Page 69 of Lady of Charade
“However did you find me?”
He laughed then. “Dumb luck, for the most part,” he said, "As well as an encounter with Lady Alexander.” She bit her lip at his words, but then he explained the situation and the fact that Lady Alexander had, actually, pointed him in the right direction, and she softened somewhat.
“Oh, David, I have so much to tell you,” she said, but David held up a finger.
“And I you,” he said. “But first, and most importantly — I spoke with Torrington.”
“Oh no,” she said, not wanting to hear another word, but David forged ahead.
“He had no idea that he had a daughter, Sarah. He loved your mother and was devastated when she left. What the Countess told you — that was her own maliciousness. Torrington has no ill will toward you, and, in fact, wants to meet his daughter, the daughter of the woman he loved.”
“You cannot be serious,” she said, stunned.
“I absolutely am.”
“I suppose,” she said slowly, “I have already agreed to return with you, so you have no other reason to convince me of such.”
“And I wouldn’t lie to you, I promise you that,” he said, looking around him now, noting that the crowd had finally drifted away, leaving them alone, and he took her hand to lead her over to the railing.
“Are you cold?” he asked, and she shook her head.
“Not in the least.”
“Very good, as I have nothing to offer you to keep you warm,” he said, laughing, then sobered for a moment. “I wonder whatever my poor carriage driver shall do. Return home, I suppose?”
She looked at him incredulously. “You had no idea you were boarding a ship, then, did you?”
“No,” he shook his head. “I boarded the ship just in time, and your captain over here,” he pointed his thumb behind them. “Refused to allow me on without passage — a grossly inflated passage, I’ll add.”
“Oh, David,” she said, covering the laughter about to emerge. “I am sorry to hear it.”
He shrugged. “It was worth it. So, before we get any further, we should probably decide — where are we off to?”
Sarah looked west into the distance, where her former home had awaited.
“I thought I wanted to return home, back to America,” she said, then turned her face back toward him. “But the truth is, I wasn’t running toward home, I was runningfromhere. I thought that you had betrayed me with Lady Georgina. I thought Lord Torrington had betrayed me by turning me away, just as he had my mother. And I thought that Lady Alexander had betrayed me, pretending to be close to me just so that my aunt could use me.”
“What?”
“I told you, there is lots to explain,” she said with a hand on his arm. “But I was wrong. About all of it. Yes, of course, there are the Countesses of Torringtons in the world, and women like my aunt, but there are also good people here, truly good people — I have you, and I have three women who will be there for me no matter what is to come. I think, David… I think I would like to stay. But not in London. Outside the city, if we can?”
“Wherever you’d like, my lady,” he said with a mock bow, and she swatted him.
“I am far from a lady.”
“Yet you are the best woman I have ever known.”
She stood on her tiptoes then, reaching up to him, and he bent to meet her.
“So… what are the berths like?” he asked, and she bit her lip, wanting to laugh at him.
“They are fairly small — and not at all private,” she said. “Luckily for you, Plymouth is not far.”
Suddenly he looked rather concerned. “Where we will have to book a return ticket… and yet I’m afraid I am somewhat short on funds now.”
“I hadn’t yet paid for my ticket back to America,” she reassured him. “It will be enough to cover our passage home.”
“I cannot allow you to pay for us.”
