Page 38 of The Cornish Inheritance

Caroline shook her head. “A gentleman never comments on that part of a lady’s anatomy.”

“He can think it though, can’t he? And anyway, men have them too. And boys,” Yves persisted, patting his own bottom in demonstration of its location.

“If you must. But you should never comment out loud.”

On the night of the ball, Yves was confined to the nursery in the charge of Patience, as quite by chance it happened to be the awful Bridget’s night off. She had, however, left instructions for Yves to be given his dose of medicine before he went to bed.

Caroline, with Patience’s help, got into her pale blue gown and set about doing her own makeup and hair. Not easy when she’d been used to having a lady’s maid. For every day, she’d taken to just plaiting her hair and then piling it in a bun toward the back of her head, but a ball required more care and attention, and Patience was no help at all in this department.

Hetty came to the rescue. Since her recent emergence from the schoolroom, she’d been given her own lady’s maid, Abigail, a young woman promoted, to her delight, from amongst the housemaids. Caroline was sitting in front of her small mirror trying to arrange her hair for the fifth time when a light knock disturbed her and on calling out “come in,” Abigail and Hetty bustled in.

Hetty looked quite charming, as Abigail seemed to have toned down the flounciness Yves had pointed out. However, she still wore the pale pink dress she and Caroline had chosen, although with a different, diaphanous shawl, devoid of Yves’s “bobbly bits.” Her glorious auburn hair had mostly been piled up on her head, but stray curls, artfully arranged, spilled over the alabaster skin of her slender shoulders.

“Abigail will do your hair for you,” she exclaimed with evident satisfaction. “Sit back down, and let her work her magic.”

And it was magic. In a very short space of time, Caroline’s hair looked nearly as nice as her young charge’s. Delighted, Hetty planted a kiss on each of Caroline’s cheeks. “You look so pretty. No one would know you for a governess and old maid.”

Although this was meant to be flattering, Caroline wasn’t sure she liked being thought of as an old maid. Not even by guileless Hetty. Although, when she’d been seventeen herself, she’d more than likely thought women ten years older to have been distinctly over the hill and on the shelf. She could hardly blame Hetty for thinking the same.

Yves came bounding out of the nursery in his night shirt with Patience in hot pursuit. “By gosh, Hetty, you look like a lady!”

Hetty beamed, despite the implication that she didn’t normally look like a lady. “Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?”

Patience caught his hand. “He is that, Miss Hetty. Come on you, or I’ll tell Bridget you was naughty.”

“Not Bridget,” Yves gasped, and stopped pulling away from her. “I only wanted to see Hetty and Caroline in their ball clothes.” He looked at Caroline. “You look really pretty, too. Not like a governess at all.”

“For an old maid,” Caroline said, and grinned at Hetty. “Goodnight, Yves. Do not be awake when we return or I might tell Bridget, even if Patience doesn’t. Off to bed with you, right now.”

He scuttled off to bed, Patience in hot pursuit, and Caroline and Hetty headed downstairs, Caroline’s heart thudding painfully for a number of reasons. Outside the drawing room door, she reached out and took Hetty’s hand. “Courage. He can’t do anything to you.”

Not needing to be told whom Caroline was referring to, Hetty shot her a grateful smile, her fingers tightening around Caroline’s. Then she pushed the door open and they stepped inside.

Mrs. Treloar, wearing a maroon satin gown, was seated on the chaise longue. Trefusis stood beside the fireplace, striking a negligent pose as he seemed wont to do, which meant his face was hidden from his benefactress. Taking advantage of this, he let his eyes run shamelessly over both Hetty’s and Caroline’s bodies as they came in, and Hetty edged closer to her protectress.

Nat, on the other hand, stood by the window, gazing out of it, as though nothing inside the room was of any interest to him. Both men were dressed very smartly in silk breeches and stockings and immaculately cut tailcoats. But there the similarity ended. Nat was the epitome of understated elegance and refinement, despite, or perhaps because of, his eleven years as a soldier. There was nothing of the dandy about him, and his collar points were low and his cravat unostentatious. He looked what he was, the scion of a family of country gentry and an ex-soldier. Trefusis, however, shouted ostentation from every item of his clothing—from the ridiculously high starched points of his collar, through his fancy waistcoat and patterned breeches to his buckled shoes. This was a farmer’s son done up how he fancied a lord should look.

After a long moment, Trefusis bestowed a bow on Caroline and Hetty, that look in his eyes making her glad she’d added a pretty lace fichu to conceal her decolletage, for that was where his eyes were looking. Hetty drew her shawl closer about her shoulders.

Nat turned from the window and made a rather stiff bow, and Hetty returned an exaggerated curtsey. Caroline’s was more measured.

“Now we are all here,” Mrs. Treloar said, her voice laden with disapproval, no doubt at being forced to go out with a governess in her party, “perhaps we can ask Old Pascoe to bring round the carriage.” Her tone said what her words didn’t—that Hetty, and more specifically Caroline, had made them all wait.

Only five minutes later, for Old Pascoe must have had the carriage ready and waiting in the stableyard, they stepped out onto the graveled driveway and Young Pascoe, who was to ride as groom on the back, let down the carriage steps. Ennion held out a hand to help Mrs. Treloar and Hetty in, then Caroline, to take the rear-facing sea and after them the two men got in to sit opposite. Young Pascoe folded up the step and closed the door, the carriage creaked as he mounted up behind, and his father clicked to his horses to set the carriage rumbling down the drive.

As Caroline had never been down to Cornwall to visit Ysella at Carlyon, she had no idea how far away it lay, nor how long it would take to get there. However, she soon recognized the road as the bumpy one she and Yves had taken to Penzance. Pulled by four strong bays, the carriage fairly rattled along, but nevertheless it couldn’t go flat out, due to the ruts and the odd dangerous hole that could lead to a broken axle.

It must have been two hours—two silent hours as no one in the carriage spoke much aside from Mrs. Treloar’s detailed and several times repeated instructions for Hetty and Caroline—before they rumbled down a tree-overhung lane and through a pair of wrought-iron gates. It seemed Ysella and Mr. Beauchamp lived in an even more far-flung corner of Cornwall than the Treloars.

Old Pascoe drew the carriage up in front of a house that looked as though it had shrugged itself as close to the ground as it could get against the prevailing sea winds, clinging with the determination of the limpets Yves had shown Caroline on the rocks on the beach. Tall brick chimneys rose from a darkly slated roof which overhung the small upper windows as though much in need of the equivalent of a haircut.

Young Pascoe jumped off the back of the carriage and hurried to let down the step. Evening was drawing in and a cool sea wind blew, making Caroline draw her own shawl closer about her shoulders as she emerged. Other carriages were stationed everywhere, so Ysella and Sam must have invited a lot of people to this ball. How good it would be to see her friend again.

The party went inside, Mrs. Treloar and Trefusis leading the way, her hand tucked into the crook of his arm as though he were her escort for the night and she wanted everyone to know he was her property.

The house was as squat inside as out, being much more like the ancient Cadley Grange than Roskilly. Dark wainscotting everywhere, and old furniture just like that of her parents. Immediately, Caroline felt more at home here than she did at Roskilly.

Ysella and Sam were greeting their guests.