To Kiss a Thief

by Susanna Craig

  She rose and went slowly about her ablutions before donning the same simple black dress. Then she carefully picked up the broken pieces of glass and returned the battered miniature to her trunk. As she descended the stairs to the kitchen, she spied St. John’s hat still hanging from the peg by the door. So she had not slept so long as to have missed his visit.

  Damn.

  Sarah clapped a hand across her mouth in astonishment, although she had not spoken the unladylike word aloud. Already this encounter with St. John was changing her in ways she did not like.

  When Clarissa spied her mother through the open kitchen door, she scrambled from her chair and ran toward her with outstretched arms. “Kitties, Mama! Kitties!”

  “What’s that, poppet?” Sarah asked, swooping in for a kiss.

  “Mr. Beals were here bright and early,” Mrs. Potts explained, nodding toward two loaves of fresh bread on the table. “Bright Meg had her kittens last night.”

  “Go see ’em, Mama?” Clarissa begged.

  “Yes, dear,” she agreed readily. “But I also promised to drop in on Mrs. Norris at the vicarage this morning. Are you sure the walk won’t make you too tired? Can you be good as gold for your mama?” Clarissa solemnly nodded her head as Sarah returned her to her chair and accepted the cup of coffee Mrs. Potts was proffering. “Thank you. Goodness me, I must already be late. What time is it?”

  “Half-ten,” Mrs. Potts answered soothingly. “I was just about to wake you. That headache must’ve done you in.”

  “Yes.” Sarah nodded, sipping her coffee. “But it’s a beautiful morning, and I’m determined it won’t plague me again.”

  “Well,” Mrs. Potts began, sliding her gaze to Clarissa and back again, “I hope you’re right, but I’ve had some news—”

  “’Rissa go. See kittens,” the child announced, slipping from her seat once again.

  Heart pounding with dread, Sarah knelt. “In just a moment, dear one. Run to the shelf by the door and fetch your bonnet.”

  Clarissa’s lower lip popped out, but after a moment of deliberation, the prospect of the outing won out and she toddled off in search of the dreaded headgear.

  “Well?” Sarah demanded as soon as the child was out of earshot.

  “That gentleman?” Sarah nodded encouragement to Mrs. Potts. “He went to Mackey’s like you told him. And the boys got to talking . . .” Sarah’s eyes dropped closed. Why did men accuse women of gossiping when they were by far the worse offenders? “Mr. Beals were there, you see. And, well, he brought more’n that bread this morning. He told me that gentleman said you run away from your family, and he’s come to bring you home. He’s sayin’ he’s your—your husband.”

  “Damn.”

  But this time, she did say it aloud.

  “Mrs. Fairfax!” Mrs. Potts sounded surprised, but not shocked. The wife of a fisherman had doubtless heard worse.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Potts. It seems I’m not myself this morning, after all.”

  “Is it true, then?” Mrs. Potts’s voice had sunk to an uncharacteristic whisper.

  Sarah’s mind raced. Had he told them who he was? Who she was? What everyone believed she’d done? It had been difficult, as a stranger, to find her place in a little village where everybody knew everyone else, and always had. The people of Haverhythe were warm and loyal. But it had not been easy gaining their trust. Once lost, it would be lost for good.

  “Is what true?” she asked hesitantly.

  “Is that gentleman your husband?”

  Sarah’s jaw stiffened, but she forced herself to nod.

  Mrs. Potts’s eyes widened. “And Clarissa’s pa?”

  At just that moment, Clarissa came through the doorway dragging her bonnet by its strings. Mrs. Potts cast a doting eye in her direction. “You’ll have to tell her, you know.”

  “Tell what, Mama?”

  “All in good time, dear one.” Sarah sent Mrs. Potts a speaking glance. “For now, let’s see about those kittens, shall we? Remember, though, you must not touch!”

  Just as she knelt to tie the child’s bonnet, a sharp rap came at the front door, echoing through the house like the report of a pistol. The two women jumped. Both knew who it must be.

  “Go,” Mrs. Potts insisted, taking the bonnet from Sarah’s hand and ushering her toward the back door. “I’ll take care o’ him.”

  As Sarah scooped up her daughter, Clarissa lay her bare head against her mother’s throat. Sarah buried her nose in the girl’s tousled curls and inhaled deeply.

  She could not—would not—lose the one thing that had made the last three years worth living.

  Once they were out the door, Sarah set the child on her feet. Clarissa darted down the steps and into the alleyway, pausing at the archway that led to the lane. Catching up with her, Sarah saw a team of gray donkeys drawing a heavily laden sledge up the steep street, carrying cargo that had been off-loaded on the quay and was now bound for some Haverhythe cottage, Haverty Court, or perhaps points beyond. Although it was a regular sight, Clarissa clapped with delight and watched the donkeys pick their way carefully up the cobblestones, the kittens momentarily forgotten.

  Yesterday’s rain had given way to the kind of intensely blue sky unique to autumn. A light breeze gave the air a certain crispness, fluttering the ribbons of Sarah’s bonnet and teasing loose a few strands of hair beneath it. It was a morning that ought to have called Britons of every sort to come out of doors to soak up the last rays of sunshine before the gloom of winter set in. The street was nearly deserted as they made their way up-along, however.

  They made a game of guessing what the sledge carried and followed the donkeys slowly up the street, waving them on their way when they came to Mr. Beals’s door. Having finished the morning’s deliveries, the stout baker had just opened his shop and was sweeping off the oddly shaped wedge of a step that brought the shop’s floor in line with the sharp angle of the street.

  “And a good morning to you, Mrs. Fairfax!”

  “Meg?” Clarissa cried out.

  Mr. Beals smiled. “Why, there’s my girl,” he said, ushering them inside as he lifted his dusty apron from a hook and tied it around his ample middle. “Bright Meg’s just back here, where it’s warm. But I do believe she’s ready for callers.”

  Clarissa darted past the counter and toward a basket in the corner nearest the oven. Sarah glanced around the shop and was relieved to see it otherwise empty. “Remember what I said, Clarissa. You must not touch. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, Mama,” she said, throwing herself onto her hands and knees so that her chin was level with the edge of the woven container that held the stuff of all her dreams.

  Inside a basket lined with scraps of soft fabric, Bright Meg was a circle of orange fur, her whole being seemingly wrapped around her four precious babies. Sarah envied the mama cat’s contentment.

  And her claws.

  * * *

  “Here.”

  The door to Primrose Cottage opened to St. John’s knock just enough to allow his tall beaver hat to be passed through the gap. The disembodied hand that held the brim was most certainly not Sarah’s.

  “Mrs. Potts?”

  “Take it,” she insisted, giving the offending object a shake, “afore I let the wind have it.”

  Reluctantly, St. John lifted the hat from her grasp and placed it on his head. “Much obliged.” Mrs. Potts tried to push the door closed behind it, but he had prudently wedged the toe of his boot in her way. “Please, ma’am, may I come in?”

  “Mrs. Fairfax isn’t here.”

  Knowing Sarah could not have got far, St. John held his ground. “That’s quite all right. I had hoped to have an opportunity to speak with you.”

  The door opened a crack wider. “And what would you want wi’ me? I won’t tell you where she’s gone, if that’s what you’re after.”

  “I would never ask you to betray the confidence of a friend, Mrs. Potts.” He paused. “Mrs. Fairfax is your friend, is she not?”r />
  At that, the door swung wide. “None better. And I won’t stand by and see her hurt by the likes o’ you.”

  Although she was surely not five feet tall, “Mad Martha” Potts cut an imposing figure in her gray serge gown, the knobby fingers of one hand clutching a broom handle as if it were a weapon. St. John had no doubt of her ability to use it as one. He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, hoping to persuade her to relent.

  But he did not move his foot, just in case.

  “I deeply regret whatever I may have done or said that gave you the impression I meant Mrs. Fairfax any harm,” he replied, laying a hand across his chest in what he hoped was the appearance of sincerity. “Do you know who I am?”

  Her dark eyes narrowed and were nearly lost in the wrinkles of her weathered visage. “Word’s abroad you’re claimin’ to be her man.”

  “And what does Mrs. Fairfax say?”

  Mrs. Potts made no reply, but the answer was written on her face.

  “So she has told you I am her husband. I expect you’re wondering how I came to be here.”

  “Couldn’t care less. What I’m wondering is how your wife came to be here without you.”

  “Fair enough.” When pressed, he had given Beals and Mackey a simple story, one on which he could embellish as necessary. Based on their reactions, he knew it had the essential ingredients for success: misunderstood lovers, insurmountable distance, and broken communication, sufficiently probable that Sarah would find it uncomfortable to contradict him.

  With Mrs. Potts for an audience, perhaps he could begin to refine it.

  “But may I come in? I know how swiftly gossip will fly in a country village.” With the right word in Mrs. Potts’s ear, he suspected it might travel even faster.

  She stepped back and allowed him to enter, setting aside the broom and gesturing toward the sitting room, where he and Sarah had spoken the night before. The morning light did not improve its appearance. It was neat and clean, but strikingly barren, not even a carpet for the scuffed wide-plank floors. Faded paper covered the walls, and what had seemed in the lamplight to be comfortably worn chairs, the light of day revealed as threadbare. Whatever the late Mr. Potts had done to support his family, legal or otherwise, he had been none too successful at it.

  Mrs. Potts seated herself in the chair closest to the fireplace, so St. John took the other, the one he thought of as Sarah’s. He laid his hat on the table between them, and at Mrs. Potts’s encouragement, he began to speak, modulating his voice to suit his tale and donning a grave expression. “Mrs. Fairfax and I were married three years ago last June, against my family’s wishes. But we believed our love could sustain us in the face of their disapproval.”

  The sentiment drew a sad smile from the woman. “As young people are wont to do,” she acknowledged.

  St. John gave a nod of abashed agreement.

  “At my request, my father had purchased a commission for me, and I had received notice just a month before our wedding that I was to be stationed for a time in the West Indies. We thought of going out together—”

  Mrs. Potts frowned. “You didn’t mean to take my girl across the sea?”

  “As it turned out, it might have been for the best,” St. John averred, noting Mrs. Potts’s maternal possessiveness and considering how best to put it to use. “But my mother professed to be of your opinion and would not hear of it. She insisted she would do her duty by my bride.”

  As if she suspected what was to come, Mrs. Potts leaned toward him and shook her head. “But she didn’t.”

  “No, indeed. You cannot imagine my astonishment and anger when I returned just last week to discover that my wife had disappeared. I believe my mother and sisters must have driven her from the house shortly after I set sail. How she happened to come here, I do not yet know, but my mother had received one letter from her in all those years, and in it Mrs. Fairfax made mention of Haverhythe. So it was here I began my search.”

  “And her tellin’ everyone—even me—that she were a widow.”

  “She might well have thought she was. If she wrote, I received no letters. I cannot say what became of those I sent her.”

  “Folks didn’t always believe she was tellin’ the truth, you know. Especially after Miss Clarissa came. Did you have any inklin’ about the child?”

  “None at all until you brought her home last night.”

  “And her never knowin’ her pa.” Mrs. Potts clucked disapprovingly. “But for a’ that your missus don’t seem too happy to have you back.”

  As if her observation had struck a nerve, St. John rose and strode toward the fireplace, studying its rustic mantel as he continued. “I did not expect a warm welcome, Mrs. Potts. If she did not think me dead, she must have thought me the worst scoundrel in existence for abandoning her. I left her with those who ought to have cared for her.” He turned back to face the old woman. “I am responsible for her suffering.”

  It was the perfectly pitched confession of his guilt—so perfect, in fact, that he almost believed it himself.

  It had been one thing to imagine Sarah living a life of depraved luxury on the profits of her theft or under the protection of her lover, and quite another to discover her in this ramshackle cottage on the edge of the sea, raising a child widely believed to be born on the wrong side of the blanket, and evidently relying on the generosity and good opinion of people so poor they had little of either to spare.

  Was it possible he had been wrong about her?

  Before sentiment could overwhelm his good sense, however, an image rose in his memory: a darkened room, his wife in Captain Brice’s arms, her bodice gaping, skirts hiked up, and that other man’s hands nowhere in sight.

  He must not forget why he had come here. Sarah had escaped her punishment once, disappeared into the ether like the string of priceless gems she’d stolen. Her apparent poverty was a pretense. If it was freedom from this damnable coil he wanted, it was up to him to see her laid low in earnest.

  “Will you help me, Mrs. Potts? Please?” he asked, his voice soft and his heart hard.

  Chapter 5

  “Excited, is she?”

  St. John’s voice came from the doorway behind her, and Sarah froze. With a perfunctory bow of his blond head, he strode toward the counter and squatted beside Clarissa.

  “And which is your favorite?”

  Clarissa lifted one chubby finger toward the kittens, no bigger than mice, wriggling against Meg’s side. Sarah thought it likely that Clarissa had woken them, for their mouths were open in silent meows and they were groping blindly for their mother’s milk.

  “Ah—” Sarah prepared to reprimand Clarissa, but a sharp glance from St. John silenced her.

  “Dis one,” Clarissa said, pointing at but not touching a gray-striped kitten with pink feet that would one day be covered in dainty white socks like its mother’s.

  “A fine choice,” St. John said. “And what would you name him?”

  “Thomas,” Clarissa replied without hesitation.

  “But if he should prove to be a girl instead?”

  “Thomas,” she repeated, as if she suspected St. John were a trifle hard of hearing.

  “Of course.” St. John stood so quickly that Sarah had to step back to avoid him brushing against her breasts as he rose. He smelled of some cologne that she did not remember: spice and citrus and the heat of a tropical summer.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Fairfax,” he said. “I hope I’m not intruding, but our friend Beals was insistent that I stop in first thing.”

  Our friend? Sarah pressed her lips into a thin line, as she turned and made her way back to a small table flanked by two chairs, a place where the bakery’s customers could wait in comfort or even enjoy some light refreshment.

  “Have you had breakfast, Mr. Fairfax?” Mr. Beals asked, rubbing his hands together. At St. John’s distracted nod, he said, “Cuppa tea, then,” and disappeared into the kitchen through a swinging door.

  Sarah wasn’t fool
ed. “He thinks we will want to talk.”

  “And don’t we?” St. John asked as he seated himself opposite her, tugged off his gloves, and tucked them inside his hat.

  “Whatever about, Mr. Fairfax?”

  “Oh, let me cast about for some suitable subject of conversation.” He drummed his fingers against the tabletop. “How you came to live in Haverhythe, perhaps.”

  “I should think you would already know the answer to that.”

  “Nay. Although I’m given to understand Haverhythe is a haven for smugglers and thieves. Was it Captain Brice’s idea, then?” His jaw clenched as he spoke, and the long, thin scar stood out white against his tanned skin.

  “Captain Brice?”

  She dredged up a name buried under the silt of time. She had long ago decided that Captain Brice must have followed her into the library with the intention of stealing the sapphires, and when confronted, had seized the opportunity to pin the blame on her. But too much had happened over the past three years to allow her to dwell on his bad behavior. He had simply been a dashing young officer who took advantage of a naïve girl—hardly the first such story, or the last. She could not even recall his face.

  “I know nothing of Captain Brice, my l—er, Mr. Fairfax,” she insisted, catching herself in the nick of time. She was quite certain Mr. Beals was listening from the kitchen, and heaven only knew what he would do if he overheard her address her husband as “my lord.” “You must ask your mother why I am here.”

  “You mean my stepmother, I presume.”

  The disdain in his voice and the sharpness of his correction caught her off guard. “Oh. I did not realize . . . I always heard you address her as ‘Mama.’ ”

  A curt nod. “My father’s wish. I was still a small child when my mother died.”

  A token courtship and two weeks of marriage had afforded Sarah very little opportunity to observe St. John’s interactions with his parents, but she had gathered that the marquess’s “wishes,” up to and including the choice of his son’s bride, were meant to be obeyed. The tension between Lord Estley and his son could not be overlooked, but Lady Estley had spoken to and of her son—stepson—with open, almost fawning affection. If St. John had reciprocated with coolness, Sarah had simply thought of it as his nature.