Chapter 10
“We really shouldn’t interfere,” said Donovan, even as Corie’s exasperated sigh told him he’d voiced what she didn’t want to hear. “They’ll either sort it out or they won’t.”
“Sort it out? When did the course of true love ever run smooth? Our course certainly didn’t! It couldn’t have been rockier—”
“I haven’t forgotten, wife,” Donovan interrupted her, drawing Corie closer against him as the carriage rumbled and swayed. “Not smooth at all, but I wouldn’t trade a moment of it.” She looked so lovely in her forest green pelisse and beribboned bonnet, he wanted to kiss her soundly. Her sweet red lips never failed to tempt him, but the tension he felt in her slender body told him the matter they’d been discussing was far from done.
“Donovan, you really must speak with Dr. Whitaker…Adam, I mean, and I’ll speak with Linette. If not for what Prudie shared with me two weeks ago, I might have missed what was happening altogether. We’ve been so busy getting ready for our move, and then there’s the children, always something to do.”
“Yes, very busy,” Donovan agreed, “but I’ve missed nothing. I saw their attraction from the start, especially after our young doctor kissed Linette under the mistletoe. Why else do you think I agreed that she accompany him to visit Mrs. Polkinghorne? Asked her to visit the tinners’ families with him? Better that than hiding in her room, avoiding him. That was telling enough.”
“My handsome husband, the matchmaker!” Corie hugged his arm, making him smile. “First Walker and Marguerite, and now Adam and Linette—”
“Not so fast, my darling wife,” Donovan cut in gently. “She’s been avoiding him like the plague and he’s plainly been out of sorts during his visits to see Estelle, though he’s tried well enough to hide it.”
“Exactly! That’s why we must do something! Prudie admitted she fell asleep during the ride home from Arundale’s Kitchen so we’ve no clue what they must have said to each other—”
“A misunderstanding, I’m sure. Speaking at cross-purposes. Remember? The course of true love?”
Corie nodded, looking past Donovan to gaze thoughtfully out the window. “Add to that, Linette’s determination to have her Season after she’s missed several in a row. She’s so busy dreaming of the future that she can’t see the forest for the trees. That poor man is clearly in love with her—oh, Donovan, look, it’s Adam!”
He did, following her pointing finger to the crossroad up ahead that led one way to Helston, from where they were returning, another to Porthleven, one to the coastline, and the last toward their home.
Dr. Whitaker had clearly stopped there to give his horse a rest, the splendid beast lathered and tossing its head. Donovan found himself wondering once again how a young doctor just starting out in life, who dressed conservatively enough, might have come by such a magnificent animal.
A benefactor of some kind? Then he remembered Adam had mentioned an uncle that day they’d been waiting for Linette to join them in the library, his mother’s brother, after he’d said that his parents were dead. He’d given no name, but only that his uncle had paid for his medical studies. Adam had said he intended to reimburse him over time, which Donovan had found highly commendable.
“Driver, stop up ahead!” he called out to the coachman, the carriage coming to a halt not far from Adam. He sat astride his horse, staring into the distance as if lost in thought, his expression far too grim for such a beautiful afternoon.
“Enjoying a ride, Whitaker?” Donovan called out to him, not surprised that Adam looked momentarily startled. Good God, so deep in thought that he hadn’t heard their coach and four approaching? As Adam at once drew his horse closer to the carriage, Corie squeezed Donovan’s arm.
“Ask him to supper tonight!” she hissed so Adam wouldn’t hear her. “That will give him and Linette a chance to talk.”
Donovan nodded, noting the dark smudges beneath Adam’s eyes and the strained look upon his face. “Damnation, man, no sense in working yourself to death. Or that fine horse of yours, for that matter. Running a race?”
“A ride, as you said, Your Grace. Clearing my head before I see more new patients. I’m on my way back to Porthleven.”
“I’d say Mrs. Polkinghorne’s wagging tongue has done its job too well from the look of you, Whitaker. A good supper is what you need and an evening among congenial company to sit and rest. You’re riding back to the manor house with us—”
“Forgive me, sir, but I must decline.”
“Oh my, no, I insist upon it!” Corie piped up, leaning across Donovan. “You must join us, Dr. Whitaker. We leave in only a few days for Hampshire so this is the perfect occasion to thank you for all you’ve done for us. Come!”
She squeezed Donovan’s arm again, his cue to shout out to the coachman, “Drive on!” before Adam could refuse them.
Just as the young doctor seemed to want to do, raising his hand as if he had something else to say to them, but already the carriage had rumbled through the crossroad toward home.
***
“It’s so small inside, Linette. I remember lying on that bed”—Estelle pointed to the modest four-poster in a corner of the one-room cottage, while a cot was shoved up against an opposite wall—“and the heat of the fire in the hearth where they must have dried my clothes…and Prince Valentin’s, too. He must have been as soaking wet and freezing as I was…”
Linette nodded, remaining silent as Estelle softly recounted what she recalled from that awful day.
“I’ve wondered about this, but he must have already been outside or perhaps looking from that window there when he saw Luther and me in the water…oh, dear.”
Estelle had sunk onto a stool at the rough-hewn table, which made Linette go to her at once and rest her hand on her sister’s shoulder.
“Enough of this, Estelle, it’s clearly distressing you to be here,” she murmured, but her sister shook her head.
“It makes me sad, is all. I never had a chance to thank him for saving my life. Or his friend. Who knows where they sailed to? Donovan never said—”
“Nor will he,” Linette gently interrupted her. “We must go, truly. Donovan and Corie might be home now, and I doubt Squire Tanner would appreciate us being here. This is his land, his cottage. I can’t believe you used a rock to break the lock on the door. We’ll have to pay for it, you know.”
Estelle gave a small shrug. “I wanted to see the inside again…needed to see it. Prince Valentin must be in terrible danger. Why else would Donovan insist we never speak of him again…like he’d never helped me and Luther. Like he didn’t even exist. It’s all so strange, Linette.”
She nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly with her sister, but growing more impatient with each passing moment. She slid her arm through Estelle’s to draw her up from the stool. “Please, sweet, we must go—”
“Did you hear that, Linette?” Estelle broke in, jumping up to fly to the window overlooking the bluff. “Horses! I can’t see them from here. Do you think Prince Valentin might have returned?”
Linette didn’t answer her sister’s fanciful query, feeling like her heart had lodged in her throat.
It couldn’t be Adam from the sound of at least four horses neighing and snorting not far from the front door of the cottage. Oh, Lord, and they had broken into the place, too! How would that look? What were they to do?
Yet she’d no sooner moved to the door when it burst open, three rough-looking men she’d never seen before crowding into the place…followed by Squire Tanner, his ponderous weight preventing him from moving as swiftly. He looked from Estelle to Linette, clearly stunned to see them.
“Miss Easton?”
“I…I can explain, Squire, truly,” Linette began, but got no further when one of the men lunged at her to grab her arm.
“Looking for someone, mademoiselle?”
A Frenchman, she thought with rising panic, his swarthy face so close to hers that his fetid breath made her flinch. He only laughed and squeezed her arm cruelly as she shook her head.
“No, we were curious about the cottage, is all—”
“I say, sir, I’ve no idea why the young ladies are here, but unhand her at once!” Squire Tanner blurted with outrage. “You asked to see the place that I leased to your friends, but if you look around, as you said you wanted to do, they’ve left nothing behind—”
“Silence, you bloated fool!”
Linette gasped as Squire Tanner was struck so violently from behind by one of the other men that he crumpled to the floor in an unconscious heap. Meanwhile, the third intruder went to grab Estelle, who stood with her back pressed to the window, clearly terrified.
“No, leave her be!” Linette cried out, only to find herself thrust down upon the stool even as Estelle burst into tears.
“I’d wager that you have a fine tale to tell me,” grated her captor in his heavily accented English, still painfully gripping Linette’s arm. “Like the squire said, we’re looking for our friends. We’ve gone from port to port along the English coast for nearly a month, doing our best to find the two, but never a clue until now. It’s no surprise to me that such lovely chits as yourselves would have been charmed by the prince. He’s a handsome devil, isn’t he?”
“I—I have no idea what you’re talking about!” Linette glanced at her sister, shaking her head slightly to try and warn Estelle from saying a word. “Let us go at once! The rest of our party is surely looking for us—oh!”
Her captor had yanked her up from the stool, his expression so ominous that Linette’s knees went weak from fear.
“Is that your sister, mademoiselle? Must be, she favors you so. If you don’t tell me what you know, I’ll give my man license to have a bit of fun with her right there on that four-poster. Now talk!”
***
Adam pulled up on the reins and stopped Samson behind the carriage, a pair of footmen stepping forward to help the duke and duchess disembark.
The last thing he wanted was to be there, and as soon as he let them know he’d seen Linette and Estelle out on the heath during his ride, he’d make his excuses and go. He didn’t think Estelle shouldn’t be riding yet, just not too much, too soon. He would have told them at the crossroad if the coach hadn’t rumbled into motion, leaving him to reluctantly follow behind—
“Ais, Yer Grace, I thought you’d never arrive home! ‘Ee told me to come straightaway if I had news for ‘ee, an’ I did!”
Adam dismounted from his horse as a white-bearded gentleman looking every bit a Cornish sea captain rushed out the front door toward Donovan.
“I rode here to tell ‘ee I overheard a couple of my patrons saying they’d seen Squire Tanner escorting three strangers out of the village. A crude-looking lot, from the sound of it. Must have come in on a ship earlier today. Another patron piped up that he’d seen the three asking questions along the docks about the men they were looking for, one older with dark hair an’ the younger, fair. They must have come upon the squire whiling away the afternoon at his favorite tavern. It’s the ones ‘ee feared might show up, isn’t it, Yer Grace?”
Grim-faced, Donovan nodded. “Go on, Oliver, anything else?”
“The squire was telling them the two had leased a cottage from him, and then left without a trace two weeks past. But they wanted to see the place anyway. Ais, they might be there now!”
“The cottage overlooking the beach,” Adam said with a sudden sense of unease, drawing closer. He knew from treating Estelle about the young man who had saved her and that she believed him in danger, though Donovan had sworn him to silence. “Only a short ride from the heath—”
“What is it, Whitaker?” Donovan demanded, though the moment he’d said it, he seemed to guess Adam’s answer from the alarm in his eyes. So had Corie, who stood beside her husband and clutched his arm tightly.
“I met Her Grace’s sisters not far from there. They’d gone for a ride together.”
“Oh, God, no.” Corie’s face stricken, she glanced from Adam to Donovan. “Do you think they went to the cottage?”
“Get my horse, now!” Donovan roared to the footmen, who hastened away to do his bidding. Then he gestured for Adam to follow him into the house. “I’ve weapons enough for both of us in the library. Do you have qualms about using a pistol, Dr. Whitaker?”
“None,” Adam answered grimly. He strode after Donovan, cursing himself for the wounded pride that had made him ride away from Linette and Estelle instead of accompanying them safely home.
God help him, if any harm should come to them…