Lady Sarah's Secret

IV. What Now?

"What do you mean you will not tell them who you are?" Lottie cried, looking positively stricken. The young girl paused her work to stare at her mistress.

Sarah didn't admonish her since they were alone, and no one would expect them to have the silver polishing complete for some time yet. Besides, the last few weeks had been hard on Lottie, she was never quite comfortable with Sarah's change in status. Sometimes she acted as if addressing Sarah by her first name was sin, and mourned over her mistresses roughened hands as if she'd ruined them herself. Nevertheless, Sarah would not relent in this.

"Richard is dead, Lottie," she explained again as she chose another spoon to be polished, "I have no contract, no betrothed, they owe me nothing," she paused, "Char- Sir Charles is not honor bound to marry me," she repeated to the younger maid.

"You were never certain that Sir Richard would honor the contract, perhaps his brother would honor it in his stead," pressed Lottie, waving a silver fork in the air around her.

Sarah's face felt hot as she remembered the moment before he'd stepped through the door and someone had announced him as 'Sir Charles'. It was as if a ringing had started in her head, her knees had gone weak and her heart still pounded like a prisoner on the cell door.

It was Richard's death that had given her such a shock, she kept insisting to herself. Not the sight of Charles Amesbury, not the realization that this was the brother who had survived. The brother she'd mourned was alive and standing before her, the other quite dead. Something about the meeting still had her trembling. Sarah shook her head in disgust at her own thoughts and chose another spoon.

"Couldn't you simply throw yourself on his good will?" begged Lottie.

Sarah closed her eyes against the very thought of begging Charles to marry her. had not she begged him to do just that so many times before? No. She could not beg Charles, she could not bear another refusal from him. She would remain his maid instead.

"He is a gentleman, he would help you," Lottie insisted, her voice high pitched in desperation.

"We cannot be sure of that," Sarah insisted, dropping her gaze as her heart called her a liar, "Sir Charles is not Richard, our plans must change," she finished with a sureness she did not feel.