AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Clearly top of the trees,” said Kenver.
“Oh yes.”
“Mama was…” He wasn’t certain how to finish that sentence.
“Astounded to find that I was friends with a duchess?”
“Well.” He couldn’t deny it.
“I suppose this will make things with her all the harder.”
“Or she might come to appreciate you. As I do.”
“You’ve scarcely had the opportunity,” Sarah answered in an acid tone he hadn’t heard from her before. Her expression was strangely set too. The phrase “cat among the pigeons” floated into Kenver’s consciousness. But who was the cat?
Another carriage, laden with luggage, came down the drive. Kenver stepped forward to direct the driver, and the superior valet and dresser inside, around to the stables.
Sarah was not surprised by the knock on her door in the hour before dinner, nor to find Cecelia awaiting entry when she opened it. She had made sure to be ready well before time and send Cranston on her way. “Oh good, you’re alone,” Cecelia said. She walked in, surveying the room. “Not a mean, dusty garret then,” she added. “Only rather cramped.”
There was no need to ask how Cecelia had found her in a strange house, Sarah thought. She just did such things. As she clearly had understood the attitude of Kenver’s mother without being told. “And directly across from my mother-in-law,” Sarah said dryly.
Cecelia laughed.
It was a lovely, musical sound. And Cecelia was a bright, assured presence in the room. She lightened the whole atmosphere of the place. “I’ve never been more glad to see someone in my life,” Sarah told her.
“Yes, but, Sarah, what are you doing here? And married without a word to anyone? I had letters not two days ago. Harriet and Charlotte said nothing about this.”
“I haven’t had time to write. It was rather sudden.”
Cecelia raised her golden brows and waited.
“Not time,” Sarah admitted. “Courage.” She poured out the whole story—Tintagel, cave, whispers, Kenver’s gallant offer.
“My goodness, what an adventure.”
Sarah couldn’t help a hollow laugh. “I so often wished for adventures. It turns out they are quite uncomfortable. And then they go on and on. I was thinking about rescue last night.”
“And what would rescue be, Sarah?” Cecelia’s look was searching. “Are you sorry to have married?”
“No. Yes. Not Kenver, although we… It’s his parents.”
Cecelia nodded.
“I didn’t know until I came here how angry they were about the match. We’d had no time to get acquainted.” Sarah broke off. That had sounded daft. Of course they hadn’t.
The duchess considered. “Arranged marriages can work. I have seen it.”
“When the people arranging them try to be certain they go well?”
She acknowledged this with a nod.
“Will you help me, Cecelia?”
“Of course. When I know what you would wish me to do.”
“Make Kenver’s parents like me?”
“I’m not certain…”
