Lady Sarah's Redemption Read online

  Sarah was lost for words. She had heard her father rant and rave on such topics. Only he came from the opposing side.

  Carefully, Mr Hawthorne pushed together his knife and fork. “Miss Morecroft—” his glittering eyes lanced her with scorn - “I would like to see you in my study after dinner.”

  Sarah’s prepared speech, she believed, incorporated a fine balance of contrition with just a dusting of flirtation. Yes, she took her role as governess seriously but while she sympathized with the families of the dead there was a place for frivolity. She was quite happy to agree that if she knew what the cost of bread was, it was undoubtedly too high.

  By the time she had finished Mr Hawthorne would be begging her pardon for having maligned and misjudged her.

  But reflecting on the scorn and anger in his turbulent grey eyes unsettled her in a way that was entirely alien.

  Chapter Three

  What was he to do about the girl? Roland paced before the fire which warmed his study. His sanctuary. The only room in the house where he was safe from Cecily and the silly, chattering acquaintances she liked to entertain.

  Yet he did not feel at peace.

  He drew back the curtains and stared out into the starlit night. As cold and black as his soul.

  The girl was not at all what he had been led to believe.

  But what was worse than her apparent preoccupation with life’s worldly pleasures was her resemblance to her father. To his old schoolboy companion and foster brother, Godby Morecroft. Oh, not in features but certainly in character.

  The way her eyes glittered with challenge in that beautiful face of hers when she was gainsaid. The mutinous set of her rosebud mouth when she was waiting to put across her opposing point of view. Why, it was Godby all over again.

  He did not turn immediately as he heard her enter. He knew only too well the look she would level at him. He could almost hear Godby’s voice: smooth, cajoling with a hint of humour intended to ameliorate his anger.

  He would not allow her the chance to speak first in order to defend herself. Somehow Godby had always managed to make him feel a killjoy Puritan when he had as much desire to enjoy life as anyone. Just not as thoughtlessly as Godby.

  “My daughter is not to have her head turned by foolish fancies.” He came directly to the point, waving Miss Morecroft to a chair while he returned to stand in front of the fire.

  If she would just bow her head and show a little contrition it would be a good start, Roland thought. Don’t be like Godby who could never admit he was wrong.

  “Foolish fancies?” Her smile was guileless. She was confident, no doubt, that she was incapable of doing wrong. Just like her father.

  His heart hardened.

  How different from when she had landed on his doorstep, penniless, orphaned. Nearly a victim of the high seas. At the time it had seemed she’d not even good looks to recommend her.

  But then some extraordinary metamorphosis had occurred. Within the space of a few days Miss Morecroft had been transformed; like a water rat she had emerged, sleek and jaunty and ripe for anything.

  “Sir, your daughter is in little danger of having her head turned. All she thinks about is improving her mind.”

  Her gaze was steady, her bearing composed — very different from the way he felt. He tried to retain his dignity as she stared at him from the depths of her leather armchair.

  “Caro,” he managed to say, evenly, “is not a beauty and you will only make her look a fool by trying to turn her into one.”

  “With respect, sir, the sad truth is that a woman’s face is, more often than not, her fortune.”

  Until now — well, recently — Roland had not appreciated what a fine face Miss Morecroft possessed. Her eyes were amazing, glowing bright with life and humour; her cheek bones were well defined, her chin slightly pointed so that her face appeared heart-shaped when combined with the effect of her coiffure: a fashionable ‘V’ parting with cascades of shining ringlets tumbling from the band which secured them at the top of her head. And her dress. He frowned. Cecily’s gown, he remembered it, now. A drab, russet confection once adorned with too many frills and furbelows. What a transformation. This girl had obviously worked wonders with her needle and thread. She would have got on famously with Venetia.

  Venetia … and Godby.

  His heart turned to stone. However persuasive Miss Morecroft’s argument, his armour was back in place.

  Oh dear, thought Sarah, this man really was a Puritan. The moment she even mentioned ‘worldly pleasures’ he seemed to tense. And the way he spoke of his daughter made her blood boil! But she went on blithely, “I have always believed confidence and wit among one’s greatest assets. If Caro is to be presented next year she’ll be competing with a great many beautiful and accomplished young ladies.”

  Now why was he looking at her like that? Sarah wondered indignantly. Had she dropped sauce upon her dress?

  Instantly she saw him colour and his eyes return to her face where they were now fixed, grimly. She stifled the impulse to smile. Oh ho, so the master did appreciate a pretty face and figure. Only right now he was doing his best to fight it.

  The observation gave her confidence.

  Yes, Sarah had learned a thing or two about men since storming her way out of the schoolroom as a precocious fifteen-year-old to play hostess at her father’s parliamentary dinners after her mother had died.

  Mr Hawthorne, however, was unlike any of the men her father entertained. Dangerous radicals like Roland Hawthorne did not receive invitations from Lord Miles.

  Yet he hardly looked the threat to law and order, as her father would have maintained. Larchfield, with its exquisite grounds and works or art was a testament to refinement.

  Mr Hawthorne, himself, was a fine specimen of civilized manhood, far more to her taste than the pleasure-seeking rakes and popinjays her father entertained and who regularly made up to her. Well, as much as she would allow them. She quickly tired of their vanity and pomposity, although she’d pretended to encourage it. It was, after all, what was expected.

  She flashed him another smile and was surprised and gratified by his brief awkwardness.

  Clearly, there was more to her employer than met the eye. How intriguing. If this was a man who could smoulder with passion for a heartless beauty seven years ago, thought Sarah, she would be more than interested to find out what excited his passions now that he had apparently adopted a more sober outlook on life.

  She bowed her head. “I accept your censure, sir. I will not turn Caro’s head with foolish nonsense. And I shall read the news sheets, for I must admit, I had in fact been reading some gossip column whose talk of the Carlton House Set I had thought might divert the girls—” she stopped, adding ingeniously as she interpreted his glowering look — “with examples of deplorable behaviour to be condemned.”

  Mr Hawthorne seemed to struggle for words.

  “Miss Morecroft,” he said finally, “you are here to instruct the girls in simple arithmetic, spelling, French and drawing. Not to provide moral guidance. That,” he added, crisply, “is something you can leave to me.”

  He nodded in dismissal.

  Sarah hesitated, about to cast one of those seductive lures which came naturally and which had successfully hooked many an admirer in the past.

  No. Coquetry was not going to win over Mr. Hawthorne despite experience showing her men liked their women beautiful and vacuous. She paused, turning, her hand on the door knob. He nodded stiffly, his eyes nevertheless lingering upon her.

  Her heart gave an unexpected little skip. She couldn’t remember when she had last felt such anticipation.

  Chapter Four

  “SHE’S A MEAN old cat and I’m not going down.”

  “Yes you are.” Sarah bared her teeth in what she’d intended to be a saccharine smile. “Now, shoulders back and get rid of that scowl.” She took Caro’s arm and propelled her to the nursery door. “Whoever conjugates the ‘to be’ verb first can have my p
ortion of suet pudding,” Sarah said to the younger girls. “Just think, Caro,” she added, as they descended the stairs in answer to Lady Charlotte’s summons, “in six months you’ll be dining on caviar and champagne instead of suet and roly poly pudding.”

  The notion failed to rally Caro. Glumly, she said, “It’s Papa’s idea I be presented.”

  “Surely you want to reflect well upon him?” With a sigh that wasn’t devoid of affection, Sarah tucked an errant curl behind Caro’s ear as they reached the drawing room door.

  Lady Charlotte was a fascinating creature whose like Sarah had not met. With an acerbic wit and political leanings in sympathy with Mr Hawthorne’s, her view of the world was a revelation. No sooner had Sarah and Caro seated themselves than they were regaled with a scathing oratory on the heavy-handed tactics used to quell the Peterloo Massacre, as Lady Charlotte referred to it. Sarah suspected her father would have advocated that the cavalry move in to break up the ‘rabble-rousing crowd’, muskets blazing.

  Now well into middle age, Lady Charlotte had bone structure and a porcelain complexion that would see her a beauty at eighty. Once she had finished her diatribe she relaxed into her blue chintz seat and, with a sharp look at Sarah, observed, “You favour your father, Miss Morecroft. Do you not think so, Cecily?”

  “In manner, there is a strong resemblance,” replied Mrs Hawthorne with a disapproving twist to her thin mouth.

  “Then we must hope you don’t follow the same dangerous path—” Lady Charlotte looked grim as she added - “and that you appreciate gratitude better than your father.” She sighed. “How thoughtless of Godby to foist a brood of brats upon your poor mother on nothing more than soldier’s pay. Still, he had no one else to blame for losing out on the fine inheritance he’d been expecting.” She shook her head at Sarah. “I daresay your father could do no wrong in your eyes.”

  So that was the story, thought Sarah. Or, at least, part of it. “He was my inspiration,” she murmured, determined not to be cowed by Lady Charlotte’s bully tactics. Not a page of the first half of Sarah Morecroft’s diary was without some glowing reference to the apparently incomparable Godby Morecroft. The diary also did not seem to contain much else of interest, which was why Sarah had left most of it unread.

  “Not, I trust, the kind of inspiration that leads to similar disgrace and penury.” Mrs Hawthorne’s tone was sharp.

  Sarah realised her error. Clearly, she needed to learn more about the relationship between the late Godby Morecroft and her employer if she were not to land herself in worse trouble.

  When Mrs Hawthorne excused herself to attend to some domestic matter Sarah tried a more subservient approach. She glanced at Caro. The girl seemed immersed in her own thoughts. “Pray, Lady Charlotte, my mother made it clear what a great debt we owe Mr. Hawthorne and yet—” she bit her lip — “how am I to avoid my father’s mistakes if I don’t know precisely what they are?”

  “Good Lord! Your father said nothing of his disgrace?”

  Sarah shook her head.

  Lady Charlotte adjusted her lorgnette. She looked undecided. After a quick glance at Caro, still daydreaming, she said, “You know that your father’s advancement was on account of the especial fondness old Mr Hawthorne — Roland’s father — had for him. Of course you do. Well, better get it over with before Cecily gets back. If there are two things that require us all dashing for the burnt feathers it’s mention of—” she lowered her voice — “Caro’s mother.” Resuming a more normal tone, she went on, “Your father was the son of old Mr Hawthorne’s estate manager and even from the age of eight, which was when old Mr Hawthorne first took an interest in him, he was a charmer. He and Mr Hector were the same age and great friends. Cut from the same cloth, too,” she added, disapprovingly, “unlike the present Mr Hawthorne who was born three years later. Your father’s destiny was the local dame school and perhaps an apprenticeship had not old Mr Hawthorne decided such a gifted lad ought to be tutored with his own sons and then bought a commission in the 10th Hussars. If you don’t know what a pretty price a pair of colours that would have set him back it’s not my place to tell you! It was commanded by the Prince himself, for nothing but the best would do for your father, but it was his eye for the ladies that was his undoing.”

  Sarah was fascinated. What a marvellous story. What could the rakish Godby Morecroft have done to have landed up in apparent ignominy, in India?

  “Your mother was a comely lass of seventeen, and your father barely a year older when she … er… caught his fancy. A publican’s daughter! Of course, he could have done a great deal better for himself but honour prevailed, or rather, old Mr Hawthorne’s honour did, and your parents were married … in fairly timely fashion for shortly afterwards you were born.”

  Sarah blushed. “So that’s why my father was disgraced.”

  “Indeed not!” exclaimed Lady Charlotte. “I can’t image to what purpose you’ve been shielded from all these … tawdry details, though I suppose Godby left it too late to tell you, as usual,” she added, with what Sarah considered great lack of feeling. “Well, old Mr Hawthorne was far more generous to the newlyweds than your father deserved— Ah, Roland.” Lady Charlotte’s cornflower blue eyes widened almost coquettishly.

  Not so long ago just such a smile would have come naturally to Sarah, but now she was tongue-tied, and her heart was skipping a little too fast for her liking.

  “Ladies.” Mr Hawthorne acknowledged them with a small incline of his head, standing aside as Cecily re-entered the room.

  “Sit down, Roland,” commanded Lady Charlotte, “and tell me what else you know about these barbarians. I’m all for one knowing one’s place but I do believe in an honest wage for honest toil.”

  A shadow crossed Mr Hawthorne’s face. Glancing at Sarah he hesitated, almost as if he was of a mind to plead his excuses and retire. When he took the only vacant seat just a foot from her she was conscious of his nearness in a way she hadn’t been since as a debutante she’d fallen in love with Captain Danvers at first sight.

  Unaccountably awkward, Sarah glanced away as Lady Charlotte launched into an animated monologue on the likely outcome facing the ringleaders of the uprising. She hoped her high colour, if noticed, would be attributed to the heat of the fire.

  Mr Hawthorne, dark and brooding, was the antithesis of her lost love whose Roman nose and blonde curling hair had fired her adolescent senses.

  Within weeks of gushing to James all those years ago that Captain Danvers was the only man she’d consider marrying, she was mourning his death and declaring her intention never to wed. She recalled, with painful affection, James’s endless patience during her grief. Poor James. He’d be beside himself, thinking her dead right now. What was worse, he’d be so terribly wounded if the truth came out that she’d actually pretended to have drowned to avoid marrying him. Her plan was simply to turn up on her father’s doorstep in a couple of weeks claiming to have been washed up on a beach and cared for by local villagers. Her grief-stricken father would grant her anything, then.

  “Isn’t that so, Miss Morecroft?”

  She jerked her head round at the sound of Mr Hawthorne’s mellifluous tones and stammered her apologies.

  He regarded her a moment, smiled, then repeated, “I was telling Lady Charlotte of your admirable approach to teaching Caro values and restraint.”

  Lady Charlotte, looking dubious, responded, “I’m not sure the gossip sheets are something Caro should even know about, but if you condone it, Roland, I daresay there are moral lessons to be learnt if approached in the right manner.” The way she was looking at Sarah suggested a healthy scepticism about Godby’s daughter having any handle on morality.

  Sarah looked past her and caught the glint of amusement in Mr Hawthorne’s eye. Her heart did a little somersault. She smiled back. The air felt suddenly charged between them, despite Lady Charlotte’s and Mrs Hawthorne’s presence. The darkening of Mr Hawthorne’s pupils revealed he felt the same. Sarah had not spent t
he last six years encouraging or warding off the approaches of potential suitors without learning to recognize the signs of a male’s interest.

  Then it struck her anew that it was just as likely that, even if Mr Hawthorne was flirting, he believed he was doing so with the mere governess; that likely he was simply making atonement for his harsh words of earlier. It was a dampening thought. Squaring her shoulders Sarah rose to the challenge. When the time was right she’d face Mr Hawthorne on equal ground.

  “So there you have it, Caro,” she said, as they passed through the nursery on their way to Caro’s bedchamber. Ellen was putting the younger girls to bed. “I am the product of vice and sin, the granddaughter of a lowly publican. No wonder I was only reluctantly elevated to the dining room.”

  “Don’t say such things,” Caro muttered. “My father believes people are distinguished by their actions, not by their rank. Lady Charlotte should never have said such things!”

  “Your father faces a tough battle if he thinks the baker’s apprentice and the fishmonger worthy of a seat in the House of Commons.” She lit the candle on the bedside table. A very different code of morality existed in the circles in which she had grown up. Rank was everything. As for morality, Sarah knew many of the aristocratic matrons who visited her home at Thistlewaite were guiltlessly indulging in extramarital affairs having dutifully produced the required male heir.

  “My father is not a radical,” Caro said angrily, pulling on her night rail. “Nor does he believe in turning rank on its head. He is a good, honourable man who hates the inequities of society. At least he has the courage of his convictions. He fought a duel for them once.”

  Sarah raised her eyebrows. “Over your mother?” she ventured, ingenuously, helping Caro into bed. She’d like to hear more about the fascinating Venetia.