Provocative in Pearls (10 page)

She had not expected this suspicion on his part. She looked at the pound notes.

“Your hesitation gives me pause, Verity. I am thinking that I should join you while you tour the village, to ensure you do not disappear again.”

“I have no intention of disappearing again. Nor would you be a good companion today if I am keeping you from your sport.” She looked him in the eyes. “You have my word that I will not use this money to hire a carriage for the purpose of running away.”

Apparently satisfied that he had guessed her game and ended it before it began, he joined Sebastian in getting the yacht ready.

After all was in order, they cast off. Verity headed for the village. She stopped once she saw the yacht well out on the water, then opened her reticule to put the pound notes inside.

They fell alongside some others, and rested atop the soft, rolled chemise that hid her gold chain and other meager valuables. She looked in that reticule and whispered an unladylike curse.

She
had
intended to hire a carriage and be well gone before that yacht returned. There was a chance she had convinced Hawkeswell last night to accept her proposal, but she could hardly count on it. If she could get away, the sensible course was to do so.

She had even left a note in her chamber at Airymont, explaining it all to Audrianna. Hawkeswell was devilish to hand her the money that would make her escape much easier and simpler than bartering that gold chain, but also force her to promise not to escape at all.

Taking some solace in admitting that her plan of escape had been only half-baked, and reminding herself that Hawkeswell might very well accept last night’s offer, she resigned herself to passing the hours onshore as she had promised.

Southend-on-Sea was a fishing village that had grown to accommodate those visitors from London whom Audrianna had mentioned. A long, broad terrace faced the water, raised from the beach on a little cliff. Expensive bonnets and very fine boots mingled on the walkway with the simple garments of the local people. Hotels and guesthouses lined the terrace, facing the sea at the western end.

After visiting the little church with its tidy, attractive garden and ancient gravestones, and the famous Royal Hotel, she strolled down the lane of better shops. Then she set her steps eastward, toward the old neighborhoods and the fishing boats.

None of the Londoners ventured here, and the common folk went about their business as if nothing had changed in generations, which it most likely had not.

A few boats had already returned, and women hawked the catch at a market that clogged the lane. The smell of fish—briny and salty and unmistakable—filled the air. The glances cast her way were not due to her garments, which were plain enough to attract no attention. Rather this was like Oldbury, the village back home near the ironworks. Everyone knew everyone else and a stranger was notable.

She paused to admire the wares at one fishwife’s cart. The woman, red-haired and bronze faced, eyed her in turn.

“You looking for that girl? She was right outside the village, where the cliff gets higher. Just sitting there. She is there still, I guess.”

“I am looking for no one. I am only taking a turn through the village.”

“Not many visitors take a turn on this lane. She is not from here and seemed lost. I thought someone would come looking for her; that is all.”

Verity did not know how anyone could get lost in this village, with its one lane along the sea and one more a block back. However, this girl may be very young.

She pushed through the women crowding the fish-wives, and looked along the shore. The cliff walk rose higher on the eastern end of the village. She thought she saw someone up there, and decided to go and check. If a child had become lost, it would not do to leave her there alone.

As she approached she realized the girl was not a child at all. Although she sat on the cliff’s edge, with her legs dangling in a childish way, she was at least fully grown. She wore a bonnet much like Verity’s own, with a deep brim and little adornment.

Curious now, Verity pretended to be seeking a good prospect of the coastline and village. She paused near the girl, who neither moved nor acknowledged her.

She noted that the girl wore a very nice muslin dress, with lilac sprigs on its white fabric and lavender sleeves. A fair amount of soil showed on it, however. No, this girl was not from this village, and most likely not from these parts at all.

“Forgive me for being forward, but the villagers think that you are lost. Can I be of assistance?” Verity said.

The head did not move. After a spell, however, a voice too mature for a girl, let alone a child, replied. “I am not lost. I know where I am.”

So much for doing a good deed. Verity began to walk away, but she looked back. Something about the young woman’s stillness and voice plucked at her worry.

Had Daphne had that same intuition when she stopped her gig on the road beside the river? Had she seen a young woman too absorbed in her contemplations, clearly not where she was supposed to be?

She returned. “The sea fills one with awe, doesn’t it? I find it frightening.”

“I do not find it frightening at all. It looks soft to me. Cleansing.”

“You are braver than I. There is not much beach down there at this spot, and this cliff is uncomfortably high. One false step—Do you know how to swim? I never learned.”

No answer this time.

“Are you down from London?” she asked, trying again.

“I am from the north.”

“Do you have family here that you are visiting?”

“No. I begged passage on a fishing boat. The men who work it live here. So I am here too now.”

“They take passengers? I had no idea.”

“For coin, some will.”

Verity looked down on those boats. She had promised not to hire a carriage to run away. She had said nothing about a boat.

It would mean conquering her fear of all that water. She gazed out at its vastness, then down where waves broke relentlessly. Perhaps if the boat stayed close to shore . . .

The young woman really did not want to converse. She wished Verity would go away, it was clear. Verity wanted to believe it would be fine to do so, and go have a conversation with some of the fishermen instead.

She gazed at the woman’s back. This was really not her business. Yet leaving her alone, unprotected, did not seem right. Every instinct said the woman was indeed lost, in the worst way, and needed help.

She glanced at the boats again, and sighed. Later, perhaps, there would still be time. If not, maybe another day she would have another chance, if she still needed one.

She turned her full attention back to the lost woman. What had Daphne done that day, to extend help and friendship? She certainly had not demanded explanations and reasons for why Verity stood alone in a fine dress at the edge of the river. She had not scolded or warned. Instead she had guessed the one thing that would garner attention from someone left to her own devices. Food. She had merely invited a stranger home for dinner.

“I am going to find something to eat. I intend to look in this area of the village, and not near the yachts and guesthouses. Would you like to join me? I have enough money to buy two meals.”

The head turned. Dark eyes finally looked at her. Whatever choices this young woman had been debating, hunger now set them aside. “That is kind of you. I have not eaten in over a day.”

“Then let us go and find a good wife who will sell us some bread at least.”

The woman stood and dusted off her skirt. Her shoe dislodged a rock. It tumbled down the cliff, startling her. The churning surf quickly submerged it.

“My name is Verity,” she said as they walked back to the village. “What may I call you?”

A pause. A familiar hesitation that told Verity far more than any words.

“You may call me Katherine.”

 

 

T
he fish could not wait to be caught on Summerhays’s hooks. They all but jumped into the yacht at his command. Already the large barrel brought for the catch was filling, and soon there would be enough to feed the entire household at Airymont.

Hawkeswell had caught no fish at all. It was symbolic of something, no doubt. A big damned metaphor of nothing good. His inactivity left him with plenty of time to debate Verity’s grand proposal about all that money, however.

She had been very shrewd. In one day she had outlined all the reasons they would not be happy in this union, itemized his worthlessness, and described her resentments of the way it had come about.

After failing to win him over with these gentle persuasions, she had now resorted to a bribe. And a very handsome bribe it was.

It had struck him as vaguely dishonorable on hearing it. Insulting, as if she assumed he could be bought. Now he admitted that he was making a point that was far too fine. He had married for her fortune, hadn’t he? He
could
be bought—and in fact had already been, in some sense. She merely offered to compensate him for his disappointment in the financial area, should they apply for and receive an annulment.

Looked at that way, it was not so much an insulting bribe as it was a consolation.

Whatever it was, he would not lie to obtain it. However, if Verity’s story were true about being forced into the marriage, a good case could be made for an annulment.

He eyed Audrianna, sitting under her awning reading a book. He set down his pole against the yacht’s side and sidled over to her.

“Do not just leave it like that,” Summerhays scolded while he braced his strength against the fight of yet another fish. “If your lure is taken, the equipment will go overboard.”

“If the line goes taut, you can grab the pole. I am done with watching the churning sea and listening to nothing besides your self-congratulations. I want some conversation.”

Audrianna set aside her book when he settled into a chair beside hers. “The fish do not bite for you, Lord Hawkeswell?”

“I think that they find my lures bitter.”

“It is hard to know what will attract a fish. Not all rise to the same bait. I expect that some even see the hook and suspect the consequences of taking a nibble.”

“Just my luck to have only suspicious fish responding to my lures, then.”

“With time I am sure that a fish that thinks the meal is worth the cost will swim by.”

He glanced back to Summerhays, who was hauling in another huge fish while one of the servants waited with a big net. “Let us speak directly, Lady Sebastian. I am curious about only one fish, and she is already hooked and landed. As you know, I think, she wants to flop out of the barrel and back into the sea.”

Audrianna’s eyes glistened with humor, but her expression was sympathetic. “I am sure that you find that surprising. I certainly do.”

“Then you do not agree with her plan?”

“Oh, I agree with it. If she was coerced and tricked, she should not have to accept that scoundrel’s deception. I am surprised that our Lizzie is proving to be made of such determination, however. She was always the mildest among us. The quiet one. Daphne is a glistening waterfall and Celia is a rushing stream. Lizzie was a still lake.”

“Perhaps a deep one, however.”

“Deeper than any of us guessed, it appears.”

“Do you believe her? That she was coerced?”

Audrianna’s eyes narrowed while she looked out to sea and considered the question. “She displays a good deal of anger when she speaks of it, so, yes, I believe her. She blames herself too, I think. She said things as we journeyed here that lead me to say that. She forgets, perhaps, how young she was when her cousin became her guardian. Now, with maturity, she looks back and castigates herself for not being stronger, and more clever and suspicious of his promise, and less meek. I also know that she worries about that poor family, and blames herself for the trouble that her friendship brought to them.”

“There is no reason to blame herself.”

“Women tend to do that, Lord Hawkeswell. Blame themselves. The world allows it. Expects it. Daphne says there are women who are beaten by their husbands and who then blame themselves for it. That is hard to believe, isn’t it?”

She did not speak of Verity with that reference, he was very sure. This was not an allusion to his temper, or a suggestion that Verity had cause to fear him. And yet, Audrianna’s comment, coming in this conversation, raised a possibility that he had not thought of before. The notion raised the devil in him.

“Her cousin Bertram coerced her, she says. Do you know, Lady Sebastian, how he did that?”

“She does not say. I broached the question. We had a lot of time in that carriage. She changed the subject.”

Which alone might well say it all. He barely checked the fury that began splitting his head. If that scoundrel had hurt her, he would tear Bertram apart limb by limb.

“I speak out of turn now, Lord Hawkeswell. I know her mind and intentions and I cannot disagree with her. However—” She hesitated, thinking better of whatever she was going to say. “However, I think that there may be one point of essential misunderstanding on her part. Only you would know, of course.”

“What is that?”

“Whatever happened, she believes you knew about it, and permitted it. She said that first day that you were in on the plot.”

He stood and walked away, to the rail of the yacht, so Audrianna would not see how appalled he was. No matter how Bertram had coerced her, there had been no plot. In fact, Bertram had not even indicated that the proposal had been turned down.

What had Verity been saying the last few days, however?
If you knew me better, you would have understood why I resisted the marriage.
She did assume he knew the resistance had been there. But if
she
knew
him
better, she would know that he could never have agreed to be a party to such a thing.