“I miss you already,” she said. “How am I supposed…” Her words abruptly stopped.Dear God, give me the strength to do this. Give me the strength to endure this. No one should die without a struggle. A person shouldn’t simply fade away like this.
At last the tears came, hot and thick. She was a child again, and her mother hadn’t come back from London on the day she was expected. She felt like that lonely little girl now, looking vainly for a ducal carriage approaching Chavensworth. She was bewildered and defenseless, and the sudden agonizing grief cut her in two. Sarah rocked back and forth on the chair, holding her middle lest she break into a hundred pieces, her gaze on her mother’s hand, the slim-fingered hand that lay there so still.
Her tears were hot and endless. She cried until there was nothing left but a feeling of emptiness inside her. Someone came and placed his arms around her, lifting her effortlessly. She made a token protest with a weak wave of hand, but buried her face against a masculine neck. Douglas. She could tell it was him by his smell, something earthy and tantalizing like sandalwood.
He took her to a chamber—she didn’t know whether it was the Duke’s Suite or her own room—and unfastened her dress. A woman helped him, a woman whose voice she knew—Hester? They removed her shoes and stockings, dressed her in a sturdy linen nightgown, and tucked her into bed as if she were five and had had a fright.
Even though she kept her eyes closed, she couldn’t hold back her tears. When he would have left her, she simply stretched out her hand. She felt him sit on the side of the bed, then lie beside her, pulling her close until her head rested against his shoulder.
She gripped the front of his shirt, burrowed her hand between it and his shirt until she could feel his warmth. He was alive, and she desperately needed to feel alive at this moment.
“It’s all right if you cry, Sarah,” he said tenderly.
She clung to him as if he were the only solid object in the sea of her tears.
An hour later, they were still in the same position, but Douglas had drawn up the counterpane so that she was finally warm. She felt herself drifting off to sleep and clutched his shirt, afraid that he might leave her.
He brushed a kiss against her forehead, causing her to press closer.
A knock on the door was an intrusion, but not enough to pierce the haze that seemed to surround her.
Douglas murmured something to her, a caution, a reassurance, she wasn’t sure which, before leaving the bed. She made a sound of protest, but it was so weak she might have only thought it.
“She cannot be bothered with that now,” he said.
She should rouse, long enough to discover what was so important that someone had come to her chamber. She felt herself drifting off again.
When Douglas returned to the bed, he gathered her up in his arms, and she went without protest, surrendering to a grief-tinged sleep.
They wanted her to adjudicate some damn dispute among the maids.
He looked down into Sarah’s tear-ravaged face and wanted to swear. She had just lost her mother, a woman to whom she was obviously devoted, and the damned housekeeper didn’t have the sense—or the tact—God gave a gnat.
“You need to handle it yourself,” he said, and the woman looked surprised.
He held Sarah tenderly, even though the position was an uncomfortable one. For now, she needed someone to care for her, to shelter her.
The next days and weeks would not be easy for her. The initial pain would eventually fade, but it would take its toll. There would be times when she couldn’t bear it, and that was when he was going to be here for her.
He’d never believed in love at first sight. Perhaps lust, yes, that he could understand only too well. But love—that made no sense. Until, of course, Lady Sarah had walked into the Duke of Herridge’s study like a gust of wind, and he’d been blown over in the same moment. He’d been unable to speak. He had simply studied her, unbelieving that anyone could be quite so lovely and be real.
With her flashing gray eyes, and her black hair, she was a Celtic princess, not simply a Duke’s daughter. She was imperious, insistent, stubborn, self-deprecating, and she’d loved her mother like all mothers should be loved.
She’d agreed to marry him, sacrificing her future for a woman who’d lived only a matter of days and without knowledge of her daughter’s gesture. She would not suffer for it. He would not allow Sarah to rue the agreement, to wish it had never happened. She would come to love him, of that he was certain—as certain ashe was of his diamonds. He could not compel another person to fall in love with him, but he could charm. He could cozen; he could convince, and he intended to do all of those.
For now, however, he would hold Sarah and allow her to grieve.
Chapter 13
“Get that look off your face, man,” Anthony, Duke of Herridge, said.
Simons stiffened, but his eyebrows leveled, and the pull to his mouth lessened.
Normally, the Duke of Herridge didn’t pay any attention to his servants’ moods, but Simons had the rare effect of irritating him today.
Morna was dead.
He held the black-bordered note from his daughter’s husband in his left hand and a port glass in his right. He couldn’t quite decide if he was toasting his late wife or celebrating her passage.
