Strangers At Dawn Part 15

Constance Carstairs looked far too young to be the mother of the three grown children by her side. In fact, she looked no older than Sara. Her skin was unlined; her features were as delicate as her daughter's, and her dark, glossy hair framed a heart-shaped face.

Her figure was as youthful as her face. Her gown, a pale amber silk, made her skin glow. Here was a woman who knew how to make the most of herself.

Then Sara was making the introductions. "And this is the man who has made me the happiest woman in the world, Lord Maxwell Worthe, my betrothed."

Constance's finely chiseled eyebrows winged up, and her green eyes sparkled with interest. "Lord Worthe," she said, a delicate emphasis on the t.i.tle.

"Actually it's Lord Maxwell," replied Max. "It's a courtesy t.i.tle, you see."

"I'm very happy to meet you at last," said Constance in a low musical tone.

Max knew that she meant it. He'd had looks like this from women before, women who found him attractive and wanted him to know it. Any man's vanity would be flattered, and he was no exception. She was, he thought, the kind of woman who would show to best effect in the company of men, but who would, if he was not mistaken, possess few female friends.

"Charmed," he murmured, and lightly pressed a kiss to the hand she offered him.

He did the same with Lucy, who blushed rosily and turned away with a giggle. Martin bowed and mumbled something inarticulate under his breath; Simon surveyed him with a look that was faintly hostile.

"You must be Simon," Max said. "How do you do?"

Simon's reply was a curt bow that was barely civil.

Sara, who was oblivious to this exchange, said lightly, "Where is Anne?"

Constance dragged her withering gaze from her elder son. "Where else but out doing good? She's with Mr. Thornley, our new vicar. I told her when you were due to arrive, but you know Anne. Sometimes I wonder if that girl ever learned to tell the time."

"No doubt," said Sara in the same light tone, "she'll be here for dinner."

"I wouldn't count on it. She spends more time in the vicarage than she does here at Longfield. There's a prayer meeting she attends. Well, that shouldn't surprise you. Sometimes it runs late." Constance shrugged. "She is over twenty-one and has answered to no one since you abandoned ... well ... since you went away."

In the silence that followed these words, Max looked at Sara. It was as if all the life had been driven out of her. She looked frozen and very fragile.

"Sara," he said quietly, "shall I send a servant to fetch her?"

His voice brought her back to life. "A servant?"

"To fetch Anne."

"Good heavens, no! He'd only lose track of the time as well. Anne has that effect on people. Come along, Max, and I'll show you to your room."

They mounted the stairs in silence, but at the foot of the stairs, it sounded as though a quarrel had erupted. The words were inaudible, but Constance's voice eventually held sway. It wasn't low and musical now. A hard edge had crept into it, hard and domineering.

The woman was flawed, thank G.o.d, thought Max, for her appeal really was quite staggering, but not nearly as staggering as the appeal of the slight figure with the squared shoulders ahead of him on the stairs, who was leading him only the Lord knew where.

*Chapter Twelve*

Sara entered her bedchamber and quietly shut the door. She'd told the maid that the unpacking could wait till later. Just for a few minutes, she wanted to be alone.

Hardly aware of what she was doing, she slipped out of her coat, draped it over the foot of the big four-poster bed, and walked slowly across the room to look out the window. Below her, beautifully manicured lawns gave way to a virtual forest, and beyond that, over the treetops, she could see the spires of Stoneleigh.

The people of Stoneleigh had not been kind to her after the trial. The prospect of walking along the High Street or attending church services was quite frightening. It didn't matter. If all went well, she would be gone before the locals had any inkling that she'd returned.

She was home at last, the place she loved best in the world, and already she was wis.h.i.+ng she were anywhere but here.

There had been many homecomings over the years, but none as hollow as this one. When she'd come home from school, her brothers and sisters would go wild with delight, but of course, she'd always remembered to bring them a little present. And her father would be there, beaming his pride in her; and Constance, fussing, occasionally tart, but never sullen. And Anne ...

She couldn't think of Anne without wanting to weep. Once, they'd been so close, but now Anne kept her thoughts to herself. Her letters said very little. Since William's disappearance, she'd devoted all her time and energies to the church, and that's all she wrote about.

Was she suffering from a guilty conscience? Is that why she devoted all her time to doing good? How much did Anne remember about that night?

She turned from the window and stared at the small portrait above her escritoire. Her father stared back at her. She was supposed to be very like him, not only in looks, but also in nature. The looks she couldn't deny. They had the same gray eyes, squared jaw, and fiery dark hair. But she could never be the person her father was. He was shrewd; he understood human nature; he'd kept the family together. She was completely unequal to the task, as events had proved. She would give anything if only her father could step down from the portrait, take her in his arms, and tell her that everything was going to be all right.

He'd never been an affectionate father, doting on his children, but she missed him. She'd always known she could count on him. And now there was only herself.

Defeat settled on her shoulders, and she sank down on the edge of her bed. But her eyes strayed to her father's portrait, and she was held. He'd had so much faith in her. She couldn't let him down.

She thought about Max. When she looked at him, she saw two men: the Courier's pitiless correspondent who had hounded her for three years and of whom she was mortally afraid, and the charming fop who had bewitched her one never-to-be-forgotten night in Reading.

Special correspondent. Those words were burned into her brain and could never be erased. He'd kept her name alive long after it should have been forgotten. She feared and hated that man.

The man she thought she'd lost her heart to didn't exist. It was pointless to wish, to hope, to dream. She didn't know Max Worthe at all. Reading seemed like a mirage now, a foolish fantasy. What was real was that the Courier's special correspondent was here in Longfield.

And the game wasn't over yet.

Reading. She stared into s.p.a.ce as the memory came back to her. When tears burned her eyes, she dashed them away. Suddenly rising, she went to the bell rope and pulled on it.

She was going through her clothes closet when the maid arrived. All her gowns were at least three or four years old, but they were far superior to anything she'd brought with her.

She shook out a sheer gray satin that was appliqued on the bodice and along the hem with tiny vines.

"This will do," she told the maid. "It's Martha, isn't it? You're Cook's girl, aren't you?"

"Yes, mu'um. I never thought you would remember me. I was only a scullery maid when you went away."

"Yes, but I remember your mother. How is she?"

Martha's face fell. "She says that either that newfangled stove goes or she does. Not," Martha hastened to add, "that she means it. Longfield is the only home she's ever known."

"Oh."

Sara was momentarily nonplussed. She'd think about it later when she had more time. "Martha," she said, "I want you to press this dress straight away, and send a footman with water for my bath. And tell your mother to delay dinner by an hour. That should give me time to make myself presentable."

When Martha left, Sara began to disrobe. The clothes she was wearing and those she'd brought with her would be cleaned and sent to the parish poor. For three years, she'd dressed so as not to attract notice to herself, but now that she was no longer in hiding, she could please herself. She wanted to wear pretty things; she wanted to look her best. This had nothing to do with Max Worthe. She wanted to live like an ordinary girl.

Just for a little while, she wanted to live like an ordinary girl.

It took Max all of thirty minutes to revise his opinion on the Elizabethan gem that Samuel Carstairs had restored to its former glory. The sanitation was primitive, no more than a small closet concealing an elaborately carved throne with a chipped chamber pot under its lid; the bellpull in his room did not work, forcing him to troop down to the nether regions of the house to summon a servant. And when his bathwater arrived, it was tepid. By the time he was halfway through dinner, he'd come to the conclusion that it was a G.o.dawful house, a G.o.dawful dinner, and a G.o.dawful family.

They were curious about him, of course, but that didn't excuse the way they'd pounded him with a volley of blunt questions. It was almost like going up against Mighty Jack Cleaver. Who were his parents? Where did they live? How had he met Sara? Why wasn't she wearing a betrothal ring? When would the marriage take place? What was his profession? His prospects? How had he come by his courtesy t.i.tle?

For his purposes, it was essential for everyone to think that he was marrying Sara for her money, so he told them only as much as he wanted them to know. His parents, he said, lived on the other side of Winchester in a decrepit ruin of a place that they were rebuilding piece by piece. He'd met Sara in a coaching house in Reading, and had been instantly taken with her. There was no betrothal ring because there hadn't been time to choose one. The wedding would take place as soon as he had obtained a special license. His courtesy t.i.tle was pa.s.sed on from father to son, and one day his own sons, should he be fortunate enough to have any, would have courtesy t.i.tles also. It was obvious that Sara and her family had no idea how the peerage worked, and he didn't enlighten them.

"You haven't mentioned your profession, Max."

At the sound of Sara's voice, he looked up. Their eyes met and held, hers enigmatic, his wary. This was the first time she'd addressed him personally.

When he'd first caught sight of her as she'd descended the stairs, he'd felt as though someone had knocked the wind out of them. "Lovely" didn't do her justice. She was stunning. Ethereal. Elegant. And oh-so-ladylike. And he was tempted to prove what a lie that was.

He'd guessed that the transformation was for his benefit, a.s.suming that Sara had noticed his reaction to Constance when they'd first met. But now he wasn't so sure. Her face was as smooth and blank as a marble sculpture. But he knew her better now, and he knew that she was anything but calm.

"I might as well tell you," said Sara, resting her chin on her linked fingers, "Max doesn't do much of anything. He's a Corinthian, you see."

"You mean," said Lucy innocently, "like Simon and Martin?"

"That depends," said Max. "You see, Lucy, the test of a true Corinthian is in his skill in sports."

"Max," Sara continued, "is a pugilist, you know, a boxer."

Martin's mouth gaped, then he rolled his eyes.

Simon, in a perfect imitation of a world-weary sophisticate, appraised Max's physique in one leisurely stare, and dismissed him with a flick of his lashes. "How interesting," he said. "I wouldn't mind seeing you in action."

Martin snickered.

"Oh, you will," said Max easily. "You may depend on it."

Simon and Martin exchanged a quick look, then Simon said casually, "The Stoneleigh Fair takes place soon. There is a boxing contest. Maybe you'd like to enter it?"

It was a matter of honor (and saving face) to reply in the affirmative. But besides this, Max was confident of his ability to take on any of the country yokels, especially someone like Simon.

After this exchange, Sara's family settled down to what was obviously its forte-bickering amongst themselves. Simon wanted the fire lit to take the chill off the air; Martin did not. Lucy wanted to go with her friend to her grandparents' place in Romsey for the weekend; Constance forbade it. No one liked the dinner (Max couldn't fault them there), but they all cleaned their plates as if they wouldn't sit down to another meal for at least a month.

Sara said very little, but every time the door opened, she would turn her head to see who had entered. She must, thought Max, be waiting for her sister to put in an appearance, and it made him wonder what lay behind Anne's absence and Sara's anxiety.

He tried to spear one of the small roast potatoes, but it was as hard as a bullet, and he decided he'd rather keep his teeth intact. The roast beef had the chewing consistency of leather, but a starving man couldn't be too choosy. After a heroic battle with a mouthful of beefsteak, he changed his mind and set down his knife and fork. If this were his house, the first thing he would do was get rid of the cook.

"Our cook hasn't quite mastered the new stove yet," said Lucy.

"The new stove?"

Lucy nodded. "It's a marvel of modern engineering, or so Mama says, but that doesn't help Cook. She prefers the old way of doing things."

Martin spoke with his mouth full. "It doesn't matter which method Mrs. Hardwick uses, the food is still atrocious."

"Well, you cleaned your plate," Max pointed out.

"Sheer habit," replied Martin. "Since we were infants, our father wouldn't allow us to leave the table till we'd eaten everything that was put in front of us. 'Waste not, want not' was his golden rule. He was a skinflint, if you know what I mean."

Sara said dryly, "It's because of Father's golden rule that we live in this lovely house and you are enjoying the best education that money can buy."

Simon interjected, "What's the good of having money if you can't spend it?"

Goaded, Sara retorted, "If we spend every penny we have, we won't have any money left to enjoy."

"But Father left you millions," Martin said hotly.

"Hardly millions! And it's in trust. We're living off the interest. Can't you understand that?"

Constance said, "If we sold the house, we'd have plenty of money."

Sara looked at her stepmother as if she were a slow-witted child. "Constance," she said gently, "this is our home. We can't sell it."

Lucy said, "I like living here."

"If Sara would only give us our share of Father's money," Martin said, "we could all do what we like."

When Sara pressed her fingers to her temples, Max's temper ignited. She was beginning to look beleaguered, and that did not sit well with him. He reached for his winegla.s.s, took a long swallow-at least the wine was good-and cut across the babel of voices in the awful tone that invariably sent reporters and editors in the Courier's offices scurrying for cover.

"I might have something to say about that."

Martin frowned at him. "What do you mean?"

Max smiled vaguely at no one in particular. "What I mean is that when Sara marries me, the trust is broken."

The sudden silence that followed was almost deafening, thought Max. He raised his gla.s.s and sipped slowly.

Simon got the message first. "Then you'll have control of our money."

"Your money?" said Max pleasantly. "Oh, no, you misunderstand. Your money belongs to you. I don't care what you do with it. But my wife's money-now, that's a different matter." He raised his gla.s.s in salute to Sara. "Did someone mention millions? Sara, I had no idea how much you were worth. You've been keeping secrets from me."

Martin turned his head away and muttered disgustedly, "Mama was right. He's nothing but a fortune hunter."

The look Sara blazed at Max was hot enough to boil water. Max remained as cool as ice. "Did you wish to say something, my love?"

"What I wish to say ... my family ... that is, I would never leave my family to fend for themselves."

"Of course not," agreed Max. "They'll always be welcome to make their home here with us."

A silence fell as the door opened. Footmen filed in and began to clear away the remains of the meal.

The silence continued as the next course was served, but never was a silence more eloquent or more dangerously close to exploding into open warfare.

Max gazed at each person in turn. With the exception of Lucy, they were all complainers and wheedlers. He could see how they'd got that way, though. Sara allowed them to manipulate her with subtle and not-so-subtle appeals to her conscience. She felt guilty for having been her father's favorite, and tormented because the Carstairs fortune had come to her in its entirety. She wanted to do the right thing, and though her intentions were good, she was going about it the wrong way.