by Louise Allen
*
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.’
Chapter Two
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 toga and stalked around the screen, which, mercifully, was sturdy enough not to fall over when he grabbed its frame for support after two strides.
His mermaid—Tamsyn—swung round. ‘Mr Defoe, kindly get back to your bed.’ She sounded completely exasperated, presumably with the entire male sex, him included. He couldn’t say he blamed her.
‘In a moment, ma’am.’ The two men stared at him. One, young, lanky, with a leather bag in his hand, lifted dark eyebrows at the sight of him. That must be the doctor. The other had the face of an irritable middle-aged schoolmaster complete with jowls and topped with an old-fashioned brown wig. ‘You, sir, used foul language in the presence of this lady. You will apologise and leave. I imagine even you do not require the doctor to explain the difference between me and a man two years dead?’ His voice might be hoarse and cracked, his eyes might be swollen, but he could still look down his nose with the hauteur
of a marquess confronted with a muck heap when he wanted to.
Predictably the magistrate went red and made gobbling sounds. ‘You cannot speak to me like that, sir. I’ll see you—’
‘At dawn in some convenient field, your worship?’ He raised his left eyebrow in a manner that he knew was infuriatingly superior. His friends told him so often enough. The anger with his own stupidity still burned in his veins and dealing with this bully was as good a way to vent it as any.
‘Mr Penwith, my husband was five feet and ten inches tall, he had black hair and brown eyes and his right earlobe was missing. Now, as you can quite clearly see, Mr Defoe is taller, of completely different colouring and is in possession of both his ears in their entirety. Now, perhaps you would like to leave before you make even more of an ass of yourself?’ Tamsyn Perowne, pink in the face with the steam from the bath, her brown curls coming down beneath that ludicrous cap, was an unlikely Boudicca, but she was magnificent, none the less.
Cris locked his knees and hung on grimly until the magistrate banged out of the room, then let the doctor take his arm and help him back to the couch. Somehow his muscles had been replaced by wet flannel, his joints were being prodded with red-hot needles and he wanted nothing more than a bottle of brandy and a month’s sleep.
‘You stay that side of the screen, Mrs Perowne,’ the doctor said. ‘I’ll just check your shipwrecked sailor for broken bones.’ He began to manipulate Cris’s legs, blandly unconcerned by the muttered curses he provoked.
‘Nothing is broken. I swam out too far, got caught by the current and almost drowned. That is all that is wrong with me. Idiocy, not shipwreck.’
‘Where did you go in?’ Tregarth pushed up one of Cris’s eyelids, then the other.
‘Hartland Quay.’
‘You swam from there and then got yourself out of the current and into this bay? By Neptune, sir, you’re a strong swimmer, I’ll say that for you.’ He produced a conical wooden instrument from his bag, pressed the wide end to Cris’s chest and applied his ear to the other. ‘Your lungs are clear. You’ll feel like a bag of unravelled knitting for a day or so, I’ve no doubt, and those muscles will give you hell from overwork, but there’s no harm done.’ He pulled up the bedding. ‘You may come round now, Mrs Perowne. Keep him in bed tomorrow, if you can. Feed him up, keep him warm, let him sleep and send for me if he throws a fever. Good day to you, Mr Defoe.’
‘I’m not—’ Not Mr Defoe. I’m Anthony Maxim Charles St Crispin de Feaux, Marquess of Avenmore. With no calling card, no money—and no breeches, come to that, which left him precious little aristocratic dignity. Tamsyn, Mrs Perowne, had misheard his mumbled words. The family always used the French pronunciation of their name, but apparently that did not survive gargling with half the Atlantic.
The doctor had gone and Tamsyn was standing at the foot of the bed, hands crossed neatly at her waist, cap perched on her curls, looking for all the world as though butter would not melt in her mouth and not at all like a woman who would call a magistrate an ass or kiss a naked stranger in the surf. He could tell her that kiss might have saved his life, but he suspected that would not be welcome.
‘The broth is coming, Mr Defoe.’
Yes, he’d stay a commoner for a while, it was simpler and he had no intention of broadcasting his recklessness to the world. He nodded his thanks.
‘Where should we send to inform someone of your safety? I imagine your acquaintance will be very anxious.’ She took a tray from the cook and laid it across his thighs. ‘Try to swallow the broth slowly, it will soothe your throat as well as strengthen you.’
In his experience women tended to fuss at sickbeds and he had been braced against attempts to spoon-feed him. Mrs Perowne appeared to trust him to manage, despite the evidence of his shaking hand. His arm muscles felt as though he had been racked. ‘Traveller,’ he managed between mouthfuls. ‘My valet is at Hartland Quay with my carriage.’
‘And he can bring you some clothes.’ She caught his eye and smiled, a sudden, wicked little quirk of the lips that sent messages straight to his groin. One muscle still in full working order. ‘Magnificent as you look in a toga, sir, it is not a costume best suited to the Devon winds.’
Had he really kissed her in the sea, or was that a hallucination? No, it was real. He could conjure up the heat of her body pressed to his, the feminine softness and curves as their naked flesh met. He could remember, too, the heat of her mouth, open under his, the sweet glide of her tongue. Hell, that made him feel doubly guilty, firstly for forcing himself on a complete stranger and secondly for even thinking about anyone but Katerina. Who can never be mine. He focused on the guilt, a novel enough emotion, to prevent him thinking about that body, now covered in layers of sensible cotton.
‘You will stay in bed and rest, as the doctor said?’
Cris nodded. He had no desire to make a fool of himself, fetching his length on the floor in front of her when his legs gave out on him. Tomorrow he would be better. Tomorrow he might even be able to think rationally.
‘Good.’ She lifted the tray and he saw the strength in the slim arms, the curve of sleek feminine muscle where her sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. She swam well enough to take to the sea by herself and he’d wager that she rode, too. ‘We know you are stubborn from the way you tried to get up the lane by yourself instead of waiting where I left you. I’ve just spoken to them and the lads said you were crawling.’
‘I was getting there. If I hadn’t been weakened by that…encounter in the sea, I could have walked.’ Even as he said it, he could have bitten his tongue. So much for apologising, something that Lord Avenmore rarely had to do. Apparently Mr Defoe was more apt to blunder than the marquess was. He certainly had an unexpectedly bawdy sense of humour.
‘An encounter, you call it?’ There was a definite spark in the brown eyes and the colour was up over her cheekbones. Indignation seemed to make those brown curls fight free of the cap, too. His one functioning muscle stirred again, complaining that it was in need of exercise. ‘That, you poor man, was the resuscitation of the half-drowned. We do it a lot in these parts. I’ll fetch you pen and paper.’
And that apparently dealt with the apology. Mrs Perowne was not in the common run of gentry ladies, it seemed. Nor did her late husband seem to have been the kind of man he would have expected to be the owner of this elegant old house, not if the local magistrate was after him with a noose and his widow referred to him as a tricky bastard. That clod of a squire had spoken with unfeeling bluntness about her husband’s death and yet she had stood up to him, covering her emotions with defiance and pride.
The puzzling Mrs Perowne returned with a writing slope under one arm and a small bowl in the other. ‘I’ll just bathe your eyes, they look exceedingly sore.’
Cris thought he probably looked an exceeding mess, all over. His hair had dried anyhow, his skin felt as though he’d been sandpapered and doubtless his eyes were both red and squinty. And he needed a shave. What his friends would say if they saw him now, he shuddered to think. Collins, when he arrived, would express himself even more strongly. He regarded the Marquess of Avenmore as a walking testimonial to his own skills as a valet and did not take kindly to seeing his master looking less than perfect.
‘If you would give me the bowl I will bathe them myself.’ He had his pride and being tended to while he looked like this did nothing for his filthy mood.
‘Very well.’ She set the writing slope on the chair beside the couch, handed him the bowl and dragged the screen around the bed. ‘My aunt, who suffers from severe arthritic pain, will be taking one of her regular hot soaks shortly. We will try not to disturb you.’
‘Mrs Perowne?’
She looked around the edge of the screen. ‘Mr Defoe?’
‘I am in your aunt’s bathing chamber, occupying her couch. I must remove myself to another room.’
‘If you do, you will agitate her. She is worried enough about you as it is.’ She smiled suddenly, a wide, ung
uarded smile, so unlike the carefully controlled expressions of the diplomatic ladies he had spent so much time with recently. ‘Rest here for the moment, control your misplaced chivalrous impulses and we will find you another chamber at some point.’
Misguided chivalrous impulses. Little cat. She was obviously unused to men who actually acted like gentlemen. Cris twisted the water out of the cloth in the basin and sponged his eyes until the worst of the stinging subsided, then put the bowl aside and reached for the writing slope. Beyond the screen people were moving about, water was pouring into the tub, steam rose. This might be the edge of the country and manners might be earthy, but they certainly possessed plumbing that surpassed that in any of his houses.
He focused on the letter to shut out the sounds of either Miss Prichard or Miss Holt being helped into the bath. Collins was rather more than a valet, more of a confidential assistant, and he could be relied upon to use his discretion.
…pay the reckoning and bring everything to…
‘Mrs Perowne, if I might trouble you for a moment?’
‘Sir?’ She was decidedly flushed from the steam now. Her pink cheeks and the damp tendrils of hair on her brow suited her.
He recalled her leaning over him to turn on the tap as he lay in the bath and forced his croak of a voice into indifferent politeness. ‘Could you tell me how I should direct my man to find this house?’
‘Barbary Combe House, Stibworthy. If he asks in the village, anyone will direct him.’
‘Thank you.’
Barbary Combe House, Stibworthy. Do not enquire in the village for Mr Defoe as I am not known there, having come by sea. Ensure you bring an appropriate vehicle.
C. Defoe
Collins would not fail to pick up on that. The interior of Cris’s travelling coach with its ingenious additions and luxurious upholstery might go unnoticed, but not if the crests on the door panels were left uncovered. It had caused enough of a stir at Hartland Quay to have a marquess descend on a waterside inn, but with any luck the gossip would be fairly localised.