Provocative in Pearls (26 page)

“It sounds as if perhaps it was.”

Travis laughed at that and nodded. “We all respected that. He was one of us, wasn’t he? To the end, some days he’d come down and take off those costly coats and strike the iron. It’s hard to stand against a man who has sweated with you. And he was honest, but he knew that was a rare thing. That is why there is no patent. To get one you give out the secret, make drawings and such, and others who don’t give a fig about patents will steal.”

“Yet he trusted you with it.”

Travis shrugged. “He could not do it all himself. Run the works, find the trade, make the bits. He had to trust someone, and I was as good with machining iron as any.”

“But Bertram Thompson was not.”

Travis said nothing.

“Why did he teach his daughter the secret? She does not work iron.”

“I expect he taught her with pictures and such, so she could draw it if she had to. It could be done, just like if he went for a patent. As to why, it was so it was not left to me to decide the future of it. He passed it to the next generation. And through her to another who would take his place, I expect.”

He meant her husband. If Joshua Thompson had not died in that flood, he would have arranged his own marriage for Verity. To a man much like himself. A man who worked iron, and who was crusty on the outside and maybe too soft inside, when it came to his workers and his family.

Hawkeswell suspected that Verity was correct, that Bertram had especially liked marrying her to a lord because there would be no danger then of another man competing with his hold on the business. No lord would dirty his hands with it, and Bertram would be safe.

“If you had to hand the secret to another man, Mr. Travis, to whom would you give it? If Verity must make that decision someday, to whom should she turn?”

Travis grew sober, as any man might when allusions were made to his death. “Well, now, sir, that is a problem. It would have to be a man with both the skill and the integrity, wouldn’t it? Neither is easy to find in the quantity required. If I had to pick, though, it would be a young man whose skill held much promise and whose character I trust even if others might not.”

“Is there such a man?”

“Hard to say. There was, but he isn’t in these parts anymore. It would be Michael Bowman, Katy Bowman’s son.”

That would be the Michael that Verity had asked Bertram about. Hawkeswell had avoided dwelling on that query or putting too much significance on it, because he had suspected that he would not like what it all implied.

Now it turned out that this Michael Bowman might have had the qualities that Bertram lacked, and have been a candidate for taking Joshua’s place.

He did not expect me to marry someone like you
. No, her father had not. He had expected her to marry someone like Katy’s son, the man Verity had married the Earl of Hawkeswell to protect.

Hawkeswell found himself counting out his paces as he walked to the cabriolet.

 

 

V
erity spent the morning restlessly, trying to avoid Mrs. Geraldson’s unctuous concern about her headache. Whenever she could, she spied out the windows at the lane.

Finally she saw a rider cantering toward the house. She tried to reach the door before the manservant who had this duty, but she was too late. She had to watch him carry the letter to his mistress, so Mrs. Geraldson could examine it and direct it to its intended recipient.

The inconvenient seal vexed Mrs. Geraldson. She frowned at the letter. She held it up to the window to attempt to read the contents. Verity made herself known with a little cough.

Mrs. Geraldson swung around. She had the decency to blush. “There is a letter for you, Lady Hawkeswell. Not posted. A rider brought it, but not an express rider.”

“How peculiar. If you will excuse me, I will go outside and read it.”

Once out of the house she tore it open. Someone had written in Katy’s name, as they had arranged prior to their parting two days ago. The letter reported that Katy had managed to complete the little duty that Verity had given her.

Verity returned to the house, and informed Mrs. Geraldson that she was feeling much better, and would be taking Hawkeswell’s carriage out to enjoy the day.

 

 

T
he three young men barely fit inside Katy’s cottage. One of them, like Hawkeswell, was tall enough that he had to bend if he stood, so he sat on the floor.

They filled her ears with the kind of local news that Mrs. Geraldson would never know. Two of them worked at the ironworks, and they described the discontent there. The war’s end had affected all ironworkers and the ones at Oldbury were no exceptions.

“The special work is what keeps it going,” one said. “The machining and boring. But Mr. Thompson—well, milady, he is not your father when it comes to getting that work, so some of the older men have been let go, as has Timothy here. Forced on the parish like Katy, their families are, but that charity only goes so far.”

“He took the wages down last winter too,” another complained. “And he is cheap with fuel where we labor in winter. Needs more for hisself, I guess, so he can buy his lady her jewels.”

Katy sat quietly, her body subtly rocking in agreement. Verity sought her gaze sometimes, to be sure this was not just lads talking the way they did at times, complaining the way young men are wont to do in their restlessness.

It had not been hard for Katy to summon these particular young men, who had all been friends of Michael. After they voiced their views about the mill, Verity asked them to come outside to fix a little fence that Katy had around her kitchen garden.

She positioned herself as far as possible from the house so she would be out of Katy’s hearing. She gestured for Timothy to join her.

“I did not want to speak of it in her presence, Tim, but I want to learn what you know of Michael.”

His mouth firmed. “I know little, and what I know isn’t good.”

“Tell me.”

“He was more talkative than most, in complaining. He did not wait for the master’s daughter to invite it, like we just did. Braver, he was, I guess. And he was involved with others, in the big towns. Would go up to Liverpool at times, and to some secret meetings near Shrewsbury. Mr. Travis told him not to, but he would anyway.” He shrugged. “Then one day, he went, and never came back.”

“Was he arrested?”

“We never heard if he was. Odd, that. Hard to try a man without no one hearing of it.”

Hard, to be sure. But impossible?

“Some think he just left, for better things,” he said. “Can’t blame him. He was good with the iron, as you know. Better than any of us. Skilled, like your father. The master took a liking to him when he was a boy partly due to that. The new master, though—he didn’t like him at all, did he?”

No, not at all. Her father had liked Michael, and not only because of Katy’s place in their house. He had gone to the works a few times, and shown Michael how to do things with wrought iron that only Michael seemed to learn quickly.

Now he had disappeared, right around the time Bertram was threatening to have him transported. No one here had heard of his arrest and trial, though.

Bertram might have arranged to have Michael arrested in another county, of course. Even so, a trial of radicals or revolutionaries would attract attention, and most likely even be reported in the London papers.

For two years she had worried that she had no idea of his fate. She had allowed herself to hope Nancy had lied, and Michael was at the works still, growing in his skill and caring for Katy, ready for the day she came home and offered him a special partnership. It was obvious now that Nancy had not lied, though. Bertram had indeed done something to make Michael go missing.

“Is he the only one who has left so abruptly?” she asked. “There have been others, haven’t there?”

Timothy pondered that. “There was Harry Pratt, from the works, earlier this year. His wife wouldn’t believe he ran away, but there had been a bit of trouble for him with Mr. Thompson, so most think he did. There’s rumors of a few others over in Staffordshire, but with the way laws are now, I’d leave too if someone took too much notice of me.”

“I would like to speak with some of the others,” she said. “Perhaps one of the older men knows things you do not.”

Timothy shook his head. “I’d not be going to the works alone, milady. It ain’t the way it was with your father. There’s angry men there, and they are not hoping for much good from this lord you married. There is fondness for you still, but . . .”

But she was no longer mostly one of them. It had been years since she ran down the hill to play with the village children. As a married woman, she was worthless to them too. As a countess she could not even be trusted.

Timothy’s gaze shifted, as something down the road arrested his attention. Without his saying a word, his companions reacted to his unspoken warning. They left Katy’s little fence, and came over so they all stood together.

Verity turned to see what created the united stand. A horse galloped down the lane, bearing a tall rider. Hawkeswell.

She strode forward, so he would stop long before he drew up to Michael’s friends. His eyes were all for them when he stopped his horse anyway. He could intimidate a person with only his size and strength, but his anger ensured that he did now. He contained it well enough, but it was in his eyes and taut body. She had not seen him this furious since that first day in Cumberworth.

Finally, unfortunately, he looked down at her. “A peculiar assignation, Verity.”

“I asked Katy to collect them here, so I could learn the truth of how the mill fares.”

“To what end? You have no legal voice in the matter, and your cousin will not be sympathetic to your interfering. Your likelihood to do so is probably why he married you off.”

It was part of the cruel truth, and he did not hesitate to lash her with it. He was even angrier than she thought.

His expression held no softness as he gazed down on her. “You deceived me today. I can only assume that you have before too.” He did not wait for her to respond. He trotted his horse a few paces, to where the coachman had moved the carriage upon seeing his lord arrive. “Take her back to the house now.”

She had no choice except to enter the carriage when the coachman opened the door. Hawkeswell did not follow when the coach began rolling. She looked out the window, and saw him pacing that big horse toward Timothy and the others.

W
hen Verity arrived back at the house, she learned that Colleen and Mrs. Geraldson had taken the cabriolet for a late-afternoon call on the closest neighbor.

Had Hawkeswell asked them to vacate the house so he could deal with his errant wife in privacy? Or had Colleen recognized his mood, surmised the reason, and sensibly removed her hostess and herself from the premises?

Verity went up to her chamber, removed her hat, and sat in the chair. It would not take him long to follow on horseback. No matter what he was saying to those young men, and she doubted it was friendly, he would be here soon.

She struggled to control herself from succumbing to stomach-churning dread. It had been a long time, so wonderfully long, since she had needed to do so and she was out of practice. The whimpering fear kept sneaking out of where she blocked it. Hideous docility whispered that she must beg forgiveness and hope that made it end quicker.

Within minutes she was a girl again, an isolated, lonely girl who could only pray the anger passed quickly and that the punishment would be over. Sensations and sounds and images from the past crowded into her mind, undermining her composure. She tried receding, away from the world and into herself. She found some solid ground for her emotions there.

The horse outside destroyed that reprieve. The sounds of a rider made her nauseated. Steps down below had her blood pounding in her head.

He had it in him. All men did. Everyone did. He admitted how much of that anger he possessed. He controlled it now, he said, but the world gave him the right to release it on her if he chose.

She wanted to believe he would not, but she did not really know. Anger could bring out an unknown cruelty in people, and lead to the step she knew was sadly easy to take.

She heard his steps outside her door and she braced herself. Her thoughts scattered, wildly. The fear made her tremble. Anger shouted in rebellion.

She would apologize if she must, but she would not beg. She had asked for
none of this
, had agreed to
none of it
, and she would be damned before she became that half-broken girl again.

 

 

H
awkeswell was ready for a good row when he opened Verity’s door. He had many things to say, some commands and some questions, and they would be said, by Zeus, now, for certain.

He did not know what he expected inside that chamber, but he knew it was not what he found.

Verity sat in a chair, much as she had sat in Cumberworth that first day. Her expression was similar too. Resolved. Calm. Strong, he had to admit, although it was an inner strength exuded invisibly. Her manner pricked his temper more, just as it had that day too.

Her gaze rose from where it had been fixed on the floor. What he saw in her eyes stunned him.

Strength, to be sure. Rebellion. But also resignation. And fear. Real fear, hidden beneath the other things, but so real it soured the air.

She feared
him
, he realized. His anger. She feared that he would physically punish her.

It shocked him. Insulted him. He had never given her cause to—

A thought came to him. An old suspicion. It only made his anger spike, now toward a different target and for a different reason.

Later. Not now. He stayed far away from her, to reassure her, but he still spoke.