Page 61 of The Cornish Mermaid

Morvoren shook her head. “You’re the only one I’ve been able to tell. I didn’t know he was going to go back to Cornwall so soon. I thought he was staying here.” She didn’t say she’d been more than convinced he would stay after what had happened between them last night. Ysella didn’t need to know that. “I thought I had plenty of time to tell him later. I… I thought that if I told him he’d just think me completely mad.” She looked down at her hands. “I see now that I should have been braver.”

Ysella’s turn to shake her head. “He wouldn’t have listened. Despite the sometimes-stuffy way he behaves, Kit’s always been one to laugh in the face of danger. And you’re quite right—he probably wouldn’t have believed you. I’m not at all sure why I do. Maybe it’s because you’ve never told me an untruth, and… you taught me to ride astride. I see that in the future, ladies must have a lot more freedom.”

“And no stays.” Morvoren chewed her lower lip. “I just wish I’d taken in everything the display said about the revenue men and the smugglers. For all we know, Kit will be quite safe now because the raids won’t be for months. If only I asked the captain of the fishing boat a few questions. But I didn’t, because I was feeling too frightened being on his boat, and just thinking of myself. And when I was in the museum, I was cross with Josh for leaving me and going off fishing on the harbor wall. I didn’t pay proper attention as I should have. All I can remember is that it was some time in 1811.”

Ysella rang the bell for Martha. “So, you think it could be any time this year?”

Morvoren pressed her lips together. “It could, but I don’t think it is. I think I must have fallen through the door at the right time to save his life. What other reason could there be? It couldn’t have been random, could it? I have to be here for a reason.”

But did she? Or was she falling into the trap of reading purpose in the random happenings of the universe? Was there no such thing as fate?

“Well,” Ysella said, beaming. “We shall just have to get down there as fast as we can and save his sorry soul. Even if it isn’t quite yet in need of saving. If both of us tell him the same thing, he’ll have to believe us, and he can catch the traitor before he commits the betrayal.”

At that moment, Martha arrived and, with as disapproving an expression as Loveday and protesting that Ysella should be staying in bed, helped her mistress dress. Morvoren sat and watched, itching at the delay as Martha did Ysella’s hair. She couldn’t hurry her as they’d both decided to take no chances and not involve any of the servants if they could avoid it.

As soon as Martha departed, Ysella ran to her wardrobe and fetched out a sizeable bag. “Go and pack a valise,” she said. “And best to put in our boys’ clothes, just in case. This is going to be a wonderful adventure, but we should leave for Cornwall before Mama wakes, which means we only have a few hours. Hurry!”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Kit

The mail coach and all its discomforts, barely more than a week after his last journey, was not pleasing Kit greatly. Neither was having to share the return journey to Cornwall with his cousin, who had appeared at the inn just as the coach arrived, heavy eyed and hungover from the night before. And especially not as the other two inside seats were occupied by an enormously fat parson and his sour faced daughter who appeared to be going all the way to Exeter.

“What a surprise to find you also on your way to Cornwall,” the captain said, raising his elegant eyebrows at Kit. “You seem unable to keep away from it, even with the temptations of Miss Lucas to keep you at Ormonde.” His knowing smile, as though perhaps he’d been spying on Kit when he’d been alone on the terrace with Morvoren, brought heat to Kit’s cheeks. “But you were always like that as a boy, if I remember rightly. Cornwall, Cornwall, Cornwall. All you’d ever talk about at school. So very dull.”

Kit grunted a reply and settled back in his seat with his eyes firmly closed. If sleep wouldn’t come, he’d pretend it had.

At every stop for a change of horses, Kit availed himself of the chance to get out and stretch his legs, glad to breathe in some air not tainted with the strong odor of hot bodies that pervaded in the coach. Only the fact that he could try to sleep off his own exhaustion prevented him from opting to ride on the top of the vehicle in the fresh air with the two gentlemen already seated with the guard and driver.

The captain made no further attempts to involve him in conversation but settled back in his own corner, legs outstretched, annoyingly able to sleep like the proverbial baby. But then, he probably wasn’t troubled by thoughts of Morvoren the way Kit was. Thoughts that every time he began to doze off resurfaced in alluring images that danced before his eyes.

At last, however, the coach rumbled into Exeter and drew up in the square outside the same inn Kit had caught it from just over a week ago. With mixed feelings, he descended from the coach and joined the captain and the fat parson and his daughter in walking into the inn.

It being evening, and with the driver of the Penzance coach already ensconced in the room the coaching company commanded for him, he had a room of his own to book. The coach would be heading west first thing in the morning.

Luckily, the landlord had rooms enough for all the travelers.

“And make sure the bed has been properly aired,” Kit said, fixing the landlord with a fierce glare. “And that the sheets were clean on today.” He paid out some coin. “And I’ll take supper in my room.”

Two hours later, he was in his room taking off his clothes to get into a bed that had indeed been fully aired by the landlord’s buxom daughter with a warming pan. She’d also brought him his supper and a bottle of brandy that he doubted any excise duty had been paid on, and given him a come-to-bed wink he’d ignored.

Good thing too. The brandy, not the come-to-bed wink. He liked to believe that the little he was doing on the tip of Cornwall was generating extra income for his local villagers, who regularly risked their lives to bring in the contraband goods and distribute them. And if contraband brandy, whoever had brought it in and wherever it had come ashore, was getting as far east as Exeter, that could only be of profit for the people of Nanpean.

He sighed. He liked to tell himself that the reason he took part in Jago’s smuggling activities was to help the poverty he’d been seeing since he was a boy. However, a sneaking part of him might just be forced to admit that he also did it for the adventure. That he liked from time to time to sail over to France or the Channel Islands and select goods himself, or to bring back someone escaping Boney’s bloody regime.

In his time, Jago had brought back a fair few Frenchies, and as a boy, Kit had accompanied him on many trips. Although some time had now passed since either of them had been called upon to repeat their rescue missions. Kit had more than an inkling that his mother suspected him of clandestine activities. After all, she’d grown up in the household of smugglers. Had his father known? Most likely. But he couldn’t ask him now, and he certainly wasn’t going to ask his mother.

Kicking off his boots, and still in his shirt and breeches, he threw himself down on his bed, which set his candle guttering, and put his hands behind his head. And, of course, the first thing that jumped into his mind was the one thing he didn’t want to think of. Morvoren.

Despite a battle to exclude her, she’d been haunting his thoughts throughout every waking moment of the journey, and her face had populated what dreams he’d snatched. Her face, her lips, her hands in his hair. Her tongue on his, the way she’d pulled him against her, making it impossible for him to hide his body’s reaction to hers. How it hadn’t shocked her at all. How she’d slid her hands inside his coat, the touch of her fingers through the thin linen of his shirt like tendrils of fire.

And now, with those disturbing memories, his breeches were uncomfortable again. He made an unhelpful effort to readjust himself and closed his eyes. He needed to rest. In the last thirty-six hours he’d had about three hours of sleep and none of it had been more than a half-hour nap at a time. He was exhausted, but Morvoren refused to leave him. What wouldn’t he give to have her open the door right now and come into his room? She’d sit on the edge of his bed and bend over and…

This was no good, he’d never get to sleep this way. He had to put her out of his mind. She wasn’t for him. With what he was doing so regularly now, and the dangers it entailed, he couldn’t afford to get involved with any woman. It was too much to ask of a young lady to accept a man like him, a man who was breaking the laws of the land on a regular basis. Who risked execution if caught. He had to forget about her and pray she’d forget about him.

He rolled onto his side and blew out his candle, but the darkness didn’t dispel his disquiet. Oh, how he wanted that girl, with a longing that refused to be ignored. His body ached for her, and so did his heart. She was so refreshingly different—unlike any other girl he’d ever met. And that only made him want her all the more.

No. He had to put her out of his mind and leave his mother and Ysella to take care of her. He’d left a note for his mother explaining that he’d needed to go back and deal with business he’d had to leave unfinished at Carlyon Court when he’d brought Morvoren to Ormonde. He’d written that he’d be away at least another month, and asked her to take care of Morvoren and see if she could locate some family or friends for her.