was speculating on road building,’ she admitted. ‘An expensive investment.’
‘You, Mrs Perowne, are a constant source of surprise to me,’ he murmured. ‘You will allow me to stay for a few more days, despite my pretence of feebleness being exposed?’
‘I suppose so.’ Her dark mood lifted as rapidly as it had descended. ‘I can hardly cut short your seaside holiday, now can I?’
‘Holiday?’ Cris’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. ‘It was hardly that.’ He turned to climb the stairs.
‘What was it, then?’ She reached out and touched his hand as it gripped the carved ball on top of the newel post.
For a moment she thought he would not answer. Then he twisted his hand to catch hers within it and lifted them, joined, to his lips. ‘A journey from reality, from the loss of a dream, from the acceptance of what is inevitable,’ he murmured against her fingers. ‘Perhaps that is the definition of a holiday.’ His breath was warm, the touch of his lips no more than the brush of a feather. His fingertips were against the pulse of her wrist and he must have felt the thunder of the blood, the surging response, the desire.
It was madness, a dangerous madness if it could be so powerful when ignited by such a light touch, such a gentle caress. I want him and he would not say no if I came to his bed. But how did one carry on an affaire, however brief, under the same small roof as two doting and observant aunts? And how could she risk it—her reputation...my heart...for a few moments of pleasure with a man who would be gone within days?
Behind her, from the window embrasure out of sight of where they stood in the hallway, she could hear her aunts discussing their latest order to be sent to the circulating library in Barnstaple. Innocent, safe pleasures. This was not innocent and not safe and suddenly she had no desire for either. Tamsyn reached up and slid her fingers into Cris’s hair, just above his nape, pulled down his head and lifted her face to his. One kiss, surely she could risk that?
His kiss was not tentative, nor respectful. Certainly it took no account of where they were. Cris turned from the stair, took her in his arms and swept her back against the front door, the length of his body pressed against hers, the thrust of his arousal blatant, thrilling. Tamsyn twisted and got her hands free so she could lock them around his head, the shape of his skull imprinted on her palms, the heavy silk of his hair caressing across her fingers.
Her mouth was open to him, his tongue forceful, demanding that she open more, let him taste her, explore her. She pulled back so she could nip at his lower lip, making him growl, low and thrilling, the sound reverberating from his chest to her breast, before she drove her own tongue into his mouth, refusing to allow him mastery. If this was to be nothing else, there would be equal desire, equal responsibility.
They broke apart, panting. Tamsyn wondered if she looked as stunned and wild as he did, with his hair tousled, his eyes dark. She reached behind her, turned the doorknob and staggered back on to the porch, pulling him with her. ‘Summer house.’
Without waiting to see if he was following her she ran across the lawn, round the corner of the dense shrubbery that sheltered one side of the garden, and into the little summer house that looked out over the beach. Cris followed her, the door banging closed behind him. Tamsyn collapsed on the bench, her knees failing her.
Cris stood with his back against the door as though glad of its support. ‘What in Hades was that?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve been on the edge of an avalanche in the Alps and it was rather less violent. It was certainly less frightening.’ She realised that he was smiling. It transformed the austerity of his face, changed him from beautiful to real.
‘I thought a kiss would be...’ Nice? Do not be ridiculous. ‘I wanted to kiss you again.’
‘You will get no argument from me on that score.’ He still had not moved from the door.
‘I noticed.’ She could feel her lips twitching into an answering smile. It had not occurred to her that there might be anything amusing in giving in to this attack of desire. ‘That is all it can be, you realise that? Just a kiss. This is quite inappropriate.’
Cris’s smile deepened at the prudish word. ‘With so many other people around, perhaps. But lovers have always found ways and means to be together.’
‘We are not lovers.’ Tamsyn found she had lost the desire to smile.
‘Not yet.’ Cris pushed away from the door and went to sit at the other end of the bench, out of touching distance unless they both stretched out a hand. ‘There was something, there had to be, right from the start, in that moment of madness on the beach. I am not married, Tamsyn, and you are not an innocent. What is to stop us?’
Reputation, risk, prudence? ‘And you are not committed to anyone?’ she asked, wondering suddenly why such an attractive, eligible man should be unattached.
He did not answer her immediately and when she looked at his profile she found he had closed his eyes as though to veil his thoughts.
‘Cris?’ she prompted.
His eyes opened and when he turned his head to look at her the smile was on his lips alone. ‘No, I am not committed to anyone.’ He got up, a sudden release of energy like an uncoiling spring. She jumped. ‘You are correct. This is quite inappropriate. You might have been married, but that does not give me the right to treat you like one of the sophisticated London society widows. They know the game and how to play it and they move in circles where these things are understood.’ Cris opened the door and stepped out on to the daisy-spangled lawn. ‘Forgive me.’
By the time she had realised what he was doing and had reached the door, he was striding away towards the house. The front door closed firmly behind him. A succession of Jory’s riper curses ran through her mind.
Damn him! That was not about me, or at least, not entirely about me. There is someone and I made him think of her. Now you have got exactly what you told yourself you wanted, Tamsyn Perowne. You got your kiss and that was all. You are safe, respectable. And frustrated.
The tables had turned so fast she had been taken completely unaware. One moment she had been hesitant and he eager, the next she had pushed aside her qualms and he was backing away. She tried to make some sense of those past few hectic minutes. Cris had been a gentleman—once he had stopped kissing her like a ravening Viking pillager. She had said it would be inappropriate and he had agreed. And, just as she was telling herself that she should seize this opportunity and argue against herself, her question about other women had stopped him in his tracks. He had said there was no one else now, but she must have made him face a memory that hurt.
Tamsyn went down the slope of the lawn and took the steps to the foreshore. The sea had always helped her think, but now, as she watched the Atlantic waves come rolling in to end a thousand miles’ journey in a frill of harmless lace on the sand, she knew there was nothing to think about. She wanted Cris Defoe, beyond prudence and reason and despite knowing quite well that he would leave this place very soon, whatever she felt or wanted. That meant that she had a decision to make. Was she capable of seducing a man—and would it be right to do so?
* * *
‘Muscles paining you, sir? Would you like a massage?’ Collins got up from the window seat looking out to the track up towards Stibworthy and put down what looked like a book of German grammar.
‘No. Thank you.’ Cris bit back the oath. His fault, his temper, and no need to take it out on Collins. He would think about what had just happened later when he had his breathing under control and some blood had returned to his brain from where it was currently making itself felt. ‘I need paper and ink. Wax. And a seal.’
‘Not your own, of course, sir.’ Collins removed a key from his watch chain and opened the large writing box that sat on the dresser. ‘The plain seal?’ He laid a seal on the table in front of the window and set out paper and an ink