Slowing Crusader to a walk as the first cottages neared, he considered what he could do, what ammunition he had. He could bring in the heavy artillery and recruit her brothers…or unleash his sisters, Sybil and even Muriel; he was sure they’d all be happy to fight for his cause.
If she proved obdurate, and he got seriously desperate, such actions were an option. However…he grimaced; trying to understand women in general was hard enough, but trying to understand her…
Instinct was all he had to guide him, and that urged him to give her at least a little time-time enough to see and accept his constancy, that he was determined, had been from the first and wasn’t about to lose interest and change his mind, much less draw back. For someone of her character, her particular traits, convincing her of that would be half his battle-and something he would need to achieve on his own.
How?
Visions of stocking the boathouse with flowers, of arranging to have a rose on her pillow every night, of learning what she most craved-new novels, the latest music sheets, what else?-and getting those things for her, all the usual things a gentleman might do to assure a lady of his affection, danced through his mind, but none of those actions would work, not with her.
They might even make her suspicious of him and his motives.
In the battlefield terms with which he was most familiar, he needed to make his point more forcefully, not simply nip at her cavalry’s heels. He needed some more powerful and definite way to make a statement.
Cobbles rang beneath Crusader’s hooves as the town closed around them. Setting aside his mental quest for some suitably dramatic action, Gervase straightened in the saddle and refocused his mind on his immediate objective.
He knew the town well, and many there knew him. Passing the town hall, he turned down Market Street and headed for Custom Quay. His first port of call would be the harbormaster’s office.
The early afternoon found Madeline in the arbor, sitting on one side bench studying the daisy she held in her fingers. She was tempted to try the “he loves me, he loves me not” test-it seemed as likely to yield an answer as any of the other approaches she’d thought of; despite her earlier efforts to clear her mind, she’d accomplished very little that day.
Sighing, she sat back and surrendered-gave her mind up to the topic that despite her best efforts had dominated her thoughts. Perhaps examining the pros and cons of marrying Gervase might shed some light.
The benefits were easy to enumerate-being the countess of a wealthy earl was nothing to sneeze at, being the mistress of his castle, the social position, the local status, even being closer to his family-his sisters and Sybil-all those elements spoke to her, attracted her.
And when it came to her brothers, he was the only man she’d ever met whom she trusted-had instinctively trusted from the first-to guide and steer them in the ways she couldn’t. To understand them as she did, and join with her in protecting them as needed.
Lots of benefits. But she could see the difficulties, too. They were harder to put into words, but were nonetheless real. Most derived from the fact she’d initially identified, one he hadn’t attempted to deny. They were very alike. Both were accustomed to being in control of their world, and largely in command of it.
If, for each of them, the other became a major part of their world…what then? Both of them had managed largely alone for all their adult lives. Finding the ways to share command at their respective ages-to accommodate another as strong as they themselves were-would not be an easy task.
That was one point where they might stumble. She knew herself too well to imagine she would ever be the sort of female to retreat from a path she was sincerely convinced was right. Regardless of any potential danger to herself…and therein lay the seed for serious discord. Because she knew how he would react. Just as she would if their places were reversed.
He was a warrior, a being raised to protect and defend-but so was she.
That brand of strength, of commitment, ran in his blood, and in hers. It was what had had him risking his life in France for over a decade, what had had her without a blink sacrificing the life most young ladies yearned for to care for and protect her brothers.
He was what he was, and she was who she was, and neither of them could change those fundamental traits. Which raised the vital question: Could they, somehow, find a way to rub along side by side, to live together without constantly abrading each other’s instincts, each other’s pride?
Heaving a long sigh, she gazed at the house, peacefully basking in the sun. Rather than finding answers, the more she thought about marrying Gervase, she only threw up more questions.
Worse, crucial but close-to-impossible-to-answer questions.
Inwardly shaking her head, she rose; still entirely planless and clueless, she started back to the house.
The sun was well past its zenith when Gervase led Crusader off the Helford ferry, swung up to the gray’s back, and set him cantering out of the village south along the road to Coverack and Treleaver Park beyond.
He’d left Falmouth an hour ago having satisfactorily fulfilled his reasons for going there. After the harbormaster’s office, he’d talked to a number of the officers from the revenue cutters bobbing in the harbor, then had ridden on to Pendennis Castle to check with his naval contacts there.
No official had heard so much as a whisper of any ship lost in the last month. No records, no complaints, nothing.
Quitting the castle, he’d ridden back into the town to the dockside taverns to seek the unofficial version. But that, too, had been the same. So if the brooch Madeline’s brothers had found did hail from a recent wreck-one for which someone around might harbor an interest in the cargo-then that wreck had to be some smugglers’ vessel, moreover, one not local.
He was inclining to the belief that the brooch must have come from some wreck of long ago.
That belief had been reinforced by a chance meeting and subsequent discussion with Charles St. Austell, Earl of Lostwithiel, and his wife, Penny; Gervase had stumbled upon Charles in one of the less reputable taverns. His erstwhile comrade-in-arms had been doing much the same as he, keeping up acquaintance with the local sailors he’d developed as contacts over the years.
Charles had been delighted to lay eyes on him. Gervase had found his own mood lifting as they’d shaken hands and clapped each other’s backs. They’d sat down to share a pint, then Charles had hauled him off to the best inn in Falmouth, there to meet Penny.
And Charles’s two hounds. The wolfhounds had inspected him closely before uttering doggy humphs and retreating to slump beside the hearth, allowing him to approach their master’s wife.
Gervase had been impressed; he was seriously considering getting Madeline a similar pair of guardians. Despite Charles’s excuse that he’d brought the hounds to be company for Penny, it was plain-at least to Gervase, and he suspected Penny-that Charles felt much more comfortable having the hounds to guard his wife while he went trawling through the dockside taps.
Thinking of how his and Madeline’s life would be once she moved to the castle-especially if and when any children came along-although he had no intention of leaving her side for any length of time, having two such large and loyal beasts to guard her while he rode out around the estate…he could appreciate Charles’s thinking.
He clattered through Coverack and turned for Treleaver Park. The mystery of the brooch still nagged at him, but when he’d told them the story, Charles and Penny, both of whom, like him, had long experience with local smuggling gangs, had inclined to the same conclusion as he. The brooch was most likely from some ancient wreck.
Indeed, as Penny had pointed out, echoing his own thoughts, it was hard to imagine why smugglers would have been ferrying such a cargo.
Yet that nagging itch between his shoulders persisted. He’d decided to get Harry, Edmond and Ben to show him where they’d uncovered their find, just in case the precise location suggested anything else-any other possibility.
The Treleaver Park gates were perennially set wide; he trotted through and up the drive. The westering sun was lowering over the peninsula when he drew rein in the forecourt.
Dismounting, he waited, then running footsteps heralded a stablelad, who came pelting around the corner to take his reins.
“Sorry, m’lord.” The youth bobbed his head and grasped the reins. “But there’s a right to-do indoors. We was distracted.”
