Page 31 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

“What happened?” Bracha Illingworth was not a demonstrative woman, not prone to frights or frenzies. She was as steady and sure as the flow of water in the St. Cleer Well, a fit companion to their father, who was a solid and dependable as King Doniert’s Stone. But when she lifted her gaze to meet Joseph’s eyes, he saw the depth of her fear.

“She f-fell in the clay pit. The ice broke. I pulled her out.”

“Bells of St. Mary. You could have both fallen in.”

Joseph was afraid, as his mother’s eyes searched his, that she saw what had happened in his face, as if she were a bird that had watched from above. Surely she could see his guilt. How he had been responsible. He had marched across the frozen pond, not thinking about the terrain because he was thinking of Prudence Lovedy’s bosom and whether it would show beneath her winter cloak, or if she’d set her cloak aside to visit at Rowan Cottage. His mother would see that Joseph had tried to outrun Amaranthe—had wanted to lose her—and had almost lost her entirely.

She would see what a weak, selfish creature he was, no better than Reuben after all.

“Cheel vean.” His mother rose and pulled both her children to her, her arms wrapping him in a cloud of warmth. She smelled like cooking spice and mead, every warm and delicious thing. Amaranthe burrowed into her, pressing her nose into the crook of her mother’s arm.

Their mother didn’t use the Cornish dialect often, as her own family had worked hard to appear English when they emigrated from Portugal years earlier. But she spent more time with Cook and the working women of her parish than she did calling on the fancy ladies with their English ways, and the Kernow slipped out every now and again.

“Ah, cheel vean.” She rocked them both against her, murmuring in a language her ancestors had left in a long ago place, in a long ago time, and Joseph knew it was a prayer of gratitude.

Amaranthe regarded him with wide, solemn eyes. “I s-s-spose I’d be b-blessed for life if I’d only f-fallen in the h-holy w-w-well,” she managed to say around chattering teeth.

Their mother laughed, and so did Cook, and Joseph heard the relief and the fierce determination behind it. He didn’t deserve to be held or forgiven.

He learned his lesson that day. He had set his own selfish desires above someone who needed him, and it had almost cost all of their lives.

And here he was, doing the same all over again, Joseph thought as he watched his trunk be strapped to the basket behind the stagecoach. There was a fine, misty drizzle in the morning air—a mizzle, they’d call it in Cornwall—and already he missed the cheerful fire in the common room of the Coach and Horses.

Inez would be safe in her bed in George Court, and Mrs. Frost would be cooking her a warm porridge, more of the same breakfast she’d made for Joseph in the wee hours that morning.

It was callous and craven of him to sneak away from his house like a thief in the night, all because he couldn’t bear for a set of large, deep brown eyes to reproach him from their bed of ridiculously thick lashes and dewy skin. All because he knew that if those luscious lips of hers turned down in a pout, he’d be tempted to kiss her hurt away, and if he began to kiss her, he’d never leave.

For a moment his muddled brain circled that thought. What if he stayed? What if he stayed in his house with Inez, to ensure she was safe from Wigsby and anyone else who wanted to hurt her. What if he simply sent word to his Callington solicitor to make the necessary arrangements regarding Penwellen and forward the quarterly incomes to Joseph’s bank?

Because, he reminded himself, taking a bracing breath of damp air, Inez wasn’t his to keep. She was a beautiful, wounded distraction, but she wasn’t his. She’d made that clear all the times she’d run away. She used him for shelter when she needed, and she was done with him the moment something else took her fancy. This was better: she could take refuge at his house, and he wouldn’t have to endure the rejection when something—or someone—else lured her away.

And there was the small matter of his needing to attend in person to whatever mess Reuben had left behind. If what Amaranthe had seen on her previous visit was any indication, Penwellen, and Reuben, had been falling into a derelict state. There would be repairs. There would, no doubt, be apologies to render. It was highly likely that Eyde, and Amaranthe, were not the only people Reuben had wounded in his tenure as the baronet.

The passengers on the top of the stagecoach had already loaded by the time the interior passengers began to seat themselves. One woman held a chicken in a cage. Joseph didn’t doubt they would be subject to its squawking for hours, if not the day. The roof was packed with people who had chosen to pay the lesser fare, and Joseph could have sworn that one young man, sitting next to the woman with the chicken, shrank from his gaze as he scanned the group. None of his business why a youth might not wish to be noticed.

None of his business what Inez would find to occupy herself while he was gone. No one here in London needed him. Mrs. Frost would look after the house, and Amaranthe was ensconced in Hunsdon House with a duke and the best medical care London could offer to watch over her lying-in. She’d send Joseph word when the babe was born, and he’d send a gift for his new niece or nephew.

There was no one else waiting for him, there or here. He firmed his grip on his valise and stepped inside the coach, climbing over boots, knees, and the voluminous skirts and coats of passengers to claim the narrow slot on the hard wooden seat that he had paid for.

Once again, he was leaving.

He’d left his parents at every opportunity in his youth, staying with Walter Robings at Rosecraddoc for weeks on end, though Joseph had a perfectly good home of his own. But Walter lived in a manor house and had a footman to wait at table, and when Walter wanted a bun and a drink before bed, after dinner had been cleared away, he wasn’t told he must wait until morning. Instead, a maidservant brought a tray and there was hot cider or warmed milk or even a cup of small ale, along with a bun and, very often, butter and preserves to spread upon it.

Joseph had left Amaranthe at Penwellen after their parents died, taking his position at Oxford and leaving his sister to their domineering, temperamental cousin and his nervous wife. He’d told himself Amaranthe simply had to buck up and accept the change in circumstances, as they all did.

But the hole in his heart was guilt as the coachman cracked the whip and the horses jerked the coach into motion. The hardest leaving was this one—departing from Inez with only that last kiss goodbye.