Chapter Five

Kit

The moment the staircase door closed behind Morvoren and Jenifry, Jago rounded on Kit. "What were you thinking of bringing some stranger here? Haven't we got enough on our hands already? You have to get rid of her, boy. 'Tis too dangerous to have some outsider here a-lookin' at what we're about. She's got to go. Right now. Before tonight."

Kit bit his lip, anger rising. "What else could I have done with her? I caught her in my nets and thought she was dead. Even when she came back to life, she was icy cold. I had to get her warm."

"She'll fetch us bad luck, mark my words," his uncle growled. "T'would've been better if you'd left her where she b'longs, at the bottom of the sea. T'ain't natural to go scoopin' up women off the seabed."

Kit bristled. Did Jago really think he should have just released her from his net and left her in the water? However, a decision needed to be made. "You're right. She can't stay here. As soon as she's decently dressed, I'll take her to Penzance. I'll get Jowan to saddle the horses. You still have my mother's saddle, don't you?"

Jago grunted. "Aye, that I do, lad, but it won't fit my cob. She'll have to ride your fine horse. No. You stay here and wait for her. Don't want to give her the chance to poke about. I'll away into the stables and roust that lazy bugger up. He can find that saddle and get the horses ready." He slapped Kit on the shoulder and strode to the front door. It banged behind him as he disappeared into the yard.

Kit stood for a moment without moving, thinking about what his uncle had said. Yes, it was odd that he'd found her today, and yes, it was indeed a very bad day for having a stranger around the farm. An unfortunate state of affairs, but it couldn't be helped.

His own clothes were almost dry by now, but to ride to Penzance he'd need his coat. Ignoring the snug-fitting, tailored coat he'd had made at Weston's in Town, he shrugged his way into one of Jago's much roomier jackets. Not such fine cloth, and the sleeves were a tad short, but altogether more comfortable for a hot day.

He was just fishing through his uncle's pockets when the door at the bottom of the stairs swung open and Jenifry came back into the kitchen. From behind her, a vision of old-fashioned loveliness entered the room. Kit froze, one hand in a pocket, the other holding some bits of useful string he'd found in the other.

The mermaid had transformed. Yes, the gown she wore was a good thirty years out of date and something his mother would have worn as a girl when she'd first met his father, God rest his soul, but nevertheless, it gave Miss Lucas the look of the real lady he'd taken her to be. She was quite breathtaking from the top of her simply coiffed head to the peep of those odd shoes from under her skirts.

Jenifry, standing to one side of this apparition like a proud lion tamer presenting her charge at Astley's, pulled a sad face. "Her feet be too large for any o' your ma's old slippers."

The ex-mermaid also pulled a face, but rather a disgusted one, and twitched at her waist with her fingers as though in discomfort.

"Took a bit o' doin' to get her into they stays," Jenifry said. "She don't like stays one bit."

"She is right here listening to you," Miss Lucas said, exasperation coloring her tone.

Why she should be so put out puzzled Kit. Every woman he'd ever met wore stays, even those of loose morals he'd encountered during his time at Oxford. And what fun it was getting them out of them. No, he mustn't think of her like that. She was just an unwanted encumbrance to be returned to wherever she belonged—to whomever she belonged to. Now was not the time to start getting sentimental.

He pulled himself together. "I'm to escort you to Penzance, Miss Lucas, from whence you informed me you set off this morning. If that is your wish. We shall locate your accommodation and return you to your…" He hesitated, wary of the word he'd heard her use. "To your boyfriend. My uncle has gone to tell his man Jowan to prepare our horses. I trust you won't object to riding under my escort? I'm afraid we only possess two riding horses, so Jenifry cannot accompany us—which I'm sure you would have preferred for the sake of propriety."

Miss Lucas's eyes widened, yet again. In fact, she looked as though everything was a surprise. "You're right. I do want to get back to Penzance, but by horse? Won't that take a long time and be dangerous on the roads? With all the other traffic?"

Kit nodded, puzzled. What other way was there to go? Oh no. Perhaps she was one of those infernal women who'd never learned to ride. "You do ride, I trust?" he ventured.

She nodded. "I do, but not regularly for quite some time. I learned as a child." Her face brightened. "Although earlier this week I did ride along the beach at Marazion, which was wonderful."

That was a relief. At least he could do as Jago wanted now and return her to where she'd come from. A tiny, confusing ache formed in his heart that she wasn't to benefit from their hospitality any longer. Shoving that to one side, he mentally shook his head. That could never have been an option, as she had no abigail with her to give propriety to her stay in a household belonging to two single men. His gaze fell on Jenifry. Not that Jago was technically single.

As if Kit's thinking of his uncle had called him, Jago chose this moment to reappear, grim-faced still. However, his expression changed to one of relief when he saw Miss Lucas adorned in proper attire for a lady, although the frown that followed probably signified disapproval of Jenifry's choice of the pink and white silk for a stranger.

"Horses're ready," he huffed at Kit. "Jowan's holding onto 'em by the trough. Best get her off to Penzance. I need you back here sharpish."

Kit extended his arm to Morvoren. "If you'll come this way, Miss Lucas, I'll have you back in your lodgings within an hour or two. Penzance isn't more than eight miles, and we can ride across the moors and keep up a good pace."

Like a wary fawn, Miss Lucas took his arm, her wide blue eyes regarding him in what looked like open curiosity mingled with a touch of trepidation as he led her out into the farmyard. As soon as she saw the two horses being held by old Jowan, though, she stopped so suddenly she let go of his arm.

*

Morvoren

A sidesaddle. Morvorenstared. They'd put a sidesaddle on the horse they intended her to ride. Okay, she'd ridden a lot as a child and teenager, but never on a sidesaddle. Who had? Who rode like that nowadays unless at a posh horse show? Who would even want to? Not her.

The squat little man holding the horses turned a baleful eye on her and spat copiously onto the flagstones. He made the nefarious Jago look like a benign old grandfather. Grey hair had been shorn as short as his stubbly beard, and his face had the appearance of the knobbliest old potato that had grown wizened and shrunken at the bottom of the sack. The only thing that was missing was a hunchback and he would have been Dr. Frankenstein's helper, Igor, to a tee.

Kit, unfazed by this vision out of a Hammer horror film, had stopped beside Morvoren. Now, he turned to look at her, confusion, and a touch of irritation, on his handsome face. "Is something wrong, Miss Lucas?"

She sighed. "Please call me Morvoren, not Miss Lucas, or I'll have to call you Mr. Carlyon." She jerked her head at the horse. "Do you really want me to ride sidesaddle? I've never done it before."

The confusion only worsened. "But you said you could ride," he protested, sounding a little affronted, as though he thought she might have lied.

"I can," Morvoren replied. "Just not like this. Astride. On a saddle like this one." She indicated his own saddle, although even that wasn't quite like the kind of forward-cut jumping saddle she'd had for her pony as a teenager. She looked back up at him. "Never on a sidesaddle. Don't you have a different one I could use?" Although even astride, riding eight miles in a voluminous frock and those dreadful knickers would not be comfortable.

Now his expression changed to one of horror and shock. "But I can't escort you into Penzance riding astride… in a dress. You're a lady."

Why the heck not? Was she going to have to comply with all these silly rules in order to get away from here? "Very well," she said, setting her jaw and resigning herself to having to humor him. "I'll give it a go." She glanced around. "But I'll need a hat."

The light of realization brightened Kit's face. He turned back to the still open farmhouse door, from where Jenifry was watching. "A hat for Miss Lucas."

Jenifry was not gone long, returning in a couple of minutes clutching something that did not look at all like a riding hat. In fact, it was a faded straw bonnet. With ribbons.

She held it out to Morvoren with an air of pride. "Lucky I did know where there was one. But you're right. You can't go riding into Penzance without a bonnet on your head, Miss Lucas."

Morvoren took the hat—the bonnet—and stared down at it. No protection at all were she to fall off. Did they not know about riding hats and how dangerous it was to ride a horse without one? With extreme reluctance, she set the bonnet on her head and did up the ribbons under her chin, feeling like a medieval soldier going into battle without a shield.

"Now," said Kit, that hint of annoyance lurking in his tone. "Let me give you a leg up onto your horse."

The stone mounting block had caught Morvoren's eye. "I'm perfectly capable of getting on by myself, thank you," she said, before remembering she was wearing a long dress and a lot of petticoats.

Ignoring Kit's offered hand, she climbed, with some difficulty thanks to all those skirts, onto the stone block by herself, the bones of that dratted corset digging into her flesh. Stays. Corsets, or stays, whatever you wanted to call them, were not meant for active young ladies, that was for sure.

Jowan threw a sideways glance at Kit, who was tapping his boot on the flagstones, and led the horse in the sidesaddle over to the mounting block, his rheumy old eyes sparkling with something that could have been amusement. How dare he laugh at her?

Morvoren ignored him. Now, how to mount and end up sitting on the saddle in the correct position?

She gathered up the reins. There was indeed a stirrup, so she experimentally set her left foot in it, but after that, she was lost.

Kit stepped closer. "I think you'll need a leg up," he said in a low voice. "Take your foot out of the stirrup, come down off that mounting block, and I'll give you one. Ladies can't mount unaided."

Feeling like an idiot—again—Morvoren hitched up her skirts and managed to get down from the mounting block without his help and without ending up in a crumpled heap. Oh, the indignities being forced upon her.

Kit held out his hands linked together to make a step. "Other foot. Put it here. Up you go and hook it over the saddle horn."

She set her right foot in his cupped hands, and he gave her a strong boost up onto the saddle. Jowan released his hold on the reins, and she shortened them up to take control of her horse, who stepped sideways.

She stroked his neck with one hand. "What's this horse called?"

"Prinny," Kit said. "He's my horse, actually. Prince in public, Prinny in private. I've given you Prinny to ride because my mother's old saddle, that she had for her mare, only fits him, and he's far better schooled than my uncle's old nag." He nodded at the other horse, a sturdier beast by far, resembling the sort of animal that might be better suited to pulling a cart. Taking the reins from Jowan, Kit sprang into the saddle without recourse to his stirrups.

Bit of a showoff, then.

"Shall we go?" He indicated the open gate onto the track, an air of impatience about him that made Morvoren feel guilty for imposing on his time. Only for a moment, though, as they had made her wear these awful clothes and ride on a sidesaddle.

He clicked his tongue at the cob. "We can take it slowly to begin with, but if we walk all the way it'll take us forever. When you feel ready, let me know, and we can canter."

Prinny followed the cob through the gate and out onto the track Morvoren had not so long ago stumbled up from the beach. This time, they turned north, heading uphill as the little valley widened out and became more wooded.

Now she was out of the farmhouse and on her way to Penzance, Morvoren's spirits lifted, and even selfish Josh began to look like a reassuring prospect.

"You certainly live in a very beautiful location," she said, as the distant purple slopes of the higher moorland came into view and a chough flapped lazily across the cloudless blue sky.

Kit nodded, his handsome face almost slipping into a smile, and for a moment the wall he seemed intent on maintaining between them was allowed to drop. "That's why I love it here so much," he said, dark eyes suddenly alight. "I couldn't ever be away from here for too long."

Surprised that he'd bared his soul to her, Morvoren nodded. "I do know what you mean. I've been coming to Cornwall for years and it keeps pulling me back like a magnet."

The horses' hooves rattled over the stones in the rough track. "You do?" he said, with a shrug. "It's the way all the Cornish-born feel. It must be the Cornish blood in your veins. When I'm elsewhere, I feel I'm not really alive."

"My great-grandmother was from Fowey." She wriggled her back where the sweat was sticking the hot silk to any square of exposed skin it could. Not the right outfit for a day like this. And Kit's looked no better. Today was a day for shorts and T-shirts.

Kit nodded as though he understood, which was nice, as Josh never had. Probably she was imagining any rapport here, but it made a change to do that for a while.

Another ten minutes of riding brought them to a line of half a dozen dilapidated cottages running off to one side at right angles to the path. The row sloped away uphill from where a small ford had been lined with slabs of stone.

Here, a group of women in long skirts and shabby blouses appeared to be doing their washing. In the stream, of all places. At the far end of the row of houses, a gaggle of small, scruffy children were at play with a couple of dogs and a rope swing under a sweeping chestnut tree.

What on earth had she stumbled upon here? More weird cult members?

As they rode past the women, Kit raised his hand to wave, and every woman straightened up and waved back, friendly smiles on their homely faces.

"Who're they?" Morvoren asked, her curiosity more than piqued.

"Villagers. That's the edge of Nanpean village," Kit said. "Jowan's is the nearest cottage. The rest of the houses are up beyond the trees. Fishermen and laborers, mostly, now the mines are all closed."

The feeling of having made a none-too-soon escape from this strange place washed over Morvoren. Maybe as they were going uphill, she could try a canter. Anything to get away a bit more quickly.

"I think I can manage a short canter now, if that's all right?" she ventured.

Was that a gleam of relief in Kit's dark eyes? "Of course. Uphill will be easier for you to begin with."

He was right. Cantering uphill wasn't so bad as she'd expected. Once she got used to how to grip the pommels it wasn't vastly different to riding astride. Well, it was. She was just telling herself it wasn't to bolster her confidence.

At the head of the valley a wide vista of moorland opened up, dotted here and there with grazing sheep, small stone-walled fields, and a few farmhouses, all smaller and poorer looking than Jago's. To the south and west the sea spread out in a hazy blue vista she'd have thought beautiful if she hadn't been so keen to get away from Nanpean and its weird inhabitants. The rust colored sails of a few sailing boats dotted the blue, too far off to make out any details.

Wherever the land was favorable, Kit kept them to as fast a pace as Morvoren's limited ability to canter would allow, so there was little opportunity to talk. Not that she really wanted to, even though she had a lot of questions she'd have liked to ask. His rather dour demeanor was enough to put her off. The sooner she was away from him, the better.

However, despite all the cantering, it was only after two hours of moorland riding that Kit finally announced they were almost at their destination.

Morvoren's eyes widened. How could they be? On the entire ride they'd not crossed even one road, nor seen any sign of a vehicle in the distance. Plenty of farm tracks and narrow footpaths, but not a single metaled road. Kit must really know his way about the countryside.

However, she had to admit that riding on horseback, even on a sidesaddle, across this high moorland was a much preferable way to travel than driving in a car, and especially more so than traveling by boat had been. But still, they couldn't be at Penzance already—could they?

Morvoren followed Kit's pointing finger. "Where?"

Sure enough, ahead lay the familiar, hazy shape of St Michael's Mount at the far end of Mount's Bay, with its castle on the summit and the stony causeway clearly visible with the tide out. But nothing else seemed to match with the recent memories she had of Penzance.

Their road sloped downhill, revealing with startling clarity that what lay before her, almost like a vision from Google Earth, was nothing like the town she'd left behind that morning. Instead, a tiny fishing village with not a proper road in sight hugged the coast. No supermarkets, industry, or modern buildings. Just tiny cottages clustered around a small, muddy harbor empty of both water and fishing boats.

This couldn't be Penzance, so where on earth had Kit brought her?