Strangers at Dawn (7 page)

“I prefer to stand.”

He regretted that it had come to a tussle of wills so soon. “I really must insist.”

It looked as though she might argue with him, but one glance at his unsmiling face was all the persuasion required to make her do as he wished. She chose a straight-backed chair at a small mahogany table. He took the chair opposite.

When he was silent, she said impatiently, “Well? What is it you wish to say to me?”

“First,” he said, “let’s get something out of the way.”

He reached for her left hand. One glance told him all he needed to know. He allowed her to tug her hand free. “You’re not married,” he said. “Neither am I.”

“So?”

“So that makes things simpler. My name is Max Worthe. And no, I don’t usually climb in through the windows of ladies who are strangers to me. I’m not a disreputable character in spite of appearances or,” he grinned wickedly, “what transpired in this room only moments ago.”

No blushes, but those long lashes lowered to veil her expression. “Mr. Worthe,” she began.

“Please, call me Max.”

She sighed. “I presume this is an apology. It isn’t necessary, you know.” Her eyes lifted to meet his in one of her direct stares. “I don’t see why you’re making such a fuss. After all, nothing of any significance happened. We’re both adults, both responsible for our actions. But it’s over now.
It was a …” She swallowed hard, and that made Max smile. “… a pleasant interlude. But, as I said, it’s over, and it’s time to call it quits.”

His bark of laughter startled her, and she frowned. Shaking his head, Max said, “I can’t tell you how often I’ve used those words myself at the end of an affair, but in this case, they won’t do. In the first place, this is not an apology, and in the second, nothing of any significance happened, as you say, only because I didn’t want it to.”

He gave her a moment to absorb his words, noted the quick rise and fall of her breasts, and, at last, the faint blush that ran under her skin, and he went on, not without a certain degree of satisfaction, “I say this only to convince you that I’m a man of honor. I promised I wouldn’t go too far and I didn’t.”

She made to rise, saw something in his expression that warned her against the attempt, and sank back in her chair. “If you want my gratitude,” she said, “you have it. But where is this conversation leading? What is it you want from me?” She breathed deeply. “I warn you that my gratitude extends only so far. If you think you can persuade me to go to bed with you, you have vastly mistaken my character.”

This little speech delighted Max. The lady was no missish prude. There was no false modesty or counterfeit outrage. Her speech was as direct as the looks she kept giving him.

“I don’t know where this is leading,” he said, bending the truth a little. He knew where he wanted it to lead. He wanted her with an intensity that both shocked and delighted him. He’d never met her like before. But he was a civilized man. He could defer what he wanted until the circumstances were right.

“That is, I want to get to know you better, as though we’d been introduced properly in my mother’s drawing room.” He gave her one of his disarming smiles. “Then we’ll go on from there.”

She leaned toward him. “It’s almost three o’clock in the morning.”

“I’ve never felt more awake in my life. You can begin by telling me your name.”

“Then will you leave?”

“Perhaps.”

“It’s Sara,” she said at once.

“Go on.”

“Sara Childe.”

“Sara,” he said, savoring the sound of her name. “And who is William?”

She sat back in her chair. “William?”

“You said his name as I climbed in the window.”

She bristled. “I might well ask you who Deirdre is.”

“Deirdre,” he said seriously, “has just become ancient history. You need not trouble yourself about her.”

She studied him as though he were an odious weed she had just discovered in her flower garden. “That sounds heartless.”

“I’m not heartless,” Max protested. “Deirdre and I have an arrangement. It can be terminated by either of us at any time of our choosing. You don’t approve?”

“I don’t care one way or the other, just as long as you don’t terminate your arrangement with your mistress because of me.”

So, she didn’t approve of such arrangements. Pity.

“Did I say something to amuse you?”

Max erased his smile. “It just occurred to me that I might be coming down with a bad case of gout, and I was wondering how I could avoid it. Go on, you were about to tell me about William.”

Her look of perplexity gradually faded. “William,” she said, “is ancient history as well.”

“A former lover.”

“Not in the way you mean.”

When she took refuge in silence again, Max let out a
long, impatient sigh. “Look,” he said, “we’ll be here all night if you don’t tell me what I want to know. You said William’s name when I climbed in the window, then you tried to brain me. That leads me to believe that you’re afraid of this man. I want to know why.”

She stiffened as a thought occurred to her. “If you heard me say William’s name, you must have known I wasn’t your Deirdre.”

Max made a face. “She’s not
my
Deirdre. She’s married, and her husband’s name is William. Now don’t go pursing your lips like that. It doesn’t suit you. Deirdre and her husband have an understanding. They’re free to go their separate ways.”

She stopped pouting, but all she said was, “I see.”

Max stifled a sigh. He was beginning to suspect it would be gout or nothing with this woman, and that did not sit well with him at all. Maybe once he got to know her better, her appeal would fade. It happened all the time. More than one mistress had called him a fickle lover, and it was the truth.

“You were telling me about William,” he said. “Why are you afraid of him?”

“I’m not afraid of him.”

“That’s not how it appeared to me.”

“William is dead. And I said his name because … because I’d been thinking about him. That’s all there is to it.”

“Nevertheless, I’d like to hear more about him. It’s not just idle curiosity. If you’re in some kind of trouble, I’d like to help you.”

“You’re …”

“Tenacious?”

She shook her head, and smiled. “I was going to say ‘very kind.’”

Her smile dazzled him. It did more. He was struck by the uncanny feeling that he’d been waiting for that smile for
a long, long time. But this was ludicrous. He’d never met Sara before. With her dramatic coloring, she wasn’t the kind of woman a man would easily forget. Something hovered at the periphery of his mind, but he could not bring it into focus.

She said, “There’s not much to tell. I thought I was in love with him once. I discovered that he was a brutal man.” She paused, then answered the question in his eyes. “There was a local girl. She was with child, William’s child. He deserted her. I found out about it, and that was that.”

“And what happened to him?”

“He married someone else and met with a terrible accident.”

He smiled. “And good riddance to the world.”

“My feelings precisely.” She looked pointedly at the clock. “I would offer you refreshments, but time is moving on.”

“It’s inclined to do that, isn’t it? Did you say ‘refreshments’? Thank you, I’ll take you up on that offer.”

Her lips tightened fractionally, but she rose without protest, went to a large battered trunk at the foot of the bed and after a moment or two, produced a silver flask and a small silver cup. She set them on the table in front of Max.

“Medicinal brandy,” she said. “It’s not the best quality, but it’s all there is.”

“This will do very nicely, thank you.”

Since she didn’t offer, he poured himself out a scant measure and cradled the cup in one hand. He wasn’t interested in the brandy, but in prolonging the conversation that she so obviously wanted to terminate. He thought he understood her eagerness to be rid of him. She was reluctant to accept what had happened between them. Well, so was he. Maybe there was nothing to it. Maybe it was all in his mind, a trick of his imagination that had imbued this woman with vulnerabilities she seemed to take such pains
to conceal. He hoped to God it was a trick of his imagination. Then he could return to his comfortable bachelor existence and forget all about her.

But he did not think so.

When he’d first caught sight of her, before he’d climbed over the windowsill, he’d been struck by the notion that maybe Deirdre cared for him after all. She’d been on tiptoe, about to blowout the candle, when she’d sunk back on her heels and rested her brow against the mantelpiece. She’d looked so helpless, so forlorn, and he’d been overcome with remorse for the callous way he’d rejected her to go off with his friends. He’d been so sure, until that moment, that Deirdre had never experienced a genuine emotion in her life, unless it was anger. Then she’d squared her shoulders, as though assuming burdens she knew she couldn’t throw off, and in the next moment they were plunged into darkness.

And Deirdre’s appeal had never seemed more potent. He hadn’t been thinking of taking her to bed when he reached for her. All he’d wanted was to take her in his arms and comfort her.

And after he’d discovered that the woman in his arms wasn’t Deirdre, her appeal had staggered him, all the more so because his relations with women were always tempered by a healthy dose of cynicism.

In this encounter, however, it was the lady who was cynical. She had herself well in hand now and, he was sure, regretted that she’d allowed him to get too close to her. Hell, they’d almost become intimate. She couldn’t brush that aside as though they’d just shaken hands.

He took a minuscule swallow from his cup, then said softly, “Tell me about yourself, Sara. Where do you live? Where are you going?”

“Max …” She gave him a pleading look. “None of this matters. I should have told you at the outset. I’m going to be married. That’s where I’m going right now, to meet my betrothed’s family. It’s all arranged.” She touched his sleeve,
then quickly withdrew her hand. “I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong idea about me.” She glanced at the bed and visibly trembled. “I can’t explain what happened between us and I won’t even try. But-”

“You’re going to be married!” His voice registered his shock.

She bobbed her head. “That’s where I’m going now.”

The crack of the silver cup as Max set it down on the table made her jump. “You’re not wearing a ring.”

“It’s in my trunk for safekeeping.”

“You can’t love this man!”

She glanced at the bed again, then looked down at her clasped hands. “Perhaps not, but I’m very fond of him.”

“Put him off. Delay the wedding. At least give yourself a chance to know your own mind.”

“I do know my own mind.”

The eyes that lifted to meet his betrayed no emotion, no regret. He’d seen eyes like hers in astute men of business as they haggled over the sum of money that would change hands. It made him want to reach out and shake her, if only to crack that emotionless mask she was hiding behind.

She went on quickly. “The marriage settlements have been signed. My betrothed has been very generous. When I marry, my brothers and sisters will be financially secure. I can’t let them down.”

He said through his teeth, “Not to mention your own financial security.”

Her eyes clashed with his. “I’d rather be a wife than a mistress.” She paused, and a fleeting smile came and went. “Or perhaps I’ve misjudged you? Perhaps you’re a man of substance? Perhaps you’re offering to marry me? Can you afford me, Max? Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”

At these words, Max’s cynicism rose in his throat like bile. He couldn’t believe how completely she had taken him in. He’d thought she was different, and she was just like every woman he had ever known. They didn’t see men as
people, but as bank ledgers, and the larger the balance, the more a man rose in their esteem.

When her stare-faltered and her eyes slid away from his, a niggling doubt began to demolish his anger. If she wanted to get rid of him, she was going the right way about it. Maybe he was being too hard on her. She was a female, and she had far more to lose than he did if she followed her heart.

“Sara,” he chided, “forget these mercenary ambitions. Take a chance on me. Give us both time to get to know each other. That’s all I ask.”

She sighed. “It’s just as I thought. You can’t afford me, can you? And you’re not offering marriage either, are you, Max?”

“No to both questions,” he snapped. He got to his feet and stared down at her bent head with undisguised contempt. “Then all that remains to be said is to offer you my felicitations on your forthcoming marriage.”

Her eyes did not meet his. “Thank you.”

Max had hardly quit the room when that niggling doubt blossomed into a full-blown suspicion and finally a conviction. She’d deliberately picked a quarrel with him just to get rid of him. There was no betrothed. If there had been, she would have told him when he’d examined her left hand and found it ringless.

She was a coward, that’s what she was, and that’s
all
she was. Something extraordinary had happened between them in that room, but the lady was too craven to admit it.

He was tempted to return and have it out with her, but he heard the key turn in the lock and knew that no words of his could persuade her to open the door to him.

Coward,
he said under his breath. Fortunately for the lady, he had enough courage for both of them. It wasn’t over yet.

His next thought erased his smile.
Deirdre.
He had an unpleasant duty to perform, and the sooner it was over, the
sooner he could direct all his energies to solving his problems with Sara.

S
ARA WAITED TILL SHE HEARD MAX’S STEPS RECEDING
along the corridor before she moved away from the door. The window was her next object. Only when it was closed and secured did her heart begin to slow. She retreated to her straight-backed chair and wrapped her arms around her shivering body. She felt weak and shaken. She couldn’t believe how close she’d come to throwing everything away.