A Lady's Honor

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  “We couldn’t have you continuing your rides with Mr. Curnow,” Grandpapa spoke from behind her. “It wasn’t seemly, and with Morwenna’s trouble, we wanted to protect your reputation in the county. And we never intended for you to think we were insisting you wed Lord Penvenan.”

  “Did you not?” Elizabeth dashed away her tears with the back of her hand. “An alliance with the neighboring landowner would be so advantageous for all. That was always understood. At least if he offered for me, Conan was young and my friend and knew how to enjoy himself. But I suppose he would have only wed me for my dowry too, since he apparently wanted Morwen—” She slapped her hand over her mouth like closing the stable door after the horse had sought its freedom.

  Grandmama’s hand gripped with surprising strength, and Grandpapa’s pipe dropped to the terrace, the stem separating from the bowl.

  “What did you just say?” he demanded in a low, shaking voice. “What do you know?”

  Elizabeth shook her head.

  “Do you know something of Morwenna’s alliance?” Grandpapa asked.

  Elizabeth kept her lips tight.

  “What did Conan have to do with Morwenna?” Grandpapa persisted.

  Elizabeth sighed. “More than he should have.”

  “Did Conan father Morwenna’s baby?” Grandpapa asked.

  Elizabeth closed her eyes. “I didn’t mean to tell you. If I were not feeling sorry for myself, I never would have broken her confidence.”

  “But why won’t she tell us?” Grandmama sounded hurt and confused. “I admit I’m ashamed of Conan, but at least it wasn’t one of the miners.”

  “She fears the smugglers.” Elizabeth faced the grandparents. “Conan warned her to keep their secret or they might go after her and the baby.”

  The grandparents’ faces paled. Grandpapa’s hand shook as he reached for Grandmama’s.

  “She should have told us.” He cleared his throat. “We could have been protecting her.”

  In for a penny. More like in for a pound, in for a pony.

  Elizabeth looked her grandfather in the eye. “Perhaps you should have protected her regardless. You wonder why I cannot believe in the unconditional love of God, but love in my life has always been tied to conditions. I do not understand unconditional.” She hugged her middle. “But I want to.”

  “We want you to.” Grandpapa touched her cheek with the back of his hand, dry and cool and gentle. “We have done a poor job of showing we love you regardless of what you do.”

  “You placed conditions on Morwenna.” Elizabeth needed their response to her challenge or she wouldn’t have dared.

  “Not conditions of our love,” Grandmama said. “We still love her. We have taken care of her needs. But we had to think of you and your reputation.”

  “She only kept quiet about the father of her baby because of the connection to Conan. The smugglers threat and all. Just like—just like Mr. Curnow thinks my connection to Lord Penvenan has caused my . . . incidents of danger.”

  “Hmph.” Grandpapa shoved his hand into his coat pocket, then scowled at his broken pipe. “Penvenan has had nothing to do with the smugglers. Indeed, they’ve been quiet since his arrival, so there’s no credence in that theory. But Morwenna has reason to fear them with that kind of a connection to Conan.”

  He pulled his hand from his pocket, and it shook. “Even illegitimate and unable to inherit if he’s a boy, the baby is still Conan’s and worthy of using for a threat to warn others not to try to break away as Conan did.” A tick on one side of his mouth belied his calm, analytical words. “Now that we know there’s cause for her fear, we will take better care of her. I’ll send some men to guard her cottage.” Pausing only long enough to gather up the broken pieces of his pipe, he strode toward the house.

  Grandmama rested a hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder, keeping her from following. “Please forgive us for making our love seem conditional. We have always wanted the best for you, and sometimes perhaps what we thought was the best for you hasn’t been.”

  She looked so old and sad, Elizabeth wrapped her arms around her grandmother, starting a little to feel how frail she’d become in the past six years. Yet she could not resist asking, “Would you still love me if I wed a man beneath my social standing?”

  “Of course. That said . . .” Grandmama knit her brows. “If you refer to Mr. Curnow, we wouldn’t approve. Even if he agreed to stay here in Cornwall, you know a female is lowered to the rank of her husband, and you would be ostracized by most of your peers. When one is in love, one doesn’t think that matters, but isolation wears on a body and has a way of tearing even the strongest bonds of the heart.”

  Elizabeth laughed. “He has mentioned love, but now that he is returning to America—” She stopped, realizing that he had planned to return to America all along. “Perhaps he has merely been toying with me.” She let out a bitter bark of laughter. She had, after all, thrown herself at him.

  “Or perhaps he waits to ask you to go with him.”

  “He did ask. I said no. I couldn’t. This”—she swept her arm out to encompass the house and garden—“is my anchor. He will have to stay here, and as you said, if he does, not even local society will accept him, an outsider who marries an heiress.”

  “And without a name.”

  Elizabeth gave Grandmama a blank look. “He has an old Cornish name.”

  “Yes, child, through his mother. She was related to Mrs. Kitto.”

  “Through his—oh.” Sympathy clenched her heart.

  No wonder he was so solicitous of Morwenna’s welfare. No wonder he felt so much gratitude toward Penvenan for giving him a home and education. “I doubt I’ll see him again unless it cannot be avoided.”

  She wanted to lay her head on Grandmama’s frail shoulder and sob like a child who had lost her dearest friend.

  Grandmama patted her hand. “As much as I understand why you consider Bastion Point your anchor, it is just stone and mortar and land. The Lord should be your true anchor. Only his love never fails.”

  A longing to believe Grandmama touched Elizabeth’s heart. “I’ve no idea how to believe that. But I wish—right now I wish I could.”

  If Grandmama was right, Jesus wouldn’t break her heart.

  “May I please be excused? I am quite worn to a thread from today.”

  “Shall I send a tray to your room?” Grandmama stepped back, giving Elizabeth permission to leave.

  “Just some soup and tea. Thank you.” Elizabeth ambled into the house, her legs suddenly too weak to support her, her heart too heavy to talk anymore. She would only take nourishment because she had eaten nothing all day. Mostly she wanted to sleep. She knew she must call on Morwenna, apologize for spilling her secret, be a friend to her regardless of how the grandparents thought she should abandon her prodigal cousin.

  She opened the door of her bedchamber.

  A commotion of protests and admonitions rose from the entry hall. Elizabeth released the door handle and rushed to the head of the steps. Other doors opened in the upper corridor. Senara and Miss Pross joined Elizabeth.

  “What’s amiss?” Grandpapa emerged from his study to address the protesting butler and three burly men in rough laborers’ garb, but carrying horse pistols and cutlasses.

  “We are being invaded by pirates,” Senara whimpered from behind Elizabeth.

  “No, they are workmen from the outside staff. But why—”

  “ ’Tis Miss Morwenna, sir.” One of the men stepped forward and tugged on his forelock. “We went to her cottage as you said, but she weren’t there.”

  CHAPTER 25

  ROWAN LEANED HIS HEAD AGAINST THE BACK OF HIS chair and closed his eyes against the sight of Austell Penvenan’s face flushed with temper. If only shutting out the sound of his voice were so simple. Rowan wanted peace and quiet in which he could replay the day, memorize those precious moments in the lane with Elizabeth.

  “You did something deliberately. You persuaded her not to accept my p
roposal.” Penvenan’s Charlestonian drawl sounded nearly English in the precision he placed on each word.

  Rowan forced himself not to smile. She hadn’t needed any persuading at all.

  “She’s a gently bred lady you know will never ally herself to a penniless whelp like you.”

  Not as penniless as Penvenan wished Rowan were, at least not forever.

  “She fears no one wants her for anything but her money. With reason, since you’re included in that list.” The words slipped out before Rowan thought better of the remark.

  “And I suppose you thought to save her?” Penvenan began to pace around the library, his footfalls heavy enough to vibrate the floorboards through the worn carpet. “What did you offer her besides reckless behavior?”

  “Nothing, sir.” Rowan opened his eyes with reluctance. “Nothing beyond recklessness. She’s weary of being treated as though she’ll break. Maybe if you and her grandfather didn’t hobble her activities, she’d have been more amenable to your suit.”

  “I can still win her if you’re out of the way.”

  “Sir?” Rowan straightened, all his attention on Penvenan, the boss man, as they said in the islands. “You want rid of me?”

  “I’ve wanted rid of you for ten years.”

  “Yes, sir, I am more trouble than I’m worth, I know. But you can trust me to be honest, and not many others.”

  “There is that, which is why I’m sending you back to Charleston as soon as I can arrange passage.”

  “No, sir, you’re not.” Rowan rose, stood face-to-face with Penvenan. “You can dismiss me from my post, or I’ll save you the trouble and resign, but you cannot force me to return to Charleston before I’m ready to go.”

  “Do you think you can woo her if you stay—an unemployed, penniless nobody?”

  “No, I don’t. She won’t leave Cornwall, and I don’t wish to stay. But I won’t leave until I know who has been sending threatening messages, who killed Conan Lord Penvenan, and who has twice tried to kill Miss Trelawny.”

  “If someone has tried to kill her, it is no doubt smugglers responsible for it all. They’ll go away once they know I won’t play their games.”

  “You may be right. Unless Romsford wants revenge for the Trelawnys outwitting him.”

  He didn’t believe for a moment that smugglers would simply give up, nor that Romsford was not to be taken seriously and cautiously.

  Penvenan gave him a look of disgust.

  Rowan went to the door. “I’m going to my bed now unless you wish for me to vacate tonight.”

  Penvenan took so long to respond, Rowan thought he might indeed find himself without shelter that night.

  He opened the door to the startled faces of a housemaid and footman who had obviously been eavesdropping. He smiled at them and glanced over his shoulder into the library. “Very well, then I’ll pack up my things and leave. I expect I can find shelter somewhere close at hand. Miss Morwenna Trelawny has a number of rooms she doesn’t need. And the Trelawnys are hospitable to all, even penniless, fatherless whelps like me.” He closed the door before Penvenan had made up his mind.

  A moment later, something crashed against it with a thud and tinkle of broken glass pattering to the floor.

  “I’d wait awhile before going in to ask him anything or cleaning up that glass.”

  Despite his jaunty tone, his feet dragged up the steps to his chamber. Arguing with the man was useless. All his life, Austell Penvenan had gotten what he wanted, and he’d decided he wanted Elizabeth. No one, not even Rowan, would succeed in winning her instead.

  But the friction between Rowan and Penvenan ran deeper than them both wanting the same lady. The conflicts began the summer Rowan turned fifteen and Penvenan found himself in sole charge of Rowan, for he was too old to allow the servants to look after him. He’d gotten himself expelled from school by the simple act of leaving to attend his mother’s funeral and not going back. On his own more often than not, he encountered antislavers and the real trouble began.

  Rowan didn’t want one more argument to end like this. He needed to return, apologize, offer to leave Cornwall even if it meant leaving Elizabeth behind. What did that matter? He didn’t want to stay in Cornwall forever. It wasn’t home.

  But it was home for Elizabeth. He hadn’t had the right to ask her to leave the only place where she found herself secure and plunge her into an unknown future. Only if he persuaded her that he loved her and not her fortune would she consider going with him, and as long as he was there, wooing her when and however he could, he could hope.

  And maybe the Lord was telling him the time had come to go, to let her go. Wooing her, when he was certain she held him in high regard at the least, if not felt something far deeper, might be unfair to her. He needed to return to America, find a wife who was suited to the uncertainty of his future if Penvenan was setting him free of his promise to work for him until the debt incurred by his education was paid in full.

  Slowly, his heart tumbling before him, Rowan retraced his steps to the library. The door stood open to accommodate a maid with dustpan and broom just finishing cleaning up shards of glass. As cool as though he hadn’t lost his temper, Penvenan sat behind his desk writing on a piece of vellum.

  He glanced up at Rowan’s entrance. “You may go, Alis.”

  “Aye, m’lord.” The maid scrambled to gather up dustpan and broom and exit the room.

  Rowan closed the door behind her, then leaned against it, his hands shoved into his pockets. “Please forgive me, sir. I was out of line and disrespectful.”

  “And I was wrong for keeping you here when I knew how you felt about Miss Trelawny. Now I shall keep you no longer.” Penvenan picked up the sheet of vellum from his desk. “You’re free of any obligation to pay your debt. Go pursue your dreams of ministering to the savages or slaves or whatever you like. You owe me nothing more.”

  “I’d still like to stay, sir. Your safe—”

  “I’ve a household of servants now. I am quite safe from bogeys or anything else. You may go. Tonight. Here is a bank draught for enough money to get you back to Charleston.”

  “All right, sir, if you insist.” Rowan’s throat felt oddly thick. “But I’ve no intention to leave Cornwall right away. I don’t like unfinished business.” He swallowed to ease the constriction. “I’ll refrain from seeing Miss Trelawny, however, unless she chooses to see me.”

  “Good. She won’t ask to see you. I intend to make her an offer again, you know, once your influence is beyond us.”

  “Then I wish you happy.” The tightness spread from his throat to his chest, as though a draft horse stood on his ribs. “I’ll just pack my things and leave then, if I may borrow a horse.”

  Penvenan rose and moved close enough to Rowan to hand him the bank draught. “Just take what you need for the night and send your whereabouts back with the horse. I’ll have your belongings sent to you.”

  “Of course. The sooner I’m gone, the better for you.” Rowan snatched the bank draught and strode from the room.

  Rowan was halfway up the steps when pounding on the front door resonated throughout the hall. Though two footmen sprang into action and headed in that direction to answer the urgent-sounding summons, Rowan took the steps down in three strides and reached the door first, one word ringing in his head—Morwenna.

  A footman in the Bastion Point dark blue livery stood on the threshold, gloved hand upraised for another go at the knocker.

  “What is it?” Now another name rang in Rowan’s head—Elizabeth.

  “It’s Miss Morwenna. She’s . . .” The young man gasped for air as though he had run all the way across the fields. “She’s missing. Sir Petrok sent me to ask for help from here to locate her.”

  “Of course we will.” Penvenan spoke from behind Rowan. “Go assure them I will mobilize every man I have.”

  “Thank you, m’lord.” The footman turned and raced back the way he’d come.

  Penvenan cleared his throat. “I re
alize I dismissed you, but maybe you could—”

  “Of course I can help.” Rowan turned to the footmen. “Jago, Carey, get the outdoor staff and go in pairs so one can run back to Bastion Point to report if you find Miss Morwenna while the other stays with her. Woods. Mines, home farm, and here around the house. Take lanterns. It’s nearly dark.”

  “You’re forgetting the beach,” Penvenan said.

  Rowan shook his head. “Not at all. I’ll take the beach myself.”

  “Alone?” For a beat, concern clouded Penvenan’s eyes.

  Rowan’s gut twisted. He wanted to say something about forgetting their last conversation, but the words stuck in his throat. He simply shrugged. “I know the beach well and doubt she’s there anyway.”

  But she might possibly have been there if something had frightened her, or if her time had come, she might have gone into the caves. Either that or someone had abducted her.

  Blood running as cold as the Irish Sea, Rowan charged for the door. Penvenan called something behind him that might have been, “Have a care,” but Rowan didn’t pause to find out for certain. He hoped so. He hoped Penvenan cared that much about him.

  He had spent so much time in the past two months traversing the path from house to beach he needed no light beyond the stars to guide him. Beneath those glimmers, the sand glowed like an irregular ribbon between cliffs and sea. White capped the waves of an incoming tide adding more luminescence to the night, while the roar of surf blotted out any other sound.

  No wonder someone had managed to sneak up on an experienced man like Conan and stab him before he could fight. He never should have been on the beach.

  Conscious that he shouldn’t be there alone himself, Rowan backed against the cliff and moved sideways so he could watch for an intruder or a sign of Morwenna in all directions.

  He had reached the point where the cliff had broken away enough for a clear path to rise from beach to headland when he spied the lone figure striding toward the sea with a swift, long-legged gait. Not Morwenna. Not a female at all. He waited in the shadow of tumbled rocks, knife in hand, for the man to draw nearer.