Strangers at Dawn

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Authors: Elizabeth Thornton
Tags: Romance, Historical, Historical Romance
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collecting her belongings to pack in her trunk. She would not be easy until she’d put herself well beyond Max Worthe’s reach.
    T HE FOLLOWING MORNING, MAX AWOKE WITH the birds. It was ever thus when he stayed in the country. Most people thought the country was idyllically peaceful compared to town, but he’d never found it so. The racket of crows and pigeons, not to mention pesky songbirds, never failed to awaken him, though he could sleep through a military parade that passed right under his bedroom window in Whitehall.
    Town life was much more to his taste.
    But this was one morning when he didn’t mind getting up with the birds. Dawn was no more than a pale glow on the horizon. Inside the inn, nothing was stirring. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Sara, but he wasn’t taking any chances. She might be embarrassed to face him after what had happened last night. She might decide to make a bolt for it, and he had other ideas. Until he had met her betrothed in person, he was going to keep Sara Childe in his sights.
    The thought that Deirdre was no longer a problem had him humming tunelessly. He smiled at his reflection in the mirror above the washstand as he lathered his face. When he’d entered his room last night, he’d found it empty, but Deirdre had left him an eloquent message, far more eloquent than anything that could be written on paper. She’d unpacked his clothes and cut off the arms of all his coats at the elbow and done much the same thing with his trousers. Only his shirts and underclothes had been spared. So he was reduced to wearing the same coat and trousers he’d worn yesterday.
    He didn’t know why he was laughing. He couldn’t haveslept for much more than a couple of hours; his expensive Weston garments were strewn around the floor like a pile of old rags; he was aching all over; and last, but not least, the Exeter Chronicle might well go to someone else because he didn’t have the time to pursue it right now.
    Peter Fallon was waiting for him in Exeter. Peter would be the one to face the wrath of the irate proprietors when he, Max, didn’t turn up to sign the documents. It couldn’t be helped. Something that he didn’t want to put a name to had touched him on the shoulder, and if he turned away now, he would always wonder …
    Sara.
    What was it about her that made her so different? He dwelt on that thought as he began to shave. He’d known more beautiful women, but none that fascinated him half as much. The only other woman who had come close to obsessing him was Sara Carstairs, but that was only because she’d got away with murder.
    He was sitting on the bed, pulling on his boots, when thoughts of Sara Carstairs intruded again. He was remembering the trial and how nothing seemed to affect her. He remembered how he’d wanted to shake her, if only to put a crack in the mask she hid behind.
    Just as he’d wanted to shake Sara last night.
    He shook his head. Sara Carstairs was a typical English rose. She had fair hair and blue eyes. Her resemblance to Sara Childe was …
    He sat there, staring blindly at his boots as impressions flashed like lightning inside his head. He’d been waiting for her to smile at him for a long, long time. She seemed familiar to him. He wanted to shake her, if only to put a crack in the mask she hid behind. William had married someone else and met with a terrible accident.
    William Neville had married her sister and then she’d murdered him.
    William. William Neville.
    It couldn’t be true. Sara Carstairs had fair hair and blue eyes. It was true that at the trial, her hair had been concealed by her bonnet and she’d never looked out at the spectators, but her complexion was so fair that he’d simply assumed she was a typical English rose.
    And that’s how he always remembered her.
    He remembered something else about Sara Carstairs. She was a woman to attract men, not by beauty alone, but by an appealing blend of innocence and worldliness. And isn’t that

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