turn me away when your friend—my cousin—came by.”
She stared down at her feet. “I knew Robbie was drunk, but I was so tired I didn’t ask questions. I was desperate for a room with a bed.” She looked back up at James. “I’m not a good sailor. I didn’t sleep well on the passage to Liverpool. And since I haven’t much money, I took the mail to London and then the stagecoach here without stopping. Last night was the first time in two months that I slept in a bed that didn’t move.”
James smiled. “Poor girl. When I got to the room, I did try to wake you. When I didn’t have success right away, I figured you were exhausted and let you sleep.”
Sarah smiled back tentatively. “Does your aunt usually burst in on you like that?”
“No.” He shrugged. “She’s right, though. I usually am home. I didn’t tell her I’d be staying out.”
Sarah frowned. “It does seem a little extreme, panicking when you were only gone overnight. It’s not as if you are a little boy.”
James sighed. “No, but my aunt sometimes forgets that I’m not. She raised me after my mother died when I was eleven. Old habits die hard.”
“Yes, I can see that.” Sarah shifted on the log. There was no getting around it. She had to ask. “I need to know something.”
“Yes?” James grinned. “I hope it has nothing to do with nightshirts?”
“Well, not exactly.” She bit her lip. “Don’t laugh.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Your aunt said I was thoroughly compromised.”
“Yes, that’s very true. I think there is no question of that.”
“How thoroughly?”
James chuckled. “Very. I’m afraid you really must marry me.”
Sarah swallowed and gripped her hands together. “So I’m with child?”
“What!” James’s jaw dropped. Then his eyes lit up, and he slapped his hand over his mouth. His shoulders began to shake.
“You promised you wouldn’t laugh!”
He nodded vigorously.
“I know it’s silly that I don’t know these things, especially since my father was a physician, but I don’t. I mean, I have a vague idea. Look.” She listed her evidence. “We slept in the same bed, at night. We didn’t have any clothes on. You kissed me. Isn’t that enough?”
James shook his head no.
“So if I’m not pregnant, how can I be compromised, or at least, thoroughly compromised?” Sarah frowned. “Am I still a virgin?”
“You did not lose your virginity to me.”
“So if I’m not pregnant and I’m still a virgin, you don’t have to marry me, do you?”
James shifted his boot on the log. “It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?” Sarah crossed her arms over her chest. “Neither of us did anything wrong, so why should we be punished?”
“It’s not a matter of doing anything wrong, Sarah; it’s appearing to do something wrong.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“It may be ridiculous, but that’s the way the world—or at least this world—works. And I can’t believe society in Philadelphia is so different.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t a part of Philadelphian society.” Sarah smiled. “And since I have no desire to be part of English society, my reputation or lack of it doesn’t matter, does it?”
James frowned. “What do you intend to do then, Sarah? From what you told Aunt Gladys, you’ve cut your ties to America.”
Sarah smoothed her skirt over her knees. “Well, yes. I can’t go back, that’s true. Even if I could find the passage money, I have nowhere to go there, not really.”
She thought about the Abington sisters. They would let her continue to drudge for them at the Abington Academy for Young Ladies. She grimaced. She certainly was not braving the Atlantic again for that.
“Frankly, I hadn’t considered much beyond just getting here. My father was so insistent that I come. I guess I had hoped the earl could help me. I don’t suppose Robbie is married, is he?”
“No.”
Sarah sighed. “Then there’s no hope there. I can’t live with him—even I know that. I will need a job. I have some experience as a teacher. Do you know of a school for girls that could use another instructor? Or a family in need of a governess? I’m better with classical studies than painting and music, but if the child were young enough, I’m sure I could cover those subjects adequately.”
James sat down next to her and took her hand. “Sarah, teachers need their reputations more than anyone. I can’t think any mother would entrust her daughter’s formation to a woman who had secrets in her past—and you now have a secret, a very big secret. You and I know what did—and didn’t—happen in that room, but try explaining that to someone who wasn’t there. A mother would never get by the words ‘bed’ and ‘naked’ and, frankly, ‘Duke of Alvord.’ No, love, if you are staying in England, you will have to consider your reputation. Would marriage to me really be a punishment?”
Sarah looked into his warm amber eyes with their long, thick lashes. Punishment? Surely he realized that he was every woman’s fantasy. She shrugged.
“How can I tell? I don’t know you. Maybe you’re an inveterate gambler or a wife-beater.”
“No to both charges.” James smiled. “Well, since I’ve never had a wife, I can’t refute your last accusation with complete certainty, but I’ve never physically hurt a woman in my life—and I definitely feel no desire to beat you.” He took her other hand and tugged gently. She turned to face him.
“Look, Sarah, this arrangement has positives for both of us. You need a home. If you marry me, you’ll get that and a ready-made family—Aunt Gladys, who really does have a heart of gold, and my sister Lizzie. Even Lady Amanda. Someday, if we are lucky, we’ll have children. And you’ll be near your cousin—Robbie lives practically next door.”
Sarah flushed. She felt peculiar—warm, breathless, and a little shaky—at the thought of having this man’s children. She could not deny that what he offered was appealing. She had had little family herself. Her mother and newborn brother had died together when she was very young. Her father had been so busy with his work and causes, he had let the spinster Abington sisters raise her. It had been a life lacking in love. She felt a wave of longing so strong it took her breath away.
But James didn’t love her—nor did she love him, she hastened to remind herself. Why would an English duke want to marry a penniless American?
“What do you get?”
“A wife. I have need of
