‘Life?’ Cris supplied, the crease at the corner of his mouth deepening.
‘Exactly. They used to hang in Papa’s study, but he knew I liked them, so in his will he said I must have them to give me colour through our windswept winters here on the coast. I have no idea who the artist was, but dear Papa always said they had been in the family for a long time.’
‘May I?’ Cris stood and reached for the left-hand painting, lifting it down when Izzy nodded. He carried it to the window, looked at it closely, then propped it up on the sill and went back for the other. ‘You know, these are not just good, they are exceptional. and I have seen this artist’s work before, I think.’ He looked at Izzy whose smile faded at his seriousness. ‘I think they may be by Rubens.’
‘Rubens? But that would mean they are worth thousands,’ Rosie gasped. Then her expression hardened. ‘That is what Franklin wants, those paintings.’
‘They will be listed in the inventory of Holt Hall, won’t they?’ Tamsyn moved to sit by Izzy, taking her hand in hers.
‘I am sure they will be,’ Aunt Rosie said. ‘And that is in Franklin’s hands now.’
‘They belong to him?’ Cris asked.
‘They do, as virtually everything in this house does, but he cannot touch them, let alone sell them, during my aunt’s lifetime,’ Tamsyn said thoughtfully. ‘You must be right, Aunt Rosie. We always knew he had debts. What if they have become pressing? What if he has read the inventory, noted that we have something very valuable here and decided to get his hands on it? Moving us out of here into a small house on the estate would mean Izzy would have to reduce the furnishings and pictures. Or two little paintings might get lost in the move…if you did not know what they were.’
‘And then we refused to move so he tried to scare us away and when that failed he attacked you. If something dreadful had happened to you, then I do not know if we would have been able to carry on alone here. We might well have agreed to move to the dower house. It all makes perfect sense now.’ Aunt Izzy clasped her hands to her chest. ‘But to murder a man to incriminate you, Tamsyn! I cannot conceive of such wickedness.’
‘He must be desperate,’ Tamsyn said. ‘I hate to think of him getting away with it, but unless anyone can lay hands on that so-called solicitor’s clerk who gave evidence at the inquest there is nothing but our suspicions to go on.’
‘Let me take the paintings to London and get them appraised by experts,’ Cris offered. ‘Then at least you will know where you stand. If I am wrong, you can let Franklin know they are not valuable, make a story out of your excitement and then disappointment.’
‘But what if they are genuine?’ Izzy asked. ‘What will we do then?’
‘Cross that bridge when you come to it,’ Cris advised and Izzy smiled, soothed, as she always seemed to be, by Cris. ‘At least you will know why the attacks have been happening. You will have the facts and that puts you in a position of strength.’
Tamsyn slipped out of the room. She needed to think and she needed to calm the churning anger that her cousin could act that way, kill a man, threaten her, because of his own weakness and cupidity.
Cris would charm the aunts and smooth their ruffled feathers and when he was gone they would talk often of ‘dear Mr Defoe’, she thought as she went to her room, fighting the desire to simply get into bed, pull the covers over her head and pretend the whole exhausting, bitter day had not happened. She would not tell them they had taken a marquess and an earl under their humble roof, she decided. They would worry that they had not entertained them in style and that would spoil their innocent pleasure in the little adventure of Cris’s arrival.
He would write
with news of the pictures and of Franklin’s activities. That would hurt, she accepted as she changed out of her riding habit and into something suitable for the evening. She didn’t want to see his handwriting, to imagine his voice as she read his words. She wanted to forget him and she knew she never would, however angry she was with his secrecy and his wretched, wretched title.
A marquess, for goodness’ sake! One step below a duke and I have to go and fall in love with him.
He must not guess for a moment how she had felt when he had declared that they were betrothed, how the treacherous little flame of hope that this was a declaration from his heart and not his honour had burned clear through the fog of fear, only to be quenched when she remembered that her daydreams could never be, however he felt about her.
She finished dressing, put up her hair with more care than usual and donned her few pieces of jewellery along with a smile that she was almost confident looked genuine. Cris would see that she was perfectly happy to see him leave and the hostile Lord Edenbridge would see that, despite his opinion, she had the manners and the poise to match the Marquess of Avenmore.
*
‘You will take care?’ Cris stood by the gate, Jackdaw fidgeting beside him. Gabriel himself sat on his horse by the stable-yard entrance, all too obviously not watching them. His carriage was already on its slow way up the rough track with Cris’s vehicle following it.
‘Of course. I told you, I will hire the two chairmen to guard the house.’
‘It is already taken care of.’
‘I do not need or want your charity, my lord.’ They were safely out of earshot of the aunts who were watching from the drawing-room window.
‘Do not call me that.’
‘Why not? Your dear friend Lord Edenbridge would tell me I should curtsy respectfully as well.’ She did so, with grace and a straight back.
‘Gabriel will learn to watch his tongue one of these days. But if we are to be formal, Mrs Perowne, it is not you who has the say in the matter of hiring. I consulted your aunt Isobel, who is, after all, the mistress here, and convinced her that this was a good way to protect you and that I would be deeply hurt if she did not allow me to make the gesture.’
‘You always get your own way, do you not?’ She said it politely, with a smile on her lips, both for her own pride and for the watchers in the house.
‘Not always.’ He was smiling, too, a charming expression that did not reach his eyes. ‘And sometimes it is right that I do not.’