Elaine
Two hundred fifty miles into this journey and not a word spoken. Elaine’s body swayed as the carriage made its way over the rough track. She sat beside her mother and across from her father—though not one of them acknowledged the other.
Her mother had not stopped knitting since they’d left London. Her needles flew in a blur, and the pale-green lap rug she’d been working on was now big enough to cover the king’s bed. This was how she coped. After John’s death, she’d knitted enough shawls and blankets and stockings to keep the entire parish warm all winter long.
When her mother wasn’t knitting, she stared out the window through teary eyes. Her father hadn’t turned away from the opposite window’s view.
Both of them there, her mother and father, squashed into the space of a cupboard, and each of them pretending the other didn’t exist. Elaine wanted to scream into the silence, but what good would that do? It would serve only to hasten the saltwater drips falling onto her mother’s enormous knitting project.
Ruined, her mother had whispered as they’d boarded their coach to escape London. He has ruined us all.
Elaine agreed. But all her mother’s lamentations would not make amends.
Certainly her father was not the first fellow to be caught in an indiscretion. Unfortunately, they were commonplace among the ton. But when her own family became the target, well, she’d never been more humiliated in her life.
And when the woman’s husband had come pounding on their door with pistol loaded, threatening her father that if he showed his face in London again, he’d blow it off, the decision to leave was rather easy. One did not press one’s luck with General Forton.
However pointless her mother’s complaints, they were all too true. Her father’s folly left all their lives in a pile of tumbled-down ruin—like the rubble of the old abbeys and castles scattered across the ground. The best Elaine could do was gather as many stones as she could and try to rebuild. It would never be the grand edifice of her old life, but perhaps she could construct a respectable sort of cottage.
The countryside turned from rolling fields and gentle gardens to rocky tors and wild moorland. The air changed also, to the unmistakable dampness of Cornwall.
Elaine hadn’t been to their family home in over five years—not since the death of her brother, John. She and her family had fled that memory, leaving it in the West Country and choosing instead to live in London. Now, with rumors of her father’s indiscretion spreading through town like fire, they returned in disgrace. Not the reentrance into country life Elaine had hoped for.
In truth, she’d hoped never to make a reentry into her life at Havencross at all. She’d made a clean escape for good reason. Ending up back in Cornwall was not part of her plan to forget everything about John’s death.
Her plan was to find a man to marry. A man who would take her far away from Cornwall, where she’d never have to face her past again. She’d thought perhaps she’d found one—in Edmund Crawley, Earl of Chiverton.
Now she’d likely never see him again. For every mile they traveled from London, Lord Chiverton’s absence pulled tighter and tighter against her heart. She could look forward to life as a spinster, nursing her mother’s broken heart and her father’s gout. No decent man would connect his family to such a fallen lot. And the Earl of Chiverton was a fine and decent man.
The carriage rolled through the village of Camelford in the late afternoon. With any luck, news of her father hadn’t reached this far. But judging by the looks from the villagers as they recognized the Cardinham ensign on the carriage door, she was out of luck.
Elaine leaned back into her seat as far out of view as possible until they crossed the River Camel, passed Market Place, and headed out west in the direction of the coast.
The ancient elm tree flashed past, signaling the turn-off toward Havencross. Its branches had been reaching to the sky for over a hundred years. Now it seemed too tired, and the tips drooped back toward earth.
Next came the weathered stone cross put up centuries ago by the monks—the mark that gave Havencross its name. A quarter of an hour later, the carriage slowed and the gray stones of her childhood home came into view.
They rolled to a stop, and a footman opened the carriage door. Her father dove for the exit, trampling Elaine’s foot as he made his escape. She swallowed down an oath because, unlike her father, she had learned to control her impulses.
Her mother sniffed. Elaine handed her a clean handkerchief, and her mother blew her nose into it. She handed it back to Elaine, then stepped out of the carriage and shook out her skirts. Elaine followed, taking a moment to gaze up at the ancient stones of her childhood home.
Her mother hooked her thin hand through Elaine’s arm. She had always been a beauty, but since John’s death, she seemed to be wilting little by little.
She leaned close to Elaine. “I doubt Lord Chiverton will have you now.”
“No,” Elaine answered. Her father’s ruination had assured her of that.
“If only John were here,” her mother said. “I’m sure none of this would have happened.”
Indeed. If only John were here. Five years gone and her mother continued to mourn him, blaming every ill that befell them on his absence. As if adding past pain to the new would cancel out the previous agonies. If her mother knew the truth, all her blame would turn on Elaine. And she deserved every bit of it. For this time, her mother was right; none of this would have happened if John were still here.
John’s loss was the beginning of the end for the Cardinhams. None of them had been the same since. Her mother had turned to knitting, stabbing her needles through the air like she was crossing swords with her demons. Her father had lost a part of himself that had never returned, drifting silently away. Her family torn apart. All because of her.
She did not want to be back in Cornwall.
“And did you see the faces of the townsfolk as we drove through?” her mother asked.
Elaine nodded.
“The smirk on young Mr. Kemp’s face. You must have seen that?”
“No, mother. I did not.” Thank heaven.
To avoid Gareth Kemp was her top priority. He had been John’s closest friend. His was a long-standing family in the community, freely owning the land they skillfully farmed, the elder Mr. Kemp foreman at the local mine.
Gareth had made her an offer of marriage when she’d been but seventeen. She refused him. Then, two days later, John had disappeared, and her whole life had changed. She’d left for London with her family, where she’d hoped to remain and never have to face Gareth or Havencross ever again.
Her mother squeezed her arm as if that was all she had left to offer her daughter. She dabbed at her eyes with her damp handkerchief.
The moment they crossed the threshold, the butler held out a silver salver with a single letter on it. “Mrs. Cardinham, a letter has arrived.”
“Thank you, Mr. Winkleigh.” Elaine took the letter and turned it over. “’Tis from Aunt Rose.”
That brought a glimmer of cheer to her mother’s eyes, but it faded almost as soon as it appeared.
Elaine broke the seal and skimmed the words. Her mother would not be interested in its contents verbatim. Not in her present state.
“She extends her love and sympathy,” Elaine said. “She is outraged at what has happened and expresses her disappointment that we had to leave London so suddenly. Oh! And hear this. She and Uncle Charles are coming for a visit. To bolster your spirits. They shall arrive by week’s end.”
At last, some good news. If anyone could drag her mother out of the gloom, it would be her sister. It had been ages since they’d seen Aunt Rose and Uncle Charles. The Beafords never went to London. Not since the accident that had left Aunt Rose confined to a chair.
Elaine saw her mother to her room, then slipped out the back door, desperate for a moment alone.
Tomorrow the place would be flooded with neighbors coming to call. Always under the pretense of friendship, but all their excuses would be thinly veiled whisperings of scandal.
Mrs. Kemp, Gareth’s mother, could very well be one of them. Elaine had no idea whether his mother knew about Gareth’s failed marriage proposal. Just because Elaine chose to tell no one did not mean Gareth had made the same choice.
Thinking back on it stirred up the writhing coils that always accompanied such memories.
She pushed those thoughts away and crossed the garden courtyard. Havencross had been built on a rise, giving view to most of its surroundings. Elaine gazed out over the fields. The air was sweet with lengthening grass and blossoming blackthorn from the hedges. By summer’s end, the hedges would be bursting with brambles and her fingers stained blue from picking and eating them.
The breeze shifted and a whiff of dung drifted past. Not the awful, acrid smell like the mews and stables of the crowded city but a rich and fertile smell as field workers churned it into the rows of freshly plowed earth.
She wound her way through the garden and out into the heath leading up to the sea. The whole landscape dropped away down steep, rocky cliffs to the water below. The waves crashed fearlessly against the black rocks, spraying in all directions.
Elaine turned her face up to the sky. The clouds moved so quickly it made her dizzy. So unlike the heavy clouds of London that snagged on the steeples and spires, keeping the city under perpetual haze.
Up the coastline a few miles to the north jutted the island-like headland of Tintagel, covered with the remains of the old castle. Between here and there, Lowentop, home of the Kemp family. Their nearest neighbors.
Two hundred fifty miles behind her, Lord Chiverton. What a mess her life had become.
The wind followed hard on the heels of the clouds. Her skirts whipped against her legs, and her bonnet tugged on its ties. She untied it and took it off, pulling the pins from her hair. The breeze caught her locks, and she shook her head, letting the strands fly like so many kite-tails trailing behind her.
She closed her eyes, facing the cliffs and the gusts from the sea. Tonight, there would be a storm, but just now, after three days trapped in the coach with her parents, it was a welcome zephyr. Perhaps some time at Havencross wouldn’t be so bad after all.
“Miss Elowen Cardinham.” She jumped at the voice from behind her.
Only one person in the world called her by the Cornish version of her name.
Gareth Kemp.
She turned around. The last person she wanted to see. Not that she could see him exactly. With the wind to her back, her entire view consisted of tangled copper hair. She grabbed a handful and pulled it away.
He stood before her, his hands on the reins of a horse.
He had not escaped the wind either, and his dark hair fluttered about his head. His hazel eyes matched the cloudy glow of the sun. He held a top hat under his arm and looked undeniably handsome in buckskin breeches and a dark coat. Not that she was paying attention.
“Mr. Kemp.” She dipped her head.