Chapter Ten

Morvoren

With the summer sun already climbing the sky, the coach at last rolled down Marlborough's wide high street. Now here was somewhere Morvoren could recognize—to a degree—as she'd been here before as a teenager.

Kit, who had woken up a few minutes earlier, slid the coach window down and Morvoren peered out, brimming with curiosity as to how this town would look two hundred years before she'd last seen it.

Down the center of the street, a busy market was already mostly up and running. The stalls thronged with people in a variety of styles of dress from borderline smart to rough and ready. And the smells and calls of all manner of farm animals—pigs, geese, sheep, cows, and horses being the ones she could see—filled the air.

The coach rattled its way down the road on the right-hand side of the long marketplace to take a turn east along what would one day be the A4 trunk road. As the coach took the bend, and the road sloped downhill, the wise coachman slowed his horses to a walk on the slippery cobbles. Thank goodness.

In her corner, Loveday, who seemed to possess a cat's uncanny ability to sleep anywhere and with any kind of noise going on, snorted and stirred. "Be we there?"

"We are indeed," Kit answered, rubbing a hand over a chin much in need of a razor. "The Lamb at Marlborough. Another change of horses, but we will not be going on with the coach."

Captain Carlyon, also somewhat bristly chinned, straightened his cravat and began putting on his gloves, so, presuming it the thing to do, Morvoren slipped hers on again as well.

Gloom descended momentarily as the coach squeezed its way under the inn's low archway and into the large, flagstone yard. A moment later, the guard had the coach doors open and the step down.

Kit got down first and held his hand out to Morvoren. Having had little to eat and drink now for nearly twenty-four hours, she was beginning to feel a trifle wobbly, but she didn't want him to know that.

Loveday followed, then the captain, and the guard busied himself in unfastening the straps holding the baggage in place. Down came the two trunks and Loveday's rather threadbare bag, as well as Captain Carlyon's smart trunk. And all the while this was happening, ostlers were unhitching the spent horses and fetching out their fresh replacements.

Now what? Did Kit's mother and sister live somewhere in the town? Morvoren glanced at him for guidance, but he was studying his pocket watch with a frown on his face.

Captain Carlyon approached, his traveling cloak over his arm and his smart hat in one hand. He managed to look, despite the dark stubble on his chin, as though he'd come freshly from a comfortable night's sleep. "Miss Lucas, perhaps you and Lord Ormonde would care to take breakfast with me?"

What? Who? Lord Ormonde? Did he mean Kit? Morvoren couldn't help the questioning sidelong glance she sent Kit, and the sardonic smile returned to Captain Carlyon's face. Although whether it was due to her confusion, or to getting one over on Kit, she had no idea. He held out his arm, an expectant look on his saturnine face. "Allow me to escort you inside."

For a moment, she hesitated. She could take the proffered arm and let him lead her inside the inn with Kit left to trail in their wake. Or she could stand up to this over-confident young man who seemed to think he was God's gift to women.

However, she was a twenty-first-century girl. "No, thank you," she said, with as much cold force as she could. "I believe Lord Ormonde is pressed for time and we'll be traveling on immediately."

The Captain's dark face darkened still further. Morvoren had the distinct impression he was a man people rarely said no to. Ha. A warm glow suffused her body. Good. That'd teach him. She took a step closer to Kit and laid her hand on his arm. "Come," she said, feeling more and more like a character out of a Jane Austen TV adaptation. "Let us hasten to your mother's. I can't wait to greet dear Elyssa."

Good thing she'd remembered his sister's name.

"Ysella," Kit hissed under his breath, turning a bland expression on his cousin. With a small snort, that could have been of amusement, he laid his hand in a most proprietorial fashion over hers. "Indeed, we must do so at once, Miss Lucas. I fear this journey has fatigued you." He turned to the ostlers who were hanging about looking hopeful as though expecting a tip. "I left my phaeton here when I departed for the west country. Harness two horses to it, if you please. For Ormonde Abbey. I'll have one of the grooms return the beasts to you later today."

What kind of vehicle might a phaeton be?

*

Kit

Well, that wasneatly done. Fitzwilliam put in his place and satisfyingly annoyed. He couldn't have done it better himself. Kit kept a straight face as no one, not even a properly put down bully, liked to be laughed at. The last thing he wanted was his own cousin calling him out. That would be very inconvenient. Not that he was afraid to fight Fitzwilliam. Not now. In fact, he'd love to, although with fists, not in a duel. However, delightful as that prospect was, he had to control himself. A fight of any kind would interfere with the plans he had for his stay at Ormonde and no doubt upset Miss Lucas.

While the ostlers prepared two horses and harnessed them to his phaeton, Kit steered her to a low wooden bench out of the bright sun and she sat down, tucking those strange shoes out of sight under her gown. Fitzwilliam, his arrogant face a little flushed, had departed into the interior of the inn, no doubt to see about his own breakfast, and Loveday, a smug grin on her face, had wandered over to the archway to peer out into the street in curiosity.

Miss Lucas looked up at Kit. "I'm so sorry. I had to say we weren't going to have breakfast because the last thing I wanted to do was spend time with that odious man." She paused, her gaze intense. "I do hope you don't mind having to do without food. I'm hungry myself, but the thought of having to make polite conversation…" Her voice trailed off.

Kit allowed his lips to twitch in the vestige of a smile. "That's quite all right, Miss Lucas. You only said what I was longing to say but manners didn't allow. And it suits me to head back to Ormonde as quickly as possible. They'll have my phaeton ready in a moment and we'll set off. It's less than five miles, so we should be home within the hour. As long as we get decent horses." His gaze went to where the ostlers were putting the finishing touches to harnessing two beasts of mediocre quality to his phaeton.

He sighed. "Not quite what I would've liked. But… they'll have to do, I'm afraid. Come, let me help you up. Loveday, we're leaving."

Loveday, recalled to her proper duties, hurried over, face flushed with excitement. "They do have paved roads and houses four stories high," she exclaimed, picking up her bag and tossing it into the back of the phaeton as though it were a feather weight.

One ostler kept hold of the horses' heads, although they were not overly eager to be off, and the second lifted up the trunks and stowed them with Loveday and her bag. Then Kit helped Miss Lucas onto the front seat, climbed up himself and took the reins. He clicked his tongue and tickled the horses' rumps with the end of the whip, and the finely sprung vehicle glided out over the flagstones and into the street.

Here, he turned left, heading east along the main road, the wheels bouncing over cobbles that turned into a graveled roadway as they reached the edge of the town. A curious sense of elation at being home swept over Kit, although Wiltshire had never quite felt like home in the same way Cornwall did, and never would. But this was where his mother was, and that minx Ysella as well.

And on top of that, it was a beautiful morning, with dew still sparkling on the grass at the sides of the road, and a pretty girl beside him. Not to mention two bolts of silk residing in his trunk as presents for his mother and Ysella.

Very soon, they left the last of the straggling Marlborough cottages behind and were rolling through verdant countryside—past estate farms in the care of his own tenants, through leafy woodland and ever closer to Ormonde. How could he be anything but happy now he'd left behind the dangers that had threatened Miss Lucas in Cornwall? His own part in what went on down there he enjoyed immensely for many reasons, but exposing her to it was not something he wished to do. Hopefully she'd seen nothing, and if she had, would be wise enough not to mention it.

Kit waved a hand at the woodland. "Savernake Forest. Belongs to the Earl of Cardigan and his family. But they're never at Tottenham Park. Our nearest neighbor down here happens to be my cousin's grandfather, the Duke of Denby, of Denby Castle, but that's another ten miles beyond Ormonde and they're not always there."

"This seems to be a very well-to-do neighborhood," Miss Lucas said.

He glanced sideways. This time, with the well-sprung phaeton gliding over the rough road, she wasn't holding on so tightly to the seat rails, and a small smile played about her lips as though at last she might be enjoying herself. Good. He clicked to the horses again, and they increased their trot.

"Not really. At least no more so than any other area, I'd say." He frowned. "More so than Cornwall, though."

Perhaps now was the time, with Loveday otherwise engaged being dumbstruck by her surroundings, to ask Miss Lucas one or two of the questions that had been building in his mind ever since he'd pulled her out of the sea.

He cleared his throat. "Miss Lucas?"

She turned her head, her blue eyes bright with excitement despite the shadows beneath them. "Mr. Carlyon." Her face broke into a smile. "Or should I call you Lord Ormonde?"

Ah, that was something that needed explaining. "Please call me Kit, as all my friends do," he said. "But you are correct, and my title is Lord Ormonde. But I confess, it's something I try not to use when I'm in Cornwall. Lords are not popular down there amongst the fishermen and miners. To them I've always just been Kit, and always will be."

She pressed her lips together for a moment before speaking again. "What sort of a lord are you, if you don't mind me asking?" Her eyes twinkled in a suggestion of mockery, as though a lord might be something to poke fun at.

"A lowly viscount, I'm afraid. Nothing exalted."

She tilted her head to one side as though reassessing his appearance. "I've never met a lord of any kind before. This is all quite new to me." She dimpled. "But I promise that I'll call you Kit, and not something so stuffy as Your Lordship."

How hard it was not to smile back, but he had to be careful. This was a young lady he still knew very little about, and his mother, despite her humble Cornish origins, would not be impressed were he to entangle himself with Miss Lucas, nor anyone like her. He frowned as he remembered the last time he'd been at Ormonde and how his mother had virtually thrown Miss Caroline Fairfield, the daughter of her dear friend and neighbor, at him, all because Miss Fairfield happened to be the only child of rich parents.

Time for him to put a few questions. "Miss Lucas, I must admit to having a certain amount of curiosity about you. Perhaps you could provide me with your address in Reading?" A good place to start.

Miss Lucas's tongue darted out to wet her lips and her eyes for a moment took on a hunted look. Was she deciding what to tell him? Would it, perish the thought, be an untruth? She had the air of having something she wished, or perhaps needed, to hide.

"I was generalizing a little when I said I lived in Reading," she said. "In fact, the apartment I share with my friend… Miss Armstrong… is just outside Reading. In Caversham."

He inclined his head. This sounded like the truth. "And your friend? You said she was away. When might she be expected back?"

The hunted look returned, but she recovered her composure swiftly. "I'm afraid my friend, Ti-, Miss Christina Armstrong, has gone to stay with friends in the country indefinitely. The apartment will be closed up."

He pressed his lips together in thought. Again, this had the ring of truth about it, and yet, instinct told him she was not telling him the whole truth. Why would she feel the need to lie? She must live somewhere. Everyone did, even the poorest man. Might she be some kind of adventuress? The idea didn't shock him as much as it could have, and the corners of his lips curled in amusement.

Perhaps, as Jago wouldn't need him for a while, he would remain at Ormonde for a week or so in order to disentangle the mystery surrounding this singularly attractive young lady. Which made him think of his mother. That she would have something to say about his arrival with a young lady in tow, even one with a maid for respectability, was definite. That she would be outspoken about it was certain. The twitch of his lips became more pronounced, and he fought to control it. This was going to be interesting.

He straightened his face as the horses turned between the tall, granite, Cornish-dolphin-topped pillars of the main entrance to the park, and into the long carriage drive up to the house.

"Good morning, Mrs. Lennox," he called out to the woman standing outside the gatehouse, who bobbed a curtsey as they passed. "The head gardener's wife," he explained to Miss Lucas's raised eyebrows. "Drat it. The news that I've turned up with a young lady and her maid in tow will be all over the estate in next to no time." And this time his mouth really did manage a rueful smile. "The tongues of the local gossips will be wagging."

Miss Lucas appeared not to have taken in his words. She was too busy gazing around at Ormonde's extensive, rolling parklands.

The drive curled through ornamental woodland in a loop nearly half a mile long, then headed along an avenue lined with great lime trees on both sides. Beyond them, lay the deer park and, down in the dip, the lake that had been laid out by Capability Brown for Kit's great-grandfather.

As the drive swung around the top of the lake, Ormonde Abbey came into view, the house haphazardly tacked on to the remains of the old abbey that had stood abandoned for nearly a century after the Reformation. Successive wings had been added to the house by each generation of Carlyons, and now it sprawled across the landscape at the top of a slight slope, surrounded by ancient beeches and cedars of Lebanon, spreading their wide arms across the lawns.

Kit looked across at Miss Lucas. Her mouth had fallen open.