bar. ‘Thank you, landlord. Good day, all.’
Outside, they walked in silence for a few yards. ‘That will have provided more excitement than the last pedlar in the village a month ago,’ the doctor remarked as he turned downhill. ‘You’ll be a major source of gossip and speculation for many a day.’
‘More interesting than wondering how a strange dog got into Mrs Perowne’s flock on top of a chapter of other incidents?’
‘You’ve heard about that, then?’ The other man’s voice was carefully neutral.
‘I have. Do you have any theories?’ Cris ducked under a washing line slung across the street.
‘As you say, a chapter of accidents.’
‘I said incidents, not accidents.’
‘At the risk of sounding rude, Mr Defoe, what concern is it of yours?’ The doctor reached out the hand not encumbered with his medical bag, seized a runaway toddler by the collar and passed him back to his pursuing, breathless, mother. ‘He’s in fine form, Mrs Pentyre.’
Cris tipped his hat to the mother, sidestepped the struggling child. ‘The ladies at Barbary Combe House may well have saved my life. It is clear something is wrong and, as a gentleman, I owe them my help.’
‘And you know about agricultural matters?’ Tregarth enquired. There was more than a hint of warning in his tone.
‘Some. I know more about plots and sabotage, scheming and secrets.’
‘And no doubt I wouldn’t get a straight answer if I asked how you came by that knowledge. Mrs Perowne is an attractive lady.’
They had cleared the last cottage and the street bent into a rough track. Cris sidestepped sharply, forcing the doctor into the angle of the wall and a gate. ‘Are you suggesting that I have dishonourable intentions towards the lady, Tregarth? Because if so, I am quite willing to take offence.’
Cris watched the other man’s eyes darken, narrow, and wondered if he was about to be asked to name his seconds. He knew he was being hypocritical because his thoughts, if not his intentions, were downright disgraceful as far as Tamsyn Perowne was concerned, but if he did not react he risked damaging her reputation with one of the pillars of the local community.
‘Naturally, if you give me your word, sir.’
‘That I do not wish Mrs Perowne harm? You certainly have my word on that, although as you do not know me from Adam, I am not sure how you judge the worth of the assurance.’ What the devil was wrong with him? If he was observing this encounter, he would assume he was trying to force a fight on Tregarth, as though they were rivals for Tamsyn.
Oddly, the doctor relaxed. ‘I trust you. Judging character is one of the tricks we medics must acquire, just as a horseman learns how to judge an unreliable animal. You, sir, have an odd kick to your gait, but I judge you are not vicious.’
‘Thank you, for that,’ Cris said drily, stepping back. He thought he had found an ally. Tregarth straightened his coat and they fell into step, as far as the surface of the track would allow. ‘Miss Holt has a nephew.’
‘The charming Lord Chelford. An acquaintance of yours?’
‘I have encountered him in London. I would trust him as far as I could throw him. Possibly rather less if he had a deck of cards in his hand.’
Tregarth laughed. ‘I suspect Tamsyn would say the same.’ There was an awkward silence as the doctor realised he had used her first name. Cris did not comment, but noted it. ‘He pressed her to marry him, quite persistently, and did not like getting no for an answer.’
‘Before she married Perowne?’
‘Then—and again after she was widowed. The first time she took refuge in marrying Jory, the second she had the iron in her soul and she sent him packing with no help from anyone.’
‘Where did the iron come from?’
They rounded another bend and the land to the south fell away, giving a view of the sea and another towering headland. Tregarth nodded towards it. ‘Black Edge Head. For a woman to see her husband hunted to his death it’s either going to break her, or temper her steel.’
‘He jumped from that?’ Cris stared at the sheer face, the sea crashing at its foot, the snarling rocks. ‘That is a long way down to regret an impulse.’
‘Jory Perowne did not work on impulse. He was a realist and no coward. A man can dangle for half an hour on the gallows if the authorities are determined to make him suffer and Perowne had his pride. He would never have let them take him alive and jumping from there certainly made an impression.’
‘And that old fool of a magistrate really thought he had to check that a strange man under Mrs Perowne’s roof was not her husband? After he went over there in front of witnesses?’
‘They never found the body and Jory was a legend. He had charisma, magic. No one would be surprised if he walked dripping out of the sea one dark night. Cornwall has King Arthur and, of late years, we had Jory Perowne. But if he does come back it will be as a ghost. Enough men saw him hit those rocks to know he died that day.’
Tamsyn had chosen marriage to a brigand who sounded like a swashbuckling rogue from the last century rather than submit to a man who would have given her status and title, if not happiness. She had survived seeing her husband’s horrific death and lived with the consequences, and now she supported and protected two charming, and apparently unworldly, ladies. She ran an estate, kept a tart tongue in her head and she kissed like an angel. Cris was beginning to wonder who needed protection from whom.
* * *
‘But where is he?’ Aunt Izzy enquired plaintively for the fourth time. ‘I cannot believe you simply abandoned the poor man like that and rode off, Tamsyn. Why, he might be collapsed in a ditch from exhaustion.’
‘I did not abandon him, he is not a poor man and there are no ditches anywhere around there.’ Exasperated, Tamsyn eyed the walking cane she had picked up when she rode home past the fallen tree. ‘He was walking perfectly well and he can hardly get lost around here. He will turn up when he wants his luncheon, I have no doubt. He is a man, after all.’ There was no doubt about that either. She braced her shoulders against the sensual little shiver that ran through her at the thought. She should tell them that Cris Defoe had exaggerated his weakness in order to have an excuse to stay there and protect them, but she suspected Aunt Rosie would be indignant and that Aunt Izzy would make a hero out of him.
‘Here he comes now, from the beach,’ Rosie said from her seat by the window.
‘The beach?’ And so he was, striding up over the lawn as though he had never experienced so much as a mild muscle twinge in his life. But how did he get there without being seen?
Cris raised his hat when he saw Rosie, then turned to take the path round to the kitchen door. Like all of them he had developed the habit of ignoring the front entrance. He obviously felt at home at Barbary Combe House and, strangely, the aunts, who were so protective of their privacy, seemed quite comfortable that he had become part of the household in only two days.
‘Mr Defoe is back so I’ll serve luncheon, shall I, Miss Holt?’ Mrs Tape enquired. Through the open door his booted feet taking the stairs two at a time sounded quite clearly.
‘By all means,’ Tamsyn muttered as Aunt Izzy agreed with the housekeeper and they both went to help Aunt Rosie to her feet. ‘Let us females wait upon the convenience of The Man.’ She was thoroughly out of sorts and it was not helped by the fact that she felt guilty for being so scratchy. The aunts enjoyed having a man in the house again—Izzy to fuss over, Rosie to sharpen her wits on—and she was being a curmudgeon about it.
Booted feet clattered down the stairs again and she