ma’am, not at all.’
‘Then you must stay. If your man takes the carriage further down he can turn where the lane opens out to the beach. Then the stable yard is just up behind the house. Oh, I see Mr Defoe is already organising him.’
And Mr Defoe wants you to stay, now you are here. I wonder just what that matter of business is.
She turned towards the house, inviting the intriguing Mr Stone to follow her as Cris strode across the lawn to rejoin them.
‘If Miss Holt and Miss Pritchard are able to come to the door, I have a small gift for Miss Pritchard. I will go and fetch her a chair out to the porch.’ He was gone before she could ask what possible present could necessitate Aunt Rosie coming outside.
It took a few minutes for Michael to carry out a chair and for Aunt Rosie to be settled on it and introduced to Mr Stone. There was the sound of feet on the stones of the lane and then, completely incongruous in the wilds of the Devon coast, two burly men appeared carrying a sedan chair between them. Cris opened the gate and they marched across the lawn, deposited the chair in front of Aunt Rosie, opened the door between the shafts and whipped off their hats.
They were certainly an imposing pair in their dark-blue coats, black tricorns and sturdy boots. The sedan chair gleamed and the seat was deeply padded. ‘Would you care to try it, ma’am?’ the black-haired man enquired in a broad Irish accent.
‘Why...’ For a moment Aunt Rosie seemed lost for words. ‘Why, yes, I would. But we have no city pavements here, you will find it hard going.’
‘We’re from Bath, ma’am, and that has hills as steep as you’ll find anywhere and cobbles like walking on ice. We’re strong lads, that we are. We won’t drop you, ma’am.’
‘You brought them here?’ Tamsyn asked Mr Stone as they watched Michael and Cris help Aunt Rosie into the chair. He nodded as the men picked up the poles and set off smoothly around the lawn, then through the gate and off up the hill.
‘I’ll be able to go with her on my mare.’ Aunt Izzy ran across the grass and took Cris’s arm as he stood watching the chair’s progress up the lane. ‘We can go for picnics and Rosie can visit our friends again and go up on the clifftops. Oh, thank you, Mr Defoe.’
‘Mr Stone brought them,’ he said with a smile.
‘But you sent for them.’ Tamsyn joined them at the gate. ‘How long can they stay?’
‘The chair is yours to keep. Seamus and Patrick will stay until they’ve found you a pair of local men to train in their stead.’ He looked down at her, his face austere again. ‘They are very reliable men, I can vouch for them. Very strong, honest. No harm will come to your aunts with them around.’
The chair was returning and Aunt Izzy ran out to join it. Tamsyn hardly noticed her going. ‘You sent for bodyguards,’ she said as the realisation struck.
‘That is a side benefit. I thought of the sedan chair when your aunt was saying how difficult it was to get around, then I remembered these two. Will it be a problem feeding them? They probably eat like bullocks.’
‘No, not at all, and there is space in the living quarters over the stables. But, Cris, you don’t truly believe we are in danger, do you?’
Mr Stone, who had strolled over to the wall to watch the progress of the chair, remarked, ‘Rider coming. Looks military.’
Cris joined him, leaving her question unanswered. The horseman reined in, his way blocked by the sedan chair, and even at that distance Tamsyn could see the colour in his face and the angry set of his mouth. He did not like being held up and neither did he seem to enjoy being stared at.
The chairmen came back into the garden, took the chair right up to the seat and began to help Aunt Rosie out. She and Izzy immediately broke into animated conversation, then fell silent as the stranger dismounted at the gate and strode in.
Around her Tamsyn was conscious of the men closing up. The two chairmen were standing in front of her aunts like a solid wall of muscle. Cris and Mr Stone flanked her. This was ridiculous. It was only one man, apparently on official business judging from his dark-blue tailcoat with insignia on the high collar and the naval sword at his side.
‘Sir?’
He halted in front of her and made a sketchy bow, lifting his tall hat as he did so. ‘Ma’am. I am looking for the householder.’
She was aware of his gaze shifting between the two large men beside her, Cris dishevelled in shirtsleeves, Mr Stone managing to look piratical despite his sober, conventional clothing. ‘My aunt, Miss Holt, is the householder. And you are?’
‘Lieutenant Ritchie, newly appointed Riding Officer for this beat of the coast. And I was told it is Mrs Perowne that I need to speak to.’
Was it her imagination or had Cris growled, low in his throat.
‘I am Tamsyn Perowne.’ She tried to sound calm and welcoming, but the man’s hard, unfriendly gaze was setting her hackles up. ‘And Mr Defoe and Mr Stone are our house guests.’ She should invite him in, she knew. The Riding Officer had about the same status as the doctor or the curate and would expect to be received in gentry houses, but she did not want this man, who seemed to radiate hostility, over their threshold. ‘What can I do for you, Lieutenant Ritchie?’
‘The Revenue service has been informed of a new smuggling gang in these parts. What can you tell me of it, Mrs Perowne?’
‘Nothing whatsoever. There is no gang here, not since—’
‘Not since your late husband’s death?’ he enquired.
‘Precisely.’ She took a hold on her temper, sensing that her supporters would react violently at any sign of distress from her. A fight on the front lawn was the last thing they needed. ‘I imagine smuggling still goes on, here and there, in a minor way, but I defy you to find any stretch of coastline in England where it does not.’
‘And so it will remain while the local gentry take such a casual attitude to law-breaking. Ma’am.’ The last word sounded like an afterthought. ‘I came to give fair warning that we will be on the alert hereabouts now.’
‘There is no gang, Lieutenant Ritchie. And I can only assume you mean you wish to advise us to take care and lock our doors. Any other warning would be nothing short of insulting.’
‘Take it as you will, ma’am,’ he snapped.
‘Mrs Perowne is too much of a lady to respond to an insult in kind.’ Cris took one step forward. He sounded perfectly calm and yet his tone held a threat that sent a shiver down her spine.
‘And you are, sir?’ The Riding Officer’s square chin set even harder.
‘As Mrs Perowne said just now, Crispin Defoe, a visitor.’ Now he sounded as haughty as a duke.
‘Gabriel Stone. Another visitor,’ the mocking voice on her other side echoed, equally arrogant in its own way.
Ritchie’s gaze rested on the faces in front of him, then shifted as though to study the chairmen. Tamsyn could almost feel them glowering behind her. ‘Good day to you, gentlemen. Ma’am. You appear to have quite a private army here, Mrs Perowne.’ He touched his whip to his hat, turned the horse and clattered back up the lane.
Tamsyn turned to find that the two Irishmen had taken Aunt Rosie inside by the simple method of picking up the armchair she was sitting in and carrying it into the house.
Aunt Izzy remained, her face creased with puzzlement. ‘What an unpleasant man. I couldn’t hear all of what he was saying, but he seemed almost aggressive.’
‘Merely a jack-in-office,’ Cris said. ‘Newly appointed and officious. Nothing