The Many Sins Of Cris De Feaux

It was a relationship that could never be, not without the sacrifice of her reputation, his honour. Cris set his jaw, as much against the pain in his heart as the agony in his overstretched joints. He was a man, he was not going to become a monk because of how he felt for an unattainable woman. Next season he must find himself a bride, get married, assume the responsibilities of his title. He would be faithful to his wife, but not to a phantom—that way lay madness.

Tamsyn Perowne had kissed him back. He smiled into the pillow. It had probably been shock. Doubtless she would box his ears if he took any further liberties. Any fantasies about a willing widow to make him forget his ghosts were just that, fantasies. She was a respectable lady in a small community, not some society sophisticate. He’d be gone tomorrow, out of her life.

There was a tap of knuckles on wood, the creak of hinges and a sudden flap of linen as Collins swirled the sheet over his prone body.

* * *

‘Oh, I beg your pardon, I had assumed Mr Defoe would be in bed by now, not...’ Tamsyn put down the tray on the small table in the window embrasure and tried to forget the brief glimpse of elegant, sharp-boned bare feet as the sheet had settled over the man on the bed. She had seen all of him today, in the sea, in the bath, so what was there to discomfort her so in one pair of bare feet?

‘I have brought some more broth.’ Long toes, high arches, the line of the tendon at his heel... She was prattling now, looking anywhere but at the bed. But it was a small room and a big bed and there wasn’t anywhere else to look, except at the ceiling or the fireplace or the soberly dressed man who stood beside the bed in his shirtsleeves, hands glistening with oil. ‘It isn’t much, and dinner will not be long, but the doctor said to keep his strength up and it will help Mr Defoe’s throat.’

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ the valet said. ‘I will see that Mr Defoe drinks the soup while it is hot.’

‘Mr Defoe is present, and conscious, and capable of speech, Collins.’ The husky voice from the bed brought her head round with a jerk. His eyes were closed, his head resting on his crossed arms, his expression as austere as that of an effigy on a tomb.

‘Are you warm enough? Perhaps I should light the fire.’ She moved without thinking, touched her fingers to the exposed six inches of shoulder above the sheet, just as she would if it had been one of the aunts in the bed. But this was not one of the aunts and his eyes opened, heavy-lidded, watchful, and she did not seem able to move her fingers from the smooth, chill, skin. When they had kissed, those beautiful, unreadable blue eyes had been open, too. Now she tried not to show any recollection of that moment.

‘Yes, I will light the fire.’ The words came out in a coherent sentence, which was a surprise. Her hand was still refusing to obey her. ‘You seem a trifle cool.’

‘Cool? You think so?’ The question had a mocking edge that seemed directed more at himself than at her.

‘I will deal with the fire, ma’am.’ The manservant’s words jerked her back into some sort of reality, mercifully before her hand could trail down below the edge of the sheet.

‘Thank you.’ Tamsyn twitched the cover up over Mr Defoe’s shoulders. ‘I’ll just...’ The blue eyes were still open, still watching her. ‘You should drink that soup while it is hot.’

She retreated with what dignity she could muster and did her best to close the door firmly, but quietly, behind her and not bang it shut and run. What was the matter with her? He was an attractive man. A very attractive man, and she had seen the whole of him, so was in an excellent position to judge, and she had been foolish enough to kiss him and she had saved his life. No, probably not. He was determined enough, and strong enough, to have kept going up the lane if he’d had to. He would have walked in through the kitchen door, in all his naked glory—and that would have made for a nasty accident if Cook had her hands full of something hot at the time. The thought made her smile.

* * *

‘How is Mr Defoe, dear?’ asked Aunt Izzy. ‘You look very cheerful.’

‘Alive, a little warmer and, I suspect, in considerable pain, but his manservant seems highly competent and I am sure he is not going to succumb to a fever.’

‘That is good news. I suppose we may rely on his man to contact his wife, let her know he is safe.’

‘His what?’

‘Wife.’ Aunt Izzy stopped with her hand on the door into the drawing room.

‘Whose wife?’

‘Mr Defoe’s. He is more likely to be married than not, don’t you think? He is very personable, I am sure he is most respectable when he has some clothes on and, if he can afford such a superior manservant, he is obviously in funds.’ She cocked her head on one side, thinking. ‘And he is probably thirty, wouldn’t you say?’

‘About that, yes. Not more.’ His body was that of a fit young man, but there was something about him that spoke of maturity and responsibility. Doubtless marriage would give him that. It had not made Jory any more dependable, let alone respectable, but the man had been wild from a boy and his sense of duty and accountability was not one that most decent men would recognise.

She had no desire to smile now, which was only right and proper. A woman might look at an attractive man and allow her imagination to wander a little...a lot. But a respectable woman did not look at a married man and think anything at all, nor see him as anything other than a fellow human being in need of succour.

‘Mizz Tamsyn, is it convenient for you to review the list of linen for the order I was going to send off tomorrow?’ She looked up to find Mrs Tape at the door, inventory in hand. ‘Only you said you wanted to look it over it with me, but if you’re busy I can leave it.’

‘Certainly. I will come now, Mrs Tape.’ She turned and followed the housekeeper. Linen cupboards full of darned sheets were exactly what she should be concentrating on. And then the accounts and a decision about which of the sheep to send to market would keep her busy until dinner time.

All the humdrum duties of everyday life for an almost respectable country widow who should be very grateful for a calm, uneventful life.

* * *

‘Do you think Mr Defoe will find our dinner time unfashionably early?’ Aunt Izzy sipped her evening glass of sherry and fixed her gaze on Tamsyn.

‘I am sure I do not know. I suppose seven o’clock is neither an old-fashioned country hour nor a fashionably late town one. But as he is either asleep, or will be having his meal on a tray at his bedside, I do not think we need concern ourselves too much with whether his modish sensibilities are likely to be offended.’

‘Mr Defoe strikes me as an adaptable man,’ Aunt Rosie remarked. ‘Although how I can tell that from the brief glimpses I have had of him—’

‘Excuse me, Miss Holt.’ It was Jason, hat in hand, at the drawing-room door. ‘Only there’s a message from Willie Tremayne—a dozen of the sheep have gone over the cliff at Striding’s Cove.’

‘A dozen?’ Tamsyn realised she was on her feet, halfway across the room. ‘How can that be? The pastures are all fenced, Willie was with them, wasn’t he? Is he all right?’

‘Aye, Willie’s safe enough, though by all accounts he’s proper upset. A rogue dog got in with them and the hurdle was broken down in the far corner, though the lad Willie sent says he’s no idea how that happened, because it was all right and tight yesterday.’

‘Whose dog?’ Tamsyn yanked at the bell pull. ‘There aren’t any around these parts that aren’t chained or are working dogs, good with stock.’

‘Don’t rightly know, Mizz Tamsyn. The lad says Willie shot it and it doesn’t seem to have been mad, by all accounts. Not frothing at the mouth nor anything like that. Just vicious.’

‘Oh, Michael, there you are. Find Molly, tell her to put out my riding habit and boots. Jason, saddle my mare.’

‘I don’t think there’s rightly anything you can do, Mizz Tamsyn, not at this time in the evening. Some of the men from the village helped Willie barricade the fence and one of the boats has gone down to the foot of the cliffs to see if there’s anything to salvage.’ Jason shrugged. ‘By the time you get there it’ll all be done.’ He looked past her to the fireside and lowered his voice. ‘I think the ladies are a mite upset, perhaps you’d be best biding here. I’ll send the lad back with the message that you’ll be along in the morning, shall I?’

She wanted to go, to stand on the clifftop and rage, but it would achieve nothing. She had to think. ‘Yes, do that if you please, Jason.’

When she turned back into the room she was glad she had listened to him. Aunt Izzy was pale, a lace handkerchief pressed to her lips. Rosie was white-faced also, but hers was the pallor of anger. ‘That was no accident. That was Chelford up to his nasty tricks again. Izzy, that boy is becoming a serious nuisance.’

‘He is no boy,’ Tamsyn snapped. ‘He is thirty years old with an over-developed sense of what is owed to his consequence and no scruples about the methods he uses to get what he wants. If this is down to him, then he is becoming more than a nuisance. I think he is becoming dangerous.’

‘Who is becoming dangerous, if I might ask?’

Mr Defoe stood in the doorway, dressed, shaved and very much awake. His eyes were fully open, the flexible voice had lost almost all of the painful huskiness, and the long, lean body was clad in what she could only assume was fashionable evening wear for a dinner on the wilder coasts of Devon—slim-fitting pantaloons, a swallowtail coat, immaculate white linen and a neckcloth of intricate folds fixed with a simple sapphire pin that matched the subtle embroidery of his waistcoat.

‘What are you doing out of bed. Mr Defoe? The doctor said you should rest and not get up until tomorrow.’ Tamsyn knew she was staring, which did not help her find any sort of poise. And, faced with this man, she discovered that she wanted poise above everything.

‘I am warm, rested and I need to keep my muscles moving,’ he said mildly as he moved past her into the room. ‘Good evening, Miss Holt, Miss Pritchard. Thank you for the invitation to dine with you.’

Invitation? What invitation? One glance at them had Tamsyn seething inwardly. They had invited him without telling her, for some nefarious reason of their own. They should have left the poor man to sleep. She eyed the poor man as he made his way slowly, but steadily, to the fireside and made his elegant bow to the aunts.

Predictably Aunt Izzy beamed at him and Aunt Rosie sent him a shrewd, slanting smile. ‘Do sit down, Mr Defoe. I can well appreciate your desire to leave your room. Tamsyn, dear, perhaps Mr Defoe would care for a glass of sherry or Madeira?’

‘Thank you, sherry would be very welcome.’

Tamsyn poured the rich brown wine into one of Aunt Izzy’s best glasses. At least their tableware would not disgrace them. The house was full of small treasures that Izzy treated with casual enjoyment. She was as likely to put wildflowers into the exquisite glasses as fine wine and, if one of the others protested, she would shrug and say, Oh, Papa let me take all sorts of things down here. I’m sure none of them are very valuable and I like to use nice objects.

Mr Defoe stood beside the wing chair, waiting until Tamsyn had completed her task. ‘Thank you.’ He took the glass, then when she perched on the sofa next to Izzy he sat down with grace, and, to an observant eye, some caution. She suspected his overstretched muscles were giving him hell and he was more exhausted than he would allow himself to show. His features were naturally fine cut, she guessed, but even allowing for that, she detected strain hidden by force of will.

‘Again, I have to ask you—who is dangerous? I apologise for my inadvertent eavesdropping, but having heard, I do not know how to ignore the fact that you seem to be in need of protection.’

In the silence that fell the three women eyed each other, then Tamsyn said, ‘A rogue dog chased some of our flock of Devon Longwools over the cliff.’

‘And moved a hurdle, I gather.’ He rotated the glass between his fingertips, his attention apparently on the wine. ‘A talented hound.’

He had sharp ears, or he had lingered on the stairs, listening. Probably both. ‘That must be coincidence and it is simply a sorry chapter of accidents,’ Tamsyn said. ‘Tell me, Mr Defoe, do you come from an agricultural area?’

‘I own some land,’ he conceded. The amusement in his eyes was, she supposed, for her heavy-handed attempt at steering the subject away from the sheep. ‘But I do not have sheep. Arable, cattle and horses in the south. This must be challenging country for agriculture, so close to the sea and the wild weather.’

‘Everyone mixes farming and fishing,’ Aunt Rosie said. ‘And we have land that is much more sheltered than the sheep pastures on top of the cliffs, so we keep some dairy cattle and grow our own wheat and hay.’ Aunt Izzy opened her mouth as though to bewail the burnt hayricks again, then closed her lips tight at the look from Rosie. ‘We own some of the fishing boats that operate out of Stib’s Landing, which is the next, much larger cove, just around Barbary Head to the south.’

‘A complex business, but no doubt you have a competent farm manager. I am often away, so I rely heavily on mine.’

‘Oh, no, dear Tamsyn does it all,’ Izzy said cheerfully. Tamsyn wondered why Rosie rolled her eyes at her—it was, after all, only the truth.

‘I have to earn my keep,’ she said with a smile. ‘And I like to keep busy. Are you travelling for pleasure, Mr Defoe? We are beginning to quite rival the south-coast resorts in this part of the world. Ilfracombe, for example, is positively fashionable.’

‘Perfect for sea bathing,’ Izzy said vaguely, then blushed. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean...’

‘I am sure I would have done much better with a genteel bathing machine—I might have remembered to swim back when my time was up and not go ploughing off into the ocean while I thought of other things.’ He smiled, but there was a bitter twist to it.

‘Is that what you were doing? I did wonder, for the beach—if you can call it that—at Hartland Quay is hardly the kind of place you find people taking the saltwater cure.’ Not, that Mr Defoe needed curing of anything, Tamsyn considered. He looked as though he would be indecently healthy, once rested.

‘I was seized with an attack of acute boredom with the Great North Road, down which I was travelling, so, when I got to Newark, I turned south-west and just kept going, looking for somewhere completely wild and unspoilt.’

‘And then attempted to swim to America?’ What on earth prompted a man to strip off all his clothes, plunge into a cold sea and swim out so far that the current took him?

‘I needed the exercise and I wanted to clear my mind. I certainly achieved the first, if not the second.’ He stopped turning the glass between his fingers and took a long sip. ‘This is very fine wine, I commend you on your supplier.’

‘Probably smuggled,’ Rosie said, accepting the abrupt change of subject. ‘Things turn up on the doorstep. I suppose the correct thing to do is to knock a hole in the cask and drain it away, but that seems a wanton waste and one can hardly turn up at the excise office to pay duty without very awkward questions being asked.’

‘There is much smuggling hereabouts?’ Mr Defoe took another appreciative sip.

‘It is the other main source of income,’ Izzy, incorrigibly chatty and enthusiastic, confided. ‘And of course dear Jory led the gang around here.’

‘Jory?’

‘My late husband,’ Tamsyn said it reluctantly.

‘Such a dear boy. I took him in when he was just a lad, he came from over the border in Cornwall, but his father found him...difficult and he ran away from home.’

‘Dear Isobel is a great collector of lost lambs,’ Rosie said drily.

‘Such as me.’ Even as she said it Tamsyn knew it sounded bitter and that had never been how she felt. She managed to lighten her voice as she added, ‘My mother was Aunt Isobel’s cousin and when she died when I was ten I came to live with her. Jory arrived the next year.’

‘How romantic. Childhood sweethearts.’ The word romantic emerged like a word barely understood in a foreign language.

‘I married my best friend,’ Tamsyn said stiffly. She was not going to elaborate on that one jot and have yet another person wonder why on earth she had married that scapegrace Jory Perowne when she could have had the eligible Franklin Holt, Viscount Chelford.

‘And speaking of marriage,’ Aunt Izzy said with her usual blithe disregard for atmosphere, ‘has your manservant notified your family of your whereabouts? Because, if not, the carrier’s wagon will be leaving the village at nine tomorrow morning and will take letters into the Barnstaple receiving office.’

‘Thank you, ma’am, but there is no one expecting my return. Now I have set Collins’s mind at rest, my conscience can be clear on that front.’

‘Excellent,’ Tamsyn said briskly. It was nothing of the kind. Either he had a wife he could leave in ignorance with impunity, or he did not have one, and she would very much like to know which it was. Not that she was going to explore why she was so curious. ‘Now, tell me, Mr Defoe, are you able to eat rabbit? I do hope you do not despise it, for we have a glut of the little menaces and I feel certain it will feature in tonight’s dinner.’

Chapter Four

‘What have you gleaned from your flirtation with Cook?’ Cris asked as Collins took his discarded coat. The bed was looking devilishly tempting so he sat down on a hard upright chair instead and bent to take off his shoes. The doctor had been quite right, damn him. He should have stayed in bed for the whole of the day and not tried to get up until tomorrow, but everything in him rebelled against succumbing to weakness.

‘Flirtation, sir? The lady is amiable enough, but her charms are rather on the mature side for my taste.’ Cris lifted his head to glare at him and he relented. ‘Cook, and Molly the maid, are both all of a flutter over a personable gentleman landing on Mrs Perowne’s doorstep, as it were. That lady is the main force in the household, that’s for certain, although Miss Holt owns the property. Very active and well liked in the local community is Mrs Perowne, even though she married the local, how shall I put it—?’

‘Bad boy?’ Cris enquired drily as he stood up and began to unbutton his waistcoat, resisting the temptation to pitch face down on the bed and go to sleep. It had been a long, long day.

‘Precisely, sir. A charismatic young man, by all account, and a complete scoundrel, reading between the lines. But a sort of protégé of the two older ladies, who seem to have regarded him as a lovable rogue.’

‘A substitute son, perhaps?’

‘I wondered if that was the case.’ Collins began to turn down the bed. ‘And Molly did say something about it being a good thing he married Miss Tamsyn because otherwise that little toad Franklin Holt would have pestered her to distraction. Which I thought interesting, but Cook soon silenced Molly on that topic.’

‘Franklin Holt? He is Viscount Chelford, I believe. I think I have seen him around. About my age, black hair, dark eyes, thinks a lot of himself.’ Cris put his sapphire stickpin on the dresser and unwound his neckcloth. ‘A gamester. I have no knowledge about his amphibious qualities.’

‘That is the man, sir.’ Collins’s knowledge of the peerage was encyclopedic and almost as good as his comprehension of the underworld. ‘He has a reputation as someone who plunges deep in all matters of sport and play and he is Miss Holt’s nephew. He inherited her father’s lands and titles.’

‘And he was annoying Miss Tamsyn, was he?’ And was more than annoying her now, by the sound of it. But why the ladies should imagine he was responsible for sending their sheep over a cliff, he could not imagine.

Cris pulled off his shirt, shed his trousers and sank gratefully into the enfolding goose-feather bed. ‘You know, Collins, I think I may have overdone things this evening. I feel extraordinarily weak suddenly.’

‘That is very worrying, sir.’ The other man’s face was perfectly expressionless. ‘I fear you may have to presume on Miss Holt’s hospitality for several days in that case. I would diagnose a severely pulled muscle in your back and a possible threat to your weak chest.’

Cris, who could not recall ever having had a wheeze, let alone a bad chest, tried out a pathetic cough. ‘I do fear that travelling would be unwise, but I am reluctant to impose further upon the ladies.’

‘I understand your scruples, sir. I will find a cane so you may hobble more comfortably. However, it will be agony for you to travel over these roads with such an injury and I confess myself most anxious that you might insist on doing so. I will probably be so concerned that I will let my tongue run away with me and say so in front of the servants.’

Cris closed his eyes. ‘Thank you, Collins. You know, you almost convince me of how weak I am. I am certain that if you confide your fears to Cook the intelligence will reach Miss Holt before the morning.’

‘Good night, sir.’ The door closed softly behind the valet and when Cris opened his eyes the room was dark. He smiled, thinking, not for the first time, that it was a good thing that Collins chose to employ his dubious talents on the side of the government and law and order.

Correct behaviour would be to take himself off the next morning, relieving his kind hostesses of the presence of a strange man in their house. But something was wrong her. Tamsyn Perowne was tense, the vague and cheerful Miss Holt was hiding anxiety and the much sharper Miss Pritchard was on the point of direct accusations. But why would they think that Chelford was behind the agricultural slaughter? The man would have to be deranged and, although Cris had seen nothing in their brief encounters to like about the viscount, neither had he any reason to think him insane.

It was a mystery and Cris liked mysteries. What was more, there were three ladies in distress, who had, between them, possibly saved his life. He owed them his assistance. If he was searching for something to take his mind off love lost in the past, and a marriage of duty in the future, then surely this was it? There was, after all, nothing else he felt like doing.

* * *

Come the morning Cris was not certain that he needed any acting skills to convince his hostesses that he was unable to travel. His exhausted muscles, eased the day before by the hot bath and Collins’s manipulation, had stiffened overnight into red-hot agony. After another painful massage session he swore his way out of bed and through the process of dressing. He negotiated the stairs with the assistance of the cane Collins had produced from somewhere and had no trouble sounding irritable when he and the other man took up their carefully calculated positions in the hall in order to have a sotto voce argument. He pitched both his voice and his tone to tempt even the best-behaved person to approach the other side of the door to listen to what was going on.

‘Of course we are going to leave after breakfast. How many more times do I have to tell you, Collins? I cannot presume upon the hospitality of three single ladies in this way.’

‘But, sir, with the risk of your bronchitis returning, I cannot like it,’ Collins protested. ‘And the pain to your back with the jolting over these roads—why, you might be incapacitated for weeks afterwards.’

‘That does not matter. I am sure I can find a halfway acceptable inn soon enough.’

‘In this area? And we do not have our own sheets with us, sir!’ Collins’s dismay was so well-acted that Cris was hard put to it not to laugh. ‘Please, I beg you to reconsider.’

‘No, my mind is made up. I am going—’

‘Nowhere, Mr Defoe.’ The door to the drawing room opened to reveal Mrs Perowne, her ridiculous cap slightly askew as it slid from the pins skewering it to her brown hair. Her hands were on her hips, those lush lips firmly compressed.

The thought intruded that he would like to see them firmly compressed around— No.