‘I didn’t tell him.’
‘Why not?’
‘He is a very stubborn man and he is used to getting what he wants. He would have brushed it aside and then, later, regretted it bitterly.’
‘So what reason did you give him for refusing?’
‘I told him I do not love him.’ A kittiwake soared up from the cliff face, stiff-winged, white and free, its gentle dark eye warily watching the human intruders in its world.
‘You lied. Hmm.’
‘I wish you would stop going hmm! What do you mean?’
‘That perhaps you should have told him. It might have made it easier for him to accept your rejection if he knew there was a reason behind it, not simply that you could not return his affection.’ He shifted and she knew he was studying her profile. Tamsyn kept her gaze fixed out to sea. ‘Which, of course, you do.’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought you did. Think on it.’ Tregarth got to his feet and clapped his hat back on his wind-tangled hair. ‘I’ll bid you good day. I’m off to see how young Stephens is getting on, the little devil.’
Tamsyn watched him go, striding easily over the clifftop towards the precipitous path down to the bay. A good man, and a good doctor, so his advice was worth pondering on, however difficult it might be to take.
Chapter Twenty-Three
…and so, you see, even were things different, it would not be right for me to accept your proposal.
I hope your injuries are improving rapidly and that you are out of pain. Please give my warmest regards to Lord and Lady Weybourn and to Mr Stone—I cannot think of him as Lord Edenbridge, I fear.
Yours for ever
Tamsyn scrubbed at the words with her nib.
Your friend,
Tamsyn Perowne
There, it was done, and as near the truth as she could get without admitting to Cris that she loved him. Tamsyn sealed and addressed the letter and put it on the hall table to be taken up with the rest of the post.
She stood for a moment, her fingertips resting on the letter, then with a shake of her head, turned back to the drawing room. A line had been drawn, as it had when Jory had died and she had lost the baby. She would start again and she would get through this, just as she had before.
*
The tide was just on the turn, the sun was beating do
wn and a more beautiful mid-August day for a swim would be hard to imagine, Tamsyn thought as she carried her rug and her armful of towels down the lane to the beach. The aunts had gone off on a picnic with Izzy riding and Rosie in the sedan chair, that was now carried by two of the village lads who had proved apt pupils for the brawny Irishmen who had returned to Bath two weeks before, much to the regret of several of the village girls.
There was no one at the house. Mrs Tape had gone to Barnstaple, shopping with Molly and Michael, and Jason was with Izzy and Rosie. Which meant she could yield to temptation and swim naked.
It would strike cold, even this far into the summer. Tamsyn ran, the breeze cool on her sun-warmed skin. There was no one but the gulls to hear her shriek as the water hit her stomach and no one to watch as she struck out for the Flatiron Rock that was above water now and would be until the tide was halfway in.
When Jory was twelve he had cut rough steps in the side of the rock after a summer of hard labour with a hammer and chisel and as children they used to clamber out and sun themselves on the smooth, wave-polished top. But it was years since Tamsyn had done so and certainly not since Jory died. She clambered up at the cost of a scraped knee on the barnacles that covered the sides and sat down, legs stretched out, and wriggled her toes in a big clump of bladderwrack seaweed clinging to the far edge.
Her toe caught painfully on a rough surface. ‘Ouch!’ She jerked back her foot. Behind her something splashed, but when she turned there was only a swirl of water close to the beach, lost immediately as a wave came in, its crest creaming as it built up to break. Then a head broke the surface, an arm came out, powered forward in a long, cutting stroke, and she came up on her knees, heedless of the scrape of barnacles and sand, as the swimmer reached the Flatiron. He trod water, looking up at her, and she could not help the shock of pleasure, of excitement.
‘Cris.’ He should not be here, it would all be unimaginably painful, but now, in this moment, all she could feel was joy.
‘How do I get up?’ He was smiling at her, her own happiness reflected in his face.
‘There are footholds, just there.’ She watched him climb easily, with none of her fumbling and scraped knees. Muscles taut, skin streaming water, hair slicked back to expose the austere planes of his face, he was like some sea god rising from the deep.