The Passions of Lord Trevethow Page 2

  Yet the notion persisted for Cassian that, despite the monumental evidence to the contrary, love inside of marriage was possible. His own parents were proof of it. The Trelevens were proof of it, Cador and Rosenwyn Kitto were proof of it as were Eaton and Eliza. Why shouldn’t he have the same? Why should he settle for a dynastic contract? Cassian scanned Debrett’s for the Prideauxes, his eyes landing on the list of the earl’s family members.

  Countess of Redruth, Lady Katherine Prideaux, née Dunstan. Born 1783. Died 1814.

  She’d been young. He’d been little more than a boy when she’d passed. There was Phineas Michael, the son and heir. His finger stopped on the name below it.

  Penrose, Margaret. Born 1803.

  Inigo’s gaze was steady on him. ‘You think to marry for it. I see it in your eyes and now you’ve found the daughter. So many forget about her.’ Inigo’s eyes narrowed as they studied him. ‘No one’s seen her. She doesn’t go about in society.’ Like father like daughter it seemed on that note.

  There was a wealth of implication in those words. Cassian shut the book. Perhaps she was the reason for the Earl’s reclusive lifestyle. Perhaps there was a reason she hadn’t been seen in public. Was she crippled? Burned? Did she limp? Not that those things mattered to Cassian. He was not as shallow as to determine someone’s worth based on their physical abilities. But society was. Regardless of her potential afflictions, it seemed Redruth’s daughter wasn’t bound to be a beauty.

  ‘Certainly, though, her father’s title and her dowry are enough to guarantee she has suitors regardless of her looks,’ Inigo pointed out.

  ‘But not me among them.’ Not yet. Cassian wasn’t willing to engage in such manoeuvring. To sacrifice one dream for the sake of the other seemed to demean both dreams. Perhaps it would come to that, making himself into a placeholder for an exchange of titles and lands. For today, he was out of ideas until he could figure out what might persuade Redruth. Tomorrow, he would write to the earl one more time, outlining all the benefits of such a sale.

  Cassian put the book away and stretched. ‘I’m going out. I’ll ride into Redruth and take in the St Piran’s Day festivities while the sun is shining. The town always puts on a good fair. The fresh air will clear my head. Perhaps I’ll think of a new angle for getting that land while I’m there.’ Maybe he wouldn’t need to. Perhaps once the earl read all the benefits that could come from such a project, he wouldn’t be so hard-hearted as to reject progress when it came with so many advantages and a substantial offer of cash.

  Chapter Two

  They were making no progress here. Lady Penrose Prideaux stifled her temper behind the osculation of her fan while Lord Wadesbridge conversed with her father. She knew what was afoot. Her father was matchmaking again. At first, it had only been a game to Pen, one she could win. Since she’d turned eighteen, her father had discreetly invited a select few men of good standing to Castle Byerd and, over the past two years, she’d repeatedly found something wrong with each of them. In the beginning, her father had not pushed her to reconsider. But with each rejected candidate the game posed an ever larger obstacle to her freedom. Two years in, it wasn’t a game any more, but a threat.

  Her father was in earnest over today’s suitor, Lord Wadesbridge, who had an estate not far from Byerd. She could see why her father liked him. The latest candidate for her hand had more in common with the earl than he had with her. It wasn’t surprising considering Wadesbridge was her father’s contemporary, not hers. He was at least twenty years her senior. She knew what her father saw in him: an estate outside Looe close enough to visit, security, stability, sensibility. There wasn’t a more stolid man in Cornwall.

  If she was an older widow with half of her life behind her, or a quiet, retiring wallflower with no eye towards adventure, she might find Wadesbridge more appealing. But she was none of those things. She was twenty years old and hadn’t been allowed outside the walls of Castle Byerd alone for the last decade. Whatever escape from Byerd she’d had over the years, she’d engineered covertly. She was full of wanderlust and a passion for living. She wanted to see the world she’d read about in her father’s library, wanted to make her own choices, live her own life. She wanted to do more than support unseen causes for the poor from behind the safety of Byerd’s walls. She wanted to help them first-hand. She wanted to travel, to see the places on the maps she studied, to dip her toes in the warm ocean of the Caribbean, to smell the spices in the Turkish bazaar, to ride in a Venetian gondola, maybe indulge in ordering gowns from a French salon, at the very least, to have a Season like other girls of her rank, to dance with a handsome gentleman who wasn’t her father’s age, to flirt, to fall in love, to meet someone that made her heart pound and her pulse race, who understood her dreams. Some days, like today, she felt as if she’d burst from the wanting of it all. There was so much to do beyond the walls of Byerd and she was running out of time. She couldn’t say no to every suitor for ever. Her father wouldn’t permit it. If she didn’t choose, she had no doubt he would choose for her. He was the most determined man she knew.

  ‘My daughter is honoured by your attentions, Wadesbridge.’ Her father shot her a sharp look, jerking her back to awareness. She’d missed her cue. ‘She will consider your suit.’

  Pen’s eyes snapped to attention. What had just happened? She’d drifted for a moment and she was nearly betrothed. Wadesbridge smiled and rose, happy enough to conclude his visit on that note. He reached for her hand and bent over it. ‘I look forward to showing you Trescowe Park, my lady. The gardens are at their best in the spring. Your father tells me you enjoy flowers.’ She nodded non-committally, not wanting to agree to anything she might regret. She did like flowers, wild ones. She envied them their freedom to grow where they chose, to run rampant over hedges and moors, to climb stone walls and poke through cracks.

  ‘I have a greenhouse that would interest you, my lady.’ Wadesbridge was still talking. ‘Over the winter, I perfected some grafts with my roses in the hopes of producing a yellow rose tinged orange on the edges. If you’d permit me, I could send a cutting over.’

  Wadesbridge was being kind. She could not shun him for kindness, but she wouldn’t marry him for it either. Pen responded carefully. If she showed too much interest she’d end up with a room full of cuttings tomorrow and both he and her father would take it as an endorsement of his suit. ‘You are too generous, my lord.’ Pen offered a polite smile. ‘I will look forward to seeing your new rose when we visit and perhaps I can select a few cuttings then.’ It was better to stall any potential outpouring of gifts. She smiled Wadesbridge out, but her smile faded the moment she and her father were alone in the drawing room.

  ‘I don’t want to marry him.’ Pen spoke first, her voice full of sharp authority.

  Her father sighed, looking suddenly weary, his voice tired. ‘What’s wrong now? Wadesbridge is rich, titled, stable, local.’

  ‘He’s old.’

  ‘He’s only forty-five.’

  ‘He’s closer to your age than he is mine,’ Pen pressed. Only ten years separated her father and Wadesbridge, but two and half decades separated her from him.

  Her father’s dark eyes studied her in frustration. He had a temper too. They were alike in that regard. At the moment, they were both struggling to keep that particular character trait under control. ‘The previous suitor gambled, another drank, another had debts. I should think Wadesbridge’s lack of vices would appeal after that parade, or is it your intention to find fault with every suitor?’ There was accusation in his tone. He was disappointed in her. She hated disappointing her father. She loved him and she knew he loved her. Too much sometimes.

  ‘I want to do something with my life, Father.’ She gentled her tone in hopes of making him see.

  ‘Marry, raise a family. There is no worthier calling in life,’ her father insisted. ‘Family is everything, it is a man’s life’s work and a woman’s too.’ Bu
t it wasn’t the only work of a lifetime. There were other worthy ways to spend a life.

  ‘Maybe, in time I would like those things, but not yet.’ How did she convince him? ‘I want to live a little before I’m handed off to a husband. I don’t want to go from my childhood home to my husband’s home without an adventure first. I haven’t even been to London for a debut.’ Other girls her age, girls like their nearby neighbour, Sir Jock Treleven’s daughters, had all gone to London for Seasons. Marianne was having her second Season this year and she was only nineteen, a year younger than Pen.

  Her father’s eyebrows rose in censure at the mention of London. ‘The city is far too dangerous. Don’t you recall what happened last Season? The Duke of Newlyn and his wife were stabbed to death coming home from the theatre. They were practically our neighbours here all these years and now they’re gone. I wouldn’t want to risk you. Besides, with your dowry and your antecedents, what need do you have for a Season?’ He leaned forward and pinched her cheek affectionately. ‘You have no need to hunt for a husband. They come to you.’

  ‘I want to choose for myself and to do that I need time and a larger selection, Papa. How can I know what I want in a husband if I haven’t met anyone?’

  ‘You should be guided by the wisdom of your elders. I would not allow you to marry someone unworthy.’ No, he wouldn’t. She would be assured of marrying a decent man, but the thought of wedding a decent man didn’t exactly set her heart to racing. What about romance? What about stolen kisses? What about love? ‘I must insist you seriously consider Wadesbridge.’

  ‘And you must seriously consider what I want. Does it matter so little?’ She felt as if an invisible noose was strangling her. Her lovely home had slowly become a prison over the years. If she stayed, she’d scream with the futility of her life. She had to get out of here, if even for a short time. She needed a walk, a chance to clear her head.

  ‘I don’t want to quarrel with you, Penrose.’ His tone softened with love and she heard the old, familiar tinge of sadness that had been present in his voice for over a decade. ‘You grow more beautiful every day, Penrose. You look so much like your mother. You have her honey hair, her green eyes, like the Cornish sea at summer. A stunning combination.’ Her father was biased, of course. She might be striking in her features, but she was not beautiful. There was a difference. Her mother, however, had been beautiful and life had been beautiful when she was alive, every day an adventure from romping the hills to building hideaways in the vast attics of Byerd on rainy afternoons.

  Her looks were a blessing and a curse Pen had lived with every day since the event that had claimed her mother’s life, a constant reminder to them all of the woman they’d lost to a violent, senseless act and the very reason her father was so protective. He feared losing her the way he’d lost his wife: instantly and arbitrarily. Pen felt her anger over the latest suitor slipping. It was hard to argue with a man who was still grieving after all these years, hard to hurt a father who loved his children so deeply. She couldn’t keep putting the discussion off, though. If she didn’t stand up for herself soon, she’d end up married to Wadesbridge or if not Wadesbridge, the next suitor who walked through the doors of Castle Byerd. But not today. She would not fight with her father today. Today, she would do as she usually did and simply escape.

  She moved towards the door, and her father looked up. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Upstairs. I think I’ll lie down before dinner. I have a headache,’ she improvised. There were festivities in the village, even fireworks this evening, and she didn’t intend on missing them, especially if this might be her last time to see them. She wasn’t getting any younger and her father’s collection of suitors was only growing more insistent by the day. Desperate times called for desperate measures. She could either sit in her room and mope or she could go to a party.

  Upstairs, Pen reached under her bed for an old dressmaker’s box that had once contained a gown. Now, it was home to a plain brown cloak, a simple dark blue dress made of homespun wool and a battered pair of half-boots. Pen smiled as she pulled them out one by one as if they were made of the finest silk. The clothes were her treasures. Once she slipped these on, she was no longer Penrose Prideaux who couldn’t leave the castle without an army for an escort. Now, she could be whoever she wished: a peasant girl, a farm girl, a girl who worked in one of the shops in the village, maybe even a stranger who’d walked here from another village. These clothes were freedom. She could be whoever she desired, do whatever she desired and no one would be the wiser.

  Pen finished dressing and took down her carefully crafted hair, plaiting her long honey-hued skeins into a single, thick braid that hung over her shoulder. She critically studied her appearance in the pier glass, looking for anything that would give her away: a forgotten piece of jewellery or a silk ribbon in her hair. Satisfied that she’d erased any trace of Penrose Prideaux, she raised the hood of her cloak and set off to leave herself behind. Tonight, she would make some adventures of her own before it was too late.

  Chapter Three

  Cassian loved a good fair and the town of Redruth did not disappoint. It was a point of pride for the town as the nominal originator of the St Piran festivities. Many other towns in Cornwall had their own celebrations these days for the patron saint of tin miners, but Redruth had been the first.

  Cassian stabled his horse at the livery, tossing an extra coin to the sulky young ostler left on duty while his comrades had gone off to join the festivities. ‘You’ll be rich when they come back with their pockets to let,’ Cassian consoled him, but the boy continued to pout. Well, he knew a little something about that. He wasn’t so far past boyhood himself that he’d forgotten how much he’d looked forward to an outing when he was younger. Fun was sparse in this part of the world. His pleasure garden could change that. It would have entertainments for all ages, unlike Vauxhall, which catered to an adults-only crowd. Children needed stimulation, too, especially when their imaginations were at their most fertile. Growing up, he’d loved adventure stories even though reading had been a labour for him. He’d loved any day that his father or Eaton’s father or Richard Penlerick had taken the four of them out riding or exploring. But those days had been rare. Perhaps he’d bring the sulky ostler a pasty when he came back. Cassian’s stomach rumbled at the thought of a hot pie, a reminder that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

  Outside in the street, happy townsfolk jostled past as he let his nose lead the way to a pasty vendor. He purchased a pasty and bit into the flaky crust, the savoury meat warm in his mouth. It took the edge off the weather’s late afternoon crispness. March wasn’t really spring in this part of the world. Cassian wandered the booths, stopping every so often to admire goods that caught his attention. It was at the leatherworker’s booth, as he studied the workmanship on a bridle, that he noticed her out of the corner of his eye. He couldn’t say what it was exactly that drew him: the swirl of her cloak, perhaps, or the way the woman beneath the cloak moved, all slender, straight-shouldered grace as opposed to the bustle of the fair-goers.

  Cassian stepped back from the leatherworker’s booth to study her. She moved as if she were savouring each sight, lingering over each of the items in the stalls, treating them as if they were luxuries. Maybe they were. Not everyone who came to a fair had coins in their pocket to spend. The hood of her brown cloak was drawn up over her face, her hair. Cassian found himself wishing it wasn’t so. He wanted to see this woman who walked through a village fair with such reverence. More than that, he wanted to know her mind; what did the fair look like to her to inspire such awe? How might he capture that for his amusement park? It was precisely how he wanted guests to look when they visited. If he ever got it built.

  She moved into the crowd and Cassian followed. Perhaps he would speak to her. She appeared to be alone, an odd condition for a woman at such an event. For all the excitement a fair could bring, there were dangers, too, if one wasn�
�t careful, especially as the day wore on and the men were deeper into their drink. At the edge of the village green the booths gave way to the pens of livestock and the crowd thinned. Here, she halted, suddenly surrounded by a gaggle of children who’d swarmed her.

  Cassian quickened his steps in concern. There were too many of them. These were not village children. These were street urchins, some of them older boys who likely followed the vendors from fair to fair. A smaller boy, likely the decoy, said something to her, tugging at her and claiming all her attention. Cassian could guess what he was asking for. The woman hesitated and then reached beneath her cloak and produced a coin for the lad. That would never do. The boys would either beg the rest of her purse from her or come back to steal it later now that they knew where she kept it. From the looks of her clothes, she hadn’t the money to spare should she lose whatever her purse contained.

  ‘Hoy there, lads! Be off with you!’ Cassian strode into their midst, dispersing them with his sheer bulk. Smart lads didn’t mess with men built with height and breadth to match. They scattered like swatted flies in the wake of his broad-shouldered, baritone-voiced barrage.

  The woman straightened, becoming taller, more slender, more graceful than she’d been in the marketplace. ‘That was hardly necessary, sir. They were just hungry children begging a coin.’ There was a slightly imperious tone to her voice. A proud woman, then, a woman who liked to be self-sufficient. He had two older sisters who had that same tone. He knew it well. A man had to tread carefully where such a woman’s pride was concerned. It was a lesson he’d watched his sisters’ husbands learn over the years.

  ‘They’ll have your whole purse off you if you aren’t careful. Those were no ordinary children,’ he scolded kindly.

  ‘I know their sort very well. It doesn’t make their plight any less pitiable. Out of concern for my fellow mankind, I’ll take my chances, every time,’ she answered staunchly.