Page 30 of The Cornish Inheritance

She looked back at Miss Hawkins. “Do you think he might be a danger to Yves as well?”

Miss Hawkins pursed her lips. “I don’t know. When did he return?”

“Only a few days ago.”

“Then he can’t be a part of the plot to poison Yves because it was in place before his return.”

“No, but he would be the recipient of the good fortune his mother wants.”

“That won’t please Trefusis. He won’t want someone stepping between him and his rich heiress.”

Caroline swallowed. “What do you want me to do?”

“Keep Yves safe.”

Caroline shivered. “I don’t know how I can do that if his aunt and this Trefusis are determined to do away with him.” How awful and doom laden those words sounded. She was one person, up against at least two very determined people who wanted to remove the obstacle to their inheritance. Should she really include Nat in that bracket as well? Did he look the sort of man who would see a child killed to smooth his way to money and position? But if Nat inherited from his grandfather, Trefusis would get nothing… What a tangled web was being woven at Roskilly.

But Nat had resigned his commission, and without the inheritance, what would he do? If Yves were gone, he wouldn’t need to leave Roskilly ever again. Wouldn’t need to hide his scars away whenever he went out in public, as he seemed determined to do. He could just inherit the estate and mines when his grandfather died, and, up until then, he could help manage them. And push Trefusis out of his job. Why wouldn’t he want Yves removed?

*

The man inquestion was at that very moment riding over to the Coach and Horses to return the cob Bosun to his friend Jacka. He rode his mother’s rather aged bay mare, and led Bosun by his reins, as he jog-trotted up the rutted back track Caroline had so recently struggled down.

With the sky only sparsely decorated with clouds, a warm sun heated his back, and from the trees and bushes to either side came the song of small hedge birds, a sound he’d longed for during all those years of soldiering in arid Spain. Despite the drizzle of yesterday, the track wasn’t too bad, and the two horses had no difficulty negotiating the route.

For the first time in many years, the urge to whistle came over Nat.

He rode around to the rear of the inn, where he came upon Jacka splitting logs with a hefty axe. As soon as he spotted his returning friend, he straightened up, the considerable pile lying to one side of the splitting block indicating his industry.

Nat swung down from the bay and held out Bosun’s reins. “I said I’d return him, and here he is. Thank you for the loan. How goes it?” Somehow, he didn’t feel the same reticence with Jacka he felt with everyone else he met. Maybe it was their boyhood relationship, or perhaps because he knew that Jacka, as the son of a gardener rather than a scion of any of the local wealthy families, had always accepted him for who he was.

Jacka leaned the axe against the splitting log, and held out a work-roughened hand. “Business is good. Two coaches in today.” He nodded to where a phaeton stood in one corner of the yard. “And two young men who decided my ale was of the best and have chosen to stay the night.”

Nat shook hands. “I’ll not go in then. I’ve no taste for meeting strangers and letting them stare at me. I can do without their pity… or their revulsion.”

Jacka nodded, taking Bosun’s reins. “Shall I fetch you out a tankard of porter?”

Nat allowed himself a smile. “That would be welcome. I’ll tie Duchess in one of your stalls, if I may?”

The two men led the horses into the long stable block, where two matched chestnuts, who must be the phaeton’s team, were pulling hay from their hayracks and swishing their tails at the few flies. Jacka slipped saddle and bridle off Bosun, but Nat only took Duchess’s bridle off, making it easier for her to chew the hay in her manger, and loosened her girth a couple of notches.

Jacka departed into the back door of the inn, to return a few minutes later with two tankards of the promised porter. They perched side by side on the edge of the well in the center of the yard, the sun on their backs.

“How’d you find being back home, then?” Jacka asked. He’d never been one to hedge around a subject.

Nat wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Odd.”

Jacka grinned. “I daresay. Eleven years is a long time.”

“Time doesn’t stand still, no matter how much you’d like it to.”

They both drank some more, Nat watching a pair of buzzards riding high above the inn on a thermal. He envied them their freedom. “I’m back to feeling trapped.”

Jacka was silent a few moments. “Like before?”

“Yes.”

“Not fallin’ over themselves to kill the fatted calf for you, then?”

Nat shook his head. “Hetty was pleased to see me. But my mother… well, she could barely conceal her disgust at this.” He touched his fingers to his scar. “It was good to see my grandfather, and Aunt Agnes. Although she thought I was my late Uncle Robert come back. Her mind’s going.”

“D’you see the little heir?”

“I did. A precocious child. And his new governess.” Why he’d mentioned her, he had no idea. The image of her ingenuous smile after she’d beaten him at chess had leapt into his head and the words had followed in its wake.

“I did hear as how they sacked the last one. What’s this one like? Starchy old spinster?”

Nat frowned. “Well, you got part of that correct. She’s a spinster, but she’s not old. Well, she’s younger than me, I’d say, so not so young as all that.” He shook himself. “I’ll concede she must be a clever woman, so that bodes well for the boy.”

“I saw ’em drive past in the pony cart, not so long ago,” Jacka said. “Headed toward Penzance, they was. First time I’ve seen the lad. I’d heard he were a sickly brat, but he reminded me of you, he did. And you were never sick a day in your life, I don’t think.”

Nat’s mouth, or rather half of it, curved in a smile. “It’s a long time since I had golden curls.”

Jacka set down his empty tankard. “Didn’t see much of her, though. Had a bonnet on hiding her face.”

Nat shook his head. “There’s something about her… I’m not sure what it is, but she intrigues me. A little. She’s clearly well educated and intelligent, and yet she’s down here in the depths of Cornwall, teaching one small boy.” He straightened up. “She’s a mystery I don’t intend to waste my time in solving, however. And now I’d best be heading home.” He shrugged. “Home. It doesn’t quite sit right with me as yet to call Roskilly home. Not after all this time. I feel like I’ve been washed up on a beach at high tide, just a piece of flotsam on the water of life. And I don’t fit in.”

Jacka clapped him on the back. “Give it time. You’ll feel more at home soon. And whenever you need to escape, there’s room here for you. We can get drunk together.”