Provocative in Pearls (11 page)

Had conceit made him blind? He did not want to think so. He tried to remember the particulars of those months, of how she demurred at first and later accepted. He had never guessed that she had been forced and tricked. Not that it was likely that she would believe that now.

He returned to Audrianna. “Thank you, Lady Sebastian, for speaking out of turn. Now, your husband is not yet done with emptying the sea of fish, but I am done with watching him. I will ask that the yacht take me in to shore. Then you and he can enjoy the rest of the day together alone on the waves.”

“
T
hank you,” Katherine said after dabbing the cloth to her mouth. “It was delicious.”

It had not really been delicious. The chicken stew’s broth had been thin and the cook stinted on seasoning. It had been filling, however, and a hungry person’s tastes are not too particular.

Verity and Katherine sat in a simple house on a cross street from the main lane. Verity had gone back to the fishwife who’d pointed her toward Katherine and asked where a meal might be bought. They had been directed to this widow’s kitchen and the pot of stew that simmered here every day.

The little house’s scabby paint displayed the effects of the salt in the air. The table and chairs that they used were rustic, but there was a nice prospect of the sea from this kitchen window with its blue shutters, and there was a cool light now that the sun had crested.

Katherine had not spoken much. Verity studied her. Gentry, she decided. Born at least as high as Daphne and Audrianna. This young woman had been bred to the etiquette she now demonstrated as she ate. She had not learned it the way Verity had.

“You have been very kind,” Katherine said. “I should take my leave now.” She stood to do so.

“Where will you go?”

Katherine looked down. Verity guessed that she remained silent because she had no answer.

Unfortunately, this was not exactly the same as with Daphne and herself. Having fed Katherine, she could not now offer a bed, and act in the morning as if the visitor belonged in the house and was not expected to depart anytime soon. It had been a fortnight before Daphne officially extended the offer of permanent residence, but Verity had known it would come from that first dawn at The Rarest Blooms.

“Do you have any money?” she asked.

“Not money. I do have some things that I can sell, though.”

Jewels, hopefully.

Verity guessed Katherine to be in her young twenties. A matron, most likely.

“Please sit.” She lowered her voice, so the widow knitting in the next room might not hear. “I have a friend. She does not live near here, unfortunately. However, I think that you could stay with her for a while. Until you know where you are going, that is.”

Katherine appeared skeptical, but hopeful too. “She will want—I cannot risk—”

“She will not ask, as I have not. Except I have one question now, and I beg you to be honest in answering it. She is like a sister to me, and I dare not put her in harm’s way.” She lowered her voice even more. “Have you done something bad? Are you running from a crime?”

Katherine shook her head, and tears filled her brown eyes. “I am not a criminal. I am not bad, or stupid and worthless, or even disobedient.”

It was a fuller and more revealing answer than Verity expected, and it tore her heart. Suddenly she was a girl again, a stranger in her own home, trying to hide from the notice of two people who resented her existence and made their displeasure known through insults and cruelty.

She reached over and grasped Katherine’s hand to encourage composure. “No, you are none of those things, although someone has said you are, again and again, I think. If I am correct, it is good that you left.”

Her attempt at comfort had the opposite effect. Emotion distorted Katherine’s face. Then she broke with a heart-rending wail, and buried her face in her hands and wept.

Verity embraced her while the anguish poured out. The widow peered in the room curiously and Verity shooed her away. She did nothing to try to ease Katherine’s tears, and could not stop the way they called forth her own until she wept too.

Memories assaulted her. Not images, but sensations, and bone-deep feelings of fear and the ugly anticipation of punishment. When she heard rebellious fury within Katherine’s weeping, she understood that too. It was a good sign, and necessary. When the anger no longer came, it meant you were broken forever.

That fury heralded the end. Katherine rested in Verity’s arms after the worst had passed, spent and sobbing. Eventually she extricated herself, and wiped her tear-stained face.

Verity looked in her eyes and Katherine looked straight back. A familiarity passed between them, a knowing deeper than most people ever have of another person.

Verity’s mind went to work. Of course she had to help Katherine now. She had no idea how much it cost to send someone by stagecoach to Cumberworth, or whether Southend-on-Sea even had a coaching inn. There would be food to buy on the way, and beds to pay for, and—

“Come with me, Katherine. We have much to do.”

 

 

W
here the devil was she? Hawkeswell had checked every shop. He had visited the large hotels and the little church and any other place of interest in this village. He peered down the long terrace, to where the buildings became bleached and rustic. Might she have gone there? He supposed he should check and see.

He strode east, annoyed that Verity was proving so hard to find, half convinced that she had baldly lied and indeed hired a carriage to run away. Having made his decision, he wanted to tell her before common sense defeated altruism. Already financial considerations had begun pressing into his mind again, after a blissful few days of thinking they were all resolved.

That hell would probably return now. Her trustee was sure to sit on her entire fortune until any petition for annulment ran its course. That could take years. The notion of dwelling in limbo again did nothing for his humor, no matter what his resolve.

He kept his eyes out for a woman in a pale yellow dress and simple straw bonnet. All the same he was practically on top of her before he realized it. Her appearance startled him, but only because she was not alone. Another young woman about her age, with dark hair and very dark eyes, walked alongside. They conversed about something so earnestly that Verity did not even notice that he blocked their path.

When she finally did, she startled badly, like a child caught stealing sweetmeats. “Lord Hawkeswell! Is the sailing done so soon?”

“I had them put me ashore. I have been looking for you.”

“Oh! I was just strolling. . . .” She gestured vaguely behind her.

He looked pointedly at her companion. The other young woman kept her gaze to the ground. Verity glanced back and forth between them. “Lord Hawkeswell, this is my friend Katherine . . . Johnson. Katherine, this is the Earl of Hawkeswell.”

Katherine gaped. Something other than awe widened her eyes. “I am honored, my lord. I will take my leave now, so that—”

“You will do no such thing. Miss Johnson has unaccountably become separated from her party, Lord Hawkeswell, and they appear to have left without her. I was going to help her obtain transport home. Perhaps you would aid us.”

“Of course. I am sure that we can hire a carriage or at least a gig, Miss Johnson.”

“She will need to go some distance. However, a gig could take you to a staging inn, Miss Johnson, and you could purchase transport from there to your home.” Verity smiled brightly. “That would work, would it not, Lord Hawkeswell?”

“Certainly. I will see to it.”

“You are very kind, sir,” Miss Johnson said.

“There is a shop selling sundries down the lane a bit, on the left,” Verity said. “We will wait there while you procure the gig, Lord Hawkeswell.”

He bowed, and set off to find the gig as ordered. Verity had gotten rid of him fast enough; that was certain. Little did she know that she only delayed learning that she had won.

 

 

K
atherine tucked some of the necessities they had bought into her lilac reticule, along with some pound notes, while Verity tucked the rest into her own.

“I cannot thank you enough. You have a good heart.”

“I am glad to help. We can do nothing about your garments. You will have to travel without a change. At least with that soap you can wash some things at night.” Verity pulled Katherine away, to a section of the merchant’s counter that had some privacy. “Now, I must write quickly, because Lord Hawkeswell will return soon. It does not take an earl long to find gigs, I think.”

She dipped the pen in the ink. She had begged both, and the paper, from the merchant in exchange for a few pence.

She jotted a few lines to Daphne, asking her to give Katherine a bed for a night or so. It would be up to Daphne to decide if the hospitality extended beyond that.

She folded the note and gave it to Katherine. “Do you remember what I told you, about how to find The Rarest Blooms once you reach Cumberworth?”

Katherine nodded. Verity took a deep breath and called up whatever strength and nerve she could muster. “I am going to leave you here for Lord Hawkeswell to find, Katherine. He will put you in that gig, and you will be on your way. I, however, have something that I must do now, and I cannot wait with you.”

Katherine frowned. “I do not understand.”

“Give him the message that I will meet him here shortly. He will treat you like the fine gentleman he is, so do not worry about his reaction to my absence.”

Katherine appeared skeptical, and frightened. Verity grasped her wrist. “You will acquit yourself splendidly on this journey. You found your way here alone. You will find your way to Cumberworth. Godspeed, Katherine. We will meet again someday, I am sure.”

 

 

A
fter putting Katherine in the gig, Hawkeswell waited ten minutes for Verity to return. When she did not, he knew she never would.

He strode down the lane, glancing in shops, knowing she would not be in any of them. She had bolted. She had bold-faced lied in giving her promise, and found her own transport while he was arranging that gig for Miss Johnson. He had warned her that he would follow and find her, but in truth he had no idea where she was going.

He found himself on the edge of the old section of the village. He went down to the beach, to see how far out Summerhays’s yacht was, and whether he could hail it.

As he squinted at the bright water, a fishing boat made its way into the shallow cove. It moved along the edge of his view, finally drawing his attention.

He stared at that boat. It was coming in to shore, not leaving with any young woman on board, but it reminded him that not only roads connected this village to the world.

He had been an idiot. He had elicited a promise that she would not hire a carriage, but on the coast she would not need to. She might indeed be afraid of the sea, but she was displaying a determination that could overcome that if necessary.

His head snapped to the left, to where other fishing boats had clustered. He strode along the beach toward them.

 

 

“
C
an you not go faster?” Verity asked desperately. C “He is coming with the water now, Madam. You wouldn’t want to be without it. We be looking at six hours easy, maybe more, before we are onshore again.”

Her stomach clenched at the notion of being at the mercy of the sea that long. Still, she tapped her foot impatiently while the fisherman’s son rolled a keg to the boat, and hoisted it on board. She had never guessed it took so long to get a little boat under way.

“We be all set,” the man said. He extended a hand. “You jump on board now, and we can cast off.”

She got into the boat clumsily, but finally the man and his son started throwing off lines. Fear at being caught turned to elation at getting away. She kept her back to the sea so that bigger fear would not ruin the joy.

The last rope loosened. She watched the buildings get incrementally smaller as they drifted away and more water surrounded them. Just as she was having disconcerting images of a huge wave rising up and swallowing her, she noticed a man striding toward them on the beach.

Hawkeswell.

“Hurry,” she urged. “An extra pound if you get this boat away right now.”

The son began unfurling a sail.

They were maybe a hundred yards out when Hawkeswell noticed them. He stormed onto the weathered, short dock and stood there, glaring. She felt his fury roll toward her over the water.

He yelled for the boat to return.

“Who be that?” the son asked.

His father shrugged. “A gentleman, it appears. Do you know him, Madam?”

“He is some distance away and it is hard to see in the sun. I would pay him no mind, my good man. Once we are out of the estuary, remember that I want to go north.”

Hawkeswell gestured hard for the boat to return. She trusted he would give up soon.

“What’s he sayin’ now?” the son asked.

His father cupped his ear. “Hard to tell. Sounds like . . . ab-abduction.” He jolted alert. “I think he is accusing us of abduction.”

“What nonsense,” Verity said. “I asked you to take me on this voyage. It is beyond the pale that this stranger is trying to interfere in nothing of his concern.”

Unfortunately, Hawkeswell had the captain’s attention now. The man went to the end of the boat and cupped his ear again. Whatever Hawkeswell was yelling sounded like bird squawks to Verity, and she refused to believe that her fisherman would hear anything.

“He keeps yelling a name, I think. Yerl Awksell? Merl Fawksell?” He cupped his ear and leaned into the breeze. Suddenly his hand fell and he turned wide-eyed to his son. “I think he is saying he is the Earl of Hawkeswell.”