A Lady's Honor

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  Rowan fixed his gaze on Penvenan. “Even so, sir, we should keep the ladies close to home.”

  And he would guard Morwenna himself, regardless of the consequences.

  On the twenty-third of May, the day after the new moon, he faced those consequences in the form of Penvenan pacing back and forth across the stable yard, a white line around his lips and a vein pulsing at one temple. He turned on Rowan the instant he came within earshot. “Where have you been all night?”

  “Playing guard dog.” Rowan kept his tone calm, neutral.

  “I don’t believe you were merely guarding.” Penvenan smacked his riding crop against his gloved palm.

  Rowan gave the implement a narrow-eyed glare. “Do you intend to use that on me, sir?”

  “Maybe if I had a dozen years ago, you’d have turned out better.”

  Rowan’s face froze to mask the pain of those words. Some men would be proud of how he had turned out. Austell Penvenan thought Rowan lacked in every aspect because he chose conscience over an unjust law.

  He managed a stiff smile now. “I admire your forbearance, sir, though your tongue-lashings have stung quite enough.”

  “If you’ve been with a female, I will take this crop to you—or a horse whip.” He smacked the crop against the leather again for emphasis.

  Rowan sighed. “Do you not yet believe that the biblical principles by which I live my life keep me from that kind of behavior? I would no more spend the night with a female not my wife than I would steal from your strongbox, and you’ve trusted me with a key to that for four years.” He turned toward the house. “Now may I go get some breakfast, then rest for an hour or two? I have been keeping watch over Miss Morwenna Trelawny.”

  As her dogs were no good if they didn’t bark at people they knew.

  Which was no help. They might know everyone in the parish.

  “Why are you watching over her?” Penvenan took a step toward him.

  Rowan shrugged as though his night’s vigil meant little instead of the significance he had worked out after Elizabeth told him she’d been pushed off the cliff path. “I made a promise to Conan, and the smugglers might have taken out revenge on her with their night’s work interrupted.”

  “Huh. She was likely involved with them up to her pretty eyes.”

  “An interesting theory I hadn’t considered.” Even more likely now that he added his other suppositions to it.

  He started for the house. “I’ll see that the repairs on the roof are well underway today, sir. Are you riding with Miss Trelawny today?”

  “On my own. Miss Trelawny is laid up from that tumble she took, silly chit.”

  Rowan halted but kept his face turned away. “Is she injured badly?”

  “She has a mild chill and enough bruises to make her stiff. Why she had to go walking on the cliff . . .” He sighed, and even that held affection.

  Rowan’s desire for breakfast vanished. “Walking on the cliff alone was a foolish thing to do. I expect . . .”

  She was running away from the confines of her life.

  “Enjoy your ride, sir, and have a care.” He faced Penvenan. “Do you wish for me to come with you?”

  “I do not need a minder. But thank you.”

  “That dead bird was not a very subtle warning. They want Penmara empty.”

  Penvenan shrugged off the idea. “Will you be going to that horse fair?”

  “It’s next week.”

  “Good. I don’t like to continue borrowing mounts from the Trelawnys.” With a nod, Penvenan headed in the opposite direction.

  Rowan returned to the house head down, hands clasped behind his back. He and Penvenan had parted on what, for them, were cordial terms. Maybe Penvenan had been angry because he was worried about Rowan’s welfare. He did upon occasion consider that Rowan got himself into dangerous situations. If only Penvenan would admit that he’d gotten himself into one as well. Unfortunately, he was too much enjoying his new role as lord of the manor—and Elizabeth’s approved suitor—to heed any warnings.

  Rowan eschewed breakfast as well as a rest, and climbed onto the roof to slam nails through shingles and into roof beams himself.

  CHAPTER 16

  A WEEK’S CONFINEMENT IN HER BEDCHAMBER WAS surely enough to drive anyone to madness. By Friday, she had taken to asking everyone to leave her chamber so she didn’t have to play one more game or listen to another sermon or novel read to her. She read the first volume of the family chronicle, but learned nothing of treasure other than the pirate gold accumulated by her ancestress. That, Elizabeth now knew, was not what Grandpapa meant. That realization left her frustrated and hollow, restless and yearning for air.

  By Sunday, though walking down steps proved painful, she looked forward to services for something new in her narrow existence. But during breakfast, Senara slipped into another episode of chills and shivering, not surprising after her recent ordeal. She asked Elizabeth to stay home with her. Elizabeth acquiesced, though she had been looking forward to the short walk to the village and seeing people.

  “Miss Pross will stay with you,” Grandmama said. “Elizabeth needs to go with us.”

  “Bu-but Miss Pros-ss is a s-servant,” Senara protested between chattering teeth.

  Grandmama proved adamant and Senara too unwell to object without getting from bed and going to church.

  “I don’t like these spells.” Grandmama’s brow furrowed as she and Elizabeth descended to the front hall. “She has always been a robust girl.”

  Elizabeth inspected the angle of her hat in a mirror over the hall table. “The apothecary believed it is an upset of her mind because of losing her brother so awfully. It’s been little more than a month now, not time enough to heal from that kind of a loss. Add the accident to that, and it’s surprising she hasn’t gotten completely crazed. Is this too flirtatious an angle for church?”

  A feather curved over the brim and kissed her cheek.

  “I think it charming.” Grandmama narrowed her eyes and smiled. “Wanting to look your best for a certain gentleman?”

  Elizabeth turned from the mirror. “I doubt any gentleman cares about the angle of my hat when he can see the weight of my purse.”

  “Elizabeth, you know that isn’t true.” Grandpapa entered the hall and they headed for the village, servants trailing behind. “Granted, you have had a considerable number of fortune hunters sniffing around you, but Penvenan is not the same as the Romsfords of the world.”

  “My parents declare Romsford was never interested in my dowry.” Elizabeth tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. “Do you know differently?”

  “He has a sizable fortune, yes, but he wants land in Cornwall. I gather he thought you would help him gain that.”

  “However do you know that, Petrok?” Grandmama asked from his other side.

  “He’s been asking about available land in Truro these past weeks.”

  Elizabeth skidded to a halt. “He’s still there?”

  “Yes, oddly enough.”

  The idea of going to Truro no longer pleased Elizabeth. Yet she must see Rowan. He believed her when she said someone had pushed her. The instant she told him she’d been pushed, his sea-blue eyes had brightened like someone drawing a curtain back from a sunny window. He knew something he wanted to tell her. He—

  He had kissed her brow.

  She shouldn’t see him. She was being courted by another man, the man who employed him. And she wouldn’t do so if she didn’t need to know why someone had pushed her off the cliff path.

  Not that she hadn’t tried to tell Grandpapa. He had smiled and shaken his head. “Your death would gain no one anything.” He patted her hand. “You just rest and think twice about walking on the path in the mist next time.”

  She needed to go to town. But the thought of coming face-to-face with the marquess chilled her. If he wanted land in Cornwall, and she stood to inherit . . .

  No need to worry. Grandpapa would keep her safe. The grandparents and the
men from Penmara would protect her. The latter stood on the porch of the church side by side, but not looking at one another. They both smiled and bowed to the Trelawny party, and Lord Penvenan offered Elizabeth his arm.

  “So good to see you up and about, my dear. Feeling well enough to go to Truro tomorrow?”

  “I think I’ll go mad if I do not.” She met Rowan’s gaze past Penvenan’s shoulder.

  He inclined his head, then moved before them to open the door to the Trelawny pew. As she passed him to slip inside, he released the door, and it jostled her arm, knocking her Bible out of her hand.

  “I beg your pardon.” He bent and retrieved the book, then returned it to her. “No harm done.”

  “Clumsy of you, Rowan.” Penvenan glared at him.

  Rowan smiled and crossed to the Penmara pew.

  “I apologize for my . . . employé,” Penvenan said to Elizabeth. “Shall I accompany you home from service?”

  “If you like.” Elizabeth nodded to him, then slipped into the pew. Beneath the wall surrounding the seat, she opened her Bible and looked at the pages where a folded scrap of paper created a bulge that hadn’t been there earlier.

  The Red Lion. One of the clock. Urgent. Go nowhere alone.

  No Elys, no ornate R, just those cryptic words scrawled with a graphite pencil.

  How he expected her to meet him at a public inn on a Monday afternoon she knew not, yet she would manage somehow. That he took her claim of being pushed seriously left her shaken and cold, as though she were about to start shivering like Senara.

  She grasped her Bible as though it were what held her steady and in place. Not quite the “holding on to the Word of God” she had heard some religious people advocate, yet it helped to have something solid to wrap her fingers around, the leather of the cover supple in her hands, warming through her gloves. She never let go of the Bible throughout the service, through liturgy and prayers, singing of Psalms, and the sermon.

  “In the eighth chapter of the book of Romans,” Mr. Kitto spoke from the pulpit in his clear yet gentle voice, “we are told that God commends his love for us, for while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. And earlier, in the fifth chapter, we are reminded that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Yes, my children, I believe that God loves us, each and every one of us, without reservation and without prompting from us . . .”

  Elizabeth shifted to avoid placing weight on her still-tender left leg. She wanted to walk, run, ride like the wind, anything to blow away the restlessness creeping through her.

  “God loves us unconditionally,” Kitto was saying.

  Not likely. She had nothing to offer him. As a child she thought she did, and she knew God loved children. As a young woman she felt as though she trod the ballrooms and assembly rooms with less direction than someone blindfolded in an old mine, and she stopped believing in the security of a God who loved her regardless of what she had to offer. He wanted her life, after all. Since she was unwilling to give it to him, then God wanted nothing to do with her, as her parents wanted nothing to do with her now that she had refused to do their bidding. And now her grandparents wanted her to consider an alliance with Penvenan. More acceptable than Romsford, but disregarding her wishes. I can’t accept you, Lord, for I do not understand unconditional love.

  The service ended with Elizabeth none the wiser, no less restless, no less in need of seeking something to fill the hollowness invading her heart. With a smile that felt false on her lips, she greeted Lord Penvenan and allowed him to walk her back to Bastion Point.

  He stayed for the cold dinner. The Kittos joined them. Miss Pross descended to say Senara was sleeping, but seemed to be having disturbed dreams.

  “She whimpers in her sleep like a puppy.” Miss Pross’s little rosebud of a mouth pursed, and she shook her head. “And she’s been off sweets for weeks. I believe she’s gotten thinner.”

  “We should find her a husband when her mourning is passed,” Mrs. Kitto declared. “She needs a home and a family of her own.”

  Elizabeth refrained from asking who in Cornwall would marry Senara Penvenan with no dowry, unless her cousin would provide one for her.

  Bold as doing so was, Elizabeth asked Lord Penvenan about a dowry for Senara on the way to Truro the next day. With the Trelawny carriage full, he had taken her up in his chaise, so they could talk without fear of Senara overhearing.

  “That is one matter of business I intend to take care of today with the solicitors. She cannot return to Penmara until I wed.” He shot Elizabeth a sidelong glance she chose to ignore. “Yet I cannot expect your grandparents to take care of her until then either. Now, what do you plan to do with your day in the city?”

  “Truro,” she said with more than a little asperity, “is not a city. It is a provincial town that offers little more than a few inns and shops and the stamping of tin for sale.”

  “Pardon me?” Penvenan laughed at her. “I forget you have spent much of your life in London. Then what do you do in a town with so little to offer?”

  What would he do if she told him she intended to make an assignation with his secretary? Most likely send Rowan packing back to Penmara. At present, he rode behind the carriages like one of the outriders. Somehow, in three hours, she must meet him.

  The rendezvous appeared impossible. The carriages set the ladies down amidst the shops and drove off for the men to conduct their business. With Senara trailing behind complaining about how all she could wear was borrowed blacks for the next five months, Elizabeth, Grandmama, and Miss Pross chose ribbons and silk thread for embroidering, linen with a little inexpensive lace for maid’s caps, and some spangles Elizabeth wanted to sew onto the gown she still found excessively dull even with the embroidery she had added to the hem.

  She paused at the window of one shop that, quite daringly, displayed bathing costumes. Hers was at the house in Brighton awaiting a summer excursion to the seaside town, and she hadn’t been able to bring it west with her. “May I buy a new one, Grandmama? I do so miss sea bathing.”

  “You are too old to cavort about half dressed.” Grandmama grasped her arm and dragged Elizabeth away as though she were a child begging for sweets.

  Perhaps she could swim in the costume she had worn for tennis.

  “I’d think you had enough of being in the sea after your fall last week,” Senara said. “Isn’t it frightfully cold?”

  “Not when one is dressed enough to move one’s arms and legs.” Elizabeth cast a long glance at the display.

  Senara giggled. “Don’t you mean undressed enough?”

  “Girls.” Grandmama’s tone scolded as though they were schoolgirls. “We shall stop into the dressmaker’s and then go on to have some refreshment.”

  Elizabeth glanced at a clock placed in the window of a jeweler’s shop and saw her opportunity to get away. “May we stop first? I fear my leg is growing a bit stiff.”

  It was nothing painful enough for her to require a rest at once, but enough that she didn’t really fib.

  And it worked. Grandmama stopped and frowned at her, her eyes gentle and kind. “I should have thought of that. We’ll go back to the inn first. It’s right around the corner.”

  They entered the private parlor, and tea and cakes soon followed. Although she dropped two large lumps of sugar in her tea, Senara only ate two cakes and an almond macaroon. Elizabeth took no sugar and only managed to nibble at a seed cake. For no good reason, a congregation of plovers seemed to have taken up residence in her middle. The closer to one the clock grew, the more the wading birds seemed to splash about and cause more of a disturbance.

  She didn’t like being deceitful, though now that she sat, it felt so much better than standing about or walking the cobbled streets, so perhaps she was not being too terribly deceitful . . .

  “I’d rather stay here than go on to the dressmaker’s,” she blurted out in a rush.

  Three pairs of eyes turned startled glances on her.

  Her cheeks grew warm. �
��I didn’t realize my leg would feel so much better sitting still.”

  “But I need your advice at the dressmaker’s,” Senara protested.

  “Miss Pross and Grandmama can advise you better than I.”

  Absolute truth. Elizabeth knew nothing of appropriate mourning dress. Providing Senara with a few gowns made for her had been a generous gesture from Penvenan.

  “I’m afraid I grow disagreeable at dressmaker shops, and if I’m forced to stand about, I’ll be worse.” Elizabeth smiled to soften her claim.

  “You never grow disagreeable, Miss Trelawny.” Miss Pross patted her hand. “But you do look a bit pinched around the eyes. Perhaps this excursion was too much too soon.”

  “Perhaps it was.” Grandmama tapped a forefinger on her chin. “I suppose you may stay here safely if you remain in this room. But will you not grow bored?”

  “There are some books here I can read. I’m never bored if I can read a book.”

  And if Rowan arrived.

  At two minutes of one, the other ladies departed. Elizabeth chose a book on fishing called The Compleat Angler and settled to wait for only a few minutes.

  A few minutes became ten, then twenty. At the half hour mark, she ventured as far as the top step to see if perhaps Rowan had expected her to wait for him in the open like some shopgirl.

  Rowan was nowhere in sight, but his employer was. Right outside the entrance of the inn, Austell Lord Penvenan stood in earnest conversation with the Marquess of Romsford.

  CHAPTER 17

  ROWAN LEANED AGAINST THE PANELED WALL OF THE inn, arms crossed over his chest, lips flattened against his teeth—teeth he gritted hard enough to grind them down to nubs if Penvenan’s conversation continued much longer. More than a half hour had passed since Rowan was supposed to meet Elizabeth. He’d seen her poised at the top of the steps, then whisk out of sight again. He wanted to go after her, but if he did, Penvenan would see him. Romsford would see him. They would end their dialogue, which was a little too enlightening for Rowan.

  “Why Cornwall?” Penvenan was asking Romsford. “It’s not a particularly hospitable county. Wouldn’t Kent or Dorset be more comfortable?”