Her blood was pumping hard in her veins and her head was spinning already from everything that had transpired. She didn’t know how to react if he dared to apologize . . . although she was most certainly owed that small gesture after years of loyal service to his family. He may have given her a roof over her head, but she had earned twofold every courtesy he had ever extended her. She doubted she could accept such an apology graciously.
“’Ere ye go. Dinna forget this.”
She looked down. Mr. Beard extended her battered valise for her to take. There was no farewell. No forthcoming apology—and as much as she didn’t want to hear such a thing from him, she was also, irrationally, angered that he did not care about saying good-bye. He didn’t want to apologize.
“Oh,” she said, the word strange on her numb lips.
She accepted the bag, nodding mutely as her clammy fingers gripped the handle. Turning back around, she saw that her new husband waited. Her eyes briefly met his before looking away.
He pressed on and she followed, adjusting her grip on her bag and walking stalwartly, shoulders squared, chin high.
Mrs. McPherson wrinkled her nose as they passed. “Phew. ’Opefully ’e ’as enough blunt left fer a bath.”
Alyse followed behind her new husband, eyeing him carefully, noting the hard set of his shoulders. He did not turn around, however. Nor did she. There would be no looking back. There was only forward. Only the future and she needed to focus on that. On getting that right. She’d endured enough. Even though Yardley had failed her and would not be in her life, she could still carve out a future that was worth something. She wouldn’t give up until she had that for herself.
The crowd parted a path for his tall figure. She didn’t know if it was his intimidating size or the foul smell of him, but everyone gave him a wide berth.
They departed the square, walking a short distance until he reached a young boy holding the reins of an impressive gelding with a gleaming black coat that her fingers itched to caress.
“Here, lad.” Her husband tossed him a coin. Husband. She blinked at the strangeness of that. At the wrongness.
“Thank ye, sir,” the boy exclaimed before darting away to buy a treat with his sudden earnings.
The man pulled himself upon his mount with ease and then peered down at her from his great perch, his deep blue eyes inscrutable.
She looked up at him, hoping he did not intend for her to ride astride with him. She was loath to press her person against his rank body. She would rather walk.
“I’ll take your valise.” He extended a hand. She lifted her bag up to him. He secured it to his saddle. “Follow me,” he commanded in those cultivated tones before turning his mount around.
She hesitated only a moment before moving after him. For now, she would obey. She would be the perfect image of submission. Temporarily. Until she devised a plan.
As difficult as it was for her, she would bide her time. Assess. Strategize.
He was not difficult to keep pace with. The lane was crowded and more narrow than usual with stalls and vendors erected along the edges. Her stomach grumbled at the aroma of roasting meats and fresh baked breads. She really should have eaten more this morning . . . but then she might have retched during the awfulness of that auction. Nellie had been right. Never in her life had she felt so degraded. Damn Yardley for abandoning her. She would never forgive him.
The horse ambled along, unable to move very quickly, but it was still no small embarrassment to walk down the street of her village, meekly plodding behind the man who had just purchased her.
Eyes and indiscreet whispers followed her. It all added to her humiliation.
Perhaps it was a good thing he was from out of town and they would be going somewhere else. Some place where people would not know the demeaning details of their beginning. Bitter bile welled in her throat as she grappled with that fact that she was bound to this man. At least until she figured out how to break free.
Soon the busy street thinned out and they were at the edge of the village on the road north. He pulled to the side and dismounted. They stood face-to-face. She had to crane her neck a bit to look up at him and she wasn’t a particularly short female. She and Mr. Beard had been of like height and Yardley was only a little taller. She swallowed and attempted to look composed, fighting the urge to take a step back.
Outside of the village, away from the clamor and the press of bodies, she realized how very cold it was. Without the shield of buildings, the wind buffeted her, whipping her skirts around her ankles. Shivering, she burrowed into her cloak.
It wasn’t only cold. It was . . . lonely. It felt like they were the only two people on earth even though the village bustled just beyond, its din a distant murmur.
Here, in this moment, it was just them and the wind and the crack of branches beneath the weight of snow.
Flurries fell lightly, dusting his shoulders and clumping on the dark fabric of his coat. Big shoulders. She swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat. All of him was big. His body filled out his garments.
She looked him up and down, eyeing every filthy inch of him warily. Staring up at this large bearded man, the realization that she belonged to him now sank in slowly, deeply . . . terrifyingly.
She fought to hold her ground and not back away. Not run screaming into the village as the weaker side of herself urged. How had she ended up here? In this place? This scenario? She had such different expectations for how this day would end.
His blue eyes sparked, sharp and intent above the dark growth of hair covering the lower half of his face, and she suspected he knew the panicked edge of her thoughts.
Silence throbbed between them, matching the pulse racing at her throat. She was bound to this man. She struggled to wrap her mind around that . . . struggled to deny it.
His breath fanned like fog from his bewhiskered lips. He looked practically biblical. Like Moses emerging from the desert. He was fairly . . . feral. A man capable of trapping and killing his dinner with his bare hands. His fine diction notwithstanding, there was a roughness to him that locked her jaw and shrank every pore in her skin.
Even after Yardley returned from the navy he had not looked this virile. Indeed not. Her childhood friend was not as broad. Not as tall. In truth, five years in the navy did not overly change him. He did not look very different from the boy of her youth who lived next door to her. She doubted he could even grow a beard. And perhaps that was some of his appeal. His very familiarity, his lack of change, brought her back to far more pleasant and less grueling days.
This man—this very un-Yardley type of man—could crush her.
She swallowed against her tightening throat. He could drag her into the woods and she would be helpless to fight him. Her blows would rain uselessly.
He was strapping. Young. At least younger than Mr. Beard who had celebrated his sixtieth year just this past Christmas. But not as young as her Yardley. Yardley was a boy compared to him.
A fresh flash of anger shot through her. No. Not hers. He was not her anything anymore. Perhaps he never had been. If he’d been hers he would have been here for her and she wouldn’t be standing across from this man—this stranger—contemplating the ways he might destroy her.
She groped for that elusive composure of hers and inhaled, catching a fresh whiff of the man who’d just bought her for fifty pounds. She winced and covered her nose.
Say what you will but at least Yardley did not reek.
They continued to assess each other. It reminded her of when the Beard family introduced Moody, their calico cat, into the household. The family hound and the cat had a stare-off that lasted weeks. Whenever Alyse entered the kitchen, they were always in their respective spots, glaring at each other with wild eyes, growling and hissing low in their throats, waiting for the other to make a move or sound. She did not know who she was in this situation—the cat or the dog. She’d always felt them equally matched. Currently, she did not feel equally matched. No, she felt quite pale in comparison to the man towering over her.
“Your name is Alyse Beard—”