Authors: Susannah Merrill
For once the calm, composed participant in an argument, Lady Juliana Tremont replied haughtily, “I believe Stewart would go far beyond such measures, Sarah, if you continue to refuse. He has already convinced Father of the importance of seeing you.
“I have not come to argue with you,” she added coldly, “only to warn you that you’ll accomplish nothing by barricading yourself in this damnable fortress you’ve insisted on creating.” She gestured with a toss of her blond curls toward the center of Sarah’s pink and blue bedroom.
With resigned disgust, Juliana continued, “I never would have thought you would be the one to put this family through such agony. Do you realize you have our own mother and father at war with each other?” Seeing the sudden uplift of Sarah’s brow, she forged on. “Believe it, sister. Father thinks Stewart should be allowed to see you, and Mother is unrelenting in her efforts to protect you. From what, Sarah? Is anything worth what you’ve imposed on us?”
Sarah could not believe her ears. “You always were a selfish child,” she scolded her sister. “You know nothing about anything. ‘Throw Sarah to the wolves as long as I can have some peace and quiet and all the attention returned to me’,” she mocked her. “That is the only reason you’re here, isn’t it?”
Juliana’s beautifully shaped lips curled in a scathing sneer. “You are being loathsome. If you didn’t already look done to a cow’s thumb ....” she began, then abruptly switched her train of thought. “Downstairs,” she muttered icily, “is the only man in this world who ever treated you like a woman. I don’t know what has gone on between you two, but I’d wager the family jewels that you’re running away from your one chance at any sort of happiness in this life. You think I don’t know you love him?” Sarah winced visibly, folding trembling arms around her thin form as some cloak of protection from the truth Juliana was throwing at her. “There is only one person in this house who doesn’t at least suspect you’re shriveling from a broken heart – and that’s Stewart Chamberlain. For God’s sake, Sarah, tell him. What do you have to lose?”
“Don’t I?” Juliana pursued relentlessly, moving closer to her weakening prey. “If he means nothing to you, then why won’t you see him? Why won’t you speak his name? Why are you literally wasting away? How could it be any worse to take the chance, to admit your feelings for him?”
“Becausehedoesn’tlove me,” Sarah cried out miserably, “and I cannot bear to hear him say it. Knowing it is too much to suffer.”
A satisfied smirk crossed Juliana’s lovely features and she tapped her toe on the Aubusson carpet with glee, her fist balled on the rustling silk taffeta of her day dress. “It’s true then, isn’t it? Just as I suspected. Even the detached Lady Sarah could not remain aloof in the face of the Yankee’s considerable charms.”
“You-you tricked me!” Sarah gasped, a mixture of betrayal and sheer anger welling in her breast. “Juliana, you are horrid.” Stumbling toward her younger sister, she moved to push her backward, but Juliana neatly sidestepped Sarah’s clumsy tear-blinded approach. “Get out of my room,” she sobbed, lunging onto her high, fourposter bed. “I hate you!”
Juliana, her green eyes immediately softening into a wide-eyed appeal, pleaded, “Sarah darling, I had to know, don’t you see? Mother and Father are certain you were ravaged by some pirate, and I just knew in my very soul that it wasn’t so. But you wouldn’t confide in me.” Raising her voice over Sarah’s heaving sobs, she continued, “I meant what I said about telling Stewart. Do you think he’d set foot in our home if he didn’t care? Even Father hasn’t the means to threaten a man like him. Sarah, listen to me!” she begged, reaching over the coverlet to shake Sarah’s huddled form.
Catching the misery-filled blue-eyed gaze, she beckoned, “If you have an ounce of courage left in you, for God’s sake talk to Stewart. I wasn’t wrong about you, was I?” Without waiting for a reply, she said, “I am certain he loves you. I am absolutely certain.”
“You are grasping at straws,” Sarah choked back, wiping her wet cheeks on her sleeve as she sat up on the downy featherbed. “If I even suspected that he loved me, do you think I would be in such dire straits? You don’t know anything, Juliana. You just don’t know ....” Her thoughts threatened to dwell on things best forgotten until the sharp pain of longing forced her to stop.
“You’re not going to do it, are you?” Juliana announced suddenly, her green eyes sparkling with characteristic impatience. “You’re not going to take the one chance you have left in your life to be truly happy. Go ahead and rot in your misery then,” she sniffed abruptly, turning on her heel toward the door, hesitating for a moment before turning the knob, she lashed out, “How I wish I could have made Stewart Chamberlain fall in love with me that night of my birthday party. He told me I was a coy little tease and he preferred women like you who wouldn't toy with a man’s heart. But God help me, Sarah, I never would have treated him as callously as you!”
After the household had retired, Sarah crept down the hall to her parents’ salon which her father used as an office when he could not sleep. She gazed upon his attractive, dignified features lovingly as he shuffled some papers out of his way. He was such a dear, wise man. She was ashamed of herself for the suffering she had caused him, for they had always been close ... until her return to England, after which she had become a stranger to all.
Therewasnoneedforpreliminaries,andshe gave none as she sat down in the comfortable chair beside his desk. “Did you truly ask him to come here, Father?”
His bushy brows quirked to attention, but he answered calmly, “Yes, but you must not misconstrue my involvement or my motives in this matter,” he declared with an aura of both authority and benevolence. “Seeing Stewart Chamberlain or not is your own decision. My invitation was based strictly on business.”
“But Mother said ....” and then she sighed wearily, her eyes closing in response to the aching struggle going on within her. “You know he has something to do with the way I have been acting, don’t you?”
“’Tis a logical assumption. You’ve acted peculiarly since the day you met him,” Tremont stated wryly. She could never accuse him of prying, she thought. If her father were to learn anything tonight, it would be because she had chosen to tell him.
Butshewasafraid,andashamed.Ifhewere to learn how completely she had made a shambles of her life, his disappointment would haunt her. He had not raised her to be a fool. “So how is it that Mr. Chamberlain is here? In England?”
“Not at my request, though I understand it is what you were led to believe,” Weston intoned firmly. “I saw him in Town Tuesday last, and he asked to meet with me to discuss a business arrangement. We are partners, after all. I invited him here, for I’ve yet to learn why he should not be a guest in my house.” His gray-blue eyes pierced hers deeply. “Have I a valid reason to rescind my invitation?”
The o ffer was tempting, but to say yes would unfairly incriminate Stewart in her father’s eyes. Her love would not permit that.
“About you?” her father asked abruptly. The reluctant nod and accompanying spark in her eyes did not go unnoticed. “Not specifically. However ....” he began, hesitating for a moment before he added a completely subjective comment. “I have observed a change in the man that puzzles me. He seemed subdued, resigned perhaps. As though he had lost his confidence, his exuberance for life. ‘Twere it the result of some disease,” he leveled at her, “I would say that you, too, are its victim.”
Ignoring her father’s insinuation, her heart went out to Stewart at that moment; she realized her love was too great to allow his misguided guilt to continue. In that millisecond, she resolved to speak with him one more time; to let him know that she held him responsible for none of her pain; to conjure up a performance that would convince him that she had survived their shared past, and that with the record set to rights, he could survive as well.
Her decision made, she smiled fleetingly at her father as she rose from the chair. “I am glad that you’ve invited Mr. Chamberlain here, Father. We, too, have some unfinished business to discuss,” she offered solemnly. “I believe I hold the antidote for this ‘disease’ you speak of.
“Mr.Chamberlainisagoodandbraveman,” she added unexpectedly, “a man worthy of your trust and friendship. You needn’t fear any longer that his presence would upset me. I will see him tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 42
Words. So much more easily spoken than acted upon, Sarah mused groggily as dawn broke slowly outside her bedroom window. A niggling, awesome tremor began in the pit of her stomach as she realized that today was the day she would see Stewart again at last. Feeling terrified, but strangely, for the first time in months, whole, she stretched her long, slender body in a nervous, vigorous gesture. Eager, surprisingly so, to begin her toilette, Sarah threw back the downy warm covers and bounded to the softly-tufted carpet. Today it will be over at last, she told herself, trying to sort out these stirrings of life that had lain dormant, seemingly lost forever.
“Armor,”shemurmuredaloudassheshook out her long, dark locks before her full-length mirror. “This scrawny body has but one more battle to fight, and then perhaps,” she sighed, disturbed at the sight, “it can begin to regain some form.”
Disgusted with her hollowed, wasted looks, her mind raced to thoughts of her wardrobe, trying to remember some gown that might aid her attempt to appear more voluptuous, and more healthy. As she mentally checked off day gowns, Sarah pulled the bell cord for the maid and within minutes, preparations had begun for a steaming bath. If anyone thought her interest in her toilette unusual, no one risked mentioning it, fearing perhaps that she would regress immediately to her former, apathetic self.
Scrubbing her limbs to a rosy hue, Sarah shook off dwelling on her bony appearance. There was nothing to be done about it now, and it would only interfere with the confidence she sorely needed this day. And despite her unusual slenderness, she felt alive, stronger, a growing excitement overtaking the months of lethargy. Raking her scalp, she washed her hair until the roots tingled, and when finally she emerged from the tub, dewy and deliciously sweet-smelling, she had decided on her attire.
Arrayed in fine white muslin undergarments and silk stockings, with the help of the maid Sarah donned a Turkey red printed day gown with cream lace around the low bodice and long-sleeved cuffs. The bodice was just narrow enough to hold her tightly, and she looked feminine and voluptuous. The small, well-spaced medallions of the print were a rich gold and blue, the latter matching her eyes almost perfectly. The maid who helped her brought wispy tendrils of shiny hair toward her face, and left the rest cascading in a loose knot from the crown of her head. Most unusually, Sarah’s vanity forced her to touch up her dark circles with a light, tinted foundation and rice flour. She then softened her mouth with rose lip salve. After pinching her cheeks to force a bloom, she took one last look at her reflection and smiled. Her appearance would be no cause for distress today.
Feeling almost queenly in her fetching red dress, Sarah began the journey that would bring her to Stewart. Oh how benevolent she would be toward the man today. With kindness and calm dignity, she would let him know that she had survived well, the past was buried and that with her blessing he could freely take up his life again, guilt-free and confident. He would know that she, too, had survived their encounter – and the death of their child – without visible scars.
A smile threatened her full lips as she mused on the changes that would overcome this broken, hollow man as she absolved him of the pain he’d been burdened with since her departure. For the first and only time, she would have the upper hand with Stewart Chamberlain. She, the strong one, would aid and abet the recovery of the one who was suffering ... the man who had finally come upon a situation he could not alone transcend.
But that satisfied smile crumbled on her lips before it reached her eyes when, as she stepped down the main staircase, the entry door suddenly swung open and in tumbled a laughing, outrageously self-satisfied couple imbued with a vigor Sarah could only pretend to share.
“Cheat!” Stewart cried merrily as he tugged playfully at the back of Juliana’s green riding jacket, causing her to fall backward laughingly into his chest, his arms closing around her waist in a muchtoo-familiar hug. As Sarah watched in shock, Juliana turned in his great arms and playfully pulled his thick, disheveled hair before resting her hands on his broad shoulders. “Did you think me so stupid as not to realize you could outrun me?” she giggled. “Tripping you was the only way I could win.”
“What a sly feline you are,” Stewart rejoined with an affectionate pat on Juliana’s glowing cheek. Sarah’s stomach lurched with a horrid jealousy at the familial scene. But by far the greatest shock was seeing the man only recently described to her as “subdued and resigned” brimming with vigor, his healthy, robust appearance causing Sarah’s knees to turn to jelly as she involuntarily clutched the banister with quivering fingers.
Stewart Chamberlain had never looked more virile or more breathtakingly attractive. He was a dark, powerfully built Greek Adonis starkly contrasted by Juliana’s pale loveliness. And in that second, she hated both of them with equal vehemence for setting her up to be the fool she’d almost made of herself.
Unable to escape, for she’d descended too far to retreat without notice, Sarah’s thin shoulders stiffened in survivalist’s resolve to take control of the insult thrust upon her. With her last ounce of courage, she swore neither would witness the mockery they’d made of her sacrificial act.
“Out riding so early, Juliana?” Sarah announced haughtily, beginning her march down the stairs. Smiling at the startled look in the two pairs of eyes suddenly locked on her descent, Sarah continued, “But of course, Mr. Chamberlain is here.” Taunting her sister, she said sweetly, “What an unselfish hostess you are to depart from your normal habit of rising at noon.” As she approached, the couple suddenly slid away from each other, Juliana looking chagrinned.