The Affectionate Adversary (13 page)

“Sarah?” Prudence caught her sister’s arm. “Where are you going? What is amiss? You are near to tears!”

“I must go home at once, Pru. Help me find a footman to call our carriage. And tell Lord Marston that I—”

“Lady Delacroix—are you unwell?” Her nephew by marriage, Henry Carlyle, stepped to her side and took her arm. Known as Lord Delacroix now, he had taken up residence in his late uncle’s London house. A reputed cad and as penniless as the previous holder of the barony, Delacroix was nevertheless an elegant man who was ever solicitous of Sarah and her two sisters.

“Perhaps we should send for a doctor,” he said, speaking over Sarah’s head to Prudence, who was attached to her other arm. “I fear your sister may swoon. She is very pale!”

“No, I beg you. I do not need a doctor at all.” Sarah allowed them to hurry her across the room to an alcove, where Delacroix quickly emptied a settee of three drowsy matrons.

“Sit down at once, dear lady,” he said, kneeling and taking her hand. “Permit me to send for some punch. Perhaps the chill air has upset the delicate balance of your humors.”

“Sarah, what has happened?” Prudence demanded as she dropped onto the sofa beside her sister. “You are as white as ashes!”

“I am all right, truly. But I must go home, Pru. I cannot bear another moment of this jarring music and all these candles and everyone moving about—”

“Who talked to you just now? Was it
him
?”

“Why did you not warn me that he was here?”

“It
was
him! Oh, Sarah!”

“Who?” Delacroix demanded.

“The man from the ship. The one she loves!”

“I do not love him!” Sarah tried to stand, but her sister and the baron both pushed her back onto the cushions. “I do not! He is rude and arrogant and impossible!”

“She adores him,” Prudence confided to Delacroix. “His name is Charles Locke, and they met on the
Queen Elinor
. He was wounded fighting pirates, and she nursed him back to life, and it was terribly romantic. He asked her to marry him, and what do you think? She turned him down! He wanted to establish a tea trade with China, and she said that any man who would marry her must agree to live as a pauper! And he said he would do no such thing, so she rejected him. It was mightily tragic, though she never expected to see him again, for he is poor and could have no place in our society. But here he is!”

Wishing she had been swept away by an ocean wave, Sarah blotted the tears that insisted on trickling down her cheeks. “Prudence, for mercy’s sake, lower your voice,” she commanded. “And as for Mr. Locke, I assure you that what I felt for him once is utterly gone. He accosted me outside, insulted me, accused me of all manner of horrid things, and … oh, Pru! Please send for the carriage before I make a spectacle of myself!”

“If the man insulted you, he must be made to answer for it!” the baron announced. “Does he know who you are? Your rank! The esteem and honor you are due! Does he know he insults Lady Delacroix herself?”

“Oh, please, sir,” Sarah sniffled, “spare your flatteries.”

“But how dare he treat you so ill?”

“Precisely because he did not know I was Lady Delacroix—not until tonight. Aboard ship, I neglected to inform him of that fact. But I do not believe my omission should earn such ire.”

“Of course not!” Prudence said. “Insufferable lout! Sarah, you are losing your earrings, and your face powder is all streaked. You must stop weeping at once. Here, let me pat your cheeks. Delacroix, I beg you to find my sister Mary and tell her the situation. She and her husband can make our apologies to Lord and Lady—” She gasped. “There he is now! Charles Locke! He is making his own departure from the duke. He is fearfully handsome, Sarah; I warrant you that. No wonder you fell madly in love with him. I should have done the same in your place.”

“Prudence, I am
not
…
not
in love!” A fresh wave of dismay came over Sarah as she watched Charles bowing before the duke and his wife.

“I shall fetch him and make him apologize,” Delacroix said.

“You will do no such thing!” Sarah caught his arm. “Let the man go. He is better off as far away from me as possible!”

“Are his eyes blue?” Prudence asked. “Oh, sister, he is uncommonly dashing.”

Sarah gave a cry of disbelief. “Can you think of nothing beyond handsome faces, Pru? Upon my word, you are as shallow as a tea saucer!” With that, she stood from the settee and smoothed down her skirt. “I shall summon the carriage myself if neither of you will do it for me. And as for Mr.Locke, take a last look at his blue eyes, sister, for that is all you will ever see of him again.”

As Sarah started forward, she saw Charles striding through the crowd toward the foyer. He kept his gaze trained steadily ahead until, at the last moment, he halted and focused directly upon Sarah.

She held her breath. His eyes met hers, searched them, burned into them. And then he turned away again and left the room.

“Your ill humor does you no credit, young man.” James Locke pointed a finger at his son. “You had better tell me what truly occurred at Lord Marston’s reception and be done with it! Did the duke speak of me with little regard? If so, I care not. The old cabbagehead! Let him say what he will. He matters nothing to me. I served him well, and now I am shed of him. Good riddance is all I can say to that!”

“Lord and Lady Marston kindly asked after your health, Father, and that is all the conversation we had,” Charles said. “They have a more amiable intent toward you than you do toward them.”

Rising from the chair beside the fire, he took up his cane and used its tip to part the curtains over the window. It was a fine afternoon, and he ought to be about the town in search of employment. Surely such activity would be a welcome escape.

Since the reception, his father had done nothing but lament the failed attempt to secure a patron. Observing his son’s dark mood, he had convinced himself that Charles must have offended every single member of the English aristocracy. Or that he had been shunned by someone of consequence. Or that he had been so caught up in dancing that he had forgotten to try to win a backer for their tea enterprise. Any number of theories had been tossed out, and Charles had denied each one. But when he refused to give the true reason for his unhappiness, his father decided to try them all again.

“The rain has stopped, and the sun is out,” Charles announced. “I shall walk to the bank and make my inquiries.”

“Was the regent at the reception?” James asked. At Charles’s lack of immediate response, his face broke into an expression of utter astonishment. “He
was
there! Aha! What did you say to him, Charles? Did you mention our tea scheme? Was he displeased? I believe he may have connections to the East India Company. Investments, you know. Perhaps you should have said nothing to him at all.”

“The regent was not in attendance.” With a sigh, Charles reached for his hat and coat. “Father, may we not move forward to some more productive discussion? The reception is ended, and I must seek employment if we mean to keep eating. I am convinced that the bank will happily take me on.”

As he donned his hat, their only servant stepped into the room. She bore a small tray on which lay a white card. Her hand was trembling as she extended the card toward her master.

“Who can this be?” James asked as he scanned it. “I am not acquainted with a Henry Carlyle, Lord Delacroix. Fanny, are you certain this is not a ruse? Lord Delacroix indeed! It must be some charlatan.”

His heart stumbling, Charles snatched the card from his father’s hand. “It is no ruse. Fanny, please show in Lord Delacroix.” He jerked off his hat and tossed it onto a table. “Say nothing, Father; I implore you. Allow me to converse with the gentleman, and afterward I shall explain everything.”

James gave a snort of unhappiness and muttered something under his breath as the door opened again. His heart hammering, Charles set his cane aside and squared his shoulders. Fanny squeaked out the introduction and then fled as Lord Delacroix stepped into the sitting room.

Shorter than Charles, he was nonetheless an imposing figure with a broad chest and a stocky build. His head of golden curls might have given him a delicate cast, but Delacroix wore such an air of regal male superiority that no one could mistake him for anything but a member of the peerage. Standing just inside the door, he haughtily accepted his hosts’ polite bows and made them a curt response. Then he strolled across the carpet, flipped the tails of his coat behind him, and seated himself on the chair nearest the fire.

Charles glanced at his father, who clearly did not know whether to kneel in homage or throw the baggage out on his ear. Delacroix’s silence made it obvious he would not be the first to speak, and thus the task fell to Charles.

“Good afternoon, sir,” he ventured, taking a place on a chair nearby. “To what do we owe the honor of your visit?”

The baron’s eyelids lowered as he turned to Charles. “I believe you know very well the nature of my call, sir. Two days have passed since the evening in which you insulted Lady Delacroix, and she has yet to receive your written apology.”

Charles lifted his chin. “I am the one deserving of an apology, sir. The lady in question deceived me. She used me ill, and I reproached her for it.”

“Lady Delacroix is incapable of such infamy, sir. She is as mild and sweet and innocent of wrongdoing as any child. Since the evening of the Marston reception, she has been unduly melancholy. Her sisters fear for her, and I am most concerned. She hears nothing that we say to her. Instead, she packs her trunks and insists she will take passage on the first ship to the Orient, though she has been back in England less than a month.”

This news dismayed Charles. He could not deny the painful encounter at the Marston reception. His hurt at being rejected by Sarah had combined with righteous indignation upon seeing her in such grand regalia. Together, they had ignited the flame of his rage, and he had callously lobbed one fiery accusation after another at her.

But she had deserved his fury, had she not? Everything about Lady Delacroix belied what Sarah Carlyle had told him aboard the ship. She could not possibly be both women, and so she had deceived him. What else might one deduce?

“She returns to Asia?” Charles asked. “To what end?”

“You know very well to what end, for she told you herself!” Delacroix leapt up from his chair and began to pace the room. “The lady is determined to rid herself of her father’s legacy! She has settled a goodly sum upon each of her sisters, and she has willingly resigned to me any interest of hers in my uncle’s properties. Hour after hour, she consults with her stewards, solicitors, and bankers. She writes letters, sends them off to Burma or India or other such forsaken places. And then she writes again. Nothing her sisters or I can say have any effect upon her. She is bent upon this madness, and I hold you responsible!”

“You hold Charles responsible for this lady’s erratic behavior?” James Locke burst out. “What on earth can my son have had to do with it!”

“Father, please,” Charles said; he stood to face their guest.

“If Lady Delacroix wishes to divest herself of her legacy, who are you to stop her? You have called her mild and innocent. If so, she can have no nefarious purpose in her desire to be free of the encumbrances her father strapped upon her.”

“Encumbrances? Mr. Locke, the dowager baroness is among the wealthiest in all of England. Her father was a trader in opium, laudanum, and other derivatives of that medicinal plant, and he left his eldest daughter a fortune. Not a small fortune. Not a middling fortune. A great, vast, and magnificent fortune! He saw her wedded to my uncle with the aim of uniting his money to the Delacroix lineage. But Lady Delacroix bore no children before her husband’s death, and now she means to distribute every tuppence in her possession to beggars in China!”

“You are concerned, then, that Lady Delacroix has failed to satisfy her father’s wishes. Is that it, sir? In our conversations aboard the
Queen Elinor
, she and I discussed many things. Your deep affection for her father was not among them.”

Delacroix swallowed. “Well, I believe everyone should do his part to honor his parents. Your own father must surely agree.”

“Of course,” James concurred. “Charles, by this man’s account, you do owe the baroness an apology. She may have failed to give you her true identity, but that is a sin of omission and certainly forgivable. You, on the other hand, insulted and demeaned her to the extent that you have driven her to utter despair. She not only flees her familial responsibilities, but she gives away her money. Surely she has lost her senses!”

“You are mistaken, Father,” Charles countered. “Her mind is quite sound. Mrs. Carlyle, as I knew her, claimed that her life had been one of suffering. Certain events in her childhood and marriage had brought her much unhappiness, though she did not give me the specifics of these. She had concluded that her only hope of true happiness was to live as she believed God intended. The Bible, she told me, describes the life of a true Christian as one of poverty. A man must divest himself of all worldly possessions, take up his cross, and follow Christ. The same holds true for a woman.”

The two men stared at Charles as though he had been speaking in Hindi. He knew how they felt, for he had not understood Sarah’s mission at all. Even now, he could hardly agree that she was correct in her understanding of Scripture. Yet what had become clear to Charles was that Sarah may not have deceived him on board the
Queen Elinor
after all. Not in what truly mattered to her.