“A crown.”
“Six shillings just for that?”
“It could cost you your position.”
He shrugged. “I’ll find another. Lord Penvenan’ll be needing new grooms with the horses he just bought.”
“Indeed. And I’ll recommend you. Now see that Grisette is more thoroughly groomed in the future.”
There, that instruction salved her conscience.
She returned to Senara. “Let us go into Grandmama’s garden. I think I’d like a rose for my hair when Lord Penvenan comes to dinner tonight.”
“A white one,” Senara said. “It will make you look so maidenly, just what gentlemen like. And you can wear a white dress.”
“I look awful in white.”
“But it must be white. Heroines always wear white.” Senara slipped her arm through Elizabeth’s. “You know, it will be odd, you being mistress of my house.”
“It will be odd being mistress of any house. But I don’t think it will be Penmara.”
“Of course it will. You know you’ll give in to your grandparents and marry him. You want to please them more than yourself.”
“Pleasing them does please me.”
They walked toward Bastion Point, the house Elizabeth yearned to govern. She would expand the garden and build a gazebo set up high enough so one could sit inside on a summer’s day and observe the sea over the wall. She would plant fruit trees, and she’d build a glasshouse so they could have lemons and strawberries all year around.
But that kind of control would only come upon the death of her grandmother, and that was unthinkable.
Everything in life came with a price, and some were too high to pay.
So she sent word to the stable to cancel her morning ride on the beach and greeted Penvenan with warmth that evening. The grandparents’ smiles gave her some comfort. The gleam in Penvenan’s eyes when he looked at her gave her more than a little pause. Perhaps he did care for her. Perhaps, if she let herself, she could forget Rowan.
So she considered until she caught sight of Rowan riding on the beach the next morning. Astride one of the horses he had chosen with her assistance, he raced along the sand like a centaur, one with his mount, both magnificently beautiful. She leaned over the sill to get a better view. Her heart felt as though it soared after him. Wait, wait, wait for me.
Too high a price to let him go for the sake of her lack of confidence, her lack of belief in her worth as more than a fount of guineas?
Since he made no attempt to see her, she suspected she had already paid it. He had turned his attentions to Morwenna, proof Elizabeth was right about what he wanted from her.
Heart heavy, she prepared for a day of work on the fete. That morning Grandmama and Miss Pross, Senara and Elizabeth, along with other ladies in the neighborhood, planned to begin decorating the village hall while menservants built new booths for selling food and goods on the green. Lord Penvenan had promised to bring some of his repairmen, so she had best dress well. Grandmama expected it of her.
Despite their claims, Elizabeth had begun to suspect that the only treasure in life the grandparents thought she should find was a respectable husband. But surely they wanted more for her.
That thought in mind, she returned to the window. He no longer rode but stood beside his mount in conversation with someone just out of sight.
Gripping the window frame to keep herself from plunging headfirst onto the beach more than sixty feet below, Elizabeth leaned out farther in an attempt to glimpse his interlocutor. Her hand slipped on the frame. Her feet lost purchase on the floor. For a heart-stopping moment, she balanced on her middle, then managed to grab the casement and drag it shut. Then she sank to her knees, heart lurching, breath heaving, eyes burning.
Rowan Curnow was talking to Morwenna at the mouth of the cave tunnel.
He heard the window slam above him and glanced up. No telling who had watched him from above, but he could guess. His gaze snapped to the window near the garden corner of the house.
Morwenna laughed. “Do her good to see you not pining for her. But I’d best be going before she comes down or sends someone to run me off.”
“She won’t. She hasn’t told anyone about you and Conan yet.”
Yet one more reason to love her—her understanding and discretion.
“Yet,” Morwenna’s lip curled, remembering what she’d told him about Elizabeth only wanting to inherit Bastion Point. “She might after all out of spite. Our Elizabeth isn’t used to not getting her way.”
Rowan started walking with Morwenna across Penmara’s shoreline with its wider beach and gentler slope up to the house but rough surf, as though the cliff had caved into the sea many centuries earlier. “I’d say Miss Elizabeth rarely gets her way.”
Morwenna snorted. “Elizabeth has everything.”
“Except a belief in her ability to be loved without wealth.”
“I expect that’s partly my fault.” Morwenna’s shoulders slumped. “I teased her mercilessly, especially about her ice-blue eyes.”
And he had called her the ice-blue ice maiden. How cruel of him. She was anything but icy to him in moments of abandon. Stolen, inappropriate moments of abandon.
“I’ll see you safely home,” he said with an abruptness verging on rudeness. “Don’t come out here again.”
“But the cave must be—”
“I’ll see to the cave. Everything will be ready if necessary.” He tucked his hand beneath her elbow to lend her support, but didn’t say another word.
At the gate to her cottage, she turned and laid her hand on his arm. “I regret what I did to her, especially if it’s costing you too. I regret . . .” She sighed. “I regret a lot of things. If I can ever help you . . .”
“The Lord will work it out if it’s his will.”
Leaving her safe inside her home, he returned to Penmara with a burden pressing upon him. He kept saying he was working in God’s will, but didn’t know how he could when he was uncertain what that will was.
He especially didn’t know on days like this when his plans to continue supervising, and even helping with, the repairs on Penmara took him into the village with Penvenan. The villagers barely spoke to him. He was a foreigner. He was from Penmara. He was someone not to be trusted. The out-of-work miners were happy to take Penvenan silver in exchange for their work. They even accepted Rowan’s wish to join in the hard, physical labor of nailing down shingles and replacing damp-ruined walls. But they spoke little in his presence. Conversations amongst themselves stopped whenever he approached.
That most of them no doubt belonged to the local smuggling gang, that at least one or two of them knew who had killed Conan and why, he also didn’t doubt. But he had learned all too quickly that he would have to live in Cornwall for another decade before these men would accept him as a local man—if they ever did.
He wanted to leave Cornwall, run, if he was honest with himself, from seeing Elizabeth, run from Penvenan’s control over his life, run from too much greed-induced pain of those around him.
And I accused Elizabeth of running away.
One often did see one’s own faults reflected in others. They both ran from what the Lord wanted for them. Elizabeth wouldn’t accept that God loved her and wanted her life. Rowan wouldn’t accept that God apparently wanted something for his life other than what he himself wanted.
“Give me the strength to accept it, Lord.” With the prayer on his lips, he entered the house to find Penvenan eating breakfast in the second room they had managed to restore—a parlor with a gate-leg table they used for meals.
“Come eat,” Penvenan called to him. “We’re going into the village to help with the fete preparations.”
Rowan’s heart leaped. More than likely Elizabeth would be there as well.
He filled a plate from the sideboard and seated himself across from Penvenan. “What are we expected to do?”
“Build booths for selling things. Assist the ladies any way we can.”
>
Rowan’s brows arched. “They don’t have their servants do the labor?”
“Apparently not for this charity event. I’m no good at things like hammering nails, but you should be by now.”
“Maybe you should have apprenticed me to a builder instead of sending me to the university.” The edge of bitterness slipped out unbidden, unwanted, and all too true. “I might be better earning my living on my own if you had.”
Penvenan leaned forward, the ends of his cravat dangling perilously close to the remains of egg on his plate, his eyes glittering and hard like obsidian. “You were never meant to work for your living. Your mother intended for you to be a gentleman. I did not fail her.”
“If being a gentleman means living off the work of others who have no choice but to break their backs and health,” Rowan said from a constricted throat, “then, yes, sir, I failed her. But it was fail her ambitions for me or fail the Lord’s calling.”
“What about honoring your mother and father?”
Rowan stared at congealed grease on his plate. “A matter I struggle with still.”
“Like your infatuation for Miss Trelawny? Miss Elizabeth Trelawny?”
Rowan flinched. “One cannot control the heart. She is a fine and beautiful lady.”
“She is not beautiful. Passably pretty, yes. But her cousin . . .” Penvenan smiled.
Rowan braced himself.
“Miss Morwenna Trelawny is a beauty even in her condition.”
Rowan chose his words with care. “When did you meet Miss Morwenna?”
“I haven’t, but I saw you with her this morning. Considering an alliance there? I expect Sir Petrok will be happy to accept you as a grandson-in-law and pay you well.”
“I,” Rowan enunciated through stiff lips, “have no intention of marrying for money. Now, if you will excuse me, I will gather together any materials we need to take into the village.”
He walked out—or did he run away again?—and ordered a wagon to be filled with building materials. He was already dressed appropriately for hard labor in canvas trousers, boots, and a heavy linen shirt. Penvenan should change out of his fine coat and pantaloons, Hessian boots, and fancifully tied cravat, but Rowan doubted he would lift a finger to perform actual work. He hadn’t done so in all his life. No doubt Penvenan would take the day to press his suit with Elizabeth.
Which he did. While he pounded nails into rough boards, Rowan saw them from across the green, Penvenan holding yards of bunting for Elizabeth to drape over completed booths. While he paused to draw splinters from his hand, Rowan caught a glimpse of Penvenan holding Elizabeth’s hand as he talked to her. She stood ramrod straight with her cool mask in place, and Senara stood beside them, her pouting lower lip visible from a hundred feet away.
“I know how you feel, Miss Penvenan.” Rowan yanked a particularly large splinter from the base of his thumb, then grabbed up an abandoned tankard to wash away the blood.
Instead of water, the tankard held ale. It stung and stank like a skunk. It also splashed onto his shirt.
Time to leave the village green. Maybe the time was coming for him to leave Cornwall altogether. But not until he found some answers or knew the ladies were safe.
He cast one last glance at Elizabeth and wished he hadn’t. She was walking toward Bastion Point with her hand resting on Penvenan’s forearm, and he covered her hand with the fingers of his other hand.
“You can kiss me with abandon, Miss Trelawny,” Rowan murmured to the couple’s retreating backs, “but you only let him court you in the daylight.”
Lord, is it time to give up all hope in that direction?
Rowan received his answer that night when Penvenan returned from Penmara. His smile was bright, his footfalls light. “Congratulate me, Rowan. Sir Petrok has given me permission to make an offer to Miss Trelawny.”
“I wish you well, sir.” Rowan’s face felt as stiff as Elizabeth’s too often became.
He considered mentioning the danger to her connection with Penmara, but it was pointless since Penvenan didn’t believe the truth of it. Like everyone else, he thought Elizabeth’s fall from the cliff path had been an accident.
“When do you propose to . . . propose?” He managed a credible smile at his word play.
Penvenan’s smile broadened. “On Midsummer’s Eve, at the fete.”
CHAPTER 23
GRANDMAMA FROWNED AT THE ARRAY OF DRESSES LAID upon Elizabeth’s bed. “Whatever possessed your mother to purchase white for you?”
“It’s fashionable this year.” Elizabeth grimaced. “And she wanted me to look still young and innocent.”
“You are still young and innocent and look it without our making you appear jaundiced.” Grandmama turned to the dressing room. “What else do you have you haven’t worn yet?”
Elizabeth hugged her arms over her middle and retreated a step from the fashion display. “What does it matter whether or not I have worn the gown? I’ve been here for two months. It’s to be expected.”
“Yes, but this is a special occasion.” Grandmama began to hunt through Elizabeth’s gowns.
Elizabeth retreated another step, then another until her back touched the mantelshelf. “Grandmama, this is a village fete, not a coronation ball.”
“And so much more can happen today.” Grandmama shot Elizabeth a wink.
Her morning chocolate turned into a whirlpool in her middle at the notion of what else could happen that day. She had read the signs as clearly as though they hung in painted splendor over a street of shops. Penvenan had walked her home from setting up for the fete. Penvenan had closeted himself with Grandpapa for an hour, then departed whistling. The grandparents had smiled a great deal ever since.
Last night Senara had suffered another one of her shivering attacks, and Elizabeth considered joining her in her own sickroom as a way to get out of going to the fete. Yet what was the use? The moment of reckoning would come eventually. The only way to avoid it would be to leave Cornwall. She might if she had anywhere to go.
We can get married on Guernsey . . . On their way to America, of course. Not a risk she was willing to take. And if she wouldn’t give up anything for him, then she must not love him. Surely love would supersede apprehensions regarding his lack of fortune and true love for her. She was thinking with her head and not her heart.
Her head said marry Lord Penvenan.
She forced herself away from the mantel and into the dressing room. “I have an idea. If I wear this lilac sarcenet spencer over the white cambric, there won’t be so much white around my face.” She pulled the light silk garment off its hook, then reached up to a high shelf. “And here’s a matching hat. Kid slippers or the morocco boots?”
In the end, she wore the boots. Though they were white and would get terribly dusty and grass stained, they were sturdier than the slippers, and she would be rushing about a great deal as one of the hostesses of the fete.
Since Miss Pross was tending to Senara, who preferred not to go into public for a celebration so close to her brother’s death, Grandmama’s maid arrived to help Elizabeth lace up stays and button the dress up the back. The gown’s neckline was square and a little too low for the country, but the spencer buttoned from its bottom at the high waistline to the hollow of her throat. The maid rolled Elizabeth’s hair into a knot low on her neck and secured it with several pearl hairpins to match the pearls on her ears. A white chip straw hat with a lilac satin ribbon bow in front completed the ensemble, and Grandmama declared Elizabeth charming.
“You look like a summer day.” Grandmama opened the window over the garden. “And the weather is perfect.”
Elizabeth glanced out the other window, half expecting to see a horseman galloping along the beach, though the tide mostly covered the sand below the house, and he would be gone now if he had been there at all.
She expected to see him at the fete. No doubt Penvenan would have his secretary performing all the laborious tasks he had avoided himself. She had seen Rowan
swinging a hammer with the grace and speed of someone who did so often, and she had seen him pulling splinters from his palm. She wanted to help him, ensure the wound was properly cleaned, simply hold his hand.
She paused on her way down the staircase and gripped the banister for support. What was she thinking that she should accept an offer from Austell Lord Penvenan? Not when she wanted to hold another man’s hand. The very idea surely made her some kind of wanton.
She must be good. She must make the right choices. She was only lovable when she was obedient. Didn’t even the Lord demand obedience?
Except, according to the vicar, the Lord loved her even when she was disobedient. If only the grandparents and parents were the same . . .
She shook her head and continued down to the entryway to meet the grandparents and most of the servants. She smiled as befitted the occasion. This was a day of revelry for the county. Everyone who could attended the fete, eating pasties and drinking lemonade, buying and selling items they made over the winter months, and enjoying the music, the singing, the dancing to celebrate the arrival of summer’s bounty, including the abundance of daylight just past the longest day of the year.
It felt like the longest day of Elizabeth’s life before midafternoon. She never stopped moving from booth to booth, church hall to the center of the green and the games. Children’s laughter rang out like bells over the lower pitch of singers. Although the sun blazed across a nearly cloudless sky, a steady breeze swept from the sea and across the land to keep the air pleasantly cool. Roasting meats, baking pastry, and lemons scented the air, but Elizabeth didn’t have the opportunity to grow hungry. She judged who had made the best pies from last year’s dried apples and whose needlework demonstrated the most skill. She awarded prizes to the young women who participated in the races, and she carried messages from Grandmama to Mr. Kitto, from Mr. Kitto to—
She came face-to-face with Rowan Curnow outside a roped-off circle where Mrs. Pascoe and her daughters read stories to a throng of children. He carried a box full of slates and chalk held before him like a shield. Elizabeth carried nothing but her fan and reticule, poor substitutes for a defense wall against the warmth in his deep blue eyes. Coolness on her neck reminded her she had unbuttoned the top two fastenings on her spencer. With Rowan not a yard from her, she wished she hadn’t, but at the same time, she wanted a long swim in the chilly waters of the Irish Sea.
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