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 roo
m 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.