If I Fall (41 page)

As he turned it over in his hand, Bridget ventured carefully
into the fray. “I must say, news of your commission was not the announcement I expected you to make today.”

He let Bridget’s soft-spoken, clear words sink into him, as he stuffed the moustache into the safety of his breast pocket.

“Neither did I,” he finally confessed, his eyes falling painfully on the spot where Sarah had been, just moments before.

“I have to admit to a certain amount of personal reflection over the past few days,” Bridget mused idly, when he did not continue. “And I can only see this Season as populated by people who are all too often afraid to say what they feel. For example, I never had the gumption to tell you how I felt about you.”

Jack’s head came up, startled.

“I know, I know,” she replied, waving off his astonishment. “However, since admitting this aloud, I have become convinced that my feelings for you were relatively shallow, and will easily be surmounted. You and my sister, however, are another matter.”

She looked up to him then, sincerity in her eye.

“I cannot pretend to know the precise depths of your feelings for Sarah,” Bridget spoke softly, seriously. “I can only tell you, knowing my sister, that her feelings mirror yours.”

“If that were true, then how could she walk away?” Jack asked, more to himself than Bridget. But it was Bridget who had the answer.

“Did she walk away?”

“Definitively,” Jack replied. “She doesn’t want a sailor.” Then, harsher than he intended, “And at this rate, it is all I’ll ever be. Damn it, Bridget, I have my pride.”

“Women have pride, too, just as much as men.” Then she shook her head, smiling. “I should know. It’s not that you’re a sailor. It’s self-preservation. She’s frightened. The simple truth is losing the Duke nearly broke Sarah, but what she doesn’t realize is losing you most certainly will. Give her time.”

Just then, Dalton came into the room, bearing the tray of far-too-early-in-the-day champagne, but even he had given up his disapproving scowl in the happy atmosphere. A glass was put into Jack’s hand, one in Bridget’s.

With no small irony, he clinked his glass with Bridget’s.

“Time, I’m afraid, is the one thing I do not have.”

F
OR
Sarah’s part, her sympathies were firmly in Georgina’s corner.

It had been two days since the announcement had been made in the Forresters’ sitting room. Two and a half days since Sarah had been blissfully happy. Two days since she had spoken even the most cursory words to Lieutenant Jackson Fletcher. And in that time, Sarah brooded enough for two lifetimes.

She knew she shouldn’t be as angry, as hurt, as she was. But the only thing she could think was … he was going to leave her. His promises meant little … Jason, the Duke, had made overtures, and then left on a trip across Europe and promptly forgotten about her. And really why should Jackson Fletcher be any different? After all, he left once before as well. And they … had forgotten each other.

Sarah was going to be left. And she had to prepare herself for it. She was going to have to go through the whole process all over again. Pick herself up and smile in public and act for all the world like she was the heartbreaker … not the heartbroken.

At least this time, it wouldn’t be nearly as public. Just those
closest to her—Phillippa, Marcus, and from the looks her sister was giving her, Bridget—instead of the whole of society. Every prying eye, every pained expression…

But why, oh why, did it feel like it was going to be so much worse this time?

Because you fell,
the voice whispered in her head, like a breeze that made one shiver.

With the Duke she hadn’t fallen—she had floated, happily on a notion that everything would be as right as rain forever. But with Jack—the stumbles and gravity and history had made her fall hard. She had fallen as irreparably in love as one person can … and instead of it bringing her peace and hope, instead of making her feel protected and beautiful, she felt bereft.

He told you that he loves you
, the voice came back, in the dark of the night, as she lay tangled in her sheets, restless, unsleeping. Knowing that down the hall was a similar figure, likely twisting and turning in the same way. The man she wanted to keep…

She could go to him. She could whisper the same words back to him and give him her body once again, in the hopes that it tied her to him forever. He would marry her, then. She could after all be pregnant—a possibility that was too frightening and powerful to give a voice to at that moment (and to Sarah’s mind, one that Jack had likely not considered … in her estimation, men rarely did.) If she brought up that possibility to him, he would marry her in a heartbeat.

But he would still leave in a week’s time. And she would still be waiting. Waiting for him to come home. And a wedding ring did little to secure affections, especially when faced with a two-year separation.

After all, Jason the Duke’s affections had fled after a few weeks. She didn’t want someone who didn’t want to stay with her … if she did, she would have married Jason all those months ago, and lived in comfortable misery.

But Jack is not Jason
.

This refrain she played over and over in her mind. Jack was not Jason, true. Jason had never known her the way Jack did. Never touched her heart, or her body, in ways that bound the two together—heart and body—into the most graceful bliss
Sarah had ever thought to experience. And she knew that she had touched him in the same way.

So if he was going to leave … why didn’t he hurry up and do so?

It would be easier once he left, she thought, somewhat irrationally. Once he was no longer sleeping just down the hall. Once he was no longer across from her at the breakfast table, making Amanda laugh and her mother smile with his presence. But it would be so
quiet
once he was gone, her brain pointed out. He lit up everyone in the Forrester house, not just her. It would go back to being round after round of endless balls, fetes … events that meant nothing beyond putting a good face on things.

So, yes, Sarah was firmly in Georgina’s corner. Because over the past forty-eight hours, it became apparent that Georgina was about to go through the same thing, too.

Yes, Georgina’s heart was being broken into tiny pieces. But not by a lover … instead by circumstances beyond her control. And society was about to eat her alive for it.

Yes, Georgina, the skittish girl who had no social allure, the one whose constant eagerness to be liked and correct and accepted by the ton had been used to great advantage by not only her stepbrother the Comte and Mr. Pha, but by Sarah herself. And perhaps, that is why, with all the rumors about the Comte de Le Bon and his nefarious man at arms, Sarah had decided to throw whatever weight she had left within society into the girl’s camp.

It had begun yesterday. There was absolutely no reason to sit at home, and if she did she might go insane. Therefore when Phillippa Worth sent a note over asking if she would like to go riding on Rotten Row, Sarah immediately sent a positive reply and quickly changed into her saffron-colored riding habit.

“Air,” Phillippa was saying, “air is always required after such a heart-stopping few days.”

They rode side by side, at a pace barely above a walk, as they were stopped every few feet to converse with one dandy or another. After all, she was still the Golden Lady. The past few weeks her mind may have been occupied with other things, but those things had been so covert, they had no impact
on how society perceived her. She was still beautiful. She still had the backing of Phillippa Worth. She still had a coterie of gentlemen on her front stoop, waiting to see if she would be taking calls that day.

“I doubt the air of London has any recuperative effects,” Sarah smiled at her friend, hoping to keep cover as much with her as with anyone.

“True. Normally, I would insist on taking the boys to the country, but I’ve already had a furlough once this Season.”

Sarah’s eyebrow went up. “‘Normally’? These kind of situations have a normal?”

Phillippa reflected silently for a moment. Then carefully, “No, I doubt Marcus’s and my life looks normal from the outside. But you have come closer to knowing what it is like than anyone in quite some time. I cannot tell you how enjoyable it is to have a friend that I can talk to about these things.” Then she hesitated. “But I trust in your friendship to keep the world from knowing … just how abnormal we are.”

“Phillippa,” Sarah said, as she pulled up on her mare, bringing them both to a stop. “I would never reveal any of your secrets. The stakes are too high—and even if they weren’t, you have trusted me with them. I know the world to be too cruel to understand.”

“Yes, it is,” Phillippa surmised grimly. “Which is the other reason I stayed in town.”

Sarah blinked twice, not knowing of what Phillippa spoke, but was soon to learn, as they approached Lady Whitford’s phaeton, and her breathlessly urgent news.

“Have you heard? It’s tragic, absolutely tragic!” Lady Whitford bemoaned, as she waved a silk fan printed with a union jack on it in front of her flushed face. “I’ve just had it from Lady Belvedere, and if true, it must be the most un-British act one could possibly imagine. Of course, he
is
a Frenchman.”

While Sarah’s eyebrows had disappeared skyward, Phillippa had answered coolly. “Indeed, what news is this?”

“The Comte de Le Bon of course!” Lady Whitford cried. “Lady Belvedere has it from Lady Grantham that two days ago the Duke of Parford’s home was broken into. But now that man has gone up and missing, along with his strange Burmese friend, leaving his poor sister in the lurch!”

“In the lurch?”

“Yes! Because you see, they say the person who broke in was a creditor looking to reclaim his goods, after having been denied so long! Now his sister must go to Fleet Street.”

“I sincerely doubt that,” Sarah replied drily. Only to be leveled with a glare from Lady Whitford.

“You only leap to his defense because he has been one of your favorites, and it does you no credit, Miss Forrester. Why, if he is not in debt, would Lady Grantham say that her husband, who is a member of the Historical Society, told her that they recently acquired a painting that was rumored to belong to the Duke of Parford’s private collection? That bold Frenchman must have been selling off his host’s property to pay for his pleasures this Season!” Lady Whitford concluded with a harrumph.

“Lady Whitford,” Phillippa began, but apparently, that was not a harrumph of conclusion, instead a breath to allow for what was to come.

“It makes one wonder about the sister—is she simple, to have not seen her brother’s nefarious intentions? And what of that Mr. Ashin Pha? He was always a tricky one. Never trusted him. Why, he’s Burmese—and they are on the brink of war with us! One hears such things these days about those heathens, in the papers. I even heard a rumor that Mr. Pha was seen ordering the Comte around—if the Comte was under his sway, who is to say what kind of people we admitted to our social circles? Never trusted the man—either of them. And they infiltrated
our
dining rooms! Why, think of all the dinners they attended with men of state—they could have been planning a coup d’etat!”

For a woman as patriotic as Lady Whitford to speak in French phrasing meant the sin was grave indeed. This was exactly the kind of hysteria Sir Marcus had hoped to avoid, too. But with women like Lady Whitford at the helm of the gossip, it would balloon quickly. And then, someone who was in the know, but shouldn’t speak, would mentioned Lord Fieldstone’s death was not natural, and all hell would break loose.

But it was none of this that had Sarah’s brow coming down, her emerald eyes turning to frost. It was, instead, what the lady
had said about Georgina. But Phillippa had better control, not to mention more experience, with these things.

“Lady Whitford, that is indeed a frightful prospect. If only the Comte
had
disappeared.” Lady Whitford’s ears perked up. Phillippa leaned in, conspiratorially. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, I learned it in the strictest confidence, but…”

“Oh no, do tell. I won’t tell a soul,” Lady Whitford promised.

“Well, I
would
say your fears are truly founded. If only my husband, Marcus, hadn’t asked the Comte to help him with a certain matter … of national security.” Phillippa shrugged as Lady Whitford’s eyes grew wide. “That is why he has disappeared. Certain to return, of course, but I don’t know if it will be before the end of the Season.”

It was a silly story, and a simple one, but it was what Marcus and Phillippa had come up with, hoping to combat the worst of the gossip and keep mass panic in check. And apparently it worked, as Lady Whitford nodded gravely, as if she fully understood the importance of the Comte’s mission.

“I must go,” Lady Whitford said, continuing to nod like an idiotic jaybird. “I must tell Lady Grantham … er, something else. Lovely to see you both!”

And with that, she turned around and headed back from whence she came, eager to spread the gossip that Phillippa had told her under the strictest confidence.

“Well done,” Sarah said to her friend, as they watched Lady Whitford’s retreating form. “I would not have had your composure.”

“Few do,” Phillippa replied with a smile. But that smile quickly faltered, as her sharp eyes fell on something across the expanse of Rotten Row. “But I fear it was not well done enough.”

Sarah followed Phillippa’s gaze, to the other end of the lane. There, she could see the small form of Georgina, recognizable by her new Madame LeTrois riding habit, and Mrs. Hill, riding staunchly next to her.

And they were snubbed by every person they approached.

Sarah shuddered as she remembered it, her carriage pulling up to the Duke of Parford’s home the next morning. It had been worse the evening after Rotten Row. Everywhere they
went, the Comte was decried as a schemer, and his companion a dangerous infidel, brought into their midst. And while Sarah, knowing what she did, secretly supported these character assessments (even though because of them she was given more than one askance look, as she and the Comte had maintained a flirtation), she pretended to think them foolish, and laugh gaily upon hearing them. However, it was the assessment of Georgina as guilty by association that had her truly incensed.