As for her reputation, well, everyone in the district adored him. There were mitigating circumstances...
Sin was sin.
She put her head in her hands hopelessly. She had been sorely tempted, and was failing the test. Yet how ironic. She was resolving to become his lover even as he had told her it was philosophically and physically impossible for him. But unless he was pretending in the same manner that Horner did in the play The Country Wife in order to trick her, he posed no threat to her as Paxton had done Jane.
Alexander wasn't trying to seduce her for his own selfish ends. Quite the contrary. He was trying to give her up.
She wasn't willing to let him. Or to give him up herself.
He was at his wit's end. He needed help. On every level, but most of all on this fundamental one. He already thought little enough of himself as a man without this added burden.
It would be all right. One day at a time, she had told him. One day, and one night.
Sarah checked the house, locked up, and went to bed with a heavy heart. As she said her prayers, she asked God His forgiveness for willingly choosing the path of sin in order to save the man she loved.
She wondered even as she did so if this were the bargain she had made the night he had nearly died. That loving him was not something that could be done by halves, or with reservations. That loving him was never going to be easy, but fraught with trials and tribulations.
Well, here was another problem for the infinitely practical Sarah to solve. She smiled wryly at the thought as she climbed into bed. She was nothing if not good at dealing with problems. She just had to think, recall all she knew second-hand from the clinic for fallen women she helped run.
Alexander might not feel completely manly, according to his definition of the word, but at least he was still alive, and that was all that mattered to her. Love would find a way, of that she was sure. She would find a way for them both.
Chapter Fifteen
The following morning Sarah was up early, but found Alexander already spinning away out in the garden when she came down.
"My, you look like you've been up all night."
"I work well in the dark," he replied, his expression closed and guarded.
"I had noticed."
"Go have your breakfast," he said gruffly.
"Aren't you coming, Alexander?"
"I'm not hungry."
"Bad night?" she asked gently, stroking back a tendril of hair from his forehead.
"Not one of my best, no."
"I'm sorry."
He sighed. "Sarah, go eat breakfast, and forget what I ever said last night."
"I will if you promise not to worry about it so much."
He nodded. "All right, I promise."
Easier said than done, she knew, but now was not the time to argue.
Sarah gave him a peck on the cheek which he did not shrink away from, and returned to the house.
She had breakfast and then went back out into the garden to continue with the carding and spinning. It was another glorious day, and as she sat working by his side, her resolution of the night before, and a half a plan, jelled in her mind, took on solid form and essence.
She loved him. It was a magical gift. One she could bestow in return. In whatever way she could.
Alexander did wonders with the spinning wheel, while the other three carded. The four of them worked all day side by side in the fresh air. Alexander was pleasant, but still distracted, his handsome face marred by a grim shadow Sarah wished she could do something to dispel.
Perhaps a conversation with Dr. Gold would help? She would try to go see him in the next couple of days, but it would be a dashed awkward discussion for the unmarried sister of a vicar to have. He would certainly know the man in question to whom she was referring. And would wonder exactly what the two of them had been getting up to in the vicarage.
Or not getting up to, she thought with a sigh, recalling the character of Horner in The Country Wife, who pretended to be impotent so that men would trust them with their wives, and women would want to help 'cure' him.
Surely Alexander wasn't deceiving her in so gross a manner, she reflected again, still recalling uneasily what a plausible rogue Paxton had been.
Or Ferncliffe. Why, Ferncliffe had even paid his addresses to herself and Elizabeth Eltham at Bath. Nearly married Pamela himself. Yet he had been a foul ravisher, and had taken advantage of and finally killed poor Jane.
But no, Alexander wasn't like that. He remembered nothing of his past, but she would stake all she owned that he was a decent, good man. He was far too upset and distressed, too sensitive upon the subject. He was being honest with her, she was sure. He had used the word hopeless, which bothered her more than anything. She simply couldn't allow him to give way to despair, not when he was getting better each and every day.