Provocative in Pearls (4 page)

“We do not know for certain my claim would not get a fair hearing. You don’t want to find out. You do not want to risk losing the money.”

They were back to money. He could hardly object. It had been the basis of the marriage, after all. “It is how matches are made. Your anger is perhaps understandable, but with time you will find some happiness, if you allow yourself to do so. Now, we need to arrange our return to London.”

Her little fists clenched at her sides and her eyes blazed. “You have not heard anything I have said.”

“I have listened carefully to every word. They change nothing. You are my wife in the law, and that cannot be undone.”

“Only because you will not agree to help me try.”

“No, I will not.”

“And if I do not agree to return to London?”

“Please, do not do this. Do not make me force you to come with me. Even if you find a way to prevent it now, eventually you will have to. You know this. I have rights as your husband. It is just how it is.”

“I was not raised by a man who thought that way—
it is just how it is
. I do not think that way either. This more than anything says that we do not suit each other. “

“Two years ago we agreed that we did suit each other. One is not allowed to change one’s mind. Nor have I changed mine.”

“You and I agreed to
nothing
. Why, this is the first private conversation that we have ever had. If you had demanded the chance to know me back then, you would have learned how we did not suit, and the reasons why I resisted the offer in the first place.”

His temper had frayed badly, but he held on to it despite her infuriating stubbornness.

“You have made it explicitly clear that you assume this marriage will be a type of hell, Verity. I can only say in response that you had better find a way to survive the flames, because what is done is done, and you are now discovered, and there is no undoing it. I have heard you out and I understand your views all too well. Nonetheless, I will send to Cumberworth for a hired carriage, and we will return to London forthwith.”

Her chin rose and her eyes sparkled with anger. “I will not go willingly. This marriage was never supposed to happen.
You
were never supposed to happen.”

“As if I give a damn about that,” he snapped. “You had best pack what you want, or you will go with the clothes on your back.”

She eyed him from head to toe, taking his measure. Discouragement tinged her determination, but did not defeat it.

“I expect that you have the strength to force me into that carriage when it comes. So be it. In the meantime, I will retire to the places in this home where I have enjoyed a rare peace, and await your forcible exercise of your rights.”

T
he new hybrid pelargonium looked a little peaked. A line of yellow edged two of its leaves.

“It has had too much sun. You must promise me to move it back in the afternoons until late September,” Verity said to Celia. “New hybrids are such unknowns in these things.”

“I will remember to tell Daphne.”

They continued their stroll down the aisle between the tables that held a variety of potted plants and Verity’s horticultural experiments.

It was either luck or fate’s plan that it had been Daphne who came upon her that day, and who eventually offered a home with this greenhouse attached. Although she had always enjoyed flowers, she had not gardened until arriving here. Now she did so with a passion, and was happiest either outside or in here, checking her plants and watching the miracle of growth day by day.

“Lord Sebastian was trying to convince Hawkeswell to avoid acting in haste when I passed the front sitting room,” Celia said.

“I doubt that Lord Sebastian will have much success. Nor, if it comes to it, will he stand against Hawkeswell on my behalf. I am about to lose any freedom I hoped to have, and I may never see this home again.”

“You will convince Hawkeswell to let you come visit us, as Audrianna did with Sebastian.”

“Hawkeswell is an earl, and one who is proud of his privileges and heritage. He married down, but he will not allow me to keep what I know, because it will reflect on him. You taught me these things about the highborn, Celia, so do not put a pretty face on it now to make me feel better. You and I both know that man will not allow me to visit you, or anyone else from my past.”

Even worse for these dear friendships, she suspected, was that her time in this house had been an insult to him, and would now embarrass him badly. He blamed Daphne for harboring her, even though Daphne was ignorant.

She wondered what Lord Hawkeswell would say or think if he knew about that initial meeting along the Thames between Daphne and herself.

The day had turned cool by the time the wagon on which she had begged a ride from Surrey had crossed the bridge. She had ridden long enough for her shock to pass and her anger to abate, and she had formed a simple plan. She would snag bits of her veil and dress in the brush along the river, and trust the authorities would take both as evidence of her death. That would keep anyone from searching too hard for her.

She had made quick work of both, and was gazing into the river when a gig began to pass. A lovely woman, perhaps twenty-five years old and pale as moonlight, drove it. The gig stopped for some reason.

Perhaps Daphne had sensed the discouragement that washed her after that veil’s ends sank in the water. How simple, really, to escape all guilt and duty and indignity by drifting down after them.

She had known so little happiness after her father died, and felt so little love. Had she grown up that way, she might have suffered it better, but her childhood had been so happy that the contrast only made the last few years harder to bear.

Bertram’s treachery had been the final insult in many, the last abuse after years of it. She did not remember him being so cruel when she was younger, and her father would not have named him guardian if he had revealed himself to be so. Perhaps Nancy had changed him, or encouraged the darkness in his character that would have been better battled if he’d married a different woman.

Nancy had social ambitions, and now Bertram did too. And she, Verity, had been the perfect means to attain what they sought. Dangle an heiress to a huge fortune around London, and eventually an impoverished lord will rise to the bait. In swallowing it he has to swallow his pride too, but if the meal is tasty enough in either beauty or wealth, he can stomach it if he must.

She was supposed to be happy it had been Hawkeswell that they had landed. They expected her to be so dazzled that she would ignore how this marriage would interfere with her own plans, and in the life she was supposed to have.

How often had Nancy scolded her on that?
He could be old and fat and smell of death,
she would scream.
Only a fool would reject a man who looks like him. A woman can barely think when she looks in those eyes. You are a stupid ingrate not to appreciate how well we have done for you.

At ten years her senior, he was not at all old. He did have wonderful eyes, but they were not for her alone. Any woman would do, she could tell. She had merely been the passable-enough commoner of suspiciously high fortune, obtained by craft and trade, who would solve his financial problems.

“At least he is handsome. That is one consolation, I suppose,” Celia said, as if reading her thoughts. “The ladies do like him, so he is probably not unskilled in bed, if it helps to know that.”

“I doubt he is much inclined to employ a lot of skill with me now. Regrettably, he is not angry enough to want to be rid of me either.” She bent to smell a freesia. She never tired of their scent. “I had rather hoped he would be. Foolish, I suppose.”

Celia rarely appeared surprised by the ways of the world, but she did now. “Were you expecting him to want to divorce you? Does he have cause?”

“I was not brave enough to give him cause. Now I rather wish I had been. No, I was hoping he would prove very amenable to supporting my petition for an annulment, when I told him I had been unwilling. I have reached my majority, you see. So if I can get free, I no longer have to go back to my cousin’s authority. I will be independent.”

“I expect he refused because it would be very public and embarrassing. As bad as a divorce. Worse for him, actually.”

“I think he was more concerned about the money. I miscalculated there. I thought that Hawkeswell received the funds in my trust that had accumulated while I was a minor. It was a very large fortune sitting there, waiting for me to marry or reach the age of twenty-one. With that in his purse, I believed that keeping me bound to him would have less appeal. Unfortunately, he says he has received nothing thus far.”

“If the marriage were annulled, he may have had to pay it back if he had received it. He still might, even if he gets it now,” Celia said. “It would be a rare man who agreed to such a thing.”

“I told him that I would make sure he received the money anyway. I intended to explain how I would do that. However, we never progressed that far in the conversation.”

If she could explain that more plainly, however, he might see things differently. The notion that all was not lost raised her spirits a little, but not enough to eliminate the way her nerves affected her, and made her stomach sour and sick.

They passed a group of large pots on the floor holding neatly clipped myrtle. “I have been mourning that you will be leaving us, but I think you intended to leave soon anyway,” Celia said. “You were merely hiding here until you turned twenty-one, weren’t you?”

Verity stopped walking and took both of Celia’s hands in hers. She squeezed them. “We are all here temporarily, are we not? Yes, I intended to leave very soon. I pray that you and Daphne would have understood.”

“Of course we would have understood. But where were you going to go?”

“North. I planned to go home, far from London and Hawkeswell, and petition for an annulment from there. I want to live among the people of my youth, Celia, and try to save my father’s legacy. I would like to use my fortune the way it should be used, and not to prop up an impoverished aristocrat’s privilege. And I need to discover just what Bertram did to harm the people I love most, and whether I can rectify his cruelty.” She blinked back tears. “Perhaps it has all been only a child’s dream, but it has sustained me for two years.”

Celia leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “I understand, my dear Lizzie. Everyone here has secrets and dreams, but we never guessed yours were so big. I do not doubt that you laid great and important plans for yourself while you hid and waited and worked quietly with these flowers. However, you may have to change them now.”

“I fear that you are correct. Yet, I think that I may still convince him that being done with me is his best choice.”

“He married for money. Settle that well with him, and you may yet have all you want.”

Verity hoped so. However, even if Hawkeswell would not release her, she could at least move in the world again, in ways denied her while she hid these two years. She could try to have success in some of those plans. She tried to take consolation in that, but her heart still carried thick dread.

“I think that you should tell Daphne that this lemon tree graft has not succeeded, Celia. It was worth our experiment, but we have not seen the strength needed to continue with it.” She moved to an orange tree. “Hold out your apron and let me pick some. We can bring them to Mrs. Hill and she can use them in the dinner sauce.”

She plucked three oranges.

“I expect that hired carriage will be here soon,” Celia said softly. “Will you really make him carry you out?”

Anticipation of that carriage had cast a pall over their time together. There had been much of the mood of a death watch in this stroll through the greenhouse. “Making him force me out may be too much drama for little purpose, other than to make a point that I trust I have already made.”

“I fear if you do it, Daphne will train her pistol on him. She is most distressed. She thinks that you are afraid of him, and have cause to be. She has seen that before, you see.”

Hearing about Daphne’s instincts made Verity’s subtle nausea churn more intensely. She also wondered if there might be cause to fear Hawkeswell and his temper, although he had kept it in check during their private meeting today. “I will leave with him peacefully. I do not want trouble for Daphne. I will go and tell her that.”

Celia turned her head to the house, and its windows that were visible through the greenhouse’s glass. “You can tell her now. She is coming, with Audrianna.”

Daphne and Audrianna soon entered the greenhouse. They walked with purpose toward Verity.

“Lizzie, you must hear our plan,” Audrianna announced. “Sebastian thinks Hawkeswell will be agreeable, if you are too.”

 

 

V
erity poked her little auger around the base of the potted citrus trees, to aerate their soil.

She heard the door open at the end of the corridor that connected the greenhouse to the back sitting room. Then boot steps. Hawkeswell had come to propose the plan that had been concocted by her friends.

It did not represent salvation, but only a period of purgatory to give her time to accept her fate. It was the best anyone could do, so of course she had agreed. She hoped to modify the terms just a bit, however.

The boots stopped nearby and she had to acknowledge him. Wonderful eyes, as all the women noticed. Had those eyes been dull or shallow, the color would not mesmerize, but they reflected so much instead. Intelligence and confidence and, on better days, humor, and perhaps some of the skill to which Celia alluded. There also showed a touch of the arrogance that was natural to a man of his birth and appearance.

She was a normal woman, and not immune to those eyes and that face. He had intimidated her two years ago when, almost broken by Bertram’s treatment, she had all but cowered in this earl’s presence.