‘I think so.’ Yes, he was definitely smug. ‘Almost as superior as Mr Stone’s.’
‘Hussy.’ He slid into her and she bowed up to meet him, loving the way her breasts were crushed against his chest, loving the darkness in his eyes, just before he closed them to hide the depths of his pleasure from her, loving the way their bodies moved together without shyness or hesitation.
Loving him.
*
The shock of finding herself in love distracted Tamsyn all through the next day. It was hard to focus on keeping the aunts calm, let alone on listening to the advice Cris was giving her, when all she wanted to do was to sit looking at him, trying to come to terms with what her unruly heart had done.
‘I would suggest wearing something respectable and practical. You don’t want to give the impression that you are attempting to act the fluttering female to sway the jury and they know you, I imagine, so pretending to be some helpless little thing won’t work either.’ He leaned back against the front of the summer house, rocking the bench a little on its spindly metal legs.
He is beautiful, but I haven’t fallen in love with those blue eyes or that superior rump…
‘Tamsyn?’
Or that decided voice or those well-formed lips… ‘I thought my newest riding habit. I will have to ride over in any case and it is a severe cut and deep-blue colour.’
‘Excellent. I imagine it will make you exceedingly angry, but—’
Although those all help. It is his courage and his kindness and…
‘—it is essential that you keep calm. You are willing, of course, to help the authorities, but you are baffled—’
…as to why I love you when you keep secrets from me and I am not of your world, whatever it is, and you will be gone soon and I will never see you again.
‘Are you listening to a word I’m saying, Tamsyn?’
‘I am baffled,’ she repeated obediently. Although you make love like an angel. Or perhaps a devil and that helps, too. ‘I will try my best to keep my temper, be helpful but confused. And, if he persists in this nonsense, indignant. I’m a lady and respectable, whatever my late husband might have done. After all, a wife is a mere chattel of her husband’s, is she not? I cannot be held responsible for what Jory did.’
‘If you were ever any man’s mere chattel, I will eat my hat.’
Oh, and I adore that rare, rare smile of his.
‘I will have the advantage that, being men, they will assume I am incapable of organised thought or sophisticated planning,’ she said and looked out across the garden to the sea. It was impossible to think when she was looking at Cris, all she could do was count the things about him that mysteriously merged together and made a miracle.
‘I am trying to think of it as a duel, me against Franklin. I must keep a cool head and fight strongly but prudently.’
‘Sensible,’ Cris admitted. ‘And when we do find out what he is about it will be my pleasure to make that duel a reality.’
‘You cannot!’ She spun round so fast that the bench rocked and almost tipped her off on to the grass.
‘Why ever not?’ Cris was suddenly the austerely aloof, distant man who
sent a shiver of awe down her spine. ‘He has behaved in the most appalling way towards a lady, therefore it is the duty of any gentleman to call him to account.’
‘If he murdered poor Mr Ritchie, then he will hang. Would you cheat justice and spare him the ordeal of the courtroom and what follows?’ she asked fiercely, knowing as she spoke that what she felt so passionate about was Cris’s safety, not the abstract idea of justice.
‘I doubt he pulled the trigger himself. Why should he when there are so many villains to hire in the rookeries of London who would cut their own grandmothers’ throats if you made it worth their while?’
‘You mean he could get away with this?’
‘I think it very likely. After all, what proof do we have?’
‘There may be some after the inquest,’ Tamsyn told herself that rushing to meet trouble was not going to help, she had enough to cope with as it was, not least was the prospect of a broken heart in the very near future.
Chapter Fifteen
‘This court will rise for Sir James Trelawney.’