She awoke to a strange room and a strange bed. Sunlight was shining through a crack in the drapes, and for a moment she could not think where she might be. An ormolu clock on the chest of drawers told her that it was noon. Then she remembered. The children! Where were the children?
She threw herself from the bed, not bothering to find her shoes, and with her hair tumbling about her shoulders she rushed to throw open a door. But it only led into the dressing room where she had bathed all those hours ago, although the hip bath was empty now, and everything tidied as though that unexpected encounter with Bryne Garrett had never been.
Swiftly she wrenched open the other door in her bedchamber and ran through to the head of the stairs. “Jenny! Robbie!” she called frantically.
She almost fell as she descended, her stockinged feet slipping on the shining wood. When she found the housekeeper’s room deserted, a kind of panic seized her and she whirled back into the hall, calling out again.
The double doors of the drawing room were flung open from within, releasing the aroma of cigars. Bryne stood there with a thunderous expression on his face. Behind him some gentlemen rose from their seats to view the cause of the commotion. “What’s wrong here?” he demanded.
“Where are the children?” she cried urgently.
He ran impatient fingers through his thick hair. “I have no idea. Not under my feet, thank God! Find Mrs. Tupper in the kitchen and ask her.”
Sarah sent the baize door thudding open with the flat of her hands, and the flagstones of the passageway struck cold to her running feet. At the entrance to the kitchen she stopped, overwhelmed with relief, thankfully taking in the quiet domestic scene before her. A stout little woman was mixing a pudding at the kitchen table, the frill of her mobcap framing a face both shrewd and sharp but not unkindly. At one side of her sat Jenny and Flora, chattering together as they stoned the raisins for the pudding, and on the floor by the hearth Robbie was finishing a piece of gingerbread.
“Come in,” Mrs. Tupper invited amiably, her voice holding nuances of a London background somewhere in the past. “I’m ’elping out ’ere today—and not for the first time.” She put her head on one side, frowning in concern. “La! You’re white as a sheet. Did you work too ’ard last night? I’ve ’eard all about it.”
Sarah shook her head, sinking down onto a chair. Robbie had come running to her, and she lifted him onto her lap. “I was afraid for the children, in case they’d run off somewhere.”
“No fear of that. My youngest boy, Joe, is groom ’ere, and ’e’d ’ave kept an eye on them.” Mrs. Tupper paused in the beating of some eggs. “Don’t you go imagining that ’e ’ad any dealings with that lazy lot that were turfed out of ’ere yesterday. ’E’s a good, ’ard-working lad, and when he turned up for work this morning Mr. Garrett sent ’im back ’ome to fetch me to see to things.”
“Where are all my possessions?” Sarah asked, puzzled. On her lap Robbie was snuggling blissfully against her, thumb in mouth, and she cuddled him close.
Flora gave her the answer. “Me and the Boss moved all yo’r chattels into the closet while yo’ slept.”
Mrs. Tupper snorted. “A fat lot you did!”
Flora glowered at her, putting stubborn elbows on the table. “De Boss thanked me for hanging up Miss Sarah’s cloak real neat.”
“Why say Boss?” Sarah queried. “You could call him by his name—Mr. Garrett, or even Mr. Bryne.”
Flora giggled. “Yo’ sure is funny wid yo’r English talk yo’self, Missie.”
“Don’t be cheeky!” Mrs. Tupper gave the child a whack on the arm with her wooden spoon. “Nice manners never hurt nobody.”
“Mrs. Tupper!” Sarah exclaimed in protest.
The woman paid no attention, talking on garrulously. “I’ve already done what Mr. Garrett asked and seen about new staff. ’E should ’ave asked me in the first place. Real unlucky ’e’s bin, but that’s what comes on being a bachelor. Servants take advantage. I’d do for ’im myself if I didn’t ’ave so many young ones still at ’ome.”
“I’m hoping to be in charge,” Sarah said quietly.
Mrs. Tupper flashed her an uncertain glance. “So I gathered from what young Flora told me, but Mr. Garrett ’as said nothing. I’ve taken on Beth ’Unter, who’s an ’onest, reliable girl, and Agnes Jenkins is coming to cook—she was left ’igh and dry without a job when her employer died last week.” A distant thud interrupted her, and she lifted her head. “That was the front door. Mr. Garrett will ’ave gone with the gentlemen. I guess they came to get the latest news of what’s going on across the boundary. Everybody says there’ll be a war with the United States before the year is out.” She pursed her lips disapprovingly. “Mr. Garrett talks about ’is country’s rights being violated by British restrictions on ’is country’s trade, but ’e seems to forget that good King George ’as Boney at ’is throat, and can’t ’ave Yankee boats doing what they like on our ’igh seas!”
It was early evening when Bryne returned to the house. By that time Mrs. Tupper had departed, and the two new servants had moved in. Sarah, having put both children to bed, was folding freshly laundered garments away in a drawer when a fist thumped on her bedchamber door.
“Yes?” she said quickly, suddenly tense.
“I want to speak to you,” Bryne’s voice replied on a note of authority that brooked no refusal.
“Come in,” she replied.
He entered with a large striped box, which he tossed onto the bed. Turning toward her, he stood with feet apart, hands set on his hips, coattails swinging. “That was a crazy display of hysterics you indulged in at noon today,” he stated crisply. “Every man in that room immediately figured that I’d brought a mistress back with me from New England, and that we were engaged in a domestic squabble of some kind!”
She lifted her chin. “Surely, you explained?”
His eyes broke on an inner spark of irony. “Normally I never give explanations, but in this particular case I was compelled to in order, ma’am, to defend your honor.”
“Did they believe you?” she asked hesitantly. He had answered courteously enough, but somehow he had failed to reassure.
A fleeting look of satisfaction passed across his face, caught in a flicker of lashes and a brief outthrust of his lower lip. “They believed me,” he said without expression. Then he went across to the bed and lifted the striped box by the lid to shake the base free of it. As it dropped onto the quilt a gown of white lace tumbled out its folds, the gossamer layers hanging on the air like spiders’ threads.
“There you are,” he said. “I reckon that should fit you out for this evening. I took the liberty of taking one of your shoes to match up the size with a pair of satin slippers. After we’ve dined, and had a little discussion about the matter that we have to settle, I’m taking you to a soirée at the Governor’s residence. It bores me to go to these events on my own.”
She had been dazzled by the gown. She had never seen anything so exquisite before, but pride and a fierce independence put a stop to an intense feminine longing to rush forward and hold it up against herself before a looking glass. Moreover, his calm assumption that she would be willing to alleviate his boredom by accompanying him socially for the evening irritated her beyond measure.
“I couldn’t possibly accept such an extravagant gift,” she said stiffly.
He groaned and threw up his hands in exasperation. “Don’t be so prissy! I’ll not give it to you, if that eases your mind. But I want you to wear it this evening.”
She hesitated. Much could happen before it was time to leave for the soirée. Her time in the house could be running out to little more than an hour, for she feared that his conditions for her staying on would be centered on some totally unacceptable plan concerning Jenny and Robbie, such as their being fostered out somewhere. In the meantime she must hope for the best.
“I’ll put the gown on,” she said quietly.
He nodded, thrust his hands into his pockets, hesitated restlessly as if he would say something more, but appeared to change his mind, and with another nod he went from the room. It was as though he had won a battle where he had hoped for a truce, and found no pleasure in the victory.
The fashionably high-waisted gown fitted her perfectly. He must have taken full note of her figure and height to have selected so accurately, and the décolletage set off the creamy stem of her throat and the fullness of her breasts. With care and an inexplicable rising of excitement she dressed her hair back so that tiny tendrils fell curling at each side of her face.
Bryne must have been waiting for the first tap of her heels on the stairs, for he came forward to watch her descend with an approving glitter in his eye. He was looking very grand himself in a crimson velvet coat with gold buttons, a winged cravat, and slim dove-gray trousers. “Charming!” he declared. “A perfect English rosebud. How will you withstand this harsh clime, I wonder.” He held out his arm to her, his bow respectful, but she glanced at him warily, never quite sure of his attitude. He had ordered dinner to be served on the small round table in the parlor, instead of in the long dining room, and the atmosphere was immediately more intimate, the candlelight dancing on the soft green damask walls, and the window open to the warm May night where the moon hung like a great silver ball.
He talked about his trading business, how he dealt in merchandise that arrived by sleigh in winter from the eastern ports, but otherwise by water, and for that reason he had a couple of warehouses down on the wharf where goods were also both landed from and dispatched to Sackets Harbor and Oswego on the American side of the lake. He traded a great deal with the Indians in Upper Canada, such as the Missisaugas, the Mohawks, and the Chippewa tribe, and often rode long distances to deal with them himself, finding it more satisfactory than sending a representative.
He also told her about his ward. “Lucy’s French-Canadian mother died at her birth, and her father, a cousin of mine, who had lived in Montreal all his life, was killed in a riding accident when the girl was twelve. That was five years ago, and the first time I’d ever had cause to set eyes on her. But, being Lucy’s only relative, the obligation fell on me to become her guardian and take care of her financial affairs and wellbeing. I did not welcome it. She was a spoiled brat, and I had her packed off to boarding school in Kingston without delay. According to the progress reports that I receive from time to time, she is as willful as ever. I reckon the school has had a mighty tough task in trying to make a young lady out of her.”
“Don’t you ever visit her?” Sarah asked, a feeling of compassion going out toward the girl, who had lost an indulgent father only to be banished to the unloving discipline of a school by an impatient guardian.
He nodded amiably. “I visit her. Kingston is no great distance away. She’s a flirtatious little baggage, and bats her lashes at me in the manner born.” He pushed back his chair, dinner having come to an end, and he glanced at his gold watch before coming to hand her to her feet. “There’s plenty of time before I need send for the carriage,” he said. “Let’s sit on the veranda for a while.”
Now she should hear the ultimatum that he intended to put to her. Anxiety, which had been increasing steadily over the past hours, soared swiftly to a sharp peak, and as she moved ahead of him out to the veranda, she rested her fingertips against her chest as though to press it down. She was convinced that the condition was to be more drastic than a mere fostering out of the children. Throughout dinner the fear had been growing that he would suggest an orphanage, and being such a powerful man in the city, he could easily compel her by law to give up the children if he had a mind to be so brutal. If this should prove to be the case she must do everything in her power to make him change his mind. And that would not be easy. He had sent his ward away quickly enough. How much more willing he would be to rid his elegant residence of two small children liable to get into mischief or create a disturbance at any time.
The diaphanous frills of her gown shimmered as she sat down on a curved basket seat. He did not sit beside her at first, but remained leaning against the wooden pillar, leisurely smoking a cigar, a ruby ring on his finger sending out little slivers of carmine light. She was intensely conscious of his unswerving gaze fixed directly on her, but she tried to appear relaxed, looking out at the moonlit garden and the orchard beyond, where the blossom lay like clouds upon the branches, not stirring in the soft, still air.
He broke the silence at last. “You’re a very beautiful girl,” he commented conversationally.
Deliberately she ignored the compliment. “You said there was a condition attached to my staying on in your employment,” she said pointedly, thankful that her voice did not betray her nervousness.
Lazily he stubbed out the cigar before coming across to sit down on the seat beside her, and he leaned toward her slightly as he rested his arm along the back of it. “No doubt you will be a little surprised at what I have to say to you, but after you’ve given my proposition some consideration, I think you’ll realize that it’s the best way out of your dilemma, and it would certainly assist me in my guardianship of Lucy, which has become a great problem now that she is seventeen and should have been out of school long ago.” She steeled herself, knowing that for the sake of the children she must be diplomatic, but a refusal to be parted from them to act as chaperone to his ward, which was so obviously coming, was ready on her lips. Being so convinced that she knew what he was going to say, she turned her head to face him squarely, and as a result gave him full benefit of the expression of complete astonishment that registered on her face at his next words.
“I’m offering you marriage, Sarah. Not love. Or romance. Or any of the frills. But my name, my honorable protection, and a secure future, not only for yourself, but for the two children who have been so forlornly deserted by both parents—the mother, I admit, through no fault of her own.”
She went on staring at him, her eyes wide. Marriages of convenience were common enough in England where both families had something to gain from the contract, but she failed to see why this man, who could surely marry any woman of his choice, should make her such an offer. With the little she knew of him already, she had gathered that he always aimed to get the best of any bargain. She drew a little breath, regarding him with a measured precision. “I don’t understand,” she said bluntly. “What do you want from me in return?”
He tilted his head, answering her look under his lashes as he relaxed back against the cushions, crossing one long leg over the other. “You can take Flora in hand for a start, educating her yourself for a while, and then later on a suitable school can be found. I’ve already seen my lawyers, and at four o’clock this afternoon she became my ward instead of my property.” He was certain that this piece of information must have pleased her, and smiled slightly as if it was a small enough concession to make in the bargain he was forging. “I want my house kept in order, and a gracious hostess when I entertain. I like a woman to be well dressed, and so I want no finicky cheeseparing when it comes to buying bonnets and gowns and any other gewgaws you’ll be needing. Then there’s this business of Lucy plaguing me to take her out of boarding school. With a wife under my roof I’ll be able to bring her here without risk of gossip. I care nothing for it myself, but I’ll not have Lucy’s chances in the marriage market wrecked by the slanderous speculation that would result if she were alone under this roof with me.”
“You seem to have a dubious reputation,” Sarah commented sharply.
His dark eyes rippled with a strange, ambiguous mixture of amusement and irritation. “That I can’t deny. People like to talk. I guess everything I do is suspect. I’m even accused of running guns and smuggling tea.”
“Is there any truth in that?” Sarah asked him levelly.
He raised an eyebrow. “I mind my own business, and I should expect my wife to mind hers. But on one point I do assure you”—his voice deepened in emphasis—“nothing I ever did would cause you the slightest distress.”
“That, Mr. Garrett,” she said coolly, “does not interest me. I came to this house hoping for work—not marriage. But if that is the condition of my staying on here, then I must leave.”
“Pity,” he remarked reflectively, his tone changing to a dry note as he pretended a marked interest in the stars twinkling above the treetops. “In order to protect your reputation I led those gentlemen in my house today to believe that we were already betrothed. Their wives will be agog at the soirée this evening for the sight of you.”
“You’ve taken far too much upon yourself!” she exclaimed, rising quickly to her feet.
He rose too, and seized her by the arm when she would have darted back into the house. “I asked you to give consideration to my offer,” he said firmly in the tone of one not used to being flaunted. “Do not reject it out of hand. Take time. Think it over. My home is yours.”
Inwardly she despaired of his stubbornness, but it only matched her own. “You must understand that I cannot possibly attend the soirée with you this evening,” she said, her own plans already made.
He nodded. “I had no wish to upset you, and I see that it would be out of the question for you to face the female tigers of York until the matter is settled. You shall choose your own occasion. At a party here. Or at a ball.”
He seemed to have no doubt at all of what her eventual decision would be. “Good night, Mr. Garrett,” she said with apparent calmness, but frantic to get away.
He released his hold on her, but as she crossed the threshold back into the house he spoke again, and gently. “Sarah!”
“Yes?” She half-turned, the diaphanous frills of her gown ashimmer.
He was a black shadow, silhouetted against the stars and the silvery garden. “With regard to our marriage, do not be alarmed on any other score. The key to the dressing room that links our two rooms is on your side of the door. You may keep it locked for as long as you wish!”
The reply burst from her. “That would be forever!” She ran across the shining pinewood floor, and up the curved staircase. He did not follow her.
The lace gown was hung away in the closet, and she was fastening the buttons of her print dress when she heard the carriage come from the stable. Swiftly she rushed to the window, and watched Bryne step inside on his way to the soirée. Then it went rolling away down the drive, and as soon as it was lost from sight she rushed back to take everything from the drawers and pack her portmanteau that stood ready. The children’s garments went in last of all. There were some still drying on the line, but she would take those as she slipped out of the house.
She would have to make two journeys, taking the baggage first, which she would hide in a secluded spot down by the lake, and then return for the children. She would have to carry Robbie, for he would be far too sleepy to persuade into walking, and she might well have to piggyback Jenny at the same time. But she must get them away. Bryne would never think of her departing with them at this late hour, and it could be nine or ten in the morning before Agnes or Beth realized that she was not going to appear with them. By that time she hoped to be on a bateau to one of the farming villages farther along the lake. It would take the last coins she had, but farm work was the answer, and it was the beginning of the time of year when every farm could do with an extra hand. Everything from planting, fruit-picking, and harvesting awaited her. She could keep the children with her as she toiled, receive food to share with them from farm kitchens, and always find a barn or some other place to sleep. It was the answer to everything.
Before leaving the house she wrote another letter to Will Nightingale. This she would leave for him at the post office before she left the city, hoping that one day he would call there in search of news of his family.
She left the waking of the children for her return trip and silently slipped from the house, keeping to the shadows of the trees until at last she was out in the street. She set off at a good pace, in spite of the heavy baggage she carried. There were quite a few people about, and lights shone from the coffee houses, but as she drew nearer the lakeside the moonlight suddenly made her feel defenseless and vulnerable as she walked with her shadow down the long deserted street lined by dark warehouses. She increased her pace, her footsteps echoing, and had almost reached the turning into a side lane that led to the woods by the water’s edge when she stopped uncertainly. A man had lurched forward out of the darkness of a doorway, the glint of a bottle in his hand, and he was followed by half a dozen others. They had seen her, and were laughing and muttering among themselves, nudging each other with their elbows as they began to advance toward her slowly, spreading out into a semicircle.
She took a step backward, and then another, not daring to turn her back on them in fear that they would sprint forward and catch her unawares. Who would hear her scream and come to her aid in such a place? Bitterly she regretted keeping to the area that she had taken note of the day she had landed in York, when all had looked bright and peaceful in the late afternoon sunshine. She caught her breath in startled terror as one of the men spoke to her.
“Where’re you aiming to go at this late hour?” he asked in dangerously soft tones, his tall hat tilted forward over his eyes.
She did not answer, but drew back again, praying she would not twist her ankle on the uneven surface and fall helplessly. The moon threw the men’s long, dark shadows before them as they came, long black shapes that rippled over the wheel ruts to reach the swiftly retreating toes of her shoes, and then creeping up her skirt hem.
With a sudden shout they all made a bound forward, and she hurled her heavy portmanteau with all her strength, catching one across the knees with a blow that sent him crashing down, bringing two others with him. The cloth bag that followed it was less effective, doing no more than delivering a harmless blow on another’s head, but she did not wait to see that, having turned to race back up the street with her skirt and petticoats held up to her knees, her cloak stretched out behind her like a beating wing. She heard her purse fall from her pocket with a little tinkle of coins, but dared not to stop.
They were pounding after her, their footsteps echoing along the silent street. Her bonnet fell back from her head, held by its ribbons across her throat, and strands of hair slipped free to whip about her white, terrified face. She had only one thought in her head, and that was to get back to the house. That it would be impossible for her to keep up such a speed over so far a distance did not occur to her. She went rushing on, long after pursuit had fallen away, scarcely aware that the lights from coffee houses and hotels were falling on her as she streaked by, and that people were turning heads in curiosity at her headlong flight.
By the time she turned into King Street her pace had slowed to a loping, staggering run, her breath rasping in her chest, the tears streaming down her face. She knew she was no longer being followed, but still she dragged herself on until she caught her toe on the rough road and went pitching forward. She lay there sobbing helplessly until the clip-clop of approaching hooves forced her to raise herself up. As she reeled to her feet there was a jingling of harness as the horses were hauled to a stop, and from the box Joe Tupper’s voice addressed her with some surprise. “Here! It’s Miss Sarah, ain’t it?”
“Oh, Joe!” she sobbed, looking up at him, not seeing that Bryne had put his head out of the carriage window to see why the horses had stopped. “Take me home!”
But it was Bryne’s arms that caught her and helped her into the carriage. “What has happened? Has anyone harmed you?” he demanded, his grip on her tight. She shook her head, her face in her hands, unable to speak. Her plan to get away had turned into a complete fiasco. She had nothing left in the world except the clothes she was wearing. Everything she and the children possessed had been in the baggage she had thrown, and even her purse was gone. It was the climax to all the disappointments and hardships that she had struggled through, and she found it impossible to check the tears that were gushing from her eyes.
Bryne asked her no more questions until they were in the house. There she stood, still shaken by her gasping sobs, while he untied the strings of her bonnet, and threw it aside. Then he released the clasp of her cloak, and it slipped from her. She felt his cool hands lifting her face to make her meet his eyes. “Well?” he asked her quietly.
“I was leaving,” she gulped, so blinded by her glittering lashes that his face splintered into colored lights, and she had to blink away the fresh tears that came as she told him of her encounter with the men, and of her flight. “I’ve bungled everything, and failed the children,” she concluded with violent despair. “There’s nothing left.”
She turned from him, and threw herself onto the sofa, setting her arm on the back of it and burying her face in the crook of her elbow. Finally her tears ebbed, and when she slowly lifted her head again she saw that he was sitting beside her.
He gave her a little smile, and took her hand in his. “I’ll be a good husband to you, Sarah. You shall have a nursemaid for the children, and if their father is never to be found they shall have the same advantages in life and education as if they were my own. Is there anything more that I can promise you?”
She answered with quivering lips, her eyes heavy with unhappiness. “I always thought to marry for love.”
His face tightened. “You have no choice,” he said abruptly. “I need a wife, and you will suit me admirably. I’m well pleased. At the end of the week we’ll set off on a wedding trip. That will give you time to choose some clothes and replace whatever you lost in the portmanteau. I’ve a mind to have you to myself for a little while, away from this houseful of children, which will soon have Lucy and her tantrums added to it.”
In silence she rose to her feet, and walked from the room. Halfway up the stairs she turned, her hand resting on the rail, and looked down to where he was standing in the doorway.
“Doesn’t it matter that I feel no affection toward you?” she asked, low-voiced.
A slow smile curved his mouth, and his eyes held a curious, meditating look with the glint of challenge in it. “I intend to woo you, Sarah. Did you not consider that?”