If I Fall (36 page)

He glanced quickly behind him—Mr. Pha was gingerly climbing through the broken window after him, while two newly arrived guards shouted and gestured wildly.

It was only a moment before Jack realized what they were gesturing at.

A door, at the back wall of the garden, which was guarded by a young dark-skinned man in livery. The men wanted him to stop Jack. But at that point, nothing was going to stop Jack.
He put his head down and barreled through not only the young man, but the door beyond, out into the mews.

Any number of startled stable hands and carriage drivers—not only of the Comte’s but of everyone on the street who shared these same mews. Jack took advantage of their shock, and ran blindly toward his goal: Sarah Forrester’s mare.

The horse luckily saw past his haste and recognized him, and took him up on his back. Then, kicking away the one or two stable boys who tried to stop him, Jack with a mighty “Hah!” put the horse into a gallop, and they flew out of there.

Jack gave one last glance over his shoulder and saw Mr. Ashin Pha come around the corner of the garden gate. His face was scuffed and scarred, blood dripping down from his crown. And that man’s murderous glare burned into Jack’s memory as he rounded the corner, and escaped into the chaos of London in broad daylight.

S
ARAH
paced her bedroom anxiously, unable to think on anything beyond the past few hours. Namely, those hours that Jack had been missing.

The sun was dipping below the horizon. She was supposed to be dressing for dinner. Instead, she had cried off, told her mother she had a headache, and retired for the evening with a tray of cold meats from the kitchen. The only instruction she gave was to her maid Molly, which stated that if a note came from Worth House, or if Lieutenant Fletcher came back from his outing with Mr. Whigby, she was to be notified immediately, no matter the time.

There was so little for her to do now, and every nerve of her body was awake and fidgeting. She had spent the day in a dress shop, being as frivolous as she could manage, dragging the entire ordeal out, dressing Georgina in this silk and that ruffle. But she had never, never forgotten the purpose of her being there. But then, she had Phillippa sitting by her side, keeping her company, keeping her surprisingly placid.

In fact, everything seemed to be going well, until the Comte showed up.

“My dear Miss Forrester!” the Comte had cried, and took her hands in his. “I was so pleasantly surprised by your note.” Then, sotto voce, “If you only knew how often I tried to convince my sister to make an appointment with the madame. You have truly worked a miracle.”

“I think you will find it is madame who has worked a miracle,” Sarah had said kindly. As she did every time she had been in the Comte’s presence since being asked to arrange the dinner party, she looked at him with a more observant eye, trying to find any signs of the traitor Sir Marcus and Jack thought him to be. Again, she found nothing but someone jovial, if a little too self-important. And someone who very clearly admired her.

“I was made to understand that Mr. Ashin Pha was with you,” Sarah had said, glancing over his shoulder. “Pray tell me you did not leave him outside?”

“No, I dropped him off at the house,” the Comte replied easily. “He is more baffled than intrigued by English women’s fashions.”

As Sarah felt her stomach drop to her knees, she struggled to keep a smile plastered on her face. A quick look to Phillippa fortified her. Her calm was borne of experience. After all, as she had reminded Sarah right before they set the entire plan in action, “It can be frightening. But I simply tell myself over and over that Marcus has always returned to me.”

Never mind the shock of such an intimate thought, that Jack was as dear to her as Marcus was to Phillippa, now the recollection of that conversation only brought her comfort—small though it was.

Instead, they had to take the information in stride, and ooh and aah over every single dress plate that Madame LeTrois brought out for their approval.

Discreetly, a few minutes after they settled down, Phillippa called over one of her footmen, who was already loaded down with a few dozen packages.

“Smith,” she said, while Sarah and the Comte had their heads bowed over the dress plates—the Comte bowing closer to her than Sarah was comfortable with, but she gamely played her part, “Take this note to my husband, if you would. He’s going to try and get out of going to the Felton’s dinner this
evening and I cannot allow that,” she explained, turning her smile to the Comte and Sarah.

“And how do you intend to force him into keeping the engagement, Lady Worth?” the Comte asked playfully.

“Oh, I have a feeling a wife knows how to coerce a husband,” Sarah replied, letting the innuendo hang in the air. Playing her part. The Comte threw his head back in laughter, and then met Sarah’s eyes.

Now, after a long afternoon of dresses and fittings, of keeping the Comte and his sister occupied throughout the day, Sarah was able to sit still, her mind going back again and again to that moment.

Even in her fear and panic for Jack, some part of Sarah was able to look at the Comte objectively, when he had smiled at her, only the slightest amount of well-practiced lasciviousness slipping through. It had been long since that she no longer felt swayed by his looks and interesting accent, but this time, she noticed that he did not blush at the innuendo, the way Jack would have done. Oh, the Comte looked at her adoringly, but it was controlled.

And Sarah could see that he was playing a part as much as she was.

Now, if it had been Jack … Jack would have gone red to the ears, and then his eyes … his eyes would have borne into her from beneath the hood of his heavy cloak with all the intensity of a starving beast.

Not Jack—that was the Blue Raven. Jack.

Keeping them separate in her head was becoming a trial. Having the two halves of the man she thought she had known since a child, and the man that she had fantasized about without seeing his face, was enough to drive a woman insane. But Sarah was not about to allow herself to fall into such panics. Therefore she had tried to keep the two separate in her memory. Jack was the man who resembled the boy she’d taught to play pirates, a sailor with no ship. The Blue Raven was a ghost, the object of all things alluring and powerful in her mind.

Jack was the one who played apology bowls. The Blue Raven would never apologize for what he had to do to keep his country safe.

Jack was the one who had tricked her. So was the Blue Raven.

And Jack was the one who had disappeared for the last five hours, God knows where, running around London with her horse and whatever he pulled out of the Duke of Parford’s house!

Strangely, as she paced a hole in her carpet, her mind decided to pluck the memory of the last time she had been this worried about Jack from its stores, one both soothing and startling, as if it had been resting just below the surface the whole time.

That night, Sarah had sought out her tree. The long summer days in England had the sun setting well past supper. Even now, the hazy oranges and pinks that made up twilight danced against the few clouds in the sky.

Sarah was melancholy. No, that wasn’t the word for it. Muddled. Muddled was a better term. And when she was muddled, Sarah tended to seek out her tree, climb, and think. She had been muddled for the better part of a week, or so their governess Miss Pritchett had said. Because this was the week Jack was going away.

He’d graduated from the Royal Naval College with all the fanfare that implied, and would be going on board the HMS
Amorata
in a mere few days’ time. His parents had even come down from Lincolnshire, for the first time since he’d become a part of their lives. Even now, the vicar and her father were discussing something large and global and considered too big for the young ladies present. Although, Sarah could follow their conversation with perfect ease. However, she and her sisters were sent out of the room, and Sarah was left feeling muddled.

“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight,” a voice came from below her. She didn’t need to glance down to know who it was. His voice had changed in the three years they had known each other, deepening to the tenor of a serious sixteen-year-old that she had to prod into adventure. But he always proved willing to play along, even when he was too old for the games of little girls.

She wasn’t so little anymore herself. She was growing up and out in ways her mother called blossoming, although it only made her want to hide her figure from the eyes of boys like Jack. Because they—boys and Jack alike—were starting to take notice. She could tell. Looks lingered, and sometimes, he stood just a hair too close. It was too strange, too … real to deal with at present.

“Hopefully no red sky tomorrow morning,” she ventured, as he climbed up beside her, faster than she could have ever managed. Jack always was a marvelous climber. As he seated himself beside her on the long branch, she straightened as best she could, becoming as proper as she had always been taught.

“I shan’t worry, Captain Healy says the weather will be fine, and I believe him,” Jack said with all the adoration a young man could have for a new hero. “Now what has you so down?” Jack asked, at her look, he shrugged. “You always end up in a tree when you’re down.”

“I don’t know,” she replied. She could always talk to Jack. He brought her head back round to right more often than anyone else, but today … today she just felt strange all around. “Everything is changing. Don’t you find that odd?”

“A little. But everyone changes, you know.”

“I don’t want things to change,” she replied. “I want you to keep visiting on school holidays and Father to keep sneaking me the papers, and—”

“I’ll still come to visit,” Jack was quick to say.

Sarah shook her head. “Every few years when your ship makes port nearby? You’ll hardly recognize us by then, and we you.”

“Maybe, but I have a feeling we’ll still be fast friends.” Jack bumped her shoulder. It was times like this that Sarah couldn’t guess what was in his head. Was he just placating her? Was he making fun at her expense? He was about to go off into the world, to sail the seven seas! He was practically already a man. What did he care for the muddles of one young girl?

“Are you scared?” she asked suddenly.

Jack shook his head. “Excited. Done with books, done with waiting. I’m finally going to have that adventure you’re always prodding me into.”

“Maybe you’ll even meet Blackbeard,” she mused.

“He’s been dead for ages, but I’ll be certain to keep an eye out.” Jack laughed and threw his arm over her shoulder.

Sarah froze. It was not as if she had never been touched by Jack before. They had been friends for ages, and he had been the girls’ dancing partner on more than one occasion, for goodness sakes. But this … as casual as the gesture was, it set every nerve in her body tingling. What did he mean by it? Did it mean anything at all? He was sixteen, and she only twelve, surely he did not mean anything more than the brotherly affection he had always expressed.

One thing was for sure. Sarah had spent far too much time of late trying to figure out what things meant.

Dangerously, deliciously, she thought she could test a theory. To see if the little touches—the arm over her shoulder, the bumping into her—meant what her blossoming brain thought it did.

She leaned into him and kissed him. Just a peck on the cheek. If a person watching blinked they would have missed it. She straightened immediately, and hoped that the sunset did not illuminate her burning face. But she couldn’t help sliding a glance to Jack.

He looked stunned, staring at her with wonder, his hand on his cheek where her lips had just barely touched it. Then he leaned in, and kissed her back. On the cheek as well, a return of her childish kiss with one worth more than riches. “Oh my goodness,” she said.

And then, it sent her reeling.

Quite literally. Suddenly she lost her balance and wobbled back, finally falling and ending up hanging by her knees around the tree branch.

“Aaaaa!!” she screamed, her arms flailing above her head. But what was worse, her skirts were flailing around her ears.

“Sarah! Hold on!” Jack cried, scrambling out of the tree with more speed than grace. She threw her arms up, trying with all her might to pull her skirts back into place, but gravity was having none of it.

“Give me your hands,” Jack said from below her on the ground. Reaching up, his fingertips barely grazed the top of her head.

“No!” she cried, struggling with her skirts and her mortification.

“Sarah”—he was unable to hold in a laugh— “I don’t care about your skirts, I swear. Just lower your arms and I will catch you.”

“Promise?”

“I won’t let you fall,” he intoned seriously.