Violet

Chapter Nineteen

GARETH STROLLED BACK TO TREGARTHAN UNDER THE moon, dolefully contemplating the lack of entertainment to be found in a small Cornish fishing village. The taverns in Fowey offered a sad dearth of eager young wenches ready to dally with a well-heeled member of the Quality, although the landlady at the Ship had winked at him and allowed him a discreet fondle of her ripe bosom, leaning over his table as she served his tankard of gin and water. Unfortunately, her husband had appeared on the scene, genial enough on the surface but with a pair of massive forearms that rivalled the giant Gabriel's, with whom he'd been drinking in a dark corner of the taproom.

Extraordinary-looking man, the Scotsman. Some kind of bodyguard apparently, all very rum. In fact, Gareth decided with a discreet belch, it was a rum business whichever way you looked at it Julian, far from his beloved battlefields, playing guardian to an unknown Spanish chit. Of course, if the Duke of Wellington had commanded it, that would explain it. A great stickler for his duty, was Julian.

Deciding to take the cross-country route, Gareth swung himself over a stile, catching the toe of his boot in the top rung and almost plummeting headlong. Cursing under his breath, he regained his balance and continued across the field.

The Penhallan twins had been in the tavern, drinking by themselves in a corner. He'd exchanged a nod with them, but they didn't move in his circles in London, so he hadn't felt a need to do more than that. There was something deuced smoky about those two… always had been. There was bad blood in the Penhallans, everyone said.

Gareth lurched through a gap in a bramble hedge and paused. Behind and below him the lights of Fowey were all but extinguished, just a lantern swinging on the quay in case anyone decided to row across the river from Polruan at dead of night. Ahead, there seemed only an expanse of field and cliff top. He could hear the breakers on the shore way below at the base of the cliff. Damnation, surely he wasn't lost? He should have stuck to the lanes. He looked up at the star-filled sky, peered into the distance, caught a glimmer of light through a stand of trees ahead, and decided it must be the gatehouse of Tregarthan.

With renewed energy he strode on and was immensely relieved when he identified the stone gatehouse at the bottom of the drive. His fob watch told him it was barely eleven o'clock. In London the night would just be starting, and all he had to look forward to here was an early night listening to the sea and the owls.

As he approached the house, a massive shadow fell across his path. His heart jumped into his throat, and he whirled to see the giant Gabriel behind him, holding a lantern. Gabriel grinned amiably. “I hope you enjoyed your evening. Good company these Cornish folk, I find.”

Gareth was dumbfounded at being spoken to with such familiarity by a servant. “My good man-”

“Och, aye, laddie, I'm no' your man… good or otherwise,” Gabriel said with no diminution in his affability. ''I'm no' a servant, either. My job's to look after the bairn as I see fit… just that. So to avoid any unpleasantness, I suggest you bear that in mind. I'll be bidding you good night, now.” Gabriel turned toward the side of the house, then paused, glancing over his shoulder. “By the by, laddie. I'd not be paying too much attention to Jebediah's woman, either, if I were you.” And he walked off around the house, whistling to himself, leaving Gareth staring in mute and indignant astonishment.

Gabriel turned up his nose in the darkness. The colonel's brother-in-law was a blockhead. Put a pistol in his hand, and he'd probably shoot his foot. Couldn't hold his liquor, either. He turned into the stable yard and climbed the outside stairs at the side of the stable block to the whitewashed room he shared with Josefa. He preferred the privacy out here away from the house, and the room above the stables much more closely resembled the simple cottage rooms that he and Josefa were accustomed to.

She greeted him softly as he ducked beneath the low lintel and entered the cheerful, tidy room. His woman had a talent for creating domestic comfort wherever they happened to fetch up, even in the most unlikely places. In fact, Gabriel often said she could make a home under a cactus. He flung himself into a low chair, and Josefa bustled over to pull off his boots.

“I came across those cousins of the bairn's tonight,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt as Josefa poured him his nightly tankard of rum. The woman nodded, her eyes bright with understanding as she took his shirt and carefully folded it.

“Right nasty-looking pair,” he went on, kicking off his britches, standing on one leg to pull off his sock. “They'll bear watching.” He stood on the other leg to remove his other sock before pushing off his woolen drawers.

Josefa gathered up his garments as they fell to the floor, folding them with loving care and placing them in a cedar chest. She didn't say anything while he mused, imparting little snippets of information, more to clarify things in his own mind then to share his thoughts. But she heard and nodded, and he knew she was storing it all away, and if he ever needed advice or an opinion, she would give it sensibly, so long as it was solicited.

He drained his tankard and with a groan of contentment fell onto the bed, the bed ropes creaking mightily under his weight. Josefa clambered in beside him, and he reached for her warm, soft, accommodating roundness, burying his head in the pillowy bosom. She made a little clucking sound of pleasure and wrapped her short arms around him as far as they would go, opening herself readily as he burrowed into her.

“You're a pearl, woman,” Gabriel muttered, and she smiled and stroked his back. “But those twins will definitely bear watching.”

Gareth's indignation was only exacerbated when he entered the house and saw that his new Hessians were caked with mud and gave off a pungent farmyard aroma. The hall was dimly lit with a thick wax candle on a table at the foot of the stairs, two carrying candles beside it. A light showed beneath the library door. Presumably St. Simon was still up and would claim the second candle.

Presumably someone would also lock up. Or perhaps they didn't bother in this neck of the woods.

Gareth lit his candle and stomped up the stairs. Two candles in wall sconces lit the long corridor, and the house was very quiet. He found his way to the bedchamber at the end of the corridor and opened the door softly. The curtains were drawn around the bed, moonlight filtering through the thin summer curtains at the window.

“Is that you, Gareth?” Lucy's voice spoke nervously from the tented bed.

“And who else would it be?” He realized he sounded ungracious, but the reek from his boots was almost overpowering. He yanked them off against the andirons, picked them up, and deposited them gingerly outside the door for the boot boy.

He undressed, put on his nightshirt, and took a step toward his dressing room. Then he paused. He was damned if he was going to be deprived of a decent bed when he didn't have anything to feel guilty about… nothing to send him to the narrow daybed next door. He blew out his candle and pulled back the bed curtains. Lucy was curled on the far edge of the bed, a lace cap on her brown hair. He slid in beside her. Her sweet-smelling warmth filled the dark cavern of the bed. He reached out to touch her and felt her immediate recoil.

Sighing, he rolled onto his side, facing away from her. He was no brute, and he hated it when she wept and shivered beneath him and he knew he was hurting her. Every now and again he forced both of them to go through the motions, because there must be a child of the union. Once he had an heir or two, then they could both let the whole miserable business slide.

He closed his eyes and conjured up the image of Marjorie, her knowing hands, her lascivious little wriggles.

Lucy lay wide-eyed in the darkness, trying not to weep, thinking of the shocking things Tamsyn had said. How dared she talk in that fashion? And how in the world did she know about such things… an unmarried girl?

Julian heard Gareth's return and waited until his footsteps had receded on the stairs; then he snuffed the candles and left the library. He locked and barred the front door, lit his own candle, extinguished the wax taper, and made his way up to bed, leaving the candles alight in the sconces in case anyone wandered abroad at night.

His own apartments, consisting of bedchamber, dressing room, and private parlor, occupied the center of the house with a sweep of mullioned windows facing the lawns and the sea. On either side were the tower rooms. Opposite were a string of guest apartments, the largest being occupied by his sister and her husband.

He let himself into his bedchamber, feeling restless and yet jaded. His sister's marital problems depressed him, but that was not at the root of his dissatisfaction. Part of it was the acute discomfort of his own need aroused by the liquid light of inviting arousal in Tamsyn's eyes, the catlike sensuality of her body in the chair. That was part of it, but it was also caused by distaste at his own roughness. He'd hurt her without a word of explanation and certainly without justification. She had done everything she could that evening to repair the breach between them, and then she had offered herself in her customary open, trusting fashion with no expectation of rejection. He'd seen the flash of shock, the glitter of tears in her eyes, before he'd turned from her, and he couldn't rid himself of the image.

He closed the door of his bedchamber and then turned back to the room, holding his carrying candle high. For a crazy moment he thought he was seeing simply the figment of his imagination, and then he knew that of course he should have expected it. Tamsyn was not one to accept rejection, however hurt and vulnerable she might have looked.

She sat naked on the window seat in the moonlight, chin cupped in her palm as she looked out over the silver-washed lawns to the horizon where black velvet sky met the midnight-blue line of the sea.

And his pulse raced… his blood sang.

“There you are,” she said cheerfully, as if they'd never had a cross word. “I was beginning to think you'd stay up over your work-if that's what it was-all night.”

“What the hell are you doing in here?” he demanded in a fierce whisper, fighting himself, fighting yet again the knowledge that there would never be another woman in his life like this one. He set his candle on the table. “I told you that for as long as my sister's in the house, you may not come in here.”

“You weren't that specific,” Tamsyn said, uncurling herself from the window seat. “Besides, your sister's tucked up in bed.” She slipped from the seat and came toward him. “Everyone's asleep, milord colonel. Who could possibly know what goes on behind these doors?”

“That is not the point,” he declared, shrugging out of his coat. “My sister is an innocent young girl. We know that doesn't mean anything to you, but-” “Oh, please don't start that again,” Tamsyn pleaded, so close to him now he could sense the warmth of her bare skin even through his shirt and the fine knit of his pantaloons. “Must we quarrel about it again?”

Julian looked down at her helplessly. The liquescent eyes, the slight quiver of her soft mouth, the imploring voice, were totally unexpected. He thought he knew how to handle the fiery brigand, but he didn't have the faintest idea how to deal with this manifestation.

“Look, Tamsyn,” he tried. “I realize it's hard for you to understand. Lucy must seem like some precious flower to you. A rare orchid in a hothouse, she's such a tender-”

“Oh, estupido!” Tamsyn exclaimed, forgetting all her resolutions to be conciliatory and feminine and loving under this disgustingly sugary misrepresentation of the facts. “For your information, your precious, tender little sister has been so violently shocked by the marriage bed and that insensitive lout of a husband you allowed her to marry that she's unlikely ever to recover if someone doesn't do her a kindness and open her eyes to the realities. “

Julian tore off his cravat with a rush of relief. He glared at her, his eyes points of blue fire. This Tamsyn he could deal with. “When it comes to my sister, I'm not in the least interested in the opinion of an unschooled, misbegotten hellion who's never learned to obey convention.”

“Oh, pah!” Tamsyn declared in disgust. “Convention!” she mocked. “Convention as applied to women. It doesn't apply to Gareth, does it? He can go spreading his favors around to all and sundry, and that's considered perfectly acceptable.”

“No, it's not!” Julian snapped, pulling his shirt out of his britches and tossing it to the floor. In the passion of the moment it didn't occur to him that stripping of his clothes in front of the naked Tamsyn might be offering a mixed message. “As it happens, I hold no brief whatsoever for Gareth's indiscretions… any more than I do for yours.”

“And what of yours?” she retorted. “These indiscretions, as you so delicately phrase them, take two. I haven't noticed you being a particularly unwilling partner hitherto, milord colonel.”

Her eyes flashed, and her small body was rigid with angry conviction. “If there's one thing I cannot abide, it's a hypocrite.”

“I am not in the least hypocritical where my sister is concerned,” he snapped, kicking off his boots. “I will not have her innocence sullied by your experience!”

“Sullied!” Tamsyn exclaimed. “You dare to accuse me of sullying your sister as if I were some loathsome piece of scum! The only person who's sullied Lucy is her damned husband. And so I tell you.”

Bending in one fluid movement, she grabbed up his discarded shirt. “If you'd done the decent thing by your sister, if you'd really cared for her, you would have given her a few of the facts of life and she wouldn't be in this position now. I bid you good night, Colonel, I've no time for blind hypocrites.” And she pushed past him to the door, shoving her arms into the sleeves of his shirt as she did so.

“Don't you walk off like that! Come back here.”

Forgetting that the one thing he'd wanted was Tamsyn's absence from his room, Julian grabbed her arm. “Explain yourself!”

She twitched free and darted sideways out of his reach. “You work it out for yourself, sir.”

He sprang forward, and in the same moment Tamsyn grabbed the water jug off the washstand. Her eyes were living coals.

“Oh, no,” he said softly. “Don't you dare.”

“I dare,” she said, and hurled the contents at him.

In the room across the hall, Lucy shot up in bed at the roaring bellow of an outraged bull. “Whatever's going on?”

“God knows.” Gareth pulled himself up sleepily.

He'd been about to sink into the blissful world of alcoholic slumber and now sat blinking in the dark, trying to decipher the thumps and bangs. “Sounds like a fight of some kind.”

“A fight?” Lucy pushed aside the bedclothes. “Who could be fighting in the house at this hour… at any hour?”

Gareth listened, his head to one side. There was another shivering crash, a bellow that definitely came from his brother-in-law, followed by a squeal of rage in a much higher range.

“Good God,” he said again. “It's coming from your brother's room.” He swung out of bed, shoving aside the curtains. “It couldn't be an intruder, surely.”

He'd reached the door, Lucy on his heels, when the sound of St. Simon's door opening and then violently slamming made them both jump. The door opened again immediately on the slam.

A finger to his lips, Gareth gently eased their door ajar, and they peered into the dimly lit corridor, eyes stretched at the extraordinary sight before them.

Julian, wearing only his britches, water dripping from his hair, leaped after the slight figure of Tamsyn, clad only in his discarded shirt.

“Come back here!” Julian's fierce whisper echoed in the deserted corridor.

“Go to hell!” Tamsyn hissed over her shoulder, losing speed for a fatal instant as she did so.

Julian grabbed the collar of his shirt. “You're not getting away with it, mi muchacha!”

With a deft wriggle Tamsyn shrugged out of the shirt and raced on, leaving him holding the empty garment.

“Fiera!” Julian's voice was still a whisper, but now the stunned audience, cowering in the shadows, heard both laughter and powerful determination.

He sprang forward and tackled Tamsyn, diving for her waist, sweeping her off her feet. For a moment her body arced through the air, then she came to rest across his shoulder with a low wail of indignation.

“Espadachin! Miserable cur!” She reared up against his shoulder, pummelling with her fists, forgetting the need for quiet in her outrage.

“I should settle down, buttercup,” Julian said, his voice soft, his tone affable, as he turned back to his room. “You're presenting rather a tempting target at the moment.”

“Oh, I'll kill you,” Tamsyn declared, dropping forward again. “Gabriel will cut out your black, hypocritical heart and I'll catch your blood in my hat.”

Julian's low laugh lingered in the corridor as he went back into his room with his burden, closing the door quietly behind him.

“Well, I'll be damned!” Gareth murmured, looking down at Lucy. “I'll be damned!” He became aware of his own powerful arousal and the swift surge of blood in his loins. The sight of Tamsyn's naked body curved over Julian's shoulder, glowing under the candlelight, had excited him almost beyond bearing.

“So that's what she meant,” Lucy whispered, gazing up at her husband. “She said she knew things…”

Her voice faded as she saw Gareth's expression. She was aware of a strange tingling sensation in her body, little prickles of excitement in her belly, and she wondered what it could be.

“Lucy,” Gareth said huskily. His palm cupped her cheek as he read the almost bewildered thrill in her eyes, the flush on her cheeks. Could she also be affected by that scene? She didn't move away from him, and he lifted her against him, feeling her skin soft and warm, the rich curve of her bottom beneath her nightgown. Her nightcap fell off as she moved her head against his shoulder. He bent and laid her gently on the bed.

For the first time she allowed him to remove her nightgown, and when he touched her, she was moist and open, although her limbs became abruptly rigid, her expression taut with apprehension.

“It'll be all right,” he said softly, hardly able to contain himself, but somehow managing to control the vigorous surge of his entry so that she didn't tighten against him as she had always done in the past. It was over very quickly, but when he rolled away from her, he knew that for once he hadn't hurt her, and his own explosion of pleasure had seared him to his toes.

Lucy lay thoughtfully in the darkness, listening to Gareth's gradually deepening snores. She felt most peculiar, but also quite pleasantly relaxed. But she had the unshakable conviction that what she had just experienced was as nothing to what Tamsyn was experiencing in Julian's bed.

She was Julian’s mistress. How exotic, and how shocking. No wonder she seemed so different, and no wonder she'd offered her opinion so freely. Well, in the morning Lucy would seek more of those opinions. She certainly had a new perspective on her strait-laced brother, though. An involuntary giggle escaped her, and she turned her-face into her pillow. She'd take his strictures a little less to heart in future.

Gareth wasn't sure how to greet his brother-in-law the following morning, but Julian's “Good morning” over the breakfast, table was accompanied by an imperturbable smile and the civil invitation to look over his stud and take any horse that met his fancy, with the exception of Soult.

“I rode Soult from Badajos to Lisbon,” Julian explained. “But the rest of my campaigning string is in the charge of my groom in Spain.”

“When do you expect to return?” Gareth piled kedgeree onto his plate and sat down, filling his tankard from the jug of ale.

“By October at the latest. I have to be in London again next month.” He wiped his mouth and tossed his napkin to the table. “Well, if you'll excuse me, Gareth, I've work to do.”

He strode to the door just as it opened to admit Tamsyn, in a high-necked, long-sleeved dress of sprigged muslin. “Good morning, milord colonel.”

“Good morning, Tamsyn.” His voice was cool, his eye amused, as he noticed that she had chosen a costume that covered every inch of her skin. They'd both acquired a few bruises in the night's rough-and-tumble.

“Don't let me keep you, sir.”

“I won't. Termagant!” he added in a soft whisper. He flicked her cheek carelessly; the residue of passion still lurked in his eyes… that and laughter. He'd woken up laughing, convinced he'd been laughing in his sleep.

“Bully'“ she mouthed, her own gaze sparkling.

“Virago!” He left on the whisper, and Tamsyn turned her attention to Gareth, who tried to pretend he hadn't been straining his ears to catch the whispered colloquy.

“Good morning, Gareth. Is Lucy still abed?” She sat down and took a piece of toast from the rack. “Could you pass the coffee, please?”

Gareth obliged. “Lucy usually takes her breakfast above stairs.” He found himself examining her covertly, his memory alive with the image of her body beneath her clothes. He wondered if she'd be open to a proposition from himself. He ought to be able to match whatever Julian was offering her. Unfortunately, he didn't see how he could make such a proposal while they were both under St. Simon's roof. A man didn't poach on another man's territory while he was enjoying his hospitality. But maybe while Julian was in London, he might sound her out.

The prospect brought a smile to his lips, and unconsciously he touched his mustache, smoothing it with a fingertip.

Tamsyn buttered her toast, wondering what could have brought that irritating smirk to his face. She fervently hoped it was nothing to do with her. Could he have heard anything last night? No, their voices in the corridor hadn't risen above a whisper, and everyone had been asleep.

She left the breakfast parlor while Gareth was just settling into his second plate of sirloin. Those pudgy thighs weren't going to get any the less so, she reflected, but one woman's meat was another's poison.

“Tamsyn, good morning.”

Lucy's voice aptly broke into Tamsyn's charitably philosophic reflection. Lucy was coming down the stairs, her expression both excited and a little shy.

“Good morning.” Tamsyn greeted her pleasantly, relieved to see that she seemed to have recovered her good humor over night. ''I'm going for a walk. Do you care to accompany me?”

“Oh, yes, I should love to. I'll just fetch my parasol and pelisse.”

“Oh, you won't need those. It's very warm out, and I intend to go to St. Catherine's Point. It's quite a scramble over the cliff, so you won't want to carry clutter.”

Lucy, expecting a gentle, chatty stroll through the shrubbery, was aghast at such a prospect; however, she said stoically, “No, of course I won't. Are you leaving now?”

“If you're ready,” Tamsyn said politely.

They were halfway down the drive when Gabriel appeared through the trees, on foot, a gun over one shoulder, a game bag over the other. “Where are you going, little girl?”

“To St. Catherine's Point. Then into Fowey to buy some needle and thread for Josefa.”

He nodded, smiled amiably at Lucy, and continued on his way.

“Your servant is very familiar.”

“Gabriel is no servant, and don't ever treat him as one,” Tamsyn said. “He becomes very upset. He was my father's most trusted friend, and he looks after me.”

“You must do things very differently in Spain,” Lucy observed, feeling for a way to start the conversation she had in mind.

“You could say that.” Tamsyn struck out toward the steeply rising cliff path, her stride long and easy. Lucy puffed behind her, waving at flies that swarmed around her as the sweat started to break out on her forehead.

“You talk about things differently.” They reached the crest of the path and Lucy stopped, gasping in the cool breeze now blowing fresh from the sea stretched out below them. “I mean the things you said your mother had told you.” Her cheeks were hot, and she knew it wasn't just the result of exertion.

Tamsyn's laugh lilted on the wind. “Your mother didn't tell you such things, I imagine?” She started off again, running down the path toward a ledge that hung out over the Fowey estuary, just above the ruined walls of St. Catherine's fort, which once had commanded the entrance to the river as part of Henry VIII's coastal defense system.

By the time Lucy had reached her, Tamsyn had kicked off her sandals and was stretched on her stomach, gazing down at the fort, and across the wide mouth of the estuary. A clipper, laden with china clay, was tacking out of the estuary to the sea.

“No, she didn't,” Lucy said, dropping to the grass beside her, wondering if she would get grass stains on her pale cambric gown. “The only thing she ever said to me about marriage was that there were some aspects that were not pleasant, but it was one's duty to endure them.”

“Lie back and think of England!” Tamsyn said in disgust, chewing on a strand of grass. “And I don't suppose your brother mentioned anything either?”

“Julian!” Lucy stared at her in horror. “He couldn't talk about things like that to me!”

“Oh.” Tamsyn decided it would be dangerous to discuss Julian in such a context in case she inadvertently gave something away.

“I know it's not at all respectable of me to want to talk about such things,” Lucy ventured.

Tamsyn laughed and rolled onto her back, squinting against the sun. “Respectability can make life very dull. I'll wager you anything that Gareth would much prefer an unrespectable woman in his bed.”

“He has plenty of those,” Lucy said tartly, and then gasped, amazed at herself for saying such a shocking thing.

Tamsyn merely grinned. “But if he had one at home, then he probably wouldn't need to wander off quite so often.”

“So what do I have to do to be unrespectable?” Lucy demanded. “Since you seem to know so much about it.” It was on the tip of her tongue to say what she and Gareth had seen in the night, but she was too embarrassed to admit to having watched in secret… and far too embarrassed to admit that they'd both found the watching curiously exciting.

“I'll tell you, if you promise not to say a word to your brother. If he thinks I've been corrupting you, he'll throw me out of the house.”

“Would he?” Lucy breathed. She found her brother thoroughly intimidating, but after what she'd seen last night, she couldn't imagine Tamsyn accepting such a decree without a murmur.

“Probably,” Tamsyn said. “So you must promise.”

“I promise.”

Tamsyn smiled into the sunshine and began to impart to the wide-eyed innocent beside her some of the joys of love.

It was a very thoughtful Lucy who walked alone back to Tregarthan an hour later at a much slower pace than the one set by Tamsyn on the way to the point.

Tamsyn took the steep, winding path down to the town, deep in thought. It was gratifying to put someone else's life in order, even if she couldn't understand what Lucy could possibly see in Gareth Fortescue. He didn't strike her as seriously unpleasant so much as lazy, conceited, and self-indulgent. Quite usual characteristics of the English male aristocrat, if Cecile was to be believed. He wasn't a man to be solely contented with the marriage bed, however satisfying that bed might be, but presumably Lucy would find it easier to accommodate her husband's wanderings if she was herself no longer dissatisfied. They'd certainly seem less threatening to the stability of her marriage.

She made her purchases in the draper's and strolled in the sunshine along the quay. David and Charles Penhallan saw her from the steps of the white Customs House, where they were talking with the Revenue Officer, a portly gentlemen who struggled daily with the paradox of having to do a job that went against his own interests. For a man who loved his wine and cognac as Lieutenant Barker did, preventing the Gentlemen from making their runs was the devil's own work. He was an expert at turning a blind eye, and the smugglers generally let him know when it would be expedient for him to do so.

“Lord Penhallan was remarking only the other day that since he started using mantraps at Lanjerrick, his gamekeepers have noticed much less poaching.” He stroked his rotund belly and belched softly. Kippers for breakfast always sat heavily, but he couldn't resist them. “I was thinking of mentioning it to Lord St. Simon. His bailiff was lamenting how many pheasants they were losing…” His voice faded as he realized that he was talking to thin air. The Penhallan twins had moved away and were sauntering down the street.

Tamsyn walked back up the narrow, steep streets of the little town, pausing now and again to look over the jumbled roofs below her, looking down· into small walled cottage gardens fragrant with roses, fishing nets drying in the sun, crab pots piled in corners.

Could she live here? Leave the wild passes and the soaring eagles, the smell of crushed thyme beneath her feet, the ice-capped mountain peaks, the clear, frigid mountain rivers? Leave the punishing summer sun for this gentle cousin; leave the air so sharp it pierced your lungs for this soft air, as gentle as spring rain?

But the question was academic. She knew there was no way to expose Cedric Penhallan as she intended and keep Julian in ignorance. And if she couldn't do that, then she couldn't persuade the colonel to look into his heart and see what she believed was there. So she was going back to Spain as soon as she'd done what she had come here to do, and she'd take with her memories of a man and a love that would have to last a lifetime.

She turned out of the town as she reached the top street, and took the high-hedged lane that wound its way to Tregarthan. Firmly, she forced herself to dwell on the glories of her homeland, to think how wonderful it would be to be back with the partisans, to have a clean, dear-cut purpose in life again. To put this emotional quagmire behind her.

She was so deep in her musing that she didn't notice the two men keeping their distance behind her.

David and Charles had kept to the side of the narrow, climbing streets in the village, pausing casually in doorways, taking little alleys between cottages that would bring them up onto the next street without its looking as if they were following her. Now, as they dogged her steps along the deserted lane, they both had their hands in their pockets, fingers twisting around the black silk loo masks, and they both wore the same expression-an eager, predatory glimmer in their eyes, their mouths twisted into the same grim quirk.

Tamsyn left the lane, slipped through a kissing gate beside a stone cattle grid, and turned along the edge of the field in the shade of the hedge. David and Charles silently drew out their masks and as silently tied them on.

Tamsyn heard the gentle buzz of a bumblebee in the honeysuckle, the frantic crackle as a startled pheasant took wing from the ripening corn. The sun was hot, the earth dry; a frog hopped out of the ditch beside the hedge. It was quiet, almost somnolent, and the hairs on the back of her neck lifted and her scalp crawled.

She stopped and very slowly turned around. Two masked men stepped toward her, malevolent intent wreathing around them. Tamsyn stood stone still. There was no one in the field but herself and the two men. A herd of cows raised their heads and stared with bovine curiosity through sleepy brown eyes, their jaws rhythmically working as they chewed the cud.

“Well, well,” Charles said, approaching her. “If it isn't St. Simon's doxy of the seashore.”

The men of the cliff top. Were they her cousins? She said nothing.

David chuckled. “Fancy St. Simon housing his harlot under the precious roofs of Tregarthan… with his sister, no less.” He reached out and touched her cheek. Charles stepped up beside him, and she was backed against the hedge. No chance to outrun them. Still she said nothing.

“So how about you tell us something about yourself?” David invited, pinching her cheek so the flesh whitened as the blood fled.

Tamsyn shook her head. “Perdon?” she whispered.

“Your name, whore.” He pinched her other cheek, bringing her face very dose to his. “Your name and where you come from.”

“No comprendo,” Tamsyn whispered, praying that her fear wasn't showing in her eyes. If these two smelled her fear, there would be no stopping them.

“Oh, don’t play dumb with me, whore!” David released her cheeks, took a swift, darting step, and moved behind her, grabbing her arms, pulling them hard behind her, pushing them up her back.

Tamsyn knew that she couldn't hope to defend herself physically. There were two of them and they were twice her size, for all their willowy stature. If she'd had a weapon, a knife, anything, maybe she would have had a chance. But she had nothing.

Except for the needle and thread she'd bought for Josefa.

Her mind raced as she continued to stand immobile. She had the absolute sense that if she was not to be badly hurt, she must offer no resistance unless she was certain it would work. There was something about them that sent ice down her spine. Worse than Cornichet, she thought distantly. At least Cornichet had a reason for what he did, a reason she understood.

Charles's eyes laughed at her, and yet they were as cold and deadly as a viper's. David released her arms and she breathed again but it was a false respite. Charles took her chin between finger and thumb in a hurtful grip, and his other hand grabbed a handful of her hair, jerking her head toward him. Then he brought his mouth to hers in a violent assault that made her want to vomit. His tongue pushed into her mouth and battered against her throat; her head swam as she gagged, fighting for breath. Her hand closed over the packet of needles.

Somehow she extricated them from her pocket, and in desperation, as she felt her senses swimming, she stabbed upward into the soft skin beneath her assailant's chin.

Charles bellowed and pulled his mouth from hers.

He hit her with his open palm. “Vicious little whore. By God, you'll pay for that.” Disbelieving, he touched his chin where a ruby bead blossomed; then he caught her wrist, bending it back until she cried out and the packet of needles fell to the ground. He put a hand on her breast, rubbing his palm against the nipple; then he pinched the soft mound, watching the tears spring into her eyes, squeezing until she could no longer keep back the cry of pain.

“Let's get her to sing first,” David said, seeing the intent in his brother's eye. “Let's get what we want out of her first; then you can have your revenge.”

“All right, whore!” Charles's fingers closed viciously over her nipple. “What's your name? Where did St. Simon find you?”

“Bastardo!” She spat in his eye. They forced her to her knees, yanking her hands so high up her back that she knew one more jerk would break her arm. Even through her tears she cursed them in Spanish, struggling to control the pain and the surging nausea as she knelt oh the hard ground, her head drooping to her chest.

And then the tableau was shattered by a roar, so wild with savage fury that even Tamsyn shuddered. Her arms were abruptly released, and the masked men were suddenly gone. Dully she raised her head and saw them, through the tears coursing down her cheeks, running as if pursued by hell's furies.

Gabriel charged past her, still bellowing his War cry, and then suddenly he stopped. With a vile oath he abandoned the pursuit and ran to the huddled figure now lying on the grass. He dropped to his knees beside her. “Och, little girl… I'll get them later.”

He lifted her up and held her, cradling her against his massive chest, rocking her as if she were a baby. Her face was white, her eyes violet stones, and for a few minutes she lay shivering in his arms. Then she pushed away from him with an inarticulate mumble. The taste of the man was in her mouth, and she retched into the ditch.

“Oh, I'll kill them inch by inch,” Gabriel swore softly, rubbing her back as she crouched on the ground. “I'll hunt them down like the curs they are, and when I have them, I'll flay them with an oyster shell.” It was no idle threat, as Tamsyn knew.

“They wanted to know who I was, Gabriel.” She found to her surprise that her voice was perfectly steady as she straightened. “Who I was and where I came from. I'm sure they were my cousins.” She stood up, thoughtfully massaging her bruised and aching wrists.

“Do you think your uncle set them up to it?”

She shook her head. “From what Cecile said, I doubt Cedric would be so indiscreet. He's a subtle man, and he wouldn't want such a filthy assault to be laid anywhere near his door. But I've obviously aroused his curiosity. “

Calmly now, she smoothed back her hair, flicked grass and dried mud from her skirt. “What brought you so fast, Gabriel?”

He shrugged. “Just a feeling. I was uneasy after I left you with that Miss Lucy, I don't know why. I thought I'd stroll to the village and escort you home.”

“Thank God you did.” She took his large hand in both hers. “We'll get even with them, Gabriel, but please wait. It'll spoil everything if you end up on the scaffold in Bodmin jail for murder.” She tried to smile, but her face ached from the slap and the violent pinching. “When we go after Cedric, we'll get them too.”

“Just you remember they're mine,” he said with low voiced savagery.

“They'll be yours,” the daughter of El Baron promised, well aware of what she was promising and feeling not a twinge of compassion for her cousins.

“And until then, little girl, you go nowhere alone.

Maybe your uncle didn't set those scum on you, but if he's on the scent, there's no knowing what he might decide to do.”

“No,” Tamsyn agreed flatly. “A man who could dispose of his sister so ingeniously could probably manage to arrange for a stranger's disappearance without too much difficulty.”