To Kiss a Thief (6 page)

As if her observation had struck a nerve, St. John rose and strode toward the fireplace, studying its rustic mantel as he continued. “I did not expect a warm welcome, Mrs. Potts. If she did not think me dead, she must have thought me the worst scoundrel in existence for abandoning her. I left her with those who ought to have cared for her.” He turned back to face the old woman. “I am responsible for her suffering.”

It was the perfectly pitched confession of his guilt—so perfect, in fact, that he almost believed it himself.

It had been one thing to imagine Sarah living a life of depraved luxury on the profits of her theft or under the protection of her lover, and quite another to discover her in this ramshackle cottage on the edge of the sea, raising a child widely believed to be born on the wrong side of the blanket, and evidently relying on the generosity and good opinion of people so poor they had little of either to spare.

Was it possible he had been wrong about her?

Before sentiment could overwhelm his good sense, however, an image rose in his memory: a darkened room, his wife in Captain Brice's arms, her bodice gaping, skirts hiked up, and that other man's hands nowhere in sight.

He must not forget why he had come here. Sarah had escaped her punishment once, disappeared into the ether like the string of priceless gems she'd stolen. Her apparent poverty was a pretense. If it was freedom from this damnable coil he wanted, it was up to him to see her laid low in earnest.

“Will you help me, Mrs. Potts? Please?” he asked, his voice soft and his heart hard.

“E
xcited, is she?”

St. John's voice came from the doorway behind her, and Sarah froze. With a perfunctory bow of his blond head, he strode toward the counter and squatted beside Clarissa.

“And which is your favorite?”

Clarissa lifted one chubby finger toward the kittens, no bigger than mice, wriggling against Meg's side. Sarah thought it likely that Clarissa had woken them, for their mouths were open in silent
meow
s and they were groping blindly for their mother's milk.

“Ah—” Sarah prepared to reprimand Clarissa, but a sharp glance from St. John silenced her.

“Dis one,” Clarissa said, pointing at but not touching a gray-striped kitten with pink feet that would one day be covered in dainty white socks like its mother's.

“A fine choice,” St. John said. “And what would you name him?”

“Thomas,” Clarissa replied without hesitation.

“But if he should prove to be a girl instead?”

“Thomas,” she repeated, as if she suspected St. John were a trifle hard of hearing.

“Of course.” St. John stood so quickly that Sarah had to step back to avoid him brushing against her breasts as he rose. He smelled of some cologne that she did not remember: spice and citrus and the heat of a tropical summer.

“Good morning, Mrs. Fairfax,” he said. “I hope I'm not intruding, but our friend Beals was insistent that I stop in first thing.”

Our friend?
Sarah pressed her lips into a thin line, as she turned and made her way back to a small table flanked by two chairs, a place where the bakery's customers could wait in comfort or even enjoy some light refreshment.

“Have you had breakfast, Mr. Fairfax?” Mr. Beals asked, rubbing his hands together. At St. John's distracted nod, he said, “Cuppa tea, then,” and disappeared into the kitchen through a swinging door.

Sarah wasn't fooled. “He thinks we will want to talk.”

“And don't we?” St. John asked as he seated himself opposite her, tugged off his gloves, and tucked them inside his hat.

“Whatever about,
Mr.
Fairfax?”

“Oh, let me cast about for some suitable subject of conversation.” He drummed his fingers against the tabletop. “How you came to live in Haverhythe, perhaps.”

“I should think you would already know the answer to that.”

“Nay. Although I'm given to understand Haverhythe is a haven for smugglers and thieves. Was it Captain Brice's idea, then?” His jaw clenched as he spoke, and the long, thin scar stood out white against his tanned skin.

“Captain Brice?”

She dredged up a name buried under the silt of time. She had long ago decided that Captain Brice must have followed her into the library with the intention of stealing the sapphires, and when confronted, had seized the opportunity to pin the blame on her. But too much had happened over the past three years to allow her to dwell on his bad behavior. He had simply been a dashing young officer who took advantage of a naïve girl—hardly the first such story, or the last. She could not even recall his face.

“I know nothing of Captain Brice, my l—er, Mr. Fairfax,” she insisted, catching herself in the nick of time. She was quite certain Mr. Beals was listening from the kitchen, and heaven only knew what he would do if he overheard her address her husband as “my lord.” “You must ask your mother why I am here.”

“You mean my
step
mother, I presume.”

The disdain in his voice and the sharpness of his correction caught her off guard. “Oh. I did not realize . . . I always heard you address her as ‘Mama.' ”

A curt nod. “My father's wish. I was still a small child when my mother died.”

A token courtship and two weeks of marriage had afforded Sarah very little opportunity to observe St. John's interactions with his parents, but she had gathered that the marquess's “wishes,” up to and including the choice of his son's bride, were meant to be obeyed. The tension between Lord Estley and his son could not be overlooked, but Lady Estley had spoken to and of her son—stepson—with open, almost fawning affection. If St. John had reciprocated with coolness, Sarah had simply thought of it as his nature.

Now she felt a sort of unexpected sympathy for Lady Estley, a fellow sufferer in Lord Estley's misguided attempts to dictate his son's affections. Uncertainty etched a frown into her brow. “I . . . I see. Well, in any case, I accepted the destination Lady Estley chose. I had no notion of where I was headed beyond Devonshire, but the coachman clearly did, because in two days' travel we stopped only to change horses.”

“And you expect me to believe his orders came from my stepmother? What a bounder! She despises the country. What would she know of Haverhythe?” he scoffed.

Sarah shrugged.

When she first met Lady Estley, she had found her rather silly, an empty-headed woman skilled at little more than the sort of social lying that kept London's West End humming. Over the years, she had tried to imagine how the marchioness could have kept the secret of her involvement in Sarah's disappearance.

Evidently, she had underestimated her mother-in-law.

Lady Estley had been the first to insinuate that Sarah was a thief. Then she had swiftly spun a threatening tale to frighten her daughter-in-law into leaving. And another to convince her stepson that what he had seen the night of the nuptial ball had been only a glimpse into the blackness of his wife's character.

Clearly Lady Estley was a better liar than Sarah had given her credit for being.

Infidelity. Theft. Drowning. Extortion.

Yes, in fact, Lady Estley was an excellent liar.

And Sarah could not say she was sorry for it. After all, Lady Estley's lies had made it possible for Sarah to keep Clarissa to herself all these years.

She brushed an imaginary speck of lint from her dark skirts. “She said Miss Harrington mentioned something that gave her the idea.”

“Eliza?” he whispered, and Sarah's stomach lurched with the discovery that her name on his lips still had the power to cause pain. His gaze drifted away, as if he were trying to recall a story heard long ago. “Lady Harrington
was
from the West Country, I believe.” Sarah closed her eyes for a moment.
Oh Lord
. She could almost hear the wheels spinning in Mr. Beals's bald head. “I suppose there might have been some visit to the coast, some holiday—there's a family here, I take it?”

“There are many families here, Mr. Fairfax. But you mean the family at Haverty Court, I gather?”

“Yes. That is, I suppose I do. How odd . . .” He sounded nothing short of incredulous. “And you've been hiding here all this time?”

Mr. Beals entered and laid a tray on the table with a flourish.

“How lovely, Mr. Beals,” Sarah enthused. “Won't you join us?”

“Well, if that don't beat all. I forgot the currant cake, Mrs. Fairfax—and it your favorite.” He shook his head and darted back into his kitchen. “I won't be a minute,” he called back over his shoulder.

Sarah repressed a sigh. What had St. John said to win him over? But then, her husband had always had a reputation for being charming—even if he had never troubled himself to shower that charm on her.

“Not
hiding
,” she insisted, even as a small voice inside her head chirped its agreement. She withdrew into the comfortable ritual of pouring out, wondering even as she did so how many times she would be forced to enact this pantomime of hospitality with a man who wished her nothing but ill.

Handing St. John his cup with a forced smile, she asked, “Sugar?” knowing the answer quite well but conscious of how it must have seemed when she had
not
asked the night before. But then, she did not remember whether he had even tasted the tea she had poured him. Perhaps he had not noticed that she had sweetened it just to his taste.

“Thank you, yes,” he said, taking the tongs himself and dropping three lumps into his cup.

“You may find it difficult to believe, my l—love,” she hastily substituted, forcing the word from between clenched teeth. “But I chose to stay. It may have been your stepmother's suggestion to go, but I quickly realized it would be for the best. I have made a new life here. I swore I would cut my past ties, and although it was not easy, I kept my word.”

His lips twisted into something that was not quite a smile. “How refreshing to discover you are capable of upholding at least some of your vows.”

“Cannot you just leave me—leave us all—in peace?” She dropped her gaze to the fraying edge of the checked tablecloth and drew an unsteady breath. “If there's someone else you want,” she whispered, “just go to her. Marry her. I'll make no stir.”

Her desperate offer hung on the air between them for a long moment.

“Someone else?” he echoed, clearly shocked by the proposal. “You seem to forget that we are still married, ma'am. To marry another now would be a crime—and I, at least, will not stoop to law-breaking.” He shook his head. “No, I cannot ‘leave you in peace.' However much I would wish it otherwise, I must keep you in my sight.” St. John snared her wrist in his long brown fingers and drew her close enough to speak low in her ear. “And know this: When I leave, I won't go empty-handed.”

She followed his eyes as they looked toward Clarissa, who was still lying on the floor with her head near the kittens' basket, rapt. “No,” she whispered.

“No?” His eyebrows shot up. “You should not have kept the child's birth a secret from my family. You are my wife. By law she is mine, you know.”

“Not only by law,” Sarah averred.

Her narrow-eyed glare seemed to give him pause. Seizing the opportunity, she jerked free of his grasp, whisked up Clarissa from her place by the counter, and swept out the door before the child could muster even a howl of protest.

* * *

Beals pushed through the swinging door, bearing a cake on a plate. When he spied the vacant place across from St. John, one bushy eyebrow shot skyward.

“Mrs. Fairfax, er, recalled an appointment,” St. John fumbled for an excuse.

“
Humph
,” was the baker's skeptical reply. He left the plate on the counter and made his way to the table, seating himself in the empty chair and filling the empty cup. “So, how's the weather today?”

Perplexed, St. John glanced toward the doorway at the cloudless sky and back to Beals's face again. “The weather?”

“Aye, the
whether
, man—tell us
whether
or not Mrs. Fairfax'll have you in again!”

“Oh, that.” Beals and Mackey had kept him until the early hours of the morning, plying him with pints and pressing him for details he had been reluctant to give, fearful he might later contradict himself. After three nights with very little sleep, he was feeling decidedly out of sorts and in no mood for wordplay. “I couldn't say.”

“‘Couldn't say'?” Beals laughed. “It's just like Mrs. F. to keep you waitin'.”

“Think you so?” St. John asked softly. “But perhaps I am not such a patient man.”

Beals appraised him with the same eye of suspicion he had cast over him the night before. “Mayhap not. But you best be prepared to cool your heels a bit, lad. She's not one to go back on a promise, and she's made one to the whole village.”

Inwardly, St. John scoffed at the baker's assessment of Sarah's faithfulness. “A promise? Of what sort?”

“She and Mrs. Norris, the vicar's wife, have got together and planned a sort of festival on Michaelmas—folks sellin' their wares, and food and drink, of course, and a dance.”

“A festival?” He was struck afresh by the contrast between Sarah's plain looks and her frivolous desires. Had his father known of the latter, he hoped the man would never have been taken in by the former—enormous dowry or no. Surely his second marriage had taught him something about the folly of making such a bargain. And Michaelmas? That was six days off. He had no intention of wasting a week in Haverhythe.

“Aye. I suspect that's where she got off to. She and Mrs. Norris likely had somethin' to chat about this morning.”

Of that St. John had no doubt.

“Mr. Beals, I have a rather delicate question—one I very much regret having to ask,” he said, drawing one finger along the edge of his saucer. “How has Mrs. Fairfax managed to support herself all this time?”

“Well, I reckon she had a bit of something from your folks when she arrived,” Beals said, sounding as if he expected the information to provide some reassurance. “But like most hereabouts, she makes do on very little. O' course, the lessons help a bit.”

“Lessons?”

“On Mrs. Norris's pianoforte,” he explained. “She offered Mrs. Fairfax the use of it to teach some of the girls in the village. She plays right pretty, you know. Why, she's even got Miss Susan Kittery to make somethin' that passes for music . . .” Beals waggled his head. “Miss Susan's a winning little thing. No talent, though. Mrs. F. earns every penny she gets.”

Despite Mr. Beals's attempt at reassurance, St. John knew very well that the few shillings Sarah made giving music lessons would not have been enough to sustain her and the child, no matter how simply they lived.

And he did not need the baker to tell him how she had made up the difference.

“I don't know what happened twixt the two of you all those years ago, but it seems you got off to a bit of a rough start, lad.” Beals paused to give the tea in his cup a vigorous stir, the delicate spoon dwarfed by his beefy thumb. “And even though you're not askin', I'm goin' to offer some free advice,” he said, leaning toward him and lowering his voice. “If you aim to get Mrs. F. to come back to you, you'll want to woo her to win her.”