Page 70 of The Cornish Inheritance

“Might someone have taken advantage and stolen it?” Nat muttered.

Unlikely. Caroline caught his arm. “Thank you, Tom. Shall we go and see how Duchess is faring after her flight?”

Nat went back into the corridor with her and from there out into the yard. Duchess’s loose box was at the far end of the stable block from the tack room. The warm smell of straw beds and hay in racks tickled Caroline’s nostrils, and the sound of contented masticating came from every loose box. Duchess turned her head from her hayrack, but didn’t come over.

“She looks better for her adventure than I feel,” Nat said, leaning on the stable door.

Caroline leaned beside him. “She was lucky. Her reins broke. They could have caused her to fall. She could have broken a leg.”

He nodded.

She licked her lips. “You were lucky, too. You could have been killed.”

He nodded again. “I wish I could take a look at that saddle.”

Now or never. “Do you think someone doesn’t want you to see it?”

She felt his body stiffen beside hers, but he didn’t turn his head. “Do you think that?”

“I do.”

He stayed silent for a full minute, the sound of Duchess eating loud. “Who do you think would want that?”

She watched his profile. He was on her right, so she couldn’t see his scar. “Who heard your directions to go and find the saddle?”

“Everyone in the hall. Dickon, Tom Pascoe, you, Hetty and Yves, my stepmother, Ennion, Trefusis…”

“And who ordered Young Pascoe not to go and find it until he’d finished his day’s work?”

“Trefusis.”

She let the name hang between them.

“You think Trefusis went out there and took the saddle? So Tom wouldn’t find it?”

Caroline nodded. “I do. I think he gave himself enough time to get out there and dispose of it so you couldn’t see someone had tampered with the girth, or the girth straps.”

Now he did turn his head to look at her, his face close to hers. His voice dropped as though he feared someone might be listening. “You think he interfered with my saddle? Why?”

“Men,” Caroline huffed. “You’re all blind to what’s going on around you. My friend Lord Ormonde is much the same, and dear Sam Beauchamp, as well. Look beyond the end of your nose. Trefusis is after the Treloar fortune.”

Nat shook his head. “But how could he hope to get it? After my grandfather dies, it’ll go to Yves.” He frowned. “Does he think to be guardian to Yves until he reaches his majority?”

Caroline shook her head. “Look a bit further. Who inherits if anything happens to Yves?”

“I do, I suppose.”

“Yes. And if anything happens to you?”

“Hetty.”

“Precisely.”

“But Trefusis is my mother’s lover. I had it from Jacka at Kennegy Downs. Everyone knows it. Why would Hetty inheriting Roskilly make a difference to him?”

“Haven’t you seen the way he looks at Hetty when your stepmother isn’t looking? It’s Hetty he’s after, not her mother. Think. Why would he go after your stepmother who is older even than he is, when he could have a young and beautiful bride—with a huge inheritance. Your stepmother can’t give him children, for a start.”

Did he believe her? She held her breath.