On The Shores 0f Tregalwen (A Cornish Romance Book 0.5)

by Deborah M. Hathaway

  “I assure you, Hannah,” her grandmother had said during one of her visits to London, “with his father’s death, Thomas’s time has been taken up entirely with running his estate.”

  “It is clear, though, that he is trying to live his life without your friendship,” Lady Beatrice had added. “I should like to see you do the same.”

  So Hannah had stopped writing to him, as well. Though she had been unable to put him fully from her mind, she doubted very much that she would ever see him again.

  “Hannah? Hannah, did you hear me?”

  Her mother’s voice pulled her from her thoughts. “Forgive me, Mother. I was—”

  “You were thinking of Cornwall again, weren’t you?” Lady Beatrice pressed a hand to her chest, her eyebrows raised high with sorrow. “I do not understand why, after so long apart, you now wish to leave me. I can only assume it is because you despise me for leaving you when you were a child.”

  Hannah bit her lip. She found it difficult to commiserate with her mother’s self-pity when Hannah had assured her many times that she had loved her childhood and did not blame her mother for leaving her in Cornwall. Nothing Hannah said ever seemed to make any difference.

  “I do not despise you, Mother. I merely wish to see my grandparents again and…and the manor.”

  Lady Beatrice’s hand dropped to her side, and she narrowed her eyes. “Is that all?” She waited, but Hannah said nothing further. “Well, we have been through this before. I haven’t the stamina to make the journey, and you certainly cannot go on your own.” She took a step closer, lowering her voice. “We have already discussed the sorry state of your grandparents’ finances. When you were a child, you were a burden they could hardly afford. How could you ask the same of them again?”

  Hannah ducked her head. Her mother was right. Hannah would be very ungrateful if their funds were drained further for her sake.

  “I understand perfectly, Mother,” she said.

  “Come, come, Hannah,” Lady Beatrice said, raising Hannah’s chin with a stiff finger. “Your life is not so bleak as you sometimes imagine it to be.”

  “Of course, Mother.”

  “As evidence, let us continue with our earlier conversation.” Lady Beatrice’s smile returned. “As I said, Mr. Hawkins has been behaving very differently this evening. Have you noticed?”

  Thomas’s hazel eyes still in Hannah’s mind were replaced with Mr. Hawkins’s dark blue. “I don’t believe so.”

  “For once, I am grateful for your inattentiveness, if only so I may tell you this now myself.”

  Hannah narrowed her eyes, leaning in as her mother, practically beaming, lowered her voice.

  “I have it on good authority,” Lady Beatrice began, “why, from Mrs. Hawkins herself, that her son is very much in love with you.”

  Hannah froze, her fan suspended in midair. “Mr. Hawkins? In love with me? Surely not.”

  “Hush, Hannah,” Lady Beatrice scolded, lowering her voice further and glancing around to ensure their conversation remained unheard, despite the swarming ballroom. “I assure you, he is. He also means to propose, and soon. Mrs. Hawkins and I, of course, are thrilled with the prospect of a marriage taking place between the two of you.”

  “A marriage?” Hannah blanched. “No, I cannot marry him.”

  Lady Beatrice’s smile faded away, and Hannah bit her tongue. She knew better than to speak so candidly. Had she learned nothing about keeping her mother happy?

  “You enjoy his company, do you not?” Lady Beatrice asked.

  “Of course, Mother. However, I—”

  “And he is so very handsome.”

  “Yes, he is, but—”

  “Then a marriage is possible.”

  Her words caused Hannah’s head to spin. Hannah and Mr. Hawkins had become friends over the years, but she did not love him. And she was certain he did not love her. He had always been kind and respectful to her, but she had observed him treating every other woman in Town with the same regard. How did that mean he loved her?

  “You are…quite certain?” Hannah asked.

  “Oh, yes. Mrs. Hawkins has said so herself.” Lady Beatrice paused. “Why, Hannah, you seem surprised. Did you have no idea of his feelings?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “How can this be so? I was certain you knew. Mrs. Hawkins has said herself that you have done much to encourage his love.”

  Hannah snapped her fan closed. How could she have encouraged his affection when she was completely unaware of his supposed attentions until that very moment? “I most certainly have not, Mother.”

  “Oh, Hannah,” Lady Beatrice began, thin wrinkle lines appearing on her forehead. “This is why I was hesitant to bring up the matter at all. Indeed, I have known for days now. As you know, Mrs. Hawkins and I have grown so close over the years, what with our shared heartbreak of losing our husbands. There is nothing that would please the both of us more than to see our own children make a wonderful match with one another. You both would then experience the joy we have not felt in so long.”

  Hannah waited to feel the familiar contrition, the guilt that always arose when her mother spoke of her hardships, but the heat from the dazzling chandeliers and the dozens of bodies crushing around her distracted Hannah so completely, she felt little sympathy.

  Lady Beatrice clasped Hannah’s hand between hers. “My dear, I wish only for your happiness. It would do my poor heart good to see you live beyond the isolation of Cornwall, to finally forget the life you left behind and experience London fully, where true happiness exists.”

  Hannah listened in a daze, unable to speak as her throat tightened.

  “You would make such a fine mistress of Dawnridge,” her mother continued. “Mrs. Hawkins adores you, and I should like very much to have Mr. Hawkins for a son-in-law.” She leaned forward with pleading eyes. “If you married him, our family would be whole again. Do you think such a union could be made, Hannah, to help heal our family? Do you think you could marry him?”

  Hannah could hardly breathe. Her mother’s expectant gaze produced an answer within her, the words echoing around her in monotonous tones as she said them aloud. “Yes, perhaps I could.”

  “Oh, I am so very pleased!” Lady Beatrice exclaimed, clapping her hands beneath her chin. She paused, looking around her as if only just realizing they stood surrounded by others. “But now is hardly the time to speak of such matters, is it? I’m afraid my excitement has allowed me to become carried away. Let us speak more about it tomorrow in the privacy of our own home. Oh, Hannah, you have made me so very happy!”

  She reached forward, embracing her so quickly Hannah did not have time to respond.

  “Now, I shall speak with Mrs. Hawkins about opening a door. You appear even more flushed than before. I can imagine why, but you must try to cool yourself before the next dance is called.”

  She walked away, speaking to herself about the plans to be made and people to tell once the proposal had been set, but Hannah stopped listening, her stomach tossing from side to side.

  The musicians tuned their instruments in loud, discordant sounds, the flamboyant laughter and conversation swirled in her ears, and her chest rose and fell with quick breaths.

  “Excuse me, Miss Summerfield?”

  Hannah turned toward a young man standing before her, an eager smile on his lips.

  “I believe I have the pleasure of having the next dance with you,” he said.

  Dance? She could not dance.

  “Forgive me, sir,” she said, grasping her fan tightly between her fingers, “but I fear I am no longer dancing this evening. Do excuse me.”

  Hannah darted past him, running from the ballroom and past the bewildered looks of others until she reached the street outside where she paused to catch her breath.

  Her mother had no notion of the sacrifices Hannah had made to adapt and conform to London life. Hannah’s determined, spontaneous nature had been sapped away and replaced with reserved repetition and
a life void of peace. And now she was expected to marry without love? It was too much. Never had Hannah wanted more than to simply leave it all behind.

  She moved toward the carriages with a determined step.

  Peace. That was what she needed. Time away to think, to allow peace once more into her life.

  And she knew exactly where to go to receive it.

  Chapter Two

  Cornwall

  Thomas Causey shook his head, averting his gaze from the dinner party invitation that lay open on his desk.

  When would the mothers around St. Just stop attempting to marry their daughters off to him? Their unsuccessful efforts had become excessive ever since he had inherited Leighton House.

  “Thankfully I have an actual excuse not to attend this one,” he said aloud to the empty room.

  The rest of his household had already retired, leaving him alone with a crackling fire in the hearth and rain sliding down the outside of the window in his study.

  A candle cast its glow upon his desk, letters of business, lists of repairs needed at his tenants’ homes, and more invitations from even more mothers scattered across the mahogany wood.

  He scribbled out a quick decline to Mrs. Stedman, knowing he ought to have responded earlier than the day before the party.

  I’ve been busy, he thought, seeing to the affairs of the estate.

  His excuse was mostly true. He had been busy, no matter that it was all his own doing to keep his thoughts from straying to things, and people, he ought not dwell on. Not anymore.

  After all, he had learned rather quickly that she did not think of him. When Hannah had lived in London for no longer than a year, Thomas had asked if he could visit her. To his dismay, Hannah gave no response to his request, and soon her letters had stopped altogether. He was eventually forced to consider that either Lady Beatrice had finally convinced Hannah to embrace London and leave Cornwall behind…or Hannah had become attached to another, despite her grandparents claiming the opposite only days before.

  In truth, Thomas found the fact that she remained single after three years in London shocking, for who could not love Hannah Summerfield? Even as a boy, he had loved her. She was adventurous, carefree, and enchanting with blue eyes that sparkled brighter than the sea at midday.

  “But I should not think of her,” he reminded himself, crossing the room to toss another log onto the dying embers in the hearth. “I shall not see her again.”

  A single flame lapped up the side of the log, and as he watched it dance in the air, he could not help but hope that perhaps one day he would be proven wrong.

  * * *

  Hannah regretted at once her impulsive decision to leave the stagecoach behind and complete the rest of her journey to Rudhek Manor on foot.

  The driver had offered to take her farther down the lane, but as Hannah had been sitting near an ample-sized woman for nearly three hours, she had taken the very first opportunity to remove herself and her lady’s maid from their tight quarters and freely explore the countryside around them.

  That was her first mistake.

  Her next was assuming she could still find the way to her grandparents’ home. She had been certain it was just down the road, but as the sky grew darker, the rain fell harder, and the road grew longer, she wondered if she had become lost in the vast countryside after all.

  At least I have the sense to remain on the road, she thought.

  Though, which road she was on, she was no longer certain.

  “Careless,” she muttered to herself as she trudged through the mud, brown specks flinging higher and higher up her skirt with each step. “That is what I am. Absolutely careless.”

  “What was that, miss?”

  Hannah looked over her shoulder to where her lady’s maid walked behind her. Even in the darkness, Hannah could see the weariness in her eyes and the sinking of her shoulders.

  “Oh, I was merely stating that…you ought to take heart, Daisy. I am certain we are almost there.”

  “Yes, miss.”

  Hannah smiled at her with an encouraging nod before facing forward.

  Poor girl. She certainly did not share the same level of enthusiasm as Hannah when tramping through a storm in the darkness. If Hannah could have made the journey from London alone, she would not have had to drag the girl from her bed in the early hours of the morning without a word to anyone. Blasted Society and their rules of impropriety. And blasted mothers who inflicted their own desires upon their children.

  Hannah grimaced. She knew she would not have received consent to go to Cornwall had she asked, just as she knew she would be pressured into truly marrying Mr. Hawkins if she remained in London. As such, she had no choice but to leave—as soon as she could manage and without her mother’s knowledge.

  Even as the August rain poured down in droves upon them, Hannah found it very difficult to feel remorse for her actions. Her body had grown weary from three days of travel, but her spirits refused to dampen—unlike her bonnet and cloak that no longer kept the rain from her person—for she had finally arrived in Cornwall.

  She longed to see the yellow gorse blooming along the road, the tors stacked high in piles of gray stone, and the waves rushing upon the sand, but the darkness prohibited any sight-seeing at all.

  That is, until a few glowing lights appeared in the distance. Hannah smiled, hastening her step. “There, I remembered the way after all.”

  “Thank goodness,” she heard Daisy mutter.

  Hannah switched her large bag to her other hand. Stuffed inside was a spare dress, a change of underclothes, her shawl, and a few pairs of gloves, all she had been able to gather before her departure.

  Her lack of belongings was the least of her concerns, however, as she splashed through the puddles, apprehensive to think of how her grandparents would react to her unexpected arrival.

  “You were a burden,” her mother had said, “a burden that they could hardly afford.”

  Hannah’s stomach turned. She knew her grandparents would do anything for her. They always had. She flinched at the idea of further draining their waning finances, but what other choice did she have? She had no intention of returning to London, and the little money she had was expended on the coach and nightly rooms. Her only option was to tell her grandparents she was willing to earn her keep…and pray they were as generous as they always had been.

  Hannah continued toward the lights of the Summerfield’s manor, but when the characteristic hedge lining the road to her grandparent’s estate did not appear, she frowned.

  She wiped the rain from her eyes, squinting to better see into the distance. When she caught sight of a two-storied house, light from the windows revealing ivy that climbed up one side of the stone, her breath caught in her throat, and her feet stopped in their tracks.

  “Leighton House?”

  “What is it, miss?” Daisy asked as she came to stand beside her. “Is it not your grandparents’ home?”

  Hannah bit her lip, shaking her head. “No, it is not.”

  “Well, do you know whose house it is?”

  She could hear the thinly veiled despair in Daisy’s tone.

  “It is…an old friend’s.”

  “Perhaps she can help us reach your grandparents, as we seem to have…lost our way.”

  Hannah didn’t bother to clarify that her friend was a gentleman. The thought of Thomas sent her mind spinning. Would she still be welcome in his home after they had not spoken in years? And what would he think, her appearing at his doorstep unannounced in the dark, looking the way she did, after being gone for so long?

  “No, I think we’re better off going to Rudhek Manor ourselves,” she said. “I know the way from here. I have made the journey before many times.”

  And she could do it again.

  Ignoring the look of horror on Daisy’s face, she turned around. The darkness that instantly enveloped her, however, made her pause once more.

  What was she doing? The air had chilled, her limbs had b
egun to ache from the journey, and her stomach grumbled. She’d not had more than a slice of cold meat at the inn where they had stopped for dinner. It was a miracle she had not collapsed already in the middle of the road. And Daisy even more so.

  No, it was time to be sensible and seek help at Leighton House. Thomas would still consider her a friend. She was certain he would help her.

  “Very well,” she muttered, turning back to the small estate. “Let us seek help there.”

  She didn’t miss the relief in Daisy’s eyes.

  Hannah pulled her feet out of the mud and moved forward with a raised chin.

  I shall knock softly and allow the butler to see to me first, she sorted out in her mind as she kicked her skirts away from her legs. Then I shall have a moment to compose myself before Thomas is even alerted.

  She moved up the small set of stairs to the front door before Daisy spoke behind her. “Shall I go around the back, miss?”

  “No, don’t be silly. You just stay with me. I’ll see that we both get warmed.”

  Daisy took a few steps back, bowing her head. She was clearly uncomfortable not using the servant’s entrance, but Hannah had too much on her mind to worry about Daisy’s sense of propriety.

  She reached up and rapped her knuckles against the wood. Trepidation filled her chest but also…something akin to excitement bubbled just behind it.

  Thomas. How she had missed him.

  Footsteps sounded within the house, then the door clicked and opened.

  “Forgive me,” Hannah said. “I was headed for Rudhek Manor, but in the darkness, I somehow missed the turn. I would—”

  “Hannah?”

  Her eyes adjusted quickly, and the dim candlelight coming from within the home revealed a pair of hazel eyes she would know anywhere.

  She had always imagined their reunion a little differently. Perhaps in the daytime with a little less rain, definitely less mud. Still, seeing him produced a familiar stirring within her heart. Before she could think, she launched toward him and wrapped her arms around his neck.