Page 18 of Hold Me Fast
Obvious, too, was the hostility in those eyes.
Jowan ignored it. “Yes, and Miss Lind was no more than an innocent girl. I hoped to pay my respects to my old friend.”
“Miss Lind was tired, and an associate has taken her home,” said Coombe. “However, you are wasting your time, Trethewey. I can assure you that Miss Lind has no interest in revisiting her girlhood.” His eyes narrowed and he shifted into a threatening stance, setting his shoulders, and leaning forward. “Leave her alone. That is my last word on the subject.”
He turned his body to shut Jowan out, saying to Lord Andrew, “I do not wish to be rude, Winderfield, but I consider it my duty, as Miss Lind’s protector and patron, to keep such annoyances from her. She has moved far beyond past acquaintances such as impoverished baronets from the remote corners of nowhere.”
Jowan didn’t bother to hide his grin at the lame attempt at an insult, and Lord Andrew, seeing his expression, rolled his eyes. “Lord Coombe, I am surprised to hear you insulting my friends under my father’s roof,” he said.
“Perhaps you might give Miss Lind my compliments on her performance,” Jowan said to Coombe’s back. “Drew, thank you for the introduction.”
Bran was waiting within sight, and Lord Andrew walked with Jowan to join him. “I’m sorry that didn’t work out as you hoped,” he said. “Miss Lind is Cornish, is she? I wonder what she really thinks about meeting you again.”
“You think Coombe was lying?” Jowan asked.
“I think he lies as easily as he breathes,” said Lord Andrew. His eyes were alive with questions, but he had no chance to ask them before another of Her Grace’s guests stopped to talk to him about the evening’s cause. “Duty calls,” said Lord Andrew, and left Jowan and Bran to talk.
Jowan told Bran what had happened. “That last song was for me,” he said. “It’s one her Granny used to sing to us both.” But then why, having recognized him and sung to him, did she run off before they could meet?
“She can’t have known you were going to be here,” Bran argued.
That was true, and Jowan had followed Tamsyn and the village choir to enough festivals and competitions to know the next question to ask. “Are the musicians still here?”
They were, having a supper of their own in a little room off the ballroom, and someone soon pointed them to the conductor. “Miss Lind’s last encore,” Jowan asked him after he had introduced himself. “Was that unplanned, as far as you know?”
“It was, as a matter of fact,” said the conductor. “We had the accompaniment for ‘Say, Can You Deny Me’, but at the last minute, she told me she was going to sing something else. I didn’t know the tune. It was Welsh, was it? Sounded a bit like Welsh.”
“Not Welsh,” said the man who had sung the duet with Tamsyn. “Pretty, though.”
“Very pretty,” Jowan agreed. He thanked them for their music and left the conductor with a guinea to share with the others.
“That last one was for you,” Bran conceded.
Before Jowan could comment, Lord Snowden found them. “Ah! There you are. I have a couple of people I want you to meet.” Jowan dropped the topic and did his best to focus instead on the new mine and its benefits to potential investors. Still, at some level, his mind must have continued circling around Tamsyn and the lament.
“Why that song?” he asked Bran as they walked back to the hotel.
“Because she knows you speak Cornish?” his brother suggested.
Jowan shook his head. “She could have chosen any number of Cornish songs, but she picked that one. Is she the maid stolen away by the Bucca Dhu? Is she telling me she is lost forever, Bran?”
Bran shrugged. “Maybe she is asking for rescue? But why didn’t she stay? We need more information, Jowan.”
He didn’t say that Jowan should have questioned Drew, or Snowden and his friends, but he didn’t need to. Jowan knew it, but somehow, he felt too raw. “Lady Snowden has invited us to dinner tomorrow evening—or this evening, I suppose, given the time. Business and pleasure, I gather. In the morning, when we wake up, let’s see the inquiry fellow that Snowden mentioned, and set him on the trail of Father’s solicitor. Then we can call on Coombe again in the afternoon.”
“Perhaps this Wakefield can tell us about Coombe, too,” Bran suggested.
Chapter Seven
The inquiry agenthad his office in a terraced house on the outskirts of Mayfair. Five steps led up from the street to two green doors, one of which had a brass plate that read “Wakefield and Wakefield”.
Bran plied the knocker. The man who opened the door said, “Good morning. Sir Jowan Trethewey and Mr. Hughes? Come on in. I’m Wakefield.”
They followed him into an entrance hall and then through to an office that might at one time have been a parlor. Wakefield waved them in the direction of a couple of chairs and took a seat behind one of two desks in the room. “Your note said that you had been referred by Lord Snowden and that you are hunting for your father’s solicitor. Can you tell me what has happened, in your own words, and what you want me to do for you?”
Jowan and Bran had discussed how best to describe the situation they found themselves in, and why they had allowed four years to pass before pursuing the matter. They had agreed that they should start at the beginning, and so Jowan did.
“My father…” He glanced at Bran and corrected his words. “Our father died when I was still seven months shy of my twentieth birthday, and my brother here had just turned nineteen.”
