Page 17 of The Cornish Mermaid

Not much help, as the Tamar marked the boundary between Cornwall and the rest of England even in Morvoren’s world. Ormonde could be anywhere east of it. She left them to it and, hitching up her skirts, descended to a kitchen empty of Kit and Jago. Peace and quiet. She sat down by the range and stretched out her trainer-clad feet. If she didn’t get these dreadful stays off soon, she was going to scream.

By the time Loveday and Jenifry had sorted out all the required garments and returned downstairs, still with a certain amount of bickering, evening was falling rapidly in the narrow valley. Neither Kit nor Jago had returned, the latter to Morvoren’s relief. And it was high time to go to bed and leave them all to their smuggling. No doubt Jago and Kit were avoiding her and counting the minutes until they could be rid of her presence.

So, with Loveday hovering in attendance, Morvoren bid Jenifry goodnight. Refusing to be offended by the relieved expression on both women’s faces, she trod the creaky spiral up to Kit’s loaned bedroom. The moment she’d gone, the front door banged open, and the murmur of voices rose as the men returned.

Kit’s bedroom occupied one gable end of the house, with a window onto the yard, and a second in the end wall giving a view down toward the cove. A large bed occupied most of the room, along with an old oak chest of drawers and a chair. All was scrupulously tidy, and the bed looked most inviting.

The relief of at last getting out of her tight-fitting gown was almost as great as getting out of her stays. How women in the past ate and breathed at the same time was beyond Morvoren, but she couldn’t say this to Loveday for fear of being thought mad. She had to maintain the illusion of being a nicely brought up young lady who’d been wearing stays for years.

She decided on a different tack. One headed towards being more comfortable. “Could I possibly have my corset laced a little less tightly tomorrow, as I have a long journey to make?”

Loveday’s apple cheeks swelled in a smile. “Lordy, Miss Lucas, ’tis only they Frenchies what wears corsets. Though I do hear that when she were just Miss Tremaine, Mr. Kit’s mother called her stays her corset. On account of her mother being a French lady. Well, a Breton lady if we’re to call a spade a spade. A lady from across the sea in that there Brittany. But they do speak French mostly there, so I hear, so I ses they’re French as much as the rest o’ Boney’s lot.” She laid the pink and white dress out on the chest of drawers and smoothed its generous skirts. “But tomorrow, I’ll find you a travelin’ dress what’s a bit more generous in the fit. Can’t have you a-faintin’ away afore you reaches Exeter.”

Heat swarmed its way up Morvoren’s neck to her cheeks. Kit must have told Loveday about today.

“Lordy, don’t you go a blushin’ that you swooned, Miss Lucas. Fine ladies swoon all the time. ’Tis a mark o’ their gentility. I’ll see if I can find you Miss Elestren’s old vinaigrette for you to put in your reticule.”

Deciding that swooning must be more a mark of too tight stays than gentility, and that asking about a reticule was for later, Morvoren focused on what Loveday had said about Kit’s mother. So, her mother, and therefore Jago’s mother too, had been French—or Breton, whichever way you wanted to classify her. Interesting. Perhaps Loveday, who seemed to like chattering away, could provide some information about Kit.

“Do you have no idea at all where Ormonde is?” she tried.

She frowned as she folded the many petticoats and shrugged. “Not in Cornwall, like I said earlier. I don’t rightly know where it be, but you an’ me’re goin’ to find out, it seems.” She smoothed the soft fabric as though it were a cat. “Miss Elestren did used to live right here until twenty year back. Not here at Nanpean, o’ course, but wi’ Mr. Thomas at Carlyon Court, which be only a stone’s throw from here.”

She crossed herself quickly before continuing. “Right up until Mr. Thomas’s older brother, Mr. William, God rest his soul, died in foreign parts, that was. Then Mr. Thomas had to move the whole family up to Ormonde because he were the new heir.”

She tutted her tongue. “You see, like his pa, Mr. Thomas were a second son, not expected to inherit, so he’d been livin’ at Carlyon Court all his life up till then. He were our Mr. Thomas.” She shook her head. “Father, he were near an age wi’ Mr. Thomas an’ Mr. Robert—twins, they was, God rest their souls. Father were right good friends wi’ them when they were all nobbut bad lads.” She paused, a faraway look in her eyes. “I were right sad when Mr. Thomas did die.”

Morvoren frowned, confused about who was related to whom. “Am I right in thinking Mr. Thomas was Kit’s father?” she ventured. “And that he had a twin brother but both of them are now dead?”

Loveday picked up a high-necked and decidedly prim linen nightgown, liberally festooned with lace. “You has it right, Miss Lucas. Tooken sudden, Mr. Thomas were, five year ago now. Mr. Kit, who’s his only son, he were still at Oxford when it happened. Father did tell me it were an apoplexy. Mr. Thomas, he’d got very big, jus’ like his brother Mr. Robert did afore he died, an’ they do say as how big folks’re more likely to suffer an apoplexy. He did linger on a few days, I heard, in time for Mr. Kit to get to Ormonde an’ see him, but there weren’t nothin’ the physician could do. ’Twere right sad.”

That answered one question. Kit’s mother and sister would be alone when Morvoren arrived uninvited to stay with them, with no possibility of a threatening male presence such as Jago’s.

“Do you know what happened to the oldest brother? To the one called William?” she asked, as Loveday slipped the nightdress on over her head. She’d given the lacy knickers a raised eyebrow, but either Jenifry had warned her in advance, or she was of a more accepting nature, for she’d not said a word.

“Why, he were a good seven year older than the twins, I b’lieve and the heir to Ormonde. A proper trial to his old father.” Loveday chuckled to herself. “All o’ they lads were a handful, thass for sure. But Mr. William, he had the devil in him. Even when he were up at Eton. ’Tis said his ma and pa were right glad when he took hisself off to the colonies as a young man. Jamaica, I heard, to do some kind of work over there. I don’t rightly know all the details, but my ma were a one for the gossip and she did collect it like lint to a pair o’ moleskins.”

Inwardly, Morvoren blessed Loveday’s mother, whose knowledge was proving very useful. “So, let me get this straight,” she said, busily organizing some sort of family tree in her mind of the people she was going to see. “There were three brothers who lived at Carlyon Court, which isn’t far from here, and Kit’s father was one of twins. The oldest brother died—without children, I’m presuming—in Jamaica or somewhere like that, and Kit’s father became the heir, then inherited Ormonde? And that’s where Kit’s mother and sister live, but the father is now dead?”

Loveday nodded with a beaming smile. “You have it right there, Miss. Twins, they might have been, but with Mr. Thomas bein’ the older by just a few minutes, he were the heir after Mr. William’s death. And now,” she turned back the covers on Kit’s bed, “you hop in here nice’n’quick and snuggle down on this here feather bed, and in no time at all you’ll be fast asleep. But jest in case, I’ll pop down the kitchen and fetch you a nice glass o’ warm milk to drink, laced wi’ a tot o’ the best brandy. Oh, an’ if you need it, there’s a chamber pot tucked under the bed.”

Less than five minutes later, Loveday returned bearing a tall glass of hot milk smelling strongly of brandy and with a sprinkle of brown sugar decorating its frothy surface. As Morvoren was already in bed, Loveday stood the glass on the low bedside table and went to pull the curtains more tightly closed. “You drink up, Miss, an’ keep they curtains tight shut. Don’t want to see no hants on a night like this.”

“Hants?”

“Ghosties. There be a lot o’ ghosties hereabouts. You stay tucked in your bed no matter what you hear of a night. Best place ter be.” And with that enigmatic remark, Loveday left Morvoren to herself.

She picked up the milk and sniffed it. Perhaps not. She didn’t want to wake up with a hangover and it smelled strong enough that she might. She set the glass back down again and snuggled into the blankets and counterpane. This certainly was a very comfortable bed.

She woke to cloying darkness and silence. Only it wasn’t true silence. From down in the cove came the distant rumble of surf, but from nearer at hand came a different noise. She rolled onto her back and stared up at the dim outline of the dark beams on the arching bedroom ceiling. What was that strange sound, like many slippers shuffling across a floor?

The muffled sound of hooves, that was what.

Many hooves pattering lightly on the track up from the beach. Hants? Did she believe in them? No. So impossible. Much more likely to be the smugglers they didn’t want her to see. Casting aside Loveday’s words of caution, Morvoren slid out of bed and crossed the smoothly worn floorboards to the end window. Drawing aside the curtain, she peered into the gloom of a dark and moonless night.

At first, despite her eyes being accustomed to the dark, all she could see was the shadowy bulk of the far side of the valley where the moors began, looming high over the little farm. Behind the moors rose the blue-black of a clear, star-spangled night sky.

Then her eyes caught movement. What was that? With no moon to illuminate the view, it took a long minute to make out the shadowy string of ponies trudging up the track from the cove, but there they were, all heavily laden with lumpish shapes that might have been large packages or barrels. Smugglers. The lead pony, the vague form of a man at its head, was just passing beyond view around the far side of the farm buildings.