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Her old home. This was her home now. But the word did not seem apt.
He led her through a door that put them at the end of one of the legs of Poldene’s H shape. They were at the back of the building. A terrace with a low stone railing ran across the central portion. From there, a wave of flowers and shrubs spread out like a glorious multicolored carpet. Blooms of blue and yellow and red and white dotted the greenery. Sarah could hear the sea off to the right but couldn’t see it from here.
“Come,” said Kenver again, extending a hand.
They walked together along a path with flowers bending over it like courtiers bowing to passersby. The August air was so heavy with sweet scents that it was dizzying.
A thumping rhythm announced the arrival of the three deerhounds, bounding along, tongues hanging out. They came to dance around Kenver and Sarah, making a game of eeling under the leaning stems that lined the way.
“Fingal, Ranger, Tess,” called Kenver. And he began to romp with them, running and jumping, holding a hand high to urge them on, stopping suddenly to make them twist past him. Grinning, he beckoned.
Sarah was much more likely to be curled up with a book than racing through a warm garden. But she couldn’t resist. She skipped along behind and then among them. The dogs seemed delighted. They fawned on her. Tess licked her hand. They crouched and wiggled their haunches, inviting her to join their revels. And so she did, cavorting as she hadn’t since she was much younger.
When the path opened out into an oval of lawn, they raced around it. Fingal, the eldest, with a touch of gray in his muzzle, led the way. The two younger dogs seemed to take their cues from him, deferring to his age. So while Ranger and Tess tumbled over each other with mock growls, they did not pounce on Fingal. If dogs loved a place, Sarah thought, it couldn’t be all bad.
Laughing, Kenver caught her by the waist and whirled her round and round. When he set her down again, he bent to claim a kiss that seared through Sarah, leaving her weak in the knees. She clung to him, senses reeling, intoxicated by the garden perfumes, the exuberance of their run, the touch of his hands. He pulled her closer and kissed her again, slowly, lingeringly. Sarah melted in his arms.
He held her, his body tight against her, muttering, “Where can we go?”
The question brought back the realities of their situation. A gauntlet of guardians waited inside the house. Sarah looked over his shoulder at the looming building and saw a face at an upper window, staring down at them. She could only make out a pale oval before the drapery twitched and the watcher was invisible. She stiffened. That gaze had not seemed kindly.
Kenver felt her reaction. “What?” he asked. He had to pull back to look down at her.
His hazel eyes burned into Sarah. This was her wedding day. It should belong to them. “Nothing,” she answered. There was no one to see now.
His hands tightened on her. “It will be all right,” he said. He took her lips in another kiss.
Sarah tried to fall into it as she had before. But the sense of hostile eyes above them was too strong. She couldn’t let go. When Kenver drew away again, a bit puzzled, she said, “Someone may…come along.”
He met her eyes. Sarah braced for irritation or impatience, such as any man might feel in these circumstances. She wouldn’t blame him. She felt some of that herself, beneath the uneasiness. But Kenver put a hand to her cheek, gently caressed, and nodded.
They moved apart, walking on with only clasped hands.
Sarah noticed that while Ranger and Tess were still frolicking over the lawn, Fingal was looking up at the house as if the older dog also had noticed the watcher.
Five
Sarah would gladly have skipped dinner that evening. Briefly, she imagined pleading illness and then sneaking down to the pantry in the middle of the night to assuage her hunger. But that was ridiculous, and cowardly as well. She would not be a coward. Also, she did not know where the pantrywas.
“I thought this would be suitable,” said Cranston, holding up the gown she’d chosen for Sarah to wear for the meal. It was an ancient green muslin Sarah had brought along for gardening or other such chores she might find here. A dreadful choice. Sarah would have thought it stupid if she hadn’t been certain Cranston wanted her to look like a country dowdy on her first evening at Poldene. If she’d had any doubt that Cranston was the countess’s creature, it withered away in that moment.
“I’d prefer to wear the pink with the lace trim,” said Sarah, naming one of her favorite dresses from her London season. She knew it looked well on her.
Cranston’s lip curled at this criticism of her taste. Sarah ignored her.
Disputes over jewelry and the arrangement of her hair followed. They were exhausting and left Sarah with a hovering sense of failure even when she prevailed. Cranston’s manner convinced her that the elder Pendrennons would disapprove of anything she wore, no matter how fashionable.
“You look splendid,” said Kenver when she emerged from her bedchamber. He was waiting for her in the hall as she had made him promise to do.
“Thank you.” Sarah was aware of her limitations. She might look pleasant or even rather pretty; she did not rise to splendid. Especially now when her face must show the strain of the last half hour.
“Is something wrong?”
The door was closed behind her. Sarah spoke quietly so as not to be overheard. “Is Cranston the only… That is, you had mentioned another attendant. I would prefer that.” Anyone else would be better, Sarah decided. Or no one. But she knew the latter choice would rouse an argument, and she would be despised for suggesting it.
“I did speak to Mama,” Kenver said. “She thought Cranston was better suited to…show you how things are done at Poldene.”
Aware of his uneasy expression, Sarah bowed her head. He didn’t need her complaints. They both knew that Cranston was an adversary. She would just have to find some way of dealing with her.
