by Violet
“Let’s get one thing clear,” he said, his voice as flat as the Dead Sea. “My sister is to know only the story that everyone else knows. You are an orphan, a protégée of the Duke of Wellington who has consigned you to my unofficial guardianship. You will at no time give any indication that that is less than the truth. Is that clear?”
Tamsyn shrugged and nodded. “I’ve no desire to upset your sister.”
“Make sure that you don’t, because one word out of place and you leave my roof.”
Tamsyn chewed her lip. “But if your sister’s married, she can’t be a total innocent.”
Julian’s eyes flashed blue fire. “You are not qualified to make any kind of judgment on my sister. You couldn’t begin to understand women like her … the way they’ve been educated, the way they look at life. You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘virtue,’ you couldn’t begin to understand the sanctity of the marriage vows. For God’s sake, your own parents didn’t see the point of marriage—”
“Don’t you criticize my parents,” Tamsyn said with deadly ferocity. “Let me tell you, Lord St. Simon, that you, with your prating about convention and form and sanctity and virtue, that you couldn’t begin to understand the depths of a love that doesn’t need society’s sanction to validate it.”
She was pale with anger, but there was more than anger in her eyes, as huge and depthless as a violet sea. She turned from him with an inarticulate gesture, and there was more than bitterness in her voice now. “You couldn’t imagine loving someone just for her own sake, could you? You couldn’t imagine loving someone who didn’t fit your perception of the right mold.”
Before he could respond, she had left the room, the door banging closed on the whirl of her skirts. He stared at the closed door. Where had it come from? Why had she attacked him like that? Perhaps he had been a bit harsh about her parents, but the personal edge to her attack had come from nowhere. This talk of love. What business was it of hers whom and how he loved?
But there had been tears in her voice beneath the bitterness. Hurt in her eyes beneath the liquid anger, and he knew he’d crossed some invisible line. He’d had no right to attack her parents.
He ran a hand through his hair, understanding now that he’d reacted from fear, the fear of his own weakness when he was with her. He wouldn’t be able to resist her, even with his sister in the house.
He caught a glimpse of Tamsyn through the window running across the lawns toward the cove. She was barefoot, holding up her skirt to keep from tripping on it. Her hair guttered in the sunlight. He’d never meet another woman like her. Not if he lived to be as old as Methuselah. There couldn’t be another woman like her. Not anywhere in the four corners of the globe.
Tamsyn plunged down the flower-banked slope toward the cove. She felt she was running from something, something she didn’t want to acknowledge, but as she reached the small sandy shore and her toes curled into the smooth white sand and there was nowhere else to run, she drew breath and walked slowly into the rippling shallows at the edge of the beach. The tide-ridged sand rubbed the soles of her feet, and the water was sun-warm.
She let her skirt fall, and the little wavelets soaked the hem as she walked along the shore. What had happened? The words had poured from her as if a lid had been lifted from a bubbling cauldron. She had defended her parents. That was not strange. That was inevitable. But all that about love? Why did it matter to her, the daughter of Cecile and El Baron, that a stuffy, prideful English lord could only see a future with a woman of his own kind?
She was going back to Spain as soon as Cedric Penhallan was ruined. Julian, Lord St. Simon was useful to her. She needed him. And when it was all over, and he realized how she’d used him, he’d probably want to tear her limb from limb. And she wouldn’t blame him one bit.
Gloomily, she stopped paddling in the shallows and looked around her, trying to cheer herself with the beauty of the gently curving bay, the sweep of the sea and the headland, the brilliant blue sky. She glanced up at the cliff top, and her stomach lurched. The two horsemen she’d seen the other morning were there again, outlined against the sky.
They were watching her. The strangest sense of menace crept up her back, and her scalp contracted. She turned, splashed out of the water, and headed back toward the house, the hem of her skirt and her bare feet now coated with damp sand.
Gabriel came around the side of the house as she trudged across the lawn. He raised his eyebrows at her grubby appearance, saying with a laugh, “Och, little girl, it’s to be hoped no visitors turn up to see you like that.”
Her confused unhappiness resurfaced. “I’m going in to change,” she said listlessly.
Gabriel looked at her sharply. “What is it, bairn?” He put a large arm around her.
“Nothing really,” she said, smiling effortfully. “I was thinking of Cecile and the baron.” Which was perfectly true, although only half the story.
“Ah.” He nodded, for the moment satisfied. He hugged her tightly, then said briskly, “Well, I’ve some information that might interest you. Heard a story down at the quay from a couple of crabbers.”
“About the Penhallans?” She was immediately diverted as he’d known she would be, and her eyes quickened with interest.
He nodded. “Those nephews … your cousins. Twins they are, apparently. Let’s take a walk.”
They strolled into the orchard on the far side of the house. Tamsyn had been intrigued by the traditional seventeenth-century design that dictated the fruit trees be planted in a pattern that offered a straight line to the eye from whichever angle one looked. It struck her as an amusing quirk for something as functional as an orchard.
“So?” she said eagerly, when they were deep among the trees. Gabriel’s information related to the issue that had brought her to this place. A simple and straightforward issue, with no confusing emotions to muddy the waters. She would focus only on that, and these nonsensical and irrelevant feelings she was harboring for Julian St. Simon would fade into insignificance.
“It seems that a couple of years ago your cousins did a bit of trespassing … on rather more than the colonel’s land.”
Tamsyn listened as Gabriel told her the story. She kicked her feet through the grass, rubbing the sand off, her stomach churning at the thought that she shared close kinship with such gutter sweepings.
Gabriel reached up to an overhead branch and tested a pear between finger and thumb. “They’ve a few weeks to go yet,” he observed dispassionately, as if he were completely unaffected by the story he was telling. But Tamsyn knew better.
“Nearly killed the girl, I gather,” he continued in his leisurely fashion.
Tamsyn plucked a crab apple. She bit into it, relishing its puckering sourness; it took her mind off the thought of some innocent little girl in the vicious, defiling hands of these as yet unknown cousins.
“You’ll get the bellyache if you eat too many of those,” Gabriel observed. “Anyway, from that day the colonel banned the Penhallans from his land. He’s on speaking terms with the viscount, I gather. But only in public. They can’t help but meet occasionally around the neighborhood. But the twins keep out of his way.”
“What do they say in the countryside about my cou—about the twins?”
“No one has any truck with ’em. They’re cowards; they think they can do whatever they like. They’re Penhallans and that’s all that counts.”
“Cecile said that was exactly what Cedric believed,” Tamsyn said thoughtfully. “No one could touch a Penhallan except himself.”
“Well, we’ll be changing that, little girl,” Gabriel said, deceptively mild.
Tamsyn looked up at him and her eyes were almost black. “Yes,” she said. “We’ll bring them down, Gabriel. For Cecile, and for that girl.”
She shivered suddenly, despite the sultry warmth in the orchard, as she thought of the two horsemen on the cliff. Two horsemen. Twins? Cousins? Watching her?
Cedric had seen her once. Had that
one brief glimpse been sufficient to arouse his curiosity?
Chapter Eighteen
“I DO HOPE JULIAN WON’T CONSIDER OUR VISIT AN imposition,” Lucy said, unable to hide her renewed agitation as the chaise turned into the gates of Tregarthan.
“Why should he?” Gareth asked with a touch of impatience. “Tregarthan is big enough to house a regiment.” He shifted his long legs in the cramped space. “By God, I’ll be glad to be done with this infernal coach travel. I should have brought my riding horse.”
Before they’d left, he’d said that as he didn’t have a horse in his string to match any one of his brother-in-law’s, he’d let Julian mount him during their stay. But Lucy didn’t remind him of this. She let down the window, closed to keep the dust from filling the coach, and leaned out, ready to catch her first glimpse of her beloved Tregarthan as they bowled around the corner at the head of the drive.
“Good God! What an incredible animal!” Gareth exclaimed, looking out of his own window. He banged on the roof and the coachman drew rein. Gareth leaned out of the window, mouth agape, at the two riders emerging from the trees onto the drive just ahead of them.
Tamsyn shaded her eyes from the sun as she examined the coach standing in the middle of the driveway. “It must be the colonel’s sister,” she declared after a brief and puzzled contemplation. “I wonder why they’ve stopped.” Leaving Gabriel on the drive, she cantered back toward the coach. “Good afternoon. Is something the matter?”
“That horse,” Gareth declared. “I beg your pardon, but I’ve never seen such an animal.”
“No, Cesar is magnificent, isn’t he?” Tamsyn beamed, forgetting for the moment her disgruntlement that she could only ride him around the estate, thanks to her own overly clever invention. “Are you Sir Gareth Fortescue?”
“Yes.” Gareth blinked, bemused by the combination of the milk-white Arabian steed and the diminutive rider, her silvery cap of hair shining in the sun, astonishingly violet almond-shaped eyes regarding him with frank but friendly curiosity.
“We’ve been expecting you,” Tamsyn said, leaning down to extend her hand. “I’m Tamsyn.”
“Oh,” he said. “Yes … yes, of course.” He took her hand. Julian had made no mention of his protegee’s name, but Gareth was positive Tamsyn wasn’t a Spanish name. In fact, there didn’t seem to be anything Spanish at all about this girl. “My wife …” He gestured behind him into the dimness of the chaise and leaned back slightly so Lucy could take his place at the window.
Lucy’s startled face appeared in the aperture. “I understood you were Spanish,” she said, speaking her husband’s thoughts and quite forgetting the niceties in her astonishment.
“Half-Spanish,” Tamsyn said cheerfully, leaning down to shake her hand. “My English is very good when I’m not nervous, but when I go out into company, I seem to forget it all.” She smiled, continuing expansively, “My mother was Cornish, which is why I’m staying with Lord St. Simon. We hope to discover her family, and in the meantime I’m learning to be English so I can make my debut. My parents are both dead, you see, and the Duke of Wellington agreed to be responsible for me.”
“Oh,” Lucy said faintly, as confused as ever by this explanation. “I’m so sorry about your parents.”
A shadow flitted across Tamsyn’s countenance, showing Lucy for a minute a disturbingly different side to the brown-faced, bright-eyed, smiling girl. Then Tamsyn said, “Introductions in the middle of the driveway are a little uncomfortable. Shall we return to the house? Your brother should be home by now. He’s been paying calls.”
She turned her horse to ride beside the chaise as it continued up the drive. Gabriel had disappeared, presumably already returned to the stables.
Julian, hearing the bustle in the Great Hall, came out of the library, a frown in his eyes, a smile on his lips. “Lucy, this is a pleasure.” He lightly kissed his sister’s cheek and turned to his brother-in-law. “Fortescue. What a delightful surprise.”
Gareth shook the proffered hand and told himself he’d imagined the slightly ironic note in St. Simon’s voice. “Thought we’d pay a family visit,” he said obviously. “Lucy thought she could be of help since you’re entertaining visitors.… We met Miss … Miss—”
“Tamsyn,” Julian supplied calmly. “Tamsyn Baron. But Tamsyn will do fine.”
“Ah, yes, of course … of course.” Gareth turned with a hearty laugh toward the subject of the conversation, standing quietly behind them, waiting for the family greetings to be concluded. “Staggering piece of horseflesh, St. Simon.”
“Tamsyn?” The colonel’s eyebrows disappeared into his scalp.
“No … no,” Gareth blustered, his ruddy complexion taking on a slightly mottled hue. “You know what I mean, St. Simon.”
Lucy was looking uncomfortable. For some reason Julian always managed to make Gareth look stupid. He was never rude, but somehow in his presence Gareth became clumsy and tongue-tied.
Tamsyn stepped forward. “Milord colonel is fond of teasing, Sir Gareth. But you may compliment Cesar to your heart’s content, it will only endear you to me.” She turned to Lucy. “Lady Fortescue, you must be tired after your journey.”
“Oh, please call me Lucy.” Lucy’s mind was racing. She’d expected either some pathetic, mute orphan or an exotic dark lady, swathed in lace mantillas, fluttering a fan. This boyish, self-assured young woman who spoke English with only the trace of a foreign accent was a total surprise.
“Why, Miss Lucy, you must be exhausted.” Mrs. Hibbert, wreathed in smiles, came bustling from the kitchen. “Now, you come along upstairs and I’ll have a bath and tea brought up to you directly. You’ll be wanting your dinner on a tray, I’ll be bound.”
“Oh, yes, thank you, Mrs. Hibbert.” Lucy visibly relaxed into the comforting care of the housekeeper, who immediately hustled her toward the stairs. But Lucy paused, her foot on the bottom stair, turning back to the hall. “Tamsyn, would you perhaps come and drink some tea with me while I have my bath?”
Tamsyn glanced quickly at the colonel. They had not referred to his sister’s arrival since the argument the previous day; in fact, they had barely talked at all the harsh words still lying like stones between them. Now his bright-blue eyes held hers for a minute in clear warning, and a fresh surge of unhappiness washed over her, swiftly chased by annoyance. He ought to know she wasn’t stupid, whatever else he thought her.
She turned away from him and back to his sister. “Yes, of course I will, Lucy. But I’m sure you’ll feel able to come downstairs for dinner, once you’ve rested.” She was quite unable to imagine preferring a solitary dinner on a tray in one’s room.
Lucy considered this and realized that she’d only thought she’d prefer to dine alone because Gareth and Julian would expect it of her. As it happened, she didn’t wish to in the least. “Yes,” she said. “I’m certain I will.”
“Good.” Tamsyn accompanied her upstairs, leaving Gareth and Julian in the hall. If the colonel thought she was going to be stupid enough to throw the cat among the pigeons, then more fool him. She had no intention of denting his sister’s precious innocence.
“So what’s the story, St. Simon?” Gareth asked heartily as the women disappeared up the stairs. “Lucy’s consumed with curiosity about the gal. Little thing, isn’t she?”
“So I owe the pleasure of your company to Lucy’s curiosity,” Julian observed coolly. “Funny, but I’d have laid odds you were in debt, Fortescue, and needed a short respite from the duns.” He turned to the library. “A glass of wine?”
“Thank you.” Gareth followed his host, wishing the older man weren’t quite so cool and quite so perceptive. “I’ll have to ask you to mount me, St. Simon. My horse strained a fetlock just before we left.”
Julian smiled. “Of course,” he said smoothly, handing his guest a glass. “I didn’t expect anything else.”
Gareth’s wine went down the wrong way. “Lucy will be a companion for the chit,” he said when he’d
recovered somewhat. “She’ll be glad of a little feminine company, I’ll be bound. You know what women are like.”
“Yes, on the whole I believe I do,” Julian responded, gesturing to a sofa as he took a seat himself. “Tamsyn, however, is rather out of the common way.” He sipped his wine, then asked, “And how is my sister? I trust marriage suits her.”
It was a pointed question, and Gareth didn’t miss the point. St. Simon had agreed very reluctantly to the marriage, citing Fortescue’s libertine propensities and his runaway extravagance, but his sister had begged and pleaded and threatened to go into a decline if she couldn’t have the one man she could ever love.
“Oh, Lucy’s well enough,” Gareth said. “Gets the megrims occasionally … like most women. You know how they are.”
“Yes, I think we’ve established that I do.” Julian regarded him thoughtfully. “Keeping to the straight and narrow, are you, Gareth?”
Gareth flushed. “Of course.… I’m a married man now. What kind of a question is that?”
“Oh, just the question of a concerned brother,” Julian said casually, reaching for the decanter to refill their glasses.
Upstairs in Lucy’s apartments Tamsyn installed herself on the window seat and prepared to get to know Julian’s sister.
“These are nice rooms,” Lucy said a little wistfully as her maid unbuttoned her gown. “But I always feel strange not sleeping in my old bedchamber when I’m here.” She pulled her shift over her head. “Of course, it’s not big enough for a married couple. And Gareth needs his dressing room.” She dipped a toe into the hip bath of steaming water. “You may leave us now, Maggie. I’ll ring when I need you to dress me.”
The maid curtsied, gathered up the discarded clothes, and hurried out with them.
“Gareth sleeps in his dressing room when he comes in late so he won’t disturb me. He’s very considerate that way.”
