But it wasn’t Yancey’s “husband” who rattled in behind the tea service. No, it was Scotty. Yancey wanted to die. Where the living hell was Sam? How many horses did he have, and were they all ailing?
As the Duke of Glenmore had jumped up—out of guilt? Wariness? A need to watch his back because he was up to no good?—and now faced the doors, Yancey fanned her face with her hands and exhaled hard enough to puff her cheeks out. This grateful feeling she had for Scotty right now had to be how settlers felt when, surrounded by marauding Indians, they saw the cavalry coming on the run. Of course, in Scotty’s case, there was no running.
“Why, Scotty,” she chirped, knowing full well she hadn’t rung for refreshments, “how nice of you to bring tea.”
“I brought the tea,” Scotty repeated, continuing his rattling way across the room, and not sparing the furniture’s legs—or the villainous duke’s. Had the man not sidled out of the lumbering giant’s way at the last moment, he would have been run over. Scotty waited until he had settled the silver service at Yancey’s side, next to her chair, between her and Roderick, to offer more conversation. “The horse is sick,” Scotty told her. “The duke is delayed.”
“Yes, I can see that,” Yancey said pleasantly, every facial muscle involved in smiling now sore and tired. She did wonder, though, exactly how long Scotty had known this tidbit of information. Hours, it had to be. Veritable hours. Yancey patted at her hair and sent Scotty a sidelong glance. “Did the duke happen to say, Scotty, exactly how long he would be delayed?”
“No.” He pointed a sausage-like finger at the steaming pot of tea. “Pour this,” he said, “in here.” He now, of course, pointed to a fine bone china teacup in its equally delicate saucer.
Dismayed, Yancey forced a chuckle and felt her face heat up. “Thank you. I know how to serve tea, Scotty. You may go now.”
But he didn’t. He just stood there … between her and the Duke of Glenmore. Scotty’s dull gaze seemed somehow to skewer the man in place.
Yancey glanced the way of the now reseated duke and saw him dividing his suspicious attention between her and her monster-sized butler. “No doubt,” Yancey said, directing her “fair warning” comment to Sam’s cousin, “you have a long acquaintance with Scotty and know how … protective he can be of those he serves.”
“Yes,” the duke said smoothly. “A most singular creature.”
Creature? Not man? Instantly angry, all Yancey could think about was Sam’s telling her earlier how Roderick used to torment Scotty when he’d been a helpless boy. Well, the duke certainly didn’t seem inclined to do so now. No doubt, Scotty’s size had something to do with that. But size or no, should anyone of any rank think to torment anyone under her charge, Yancey silently fumed, they’d have to go through her first.
Tipping her face up to the butler, trying to convey that she was fine here alone with the duke, though she felt anything but fine, Yancey smiled and said, emphatically this time, “Thank you, Scotty. You’ve been most kind, but you really may go now.”
The hugely intimidating man, who was proudly wearing his new suit of clothes, complete with his new hat—a strange twist for indoors—straightened up to his considerable awe-inspiring size. Cutting his clear-colored gaze from her to Roderick and back to her, he said, “I cleaned your gun. It’s back under your pillow.”
No doubt, he thought himself the soul of subtlety. But Yancey nearly shrieked. She certainly had Roderick’s undivided attention now. Surely, he was wondering why the lady of the house felt compelled to sleep with a gun under her pillow. “Oh my. Uh, thank you, Scotty.” Yancey looked up at the butler, pleading with her eyes for him to leave.
“Her Grace Nana filched a crumpet off the tray.”
He wasn’t going to leave. Defeated, Yancey could only stare up at the man. They were speaking two different languages, she and Scotty. She cleared her throat. “Really? Why didn’t she simply join us if she’s up and about?” Yancey was actually beginning to feel sorry for the Duke of Glenmore. They must all appear insane to him.
“She’s hiding.”
Genuine distress seized Yancey and had her turning to the duke. “Excuse me a moment, Roderick. Please forgive this bit of domestic drama.” The man nodded, looking as if a cannon had gone off right next to his head. Yancey turned in her chair to better see the butler. “Where, Scotty? Where is Nana hiding? Tell me.”
“Under her bed. She’s eating the crumpet.”
“And you’re supposed to be looking for her, aren’t you?” He nodded. “Then I expect you to do so. Scotty, she is approaching three hundred years old, if she’s a day. So if you’re going to engage her in a game of hide-and-seek, there will be none of this allowing her to hide and your not looking for her. Now, what do you have to say to that?”
Scotty lowered his impressive brow stubbornly and poked his thick bottom lip out. “Mr. Marples made potty in the dining room.”
Yancey stared at the big, big man. “Dear God.” She then squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. In that pose, she told her guest, “You’ll be glad to know, Roderick, that Mr. Marples is a very bad little dog.”
When she opened her eyes, Scotty was lumbering off in his hulking way and Roderick the villainous duke was staring at her as if she’d just shed a skin. “You really are Sarah Margaret, aren’t you? You are the American duchess.”
Yancey cocked her head at a questioning angle. “Why, yes I am. But what an odd thing for you to say. I told you straightaway who I was. Did you doubt me?”
“No,” he said, tugging thoughtfully at his clean-shaven chin, his eyes narrowed in consideration of her. “No, I didn’t.”
Yancey watched him, knowing that as of this moment, with the Duke of Glenmore now convinced of her identity, her life was in danger. She would have to be very careful from now on. After all, her suspicion was that he’d killed, or had caused to be killed, one Duchess of Somerset, for whatever reason, and so he wouldn’t hesitate to kill another one. The most dangerous creature on earth, she knew, was a man who had already killed once. Maybe twice. She thought of Sam’s brother, Geoffrey.
Still playing hostess, though, and still smiling, she poured Sam’s cousin a cup of tea and offered him a biscuit. As he made his selection, she looked up and happened to catch Scotty’s eye. Behind the Duke of Glenmore, out of the man’s sight, but directly in Yancey’s line of vision, the butler stood at the open doors, facing her, and was making ready to close them as he exited.
He’d obviously been waiting for her to notice him. Yancey glanced her guest’s way and saw he was occupied with staring longingly, perhaps possessively, out the open French doors off to his right. With him thus occupied, she set down the plate of biscuits and met Scotty’s waiting gaze, her eyebrows arched in question.
He did the most remarkable thing, something she would never have believed if she weren’t seeing it herself. His face split apart … into a grin. Then he winked, which made Yancey blink with surprise. Why in the world had he done that? But almost immediately, she knew. The butler’s performance had been just that. A performance to show Roderick that Yancey knew the ins and outs of the household. A performance to convince a skeptical and dangerous man that she was who she said she was. Scotty was her co-conspirator.
A sense of wonder filled Yancey as the butler pulled the doors closed and left her alone with Roderick. At least now she had the serving of the tea to occupy her hands and the fussing with the dishes to supply her with reasons for pauses to gather her thoughts. Maybe Sam had told Scotty, on his way out to the horse barn, to come to the aid of the duchess because she was new here. That could be, but she had no idea what to think about that gun business. How did Scotty know where she kept her gun? Sam’s doing, again? Possibly. She would have to ask him. And, for the tenth time, where was he—off inspecting the queen’s stables in London?
Just then, the closed double doors to the room opened again. So quick was this on the heels of Scotty’s departure that Yancey thought it must be the giant again. With her guest, the villainous duke, she turned expectantly, waiting to see who would join them now. Yancey’s silent prayer, of course, was that it would be Sam. But no. To her horror, in swept an elegantly dressed, silver-haired middle-aged woman who could only be the dowager Duchess of Somerset, Sam’s mother and the writer of the desperate letters to her daughter-in-law in America.
Unescorted—meaning, again, Sam wasn’t with her—she stopped suddenly, stared wide-eyed at Yancey, who’d slowly risen to her feet, along with Roderick, and said, “Who are you?”
All but frozen inside, and refusing to look Roderick’s way, Yancey replied smoothly, “I’m Sarah, your daughter-in-law. You wrote to me in Chicago, and here I am.”
The attractive woman with the sweet face took a moment to absorb that. Then her expression softened, became wondering. “Then … you’re not dead? You’re Sarah?” Her face lit up. “It is you? You’re really Sarah? And you’re really here?”
Yancey credited the woman’s inane questions to her shock. “Yes, it is I. And yes, obviously, here I am. And I am very much alive.”
The dowager shook her head, still not believing. “I don’t understand. Roderick told me—And then Sam said you had—Oh, dear.” She put the back of her hand to her forehead as if feeling for fever. “Forgive me, I fear I’m going to…”
And then she did. She fainted dead away.
* * *
Sweaty, frustrated, and smelling of the horse barn, but with events there satisfactorily resolved—a stubborn stone had been removed from a prize mare’s hoof and then, free of pain, she had finally accepted her hungry foal to nurse—Sam now carried his jacket tossed over a shoulder. Grim of expression, he rolled his sleeves down. With the afternoon sun beating down on his head, and his mounting worries beating down on his mood, he trudged up the steep hill that led from the meadow up to the formal garden and then to the manor house.
He couldn’t really say that he was anxious to go back inside. Not while he and Yancey were at odds. And not with Roderick here. And especially not with his own mother in residence. He loved her deeply, heart and soul, and she was a good woman. But she could ask more unanswerable questions than Roderick could because she had more of a right to do so.
Sam still debated with himself whether or not he should tell his mother the truth about Yancey. For one thing—
“Sam! Oh, thank God, here you are!”
Sam jerked his head up and saw Yancey standing atop the hill he was just starting up. She was waving and urging him to come to her. Obviously, something had happened. A jet of fear weakened Sam’s limbs, but then galvanized him into action. His mind suffered from dire images of what could have transpired in his absence. Gunplay? A life-and-death struggle? A stabbing, a poisoning, a choking? His mind spared him nothing. He knew he’d never forgive himself for not being there.
Swinging his coat off his shoulder and tossing it to the ground, he charged headlong up the hill to meet Yancey, who was stumbling down to meet him. They met halfway up, and she fell into Sam’s arms, putting them in grave danger of nearly crashing and rolling back down to the meadow in a twist of arms and legs. But Sam held fast, digging his heels into the earth as, his muscles tensed, his heart pounding, he pushed Yancey’s hair out of her face. “Yancey, what is it? What’s happened?”
Breathless and gasping, she was capable only of shaking her head and clinging to him as if all the demons of hell had been chasing her. What the bloody hell has happened? He may not know what, but he felt certain he knew who lay behind it. His eyes narrowed with steely resolve, Sam wrenched his gaze up to the top of the hill over which Yancey had just come. He fully expected to see at least one of the devil’s minions, with Roderick’s face plastered on it, pop into view. Should that happen, Sam fully intended to knock the bastard right back down the other side of the hill, if for no other reason than that he owed him from their childhood. But he didn’t appear, and Sam thought it was just as well because he was fully occupied with the distraught Yancey.
“Yancey, tell me what’s happened. Did Roderick harm you or Mother in any way?” Sam took hold of her arms and tugged her resisting body away from him until he could see her face.
She’d run all this way—the manor still remained a good distance away—and her face was reddened to prove it. Her hair was coming undone, she was gasping in great drafts of air, and shaking her head. “No, he didn’t. And I’m fine. But it’s your mother, Sam.” It was all she could get out.
Sam’s heart sank. “My mother? Yancey, what about my mother?”
She ignored his question and, suddenly looking surprisingly calm and in control, asked him, “Did anyone follow me?”
Though a bit confused over this abrupt change in her demeanor, Sam looked up the hill again, saw no one topping the rise, and focused again on her. “No. Not that I can see. Why?”
“Good.” She pulled away from him, calmly fussing with her hair as she looked up at him. “Your mother fainted, Sam.”
“My mother?” Shock stiffened his legs. “You met my mother? She’s been downstairs already?”
“Oh yes, Sam, she has.”
Sam stared at Yancey, his mind churning with the implications of that simple statement. But it was Yancey’s glaring green eyes that told him he was in trouble with her, plain and simple. “I should have been there.”
A tight smile tinged her usually generous lips. “Yes. You should have.”
“I’m so sorry. But my mother … she fainted? That’s why you came running out here?”
Yancey arched her eyebrows. “Were you hoping for something worse?”
“Hardly. But why did you come haring out here and scare me? Why didn’t you just send a boy to get me? Scotty would gladly have tossed a little beggar out the back door for you. There was no need for this, forgive me, hysterical display.”
“But that’s exactly what it was, Sam. A display only.” Very calmly, she straightened her pretty pale-green dress around her.
And Sam watched her appreciatively. Yes, there was tremendous upheaval occurring all around them, but he was a man, after all. And he wasn’t dead. When she raised her hands to brush back her loosened hair, Sam’s gaze followed them. He saw that she was watching him watch her and apparently found this worthy of pursing her lips.
“Are you paying attention to me, Sam?”
“I thought that was rather obvious.” Her answering scowl forced him to confess. “I’m sorry. What did you ask me?”
“I didn’t ask you anything. I was telling you about your mother’s faint. And was about to tell you of my delightful tea with Roderick.”
Sam came to attention. “Dear God, Yancey. Tea with Roderick? This won’t do at all. I had no idea he and Mother were even stirring. Mrs. Edgars told me they were still abed, or I never would have left.”
“She was wrong.”
“Indeed. Forgive my language, Yancey, but damn. I am so sorry.”
His speech appeared to mollify her. “Apology accepted. You couldn’t know what was occurring. At any rate, I took matters in hand and proceeded on course.”
Sam smiled. “No doubt, very capably.” He watched her duck her chin in acceptance of his compliment. What an exciting woman she was. Very stirring. Standing there with her so close, he felt the pull of her magnetism, the heat of her femininity. Sam cleared his throat, struggling to stay on the subject. “Did you ever tell me why my mother fainted?”
Yancey startled him by smacking his arm—hard—and planting her hands at her waist. “Is it not obvious? Could it have had something to do with how surprised she was, Sam, at the idea that she could have tea with a dead woman?”
Sam’s stomach clenched. “Blast it all! You had to tell her who you were, didn’t you? Damn.” Sam put a hand to his forehead and rubbed tiredly. “Forgive me again, Yancey. You’ve had much to deal with alone, I know. I can only thank God for your help and your quick thinking. How was Roderick through all this?”
“Surprised. Not pleased. Suspicious. But he never let on, not openly. Perhaps someone with a less trained eye than mine would not have even noticed that he was anything less than kind and relieved. While he avoided answering any of my questions, he did prove most helpful when your mother fainted.”
There was no reproach in her voice, but her wording made Sam wince. He should have been there. Damn that Mrs. Edgars! “Helpful? Roderick? I find that hard to believe. In the past, my cousin has proven himself fit only for fertilizer of the rankest sort.”
“And yet your dear cousin scooped your mother up and carried her to her bedroom upstairs…” Yancey paused. Sam felt certain he would not like what she had to say next. She proved him right. “Where, you’ll be glad to know,” she continued, “your insane little nana was hiding under the bed.”
“Dear God. We inhabit a madhouse.”
“I’ve thought so since I arrived. However, to continue. I found out that your nana was under your mother’s bed when she grabbed my ankle as a prank and nearly sent me to the floor in a swoon—”
“Yancey, I’m so sorry—”
“Don’t interrupt. Her Grace Nana’s nurse finally flushed her out. Apparently, she’d been under her own bed for hours—your nana, not Mrs. Convers—only coming out long enough to make her way downstairs in a well-timed foray to steal a crumpet off the tea cart … just before Scotty, who was suddenly struck chatty, wheeled it in to Roderick and me and told us that Mr. Marples had made wee-wee on the floor in the dining room, Sam.”
Sam found himself wincing again, this time because of his insane family’s antics and because of Yancey’s continuing aggravation with him for not being there to help. He wasn’t the least bit fooled by her chirping voice and smiling face. She was angry.
“Then,” she was saying brightly, “your mother woke up to a fluttering of maids and myself and Roderick all clustered around her, et cetera, et cetera, Nana, my ankle, you already know that part. Following all this, then, that dear, dear lady—your mother—had many questions, Sam. Many very specific questions. All of them directed at me, who I will remind you again was operating without your presence and therefore in the dark.”
“The mare had a bad hoof and wouldn’t nurse her foal,” Sam blurted guiltily and unhelpfully.
“I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“It’s better now.”
“Well, thank God.” Yancey spared him a tight grin and held forth with her tale of woes. “At any rate, your mother is very happy to see me, Sam. Though she did wonder—in front of Roderick, mind you—why my hair and my eyes aren’t brown. And why I’m several inches shorter than you told her I was in your many letters to her over the years while you lived in America. What a good son you are to have kept up such a chatty correspondence.”
“I can explain.”
“I’m sure you can. But I’m the Pinkerton here. I should have thought to ask you. Mr. Pinkerton would not be happy. He’d call that slipshod.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“Oh, I’m not,” she remarked cheerfully. “There’s plenty of blame to go around.”
Sam felt suddenly stubborn. “I’ve accepted my part in this.”
“Have you, now? Well, there’s more, Sam. Much more. Your mother—a sweet, sweet woman, by the way—asked me, and I remind you again that all of this was in front of Roderick, about my paintings. She wondered had I brought any examples with me.” Yancey paused … long enough for Sam to realize he was sweating. “I can’t paint, Sam,” she added fatalistically. “Not even a wall, much less a portrait, mind you. And then there’s the piano.” She stared pointedly at him.
Sam knew all too well where this was going. After all, he was the author of all the glowing, detailed letters outlining his wife’s many accomplishments—all of them out-and-out lies—for his mother. He’d done so to spare her the truth of Sarah’s insanity and his burden. But now his kind deed was coming back to haunt him. Still he heard himself, quite stupidly, echo Yancey … “The piano?”
“Yes. The piano. She’d like for me to play it for her this evening. And sing. Apparently you’ve told her that I do that very well.”
Sam felt pained, aggrieved, and so very much in trouble. “I don’t suppose you can play the piano, can you?”
Yancey shook her head. “Not a lick. And I sing even worse. Are you beginning to see my dilemma, Sam?”
“I left out a few details.”
“Yes, you did.”
Sam absently, guiltily, scratched at his head. “And so you feigned this hysteria in order to get to me first, didn’t you?”
Yancey smiled brightly in much the same way one would at a particularly dense child who has finally, at long last and after much instruction, given a correct answer in the schoolroom. “You’re very good at this. My first thought was you deserved to walk right into that hornet’s nest.”
“And your second thought, the one that had you running out here, was?”
“Was that such a course of action is not what you’re paying me for.” She was serious now.
Sam nodded, stared down at his boots, at the bits of manure and hay he could see were stuck to the soles of them, and then glanced up at Yancey. “This isn’t the first time I’ve stepped in it with you today, is it?”
Also staring at his boots, her arms now crossed under her magnificent bosom, she shook her head no. A guilty sigh escaped Sam and brought her attention back to his face. For something to do, he ran a hand through his hair. “You’d like to shoot me about now, wouldn’t you?”
“I would. And if I did, it would be with my newly cleaned gun.” Suddenly warmer than the day could account for, Sam didn’t say a word … not one word. “Sam, how would Scotty know about my gun being under my pillow?”
“I have no idea. He doesn’t snoop. Perhaps Nana found it and told him.”
She nodded, and Sam stared into her brightly sparkling green eyes and thought how beautiful she was. He knew better than to tell her that right now, though. And, fully realizing the depth and the breadth of the trouble he was in with Yancey, Sam looked longingly over his shoulder, yearning for the relative quiet and masculine environs of the horse barn. That he understood. He also understood, now returning his gaze to her face, that she was apparently at the end of her tirade and was awaiting comment from him, all while giving him the cold shoulder and staring pointedly off into the distance.
Watching her, Sam was unexpectedly struck anew at how petite she was and how exquisitely fragile, like a piece of fine porcelain. He could only stare at her. No doubt, she fancied herself invincible. Certainly she had a wonderful wit and intellect, both of which stood her in good stead, along with her years of experience with the Pinkertons. But if he had his way, Sam knew he would suit her up in the heaviest armor he could find and then stand guard over her day and night. Anything to keep her safe and from rushing headlong into danger.
Momentarily overcome with the depth of his feelings for her, and equally mystified that he’d come to care so quickly, he stared at his dirty boots and tried to accept several truths. He didn’t have the right—or her permission—to protect her, to keep her safe and happy, or to love her, much less to have her in his life beyond the foreseeable future. Neither had she expressed any desire to remain with him. Indeed, her life was in America and her heart lay in her work. And he and his problems were merely her present case for her employer.
“Sam? What’s wrong?”
He met her gaze and saw that she frowned. Concern for him shone in her eyes—concern of the woman for the man, and not the detective for the employer. Obviously he’d revealed, through his expression, something of his state of mind.
Unexpectedly, anger welled up inside Sam. He wanted her and hated that he did. Wanting a woman like her could only lead to more hurt. She was like the wind and would not be tamed. Sam wanted to turn away from her and tell her to leave. He hated how his damned heart flopped around in his chest whenever she was near, and how she filled his every waking thought. He opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it. He firmed his lips together and shook his head.
“Sam? You can tell me.”
He sent her a sidelong glance, considering her and considering the foolhardiness of what he was about to say. Then he decided to hell with it, might as well say it. “All right, Yancey, I’ll tell you,” he said at long last. “You’re going to leave one day soon, aren’t you?”
She blinked, appearing surprised by his question. “You know I am. When I’m done here.”
“Exactly. I and my problems are just another case for you.” When she didn’t rush to gainsay him, to tell him that he was different, that she felt more for him than that, disappointment and resignation fought to be first to close Sam’s throat. He swallowed the hurtful lump lodged there and continued. “So you’ll go back to America and take up your life where it left off, correct?”
Her expression could only be called wary. She raised her chin as if to signal she was prepared to defend herself. “What choice do I have?”
What choice, indeed? He could offer her several, but believed she wouldn’t be receptive to any of them. He recalled all too well everything she’d said earlier following that heated and hungry kiss they’d shared.
“I would go with you, if I could,” Sam said quietly, obliquely, offering her an opportunity to say she too wished he could go and that maybe together they could find a way.
“But you can’t.”
Sam’s heart felt pinched at her rejection. He had only pride left to him. “I agree. My life and my responsibilities are here. You’ve seen them. They are formidable. There is no more America for me.”
She cocked her chin at a questioning, considering angle. “This is a mighty strange conversation we’re having, Sam.”
“Yes, it is. But these words need to be spoken.”
Yancey met that observation with a frown. “Why do they?”
“Because I’d never forgive myself for letting you go without at least having said a portion of what I feel. Yancey, I want you to know that I—”
“Don’t, Sam. Please.” She squeezed her eyes shut and held up a cautioning hand. “What you’re about to say cannot make either one of us happy.”
“Happy?” His angry word had her opening her eyes. “I’m not certain I know how that feels, Yancey. Do you? Have you ever experienced ‘happy’?”
She looked at him as if she hated him for putting her through this, for making her think about such things. “Just say what you have to say, Sam.”
“All right. Before you go, before I’ll never see you again, Yancey, I’d like to make love to you.”
She drew back in shock, her eyes widened and her mouth agape.
He held out a hand to forestall her stalking away, should she be thinking to do so. “Forgive me for being so forward. I don’t believe there is another woman in the whole of England I could or would say such a thing to, Yancey. But you’re not other women, and I don’t have the luxury of time to woo you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why, you pompous, overbearing ass.” Now she shook an accusing finger at him. “Make no mistake, sir, while I am no untried miss, neither am I a fast woman. Do you think I’ll jump into your bed simply because you desire it … Your Grace?”
Sam leaned in toward her. “No, I do not. But I think you will because you desire it, too. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me, after that kiss in the drawing room, that I’m wrong, Yancey.”
She said nothing, but her throat worked, as did a muscle in her jaw. Her eyes blazed with high emotion … and with the truth. He’d hit a nerve, and she hated him for that. Still, Sam had all he could do not to grab her to him passionately and have her right here on this hill. But instead he steeled himself, body and soul, and made the most impassioned speech of his life.
“Yancey, I meant no disrespect to you. I spoke my desires badly. What I mean is you are the only woman in all of England I would risk saying such a thing to. And that’s because you are also the only woman in all of England or even the world about whom I care a fig. I want you. I desire you. And yes, I feel so much more for you than I have a right to feel. What I don’t have are months upon months to gently seek your affections. And if I can’t have you for always, then I want you while you’re here. I know you can’t give me more than that, but I’ll take that, Yancey. If it’s only days or weeks, I’ll take that. I want that. And if you do, too, then I shall be, for the first time in my life, the happiest of men.”
Clearly, he’d surprised her with his declaration. She couldn’t seem to meet his sincere gaze. She lowered her own and toed her satin slipper through the dirt. “I don’t know what to say.”
The cold sweep of dread shot through Sam. “You don’t have to say anything, Yancey.”
She looked up at him. Sam’s heart seemed to catch in his throat. He thought he detected the shine of tears in her eyes. Then she smiled at him. “I’ve never had any of those pretty things said to me before in my life, Sam Treyhorne.”
Though she didn’t say how she felt about having now heard them, she was smiling. Sam dared a grin of his own and also dared to hope, though his heart still thumped dully and felt too heavy for his chest. “Do I at least get high marks for a pretty speech, then?”
Looking suddenly shy, and with her dark auburn hair seeming to absorb and reflect the day’s waning sunlight, she nodded. “You do.”
Had she said yes or not? Sam felt he stood not on a hill but at the crumbling edge of a cliff that overlooked a deep and dark ravine. Not really knowing how to wring an answer out of her, he planted his hands at his waist and nodded over nothing. “Good. Good. That’s good to know. High marks.”
She chuckled at his expense. “Glad to hear you’re so pleased.”
He had to know. Yes or no. He sent her the most direct and sincere expression he could muster. “It’s all I’ll ever ask of you, Yancey. I swear it.”
“I believe you, Sam,” she said quietly, looking down and then away. “But you won’t try to keep me here … afterward, will you? Because I can’t stay, and I can’t be who you want me to be.”
“I know.” His heart leaped with joy and thudded with resignation, all at the same time. What had he expected, he asked himself—for her to say she loved him and would stay forever? Ridiculous. But wanting now to be gentle with her, Sam asked, “Is it too much, Yancey, what I’ve asked of you?”
She shook her head no and met his eyes. “No. It’s not too much. As long as we both know it’s not forever.”
Sam nodded and then stood quietly with her, wanting her, not knowing how to reach out to her, or even how to touch her at this moment. He just stood there on the side of a hill in the English countryside while the sun slipped stealthily down the unsuspecting sky. Sam thought about making love to Yancey. He could see it in his mind … their bodies intertwined, the feel of her under him, the way her satiny soft skin felt, the sounds she might make.
He’d said he would let her go. But he didn’t see how that would be possible, not after he came to know her in such an intimate way. He simply couldn’t get his mind to wrap around the idea of a life spent with her existing only in his memories of her. That was no life at all.
After a bit, Yancey turned to him. “We still have to do something about Roderick and your mother, Sam.”
How very practical of her. Here he was on fire for her, and here she was concerned about her job. Of course, that was only as it should be, given that her occupation placed her squarely in danger. “Yes, we do.”
Yancey smiled at him. “Go get your coat, Sam. Then we’ll go inside and face the music together.”
Just to lighten the mood and their burden, Sam teased, “Face the music? I thought you said you can’t play the piano.”
She chuckled. “Shut up, Sam.”