Page 35 of The Cornish Mermaid

Her brows knit for a moment then cleared, and the sun came out. “Off you go then, sweet Kitto, for I think I shall rise now and write some letters before breakfast. Do you know where your sister has gone this morning?”

Kit got to his feet, smoothing toast crumbs from his immaculate breeches. “Riding, I should imagine. She seems to live in the saddle since I gave her Lochinvar.”

“She lived in the saddle before that as well,” his mother said. “I sometimes wonder if she’s some kind of centaur.”

Kit smiled. “If she is, then it’s because she takes after you.”

His mother waved a hand at him. “Be off, you flattering rascal, and see if she’s returned. Now she has that enormous horse, I sometimes fear for her when she goes careering over those obstacles you had constructed.”

Kit did as she bid and closed the door behind him. On light feet he strode down the corridor to the stairs then ran down them two at a time, arriving at the front door just as Albert the footman was opening it. Three riders had at that exact minute arrived on the gravel, and the groom had dismounted to take the reins of the other two horses.

So, Ysella had prevailed upon Morvoren to go for a morning ride with her, and what was more had provided her with their mother’s own horse to ride. Her audacity knew no bounds.

Kit walked down the steps and approached the horses.

“Kit!” Without even asking, Ysella jumped from the saddle into his arms. He caught her around her slender waist and swung her down, then turned to Morvoren, having to fight back the absurd and uncharacteristic diffidence he felt at having to touch her again, and held out his arms.

Matching hesitation troubled her eyes. Perhaps she’d prefer it if a servant were to help her down. But no, she released her reins and gave him a slight nod of thanks, then unhooked her leg from the pommel and slid down her horse’s side. His hands touched her waist only enough to steady her, but in that instant a hot wave of awareness shot through his body, stronger than anything he’d felt so far, perhaps as a consequence of his disturbed night. Had she felt it as well? Was that the same shock flitting across her face?

He took a hasty step back, turning away in an attempt to hide his discomfiture, and the groom led the horses away.

Ysella, careless as ever, picked up her excess riding habit in one hand and ran up the steps to the front door in front of him, calling over her shoulder. “Come, Morvoren. We need to change for breakfast, although why we can’t eat it in our riding habits, I have no idea. I so hate convention, but Mama will be shocked if we arrive looking like this and smelling slightly of horses. Come along.”

Morvoren glanced up at Kit, a puzzled frown furrowing her forehead, and hurried after his sister. Had she noticed the color in his cheeks? Damn it. Why did she affect him so? Unused as he was to any woman, even any of the ones he’d been intimate with in the past, having such a profound effect upon his senses, all he could feel right now was annoyance. Perhaps he would forego breakfast and go straight to search out Sam Beauchamp.

Giving himself a mental shake, he strode off around the side of the house in order to approach the estate office via the stable yard.

*

Morvoren

Captain Carlyon returned on the following afternoon, as he had promised, or should that be threatened. In the intervening time, Morvoren’s dislike of him had grown, perhaps nurtured by Ysella talking almost nonstop about him when they were together. If Morvoren hadn’t known better, she’d have taken him to be a paragon.

Was Ysella’s delightful cousin not handsome? And a soldier too, so obviously a hero. Did Morvoren not think so? And hadn’t he shown an interest in her dear friend? Was she not lucky to have ensnared so handsome and well-connected an admirer?

Ugh. No thank you.

During the course of the intervening twenty-four hours, Morvoren learned a great deal about Captain Fitzwilliam Carlyon, or at least as much as Ysella knew, which was probably only a tenth of the truth. Instinct, and a certain amount of experience, told Morvoren that a man like that would have plenty he wanted to keep secret from young ladies, even those he was related to.

The captain’s father and Ysella’s had been twins, as Morvoren already knew, the elder by twelve minutes having been Thomas, the previous viscount, and the younger, Robert, a bit of a tearaway. “But of course,” Ysella whispered. “When he was older, he became a terrible rake, although I’m not even supposed to know what one of them is.” She giggled. “Mama thinks I know nothing. I’m not such an insipid miss as to not know all about rakes. I read the most fascinating book which my dear friend Caro lent to me. A book with a rake in it. So exciting and romantic.”

The fact that she didn’t know why the oldest brother, William, who had also been an “utter rake,” had been packed off to Jamaica irked her very much.

“If it were only that he got a servant girl with child,” she reasoned, “then the girl and her family could have been paid off. And yet Martha told me no one was. She had it from her mother, you see. Even if it were a girl of the ton, some lady or another, then a marriage would have been forced. But that didn’t happen either. Instead, when my own dear Papa and Uncle Robert came home from Eton for the holidays, my mysterious Uncle William was gone, never to return. A mystery.”

“Very much so,” Morvoren murmured, as some comment on this story seemed necessary.

“When Uncle William died in Jamaica, Papa was still living at Carlyon Court in Cornwall,” Ysella confided. “As the older of the twins he became Grandpapa’s heir. I never met poor Grandpapa though, for he died the year I was born. I think, from looking at his picture where it hangs upstairs, I would have liked him.” She dimpled. “And papa used to tell me he would have liked me.”

Morvoren made a mental note to look for this portrait.

“Papa met Mama in Cornwall, of course,” Ysella went on, more dimples peeping and her eyes sparkling at the romance of her story. “There was quite an uproar about that, as you might imagine, as Mama was just a farmer’s daughter.” They were sitting in the rose arbor in the center of the formal gardens, the splash of a fountain to their right and the lazy buzz of bees heavy in the afternoon air.

“Dear Papa had been given Carlyon Court after Grandpapa inherited the title and moved to Ormonde. Uncle Robert was in the army, so he didn’t need anywhere of his own, so Papa told me. And one day Papa met Mama, while he was out walking along the cliffs.” She chuckled. “To see her now, you’d never guess her origins. She has quite the air of the aristocracy, just as she should. Papa taught her well. And she has taught me.” She sighed a little as though learning to be a member of the aristocracy wasn’t quite her cup of tea.

Morvoren listened in fascination. Miss Elestren Tremaine, younger sister of Jago and from a smuggling family, had married her fancy lord and been set up at Carlyon Court a few miles from the farm where she’d grown up. Ysella knew little of how her grandparents had felt about the addition of a farmer’s daughter to the family. Easy to imagine though. Morvoren was having to do a fair amount of imagining as Ysella’s knowledge was somewhat limited and confined to what she’d discovered through the backstairs gossip of her maid… and her maid’s gossipy mother.

Robert had run off while still only a second lieutenant in the army with the daughter of their illustrious neighbor, the Duke of Denby.