“However, I still cannot believe that your father and brother would allow this? Are they not aware of the danger?”
“There is no danger, Lord Ferrard. I’ve been driving the wagon with the assistance of one of my brothers since I was five and ten. It is an unusual circumstance that I am alone, but as you know, most of my family is gone from the area. However, as we’ve never had an instance that might cause concern, it was decided that I would drive, as I always have, unassisted this one time.”
He could only stare at her.
“Will that be all?” Her tone was crisp. “We have much cargo, and I cannot tarry.”
“I’m going with you,” Emory insisted.
“You are not,” she informed in a tone he’d not heard from Violet before. A tone he expected to come from her grandmother, Her Grace.
“The residents were not pleased when strangers arrived on the beach unexpected. They will be even more displeased if I arrive with you.”
“It is too dangerous,” Emory repeated.
“It is not, Lord Ferrard. I am not a wilting violet. I am self-sufficient and able to care for myself.”
All he could do was gape at her.
“I must be going.” She clicked the reins, and the horses drew away, leaving him speechless.
Violet had never needed him. She probably had never wanted him either. Yet, he desired her. More than ever before, and she would never be his.
Violet was shakingwith nerves after her encounter with Lord Ferrard. Thank goodness he would keep their secret. If it were anyone else, she might not trust them, but if anything, Lord Ferrard was honest, and for that she was grateful.
However, she wasn’t certain if she should advise her father and Wesley. It was probably best that she didn’t, so they’d not feel the need to visit Lord Ferrard and possibly threaten him to hold their secrets when Violet already knew that he would.
She wasn’t only startled at his appearance but thrilled, and it took everything that she possessed not to smile and greet him with happiness, but she knew better than to do so. They may be friends, but he would leave Laswell tomorrow. Further, they were no longer courting.
Turning onto the hidden path, Violet concentrated on the steep curve of the road and drove the horses to the landing on the beach. Once there, the residents of Laswell began loading cargo onto the wagon for her to deliver to the storage barn behind the mews in Laswell. Four men would accompany her for the unloading, and then they’d return.
As she jumped from the wagon, her father and Wesley approached.
“There were no issues?” Wesley asked as if he knew that she’d seen Ferrard.
“None,” she lied, and easily, for the first time in her life, and it didn’t sit well, but neither would the truth and explanation. However, she did advise them that sentries needed to be placed on the cliffs once again, as Kilmuir had spied upon them waiting to see if his daughter arrived. At one time, they never moved cargo without guards on the cliffs but had become lax when they were never discovered.
“The captain vouched for the men,” her father said. “But you should have taken John with you.” John worked in the mews in Laswell and sometimes assisted Violet when a brother wasn’t available.
“There was little room,” she reminded him. “Kilmuir was waiting where instructed, and his daughter has been delivered.”
Her father nodded, as if satisfied and then returned to loading crates.
Wesley stopped before her. “Do not be reckless. You are never to drive the wagon alone. Those are the rules. It was what you agreed to when father allowed you to drive.”
Why were men so protective? “I’ll do what I can.”
For the next five hours, the wagon was loaded, driven into Laswell, unloaded, and driven back. As Violet was always in the company of others, she had little time to think on Ferrard, which was for the best since he’d be gone tomorrow and out of her life for the next few months.
After they unloaded the wagon the last time in Laswell, the men who had been helping returned to their homes. She turned the wagon back to the lighthouse where Wesley would be waiting, and the two of them would return to Forester Hall. He’d be angry that she’d left without him as she knew that she wasn’t supposed to drive alone, but she needed the peace to be alone with her thoughts and if possible, quiet her mind.
The sun had barely caressed the horizon when Violet spotted the dark lump in the middle of the road and pulled on the reins to keep the horses from running over whatever the object happened to be. Had something fallen from the wagon? Though, certainly someone would have noticed.
She strained to see better from her seat and realized that it was a man in a dark cloak.
Had someone been injured on their return from the caves? Had they collapsed?
Heart pounding, she jumped from the wagon and rushed forward. When she touched his shoulder, he turned, flipped, and grabbed her arm, and Violet finally saw his face.
