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Morvoren didn’t recognize that name. She was usually visited by Uncle’s physician and his ever-trusty exercises of bleeding and sweating.

She winced. She oughtn’t be thinking of such terrible things. Not while she was by the sea with a fire crackling nearby to keep her warm.

Snap. Snap. Pop.

She shifted her head toward the sound. Mother used to love warm fires on the beach. Yet another thing Uncle disapproved of.

Yet another reason Morvoren loved it, too.

“Ought we to allow Trev back in?” the younger voice asked.

“No, ’e be waitin’ for Dr. Kent.”

“Do we try to speak with ’er ’til then?”

“I s’pose we ought to. Miss, can ye ’ear we?”

Morvoren shifted again, opening her mouth to express her desire for whoever these women were to leave her be, but nothing but a groan escaped. Only then did she recognize the burning in her throat and the ache in her chest, as if the weight of the sea pressed down upon her.

“Miss?”

The blue skies faded away, and the herring gulls vanished, but the sound of the rushing waves and the crackling fire remained.

“What has happened?” she mumbled in a haggard voice she didn’t recognize. A throbbing at the back of her head thrummed like a drum against her skull.

She tried to roll over, but as she did so, blinding, white pain shot through her leg from her ankle, and she gasped.

Her eyes flew open, her vision blurred with bewildered tears. She blinked furiously to see where she was, looking back and forth at the unfamiliar surroundings—rain dotting the windows at either side of her bed, a small hearth playing host to an even smaller fire, a minute table holding a vase of white wildflowers, and the figure of a woman hovering over her bed.

“Where am I?” she asked. Her throat felt coated with sand.

“Fetch ’er a glass o’ brandy, Poppy,” the woman said, standing beside her as footsteps tapped away. Her Cornish accent was thick and rich as she addressed Morvoren again. “Worry not, miss. I be Mabyn ‘Oneysett. Ye were caught in me son’s net when ’e pulled ye from the sea and saved ye. ’E carried ye ’ere ’fore me daugh’er and I changed ye into dry clothes.”

In the sea? A net? Dry clothes?

All at once, Morvoren’s memory flooded her mind like a wave breaking on the sand. Attempting to take the coach to Sennen. Swimming in the sea. Diving deep to avoid the approaching fishing lugger, then becoming entangled in their net below the surface, and knowing, just knowing, she was about to die. Then that man—that, that fisherman—had brought her back to life.

Of course a fisherman would be the one to save her.

She groaned as the ache in her head pulsed harder. She’d only meant to swim for a moment, to allow the cold sea to rejuvenate her weakened spirits to help her finish with her task. Now she didn’t even know where she was.

She cleared her throat, attempting to speak again as her hand still covered her brow and eyes. “Where am I in relation to the nearest city?” She cringed. That proper tongue had no place in this humble home. She could only imagine the woman’s surprise at hearing it.

Curse Uncle Truscott for forcing her to hide her own accent, her mother’s accent. He’d threaten Morvoren constantly, locking her away in her room until she would speak in the way he approved of.

But then, she needn’t use Uncle’s words any longer. She’d never see him again.

“Ye be in Tristwick now, miss,” Mrs. Honeysett responded. “Right close to St. Just, we be.”

Morvoren nodded against the pillow she still lay upon. After the stagecoach route had ended in St. Just the night before, she’d determined to spend the night at the inn, then walk the few miles that remained to Sennen after a brief swim. Now, with an ankle that still screamed in pain and lungs that felt as shriveled as a weeks-old apple, how was she to make the journey on foot?

Unless, of course, she hadn’t yet missed the coach from St. Just to Sennen. “And…can you…can ye tell me what day it is?”

The woman paused before responding, no doubt noting Morvoren’s change in accent. “It be Monday, the eighteenth o’ September, miss.”

Thank heavens. The coach only traveled to Sennen on Monday evenings. But then, if she didn’t reach St. Just by nightfall, she’d have to wait an entire week to make it to her friend’s home. How would she survive in the wilds of Cornwall without a home for seven whole days?

Her thoughts blurred as the ache in her head obscured her ability to think clearly.