Page 17

Stay, Sir, I must have a word with you in private.

Sarah had not forgotten Harry Barbary’s request, though after Mrs. Markham Dere’s interfering remarks, she was even less desirous of seeking Mr. Langworthy out.

The gentlemen soon emerged from the dining room to join them, and having offered to help with the tea, it fell to her to carry everyone his cup.

Dr. Rearden accepted his with a gracious nod which set his whiskers waving, but Sarah only smiled at the top of his waistcoat, determined not to show him anything which could be construed as favor.

With Mr. Langworthy she was even more remote, holding the cup a good foot away and fixing her eyes on the plastered tracery ornamenting the wall behind him. “Tea?”

No answer came.

Edging an inch nearer, she said a hair more loudly, “Tea?”

Nothing.

Frances was playing a lively march, but it was impossible he could not have heard her. And even if he had not, what would she be doing, holding a full teacup to the empty air?

“I said, Tea, Mr. Langworthy?” she hissed.

He gave an exaggerated start, which surprised her into looking at him directly.

“Oh, pardon me, Mrs. Sebastian,” he said, taking the cup from her. “I thought you were addressing the wall sconce.”

“Wall sconce—fiddlestick,” she muttered, her eyes dropping again. “You were deliberately ignoring me.”

“In my defense, how could I know you were talking to me, when you have been determined not to see me this evening,” he explained dolefully.

Her reply was quick. “You did promise me when we parted that I would likely never see you again. Though that promise was soon broken. More milk or sugar?”

He took a tentative sip. “No, this is perfect. A little bitterness can be stimulating, you know.”

If his words had a double meaning, she refused to acknowledge it.

But she could not stand there forever, not with Mrs. Dere’s gaze drifting their way. With a grimace, she gave in. “So—I must ask: why are you still here, Mr. Langworthy, after what you said to me about going?”

“Dear me. Did you not hear me this evening either? If you had, you would have known our hostess thoroughly canvassed that subject. Shall I rehearse my reasons again for you?”

Sarah threw him another astonished glance. “I thought your answer to her a sportive one. You mean to say you were not teasing her when you said you stay in Iffley to avoid ‘unemployment, shiftlessness, vagrancy and dread poverty’?”

“Don’t forget ‘and such like,’” he reminded her. He took another slow sip of his tea. “You were listening, then.”

“With only eight of us at table, I could not help but hear.”

“Then did you not think those excuses persuasive enough?”

Twitching, she took a step away from him before halting again. “Mr. Langworthy, if you were indeed speaking bald truths, I—I marvel at your honesty.”

A sigh escaped him. “There are two ways to take such a statement. One: you marvel that I should be so honest as to ‘tear off reserve and bare my swelling heart’ to people I have just met. Or, two: you find truthfulness unlikely in me and therefore marvel at it.”

Her lips parted to say the polite thing, only to hesitate before any words emerged.

Why should she not say what she really thought?

He might mock and trifle if he pleased; it should make no difference to her.

It was as if their conversations took place in a world apart, where the usual feints and dodges of courtesy could be dispensed with.

Raising her eyes again, she was unsettled to find his own locked on her, alert and penetrating.

Like a man who lights a fuse and waits for the explosion!

And indeed, some frisson rippled through her, but she waited for it to pass before saying frankly, “I suppose I meant a little of both, sir. But if you truly are so poor as you told Mrs. Dere, I ought to return your five shillings, for you have the greater need.”

At this he laughed aloud, causing heads to turn, and Sarah felt her color rise.

But he read her resentment, and his rescue of the situation came at once.

“Yes, please, Mrs. Sebastian,” he said in a voice for those nearby to hear, “I did drink that tea quick as lightning. It’s the best I’ve had in ages. If I could trouble you for more…?”

“You had much to say to Mr. Langworthy,” observed Mrs. Dere when Sarah returned with the cup.

“Just small talk,” she answered. She bit the inside of her cheek. Why—she was becoming a frequent liar! Not to Mr. Langworthy, to be sure—with him truths seemed to burst from her unchecked—but to others.

Mrs. Dere’s brows lifted eloquently, but she refilled the cup without another word, and Sarah retraced her steps across the drawing room.

She would make Harry Barbary’s request, but she would do it with all speed.

No more being drawn in by the man. No more unintended confidences. Keep to the point, my girl.

“Your fresh cup, Mr. Langworthy.”

“If I might return to our topic, Mrs. Sebastian,” he said, lifting the cup but pausing before it reached his lips, “I rejoice to tell you that, though it was fear of unemployment, shiftlessness, et cetera et cetera which impelled me to remain in Iffley (as I told Mrs. Markham Dere and reiterated to you), my decision has paid off handsomely.”

“Yes. Dr. Rearden has given you both a task and a roof over your head,” she agreed quickly, anxious to introduce her own item, “and those two boons will, in turn, allow you to stretch your half pay to the utmost. I see.”

“So you do. Most perspicacious of you, madam—”

“And therefore you can well spare the five shillings you gave me,” she interrupted again. “Never mind them, then.”

“If you insist. Thank you. But it gets better, even.”

That checked her. “How so, sir?”

“After you ladies left us in the dining room, Lord Dere—er—availed himself of the resulting… slackening of supervision.”

He did not need to glance toward Mrs. Dere for Sarah to catch his meaning, and though in the privacy of Iffley Cottage the Barstows openly decried that lady’s domination of the poor baron, Sarah felt it was not the place of a newcomer to mark such things, much less to comment on them.

Seeing her stiffen and her chin lift, a smile tugged at his mouth, but he repressed it and went on.

“Having already offered the use of the schoolroom, Lord Dere insisted on knowing how we were taught navigation at sea. Then nothing would convince him it could possibly be done without a sextant and the latest nautical almanac. And then, added to that, nothing would convince him it could be taught if the—master—was not given a fee for his services.”

And then she could not help staring at him. “How—how you do manage to fall on your feet, Mr. Langworthy!”

“I have, haven’t I?” he asked with boyish pleasure, reminding Sarah of the cat that got the canary.

He rocked on his heels a moment, his lips pursing as if he might begin to whistle, but thankfully he did not.

After a moment he said, “That is, things have turned out well for me, apart from the one, crushing blow.”

Her brow furrowed. “What crushing bl—?”

She broke off suddenly, flushing. Did he mean the girl who had jilted him? He must, because surely, surely he wasn’t referring to his recent preposterous proposal to her —

But he was.

Because he placed a hand to his breast and whispered like an actor in a melodrama, “What devastates me, leaves her untouched! ‘What crushing blow?’ she asks! I refer to your devastating refusal. Unless you’ve changed your mind, Mrs. Sebastian?”

Sarah’s response, whatever it might have been, was drowned by the final chords of Frances’ piece, played with a flourish, and the subsequent applause of the gathering.

Later she would be glad of it, though it meant she still had not fulfilled her word to Harry Barbary, for she would surely have blurted something regrettable in the heat of provocation.

As it was, she turned on her heel and walked away, resuming her seat beside Mrs. Dere. And when that lady rose to take Frances’ place at the instrument shortly afterward, Sarah joined her mother-in-law and Lord Dere, who were discussing boys’ education in general.

Only hours later, as she lay in her tiny chamber, did she groan and give herself over to uncomfortable meditations. For the first time she was almost sorry to have a bed all to herself, for it would have been welcome to confide in Adela or Jane under cover of darkness.

How could she let that man nettle her?

Was it not obvious—had it not indeed been glaringly obvious from their first meeting that Mr. Horace Langworthy had a streak of mischief in him? One so wide it might be more accurate to say it characterized him from end to end?

“It did not begin with our first meeting,” she amended aloud. “I knew it before. From Sebastian’s letters. Because Sebastian was so often led in his train.”

Therefore, if she had always and ever known this fact about Mr. Langworthy, why did she nevertheless allow him to surprise her? To get in his little quips and scoffs? To let him keep her continually at a disadvantage?

And to think he was only here—lodged in the Iffley rectory like a burr in sheep’s wool—because Sebastian had sent him!

But if Mr. Langworthy was mischievous, it was equally true that he boasted a certain charm.

Whatever misgivings Mrs. Markham Dere or Sarah herself might still harbor, they seemed to be the only ones in doubt.

The new curate liked him enough to invite him to share his home.

The boys liked him enough to caper with delight when told they might learn from him.

Lord Dere liked him enough not only to outfit him for teaching, but to pay him a wage to do so.

Mrs. Barstow liked him enough to press him to come to Iffley Cottage whenever he liked.

And Harry Barbary—Harry liked even the rumors of him enough to beg for an introduction.