A Stranger's Secret

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  “I’ll hold him until you’re on the ground.” Though the action strained the healing wounds on his back, David reached for the button, then scooped the child back onto his knee.

  “Miss Pross is here to take him,” one of the footmen said.

  Beyond him, a petite lady of late middle years swerved around the officers and descended the shallow steps of the great house. She would have been plain if not for the brilliance of her smile.

  “Lady Penvenan.” She clasped Morwenna’s hand. “I have missed this boy.” She gave David a glance with brows arched in query. “You are the mysterious stranger.”

  “Not at all mysterious, ma’am. I have a name and address and family fully disclosed.”

  What he thought he knew about the Trelawny family and his father’s mysterious death, his father’s odd behavior toward his own family, was what made David a mystery.

  Miss Pross snorted and reached for Mihal. “I held this little one when he was mere hours old. Quite an adventure we had.” She hefted him onto her hip. “And not so little now.”

  David ignored her chatter, focusing on Morwenna, who crossed the smooth gravel between the carriage and the officers and Sir Petrok. Despite the obvious tear in her hem trailing the ugly black skirt behind her, she moved with a gliding grace that displayed confidence and elegance with each stride. If he hadn’t seen her pale at the sight of the officers, David would have thought she didn’t have a care in the world except to ensure these gentlemen of the law were welcome at Bastion Point.

  “Sir?” The footman at the steps was staring at David. “Are you staying here?”

  David snapped his attention to what he needed to do. “I was gathering my strength for the arrival.”

  Entirely the truth. The renewal of strength he had experienced before leaving Penmara had abandoned him somewhere on the rough Cornish roads. Rising seemed far too much of an effort. With the aid of the overhead strap, he hauled himself to his feet, then stood, stooping to accommodate for his height and the low roof of the vehicle. He was waiting for his legs to steady before he attempted a descent.

  The footman held out a gloved hand. “Allow me to help you, sir.” The servant’s face flashed to compassion before resuming its stony expression.

  His own face stiff with mortification, David accepted the help and managed to reach the ground without falling on his face. “I’ll wait here a moment until the Trelawnys finish conducting their business with the officers.” David leaned against the coach side, remembering doing so at Penmara, Morwenna’s slender arms around him, pressing her cheek against his chest. He had smelled her hair, sweet and tangy like lemonade, a refreshing scent. He’d never been so close to a female not related to him. He wanted to do so again—with this female.

  Except she might be responsible for him being on the other side of the county he needed to be on.

  At the foot of the front steps, the revenue officers seemed to think much the same as David—that Morwenna Penvenan was involved with some nefarious dealings. “We don’t need your permission, ma’am.”

  “My lady.” Her spine stiffened. “I am Lady Penvenan.”

  The officer reddened. “Er, my lady.”

  “We have a warrant,” another officer said.

  “If you had come to me sooner”—Sir Petrok spoke from his superior height both endowed by nature and from the upper step on which he stood—“I would have given you permission without you making this so public by seeking a warrant.”

  “You have no right—” Morwenna began, then her shoulders shimmied inside her cloak, too small a motion for a shrug of resignation, too powerful for anything like a sob. More like someone shaking off spiders.

  “I am the boy’s legal guardian and the estate is his.” Sir Petrok’s expression was kind.

  “The trustees.” Morwenna’s voice had faded, making her sound very young and vulnerable.

  David took two steps forward before he remembered he was an outsider with no right to lend her support.

  No one noticed him, as Sir Petrok shook his head. “The trustees don’t need to agree to a warrant or a search.”

  “But my servants . . . The dogs . . .” Morwenna raised a hand to her cheek, then let it fall limply at her side. “I should go with you.”

  “We’d rather you did not,” the officer with lieutenant’s bars on his blue coat said.

  “I’ll go, child.” Sir Petrok descended the steps and laid one hand on Morwenna’s shoulder. “The dogs will listen to me.”

  David suspected they wouldn’t dare not listen to him.

  “You go inside and let your grandmother spoil you.” Sir Petrok fixed his gaze on David. “And you get inside and sit down before you fall down, Mr. Chastain.”

  “Yes, sir.” David took another step toward the house and the double front doors.

  “Halt.” The lieutenant raised one hand. “Who are you?”

  “David Chastain.”

  “What business—”

  “Mr. Chastain is our guest.” Sir Petrok’s voice cut across the lieutenant’s question with the whip crack of authority. “You have seen to it that we cannot stop you from searching Penmara, but this is my land and questioning my guests you cannot do.”

  The lesser officer smirked behind the lieutenant’s back. The young man flushed. Gravel crunched beneath his boot heels. “We’ll be about our business then.” He executed an about-face and strode to the rest of his men and the waiting horses.

  “Grandfather—” Morwenna turned to Sir Petrok, her face still washed of color, her eyes bigger and darker than usual against the pallor. “Why do they wish to search Penmara?”

  “We’ll discuss it later.” Sir Petrok glanced at the officers mounting their horses. “Go inside and make yourself presentable for dinner.”

  “Make myself—revenue officers want to search my home and you’re concerned about me looking presentable?” Color flooded into her face and her hands fisted at her sides. “This is the outside of enough.”

  “Unacceptable and not unexpected. Now get inside.” Sir Petrok turned toward the carriage David had just vacated, spoke to the driver, and climbed inside.

  David reached Morwenna. “Allow me.” He held out his arm.

  Fortunately—or perhaps not—they stood in full daylight with a dozen windows looking down upon them, or he might have kissed her. The panic in her eyes, the way she turned her face up to his with such relief for his presence, and, above all, that trembling strawberry lip, provided pure temptation, all the worse for him not expecting it to wash through him.

  He wrenched his gaze away. “We’d best go inside.”

  She offered him her arm without a word and, still in silence, David leaning on her surprising strength, they climbed the steps. No one opened the door for them, so David lifted the handle and stepped back to allow Morwenna to enter first. As he waited for her to pass, he caught the sotto voce words of one footman, “Beware. Her ladyship is among us again.”

  “Friends of yours?” David asked.

  Morwenna’s face grew rigid. “Youths from the village.”

  He could not—should not—press the matter further. Her past was none of his business. Being a gentleman in behavior, if not birth to these people, was his business in light of the lady who was crossing the flowered carpet toward them.

  She could have been any age between fifty and seventy with a blue lace cap adorning her snowy locks and eyes, the sparkling green eyes still clear and sharp. The few lines that marred her creamy complexion denoted more laughter than sadness, and she had maintained a trim figure that lent elegance to her height.

  “Grandmother.” Morwenna took David’s hand and drew him forward. “David Chastain.”

  “How do you do, Lady Trelawny?” He bowed.

  Lady Trelawny held out her hand to him. “I do well, especially to have my granddaughter here to stay as well as you. This house is too big for Petrok and the servants and me.”

  “Thank you.” He shook the proffered hand.
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  “With our grandson gone and other granddaughter no longer in England, we had hoped Morwenna would live here with the baby, but, alas—”

  “Penmara will tumble down around our ears if I don’t stay there,” Morwenna said. “You have rooms for us? Mr. Chastain is probably dropping.”

  “He doesn’t look well. You must rest before dinner, Mr.—oh, dear, what happened to your coat?”

  “An inconsequential sacrifice for Lord Penvenan’s entertainment.” David pulled the button from his pocket.

  “I will have someone make repairs while you rest.” Lady Trelawny looked at Morwenna again. “And I have a different gown for you to wear to dinner. That one isn’t fit for the dustbin.”

  “But it’s my second best.” Morwenna sounded too sweet.

  “We won’t discuss your wardrobe in front of a guest. Would you prefer tea first, or tea in your chamber, Mr. Chastain?”

  “Whichever—”

  “His chamber,” Morwenna broke in. “Can you not see he’s falling down?”

  “Morwenna, your manners.” Lady Trelawny’s brows drew together, but she smoothed her forehead at once and gave a brisk nod. “All right. Morwenna, you’re in your old room. Mr. Chastain is in the opposite wing.”

  She swept from the room, her lavender gown floating around her like a cloud.

  David followed, not sure he dared do anything else. Morwenna stalked behind until they reached the top of the steps and Lady Trelawny turned left and started down a side corridor. Then Morwenna darted forward, tripping on the torn hem of her gown. “You’re placing him in Elizabeth’s room? Grandmother, this house has at least thirty bedchambers and you’re putting him in hers?”

  Thirty bedchambers for two old people and a companion? David’s family home didn’t have thirty rooms, and nine adults and six children lived there.

  Eight adults.

  The reminder slammed into his middle, the physical pain of his father’s death, the loss of his wise counsel, an absence, a lack in his life so strong he didn’t catch more of the sniping between grandmother and granddaughter—more from the granddaughter than grandmother. Something about the remoteness of the room from the rest of the house. Lady Penvenan’s objections didn’t move her grandmother, who stopped in front of a door at the end of the corridor.

  “This faces the garden on the one side and sea on the other.” Lady Trelawny opened the portal to a spacious chamber with two leaded paned windows affording considerable light. “Our other granddaughter married in ’11 and, with this terrible war with America now, won’t be back for many years, I expect, if ever, so I give this chamber to guests.”

  “And Drake’s room?” Morwenna asked. She looked to David. “He’s Elizabeth’s brother, but we pretend he doesn’t exist.”

  Lady Trelawny looked surprised. “We don’t pretend he doesn’t exist. We receive letters from him as regularly as we can with this war on. He might even come home.”

  “Grandfather would welcome him?” Morwenna laughed. “Now that Elizabeth has gotten out of the Trelawny clutch—”

  “That’s enough, Morwenna.” Lady Trelawny turned her back on her granddaughter.

  One Trelawny flown from the nest, another who didn’t want to be there, and one who had gone for reasons unknown. And that didn’t include a son of the house who preferred wandering the world to home, and another preferring London and politics to this beautiful house and land. What a peculiar family. Perhaps it was normal for these wealthy members of the upper classes. The boatyard did business with wealthy men, but David preferred to design and build. He left the selling to Papa. He did well with clients.

  With the Trelawnys, despite their claims of never hearing of him? If they denied knowing him or his family, he needed to learn why, preferably before Mama arrived. And Mama would arrive. When was the key there, not if.

  She would be amused to find him in a chamber of a palace with a view that took his breath away.

  “How high up are we?” he couldn’t help but ask as he looked out the seaward window to a panorama of foaming water and blue sky etched with a ruffle of darkening cloud on the horizon.

  “Sixty feet plus the ground floor.” Lady Trelawny joined him. “Seventy-five feet from the sand. Elizabeth loves the sea. I hope you don’t mind it after your ordeal.”

  He offered the grandmother a smile. “I don’t mind at all. I am a boatbuilder and designer, after all.”

  “And you do business in Falmouth as well as Bristol?”

  “My father handled the business side of things. My brother some too. I’m the brawn.”

  Her ladyship laughed, a surprisingly musical sound for an old lady. “I expect you are and more.” She patted his arm. “Let me have that coat and I’ll send up Petrok’s man to make it good as new before you rise. I’ll send you some tea. Dinner is early here, as we keep country hours. Two hours.”

  She waited while he removed the coat, wincing as he drew his arms from the sleeves. With more promises of tea, she departed. David toed off the shoes and stretched out on the bed. A fire crackled on the hearth, warming the chamber along with shafts of sunlight streaming through the westward window. He drew the coverlet over himself anyway. Somewhere in the recesses of his head, he recalled the shocking cold of the water when the ship began to turn turtle. He’d dived into the water and headed for shore so he wouldn’t get sucked down when the ship capsized and sank. He remembered wanting to save others with his strong swimming ability, but couldn’t find them in the dark. All around him was dark with a hint of lighter black to the east. That was all. Cold, cold water. Waves higher than a man’s head. One of them catching him and . . . nothing.

  He fell asleep to the sound of the surf far below. When he awoke, he found fresh linens, his pressed and mended coat, and a cup of tea that had been brought into the room. The tea in the cup was cold, but water steamed from a pitcher on the night-stand, where a bar of finely milled soap lay with shaving gear and towels. Not one thing in that chamber belonged to him. He had lost everything, as well as the money the family scraped together to send him on this journey of finding answers.

  Send him to look for Trelawnys in Falmouth when they weren’t there at all, but living on this coast where a storm had tossed him ashore like flotsam.

  Not a coincidence. That was the stuff of epic poems by persons like Sir Walter Scott. This wasn’t a romantic’s poem; this was cold reality.

  He wasn’t here at the Trelawnys by accident.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE REVENUE OFFICERS WERE SEARCHING PENMARA. The idea made Morwenna sick to her stomach. Hands pressed to her roiling middle, she leaned her brow against the glass and wished the windows of her bedchamber looked upon Penmara, even if it were too far away to be seen. But that was Elizabeth’s old chamber where David had been placed. Morwenna’s room was on the opposite corner of the floor, facing north to the sea and east toward the Rodda estate. She couldn’t bear the sight of the sea with its reminder of treachery as deep as the bottom, as cold as the roaring waves. Out the other windows, she saw nothing but the rough landscape, grazing cows, some fields, trees, and the distant plumes of smoke from the Trelawny mines.

  Those mines worked, producing the valuable copper ore to add to the Trelawnys’ already overflowing coffers.

  She could possess a quantity of that wealth. All she needed to do was humble herself and ask for help and prove she had reformed her wayward spirits. All she had to do was turn Penmara over to her grandfather.

  “But I want to make Penmara prosperous myself. It’s the least I can do for Conan.

  “God, what am I going to do?” She beat her brow against the cold glass. “What, what, what?”

  She was innocent of misdeeds. She had always been innocent of misdeeds since Conan came into her life. But her escapades before that, if not illegal, were too close to immoral for anyone to believe her now. She wasn’t altogether certain moving David and herself to Bastion Point would help much. She wasn’t even certain her grandparents believe
d her innocent.

  Wanting to see her son, now installed in the nursery a floor above her, with Miss Pross spoiling him with some trinket Morwenna couldn’t provide, she turned from the window. Her heel caught in the torn hem of her gown. She stumbled, catching herself on the corner of a table just as Grandmother walked into the chamber without knocking.

  “That gown is a disgrace, child.” Grandmother’s gaze dropped to the torn hem.

  “It just needs a few stitches. I didn’t have time to repair it before we came here.”

  “It needs more than stitches. Look.”

  Morwenna looked and winced. Her heel had gone right through the fabric worn from too many washings. “Perhaps I can embroider—”

  “Rather like putting a new patch on an old garment. It will only pull away and make things worse.” Grandmother crossed the room and opened the dressing room door. “That’s why I had Miss Pross adjust some of the gowns Elizabeth left behind. Of course, I would love to take you to Truro or even Falmouth for new dresses, but since you won’t do that, these will have to do.”

  Morwenna glared at the half dozen or more gowns Elizabeth had brought from London and then left behind. They were sewn of the finest muslin, merino, and even silk fabrics, soft feminine gowns with lace and ruffles and fancy embroidery, the like of which Morwenna hadn’t worn since her secret marriage produced fruit. When her condition had begun to show, her grandparents had exiled her to a cottage in a remote corner of the estate, where she lived with Henwyn and the dogs until Mihal was born. She had missed the prettiness. If these dresses hadn’t belonged to Elizabeth once upon a time, Morwenna might have, at least in secret, been happy to don one and look pretty again.

  An image of David looking at her with admiration flashed into her mind’s eye, and she winced away from such a thought, then turned her back on the treasure trove of dresses. “I will darn this dress.”

  “We are having guests for dinner—the Pascoes, the Kittos, and the Roddas.”

  “All of whom have seen me dressed as I am.”