Debt of Honor (25 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Percy ruffled through the pages. They were filled with Sarah’s small, even handwriting.

Her secret diary.

The date at the top of the first page was “18 September 1795”. It meant nothing to him, but he soon discovered that it had meant a great deal to Sarah. It was the day Burdett kissed her for the first time. He was right, then. They had been lovers long before he entered their lives.

The ardent professions of Sarah’s feelings for Percy’s university acquaintance—and occasional reproaches when he failed to creep into her bed at night—were not what Percy wanted to read about.

But he wanted to know what she thought of him.

Had he ever made an appearance in Sarah’s thoughts, or had she shut him out completely? He turned the pages, almost impatiently, looking for a date that would have great meaning for him—Monday, 2 May 1796.

The day he had met Sarah for the first time.

And there it was, almost a quarter through the little volume.

My dearest, dearest love,
she wrote, addressing her thoughts, as always, to Burdett.
The hour is late, but you haven’t come. I am sick with worry and love and miss you so badly that I shall not sleep at all tonight. My bed is empty without you.

You are not here, so I will try to pass the time and console myself in my misery by writing. Your Cambridge friend cannot compare with you in any way, but he may be the best we are offered to take advantage of under the circumstances. It was very fortunate you brought him to Lady Bunbury’s this afternoon. I dare venture he liked me very much, so I shall do whatever I can to make him go down on bended knee as soon as possible. You may have to help me here with some little stratagem. Needless to say, no matter how much I abhor the idea of marrying someone other than you, it must be done with the greatest celerity for the sakes of us all. I miss you with all my heart, my dearest love.

By the time he finished reading, Percy’s hands shook so badly, he nearly dropped the journal to the floor.

For the past two years, he had firmly adhered to the belief that his own inability to give Sarah a child had been the cause of her attachment to Burdett. Five minutes ago, he discovered that Sarah and Burdett’s affair predated his marriage. And now Sarah had delivered one more blow. Even meeting her had not been accidental. It had all been a scheme from the start. Because somehow
he
was the best they could “take advantage of under the circumstances”.

They had certainly done that.

Percy thought of the girl he had seen that May afternoon eight years ago: bright, intelligent and—yes, he grimaced—seemingly so innocent, a beauty with dark eyes and black hair.

And an even blacker heart.

But what circumstances had she meant?

He turned the page.

My dearest life,
Sarah wrote two days later.
I forgive you, as you asked, for not coming last night again, though I wish you had shaken off those friends of yours who insisted on a card game and kept you away from me.

I am glad Sir P confided in you his admiration for me. Are you sure he is really so completely smitten? I dare hope all will be well, then. I pray you come to the park this afternoon, my love. I am engaged to drive with him, but I cannot bear your absence any longer.

And four days later, on that memorable Saturday afternoon when he had asked her to marry him and she had told him he had made her the happiest woman in all of England:

Your stratagem, my dearest love, worked so well that Sir P not only addressed himself to me but also to my father. Tomorrow is Sunday, and the first bans will be read. Another three weeks before we are safe! Papa was quite taken with Sir P’s ardent feelings. Mama cried with joy and instantly rushed into preparations. Sir P left town today and returned to Norfolk for a week. Thus I am free to be with you again. I need you, my love, more than ever, before that dreaded day I will have married and left you for God knows how long.

Your friend Lady Marsden is such a dear. I rejoice in this new friendship. What a lucky coincidence that her father’s estates border directly those of my future husband. She assured me yesterday that she would undertake with pleasure the task of passing our correspondence. We shall be able to continue communicating despite the distance between us and without raising any suspicion whatsoever. This makes the sacrifice of marrying Sir P easier. I shall feel somewhat consoled in the misery of losing your company for an indefinite time once I am in Norfolk. You have all the love my heart is capable of, my dearest and only love.

Ah, damn you, Sarah, damn you.

And you too, Ethel.

For all those years, he had been like a blind man. He had no idea of the web of deceit surrounding him. He had walked into the trap like a puppet, with Burdett, Sarah and Ethel pulling the strings.

Percy impatiently skimmed over a number of pages. He’d had quite enough of Sarah’s unending professions of love for Burdett. But he still needed to know what circumstances had made her throw herself into his arms with all the joyous anticipation of a martyr approaching a torture rack.

He skimmed over a few pages full of more declarations of her feelings and reproaches for Burdett’s gambling proclivities that had kept him away at night. Then he found notes dated two days after their wedding.

Bromsholme, Sunday, 5 June 1796

My dearest and only love, how terribly I miss you already! To think that it will be months, if not years, before I can see you breaks my heart. If not the certainty of your love for me and the assurance of a safe future for our child I would…

The words on the paper suddenly blurred, except
that
one. Percy blinked and reread the sentence carefully.

The assurance of a safe future for our child.

He had never fainted in his life, but it was a good thing he was sitting now. Limp with shock and disoriented by dark blotches swirling around him, he heard Sarah’s laughter pounding relentlessly in his head.

Sarah had been with Burdett’s child when Percy married her.

But then another thought struck him even harder.

Sarah never had a baby. She was never pregnant.

And so, there were two possibilities… No, only one. He would have known. She couldn’t have hidden a pregnancy from him. So that meant that…

Feverishly, his hands shaking, he returned to the notebook.

…
I would have expired from longing after you already! You must be very careful once you are out of the country. You must come as soon as you can to see us after the child is born. His future is now my biggest concern. For the sakes of both of you, I have been an obedient bride these two nights and followed your advice on the wedding night, as you may guess, very successfully. He does not suspect a thing. I do not need to tell you what a misery it was to lie with him instead of you. I must suffer him every night now, even though my heart breaks when I think of you and the sweetest time we spent together. Write to me, my love, as much as you can. Your letters shall be the very air I breathe.

What a fool he had been!

Percy almost tore at the pages now, looking for the dates coinciding with his departure for London after only two weeks of married paradise, or so he had foolishly thought at the time. He finally reached the first such entry.

Bromsholme, Saturday, 18 June 1796

My latest letter, my dearest love, will reach Lady M’s hands through my husband’s good services. He was obliged to leave for town for a fortnight—to his great chagrin and my unbounded joy. I am ill each morning now and have trouble hiding it from everyone for at least a little longer, until it can be creditably attributed to him. How much I miss you! How much I wish you were…

Percy turned the page once the usual litany of her feelings followed. The next entry was dated four days later.

My dearest, dearest love. I would have given my life to have you now at my side, for what has happened is a tragedy and suffering beyond my endurance. I have cried so much since yesterday that I can scarcely see the paper on which I am writing this.

Something very horrible happened yesterday. I slipped on the wet grass and fell hard on the ground. In the evening, I began bleeding profusely. My maid is certain I lost the child. She says she has seen this happen before. I don’t want to believe her! If that is really true, my only consolation is that no one seems to suspect anything. My tears, I’m told, have been understood downstairs as a disappointment at having my courses.

Write to me, my love, and tell me you still love me, even though I no longer carry a part of you under my bosom. I am so lonely without you and I miss you more than I can tell you in any way. Write to me. Your letters are the only things that keep me alive.

Percy lifted his head and looked at the hall with unseeing eyes. Raw pain and fury churned inside his chest, obliterating everything else. The woman he had once loved more than life itself had used him more cruelly than he would have thought possible.

Impatient, he tore at the pages, looking for anything that might answer the last question. Was Lettie correct, accusing Sarah of more lies?

Finally, he found what he was looking for. Two days before his return from London, Sarah visited the apothecary whose wife was a midwife.

My dearest heart,
Sarah confided in her journal
. My maid was correct. Oh, my love, I lost the child! The local midwife and her husband, the apothecary, whom I went to see today, not only confirmed the miscarriage, but are of the opinion I shall never be able to conceive again. They ascribed this impossibility to a defect within my body and expressed their surprise I conceived at all. It does not matter to me now, of course, after I lost
your
child. I am the unhappiest woman in the world, married to a man I do not love, or even…

Percy dropped the notebook to the floor. He did not want to read another word written by Sarah to the man who had not even had the courage to fight for her.

For so long he had felt empty inside, a stranger to emotions and feelings. He had given up personal happiness and berated himself for being less than a real man, before forcing himself to come to terms with his defective masculinity.

But all this was a cruel deceit.

With still-shaking hands, Percy reached for the sachet. Just as he supposed, it contained several letters. It was not difficult to guess that these were the corresponding professions of love from Burdett to Sarah. Given their scarcity, Burdett had found life in India more interesting than the welfare of his dejected lover in Norfolk. There were fewer and fewer of them as time passed, until May 1802, a month or so before Burdett’s arrival at Pythe Park.

My dearest darling love,
Burdett wrote in bold letters,
after a month in town my affairs have been settled enough to let me come for a prolonged visit to B. Lady M. has been ingenious indeed in making such superb arrangements for us. Who would have thought that I shall be staying under the same roof with you at last? We shall be extremely careful, of course, but I count days, nay, hours and minutes, until I can hold you in my arms again, until we can be joined in our love again. For six years I have lived for that moment!

My love for you knows no bounds, my darling life. A.B.

PS. Although I hate to apply to you with such a request, I am at the moment (a passing one) reduced to inquire if you can lend me three hundred pounds. I have had a few unexpectedly large debts of honor this past week that had to be discharged, and am presently waiting for the money from my banker, but that may be a while. Your adoring A.

Percy shot up from the chair and began pacing the hallway. Bastard! He would kill him if he could—oh, he would. The pain he thought had been forgotten surged through him with such force that he could barely stand on his feet. His entire body trembled. He compulsively crumpled the letters still in his hand into a large ball and sent them to join the notebook and the locket.

When he closed his eyes, he saw Sarah’s face after he asked her to marry him. How well she had pretended her sentiment for him. Or, how blind he had chosen to be! How much he had allowed himself to be deceived into believing that she reciprocated his feelings with a force equal to his own. What a prize ass he had made of himself, even though he had to admit that they were very clever about duping him so completely. Yet one’s own stupidity could deliver the hardest blow to one’s self-esteem.

He had loved Sarah with all his heart, with all the youthful energy of life. He was not the one who ought to be ashamed. It was Sarah’s and Burdett’s dishonesty, aided by Ethel’s willing complicity, that was wrong. Sarah’s hatred for him and bitterness were still beyond his understanding. He had not been the source of her problems. It was Burdett who had chosen not to give her the protection of his name when she became pregnant. Their child would also have been the victim of their manipulations.

Both Sarah and Burdett might congratulate themselves, if they could, on the success of their deception. Sarah’s last prayer had been amply answered—he had lived in hell for two years, and, now, after a glimpse of happiness this summer, he was falling headfirst into an abyss of painful loneliness.

Unless he stopped the fall. There was still a chance.

It would be only too convenient to blame his present misery on his first wife and her lover. Why, in his self-centered and obtuse preoccupation with the past, hadn’t he seen that Lettie was right?

Percy stooped to pick up the discarded pieces and crammed them haphazardly back into the tole box, forcing the lid in place, then turned into the corridor leading to the library. Watching the evidence of Sarah’s duplicity turn to ashes would be the best way to close the door on his past and leave behind all its burdens and sorrows that had been poisoning his life and his soul for the past two years. And that might, in the end, cost him the woman from whom he had not expected anything, but who had given him everything. And to whom he wanted to give everything in return.