by Jane Goodger
West clenched his jaw, wishing she would say more awful things rather than stand here before him feeling sorry. Even now he could feel his desire for her building, a burning tension that held him in place, that made him want to scream in frustration. Because he knew—he knew—she felt it, too. Two years and it was the same, beating against his temples, throbbing between his legs.
He moved closer to her, until she had to crane her neck to look up at him. “We can’t be alone. Ever, Sara.” His eyes swept down to her lips. God, how he wanted to taste her. One more time. He swallowed past his growing desire and nearly choked when he saw the same heated look in her eyes, noticed that her lips had parted. “If you truly love Gardner, for God’s sake, stay away from me.”
He stumbled from her, blindly walking toward the door. Away from what his body and heart desired most in the world.
Chapter THIRTEEN
A dull headache throbbed at the base of her skull and Sara wanted nothing more than to sit in a dark room until she could go home. She looked toward where the reception continued, knowing she would be missed soon. Spying Julia, she went over to her. It took only one look for the older woman to see she was not feeling well.
“I think I shall walk home. I truly feel dreadful,” Sara said. She looked over to Gardner, who was standing with a group of friends seemingly enjoying himself. “Could you tell Gardner I said good-bye.”
“Of course, dear,” Julia said, giving Sara a worried look.
The Mitchell home was only a block from the reception, an easy walk even for a person with an aching head. She kissed Julia on the cheek and departed, feeling better even as she walked out of the house and toward the street. An older man whom Sara recognized as Judge Robert Reynolds stood by the gate puffing on a pipe and looked up as Sara approached. He was a handsome gentleman even though he must have been nearing seventy, and when he smiled at her, Sara smiled back. Then he paused. “My dear, have we met?” the gentleman asked.
“Not formally, sir. We have not had the pleasure. I’m Sara Dawson.” She held out her hand, which the gentleman took gallantly.
“Dawson is it?” he asked, his brows rising. “Of the Boston Dawsons?”
Sara felt her face warm under the old man’s scrutiny. “Hartford, actually.”
He smiled, but his eyes were intent on her and Sara had the terrible feeling he knew she was lying. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Robert Reynolds.” He looked down the street. “Ah. Now I remember. You are staying with the Mitchells. Fine family. Are you taking your leave?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Come walk with an old man,” he said. “I live not far from here and, if you’ll allow me, I can escort you home. It’s not every day I get to walk with a lovely girl.” He winked and Sara relaxed. How foolish to imagine the judge knew who she was. If he’d known, certainly he would have said something before. Though they hadn’t been introduced, Sara had attended a few functions also attended by the judge.
She walked by him, moving slowly for the old man had to use a cane and progress was slow. During their walk she entertained him with stories of her journey from Hawaii, including her harrowing time in the typhoon.
“You have been through much,” he said. “And to lose your parents at such a young age.” He shook his head in sorrow. “Have you no one?”
“Oh, no. I have a brother.”
“A brother.”
“Zachary is third mate on the whaler Julia,” she said proudly.
“Then you are not completely alone in the world.”
Something in his voice made Sara look hard at the older man. He seemed so very genuinely concerned, she was deeply touched—and ashamed she had thought he might have an ulterior motive to asking to walk her home. “No. Not alone. And I also have Mrs. Mitchell. And Gardner.”
Judge Mitchell left her at the Mitchell door, and Sara entered, breathing in a sigh of relief. Her headache had nearly disappeared in the cool night air and she looked forward with relish to crawling into her soft bed and curling up to sleep. Though it wasn’t late, Sara did not want to bother a maid to help her undress, and so went directly to her room. A lamp was lit low by her bed, and Sara smiled, ever appreciative of having someone looking out for her.
“Are you wearing it?”
Sara whirled at the sound of West’s voice. He sat sprawled in a chair, his waistcoat unbuttoned, collar undone, cravat discarded. He held a brandy sifter, half full, in one hand, and as she stared at him he took a long drink.
“What are you doing here?” Sara said, glad her voice was steady, almost disdainful. “You yourself said we should not be alone.”
“I was looking for the busk. Are you wearing it?”
Sara’s hands went immediately to her midriff, her knuckles pressing into the whalebone busk West had carved. “It’s the only one I have that fits into my stays,” she lied.
West sat up, somehow looking menacing in the half-light of the room. “I thought you wore it because you’re still in love with me.”
Sara swallowed. “No.”
“Ah. I’d forgotten. You love Gardner.”
Sara moved her hands away from the busk, not wanting to feel the solid proof that, just possibly, she was still in love with West. “I do.”
West stood and placed the sifter on the table near the lamp, then turned up the flame so that he no longer looked menacing, simply weary. “I didn’t think you so fickle. How soon were you here before you realized you loved my brother?” His eyes stayed on the flame, and they blazed with an emotion Sara could not recognize—or refused to recognize.
“How dare you imply that I was somehow unfaithful to you.”
“Is that what I’m implying?” He gave her a grin, and she realized that he was quite probably drunk.
“I made a fool of myself that day on the beach.” She closed her eyes against the memory of her gazing up at him, declaring her love, telling him she would wait for him. “I won’t do so again. I want you to leave my room.”
Sara stalked over to her door, pulled it open and waited for him to leave. Instead, he sat upon her bed, his eyes on the amber liquid glimmering in the glass. “For two years, I regretted my silence.”
“What are you saying?” Sara choked out.
She watched as the muscles in his jaw bunched. “For two years I thought you were dead and I blamed myself. Two years you haunted me. And then I come home.” He lifted his head to look at her and Sara almost backed away from the intensity of his gaze. “And you were alive. Alive and here all this time. Forgive me, Sara, if seeing you again seems to have muddled by brain.”
Sara didn’t know why it mattered now, but she had to know. Had to. “Did you write a note asking me to wait?”
For an answer, he gave her a smile tinged with bitterness. He stood and walked toward her until he was just inches away, until Sara had to lift her chin to see into his eyes. Then, without warning, she felt his hand upon her breast and her knees nearly buckled. He simply kept it there, not moving, and Sara couldn’t stop herself from leaning, just slightly, toward him. His kiss was sudden, hard and quick, shoving her head back, making her stumble a bit. He brought his head back as if to gauge her reaction, and must have seen the invitation in her eyes, though she was fighting it, fighting the desire that made her want to dissolve at his feet. He kissed her again and this time she was ready, met him half way, opened her mouth and invited his warm, swirling tongue. She felt his hand snake around her back, felt him drive her closer, and let out a sound that was almost a protest. Sara’s hands gripped his opened waistcoat, fists buried in the fine material, and she shook him. She hated what she was allowing him to do, because she loved what he was doing to her. And she wanted more. More and more.
His hands moved to her buttocks, and he pressed himself against her. He was thick and hard and undeniably aroused.
“You don’t love him. You don’t,” he said, dragging his mouth over her cheek, to her neck, where he mouthed the sensitive skin near her scar.
“Why are you doing this to me?” she cried, turning away from him. “Why torture me? You said we shouldn’t be alone together, and we shouldn’t.”
West breathed harshly behind her. “I cannot help myself, Sara.”
He’d had no intention of ravishing her when he’d waited for her. He’d thought only to discover if she still wore the busk. It would have been a slight satisfaction to know, to have solid proof, that she had not completely forgotten him. But when she’d walked in the room, looking so lovely, so much like the dreams that tortured him at night, he’d been unable to stop himself. That simple touch of his hand upon her soft breast had made his entire body tremble. He wanted her so badly, and not just for a single night.
But he had lost. He’d let her go when he should have demanded that she stay. Perhaps it was his curse to live so painfully aware of that mistake.
West walked around her to the still-open door, pausing to look back at her profile before he left. “Sara.” He waited until she was looking at him. “I will leave you alone.”
Sara stayed away from him, though it took little effort. West was as good as his word, spending long hours at the counting house reacquainting himself with its operation. He dined long after Sara, Julia, and Gardner, when the three of them had retired to the drawing room to read or sing or play card games. In the two years Sara had been living with the Mitchells, Gardner taught Sara how to play chess, and she was just getting to the point where skill and not blind luck led to strategic moves. She had yet to beat him, of course. A victory to her was the pleasure of announcing “check.” She soon learned that check was a far cry from check mate, however.
She sat, elbows resting on the table and staring at her chess pieces, when West made a rare appearance. His stride slowed slightly when he spied Sara and Gardner tucked in the intimate corner where the chess board was placed, but he nodded politely before making his way to a high-backed leather chair situated in front of the room’s large fireplace. Julia sat on a sofa, a book in her lap.
Gardner leaned forward and whispered dramatically, “He comeths to join the riffraff.”
Sara stifled a guilty giggle, amused more by Gardner’s expression than the slightly malicious tone of his words. “Stop,” she whispered back. She darted a look to West and thought she saw him cock an ear in their direction. She hadn’t realized she’d been staring until Gardner reminded her impatiently that it was her move. Silently chastising him with a pointed look, she brought her attention back to the chess board.
Her brows slightly furrowed in concentration, Sara was the picture of a young society girl engaged in intellectual pursuit. She had a negligently elegant air that marked her as a woman of confidence, and Gardner couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Sara looked up to find him staring at her and blushed until her ears turned red.
“Stop,” she said.
“I want to kiss you,” Gardner whispered.
Without realizing it, Sara darted another look to West, but said, “Your mother will hear you.”
“She knows I want to kiss you,” he said, not bothering at all to whisper.
“Gardner!”
“And she knows I want to marry you,” he said, softening his voice. “Let’s, Sara. Let’s announce it now. Right now.”
It was no longer a game. The earnestness in his expression, in his voice, told her that. She’d known all along he’d been serious about his proposals, but this one seemed so much sincere. This one seemed real where the others were not.
“I know what you’re doing,” she said with a forced smile. “I’m about to win for the first time and you’re trying to distract me.” She smiled, hoping to divert him, hoping he wouldn’t press her. How could she accept a proposal when he didn’t even know who she truly was? Again, Sara found herself forcefully stopping herself from looking at West, the only person other than her brother to know the truth.
A look of disappointment filled Gardner's eyes. “Someday, Sara, I’m going to stop asking.”
Sara stared at the chess pieces that suddenly blurred in front of her eyes. “I know,” she whispered.
Gardner was silent for a long moment. “It’s still your move.”
Sara dashed the tears away, praying no one but Gardner had noticed them. “I don’t want to play anymore. I think I’ll go up to bed.”
“Fine.” There was anger in that word.
“Gardner. I’ll think about it. Truly.” Swallowing down her misgivings, she said, “I’ll give you my answer in the morning. I promise.” Gardner’s answering grin only made her feel horrid, though she hid it with a smile of her own. Oh, Gardner, she thought, when I tell you who I am, you’ll not want me anymore in any case.
Sara bade West and Julia good night and went up the staircase dejectedly. Tomorrow. She would give Gardner her answer tomorrow. She would tell him and Julia the truth about who she was. Something close to nausea struck her, made her weak, so that she hardly made it to the hallway that led to the bedrooms. She leaned against the wall, the rich, flowered silk wall paper dampening beneath her hands gone clammy. Even in her misery she realized she might mark the wall, and so removed her hands. Tears flowed down her cheeks unchecked, dropping with audible plops onto the thick carpeting beneath her feet. She heard a sound coming from the servant’s staircase, and walked into the first room she came to, closing the door silently behind her.
West’s room.
Leaning against the door, she waited to hear more footsteps before moving into the room. A lamp had been lit, its flame so low it was hardly discernable. Sara moved across the room and turned the flame higher. She’d been in his room before when she first arrived back home, hoping to find something of West in this large and masculinely appointed room. It was just furniture and bedding then, but now it was an occupied room, a room that held his essence, his presence. Her eyes carefully avoiding the bed, Sara walked to a bureau covered with West’s carvings. She lifted a delicate carving of a dolphin, smiling as her mind carried her back aboard the Julia.
Feeling only a bit guilty for snooping, Sara was about to leave the room when she saw a leather folder on the floor tucked partially behind the bureau. She wouldn’t have looked at it but for the small bit of paper sticking out of the folder—some sort of drawing. And hadn’t he been snooping in her room? Certainly, West wouldn’t mind if she looked at his drawings. He’d always shared his work with her in the past without hesitation. But when she lifted the folder and began sifting through the stack of drawings, she gasped. Each one, faithfully drawn in startling detail, was of her.
Stunned, Sara moved to a chair and sat down, the folder on her lap. Page after page was of her—and she was beautiful and laughing and happy. Each one brought back a memory of her six months aboard the Julia. A grin split her face as she looked at one drawing that showed her telling Mr. Mason a tale, several seamen hovering nearby obviously listening to her yarn, though trying heartily to look as if they weren’t. Sara thought all those times that West had ignored her while she spun her tales, but he had been watching her, taking in the scene and recreating it with uncanny accuracy. He must have drawn nearly every night, she thought, documenting her time on the ship. Part of her wondered why, when he had been so forthcoming about his other art he had kept these hidden from her.
Without warning, the door swung open revealing West. He covered his surprise quickly, then shut the door and gave her a bow. “What an unexpected pleasure, Miss Dawson,” he said mockingly.
Sara stood, laying the portfolio beside her, feeling wretched. “I was crying and heard a servant approaching so I entered the first room I came to. I didn’t think.”
“And yet you stayed to snoop around my room.” His eyes went to the drawings on the bed and his expression hardened.
“The drawing
s are lovely,” she said. “I had no idea you were doing them.”
“Why would you? I drew them after you were gone.”
After he thought her dead.
“My brother appears to be quite besotted with you,” he said idly. “When do you suppose you will be married?”
“West.”
“When. He certainly seems to be in a hurry.”
Sara took a bracing breath. “He has asked. Several times and I’ve put him off. But now, I suppose his proposals have become more serious. We’ll marry before the end of the year, no doubt,” she said, feeling no joy in those words.
“You are probably right. You certainly are quite confident of the outcome,” West said, his tone bored, but he didn’t look her in the eyes. “How charming.”
“I do love your brother, Mr. Mitchell,” Sara said forcefully. His only reaction was a slow, skeptical raising of one eyebrow. “But I didn’t give him an answer right away for another reason other than the fact he thinks me to be someone else.”
“There is no other reason.”
“But there is. There is something, a reason I…” She stumbled to a halt, unable to admit any feelings toward him again, not when she’d been so hurt by his silence before. She lifted her chin. “Is there a reason I should not marry him?”
She held her breath, and in that moment it seemed as if her heart stopped beating, as if everything in her life depended on what he said next. And, of course, it did.
West picked up a carving from his collection and seemed to study it. It was a daffodil, Sara saw, the trumpeted bloom on a softly curving stem. Finally, he looked at her and her heart began a maddening pace.
“No reason that I know of.”
Sara forced a smile, forced herself to ignore the awful and unforeseen pain that enveloped in her. She’d braced herself against his answer, but was unprepared for the sheer agony that ripped through her breast at his definitive tone.
“Well, then. Goodnight,” she muttered, grasping the door and heaving it open, the need to escape before she started sobbing sending her in a near-panic from the room.
