Part 5 (1/2)
Sara said, ”Anyway, no one will beat a path to my door. I'm not that stupid. I'm not going to reveal who I am, not yet. What we're going to do, Bea, is go through all these letters and choose three or four suitable candidates. Then I'll find a way to meet each gentleman casually. When I'm sure I have the right man for me, then and only then will I tell him that I'm the lady who placed the advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Chronicle.”
Miss Beattie thought about this for a moment or two. She looked at Sara. ”You make it sound so easy, but have you considered that this could be dangerous?”
”Nonsense. It's done all the time. If it was dangerous, no one would advertise for a husband or wife in the newspapers, would they?”
”But ... ” Miss Beattie stopped, knowing that she'd already put forward every argument to persuade Sara to give up the scheme.
”What?” asked Sara.
Though she knew her words would fall on deaf ears and she'd said it all before, Miss Beattie couldn't hold back the words. ”This is a drastic step you're taking. What if you change your mind next year, or the year after that, or ten years from now? What if you meet the perfect man for you?”
”The perfect man for me,” said Sara dryly, ”is the one who will make himself scarce right after he has signed the marriage register. Now, let's clear the table and get down to business.”
They divided the letters into two piles and began to go through them Miss Beattie took her time. Sara scanned each one quickly and more often than not tore it to shreds and tossed it aside.
Miss Beattie made a hissing sound.
”What?” asked Sara.
”The nerve of the man! He wants to know how much you're willing to pay for the privilege of acquiring his name.” She was about to tear up the letter, but Sara plucked it out of her hand.
”Bea! This is just the kind of man I'm looking for.” She quickly read the letter and set it to one side. ”I know, I know. Major Haig sounds mercenary, and not very gentlemanly. But that's all to the good, don't you see?”
”No, I don't see,” replied Miss Beattie crossly. ”If you're determined to marry and break the trust, why not find a man who can make you happy?”
”Because the man who could make me happy would be too intelligent to marry a suspected murderess.”
”But you were cleared at the trial.”
”Was I? Then why are we living like this?”
Miss Beattie's gaze faltered. They were living like this because whenever Sara's ident.i.ty became known, fingers started pointing, and friends and acquaintances melted away. No one was ever going to forget that Sara was once accused of murder, especially not with the Courier's special correspondent keeping the story alive. Sara was right. An intelligent man would want nothing to do with her, because fingers would start pointing at him too, and eventually at their children. It was all so hopeless.
Sara let out a long, quiet breath. ”Bea,” she said softly, ”this is all going to work out for the best, you'll see. I've been thinking that once I'm free of all my obligations to my family, I could start afresh somewhere else. Oh, not in England. But what's to stop us going to America?”
”America,” said Miss Beattie faintly.
”No one knows me there and best of all, there would be no Courier to hound me.”
”But ... but it's so far away.”
”Yes. That's the whole point. But let's not think about it right now. Let's take things one step at a time, and the first step is to find some unsuspecting male who can give me my heart's desire.”
Miss Beattie looked up quickly, saw the laughter in Sara's eyes and smiled in spite of herself.
At the end of half an hour, Sara had reduced the list of applicants to three likely candidates, with two to be held in reserve. The ones she had discarded were from men who were either too young-and might yet meet a woman they could love-or too sure of their ability to make her forget about a marriage of convenience and live happily ever after on her money and their skill as lovers.
Lucky her!
”What now?” asked Miss Beattie glumly.
”Now,” said Sara, ”we do a little sleuthing. Oh, nothing too obvious. All very discreet. We introduce ourselves to Bath society and find out as much as we can about”-she looked at her list of three likely candidates ”-Mr. Townsend, Mr. Bloor, and Major Haig.
”We're going to the Pump Room, Bea. According to our landlady, that's where everyone in Bath congregates. I believe it's a daily ritual, not only for visitors, but for residents as well. And Mrs. Hastings will be there to introduce us around.”
Miss Beattie made a short, sharp derisory sound. ”Mrs. Hastings,” she said, ”is a silly, vulgar woman. Do you know what she said to me last night when your back was turned? She winked and said that she had quite a reputation as a matchmaker, and if she couldn't fix me up, no one could. What exactly did you say to that woman in your correspondence?”
Sara put her cup to her mouth to conceal her smile. After taking a sip of tea, she said, ”What we agreed upon, of course, that you are my employer and I am your companion.”
”I think you must have said a lot more than that.”
Sara shrugged. ”I may have given the impression that you were lonely.”
In fact, Sara had been delighted with the tone of Mrs. Hastings letters. She'd realized that the woman was a busybody. Normally she would have avoided such a person, but for her present purposes, Mrs. Hastings was a G.o.dsend. Sara had hinted that her ”employer” was husband-hunting. That way, she'd reasoned, it would be easy to quiz their landlady on all the gentlemen who replied to her advertis.e.m.e.nt.
Miss Beattie drained her cup and set it down carefully. ”So I'm your employer and you're my paid companion. Is this charade really necessary, Sara?”
”Absolutely, and you know why. I don't want to draw attention to myself. I don't want to be recognized. No one will spare a paid companion a second glance.”
This was something that irritated Miss Beattie. She'd had visions of Sara buying new clothes, prettying herself up, enjoying herself. But she was still dressed in the mode of a governess.
”Bea, don't be difficult. Please?”
Miss Beattie could not resist that appeal. ”Who's being difficult? Well, come along. Don't dawdle. Let's set Bath on fire.”
Sara was in her room tying the ribbons of her bonnet under her chin when her thoughts strayed from her three likely prospects to Max. She'd thought about him constantly in the last few days, but it was only now, when she'd put some distance between them and was confident that they were not likely to meet again, that she could look back on their encounter with a calm and critical eye.
It seemed strange, almost laughable, that he, a Corinthian and a fop, should be the one to overcome her deep distrust of men. He'd done a lot more than that. He'd aroused sensations she hadn't known existed.
Pa.s.sion. How was it possible for a man she did not know to have such an effect on her?
Maybe she shouldn't be surprised. He was the kind of man a mother would warn her daughter against-handsome, charming, experienced, and with the morals of ...
No. She couldn't fault his morals. He wasn't like William. He was gentle and kind, and that's why she'd been susceptible to him. He could have seduced her easily, but he had let her go.
She wished now that he hadn't been so chivalrous. It would have been a beautiful memory to warm her in the cold nights ahead. She wasn't sorry that he'd climbed through her window. Every woman should have a Max Worthe in her past, if only to remind her that once, some man had found her beautiful and desirable. And this man had meant it.
She gazed wistfully into s.p.a.ce as she remembered that night, and by small degrees, before she was aware of it, all her senses came alive. She remembered his powerful body pinning her to the mattress, the brush of his hands from her breast to waist to thigh; he was no longer coaxing her, he was devouring her. The memories were so vivid, so erotic, that she felt as though he were actually touching her now.
”Sara!” Miss Beattie poked her head around the door. ”What is it? What's keeping you?”
Sara stared, stuttered, then came to herself with a start. ”Nothing,” she said breathlessly, ”nothing at all.” She picked up her reticule and hurried from the room.
This was Sara's first visit to Bath. Though she liked what she saw on the short walk from Queen's Square to the Pump Room-a city of gleaming Bath stone built in the neocla.s.sical style-her pleasure was dulled by the constant fear that someone might recognize her.
She had to go through with it. She couldn't do what she usually did when she was recognized. In the past, she'd solved her problems by starting over somewhere else. But now she was cornered. She had no choice but to fight back. All she had to do was keep out of William's reach a little while longer ...
And marry a man who would take her on her terms.