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“You are devious.”
“I prefer to think of it as subtle and effective.”
“Certainly that.”
They reached Tresigan in good time. The coachman and groom, along once again in case they needed reinforcements, jumped down to see to the horses. Cecelia wanted to find out about Tresigan’s stables, which they hadn’t observed on their previous visit. Thus, her first question when Merlin came out to meet them was about that.
“There is a barn down there behind the trees,” he replied, pointing to the overgrown copse that had featured in Sarah’s conversation about maenads. Her cheeks heated at the memory.
Cecelia sent the men with the carriage to look it over and continued on toward the house. She entered the open back door without asking permission, making a point, Sarah thought.
The wildly bearded resident remained outside. Out of curiosity, Sarah stayed with him. “What do you do all day?” she asked.
“Garden, walk and think, mend and cook,” he answered.
“Don’t you get lonely?”
“Yes.” The reply was sharp and stark.
“Why stay here then?”
“Some people have nowhere to go, Mrs. Pendrennon.”
It was the first time she’d been called that by a stranger. A shock ran through her.
“I am not like you, who have a great noble family to draw on.”
“My family is not grand.” But she could get help from them if she needed it, Sarah acknowledged.
“Yet you married Kenver Pendrennon?” Merlin stared at her from under his bushy brows. “Lord Trestan accepts only great matches.”
“How do you know that?” His accent had shifted again, Sarah noticed. Whatever his antecedents, and whatever he wished to pretend, he was an educated man.
His green eyes examined her—sharp, without hesitation. “You’re friends with a duchess.”
Sarah simply nodded. She didn’t wish to tell the story of her marriage to a stranger. A very odd stranger. Obviously Merlin was not in touch with neighborhood gossip. Changing the subject, she said, “Cecelia might help you find somewhere to go when they begin work on the house.”
“To what end?” he asked.
“End?”
“Why work on it? Surely they don’t intend to live here?”
“No. But they wish to preserve it even so. And then someone will have a home.”
“But not me,” he responded.
“Well, I don’t… Perhaps you could make some arrangement.” Sarah didn’t know what Cecelia intended. Reliable tenants, probably.
“I wonder if they would sell the place?”
Sarah had heard Cecelia say that she didn’t care to diminish the estate, but she’d also mentioned that Tresigan was far away from other Tereford holdings. “I don’t know,” she replied. “Would you like to buy it?”
“Oh, that is out of my reach, like so many things.”
His voice was particularly precise and cutting on this phrase. Again Sarah wondered who he was. What was he doing here? It was a mystery worthy of her friends’ investigative efforts, if their group had not been scattered far and wide. Might there be papers in the house bearing Merlin’s true name? But she had no excuse to riffle through his things. Mere curiosity was not enough reason for that intrusion. And though some might argue that he was breaking the law by living at Tresigan, she couldn’t see this as a great sin.
Cecelia emerged. “Do you have a key to the cellar?” she asked Merlin.
