After a few more rounds of drinks, the men wandered to the drawing room, where the women awaited them. Ross found himself inordinately eager to get to Sara. He hated being away from her and was a bit uncomfortable admitting that it had little to do with the threat against her—although that was part of it. He simply liked being in her presence. He mulled over his major problem: How was he to convince her that they were meant to be? How could he overcome her ingrained desire to take care of her father? He certainly didn’t want her abandoning her father, but she had to see that she couldn’t waste her life looking after a man who was entirely fit to look after himself.
If Ross were Lord Grandview, he would have had enough of his wife living in Bath and would have ordered her home. Before Meredith’s death, they had seemed to get along well; Lady Grandview seemed an amenable sort. Ross didn’t understand the reason why Lady Grandview had been away for so long, but he would not have put up with it. Perhaps Lord Grandview preferred it.
Just before the men entered the drawing room, Ross caught a glimpse of a green skirt turning a corner. He hung back, letting the other gentlemen enter, then turned on his heel and followed the green skirt. He found Sara down the hall, looking up at the portraits that lined the walls, her hands behind her back as she tilted her head one way and then the next.
For a moment he stood there and watched her. It was rare that he got the chance to watch her without her knowledge, and he found himself soaking her in. How had he thought her plain? How had he thought her quiet and unassuming? She was quiet, yes, but she was also extremely intelligent. She was plain only if one didn’t look past looks alone. If one were smart enough to look deep into her beautiful golden eyes, one would see a lively personality. Sara was one of those rare creatures who could see a person’s true value.
And that, among other things, would make her a perfect duchess.
She caught sight of him from down the hall and curtsied as he approached. He took her hand and helped her stand, loving the feel of her delicate fingers in his, even through gloves. He well remembered the feel of her bare skin on his. That thought wasn’t appropriate for the occasion, but he couldn’t find it in him to care.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She blushed and he lost his heart all over again. “I needed some time alone. It’s so exhausting.”
He quirked a brow. “What is exhausting?”
She waved toward the drawing room; he was still holding her other hand and had no intention of giving it back yet. “Women are exhausting. I find I can take them only in small doses.”
Ross chuckled. “You have voiced every man’s private thoughts.”
With a smile she turned to the wall of portraits, their hands still entwined. It seemed she wasn’t in a hurry to relinquish their hold, either. “I was perusing the earl’s history. There is quite an impressive line of them.”
“It’s an old and respected family.”
“I’ve decided he looks most like this one.” She pointed to a portrait with her free hand.
“Have I told you how beautiful you are tonight?” The thought slipped from his lips unbidden, but he wouldn’t have taken the words back even if he could.
Color rose to her cheeks, and she turned her head slightly away from him as if she didn’t know how to receive the compliment.
“That’s very kind of you,” she mumbled.
“I’m being truthful. You are beautiful.”
She moved down to the next portrait, tugging him with her. He was happy to follow. If looking at Blackbourne’s ancestors bought him some time alone with her, who was he to complain?
He stepped closer to her, too close for propriety, but there was no one to see. He could tell the moment Sara was aware of his presence. Her shoulders became tense and her breathing not as easy. Her fingers flexed in his.
“We should return to the drawing room before everyone realizes we are both missing,” she said.
“Yes.” But he didn’t want to. He liked that it was just the two of them. He liked being alone with her.
For a long moment they faced each other, neither willing to move toward the drawing room. Finally, Ross turned and, still holding her hand, walked back the way they had come, but each step took effort. He didn’t want to go back there with all those people. He didn’t want to have to let go of her hand. He didn’t want to relinquish her to the other guests.
Looking furtively around, he spied a closed door to their left and pulled her toward it.
“Ross, what are you doing?” she hissed. But he noticed that she didn’t pull back and didn’t resist.
He opened the door and peeked in to discover it was empty. Quickly, he pulled her in with him and closed the door.
They appeared to be in a little-used music room. A piano stood shrouded in the shadows and a lone music stand was in the middle of the room. A harp hovered a few feet away.
Sara’s lips twitched in a suppressed smile. “What are you about, Your Grace?”
“This.” His lips descended on hers, and he groaned because he was finally where he’d wanted to be all night. Hang the people in the drawing room. He wanted only to be with Sara.
She responded because she was Sara and she had hidden depths that he was beginning to uncover. Her kisses were like candy to him—sweet and oh, so addicting. He couldn’t have just one. He needed all of them.
He backed her against the wall and placed his hands on either side of her head because he feared he couldn’t control himself and his hands would roam. He was not too far gone to know that would be most inappropriate in her friend’s music room. But he wanted to touch her. Everywhere.
She placed her palms on his chest, and he knew she could feel his thundering heart. His need for her grew each day until he felt he would burst if he didn’t have her, but he would not defile her. She was too precious for that.
Sara was the one who pulled away first, her breathing ragged and sharp. She gulped in air, her lips wet from their kisses.
They couldn’t return to the drawing room like this. Everyone would know what they had been doing, and he would not do that to her reputation. It was bad enough that they were missing from the dinner party.
He backed up, leaving her leaning against the wall, her chest rising and falling in labored breaths.
“You undo me,” he whispered.
“As do you me.”
“We need to talk about this, Sara.”
She pushed away from the wall and shook out her skirts with trembling hands, avoiding his gaze.
“Sara…”
She cleared her throat and opened the door beside her. “We should return.”
A burst of laughter from down the hall punctuated her point. The Blackbournes’ townhouse, full of guests, was not the place to talk.
Sara slipped out of the music room and headed back to the drawing room. He gave her the time she needed. It wouldn’t do if they arrived together, although he knew that many of them would have noted their absence—specifically, his mother and Lady Blackbourne.
When his body was finally under control, when his heart had returned to a somewhat normal operation and his breathing had eased, Ross, too, stepped out of the music room, only to be confronted with Lord Newport.
Although Newport was just a few years younger than Ross, he still looked like a young man recently out of university. He had smooth skin that would probably never sport a full beard and a wild head of blond curls that a comb would not contain. His dull blue eyes were looking accusingly at Ross.
“Lord Newport,” Ross said, looking at Newport coolly.
“Rossmoyne.”
Ross didn’t miss the slight. He had never given Newport leave to address him so casually. His lips thinned. He nodded at the upstart and left him standing in the hallway as he entered the drawing room.
Chapter 27
“I want to help the homeless women and children,” Sara announced.
She and Ross and Elizabeth were eating breakfast. It was the day
after Grace’s dinner party. Sara had spent most of the night awake, alternately thinking of her new passion—helping the women and children—and reliving her other passion—Ross and the wildly inappropriate kisses they’d shared in Grace’s music room. She should be embarrassed that most of the people at the dinner party were well aware that she and Ross had been missing together. She tried to be, but thoughts of their kiss interrupted her embarrassment.
It wasn’t like she was planning on marrying. Not that she didn’t have a reputation to uphold, but really, if she didn’t marry, then couldn’t she at least kiss a man once in her life?
Very well, kissing him at her friend’s house in the middle of a dinner party was bad form. She would admit that.
Ross looked up from the newspaper he was reading. Elizabeth said absently, “That’s nice, dear.” Ross folded his paper, placed it beside his plate, and gave her his full attention. “How do you plan to help them?”
She loved that about him. That he always took what she said so seriously. That he was always willing to put aside whatever he was doing to listen to her.
“I have no idea,” she said truthfully. “It was an idea that came to me a few days ago, and I haven’t thought it through completely.”
By Ross’s slight smile, she knew he understood that the idea had come to her after their second visit to the rookery.
“There are various charitable organizations already in place,” Ross said. “Maybe you can volunteer with one of them.”
“I could,” she said.
“But that’s not what you had in mind,” he said.
“I’m certain those organizations do a tremendous amount of good, but you’re correct. I have something else in mind.”
“Like what?”
“Like a school.” She hadn’t meant to say that. It had popped into her mind and right out of her mouth. But now that she’d said it, she realized that she meant it, and she warmed to her idea.
“A school for what?”
“I’m unsure, but I am certain that if they had some sort of training that would give them a trade, then they would not have to live on the streets.”
Ross seemed to think about that. “I like it. It will take funds.” He said it hesitantly, but if there was one thing Sara had, it was funds.
“I can provide the funds.”
His eyes narrowed. Elizabeth had been flipping through the invitations they’d received that morning, not paying the conversation the least bit of attention.
“My dowry,” Sara said.
“Ah.” He didn’t seem pleased with that statement. “Don’t you think you should save your dowry for your future husband?”
“I have no intention of marrying.”
“Of course you do,” Elizabeth said, not even glancing up from the invitations.
Sara rolled her eyes at Ross’s mother. Ross pressed his lips together, but his eyes danced in the smile that he would not show.
“It will take quite a lot of work,” Ross said.
“I have quite a lot of time.” That thought was somewhat depressing. Once she left London, she would have all the time in the world. Without Ross. She looked at him sadly, unable to school her face into concealing her emotions. Ross was watching her, his expression sad as well.
“Sara…” He glanced at his mother and cleared his throat. “If you need help, I am at your service.”
“I appreciate that,” she said softly. It could be a way for them to keep in contact. But did she want to be constantly in touch with the one man she could never have? How torturous would that be? And yet to break all ties would be even more torturous.
She stood, causing Ross to scoot back his chair and stand as well. “I think I will go to my room and begin to make plans,” she said. Her thoughts were too heavy. The thought of leaving Ross—which she would have to do soon, because honestly, how much longer could she stay in his home and not cause people to talk?—hurt her heart too much.
—
“You should marry the girl,” Ross’s mother said as soon as Sara left the room and Ross sat down.
Ross almost dropped the teacup he had been sipping from. “Pardon me?”
Elizabeth pushed the letters to the side and looked at him. “You heard me.”
“I thought I was not good enough for her.”
“I never said that.”
“Excuse me, but you did.”
Elizabeth sighed. “Very well, maybe I thought that for a short time, but I was obviously wrong.”
Ross could only stare at this woman who looked like his mother and sounded like his mother but wasn’t acting like his mother.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she snapped.
“I can’t help it. I’m trying to determine what you did with my mother.”
“Very funny. You inherited that sharp humor from your father.” That was said with love, because Elizabeth Ferguson loved her husband with a passion that extended well past his death. She was a beautiful woman pursued by many a man after Matthew Ferguson’s death, but she had never once looked in their direction.
“Why should I marry her?” Not that he didn’t want to marry her; he wanted to hear what his mother had to say.
“Oh, come now, Gabriel. I’ve seen the way you look at each other. You’re obviously smitten.”
So people did still use that word.
“And I saw…” Her face turned an almost alarming shade of red. “Well. What happened in the study.”
“Mother. Please.” Now his face felt as if it were on fire.
“And last night everyone was aware that the two of you were missing for quite some time. Bad form, son.”
“Yes, well…” His face refused to cool down.
“Lord Newport was beside himself. I think he has set his sights on our Sara.”
Our Sara. That was how he thought of her as well.
“So I am now good enough for her?”
Her eyes softened and she placed her hand over his. “Oh, Gabriel. You always were. I just failed to see it because I still thought of you as that man who gallivanted all over town with his rowdy group of friends, raising all kinds of hell.”
“Mother.” He’d never heard her use the word “hell” before. It was a day of revelations.
“I should have seen you’ve changed.”
“I haven’t done any of that since Meredith died, and truth be told, I wasn’t all that happy with myself when I did. I felt like I was letting my father down.”
Tears filled her eyes and she blinked them away. “He would be very proud of you today.” She pulled her hand away and busied herself by making certain her invitations were stacked neatly. “So will you ask her to marry you?”
“I’ve been thinking about it.”
Her smile was wide. “What’s holding you back?”
“Sara. She doesn’t think she should leave her father.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “That odious man.”
Ross bit back a laugh.
“He is so selfish, keeping her in Hadley Falls like that.”
“Springs.”
Her brows furrowed. “Pardon?”
“It’s Hadley Springs.”
“It’s the middle of nowhere, and Sara does not need to wither away and die there.”
“It’s good enough for Lord and Lady Blackbourne.” Why in the hell was he playing devil’s advocate when he wholly agreed with her?
“But they have each other. Sara has no one but a crusty old man who doesn’t recognize anything but the stars in the sky.”
Well put.
She pushed her chair back and rose, waving him to his seat when he rose as well. “You simply must convince her that she is the next Duchess of Rossmoyne.”
“I’ll try,” he said to an empty room. But he wasn’t certain he would succeed.
Chapter 28
Ross found Sara all alone in the drawing room—which was a miracle in itself. Since Sara had arrived, the drawing room had been filled almost constantly with pe
ople calling, and when that happened he tried to avoid the room.
She was sitting at a small writing desk, a pile of papers next to her, a pen in hand. She was deep in thought, her lower lip caught between her teeth, her eyes focused on something in the distance.
“What are you so deep in thought about?” he asked as he closed the door behind him. At this point he wasn’t worried about propriety; he was just damned frustrated that in the two days since his talk with his mother, he’d not had a moment alone with Sara. There were things he wanted to discuss with her, and dammit, he was tired of waiting to get her alone.
“Ross!” She looked up at him with the widest smile. It warmed his heart more than he was able to put into words. She put down her pen and folded her hands on the table.
“I’ve missed you,” he said softly, stopping in front of her.
Something in her eyes flickered. Something he wasn’t able to read clearly. He felt like an untried youth with his first love—nervous and anxious and afraid he would do or say something wrong. He was far from an untried youth, and Sara was not the first woman he’d been alone with, but she was the only woman who mattered.
“What are you writing?” he asked, glancing down at the papers. It looked like lists. Lists and lists and more lists.
“I’m jotting down ideas for the school I want to open.”
“Ah. The school.”
Her eyes darkened in disappointment. “You don’t think this is a good idea,” she said flatly.
He touched her chin with the pad of his thumb. “Did I say that?”
“No, but—”
“I think it’s a marvelous idea. Very ambitious.” He pulled his hand away because it only made him want to touch her more.
“Yes. I’m beginning to realize that.” She glanced down at her papers. “But I’m convinced that I was meant to do this, and I have nothing but time on my hands.” She pressed her lips together. “There’s no news on the letter writer?”
“I’m afraid not. Our friend hasn’t returned to Mrs. Kettles, and no more letters have been sent.”
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