A Stranger's Secret Read online

  ACCLAIM FOR LAURIE ALICE EAKES

  “Expertly crafted and filled with mystery and intrigue, Laurie Alice Eakes’s newest book is sure to delight historical romance fans.”

  —SARAH LADD, AUTHOR OF THE WHISPERS ON THE MOORS SERIES

  “Beautiful 19th century Cornwall offers a contemplative setting for this dramatic romance that involves murder, suspense and a surprise villain.”

  —ROMANTIC TIMES 4.5 STAR REVIEW OF A LADY’S HONOR

  “With a fabulous mix of emotionally complex romance, gothic suspense, and characters who will stay in readers’ minds long after the book is finished, A Stranger’s Secret is a compelling, mystery-infused love story that any historical romance lover will enjoy.”

  —DAWN CRANDALL, AUTHOR OF THE HESITANT HEIRESS, THE BOUND HEART AND THE CAPTIVE IMPOSTER

  Also by Laurie Alice Eakes

  The Mountain Midwife

  (available December 2015)

  Cliffs of Cornwall Novels

  A Lady’s Honor

  The Daughters of Bainbridge House Series

  A Reluctant Courtship

  A Flight of Fancy

  A Necessary Deception

  The Midwives Series

  Choices of the Heart

  Heart’s Safe Passage

  Lady in the Mist

  ZONDERVAN

  A Stranger’s Secret

  Copyright © 2015 by Laurie Alice Eakes

  ePub Edition © March 2015: ISBN 978-0-310-33341-8

  Requests for information should be addressed to:

  Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Eakes, Laurie Alice.

  A stranger’s secret / Laurie Alice Eakes.

  pages ; cm. -- (Cliffs of Cornwall novel)

  ISBN 978-0-310-33340-1 (softcover)

  1. Widows--Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3605.A377S77 2015

  813’.6--dc23

  2014042621

  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. The “NIV” and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

  Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Cover design: Kristen Ingebretson

  Interior design: James A. Phinney

  15 16 17 18 19 20 21 / RRD / 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  In memory of my mother. The earth is a poorer place without you, and I am thankful for how you enriched my life with your example of how to be a godly woman.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  AN EXCERPT FROM A LADY’S HONOR

  CHAPTER 1

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  Cornwall, England

  March 1813

  THE STORM LEFT MORE THAN MISSING ROOF TILES AND downed tree branches in its wake. A mast, splintered like a twig in the hands of a giant’s child and tossed upon the beach, a handful of spars, and masses of tangled rigging bellowed a tale of destruction. That not a box, barrel, or chest floated on the returning tide amidst the skeleton of the wrecked ship testified to destruction well beyond the ravages of the sea.

  “Wreckers.” Morwenna, Lady Penvenan, spat the single word as she surveyed the wreckage from the top of the cliff, her arms wrapped across her body to stave off the icy blast of wind from the sea and the chill of fear from her heart. For the second time in as many months, the local inhabitants of Penmara village had resurrected the ancient practice of luring ships to their doom upon the rocky shore below her home. She had watched the light bobbing on the cliff top, signaling safe harbor where no safety lay, knowing she couldn’t stop the wreckers in the middle of their work without risking her own life and leaving her son unprotected, unable to save the ship and its passengers and crew. But now, if she didn’t find out who was leading the men into lawlessness, the whispers of her involvement from the previous wreck would like as not blossom into full-blown accusations. The heaviness of her heart dragging her down as though the skirt of her woolen gown and cloak were soaked with seawater, Morwenna called to the deerhounds, who had been her constant companions since her husband’s murder, and descended the cliff path to the beach. By her reckoning, she had another hour to hunt for clues before the tide turned and began to claim what the wreckers had left behind.

  The dogs raced ahead, eager for a gallop on the sand after a day’s confinement in the house. “Oggy, Pastie, come.” She commanded the dogs back to her side.

  Their noses deep in a pile of flotsam, they ignored her.

  “Do not eat anything rotten.”

  They emerged with what appeared to be a hunk of salt beef from beneath the stays of a stove-in barrel. Nothing Morwenna would want and apparently nothing the looters had wanted either, but harmless enough to the canine palate and digestion.

  Leaving them to their prize and friendly tussle over who got to gnaw on it first, Morwenna set to her formidable task. She pulled aside sheets of sodden canvas to peer beneath, rolled half-crushed kegs, and lifted one end of what had once been a handsome sea chest to which someone had taken an axe. Not so much as a button remained in the chest. The stench of rum suggested what the keg had once held. Now the barrel lay empty of even seawater. Beneath the canvas, she discovered nothing more significant than wave-pounded sand.

  And so the hunt progressed. As though repentant of the damage they wrought during the night, the waves rose and fell with no more force than a lady’s blue skirt in a dance, its usual roar more a rumbling hiss. Overhead, the sky glowed ice blue and clear.

  Morwenna paused on the edge of the surf. As she feared, nothing of value remained on the shore. Every cask, barrel, and chest lay split open, their contents hauled away. Not even the axes and clubs used to split those containers remained to hint at the owner of the hand that wielded the implement of destruction. Wet sand had captured dozens of footprints, the deep indentation of hobnailed boots.

  Every man in the village owned a pair of hobnailed boots. The footprints told no tales. Still Morwenna hunted, occasionally pausing to call to the dogs and keep them close at hand for comfort more than protection. More splintered wood or fragments of fabric,
a dislodged button, even strands of hair held the potential for identification of someone.

  The flotsam remained void of identifying objects save for lingering odors of rum, salted fish, the stinging stench of tar. Everything with even remote value had been picked clean. Later, men, women, and children would arrive on the beach to haul away whatever was useful to use as firewood or bits of canvas to patch a hole in thatched roofs. When the mines closed as those on Penmara had, families went hungry and cold. If she could find a way to reopen the mines, the villagers wouldn’t resort to crime to survive.

  She lifted her gaze from the tideline, to the remains of the vessel, one of its two masts sticking out like an accusing finger. No doubt some enterprising souls had waded or taken a boat out to the shattered hull to ensure nothing—nothing and no one—remained aboard. For those sailors who had not drowned . . .

  Dead men told no tales.

  Morwenna said a prayer for the families of the men who had died by either the hand of nature or the hand of men. She knew all too well the anguish of being left behind.

  She trudged the last hundred feet of the beach. Waves swooped in, one or two high enough to dampen her cloak and gown. With each step, her heart grew heavier until it felt like a lump of cold lead in her middle. She reached the end of Penmara land where an outcropping of rock separated the Penmara beach from Halfmoon Cove below Bastion Point, her grandparents’ home. The incoming tide nearly blocked the strip of sand that allowed one to enter the cove from the beach and the entrance to a maze of caves beneath. Some of those caves ran beneath Penmara. If anyone grew suspicious about the coincidence of yet one more ship wrecked on her beach, they would likely find goods from the vessel stored in those caves, just enough to ensure she took the blame.

  She kicked at a bundle of rags at the edge of the surf and turned away from the sea, calling the dogs to her side. They galloped to her like ponies. Their tongues lolled out of happy puppy grins, and Morwenna braced herself for the impact of a dozen stone worth of dog love.

  But they didn’t throw themselves at her. At the last moment, they swerved toward the tideline and began to snuffle at the bundle of rags, once-fine wool now waterlogged, possibly considered too damaged from salt water to be useful to anyone.

  Truly? When men and women stuffed newspapers beneath their shirts for warmth, even water-stiffened wool useless?

  Her heart began to thrum like war drums in her chest. “Come away from there, you two.”

  She clapped her hands at the dogs to get their attention above the rising surf.

  A wave foamed over the bundle. The dogs backed up, snorting from snouts full of seawater, then, when the surf receded, they darted right back to poke and sniff at the bundle with muzzles and massive paws.

  Suddenly certain of what the bundle of rags contained, Morwenna lunged toward the dogs. “Oggy, Pastie, enough.”

  Oggy, the male hound, grasped a mouthful of woolen cloak and began to pull.

  “Oggy, no. Drop—” The last word choked in her throat.

  The body had just moved without assistance from the dogs.

  “Dogs, sit.” Morwenna grasped the hounds’ leather collars and hauled them away from the body. “I said sit. Now stay.”

  They obeyed her this time, perhaps sensing an urgency in her tone. Their bodies quivered, but they remained at the head of the tideline while Morwenna returned to the lump of sodden wool and dropped to her knees. Sand and rising seawater soaked through her gown in icy tendrils. She shivered, but ignored the discomfort. She would suffer more if she didn’t inspect whether or not the incoming tide had caused the illusion, or if she really had seen a hand emerge from the folds of a cloak.

  “Madam?” She scanned the length of the figure, realized it was half submerged beneath a sheet of canvas, and corrected herself. “Sir? Sir, can you hear me?”

  Nothing happened. No sound of a response rose above the gentle roar of the surf. The dogs whined from their position at the edge of the tideline.

  Morwenna brushed aside a tangle of water-blackened hair and touched the man’s face. Skin rough with beard stubble chilled her fingers. Because he’d lain in the cold for hours, or because he had already succumbed to weather, water, or a wound she hadn’t yet found?

  Shuddering at the notion of inspecting a dead man, Morwenna slid two fingers to the soft place beneath his ear. If a pulse existed, she couldn’t feel one. With gentle pressure, she tugged at his neck cloth. Sodden, it resisted. No way could she untie the knot. Another wave washed over him and her legs, prompting her to haste. She worked her fingers between his skin and the fabric in search of the pulse at the hollow of his throat.

  She found no pulse, but she found a chain.

  For a moment, she gripped the metal between her fingers, surprised to find a piece of jewelry around a man’s neck, more surprised the wreckers wouldn’t have taken the jewelry. Most likely in their haste they hadn’t troubled to reach beneath a tight neck band in search of something no one would expect to find on a man.

  She wanted to tug the chain free, see if it held a locket or other jewelry that might identify him. In moments, however, the tide would rise enough to wash over and drown him. Already the sand beneath him sucked away with each receding wave nibbling at the surface of where he lay. He was twice her size, but she couldn’t wait to move him until she found help.

  She took up handfuls of his cloak. With the low heels of her walking boots dug into the sand, she tugged. At the same time, a wave rolled in, sending spray over the man and Morwenna. The sand shifted beneath her feet, and the surf rose higher, high enough to lift the man’s body an inch or so off the ground, enough to float him toward her.

  “Yes. Yes. Yes,” she cried in triumph.

  Then the receding wave sucked the sand from beneath her feet, and she landed on her seat. In an instant, Oggy and Pastie leaped toward her, whining and nuzzling against her.

  “Back, you beasts.” The command held all the affection she felt toward these beloved dogs of her son’s father.

  They backed away a foot or two and stood, tails swishing, eyes fixed on her face.

  “If only you two could pull.” She staggered to her feet, turned her face to the water, and watched for the next wave. As it rolled in, raising the level of the tide, she pulled the man toward the dry sand. If she got him above the tideline, she could go for help without fearing he would drown, if he still lived. If he did not . . .

  Shivering so hard she could barely hold on to the man’s cloak, she planted her feet and tugged again, then again, then again. At last, her feet braced in the rocky sand, she managed to drag the man above the tideline and straightened in preparation to go for help.

  Behind her, stones showered from the cliff. She glanced up in the hope someone had come to inspect the wreck and could run for help for her. She saw no one, merely a flitting shadow that might only be a trick of sunlight, wind, and a few shrubs clinging to life on the edge of the rocks.

  Disappointed, she turned back to the man. Now that he was in no danger of washing out to sea, she needn’t hurry if he no longer lived. She could take the long way, the dry path, to Bastion Point. But if he lived, she needed to make haste and go through the surf.

  She stooped and tucked her fingers under his neck band once more. She still felt no pulse. With a heavy heart, she managed to tug the chain free, marveling at the heft of the silver links. A blue and silver medallion swung free. The silver back flashed in the sun, caught a hint of Morwenna’s pale face and her own tangled dark hair, and gave her an idea. She wiped the mirrorlike surface on her cloak and held it under the man’s nose.

  The shining surface clouded. He was breathing. He was alive.

  And she knew why no one had taken the medallion even if they had found it. Valuable as the silver might be, the family crest enameled on it warned no one could ever sell it.

  Sunlight glinted off the silver and made the blue enamel glow. An azure lion rampant on a field of argent with the inscription Memor quisna
m vos es—Remember Who You Are. It was a crest she saw painted on the family pew in the village church. Once she had seen it in a book of family history.

  The stranger wore a medallion bearing the Trelawny family coat of arms.

  Morwenna never believed a body’s heart could stop beating as did the hearts of heroines in sensational novels. The instant she comprehended that the unconscious man sprawled on the sand wore a pendant of the Trelawny family crest, Morwenna’s heart missed several beats. Her breath snagged in her throat. If a gust of wind hadn’t sent spray from a wave crest washing over her, she feared she might have fainted across the stranger’s body. The medallion slipped from her fingers to lie against the man’s sodden neck cloth.

  He must be soaked through. Now that she knew he lived, she realized she must get him some warmth. Her cloak was wet, but not as wet as he. She removed it and spread it across him, then called to the dogs. Their coats were also wet. But they were also thick and warm. She ordered them to lie beside the stranger, one on each side.

  “Stay.” She patted each of them on their heads. “I’ll return as soon as I can.”

  She gathered her skirts and fled up the beach. Her mind raced over whom she could ask for help. On most days, Henwyn, her son’s nursemaid and her maid of all work, was the only other occupant of the house until the outdoor man arrived around noon. She reached the outcropping of rock separating her beach from that of Bastion Point and splashed through knee-deep water to the path that coiled along the cliff to the house. Incoming waves slammed against her, driving her toward the jagged rocks. Sand fell away from her heels as the waves receded. Gripping handholds wherever she found them in the granite, she plunged on through the tide. Going around through trees and over fields would take far too long. Her other hand gripped her dress and petticoat above her knees to keep them from pulling her under.