Page 14 of The Cornish Mermaid

Abbey Place lay less than fifty yards along the street, recognizable only because someone had nailed up a sliver of driftwood on which the name—Abby Plais—had been painted. It proved to be a small, grimy-looking close, with cottages clustering cheek-by-jowl on both sides of a narrow, cobbled alleyway. Small front gardens, fenced with driftwood pickets, were spread with drying nets, and gaudily painted wooden fishing floats.

Kit stared at the cottages in a mixture of horror and annoyance. None of them appeared to be the sort of place a lady of quality would have chosen to reside. Could she really be staying in this impoverished side street? Or might her “boyfriend” be some unsavory adventurer who perhaps had eloped with a lady of quality and brought her to this low ebb in her life? And not yet married her.

Kit glanced sideways at Morvoren again, taking in her pale face and lips parted as though about to speak. As though, perhaps, to protest.

“Which one is it?” he asked, hope in his heart that she’d misremembered her address, and they were in the wrong place, vying with the need for this to be the right place. Then he could say a quick goodbye to her and return to the farm before he became even more involved.

She turned eyes stretched wide with fear on him, tears sparkling and ready to fall. “It-it was the last one in the row on the right,” she managed, extending a trembling finger. “Only it didn’t look a bit like this.” Her voice shook as it rose to a plaintive cry. “Where have you brought me to? This isn’t where I was staying. This isn’t my Penzance. It can’t be.”

She swayed where she stood, her eyes still on him, almost pleading. Against his better judgement, which was telling him to leave her here in comparative civilization and run, Kit put out a hand to take her elbow. “Miss Lucas. Morvoren, this is certainly Penzance, and this is Abbey Place. I believe this is the only Abbey Place in Penzance. Perhaps you have it a little wrong in your head and your accommodation is elsewhere? Perhaps you mistook the name?”

Her tongue darted out to lick her lips. “Mr. Carlyon. Kit. Could you please tell me what… what year this is?” Her voice emerged, small and faint, yet resolute, as though she were steeling herself for some terrible shock.

Puzzled, Kit bit his lip. “Why, it’s 1811, of course,” he said, pleased to be certain of one thing at least. She might deny this was Penzance, but she couldn’t deny the year.

Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, than Morvoren crumpled sideways to the ground.

*

Morvoren

The sound of voices forced its way through Morvoren’s clogged brain. Was she back on the fishing boat? Buoyed up by that hope, she forced open her eyes.

Not the fishing boat.

She was lying in a propped position on a lumpily upholstered chair, her cheek resting against a pile of prickly velvet cushions. Her bonnet had gone, but, oh yes, she still had on that awful constricting corset, those stays, digging into her tender flesh and making it hard to breathe.

The events of the last few hours rushed back at a gallop, crowding themselves into her spinning head. Penzance as she’d never seen it before, shrunken to a tenth of its correct size, and packed with the homes of what had to be poor fisherfolk. The cottage she and Josh had rented for the week looking as though a family of squatters had been inhabiting it for a very long time.

“You’re awake.” Kit loomed over her, his face full of relieved concern.

And Kit. Of course, Kit. No wonder she’d thought he looked like the painting she’d seen in the museum. He had to be that same young man, preserved forever in oils and incarcerated in a museum for everyone to stare at. Because he’d been involved, no, was going to be involved, in the smuggling operation and killed on the very beach on which he’d dragged her ashore to save her life. Never mind what had just happened, everything she’d seen and read in the museum came flooding back. Kit, this vitally alive young man, was going to die when one of the smugglers betrayed the rest. Oh. God.

Might this all be just a terrible nightmare?

“I thought you’d hurt yourself when you fainted.” Unaware of the upheaval in Morvoren’s head and heart, Kit gestured at the beamed ceiling overhead and the dark interior of wherever they were. “I carried you back to the tavern where we left the horses, I’m afraid. It was all I could think of to do. There was nowhere more respectable to take you.”

Wait? She’d fainted? She’d never done that in her life before. It must have been the shock of being told this was 1811. Not to mention the heat of the day… and those stays.

Today was turning out to be one shock after another.

Determination seizing her, Morvoren pushed herself a little more upright in the chair, and removed her cheek from the cushions. A little dizziness remained, but her wits were returning. What must he think of her? That she was some sort of weak woman who fainted at the drop of a hat? Probably. This was 1811 after all, and she’d just fallen neatly into the stereotype of a delicate Regency lady.

Raising her eyes, Morvoren studied Kit’s concerned face. That he was a kind and honorable young man seemed evident from the way he’d looked after her, but the fact that he was also a smuggler now forced its way into the front of her mind and wouldn’t go away. And, of course, that he was going to die. Very soon. Well, sometime this year. Sometime in 1811.

Kit’s enquiring eyes rested on her in kind concern. Those of a young man who could have no conception of where she’d come from. Oh God! Did they still burn witches in 1811? If she told him the truth, would he think her one? Or maybe even lock her in a madhouse?

Could she bring herself to confide in him that somehow, something extremely strange had happened to her when she fell off that boat? That she knew he was a smuggler and was going to die because of it? But when? If only she could remember the date quoted on the exhibition in the museum. She swallowed the rising lump in her throat, steeled herself, and opened her mouth to speak.

The landlord chose this moment to shoulder his way into the room carrying a tray loaded with food and drink.

The moment was lost.

“You need sustenance after your swoon,” Kit said, as the landlord laid the tray on the table. “And then we need to decide what to do next. Your cottage appears not to be where you thought it was. Might you have been staying with… anybody else?”

Definite hesitation from him there.

He took a watch on a chain out of his waistcoat pocket and surveyed it. With a frown, he stowed the watch away again. “Could we perhaps search for… your companions? If you give me their names, then I can make enquiries while you rest here. I commanded a private parlor for you, so you won’t be disturbed.”