To Wed A Rebel (24 page)

“We will not be returning to Trewince,” he told his cousin.

“She said you would say that.” There was no real caring in Jemima’s voice, only dourness, for she was a messenger with no real ties to the conversation, nor concern as to which way it went. “Therefore, she also told me to offer a reminder of the ball that’s approaching. It is to be held in the town’s assembly rooms at the end of next week. You are instructed to go, with the usual threats about cutting your money if you don’t. I forget the details; I stopped listening part way through.”

“A reminder? I was never informed of it in the first place.” Isaac was struggling to keep himself in check and it showed. “Were last night’s frivolities not enough to keep her happy?”

Ruth’s mouth hardened at the belligerent tone Isaac took, at the way he seemed to regress back to that callous, wounded creature she only saw glimpses of. His family, their situation, all the games they played took their toll. Yes, he was a better man than she had thought him to be, but he was still broken. Had she trusted him to soon?
No.
If the man’s family would not have faith in him, she would. Someone had to.

“Not when you both left them early.” Jemima turned sharply to the other woman and motioned to the empty seat beside her. “I am to take Ruth into town to find her a new dress.”

Just like that, suddenly, she existed. Ruth crossed her arms over her chest. Both Isaac and Jemima were looking at her expectantly, as though she were about to wade in with her own arguments.

Instead, Ruth blinked slowly, unwilling to descend into bickering. She may be a Roscoe now, but not in blood. “We are to leave for Falmouth now?”

“Apparently you cannot wear the dress you wore last night,” offered Jemima in way of explanation, though she did not seem to understand the need for such expense either. “Women in our position need to be seen to have a lot of dresses, so I am told.”

“And you would be qualified to help her in that respect?” asked Isaac, a biting remark.

“No,” said Jemima simply. “But as I am all she has, I will do what must be done.”

“I would not want to be an inconvenience,” said Ruth, having had little communication with Jemima. They had rarely been alone, only caught in drawing rooms together between excuses to leave. All they’d shared were comfortable silences – and a few uncomfortable ones, for Lady Mawes was a fine architect when it came to stilted, awkward and brutal quips.

“I am afraid it is too late for that, but the sooner we get there, the sooner we can leave.” A pained noise followed. “It is a long journey for one unused to it. We will stop and eat on the way there, if we must.”

Ruth had no choice and could do nothing but agree. Isaac, whose temper was barely kept in check, gave her a meaningful look she could not read. He was there by her side, assisting her into the carriage. His hand lingered on hers after he helped her up. Of all the situations forced on her, of all the choices taken away, last night she had chosen him. She was glad she did.

“Be careful,” he told her.

“I am not the one who needs to be careful,” said Ruth, seeing soft confusion line his forehead. “That temper is going to get you into trouble one day and I will not be able to steer you from it.”

“I know, but I don’t like being backed into a corner.”

“And I don’t like who you are when you’re there,” she said, before Jemima grew tired of waiting, instructed the horses to move on, and their talk was abruptly ended.

As the carriage trundled onwards, Ruth felt Isaac’s eyes on her. When she sought out his shape on the path behind, he was stood there, watching, as if waiting for her look back.

***

It wasn’t borrowed, it wasn’t old, it was new – and it was hers. Or it would be, when she chose it. There was not the time to have a garment specially created before next week, but the seamstress in town had a few existing dresses that would fit Ruth, with only a few adjustments needed and little else. The fine materials ran like water under her fingertips. Jemima’s advice had been practical, though she’d kept her distance and been hesitant to sway Ruth’s opinions.

“It’s up to you,” she had said. A responsibility Ruth was grateful, if not ready, for. The woman vanished for a few minutes, returning with two parcels under her arm and an even more stilted expression. Jemima held one parcel out to Ruth as though she was glad to be rid of it. The latter knew, the moment the mystery object was in her grasp, that it was a book. It had that familiar weight, shape, feel – like going home.

Tentatively and not a little shy, Ruth undid its fastenings.
Cornish Wildflowers.

“I saw you studying them in the grounds at Trewince,” said Jemima by way of explanation. “I was picking up a volume for myself and I thought you might like it.”

“Thank you,” said Ruth genuinely, already flicking through the pages, drinking in the illustrations, smiling softly at any she found familiar.

“We do not have many specimens at the house; Colin doesn’t like anything like that.”

“Anything that grows where it wants?”

“My brother likes control, for he doesn’t have it much, at least not over his health,” said Jemima, casting her untrained eye over the three dresses Ruth had still to choose from. “This way he takes charge of his environment, everything in it, every weed, every flower, every rock, and it soothes him.”

“I understand,” said Ruth. And she did in some respects, for she knew the benefits that tidiness could bring to the mind. But she could never think to force that rigidness onto nature, for it had its own structure, patterns, life. “Is that why he doesn’t like Isaac?”

“That’s one reason, I suppose,” said Jemima. “Isaac is unpredictable and Colin doesn’t like what is unpredictable. He never has, not even when he was a baby.” A brief pause and she added, “I think you are good for Isaac, as does Colin and Lady Mawes.”

“Do I make him more predictable?”

Jemima wrinkled her long nose, which appeared to be her version of showing amusement. “If anything, he is even more unpredictable than before, but he is happier with you.”

“I am happier with him,” confessed Ruth, the knowledge new to her as well. “I never thought I would be, but I am.”

Ruth’s tentative hand revisited the sleeves of one dress. A simple, elegant design far more beautiful than anything Lottie had ever deigned to give her. She tried not to think on her former friend, for a dulled anger remained rooted in her chest whenever she did. But it was hard to remember to forget all the time.

“I like the blue. It would suit you. It’s like that flower,” said Jemima, taking the book back from Ruth to show her a certain page. She gently eased the spine open on one illustration, her sardonic air abandoned. “It’s forget-me-not blue.”

“I like forget-me-nots.”

“I do too.”

***

The two women did not escape town so easily. The man Ruth had danced with at the ball the night before almost pounced on her. Mr Peter Marshall, a stringy young man, claimed he was in Falmouth discussing the planned entertainments for the harvest festival at the end of the month.

“It is a little too pagan for my tastes; however, it is a tradition that must be respected,” he said, beaming brightly, bordering a little on the over-friendly. “Do tell me you will both be going?”

“Why bother when it will be the same as last year?” asked Jemima. “It’s bad enough that we’ve yet another ball to attend at the assembly rooms this coming Saturday, let alone a festival not long after that as well.”

“The Navy chaps will be there this time. The harbour is packed with them,” said Marshall. “They will liven it up a little, or rather a lot. They always do.”

Ruth had seen their white sails, like square clouds, as she passed an old fortification on the hill. Around them the sea seemed too blue, as though it belonged to another land, far off and distant, stolen from the spice trail routes and draped over the Cornish coast. Even on a cloudy September day like today, the ocean was made from sapphires.

“Although,” added the clergyman in a lower voice. “No one likes those new London fellows much. They’re not from the cutter fleets, they’re here on dry business: a runaway.”

Ruth grew pale, as though the withered earth had reached up to sate itself and pulled all the water from her body. “A runaway?”

“Yes, a Darwick, Stephen or William Darwick, or was it Dawson?”

She need not ask him to continue, for he was happy to have an audience. At first Ruth had been worried that Marshall was enamoured with her, but it was purely their closeness in age that made him so familiar. Ruth could have been a woman with any disposition; it was her new face that brought him to her, for she was someone fresh to gossip with.

“A mutineer, terrible business – I do not like to think on what will happen if they catch him.”

“They will kill him,” said Jemima blankly. “It’s the law.”

“Surely not? It’s horrible! Not here and so close to the festival?” Marshall shivered to himself, easily letting his practised faith slip in favour of the old traditions he had been brought up to respect. “That will be such bad luck for the next year’s crops.”

“Superstition,” said Jemima, her hand on Ruth’s arm. “We shall see you at the assembly later next week, I presume?”

“Naturally,” said Marshall, as though the prospect of not attending the ball – or any ball – was horribly insulting. “I will have you up and dancing one day, Miss Roscoe; you are lying when you say you can’t.”

He begged a dance from Ruth as well, before they said their goodbyes. Ruth could recall little of what she had said or agreed to, her mind on the Navy men from London, the ones who had tracked William here. How much did they know?
Enough to bring them to the town.

Men could be bought easily. Loyalty was fickle. There would surely be those eager to suggest a connection between the runaway and her husband. They had a history together, had served together, and when they found William, Isaac would be implicated as well…

Ruth’s grip tightened on Jemima’s arm. “How fast can we get back?”

Jemima’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “I shall have you at the farmhouse well before nightfall.”

“Please,” begged Ruth. “Make it sooner.”

Chapter Four

Isaac

Isaac knew that Ruth would not approve. The trip into Falmouth, as much as he hated relinquishing her to his family, had come at a good time. Now he could leave before she arrived, in the first stirring of dusk, with the sky taking on a muddy hue. It would be a black night.

The fight was to take place further along the same shoreline as before, to ensure that neither boxer would know the terrain and its slopes and its rocky dangers.

The Navy boys had come out to watch and it was one of their lot Isaac was to fight. A strong, bronzed man with a thick Yorkshire accent, named Watts. The kind of man who had been press-ganged into the Navy as a boy and had survived for this long: a lucky bastard. And luck couldn’t go both ways. Isaac had been one of them once and they knew it, envied it, hated him for being free of it.

Once again, torches were lit and lines drawn in the sand. Isaac pulled his shirt off and removed his boots. Cracked shells were sharp against his soles, the sand cold, having already lost the day’s heat. It had been William who had shown him how to box all those years ago, his own late father an instructor in the city. Isaac had been young back then and eager to escape his family. He’d bought a commission and thought life would be better at sea – hard work, but less frustrating.

He was wrong.

Although he had escaped the family home and all its pressures and restraints, the laws aboard a ship were far more severe – and based on one tyrannical man’s whims. It had been a cruel life – living, breathing, serving under a captain more sea monster than man, who enjoyed seeing his crew suffer. Isaac and William had got through it together, until it all became too much for the other man, until he’d broken the code, spoke against his superior and was condemned as a mutineer. Now, William was on another beach – safe and recovering – but what Isaac would’ve done to have him here. A friend at his side, a man who wouldn’t let him rot in the brine if the worst happened. Who’d give him a good send-off and look after Ruth.

During other fights, when Isaac had removed his shirt, there had been a few comments. No one cared much for the lash marks; no one really knew what they meant. Here, with this lot, the scars were noticed. A ripple went through the Navy lads, quick talk, a new interest. If Isaac could survive a flogging like that, maybe he’d survive this.

Money, think on the money, think on what it’ll mean
.

But if he was to inherit Trewince Manor, he wouldn’t need it. He wouldn’t want for anything, he wouldn’t – no, he’d still fight.

Sometimes it was good to hurt.

The bruises, the battering, the brunt force – it all offered clarity. It tapped into that baser, rougher, primitive urge to survive. He’d fight because he was good at it. It’s all he had…or it had been, before Ruth.

Watts cracked his knuckles and shook out his wrists. On his face was a grin meant only to scare, a fake offering that didn’t convince Isaac one bit.

The tide was coming in, a cold chill with heavy foam. The torches blurred in Isaac’s vision as he and his opponent circled one another. Whenever he blinked, he could still see the fire against his eyelids – and other specks, weird blocks, swaying on the ledge above. Too low, too bright, too mobile to be stars. And the cloud cover was too thick to permit the heavens to gaze upon them on this night.

Watts swung. Isaac jerked back, tripping in the sand. There was no time to recover, to question, for Watts was after him again, all fists and fury, until Isaac got the better of him, rammed him, head ploughing into his stomach. It was a wretched move and they both went down, with Watts gripping onto Isaac’s ears.

“The lights,” he snarled, but Watts didn’t slacken his grip. “There are others coming.”

Watts thought it was a trick – and it could have been, but something in Isaac’s tone and the way he suddenly stopped fighting told him otherwise. Watts followed Isaac’s gaze and swore.