‘You are flattening to a man’s self-esteem, Mrs Perowne.’
‘Why flattening? I imagine you hate being thought less than invincible. Most men do.’
‘Ouch. Now that hurts. I mean that I dislike being so transparent.’
‘You are not. But I saw you stripped to the core yesterday—and I do not mean stripped of clothes,’ she added as that infuriating eyebrow rose. She did so wish she could do that… ‘You would have kept on going until you dropped dead rather than lie there passively on the beach and be fetched. You hated being weak and in need of help. If your man with your coach had been anywhere in the neighbourhood, you would have crawled a mile to him on your hands and knees rather than admit to needing three women to help you. So why so unwilling to travel now and leave here?’
Cris leaned back against a sapling, folded his hands over the head of his cane and looked at her. It was a long, considering stare with no humour and no flirtation in it. If she was a parlour maid being interviewed, she suspected she would not get the position. If she was a horse for sale, he was obviously doubtful about her bloodlines. When he spoke she almost jumped.
‘You may well have saved my life. I am in your debt. There is something very wrong here and if it is in my power, I will remedy it.’ From another man there would have been a note of boasting, of masculine superiority over the poor, helpless females. But this sounded like a simple declaration of fact. Something was wrong. Crispin Defoe would fix it.
It had been so long since there had been anyone from outside the household to confide in, or to lean on, just a little. Even Jory could be relied on only to do what suited his interests. They had been fortunate that he had adored Aunt Izzy and had been fond of Tamsyn. But this man would be leaving, very soon. He did not belong here, he had drifted to Barbary Combe House, borne on the current of a whim that had brought him across England. Soon he would return and to rely on him for anything—other than to disturb her dreams—was dangerous.
‘Nonsense. You do not owe us anything, we would have done the same for anyone who needed help. And there is absolutely nothing wrong except for a rogue dog and some valuable sheep lost.’
‘You see?’ The austere face was disapproving. ‘That is precisely why I felt it necessary to have an excuse for lingering here. You are going to be stubborn.’
‘I am not stubborn—if anyone is, it is you. You find three women living alone and assume they are incapable of dealing with life and its problems.’ She walked away across the grass, spun round and marched back, temper fraying over her moment of weakness. ‘We are managing very well by ourselves, Mr Defoe, and I am rather tired of gentlemen telling me that we are not.’
‘Who else has the nerve to do that?’
‘It takes no particular nerve, merely impertinence.’ She took Foxy’s reins, led him to the far end of the tree trunk and used it as a mounting block. ‘I am sure you can manage the path back.’ Cris stood up and took the reins just above the bit. ‘Let go at once!’
‘Tamsyn, I am not an idiot and neither are you. Something is wrong, your aunts are distressed and who is the other interfering gentleman?’
‘Aunt Izzy’s nephew considers we would do better living in a house on his estate. He seems over-protective all of a sudden.’
‘Lord Chelford.’
‘You have been eavesdropping.’ Foxy’s ears twitched back as her voice rose. ‘Hardly the action of a gentleman.’
‘Neither is ignoring ladies in distress.’ He stood there looking up at her, his hand firm on Foxy’s bridle. ‘I wish you would get down off your high horse, Tamsyn. Literally. You are giving me a crick in my neck. I happened to overhear something completely accidentally. Collins heard more because he likes to gossip. Now, of course, you may simply be a trio of hysterical females, leaping to conclusions and making a crisis out of a series of accidents—’
‘How dare you?’ Tamsyn twisted in the saddle to face him, lost her balance and grabbed for the reins. Cris reached up, took her by the waist and lifted her, sliding and protesting, down to the ground. Trapped between Foxy’s bulk and Cris’s body, she clenched her fist and thumped him square in the centre of the chest. ‘You are no gentleman!’
‘Yes, I am. The problem is that you do not appear to have any others in your life with whom to compare me. Now, stop jumping up and down on my toes, which is doing nothing for the state of my boots, and come and sit on the tree trunk and tell me all about it.’ She opened her mouth to speak. ‘And I am the soul of discretion, you need have no fear this will go any further.’
‘If you would allow me to get a word in edgeways, Mr Defoe, I would point out to you that I am unable to get off your toes, or move in any direction, because you still have your hands on my person.’ In fact they seemed to be encircling her waist, which was impossible, she was not that slim.
‘I have?’ He did not move, although she could have sworn that the pressure on her waist increased. ‘It must be a reflex. I was anxious that you were going to fall off.’ He still managed to maintain that austere, almost haughty, expression, except for a wicked glint in those blue eyes that should have looked innocent and instead held a wealth of knowledge and deep wells of experience. Thank goodness. He is going to kiss me.
And then he…didn’t. Cris stepped back, released her and gestured to the tree trunk. ‘Shall we sit down and try this again? I will tie up your horse again, he is becoming confused.’
‘He is not the only one,’ Tamsyn muttered. Of course he was not going to kiss her. Whoever got kissed wearing a dreadful old hat like hers? Certainly no one being held by an elegant gentleman whose boots would probably have cost more than her entire wardrobe for the past five years.
Cris came back to the tree and she noticed his cane was lying forgotten on the grass. ‘What else has happened besides the accident to the sheep yesterday?’ he asked as he sat beside her.
‘You will
doubtless say we are simply imagining things.’
‘Try me. I can be remarkably imaginative myself when I want to be.’
‘A hayrick caught fire two weeks ago. Our little dairy herd got through a fence last week and strayed all over the parish before we caught them. All our lobster pots keep coming up empty. And now the sheep.’
‘All this in the span of two weeks?’ When she nodded he scrubbed his hand across his chin and frowned at the now-scuffed toes of his boots. ‘Even my imagination is baulking at that as a series of coincidences.’ His frown deepened and Tamsyn fought the urge to apologise for the state of his boots. ‘May I ask how your aunts are supported financially?’
She saw no harm in telling him, none of it was a secret, after all. ‘Aunt Izzy has the use of Barbary Combe House and its estate for her lifetime, along with all the income to spend as she wishes. She also has the use of everything in the house for her lifetime. Anything she buys with the income is hers to dispose of as she wishes, as are the stock and movable assets of the estate. Aunt Rosie has a very respectable competence inherited from her father and other relatives. She has high expenses, of course, because of her health—she paid for the bathing room, which uses a lot of fuel, and she also consults a number of medical men. Both of them live well within their incomes.’