The Merry Month of May (21 page)

“I shall call tomorrow, if I may?”

“Yes, certainly. I expect Betsy and Lord Peter will call as well to discuss wedding plans.”

Haldiman smiled blandly. “Quite. It was wedding plans I had in mind when I mentioned calling.” He lifted her hand and placed a short, discreet kiss in her palm.

Observing him from the window, Idle was not at all impressed by such a lukewarm performance. Haldiman ought to have yanked her into his arms and performed a punishing kiss. But then Haldiman had not had his blood heated to scalding by the Sauvage.

At Whitehern the ladies did not retire till four o’clock the next morning. Their mother waited up for their return and was told all the exciting doings. “You never mean she slapped Idle!” Mrs. Wood exclaimed, thrilled to death with such scandalous behavior.

“He loved it!” Mary laughed, but her attention was more than half on the heavy signet ring on her finger and what it promised.

“It is a mercy Haldiman did not have her. What a mistress she would have made for the Hall,” Mrs. Wood said, shaking her head in wonder.

“Nearly as bad as the present incumbent,” Sara said.

“Really, Sara! Idle’s manners are beginning to rub off on you. Well, as you have lost out on Lord Peter, you must get your slapping arm in trim to wring an offer out of Idle.”

“I am much too nice for him. He prefers hurly-burly girls.”

“Mary will have you to visit her after she is wed, and find a match for you. I do regret it could not have been Idle or Lord Peter—so convenient to home. I dislike to lose both my daughters.”

“Rubbish,” Mary said. “I shall not be moving that far away. We’ll be home often, and you will come to us. And you’ll always have Sara,” she added thoughtlessly.

That was the speech Sara took to bed with her. Mama would “always have Sara.” What was to be done about this impossible situation? How did a lady manage to snare a husband without making a cake of herself? She could not think Haldiman would appreciate a hard slap across the face. At the very least, that required a good and sufficient reason. She could foresee no possible contingency that would warrant it. She should have done it when he told her Lord Peter was home and wanted to marry her. Of course, Peter had not wanted to in the least. Haldiman
made
him offer. That in itself showed very clearly how little he regarded her as a possible bride for himself.

It was nearly five before she closed her eyes and hardly four hours later when she opened them again to see a heavy gray sky beyond her window. The interval had been interrupted by the crowing of the cock, the sound of men working in the fields beyond, and even a shot, which did not portend murder but the farmhands shooting into the fields to ward off the depredations of Mr. Crow.

Her eyelids were heavy as she sat at her toilette arranging her hair. She looked white and drawn, and felt like a limp rag. Bright-eyed Mary darted to the door and said, “Come down at once, Sara. Richard is here. All the party from the Hall are with him.” The transformation to the face in the mirror was a minor miracle. At once her pale cheeks were suffused with color. The dull eyes sparkled to life, and Sara’s hand clutched at her heart that had begun to pummel her ribs quite painfully.

“I shall be down directly,” she called after Mary’s fleeing form. She used the minute to compose herself, add a pretty blue ribbon to her curls, remove it, and reinsert it.

A babble of excited voices rose up the staircase as Sara descended it. Miss Harvey’s voice trumpeted above the rest.

“This eager man wants the thing done at once. ‘Lud, give me a month to acquire a trousseau,’ I told him. Not that the things I brought from Canada are contemptible, I promise you. I have seen nothing I like better in England. You shall be my bridesmaid, Mary. Pray pay no heed to whatever may have popped out of my mouth last night in the heat of the moment. I made sure you had nabbed Peter out from under my nose, and you are plenty pretty enough to have done it, too. Richard would have had something to say about that, eh, Dickie?”

Before Deverel or Mary could reply, she continued. “Did you ever see the likes of Sir Swithin? I am nearly ashamed to admit how mad he is for me. Poor devil, he will curl up his toes and go into a decline. Fancy, a baronet, too. I could have had him without lifting a finger.”

“I believe it was the lifting of your fingers that caused that offer,” Deverel managed to insert, before she continued.

“I gave him a good wallop, to be sure. The nerve of him, calling me a
sauvage,
whatever that is.”

Sara ordered coffee and slid into the room unobtrusively, so all the gentlemen would not feel obliged to leap to their feet. She observed, however, that Haldiman looked up with interest at her arrival, and his eyes followed her. There was no vacant seat near him. She took up a post behind the coffee table, and when the coffee arrived, she poured. He was the last to come for his cup. When she had given it to him, he sat beside her.

Betsy’s voice continued to beat the air, interrupted by many bursts of laughter, and an occasional sly word by Deverel. After half an hour, Miss Harvey wished to broadcast her luck to a larger audience and rose to leave.

“Come into the village with us, Mary. You and I shall begin picking out our trousseaux. I saw a dandy length of blond lace in the drapery shop. I must have it to make a fichu. Now that I am practically an old married lady, I daresay this husband of mine will insist I tuck my bodice up with lace. Not that I plan to let him bearlead me. We shall keep the pair of them under cat’s paw. Come along, Dickie. We are all going together.”

Richard nodded acquiescence, and Mary went for her bonnet. Betsy trailed out after her. “A pity poor Sara, the oldest of the lot, has found no one to have her. I made sure she would nab Idle, never suspecting it was my poor self he favored.”

Her voice carried into the parlor, where Sara winced at the blunt words. Haldiman turned a laughing eye on her. “Well, poor Sara, shall we join them, or remain here in peace and give our ears a rest?”

“Mine are already burning,” Sara said. “Let them go, and good riddance.”

“Amen.”

Mrs. Wood, watching silently from across the room, thought it a good idea to leave them alone. There was a glow in Haldiman’s eye that put a wild and wonderful idea into her head. “I’ll just speak to Mary before she goes. I need some red embroidery yarn,” she added mendaciously.

They both noticed that she closed the door discreetly behind her when she left. Haldiman looked at the door, and Sara looked in embarrassment at Haldiman. “Subtle,” she said.

He reached across the sofa and seized her hand. “Care to give me a slap to get me started?” he asked playfully.

“I fear that is
not my style.”

“Nor mine. I lack her audacity, and Idle’s whimsical sense of timing. I can only say what I have wanted to say this age, Sara. I love you very much.”

Sara felt a tremble inside and looked at him doubtfully. “You never acted it! Trying to make me marry Peter.”

“I didn’t know then that I loved you.”

“It was not that long ago. You said ‘this age.’ ”

“Yes, but I meant this—er, short age. Since you have changed. You have, you know.”

“I have not changed in the least. It is only that you never bothered looking at me before,” she charged.

“I beg to differ. You have changed. You used to be a mousy thing.”

“Mousy!
Is this your idea of courting, Haldiman?”

“No, I got sidetracked. And furthermore I didn’t mean mousy. I meant shrinking violet.”

Sara began breathing with dangerous long breaths. “I suppose you consider that a compliment! I despise shrinking violets.”

“I like them. What are we arguing about?”

“Then you do not like
me,
for you said I have changed.”

Impatient at these irrelevancies, Haldiman said, “By God, Idle’s lunacy has rubbed off on you. Just how far has this thing gone between the pair of you?”

“We are very good friends. Not that it is any of your business.”

Idle, with what he considered impeccable timing, stepped into the front hallway to hear his name being bandied about. Their raised, frustrated voices carried through the closed door. He adored being the subject of gossip and put his finger to his lips to silence the hovering butler. He drew closer to the door and listened shamelessly to what was being said.

“It is my business if he has compromised my fiancée,” Haldiman said in a loud voice, tinged with anger.

“I am not your fiancée! You haven’t even asked me. And I take leave to inform you I have never allowed myself to be compromised.”

“Next you’ll be telling me you weren’t having a paint fight with the silly coxcomb the day I caught the pair of you in the garden. And that gown you were wearing was not far from being improper.”

Sara jumped from the sofa. “How dare you come into my home and insult me?”

Haldiman rose, bewildered to contemplate how his courting had gone so far awry. The butler chose that inauspicious moment to open the door and announce, “Sir Swithin Idle, to see you, Miss Wood.”

Sara gave a bold toss of her head to Haldiman and said, “Please show him in.”

“Tell him to wait,” Haldiman called over her shoulder.

Sara turned on him in angry disbelief. “This is my house. You do not give the orders here, sir.”

“I give this one. Tell him to wait,” he repeated arrogantly, and glared at her.

Nonplussed at such brazen behavior, Sara’s wrath rose. She lifted her hand and gave Haldiman a slap in the face. She watched with bated breath as his face stiffened to anger, hardly crediting that she had actually done anything so utterly farouche. Haldiman turned on his heel and headed for the door, showing outrage in the proud set of his head and the arrogant slant of his shoulders. She stood frozen, feeling she should go after him, but unwilling to grovel and unable to move in any case. She watched, mesmerized as he reached for the door handle, seized it—and closed the door firmly in the butler’s face.

He turned back to face Sara. A small, tight smile set uneasily on his determined face and his dark eyes glowed angrily. “Now, my darling termagant,
now
you have gone too far. Never do that again, or I shall turn you over my knee and give you
a
good walloping. I will not have Indian manners in my wife.”

He pulled her angrily into his arms and gave her a ruthless kiss. Sara was too relieved to object. She was sure she had lost her chance and clung desperately to him. Her heart hammered in her throat, and as the attack continued, she was aware of another unusual stirring within her. A flame licked through her, firing her passion to unsuspected heights as she returned every pressure of his lips. Her fingers touched his neck tentatively and soon clung to it, reveling in the crisp texture of his hair. She felt one hand brush along her jaw, measuring it lovingly, before slipping down to clasp her throat in tender fingers. She felt her pulse beat under his massaging fingers. Then he lifted his head, and his dark diamond eyes were glazed with love.

He swallowed convulsively and asked in a hoarse voice, “Why did we wait so long?” Sara just shook her head mutely, too overcome to reply. “Let us make up for lost time,” he said, and kissed her again.

When at last he stopped and pulled her head into the crook of his neck, she heard a low rumble of laughter in her ear. “Forgive me. I never was slapped by a lady before, and lost my head.”

“It did get you started, at least,” Sara smiled.

They did not hear the quiet opening of the door. “The problem now is to get you stopped,” Sir Swithin said. “Did I hear my name being taken in vain—I hope?”

“Wish us happy, Swithin. I have accepted an offer from Rufus. At least—well, I suppose I have, though I don’t think he actually asked me,” she said, slanting a look at Rufus.

“Action speaks louder than words,” Haldiman said.

“Then it is all over between us, Rufus?” Idle asked, with an ironical grin. “Jilted twice within twenty-four hours—by a man, and a minx of a maid. Surely I have set some sort of record. It is well I have my water party to beguile my mourning. I came to show you these preliminary sketches for the water fountain—but I see I arrived inopportunely. I shall return.”

“Forewarned is forearmed,” Haldiman said.

“Too cruel.”

Copyright © 1990 by Joan Smith

Originally published by Fawcett Crest [ISBN 0449217841]

Electronically published in 2013 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.