She paid the wine seller in Camelford, a quaint town astride the Camel River, and rode back down the road.
A rider turned his horse into the trees just below before the road sloped to Sidwell. She spotted the unmistakable bulk of the Hunter. Bettina reined in, anger rising. Tired of being taunted, she kicked Shevall to follow and confront this man. He’d ridden into the area’s thickest woods. This expanse stretched to the north of the inn and the Camborne estate before thinning out at the desolate moor to the east.
The loamy fragrance of earth and the honey-scented gorse surrounded her. Her horse’s warmth beneath and the power of movement emboldened her. This man had to confess his true purpose or cease harassing her.
The trail twisted through the cool spruce, silver firs and clusters of beech. She slowed her mount to a walk to scan the area. The dense undergrowth thwarted her view. A few minutes later, a loud crackle alerted her. Two birds left a tree limb and flapped into the sky. Still, she saw nothing. She stood in the stirrups and scrutinized beyond the trail.
“I know you are here, monsieur le Hunter. You will please to come out and talk to me.” Sunlight streamed in through the treetops, splashing strange patterns on the trail as her horse paced along.
The bushes rustled and Bettina stopped Shevall. Another horse nosed out onto the trail. The Hunter sat astride, his grin slick. “So you have found me, très bien.” He flipped up the brim of his hat to reveal a scarred face, rough like the skin of a toad. His small eyes, set wide apart, appraised her from above a flat nose. “Now we will talk alone. What is your true name?”
“You are French.” She spoke in a haughty tone, hand gripped on the pommel. “I demand to know what you want with me. Why are you following me?”
He grunted a laugh. “Are you not Lisbette Jonquiere, the Comte’s daughter?” The Hunter looked pleased with himself, as if confident of her answer.
“Who are you?” Bettina tried not to squirm in the saddle. “What do you know about my family?”
“I seek information to do with your father. You were not easy to find, hiding in this remote place. But I am the best, as you see.” He reached out and grabbed her horse’s reins below the bit. “Let us ride elsewhere to talk.”
“You ask me here. I will not go with you.” Bettina jerked on the reins. She ached to know anything about her father, but fear soared up in her like a whoosh of icy wind. “Let go of my horse.”
The Hunter laughed again, a nasty croak like the malignant toad he resembled might emit. He pulled her gelding toward the bushes.
“Here, we will stay here! Tell me about my father!” She yanked on the leather, her hands stinging. “You cannot steal my horse!”
He nodded and continued to drag her mount along. Bracken scratched at her legs. Bettina jerked up her skirt, swung her left leg over the pommel and slid off Shevall’s right side. She stumbled when she hit the dirt, but lurched up.
The Hunter frowned and looked about to dismount.
Bettina rushed into the woods. She’d made a serious blunder in seeking him out alone, with no weapon or aid. Her skirts hiked to her knees, she jumped over brush and darted around trees and over gullies, not hesitating to see if he pursued.
Chapter Twenty
Trampling through the gorse and bracken disoriented her. Bettina had never been off the trail before. Out of breath and dizzy, she saw the back of the Camborne barn and stables, the rear of the estate.
After a dash over the low hills, she passed a cemetery knoll, flew across the clearing and ran to the rear door of Bronnmargh. She pounded her fist on the kitchen door, gasping for breath. She had to find help.
The door creaked open and she flung herself inside, propelled by fury.
Hands grabbed her.
“Help!” She shouted into Everett’s face.
“Bettina! What is this? Are you all right?” He put his arms around her, his eyes wide with shock.
“Grâce à dieu! It is you.” She almost slumped into him, then pulled back from his embrace and wheezed to catch her breath. “A man, he … took my horse in the woods.”
“Please, sit down and explain.” He clasped her elbow and led her to a chair before the empty hearth. “I’ve just returned from London.”
Bettina sank into the chair and coughed. “This man, he has come to the inn. I saw him following me on the road, I went to speak to him.”
Everett handed her a glass of cider and sat down opposite. “What did he want?”
Bettina sipped the cider, refreshing and tart on her throat. She took a deep breath and explained about the Hunter’s words at the inn.
“You should never have spoken with him alone in the woods.” Everett’s brow furrowed in concern, his eyes full of compassion.
“I realize that now.” Bettina had to look away. “He knows who I am, my father….”
“He knows you’re Jonquiere?”
“Yes. And my proper name, Lisbette. My father called me Bettina, after a nurse’s pet name for me as a little girl. It is a name only my parents use.” She strained against the quivering inside her. “He knows my father was a count.”
“What could this rogue want? What purpose could he have? A strange way to behave if he were searching for you at your family’s behest.” Everett stood and paced on the kitchen flagstones in his dusty boots, his expression brooding.
“It cannot be for my family. He said he wanted information about my father. He could have explained all this the first time we met. His reasons are not honest.” Bettina began to calm, but she was now unsettled looking into Everett’s eyes. “And how did he ever find me? Armand, he is the only person who knew where I had gone, and he sent me to Bath. Cornwall is quite a distance from there.”
“This is confounding. Now I worry about your safety.” Everett hovered beside the table, staring down at her.
“I should not have brought you into it. I will ride to the Justice of the Peace tomorrow; Kerra can go with me.” Bettina finished her drink, the liquid churning in her stomach. She fingered the glass.
“John Trethewy?” He straightened and grimaced. “If it will do you much good with him. Instead of seeing people at his estate, our self-important Justice keeps an office in Port Isaac. I’ll take you there in the morning.”
The deep anger on his face intimidated her. Bettina rose to her feet. “I will handle it on my own. I should return to Maddie’s.”
Everett’s expression softened. He stepped close to her. “You must stay here tonight, where you’ll be safe.”
“No, that is out of the question. I cannot stay here.” She bristled at the idea and straightened her straw hat. Burrs and leaves fell from it.
“The inn is the first place he'll look for you, Bettina. I can protect you better than those women can. I insist you stay.” He reached out his hand then stopped himself.
“He will not dare show himself there now.” Bettina stepped around the table on the other side, bumping the pots on the lug-pole in the fireplace. She remembered the Frenchman’s grotesque visage, and her fingers clenched.
“You can sleep in the room Mrs. Pollard used. She’s upstairs with Frederick. I’ll have Lew escort her home.” Everett stroked his chin for a moment. His gaze grew sad before it sharpened. “Don’t worry, I’ll respect your privacy. I just can’t allow you to leave here tonight knowing a madman is searching for you.”
“I … do not know.” Bettina sighed, closing her eyes. She tried to relax the muscles that bunched up all over her body; it was as if tiny fists pummeled her.
“Please sit down again.” Everett put a hand on her shoulder. She sat just to remove his touch. He stirred up the flames under a low hanging pot. “Mrs. Pollard left mutton pottage. You’ll feel better if you eat something.”
“I am not hungry.” She glanced at this man who aroused and confused her emotions. His concern was obvious, but she still didn’t see how matters could improve between them.
She managed a few bites of the heated pottage, and they cleaned u
p in relative silence. She carried a pitcher of water upstairs to wash. Stripped to her shift, she splashed water on the drawn face she saw in the looking glass. Her eyes were large and alert like a woodland animal. She removed her torn stockings and cleaned the scratches on her legs. At a knock, she wrapped the bed quilt around her and cracked the door open.
“Do you need anything else?” Everett asked in a gentle voice. He had washed as well, his hair was still damp. The kindness in his gaze pulled at her.
Bettina took a deep breath and bunched the quilt to her chin, to stop herself from reaching out to touch his face. “No, I am fine, thank you. Goodnight.” She closed and locked the door.
She curled up on the bed, still wearing the counterpane wrapped around herself. She overpowered the urge to go to him and ask why he couldn’t love her. But to beg for emotions that weren’t there would be humiliating. Everett probably didn’t even desire her by this time. That idea saddened her as she sorted through her confused feelings for him. But soon the thought of the Hunter asking about her father brought about more apprehension.
* * * *
“I asked Mrs. Pollard to keep Frederick for the day,” Everett told her in the morning as he helped her into his curricle. His manner was a little formal, yet his expression remained tender. “We’ll stop at the inn first, to let Miss Tregons know what has happened.”
After leaving the inn, they rode in solemn silence down the coast. A chough flew past them, a streak of red and black against a cornflower sky. Bettina stared straight ahead, feeling off balance, as if she swam through a bizarre dream and foundered, incapable of reaching the shore.
“I do care about you, Bettina, despite what you might think.” He uttered this in a brusque fashion, as if ashamed of such tender sentiment.
She winced at that word again—care, never love. She gripped her knees and made no reply. The skin along her shins itched from the previous day’s trample through the woods. An itch of frustration built up inside of her.
“I considered at first that it might be preferable if I left you alone,” he said after several more minutes as they trundled along the cliffs, the bay opening up before them in the distance.
“I have no doubt.” Bettina stiffened, her wounds still deep. “You can dismiss me so easily, as insignificant as I have been to you.”
Everett drew a sharp breath. “That’s not true. I realized at once how impossible it is to deny what I feel. You, I … it’s all very complicated.”
“Life is complicated, yes, for we fools that get involved with it. I wish it were easy, and you had no wife—or perhaps just a heart….” She swallowed hard. “And I had no one hunting me like a rabbit. I will borrow a pistol from Maddie to carry from now on.”
“Have you ever fired a pistol?” His voice grew harsh.
“I will learn.” She continued to stare at the bay—a dark blue slash into the slate cliffs.
“I’d caution you not to do anything foolish.”
“I believe I have already been a fool.” Bettina glared at him.
Everett’s jaw tightened. His knuckles white around the reins, he ordered the horses to quicken their stride.
The quaintness of Port Isaac now looked grim to Bettina as they descended the steep road in. They pulled up near a row of buildings that faced a harbor crowded with fishing boats. Women rushed back and forth, toting baskets of the day’s catch. The air smelled of fish and salt.
Everett escorted her into one of the squat stone buildings. A tiny room to the right was set aside as an office. A servant asked them to sit there while he summoned Mr. Trethewy.
A short bewigged gentleman of about forty soon walked in. His creased face held a cynical expression. “Ah, Camborne, such an unexpected pleasure. What can I do for you?” he asked in a cool manner. He nodded toward Bettina.
“I’m here to report an assault.” Everett stood, his tone strained. He relayed the facts, his hands clenched behind him. Bettina filled in the details.
The Justice eyed them both, then rubbed a knuckle on his desktop. “Appears to me there was a horse stealing.” He snatched up a file from his desk drawer and sawed it over his nails. “But assault? He didn’t harm the young woman, did he? I’ll have to look into it. A gray gelding you say? I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you. I hope you will.” Bettina fought back a sigh, frustrated by his indifferent air. She rose and turned to leave.
“This man’s behavior warrants an immediate search, assault or not,” Everett said through thinned lips as he slapped his hat on his knee.
“Indeed it might. Oh, Camborne, has that wife of yours ever turned up?” Trethewy scratched under his wig with the end of the file, his sardonic glare scrutinizing the other man.
“No, she hasn’t. I expect your attention on this matter. Good day, sir.” Everett put his hand firm on Bettina’s shoulder. His fingers dug into her flesh, yet his effort to protect her by confronting a man he obviously disliked moved her.
“Before you go, you wouldn’t know anything about that farm boy found dead in the cove?” Trethewy smirked, and Bettina tensed. “One of my tenant farmer’s sons. Stephen Tremayne. Quite beaten up he was, too.”
“No, and why should I? As I said, good day, sir.” Everett steered Bettina back outside.
She blinked at the glare of the sun. Her head began to throb. She looked up into Everett’s disturbed face as they stood in front of the harbor, sheltered by its towering slate cliffs. Seagulls cried out into the breeze. Women’s shouting came from the fish cellars.
“Trethewy isn’t going to be much help, I’m afraid. He never is, unless it benefits him. But he’s the only law in the area.” Everett assisted her into the curricle, his grip on her arm almost painful.
“I must agree.” The Justice bringing up Stephen upset her. But Everett had little reason to kill him and he’d been away, in London … hadn’t he? She rubbed a hand over her brow as if she could wipe away that thought.
The curricle and horses lurched up the steep grade to the main road. An edgy silence lingered between them. Bettina’s aggravation and confusion over the events boiled over. “I must find my horse. I planned to give him to—”
“You have to be careful from now on. You simply can’t go off unescorted. And never approach that man alone.” Everett snapped the reins and his team tossed their heads. “Trethewy should be reprimanded to do his duty.”
“I am leaving here as soon as I can arrange it, so I will not be a burden to anyone.” She struggled to keep her voice firm and shifted on the hard bench. “I wish that I had never come to Cornwall.”
Everett glared at her. “Don’t start sounding like Miriam.”
“Stop this carriage at once!” Bettina slid from the seat, forcing him to rein in the horses. She jumped down and ran toward the cliffs, not wanting him to see her angry tears.
Everett leapt from the curricle and chased after her. He caught her arm and swung her around to face him. “I didn’t mean that, I'm sorry. You don’t understand everything.”
“I do not understand anything!” She thrashed to free herself, but he wrapped his arms around her and pressed her to his chest. She refused to look at him. “I wanted you to love me.”
He put his lips to her damp cheek. “I do love you, Bettina,” he whispered. “I love you so much, it’s difficult for me. It doesn’t come easily when you’ve endured what I have. And I do possess a heart, if only a trampled one.”
She gasped at his confession, then bristled with her own anguish. “You say it now, but does it solve anything? If you do not consider divorce, how can you possibly love me?”
“I’m fighting my own difficulties, but never doubt again that I love you.” Everett kissed her cheek and the top of her head, his hands caressing her shoulders. “I only regret not being honest with you. And there are matters I must attend to … to clear up.”
“What sort of matters?” Bettina looked up at him through her tears. “Do not lie to me anymore, I—” Her words were
smothered when Everett kissed her full on the mouth, holding her so tight she thought she’d shatter.
Chapter Twenty-One
“You’re certain you want to know how to fire this?” Maddie fingered the pistol she’d pulled from a tin box atop a cupboard. Bettina walked with her behind the inn the next morning, the air rising warm. “But I agree, you need protection after what happened.”
“I doubt Mr. Trethewy will pursue this scoundrel since he seems to have released my horse.” Shevall had wandered back to the stable the day following her encounter, while she and Everett were in Port Isaac.
“Weren’t the horse he were after. He wanted to have his way with you, no doubt.” Maddie glanced at her as if waiting for more information. Then she squinted and inspected the pistol. “An’ he come into the taproom a time or so, you say?”
“Yes, he did. I am so confused about it.” Bettina tried to banish the toad’s leering face—and her father’s kind one. She followed Maddie to the far right of the stable into the Hawthorne trees. A family of rooks rustled in the stable eaves when they passed. Bettina pointed to the gun. “Please show me how this works. I have never fired any weapon before.”
“Suppose Father did teach me ’nother skill worth knowing,” Maddie smirked. “Watch me close now. First, you half cock the pistol, like this. Put the flint flat upwards and clear of the hammer. You wanna push a feather tip into the flash hole to keep it clear. Make sure your powder be dry. Measure and pour it into the barrel.” She reached over for the items Bettina held, taking each one in turn. “Hold this greased calico patch over the muzzle, push your ball down with your thumb. Then ram it in. Check that the cock be safe, prime the pan and close it.”
Maddie aimed and fired at an old tree stump near the hill that sloped up to Bronnmargh. The bang made Bettina flinch. The bullet hit the stump and scattered wood chunks into the air. “Now you give it a try.”
Betrayed Countess (Books We Love Historical Romance) Page 21