Chapter Twenty-one
Hide and seek.
An arm flung itself around Tamsyn’s waist, hauling her back, twisting her frozen body.
“Don’t look.” And her eyes were buried in a silver waistcoat redolent of sharp lemon, a hand at her nape.
“It’s…” Her tongue numbed, blood cold despite the scorch of the sun.
“It’s just a dead sheep,” Jack bit out.
But it wasn’t. She’d seen dead animals before, rabbits ready to be skinned, a deer flung across cook’s table, goose plucked for Christmas dinner.
Never had she seen a sheep with gossamer encircling its neck, two letters daubed in scarlet upon its fleece, blue silk, slashed and bloodied, laid around it.
“That’s your waistcoat, Jack,” she murmured into his chest, “and those are my stockings around its neck. We left them at the cove after the picnic.”
He cursed low, and she struggled against his covering hands. “Let me see.”
“No.”
“Blast it, Jack,” she growled. “Don’t mollycoddle me.” And she thumped his chest, snaking in his arms.
Mr Miggens was bent over the lifeless animal, must have heard her scream. A few ladies hovered at a distance but Mr Sewell and the professor kept them back from the gruesome scene.
Tamsyn closed her eyes as she glimpsed the animal’s slashed throat, the letters formed in blood upon its thin summer fleece.
F T
She bit her lip, tried to recall their new meaning and banish this corruption, this poison.
The demon was alive and she felt…
Furious. Indignant.
No fear arose and no constriction gripped her throat. Surrounded by the lushness of this late summer, the solid presence of Jack, the squawk of crows and warming sun, she seethed.
Remnants of her youthful temper awoke and she relished the sensation, anger raging, fiery and unbound.
That poor animal.
How dare that fiend attempt to scare her. She would not succumb.
Not this time.
Mr Miggens covered it with his coat. “It’s fresh. We’ll bury it and–”
“No,” Tamsyn ventured. “It’s senseless to waste mutton. We should deliver it to the Bassett’s kitchens as this is their land.”
Mr Miggens’s eyes flickered. “Of course, Miss Penrose.”
She nodded, pulling away from Jack to scan the slopes.
Was the Frenchman still here? Smirking at their discovery? Ready to snigger at her fright?
Only boulders loomed large – enough cracks and crags to hide an army.
Breathing deep, she pivoted to Jack and spoke with full voice. “I fear Mr Sewell may be correct: life can be macabre, but no daring giant did this, merely a gutless coward.”
∞∞∞
“Is it a tree?”
Tamsyn tilted her head to better view the painting propped on her dressing table chair. “No.” She sighed. “That’s Jack.”
“Oh.” Lowdy tilted her head also, as though it would make all the difference. “I can see a resemblance in fact. All solid trunk, sturdy branches, luxuriant leaves and graceful twigs.”
Laughing, Tamsyn nudged her and they both turned to perch on the bed, Lowdy with hairbrush and comb in hand, ready to begin the untangling.
The Ladies Landscape League had disbanded early, easels and jars packed into satchels and wet canvases carefully stacked in carriages.
Dinner had been a quiet affair with all the gentlemen absent except Father, whose worried eyes had constantly flicked in her direction.
Tamsyn’s face ached from smiling in reassurance.
“Ow!” she yelped as Lowdy yanked.
“Forgive me, Tam, but your hair is so tangled.”
“I know. Piskies come by night and tie reef knots.”
“Tell me truthfully, Tamsyn, are you well? You were ever so strong at Carn Brea, but you must feel…”
“In truth, I feel angry, frightened, provoked but…content.”
“Content?”
Tamsyn struggled to turn, squeaked as the comb caught. “I… For so long, it was as if I just waited. Waited and feared that monster’s return. And do you know, it was the waiting that was slowly destroying me. Wearing me down to a shadow. Now, I feel… I feel it could soon be over.”
Hands clasped her waist. A tight hug of friendship. “I’m scared for you, Tam.”
“Ah, but I have you. And together, we have Jack, Mr Miggens and Father to protect us. Benjamin and the servants to guard. Mrs Mildern to warn. All those years ago, I foolishly felt the burden was my own.”
The hairbrush began its even strokes, gentle now the knots had been cleared. “And Lord Winterbourne?”
“What about him?”
“You seem most…taken with him.”
Yes, she was. Protective without jailing, strong yet tender. She could speak forever on the qualities of that gentleman. The one conundrum was his tendency to remind her of his dire roguishness, yet since he’d been a guest at Penrose Manor, she’d seen no sign of depravity.
He didn’t touch the maids – to their dismay. The beautiful Mrs Tripconey sighed every time he genially rejected her advances. Even Benjamin and the stable lads had no gossip on the marquess, although they’d been able to inform her that Peg-leg Pete had bedded Slapdash Sally last Saturday.
Yet she couldn’t believe the London stories were untrue – there were simply too many of them.
“I do like him, very much, but he constantly reminds me of his reputation.”
Lowdy hummed sagely, now plaiting the long length of hair with a defter hand than any lady’s maid. “I do believe Lord Winterbourne cares for you, Tamsyn. He gazes at you with…longing. Like a toothless donkey does a carrot.”
Surely a better simile existed as that didn’t reflect well on either party.
“And your own Mr Miggens? I saw the both of you from my window looking rather dishevelled.”
Like dawn emerging, a flush of colour crept over her companion’s cheeks. “I saved him from Mrs Mildern, ’tis all. She was chasing him through the herb garden in order to tie a grouse’s foot around his neck. I’m sure she’s going a tad doolally.”
“And that caused your chignon to loosen and cheeks to flush?”
The plait wrenched.
“When you look at my painting from this morning, Tamsyn, what do you see?”
Twisting slightly, she gazed at the canvas slowly drying by the open window. It was perfect in every aspect: trees immaculate, sky a faithful reproduction and every boulder precise – a true likeness of the scene and yet…
“It’s beautiful but it lacks…”
“Emotion.” Lowdy sighed. “But emotion steered me to lose my heart and virtue to a rotter, and it hurt so, Tam. He rendered me worthless.” A green ribbon secured the perfect braid. “I’m not sure I want to feel emotion again, if all I receive is pain in return.”
Tamsyn took her friend’s skilled hand that had weaved such a work of art. “I don’t think we have much choice in the matter. Love, pain, sadness and joy – they find us whether we hide away or not.”