother, now the daughter.” She looked at Sarah asleep in the middle of the bed on the dais.

  He stared at the woman, wondering if he’d made a mistake soliciting her help. But he needed someone to watch over Sarah while he took care of a few details, and Hester had struck him as being exceedingly sensible as well as caring. But he’d banish her this moment if she coupled Sarah together in her mind with the duchess.

  “They’re nothing alike,” he said. “Sarah is not dying. She’s simply grieving.”

  Hester didn’t argue with him, but the look she sent him was dispute enough. He had to admit, it was a little worrying. Sarah had slept for a whole day and didn’t look as if she wanted to rouse yet.

  “I’ll return in a few hours,” he said, hesitating at the door.

  Hester settled into the high-backed chair beside the window. “Go along now with you sir,” she said, pulling out a crochet hook and a bit of thread. “I’ll sit here ’til she wakes, you’ve no worries on that score. Do what needs to be done.”

  He closed the door behind him, surprised that the corridor leading to the Duke’s Suite was empty. In the last day, he’d been assailed by at least six people, all of them intent on reaching Sarah and obtaining permissions, approvals, guidance, and direction for various projects. His answer to them had been the same, “Handle it yourself.”

  Beecher, however, had been insistent, standing outside the Duke’s Suite with a tenacity in direct proportion to his frailty. Douglas had finally convinced the man to retire to his office and that he would follow shortly.

  The journey to the steward’s office required walking down three long passages and taking two staircases. At the end of his journey, Douglas could understand why the steward looked so frail.

  He’d already discovered that Chavensworth had six wings in total. Four wings comprised the main, boxlike, structure while the remaining two wings formed an H at the southernmost part of the box and were connected by a portico.

  Just how many miles did Sarah walk each day?

  He knocked on the door, hearing the shuffling footsteps of Chavensworth’s aged steward. Beecher opened the door a few moments later, standing aside to allow him to enter the room.

  Bookcases occupied three walls, each filled with ledgers. A large mullioned window overlooking the courtyard occupied the fourth wall. The majority of the space, however, was taken up by a large table, one more often seen in a dining room than a steward’s office. Beecher evidently used it as a desk.

  He waved Douglas into a chair on the other side of the table and sat as well.

  The morning sun streaming in through the window did not favor the man. With the light behind him, Beecher looked even more frail—his hair appeared so light in color as if to be invisible, and the bones of his face seemed even more prominent.

  Just how old was the man?

  “You said there are matters that cannot wait, Beecher?” he asked.

  “The draining of the upper fields must occur tomorrow, sir, and Lady Sarah always supervises the event as well as the cleaning of the sluices.”

  “Why?”

  Beecher’s eyebrows drew together. “Why, sir? Because it is Chavensworth.”

  “Are you not the steward?”

  “I am, but the Dukes of Herridge have always had an intimate knowledge of the estate, all the way back to the first duke.”

  “Lady Sarah is not the Duke of Herridge.”

  Beecher blinked sever
al times while his mouth worked. Evidently, he was thinking of rejoinders and dismissing them as quickly. Finally, he fixed a lowering frown on Douglas and sighed heavily.

  “Lady Sarah has always assumed those responsibilities that needed to be seen to, sir, in regard to Chavensworth.”

  “What you mean to say, Beecher, is that her father has abdicated his responsibility, and she has assumed it.”

  Once again, the steward seemed at a loss.

  Finally, he reached behind him, and, with some effort, lifted a large ledger, one of the biggest books Douglas had ever seen. He laid it flat on the table between them and opened the cover, using his forearm to help turn the pages. Reaching a section midway in the book, he turned the volume a little so that Douglas could see.

  “These are the plans laid out by her grandfather,” he said, pointing to a map carefully drawn up of Chavensworth’s many fields. “In addition to lavender, we here at Chavensworth grow a variety of crops. But in the larger farms, we rotate four crops in order to give the land a boost. It was Lady Sarah herself who suggested clover, following the recommendations of some men with whom she corresponded.”

  “Did she?”

  “Indeed she has,” Beecher said proudly. “She has always supervised the draining of the upper fields. The irrigation sluices must be seen to, and she has always approved the building of new connections.” He looked over at Douglas. “The sluices themselves accumulate mud, you see, and the wood rots, no matter how much pitch is used.”

  “Is this not something you can handle, Beecher?”

  The man looked startled. “Indeed no, sir.”

  He studied the man for a few minutes before finally saying, “Tell me where to be and what to do, and I shall oversee in Lady Sarah’s stead.”

  The man evidently wasn’t satisfied by Douglas’s suggestion. “Lady Sarah has been present for the lambing, for the castrations, for the drilling of two new wells. She has trod every inch of Chavensworth land, sir, in foul weather and fair.”

  “And you saw nothing wrong with that?”