Leslie Lafoy (23 page)

“No,” he declared, sidestepping out of her easy reach.

“Well, if you’d prefer to ravage, that’s fine with—”

“No,” he insisted, determined to be brutal if that’s what it took to make her see her folly. “Neither of us is going to be ravaged. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. I’m not going to marry you, Sarah. I’m sorry that you’ve come all this way only to be disappointed, but the truth is—”

“Very well, Tris,” she interrupted with a dry laugh. She wheeled about and walked off, calling back, “Scandal it is.”

“Sarah!”

She paused, looked over her shoulder, and smiled. “When you’re ready to surrender, I’m staying at the inn on St. James’s Street.”

Tristan shook his head, but the gesture had no visible impact on Sarah’s demeanor. She wiggled her fingers in farewell and smilingly went along her way. Tristan turned to look down at the dock. Simone was still watching the traffic, apparently oblivious to the nightmare he’d just endured.

“Thank you, Jesus,” he muttered, raking his fingers through his hair as he headed for the captain’s cabin and the brandy kept in the cabinet.

*   *   *

“Yoo-hoo!”

God, she was back. Ignoring the voice of good judgment, Simone turned on the barrel to watch the blonde make her way across the dock toward Mr. Gregory and Emmy.

“Hello, Emmaline,” the woman cooed, tilting her head and batting her lashes. “My name is Sarah Sheraton. Miss Sarah Sheraton. I’m a dear friend of your brother.”

While Mr. Gregory turned ever-deepening shades of pink, Emmy coolly looked Miss Sheraton up and down.

“I was thinking,” the woman went on, “that perhaps we could meet for luncheon one day this week and become acquainted. If you’re not too busy with clerking, of course.”

Simone watched in appreciative wonder as Emmy squared her shoulders perfectly and lifted her chin. “I’ll have to consult with my secretary to see what my schedule will permit.”

Oh, beautifully done, Emmy! Beautifully! My deportment masters would be so proud of you!

“Of course,” Miss Sheraton allowed, pulling open her reticule and reaching inside. “My card,” she added a second later, handing it over to Emmy. “Please let me know as soon as possible when getting together will work for you.”

Emmy didn’t even bother to look at the little piece of vellum before she stuck it under the papers in her hand and turned to Tristan’s clerk, asking, “What crate number are we on? Have we missed one?”

Simone grinned and silently congratulated her friend for having held her own against the blonde tide of presumption.

“And you are?”

She looked up at Sarah Sheraton. “Lady Simone Turnbridge,” she answered crisply as her anger flared again. “There’s no need for us to become acquainted.”

“I thought not.” She walked off, calling over her shoulder, “Good-bye, Gregory!”

Simone was hoping for a speeding hack and a not so tragic accident when Mr. Gregory cleared his throat, looked between Sarah Sheraton, her, and the ship. Running a finger under his starched collar, his blush darkening, he managed to say, “Um…”

“No explanation is needed, Mr. Gregory,” she assured him, rising from her makeshift seat. “None at all.” And she didn’t consider one necessary for her departure, either. Saying simply, “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Emmy,” she stepped toward the traffic and raised her hand to hail a hack.

One rolled to a halt in front of her just as Emmaline called, “Simone, wait!”

She paused, her hand on the door handle, and waited until her friend came to her side to say, “There’s no need for you to abandon Mr. Gregory.”

“He can manage perfectly well without me for a few moments. And while you may not need an explanation, I would appreciate one. Who is that Sarah woman?”

Oh, for godsakes!
“Just taking a wild guess, Emmy, I’d say that she’s Tristan’s lover.”

“His
former
American lover,” Emmy countered.

As opposed to her, his former
British
lover. Simone managed a smile, tight though it was. “I suspect that it’s not former at all, Emmy. At least not now.”

Emmy rolled her eyes. “Oh, please! I may not be the most worldly girl in the world, but I do know that if he had any intentions of having a relationship with her, he’d have brought her with him when he came back to England. Which was a little over a month ago. That she’s appeared out of the blue for the first time today … She’s chasing him.”

Did it really matter if she was? As long as he was willing to be caught, Simone couldn’t see that it did.

“You don’t have anything to worry about, Simone. Tristan isn’t going to start up with her again.”

And pigs would someday walk on the moon. She shook her head, called the address up to the driver, and pulled open the door. “I don’t care if he does, Emmy.”

“You do, too. You’re taken with him.”

Simone froze on the step, her heart racing. “Excuse me?” she asked.

“And he’s taken with you,” Emmaline assured her with a beaming smile. “Just in case you were wondering.”

No, she didn’t wonder. She knew that she’d been thrown over. She pulled the hack door closed and sat on the edge of the seat so that she could look at her friend through the open window. “Emmy,” she said kindly, “I appreciate your devotion to fairy tales and all, but there is absolutely nothing between your brother and me.”
Not anymore.

“Ha!”

“Really. Emmy. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Ha!”

And with that pronouncement, Emmaline turned on her heel and marched back to Wade Gregory’s side. Simone leaned forward to knock on the wall of the carriage, signaling the driver to proceed. He did. So suddenly that she was pitched backward. She landed in an ignoble, awkward heap half on and half off the seat.

Gritting her teeth, she righted herself and swore that the next time she saw Tristan Townsend she was going to pretend that she didn’t. He was taken with her? No, she’d been the one taken. And for one helluva ride. The bastard.

Chapter 13

It was the first of the funerals for those who had perished in the fire. Attendance was required, and Simone sat beside Fiona at the end of the row of mourners, dutifully still if not wholly attentive to the words being spoken. A big, fancy church, a hand-carved and brass-trimmed casket, the pews packed, and the clergy doing pomp and circumstance in their finest robes. Men standing to praise the life and heart and soul of whoever it was in the casket. Candles and flowers and more flowers. It was a fine funeral service, the kind of send-off that every member of the peerage hoped for. Even the weather was cooperating. Sunlight streamed through the stained-glass windows, playing across the crowd and dappling the casket with a kind of holy light of approval.

It had been raining buckets the day they’d buried her mother. Simone had been doing her chores that morning when Harriet, the oldest and grayest—God, she could still see her wrinkled face and toothless smile—of Essie’s girls, had said they should go to the services. That there would even be services had surprised Simone, and she remembered nodding and wishing that Harriet hadn’t said anything.

They hadn’t had fare for a hack and so they’d walked. And walked and walked. They’d been drenched to the bone and shivering with cold by the time they’d gotten to the little church with the graveyard behind it. In the midst of the rain and soot-blackened, lichened, and tilted headstones, they’d met the vicar. He’d stood frowning and hunch shouldered under his umbrella as Harriet told him who they were and why they’d come. With a great sigh of tried patience, he’d turned and led them to the farthest back corner of the cemetery and a pile of mud.

As they’d drawn near, two men had stopped shoveling and stepped back, removed their caps, and bowed their heads. The vicar stood off to the side and murmured something that Harriet had later told her was the Lord’s Prayer. All she could really remember of those moments was looking down at the plain pine box and thinking how very uncomfortable her mother must be in such a short and narrow space. And that shoveling wasn’t really all that necessary, not with the rain sluicing down the pile of mud, carving deep rivulets and pouring like black soup into the grave.

And then the vicar had walked off and left them. The shovelers had put their caps back on and hefted up their tools. It was then that Harriet had reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled, bedraggled daisy, handed it to her, and motioned for her to throw it into the hole.

It had landed on the top center, about where she imagined her mother’s hands would have been crossed over her heart. One mangled, limp daisy. One tiny, wilted bit of color and hope in a world without either.

They had walked back to Essie’s in silence and fading light. Two weeks after that, Simone had tossed a daisy into another hole and said good-bye to Harriet. Harriet, whose goodness had been willing to bear discomfort to remember the lost and whose aged body hadn’t been able to recover from the effort.

It had been raining that day, too. The daisy hadn’t been mangled, though. Simone had been very careful with it. And it hadn’t made the least bit of difference in the end. Her mother was still gone. Harriet was gone. And the gift of a daisy, perfect or otherwise, didn’t ease the pain or make the sun shine.

Unless, of course, you were a peer
, Simone amended as the congregation rose and opened their hymnals. She stood silently beside her sister, her heart too heavy and angry to sing.

If you were a peer the sun shone and the choir sang; the world lamented your untimely passing and covered your expensive casket with lilies and roses. And when they buried you, there was a finely carved stone to mark your place, to record for all time that your life had been considered worthy and that you were worth remembering.

There wasn’t a stone to mark her mother’s grave. Or Harriet’s. Not even plain wooden crosses. Because they were poor. Because they were prostitutes. Because those who remembered and mourned them didn’t even have money for hack fare. To buy a headstone …

Simone started in realization. She could buy one! For her mother. And one for Harriet, too. She had plenty of money. Drayton would allow her all that she wanted. She could have their names carved in an elegant script and have the carver add some inspiring words about good hearts and caring souls, about love and friendship. Maybe some cherubs, too. Or angels. Or flowers.

God, why hadn’t she thought of this before? All she had to do was tell Drayton what she wanted to do, commission a stone carver, and have him deliver the headstones to … to …

She blinked back a hot curtain of tears as brutal truth twisted her heart. To not know where your mother was buried …

*   *   *

Tristan watched Simone slip out of the pew and move quickly up the ambulatory. She passed him, tears coursing down her cheeks and fire blazing in her eyes. He looked up the rows of pews to see if any of the family were going to follow her out and offer her comfort. They didn’t. Closing the hymnal, he gave Noland a quick nod and then went after her.

He found her on the walkway outside the cathedral, looking up and down the street as though she wasn’t sure which way to go.

“Simone?” he called as he made his way down the steps toward her. “Are you all right?”

She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and scrubbed her hands over her cheeks before she turned to face him. “I’m fine.”

Yes, he could see by her puffy eyes just how
fine
she was. He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets to keep from reaching for her and asked, “Did you know Lord Sandifer well?”

“Who?”

“Lord Sandifer,” he said again, motioning with his head toward the church behind them. “Today’s guest of honor.”

“Oh.” She sniffled and looked away. “I didn’t know him at all.”

“Aside from family and a handful of others, everyone inside could probably say the same thing if they were decent enough to be honest about it. Which explains why there aren’t all that many weeping into handkerchiefs.”

“I didn’t notice.”

“Since you didn’t know Sandifer, it must be memories that brought you to tears. If you would like to ease the burden of them by sharing with me, I’d—”

Her dark eyes blazed as she looked up at him. “What I’d like, Tristan, is for you to go away,” she said crisply, turning to study the roadway again.

Well, yes, and if he had a brain in his head he’d do just that. But he didn’t. He stood there, the knife-in-his-chest feeling returning as he searched for something to say that would get her to turn around and talk to him again. About what, he didn’t know and didn’t care. He just wanted her to talk to him, to make him feel right about their ill-fated affair. Yes, it was shallow and selfish, but then, he was a shallow and selfish man. “Simone,” he began softly as he eased toward her side.

“Yoo-hoo! Tristan!”

He froze as a shudder ran down the length of his spine.

“Tristan, sweetheart!”

He looked over his shoulder just as Sarah climbed out of a rented hack. “Goddamn it!”

Beside him, Simone sniffled and cleared her throat. “Pardon my language,” he offered quickly. “And please give me a chance to explain about her.”

“Oh,” she said dryly, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

And she wasn’t going to make it easy for him. Not that he deserved it. He turned to face the oncoming woman, determined to be done with her as quickly as possible. “What are you doing here, Sarah?”

Sarah beamed up at him. “I happened to be passing by on my way back to the inn and saw you standing here. And I
had
to stop and tell you that I just shared the most
delicious
pot of tea and delightful hour of conversation with your mother.”

Oh, he’d only thought things had gone badly before. “My mother’s dead, Sarah. Long dead.”

Sarah’s smile faded. “Well, she
said
she was your mother.”

“If you’re talking about Lucinda, she’s my stepmother.”

Her smile suddenly as big and bright as before, she countered, “I don’t think she sees the difference, sweetheart.”

He unclenched his teeth. “And what, pray tell, did the two of you find to talk about for a delightful frigging hour?”