“Friends? Friends I don’t know about?”
She lifted her head and shot him a bold look. “There’s much you don’t know of me, Robert.”
“I’m coming to see that,” he returned, dropping his arms to fold them across his chest. “Our wedding date passed, as you know. We shall have to reschedule.”
Amy stared at him. “Did you not read my letter?”
“Wedding date?” Emerging from the shadowed corner of the carriage, Kendra stuck her head out. “Amy?”
Amy turned to her gratefully; this talk of weddings was making her ill. “Kendra, this is Robert Stanley. Robert, my friend Lady Kendra.”
He aimed a curt nod at Kendra. “This is your friend?” he asked Amy bluntly. “The one you’ve been staying with?”
“Yes.”
“Fancy carriage.” He said it as though it were a crime to own one.
“It belongs to my brother,” Kendra explained.
“Lord Something-or-other?”
“The Marquess of Cainewood.”
Robert blinked and frowned, as though he were trying to remember something, then gave a quick shake of his head. He turned back to Amy. “So…when do you want to get married?”
“Never,” she said quietly.
“You were promised to me.” Robert’s voice was low and deep and even more quiet than hers.
Too quiet.
Though Amy looked at him defiantly, she was shaking inside. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she had to make him understand she had no intention of becoming his wife. “My father is dead. Everything has changed for me. And”—she lifted her chin—“and I don’t have to marry you.”
“Blast it, Amy, you’re supposed to be mine. I waited and waited. The shop was supposed to be mine, too, but now it’s gone. The inventory…” His eyes lit up. “Where is the inventory?”
Amy swallowed hard. “I don’t want to marry you, Robert.”
Robert’s jaw was set. His pale blue eyes flashed with menace. “Where is the inventory?”
“I don’t have it.” Her voice wavered, but it wasn’t quite a lie. She didn’t have it here.
“I don’t believe you. I went back to look, but found not a trace. No molten metal, no diamonds in the ashes. And diamonds don’t turn to ash.” He took a step closer. “Where is it, Amy?”
“I don’t have it,” she repeated shakily. “I—I have to go now.” She turned to enter the carriage.
He grabbed her by the upper arm, swung her around, and dug his fingers in painfully. “The inventory is mine. I worked five years for it. Where is it?”
Amy winced and threw a worried glance at Kendra, spurring her friend into action. Kendra planted herself firmly in the doorway of the carriage. “Leave her alone!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “She doesn’t have it!”
Visibly shocked at this outburst, Robert turned on Kendra. “You stay out of this! It’s not your concern!”
Kendra’s eyes narrowed recklessly. She came down from the carriage in a flash, curling one hand into a fist, which she propelled expertly into Robert’s face. “Leave her alone, I tell you!”
Robert’s pale eyes bugged out, and he dropped Amy’s arm to grasp his rapidly reddening jaw.
With a triumphant grin, Kendra grabbed Amy’s freed hand. “I haven’t three brothers for nothing!” she informed nobody in particular, then jumped into the carriage, pulling Amy after her.
Amy stuck her head out and pinned Robert with a disdainful look. “Five years? My family worked five centuries for that jewelry. You learned your craft and were paid a fair wage, as well as bed and board. I owe you no more, and you’ll never have more, Robert Stanley!”
She slammed and latched the carriage door.
Robert beat on it with both fists. “You’re mistaken, Amethyst Goldsmith! I’ll have the inventory yet, and you as well. You just wait!”
Inside the darkened carriage, Amy hunched over on the bench seat, covering her head with her hands so she wouldn’t hear him. After what seemed an interminable wait, the vehicle jerked and began moving.
Amy straightened. “I’m sorry about that,” she apologized, massaging her upper arm. She was certain to have marks from Robert’s fingers.
“It’s not every day I get to practice my boxing.” Kendra’s laugh was shaky. She rubbed her bruised fist ruefully. “Gad, was he ever surprised!” She pushed open the curtains, and sunlight flooded the cabin. “Are you all right?”
Amy nodded mournfully. “I cannot believe what a perfect beast he was! And to think I almost married him.” She shuddered.
“You never told me you were betrothed.”
“I wanted to forget it. I never wanted to wed him in the first place—it was all my father’s doing.”
“He’s so…he doesn’t fit with you.” Kendra’s face turned contemplative. “He looked as though he might have an engaging smile when he’s not angry, but he’s quite…short. Of character and of stature. I cannot imagine you with him. Now, you and—”
“He always scared me a little,” Amy interrupted Kendra’s musings. “He lived with us as our apprentice the past five years, but we’d been promised since we were children.”
“Did you like him at all?”
“At first, until I got to know him. He had strong ideas of what he wanted in a wife, and they didn’t mesh with mine. Still, I could have done worse, and my father was insistent.” She shuddered again. “I’ll never marry him, especially not after this,” she declared vehemently. “Never, never, never.”
Kendra frowned. “Your aunt won’t expect you to wed him, will she?”
Amy thought a moment. Aunt Elizabeth was a warm, motherly type who wanted to see everyone around her happy. And she’d never been particularly fond of Robert. “No,” she said at last. “No, I don’t believe she will. Or my uncle, either.”
“Then you’ve nothing to worry about. Robert doesn’t know where to find you while you’re staying with us—”
“And I’ll be gone soon. Very soon.” The sooner the better, she thought morosely.
Her time in England was really at an end.
Kendra leaned over to touch her hand, then suddenly grinned. “Five centuries?”
Amusement lightened Amy’s mood. “Well…perhaps I
