The Many Sins of Cris De Feaux (Lords of Disgrace) (14 page)

Cris made a remark to Collins about Jackdaw’s hoof, handed him the herbs and took Tamsyn’s arm to walk back down to the house.

‘He must have been planning this ever since Aunt Izzy refused to move to the dower house,’ she said, as they went in through the kitchen door.

‘He has taken an object that not only ties you in closely to your late husband, but is a potent symbol of his smuggling activities.’ Cris sounded grim.

She swung round to face him. ‘You are worrying me now.’

‘And you are not already concerned?’ His wry smile sent a jolt of panic through her. ‘There is no point in me treating you like some feather-headed chit and pretending everything will be all right without us putting some effort into it. What would Chelford think would happen to your aunts if you were hauled off to prison to await trial?’

‘He would never believe they could manage on their own.’

‘He would expect them to retreat, trembling, to your aunt Isobel’s nearest male relative for shelter.’

‘But they would not. They would hire a steward, take on more men.’

‘He underestimates them, in effect. But he is only going to discover that too late.’ Cris kept going, through the bathing room and into the drawing room, which was deserted.

‘I confess I would rather he did not have to find out that way.’ Somehow she kept her voice from trembling. Murder was a capital offence.

Cris turned, frowned. ‘You think I would let it get that far? You do not have much faith in me, do you?’

‘What can you do? They must have some evidence, even if it is false.’ She wanted to wring her hands, pace about. Instead she made herself stand still, look the thing firmly in the eye and face facts, deal with it.

‘The day after tomorrow is the inquest, not a trial. It is to establish the cause of death and to record the circumstances. Come here.’ He pulled her to him a little roughly, held her, and for a second she thought his hands shook. Then he was stroking one firmly down her back as though soothing a spooked horse and his voice, which had roughened, was steady and reassuring. ‘Tamsyn, I swear to you that I will keep you safe.’

‘Why?’ She jerked away before the safety of his body, the reassurance of his arms, left her so weak she would not be able to stand on her own two feet. ‘You don’t belong here, you hardly know me. Why should you get involved in this mess?’

* * *

Cris answered without stopping to analyse it. ‘Because I probably owe you my life. Because I like you, and your aunts. Because you are my lover. And, when you come right down to it, I’ll be damned if that little weasel Chelford gets away with this. Whatever it is.’

And because dealing with this keeps my mind from thinking about all those things I don’t want to deal with. The mess I got my head into over Katerina. Thinking about the wife I must acquire. My respectable future and how to fill it. Leaving you.

‘Oh. That is certainly a comprehensive list.’ There was a hint of a smile now and her colour was coming back. He had not liked her calm, her control. It had looked too much like shock to him. Either that or an inability to see just how serious this might be if it was not dealt with hard and ruthlessly. He wanted her aware of the dangers, but confident and ready to fight. It shook him, how much he worried about her. For a moment there he had almost let his feelings overwhelm him. He had wanted to kiss her senseless, overwhelm her with assurances, treat her like some fragile little miss who had to be tucked away in cotton wool.

And that was foolish because he would be gone soon, back to London, back to his own, real life, and Tamsyn would be here, carrying on with hers, needing to stand on her own two feet. Just as soon as she was out of danger.

‘Tell me your plans,’ he said, pushing her to think, watchful that he did not push too far.

‘Cheer up the aunts, get the accounts straight, choose the best outfit for appearing at an inquest—and carry on racking my brains for some hint as to what Franklin is up to.’ Her chin was up, her voice was steady. Yes, she was all right to leave now. Fussing over her would only make her more unsettled.

‘That sounds comprehensive to me. I’ll go and find out what Gabriel’s plans are. He should be heading back to London as soon as possible.’

‘Cris.’ Tamsyn was half turned from him, the colour up charmingly on the curve of cheek that was visible to him. ‘Tonight...’

‘Will you come to my bedchamber? It is quite isolated, as you said.’ Now that sweet curve was rosy with embarrassment. ‘I do not keep Collins hanging around after dinner. If you were to drop by for, shall we say, a nightcap at about eleven I think you might find me unable to sleep.’ It was unexpected, the way he felt his heartrate kick up, how his body was already hardening at the thought.

This is a pleasant diversion. A temporary thing. A reaction. I will forget her and this world of fishermen and smugglers and sheep soon enough when this is all over and I am back in London.

Even so, for all that cold water dash of realism, he found he was looking forward to the night with the eagerness of a young man with his first lover.

Chapter Fourteen

‘C
ris!’

‘What?’ he demanded with more aggression than good manners.

‘I have addressed two full sentences to you and you sit there gazing out of the window like some lovelorn youth. What is the matter with you?’ Gabe sauntered into the drawing room and hitched one hip on to the table edge.

‘Thinking. You have to concede, there is plenty to mull over.’

‘And none of it the sort of thing that might put a foolish smile on your lips,’ Gabriel jibed. ‘I shall have to send a letter to Alex and Grant with the news that Cris de Feaux has been seen to smile.’

In a moment he would be blushing and that
would
be worthy of a newspaper headline. What the devil was wrong with him? Denmark had apparently confused him far more than he was letting himself believe. ‘I’ve been known to, usually when you aren’t around to aggravate me.’ Cris waved a hand vaguely at the window. ‘It is a pleasant view.’

Gabe made a complicated sound of derision. ‘Views, my left buttock. This is developing into something decidedly murky.’

‘The view?’

‘The persecution of Mrs Perowne.’ He grinned. ‘Which sounds like the title of some Minerva Press novel.’

‘Knowing Chelford that is probably where he got the idea.’ The feeling of relief that Gabe would be there, at his back, for one more day, was worrying. He had always operated alone, been confident and self-sufficient. Now there were niggling thoughts about the danger to Tamsyn, about his own ability to keep her safe when he had no idea where the next threat was coming from. ‘I was telling myself that Chelford did not have the brains to set up something like this merely as a distraction for another attack, and Patrick and Seamus are a regiment in themselves, but even so, I’m glad of someone here in case things do awry at the inquest.’

‘I’ve got your back,’ Gabe said. He gave Cris’s shoulder a buffet, then left his hand there for a moment. It was as close a demonstration of emotion as Cris had ever experienced from him. Gabe stood up, pulled out a chair and sat square to the table, producing the inevitable pack of cards from somewhere about his person. He dealt two hands, flipped them both over and began to play against himself.

‘Something else strange happened today,’ Cris told him about the missing silver hand.

‘And what does that mean?’ Gabriel threw down the cards he was holding and frowned. ‘I don’t like the way that it was taken without any apparent damage to the lock.’

It had been at the back of Cris’s mind, too. ‘Chelford used to run tame here when he was younger. He would have been the kind of sneaky brat who would steal copies of keys so he could pry.’

‘That and the fact that I don’t think any of the servants here are disloyal makes it almost certain it is him, or some agent of his. Provided you don’t need me here after the inquest, I’ll go back to London, see what I can do to trace his recent movements.’

‘Thank you.’ There was no need to say anything more effusive than that.

Gabriel gathered the scattered pack with one sweep of his long-fingered hand and stood up. ‘I like her, Cris.’ He paused at the door and looked back. ‘But don’t get in too deep. You are who you are and she is...’

‘Intelligent, interesting, strangely beautiful?’ Cris enquired coldly, wondering why he did not get up and land Gabe a facer. Wondering at his own depth of anger, the way the need to hit the other man had just surged up from nowhere.

‘A smuggler’s widow and exceedingly ineligible for—’

He did get to his feet then. ‘I know. Don’t say it.’

‘—someone in your position,’ Gabe said and left with the ease of a man who had a great deal of practice in extricating himself from dangerous gaming hells.

To hell with him.
Gabriel liked to tease and he particularly enjoyed poking at Cris, simply because he knew his friend valued self-possession and self-control. ‘I like to see ice cracking,’ he had admitted once with his wicked smile. ‘It is more exciting to skate on.’

Cris glanced up at the mirror over the fireplace, kept his face completely emotionless as the cold blue eyes stared back at him. Could Gabe see something he could not? Was the ice cracking?

* * *

The wind was getting up, fretting at the old house, worrying at a loose slate here, a shutter there, sending the rags of cloud scudding across the full moon so that the clear white light that reflected on the polished boards of the passageway kept vanishing, plunging Tamsyn into darkness for seconds at a time.

But she knew every inch of the house and the creaks and groans were not frightening, merely a useful cover for any noise she might make. It seemed strange to be creeping around Barbary like this, as though she had left behind the impulsive, passionate girl years ago and had grown sensible and staid. Not that she and Jory had ever misbehaved here. Before he had shaken her by offering marriage they had been friends and she would have no more flirted with him than she would a brother.

After they were married there had been many places for lovemaking, places that Jory found stimulating in direct proportion to how outrageous and dangerous they were. She wondered now, as she had begun to increasingly in the months before his death, whether it was that edge of danger that aroused him and not her at all.

On that thought she arrived at Cris’s bedchamber door. What did
he
see in her? She halted before the threshold and stood, fingers closed around the handle, and felt her confidence draining away to her chilly, bare feet. Convenience, perhaps. Or novelty. She was presumably unlike the ladies with whom he normally mixed. Or he felt pity for the poor widow, who must be pining for the attentions of a man.

The door opened and, as she was clutching the handle in a death grip, she was towed into the room and fetched up sharply against the solid wall of silk-covered muscle that, she realised after a moment’s ineffectual flailing, was Cris in a heavy brocade robe.

‘Wait a moment.’ He reached around her, closed the door quietly and then put something down on the dresser by the door. The light of the one chamber stick that stood there sparked fire off the chased silver mounts of a small, sinister pistol.

Tamsyn suppressed an exclamation and managed a coherent question. ‘What are you doing with that?’

‘When someone stands outside my bedchamber door at almost midnight, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other so that the boards creak, in my experience they are either there to cut my throat or to join me in bed.’

His arms were around her now, holding her against him so her senses were full of the feel of silk and skin and the scent of man and the thrill of his hands stroking lazily down her spine to cup her behind and pull her up against his erection.

‘Does it happen very often?’ she asked, the words muffled as she explored the tantalising vee of bare skin exposed by the neck of his robe.

‘Which? The assassins or the offers?’

‘Either.’ The crispness of hair tickled her lips. She used the point of her tongue to probe into the dip at the base of his throat and his breath caught. ‘Both.’ The offers seemed more likely than assassination attempts, but she was beginning to realise that most of the truth about Cris Defoe was hidden from her. She wondered why. Either he was a very private man, or he had a sinister secret or he was deliberately keeping his distance from her.

‘One more frequently than the other,’ he murmured, as his lips moved down from her temple.’ You have such a beautiful curve to your cheek.’ His tongue swept over it. ‘And you taste like salt on peaches.’

Somehow she found enough space to wriggle her hands between their bodies and catch hold of the knot that secured the sash of his robe. She wanted to see him naked again, not, as he had been last night, obscured by the half-darkness, tumbled in the coarse blankets. In response he pulled her in tighter, moved so that her hands slipped, found the thrust of his erection under the lush fabric.

She began to caress him through it, not attempting to push the sides of the robe apart. The silk slid over his hard, heated flesh and he made a sound between a growl and a groan as his teeth closed gently on the vulnerable angle between her neck and shoulder. The gesture was powerfully possessive and the image of a stallion she had once seen mounting a mare, his teeth bared as they closed on the arch of her neck, holding her for his domination, filled her mind with shocking clarity.

But she was no mare to be dominated. One-handed she pulled at the sash and the robe opened. She raked her nails lightly down the flat belly, into the dense tangle of coarse hair, down to touch him with a demand as fierce as his.

The response was instant. His right hand took her nightgown by the neck, twisted, tore it so that it gaped open, and he lifted her, stepped forward so she was trapped between his body and the door. Instinctively Tamsyn curled her legs around his hips, her arms around his neck as he held her there, open to him. She knew she was wet, was ready for him. She had been from the moment her tongue had touched the skin of his throat. With a growl as demanding as his she shifted and lunged, taking him into her in one glorious movement.

Cris made a sound of astonished pleasure and was still, his brow resting against hers, his forearms bracing him against the door on either side of her head. ‘Vixen.’ His voice was rough, naked, powerful and yet vulnerable. She had shaken him. Which was only fair. He had shaken her to her foundations and beyond.

The position was exquisitely, erotically, uncomfortable. The door was unyielding behind her shoulder blades, she had to lock her ankles together, harden her thigh muscles to keep from sliding on the silk that still draped across his hips, and she could scarcely move. It was bliss, but it couldn’t last. Cris was so aroused that he would take them both over the edge in a few powerful thrusts.

He began to move and she realised that she was wrong. He had the strength to move slowly, agonisingly slowly. Tamsyn could feel his muscles lock rigid as she hung on to his shoulders, she could hear the effort of control in his breathing, but he did not break. He was relentless and she could do nothing but let him fill her, pleasure her, drive her insane.

‘Cris...please.’ She had no pride left, all she could do was beg and gasp and strive to break free from the ropes of desire that he was tying tighter and tighter around her.

‘Not...yet.’

‘I can’t.’

‘You will.’ She felt his effort to breathe, to find more words. ‘Look...up.’

‘Why?’ Somehow she lifted her head.

‘I don’t...want...you screaming.’ His lips sealed over hers as he gave one more thrust and the ropes tightened and broke her into a thousand pieces and she screamed into the heat of his mouth and then she was flying, moving through the air, and the aurora burst behind her eyelids.

* * *

‘Tamsyn.’

She had been flying, so now she was lying on clouds. When she looked down, what would she see? The whole ocean spread out beneath her? She dragged open heavy lids and found her nose was buried in the thick fluffy coverlet, her body sprawled diagonally across the bed. It was an effort to turn her head towards Cris’s voice, but she managed it. He was lying parallel with her, on his back, his hands behind his head.

‘That,’ he said seriously as she blinked at him, ‘was infinitely preferable to having my throat cut.’

It made her choke with laughter, gave her enough energy to roll over and curl up against him. ‘I would hope so.’

‘Are you all right?’ He sat up, giving her an admirable view of his muscles at work, and ran his hand down her back. ‘Have I bruised you?’

‘Don’t know,’ she mumbled, kissing the only part of him that she could without sitting up, which happened to be his right hip bone. ‘Don’t care.’

‘I do not think anyone has ever kissed me there before.’ He sounded lazily content as he flopped back. ‘Do you think you can find anywhere else like that?’

‘I’ve got to do all the work of exploration, have I?’

‘I did all the work just now,’ he said reasonably, as though he was negotiating a deal. The almost-dimple was back at the corner of his mouth.

‘Very well. Lie on your stomach.’

He rolled over obediently. Tamsyn thought for a moment, then got up on her knees, straddled his legs and bent to kiss the tendon that ran up from his heel.

‘That’s one,’ he conceded.

She switched position, leant down and nipped one firm buttock, then soothed the sting with a kiss.

‘No, those have had kisses lavished on them.’

‘Don’t be smug. Just because you have a very superior rump—’

He moved so fast that she was pinned beneath him before she had a chance to retaliate. ‘Is it? Superior?’

‘I think so.’ Yes, he was definitely smug. ‘Almost as superior as Mr Stone’s.’

‘Hussy.’ He slid into her and she bowed up to meet him, loving the way her breasts were crushed against his chest, loving the darkness in his eyes, just before he closed them to hide the depths of his pleasure from her, loving the way their bodies moved together without shyness or hesitation.

Loving him.

* * *

The shock of finding herself in love distracted Tamsyn all through the next day. It was hard to focus on keeping the aunts calm, let alone on listening to the advice Cris was giving her, when all she wanted to do was to sit looking at him, trying to come to terms with what her unruly heart had done.

‘I would suggest wearing something respectable and practical. You don’t want to give the impression that you are attempting to act the fluttering female to sway the jury and they know you, I imagine, so pretending to be some helpless little thing won’t work either.’ He leaned back against the front of the summer house, rocking the bench a little on its spindly metal legs.

He is beautiful, but I haven’t fallen in love with those blue eyes or that superior rump...

‘Tamsyn?’

Or that decided voice or those well-formed lips...
‘I thought my newest riding habit. I will have to ride over in any case and it is a severe cut and deep-blue colour.’

‘Excellent. I imagine it will make you exceedingly angry, but—’