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

/> ‘Yes, me, the nasty Lord Edenbridge.’ He leaned against the table on which she had left her flower arrangement, his gypsy-dark, dangerously masculine looks a startling contrast to the wispy grasses and the lush femininity of roses. ‘Where is Cris?’

She shrugged. ‘Up on the cliff.’

‘Where you made love and had a thundering row, I suppose. Tamsyn—’

‘Mrs Perowne to you, my lord.’

How does he know what we have been doing? I suppose I still look as though I’ve been tumbled like some country trollop. Which is what he thinks I am anyway.

‘Mrs Perowne. I mean you no ill, but Cris is my friend and I’ll not see him brought down by an entanglement.’

She held up a hand to stop him. ‘I have untangled him from my lures, such as they are. He will go back to London very soon, rest assured, my lord. You will have him safely back in his rightful environment, far from scandal and unsuitable women.’

Something changed in his expression, some slight shift towards sympathy. ‘Are you in love with him, Tamsyn?’ He did not wait for an answer. ‘It is better this way, believe me. Cris is a prisoner of his responsibilities to Avenmore and he would not thank you for freeing him from those chains.’ He turned abruptly and walked away, his elbow catching a spray of roses, sending the soft crimson petals shaking and tumbling on to the polished oak.

Tamsyn picked up the trailing skirts of her riding habit and climbed slowly up the stairs to her aunts’ door, tapped and went in.

Izzy, always demonstrative, jumped up from her embroidery and ran across to hug her. ‘Oh, my dear, that nice Mr Stone looked in to tell us it was all right and that you were on your way home, safe and sound. He said you’d found it rather upsetting, so not to expect you back immediately.’ She went back to her chair beside the sofa where Rosie was lying and the pair of them gazed at her expectantly.

Tamsyn found a chair, took a deep breath and began to recount the story of the day, accompanied by gasps and exclamations from Izzy, solemn nods and shakes of the head from Rosie.

When she finished with the jury’s verdict they looked at each other in one of the silent exchanges that Tamsyn had never been able to interpret. Behind them on the wall above the bed, the two small oil paintings that were Aunt Rosie’s favourites glowed with the vibrancy of rich red fabrics against the lustrous naked flesh of gods and goddesses feasting and loving, and she thought of the fallen rose petals on the table below, of the texture of Cris’s skin against hers.

‘So,’ she said briskly, ‘with that out of the way Mr Defoe will be going back to London very soon.’ She even managed a smile.

Chapter Seventeen

‘But he asked you to marry him.’ Aunt Izzy shook her head in puzzlement. ‘That is wonderful. Yet you refused him?’

‘It was a ruse and I would prefer not to be seen as the woman who entrapped a man who had to marry her to save her reputation,’ Tamsyn said firmly.

‘Yes, dear. But surely he wouldn’t have thought of it if he hadn’t already been considering asking you. Don’t you want to marry him?’

‘No, certainly not.’

Aunt Rosie’s eyebrows rose in disbelief, but Tamsyn stared her out until she shook her head and turned to look out the window. ‘There he is now, walking across the front lawn.’ She pushed the window a little wider. ‘Mr Defoe! Do come up. We are both so anxious to speak to you.’

‘You won’t say anything…?’ Tamsyn began, panicking at the thought of the two of them assuring Cris that she really did want to marry him and that they thought it would be an excellent idea.

‘Naturally we will thank him,’ Aunt Rosie said, then called, ‘Come in,’ in answer to a tap on the door. ‘Mr Defoe, thank you so much for taking care of Tamsyn today,’ she said, beaming as he entered.

To Tamsyn’s eye he looked less than his usual elegant, unruffled self, but neither of the aunts appeared to see anything amiss, let alone the mild dishevelment of a man who had been making love in a hut half an hour before.

‘Things became a trifle fraught,’ he said with a smile for Rosie and without a glance at Tamsyn sitting at the foot of the sofa. ‘But we brushed through all right in the end. Mrs Perowne is held in esteem by many people around here, even if the authorities are still determined to visit her late husband’s sins on her head.’

‘You consider not being required by your stratagem to marry Tamsyn is brushing through?’ Rosie enquired, with no attempt to hide the tartness in her voice.

Cris turned a level blue gaze on her and his expression assumed a polite aloofness that sent a shiver down Tamsyn’s spine and made Aunt Izzy’s eyes widen in surprise. ‘Mrs Perowne’s wishes in the matter are paramount. It will, no doubt, help reduce any further speculation if I remove myself back to London tomorrow. I have presumed on your hospitality more than enough.’ Izzy opened her mouth, and he added, ‘I will, of course, continue to investigate Lord Chelford’s involvement in the problems you have been experiencing. I may well be better placed to do so in London in any case.’

‘We will miss you,’ Izzy declared with a reproving glance at Rosie for her acid tone.

‘And I, you.’ Cris’s smile returned, the chill vanished. ‘You have made me very welcome here—as well as saved my life. I will miss your company and this charming house.’ Tamsyn saw him look up at the paintings on the wall over the bed. ‘Its endless small treasures are a constant pleasure.’

The three of them began to talk about art and the handsome set of Hogarth engravings on the walls of the landing and Tamsyn indulged herself by watching Cris’s face. He was enjoying talking to the aunts, she realised, recognising the deepening of the laughter lines at the corner of his eyes, the softening of the severe line of his mouth with its betrayingly sensual lower lip.

She pulled her attention back as he shifted his position to gesture to the pictures over the bed. ‘Those two oils, for example. Magnificent, like gems.’

‘I know,’ Izzy said with satisfaction. ‘They are perhaps a trifle warm for display in the public rooms, but the colours and the energy in them have always pleased me.’ She shook her head. ‘One cannot wonder at the classical gods having so much energy for, er…’