And what on earth had his Great-Aunt Lucille meant by that? She knew his ways. Who he took after. A heartless Winterbourne through and through.
Breathing deep, he removed Tamsyn’s hand and noticed her cheeks, pink as a cat’s yawn.
“Said you took after your mother.”
“I beg your pardon?” he scoffed, twisting.
Devil’s balls, never had he heard such twaddle and feeling trapped in more ways than one, he stretched out his leg. A carriage ride with four women should be a rogue’s delight, but this was pure agony. Could it become any worse?
“What was your mother like?” asked Tamsyn.
It had. Could the bloody coachman not chivvy the horses a little?
How to reply? The weeping mother he had known held no similarity to the cheerful debutante her confidantes always described.
And a Winterbourne was responsible for that.
Fingernails bit into his palm, anger rippling.
“A good woman,” Mrs Pencally replied for him, “but a woman who thought she could change a man, not realising that sometimes their nature is too ingrained, too dark for that to happen. She wished for everyone to be joyous and when that didn’t transpire… Well, she became fragile.”
Temper snapped. “And you’d be fragile too when dealt the back of a cruel hand.”
Silence shrouded the carriage.
Even the coachman ceased swearing and the maid nary a mewl. Purely the rhythmic jangle of reins and trundle of wheels touched their ears.
Why had he spat that out? And to a lady… Unforgiveable.
This damn heat. This countryside. This infernal attraction to Tamsyn. He needed to acquire her information and get back to London soon – for the noise of the city, the ceaseless revelry, the anonymity of mere acquaintances.
No time to reflect. No time to dwell.
“‘God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist,’” Mrs Pencally remarked quietly. “Saint Augustine, I believe, and I stand corrected, my lord.”
“No, ’tis I who should beg your pardon for my abrupt manner,” he replied, as a calmness descended. “But perhaps we should talk of lighter matters. Tell me, what are you all hoping to purchase in Helston?”
Mrs Pencally smiled as Miss Treherne gabbled on about gowns with delight.
Only Tamsyn displayed no reaction, eyes gazing out the window, but it mattered not.
Because betwixt their bodies, after his ill-tempered outburst, her hand had wrapped itself around his own.
Silent comfort and tacit understanding. His ire had vanished in an instant.
Could the coachman not rein in the horses a little?
Chapter Sixteen
But does apparel proclaim the man?
Gulls squawked in displeasure as Jack interrupted their frenzied feeding on a pie crust outside The Angel.
Although a few miles inland, the town of Helston still betrayed its coastal proximity with a briny fragrance that persisted in the air, carts bearing pilchard barrels and a shoal of fishermen stood outside the Blue Anchor Inn, marooned on land without the slightest hint of a breeze.
Jack’s shirt clung to his spine like a slack sail to the mast, and he could only hope this late summer weather broke soon – it poached one’s noggin.
Having escorted the ladies to the seamstress, he’d left Benjamin and two footmen on guard outside and made for the postmaster.
