All right, yes, to run away. Hide in her own walls. Order her own days.
“M’lady?” the footman at the head of the hall to her room called to her. “I have a message for you from Lady Trelawny.”
Morwenna waited. He produced a sealed missive with her initials looping across it in Grandmother’s elegant hand. “Thank you.”
She read it on the way to her chamber. “Mr. Chastain is resting in his room. You will join us for dinner. The Kittos are joining us.”
The vicar and his wife. Morwenna liked them. They were elderly and nosy, and Mrs. Kitto was a bit of a busybody, but neither had a malicious bone in their body. Even more so, they held hands in front of their parishioners. Once, Morwenna had seen them kissing in the garden of the vicarage. They hadn’t even been embarrassed when they noticed her presence. Like them or not, she did not wish to entertain them, answer a dozen questions about the night before, or about David’s mishap that afternoon.
Mishap indeed.
She tucked the note into her bodice, then reversed her steps and headed for the west wing.
A footman stepped into her path. “M’lady, Lady Trelawny said no one was to disturb Mr. Chastain.”
Picturing how Elizabeth drew highborn lady airs around her when she wanted her way, Morwenna tipped back her head so she could look down her nose at the man who was at least a foot taller than she. “I am not no one.” She then turned sideways and stepped around him.
He wouldn’t dare lay hands on her to stop her. That would get him dismissed without specific orders to bodily prevent visitors to Mr. Chastain’s room. As she had said, she was not no one. She was a baroness and daughter of the house. It held some privileges and perhaps she needed to use them if nothing more than to assure herself David was alive, breathing, past his notion that she had been the culprit who tried to harm him.
Heart thudding in her chest, she reached the end of the corridor and opened the door without knocking. Sunset filled the room, blinding her for a moment. She blinked several times, and when she regained her sight, she found David propped on one elbow and staring at her.
“To what do I owe this honor, my lady?” His voice was quiet, dry, but a spark flashed in his eyes like distant lightning over a storm-tossed sea.
A frisson of apprehension slid up Morwenna’s spine and along her limbs. She touched her tongue to dry lips. “I wanted to see for myself that you are well.”
“I’m not. I feel like I swallowed five clawing cats who left me as weak as a kitten. So please forgive me for not rising.”
“Nothing to forgive.” She clasped her upper arms, rubbing them through a shawl that had grown too thin. “I was concerned is all. I was asleep in the nursery. I wanted to see for myself. I don’t want dinner—”
She stopped. Morwenna Trelawny Penvenan had never been so nervous around a male that she prattled. Men blathered around her.
David didn’t babble. He was direct and quiet, speaking when he had something to say. At that moment, he apparently had nothing to say. He simply watched her, his gaze steady, if not entirely calm. Silence stretched between them, growing longer with each moment like the shadows made from the dropping sun. Their eyes locked in a dare to see who blinked first.
Morwenna moved first. Still looking into his eyes, she dropped her hands to her hips and stiffened her chin. “I did not poison you.”
“Someone did.”
“There were four people in that room besides you, plus several servants coming and going. Why do you think it was I who did it?”
“You’re a Trelawny.”
“So is Grandmother. What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”
“Or opium?”
Morwenna ground her teeth.
The sun dropped below the windowsill, giving her an excuse to break eye contact and move around the room lighting a lamp, coaxing the embers on the hearth to lick flames around a fresh load of coal. Her back to him, she asked, “Would you like some dinner sent up?”
“Lady Trelawny is sending up a tray.”
“Shall I bring you your book?”
“I doubt I have the energy to read.”
Morwenna slid the poker into its stand with care. “I could read to you.”
He didn’t answer.
She faced him. “I did not drug you today or any day. I did not try to overdrug you so you would stop breathing.”
“Who else would have reason to try to do me in?”
“Why would I?”
“A number of reasons if you’re involved in the wrecking.”
“I’m not—” She speared her fingers through her hair and realized what a mess it was from her nap in the nursery rocking chair. Only a few pins held it off her face. The rest tumbled down her back in an abandoned tangle of curls. She must look like a wanton. Miss Pross was right—she should flee to her room, set her appearance to right, and entertain the Kittos.
She stood her ground. “I saved your life after the wreck. I saved your life today. If I were afraid of you knowing something you shouldn’t, why would I do that?”
“I don’t know, but something is all wrong here.” He held her with those stormy-sea eyes again—a contact powerful enough he may as well have gripped her with his hands. “You said someone must have taken my medallion while you fetched help.”
“Yes, someone must have.” Morwenna tensed, waiting for a blow of words.
“And the dogs were set to guard me, correct?”
“Yes, they—” She pressed the back of her hand to her lips, her eyes widening.
David smiled. “I see you caught on to what has taken me this long to work out. How did that person get past the dogs?”
CHAPTER 12
THE DOGS. WHOEVER HAD TAKEN THE MEDALLION knew the dogs well enough to not only reach past them but make them remain afterward. Only three people Morwenna knew of could do this—Nicca, Henwyn, and her.
“It could have been others.” Her voice held a note of desperation. “I don’t know if one of my husband’s cohorts was able to make the dogs behave fr-from their smuggling days. Conan and the others, that is, not the dogs of course.” A nervous titter escaped her lips. “I knew Conan was deeply involved with the smugglers, but I never knew who they all were. No one does. It was too dangerous to know. But I think the dogs helped guard cargos. Conan might have entrusted someone else. He might have. Just because I don’t know—”
She made herself stop talking. Babbling made her sound guilty. Her lack of knowledge about who could control her dogs sounded like a lame excuse and made her look guilty. David’s lying there on the bed, his face pale and his pupils still too small from the drug, contributed to appearances of her guilt. She, after all, had served the tea.
“I have no defense except that I know of my innocence and—” A memory flashed through her mind—Jago bringing bones for the dogs to gnaw on and distract them from barking at his arrival. “Dogs—dogs listen to the man or woman with food in hand.”
“They do.” David looked thoughtful.
Shaking as though she stood in freezing rain, Morwenna turned toward the door just as someone knocked. She opened it to find a footman bearing a tray.
He started back. “M’lady, I didn’t think to find you here.”
“Well, I am.” She took the tray from his hands. “You may inform my grandparents and tell them I won’t be down to dinner.”
She couldn’t possibly be sociable.
She set the tray on a table inside the door and closed the portal in the footman’s face. “Watch every move I make, Mr. Chastain, so you can see I am adding nothing to your food.” She faced him, tray in hand.
He lay on his back, one hand flung across his eyes. He lay so still she thought he slept.
“Mr. Chastain?” She approached the bed. “Shouldn’t you be watching me? I can send for more food and let the footman in this time.”
“I don’t think you’re a stupid woman, Lady Penvenan.” He lowered his arm and looked at her. “Even if
you fed me something earlier, you wouldn’t do so now when we’re alone.”
“If?” She seized on the word as though it were a lifeline, however gossamer a thread. “Are you saying you haven’t tried and condemned me for certain?”
“Of course not. I’m a laborer with a Somerset accent, my lady, not a stupid man.”
She set the tray on the bedside table. “Then may I help you with this?”
“I think I can manage.” He levered himself to sit against the headboard. “Another meal of broth or gruel doesn’t appeal much, but the apothecary said I need to eat to absorb any lingering effects of the drug . . . or poison.”
“There’s also bread and butter. And someone in the kitchen likes you.” Though her tone was now too cheerful, she couldn’t stop herself from the ebullient manner after he admitted he wasn’t entirely convinced of her guilt. “You have some of those cakes with violet sugar. Those are my favorites.”
“Then by all means help yourself to one.” A half smile flitted across his lips. “And I’ll manage the soup and bread and butter.”
She leaned forward to set the tray on his lap. “It’s white soup, very hearty, and blackberry cordial. That has strong healing properties, or so Grandmother always says. I never paid enough attention to her lessons in the stillroom. It’s knowledge any mistress of an estate should know, but I never expected to be mistress of an estate.”
“It’s knowledge any lady of the house should have.” He dipped his spoon into the soup. “Mama rarely calls in the apothecary when one of us is ill.”
He called his mother “Mama.”
Morwenna’s insides went warm and soft. He said it with such depth of affection and respect, any female would be moved. She’d only known one man who spoke of his mother that way—Sam Carn. Mrs. Carn ruled her large brood with a strength and love that made everyone in the parish want her for their mother, including Morwenna.
“Have to think a moment before remembering what my mother looks like half the time.” She spoke her thoughts aloud.
David’s brows arched. “I should think she looks like you. You don’t much resemble your grandparents except for the coloring.”
“You mean because I’m so small? That much about Mother I know. She’s little like I am. But her hair is red. Though she’s past forty now, so it might be gray.”
David sipped from the cordial glass and watched Morwenna from over the delicate crystal. “She might dye it or wear a wig.”
“She might, but I don’t think she cares much about her appearance. No woman who follows her husband to remote jungles and desert islands could be.”
Morwenna never worried much about her appearance either. Yet all of a sudden, with David regarding her so intensely from less than a yard away, she grew conscious of her crumpled gown with baby drool on the shoulder, tearstained cheeks, and hair spilling down her back. She suddenly wanted to be wearing the pink satin ball gown hanging in her armoire, even if it was Elizabeth’s gown and hadn’t been cut down to fit Morwenna. She didn’t even own any jewelry to draw a man’s eyes with its sparkle.
All at once, her self-imposed poverty seemed like what it was—stupid pride doing nothing but making her guilt easy for others to believe. Yet now, if she accepted the wealth her grandparents wanted to offer her—a permanent home at Bastion Point even after David departed—she would compound people’s belief in her guilt. They would suspect she wanted to give herself no reason to be part of the wreckers.
Too little too late.
She spun away from the side of the bed and paced the length of the chamber, her shawl wrapped around her, her fingers tangled in the fringe. This fine silk wrap wasn’t even hers, but one of Grandmother’s, the colors better suited to her pale coloring than Morwenna’s darkness. She needed vibrant colors, pink and red and even yellow. She was out of mourning. No one would blame her.
And what was she thinking? Making herself more presentable to a man who thought her capable of attempted murder?
“I should go.” She reached for the door handle.
“I thought you offered to read to me.” His voice held a hint of amusement.
“I thought you didn’t want me near you lest I harm you again.”
“I’ll risk it.” Silver chimed against china. “I’m not used to being so much alone.”
Oh, she understood that. The ache of loneliness, the tearing emptiness of abandonment crushed down upon her. She staggered against the weight of it and braced herself on the nearest piece of furniture. Her throat closed, her eyes burned. A single tear splashed onto the sheet of paper spread across the desk.
“My lady?” David’s voice was soft, questioning. “Are you all right?”
“I am. Or rather, I will be.” She shifted her shoulders to lift the burden, blinked away the rest of her tears, and turned toward David, her lips forced into a smile. “Shall I read Joseph Andrews?”
“Please.” He was staring at her as though he had never seen her before.
She sped across the room. “Let me get that tray for you first. Are you certain you don’t want more? You’ve scarcely touched your soup, and all the cakes are still there.”
“I ate the bread and butter, ma’am.”
“Yes, I suppose I couldn’t have poisoned that.” She leaned forward to retrieve the tray.
“Have a care for your shawl.” He reached for the fringe of her shawl, but her hair slid forward and his fingers ended up tangled in her curls.
Her fingers loosened, and the tray remained across his thighs. She faced him, faced him from no more than a hand’s breadth from his sea-storm eyes, his sculpture-perfect nose, his firm mouth. Warm breath from those lips fanned across hers, sending a shock wave through her entire body. If she moved just a little, more than his breath would touch her.
Blood roaring in her ears, she backed away. Her hair slid from his fingers and her shawl fringe dropped into the soup.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was a mere croak. “I’ll call a footman to take the tray.” She backed to the door as though she needed to keep an eye on a dangerous animal, though he had done nothing wrong. She was the wanton considering kissing him, not the other way around. “I-I should join my grandparents with their guests.” The door handle caught her on the back. She closed her hand around it. “Sleep well.”
“While you run away?” His voice was soft, his accent thick.
She gave him a direct look. “Yes, I am. For once in my life, I am running away from temptation.”
And so she did, barely managing to walk down the hall to the nearest footman with dignity, give him her request to remove David’s tray, then continue to her room where a maid waited to help her change for dinner. She allowed herself to be laced into a gown and have her hair pinned back atop her head, though she wanted to race all the way back to Penmara.
The Kittos were a distraction, a little dull, but kind and warm. Not once had they ever condemned her for her past behavior. They didn’t condemn her now.
“We don’t think you have done anything wrong today,” Mrs. Kitto told Morwenna in the drawing room after dinner.
But then, Mrs. Kitto didn’t know that Morwenna had nearly kissed their ailing houseguest. The vicar’s wife didn’t know that she might give in to weakness given another opportunity, not because she cared about him so much, but because he was there and lonely too. He was an attractive man who looked at her in those moments as though she were the violet sugar atop the cakes.
Conan, I am so sorry.
Burdened with guilt, she headed up to the nursery as soon as she was free to do so. Mihal slept. So did Miss Pross. Morwenna stood in the doorway and watched her baby’s peaceful slumber and wished she could snatch him up and carry him to his home, wished his home were worth carrying him to.
I will save it for you, my precious baby. I will be a mother to make you proud, even if I wasn’t a wife long enough to make your father proud.
She retreated to her room and picked up the volume of Shakespeare. She could i
mprove her mind, read all those books she should have been reading instead of flirting with her dancing master or music master or the most inappropriate male nearby if he was good-looking enough.
David was just another—better than merely good-looking—man. That was the foundation of his appeal for her. She had no reason to like him otherwise. He thought her capable of trying to harm him. He thought her capable of helping wreckers. She needed to stay away from him.
She avoided him. For three days, she used the size of the house and a spate of beautiful weather to keep out of his presence. She insisted Miss Pross spend less time in the nursery so Morwenna could care for her son, taking her meals in the upper reaches of the house. She took him for walks in the parkland and helped him pick early wildflowers to present to his great-grandmother. She spent one day at Penmara overseeing plans for tilling at least one field as well as the kitchen garden. On the morning of the fourth day, she took the time to play with the dogs on the beach. While Henwyn entertained Mihal with some pretty shells, Morwenna questioned Nicca about whether anyone else could handle the dogs besides the people she knew of. “Did Lord Penvenan let anyone else handle them?”
“Mebbe.” Nicca shrugged and stared out to sea, where a line of fishing boats headed toward shore. The hour was early for being out and about, but Grandmother had informed her a dressmaker from Truro was coming and under no circumstances could Morwenna wriggle out of being measured and fitted.
She glowered at Nicca in the few minutes she had left to question him. “Don’t tell me you weren’t ever out with the smugglers. They wouldn’t let a strapping youth like you get away with not being involved.”
He kept his gaze on the horizon, though the boats were closer in to be his focus. “I’m not saying I wasn’t, not saying I was. I just don’t know about them dogs.”
Perhaps he didn’t.
She let it go. The dogs lolled at her feet, calmly accepting how Mihal wound his arms around their necks. “Come this afternoon as well. I miss these overgrown beasts.”
“Can’t come later. Storm’s brewing.”
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