Sarah blushed, but could not mistake Thea’s subtle elbow in Nicholas’s ribs.
‘I am sure he is the perfect husband,’ Theodora stated. ‘Will you come with us, Nicholas?’
‘No. You do not need me, I am assured.’
Thea kissed him, allowing him to curl an arm around her waist, to pull her close, in the relative privacy of the entrance hall. ‘I promise not to spend too much.’ She lowered her lashes, flirtatious as ever.
‘Don’t promise that—or we shall both be disappointed when you do.’ He returned the caress to her cheek when she offered it. ‘I trust Sarah to keep an eye on you, as your elder sister.’
‘An impossible task to place on my shoulders!’ Sarah smiled and Thea crowed with laughter, which filled Sarah with delight that her family had joined her. There was nothing now to prevent her enjoying her first experience of the fashionable and sophisticated life offered by the French capital.
Sarah’s equanimity, however, at the covetous glances cast at her husband was severely overthrown during one hot and deplorably overcrowded evening at the home of Pozzo di Borgo, the Russian Ambassador. Afterwards she could not say what had made her aware, to turn her head at that precise moment. A faintest shiver of anticipation along her spine. But she felt a need to look over her shoulder—to see her lord standing at the entrance to a private anteroom. Tall, straight and splendidly handsome in the dark severity of formal evening clothes. As was now very familiar to her, her heart fluttered and her cheeks grew pink with sheer delight in his presence—until she saw that he was in close and intimate conversation with a woman. A woman whose lovely face and superb figure were horribly familiar. The conversation between the two was clearly of a serious nature and in some depth. Then her lord was bowing over the lady’s hand, raising it to his lips.
Olivia Wexford. Of course.
Sarah could not see Joshua’s expression, but she could view the Countess’s face without interruption. Perhaps a little cool and serious at first. The faintest of frowns between her arched brows. Some sharp words from her expression. Then her face warming with a charming sparkle in her eyes and a flirtatious little smile curving her lips. She tapped Lord Faringdon’s arm with her fan. There could be no mistaking so provocative a gesture for what it was. An invitation!
Sarah turned away. She did not wish to see more. The pain in her heart stabbed deeply, more than she could ever have believed. But she should have expected no less. Joshua had not married her for love. Sarah had acknowledged that incontrovertible fact at the very beginning, acknowledged, reluctantly, that he would continue to give his affections elsewhere. But she could not like the Countess of Wexford, remembering her sly malice and deliberate desire to harm. In fact, the gentle lady, who now stood with her back deliberately turned against the Countess and her own husband, was forced to admit that she positively detested the woman! Sarah’s fingers curved around her fan into remarkable talons, worthy of a predator about to strike. Sensing the immediate danger to the fragile ivory sticks, Sarah took a breath and used all her will-power to force them to relax. She must be willing to accept. She could not like it, but she must acknowledge that her marriage was truly one of convenience.
But why did it have to be the Countess of Wexford who returned to such prominence in her lord’s life?
She eventually brought herself to speak of the unnerving episode to Thea, desiring a sympathetic audience. But Thea shrugged, giving no credence to her sister’s fears.
‘I don’t understand why you are so concerned.’
‘He was kissing her hand.’
‘Sarah! Of course he would. Joshua is all grace and elegance and perfect manners. And, after all, he knows the woman. He could hardly turn the shoulder in public, now could he?’
‘No, I suppose not.’ She did not look convinced.
Thea smiled. ‘Joshua is no fool. Give him credit for seeing how shallow and self-centred that dreadful creature is.’
Sarah answered with unusual asperity. ‘But meanwhile he might also see—and remember!—how well endowed and beautiful she is! I know for a fact that she once engaged his interest.’
‘Sarah…’ What could Thea say to reassure? ‘That was before he married you!’
‘Does that matter?’
Thea frowned at her sister with more than a little frustration. ‘Well—you know him better than I, of course.’ She would not refer to the rumours that, according to Nicholas, had followed Joshua all his adult life, to the despair of Lady Beatrice. ‘But I would not think you had anything to fear from the Countess. Your lord is hardly neglectful of you, is he?’
For since her arrival, Thea had noted Joshua’s care and particular attention to Sarah. The softness of his expression when his eyes rested on his wife, particularly when Sarah was unaware, could not be denied. How complicated it was becoming. Thea knew that Sarah loved Joshua, of course—had she not admitted the fact herself? But it seemed equally possible that Lord Joshua was fast losing his heart to a lady who had no appreciation whatsoever of that interesting development. And equally, it seemed to Theodora, a fascinated witness, that Lord Joshua was fighting against the experience. How foolish people were when they refused to accept this basic and highly desirable attraction. Not like herself and Nicholas, of course. She had the grace to blush a little as she remembered her own forward behaviour. Particularly a notable incident in the stables at Aymestry, before the disaster of the fire. But she took it upon herself not to meddle in her sister’s private affairs. Or not yet, at any event. Sarah would not thank her for it and she certainly did not think that Joshua would welcome any involvement on her part. As for Nicholas… She winced a little as she imagined her lord’s caustic words if she engaged in stirring the smouldering ashes between Joshua and Sarah into a bright flame. So—for a little time at least—she would simply watch and keep her own council.
Sarah, unaware of her sister’s train of thought, accepted Thea’s advice, but she still could not feel at ease. If she became a little uncertain and just slightly withdrawn towards her lord, he apparently showed no awareness of it.
Which perversely worried Sarah even more.
But any surface harmony between them was not to last.
For Sarah it all began with an inopportune meeting with the one woman in Paris whom she had every intention of avoiding. It could not be avoided, since Sarah had arranged to wait for Thea outside Le Domino Rouge, a mantua makers in the rue Vivienne, when out of the next-door establishment, which sold the finest of leather gloves, stepped no other than the Countess of Wexford. The two ladies faced each other. Both curtsied. Both regarded each other with smiling lips and frosty eyes.
‘Mrs Russell.’ The Countess unfurled her parasol with a supremely elegant gesture, entirely in keeping with her smoothly controlled voice. ‘But, of course, you are no longer Mrs Russell, are you? I would not have expected to meet Lord Faringdon’s…ah, housekeeper…here.’ Her smile had the tiniest and most effective hint of contempt in tone and in the calculated hesitation. ‘You played your cards very cleverly, did you not? I would not have expected such expertise on your part—but it seems that we must not be misled by appearances. One does not expect such skills from a mere employee.’
‘I do not take your meaning, my lady.’ Of course she did. It fired Sarah’s blood with instant wrath. How dare the Countess patronise her!
‘No? I should have realised, of course. Joshua did not seek me out when I was resident in Hanover Square. I had thought it was his tiresome injuries that prompted his lack of interest. But now I know the truth.’ The Countess’s magnificent eyes flashed. ‘You were the object of his gallantry, I presume. Did you take him to your bed, Mrs Russell?’
‘No, my lady, I did not.’ Sarah might be suitably horrified at so intimate a conversation, so blatant a suggestion, in a public street, but as her mind absorbed the Countess’s words, it was as if a heavy weight was lifted from her heart. She felt almost light-headed as an intense relief flooded through her. Joshua did not seek me out when I was resident in Hanover Square. She had no doubt that the Countess was speaking the truth. Why admit to such humiliation otherwise, when her intent had been to lift her finger and secure Lord Joshua’s interest? So Joshua had never taken her as his mistress. It was difficult for Sarah to suppress the little bubble of delight in her throat. But she did, sensing that Olivia Wexford could still be an enemy. Further, Sarah had no intention of retreating from so insensitive an accusation about her own status in Hanover Square. But nor would she allow the explosion of fury in her blood to be evident. She opened her cream ecru parasol in malicious parody and smiled with particular sweetness. ‘You must not judge me by your own standards, my lady.’ The reply was quite gentle.
‘No? But what woman would not welcome a man such as Joshua Faringdon to her bed? What woman would not cast out lures? Such wealth. Such an address. Between you and me, my dear, I think that we can agree that he is quite irresistible.’
‘I did not have to lure Lord Joshua, my lady.’ Sarah had no difficulty in preserving her confident little smile as she noted the tension in the beautiful face.
‘Beware of being too confident, my lady’ A snap here as the Countess’s control all but slipped in the face of such challenge. ‘You hear what the rumours say of your husband. A rake and a libertine might not make for a comfortable husband.’
‘I know. I have heard the rumours. I have known them from the very beginning,’ Sarah inclined her head in gracious acknowledgement. ‘But I do not have to believe all that I hear.’
‘Not even about Joshua’s first wife? Marianne?’ There was a sparkle in the Countess’s eyes, almost of greed, as she watched her quarry’s reaction.
She was to be disappointed. ‘Certainly not of that,’ Sarah replied with equanimity. ‘I know of what my husband is capable. And it is not murder. I am astounded that you would repeat such an unpleasant and outright lie. It does you no credit, my lady.’
‘You are haughty. Perhaps you should consider the safety of your own position—’ Her words ended as Theodora made her appearance from the exclusive modiste’s emporium and approached the two ladies with sharp ears and an air of deep fascination. The Countess promptly turned on her heel to put an end to any further exchange.
‘The Countess of Wexford did not have the good manners to exchange greetings,’ Thea observed with a bright smile. ‘Not a suitable person with whom to be acquainted, I think. I could not help but overhear, Sarah. Now, where do you suppose that rumour of Marianne’s fate began?’ Thea raised her brows as she continued to watch the Countess’s retreating figure.
Sarah too watched Olivia’s departure with thinned lips. ‘I cannot imagine.’
Theodora laughed. ‘I see that we are in agreement, my dear sister.’ She tucked her hand in Sarah’s arm.
‘I think that we are indeed.’
Which left Sarah with the slightest frisson of triumph that Olivia had not shared her bed with Joshua when they had shared a house. It gave Sarah a lighter heart—but did not heal it.
Fate began to take a more malicious hand.
The tranquil pond began to acquire even more ripples of disquiet.
Olivia Wexford’s was not the only face in a crowd destined to draw Sarah’s attention. The incident, trifling in itself, occurred on the following afternoon when strolling in the Tuileries Gardens with Theodora, Lord Joshua having once again cried off from accompanying them. But then, as Thea pointed out with an arch of her brows, so had Nicholas, so there was no cause for any dark suspicion—it was merely that gentlemen could always find better things to do than promenade in gardens! Sarah found herself stepping around a small group of fashionable strollers, deep in conversation, equally there to enjoy the air and the flowers, one of them, a lady in a bonnet much to Theodora’s decided taste with nodding plumes and flowers and an extravagant crown. Sarah managed only a glimpse of dark hair and dark eyes and strikingly dark brows within that remarkable setting, yet she was struck by an instant recognition. But who? And where?
‘Thea—the lady who has just passed us…’
‘The one with the osprey feathers? What a splendid bonnet it is. But I could not wear that colour. Amber does not become me.’
‘Never mind the hat! Do you know her? Your acquaintance is so much wider than mine.’
‘No longer, I fear. Aymestry is not exactly the centre of the universe,’ Thea admitted without discernible regret. ‘I think the lady and I have not met. She has an arresting face.’
So thought Sarah. No, they had never met, yet it tugged at her mind. Perhaps indeed it was a distant acquaintance—someone whom she had seen in London who was also paying a visit to Paris. A familiar suspicion trickled into her mind. Or someone she had seen in Joshua’s company. She closed her mind to that. But the lady was indeed eye-catching…