Page 63 of The Cornish Mermaid

He looked Morvoren up and down, an incredulous expression on his face, then back at Ysella. “You want me to believe this fairy story?”

“I told you so,” Morvoren snapped at Ysella. What were they going to do now? Any second he’d be sending for the doctor who’d prescribe bleeding and something to cool their nerves.

“It’s all perfectly true,” Ysella pleaded. “And the painting of Kit proves it. Morvoren saw it in the museum before she came here. She recognized Kit from it and then the painting itself when she saw it in the hall. How could she have done that if it weren’t true?”

“Lots of ways,” Sam said, brow furrowing. “She could have made it up, for a start.” He shook his head. “And how ridiculous is it to accuse Kit, Lord Ormonde, of being hand in glove with a bunch of smugglers. That in itself proves this is a faradiddle.”

“It’s not a faradiddle,” Morvoren said, having decided that now they’d told Sam it was up to her to convince him. No going back. She couldn’t sit in a straitjacket while Kit was in danger, which was where she’d be if she didn’t find a way to win Sam to their side. “Because I’ve seen the smugglers at Nanpean, at Jago’s farm. The night I had to spend there, strange noises woke me up. I looked out of the window and saw a column of pack ponies coming up from the beach. They came right into the farmyard and were met by Kit and Jago. They were expecting them, I think. Either that or they both came up from the beach along with the smugglers. I couldn’t tell.”

“Your imagination. A dream.” Sam shook his head and put a hand to one of his temples. “You hallucinated. You’re a hysterical woman.”

Morvoren put her hands on her hips. “I did not, and I am not.” Although she would be in a minute if he didn’t see reason. “Kit was out there with them as were Jenifry and Loveday. While I was peering out, he glanced up at my window. I thought he’d seen me. I ran back to bed and pretended to be asleep. Just as well, because he came upstairs and opened my bedroom door. I was terrified. But he just stood for a while looking down at me.” She paused for effect. “I thought he was going to kill me.”

Ysella let out a gasp, as she well might, because Morvoren hadn’t told her this part of the story and was only telling Sam in an effort to convince him.

Sam bit his lip.

Had she succeeded? She waited.

He heaved a heartfelt sigh, his shoulders sagging. “You can’t go alone.”

“Of course we can,” retorted Ysella. “We’ll have our driver and we’ll take another of the servants with us, armed with muskets or pistols or some such from the gun room. We’ll be quite safe, but we do need some money or we won’t be able to pay the tollgates, nor buy food, nor if we have to stop, acquire a room for the night. We could trade on Kit’s good name and offer to leave a promissory note, but I fear not all innkeepers will be willing to accept one.”

“No, you can’t.” Sam folded his arms across his chest. “Not two women on your own. I’ll have to come with you. As your escort. Are you taking your maids?”

Morvoren and Ysella shook their heads in unison. “We’re going to be maids for each other,” Morvoren said. “We didn’t want to involve too many servants.”

“And besides, Martha’s such a tattletale, she would’ve gone straight to tell Mama,” Ysella put in. “I’m leaving a note to say we’ve gone to Caro’s. Just as we told you we were doing. A fib, I know, but one made out of necessity as Mama would undoubtedly not believe us and refuse to allow us to go.”

“Your brother is quite correct when he calls you a minx,” Sam said. “Is the carriage being prepared?”

Morvoren nodded. “We just need the money for the journey—and you, as you’ve so kindly said you’d accompany us.”

He got up from the table, closing the ledger as he did. “Very well. Go down to the stable courtyard and load your valises onto the carriage and I’ll throw a few things into a bag—including the money—and meet you down there in ten minutes. Quickly now. If Miss Morvoren is correct, we may have no time to lose.”

Heaving a heartfelt sigh, Morvoren grabbed Ysella’s hand and together they hurried to the stable yard to see if James the coachman had the carriage ready. He and another two lads were busy harnessing the horses.

Ysella pulled James to one side. “We are not going to Miss Fairchild’s,” she hissed. “We’re following Kit to Cornwall, so make sure you have your travelling things with you. And send one of those lads to the gunroom to fetch Mr. Beauchamp some pistols. Loaded ones. We shall need to be able to defend ourselves. And we’ll take one of the grooms with us, so tell whichever you choose to arm you and himself as well.”

At precisely two o’clock, the striking of the stable yard clock marked their departure, as the carriage bearing Ysella, Morvoren, and a still dubious Sam rolled out through the stable archway. High on the driver’s seat, James, the coachman, sat resplendent in his livery, with an armed guard, not nearly so smartly outfitted, beside him. They were off at last.

Oh, for a fast car. Or a motorbike. Or a train. Their progress was from the start annoyingly slow. They might have good horses, but that didn’t mean they would make as good progress as the mail coach, which Sam said could manage a lightning ten miles per hour. What speed. Not.

And they were handicapped by a driver who cared about his horses. Unlike the mail coach drivers, who knew they would be getting replacements every ten miles and were driven by the need to get from A to B inside a certain time. Not so their driver, no matter how much Ysella exhorted him to go faster.

In the end, when they stopped at an inn for their first drop of sustenance, James took the opportunity to point out the facts to Ysella. “These’re good horses, Miss Ysella, belonging to his lordship. I won’t hammer’em. He wouldn’t thank me for doin’ it, an’ he’d be mad with you for makin’ me. You want to get there, don’t you? Well, let me drive ’em at a pace they can keep to. We’ll have to get a change of horses at some point, but the longer these can keep going, the better, because they’re good horses. Anythin’ we change ’em for won’t be near such good quality.”

So, Morvoren and Ysella had to control their impatience and sit back inside the carriage as first the Wiltshire, and then at last the Somerset, countryside crawled past.

As the evening sun sank toward the hills, Morvoren could only worry about how much faster Kit’s mail coach must be going. By now, he must already be in Exeter and perhaps even on the coach back to Penzance. It might at this moment be carrying him inexorably on to Nanpean and the looming threat of danger. Maybe Ysella and Sam had the same thoughts, but they didn’t share them. A frustrated silence fell between the passengers.

Night had fallen by the time they trotted into a little town Sam said was Yeovil. The Yeovil of 1811 was tiny, although in possession of a fine coaching inn. With all of them, including the horses, exhausted, Sam insisted they should stop for the night.

“You ladies had no sleep last night and barely any rest this morning,” he pointed out. “And neither of you has managed to sleep in the carriage, so don’t tell me you’re able to keep going because you’re not. And neither are our horses. Everyone needs a night’s rest.”

Against her better judgement, but barely able to keep her eyes open, Morvoren agreed. For all she knew, no smuggling was planned until the next moonless night, and Kit was safer than they were. Surely a night’s sleep would do no harm? So, after a meal of boiled beef and over-cooked vegetables that she could barely nibble, Ysella and Morvoren stripped each other to their shifts, dabbed cold water on their hot bits and flopped into the narrow and lumpy double bed that had been provided. Morvoren was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Chapter Twenty-Seven