Читать книгу Regency Surrender: Sinful Conquests - Louise Allen - Страница 19

Chapter Nine

Now, perhaps, was the moment to be bold, to reach out and admit, frankly, that she would welcome him as her lover, that she wanted him, that he had nothing to fear from her, that she would not cling or make demands. But that shadow—the one that had killed the heat of desire in his eyes—that haunted her. She would not be a substitute for another woman, nor would she demand he forget.

‘There is nothing to apologise for in behaving like a gentleman.’ She shrugged and smiled, making it light, slightly flirtatious. Unimportant. ‘I was uncertain and you, very thoughtfully, did not press me. Now, if you will excuse me, I must finish these accounts or we really will be in a pickle if any more demands for payment come in.’

She thought he was going to offer his help with the books, but a smile, as meaningless and pleasant as her own, curved his mouth and he nodded. ‘Of course. I will leave you in peace.’

Tamsyn stared at the account books for a long while after he had gone. The path of virtue was the right one to take, and the least embarrassing, as well as the decision that would carry no risks at all, for either of them. Safe.

‘Safe is dull, safe kills you with rust and boredom,’ Jory’s voice seemed to whisper in her ear.

‘Take care,’ she had pleaded with him so often. ‘Do not take risks.’

‘Risk makes your blood beat, fear tells you that you are alive,’ he would respond with that charming flash of teeth, the smile that was as enchanting as Hamelin’s Piper must have been. The smile he had given her before he had turned and sprinted for the cliff edge and oblivion.

And risk made you dead, Jory, Tamsyn argued back now, in her thoughts.

Yes, his voice seemed to echo back. But I lived to the end.

* * *

A week later Cris was still installed in the back bedchamber, Collins had his feet firmly under the table in the kitchen and both of the older ladies protested strongly whenever Cris suggested that he really should be moving on. Not that he wanted to, not until he heard from Gabe and had a clearer idea of what Chelford might be up to, and not until his surprise for Aunt Rosie arrived.

The ladies insisted he call them Aunt Izzy and Aunt Rosie, exclaimed with pleasure over each small service he did for them, made a great fuss over him—even when he tangled Izzy’s knitting wool into a rat’s nest or beat Rosie at chess. He needed a holiday, they insisted, and his presence was as good as one for them, too. Again, as it did almost every day, the truth was on the tip of his tongue, and once again he closed his lips on it. Hiding his identity was becoming dangerously addictive, like losing himself in drink, and he justified it to himself again, as he did every time. He needed the rest, he was doing no harm to anyone.

The only blight on this amiable arrangement was Tamsyn. She protested that they should not detain him, that he must be bored or uncomfortable or, when he choked over one of her more blatant attempts to dislodge him one dinner time, in need of a London doctor.

None of this made him want her any less. He found himself in a state of arousal which long punishing walks along the cliffs, or up through the woods, did nothing to subdue. If he couldn’t stop reacting like a sixteen-year-old youth soon he was going to have to resort to several cold swims a day. That particular form of exercise he had been avoiding, wary of encountering Tamsyn, who apparently saw no reason to curtail her own daily swims just because there was a man in the house.

He wanted her, he admired her spirit and her directness, her love of her aunts, her work ethic, her courage and her humour. Taking her as his lover would be healing, he sensed, provided he could manage a short-lived affaire without harming her in any way. On the other hand, finding a bride, plighting his lifelong fidelity and affection, that was another matter altogether. That would be a betrayal of Katerina. As soon as he thought it he felt uncomfortable, as though he was dramatising himself and his feelings. But if he was in love with Katerina...

He came in through the front door that morning after an unsatisfactory, brooding, walk on the beach, trying to conjure up the memory of Katerina and finding it damnably difficult, and found Tamsyn in the hallway arranging flowers in the big urn at the foot of the stairs. ‘Can I be of any help? That looks heavy.’

‘It will be staying here, thank you for offering.’ A polite smile, a polite exchange, a not-very-polite urge to sweep the basket of foliage on to the floor and take her here and now, on the half-moon table amidst the flowers and the moss.

Cris pushed the fantasy back into the darker recesses of his imagination, from whence it should never have escaped in the first place, and took the stairs to his bedchamber two at a time. Increasingly he found it difficult to be in Tamsyn’s company and pretend there was nothing else he wanted beyond a polite social friendship.

Collins was sorting out laundry and managing to take up most of the space in the room in the process. ‘I’ll be out of your way in a moment, sir. I’ve just got to put these shirts away, the rest can wait.’

‘No, carry on.’ Cris took off his coat, tugged loose his neckcloth as he went to stand in the window embrasure and stare out over the roofs of the stable yard to the steep lane. Someone was coming, a rider, low-crowned beaver hat jammed on over windswept curling black hair, and behind him the roof of a carriage was just visible with, strapped on top, something that looked like a giant coffin with windows.

It was Gabriel. He had come himself without warning, riding into a situation he knew hardly anything about and quite apt to let all of Cris’s secrets out of the bag if he wasn’t stopped. Cris threw up the casement, climbed over the sill and dropped the ten feet to the rough grass path behind the house.

‘Sir!’ He looked up to see Collins leaning out. ‘May I assist, sir?’ He kept his voice to a discreet whisper. It was not the first time both he and Cris had left a building by way of the window and Cris suspected that the valet enjoyed missions where there was a strong element of cloak and dagger work as much as he did.

‘Lord Edenbridge is riding down the lane, I need to head him off.’ He was off, running, before Collins could reply, shouldered his way through the narrow gap in the shrubbery behind the house and sprinted up the lane past the entrance to the service yard.

Gabriel reined in, his hand on the hilt of his sword, the moment Cris emerged. The horse, battle-trained, went down on its haunches, ready to kick out, then Gabriel relaxed, clicked his tongue and the horse was still.

‘My good fellow,’ he drawled as Cris arrived at his stirrup. ‘I am looking for my friend Cris de Feaux. Elegant, well-dressed gentleman, a certain dignity and refinement in his manner. Anyone answering to that description around here?’

Cris shoved the hair back out of his eyes. ‘Buffoon.’

‘I am a buffoon? By the sainted Brummell, what have you done to yourself? Your hair hasn’t been cut, you’re as brown as a farm labourer—and your clothes!’ He surveyed Cris from head to foot. ‘What the devil has happened to you?’

‘I just climbed out of the window. What are you doing here? I wanted information, not the dubious pleasure of your company. And it is Defoe, not de Feaux.’

‘It all sounded intriguing and I needed to remove myself from temptation in London.’ He shrugged when Cris raised an interrogative brow. ‘A sudden impulse of decency in regards to a woman.’ His habitually cynical expression deepened. ‘A lady. I thought it better to remove myself before I discovered that I was on the verge of becoming reformed. So here I am, complete with the cargo from Bath, armed to the teeth and looking for adventure. And, judging by the state of the roads hereabouts, this is probably the end of the known world, so adventure should be forthcoming.’

‘You will fit right in. There are smugglers hereabouts and I would guess we’re about two generations from pirates.’ With his unruly black hair, his gypsy-dark eyes, his rakehell attitude and the sword at his side, Gabriel Stone, earl or not, looked as though he was up for any criminal activity. ‘Listen, we must make this fast. I am plain Mr Defoe and you had better be simply Mr Stone. This is not a part of the world used to the aristocracy and I do not want to cause complications.’

‘Or raise expectations. I assume there’s a woman in the case?’

‘A lady.’ Gabriel grinned at the echo of his own phrase. Lord, Tamsyn married one rogue, I just hope for her sake she doesn’t take a fancy to this one... ‘There’s some kind of trouble and I haven’t got to the bottom of it yet, but until I do, there are two ladies of a certain age who would be better for some protection whether they want it or not.’

‘Hence our Irish friends?’ Gabe looked over his shoulder at the carriage with its incongruous load.

‘Exactly. I’ll just have a word with them, then we’ll go on down to the house. The ladies will offer you a bed, I have no doubt. You’d best accept unless you want to make your way back to Barnstaple today—there isn’t more than an alehouse for ten miles in any direction.’

He went up to the carriage, nodded to the coachman, and opened the door. The inside was filled with Gabe’s luggage and two very large Irishmen. ‘Good day to you, me lord!’ the black-haired one exclaimed. ‘And a pleasure it is to be seeing you again.’

‘Seamus.’ Cris nodded to his red-headed companion. ‘Patrick. Now listen. I am Mr Defoe—forget I ever had a title. I’ve a couple of very nice ladies who need an eye keeping on them, but they aren’t to know that. As far as they are concerned I’ve sent for a sedan chair for the one who can’t walk far and the two of you are here to train up a couple of likely local lads. And you’ll have trouble finding the right ones, if you catch my drift?’

Seamus cracked his knuckles and grinned, revealing a gap in his front teeth. ‘Someone causing them grief, eh? Don’t like bullies who upset nice old ladies, do we, Patrick? You can rely on us, Lord...Mr Defoe, sir. We’re doing very nicely with the bodyguarding business you helped us with, it’s a pleasure to take a job in the country for you, that it is.’

Patrick, a man of few words, grunted.

‘Unload the chair now,’ Cris decided. ‘Get it set up, then follow us down in ten minutes. You’ll be a surprise for the ladies.’

What they would make of two massive chairmen, Irish as most of the Bath chairmen were by long tradition, goodness knew. These two had waded into the action when Cris and Gabriel had found themselves cornered in a dark alleyway by a gang who did not take well to Gabe’s legendary game-winning skills with cards. When the dust had settled and the four of them had been binding up their injuries and drowning the bruises in brandy at the nearest inn, Cris had suggested they might find acting as bodyguards a profitable sideline. After he had put some business their way the two were building quite a reputation and they made no bones about expressing their gratitude.

* * *

‘Tamsyn, there is a carriage at the gate,’ Aunt Rosie called. ‘And a gentleman on a horse. Who on earth can it be?’

She jammed the rest of the flowers into the vase with more haste than care, whipped off her apron and threw open the front door. And there was Cris, who only ten minutes before had been upstairs while she had been filling vases at the foot of those stairs the entire time. She shot him a questioning glance as she approached, blinked at the sight of shirtsleeves and loose neckcloth, and blinked again when she saw the man dismounting from a raking bay horse. Presumably she was not dreaming and transported into some Minerva Press novel, so this was not a dashing gentleman highwayman. She took a deep, appreciative breath. Goodness, but he certainly looked like every fantasy of such a romantic character.

‘Mrs Perowne, may I introduce my friend, Mr Gabriel Stone.’ Cris gave her a very old-fashioned look as though he knew exactly what she thought of the newcomer. ‘I wrote to him on a business matter and did not make myself clear that posting the information would be sufficient.’

Mr Stone doffed his hat. ‘Mrs Perowne, my apologies for the intrusion. Just as soon as my coachman can work out how to turn the carriage on this track, we will be on our way.’

‘Mr Stone.’ She inclined her head in response to his half-bow. ‘Are you in haste, sir?’

‘No, ma’am, not at all.’

‘Then you must stay. If your man takes the carriage further down he can turn where the lane opens out to the beach. Then the stable yard is just up behind the house. Oh, I see Mr Defoe is already organising him.’

And Mr Defoe wants you to stay, now you are here. I wonder just what that matter of business is.

She turned towards the house, inviting the intriguing Mr Stone to follow her as Cris strode across the lawn to rejoin them.

‘If Miss Holt and Miss Pritchard are able to come to the door, I have a small gift for Miss Pritchard. I will go and fetch her a chair out to the porch.’ He was gone before she could ask what possible present could necessitate Aunt Rosie coming outside.

It took a few minutes for Michael to carry out a chair and for Aunt Rosie to be settled on it and introduced to Mr Stone. There was the sound of feet on the stones of the lane and then, completely incongruous in the wilds of the Devon coast, two burly men appeared carrying a sedan chair between them. Cris opened the gate and they marched across the lawn, deposited the chair in front of Aunt Rosie, opened the door between the shafts and whipped off their hats.

They were certainly an imposing pair in their dark-blue coats, black tricorns and sturdy boots. The sedan chair gleamed and the seat was deeply padded. ‘Would you care to try it, ma’am?’ the black-haired man enquired in a broad Irish accent.

‘Why...’ For a moment Aunt Rosie seemed lost for words. ‘Why, yes, I would. But we have no city pavements here, you will find it hard going.’

‘We’re from Bath, ma’am, and that has hills as steep as you’ll find anywhere and cobbles like walking on ice. We’re strong lads, that we are. We won’t drop you, ma’am.’

‘You brought them here?’ Tamsyn asked Mr Stone as they watched Michael and Cris help Aunt Rosie into the chair. He nodded as the men picked up the poles and set off smoothly around the lawn, then through the gate and off up the hill.

‘I’ll be able to go with her on my mare.’ Aunt Izzy ran across the grass and took Cris’s arm as he stood watching the chair’s progress up the lane. ‘We can go for picnics and Rosie can visit our friends again and go up on the clifftops. Oh, thank you, Mr Defoe.’

‘Mr Stone brought them,’ he said with a smile.

‘But you sent for them.’ Tamsyn joined them at the gate. ‘How long can they stay?’

‘The chair is yours to keep. Seamus and Patrick will stay until they’ve found you a pair of local men to train in their stead.’ He looked down at her, his face austere again. ‘They are very reliable men, I can vouch for them. Very strong, honest. No harm will come to your aunts with them around.’

The chair was returning and Aunt Izzy ran out to join it. Tamsyn hardly noticed her going. ‘You sent for bodyguards,’ she said as the realisation struck.

‘That is a side benefit. I thought of the sedan chair when your aunt was saying how difficult it was to get around, then I remembered these two. Will it be a problem feeding them? They probably eat like bullocks.’

‘No, not at all, and there is space in the living quarters over the stables. But, Cris, you don’t truly believe we are in danger, do you?’

Mr Stone, who had strolled over to the wall to watch the progress of the chair, remarked, ‘Rider coming. Looks military.’

Cris joined him, leaving her question unanswered. The horseman reined in, his way blocked by the sedan chair, and even at that distance Tamsyn could see the colour in his face and the angry set of his mouth. He did not like being held up and neither did he seem to enjoy being stared at.

The chairmen came back into the garden, took the chair right up to the seat and began to help Aunt Rosie out. She and Izzy immediately broke into animated conversation, then fell silent as the stranger dismounted at the gate and strode in.

Around her Tamsyn was conscious of the men closing up. The two chairmen were standing in front of her aunts like a solid wall of muscle. Cris and Mr Stone flanked her. This was ridiculous. It was only one man, apparently on official business judging from his dark-blue tailcoat with insignia on the high collar and the naval sword at his side.

‘Sir?’

He halted in front of her and made a sketchy bow, lifting his tall hat as he did so. ‘Ma’am. I am looking for the householder.’

She was aware of his gaze shifting between the two large men beside her, Cris dishevelled in shirtsleeves, Mr Stone managing to look piratical despite his sober, conventional clothing. ‘My aunt, Miss Holt, is the householder. And you are?’

‘Lieutenant Ritchie, newly appointed Riding Officer for this beat of the coast. And I was told it is Mrs Perowne that I need to speak to.’

Was it her imagination or had Cris growled, low in his throat.

‘I am Tamsyn Perowne.’ She tried to sound calm and welcoming, but the man’s hard, unfriendly gaze was setting her hackles up. ‘And Mr Defoe and Mr Stone are our house guests.’ She should invite him in, she knew. The Riding Officer had about the same status as the doctor or the curate and would expect to be received in gentry houses, but she did not want this man, who seemed to radiate hostility, over their threshold. ‘What can I do for you, Lieutenant Ritchie?’

‘The Revenue service has been informed of a new smuggling gang in these parts. What can you tell me of it, Mrs Perowne?’

‘Nothing whatsoever. There is no gang here, not since—’

‘Not since your late husband’s death?’ he enquired.

‘Precisely.’ She took a hold on her temper, sensing that her supporters would react violently at any sign of distress from her. A fight on the front lawn was the last thing they needed. ‘I imagine smuggling still goes on, here and there, in a minor way, but I defy you to find any stretch of coastline in England where it does not.’

‘And so it will remain while the local gentry take such a casual attitude to law-breaking. Ma’am.’ The last word sounded like an afterthought. ‘I came to give fair warning that we will be on the alert hereabouts now.’

‘There is no gang, Lieutenant Ritchie. And I can only assume you mean you wish to advise us to take care and lock our doors. Any other warning would be nothing short of insulting.’

‘Take it as you will, ma’am,’ he snapped.

‘Mrs Perowne is too much of a lady to respond to an insult in kind.’ Cris took one step forward. He sounded perfectly calm and yet his tone held a threat that sent a shiver down her spine.

‘And you are, sir?’ The Riding Officer’s square chin set even harder.

‘As Mrs Perowne said just now, Crispin Defoe, a visitor.’ Now he sounded as haughty as a duke.

‘Gabriel Stone. Another visitor,’ the mocking voice on her other side echoed, equally arrogant in its own way.

Ritchie’s gaze rested on the faces in front of him, then shifted as though to study the chairmen. Tamsyn could almost feel them glowering behind her. ‘Good day to you, gentlemen. Ma’am. You appear to have quite a private army here, Mrs Perowne.’ He touched his whip to his hat, turned the horse and clattered back up the lane.