Rexanne Becnel (17 page)

S
TUNNED
by his ultimatum, Sarah just sat there—like an idiot, she feared.

At a table behind her two men chortled at someone’s jest. A heavy tankard thunked down on one of the other plank tables, and the low entry door slammed behind a customer just leaving. She heard the myriad comings and goings around her, yet she remained oblivious to them all.

Marshall MacDougal had uttered the unthinkable. He had just confronted her with the most unbelievable proposition.

A hysterical giggle threatened to rise from her chest and burst forth.
Proposition
. What an appropriate word. Was it a business arrangement or a lewd suggestion? Both, it seemed. He’d just made her a lewd business proposition, much as he might to any other woman foolish enough to sit unchaperoned with him in a public house.

But Sarah did not laugh, for there was no humor in the awful circumstances in which she now found herself mired. She stared at him, as horrified by his suggestion as she was by her shameful physical reaction to it. Something very near to that incredible melting sensation had begun to form in her belly and she forced it back by only the most stringent effort.

“I refuse to dignify such a crass suggestion with an answer,” she muttered, practically choking on the words.

“I see. I suppose, then, that I must take that for a no.” He paused one long, tense moment. “Are you certain about this, Sarah?”

“Quite certain!” She rose to stand upon legs that trembled. How could he be so crude—and so calm? She took a shaky breath. “I will have my solicitor draw up the papers.”

“For what?”

“For the draft of money. What else?”

“But we have no deal.”

“We have a deal,” she countered. “All except for that last…that last part.”

He shook his head slowly, deliberately, then sprawled back in his chair with a maddening air of ease. Sarah felt a dreadful foreboding. “Then we have no deal.”

She stared at him, unable to make any response. Her legs threatened to give out, so she sat back down with a thump. “You cannot be serious.”

One of his dark brows hitched up in the taunting manner she had become far too familiar with. “I am entirely serious, Sarah. You are asking me to abandon the truth of my parentage, and while your monetary offer is tempting, money could never recompense me for the loss of my personal history.”

“Your personal history!” she exclaimed, finally finding her voice. “You came to Scotland to find your father and punish him. Don’t pretend otherwise. Personal history? Hah! You ought to be glad for the wealth you will leave here with.”

“I don’t need your money!”

She sat back, stunned by the sudden fury in his voice.

“This has never been about money,” he went on, in a low but passionate tone. “But you can’t understand that, can you? You’re nothing but a self-indulgent child inside a woman’s body. You talk about loyalty, but you don’t begin to know what it means. Loyalty or sacrifice. All you know is wealth and status. Position in society. That’s all any of you mercenary, class-obsessed British care about. My mother understood, though. She was loyal to her husband all her life, and she sacrificed everything for me. But she still wasn’t good enough for my father. Oh, no. He didn’t mind fucking her, but he wasn’t about to bring her home to meet his family, let alone become a part of it.

“Well, this is no different. I don’t want to meet your family, Miss high-and-mighty Sarah Palmer. I just want to fuck you.”

Sarah was too taken aback by his coarse revelation to react. In the terrible silence, he stood and threw a coin down on the table for the bottle. “That’s the deal. Take it or leave it. I’ll give you one week to make up your mind.” Then he made her a curt bow, put his hat on, and said, “See you in Kelso.”

Marsh was shaking when he stalked out of the half-timbered public house. His hands had knotted into fists, and had anyone looked crosswise at him, he would have knocked the bastard down. But the cobbled road was clear, save for a pair of clerks conversing on the opposite side, and a rag picker pushing his cart.

He slapped his gloves viciously against his thigh. Damn her!

He wanted to howl his rage and frustration at a cold dark moon. Instead he had to cross this street with the occasional puddle glinting bright sunshine back at him, and behave as if nothing were wrong.

But nothing is
, a small, rational voice pointed out.
You’ve won. No matter what decision she makes, you’ve won
.

So why didn’t he feel like he’d won?

Why did he feel like a piece of garbage not even good enough for her to step over?

Because that was how she’d reacted to him, as if he weren’t good enough for the likes of her.

But he
was
good enough. Good enough. Smart enough. Clever enough to have bested her. He’d won, and she knew it.

Then why that parting jab, that nasty demand that she forsake her virginity to you?

When he realized he was passing the nondescript inn he’d taken a room at, he changed direction. Disgusted, elated. Depressed, jubilant. So many conflicting emotions beset him, he felt ready to explode. On impulse he fetched his saddle horse from the stable, left word for Duffy that they were returning to Kelso, then started out of town at an abrupt gallop. He had to do something strenuous or burst with frustration.

But even a headlong race into the open countryside couldn’t erase the accusations that circled in his head. Why that parting jab? Why torment her that way?

He’d reached Lockerbie before he could face the ugly truth. He’d put that coarse caveat on their agreement because he wanted her. And he knew he couldn’t get her any other way.

Sarah reached Byrde Manor after two very hard and long days on the road, She’d slept little and eaten less, and when she alighted well after dark, Mrs. Hamilton fussed around her like a hen with a sickly chick. But Sarah had rebuffed all the worried woman’s ministrations and made straight for her bed.

That Mrs. Hamilton turned immediately to grill poor Mary on what had happened didn’t concern Sarah. The maid knew nothing. And as far as Sarah was concerned, neither Mary nor anyone else would ever learn the truth. Not even Mrs. Hamilton. Because if Mrs. Hamilton learned the truth about Mr. MacDougal being Cameron Byrde’s true heir, then she would want to know why the man hadn’t revealed that fact to everyone. Sarah would then be forced to explain about her offer to buy him off.

It would eventually come out anyway, for James was bound to find out about the financial transactions. But she didn’t want anyone to learn anything until Marshall MacDougal was long departed for America. If Mrs. Hamilton learned the truth now, she might even go so far as to approach Mr. MacDougal. And if she did that, he might reveal his counteroffer.

The very thought of that outrageous counteroffer made her stomach knot. If anyone ever learned what he was demanding of her, then they would swiftly determine also what her answer was. What it
must
be. For Sarah had come to the awful conclusion that there was only one answer she
could
make. She would not let him ruin her mother and sister. Therefore she must let him ruin her.

From the knot in her stomach an uncontrollable trembling radiated out through her arms and legs, all the way to her fingertips and toes. In desperation she pressed her leather-shod feet against the floor, clenched her hands into fists, and made herself focus on the practical aspects of her predicament. Namely: Was a woman ruined if no one ever learned of it?

She lay on her bed still fully clothed and stared up at the ceiling. No one expected a man to be a virgin when he wed. No one considered him ruined. Indeed, there was an unspoken understanding that he ought to be experienced enough to teach his new bride the intimate secrets of the marriage bed.

But that was neither here nor there. The question was, on her wedding night, would her eventual husband be able to tell that she’d once been touched by some other man?

She groaned and sat up, then began to unlace her half boots. She’d already been touched by a man in ways no one but a husband should touch her. Would taking that final leap be so very much worse?

He said it would be even better
.

To even consider that possibility sent a wonderful, terrible thrill shuddering through her. She concentrated instead on his hard expression and cruel words as he’d left her in that public house in Dumfries.

I just want to fuck you
.

What a horrible man! What a hateful, coarse…hateful American. He was no better than Penley, who’d tried to extort money from his married lover. Of course, Mr. MacDougal did not want money from her. She’d already offered him that. It was her innocence he wanted, the crude act of copulation without any emotion attached to it.

And yet
her
emotions were involved!

Sarah wanted to cry with frustration. Yet tears would not come. So she lay back again, listening to her own breaths in the silent night and wishing her mother was there, or her sister. Even her brother’s presence would be a great comfort to her.

But they were not here, and she knew that was for the best. She alone had to fight this battle with Marshall MacDougal, for to tell her family was to chance everything being made public. At least this way the dreadful truth could all be kept secret.

And then, perhaps she still might change his mind.

Perhaps.

She had only one thought left when exhaustion finally claimed her. When would she hear from him again? After all, there were only five days left.

Adrian straddled an upturned bucket and watched as Sarah’s driver washed mud from the undercarriage of Byrde Manor’s old traveling coach, Something odd was afoot and he wanted to know what. But grilling a longtime family retainer who prided himself on loyalty was not the way to find out anything. So he squinted at the man and said in an offhand manner, “D’you want any help with that? I can wipe the road dirt from the seats and shake out the curtains.”

“Thanks, lad, but I can manage.”

Adrian considered. “How old’s this carriage anyway? You keep it all painted and polished, but I know it’s not new.”

The man grinned proudly. “She’s older’n you. But you’re right. She don’t look it.”

Adrian shrugged. “Course it ought to look new. Hardly anybody uses it anymore.”

“Hunh. So you say. D’you think all this mud got on it from sittin’ in the carriage house?”

Adrian shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Well, just you race to the ocean and back and see how clean your carriage would be.”

“To the ocean? You mean the Atlantic Ocean?”

“You know any others?” the man quipped, intent on his work.

“I’ve never seen the ocean,” Adrian said.

“Hmph. Hardly saw it meself, what with two days to Dumfries, two days back, and hardly time to turn around in between.”

Dumfries. Adrian pushed aside his yearning to travel all the way to the Atlantic someday. Sarah had gone racing madcap to Dumfries, forgetting all about her plans to go fishing with him. Then she had raced back. And for what?

He stood, then kicked over the stool, earning himself a frown from the coachman. But he didn’t care. Sarah had left Byrde Manor the day after Marshall MacDougal had. She’d returned last night—and Mr. MacDougal had returned this morning. He knew that because at lunchtime he’d heard his mother talking to one of her friends about the man’s hireling being back in town. If the man’s servant was back, so was the master. That’s what had sent him charging straightaway to Byrde Manor and this unhappy confrontation with the truth.

Sarah Palmer—his Sarah—was chasing after a man she shouldn’t bother even to look twice at. At the same time, she behaved as if she hated the fellow. So what did that mean? What was going on between the two of them?

Adrian lingered at Byrde Manor a long while. But as the afternoon wore on and Sarah never left the house, the boy’s resolve hardened. He would ferret out the truth, one way or another.

Sarah wasted two more days waiting to hear from Marshall MacDougal. Or were they two days spent hiding from him?

When Mrs. Hamilton confronted her, she had no choice but to lie. “He’s found nothing yet. We have but to wait him out.”

Though the other woman had not liked that answer, she had accepted it. But with no one to confide the truth in, and with Mr. MacDougal awaiting her reply in Kelso, Sarah remained on pins and needles.

Sunday morning she decided on impulse to attend services in town with Mrs. Hamilton. That would be safe, yet might also provide her with some insight as to his comings and goings of late.

As they were driving up to town in the open chaise, however, who should they spy riding his tall bay animal but Marshall MacDougal himself. Sarah felt her heart begin to hammer. “Oh, no. Not him,” she muttered, then glanced nervously at Mrs. Hamilton.

“So that’s him,” the loyal servant commented, staring unabashedly at the American.

It was the first time the old woman had actually laid eyes on the man, Sarah realized. “Try to be civil,” she muttered as they drew closer. “Don’t let on you know anything about what’s going on.”

When Mr. MacDougal slowed, then stopped, so did their driver.

“Good morning, Miss Palmer,” he said, in so pleasant and affable a manner no one would ever guess at the complexity of their tangled relationship. “Lovely day for a drive, isn’t it?”

Sarah forced a smile, amazed at her ability to appear so calm when her insides were shaking. “We are on our way to church. This is Mrs. Hamilton, a longtime family retainer and loyal friend.”

Something in his eyes glinted, as if she amused him. But mercifully he turned the brilliance of his gaze on Mrs. Hamilton.

As they traded pleasantries, Sarah took a deep breath, only then realizing she’d been holding it. Mrs. Hamilton was acting just as pleasant to the man as if he were a suitor come to call.

Despite her better judgment, Sarah’s gaze slipped over him. From the bright glints in his dark hair, past the perfectly tied stock, across the well-fitted shoulders and chest of his superfine coat of dove gray, then down to the powerful thighs in their wool twill, and the Spanish leather of his tall riding boots, he exceeded anyone’s image of the perfect gentleman.