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‘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.
* * *
‘Tamsyn, there is a carriage at the gate,’ Aunt Rosie called. ‘And a gentleman on a horse. Who on earth can it be?’
She jammed the rest of the flowers into the vase with more haste than care, whipped off her apron and threw open the front door. And there was Cris, who only ten minutes before had been upstairs while she had been filling vases at the foot of those stairs the entire time. She shot him a questioning glance as she approached, blinked at the sight of shirtsleeves and loose neckcloth, and blinked again when she saw the man dismounting from a raking bay horse. Presumably she was not dreaming and transported into some Minerva Press novel, so this was not a dashing gentleman highwayman. She took a deep, appreciative breath. Goodness, but he certainly looked like every fantasy of such a romantic character.
‘Mrs Perowne, may I introduce my friend, Mr Gabriel Stone.’ Cris gave her a very old-fashioned look as though he knew exactly what she thought of the newcomer. ‘I wrote to him on a business matter and did not make myself clear that posting the information would be sufficient.’
Mr Stone doffed his hat. ‘Mrs Perowne, my apologies for the intrusion. Just as soon as my coachman can work out how to turn the carriage on this track, we will be on our way.’
‘Mr Stone.’ She inclined her head in response to his half-bow. ‘Are you in haste, sir?’
‘No, ma’am, not at all.’
‘Then you must stay. If your man takes the carriage further down he can turn where the lane opens out to the beach. Then the stable yard is just up behind the house. Oh, I see Mr Defoe is already organising him.’
And Mr Defoe wants you to stay, now you are here. I wonder just what that matter of business is.
She turned towards the house, inviting the intriguing Mr Stone to follow her as Cris strode across the lawn to rejoin them.
‘If Miss Holt and Miss Pritchard are able to come to the door, I have a small gift for Miss Pritchard. I will go and fetch her a chair out to the porch.’ He was gone before she could ask what possible present could necessitate Aunt Rosie coming outside.
It took a few minutes for Michael to carry out a chair and for Aunt Rosie to be settled on it and introduced to Mr Stone. There was the sound of feet on the stones of the lane and then, completely incongruous in the wilds of the Devon coast, two burly men appeared carrying a sedan chair between them. Cris opened the gate and they marched across the lawn, deposited the chair in front of Aunt Rosie, opened the door between the shafts and whipped off their hats.
They were certainly an imposing pair in their dark-blue coats, black tricorns and sturdy boots. The sedan chair gleamed and the seat was deeply padded. ‘Would you care to try it, ma’am?’ the black-haired man enquired in a broad Irish accent.
‘Why...’ For a moment Aunt Rosie seemed lost for words. ‘Why, yes, I would. But we have no city pavements here, you will find it hard going.’
‘We’re from Bath, ma’am, and that has hills as steep as you’ll find anywhere and cobbles like walking on ice. We’re strong lads, that we are. We won’t drop you, ma’am.’
‘You brought them here?’ Tamsyn asked Mr Stone as they watched Michael and Cris help Aunt Rosie into the chair. He nodded as the men picked up the poles and set off smoothly around the lawn, then through the gate and off up the hill.
‘I’ll be able to go with her on my mare.’ Aunt Izzy ran across the grass and took Cris’s arm as he stood watching the chair’s progress up the lane. ‘We can go for picnics and Rosie can visit our friends again and go up on the clifftops. Oh, thank you, Mr Defoe.’
‘Mr Stone brought them,’ he said with a smile.
‘But you sent for them.’ Tamsyn joined them at the gate. ‘How long can they stay?’
‘The chair is yours to keep. Seamus and Patrick will stay until they’ve found you a pair of local men to train in their stead.’ He looked down at her, his face austere again. ‘They are very reliable men, I can vouch for them. Very strong, honest. No harm will come to your aunts with them around.’
The chair was returning and Aunt Izzy ran out to join it. Tamsyn hardly noticed her going. ‘You sent for bodyguards,’ she said as the realisation struck.
‘That is a side benefit. I thought of the sedan chair when your aunt was saying how difficult it was to get around, then I remembered these two. Will it be a problem feeding them? They probably eat like bullocks.’
‘No, not at all, and there is space in the living quarters over the stables. But, Cris, you don’t truly believe we are in danger, do you?’
Mr Stone, who had strolled over to the wall to watch the progress of the chair, remarked, ‘Rider coming. Looks military.’
Cris joined him, leaving her question unanswered. The horseman reined in, his way blocked by the sedan chair, and even at that distance Tamsyn could see the colour in his face and the angry set of his mouth. He did not like being held up and neither did he seem to enjoy being stared at.
The chairmen came back into the garden, took the chair right up to the seat and began to help Aunt Rosie out. She and Izzy immediately broke into animated conversation, then fell silent as the stranger dismounted at the gate and strode in.
Around her Tamsyn was conscious of the men closing up. The two chairmen were standing in front of her aunts like a solid wall of muscle. Cris and Mr Stone flanked her. This was ridiculous. It was only one man, apparently on official business judging from his dark-blue tailcoat with insignia on the high collar and the naval sword at his side.
‘Sir?’
He halted in front of her and made a sketchy bow, lifting his tall hat as he did so. ‘Ma’am. I am looking for the householder.’
She was aware of his gaze shifting between the two large men beside her, Cris dishevelled in shirtsleeves, Mr Stone managing to look piratical despite his sober, conventional clothing. ‘My aunt, Miss Holt, is the householder. And you are?’
‘Lieutenant Ritchie, newly appointed Riding Officer for this beat of the coast. And I was told it is Mrs Perowne that I need to speak to.’
Was it her imagination or had Cris growled, low in his throat.
‘I am Tamsyn Perowne.’ She tried to sound calm and welcoming, but the man’s hard, unfriendly gaze was setting her hackles up. ‘And Mr Defoe and Mr Stone are our house guests.’ She should invite him in, she knew. The Riding Officer had about the same status as the doctor or the curate and would expect to be received in gentry houses, but she did not want this man, who seemed to radiate hostility, over their threshold. ‘What can I do for you, Lieutenant Ritchie?’
‘The Revenue service has been informed of a new smuggling gang in these parts. What can you tell me of it, Mrs Perowne?’
‘Nothing whatsoever. There is no gang here, not since—’
‘Not since your late husband’s death?’ he enquired.
‘Precisely.’ She took a hold on her temper, sensing that her supporters would react violently at any sign of distress from her. A fight on the front lawn was the last thing they needed. ‘I imagine smuggling still goes on, here and there, in a minor way, but I defy you to find any stretch of coastline in England where it does not.’
‘And so it will remain while the local gentry take such a casual attitude to law-breaking. Ma’am.’ The last word sounded like an afterthought. ‘I came to give fair warning that we will be on the alert hereabouts now.’
‘There is no gang, Lieutenant Ritchie. And I can only assume you mean you wish to advise us to take care and lock our doors. Any other warning would be nothing short of insulting.’
‘Take it as you will, ma’am,’ he snapped.
‘Mrs Perowne is too much of a lady to respond to an insult in kind.’ Cris took one step forward. He sounded perfectly calm and yet his tone held a threat that sent a shiver down her spine.
‘And you are, sir?’ The Riding Officer’s square chin set even harder.
‘As Mrs Perowne said just now, Crispin Defoe, a visitor.’ Now he sounded as haughty as a duke.
‘Gabriel Stone. Another visitor,’ the mocking voice on her other side echoed, equally arrogant in its own way.
Ritchie’s gaze rested on the faces in front of him, then shifted as though to study the chairmen. Tamsyn could almost feel them glowering behind her. ‘Good day to you, gentlemen. Ma’am. You appear to have quite a private army here, Mrs Perowne.’ He touched his whip to his hat, turned the horse and clattered back up the lane.
Chapter Ten
Tamsyn turned to find that the two Irishmen had taken Aunt Rosie inside by the simple method of picking up the armchair she was sitting in and carrying it into the house.
Aunt Izzy remained, her face creased with puzzlement. ‘What an unpleasant man. I couldn’t hear all of what he was saying, but he seemed almost aggressive.’
‘Merely a jack-in-office,’ Cris said. ‘Newly appointed and officious. Nothing for you to worry about.’ He turned and looked at Tamsyn. ‘If he tries to cause any trouble, I will deal with him.’
It was necessary to take in a breath right down to her diaphragm. Somehow she was going to have to deal with this crisis and the aunts’ willingness to live without men suddenly became very understandable. Her life was far too full of them—Riding Officers trying to scare her, the mysterious Mr Stone arriving without warning and securing an invitation to stay without the slightest effort, large Irish chairmen who were carrying Aunt Rosie about as though they had been in her service for years and now Cris calmly announcing that he would deal with a government official.
‘And just how will you do that?’ she demanded. ‘Forgive me, Mr Defoe, but you are hardly the Duke of Devonshire, are you?’ He stood there, competent hands on admirably slim hips, the breeze from the sea stirring the thin white linen of his shirtsleeves, a glimpse of skin at his throat, a long green stain that looked remarkably like lichen up the length of one buckskin-clad thigh. ‘But of course, dukes do not go scrambling out of windows, do they?’
Behind him Mr Stone gave a snort of laughter. ‘Cris, a duke? He certainly acts like one on occasion, I will give you that.’ He appeared to find the idea inordinately amusing.
‘Mr Stone, perhaps you would excuse us for a moment? No doubt you would like to freshen up after your journey. If you cannot see either of my aunts when you go inside, then our housekeeper, Mrs Tape, will take care of you.’
‘Very crisp,’ Cris remarked as his friend, still chuckling, strolled off towards the front door.
‘I feel very crisp. In fact, I feel positively brittle. Just what, exactly, is going on, Mr Defoe? Why are you climbing out of windows and threatening Revenue officers and why does the idea that you are a duke convulse your exceedingly relaxed friend with amusement?’
‘You are allowing yourself to become agitated, Tamsyn.’ He touched her cheek with the back of his hand. ‘You are quite flushed. Come and sit in the summer house and compose yourself.’
Grinding one’s teeth was not ladylike, but then she did not feel so very ladylike, just at the moment. ‘By all means, let us go to the summer house.’ She waited until he had stepped into the shadowy interior behind her, then swung round and jabbed an angry finger into the middle of his chest. He caught her hand and held it, pressing the palm against the warm linen. Somehow she managed not to let her fingers curl, gathering the fabric up, pulling him closer.
‘Being married to Jory Perowne was not all joy, but at least he never patronised me, never treated me as though I was incapable of looking after myself and never, ever, told me I was becoming agitated when I was rightfully annoyed!’
‘But you aren’t married to me, Tamsyn.’ If she had not been flushed already, the suggestive growl in his voice would have turned her cheeks crimson. ‘Was I being patronising? I apologise if I was.’ He did not let her go and his fingers curled around hers as he took a step forward, trapping their joined hands between their bodies.
‘No, you were not. Not until you told me I was becoming agitated,’ she conceded. Stepping back would be admitting that his closeness, his touch, affected her. Confessing that she had found his presence at her side had given her strength was too much like accepting weakness. She lifted her chin instead and made herself meet the cool blue eyes. ‘Up to then you were merely...lordly.’
Cris shrugged. ‘London style, that is all. Take no notice of Gabriel, he finds the idea of his old friend being a duke amusing, the sarcastic devil. Do I seem like a duke to you? After all, I am the kind of man who almost drowns himself in foolish swimming incidents, climbs out of windows and is acquainted with Bath chairmen.’ His face was austere, but she recognised the slight crease at the corner of his eyes, the start of a smile he was not allowing out.
She was not going to let him get away with charming her into smiling back at him. ‘Explain the window.’
‘The chair and the men were a surprise for your aunts. I wanted to stop Gabriel and make sure they arrived with it all set up for her.’
And you could not have run downstairs and out through the door? No, not without alerting me, she answered herself. Cris had wanted to talk to Gabriel Stone first. The pair of them made her uneasy. They had an aura of power and confidence about them, something that went beyond mere competence. They were used to being obeyed and to making things happen. Their way.
Tamsyn moved forward, closer, until she could feel the beat of his heart against her fingers, could see his pupils dilate with surprise, or perhaps, pleasure. ‘Tell me,’ she murmured sweetly, and he bent his head, to listen, or to kiss. ‘Do I seem a helpless little female to you? Do I appear unable to take care of myself and my aunts? Do you think that I need a big, strong man to protect me?’ She did smile then, showing her teeth in a clear warning that she could, and would, bite if provoked.
She expected Cris to respond with an attempt at mastery, a hard kiss to show her what she was missing. Or perhaps a display of affronted male pride and a declaration that she did not know what she was talking about and had quite misunderstood him. Instead he did the last thing she expected. He laughed.
It was infectious, open, genuine, and she laughed, too, not knowing why, only that this was completely disarming.
And then he kissed her. There were perhaps three seconds to make up her mind on how to react and she was aware of each of them in the thud of her pulse. Three seconds to decide whether to be charmed, or to be resentful, to be mastered or to fight. Or, perhaps, to meet him on equal terms.
One, two, three... Cris lifted his head, eyes watchful. He would not force her, she knew that. Whatever else this man was hiding from her, it was not a willingness to ill treat a woman. Tamsyn wrapped her arms around his neck, pulled his head to hers again and nipped at his lower lip, deliberately provoking. He laughed again against her lips, then probed with his tongue, risking her teeth, provoking in his turn.
This was the man from the sea, the man she had kissed in the surf without knowing why, only that it was right and she wanted him. Then they had been naked and that had been right, too, and they were wearing far too much now. Her hands ran down over the thin linen of his shirt, over the long, beautiful muscles of his back, down to the waistband of his breeches and she tugged, impatient, careless of rips.
He stepped back, breaking the kiss, to let her pull the shirt free and over his head, then his own hands were busy with buttons and pins and her gown was sliding from her shoulders, down to her feet and she was back in his arms, his skin hot and smooth under her palms, his mouth hot and urgent on the swell of her breasts above the neck of her chemise.
‘Yes,’ she said, closing her teeth on the tendon where his neck met his shoulder, biting gently, tasting his skin, tasting him. ‘Yes.’
‘Cris!’ The shout from outside froze them in place.
‘Hell’s teeth.’ Cris stepped back, looked round wildly for his shirt. ‘I must be out of my mind—the middle of the day in a confounded shed in the garden within a stone’s throw of the house and a dozen people. Are you all right?’ He dived into his shirt, dragged it on, stuffed it into his breeches while Tamsyn just stood and looked at him. ‘Get dressed! What are you doing?’
‘Looking at you.’ She wanted to smile at the sight of him, uncharacteristically harassed and urgent, dishevelled and flatteringly aroused. This was not the cool, calm and mysterious Mr Defoe, this was another man altogether and she was charmed as well as attracted. The sound of Mr Stone’s voice calling Cris came closer.
‘Dress, Tamsyn!’ He found the ends of his neckcloth, whipped it into some sort of knot, then moved to get between her and the door with its old glass panels fogged with salt spray. Through them, as she turned, she could see the blurred figure of the other man standing with his back to them. He seemed to be scanning the beach.
Suddenly seized with Cris’s urgency, she pulled up her gown, fumbled the fastenings closed, twitched the skirts, patted at her hair. ‘Am I decent?’
‘More or less. You’ll be the death of me, woman.’ He pushed in a few of her hairpins and smiled at her, suddenly tender, his hand cupping her cheek. ‘Do you want to be ruined?’
‘Yes, please,’ Tamsyn said demurely.
‘But not here—’
The door swung open behind him. ‘There you are. Cris, what the blazes are you doing?’ Gabriel Stone took a step inside, took one look at her, turned on his heel and went out again. ‘Or, rather, why the blazes are you doing it here and now?’ he enquired without looking back.
‘Insanity,’ Cris said without turning, his smile still promising things that made her feel reckless and eager. He stroked his fingers down her cheek and murmured, ‘We’ll talk.’ Over his shoulder he asked, ‘Is the coast clear?’
‘Completely.’ Gabriel Stone stepped aside to let them out on to the gravel in front of the summer house. ‘Everyone is in the yard admiring the sedan chair and arguing about which of the locals might be employed to carry it.’ He was still looking out to sea, presumably tactfully sparing Tamsyn’s blushes. She was amazed to discover she did not have any. ‘It will be a while before you can find two men suitable, I would suggest, Mrs Perowne. They need to be matched in size and strength, have good balance and endurance. Carrying a sedan chair is harder than it looks.’
‘You suggest I do not search too hard?’ She grappled to focus her mind on the issue and not on her pounding pulse, the excited flutter low in her belly, the ache in her breasts, the need to reach out and touch the man by her side. ‘But how long can these two men stay?’
‘As long as I am here, I will pay them,’ Cris said. ‘Call it a return for my board and lodging,’ he said when she began to protest. ‘When I leave they will stay for as long as you choose to employ them because this is their work these days.’
‘Bodyguards? You cannot pay for them as well as give us the chair.’
‘It is for my own peace of mind,’ Cris said. He offered his arm to her and she slid her hand into the crook of his elbow. Mr Stone fell in on the other side and offered his arm as well.
‘I feel very well protected between two gentlemen,’ she remarked lightly as they strolled across the grass. The switch from reckless passion to a sensible discussion was disorientating, and the presence of Gabriel Stone with his rakish understanding at finding them in a compromising position in the summer house only added to the feeling.
Gabriel Stone chuckled.
‘What is so amusing?’ she asked.
He turned thick-lashed dark brown eyes to study her. ‘In London you will find many who would say we are a disgraceful pair and that you are not safe with us at all. Certainly we would not add to your respectability.’
‘You would not? Mr Defoe seems entirely respectable to me.’ Except when he kisses me. You, on the other hand...
‘We are two of four close friends, referred to bitterly by the dean of our university as the Four Disgraces. We worked hard at proving him right and did not lose the habit when we went out into the world. Two of us have married this year, so are probably removed from any further temptation to be disgraceful, but Cris and I have a reputation to uphold.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Cris said. ‘I am, as Mrs Perowne says, entirely respectable.’
‘You cultivate the appearance of it, but underneath you are as much of a rakehell as the rest of us.’ Mr Stone tucked Tamsyn’s hand more firmly into his elbow. ‘If you saw Cris at court, doing the pretty amongst the ambassadors and the courtiers and the politicians, to say nothing of their wives, you would not recognise this man in his shirtsleeves facing off with Riding Officers.’
Beside her Cris seemed to go still, although he continued to walk, his steady pace unchecked.