The Bride Sale

by Candice Hern

  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 anything 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. Ho
w 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 marriage 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.”

  “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 expect 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.

  Chapter 12

  He’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 e
yes 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.”