‘Robert!’ She slipped into the courtyard and beckoned him to follow her out of earshot of the main house.
He did so, his face creased by puzzlement. ‘What is it, Cat – Catherine?’
‘Who are those men, the four who came riding in with Sir Arthur, who are taking dinner with him now?’
Rob regarded her askance. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Am I not allowed to have a little curiosity as to the nature of such important guests as to throw the house into turmoil all morning and have her ladyship running our feet off with a thousand chores?’
He grinned. ‘Running your feet off, eh? And you in your best red dress?’
‘This is by no means my best,’ she lied. ‘Besides, what would you know about such things, Robert Bolitho?’
‘Not a great deal,’ he admitted, colouring somewhat.
‘So, who are they, and why are they here?’ she pressed. ‘I know Sir Richard Robartes has come from Lanhydrock,’ she added quickly, to show off her little knowledge. ‘And of course I recognized Sir Francis. But the other two I did not know.’
‘The older of the two is the politician and courtier Sir John Eliot, come all the way from Port Eliot,’ he said respectfully. ‘He is well known for speaking his mind, even to the King, and holds great sway in London.’
Cat nodded, storing this information away. The touch of London at Kenegie: that was something fine indeed, and that Sir John had ridden the length of the county to see the Master meant that their discussion must be important. ‘And the other?’ she inquired. ‘The gentleman with the red hair and the fine hat?’
‘John Killigrew of Arwenack,’ Robert said, and did not elaborate.
‘The pirate?’ Cat cried excitedly.
‘The Governor of Pendennis Castle,’ Rob corrected her stiffly, though everyone knew that the Killigrews were pirates, thieves and rogues who had climbed high on the social ladder by means of starting halfway up it from a large pile of misappropriated gold. This of course made them heroic figures to many of the Cornish, especially those who still mourned the passing of Queen Bess and the years in which the Crown had so often turned a blind eye to a little nautical initiative.
Cat’s mother had worked three years at Arwenack, close by on the Helford River, and had talked of little else, as if that short time had been for her a golden age, and the intervening twenty years had belonged to some other woman’s life. Far from displaying any shame at working for folk who sailed too close to the wind, Jane Tregenna revelled in the wild tales that surrounded the Killigrews. She had particularly enjoyed telling her daughter, over and again, each time with a little more embroidered detail, the story of Jane Killigrew, wife of the first Sir John, who had ended his days in the Fleet, London’s debtors’ prison. He left his widow with great debts and no way of paying them – until that resolute woman determined to make her fortune with her own hands. When two Dutch galleons, disabled by heavy weather and bearing Spanish gold, were brought into the shelter of Pendennis, Jane Killigrew led her retainers – armed with pikes and swords – and stormed the ships, overpowering the crew, killing the two Spanish factors aboard and making away with several hogsheads of gold. It was the killing of the Spanish grandees that had earned many of those involved a hanging at Launceston; but it was rumoured that Elizabeth herself had intervened on behalf of Lady Killigrew; certainly she had issued a royal pardon, and Jane Killigrew had escaped the gibbet. The current Sir John was her son.
‘Is he the man who has built the lighthouse on the Lizard Point?’ Cat inquired, knowing full well the answer.
‘The same,’ he replied, tight-lipped.
Rob did not approve of Sir John Killigrew, and Cat was minded to twitch his reins. With a gleam in her eye, she said, ‘’Tis surely a most charitable Christian gesture to construct a lighthouse to warn the shipping about the wicked rocks on that black coast.’
Rob snorted. ‘Oh, most charitable. Were it not for the fact that he charges a toll upon each vessel that passes the point.’ Or indeed extinguishes the light when strong south-westerlies and a particularly rich prize look as if they might converge, he thought but did not add.
‘A man of admirable acumen,’ Cat offered, enjoying herself. ‘Perhaps Sir Arthur has thought of raising a lighthouse of his own upon the Mount and seeks his counsel.’
‘I hardly think our master is likely to take to licensed robbery of his neighbours and countrymen,’ Rob returned acidly. ‘He seeks, in quite the opposite manner, to protect us all. He has gathered his allies about him to aid him in making overtures to the Privy Council for funds to furnish the Mount with more guns, and somehow Killigrew has managed to gain royal favour sufficiently to acquire such for Pendennis, though he says it is never enough.’
‘Will the Spanish attack us again?’ Cat asked. ‘Or is it the French he wishes to protect us from?’
‘Or the Turks, or privateers, or the rogue Dutch – there are many enemies who might be attracted by the sight of an unprotected stretch of coast such as this.’
‘But there is nothing here to steal! What are they going to take – our pilchards?’ She leaned towards him, laughing. ‘Or perhaps Nell Chigwine and her mother? How I would love to see them carried off to some Catholic noblewoman’s house – can you imagine their horror at all the terrible papist trappings and Latin Mass?’
‘You should not make mock of others’ religious beliefs, Cat,’ Rob said severely, though a smile was lurking behind his words. ‘It is not very Christian of you.’
‘Truth be told, I often feel like the wicked little pagan she names me,’ Cat told him solemnly.
Horrified, Rob put his hand over her mouth.
‘Unhand that lady, sirrah!’
The cousins sprang apart guiltily. The red-haired man stood there, a long clay pipe in one hand, a leather pouch in the other. He tamped a quantity of the contents of the pouch into the bowl of the pipe and surveyed it with interest while Rob and Cat looked on in silence. Then Rob bowed. ‘I beg pardon, sir. This is my cousin Catherine.’
‘Is she really?’ Sir John Killigrew looked Cat slowly up and down in blatant assessment. ‘And that gives you the right to affront her, does it?’
‘No, sir. But – ’
‘Don’t “but” me, boy!’ Killigrew yelled suddenly. ‘Get out of here and leave the poor girl alone. I shall report your behaviour to Sir Arthur. Now, go!’
Rob glanced back at Cat in case she might speak up for him, but she was carefully studying her feet, for once uncharacteristically quiet. Then he stalked angrily away across the courtyard.
‘Are you all right?’ Sir John asked. ‘He has not hurt you, your… cousin?’
Cat gave him her best smile. ‘Thank you, sir, no, not at all. Rob was merely attempting to teach me some manners.’
‘You seem to me to be a most mannerly young woman, Catherine – Catherine, what? I must know the name of the lady I have rescued.’ He took a step closer and gave her a long, slow grin, fox-like. There were deep crinkles around his bright blue eyes; he was older than she had first thought.
‘Tregenna, sir.’
‘Catherine Tregenna. A pretty name for a pretty girl.’
Cat bit the inside of her cheek to stop the laughter that threatened to escape. ‘Thank you, sir.’
He stowed the pipe away, unsmoked, and took her by the hand. She could feel the hard calluses on his fingers and remembered how they said that as a smuggler he had rowed his own boat. Unwisely, she said as much.
Killigrew roared with laughter. ‘Are you fond of smugglers and thieves, then, Mistress Catherine? Do you dream of wild adventures in your narrow maiden’s bed?’
Cat tried to withdraw her hand. ‘No, sir,’ she answered; but her high colour told another tale.
He grasped it tighter. ‘I do believe our discussions are likely to take longer than expected and that I shall be staying the night at Kenegie,’ he said smoothly. ‘I hope I may have the chance to become better acquainted with you, Catherine Tregenna. Here is a little promissory note for you that I shall make good on later.’ And before she could begin to protest, he caught her to him and pressed his full red mouth upon hers. The fume of wine engulfed her as his tongue tried to force a passage between her lips. Cat squirmed and struggled, to no avail. His right arm imprisoned her, twisting her arms behind her back; his left hand clasped itself around her breast and squeezed hard. No one had ever touched her in such a way before, and for a moment she thought she might faint. She kicked out, but he was wearing sturdy leather boots, and her assault on his ankles had no effect other than to make him clasp her closer still. She felt his laugh rumble through the bones of her chest; her resistance seemed to add savour to the situation.
Salvation came in a most unlikely form.
A harsh voice broke the spell. ‘He carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman riding a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns!’
Nell Chigwine stood at the threshold of the courtyard door, pitcher under her arm, her other hand outstretched, finger pointing in accusation at the sinning pair before her.
Surprised by this bizarre interruption, Sir John Killigrew stepped away from his prey. ‘Away with you, you whey-faced creature! Go share your mad words with the pigs and hens, who will certainly appreciate them more than I!’ And away he strode, without even a glance back at Catherine, who now crumpled to her knees in the courtyard, heedless of the dirt and dust.
But Nell had no interest in the nobleman: all her scorn was directed at Cat. She put the pitcher down, took a pace forward and stood over her, hands on hips, declaiming her words at full volume like one of the tub-thumpers who now so regularly toured the region.
‘The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication.
‘And on her forehead a name was written: “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth.”
‘Shame on you, Catherine Anne Tregenna, in your scarlet dress and your fornicating ways, for thou art truly Babylon!’
‘Whatever is going on here?’
The Mistress of Kenegie stood framed in the doorway, her hands balled into tight white fists. She took in the scene at a glance: John Killigrew striding away towards the stable yard, his pipe in his hand; Catherine in the dust with her hair rumpled and her face as red as her dress; Nell Chigwine a figure of righteous triumph. ‘Such an unholy row,’ she scolded the pair of them, ‘when Sir Arthur is trying to hold a civilized conversation.’
‘Unholy is thy servant,’ Nell sniffed. ‘That dress the temptress wears is enough to provoke the very Devil.’
‘My husband’s guests are not all angels, that is true,’ Margaret Harris said quietly, ‘but I think none of them are quite as bad as all that. You had best speak plainly, Eleanor, and explain to me why you were shrieking so stridently.’
Nell Chigwine’s eyes went as small and black as sloes. ‘I came out to fetch a pitcher of water and found Catherine fornicating with a man, as brazen as you please in full view of all and sundry.’
Cat leaped to her feet. ‘You did no such thing!’ she cried hotly.
‘By all that is sacred,’ Nell returned primly, her hand laid upon her heart, ‘I know what I saw. And all know she would do anything to land herself a rich husband.’ She smiled slyly. ‘Even one who has run himself into debt gaining an unholy divorce.’
‘Go about your duties, Eleanor,’ Lady Harris said sharply, ‘and speak of this to no one. If any gossip of what has passed here reaches my ears, I shall know immediately whence it came.’
Nell shot Cat a malicious parting glance, took up the pitcher, carried it to the pump, filled it with insolent slowness and stalked back into the house. No one said a word in the two long minutes this took.
When the door was firmly shut behind her, Margaret Harris turned back, pale and drawn. ‘I shall not ask you exactly what passed here, Catherine. But what I will say is that that man has a very bad reputation.’ Her eyes indicated the retreating back of John Killigrew, his red hair glowing through a cloud of smoke in the next enclosure. ‘For very many reasons it were best you kept out of his way.’
‘I did not invite his attentions, my lady, whatever Nell Chigwine says,’ Cat said in a low voice.
‘You are young, Catherine, and not as worldly-wise as you like to think. Not every gentleman by name is a gentleman by nature; and Killigrew is no gentleman. I can only imagine he does not know your identity – ’
‘I told him my name was Catherine Tregenna.’
Mistress Harris’s eyes glinted. ‘Had you told him Coode, he would have turned on his heel on you and good riddance. Now go back upstairs and change out of that dress. Scarlet has no place in an honest woman’s wardrobe.’
‘It was my mother’s dress,’ Cat said sullenly.
‘I fear that is no great surprise to me. It may not be fair that the sins of the parent be visited on the child, but in your mother’s case personal sin was added to original sin, and it weighs heavily upon you, Catherine, though you know it not. For your own best sake I tell you now that there are men with no title, no estate and no riches who are worth a hundred of men like John Killigrew. Your cousin Robert is one, and you should look to him while you may, before your reputation is sullied beyond repair.’
Cat had little time to think on this strange speech; after supper that night, Polly the footmaid came to fetch Cat from her room. Her eyes were as big as saucers; her nose red from sneezing. ‘My lady says you are to come at once to her sitting room. Sir Arthur is there too; he has left his guests.’
But when Cat presented herself in the little low-beamed room the lady of the house used as her own, she found not only Lady Harris and her husband present, but Robert too in his best doublet, with his wild blond hair slicked down. He would not meet her eye when she gazed upon him, questioning.
Ten minutes later she was out again in the long dark corridor, trembling in outrage and with Sir Arthur’s words ringing in her ears.
‘We will call the banns next Sunday. You and Robert shall have the cottage behind the byre. Tomorrow, Matty will start to help you in putting it to rights.’