her.
Cris stood with his back against the door as though glad of its support. ‘What in Hades was that?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve been on the edge of an avalanche in the Alps and it was rather less violent. It was certainly less frightening.’ She realised that he was smiling. It transformed the austerity of his face, changed him from beautiful to real.
‘I thought a kiss would be...’ Nice? Do not be ridiculous. ‘I wanted to kiss you again.’
‘You will get no argument from me on that score.’ He still had not moved from the door.
‘I noticed.’ She could feel her lips twitching into an answering smile. It had not occurred to her that there might be anything amusing in giving in to this attack of desire. ‘That is all it can be, you realise that? Just a kiss. This is quite inappropriate.’
Cris’s smile deepened at the prudish word. ‘With so many other people around, perhaps. But lovers have always found ways and means to be together.’
‘We are not lovers.’ Tamsyn found she had lost the desire to smile.
‘Not yet.’ Cris pushed away from the door and went to sit at the other end of the bench, out of touching distance unless they both stretched out a hand. ‘There was something, there had to be, right from the start, in that moment of madness on the beach. I am not married, Tamsyn, and you are not an innocent. What is to stop us?’
Reputation, risk, prudence? ‘And you are not committed to anyone?’ she asked, wondering suddenly why such an attractive, eligible man should be unattached.
He did not answer her immediately and when she looked at his profile she found he had closed his eyes as though to veil his thoughts.
‘Cris?’ she prompted.
His eyes opened and when he turned his head to look at her the smile was on his lips alone. ‘No, I am not committed to anyone.’ He got up, a sudden release of energy like an uncoiling spring. She jumped. ‘You are correct. This is quite inappropriate. You might have been married, but that does not give me the right to treat you like one of the sophisticated London society widows. They know the game and how to play it and they move in circles where these things are understood.’ Cris opened the door and stepped out on to the daisy-spangled lawn. ‘Forgive me.’
By the time she had realised what he was doing and had reached the door, he was striding away towards the house. The front door closed firmly behind him. A succession of Jory’s riper curses ran through her mind.
Damn him! That was not about me, or at least, not entirely about me. There is someone and I made him think of her. Now you have got exactly what you told yourself you wanted, Tamsyn Perowne. You got your kiss and that was all. You are safe, respectable. And frustrated.
The tables had turned so fast she had been taken completely unaware. One moment she had been hesitant and he eager, the next she had pushed aside her qualms and he was backing away. She tried to make some sense of those past few hectic minutes. Cris had been a gentleman—once he had stopped kissing her like a ravening Viking pillager. She had said it would be inappropriate and he had agreed. And, just as she was telling herself that she should seize this opportunity and argue against herself, her question about other women had stopped him in his tracks. He had said there was no one else now, but she must have made him face a memory that hurt.
Tamsyn went down the slope of the lawn and took the steps to the foreshore. The sea had always helped her think, but now, as she watched the Atlantic waves come rolling in to end a thousand miles’ journey in a frill of harmless lace on the sand, she knew there was nothing to think about. She wanted Cris Defoe, beyond prudence and reason and despite knowing quite well that he would leave this place very soon, whatever she felt or wanted. That meant that she had a decision to make. Was she capable of seducing a man—and would it be right to do so?
* * *
‘Muscles paining you, sir? Would you like a massage?’ Collins got up from the window seat looking out to the track up towards Stibworthy and put down what looked like a book of German grammar.
‘No. Thank you.’ Cris bit back the oath. His fault, his temper, and no need to take it out on Collins. He would think about what had just happened later when he had his breathing under control and some blood had returned to his brain from where it was currently making itself felt. ‘I need paper and ink. Wax. And a seal.’
‘Not your own, of course, sir.’ Collins removed a key from his watch chain and opened the large writing box that sat on the dresser. ‘The plain seal?’ He laid a seal on the table in front of the window and set out paper and an ink stand with steel-nibbed pens, then struck a flint to light a candle. ‘Which colour wax, sir?’
‘Blue.’ Cris picked up the seal and rolled it between his fingers. His own seal ring, securely locked away, showed the de Feaux crest, a phoenix rising from flames, a sword in one clawed foot. From Ash I Rise, In Fire I Conquer. The crest was an ancient pun on the similarity in pronunciation between feu—fire—and Feaux. This version showed only the flames, but it was known to his friends.
‘Cipher, sir?’
He thought about it, then shook his head. ‘No. Can you see anyone in this household opening a guest’s correspondence?’
Gabriel Stone was in London, up to no good as usual, and perfectly placed to send Cris information about Franklin Holt, Viscount Chelford. Gabe might be Earl of Edenbridge, but he was also a gambler, a highly successful, ice-cold, card player, and he would know just what Chelford was about, whether he was in debt and any other scandal there was to be had.
Send whatever intelligence you can find—and especially anything about Chelford’s relationship with his aunt, Miss Holt, of this address, and his inheritance of her estate after her death.
He put down the pen and stared out of the window as he ran through the things he wanted Gabe to find out.
He wished he could ask him to send down a couple of burly Bow Street Runners, or better still, a couple of doormen from one of the tougher gambling hells, but they would stick out like daffodils in a coal cellar down here. Then his eyes focused on the stony track and he smiled. Of course, that would kill two birds with one stone. He dipped the pen again.
You recall that little incident in Bath and our two Irish friends? If you can locate them and send them here with their equipment, I have use of both their old trade and their willingness to use their fists.
All correspondence should be directed to Mr C. Defoe.
He folded and sealed the letter, addressed it to The Earl of Edenbridge, then folded it within a second sheet and addressed that to his solicitor in the City, sealing it for the second time. However scrupulous his hostesses might be about other people’s correspondence, there was no need to raise questions over letters to the aristocracy.
‘Thank you, Collins. If you take that down I am told someone will take it to the receiving office in the village. That will be all for the moment.’
Alone, he got up and prowled around the room as he finally allowed himself to think about Tamsyn and that kiss. It was like unravelling tangled string, sorting out what he felt, what he ought to feel, what she wanted—what was right. She was not an innocent, but neither was she experienced with men other than her husband, he could tell that. Whatever she had been doing since Jory Perowne’s death, Tamsyn had not been sharing the beds of any local gentlemen. This was a tiny, unsophisticated community where everyone
