Cottage by the Sea (32 page)

   "And if I tell Kit on my wedding night that 'tis your get in my belly," she said in a low voice, "then where will you be?"

   "I expect I shall be in a great deal of hot water with everyone, regardless of which course I take," Ennis replied. He smiled faintly and took her by the hand. "Blythe, you should know that I intend to develop a sudden indisposition later today and will not be present at the nuptials. Though you may not believe it, 'twould be too painful for me to lose you to Kit in front of so many witnesses. Garrett and I sail Friday for France. I roused myself at this ungodly hour to bid you adieu."

   And before Blythe could counter his determined refusal to carry out their planned escape, Ennis turned on his heel and strode through the walled garden toward the arched wooden gate.

   Numbed by shock and disappointment, Blythe found herself staring at his retreating back. Ennis took the right turning and headed in the direction of their favorite wooded glen. Most likely he had tethered his horse beside a stream that meandered toward Hemmick Beach. She pictured him slowly riding down the shaded footpath toward Trevelyan House and, within the week, boarding a ship in Plymouth, perhaps never to return.

   "Ennis!" she whispered. "Ennis… no! Wait!"

   She was gasping for breath by the time she caught up with him in the glen. He turned around at the sound of her

approaching footsteps, his hands on his horse's reins.

"Go back, Blythe!" he commanded gruffly.

"Please… please," she sobbed. "Don't go like this…"

   She threw her arms around him, mortified that she should mewl like a lost kitten, but she couldn't seem to stifle the tears that were now streaming down her face.

   "Oh, Blythie… Blythie…" he said, comforting her as if she were more friend than lover. "Life has a habit of proceeding, day by day. You and Kit will find a way to—"

   "Whatever you do, please don't speak of Kit," she cried brokenly. "Just hold me… please, Ennis… I—"

   And then she kissed him and she knew, as a woman knows, that he would not resist her silent plea to make love to her one last time.

   "The grass is damp with dew…" Ennis murmured.

   "Fortunately," Blythe breathed into his ear, "you've worn your cloak."

   Then she sank to her knees and began to unfasten the buttons at his waist. A few moments later, when Ennis had reclined on his cape, she smiled at her lover with a look infused with passion and pride as she lowered herself, fully clothed, astride his naked thighs.

The small gold watch retrieved from the pocket of Ennis's crumpled breeches declared the time to be nearly nine o'clock. The sun was now slanting through the trees, casting a beam of light across the swath of grass where Ennis and Blythe lay beside the stream.

   "Blythe, you are a witch, you know," Ennis groaned, replacing the timepiece in his trousers.

   "Now do you see how much you mean to me?" Blythe whispered into his ear. "I'm to have your baby. Ennis… how can you leave me behind?"

   Ennis gently disentangled himself and stood up.

   "You are not only a witch, but a grand schemer," he said wryly.

   Reaching for an edge of his wool cloak, he draped it over her reclining figure to ward off the stiff breeze that had suddenly swept up the glen from the shore. Then he glanced down at his own midsection. Blythe, too, was staring in his direction with a stricken look on her face.

   "Either I have pierced your maidenhead twice, dear heart," he said softly, "or your courses have come at last."

   Blythe closed her eyes and shook her head. "Damn!" she whispered, unable to ignore the cause of the dull, cramping sensation she had felt in her abdomen since late yesterday.

   Meanwhile, Ennis knelt beside the stream and washed. Then he swiftly donned his breeches and shirt.

   "Well, at least you shall have a valid excuse to avoid the marriage bed this night," he said gently. She allowed him to pull her to her feet. Then he turned his back to permit his horse free rein to drink, thus offering Blythe a decent interval in which to restore her underclothes.

   "'Tis
my
inheritance!" Blythe said softly as she fumbled for the ties to her cotton drawers. "Pray tell me, why am I not allowed to share it with the man I love?" she demanded.

   "Because…" Ennis shook his head in frustration, either with the tangled rein he was attempting to straighten, or due to the painful situation he faced.

   "Because blood is thicker than water, is that it?" Blythe interrupted miserably. She smoothed the red skirt over her white petticoats and yanked on the waist of her matching jacket. Then she struggled to close the frog fastenings that

cinched her tailored bodice.

   "No… that's not it, exactly," Ennis replied moodily. Then he chucked her lightly beneath her chin. "Blythe, I'm sorry… truly, I am." He retrieved his cuffed coat. "'Twas folly to have given in to lust just now. It doesn't alter what confronts us."

   "And that is, that you're fond of me, as you say, but your greater passion is painting? That you can still go to Italy and study with the masters whether you marry me or not, isn't that right?" she said sharply, slipping on each buckled black shoe in turn. "Your father has promised you and Garrett the trip, just as soon as Kit and I are wed—isn't that so? A journey that might prove more amusing without the company of a wife?"

   "Yes," Ennis replied frankly. He seized her hand in his. "Look, Blythie, darling… I'm not the romantic champion you would have me be. I long to see the world… to be free to explore sights I have never seen. 'Tis difficult to explain, but I am driven to experience things I cannot even imagine—"

   "So am I!" Blythe protested, staring up at him as her eyes filled with tears.

   "But you are a woman, and betrothed to Kit Trevelyan," he repeated impatiently.

   "I've always said—as often as you—that I'd adore to go to Venice!" she exclaimed hotly. "I'd watch you paint. I could even be of help! And that portmanteau of Barton family silver would be useful, wouldn't it?" she added pointedly. "Surely you agree with that! Oh, Ennis, I'd risk your father's wrath! I'd risk anything to be with you! Why won't you do this—to be with me?"

   "This was never part of my plan…" Ennis began, and then halted, aware that he had revealed in that brief sentence the overriding reason he had decided that he couldn't go through with Blythe's scheme.

   "But what about
our
plan?" she said with her jaw clenched as she struggled to maintain her composure. "What about those dreams we had as children, sitting on Dodman Point? Or was it always your intention to play the rakehell… the roguish debauchee on a young buck's trip abroad? You were pleased enough to sketch the contours of my form and take your pleasures in the wooded copse—"

   "And you were more than willing to hazard your virginity, and you know it, Blythe!" Ennis retorted. "Please spare us any accusations of a maidenhood plundered against your will."

   "I hazarded it all, and now I have to accept my losses like a man, is that it?"

   "Yes, I suppose it is…" Ennis replied softly. Then he smiled almost sadly. "One last thing. And 'tis important, so I hope you will listen carefully. I am not in the least fashioned to be the doting father. I am an artist!"

   He said it proudly, almost arrogantly, she thought, as if such a declaration absolved him of life's more mundane obligations.

   "That's all I've ever wanted you to be!" she cried with frustration.

   "In view that you are not to be burdened with my child," Ennis continued while ignoring her protestations, "perhaps you should count your blessings. I'm sorry, Blythe. If I love anyone, I love you, but I think 'tis best all around the way that things have sorted themselves out—even for you, although I know you can't see that now."

   Ennis slipped his booted foot into the stirrup and hoisted himself aboard his horse. And without a backward glance he cantered down the grassy path, now swathed in green shadows and the rustling noises of a new day.

"I heard and saw everything," Garrett said from the shadows as Blythe entered the walled garden through the wooden gate.

   She gave a little gasp and whirled around to see Garrett looking pale beneath his bronzed countenance. For a long moment she stared at him in stony silence.

   "Did you see everything?" she inquired icily. "Including the moment Ennis mounted his steed and rode away, or merely when I mounted
him
?"

   "I… I heard him say you are not with child by him. Then I came here to wait for you."

   "The sight of blood makes you faint, does it?" Blythe said bitterly, stalking toward the door to the servants' entrance.

   "Blythe!" Garrett called after her, following in her wake.

   She turned on her heel to face him, her cheeks scarlet with embarrassment and hurt. "I thought you were my friend, Garrett Teague… not some prurient spy!" she cried. "If you saw me with Ennis just now, then you know how much I wanted him! And you know how much I hate that I'm to be married to his brother this day!"

   "I know," Garrett said in a low voice, roughened by all the things she knew, now, he had witnessed. "I'm only here because I was ordered by my father and your guardian to meet at nine o'clock. Uncle Collis is determined that you arrive at St Goran's on time. I feared that he would see you run to Ennis, so I followed you."

   "And you remained for the bawdy spectacle, did you?"

   "I—" Garrett began, and then shook his head and inhaled deeply, glancing at the clouds scudding overhead. "Why can't you see he's not worth—" Then he lowered his gaze and met Blythe's furious glare.

   "I shall go inside now," Blythe said faintly, emphasizing each word, "and I haven't the slightest notion of what I shall do next, other than to order those snooping maids to haul hot water upstairs for a bath."

   "And afterward, will you come with me?" Garrett proposed softly.

   "With you?" she asked, startled. "Where?"

   "I found your portmanteau where you'd abandoned it, near the secret entrance over there. I've hidden it in the stables. The silver's enough to buy us both passage to America."

   "Are you serious?" Blythe said, incredulous. "You'd leave Cornwall?"

   "With you? Yes, I would."

   "After what you've just…?" she continued uncertainly. "Why would you be willing to give up everything and leave—"

   "Everything?" Garrett interrupted bitterly. "In England I have nothing but a dusty old bookshop and a bachelor's life ahead of me. I heard you tell Ennis you'd risk it all for him. Well, I'll risk what little I have as well. You, Blythe Barton, are all I want."

   "Garrett, you know that I—"

   Blythe suddenly felt utterly defeated and so exhausted, she thought she would drop where she stood. Her body ached. She was sore all over. And she needed to do something about her bloody courses.

   She looked helplessly at her errant knight, wishing to find the words to thank him for his reckless kindness, when Collis Trevelyan suddenly stalked through the wooden gate.

   "God's wounds! What is she doing out here?" her guardian thundered. He glared at Garrett accusingly. "One thing I asked of you, rapscallion!" he bellowed. "One thing, and in return, I told your father I would pay for you to accompany Ennis abroad: make certain the mother of this baggage roused her daughter and dressed her in her wedding frippery before

breakfast. And look at her!"

   He peered nearsightedly at Blythe. Her dark-brown hair hung in clumps down her back, and her dress was soiled and damp.

   "Inside, chit!" Collis commanded, and pointed toward the castle's kitchen door. "And be quick about it!"

Faint rays of morning sunshine slanted through the graceful windows and stone arches of St. Goran's as the door at the back of the church opened and the bride appeared. Blythe was flanked—indeed, guarded—by Collis Trevelyan and Garrett's father, Donald Teague, who escorted her to the front of the nave where a handful of witnesses and the groom waited uneasily.

   The walls and tower of the fifteenth-century church where the marriage of Christopher Trevelyan and Blythe Barton would take place this October day were made of Pentawan stone quarried north of the village three hundred years earlier.

   Reverend Randolph Kent peered anxiously down the aisle as the joyless procession approached the stone altar. Standing to the cleric's left was Kit Trevelyan, appearing as nervous as the vicar of St. Goran. Rivulets of sweat carved narrow channels in the thick mask of face powder he'd applied to his skin in an attempt to disguise the heavy scars that marred his countenance.

   For years Blythe had heard it whispered that Reverend Kent had bowed to Collis Trevelyan's demands in allowing the church graveyard to serve as a haven for smuggled goods. Blythe assumed that the churchman rationalized this transgression of the law with the knowledge that "Free Trade" benefited a majority of the impoverished members of his village parish. This business, however… this forcing her to marry Trevelyan's son, obviously against her will, benefited only her guardian. A man of the cloth should have the moral rectitude to put a stop to it.

   But Blythe knew that the Reverend Randolph Kent dared not protest. Collis Trevelyan could quietly see to it that the customs men learned of certain activities that had transpired on moonless nights in St. Goran's graveyard, and who could gainsay such a prosperous local landowner or make any counteraccusations stick?