Pamela Sherwood

by A Song at Twilight

  “Yes, thank you.” Sophie wondered if she still sounded breathless. His body was mere inches from hers: lean and hard-muscled—sparer than those of her brothers’, whose frames tended to the compact, even solid. Mr. Pendarvis was built more like her cousin James, though James had never affected her in this way, never set every cell in her body tingling with this heightened awareness. Nor had any other man of her acquaintance, however attractive, and despite her youth, Sophie had experienced her share of girlish infatuations. This was something else entirely: headier, and subtly dangerous.

  And she was being exceedingly foolish, almost as silly as those girls who’d made eyes at Mr. Pendarvis at his great-uncle’s funeral, though she had some consolation in knowing she wasn’t anywhere near as mercenary. It was the man himself who compelled her: the sinewy strength of his body that moved with such loose-limbed grace, those strong, angular features, framed by thick dark-brown hair and enlivened by those intense blue eyes. And that element of mystery, of hidden depths below the surface of his rather infrequent smile. But however attractive she found him, Mr. Pendarvis was a friend and a neighbor, nothing more—certainly not someone to encourage the idle fancies of a girl barely out of the schoolroom. She stepped back, summoning what she hoped was a bright, friendly smile.

  “Why don’t,” her voice husked slightly, so she cleared her throat and tried again, “why don’t we sit down on those rocks over there until we’re recovered our breath? The horses could probably use the rest as well.”

  He agreed, and they made their way up the beach to where a cluster of large rocks stood, gathering warmth in the sun. Sophie sat down on one with an obligingly flat top, twitching the skirts of her habit into place. Mr. Pendarvis leaned against the rock beside hers, and they watched the sea in companionable silence while their horses stood nearby, nosing at heaps of beached kelp and other sea-borne flotsam.

  The sea was a clear blue today, laced with green—like a piece of shot silk Sophie had once seen in a shop window. Gulls wheeled overhead, crying raucously, and cresting waves raced toward the shore, sending up columns of spray as they dashed themselves upon the sand.

  Sophie stole a glance at Mr. Pendarvis. He looked such a different man out here in the open, relaxed and at ease as he seldom was in public. Just now, his expression conveyed only contentment, which sharpened into pleasure, even awe, as a towering wave struck the shore and flung a volley of foam into the air.

  “I think the sea is putting on quite the show for us today,” she observed, smiling.

  “Is it always so fine here, on the coast?” he asked.

  “On the north coast,” Sophie told him. “It’s gentler on the south shore. Still lovely, but less dramatic. My mother grew up on the south shore, and we’ve gone to visit her family there, but I know in my heart I’ll always be a north coast girl. This beach is one of my favorite spots—of course, there are so many beautiful places to be found in Cornwall, especially in the spring.”

  His smile warmed her, set her heart fluttering again. “And I’ll wager you know them all.”

  “A good many of them,” she confessed. “But then I’ve lived here all my life. It would be very strange if I didn’t know my own county.”

  “Have you ever thought you might live elsewhere someday? Most young ladies dream about going to London for their Season. Or even further abroad, to Paris.”

  “Well, I am to have a London Season,” Sophie replied. “Next spring, Harry says. And I wouldn’t mind visiting Paris, and perhaps Italy as well—Florence and Milan. I should love to attend an opera at La Scala one day. But as for where I’d choose to live”—she made a gesture encompassing the sea, the sky, and the distant cliffs—“my heart is here, and always will be.”

  “This is mine own, my native land,” Mr. Pendarvis quoted with a faint half smile.

  “Yes, that’s it.” Sophie tried not to sound self-conscious, or worse, defensive. “Perhaps that makes me a bit provincial, but—”

  “Not at all. I think it must be very reassuring to know exactly where you belong.”

  “I suppose it is,” Sophie said, after a moment’s reflection. “It goes back for generations, you see. There have always been Tresilians in St. Perran, and even further afield in Cornwall. You might come to feel that way yourself, eventually,” she added. “I understand that the Pendarvis name is a very old and respected one in the county.”

  “So Great-Uncle Simon told me, any number of times.” His smile turned rueful. “I couldn’t help feeling that he disapproved of me a bit, for not growing up in Cornwall.”

  “Well, that wasn’t anything you could control. Wasn’t your father a younger son?”

  “A son of a younger son, and destined for the army, like his father,” he clarified. “But they were both born in Cornwall, and I swear, it must have got into their bones.”

  “Cornwall has a way of doing that—getting into your bones and your blood.”

  “So I understand. However far they traveled or wherever they served, my father and grandfather thought of Cornwall, and even Pendarvis Hall, as home.” He glanced wistfully toward the tumbling sea. “I hope someday I can say the same.”

  Sophie restrained the impulse to touch his hand, so close to hers on the rock—a friendly touch, but still something of a liberty to take with a gentleman she was just beginning to know. “Give it time, Mr. Pendarvis. I am certain you’ll come to feel at home here.”

  “I hope you’re right. I would very much like to feel at home somewhere.” Still gazing out to sea, he hitched a hip onto the rock he’d been leaning against. “I must have lived in nearly half a dozen places by the time I was twelve.”

  “So many?” she asked, amazed.

  “Everywhere from Ireland to India,” he confirmed. “And my mother, God rest her, did her best to make a home for us in every place we lived. And not to let my father see her weep when his postings changed and we had to leave it all behind.”

  Sophie winced. Imagine putting down roots, only to have them torn up and having to start all over again somewhere else—and half a dozen times! She was not sure she could have endured such a life. “Your mother sounds like a remarkable woman, and so resilient.”

  “She was. It takes courage to live as she lived, to adapt to all kinds of conditions.” His face grew pensive. “In the end, the only condition she couldn’t seem to survive was living without my father. They met at a ball in London when he was on leave. According to them both, it was love at first sight. She outlived him by only two years.”

  “I am so sorry,” Sophie said at once. “My parents were devoted to each other as well. Papa died when I was eleven—a sudden illness. We still miss him, but we have so many good memories. I don’t know what any of us would have done if we’d lost Mama as well. Was that when you first came to Cornwall—after your mother’s death?”

  “Actually, I’d visited the previous summer. Mother thought I should get to know my father’s family. I spent a few summers here, but Great-Uncle Simon wasn’t used to young boys. My mother’s relations were the ones who took me in after she died.”

  “Were they a military family?”

  “No, actually. My maternal grandfather was an industrialist—a very successful one—from Yorkshire. My mother was raised as a considerable heiress, a much more sheltered existence than the one she led after marrying my father.” Mr. Pendarvis shook his head reminiscently. “After life following the regiment, it was like landing in the lap of luxury: a large house, an army of servants, a private tutor, and my own bedchamber. I couldn’t quite get accustomed to it, even though my uncle and his family did their best to make me feel at home.”

  “But you didn’t wish to follow in your father’s footsteps and join the army yourself?”

  He shook his head again. “My younger brother Will was the army-mad one, but he died at ten years old. He was never very hardy. Nor did I wish to become an industrialist like my uncle and grandfather. I have the greatest respect for their efforts and I’m grat
eful for what business acumen they’ve worked to instill in me, but I had no particular genius in that sphere.”

  “So, what did you want to do instead?” Because he would have done something, of that she was certain; he’d far too much drive and intensity to live complacently on his expectations. Which was, she admitted with an inner sigh, one of the reasons she found him so intriguing.

  “Oh, I tried on a number of dreams for size,” he replied. “I went up to Oxford when I was eighteen and considered the law or even taking Holy Orders. Then, one summer, I went abroad to France and fell head over ears in love with Norman cathedrals.” His expression grew abstracted, even dreamy, and she knew his thoughts had flown back to that time. “I don’t exaggerate, Miss Tresilian—it was a passion as sudden and blinding as any schoolboy’s. I abandoned Oxford and apprenticed myself to an architect in Rouen for the next four years.”

  Sophie’s eyes widened. “Good heavens! Were your mother’s family very upset by this?”

  “Well, they weren’t pleased, at any rate. I wasn’t disinherited or cut off in any other way, but my uncle did tell me he thought I was being quixotic and impractical, and that I’d rue the day I embarked on such a course.” His mouth quirked. “And as it turns out—he was right.”

  “He was?” Sophie felt obscurely disappointed. The look on his face when he mentioned the cathedrals had been so rapt, almost exalted; he’d clearly loved his time in France. How sad that his dream hadn’t lived up to its promise!

  “More than he knew. Oh, I won’t say those years were entirely wasted, or that I learned nothing of use, but much of that time is—best forgotten, I think.”

  Sophie eyed him more closely; his face had grown shuttered, even remote, during those last words, and his voice was similarly neutral. Something must have happened in Rouen. A professional setback, perhaps? She knew little beyond general details of what an architect’s career might entail, but she imagined it must be a demanding and competitive profession. “So, you returned to England?”

  “In time. And I found some work as an architect in London—mostly doing the sort of thing I’d done in France, helping restore homes and the occasional parish church. I even resigned myself to not being the next Christopher Wren,” he added with a wry smile. “There’s not much call for building cathedrals in England these days, but everyone needs a place to call home.”

  And home would hold a special meaning for him, when he’d spent so much of his childhood moving from place to place. “They’re building a cathedral right now in Truro,” Sophie told him. “It’s not complete yet, but it looks to be a handsome building. And there must be churches all over the West Country in need of renovation or restoration. You could find plenty of work here—that is, if you mean to continue as an architect, now that you’ve inherited,” she added hastily, remembering that many landed gentry considered it a comedown to have to work at all.

  His brows drew together in a faint, abstracted frown. “It’s strange, but I never imagined myself not working, not even when I found out I was the heir three years ago. I don’t think I’m made for idleness—the prospect of doing nothing day in, day out holds no appeal for me. Nor do the usual fashionable pursuits—I’m no sportsman, and I have no aspirations to join the Marlborough House set, or any other such circle.”

  “You sound like James. My cousin, James Trelawney,” she explained at his blank look. “You might have met at New Year’s. He inherited an earldom in January, most unexpectedly. Before, he was just a partner in the family mine and an investor in some local industries. Now he’s a peer, with an estate to maintain, and he’s having the same problem adjusting that you are.”

  “Ah, yes. Now I remember. His accession was quite the nine days’ wonder, I hear.”

  “No one was more surprised than James himself. His cousin was only thirty, and robust.”

  “I know. We met briefly—the previous earl and I. Great-Uncle Simon was his godfather.” Mr. Pendarvis’s gaze had gone cool at the memory. “I can’t say I was much impressed by him.”

  “Harry knew him a little and thought poorly of him too. All the same, it’s a shock that he should have died so young, and so suddenly. And on the very night we were celebrating at Roswarne, just a few miles away.” Sophie suppressed a shudder. The late Earl of Trevenan had been discovered dead at the foot of a cliff on New Year’s Day.

  “Tragedies usually happen that way, while everyone else is going about his business,” Mr. Pendarvis observed. “Still, it’s an ill wind that blows no good, and your cousin will probably do more credit to the position than his predecessor.”

  “I think he will,” Sophie said with confidence. “But, like you, James has all sorts of new responsibilities now, to say nothing of expenses. He’s up in London now, talking to his solicitor and trying to find ways to keep Pentreath—that’s his estate—going.”

  He sighed. “A grand inheritance can be a curse as much as a blessing, at times.”

  “Which would you call yours?” Sophie risked a sympathetic touch of his sleeve. To her relief, Mr. Pendarvis did not withdraw his arm, though she supposed it was also possible that he simply hadn’t noticed, in his current brown study.

  “I’m still trying to decide. No,” he amended, “that’s not entirely fair. Great-Uncle did his best to maintain the Hall. He was never a great spendthrift, even in his youth, and he married a woman with a large dowry, though they’d no children to inherit.”

  “Or to spend what money they had,” she pointed out. “The late Lord Trevenan was very extravagant and ran up all sorts of debts—that’s one of the difficulties James is facing.”

  “A small mercy,” he conceded. “Nonetheless, it will likely take every penny I possess to keep Pendarvis Hall fit to be lived in.”

  “Is it in such poor condition as that?” Sophie asked. “I noticed nothing amiss when I was there for the funeral, and it’s always looked splendid from the outside.”

  “Things could be worse,” he admitted. “But it’s still going to need substantial work in some areas. The roof, for example, and the damp has got into some of the upstairs rooms.”

  “Have you ever thought of letting the Hall, or selling it outright?” she ventured, trying to ignore the swift, sharp pang that went through her at the thought of him leaving Cornwall.

  Fortunately, his next words reassured her on that score. “Strangely enough, I find I don’t care to do either. For one thing, breaking the entail would be a difficult and costly business. For another… call it folly or family pride, but Pendarvises have lived at the Hall since Queen Elizabeth’s time. It seems… wrong to abandon it to strangers.”

  Because the Hall was home, Sophie thought. Home to his great-uncle, his grandfather, and now himself, the man who’d known no true home as a boy. “I should feel the same way as you,” she said warmly. “Harry is only a baronet, and Roswarne’s tiny in comparison to your Hall, but he regards our estate—our home—as something to be safeguarded for the next generation of Tresilians. Perhaps that makes us hopelessly old-fashioned, but there it is.”

  “I suppose that makes me old-fashioned as well,” he said with a wry smile. “But there’s more than just the property to consider. I wouldn’t feel right about turning off the staff. They’ve earned their places through years of loyal service. Who am I to come sweeping in and deprive them of their livelihood? Even if I just let the Hall, a tenant could still dismiss them and hire new servants, and my great-uncle’s people would be no better off than before.” He shook his head. “The life of a landed gentleman may not be what it used to be, but that doesn’t cancel out our responsibilities to those who depend on us.”

  Our. Us. Sophie hid a smile. He was talking like a landowner already—better yet, a conscientious, responsible landowner, who valued loyalty and had a care for his servants. Mr. Pendarvis might not realize it, but he was more than suited to his new position and, she suspected, equal to its challenges.

  “There’s another possibility,” she suggested, a bi
t diffidently. “Have you considered following your great-uncle’s example and taking a wealthy bride?”

  His face closed off at once, as it had when he’d been talking about his time in Rouen. “Out of the question. I have no desire to turn fortune hunter.”

  Sophie winced at his clipped, curt tone and cursed her own tactlessness. “Naturally, one shouldn’t wed for money alone,” she said placatingly. “And I certainly don’t see you as a fortune hunter. But if you should happen to meet and form an attachment to a lady of means…” She broke off as her thoughts sped to her own fortune, which would come under her control on either her majority or her marriage, and she flushed, feeling suddenly and horribly self-conscious.

  Much to her relief, Mr. Pendarvis had turned his gaze seaward again. “I am relieved that you do not think me mercenary, Miss Tresilian.” His tone was neutral to the point of colorlessness. “But even if I had the inclination to marry, I am in no position to take a wife.”

  Sophie took a composing breath and set about extricating her foot from her mouth. “Of course. I understand why you might feel that way, with—so much unsettled in your life. Pray forgive me, and forget that I ever made such an ill-timed suggestion.”

  The hard line of his mouth softened, much to her relief. “Forgiven and forgotten, Miss Tresilian.” He relaxed on his rock, his expression now thoughtful rather than aloof. “So, things being as they are, I need to find a way to keep the Hall going without bankrupting myself in the process. And since letting the place, breaking the entail, and marrying a fortune are all out of the question, I’ll have to come up with something else.”

  “Is there any unentailed property you could part with?”

  “I think Great-Uncle Simon has already sold off most of that. But my uncle might have some ideas about worthwhile investments. I’ve written to him already, asking for suggestions. I’ll be inviting him, his wife, and their children down to stay in any case. There’s enough room at the Hall to house that entire branch of the family.”