Free Once in a Blue Moon by Penelope Williamson

expanse of shaven turf and a neatly raked gravel drive led up to sweeping front steps. Larkhaven was an enormous square granite and slate mansion with columns made of purple stone flanking the entrance and a pavilion at each corner. It looked as though it ought to shelter at least a duke, but the man who owned it was the son of a tutworker. And all the world knew that no matter how much money Henry Tiltwell acquired, no matter how grand a house he built, blood told and birth would always matter.
    Still, Henry Tiltwell had such financial power that few in Cornwall felt secure enough, or rich enough, to ignore a summons to Larkhaven. Even if it was couched in the form of an invitation to a party.
    Jessalyn and her grandmother were met at the front door by a liveried servant and led up a white marble staircase with gilt-bronze balustrades. The house was said to have more than thirty bedrooms. To underscore Henry Tiltwell's opinion of where the Lettys stood in his social order— which was old name, but no money and even less influence —Jessalyn and her grandmother were given a pair of tiny adjoining rooms just under the eaves. Jessalyn's room smelled of camphor balls, but a velvet curtain had been hung over the door to keep out drafts. A truckle bed and a dressing table with an oval looking glass mounted on brass swivels constituted the only furnishings.
    As soon as she was alone, Jessalyn removed a glass jar that she had secreted at the bottom of her reticule. She had purchased it at the apothecary's shop just that morning. The concoction, the man had assured her, was guaranteed to bleach away freckles. Humming a tinner's ditty, she sat at the dressing table and applied the gooey mixture to her face.
    The paste, made of barley flour, crushed almonds, and honey, hardened as soon as it was exposed to the air. After a couple of minutes the mask began to itch. Mildly at first. Then almost unbearably. But the apothecary had told her to leave it on at least half an hour.
    To take her mind off her itching face, Jessalyn went to the tiny dormer window. She had to get on her knees to look out, so low was the room's slanting ceiling. Through the glazed panes, she could hear the throb of a pump, like a heartbeat. She threw up the sash for a better view. If she leaned out, she could just see the top of the brick enginehouse and the round, smoke-belching chimney of the tin mine called Wheal Charlotte.
    A bell began to clang, signaling the change of cores. A group of miners, their clothes stained with mud and clay, straggled over the top of the hill, meeting those going down for the next shift. Two men walked apart from the rest, following the rails of the tramroad that led from the mine down to Penzance Harbor. Clarence Tiltwell and his scapegrace Trelawny cousin. She wondered if they had been doing some sort of rough work, for both were in shirtsleeves and hatless. Clarence's close-cropped blond curls cupped his head like a gilded helmet. His cousin's dark brown hair, unfashionably long, blew in the wind.
    They turned toward the house, and as they drew closer, she could hear the tone of their voices, though not the words. There was a sense of barely suppressed excitement between them, as if they shared a secret. Clarence slapped his cousin on the back, and the man threw back his head and laughed.
    Trying to hear what they were saying, she leaned over as they passed beneath her. Her elbow nudged loose a slate. She lunged to catch the slate and fell forward onto her chest, sliding out the window with a loud rip of corded muslin. Out the corner of her eye she saw something projecting from the roof, and she made a wild grab for it.
    Several slates landed with a splintering crash on the brick walk below. Two masculine heads, one fair and one dark, looked up. Jessalyn lay, half in, half out the window, clinging for dear life to the snout of a gargoyle.
    For a moment they simply stared at her, and Jessalyn couldn't decide whether she wanted to