Page 34 of The Cornish Mermaid

Ysella reached out a hand and patted his arm. “I’m sure she’ll have no trouble in falling for your charms.”

How sorry Morvoren felt for this unknown girl whose possible wealth had rendered her attractive to such a cad as Captain Carlyon, for cad she felt certain he was. The fact that Kit so plainly disapproved of him was no doubt coloring her opinion.

“We’re riding back for breakfast now,” Ysella said, as the horses jogtrotted along the grassy track and a flight of ducks took off from the lake’s mirrored surface. “Perhaps you’d care to return with us and take breakfast?” More batting of her long lashes. Of course, Morvoren was used to the ways of teenage girls in her own world, having not so long ago been one herself. However, she had a strong feeling that it wasn’t the way Miss Ysella Carlyon, sister of a viscount, should be behaving with any man, not even her cousin. She had far too inviting an air about her.

Time to take a stand. “I’m sure Captain Carlyon has his own breakfast awaiting him at Denby,” Morvoren said, with as much authority as she could muster. She was, after all, a good five years older than Ysella and had a lot more experience with men than she did.

They had come to where the track ran up the gentle rise toward the house, and here, thank goodness, as she didn’t think Kit would be amused if they were to bring the captain back to breakfast, their unwanted escort declared he had to return to Denby.

“I shall be back to call upon you tomorrow afternoon,” he promised, tipping his hat at them, but mainly at Ysella, who was, after all, his cousin. Then he looked straight at Morvoren, one sardonic eyebrow raised. “I shall certainly look forward to furthering my acquaintance with you, Miss Lucas.”

Ysella favored him with the sweetest of smiles. Anyone who could withstand that would have to possess a hard heart indeed. “We shall look forward enormously to your visit, Cuz. I’m sure my brother will be delighted to see you again.”

The captain turned his horse toward the woodland, pausing as he reached the edge to glance back over his shoulder.

“Humph,” Morvoren said, turning back to Ysella. “That is a man with a high opinion of himself.”

Ysella giggled. “I believe most young men are the same, or so my brother says.” She shrugged. “But Kit is such a killjoy at times I know he must be exaggerating. He never wants me to have any fun but to end up like my sister Derwa, married to a stuffy old baronet and with two children already in her nursery. Or like my sister Meliora, married to a banker and already increasing. Pft. Their lives must be so dull.” She twisted in the saddle to peer back toward where the Captain had disappeared. “I want something more interesting for myself, and I think, now that you’re here, I shall begin with riding astride and you teaching me how to jump in the forward seat. That will be splendidly exciting.”

Morvoren swallowed. Being friends with Ysella was going to be difficult.

Chapter Fifteen

Kit

Kit found his mother taking tea and toast in bed, a shawl about her shoulders and a most becoming frilly nightcap on her head. He’d known he’d catch her like this, as she never rose nowadays until just before breakfast at ten. She looked up and smiled as he came in, fully dressed in top boots and a smart coat despite the early hour, his cravat immaculately knotted.

“Kit darling, come, sit down.” She patted the edge of her bed.

Hers was a bedroom given over to extreme femininity, unlike Kit’s father’s bedroom that lay beyond the connecting doors. On inheriting the title and property as a boy of barely twenty-two, Kit had felt an overwhelming compunction to leave his father’s room unoccupied and keep to the room he’d had for most of his youth. Perhaps one day he’d take over his father’s room, but not while his mother was alive and kicking and in possession of the chatelaine’s apartment next door. Although there was the unoccupied dower house…

He sat down on the bed and took a piece of her toast. “I trust you are well, Mother.”

She set her teacup down on the tray, a raised affair with ornate, gilded legs. “Of course I am. You know very well I experience the rudest of health.” Her eyes twinkled at him, so like those of her youngest child. “I believe my childhood by the coast and my peasant roots have provided me with exceptional vigor.” She tutted her tongue at him as she’d been wont to do when he’d been up to mischief as a boy. “But I’m not so far into my dotage not to know you are merely trading pleasantries when in truth you have something else you wish to say to me.”

Kit chuckled, his whole demeanor softening. “You have it right, as usual, Mother.” The hand holding the toast dropped into his lap, only one bite taken. “I’ve come here to beg you to be kind to Morvoren.”

His mother snorted in a most unladylike way, reminding him of how Morvoren had done just the same. “And what makes you think I shall not be kind?”

“Because I know you.” He heaved a sigh. “You think her an adventuress who has hooked her claws into your only son.”

His mother leaned back against her ample pillows and regarded him out of clever dark eyes—Ysella’s eyes, and his, had he but realized it. “And has she not?”

Kit shook his head. “Of course not. I brought her here only because she has nowhere else to go, and I thought, perhaps mistakenly, that as my mother was herself once a lonely visitor here at Ormonde, that she might take Morvoren under her wing. And be kind.”

His mother pursed her lips, which furthered her resemblance to her youngest daughter. “You play an underhand game, my Kitto. I admire your wish to help a young lady in distress, but I have to ask myself what it is you know of her? And will she be a good influence on your sister, who is already far too flighty and romantically inclined?”

Kit put his stolen toast back on her tray. “I will tell you the truth, Mother, because I have never lied to you. I do have an interest in Morvoren, I’ll admit it, but I believe it’s merely because she’s a mystery. Yes, she’s a pretty little thing, but as I told you last summer when you pressed the unfortunate Caroline Fairfield on me, I’m not ready for marriage. And Morvoren’s well-bred, so it would be marriage with her or nothing. I’ve no wish for a country dalliance that could go nowhere.”

But was he being honest? Did he even know what he wanted? Well, what he wanted was to be back at Nanpean where being a viscount was of no importance, and all that mattered was distributing the profit from the contraband and thus helping his people. He longed for the excitement of the midnight rendezvous, the passage of the muffle-hooved ponies and the taste of brandy that had paid no duty. So much more fun than being here at Ormonde or at his townhouse in London and having to dance attendance on vapid young ladies who held no interest for him whatsoever. Young ladies whose shallowness he abhorred.

So, if Nanpean was all he wanted, why was the image of Morvoren so ever present in his head? Why, last night, had he slept so badly, the vision of her when she’d walked in to dinner dressed in one of Ysella’s gowns, not to mention of her in those tight blue breeches, plaguing his dreams and waking hours. And why did he long to buy her dresses of her own, furs and furbelows, fans and jewelry that would make her beauty even more captivating?

Or would it? Had she not been at her most alluring when he’d pulled her out of his net, and she’d spewed up the seawater on the deck of his little boat? And he’d thought her a mermaid.

He found his mother was watching him far too closely. Pulling himself out of the reverie he’d sunk into, he bestowed one of his rare smiles on her. “As I said, I would like to find out more about Morvoren and the mystery that surrounds her arrival in my fishing net, but for now, I have other things to occupy my time. Sam Beauchamp has business matters to discuss and requires me to ride out to visit our tenants, some of whom are in need of assistance. Morvoren and her mystery will have to wait.”

His mother’s gaze intensified, as though she knew he’d dodged the subject and hidden something from her. He might not have lied, but he’d been cagey with the truth. And she knew it. Drat the woman. She’d always been able to discern his innermost secrets from his earliest boyhood. Impossible to keep anything from her.