The Many Sins of Cris De Feaux (Lords of Disgrace) (17 page)

My lord. She uses the title like an insult.
Yes, he would go and he would pursue Chelford with every resource he could muster and, if he could not find out what the man wanted with Barbary Combe House and its occupants, if he could find no proof that would stand up in law, then Franklin Holt was going to find himself in the hold of a ship bound for Australia.

He watched Tamsyn walk away from him, back straight, head up. This was the woman who had seen her husband leap to his death like a hunted stag, who had faced down a courtroom, who had dragged him from the sea. And she was walking out of his life, and he must be glad because that was what she wanted.

* * *

She could not face the aunts, not yet. Tamsyn closed the door of the summer house and struggled to find some composure. What was she becoming? What was this nightmare doing to her? One moment all she wanted was to be part of Cris in the most carnal way possible, the next she was seized with disgust at herself for throwing herself at a man who wanted her only for the moment.

This mystery had brought her Cris, and love, but she could not be glad, not even for the memories of those two perfect nights in his arms. He would be gone soon, back to London and the world that he belonged to and to the search for a wife who was a well-bred, well-dowered, well-connected virgin who would bear his children.
All the things I am not and cannot be.

Eventually, when she had her hair and her clothing and her face under as much control as she could manage, she ran across the lawn and slipped in through the front door. There was no sound of anyone talking, the aunts must be in their room. She reached the foot of the stairs when a heavy tread made her turn. ‘You.’

‘Yes, me, the nasty Lord Edenbridge.’ He leaned against the table on which she had left her flower arrangement, his gypsy-dark, dangerously masculine looks a startling contrast to the wispy grasses and the lush femininity of roses. ‘Where is Cris?’

She shrugged. ‘Up on the cliff.’

‘Where you made love and had a thundering row, I suppose. Tamsyn—’

‘Mrs Perowne to you, my lord.’

How does he know what we have been doing? I suppose I still look as though I’ve been tumbled like some country trollop. Which is what he thinks I am anyway.

‘Mrs Perowne. I mean you no ill, but Cris is my friend and I’ll not see him brought down by an entanglement.’

She held up a hand to stop him. ‘I have
un
tangled him from my lures, such as they are. He will go back to London very soon, rest assured, my lord. You will have him safely back in his rightful environment, far from scandal and unsuitable women.’

Something changed in his expression, some slight shift towards sympathy. ‘Are you in love with him, Tamsyn?’ He did not wait for an answer. ‘It is better this way, believe me. Cris is a prisoner of his responsibilities to Avenmore and he would not thank you for freeing him from those chains.’ He turned abruptly and walked away, his elbow catching a spray of roses, sending the soft crimson petals shaking and tumbling on to the polished oak.

Tamsyn picked up the trailing skirts of her riding habit and climbed slowly up the stairs to her aunts’ door, tapped and went in.

Izzy, always demonstrative, jumped up from her embroidery and ran across to hug her. ‘Oh, my dear, that nice Mr Stone looked in to tell us it was all right and that you were on your way home, safe and sound. He said you’d found it rather upsetting, so not to expect you back immediately.’ She went back to her chair beside the sofa where Rosie was lying and the pair of them gazed at her expectantly.

Tamsyn found a chair, took a deep breath and began to recount the story of the day, accompanied by gasps and exclamations from Izzy, solemn nods and shakes of the head from Rosie.

When she finished with the jury’s verdict they looked at each other in one of the silent exchanges that Tamsyn had never been able to interpret. Behind them on the wall above the bed, the two small oil paintings that were Aunt Rosie’s favourites glowed with the vibrancy of rich red fabrics against the lustrous naked flesh of gods and goddesses feasting and loving, and she thought of the fallen rose petals on the table below, of the texture of Cris’s skin against hers.

‘So,’ she said briskly, ‘with that out of the way Mr Defoe will be going back to London very soon.’ She even managed a smile.

Chapter Seventeen

‘B
ut he asked you to marry him.’ Aunt Izzy shook her head in puzzlement. ‘That is wonderful. Yet you refused him?’

‘It was a ruse and I would prefer not to be seen as the woman who entrapped a man who had to marry her to save her reputation,’ Tamsyn said firmly.

‘Yes, dear. But surely he wouldn’t have thought of it if he hadn’t already been considering asking you. Don’t you want to marry him?’

‘No, certainly not.’

Aunt Rosie’s eyebrows rose in disbelief, but Tamsyn stared her out until she shook her head and turned to look out the window. ‘There he is now, walking across the front lawn.’ She pushed the window a little wider. ‘Mr Defoe! Do come up. We are both so anxious to speak to you.’

‘You won’t say anything...?’ Tamsyn began, panicking at the thought of the two of them assuring Cris that she really did want to marry him and that they thought it would be an excellent idea.

‘Naturally we will thank him,’ Aunt Rosie said, then called, ‘Come in,’ in answer to a tap on the door. ‘Mr Defoe, thank you so much for taking care of Tamsyn today,’ she said, beaming as he entered.

To Tamsyn’s eye he looked less than his usual elegant, unruffled self, but neither of the aunts appeared to see anything amiss, let alone the mild dishevelment of a man who had been making love in a hut half an hour before.

‘Things became a trifle fraught,’ he said with a smile for Rosie and without a glance at Tamsyn sitting at the foot of the sofa. ‘But we brushed through all right in the end. Mrs Perowne is held in esteem by many people around here, even if the authorities are still determined to visit her late husband’s sins on her head.’

‘You consider not being required by your stratagem to marry Tamsyn is
brushing through
?’ Rosie enquired, with no attempt to hide the tartness in her voice.

Cris turned a level blue gaze on her and his expression assumed a polite aloofness that sent a shiver down Tamsyn’s spine and made Aunt Izzy’s eyes widen in surprise. ‘Mrs Perowne’s wishes in the matter are paramount. It will, no doubt, help reduce any further speculation if I remove myself back to London tomorrow. I have presumed on your hospitality more than enough.’ Izzy opened her mouth, and he added, ‘I will, of course, continue to investigate Lord Chelford’s involvement in the problems you have been experiencing. I may well be better placed to do so in London in any case.’

‘We will miss you,’ Izzy declared with a reproving glance at Rosie for her acid tone.

‘And I, you.’ Cris’s smile returned, the chill vanished. ‘You have made me very welcome here—as well as saved my life. I will miss your company and this charming house.’ Tamsyn saw him look up at the paintings on the wall over the bed. ‘Its endless small treasures are a constant pleasure.’

The three of them began to talk about art and the handsome set of Hogarth engravings on the walls of the landing and Tamsyn indulged herself by watching Cris’s face. He was enjoying talking to the aunts, she realised, recognising the deepening of the laughter lines at the corner of his eyes, the softening of the severe line of his mouth with its betrayingly sensual lower lip.

She pulled her attention back as he shifted his position to gesture to the pictures over the bed. ‘Those two oils, for example. Magnificent, like gems.’

‘I know,’ Izzy said with satisfaction. ‘They are perhaps a trifle
warm
for display in the public rooms, but the colours and the energy in them have always pleased me.’ She shook her head. ‘One cannot wonder at the classical gods having so much energy for, er...’

‘Life?’ Cris supplied, the crease at the corner of his mouth deepening.

‘Exactly. They used to hang in Papa’s study, but he knew I liked them, so in his will he said I must have them to give me colour through our windswept winters here on the coast. I have no idea who the artist was, but dear Papa always said they had been in the family for a long time.’

‘May I?’ Cris stood and reached for the left-hand painting, lifting it down when Izzy nodded. He carried it to the window, looked at it closely, then propped it up on the sill and went back for the other. ‘You know, these are not just good, they are exceptional. and I have seen this artist’s work before, I think.’ He looked at Izzy whose smile faded at his seriousness. ‘I think they may be by Rubens.’

‘
Rubens?
But that would mean they are worth thousands,’ Rosie gasped. Then her expression hardened. ‘That is what Franklin wants, those paintings.’

‘They will be listed in the inventory of Holt Hall, won’t they?’ Tamsyn moved to sit by Izzy, taking her hand in hers.

‘I am sure they will be,’ Aunt Rosie said. ‘And that is in Franklin’s hands now.’

‘They belong to him?’ Cris asked.

‘They do, as virtually everything in this house does, but he cannot touch them, let alone sell them, during my aunt’s lifetime,’ Tamsyn said thoughtfully. ‘You must be right, Aunt Rosie. We always knew he had debts. What if they have become pressing? What if he has read the inventory, noted that we have something very valuable here and decided to get his hands on it? Moving us out of here into a small house on the estate would mean Izzy would have to reduce the furnishings and pictures. Or two little paintings might get lost in the move...if you did not know what they were.’

‘And then we refused to move so he tried to scare us away and when that failed he attacked you. If something dreadful had happened to you, then I do not know if we would have been able to carry on alone here. We might well have agreed to move to the dower house. It all makes perfect sense now.’ Aunt Izzy clasped her hands to her chest. ‘But to murder a man to incriminate you, Tamsyn! I cannot conceive of such wickedness.’

‘He must be desperate,’ Tamsyn said. ‘I hate to think of him getting away with it, but unless anyone can lay hands on that so-called solicitor’s clerk who gave evidence at the inquest there is nothing but our suspicions to go on.’

‘Let me take the paintings to London and get them appraised by experts,’ Cris offered. ‘Then at least you will know where you stand. If I am wrong, you can let Franklin know they are not valuable, make a story out of your excitement and then disappointment.’

‘But what if they
are
genuine?’ Izzy asked. ‘What will we do then?’

‘Cross that bridge when you come to it,’ Cris advised and Izzy smiled, soothed, as she always seemed to be, by Cris. ‘At least you will know why the attacks have been happening. You will have the facts and that puts you in a position of strength.’

Tamsyn slipped out of the room. She needed to think and she needed to calm the churning anger that her cousin could act that way, kill a man, threaten her, because of his own weakness and cupidity.

Cris would charm the aunts and smooth their ruffled feathers and when he was gone they would talk often of ‘dear Mr Defoe’, she thought as she went to her room, fighting the desire to simply get into bed, pull the covers over her head and pretend the whole exhausting, bitter day had not happened. She would not tell them they had taken a marquess and an earl under their humble roof, she decided. They would worry that they had not entertained them in style and that would spoil their innocent pleasure in the little adventure of Cris’s arrival.

He would write with news of the pictures and of Franklin’s activities. That would hurt, she accepted as she changed out of her riding habit and into something suitable for the evening. She didn’t want to see his handwriting, to imagine his voice as she read his words. She wanted to forget him and she knew she never would, however angry she was with his secrecy and his wretched, wretched title.

A marquess, for goodness’ sake! One step below a duke and I have to go and fall in love with him.

He must not guess for a moment how she had felt when he had declared that they were betrothed, how the treacherous little flame of hope that this was a declaration from his heart and not his honour had burned clear through the fog of fear, only to be quenched when she remembered that her daydreams could never be, however he felt about her.

She finished dressing, put up her hair with more care than usual and donned her few pieces of jewellery along with a smile that she was almost confident looked genuine. Cris would see that she was perfectly happy to see him leave and the hostile Lord Edenbridge would see that, despite his opinion, she had the manners and the poise to match the Marquess of Avenmore.

* * *

‘You will take care?’ Cris stood by the gate, Jackdaw fidgeting beside him. Gabriel himself sat on his horse by the stable-yard entrance, all too obviously not watching them. His carriage was already on its slow way up the rough track with Cris’s vehicle following it.

‘Of course. I told you, I will hire the two chairmen to guard the house.’

‘It is already taken care of.’

‘I do not need or want your charity, my lord.’ They were safely out of earshot of the aunts who were watching from the drawing-room window.

‘Do not call me that.’

‘Why not? Your dear friend Lord Edenbridge would tell me I should curtsy respectfully as well.’ She did so, with grace and a straight back.

‘Gabriel will learn to watch his tongue one of these days. But if we are to be formal, Mrs Perowne, it is not you who has the say in the matter of hiring. I consulted your aunt Isobel, who is, after all, the mistress here, and convinced her that this was a good way to protect you and that I would be deeply hurt if she did not allow me to make the gesture.’

‘You always get your own way, do you not?’ She said it politely, with a smile on her lips, both for her own pride and for the watchers in the house.

‘Not always.’ He was smiling, too, a charming expression that did not reach his eyes. ‘And sometimes it is right that I do not.’

She would never see him again, that must be the explanation for her reckless question. ‘There is someone, isn’t there? Someone you are in love with and cannot have.’

‘I thought so.’ He spoke readily, but his eyes were bleak. ‘I was wrong, but it clouded my judgement badly enough to almost get me drowned through sheer inattention.’ He turned and mounted, collected the restless horse with a light hand on the reins. ‘I would have done my best to make you happy, if marriage was what you wanted.’

‘What I want, my lord, is my old life back. I wish you a safe journey and a happy return to your old life. Thank you for your help and for taking the pictures to be appraised.’ She could still hardly think of them without feeling ill.

He inclined his head, turned Jackdaw and spurred off up the lane, not slowing as he drew alongside his friend, but cantering on. She waited, but Cris did not look back.

Thank you for your help. Thank you for two nights of bliss in your arms. I wish I had never seen you, because I do not know how my heart will heal.

It was more difficult than she could have imagined to walk back briskly into the house and join the aunts in the drawing room, but it was good discipline, Tamsyn told herself. Soon, if she kept on smiling and pretending everything was all right, she would begin to get used to this hollow ache.

‘Such nice young men,’ Izzy said, patting the sofa beside her. ‘I will miss them.’

‘We will hear from Mr Defoe soon enough, I expect,’ Rosie said. ‘He did not think it would take the expert long to assess the paintings.’

‘Dear Mr Defoe will know what to do,’ Izzy said, apparently comforted by the thought.

‘
Dear
Mr Defoe is having the pictures valued for you, not investigating the crime,’ Tamsyn pointed out.

‘If Franklin had come to me in the first place, told me he needed the money and wanted to sell the pictures, then I would have given them back,’ Izzy lamented. ‘I still would if it were not for that poor man’s death.’

‘With no proof, there is not a lot we can do, although I hate to admit it,’ Tamsyn mused. ‘We must be on the alert here and hope some way to deal with Franklin occurs to us.’

As she spoke the bulky figure of Seamus the chairman passed the window. He was apparently strolling casually, but Tamsyn noticed the truncheon hanging at his side when his coat was blown back by the breeze. At least their bodyguards were in place, but unless she could come up with some plan then they were never going to be free of Franklin’s shadow.

* * *

The London papers arrived, courtesy of the vicar, four days after publication. A week after Cris and Gabriel had left, Tamsyn sat and attempted to read an account of the antiquities of Devon—also thanks to the vicar, who was generous with his library—and told herself that she was managing very well without Cris de Feaux. She’d hardly thought of him at all—not more than every hour or so—although it was unaccountably difficult to concentrate on manorial history for some reason. It was hard to sleep as well, but that must be because of her worries over the pictures and what Franklin might do next, and the faint crunch of footsteps as one or other of the Irishmen made their nightly patrols.

‘Franklin’s name is in the paper,’ Izzy announced suddenly, making Tamsyn jump.

‘It is?’

Her aunt folded the
Morning Post,
pushed her spectacles further down her nose and peered at the small print. ‘Here, I glimpsed his name somewhere under “Fashionable Arrivals and Departures”
.
In “Arrivals” it says, “The Duchess of Devonshire to Ashbourne’s Hotel; the Marquess of Avenmore to St James’s Square; the Earl of Edenbridge to Half Moon Street; Dowager Countess of...” Here it is. “The Viscount Chelford from Holt Hall.”’

So Cris and Gabriel were in London. She wondered what Cris’s house was like. It must be very grand, she supposed. Even if she had never been to London she knew that the St James’s area was fashionable and that the legendary Almack’s was just off St James’s Square, which was convenient for Cris in his pursuit of an eligible wife. With Franklin out of town, at least there was no risk of the two meeting.

‘Here comes the post,’ Rosie observed before Izzy could launch into futile speculation on Franklin’s movements and motives.

A few minutes later Jason brought in the letters. Tamsyn’s correspondence was all exceedingly dull until she reached the letter from Mr Pentire, their man of business, who was delighted to report that since their banker had received a letter of guarantee from no less a person than the Marquess of Avenmore, he had been energetically quashing all rumours about the state of finances at Barbary Combe House.