The Reluctant Heiress Read online

  Yet, for the first time in her life, after her experiences of the evening, Sarah had a glimmer of understanding for all those women who did crave pretty speeches and flirtatious glances. There had been something about the square shoulders and broad chest that had made her heart beat just a little faster, had made her wish that somehow, incredible though it might be, she could work the same effect on him that he had worked on her. Sarah shook her head firmly, dismissing such absurd thoughts. Far better to be appreciated for one’s character than one’s beauty. After all, one’s physical attractions soon faded, but one’s character could only grow stronger with the passing years. Still, it would be wonderful, just for once, to be as beautiful as Rosalind was, and, even more important, to be so certain of that beauty.

  Sarah would have been astounded to know that, in fact, the earl was thinking of her in much the manner that she wished he was as he made his way slowly and carefully back to Cranleigh, his mind a jumble of images: Sarah at the door, pale but composed with a letter opener clutched in her hand; Sarah bending over him, bathing his wound with the firelight catching the golden highlights in her hair; Sarah listening to him round-eyed, her eyes dark with sympathy and understanding. He could not remember a time in his life when he had asked anyone for help, had ever really needed anyone, man or woman. Now, when he had, she had been there, calm and reassuring with her gentle comforting touch. Undoubtedly, he could have managed on his own if he had had to, but knowing she was nearby, he had been drawn to her in a way he could not quite explain. His instincts had been right, however, and here he was safely on the road to Cranleigh with no one the wiser and hardly the worse for his wound. At the thought of Sarah, Alistair felt a surge of warmth flow through him. Was it happiness? Gratitude? He did not have the least notion, but he savored it as he slid off Brutus and led his mount carefully back to his stall.

  Making his way stealthily back to his bedchamber, the earl wished Sarah could know he had made it back safely. She had not spoken, but her face had been so full of worry and concern when she bid him good-bye that he had longed to sweep her into his arms and reassure her that he would be all right.

  Now, secure back in his quarters, Lord Farringdon, too exhausted to undress, flung himself fully clothed on the bed. If Rogers was surprised at his appearance in the morning, he would just allow his valet to think that he had had an assignation with some female. Alistair grinned to himself in the darkness. In fact, that was not far from the truth, except that the female had been more in the way of a nurse than a lover, not that she had not looked damned attractive in that dressing gown.

  And recalling the way the flimsy material had revealed the supple figure underneath it, the gentle swell of a perfectly formed bosom, the long slim line of her leg and the delicate ankle that occasionally peeped through the froth of lace at the hem. Lord Farringdon fell asleep with a smile on his face.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Worn out from his wound and the activities of the night before, the earl did not arise the next day until nearly noon. He cursed himself for being a slugabed. I must be going soft, he muttered to himself as he splashed water on his face. Most of his annoyance was because he had planned to catch Sarah on her morning ride, but a glance out the window at the angle of the sun told him that the opportunity was long gone. Blast! Alistair was surprised at his own eagerness to see her again. By rights he should have been dying to discover all that he could about the chevalier and the precise nature of his connection with the Marchioness of Cranleigh, but instead, he could think of nothing but Sarah.

  Alistair struggled to analyze his attraction to her as he carefully pulled off his jacket and shirt. It was not her physical appearance, though that was undeniably appealing, especially when freed from the restrictions of her customarily drab costumes. No, it was the idea of her that drew the earl to her more than anything else. Over the course of the past few days Lady Sarah Melford had come to represent to him a purity, a certain integrity, and a sense of purpose so noticeably lacking amongst the vain and frivolous members of the ton. She also managed to retain these qualities without being a sanctimonious or a prosy bore as virtuous people often were. Until now. Lord Farringdon had been as cynical about those who made good works their obsession as he had been about those who wasted their lives in pursuit of pleasure. Neither group had very much to recommend it, each having sacrificed its common humanity and any good sense that its members might have been born with, but not Sarah. Somehow she was different. At first the earl had written her off as yet another dried-up bluestocking devoid of any real warmth or understanding, someone who adopted false scholarship in place of real life, but he had been quite wrong.

  Not only did Sarah possess a sense of humor—a rare quality in most people, but especially in those with pedagogical tendencies—she was a passionate person under that cool exterior. Anyone with any sensitivity could sense that from the way she came so hotly to the defense of her heroes or from her absorption in the music she performed so well. Besides, most bluestockings with whom Lord Farringdon was acquainted—as a general rule he tried to avoid them if at all possible—were all superficial without any true understanding. They could recite facts until they were breathless, but were incapable of any true intellectual exertion. Sarah, on the other hand, was not only highly capable of defending herself in a debate, she was more than able, it appeared, to express her observations and conclusions on paper. In short, Alistair found Lady Sarah Melford to be one of the most highly intriguing individuals, man or woman, that he had met in some time, and he was most anxious to see her again.

  For her part. Lady Sarah was arriving at much the same conclusion. She had awakened that morning, marveling again at the events of the night before. Who would ever have thought that such a man about town as the Earl of Burnleigh would be involved in something as momentous as spying? True, such a dangerous business was likely to appeal to someone with his reckless attitude. Even in rural Kent the curricle races, the duels, and other outrageous exploits of Lord Farringdon were legend. However, Sarah had never expected such gravity of purpose behind his wild adventures. From the way Lord Farringdon had spoken, both the previous evening and during the outing to Folly Hill, it appeared that he was motivated in all this by true patriotic sentiments and a real desire to end Napoleon Bonaparte’s dominance over Europe.

  Not only that, but he was prepared to work toward this goal in a way that was not going to win him any personal glory. Not only were his efforts, even if they were successful, unlikely to come to the attention of the world at large, they were in an area of endeavor that most of humanity looked upon as treacherous and dishonorable despite the nobility of the cause. The earl certainly had no illusions about the general disrepute in which spies were held by the rest of society, yet this had not deterred him in the slightest.

  Lady Sarah fell a stab of pity as she recalled the bleak look in Lord Farringdon’s eyes as he alluded to the scorn reserved for those engaged in the sorts of activities he was, and his apologetic expression as he promised to rid her household of his presence as quickly as possible. She could tell from the tense way he had held himself that he expected her to dismiss him with disgust. When she had not, his relief had been almost palpable. Poor man. That brief exchange had suddenly changed her perception of the dashing Lord Farringdon. She now was certain of the deep loneliness that she had only guessed at before, and she had been struck by the notion, though of course she had no way of knowing whether she was correct, that for all his address, his attractiveness to the opposite sex, and his reputation for being up for any sort of wild adventure, he did not have any true companions.

  That was sad. Why even Sarah, isolated as she was, had Thaddeus and, until recently, there had been Lady Willoughby to share her thoughts. Perhaps the earl preferred life alone, what with his cynical view of his fellow creatures, but somehow Sarah did not think that was so. She sensed that if he could have exchanged his superior and ironic view of mankind for a feeling of camaraderie, he would have. T
here had been just the slightest air of wistfulness about him that had betrayed him to her. Sarah was eager to test out her hypothesis with further observation. Consequently, she made her way over to Cranleigh that morning with a dispatch that was quite different from her usual deferring for as long as possible her encounter with Rosalind and her guests.

  It was Rosalind who first caught Sarah’s eye as she rode across the fields from Ashworth—Rosalind and the chevalier that is—for naturally one would never expect to find the beautiful Marchioness of Melford without an attentive male by her side. Actually, there were two attentive males. The chevalier was strolling through the rose garden with her sister-in-law on his arm, while on the terrace a level above them, his presence obscured by a hedge that separated the garden from the rest of the grounds, was the earl, sitting on a bench in the shadow of the house. Sarah was too far away to be able to read his expression accurately, but his whole posture suggested that of a man intent on observing the couple in front of him.

  Before she could help it, a small sigh escaped Sarah. Was Lord Farringdon still caught in Rosalind’s toils, then? Sarah hoped not, for she had grown to respect him, even to enjoy his company, and she did not like to think that he was no better than all of the others who fell for the beautiful face while remaining ignorant of the selfishness and vanity that lay behind it. Sarah’s rational mind told her that the earl had experienced far too much of the marchioness’s company to be taken in by her flirtatious ways, that instead he was keeping an eye on the chevalier, and Rosalind just happened to be with the Frenchman.

  But something else, something that had nothing at all to do with reason, made her fear the worst, fear that Lord Farringdon would once again lose himself in passionate admiration for her sister-in-law and that once again she might run the risk of discovering Rosalind entwined in the earl’s muscular arms. That she had just recently seen those muscular arms stripped to the flesh only served to make the whole idea that much more unsettling. What was wrong with her? She was acting like some milk-and-water miss sighing over a handsome face. Heretofore such thoughts had never entered her mind.

  Sarah shook her head resolutely and turned Ajax toward the stables, where some minutes later as the groom was helping her dismount, she heard a deep voice behind her. “Good morning, Lady Sarah. You must have enjoyed your ride this morning. I confess to having slept to an unconsciously late hour. However, if you will walk with me in the gardens, I shall be delighted to take that as my morning exercise.”

  She whirled around to find the earl looking down at her with such a wealth of meaning in the gray eyes that she could only nod her assent.

  “Good. Then let us begin.” He offered her his arm with such alacrity that no one would have suspected in the least that his side was tightly wrapped in bandages.

  It was not until they were out of earshot and approaching the rose garden that he leaned over to whisper softly, “I saw you arrive. As you may have guessed, I was keeping a sharp eye on the chevalier.” The dark brows drew together in a frown of concern. “And I very much fear that he was somehow persuading Ros ... er, the marchioness, to provide him with critical information.”

  “Rosalind?” Sarah gasped. “But she does not know any.”

  “No, but her husband does,” the earl replied grimly.

  “Harold?” The idea of her brother’s possessing any vital information was almost as absurd as that of Rosalind’s dispensing secrets to the enemy.

  “Oh, I am sure that Harold is not privy to the government’s deepest strategies, but he does have access to more intelligence about troop movements than the chevalier, and knowing his wife, I am sure she was able to extract this intelligence from him without his being the least bit aware of it.”

  Sarah’s heart sank at the words knowing his wife, but she quickly pushed such unwelcome thoughts aside to concentrate on the matter at hand. “But why would Rosalind do such a thing? She is a vain and selfish creature to be sure, but she is not a traitor.”

  Alistair quickly suppressed a smile. So the demure Lady Sarah had claws, did she? It was not as though he had known any woman who liked Rosalind; she was far too competitive, far too jealous of attention to share even the tiniest bit of it with anyone else, but he had not expected such behavior to bother someone as reclusive and as uninterested in the vagaries of society as Lady Sarah. “No, she is not a traitor,” he began, his voice deadly serious, “but she could be made to be if someone possessed damaging information about her or her family. As you say”—he shook his head ruefully—”she is a vain creature. The fashionable world is everything to her, and she will not allow anything to threaten her position in it. The chevalier must have got hold of something that could do so, and it must be of a fairly serious nature, for whatever she is, Rosalind does not lack courage. She has the resolution and charm to brazen out mere rumors and gossip, so there must be solid truth behind whatever is being held over her. I wonder what it is?” The earl paused for a moment, squinting speculatively off into the distance.

  Sarah was silent, wondering more about his feelings toward Rosalind than about the secret that her sister-in-law was hiding. From his words it appeared that Lord Farringdon recognized the marchioness’s true nature, but at the same time he seemed to accept it, and to acknowledge her immense powers of attraction; so did he still admire her or did he not?

  Sarah wished desperately that the entire question was of the supremest indifference to her, but it was not. Ever since Rosalind had returned from school, Sarah had wished for just one male who did not fall victim to Rosalind’s spell, and spell it was, for Sarah well knew that the marchioness’s air of sweet feminine helplessness was the purest illusion. To be sure, the Reverend Mr. Wilson was one male who was no more interested in the Marchioness of Melford than he was in the person of any of his other parishioners, but he did not count. Sarah very much doubted that the earnest vicar had any more notion of human female attractiveness than her horse, Ajax, did. To Thaddeus people were all the same, differing only in their varying needs for spiritual guidance. It was a highly admirable way of looking at the world, though not at all satisfying for someone such as Sarah, who was hoping for reassurance of some sort.

  Now, there was the earl. Sarah found herself wishing desperately that he, of all people, saw through Rosalind, though she really did not want to examine precisely why she felt that way, except that he appeared to possess such a cynical view of the ton that it seemed impossible that he was not aware of her true character.

  “Whatever it is.” Alistair concluded, “I pity her. The chevalier is a man accustomed to having his way with everyone, especially women, and he will not tolerate anyone’s keeping him from his goals, no matter how charming she is.”

  Sarah felt a sharp pang of disappointment. Did he not understand that Rosalind was precisely the same? To be sure, she preferred to coax people to do her bidding instead of threaten them, but when pushed, she could turn quite nasty. Sarah had seen this vicious streak more times than she cared to remember, and she could only hope that once in a while Rosalind was the recipient of such treatment herself. It seemed only fair.

  Sarah had no idea how much her face reflected her thoughts, but Alistair, looking down at her, had not the slightest difficulty in reading them. He was both amused and touched by what he saw there: amused that his opinion of Rosalind should matter so much to Lady Sarah, and touched by the wistful expression in the green eyes. Undoubtedly, Sarah had seen Rosalind bending people to her will for more years than most, and it must have galled her to see anyone wasting sympathy on a woman who always got what she wanted. Well, almost always, he amended silently. After all, Rosalind was not the Countess of Burnleigh.

  “I know it seems incredible that anyone should feel concern for your sister-in-law,” he began gently, “but consider what she is, a creature of the ton. She has nothing but her beauty, which is undeniable.” He held up an admonitory hand as Sarah opened her mouth to protest. “I know; beauty that does not extend to the soul is
at best transitory. When the Marchioness of Cranleigh loses her beauty, she will lose the power to attract men, her power to arouse envy in the minds of other women; in fact, she will lose everything. She has only a short time before that beauty fades, until someone younger, someone who is fashionably fair instead of fashionably dark, becomes all the rage. When that happens, what does she have? Nothing. Small wonder that she is willing to take enormous risks to postpone the day when she is no longer the toast of the ton. Small wonder that her fear of oblivion, of powerlessness, blinds her to the immorality of what she is doing, if she is doing anything, which I have yet to prove. At the moment, all I have are my suspicions.”

  Sarah regarded the earl in astonishment. She had never considered her sister-in-law in that particular light. Viewed that way, she did seem an object of pity, for what did Rosalind take pleasure in but the admiration of the fashionable world? Furthermore, Sarah had inherited, albeit reluctantly, the fortune that Rosalind had married the Marquess of Cranleigh to gain. Sarah was under no illusions as to her brother’s character, and she knew that nothing but the fear of being an ape-leader, the allure of an ancient title, or promises of vast wealth could have made any woman, no matter how desperate she was, shackle herself to someone as stupid and self-centered as Harold.

  How odd; she had always been so envious of Rosalind’s attraction that she had never really thought very clearly about her. And why had she even been envious of her at all when, in fact, she did not covet in the least the things that Rosalind had won with her manifold charms, except perhaps one thing. Even now Sarah was not willing to admit to herself what that one thing was or to acknowledge that the shivers that had gone through her when she discovered the Earl of Burnleigh and Rosalind embracing in the garden had sprung from her own wish to be in Rosalind’s place. Surely, it was not.