Chapter Fifteen

Kit

Kit found his mother taking tea and toast in bed, a shawl about her shoulders and a most becoming frilly nightcap on her head. He'd known he'd catch her like this, as she never rose nowadays until just before breakfast at ten. She looked up and smiled as he came in, fully dressed in top boots and a smart coat despite the early hour, his cravat immaculately knotted.

"Kit darling, come, sit down." She patted the edge of her bed.

Hers was a bedroom given over to extreme femininity, unlike Kit's father's bedroom that lay beyond the connecting doors. On inheriting the title and property as a boy of barely twenty-two, Kit had felt an overwhelming compunction to leave his father's room unoccupied and keep to the room he'd had for most of his youth. Perhaps one day he'd take over his father's room, but not while his mother was alive and kicking and in possession of the chatelaine's apartment next door. Although there was the unoccupied dower house…

He sat down on the bed and took a piece of her toast. "I trust you are well, Mother."

She set her teacup down on the tray, a raised affair with ornate, gilded legs. "Of course I am. You know very well I experience the rudest of health." Her eyes twinkled at him, so like those of her youngest child. "I believe my childhood by the coast and my peasant roots have provided me with exceptional vigor." She tutted her tongue at him as she'd been wont to do when he'd been up to mischief as a boy. "But I'm not so far into my dotage not to know you are merely trading pleasantries when in truth you have something else you wish to say to me."

Kit chuckled, his whole demeanor softening. "You have it right, as usual, Mother." The hand holding the toast dropped into his lap, only one bite taken. "I've come here to beg you to be kind to Morvoren."

His mother snorted in a most unladylike way, reminding him of how Morvoren had done just the same. "And what makes you think I shall not be kind?"

"Because I know you." He heaved a sigh. "You think her an adventuress who has hooked her claws into your only son."

His mother leaned back against her ample pillows and regarded him out of clever dark eyes—Ysella's eyes, and his, had he but realized it. "And has she not?"

Kit shook his head. "Of course not. I brought her here only because she has nowhere else to go, and I thought, perhaps mistakenly, that as my mother was herself once a lonely visitor here at Ormonde, that she might take Morvoren under her wing. And be kind."

His mother pursed her lips, which furthered her resemblance to her youngest daughter. "You play an underhand game, my Kitto. I admire your wish to help a young lady in distress, but I have to ask myself what it is you know of her? And will she be a good influence on your sister, who is already far too flighty and romantically inclined?"

Kit put his stolen toast back on her tray. "I will tell you the truth, Mother, because I have never lied to you. I do have an interest in Morvoren, I'll admit it, but I believe it's merely because she's a mystery. Yes, she's a pretty little thing, but as I told you last summer when you pressed the unfortunate Caroline Fairfield on me, I'm not ready for marriage. And Morvoren's well-bred, so it would be marriage with her or nothing. I've no wish for a country dalliance that could go nowhere."

But was he being honest? Did he even know what he wanted? Well, what he wanted was to be back at Nanpean where being a viscount was of no importance, and all that mattered was distributing the profit from the contraband and thus helping his people. He longed for the excitement of the midnight rendezvous, the passage of the muffle-hooved ponies and the taste of brandy that had paid no duty. So much more fun than being here at Ormonde or at his townhouse in London and having to dance attendance on vapid young ladies who held no interest for him whatsoever. Young ladies whose shallowness he abhorred.

So, if Nanpean was all he wanted, why was the image of Morvoren so ever present in his head? Why, last night, had he slept so badly, the vision of her when she'd walked in to dinner dressed in one of Ysella's gowns, not to mention of her in those tight blue breeches, plaguing his dreams and waking hours. And why did he long to buy her dresses of her own, furs and furbelows, fans and jewelry that would make her beauty even more captivating?

Or would it? Had she not been at her most alluring when he'd pulled her out of his net, and she'd spewed up the seawater on the deck of his little boat? And he'd thought her a mermaid.

He found his mother was watching him far too closely. Pulling himself out of the reverie he'd sunk into, he bestowed one of his rare smiles on her. "As I said, I would like to find out more about Morvoren and the mystery that surrounds her arrival in my fishing net, but for now, I have other things to occupy my time. Sam Beauchamp has business matters to discuss and requires me to ride out to visit our tenants, some of whom are in need of assistance. Morvoren and her mystery will have to wait."

His mother's gaze intensified, as though she knew he'd dodged the subject and hidden something from her. He might not have lied, but he'd been cagey with the truth. And she knew it. Drat the woman. She'd always been able to discern his innermost secrets from his earliest boyhood. Impossible to keep anything from her.

Her brows knit for a moment then cleared, and the sun came out. "Off you go then, sweet Kitto, for I think I shall rise now and write some letters before breakfast. Do you know where your sister has gone this morning?"

Kit got to his feet, smoothing toast crumbs from his immaculate breeches. "Riding, I should imagine. She seems to live in the saddle since I gave her Lochinvar."

"She lived in the saddle before that as well," his mother said. "I sometimes wonder if she's some kind of centaur."

Kit smiled. "If she is, then it's because she takes after you."

His mother waved a hand at him. "Be off, you flattering rascal, and see if she's returned. Now she has that enormous horse, I sometimes fear for her when she goes careering over those obstacles you had constructed."

Kit did as she bid and closed the door behind him. On light feet he strode down the corridor to the stairs then ran down them two at a time, arriving at the front door just as Albert the footman was opening it. Three riders had at that exact minute arrived on the gravel, and the groom had dismounted to take the reins of the other two horses.

So, Ysella had prevailed upon Morvoren to go for a morning ride with her, and what was more had provided her with their mother's own horse to ride. Her audacity knew no bounds.

Kit walked down the steps and approached the horses.

"Kit!" Without even asking, Ysella jumped from the saddle into his arms. He caught her around her slender waist and swung her down, then turned to Morvoren, having to fight back the absurd and uncharacteristic diffidence he felt at having to touch her again, and held out his arms.

Matching hesitation troubled her eyes. Perhaps she'd prefer it if a servant were to help her down. But no, she released her reins and gave him a slight nod of thanks, then unhooked her leg from the pommel and slid down her horse's side. His hands touched her waist only enough to steady her, but in that instant a hot wave of awareness shot through his body, stronger than anything he'd felt so far, perhaps as a consequence of his disturbed night. Had she felt it as well? Was that the same shock flitting across her face?

He took a hasty step back, turning away in an attempt to hide his discomfiture, and the groom led the horses away.

Ysella, careless as ever, picked up her excess riding habit in one hand and ran up the steps to the front door in front of him, calling over her shoulder. "Come, Morvoren. We need to change for breakfast, although why we can't eat it in our riding habits, I have no idea. I so hate convention, but Mama will be shocked if we arrive looking like this and smelling slightly of horses. Come along."

Morvoren glanced up at Kit, a puzzled frown furrowing her forehead, and hurried after his sister. Had she noticed the color in his cheeks? Damn it. Why did she affect him so? Unused as he was to any woman, even any of the ones he'd been intimate with in the past, having such a profound effect upon his senses, all he could feel right now was annoyance. Perhaps he would forego breakfast and go straight to search out Sam Beauchamp.

Giving himself a mental shake, he strode off around the side of the house in order to approach the estate office via the stable yard.

*

Morvoren

Captain Carlyon returnedon the following afternoon, as he had promised, or should that be threatened. In the intervening time, Morvoren's dislike of him had grown, perhaps nurtured by Ysella talking almost nonstop about him when they were together. If Morvoren hadn't known better, she'd have taken him to be a paragon.

Was Ysella's delightful cousin not handsome? And a soldier too, so obviously a hero. Did Morvoren not think so? And hadn't he shown an interest in her dear friend? Was she not lucky to have ensnared so handsome and well-connected an admirer?

Ugh. No thank you.

During the course of the intervening twenty-four hours, Morvoren learned a great deal about Captain Fitzwilliam Carlyon, or at least as much as Ysella knew, which was probably only a tenth of the truth. Instinct, and a certain amount of experience, told Morvoren that a man like that would have plenty he wanted to keep secret from young ladies, even those he was related to.

The captain's father and Ysella's had been twins, as Morvoren already knew, the elder by twelve minutes having been Thomas, the previous viscount, and the younger, Robert, a bit of a tearaway. "But of course," Ysella whispered. "When he was older, he became a terrible rake, although I'm not even supposed to know what one of them is." She giggled. "Mama thinks I know nothing. I'm not such an insipid miss as to not know all about rakes. I read the most fascinating book which my dear friend Caro lent to me. A book with a rake in it. So exciting and romantic."

The fact that she didn't know why the oldest brother, William, who had also been an "utter rake," had been packed off to Jamaica irked her very much.

"If it were only that he got a servant girl with child," she reasoned, "then the girl and her family could have been paid off. And yet Martha told me no one was. She had it from her mother, you see. Even if it were a girl of the ton, some lady or another, then a marriage would have been forced. But that didn't happen either. Instead, when my own dear Papa and Uncle Robert came home from Eton for the holidays, my mysterious Uncle William was gone, never to return. A mystery."

"Very much so," Morvoren murmured, as some comment on this story seemed necessary.

"When Uncle William died in Jamaica, Papa was still living at Carlyon Court in Cornwall," Ysella confided. "As the older of the twins he became Grandpapa's heir. I never met poor Grandpapa though, for he died the year I was born. I think, from looking at his picture where it hangs upstairs, I would have liked him." She dimpled. "And papa used to tell me he would have liked me."

Morvoren made a mental note to look for this portrait.

"Papa met Mama in Cornwall, of course," Ysella went on, more dimples peeping and her eyes sparkling at the romance of her story. "There was quite an uproar about that, as you might imagine, as Mama was just a farmer's daughter." They were sitting in the rose arbor in the center of the formal gardens, the splash of a fountain to their right and the lazy buzz of bees heavy in the afternoon air.

"Dear Papa had been given Carlyon Court after Grandpapa inherited the title and moved to Ormonde. Uncle Robert was in the army, so he didn't need anywhere of his own, so Papa told me. And one day Papa met Mama, while he was out walking along the cliffs." She chuckled. "To see her now, you'd never guess her origins. She has quite the air of the aristocracy, just as she should. Papa taught her well. And she has taught me." She sighed a little as though learning to be a member of the aristocracy wasn't quite her cup of tea.

Morvoren listened in fascination. Miss Elestren Tremaine, younger sister of Jago and from a smuggling family, had married her fancy lord and been set up at Carlyon Court a few miles from the farm where she'd grown up. Ysella knew little of how her grandparents had felt about the addition of a farmer's daughter to the family. Easy to imagine though. Morvoren was having to do a fair amount of imagining as Ysella's knowledge was somewhat limited and confined to what she'd discovered through the backstairs gossip of her maid… and her maid's gossipy mother.

Robert had run off while still only a second lieutenant in the army with the daughter of their illustrious neighbor, the Duke of Denby.

"Of course, it didn't last," Ysella said. "The daughter of a duke couldn't be expected to live on the pay of a second lieutenant, but she did stick to her guns for quite a long time." She chuckled. "Long enough, at least, to have two children."

Trailing these two children with her, the younger of whom was Captain Carlyon, Lady Elizabeth had returned, her metaphorical tail between her legs, to the comfort of her father's bosom, or rather, his enormous stately home and its associated luxuries. "I'm sure she was very glad to be home again at Denby Castle." Ysella snorted with ill-concealed laughter. "But I don't think she can have truly loved Uncle Robert, or she would have put up with poverty for him."

"If Captain Carlyon is one of her children," Morvoren asked. "Who is the other?"

"Cousin Marianne. She's older even than my sister Derwa. Positively ancient." Questioning revealed her true age to be thirty-five.

Cousin Marianne, it seemed, had been married for some years to Lord William Fortescue, and Ysella vaguely knew their only daughter, Miss Charlotte Fortescue. "Mama sent me to school for a while, but it didn't take. Or I didn't take. I met Charlotte before they packed me off home. She's younger than me and such a bluestocking. So dull to talk to."

Marianne's younger brother, the captain, was of an age with Ysella and Kit's oldest sister, Derwa, now Lady Monckton, and had been in and out of the house throughout her childhood. Which was how she knew him so well and it seemed had developed a bit of a schoolgirl crush on him when he turned up in his smart regimentals.

"I do know he can be a bit of a rake himself at times," she said, on a chuckle. "But that's probably what makes him such fun to have around. Especially with Kit away so often. But I haven't seen Fitz for almost a year, thanks to him having been posted off somewhere on the continent with his regiment, fighting Boney. I'm glad he's left soldiering in foreign parts behind, for now."

She sighed and shook her head as though over a naughty child. "Kit's so often down in Cornwall at Carlyon Court I need someone to amuse me. I have my dear friend Caro, but she's quite straitlaced and proper, and whenever I want to have fun, she finds a reason why I shouldn't." She sighed again, even more deeply. "I sometimes wish I could go with Kit to Cornwall. I've asked him to take me. I don't remember it at all, as we moved up here to Ormonde when I was a baby after Grandpapa died. But he always tells me no. He can be so vexing."

Vexing or not, Kit was preferable any day to the captain. However, Morvoren had to push him out of her head. She was a mere visitor here, at least she hoped she was. Surely at some point she'd be able to find a way back to her own time, hopefully not by the watery doorway she'd arrived through. In the meantime, however attractive she found Kit, and however much his touch sent delicious electricity shooting through her, she had to restrain herself and keep aloof. It wouldn't do at all to become embroiled in a love affair nearly two hundred years before she was born. Who knew what repercussions that might have.

Just then, a footman arrived. He bowed smartly. "Captain Carlyon is waiting in the drawing room, Miss Ysella. Lady Ormonde requests your presence."

Ysella let out a squeak of excitement and jumped to her feet. "Dear Fitz is here, just as he promised. Come along. We must hurry to greet him." She tugged Morvoren to her feet.

Morvoren hastened in her new friend's wake, a feeling of foreboding heavy in her heart. If Ysella had been a twenty-first century teenage girl, she'd have already had her share of boyfriends and known how to behave with young men. But here she'd led a protected life and Morvoren guessed she'd scarcely laid eyes on an eligible man at all. Probably no romantic attachment existed between her and her cousin, and nor would there be on his part as he'd already said he needed to marry an heiress, but that didn't stop Morvoren feeling matronly disapproval of Ysella's delight at seeing him again.

Ysella slowed her pace in the hallway, in front of a mirror, of course, and patted her curls into place then did the same for Morvoren. With a look that said, "compose yourself," she pushed open the drawing room door and they glided elegantly through it.

Lady Ormonde was sitting very upright on one of the sofas, an expression of cool indifference on her lovely face, enough to intimidate the most ardent of beaux. But not this one. She was his aunt, so presumably he knew her of old, and also of her origins. He'd so far given the impression that he'd look down his rather long nose at anyone who'd begun life as a farmer's daughter. Morvoren bit her lip. Best not to mention her own agricultural origins.

The captain rose to his feet and swept a deep bow, to which both girls returned a suitably demure curtsey. Morvoren had been practicing hers with both Loveday and Ysella's aid, having explained that where she came from curtseying was not a normal greeting. Ysella had been very taken with this idea, so she'd had to hastily reassure her that she was keen to learn to behave correctly and not to persuade her new friend to adopt her own incorrect manners.

Rising from his bow, the captain favored them both with a sardonic smile, and waves of excitement emanated from Ysella as she and Morvoren took their places side by side on an over-stuffed couch.

"As I promised," the captain said, raising an arched brow at them, or rather at Morvoren. "I have called to make my presence at Denby known to Lady Ormonde."

Morvoren had the distinct feeling that Lady Ormonde was not at all susceptible to flattery. She had an air of practicality about her, and a stubborn set to her jaw. It made a nice change seeing her disapproval of someone else.

Lady Ormonde nodded to the footman waiting in the corner, and he pulled on the bell rope beside him. She then turned to the captain. "And pray tell me, how is your grandfather the duke? I have heard that he's suffering badly from the gout."

While the captain politely engaged in conversation with Lady Ormonde about his grandfather's many ailments, Ysella and Morvoren sat straight-backed, thanks to their stays. No doubt sitting and listening was what young ladies were meant to do, but it made for a boring afternoon. Hopefully the captain wouldn't stay too long.

After five very long minutes, according to the slowly ticking clock on the mantlepiece, a second footman arrived carrying a tray containing a fancy teapot, dainty cups and saucers, and plates of bread and butter and small cakes.

"I hear that you have been away soldiering," Lady Ormonde said as the footman poured the tea, her tone even more supercilious than it had been with Morvoren. Good.

The captain bowed his head. "That is true, but I'm glad to be back. I was in Spain with Wellington but took a musket ball in the leg and was invalided home. I've been recuperating in London at my club, and now I'm heading to Cornwall to join a new unit. But it's been some while now since I was at Denby, and I wanted to visit my grandfather. He can no longer get up to London."

Morvoren could feel Ysella almost bouncing next to her in her longing to join the conversation. She put out a hand, took one of hers and squeezed it hard.

Lady Ormonde pressed her lips together as the footman passed cups to Ysella and Morvoren, her gaze still fixed on their visitor. "And was the marquess pleased to have you back at Denby?"

Morvoren's ears pricked. Who was the marquess?

The captain's sharp eyebrows met in a frown before he had his face under control. "My uncle is away in London at the moment, at Denby House."

Aha. The pieces fell into place. Clearly no love lost there. So, his uncle, the one with no sons, was a marquess, and presumably the son of the duke. The heir. The one he'd been so disparaging about the other day. If only she knew a little more about aristocratic titles.

The captain had recovered himself by then and his smile had returned. He smiled a sight too much. Kit's lack of smiles seemed so much more natural. A smile from him would have real meaning. No. Stop it. She had to stop thinking about Kit.

The captain was talking again. "One of the reasons I rode over here today was to deliver an invitation to you all to come to a ball at Denby in exactly a week's time." He paused, and his eyes went to Ysella's excited face. Did she fancy her cousin? Wasn't that a teeny bit incestuous? This girl wore her heart far too openly on her sleeve.

His eyes glinted. "I've persuaded my grandfather, who has always cherished me as his favorite grandson, that a ball would be a fitting welcome home to me after my time away from Denby in the service of the King."

Why did Morvoren doubt his claim to being the favorite grandson? Because he wouldn't be her favorite anything. Although perhaps he was the only grandson, and took the place by default. The thought made her lips twitch in a smile.

Loveday was able to fill her in later, as she'd had all the gossip from Martha, who of course had grown up here and, like all servants, so Loveday declared, knew everything about not just this household but all the neighboring ones as well. Having a gossip as a mother helped.

"The duke be right old," she said with glee, as she prepared Morvoren for dinner. "He did have three sons and a daughter, and that captain, he's the son o' the daughter who were her father's fav'rite child." The scandal of the daughter running off with a neighbor's younger son, a lowly lieutenant in a foot regiment, with no hope of a title, came tumbling out, possibly with more detail than Ysella had been given. She hadn't known, for instance that the shock had been enough to cause the duke to have a nasty turn, from which he'd taken a while to recover. Possibly a heart attack or even a stroke.

"She did come back right soon though," Loveday went on. "Got fed up livin' the life of a soldier's wife. Brung the children back with her she did, only not the father—Mr. Kit's wicked uncle." She gave a snort of derision as she patted Morvoren's hair into place. "Of the three sons, there be but one left now, as the other two died as children. The heir be that captain's uncle, the Marquess of Flint."

"Does he have sons?" Morvoren asked, knowing full well he didn't, but wanting to hear the servants' view. She slipped her feet into the dainty slippers Ysella had given her.

Loveday shook her head. "He don't, and he be in London lookin' for a new bride since his first wife died, and the baby she were birthin' with her. A boy. 'Tis said the marquess were mighty upset about the baby but not so much about the wife, as all she'd given him so far were girls." She chuckled. "Six healthy girls likely to cost him a lot in dowries. The talk o' the servants' hall is that he's thinkin' of convertin' to bein' a Papist so's he can put them all in convents to be nuns and save hisself some money."

Six girls. Morvoren had never before considered the importance for a man to have a son to not only carry on his name but also to inherit his title. Never having mixed with titled or even rich people before, she'd never come across this necessity. But even in her own time, a lord couldn't pass his title on to a girl, unless under exceptional circumstances.

She rose to her feet, ready to go downstairs to dinner. She'd think about all of this later.