The Bride Sale (16 page)

Verity waved her hand in front of her face as though whisking away a pesky insect. “It is forgotten,” she said. “We shall not speak of it again.”

Tomas returned with tea and a boiled egg perched in a delicate cup. Verity expertly cracked the shell and spooned a bit of egg onto her toast. As she took a bite, James rose to leave.

“I bid you good morning, then.” He wanted nothing more than to make a hasty exit. Her apparent willingness to forgive him made him oddly uncomfortable. Before he could take another step, though she said, “Oh, please wait. It is such a lovely day, I thought I might ask you a favor.”

Ah. Here comes the payment for last night, he thought. She was going to leave Pendurgan. A knot formed in his stomach. He managed to utter, “Yes?”

She smiled at him. It seemed a genuine smile. He sensed no masked fear or anxiety. Yet he knew that she had always feared him to a degree. Should she not fear him all the more after he had barged, half naked, into her bed chamber last night?

“You must tell me if it is a great imposition,” she said, looking him squarely in the eye. “But it is a beautiful sunny day, and there have not been many since I arrived. And one cannot count on too many more such days before winter sets in.”

James nodded for her to continue. “It is just that I have seen as much of Pendurgan as possible on foot. I wondered if…is it possible you have a horse I might ride?”

She continued to astonish him. “You wish to ride?”

She gave him a smile so brilliant, it was as if she'd held up a light to dazzle him. The knot in his belly uncoiled into something else altogether.

“It has been so long since I've ridden,” she said. “It would be such a pleasure to do so. And to have you show me about the estate.”

It was too much. He had to sit down. “You…you wish me to ride with you?”

“If it is not a frightful imposition and you are not too busy.”

He was not too busy. Within the hour, feeling decidedly uneasy, he rode out of the main stable yard by her side. Jago had mounted her on Titania, a sleek little bay mare. Verity had a good seat, though it had obviously been a while since she'd ridden, and she laughed a good deal before she found her way with the mare. Though sunny, the air was chill with a bite of wind, and after a short time, Verity's cheeks grew flushed with the cold. She looked beautiful, even in the slightly shabby habit she'd donned.

At her request, James showed her over the whole estate. They rode past the home farms, mostly dormant this time of year, and the threshing barns where the girls' voices rose sweetly on the wind as they sang while preparing seed wheat. They rode through the pastures where only a handful of sheep lingered while their relatives met their fates in the slaughtering barns.

“It is not the best time of year to appreciate the farms,” James said as they skirted the busy smokehouse.

“I grew up in the country,” Verity said, “and enjoy all the seasons of farm life. This season of death and reparation is no less important than the spring rebirth.”

He asked her where she had grown up, and she spoke longingly of Lincolnshire and its lush wolds. He learned she was the only child of a country squire. It seemed odd that he knew so little about her, when she surely had been told all the wretched details of his past. He would like to know more about her marriage and how it came to such an ignominious end, but he dared not ask and break the spell of pleasant amity that had so unexpectedly grown between them today.

She looked about her and laughed at the strangeness Cornwall had presented when she first arrived. “But now,” she said, her glance sweeping the vista of farmland and moorland beyond, “now I believe I quite like it.”

He reined in. “You do?”

“Oh, yes. You may all attempt to turn me away with your piskeys and your ghosts, but I have grown fond of this place and the people and their musical voices. Goodness, but it was difficult to understand the local people at first.”

“Ah, but 'ee has no trouble now, does 'ee?” James said in his best Cornish.

Verity laughed. “Not a bit,” she said and galloped on ahead.

When James caught up, she slowed and turned to him. “Could we explore the moors?”

“If you'd like.”

“Oh, I would indeed.”

And so they left the green farmlands and stone hamlets behind and headed toward the rugged boulder-strewn moorland. They slowed as they passed Wheal Devoran while Verity peppered James with questions about the mine and its workings. She seemed mesmerized by the rhythmic rattle and hiss of the great bob engine, and he was only just able to stop her from dismounting to explore the mysterious workings within the engine house. She did, however, extract a promise to do so on another day.

When they reached the High Tor, Verity grew quiet. They dismounted and sat silently for a while atop one of the granite boulders.

“This is all yours, then?” Verity swept her arm in a slow circle over the land below.

“Not all. Just the parts we rode over. The farms. And the mine.”

“And St. Perran's.”

“And St. Perran's. But over there—see?—is Bosreath. That is Alan Poldrennan's family estate. And beyond that is Trenleven, the Nance homestead.”

“But your estate is much more vast than the rest, is it not?” she asked.

“We have been lucky in Wheal Devoran, and Wheal Justice before it played out. Mine profits support the land.”

“And the people.”

“Yes.”

“You are good to your people, my lord.”

“I daresay they might disagree with you.”

“I do not believe so. Oh, they may dislike you”—she shot him a glance—“but they cannot complain of
your treatment. Your mine is successful and employs men and women of St. Perran's and other villages, I'm told. Your tenant cottages in St. Perran's are kept in good repair. The church is well maintained, and the Methodist meetinghouse as well. Your people have a lot to be thankful for. And you have a great deal of responsibility.”

“It is late,” James said, not wishing to head down that conversational path. “We should be getting back.” He stood and retrieved the horses. Verity stood on a boulder and he lifted her into the saddle. When he had mounted, she drew Titania up beside him.

“The name does not suit you,” she said.

“What?”

“Despite what you'd like the world to believe, you are a good man, my lord. You are not at all heartless.”

Later that evening, as he sat in his usual spot in the library with his chair turned away from the fire, Verity entered carrying a steaming cup. It was the valerian infusion she had promised. Perhaps recalling that other time they had been alone in the library, she set the cup down on the candlestand near his chair and quickly took her leave.

He sipped the bitter brew and considered its maker. Today seemed to have been her way of letting him know that she did not harbor the fear and loathing he had expected after last night. She thought him a “good man” despite all she'd heard to the contrary, despite even the way he had treated her.

He stopped trying to understand why, but he had the distinct impression she wanted to be a friend to him. There was nothing coy or flirtatious about her
manner, so clearly she was not inviting another seduction.

God knew, he still wanted her. But he admired her too much to take advantage of her again. He found the notion of her friendship strangely comforting.

He downed the last of the infusion and screwed up his face in distaste. He shook his head and chuckled. Perhaps her friendly manner had been a ruse to set him off-guard so that she could poison him. He shuddered involuntarily at the foul aftertaste lingering on his tongue.

He picked up the book he had been reading when Verity entered, but after a few pages the words began to blur. He set the book down, trudged upstairs, and, to the stunned amazement of Lobb, fell straight into bed.

James slept through the night for the first time in more years than he could remember.

 

The following days settled into a new pattern, always ending with Verity mixing up her infusion and taking it to James in the library. The day after their ride, when they had met again at the breakfast table, Verity had asked him if the drink had been effective.

“I slept like the dead,” he replied and gave that little twitch of the mouth that generally passed for a smile. In an instant, though, his manner became serious and his words faltered. “I…I cannot tell you what that means to me or…or how grateful I am. I do not recall the last time I felt so rested.”

Verity was pleased with yet another success from her herbal skills, but most especially she was happy to have been of help to James. This tiny accomplish
ment could be the first step in his real healing. She liked to believe so, and therefore continued to deliver the infusion each evening.

She detected subtle but noticeable changes in James over the next week. His eyes took on a brighter appearance and the dark circles beneath them began to fade. He appeared at the breakfast table more often than before, and ate more than his usual tea and toast. He took supper with her and Agnes most nights, and his manner was more relaxed, despite Agnes's increased hostility.

And he actually smiled now and then. Not frequently, hardly more than once or twice. Verity expected no more, for his was a sober, guarded temperament. She wondered if it had ever been otherwise, long ago, before Spain. Nevertheless, the full smile that so transformed his face became less rare, and when he turned it upon Verity it sometimes made her weak in the knees.

On a dreary morning that threatened more rain, Verity worked in the kitchen garden, gathering roots and stalks that might still be useful during the winter months. She had more or less adopted this small garden and tended it daily, trimming dead wood and cutting back plants for spring growth.

She stood and surveyed the rows of plantings, denuded for the winter, and considered all her little medicinal successes with pride. It was not long, it never was, before her thoughts drifted to another sort of achievement altogether, one that gave her even more pleasure.

After her ride over the estate with James, a new kind of relationship had begun to blossom. She sa
vored the friendship, for it was infinitely more sensible than the relationship she had expected when he had come to her bedchamber. But in the deepest reaches of her heart, when she was perfectly honest with herself, Verity knew she wanted more. She knew that her gratitude for his rescue at the auction—for she had ceased thinking of it as anything else—and her instinctive need to heal him were leading her into far more dangerous sentiments.

A canvas bag was slung over her shoulder, and Verity reached in and began to strew bits of straw at the base of some of the more tender plants as a protective winter mulch. The simple task did nothing to interrupt her thoughts of James.

Never before had she experienced the physical sensations James had stirred to life in her body and, God forgive her, she wanted more. Her life had been turned upside down and would never be the same again. Everything that had once seemed improper did not matter anymore. One thing, however, would never change—James's rejection had made that very clear. She would do well to remember that and stop spinning foolish dreams.

It served no purpose to dream of a life that could never be, she thought as she packed the mulch neatly around the base of a santolina plant. How could anything ever be normal again for a woman who was married, yet not married, who, though bought and paid for, was neither mistress nor servant?

As she made progress with the mulching, Verity felt as if she'd also made significant progress in adjusting to a life without an identity. Her skill with herbs had allowed her at least to be useful, to provide
some level of meaning to her existence. And now she was building an odd sort of friendship with James. It was more than she could ever have expected as she had stood in the market square with a leather halter around her neck. She ought to be satisfied. She ought not to want more.

Verity straightened and groaned. Stiff from bending, she pressed her hands against the small of her back and stretched. Arching her neck, she looked up at the dark, threatening sky and followed a thin white wisp of smoke wafting from the direction of Wheal Devoran.

James had made good on his promise and taken her on a tour of the mine a few days after their ride. He had shown her the engine house first, and Verity had been fascinated by the massive pump engine with its hissing cylinder and huge iron beam rocking overhead. He had showed her the boiler house and the smithy's shop, the storage buildings filled with odd-looking paraphernalia, the powder house and the timber yard, and the picking sheds where girls called bal-maidens hammered the pieces of ore in a rhythm while they sang.

It was all very strange and dirty and busy, and Verity thought it quite wonderful, but perhaps only because of her guide. As they strolled through the yards, a few of the workers—Zacky Muddle, Nat Spruggins, Ezra Noone—doffed their candle-laden hats to Verity, for she had met them in St. Perran's. Most of the workers barely acknowledged James, scurrying out of his path and avoiding him altogether.

One man, though, had unsettled her momentarily.
Verity had noticed a small, grime-covered man lurking behind one of the outbuildings and watching James intently. James either had ignored him or had not seen him, but when he had stepped aside briefly to speak to one of his captains, the little man had darted out to stand near Verity. His eyes stood out like small white stones in his blackened face. He held up one finger and wagged it toward Verity.

“Tedn't safe fer 'ee here, mistress,” he said in an conspiratorial whisper. “Nor anywheres with that man, with Lord Heartless.” His mouth had twisted as he spoke the name. “There be only fire and death for 'ee up at that house. Fire and death.”

“Be off wid 'ee, Clegg,” another man had said. “Get back to yer pitch, man, and don't make no trouble. Go on, now!”