To Kiss a Thief by Susanna Craig Page B

wishes. But we believed our love could sustain us in the face of their disapproval.”
    The sentiment drew a sad smile from the woman. “As young people are wont to do,” she acknowledged.
    St. John gave a nod of abashed agreement.
    â€œAt my request, my father had purchased a commission for me, and I had received notice just a month before our wedding that I was to be stationed for a time in the West Indies. We thought of going out together—”
    Mrs. Potts frowned. “You didn’t mean to take my girl across the sea?”
    â€œAs it turned out, it might have been for the best,” St. John averred, noting Mrs. Potts’s maternal possessiveness and considering how best to put it to use. “But my mother professed to be of your opinion and would not hear of it. She insisted she would do her duty by my bride.”
    As if she suspected what was to come, Mrs. Potts leaned toward him and shook her head. “But she didn’t.”
    â€œNo, indeed. You cannot imagine my astonishment and anger when I returned just last week to discover that my wife had disappeared. I believe my mother and sisters must have driven her from the house shortly after I set sail. How she happened to come here, I do not yet know, but my mother had received one letter from her in all those years, and in it Mrs. Fairfax made mention of Haverhythe. So it was here I began my search.”
    â€œAnd her tellin’ everyone—even me—that she were a widow.”
    â€œShe might well have thought she was. If she wrote, I received no letters. I cannot say what became of those I sent her.”
    â€œFolks didn’t always believe she was tellin’ the truth, you know. Especially after Miss Clarissa came. Did you have any inklin’ about the child?”
    â€œNone at all until you brought her home last night.”
    â€œAnd her never knowin’ her pa.” Mrs. Potts clucked disapprovingly. “But for a’ that your missus don’t seem too happy to have you back.”
    As if her observation had struck a nerve, St. John rose and strode toward the fireplace, studying its rustic mantel as he continued. “I did not expect a warm welcome, Mrs. Potts. If she did not think me dead, she must have thought me the worst scoundrel in existence for abandoning her. I left her with those who ought to have cared for her.” He turned back to face the old woman. “I am responsible for her suffering.”
    It was the perfectly pitched confession of his guilt—so perfect, in fact, that he almost believed it himself.
    It had been one thing to imagine Sarah living a life of depraved luxury on the profits of her theft or under the protection of her lover, and quite another to discover her in this ramshackle cottage on the edge of the sea, raising a child widely believed to be born on the wrong side of the blanket, and evidently relying on the generosity and good opinion of people so poor they had little of either to spare.
    Was it possible he had been wrong about her?
    Before sentiment could overwhelm his good sense, however, an image rose in his memory: a darkened room, his wife in Captain Brice’s arms, her bodice gaping, skirts hiked up, and that other man’s hands nowhere in sight.
    He must not forget why he had come here. Sarah had escaped her punishment once, disappeared into the ether like the string of priceless gems she’d stolen. Her apparent poverty was a pretense. If it was freedom from this damnable coil he wanted, it was up to him to see her laid low in earnest.
    â€œWill you help me, Mrs. Potts? Please?” he asked, his voice soft and his heart hard.

Chapter 5
    â€œE xcited, is she?”
    St. John’s voice came from the doorway behind her, and Sarah froze. With a perfunctory bow of his blond head, he strode toward the counter and squatted beside Clarissa.
    â€œAnd which is your favorite?”
    Clarissa lifted one chubby finger toward the kittens,