Violet v-5

by Jane Feather

  He raised an eyebrow, regarding the closed door to his cabin, where a marine sentry had taken up his customary post now that the ship's routine was in a fair way to being restored. Interesting, he thought, but for some reason not surprising. He turned to his second lieutenant, who'd taken over from Will Connaught, now commanding the prize crew on the Delphine.

  “We'll splice the mainbrace, Mr. Denny. The crew have earned it.”

  A ragged cheer went up when the order was given, and Hugo nodded to himself, well satisfied. At the moment he had a happy ship.

  In the day cabin Tamsyn remained in Julian's comforting embrace, while Samuel heated up rainwater from a scuttlebutt on deck and filled a hip bath. The baron used to hold her in much the same way on similar occasions, and it felt both natural and reassuring. She was still embarrassed by what she knew must have been a ridiculous display, although she couldn't remember much of what she'd said-only the horrible panic that overwhelmed her at the thought of her flesh tearing.

  She knew it was irrational, but she could no more control it than she could part the waters of the Atlantic.

  Josefa bustled around the cabin, ordering Samuel about in voluble Spanish, commands that he basically ignored, going about his business in his own way.

  Once he'd left them, Julian heard himself instructing the Spanish woman, “Bring a nightgown and robe, Josefa, and then you may leave us.” He hadn't intended to say anything of the sort. He'd intended to deposit his burden on the cushions and leave her in the competent hands of her nurse. Nevertheless, that was what he said.

  Josefa looked as if she didn't care for this instruction, but the colonel's air of authority was intimidating, and her nurseling offered no objection. In fact, Tamsyn's eyes were closed, and it looked as if she was dozing.

  “Ay de mi,” Josefa muttered in customary fashion, and hurried next door to fetch the required items, placing them carefully over a chair. Then she stood irresolute for a minute before hurrying out with an expressive shrug.

  “I'm going to cut these britches off you,” Julian said matter-of-factly. Rational thought told him he was mad to continue along this path, but Tamsyn had so completely relinquished control over herself to him that it seemed natural to complete the task. Both natural, enjoyable, and utterly compelling.

  She was as light and fragile as a leaf in the circle of his arms. The vibrant sexuality he found impossible to resist had vanished, but it was replaced with this soft vulnerability that he found equally irresistible.

  He eased her onto the cushion beside him and pulled off her boots.

  “I can undress myself,” Tamsyn said, sounding stronger. “I've stopped being silly.”

  “Good. But you might as well let me do it now I've started. You don't want to jolt the wound.”

  A little shudder rippled through her, and she immediately lay still as he stripped off her stockings and sliced through the britches with his dirk, peeling them away from her. She felt very sleepy, on the brink of some warm, dark, beckoning chasm, and his hands on her body were infinitely soothing as he removed the last of her clothes. In the back of her mind swam the half formed thought that she was wasting an opportunity here. For some reason, St. Simon had softened toward her, but she couldn't seem to do anything about it except yield to his ministrations. The dark thought of pregnancy writhed to the forefront of her mind, but she couldn't concentrate on it, and it slithered away.

  She lay back in the hot water, her injured thigh propped on the side of the hip bath, while his hands moved over her with a matter-of-fact familiarity more suited to a nursemaid than a lover. She smiled dreamily at the thought, wished again that she could summon the willpower to pursue greater intimacies, then decided she was enjoying this too much to change it even if she could.

  “What are you smiling at?” Julian reached for the towel, aware that he'd been fooling himself There was nothing platonic about what he'd been doing to her body, and his own as a result was on fire.

  “No reason.” Tamsyn regarded him through half-closed eyes, seeing the tension on his face, the tautness of his mouth. She could think of only one reason, and some of her languor dissipated. “I feel very weak,” she said. “I don't think I can stand.”

  Julian swore under his breath, but he'd started this and he had to finish it. He lifted her out of the bath, holding her wet body against him, and she nestled her head into his shoulder with a little murmur of pleasure. Was she doing it deliberately? The suspicion grew.

  Firmly, he sat her on the locker again and wrapped the towel around her. “You can dry yourself sitting down. I'll do your legs and feet.”

  Oh, well, Tamsyn thought, it had been a good try.

  She rubbed herself dry as best she could, and Julian handed her the nightgown, hiding his relief as her body disappeared under the folds of lawn. He handed her the wrapper.

  “Put this on too; then you can put your legs up and rest against the cushions,” he directed, in what he hoped was the neutral and efficient tone of a nurse. “I'll see how Samuel's doing with that hot milk.”

  Tamsyn made herself comfortable. She felt a lot better, but still rather shaky and slightly queasy. She closed her eyes and suddenly opened them again, holding her breath as she listened to her body. The dull cramping ache in the base of her belly was faint but unmistakable. Had the bad bleeding set off the good? Please don't let the cramp go away! The prayer went round and round in her head, blocking out everything else. Please let it get worse.

  Samuel came in with a tray bearing a glass of steaming hot milk. He set it down on the table and laced it liberally with rum from one of the array of bottles the captain kept in a locker. “That'll settle ye, lass,” he declared.

  Julian had helped himself to a glass of Hugo's claret and now sat down at the table, watching Tamsyn as she sipped her milk in preoccupied silence. She looked as soft and innocent as a kitten in her white nightgown and wrapper and that silky silver hair. But he knew a damn sight better. He'd allowed himself to be fooled, and his body was letting him know it in no uncertain fashion.

  Tamsyn put down her glass and said suddenly, “I need the quarter gallery.” She swung her legs off the locker with a vigor that belied her earlier weakness, then grabbed the side of the table with a muttered, “Ouch,” as her leg throbbed painfully.

  With a grim set to his mouth Julian lifted her and carried her into the next-door cabin, setting her down at the door to the privy.

  “Thank you. You don't need to wait, Josefa will help me back.” She smiled sweetly.

  “I'm going on deck,” he said abruptly. “Stay off that leg.” He left her, going swiftly up to the quarterdeck, hoping the air would cool his brain and his overheated blood.

  Tamsyn, when she emerged from the quarter gallery, realized she'd never fully understood what relief was before. Her heart sang with it as she asked Josefa to find the required items in her baggage. Never again… never, ever again would she tempt providence.

  Wrapping the robe securely around her, she hobbled back to the Captain's cabin and ensconced herself under the windows again, looking out at the sweeping expanse of sea, stretching to a gray horizon. She allowed her body to relax, welcoming the fierce cramping, honeyed relief dancing in her veins.

  Julian came into the cabin after half an hour to fetch his boat cloak. The wind was getting up, and they seemed to have left the warmth of Portugal far behind. “How are you?” It was a distant, politely neutral inquiry.

  “Wonderful,” she said with a fervency that startled him. “I have my monthly terms,” she said. “I was late and I was afraid…”

  “I've been waiting for you to say something,” he said flatly.

  “Well it's all right,” Tamsyn responded with a rueful smile, pushing her hair away from her forehead. “And we won't take any risks in future.”

  The colonel's mouth tightened, and his eyes were steel-bright, sword-sharp as he came over to her. “Understand this, Tamsyn. There will be no future. I'll fulfil this damn contract bec
ause I must, but that's as far as it goes. Is that clear?”

  Tamsyn turned her head away from the piercing blue glare, gazing out of the window at the now gray and heaving sea. “If you say so, milord colonel.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE CARRIER JUST DELIVERED A LETTER, MY DEAR. IT looks like St. Simon's hand?” Sir Gareth Fortescue strolled into the breakfast parlor examining the letter in his hand with unusual interest. “Franked in London, by God! I thought your brother was in the Peninsula for the duration.”

  He dropped the letter beside his wife's plate and stared with a jaundiced air at the dishes arrayed on the sideboard. “I don't know how many times I've told that damn cook I like my bacon crisp. Look at this.” He picked up a rasher on the serving fork. “It's as white and soggy as a pig's underbelly.”

  Lucy Fortescue flushed and pushed back her chair with a little murmur of dismay. “I'm so sorry, Gareth, I didn't notice. Shall I ring for Webster and tell him to bring some more?”

  “No, don't bother.” Her husband flung himself into his chair at the head of the table with an irritable grimace. “I'll make do with the sirloin.”

  Lucy hesitated, anxious to read her brother's letter but equally anxious not to neglect her husband at this critical morning juncture. It was clear from his heavy eyes and less than, glowing complexion that Gareth was suffering this morning. She wasn't sure where he'd passed the previous evening, or even the night. It hadn't been in his own bed and certainly not in hers. She didn't enjoy what went on in the marriage bed, but it was essential to a marriage, and it couldn't be right that her husband was so often content to leave her to sleep alone.

  She sighed and then flushed again, afraid that he would have heard the little sound. Gareth detested it when she moped. He read into her unhappiness unspoken criticism and dissatisfaction with her lot.

  Both of which were true. But Lucy swiftly buried that rebellious acknowledgment; her mother had told her more times than she could remember that a wife's duty was to show her husband only unquestioning support and obedience and to accept cheerfully the life he chose to give her. And Julian, after her father's death the only man whose opinions she'd been aware of, obviously shared her mother's viewpoint. Besides, he'd been so much against the match in the first place, she couldn't possibly expect his sympathy because marriage to Sir Gareth Fortescue wasn't all that she'd dreamed it would be.

  But it was very hard. Another little sigh escaped her.

  It was very hard, at eighteen and after only ten months of marriage, to be left alone day and night after day and night while her husband pursued all his old activities and relationships as if he'd never stood at the altar with her.

  “Well?”

  She looked up guiltily at this sharp interrogatory.

  Gareth was scowling, his hand circling a tankard of ale.

  “I beg your pardon, Gareth?”

  “Well, what does your brother have to say?” he demanded impatiently.

  “Oh, I haven't read it yet.” She offered a timid little smile and slit the wafer sealing the missive.

  “Oh,” she said again. The letter was as brief and succinct as all her brother's communications and it took but half a minute to make herself mistress of the contents.

  “Well?”

  “Julian says he's going to be in England for a few months. He has some work to do at Horseguards and at Westminster for the Duke of Wellington, and then he's going to Tregarthan for the summer.”

  “Good God! Whatever for? Has he bought himself out of the army or something?”

  “No, I don't think so,” Lucy said, frowning. “But he says he has someone with him… a… a Spanish lady.” She looked up in clear bewilderment. “He says he owed her father a favor, and when he was dying, he asked Julian to take his daughter under his protection and arrange for her introduction into English society. Apparently she has some Cornish connections that she hopes will acknowledge her.”

  Her china-blue eyes widened as her bewilderment increased. “It doesn't sound at all like Julian, does it?”

  Gareth gave a snort of laughter. “If it were anyone but St. Simon, I'd say he'd brought himself a light skirt back from the wars, but he's such a stickler for the proprieties, he'd never sully the precious turf of Tregarthan with an irregular liaison.”

  Lucy blushed crimson and took a hasty gulp of her tea, choking as the liquid scalded her throat.

  “Don't be such a ninny, Lucy,” Gareth said, not unkindly. “You know something of the facts of life, my dear. You're a married woman now, not a virginal chit. St. Simon's as red-blooded as the next man, he's just deuced strait-laced about where and when he indulges a man's natural urges.”

  “Yes… yes, I suppose so.” Lucy pushed back her chair and stood up hastily. “If you'll excuse me, Gareth, I must talk with cook about the menus.”

  She hastened from the room, leaving her husband to reflect that if St. Simon had been less strait-laced, Lucy might have been a more lively partner, both in bed and out of it. Her brother, ten years older than herself, had been her guardian for the seven years before her marriage, and his notions of propriety when it came to the behavior of a St. Simon were devilish strict.

  It was a pity, really. Gareth refilled his ale tankard, noting with relief that his hangover was dissipating with each gulp. Lucy was a pretty little thing, and he found her soft, feminine roundness quite appealing, but she didn't know the first thing about pleasing a man. It was no wonder he continued to take his pleasures where he'd always taken them.

  His scowl returned abruptly as some memory of the previous evening dimly surfaced through the brandy haze in which he'd spent the majority of the night. Marjorie had been nagging him again. She was always wanting something more. The diamond bracelet he'd given her hadn't been of the first water… the new dressmaker didn't know what she was doing, it was absolutely imperative she patronize Lutece instead. The money was nothing… nothing… not if he truly cared for her… and didn't she make him happy? Happier than a man deserved to be?

  Gareth shifted in his chair, remembering with the familiar ache how very happy Marjorie could make a man. But her price was too damn high-and getting higher by the day.

  He looked around the elegant parlor of the gracious Sussex mansion, out through the windows to the smooth expanse of lush green lawn. His family home had been going to rack and ruin when he'd married Lucy St. Simon. Her dowry had put it to rights, and it was her dowry that was financing Marjorie's expensive tastes… or, rather, his own expensive habits.

  A faint waft of distaste disturbed the normally unruffled surface of his self-assurance, and the astonishing thought presented itself that he might try to break some of those habits. He was a married man, when all was said and done.

  And the pile of bills from his creditors was growing ever larger… tailors and wine merchants and shoemakers and hatters. Tattersall's had to be settled, of course, on settlement day, and his debts of honor couldn't wait either. Fortunately, the tradesmen weren't pressing too hard for payment as yet; his marriage was recent enough to give him fairly extended credit, but he didn't care for the idea of having to apply to his brother in-law for a loan to settle his debts. St. Simon had already cleared a mountain as part of the marriage settlements.

  Not that St. Simon would refuse him, or even pass comment on his brother-in-Iaw's profligacy, but he'd raise one of those bushy red-gold eyebrows and look as mildly incredulous as good breeding permitted.

  No, it wasn't to be countenanced, if it could be avoided. Gareth pushed back his chair and stretched, frowning as an idea percolated through the gradually clearing fog of his hangover. Why not pay St. Simon a visit in the ancestral home? Rustication would be tedious, of course, but it would take him away from the temptations of Marjorie and the racetrack and the gamming tables, not to mention provide respite from his creditors' billets-doux. And maybe it wouldn't be that tedious. It might be amusing to see this Spanish lady St. Simon had under his wing. There was something rum there
… very rum.

  And besides, a little Cornish air would do Lucy the world of good. Quite peaky she'd been looking just recently. She loved Cornwall and all her childhood haunts and would be overjoyed at the prospect of spending a few weeks of the summer there with all her old girlhood friends.

  Firmly convinced that he was acting entirely in his wife's best interests, Gareth Fortescue strolled out of the breakfast parlor to inform Lucy of his brilliant and noble decision.

  “But, Gareth, Julian hasn't invited us.” Lucy turned from the secretaire in her parlor, dropping her pen to the carpet in her dismay. “We can't arrive uninvited.”

  “Oh, nonsense!” Gareth dismissed this with an airy wave. “He's your brother, he'll be delighted to see you. Why, you haven't seen him since the wedding, and even that was only a fleeting visit, he was in such a hurry to get back to his regiment.”

  “Yes… but… but, Gareth, what of this Spanish lady? If he'd wished me to come, he'd have asked me.”

  “He didn't like to ask you to give top your summer to help him with this obligation, depend upon it,” Gareth declared comfortably. “After all, we're still barely home from our honeymoon.”

  He smiled and chucked her beneath the chin. “Depend upon it, Lucy, he'll be grateful to have your help in entertaining this guest. Besides, he should have a hostess if he's entertaining a single lady, even if he is in some fashion her guardian. Your arrival will make everything all right and tight.”

  Bending, he kissed her lightly. “Now, be a good girl and arrange everything, so we may leave by the end of next week. We'll journey by slow stages, so you won’t become fatigued.”

  “Oh, dear,” Lucy murmured as the door closed on her husband's confident departure. While it was wonderful to have Gareth so cheerful and attentive, she knew her brother and knew that an unheralded arrival would not be appreciated. He didn't approve of Gareth, and sometimes Lucy had the sneaking suspicion that he didn't particularly like him, either. Her brother's bright-blue eyes would go cool and flat when he was talking to Gareth or even mentioning him in conversation. And he was always impeccably polite to him, as if to some very distant acquaintance.