A Stranger's Secret

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  Of course he had. His closest friend, her cousin Drake, thought fights with the excise officers were entertainment, and Conan had joined him by his own will. Conan had continued to engage in smuggling, though he had come too close to being caught several times. He must have loved the excitement of the danger well after he had a wife and child. If he had gone to her grandfather for assistance, he could have stopped sooner, ceased breaking the law before he was killed by his fellow smugglers. But he’d been determined to take Penmara out of debt on his own.

  Just like you are.

  She started so abruptly she reined in her mare. Her grandparents and David, still engaged in conversation, and Jago and Tristan likewise discussing something past her, didn’t notice at first that she had stopped. They all rode on for a quarter mile before Jago shouted for them all to stop.

  He wheeled his mount and cantered back to her. “My lady, what’s amiss?”

  “Nothing.” Morwenna curled her hands around her reins to disguise their shaking.

  Surely her situation was different and she wasn’t rejecting her inheritance out of pride.

  “I-I had a thought that startled me is all.”

  “I hope you realized that marrying me is the best thing possible for the two of us.” Jago grinned as though he wanted to add, “Just making a jest.”

  She made herself laugh at the poor joke. “If we want to end up in early graves it is the best for both of us. Now turn your mount around and let us not hold up the party. I believe we are expected for a nuncheon at the Bolithos’.”

  She took her place in the cavalcade again and managed to indulge in the two young men’s banter. Doing so kept her mind from returning to Conan and money, Conan and smuggling, Conan and prideful refusal of help.

  Around noon, they reached the Bolithos’ snug cottage orné tucked into a sheltered pocket of budding greenery. A mere ten miles from the coast, the season seemed far more advanced than along the north coast with tulips blooming in profusion along the front of the fifteen-room house, small by manor standards. The Bolithos were an elderly couple who liked a quiet life in the country except on the occasions when their children and grandchildren came to visit. This was not one of those occasions.

  The Bolithos greeted the Bastion Point party in a sunny parlor, offered refreshment in the form of hot tea, then led them into an equally cozy dining room, where the table seated no more than ten people, for a cold collation of sliced roasted meats, bread rolls, and salad.

  After an initial showing of surprise at David’s Somerset accent, the older couple welcomed him with the same courtesy they afforded all their guests, and the hour the Falmouth-bound party took for repose and to allow their horses rest, passed pleasantly.

  Stiffening up already, Morwenna wished she could stay in the cottage. It seemed so much more like a home than Penmara with its near empty rooms and water-spotted ceilings, and certainly more than Bastion Point with its dozens of chambers filled with treasures few people ever saw. The Bolithos had hung charcoal drawings of their children and grandchildren around the walls of the dining room.

  Almost too weary to eat, Morwenna scanned the pictures. Odd that she had grown up ten miles from these people and didn’t remember meeting their family more than half a dozen times in her life. They seemed to have a grandson near her age. Vaguely she recalled dancing with him at some village fete.

  “Margh,” Mr. Bolitho, to Morwenna’s left, said. “He goes by the English Mark now. Got teased too much about his foreign name at school.”

  “So did I with Morwenna.”

  “It’s a beautiful name, just like you.”

  Morwenna smiled at the old man’s flirtation. “You flatter me.”

  “You should be used to it by now.” Mr. Bolitho patted her hand. “Margh still talks about dancing with you at that fete. Perhaps he shall call on you next time he comes to visit.”

  Morwenna suppressed a groan and inclined her head. “We are nothing if not hospitable, sir.”

  The Bolithos certainly were hospitable. Besides the meal, they packed pasties and bottles of cider for sustenance along the rest of the journey. Then the travelers mounted up and were on their way again.

  Not one word had Morwenna exchanged with David. Seating at the table and courtesy to her host and hostess had kept him on the opposite side of the room from her. She wanted to ask him how he was faring. He looked fatigued, not as upright and steady in the saddle as he had been before lunch. She wanted to inquire if his healing wounds hurt, if he was distressed about returning to the same place his father had died, if he wished to talk to her . . .

  Though he rode a mere dozen feet ahead of her, she missed him. Jago and Tristan tried to engage her in conversation, but she wasn’t interested in the banal banter. She tried to get Tristan to talk about his time at Cambridge, but he waved his hand as though erasing her words from the air. “You don’t need to fill your head with philosophy and history.”

  “Why not?” She wasn’t certain she would understand, and yet she needed to if she was to ensure her son was educated enough to hold his own in society after he reached his majority and took his seat in the House of Lords. Perhaps he would attend one of the universities.

  But the men were laughing at her for asking such silly questions.

  “You don’t need to act the bluestocking to get attention, my dear.” Tristan reached across the space between their mounts and squeezed her hand.

  Annoyed, Morwenna spurred Demelza forward. Forget pride. She would stop waiting for David to acknowledge her presence and simply ride up beside him and engage him in conversation.

  In order to insinuate herself and her mare between Grandmother and David, Morwenna needed to ride close; thus, she was mere inches from David when he slumped sideways and began to fall.

  CHAPTER 17

  THIS TIME, DAVID WAS HORRIBLY, EMBARRASSINGLY SICK from whatever drug had been slipped into his food. Not one Trelawny or the other two men had been near enough to his food to slip some foreign substance into his drink, but he had been around the Trelawnys long enough now to know they could afford to pay for any number of servants to poison him.

  This felt like poison rather than the sleep-inducing effects of opium. Before, he merely slipped into unconsciousness. This time, his insides burned and roiled, and he grew terribly weak before he slipped to the ground, gently, thanks to her ladyship’s maneuvering with her horse, but not gently enough to prevent him from landing with a thud that broke his fragile control on his illness before he lost awareness.

  He left consciousness on the rugged road to Falmouth, cries and shouts ringing in his ears. He regained his senses to quiet dimness, the softness of a bed beneath him, and a feeling like someone had used emery grit to cleanse his insides.

  “Water.” The word sounded more like a frog’s “ribbit” than a human request for something wet to soothe his raw throat.

  The request must have been comprehensible enough, for in a moment, a rustle of fabric and the splash of liquid came to his ears. A soft hand slid along the back of his neck, lifting him just enough for the rim of a glass to slide against his lower lip.

  Not just any soft hand—Morwenna’s. He smelled her sweet lemon fragrance. He opened his eyes to see her beautiful face, her eyes too big and too dark, as though she wore spectacles.

  No, those were tears magnifying her eyes. They swam and pooled on her lower lids. One or two trickled down her cheek.

  With great effort, he raised his hand and brushed one tear away with the pad of his thumb. “Why this? I’m alive.” He tried to smile, but feared he merely grimaced. “Or is that the cause.”

  “Don’t be a widgeon.” She tilted the glass so the cool water slipped down his throat.

  Not until he swallowed did he wonder if perhaps he should not take refreshment from her.

  Then she removed the glass and pressed her lips to his brow. “The physician says only a little at a time.” She eased him back onto the pillows.

  He pressed h
is hand to his brow to hold the kiss close. “What?” He couldn’t find the strength to ask for more details.

  “You were poisoned.” The mattress shifted as she perched on the side of the bed and took his hand in hers. “Not opium this time, but something almost worse. The physician is analyzing what it might be, but he thinks it was dealt with an inexpert hand, perhaps too much so you rejected it, or perhaps too little so it simply made you ill. Whatever the dosage, you-you—” Her voice broke on a sob, and she slid to her knees beside the bed. She clasped his hand in both of hers, and a few tears seeped through her lashes.

  He rolled onto his side and rested his other hand on her neatly coiled hair. “Why are you weeping?”

  “Why do you think?” She sounded angry. “I want you dead? I want you alive so no one can accuse me of trying to kill you? Poison is known as a woman’s tool of murder, you know.”

  “I did not know.” He found one of her pins and tugged it free. Her hair held in place, but he curled his fingers around the bone clip as a keepsake. “I seem to know too little for my own good.”

  “Or you know too much for your own good.” She raised her head. Her lips trembled.

  He wanted to be well so he could kiss her again, see that those lips only quivered because his own covered them and not because she still fought emotion.

  But he wasn’t well. He was so unwell he wished for her to leave him.

  “Why are you here alone with me?” he asked instead of requesting she leave, a request he knew she would ignore.

  “We are in an inn in Falmouth, and Grandmother left a maid to look over you during the night, but I looked in on you and the poor child was sound asleep. I sent her to her bed and stayed myself.”

  “Reputation.” It was the only word he could manage now.

  “It’s of no consequence.”

  “Your investors?”

  “They won’t invest if you succumb to poison, now, will they?”

  “Ah.” Another dose of poison couldn’t hurt so much as her proclamation.

  He let himself fall back on the pillows and willed himself into wellness. Weakness before a lady was too humiliating, and she had already seen him at his worst.

  Fabric rustled, and she released his hand. “I’ll fetch the innkeeper’s lad. He’s a bit of a mooncalf, but capable and kind.”

  So she understood.

  She spoke truth about the innkeeper’s lad, and when she returned, morning had come without him realizing he lost consciousness again. She brought the physician and her grandfather with her.

  “Are you improved from the night, Mr. Chastain?” The physician was a stoop-shouldered gentleman with thinning gray hair, spectacles, and an easy smile. “Lady Penvenan says you had a difficult night.”

  “To my humiliation.” David tried to return the smile.

  He caught Sir Petrok’s scowl and glanced to Morwenna.

  “Grandfather disapproves of me being here last night.” She approached the bed and rested her hand over his. “But the maid was doing you no good.”

  “And you’re doing yourself no good.” Sir Petrok sighed. “Headstrong as ever.”

  “Kindhearted,” David said.

  “I think you should both leave me alone with Mr. Chastain,” the physician said. “I wish to examine him more fully now that he is awake and sensible.”

  The Trelawnys left, still arguing with one another over Morwenna slipping into David’s room during the night. Alone with him, the physician gave him a thorough examination, listening to his heart and lungs with the aid of a long metal tube, and poking and prodding.

  At last, he grunted, gave David more water, then drew a chair up to the bed and sat. “I suspect you ingested too much tansy. It’s plentiful this time of year.”

  “Would I not have tasted that?”

  “I understand you all had salad for lunch. Was it dressed?”

  “Some sort of sauce. Vinegar. Lemons, maybe. I don’t honestly know. I didn’t care much for it, but I could scarcely refuse it.”

  “No, and it would mask the flavor, and you might not notice more herbs among spring greens from a hothouse, as the Bolithos have.”

  “But those kind old people would never—”

  The physician chuckled. “Not in a thousand years. But servants can be bribed. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that one of them has left their employment without notice.”

  David’s head began to ache. “But why? I’m a stranger in these parts.”

  “Or are you?” The physician leaned forward and looked into David’s face. “Are you of any relation to the late William Chastain?”

  David shot upright. “Why do you ask?”

  “Are you?”

  “My father.”

  “Oh, I am sorry.” The physician rubbed his knuckles on his chin. “I was afraid of that. You have much the look of him, and then there’s the Somerset accent.” He heaved a sigh and brought his gaze back to David’s face. “I attended him when he grew ill here at the inn. My surgery is only a step from here, so I am often called for ailing guests.”

  Heart racing, David waited for more.

  “He didn’t have much to say, being far gone when I got here,” the physician obliged him. “I helped him write a letter for his family. Did you receive it with that medallion?”

  “I did.” David’s throat closed and his eyes burned.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t deliver it myself, but I had to go to a difficult lying-in for a friend’s wife in Plymouth and was not here when a family member arrived. Was that you?”

  David nodded, not trusting his voice.

  “A bad business. And now you as well.” He rubbed his chin again. “A bad business indeed.”

  “What . . . do you know of his death?” David asked, his words a mere whisper.

  “I’m afraid,” the physician said, “that he, too, was poisoned, only not being of as hearty a constitution as you, he succumbed.”

  Not some illness he gathered on the road to Falmouth, but poison just like David.

  David wanted to shout, throw something against the whitewashed wall of the inn bedchamber, drag whoever was responsible into court, and see justice done to the maximum extent of criminal punishment.

  He lay perfectly still, his head spinning from weakness and the news, mostly the news. Poisoned. Murdered. Father murdered with poison because he was in Falmouth and not Scotland.

  And where was the money? No doubt stolen by whoever had killed him.

  “I think,” David said, “I would like to be alone.”

  “And I shall leave you alone, but not before I see you take some broth. It should be arriving soon.”

  “Can I trust anything I eat?”

  “I suggest you only eat from the same vessels as others eat from and only be served by someone you trust. And perhaps you wish to send for the constable?”

  “I doubt a constable can do anything to help.” David gathered his wits around him. “What else can you tell me of my father’s last hours?”

  “Too little, I’m afraid. He said he had only eaten at public inns on his way here. But you know how most inns are. A common table where anyone could slip something into a stew or tankard.”

  A knock sounded on the door, and the innkeeper’s son entered with soup and tea. The physician brought them in, made a show of drinking some of both, then set the tray across David’s knees. “Take each mouthful slowly. I will stay to see if you manage to keep it down.”

  David did as the physician ordered, talking in between sips. “Whom can I trust then?”

  “I’m thinking you will have to work that out for yourself, young man. Lady Penvenan seems quite concerned.”

  She did. He wanted her to be. But he had wound up on her beach after his father had died, and now he had nearly died for the same reason.

  “I don’t know. I cannot—” He closed his eyes, too weary to eat, too weary to think. Most of all, he was too weary to let his heart be vulnerable. It felt scraped raw by the pa
in of what felt like losing his father all over again and too many coincidences to be coincidences.

  The physician rose and removed the cup from David’s hand. “I shall return in the forenoon. You rest until then. Have someone send for me if . . .” He named a number of unpleasant symptoms, then departed.

  Poisoned. He had been poisoned. He had come closer to death than before. Someone was growing more serious about seeing him done in. Surely the suspects were finite. Too finite. Pascoe and Rodda didn’t like him around Morwenna, yet he was no competition to them. They were the sort of men ladies like her married. Those two gentlemen should view David as no competition and certainly not so much one of them would need to resort to murder to be rid of him. He would be gone as soon as he was well.

  He would be gone because all his calculations returned to Morwenna.

  “Why?” He posed the question to the next person who walked into his chamber.

  He knew it was her from the lightness of her tread, the sharp sweetness of lemon blossoms, the way his entire being ached to reach out to her.

  He opened his eyes and gazed at her portrait-perfect face, glowing even in the pearly gray of a rainy morning. “Why?”

  “Why what?” Her skirt rustled as though she wore taffeta beneath her blue muslin gown, an alluring whisper his eldest brother had explained to him when telling him how females used their wiles to catch husbands. Martin had gotten caught in a whispering web and seemed most happy with the entanglement. David wanted to be happy with such an arrangement for his heart.

  “Why would someone want to kill me?” He gazed at her, pleading for an answer that didn’t involve her.

  She most improperly perched on the edge of the bed instead of taking the chair the physician had vacated, and took his hand in hers. “To stop you from talking.”

  “About what?”

  She laid one hand along his cheek and turned his face toward her, gazing into his eyes. “You tell me.”

  “Tell you what?” He drank in the sight of her features, committing each detail to memory so he would remember in days to come that he had been this close to her, that he had been closer. “Shall I tell you that I think you’re the most likely person to be drugging my food? Shall I tell you that I think you know perfectly well where the medallion is? Shall I tell you that right now I don’t care about any of that because I love you? Shall—”