“Y-yes, thank you.” Blushing to her roots, Linette found herself not wanting him to let her go, his closeness stirring something in her unlike anything she had ever known. The masculine warmth of his scent, citrus and sandalwood,so familiar to her now, enveloped her and sent a shiver streaking to her toes.
“The tinners’ cottages, Miss Easton. We’re here. Miss Easton…did you hear me?”
“Yes, Prudie, I heard you.” Stricken with embarrassment at what her appointed chaperone must be thinking, Linette shifted to extricate herself from Adam’s grasp. He released her at once, glancing at Prudie with an apologetic smile, andretook his seat. Yet only for a moment as the carriage rolled to a jerky stop.
Again Linette felt herself jounced upon the seat, but this time she braced herself with splayed fingers…and Adam didn’t jump up to help her. Not with Prudie watching their every move. Instead he focused upon the door, but Prudie got there first and waited for the footman to jump down from the back of the carriage toassist them.
Waited for the footman to offer his hand to Linette so she might carefully descend the damp steps, followed right behind by Prudie, and then an oddly determined-looking Adam bringing up the rear.
It all seemed a bit awkward, but clearly the maidservant was taking her role more seriously after what she’d seen transpire between Linette and Adam in the carriage. Linette wondered withsome nervousness if Prudie planned to report their unintended indiscretions to Donovan…
“It’s muddy here, Miss Easton, if you’d allow me…”
Linette glanced up in surprise at Adam, who offered her his arm, yet in truth, there was no harm in him assisting her as any gallant gentleman might do. She smiled her assent at him and looped her arm through his, and then gasped a little when he drew hercloser.
“It’s quite slick. I don’t want you to fall.”
With Prudie heaving a sigh and falling into step behind them, they made their way toward a row of whitewashed cottages not as large as those in Porthleven, but in just as good repair. Already front doors had opened a few inches to reveal the curious faces of wives and children of the tinners that toiled in the depths of Arundale’s Kitchen,the tin ore mine owned by Donovan.
“Their lives were truly wretched before my brother-in-law came to Cornwall,” Linette said in a soft aside to Adam. “Corrupt mine captains, a pittance for wages, and dirt-floor hovels where these cottages now stand. Corie did everything she could to help the tinners and their families, but it was together that she and Donovan were truly able to make a lastingdifference.”
“So it should be,” Adam murmured back to her, nodding his head in greeting to still more shawl-clad women cracking open their doors or the shutters of windows. “A husband and wife working together to make things better for those less fortunate than themselves. There’s so much more to life than title and wealth and wasting one’s days in pursuit of every vulgar diversion known to man…”
Adam fell silent as they approached one of the cottages, while Linette couldn’t help but wonder if the marked bitterness she’d heard in his voice might have something to do with his father. Yet she didn’t have another moment to dwell upon it when a small dark-haired boy in a doorway, clinging to his mother’s skirt, was suddenly seized by a violent cough.
“Has he been like that for long?” Adamasked the woman, whose anxious gaze jumped from him to Linette.
“He’s our new physician…Dr. Whitaker,” she explained, and immediately the woman gestured for them to enter her home. The day was so gray and dreary that the cheery hearth fire inside was a welcome sight to Linette, though they’d had foot warmers and fur blankets in the carriage. She’d no sooner sat down on the chair the woman offeredfirst her and then another one for Prudie, when Adam hoisted the little boy onto a worn table to examine him.
But not first without speaking kindly to him and ruffling the child’s hair, which made the boy smile though he immediately was seized with another fit of coughing.
“Ma’am, it would help me if you told me how long—”
“Forgive me, sir,” the young woman broke in, swiping wisps of brownhair from her worried face. “I’m Mrs. Tate, an’ that’s my son, Cory. I’d say two days, no more.”
“That’s good to hear,” Adam murmured, then he glanced at Linette. “I must fetch my bag. This might take a while. If one child has croup, others may have it as well. I’d like to examine all the children here.” He looked back at Mrs. Tate. “Might Miss Easton sit here with you where it’s warm?”
“Ais,of course, I’m honored to have her here! It was her lovely sister—I hope you don’t mind me talkin’ so familiar, Miss Easton. But the duchess herself came with the midwife to help me bring my Cory into the world four years past, so ‘ee see how I named him.”
Mrs. Tate gazed so proudly at her son that Linette prayed Adam would be able to help him; thankfully, from his calm demeanor as he left thecottage for his bag, he didn’t appear overly concerned.
Just thoughtful and caring as he’d set both Mrs. Tate and young Cory at ease, making Linette feel warmer inside as she’d watched him go about his work than any crackling hearth fire.
