Strangers at Dawn (4 page)

“Oh, stow it, Martin! Sara has no more love for whiners than I do.”

Simon’s scathing rebuke got Martin’s temper going. “Don’t patronize me! I wasn’t the one who started that fight and got us rusticated. I wasn’t the one who ran up those bills. I told you Sara would take a dim view of it, but did you listen to me? Oh, no. My opinion doesn’t count. If she washes her hands of us, what’s to become of us? If we don’t make good on those gambling vowels, we’ll have our legs broken, that’s what. And it’s all your fault.”

Simon looked as though he might spring at his brother. “Why, you-”

“Be quiet!”
Sara was as surprised at the shrillness of her command as her brothers were. She pressed a hand to her aching temples. “Be quiet,” she repeated in a more controlled tone, “and I’ll tell you what’s to become of you.”

She let her hand drop away, then said with precision, “I’ll instruct Drew to payoff your debts, but this is the very last time. You see, I’m going to be married.” She took a moment to savor the shock that registered on their young faces before she went on. “I’m sure you’re as aware as I am that when a woman marries, control of her fortune passes to her husband. So you see, things are going to be very different from now on.”

A
FTER THE LAST CRESCENDO OF SCARLATTI’S
sonata had died away, Sara flexed her fingers, then abruptly rose from the piano. Miss Beattie was watching her. She was thinking that Sara could hide her feelings from most people, but not from her. When she was upset, she invariably reached for Scarlatti.

“Scarlatti?” she said. “Now what brought that on?”

Sara smiled sheepishly, like a child caught out in a prank. “Simon said I was just like Father.”

Miss Beattie went back to counting the stitches on her knitting needle. “And why did he say that?”

“Because I did what I said I wouldn’t do. I lectured them. It was worse than that, Bea. I threatened them. I told them that my husband would have control of my fortune.”

“And they believed you?”

Sara took the candle from the piano and began to light several other candles around the room. “They think I’ve fallen violently in love with someone and that I’m so blinded by love that I’m willing to jeopardize their share of father’s fortune. As though I would be such a fool! Didn’t you hear the racket they made when they left?” Sara’s lips twitched. “They’re going to seek legal advice to see if there’s some way they can stop me.”

Miss Beattie said carefully, “Whom did you say you were going to marry?”

Sara laughed. “I didn’t. I told them they’d find out when it suited me, and not before. Now don’t look at me like that, Bea. Simon and Martin are incorrigible. They take too much for granted. I’ve given them the fright of their lives, but they’ll soon get over it. They always do.”

“Well,” said Miss Beattie hopefully, “it may come to nothing. Perhaps you won’t find a man who is willing to take you on your terms.”

“I
have it on my father’s authority,” said Sara, “that money can buy anything.” She was opening drawers and lifting cushions, obviously looking for something.

Miss Beattie hastened into speech. “But why burden yourself with a husband at all? You have only a year to wait, less than a year, then you can do as you like with your inheritance.”

“You know why.”

They’d had this conversation before, and Miss Beattie swallowed the long litany of arguments she’d marshaled to demolish Sara’s harebrained scheme. Sara wanted her inheritance
now,
not next month or next year, and the only way she could get it, under the terms of her father’s will, was by marrying before her twenty-fifth birthday. But
Sara didn’t want a real husband. This was to be a business arrangement. Once the wedding ceremony was over and she’d paid off her husband-in-name-only, she never wanted to see him again.

The reasons she’d put forward for this rash enterprise were unconvincing in Miss Beattie’s opinion. She’d come to the end of her tether, Sara said. She wanted to get on with her own life. Moreover, if anything happened to her, Anne would inherit everything, and if William Neville ever turned up, then where would the family be? As Anne’s husband, William would have control of everything. Whereas, when she married, she’d make sure that her prospective husband signed an ironclad marriage settlement that would divide her father’s fortune equally among his five children
before
she had the ring on her finger.

Had Sara put forward these arguments three years ago, right after the trial, Miss Beattie might have been more inclined to accept them.
But why now?
That’s what she kept asking herself. Something had happened recently, something to upset Sara, and she had no idea what it was.

She chanced a quick look up, dropped a stitch, and muttered something under her breath. She’d been looking after Sara ever since the first Mrs. Carstairs had hired her as a nurse for her newborn baby. If Sara were to confide in anyone, it would be her. But that was Sara’s greatest failing. She was an intensely private person and kept things to herself. She rarely allowed her emotions to show. Most people thought Sara was cold, and most people couldn’t have been more wrong. It hadn’t been easy to be Samuel Carstairs’s eldest child. Only Sara had had the gumption to stand up to him. And if the younger children had fared better, it was only because they’d always turned to Sara to be their champion.

But where was Sara’s champion? A husband-in-name-only did not fit the bill at all.

“Bea, where is it?”

Miss Beattie dropped another stitch and glared furiously at the work in progress, a lacy bed jacket for a married sister who lived in Folkstone. Without looking up, she said innocently, “Where is what, dear?”

“Today’s edition of the
Courier,”
replied Sara gently.

Miss Beattie was on the point of pleading ignorance, but one look at the determined set of Sara’s chin made her stifle the impulse. “I don’t know why you would want to read that trash,” she said crossly.

“Yes, you do. Where is it, Bea?”

Miss Beattie sighed. Of course she knew. This was the third anniversary of Sara’s acquittal for the murder of William Neville, and on each anniversary, the
Courier
carried a summary of the story. It had become a tradition with the
Courier
now, as had the increase for the reward offered by Sir Ivor Neville for information leading to the discovery of William Neville’s whereabouts or final resting place.

With another resigned sigh, she dug in the knitting bag at her feet, withdrew the tightly folded newspaper, and handed it to Sara.

“What does the reward stand at now?” asked Sara.

“Five thousand pounds.”

Sara’s brows shot up. “I see.”

She took the paper to the candle on the table, smoothed it out, and began to read. Her expression remained neutral, but that didn’t fool Miss Beattie. Sara would have had to be made of stone not to be upset. The whole story had been gone through in lurid detail. Sara’s name appeared on every other line. The innuendo-that Sara had been a selfish, calculating jade who was acquitted only because William Neville’s body had never been found-was sickening. But what was truly frightening was the
Courier’s
declared intention of pursuing the story until justice was done. In her opinion, it wasn’t justice the paper was pursuing, but a vendetta against Sara.

Sara said softly, as though to herself, “Whoever wrote
this article must really hate me. He’s never going to let the world forget my name. But who is he? ‘Special correspondent’ … that doesn’t tell me anything.”

When she paused, Miss Beattie said, “What difference does it make who he is? He’s a nasty piece of work, and I hope he rots in hell.”

Sara folded the newspaper and said crisply, “He’d stop hounding me if he could find William’s body.”

“Of if William turned up,” added Miss Beattie.

Sara looked up with an arrested expression on her face. She visibly shuddered. “I don’t know which frightens me more, the thought of the
Courier’s
special correspondent hounding me from pillar to post or the prospect of William turning up. Now do you see why I’m determined to break the trust? I want to get back my life and start over somewhere else. We’ve been wavering long enough, Bea. As soon as it can be arranged, we set off for Bath.”

“Bath,” repeated Miss Beattie.

This was something else Sara had carefully explained to her. In the summer months, the smart set followed the Prince of Wales to Brighton. There was little chance that Sara would be recognized in Bath. And if there were no likely candidates for the position of husband-in-name-only in Bath, they’d move on to Cheltenham.

An hour later, as Miss Beattie composed herself for sleep, she tried to comfort herself with the thought that it wasn’t all black. This trip to Bath could well be a step in the right direction. For the first time since the trial, Sara would be open to meeting new people. As a devoutly religious person, Miss Beattie did not see why her Maker could not turn Sara’sharebrained scheme around and make things come out right. A little nudge was all it would take and that husband-in-name-only could well turn out to be the champion Sara sorely needed and so richly deserved.

As she dwelt on that happy thought, she had a picture of Sara as she would like her to be. Her dreary wardrobe
would be donated to the parish poorhouse, to be replaced by a new wardrobe of elegant silks and muslins in jewellike colors to set off Sara’s dramatic good looks. There would be parties and balls, and jaunts to the theater and pleasure gardens. Sara would smile a lot.

And there would be no more Scarlatti. Definitely, no more Scarlatti.

And no more lace caps.

A champion for Sara, she decided, would figure prominently in her prayers from now on, just as she’d pray for confusion on all Sara’s enemies, particularly on that no-good, low-down, despicable special correspondent who wrote for the
Courier.
Not that she wanted anything catastrophic to happen to him. She just wished someone would beat him to a pulp.

Three

T
HEY WERE TAKING HIM TO A BAWDY HOUSE.

This was to be his reward, Max supposed, for taking the beating of his life. It was a generous gesture, considering his friends had lost a packet when they’d bet heavily on him against Mighty Jack Cleaver, the prize pugilist of five counties around. They should have known better. And so should he.

He must have been out of his mind to let his friends talk him into it. Who in Hades did he think he was? He wasn’t a professional fighter. He was an amateur. So, he trained with Gentleman Jackson when he was in town, but that was only as a form of exercise. From now on, he would stick to cricket.

He groaned when the coach hit a pothole. It didn’t surprise him now that no one had ever claimed the thousand pounds’ reward Mighty Jack Cleaver offered to anyone who could knock him down. The man was built like a mountain. Cleaver by name and Cleaver by nature.

He shouldn’t be complaining. He should be thanking his lucky stars that he was still breathing. He hadn’t broken any ribs or his nose this time around. He just felt as though a carriage had run over him.

“Ah, Reading,” intoned a voice from one corner of the carriage.

Max opened his bleary eyes and looked out the window. There wasn’t much to see at this time of night. The only light came from lanterns that were hanging outside every other building. It seemed that the good citizens of Reading were snug in their beds, and in his condition, that’s exactly where he wanted to be.

There was no way he was going to a bawdy house tonight, or any night in the foreseeable future. In any event, his mistress would be waiting for him at the Black Swan, and Deirdre had a temper. If he didn’t turn up, there would be hell to pay. He might even lose her, and that would be a pity, because Deirdre was definitely his kind of woman. Ripe and always ready for the plucking, with a wild mane of wavy dark hair and eyes as black as sin. Sinful eyes, sinful hands, and a sinfully ripe mouth. The thought made Max attempt a grin in spite of his sore jaw.

“A toast to Max,” John Mitford cried out, and a chorus of masculine voices bellowed their approval. John’s voice turned maudlin. “To a gallant sport; to the best friend a man ever had; to a champion fighter, even though he lost tonight; to the finest Corinthian of them all!”

“To Max,” the highly inebriated voices bellowed, “the finest Corinthian of them all,” and the open bottles of brandy were passed around yet again.

Corinthian.
At twenty-one, he’d taken pride in his membership in that select group. All his friends had been Corinthians. They considered themselves gentlemen athletes, jockeys, pugilists, sportsmen.

But that was years ago. These days, they shook off their cares and responsibilities once a year, donned the fashionable garments they’d sported as youngsters, and tried to convince themselves they were still Corinthians. That’s why he’d accepted Jack Cleaver’s challenge tonight. More fool he.