Violet

Chapter Seventeen

“ST. SIMON'S BACK AT TREGARTHAN,” CEDRIC PENhallan announced, sniffing the claret in his glass. He took a considered sip, then nodded to the butler, who proceeded to fill up the glasses of the Penhallan twins sitting opposite each other at the oval table. The last rays of the setting sun caught the sapphire signet ring as the viscount raised his glass.

“We saw him this morning, sir.” David helped himself to a dish of squab.

“Stark naked, playing in the sea with a doxy,” Charles expanded with a throaty chuckle.

“You were on Tregarthan land?” Cedric's black eyes were agate, a white shade appearing around his fleshy mouth.

Charles turned scarlet. “Just on the cliff top above the cove. We were shooting crows and accidentally strayed-”

“You did not accidentally stray, sir,” his uncle pronounced with deadly calm.

“We didn't know St. Simon was at home, Governor,” David put in, a sulky note in his voice. “He's been out of the country for two years… except for his sister's wedding.”

“And two years ago you were warned off St. Simon land,” Cedric stated with the same venomous calm. “And why were you so warned?” He looked between the two, his black eyes seething with contempt.

There was no response. The two young men bent their heads to their plates. The butler moved discreetly into the shadows.

“Well?” Cedric demanded softly. “One of you must remember, surely.”

The twins squirmed; then David said with the same sulkiness, “She was a whore. We played with her, that's all.”

“Oh, is that all?” His uncle's eyebrows lifted. He regarded a platter of brook trout swimming in butter, selected the largest, and slid it onto his plate. He ate for· a few minutes in a charged silence where no one but himself moved, and the squab on David's plate congealed in its gravy.

“Is that all?” he said again in a musing tone. “You waylaid a child… how old was she? Fourteen, I believe?” He looked between the two again, politely waiting for a response.

“She was ripe for it,” Charles said. “Her mother was a whore. Everyone knew it.”

“Oh, I thought her mother had died the year before,” Cedric said questioningly. “I was under the impression that the child lived alone with her father… a man much respected by St. Simon people. One of St. Simon's favored tenants. But perhaps I'm mistaken.” He gestured to the butler to refill his glass.

“Am I mistaken, sir?” His black glare arrowed into David, who stared down at the table, concealing the naked hatred in his eyes.

“No,” he muttered finally. “But we weren't to know that.”

“No, of course you weren't.” Cedric sounded almost soothing. “When you raped and beat her and left her naked on the beach, barely alive, you weren't to know that you had interfered with one of St. Simon's tenants on Tregarthan land.”

The viscount took another deep draft of his wine and with seeming placidity allowed the silence to build around them. He cut into the pigeon pie, and if he was aware that only he had any appetite for dinner, he gave no sign of it.

“Of course you weren't to know that,” he reiterated in the same tone. “Just as of course it wouldn't occur to you that the girl might tell someone… might even know who it was who had assaulted her throughout one long summer afternoon. It wouldn't occur to you, of course, that everyone knows you in these parts. You've only lived here since you were infants.” His voice was suddenly sharp, spitting his angry derision.

“I don't give a tinker's damn what you do, you pair of bumbling idiots. You can rape a regiment of women if you wish. But not even dogs soil their own turf!”

The two inhaled sharply, flushed, and then paled in unison. Cedric smiled. Their anger at this public humiliation pleased him, and the fear that made them swallow their anger pleased him even more, although it increased his contempt.

Only Celia, of all the Penhallans, had stood up to him.

Suddenly he lost interest in tormenting his nephews.

The image of Celia filled his head. And the girl he'd seen yesterday. The girl who for a minute he'd mistaken for Celia. It was absurd, of course. His memory was hardly accurate after all these years. He'd been fooled by the fair hair and the slight frame. Nevertheless, it had been an extraordinary resemblance. The girl was probably about the same age Celia had been when he'd sent her away. That was what had given him such a start.

She'd been traveling with St. Simon. He looked up again at his nephews, an arrested light in the piercing black eyes. “What did you say about seeing St. Simon with some doxy this morning?”

Charles and David visibly relaxed, knowing that their uncle had lost interest in his malign castigation. “They were in the sea in the cove, sir,” David said hurriedly. “We couldn't see very clearly from the cliff top, but they were naked. The girl was so scrawny, she could have been a boy, we thought.” He chuckled, looking at his twin for corroboration.

“We thought perhaps St. Simon had developed new tastes in the Peninsula,” Charles said with a curl of his thin mouth.

“Don't be a fool,” his uncle said wearily. “What was she like?”

“Small, very fair hair.” Charles made haste to repair his error. “That was all we could see.”

Cedric frowned, stroking his chin thoughtfully. It fitted with the girl he'd seen in Bodmin. “St. Simon bringing his mistress to Tregarthan?” He shook his head. “That's not his style. Who the hell could she be?”

He didn't realize he'd spoken out loud, and he didn't notice the quick look that flew between the twins. He helped himself from a platter of roast potatoes and chewed steadily. Silence returned to the dining room, but the twins now felt safe enough to resume their own dinner.

Cedric found his mind returning yet again to his sister. He rarely thought about her these days, but the girl in Bodmin had triggered a host of involuntary memories. Celia had been clever, very quick-witted. She could have been very useful to him if she'd agreed to follow his direction and mingle with the right people. He could have used her as a conduit for his influence. She would have been a worthy partner in his ambition if she'd agreed to be molded.

He wiped a dribble of gravy from his chin. But Celia had been so devilishly unpredictable, with no sense of family duty. And she'd threatened to ruin him. He'd had no choice but to take drastic measures to deal with her. A pity, really… it might have been amusing to have her companionship at this stage in life, when he was surrounded by people who wouldn't even look him in the eye. As for his brother's two sons…

Nasty pair they were… had been from the moment they'd passed into his guardianship at the age of seven. But they'd surpassed themselves over that business with the girl and St. Simon. If he hadn't opened his purse generously to the wench's father, it could have been very ugly. St. Simon had been insisting on hauling them before the justices, but the girl's father had settled for the equivalent of a handsome pension to keep his daughter quiet, and St. Simon hadn't been able to persuade him to change his mind. But St. Simon had sworn his own retribution if the Penhallan twins set foot on his land again, and Cedric had no doubt he meant it.

In fact, he thought, looking at their thin, pointed faces, he might almost enjoy watching St. Simon exact that retribution. Their reputation preceded them wherever they went. It was no wonder no respectable family would countenance a match with either of them, despite the Penhallan name.

“Bring cognac to the library,” he ordered, pushing back his chair with a harsh rasp on the oak floor. His voice and the sound of the chair were like a thunderclap after the long silence.

The twins half rose politely as their uncle stalked from the dining room without a further word to them, the butler following him with the brandy decanter.

A footmen placed a decanter of port at Charles's elbow, bowed, and left them to themselves.

“What say we answer his question for him?” Charles filled his glass and pushed the decanter across the table to his brother.

“What question?” David squinted in the candlelight that now lit the room. His eyes, like his brother's, were glazed. While they'd had little appetite for dinner at the beginning of the meal, they'd had no such problem with the wine.

“About St. Simon's doxy,” his brother explained carefully, draining his glass and reaching for the decanter again. “Governor wants to know who she is, we'll find out. He'll be glad to know, stands to reason.”

“Maybe even grateful,” David said, tapping the side of his nose suggestively. “But how do we find out?”

“Ask her… politely, of course.”

“Ah, yes, ask the whore politely,” his brother agreed, winking. “But how can we ask her if we're barred from St. Simon land?”

Charles thought about this, staring into his glass as if the answer would be contained in its ruby depths. “She's got to venture out sometime. Can't stay there forever. People to see, errands to run, shopping to do.”

“Unless St. Simon keeps her naked in the house,” David suggested with a lewd chuckle. For a minute they contemplated the exciting prospect of a woman kept naked to await their pleasure.

“Not St. Simon's style, though,” Charles said finally on an almost regretful note. “Household would be bound to know. Be all round the county in no time.”

“She'll have to leave the house at some point. So we'll ask her nicely when we come up with her,” David pronounced: “If we ask her nicely enough, she'll tell us what the governor wants to know.”

“Best she doesn't know who we are, though,” Charles said wisely. “Governor wouldn't like it… not after the other one.”

“Loo masks,” David said. “Loo masks and maybe even dominoes… that'll do it.”

“Not dominoes,” his brother said earnestly. “Can't carry a domino in your pocket, not like a loo mask. Carry that everywhere and no one knows you've got it. “

“True,” his brother agreed, seeing the wisdom of this practicality. “We'll carry 'em with us everywhere, and when we see her, we pop 'em on and ask some questions.”

Well satisfied, the brothers turned their attention more seriously to the port.

“The mail carrier brought you a letter.” Tamsyn entered the library the next morning flourishing a wafer-sealed paper. “It's from a woman, judging by the handwriting. Do all society ladies write with these flowery curls? Should I learn to do it too?” She examined the missive with a critical air. “Very fancy… and on pale-blue paper too. Is she your mistress?”

Wordlessly, Julian extended his hand for the letter.

Tamsyn passed it over and perched on the edge of his desk. “Do you have another mistress? But, then, I don't think 'mistress' is the right word to describe me, do you?”

“I don't believe the language contains a suitable description for you,” he observed dryly. “You beggar description. Get off the desk. It's most unladylike.”

“Why, certainly, milord colonel.” She slipped off her perch and essayed a demure curtsy, sweeping her muslin skirts to one side, one foot delicately pointed, her rear sinking onto her other heel. “Is this deep enough for the king, or will it only do for the queen?”

Julian regarded her with a gleam, certain she hadn't realized the dangers of her exaggerated position. “Now try to get up.”

Tamsyn realized immediately that it was impossible.

She overbalanced in a heap on the carpet and sat there with such an expression of aggrieved mortification he couldn't help laughing as he returned his attention to the letter.

His amusement died rapidly. “I suppose I should be grateful she doesn't scent her writing paper,” he muttered, breaking the wafer.

“Who doesn't?” Tamsyn scrambled to her feet, dusting off her skirts.

“My sister,” he said shortly, scanning the crossed and scrawled lines of the epistle. “Hell and the devil! Gareth put her up to this-it has that ramshackle idler's mark all over it.”

“Over what?” Tamsyn resumed her perch on the edge of the desk.

“My sister and her husband are paying me a visit. I imagine Gareth wishes to remove himself from his creditors' orbit for a while, and enjoy some free hospitality while he's doing so.”

He looked up at her, and deep frown lines creased his brow, the humor of a few minutes earlier completely vanished. “I just told you not to sit like that!” He slapped her hip in emphasis.

Tamsyn stood up and regarded him thoughtfully.

“Why are you so annoyed that your sister is coming?”

“Why do you think?”

“Because of me?”

“Precisely.”

Tamsyn frowned. “Why will it be a problem? Won't I like her? Or is it that she won't like me?”

He stared at her for a minute, wondering if she was being disingenuous. But she was returning his gaze with her usual candor, and as he took in the small nose and determined, pointed chin, the flutter of her luxuriant eyelashes on her smooth brown cheeks, a rapid, unbidden surge of desire startled him. In achingly vivid memory he felt her body moving against his, heard her exultant little chuckle as she drew close to her own mountaintop.

How could he possibly house this extraordinary creature under the same roof as his sister? Lucy was such an innocent, so well schooled, so demure, a perfect lady. Everything that a St. Simon woman should be. And this misbegotten brigand, his mistress, was' her antithesis in every respect.

But it was too late to do anything about it. Judging by the date on the letter, Lucy and Gareth would be arriving any day. They could be crossing Bodmin Moor at this moment.

“Let's get one thing clear,” he said, his voice as flat as the Dead Sea. “My sister is to know only the story that everyone else knows. You are an orphan, a protegee of the Duke of Wellington who has consigned you to my unofficial guardianship. You will at no time give any indication that that is less than the truth. Is that clear?”

Tamsyn shrugged and nodded. “I've no desire to upset your sister.”

“Make sure that you don't, because one word out of place and you leave my roof.”

Tamsyn chewed her lip. “But if your sister's married, she can't be a total innocent.”

Julian's eyes flashed blue fire. “You are not qualified to make any kind of judgment on my sister. You couldn't begin to understand women like her… the way they've been educated, the way they look at life.

You don't know the meaning of the word 'virtue,' you couldn't begin to understand the sanctity of the marriage vows. For God's sake, your own parents didn't see the point of marriage-”

“Don't you criticize my parents,” Tamsyn said with deadly ferocity. “Let me tell you, Lord St. Simon, that you with your prating about convention and form and sanctity and virtue, that you couldn't begin to understand the depths of a love that doesn't need society's sanction to validate it.”

She was pale with anger, but there was more than anger in her eyes, as huge and depthless as a violet sea. She turned from him with an inarticulate gesture, and there was more than bitterness in her voice now. “You couldn't imagine loving someone just for her own sake, could you? You couldn't imagine loving someone who didn’t fit your perception of the right mold.”

Before he could respond, she had left the room, the door banging closed on the whirl of her skirts. He stared at the closed door. Where had it come from? Why had she attacked him like that? Perhaps he had been a bit harsh about her parents, but the personal edge to her attack had come from nowhere. This talk of love. What business was it of hers whom and how he loved?

But there had been tears in her voice beneath the bitterness. Hurt in her eyes beneath the liquid anger, and he knew he'd crossed some invisible line. He'd had no right to attack her parents.

He ran a hand through his hair, understanding now that he'd reacted from fear, the fear of his own weakness when he was with her. He wouldn't be able to resist her, even with his sister in the house.

He caught a glimpse of Tamsyn through the window running across the lawns toward the cove. She was barefoot, holding up her skirt to keep from tripping on it. Her hair glittered in the sunlight. He'd never meet another woman like her. Not if he lived to be as old as Methuselah. There couldn't be another woman like her. Not anywhere in the four corners of the globe.

Tamsyn plunged down the flower-banked slope toward the cove. She felt she was running from something, something she didn't want to acknowledge, but as she reached the small sandy shore and her toes curled into the smooth white sand and there was nowhere else to run, she drew breath and walked slowly into the rippling shallows at the edge of the beach. The tide-ridged sand rubbed the soles of her feet, and the water was sunwarm.

She let her skirt fall, and the little wavelets soaked the hem as she walked along the shore. What happened? The words had poured from her as if a lid had been lifted from a bubbling cauldron. She had defended her parents. That was not strange. That was inevitable. But all that about love? Why did it matter to her, the daughter of Cecile and El Baron, that a stuffy, prideful English lord could only see a future with a woman of his own kind?

She was going back to Spain as soon as Cedric Penhallan was ruined. Julian, Lord St. Simon was useful to her. She needed him. And when it was all over, and he realized how she'd used him, he'd probably want to tear her limb from limb. And she wouldn't blame him one bit.

Gloomily, she stopped paddling in the shallows and looked around her, trying to cheer herself with the beauty of the gently curving bay, the sweep of the sea and the headland, the brilliant blue sky. She glanced up at the cliff top, and her stomach lurched. The two horsemen she'd seen the other morning were there again, outlined against the sky.

They were watching her. The strangest sense of menace crept up her back, and her scalp contracted. She turned, splashed out of the water, and headed back toward the house, the hem of her skirt and her bare feet now coated with damp sand.

Gabriel came around the side of the house as she trudged across the lawn. He raised his eyebrows at her grubby appearance, saying with a laugh, “Och, little girl, it's to be hoped no visitors turn up to see you like that.”

Her confused unhappiness resurfaced. “I'm going in to change,” she said listlessly.

Gabriel looked at her sharply. “What is it, bairn?”

He put a large arm around her.

“Nothing really,” she said, smiling effortfully. “I was thinking of Cecile and the baron.” Which was perfectly true, although only half the story.

“Ah.” He nodded, for the moment satisfied. He hugged her tightly, then said briskly, “Well, I've some information that might interest you. Heard a story down at the quay from a couple of crabbers.”

“About the Penhallans?” She was immediately diverted as he'd known she would be, and her eyes quickened with interest.

He nodded. “Those nephews… your cousins.

Twins they are, apparently. Let's take a walk.”

They strolled into the orchard on the far side of the house. Tamsyn had been intrigued by the traditional seventeenth-century design that dictated the fruit trees be planted in a pattern that offered a straight line to the eye from whichever angle one looked. It struck her as an amusing quirk for something as functional as an orchard.

“So?” she said eagerly, when they were deep among the trees. Gabriel's information related to the issue that had brought her to this place. A simple and straightforward issue, with no confusing emotions to muddy the waters. She would focus only on that, and these nonsensical and irrelevant feelings she was harbouring for Julian St. Simon would fade into insignificance.

“It seems that a couple of years ago your cousins did a bit of trespassing… on rather more than the colonel's land.”

Tamsyn listened as Gabriel told her the story. She kicked her feet through the grass, rubbing the sand off, her stomach churning at the thought that she shared close kinship with such gutter sweepings.

Gabriel reached up to an overhead branch and tested a pear between finger and thumb. “They've a few weeks to go yet,” he observed dispassionately, as if he were completely unaffected by the story he was telling. But Tamsyn knew better.

“Nearly killed the girl, I gather,” he continued in his leisurely fashion.

Tamsyn plucked a crab apple. She bit into it, relishing its puckering sourness; it took her mind off the thought of some innocent little girl in the vicious, defiling hands of these as yet unknown cousins.

“You'll get the bellyache if you eat too many of those,” Gabriel observed. “Anyway, from that day the colonel banned the Penhallans from his land. He's on speaking terms with the viscount, I gather. But only in public. They can't help but meet occasionally around the neighbourhood. But the twins keep out of his way.”

“What do they say in the countryside about my cou-about the twins?”

“No one has any truck with 'em. They're cowards; they think they can do whatever they like. They're Penhallans and that's all that counts.”

“Cecile said that was exactly what Cedric believed,” Tamsyn said thoughtfully. “No one could touch a Penhallan except himself”

“Well, we'll be changing that, little girl,” Gabriel said, deceptively mild.

Tamsyn looked up at him and her eyes were almost black. “Yes,” she said. “We'll bring them down, Gabriel. For Cecile, and for that girl.”

She shivered suddenly, despite the sultry warmth in the orchard, as she thought of the two horsemen on the cliff. Two horsemen. Twins? Cousins? Watching her?

Cedric had seen her once. Had that one brief glimpse been sufficient to arouse his curiosity?