Never Broken (15 page)

“Does William know? Did he send you to look for me?”

“I am afraid William has written you off as a lost cause.” Quentin sounded disgusted. “In my modest opinion, that is one decision he’s made in your favor.”

“Then why are you here?” she asked, looking directly at him now, some of her fear draining away. Still, she remained on alert.

He took her grubby hand in his clean one. “To make you my wife.”

“I will not marry you.” She yanked her hand out of his and stared straight ahead.

“You will, Sara. Because that’s the only way you will keep Gormley Manor—and find your cousin.”

Shocked, she looked at him again. “You would help me find Rory?” She swallowed, realizing the import of the first part of his statement. “You would allow me to live at Gormley Manor?”

He smiled, surprising her further. “Yes, Miss Gormley. You are returning to your home. And if God wills it, your cousins will return as well.”

“What will you gain from this? What must I do in exchange for such miracles?”

“Be my faithful wife.” He took her hand again. “Bear my children, when the time comes. But most of all, be yourself. Your sweet, beautiful self.”

Sara paced the parlor,
her nerves strung tight. As Quentin had promised, she had been given a good meal while a servant prepared the water for her bath. Now she was clean, full, and dressed in the dowdiest garment she owned. She was also in a panic. The servant had taken her clothes, including her coat, which held her jewels. She had to get it back and soon. She didn’t trust Quentin, and as soon as she was able she would leave Gormley Manor again. This time she would be smarter.

This time she would go to America.

The door opened behind her, and she turned around. He walked into the room as if he already owned it. Now she could clearly see he was a member of the aristocracy. His black trousers, royal blue waistcoat, and crisp white shirt fit his form to perfection. She thought of her first impression of him at William’s wedding celebration. He’d been stiff, stodgy, and aloof. However, he was none of these things right now. She couldn’t help but notice he had a fine form indeed, an athletic build that had been hidden under overly large work clothes. It also explained his physical strength.

His hair was dark, nearly black, and touched the back of his tall collar. But his eyes were his most arresting feature, and they regarded her with cool confidence. She glanced at his hand; the makeshift bandage replaced with a fresh one. She’d bit him as hard as she could, but he hadn’t flinched.

And neither would she. He thought he had her in his snare, that his kind words and empty offers would fool her.

He was wrong.

“You look lovely,” he said, moving toward the small sideboard, where two liquor decanters and cut crystal glasses sat on a silver tray. He poured amber liquid into a glass and held it up to the light. “Irish whiskey. A personal favorite.”

His snobby, cultured voice grated on her nerves. After his false romantic plea in the carriage, she had refused to look at him or to utter another word the rest of the ride home. He hadn’t tried to engage her further, and when they had reached Gormley Manor he hadn’t followed directly behind her. Now, even though they were in the spacious parlor, she felt as confined as she had in the carriage.

She stepped away from him as he sipped the whiskey. Then he set the glass down on the sideboard and moved to one of the chairs by the fire. “Sit, Miss Gormley,” he said once he had lowered himself onto the plush cushion.

“I prefer to stand.”

“As you wish.” He crossed his legs and looked up at her, the fire flickering in the reflection of his eyes. The pale color should have looked cold, but instead held warmth.
It’s only a trick of the fire—nothing else.

“Was your supper and bath to your satisfaction?” he asked.

“I would like my clothes returned,” she said, clasping her hands together. “As soon as possible.”

“The peasant clothes? I had them burned.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

“Except for these.” He reached inside the pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out a pearl necklace. “Along with the other jewels you had sewn into your coat.”

She went to him and nearly snatched the necklace from his hand. “Where are they?”

“Safe in your room.” He put his hands in his lap. “I am aware you do not trust me, a fact I hope to change as soon as possible.”

“How can I trust someone who abducted me in broad daylight?” She almost added that his relationship to Priscilla didn’t help, but she held her tongue.

“Fortunately for you I did because eventually someone else would have.” He uncrossed his legs, his expression growing serious. “It was a dangerous game you played in Cork, Miss Gormley.”

“It wasn’t a game. I wanted to find Rory.”

“You also wanted to escape your brother and your fate.” He leaned back in the chair, but his posture showed alertness. “I’m not like William. I’m also not like Priscilla. She likes to think she knows me, but she doesn’t. Actually, I let very few people into my inner circle because I know what it means not to trust someone. I know what it’s like to be betrayed.”

She held her ground, despite that his words intrigued her.

He rose from the chair and put his hands behind his back before turning to face the fire. “I was betrothed once. When I was still very much a lad and very much unaware of the world.” He suddenly faced her. “I know my position and my wealth are highly sought. I would not attach myself to anyone who would use them for selfish purposes or personal gain.” His expression softened. “You are quite like your father. You have principles. You are willing to stand up for what you believe in.” He strode toward her, closing the space between them so quickly it took her breath away. “You are not the only one with English blood who finds the Irish troubles appalling and unfair. There are several of our countrymen who are doing what they can in London to convince our government to intervene. I do not possess that kind of political pull, however. So I will do what I can here, at Gormley Manor.”

Sara couldn’t speak as she tried to digest his words, searching his face for any sign of falseness. Yet he seemed sincere. Passionate, even, as if he were willing to bear the entire plight of the Irish on his own shoulders. “Why?” she asked, uttering the only word she could bring herself to say.

“Because it’s right. And because it’s wrong to sit idly by enriching our own stations and coffers while people suffer.”

“Why me?”

“Because, Miss Gormley,” he said, taking her hand in his. This time she didn’t pull away. She couldn’t, not from his touch, nor from the sincerity she saw in his amazing gray eyes. “It couldn’t be anyone else.”

“But you barely know me.”

“I know more about you than you think. Do you honestly believe that your good deeds have gone unnoticed? That your name hasn’t been mentioned among those sympathetic to our cause? That I didn’t realize from the moment I saw you that you cared very little about societal trappings and cared intensely for
people
? Your family, the servants, the tenants that farm the Gormley land—they are in your heart. You are special, Miss Gormley. Very special indeed, and I would be honored to be your husband.”

Sara couldn’t move. This could all be a trick to get her to agree to the marriage. Then she would find herself in London with no escape and married to a stranger. But if Quentin’s words were true…

She weighed her options. Even if he was lying, she could still help Rory and possibly Colm. She could find a way to stay at Gormley Manor, or at least visit and use her money to help the tenants. Perhaps all was not lost—except for her dream to marry for love. In the cold light of reality, that was a small sacrifice. “I’ll marry you,” she whispered, finding the words difficult to say despite having made up her mind.

He smiled, revealing a deep dimple in his left cheek. “Then will you do me the honor of going to Gretna Green tomorrow?”

Her brow lifted. “You want to elope?”

“Yes.” His grin turned a little mischievous.

“What about your family? Won’t they want a large wedding?”

“Yes. So will your mother, I assume.” When Sara nodded, he added, “Then let our wedding ceremony be one of many,
many
things we do that will disappoint them.”

She couldn’t help but allow herself a small smile. Even if he was false, even if he were using her, she had hope—and she would cling to it until her dying breath.

Pacific Ocean, near Western Australia

January 1846

Colm thought death would be a relief.

His shipmates groaned as the blinding light pierced their eyes from the opening at the top of the hold, their arms outstretched, they crawled toward the light, dragging their leg chains. Two buckets were let down into the hold, one with stale, and mostly moldy, bread, the other with brackish water. It would be the prisoners’ one and only meal of the day.

Colm didn’t move. He couldn’t even if he’d wanted to. With every movement, his muscles screamed in pain, and his stomach churned with bile. This was the third ship he’d been on in two months, and it had been, by far, the worst.

His jail time in Cork had been shockingly short. Within hours, he was put on a creaky vessel captained by O’Brien, a traitorous Irishman whose only fealty was to the almighty pound note. Seasickness struck Colm with a vengeance as he crossed the Irish Sea. But casting up his accounts every ten minutes was easy compared to what awaited him in Liverpool.

Swifter than his stay in Cork was his trial in England—so swift it was almost nonexistent. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced in a city that hated the Irish with a burning passion. The judge was positively giddy as he relayed the sentence to Colm.

“I have heard horrifying tales of shipwrecks, of murderous savages, of illnesses that ravage the mind before they incapacitate the body,” he said, a cruel smile on his thin, wan face. “Undoubtedly, you will wish a thousand times over that you had perished before leaving English soil. It is to this desolate land I send you, and may God have mercy on your wretched soul.”

At the time, Colm thought the judge overstated the circumstances in an attempt to frighten him. Little did he know how much the judge’s words would prove true.

For some reason, he had not left immediately for Australia from Liverpool but was sent to Wales instead. Which meant another bout of seasickness, this time with leg irons clamped tightly around his ankles.

Finally, he was placed aboard a vessel in Wales to be transported to the penal colony in Australia. He was, again, put in leg irons, the metal rusted and corroded from salty seawater. His skin was raw and tender, but there was nothing he could do about it. He and the rest of the men sent to Wyeth had been herded into this dank, dark hold like cattle. It wasn’t long before tempers flared and fists flew—with Colm often caught in the middle.

The trap door suddenly shut with a bang, plunging them back into darkness. There were fifty men in this hold, both young and old, all claiming innocence. All sent to spend years, if not the rest of their lives, paying for their crimes, real or fabricated.

The men scattered to their places in the hold, which reeked of things Colm didn’t dare think about. He leaned his throbbing head against the back of the ship’s wall, and held his broken arm in his lap, the injury a result of trying to break up a fight, instead of starting one as he had in the past. From then on he vowed to keep to himself.

Time seemed to stand still in this stinking hole, and for once, he had plenty of it. Time to think about Rory and Sara. About Ireland and the villagers of Ballyclough. And about the choices he’d made that brought him here.

He was beyond angry, beyond bitter. But not beyond hope. He didn’t dwell on the future, for he couldn’t fathom what it would hold. But he knew he would face whatever the untamed wilds of Australia offered, to whatever penal colony he’d been condemned to had in store for him, and he would face it head on. No matter what his cousin or the judge had taken from him, they would never break him. Nobody could.

Danger and delight grow on one stalk.

Scottish Proverb