The Light in the Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page A

Jenny.”
    Jenny stared down at him blankly, and he sighed. He should have known better. Jenny Wilton never joked. “Very well, obviously you are not joking.” He shook his head, causing some of his dark russet hair to spring loose from its queue. “I cannot
believe
you are going to marry Edward Greyson, of all people.”
    Jenny looked at him shyly. “I understand,” she said humbly. “I’m naught but a tavern wench, and ’e’s … well …”
    “It’s not that,” Carey said sharply. He had inherited the broad, amiable features of his father, along with his mother’s merry blue eyes, but his face was neither merry nor amiable at this moment. “Your uncle and I had agreed—” He broke off whatever he had been about to say, looking irritated. “Well, that isn’t relevant any longer, since your uncle has apparently struck a bargain with Greyson instead. The simple fact is that Greyson is very definitely not the sort of man you should marry.”
    Jenny smiled slightly—very slightly. She had known Carey O’Neill for years now, and as she grew into young womanhood he had begun speaking with her, actually
talking
to her—a novel thing in Jenny’s experience. Most customers spoke to her only to demand ale or make crude comments. Her uncle’s communications with her were generally limited to oath-laden reprimands and well-placed blows. Her aunt, a pale, timid woman, never spoke at all if she could avoid it.
    Carey and Jenny had had numerous conversations in the ordinary over the past two or three years. A year ago she had even begun meeting him outside the ordinary, near the small creek that separated the ordinary grounds from O’Neill land, on those rare occasions when she had completed her duties and was able to slip away from her uncle’s watchful eye. She knew perfectly well her uncle would have been infuriated were he to find out she had been meeting a man in the woods, yet Carey had alwaysbeen a perfect gentleman, never so much as touching her or trying to kiss her, content only with her company and her conversations. He was virtually the only man in her life who had ever treated her as a human being. Of course, she thought, he had never prevented her uncle from striking her the way Edward Greyson had last night.
    No man had ever protected her from her uncle’s wrath before.
    And yet Carey had always been kind to her, invariably taking care to thank her when she brought him ale, oftentimes regaling her with entertaining stories, so that she looked forward to their all-too-brief conversations. Nor did he ever join in the raucous laughter at her expense when her uncle punished her for some real or imagined failing. She thought of Carey as a friend, the only friend in her lonely existence, the nearest thing to a brother she had had since losing her own brother eight years before. Surely, with his obvious disquiet about her impending marriage, he was demonstrating more concern for her than her uncle ever had.
    Of late, however, their relationship had changed somehow. There was something about Carey’s expression when he looked at her, something that was not brotherly at all, something that filled her with a nameless apprehension. It puzzled her, but she was unable to determine exactly what was going through his mind these days.
    Your uncle has apparently struck a bargain with Greyson instead.
What in the world did he mean?
    “I don’t understand ye,” she said calmly. “Ye left the tavern when ’e came in, and ye didn’t see the fight. ’E struck my uncle and nearly broke his jaw, ’e did. ’E’s a fine man, a good man.”
    Carey bit his lip as he placed his tankard of ale firmly onto the table. He had known Grey for years, and had never made any secret of the fact that he despised him. It infuriated him that Grey was permitted to visit at Windward Plantation and was treated as an honored guest,rather than as the dog he was. And even more irritating was the fact that his father seemed to treat