A Stranger's Secret

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  “And Mrs. Kitto has suggested the church take up a collection so you can dress better and perhaps catch a husband.” Grandmother smiled, her eyes twinkling. “I suspect she means to bring one of the young men in the parish up to scratch.”

  Morwenna laughed at Grandmother using slang and joined her in the dressing room and stared at the gowns. “If Mrs. Kitto wants to take up a collection, it should be to clothe some of the miners’ children. Some of those families are desperately poor.”

  “We do, my dear. You aren’t charging them rent, and we provide enough to feed them. But the men drink up what little money they acquire.”

  “It’s difficult for a man to see others supporting his family. I think they drink to drown their shame.” Morwenna sought for the soberest dress.

  Clever Grandmother hadn’t picked anything sober. She had chosen sky blue and pomona green, begonia pink and primrose yellow. Morwenna sought for lavender, a color for half mourning. The closest she found was a delicate violet silk with gold threadwork around the neck, sleeves, and hem. A gold cord sash snugged beneath the bust, and a gold gauze shawl would keep her from freezing.

  “I have no shoes.” She released the gown with a little too much care and stalked back into the bedchamber.

  “I know.” Grandmother’s voice grew soft. “Morwenna, we—”

  “I need to find my baby. He fusses if he doesn’t see me often enough, and I . . . need him.”

  Her arms ached with emptiness when she was away from him.

  “Your old slippers will do. You left most of them behind.”

  “I left my gowns behind as well.”

  “Yes, but those cannot be let out enough to accommodate your . . . increased proportions.”

  Morwenna snorted at Grandmother’s attempt to be delicate. Unable to pay for a wet nurse and not wanting one anyway, Morwenna had nursed Mihal herself. Hard work had given her back a small waist, but her hips and bust had expanded with motherhood. Elizabeth was more a Trelawny in build—tall and full-bosomed; thus, her gowns could be cut down while Morwenna’s old dresses could not be expanded.

  “I’ll look presentable for your guests,” Morwenna said.

  Grandmother went to the hallway door. “Dinner is in two hours. Mr. Chastain is resting, poor lad. He looked like he was in pain.”

  “I expect he is. You should see his back and ribs.”

  Grandmother’s eyebrows arched. “And you have?”

  “Someone had to patch him.”

  “You could have called the apothecary.”

  “He doesn’t give me credit, ma’am.” Morwenna reached past Grandmother and opened the door. “And David Chastain is not the first man whose chest I’ve seen.”

  She caught Grandmother’s expression, a blend of pain and regret, and her heart seized with a clench of guilt for the reminder that they had failed to give their second granddaughter a moral compass, unlike her ice queen of an older cousin.

  Except Elizabeth wasn’t an ice queen when she was around Rowan Curnow. And if anything made Morwenna jealous of Elizabeth—the favored, the obedient, the biddable until Rowan came along—it was the love those two had shared and their life together. Respectably married or not, Morwenna never enjoyed true togetherness with Conan, the ordinary day-to-day of sharing meals, evenings, a house with her spouse. Too rarely had they shared a bed before Conan’s life was cut short. And she wouldn’t—couldn’t—risk it again, loving and losing. She could love her son. She took the steps up two at a time. She needed to hold Mihal if only for a few minutes.

  But Mihal held a velvet animal as though it was his best friend.

  “Dog.” He held it out to her.

  “He’s beautiful.” Morwenna crouched before him and held out her arms. “May I have a hug?”

  He hugged the dog. “Dog.”

  Morwenna glanced at Miss Pross, who sat in a rocking chair by the window, her face aglow with joy. “He should go down for a nap soon.”

  “I was about to do that when I heard you coming.”

  “Then let me.” As though she needed someone else’s permission to put her own child in his cot.

  Morwenna scooped boy and stuffed dog into her arms, at which he proceeded to yell in protest, “No, no, no, no.”

  “Don’t you say no to me, young man.” Morwenna balanced him on her hip and headed for the cot with its railed sides padded with linen someone had once upon a time embroidered with a menagerie of foreign animals like tigers and elephants, as though that were restful. Probably her cousin Drake’s cot brought down from the attics. She set Mihal onto the mattress, where his objections grew to a bellow, loud enough to wake Mr. Chastain on the other side of the house and a floor below.

  “Dog. Dog. Dog.”

  “You have your dog.” Morwenna laid him down and drew the coverlet over him.

  “No. Dog.” He kicked off the covers.

  Morwenna pulled them up again, wondering if she should smack his diapered bottom. The nanny whom Drake, Elizabeth, and she had shared was free with her smacks, but Morwenna thought Mihal too young.

  “He wants this, I believe.” Miss Pross set a second stuffed dog, this one black and white with golden eyes, beside the boy.

  “Dog.” This was said with cooing affection, as he cuddled the toy close beneath his chin and settled onto his bed.

  “Wonderful.” Morwenna caressed Mihal’s cheek and blinked against a burning in her eyes.

  Mihal wanted a stuffed toy rather than her. She hadn’t thought she would lose him like this until he was old enough to go away to school.

  “Sleep well, Mihal. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She headed for the door.

  “No hurry about getting back. I know there are guests tonight.”

  “I will return.” Morwenna spoke through clenched teeth.

  No one would take over care of her son. Just because she had agreed to come to Bastion Point for a while didn’t mean they could take over command of her comings and goings.

  But of course they could. She might be the blackest of the Trelawnys’ more than fair share of ebony ovines, and too much of her genteel upbringing reminded her not to make a scene in front of others not in the family. That included Miss Pross. So she left the nursery without protest. She dressed in the purple gown and pinned her hair into a chignon with the help of Grandmother’s maid. She then made her way from her wing to the main block of the house to present herself in the drawing room in time to greet the first of the guests.

  And David.

  Morwenna started at the sight of him on the other side of the great room with one shoulder propped against the carved marble mantel, one hand holding a glass containing a dark red liquid, firelight gleaming off the silver buttons on his coat and buckles on his shoes. If not for the fact he wore no gloves and a myriad of nicks and scars peppered his hands—signs of a man who labored with tools—his old-fashioned hair and simple but elegant garb would have proclaimed him a country gentleman. Even his hair, clubbed with a black satin ribbon, wasn’t unusual in the country. Though he was still pale, the dark circles of fatigue had faded from beneath his eyes, and he didn’t look the least ill at ease conversing with Grandfather, one of the wealthiest men in England and certainly the most powerful man in Cornwall.

  At Morwenna’s entrance, he straightened from his lounging posture, and for a moment, shock widened his eyes. Then he bowed, and when he straightened, his face held no more expression than bland courtesy.

  “Good evening, Morwenna.” Grandfather spoke. “You are looking well.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Morwenna glanced at David, then back to her grandfather. “Have you, um, heard anything from . . . Penmara?”

  “They intended to search the caves below Penmara before they search the house.” Grandfather chuckled. “Why they need daylight to search those caves is beyond my comprehension, but it’s their decision.”

  Knees suddenly weak, Morwenna sank onto a chair. “The caves. Of course they’re searching the caves.” She was goi
ng to be sick right there on the rug.

  “My lady?” David closed the distance between them and pressed his glass into her hand. “You’ve gone pale.”

  She lifted the glass to her lips. Cherry cordial, sweet and rich. She sipped, and its warmth dissolved some of the cold fear inside her.

  “Thank you.” She returned the glass to him.

  Grandfather studied her with speculation in his narrowed eyes. “Will they find—”

  The ringing of the doorbell stopped Grandfather’s inquiry. The three of them fell silent until the butler ushered the vicar, Mr. Kitto, and his birdlike wife into the room.

  Grandfather presented David to them, and the vicar began to pepper him with questions. “Where are you from? How did you manage to survive the wreck? Do you have family?” and so it went. David gave polite but short responses, mostly yes and no, his speech slow and rhythmic in comparison with that of the Cambridge-educated vicar.

  One corner of his mouth twitching, Grandfather seated himself beside Morwenna. “What has you worried, child?”

  The kindness of his tone closed Morwenna’s throat, and she stiffened her spine against trusting this softer Grandfather after a lifetime of his authoritarian treatment. “I don’t like strangers pawing over my property.”

  “Will they find something they shouldn’t?” Grandfather persisted.

  “Of course not.” Morwenna made each word a whiplash.

  “Then don’t concern yourself.” He looked about to say something more, then rose at another ring of the bell. “We will discuss this and much more later.”

  Grandmother entered right ahead of the Pascoes, the Roddas, and then the Polkinghorns. They were all polite to David, their glances curious, their questions numerous. He seemed to hold his own with quiet calm, though he had surely never been a guest in a house like Bastion Point. He had said even his married siblings shared the family home. Morwenna couldn’t imagine it, having grown up with a house too quiet most of the time, so much of the time she made her own trouble so as not to be alone.

  Then Jago broke away from Mr. Kitto and headed for Morwenna. He placed a glass of cherry cordial in her hand and then took the chair beside her that Grandfather had vacated to greet his guests. “You are looking fetching, my lady.” His eyes flicked down her person, then up to linger far too long at the décolletage of the gown.

  She wrapped the scarf more tightly around her shoulders. “How good of you to come.”

  “I wouldn’t stay away once I knew you were here.” He took her hand in his. “I can see you more easily now that you’re here, though I see you haven’t gotten rid of your unwanted guest yet.”

  “He is neither a guest nor unwanted.” Morwenna reclaimed her hand. “I doubt he wants to be here any more than—” She couldn’t say he wasn’t wanted there; he was.

  “Let’s not talk about him. It’s bad enough we have to dine with him,” Jago said.

  “His manners are impeccable.”

  Not a half dozen feet away now, David was discussing ship construction with Mr. Pascoe and his elder son, Caswyn. “We’ve never built anything larger than a sloop,” David was saying, “but I’d like to do so one day. Of course, we would have to expand . . .” He trailed off and shrugged, his face growing stiff.

  “Excuse me.” Morwenna rose and glided forward. “Mr. Chastain, perhaps you should be sitting. You are not even a day out of your sickbed.”

  “Forgive us for keeping you standing.” Pascoe inclined his head to a group of chairs. “We could sit there and continue this delightful discussion.”

  “If this war weren’t on,” Caswyn said, “I would love a leisure boat simply for sailing. I miss sailing.”

  “The war with America makes matters worse.” David seemed to recover with aplomb from whatever had distressed him moments earlier. “I scarcely remember a time when England wasn’t at war and venturing far off the coast became dangerous.” He lowered himself onto an upright chair upholstered in gold damask, a new acquisition of Grandmother’s. The rich fabric framed him, glowing fabric against his dark hair and clothing, a portrait one could have called Stranger at Ease. He was probably in some discomfort, if not outright pain. He had just met a half dozen strangers, and he sat in the drawing room of someone well above his social class, possibly for the first time, yet he appeared at ease. His shoulders were broad and straight against the high back of the chair, his hands rested on the arms without any fidgets of tapping fingers or the like, and no more tension lined his chiseled features.

  Laborer or not, he was a fine figure of a man, a man with a calm self-assurance, and Morwenna experienced a frisson of interest—perhaps something more—ripple through her. She shivered and wished for a cashmere shawl instead of the silk scarf around her shoulders. She shouldn’t be cold. The room was warm, far warmer than any room ever managed to be at Penmara. Yet gooseflesh prickled along her arms.

  She didn’t seat herself near David nor return to her seat near Jago. She crossed the room to the hearth and held her hands out to the blaze.

  “I’m so happy to see you residing here, my dear.” Mrs. Kitto popped up beside Morwenna, as though conjured from the marble fireplace surround. “A pretty young lady like you shouldn’t be living alone at that tumbledown old house.”

  Morwenna stiffened. “That tumbledown old house is my son’s inheritance.”

  “Of course it is.” Mrs. Kitto patted Morwenna’s arm. “And we can trust in the Lord to see it restored by the time he cares. Meanwhile, you are safer here. And besides, you are more likely to meet eligible young men here.” She cast a sidelong glance toward Caswyn then Jago.

  The latter caught Mrs. Kitto’s glance and rose to join them. Tristan, arriving late, followed in Jago’s wake.

  “I don’t wish to remarry.” Morwenna made certain the young men heard her. “At least I would prefer to restore Penmara before taking on the responsibility of a husband and perhaps more children.”

  “I should think marrying well would help restore Penmara faster than . . .” Mrs. Kitto trailed off, as though she didn’t want to say how Morwenna was trying to restore the Penvenan wealth.

  “I am close to having investors,” Morwenna began. “The mines—”

  A thunderous knocking boomed against the front door. Conversation stopped. Everyone turned toward the drawing room entrance. No guest would pound on the door. That sort of racket meant trouble. And only one kind of trouble had arrived at Bastion Point of late.

  Morwenna pressed her hand to her mouth. When one of the revenue officers pushed past the butler to enter the room before being announced, bile rose in her throat, burning while the rest of her may as well have been standing next to an iceberg rather than a fire. As though rehearsed, Grandfather, Tristan, and Jago closed ranks around her, then, oddly, so did David, rising stiffly from his chair and striding to her side as though she were a great lady in a carriage and they were outriders.

  The officer tramped across the carpet, parting the guests with the sheer force of his presence, and halted in front of Morwenna with her entourage. “Lady Penvenan, you are under arrest.”

  CHAPTER 8

  MORWENNA SWAYED. DAVID RAISED HIS ARMS, READY to catch her in the event she fainted. She was stronger than that, this pocket Venus of a lady, all creamy skin and luxuriant hair over a frame of pure steel.

  Something inside David’s chest twisted, tightened, stabbed him through the heart. Despite his own suspicions regarding the lady’s conduct where he was concerned, he wanted to draw the military man’s cork. Back at his sides again, David’s hands fisted. Beside him, so did Rodda’s.

  Jago Rodda, the son of family friends, wealthy and probably attractive to women, the perfect suitor for the beautiful widow. He was the man to defend her.

  David shoved his rough and scarred hands into his pockets and waited for someone to defend her ladyship.

  But she stepped forward, chin raised, and addressed the revenue officer on her own. “Why do you need to arrest me?”

/>   “She has contraband on her property, Sir Petrok.” The lieutenant spoke as though Morwenna weren’t there.

  Her grandfather made no effort to intervene. A lack of respect for his granddaughter or indifference? His face gave nothing away.

  “What contraband?” Morwenna asked.

  The lieutenant continued to look at Sir Petrok. “We found a barrel of Lancashire wool and a crate of knives from a Sheffield ironworks in a cave directly below Penmara.” He shot a glare at Morwenna. “That cave has a door leading into the Penmara cellars. She will have to explain that to the magistrate.”

  “I am the magistrate.” Sir Petrok’s voice was as cold as the Irish Sea. “We can settle this right now.”

  “Er, well . . .” The young officer’s face reddened. “This is highly irregular. We will have to take her to a different parish.”

  Sir Petrok drew himself to his impressive height. “Are you questioning my integrity, young man?”

  “No, sir.” The officer drew his shoulders back and puffed out his chest in a way that had David’s fists clenching again. “It is your granddaughter’s integrity that is at question.”

  “If you weren’t in uniform, sirrah,” Rodda said through clenched teeth, “I would call you out for that. You are speaking of my future wife.”

  Morwenna shot Jago an unfriendly glance, then focused on the lieutenant. “Anyone can walk into those caves. You have no evidence that I am involved in any illegal activity.”

  A few barrels of contraband might prove nothing, but David might be able to—eventually.

  The notion didn’t please him. He wanted to shout that she had saved his life, not tried to harm him when she could have with no one the wiser.

  Except for whoever had taken his pendant—her family’s pendant.

  He clasped his hands behind his back and watched the scene unfold with the same rapt attention as the rest of the assembly.

  The lieutenant smiled, seeming to grow taller, fuller of chest, a man ready to declare victory against all odds. “But your house isn’t easily accessible to everyone, and we also found a smuggler’s lantern in the room used as a nursery. It was tucked beneath a pile of folded diapers that weren’t in the least disturbed.” The officer smiled at Sir Petrok, then Morwenna. “Can you explain that away?”