Dreaming of You (The Gamblers #2)(57)

“No time for all that,” Tabitha said, at once gratified and embarrassed by Sara’s welcoming manner. “I’ll be gone in a blink ow an eye—just stopped to ’ave a bit ow a chat. Won’t stay but a minute.”

Sara urged her inside the warm house and closed the door against a gust of wind. “Is everything all right at the club?”

“Oh, aye.”

“How is Mr. Worthy?”

“ ’E’s fine.”

“And Gill?”

“Fine, as allus.”

The urge to ask about Derek Craven was overwhelming. Somehow Sara held the words back. She motioned for Tabitha to join her on the settee in the front room and watched her without blinking, wondering why the house wench had taken it upon herself to visit.

Tabitha took exaggerated pains to arrange her skirts and sit like a lady. She grinned at Sara as she smoothed the material of her gown. “My ma thinks I’m a maid for a grand lord in London, carrying coal an’ water, polishing silwer an’ such. It wouldn’t do for ’er to know I works on my back at Crawen’s.”

Sara nodded gravely. “I understand.”

“Mr. Crawen would cull me good if ’e knowed I’d come ’ere today.”

“I won’t tell a soul,” Sara promised, while her heart climbed up into her throat. She stared at Tabitha, who shrugged and glanced around the cottage as if she were waiting patiently for something. The house wench wanted her to ask about Craven, Sara realized. Agitatedly she tangled her hands in her makeshift apron. “Tabitha…tell me how he is.”

The house wench needed no further prompting. “Mr. Crawen’s short in temper these days. Doesn’t eat or sleep, acts like ’e’s got a bee up ’is arse. Yesterday ’e went to the kitchen an’ told Monsieur Labarge ’is soup tasted like bilgewater. Why, it took Gill an’ Worthy both to keep Labarge from gutting ’im with a big knife!”

“I-is that why you’ve come here, to tell me that? I’m very sorry to hear it, but…” Sara paused awkwardly and lowered her head. “His mood has nothing to do with me.”

“It ’as ewerything to do with you, miss—an’ no one knows it better than me.”

Sara’s fists knotted tighter in her apron. “What do you mean?”

Tabitha leaned forward, speaking in a theatrical whisper. “Mr. Crawen came to my bed two—no, three—nights ago. You know ’e newer does that. Not with the ’ouse wenches.”

Suddenly it was impossible to breathe. Sara remembered having felt like this long ago, when her horse Eppie had shied at some movement in the grass and thrown her to the ground. Sara had fallen flat on her stomach and had wheezed and gasped sickly for air. Oh, God, how could it matter this much to her that he had taken his pleasure within this woman’s body, held her and kissed her—

“ ’Is eyes were so strange,” Tabitha continued, “like ’e was looking through the gates of ’ell. ‘I ’as a special request, ’e says, ’an’ if you tells anyone about it, I’ll ’ave you skinned an’ gogged.’ So I says awright, an’ then—”

“No.” Sara felt as if she would shatter to pieces if she heard one more word. “Don’t tell me. I—I don’t want to hear—”

“It was about you, miss.”

“Me?” Sara asked faintly.

“ ’E came to my bed. ’E told me not to say anyfing, no matter what ’e did. No matter what ’e said. Then Mr. Crawen turned the lamp down an’ took me against ’im…” Tabitha averted her gaze as she continued. Sara was frozen in place. “ ‘Let me hold you, Sara,’ ’e says, ‘I need you, Sara’…all night long it was, ’im pretending I was you. It’s because we look alike, you an’ me. That’s why ’e did it.” She shrugged with a touch of embarrassment. “ ’E was gentle an’ sweet about it, too. In the morning ’e left wivout a word, but there was still that terrible look in ’is eyes—”

“Stop,” Sara said sharply, her face ashen. “You shouldn’t have come here. You had no right to tell me.”

Instead of being offended by Sara’s outburst, Tabitha looked sympathetic. “I says to myself…it wouldn’t ’urt no one if I told Miss Fielding. You ’as the right to know. Mr. Crawen loves you, miss, like ’e’s newer loved no one in ’is blessed life. ’E thinks you’re too good for ’im—’e thinks you’re as fine as an angel. An’ you are, God’s truf.” Tabitha stared at her earnestly. “Miss Sara, if you only knew…’e’s not as bad as they say.”

“I know that,” Sara choked. “But there are things you don’t understand. I’m betrothed to another man, and even if I weren’t…” She stopped abruptly. There was no need to explain her feelings, or speculate on Derek Craven’s, in front of this woman. It was useless, not to mention painful.

“Then you won’t go to ’im?”

The girl’s bewilderment caused Sara to smile in spite of her misery. Like the other house wenches, Tabitha felt inordinately proud and not a little possessive of Derek Craven, almost as if he were a favorite uncle or a kindly benefactor. If he wanted something, if something would please him, there was no question that he should have it.