The Many Sins of Cris De Feaux (Lords of Disgrace) by Louise Allen Read Free Book Online Page B

Mrs Perowne, I confess I would be grateful for a few days’ respite.’
    ‘Excellent. My aunts will be very relieved to hear it.’
    ‘They are not within earshot, then?’ he enquired, perversely wanting to provoke her.
    He was rewarded with the tinge of colour that stained her cheekbones. ‘You reprove me for eavesdropping, Mr Defoe? I plead guilty to it, but I was concerned for you and suspected you would attempt to leave today, however you felt.’
    Now he felt guilty on top of everything else and it was an unfamiliar emotion. He did not do things that offended his own sense of honour, therefore there was never anything to feel guilty about. ‘I apologise, Mrs Perowne. That was ungracious of me when you show such concern for an uninvited guest.’
    ‘You are forgiven, and to show to what extent, let me lead you through to the breakfast room and you may tell me what you think of our own sausages and bacon.’
    Cris, ignoring Collins’s faint smile, which, in a lesser man, would have been a smirk, followed her into a sunny room with yellow chintz curtains and a view down the sloping lawn to the sea. ‘Should we not wait for your aunts?’
    ‘They always breakfast in their room.’ Mrs Perowne gestured to a seat and sat opposite. The centre of the table had platters of bread and ham, a bowl of butter and a covered dish. ‘Let me serve you, you will not want to be stretching to lift dishes.’ As she spoke she raised the dome and a tantalising aroma of bacon and sausage wafted out.
    ‘Thank you.’ He meekly accepted a laden plate and tried to work out the enigma that was Mrs Tamsyn Perowne. She was well spoken, confident, competent and a lady, even if she was decidedly out of the ordinary. She was distantly related to a viscount, but she had married a local man who had died one leap ahead of the noose.
    ‘That is a charming portrait on the wall behind you,’ he remarked. ‘Your aunts do not resemble each other greatly. Are they your mother’s relations or your father’s, if I might ask?’
    ‘Aunt Isobel is my mother’s cousin. Aunt Rosie is not a relation.’ Mrs Perowne shot him a very direct glance as though measuring his reaction. ‘They left home to set up house together when they were in their late twenties. It was—is—a passionate friendship, as close as a marriage.’
    ‘Like the famous Ladies of Llangollen?’
    ‘Yes, just like that. It was their inspiration, I believe. Are you shocked?’
    ‘No, not at all. Why should they not be happy together?’ Lucky women, able to turn their backs on the demands of society and its expectations. But daughters did not bear the same weight of expectation that sons did, especially elder sons, with the requirements of duty to make a good match, bring wealth and connections into the family, provide an heir to title and estates.
    ‘And you?’ he asked when she gave him an approving nod and turned her attention to a dish of eggs in cream. ‘What led you to make your life here?’
    ‘My father was a naval man and I cannot even recall his face. He was killed at sea when I was scarcely toddling. Mama found things very difficult without him. I think she was not a strong character.’
    ‘So you had to be strong for both of you?’ he suggested.
    ‘Yes. How did you know?’ The quick look of pleasure at his understanding made Cris smile back. She really was a charming woman with her expressive face and healthy colour. And young still, not much above twenty-five, he would estimate.
    ‘You have natural authority, yet you wear it lightly. I doubt you learned it recently. What happened to your mother?’
    ‘She succumbed to one of the cholera epidemics. We lived in Portsmouth and like all ports many kinds of infection are rife.’
    ‘And then you came here?’ He tried to imagine the feelings of the orphaned girl, leaving the place that she knew, mourning for her mother. He had lost his own mother when he was four, bearing the sibling he never knew. His father,