Jane Feather - [V Series]

by Violet

  “My posture?” Tamsyn demanded with more than a touch of indignation, but he’d already started back to the house, striding swiftly, making it clear he didn’t wish for her company.

  Posture? What on earth could he mean? Tamsyn scrambled after him, following him through the side door into the house, but he turned aside into the breakfast parlor, leaving her to make her own way upstairs in disgruntled puzzlement.

  The door to Tamsyn’s bedchamber stood ajar, and she could hear Josefa engaged in a somewhat one-sided exchange with a maidservant, who had brought a morning tray of chocolate and sweet biscuits for his lordship’s guest.

  Tamsyn wrapped the cloak securely around her so her unorthodox costume was fully hidden and entered the room with a cheerful, “Buenos días, Josefa.”

  “Oh, miss.” The girl turned with visible relief before Josefa could return the greeting. “I was trying to explain to your maid here that breakfast is served in the small parlor behind the library, but she doesn’t seem to understand.”

  “No, I’m afraid she won’t,” Tamsyn said, smiling. “But I can translate, and if there’s a problem belowstairs, Gabriel will translate.”

  “That’s that big bloke, is it, miss?” The girl’s eyes were very round in a very round face.

  “An accurate description,” Tamsyn agreed with a grin. “He’s her husband.” It seemed simplest to tell the conventional fib.

  “Right. Then I’ll tell Mr. and Mrs. Hibbert—they’re the butler and housekeeper,” she added. “We wasn’t sure about how things stood, miss. You arriving so sudden like, and his lordship not being a great one for explanations.” She blushed in sudden confusion, clearly feeling she might have spoken out of turn, and bobbed a swift curtsy, backing out of the room muttering about fetching hot water.

  “Ay … ay, I’ll never understand my man’s tongue,” Josefa declared. “Such a jabber. I told that girl three times that you’d be wanting hot water, and she just stared at me like an idiot.”

  “She doesn’t understand you, querida, any more than you understand her,” Tamsyn said, chuckling, as she threw off her cloak and the britches and shirt beneath. “But Gabriel or the colonel or myself will translate for you. Now, which of those stupid dresses shall I wear?”

  Naked, she wandered to the armoire, taking the cup of chocolate on the way. She stood frowning in front of the wardrobe’s contents, sipping chocolate, nibbling on a biscuit.

  They’d spent five days in London, putting up at Grillon’s hotel. The colonel had vanished once he’d seen them installed and hadn’t reappeared until it was time to begin the journey to Cornwall. He’d given her a list of dressmakers and milliners, together with what he considered minimum requirements for a would-be debutante’s wardrobe, and left her to make shift as she could.

  Tamsyn had found it tedious work putting together such a wardrobe, but she’d tackled the task with the grim determination she would have brought to any piece of necessary preparation for some serious venture. The colonel had inspected the fruits of her shopping the night before they’d begun their journey and had pronounced himself satisfied. Any other necessities or forgotten accessories could be purchased in St. Austell or Lostwithiel.

  She heard the bustle behind her as Mary reappeared with a heavy copper jug of steaming water but didn’t turn around, idly flicking through the garments. She disliked them all, reserving her greatest distaste for a sprig muslin that the colonel had particularly approved. She drew the dress out and held it up to the light. It was very pretty, pale lilac with a pattern of darker flowers and a cream sash.

  “Ugh!” she muttered, tossing the despised gown onto the bed. “It had best be this.”

  “Such a pretty dress, miss,” Mary said, fingering the material admiringly. “It’ll suit your coloring.”

  “I suppose so,” Tamsyn agreed halfheartedly, turning to the washstand where Josefa was filling the basin with hot water.

  She scrubbed the salt from her skin with a soapy washcloth, enjoying the glow that her rough attentions left in their wake, then set about the tedious task of donning stockings, drawers, and chemise. So many clothes, and so unnecessary when the sun was as warm as it was today. She scrambled into a lawn petticoat, kicking at the folds with a grimace.

  Josefa dropped the gown over her head, and she thrust her arms into the little puff sleeves with a roughly impatient movement that caused the other woman to tut reproachfully at the possible damage to the delicate material. The gown was hooked, the sash tied beneath her bosom, and she examined herself in the mirror. She really didn’t look like herself.

  “My hair’s getting long, Josefa, you must cut it for me.” She brushed her fingers through the smooth, fair cap. “It’s straggling on my neck and the fringe is getting in my eyes.”

  As satisfied as she was likely to be in such a costume, Tamsyn went downstairs to the breakfast parlor. The colonel had clearly been and gone, and only one place was laid at the round table in the bay window overlooking a side garden. The morning’s activities had given her a good appetite, and she greeted with enthusiasm a footman’s arrival with a dish of eggs, bacon, and mushrooms.

  “Coffee or tea, miss?”

  “Coffee, please.”

  “Your manservant wishes a word with you, miss. Should I tell him to wait until you’ve breakfasted?”

  “Ye’ll no be telling me anything, laddie.” Gabriel spoke from the doorway. “And I’ll thank ye to bring me another dish of the same. Good morning, little girl.”

  Ignoring the footman’s indignantly indrawn breath, he pulled out a chair and sat down. The footman was puffing up like a rooster, and Tamsyn said swiftly, “Gabriel isn’t my manservant. He’s more of a bodyguard. I’m sure Lord St. Simon will explain the situation to you.”

  “Yes, miss.” The man sniffed and shot Gabriel a fulminating glance.

  Gabriel’s benign expression didn’t change, but he pushed back his chair a fraction, his massive hands resting on the edge of the table. “And I’ll have a tankard of ale with my breakfast, if you please.”

  The footman paused, then beat a hasty retreat with as much dignity as he could muster. Gabriel’s booming chuckle filled the small room as he reached for a crusty roll and slathered it with rich golden butter.

  “I’ll be needing to set a few things straight,” he observed. “Don’t seem to know what to make of me in this house. I’d best have a word with the colonel.”

  “Yes,” Tamsyn agreed absently. “I saw Cedric Penhallan yesterday.”

  Gabriel’s eyes sharpened. “Where?”

  “In the inn at Bodmin. I couldn’t say anything to you on the ride back because of the colonel.”

  “Aye,” Gabriel agreed, falling silent as the footman returned with a tankard of ale that he placed beside him with an emphatic thump before turning to take a laden platter from the kitchen boy who’d followed him in.

  “My thanks, laddie,” Gabriel said blandly, burying his nose in the tankard. The footman looked as if he would burst, and the boy stifled a grin, scuttling from the room before Tom took his fury out on him with a clout around the ear.

  “You didn’t speak with him?” Gabriel speared a mushroom and dipped it in his egg yolk.

  “No, but the colonel did. They seem to know each other.”

  “Most folks do in these parts.”

  “I daresay, but they don’t like each other, Gabriel. In fact I suspect that’s an understatement.” She gave him her impressions, relating the snatch of conversation she’d heard.

  “I’d best look into it, then,” Gabriel said comfortably. “Ask around in the taverns. They’ll be cousins of yours, then, these nephews?”

  “So it would seem. The children of Cecile’s younger brother, I suppose. I can’t remember his name—she did tell me once, but I’ve forgotten. She didn’t consider him to be important in the family setup.”

  “Seems like only Cedric’s important in that setup,” Gabriel observed, burying his nose in his tankard.

  �
��Up to now, Gabriel,” Tamsyn said with a small smile. “Up to now.”

  “Well, well, I’ll be damned. Did we really see St. Simon sporting in the waves with a doxy?” Charles Penhallan sighted, aimed, and his gun cracked. A crow plunged to the cliff top.

  David grinned at his brother as he took aim himself. Scaring crows was dull work but better than taking potshots at rabbits, and it was all the legitimate sport available at this time of year.

  “I’d recognize that red head anywhere,” he said. “And he doesn’t get any smaller does he?”

  “No, but clearly less of a prude these days.” Charles rested his shotgun on his saddle bow. “Either that or he’s a hypocrite. Didn’t think much of the whore, though. Scrawny little thing.”

  “Looked more like a lad to me,” David observed, bringing his own gun down. “Perhaps the army’s given him different tastes.”

  They both laughed. Two men with lean, pointed faces, mouths a mere slash, small, deep-set brown eyes, hard as pebbles. They were thin, sharp-shouldered, narrow-chested, but what they lacked in physique they made up for in the general air of malevolence that surrounded them like an aura. Men tended to cross the street when the Penhallan twins approached. They rarely appeared singly, and conversed together in oblique sentences, presenting an intimidating front to the world, with which not even their few intimates were comfortable.

  “I wonder if the governor knows St. Simon’s at Tregarthan?” David said, frowning now. “He’s probably back from Bodmin by now.”

  “If he doesn’t know now, he’ll know soon enough. We’d best get off St. Simon land,” Charles said reluctantly. “We don’t want anyone seeing us here and carrying tales.”

  “Can’t think why St. Simon made such a fuss,” David declared with a curl of his lip. “The girl was nothing, just some whore’s daughter.”

  “She was his tenant and it was on his land.”

  Charles spurred his horse, turning him to the boundary of Tregarthan land, and his brother followed, his expression sullen.

  “He’s a prude and a hypocrite,” he declared. “One of these days I’ll see that damnable St. Simon pride in the dust.”

  “Oh, yes,” Charles promised softly. “One of these days we both shall.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “SO WHAT IS IT YOU WANT TO SAY ABOUT MY POSTURE?” Tamsyn strode into the library. Hitching her skirts up, she sat astride the arm of a leather sofa and regarded the colonel with an air of intelligent inquiry.

  Julian looked up from the Gazette and stared at her. “Don’t sit like that! Quite apart from the fact that it’s disgracefully inelegant, you’ll split the seams of your gown.”

  Tamsyn swung both legs to the same side of the arm and perched there, her head to one side, her eyes bright, reminding him yet again of a cheeky robin. “Is this better?”

  “Only marginally.” He tossed the newspaper onto a side table. “Ladies sit on chairs, with their legs together, their hands in their laps. Go and sit on that chair by the window, the straight-backed one.”

  Tamsyn marched over to the window and sat down in the required chair, looking at him expectantly.

  “Sit up straight. You’re always slouching.”

  “But why should that be important?” She was genuinely puzzled, never having given a moment’s thought to something as irrelevant as how she held herself.

  “Because it is.” Julian stood up and came over to her, going behind the chair. Taking her shoulders, he pulled them back sharply. “Feel the difference?”

  “But it’s ridiculous,” Tamsyn said. “I can’t sit like this, I feel like a stuffed dummy.”

  “You must sit like this, stand like this, walk like this, and ride like this,” he declared firmly, keeping his hands on her shoulders. “You ride like a sack of potatoes. It’s all the fault of that Spanish saddle. It’s more like an armchair than a proper saddle. It encourages you to hunch over.”

  Tamsyn did not consider wholesale criticism of her riding to be part of the contract. What could it possibly have to do with learning to be ladylike? “You can’t ride a hundred miles over rough terrain sitting up like a stuffed dummy,” she retorted. “And I can ride without tiring all day and all night, as you well know.”

  “You won’t be required to ride all day and all night as an English society lady,” he informed her. “The hardest riding you’re likely to be doing is to hounds, and that won’t start until October. You must learn to ride elegantly before then. But an English saddle should put that right.”

  “You relieve my mind,” Tamsyn muttered, but Julian chose not to hear.

  Releasing her, he walked round to the front of her chair and examined her. “Put your feet together, so your anklebones are touching, and let your hands rest lightly in your lap.”

  Tamsyn followed these instructions with exaggerated care, then sat staring fixedly in front of her.

  “Relax.”

  “How can I possibly relax sitting like this?” she asked, barely opening her mouth so her expression remained as rigid as her posture.

  Julian refused to be amused. “If you’re going to insist on making a game of this, then I’m washing my hands of the whole ridiculous business. Believe it or not, I have better things to do with my life than playing governess and dancing master to an uncivilized brigand. Stand up.”

  Tamsyn obeyed. The colonel was clearly not in the mood to be diverted. She stood with her hands hanging loosely at her sides, gazing straight ahead of her, awaiting further instruction, trying to keep her expression impassive.

  “For heaven’s sake, you’re as round-shouldered as a hunchback.” Impatiently, he pulled her shoulders back again. “Tuck your bottom in.” His palm tapped emphatically against the curve in question.

  “Anyone would think I was made of wire,” Tamsyn grumbled. “My body doesn’t bend like this.”

  “Oh, you forget, buttercup. I’ve seen you perform some amazing gymnastic feats,” Julian stated, stepping back and examining her critically. “Now smile.”

  Tamsyn offered him a simpering smile, elongating her neck, pushing back her shoulders and clenching her backside. “Like this?”

  “Sweet Jesus,” he muttered, losing the battle with his laughter. He turned away abruptly, struggling to regain his critical demeanor. He swung back to her just in time to catch her satisfied grin before she wiped it off her face and tried to look once more suitably solemn.

  “This is not a laughing matter!”

  “No,” she agreed. “Of course not, sir.” But her lips twitched.

  “If you can’t do it on your own, then you’ll have to have some help,” Julian stated. “A backboard should do the trick.”

  “A what?” All desire to laugh vanished.

  “A backboard,” he said, explaining with great gravity. “It’s used in most schoolrooms. Girls wear it strapped to their backs to correct posture. Of course, they’re usually a lot younger than you, but it might do some good, nevertheless.”

  “That’s barbaric!” Tamsyn exclaimed.

  “Not at all. My sister wore one for several hours a day for a year or two,” he responded with a bland smile. “I’ll go into town and procure one. We’ll see how you improve by wearing it every morning. If that doesn’t have the desired effect, then you must wear it all day.”

  Tamsyn regarded him in fulminating silence, recognizing that he’d fired the opening shots in a war that she had hoped would become a game, even if for her it was a deadly serious one.

  “But until I can procure a board, we’ll try something else,” Julian continued with the same suave insouciance. Going over to the bookshelves, he selected two heavy leather-bound volumes. “Come over here.”

  Tamsyn approached him warily.

  “Stand very still.” Delicately, he balanced the books on top of her head. “Now, walk around the room without dislodging them. You’ll have to keep your head up and absolutely immobile. It’ll also ensure you have to take small steps instead of galloping along like some
unruly puppy.”

  Tamsyn drew in her breath sharply but closed her lips and refused to rise to the bait. Her neck wobbled under the weight of the books. Grimly, she fixed her gaze on a knot in the paneling and balanced herself. If Colonel, Lord St. Simon was trying to drive her to give up her scheme, he’d discover she was a lot tougher than he bargained for. She took a hesitant step, and the books shivered but stayed put.

  Julian grinned and flung himself down on the sofa, casually picking up his discarded newspaper. “An hour of that exercise should prove beneficial,” he said. “And when you’ve learned to keep your back straight, I’ll teach you how to curtsy, as you’ll have to if you’re intending to be presented at court.”

  That didn’t figure in Tamsyn’s plans, but she could hardly admit that. Julian returned to his reading as if he considered his morning’s task accomplished.

  Tamsyn swore silently, allowing her mental tongue free reign as she cursed him for a self-satisfied, odious, vindictive, gloating cur. She walked up and down the room, trying to keep the books from falling. Several times they did so, crashing to the carpet with a loud thump. The colonel raised his head, waited until she’d replaced them and begun her walk again, then returned to the Gazette.

  Her neck was aching, her shoulders cramping, and her head began to feel as if the books were wearing a hole through her scalp. She glanced at the clock and saw a bare fifteen minutes had passed. It was a torture to beat anything, even riding through the broiling midday heat of a Spanish summer with an empty water flask, flies feeding on her sweaty face, every muscle in her body aching.

  Don’t be silly! Of course it isn’t as bad as that. She’d endured much worse, although she didn’t think she’d ever looked more ridiculous. But the damned English colonel wanted her to throw in the towel, and she couldn’t afford to do that, even if she was prepared at this point to give him that satisfaction.