Cris did not rise to the mockery. ‘It is a while since I had the opportunity to walk in such unspoiled countryside and have a conversation with a young lady at the same time.’
She pursed her mouth, although whether to suppress a smile or a wry expression of resignation he could not tell. ‘I have to go and see our shepherd about the...incident yesterday. I am intending to ride, but I will walk with you up the combe until you tire, then ride on from there. There is no particular hurry, the damage has been done.’
Cris wondered whether she was as cool and crisp with everyone or whether she did not like him. Possibly it was a cover for embarrassment. After all, he had come lurching out of the sea, stark naked, seized hold of her and then kissed her, neither of which were the actions of a gentleman. But Tamsyn Perowne did not strike him as a woman who was easily embarrassed. She had an earthy quality about her, which was not at all coarse but rather made him think of pagan goddesses—Primavera, perhaps, bringing growing things and springtime in her wake.
It was refreshing after the artificiality of London society or the Danish court. There, ladies wore expressions of careful neutrality and regarded showing their feelings as a sign of weakness, or ill breeding. Even Katerina had hidden behind a façade of indifferent politeness. And thank heavens, for that, Cris thought. Self-control and the ability to disguise their feelings had been all that stood between them and a major scandal. Mrs Perowne could keep secrets, he was sure of that, but she would find it hard to suppress her emotions. He thought of her spirited response to the magistrate, the anger so openly expressed. Would her lovemaking be so passionate, so frank?
It was an inappropriate thought and, from her suddenly arrested expression, this time something of it had shown on his face. ‘Mr Defoe?’ There was a touch of ice behind the question.
‘I was thinking of how magnificently you routed that boor of a magistrate yesterday,’ he said.
‘I dislike incompetence, laziness and foolishness,’ she said. ‘Mr Penwith possesses all three in abundance.’
‘Doubtless you consider me foolish, almost getting myself drowned yesterday.’ If she thought him an idiot she was not going to confide in him, and unless she did, it was going to be more difficult to discover what was threatening the ladies Combe. Not impossible, just more time consuming and, for all he knew, there wasn’t the luxury of time.
‘Reckless, certainly.’ She was cutting into her toast with the same attack that she had applied to beheading the egg. ‘I suspect you had something on your mind.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘That must be my excuse.’
‘Mr Defoe.’ She laid down her knife and looked directly at him across the breakfast table. ‘It is easy to become...distracted when we are hurting. It would be a mistake to allow that distraction to become fatal. There is always hope. Everything passes.’
She thinks I was trying to kill myself. The realisation hit him as he saw there was no smile, no teasing, in those brown eyes. Then he saw the ghost of something besides concern. Pain. She is speaking of herself. When her husband died did she want to die, too?
‘I know. And there are responsibilities and duties to keep one going, are there not? I was angry with myself for my lack of focus, Tamsyn. I have no desire to find myself in a lethal predicament again because I have lost concentration.’
Cris realised he had called her by her first name as her eyebrows lifted, giving her tanned, pleasant face a sudden look of haughty elegance. She was not a conventional beauty, but he was reminded again what a very feminine creature she was, for all her practicality. ‘I apologise for the familiarity, but your concern disarmed me. May we not be friends? I do feel we have been very thoroughly introduced.’
Tamsyn laughed, a sudden rich chuckle that held surprise and wickedness and warmth even though she blushed, just a little. ‘Indeed we have... That moment in the sea. I do not normally...’
‘Kiss strange men?’ Now she was pink from the collarbone upwards. ‘If it is any consolation, I do not normally kiss mermaids.’ That made her laugh. ‘It felt like touching life when I thought I was dying.’
‘It was an extraordinary moment, like something from a myth. You thought I was a mermaid, I thought you were a merman, Christopher.’
‘Cris,’ he corrected. ‘St Crispin, if we are to be exact.’
‘“And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remember’d,”’ she quoted, visibly recovering her composure. ‘Your parents were Shakespearian enthusiasts? Or is your birthday October the twenty-fifth?’
‘Both. My father was much given to quoting Henry V. “Once more unto the breach, dear friends.” He would mutter it before anything he did not want to do, such as attending social gatherings.’
‘How infuriating for your mother.’
‘She died many years ago, in childbirth. My father was shot in the shoulder in a hunting accident and developed blood poisoning.’ He stopped to calculate. ‘It was nineteen years ago, the day before my tenth birthday.’ He would not normally speak so openly about their deaths, but he wanted Tamsyn to talk of her husband’s fatal plunge from the cliff and his frankness might encourage hers.
‘I am so sorry. You poor little boy, you must have been so alone. I was ten when I lost my mother to that epidemic, but at least I had the aunts.’
‘There were many people to look after me.’ Four trustees, one hundred servants, indoor and outdoor. There had been three tutors, a riding master, a fencing master, an art master, a dancing master—all dedicated to turning out the young Marquess of Avenmore in as perfect a form as possible.
‘I am glad of that,’ Tamsyn murmured. ‘Now, some more coffee before we take our walk?’ She passed him the pot, a fine old silver one. ‘I cannot delay much longer or Willie Tremayne will think I have forgotten him. I will meet you at the garden gate.’
Cris sat with his coffee cooling in the cup for several minutes after she had gone from the room. This household, and its inhabitants, were unlike any he had encountered before. He supposed it was because, used as he was to palaces, government offices, great houses or bachelor lodgings, he had never before experienced the world of the gentry. Were they all so warm, so unaffected? He gave himself a shake and swallowed the cold coffee as a penance for daydreaming. He had to get his reluctant limbs moving and find a coat or he would be keeping Tamsyn Perowne waiting.
The garden gate was as good a perch as it had been when she had first come to Barbary, but now it did not seem like a mountain to climb. Tamsyn hooked the toes of her riding boots over a rail and kept her weight at the hinge end, as a proper countrywoman knew to do. The breeze from the sea blew up the lane, stirring the curls that kept escaping from under the old-fashioned tricorn she had jammed over her hair and flipping the ends of her stock until she caught them and stuffed them into the neck of her jacket. She felt almost frivolous, and if that was the result of looking forward to a very slow walk up the lane with an ailing gentleman, then it was obvious that she was not getting out enough.
Mr Defoe—Cris—emerged from the door just as Jason led out Foxy, her big chestnut gelding, and she bit her lip rather than smile at her own whimsy. He might think she was laughing at his cane.
‘Leg up, Mrs Tamsyn?’
‘I’m walking for a little while, thank you, Jason.’ She jumped down from the gate and pulled the reins over the gelding’s head to lead him and he butted her with his nose, confused about why she was not mounting.
‘That’s a big beast.’ Cris was walking slowly, using the cane, but without limping or leaning on it. She did her best not to stare. He would experience enough of that if he walked as far as Stibworthy and the locals had a good look at his pale tan buckskins and beautiful boots. He might as well