A Rogue Walks into a Ball Read online

  He’d been ready for that possibility, because he’d been ready to marry her. He’d wanted to marry her, and despite her note, he knew she was still the most fascinating—and also the most maddening—woman he’d ever known. Breaking their engagement now made no sense, but for a woman who could be extremely practical and decisive, Sarah had some harebrained ideas about doing things on her own. He wouldn’t put it past her to have a plan to sail to America if she was breeding, inventing a dead husband and raising their child in a place where no one would know he was the father.

  He’d be damned if he’d let that happen.

  She hadn’t written where she’d gone, but he knew Annabelle was at Marbleton, and with her mother all the way in Ireland, Sarah would have gone to Annabelle. He sat down at his desk and penned a note that would be delivered to her first thing in the morning.

  I shall consider our engagement intact until I hear from you that there is no urgent reason to wed, and I insist that you do the same. I will never allow any child of mine to be raised a bastard.

  He knew the words were blunt and that he should say more, knew that these few words were completely inadequate, but he was too angry to come up with anything else.

  If she didn’t want to be married to him, that was her decision. He was hardly going to drag her to the altar—unless she was carrying his child.

  For now, he had plenty to do. Breaking the Habit was in dire need of work.

  And so he worked. He wrote from early in the morning until late at night, immersing himself in Sorella Teresa’s story and not bothering with things like shaving and leaving the house.

  He did not, of course, tell his family that Sarah wanted to break their engagement, only that she’d gone to stay with the Smiths. He knew he would have to tell them before long if there was to be no baby, but at least for now, he didn’t need to say a word.

  If Annabelle was puzzled by Sarah’s sudden appearance at Marbleton, she didn’t show it.

  “Your letter got here just two hours ago,” Annabelle said as Sarah’s trunk was brought in. “I’m so glad you’ve come. You can tell me everything I’ve missed since I left London.”

  “Oh, not much,” Sarah said. “I’m sure Alice will have filled you in on all the details more thoroughly than I ever could. I’m certain she knows far more than I do about pretty much anything that’s happened in Town since you left, even though she hasn’t been there either.”

  Annabelle chuckled. “You’re probably right. I do miss her, and I’ve missed you. Papa is so dear, but it is rather too quiet here after London.”

  Quiet, and any place that Jack was not, sounded like heaven.

  Later that evening, after Mr. Smith had retired, the ladies repaired to a cozy corner of the Smiths’ drawing room, where they curled up together on a divan with their legs tucked under them in unladylike comfort.

  “All right,” Annabelle said, “tell me why you left London. Don’t think I’m not completely delighted you’ve come, but you’re a recently engaged woman, and I’m not the real reason you’re here.”

  When had Annabelle become so wise? And so direct? Sarah was proud of her, but she was also a little scared.

  “I did want to see you,” Sarah protested. “If you think Marbleton is quiet, you haven’t been in Aunt Louise’s house on your own.”

  “You didn’t come to Marbleton for lively action. Spill.”

  Sarah let her head flop back on the top edge of the sofa. “I broke off the engagement with Jack.”

  “What? Why?”

  Sarah lifted her head to look at Annabelle. “We got engaged only because Lady Mintwood and Mrs. Stokes discovered us kissing at the Merrywether ball.”

  Annabelle’s eyes widened. “Well. That is surprising. I would not have expected...” She shook her head. “But it doesn’t matter that you had to get engaged then, because surely the compromising only precipitated what would have happened anyway. You wouldn’t have been kissing each other if you didn’t like each other a great deal,” she said. “And anyone who has seen the two of you together knows you really like each other.”

  There was that word like again. Jack liked her. She had begun to hate the word like. “Liking someone is not always enough.”

  Annabelle looked at her for a long moment. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

  Sarah dropped her head back again and stared at the far-off beamed ceiling above her. “Yes, I’m in love with him. Along with what must surely be an entire ballroom’s worth of women, I fell for his charm.”

  Annabelle grabbed her hand and gave it a shake, and Sarah looked at her. “Jack’s not only a charming man. He’s not some rogue merely out for his own amusement and determined to break as many hearts as possible.”

  Sarah sighed heavily. “I know that. I wouldn’t love him so if he was just a careless rogue.”

  “Then why have you broken the engagement?”

  “Because he doesn’t love me back.”

  “How do you know that’s true?” Annabelle demanded, as though she were a lawyer speaking in Jack’s defense, trying to pick apart Sarah’s resistance. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you, and I’m certain he finds you completely fascinating. What did he say when you broke off the engagement?”

  “Well, nothing. I sent him a note.”

  “A note? You broke off your engagement by note? He rescued you from certain disaster by promising to marry you when you were compromised, and you sent him a note to break the engagement?”

  Sarah held up her hands in surrender. “When did you become such a defender of Jack’s?” She sighed heavily. “But I take your point. Perhaps it was not well done of me.”

  Annabelle sniffed. “It was cowardly of you.”

  “Annabelle! You’re my dearest friend, my sister of the heart. You’re supposed to support me.”

  “I am your dearest friend, and you are mine, which is why I can’t just tell you what you want to hear.” Her face softened. “Where would I be if you hadn’t pushed me to overcome my shyness around gentlemen? Lying somewhere in a pathetic heap, no doubt.”

  Sarah managed a dry look. “That seems a bit extreme.”

  “But it’s true,” Annabelle insisted. “I would have been too nervous to spend more time with Alice, because I was nervous around Jack and the other young gentlemen in her circle, and I would have missed out on scores of dances with nice fellows and never received flowers, and certainly not any poems about my eyes.”

  “You received a poem about your eyes?”

  “Two,” Annabelle said with a grin. She squeezed Sarah’s hand. “You’ve been such a good friend to me, which is why I’m being honest with you. You can’t just toss aside what’s between you and Jack.”

  “What if that’s the sensible thing to do?” Sarah asked in a small voice.

  “What if that’s the cowardly thing to do?” Annabelle countered, but her voice was gentle. “The right thing for you to do is to go back to London with me next week and speak to Jack.”

  That, Sarah was not ready to do, and she was certain she never would be. But she didn’t feel up to arguing with Annabelle about it.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said, forcing a smile, because she could see that if she didn’t look at least somewhat convinced of the wisdom of Annabelle’s words, Annabelle would have a great deal more to say.

  “Good,” Annabelle said. “So we’ll say nothing of the broken engagement for now.”

  Which Sarah knew was probably for the best, since it was possible that she was increasing. Though, if she was, she had no idea yet what she would do.

  One morning a week after Jack received Sarah’s note, Marcus appeared at his house at a freakishly early hour, so early that Jack was still breakfasting.

  “Well,” Marcus said with exaggerated joviality as he pulled out a seat at the dining room table and helped himself to a slice of toast, “it’s the groom.”

  Jack grunted, extremely not in the mood to banter with his brother. A maid appear
ed in the doorway with a tray containing a cup and saucer and plate, and with a terse nod from Jack, she set them before his brother.

  “Has something happened to your valet?” Marcus remarked as he took in Jack’s less-than-groomed state.

  “I gave him a holiday.”

  “I see.” Marcus took his time spreading strawberry jam on his toast. “Mother’s rather excited of late,” he remarked, “which you would know if you’d been to tea at any time in the last few days. It seems Kate has a suitor.”

  This was certainly news, since Kate hadn’t entertained any gentlemen as possibilities since Joshua Gregson. “Oh? Who is it?”

  Marcus chuckled. “That’s the funny part. No one knows who he is.”

  “Then how do you know there is a he?”

  “At Lady Hepworthy’s ball, Alice saw Kate in an alcove in intimate conversation with a gentleman, who disappeared by the time Alice got closer. When questioned, Kate wouldn’t give his name. All she said, with a dreamy look in her eyes, according to Alice, was, ‘He’s someone special.’ In addition, several anonymous bouquets have arrived for Kate that have made her look, in Alice’s words, ‘absolutely sickeningly in love.’ It’s quite the mystery du jour.”

  “I’ll be round to tea soon to get all the details,” Jack said distractedly. But if it was true that Kate was being courted, and it certainly seemed she was, that meant her discovering he was John Smith-Jones wouldn’t matter. That had been a particular concern to him in terms of his secret identity, though not, of course, the only one.

  In what Jack knew to be an intentionally conversational tone, Marcus said, “So, have you heard from Sarah? Alice wrote that she’s had three letters from Annabelle since Sarah went to visit her, but Annabelle hasn’t offered any news of Sarah, just that she’s well.”

  Jack forced himself to say, “She was well the last time I saw her.” She’d been quite well that night in his room, clearly well enough to abscond for Hertfordshire the following morning. Jack suspected his mother had sent Marcus to find out what was going on.

  “How is Rosamund?” Jack asked, knowing that any mention of his sister-in-law was bound to divert Marcus.

  His brother smiled, as he always did when he talked of his wife. “She is as usual, which is to say, a delight.”

  “And Socrates?” Jack asked.

  Marcus gave him a look. “Socrates is also as usual, and you’re tipping your hand by asking after him.”

  Jack took a sip of tea. “And what is it I’m supposed to be tipping my hand over?”

  Marcus added some milk to his tea, then sugar, then stirred with a leisurely motion that made Jack want to shout at him to hurry up and finish and go away, taking whatever lecture he meant to deliver with him. His older brother had long ago learned to employ patience and deliberateness to his advantage. Jack generally found this stratagem annoying, as he did now.

  “That you’d rather not listen to what I have to say about your engagement.” He looked at Jack over the top of his cup. “Your engagement happened quite suddenly. And only a few days later, Sarah left suddenly. That’s a lot of sudden occurrences.”

  Jack put down his cup and crossed his arms. “I don’t recall you and Rosamund having a very long courtship either.”

  “That was a completely different situation. Besides, Rosamund and I knew each other for several months before we married.”

  Jack made a scoffing sound. “You weren’t even together for most of that time.”

  “My relationship with Rosamund is not at issue.”

  Jack’s tone was carefully neutral as he said, “And my relationship with Sarah is?”

  “No, of course that is your own affair. I just think… that things have often come easily to you.”

  Jack almost laughed. “And you think Sarah is one of those things,” he said tightly. Considering she was currently not his at all, this was laughable. “I assure you that’s not the case.”

  Marcus nodded slowly. “I see. Well, then, we’ll look forward to seeing her when she returns to Town.”

  “Don’t we all?”

  Jack went back to writing, and that suited him fine, until later that day when he began to notice how much Sorella Teresa had in common with Sarah. Sorella Teresa was smart, and she was beautiful, though her beauty wasn’t at first noticeable because of the distraction of her black habit. Sorella Teresa had a way of saying the thing that needed to be said, she found great satisfaction in teaching the young ladies at the convent school, and she wanted more from life than any young woman was expected to want.

  When he finally realized that a motif had developed involving Sorella Teresa and a little dog she adored, he threw down his pen in disgust.

  What was wrong with him? He wasn’t one of those writers who created thinly veiled versions of the people he knew. Even with She Knew She Was Right, which he’d written for his sister, the main character shared only Kate’s good sense.

  He thought of what Marcus had said about things coming easily to him. Some things, it was true, had come easily to him. But writing plays certainly did not—it was work and a struggle to finish a play, and by no stretch of the imagination was all of that pleasant. But of course, Marcus didn’t know about the playwriting. And since Sarah had left, nothing had felt easy.

  In Italy, when he’d met the nun who was the inspiration for Sorella Teresa, Jack had been struggling to reconcile who he’d always been with a desire for something more meaningful, something that was his alone. Writing plays had become that, and he hadn’t wanted to share with anyone else what was so privately important to him. Writing anonymously gave him the freedom to do anything he liked, knowing that he wouldn’t bring scandal on the family, risk offending someone, or, truth be told, risk becoming a laughingstock.

  But now the satisfaction he’d previously taken toward his work felt hollow and worthless, because Sarah knew he was John Smith-Jones and that he hadn’t wanted to share this part of his life with her.

  Understanding dawned, shocking but also welcome. He’d hurt her by refusing to share himself fully with her, but he’d insulated himself against feeling bad about that by telling himself he was right. He wasn’t right—he was an idiot. The reason he’d felt so terrible since she left was that he loved her, and the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.

  Relief and happiness and an utterly fresh hope for the future made him want to jump up and shout his love out the window like a lovesick fool. A silly grin spread over his face. He loved Sarah! Loved her, loved her, loved her.

  Her courageous avowal of her feelings had threatened the bachelor life he’d known for so long, and when he should have welcomed her declaration of love, he’d defended himself against the woman who had the power to affect him more than anyone else.

  She was right: He’d used charm and fun to keep her at arm’s length, because if he’d let her in and admitted to himself how much he cared about her, that would have changed everything, and he hadn’t been ready for change.

  And now he wanted whatever changes Sarah would bring to his life, because he loved every single thing about her, even her maddening parts. And he wanted her to share her life with him just as he wanted to share his with her.

  He sat back in his chair, pushing the pile of papers away from him. He felt as though he’d been pummeled from every angle, but he also felt an incredible and new sense of rightness. He, who’d been tongue-tied when Sarah had spoken of her love for him, finally knew the words he needed to say. He knew what he had to do. He only hoped he hadn’t waited too long.

  Chapter 18

  Mother Superior: Most people fail at discussing emotions.

  Sorella Teresa: What kind of talk is that from a mother superior?

  Mother Superior: I didn’t say they shouldn’t keep trying.

  Breaking the Habit, Act 3, Scene 5

  Returning to Marbleton from a trip to the village market with the Smiths, Sarah knew she’d have the house to herself because Annabelle and her father had continued on
to pay a visit to a family friend who’d just returned from traveling abroad. Sarah had been invited to join them, but she’d declined, glad of the possibility of some time alone.

  Even though she was grateful for Annabelle’s company and the kindness of her uncle, keeping up a cheerful front when her heart felt like a battered lump was wearing. The prospect of a few hours alone in the house promised a respite. Though, first she had a letter she needed to write.

  So when she walked in the door, untying the ribbons of her bonnet, and Dudley, the Smiths’ butler, informed her that she had a visitor waiting in the sitting room, she was not pleased.

  “A visitor for me?” she asked as he lifted a silver tray with a visiting card on it. “Surely he or she meant my uncle or Miss Smith.”

  “He specifically asked for you, miss,” the butler said, even as she read the words on the card. Lord Jack Hallaway. She drew in a gasp. She’d never expected him to come to Marbleton.

  She’d received his peremptory note, which had made her angry and hurt, since he’d written nothing beyond insisting she not announce the end of their engagement until she knew she wasn’t increasing. She’d been waiting only for the arrival of her menses—which had come that very morning—to reply.

  Apparently, she would be able to deliver the news in person.

  “Lord Hallaway is a family friend,” she informed the butler, reaching for a shred of propriety as she dismissed him. Taking a deep breath, she entered the sitting room, leaving the door open.

  Jack was standing at the French doors, looking out across the beautiful grounds that led away from the house toward a walled garden and a wood beyond. Sunlight coming through the glass panes brought out every rich glint in his golden-brown hair and bathed his form in a glow. If she hadn’t been so heartsore, and annoyed that he’d arrived to trouble the peace she was trying to build, she might have laughed. Nature, which had already given him so many irresistible gifts, couldn’t seem to resist showering him with more favor.