Temptations of a Wallflower (27 page)

“I'll join you in a moment,” Jeremy said, his words and movements deadened.

Sarah frowned at him, but, after saying good night to his parents, she left the drawing room.

“Are you two quarreling?” his father demanded once she'd gone.

Was it a quarrel? It would soon be nothing but an empty query. But until Sarah put his mind at ease, Jeremy didn't know what to call how he felt.

“Everything is fine,” he said woodenly.

His mother looked as though she wanted to quiz him on the subject, but she kept silent. He pressed a goodnight kiss to her cheek, nodded at his father, and headed for his bedchamber. Each step felt as though
he was climbing the stairs to the gallows. His footfalls were heavy and thudding.

He stared at his hand as it hovered over the doorknob to the bedroom. It was someone else's hand. Someone else's arm attached to his body—a body he couldn't even feel. He merely needed to open the door and find Sarah on the other side. Then he would have all his answers. Then his fears would be laid to rest, and he'd never have to think of this again.

He turned the doorknob. Slowly pushed open the door.

The room was in half light and half darkness, the fire casting dancing shadows over everything. His gaze slowly moved across the carpet, to the bed. To Sarah standing at the head of the bed, with a sheet of the manuscript in her hand.

She would look at him with a puzzled expression. Or she would laugh. Then he would exhale. Then his mind and body would calm.

But one glance at her face, and he understood.

She stared at him, her eyes wide, her face ashen. She looked as though someone had presented her with her own corpse.

It was true. His wife truly was the Lady of Dubious Quality.

A man stood on my balcony. Moonlight limned his tall, broad-shouldered figure, turning him into an apparition from the depths of midnight dreams.

He was none other than Jacob Clearwater . . .

The Highwayman's Seduction

T
he world disintegrated around Sarah, and no matter how much she struggled, nothing could end her limitless fall.

In her hand, she held the means of her destruction. Standing in the bedchamber was the man bringing ruination—Jeremy. Her husband.

Everything she'd hoped would never come to pass had done so. In the worst possible way.

All she could do was stare at Jeremy, hoping, praying that he wouldn't be angry. But that was a futile hope.

“No denial?” he rasped. “No words of confusion or refutation?”

She managed to speak. “I wouldn't insult you that way.”

He gave a hoarse laugh. “So now you've found your integrity.” Stepping closer, he growled, “You've played me for a fool.”

“That was never my intention.”

“No?” he demanded. “You willfully imperiled my career. My family.”

Carefully, as though it had been a lit bomb, Sarah moved the entire manuscript, putting it down on the nightstand. “I didn't know you were the man looking for the Lady of Dubious Quality, not until yesterday.”

“That doesn't make it right,” he spat. “You knew going into our marriage that your writing could destroy both of us.”

“I . . .” What could she say? Nothing would exonerate her. All she could speak was the truth. “I wanted everything,” she admitted. “To write, and to love you.”

The word
love
seemed to cause a poisonous reaction in him. He reared back, a horrified look on his face. “Why?” he growled. “Why would you do something so foolish?”

“My books aren't foolish to me,” she threw back, trying to make him understand. “Writing is who I am. I can't
not
write. If I did, I'd cease to exist.”

He looked unconvi
nced
. “It's pride that makes you say that.”

“Are you disgusted that I wasn't the innocent you believed me to be?” she accused. Trapped, she could only lash out, like a wounded animal.

“No,” he answered hotly. “I'm disgusted that you blatantly lied to me and used me. That's what you did, wasn't it?” He jabbed a finger toward her. “Marry me for the protection of my name.”

“I wanted
you,
” she insisted.

“Am I to be pleased by this?” His voice was low and soft, far worse than if he'd yelled. “You pursued me so ardently, and I was so bloody
flattered.
I should have seen it. The edge of desperation in your urgency.” Pacing nearer, he spat, “It was because someone was looking for you, wasn't it? Because
I
was searching for you. That's what pushed you toward me.”

“Partially,” she confessed, knowing he deserved, finally, the whole truth. “But—I wouldn't have pursued you if I hadn't cared for you. I could never bind myself to someone unless I thought I could love them.”

His mouth curled into a bitter sneer. It was so unlike him, so very different from the gentle, compassionate man she knew, that it made her heart wither.

“I cherished those moments with you,” he rumbled. “But now everything is tainted by your dishonesty.”

“If only you understood—”

“
Make
me understand,” he demanded, almost desperately. “Because all I see before me is a woman who deliberately and without remorse imperiled herself, her family, and everyone around her.” He stared at her. “It's like a shadow that envelops you, drawing everyone into its darkness.”

“You're being melodramatic,” she said despairingly.

“Am I? Or have you purposefully blinded yourself to the harm you have and could have caused—and for what?” he added with anger and confusion.

“For
myself,
” she cried, uncaring of whoever might hear her. What did it matter now, with everything smashed to pieces? “I wrote these books for
me.
Because
I matter
.”

Yet he shook his head. “I . . . am astonished at the level of your vanity.”

“Yes,” she said resentfully. “We all know how little you value yourself. Obeying your father like a frightened child.” The moment she said the words, she regretted them, but they could not be called back.

Genuine fury gleamed in Jeremy's eyes. He whirled and strode to the fireplace. Bracing one arm on the mantel, he presented her with the wide, unmoving wall of his shoulders.

“I cannot ask you to leave,” he said lowly. “Not so soon after our wedding. But I cannot be around you right now.”

“Where will you go?”

He laughed bleakly. “This house is cavernous. I'll find myself another room and sleep there.”

“Forever,” she said bleakly.

“I don't know for how long. Don't ask anything of me right now.” Voice rasping and sorrowful, he went on. “You've . . . broken my heart.”

She reached out for him, but he was already gone, the door open and swinging behind him. The carpet muffled his movements, but with each footstep, she felt her own heart crumble into dust. Silently, she moved to shut the door behind him.

No tears came. Her eyes remained dry as she managed to undo her own gown and slip into her night rail. She took down her hair but didn't bother brushing or plaiting it. It hardly mattered if she failed to conform to the latest beauty standard.

Jeremy could expose her. Ruin her. Then she would
have nothing. She had to think. About how to proceed. Where to go from here.

But she could not plan for the future. She could think only of Jeremy and the boundless gulf that existed between them.

She gathered up the manuscript and walked it to the fireplace. Page by page, her face frozen into a mask, she consigned it to the flames. She felt as though she was burning her own flesh and blood.

When the last page was nothing but blackened ash, she stirred the embers with a poker. Making certain that it was gone, destroyed. Everything was destroyed now.

T
he fire died out. The room fell into darkness, and then, hours later, turned the color of ash as the sun began to rise.

Sarah sat beside the now cold fireplace, watching it all through dry, gritty eyes. She had barely moved during the course of the night, not even to put on slippers to warm her chilled feet. She moved through cold treacle.

The maid came in to build the fire, and she squeaked in surprise to find Sarah already up. The girl glanced at the bed—it was pristine. A far cry from the usual heap of bedclothes that signaled another night of passion.

“Don't bother,” Sarah said to the maid as the servant bent to stoke the fire.

“But it's dreadful cold today, my lady.”

“It doesn't matter,” Sarah answered numbly.

“Shall I get the curtains?” the girl asked hopefully.

“Do or don't.”

The maid left, though she looked uncertain as to whether or not she ought to go, with her duties not fully discharged.

Glancing at the mantel clock, Sarah noted that breakfast would likely be served soon. She dressed herself in a simple, front-fastening gown. Gazing at herself in the pier glass, she saw without interest the heavy dark circles under her eyes, the pale and drawn cast to her features. She looked sickly. But not bodily unwell. What ailed her went far beyond a cold or the ague.

What kind of night had Jeremy passed? Had he slept well, or poorly, or, as she had done, not at all? He must have thought of her—a million unkind, bitter things for which she couldn't fault him. She'd done him a devastating wrong. The kind of wrong from which there was no recovery. How could there be?

Like a wraith, she drifted down to the breakfast room. She froze when she saw Jeremy already seated, reading a newspaper. No one else was in attendance for the meal.

He stood stiffly when he saw her standing in the doorway. Gave her a little cold bow, which pierced her frozen heart.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” she answered, barely able to get the words past her lips.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked as if by rote.

“No.”

“Nor I,” he said after a moment. He looked as though he wanted to say more, but he kept silent.

This was awful. How could she pretend to eat with him so close by, with the room full of mistrust and hurt?

“I'll leave,” he said. “Not much appetite this morning.”

“You stay,” she said quickly. “I'll go.”

Without another word, she turned and fled from the breakfast room. Back up to the bedchamber, where icy nausea knotted her stomach. She walked quickly to her portable writing desk and pulled out a sheet of paper. The quill trembled in her hand as she wrote, and sand scattered across the floor as she dusted the letter. In her missive, she requested an immediate reply.

A footman was summoned, and he took the letter without realizing the import of what it contained.

Sarah waited all morning, barely stirring from the settee. Jeremy did not come to see her.

Sometime around noon, Lady Hutton came to visit. “Beef tea always revives me,” she proposed, setting herself down beside Sarah.

“Thank you for the suggestion, but no,” Sarah replied, setting aside the book she couldn't seem to read. The same paragraph had swum before her eyes for the past fifteen minutes.

The older woman reached out and took Sarah's hand. “If there's anything you wish to discuss, I make for an excellent confidante.”

Heat prickled Sarah's eyes. The one person with whom she truly wanted to talk was the source of her
agony. She and Jeremy seemed to have exhausted their supply of words—and perhaps more.

“Your offer is most appreciated,” Sarah answered sincerely, “but everything will work itself out.” She did not believe herself, yet vapid palliatives were all she could seem to speak.

“Whatever it is between you,” Lady Hutton said softly, “give it time. He's kind and gentle, but he possesses a surprising amount of pride. Always been that way, since he was a boy.”

The pride Sarah had irreparably damaged. She knew he'd taken considerable satisfaction in the honesty between them, and she'd destroyed all vestiges of that illusion. There was no one to blame but herself, and no matter how much she brooded and stewed over the catastrophic situation, she could find no remedy. No way out. Only further darkness.

Sarah had no answer for Lady Hutton, so the older woman left her alone.

Meanwhile, the response Sarah waited for never came. Its absence spoke louder than any response.

Her mother would not allow her to return home, not even for a short while. Sarah had made her choice, the unwritten reply seemed to say, and now she must suffer the consequences.

That afternoon, Sarah vowed she would do
something.
Anything to alleviate this misery. So she donned her coat and bonnet, and, taking a maid with her, walked toward McKinnon's. Even on her gloomiest days, the bookstore never failed to give her pleasure.

London appeared to her at a great distance. Noise
and activity surrounded her on all sides, yet it was far away. She barely registered anything.

“Be careful, my lady!” her maid chided, pulling Sarah back from a cart that sped dangerously close.

Sarah hadn't seen it. She could hardly take note of anything, swaddled as she was in cotton wool and sorrow.

At last she reached McKinnon's. Despite the gray weather, the rows of books displayed on the sidewalk were bright punctuations of color, each containing its own world. They promised knowledge, escape, entertainment, information. All the things she loved.

“Afternoon, Lady Sarah!” McKinnon boomed cheerfully when she entered the shop. “It's been an age.”

“So it has,” she answered, trying her best to manufacture some enthusiasm. But even to her own ears, her words sounded flat and lifeless.

“You must tell me all about life in the country,” the bookseller pressed.

“I shall—only not today,” she managed. “I woke with a dreadful headache and haven't been able to shake it.”

McKinnon nodded with understanding. “My wife enjoys a bowl of sugared pap whenever the headache has her. Brings her right back to the nursery.”

“I'll take that under advisement.”

Sarah could speak no more. With a wan smile, she drifted into the aisles of books. Here were her friends. Her solace. Her comfort. She'd lose herself in tales of adventure or romance—no, not romance. It was a bitter draft to drink, reading of someone else's happiness,
when her own was lost. But a pirate tale, or maybe a gothic saga . . .

Yet, as she thumbed through volume after volume, nothing interested or pleased her. Everything rang hollow. It all felt trite. Even the sinister gothic tales contained pasteboard miseries. And her attention drifted. She could not read more than a few lines before seeking diversion elsewhere.

Coming to the bookshop had been a mistake. All it did was remind her even more of what was lost, and how far she'd fallen.

She could not even find it in herself to be frustrated. She felt only . . . nothingness. Absence and nullity.

Collecting her maid, she decided to hail a post chaise for the return journey. As she traveled back to Lord Hutton's home, she could not rouse any emotion in herself, not even dread. The world, and her own feelings, had retreated, leaving her in a barren plain where she barely recognized herself.

When they arrived, she went straight to her room. She did not inquire whether Jeremy was home or out. It didn't matter. His distance was assured wherever he was.

It was only a matter of time before he revealed to his father—and perhaps the world—her identity as the Lady of Dubious Quality. Yet she couldn't find it in herself to care. Everything was already ruined. What difference did scandal make?