‘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 wh
ether 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.
‘I was thinking of how magnificently you routed that boor of a magistrate yesterday,’ he said.
‘I dislike incompetence, laziness and foolishness,’ she said. ‘Mr Penwith possesses all three in abundance.’
‘Doubtless you consider me foolish, almost getting myself drowned yesterday.’ If she thought him an idiot she was not going to confide in him, and unless she did, it was going to be more difficult to discover what was threatening the ladies Combe. Not impossible, just more time consuming and, for all he knew, there wasn’t the luxury of time.
‘Reckless, certainly.’ She was cutting into her toast with the same attack that she had applied to beheading the egg. ‘I suspect you had something on your mind.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘That must be my excuse.’
‘Mr Defoe.’ She laid down her knife and looked directly at him across the breakfast table. ‘It is easy to become…distracted when we are hurting. It would be a mistake to allow that distraction to become fatal. There is always hope. Everything passes.’
She thinks I was trying to kill myself. The realisation hit him as he saw there was no smile, no teasing, in those brown eyes. Then he saw the ghost of something besides concern. Pain. She is speaking of herself. When her husband died did she want to die, too?
‘I know. And there are responsibilities and duties to keep one going, are there not? I was angry with myself for my lack of focus, Tamsyn. I have no desire to find myself in a lethal predicament again because I have lost concentration.’
Cris realised he had called her by her first name as her eyebrows lifted, giving her tanned, pleasant face a sudden look of haughty elegance. She was not a conventional beauty, but he was reminded again what a very feminine creature she was, for all her practicality. ‘I apologise for the familiarity, but your concern disarmed me. May we not be friends? I do feel we have been very thoroughly introduced.’
Tamsyn laughed, a sudden rich chuckle that held surprise and wickedness and warmth even though she blushed, just a little. ‘Indeed we have… That moment in the sea. I do not normally…’
‘Kiss strange men?’ Now she was pink from the collarbone upwards. ‘If it is any consolation, I do not normally kiss mermaids.’ That made her laugh. ‘It felt like touching life when I thought I was dying.’
‘It was an extraordinary moment, like something from a myth. You thought I was a mermaid, I thought you were a merman, Christopher.’
‘Cris,’ he corrected. ‘St Crispin, if we are to be exact.’
‘“And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remember’d,”’ she quoted, visibly recovering her composure. ‘Your parents were Shakespearian enthusiasts? Or is your birthday October the twenty-fifth?’