The Bride Sale (3 page)

Verity heard a sharp intake of breath from the dark man. “Another hundred pounds?” he said in a voice edged with steel.

“It…it's a bargain, you see,” Gilbert said. “I have her trunk of clothes and personal things in my coach. For a hundred pounds she can take them with her. 'Tis a fair price. It would cost you more than that to outfit her, would it not?”

The dark stranger fixed Gilbert with a look of such fury she thought he must be scorched by its intensity. She shuddered and tightened her grip on the cloak.

After what seemed minutes, the man reached into his coat and brought out a velvet sovereign purse. He fingered it briefly, then flung it roughly at Gilbert. “Take the whole bloody thing,” he said. “There's over two hundred pounds in it. Take it and be off. Leave her trunk behind.”

Gilbert pocketed the purse and stepped closer to Verity, who had not yet been able to move a muscle. “All right,” he said. “I'll go. Verity, I—”

“Hold on, there, gen'l'mun,” the auctioneer interrupted. “Can't just take the money an' be off like that. There be papers 'ee both got to sign first.”

“Ah. Yes. Right,” Gilbert said, still looking at Verity. “I had almost forgot.”

“Follow me, then,” the auctioneer said.

He and Gilbert turned toward the rear of the plinth. Verity was obviously meant to go with them,
but she could not move. The trembling had subsided somewhat, but she could not move. She stood stiff as a statue, her feet screwed to the spot. If she could take but one step, then she might be able to take another, and then another, until she was running away. Away from this nightmare.

But she could not move.

“Wait!” The dark stranger strode up the two steps and stood directly in front of Verity. He reached out for her, and Verity's heart lurched in her chest. But then his hands circled the leather halter around her neck and began to unfasten it. “There is no need for this,” he said. He slid the halter from her neck and tossed it into the crowd below.

Verity closed her eyes and let out a long, shuddery breath, then flexed her neck. After one more deep breath she eased the tight hold on the muscles in her shoulders, her back, her arms, her legs. Inch by inch, the tension in her body was gradually released until she stood composed and still. The trembling had stopped. She slowly untangled her fingers from the folds of the cloak and stretched them wide, then reached up to touch her throat where the halter had been. Panic no longer paralyzed her. She could move now. She could walk. She could walk away.

But she did not. The dark man looked at her with an unreadable expression. Inexplicably, she wanted to smile at him, but he stepped behind her to join Gilbert and the auctioneer. Verity pressed her fingers to her lips and wondered what had got into her. She turned and walked toward the men as they leaned over a small table at the rear of the plinth. She stepped closer and saw that they examined a parch
ment sheet. A deed of sale, no doubt. The disposition of her future.

Gilbert wrote a few lines on the parchment and handed the quill to the dark man. He dipped it in the tiny inkwell and scrawled something quickly. Verity leaned in closer for a better look—a glimpse into her fate.

And so she was to be transferred from one man to the next like a plot of land.

Verity did not for one minute believe that such a document legitimized the transaction. It could not possibly be legal. Could it? She watched as the auctioneer prepared a second copy of the document. Gilbert and Lord Harkness signed this one as well. The auctioneer sprinkled both documents with sand and handed one to each gentleman. Gilbert folded his copy and tucked it into his jacket. Lord Harkness stared at his copy, frowning, as if the words were incomprehensible to him.

He looked up and caught Verity's eye. For the briefest instant, their gazes locked. An unexpected hint of emotion—was it pity?—flickered across his eyes, but was gone in a blink. She might have imagined it, for he was scowling again before he turned away to speak with Gilbert.

After a few terse words Lord Harkness looked toward Verity again, but did not meet her eyes. “Let us be on our way,” he said. “I believe we are quite through here.”

Indeed, she was quite through. The life she had known, all that was familiar and routine, was over.

Lord Harkness stepped down from the plinth. He did not touch her, did not take her arm, but made it clear that he expected her to follow. Verity took a deep breath and moved to do so.

“Verity, wait.”

She stopped at the sound of Gilbert's voice but did not turn around. She would not look at him. She never wanted to look at him again.

“I…I'm sorry, Verity,” he said behind her in an uncertain voice. “It was the only way.”

She did not understand how it could be so, but did not care. She was as anxious to be rid of him as he apparently was to be rid of her. She wanted to be gone. She wanted this to be over.

“Well,” he continued, “at least now you are free of me.”

Verity said nothing, and walked away from her husband for the last time.

She took two hesitant steps toward the edge of the plinth, and stopped. Lord Harkness waited below. After a moment, he reached up a hand to her, silently offering to help her down the steps.

Verity looked at that gloved hand and knew that if she took it, she would be tacitly accepting his protection. She had no idea what role he had in mind for her—mistress, servant, prisoner, slave? He may have
a deed of sale, but she would never belong to him. He may own her body, but he would never have her soul. Never.

She clasped her hands at her waist and thrust out her chin. Slowly and cautiously, for her muscles had begun to seize up again with tension, she descended the steps on her own, ignoring his proffered hand. Lord Harkness quirked a brow, and his mouth twisted into what looked like a smirk. But he had turned around and walked on before she could be sure.

He did not turn back to see that she followed. He apparently had no doubt that she would do so. He had removed her halter and turned his back on her, making certain that she knew she was free to stay behind, and knowing that she would not. How could he be so sure of her? How could he know that she would not run away?

Verity's eyes darted about the crowded square, and she knew there was nowhere else to go. Not among these people, who had mocked her, tormented her, insulted her. At least Lord Harkness had done none of those things.

She would go with him. For now.

The whispering began as the crowd parted for them, as they had done for him earlier.

“…Lord Heartless…”

“Ea! Poor thing.”

“Wot'll become of her?”

“How long will she…”

“Lord Heartless…”

“…her, too?”

“Do you suppose he will…”

“The poor creature, her…”

“…another victim?”

“God help her.”

Shaken by the half-heard whispers and concerned frowns, Verity clasped her hands together so tightly her fingernails dug painfully into her palms. Dear Lord, what was she headed for? What did these people believe he was going to do with her? Determined not to let the crowd see her fear, she kept her head high and followed the tall figure striding ahead. Yet for all her outward composure, she might as well have been riding through the square in a tumbril headed for the scaffold. She did not care to consider how close to the truth such an end might be.

Horrible, disjointed images invaded her mind, whispered childhood memories as incomprehensible now as then, but frightening in their implications. Hushed secrets from the last century about the Hellfire Club, about the Marquis de Sade, about white slavery.

Was this to be her fate? To be sacrificed to the whims of this dark stranger, to suffer unspeakable acts at his hand? To be tortured or even killed?

For some unaccountable reason—pride? stubbornness?—she did not want to die. Though she had nothing in particular to live for, she wanted to live.

With a determined tilt of her chin, she followed Lord Harkness to a plain, unmarked black carriage waiting in a nearby lane, blessedly removed from the market crowd. A coachman in white leather breeches, striped waistcoat, and dark jacket held the horses' heads while a footman opened the carriage door.

Once again, Lord Harkness offered his hand to as
sist her into the carriage, but she ignored him and he stepped aside to speak with the coachman. When the footman, a strapping ginger-haired fellow with an open, friendly face, offered to hand her up, she did not hesitate to accept.

Inside, the coach was elegant but not opulent. The seats and walls were upholstered in tufted blue velvet, the trimmings plain brass and mahogany. Its comfort was a blessing after the poor equipage Gilbert had hired for the journey to Cornwall.

But she must not allow a friendly footman and comfortable coach to confuse the situation.

The carriage began to bounce slightly. They must be loading the boot. Verity prayed that her trunk was intact, for it held practically everything she owned. She understood now why Gilbert had told her to pack so thoroughly: He had known she would not be coming back.

The carriage door opened and the young footman stuck his head in. “Pardon me, ma'am,” he said. “But we had to unload these here cases o' wine to make room for yer trunk. Nuthin' fer it but to stack 'em here.” He proceeded to pile three wooden crates on the seat opposite.

Dear God, was Lord Harkness a drunkard, too? Her father had seldom taken more than a glass at mealtime. Three cases of wine would have lasted him a year. How quickly would Lord Harkness drink his way through it? And was she to play some role in his drunken debaucheries?

The subject of her thoughts launched himself into the coach, seated himself next to her, and pulled the door behind him. His thigh brushed against hers,
and Verity flinched as though singed. She scooted across the bench as far as she could and pressed up against the side panel. She fixed her gaze out the window, studying the plain granite wall that faced her.

“Are you…quite comfortable?” Lord Harkness asked.

Verity nodded without turning to look at him.

“Pendurgan is less than five miles away,” he continued in an awkward-sounding tone. “We should be there in three-quarters of an hour or so.”

Pendurgan. Even the name was frightening. She was going to a place called Pendurgan with a man called Heartless. Heaven help her.

The carriage lurched and pulled away. Verity grabbed the strap and hung on for her life.

J
ames drummed his fingers on the window ledge of the carriage. He had never felt so stupid in all his life. He had just bought and paid for a young woman. Now, what the devil was he supposed to do with her?

What had possessed him to do such a rash, impulsive thing? He should have known better. He ought to have stayed out of it, walked away from the market square without a second thought. God knows, he had no business bringing a young woman into his home. Not after all that had happened. And yet he had signed a paper accepting full responsibility for her. How could he have done such a damned fool thing?

And how was he to explain her to his household? He couldn't exactly trot her out like a new race horse,
or deposit her in Mrs. Tregelly's care as though she were a new kitchen maid. Blast it all, he wished she were in fact some scruffy bit of baggage that could be dumped in the scullery and forgot about. But it had been obvious that she was of his own class, gentry at the very least. She had to be dealt with. Somehow.

And there was Agnes to consider. How was he to explain her to Agnes?

By morning everyone from Liskeard to Truro would have heard the tale, each making his own conclusions about James's plans for the woman. It did not take a superior mind to anticipate what those conclusions would be.

Bloody hell. He was to be the center of a scandal once again.

He looked over at her, but she was turned, pressed close against the door panel. No doubt she wished to avoid even the slightest contact with her new—what? Owner? But she was not his slave. Employer? She was not his servant, either. Husband? Certainly not.

What the devil was she, then? And what the hell was he supposed to do with her?

She would not even look at him, for God's sake. He might have known what to do if she had been a weepy, fragile young thing who looked to him for security, who clung to him as her savior after such a public humiliation. He would not have minded that, to have her cling to him. He recalled the full bosom revealed by Moody's hands. But she did not cling. She did not sob or swoon. Neither did she rant or shout about the injustice of her circumstances.

She did none of those things, damn her eyes, and so he did not know what to do.

She kept one hand at her waist, gripping the edge of her cloak, while the other held on to the strap so tightly James thought she might rip it out of the panel. And she kept her gaze fixed firmly out the window, the poke of her bonnet shielding her face.

He had, though, got a pretty good look at her—Verity, the husband had called her—when he stood before her at the base of the old market cross. She had been all huge brown eyes, wide with apprehension, set in a face of unnatural pallor. Though she tried to stand tall, she was slightly below average in height, the top of her head coming to just below his chin. And she had been shivering as violently as though just lifted from an icy sea. He recognized the great effort of will it had cost her to bring the trembling under control. She made the effort still, with her tight hold on the strap.

If only she would look at him. If only she would say something.

It occurred to James that he had yet to hear the sound of her voice. She had not uttered a single word during the entire ugly proceedings. Not to her husband. Not to Jud Moody. Certainly not to him.

As the carriage clattered and bounced over the broad granite cobbles of Gunnisloe's main road, he wondered what sort of voice she might have. He supposed it depended on where she was from. Moody had called her a foreigner, but that merely meant she was not Cornish. James gazed out the window at the squat, close-built granite cottages lining the narrow road and thought how bleak and colorless this part of Cornwall must appear to a stranger.

In some irrational way, her continued silence irri
tated him. He felt certain she would not speak or in any way acknowledge him, or their situation, until it was absolutely necessary. She was all wrapped up in a fierce sort of pride that had allowed her to survive the spectacle at Gunnisloe. She would not break just yet.

At any other time he might have admired such strength of character, but he was not disposed to such nonsense just now. Her quiet self-control, her infernal dignity, began to grate on his nerves. She was an enormous inconvenience, an unwanted and awkward responsibility he cursed himself for taking on.

And so, as the carriage lumbered along, the awkward silence continued, punctuated by the rattle of the windows and the clanging of the swingle bar as they left Gunnisloe behind and passed onto the deeply rutted, muddy road.

James wondered irritably if he should break the silence. But why should he make the effort when
she
was the one complicating his life? Besides, she—Verity, he remembered—was clearly frightened. Her savage grip on the leather strap signaled the level of her anxiety.

Of course she feared him. The bloody fools in Gunnisloe had seen to that. She had heard their malicious whispering and hollow concern—these same people who had been ready to toss her over to Will Sykes. But the big smith was merely gross and filthy, essentially harmless. They considered James the worst sort of monster, as though they feared he meant some kind of harm to her.

And the truly frightening thing was, they might be right.

His gaze wandered and took in the passing landscape. Damnation. He ought to have told his coachman to take the longer, southern route to Pendurgan, along the lush banks of the river. This road ran straight through one of the harsher stretches of Bodmin Moor. She probably thought he was escorting her to some kind of devil's lair.

As he watched her, James realized the view out her window was even more ominous than his own view of the faraway tors. For in the distance stood the ruined buildings of Wheal Zelah, a mine that had played out in his grandfather's time. The derelict windlass and crumbling engine house were a common enough sight in Cornwall, but what would this woman make of them, and of the slender chimney starkly silhouetted against the purple sky of dusk? And the slack heaps arranged like pyramids at the base? For one unacquainted with mines it must surely appear strange and godforsaken.

The coachman slowed the horses and edged toward the side of the road as though to allow another carriage to pass. Few carriages besides his own ever took this road, so James leaned toward his companion to get a better look out her window, where the other vehicle would pass. She flinched as his shoulder touched hers. He muttered a Cornish oath and pulled away at once, silently damning the woman for making him feel so awkward. “I beg your pardon,” he said under his breath.

The carriage came to a complete stop to allow an approaching mule train to pass. James gave a soft but thoroughly wicked chuckle over what she would make of
this
peculiar sight. The big gray mules
marched in pairs with panniers of copper ore slung over their backs. The panniers were stuffed full, a sight that brought a brief smile to James's face, for it was his ore, from his mines.

The wind carried the distant sounds of Wheal Devoran upon it: the low rattle and clang of the draught bob pumping water up from the lowest reaches of the earth, slightly muffled by the mizzling rain that had begun to fall. It was the sound of a working mine and gladdened the heart of any true Cornishman.

“'Tis a good lode this year,” he murmured.

The woman started at his words but did not turn around. Damn her skittish hide. He would keep his mouth shut until they had reached Pendurgan.

In the meantime, he must devise a plan. His servants dared not question him. But Agnes…He would have to tell her something. He must contrive some reasonable explanation of how he had left for Gunnisloe alone and returned with a young woman in tow.

And then he must determine how he was to keep away from her.

Damn, damn, damn.

 

The last of the mules trudged past the carriage, led by two unsmiling men whose faces and clothes were caked in mud, giving them a dark, almost featureless appearance. They wore broad, stiff-looking hats with odd little stubs of candles stuck on the brims.

A shiver fluttered down Verity's spine. What sort of place was this? She had grown up in the lush wolds of Lincolnshire, where the landscape was as different from this desolate spot as it could possibly
be. Even Gilbert's home in Berkshire, though ramshackle and remote, had been nestled in the wooded downs. Nothing in her life had prepared her for such a place as this, with hardly a tree in sight, and those solitary few naked and black, as cheerless as the land. It was grim and alien, with its curious ruins and rocky moors, everything a harmonious gray.

And as though Lord Harkness had arranged it especially for her, it began to rain in earnest. A hard wind buffeted the coach so that it swayed and rocked along the rutted road. Verity sat huddled in her corner as they were pitched from side to side, and the sound of the wind mingled with the creaking of the carriage to create a shrill and mournful howl.

She kept a firm grip on the leather strap. She ought to have wrenched her gaze from the distressing, inhospitable landscape, but then she might have been tempted to shift her concentration to the silent stranger at her side. She could not ignore his closeness, or the jolt of apprehension that shook her like a sort of electrical shock each time the rocking of the coach caused her thigh to brush up against his.

The carriage slowed as the rain beat down more violently. Its wheels flung up mud from the road to splatter the window. Within minutes the view of the forbidding moorland had become entirely obscured.

Verity turned away from the window at last, closed her eyes, and imagined that when she opened them, she would find the sunny skies and gentle green wolds of Lincolnshire.

A slight movement at her side caused her to open her eyes. Curious, she slanted her gaze toward Lord Harkness, keeping her head forward so he would not
notice. She shifted a fraction of an inch, just so she could peek at him beyond the brim of her poke bonnet. He, too, stared straight ahead. He had tossed his tall beaver onto one of the crates on the opposite bench. His hair looked black as a crow's wing in the gray light of the carriage. It grew long over his ears and hung slightly over the high collar of his shirt. It appeared to be dusted with silver at the temples, but that may have been a trick of the light. His profile showed a firm jaw and a strong nose with a slight bump along the ridge. She could not see his eyes, and indeed had no wish to do so, recollecting that brief but intense moment when their eyes had met in the town square.

Suddenly the coach lurched sharply, pressing Verity against the back of the bench as it began to climb a steep slope. The rain pounded hard against the windows, washing away most of the mud and revealing a view that caused her to gasp in surprise. The stark moorland gave way, at the top of the hill, to a thick, dark woodland. Though black and looming, as sinister as all she had seen during the journey from the town, the woodland nevertheless appeared incongruous after so much emptiness. The copse of trees seemed to spring magically straight out of the granite moor.

Verity knew in her heart that hidden among that grim-looking forest was her destination: Pendurgan.

“Ah, we are almost there,” Lord Harkness said, startling Verity while she peered curiously out the window. “That is Pendurgan just ahead. My home.”

As the carriage reached the crest of the hill, they entered a lush knoll encompassed by trees—chestnut
trees, if she was not mistaken. Imagine that. Chestnut trees thriving in all that granite. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to protect—or hide?—the house.

And then she saw it. It did not look so much like a house as like a small, ancient castle. Squat and gray, its thick, embattled walls were pierced in only two places by high, narrow, slit windows. The rest, seemed to be unbroken, unadorned, unimpeachable granite. The structure appeared to rise up from the very stone beneath its feet.

Dear Lord. It was the sort of place one entered and never left, sinister and malevolent. The thick walls would close upon one like a prison.

The carriage drove through an arched gateway in the thick outer wall into a large inner courtyard. Though less imposing than the outside—at least there were windows, lots of windows—it still appeared a harsh, unwelcoming, rough-looking building.

The carriage came to a halt, and the ginger-haired footman swung open the door on her side and pulled down the step. Verity warily took his hand and climbed down. The rain fell hard upon the gravel drive, and she clutched her cloak close about her as she stood beside the carriage, uncertain what to do.

“Bring her trunk round to the great hall, Tomas,” Lord Harkness said to the footman in a loud, sharp voice. “Jago, take the coach round back to the kitchen and unload the rest. Then get these horses out of the rain.”

He turned quickly to Verity, grabbed her upper arm, and tugged her in the direction of a set of huge wooden doors. It was the first time he'd touched her,
and she flinched slightly at the roughness of it. Not from fear, for she knew it had more to do with getting them both out of the rain than with any sort of brutality. There was something else, though, that caused her to flinch, caused her skin beneath his fingers to prickle and flush. She could not name what it was, but it frightened her as much as anything else that had happened this day.

Lord Harkness gave a sort of growl and stopped in his tracks. Tightening the hold on her arm, he turned her to face him. “Dammit,” he snapped, “let us get one thing straight. While you are at Pendurgan, Mrs…. what was it? Russell? Mrs. Russell?”

“No!”

The word was uttered before she could check it. But after all that had happened this day, the name was anathema to her.

Lord Harkness glared at Verity through the curtain of rain that poured off the brim of his hat. A deep scowl beetled his brow as though he wanted to snap her head off for speaking at all.

“No,” she repeated. She could hardly breathe from the effort of speaking even that single word. She wanted to say more, to explain about the name, but the very thought of speaking to this dark stranger who'd brought her to this forbidding place was liable to set her whole body to trembling once again.