Page 42 of The Cornish Mermaid

It was his own fault Sam was going into so much detail. He’d asked him which of the tenants in his many farms and cottages were suffering the most with the downturn in the rural economy, and Sam had taken him at his word and launched into an impassioned speech.

Sam was an affable young man approaching his thirtieth birthday, probably too affable to make a really good land agent as that required ruthlessness, but Kit didn’t want ruthlessness in his agent. He wanted compassion. At Kit’s own instigation, Sam had been handing out food parcels already this year to some of the elderly people who couldn’t make ends meet. And now, it seemed, some of his other tenants might need help as well.

That Morvoren had assumed he wouldn’t want to help the little seamstresses had annoyed him. He could have told her right then that he had enough to do with helping his own tenants, but he’d held his tongue. If she wanted to help those girls in thanks for making her a gown, then let her, even if it was he who ended up doing the helping. Perhaps she would teach Ysella some sense of responsibility.

Sam stopped talking and a grin spread over his homely face. “Sorry, Kit. Am I boring you?”

Kit flashed him a wry grin. Sam was someone with whom he felt entirely at home, as they’d almost grown up together here at Ormonde. When Kit had arrived from Cornwall as a rebellious nine-year-old determined not to be snatched from his ancestral county, Sam had been the only person he’d found to befriend.

Sam’s father, Frederick Beauchamp, who now occupied one of the estate cottages and was all but retired, but who on occasion could be relied upon to give his son and his employer his advice, had been a land agent before Sam. On Kit’s inheriting the estate and title five years ago, old Fred had declared that with a new lord, there needed to also be a new agent more similar to him in age. So, Sam had inherited his father’s position much as Kit had inherited Ormonde. Since then, they’d rubbed along very well and the fact that Sam was a friend as much as an employee had never soured their relationship.

“Seeing it all on paper somehow doesn’t make it real,” Kit said with a sigh, thinking of the beautiful morning. “Why don’t we ride out together, and you can show me what you’ve been doing?”

Sam closed the ledger book. “You’ve never had a better idea. It’s too lovely a day to be shut inside. Let’s go.”

Together, they walked out to the stables where they found a distinct lack of grooms. “Probably at breakfast,” Kit said. “Let’s tack them up ourselves.”

He and Sam went into the tack room and collected their saddles then walked down the row of stables. Sweetlip and Lochinvar were both missing, so the girls must be out riding. Hadn’t he seen their saddles were still in the tack room, though? He must have been mistaken.

Once the horses were saddled, both young men mounted up and clattered out of the stable yard into the surrounding park land.

“Where should we go first?” Kit asked.

“The cottages near the mill,” Sam replied. “Old Betsy Lockhart’s been struggling with her arthritic fingers and can’t make her lace anymore. And without the income from the lace, she’s been finding it hard to pay the rent and buy food. I’ve told her not to worry about her rent, and I’ve had a hamper sent down to her from the kitchens once a week. We could start there first. She’ll be pleased to see you.”

Kit nodded. “Good idea. Betsy was always kind to me.” He smiled in remembrance. “I well remember the honey cakes she always had ready, whenever I rode down there, as if she knew I was coming. I’m glad to be able to ease her old age.”

They trotted their horses down the drive toward the woodland, Kit intent on turning this mission of mercy into a pleasurable promenade. The sun beat down on their backs and the water on the lake reflected back the blue sky and the few fluffy clouds. What could be better?

A flash of movement between the trees on the other side of the lake caught Kit’s eye. What was that? He strained his eyes. It did not look like his sister and Morvoren.

“Sam,” he called to his friend, whose horse had got ahead. “There’s someone over on the far side of the lake. Looks like two boys on horseback.”

Sam reined in and shaded his eyes to look. “You’re right. And those horses look like your horses. I’m sure that’s your mother’s grey, Sweetlip. And that looks like Ysella’s Lochinvar in the front. I noticed they’d both gone from their boxes, but I just assumed the young ladies must be out riding.”

“Those are not young ladies,” Kit said, anger rising. “Some local lads must have sneaked into the stables this morning and stolen the horses.” Might they even now be making off with them to sell? “If so, they’ve a brazen cheek to try this in broad daylight. And where the hell were my grooms while this was going on?”

Sam set his heels to his horse’s sides. “If we ride toward the mill, we should be able to head the thieves off. This way.”

Both horses sprang forward into a canter, hooves thundering down the grassy track.

Chapter Eighteen

Morvoren

Ysella and Morvoren had ridden over the jumps a good ten times, with Ysella’s seat improving until she could have passed for a budding modern showjumper. Both Lochinvar and Sweetlip seemed much happier now their riders were giving with their hands and allowing them to stretch their necks as they took each fence.

“This is so much better than riding sidesaddle,” Ysella said as they paused for breath after the last gallop up the track. “I shall have to ask Kit to put more jumps up. I feel so much more in rhythm with Lochinvar, and he feels as though he’s taking off like a bird as he stretches over the jumps. It’s so helped by being astride. Why on earth do men keep this method of riding to themselves? How selfish they are not to want us women to ride like this.”

“I’m sure one day it’ll become the normal thing for ladies to ride astride,” Morvoren said, thinking of the fun she’d had with her pony as a child and teenager. “But probably not in your lifetime.” Probably not for another hundred years, but she wasn’t going to say that.

Ysella nodded as though satisfied and turned Lochinvar downhill toward the mill at the end of the lake.

Relieved she’d dropped the subject, Morvoren let Sweetlip fall in behind her as they rode between the trees, just a hint of the reflected glory of the lake showing between the leafy branches.

They’d nearly reached the edge of the woodland where the ground levelled out at the lake’s edge when a shout sounded from up ahead. “Hey, you two. Stop right there!”

Two riders were coming past the mill in a canter, and one of them was waving his arm. Oh no. Kit and Sam Beauchamp who were clearly not up to their eyes in paperwork in the estate office as Ysella had vowed they would be.