The Many Sins of Cris De Feaux (Lords of Disgrace 3)

‘Yes, I never let accounts run on and we always settle up completely. Luckily we are almost at quarter-day when the rents will come in. But it is the principle of the thing and it will put doubts into the minds of people who do not know us well. This must be the work of Franklin, I cannot believe anyone else has a grudge against us and would do a thing like this.’

‘But Franklin can have no grudge,’ Aunt Izzy protested. ‘I know you do not like him, dear, and I have to admit he is a sore disappointment as a nephew, but—’

‘But nothing,’ said Aunt Rosie. ‘Tamsyn’s right. The man wants us out of here. I just wish I could work out why.’

‘We are not moving and that is that,’ Aunt Izzy said, with remarkable firmness.

‘Forgive me, but does your right of possession here rely upon your residence?’ Cris hitched one hip on the table edge and looked round at the three of them. ‘If you move away, what becomes of Barbary Combe House and the estate?’

‘I retain ownership and the revenues,’ Izzy said promptly.

‘And your nephew knows this?’

‘Certainly.’

‘So he would not gain control of it until, forgive me again for being so blunt, your death?’

Izzy gasped, Rosie went pale. Tamsyn got a firm hold on her panicking imagination. ‘But Franklin offered you a house on his estate, Aunt Izzy. I agree he wants us out of here, but I do not think he is too worried about the estate as such. The farms brings in enough for our needs, but hardly the sort of income that will rescue him from some financial crisis, and land prices are very poor, so selling it would hardly help either.’

She looked at Cris and found his gaze fixed on her face. Of course, there was Jory’s mythical treasure. If Franklin got them out of the house he could helpfully supervise getting it prepared for tenants—all to help his dear aunt Isobel—and search to his heart’s content. ‘There is no need for alarm about your personal safety, Aunt Izzy.’ She directed a narrow-eyed look at Cris, daring him to say any more. ‘I have organised some watchers for the livestock and we are quite secure down here. Any stranger would be spotted a mile away, we are so remote.’

‘Of course. I am being over-cautious, and over-imaginative, too.’ Cris stood up. ‘I am sorry, Miss Holt, ladies, for alarming you.’

‘No need for that.’ Aunt Rosie was brisk. ‘You talk a lot of sense, we should take more care. Help me back to the drawing room, Isobel. No, you stay here.’ She waved a twisted hand at Cris as he came forward to help her. ‘Soothe Tamsyn’s ruffled feathers before she calls Franklin out for his idiocy.’ She gave a wicked little cackle of laughter. ‘I would lay several guineas on her being the better shot.’

Cris closed the door behind her and turned back. ‘My apologies.’

‘For what?’

‘For alarming your aunts…and for what happened in the summer house.’

‘They are made of sterner stuff than it might seem,’ she said. ‘And nothing happened in the summer house.’

‘That, perhaps, is what I should be apologising for.’

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.