The Many Sins Of Cris De Feaux

‘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 (#ulink_ae80a846-306e-510a-9bed-3be38446385d)

‘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.

His thoughts could not have been visible on his face, given that she did not slap it. ‘The doctor said you were to stay in bed yesterday and you ignored him, so no wonder you are not feeling quite the thing this morning. If you have a tendency to bronchitis it is completely foolish to risk aggravating it and what is this about a painful back?’

Cris discovered that he did not like to be thought of as weak, or an invalid, or, for that matter, prone to bronchitis, which should be of no importance whatsoever beside the necessity of convincing Mrs Perowne that he should stay put in this house. His pride was, he realised, thoroughly affronted. That was absurd—was he so insecure that he needed to show off his strength in front of some country widow? ‘The merest twinge, and Collins exaggerates. It is only that I had a severe cold last winter.’

‘Oh, sir.’ The reproach in Collins’s voice would have not been out of place in a Drury Lane melodrama. ‘After what the doctor said last year. Madam, I could tell you tales—’

‘But not if you wish to remain in my employ,’ Cris snapped and they both turned reproachful, anxious looks on him.

‘Mr Defoe, please, I implore you to stay. My aunts would worry so if you left before you were quite recovered, and besides, we are most grateful for your company.’ There was something in the warm brown eyes that was certainly not pity for an invalid, a flicker of recognition of him as a man that touched his wounded pride and soothed it, even as he told himself not to be such a coxcomb as to set any store by what a virtual stranger thought of him. Before now he had played whatever role his duties as a not-quite-official diplomat required and it had never given him the slightest qualm to appear over-cautious, or indiscreet, or naïve, in some foreign court. He knew he was none of those things, so that was all that mattered.

But this woman, who should mean nothing to him, had him wanting to parade his courage and his endurance and his fitness like some preening peacock flaunting his tail in front of his mate. He swallowed what was left of his pride. ‘If it would not be an imposition, Mrs Perowne, I confess I would be grateful for a few days’ respite.’

‘Excellent. My aunts will be very relieved to hear it.’

‘They are not within earshot, then?’ he enquired, perversely wanting to provoke her.

He was rewarded with the tinge of colour that stained her cheekbones. ‘You reprove me for eavesdropping, Mr Defoe? I plead guilty to it, but I was concerned for you and suspected you would attempt to leave today, however you felt.’

Now he felt guilty on top of everything else and it was an unfamiliar emotion. He did not do things that offended his own sense of honour, therefore there was never anything to feel guilty about. ‘I apologise, Mrs Perowne. That was ungracious of me when you show such concern for an uninvited guest.’

‘You are forgiven, and to show to what extent, let me lead you through to the breakfast room and you may tell me what you think of our own sausages and bacon.’

Cris, ignoring Collins’s faint smile, which, in a lesser man, would have been a smirk, followed her into a sunny room with yellow chintz curtains and a view down the sloping lawn to the sea. ‘Should we not wait for your aunts?’

‘They always breakfast in their room.’ Mrs Perowne gestured to a seat and sat opposite. The centre of the table had platters of bread and ham, a bowl of butter and a covered dish. ‘Let me serve you, you will not want to be stretching to lift dishes.’ As she spoke she raised the dome and a tantalising aroma of bacon and sausage wafted out.

‘Thank you.’ He meekly accepted a laden plate and tried to work out the enigma that was Mrs Tamsyn Perowne. She was well spoken, confident, competent and a lady, even if she was decidedly out of the ordinary. She was distantly related to a viscount, but she had married a local man who had died one leap ahead of the noose.

‘That is a charming portrait on the wall behind you,’ he remarked. ‘Your aunts do not resemble each other greatly. Are they your mother’s relations or your father’s, if I might ask?’