Read Online The Bride Sale by Candice Hern - Free Book Online Page A

man.
    â€œAnd in the second place,” he continued, his voice rising along with his aggravation, “the only way you would find the river in the pitch of dark is by falling straight into it. There is not a gentle riverside for at least a half mile downriver. Here at Pendurgan, it’s a straight drop off steep cliffs.”
    Verity chewed on her lower lip, and James knew she was wavering again.
    â€œSee here,” he said with weary resignation, “if you truly wish to go to Bodmin in the morning, I shall take you. I don’t recommend it, but it shall be as you wish. Do not forget, though, that I do have this document,” he said, patting his waistcoat pocket, “and I am bound to take it seriously. I am responsible foryou. I would prefer that you stay here at Pendurgan so that I can be certain of your safety.”
    â€œStay as what?” she asked.
    â€œI beg your pardon?”
    â€œStay as what? Your servant? Your…your…”
    â€œMy cousin,” he snapped. He was growing impatient with this game. “I have told the staff you are a distant relation down on her luck. A recent widow. You are to use that identity while you remain at Pendurgan.”
    She stared at him with those big doe eyes of hers, clearly suspicious of every word he spoke. “That’s all?” she asked. The tiniest note of challenge had crept into her voice. “A poor relation making herself useful?”
    â€œIf you like.”
    â€œAnd that is all you will expect of me? Nothing more?”
    He allowed his gaze to travel up and down her boxy, padded figure. “Well,” he said, “we shall just have to wait and see, won’t we?”
    Â 
    Verity sat huddled in an oversized wing chair by the fire, wrapped in a thick blanket. Soft gray light crept through the edges of the heavy window curtains. Morning, finally. Almost time to go.
    She had trudged back upstairs after her encounter with Lord Harkness, disoriented and confused, but ready to grab at the opportunity he offered. Rain continued to pelt the windows, and an occasional clap of thunder rumbled through the old stone walls and rattled the casement. After a while, she had stretched out on the bed, just to rest for a few hours. But exhaustion must have overcome her, for she had fallen asleep.
    Dreams of banging kettles and crowds of leering people pushing toward her—closer, closer, closer—disturbed her sleep, and her own screams brought her awake. After two such nightmares, she had given up and moved to the chair, where she sat and spun fantasies about the new life ahead of her. But her thoughts kept returning to the master of Pendurgan.
    Lord Harkness was both intriguing and a little frightening, but perhaps one was the same as the other. Last night she had sat in this same chair by the fire and waited for him to come. Still unclear why he had purchased her—but certain he must have some kind of sinister motive, she expected that he might come to her in the night.
    Instead, he had left her alone.
    He had been toying with her. Surely he suspected she would try to leave. Why else would he have been skulking in the library at that ungodly hour? He sat there the whole time as calm as you please, as though he had expected her. And he had called her name from behind the library door before he could possibly have seen her. How had he known it was she?
    He had looked almost ghostly when she entered the room, a dark silhouette against the fire behind him. With the light coming from behind, she could make out little more than the arrogant line of his jaw and the languid tilt of his head. But she had needed no firelight to know his lip was curled in a disdainful smirk. The very air had crackled with his mockery.
    Verity rose from the chair, stretched her stiff muscles, and walked to the window. She drew back the heavy curtains to find morning had indeed broken, tinting the gray sky a pale pink in the east. The view she met