Sarah couldn’t help the little smile that twitched across her mouth almost against her will. “Oh, Isabel! Recall when I couldn’t understand why you would go to Donville Masquerade and seek out pleasure? I understand now.”
“That good?” Isabel said. “Gracious, I never would have guessed.”
“And he seemed to like it, too.” Sarah covered her face with her hands. “But how in the world is this happening? We’ve been enemies of a sort for years. He hates me.”
“Clearly not,” Isabel mused. “And at any rate, hate is often a mask for something else. Ask Katherine if you do not believe me. Or even Amelia. What they thought was hate transformed into love.”
Sarah caught her breath. Love? She couldn’t think about something like that. She was not in a position to fall in love with Kit, of all people. If she did, that would not end well, especially since he’d only spoken to her of more kissing, not courtship.
There was no good end to that path, and she already knew it.
She pushed it aside and said, “You are talking about relationships, Isabel. He doesn’t want that with me.”
“Forget him. Men will tie themselves into knots not knowing what they want when it is right in front of them,” Isabel said with a wave of her hand. “What doyouwant?”
“I don’t know,” Sarah admitted. But immediately she knew it was a lie. “I want more of his kiss, actually. I may not be alone in that, for he said he wanted to do it again as well.”
Isabel giggled. “He sounds like libertine Robert, not the staid, proper Kit of my husband’s childhood. You must bring out the beast in him.”
“Oh dear,” Sarah said, worrying her hands in her lap.
“No!” Isabel said with another laugh. “That is a good thing. Still waters can run very deep, indeed. I should know. I also married a seemingly proper gentleman who holds a very lovely beast inside.”
Her gaze slid past Sarah and toward the path where they had come. Her face lit up, and Sarah glanced over her shoulder to see Matthew on his way toward them. There was no denying the deep connection of their look, nor in the way Isabel sat up a bit straighter when she watched him.
Sarah couldn’t help being a bit jealous at what she saw.
“And speaking of which,” Isabel said. “Hello, husband.”
If Isabel had lit up, there was no denying Matthew burned like a torch as he reached them. If Sarah had held any doubt about his reaction regarding her drowning the day before, she certainly felt none now. This man loved her friend. A dead woman was no competition for what they shared. It gave her some satisfaction in the midst of confusion.
“Hello, wife,” he returned. “And hello, Sarah. I’m interrupting, aren’t I? You two looked very serious when I approached. Should I leave you to your conversation?”
Sarah got to her feet. She knew the pair needed to reconnect. And her problems weren’t going to be solved any time soon, certainly not by Isabel’s encouraging her that passion wasn’t something to fear. That it could lead to a happiness Sarah knew she would never truly feel.
“I think we’ve solved the world’s problems enough for one day,” she said. “I should go back to the house and check on my charge. You two carry on in our walk, though.”
Matthew’s face was filled with relief as he stepped up and caught Isabel’s hand in his. Sarah slipped away, but she turned back farther up the path, in time to see him take Isabel in his arms and kiss her with enough passion that it could have matched the heat of the late spring sun.
She blushed, for the action made her think again of Kit, then headed up the path so the couple could have privacy. She had to be careful now as she went back to the house. There were dangers ahead when it came to Kit. Dangers of the heart, dangers of desire.
She just had to decide which ones to avoid and which ones were worth the risk.
Kit was keenly aware of the moment Sarah entered the house. He was, after all, watching her from his study window as she parted from Isabel and Matthew and made her way down the long path. He’d watched her take her time, watched her pause to smell the yellow primrose. She’d looked toward his window then, making him wonder if she could see him spying. But then she’d carried on her way.
And now she was back in the house and his legs were carrying him through the halls toward the parlor where she’d entered from the terrace. He came to a stop as he watched her step from the parlor and into the dimmer hallway, shutting the door behind herself.
She jolted as she saw him standing there, three stride lengths away. Then she smiled and he forgot to breathe.
“Your Grace,” she said, a little breathless herself.
He tilted his head, stepping toward her because he couldn’t stop himself from doing so. “Sarah.”
“Kit,” she whispered, and now it was more than a little breathless. “I was coming to check on Phoebe.”
He arched a brow. “And here I had specifically said you were to rest yourself.”
She laughed at the playfulness in his tone. “I am notoriously bad at following orders, it seems.”
