Page 31

He nodded slowly. Christopher was glad she wished to include them, but it was very nice to have Sarah all to himself today.

Especially when she seemed so approachable.

Her hair was wet and messy. Her bathing gown was modest but by no means fashionable.

She looked as if she could have been a country girl.

The sort of woman that a canal man would court and kiss and marry.

“I should like that,” he said.

She gave another gurgle of laughter. “And perhaps we shall come without them sometimes too. We are married, after all.”

His face warmed as he remembered their sweet embraces. He gazed down into Sarah’s lovely face, to her pink lips tinged with a bit of blue from the cold. How he longed to warm them again for her. “Indeed we are.”

Reaching up a hand, she caressed the side of his face, his beard, and then his chin. “I am glad you didn’t listen to me and shave off your scruff. You look very handsome with it.”

“Even if it tickles?”

Giggling, she nodded.

His heart leaped in his chest. His sister Margaret had not been telling a falsehood when she’d said that Sarah found him attractive.

Christopher saw his wife’s eyes drop to his lips.

She traced his mouth with a solitary finger, and his entire body shuddered.

Her soft finger lingered on the line of his scar.

“Was there an accident while you were working?” she asked.

Christopher felt a lie on the tip of his tongue.

He could easily blame a shovel, a scythe, or any other tool for the scar.

Sarah knew so little about laborers that she would never know the truth.

He opened his mouth and then closed it. But he could not lie, even if it meant that she would no longer find him handsome.

He wanted only truth between himself and Sarah.

Wrapping his hand around her finger, he lifted it to the top of his scar, underneath his nose, and ran it down to the end of the white line on his upper lip.

“I was born with this—with a deformity. When I was a baby, a surgeon put in sutures to connect the two sides of my face together underneath my nose.”

He let go of her hand, ready for her to shrink away from him in disgust. Instead Sarah traced the scar once more, her finger gently brushing the hair of his beard. “How painful that must have been. Does it hurt you at all now?”

Christopher shook his head, his scarred lips unable to make words.

Sarah leaned forward and brushed her mouth against the scar. His breath caught, and his heart pounded inside his chest.

“We all have scars, Christopher,” she said softly, leaning closer to him. “Not all of them are on our skin for everyone to see. And your scar is nothing to be ashamed of.”

He exhaled, then inhaled sharply and asked, “What are your scars?”

She turned her head away from him, and Christopher thought that perhaps he had been too direct. That she would not answer such a personal question. He watched her take a deep breath and then release it.

“The night my mother disappeared—it was my fault,” she whispered.

“What do you mean?”

Sarah brought her hands to her face and covered her eyes, as if willing herself not to see this painful memory again.

“My mother had learned that Papa had spent my dowry on his gaming debts and that I would have nothing to offer a suitor in the coming Season. She was angrier than I had ever seen her. I don’t remember her ever arguing with my father.

She never raised her voice before that night.

She told him she hated him and that she would never forgive him for ruining my chances to make a good match. ”

She took another deep breath, and Christopher waited for her to finish her story, even though he already knew the tragic ending. She moved her hands from her eyes to her slender neck.

“My father was obsessed with Mama. He begged and pleaded for her to understand, but she said she never wished to look at him again. Not that I was eavesdropping. Their argument was in the entry hall, for every person in the house to hear. Foolishly, I came down the stairs to assure her that I didn’t mind the loss of a dowry—which, of course, was not true.

But I would have said anything to make her happy.

She touched my face and said that she was going for a ride and that she would be back soon.

My father tried to order two grooms to accompany her, like he always did, but my mother refused.

She said she needed to be alone. I watched her ride off into the dusk and she never came back.

All these years, I have known that it was my fault.

If it hadn’t been for my dowry, my mother never would have left. ”

Christopher brushed a wet curl from Sarah’s face and gently caressed her forehead. “You didn’t waste the dowry, Sarah. Your father did. If anyone is to blame for your mother’s disappearance, it is him. You did nothing wrong.”

“I-I didn’t try to stop her. I didn’t do anything.”

He brushed a kiss on her brow. “I learned when my mother and my siblings died that sometimes there is nothing you can do.”

Sarah shook her head jerkily. “No, my father rode out and looked for her from dawn until dusk for weeks. And I could not even take a step out of the house.”

Christopher eased his arm underneath Sarah’s neck and pulled her against him. “Dove, you are blameless. Your mother said she would be back, and what could be more natural than for you to wait for her? I am sorry you felt unable to leave the house, but that is no reason for shame.”

His wife nuzzled her face into his shoulder. “I wish—I wish I would have done more. Sooner. I was so certain she would return. She never said goodbye to me.”

He couldn’t resist dropping another kiss into her hair. “I never got to say goodbye to my mother either. She died, and I had been sent away from home to work three years before that.”

Sarah leaned back against his arm. “You must have been very young. Twelve? Thirteen?”

“Eleven.”

“You were still a child.”

Christopher brought his free hand to his scar. “But I was an imperfect child, and my father bought a new house in London and wished to join Society. He did not want me to ruin it for the rest of them.”

Sarah grabbed his hand from his beard and squeezed it tightly. “Your father was an idiot.”

A surprised laugh escaped Christopher’s chest. It was the last thing he’d expected her to say, and yet somehow it was healing.

Papa had been an idiot. Christopher had been an exemplary son, and it wasn’t his fault that his father hadn’t seen it.

Besides, he didn’t need Papa’s approval anymore—he had Sarah’s.

And her opinion meant everything to him. “And so is yours.”

She grinned, nodding her head in approval. “The greatest of idiots.”

“We won’t invite him to go swimming with us.”

A tear slipped from one eye, but she was smiling. “Not that he would come. Papa has cut off all contact with me.”

“Maybe it is a good thing.”

She blinked. Her lashes were wet again.

“If he were to come to the celebration of our wedding, we might not have the space for him at Manderfield Hall,” Christopher said in a straight voice. “Your Aunt Beatrice does have twelve children, after all. Three of whom are married.”

Sarah gave a sudden chortle and rubbed her face into his sleeve. “I knew you were a good man, but I had no idea you were such a funny one!”

Christopher gently caressed the side of her face. “We are only beginning to get to know each other.”

She took his wrist and kissed the palm of his hand. “Luckily, we have a lifetime to learn every detail.”