They rounded another bend and the land to the south fell away, giving a view of the sea and another towering headland. Tregarth nodded towards it. ‘Black Edge Head. For a woman to see her husband hunted to his death it’s either going to break her, or temper her steel.’
‘He jumped from that?’ Cris stared at the sheer face, the sea crashing at its foot, the snarling rocks. ‘That is a long way down to regret an impulse.’
‘Jory Perowne did not work on impulse. He was a realist and no coward. A man can dangle for
half an hour on the gallows if the authorities are determined to make him suffer and Perowne had his pride. He would never have let them take him alive and jumping from there certainly made an impression.’
‘And that old fool of a magistrate really thought he had to check that a strange man under Mrs Perowne’s roof was not her husband? After he went over there in front of witnesses?’
‘They never found the body and Jory was a legend. He had charisma, magic. No one would be surprised if he walked dripping out of the sea one dark night. Cornwall has King Arthur and, of late years, we had Jory Perowne. But if he does come back it will be as a ghost. Enough men saw him hit those rocks to know he died that day.’
Tamsyn had chosen marriage to a brigand who sounded like a swashbuckling rogue from the last century rather than submit to a man who would have given her status and title, if not happiness. She had survived seeing her husband’s horrific death and lived with the consequences, and now she supported and protected two charming, and apparently unworldly, ladies. She ran an estate, kept a tart tongue in her head and she kissed like an angel. Cris was beginning to wonder who needed protection from whom.
*
‘But where is he?’ Aunt Izzy enquired plaintively for the fourth time. ‘I cannot believe you simply abandoned the poor man like that and rode off, Tamsyn. Why, he might be collapsed in a ditch from exhaustion.’
‘I did not abandon him, he is not a poor man and there are no ditches anywhere around there.’ Exasperated, Tamsyn eyed the walking cane she had picked up when she rode home past the fallen tree. ‘He was walking perfectly well and he can hardly get lost around here. He will turn up when he wants his luncheon, I have no doubt. He is a man, after all.’ There was no doubt about that either. She braced her shoulders against the sensual little shiver that ran through her at the thought. She should tell them that Cris Defoe had exaggerated his weakness in order to have an excuse to stay there and protect them, but she suspected Aunt Rosie would be indignant and that Aunt Izzy would make a hero out of him.
‘Here he comes now, from the beach,’ Rosie said from her seat by the window.
‘The beach?’ And so he was, striding up over the lawn as though he had never experienced so much as a mild muscle twinge in his life. But how did he get there without being seen?
Cris raised his hat when he saw Rosie, then turned to take the path round to the kitchen door. Like all of them he had developed the habit of ignoring the front entrance. He obviously felt at home at Barbary Combe House and, strangely, the aunts, who were so protective of their privacy, seemed quite comfortable that he had become part of the household in only two days.
‘Mr Defoe is back so I’ll serve luncheon, shall I, Miss Holt?’ Mrs Tape enquired. Through the open door his booted feet taking the stairs two at a time sounded quite clearly.
‘By all means,’ Tamsyn muttered as Aunt Izzy agreed with the housekeeper and they both went to help Aunt Rosie to her feet. ‘Let us females wait upon the convenience of The Man.’ She was thoroughly out of sorts and it was not helped by the fact that she felt guilty for being so scratchy. The aunts enjoyed having a man in the house again—Izzy to fuss over, Rosie to sharpen her wits on—and she was being a curmudgeon about it.
Booted feet clattered down the stairs again and she realised why she was feeling like this. The house had a man inhabiting it again for the first time since Jory’s death. There were the male staff, but they were different; they did not fill the space in the same way. Nor did she desire them.
The sight of Cris as he came into the room affected her as though he had touched her, instead of immediately going to Aunt Rosie’s side to offer his arm. Tamsyn tried to ignore the hollow feeling low down in her belly and the sensation that she was altogether too warm.
Whatever Cris Defoe had been doing had left him with colour on his cheeks and a sparkle in those blue eyes and he looked exactly what she had thought all along—a splendid male animal in his prime. And a more cunning one than I have been giving him credit for. But was he using his intelligence to help them or had he some other motives? Surely he could not be in league with Franklin? No one would risk drowning like that. Yes, he had been interested in Jory’s legendary hoard…but the same objection held. All he’d have needed to do if he had wanted to be ‘rescued’ and taken in was to sink a boat in their bay or stage a fall from a horse outside the house.
‘You came from the direction of the beach, Mr Defoe,’ she observed when they were all seated. ‘A remarkable feat, considering where we parted.’ He looked at her with a faint smile. ‘Do have a nice pilchard.’
‘Thank you, but I feel sufficiently fishy for one day.’ He sliced some ham and offered it to Aunt Rosie. ‘I begged a ride back from one of the fishermen at Stib’s Landing and his craft is liberally encrusted with fish scales. Dan Cardross, I think? He was going to lift his crab pots and said this was on his way.’
Dan had been Jory’s right-hand man. Tamsyn tried not to read any significance into that. ‘You had a long walk.’
‘I went up to Stibworthy, had a pint of ale in the inn, encountered Dr Tregarth and walked with him down to the harbour. I will admit to being glad of the boat ride back,’ he added to Aunt Izzy, who was making anxious noises about overdoing it and recklessness.
Tamsyn believed none of it. If he had needed to walk back, then Cris Defoe was quite capable of doing so. ‘You must rest this afternoon,’ she said, sweetly solicitous. ‘Perhaps your manservant can give you one of his massages.’
‘You are all consideration, Mrs Perowne, and I must admit, the thought of bed is a temptation.’ His lids lowered over the sinful blue eyes, the only acknowledgement that he was teasing her with a double entendre that went right past the two older ladies. ‘But I have correspondence to attend to, which will be restful enough. How does one get a letter to the post from here?’
‘Jason will take it up to the Ship Inn, which is our receiving office. The post boy comes in every day except Sunday at about eleven, delivers the mail, picks up our letters and takes them to Barnstaple. Post going out of the county is taken to Bristol by one of the daily steam ships and from there by mail coach. A letter you send up tomorrow morning will be in London in three days.’ Tamsyn delivered the information in a matter-of-fact tone, refusing to allow him to see the image that the conjunction of Cris Defoe and bed and temptation conjured up reflected in her expression.
‘Steam ships?’
‘They have been a boon for this coast because our roads are so bad. That is how the visitors to Ilfracombe and Instow arrive. We have quite a little sea-bathing industry in North Devon these days.’
‘That is what gave us the idea for the bathing room,’ Aunt Izzy explained. ‘I read how beneficial for rheumatic complaints the new hot-seawater baths are, but of course, Rosie could not tolerate the rough roads to reach Ilfracombe from here. So we decided to build our own.’
‘Ingenious. Would you object if I made sketches of the plumbing? I am tempted by the thought of hot baths in my own houses.’
‘Houses?’ He had more than one? Aunt Izzy shook her head at Tamsyn’s abrupt question but Cris showed no offence at her curiosity.