“So you got no job and no place to stay once you get to the city?”
She hugged Stowe close to her side, trying not to be afraid. “No,” she answered.
“You know,” Petrosky said after a while, “I was thinkin’ I’d stay with a cousin just outside the city tonight. Mama’s brother’s youngest. First groom, he is, in the Carrington stables. You heard of the Carringtons?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Rich people. Family been here a hundred years, at least. They’re rich people who like horses and horse racin’, which is big in these parts. Got them a big stable. Always lookin’ for a strong, healthy lad to shovel stalls.” He moved the reins back and forth in his hands, then leaned back. “Yer a bit on the skinny side but ya look like ya could muck a stable or two. Ya afraid of hard work, boy?”
At the mention of stables, Sapphire was immediately captivated. It was something she’d missed tremendously since she’d come to Boston. Mrs. Dedrick had kept her so busy with household chores that she’d barely even had time to steal a moment to walk through Blake’s stables.
Petrosky eyed her. “You want me to ask my cousin Red if he could use another lad for the winter?”
The opportunity would give her a place to stay for the winter while she saved money for passage back to London. The only problem Sapphire could immediately foresee was that she would have to continue to be Sam; no one would hire a woman to work in a stable, and certainly not a rich man’s racing stable. She had apparently been convincing enough as a young man with Petrosky, but, as he’d admitted, his eyesight was poor. Could she fool this head groom, and what of the other stable boys?
Without thinking, her hand went to her cap. Her hair was too long; she would never be able to keep it all hidden beneath the hat while mucking stalls all day. But she’d already made her decision.
The hair would have to go.
26
“Mon chèr,” Tarasai said, gently shaking Armand’s shoulder.
He startled awake in his chair on the veranda, knocking his book to the ground. “Yes? Yes, what is it?”
“A letter,” she said as she offered it to him. “George said it was from London.”
“From Lucia, I hope. My glasses—” He reached to his head, and when he discovered they weren’t there, he began to glance around him, still befuddled with sleep. “Where have my glasses gotten to, Tarasai? I had them here just a moment ago, I know I did.”
She made a shushing sound as she searched the table, then the area around the chair for his reading glasses.
“I had them just a moment ago. I was reading,” he said tersely.
When she couldn’t find them on the stone patio, she began to look through the folds of the blanket on his lap.
“Don’t fuss,” he said. “Please don’t fuss.” With his last words he began to cough.
Tarasai stopped what she was doing and looked up at him, her usually sweet face turning stern. She waited until his coughing fit had ceased and he had wiped his bloody lips with a clean handkerchief. “I am not fussing,” she said quietly. “I am looking for your glasses.” She hesitated. “Do you want your glasses, monsieur?”
He sighed and looked away. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Tarasai. It’s just that I am distraught. I cannot read my letter without my glasses. I cannot protect my Sapphire and I do not—”
“Here they are, mon chèr,” she said, rising from the stone pavers, the wire frame reading glasses in her hand. “Now calm yourself or you will be too ill to read your letter.”
Armand put on his glasses, tore open the letter and quickly scanned it. “It is from Lucia. She says I am not to worry about Sapphire.”
“You should know that by now.”
“She says she has not heard from her again, but letters have probably crossed in the mail.” He looked over his glasses at Tarasai. “She doesn’t say why this man has not married my daughter.” He threw the letter down in his lap. “It is so frustrating being here when they are so far away! I don’t know what to do. I must write to Sapphire in Boston. No! I should write to Lord Wessex and tell him he must marry my daughter at once.”
Tarasai picked up the book that had fallen, closed it and placed it on the table. “Perhaps she does not wish to marry this man.”
“That’s ridiculous. If she went to America with him, surely she must want to.”
She shrugged her delicate shoulders. “Some men are meant to wed, others only to be lovers.”
“Bring me my writing box, Tarasai.”
“I will not,” she said. “You will come inside, take your medicine and read me the letter Lucia has sent.” She leaned over him, taking the letter from his hand and removing the blanket from his lap. “Come.”