Now she felt a sort of unexpected sympathy for Lady Estley, a fellow sufferer in Lord Estley’s misguided attempts to dictate his son’s affections. Uncertainty etched a frown into her brow. “I . . . I see. Well, in any case, I accepted the destination Lady Estley chose. I had no notion of where I was headed beyond Devonshire, but the coachman clearly did, because in two days’ travel we stopped only to change horses.”
“And you expect me to believe his orders came from my stepmother? What a bounder! She despises the country. What would she know of Haverhythe?” he scoffed.
Sarah shrugged.
When she first met Lady Estley, she had found her rather silly, an empty-headed woman skilled at little more than the sort of social lying that kept London’s West End humming. Over the years, she had tried to imagine how the marchioness could have kept the secret of her involvement in Sarah’s disappearance.
Evidently, she had underestimated her mother-in-law.
Lady Estley had been the first to insinuate that Sarah was a thief. Then she had swiftly spun a threatening tale to frighten her daughter-in-law into leaving. And another to convince her stepson that what he had seen the night of the nuptial ball had been only a glimpse into the blackness of his wife’s character.
Clearly Lady Estley was a better liar than Sarah had given her credit for being.
I like you, Sarah. So I will help you by telling a little fib.
Infidelity. Theft. Drowning. Extortion.
Yes, in fact, Lady Estley was an excellent liar.
And Sarah could not say she was sorry for it. After all, Lady Estley’s lies had made it possible for Sarah to keep Clarissa to herself all these years.
She brushed an imaginary speck of lint from her dark skirts. “She said Miss Harrington mentioned something that gave her the idea.”
“Eliza?” he whispered, and Sarah’s stomach lurched with the discovery that her name on his lips still had the power to cause pain. His gaze drifted away, as if he were trying to recall a story heard long ago. “Lady Harrington was from the West Country, I believe.” Sarah closed her eyes for a moment. Oh Lord. She could almost hear the wheels spinning in Mr. Beals’s bald head. “I suppose there might have been some visit to the coast, some holiday—there’s a family here, I take it?”
“There are many families here, Mr. Fairfax. But you mean the family at Haverty Court, I gather?”
“Yes. That is, I suppose I do. How odd . . .” He sounded nothing short of incredulous. “And you’ve been hiding here all this time?”
Mr. Beals entered and laid a tray on the table with a flourish.
“How lovely, Mr. Beals,” Sarah enthused. “Won’t you join us?”
“Well, if that don’t beat all. I forgot the currant cake, Mrs. Fairfax—and it your favorite.” He shook his head and darted back into his kitchen. “I won’t be a minute,” he called back over his shoulder.
Sarah repressed a sigh. What had St. John said to win him over? But then, her husband had always had a reputation for being charming—even if he had never troubled himself to shower that charm on her.
“Not hiding,” she insisted, even as a small voice inside her head chirped its agreement. She withdrew into the comfortable ritual of pouring out, wondering even as she did so how many times she would be forced to enact this pantomime of hospitality with a man who wished her nothing but ill.
Handing St. John his cup with a forced smile, she asked, “Sugar?” knowing the answer quite well but conscious of how it must have seemed when she had not asked the night before. But then, she did not remember whether he had even tasted the tea she had poured him. Perhaps he had not noticed that she had sweetened it just to his taste.
“Thank you, yes,” he said, taking the tongs himself and dropping three lumps into his cup.
“You may find it difficult to believe, my l—love,” she hastily substituted, forcing the word from between clenched teeth. “But I chose to stay. It may have been your stepmother’s suggestion to go, but I quickly realized it would be for the best. I have made a new life here. I swore I would cut my past ties, and although it was not easy, I kept my word.”
His lips twisted into something that was not quite a smile. “How refreshing to discover you are capable of upholding at least some of your vows.”
“Cannot you just leave me—leave us all—in peace?” She dropped her gaze to the fraying edge of the checked tablecloth and drew an unsteady breath. “If there’s someone else you want,” she whispered, “just go to her. Marry her. I’ll make no stir.”
Her desperate offer hung on the air between them for a long moment.
“Someone else?” he echoed, clearly shocked by the proposal. “You seem to forget that we are still married, ma’am. To marry another now would be a crime—and I, at least, will not stoop to law-breaking.” He shook his head. “No, I cannot ‘leave you in peace.’ However much I would wish it otherwise, I must keep you in my sight.” St. John snared her wrist in his long brown fingers and drew her close enough to speak low in her ear. “And know this: When I leave, I won’t go empty-handed.”
She followed his eyes as they looked toward Clarissa, who was still lying on the floor with her head near the kittens’ basket, rapt. “No,” she whispered.
“No?” His eyebrows shot up. “You should not have kept the child’s birth a secret from my family. You are my wife. By law she is mine, you know.”
“Not only by law,” Sarah averred.
Her narrow-eyed glare seemed to give him pause. Seizing the opportunity, she jerked free of his grasp, whisked up Clarissa from her place by the counter, and swept out the door before the child could muster even a howl of protest.
* * *
Beals pushed through the swinging door, bearing a cake on a plate. When he spied the vacant place across from St. John, one bushy eyebrow shot skyward.
“Mrs. Fairfax, er, recalled an appointment,” St. John fumbled for an excuse.
“Humph,” was the baker’s skeptical reply. He left the plate on the counter and made his way to the table, seating himself in the empty chair and filling the empty cup. “So, how’s the weather today?”
Perplexed, St. John glanced toward the doorway at the cloudless sky and back to Beals’s face again. “The weather?”
“Aye, the whether, man—tell us whether or not Mrs. Fairfax’ll have you in again!”
“Oh, that.” Beals and Mackey had kept him until the early hours of the morning, plying him with pints and pressing him for details he had been reluctant to give, fearful he might later contradict himself. After three nights with very little sleep, he was feeling decidedly out of sorts and in no mood for wordplay. “I couldn’t say.”
“‘Couldn’t say’?” Beals laughed. “It’s just like Mrs. F. to keep you waitin’.”
“Think you so?” St. John asked softly. “But perhaps I am not such a patient man.”
Beals appraised him with the same eye of suspicion he had cast over him the night before. “Mayhap not. But you best be prepared to cool your heels a bit, lad. She’s not one to go back on a promise, and she’s made one to the whole village.”
Inwardly, St. John scoffed at the baker’s assessment of Sarah’s faithfulness. “A promise? Of what sort?”
“She and Mrs. Norris, the vicar’s wife, have got together and planned a sort of festival on Michaelmas—folks sellin’ their wares, and food and drink, of course, and a dance.”
“A festival?” He was struck afresh by the contrast between Sarah’s plain looks and her frivolous desires. Had his father known of the latter, he hoped the man would never have been taken in by the former—enormous dowry or no. Surely his second marriage had taught him something about the folly of making such a bargain. And Michaelmas? That was six days off. He had no intention of wasting a week in Haverhythe.
“Aye. I suspect that’s where she got off to. She and Mrs. Norris likely had somethin’ to chat about this morning.”
Of that St. John had no doubt.
“
Mr. Beals, I have a rather delicate question—one I very much regret having to ask,” he said, drawing one finger along the edge of his saucer. “How has Mrs. Fairfax managed to support herself all this time?”
“Well, I reckon she had a bit of something from your folks when she arrived,” Beals said, sounding as if he expected the information to provide some reassurance. “But like most hereabouts, she makes do on very little. O’ course, the lessons help a bit.”
“Lessons?”
“On Mrs. Norris’s pianoforte,” he explained. “She offered Mrs. Fairfax the use of it to teach some of the girls in the village. She plays right pretty, you know. Why, she’s even got Miss Susan Kittery to make somethin’ that passes for music . . .” Beals waggled his head. “Miss Susan’s a winning little thing. No talent, though. Mrs. F. earns every penny she gets.”
Despite Mr. Beals’s attempt at reassurance, St. John knew very well that the few shillings Sarah made giving music lessons would not have been enough to sustain her and the child, no matter how simply they lived.
And he did not need the baker to tell him how she had made up the difference.
“I don’t know what happened twixt the two of you all those years ago, but it seems you got off to a bit of a rough start, lad.” Beals paused to give the tea in his cup a vigorous stir, the delicate spoon dwarfed by his beefy thumb. “And even though you’re not askin’, I’m goin’ to offer some free advice,” he said, leaning toward him and lowering his voice. “If you aim to get Mrs. F. to come back to you, you’ll want to woo her to win her.”
“Woo my wife?”
“Aye. Think back to your courtin’ days. Do summat that’ll make her happy. God knows she ain’t had awt o’ that in years, ’sceptin’ the wee ’un.”
In one sense, Beals’s advice was sound. If St. John had any hopes of getting into Sarah’s home to look for evidence without her calling down the wrath of half of Haverhythe, he might be best served by trying to get into her good graces first, perhaps even to make it seem as if he hoped to reconcile. Staying until the festival would give him ample time to devise a plan of attack.
St. John unfolded himself from the chair and gave the baker a nod. “I’ll take it under advisement.”
But inwardly he was still thinking, Woo her? Pay court to the woman who had likely cuckolded him and stolen an irreplaceable family heirloom in the process? He settled his hat on his head and prepared to meet the glare of the noonday sun. From across the street, the glint of gilt lettering on glass caught his eye.
Gaffard’s
“Fine Things from the Four Corners of the Globe”
And all at once it struck him. He did not think he could bring himself to do anything for Sarah. But perhaps something for her little girl . . . ?
Without further ado, he stepped across the narrow lane, boot heels ringing against the cobblestones, oblivious to the sight of Sarah ducking furtively into a doorway up the street.
Chapter 6
“Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Fairfax!”
Dressed in a morning gown of green striped poplin, Fanny Kittery stood in the doorway of her husband’s apothecary shop like a brightly colored spider in the center of her web, awaiting her unwary prey.
Clarissa clutched her mother’s skirts. Sarah paused without stepping closer. “I can’t chat this morning, Mrs. Kittery. I’m meeting Mrs. Norris to finalize arrangements for the festival. You haven’t forgotten your promise to sell some of your delightful soaps to help our cause?”
“So you plan to stay on until Michaelmas, then?” Mrs. Kittery pressed. “I had thought perhaps, with the sudden reappearance of Mr. Fairfax, you would be leaving Haverhythe.”
So insistent had been her recollections of the past and her anxieties about the future, Sarah had not fully considered how she ought to respond in the present. How would a woman who had believed her husband dead react to his sudden reappearance? She dearly hoped that shock was an acceptable response, because she did not think she could manage joy.
Fortunately, Mrs. Kittery required no response at all. “I guess one never can tell what the merry widow will decide to do,” she concluded with a sneer.
The merry widow. It was a slight Sarah had not heard spoken aloud in years.
How could it hurt worse now than it had then?
“My husband and I have much to discuss. In the meantime, however, I intend to go on as I have done.”
“You’ll find that a married woman is not so free, Mrs. Fairfax.” She stressed the word married in such a way as to make clear her doubt that any such bond existed between Sarah and the stranger who had just arrived in Haverhythe.
Sarah inclined her head, feeling the shadow of the noose fall along her neck. “No woman is truly free, Mrs. Kittery. I’ll wish you good morning.”
She had curved a hand around Clarissa’s narrow shoulders to lead her away up the street, when she heard steps on the cobblestones behind her. Turning, she saw St. John striding purposefully into Haverhythe’s only general store. Desperate to escape another meeting, Sarah all but pushed Clarissa through the first opened doorway that presented itself.
“Now then, I told Ma you’d be along, Mrs. F. Surely I did.” Emily Dawlish set aside her workbasket and fairly jumped from her chair by the window, setting her glossy black ringlets bouncing. “But Ma said she didn’t think it likely and stepped down to Widow Thomas’s for a bit. Won’t she be shamefaced to have missed you! And you, too, Miss Clarissa!”
Sarah looked about herself, bewildered, to discover they had landed in the seamstress’s shop.
“Why, Emily,” Sarah began, uncertain how to explain their sudden arrival.
But Emily Dawlish needed no explanation. “I knew when I heard the news that you’d want outta that old black dress, first thing. I would, if it was me.”
Emily was just a year or so younger than Sarah, but unlike Sarah, she kept no dark secrets. Nothing had happened to blight the girl’s vivacity. She was all smiling pink cheeks and shining black-currant eyes. Sarah knew for a fact that she had turned the heads of half a dozen young fishermen, but so far, Emily seemed to favor none of them. Though the shop belonged to Emily’s mother, all of Haverhythe knew the real artistry came from the daughter’s hands, and Sarah suspected the young woman was loath to surrender what Fanny Kittery was pleased to call Emily’s “dangerous independence.”
Sarah curled her fingers in the fabric of her skirt, her shield for more than three years. “Why, no. I hadn’t thought to—”
But Clarissa eagerly clapped her approval and Emily already had a tape in her hands. “Of course you want a change. I saw your man walk up-along this mornin’. He’s a right handsome one!” As she went about the task of measuring and planning, Sarah stood as mute as a dressmaker’s dummy. “He won’t want to see you wearin’ the weeds like he were dead ’n’ gone.”
Sarah looked down at the dress that had been the badge of her suffering, her entry ticket into the society of unfortunate women who lived on Haverhythe’s fringes, women like “Mad Martha” Potts and Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Dawlish.
The Merry Widow Fairfax.
“Gaffard’s has some new fabric, just in. Will we go down-along and—?”
“No!” It would never do to look as if she had followed St. John there.
Startled, Emily drew her hands away. “Mrs. Fairfax?”
“I’m sorry, Emily. A new dress would be lovely. But I don’t need it. I’m sure my husband would not want me to spend—”
“Bother that.” Emily laughed. “A man always wants to see his woman look her best, no matter what he says. I know just what to do. You leave it to me, and we’ll just see if you don’t have a new dress in time for the festival. I think Ma even has a new bonnet in back. Mrs. Kittery turned up her nose at it—said it weren’t good enough. But with some new trimmings and such, I think it’ll suit.”
“I couldn’t possibly—”
But Sarah’s protests fell on an empty room. Emily had already ducked into the workroom behind the
shop and was rummaging around in search of the discarded bonnet. She returned with a dainty chip hat decorated with feathers that would have perched on Mrs. Kittery’s head like a wounded bird.
“Oooh!” Clarissa exclaimed, reaching out a hand toward the hat.
Emily held it just out of her reach and looked at Sarah. “Don’t you worry. This’ll be Mrs. Kittery’s present to the happy couple, like.” She smiled broadly. “What she don’t know won’t hurt her, eh?”
Sarah glanced down at her dress again. The black crape was rusty with age and shiny with wear. How good it would feel to wear something fresh and pretty again! She had always enjoyed pretty things, even if her dull brown hair and rather colorless eyes kept her from being pretty herself.
“All right.” She whispered her reluctant consent, knowing what trouble those little words could cause. Once Emily had finished her measurements, Sarah gathered up her daughter and stepped cautiously into the street again, peering in either direction for any sign of her husband before darting along the footpath to the vicarage.
By the time they reached the vicarage, her exhaustion had got the better of her, and no amount of blinking could sweep away the tears that reduced Abigail Norris’s carefully tended roses to blurry splotches of color.
“H-have you h-heard?” she choked out when Abigail opened the door.
“Mama?” Clarissa asked, worry marring her childish features.
“Ah, Miss Clarissa,” Abby said, holding out a hand toward the girl. “I was hoping you’d come along with your mama. Cook has some fresh apple tarts in the kitchen, and I was wondering who we might find to taste one and see if it was good.”
Sarah gave a nod, equal parts consent and gratitude, and Clarissa followed eagerly.
When Abigail returned alone, she enveloped Sarah in a sisterly embrace. “There, there, dear. Yes, I’ve heard. I imagine there are few who haven’t,” she added with a somber shake of her dark head as she released her. Abby, who was Sarah’s elder by only a few years, would never be mistaken for a gossiping matron. But having come to the village when she was just eighteen, on the occasion of her marriage, the vicar’s wife had a vast deal of experience with the ways of Haverhythe and its fascination with strangers. “The steepness of the lane is no obstacle to telling tales, I’m afraid.”
To Kiss a Thief Page 6
