The Affectionate Adversary (26 page)

He halted at the end of the path where a stone bench lay hidden in the shadow of the wall. Sarah stood so still, so unmoving that she felt as if a quiver of wind might topple her. She could not breathe. Could not will her feet to take another step. Could hardly even think.

She sank onto the bench and clasped her hands in her lap. Oh, for a bonnet with a deep brim to hide beneath! Could he see the turmoil she felt? Did he know the storm his words caused in her breast? And what was to be said? What could possibly be done?

For fully a minute, she sat staring at a clay pot in which a large topiary had been planted. She tried to think how to pray, but she could draw out nothing save the simple cry of her heart.

At last she lifted her head. “Why?” she asked the man who stood over her.

Dropping to one knee, Charles took her hand in his. “Why do I leave Bamberfield? Because I cannot bear to be near you and yet remain apart. Why did I at first support Delacroix’s plan? Because I sincerely want your happiness. Why do I wish to keep you in England despite your dream of traveling the world? Because I must have you near me, even if you belong to another man. Why do I love you?”

“Yes, that,” she choked out.

“Why not? You are everything I could want in a woman.”

“Charles, I am plain, and you cannot deny it. My beauty is nothing to Prudence’s. As Mary has pointed out, I cannot sing well. I paint badly. My embroidery is full of knots—”

“If I wanted a wife for painting and embroidery, I should be a shallow man indeed. And I confess, I am selfish enough to desire marriage to a woman with far greater qualities than your sisters’ prettiness and pert opinions. Sarah, your eyes are filled with the kindness that wells from your heart. Your sweet lips hold the expression of softness that emanates from your soul. Your beauty approaches a level of holy serenity that I have never before seen in my life, and I daresay your inner spirit wells from the same source. Without and within, you are the most perfect creature I have ever beheld.”

“Charles, this is false…. I am sure of it.”

Rising, he seated himself beside her and kissed her hand. “Sarah, permit me to tell you of the woman who set the highest example of womanly worth I have ever known until I met you. Her name was Maria Wells, and she was the middle of seven children born to a miller and his wife. While riding in a coach to visit her aunt, Miss Wells met a fellow traveler, a young man employed as a footman in a great house near her village. The two were of equal social status, though he could boast a more formal education. That man, Mr. James Locke, wooed and eventually wed Miss Maria Wells.”

“Your parents.” Sarah’s voice was barely a whisper.

Charles nodded. “Within two years of her wedding day, Maria Locke produced a healthy son. From that birth to the end of her life, she was unwell, suffering from a female malady that kept her in constant discomfort. She had no more children and might have become bitter but for her naturally cheerful demeanor. She doted upon her son, encouraged her husband—who rose to the position of steward of a great house—and dedicated herself to the poor and needy in the surrounding countryside. Her devotion to God was absolute and unshakeable. Perhaps a little too plump, always in pain, and certainly bereft of the brood of children she had desired, Maria Locke nevertheless managed to emerge as the most endearing, beautiful, and beloved of women.”

“I am sorry I never knew her,” Sarah murmured.

“At her funeral, more than a hundred people filled the village church and spilled outside to pay their respects. Her friends mourned her. Her husband never married again. Her son believed himself robbed of the gladdest reason for his existence. And then one day, he was hauled aboard a ship and cast into the arms of a woman so like his mother—and yet so supremely feminine and so infinitely desirable—that he lost his heart to her at once.”

“Oh, no …” Sarah drew her hand from his. “I cannot believe—”

“In what way do I deceive you? I have told you my reasons for coming to Bamberfield. I tell you now why I must leave.”

“Then go, sir,” she commanded, standing. “Your presence distresses me, and I was under great duress already.”

Without looking back, she started down the path again. He must go! Back over the wall and into the house and away for- ever. Never mind what he had said. His words could mean nothing to her. His avowal of love and his desire for marriage must be for naught. If she wed at all, her husband had to be someone like Delacroix—and she could not bear to marry such a man. Yet how could she fail to meet her sisters’ wishes? How could she be as selfish as they believed?

“Sarah, what troubles you so on this night?” Charles asked, his shadow darkening the path behind her. “Why do you run from me?”

“You have no idea what I endure, sir, and truly it is none of your concern. Go home to London and become a barrister. Use the money you earn to start your tea enterprise. Marry a good woman and give her children. I must take a different way.”

“We were friends once, aboard the ship,” he reminded her, falling into step. “Allow me to take that role again and hear your woes. I shall speak no more of my feelings or desires, but I do offer my friendship. Please, Sarah, speak honestly to me, for I cannot bear to see you so unhappy.”

“Had you known me in any other place, you would have seen my unhappiness before now,” she told him. “But what of it? If I am not happy, then let me bear my sorrows alone. I am not free to be who I was to you before. I never shall.”

“Sarah, be reasonable; I beg you.” He caught her arm and turned her to face him. “I know less of God and His character than you do, but I am certain He cannot mean for you to live in misery. Love, joy, peace—these are the fruit of the Holy Spirit. You tell me you are reborn of the Spirit. You say every true Christian must be born again as well. In every way, I am compelled to submit my life and all my ambitions to God. And yet your abiding unhappiness discourages me.”

“Charles, do not lay this burden on me, too! Already, my sisters accuse me of selfishness. They say I seek my own happiness above all else. Now you tell me that my unhappiness keeps you from God! I am not responsible for their happiness or your salvation. Work it out on your own!”

As the tears she had been holding back began to well, Sarah grabbed up her skirts and ran from him. She was at the far end of the garden, but she knew her way through it without a stumble.

Did Charles love her? Could he be a true friend? Dare she bare her heart? No! It was all impossible. She was alone. Utterly and completely alone. And why did God cast her about in such a way? Dangling the possibility of true love before her, then snatching it away again; providing her with sisterly affection, then hurling their accusations at her; tossing her in the path of a man she disliked, then cornering her into marrying him!

“Sarah, I shall not be deterred.” Charles stepped around her and stopped dead in the path, his hands catching her shoulders. “You must speak to me! I insist upon it. Tell me what weighs so heavily upon you. Allow me to ease your pain.”

“You can do nothing for me, Charles! My path is set—as it has been from the day I was born a daughter instead of a son. From the moment I drew my first breath, I became my father’s pawn. To this day I am nothing but a pawn. My life is laid out. Each move I make is directed already.”

“By whom? If God is your master, then surely He desires the best for you.”

“His will is greater than my own, Charles. He wants the best for me—but does that ensure my happiness?”

“Why not? How can God’s love bring you anything but joy?”

“God loves those poor cottagers in Shepton, does He not? Yet look how they suffer! Am I so different for all my wealth and education? No, indeed, for I must bend to His plan for me. I must follow the path laid out, and I dare not complain of my woes.”

“This God you depict is too severe. Why do you not feel His tender compassion, Sarah?”

“By Christ’s sacrifice, I know of God’s love. But
feel
it? No, I feel only His correction and reproof.”

“But I believe God demonstrates His love daily—through others. You are an example of that yourself, Sarah. God showed His love for Shepton’s poor through your tender compassion toward those children yesterday. My mother, in her kindness to others, acted out her faith. More than any other, she was my example of God’s love. Though I have not been as faithful as you, I do feel God’s care for me. How could I not, when He allowed me to survive the pirate attack? He loves you just as much, surely.”

“Love? What do I know of that emotion? You were born in love and brought up in it, Charles. I doubt I would recognize love if I saw it.”

“But you do see it. You see it in me.”

“You do not love me, Charles. You are no different from my father and all the other men I have known, for you are determined to compress and shape me into some foreign idea of what you think I ought to be.”

“That is a cruel indictment, and I must counter it. My love for you is honest and selfless.”

“Selfless love? I cannot believe such a thing exists.”

“But, Sarah—”

“Listen to
my
story, sir, and see how it stands up against your own sweet tale of a dear mother and an attentive father. Perhaps when I am done, you will understand me at last.” She pushed his hands from her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Once upon a time, there lived an avaricious young apothecary who specialized in providing his clients with opium, laudanum, and other such soporific cures and tinctures. This man, Gerald Watson by name, seduced his wealthy landlord’s daughter. Forced into marriage by her delicate condition, the woman despised her husband. Her father refused to grant a dowry and cut her off from the family. She gave birth to a daughter—a grave disappointment to Mr. Watson, who had placed all his hopes in having a son. Wishing to emulate the lifestyle of the aristocracy he so greatly admired, he took the baby from her mother and settled her with a wet nurse in the nearby village. There the little girl spent the first four years of her life and saw her own family but rarely. During his rise to wealth, Mr. Watson compelled his wife to forge social alliances for him using whatever means she could. Evidently, Mrs. Watson embraced the role, for she entertained many of London’s wealthiest gentlemen and became courtesan to a prominent member of the House of Lords.”

“Sarah, I had no idea. Please, you need not continue this, for my sympathy toward you is complete already.”

Willing away her own revulsion, she held up a hand. But she could not hide the bitter tone in her voice as she continued. “Do not stop me now, Charles, for we are just to the interesting part. Another child was born to the scheming Watsons, again a girl. And then another daughter joined the first two. They named her Prudence—a little joke between them, perhaps. Mr. Watson’s trade flourished. He sent his firstborn away to school at the age of five. There she lived in a cold attic and was taught her French, Latin, arithmetic, and grammar. Once a year, at Christmastime, she returned home. She and her sisters—who were taught at home—became warmly attached and wrote often to each other while apart. One summer, their mother went away to Brighton and suddenly died—the cause of death even now unknown to her three daughters. At thirteen, the eldest was sent to a new school to be trained in etiquette, painting, stitching, and other female accomplishments. At sixteen, she received the news that her father had sold his apothecary for a great deal of money. At seventeen, she was whisked from school and settled at Trenton House in London. Her father dressed her in new gowns and slippers, presented her at court, and saw to it that she was taken out into society.”

“Such a change in circumstance. It must have been a shock. And the two sisters?”

“They were comfortable enough, for by that time they had formed friendships within the
ton
and knew how to enjoy the fine things their life offered. But then it was time for marriage.”

“Sarah, I know your husband made you unhappy,” Charles said. “You need not speak of him.”

“Yet that marriage placed the final seal upon my character. You see, sir, my father decreed I should wed George Carlyle, Lord Delacroix, a man twice my age and utterly unknown to me. No more than a week into the marriage, I realized I was bound to a man devoted to dissipation and vice. Any hope of joy I had nurtured fled before the certainty that I would never bear a child, never know the loving arms of a husband, never enjoy even the slightest warmth of human kindness.”

The expression on Charles’s face told Sarah that he knew the reputation of her late husband. Taking her hand in his, he held it to his mouth and pressed his lips to her fingers. “Dearest Sarah,” he murmured, meeting her steady gaze, “I had no idea that you had suffered so.”

“I did not think it suffering then,” she said, “nor do I now. It is all I have ever known. I am shaped as God meant to shape me, and I shall be used as He sees fit. Unlike my sisters, who are silly and romantic, I take my philosophy from Ovid, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Milton, and the Bible. I believe in heaven and hell, passion and tragedy, love and hate. But I have never experienced such things. I know only how to exist … and not how to feel.”

“I cannot believe this,” Charles said. “Nor shall I accept it. Perhaps the past taught you to shun all hope of true affection, but your father and husband are dead now. You are released from their bondage.”

“Released?” She forced a smile. “You have lived too far from my sphere, sir. At the death of my husband, I became the prey upon which every eligible male in London descended. My fortune … my title … why, I might as well be a sparrow in a sky filled with ravenous eagles, sir. You, perhaps, are one of those.”