Chapter Twenty-Six

T he carriage rumbled through the gates and onto the weed-strewn gravel drive of Carlyon Court. Behind it, Ysella, clad in her dark green riding habit, sat Lochinvar. Beside her rode Sam on the steady bay Hercules. Unlike the mailcoach, nor their last madcap dash west, they hadn't hurried on the road, but had broken the journey three times at wayside inns. And a lot of the time, as the weather had at last taken a turn for the better, they'd ridden, leaving the coach, driven by James, to carry just their luggage and Martha.

Ysella wrinkled her nose at the weeds and long grass and glanced at Sam. "Do they not have a gardener or two down here? I'm sure it didn't look this bad when we were here last year."

He shrugged. "That will be one of the things I shall have to look into. Kit said Carlyon Court has fallen into a parlous state much in need of my organizational skills." He chuckled. "Not that I recall much from our last visit down here. But if I were you, I'd be more concerned with what it's like inside than out."

Ysella, whose mood had gradually improved with each day spent in the saddle, smiled back at him. Poor Sam, having to take all this in hand. However, her feelings of pity didn't run deep—she'd already decided to let him cope with the housekeeping he'd threatened her with. Far too boring now the weather actually felt like spring. Instead of tedious things like organizing staff, she would be off to find a way down to that glorious beach she'd glimpsed last time she was here. There must be a way down there on horseback, surely.

The carriage ground to a halt in front of the main doors.

Sam halted Hercules and slid down from the saddle, then held out his arms for Ysella. She unhooked her right leg and slid into his waiting grasp. But he only held her for a moment, releasing her as she found her balance. A small part of her rather wished he'd kept on holding her, but she dismissed that thought as ridiculous. Why on earth would she want Sam holding her?

Martha climbed out of the carriage to stand on the gravel behind them, her critical gaze taking in the state of the drive and the neglected air of the house. James remained seated on the box. He, too, had seen the Court only last year.

By the front door, a couple of iron rings had been embedded in the stonework. Sam looped their horses' reins through them and turned to the door itself, which appeared to be locked.

A frayed rope hung beside it, to which he gave a hearty tug. The sound of a distant bell ringing carried to them through the thick oak of the door.

Ysella tapped her foot. From what she remembered of the few servants here, they were not going to be in a hurry to answer any peremptory ringing of the front doorbell.

At last, just as Sam was stretching out his hand to ring the bell again, the sounds of bolts being shot back heralded the door creaking open just a crack. The wrinkled old face of the woman who'd opened it for them last time they'd been here peeked out, just as grumpy, just as unwelcoming.

This was too much. This was their house, and the servants needed some straight talking about prompt responses. Ysella pushed the door hard and it swung wide, revealing the stooped figure of a woman so old and wrinkled she could have been a witch from one of Ysella's childhood storybooks. Last time they'd been here in the dark, but this time Ysella got a better look at her.

"About time too," Sam said, striding into the wide, and very gloomy, front hall. "Things are going to have to change here. Who is in charge?"

Ysella followed him. The light now streaming through the open doorway showed a hallway made darker than was natural by an abundance of oak paneling, an oak staircase and dark oak doors. The only thing that wasn't constructed of ancient oak appeared to be the floor, and that was large slabs of gray slate. Not a very welcoming sight. Last time she'd scarcely noticed anything about the house, so anxious had she and Morvoren been to get to Kit.

Sam stopped in the center of the hall and looked around at the white sheet draped furniture. Was that a suit of armor under the sheet by the bottom of the stairs? He fixed the old lady with a firm stare. "Go and fetch the other servants. Mrs. Beauchamp and I have brought a carriage load of our belongings down from Ormonde and our driver needs help unloading."

The old lady scuttled away as fast as her ancient legs could carry her.

Martha, who had followed Ysella and Sam inside, gazed around herself with a wrinkled nose and finally gave a huff of disapproval. "Don't look like they were expecting us," she remarked.

Impressed by Sam's firm instructions and the speed with which they'd been obeyed, but determined not to say so, Ysella turned away and flung open the lefthand door. The long dusty table and many chairs declared this to be the dining room. Sunlight shafted in between the cracks in closed shutters, dust motes dancing in the beams. Leaving the door open, she tried the righthand door. The drawing room, clearly, but in here everything had been draped with sheets as the hall had been. She turned towards the stairs.

"I have a nasty feeling the bedrooms are not going to be aired," Sam said with a sigh. "But by all means go and look, and perhaps you could report back to me. We may well have to put up with some discomfort before we get the house back the right way up."

Ysella dimpled at him, excited by the sense of adventure the state of the house was instilling in her, and skipped up the stairs followed by Martha, not quite so light of foot, and probably far less enthusiastic. At the half landing, the stairs divided, going right and left into a gallery that ran all the way around the upper floor and gave onto the hallway. As with downstairs, the shutters had all been closed and darkness held sway up here, except for the bright shafts of light that had sneaked their way between the slats. At the large landing window, Ysella reached up and unhooked the shutters to fling them back and let in the light. More dust motes danced in the sunlight in profusion, but the once well-polished oak floors shone in the brightness. This had been a lovely house in the past, and it could be again.

Martha, running a finger over the dusty windowsill, gave a huff of disgust that Ysella ignored.

Instead, with a curious hand, Ysella wiped a patch of window clean and peered out. Unkempt gardens stretched to a tree-lined boundary, and beyond that the land seemed to drop away. Was that the sea? She rubbed a bit more of the window clean and leaned in closer for a better look. It was. The day was fine, and the sea stretched away into a hazy blue distance. Ysella's romantic heart, that had already been bursting with the newness of everything she'd seen, soared. Kit had said the sea was in her blood, and now it was calling to her. She would definitely have to find a way down to the beach as soon as possible, but preferably not via that same cliff path she'd had to negotiate a year ago. She had a feeling it would be even more frightening in daylight than it had been at night, when she couldn't see the drop and had only heard the crash of breakers on the cliff's feet.

But Sam had sent her to explore upstairs, and that was what she'd do. Curious about the house's secrets, she proceeded along the gallery, Martha following behind. The doors up here must surely lead into bedrooms. She pushed open the first one. In the center of the room, on a faded silk rug, stood a large four poster bed, the cover in disarray as though someone had been sleeping in it only that morning. The room smelled musty and sharp, as though whoever had slept here might not have been very clean.

Martha huffed again and tutted several times.

She tried the next room, finding it in the same state. Had the servants been sleeping up here? Despite her avowal of not being capable of housekeeping, Ysella's instinct had her heading back down the stairs in a hurry. She arrived at the bottom to find four people had just assembled themselves in the hall in front of Sam. The same four people she remembered seeing here before. Two men, one considerably older than the other, a woman of blowsy middle-age, and a lanky boy with a shock of sandy hair.

The boy spotted her first. "Miss Ysella," he cried out in excitement, having been a willing party to the flouting of the revenue men the last time she'd been in Cornwall. "Miss Ysella, I dint rightly know it was you what was here. Doryty dint say."

The old woman, who must have been Doryty, gave a cuff to his ear which he dodged with agility as though he were used to doing so.

"Miss Ysella?" The older man, white haired and portly, stepped forward with a quick bow. "The boy's right. We dint know it were you come."

Ysella stopped three steps up, giving herself the superiority of height over the assembled company. "I have just been upstairs," she said with cold deliberation, one eye taking in Sam's impressed expression. "And seen the mess in the bedrooms. I think you have some explaining to do." She paused and looked from one face to the next. "Have you perhaps taken to sleeping in the best bedrooms?"

The middle-aged woman stepped forward, smoothing her grubby apron. "I'm Rosie Enyon, Miss, Jem's ma. It were right cold up in them attics this winter and right into spring. We only come down to keep a bit warmer."

Ysella frowned. "No matter the reason, you should not have presumed to occupy the best bedrooms, thinking your master far away and ignorant of your actions. He has asked Mr. Beauchamp and me to come down and set the house and estate to rights." She paused. "Mr. Beauchamp is my husband, so I am no longer Miss Ysella. You may address me as ma'am."

To say this was met with a stunned silence would have been a gross underestimation. Her gathered servants looked from her to Sam and then back again. All of them knew who and what Sam was, and every one of them looked not just surprised but shocked.

Ysella didn't give them time to think. "Rosie. Upstairs now and sort out two of the bedrooms for us, and make sure the sheets are spotlessly clean. Martha will help you."

Martha huffed again at the prospect of having to do a housemaid's work.

Ysella ignored her. "I shall take my mother's old room." She met Sam's eyes. "You men, outside and help James with our belongings. You as well, Jem." She glanced at the old woman. "And you can go to the kitchen and prepare something for us to eat. It's been a long journey." She looked back at Sam, whose eyes held admiration. "My husband and I will wait in the drawing room."

*

Sam pulled the dust covers from the furniture, setting a cloud of dust fluttering through the stuffy air of the drawing room. The furniture revealed was old-fashioned but serviceable—probably the furniture that had belonged to the old viscount, or perhaps even to his father, who Sam knew had only inherited the title from a childless older brother late in life.

Moving on from the seating, Sam went to the three long windows and, unfastening the catches, swung the wooden shutters back to reveal the small leaded panes of yesteryear, the glass marked by the bullseyes that indicated its extreme age. The late afternoon sunlight streamed into a room, which, like the hall, had long ago been decorated with oak paneling. Everything about this house was dark. After Ormonde, with its high stuccoed ceilings and munificence of windows, Carlyon Court seemed a gloomy rabbit warren.

Ysella was busy removing the rest of the dust sheets, adding them to a pile on the floor by the main doorway. "This place reeks of the last century," she said, wrinkling her nose and sneezing. "And not the end of it. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's not changed at all since my grandfather was a boy. And he would be a hundred were he alive now."

Sam had moved to the hearth, where the ashes of the last fire, possibly from years ago, had never been removed. Bending, he gave it a prod with a brass poker. Was that the skeleton and desiccated wings of a bird that had fallen down the chimney? All the chimneys were going to need a good sweeping before they risked lighting any fires. He straightened up. "A good thing it's no longer cold, although these shut up rooms hold the chill well."

He ran a finger along the mantelpiece, his fingertip coming away thick with dust. "If we're to get this house back to its former glory, I suspect we're going to need more servants than that motley group. One of whom is too old to still be working, I'd say."

Ysella walked over to one of the long windows, and Sam followed her. Just unkempt gardens with nothing to indicate how close they were to the sea. She sighed. "You're right. This place feels awful, but I think that we can improve it."

At least she seemed to be looking at this in a more positive frame of mind than he'd expected. Perhaps the challenge was spurring her on. After all, this was going to take a lot of work to put to rights. He looked down at her. How beautiful she was in the golden light of the late afternoon, the sun's rays gilding her hair and face so she resembled a bronze statue. How small and delicate, yet how resilient. If only she could find it in her to love him, then his life would be complete.

His fingers twitched, and he glanced down. How close her hand was to his. How much he wanted to reach out and touch it. To take it in his own, to thread his fingers between hers. He resisted the impulse. He mustn't frighten her off. If he could have nothing else, he'd have her as his friend again, even if that took a long time to happen. He could be content with her friendship.

She looked up at him out of her wide dark eyes, her face besmirched with dust. She had the longest and thickest lashes he'd ever seen. Her lips curved in a smile. Oh, how he longed to kiss them. "The views from upstairs are much better than the ones from down here."

Lost for words and in his own longing, Sam nodded. "You can see the sea from up there. Kit showed me when he brought me down here. I had a bedroom with a view of the sea."

She nodded. "I opened the shutters on the landing window. The windows were dirty but I cleaned a spot to peer through." Her smile widened. "D'you know, Sam? I think I might be going to like it down here. After seeing the sea when we were down here before, even if it were ever so briefly, I rather have a hankering to see it again, up close this time." She dimpled, naughty as a schoolgirl. "And perhaps if it's warm enough, I'll be able to paddle my feet in it."

"Then you shall do it, Ysella," Sam said. "I promise you that."

Her hand slipped into his and squeezed. "Thank you, Sam."

His heart felt as though it would burst, her touch sending shivers through his body. He'd held her hand before, particularly on the occasion when they'd taught Morvoren to dance, but somehow, this sudden warm contact she'd initiated felt quite different. More intimate. For a start, he was alone with her in the drawing room. Before, she'd just been Miss Ysella. Now, she was his wedded wife, even if only in name. He could only dream that one day she might want to do more than hold hands so chastely. Like a pair of old friends.