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 war
mer 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?’