Ah. At last they’d arrived at the topic they were bound to address, but she had hoped they would not. It had been inevitable, she supposed. But perhaps it was time they talked it out. “And instead you found me gone.”
He frowned and fell silent for a long moment. When he finally spoke, there was a dark, bitter edge to his voice. “I was so angry when I learned you’d run off with that artist fellow and become…”
“A whore.”
Sam grimaced. “That wasn’t the word I was going to use.”
“I have no doubt my mother used it when she told you I’d gone.” She had flung that word and worse at Wilhelmina when she’d cast her out, accusing her of sharing her favors with the artist, James Benedict, and with Sam and others. Martha Jepp would have no hesitation in using the same language when Sam had come back looking for her daughter.
“You did what you had to in order to survive,” he said, his tone softening. “It took me a long time to come to grips with it, but I understand now. Truly I do, Willie. I want you to believe that.” He reached out and touched her hand briefly. “But all those years ago…Well, when I came home in ’94 a newly rated midshipman, puffed up in a crisp new uniform paid for with my own prize money, the news devastated me. And I lashed out in pain.”
She had been in the theater, holding court in her reserved box, when he found her. It had taken less than an instant to recognize him, and the sight of him had her reeling, this ghost from her past walking toward her.
“So, it’s true.”
He glared at her with such anger that another wave of dizziness almost overwhelmed her. If she had not been seated, she would surely have collapsed. Her emotions were a turmoil of surprise, joy, and shame. Thoroughly dumb-founded, she could not manage to speak.
“I dared not believe it,” he said. “I kept hearing tales of the infamous Wilhelmina Grant and knew that woman, that lightskirt, could not be the sweet Wilma Jepp I had known. I had to see with my own eyes that it was not true. And look what I find instead.” His glance had swept over her court of admirers. “The woman I once loved surrounded by men who’ve had her, who’ve paid for the fancy clothes and the fine jewels. Perched up here like a queen in your box, flaunting your indecency for all the world to see.” His mouth twisted, and he looked like he might become ill. “God, Willie. How could you?”
“Sam.” The single syllable had almost choked her. She was sick with joy that he was alive, he was really alive, and devastated that he’d found her like this. He was only half right about the other men in the box. They’d all sought her favors. Only a few had been successful. Wilhelmina Grant was an exclusive item, not easily purchased. Her current protector, Sir Clive Binchy, hovered behind her, his hand on the back of her chair. She could feel him about to make a move toward Sam, but she held up her hand to stop him.
“How could you do this?” Sam asked, the anger in his voice tinged with a plaintive note. “I thought I’d find you in Porthruan, waiting for me. I thought…But instead you’ve come to this? Damnation. Your mother was right. You’re nothing but a-”
Before he could hurl the vulgar word she knew was on the tip of his tongue, a word she had accepted years ago but had no wish to hear from Sam, she quickly composed herself and donned her usual public manner, flippant and condescending.
“Don’t be such a prig, Sam. This is the real world, not that rustic little fishing village in Cornwall. I love all my ‘fancy clothes’ as you so quaintly call them, and my jewels and carriages and more. If you do not like how I came by them, feel free to leave.”
His face fell into a look of such wretchedness it had torn at her heart. But this was for the best. She had to drive him away or she surely would fall apart.
Without another word, he turned on his heel and left.
“I’d hoped you would wait for me.” His voice brought her back to the present.
“I thought you were dead!” Her voice rose, colored with the emotion of that memory. “Your boat washed ashore without you. No one knew what had happened.”
“The press gang commandeered my little boat and forced me to go with them. I told them I was no sailor, just an ordinary fisherman, but they either didn’t believe me or didn’t care. They needed seamen and I looked close enough to one, so off I went, leaving my boat abandoned in the cove.”
“When it was found the next day, empty and shattered against the rocks, we all assumed you’d suffered some sort of accident and drowned.”
“But I wrote you. Once I made land, I sent letter after letter.” At her frustrated sigh, he said, “I suppose your mother didn’t pass them on, did she?”
“No, of course not. She probably burned them.”
They were interrupted by the arrival of the serving girl with a kettle of hot water that she poured into the teapot.
“C’n I gets yer anyt’ing else, Yer Grace?”
“No, thank you, Lizzie. But could you tell Mr. Smeaton I’d like a word with him? Tell him to bring paper and pen.”
Lizzie nodded, bobbed a quick curtsy, and hurried back to the kitchen with her steaming kettle.
“Paper and pen? Gad, Willie, I hope you’re not going to ask me to re-create those letters for you here and now?”
He looked so abashed that she laughed. “Nothing of the sort, Sam. I just realized that I need to note down some instructions for the staff regarding our return to London. It won’t take a moment, I assure you. I just want to do it before I forget.”
“I am relieved.” He heaved a theatrical sigh. “I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry you never got my letters, Willie. You’d have been devilish impressed.”
She laughed again. “I have no doubt of it.”
“No, really. You would have been. They were damned fine letters.”
“I wish I’d seen them, Sam. You cannot imagine how much I wish it.” She laid a hand over his, and he captured it, lifting it to his lips. The warmth of his skin and his breath against her knuckles sent a wave of such yearning through her body that she almost moaned aloud. She had not wanted a man this badly in a very long time. And because it was Sam, the wanting was even more powerful, all tangled up with first love and heartbreak. As she looked into his eyes, she could feel his desire as well.
“Those letters kept me going,” he said, stroking her fingers, “gave me purpose when I thought I would die of missing you. I wasn’t much good at reading or writing, as you will remember, but soon after being pressed, I was fortunate to find a friend in the master’s mate, a fellow Cornishman. He took me under his wing, taught me everything about the service. He gave me nautical books to read, but when he saw me struggling-I swear the words looked like a foreign language to me-he gave me lessons in reading and writing. If I wanted to rise in the service, he said, I had to be able to compose dispatches and logs, and read and understand contracts and orders and regulations.
“I practiced my penmanship in letters to you. Page after page, filled with details of my life at sea, and full of longing for you. It really is too bad your mother never sent them to you. They were masterpieces, those letters, worthy of Byron himself. No, don’t laugh, they were pure poetry, I swear it.”
“I’d give anything to have read them, Sam. But I never got them and assumed you were dead until you walked up to me that night at the theater. I thought you were a ghost. An angry ghost. Lord, I was so ashamed for you to find me like that.”