A Stranger's Secret

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  Quite simply, he could not leave. He was here to find answers, and answers he would find without saying anything himself. If Morwenna had been determined to get answers from him, he must stay to find out what she wanted.

  No, my lady, you are not the innocent I wish you were, but not for the reasons you think. That thought, along with his pricking conscience over his behavior that night, did not give him a restful night. He woke as soon as enough light allowed him to do so, washed in cold water left over from the night before, and began to work on his drawings. A maid brought in hot water and tea and rebuilt the fire, all without a word, and he kept working until hunger reminded him of the time and he gathered his nerve enough to descend to breakfast.

  “How dare he do something so stupid?” Sir Petrok’s bellow stopped David in his tracks. For a missed heartbeat, he thought perhaps Morwenna or even one of the servants had said what happened the night before, then the voice that must have reached from quarterdeck to fo’c’sle in his seafaring days rang out again. “Will my grandson never learn his lesson?” A crash of rattling china followed this rhetorical question.

  David met the amused gaze of the footman outside the breakfast room door and arched a brow in query.

  In response, the stone-faced servant opened the door for David to enter the cheerful room.

  “I should have sent him into the military as soon as he was old enough to carry a musket.” Sir Petrok was still raging, albeit more quietly. “Or perhaps the navy. A few rounds kissing the gunner’s daughter with the bosun’s cane might have taught him obedience.”

  Above a napkin held to her lips, Morwenna’s dark eyes danced with amusement. Across from her, Lady Trelawny’s lips twitched.

  David tried hard not to laugh himself, partly at the absurd expression of “kissing the gunner’s daughter,” which usually referred to one of the “young gentlemen” or midshipmen bent over a gun while the bosun applied his rattan cane where it would do the most good, according to naval discipline. Ordinary seamen got that cane across their backs and counted themselves fortunate not to get the cat-o’-nine-tails. David’s brother had felt that cane many times himself before leaving the navy for a merchantman.

  “My grandson will not be a privateer.” Sir Petrok shoved back his chair and rose. “Decent Englishmen are not—” He saw David standing in the doorway and stopped. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Chastain. Do come in and seat yourself. Samuel, why aren’t you fetching our guest a cup of coffee?”

  The footman at the sideboard sprang into action, collecting cup and saucer and pouring coffee, nodding to another servant to fill a plate.

  David drew out the fourth chair at the small gate-leg table and seated himself beside Morwenna. He wanted to reach out to her, take her hand in both of his, brush his fingertips across her incredibly silky skin until those circles beneath her eyes were smoothed away.

  He wanted to kiss her again, not because he wanted to gain any information from her. That, he now knew, as he slid a sidelong glance at her from the corner of his eye, was not why he had kissed her the night before. He had embraced her then for the same reason he wished to close the distance between them now.

  He had found the lady with whom he wished to spend his life, and they had no future together with her parents somehow tangled up in his father’s death.

  CHAPTER 15

  “ARE YOU NOT HUNGRY, MR. CHASTAIN?” LADY Trelawny’s solicitous tones drew David from his discomfiting thoughts.

  He startled, then smiled and turned his attention to his plate. “I was woolgathering, I’m afraid. Perhaps I should take my breakfast to my room and not interrupt your family discussion.”

  “No family discussion here.” Morwenna lifted her coffee cup and eyed David over the rim. “Grandfather was railing against my eldest cousin. Drake has become a privateer. It’s a family tradition, apparently, but Grandfather does not approve.”

  “Things are different now.” Sir Petrok stuffed a letter into the pocket of his coat. “We have a respectable navy now. In my day, we did not have enough ships and privateering was necessary to fight back the French from our colonies.”

  “We also have fewer colonies now that America is independent,” Morwenna pointed out.

  “Hmph.” Sir Petrok carried his own cup to the sideboard for coffee, dismissing the servants as he did so. “We shall see how long that lasts with their eighteen ships to our five hundred and more.”

  “And their privateers.”

  “Morwenna,” Lady Trelawny murmured, “do not provoke him.”

  “They build fine vessels, those Americans,” David said. “I was able to examine one we captured last autumn. I’d love to sail one and see if they are as fast and maneuverable as I’ve heard. They look it from the design with their—” He stopped, his cheeks growing warm at how he had been about to launch into a discussion of angles and planes.

  But Sir Petrok had returned to the table and was smiling at him. “Do tell me more. My brig was the fastest on the seas fifty years ago.”

  Lady Trelawny and Morwenna exchanged glances and stood simultaneously.

  “We shall leave you gentlemen to business talk.” Lady Trelawny nodded to David, brushed her hand across her husband’s shoulder as she passed him, and left, Morwenna following without acknowledging either man.

  “They don’t like sailing on the sea.” Sir Petrok sighed. “It brings them poor memories. It took Morwenna’s parents from her too many times and now, quite likely, forever, and her husband in a way, and now the wrecking . . . We could make things easy for her, if only she would ask, but she’s always made life harder than it needs to be.”

  “She seems to hold a surfeit of pride.” David focused his gaze on a point past his host’s shoulder rather than look him in the eye and give away his feelings.

  Sir Petrok chuckled. “Morwenna has a surfeit of many things—pride, beauty, rebellion. With the pride and rebellion, she is too much like me in my youth. It works well for a young man wanting to restore his family’s lost fortunes, but it doesn’t work for a lady. It only brings them loneliness.”

  “I should think she could have her pick of gentlemen should she wish to marry and end any loneliness.” David lifted a forkful of ham he didn’t wish to eat.

  “Jago and Tristan are both more than eligible. They have both adored her for years, especially Tristan when he’s been here and not up at university or off visiting friends. Caswyn Pascoe would be a better match, being the elder son, but he shows no more than a passing interest in Morwenna. But she’ll have none of them for more than investors in her mines.” Sir Petrok emitted a sound rather like a growl. “Sometimes I would like to set charges in those mines and blow them up rather than see her sink good money into restoring them.”

  David arched a brow. “They’re not worth it?”

  “I expect they are. It’s only flooding why they closed down, not because they’re paid out. The previous baron of Penmara, not Morwenna’s husband, but his father, gambled away any money that might have been used to restore or purchase new engines. Conan barely managed to hold body and soul together, but Morwenna is determined to get the money if it kills her.”

  David switched his gaze to his host. “Surely you don’t think she is—that she has anything to do with the—the wrecking.”

  “You were there.” Sir Petrok held David’s gaze. “You tell me.”

  “I don’t remember anything, sir, not after I went into the water.”

  “And before?”

  “We saw lights. I wasn’t privy to where the captain thought we were or that he should steer toward them. I was a mere passenger going by sea because I thought it a faster and more comfortable way to Falmouth than overland.”

  “And what’s in Falmouth that takes you back?”

  David shrugged this time. “I don’t know.”

  “And what’s in your heart?”

  “Sir?” David sloshed coffee onto his saucer.

  “If I allow one granddaughter to wed an American
, I won’t shrink at an Englishman, with an honest trade, courting her, but I warn you to guard your heart where she is concerned. She won’t take money from us, but she may be forced to marry for it if she can’t get her investors on her own. Do you have money, when you haven’t been robbed of the ready, that is?”

  It might have been a rude question had Sir Petrok not guessed that David’s feelings ran more deeply for Morwenna than appreciation for all she had done for him. The question deserved an honest answer, but the truth was so painful, David’s throat closed.

  “Your silence says no,” Sir Petrok said.

  David bowed his head. “Not now.” Lest Sir Petrok think him a profligate spender or worse, a gambler, he admitted the truth. “My father emptied the family and the boatyard coffers before his last journey to Falmouth. We don’t know why or where the money has gone, but we do know that the yard will go bankrupt if we don’t find out within the month.”

  “Do you need investors?”

  Hope flared in David’s soul. “We’re too small to attract attention, sir.”

  “But you don’t need to remain small.” Sir Petrok looked thoughtful. “I own shares in many merchantmen, but I’ve never taken up the actual construction of vessels. If you’re a good enough designer . . .” He gave David an encouraging glance.

  David swallowed against dryness in his mouth. “I may not be. I only have preliminary sketches for a seagoing brig. We do, however, wish to expand in that direction. My brother is fully qualified to captain his own vessel and—” Truth drowned the spark of hope—this man’s son and daughter-in-law were involved with Father’s death somehow. “I need answers before I can move forward with even thinking about investors.”

  “Thus you need to go to Falmouth.” Sir Petrok’s voice held understanding, not condemnation.

  David nodded.

  “But you haven’t the money to get there.”

  David nodded again.

  “Do you feel physically fit enough for the ride?”

  “I believe so, sir.”

  “Then we’ll leave in three days’ time. I can’t get away before then.”

  “But, sir—”

  Sir Petrok rose, ending the discussion.

  David stood and reached the door before his host. His hand on the latch, he faced the older man. “How did you know—about my feelings for Lady Penvenan, that is?”

  “The way you looked at her when you walked into this room this morning.”

  “I thought you were . . . er . . .”

  “Ranting about my grandson?” Sir Petrok let out a roar of mirth. “I didn’t make a fortune on the high seas during the old war with France by not noticing more than one thing at a time.” He clapped David on the shoulder and gestured for him to open the door. “We want to join our ladies and get the Falmouth journey planned. After that journey, we will discuss building ships further.”

  Jago Rodda and Tristan Pascoe arrived in the middle of planning for the Falmouth journey. After greeting them and seeing they had refreshments before them, Morwenna said she believed David couldn’t possibly be healed enough to ride that far. She excused herself and left her grandparents to entertain their granddaughter’s suitors.

  “I apologize for my granddaughter’s rudeness,” Lady Trelawny said. “But she won’t neglect her son for anyone.”

  “Admirable.” Pascoe nodded in approval.

  Rodda merely lifted his cup to his lips.

  David neither ate nor drank. He sat gazing out the window. A few moments later, he saw her walking across the garden with her son toddling along beside her. A quick calculation told him the tide would be out, which meant the dogs were with Nicca.

  “Why don’t you all join them?” Lady Trelawny pulled an embroidery frame out of her basket. “You young men can’t want to sit in here with an old lady while the sun is shining.”

  “The sun might be shining,” Rodda said, “but that wind off the sea feels like January, not March.”

  “She’s off to meet those dogs.” Rodda grimaced. “I don’t understand why a beautiful lady like her wishes to romp on the sand with those overgrown beasts of hers.”

  “I’m thinking,” David said, “they make her feel carefree and young.” He rose and bowed to the Trelawnys, both of whom looked upon him with approval, then he exited the drawing room for the ground-floor parlor that gave easy access to the garden and then the cliffs. He wasn’t halfway down the terrace steps, having hesitated just a moment to savor a memory of the night before when he had held Morwenna in that parlor, when the other men joined him. They flanked him at the top of the cliff.

  “You’ll catch cold at casting your eye in her direction, you know,” Pascoe said.

  “She won’t marry for anything but money,” Rodda said.

  “And we doubt you have any,” Pascoe added.

  David let them continue their attempts at discouragement. They said nothing he didn’t already know, and he knew more reasons why he could never court Morwenna. That made his heart heavy at the same time he laughed inside over the other men’s persistence in listing reasons why he had no chance of gaining Morwenna’s attention—they weren’t as sure of their own suits as they wished they were. David had seen her shrink from Jago Rodda’s attentions and treat Pascoe like a youth. Whatever her reasons, she had let David kiss her.

  And at that moment, below them on the beach, she was letting one of the dogs kiss her with a slavering tongue. She fended off the beast without much sincerity in the protests. Rodda shuddered with an expression of disgust.

  Pascoe scrubbed a hand down his face as though he were the one being licked by a canine tongue. “How can she bear it?”

  “Who cares if they make her happy?” David started down the path.

  Rodda followed close behind. “She shouldn’t have dogs to make her happy.” He half turned back. “Coming, Pascoe?”

  Pascoe shook his head. “I don’t like those dogs.”

  “You ride a horse like a centaur and are afraid of these dogs?” Rodda laughed at his friend and rival.

  David increased his pace and reached the foot of the cliff, where Nicca stood with his hands shoved into his pockets.

  “Fine morning, sir.”

  “It is. All well at Penmara?”

  Nicca shrugged. “Will be if we don’t have no more storms, I’m thinking.”

  “Is that likely?”

  “It’s spring. Allus storms in the spring. But the riding officers been patrolling the beach if the tide’s out.”

  “And the cliffs when it is in?”

  “Haven’t seen them. They got a new—” Nicca broke off to stop Mihal from running too close to the surf.

  Dogs at her heels, Morwenna joined him and scooped the boy into her arms. “You do that again, Mihal, and I won’t bring you with me.”

  The dogs’ barks drowned her next words to her son. Both deerhounds charged the cliff and the other two men descending.

  They had raced right past David.

  “Enough,” Pascoe shouted.

  The dogs quieted.

  “Sit.” As the dogs obeyed Rodda, he turned to Pascoe. “Thought you didn’t like them.”

  “The best way to control something you don’t like is to speak with authority. Dogs will recognize a firm tone.”

  “So whoever took the medallion didn’t necessarily need to be friends with the dogs,” David said loudly enough for only Morwenna to hear.

  She looked up at him, startled. “I didn’t realize that. I’ve rarely seen them with anyone but Nicca and Henwyn, besides myself, and you there at Penmara. That leaves far too many people to choose from.”

  “They would like as not respond well to someone carrying a juicy bone.” David shoved his own hands into his pockets to stop himself from brushing an errant strand of hair from her cheek. Too well he remembered the silkiness of that hair, the smoothness of her skin. “Dogs seem to forever be hunting food.”

  “Indeed they do.” She set Mihal on the sand and called the
dogs to her. They bounded over to her, and she sent a stick skimming down the beach for them to chase. Then she raised her gaze to the men still on the path. “To what do I owe this honor?”

  “Sunshine that scarce matches your beauty,” Pascoe said.

  Morwenna laughed. “You, sir, should purchase spectacles in Falmouth to call me beautiful when I am all over sand and my hair is tumbling down.”

  “False modesty does not suit you, my lady.” David took the stick from the returning Pastie and threw it farther than she had. “It diminishes what you know we see.”

  “You are unkind to my lady.” Rodda cast David a disapproving glance.

  Pascoe looked hurt. “You toss my compliment away like that stick.”

  “It’s coin so plentiful I fear it is merely gold plating.” Her tone was light, but her cheeks flushed. She ducked her head and brushed off her skirt. “I should take Michal in for his nap.”

  “Allow me.” David picked up the boy, who immediately began to cry in protest. “Stay with the dogs.”

  “That would be kind of you. But he’ll need changing and Miss Pross is occupied in the stillroom.”

  “I have done my fair share of changing babies.”

  The other men, including Nicca, stared at David.

  “What freakish behavior,” Pascoe muttered.

  “Heaven forfend the lower classes gain any influence in this world,” Rodda said, “or we’ll all be doing women’s work.”

  “Giving birth is the only work I know that only women can do.” David lifted Mihal to his shoulders and grinned. “That isn’t to say I’d rather leave many tasks to the ladies, but there’ve been times in our household when the women are all occupied and have asked us for assistance with a task or two. I cannot say nay to my mother when she tells me to do something while I live under her roof.”