Chapter 10
FREDERICK
The words hung on the air like mist over Trelowen’s harbor.
Frederick almost wished he could take them back.
Perhaps it was because they were true, something he realized as he met Lady Radcliffe’s unreadable gaze. He had told himself he needed to come to Trevenna for the election, but that was not true. He had come for her.
Whether it was the challenge of winning her approval or the unparalleled energy he felt in her presence, he had come for Lady Radcliffe.
And when he had heard her defend him, of all things…he had felt a hope unlike any in his life.
Not a hope that he would win the election.
A hope that she might be coming to respect him.
She broke her gaze away and looked around.
They alone stood together in the middle of the floor. The others had returned to their places across from one another to end the dance.
Frederick and Lady Radcliffe retreated to their places, giving a quick bow and curtsy.
The quiet that followed the end of the music was soon swallowed in conversation. Frederick walked over to her, unable to keep from watching every shift and flutter of her expression.
“Well,” she said, clasping her hands together, “now that you have accomplished your purpose…”
“I must go.”
There was a flicker of surprise in her expression.
“I have matters to attend to before my own party begins.”
“Naturally,” she said.
“Will you come?”
She gave a soft but incredulous laugh. “No, Mr. Yorke. I shall not.”
He frowned. “A pity.”
“Surely, it cannot come as a surprise to you that I do not mean to attend. I am supporting Oswald in the election.”
Frederick feigned surprise. “Are you?”
She tried to suppress her responsive smile. “Yes, Mr. Yorke. I am.”
“And you may continue to support him while still attending, you know. You consider yourself an advocate of the people, I gather, and the whole village will be there. I rather think they would take pleasure in seeing you there, not to mention that I think you yourself would enjoy it.”
She did not respond to this, but her eyes were full of thought.
He wanted her there—unaccountably needed to know when he would see her again, and to ensure it would be soon.
“Ah,” he said, as though realizing something. “Oswald has forbidden you.”
A fire ignited in her eyes. “Oswald is my candidate, not my master. He serves at my pleasure—not the other way around.”
“Of course,” he replied meekly, inclining his head. After a moment, he muttered, “If he wins.”
“No one but you has any doubt on the matter.”
“Then what harm could there be in coming? Unless you are afraid you might enjoy it too much…”
She looked amused as much as annoyed. “You are trying to provoke me into accepting your invitation.”
“Is it working?” he asked hopefully.
Her rosy lips pressed together. “Perhaps. You seem to possess a unique ability for provocation.”
He grinned. “Well, if you wish to see me put in my proper place, you could come watch me participate in a bout of wrassling at the party.”
Her delicate brows lifted. “Wrassling?”
A shot of victory rang through him at the intrigue in her voice and expression. “It promises to be an evening to remember. I hope to see you there.” He took her gloved hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it. “Good day, my lady.”
He walked away, itching to turn around and see whether she was watching him. As he left through the ornately carved door, it occurred to him what a strange day it would be.
The morning had held an education in baking. The afternoon was bound to hold a different one in fishing, and the evening an education in…well, heaven only knew.
Frederick was a dead fish.
Or smelled like one, at least.
His sleeves were stiff with salt and covered in…he did not even know. He had resigned himself to burning the shirt. The breeches might be salvageable. Or not.
No longer could he claim ignorance about the differences between mackerel and pilchard. Over the last two hours of sorting them on tables, then packing them into salt barrels, he had gained an intimate knowledge of both. Their lidless, glassy eyes would haunt his dreams for years to come.
Whatever hope he had felt that Lady Radcliffe would join the party at the beach had given way to fear—fear that if she did so, she would smell him from a mile away.
“That should do it, lads,” Mr. Tregenza said, gathering up the net and tossing it into the hull.
Frederick suppressed a sigh of relief with only the greatest effort. His shoulders burned from carrying the salt-weighted barrels up the incline from the beach to the cellars. His lower back revolted with every twist and turn. Wrassling would break him clean in two.
Lady Radcliffe would applaud, no doubt.
“’Ee did it, sir.” A fisherman named Ruan patted him on the back. “I didn’t even think ’ee’d come.”
“I promised I would, did I not?” Frederick said, as though he hadn’t considered and discarded a dozen excuses on the ride from Trevenna to Trelowen.
Ruan smiled. “Promises from a gent be as slippery as a live pilchard, sir. But ’ee kept yours. ’Ee ’ave my respect now, and I ’ope ’ee win the ‘lection.” He put out his hand.
Frederick smiled gratefully and shook it, wishing Ruan were able to cast a vote. Perhaps reform was worth considering—not that any reform being discussed would grant someone as poor and landless as Ruan the vote.
“And you have my respect,” Frederick said. “I am glad to have found another friend in Trelowen.”
Ruan colored up as though this pleased him greatly, stepping backward toward the quay. “I’ll see ’ee at the party, sir.”
“I am counting on it,” Frederick replied.
How these men subjected themselves to such labor every day was beyond his understanding—to say nothing of being eager to wrestle and make merry afterward.
He turned away and winced. He was half-tempted to cry off from his own campaign party to nurse his fatigued body in bed.
He bid farewell to the other men, feeling an immense satisfaction as Mr. Tregenza shook his hand and regarded him with new respect, then hurried to The Silver Pilchard to clean up. He still had to help set things up on the beach.
An hour and a brutal scrubbing later, he met Jory in the taproom.
He was heartily sick of changing, for he’d been obliged to wear something less fine to help Mrs. Tonkin bake the fairings that morning.
He’d changed to look presentable at Trevenna, then changed back into the baking clothes to help the fishermen, and now had donned new clothing for the party.
He had been uncertain what to wear to such an event. Announcing his campaign for Parliament required a certain level of gentility. But his guests would not be genteel, and as he was trying to walk the fine line between impressing them and seeming approachable, there was a balance to be struck.
In the end, he had chosen a serviceable but well-fitted blue tailcoat, a gray waistcoat, and riding boots over his breeches.
The party was set to begin at half-past-four, and it was already four o’clock, with nothing yet arranged on the beach.
Frederick’s steps were quick, and Jory was obliged to run to keep up as they carried the top of the trestle table to the beach.
He was strong for a boy, but Frederick was obliged to support the majority of the weight, and his muscles protested vehemently.
How they would manage to carry it down the slippery steps at the quay was something he didn’t care to think on.
To his surprise, three people came to their aid before they had even reached the stairs.
The beach was already sprinkled with people eager for the party to begin, including the fishermen.
“God bless you, Ruan,” Frederick said breathlessly as the man relieved some of his burden.
“We can’t ’ave our candidate breakin’ ’is back before ’e’s even begun.”
They rested one side of the table top on the sand, leaning it against the stone wall of the quay.
“Where be the rest of it?” asked Ruan.
“In the taproom,” Frederick said, rolling his shoulders.
“And what else be there to do?”
Frederick blew out a breath from his mouth. “The food. The drink.”
Ruan nodded, then put his fingers to his mouth and gave a loud whistle.
Everyone on the beach turned toward him.
“If ’ee wish to eat and drink and dance and make merry,” Ruan called out, “’ee’d best come ’elp.”
Without hesitation, the people made their way over, and within a quarter of an hour, the table was set up, the food and drink sitting ready upon it, and all eyes turned to Frederick—thanks to another whistle from Ruan.
There were perhaps eighty people there, from rosy-cheeked children to the pale and wrinkled. People stood on tiptoes and craned their necks to see him, and after a moment’s hesitation, Frederick stepped onto the bench of the trestle table to better see.
“Welcome, one and all,” he called out. “It thrills me to see all of you here, and I trust we will spend an enjoyable afternoon and evening together. My name is Frederick Yorke, and I am here to announce my candidacy for the vacant Parliament seat for Trelowen.” He paused, hoping for a bit of applause, but none came.
He cleared his throat. “You may not know me, but I assure you, I have spent years of my life working to understand the way of things in Parliament so that I can be an effective member.”
His gaze caught Mrs. Tonkin’s, who stood at the front of the crowd. She lifted a brow. She had spent a good deal of time that morning lecturing him how to comport himself at the party.
“No long speeches,” she had said. “They ’aven’t left their ’omes and work to ’ear ’ee blather on. Offer to listen to ’em, tell ’em ’ee’ll work for them—not for yerself—then turn ’em loose to enjoy themselves.”
“All that to say,” Frederick went on, “that I am not here to drone on about myself but to listen to you, the people of Trelowen. To hear what changes you think would benefit the borough. I promise to listen and, if I am elected, to do my best to see those changes through. Now”—he smiled widely and surveyed the crowd—“what do you say we trade speeches for sport?”
The cheer this elicited was resounding.
The fiddler, who had been waiting with his instrument at his side, brought it to his chin and began a lively tune. The feeling on the beach was electric. Music, animated conversation, spontaneous dancing, and the gentle lull of waves lapping at the sand.
Whether it all would serve in the way he hoped, Frederick did not know, but he couldn’t help smiling all the same. There was a freeness and a joy he had not experienced in all the parties and balls he had attended amongst the ton.
“Do ’ee mean it, sir?”
He turned to face the woman speaking to him. She had ruddy cheeks and wore a dingy dress under a sturdy gray apron and a patched shawl.
“Yes,” Frederick said definitively. “Mean what, exactly?”
“That ’ee want to ’ear what we ’ave to say.” It was evident from the tilt of her head, the crossed arms, and the skepticism in her dark eyes that she did not believe his assertion.
Frederick reached for a pint of ale, which he handed to the woman. He then guided her with a gentle hand to the bench of the trestle table. “Try me, ma’am.”
She looked slightly mollified by this response as he sat down and turned to listen.
He was treated to a ten-minute diatribe about the Corn Laws.
Frederick had supported those laws, for they had seemed common sense to him—better to pay a bit more for a loaf of bread than to be obliged to rely upon foreign grain—but he had never considered what that extra penny would mean for a mother of five hungry children.
One whose husband worked the boats in the morning, the mines in the afternoon, and came home still unable to fill the bellies of the children staying up to wait hopefully.
A man joined the conversation and began to make his own concerns and complaints heard. By the time he had expended himself, several others had joined the ranks.
“What do ’ee intend to do about it, sir?” the man asked.
Frederick glanced at the group, which was listening with far more interest than when he had stood upon the bench he now sat upon.
“A fair question,” he said. “There is no doubt that changes are needed and that many in London do not understand the challenges faced here.”
“We need more votes,” one man said.
“Reform!” another said, fist in the air.
“Reform would do Cornwall—and Trelowen—no favors,” Frederick argued. “You already have more representation in the Commons than cities many times your size. That would change with reform. Would you prefer fewer voices in Westminster?”
Several of them frowned as they considered this. Frederick wished Lady Radcliffe might be there to see him engaging with the villagers in this way—debating the very topic they had discussed at Trevenna.
“The voices in Westminster don’t care about we,” the first woman said.
“Aye,” said the man who had called for reform. “They be lords and rich men’s sons. Who speaks for the miners and fishermen?”
“Would ’ee?” the woman prodded Frederick. “Do ’ee support reform?”
The silence that followed this direct question made Frederick’s stomach tighten. Oswald did not support reform, and these people wanted change.
“If I am elected,” Frederick said carefully, “it would be to represent your interests.”
There. That was vague enough, was it not?
“I be interested in whether ’ee could beat us at rope wrestlin’, sir.”
Frederick turned to find Ruan smiling at him and chuckled, relieved at the interruption. “Naturally.”
“Come on with ’ee, then,” Ruan said, motioning him over.
The group parted ways, and Frederick removed his coat, his eyes searching the area for any sign of Lady Radcliffe.
She was nowhere to be seen, though, so he let out a sigh as he rolled up his sleeves.