Regency Surrender: Sinful Conquests: The Many Sins of Cris de Feaux / The Unexpected Marriage of Gabriel Stone
He had a beautiful body and she had seen it, all of it, and she was not made of stone. She was, after all, the notorious Tamsyn Perowne of Barbary Combe House and she might as well live up to it, once in a while.
But that was quite enough scandal for one day. The gown she pulled from the clothes press was an ordinary workaday one with sleeves to the elbow and a neckline that touched her collarbone. She twisted up her plait, stabbed a few hairpins into it and topped it with a cap. There, perfect. She gave her reflection a brisk nod in the mirror. No one in history ever had inappropriate thoughts while wearing a cap, surely?
* * *
When she re-entered the bathing chamber the couch was heaped with pillows, towels and blankets. Mrs Tape was wrapping bricks in flannel and the aunts had retreated behind the screen. Molly was up to her elbows in the tub, rubbing the stranger’s feet with what Tamsyn decided was unnecessary enthusiasm.
‘That will do, Molly. I think we had best transfer the gentleman to the couch.’
‘We?’ It came out as a croak. He opened his eyes, narrow slits of winter-sea blue. Perhaps she had over-estimated the likelihood of him forgetting anything.
‘Jason and Michael, help the gentleman out and to the couch. Come, Molly, behind the screen with you.’ She shooed the maid along in front of her and grimaced at her aunts. Aunt Izzy was looking interested, although anything from the mating habits of snails to the making of damson jam interested her. Aunt Rosie wore an expression of mixed amusement and concern.
‘Did he say anything while I was changing?’ Tamsyn whispered while splashing, grunting and muffled curses marked the unseen progress from tub to couch.
‘Nothing,’ Aunt Izzy whispered back. ‘Except, when we added more hot water, some words in a foreign tongue we do not know. They sounded...forceful.’
‘Perhaps he is a foreigner.’
‘I do not think so.’ Aunt Rosie pushed her spectacles further up her nose. ‘He looks English to me and definitely a gentleman, not a fisherman, so goodness knows what he was doing in our bay. He reminds me of a very cross archangel. So very blond and severe.’
‘Are you acquainted with many archangels, dear?’ Aunt Izzy teased. ‘And are they all English?’
‘He is how I have always imagined them, although I have to confess, he does require a pair of wings, shimmering raiment and a fiery sword to complete the picture and I do not think he is looking quite at his best, just at the moment.’
‘Excuse me, ladies, but the gentleman is in bed now.’ Michael, their footman, stepped round the screen, his hands full of damp towels. ‘I brought one of my own nightshirts down for him. It’s not what he’s used to, I’ll be bound, but it’s a clean one.’
‘Excellent. Thank you, Michael. Now, if you could just drain the tub and refill it for Miss Pritchard I’ll set the screen around the bed and everyone can be private.’
‘All the hot water’s gone, Miss Tamsyn. Jason’s gone to stoke up the boiler.’
‘In that case, if you’ll help me through to the front parlour, Michael, I’ll rest in there.’ Aunt Rosie put one twisted hand on the footman’s arm. ‘I have no doubt our visitor would appreciate some peace and quiet.’
Tamsyn left Aunt Izzy and Molly to accompany Rosie on her painful way to the front of the house, straightened her cap, and, hopefully, her emotions, and went to see how her patient was.
He opened his eyes as she approached the bed. ‘Thank you.’ They had propped him up against the pillows, the covers pulled right up under his armpits, but his arms were free. His words were polite, but the blue eyes were furious.
‘Do not try to speak, it is obviously painful. Have they given you anything to drink yet? Just nod.’
He inclined his head and she saw the beaker on the edge of the tub and fetched it over, sniffed the contents and identified watered brandy. ‘Cook will bring you some broth when you feel a little stronger. Sip this. Can you hold it?’ He did not look like a man who was taking kindly to being treated like an invalid, whether he was one or not. His long fingers closed around the beaker, brushing hers. The touch was cold still, but not with the deadly chill his skin had held before.
Tamsyn went to fuss with the screen, pulling it around the bed so he wouldn’t feel she was staring at him if he fumbled with the drink. She would find some warm water in a moment so he could bathe his sore eyes.
The beaker was empty when she turned back and she took it from his hand, disconcerted to find those reddened eyes watching her with a curious intentness. Surely he does not remember that kiss? She willed away both the blush and the urge to press her lips to his again. ‘What is your name, sir? I am Tamsyn Perowne and the two other ladies are Miss Pritchard and Miss Isobel Holt.’
‘Cri... De...’
She leaned closer to catch the horse whisper. ‘Christopher Defoe? Are you a connection of the writer? I love Robinson Crusoe.’ He shook his head, a sharp, definitive denial. ‘No? Never mind. Whoever you are, you are very welcome here at Barbary Combe House. Rest a little and when the doctor has been in I will fetch the broth. In fact, that sounds like him now.’ The sound of raised voices in the entrance hall penetrated even the heavy door. ‘And someone else. What on earth is going on?’ She had barely reached the other side of the screen when the door opened and Dr Tregarth strode in, speaking angrily over his shoulder to the man who pushed through after him.
‘Don’t be a fool, Penwith. Of course this isn’t Jory Perowne. The man went over Barbary Head on to the rocks two years ago, right in front of six dragoons and the Revenue’s Riding Officer. He was dead before you could get a noose around his neck and he certainly hasn’t walked out of the sea now!’
‘That’s as may be, but he was a tricky bastard, was Perowne, and I wouldn’t put it past him to play some disappearing game. And I’m the magistrate for these parts and I’ll not take any chances.’
Squire Penwith. Will he never give up? Tamsyn stopped dead in front of the man, hands on hips, chin up so he could not see how much his words distressed her. Stupid, vindictive, blustering old goat. She managed not to actually say so. ‘Mr Penwith, if you can tell me how a man can go over a two-hundred-foot cliff on to rocks and survive the experience I would be most interested to hear.’ That glimpse of the shattered, limp body in the second before the waves took it... She hardened her voice against the shake that threatened it. ‘My husband was certainly a tricky bastard, but I have yet to hear he could fly.’
So, his mermaid in a dowdy cap was a widow, was she? Cris winced as the cracked corner of his mouth kicked up in an involuntary smile at the sharp defiance in her voice, then the amusement faded as the other man, the magistrate, began to bluster at her.
‘He wasn’t the only tricky one in this household. I wouldn’t put it past the pair of you to have rigged up some conjuror’s illusion—and don’t open those big brown eyes at me, all innocent-like. I know the smuggling’s still going on, so who is running it if your husband’s dead. Eh? Tell me that.’
‘Smuggling’s been a way of life on this coast since man could paddle a raft, you foolish man.’ Cris liked the combination of logic and acid in the clear voice. ‘Long before Jory Perowne was born, and for long after, I’ll be bound.’ Mrs Perowne spoke as though to a somewhat stupid scholar.
‘Don’t you call me a fool, you—’
‘Penwith, you must not speak to Mrs Perowne in that intemperate manner.’ That was the doctor, he assumed.
The magistrate swore and Cris threw back the covers, swung his legs off the couch and realised he was clad only in a nightshirt that came to mid-thigh. With a grimace he draped the top sheet around himself, flung one end over his shoulder like a