Chapter Seven

A t the house, Nat abandoned Miss Fairfield to her own devices, not really caring whether she admitted Yves’s little adventure to his mother or not. Hadn’t he had many of the like when he’d been Yves’s age? Wasn’t that typical of a small boy? And none of them had come to his mother’s attention. However, Miss Fairfield had the distinct look of someone who prided herself on speaking the truth. Not always the best policy with his mother, as he’d learned to his cost over the years.

He led Bosun round to the stable courtyard where he was greeted by a young groom he didn’t know, but who resembled Pascoe enough to have been a son of his. The groom held Bosun’s head while Nat slid down, and Nat handed him the reins. Damned fellow couldn’t tear his eyes away from the scar. Turning his head away, Nat unfastened his valise and left the groom to do the necessary for the cob.

He entered the house by the servants’ door, stepping into the cool, flagstone corridor to be greeted by the rich smell of roasting meat and baking. Following his nose, he made for the kitchens, hoping there would have been fewer changes in there than in the stables.

He was right. The huge and easily recognized form of Mrs. Teague was just taking loaves out of the bread oven and sliding them onto the floured tabletop. She turned her head as the door opened, and her wide face puckered for a moment in confusion, before breaking into a smile of recognition. “Master Nat!”

Nat allowed himself a smile in return, or at least, the half of his face that could smiled. The army surgeon who’d sewn him up had said he’d never have much mobility back on the right side of his face and it seemed he was right. He gazed around the kitchen he remembered so well. He had so many good childhood memories of this kitchen, and the kindness of Mrs. Teague to a small, ever-hungry boy. “Mrs. Teague. I’m very glad to see you still ruling here in the kitchen.”

She wiped her floury hands on her apron. “And I’m that glad to see you back here, Master Nat. Bin a sad quiet place without you, although little Master Yves is heading toward making up for that, I vow. Chip off the old Treloar block, that boy is. Very much like you was.” Her gaze ran over his face and he sensed rather than saw an internal wince as she took in his scar.

But Nat refused to think about it. “That bread smells delicious. Might I trouble you for a slice or two with some good Cornish butter? I’ve sorely missed your cooking.”

Mrs. Teague swelled with pride. “You may indeed, Master Nat. And that happy I am to be able to cook for you again.” She shook her head in what might have been mock desperation. “Your mama, bless her, don’t eat enough to keep a sparrow alive, and she don’t think anyone else needs more’n her. It’ll be nice for me to have someone around what appreciates my cooking.”

She sliced off two thick and steaming slices of the fresh bread, fetched an earthenware pot of golden butter and applied it in abundance to the bread. Nat didn’t wait for a plate, but picked up the first slice and bit into it as soon as it was ready. “Mmmmm. Wonderful. I’ve been four days on the stagecoach down from London, and the food at some of those coaching inns leaves a lot to be desired. What’s more, they hurry the midday meal so you don’t even get time to eat what you’ve paid for. Nothing’s so good as Cornish food.”

Mrs. Teague watched him demolish the bread and now mostly melted butter with a look of immense satisfaction on her face. “I’m thinking I’ll be seeing you down here for your breakfast in the morning, along with Master Yves?”

So the child had found a way to get around his mother’s insistence that everyone should eat as meagerly as she. Good for him, but Nat had no desire to keep him company of a morning. He seemed the sort who would require answers to constant questions. “You might,” he said, finishing off the last crumb. “But now, somewhat fortified, I fear it’s time I faced my mother.” He wiped his mouth with his handkerchief. “Will I find her in the parlor, do you think?”

“You will.” Mrs. Teague’s wide face took on a disapproving frown. “She do meet up with Mr. Trefusis in there every afternoon.” She pursed her lips primly, hands on hips.

Nat ignored this heavy hint to ask about Trefusis and be given Mrs. Teague’s personal opinion, and nodded. “After that, I shall want to see my grandfather.” He paused, frowning. “Can you give me any advice on how he is? All I know is what I had from my old friend Jacka, old Trewin the gardener’s son. I called in at the Coach and Horses to borrow his cob. It was good to see him prospering. He seems to fit in well behind the bar.”

Mrs. Teague sat down with a thud on one of the kitchen chairs. “Not good, not good. Your granfer’s not good.” She shook her head in what looked like sorrow. “Not the man he was, that’s certain. You know it was an apoplexy? Struck him down in church one Sunday. A few folks round here did say it were the wrath of God, but we at Roskilly don’t hold with superstition. And your granfer were always good to me and mine.”

Nat wiped his buttery fingers on his handkerchief and stowed it in his pocket. “Go on.”

“They carried him back here on the vestry door. Unscrewed the hinges and took it down. Luckily, Doctor Rescorla were at the service, and he were able to follow your granfer back here. He bled him directly, and I did hear that was what saved him.”

“And the long-term consequences of this?”

“He can’t use his legs no more, so he’s been confined to his room these last two years. And your ma, she engaged a special nurse for him. Miss Rodgers, she’s called. Used to be at the County Asylum, so she ses. Hoity-toity piece she is too. Not like that new governess Master Yves has just got. Now, she’s a nice young lady as knows how to treat us servants. Well brought up, that one, not like that Miss Rodgers who’s no better than she should be.”

“Has no one thought of providing him with a Bath chair?”

Mrs. Teague frowned. “What’s one of them when it’s at home?”

“A wheeled seat that would give him mobility.”

She shrugged. “I can’t speak for Mrs. Treloar, but maybe the old master didn’t want that. He’s a stubborn man, as my old father used to say. Him that was head gardener here before old Trewin, back when the old master was young hisself.” She leaned toward Nat. “And maybe Mrs. Treloar don’t want Sir Hugh out of that bedroom. Did you not think of that?”

Nat met her gaze. This was no joke. She meant her words. Might his mother be happier with her father-in-law kept out of the way? Particularly so if Jacka was correct and she was carrying on with her land agent. This Trefusis.

He sighed. He’d think about that later. For now, first things first and he’d have to see his mother. “I’ll leave you now, Mrs. Teague. Thank you for all that useful information.” He pulled a face. “And the best bread and butter in Cornwall, I feel sufficiently emboldened by it to meet my mother.”

*

He found his mother in the parlor, as he’d guessed, reading a book. No doubt some worthy self-improving tome. She looked up as he came in, and her pale eyes widened in shock. For a moment she stayed seated, then she rose to her feet and came toward him, a smile fixed on her face that did little to enhance her looks and he suspected was not genuine. She’d once been an attractive woman, but the years had not been kind to her and a perpetual frown creased her brow.

“Nathaniel. You’ve seen fit to come home at last.”

And then she saw his face.

Her hands shot up to cover her mouth, but she couldn’t disguise the indrawn breath and gasp of horror, nor the hesitation in her stance.

Nat stood still, letting her take in his altered appearance, his right hand curling into a fist to hide his lost fingers.

“What on earth has happened to you?” The words came out almost as a cry of accusation, for she was surely suffering from shock. “Your face? What’s happened to your face?”

She staggered sideways and caught hold of the back of the chaise longue, her knuckles whitening as she gripped it, but whether this was from concern for him or just shock at the sight of the scar, Nat couldn’t be certain. Most likely the latter.

He took a step toward her, thinking to be of help, but she shied away from him as though his very touch repulsed her. “No. I shall be perfectly restored. Give me a moment. Please.” Her breast heaved as though she were fighting to regain her self-control.

Nat bit his lip. Perhaps he should have warned her in advance. It might have been kinder than this. Kinder to him as well as her. He should have known she’d react in this way, that she wouldn’t be able to see past the scarring. Perhaps he shouldn’t have come home at all.

“I was a soldier, Mother.” He shifted his weight. “And at least I’m not dead.”

She shot him a narrow-eyed gaze, sharp as the sword that had wreaked this damage.

He frowned. “Plenty are dead. The surgeon who stitched me back together told me to count myself as lucky that I wasn’t lying in a grave in a foreign field.”

At the time, Nat hadn’t been so sure about luck being involved, as he lay in the makeshift army hospital in Spain with his whole head bandaged. They’d wanted to send him back to England to recuperate, but he’d insisted on staying. Maybe it had been a death wish. He’d certainly thought for quite some time that he’d have been better off dead and had avoided all mirrors, something that had made shaving difficult.

His mother straightened up with what looked like a huge effort. “I am aware of that, Nathaniel.” Her gray eyes had hardened to pebbles. Wet pebbles. “I apologize for my reaction.” Her eyes were still fixed on his scar as though she couldn’t tear them away. “You must know that it will take me some time to become accustomed to… your altered appearance.” She cleared her throat. “What was it? A sword?”

He nodded. “A Frenchman. But he didn’t live to tell the tale.” No, with his own blood almost blinding him and pain lancing through his head, Nat had run the man through with his cavalry sword, as his own men surged to his rescue, surrounding him and sheltering him from further harm. Brave men, all of them. A better band of men it would have been hard to find in all the British army. But he couldn’t think of them. Not now. Not ever.

His mother pressed her lips together. “Is this furlough? How long are you home for?”

She didn’t sound pleased. He couldn’t blame her. Perhaps she’d thought he’d perish on the battlefields of Europe, and, in doing so, oblige her. Perhaps he did her down by thinking this. Who knew? She was a woman harder to read than any he’d met. But he’d come back, and in place of the handsome boy who’d ridden away eleven years ago, she’d got a crippled stranger.

“I’ve resigned my commission. I have no plans as yet, but I might stay down here a week or so. I’ve not yet decided what I’d like to do next.”

He couldn’t read her face. She was too good at hiding her thoughts, and now she’d recovered her composure, a thick veil had dropped over her face.

“Your grandfather will be pleased to see you.”

He nodded. “I thought I might go up and see him next.”

“And your great-aunt.”

Aunt Agnes. He’d forgotten about her. “She’s still alive?” She was older, even, than his grandfather.

His mother nodded. “And looks as though she’s set on making her century.” Was that a note of bitterness in her voice? She and his grandfather’s spinster sister had never got on. It would be very like his mother to resent the old lady’s longevity and the continued expense of her upkeep on the housekeeping purse.

“Then I’ll also try to greet her.” Unlike his mother, he’d always got on well with Aunt Agnes and taken her outspokenness in his stride. She’d been a good ally in his boyhood, delighting in his rebellious pranks, especially if they annoyed his mother, whom she seemed to hate.

A thought occurred to him. “When I was down last, Hetty’s governess was a Miss Hawkins, I believe. A fearsome dragon, I rather thought. I gather she has left, and you have a replacement. I met Miss Fairfield with Hetty and Yves down on Morgelyn Beach.” He paused, eyeing his mother. Would he get the truth out of her? “I thought Miss Hawkins pleased you. Did she seek other employment?”

His mother’s eyes sharpened still further and slid sideways as though she were seeking what to say. “We came to a mutual agreement that she no longer met with our requirements.”

He raised his one mobile eyebrow. “Indeed?” Although why he was bothering with this, he couldn’t be sure. And the new governess, despite having allowed Yves to almost drown, seemed acceptable, and far younger than Miss Hawkins had been. However, he couldn’t shake off the feeling there was something more to this than met the eye.

“Yes,” his mother snapped. “Indeed. She left us quite in the lurch, but it seems we have found a far better young woman to take her place. This one at least has some Latin and Greek she can impart to Yves.”

Nat fiddled with his watch chain. “And I hear that since Grandfather has been bedridden, you have taken on a manager.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I have.”

Was she wondering who could have told him that? Let her. “Does he know his job?”

She bowed her head, possibly to hide her eyes from him. “Of course he does.”

These were strangely short answers. “Will I meet him?”

Her hands had gone rigid in her lap, gripping the cover of her book, the knuckles whitened. “No doubt.”

“I shall look forward to that.”

Hmm. As there seemed nothing else to say to his mother, Nat bestowed a small bow on her, and performed an about turn. Nothing much changed there. Still a woman who played her cards close to her chest. Aware of her gimlet gaze boring into his back, he strode out of the room and headed for the stairs.

Sir Hugh Treloar had always occupied the best bedroom in the house, its long windows looking out over the wide front drive and giving an excellent view of the distant sea and the rise that was Penmar Head. His wife, the late Lady Treloar, had died while Nat was at Harrow, some twelve years since, not long after his own father’s death, and Nat’s memory of her had faded long since. But he held a firm picture in his head of how his grandfather had been three years ago when he’d ridden over from Bodilly after the funeral to see him: still over six feet tall, solidly built but not fat, his white-maned head held upright and proud. A lion of a man.

His heart in his mouth at what the last three years and an apoplexy might have done to his grandfather, Nat took the stairs two at a time, turning right where they divided and marching down the upstairs corridor to the east wing, his booted feet loud on the polished oak floorboards.

He reached the bedroom door and halted, swallowing. With his good left hand, he rapped smartly on the door.

Footsteps sounded, and the door swung open a foot, but no more. Nat kept his face turned to the right to hide his scar as the stern face of a large middle-aged woman, her hair scraped back and hidden beneath a mob cap, peered out. Thick dark brows met in a frown. “Yes?” Almost a bark. She’d have made a good sergeant major.

“I’ve come to see my grandfather.”

She looked him up and down as though suspecting what he’d said was a lie, and he had some ulterior motive for pounding on the door. “Who shall I say it is?” An accusation, her words implying he must be of no importance and his grandfather would not want to see him.

“Major Nat Treloar,” Nat snapped, itching to snatch the door from her hands and fling it open. “His grandson.” He had to remember his grandfather was not only very old but probably also very weak. He might even be asleep.

“I’ll find out if he’ll see you,” the woman snapped back, and would have closed the door on him had he not stuck his boot out to prevent her. With a withering glare, she turned away, and her feet tapped back across the room. Straining his ears, Nat made out the sound of muted voices. She returned, tap, tap, tapping as though she had hobnails in the soles of her shoes.

This time she opened the door a bit wider. “Sir Hugh will see you now. But don’t tire him.”

Nat bristled. Who did this jumped-up creature think she was?

The high, four-poster bed Nat remembered from his boyhood occupied the center of one wall. In it, propped up on numerous pillows sat his grandfather, a shadow of his former self. A plaid shawl had been draped over his bony shoulders on top of his nightshirt, and a nightcap sat on his head, wispy white hair escaping around its edges. His thin face, as wrinkled as a walnut shell, had the washed-out pallor of someone who had not seen the sun in far too long a time.

Nat, ignoring the nurse’s startled step backwards as she caught sight of his scar for the first time, stepped up to the bed and made a deep bow. “Good afternoon, Sir.”

The old man looked him in the eye. He must be able to see the scar as Nat had for once not half turned away. A long silence ensued. Was he, like everyone else Nat met, pitying him for the loss of half his face?

“So,” the old man said, his voice every bit as deep and authoritative as Nat recalled, “you’ve come home to us at last.” He glanced at the hovering nurse. “Don’t just stand there, Rodgers. Fetch the boy a seat. Then you can go. We’ve a lot to talk about.”