The Affectionate Adversary (36 page)

“So did I,” Charles cried, a surge of joy filling his chest. “Look, Sarah! This is the fine lad of whom I told you so much. Lady Delacroix, Mrs. Heathhill, Miss Watson, may I present Danny Martin?”

“At your service, ladies.” With another gallant bow, the young man bent himself nearly in half. “And pleased to meet all of ye.”

Beaming as if the boy were his own son, Charles turned to Sarah. But the look on her face sobered him instantly.

She stepped forward and curtsied. “Mr. Martin, I am pleased to welcome you to Trenton House.” She motioned to the fire. “May I offer you some tea, sir?”

Danny blushed bright pink. “No, thank ye, milady, but I would be very pleased if Mr. Locke would open up this chest and let us all have a look at the gold! The locks be sealed and fixed, and the admiral said ’tweren’t proper that any should open the box save its rightful owner.”

Charles thought for a moment, trying to read the significance of Sarah’s ashen face, wondering if he should send for his father, searching his mind for the location of the key and concluding that the most important thing was the woman he loved. “Madam,” he said, turning to Sarah, “I wish to assure you that nothing—”

“Here is your key, sir,” she spoke up. She held out her hand. “The captain of the
Queen Elinor
gave it to me during your funeral service. Thinking it of no use to you, I kept it as a memento of our friendship. But I see now that it does have a purpose after all.”

Charles felt as though somehow he was being handed the key to the gates of hell itself. Gold. Riches. Mammon. Filthy lucre. He took the slender object from her palm. “Sarah, I—”

“Please, sir, do open the chest. I am sure everyone is eager to see inside it.”

“Oh, yes, do!” Miss Watson exclaimed. “Is the gold in coin or bars? Were you intending to purchase tea, Mr. Locke? chests of tea? Or does it come in bags?”

“Be quiet, Prudence,” Mrs. Heathhill ordered. “Mr. Locke will open the chest in good time.”

His heart in his throat, Charles stepped to the iron box and fitted the key into the first lock. It turned smoothly. The second lock snapped open easily as well. And then he broke the seals his father had set upon the chest so many months ago and lifted the lid.

A gasp ran through the group as he reached a hand into the chest and lifted one of the small gold coins. “It is all here,” he said.

“Beautiful!” Mrs. Heathhill murmured, her voice husky. “Utterly beautiful.”

“My goodness!” her younger sister cried. “I have never seen so many coins all at once, have you, Delacroix?”

“I should wager not. May I be so bold as to ask how much you have there, sir?”

“Enough,” Charles said, shutting the lid and locking the chest once again. “This was the sum given to my father by the duke of Marston. ‘The workman is worthy of his meat,’ Christ taught His disciples, and my father certainly deserved this reward upon his retirement from a lifetime of service as the duke’s steward.”

“I should guess it at five thousand pounds,” Miss Watson announced.

“More than that,” Mrs. Heathhill said. “Nearer to ten.”

“It is a mighty treasure!” Danny crowed. “And ye be a rich man again, Mr. Locke. I hope ye may find it in your heart to grant me employment at your tea company, sir, for I believe I have had all I want of the sea and pirates and even admirals.”

Charles laid a hand on the lad’s head and rumpled his hair. “You will have more than employment, Mr. Martin. You will have a fine reward for your loyalty and service. A more faithful or better friend than you, I cannot imagine. I am deeply grateful.”

Danny grinned. “Thank ye, Mr. Locke. I know ye would have done the same for me had our places been reversed.”

“And so you will establish your tea company after all?” Miss Watson asked Charles. “If you do, Sarah will not have you, but anyone else would be delighted, and you surely will find a very good wife. I, for one, am not opposed to riches at all. Quite the contrary, for I should like to buy a country house and keep horses. Indeed, I think a tea company is a very good enterprise on which to build a family and a name.”

Charles hardly heard her as he searched the faces of those gathered around the chest of gold. Where was Sarah? He looked at the tea table. The settees and chairs around it were empty. The doors to the drawing room were shut. But she was nowhere to be found.

“Where is Lady Delacroix?” he asked her sisters. He turned to a footman. “My man, have you seen the lady of the house?”

“She has retired to her room, sir,” the footman replied. “Her lady’s maid requested that her mistress not be disturbed.”

Letting out a groan, Charles raked a hand through his hair. “I am doomed,” he said. “I may win her love, but I cannot keep her.”

“Keep who, sir?” Danny asked. “That fine lady who ’ad your key? Is she to become your wife?”

Charles surveyed the solemn faces before him. “You knew this would ruin all my hopes, Delacroix; did you not?”

“You are hardly ruined, sir. You have a tidy sum here, and certainly your friendship with Sir Alexander will ensure you a fair number of willing investors in your tea company. I shall be pleased to speak to my friends. Many of them would be eager to put their assets to profitable use. Your father, too, will be delighted with this turn of events, for all his efforts on your behalf will now come to fruition. You may purchase a fine house one day—perhaps even something in Belgravia—and you may even become wealthy enough to buy yourself a title. If you will agree to wed Miss Watson, I assure you that she will make you very happy, and I have no doubt that you must be welcomed into her society with opened arms.”

“I agree with Lord Delacroix, of course,” Mrs. Heathhill spoke up. “Let me assure you from experience and observation, Mr. Locke, that in the great scheme of life, passion is fleeting. A wise man would do better to marry well than to give up everything for love. You wish to serve God, Mr. Locke, and clearly He wishes to make you a wealthy man. Will you turn away this heavenly gift in the name of misguided piety and a romantic zeal for a woman who cannot become your wife?”

“Why not?” Danny spoke up bluntly. “If the lady loves Mr. Locke, she should wed him, for never will she find a better ’usband.”

“That is exactly what Miss Pickworth said,” Miss Watson observed. “But I think—”

“My sister is a baroness, Mr. Martin,” Mrs. Heathhill told the boy. “Her late husband was a baron, as is his heir, Lord Delacroix.” She gestured to the man who stood beside her. “Your friend, Mr. Locke, though certainly a fine and now a wealthy gentleman, is a commoner. A commoner cannot marry a baroness. It is not done. She must wed a peer, someone whose rank and place in society are nearer to her own. Should she marry so far beneath herself, she would be ridiculed. My sister may love Mr. Locke, but she will not become his wife.”

Danny scowled. “Beggin’ your pardon, madam, but if two people love each other well enough, they ought to get married, for that is ’ow God intended it to be.”

“Thank you, Danny,” Charles said. “I believe you are the bravest and wisest of all gathered here. And now if my hosts will be so good as to excuse me, I must see that the gold is secured and my father informed of the news of its return as soon as may be. I thank you for the tea, and I beg you to extend my best wishes to Lady Delacroix. Please tell her that I shall call upon her as soon as I am able, that we may discuss this situation and make our plans accordingly.”

Without waiting for any more of Lord Delacroix’s protests, Miss Watson’s hysterics, or Mrs. Heathhill’s sober lectures, Charles bowed and beckoned Danny. “Do accompany me, Mr. Martin, for I shall be very pleased to introduce you to my father.”

“Yes, sir! At once!” With a little hop-skip, Danny followed Charles out of the drawing room. Charles instructed the naval guard to fetch the chest and accompany him to the Bank of England.

“What are you doing, Sarah?”

Mary and Prudence had just burst into their sister’s bed- chamber without knocking. At the sight of Sarah bent over an open trunk, Prudence let out a squeal.

Mary marched straight to her. “You are not leaving us, are you?” Mary demanded. “Do not run away from your troubles, sister; I beg you. Your past torment is behind you, and only happiness awaits. Please stop … stop packing!”

“Put that down at once!” Prudence jerked a gown from Sarah’s fingers and grabbed another from the half-full trunk. “Do not leave us, Sarah! Just because Mr. Locke has recovered his gold—”

“I am not going far,” Sarah said, taking her gowns from her sister’s arms and laying them carefully into her trunk. “I mean to go away to Brighton for a holiday. You may both come along if you wish. I believe a month of sea bathing would set us all up very well.”

“Sea bathing!” Mary exclaimed. “In my condition, Sarah? How can you even suggest such a thing!”

“The sea air will do you good in such a circumstance. And I am sure Mr. Heathhill cannot object. Indeed, I hope he will join us.”

“But today?” Prudence snatched the gowns back out of the trunk and tossed them on a chair some distance from her sister’s reach. “You are leaving today? We have only just learned of Mr. Locke’s change in circumstance, and you have had two proposals of marriage, and Mary is increasing, and you cannot go away today!”

“Why not? I am in no humor to give consequence to anything but sun and wind and salt water. Let Mr. Locke enjoy his gold and build his tea empire. He will find another wife easily now, and I shall soon forget him. Let Delacroix set his sights on some other rich woman, for I am sure he is handsome and clever enough to barter his title for a fortune—as did his uncle before him. No, sisters, I am quite finished with men. I shall enjoy Brighton until the season is over, and then I shall return to London.”

Mary and Prudence stared at her as if she had said the most unreasonable thing in the world. But she had not. Sarah’s plan had come into her head the moment she saw the look in Charles’s eyes as he fastened them upon his chest of gold. She knew exactly what she needed to do. And the more she acted upon her decision, the more peace and certainty eroded the panic, fear, and dread in her heart.

“Pru,” Sarah went on, “I have been thinking that I ought to purchase a country house. I am keen on Hampshire, for the weather there is amiable, and we can keep horses. Mary, you may come and visit us there as often as you wish. And do bring all your children, for I have no doubt there will be many.”

“But—,” Mary sputtered.

“In time, Mary, you and I shall find a suitable husband for Prudence. He must be a sensible man with a good heart and high morals—a gentleman of good breeding, neither too rich nor too poor. Pru, I shall make you a wedding gift of Trenton House, where you will entertain us all when we are in town. How is that for a jolly scheme?”

Without waiting for an answer, she crossed to the chair where Prudence had tossed her gowns and returned them to the trunk. Her lady’s maid was gathering up toiletries and packing them in a bag. The silence in the room spoke volumes, for Sarah knew she had satisfied her sisters’ every desire. For herself, she could not leave the city fast enough. She wanted no more unexpected calls from Charles, and she could not bear the sight of Delacroix. Her heart, she had to believe, would mend in time.

She could never marry Charles, Sarah thought as she tried to swallow her tears. Too easily, he had returned to his former ways. The merest glimpse of his gold had lit a fire in his eyes and set a brilliant glow on his face. He loved it. That gold represented his dreams, his hopes, everything he had wanted in life until he met her. But until the moment she saw Charles’s expression, she had not understood how very deeply—and with what passion—he adored his treasure.

Certain he had lost the gold, Charles had transformed himself. He had fallen in love with her. He had surrendered all his dreams. He had given his life to God. But the instant he had wealth again, he reverted to someone she had never known but had caught glimpses of from the start. Driven, ambitious, determined, he would build his empire. Perhaps he would continue to love Sarah as much as he thought he did now. But she could not live a life so far removed from the values she held dear. Money, esteem, and society all must be secondary to faith in God. Even human love must bow before a passion for obedience to the will of the Almighty. This was all Sarah knew, and all she could accept of herself or anyone close to her.

“I think it is a good plan,” Prudence offered at last. “I should very much like to go sea bathing and then buy a house in the country. With horses. Although I must say I am quite devoid of hope for a marriage of my own. I should so much prefer to love my husband than to unite with a man for whom I have no like. I do not care sixpence for Delacroix, you know.”