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Predictably Aunt Izzy beamed at him and Aunt Rosie sent him a shrewd, slanting smile. ‘Do sit down, Mr Defoe. I can well appreciate your desire to leave your room. Tamsyn, dear, perhaps Mr Defoe would care for a glass of sherry or Madeira?’
‘Thank you, sherry would be very welcome.’
Tamsyn poured the rich brown wine into one of Aunt Izzy’s best glasses. At least their tableware would not disgrace them. The house was full of small treasures that Izzy treated with casual enjoyment. She was as likely to put wildflowers into the exquisite glasses as fine wine and, if one of the others protested, she would shrug and say, Oh, Papa let me take all sorts of things down here. I’m sure none of them are very valuable and I like to use nice objects.
Mr Defoe stood beside the wing chair, waiting until Tamsyn had completed her task. ‘Thank you.’ He took the glass, then when she perched on the sofa next to Izzy he sat down with grace, and, to an observant eye, some caution. She suspected his overstretched muscles were giving him hell and he was more exhausted than he would allow himself to show. His features were naturally fine cut, she guessed, but even allowing for that, she detected strain hidden by force of will.
‘Again, I have to ask you—who is dangerous? I apologise for my inadvertent eavesdropping, but having heard, I do not know how to ignore the fact that you seem to be in need of protection.’
In the silence that fell the three women eyed each other, then Tamsyn said, ‘A rogue dog chased some of our flock of Devon Longwools over the cliff.’
‘And moved a hurdle, I gather.’ He rotated the glass between his fingertips, his attention apparently on the wine. ‘A talented hound.’
He had sharp ears, or he had lingered on the stairs, listening. Probably both. ‘That must be coincidence and it is simply a sorry chapter of accidents,’ Tamsyn said. ‘Tell me, Mr Defoe, do you come from an agricultural area?’
‘I own some land,’ he conceded. The amusement in his eyes was, she supposed, for her heavy-handed attempt at steering the subject away from the sheep. ‘But I do not have sheep. Arable, cattle and horses in the south. This must be challenging country for agriculture, so close to the sea and the wild weather.’
‘Everyone mixes farming and fishing,’ Aunt Rosie said. ‘And we have land that is much more sheltered than the sheep pastures on top of the cliffs, so we keep some dairy cattle and grow our own wheat and hay.’ Aunt Izzy opened her mouth as though to bewail the burnt hayricks again, then closed her lips tight at the look from Rosie. ‘We own some of the fishing boats that operate out of Stib’s Landing, which is the next, much larger cove, just around Barbary Head to the south.’
‘A complex business, but no doubt you have a competent farm manager. I am often away, so I rely heavily on mine.’
‘Oh, no, dear Tamsyn does it all,’ Izzy said cheerfully. Tamsyn wondered why Rosie rolled her eyes at her—it was, after all, only the truth.
‘I have to earn my keep,’ she said with a smile. ‘And I like to keep busy. Are you travelling for pleasure, Mr Defoe? We are beginning to quite rival the south-coast resorts in this part of the world. Ilfracombe, for example, is positively fashionable.’
‘Perfect for sea bathing,’ Izzy said vaguely, then blushed. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean...’
‘I am sure I would have done much better with a genteel bathing machine—I might have remembered to swim back when my time was up and not go ploughing off into the ocean while I thought of other things.’ He smiled, but there was a bitter twist to it.
‘Is that what you were doing? I did wonder, for the beach—if you can call it that—at Hartland Quay is hardly the kind of place you find people taking the saltwater cure.’ Not, that Mr Defoe needed curing of anything, Tamsyn considered. He looked as though he would be indecently healthy, once rested.
‘I was seized with an attack of acute boredom with the Great North Road, down which I was travelling, so, when I got to Newark, I turned south-west and just kept going, looking for somewhere completely wild and unspoilt.’
‘And then attempted to swim to America?’ What on earth prompted a man to strip off all his clothes, plunge into a cold sea and swim out so far that the current took him?
‘I needed the exercise and I wanted to clear my mind. I certainly achieved the first, if not the second.’ He stopped turning the glass between his fingers and took a long sip. ‘This is very fine wine, I commend you on your supplier.’
‘Probably smuggled,’ Rosie said, accepting the abrupt change of subject. ‘Things turn up on the doorstep. I suppose the correct thing to do is to knock a hole in the cask and drain it away, but that seems a wanton waste and one can hardly turn up at the excise office to pay duty without very awkward questions being asked.’
‘There is much smuggling hereabouts?’ Mr Defoe took another appreciative sip.
‘It is the other main source of income,’ Izzy, incorrigibly chatty and enthusiastic, confided. ‘And of course dear Jory led the gang around here.’
‘Jory?’
‘My late husband,’ Tamsyn said it reluctantly.
‘Such a dear boy. I took him in when he was just a lad, he came from over the border in Cornwall, but his father found him...difficult and he ran away from home.’
‘Dear Isobel is a great collector of lost lambs,’ Rosie said drily.
‘Such as me.’ Even as she said it Tamsyn knew it sounded bitter and that had never been how she felt. She managed to lighten her voice as she added, ‘My mother was Aunt Isobel’s cousin and when she died when I was ten I came to live with her. Jory arrived the next year.’
‘How romantic. Childhood sweethearts.’ The word romantic emerged like a word barely understood in a foreign language.
‘I married my best friend,’ Tamsyn said stiffly. She was not going to elaborate on that one jot and have yet another person wonder why on earth she had married that scapegrace Jory Perowne when she could have had the eligible Franklin Holt, Viscount Chelford.
‘And speaking of marriage,’ Aunt Izzy said with her usual blithe disregard for atmosphere, ‘has your manservant notified your family of your whereabouts? Because, if not, the carrier’s wagon will be leaving the village at nine tomorrow morning and will take letters into the Barnstaple receiving office.’
‘Thank you, ma’am, but there is no one expecting my return. Now I have set Collins’s mind at rest, my conscience can be clear on that front.’
‘Excellent,’ Tamsyn said briskly. It was nothing of the kind. Either he had a wife he could leave in ignorance with impunity, or he did not have one, and she would very much like to know which it was. Not that she was going to explore why she was so curious. ‘Now, tell me, Mr Defoe, are you able to eat rabbit? I do hope you do not despise it, for we have a glut of the little menaces and I feel certain it will feature in tonight’s dinner.’
Chapter Four (#ufdd044b4-9d96-5e36-ab74-8b6a5835b7e9)
‘What have you gleaned from your flirtation with Cook?’ Cris asked as Collins took his discarded coat. The bed was looking devilishly tempting so he sat down on a hard upright chair instead and bent to take off his shoes. The doctor had been quite right, damn him. He should have stayed in bed for the whole of the day and not tried to get up until tomorrow, but everything in him rebelled against succumbing to weakness.
‘Flirtation, sir? The lady is amiable enough, but her charms are rather on the mature side for my taste.’ Cris lifted his head to glare at him and he relented. ‘Cook, and Molly the maid, are both all of a flutter over a personable gentleman landing on Mrs Perowne’s doorstep, as it were. That lady is the main force in the household, that’s for certain, although Miss Holt owns the property. Very active and well liked in the local community is Mrs Perowne, even though she married the local, how shall I put it—?’
‘Bad boy?’ Cris enquired drily as he stood up and began to unbutton his waistcoat, resisting the temptation to pitch face down on the bed and go to sleep. It had been a long, long day.
‘Precisely, sir. A charismatic young man, by all account, and a complete scoundrel, reading between the lines. But a sort of protégé of the two older ladies, who seem to have regarded him as a lovable rogue.’
‘A substitute son, perhaps?’
‘I wondered if that was the case.’ Collins began to turn down the bed. ‘And Molly did say something about it being a good thing he married Miss Tamsyn because otherwise that little toad Franklin Holt would have pestered her to distraction. Which I thought interesting, but Cook soon silenced Molly on that topic.’
‘Franklin Holt? He is Viscount Chelford, I believe. I think I have seen him around. About my age, black hair, dark eyes, thinks a lot of himself.’ Cris put his sapphire stickpin on the dresser and unwound his neckcloth. ‘A gamester. I have no knowledge about his amphibious qualities.’
‘That is the man, sir.’ Collins’s knowledge of the peerage was encyclopedic and almost as good as his comprehension of the underworld. ‘He has a reputation as someone who plunges deep in all matters of sport and play and he is Miss Holt’s nephew. He inherited her father’s lands and titles.’
‘And he was annoying Miss Tamsyn, was he?’ And was more than annoying her now, by the sound of it. But why the ladies should imagine he was responsible for sending their sheep over a cliff, he could not imagine.
Cris pulled off his shirt, shed his trousers and sank gratefully into the enfolding goose-feather bed. ‘You know, Collins, I think I may have overdone things this evening. I feel extraordinarily weak suddenly.’
‘That is very worrying, sir.’ The other man’s face was perfectly expressionless. ‘I fear you may have to presume on Miss Holt’s hospitality for several days in that case. I would diagnose a severely pulled muscle in your back and a possible threat to your weak chest.’
Cris, who could not recall ever having had a wheeze, let alone a bad chest, tried out a pathetic cough. ‘I do fear that travelling would be unwise, but I am reluctant to impose further upon the ladies.’
‘I understand your scruples, sir. I will find a cane so you may hobble more comfortably. However, it will be agony for you to travel over these roads with such an injury and I confess myself most anxious that you might insist on doing so. I will probably be so concerned that I will let my tongue run away with me and say so in front of the servants.’
Cris closed his eyes. ‘Thank you, Collins. You know, you almost convince me of how weak I am. I am certain that if you confide your fears to Cook the intelligence will reach Miss Holt before the morning.’
‘Good night, sir.’ The door closed softly behind the valet and when Cris opened his eyes the room was dark. He smiled, thinking, not for the first time, that it was a good thing that Collins chose to employ his dubious talents on the side of the government and law and order.
Correct behaviour would be to take himself off the next morning, relieving his kind hostesses of the presence of a strange man in their house. But something was wrong her. Tamsyn Perowne was tense, the vague and cheerful Miss Holt was hiding anxiety and the much sharper Miss Pritchard was on the point of direct accusations. But why would they think that Chelford was behind the agricultural slaughter? The man would have to be deranged and, although Cris had seen nothing in their brief encounters to like about the viscount, neither had he any reason to think him insane.
It was a mystery and Cris liked mysteries. What was more, there were three ladies in distress, who had, between them, possibly saved his life. He owed them his assistance. If he was searching for something to take his mind off love lost in the past, and a marriage of duty in the future, then surely this was it? There was, after all, nothing else he felt like doing.
* * *
Come the morning Cris was not certain that he needed any acting skills to convince his hostesses that he was unable to travel. His exhausted muscles, eased the day before by the hot bath and Collins’s manipulation, had stiffened overnight into red-hot agony. After another painful massage session he swore his way out of bed and through the process of dressing. He negotiated the stairs with the assistance of the cane Collins had produced from somewhere and had no trouble sounding irritable when he and the other man took up their carefully calculated positions in the hall in order to have a sotto voce argument. He pitched both his voice and his tone to tempt even the best-behaved person to approach the other side of the door to listen to what was going on.
‘Of course we are going to leave after breakfast. How many more times do I have to tell you, Collins? I cannot presume upon the hospitality of three single ladies in this way.’
‘But, sir, with the risk of your bronchitis returning, I cannot like it,’ Collins protested. ‘And the pain to your back with the jolting over these roads—why, you might be incapacitated for weeks afterwards.’
‘That does not matter. I am sure I can find a halfway acceptable inn soon enough.’
‘In this area? And we do not have our own sheets with us, sir!’ Collins’s dismay was so well-acted that Cris was hard put to it not to laugh. ‘Please, I beg you to reconsider.’
‘No, my mind is made up. I am going—’
‘Nowhere, Mr Defoe.’ The door to the drawing room opened to reveal Mrs Perowne, her ridiculous cap slightly askew as it slid from the pins skewering it to her brown hair. Her hands were on her hips, those lush lips firmly compressed.
The thought intruded that he would like to see them firmly compressed around— No.
His thoughts could not have been visible on his face, given that she did not slap it. ‘The doctor said you were to stay in bed yesterday and you ignored him, so no wonder you are not feeling quite the thing this morning. If you have a tendency to bronchitis it is completely foolish to risk aggravating it and what is this about a painful back?’
Cris discovered that he did not like to be thought of as weak, or an invalid, or, for that matter, prone to bronchitis, which should be of no importance whatsoever beside the necessity of convincing Mrs Perowne that he should stay put in this house. His pride was, he realised, thoroughly affronted. That was absurd—was he so insecure that he needed to show off his strength in front of some country widow? ‘The merest twinge, and Collins exaggerates. It is only that I had a severe cold last winter.’
‘Oh, sir.’ The reproach in Collins’s voice would have not been out of place in a Drury Lane melodrama. ‘After what the doctor said last year. Madam, I could tell you tales—’
‘But not if you wish to remain in my employ,’ Cris snapped and they both turned reproachful, anxious looks on him.
‘Mr Defoe, please, I implore you to stay. My aunts would worry so if you left before you were quite recovered, and besides, we are most grateful for your company.’ There was something in the warm brown eyes that was certainly not pity for an invalid, a flicker of recognition of him as a man that touched his wounded pride and soothed it, even as he told himself not to be such a coxcomb as to set any store by what a virtual stranger thought of him. Before now he had played whatever role his duties as a not-quite-official diplomat required and it had never given him the slightest qualm to appear over-cautious, or indiscreet, or naïve, in some foreign court. He knew he was none of those things, so that was all that mattered.
But this woman, who should mean nothing to him, had him wanting to parade his courage and his endurance and his fitness like some preening peacock flaunting his tail in front of his mate. He swallowed what was left of his pride. ‘If it would not be an imposition, Mrs Perowne, I confess I would be grateful for a few days’ respite.’
‘Excellent. My aunts will be very relieved to hear it.’
‘They are not within earshot, then?’ he enquired, perversely wanting to provoke her.
He was rewarded with the tinge of colour that stained her cheekbones. ‘You reprove me for eavesdropping, Mr Defoe? I plead guilty to it, but I was concerned for you and suspected you would attempt to leave today, however you felt.’
Now he felt guilty on top of everything else and it was an unfamiliar emotion. He did not do things that offended his own sense of honour, therefore there was never anything to feel guilty about. ‘I apologise, Mrs Perowne. That was ungracious of me when you show such concern for an uninvited guest.’
‘You are forgiven, and to show to what extent, let me lead you through to the breakfast room and you may tell me what you think of our own sausages and bacon.’
Cris, ignoring Collins’s faint smile, which, in a lesser man, would have been a smirk, followed her into a sunny room with yellow chintz curtains and a view down the sloping lawn to the sea. ‘Should we not wait for your aunts?’
‘They always breakfast in their room.’ Mrs Perowne gestured to a seat and sat opposite. The centre of the table had platters of bread and ham, a bowl of butter and a covered dish. ‘Let me serve you, you will not want to be stretching to lift dishes.’ As she spoke she raised the dome and a tantalising aroma of bacon and sausage wafted out.
‘Thank you.’ He meekly accepted a laden plate and tried to work out the enigma that was Mrs Tamsyn Perowne. She was well spoken, confident, competent and a lady, even if she was decidedly out of the ordinary. She was distantly related to a viscount, but she had married a local man who had died one leap ahead of the noose.
‘That is a charming portrait on the wall behind you,’ he remarked. ‘Your aunts do not resemble each other greatly. Are they your mother’s relations or your father’s, if I might ask?’
‘Aunt Isobel is my mother’s cousin. Aunt Rosie is not a relation.’ Mrs Perowne shot him a very direct glance as though measuring his reaction. ‘They left home to set up house together when they were in their late twenties. It was—is—a passionate friendship, as close as a marriage.’
‘Like the famous Ladies of Llangollen?’
‘Yes, just like that. It was their inspiration, I believe. Are you shocked?’
‘No, not at all. Why should they not be happy together?’ Lucky women, able to turn their backs on the demands of society and its expectations. But daughters did not bear the same weight of expectation that sons did, especially elder sons, with the requirements of duty to make a good match, bring wealth and connections into the family, provide an heir to title and estates.
‘And you?’ he asked when she gave him an approving nod and turned her attention to a dish of eggs in cream. ‘What led you to make your life here?’
‘My father was a naval man and I cannot even recall his face. He was killed at sea when I was scarcely toddling. Mama found things very difficult without him. I think she was not a strong character.’
‘So you had to be strong for both of you?’ he suggested.
‘Yes. How did you know?’ The quick look of pleasure at his understanding made Cris smile back. She really was a charming woman with her expressive face and healthy colour. And young still, not much above twenty-five, he would estimate.
‘You have natural authority, yet you wear it lightly. I doubt you learned it recently. What happened to your mother?’
‘She succumbed to one of the cholera epidemics. We lived in Portsmouth and like all ports many kinds of infection are rife.’
‘And then you came here?’ He tried to imagine the feelings of the orphaned girl, leaving the place that she knew, mourning for her mother. He had lost his own mother when he was four, bearing the sibling he never knew. His father, a remote, chilly figure, had died when he was barely ten, leaving Cris a very young, very frightened marquess. Rigorously hiding his feelings behind a mask of frigid reserve had got him through that ordeal. It still served him well.
‘Do your duty,’ was his father’s dying command and the only advice he ever gave his son on holding one of the premier titles in the land. But he had found it covered every difficulty he encountered. Do your duty usually meant do what you least want to do because it was hard, or painful, or meant he must use his head, not his heart, to solve a problem, but he had persevered. It even stood me in good stead to prevent me sacrificing honour for love, he thought bitterly.
‘Aunt Izzy is a maternal creature,’ Tamsyn said. ‘She adopted Jory, she took me in.’ She slanted a teasing smile at Cris. ‘I think she sees you as her next good cause.’
‘Do I appear to need mothering?’
‘From my point of view?’ She studied him, head on one side, a wicked glint in her eyes, apparently not at all chilled by his frigid tone. ‘No, I feel absolutely no inclination to mother you, Mr Defoe. But you could have died, you are still recovering, and that is quite enough for Aunt Izzy.’ Having silenced him, she added, ‘Will you be resting today?’
‘I will walk. My muscles will seize up if I rest. I thought I would go along the lane for a while.’
‘It is uphill all the way for a mile until the combe joins Stib Valley, but there are several places to rest—fallen trees, rocks.’ Mrs Perowne was showing not the slightest desire to fuss over him, which was soothing to his male pride and a setback for his scheme to draw her out.
‘Will you not come with me? Show me the way?’
‘There is absolutely no opportunity for you to get lost, Mr Defoe. If you manage to reach the lane to Stibworthy, then by turning right you will descend to Stib’s Landing. Left will take you to the village and the tracks to either side will lead you to the clifftops.’
‘I was hoping for your company, not your guidance.’ Cris tried to look wistful, which, he knew, was not an expression that sat well on his austere features.
Tamsyn took the top off a boiled egg with a sharp swipe of her knife. ‘Lonely, Mr Defoe?’ she enquired sweetly.
Cris did not rise to the mockery. ‘It is a while since I had the opportunity to walk in such unspoiled countryside and have a conversation with a young lady at the same time.’
She pursed her mouth, although whether to suppress a smile or a wry expression of resignation he could not tell. ‘I have to go and see our shepherd about the...incident yesterday. I am intending to ride, but I will walk with you up the combe until you tire, then ride on from there. There is no particular hurry, the damage has been done.’
Cris wondered whether she was as cool and crisp with everyone or whether she did not like him. Possibly it was a cover for embarrassment. After all, he had come lurching out of the sea, stark naked, seized hold of her and then kissed her, neither of which were the actions of a gentleman. But Tamsyn Perowne did not strike him as a woman who was easily embarrassed. She had an earthy quality about her, which was not at all coarse but rather made him think of pagan goddesses—Primavera, perhaps, bringing growing things and springtime in her wake.
It was refreshing after the artificiality of London society or the Danish court. There, ladies wore expressions of careful neutrality and regarded showing their feelings as a sign of weakness, or ill breeding. Even Katerina had hidden behind a façade of indifferent politeness. And thank heavens, for that, Cris thought. Self-control and the ability to disguise their feelings had been all that stood between them and a major scandal. Mrs Perowne could keep secrets, he was sure of that, but she would find it hard to suppress her emotions. He thought of her spirited response to the magistrate, the anger so openly expressed. Would her lovemaking be so passionate, so frank?
It was an inappropriate thought and, from her suddenly arrested expression, this time something of it had shown on his face. ‘Mr Defoe?’ There was a touch of ice behind the question.
