Although the light wasn’t bright enough for features to be distinct even when only a yard separated them, the eye patch gave away the man’s identity. Thus far, Rowan had met no one else in the district with a patch over one eye.
He stepped into Romsford’s path. “What are you doing here?”
Romsford jerked to a halt so abruptly he took half a step back. “You have no business asking that of me, you . . . you—riffraff. What are you doing here, I might ask in return?”
“You won’t intimidate me with your bluster, my lord. I have a right to be on Penmara land. You do not.”
“I do if I’m seeking Miss Morwenna like everyone else.” Romsford’s voice softened, and his teeth flashed in a quick smile.
Rowan’s fingers tightened on the knife handle, though he kept it at his side. “How did you know she was missing?”
“I was in the village. Came down for the fete and to take a look at the mines again.”
Reasonable. Too reasonable.
“And what makes you think she’d come this way?” Rowan smiled as well.
Romsford shrugged. “Every place else seemed to be thoroughly searched.”
“With no sign of her?”
“No sign of her. I fear these smugglers have spirited her away.”
Rowan took a step closer to the marquess. “Why would you think that?”
“She’s a Trelawny and easy to use as a way to get the revenue men to stop harassing them before the next new moon.”
Sensible again. Too sensible, too calmly delivered. As though it were practiced?
His heart beating a slow and painful rhythm like a bass drum lodged in his chest, Rowan grasped the marquess’s arm and turned him away from the shore. “She’s not there. You may as well return to the village or, better still, Truro.”
“I’m not going to take your word for it.” Romsford yanked out of Rowan’s hold. “I’ll have a look for myself. The way you spirited Miss Elizabeth away, I wouldn’t be surprised if you did the same for Miss Morwenna. Now step aside.”
Rowan stepped aside. Save for outright assaulting the man, Rowan couldn’t stop him. Not a peer of the realm, he was in too lowly a position to insist the man leave Penmara property. But that didn’t mean he didn’t have reason to stop the man from going anywhere but the village lockup.
As if anyone would believe Rowan Curnow over the word of a marquess, not without true, physical evidence. He hadn’t considered the notion himself until that moment. After all, to anyone’s knowledge, Romsford hadn’t been anywhere near Bastion Point when any of the “accidents” occurred. He made no secret of his presence in the town, nor of his interest in Penmara’s mines and Elizabeth. Today, however, he had been in the village, and Elizabeth had been assaulted. He had been in the neighborhood, and Morwenna had disappeared. Weak evidence, and yet . . .
Rowan turned and followed the marquess down the beach. He strode with that same easy gait as though he owned the stretch of sand between cliff and surf. Twice Romsford paused to look out to sea, to an empty horizon. Twice he looked behind him. Pressed to the shadow of the cliff, Rowan didn’t think the marquess saw him. Knowing Romsford would have to stop where the tide already covered the beach and half covered the mouth of the Trelawny caves, Rowan ducked beneath an outcropping of rock and waited to see if the marquess would wade through the surf or turn back.
He turned back. He whistled a jaunty melody. He passed Rowan without breaking stride.
Rowan waited until Romsford had climbed the path to the land before he followed. By the time he reached the top of the cliff, the marquess had turned toward the house. He should follow the man, warn Penvenan. But he needed to find Morwenna or learn if she was in hiding by her own volition or otherwise.
Penvenan was armed. He could take care of himself. Romsford wouldn’t harm a peer of the realm when he knew he’d been observed at Penmara.
Rowan circumvented the overgrown gardens and took the woodland path. His steps crunched on gravel and dried vegetation. The musky aromas of loam and moldering leaves rose around him, accompanied by the pure fragrance of wildflowers, scents that would forever remind him of Elizabeth, the lady he should have forgotten two months ago.
She did not love him, at least not enough to leave family and land for a life with him. He understood why, yet it didn’t stop her rejection from stabbing through him again and again, as though each step drove the knife deeper into his middle. Added to Penvenan sending him away, he wasn’t sure a man could endure such pain.
Surely this isn’t your will for me, Lord, he cried out in his head.
And what if it were? What if he needed to go into the little explored territories west and minister to the native peoples there, or take freed men to find and build futures, and he needed to go unfettered by a wife used to luxury. He’d wanted it all six years ago. Now, with his heart bound to Elizabeth, the idea appealed less. But if going into the wilderness was what the Lord wanted for him, all those anchors holding him back from going needed to be removed.
He paused and leaned against the broad trunk of an oak, winded as though he’d been running or carrying a hundredweight burden.
Jesus, I can’t go on like this. My heart, my soul, is too burdened for me to take another step. I think I’ve been going my own way and calling it your will. But I need to know your will. Stay here? Leave? I don’t know, and I’m ready to listen and obey, even if it means leaving Elizabeth and my love for her behind.
He leaned his head back against the tree and gazed at the growing canopy of stars through the tree leaves. Wind sighed through those leaves. Nearby, a bird shifted and muttered in its sleep.
And footfalls pounded down the path.
Rowan straightened, his hand going to the knife in its sheath down his back. Starlight glinted off the steel blade.
The footfalls skidded to a halt. “Who’s there?”
A female.
Rowan didn’t lower the knife. “I could ask the same. This is still Penmara land.”
“Mr. Curnow?” The woman, a stout shadow against the pale stone of the path, was panting.
“Who wants to know?”
She clutched at his arm. “Henwyn, Miss Morwenna’s companion.”
“What are you doing here? It’s not safe.”
“I’m a village girl on my way home. No one will hurt me. But Miss Morwenna . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she pressed the cold, smooth stone of the carved jade apple into his hand. “She said you’ll know what to be doing with this.”
Elizabeth paced around her bedchamber too restless to go to bed and pretend she could sleep. She wanted to be wide-awake and dressed in suitable clothing, a sturdy gown and boots, in the event the men hunting her found Morwenna and she needed to go out.
She and her servant were no longer at the cottage. They were no longer anywhere to be found in the gardens or woods around the cottage. After three hours of hunting, they seemed to have disappeared from the countryside.
Voluntarily or involuntarily? Elizabeth paused by the open window facing the sea and clasped her hands over her heart. Lord, keep her safe, but especially if she didn’t go by her own volition.
She startled at her prayer. She hadn’t been in the way of praying since she left Cornwall six years ago. Yet the words slid out without a hitch or hint of self-consciousness. Praying for Morwenna’s safety just seemed right.
The rhythmic splash of the waves rose to her window on the clean scent of the salt water and fresh night air. She’d grown up within sight and sound and smell of the sea. It was power and life and beauty.
It was also deadly. Storms had destroyed entire villages over the past century. Ships wrecked on a regular basis, sometimes by accident and sometimes because they had been lured onto the rocks. And dangerous men traded in contraband on the sea—men who would lose their freedom or even their lives if the authorities caught them smuggling. To preserve both, as well as their livelihood, they would stop at nothing—they did stop at nothing—to preserve t
heir way of life.
Even if that meant murdering a peer of the realm and destroying his child as a warning to others to not leave their ranks, nor snitch on them.
“Morwenna, where are you?” Elizabeth leaned far over the sill. Sixty feet below, the sea began the boom, boom, boom of the incoming tide reaching the mouth of the cave. “Why didn’t you trust the grandparents with your secret? They love you.”
But if she, always the favored grandchild because she sought so hard to please them, doubted their love, how much more did Morwenna, the black sheep of the family, doubt how much they cared about her? They loved and they were generous, but they had always seemed to expect something in return.
I do not understand this unconditional love, Lord. Elizabeth rested her palms on the cool, weathered stone of the windowsill’s outer edge and fixed her gaze on the horizon, the same silvered black as the sea. The vicar says it’s so. The Bible says it’s so, but it makes no sense to me. Will you show—
A tapping sounded on the other window. Elizabeth jumped.
The tapping came again like a tree branch blowing in a breeze, except the night was nearly calm.
She faced the window. It was locked. Thank God it was locked. No one could enter without breaking one of the leaded diamond panes and flipping the lock free. No one could accomplish that without a great deal of noise—like her screaming and racing from the room.
The tapping sounded a third time. Her heart pounded louder. She lifted a branch of candles from the mantel and tried to peer into the night. But the flames reflected in the glass so she couldn’t see out, could only see her fragmented reflection and no doubt giving the would-be intruder a clear view of her.
Intruder. Burglar. Worse . . .
She set down the candle and backed away from the light. She needed a weapon, something with which to stop anyone bent on harming her should he break through the casement.
A poker was too awkward and risky. The knife that had come with her supper tray was too dull. The dagger Drake had given her was lost somewhere. After tonight, if she lived through this night, she’d buy a pistol and learn how to shoot it. Rowan would be willing to teach—
But Rowan was gone. The grandparents said Lord Penvenan had sent him away.
The tapping turned to a rap, quick and impatient and loud enough Miss Pross might hear it from her chamber on the other side of the dressing room. Loud enough to knock sense into Elizabeth.
No one bent on harming her would knock on the window. Only one person would knock on her bedchamber window.
She sprinted across the room and shoved the bolt from its cradle, then pushed open the window.
A hand caught it before she managed to move the casement more than a few inches. An instant later, Rowan Curnow stepped over the sill. “Thank the Lord you’re dressed.” Speaking in an undertone, he closed the window and clasped her hands. “Elys, don’t ask questions. I’ll answer them later. Right now I need you to come with me.”
“Go with you? I don’t believe—”
He touched a finger to her lips. “No questions. We need to go down the secret stair to the cave hidden—”
“How did you learn about that?”
“Morwenna is there.” He glanced around the room. “Where’s your cloak?”
Elizabeth grabbed a cloak from a hook on the wall inside the dressing room, then closed that door and turned back to Rowan. “Why is Morwenna there?”
Even as she asked the question, she guessed the answer.
“Her lying in,” Rowan said.
Cold enough to need a fur-lined winter cloak, Elizabeth snuggled into the light woolen wrap and tried to speak without hysteria coloring her voice. “She needs a midwife, not me.”
“Tide’s up. We can’t get a midwife in there. Besides, Morwenna thinks the midwife is attached to the smugglers.”
“All right, but . . .” Elizabeth pressed one hand to her heart in an attempt to slow it down. “We will hope the labor lasts until the tide ebbs and we can get the midwife in and then keep her there until we have Morwenna and the baby to safety.”
“We could do that if there’s time. But if there isn’t, you’ll have to play midwife.”
“Oh no.” Elizabeth shook her head. “I can’t do that. Are you forgetting that I’m an unmarried lady? We aren’t told anything about childbirth, let alone allowed to see it happen.”
“But you have been to a foaling.”
“Yes, but—” She gripped the edges of her cloak as though they protected her from participating in what he requested, what Morwenna required.
Rowan grasped her hands and drew her near to the door, nearer to him. “I think you can do this.”
“I think,” Elizabeth said with resignation, “this will be the final straw to my reputation.”
CHAPTER 26
MORWENNA’S CRIES REACHED THEM, FAINT THROUGH A heavy panel, before they attained the bottom of the stairs. With a gasp, Elizabeth thrust the candle into Rowan’s hand and dashed down the rest of the steps, calling to her cousin.
Rowan followed with more care, uncertain of the evenness of the hewn descent. In the chamber, Morwenna lay on a cot against one wall and Elizabeth knelt beside her, holding her hands. The faces of both ladies contorted in pain.
“Can you help?” Elizabeth glanced up. “She’s crushing my fingers.”
“So . . . sorry.” Morwenna panted out the words through clenched teeth. “I can’t help it. This past hour . . . much worse—” She broke off on a groan.
“Last hour?” Elizabeth’s eyes dilated. “How long have you been here?”
“Dawn. I felt a twinge.” Morwenna closed her eyes. “Told Henwyn not to fetch Mr. Curnow until dark. Sa-safer.”
“You little fool.” Elizabeth glared at her cousin. “You thought you could do this alone?”
“For all the help you are . . .” Morwenna ground her teeth together.
Rowan’s lips twitched. “Could you two put your differences aside for tonight?”
Elizabeth freed her hands and rose. “We need blankets. Are there any?”
“Here.” Rowan fetched the two he’d already brought from Penmara.
Elizabeth spread them over her cousin with a tenderness that belied any of the harsh things she’d spoken of Morwenna. In return, Morwenna’s attempt at a smile and outheld hand pronounced how much she appreciated Elizabeth’s presence.
“Now what?” Elizabeth gave Rowan a helpless look.
His ears grew hot. “I think you examine her to see if the baby is coming.”
“Oh.” Her face turned the color of fresh strawberries. “Um, Morwenna, do you know . . . That is . . . I’ve no idea what to do or what to look for or . . . We need the midwife. Surely she’s trustworthy.”
“No. I have reason to believe her son is one of the gang.” Morwenna’s eyes closed. “Trust no one who isn’t a Trelawny.”
Elizabeth wiped Morwenna’s brow with the edge of her cloak. “You trusted Mr. Curnow.”
“He’s different. He’s a—”
Rowan cleared his throat, and she closed her mouth.
“He’s a what?” Elizabeth, of course, wouldn’t let it go.
“I was Conan’s trusted confidant.” Rowan crossed the room and poured water from a pail into a basin. “I wish we had a way to heat this.”
“Fresh water? Blankets?” Elizabeth set her hands on her hips and sent a frown from Rowan to Morwenna, and back again to Rowan. “I understand why you came here, Wenna, to protect your baby, but how did Mr. Curnow know how to get here, and how could you have all these things ready so quickly?”
“I showed him the way in and he brought things here.” Morwenna let out a bark of a laugh. “He must have had a time of collecting cloths for—” She broke off on a cry, as another contraction made her body go rigid.
Rowan took her hands this time. How a female so small could exert such pressure astounded him. How she managed not to outright scream astounded him more.
He gazed at Elizabeth
wringing her hands in the flickering candle and lantern light in the cave room. If not for those twisting fingers, one would never know she’d been dragged into the bowels of the earth beneath her home, to the side of a cousin in her lying in, when she was still a maiden, if not one as icy as she’d no doubt like to be.
“Elizabeth,” he directed her, “fetch a damp cloth and a glass of water.”
Elizabeth dipped a square of linen in the basin and picked up the ewer, but splashed water over the side of the tin cup before managing to half fill it.
He released Morwenna’s hands and touched Elizabeth’s shoulder. “Don’t be anxious.”
“I am not anxious.” The water in the cup looked as though a hurricane blew through the confines of the tin. “I simply think others are better suited for this than I. I’ll make a mistake. I’ll hurt her or the baby.” She blinked hard, but one tear escaped her efforts and headed down her cheek.
Rowan brushed it away with the pad of his thumb. “I can tell you what to do.”
“And what do you know of childbirth?”
He smiled. “More than you, I expect.” He took the cup and knelt to half lift Morwenna and press the tin to her lips. “Take a sip or two.”
“Thank you.” She managed it, but slumped back. “Need to sleep.”
“If you can, then you should.”
Rowan set the cup beneath the cot, wiped Morwenna’s face with the damp cloth, and rose to take it back to the basin. Behind him, Elizabeth had begun to pace. He watched her with her cloak and skirt swinging, her hair drifting behind her in a loose, shining veil, her face so stiff it appeared as though a touch would make it shatter.
He hesitated a moment, then caught up with her and slipped his arms around her. “Shh.” He cradled the back of her head with one hand, urging her to lay her cheek against his shoulder. “Don’t fret so. I was at the lying in of a runaway once and had to give more aid than I wanted to.”
“What if something happens to her?” A shudder ran through her. “I’ll be responsible. They’ll never forgive me.”
A Lady's Honor Page 24