Surrender The Night (17 page)

Billy clucked to the horses. “You don’t know that, Devvie lad.”

“Why else would he take her with him? Out of charity?” Devon’s scornful laugh was more a groan of pain. “Beautiful women don’t incite charity, Billy.”

“Perhaps in a sawbones she would. I’ll come back to the school tomorrow and ask about.”

But the next day, and the day after, neither Devon nor Billy found any of the instructors or servants at the school more forthcoming. They had no way of knowing that Will, suspecting that Devon would try to find Katrina, told his instructors that an enemy of his would be seeking him and that his life was in danger if his whereabouts should become known to this powerful lord.

As time went on
Will’s lie became somewhat prophetic, for Devon’s guilt and worry soon gave way to fury. He wavered between longing to get his hands about Katrina’s throat and yearning to kiss her senseless. His feelings for Will, however, were uncomplicated: He wanted to kill the man who had stolen his woman. For whatever reason. Whether he’d driven her away or not, Katrina was his.

Resolve gave him purpose again. The guilt and grief that had kept him sleepless and joyless began to ease. But their passing, like a scab that has been ripped off too many times, left a scar

over the gentle sweetness Katrina had finally inspired in him.

On the moonless night when he admitted she had left him and had no intention of returning, he stared out his window at the lamp glowing beside his drive. Katrina’s hair had been just that shade when the sun struck it. And the pain that took him was so fierce that only fury could allay it.

For the second time in his life he handled his grief in the only way he knew: by denying it. His whisper, soft and deadly, was taken by the gentle breeze. “Just you wait, Katrina Lawson. I’ll find you, no matter what, and make you sorry you ever left me.”

If his eyes glistened on the words, no one was there to see. From now on the world would find in him the scoundrel they expected, he resolved. Katrina had no use for the namby- pamby who had let her slip him so easily; instead she would know the rake. . . .

Chapter
Five

Like most Britons,
Katrina had a clear vision of what she expected of Cornshmen. She was too realistic to adhere to the wilder tales of cannibalism and brutality. If Will was an example of the Cornish temperament, then Cornishmen were both kind and generous. Still, a bleak, hard land bred bleak, hard men. She didn’t doubt that Cornishmen were also as wild and tough as their moors and storm-racked coasts.

Historically, Cornwall had been isolated from the rest of England by geography and language.
If the tales she’d heard were true, they would, to this day, prefer it that way. Would they accept her, a girl from the gentle hills of Kent? What did she, a sinner—no, she decided, she must not delude herself ever again if she were to avoid the same mistakes. She was about to call herself a name she despised when Will interrupted her thoughts.

He covered her clammy hand with his. “Come, you’ve been brave this entire grueling trip. We’ve not much farther to go. Don’t lose heart. The family I’m taking you to is large, their fortunes totally dependent upon the mines, yet it’s one of the happiest I’ve ever known.”

“And will you tell them to be good to the little lightskirt?”

He sighed at her bitter tone and released her hand to tilt up her downcast chin. “No, I’ll tell them to be good to the little English.” He smiled wryly. “A fact some of our people, at least, will have a harder time dealing with than the other. But they’ll not hear what brought you to us from me. You have my word as
a Cornishman.”

Some of Katrina’s foreboding waned as amusement took hold. “Which means more than your word as an Englishman, I collect.”

“Too true. And I’m an Anglophile compared to some of my people. There is much I admire across the border—”

They jostled together as their hired carriage lurched over a deep rut in the dirt track. “Such as English roads,” Will concluded.

Her laughter joined his. His dry witticisms continued for the rest of the journey. As for what she discovered of Cornwall, Katrina found the scenery both more varied and more pleasing than she’d expected. True, it had rained almost every day, and true, even late in May the nights were chilly, yet the southwesterly winds gave a purity to the air that was refreshing after London’s fumes.

The countryside immediately bordering Devon was as richly harmonious as any its neighbor could boast. The lovely, deep river valley of the Looe was thick with trees and fecund with the earth’s bounty. Even when they’d passed the valleys and inched their way upon the moors that made the backbone of the county, Katrina had seen a sparse, spectral beauty. Stunted trees struggled against the gale-force winds. Scrawny, thorny hedges and scrub dotted the moor. Bogs lurked to trap the unwary, yet there was something compelling about the ancient feel to the landscape.

‘ ‘We lay claim to Arthur, you know, despite the legends held in Brittany, Somerset, and Wales,” Will said as they bumped along a particularly treacherous piece of road. “Was Camel- ford Camelot? The palace of Carlyon, where Arthur held court, can be found south of the river Fal. Its earthworks are still visible. Did you know that close by is Avallen—Avalon, perhaps, where the weeping queens bore Arthur’s body along the river, at his request, where the apple orchards grow?”

Katrina smiled. “You sound just like my father
. I doubt we’ll ever know where Arthur really lived.”

He tweaked her nose. “Spoken like a true bluestocking. Well then, what think you of this?” He banged on the roof and told the coachman to halt, then helped Katrina out of the carriage. Katrina caught her breath at the sight of the cairn glowering against the gunmetal-gray sky.

She climbed to the top of the tor with Will to get a better look at the massive stones. They were geometric in shape and placed with a precision that had obviously had religious meaning to the distant people who’d set them there.

Will let her look her fill while he teased her mind with another reason as to why
Cornishmen took such pride in their heritage. “It’s not only because we were never assimilated into the Saxon kingdom that we consider ourselves different. While your ancestors over the Tamar were merely tilling soil and grazing cattle, mine near the Land’s End were streaming tin to trade it with strange, western civilizations for golden crescents and blue beads. Some scholars believe it is from these that we get so many of our dark characteristics.” When she glanced at his fair locks, he added wryly, “Many’s the time I’ve wished that I’d taken the look of my father rather than the look of my mother, who was half-English.”

He led the way back to the carriage. He smiled when she stretched her aching back. “There’s no carriage made with springs good enough to keep us stable on these roads. But another few hours, and we’ll be there.”

He kept up his wry, witty commentary over that time, and Katrina was too stimulated intellectually to notice their change of pace until they rocked to a halt. She caught her breath.

He jumped down the steps the coachman had put down for them and offered her his hand. “Come, little English, make your Saxon forebears proud and do what they couldn’t do: Conquer us.”

His hand was as steadfast as hers was trembly, and he supported her when her travel-stiff legs made her stumble on the uneven ground. Before them was a cottage sheltered by a slope and a rock outcropping to the side. The sturdy wrought- iron gate opened to a dirt path, sweet williams on each side, that led to a rough plank door. A thatched roof topped walls made of some odd-looking stone material that appeared molded. One tiny window high under the eaves was the only evidence that the cottage had two levels.

Will led her to a bench sitting beneath' a hedgerow. ‘ ‘Stay here for a moment while I fetch John.”

Katrina rubbed her sweaty palms on her wrinkled dress, but then she forced her fidgeting hands to be still. She took several deep, spring-scented breaths and tried to enjoy the pretty aspect. The day had brightened, and the sun struck the outcropping, glittering off the speckled granite. Gently rolling hills in the distance were green, though bare of trees. Close by, she spied a boy at work in the fields, plodding along behind his oxen team, and wondered if the neat rows belonged to the family.

Behind the cottage stood several stacked rows of faggots; farther down, next to a st
ream, sat a tiny, ramshackle barn. Sheep, goats, and a lone cow cropped the grass in a small enclosure next to the bam. The burbling stream was an odd misty color, and Katrina deduced that the mine must not be far away.

All in all the cottage sat in its setting like an uncut but cherished jewel. If she were indeed welcome here, would this place have wealth or dross to share? And if a wealth of contentment it offered, what did she have to give in return?

“Does ’ee like our home?” A deep voice interrupted her thoughts.

She jumped to her feet. She saw Will standing there with a strange man beside him. “Yes, it’s most attractive,” she said sincerely. By a supreme effort she managed not to twiddle with her hair as dark brown eyes appraised her. Instead she stared back.

She saw a barrel of a man of medium height, broad in body and face, but not fat. He wore duck trousers that skimmed his ankles, a tan waistcoat over a loose smock, and low shoes without stockings. His queued hair was peppered with gray, but he had the erect posture and ruddy cheeks of a healthy man.

“Will says ’ee needs a place to staay?”

Unable to speak past the lump in her throat, she nodded and looked at the horizon. How she hated being a supplicant. But the desperate didn’t have the luxury of pride.

Her head popped up in shock when that deep voice said, “
’Tes not needful to tell a Cornishman about pride, lassie. Ef ’ee staay here, ’ee’ll work as one of the family and eat or starve as we do.”

Those acute, shrewd eyes softened when she nodded and said, “Agreed.”

“Can ’ee leam my bairns ’tween their chores?”

“Yes. Reading, writing, and arithmetic, plus history and—”

“Ais, history wretten by the English esn’t what I want my bairns to learn. Start weth the readin’.” He turned and strode back up the path to his gate, throwing over his shoulder, “Along now, an’ meet my, missus.”

Will smiled at her dazed look and took her arm to lead her up the path. “John Tonkin is accustomed to ordering about surly miners and boisterous children, but you’ll find no deceit or meanness in him. If I didn’t think you could be happy here. I’d not have brought you, Katrina.”

They both had to stoop beneath the massive granite lintel above the door. They stepped down two steps and entered a short hallway. Katrina glanced to the left and saw a tiny parlor with two gaily painted chairs, a settee, and a cupboard with several obviously cherished china figurines sequestered behind its wavery glass front. On the right she glimpsed a Spartan bedroom with a hand-carved wooden bed covered in a simple quilt. An ancient lowboy sat on one side of the bed, a rocking chair on the other.

       
Tempting aromas drifted from the rear, clueing Katrina to the kitchen John led them to. A long table with low benches on each side sat in the middle of the room. An enormous open hearth she could have stood in engulfed one wall, and a kettle hanging over the fire bubbled, emitting the pleasant scent. Through another doorway she spied a churn and deduced that the rear room of the house served as dairy and larder. She’d had fresh cream daily in the village with her father, but little since she’d lived in the houses of the affluent.

A rush of homesickness and hunger assailed her. Katrina’s mouth watered, and suddenly she realized how hungry she was. Noon was nigh. Will had explained that John came home from the mine for croust, as they called lunch, and that the children, occupied at their various chores, would soon arrive as well.

A woman in a simple homespun dress, clean white cap, and apron, turned from stirring the kettle. She put down the long wooden spoon on the tall cupboard adjacent to the fire. She was buxom but comely, and a few inches taller than her husband. Several strands of reddish-brown hair escaped her cap. She cocked her head on one side and appraised Katrina with merry blue eyes.

“’T
es a lovely lass ’ee’ve brung us, Will Farrow; We’ll have the lads comin’ a courtin’ from miles awa’.”

“Tush, Rachel, let the lass set ’fore ’ee start your match- makin’,” John said. He nodded his head at a place on the bench opposite him.

Katrina sat, then leaped to her feet again when her hostess began setting the table. “Let me help.”

John waved her back down. “Time enou’ for that.  How were et crossin’ the Tamar?”

Katrina and Will exchanged a wry look. Will dropped John a sly wink. “I fear Katrina thinks our river is more a barrier from England than a border to it.”

“No, more a river Styx with Charon as our boatman,” Katrina inserted, then clapped her hand over her mouth. Not for the world would she either offend her host if he understood her reference, nor embarrass him if he didn’t.

She soon found that John Tonkin neither offended nor embarrassed easily. He spewed his sip of tea into his cup. For a moment she thought he was choking, but then she relaxed as she realized he was laughing.

“An’ ’ee expected to be ferried across to the netherworld any moment, aye? Not that I blame ’ee. The Tamar es a spritely river en the spreng.”

Katrina’s hand lowered and she smiled weakly into those twinkling brown eyes, all the while wondering how a Cornish miner knew Greek mythology. Again he read her mind with disconcerting ease.

“I were taught readen’ by the old owner of our mine. I’ve tried to learn my bairns, but there never seems to be time enou’. If ’ee’ll do that, then ’ee’ll earn more than your keep. ’Ee’ll earn my gratitude.”

Cheerful, youthful voices preceded the entrance of several children into the rear door off the dairy. “Ais, wipe your feet,” Rachel Tonkin called, fetching a large tureen from the cupboard and dipping hot broth into it. She set this on the table along with a plate of pasties, then put down a stack of spoons and rough pottery bowls.

Katrina smiled hesitantly into four pairs of curious dark eyes. “Ellie, Bryan, Jimmy, and Robert,” John said, indicating each child with a pointing finger, starting with the eldest. She was a tall, slim girl with her mother’s pretty face and full bosom and her father’s dark hair and eyes. She eyed Katrina with interest, and nodded.

The eldest boy, Bryan, looked to be about seventeen. Already he was taller than his father, and almost as broad. Yet he bore no rusty marks on his clothing as his father did, and Katrina wondered why he didn’t work in the mines. Instead his hands were caked with mud, and she realized it must have been he working in the fields.

Jimmy was about fifteen, with the pug nose and freckled face of an imp. When Katrina smiled at him, he audaciously winked. Katrina groaned inwardly. This one would be trouble. She turned to Robert, a dark-haired little boy who was a six-year-old version of his father. His chin was downcast, and he refused to look at her. She closed her eyes briefly on a shaft of agony as she realized that under different circumstances this sturdy little boy could have been her own. But when she looked at him again, his shyness eased her distress and she knew only a need to put him at ease.

She stepped up to him and held out her hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, Robert.”

He blushed, shifted his feet, and peered at his father. When John nodded, he gingerly clasped Katrina’s hand, then dropped it as if she’d burned him.

“Wash up, then set, children,” John said briskly, sitting again.

When all were seated and the broth and pasties had been passed around, John cleared his throat. “This is Mess Lawson. She’ll be staayin’ here for a time. She’ll be leamin’ you to read and such.” When Jimmy and Ellie groaned, he looked at them sharply. ‘ ‘I want you to paay close attention. Ef you ever wants to be more than a miner or a miner’s wife, then you must learn.”

“But Da, I don’t want to be more than a miner’s wife—”

“Enou’, Ellie. I’ll not have your sass at table. For the last time Jack Hennessy esn’t fittin’ for my girl, troublemaker that he es—”

“He’s not a troublemaker. You know how the workers all look up to him—”

“A drunk braggart es not an example the more sensible of my men admire.” A stem look from him silenced the words
Katrina could see trembling on her tongue. She took a bite of pasty so hard that Katrina heard her teeth snap together.

Jimmy, on the other hand, was less direct. When his father’s grim stare settled upon him, he spread his hands innocently. “Whatever you say. Da.” He sliced a wicked look at Katrina. “Studyin’ with her esn’t no hardshep.”

His father’s lips twitched as he, too, peered at Katrina, who had flushed. It was left to Rachel to impose order. “Jimmy, ef ’ee bedevel the girl, ’ee’ll answer to me.” When he shot her a wide-eyed look, she pushed back her empty bowl and folded her arms over her impressive bosom. “And for that piece of insolence,
you
clear the table.”

Jimmy scowled. “That’s woman’s work.”