His heart clenched.
Surely this could not be legal. Permissible. Of course, the slave trade did exist, though he’d heard of a politician in Parliament doing his level best to get the barbaric practice abolished. But this was an Englishwoman of tender years.
The root of the matter. She was a girl. By law, the man’s property, whether the man who’d brought her to Fulkerth was her father or husband.
A man could do what he pleased with his own property. Be it house, animal, or woman.
There wasn’t a thing Josiah could do to stop it.
“Do I hear five guineas?”
In the middle of the crowd, men a shifting wave around him, Josiah glanced to see who bid. Several lifted their hands. He recognized most.
His fingers curled into a fist. They ought to be ashamed.
“Six guineas. Do I hear six? Seven guineas. Look at that hair.” Fulkerth lifted a strand off her neck, pinching it between his fingers, the ends fluttering in the breeze. “Like gold silk, ’tis.”
He expected her to shrink from the touch, but she stood, arms crossed, body motionless.
“I’ll not part with her for less than ten,” called a voice from the front. “She’s a hard worker. Docile to yer bidding. A man would not find a better servant. Or wife.”
“Do I hear ten guineas?”
Jeremy Wakely, the proprietor of the Three Swans, lifted his hand. Likely, the man wished for a servant at his inn, since he was happily wed to an attractive wife.
Would the young woman be safe in Wakely’s employ?
“We have ten guineas. Do I hear eleven?”
The girl stayed motionless, gaze blank. As if she’d winged her soul elsewhere, leaving only her body behind.
Another man raised his hand, upping the bid.
“Good day, Hendrick.” The voice—like hot tallow—sluiced over him.
He flicked a glance, all too aware of whom he’d see. Phineas Trevenick stood at his elbow, fingering the handle of his silver-tipped walking stick. Everything, from his beaver hat, to the intricate folds of his snowy cravat, to the sheen of his black leather boots, was the definition of dandified fashion. Surprising the man would dirty the soles of said boots to take in a public auction. Beside him stood Sam Byng, his manservant. Shadow, more like.
“Trevenick.” Josiah’s father had taught him to nod in deference to his betters, but he wouldn’t acknowledge Trevenick any more than he absolutely must. He fixed his gaze on the auction as the bidding upped to twelve guineas.
“Interesting proceedings. I can’t recall having seen the like before. Have you?”
Josiah said nothing. He curled his fingers at his sides, tempted to walk away and leave this wretched spectacle behind.
But he couldn’t. Not until he was assured the young woman would be safe.
Somehow, though he didn’t know her, a desire to protect her rose within him.
“She’s a deuced pretty bit of muslin.” Trevenick’s remark sent a curl of disgust down Josiah’s back. He dragged in a breath.
The bidding rose to thirteen.
“She is at that,” Byng muttered.
“Pay what you must, Byng. It won’t take more than a few guineas to outbid these Johnny raws. I’ve a wish to have her.”
A cold sickness noosed Josiah’s stomach.
In an instant, the memories rose to the surface. The paleness of her skin as her life ebbed out with her will. Mary’s last, gasped-out words, her thready grip clinging to his, her eyes rolled back in their sockets.
“What might our life have been, I wonder? Without him in it.”
The weight of her day-old child in his arms, the babe’s body stiff and cold. Following its mother after only hours, too frail and small to stand a chance. Josiah’s shoulders shaking with silent sobs as he stood at the foot of the bed of his dead wife, holding her infant daughter in his arms.
“As you say, sir.” Byng pushed through the crowd, toward the front.
“Fifteen guineas. Do I hear fifteen?”
Byng raised his hand, six-foot sinewy frame visible above the shifting onlookers.
“What think you, Hendrick? Will she prove a diversion? I’ve a … desire for one.”
Slowly, Josiah turned, meeting Trevenick’s gaze. “You disgust me.” He gritted out the words.
“I don’t see why.” Trevenick plucked a speck off the cuff of his coat. “What else is the girl good for? And a man must take his pleasure where he can find it.”
A slow heat rose inside Josiah’s chest.
Phineas Trevenick had preyed on the defenseless one too many times.
This time, God help him, he could do something about it.
“Thirty guineas,” he shouted, raising a hand.
The auctioneer, startled, glanced at him then recovered. Josiah had known the man for years. Many had looked down on the Hendricks when their fortunes had fallen. Fulkerth, himself hardly a gentleman, had been one of them. “We have thirty. Do I hear thirty-five?”
“Thirty-five.” From Byng.
“Forty.” Josiah’s voice rose.
“Forty-five,” Byng stated.
“We have forty-five. Do I hear fifty?”
Trevenick chuckled, shaking his head.
Josiah could not outbid Trevenick. None in the county could. The Trevenicks owned two mines, hundreds of acres of land, a town house in London, and an estate in Cornwall. Fortune had favored them second to none.
Bile rose in his throat. Trevenick would win, as he always did. Claim the girl, debauch her as he wished. Josiah could do nothing. Powerless. Again.
The share.
Six months he’d sat in shareholder meetings while Trevenick behaved as if Josiah weren’t in the room. He’d reaped profits as the mine flourished, cast his vote when decisions were made, cast it for the benefit of the workers rather than the profit of Trevenick coffers. More than once the man had suggested—if a barely veiled threat could be called thus—it would be wise if Josiah let the Trevenicks buy him out.
He’d declined.
The woman’s face swam before him. Even with her face ashen and arms hugged about herself, she was comely. And young. Too young to have her virtue stolen, her life destroyed.
“Make it count, boy.” Charles, lying on his deathbed.
“Your goodness could not save me.” Mary’s grip loosening, going slack and weighted.
The two blended into each other, an echoing cacophony.
“Call off your manservant.” He ground out the words.
“What?” Trevenick’s eyes widened.
“Do it,” he muttered. “I can guarantee it will be to your benefit.” He stayed where he was, hands at his sides, while Trevenick cut through the crowd and asked the auctioneer to delay. Of course, Fulkerth did. Who would dare do anything but obey a Trevenick?
Byng and Trevenick returned.
“Well?” Trevenick arched a thin brow.
Josiah swallowed. “I’ll sell.” He cut his voice low. “Provided you step away here and now. A hundred and fifty pounds for my share in Prosper and your withdrawal from the auction.”
Trevenick chuckled, shaking his head. “No.”
Shock sluiced through him. No. After all the times Trevenick or Byng had cornered him after a meeting …
“A hundred,” Trevenick said. “Not a farthing more.”
Conversation hummed around them. The two men stared at each other.
The share was worth well over two hundred pounds. Prosper had become one of the best-producing mines in Cornwall.
“A hundred and twenty-five.”
Trevenick shook his head. “Byng.” He flicked a glance at his manservant. “Tell Fulkerth to proceed.”
“Right away, sir.” Byng turned.
“Wait.”
Trevenick and Byng stopped.
“I’ll meet your terms.”
Trevenick inclined his head. “Very well.”
Giving himself no time to contemplate what he had just done, Josiah s
trode through the crowd, toward the front. “Fifty guineas.” The words tore from his throat, loud and firm and surprising even himself.
The auctioneer looked askance at him, doubtless wondering at the change in bidders.
“Fifty guineas. Do I hear fifty-one?”
The crowd stayed silent.
Beneath the brim of his tricorn, Josiah fixed his gaze on the girl. She didn’t look at him with a spark of hope, a trace of life returning to her eyes. Didn’t look at him at all, in fact.
“Going once. Going twice. Sold”—the auctioneer slammed his gavel on the platform railing—“for fifty guineas to the man in the gray coat. That concludes our auction for today.”
The crowd shuffled, drifting away.
“What’re ye going to do with the woman?” asked a man with protruding, yellow teeth who stood nearby.
“That’s none of your concern,” Josiah muttered. Ignoring the gazes of all around him, he moved through the crowd. Trevenick and Byng stood where he’d left them, apart from the rest.
“So the deed’s done.” Trevenick looked amused, as if the auction had been but a game of loo. “Don’t you feel a bit like Esau, Hendrick? Selling your birthright in exchange for a bowl of pottage?”
Byng smirked.
“Payment, please.”
“But first, the share.” Trevenick held out his palm.
It was only by chance he’d brought the papers today. He’d meant to stop by the office of the attorney his father once employed and pose some legal questions to the man.
Now, there’d be no need.
Josiah withdrew them from his inner coat pocket. For a moment, he stared at the folded documents. So light in his hands. Yet, how he’d prized them and all they stood for.
He shoved aside the emotion rising up. He didn’t have the luxury of feeling now.
He handed them to Trevenick, who opened and scanned them. “We’ll need to sign a bill of sale.” Josiah kept his tone emotionless. “But I’ve other matters to attend to today. Our agreed-upon price, if you will.”
“Of course.” Trevenick handed the papers to Byng and reached inside his pocket. He withdrew a leather pouch and passed it to Josiah. “Fifty guineas is all I have with me at present. I’ll have the rest sent round to you.”
Josiah stiffened, the weight of the pouch heavy in his hand. A half-smile curved Trevenick’s lips. The emerald signet on his pinky caught the light and glistened. “Rest assured, you can trust my word as a gentleman.”
Josiah pocketed the purse. “Then our business for today is at an end.”
“One moment.” Trevenick met Josiah’s gaze. “What compelled you to do this?” Curiosity flickered through his pale green eyes.
To save an innocent woman as I could not save my wife? To redeem one thing in this mad, broken world?
But he wouldn’t give Trevenick the satisfaction of hearing him utter those words.
“I bid you good day.” He turned on his heel and strode away, gravel crushing beneath his boots. Around him, the village bustled. Two women who’d been in the crowd eyed him with open curiosity as he passed, their gazes asking questions they were too polite to voice.
He had no answers.
The young woman stood near the auction block. The auctioneer and the man who’d sold her, likely her father, waited nearby. But it was to the girl his gaze went. She stood, hands folded at her waist, the edges of her shabby cloak stirred by the wind, staring straight ahead.
He sucked in a breath as he approached.
God, I know not if what I’ve done is Your will. I scarce know what I’ve done at all. But please, I beg of You … Guide me in this.
Chapter 3
Stripped in body and soul, she was. As exposed as if she’d been physically undressed upon the block. There was only one thing she could do to shield herself and that was to go numb. Become as one who heard and felt nothing, who did not exist at all.
She stared into emptiness, the street a haze of movement she didn’t really see. Breath pushed in and out of her lungs. A tangible sign life still tethered her to this earth.
“Miss?” The voice broke through the blur. Low-spoken. One might even say gentle. And … male. The last made her tense, her gaze jerk up.
He stood before her, but a pace away. A sturdy man with a height half a foot above hers. A tricorn topped his dark brown hair, his square jaw unshaven. She lingered on his eyes. Not their color, a blend of brown and green, but their depths. Men might regulate their countenances to put on a convincing show, but their eyes told the truest tale of their character. His did not hold anger, and bespoke the same gentleness as his tone.
“Yes.” Her answer emerged as a breath.
“The name’s Hendrick, miss. Josiah Hendrick.”
“Elowyn Brody.” Her voice came surer this time. Why did he approach her?
“Fifty guineas is the agreed-upon price,” the auctioneer’s voice cut in.
The truth slammed through her. Her breath caught. This man, this Josiah Hendrick, had been the one to… purchase her. She’d not noticed the buyer, nor heard the price until now. Fifty guineas. She’d never seen such a sum in all her life.
Her father had done well. Very.
“I have it here.” Mr. Hendrick handed a leather coin purse to the auctioneer, who made a show of opening and inspecting it, before turning to the other person standing by. Tom Brody. She’d never again think of him as Father. The auctioneer counted out a few coins for himself, then passed the purse into Tom Brody’s hand.
She’d not looked at him since she stood upon the block, but she did now. He pocketed the money in the depths of his loose-fitting brown coat. She’d mended that coat only last week.
The force of his betrayal sliced like a surgeon’s knife through flesh.
“Good day to ye then.” He bobbed a nod in the auctioneer’s direction.
“Not quite.” Firmness edged Mr. Hendrick’s voice. “I’d like a bill of sale. That way you’ll not return and seek her back again.”
In the folds of her cloak, she clenched her hands together.
“Aye.” Her voice surprised her as much as it did the men. She met Tom Brody’s eyes in a direct stare. “There must be a bill of sale. For after this, there will never again be anything between us. Any claim you had on me is yours no more.”
A flicker of pain entered his gaze, filling her with a flash of bitter satisfaction. She’d cut him, wounded him as he’d wounded her.
“I’ve pen and paper here.” The auctioneer rounded the small table set near the platform. He nodded to Mr. Hendrick. “Sit yourself down, sir, and write it out.”
For long minutes, he bent over the paper, quill scratching against its surface, forehead creased as he paused for a moment to think before he resumed writing. The three of them stood in tense silence, watching. In the distance, a child laughed. Footsteps sounded as townsfolk walked past. The sheep still bumped into one another and bleated in their pen. Doubtless the man who’d bought them was seeking help to herd them home.
Finally, Mr. Hendrick blotted the paper and looked up. “If you’ll sign.” His tone had gone from gentle to granite in a matter of minutes.
Tom Brody walked round the table. His graying head bent over the page as he dipped the quill into the pot of ink. Elowyn did not have to watch to know what he would do. His crudely formed X would seal the bargain.
Mr. Hendrick blotted the mark then folded the paper. Without another glance or word, Tom Brody turned and walked down the street, shoulders stooped, steps halting as if already impaired by the bottle. She gazed after his retreating form. A cold deadness filled her from the inside. Her heart drummed in her chest as he turned the corner.
He hadn’t looked back.
She blinked, a stir of wind stinging her dry eyes.
“That concludes our business for today.” She turned at the auctioneer’s words. The shorter man stood looking between the two of them, as if he did not quite know what to make of it.
“Aye.”
Mr. Hendrick nodded. “That it does.”
She regarded him, throat suddenly tight. Not with tears, but fear. He owned her with the bill of sale to prove it. What did he intend to do with her?
Her knees shook. She gasped out a breath. She’d never fainted in her life. She refused to start now. Spots danced before her vision.
“You look unwell. Come. Let’s find somewhere to sit.”
Mr. Hendrick put his hand on her elbow, supporting her unsteadiness, steps accommodating hers.
She’d been pulled through the night by Tom Brody, then hauled upon the platform by the auctioneer. Both had handled her roughly and with little care, like she were a mare in need of a harsher bit.
His was a touch truly kind. Still she stiffened beneath it.
She didn’t know Josiah Hendrick. Yet she belonged to him. He could do what he pleased with her or to her. Over and over, that reality cycled through her.
Surely it can’t be worse than what I left.
They made their way down the street. Launcegrave on market day had earlier seemed a festive place. Now, the squawking voice of the puppeteer performing the Punch and Judy show made her cringe. The wooden puppet Punch whacked at Judy, his wife, with a stick.
“Aye, Mr. Punch, you do beat me!” she howled.
The audience laughed.
Elowyn looked away. A group of men spilled out of the Eagle’s Head, staggering almost directly into them, obviously well into their cups. Mr. Hendrick’s fingers tightened around her elbow as the men passed.
They stopped before a weathered stone building near the end of the street. The hanging sign creaking in the wind spelled out the Three Swans. Mr. Hendrick opened the door and motioned her to precede him.
She stepped inside the low-beamed room. ’Twas dim-lit and dark-paneled, filled with square tables, most occupied by patrons. Mr. Hendrick removed his tricorn and hung it on an empty peg beside other hats.
A lad wearing an apron and carrying a tray of dishes stopped midstride. “Good day to ye, Mr. Hendrick.” He jerked a nod.
“Good day, Mark. A table, please.”
“Of course, sir. Right this way, sir, ma’am.” The boy nodded again and led them through the crowded room to a table near the back next to a stone hearth, empty of heat on this summer day.
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