Forever and Ever by Patricia Gaffney

deliberately. “And one other thing. Since we met, your society has—has provoked in me any number of things, but please do let me assure you, sir, that fear is
not
among them.”
    Why did she feel relieved when he chuckled at that? She couldn’t imagine, but he had a warm, low laugh, and the mellow sound of it went a long way toward dispelling the tension in the air between them. In truth, she was glad the things she’d said, and the stiffness with which she’d said them, hadn’t insulted him. Jack Pendarvis was proud, she’d begun to realize, and as prickly about his dignity as she was about hers. So. They had something in common.
    He put his hand out again—to help her into the pony cart, she thought, so she took it. But instead he kept her hand in a light, firm clasp while he said softly, suggestively, “You’ll have to tell me someday what other things my society has
provoked
in you, Miss Deene.” Impudent! Before she could think of a response, he added, “Are you going to lend me that book, after all?”
    She pulled her hand forcibly out of his. “No, I am not.”
    “Why not?”
    “I fear the subtleties would be lost on you.”
    “Ah, now, Miss Deene.” He shook his head sadly. “That’s a hard thing to say to a man you just finished apologizing to.”
    “
Apologizing.
Why, I did no such thing. How you could possibly—” The white flash of his teeth silenced her; with a start, she realized he was teasing. Thoroughly confounded now, she set her foot on the high step and reached for the reins. Mr. Pendarvis put his hands on her waist, but she sprang up into the seat with such alacrity, she barely felt them. “Good night to you, sir.”
    “G’night, Miss Deene. Be careful going home. Have you a lantern? There’s a moon tonight, but it’s still dark as a blathering sack.”
    The Cornish idiom arrested her, and brought home something, one of the many things, that puzzled her about this man. Sometimes, because of his manner or a certain irony or self-consciousness in his speech, it was almost as if he were
playing
at being a “poor, uneducated copper miner.”
    She sighted down her nose at him. “I’ve had my clerk write to the mine agent at Carn Barra, and I expect a reply any day now. It will be interesting to find out what sort of worker you were in your last place.”
    No reaction; all he did was stick his hands in his pockets and raise his eyebrows at her. She thought he looked amused.
    She was tired of looking at him. Without another word, she slapped the reins down and Val took off—so quickly, Sophie’s neck snapped back uncomfortably. She hadn’t gone far before she began to think of all the things she should’ve said to him. To put him in his place.

V
    The hole Connor fell through was big enough to swallow a horse.
    Or so Tranter Fox estimated while he was hauling him out of it. “Didn’t ee spy that great plank, Jack? ’Tis yer own fault fer slitherin’ down in thur when any man can see there’m a board wide as two counties acrost un. Did ee slip? Christ, ee’re heavy. Quit heavin’ and give over yer arm. Now take yer feet t’ squinch out o’t. That’s it, that’s it. There you be. Phaw! Ee’re one bleedin’ mess, Jack, sink me if you ain’t.”
    The murky glow from the candle in Tranter’s hat—Connor’s had gone out—shed just enough light to reveal the literalness of his words: Connor was a bleeding mess. His left side felt fiery-hot, and warm blood was running down the inside of his left arm and dripping off his fingers.
    “Best go up,” Tranter advised. “Ee don’t look hale, not a’tall, and wounds’re like to fester quick down here in the hot and wet. Go up, get Annie Whited t’ tend you, there’m a brave lad.”
    “Who’s Annie Whited?”
    “One o’ the bal girls, but she knows sommat o’ nursing and the like. We go to ’er fer snicks and breaks, whereas surgeon’s the one fer awful things, bleedin’ t’ death and whatnot.”
    But Connor