Page 64 of The Cornish Bride

Ysella shook her head. “It’s only a storm. I’m not scared.” She peered at the newcomers. Was one of them Uncle Jago’s man Jowan? A disreputable rogue at the best of times, now, by the light of the lamp, he resembled a denizen of hell’s deepest depths. His long, wet hair hung down his face revealing a sizeable bald spot, and his eyes appeared to be starting from his face. A face twisted into the most remarkable grimace. “What are these two men doing here?”

Sam glanced sideways at them. “There’s a ship being washed onshore down in Nanpean Cove. Jowan and Kenal came to tell me. I’ve sent Jem to the village to fetch some men with ropes. I’m going down there to see what I can do.”

Suddenly, the idea of seeing the sea in stormy weather no longer seemed anywhere near so attractive. The thought of a shipload of people in trouble on it banished all feelings of excitement. “You’re going? Can you not send our men?” He mustn’t go into danger. He mustn’t.

Sam shook his head in impatience. “What sort of a gentleman would send his workers but not go himself when lives are at stake?”

“A sensible one. This ship’s not your responsibility and nor are the men onboard it.”

He scowled at her. “It may not be, but the people in the local villages are, and they are going down there to try to save the souls of the people on the ship. I owe it to them to go too.”

Why was she so frightened for him? Was it more than the fear for a dear friend? She descended the last few steps and caught his arm. “You don’t need to go, Sam. I need you here. Stay with me.”

Just for a moment she thought he would. His gray eyes, glowing a little in the light of the oil lamp, held her gaze for a long moment, indecision writ large in them. Then he shook her off. “No, Ysella. Kit sent me down here to act as master of his estate, and as such I have a duty to do so in his place. He would go if he were here. I’m going to find some clothes. Get out of my way.” And he pushed past her and ran up the stairs two at a time.

Ysella looked back at Jowan and Kenal, caps in hand, hair plastered to their pale faces. “Keep him safe for me.”

Outside the thunder rumbled again, and the wind rattled at the heavy front door as though eager to get in. Jowan tugged his sparse forelock. “I will that, Missus.”

*

Sam tugged onthe trousers he kept for working outside with the men, tucking an old shirt into the waistband and slipping his braces over his shoulders. He pulled on his top boots and snatched up the simple fisherman’s gansey he’d taken to wearing for work. Pushing thoughts out of his head of Ysella’s stricken face when he’d told her he was going out to help, he picked up the lantern.

It swung in his hand as he strode back along the gallery, casting leaping shadows up the walls. At the top of the stairs, he nearly collided with Ysella who’d come racing along the gallery from her room. She was dressed much as he was, in the boys’ clothes she and Morvoren had a disturbing penchant for wanting to ride out in.

He held the lantern up to illuminate her face, the golden light making her eyes glow like coals. “What the hell are you doing?”

She glared back at him, pulling her coat on. Kit’s old coat, that was. “If you’re going, then I’m coming too.”

He shook his head. “No, you’re not. Get back to your room. I’ll send Martha to keep you company if you’re frightened.”

“No need,” she snapped back at him. “Martha’s already there, and I’m not scared. If you’re going out in it, then so am I. It’s only a storm, and you said you’d show me what the sea looked like in bad weather. And besides which, I want to help.”

“Not in a hurricane.” Sam had to raise his voice to almost a shout above the increasing howl of the wind and the accompanying creaks and groans of the old house. His only hope, much as Ysella had concluded, was that it had stood the rigors of previous storms and remained intact, so this one would leave it standing.

“What d’you think I’m going to do?” Ysella shouted back. “Blow away?”

He shook his head again. “You might. It’s no place for a girl.”

She reached out and took hold of his hand, hers small and chilly in his. “I’m not just any woman, Sam. I’m your wife.”

Words deserted him. All he could feel or think of was her hand in his, somehow persuasive and comforting, and the electric current fizzing through his body.

“I won’t do anything silly,” Ysella shouted into his face. “You have my word.”

What on earth did she want to come with him for? Being his wife wasn’t a good reason for her to put herself in danger. Unless… He stared into her pleading eyes. Was that worry he saw in them? Not for the first time he wished with fervor that he understood women a bit better. Their ways remained a mystery to him, particularly Ysella’s. “Very well. If you insist, and you swear you’re not going to turn vaporish on me, then you can come. But you stand where I put you, and you don’t move. You don’t get in anyone’s way. If I see danger, you go back. Do I have your word on that?”

She nodded, eyes shining in the lamplight, a decidedly unholy expression of glee on her face as though she thought this some big adventure and not an expedition setting out to try to save lives that might well already be lost. “You have my word.”

“Then let’s find you a gansey and a better coat,” Sam said. “Something that’ll keep the rain off you a bit better than that one. Hurry up.”