Cherished

by Elizabeth Thornton

  Having briefly known the girl’s mother, Zoë understood why this should be so. Emily had her fair share of her mother’s reserve. But it went deeper than that. Though Emily was a year older than her sister, it seemed to Zoë that the elder girl had lived very much in Sara’s shadow. It was to be expected, she supposed, for where Sara was forward, Emily hung back. Sara’s ways were impetuous and winsome, had always been winsome, ever since she, Zoë, had come into the family. Sara was used to being the center of attention. It was in her nature to wear her heart on her sleeve, and people responded to her open, affectionate manners. Emily’s reserve begot an equal reserve from those who did not know her well. Very few took the trouble to penetrate the composed facade to discover the sensitive dreamer beneath the surface.

  It would have been so much simpler, Zoë was thinking, if it had been Sara and not Emily who had been found in the tower room with Leon.

  “No, don’t run away,” she said, as Emily made a small movement toward the door. “I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to speak to you in private.” She smiled encouragingly as Emily obediently sank back on the piano stool. Zoë seated herself on a straight-back chair which she had maneuvered into position. “With everyone out of the house, I shall never have a better chance,” she said.

  Without preamble, she went on. “I want you to understand, Emily, that if I were a foot taller and three stone heavier, it would give me great pleasure to, quite literally, hammer some sense into the heads of those two incorrigible gentlemen who happen to be our respective husbands.”

  Her words won a little laugh out of Emily, as she had hoped they would. “That’s better,” said Zoë. “No man is worth more than a tear or two, you know.”

  “Not even Uncle Rolfe?” quizzed Emily.

  “Not even Uncle Rolfe, though, of course, I’ve wept whole oceans in my time over that particular gentleman.”

  Emily’s expression was frankly skeptical.

  “I assure you,” said Zoë, “all marriages are not made in heaven. There was a time when I believed mine had been conceived in hell.” Zoë could not help chuckling at Emily’s shocked look.

  “But…but you and Uncle Rolfe love each other,” disclaimed Emily. “Your marriage is sublimely happy.”

  Zoë chose her words with care, knowing that what she said in the next few minutes could go a long way to helping her niece accept her future role as Leon’s wife. “Yes, well, it wasn’t easy, but I finally made your uncle fall in love with me, and that was a long time after we were wed. You see, I had made up my mind that my parents’ marriage was going to be the model for my own marriage. They loved each other. They were happy together. I wasn’t going to settle for anything less. My sister Claire and I were of the same opinion. Sisters confide in each other, as you well know. With brothers, it’s different. Female talk embarrasses them. Even so, it would surprise me if Leon were not of the same mind. Our home was a happy one. I am sure he will want the same for himself. Couldn’t you try to put your differences behind you and give Leon a chance?”

  Emily had never been closer to breaking down and making a complete fool of herself in her whole life. She felt as though her heart were breaking. Unshed tears clogged her throat. The picture that Zoë’s words evoked was bittersweet indeed. Emily wanted all those things for herself, but not with a husband who loved another woman. She knew without a doubt that such a marriage would eventually destroy her spirit, if not her very soul. Her aunt was the last person in whom she could confide. Emily could not bring herself to discuss Leon with anyone, least of all with a sister who loved him.

  Zoë looked into those huge vulnerable eyes and prayed that her words were having some effect. Patting Emily affectionately on the shoulder, sighing, she made to leave the room.

  Emily’s tremulous voice halted her as she opened the door. “Aunt Zoë, how did you make Uncle Rolfe fall in love with you?”

  Zoë’s dark eyes danced wickedly, partly because the question betrayed Emily’s turn of mind and gave her hope for the girl’s future, and partly because the recollection of ancient history concerning Rolfe tickled her sense of humor. “I divorced him,” she stated baldly.

  “I’m sorry,” said Emily. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

  Zoë bit down on her lip. Neither Rolfe nor Leon, she knew, would thank her for putting ideas into the girl’s head. On the other hand, neither Rolfe nor Leon deserved to have an easy time of it. It would be a very long time before she would forget what they had both put her through, not to mention what Emily had been made to suffer. As though a forced abduction with an unwilling female could ever be considered romantic! She did not know where men got such fanciful notions, and so she had stormed at them. In the last little while, both gentlemen had tactfully if not strategically absented themselves from the house on the vaguest pretexts. Men, she had long ago decided, were cowards every one of them when it came to facing the music, at least on the domestic front. Her one consolation was Rolfe’s assurances that Leon would never harm a hair on Emily’s head. She believed him. Emily seemed to have suffered no ill effects from her abduction. There was no denying, however, that the girl was cast down, and Zoë was just beginning to recognize the symptoms.

  The light in Zoë’s eyes matched the mischievous smile on her lips. Very slowly and carefully, she enunciated. “I divorced your Uncle Rolfe under French law. That is how I made him fall in love with me. You should ask him about it some time,” and she left the astonished girl gaping.

  Once on the other side of the music room door, Zoë’s expression gradually sobered. She was thinking of Sara and the girl’s infatuation for Leon. Shaking her head, ascending the stairs, she resolved to have a lengthy and serious discussion with her husband about his younger ward before something dreadful happened.

  Sara was beside herself. She knew that she was responding mechanically to her escort’s spate of small talk. She tried to concentrate on what Peter Benson was saying, but her thoughts kept drifting. Even her favorite mount, Hoyden, could not distract her.

  Leon. Loving him was as natural to her as breathing. She could not simply stop loving him because another woman had a claim on him, not even if that woman were her sister. Though it had sunk in upon her mind that his marriage to Emily was now a real one, she would not, could not accept that Leon preferred Emily to her. Leon and Emily were like oil and water. They had taken a dislike to each other almost from their first encounter, when they were children. Sara had not exaggerated when she had reminded Leon that Emily was always the odd one out. This was not an unkindness on anyone’s part. It was simply that Sara had been drawn to Leon like a needle to a magnet, while his effect on Emily had been exactly the opposite.

  For years, Sara had lived on hope. That hope had quickened when, as a young girl of fifteen, she had overheard Leon in conversation with Lady Riddley. He was waiting for Rivard’s niece to grow up before he claimed her, Leon had confided. Leon could never convince her now that it was Emily to whom he had referred. In those days, he avoided Emily as though she were a leper. No. It was she, Sara, whom Leon meant to claim. And her heart had been ready to burst with joy. Leon loved her.

  It was then that some capricious, malevolent spirit had turned her happy world on its head. It was on Emily’s sixteenth birthday that she learned the sad truth that although a man might profess love for one woman, that did not prevent him from taking another to his bed. Leon and Judith Riddley had made an assignation to meet in the dower house later that night. Sara was not the innocent Emily was. She knew perfectly well what that signified, and she thought her heart would break. And then it did break, hours later when she rushed out of her chamber to investigate the report of the pistol shot. And over her anguished protests, over Emily’s distraught pleading, their guardian had insisted that Leon and Emily marry at once.

  After that night, Sara had not wanted to go on living. Thankfully, those days were shrouded in a mist. All she knew was that she had gone into something of a decline, and nothing that Aunt Zo�
� or Uncle Rolfe could say or do had the power to bring her out of it.

  It was Emily who had thrown her a lifeline. Though her sister had promised Leon that she would tell no one about it, she had inadvertently let slip that the marriage was a sham, that it would never be a real one, that it would be annulled when Emily met someone she could love. And everything had become clear to Sara. Leon was a man of honor. He could not, in all conscience, allow Emily to face social ostracism. For the present, he must marry her. Later, at a more propitious moment, the marriage would be dissolved and he would be free to claim the sister he truly loved.

  But the marriage was a real one. That unpalatable truth had been written indelibly on Emily’s guilt-stricken face. Sara was finally convinced that there was no hope for her, and knowing it, she was in desperate straits. She did not care for decorum, or consequences, or the world’s good opinion, and she most particularly did not care for the two people who had conspired to wreck her happiness. Leon Devereux and her sister could go to the devil for all she cared. They deserved to be taught a lesson.

  Without thinking, she dug in her spurs and sent her mount thundering across the turf. She heard Peter Benson’s shout of alarm, but could not have cared less for her own safety. If she was thrown and broke her neck, she thought wildly, it was all the same to her. Then Leon and Emily could never be happy, knowing that they had caused her death.

  The tears misting her eyes clouded her vision. She did not see the long arm that reached for Hoyden’s reins, but the sudden cessation of movement almost unseated her.

  And then she was hauled out of the saddle and across the broad back of Peter Benson’s bay.

  “What do you think you are playing at?” he demanded roughly, almost as distraught as she. He crushed her to him, and Sara collapsed against his broad chest.

  “Peter,” she said brokenly. “Peter, I am so unhappy.” She knew she was giving him a false impression. He had told her only that morning that his elder brother, the earl, had paid off his debts on the clear understanding that he had to accept a commission in His Majesty’s service. Peter’s affairs were too desperate to decline the offer. It only wanted to see where he would be posted.

  “Sara, Sara,” he murmured, his lips brushing over her tear-stained face. “Can it be true? Do you really love me?”

  She was in the grip of a strange despair that made her reckless. “I shall die if you leave me here,” she declared. “You know that they will never allow us to marry. Peter, if you feel anything for me, if you care for me, marry me now, before it is too late for us.”

  Chapter Eight

  Instructing his groom to see to the horses, Leon jumped down and helped Sara alight from the curricle. It was early afternoon, long before Hyde Park would fill up with the elegant equipages of the aristocracy. There were few riders, and those pedestrians who were about were of the lower orders—soldiers in uniform squiring girls on their arms, apprentices on errands using the park as a shortcut. By five o’clock, as though by tacit consent, only those of rank and fashion would show their faces.

  “Let’s walk a ways,” he said, directing Sara to the grass verge.

  Sara’s heart was hammering against her sides. Her breathing was quick and audible, and hope was shining in her eyes. “Leon,” she said, “you do love me. I know you do.”

  He might have been deaf for all the notice he paid to her words. “I wish to speak to you about Emily,” he said.

  Her eyes sought his. The old teasing, affectionate manner was completely absent. In its place was a well-bred mask, not unkind, but at the same time, distancing. His words, his concern, were all for Emily. Emily must not be hurt by Sara’s coldness, he told her. It was wrong to blame Emily for what had happened. He blamed himself. He should have nipped Sara’s childhood infatuation in the bud. His only excuse was that he could not have foreseen how tenacious she would be in her loyalties.

  He smiled when he said this, and went on. “I was not the only gentleman who caught your fancy. When you were barely out of the schoolroom, grown men were vying for your favors, and you encouraged them. I was sure you would have been wed long before this.”

  This was not what she expected to hear. This was not why she had agreed to come out driving with him in her uncle’s borrowed curricle. She clutched convulsively at his sleeve. “Only tell me that you love me,” she said, “and I can bear anything. Yes, even the thought of your marriage to Emily.”

  She looked into his dark eyes and saw only pity, and then a twinkle kindled in those dark eyes, and he said humorously, “This has all the makings of a Greek comedy, or tragedy. The irony is consummate. So much unrequited love—and I am speaking for myself as much as anyone. How the gods must be laughing!”

  That he could laugh in the face of her suffering scraped a raw sore. Rage blotted out every other feeling. Heedless words rose up and spilled over. “Emily does love William Addison,” she said. “She will never love you. She has always hated you. She always will. In her eyes, you will always be a foreigner.”

  Suddenly, it was as though she were a child again, and all the old resentments rose up in her, petty resentments, childish grievances that she would not have believed had still the power to hurt her. Because Emily was the elder, she was the favored one. Everything came to Emily first.

  Her mind leaped with a confusion of memories. When they were children, Emily was allowed to stay up later. She was first to go away to school, first to have a grownup party with a grown-up ballgown. Not that Emily cared. But Sara cared. It was so unfair.

  Greater than her sense of injustice was her sense of betrayal. Emily was her sister. For a time, they had been inseparable, but with the arrival of Aunt Zoë’s babies, everything had changed. Sara was no longer first with Emily. Emily doted on her little cousins, and the boys looked up to her. Emily was the one they preferred.

  But Leon preferred her, Sara. She wasn’t the elder, like Emily. She wasn’t clever like Emily. But she must have something that Emily did not, else she would not have captured Leon. Leon was hers. And Leon had made no bones about the fact that he found Emily wanting.

  “You can’t just suddenly change like that,” she said, snapping her gloved fingers. “You were forever trying to take Emily down a peg or two. You once called her a stuck-up scarecrow, don’t you remember? And you were right. She doesn’t have feelings like the rest of us mortals. She…”

  “I once said a lot of things I did not mean. Sara, I was only a boy. Can’t you see how it was? It was always Emily.”

  Her humiliation could not have been more complete. It wasn’t only that Leon had suddenly become smitten with Emily. It had always been Emily. He really meant it. She could see it in his half-pitying, half-satirical expression. And all the golden moments of her childhood, moments in which Leon had figured prominently, turned to ashes in her mouth. She would never be able to recall a single incident of their shared intimacies without reflecting that, even then, it was Emily whom Leon had wanted.

  Burning shame fueled her hurt pride. She willed away the hot sting of tears and listened in smiling, frozen silence as he articulated words of nonsense about some mythical man whom she would one day meet and love.

  Leon was helping her into the curricle when the accident occurred. There was the sound of an explosion, like a firecracker going off. The horses reared in their traces. In the same instant as they bolted, Leon threw himself into the curricle. It was all over in a matter of minutes, but those minutes were the most terrifying of Sara’s life. She was sure the vehicle would overturn and they would break their necks. Only Leon’s quick thinking and powerful, steadying hands on the reins prevented a catastrophe.

  When he pulled his team to a plunging, shuddering halt, she could no longer keep a tight leash on her emotions. She was only too glad to have a pretext for the flood of tears and the trembling which engulfed her from head to toe.

  “Please,” she said brokenly. “Please take me home.”

  In shivering misery, she crouched in
one corner of the coach as Leon jumped down and went to inspect the horses. She heard the low murmur of voices as first the groom came running up and then a group of noisy spectators. She heard their excited chatter, but it made no impression on her. Her heart was broken. Her pride was crushed. Her life was over. She did not care what happened to her. That she had cared very much a few moments before when it seemed that she might break her neck if the curricle overturned was an irony that escaped her. She was desolate and might as well be dead.

  “It was no accident,” reiterated Leon. “It was a deliberate attempt on my life.”

  Some hours had passed since he had returned with a distraught Sara and had seen her safely into the care of Zoë and Emily. He had debated with himself whether or not he should track down his brother-in-law in the government offices in Whitehall or wait for his return with as much patience as he could muster. Not wishing to alarm the ladies, he had decided on the latter course.

  Rolfe was at his desk, idly playing with a pencil. “Tell me again how it happened,” he said.

  Leon folded his arms across his chest and edged one hip on the flat of Rolfe’s desk. “By all accounts, the shot came from a rider, a man whom no one can describe with any accuracy, but who everyone agrees took off at the speed of lightning toward Piccadilly when your chestnuts bolted.”

  “Was he young or old? How was he dressed? What about his mount? Someone must have seen something.”

  “Oh, yes, there are a dozen witnesses, each one of them willing to swear under oath to a different description. I fear that will prove a fruitless line of investigation.”

  “What makes you think it was a deliberate attempt at murder?”

  “You saw where the ball entered the coach.”

  “It might have been a prank, or someone who took exception to the crest on my curricle. These are desperate times. The streets are teeming with lunatics. Why, only last month, some ruffians got into my stables and very cleverly partially sawed through the girths on Sara’s saddle. There might have been a fatal accident. As it was, poor Emily took a tumble. Thankfully, she is an accomplished rider. My nieces know how to take a fall.”