by Violet
Tamsyn was blithely unaware of his reflections as she installed herself in the coach with the shivering Josefa and ran her eye over the chests of gold and jewelry stashed beneath the seats. Their presence made the inside of the vehicle very cramped. Normally this wouldn’t trouble anyone, since until today only Josefa had been traveling inside. But Tamsyn couldn’t fault the colonel’s defensive measures if they were really about to cross wild and dangerous country, so she curled herself into a corner, leaving as much room for the larger figure of Josefa as she could, and checked that her two pistols were primed. Josefa would reload for her if they were attacked.
Gabriel stuck his head through the window. “We’ll be off now. You all right in here?”
“How far is it across this moor?” Tamsyn asked.
“Don’t know.” He withdrew his head. “Colonel, the bairn wants to know how far she needs to travel in the coach.”
“It’s twenty-one miles to Bodmin,” Julian said, swinging onto his horse. “After that she can ride if she wishes. It’s but twelve miles to Tregarthan from there.”
Tamsyn nodded, satisfied. It was only just past dawn, and they should accomplish thirty-three miles easily by nightfall; they’d been managing forty a day from London along the paved stagecoach roads with frequent changes.
However, as they left the ruined keep and tower of Launceston Castle behind, it became clear that the narrow, rutted track across Bodmin Moor was no stage road. It was an ancient road, known as the Tinners Way, used to carry tin and clay from the mines from Fowey through Bodmin and across the moor into southern England. On either side the dark, rainy land stretched to the horizon, scrawny trees bent double with the force of the gusting wind, stumpy clumps of broom and gorse clinging to the peaty earth. The coachman kept his horses at an easy trot as the track crested steep hills and plunged down again into the flat moorland. The iron wheels churned the wet earth into a sea of mud, and every now and again the chaise would lurch almost to a halt as the wheels became enmired.
When that happened, the coachman cursed and whipped up his horses, glancing anxiously around, his blunderbuss across his knees. On either side of the coach rode Gabriel and Julian, muskets across their saddlebows, pistols at their belts, hat brims down and collars turned up as they faced into the stinging, wind-hurled rain.
They rode in grim silence, ever watchful, but finally came off the moor after a tense five hours, having seen neither hide nor hair of a potential highwayman, or, indeed, of any fellow travelers on this raw day of early summer.
The horses trotted wearily down the steep hill into the center of Bodmin. Tamsyn leaped from the coach with a sigh of relief as they came to a halt in the inn yard. She was feeling queasy from the motion, and there was an ominous tightening around her temples. She looked around through the continuing drizzle at the town, a patchwork of slate-gray roofs and gray stonework climbing up the steep hillside.
The colonel dismounted and came over to her. His eyes were sharp as they rested on her face, noticing the pallor beneath the suntan and the shadows below the almond-shaped eyes.
“Tired?”
“Not really. I feel as if I’m going to puke. It’s that coach—I can’t abide traveling in that fashion.”
“It was necessary.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t see any of your highway robbers, Colonel.”
“The precaution was necessary,” he responded indifferently. “Go into the inn and bespeak a private parlor for us and a nuncheon. I’ll see about fresh horses.”
“Yes, milord colonel.” She touched her forelock in mock salute.
“You must learn to curtsy, buttercup,” he responded with the nonchalance of before. “Tugging forelocks is appropriate only for grooms, ostlers, and farm laborers. Serving maids curtsy.”
“I am not a maid.”
“No,” he agreed. “Not in any sense of the word.” He turned from her, ignoring the dangerous flash in her eyes.
Tamsyn chewed her lip in frustration, staring at his departing back, before she turned into the welcome warmth and lamplight of the inn.
The innkeeper made no attempt to hide his astonishment at these new arrivals. The rotund Spanish lady huddled in her shawls and mantillas poured forth a stream of incomprehensible laments that were as incomprehensibly responded to by the giant oak of a man who carried a massive broadsword thrust into the crimson sash at his waist. The diminutive figure of their companion, to his relief, spoke in the king’s English with a perfectly ordinary request for a parlor and refreshment. But there was something exotic about her, too. He didn’t know whether it was the short hair or the way she walked with an easy, swinging stride quite unlike a woman’s walk. Her riding habit seemed conventional enough, but there was something about the way she wore it that was not ordinary, although he couldn’t for the life of him pinpoint what it was.
Then Lord St. Simon entered the inn, and the landlord immediately ceased his speculation. He hurried to greet one of the largest landowners in the county, bowing and offering an effusive welcome.
Julian stripped off his gloves, responding to the landlord’s greeting with patient courtesy.
“Show us to a parlor, Sawyer,” he interrupted finally. “It’s been the devil of a drive across the moor, and we’re famished.”
“Yes, of course, my lord.” The landlord bustled ahead. “And I’ll have a bottle of burgundy brought up straightway. I’ve a fine Aloxe Corton from the Gentlemen’s last run. Would the … the ladies …,” he said resolutely, “care for a dish of tea, perhaps?”
“I’ll have a tankard of rum,” Gabriel declared before Julian could reply. “And the woman, too. I’ve a hole in my gullet the size of a cannon ball. What of you, little girl?”
“Tea,” Tamsyn said. “And perhaps I’ll take a glass of the colonel’s wine, if he has no objection.” She offered the bewildered landlord a sweet smile as he opened the door onto a cheerful parlor overlooking the street. “It might settle my stomach, I feel as sick as a dog. That’s a poxy road across your godforsaken moor.”
The landlord’s jaw dropped to his knees, and his eyes slid, scandalized, toward Lord St. Simon, who said brusquely, “We’re sharp set, Sawyer. Bring us a dish of pasties with the drink.”
“Yes, my lord. Right away, my lord.” The landlord bowed himself out of the parlor, his eyes round as buttons in the rosy folds of his face.
“Congratulations, Tamsyn. You’ve certainly managed to set Sawyer on his heels,” Julian said with a sardonic twist of his lips. “If you intended to make yourself conspicuous and give rise to a firestorm of gossip, you’ve succeeded beyond your wildest dreams.”
“I suppose English ladies don’t say things like that,” Tamsyn admitted in clear chagrin.
“On the whole, they do not,” Julian agreed, tossing his gloves onto a wooden settle beside the fire and shrugging out of his cloak. “But, then, as my mother always said, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
“Oh!” Tamsyn exclaimed, indignation chasing away her chagrin. “I am not a sow’s ear.”
Gabriel was warming his backside before the fire, listening to this exchange with an expression of mild interest. He’d decided many days ago that he had no need to jump to the bairn’s defense when it came to the colonel’s frequently acid tongue. Besides, he could see the colonel’s point of view. If one wasn’t bound body and soul to the family of El Baron, one might legitimately object to being compelled to partake in this venture.
“You’re a long way from being a silk purse,” Julian responded coolly.
“Well, that’s your job, isn’t it?” she fired back.
He responded with a careless nod. “It’s my job to try. I’ve never guaranteed success, if you recall.”
The landlord came back at this juncture, saving Tamsyn from the need to reply. She retreated to the window seat and sat glaring through the befogged mullioned windowpane, watching the people in the narrow street below. They seemed unaffected by the rain, but then, sh
e supposed one would learn to be so, since it appeared to be a constant fact of life.
While she watched, a horseman rode up before the inn’s front door, a large man wrapped in a heavy cloak. He was obviously well-known at the inn, because two liveried footmen ran out into the rain to hold his horse even before he had time to dismount. He stood for a moment in the rain, glancing up and down the street, and Tamsyn felt a curious prickle on the back of her neck. An unmistakable aura of power and authority clung to the man. Then he turned and strode into the inn, pulling off his dripping beaver hat to reveal a luxuriant mane of iron-gray hair the minute before he disappeared from sight.
The strange prickling sensation increased, and Tamsyn decided that she was cold. Instinctively she turned back to the cozy room, away from the wet, dark day outside. Mr. Sawyer drew the cork on the wine bottle while a maidservant hurried to set the round table before the fire. Gabriel buried his nose in his tankard of rum with a grunt of satisfaction. It wasn’t as good as the grog he’d become accustomed to on the Isabelle, but it still did a man good as it warmed his belly. He glanced at Josefa, sitting on the settle, her hands clasped around her own tankard. She looked a little less unhappy now she was out of the rain, and her eyes rested with eager anticipation on the platter of golden Cornish pasties keeping warm on the hob before the fire.
It was a generally silent meal. Tamsyn’s one attempt to initiate a conversation met with a monosyllabic response, and she lapsed into her own thoughts. Somehow she had to soften the colonel’s anger. It seemed to have deepened since they’d landed on English soil, as if their arrival in his homeland had finally convinced him that he had no way out of a detestable situation. But surely it didn’t have to be detestable? Surely she could find a way to make it palatable for him? Her eyes rested on his face across the table. Firelight flickered over the strong features but did nothing to soften the harsh line of his mouth, the grim set of his jaw. She thought of how he was when he laughed with genuine amusement instead of that sardonic crack that was all she heard these days. She remembered his surprising tenderness when he’d looked after her on the Isabelle. There had to be something there that she could work with.
“If you’re finished, I’d like to get on the road again.” The colonel’s voice broke hard and abrupt into the silence, and Tamsyn jumped, wondering if he’d been aware of her scrutiny. “I’ll order the horses put to.” He pushed back his chair and stood up. “Come down as soon as you’re ready.”
The door banged on his departure, and they heard his booted feet pounding the stairs with the surging energy that characterized all his movements. Gabriel and Josefa followed him while Tamsyn went in search of the privy. As she descended the stairs to the hall five minutes later, Julian’s voice rose from below.
Tamsyn stopped on the stairs, listening. There was a quality to his voice that she hadn’t heard before. An icy politeness that made her think of the frozen tundra. She took another step down, realizing that for some reason she was walking on tiptoe, almost holding her breath, although she had no idea why. She stopped again at the turn of the stair, where she had a clear view into the hall below. It was dark, heavily paneled, the gloom relieved only by an oil lamp hanging from the low-beamed ceiling.
Julian was talking to the man she’d seen from the window. Without his cloak he seemed even more massive. His belly pushed against his waistcoat, his thighs strained the buckskin britches, the shoulders in his riding coat bulged. And yet, she thought, he didn’t strike one as a fat man, merely a massive bulk exuding power. Even St. Simon seemed diminished by him, and Julian was no lightweight. But he was lean and muscular, not an ounce of spare flesh.…
She squashed the images thrown up by such a reflection and leaned forward to catch what they were saying. As she did so, the gray-haired man looked up and saw her.
His black eyes seemed to shrink to pinpricks, and Tamsyn felt that same prickle on the back of her neck. She stood immobile, a fly in the spider’s web as the spider stared at her.
Cedric Penhallan saw Celia on the stairs in the shadows. Silvery hair, huge dark eyes, the full, sensuous mouth, lips slightly parted, the graceful slenderness. But Celia was dead. Celia had been dead these past twenty years.
Julian turned to the stairs, his eyes involuntarily following his companion’s rapt gaze. Tamsyn stood in the shadows at the turn, one hand on the banister, the other holding her skirt clear of the step, foot poised as if to continue her descent. The air crackled, and he had the absurd fantasy that a lightning bolt had flown between Tamsyn and the man he was talking to.
It was, of course, absurd. Tamsyn, with her short hair and strangely exotic air was an unusual sight in such a country backwater, which must explain Lord Penhallan’s interest. Julian decided that, an introduction was not necessary.
“Your servant, Penhallan,” he said curtly with a cold bow before turning to the door standing open to the inn yard.
“St. Simon.” Cedric tore his gaze from the apparition on the stairs. His face had lost some of its ruddiness. “I daresay we’ll run across each other again if you’re making an extended stay at Tregarthan.”
“I daresay,” Julian said with the same ice. He paused and said softly over his shoulder, “Keep your nephews off my land, Penhallan. One straying toe, and I’ll not answer for the consequences.” And he was gone, without waiting for a response.
Indeed, Cedric hardly heard him. His gaze returned to the figure on the stairs. Then she moved, springing lightly to the hall, jumping the last two steps. She brushed past him, following St. Simon into the yard.
Cedric went to the door. He watched as St. Simon tossed her onto the back of a magnificent cream-white Arabian steed. Then he turned and went back into the inn.
Celia had returned to Cornwall. Or Celia’s ghost.
Tamsyn turned her head to look back at the inn as they rode out of the yard. There was no sign of her uncle, but her blood surged. Cedric Penhallan was still alive, and the battle lines were drawn.
Chapter Fifteen
TAMSYN AWOKE EARLY THE NEXT MORNING AND LAY UNDER her mound of quilts, for a moment bewildered. Her eyes were still closed, her body still half in sleep, but every sense told her that the world had changed. There was a buttery warmth against her eyelids, and almost afraid to believe what her senses were telling her, she opened her eyes.
The sun was shining. And not just a reluctant ray or two—the bedchamber was filled with a golden light. Dust motes danced in the beams pouring through the mullioned windows, and the cut-glass jars on the dressing table sparked blue and red diamonds.
Tamsyn kicked off the covers and jumped to the floor. She threw off her nightgown and stretched, reveling in the warmth of her naked body. Her skin was opening up to the fingering rays, and she felt as if she’d been hibernating in some dank, cold cave for months.
She ran to the window and flung it wide, gazing in breathless wonder at the panorama spread below her. They’d arrived in the dark the previous night, and she’d seen nothing of the outside of the house. They’d hurried in out of the rain, and she’d been aware of candlelight throwing shadows on dark paneling and beamed and plastered ceilings; of fires in massive fireplaces; of a graceful double staircase rising out of the vast Great Hall.
St. Simon had excused himself immediately after presenting his guest and her attendants to the housekeeper, and Tamsyn had found herself ensconced in a large corner apartment with a big canopied bed, tapestry-hung walls, embroidered carpets on the shining oak floor. She’d been brought hot water and a supper tray by clearly curious but uncommunicative servants while Josefa had bustled around unpacking the clothes they’d acquired in London. And she’d sought her bed early and with relief, enjoying, after nights in ill-kempt hostelries, the clean, crisp sheets smelling of dried lavender, the flicker of the fire on the molded ceiling, the deep comfort of the feather mattress.
Now she looked upon another world. Ahead of her stretched rolling green lawns, separated by parterres studded with flower beds
, and beyond was the sea, sparkling blue under the early sun. The deeply indented coastline stretched to either side, the chalky headlands shining white against the brilliance of the sea and the sky.
She ran to the east window, flinging that wide too, and leaned out with her elbows resting on the deep stone sill. The view was as spectacular from this angle, the rising sun setting the waters of the River Fowey alight, glittering on the fleet of boats swinging gently at anchor in the estuary, glowing on the roofs of the little fishing village of Polruan on the far bank.
“How beautiful,” Tamsyn murmured in delight, breathing deeply as the scent of roses wafted up to her, mingling with the rich fragrance of golden wallflowers planted in a wide bed below the window. This was her mother’s land, the soft, verdant countryside she’d described so lovingly to her daughter under the harsh glare of the Spanish sun.
She pulled on her britches and a shirt and ran barefoot from the room. The house was very quiet, although, from the light pouring in through the many mullioned, transomed windows, she guessed it was about five o’clock. But, then, it was Sunday, so perhaps the household slept late.
The bolts were heavy on the massive front door, and she hauled them back with an effort. The door swung open, and she stood blinking in the brilliant morning, her spirit unfurling to the warmth and the light. The forecourt faced east, toward Fowey, and Tamsyn made her way through a small arched gateway in the stone wall surrounding the court and into the main garden that swept down to the sea. She glanced up at her own window, realizing for the first time that it was set into a square ivy-covered tower.
Colonel, Lord St. Simon’s house was magnificent, she thought appreciatively. It must represent a fair degree of wealth and power. Wealth and power in the wandering life of a mountain brigand had not been evinced by the ownership of bricks, mortar, and land, but Cecile had told her about how Englishmen viewed the importance of such acquisitions.
Cedric Penhallan was a kingmaker, a power broker, and Cecile had explained that his vast, landed wealth made it possible for him to wield his far-reaching political influence. Without that, not even a man of Lord Penhallan’s merciless ambition could have achieved his covert pinnacle of power. And pride of lineage informed the personal power he wielded over every individual who could claim Penhallan blood, however diluted. A power that had rolled over his rebellious sister like a juggernaut.
