After the Wedding (The Worth Saga #2)(43)

She realized her mistake when his eyes flared in anger. Oh. He thought she was accusing him of deception.

He took a step toward her. “Be gone!”

He was taller than her by a foot. It took all her strength not to turn tail and dash away. “I didn’t mean to imply you were lying. Just—it would give me some comfort to know…? If there were some official pronouncement on the matter?”

“I’m not a perambulating stack of documents,” he said, and this time he did reach for his shovel. “Get off. Nobody wants you. Nobody wants you here at all.”

No doubt he meant nothing by it; men reached for shovels all the time. He was a groundskeeper; shovels were a tool of his business. But for a moment, Camilla stood in frozen horror, her lungs aching inside her.

“Get out of here.” He actually raised the shovel.

In the end, she broke and ran.



* * *



The walk back to the carriage, which Adrian had tied up out of sight, afforded Camilla an opportunity to calm down. Trees, she reminded herself. Trees with leaves on them. Leaves rustling in the summer wind. Green grass. Sun.

No shovels, not anywhere. Her pulse had mostly stopped racing by the time she found him around two bends of the road. She felt chilled through, though, and she couldn’t explain it. It was a warm day, and she had her cloak. There was no reason to be shivering.

Adrian jumped down to meet her as she turned the bend in the road. “And how did it go?”

Camilla could be calm. She wasn’t the sort of woman to panic simply because a man told her no and picked up a shovel.

“It went well.” Her voice was even, so even. She was proud of herself. Why should she feel anything? There was nothing to feel. “Precisely as we had expected. I asked if there were any resources for women in my position. He told me to take myself off.” Another shudder ran through her; she wrapped her arms about herself.

He didn’t notice her involuntary tremor. He met her by the carriage. The horses were tied, and the sun crept higher in the sky. “Well, that’s as we suspected. That’s good.”

It hadn’t been good.

“I asked if there were not recently changed circumstances; he said there were none. I asked if there were any proof of this—circulars or a letter or such-like—and he…”

For a second, it felt as if Mr. Graves were still standing over her with the shovel; she felt his presence like a flash of cold lightning and recoiled.

“He told me it was rude to question him.” That was the problem, Camilla realized. Mr. Graves was too closely connected to her old life, the one she’d had at Rector Miles’s home. She’d learned early on that forward was the only possible direction. If she looked back, she’d yearn. She’d remember. She would think of all her carefully tended hopes and how they had come to nothing.

If she looked back, she would have to face the truth, and if she faced the truth, how could she ever go on? There was her mistake just now; she’d looked back.

She shouldn’t have looked back.

“Hmm.” Mr. Hunter was frowning and looking upward.

Which meant that he hadn’t noticed her mood. Good. She’d learned her lesson. She’d keep her eyes forward, her hope buoyant, unweighed down by the reality of her past.

“Well.” He sighed. “I suppose that’s to be expected. It’s not like they would commit to flouting the terms of the gift in print, would they?”

“Do you…do you think my word on the matter alone would be enough to prove it? For your uncle?”

He turned to look at her. No, he did not say. He did not need to say it.

“What we need,” he said, “is the rector’s private records. His books of account, if we could get our hands on them. I wish…” He trailed off, his mouth twisting. “I wish you and I had formed this alliance before our current situation. You would have had access back then, and…”

She couldn’t think of being employed in the rector’s house. That was looking back. It felt like a shovel held over her head. It felt like the resistance of a locked door. She couldn’t look back. Not now, not when she needed to hope.

He tapped his fingers against his chin.

“You know,” he said, looking at her, “if you would be willing, do you know what you could do?”

She knew what he was going to say. God, she was thinking it herself. She didn’t want him to say it. She wanted it out of her mind. She wanted her past gone forever.

“You could go back to the rectory,” he said. “Ask Miles to give you another chance, another trial. You wouldn’t have to mean it; you could make an offer he could not refuse—less money, perhaps no money? Ask for a trial period for a week. A day, even. You only need a few hours.”

Her chest hurt. She couldn’t go back. That wasn’t how this worked. It wasn’t how it ever worked. Miles had locked her in a room and told her she was going to hell. He’d said her hopes were devils. If she went back to him, she’d have to tell him—believably—that he was right, and she was so close to desperate that she feared if she said the words, they’d become true.

She’d stayed with him for eighteen months. It had never felt terrible, not while she was going through it.

But now Adrian was here. He noticed if there were holes in her gowns and told her that she deserved lemon tarts. Mrs. Martin had told her to care for herself. Mrs. Beasley had asked after her well-being, and told her she deserved to be happy. Even Mrs. Martin had given her advice.