Temptations of a Wallflower (29 page)

“I did. I did, and I loved it.” She exhaled. “It
was
a dangerous game I played, and that was part of why I did it. My secret. My thrill. But it was more than that. So much more.” How to explain it, when she could not fully articulate it to herself. “It gave me purpose and . . . meaning. I
needed
it. So I kept going. And then . . .” She glanced at him. “You came into my life. Bringing a promise of a life I'd never thought I could have.”

“Yet you didn't stop,” he noted tensely.

“I had no idea what our relationship would become,” she explained. “What it would evolve into. You were a vicar, I was a duke's daughter. It couldn't turn into something . . . more. And I couldn't give up the one thing that made me happy—made me more than happy. It gave me . . . value.”

She drew in a shaky breath. Bracing herself for what was to come.

“Now . . . I've decided,” she said after a moment. “It all ends now.”

“I don't understand,” he said.

This was it. No turning back. She said, as boldly as she could manage, “The Lady of Dubious Quality will never write again.”

Without speaking a word, he seduced me. It wasn't precisely a seduction, as I desperately craved his touch, but he left no part of me untouched. He carried me to the settee before the fire, pulling off his clothes as he went. Naked, my lover was magnificent, hard all over, wanting me. After laying me down, he gripped my thighs and . . .

The Highwayman's Seduction

D
espite the darkness, Jeremy could only stare at Sarah, certain that he'd misheard. Or there was another explanation for her announcement. She had just told him all the reasons why writing meant so much to her, yet here she was, telling him she would give it up. Heat and anger continued to tear through him, yet she'd revealed her deepest secrets to him.

He was pulled toward her. He wanted to push her away.

“Why?” was all he could manage.

“Because . . .” She paused, as though gathering her
thoughts. “These days without you have been excruciating.” Another long pause. “When I was a little girl, I was standing behind a dog cart, and it backed up, rolling over and breaking my foot. The pain was everywhere in me. I couldn't escape it. It encompassed everything. But that hurt is nothing,
nothing,
compared to the time we've been torn apart.”

His heart beat faster and faster as tears thickened her voice—he hadn't been at peace ever since she'd come unexpectedly into his bedroom. In truth, he hadn't been calm or easy for days. The torment she described was precisely what he felt.

“I haven't been able to write,” she went on. “Not a sentence, not a word. And I realized . . . what was the point of writing when it gave me no pleasure, no purpose, anymore? It was worthless. I was worthless.”

Those words from her sent a stab of alarm through him. He'd heard such despair from parishioners on the very brink. “Sarah—”

“I've thought about it,” she continued, talking over him. “Turned it over and over in my mind until I've worn the thought down to a shiny pebble. None of it matters, none of my joys or achievements, if I cannot share them with someone. If I can't share them with
you
.”

She reached over and took hold of his hand, her own faintly trembling. It was their first touch in days, and it rocked him to his depths. It had been agonizing without her, being torn between wanting her desperately and roiling with fury at what she'd done. He needed her so much, yet her betrayal continued to burn him. She was hurting and he wanted to gather her close, shield her
from the pain. Yet it was an injury that she had caused with her recklessness.

“There's that story about Solomon,” she whispered. “With the women and the baby.”

“The Judgment of Solomon,” he recalled. “Two women fought, each insisting that they were mother of a baby boy.”

“King Solomon called for a sword,” Sarah went on.

“He said the only solution was to split the living child in two, and each woman would get one half. One said to go ahead and carve the child in two, the other said she'd give him up to spare him the judgment.”

“Because she'd rather the boy lived, even if it meant being raised by another.” Sarah exhaled. “If I must choose between writing and you, I choose you. I won't kill the love that we shared. And I hope,” she went on, her voice shaking, “that in time, you'll forgive me, and we'll find a way back to what we once had.”

The enormity of what she said she would do struck him hard, as though he'd been thrown by an explosion. Writing was
everything
to her.

“You cannot give up the most important thing in your life,” he protested. “Not for me.”

“I have to,” she said firmly. “I need you to trust me once more, and this is the only way I can show you that I will not hurt you again.”

“Sarah, love,” he choked. Reaching out, he pulled her against his body. She wrapped her arms around him. They held one another for a long, long time. Time moved onward, but he paid its passage no mind. He cared only for the feel of her in his arms again. It felt right. Like coming home after a long, wearying voyage.

“Life without you has been a miserable, shriveled thing,” he murmured into the cascade of her hair.

“I can't do this without you,” she breathed. “I can't—”

“You don't have to.” Pulling back slightly, he cupped her face with his palms. “It will be us, together.”

“But your father . . .”

“I'll think on that. Later. Let's just have this moment.” He kissed her, slowly, cautiously.

They lay side by side. Unable to truly touch. Something very precious had been lost forever.

They had made peace, but there would be no going back to the way things had been. That life was gone now. Moving forward, all he could see was murky haze and more uncertainty.

What was to become of them?

J
eremy tucked Sarah's hand into the crook of his arm as they left Astley's Amphitheater. The happy crowds exiting the theater after the performance were thick, threatening to force them apart. But he held on to her tightly as they made their way toward the street.

He glanced down at her. “Didn't know horses could dance,” he said above the din of the throng.

“Or that dogs made for superior equestrians,” she said with a smile. “Of all the things I thought I'd ever see, a pug atop a gelding ranks toward the bottom.”

“The wonders of London are manifold,” he noted. “Hope they don't make Rosemead seem tedious in contrast.”

“I'd never feel that way about Rosemead,” she answered at once.

This was the first they'd mentioned their home in some time. Neither of them seemed willing to discuss their return—though it would have to happen eventually. There were many things that needed to transpire, but both he and Sarah avoided all these topics. Avoidance was the way things went, lately.

Ever since she had come to his room a week ago, he'd embarked on a campaign to revivify their marriage. Work and anything resembling work had been shunted aside. Everything had been about entertainment, enjoyment. He'd taken Sarah all over London, to as many amusements as possible. Astley's displays of horsemanship were just one of innumerable diversions they'd attended.

They had strolled in countless parks. Attended a fair on the outskirts of Town, where they'd seen acrobats and racing. Visited museum after museum displaying everything from antiquities to Mr. Turner's most recent paintings. They'd paid a call on Catton's, stuffing themselves on cakes and tea. For entertainment, London could not be surpassed, and Jeremy was determined to take Sarah to everything. Whatever it took to make her smile.

And she did smile. Yet, while her lips curved and she sometimes even laughed, the gestures seemed . . . hollow. Sterile. Much as they did now, leaving Astley's incredible performance. She looked up at him as they finally made it out of the theater, but only a shadow of Sarah shone in her eyes. She was somewhere else. This woman with him now was a changeling.

He'd managed to hold his father off, telling the earl that he'd been tracking down leads. Yet his father
wouldn't be deterred for long. He'd want results. Soon. Jeremy still didn't know what to say, but he prayed nightly for solutions.

“Catton's?” Jeremy suggested.

She shook her head. “The drums and hoofbeats fatigued me. Would it bother you overmuch if we went home?”

“Not at all.” He hailed a post chaise and carefully helped her inside. Her energy remained minimal lately. She slept late and could barely be roused for breakfast.

She was always too tired to make love, and a cold strain continued between them whenever they climbed into bed. Strangers had taken their place in the bedchamber.

They were silent for the ride home. Sarah actually dozed along the way and hardly stirred when he gently awakened her.

“Come, love,” he murmured, escorting her out of the carriage and up the front stairs. “Let's get you to bed.”

He saw her inside, then helped her up to their bedroom. After tucking her in for a nap, he softly made his way downstairs. His destination was the study, but as he passed the drawing room, his mother's voice called out.

“Please,” she entreated. “Come in.”

He did so, finding her sitting with her embroidery on a settee. After giving her a kiss of greeting, he sat beside her, fighting restlessness.

“It's no better, is it?” his mother asked gently.

“What isn't?” he wondered.

His mother shook her head. “I'm a month away from my fifty-second birthday, Jeremy. Far too old for
games.” She set her embroidery hoop aside. “The situation between you and Sarah—it hasn't improved. I'd thought that once you two had started sharing a room again, things would recover. I'd see you both happy again.” She sighed. “But that hasn't happened.”

Jeremy glanced away, knowing his expression would reveal the depths of his grief. “No,” he finally said. “It hasn't.” For all that he'd done, despite the countless hours spent escorting her from one diversion to another, Sarah was miserable. There was no denying it.

“Why?” Lady Hutton pressed, clearly bewildered. “She's got a husband who loves her, a fine home. I cannot understand it.”

Jeremy swallowed. “She's suffered a loss. I can't discuss it, but it's devastated her.” Rubbing at his brow, he said in unhappy exasperation, “All the books I've read, all the theosophical texts I've studied, all the parishioners I've counseled—I can't think of one thing to do to help my own wife.”

“You'll figure something out,” his mother said with a consoling pat of her hand.

Yet her words and gestures gave no comfort. Nothing did.

Many hours later, we lay together in my bed, intertwined from the acrobatics of our exertions.

“How did you find me?” I asked.

“Not without difficulty,” he answered with a smile, “but I am a resourceful man.”

“Have you come for this?” I held up my hand, showing where the pearl ring adorned my finger.

“Ma'am, if that's what you believe, then you are far less clever than I'd believed you to be.”

“For me, then,” I said, my heart beating quickly, half in dread, half in hope of his answer . . .

The Highwayman's Seduction

“
Y
our guests have arrived, my lady,” the butler announced to Sarah as she sat in her bedroom.

She rose, smoothing down her skirts, and readied herself.

This would be the first time she had received calls on her own, as a married woman, here in London. She'd always been in the company of her mother, who'd always acted as the perfect hostess. Sarah had been her
wallflower daughter, watching, but never truly participating.

Perhaps once she might have been afraid to invite a woman as celebrated as Lady Marwood to tea. Now . . . she had much more experience. As Sarah made her way toward the drawing room, her hands didn't tremble. Her breathing was steady and even.

It had been her idea to invite Lady Marwood. Despite all of Jeremy's efforts to engage and amuse her since she'd given up writing, a part of her was going mad. Needing something, but not certain what. Perhaps a social call might help.

Jeremy had deliberately gone out, leaving her to receive Lady Marwood on her own.

“I think this is an excellent idea, seeing Lady Marwood.” He'd pressed a kiss to her cheek before heading out the door. “Besides,” he'd added with an attempt at lightness, “if you can solve Mrs. Edmond's marital woes, an hour of charming conversation with Lady Marwood should be quite pleasant.”

“So you
were
eavesdropping!” Sarah had exclaimed.

He'd reddened. “Only a little. My feet carried me away before I heard too much.”

Despite the attempts at banter and normalcy, this past week and a half had been awful, with her abandonment of writing. She'd found no pleasure in anything. No joy. Even her time with Jeremy had felt muted and hazy. She had thought that once she'd made a decision,
any
decision, she would have felt better. But that hadn't happened. She'd sunk even deeper into a formless gray mist.

Sarah stepped inside the room. But two women awaited her, not one.

There was Lady Marwood—a petite, dark-haired woman with large eyes and a penetrating gaze. Sarah had seen her briefly a handful of times and was thus able to recognize her. But the other woman . . . Sarah didn't know.

“Do forgive me,” Lady Marwood said, “but I've invited my friend Eleanor . . . I mean, Lady Ashford . . . to join us. I hope it's no trouble. Lady Sarah Cleland, may I present the Countess of Ashford.”

“A pleasure,” Sarah answered by rote, nodding at the taller blonde woman.

The countess had a lean, angular face and possessed a gaze as astute as Lady Marwood's. But a ready smile played about her mouth as she dipped into a curtsy.

“You're very accommodating to our rudeness,” Lady Ashford said with that wry smile.

“Nothing rude about it,” Sarah answered. “I'm glad of the extra company. Won't you sit? I'll ring for tea.”

She gestured toward the settee. As Sarah pulled the bell, her two visitors took their seats. Both of them were very elegantly dressed, though she noticed that Lady Ashford had neglected to wear gloves. Ink stained her fingers.

The smell of ink came flooding back, dark and wet. Sarah had always been careful to keep it from tinting her own fingers.

Countesses didn't have dried ink all over their hands—did they?

After calling for tea, Sarah sat opposite her guests. The women looked at her with mild expectation. But no words seemed to come to Sarah.

Viscountesses seldom wielded a pen for anything other than writing invitations and guest lists. How had Lady Marwood managed it? Marriage to a nobleman and maintaining a career? A career doing the thing that Sarah loved and needed more than anything.

Clearing her throat, Sarah said, “I understand that
The Last Scoundrel
is doing very well at the Imperial. Sold-out audiences every night.”

Lady Marwood, rather than basking in the accolades, merely nodded. “It's a bit of unexpected good luck, I think.”

Lady Ashford made a very unladylike noise. “Nothing lucky about it. You wrote a blessedly good piece of theater, and the crowds are showing up for it.”

“Thanks to a good review in
The Hawk's Eye,
” Lady Marwood pointed out.

“That wasn't my doing,” her friend answered. “I always tell my reviewers to be impartial, no matter who's performing what.”

A maid came in with the tea things and set them down on the table in front of Sarah.

But Sarah didn't pour the drink and serve cakes just yet. “Just a moment.” She lifted a hand as she looked at Lady Ashford. “Are you affiliated in some way with
The Hawk's Eye
?” The paper was one of London's most popular sources of news—and gossip. Sarah often read it to keep abreast of the scandalous goings-on about town.

“
‘Affiliated?'
” Lady Marwood chuckled. “Eleanor owns and edits it.”

Shocked, Sarah stared at the blonde woman. “The paper is
yours
?”

“From scribbled page to printed sheet,” Lady Ashford said with a not-insignificant smile.

“Do you . . . write for
The Hawk's Eye,
as well?”

Lady Ashford smoothed her skirts. “Not as much as I used to, since the staff has expanded considerably these past months and I'm more managerial than creative. But I do have a regular column once a week. The Hawk's Talon. It's a new feature.”

Good God.
Both
these women were also writers? What was the likelihood that they would not only be friends but also sitting in Sarah's drawing room right this moment?

They were so damned
lucky,
these two women. Did they know the depths of their fortune?

She felt a pained expression cross her face, unable to stop it.

“Do you find my calling distasteful?” Lady Ashford said coolly.

“No! Not at all,” Sarah said quickly. “It's only . . . well . . .” She wasn't sure how to explain it. She couldn't tell these women the truth—she barely knew them, and she wasn't certain they could be trusted, even though the three of them had something in common.

“I'm something of a dabbler at writing, myself,” Sarah finally said. It was as close to the truth as she could get without jeopardizing everything.

Both Lady Ashford and Lady Marwood brightened.

“What do you write?” Lady Marwood asked.

“Stories, mostly,” Sarah prevaricated. “But . . . I don't do it anymore.”

“Why not?” Lady Ashford demanded.

“Oh . . .” Sarah feigned a shrug. “Married life keeps me so busy.”

“But if you enjoy it,” Lady Ashford said firmly, “you should keep at it. No matter what.”

“It's not that simple,” Sarah answered. “I should think that both of you would know that. You're women of title, of consequence. Writing doesn't fit into that equation.”

Lady Ashford and Lady Marwood exchanged a glance. “We
make
it fit,” Lady Marwood said.

“And if Society sneers at you?”

“Let it,” Lady Ashford declared. “My marriage to Daniel cost him friends, but only those of little value. Those that mattered, stayed.”

“Cam never gave a fig what the
ton
thought of him,” added Lady Marwood. “My own position in Society has always been on the outside. If a few snobs fell away or stopped coming to my shows, I couldn't bring myself to care.”

“Forgive me, but . . . you both married into the aristocracy, didn't you?” Sarah remembered now the minor scandal that had happened when Lord Ashford had taken a commoner, and a woman who
worked,
for a wife.

“We did,” Lady Marwood said. Her accent wasn't the most genteel, but it did have the rounded tones of one who was in the theater. “But we had just as much to lose as our prospective husbands. Our livelihoods could have suffered severely because of the unions. In truth, the decision to marry wasn't an easy one, not for either of us. I broke it off with Cam, thinking I had to choose. Writing or love.”

“And I thought that a commoner and an earl could never be married,” Lady Ashford noted. “I'd never give up
The Hawk's Eye.
I believed I had to pick one or the other.”

It was as if Sarah had been struck. Though she wanted to cover her face with her hands to hide, she couldn't. Yet she felt shaken down to her very core.

“What . . . changed your minds?” she pressed.

Both Lady Ashford and Lady Marwood smiled. “Very persistent men,” said Lady Marwood. “They both let us know that they wouldn't be deterred. They were determined, and, in truth, both Eleanor and I were miserable without them.”

Sarah had deliberately given up the thing that gave her life meaning to show Jeremy that she was trustworthy. Yet these women had their husbands' faith as well as their work.

“Why do you write?” she asked them.

“What do you mean?” asked Lady Marwood, plainly baffled.

“What makes you do it?” Sarah pressed. She shook her head. “Especially in the face of societal disapproval.”

“
Your
condemnation?” Lady Ashford asked sharply.

The question made sense. After all, women like Sarah, from her class, her station, were precisely the sort who would turn their backs on women like Lady Marwood and Lady Ashford. Again, Sarah shook her head.

“Not mine,” she answered. “I've nothing but admiration.”

Lady Marwood smiled wryly. “We've both been
called the worst words.
Hack, virago, peddler of trash.
”

“
Unnatural harpy
is one of my favorites,” Lady Ashford said with a dry smile.

Their casual reaction to these slurs stunned Sarah. She'd fielded her own share of polite insults at being a wallflower, but at considerable cost. Yet Lady Marwood and Lady Ashford had no trouble brushing off the hurtful words.

“Then why pursue it?” Sarah pressed.

The two women fell into their own pensive silence. After a moment, Lady Marwood said, “It validates me. Makes me feel like I make a difference.”

“It's like I'm a ghost without form or substance,” Lady Ashford added. “But when I write, I become corporeal. I have substance. I can move objects—I can change the shape of things.” She shook her head. “I'm sure that makes no sense.”

Sarah had never spoken to anyone about what it felt like to write, and to
not
write. It had always been a private, secret understanding she hadn't been able to share. But these women were giving voice to all the feelings she'd never articulated, not even to herself.

“No, I understand you completely,” Sarah quickly said.

“Even if we didn't get paid to write,” Lady Marwood continued, “I think both Eleanor and I would continue to do it.”

“We've got stories to tell, don't we, Mags?” Lady Ashford said fondly.

“Heaps of stories,” her friend agreed, “and nothing can keep them inside.”

Sarah turned this over and over in her mind. She
wished,
oh, she wished,
that she could tell these women the truth. Because they, more than even Jeremy, seemed to understand what writing actually meant to her. As a person. As a woman. They could truly comprehend what it was like, the joy of writing, its sorrows and victories, its importance, and the devastation of its loss. But she'd silenced herself—to preserve peace.

At what cost?

“What if, for some reason, you couldn't write anymore?” she asked.

“I'd find a way,” Lady Ashford said immediately.

“But if you
couldn't,
” Sarah demanded. “If it simply wasn't possible.”

Expressions of horror crossed the ladies' faces. They turned pale, as though someone very dear had turned to ash right in front of them.

“I . . . don't know,” Lady Marwood finally said. “It would be like . . . losing a part of myself.”

Sarah absorbed this. She had felt as though a part of her had gone missing but she felt its phantom pain.

“Is Mr. Cleland keeping you from writing?” Lady Ashford asked gently.

“If he is . . .” Lady Marwood looked fierce, as though she would battle Jeremy herself.

“Oh no,” Sarah said quickly. “The decision was entirely mine.”

Lady Marwood appeared unconvinced, but she nodded.

“And the choice,” Sarah went on, “between love and writing? If you had to pick one or the other, what would it be?”

“I thought I had to,” Lady Ashford said soberly.
“But I was fortunate. Very fortunate. I didn't have to select one or the other.”

“If you
had
to pick,” Sarah said, almost frantic, “which would you choose? Love? Or writing?”

Neither Lady Ashford nor Lady Marwood spoke. They looked like the mother from the Judgment of Solomon. Horrified at the decision.

A decision Sarah had to consider.