Page 22 of The Cornish Mermaid

As Kit helped Morvoren down from the coach to stretch her legs, he turned to greet them, a smile of studied charm on a face that would have been classically handsome had it not been for his thin lips. Heavily lidded eyes favored Kit with only a slight flicker of greeting before they fixed on Morvoren, cold appraisal emanating from them.

Heat flared on her cheeks. The stranger’s gimlet gaze made her want to drape a cloak about herself, only she didn’t have one. All she could do was draw her shawl closer around her shoulders.

She had the distinct impression this man was taking in not just her figure but also the state of her old-fashioned clothing. After a moment that felt as though it lasted forever, he raised an exquisite eyebrow in what might have been disdain. Anger bubbling at the cheek of him, Morvoren edged sideways, closer to the comforting safety Loveday represented.

Kit’s whole body had stiffened, his hands forming fists by his sides.

“Well,” drawled the newcomer in a deep voice. “If it isn’t young Kit. Fancy coming upon you here.”

“Fitzwilliam,” Kit said, his own voice short and sharp. “What a surprise to meet you here, too. I didn’t know you were in this part of the country.”

The newcomer, Fitzwilliam, smiled, a rather condescending smile Morvoren didn’t like. “Why would you? I was, er… engaged in visiting a friend.”

Kit frowned. “Really?” He could be as condescending as the next man, it seemed. Morvoren suppressed the urge to chuckle as the two of them faced off against one another like a pair of farmyard cockerels.

After a long pause, Fitzwilliam spoke. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your lovely travelling companion?”

From her position behind Kit, Morvoren had a view of a once more archly raised eyebrow. Why did she get the impression he was implying something improper between Kit and her? A shiver of distaste ran down her spine, making her toes curl. Hopefully, whoever this Fitzwilliam was, he wasn’t a close friend of Kit’s.

“Fitzwilliam,” Kit said, his voice stiff with barely hidden dislike. “May I present Miss Morvoren Lucas. She’s travelling to visit my mother and sister at Ormonde, and I am escorting her… and her maidservant.” He paused. “She’s a friend of my sister’s.”

Morvoren made a rather awkward curtsey, assuming that was expected of her, wobbling a little at the lowest point.

“Miss Lucas, may I present Captain Fitzwilliam Carlyon,” Kit said, as she rose. “My cousin.”

Captain Carlyon held out a pale hand. “Charmed.”

In a fluster about what to do, Morvoren could find no excuse not to let him take her hand.

He bared his teeth in a vulpine smile. “Quite charmed.”

For a far too long moment he kept hold of Morvoren’s hand, and it was all she could do to prevent herself from snatching it back.

Luckily, the coach driver was growing impatient. He leaned down from his lofty position. “Are you lot gettin’ on or not? I’ve got to go or we’re goin’ to be late at the next stop.”

Captain Carlyon released Morvoren’s hand and stood back, with another smile, to allow her into the coach in front of him.

Conscious of not wanting to trip over in front of this man, Morvoren hitched her skirts up a little and managed to climb back into the coach without showing herself up.

The captain climbed in next, shrugged off his cape, and, to Morvoren’s horror, took the seat beside her. Kit handed Loveday up then climbed in himself, and the guard folded up the step and closed the doors as Kit and Loveday took the seats opposite.

As the coach rumbled out of the inn yard, Morvoren settled as far into her corner as she could, leaving as big a space as possible between herself and Captain Carlyon. Which was just as well, as, typically of the sort of man he seemed to be, he spread his legs and sprawled across the seat as though no one else were trying to occupy it. Horrible.

Without a glance at Kit, whose anger pulsed through the coach, she leaned her head on the cushioned wall and closed her eyes, shutting everything out in the hopes of some sleep. The last thing she wanted to have to do was to talk to this odious man.

*

Kit

Damn it. That his cousin, of all people, should be here, in the middle of nowhere and getting into the same coach as they were. And sitting next to Miss Lucas, who did not, thank goodness, look at all pleased by his decision to occupy the seat beside her. A woman of good sense.

Kit handed Loveday in and climbed in behind her. The only remaining seat was the one opposite Miss Lucas, so he took it. Fitzwilliam had stretched his long, muscular legs out across the coach, and Loveday was having to keep her feet well tucked against her seat. Although she was only a servant and not one he even knew well, Kit’s anger rose. Her ticket had cost the same as Fitzwilliam’s, and she had the same right to foot space as he had, and yet somehow Fitzwilliam saw himself as more important than her.

Kit bit his lip, manners keeping his tongue in his head. He didn’t want to cause trouble in front of Miss Lucas, tempting though it was. It had been just like that at school. Fitzwilliam had been four years ahead of Kit, and bullying had been his forte. Unfortunately, Kit had been a boy slow to grow into his height, and thus, from the day he first arrived as a scrawny nine-year-old, he’d been an ideal target for a bully like Fitzwilliam, for whom blood ties had meant nothing more than to provide a better target. Fitzwilliam had left school and joined the army before Kit had grown big enough to exact any kind of revenge.

Plus, Kit’s position as the mere son of a younger son had done him no favors with boys like Fitzwilliam for whom status was the most important thing. And Fitzwilliam’s mother was the daughter of a duke. What Kit hadn’t known at the time, and only found out later from his older sister, was that Fitzwilliam’s father, his own uncle, had been a rake of the worst kind and had seduced the Lady Elizabeth Kirkpatrick and dishonored her. Thus, the marriage had been at the end of a gun barrel. Ten years later, the Lady Elizabeth had come running back to her father’s grand house, Denby Castle, bringing with her two small children but no husband.

Too late for Kit to have used this snippet of gossip at school, not that he would have. He fancied himself as not cut from the same cloth as Fitzwilliam. But he’d never been so happy as when Fitzwilliam’s grandfather had bought him a commission in the army and he hadn’t gone on to Oxford, as Kit had been planning to do.