“Has he told you about his family?”
“Some about his family. He seems to hold them in high regard.”
High regard? She did him an injustice. He adored his family and likely they felt the same about him.
A twinge something akin to jealousy pinched her.
“He asked for drawing materials.” She changed the subject away from families.
“He designs boats. And does the building, from the look of his hands. I expect he misses working.”
“So do I.” Morwenna pushed back her chair, rude or not. “I need to see my son. If the weather clears, Nicca is bringing the dogs over next low tide.”
“And Jago will call. So will Tristan Pascoe.”
Morwenna groaned. “Grandmother, I do not want suitors.”
“Not even to save Penmara? You will get your dowry if you marry well, and perhaps more.”
“You mean more as in Bastion Point now that Elizabeth and Drake are gone and you have to leave the lands to someone?”
“Morwenna.” Grandmother looked pained. “We would leave you Bastion Point because we love you and admire the woman you have grown into.”
“Oh. Well. Um . . .” Morwenna didn’t know how to respond to that kind of compliment. “I wouldn’t know what to do with it all. Perhaps you should simply divide it between the three of us.”
“We would like to do so now. But if you marry appropriately, we would have great pleasure in seeing the land go to you.”
Conan had been an appropriate husband with his ancient lands and title. But their marriage had been secret, with no dowry forthcoming. By the time her grandparents knew the truth and offered her a home and financial support—if she moved to Bastion Point—she was too hurt, too angry to accept their largesse.
“It would be your money to spend on Penmara then, since you won’t take it from us now,” Grandmother continued.
“It would be my husband’s money, which he may or may not spend on Penmara.” Morwenna opened the door. “But I will receive the gentlemen. If I’m not on the beach. They could potentially both invest in the mines.”
She left the dining room, nodded to the two footmen in the front hall because she could not bear to ignore servants as though they were invisible, and climbed the flight of stairs to the first floor.
Where she found David leaning against the corner leading to his chamber, his face as white as the plaster behind him, his letter crushed in his hand.
CHAPTER 10
DAVID DIDN’T NOTICE THAT MORWENNA HAD COME UP the steps until he smelled her sweet lemony scent and felt the warmth of her hand on his arm. He started and looked down at her, read the concern on her face, and scrambled to focus his mind on her, not his brother’s letter.
Except his brother’s letter might affect her.
“Are you all right?” Her warm, husky voice washing over him.
He managed a smile. “I am well enough, my lady.”
“It wasn’t bad news from home, was it?”
For the most part, it was terrible news.
He focused on her lovely face and the good news in the letter. “We have new work, if I can fix my mind on creating a design.”
“I’m pleased to hear that.” She narrowed her eyes. “So you think you can’t design?”
“I can. It’s naught that I haven’t done before.”
“Then why”—her hand gripped his arm—“did I find you looking about to crumple to the floor? Unless, of course, you are ill.”
“My lady.” He covered her hand with his, cupping her slender fingers between his palm and the sleeve of his coat. “Do not trouble yourself about my family dealings. They will work themselves out.”
“I see.” She snatched her hand free. “Then I shall leave you to yourself.” She spun on her heel and stalked away fast enough the frill at the bottom of her dress swung out behind her.
If a footman didn’t stand around the corner, David might have pounded his head against the wall in frustration, or until he knew the right course of action to take. He would rather walk out on a spar in a gale than continue the balance between gratitude and too much caring for Morwenna, and wondering what game her parents were playing and if she was involved.
He slapped his palm to his brow, then drew his fingers down his face as though he could wipe away confusion and the flash of hurt on Morwenna’s face. He didn’t even know how to tell her that he wasn’t saying anything because he didn’t want to bring her pain unnecessarily—or at all. He wanted to follow her. He wanted—
He cut off that line of thinking and continued to his room.
He entered his chamber, then stood before the desk, too restless to sit as he reread his brother’s letter. It began with common news from home. The boatyard had one simple commission that would stave off creditors for another few weeks if they were careful. Mama still determined that Papa was innocent of wrongdoing, and Rebecca, their sister, was increasing again and sure to make everyone crazed with her demeanor soaring from excitement one minute and dropping to bouts of weeping the next.
That bit made David smile. Rebecca was normally the sunniest of creatures with a smile for everyone and rarely a harsh word—until she began to expect an interesting event. She then turned into a creature none of them knew for at least three months.
Still smiling, though he knew what lay on the next sheet, David turned the page of the letter.
A middle-aged couple came to call at the office yesterday, right after we received your letter. They wouldn’t leave their name and grew agitated when they learned our father was not there. When I told them he was deceased, the woman burst into tears and ran back to their carriage. The gentleman (for they were prosperous looking) looked ready to commit murder. I thought he, too, might break down and weep. I offered to help them with whatever I could, but they left as though the hounds of Hades chased them. Do you know what this might be about?
David knew. Or at least he thought he knew who the couple was—the Trelawnys, Morwenna’s parents she claimed she hadn’t seen in six years.
And why would she lie about that? Martin’s letter spoke of a couple who knew nothing of Papa’s death, so they could not have had anything to do with it. In that event, why would Morwenna lie about her parents being in England? Because her parents were good enough actors to pay a call on the dead man’s business and family and pretend no knowledge?
What if Morwenna knew of her parents’ visit to Bristol? She could be lying to him about knowing nothing of their whereabouts. He didn’t want her to be. He wanted her to be as honest as the day was long and then some. And yet, he had landed on her beach, in her house, drugged without his knowledge by her or her servants.
He didn’t know how to find the answers other than time and proximity to the Trelawnys. Time—something of which his family might be in short supply if they were to save the family business.
After folding the letter with care, David slipped it into a drawer of the desk. Thinking better of such an obvious place to keep it, he retrieved it and slipped it behind a stack of boxes on a high shelf in the dressing room. With the boxes aligned just so, he would know if anyone went searching his room.
Drawing materials lay on the desk from the night before. He spread out a sheet of the foolscap, weighed down each corner with inkpot, book, and two china figurines, and picked up a pencil. Designing, calculating ratios of length to beam, deck to keel always helped to clear his mind. He could lose himself in the numbers and lines on the paper and let nothing else intrude. When finished, he often found the answer waiting for him the instant he put his mind back to it. From the time he began to work in the boatyard, his family learned to leave him alone when he bent over a drawing. Even when Papa saw him making a mistake, he waited until David finished to point it out so they could discuss the error in relationship to the whole.
Who would check his work now? Martin was no good at design.
He shut his mind to that as well and concentrated on planning the project Martin men
tioned in his letter. He didn’t know how long he had been working when the sound of barking dogs penetrated his concentration and carried him to the window facing the sea. From that height, he could only catch the merest glimpse of the beach because the tide was out. He opened the casement. Wind blasted into his face, sharp and cold, clearing his head of remnants of sums, and he leaned into it, out over the stone sill to view the dizzying drop to the sand—
And the sight of a Morwenna, Lady Penvenan, he didn’t know existed.
She was cavorting with the deerhounds. Holding a driftwood stick, she ran down the beach, fluffy pink skirts flying around her, while the dogs chased her. Her hair had come loose from its pins and streamed behind her like a banner. To one side, on a path cut into the cliff, Nicca and Henwyn stood, the latter holding the baby. He clapped and his mouth was open in a huge grin. A gust of wind carried baby laughter to David’s ears.
Baby and a woman’s laughter.
Morwenna was laughing. At the end of the cove, she spun and threw the stick, and a shaft of sunlight breaking through the clouds shone on her face. It glowed as though the sun blazed from within her.
David’s insides coiled and tightened. He gripped the edge of the windowsill as though he could hold on to his emotions, rein in his heart.
He failed.
“Dear Jesus, no, I cannot.” He closed his eyes. “I cannot care for her. Please bring sense to my heart.”
He opened his eyes, hoping to see her now and feel nothing but ordinary human kindness toward a lady who had been good to him regardless of her motivations.
She stood with the others, holding her son now while the dogs, their mouths lolling in canine grins, sat on either side of her as though guarding her.
Guarding her. Guarding . . . Guarding . . . As she said they had guarded him on the beach when she ran for help to carry him into the house, a lapse of time during which someone had stolen his medallion from the Trelawnys.
He pictured himself racing through the house and down the curving path cut into the cliff. In truth, he moved like a man three times his age, past two footmen who asked if they could be of service, through the parlor he had used the night before, and into the garden. It was stark and still nearly barren in early spring, its only advantage being shelter from the prevailing winds at the tops of the cliffs. The bar was off the door, probably removed by Morwenna. Fatigued from the hours of drawing, he leaned against the frame for a moment, listening to the distant-sounding surf, wanting to hear the laughter.
She was laughing.
Hoping he could hear it again, David pushed away from the sun-warmed stone of the wall and found the head of the path. Below him, Morwenna stood still holding her son, though he looked too heavy for her, and talking to Nicca and Henwyn. They were shaking their heads, but stopped and glanced up at David.
Morwenna turned. “Mr. Chastain, don’t come down. The going up is too rough.”
It looked it, steep and narrow.
“I’ll wait for you then.” He braced one hand against the face of the cliff from which the path had been blasted.
She had lost the light of laughter. Once again, her face had turned into that of a marble statue—smooth and perfect and expressionless. How he longed to change that back to something softer, happier.
When he carried no joy in his own heart?
He closed his eyes against the sting of wind and the sight of what he could not have. He hadn’t even known he yearned for a family of his own until now, when he was in no position to go looking for a wife, especially not one who belonged to the gentry. Whatever she showed as her poverty, one day at Bastion Point told him it was of her own choosing.
“That’s not an advisable place to sleep, Mr. Chastain.” Her voice held a hint of amusement. “It’s a long way down to the beach.”
“It looks it.” He opened his eyes in time to see Henwyn and Nicca disappearing around the headland with the dogs. “Is your play over?”
“My—”
“Dog!” Mihal shouted.
“The dogs will come back tomorrow.” Morwenna shifted the boy to her other hip.
“May I carry him for you? He looks heavy.”
“I’ll set him down when we get inside the garden.”
“Dog.”
Morwenna grimaced. “I anxiously await the day when he says more to me than ‘dog’ and ‘eat.’ ”
“Don’t be so sure you want that.” David turned back to the garden, and Morwenna fell into step beside him. “My brother’s wife said something similar and now wishes my nephews would be quiet.”
“I expect I’ll be the same, especially when he says everything at such volume. Funny that. His father was gently spoken.”
“And you?”
She snorted, but it wasn’t as derisive as he had heard from her before, something closer to a genuine chuckle. “I am not quiet.” She preceded David into the garden.
While she set down her son and ensured he stood on steady legs, David shut and barred the door.
“Did you want the fresh air,” she asked him, “or did you wish to see me about something?”
“I wanted to see you about something.” He looked at the child toddling along ahead of them. “Do you need to tend to him?”
She smoothed a strand of hair away from her face. “And my hair. Grandmother will flay me alive if she sees me with my hair falling down in the middle of the afternoon with callers expected.”
“You’re expecting callers? Not that I have any business asking. I merely don’t wish to keep you if you are.”
“We always expect callers.” She glanced down to where sand fringed the hem of her skirt. “So I’d best change. Go into the drawing room. I will join you there. Feel free to order refreshments if no one offers them to you.”
She picked up her son in one arm, started up the steps, her other hand lifting her hem just enough to keep herself from tripping on the gown, not enough to show her ankles. She might reject her grandparents’ life in many ways, but her training ruled her life. She was a lady, the lady of the manor. She was the sort of female he glimpsed alighting from their carriages in Bristol or Bath, bestowing coins upon the urchins who offered to hold their horses or swept the walkways clear for them, and ignoring other people.
He didn’t realize he was still gazing up the stairway though she had turned out of sight, until a footman cleared his throat. David started and glanced around.
The servant held open the drawing room door. “I will bring you tea and whatever else you wish. Perhaps some pasties?”
“Thank you.” His face too warm, David entered the drawing room, where a fire blazed on the hearth and, of all things, a cat lay curled up in sleep upon one of the velvet chairs. Tentatively, David paused to stroke the thick, gray fur. A low rumble rewarded his attention. Smiling, he took the adjacent chair. The cat lifted its head and regarded him with startlingly green eyes.
“Was I not supposed to stop, Mr. Feline? Or is it Miss Feline?”
“Miss, and she’s not supposed to be in here.” Lady Trelawny had entered without David’s notice. “Come along, Tamsyn. You know better.”
The cat leaped over the arms of two chairs and landed in David’s lap. He laughed and curled a hand around her paws to keep her from clawing to hold her balance.
Lady Trelawny shook her head. “She thinks she’s too good to be a mere kitchen cat.”
“Shall I carry her back there for you?”
“Only if she annoys you. She’s rather a matriarch around here and, now that Morwenna is back, wants to join the family.” She glided across the room and settled on a chair across from David. “Morwenna has always loved the smaller animals, if anyone can call those deerhounds of Conan’s small, and our other granddaughter, Elizabeth, loves horses. Do you like animals, Mr. Chastain?”
“Yes, my lady. We have several cats in the boatyard to keep the rats from eating the rope and canvas.” He stroked the purring cat. “I usually have two or three keeping me company when I’m drawi
ng.”
“So you’re the designer behind the boats?”
“I’ve been taking over from my father—” Suddenly, his throat closed and he turned his face to a fire that had grown blurry around the edges of the flames. “He hasn’t done much design in the past few years. He said I was better. I think his eyesight was growing poor.”
Suddenly, David wanted to be away, stop taking the hospitality of these people whose son and daughter-in-law probably had something to do with Papa’s death or coincidence ran too deep for a man to manage on his own. The good manners drilled into him since childhood dictated that he couldn’t walk out on her ladyship, and now a footman entered with a laden tray. David’s stomach growled. Accepting food and kindness from these people should feel like treachery, betrayal to his family.
He rose, the cat still in his arms. He would excuse himself, go to his room, and think what he should do—stay or leave. He took a step toward the door, and in the great hall, the bell rang, heralding the arrival of guests. Then Morwenna appeared in the doorway.
“Tamsyn.” Morwenna rushed forward and reached out her arms for the cat. Tamsyn leaped into her ladyship’s hold, her purr louder than ever. “Oh, you dear thing.” She rubbed her face against the soft fur.
David looked away, fully understanding that Morwenna’s indifferent demeanor ran about as deep as skin or less. Her heart, on the other hand, was as warm as the flames leaping on the hearth.
She could not be responsible for harming anyone. She must be telling the truth about not knowing anything of her parents.
Don’t trust anything by appearances, Papa had always said about business associates.
The advice probably applied to everyone. If Morwenna weren’t so pretty, would he think the same of her, be so willing to set aside his distrust and now the new reasons for suspicions? He couldn’t know because she was that pretty.
And apparently she attracted gentlemen callers. Jago Rodda and Tristan Pascoe headed straight for Morwenna.
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