Read Online Smugglers' Summer by Carola Dunn - Free Book Online Page B

and I’ll wager it has a nest nearby.”
    Octavia held her breath. After another moment of close scrutiny, the wren decided they were harmless. It flew up into the thatch atop the arbour, returned a moment later with emptied beak, and darted off in search of further prey.
    Letting her breath out in a sigh, Octavia said simply, “I like the country."
    “Just wait until it rains, and there is mud everywhere.”
    “A very good excuse for staying home with a book!”
    “I must show you the bookroom up at the house. Miss Gray, you are in your cousin’s confidence, I think. Tell me, have I any hope of winning her?”
    Startled, she looked at him. His gaze was fixed on his clasped hands and his cheeks were flushed.
    “I—I hardly like to say, sir. I have known you such a short time. To be giving you advice seems scarcely proper, even if I knew the answer.”
    He turned to her. “A short time! Yet I feel as if we have been friends forever. You may say what you think without fear of offending. How should I hold you responsible for Julia’s coldness! What am I to do?”
    “Do not despair, I beg of you. Only let me observe her behaviour to you before I venture to say anything more.” She wondered if he knew he had a rival.
    “Forgive me. I do not mean to oppress you with my demands. I fear I have spoiled your morning.”
    “Oh, no. I have enjoyed it immensely. And I will help you, if I can, but give me time. I must go now. My aunt must be wondering where I am.”
    “Of course.” He rose at once.
    To her relief he did not begin a catalogue of Julia’s virtues, another point in his favour against Mr Wynn. Instead, he showed her the little well, with its moss-grown lintel, which sheltered the cold, clear, bluish spring that fed the streamlet and pond.
    “When we were boys,” he said, “we used to throw in pennies and make a wish. I do not remember whether any of them came true.” He sighed, and they went on in silence through the tunnel and into the house.
    Crossing the Great Hall, they met a tall, slim, dignified woman with greying hair, whose dress proclaimed her an upper servant. Sir Tristram introduced her as Mrs Pengarth. Her curtsey was as stately as that of a dowager meeting a queen.
    Octavia looked with interest at the housekeeper. It was difficult to imagine the lively Red Jack wooing this respectable matron, though she thought they might suit very well if the smuggler ever decided to settle down.
    “Her ladyship and Miss Langston are in the drawing room,” said Mrs Pengarth in response to the baronet’s query. “You know the way, sir.”
    As they negotiated stairs and landings, which seemed to crop up in the oddest places, Sir Tristram explained that the housekeeper was in sole charge of the house for many months of the year. The earl was rarely there, and though he had an agent to look after the estate and gardens he did not consider it necessary to employ a butler or steward especially for Cotehele.
    “No wonder my aunt brought Raeburn, then,” said Octavia. “I cannot conceive how she would go on without a butler. With Raeburn and her dresser here she must feel completely at home, and without the fatigue of having to welcome callers or pay visits. Poor Julia is the only one to feel the lack of society!”
     

Chapter 7
     
    The entrance to the drawing room was a strange sort of interior porch of carved wood. Beyond it was a light, airy room, comprising the entire second storey of the tower of which the top floor was the girls’ chambers. The inevitable tapestries, faded to a yellowish grey, depicted the History of Man, perhaps a more edifying tale than that of Hero and Leander, or the Trojan Wars in Octavia’s own room.
    Lady Langston reclined upon a carved ebony settee, apparently exhausted from the effort of rising from her bed. An embroidery frame lay in her ample lap, but the needle sticking into it was unthreaded.
    Julia knelt on a seat in an alcove in the far wall, gazing listlessly out of a