Page 13 of The Cornish Inheritance

Caroline, somewhat hampered by her wet skirts and the sand her feet were sinking into, made a wobbly curtsey.

Not so Hetty. “Nat? What’s happened to your face? Why, Caroline, this is my brother Nat! I would not have known him with that dreadful scar.” She glanced at Caroline, a touch of fear in her eyes, then back to Nat, her tone verging on accusatory. “You didn’t have it when last you were home, and it has quite changed your appearance.”

Not the most tactful of greetings, but her brother, taking her hands, allowed it to pass with the merest hint of pain in his eyes, before, yet again, he had them veiled. He must be used to reactions like this. “And I would not have recognized you either, now you’re grown into such a young lady. You were nothing but a schoolroom chit when last I was home. I barely saw you.”

Hetty frowned. “Mama is so very strict about what I’m allowed to do. When I was in the schoolroom, like Yves, I hardly saw anyone but Miss Hawkins or Hester from one week to the next.” She inhaled as though about to say more, but Nat’s gaze flicked to Caroline, and one eyebrow, more mobile than the other, rose in enquiry.

Hetty remembered her manners. “Oh, Nat. Caro… I mean Miss Fairfield, is Yves’s new governess. Mama took it into her head that she didn’t like Miss Hawkins any longer and let her go. Just last week. Miss Fairfield, who you must of course call Caroline, as Yves and I do, only arrived in Cornwall yesterday.”

Nat’s somewhat saturnine eyebrow rose again, the impression enhanced by the immobility of the other side of his face. That whole side seemed devoid of expression. “You are not from Cornwall, Miss Fairfield?”

Caroline shook her head. “Wiltshire, sir. My friend, Mrs. Beauchamp of Carlyon Court, recommended me to your mother.”

He nodded. “Do the Carlyons not hold the Court any longer? In my boyhood, I recall being taken there to play with the son—Kit, I think his name was.”

“Kit is now Viscount Ormonde and lives at Ormonde Abbey in Wiltshire, not far from where I lived with my…” She hesitated, unwilling to share her family’s misfortune with a virtual stranger. “Where I lived before I came down here. I knew Kit well, and it is his youngest sister, my dear friend Ysella Carlyon, who is in residence at the Court with her husband, Mr. Samuel Beauchamp. Mrs. Beauchamp was kind enough to intercede for me with your mother, when I found myself… in need of employment.”

How hard it was to hedge around the real reason for her sudden need to earn her own living, but he didn’t need to know that. No one needed to know.

“How fortunate my mother is, then, that you are so careful of your charge as to allow him to soak himself to the skin on the very first day of your employment.” More than a touch of sarcasm tinged his words, which Caroline couldn’t fault, as all of it was true.

She felt herself coloring like a green girl and bit her lip. Now there was no way she could disguise Yves’s dunking to his aunt, because her newly returned son was bound to tell her. She’d have to be honest and prepare herself for instant dismissal. Her heart sank. Perhaps she could go to Ysella at Carlyon Court if she were thrown out here, at least for a while. How hard would it be to find another post? She’d have no references and couldn’t rely on Ysella to find her yet another post amongst her friends, who would all have heard the story of her dismissal from Roskilly.

“I daresay Mama will not care a jot,” Hetty said. “He’s always getting himself into scrapes, and Mama takes no notice at all. That was part of the argument between Miss Hawkins and Mama, I think. That Mama allowed Yves too much freedom and Miss Hawkins thought it dangerous.”

A wry smile curved the uninjured side of Nat’s face, made a little macabre by the scar. “I’m not surprised.”

What an odd thing to say about an accident to a child.

Yves, who had been silent throughout this exchange, suddenly stepped forward. “I am very pleased to meet you then, Cousin Nat. I believe we’ve not met before. Yves Treloar, at your service.” And he made a neat little bow, made comical by his wet skeleton suit and sand-covered appearance.

Nat held out his right hand to the boy, as solemn as if he were greeting his own father. “Good afternoon.”

Yves took his cousin’s hand and let out a squeal, but not of horror, of delight. Nat’s right hand possessed only the thumb and first two fingers—the little one and the next were gone, leaving only short stumps. Yves turned it over in his the better to examine it. When he looked up, his small face was wreathed in admiration. “You’re a soldier, aren’t you? Is that how you lost these fingers and came by that scar on your face? Have you been fighting Boney? Will you tell me all about it? Did you see him?” Eyes brimming with eager devotion gazed up into the saturnine ones of his big cousin, both sets as blue as the sea on a summer’s day.

Nat snatched his hand back, his face darkening. “Nothing to tell.”

The little boy’s face puckered in obvious disappointment, and he glanced first at Hetty and then at Caroline for support.

“We should walk back to the house now, before Yves catches a chill,” Caroline said, flustered and unsure how to react to this. Best to move on. And her next step was not going to be a pleasant one. Owning up to what had happened in the sea needed to be done, and, just perhaps, if Hetty were right, Mrs. Treloar would not be too angry about it.

Caroline held out a hand to Yves. “Come, let’s get back to the dry sand and put your shoes and stockings on at least. You can’t walk home barefoot.”

Yves, shooting Nat a sulky glare, took her hand, and Hetty, also with a less-than-happy look for Nat, fell in on Caroline’s other side. Dash, who seemed to have accepted Nat, raced on ahead of them, intent on chasing any gulls who had the temerity to land on his beach.

Out of the corner of her eye, Caroline saw Nat catch his cob’s reins and take his place behind them. Good. She wouldn’t be forced to try and make polite conversation with him. Even Hetty appeared to have given up. He seemed such a bad-tempered, reticent young man, perfectly fitting his dour, scarred countenance. Hopefully he wasn’t going to be staying at Roskilly for too long.