The Bad Luck Bride (The Brides of St. Ives #1)(26)

When Gerald Grant had looked up, Henderson knew immediately that something was wrong. His friend’s eyes were red-rimmed, the hands that held the tin mug in front him shaking as he took a sip. Worse still, Gerald could not look him in the eye. “Where’s Joseph?” he asked, and somehow knew before he answered that something terrible had happened to his friend.

Gerald motioned for him to sit, and Henderson pulled out a chair, lowering himself into it cautiously, as if taking care with such a mundane movement would somehow make whatever he was about to tell him untrue.

“He’s dead, Henderson,” Gerald said, his voice breaking. “Fell off the damned stable roof.”

“My God.” Henderson sat back, stunned, a burning lead ball growing in his chest. It couldn’t be true. He’d just seen Joseph. He wanted to tell him about his evening, about how Mrs. Patterson’s cat had leapt on the bed just as things were getting exciting. They were supposed to have laughed about it, and then Joseph was supposed to have looked at him with disappointment and a little bit of disgust for having sex with the pretty widow.

“He didn’t just fall,” Gerald had said, his eyes bleak as he stared unseeingly at his pint.

“What are you saying? What happened?”

Gerald looked about to speak, but then shook his head, unable to say a word as his throat convulsed. “Damn it, Gerald, what happened?” Henderson had asked, trying not to reach over the table and shake the other man.

“I’m not really sure what happened. We were having a grand time. It was Joseph’s idea to get on the stable roof. Said he wanted to see the stars better. So I hauled out a ladder and we all climbed up. You know the place, where it’s flat, the overhang where we bring the cattle in. We all sat there, talking about nothing. And then Joseph got up and started climbing. We all laughed.” He paused and stared at Henderson for a long moment. “He was always doing things like that. We thought it was a lark. Then he stood at the very end, at the peak, and turned toward us.” Gerald swallowed heavily. “We told him to come down, we did. It was bloody dark and all we could see was his silhouette and that roof is steep. Stupid, bloody idiot.” He choked down a sob and banged a fist lightly against the worn wood of the table.

“What happened?” Henderson could feel his eyes burning, his throat aching, his heart tearing in his chest. It couldn’t be true, it could not. His mind rebelled and his heart felt as if it had been ripped from his chest. Nothing had ever felt like this, nothing had hurt him to the point of agony. He could still hear Joseph begging him to go with him. Come on, you can see your widow any old night. I really want you there.

Gerald paused, giving Henderson a tortured look, and Henderson wanted to bash his head against the table so he would just finish the story.

“He stood there for the longest time, and then he said…God, Henderson, I’m so sorry. He said ‘Tell Southie I’m sorry.’ And then he fell back, just like that, the way you would if you were falling back onto a feather mattress. Not a sound, nothing, until he hit.”

That night had been the worst of his life, for his dearest friend had died.

Now, he had to live not only with the knowledge that Joseph had taken his own life, but also the memory that Henderson had promised never to touch Alice. Well, it was too bloody late for that, and now he’d have to live with the guilt of happily breaking that promise. As they walked toward Tregrennar, memories assailed him; it was almost cruel how he felt as if he were coming home.



*



The first time he’d gone to Tregrennar, he and Joseph were just nineteen, freshly graduated from Eton and looking forward to Oxford.

“My parents won’t mind, really. I’ve written them and it’s all set. And you don’t want to spend a dreary summer dodging your mother, do you?” Joseph gave Henderson’s shoulder a nudge. “We have the best trout stream in Cornwall running right through our property.”

Henderson stared at his suitcase, stuffed full of what he’d need for his summer holiday, and felt a longing in his stomach so strong he nearly felt ill from it. No, he did not want to go home to Chelmsford and spend his entire summer with his grandparents and mother. He’d written dutifully to his mother and she’d responded with the same apathy he’d been subject to his entire life. Indeed, he was surprised she’d responded at all, for he’d written many letters over the years that had been ignored.

Eton had been his haven, a place he could be with chaps his own age, who liked an adventure as much as he did, who somehow overlooked the fact he was illegitimate—overlooked because Joseph had insisted they all do so.

And it was so blasted, bloody boring in Chelmsford.

Cornwall was the warm sea, trout fishing, and living in a home with a family, a lively, boisterous family, if the stories Joseph told him were true. Joseph had been begging him to spend the summer with his family for years. Now that they had graduated from Eton and were heading to university next year, it might be the very last time he’d get a chance.

“I’ll go,” he said, suddenly feeling a weight lifted from him. His mother would not even notice his absence. She hardly acknowledged him when he was home. The last few summers, he’d thought he might go out of his head from boredom.

“Excellent. I only hope you don’t mind my little sisters, Alice and Christina. They’re both tolerable, I supposed, but Alice can be a bit of a rascal. She’s not too bad once you get to know her.”