by Violet
“Safe to let you loose?” Julian murmured. “Dear God!” He ran a distracted hand through the burnished lock of hair flopping on his forehead. “You’re about as safe as a cobra in a mouse’s nest.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Tamsyn. “What a horrible image! And what’s wrong with my plan? It’s a perfect cover.”
Julian shook his head in defeat. He was obliged to admit that she was right, but he couldn’t bring himself to say so. He went over to the sideboard and poured himself another glass of wine, regarding her in fulminating silence for a minute.
“I’ll tell you something else,” Tamsyn said with sudden trenchancy. “If you ever call me niña again, St. Simon, I’ll cut your tongue out!”
“My dear girl, for the role you insist on playing, it’s the most suitable form of address,” Julian said airily. “A mute little girl, struggling to accustom herself to the customs of a strange land, trying to adapt to the terrors of the wide world after all those years sequestered in a mountaintop convent, fighting the sin of vanity.”
“I thought it was a piece of very fast thinking,” Tamsyn said defensively.
“Oh, you are nothing if not inventive, niña,” he said. Laughter trembled on his lips as, infuriated, she bared her little white teeth at him.
He caught her round the waist as she leaped toward him, and lifted her off her feet. “An inventive, fast-thinking brigand who’s now going to have to trot decorously along the lanes on a fat pony because she says that the Señor St. Simon says she doesn’t ride very well.”
“Oh, no!” Tamsyn wailed, kicking her legs.
“Oh, yes,” he said with a grin. “Inventive little lies come home to roost, muchacha. You can’t possibly show yourself atop Cesar.”
“Then I’ll ride only at night,” she declared disgustedly. “Put me down.”
He let her slide slowly through his hands, his mocking smile fading as his fingers brushed the swell of her breast. The indignation died out of the violet eyes at the touch. Her feet reached the carpet, and he moved his hands to run his knuckles over her breasts beneath the delicate sprig muslin. The nipples rose instantly, supremely sensitive as always, and her lips parted on an eager, expectant breath.
“Here?” she whispered, a catch of excitement in her voice. “Now?”
It was the middle of the morning, in the middle of his house. Domestic sounds reached them through the closed door. Julian glanced through the window to where a gardener was weeding the parterres in direct line of sight.
He looked down into Tamsyn’s upturned face, glowing with desire and reckless invitation. She moved against him, a lascivious wriggle of her hips sending a jolt through his loins that took his breath away.
“Against the door,” he directed, his voice clipped and stern in its urgency. “Quickly.” He pushed her backward until she was pressed up against the door, his body hard against hers. Roughly he pulled her skirt up to her waist.
“Is this what you want, Violette?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“And this?” His hand slipped between her thighs, pressing the dampening material of her drawers into the moist furrow, his touch burning into the soft petaled flesh beneath.
“Yes,” she whispered, her eyes luminous, her skin translucent as she stood still for him, for once making no moves of her own.
It was lunacy. He was swept up on the crazy tide of this foolhardy passion. Her drawers fell to her ankles, her legs parted under the pressure of his impatient palms. His fingers moved within her, on her, until she was lost in a swirling crimson fog, her head thrown back against the paneled door, her hips thrust forward for his probing, questing hand.
His mouth brushed against the soft curve where her neck met her shoulder, and his teeth nipped where his mouth had been. She cried out, a soft female sound in the back of her throat, and then his flesh was within hers and she braced herself against the door, gripping his hips as he drove deep within her and her blood roared in her ears and he stopped her mouth with his own, suffocating the wild cry of delight before it could leave her lips.
And then it was over, and she stood trembling, her knees week, her gown clinging to her sweat-slick skin. Julian smiled a long, slow smile of sensual satisfaction. Lightly he ran his fingers over her mouth so she could taste the scents of her own arousal.
“What would they say in that convent of yours?” he murmured. “That strict order in the mountains?”
Tamsyn merely shook her head. For once Colonel, Lord Julian St. Simon had defeated her, rendered her speechless.
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 he
re 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 over
balanced 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.
