Chapter Eight
Sarah let out a long breath as she sat on the bench, her mother’s parting words ringing in her ears.
“—and if you don’t change soon, Miss Sarah, then you’ll find yourself alone, unwanted, and with nothing but that pen of yours!”
The Christ Church Meadows were cool, thank goodness, for a furious indignation had settled in her stomach, warming her to no end. How dare her mother say such things! How dare her mother believe such things!
Her stomach twisted. How dare it be true.
Sarah’s shoulders rose as she took in a deep breath. Trying to slow her heart rate was difficult at the best of times, but she had almost run out of the house and along Folly Bridge to Christ Church Meadows. Her chest heaved, her lungs tight, as she tried to catch her breath.
It was outrageous! It was insulting! It was…the sort of thing her mother had been saying all year.
Fingers clutched tightly around her reticule, Sarah could feel the presence of her pocketbook. All her notes, thoughts, attempts at the next line of the stanza. It was all in there. Why shouldn’t she work on it over breakfast?
Perhaps it was a little rude. She had heard one of her friends, Miss Fitzroy, complain her father always hid behind a newspaper at the breakfast table, much to the chagrin of the rest of the Fitzroy family. Perhaps she was as bad.
Her spine bristled. Not entirely! She did not have her face hidden, and had—most of the time—replied to her mother’s questions.
Guilt crept into her heart. Most of the time.
Sarah let out a sad sigh and tried not to think about the words her mother had yelled as she had grabbed her reticule and left the house without time to pick up her bonnet.
“—with nothing but that pen of yours!”
It was not truly the worst thing in the world, was it? Sarah thought wretchedly of the future, something she attempted to avoid at all costs. It stretched out before her, unknown.
Except, she thought, Mother appears to see it all so clearly.
Why, if Miss Harvey was not in London visiting relatives, Sarah would try to ascertain from her if her mother was pushy about matrimony. Maybe this was just something that happened to mothers when they reached a certain age.
Sarah slumped against the back of a bench, relieved to find it cool under the shade of a large oak tree.
Still. Whether or not her mother was one of a multitude, all attempting to find husbands for their daughters, it was infuriating to be spoken to like that. Like she was a child! Like she had nothing more in her head than a fancy for a handsome man.
The face of Montague Lancaster, Duke of Caelfall, flashed through her mind.
Sarah’s cheeks burned. Well, not that handsome man, obviously.
Oh, it was such a muddle. How did one navigate the complexities of—
“Hello there,” leered a voice.
Sarah started. So lost had she been in her thoughts, she had not noticed a gentleman—a man, she corrected—who was standing before her.
Very close before her.
His teeth were yellow, his smile crooked. He was giving her the sort of predatory expression she expected a fox gave to a rabbit. In a corner. With a broken leg.
“Ah,” she said helplessly, fingers curling about her reticule as though that would protect her.
She was in public, wasn’t she? Nothing untoward could occur while she was…but then, there was no one else in Christ Church Meadows. No passing individual to see her predicament, no one to give assistance.
It was, to be sure, a most awkward situation. He had done nothing to warrant a reprimand, but still. He was standing remarkably close.
“All alone this morning?” said the man, moving to sit beside her without an invitation.
“Erm—oh dear,” said Sarah wretchedly.
The man had sat so close he was actually seated just about on her skirts.
It was a most awkward situation. She wondered whether he was just unaware he had done so and would be mortified if she pointed it out. Or on the other hand…
The man’s smile widened. “What a shame you’re alone, my dear, but all the better for me, I dare say. I was just thinking this morning, I was wondering—”
“Whether you would get beaten to a pulp?” asked a dry voice.
Sarah started for the second time, but this voice made her heart thunder in her chest for quite a different reason. She would know it anywhere.
It was with great relief that she turned to see Montague standing behind her, his hands grasping the back of the bench tightly.
The strange man jumped. “I didn’t see you—”
“I am sure you didn’t,” said Montague. “I think you were about to apologize—where are my manners, I mean say goodbye to the young lady, and be on your way.”
Sarah’s gaze flickered between the two men. There was something here she could not identify. Something primal being communicated without the requirement for speech.
Almost possessive in the way Montague was looking at her.
No, surely not. That was just wishful thinking.
False thinking, Sarah corrected as she watched the strange man rise in haste, pulling his hat from his head and twisting it as he spluttered meaningless apologies.
“Never intended to—a man can be mistaken—certain you looked just like…my sister, you see, she—”
“Oh, be off with you,” Montague dismissed as he stepped around the bench and sat territorially beside her. His arm stretched out along the back of the bench. “I have no wish to see you here again, you understand me?”
Sarah colored as the man’s gaze swept over her then back to the duke.
“G’morning, I’m sure,” he said sullenly before half walking, half running away.
Only when she let out the breath held too long did Sarah realize the depth of tension in her shoulder blades.
To think, if Montague had not appeared…what on earth would have become of her?
“Th-Thank you,” she managed to say.
Montague raised a sardonic eyebrow, and when he spoke, it was gruff. “I do hope I wasn’t interrupting something.”
Sarah laughed, astonished at how shaky her voice was.
Well, her mother talked about it all the time, didn’t she? Ladies snatched from the street, tempted away by promises of introductions to a husband, lied to, tricked into carriages…
She was almost certain most of the stories her mother trotted out were mere fantasies, a mingled version of novels, scandal sheet, and gossip she had overheard.
But still. It would have been terrible for her mother to be proven right. Terrible for her, Sarah thought wryly, and a terrible precedent to set.
“I only wish you had brought a sword to really frighten him,” said Sarah into the silence, seeing as Montague apparently had no wish to speak.
It appeared her jest did not amuse as she had expected. “Foil, dammit!”
Oh, the duke had spoken with the same irritation he always did whenever she got that wrong—but was that a smile curling on his lips?
It was gone before she could truly examine it.
Perhaps that was for the best, Sarah told herself severely. He is a duke, far more important than you, wealthier than you—he’s probably a cousin to the royal family!
The thought made her stomach squirm. Royalty.
No, it was absolutely preposterous to think of Montague as—
“I thought you said the pen was mightier than the sword?” Montague said quietly.
Sarah blinked. Was he—was that a joke?
If so, it was his second. Goodness. Who would have thought under that rough and gruff exterior, which appeared to have no enjoyment in the world around him and no interest in people, there was someone who could make jokes?
Bad ones, admittedly…
Montague flushed as his gaze left her. Sarah took the opportunity to examine him.
She had remarked—silently, of course—on his good looks when she had first met him. When she had believed him, erroneously, to be Professor Bombardieri.
The time they had shared together in the gymnasium had been pleasant, and she had certainly been conscious of his intense masculinity then. But she’d had few opportunities to truly examine him. As a person. As a man.
Now that she did so, Sarah was struck by the youth of him. Why, he could not be much older than she was. Five or six years, perhaps.
Though his general demeanor made him feel like an older man—and the cane did not help, Sarah thought—there were no gray hairs, no lines on his face, nor wrinkles between his brows.
He was, in truth, more akin to a handsome young rake than a miserly old man.
“We wouldn’t want to make a habit of it.”
“Cat got your tongue?” asked Montague.
Sarah tried desperately not to think of that shared kiss.
It had been a mistake. Why, if he had any intention of offering, something Sarah was absolutely certain he would not, he would have done so. If anyone discovered they had kissed, her reputation would be damaged. He must know that. He was a duke, for goodness’ sake!
And so, Sarah thought fiercely as she tried to smile, there was nothing else in it. No great attraction from his side, certainly. Even if there was, he was a duke!
A duke, it appeared, who had known danger.
“Well, what would you know? You’re a duke, aren’t you? You’ve probably never been in danger in your whole life!”
“No,” she said. “No, I was just thinking about…”
Sarah cast about for a topic, any topic, that would not verge toward something uneasy. It was most discomforting in itself to discover she could conceive of no topic Montague could not make…interesting.
The duke appeared to notice, rescuing her from the difficulty of choosing a topic. “How is the poetry going?”
His voice was stiff and Sarah’s heart sank. He had no real interest. He was just being polite. She would have to remember that.
“Wonderfully,” she said in as airy a voice as possible. “And your fencing?”
Montague frowned. “You think our acquaintance so insignificant I cannot tell when you are lying?”
Sarah’s cheeks burned. “I-I wasn’t—I just—”
“You didn’t want to bore me, I would say,” the duke said perceptively, a whisper of a smile appearing before it disappeared. “I may not be a poetry don, you know, but I have read a book or two in my time.”
Oh, this is going from bad to worse! “Yes, yes, I am sure you—”
“So tell me.”