The Bride Sale (27 page)

“And you had already spent the two hundred pounds.”

He pushed away his plate, though he had hardly touched his food. “Yes. There had been debts, you see. I used the money to help repay them.”

“Ah, I see. You sold your wife to redeem your vowels. Others might have sold a horse or a painting. How clever of you to think of selling a wife you never wanted.”

“Verity.” He looked miserable, as though he might actually break into sobs. “It was hateful and wrong. I know it. I must live with what I've done. I don't ex
pect your forgiveness. But I will make it up to you, I promise, once I have this position in the Home Office. You will see, Verity. I promise you will never want for anything ever again.”

Really? And how was he going to make her stop wanting that dark stranger she'd left behind?

She fell silent again. She had made her point; there was no need to pound it into the ground. Gilbert was her legal husband and she was bound to do as he wished. Perhaps she would forge a new and interesting life in London. If she could be occupied and useful, perhaps it would be enough.

But would it ever be enough to quell the ache in her heart for all she'd left behind—for Cornwall, for Pendurgan, for the red-haired Chenhalls family and sweet-faced Mrs. Tregelly, for Grannie Pascow and the women of St. Perran's, for James?

No. Nothing would ever be enough to dull the ache in her heart for James.

H
e'd found them.

It had taken twice as long as he'd hoped, but James had finally tracked down Russell's carriage at the Bull's Head in the village of Alston Cross. Russell had hired a post chaise, a typical Yellow Bounder that looked like every other private coach on the road, and so it had been easy to lose track of them.

The biggest loss of time had begun at Liskeard when he had followed a false trail north toward Tavi-stock. It had been some time before he realized he'd been chasing the wrong coach, and then more hours of backtracking to discover Russell had gone south toward Plymouth. The long summer twilight had begun to fade into dark before he spotted the lone yellow coach in the yard at the Bull's Head.

He almost hadn't dared to hope it would actually
be Russell's hired chaise, but when the innkeeper confirmed that a Mr. and Mrs. Russell were indeed guests, James had been ready to collapse with relief. And exhaustion. He was tired to the bone. Somehow he had to garner the strength to face Russell, to fight for Verity's freedom.

James had to bribe the innkeeper to reveal the location of Russell's rooms. He led James through a rabbit warren of corridors and narrow stairways until finally indicating a door up two steps at the end of a hallway.

“That be the parlor,” the man said. “The bedchamber be the door just over there. They was just served a late supper, so they most likely be in the parlor. Though a young couple like that, can't be so sure.” He gave James a lurid glance before taking his leave.

A bubble of excitement began to expand in James's gut. Verity was behind one of those doors, and he was ready to fight for her.

It had been a long time since he'd been seized by the spirit of the fight, a long time since anything in his life had been worth fighting for. But the spirit was on him now, pumping through his veins like quicksilver. The possibility of smashing Gilbert Russell's face into a bloody pulp inflamed him with a kind of battle fever.

He marched up the steps to the parlor and turned the door handle, prepared to kick it in if it was locked. It was not. The door swung into a small room with whitewashed walls and dark wainscoting. A fire blazed in the grate. Verity was seated at a table before the fire. Russell stood warming his hands over the flames, his back to the door.

Verity looked up and gasped, her teacup clattering to its saucer. Russell swung around. “What the devil?” He saw James and sputtered, “Oh, m-my God.” He moved behind Verity and placed his hands on the back of her chair.

James's eyes had not left Verity's. He read a series of emotions there—surprise, apprehension, relief, joy—that kept his gaze locked firmly to hers. His own anger and joy combined to make him want to pick her up in his arms and carry her out of there. But the fierce pride in the angle of her jaw and the set of her shoulders reminded him of all she'd been through. Much as he wished it, he would not allow himself to take control of her life for her. This time, she must be allowed a voice in her own fate. Here, at last, was something he could give
her
.

“Wh-what are you doing here?” Russell asked, trying his damnedest to look cocky but failing miserably. “I thought our business was completed. D-did you not find the purse I left?”

James reached inside his greatcoat and withdrew the leather pouch. He'd collected all the coins scattered over the library floor before leaving. He wanted to fling the bloody thing in Russell's face, but the coward stood protected behind Verity. Instead, James threw it down on the table with such force the serving dishes bounced and rattled and a meat fork danced to the edge and fell clanking to the floor.

“I do not want your bloody money,” James said. He kept his temper under control as he took Russell's measure. The young man looked like a frightened rabbit trying to stand up to a fox. There would be no
sport in fighting such a man. He had all the earmarks of a sniveling coward.

“Th-then why have you come?” Russell asked. He gripped the back of Verity's chair so tightly his knuckles flared white. “You cannot mean to j-just take her away with you, to take her by force?”

“I have no intention of forcing anyone to do anything,” James said. He put as much steel into his voice as he'd ever done in Spain. The man was so easily cowed by a sharp word and a fierce look, he wouldn't have lasted five minutes in James's regiment. “It would appear to be you, sir,” James said, “who is doing the forcing.”

“Wh-what?”

James turned his attention to Verity, who had not moved a muscle since he'd come into the room. He tried not to lose himself in those soft brown eyes, resolved to maintain control. “I gather from your note, madam, that it was not your choice to leave Pendurgan?”

She slanted a quick glance over her shoulder, then looked back at James with a smile in her eyes. “No, my lord,” she said, “it was not my choice.”

Exhilaration flowed through James like a shot of whiskey. He wrenched his gaze from Verity and skewered Russell with a piercing glare. “I have come, sir, to ensure this lady has a choice in what happens to her.”

“B-but she is my wife. I have the ri—”

“You gave up your rights when you sold her like a blood horse at Tattersall's!” James's bellow must surely have been heard throughout the inn. He could
have sworn the small paned window rattled in its casement.

“I regret that wretched bit of business,” Russell said. “But you must know the transaction was not legal.”

“And neither was it moral.”

Russell deflated like a pierced bladder. His whole body took on a woeful slouch. He moved to lean heavily against the broad mantel over the fireplace, as though he did not have the strength to hold himself upright. When the young man raised his head, James thought he'd never seen eyes more full of misery, except on occasion staring back at him from a mirror.

“No, it was not moral,” Russell said in a tremulous voice. “It was vile and hateful and I have never regretted anything so much in my life. I have made my apologies to Verity, though I do not expect forgiveness. I was simply hoping that we…” He paused and slammed a fist against the wooden mantel. “Blast it all, I could never get anything right. My whole life has been a series of failures. I'm not fit to live on this earth.” His voice had trailed off into a quavering whisper. He turned his back to them, propped a forearm on the mantel, and lowered his head to rest on it. The slightest tremor shook his shoulders.

James was thoroughly taken aback. He'd come expecting to find Verity in the grip of a brutish, cocksure husband ready to reassert his rights. He would have welcomed a contest of wills against such an enemy. Russell's anguish knocked all the fight out of James.

He studied Verity as she watched Russell, her expression a mixture of compassion and confusion.

“Verity?”

She looked up at him, and all the joy he'd seen earlier had gone out of her eyes. James suddenly found himself uncertain what he should do. But it was her choice, he reminded himself. She must decide what to do, and he must accept it. He was no longer so sure, though, what her choice would be.

“Verity, you must tell us what you want.” He spoke directly to her and kept his voice as even and unemotional as possible. “I did not come to spirit you away against your will, I assure you. But I had to make sure that Mr. Russell was not doing so, either. You have been buffeted about in all directions, dancing to everyone else's tunes. It is time you were allowed to make your own decisions, regardless of who has legal rights to do what. We have all trampled over the law these past eight months and more. None of us has the right to call upon it now to justify our actions. Russell?” He raised his voice, instilling it with the command that had once sent troops scattering to do his bidding. “Would you agree with me on this?”

Russell did not lift his head from the mantel, but muttered his agreement.

“And so, Verity,” James continued, softening his tone once again, “disregarding the legalities, tell us what it is you would prefer to do. Do you wish to return with Russell to London, or return to Pendurgan?”

Russell raised his head. “But—”

“Let her speak!” James roared.

Verity's gaze darted back and forth between her husband and James. She considered her words for several long moments before speaking, moments during which James's stomach tied itself into knots. “I am sorry, Gilbert,” she said at last, “but if I am truly given the choice, I would prefer to return to Pendurgan. I have found some small measure of happiness there, you see.”

Russell turned around to look at his wife. His face wore a mask of utter despair, and it was a wonder Verity's natural compassion could withstand such a plea.

“You must understand, Gilbert,” Verity continued, “that Lord Harkness has been a true friend to me. And, given the choice, I would rather live with him in friendship—for as you are well-aware, no man could ever desire me for anything more—than with you in marriage.”

It was a monumental effort for James to hold in check the flood of emotions brought on by her words. His heart thumped in his chest like the great steam cylinder at Wheal Devoran. He would not have to live without her after all.

But this was no time to succumb to sentimentality. He had to put his plan in action before Russell tried to assert his legal rights again and talk her out of leaving. He was going to make Russell a proposition, one that would free Verity from this sham marriage once and for all.

 

The sight of James bursting into the parlor had caused Verity's heart almost to stop beating. He had looked so large and menacing framed in the narrow
doorway, like a bull ready to charge. Though tall and well-muscled, James was not a particularly large man. Yet, enveloped in the capes of his greatcoat, with his black hair falling piratelike over one eye and a day's growth of beard darkening his face, he was a powerful sight to behold. She had never been so happy to see anyone in all her life.

He had been so full of anger, she could almost feel the tension tightening his muscles like a whipcord. For a moment, she had been afraid he meant to do violence, to attack Gilbert; but his restraint had been formidable.

Everything would be all right now, though. She was going back to Pendurgan. She was going home.

“Verity will return to Pendurgan with me in the morning,” James was saying. “And I want you gone from this place tonight. But first, I must speak privately with you. Wait here, if you please. Verity, come with me.”

Keeping a firm hold of her arm, James led her silently down the parlor steps and through the labyrinth of hallways and stairs down to the taproom on the ground floor. It was noisy with the chatter of patrons and the clanking of mugs. James asked the barman if there was a private parlor nearby. He was directed to one and led Verity there. When she stepped into the empty room he did not follow, and she turned to face him.

He filled this doorway just as he had the other: large, indomitable, dear. They gazed at each other in silence for several beats of her heart.

“Verity.”

She was never sure which one of them moved
first. Within another heartbeat, they had walked into each other's arms.

Verity burrowed her head against James's shoulder and rubbed her cheek against the wool of his greatcoat, crushing her new bonnet and not caring. They simply held each other for several long moments.

“Verity,” he said at last, still holding her tight against his chest. “I thought I'd lost you.”

She shook her head and he seemed finally to recognize the awkwardness of embracing a women in a full-brimmed bonnet. He stepped back and allowed his hands to linger over her shoulders and trail slowly down her arms until he reached her hands. He took hold of them both and gazed at her with an expression of something like desire, though she did not fool herself into thinking it was any such thing.

“Thank you for rescuing me once again, my lord,” she said. “You are very kind. I never expected—”

He stopped her words with his finger on her lips. “Kindness had nothing to do with it, my dear. It was pure selfishness. Your leaving has thrown my entire household into an uproar. Especially with the festival tomorrow. You have never seen such a hangdog, weepy group. I don't…we would not have known how to get on without you.”

Ah. The household needed her. Not James.

“I wanted to speak with you privately, away from Russell. I want to be sure you do not feel coerced, by either of us. I must ask you one last time.” He began to stroke the edge of her jaw with the same finger that had pressed against her lips. “Are you certain, ab
solutely certain, this is what you want? To return to Pendurgan?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. It surprised her she could sound so normal when his touch caused her heart to flutter in her chest like a bird's wing. “As I said earlier, I have been happy there, content. Besides, I have no wish to go anywhere at all with Gilbert Russell.”

“No, I do not imagine you do.”

“Thank you, James. For everything.”

“Verity.” He cradled her face in his hand, his thumb brushing the corner of her mouth. Then he dipped his head beneath her bonnet and kissed her.

It was not a passionate kiss, but soft and sweet and so full of tenderness it made her ache with longing.

He lifted his head and his lips twitched into a half smile. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I promised never to do that again. Forgive me.”

He released her and stepped back, leaving her bereft and wanting more. “If you are quite sure, then, I must ask you to give me a few moments alone with Russell.”

“James, you are not going to…to hurt him, are you?”

He smiled. “I wanted to. Hell, I wanted to kill him. But there is something pathetic about the man that takes the fight right out of me. No, I won't hurt him. I just need to speak with him about something. If you will give me a few minutes alone with him, perhaps you can find the landlord and arrange to have any of your baggage still in Russell's coach transferred to mine. And ask if he has another room available that I
could have for the night. Thank you, my dear.” He kissed her hand and dashed back in the direction of the stairs.