Page 44 of The Cornish Bride

“Get to the point, woman,” her husband snapped.

“I got her dressed and her hair done, but she didn’t want no breakfast. When she went downstairs to the taproom, I stripped the bed to wash the sheets. I know that mark of blood on the sheets when I see it. Your girl’s not a girl anymore. He’s had his way with her.”

“The bastard!” Sam burst out, unable to control himself any longer, fisting and unfisting his hands.

“I’ll kill him,” Kit said, his voice icy cold. “I’ll kill the blackguard.”

“You’ll have to be quick,” Sam said. “Because if I get to him first, there’ll be nothing left of him for you.”

Kit banged his fist on the bar. “They have but an hour and a half on us. We’ll catch them today. Innkeep, fetch us some porter and bread and cheese. We’ll eat it while our horses are attended to and then we’ll be on the road again. He’ll not have another night with my sister nor another night on this Earth, if I have my way.”

Sam swallowed. If, as seemed likely from the evidence of Agnes, Ysella had already lost her maidenhead to the fellow, what was to become of her after the death of her seducer? Was Kit even thinking straight? Despite his own boiling fury, Sam had to keep a clear head. Someone had to, because Kit clearly wasn’t.

The innkeeper fetched them sustenance and he and his wife retreated. Sam managed to eat only a small portion of the food, but downed the porter and took a refill. After the second tankard, a modicum of common sense came over him. “We can’t kill him,” he said. “If we kill him, it’s us who’ll be in trouble for it. You especially.”

Kit scowled. “He’s defiled my sister. Snatched her from her family, run off with her and debauched her. What else should a man do? It’s a matter of honor.”

“If you hang for killing him, what’s Morvoren supposed to do? And Ysella as well. She’ll have lost her place in society and have no protector.” Although in that dire situation, Sam would himself stand by her as protector if allowed.

Kit banged his tankard down on the bar. “Are you saying we can’t exact punishment?”

“I am. We just have to get her back. If we do that, he can go rot.” Much as it rankled to say this, common sense had to take precedence here over the longing for revenge. Easy to see Kit and Ysella were related—both of them hotheaded and impulsive.

Kit bit his lip. “I shall challenge him to a duel. It’s the least I can do in defense of Ysella’s honor.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, either. They’re illegal.”

“Only a little. I know for a fact, most duels go unremarked.”

“If you have to do something like that, then of course I’ll be your second, but who will be his? If you go challenging him to a duel and hope to get away with it, you have to carry it out correctly. I don’t see how you can do that. A duel is not a good idea. And didn’t you say he’s already killed a man in a duel? He must be a good shot. He is a soldier, after all. Suppose he kills you? Ysella and Morvoren would be alone in the world. And so would little George.”

“He’ll just have to find someone who’ll stand for him. I don’t care. My aim is to kill him, not let him kill me.”

Sam sighed, sensing he was on a losing wicket here. “Wounding him would be better. Less likely to cause a storm afterwards. If he has any sense he’ll flee with his tail between his legs.”

“That’s it.” Kit threw down his half-eaten food. “I’ve had enough. I’m not waiting around here while the cad makes off with my sister. It’s time he learned a few home truths about her supposed fortune. I’ll wager that’ll make him change his tune.” He laughed, sounding and looking just like his late father again. “I can’t wait to see his face when I tell him he can’t get his hands on her money for another eleven years.”

Sam bit his tongue. He wanted to exact revenge on Featherstone as much as Kit did, but he was nowhere near as hotheaded. It would be up to him to make sure Kit didn’t do anything stupid that would jeopardize Morvoren’s future happiness. Ysella would not want her brother to be jailed, or worse, hanged, because of something she’d done.

The horses were still being groomed in the inn yard when they got there. “Saddle them up,” Kit almost shouted. “We’re leaving.”

A few minutes later they were trotting up the high street and leaving Banbury behind them.

*

Ysella sat inthe gig beside Oliver with the blankets pulled up over her knees and her hands tucked underneath them. Today, he hadn’t bothered to ask for hot bricks and she was already cold as he’d put the hood down which he said would help the horse to pull the gig faster. Today, he didn’t seem nearly so loving as he had yesterday. Was it something she’d done? Had she not performed last night as he’d expected her to? At least he hadn’t wanted to repeat the experience. He’d got dressed in a hurry in the morning and disappeared downstairs, leaving her to try and get herself ready to leave alone.

When the landlord’s wife arrived to help her dress, Ysella had nearly thrown herself into her ample arms and hugged her. She’d been racking her brains about how to get dressed without the help of a maid, terrified lest she had to ask Oliver to help and he decided a repeat of last night was required.

But it had been so embarrassing. She’d been sure the landlord’s wife had known every detail of her story just from looking at her face. Surely the guilt at having behaved like a common strumpet was written in large letters across her forehead, along with the words “not married” or “fornicator” or even “loose-moraled woman.” Once she was ready to leave the inn, she kept her head down to avoid meeting the accusing eyes of those who must be able to read what had happened last night in the way she looked and walked.

Their horse was lively this morning after a night’s rest and some good fodder, its hooves beating a tattoo on the road where the surface was reasonably firm and level. However, much of the rest of the road was in a parlous condition, being rutted and muddy, and in some places other road users had beaten a way through hedgerows and driven through the fields on either side of what was little more than an uneven track. Oliver followed suit where it was expedient.

Ysella regarded his classical profile. He still seemed handsome to her, but now she saw a certain arrogance in his features, and a hardness that she’d missed before. The thought that he’d had what he wanted from her dawned, and that she was little better than the scullery maid at Ormonde who’d given herself to the gardener’s boy and found herself with child. Which had led to the immediate dismissal of both unfortunates.

Her breath caught in her throat. Supposing she were to be with child? Could it happen the first time she’d done it? Oliver had said not, in his haste to persuade her to acquiesce to his attentions, but had he been right? Morvoren, with her superior knowledge, had given Ysella quite an informative lecture, with diagrams, on how a baby was made. And she’d definitely done the thing that caused that to happen. Did it happen every time you did it? Hot color suffused her face and she looked away from Oliver, out at the drab passing countryside.

They passed through a few villages where out in the fields the men had their teams out ploughing, despite the wetness of the ground. They’d be doing that at Ormonde. A flock of gulls peppered the gray sky, settling on newly ploughed ground to search for worms and leatherjackets. If she and Oliver went to live in London, she’d never see the march of the countryside’s seasons and all that involved again. A sense of fatalism descended over Ysella. She’d made her bed, and now she’d have to sleep in it. A very accurate idiom for what she’d done last night, not that it had involved much sleeping.

The gig breasted a hill and began the gentle descent towards some woodland and a river valley. From behind, there came a shout.

Ysella peered over her shoulder. Two riders were galloping towards them. One of them was waving his arms.

Oliver twisted around, the grim smile on his handsome face rendering it quite unpleasant. “So, they’ve caught us up at last, have they?” he snarled. “Well, they’re too bloody late. You’re mine, and there’s nothing they can do about it.”

He heaved on the reins and brought the gig to a halt.