Free A Captive Heart by Patricia Scott

father again on English soil. Or whether she would ever see him again at all? She had never been parted from him like this before.
    The news that day was especially bad with Prince Charles now a fugitive and the Roundheads triumphant elsewhere. Only the good news from Prince Rupert gave them fresh heart. She knew that her Uncle Bevil was believed now to be serving with the Prince at Oxford, and her Aunt Phoebe was running the Treganna estate with the help of the family Steward, Edward Whittle.
    ‘What did you tell Captain Jacque about Adam, Martha?’ Tamsin asked as she felt the ship moving on the water under them at last.
    ‘As near to the truth as I could. I told him that you are an eloping couple and you needed his help and silence.’
    ‘You did! Did he believe you?’
    ‘It mattered little if he did not,’ she replied sharply. ‘He was paid well to keep his promise of silence.’
    Tamsin hoped that the sudden colour this induced in her cheeks went unnoticed by Adam. Adam stared back at Martha hard and long for a moment and laughed most heartily. ‘And he swallowed that? You are a far better liar than I am, Martha.’
    Martha nodded. ‘Aye, I think he believed it. The ten extra coins helped to sweeten him. It leaves us somewhat short in funds, child. I do not think your Father would approve of using his gold in this fashion. But needs must if it makes you happy,’ she sighed. ‘And keeps you safe.’
    ‘Thank you. Thank you.’ Tamsin threw her arms around her nurse. ‘I promise you, Martha, that I shall see to it that you receive adequate compensation as soon as I am able to let you have it. I have few coins to spare on my person at the moment.’
    Martha eyed Adam sternly. ‘I ask only that once you have reached a place of safety, Master Adam Carey, you do not attempt to make contact with Tamsin ever again. I think it would not be wise for either of you to meet any more in the future.’
    Th at was not what either of them wished to hear at that moment although they would not voice it openly. Tamsin had to be seen to behave lest Martha told her father.
    The weather was stormy and choppy with the wind whipping the waves up high around the small vessel. It had been sultry and heavy earlier but now thunder and vivid lightening was lashing the sky into a maelstrom of fury. Was this an omen, Tamsin thought, of what was yet to come in her life?
    Martha was taken unwell and lay groaning in a berth and while Adam and Tamsin talked quietly together they knew it could be for the last time. The Royalists still held Pendennis castle at Falmouth as far as they knew.
    Reuben too was watching them both closely. He feared that there was more than friendship developing between them. But it was not for him to interfere. What would happen to them once they were on Cornish soil was impossible to think about. Like Martha he thought it best that Tamsin and Adam Carey never met again.

 
    Chapter Twenty-One
     
    The ship came into port in Falmouth at last. At the best of times it was never an easy voyage across but this had been a particularly bad one for them all - the worst that Tamsin had ever experienced in her young life and she was not feeling happy. It seemed only to reflect everything that she had worried about; leaving her father behind, and going to live with her aunt at Treganna however much she loved it there.
    In the cabin below Adam changed quickly into the rich plum velvet suit, put on the feathered brown beaver, and pulled on the good leather boots: all clothing that Tamsin had taken from her father’s bedchamber early that morning. She hoped he would not miss them for a day or so. It was fortunate that Adam was the same lean build and height as her father.
    She drew in her breath sharply when she came back into the cabin. Adam in his new attire now portrayed the handsome young Cavalier she had always hoped she might meet with one day.
    He made her a low bow and gave her a charming smile, provoking a delighted