Chapter 12
“What are you doing here?” she asked. Thunder rolled from cloud to cloud, deadening her words, tossing them into the wind as quickly as they were voiced.
He shook his head to indicate he didn’t understand, and she shouted the question again. Once more, he shook his head, then glanced upward at the lowering storm before setting down the crate, circling the wagon, and grabbing her arm to pull her inside the observatory.
He had made changes here, changes that she hadn’t authorized or approved. Changes that had forever altered the atmosphere of the observatory, her childhood sanctuary.
For long minutes, she remained silent, studying what he’d done.
He’d wiped the dust from the shelves, loading them with his own possessions.
Cylindrical glass vials sat next to an assortment of green-tinted bottles with cork stoppers.
Wooden frames were propped on four of the shelves, each frame strung with a dozen or more filaments.
On one side of the room, Douglas had mounted a large sheet of paper with an arrangement of numbers and letters written on it.
Not a foreign language but something she couldn’t decipher.
Two or three chests sat below each shelf.
The worktable, made of wood and having lasted two generations, was now piled high with a series of trunks and crates.
“How did you get the roof open?” she asked, glancing over at him. “It hasn’t worked in years.”
His gaze traveled from the rounded top of the observatory to her face. “It just required a little oil,” he said.
The observatory had ceased to be her sanctuary. Douglas had put his mark on it as adeptly as if he’d written his name everywhere.
“What are you doing here?” she asked one more time.
“Satisfying my bargain with your father.”
She frowned, then remembered his words the night before about her waiting in judgment of others and smoothed the expression from her face.
“How?”
“By making diamonds,” he said, smiling.
She stared at him, every thought flying out of her mind. “Only God can make diamonds.”
“God has seen fit to share that knowledge with me,” he said, his smile not altered one whit.
“How?”
“It’s a process I’ve developed.”
She sat down on a crate and stared up at him. “That’s what my father was willing to invest in? A way to make diamonds?”
He nodded.
“And you’ve made diamonds before?”
He reached into his vest and withdrew a small black bag, then walked to where she sat.
“Put your hand out,” he said, and she found herself doing exactly as he asked.
Slowly, he covered the bowl of her palm with diamonds.
The observatory was barely lit by the open door, but the diamonds still sparkled as if they were a source of light themselves. She stared at her hand in amazement.
Finally, she tore her gaze away from the diamonds to rest on his face. He was still smiling.
She didn’t know what to say to him, so she only stretched out her hand, watching as he poured the diamonds back into the velvet bag.
“This place has a special significance to you, doesn’t it?”
“How do you know that?” She didn’t look at him when she asked. Instead, she examined the label on one interesting-looking crate. She didn’t know the language printed on the side.
“Because you’re angry.”
She glanced at him. “I’m not, actually. I’m sad,” she said, a bit of honesty she hadn’t meant to give him. What was there about this man that compelled her to tell him the truth?
For long moments, they didn’t speak, merely looked at each other.
She was the first to glance away, uncomfortable with the intensity of his gaze or perhaps the compassion in it.
She knew, without being told or without understanding truly how she knew it, that if she held out her hand, he would take it and hold it in his large warm grip.
If she walked into his arms, he would embrace her, and perhaps bend his head down and lay his cheek against her windblown hair.
If she wept, he would probably withdraw his handkerchief and blot her tears.
She stood and looked around the observatory one last time. She knew she would not come back here again.
“I think the observatory would serve your purposes well,” she said.
After all, she had all of Chavensworth. Granted, the estate felt overrun with people occasionally, but if she needed a place uniquely hers, then it was no doubt an emotion that Douglas experienced as well.
She pasted a smile on her face. Let her be a gracious hostess of Chavensworth.
“You must let me know what else I can provide to make it a more hospitable place.”
“Your presence, perhaps,” he said, surprising her again.
She felt her brow furrow and deliberately smoothed it.
“I know nothing of making diamonds,” she said.
“But you know a great deal about making conversation, and I find that I enjoy our conversations very much.”
“You do?”
She couldn’t prevent her lips from curving into a smile. And she had no idea how to forestall a sudden spurt of warmth at his words. How very kind he could be.
“I’ll leave you to your work,” she said.
“Must you? I would much rather unpack crates while you talk to me.”
“Are you very certain you don’t simply want another helper?” she asked, smiling at him. “There might be some chicanery behind your nice words.”
“Chicanery? Me?” he said. “No chicanery, I assure you. Only self-interest. It’s a boring job. I’d much rather have the company of a beautiful woman.”
She laughed. “Now you go too far,” she said. “I almost colluded with you until that remark.”
He frowned at her. “I don’t think you’re soliciting compliments, Sarah, but I find it almost impossible to believe that you don’t know how lovely you are. Are you that modest?”
“On the contrary,” she said. “I know all my assets as well as my liabilities, Douglas. My father insisted upon it. There is nothing you can tell me about myself that has not been pointed out to me on countless occasions.”
She turned to leave, and he reached out one hand and grabbed her arm.
“Do you take everything your father says as the truth, Sarah?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you hold him up as an oracle of wisdom? Do you value what he says about Chavensworth? For that matter, do you value what he says or does about your mother?”
“You, of all people, should know that I don’t.”
“Then why give what he says about you any credence?”
“It was not simply my father, Douglas. I have had two seasons. Two. Two very expensive seasons. I attended hundreds of events; I was fêted as only the daughter of a duke can be. I was introduced to every eligible male in all of the Commonwealth, I believe. I was presented to the Queen.”
“And?”
He could not be that obtuse.
“I did not attract the attention of one man. Not one.”
She was not going to tell him about the tendre she had for the young earl who’d danced so magnificently, and acted so attentive, only to ignore her the next time she saw him, as if she’d been rendered invisible.
She’d learned, later, that he’d become engaged, to an heiress, of course, leaving Sarah feeling as if her heart had been badly bruised.
She did not wish to be more of an object of pity than she was.
“Then they were all blind,” he said flatly.
“There is no need for kindness, I can assure you.”
He would’ve responded had a knock on the door not interrupted them. She turned to find Hester standing there, her face twisted by grief, tears bathing her face.
Without a word, she knew. Her mother had died, and Sarah had not been there.
Sarah didn’t remember returning to Chavensworth, only that it had begun to rain.
The storm was as fierce as promised in the dark clouds and wind.
She didn’t care that she was sodden by the time she entered her mother’s room.
Someone—she didn’t know whom—placed a towel around her shoulders and patted her face dry.
She absently said, “Thank you,” but was unaware of anything else.
She sat on the chair and wished herself alone, wishing that all the suddenly solicitous people would disappear and the world would be a sweeter and kinder place than it was proving to be on this dark and rainy day.
Behind her she could hear the sound of weeping and wondered if she were crying. She placed both palms against her cheeks to find them cold from the rain, but dry.
She pulled her chair closer to her mother.
Hester had placed her hands outside the sheet on either side of her body so that it looked as if she were merely asleep.
Her eyelids were closed and sunken, her skin as pale as the sheet.
But unlike the past days, her chest did not rise with each tortured breath.
There was nothing but silence, punctuated by the sound of sobs.
Sarah could not think. She was incapable of placing a thought in her mind and leaving it there. Someone was pressing a cup of tea into her hands, and she took it and stared down at the amber liquid. A moment later—or was it five minutes, she didn’t know—someone blessedly took it from her.
Her hands felt as cold as her mother’s. She placed her hands on her upper arms, trying to control her shivers. Did her mother’s spirit linger in the room? Should she say something? Could her mother see that Sarah was here?
She wanted people to be gone, so that she could say her farewells privately.
“I think it would be best if you gave Sarah a few moments alone with her mother.”
Douglas’s voice. She would need to thank him later.
She felt his hand on her shoulder, his palm brushing against her neck, causing shivers. How strange that she could feel something, anything. His hand was so very warm, and she wanted his warmth, needed it.
“You can talk to her,” he said softly. “Now is the time to tell her whatever you wish.” He moved to the door and opened it, looked back at her, and said, “When you’re ready, Sarah, come out. Until then, I’ll make sure that people leave you alone.”
She nodded in response, grateful beyond measure but unable to verbalize it.