~ Four ~
HOW COULD SHE SUSTAIN THE shame? Sara paced and wrung her hands. She would never be able to hold her head up. Oh…faith, how the ladies of Cornwall would point and whisper. She would not let him divorce her! She could not allow this to happen.
He could only divorce her through an act of Parliament, but he had told her that he had already made arrangements. It wasn’t done. Divorce was not an acceptable manner of handling an unhappy marriage in their society. He could keep a mistress. She could go her own way. That was how matters of the heart were handled amongst their own. How could he treat her thusly?
Well, he needed her to sign the deed of separation. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t sign it.
However, she could clearly recall the stone hardness in his eyes when she told him she wouldn’t sign.
“Sign willingly, Sara, or you will live to regret what will follow!” he had seethed low and furiously. “I will not tolerate this farce of a marriage any longer.”
“No, I won’t sign. What can you do to me that divorce wouldn’t do? You have no just cause,” she had answered, and realized she had been a tad too smug and said quite the wrong thing.
“Really? You think not?” he returned coldly.
“Indeed, you had just better forget your little jade or keep her hidden on the side!” she snapped.
He had taken a sharp step towards her and for a moment she was frightened. He had never struck her, and over the years she had taunted him enough to try his patience. She watched as he gained control of himself. She had never seen him quite this angry. There was a streak of hatred in his eyes and a sense of violence in his demeanor.
She watched as his body shook with emotion. “Never—do you hear me, Sara, never insult her again!” He eyed her and his voice was low and sharp. “Listen to me, Sara. I will have this divorce, even if I must dredge up the past.”
“What are you saying?” she asked fearfully.
“I have no wish to hurt Roderick. I hope you will not put me in a position where I will have no choice,” he answered, a sneer marring his fine features. “Sara, do you think I didn’t know you have been sleeping with half the county?” He made an inarticulate sound. “I knew and didn’t care…even when my friends…never mind. As I said…don’t buck me on this or your name will be ruined for more than just a divorce. I will have our marriage annulled, which would pull Roderick directly into it!”
She thought he was bluffing. She could not believe he would hurt Roderick. He loved the boy, far more than she did. Truth be told, she couldn’t abide the sight of her son. He reminded her of a youthful indiscretion that led her to this point. She put up her chin. “If you think to humiliate me by announcing that Roderick is…not yours, if that is how you wish to proceed, then do your best. What do I care if Roderick learns the truth?”
He stared at her for a long moment before answering, “Your lack of affection for your own son is beneath contempt, but no more than I expected from you. However, do not believe that I shall not do what I must. I do assure you, it is not what I want. I love the boy, but I’ll not sacrifice my future for either of you. I will, if I must, explain to him that I love him and your and my situation has naught to do with my love for him. So yes, I am ready to go that route if I must. The notoriety will ruin you, Sara, even more than a divorce. If you accept, I will buy you a London townhouse and set you and the boy up with everything you could ever want, providing you allow him to visit me as much as I want. That is a non-negotiable term. If you do not sign the papers, you will be ruined by your own hand, not mine!”
Pacing, now in her room, she realized she should have taken his warning more seriously. Godwin was not generally a hard man. Indeed, his nature had always been pliable and gentle. However, she now recognized he was desperate to be rid of her…to have a new wife, perhaps children with that new wife.
What should she do? What? She knew from his perspective he owed her nothing. He had given her his name and more. She knew in the eight years they had been married he had been kind enough not to flaunt any of his indiscretions, even when she had not returned that favor. Who could have guessed that he would fall in love with this…this nobody!
He had said he had friends in Parliament, and that he would tell them he had discovered she was unfaithful before their marriage and that Roderick wasn’t his. He could do that. He could have their marriage annulled. Roderick? Roderick would be called a bastard and she would lose all standing. Would he do that to Roderick? Was he bluffing? He must be bluffing. He wouldn’t do that to the boy. He really loved her son in ways she couldn’t fathom.
A month passed and Lady Ravensbury sustained yet another shock. She wasn’t sure what Godwin had been doing during this time, but as he never again broached the subject of divorce, she assumed he had perhaps put the issue aside because of Roderick.
She and Godwin maintained separate bedrooms and had done so for years, but she was aware that he left the house very early and did not return until very late. She believed he was perhaps playing house with his doxy somewhere, and was content at least that he had not bothered her about the divorce.
Thus, she was not prepared for Mr. Chale’s visit. She had him taken to the morning room where she first offered him refreshment.
He declined, and as she took a seat and bade him sit as well, he declined again.
Chale was an elderly man, an experienced solicitor who had served Godwin’s father, and she had noted in the past, he had been pleased to serve the son just as faithfully. He looked uncomfortable and her stomach churned.
She knew why he had come. He fidgeted and stuttered, and it became obvious to Sara that he had come to discharge an uncomfortable duty. She was immediately set on edge and ready for a fight.
As he played with the fobs at his waistcoat, and hemmed and hawed over the words he was about to speak, she became impatient and snapped, “Out with it, sir, please.”
“His lordship has confessed his situation to me,” he finally said on a hushed note. “Thus, I am here to advise you that…he is very willing to do what he must for his freedom. I am here to try and make you understand that he has everything in order and ready to implement should you not sign the papers in question.”
Sara sat back and closed her eyes. When she opened them, her gaze fixed on nothing in particular and her voice was barely audible when she spoke. “He is determined in this dreadful course?”
“I am sorry to say he is, my lady. Though it grieves me to say it, his lordship will stop at nothing to obtain what he calls his freedom,” the solicitor said as dark patches filled his cheeks. He proceeded to point out the lifestyle and allowance his lordship was willing to give her in London if she would only sign the papers.
“Kindly advise Lord Ravensbury that I shall have to…study the situation before I give him my answer,” she said as her mind raced to find a way to save herself.
“Very well, but, again, I am sorry to inform you that his lordship is anxious and will not wait long for your reply. If he does not have it soon, he will ask me to go ahead, and…well, as I said, though I find this matter distasteful, under the circumstances…I must say it is his right, and he has already prepared his friends in Parliament, who have indicated with or without your signature he can proceed.”
“Mr. Chale!” Sara objected in outraged terms as her chin went up. “If my husband wishes to settle the matter of our marriage ending amicably, he must understand that I need time to adjust to his proposals. It is…for me, an unbearable shame. I ask only for one week. Surely a week is hardly unreasonable?”
“No, no, of course…quite reasonable,” blustered the elderly man. He stopped his pacing and added, “I will see to it that his lordship will be patient about this and give you the week to decide what course of action you wish to follow. But I do caution you that there are only two choices you have, an annulment or a divorce.”
Sara was in a rage. How dare this little man speak to her this way! How dare Godwin do this to her! Well, she would not demean herself. She stood and inclined her head as a dismissal.
The elderly man made his way out, and her face was austere as she watched him take his leave.
When he closed the door at his back, she sank back onto her lovely yellow damask sofa and put her hands to her face.
She would have to leave Ravensbury…leave what she had for years thought of as her home. She would have to live with the fact that another woman would occupy it? No. She could not allow this to happen. Yes, she had always dreamt of being a London hostess, but one with a title and position. This divorce or annulment would only leave her with money—no status!
For no reason at all, her mind flew to Lisa’s ball all those years ago. Oscar and Lisa would gloat and think she had only gotten what she deserved. In the end, Lisa had realized what Sara had done and had cut their connection. Why Lisa should have done that, she couldn’t understand, after all, Lisa went on to marry Oscar, and by all accounts, the two went on very happily. In fact, they owed their happiness to her!
She had to find a way out of this and because she was desperate, and because it was in her character, she found what for her was a suitable answer.
Her eyes narrowed and took on luster, the gleam of a youth’s excitement when faced with an adventure. Her eyes darkened as she formulated her plan, and her lips took on a twist as she entered the worst of her dark nature.
* * * * *
Sara didn’t waste any time as she attended to the intricacies of her plan. She knew a great deal of its success depended on her handling matters herself.
She smiled. It was early yet, and she had just enough time. Ha! Godwin was a fool to think he could do this to her. Did he think she would quietly go off to London and give up what was hers? She was neither soft nor beaten, as the years had left their mark on her. She had learned to find Godwin’s reluctant forgiveness a bitter draft to swallow. Indeed, a part of her despised him for it. She had made a fool of him. She had turned him away from Lisa without his being aware who held those strings. He was a fool then…he was a fool still.
So, he meant to challenge her, did he? Very well, she would make him rue the day for his decision. The first thing she would have to do is turn to Mrs. Abernathy, the village gossip.
Once again, Sara remembered Lisa and Oscar, who had turned to one another at the end of Sara’s ministrations all those years ago. The two married and their marriage, or so everyone was fond of telling her at the routs and country dinners, was quite a success.
She hadn’t seen either of them except in passing since that fateful night of the ball. What would they say if they knew Godwin was divorcing her…or worse, annulling their marriage?
With a sure determination in her heart, she made up her mind, crossed the oak flooring to a large well-worn Gothic table of monumental proportions and took up its matching chair.
She dipped the quill in the ink well. What she needed first was Mrs. Abernathy. Indeed, she thought of the odd woman as a gross little skirter forever on the fringes, hoping to be accepted by the gentry. She would do to carry out one of her errands.
The first and most important step of Sara’s plan, she believed, could only be handled by herself. No other in her household could be trusted—they all loved Godwin too much.