Sweet Temptation (13 page)

“See what your squeamishness has done,” said Olivia Tate, who had disliked Sara from the first. “If you hadn’t been such a fool that first night, Gavin would still be in London, instead of subjecting his family to this public humiliation.”

“You know his going to Scotland had nothing to do with me,” retorted Sara, determined that she would not continue to flee from these attacks. “If you and the Earl are so worried about what everybody will think, why don’t you go to Scotland with him? He only went to bury his mother.”

“He doesn’t mean to return.”

“I don’t see that as any of your concern.” Olivia blinked at Sara’s reproof but was silent. The Earl was not so easily quelled.

‘Thanks to the Burroughs women, all of London knows why he was absent from his mother’s bedside.”

“If he had used me more kindly, I would not have withdrawn from him.”

“Nonetheless, you’re the only one capable of repairing the damage,” the Earl pointed out acrimoniously.

“And how do you propose I do that at a distance of four hundred miles?” demanded Sara, getting up from her seat by the fire and walking over to the harpsichord. Somehow just standing by it, being able to touch it, gave her strength to fight back. “If you, who have known him all his life and can be said to have some call on his affections, cannot induce him to remain in London, how can I, who was in his company less than a day, possibly have any influence on him?”

“You’re his wife.”

“People don’t love their wives just because of some words said over them. But then the real purpose of my wedding was the transfer of my fortune from one of your pockets to the other, wasn’t it?”

“That would have happened no matter who you married.”

“But if I had married someone else, I would have an allowance of my own.”

“Your bills will be covered.”

‘That’s not the same. I want to know how much money I have and how it shall be paid to me.”

“You have none,” said the Earl. “Your fortune is the property of your husband, and he made no provision for you to have a separate income.”

“Then it must be changed.”

“Nothing can be accomplished in Gavin’s absence.”

“I can’t accept that.”

“You are welcome to discuss it with my solicitor,” said the Earl with hard, glittering eyes, “but he will tell you the same.”

“You should be thankful the Earl doesn’t throw you out,” declared Olivia spitefully. “What good are you, if you can’t prevent Gavin from disappearing or give the Earl a grandson?”

“Now that the Countess is dead, what good are
you?”
demanded Sara, turning on Olivia with a spurt of anger that surprised even herself.

“Remember that you’re Gavin’s wife and not his mistress,” the Earl reprimanded her in his most contemptuous voice. “The manner of behavior expected of the two roles is really quite different.”

“I’ll behave like a wife when I’m treated like one,” retorted Sara. “It’s not my fault I was married in ignorance.
You
determined my education, so if your plans have fallen apart, you have only yourself to blame.”

“None of this is of any consequence now,” said the Earl, dismissing her words with a total lack of interest. “I will have to contrive another solution to this Gordian knot. In the meantime, I intend to join the retinue of the Duke of Cumberland when he goes to Scotland to put down this rebellion.”

“What am I supposed to do?” demanded Sara, taken completely unawares.

“I don’t care,” said the Earl, rising to his feet. He walked toward the door, but turned back before he reached it. “The only justification you ever had for being here was to make Gavin a satisfactory wife. As far as I’m concerned, it still is.”

“What can we do except go back to Miss Rachel’s?” asked a dejected Betty. “She will be glad enough to have you, but I doubt she’ll agree to take me on again.”

“I’m not going back,” Sara said quite positively. “I’ve already spent half my life under her thumb, and I don’t mean to spend any more.”

“But where can we go?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll think of something.”

“Do you have any money?”

“No, but I mean to have an allowance.”

But when Sara went to see the solicitor two days later, she found her fortune was no more accessible to her than to a total stranger.

“No provision was made for settling an income on you,” the solicitor stated in a flat, noncommittal voice. “It was determined that you would live with the Earl and that your support should come from his personal funds.”

“But I don’t
want
to be dependent on the Earl.”

The young solicitor was extremely uncomfortable. He was of the opinion that all women, and especially those possessed of great fortunes, should leave the handling of their money to their husbands or fathers.

“I can see there’s nothing more to be gained here,” said Sara, rising.

But she was at a stand. It was useless to approach the Earl, he rarely spoke to her now, and he was seldom at home. Olivia Tate was leaving the house tomorrow. The Countess’s Scottish servants were going back home, and the others would soon be forced to seek new situations.

“I need a new situation myself,” Sara mumbled to herself over the noise of the carriage. Betty met her at the door. “They won’t give me a penny,” she reported, and cast her wool cloak from her in disgust.

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know, but I will not stay here,” Sara observed tartly.

“But we can go nowhere without money.”

“We shall have it, and the Earl will provide it.”

“Milady, you know the Earl will never give you a shilling, much less a pound.”

“I don’t plan to ask him.”

“But how—?” Betty’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t!”

“Why not? It’s my money.”

“But that’s
stealing.
“

“He can take it out of my income.” Sara leveled her determined gaze at Betty. “His strongbox must be in his bedroom. It shouldn’t be too difficult to get in, if we wait until everybody’s gone.”

“I always did want to see inside one of them great money boxes,” Betty said, her eyes gleaming with anticipation. “I’ve never seen more than a few pounds at one time.”

“I imagine this box will have more money than you ever dreamed of, but we’ll have a better chance to escape detection, if we only take a little.”

Next morning they waited until after the bustle over Olivia Tate’s departure had died down. The Earl left the house on some private business, and the servants were mostly getting themselves ready to leave. It was an easy matter for Sara and Betty to get inside the Earl’s bedroom unseen.

“Jesu!” exclaimed Betty, who was the more nervous of the two. “You act like you break into rooms every day, and I’m shaking like a newborn lamb.”

“What can he say that he hasn’t said already?” was Sara’s prosaic reply.

The chest was not hidden. It sat at the end of the Earl’s bed, an impressive trunk made by one of the firms in Nuremburg and elaborately decorated and bound with bands of iron. A great double lock insured that its contents would not be disturbed without the benefit of the keys that the Earl or his steward kept with them at all times.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” breathed Betty.

“I don’t give a fig what it looks like. I just want it open. The Earl must keep a key here somewhere.”

“I don’t know,” said Betty, inspecting the great double lock that protected the contents of the box. “I wouldn’t leave the key lying about if it was mine.”

“Let’s start looking,” hissed Sara. “I don’t know how long the Earl will be gone.”

“You’d better leave me to do it,” advised Betty. “The way you leave a drawer, even a blind man could tell it had been gone through.”

So Betty set to work systematically, going through every drawer and cupboard in the room, while Sara nervously guarded the door.

“Hurry up,” she hissed. “What’s taking so long?”

“I can’t find the key,” Betty hissed back. She turned over piles of clothes as rapidly as she could, but each passing minute wore at Sara’s composure like dripping water on a sugar crystal. It wasn’t long before she was dancing like a puppet on a string.

“It’s his valet,” Sara whispered urgently, when she saw the dour countenance of Skelton approaching down the hall.

“You can’t hide there,” Betty remonstrated, when Sara headed for the closet. “He’s bound to have business with the Earl’s clothes. Hide in the window alcove!”

Sara dashed behind the heavy curtains, hoping they hung low enough to hide her shoes. She had barely stilled their movement when the door opened.

She was unable to see the valet, but she could see the Earl’s bed, and her heart nearly stopped. Betty had dived under the bed, but her feet were sticking out. Sara almost gave herself up for lost, but she heard Skelton go into one of the clothes cupboards and she hissed imperatively. Betty’s feet remained visible, and Sara hissed again, too loudly this time, and Skelton came hurrying from the cupboard. For a moment she heard and saw nothing, even though she could have sworn she heard Skelton open the door, and then in a space between the two curtains, she saw him stealthily approaching the alcove, a broom raised above his head. Sara’s body became rigid and she stopped breathing. Hurriedly she tried to think how she would explain her presence in the Earl’s bedchamber. In almost the same instant, Skelton brought the broom down with a loud whack. His triumphant “Aha!” and the sudden onslaught of feline hissing and spitting covered Sara’s muffled scream.

“And stay in the kitchen where you belong,” Skelton called loudly, as he closed the door and returned to the cupboard. “I hope the cook takes that dratted cat off with her,” he muttered grumpily.

When Sara was finally able to breath again, she saw that Betty’s feet had disappeared. She let her breath go in a long, slow stream. If she ever got out of here without the Earl finding her, she’d starve to death before she tried to steal from him again, even if it
was
her own money.

Unable to see a thing from her position, it seemed to Sara that Skelton spent an unaccountably long time walking back and forth about the room, first to one closet and then to another cupboard. What can he possibly be doing, Sara demanded of herself, only to realize that he was packing. She tensed. That could keep her here for hours, and such a prolonged stay would undoubtedly lead to discovery by the Earl. Her palms began to sweat. Much of the time Skelton’s tread was virtually inaudible from her hiding place, the heavy velvet muffling all sound except the opening and closing of the doors. She didn’t know how long she had remained hidden when Betty suddenly pulled back the curtain.

“You scared me half to death,” gasped Sara, looking around nervously. “I suppose we’ll have to forget the money,” she said, not entirely sorry to be leaving the apartment.

“Not on your life,” said Betty cheerfully. “The last thing Skelton did was open the chest. See?” To demonstrate, she raised the heavy lid. Her eyes widened and her breathing stopped at the sight that met her eyes. The chest was nearly full of gold coins.

“I never knew there was so much money in the world,” gasped Betty.

“How much do you think is here?” asked Sara, who had no experience of money except in small amounts.

“I don’t know, but it must be thousands. How much should we take?”

“How about fifty pounds? Even that’s bound to make an impression, and we don’t want the Earl to know it’s missing.”

“I don’t know,” Betty said, wavering. “I’m sure the Earl would know if as much as a shilling was gone.”

“No, he won’t. Both he and his steward have keys to this box. Each will assume it was taken by the other. We can remove any reasonable sum without the slightest fear of detection.”

They spent some minutes longer trying to arrive at a practical sum, and in the end settled on the fifty pounds Sara mentioned first. Having extracted that sum, they hurried away to their apartment. They breathed a deep sigh of relief once they had closed the door behind them.

“My agent in Scotland informs me that Gavin has arrived at Estameer,” the Earl announced to Sara across the breakfast table the next morning.

Sara had made a deliberate attempt to avoid meeting her father-in-law since their last interview, but this morning she had come down to the breakfast parlor fully an hour before her usual time. She had done some more thinking, and she had a proposition to put to him.

“It appears your husband has wasted no time in providing himself with a mistress.” The Earl lowered his letter and looked at Sara with a smile full of mockery. “Your charms seem to have made no lasting impression on him.”

Up until now Sara had endured the Earl’s numerous barbs in stoic silence, because fighting back only encouraged him to attack even more maliciously, but she would endure it no longer.

“I don’t imagine he was looking forward to the winter without someone to warm his bed,” she replied, trying to keep the hurt and chagrin from her voice.

“Madam, you speak very lightly of a serious matter,” the Earl shot back.

“Am I to infer that you disapprove of the practice of keeping a mistress?” inquired Sara, determined not to back down.