Verity and the Villain Read online

  “Grandmother values horse sense above all other virtues,” Trent told her over his shoulder.

  Verity sniffed in reply. After an awkward moment, she said, “Horses are nothing more than giant rodents.” Trent laughed and Verity could feel as well as hear his laughter and it caused tingling in her belly.

  “Rodents that wear, or don’t wear shoes, as it appears, suits their purposes,” she said.

  Trent sobered. “I would never ask you to pull a buggy twelve miles barefoot.”

  “I would hope that you’d never ask me to pull a buggy anywhere, but we’re not talking about me. I still don’t understand why the creature couldn’t perform without his shoe.”

  They’d abandoned the buggy, Mugs, and one horse with only three shoes at the side of the road, and had set out, bareback, and in Verity’s case, side saddle, on an Arabian stallion Trent called Hoss. A perfectly ridiculous name for a beast; he should have called it Jaw Jarring.

  “Grandmother would shoot me for laming a horse.”

  “Will she shoot you for bringing me to the ranch?” Verity paused. “Do you think she’ll shoot me?”

  “She loves you.”

  “We just met.”

  “True. She loves your pies.”

  Verity gave up trying to hold herself away from Trent’s wide back and sagged against him. “Everyone loves pies. What will you tell her?”

  “The truth.”

  Verity sniffed. “That I’m hiding.” She didn’t want to appear weak in front of Trent’s grandmother. “And she knows I’m the girl you kissed in the garden of the Grand Hotel at midnight.”

  “Much to the delight of myself and a crowd of theatergoers.”

  Verity hung her head and it bounced against Trent’s back.

  “Cheer up, darling, she likes you the better for it.” He paused. “Now, here’s the deal—”

  Verity interrupted him. “I didn’t know there was a deal.”

  “There’s always a deal.”

  Verity wondered what cards she held.

  #

  Chloe grinned. How was it, after all these years, she still obviously delighted in saying, “Gram’s mad at you.”

  Verity hung behind him; he could feel her reticence. After her brush with Orson in the park, he still felt protective.

  Chloe’s eyes sparkled. Tattling on her brother, meeting his new love interest, thus opening up all sorts of avenues for teasing and taunting, this had to be her lucky morning. Chloe stuck out her hand. “I’m pleased to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.”

  Verity cast a worried glance at Trent, but he stood frowning at his sister.

  “Oh, not from him, of course. He tells me nothing.” Chloe wrapped her hand around Verity’s and pulled her toward the house. She gave Trent an impish grin. “No, I’ve heard about you from,” she cleared her throat, “some of the cast.”

  Cast members that had undoubtedly seen him kissing Verity on the grounds of the hotel; Trent could read his sister. He knew the way her mind worked.

  “And your pies are becoming famous,” Chloe told her.

  “Gram told you about her pie?” Trent asked, surprised. His grandmother was like a one-way receiver, information came in, but it never went out.

  “Goodness, no. I heard about the pies from some friends in town. And the chocolates! What do you call them?”

  “Truffles,” Verity uttered her first word to Trent’s sister.

  “Simply heaven. Or, so I’ve been told.”

  Trent looked down at Verity. She had her face turned away. A blush stained her cheeks. He hadn’t heard about the success of her pies or chocolates. He wondered what else he didn’t know, and a fissure of frustration started in his gut.

  Chloe looked around. “Are you here for the fishing weekend? Did you not bring a bag?”

  Verity opened her mouth in surprise and Trent mentally hit his forehead. The fishing weekend. How could he have forgotten? Steele would be here. Perhaps he already was. Trent cleared his throat. “Have the guests already arrived?”

  “A handful. Most are staying at the lodge, so there’s still plenty of room in the house for Verity. Although, if more show up, I’m sure Verity could room with me.” She smiled broadly at Verity. “It’d be fun. We could have a hen chat.”

  Verity had grown still beside him. He could almost feel her asking Guests? Fishing weekend? Hen Chat? “Perhaps Verity has different ideas of fun.” Trent took Verity’s hand in his, but since his sister possessed the other, he could hardly drag her away without also towing Chloe. He tried to lead both girls through the steps to the main house.

  “Gram expected you hours ago,” Chloe said. He could hear the laughter in her voice. “She’s counting on you to catch trout. Did you bring clothes for dinner?” she asked Verity. “We’re usually very casual here, but for the weekend fishing parties, we usually have a formal dinner on Saturday night.”

  Chloe’s gaze swept over Verity. “No? Well, never mind. You can borrow something of mine.”

  Trent led both girls through the house until they saw Hester. She stopped in the hall, casting an assessing glance over Verity before squinting at Trent. She studied him for signs of guilt and then, as if coming to peace with what she found, she smiled. “Perfect. Miss Faye. You are an answered prayer. Come with me, both of you.”

  “What about me?” Trent asked. “Am I not an answered prayer?”

  “Only because you had the good sense to bring Miss Faye,” his grandmother answered as she bustled toward the kitchen. She lowered her voice and said over her shoulder, “Now, as you know, this isn’t an ordinary fishing weekend.”

  “I didn’t know,” Verity whispered, “that there are ordinary or extraordinary fishing weekends.”

  Hester wheeled around. “He didn’t tell you?” She folded her arms, squared her shoulders and leveled a look at her grandson. “You didn’t tell her about fishing weekend?”

  Trent sighed. “I completely forgot.”

  Hester’s voice raised a pitch. “You forgot?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s my fault,” Verity interjected. “I’m afraid I ran into trouble and Trent thought that…well, that I’d find less trouble here.”

  “Or that he could cause all the trouble himself,” Chloe chirped.

  “Two weekends a year, Gram invites the town, and others, to fish our branch of the Stilly,” Trent said, as he followed his grandmother into the kitchen. “Thus, providing a little goodwill among neighbors and hopefully cutting back on trespassing and poaching which is important because both can spook the horses, especially the foals and mares during the birthing season. This particular fishing weekend is especially important because Gram has hopes of ferreting out Gracey’s whereabouts from some of the guests.”

  Hester nodded and gave a Trent a rare smile and so Trent continued, “She’s counting on me to catch dinner and since she’s holding those baskets, I suspect she has plans for you and Chloe involving huckleberries.”

  “Huckleberries?” Verity asked.

  “Can you make a huckleberry pie?” Hester asked.

  “I don’t even know what a huckleberry is.”

  #

  She suspected that Trent had intentionally led her into the woods before Chloe could follow. He kept looking over his shoulder as they walked deeper into the forest. Under the thick canopy of pines, the air blew much cooler and smelled sweeter. The hot wind, as if angry by the trees’ shelter, whistled through the treetops. Because of the narrow path, they walked single file, first Verity and then Trent. Occasionally, he’d lean forward to place his hand on her waist to guide her to the river although she could hear it now, rushing over rapids in the near distance.

  “Huckleberries?” she asked, looking at him over her shoulder when they stopped in front of a twiggy bush bearing small red berries.

  Trent popped a few in his mouth and then tried to feed one to Verity.

  “Is it safe?” she asked as he paused his hand inches from her li
ps.

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  She opened her mouth and he dropped berries onto her tongue.

  “The first sign of trust,” he said.

  The bitter berries stung the back of her mouth and then left a sweet aftertaste. “Nonsense. I trust you completely.”

  He shook his head. “Not enough to tell me why you’re involved with Steele and Lucky Island.”

  “That isn’t my confidence to break. Others could be hurt.”

  “Like Dorrie.”

  She flinched and blinked back rapidly forming tears.

  He touched her cheek. She could tell he had something he wanted to say. He took her hand and led her down a path that widened and then forked at the bank of the river. The ground sat several feet above the fast current and the path hugged the edge of the bank. Trent steered her upstream to where the bank rose higher and the river slowed to a quieter pace. The water was considerably deeper, but because of the murk, Verity couldn’t see the bottom.

  She told him, “I’ve never seen a milky white river.” The Hudson and East River ran blackish green.

  “Glacier water,” Trent said. “It’s that color when it’s been warm and the glaciers are melting. Fortunately, the fish don’t mind the frigid cold.” He paused. “Have you ever fished before?”

  Verity shook her head. “So, the warmer the weather, the colder the river?”

  Trent nodded. “Glacier runoff is bone-chilling.”

  Trent sat down, fiddled with his pole and line and then drew a small bag from his fishing creel. Verity watched as he withdrew a wriggly worm and stabbed it on the end of the hook.

  She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think I’ll like this,” she said.

  He smiled up at her. “You’d rather pluck innocent berries from their bush and bake them in a pie?”

  She spread out her hands as if to say she hadn’t a choice. “It’s what I do.”

  Trent’s face turned serious. “Among other things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like learning how to fish.” He stood at the riverbank and motioned for her to join him.

  She balked.

  “You can’t stand there,” he told her. “You’ll be in my way when I cast.”

  She moved closer and he threw back the line. She watched it sail in the air and land with a tiny splash in the river. Seconds later he pulled the line back to shore.

  “Your turn,” he said, giving her a smile.

  She took the pole and he positioned her fingers around the end. Then, with his arms around her, he guided the pole so that the line arched above them to land in the stream. She could feel him pressed against her. “Verity, tell me your history with Steele.”

  She immediately stiffened and he tightened his hands on the pole around hers. “Why don’t you trust me?”

  Her mind, although sufficiently distracted by Trent’s body leaning against hers, flashed back to the image of Steele lying on the floor of her tiny apartment, blood staining his temple. How could she tell him?

  “Why do you follow him? Why did you follow Wallace?”

  “What they’re doing is evil.” Verity tried to turn to see Trent’s face, but from her angle, she could only see his jaw.

  “Your vendetta, is it personal?”

  “Maybe it was, but not anymore,” Verity said, remembering the commitment she’d made to herself that morning. That’s the problem with commitments made to oneself, she thought, they’re so easy to shift. Only a few hours ago she’d decided that she could never see Trent again and now she found herself in his arms on a riverbank. “I hope to never see Steele again.” She stopped when Trent’s hand left the pole and pressed her closer to him. Taking a deep breath, she continued, “In fact, just this morning I’d determined to donate the money from my mother’s jewels to Georgina and then no longer involve myself in her cause.”

  Trent began to kiss her neck. She could feel his breath fanning her face.

  She managed to say, “Well, other than employing the girls to bake the pies…”

  “You haven’t answered my question. I want to know your history with Steele.”

  He took the pole from her hand and turned her to him to kiss her lips. She felt that swooshing again, the tug and pull that said she was powerless against him. He leaned back from her, laughing as she instinctively followed. “My dear, I believe you’ve caught a fish.”

  “What?” Her legs had turned to jelly and she wondered if she could stand without Trent’s support. As if he could read her thoughts, he steadied her and wrapped her fingers, laced through his, around the pole.

  He gave his attention to the fish flipping at the end of the line, but didn’t release her from his arms. She stood, cradled against him while he fought the fish. “I’m afraid you will see Steele again. Quite soon.”

  She stiffened and tried to withdraw, but Trent had her securely folded against him. “Why would you say that?” She wiggled free when Trent swung the fish onto the bank. She watched, horrified, as the trout shimmered silver in the sparkling sun. The fish’s black eye stared up at her, his gill pulsed open and closed and his mouth moved in a silent scream.

  “He’s here.”

  “Here?” Verity took a step backward as her past rushed forward to meet her.

  “I’m afraid we’ll be dining with him tonight. That’s why I need to know exactly who he is to you.”

  Verity could only stare at Trent. She felt as tormented as the dying fish. She took another step backward, onto the fish, and then skittered, arms flailing. She splashed into the river.

  CHAPTER 18

  The fish kettle is one of the easiest ways to cook fish. It is a long, thin pan made to accommodate a medium trout to a large salmon. Serve with a bouillon made of white wine, onion, carrot, bay leaves, parsley, and thyme.

  From The Recipes of Verity Faye

  #

  Her scream ended when water filled her mouth. She came to the surface sputtering. The water, glacier water, she reminded herself, enveloped her like an Arctic blast. But it couldn’t cool her anger. The current tugged at her skirts and she let it carry her downstream.

  Trent had taken off his shirt and had promptly dived in to join her. He treaded water beside her. “Thank goodness you swim,” he said shaking the water out of his hair. “I thought I’d have to save you.”

  Verity had a mouthful of water which she blew into Trent’s face. “Save yourself!” she said just before cutting through the water toward the bank.

  Above the slosh of water, she could hear the bafflement in Trent’s voice. “Verity?”

  Verity swam across the river in clean even strokes. Her skirts felt like lead and her corset hampered her breath, but her anger carried her to the shore. She shook herself as she climbed out of the frigid water. Her toes and fingers had gone quite numb and she suspected her brain had followed form. She couldn’t think. She needed to, but she couldn’t. Tried as she might, she couldn’t wrap her thoughts around anything other than she was going to have to spend an evening in the company of Mr. Steele, a man she’d left for dead in New York.

  Streams of water ran down her legs. Her hair, heavy and wet, clung to her face. She’d lost one shoe in the river and as she climbed up the bank, mud squished between her toes. In the current, already thirty feet downstream, she watched her shoe bobble in the tide like a tiny blue ship. Verity did the only thing she could of.

  She picked up her sodden skirts and ran after her shoe.

  #

  “Verity!” Trent splashed after her. He really couldn’t understand her and he felt he should. He had a sister. He had a grandmother. In reality, women should be as comprehensible to him as men given as how he’d spent most of his life living with them. Verity, she made him crazy. Maybe she was crazy. One minute she’d been warm and pliant in his arms and the next she was spitting mad. Literally.

  He waded toward the shore, kicking through the river’s pull. Did she really think she could outrun him? In wet skirts? He started aft
er her, wondering why. He should probably let her go. Let her live out her own feats of heroism, emerge herself in rescuing lost girls, without his involvement, but then he thought of Gracey and his heart twisted.

  “Verity?” He climbed up the bank and looked down the trail. Ferns, mushrooms, rotting fallen logs, no Verity. She couldn’t have gone far and if she was sane, she’d return to the ranch. But she wasn’t sane. He’d already established that. She was mercurial, irrepressible, inconstant, strong-willed, free-spirited, and bossy.

  A twig snapped and Trent looked up to see Steele standing on the riverbank, fishing pole in hand. He had a good-natured smirk on his face and a trout dangling from the line. A wave of frustration swept through Trent.

  “Have you lost something, Michaels?”

  No, he hadn’t lost her and he wasn’t going to. Ever. He made his tone light. “Yes, a Miss Verity Faye.”

  Trent watched the smirk fade from Steele’s lips. Steele dropped the fishing pole and the trout, flipping on the end of the line, wiggled on the dusty path.

  “Perhaps you know her?” Trent asked, fascinated with Steele’s visible reaction to Verity’s name.

  Steele spoke slowly. “I knew a Miss Faye, a baker, in New York. Sadly, she died.”

  “Died?” Trent repeated.

  Steele nodded. “Suicide. Terrible business.”

  “Must have been another Verity Faye,” Trent said, his gaze scanning the riverbank.

  Steele narrowed his eyes. “Yes, of course.”

  “My Miss Faye,” he emphasized the possessive, “happens to be wet and angry. We, um, fell in the stream. If you happen to see a damp, mad-woman, please steer her back to the ranch.”

  Steele barked a laugh that sounded harsh. “She sounds like she should be avoided. I wish you luck with her.”

  “Thanks.” Trent turned up the path. “Enjoy your day.”

  A few steps later he encountered Miles Carol. He stood on the path like a frowning stone monument. “You were speaking of Miss Faye?”

  He is my guest, Trent reminded himself. “Yes, have you seen her?”

  Miles crossed his arms over his chest and stared down his nose at Trent, a difficult thing to accomplish when the person being addressed was of similar height. “You’ve lost her in the woods, after, apparently, throwing her in the river?”