After the Wedding (The Worth Saga #2)(2)

She’d been with Rector Miles longer than almost anyone, and she’d tried her hardest. She honestly had. This time, she had thought. This time, she’d stay for certain.

Instead, she was being wrapped up like an unwanted package again and sent on to the next soul.

After being passed on—and on—and on—and on—for all these years, she should have outgrown all illusions about the outcome in this case.

The candlelight made Mr. Hunter’s features seem even darker than they had appeared in the sun. In the sun, after all, he’d smiled at her.

He didn’t smile now.

Camilla was finally getting married, and of course her husband didn’t want her.

Her lungs felt too small. Her hands were shaking. Her corset wasn’t laced tightly, but still she couldn’t seem to breathe. Little green spots appeared before her eyes, dancing, whirling.

Don’t faint, Camilla, she admonished herself. Don’t faint. If you faint, he might leave you behind, and then you’ll truly have nowhere to go.

She didn’t faint. She managed to breathe—in and out, in and out. She said yes when it was her turn to do so, and the pistol never jerked in her direction. Eventually, the dizzying spots went away. She managed not to swoon on her way to sign the register. She did everything except look at the unwilling groom whose life had so forcibly been tied to her own. That was it; she was married.

There were no congratulations. There was no wedding dinner. There was just that look in Rector Miles’s eyes—the one that said Camilla deserved no better. She’d heard him say it often enough; she’d never let herself believe it. She took a deep breath and looked upward. She’d avoided thinking the worst of herself all this time. No point starting now.

“Camilla.” Kitty, the other maid in the household, had been present to serve as a second witness. She reached for Camilla’s hand as they passed. “I’m so, so—”

But Rector Miles just glared at the woman. “Kitty was going to say that she packed your things. Your valise is outside.”

She followed him out into the night. It was late summer, but it had been unseasonably cold and rainy and the wind still raged. The rectory was in the middle of wide, rolling pastureland south of Surrey. A small collection of houses surrounded them, but it was five miles to the nearest town of any real size. An icy breeze whistled coldly down Camilla’s neck, and she shivered.

“There’s an inn three miles away,” Bishop Lassiter said. “They might allow you to take rooms for the night.”

Mr. Hunter made no response.

The rector who had given her a home for the last year and a half did not even look at Camilla. He had told her earlier how disappointed he was in her behavior. And there was no chance for Camilla to speak with him now, because her new husband, without saying a word, shouldered his own bag and started walking down the road without her.

That was how Camilla left the tenth household that had taken her in: on foot, at nine at night, with a chill in the air and the moon high overhead. She picked up her valise, gritted her teeth, and did what she did best: she hoped. So. She had a new…husband? Should she call him a husband? Maybe this would all work out. Just because it had never worked out yet didn’t mean— She shook her head, coming to her senses. Daydreaming, at a time like this? Mr. Hunter had started walking without so much as a glance at her, and he was now ten yards distant.

She was being left behind. Never mind what they could someday be to each other. Would he talk to her tonight? Would he want to consummate the marriage without even looking at her? Bile rose in her throat at the possibility.

His long legs ate away at the ground. She scrambled to catch up. The handle of her valise began to burn a line in the palm of her hand. Switching shoulders, then trying to rest the weight against her hip, didn’t help.

She didn’t dare complain. She didn’t want to be left behind, not so soon. If she was abandoned again, in less than an hour…

She had almost no money.

She had no idea what she would do.

Halfway to the inn, he stopped. At first, she thought he might finally address her. Instead, he let his own satchel fall to the ground. He looked up at the moon.

His hands made fists at his side. “Fuck.” He spoke softly enough that she likely wasn’t supposed to hear that epithet.

“Mr. Hunter?”

Finally, he turned to her. She still couldn’t make out the expression in his eyes, but she could feel his gaze on her. He’d lost his position and gained a wife, all in the space of a few hours. She didn’t imagine that he was happy with her existence, but acknowledging it was a start.

He exhaled. “I suppose this…is what it is. We’ll have to figure this mess out.”

That was what she was: not a wife, not a companion. She was a mess. She inhaled once more, and tried, desperately, to reach for the thing that had sustained her for years: hope. She had never given up; she had never stopped trying.

Her fingers tightened on her valise.

She would make this work. She’d made everything work thus far, hadn’t she? She’d just keep trying—harder this time—and…

Camilla exhaled into the cold of the night.

Hope felt very far away. How on earth had her life come to this?

Ah, yes. It had started three days ago, when Bishop Lassiter had arrived on her doorstep with Mr. Hunter in tow…