The Offer (Baron 2)

“Yes, my home is in Yorkshire, near Leeds.” What was going on here? Why did this beautiful young lady care if she was from Yorkshire? Or from Africa, for that matter?

Miss Elliott’s nostrils flared. She felt her heart begin to sing as she said, “Then you are, naturally, very well acquainted with Vicount Derencourt.”

There was danger in the air and Sabrina smelled it. She realized that Miss Elliott was jealous because she wanted Phillip. That was why she wanted to know all about Sabrina. But then she saw that the young lady’s eyes were slitted and mean, her lips tight. She wasn’t stupid. The last place she wanted to be was here, with this beautiful young lady who looked ready to stick a knife in her ribs. She rose quickly. “I must return to my aunt, Miss Elliott. It was a pleasure to meet you and your brother. I was very ill and still tire quite quickly.”

“You tire easily, Miss Eversleigh? I should imagine so, given how you spent that week you were supposedly ill. But you weren’t at all ill, were you? No, you met the viscount at Charles’s hunting box and you quite enjoyed yourself. I am only surprised that the viscount will still even speak to you. Surely he got his fill of you during that week.”

She knew, Sabrina thought. She knew and she was going to use her knowledge to bury her. “Perhaps you’d best explain yourself, Miss Elliott. You’re acting jealous and it ruins your looks, you know.”

“Jealous, Miss Eversleigh? I assure you I am not. Come, you don’t have to play innocent with me. I know who you are. I know all about you. Tell me, how many lies did you feed your aunt so that she would introduce you into society?”

“There is no reason for you to behave in such an ill-bred manner, Miss Elliott. There is no reason for you to attack me just because you want Phillip. You may have Phillip. As I said, he is a friend, nothing more. You are welcome to him. However, if he has a brain, he will see the spite in you and run in the other direction. You aren’t at all nice, Miss Elliott.”

Teresa jumped to her feet, shaking her fist in Sabrina’s face. “You vulgar little slut. If Phillip is but a friend, then what would you term your cousin, Trevor Eversleigh?”

It didn’t occur to Sabrina to wonder how Miss Elliott knew about Trevor. She knew and that was all that mattered. Phillip had been right. She’d been a fool. Her new life of one week was about to crumble into dust.

Teresa saw the color drain from Sabrina’s face. She wanted to shout and dance. She had the little slut, she had her but good. “I was a guest at Moreland. Ah yes, I see that you won’t even attempt to deny it. The gentlemen were in quite a fix, I assure you, trying to figure out what was to be done with you. Did you enjoy your five days with Phillip? I’ve heard that he is kindness itself to his discarded mistresses. And that, you little bitch, is why he bothered to dance with you.”

Miss Elliott was just one person. She was jealous. That was why she wanted to kill Sabrina, to kick her dead body. Surely all of society wasn’t like Teresa Elliott. She heard Miss Elliott continuing to speak, as if from a great distance. “Did you intend to continue your wanton behavior in London? Everyone at Moreland was appalled that a girl of good family would seduce her own cousin, and her sister’s husband at that, then spend nearly a week with Phillip Mercerault.”

Sabrina remembered her words to Phillip about making the world change. As she gazed into Miss Elliott’s gloating face, she realized she’d been grossly wrong. Society would not change its rules for her; she was nothing better than an outcast. She threw back her head and said, “It’s ridiculous that I should try to defend myself to the likes of you, Miss Elliott. You’re a vicious, jealous girl. I pity you.”

“I need no pity from a harlot.”

Sabrina turned on her heel and made her way slowly back to her aunt. Perhaps she should have tried to reason with Miss Elliott, explained everything to her. But she knew it would have done no good. If she didn’t have pride, she would have nothing. She wondered, almost dispassionately, what would happen to her now.

26

Sabrina stood quietly beside a window in the small drawing room of her suite at the Cavendish Hotel, looking over the tops of red and gray brick buildings toward Bond Street. Although the window was tightly closed against the winter wind, it made her feel less lonely if she fancied she could hear the people on the street below speaking to each other as they passed by her window, carrying on civil conversations about

whatever it was people discussed when they were not alone. But their conversations would be civil. They would be friendly to one another.

She turned away from the window. She heard Hickles, her newly acquired maid, moving about in the next room. At least she was not completely alone, although it was difficult to count Hickles as anything remotely resembling a confidante. Sabrina grimaced as she pictured her maid, an obese older spinster who contrived to look somehow disapproving even when she smiled, a rare event during the past three days. But she couldn’t afford to be choosy.

She chewed on her thumbnail. Things could be worse. At least she wasn’t destitute. When she’d paid her visit to Hoare’s Bank to secure her own inheritance, she knew it was on the tongue of every male employed there to tell her to hie herself to a drawing room and serve tea, as she was supposed to do. But she’d just kept her chin up and insisted, until, finally, she was allowed to see Mr. Boniface, the man responsible. At long last it had been done. Her funds were now in her name and there was nothing her aunt Barresford could do about it, and she knew the lady had tried, for Mr. Boniface had sent a clerk around to tell her of her aunt’s machinations.

She sat wearily down in a stiff-backed brocade chair and stared blankly at the wall opposite her. A poorly painted picture of a milkmaid faced her. She smiled now, at herself, a tight little smile that meant nothing, remembering how she had still felt some hope after her disastrous confrontation with Teresa Elliott just five days before. Although her aunt had looked at her rather oddly when she’d pleaded a headache at Almack’s, she’d taken her home without questioning her.

How glib she’d been, telling Phillip that she would change the world, insisting that no one would have any reason to hurt her. The very next day she’d learned what it was like to receive cold stares from ladies she’d never seen before in her life, to be ignored by supposed friends of her aunt’s. One gentleman she’d met that disastrous evening at Almack’s had actually leered at her and rubbed his hands together.

Sabrina’s confrontation with her aunt came about that very afternoon. She’d intended to tell her aunt the whole of it, truly she had, but there was Lady Morton waiting for them upon their return, her face sharp with anticipation. Sabrina went to her room, reasoning that she was, after all, the granddaughter of an earl and not some poor relation. Perhaps Aunt Barresford would understand and be able to smooth the matter over with society. She had not long to wait for her aunt’s summons to the library.

“Sit down, Sabrina.”

Sabrina looked searchingly at her aunt. Her cheeks were a mottled red and her eyes were bright and hard. “Lady Morton has spoken to you?” She spoke very quietly, trying to keep her voice neutral. She glanced about the library, half expecting to see that lady still there, but they were quite alone. A library was a strange name for a room that held only Egyptian furnishings and heavy draperies.

“Can you doubt it?” Lady Barresford asked, her voice harder now, lower.

“Aunt, I can explain all of it. I should have told you last night, but I honestly didn’t think anyone would care about what Teresa Elliott had said. I found out differently today. I would have told you, but Lady Morton was here and I gather she couldn’t wait to fill your ears. I’m sorry, but please, let me explain.”

“Yes, I’m positive you would have told me all of it, yes I certainly am. You would have smiled, I assume, while you confessed your trollop’s behavior with Phillip Mercerault in Yorkshire. Lord, first Elizabeth and now you. At least your sister didn’t come to my home with her reputation in shreds, hoping to pull the wool over my eyes.”

“Aunt, I don’t know what Lady Morton told you, but you must let me explain. You must believe that it is all lies, started by that wretched girl Teresa Elliott.”

Lady Barresford stood directly in front of her, her hands fisted at her sides, her face very red. “I see. So you deny that you ran away from Monmouth Abbey?”

“No, of course not. I had to. Trevor tried to rape me. I couldn’t stay because Elizabeth took his side. He would have come to my bedchamber if I hadn’t run away. He would have succeeded.”