Page 11 of An Honorable Arrangement
Montgomery's chest lifted and fell, but his arm tightened around her waist. "I think it is quite possible."
"You might have lied a little." Everything she wanted had fallen to pieces in the span of a few minutes. Her father didn't want her. He was angry at the world and a drunk. She was still trying to put it all together.
"It is better to hear the truth, Sarah. I have always preferred honesty over pretty lies." His voice was full and round. It rumbled deep in his chest, and there was comfort feeling the words as well as hearing them.
"I suppose it was a good thing Captain Phillips refused to allow me to go alone."
An uncomfortable silence lapsed between them. Tipping her head back, she noted the rise and fall of his Adam's apple.
"Captain Phillips seems like a good fellow, but we know little more about him than we know about your father."
"I don't know much about you either, Montgomery. Only that one day you will be a viscount, which seems enough to ensure my safety while you carry me about the countryside." She hadn't meant to say all of that, but she'd been shuffled from one relative to another for her entire life. The ones she liked died, and the ones she didn't eventually got tired of her or tried to take advantage of her.
"What would you like to know?" He sounded calm and not at all put off by her rudeness.
"Did you go to Eton? Are you a rake? Do you have a mistress? Do you have more than one?" She giggled and pulled away from his chest.
His laugh was full and lovely. "I not only went to Eton but took a first in both Literature and Mathematics. I also went on to study at Oxford."
Impressed that he was smart as well as rich and handsome, she still wanted the answers to her untoward questions. "What about the rest?"
Pulling the horse to a stop, he waited silently until she turned to look at him. His lips pulled up as if he might laugh or kiss her at any moment. "I wouldn't call myself a rake, though I am fond of women. I don't go about deflowering them every chance I get. I do not keep a mistress or even two."
She looked away, but he put his finger under her chin and nudged her to meet his regard again. "What of you, Sarah? Do you have a lover? Do you wish to marry and have dozens of children? What dreams drive you to run away in the middle of the night and risk your reputation and perhaps your life?"
Shifting her position, she thought to jump down from the horse. He was too close and his questions too intimate.
He held tight. "Do not run from me. I only ask a few simple if personal questions just as you did."
Deciding she would just tell him and then he would be done with her and she could decide how to go forward, she stared him directly in his lovely dark eyes. "I have no lover. No one will ever want me for a wife, so it is silly to wish for marriage. I ran away to find my father, so I could finally have a family." She blinked back the tears threatening to spill.
His expression softened. "Why would you think you are not desirable? You are bright and lovely. I don't know if you have a dowry, but many men need not gain profit beyond a good wife."
The words stuck in her throat. He would hate her once she told him. Perhaps that was for the best. "I am not a virgin."
Blinking, he glowered. His lips drew in a tight line before he bit out his next question. "Then you had a lover? Would he not marry you?"
She didn't know why he should care. "He was not my lover." She pushed on his chest and slid from the side of the horse. She landed hard on her feet and took a moment to allow the impact to ease before she walked away toward Bristol.
Three steps later, he was at her side. He held her elbow and stopped her progress firmly but gently. "Who…" He swallowed several times and the muscles in his neck bunched. His jaw ticked.
"Are you angry?" She stepped back.
Holding firm, he kept her close. "I would like to know why your lover did not marry you and why you cry at the mention of this. I am aware this is none of my business, yet if you refuse to tell me, I don't know what I'll do. Perhaps scour the countryside looking for the blackguard."
"I am not your sister or any relation. Why should you care?" At a loss, she couldn't fathom the answer.
He laughed, but there was no joy in the sound as there had been earlier. "Indeed, it is a mystery even to myself. Please, Sarah, tell me what happened."
She had told no one. Not even Mary knew why she had run away four years ago. "Since before I can remember, I have been passed from one relative to the next. I have been ward to cousins of my mother, the uncle of my father, and some relations so distant the connection was unclear. Four years ago, I was made ward to a distant cousin in Derbyshire. His wife took ill shortly after my arrival, and although he was three times my age, he thought to have me take her place in his bed. I was young, and he forced himself on me. The next day, I ran away. When Mary and another cousin found me, they asked why I had run, but I refused to tell. I was ashamed."
Gritting his teeth, he said, "It was not your fault. He should have been horsewhipped."
Sarah walked away. "But he wouldn't have been, Montgomery. I would have been ruined, and he would have suffered no consequences." She drew a long breath. "I stayed with my cousin for a few months, but she died, and that was when I was sent to Milton Manor. Two years ago, I learned that I was not orphaned as I had previously thought. My father was alive, and I planned to go to him, but hadn't the opportunity."
"I'm sorry this didn't turn out to be the reunion you'd hoped for, Sarah." He walked beside her, leading the horse as Bristol came into view.
Tired, she stumbled. Suddenly, years of hiding crashed down on her.
