The Miser's Sister by Carola Dunn

sister should regard the Pardoe house as their refuge for as long as it should prove convenient. A postscript, signed by Rose, assured Ruth that it was her dearest wish to meet the heroine who had shared Oliver’s adventure.
    Ruth looked up with tears in her eyes.
    “You are not offended?” asked Oliver anxiously. “It is not fitting that the sisters of an earl should live in the City, but it will be only for a few weeks. I did not tell my family anything that might embarrass you, I promise. Do you feel able to tell me what persuaded you to leave Penderric? Your letter did not specify.”
    “Mr Pardoe, I have been wishing to meet your family since you told me about them. It is amazingly kind of your mother to invite us. We have no conceivable claim on her hospitality, but what else can we do? I cannot return to the castle.”
    “What happened, Ruth?”
    “He ... he attacked me with a knife.” She displayed her scarred palm. “And then I think he tried to drop a block of stone on me. Why is he doing this, Oliver?”
    He took her injured hand in both his.
    “I don’t know his reasons, but I feared something like this. I cannot tell you my suspicions now, they are not founded on any solid evidence. Come with me to London, leave all this behind you, at least for now.”
    “Thank you,” she said, with the trusting look he remembered from the cave. “We will come.”
     

Chapter 8
     
    Letty was in alt.
    “Only think of all the parties, Ruth, and balls and ridottos and masquerades!” she cried. “You are not such a disagreeable sister after all, I vow. Let us leave at once!”
    “Mr Pardoe has been on the road for days,” chided Ruth. “We will go when he is ready. I shall be sorry to say goodbye to Auntie and Mr Polgarth. They have been so very kind to us.”
    “Indeed, Lady Laetitia, London is not going to run off if we keep it waiting,” pointed our Oliver. “I must go to Boscastle this afternoon, but as you are so anxious for it, we shall depart tomorrow.”
    “We can perfectly well wait another day,” Ruth assured him. “You must be tired after travelling such a distance.”
    “You must think me a poor, weak creature,” he teased. “If I am unable to stand up to a week or so in a well-sprung chaise, however shall I manage six hundred miles in a balloon?”
    “It would be an excellent idea if you did not try,” she answered with asperity.
    “I doubt if it will go farther than twenty miles,” put in Bob gloomily. He was having trouble with the envelope.
    That afternoon Oliver rode over to Boscastle to repay Mr Trevelyan’s loan. The elderly justice and his wife were delighted to see him and asked after Lady Ruth.
    “She is looking very well,” he told them. “She says that a few days of Auntie’s care and Martha's cooking have accomplished wonders. After our mutual experiences I have a high opinion of her strength and endurance, but in spite of young Letty, there is no hurry to reach London, and we shall go by easy stages. What news of the smugglers’ trial?”
    “The old man laid evidence against the two we didn’t pick up, and we nabbed them,” said Mr Trevelyan. “Five of them were sentenced to transportation, and Jem Blount, as the leader, was to be held over till Assizes. When he found out it was a hanging matter, he changed his mind and told us all about Captain Cleeve. He was the only one who ever saw the captain, who was the mastermind, it seems. So Jem will be held a while longer, to see if this Cleeve is caught, and then he’ll be off to Botany Bay with the rest.”
    “I’d be particularly happy to see Captain Cleeve caught.” said Oliver.
    “I don’t think it likely, I’m afraid. He’s a wily bird, and not from this part of the country,” the magistrate explained. “He could be anywhere. His description has been circulated, of course, but his looks are very commonplace, by Jem’s description. He has certainly changed his name by now and is keeping his head