back.’
‘Your doll?’
‘Molly will find it. Or Sarah. I feel stronger when she is around.’
‘Sarah or Molly?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, the taut shoulders drooping. Sebastian shifted his weight uncertainly. He realised now why Sarah had said that Mrs Crawford would need a companion. He saw also that her acceptance was moot—she would soon be in no position to refuse.
‘Are you good at finding things?’ Mrs Crawford asked, her voice tremulous like that of an overtired child.
‘I—’ He thought again of Edwin. ‘I pray to God I am.’
* * *
Sarah sat within her bedchamber.
Her betrothed—her mind stumbled over the word—had come and gone. She’d heard his footsteps in the front hall. She’d heard the door open and close. She’d heard the clip-clop of horses’ hooves.
Permission granted, she presumed.
This thing, this marriage, was gathering momentum, moving and surging with the unstoppable power of an ocean’s wave. They would be married Monday. She would marry a man she did not even know on Monday.
On Monday—the day repeated in her mind as though the idea would be less bizarre on a different day, a Tuesday or a Wednesday perhaps. Five days from now. One hundred and twenty hours.
Her fingers tightened about the locket her mother had given her. She opened it, touching the dry strands of her sister’s hair she had treasured for so long.
It would be worth it. If she could find Charlotte, it would be worth it. Her sister, Charlotte, who had always been there, so much more motherly than the laughing, glamorous woman who had birthed them. She could not...must not fail her—not when this opportunity was within her grasp. Besides, countless women married for convenience or money or a title or because their parents told them to. She was no different.
Her solitude ended when Mrs Crawford appeared. She stood within the doorway, her body rigid and her fingers tightly clasped about the wooden frame as though needing its support.
‘Lord Langford has asked for your hand in marriage. You have agreed to this?’
Sarah nodded.
‘Then there is little more to be said. Apprise me of the arrangements and I will, of course, pray for you.’ Mrs Crawford turned as if to go.
‘Um—’
Mrs Crawford paused, her hand dropping to the doorknob. ‘Yes?’
Doubts and questions weighed on Sarah like the oppressive mugginess of a thundery day. The region under her breastbone ached with that familiar pain, that suppressed longing for affection.
‘I’ll miss you,’ she said softly.
‘Then you must look to the Lord for comfort.’
And that was it. The conversation was finished before it had begun.
Sarah watched as her guardian turned and left, her progress marked by the brisk click of her footsteps. The ache deepened. She could not blame her. Sarah’s arrival at the Crawfords’ residence must have represented the older woman’s worst nightmare. While Sarah and her mother remained in London, Mrs Crawford could ignore her husband’s infidelity. She could pretend the tiny house in one of London’s dubious neighbourhoods did not exist.
But then her mother had died. The house had been emptied and Mr Crawford had transported her here.
She shivered, remembering that chilly reception. Bending, Sarah pulled out an ancient hatbox from under the wooden bed frame. She lifted the lid, inhaling its familiar musty mix of perfume and ink.
Charlotte’s letters.
She knew them by heart. She knew every ink blot and loop of her sister’s childish hand. She should. She’d devoured them, reading and rereading them a hundred times a day. Sometimes she’d even placed them under her pillow, slipping her hand underneath to feel the edges against her fingers and hear their rustle, taking comfort in the knowledge that her sister had held them, folded them, mailed them.
A tangible reassurance that someone loved her.
Sarah went to Miss Simpson. She chose the cloth for her wedding gown and requested that the dress be ready within four days.
Miss Simpson agreed, but paused, fingering the grey material, as though uncertain. ‘This is for your wedding?’
Sarah nodded.
‘I know it is serviceable and of excellent quality, but wouldn’t you care for something brighter for a wedding?’
Sarah looked about the tiny shop at the bolts of multicoloured cloth haphazardly stacked. Her mother had worn such clothes.
‘Bright colours do not suit me,’ she said.
Her mother had told her that often enough, frowning with displeasure at Sarah’s pale skin and unruly, mouse-brown hair.
‘I am not suggesting you wear a rainbow, but what about this lilac?’ Miss Simpson pulled down a bolt. ‘The colour would work well on you. It would brighten your skin and bring out the chestnut in your hair.
Sarah hesitated. Violet would so help her feel like Petunia. And Petunia would cope so much better with a wedding than Miss Martin.
But this was a business arrangement. Her primary role was that of governess and she refused to entertain notions which might suggest otherwise.
She was not Petunia.
‘The grey is more serviceable,’ she stated resolutely.
* * *
Sebastian, or rather his man of business, found a companion for Mrs Crawford with remarkable dispatch.
The individual, a Miss Sharples, was delivered by his lordship’s groom the day before the wedding. She was a short, pleasantly dressed individual with a plump face and determined chin at odds with the general roundness of her physique.
‘Did his lordship explain the matter to you?’ Sarah asked after leading Miss Sharples through the drab hallway and settling her into a chair within the equally drab drawing room. If she ever had the chance to decorate a home she would colour it butter yellow, like sunshine.
‘Indeed, and I am used to invalids.’
Sarah frowned. ‘Mrs Crawford is not infirm, at least not physically. She gets confused and is determined that we must save money for the church.’
‘Do not worry, miss. My last employer was interested in the paranormal and felt he had been a Roman emperor in a past life. He’d hide in his bed on the Ides of March. He did not, however, escape death, dying in his sleep in August. Though, despite his oddities, he was easier than his predecessor, who was forever catching the bed curtains alight. Eventually, I had to hide the matches.’
At that moment, Mrs Crawford’s brisk footsteps could be heard down the hallway. By common accord, Sarah and Miss Sharples stood as Mrs Crawford stepped into the room.
‘Mrs Crawford, this is Miss Sharples. She is to stay with you when I leave.’
‘So I hear. A totally unnecessary expense. I hope you knit.’
‘Very well,’ Miss Sharples said.
‘We knit for the heathen.’
Miss Sharples nodded. ‘I always say many hands make light work.’
‘Hardly original, but appropriate, I suppose.’ Mrs Crawford grunted in what might have been approbation.
‘This is a beautiful room,’ Miss Sharples