The Merry Month of May Read Online Free PDF Page B

aware that Haldiman was staring at her. She must say something. “How did he come to be in Canada?” she asked.
    “It’s a long story.”
    “He was taken by the press gang?” If Peter had been suffering all these years, waiting to escape and come to her, she would be a perfect beast to jilt him.
    “Not exactly.”
    “Kidnapped? What?”
    “He’ll tell you the details. But there are a few things I must say, Sara. Peter still wants to marry you.” Despair robbed her of thought. She felt as if a noose was being lowered over her head. “He feels very badly about—about the past. The thing is, he was married in Canada. He has two sons.”
    “Married!” she exclaimed. “Married?” Joy lent a wild edge to her words. A laugh, high-pitched, loud, almost maniacal, came from her lips. Sara didn’t know if she was laughing or crying. She only knew she was free. The noose fell from her neck and in her mind she soared high, free at last of Lord Peter.
    Haldiman heard the wild sound of her laughter and feared for her sanity. Was this how love handled betrayal? It refused to accept the burden. It drove the betrayed to the very edge of insanity.
    “He loves you, Sara,” he said earnestly, though Peter had certainly not used the word love. “His wife is dead. He wants to marry you. He’ll be here this afternoon to tell you himself.”
    Sara felt as ifthe clock were rolling back six years and her nightmare was beginning again. She must act swiftly to forestall it. The laughter ceased, she rose from the sofa and turned a flaming eye on her caller. “Does he indeed? A widower with two sons! Well, you may tell your widowed brother for me that I do not wish to marry him. If he dares to show his face at this house, I will—” She sought for a fate bad enough for Lord Peter. “I will take that poker and lay his head open,” she declared, pointing at the iron poker by the grate. “Tell him that for me.”
    Haldiman rose and went to her, grasping her hands. “Sara, you don’t know what you’re saying. I’ve explained the matter badly.”
    She shook him off violently. “There is no good way to explain this matter, sir. Your brother jilted me. He left me all but standing at the altar, while he skipped off to Canada and married someone else. And now he has the infernal gall to think I would still have him, as if I were a dog’s breakfast he may taste when he will.”
    “But you’ve waited all these years. There was never anyone else.”
    “There will never be anyone else,” she said very firmly. “I am well out of the business of marriage. Lord Peter did me one good turn in his worthless life. He opened my eyes to what men really think of women. We are an adventure. You marry us, or if you happen to see a ship with its sails set, you hop aboard instead. Go to Canada and marry some other poor unsuspecting soul.”
    “It wasn’t like that.”
    “No? Then how was it, Haldiman? Perhaps you, being a gentleman, can explain it to me, for I assure you I do not understand. He wasn’t kidnapped. He went of his own free will, did he not?”
    “He went freely. He felt you didn’t really love him.”
    “He was right about that!” she declared. How good it felt to say it at last. “I never loved him, I wish I had never met him.” Her voice rose wildly.
    Haldiman felt she was merely exhorting at fate. Anger, jealousy, something caused her to deny her love for Peter. And what a love it must have been, to cause the cool Sara to turn into a vixen. How could Peter have been such a fool as to give up this woman? The heat of her anger raised Haldiman’s blood, too, till he felt a strange passion growing in him. The completely irrelevant thought came to him that he wanted to grab her into his arms and kiss her while her passion was high. “You must do as you feel best, of course,” he said coolly. “No one would expect you to honor the betrothal after what has passed.”
    Sara heard him out with interest. Of course! How