Blacksmith Brides

by Amanda Barratt

  Not bothering to wipe the sweat from his face or the grime from his hands, he returned outside. Trevenick dismounted and tied his horse to the hitching post outside the forge. He strode toward Josiah, standing out against the roughness of the smithy in his bottle-green riding coat and buff breeches. Worthless dandy.

  “Good day to you.” Trevenick inclined his head.

  “Trevenick.” He gave the barest of nods. “Your fork is mended. The cost comes to five shillings.” Stating the price gave him momentary satisfaction. Usually he adjusted his fees to what the customer could reasonably pay, which meant he often took a loss. Today, he’d make certain his fee matched the worth of his work.

  Trevenick took the fork and examined it without comment. He withdrew a coin purse from his coat pocket and handed Josiah a crown. Josiah exhaled a breath of relief as the man did an about-face and walked toward his horse. Good.

  Instead of remounting, Trevenick put the fork in his saddlebag, the end sticking out, and turned back to Josiah. In his hands, he held what looked like a folded square of cloth. ’Twas a shade of rich green. Familiarity niggled the corner of his consciousness.

  “Is Mistress Hendrick about?”

  “Nay.” Behind him, the fire in the forge snapped. Though that heat had naught to do with the one simmering in his chest now. Why did this man seek out Elowyn? Did he think to win her favor as he had Mary’s, plying her with flattering words and gifts until she bent to his will?

  “Pity. But no matter. I expect I can trust you to see this is returned to her.” He handed the bundle over. Josiah took the fabric in his hands, and unfolded it.

  Running her fingers over the softness, eyes wide with delight. Billowing behind her as she walked to church.

  Elowyn’s cloak. There could be no mistaking it.

  “Ah, yes. You’re wondering how I came by it. She left it at my house yesterday.”

  Yesterday? He frowned, trying to grasp some reality to anchor him. Elowyn had visited the Darter family yesterday. Though when she’d returned, she’d not said a word of Jacky or the children.

  “You’re mistook. My wife was nowhere near your house.”

  Trevenick emitted a low chuckle. “Oh, didn’t she tell you? But of course, she would not have spoken of it. How foolish of me to assume you knew.”

  He took a measured step toward Trevenick. “Knew what?” So help him he’d—

  “That your wife was with me yesterday. We had a most … entertaining afternoon together. Which reminds me. There’s one more article I have yet to return.” He reached inside his coat. An embroidered ribbon dangled from his fingertips, stirred by the wind.

  One thick and blue, embroidered with white roses.

  A garter. The very one Josiah had chosen for her.

  White-hot heat consumed him. The cloak fell to the ground. He lunged forward, grabbing Trevenick by his cravat, shoving him against the forge. His fist tightened around the neckcloth, his jaw gritted. A thousand words fought for utterance, but none emerged past the vice around his throat.

  Trevenick gulped for air, face turning red. “Unhand me.”

  Every muscle in him wanted to sate the fury, ram the man’s skull into the wood again and again until he slumped lifeless. Elowyn. His Elowyn.

  Mary. The coy tilt of her head as she turned to look back at Trevenick. The flush in her cheeks whenever she’d returned from one of her “walks.”

  It had happened again. A growl of rage, of disbelief, of madness rose from his throat.

  “You forced her.”

  “I assure you she was most accommodating. Of course, you should know that. Or don’t you?” The words were a rasp, but that did not lessen the impact. Josiah tightened his grip on Trevenick’s throat, the man’s pulse beating beneath his fingers. A gurgle emerged.

  He drew back, fingers curling into a fist.

  Mary.

  Struck.

  Elowyn.

  The force of the blow reverberated through his arm. Trevenick’s head slammed against the forge. Blood trickled from his nose.

  Josiah stepped back.

  “Come on.” Breath sawed in and out of his lungs. He dug his boots into the dirt, feet planted wide. “Your lackey isn’t around to do the job for you. Not this time. This time, it’s just you and me.”

  Blood dripped from Trevenick’s nose, falling in blots upon the ground. He leaned against the forge, wheezing for air.

  “What?” A bitter laugh escaped. “Not man enough to sully your own fists? Nay. You just bed the women, to hang with the consequences.”

  “Your wife had to come to me to satisfy her needs. Now, who’s the man?” Trevenick pushed off the wall and came at him. He swung. Josiah ducked. His fist connected with Trevenick’s cheek. To thunder with that chiseled profile.

  Rage, raw and feral. Fists against flesh. A strike to his eye. Lightning pain.

  Elowyn.

  Her name rose like a howl in his brain.

  No matter what he unleashed upon Trevenick, it would not give him that which he most craved.

  Not revenge.

  Oblivion.

  Elowyn hurried down the lane as the first droplets of rain fell from the sky. Though it did not assuage her guilt from yesterday over lying to Josiah as to her whereabouts, she’d truly been glad to visit the Darters today. Glimpsing the stark pain in Jacky Darter’s eyes as he spoke of his wife had only reinforced her decision to be truthful with Josiah and seek his truth in return. Life was too short to live with doubt and secrets between them. Love, too precious to be wasted.

  She gazed at a sky the color of slate, water pelting her face and hair. She pulled her knitted shawl tighter around her shoulders. It wasn’t until late last night she’d realized she’d left her cloak at Trevenick Hall. Though she rued the loss of Josiah’s gift, she gave thanks a garment was all yesterday had stolen from her.

  Empty basket in hand, she pushed open the door to the house. It creaked. She hung her damp shawl on a peg and turned, blinking in the dimness.

  Josiah sat at the table, shoulders hunched forward, face hidden from her. She forced a smile to her lips, despite the trepidation skittering through her. She’d not delay their conversation another hour.

  “Rain’s coming down hard.”

  He turned. She gasped. An ugly bruise darkened his eye. Dried blood coated his upper lip.

  “Gracious! What’s happened?” Dropping the empty basket to the ground, she hastened toward him, kneeling in front of his chair.

  “Who did this?”

  He only stared at her. Hair fell over his forehead, tangling around his face. Particles of dried blood blended with the stubble darkening his jaw.

  The look in his eyes was one she’d seen many men wear, but never he. Darkness.

  Her breath seeped out. Whenever Tom Brody had worn such a look, she’d kept herself scarce. Or suffered the consequences.

  Josiah is not my father.

  But still a tremble shook her.

  “Josiah,” she said softly. “Please. Tell me what happened.”

  “There are some items on your bed.” The words were between a mutter and a breath. He didn’t look at her, seemed barely to see her at all.

  She frowned. “What?”

  “Go.” The command made her jump.

  She rose, only vaguely aware of the ache in her knees from kneeling, and crossed the room. The door to her bedchamber stood half ajar. The floor creaked as she stepped inside. Her pulse thudded in her ears.

  Spread across the bed lay her cloak.

  And a length of ribbon. Embroidered with white roses.

  A wave of nausea heaved through her stomach. She’d realized when she’d arrived home that she’d mislaid her garter. Her mind had been in too much tumult to spare thinking of where. Who had brought these things here?

  And what conclusions had Josiah drawn from them?

  She looked over her shoulder, gaze falling on the slumped form of the man at the table. A man bearing the marks of a struggle. A man
who’d regarded her with coldness in his eyes, where there had formerly been warmth.

  On legs that no longer seemed her own, she returned to his side. He glanced up. His features might as well have been hewn in stone. Firelight cast angry shadows on his battered face.

  Thunder rumbled, shaking the house.

  Neither of them spoke. She stood before his chair, her body cold and still. Hating the silence, but afraid to break it.

  “It’s no use,” he said, voice a low rasp.

  “What?”

  His rose, faced her, his hard-hewn frame making her small in the low-ceilinged cottage. “Our marriage. This mockery of a life together.” He took a step toward her, gaze narrowing. “Is a faithful wife too much to ask?”

  Her heartbeat tasted raw. “Do you think me unfaithful?”

  “You were with Trevenick yesterday afternoon. You told me you were at the Darters. What else have you lied about?” His voice escalated. “How many times has it been? How many times have you given yourself to him? While I spared you my touch because I sought to treat you and our marriage with honor. Did the vows we spoke mean nothing to you?” He shook his head. “The fault is mine, I suppose. I should have noticed the signs. Instead I let myself be played for a fool.”

  Tears pressed against her eyes, his words slicing her. “I was never unfaithful to you.” A sob choked her voice. “I’ve given myself to no man, nor ever would, except to one to whom I was bound in a holy union before God. Why would you think thus of me? Have I given you cause? Have I played the coquette? Have I done anything but seek to be a good and true wife? Answer me that, because if I have been at fault, I should like to know it.”

  He stared at her. His faded shirt hung untucked, open at the throat, the fabric spotted with dots of browning blood. “Trevenick brought by your cloak. He said you’d been to Trevenick Hall. The cloak I can understand. But how would he have come to have that if what you say is true?” His voice held disbelief. He thought her a liar and a faithless woman. The first she might be, to her regret. The second she’d never …

  She swallowed. “’Tis true I was at the Hall. He invited me there, to speak about … a matter. Yet ’twas all a ruse. He’d no intent of discussing it at all. He—” Her throat jerked. “He imposed his advances upon me.” Tears slid down her cheeks. “He would have violated me if I’d not defended myself.”

  The color leeched from his face. His hands hung limp at his sides.

  “I did wrong in trusting him, thinking his station enough to merit him the title of gentleman. If I can claim any fault, it is that. Not faithlessness.” She drew in a shaky breath.

  “I did not know.” His voice was serrated, scarcely louder than a whisper.

  “You did not know. Yet you immediately thought the worst of me? How can I expect to trust in any kind of stability if this is how you behave?” The words flew from her mouth, angry darts. “I can bear many things, but cruel suspicions and mistrust, I will not bear.”

  “How can I expect to trust in any kind of stability if this is how you behave?”

  The same words she’d pressed back time and again in the face of her father.

  “Elowyn—” He took a step toward her, but she backed away, holding up a hand.

  “Nay. Do not.” A driving ache throbbed in her temples. She couldn’t stay here. Not to look at him, to face him, to recall what he had thought her capable of. “I think it’s best if I go.”

  “Where?” Pain filled his gaze. She looked away so she did not have to see it.

  “I don’t know.” She tried to pull clarity from the scrambled muddle of her mind. “To the Wingfields.”

  “For how long?”

  “For tonight, at least. I need … some time.” She moved past him, into the bedchamber. Of course, as his wife, legally he could prevent her. Would he? Nay. He’d never imposed anything upon her against her will.

  Slowly, she gathered a few things and bundled them up in her old cloak. The new one she left on the bed. Carrying her makeshift bag, she walked back into the main room. He stood where she’d left him. He turned.

  “It’s raining,” he said quietly. “You should take the horse.”

  “Nay.” She shook her head. “’Tis yours.”

  “Take it, Elowyn.”

  Too spent to argue, she nodded. She moved toward the door. There, she paused, looking back at him. Body taut, eyes haggard, like the cares of the world rested on his shoulders, and he could no longer stand to carry them. An ache speared her heart.

  “I will return,” she murmured.

  And left him.

  Chapter 12

  He stood at the window as she rode away beneath an angry sky, down the ribbon of road, until horse and rider disappeared from sight. She was gone.

  He was alone.

  Josiah stumbled across the room like a drunken man and collapsed into a chair.

  A vase of dried flowers sat in the center of the table. She’d picked them on one of their evening walks, bending down and filling her arms with the purple blooms.

  “They’re meant to be saved,” she said, smiling up at him. “Then, though their beauty may fade, ’twill never die.”

  A cry rose deep in his throat. It shook his bent shoulders, another following on its heels, until he wept wracking sobs, tears sliding from his swollen eye, stinging the cuts on his face.

  “Elowyn … I’m sorry … God … I’m sorry …”

  “Yet you immediately thought the worst of me? How can I expect to trust in any kind of stability if this is how you behave? I can bear many things, but cruel suspicions and mistrust, I will not bear.”

  Her shattered gaze. The tears in her voice. Her upheld hand putting a barrier between them.

  Elowyn was not Mary. But he’d pinned on her the same conduct, thinking this woman as faithless as the last. She was innocent, and he’d wounded her by deed and word.

  And she’d left him.

  The fault was his. He’d told himself he’d healed from the pain Mary had inflicted. But he hadn’t. It lay beneath the surface, a cancer outwardly cured, inwardly spreading through his body and wreaking misery.

  He’d asked God to help him forgive the wrong Mary had done him. But had he truly forgiven her? Or only told himself he had?

  Memories clawed to the surface, taking form inside him.

  He’d fallen for the miner’s daughter with the flame-hued curls and spirit to match the moment he’d first laid eyes on her. When she’d agreed to wed him, he’d considered himself granted an unparalleled treasure. Being near her every day, watching as she twirled about the cottage humming a country dance, holding her at night, he’d thought no man could ask for a better life. But as the months passed, she became sullen and withdrawn, disappearing for hours on end, leaving him combing the countryside, worry-frantic, only to find her walking toward the forge, refusing to tell him where she’d been. He’d noticed other differences too. A pair of pearl earrings on her bedside table, a silk shawl.

  It wasn’t until the deed was done that he’d discovered the truth.

  “Your wife is with child.”

  Even now, the memory of the physician’s statement still had the power to wrest his breath.

  The distance between him and Mary in prior months told him more than words.

  When he confronted her, she didn’t deny it. And when she spoke the name of her child’s father, everything in him went cold. She’d tearfully begged him not to confront Trevenick, to claim the child as his own. Said Trevenick had wooed her with trinkets and gifts and promises of a grand life, until she’d succumbed to his advances. She hated him now, she said.

  Josiah had done as she asked. As the months passed, Mary retreated into herself, becoming a shadow of the woman he’d fallen in love with. Hours after the premature birth, Mary died, the child less than a day later.

  When she’d first told him the news, he’d pushed back his own emotions and focused on caring for her. After her death, his rage, long tamped down, had been all-cons
uming. He’d ridden to Trevenick Hall and shoved aside the servant who’d insisted Mr. Trevenick would not see him. He’d told Trevenick the truth, every last part of it, including the words Mary had spoken on her deathbed.

  Trevenick had listened in silence, as the truth poured out of him in a half-coherent flood. When Josiah finished, Trevenick said one thing only, with a half smile.

  “She was deuced good in bed.”

  Josiah had lunged at him, fueled by a level of fury he hadn’t known existed. When Sam Byng came at Josiah from behind, he’d been unprepared to fend off the attack. The servant had shown the mettle of his strength, throttling Josiah into unconsciousness. He awoke in a ditch, body bruised and bloodied, three ribs broken. For weeks, Peter had managed the forge while he’d lain abed, recovering, trapped in the anguish of his thoughts.

  The memories receded. Josiah exhaled a jagged breath, as spent as if he’d lived them all again.

  Another’s wrong did not make his own right.

  He’d sinned.

  Oh, he put on a good act, the kind neighbor always willing to lend a hand, the dependable friend. Even the steadfast husband. But deep inside, he’d harbored bitterness and anger. Toward his father, for the recklessness that led him to gamble away their mine. Toward Mary, for betraying him with body and heart. Toward Trevenick, most of all, for his air of self-important entitlement that stole from Josiah what he valued most—his mine, his first marriage.

  Toward Elowyn. He’d fallen in love with her, the woman he’d wed in a moment’s decision. She’d seemed everything Mary had not been, genuine, sweet, good. And he’d begun to cherish the promise of a future better than his past.

  When he’d thought she too had betrayed him, his world had caved in.

  Yet what, then, was his world truly built upon? If the actions of those closest to him could stop the turning of it and reduce him to a person he was ashamed of?