Page 4 of To Claim the Long-Lost Lover
Ruth had found love last year, but not in London. With her marriage just after Christmas, they were down to three remaining Winds. Two, at the moment, since Rosemary was still in the country, and had no plans to join them until the early Spring next year. What would the wits make of that?
Tonight was another dinner, with cards, music, and perhaps a little dancing after. “We should send for our maids,” Sarah suggested. “Drew is escorting us, which is good of him. We should not keep him waiting.” Their cousin Drew and their uncle, the Duke of Winshire, were the only other members of the family in Town so far. Drew declared himself happy to play escort. Truly, though, the two of them only needed one another. They had never had the chance to be wide-eyed debutantes, and had reached their majority two years ago.
Indeed, they might be considered at their last prayers, except they were nieces of a duke and well-dowered. Sarah wondered if word was out that she was ready to consider offers for her hand. Perhaps she should mention it in confidence to a couple of well-known gossips.
No. Given her specific requirements, she would continue on the course she and Charlotte had chosen.
“You make a start, darling,” she told her sister. “I shall just pop up to the nursery to kiss Elias goodnight. I shall miss him so when we leave for the house party. We have not been apart for a whole week since he came to live with me in April, and the house party will last two.”
“It is for a good cause, Sarah. Three of your top contenders will be in residence.”
Sarah agreed that the house party would be ideal for getting to know three of her suitors in a relaxed atmosphere. They all appeared to be nice men, and if she had no particular enthusiasm for any one of them, the fault lay with her, surely. Her capacity to love, to even feel desire, had been destroyed before she even made her debut.
She had to keep reminding herself that the goal was worth the sacrifice of her time and energy. This whole husband hunt was tedious, and she’d be glad when it was over and she could get down to being as good a wife as she could manage, and a loving and committed mother.
* * *
November was half over before the Lechtons were settled in London, in a townhouse not quite in the best part of town, with opulent public rooms, dowdy private chambers and spartan appointments in the servants’ quarters and the utility areas.
As expected, Lechton disappeared to his club, after instructing his wife not to overspend the meagre budget she had been allowed to refurbish her wardrobe. But when Nate offered to remonstrate with the old pinchpenny, Libby stopped him.
“Oh no, Nate. I know just what to do, you’ll see. Now, you take down these addresses and go and order your own new clothes.”
Nate obeyed orders, though he drew the line when the artists she sent him to tried to impose extremes of fashion on him. He wanted a collar that would allow him to turn his head, and a jacket that did not take three men to pour him into.
Libby demanded he display his purchases, and was pleased to approve them, assuring him she did not expect him to be part of the dandy set.
Meanwhile, after an excursion to an emporium that sold fabric and trimmings, Libby and her maid managed to turn out several ensembles that even Nate could see were very becoming. And when he escorted her two afternoons later to leave her card at the homes of the ladies she remembered from school, several of them were pleased to receive an old friend. More than one asked how she managed to turn out dressed in the height of fashion when she had been mouldering in the wilds of Oxfordshire.
The visits that day and the next achieved all that Nate could hope for. As Libby predicted, an earl’s heir without a wife and with all his wits and his teeth could depend upon a steady stream of invitations, even if he was quietly dressed and a little rough around the edges.
Furthermore, without even being prompted, Libby asked who was in London, and who might be expected to be holding entertainments. Nate listened closely, but when the Duke of Winshire was mentioned, it was only to say that the ducal family had not yet arrived in Town.
Nate had been foolish to hope that he would find Sarah this first week.Just as well to have time to practice my Society manners and find my feet in herworld,he consoled himself.
With that in mind, he dressed carefully for his first dinner invitation. He was escorting Libby yet again; the Earl having eschewed the event in favour of ‘an evening with friends’. Since the man didn’t gamble and barely drank, Nate wondered if he had found a mistress. The man claimed to be moral, but he in every other way aped the fashionable elite. Either a mistress, or he preferred the company of his cronies at his club.
Nate wasn’t sure whether to pity Libby or to be glad she could enjoy the evening without the censorious presence of her lord and master. “You look lovely this evening,” he told her, as she joined him in the foyer.
His father’s wife glowed with pleasure. “And you look very fine yourself, Bentham,” she replied.
He bowed and offered his elbow. “Madam, your carriage awaits.”
“I am so looking forward to this evening, Nate. Perhaps tonight you might meet the young lady who will be your wife!”
Nate smiled and nodded, keeping his reservations to himself.Not unless my Sarah is present. But she is not yet in town, so it won’t be tonight.And even if she was in town, she would surely not be visiting the Hamners. Lady Hamner had been a ward of the Duchess of Haverford, and—according to Libby—the Dukes of Haverford and Winshire had been feuding since Winshire arrived back in the country with a whole quiverful of foreign-born children.
He allowed daydreams about their next meeting to while away the carriage ride and the wait in the street for other carriages to move out of the way. Libby continued to chatter, but she seldom required a response beyond ‘Is that right’ and ‘If you say so’.
It must have been a good thirty minutes before they were announced by Lord and Lady Hamner’s butler. Libby led him over to the Hamners to be introduced, and Nate looked around as he crossed the room.
A profile caught his eye. He shrugged it off. He had seen Sarah wherever he went for the past seven years, and a closer look always disclosed a stranger. This stranger turned towards him, and he stopped in his tracks, cataloguing changes. The fair hair was slightly darker. The heart-shaped face he remembered had matured into a perfect oval. The slender body of the long-remembered girl had ripened to fulfil its promise. But, beyond any doubt, Lady Sarah Winderfield stood on the other side of the drawing room, a smile on her lips as she talked with her friends.
Her gaze turned towards him just as Libby tugged on his arm. “Bentham! Are you well?” He let her pull him along, and Sarah’s gaze drifted away. He wanted to cross the room to her; accost her; demand that she recognise him and all they’d once meant to one another.
Some modicum of sense kept him stumbling after his stepmother.Men change between seventeen and twenty-four, he reminded himself.And people who have been through experiences like mine more than most.
Still, of all the meetings he’d imagined, he’d never envisaged one in which she didn’t know him.
