Sally struggled to follow Toad.
"Let me go. Bring him back. Please, Aunt Bella! Mama!"
Mama had wrapped her in the tightest of embraces, and when the sailors came, and she struggled harder to come to Toad's aid, Aunt Bella had added her own strength, her arms around Sally and Mama both, so Sally had no chance of escape. The dukes kept themselves firmly between the females wrestling Sally, and the men binding and abducting her love on the other side of the room.
"You cannot take him! This is kidnap! Don't hurt him!"
"Now, young lady..." Papa began.
"Go away, Anthony," Mama told him with a frosty snap in her voice that brooked no argument. She was patting Sally's shoulder and stroking her hair, as if she were a baby with a skinned knee, and not an adult woman whose heart was being bound and torn from her chest.
"You cannot take him!" she sobbed, as Aunt Bella's boat captain threw Toad over his shoulder.
"Yes, Haverford, leave Sarah to us," Aunt Bella insisted.
David shouted again and again that he would write, his cries fading as Aunt Bella's sailors carried him away.
The kitchen door slammed in the distance. He was gone. It was over.
No. She could not just give up. He had risked everything to rescue her. She must at least try to rescue him. She had until the tides changed. She had only to let the mothers believe her defeated, then escape when they were not watching. And Uncle Wellbridge had left the satchel with all that money when he followed the sailors out. She could hire someone to help her. Perhaps one of her Wakefield cousins would...? No. She could not involve family. They would tell Papa.
Her mind racing, reviewing and discarding a dozen ideas one after the other, she stopped struggling and let Mama hug her, as opposed to merely keeping her in check.
"He is gone now, isn't he?" She asked, in as conquered a voice as she could muster, when she heard a carriage drive along the side of the house.
"He is gone," Aunt Bella said, with some degree of compassion, but no sympathy. "It is late, Sally. Let us put you into bed. Everything will look brighter in the morning."
Indeed, it would, for she would be on the way to Scotland with David by then, once she figured out which boat he was on in Aunt Bella's shipyard. And if she were killed by a footpad going to the docks alone at night, it would serve them all right.
"Nothing will ever look bright again. You have torn out my heart, all of you. It is all your fault, and I hate you!" She devolved into sobs at the thought of all the people she loved most keeping her from the only man she would ever wish to marry.
"I know you are angry, Sally," Aunt Bella told her, "but truly, darling, we want only to save you the heartache of a man who is bound to hurt you." She helped Sally remove her jacket and undid the buttons on the skirt.
"He wants to marry me."
Aunt Bella and Mama exchanged looks. "What?" Sally asked. "He came to get me. He said he wanted to marry me."
"It is to his credit," Mama said thoughtfully, "that he was prepared to do the right thing."
"If only I could believe it were for the right reasons." Aunt Bella shook her head, sadly.
"He said he would never hurt me," Sally insisted. "He promised." She stepped out of the skirt. They would take it away, but it did not matter. She had others. She would go in her shift if need be.
"He would not mean to, Sally," Mama agreed. "But hurting women is what rakes do. Abersham is far from ready to marry. He has no idea what to do with a wife." She began undoing the buttons on the shirt-waist.
"No." Sally shook her head, trying to dislodge the feeling that Mama was right; wishing she had never heard the words Toad had said spare hours before.
'I am not sure how to love a wife yet. I should hate to be a bad husband to the only woman I can ever love...'
Polly came in from the dressing room with her nightgown, and Sally recovered herself enough to slap the traitor's face. "Get out. I do not want you near me. I will not have you in this house, and you will get no character."
"Sarah!" Mama gasped, but sent Polly to the kitchen.
"Sarah, that was a mean act, and Polly will not be dismissed. I am ashamed of you. She had only your best interests at heart. You will apologize when you are feeling more yourself."
Sally shook her head. Polly was her mother's spy, and Sally would not have her in the house. If Sally was not the Marchioness of Abersham and mistress of Toadstone Hall by evening tomorrow, Polly would answer for it.
"He wants to marry me," she repeated.
"He wants to defy his father. He wants control of his own money. Do you think I have not heard every last one of his reasons?" Aunt Bella's words stung like a lash. "Sally, I love you like my own Almyra. I am mortified to say it, but I could not bear to see you married to my son. Not now. Not until he grows out of this terrible attitude toward women." They put Sally's nightgown over her head, and she moved her arms obediently into the sleeves.
"You both married rakehells," she told her persecutors, thinking but not saying, And he didn't ruin me. Doesn't that mean he loves me?
Again, they looked at one another, and then at Sally, with so much pity that she felt the tears welling up again. She choked them down.
"Your Papa was approaching forty when he was ready to be married, Wellbridge still older." Mama sighed. "It is such a pity, dearest. He was the sweetest little boy."
Don't speak of him as if he were dead, Sally thought.
She let them put her to bed, let them plant a kiss on her forehead, one after the other, let them pretend she was still a child. Aunt Bella took David's satchel with her as they left the room, and Sally lay there in the dark, revising her plans to be accomplished with only the last of her pin money, waiting for the house to be silent.
He didn't ruin me. He wants to marry me. I will rescue him, and we will be together.
But when she tried the dressing room door, it was locked. The door to her sitting room, too. Locked and guarded, for she could hear people murmuring.
Her balcony, then. No. Two men stood directly below. "Go back inside, my lady," one of them said, his voice kind, but firm. "You will take cold." Two more men stood under the window on the other wall.
Back in bed, she put her head under the pillows and covers and wept. David was going away to Paris, where the opera dancers were more beautiful than in London, and more wicked, too, or so everyone said. He'd had had his taste of her—dear Heavens, how he had tasted; even miserable as she was, she shivered to remember—and it hadn't worked. He hadn't wanted her. He had refused to let her pleasure him, had made excuses for not repeating what they'd done, and had not suggested marriage until Papa's entrance obliged him.
He came to rescue me. He said he wanted to marry me.
She tried to convince herself that he meant it.
He spoke of making things right, of defying our fathers. He never spoke of love.
The long night finally turned to morning. Her breakfast was delivered, and later her lunch, but she had no appetite. It would serve them right if she starved herself. No. I will need my strength to escape. She managed a few mouthfuls, but everything tasted dry and dull, and her throat closed when she tried to swallow.
He does love me. He must. He wants to marry me.
She sat in her window seat staring sightlessly across the gardens. Where was he now? If she could not run away and reach him, he would find someone else and do those things to her. The disgusting trollop. Sally hated her, and all the others who would succeed her.
After lunch, Mama informed her that David's ship had left London and was out of reach.
She had more tears. How surprising. She thought she had cried them all.
Mama was inclined to be cross: something about not throwing a tantrum, and acting with dignity. Sally couldn't follow it; thoughts of David filled her head, leaving little room for anything else. After a while, Mama said, "You must accept the inevitable," and Sally began to weep again. Her best friend was gone forever, and her life was ruined, and her Mama and Papa hated her.
Mama went away.
The second day was much like the first, except Mama stopped scolding, and David was farther away.
Papa arrived with dinner, growling that she must eat. She tried, but even the smell made her retch. The maid who had replaced Polly took her plate away while Papa consulted furiously with Mama in the corner.
"Do not be ridiculous, Anthony," Mama said. "It has been less than two days!"
Two days! Two days ago she had been a child. And now her life was over.
He said he wouldn't ruin me. But he has. He has. I will never be able to stand anyone else's touch again.