Page 24 of The Cornish Mermaid

The Captain’s dark face darkened still further. Morvoren had the distinct impression he was a man people rarely said no to. Ha. A warm glow suffused her body. Good. That’d teach him. She took a step closer to Kit and laid her hand on his arm. “Come,” she said, feeling more and more like a character out of a Jane Austen TV adaptation. “Let us hasten to your mother’s. I can’t wait to greet dear Elyssa.”

Good thing she’d remembered his sister’s name.

“Ysella,” Kit hissed under his breath, turning a bland expression on his cousin. With a small snort, that could have been of amusement, he laid his hand in a most proprietorial fashion over hers. “Indeed, we must do so at once, Miss Lucas. I fear this journey has fatigued you.” He turned to the ostlers who were hanging about looking hopeful as though expecting a tip. “I left my phaeton here when I departed for the west country. Harness two horses to it, if you please. For Ormonde Abbey. I’ll have one of the grooms return the beasts to you later today.”

What kind of vehicle might a phaeton be?

*

Kit

Well, that was neatly done. Fitzwilliam put in his place and satisfyingly annoyed. He couldn’t have done it better himself. Kit kept a straight face as no one, not even a properly put down bully, liked to be laughed at. The last thing he wanted was his own cousin calling him out. That would be very inconvenient. Not that he was afraid to fight Fitzwilliam. Not now. In fact, he’d love to, although with fists, not in a duel. However, delightful as that prospect was, he had to control himself. A fight of any kind would interfere with the plans he had for his stay at Ormonde and no doubt upset Miss Lucas.

While the ostlers prepared two horses and harnessed them to his phaeton, Kit steered her to a low wooden bench out of the bright sun and she sat down, tucking those strange shoes out of sight under her gown. Fitzwilliam, his arrogant face a little flushed, had departed into the interior of the inn, no doubt to see about his own breakfast, and Loveday, a smug grin on her face, had wandered over to the archway to peer out into the street in curiosity.

Miss Lucas looked up at Kit. “I’m so sorry. I had to say we weren’t going to have breakfast because the last thing I wanted to do was spend time with that odious man.” She paused, her gaze intense. “I do hope you don’t mind having to do without food. I’m hungry myself, but the thought of having to make polite conversation…” Her voice trailed off.

Kit allowed his lips to twitch in the vestige of a smile. “That’s quite all right, Miss Lucas. You only said what I was longing to say but manners didn’t allow. And it suits me to head back to Ormonde as quickly as possible. They’ll have my phaeton ready in a moment and we’ll set off. It’s less than five miles, so we should be home within the hour. As long as we get decent horses.” His gaze went to where the ostlers were putting the finishing touches to harnessing two beasts of mediocre quality to his phaeton.

He sighed. “Not quite what I would’ve liked. But… they’ll have to do, I’m afraid. Come, let me help you up. Loveday, we’re leaving.”

Loveday, recalled to her proper duties, hurried over, face flushed with excitement. “They do have paved roads and houses four stories high,” she exclaimed, picking up her bag and tossing it into the back of the phaeton as though it were a feather weight.

One ostler kept hold of the horses’ heads, although they were not overly eager to be off, and the second lifted up the trunks and stowed them with Loveday and her bag. Then Kit helped Miss Lucas onto the front seat, climbed up himself and took the reins. He clicked his tongue and tickled the horses’ rumps with the end of the whip, and the finely sprung vehicle glided out over the flagstones and into the street.

Here, he turned left, heading east along the main road, the wheels bouncing over cobbles that turned into a graveled roadway as they reached the edge of the town. A curious sense of elation at being home swept over Kit, although Wiltshire had never quite felt like home in the same way Cornwall did, and never would. But this was where his mother was, and that minx Ysella as well.

And on top of that, it was a beautiful morning, with dew still sparkling on the grass at the sides of the road, and a pretty girl beside him. Not to mention two bolts of silk residing in his trunk as presents for his mother and Ysella.

Very soon, they left the last of the straggling Marlborough cottages behind and were rolling through verdant countryside—past estate farms in the care of his own tenants, through leafy woodland and ever closer to Ormonde. How could he be anything but happy now he’d left behind the dangers that had threatened Miss Lucas in Cornwall? His own part in what went on down there he enjoyed immensely for many reasons, but exposing her to it was not something he wished to do. Hopefully she’d seen nothing, and if she had, would be wise enough not to mention it.

Kit waved a hand at the woodland. “Savernake Forest. Belongs to the Earl of Cardigan and his family. But they’re never at Tottenham Park. Our nearest neighbor down here happens to be my cousin’s grandfather, the Duke of Denby, of Denby Castle, but that’s another ten miles beyond Ormonde and they’re not always there.”

“This seems to be a very well-to-do neighborhood,” Miss Lucas said.

He glanced sideways. This time, with the well-sprung phaeton gliding over the rough road, she wasn’t holding on so tightly to the seat rails, and a small smile played about her lips as though at last she might be enjoying herself. Good. He clicked to the horses again, and they increased their trot.

“Not really. At least no more so than any other area, I’d say.” He frowned. “More so than Cornwall, though.”

Perhaps now was the time, with Loveday otherwise engaged being dumbstruck by her surroundings, to ask Miss Lucas one or two of the questions that had been building in his mind ever since he’d pulled her out of the sea.

He cleared his throat. “Miss Lucas?”

She turned her head, her blue eyes bright with excitement despite the shadows beneath them. “Mr. Carlyon.” Her face broke into a smile. “Or should I call you Lord Ormonde?”

Ah, that was something that needed explaining. “Please call me Kit, as all my friends do,” he said. “But you are correct, and my title is Lord Ormonde. But I confess, it’s something I try not to use when I’m in Cornwall. Lords are not popular down there amongst the fishermen and miners. To them I’ve always just been Kit, and always will be.”

She pressed her lips together for a moment before speaking again. “What sort of a lord are you, if you don’t mind me asking?” Her eyes twinkled in a suggestion of mockery, as though a lord might be something to poke fun at.

“A lowly viscount, I’m afraid. Nothing exalted.”

She tilted her head to one side as though reassessing his appearance. “I’ve never met a lord of any kind before. This is all quite new to me.” She dimpled. “But I promise that I’ll call you Kit, and not something so stuffy as Your Lordship.”

How hard it was not to smile back, but he had to be careful. This was a young lady he still knew very little about, and his mother, despite her humble Cornish origins, would not be impressed were he to entangle himself with Miss Lucas, nor anyone like her. He frowned as he remembered the last time he’d been at Ormonde and how his mother had virtually thrown Miss Caroline Fairfield, the daughter of her dear friend and neighbor, at him, all because Miss Fairfield happened to be the only child of rich parents.

Time for him to put a few questions. “Miss Lucas, I must admit to having a certain amount of curiosity about you. Perhaps you could provide me with your address in Reading?” A good place to start.

Miss Lucas’s tongue darted out to wet her lips and her eyes for a moment took on a hunted look. Was she deciding what to tell him? Would it, perish the thought, be an untruth? She had the air of having something she wished, or perhaps needed, to hide.