The Kent Heiress

by Roberta Gellis

  Meanwhile, Katy’s leg healed. The doctor removed the heavy splints and replaced them with a lighter construction. With care, he said, she could travel now without real danger. Still Sabrina made no move to leave, although Katy and Sergei both remonstrated with her. She could not bring herself to go to Lisbon, where she would have to face Perce.

  The days dragged by, Katy was moving around with a crutch, and at last Sabrina acknowledged she could delay no longer. It was growing cold in the mountains, and they had no proper clothing. She gave the orders to start packing and wrote to Lord Strangford to ask whether she would be able to stay at the embassy until it was time to debark or, if that were not possible, would he obtain lodging for her.

  Her letter arrived on the evening of the twenty-first of October and was a dreadful shock to Lord Strangford, who had forgotten all about her. He sent a message to Perce at once, giving him leave to escort her and urging him to bring her back to Lisbon as quickly as possible. There were rumors that the impasse in Spain was coming to an end.

  Perce’s fury had dulled into a leaden misery, but the knowledge that he would be with Sabrina again brought it to a new peak. Sabrina was a fool. Why should she have her own way? Was it best for her? He fell asleep with that question in his mind and woke with it before dawn. Since he knew he would sleep no more, he rose and dressed and was on his way at first light. As he urged his horse over a road that was becoming quite familiar, he wished he could talk the matter over with someone. Rage or no rage, Perce was aware that he was not unprejudiced on the subject. But who was unprejudiced? Roger and Leonie certainly were not. They were so besotted with love that they had already made one disastrous mistake. Perhaps they had learned a lesson, but what if Sabrina made another mistake? Would they be able to resist her pleas and tears any better this time? Probably not.

  Besides, Perce thought with a sense of shock, Roger and Leonie no longer had a right to prevent Sabrina from marrying anyone she chose. As a widow, a rich widow, she was free to do as she liked. Doubtless she would be surrounded by fortune hunters the minute she showed her face. And, considering how she had fallen for Elvan’s slimy charms, nine chances in ten she would fall victim to another practiced seducer. Then it would be too late. Sabrina was so stubborn, she made mules seem like the most reasonable animals on earth.

  No! Perce gritted his teeth. Oh, no! Once was enough. Whether she loved him now or not, he was going to obtain a promise from her to marry him, if he had to beat it out of her. Sabrina might be a fool, but she was honest. If she promised, she would keep her word. She was softhearted, too. If she saw how much he loved her, she would love him in return once they were married. It was perfect all around. Roger and Leonie trusted him, Philip and Meg loved him. None of them had really been comfortable with Elvan. And it would solve any problems that might arise with Sergei and Katy, too. If he could only convince Sabrina that she had by implication promised herself to him…

  When the packing was complete, Sabrina had nothing more to do. She sat idly, emptily, in her own room, unable to bear the worried tenderness with which Katy regarded her. But avoidance of Katy brought another dreadful problem to her mind. If she did not marry Perce, what was to happen to Katy and Sergei? Would Sergei be willing to leave Perce? If not, would the marriage have to be put off? Given up? Or would she lose Katy? She could barely choke back the urge to run down, to cry, Don’t you leave me too, but that would be a dreadful cruelty. The grief of Katy’s going was one she must learn to accept, to welcome. In fighting her irrational terror of abandonment, Sabrina thought of a device that might help her. If she wrote to Leonie about Katy’s forthcoming marriage, she herself might come to see it as the joyful event it was.

  The letter was not as easy to write as Sabrina had hoped. Her first lighthearted version, when reread, sounded like a vulgar joke. Sabrina tore it up and began again. The second attempt breathed bitterness and ill-usage, as if Katy were a traitor and had no right to an independent life and happiness. Sabrina destroyed that letter also and was sitting, pen in hand, trying to begin a third time, when she heard the knocker sound. She had lit the candles some time earlier. It was dark. Who would come after dark?

  Sabrina uttered a gasp of fear and jumped to her feet. Her terror surprised her. It was unreasonable, yet her heart pounded, and her mouth went dry. Before her mind could fix on the cause—Dom José had been the only night visitor ever—she heard Perce’s voice. Had Sabrina recognized the cause of her terror, it would have disappeared, but there was no time for that. Without thinking, she ran toward the help and safety that Perce had always meant to her.

  It was not until she was at the head of the stairs and the sound of her hasty footsteps had drawn Perce’s attention, that Sabrina realized equally that there was nothing of which to be afraid and that she had no right to fly into Perce’s arms. She gasped again and, her wits completely addled by embarrassment and conflicting emotions, ran back toward her rooms.

  “Sabrina!” Perce roared, starting for the stairs.

  “Senhor!” the new butler protested, and valiantly, if unwisely, tried to interpose himself between a visitor he took to be unwelcome and his mistress.

  Perce picked him up and threw him away. “Sabrina!” he bellowed, leaping up the stairs three at a time.

  Sergei burst out of the sitting room just in time to see Perce’s back disappearing up the stairs. He looked long enough to be sure that it was his master, and then calmly went to assist the half-stunned butler to his feet. The man broke into voluble Portuguese, of which Sergei understood not a single word, so he merely shook his head and shepherded the butler into the kitchen where Katy was getting painfully to her feet, calling out to know what was happening.

  “Nothing,” Sergei answered with a smile “My master has returned to settle matters with your lady.” He spoke mostly in English, only using the Russian words for master and lady because he could never feel that the English equivalents conveyed enough respect.

  “But he was shouting at her!” Katy cried, her eyes wide with anxiety.

  “So?” Sergei asked, eyes and voice still smiling although his lips did not. “You know something has been heavy on the great lady’s heart all these long weeks. He has come to tell her not to be a fool. When you are well and do what angers me, I will shout also. Women, even great ladies, are often fools.”

  “Not Brina,” Katy averred without thinking.

  Sergei laughed shortly. “Not even when she married that chasseur des femmes?”

  “She was only sixteen,” Katy protested, “and he swore up and down of his love. Even I didna doubt him.”

  Sergei laughed. “So? What says that for your wisdom? And why should your silliness make me think different of the great lady’s wisdom?”

  “Ye ignorant ox, what do ye think ye know of such things?” Katy sputtered.

  “Another man can smell one of the dead lord’s kind at a hundred yards,” Sergei replied, his eyes twinkling, “but women are always fooled. Stop your talking, woman. Your lady desires my master—no? And he is sick for her—I know it. Whatever happens, even if he beats her—” Katy uttered a horrified exclamation, and Sergei laughed again. “He will find a way to soothe her bruises, never fear,” he remarked.

  Katy did not answer that but strained her ears. She heard nothing. Sabrina’s rooms were above the dining room across the corridor, and the walls, floors, and doors of the dower house were thick and sturdy. Still, both rooms were on the same side of the house, and Katy thought she would hear screams and furniture breaking. She made hushing signals at Sergei and the butler, who was still trying to find out who had come in and treated him with such violence. Even after the men were silent, however, Katy heard nothing.

  At that moment there was nothing to hear. Nor had there ever been the kind of sounds Katy listened for so fearfully, although Perce was in a royal rage when he bounded up the stairs. Naturally the anger in his voice did nothing to calm Sabrina, who fled instinctively back into her
own room. Indeed, her mental turmoil was so extreme at the moment that her thinking processes were totally suspended. Her reactions were those of a helpless, startled animal. Had her bedchamber door been open, she would, like a ground squirrel or rabbit, have tried to hide in the dark. Perce arrived, however, at the open corridor door just as she reached for the door latch.

  “What the devil do you think you’re doing?” he roared. Sabrina turned at bay, her back against the door, one arm raised as if to ward off a blow.

  “Brina, what’s the matter with you?” Perce asked more gently, seeing the blanched cheeks and lips, the fear-dilated eyes. “Darling, surely you aren’t afraid of me?”

  “I don’t know,” she gasped, and then, as if the sound of her own voice had wakened her from some nightmare, she blinked her eyes and shuddered. “I don’t know,” she repeated, but in a more natural voice, and her arm dropped.

  “When I heard the knocker, I was—I was terrified.”

  “My poor girl,” Perce said softly. “I would never have gone away if I’d known you were afraid. Why didn’t you tell me? But the man’s dead, Brina. There’s no one else in the world who could want to hurt you.”

  Her face cleared. “Oh,” she exclaimed, “you always make things right for me, Perce. How silly of me. Yes, that must be what frightened me. It was the knock at night. No one ever comes here at night.” She found a small smile. “You mustn’t think I’ve been flying into the vapors each time the knocker went.”

  “May I come in?” Perce was in, actually, but he was still standing by the door.

  The smile disappeared. “Of course, but you must be tired and—and hungry, perhaps. Would you like—“

  “I’d like to talk,” he interrupted, walking farther into the room and shutting the door behind him.

  Sabrina stood uncertainly for a moment, absorbing fact that she must now act on the truth she had faced. Then she moved to the small sofa nearest her. She sat down and began a gesture of invitation that would have indicated an armchair. Perce ignored it, seating himself beside her. The gesture incomplete, her hand hung in the air for an instant, and Perce reached out and took it. He could feel it trembling, although the movement had not been apparent to the eye.

  It was far easier, Perce discovered, to think about forcing Sabrina to do what was best for her when she was an image in his mind, ice-maiden perfect, cool and untroubled. Seated beside her, hearing her quickened breathing, seeing her pallor and the slight, pathetic droop of her lovely mouth, he only wanted to give her whatever she desired, no matter what the cost. He was now far less unsympathetic to the blunder Roger and Leonie had made.

  At the same time the small remaining evidences of her fear roused a violent protective instinct in him No one, he felt, had ever taken proper care of her. Only he could be sufficiently tender, sufficiently loving. His rational mind knew this was not true, that Roger and Leonie and Katy, if they could, would have prevented the wind from blowing on her too roughly or the rain from falling on her. But this had nothing to do with Perce’s powerful conviction that Sabrina could be safe and happy only in his care.

  “Brina,” he began, “you just said I make everything right for you. I would like very much to be able to make everything right for you all of our lives. If you were my wife, that would be my right and my privilege.”

  Sabrina’s breath caught, and she stared at the face she knew so well. Unfortunately, in his effort to control himself so that he would not frighten or distress Sabrina further, Perce had assumed the blank mask he so often wore. His eyes were down, fixed on the hand he held between his own. He has disciplined himself, Sabrina thought. He believes himself committed and is making the offer he feels he owes me.

  “You don’t have to,” she whispered, fighting back tears. “It’s all right. Just because we… It doesn’t matter.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Brina.” Perce’s tone firmed. He was annoyed by what he believed was an attempt to pretend their relationship had been no more than a casual love affair. “I how you’ve had a bad experience with marriage, but if you’ve begun to think I took you for a dissatisfied wife who was ripe for playing games, you’re fooling yourself. I’m not a rake, and you know it. I’ve never looked at a married woman that way before in all my life—no matter how ready she was.”

  “No,” Sabrina said, “it’s not that I didn’t think you would…“

  Her voice drifted away uncertainly. The temptation to yield, to take what she wanted, was terribly strong, but her own words were echoing in her head. She didn’t think Perce would have love affairs… Or did she? He wouldn’t intend to, but if he married her for pity and for duty, and his heart was empty, wouldn’t his temptation be too strong?

  “Then why?” he was asking. “Why won’t you promise to marry me? I know we’d have to wait until your strict mourning was over, but I—I want your promise.”

  His voice faltered over the last words. What the devil was he to say if Sabrina asked whether he didn’t trust her? Sabrina heard the lack of sureness. If Perce takes a mistress, she thought, I’ll die. It would be beyond bearing to be proved worthless and unwanted again. Terror gave her the strength to protest once more.

  “I said it wasn’t necessary.”

  Her voice was breathless and pitched higher than usual. The hand Perce held began to tremble more noticeably. He misunderstood what she said, thinking she meant the promise to marry him rather than his offer, was not necessary. The horrid suspicion that she had another man in mind occurred to him. She had been in England for months with the idea of annulment in her head. Perhaps she had gone to Portugal hoping to free herself of another love, let him make love to her in the hope she was cured, found she wasn’t…

  “I don’t understand you,” he said harshly “I thought it was understood that we would marry as soon as you were free. If you won’t give your promise, at least I deserve the courtesy of being told why plainly and clearly.”

  Sabrina could bear no more. She tore her hand away from him and jumped to her feet. ”Why? Because I don’t want to be married for pity. I—”

  “What?” Perce was on his feet too, blazingly angry. “Repeat what you said! I don’t believe it!”

  Sabrina began to shrink back, but Perce caught her wrist.

  “Tell me again,” he insisted, but his voice had softened and he was drawing her closer. Rage was melting into amusement in his eyes.

  “I thought,” Sabrina quavered, “I thought you pitied me.”

  When Sabrina had first pulled away from him and given her angry answer, Perce’s own fears had made him mishear her to say she did not want to marry out of pity. Reasonably, Perce was violently offended. He knew he was no pattern card of beauty, but also that he had nothing to be ashamed of as a man. Many women would have been tearfully grateful for an offer from him. But even in a rage it was impossible to misread Sabrina’s expression. Before she had repeated her statement in an unmistakable form, Perce had understood what she meant.

  Perce didn’t know whether to kiss her, kill her, or better, kill himself for being such a fool. To him Sabrina was so beautiful, so perfect in every way, that it had not entered his mind she might not appreciate how great a prize she must be to any man. Yet as far as she knew, sweet innocent that she was, every man might react like that hem-chaser of a husband and grow tired of her as soon as he had her. He tipped her head up and kissed her.

  “You birdbrained nitwit,” he murmured when he broke the kiss. “You’ve given me six weeks of hell such as I never hope to live through again. Now, before you say anything else stupid, recite after me—I promise on my faith and honor that I will marry Percivale George Evelyn Moreton, Lord Kevern, at the very first opportunity decently available.”

  “But Perce—”

  “I warn you, Sabrina, that if your next words are not the promise I have asked for, I will upend you and smack your behind.” He tightened his grip and began to back toward the sofa.

  “I promise
,” Sabrina said hastily, knowing that Perce was quite capable of carrying out his threat.

  “Promise what?” he insisted, intent on leaving no loopholes.

  “I promise to marry Percivale George—”

  She got no further because he kissed her again, pulling her down on his lap on the sofa without breaking the embrace. When her arms came around him, Perce relaxed. Soon after, he lifted his head.

  “Brina,” he said seriously, “I had no right to call you a birdbrained nitwit, but I swear I don’t know what I did wrong. Tell me, my love, what did I say or do that made you think asking you to marry me was a duty rather than a desire? I love you to distraction. I always have. I just didn’t know that I wanted you for my wife. Be reasonable, Brina. I couldn’t let myself think that way. Not while you were a little girl. And in the end, you grew up too fast. I didn’t see soon enough that you were a woman.”

  She was holding his hands tightly, her eyes large. “It was William’s fault, wasn’t it?” she asked. “It isn’t anything wrong with me, is it?”

  Perce didn’t answer for a moment, but his color rose and Sabrina could see the muscles in his jaw jump as his teeth set hard. “I take it back, he said in a choked voice when he got his jaw loose. “I’m not glad that…I’m not glad Elvan’s dead. I wish he were alive again so I could take him apart slowly. Brina, you’re perfect! There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re beautiful, intelligent, and sweet-natured. If you weren’t sometimes hen-witted and other times stubborn as an ass, you’d be an angel, and God would never have let you out of heaven.”