‘Both. My father was much given to quoting Henry V. “Once more unto the breach, dear friends.” He would mutter it before anything he did not want to do, such as attending social gatherings.’
‘How infuriating for your mother.’
‘She died many years ago, in childbirth. My father was shot in the shoulder in a hunting accident and developed blood poisoning.’ He stopped to calculate. ‘It was nineteen years ago, the day before my tenth birthday.’ He would not normally speak so openly about their deaths, but he wanted Tamsyn to talk of her husband’s fatal plunge from the cliff and his frankness might encourage hers.
‘I am so sorry. You poor little boy, you must have been so alone. I was ten when I lost my mother to that epidemic, but at least I had the aunts.’
‘There were many people to look after me.’ Four trustees, one hundred servants, indoor and outdoor. There had been three tutors, a riding master, a fencing master, an art master, a dancing master—all dedicated to turning out the young Marquess of Avenmore in as perfect a form as possible.
‘I am glad of that,’ Tamsyn murmured. ‘Now, some more coffee before we take our walk?’ She passed him the pot, a fine old silver one. ‘I cannot delay much longer or Willie Tremayne will think I have forgotten him. I will meet you at the garden gate.’
Cris sat with his coffee cooling in the cup for several minutes after she had gone from the room. This household, and its inhabitants, were unlike any he had encountered before. He supposed it was because, used as he was to palaces, government offices, great houses or bachelor lodgings, he had never before experienced the world of the gentry. Were they all so warm, so unaffected? He gave himself a shake and swallowed the cold coffee as a penance for daydreaming. He had to get his reluctant limbs moving and find a coat or he would be keeping Tamsyn Perowne waiting.
Chapter Five
The garden gate was as good a perch as it had been when she had first come to Barbary, but now it did not seem like a mountain to climb. Tamsyn hooked the toes of her riding boots over a rail and kept her weight at the hinge end, as a proper countrywoman knew to do. The breeze from the sea blew up the lane, stirring the curls that kept escaping from under the old-fashioned tricorn she had jammed over her hair and flipping the ends of her stock until she caught them and stuffed them into the neck of her jacket. She felt almost frivolous, and if that was the result of looking forward to a very slow walk up the lane with an ailing gentleman, then it was obvious that she was not getting out enough.
Mr Defoe—Cris—emerged from the door just as Jason led out Foxy, her big chestnut gelding, and she bit her lip rather than smile at her own whimsy. He might think she was laughing at his cane.
‘Leg up, Mrs Tamsyn?’
‘I’m walking for a little while, thank you, Jason.’ She jumped down from the gate and pulled the reins over the gelding’s head to lead him and he butted her with his nose, confused about why she was not mounting.
‘That’s a big beast.’ Cris was walking slowly, using the cane, but without limping or leaning on it. She did her best not to stare. He would experience enough of that if he walked as far as Stibworthy and the locals had a good look at his pale tan buckskins and beautiful boots. He might as well have dressed for a ball, as donned that dark brown riding coat and the low-crowned beaver. He clicked his tongue at Foxy and the horse turned his head to look at him. ‘Powerful hocks and a good neck on him. Is he a puller?’
‘No, he’s a pussy cat with lovely manners and a soft mouth, aren’t you, my handsome red fox?’ She was rewarded with a slobbery nuzzle at her shoulder. ‘But I wish you were a tidier kisser.’
That
provoked a snort of amusement from the man holding the gate open for her. Possibly references to kissing were not such a good idea. She could still feel the heat of his mouth on hers, in shocking contrast to the cold of his skin. And despite any amount of effort with the tooth powder, she imagined she could still taste him, salty and male.
Two years without kisses had been a long time, and this was a man who seemed to have been created to tempt women. He probably has several in keeping and has to beat off the rest with his fine leather gloves. Intimacy with a man to whom she was not married had never occurred to her before now. Was it simply that the passage of time had left her yearning for the lovemaking that she had learned to enjoy? Or was it this man?
She had never seriously considered remarrying, although sometimes she wondered if, given any encouragement, Dr Tregarth might have declared an interest. But it would be unfair to any man when she… With my past, she substituted before she let herself follow that train of thought.
Thoughts of illicit intimacy were certainly occurring to her now and the fact that Cris Defoe was walking with a cane and complaining of a bad back and weak chest did absolutely nothing to suppress some very naughty thoughts. They turned up the lane and she wandered along, letting Cris set the pace. The sound of their feet and the horse’s hooves were muffled by the sand that filled the ruts in the pebbly turf, and the music of the sea behind them and the song of the skylark high above filled the silence between them.
‘Salt from the sea, vanilla from the gorse and wild garlic,’ he said after a few minutes. ‘The air around here is almost painfully clear after the smoke of towns or the heat of inland countryside, don’t you think?’
Cris was not breathing heavily, despite the increasing slope of the lane as it rose up the combe. He was certainly very fit. She remembered the muscles strapping his chest and his flat stomach, the hard strength as she had gripped his bare shoulders in the sea. Unless he developed the chest infection his valet seemed to fear, his recovery should be rapid. ‘I do not know about towns—I hardly recall Portsmouth and our local ones, Barnstaple, Bideford and Bude, are small and they are not the kind I think you have in mind. How is your back?’
‘My… Oh, yes. Amazingly the exercise has already straightened the knots out of it. You have never been to London, then?’
‘No, never.’
And I’ll wager you have never had bronchitis in your life and your back hurts you no more than the rest of you does. So what is this nonsense about being unable to endure a coach ride over rough roads?
The track turned as they came out from the trees on to the pastureland. ‘There’s a fallen tree.’ Cris stopped, made a show of flexing his shoulders. ‘Shall we sit a while? The view looks good from here.’
And you need a rest? He was a good actor, she would give him that. But she suspected that this man would no more willingly admit weakness than he would ride a donkey, so he must have a good reason other than exhaustion or sore muscles for wanting to stop. ‘Certainly,’ she agreed, and tossed Foxy’s reins over a handy branch. ‘Don’t mind me, you sit down,’ she added over her shoulder. As she turned back to the tree trunk she was treated to a fine display of bravely controlled wincing and the sight of Cris’s long legs being folded painfully down to the low seat.
She could go along with it and let him fish for whatever it was he wanted, or she could stop this nonsense now. Jory had been a man who was constitutionally incapable of giving a straight answer, a husband who could keep virtually his entire life, and certainly his thoughts, secret from his wife, and she was weary of mysteries.
‘Mr Defoe.’ His head came up at her tone and his eyes narrowed for an instant before he was all amiable attention. No, he was doing a good job of it, but she was not at all convinced by this harmless exterior.
‘Why so formal all of a sudden, Tamsyn?’
Now he was trying to unsettle her because he knew she was not entirely comfortable with first names. Tamsyn sat down. ‘Because I have a bone to pick with you, sir. You are no more in need of a rest than I am. I can believe that you are sore and your muscles are giving you hell, but if you are so sickly that you are about to succumb to a chest infection and you are incapable of riding in a coach over rough ground, then I am the Queen of the May.’