“This is a marriage of convenience, Mary. Love has nothing to do with it.” Deborah spoke firmly.
“He looks just like a storybook hero,” said Mary defiantly. “And he squeezed your hand. I saw it!”
Sarah dropped the cloth back into the water, picking up the towel to dry her face and neck. “He knew that I was happy-sad to be home. He was trying to comfort me, I think,” she admitted, surprised by the evident truth of that. Hewasconsiderate of her feelings in many ways.Now that he has what he wants...
“Are you sure you can go through with it?” asked Deborah, rising and seizing her arms to scan her face.
“Oh, yes,” said Sarah calmly. “His family have been very nice to me. I shall manage quite well once I become accustomed, Idaresay.” She swallowed the lump in her throat, but it didn’t stem the tears that spilled over, and Deborah folded her in her arms.
“Don’t do it if it’s going to make you miserable, Sesi!” she said fiercely.
“No, it isn’t that. I shall just miss you all so much, not living here anymore!” Sarah gulped on a sob and tried to wipe her eyes as her sisters crowded round her and Mary offered her a handkerchief.
*
Supper was aboisterous affair, which Robert surmised was normal for the Watsons. Lady Holbrook seemed unperturbed. As the vicar’s cousin, she was presumably used to it. The small fry were vastly entertaining, but most of his attention was on Sarah, who was seated beside him.
The redness of her eyes told him she had been crying, and he was anxious as to the reason.Was she thinking of crying off in spite of all? Or was it an excess of sensibility at being home again?He must contrive to get her alone and seek to comfort and reassure her. The thought of her distress made his chest ache.
Following supper, however, he was frustrated by Sarah disappearing with her father.Will she tell him she doesn’t want to proceed with the wedding?
*
Papa showed herinto his study and waved her to the couch. She sank down on it and he joined her, taking her hands.
“Now, Sesi, I want the truth. Are you happy? Because you don’t look it,” he said, fixing her with his familiar stare, bothkind and piercing. It was too much, and despite her resolve to tell him everything was fine, she burst into tears.
“Oh, my darling girl.” He drew her close and comforted her. “There, there, sweetheart, you don’t have to do anything you don’t wish to. You know that, don’t you?”
“I’ve missed you so, Papa!” she sobbed into his shoulder. “And I’ve been so wicked!”
“Now that I don’t believe,” he said, rubbing her back as if she were five and had scraped a knee. He fumbled in a pocket and produced a handkerchief for her as she sniffed and tried to wipe her eyes.
“It’s true!” she bawled into the handkerchief.
“Well, I’m not a Catholic priest, but I’ll listen to your litany of sins if you wish to unburden yourself, my dear.”
She sniffed, wiping her face, and blew her nose. “I have been so angry, Papa, and suspicious and unforgiving. And I’ve told lies!” she added conscientiously.
“I see. Anything else?”
“Yes, Papa,” she whispered.
He waited, and she gathered her courage and, blushing furiously, her eyes on her lap, said, “I’ve been tempted by desire.”
“Well, let us take each of those one at a time, shall we?” he said, letting go of one of her hands and tilting her chin up so she would look at him. She blinked wetly at him and nodded, sniffing.
“Firstly, what have you been angry about?”
“I was angry with Daphne and the duke. I thought he had done something to deceive me, but I’ve since learned it probably wasn’t the case. I’d rather not reveal what Daphne did, but it made me angry, and I wasn’t able to forgive her for days. In fact, I still haven’t completely.”
“I see. Well, anger is a normal emotional reaction to being wronged by others. It is not wrong to feel anger, child. It’s what you do when you’re angry that makes the sin. And to continue to nurse anger and unforgiveness indefinitely often hurts the angry person more greatly than the person it’s directed at.”
She swallowed and nodded, wiping her eyes which were still leaking. “This is why I’ve missed you, Papa—your wisdom. You always set me straight.”
“Very well, then let us take the next thing—lying. What have you lied about and to whom and, more importantly, why?”
“I led the duke to think I may have a partiality for another when I do not, because”—she looked down at this and whispered, because she felt so truly ashamed of this one—“I wanted to make him jealous just a little.”
