At last he said, “I was… indiscreet with a married person and there are letters—letters the duke has in his possession.”
“Ah. Well, that is unfortunate, but perhaps if you warn the lady, she can—”
He shook his head once. “It isn’t a woman.”
“Oh.” Eve wrinkled her forehead. An affair between two men wasn’t merely scandalous—it could be punishable by death. “I am quite sorry, then.”
“Yes.” His lips twisted rather tragically. “And Montgomery is asking me—forcing me—to do something I just… it’s not right, don’t you see?”
She didn’t, really, not knowing exactly what Val intended for Mr. MacLeish, but she could see he was distraught.
Not for the first time, she silently damned Valentine Napier, the Duke of Montgomery.
She leaned forward impetuously. “Go abroad then, to the Colonies or somewhere else. He’s a duke, but his reach isn’t infinite. If you leave he can no longer touch you.”
“And my… friend?” Mr. MacLeish smiled bitterly. “He can’t leave, you understand. He has family here. A wife. If Montgomery publishes those letters…” He shook his head.
“Are you willing to put your soul to let for your friend?”
“Yes.” He laughed quietly. “I thought it a matter of honor to make sure the letters were never published, but the thing that Montgomery wants me to do is horribly despicable. Perhaps I’d lose more honor if I agree to do it.”
“I am sorry,” Eve said truthfully. “And I’ll speak to him, you have my word. I just don’t want you to be disappointed. He’s likely to take no notice of me at all.”
Mr. MacLeish nodded, rising from his chair. “I thank you, Miss Dinwoody, for your kind ear and your honesty.” He hesitated, twisting his hat. “I’m impertinent, I know, but do you mind if I ask what Montgomery has to blackmail you with?”
“Oh, he has no need for blackmail, Mr. MacLeish. He has a hold far worse over me.” Eve smiled a little sadly. “Love.”
TREVILLION CLOSED HIS eyes against the sun as he lay on the blanket, Phoebe’s head pillowed on his bare shoulder. Soon he would have to rise, to face what he’d done and make decisions, but just for a little while he wanted simply to rest and enjoy.
Phoebe was playing with his chest hair, which seemed to fascinate her. “How many times have you done that?” she asked.
He opened one eye, a little alarmed. “ ’Tisn’t a thing a gentleman tells tales of.”
“I don’t mean specifics.” She wrinkled her nose. “I just wanted to know… was it a lot?”
“Do you imagine me some Lothario?” he asked, amused.
“Nooo. It’s just…” She sighed. “You do it very well.”
“Thank you,” he said cautiously. Did she wish he’d been a virgin? Some dewy youth, innocent and without cynicism?
“Do you wish I were more experienced?” she asked, as if reading his mind.
He turned so that they lay on their sides facing each other. “I want to make love to you, Phoebe, not a particular type of lady or one who has more or less experience.” He hesitated, watching her brow wrinkle as she listened to him. “When I was young and first came to London, it might’ve mattered if a lady were buxom or had red hair or some other attribute. I bought most of my sex back then and what those women were was probably more important than who they were. But I’m older now and making love to an attribute holds no thrill for me anymore. What I want is you, Phoebe, no one else. What we do here is between you and me. What came before, what may come after—that doesn’t matter. Right now only we two and what we want matter.”
A corner of her mouth lifted. “Do you know, I never would’ve guessed how wise you were, back when you used to give me such terse answers. ‘Yes, my lady. As you wish, my lady.’ You were so very sober.”
He leaned forward and kissed her. “And now you’ve made me into a frivolity.”
“Well, not quite that, but I have heard you laugh now.” She smiled. “I like the sound of your laughter.”
“You’ll cover me in blushes,” he said, kissing her again. It was intoxicating, kissing Phoebe. But the sun was moving across the sky. “Come, we must bathe and dress or they’ll send out a search party after us.”
She squeaked at that and sat up.
He walked to the water’s edge and wet his handkerchief to wipe her thighs. There was a little blood there—just a smear showing pink on the white of his linen—and he knew he should feel shame for despoiling her, his charge.
All he felt was pride. He’d meant what he’d told her. Right now, here on this lonely beach, she was no longer the sister of the most powerful man in England. And perhaps he was no longer a man scarred by faulty decisions.
They were simply Phoebe and James, lovers.
Would that they could always be thus.
But the day was advancing and with it the intruding world.
So they dressed and packed the picnic basket back up and he helped her to mount Regan, using a rock as a stepping stone.
The ride back to his father’s house was slow and peaceful. They didn’t talk much and Phoebe almost dozed against his shoulder.
As the house came into view, Trevillion saw his father outside, talking to Old Owen. He raised his hand to the two, but his father merely said something to Owen and turned to wait for their approach as the old horseman disappeared into the stables.
His father’s face was set. The lines incised even deeper in his weathered cheeks.
“What is it?” Trevillion asked as he drew Regan to a halt.
His father caught the bridle and stared up at him, his jaw clenching. “Jeffrey Faire has returned—and Agnes has gone missing.”
Chapter Fifteen
For four and twenty hours Agog and Corineus and the sea horse fought with no stop until at last the sea horse struck the killing blow, driving her hooves in both the giant’s eyes at once. Agog fell like an avalanche, flattening everything he landed on.
“We have won this new land!” cried Corineus, joyous in his victory.
But as he did so, the sea maidens’ song rose, dire and compelling.…
—From The Kelpie
“Agnes has taken one of the mares,” Mr. Trevillion said, sounding every one of his years. “She must’ve overheard Young Tom and Old Owen talking about Faire’s return. If she went to see that bastard…”
Phoebe felt a thrill of fear go down her spine—both for Agnes’s safety and at the thought of what Trevillion might do.
He had a price on his head.
“You both need to stay here,” Trevillion said, his voice suddenly expressionless. All the lightness, the laughter, the part of him that had made love to her so sweetly, had disappeared. “Come.”
He dismounted Regan and before Phoebe could say anything he had his hands around her waist, lifting her from the saddle.
“James—” she began, trying to think of the words that would stay him. But what could she say? Someone must bring Agnes back if she’d gone to meet the man who’d fathered her.
“You can’t go, Jamie!” Mr. Trevillion said, his voice cracking. “They’ll clap you in irons!”
“I have to,” Trevillion bit out. “Watch her for me.”
And then she heard Regan canter off.
“Has he left?” Phoebe reached out a hand, feeling suddenly frightened. “Has he left me?”
“Yes, but he’ll be back.” Mr. Trevillion didn’t sound as if he believed his own words.
Dear God, what if James was arrested?
“We have to go after him,” she pleaded with the older man.
“No point,” he replied. “No one can catch my Jamie when he’s on horseback.”
“But…” She felt a hand take one of hers. A man’s hand, wrinkled, with calluses on the palms. She didn’t particularly want to be “watched” by anyone, let alone by dour old Mr. Trevillion.
“Come, lass,” the older man said, and he sounded so weary that she hadn’t the heart to protest.
Phoebe took his arm and Mr. Trevillion led her across the courtyard and inside the house.
“We can sit awhile in here,” he said, and took her down a hallway to the end of the house.
She hadn’t been in this part of the house before. “Where are we?”
“The library,” Mr. Trevillion said curtly.
She raised her eyebrows. “You have a library?”
“I do.”
She ran into something quite hard with her right hip.
“There’s a chair here.”
“Thank you,” she said drily as she sat. “Do you know what James will do if he finds Agnes and Jeffrey Faire is there?”
The library smelled rather comfortingly of leather and dust.
Of course her companion was less comforting.
“That’s none of your business, my lady,” Mr. Trevillion snapped. From the sound of it, he’d gone to the far end of the room to pace.
Phoebe shifted in the not-very-comfortable stuffed chair. After this afternoon’s activities she was actually just a little sore. Add to that the fact that she’d just been unceremoniously abandoned by her new lover—who might be riding to his imprisonment or worse—and really, she was just not patient enough for Mr. Trevillion’s usual grumpiness.
“It is, actually,” she said. “My business, that is. I’m living in your house and I have a deep affection both for Agnes and your son. What concerns him concerns me.”
“As to that, missy,” Mr. Trevillion growled, “I don’t approve of my son—”
“Mr. Trevillion,” Phoebe said in her Daughter of a Duke voice—rarely employed, but the more effective for all that—“please don’t change the subject.”
There was a rather fraught silence.
And then Mr. Trevillion laughed. It was a startling sound and not an entirely cheerful one. His laugh was rusty and it was obvious he’d not tried it out in quite some time.
Still. It was a laugh.
“You’re a feisty one, I’ll give you that,” he said, and it almost sounded admiring.
“Thank you,” she said. “Now tell me what you know, please, or I shall be forced to go ask Old Owen and I think that would make him most uncomfortable.”
“Yes, it would.” He sighed and walked closer. “Would you like a taste of French brandy? I know I need one.”
Phoebe thought about James’s tales of smugglers and decided she shouldn’t ask how the brandy had been acquired. “Yes, please.”
She heard a decanter being unstoppered. The gurgle of poured liquid, and then a glass was pressed into her hands.
“Best drink it slow like,” Mr. Trevillion said. “It’s not like beer nor wine.”
Cautiously she sniffed her glass. The aroma was powerful. She took a tiny sip and felt as if she’d swallowed fire.
“Oh!”
He chuckled, not unkindly. “Well?”
“I never judge a thing on one taste alone,” she said loftily.
“Wise,” he murmured.
She took another sip, waiting. This time she let the liquid sit in her mouth a moment, tasting. Really, it was like nothing she’d ever had before.
“You know how Dolly is,” Mr. Trevillion began.
She turned her face toward him at once, sitting straighter. “Yes. James said she’s been this way since birth. He told me”—she hesitated, wondering how she should phrase this—“James told me how Agnes was conceived.”
There was a short silence.
“Did he now?” He stopped for a moment and she heard an inhalation. When he began again, his voice was level. “Dolly’s mother had a hard time birthing her. The midwife thought the babe wouldn’t live the night. But she did. You might think that was a bad thing.”
She raised her eyebrows a little. She didn’t think Dolly’s having lived was bad, but then she wasn’t the one whose opinion was important. “Do you?”
“No.” The word was emphatic. “When she was older, when it became obvious that she’d never be like other little girls, the neighbors, the vicar would say that ’twould have been better had she died. I packed them right off. Should’ve seen that vicar’s face. So outraged that I showed him the door for telling me my daughter was better off dead. Fool.”
She could hear him swallow and she took another tiny sip of her brandy as well. She was getting used to the burn as the liquid slid down her throat. Somehow, knowing that Mr. Trevillion loved Dolly no matter what made her feel more sympathy for the man, gruff though he was.
“She was the light of my wife’s life,” he said, his voice low. “Martha was ill after Dolly’s birth, but she loved the babe. Doted on her, like. And then four years later we had James. We kept Dolly close to home. Martha and Betty taught her a few things like how to bake bread. She was—is—happy, I think.”
He paused as if uncertain.
“She seems happy to me,” Phoebe said gently. “I sat with her this morning and she was very confident while making bread.”
“Aye.” He sighed. “Well, she grew up a pretty thing, though her brain didn’t work as others’ did. By that time I’d lost my Martha.” He paused. “She was younger than me, you know.”
She cocked her head. “No, I hadn’t realized.”
“A dozen years,” he said, some sort of warning in his voice. “And after the first couple of years, none too happy about it, either. I was too old for her, too set in my ways. She said I took the life from her. Made her old before her time.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. She’d had no idea that James’s parents’ marriage had been so unhappy.
“Anyway, after she passed on I was doubly busy. The horses took my attention and sometimes Dolly wished to go into town to buy things for baking. To shop as other young girls did. I’d send her with James, for she wasn’t safe alone. I told him…” He swallowed heavily. “I told him that his sister’s life was in his hands. That he could never turn his back, never let his attention wander.”
Phoebe felt a chill up her spine. She didn’t like where this story was going. “How old was he?”
“When she first started going to town? Maybe fourteen. Remember, she’s four years the elder, but much younger in how she thinks.”
“And when it happened?”
“When it happened he would’ve been two and twenty. A man.”
Oh, and that would’ve made it worse in James’s mind. To be old enough to be responsible and yet to have failed…“And the man who did this to Dolly—this Mr. Faire?”
“Jeffrey Faire.” Mr. Trevillion spit the name as if it were foul in his mouth. “The second son of Baron Faire. Lord Faire owns all the mines hereabouts, owns the land and the people. He’s rich and titled and his son never lacked for anything in his entire life. He could’ve had any lady in the area. Anyone and yet he cast his eye on my Dolly.”
Phoebe swallowed, feeling ill, and whispered, “I’m so sorry.”
“He told Dolly he would be her beau if she… well. At least he didn’t beat her or hurt her… physically, and I thank God for that,” Mr. Trevillion said, his voice shaking. “That’s the only thing he didn’t do. James found her and brought her home. We questioned Dolly. She said he was kind to her. He gave her a sugar stick.”
Something slammed against a table and Phoebe jumped at the noise.
“Bought my daughter, my Dolly, with a sugar stick!” The words were roared out of grief and rage and broken pride. “Damn the man! I wanted to kill him, I did, but Dolly needed me. Lord Faire’s a powerful man. There was nothing I could do, but James…”
“James told me he beat that man nearly to death.” James must’ve been anguished, he who took his responsibilities so very seriously, especially when he felt he’d failed in them.
“Aye, Jamie found Jeffrey Faire that night and nearly beat the life from him,” Mr. Trevillion said, and though his voice was grim, there was a note of satisfaction in it as well. “Jamie told Jeffrey to leave Cornwall—and so Jeffrey Faire did. Left the very next day, though he had broken ribs, or so I’m told.”
Phoebe frowned. “But Lord Faire…”
“Lord Faire is the local magistrate. He called for Jamie’s arrest. Jamie fled to London… and never returned.”
Phoebe sat thinking furiously. “But they’re both back now, James and this awful Jeffrey. Do you really think Jeffrey would hurt Agnes?”
“Hard to tell. I didn’t think the man a rapist afore he attacked my Dolly,” Mr. Trevillion said heavily.
Phoebe swallowed. “What will happen between James and Jeffrey?”
Mr. Trevillion sighed heavily. “I don’t know, lassie, but the last time Jamie saw Jeffrey he told him if he ever stepped foot in Cornwall again, he’d kill him.”
FAIRE MANOR WAS ancient and ugly, dominating the surrounding landscape with its cold gray walls and crumbling battlements. The Faire lords had lived on this land since time immemorial with no one to contest their right.
Except him, Trevillion thought as he rode up the gravel drive. Twelve years ago he’d beaten Jeffrey Faire’s soft face into a bloody mess—a scandal that would be talked about in these parts long after he was dead. He’d told the man who’d seduced Dolly never to show his face here again—on pain of death.
Yet Mr. Faire apparently didn’t think Trevillion a man of his word.
More fool he.
Trevillion glanced around, but saw no sign of either Agnes or one of the Trevillion horses. He dismounted by the front steps, looped the mare’s reins over an ornamental stone vase, and limped up them. He might be a cripple now, but he was quite capable of shooting a man if that man didn’t see reason. Trevillion didn’t want to actually kill Jeffrey, but then again, he wasn’t going to let him live anywhere near Dolly or Agnes.
A man came around the corner as he climbed the front steps. Lord Faire was in his seventh decade, tall and lean with graying hair. He wore boots and a wide-brimmed hat and looked as if he’d come back from a walk on the moors. Everyone in the area knew the lord liked to take daily rambles. Two spaniels milled about his feet and when the dogs saw Trevillion, they immediately started barking.
Trevillion turned. “Where is your son?”
-->
