Sarah had intended, on retiring to bed, to think over the events of the day and sort out her confused emotions. She fell sound asleep within moments of lying down, and woke the next morning with nothing settled in her mind.

The first matter requiring her attention after breakfast was to send Peggy off to Goody Newman's. Billy had already departed, whistling cheerfully, but unfortunately, Sarah neglected to ensure Nellie's absence when she proposed this plan to the visitor.

"Ooh, Miss Sarah, you can't send her to that owd witch," the maid gasped in dismay.

"Peggy is no country simpleton to believe such silly talk," said Sarah firmly. "Having lived in London she is too sophisticated to heed your nonsense."

Though Peggy looked unconvinced, she was reluctant to give the lie to Miss Meade's high opinion of her. She went off with Arthur in the gig. The old woman's cottage would be a letdown after her villa in Chelsea, but it would do her no harm and in that isolated spot she was not likely ever to meet Adam.

Besides Sarah's usual ch.o.r.es, a number of villagers called that morning bursting with curiosity about the previous day's visitors. She managed to satisfy even the inquisitive Miss Barnes without actually revealing the truth, but leisure for contemplation was sadly lacking.

The previous day's gusty wind had dropped, and though the sky was heavy with rain clouds, Sarah decided to walk to Stonehenge. It was the only way she would find any peace, and it was warm enough not to matter if she received a wetting. She went to the kitchen to pack up some bread and cheese and fruit in a little satchel.

"Going to be a downpour any minute," prophesied Mrs. Hicks.

"The fields need rain," said Sarah tranquilly.

"'Tes nor proper nor safe for a young lady to walk abroad alone. Suppose there be tinkers about?"

"They will be taking shelter from the downpour," she teased.

The housekeeper shook her head indulgently, used to her warnings being disregarded.

Sarah set off, walking with careful decorum through the village, then lengthening her stride when she reached the open hills. If they went to live in Salisbury, it might be impossible to escape from the town to take solitary rambles. Here everyone knew and forgave her eccentricity. Even Lady Cheverell had long since given up scolding her for it. Adam's wife would likely be more circ.u.mscribed by convention, with her position as viscountess to uphold. The proper young ladies among whom Adam was to choose doubtless would not care for such vigorous exercise in any case. After all, they were to be selected by his sisters, whose indolence, except in the ballroom, was notorious.

The sheep-cropped gra.s.s was bright with the scarlet-tinted yellow flowers of lady's slipper, a fresh reminder of the young ladies gathering at Cheve House. Doubtless, they would each bring the appropriate footwear for dancing the night away. But Sarah was shod with well-worn, sensible half boots; she was a countrywoman at heart, without the instincts necessary to the bride of a n.o.bleman.

Not that Adam was either a dandy or an idler. She knew that even in town he rode often and exercised at Gentleman Jackson's Saloon. Could he be content with a languid, fashionable wife, or would he be driven back into the arms of the muslin company?

Sarah called herself sharply to account. She had no reason to suppose that Mary and Eliza and Louise would choose young ladies who resembled themselves. Her condemnation was motivated by jealousy of the unknown miss who would win Adam's hand. It was ridiculous to envy the girl who would have to contend with his extraordinary ability to charm every female in sight. Even if he intended to be faithful, sooner or later his scruples were bound to be overcome by his sympathy for feminine woes.

The huge grey monoliths of Stonehenge rose from the plain before her. It was said that the flat centre stone had been used for human sacrifice in the days of the Druids, but Sarah always found it a peaceful refuge. Time had laid unquiet spirits to rest, and the solitary grandeur of the place made her own concerns seem petty.

She sat down with her back against one of the stones and watched the clouds form and reform over the treeless hills. The sheep which had raised their heads on her arrival went back to nibbling at the gra.s.s. After a while she took out her luncheon. As she unwrapped the bread and cheese she was joined by a brown-and-white sheepdog which sat down at a polite distance with hopeful eyes fixed on the food. She threw a crust. The dog gulped it down, waved its s.h.a.ggy tail, and trotted off about its business.

It had better manners than some humans she had met: Marguerite, for instance, who had pushed into the vicarage without a by-your-leave and as good as accused Sarah of being a lightskirt. Adam's kindness might account for his liaisons with Janet Goudge and Peggy, but the opera singer was another matter altogether. He could only have chosen to make her his mistress because he found her attractive, which seemed to indicate that his taste in women ran to the vulgar.

And if that were so, then none of his sisters' choices would suit him, for they were all bound to be the most refined, proper young ladies on the Marriage Mart.

More confused than ever, Sarah started back toward home. Really, the man was impossible! The only thing to do was to put him right out of her head and concentrate on her brother's dilemma. Would Jonathan be happier with his books and his country parish or as a rising star of the Church? There was no way she could make up his mind for him so she must do as he said and decide what sort of life she preferred.

Which brought her right back to Adam.

A few heavy drops of rain fell and she quickened her steps. She was closer to Cheve House than to the village. The soon-to-be-dowager viscountess would not mind her appearing in a shabby, and probably wet, walking dress, and she ought to ask after Jane. She felt a bit guilty about sending Adam back to town so abruptly when he had been summoned home to deal with his sister's problems.

By the time she reached Cheve, she was soaked to the skin. She slipped in at a back door and asked a surprised housemaid to inform Gossett of her arrival. Old starchy-britches (she would never be able to think of him as anything else) could be relied upon to announce her discreetly to Lady Cheverell and to send someone to find dry clothes for her.

Clad in a cast-off morning gown of Eliza's, Sarah went down to the small drawing room. Lady Cheverell was knotting a fringe in a desultory manner, while Jane stared gloomily out of the window at the pouring rain. They both brightened as Sarah entered.

"My dear, we are delighted to see you," said her ladyship, patting the sofa beside her invitingly. "Nothing is so dreary as a wet day without company."

With an affectionate smile, Sarah joined her. She was fond of Adam's mother, who always welcomed her as if she were a fifth daughter.

"I wonder that anyone chooses to go out on such a day," said Jane, taking a seat nearby. "Bradfield will not travel in the rain, I daresay. Oh, Sarah, why do you think he has not come yet?"

Sarah was taken aback by this appeal. "I fear I know nothing of the situation," she said. "Your mama told me only that you have had a disagreement with Lord Bradfield. I cannot advise you."

"Did not Adam tell you everything? I was certain he would tell you. It was not a mere disagreement. We quarrelled most dreadfully. Bradfield wants to call our child Cyril after his late papa and I threw a priceless vase at him."

"I ... I see." Sarah did her best not to let her laughter escape her. "You are with child, then? How happy that must make you, Jane."

"Well, it would, if only ... Oh, I see now how ridiculous it sounds." Her eyes, as blue as Adam's, swam with tears. "How very foolish I have been! I do love him, Sarah. Suppose he never comes?"

Sarah went to hug the weeping girl. She had scarce put a comforting arm about her shoulders when voices were heard in the hall. Jane clutched her.

"It is him! What shall I do? You must talk to him for me. Oh, why did Adam leave?"

Lady Cheverell was also looking at her in mute appeal. Sarah shook her head.

"No. I think it is fortunate that Adam left. It is time you stopped using a go-between and learned to settle your differences with your husband by yourself. Go on, goose, he cannot eat you. I shall come to the door with you."

She urged Jane's hesitant footsteps to the door, opened it and gave her a little push. As she closed the door she saw Jane fly across the hall and fling herself into the arms of a large, stolid-looking gentleman in a dripping multicaped greatcoat.

"Oh, Tom, I am so very sorry!" she cried.

Sarah turned to grin at Lady Cheverell, only to see her ladyship pressing a tiny wisp of lace to her eyes. It was Sarah's turn to fly across the room with an apology on her lips.

"I did not mean to upset you, ma'am. Pray tell me what is the matter?"

Lady Cheverell sniffed delicately. "You will think me such a widgeon, Sarah. It is just that you are quite right about Jane facing Bradfield without an intermissionary. I ought to have suggested it long since, but Lord Cheverell, Adam's father that is, was such a very erasable gentleman that I never did learn to stand up to him."

Sarah correctly translated intermissionary as intermediary, but Adam's erasable father had her at a loss for a moment. She murmured soothing words. "Oh, irascible!" she said then. "Yes, his lordship did have a notorious temper. You must not tease yourself about it, ma'am, but be thankful that whatever Adam's faults, that is not one of them."

Her ladyship looked at her guiltily. "No, he is the dearest boy," she agreed. "Only, perhaps, too amiable. I am so sorry, my dear, about your visitors yesterday. Every sensibility must be outraged!"

"Why, however did you learn of that? I suppose I ought to know by now that between your servants and the villagers nothing can be kept secret, but I did hope it would not come to your ears. I cannot deny that I was not best pleased by the business, but my sensibilities are shockingly impervious, I fear. I did not manage even one little swoon."

"Now you are bamming me," said Lady Cheverell with dignity. "It was very wicked of Adam. I cannot think why he would do such a disgraceful thing."

Sarah tried to explain, without further agitating her ladyship, just why Adam's Paphians had honoured the village of Little Fittleton with their disturbing presence. It was not an easy story to recount to a gently bred lady of advancing years. In the end, she blamed everything on Adam's tender heart.

"And that is my fault, too," said her ladyship tearfully when she finished. "If I had not had four daughters after Adam, he would not have grown accustomed to rescuing damsons in distress."

Sarah laughed, first at the notion that Lady Cheverell was to blame for having four girls, and then at a vision of Adam rushing about rescuing purple plums.

Lady Cheverell smiled uncomprehendingly at her mirth and went on, "All I want is for him to settle down here at Cheve with just one respectable female."

"He told us you are to have a house party to present prospective brides to him." Remembering her violent reaction to his announcement, Sarah winced.

"Yes, but I have little hope that he will find one to his liking. Mary will bring a highly accomplished young lady who will sing and play the harp and the pianoforte, and embroider and net purses and probably even write verse. Eliza will bring a beauty, a dark beauty to act as foil to her fairness. And Louise, being the managing sort, will bring some poor, shy little creature who dare not say boo to a goose."

Sarah laughed again at this accurate summing up of the Lancing girls' preferences. "There is nothing to say that Adam will not conceive a tendre for one of them," she said.

"I cannot think it likely. I always thought he admired you excessively, Sarah. He treats you quite differently from the way he treats other females ... at least, the ones I have seen. He certainly prefers you to his sisters."

"I believe he sees me more as a sort of brother, like Jonathan," she said bitterly. The thought flashed through her mind that Adam would never have kissed Jonathan's hand. She dismissed it. That was no more than an automatic exercise of his charm, and she did not mean to refine upon it. "We have been such good friends for so many years that it would be impossible for him to see me in a romantic light." She tried to speak cheerfully.

"Perhaps. And I daresay you would not even consider accepting his hand after his shocking behaviour.

Oh dear, what a coil! I confess I should like above all things to have you for my daughter-in-law."

Before Sarah was forced to respond to this astonishing revelation, Jane danced into the room. She held up a glittering torrent of diamonds before their dazzled eyes.

"Mama, Sarah, look what Tom has brought me! That is why it took him so long to get here, because he went to London to purchase it. I told him I would sell it and buy him another Chinese vase, and he said the happiness of the mother of his heir is more important to him than any porcelain. Was not that prettily said? And the baby is to be called Thomas Cyril. Tom is gone up to take off his wet clothes. I must go to him." With rosy cheeks and eyes as bright as the diamonds, she hurried out again.

"I must go, too," said Sarah, seizing the opportunity. "I am so glad that Jane is reconciled with her husband."

"It is still raining. Do stay a little longer," urged Lady Cheverell.

"Jonathan will be wondering where I am."

"Then I shall send for the carriage. Yes, I know it is but a step to the vicarage, but two wettings in one day will never do, my dear. If you should take a chill, my house party will all come to nothing."

This mysterious utterance went unexplained, for Gossett answered the bell promptly and the bustle of departure ensued. The butler escorted Sarah down the front steps, holding a huge umbrella over her. She took her seat in Lady Cheverell's comfortable barouche, the raised hood sheltering her from the persistent drizzle.

The groom on the box was Peter, Nellie's admirer. He gave her a shy grin and saluted with his whip, then they were off. As the carriage turned down the drive, the larch grove came into view. It was dark and dripping and altogether uninviting, but Sarah remembered a bright spring day when the fresh new needles were pale green, the branches scattered with the red of developing cones.

She had been eight, to Adam's eleven. Until that day she had half resented his constant calls on her brother's time. Then came that terrifying moment when she looked down from the top of the tall larch to the ground, a dizzying distance below her, and realised that she could not climb down.

Jonathan had laughed at her. Adam, with the kindness that was already an integral part of his nature, had climbed after her and helped her down, branch by branch, step by step.

That was the day she fell in love with him. After sixteen years of uncritical devotion, what hope had she of curing herself?

Unconsciously, she rubbed the back of her hand where his lips had touched.

CHAPTER TEN.

Adam's fingers rose with a will of their own to his right cheekbone, where Sarah's fleeting kiss had landed. It was ridiculous that her casual gesture stuck in his mind.

It must be because of the contrast with the impact that had hit his left cheek shortly before, he decided. His nose was decidedly sore and a spectacular circle of purplish black surrounded his left eye. His companions were politely ignoring his appearance. He turned his attention to entertaining them.

It had proved less difficult than he expected to persuade Marguerite and Janet to share the latter's carriage. The pouring rain doubtless had helped, since it made it likely that he would stay in whichever vehicle he set out in. However, the hostility between them was almost palpable. Janet was aloof, while Marguerite chattered constantly about marquises who had complimented her singing and dukes she had danced with. By the time they stopped in Hartley Wintney for luncheon, Adam was ready to hire a hack and continue the journey on horseback even if the drizzle had continued.

Fortunately it did not. They had outpaced the rain clouds and the setting sun shone on their arrival in the city. Adam escorted his companions to their homes, promised to call on them first thing in the morning, and retreated exhausted to Mount Street.

"I trust her ladyship is well," said Gossett, eyeing his face with ill-concealed interest as he relieved him of his hat and gloves. "Your lordship will dine at home?"

"For at least a week," said the viscount sourly.

Wrigley did not let him off so lightly. The valet was appalled at the result of letting his master go off without him for a week, and said so without roundaboutation.

"Your lordship shall stay within doors for the next few days," he proposed.

This was going too far, and the viscount rounded on him with a scowl that was the more effective for being rarely seen.

"When I want you to arrange my schedule, I shall hire you as a secretary," he advised the quaking manservant. "I have two appointments tomorrow. I look to you to make me as respectable as possible."

Wrigley produced rice powder, which did somewhat soften the effect of the black eye. Regarding himself in the mirror the next morning, Adam remembered Sarah's advice to borrow Marguerite's cosmetics. He smiled and shook his head. There was tart and witty tongue hidden beneath the proper exterior of the vicar's sister.

A broad-brimmed hat shading his face, Adam set out in his closed town carriage for the Royal Exchange. Lloyd's was the obvious place to look for information on Henry Goudge's ship. If the underwriters were surprised that a n.o.bleman looking somewhat the worse for wear was enquiring for the whereabouts of a certain India merchant, they admirably concealed it. Only their pleasure was evident when they informed him that, though reported sunk in a storm in the Bay of Biscay, the ship had only yesterday been sighted off Dungeness. With a fair wind, she would dock today, tomorrow at the latest.

Janet rose to greet Adam, her black silks rustling, hands clasped pleadingly. The incredulous joy in her face when she heard his news was ample reward for his embarra.s.sment at Lloyd's. She sank back into her chair and he hurried to pour her a gla.s.s of wine.

"What a friend you have been to me," she cried. "I only wish I could introduce Henry to you and tell him of your kindness.

"Lord, no, not a word," said Adam nervously.

"Of course it must remain our secret, but I do hate to keep anything from Henry. Now I regret being unfaithful to him. I have been very wicked."

"Your affection for him has not wavered. Come, Janet, do not be sad. It was wrong in us, but what is past is past and cannot be mended." It was not Adam's custom to dally with married women, and he had not antic.i.p.ated her sudden remorse. He blamed himself and vowed then and there never again to touch another man's wife. There were actresses and opera singers aplenty who understood these affairs and were ready to satisfy a man's needs without a second thought.

"You cannot understand," Janet was saying. "The confidence between husband and wife is one of the chief delights of marriage, and I have betrayed it. It will take me a long time to deserve his trust again, but I shall not cheat him of the joy by telling him what I have done."

"Could it not make you happier to win his forgiveness?" Adam asked, curious.

"Yes, but must I hurt him to salve my conscience? I should like to know Miss Meade's opinion. I have never met anyone like her and I admire her greatly."

"Sarah is the best of friends," he agreed. "I must be off now, or Marguerite will be wondering if I have abandoned her again. You go and put off your blacks, for Henry will expect to see you in your most cheerful array." He kissed her hand in a final farewell. It was an old-fashioned courtesy that he thought she would appreciate. Her hand was soft and white and well cared for, yet somehow it did not please him as Sarah's had. He touched his cheek, in a gesture that was becoming habitual.

"I hope you will marry a woman who has faith in you, and that you will love her enough to strive to earn her faith," said Janet solemnly.

She was becoming a veritable fount of sentimental sermons, Adam thought as he returned to his carriage and directed his coachman to stop at the first jeweller's shop in Oxford Street. Not that what she said was untrue, but he could not imagine his mother spouting such stuff, or Sarah. He made a mental note to avoid entanglements with bourgeois females in future.

The shop had precisely what he was looking for: large gems, not of the first quality, in flashy settings. Marguerite did not appreciate the restrained elegance of Rundell and Bridge's fashionable jewellery. She wanted to create a stir. He chose a gaudy bracelet of rubies arranged like blossoms with emerald leaves and diamond dewdrops. It would make a perfect farewell gift.

He stared at the shopkeeper's bill with such a look of surprise that the merchant quickly retrieved it from his hand and lowered the price by a hundred guineas. The viscount was completely unaware of the whole business. He was wondering just when he had decided to give Marguerite her conge. He signed the chit without even reading the total, thrust the velvet box into his pocket and went out to his carriage in a daze.

Conscious or not, the decision was made. That left him with the necessity of finding himself a new mistress. As the carriage turned down Poland Street, he pa.s.sed in review the qualifications of all the well-known High Flyers. Most would have current protectors, of course. Though many would leave less attractive gentlemen in order to boast of having attached Lord Cheverell, Adam had no intention of arousing ill feeling.