Jane Feather - [V Series]

by Violet

  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, clear-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. “Perdón?” she whispered.

  “Your name, whore.” He pinched her other cheek, bringing her face very close 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 on 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-v
oiced 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.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “SHE DOESN’T SPEAK A WORD OF ENGLISH, GOVERNOR.”

  “Who doesn’t?” The viscount looked up irritably at this interruption. He glowered at David, who stood somewhat hesitantly in the doorway of the library, unwilling to come farther without an invitation.

  “St. Simon’s doxy, sir,” Charles put in from behind his brother. “We thought you’d like to know.”

  Cedric carefully folded his newspaper and put it on the sofa beside him. “You thought what?” His black eyes had narrowed. “I trust you haven’t been meddling in my affairs, sir.”

  David shuffled his feet but responded with his habitual note of sulkiness. “You said the other evening at dinner that you’d like to know who she was. We thought you’d like us to find out for you.”

  “And just what could have given you that idea, you bungling clod!” Cedric exploded with a soft ferocity that was all the more alarming for its quietness. The two young men took an involuntary step backward. “Since when have I ever asked you to involve yourself in my business? Just what have you been doing?”

  “We asked the girl a few questions,” David said lamely. “But she doesn’t speak English … rattled on in some foreign language.”

  “Not Froggie, though,” his brother put in helpfully. “We’d have known if it was that.”

  Cedric stared at them in disbelief, wondering how it was that they could still surprise him with their idiocy. “She’s Spanish,” he said deliberately. “As I’ve known for the last two days.”

  “Oh.” Charles scratched his head. “Only trying to help, Governor.”

  “Oh, spare me,” Cedric said in disgust. “Where was the girl when you had this illuminating discussion?” His eyes sharpened. “Not on St. Simon land?”

  “Oh, no, sir,” they said hastily. “She was in Fowey, so we followed her and … and just asked her her name.”

  Cedric leaned back against the sofa and regarded them steadily and with a powerful revulsion. “Did you hurt her?” he asked gently. “Did you hurt a woman under St. Simon’s protection? A woman living as a guest in his house? Of course you didn’t. Of course you wouldn’t do anything so asinine.… Would you?” he shouted suddenly.

  “No, sir … no, of course we didn’t,” they said almost in unison. “We just asked her a few questions.”

  Cedric closed his eyes with a sigh of weary disgust. He knew them too well to believe them. It seemed they could derive sexual pleasure only from causing a woman pain. Their father had had the same quirk, and his wife, a pathetic little mouse, had cowered and hidden her bruises until she’d died from a fall down the stairs when she was six months pregnant. No one who knew Thomas Penhallan had believed Mary had fallen down the stairs. But the twins had inherited his twisted appetites. At least in general they devoted their malign attentions to women of the streets and left their own class alone. It was to be hoped no woman was ever fool enough to marry one of them.

  Presumably in this instance they’d concluded that the girl was St. Simon’s whore and therefore fair game.

  “Besides, she wouldn’t know who we were,” Charles said on a note of pride. “We wore loo masks—”

  “You wore what?”

  “She won’t be able to identify us … not like the other girl,” David explained. “Not that we did hurt her,” he added hurriedly. “It wasn’t like that other time at all.” They looked at their uncle hopefully, still expecting some congratulation on their foresight, at least. There was clearly to be no gratitude for their impulse to assist him.

  Congratulations were not forthcoming. “Get out of here!”

  They fled, and Cedric stared into the empty fireplace, wondering how much damage they’d done. He’d set his own inquiries in motion and had discovered easily that the woman at Tregarthan was Spanish, that she’d come from Spain ostensibly under the protection of Colonel, Lord St. Simon at Wellington’s behest. That was common knowledge in the neighborhood now. Thanks to his nephews’ spying, he knew rather more about the relationship than the neighborhood did. He wasn’t particularly interested in whether St. Simon was sleeping with the girl or not, but he was intrigued as to what had brought them together, and why in the world St. Simon would trouble to bring his mistress from Spain and house her at Tregarthan.

  Who was she and why was she there?

  Whichever way he looked at it, he couldn’t ignore two facts: the girl bore an uncanny resemblance to Celia; and she was Spanish.

  Pure coincidence? No, Cedric didn’t believe in coincidence. He believed in planning and minds as devious as his own.

  The abduction had gone according to plan, except for that fool Marianne, who had lived to tell the tale. However, he’d dealt with her easily enough—fear, a generous pension, and a secluded cottage in the Highlands had ensured her silence. She’d been dead these last ten years, carrying the secret to her grave. But had Celia escaped from her abductor? Escaped … married some Spaniard … fathered a child?

  It didn’t make sense. If she’d escaped, she would have come home. It wouldn’t occur to her that her brother could have had anything to do with some robber on a mountain pass. And if the girl was legitimately Celia’s daughter, why didn’t she come out and say so?

  If she did have anything to do with Celia, then he had to deal with her. A matter somewhat complicated by St. Simon’s protection. And further complicated by the fact that she now knew that someone was unusually interested in her. It was, of course, possible that she wouldn’t be able to identify her masked attackers. She was a stranger, she’d certainly never seen the twins before. There was no reason why she should connect them with himself … unless she told St. Simon of the attack. He would have little difficulty naming those louts. But there was no reason why he should link their behavior with Cedric. He would be most likely to assume that they were up to their old tricks again.

  He got up and poured himself a cognac, rolling the amber liquid on his tongue, frowning. If the girl did have anything to do with Celia, what could she possibly want? She had to want something. Everyone wanted something. Was it money she was after?

  Well, whatever it was, he would discover soon enough. Perhaps he could encourage her to reveal her hand.

  “It wouldn’t be a big party, Julian,” Lucy said, her china-blue eyes glowing with enthusiasm. “Just ten couples or so, and the usual families. No formal dancing, although perhaps we could roll up the carpet after supper. Not an elaborate supper—”

  “My dear Lucy,” Julian interrupted, raising a hand to halt the flow. “If you wish to give a small party, I have no objection. The only question is whether Tamsyn wishes to try her society wings so soon.”

  “Oh, of course she does,” Lucy said warmly. “It won’t be in the least alarming. Everyone is so kind and they’re all so interested in her and want to get to know her. You do wish to, don’t you, Tamsyn?”

  Tamsyn, who’d been listening to Lucy’s bubbling excitement with some amusement, said obligingly, “If you say so, Lucy.”

  “But you know how you become quite overcome with shyness and forget all your English,” Julian pointed out casually, leaning back in his chair, regarding her from beneath drooping eyelids. “Do you think you’re really ready to burst upon the social scene without becoming completely incomprehensible?”

  “But Tamsyn speaks perfectly good English,” Gareth protested, frowning as he flicked with his handkerchief at a spot of dust on his glistening Hessians. “Nativ
e, I would have said.”

  “Ah, that may seem to be the case,” Julian said gently. “But, unfortunately, under pressure she forgets all her English and lapses into streams of Spanish.”

  “I believe I’ve conquered my shyness,” Tamsyn declared with dignity. “I believe I’ll be able to conduct myself without disgracing you, milord colonel.”

  “Do you, now?” He stroked his chin, still regarding her with lazy amusement.

  Lucy glanced quickly between them. Most of the time Julian treated Tamsyn with a careful, almost distant, politeness, and it was very difficult to believe what she and Gareth had seen in the corridor. Sometimes, though, as now, there would be something about their conversation or the way they looked at each other that hinted at some shared secret.

  “Tamsyn couldn’t possibly disgrace you,” she said a little awkwardly. “And I will stay beside her the whole evening and show her how to go on if she has any difficulties.”

  “Then it seems the matter is settled,” her brother said, his voice once more cool and matter-of-fact. “Just don’t expect me to make any of the arrangements. You may tell Hibbert to provide the wine and champagne from the cellars.”

  “We must have an iced punch,” Lucy declared, leaping to her feet. “It was all the rage in London last Season. Amabel Featherstone has a wonderful recipe—I’m sure I wrote it in my pocketbook. I’m certain Mrs. Hibbert will be able to make it up.”

  She headed for the door, her usual indolence vanished. “Tamsyn, come and help me decide on the supper menu. And you could help me with the invitations, if you don’t mind. It’s tedious work writing them all out, but if we can do them all this evening, then Judson shall deliver them in the morning.”

  “When are we to have this party?” Tamsyn inquired, reluctantly abandoning her plan for an evening gallop on Cesar.

  Lucy paused to consider. “Next Saturday. Would that be all right, Julian?”

  “Oh, perfectly,” he said. “With any luck I should be able to wangle an invitation somewhere else.”