The Bride Sale by Candice Hern Page B

kept her gaze lowered.
    James waited for her to speak.
    â€œWhat right?” she asked, her voice low and tremulous. But of course, she was afraid of him. They had all made her afraid of him.
    â€œI beg your pardon?”
    He watched her swallow. She straightened her back and raised her chin, almost visibly gathering her courage. “What right do you have to know where I’m going?” When she lifted her gaze to look directly at him, her dark eyes caught the light of the dying fire, and for an instant he could have sworn he saw a glint of defiance there. It must have been a trick of the light, for as she continued to look at him, she was clearly frightened, and as twitchy as a bunny under the nose of a fox.
    â€œI truly wish to know,” she continued. “What rights do you suppose that sham transaction in the village square gives you?” Her voice quavered a bit, but she did not look away. “Do you mean to convince me there was anything remotely legal about what took place?”
    James stared up at her, astonished. Earlier, she’d seemed hardly capable of speech at all. Yet here she was, still shaken and scared, but able to speak not only in a reasonably rational and articulate manner, but with a hint of challenge as well.
    So, she was a scrappy bit of baggage after all. Now that he was faced with it, though, he was not at all sure he liked the idea of a female with spirit. A quiet, docile, shrinking sort of creature would have been so much easier to pack off to the scullery and ignore.
    Her large brown eyes gazed steadfastly into his own, attempting a look to match the note of challenge in her voice. But they betrayed her with the merest flicker of apprehension, quickly masked. She certainly was a proud little article.
    But not so little, James considered as his eyes roamed up and down her strangely large figure. She had seemed perfectly normal-sized in Gunnisloe, if a bit on the short side. He recalled once again the moment Jud Moody had pulled her dress tight across her bosom to reveal her figure to that randy mob. She had appeared very nicely formed, not unusually plump. But now—
    By God, the foolish woman seemed to be wearing every article of clothing that would not fit in her bag! Garment upon garment had been layered on so that she looked as broad and square as an engine house.
    â€œIt does not matter whether it is legal,” he said at last. “I put my name to a document that”— traps, he almost said—“obliges me to take responsibility for you. It also, by the way, makes me responsible for your debts. Before you go tearing off, I should like to know what precise obligations I have taken on.”
    She cocked her head to one side and drew her brows together in a deep vee of puzzlement. “I have no debts,” she replied.
    â€œI am happy to hear it. You put my mind greatly at ease.”
    â€œThen may I go now?”
    James heaved a theatrical sigh. “Madam, if I allow you to go haring off in the middle of the night, in an area I suspect to be completely foreign to you, how can I be assured of your safety? There is no moon, I believe it is still raining, and you have no idea where you are. Anything could happen to you. You might slip on one of the cliffs and drown in the river, for instance.” He swept his gaze up and down her lumpy figure. “Hell, if you were to fall down with all those clothes on, you’d never be able to get up. You’d just roll around like a turtle on its back.”
    Coals in the grate shifted and a burst of firelight illumined her face momentarily. He could swear that a smile twitched at the corners of her mouth.
    â€œOr you could fall into an empty mine shaft,” he continued, “and break your neck.” The incipient smile died as her mouth set into a grim line. “You could be set upon by drunken miners who would have no regard for your virtue, or your life.”
    She seemed to pale at his