Page 64 of The Ladies Least Likely
“Gwen,” Daron began with a flourish of his hat. “My soul.”
But Gwen was done with the charade. “Let me understand,” she said, pressing the rage from her voice, clinging to calm. Had she ever cared for this man, this petulant child who assumed all should bow to him? How had she been so foolish as to believe his promises?
“You wooed me when I lived under your roof with declarations of love and marriage,” she said. “Then, when I fell pregnant, you let your family turn me out of the house. You left me to give birth alone, and the child died because I had no help. I came here starving, destitute, ready for death because neither you nor my father would have ought to do with me.” The rage swept through her, fast and searing.
“And now, because you believe me heir to my father’s holdings, and because no other match is available, you think to come here and ask for my hand? Or rather, command it, as if I am yours to bid.”
She advanced on Daron and he stepped back, eyes wide with alarm. She thought she’d moved past this wish to shriek at him for his betrayal and abandonment, but here it came roaring up from the deep, like the mythical Welsh dragon of Merlin’s prophecy uncovered in the hill.
“What it is, Daron Sutton, is I will never give you my hand. I will never forgive what you did to me. I will never entrust my future to a man like you.” Gwen dug her nails into her palms, using the nip of pain to hold back tears. She turned to Anne. “You needn’t marry if you don’t wish it, Anne. You may come here and we will take you in.”
A wild thought kindled behind the rage, burning bright. If her father had in his guilt or desperation found no other heir, if she gained from his death the merest pittance, she might use whatever she had to buy St. Sefin’s from Pen, free and clear.
All could be settled between them. She could find what lay between them once her lies were at an end.
Daron curled his lip in distaste, regarding her as he would a poisonous viper. He snapped his fingers at his sister. “Come, Anne! We won’t stay and listen to this vicious diatribe. If this person has no sense of the honor I do her in offering her my hand, I won’t stay to importune her. Vaughn?”
Daron hastened toward the carriage standing in the drive. Anne wavered with indecision. Vaughn glared at Gwen, his pale eyes glittering with malice.
“You fool,” he spat. “You stupid tart, so high and mighty. Your mines could keep both our families plush in the pocket if you weren’t so selfish.” His thin lip curled, and the glint in his eyes turned to lust. “What are you holding out for, then? Want my hand instead of Sutton’s? Leave him and his puling sister in the cold. He’s got nothing, but I’m son to a knight. Bit more tempting, is that?”
He moved closer, and with a sick rush Gwen remembered the press of his fleshy body against hers in the shrubbery, his slobbering lips, his member probing at her hip. She shuddered with revulsion.
“I’d rather you kill me before you try to mount me again,drewgi.”
Red blotches sprouted on his pale face. “Mind your manners, you filthy trollop. You don’t know what I could do to you. Bring evidence to the magistrate that you’re running a disorderly house. Strip you of everything and see you locked in the bridewell besides.”
Gwen lifted her chin and hid her shaking hands in her shawl. “There is no evidence. You have no case.”
“Don’t I?” He thrust his face near hers, spittle flying from his lips. “Whole town knows you’re an odd lot. Wouldn’t take much to convince a justice you’re running a brothel of some sort. Men coming in and out of here all the time.”
“What men?” Evans asked.
He stood in a gap between the outbuildings and the tall back of the priory. He leaned on his cane and held a sack slung over his shoulder from which emanated the distinct smell of fish. Pen, as if remembering Barlow’s scorn, stepped behind Evans and pulled down the brim of his woolen cap, hiding his face.
Gwen’s stomach dropped into her old worn boots. This was the end. Pen would recognize Vaughn, or any moment Vaughn would look at Pen. She’d wanted the lies to end, hadn’t she? But not like this. Not so soon. She steeled herself for the killing blow.
“Miss Gwen?” Evans searched Gwen’s face. Then he looked to Dovey, who had come out of the kitchen without Gwen noticing. “Mrs. Van der Welle,” he said gently. “Is everything all right?”
“We had guests for tea,” Dovey said. Her expression was taut, her cheekbones standing out as she clenched her teeth. “Friends of Gwen’s.”
Gwen held back a sob of breath. Dovey stood to lose everything, too. When Pen recovered his memory. If Vaughn made good on his threats.
“We’re leaving.” Vaughn’s pale, watery eyes flicked over Evans, then passed with the same contempt over Pen, who studied the ground as if watching for snakes. “Tea at Greenfield tomorrow, Gwenllian, and we’ll settle this proper,” Vaughn said. “Mayhap my intended can remind you how to behave like a lady.” He extended an elbow to Anne.
Anne glanced at Dovey, then Gwen. A wistful expression crossed her face. “I’d like to be sisters again, Gwen,” she said softly, and took Vaughn’s arm.
They headed for the carriage. The moment they left, Pen lifted his face. Gwen froze at his expression, as flat as stone and as unreadable. He dropped his own sack, and the top burst open to reveal the glassy eyes and speckled silver scales of salmon, an enormous catch. Then he strode into the brewhouse.
Gwen bolted after him.
She flinchedas Pen threw down a wooden cask with a crash. She’d seen before how he needed exertion to vent his emotions.She supposed it was the reason he had taken up sparring with Gossett.
His growl was that of a wounded bear. “He wants to marry you.”
He reached for a bucket from a high shelf. “No!” She leapt forward, snatching the bucket from his hands.
“No, you don’t want my help? Or no, your old lover didn’t ask you to marry him, and then Vaughn made you an offer straight after?”
