Chapter One
The Elms, Cornwall, family seat of the Duke of Hayle—March 5th, 1824, St Piran’s Day
‘You can’t have the land.’ Those were fighting words. The surest way to guarantee Cassian Truscott’s interest in a cause was to tell him something couldn’t be done. That being the case, Inigo Vellanoweth, investment partner, best friend and utterer of said words, currently held all his attention.
Cassian looked up from the map spread before him on the long, polished surface of the estate’s library table. ‘What did you say, Inigo?’
The dark-haired Inigo fixed him with a challenging blue stare from his desk near the wall of long windows overlooking The Elms’s immaculate gardens. ‘You heard me. You can’t have the land. The Earl of Redruth won’t sell.’ He emphasised his point with a wave of the most recent letter in a series of failed attempts.
Cassian sighed. His solicitors and Redruth’s had been meeting all winter to make arrangements for the sale, to no avail. Spring was around the corner and he was no closer to breaking ground on his Cornish pleasure garden than he had been last year. Without Redruth’s acres, there was simply no ground to break.
‘There’s other land, Cass. Perhaps it’s time we consider other options,’ Inigo pointed out practically. ‘There’s the acreage over by Truro,’ he said, reaching for the numbers on the property, but Cassian cut him off. They’d been over this too.
‘No, not land like this,’ Cassian insisted, planting his hands on either side of the map, his gaze lingering on the spot marking the coveted thirty-two acres. Damn. He needed that land. It was the ideal location for accomplishing the achievement of his own dreams and for rejuvenating the Cornish economy. The coastal views were spectacular and sweeping, the distance to Porth Karrek or Penzance close enough to engage workers from several of the villages and to access other needed supplies to run such an establishment. ‘Doesn’t it gall you that the earl won’t sell?’ Inigo was his partner in the Porth Karrek Land Development Company, yet Inigo seemed less bothered by the downturn of events.
‘It’s just business to me, Cass.’ Inigo gave him a wry smile. ‘What do I always say? Don’t get attached to money, to things. It makes a person less flexible.’
Cassian looked up from the map and grimaced. ‘You think I’m being stubborn. You think I should move on and take the land near Truro.’ It might be just business for Inigo, but it was far more than business for Cassian. This project was redemption, a chance to restore a legacy, a chance to do penance to the community for his brother’s mistake. It had to be here. Putting it in Truro couldn’t accomplish those things. It was too far away from the people he wanted to help.
‘Offer Redruth double.’ Cassian sighed. He needed that land. He’d invested months in negotiation—he wasn’t going to give up now.
‘We’ve already offered double,’ Inigo reminded him.
‘I know. Double it again. I can’t imagine why Redruth remains obstinate. It’s not as if he’s using the land. It’s been dormant for over a decade.’ But even as he gave the order, Cassian felt the futility of it deep in his bones. Money would not coerce a man like Redruth, a man much like himself, who had money aplenty to spend, to whom doubling or quadrupling a price was no great stretch. He shook his head, cancelling the suggestion. ‘No. Don’t offer the money. We’ll look stinking desperate and then we’ll never get that land.’
Lord, this was maddening. The earl was well-known for his philanthropy in London. He supported numerous orphanages, championed the veterans of the Napoleonic wars and other causes in Parliament and out. Couldn’t Redruth see all the good that could be done here at home in his very own environs? It wasn’t as if Cassian was asking for charity. He was willing to pay handsomely.
Cassian left the table and went to the windows. He studied the green lawn before him. The sun had broken through the grey skies of the morning marine layer to make for a tolerable afternoon in early March. ‘If money won’t impress him, what will? He’s a hermit except for sitting his seat in London.’ Even in London, the earl barely socialised. He left that work to his son, Phineas. Cassian knew the son by sight only since Phineas was a few years younger. As for the earl, Cassian knew nothing of the man except that he craved seclusion and preferred to wield his power from the behind the walls of Castle Byerd.
‘It’s hard to know how to appeal to such a private man, Inigo. I don’t think he’s gone out in years except to perform his duties and attend church.’ And to host his annual charity ball, the only night of the year the doors of Byerd House in London were thrown open to society. Cassian had attended only once. Usually his father went.
‘What does Redruth need?’ Cassian mused out loud. ‘More importantly, what does he need that he can’t get on his own?’ But nothing came to mind. Surely the man wasn’t unassailable. Everyone had a weakness. ‘Did your digging discover anything?’ After the last refusal, Inigo had set about investigating Redruth’s situation.
‘Only what we already know. He is committed to the land staying in the family. I’ve said it before, but my professional advice is that you look elsewhere for your acres.’ Inigo left the desk to study the map. He tapped a finger. Cassian didn’t need to see the map to know the spot. ‘There are benefits to being near a larger town, Cass.’
Cassian turned from the window. ‘No. Absolutely not. That would be to admit defeat. It’s too far away to provide jobs for the people here, the people I want to help.’ There was nothing like telling a man who had everything that the one thing he truly wanted was beyond his reach. ‘The people of Porth Karrek and the surrounding area need economic relief now.’ His friend, Eaton Falmage and his new bride, Eliza, had begun establishing a string of mining schools to educate the children of miners so that the next generation might have a choice as to how and where they worked. Those benefits would be long-term. But in the meantime, something needed to be done about present conditions and he was determined to do it.
Having been raised on the Cornish coast, he was fond of the expression ‘a high tide raises all boats’. An amusement garden could do that by supplying three hundred jobs directly and countless other employment opportunities indirectly for those more intrepid entrepreneurs willing to set up in business on their own. A project of this magnitude could revitalise the region.
More than that, an amusement garden was Cassian’s dream, his grand vision to bring new experiences to people who never ventured further away from their homes than they could walk in a day. He’d had the luxury of travel. He’d ridden the ice slides of Russia, partaken in the grand amusements of the French. He’d seen and tasted the convergence of culture and food from all over the world in Venice.
Those experiences had enriched him greatly. He’d learned more from those encounters than he had from his time at Oxford. Why shouldn’t others be enriched in the same way? Why not bring those experiences to people who couldn’t go to the source? Why should such enrichment be limited to only the very wealthy? It was the philosophy that Richard Penlerick, the Duke of Newlyn, Cassian’s mentor and friend, had imparted to him for years, encouraging him to have purpose in his travel. ‘Travel for those who cannot. Bring it home for others,’ he’d counselled. ‘So that one man’s experiences might enrich a community.’ Richard Penlerick was dead now, the first anniversary of his death approaching in June, but his legacy was as alive as it had ever been in the schools Eaton and Eliza had founded. Cassian was determined to continue the legacy. Damn the Earl of Redruth for standing in his way on the basis of some reclusive shibboleths about keeping the land in the family.
‘It’s a noble goal, Cass. But are you sure that’s the only reason you’re holding on so tightly?’ Inigo had a way of piercing through the truth to get to even deeper truths, darker truths. Heaven help the man who lied to Inigo. He wouldn’t stand a chance. ‘Don’t tell me this is about honouring Richard Penlerick. You can honour his legacy just as effectively in Truro as you
can here.’
Cassian bristled. He didn’t like being called out. Inigo knew very well he was sailing in dark waters now, close to the things they never discussed. ‘Why don’t you tell me what my secret agenda is, then? What, pray tell, am I holding on to?’
‘There is no need to be testy. Sarcasm doesn’t become you.’ Inigo gave him a hard stare, his voice like the fine, thin, steel of his favourite rapier. Inigo the fencer, with blades, with words. ‘Tell me this isn’t about Collin.’
Collin. His younger brother. Dead now for five years, yet the single word still had the ability to suck all the air, all the life out of him. Anyone close to him knew better than to pull out that particular skeleton from the family closet. It was the Truscott family’s Achilles heel. Ducal families weren’t supposed to have such disasters, such tragedies. Maybe his family wouldn’t have had one either if Cassian had chosen differently when his brother had come to him. But he hadn’t and now Collin was dead. It took Cassian a moment to still his emotions before he could respond. ‘What does it matter if it’s about Collin? We all have our obsessions, Inigo. Vennor’s quest for justice regarding his father’s death. I have Collin and you have Gismond Brenley. Don’t pretend that you aren’t driven to bring down Brenley.’
‘The man has been a thorn in our collective sides for years. He deserves a reckoning, for the part he played in Collin’s death, for what he tried to do to Eliza Blaxland, for what he’s still trying to do to the industries of Cornwall,’ Inigo argued.
Cassian gave a dry laugh. ‘That’s hardly sporting, Inigo. You can justify your obsession, but you won’t validate mine? My revenge against Brenley is to build that park, to give workers a choice. They don’t have to work for Brenley. They don’t have to mine. They can work for me doing any number of things. Then, we’ll see what Brenley has to say when he has no work force.’ Revenge could be served in a variety of ways.
‘Your revenge is only theoretical at the moment, thanks to Redruth,’ Inigo reminded him. ‘That land is meant to stay in the family. If you’re not family, you don’t stand a chance.’
‘Then I need to become family.’ That sparked an idea. Cassian strode to the shelves, searching for his father’s copy of Debrett’s Peerage. Cornish families were tight-knit and old, with lineages that went back to William the Conqueror. He set the book on the table alongside the map and opened it, running a finger along the list of names and stopping beside Prideaux. Perhaps there was some remote connection between the Truscotts and the Prideauxes, or perhaps, failing that, there was some remote cousin in need of marrying.
His finger stilled at the thought. Would he really be willing to marry for the land? It wasn’t a preposterous strategy. His own lineage was something he could barter with. He was a duke’s heir, a wealthy man with a title of his own as Viscount Trevethow. He could, maybe, entice Redruth with that. It was always worthwhile to have a future duke on the family tree. If he did that, though, what would be the difference between him and his last mistress? Cassian suppressed a shudder, unable to shake the idea that such a trade reduced him to a high-class whore and not even an honest one. It would be backhanded to marry without disclosing the truth: that he was the chief owner of the Porth Karrek Land Development Company, which Redruth had already discouraged in its pursuit of the very land available to him in the marriage settlement. Of course, it would come at the cost of Redruth despising his new son-in-law for the deception. Hardly ideal grounds on which to begin married life, to say nothing of what his bride would think of the situation.
Aside from that, however, a marriage between the Earldom of Redruth and the Dukedom of Hayle would be a grand alliance of two old Cornish families, Cassian thought wryly. Many men of his age and social standing married for less. At the end of the proverbial day, he’d have his land—perhaps the rest didn’t matter as long as the dream could move forward. But the rest did matter. Achieving the dream by marrying for the land came with great cost, starting with his pride and ending with the loss of other dreams he held close, dreams that might seem fanciful to other peers. He’d like to fall in love with his wife. He’d like his marriage to be as grand in passion as it would be in politics. He’d like his marriage to be more than a contract, although that might be even more of a pipe dream than his pleasure garden.
In Cassian’s experience, men of his station were regular targets for matchmaking mamas and pound-wise papas who saw the financial as well as social benefits of such a match. One had to be on constant guard in order not to fall prey to their schemes. His brother and that unholy mess with Brenley’s daughter was indication enough that such caution was not misplaced paranoia.
Yet the notion persisted for Cassian that, despite the monumental evidence to the contrary, love inside of marriage was possible. His own parents were proof of it. The Trelevens were proof of it, Cador and Rosenwyn Kitto were proof of it as were Eaton and Eliza. Why shouldn’t he have the same? Why should he settle for a dynastic contract? Cassian scanned Debrett’s for the Prideauxes, his eyes landing on the list of the earl’s family members.
Countess of Redruth, Lady Katherine Prideaux, née Dunstan. Born 1783. Died 1814.
She’d been young. He’d been little more than a boy when she’d passed. There was Phineas Michael, the son and heir. His finger stopped on the name below it.
Penrose, Margaret. Born 1803.
Inigo’s gaze was steady on him. ‘You think to marry for it. I see it in your eyes and now you’ve found the daughter. So many forget about her.’ Inigo’s eyes narrowed as they studied him. ‘No one’s seen her. She doesn’t go about in society.’ Like father like daughter it seemed on that note.
There was a wealth of implication in those words. Cassian shut the book. Perhaps she was the reason for the Earl’s reclusive lifestyle. Perhaps there was a reason she hadn’t been seen in public. Was she crippled? Burned? Did she limp? Not that those things mattered to Cassian. He was not as shallow as to determine someone’s worth based on their physical abilities. But society was. Regardless of her potential afflictions, it seemed Redruth’s daughter wasn’t bound to be a beauty.
‘Certainly, though, her father’s title and her dowry are enough to guarantee she has suitors regardless of her looks,’ Inigo pointed out.
‘But not me among them.’ Not yet. Cassian wasn’t willing to engage in such manoeuvring. To sacrifice one dream for the sake of the other seemed to demean both dreams. Perhaps it would come to that, making himself into a placeholder for an exchange of titles and lands. For today, he was out of ideas until he could figure out what might persuade Redruth. Tomorrow, he would write to the earl one more time, outlining all the benefits of such a sale.
Cassian put the book away and stretched. ‘I’m going out. I’ll ride into Redruth and take in the St Piran’s Day festivities while the sun is shining. The town always puts on a good fair. The fresh air will clear my head. Perhaps I’ll think of a new angle for getting that land while I’m there.’ Maybe he wouldn’t need to. Perhaps once the earl read all the benefits that could come from such a project, he wouldn’t be so hard-hearted as to reject progress when it came with so many advantages and a substantial offer of cash.
Copyright © 2020 by Nikki Poppen
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ISBN:
9781488065583
Saved by Her Enemy Warrior
Copyright © 2020 by Greta Gilbert
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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Saved by Her Enemy Warrior Page 24
