The Bride Sale (26 page)

James turned his back to Mrs. Tregelly and read it again, savoring each word, seeking hope beneath the pain. He found it glimmering in the last line.
One of the greatest pleasures of my life.
Oh indeed, he thought, and you were that to me.

James stood for several long moments, mining each word for precious meaning. She was sorry to leave. She was grateful for his kindness—ha!—and his friendship. She had wanted to say good-bye. She would miss him. No, she would miss them all, but he was certainly included in that sentiment. She would miss him. She was sorry. She was grateful. She cared.

Surely that was the meaning to be read between the lines. She cared. Perhaps she even loved him. No, that was stretching it too far. But she did care for him. He had known that for some time.

But what good did it do to realize she cared, now that she was gone? To give validity to the ache in his heart?

In such a short time, Verity had made an impact on
his life, on the lives of everyone at Pendurgan and St. Perran's. She had wrought so many changes in this grim house. It would never be the same.

The biggest change of all was James himself. She had begun to bring him back to life, back to living. It might be only the tiniest seed buried deep within his wretched black soul, but it struggled to break through and send its shoots toward the sun. That it struggled at all was because of Verity, because she believed in him, because she offered hope when he never dared to dream.

She had made him want to live again, to take control of the demons that plagued him, to reclaim his life. Verity had planted that seed, and by God, he was not ready to let it wither and die. He knew, though, just as surely as he breathed, that there would be no other chance for him. She had been his last chance. And she was gone.

I am forced to leave Pendurgan
. She had not gone by choice. That bastard Russell had waved the law in her face and forced her to go. He had not cared much for the law last fall, when he had led his proud young wife to auction at Gunnisloe. The wife whose marriage had never been consummated.

By God, he was not going to let Russell cause her any further pain and humiliation. He might have legal marriage lines, but he did not have the right. James, of course, had no rights at all, except that he loved her. Russell could never have loved her. James was not about to let that blackguard jerk Verity around like a marionette. James would fight for her, for her right to make her own choice.

He would go after her. Perhaps he would make a
widow of her, if that's what it took. But by God, he would fight to get her back.

“Mrs. Tregelly?”

She had quietly left the room, leaving him to his solitary misery.

“Mrs. Tregelly!”

His bellow brought the poor woman scurrying as fast as her plump legs would carry her. “Yes, my lord?” she asked breathlessly.

“How long ago did they leave, Verity and Russell?”

“Oh, well. Let me see, now.” She pursed her lips and tapped her chin with a finger while she considered the matter. “It must be several hours ago. Just afore eleven, I'd guess.”

“Eleven?” James checked the mantel clock. It had just gone three. They'd been gone at least four hours, a hell of a head start. “What sort of carriage did he have?”

Mrs. Tregelly looked puzzled. “What sort of carriage?”

“Yes, yes,” James said, unable to keep the impatience from his voice. “How many horses? Two or four?”

“Oh, I believe it was four, my lord. Yes, I'm sure of it. Four horses.”

They would make good time, then. But on horseback, he might be able to catch up with them. He would ask Jago Chenhalls for more detail on the carriage so he could follow its trail. There was no time to waste. He tucked Verity's note in his waistcoat pocket and rushed toward the door.

“My lord?”

He paused reluctantly. “Yes, what is it?”

“Are you going after her, my lord? Are you going to bring Miz Verity back to Pendurgan?”

“I am certainly going to try,” he said.

Mrs. Tregelly heaved a sigh. “Thank the good Lord.”

James cast her a broad smile then hurried to the main staircase. He bounded up the stairs, heedless of the stiff muscles that had so troubled him earlier, and was headed for the tower stairs when he came face to face with Agnes Bodinar. She stood in the main corridor, silhouetted against the dim light of a wall sconce. She moved to block his path to the tower.

“You're going after her, aren't you?”

“Yes, Agnes. Let me pass.”

“You do not need her, Harkness. Let her go.”

James tried to move around her, but she sidestepped him and continued to block his path. “Agnes, please.”

“Don't be such a fool. She's not worth it.”

He stopped and looked into his mother-in-law's steely gray eyes. “Ah, but she is, Agnes.” He thought of the two hundred and more gold sovereigns scattered on the library floor. “She's worth every penny.”

 

Verity shifted on the carriage seat and tried once again to find a more comfortable position. It was useless. Her muscles were cramped and stiff from endless hours spent bumping along rutted and muddy roads. Gilbert had insisted they travel into the evening hours. He seemed anxious to reach London.

If she had to leave Cornwall, Verity would have preferred to go back to Berkshire, to the ramshackle
house nestled in the downs where she had spent the first two and a half years of her marriage. Gilbert had told her, though, that he had sold the house in order to pay back Lord Harkness, and now had only a small leased townhouse in London.

He needed her there. He had come in line for a government post and could not afford an investigation into his wife's disappearance.

Verity had been wretched with despair as their carriage had wound its way through the rough, granite-strewn landscape of Bodmin Moor.

“What a bleak and dreary land this is,” Gilbert had said. “I am more sorry than I can say that I have forced you to live in such a godforsaken place. You must be happy to see the last of it.”

His words had caused a flood of tears that he misunderstood as relief. She was far from happy to see the last of it. She had never been more miserable. Except perhaps when Davey Chenhall's skinny arms had to be forcibly removed from around her neck, or when a sobbing Gonetta had returned Verity's hug with such force she'd thought her stays would crack, or when she had watched the gray mass of Pendurgan disappear from view for the last time.

Verity would forever recollect with profound regret the thick, cold, stone walls of the old house, fraught with the desolation of its master and the tragedy of its recent past. She had grown to love the old place and had so looked forward to seeing its gardens in full summer. She would never get to see what became of the tiny green seedlings she'd planted in the kitchen garden that had just begun to sprout. Nor would she ever know if the midsummer festival took
place as planned. She would forever regret leaving all that behind at Pendurgan.

She would regret leaving its master most of all.

“I should not have done what I did to you, Verity,” Gilbert said as she silently wept. “I do not suppose I can ever explain it to you, explain why I did it. That doesn't matter now. But when I heard who it was I had…I had left you with, well, I tell you I was devastated. Lord Heartless of Pendurgan!”

Verity had let him prattle on about how contrite he was for turning her over to a renowned monster, a wife murderer. He never once used the word “sold.” But he
had
sold her—something Verity would neither forget nor forgive.

Gilbert had convinced himself he was rescuing her from a horrible fate, some unnamed terror at the hands of Lord Heartless. For Verity, though, the real monster in all this was Gilbert. So quiet, so reserved, so unassuming, and yet a monster who had sold his wife without a qualm, until he'd learned the reputation of the buyer. He might convince himself of the noble act of rescue. Verity would never forgive him for taking her away from the only man she'd ever loved.

It did not matter that James had been dark and angry and brooding and potentially dangerous. She had grown to love the man beneath the mask and to understand the root of his anger and self-loathing. Even recognizing the cause of his pain, though, Verity could not really be sure that she could ever have helped him, that she could have helped heal his wounds.

But, oh, how she would like to have tried. The ache in her heart was for that more than almost any
thing else—that she would never know if her love for him could have made a difference.

She wiped her eyes and straightened her spine. She would
not
be done in by this new twist of fate. She had survived all the rest, though this was the most painful change she had yet endured. To leave behind all that was unfinished at Pendurgan, to leave behind James…

She would survive. She always did. What she must remember was that James had not felt anything beyond friendship for her, and one night of something more. It was her own arrogance that caused her to hope and dream of things that could never be.

You are nothing like Rowena.
His words had reminded her that she could never fill that special place in his heart.

She had hoped there had been some affection between them, that their friendship mattered to him. But in the end she could never be that important to him, for she was nothing like Rowena, the one true love of his life.

Throughout the long, uncomfortable carriage ride, Verity brooded over all that had happened, coming to grips with her broken heart, her shattered dreams. She rebuffed Gilbert's attempts at conversation. She had nothing to say to him and preferred to be alone with her thoughts. He had finally recognized that fact, and fell silent.

Verity closed her eyes but could not sleep. Her mind was in too much turmoil and her body too stiff. How she wished they would stop for the night. It had been dark for hours.

When the carriage began to slow and pull into yet
another posting inn for a change of team, Verity was finally compelled to speak.

“May we not stop here for the night?” she asked. “It is late and I am tired and uncomfortable. May we not rest for a while?”

Gilbert looked out the carriage window. “Yes, it looks to be decent enough. Let me see if there are rooms available.”

Verity would have been agreeable to sleeping on a bench in the taproom if necessary, but she kept quiet. Gilbert bounded out of the carriage and closed the door behind him. Verity was too tired to watch and leaned her head against the squabs and closed her eyes. She heard the voices of ostlers and the rattle of harnesses, and felt the jostling of the carriage as the horses were unhitched.

Gilbert returned after a few moments and reached out a hand to help her down the folding steps of the carriage. “They have one small bedchamber and a private parlor. We can have a quick meal before retiring, if you like. I will stretch out on a chair in the parlor. Or the taproom.”

He need not have added that last bit of information. Verity had no fear that her husband would finally seek her bed after all these years.

She found that, as tired as she was, she was nevertheless hungry, and so they ordered a cold collation to be served in the private parlor. Gilbert seemed to find her continued silence oppressive, and once again he attempted conversation.

“I hope we can start over, Verity,” he said, and passed her a slice of cold ham. “I hope that we can view this as a new beginning for us. I know our mar
riage has not been…has not been much of a marriage. And I have not been much of a husband. I will try to do better by you this time, my dear. You will see. We will live in London together and start over.”

Verity spread butter on a piece of grainy bread, and reached deep within herself to locate the courage she had nurtured over the months at Pendurgan.

“I do not wish to start over with you, Gilbert,” she said. “I have no wish to live with a man who has seen fit to sell me at auction for two hundred pounds.”

Verity marveled that she was able to say the words. There had been a time when she would have bitten her tongue out rather than cross her husband. She had certainly kept her silence when he led her to the market square at Gunnisloe and placed a leather halter around her neck.

Something had happened to her, though. Something essential deep inside her had changed. She would go where life took her, as she always did; but she would no longer be silent about how she felt, about what she wanted. Somehow, during the months at Pendurgan, she had developed a bit of backbone. Not a terribly strong one, to be sure, or she would not have gone with Gilbert at all, legal rights be damned. But she would no longer be the silent little mouse she'd been before.

Gilbert stared at her wide-eyed. He had difficulty swallowing his food and seemed almost to choke on it. He took a long swallow of ale and it appeared to calm him. He continued to stare at her, a hint of apprehension in his hazel eyes.

“Verity? Do you mean you would rather have stayed with that…that murderer?”

“Yes,” she replied without hesitation, “that is what I mean.”

“Why, for God's sake? The man's a monster.”

“I was happy there. I was useful. And he is not a monster.”

“Oh.” Gilbert looked thoroughly abashed. “I see. Well, I am glad, at least, that it was not as bad as I had believed. You cannot know the unspeakable horrors I imagined were being inflicted upon you.”

“And yet it took you eight months to come for me,” Verity said. “Eight months of unspeakable horrors. You must have been astonished to find me alive.”

Gilbert paled at her words. His hands began to fidget nervously. “I…I did not have the funds to…to…”

“To buy me back?”

He fumbled with his neckcloth and squirmed in his seat. “I had to repay the money Harkness had given me. I could not simply steal you away without worrying that he would come tearing after us.”