Loving Sarah (18 page)

“Ren’s going to be furious! And Lia’s probably beside herself with worry.”

“Sarah assures me she left them a note telling them what she’s done.”

“How on earth did she come to be with you?”

Ian explained the story as she told it to him, and Lucky couldn’t help but laugh. Their laughter died down at the sight of a young lad running toward their pier.

“Anyone here from the
Revenge?
” A group of his crewmen verified, and Ian stepped forward.

“I’m her captain. What’s the message?”

“Do ya have a dollar coin?” The lad looked from Ian to Lucky and back. “Well do ya? I was told when I delivered the message that I’d get a whole dollar.”

Both men searched their pockets for an appropriate equivalent, and each handed one to the lad. “What’s the message?”

“Seamus said the lady finished her shopping and is safe in a room, but she’s takin’ a bath and it’s keeping him from making it back on time.”

“I’m going to put her over my knee and—” Ian muttered. Then he started with a panic. “Where in hell are they?”

The towheaded lad looked barely ten summers and was likely accustomed to hearing the foul language of the docks because he didn’t even flinch. “At the new Continental Arms, on Merchant Street,” he said as he inspected the coins to see if they were real. Presuming they were, he smiled at the two men and continued. “The fire last winter burnt the old one to the ground, but the new one is right nice I hear. And made o’ brick and stone too, so it can’t burn like the last one did.”

Before the boy was even finished talking, Lucky and Ian were searching for officers to leave in charge of the loading. Then Ian took the steps up to the dock and immediately hired a hack. He jumped in front of the driver’s perch. “The Continental Arms on Merchant Street,” he said just as Lucky jumped in.

“Faster if you can please,” Lucky added as he tapped his fingers on his knee.

“I told her not to leave the boat. That I would take her to you,” Ian said.

“She has never listened to reason when reason interfered with her wishes. Now she’s ruined any chance of ever having a decent marriage. And Ren will have to find someone willing to take her….”

“I’m going to marry her.”

“You don’t have to do that.” Lucky must have thought Ian was being helpful by sacrificing himself for the sake of the family reputation when, in fact, it was the opposite. He needed Sarah.

“No, I
want
to,” Ian said, trying to hide the fear rising in his gut about her safety.

“She does come with a sizable dowry and an inheritance. It will make getting funding for those new clippers a great deal easier….”

“I don’t want her money.”

“It’s your money if you marry her.”

“I don’t want her money,” he repeated. “And I don’t want to be known as a fortune-hunter. Any success we achieve will be because of our hard work and determination.”

“I’ll not argue with you.” Lucky was silent for a brief moment as the hack moved through the congested traffic on Merchant Street. “You’re certain she left a note?” he asked Ian again.

Ian nodded, praying she was truthful in this, because if he found out otherwise, he’d throttle her—for real this time.

“I don’t know why you want to marry her, Ian. She’ll vex you for the rest of your life, man. Do you know what you’re saying?”

“Of course, I do,” Ian said. “Sarah will fight this marriage tooth and nail. But the sooner we get it over with, the better for her. We can marry in England, though it might be wiser to do it now.”

His friend gave him a look that was both curious and disbelieving as he asked, “Why
wiser?
”

Ian just gave him a level-eyed stare—one his friend understood.

S
arah dried her wrinkled and water-logged skin with the towels the maid provided. She should never have fallen asleep in the tub, but the water was so warm and clean that she’d forgotten she wasn’t in London and relaxed perhaps a bit too much.

The maid knocked at the door, and Sarah called out for her to enter, and the petite brunette crossed the room and said, “Ma’am, there’s two gents in the parlor downstairs and they said you had better hurry.”

“Young men? What happened to Seamus?”

“If you’re meanin’ the old salt, they told him to get back to his boat.”

Sarah shook her head. “Well, it seems I am found out.” She turned around and asked the maid, “How are you at the duties of a lady’s maid?”

“I’m not a maid to the likes of soiled doves! I clean rooms thank you very much. That’s honest work, it is.” The girl got down on her hands and knees and began to wipe the spilled water on the floor as she continued her diatribe. “I’m trying to work my way
up
not down! The fires of hell await those who succumb to the pleasures of the flesh outside wedlock. And you with two men…you’re long past redemption!”

Sarah laughed. “Fine then, think what you will,” she said as she disappeared behind the screen and reappeared with her petticoat and drawers. “One of those two men downstairs is my brother, you ninny, and the other is his friend.” She looked at the maid, cleaning the room and readying it for the next customer. Just then it dawned on Sarah what type of establishment she’d rested in, and she giggled. “Oh, my! You think…that I’m….” She took in the decor earlier and thought it bold, but not particularly bawdy. “I understand now why you think as you do, but I assure you…you’re….” Sarah blushed. She couldn’t even think clearly. That the girl thought she was a light skirt was rather embarrassingly funny. “Well, you’re wrong in your judgment, but I don’t care at this point. We have to leave in a few hours for the second leg of the race. Now, there’s a coin in it for you if you help me with my demi-corset and dress. And if you can do something with my hair, I’ll double that coin.”

D
ifferent barmaids kept coming into the parlor trying to attract the attention of Ian and Lucky while they waited for Sarah to reappear. The room’s fringed decorations looked straight from a Parisian brothel, and why Seamus brought Sarah here, Ian would never know.

The crushed red velvet walls and lounges were all the latest fashion—if this were a bawdy house. Scarlet and black, trimmed with gold leaf on the carved crown molding and wainscoting, was unlike anything he’d ever seen before. Ian kept his eye on the door and saw a woman enter the room in a smart yellow dress and did a double-take. Even without her boy’s clothing he’d grown accustomed to seeing her wear, he instantly recognized Sarah.

Lucky rushed toward her and hugged her, then backed away and began giving her the scolding she deserved. Ian met Sarah’s gaze when she looked past Lucky to where he stood near the cold hearth.

“Do you know how angry Ren will be? How frightened Lia must be?” Lucky droned on and on about all the possible repercussions facing Sarah upon her return, and Lucky finally mentioned the only way out of the social shunning she should expect upon her return to London.

“You’ll have to marry quickly,” Lucky said, then he went on to add, “Ian has volunteered to marry you, and it’s ideal actually….”

“Never,” Sarah said.

“What?” her brother asked.

Ian stepped forward, finally finding his tongue as he watched her, a vision in yellow, tell her brother she would not marry him. He’d let her argue, play her hand if you will, for now. But he still held the trump card.

She tilted her stubborn chin up, determination in her expression as she looked at Lucky. “I will not marry, Ian. He does not love me, nor does he
want
to marry me. I’ll not let him sacrifice himself because I didn’t hire a boy who could read to bring me to the right boat.” She looked to Ian for support, but she’d get none from him. Either they married here or in England, especially when her brother found out she wasn’t with Lucky during the first leg of the race.

“Sarah, whether you want to or not is beyond the point now,” he said.

“Never,” she said, then started to cry. Lucky was a sucker for woman’s tears, and his sister surely knew this.

“Fine, we can discuss this later. Let’s get you back to the boat.”

“Can I return with you, Lucky? I don’t want to go back with Ian. I’ve interfered in his life enough.” Lucky looked over Sarah’s head with a questioning gaze. All he could do was shrug. Turning his back to them, Ian went to the lobby and asked for the lady’s trunk and a handsome cab to return them all to the docks.

C
HAPTER
N
INE

H
e didn’t love her. He didn’t want her. He’d
resigned
himself to a marriage with her.

Sarah had to remind herself of the fact for at least the one-hundredth time. She swiped her eyes angrily as she tied the trunk handles to the foot of Lucky’s bed to keep the thing from sliding about the room once they made the open sea.

The entire time she’d been selecting dresses that afternoon, she chose each one with Ian in mind. He’d said once that he thought she would look good in yellow, so she chose a yellow gingham with white rosettes on the puffed sleeves. Another time, he’d said sapphires and diamonds would look beautiful on her, so she chose a deep blue day dress with silver piping. And there were more yellow and blue dresses, and the silver pelisse with white satin trim.

Of course, Ian would never see her in them. He hadn’t asked her to remain with him. She would have, had he asked. She didn’t hold out hope for love. But if he just said he wanted her to stay with him she would have. She wiped her eyes again, the tears falling with greater frequency. She’d thought to swallow her pride and beg
him
to allow her to stay, but she just couldn’t. Her pride wouldn’t let her.

And she didn’t think Lucky suspected anything sexual between them, or he would have condemned her to marriage immediately. It was best that Lucky not learn of their affair. He might pressure Ian into something he was not prepared for. And she’d already resolved not to do that.

She thought about what she would do after she returned to London. Somehow falling back into her previous life, attending the social events she had in the past, seemed trivial. Meaningless, even. Thankfully, the season would be over by the time they got back, for her heart would not be up for round after round of musicals and balls, teas and dinner parties. Especially now with a majority of her friends all newly married or planning weddings, she was certainly the odd one among her set. What she wanted was solitude, and the only place she knew to get it was Haldenwood.

And if by some miracle she discovered she carried Ian’s babe, she might need to go to The Box for a while until she figured out what to do next. If she wasn’t with child, then she’d go home to Haldenwood and decide later what her future held. If she threw herself into her volunteer work, then maybe her heart wouldn’t hurt so much and she wouldn’t think of Ian every moment of the day.

She pulled the pins from her hair and with her new brush began untangling the frizzy mess. Ian had told her once he’d loved her hair. If he loved her hair, her eyes, and other various parts of her body, why couldn’t he love her? Was the person on the inside unlovable?

Damn the tears! Why wouldn’t they stop? She swiped at them again. She should hate him, but could not. For in truth, this was all her own fault. Hers and the author of that silly little book for men.

The hair snagged on a tangle, and Sarah pulled the knot apart with a viciousness her maid would scold her for.
“You make your hair look ratty when ye mistreat it like that.”
It looked ratty without Sarah’s help, so she didn’t think she made it any worse.

It seemed that for almost her entire life she never did anything right. She couldn’t be a lady a man wanted, nor a lover a man needed.

“
Gentleman’s Guide,”
she whispered in the silence of the cabin. “Ha! My big toe!” The only thing that book did was make her crave a sexual experience. “I certainly got that!”

With only the sounds of water lapping beneath the open port holes and the muted murmurs of the few men still above deck, Sarah thought about her actions. The last week and a half, she’d been nothing more than a temporary bed-warmer to him. She knew this each time she welcomed him into her body.

She didn’t expect Ian to say he loved her, but she also didn’t expect him to remind her that he was sacrificing himself because of her actions at least once each day. He’d told her he would marry her out of friendship to Lucky. He’d all but said as much after he accused her of trying to trap him in a marriage that first night.

She was such a fool for falling in love with a man who would never return her affection.

Yes, she had been curious and had offered herself to him initially, but she had recently tried to show him through her actions that she’d grown to care for him and the people and things he cared for. And he, obtuse man that he was, could not—or would not—see it. Not only that, he repeatedly told her that he was unprepared for a wife and family.

Ugh! She hated the man! She wished she could get the letter out of the drawer before he found it. In that letter, she’d poured her heart out to him. Those feelings no longer existed. The letter was no longer an accurate reflection of her sentiments. She no longer meant any of it.