racked. ‘Traveller,’ he managed between mouthfuls. ‘My valet is at Hartland Quay with my carriage.’
‘And he can bring you some clothes.’ She caught his eye and smiled, a sudden, wicked little quirk of the lips that sent messages straight to his groin. One muscle still in full working order. ‘Magnificent as you look in a toga, sir, it is not a costume best suited to the Devon winds.’
Had he really kissed her in the sea, or was that a hallucination? No, it was real. He could conjure up the heat of her body pressed to his, the feminine softness and curves as their naked flesh met. He could remember, too, the heat of her mouth, open under his, the sweet glide of her tongue. Hell, that made him feel doubly guilty, firstly for forcing himself on a complete stranger and secondly for even thinking about anyone but Katerina. Who can never be mine. He focused on the guilt, a novel enough emotion, to prevent him thinking about that body, now covered in layers of sensible cotton.
‘You will stay in bed and rest, as the doctor said?’
Cris nodded. He had no desire to make a fool of himself, fetching his length on the floor in front of her when his legs gave out on him. Tomorrow he would be better. Tomorrow he might even be able to think rationally.
‘Good.’ She lifted the tray and he saw the strength in the slim arms, the curve of sleek feminine muscle where her sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. She swam well enough to take to the sea by herself and he’d wager that she rode, too. ‘We know you are stubborn from the way you tried to get up the lane by yourself instead of waiting where I left you. I’ve just spoken to them and the lads said you were crawling.’
‘I was getting there. If I hadn’t been weakened by that...encounter in the sea, I could have walked.’ Even as he said it, he could have bitten his tongue. So much for apologising, something that Lord Avenmore rarely had to do. Apparently Mr Defoe was more apt to blunder than the marquess was. He certainly had an unexpectedly bawdy sense of humour.
‘An encounter, you call it?’ There was a definite spark in the brown eyes and the colour was up over her cheekbones. Indignation seemed to make those brown curls fight free of the cap, too. His one functioning muscle stirred again, complaining that it was in need of exercise. ‘That, you poor man, was the resuscitation of the half-drowned. We do it a lot in these parts. I’ll fetch you pen and paper.’
And that apparently dealt with the apology. Mrs Perowne was not in the common run of gentry ladies, it seemed. Nor did her late husband seem to have been the kind of man he would have expected to be the owner of this elegant old house, not if the local magistrate was after him with a noose and his widow referred to him as a tricky bastard. That clod of a squire had spoken with unfeeling bluntness about her husband’s death and yet she had stood up to him, covering her emotions with defiance and pride.
The puzzling Mrs Perowne returned with a writing slope under one arm and a small bowl in the other. ‘I’ll just bathe your eyes, they look exceedingly sore.’
Cris thought he probably looked an exceeding mess, all over. His hair had dried anyhow, his skin felt as though he’d been sandpapered and doubtless his eyes were both red and squinty. And he needed a shave. What his friends would say if they saw him now, he shuddered to think. Collins, when he arrived, would express himself even more strongly. He regarded the Marquess of Avenmore as a walking testimonial to his own skills as a valet and did not take kindly to seeing his master looking less than perfect.
‘If you would give me the bowl I will bathe them myself.’ He had his pride and being tended to while he looked like this did nothing for his filthy mood.
‘Very well.’ She set the writing slope on the chair beside the couch, handed him the bowl and dragged the screen around the bed. ‘My aunt, who suffers from severe arthritic pain, will be taking one of her regular hot soaks shortly. We will try not to disturb you.’
‘Mrs Perowne?’
She looked around the edge of the screen. ‘Mr Defoe?’
‘I am in your aunt’s bathing chamber, occupying her couch. I must remove myself to another room.’
‘If you do, you will agitate her. She is worried enough about you as it is.’ She smiled suddenly, a wide, unguarded smile, so unlike the carefully controlled expressions of the diplomatic ladies he had spent so much time with recently. ‘Rest here for the moment, control your misplaced chivalrous impulses and we will find you another chamber at some point.’
Misguided chivalrous impulses. Little cat. She was obviously unused to men who actually acted like gentlemen. Cris twisted the water out of the cloth in the basin and sponged his eyes until the worst of the stinging subsided, then put the bowl aside and reached for the writing slope. Beyond the screen people were moving about, water was pouring into the tub, steam rose. This might be the edge of the country and manners might be earthy, but they certainly possessed plumbing that surpassed that in any of his houses.
He focused on the letter to shut out the sounds of either Miss Prichard or Miss Holt being helped into the bath. Collins was rather more than a valet, more of a confidential assistant, and he could be relied upon to use his discretion.
...pay the reckoning and bring everything to...
‘Mrs Perowne, if I might trouble you for a moment?’
‘Sir?’ She was decidedly flushed from the steam now. Her pink cheeks and the damp tendrils of hair on her brow suited her.
He recalled her leaning over him to turn on the tap as he lay in the bath and forced his croak of a voice into indifferent politeness. ‘Could you tell me how I should direct my man to find this house?’
‘Barbary Combe House, Stibworthy. If he asks in the village, anyone will direct him.’
‘Thank you.’
Barbary Combe House, Stibworthy. Do not enquire in the village for Mr Defoe as I am not known there, having come by sea. Ensure you bring an appropriate vehicle.
C. Defoe
Collins would not fail to pick up on that. The interior of Cris’s travelling coach with its ingenious additions and luxurious upholstery might go unnoticed, but not if the crests on the door panels were left uncovered. It had caused enough of a stir at Hartland Quay to have a marquess descend on a waterside inn, but with any luck the gossip would be fairly localised.
He folded the letter, wrote the address and found a wafer in the box to seal it with, then forced himself to relax. The doctor’s advice had been sound, but despite it, when Collins arrived tomorrow he would be out of here and away from the curiously distracting Mrs Perowne. Back to London, to the normality he had fled from.
Eyes closed, he willed himself to sleep. The room was quiet now, with only the sounds of someone moving about as they tidied up. He was exhausted and yet his eyes would not stay closed. Cris stared at the ceiling. He could always sleep when he needed to, it was simply a matter of self-discipline.
He seemed to be somewhat short of any kind of control just at the moment. He hadn’t had enough focus to notice when he was in danger of drowning himself and he couldn’t even manage to fall flat on his face on a beach without kissing the local widow before he did so. And he was the man the government relied on to settle diplomatic contretemps discreetly, and, if necessary, unconventionally. Just now he wouldn’t trust himself to defuse an argument between two drovers in the local public house, let alone one between a brace of ambassadors over a vital treaty clause.
It
