Her head snapped up, hope undoubtedly pinned to her features. “You’ve thought of something?”
“No.” Christian chuckled. “I’m not that inventive. But I know someone who has a certain, shall I say, knack for this sort of thing. You haven’t met my friends. They are ladies with sterling reputations and they are both inventive and a bit mad, which is precisely the combination we’re in need of at present if I don’t mistake my guess. If it takes an unmarried young woman to make a bachelor into the catch of the Season, it takes a respectable matron to do away with a potential scandal.”
Sarah blinked. “Knack? Who has a knack for such things?”
“Lucy.”
Sarah’s eyes nearly bugged from her skull. “Your friend Lucy?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. She’d have to be awfully clever to fixthis.” She flourished her hand in the air, indicating the cabin.
“I’m positive she will, and if you’ll just allow me to write to her and tell her the circumstances, I’m certain she’ll come up with something perfect.”
Sarah contemplated the matter for a moment. “She’s good at this sort of thing?”
Christian nodded. “Excellent at it. You could say her plots are one of her most accomplished skills. She’s quite remarkable, I assure you.”
Sarah felt a momentary pang of jealousy. Who was this lady whom Christian obviously thought so highly of? Whom he had even tried to court once, if unsuccessfully?
“I suppose I have no other choice. I must throw myself on the mercy of your friend,” Sarah said with a resolute nod. “And I thank you for it.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll ride out as soon as I can to get a letter in the post. If the snow lets up, it shouldn’t take longer than a few days to get a letter to Lucy. We’ll meet her back in England.”
Sarah’s eyes widened with fright. “I can’t leave Mrs. Goatsocks.”
“We’ll think of something. Once the snow stops, I’ll go to speak to Mrs. Goatsocks.”
“You said we’ll meet Lucy in England. Surely you don’t mean London?”
“No. Not London,” he assured her. “Don’t worry. Leave the details to me.”
She lifted her chin and met his gaze. “Thank you for being so kind to me, Christian. You are a very good friend indeed.”
Friend.The word hung in the air between them. But Christian knew as well as she did, they were both remembering their almost kiss.
“Good night.” Sarah ducked into the bedchamber and shut the door behind her. She hopped into bed, pulled the quilt over her head, and drifted to sleep imagining what Christian looked like beneath his beard.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The next morning it had stopped snowing, but great amounts of the stuff remained piled high under the bright sun. Christian braved the enormous snow hills to travel into town to post his letter to Lucy Hunt. It had taken a great deal of convincing, however, to keep Sarah from coming with him. She desperately wanted to see her chaperone, but after Christian demonstrated that one of the snowdrifts outside the lodge came up nearly to his waist (and he was much taller than her), she finally relented.
Christian left Oberon in the barn. He didn’t want to risk the horse hurting himself or becoming stuck in a drift. He tied snowshoes to the bottoms of his boots and trudged down the hill to town. The journey was long and tiring, and Christian spent the entire span trying to forget that he’d spent the better part of the night tossing and turning, thinking of the kiss he’d nearly shared with Sarah. That hadn’t exactly been the action of afriend,had it? But he could already tell, his relationship with Sarah was going to end up the same way all his other relationships with women did. He’d volunteered to help Sarah get back to Society, back to herintended. He mustn’t forget that the lady was spoken for. And he needed to get her back to London safely before he did something they would both regret. Yes. He was turning squarely into Sarah’sfriend. And that was exactly as it should be.
After posting the letter to Lucy, Christian stopped by the doctor’s house to pay a visit to Mrs. Goatsocks.
It had also taken him no insignificant amount of time this morning to convince Sarah that leaving Mrs. Goatsocks with the doctor and traveling to England with him to meet his friends was, in fact, in Sarah’s best interest. He promised her that he would personally see to it that Mrs. Goatsocks was provided adequate transportation to return to London as soon as she was able. Sarah had agreed on one condition: that he received Mrs. Goatsocks’s blessing. That was just what he intended to do at the doctor’s house.
Dr. MacTavish ushered Christian into the drawing room, where the patient sat on a sofa with her ankle propped up on a pile of pillows. She was fully dressed in her proper attire, a dark gown, dark stockings, and white collar. She even had a shoe on her good foot. Her back was ramrod straight and her chin was raised a bit. In her fifties, the lady had graying-brown hair, a plump build, and frown lines etched deeply on either side of her mouth. Mrs. Goatsocks stared at Christian so intensely with her dark, penetrating eyes that he wondered if she would indeed bestow her blessing once he informed her of the plan.
“Who are you?” she asked as soon as Christian stepped into the room, his hat in his hands.
“This is the viscount, madame,” Dr. MacTavish explained. The thin, balding man seemed to be full of nerves. His eyes darted back and forth anxiously and he appeared to be sweating profusely. Christian suspected he’d never had an English viscount in his drawing room before.
“The Viscount of what?” Mrs. Goatsocks asked. Christian had the distinct impression that she would have pulled out a quizzing glass to examine him with had she had access to one.
“Viscount Berkeley,” the doctor explained. “He’s got a hunting lodge nearby.”
