“There is someone else,” he uttered, in sudden anguish.
“No one.”
“Then —”
“No one,” she reiterated harshly. “No man shall be permitted to steal away my heart. I have long determined it. Not you. Not anyone. I wear an iron shield and you need not suppose that you have the power to penetrate it. You must go elsewhere with yourlove, Mr Hawkeridge, for I will never accept it.”
The look on his face almost caused her to retract. Was he so very much hurt? She was conscious of a rising feeling of guilt, but she thrust it down. Guilt in this instance was a luxury she could not afford. She must remember Mama.
The thought gave her strength. What, had she forgotten Mama’s sufferings? Was she so vulnerable, so easily swayed by akiss, by soft words? No — if only he did not look so devastated. Without will, she put out a hand and her fingers lightly touched his cheek. “I am sorry, Denzell.”
Then she turned away, and sped back towards the dancing arena, but skirting it so that she passed around the crowds. She was still overset, her heartbeat irregular, and she did not wish to meet anyone now. All she wanted was to go home. To go home — and to weep.
All the way home in the chair that carried her, she clutched her light cloak about her, beset by an unwelcome image of Denzell Hawkeridge’s face. Clearly he had not imagined for a moment that he might meet with such a comprehensive rebuff. She could only trust he was mistaken in the depth of his feelings, that he would soon recover andfall in lovewith someone else. It must be that he would, for was he not an accomplished flirt? Perhaps he fancied himself in love with her because she had not fallen victim to his wiles. He barely knew her, after all. As she barely knew him. Which had not, a small voice whispered, prevented her from finding him dangerously attractive, nor from melting with desire at his kiss.
With a smothered exclamation, she put her hands over her own ears, as if she might stop herself hearing such things, even in her own head. He should not have kissed her. Her face burned at the memory. He had no right to — to set up a furnace in her body, to throw her into a state of such unutterable confusion.
She arrived home in a condition almost as bad as that in which she had run from Denzell, her heart beating less raggedly, but heavy with a weight of oppression that threatened every instant to overcome her.
She would have gone directly to her own chamber, but her footsteps must have been heard, for Betsey’s head popped out of the parlour, a candle in her hand. The maid both sounded andlooked grim enough to seize Verena’s attention from her own dismal thoughts.
“I thought it must be you, Miss Verena. You’d best come in here straight.”
Still cloaked, Verena moved towards the parlour door, frowning. “What is the matter, Betsey?”
The maid was apparently too distracted to notice the trouble in Verena’s face. “It’s Mr Adam.”
“Adam is here?”
“Right enough he is — and with such tidings as you’ll not be wanting to hear, neither.”
For a moment the shadows left by the difficult events of Verena’s evening prevented her from understanding. But as she walked through the door, and saw the instant apprehension in the faces of her mother and brother alike, the portent of Betsey’s words hit home.
“Oh, dear heaven, don’t tell me, Adam. He is coming after you, isn’t he?”
“Dearest, do not be angry,” said Mrs Peverill at once.
Not be angry? Verena was on the point of wild and hysterical laughter. All that she had been through tonight, and now this. Oh, but the fates were cruel.
Adam was speaking, and she tried to concentrate her attention on his words.
“…never meant to say a word, you must know that, Verena. But I believe he more than half suspected these visits I have been making.”
“That was the reason, Verena,” pressed Mrs Peverill. “You cannot blame Adam, dearest. He tried to keep his mouth shut, but Nathaniel drove him to speak, indeed, indeed he did. Cannot you imagine it, Verena? Such taunts at me he made, such dreadful things he said of me. Poor Adam could not abide to hear them.”
“What did you tell him?” Verena asked, her tone flat.
“Why, I threw back at him what he had done to Mama,” explained Adam.
“And lost his temper into the bargain,” put in Betsey shrewdly, for she had followed Verena back into the parlour.
“What did you tell him, Adam?” Verena repeated, her eyes on her brother’s face.
Adam shrugged. “I hardly know. Except that when he taxed me with having seen Mama, I was so angry I must have let it out that I had done so. Indeed Verena, I did not think I had mentioned Tunbridge Wells, but —”
“But you had,” she finished for him. “And what does he intend?”
There was silence for a moment. Mrs Peverill came forward, trying to intercept herself between her son and daughter. “Dearest —”
