To Kiss a Thief (7 page)

“Woo my
wife
?”

“Aye. Think back to your courtin' days. Do summat that'll make her happy. God knows she ain't had awt o' that in years, 'sceptin' the wee 'un.”

In one sense, Beals's advice was sound. If St. John had any hopes of getting into Sarah's home to look for evidence without her calling down the wrath of half of Haverhythe, he might be best served by trying to get into her good graces first, perhaps even to make it seem as if he hoped to reconcile. Staying until the festival would give him ample time to devise a plan of attack.

St. John unfolded himself from the chair and gave the baker a nod. “I'll take it under advisement.”

But inwardly he was still thinking,
Woo her?
Pay court to the woman who had likely cuckolded him and stolen an irreplaceable family heirloom in the process? He settled his hat on his head and prepared to meet the glare of the noonday sun. From across the street, the glint of gilt lettering on glass caught his eye.

And all at once it struck him. He did not think he could bring himself to do anything for Sarah. But perhaps something for her little girl . . . ?

Without further ado, he stepped across the narrow lane, boot heels ringing against the cobblestones, oblivious to the sight of Sarah ducking furtively into a doorway up the street.

“Y
oo-hoo, Mrs. Fairfax!”

Dressed in a morning gown of green striped poplin, Fanny Kittery stood in the doorway of her husband's apothecary shop like a brightly colored spider in the center of her web, awaiting her unwary prey.

Clarissa clutched her mother's skirts. Sarah paused without stepping closer. “I can't chat this morning, Mrs. Kittery. I'm meeting Mrs. Norris to finalize arrangements for the festival. You haven't forgotten your promise to sell some of your delightful soaps to help our cause?”

“So you plan to stay on until Michaelmas, then?” Mrs. Kittery pressed. “I had thought perhaps, with the sudden reappearance of
Mr.
Fairfax, you would be leaving Haverhythe.”

So insistent had been her recollections of the past and her anxieties about the future, Sarah had not fully considered how she ought to respond in the present. How would a woman who had believed her husband dead react to his sudden reappearance? She dearly hoped that shock was an acceptable response, because she did not think she could manage joy.

Fortunately, Mrs. Kittery required no response at all. “I guess one never can tell what the merry widow will decide to do,” she concluded with a sneer.

The merry widow
. It was a slight Sarah had not heard spoken aloud in years.

How could it hurt worse now than it had then?

“My husband and I have much to discuss. In the meantime, however, I intend to go on as I have done.”

“You'll find that a married woman is not so free, Mrs. Fairfax.” She stressed the word
married
in such a way as to make clear her doubt that any such bond existed between Sarah and the stranger who had just arrived in Haverhythe.

Sarah inclined her head, feeling the shadow of the noose fall along her neck. “No woman is truly free, Mrs. Kittery. I'll wish you good morning.”

She had curved a hand around Clarissa's narrow shoulders to lead her away up the street, when she heard steps on the cobblestones behind her. Turning, she saw St. John striding purposefully into Haverhythe's only general store. Desperate to escape another meeting, Sarah all but pushed Clarissa through the first opened doorway that presented itself.

“Now then, I told Ma you'd be along, Mrs. F. Surely I did.” Emily Dawlish set aside her workbasket and fairly jumped from her chair by the window, setting her glossy black ringlets bouncing. “But Ma said she didn't think it likely and stepped down to Widow Thomas's for a bit. Won't she be shamefaced to have missed you! And you, too, Miss Clarissa!”

Sarah looked about herself, bewildered, to discover they had landed in the seamstress's shop.

“Why, Emily,” Sarah began, uncertain how to explain their sudden arrival.

But Emily Dawlish needed no explanation. “I knew when I heard the news that you'd want outta that old black dress, first thing. I would, if it was me.”

Emily was just a year or so younger than Sarah, but unlike Sarah, she kept no dark secrets. Nothing had happened to blight the girl's vivacity. She was all smiling pink cheeks and shining black-currant eyes. Sarah knew for a fact that she had turned the heads of half a dozen young fishermen, but so far, Emily seemed to favor none of them. Though the shop belonged to Emily's mother, all of Haverhythe knew the real artistry came from the daughter's hands, and Sarah suspected the young woman was loath to surrender what Fanny Kittery was pleased to call Emily's “dangerous independence.”

Sarah curled her fingers in the fabric of her skirt, her shield for more than three years. “Why, no. I hadn't thought to—”

But Clarissa eagerly clapped her approval and Emily already had a tape in her hands. “Of course you want a change. I saw your man walk up-along this mornin'. He's a right handsome one!” As she went about the task of measuring and planning, Sarah stood as mute as a dressmaker's dummy. “He won't want to see you wearin' the weeds like he were dead 'n' gone.”

Sarah looked down at the dress that had been the badge of her suffering, her entry ticket into the society of unfortunate women who lived on Haverhythe's fringes, women like “Mad Martha” Potts and Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Dawlish.

The Merry Widow Fairfax.

“Gaffard's has some new fabric, just in. Will we go down-along and—?”

“No!” It would never do to look as if she had followed St. John there.

Startled, Emily drew her hands away. “Mrs. Fairfax?”

“I'm sorry, Emily. A new dress would be lovely. But I don't need it. I'm sure my husband would not want me to spend—”

“Bother that.” Emily laughed. “A man always wants to see his woman look her best, no matter what he says. I know just what to do. You leave it to me, and we'll just see if you don't have a new dress in time for the festival. I think Ma even has a new bonnet in back. Mrs. Kittery turned up her nose at it—said it weren't good enough. But with some new trimmings and such, I think it'll suit.”

“I couldn't possibly—”

But Sarah's protests fell on an empty room. Emily had already ducked into the workroom behind the shop and was rummaging around in search of the discarded bonnet. She returned with a dainty chip hat decorated with feathers that would have perched on Mrs. Kittery's head like a wounded bird.

“Oooh!” Clarissa exclaimed, reaching out a hand toward the hat.

Emily held it just out of her reach and looked at Sarah. “Don't you worry. This'll be Mrs. Kittery's present to the happy couple, like.” She smiled broadly. “What she don't know won't hurt her, eh?”

Sarah glanced down at her dress again. The black crape was rusty with age and shiny with wear. How good it would feel to wear something fresh and pretty again! She had always enjoyed pretty things, even if her dull brown hair and rather colorless eyes kept her from being pretty herself.

“All right.” She whispered her reluctant consent, knowing what trouble those little words could cause. Once Emily had finished her measurements, Sarah gathered up her daughter and stepped cautiously into the street again, peering in either direction for any sign of her husband before darting along the footpath to the vicarage.

By the time they reached the vicarage, her exhaustion had got the better of her, and no amount of blinking could sweep away the tears that reduced Abigail Norris's carefully tended roses to blurry splotches of color.

“H-have you h-heard?” she choked out when Abigail opened the door.

“Mama?” Clarissa asked, worry marring her childish features.

“Ah, Miss Clarissa,” Abby said, holding out a hand toward the girl. “I was hoping you'd come along with your mama. Cook has some fresh apple tarts in the kitchen, and I was wondering who we might find to taste one and see if it was good.”

Sarah gave a nod, equal parts consent and gratitude, and Clarissa followed eagerly.

When Abigail returned alone, she enveloped Sarah in a sisterly embrace. “There, there, dear. Yes, I've heard. I imagine there are few who haven't,” she added with a somber shake of her dark head as she released her. Abby, who was Sarah's elder by only a few years, would never be mistaken for a gossiping matron. But having come to the village when she was just eighteen, on the occasion of her marriage, the vicar's wife had a vast deal of experience with the ways of Haverhythe and its fascination with strangers. “The steepness of the lane is no obstacle to telling tales, I'm afraid.”

Sarah allowed herself to be led into the drawing room. “But it isn't a tale. Oh Abby, what shall I do?”

* * *

Slightly breathless, St. John arrived at the handsome stone vicarage just steps behind Sarah, who had not turned to look behind her, almost as if she feared the devil was on her heels. He paused inside the archway that sheltered the front door, inhaling the sweet scent of late summer roses and grateful for the breeze that stirred the air.

To either side of the doorway, latticed windows stood open to catch that same breeze, and gauzy curtains fluttered behind them, shielding the rooms' contents from his gaze. But voices could be heard quite clearly coming from the room to his left, which overlooked the footpath that meandered toward the church.

“Oh Abby, what shall I do?” Sarah's tremulous voice revealed all the emotions he had suspected her of hiding the night before.

“Your husband's miraculous return is not something to be celebrated, I take it.” An unfamiliar voice, with an accent that did not match that of most of the citizens of Haverhythe: the vicar's wife, he presumed.

If Sarah replied to her question, she did not do so in words. “Mrs. Kittery said—”

“Ah,” Mrs. Norris interrupted, her tone knowing. “It's not like you to let Fanny Kittery get under your skin, Sarah. Let me fetch you a cup of tea and we'll talk. Make yourself at home. Play if you like. That always makes you feel better.”

He heard the sound of a door opening and closing, followed by the squeak of a hinge and the rustle of papers, then the air around him filled with sound. The pianoforte was obviously of good quality, producing notes as round and mellow as the season, but the person playing it—well, she was exceptional.

He closed his eyes to shut out everything but the music, an unfamiliar piece as complex and rich as typical drawing room fare was tedious and flat. He had not even known she played. Well, that was not entirely true. He had assumed she would. Every young lady played a little—sometimes a
very
little—if she expected to be considered suitably accomplished to catch a husband. But this was talent of a different order, the kind of skill that might grace a concert hall. How could it have escaped his notice before?

That was, in truth, rather an easy question to answer. He had spent his brief courtship of Sarah Pevensey determined to notice as little about her as possible, and therefore he knew almost nothing of her beyond her dowry.

He tried to imagine how she would look as she played, her long fingers dancing over the keys, her spine straight but leaning into the notes from time to time to give them their power. But what would be her expression? Were her eyes focused intently on a sheet of music, or did she play with eyes closed, calling up those strains from somewhere deep within? Was she somber, or did a smile of pleasure quirk the corner of her mouth? Was she cool and pale, or had that becoming flush begun to steal along her throat?

So intent was he on realizing his vision, he had lifted his hand to knock for admittance before he caught himself, and lowered it once again. He allowed himself another moment to listen furtively at the door, but the concert was cut short by the return of Mrs. Norris with the tea tray.

“Here we are. Now, come and tell me what's happened.”

The matter-of-fact tone in which the vicar's wife addressed Sarah suggested she was gifted by such performances so often they had become commonplace. For her part, Sarah seemed unperturbed by the interruption. She stopped mid-run, and he listened to her rise and cross the room. “Bless you, Abby.” Despite the passion of the music, she sounded calmer, more in control of herself.

Control. Self-control. St. John pushed himself away from the doorjamb. He certainly did not need to descend to eavesdropping at the vicarage to learn the information he required. Besides, he wanted no affecting story to blunt the force of his determination.

Mostly, though, he wanted nothing to drown out the sound of the music that still pulsed in his veins. He turned and started back the way he had come, grateful that the position of the window afforded the women no view of his departure.

Then a movement in the window to the right caught his eye. Golden-brown curls and bright eyes peeped through a gap in the curtain. Clarissa was watching him.

He froze. Would she cry out? Run and fetch her mother?

Instead, she grinned.

He pressed a finger to his lips, which curved in an answering smile. He did not think a child so young could be sworn to secrecy. But the pact might give him a moment to get away.

She giggled and pressed one finger to her own mouth in imitation. Finding it covered with the remnant of some sweet treat, she began to suck on it, and St. John did not hesitate to use her distraction to take his leave.

As he entered the street and was once again immersed in the sights and sounds and smells of Haverhythe, he wondered why on earth Sarah had chosen such a place to hide away. He did not believe her story about his stepmother's involvement, so how had she made her way here? More important, why had she stayed? She would almost certainly have been better able to disappear in London, where one could very nearly get away with anything under cover of anonymity. But in a fishing village of a few hundred souls, her arrival would have been remarked upon by all.

“You must be Mr. Fairfax.”

The feminine voice startled St. John from his musings, and he looked about him to discover that he was halfway down the street once again, in front of the apothecary's shop.

“I'm Mrs. Kittery,” the woman said as she made a little curtsy.

The people of Haverhythe did not seem to stand on ceremony when they wanted information. St. John tipped his hat. “Good morning, ma'am. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Mrs. Fairfax and Clarissa went by not half an hour ago,” she said, her dark, close-set eyes taking in every detail of his appearance as if storing away the information for later.

“Yes,” he agreed. “On their way to meet Mrs. Norris. I hoped to overtake them, but they had the start of me and I did not want to interrupt Mrs. Fairfax's visit.”

“How—thoughtful,” she purred. As with Mrs. Norris, something in Fanny Kittery's speech set her apart from the other village residents he had met, although the quality of Mrs. Kittery's voice was far less pleasant. “You know, we were given to understand you had died. Your miraculous appearance has nearly overset us all.”