by Jane Feather
As he approached the house, a massive shadow fell across his path. His heart jumped into his throat, and he whirled to see the giant Gabriel behind him, holding a lantern. Gabriel grinned amiably. “I hope you enjoyed your evening. Good company these Cornish folk, I find.”
Gareth was dumbfounded at being spoken to with such familiarity by a servant. “My good man-”
“Och, aye, laddie, I'm no' your man… good or otherwise,” Gabriel said with no diminution in his affability. ''I'm no' a servant, either. My job's to look after the bairn as I see fit… just that. So to avoid any unpleasantness, I suggest you bear that in mind. I'll be bidding you good night, now.” Gabriel turned toward the side of the house, then paused, glancing over his shoulder. “By the by, laddie. I'd not be paying too much attention to Jebediah's woman, either, if I were you.” And he walked off around the house, whistling to himself, leaving Gareth staring in mute and indignant astonishment.
Gabriel turned up his nose in the darkness. The colonel's brother-in-law was a blockhead. Put a pistol in his hand, and he'd probably shoot his foot. Couldn't hold his liquor, either. He turned into the stable yard and climbed the outside stairs at the side of the stable block to the whitewashed room he shared with Josefa. He preferred the privacy out here away from the house, and the room above the stables much more closely resembled the simple cottage rooms that he and Josefa were accustomed to.
She greeted him softly as he ducked beneath the low lintel and entered the cheerful, tidy room. His woman had a talent for creating domestic comfort wherever they happened to fetch up, even in the most unlikely places. In fact, Gabriel often said she could make a home under a cactus. He flung himself into a low chair, and Josefa bustled over to pull off his boots.
“I came across those cousins of the bairn's tonight,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt as Josefa poured him his nightly tankard of rum. The woman nodded, her eyes bright with understanding as she took his shirt and carefully folded it.
“Right nasty-looking pair,” he went on, kicking off his britches, standing on one leg to pull off his sock. “They'll bear watching.” He stood on the other leg to remove his other sock before pushing off his woolen drawers.
Josefa gathered up his garments as they fell to the floor, folding them with loving care and placing them in a cedar chest. She didn't say anything while he mused, imparting little snippets of information, more to clarify things in his own mind then to share his thoughts. But she heard and nodded, and he knew she was storing it all away, and if he ever needed advice or an opinion, she would give it sensibly, so long as it was solicited.
He drained his tankard and with a groan of contentment fell onto the bed, the bed ropes creaking mightily under his weight. Josefa clambered in beside him, and he reached for her warm, soft, accommodating roundness, burying his head in the pillowy bosom. She made a little clucking sound of pleasure and wrapped her short arms around him as far as they would go, opening herself readily as he burrowed into her.
“You're a pearl, woman,” Gabriel muttered, and she smiled and stroked his back. “But those twins will definitely bear watching.”
Gareth's indignation was only exacerbated when he entered the house and saw that his new Hessians were caked with mud and gave off a pungent farmyard aroma. The hall was dimly lit with a thick wax candle on a table at the foot of the stairs, two carrying candles beside it. A light showed beneath the library door. Presumably St. Simon was still up and would claim the second candle.
Presumably someone would also lock up. Or perhaps they didn't bother in this neck of the woods.
Gareth lit his candle and stomped up the stairs. Two candles in wall sconces lit the long corridor, and the house was very quiet. He found his way to the bedchamber at the end of the corridor and opened the door softly. The curtains were drawn around the bed, moonlight filtering through the thin summer curtains at the window.
“Is that you, Gareth?” Lucy's voice spoke nervously from the tented bed.
“And who else would it be?” He realized he sounded ungracious, but the reek from his boots was almost overpowering. He yanked them off against the andirons, picked them up, and deposited them gingerly outside the door for the boot boy.
He undressed, put on his nightshirt, and took a step toward his dressing room. Then he paused. He was damned if he was going to be deprived of a decent bed when he didn't have anything to feel guilty about… nothing to send him to the narrow daybed next door. He blew out his candle and pulled back the bed curtains. Lucy was curled on the far edge of the bed, a lace cap on her brown hair. He slid in beside her. Her sweet-smelling warmth filled the dark cavern of the bed. He reached out to touch her and felt her immediate recoil.
Sighing, he rolled onto his side, facing away from her. He was no brute, and he hated it when she wept and shivered beneath him and he knew he was hurting her. Every now and again he forced both of them to go through the motions, because there must be a child of the union. Once he had an heir or two, then they could both let the whole miserable business slide.
He closed his eyes and conjured up the image of Marjorie, her knowing hands, her lascivious little wriggles.
Lucy lay wide-eyed in the darkness, trying not to weep, thinking of the shocking things Tamsyn had said. How dared she talk in that fashion? And how in the world did she know about such things… an unmarried girl?
Julian heard Gareth's return and waited until his footsteps had receded on the stairs; then he snuffed the candles and left the library. He locked and barred the front door, lit his own candle, extinguished the wax taper, and made his way up to bed, leaving the candles alight in the sconces in case anyone wandered abroad at night.
His own apartments, consisting of bedchamber, dressing room, and private parlor, occupied the center of the house with a sweep of mullioned windows facing the lawns and the sea. On either side were the tower rooms. Opposite were a string of guest apartments, the largest being occupied by his sister and her husband.
He let himself into his bedchamber, feeling restless and yet jaded. His sister's marital problems depressed him, but that was not at the root of his dissatisfaction. Part of it was the acute discomfort of his own need aroused by the liquid light of inviting arousal in Tamsyn's eyes, the catlike sensuality of her body in the chair. That was part of it, but it was also caused by distaste at his own roughness. He'd hurt her without a word of explanation and certainly without justification. She had done everything she could that evening to repair the breach between them, and then she had offered herself in her customary open, trusting fashion with no expectation of rejection. He'd seen the flash of shock, the glitter of tears in her eyes, before he'd turned from her, and he couldn't rid himself of the image.
He closed the door of his bedchamber and then turned back to the room, holding his carrying candle high. For a crazy moment he thought he was seeing simply the figment of his imagination, and then he knew that of course he should have expected it. Tamsyn was not one to accept rejection, however hurt and vulnerable she might have looked.
She sat naked on the window seat in the moonlight, chin cupped in her palm as she looked out over the silver-washed lawns to the horizon where black velvet sky met the midnight-blue line of the sea.
And his pulse raced… his blood sang.
“There you are,” she said cheerfully, as if they'd never had a cross word. “I was beginning to think you'd stay up over your work-if that's what it was-all night.”
“What the hell are you doing in here?” he demanded in a fierce whisper, fighting himself, fighting yet again the knowledge that there would never be another woman in his life like this one. He set his candle on the table. “I told you that for as long as my sister's in the house, you may not come in here.”
“You weren't that specific,” Tamsyn said, uncurling herself from the window seat. “Besides, your sister's tucked up in bed.” She slipped from the seat and came toward him. “Everyone's asleep, milord colonel. Who could possibly know what goes on behind these do
ors?”
“That is not the point,” he declared, shrugging out of his coat. “My sister is an innocent young girl. We know that doesn't mean anything to you, but-” “Oh, please don't start that again,” Tamsyn pleaded, so close to him now he could sense the warmth of her bare skin even through his shirt and the fine knit of his pantaloons. “Must we quarrel about it again?”
Julian looked down at her helplessly. The liquescent eyes, the slight quiver of her soft mouth, the imploring voice, were totally unexpected. He thought he knew how to handle the fiery brigand, but he didn't have the faintest idea how to deal with this manifestation.
“Look, Tamsyn,” he tried. “I realize it's hard for you to understand. Lucy must seem like some precious flower to you. A rare orchid in a hothouse, she's such a tender-”
“Oh, estupido!” Tamsyn exclaimed, forgetting all her resolutions to be conciliatory and feminine and loving under this disgustingly sugary misrepresentation of the facts. “For your information, your precious, tender little sister has been so violently shocked by the marriage bed and that insensitive lout of a husband you allowed her to marry that she's unlikely ever to recover if someone doesn't do her a kindness and open her eyes to the realities. “
Julian tore off his cravat with a rush of relief. He glared at her, his eyes points of blue fire. This Tamsyn he could deal with. “When it comes to my sister, I'm not in the least interested in the opinion of an unschooled, misbegotten hellion who's never learned to obey convention.”
“Oh, pah!” Tamsyn declared in disgust. “Convention!” she mocked. “Convention as applied to women. It doesn't apply to Gareth, does it? He can go spreading his favors around to all and sundry, and that's considered perfectly acceptable.”
“No, it's not!” Julian snapped, pulling his shirt out of his britches and tossing it to the floor. In the passion of the moment it didn't occur to him that stripping of his clothes in front of the naked Tamsyn might be offering a mixed message. “As it happens, I hold no brief whatsoever for Gareth's indiscretions… any more than I do for yours.”
“And what of yours?” she retorted. “These indiscretions, as you so delicately phrase them, take two. I haven't noticed you being a particularly unwilling partner hitherto, milord colonel.”
Her eyes flashed, and her small body was rigid with angry conviction. “If there's one thing I cannot abide, it's a hypocrite.”
“I am not in the least hypocritical where my sister is concerned,” he snapped, kicking off his boots. “I will not have her innocence sullied by your experience!”
“Sullied!” Tamsyn exclaimed. “You dare to accuse me of sullying your sister as if I were some loathsome piece of scum! The only person who's sullied Lucy is her damned husband. And so I tell you.”
Bending in one fluid movement, she grabbed up his discarded shirt. “If you'd done the decent thing by your sister, if you'd really cared for her, you would have given her a few of the facts of life and she wouldn't be in this position now. I bid you good night, Colonel, I've no time for blind hypocrites.” And she pushed past him to the door, shoving her arms into the sleeves of his shirt as she did so.
“Don't you walk off like that! Come back here.”
Forgetting that the one thing he'd wanted was Tamsyn's absence from his room, Julian grabbed her arm. “Explain yourself!”
She twitched free and darted sideways out of his reach. “You work it out for yourself, sir.”
He sprang forward, and in the same moment Tamsyn grabbed the water jug off the washstand. Her eyes were living coals.
“Oh, no,” he said softly. “Don't you dare.”
“I dare,” she said, and hurled the contents at him.
In the room across the hall, Lucy shot up in bed at the roaring bellow of an outraged bull. “Whatever's going on?”
“God knows.” Gareth pulled himself up sleepily.
He'd been about to sink into the blissful world of alcoholic slumber and now sat blinking in the dark, trying to decipher the thumps and bangs. “Sounds like a fight of some kind.”
“A fight?” Lucy pushed aside the bedclothes. “Who could be fighting in the house at this hour… at any hour?”
Gareth listened, his head to one side. There was another shivering crash, a bellow that definitely came from his brother-in-law, followed by a squeal of rage in a much higher range.
“Good God,” he said again. “It's coming from your brother's room.” He swung out of bed, shoving aside the curtains. “It couldn't be an intruder, surely.”
He'd reached the door, Lucy on his heels, when the sound of St. Simon's door opening and then violently slamming made them both jump. The door opened again immediately on the slam.
A finger to his lips, Gareth gently eased their door ajar, and they peered into the dimly lit corridor, eyes stretched at the extraordinary sight before them.
Julian, wearing only his britches, water dripping from his hair, leaped after the slight figure of Tamsyn, clad only in his discarded shirt.
“Come back here!” Julian's fierce whisper echoed in the deserted corridor.
“Go to hell!” Tamsyn hissed over her shoulder, losing speed for a fatal instant as she did so.
Julian grabbed the collar of his shirt. “You're not getting away with it, mi muchacha!”
With a deft wriggle Tamsyn shrugged out of the shirt and raced on, leaving him holding the empty garment.
“Fiera!” Julian's voice was still a whisper, but now the stunned audience, cowering in the shadows, heard both laughter and powerful determination.
He sprang forward and tackled Tamsyn, diving for her waist, sweeping her off her feet. For a moment her body arced through the air, then she came to rest across his shoulder with a low wail of indignation.
“Espadachin! Miserable cur!” She reared up against his shoulder, pummelling with her fists, forgetting the need for quiet in her outrage.
“I should settle down, buttercup,” Julian said, his voice soft, his tone affable, as he turned back to his room. “You're presenting rather a tempting target at the moment.”
“Oh, I'll kill you,” Tamsyn declared, dropping forward again. “Gabriel will cut out your black, hypocritical heart and I'll catch your blood in my hat.”
Julian's low laugh lingered in the corridor as he went back into his room with his burden, closing the door quietly behind him.
“Well, I'll be damned!” Gareth murmured, looking down at Lucy. “I'll be damned!” He became aware of his own powerful arousal and the swift surge of blood in his loins. The sight of Tamsyn's naked body curved over Julian's shoulder, glowing under the candlelight, had excited him almost beyond bearing.
“So that's what she meant,” Lucy whispered, gazing up at her husband. “She said she knew things…”
Her voice faded as she saw Gareth's expression. She was aware of a strange tingling sensation in her body, little prickles of excitement in her belly, and she wondered what it could be.
“Lucy,” Gareth said huskily. His palm cupped her cheek as he read the almost bewildered thrill in her eyes, the flush on her cheeks. Could she also be affected by that scene? She didn't move away from him, and he lifted her against him, feeling her skin soft and warm, the rich curve of her bottom beneath her nightgown. Her nightcap fell off as she moved her head against his shoulder. He bent and laid her gently on the bed.
For the first time she allowed him to remove her nightgown, and when he touched her, she was moist and open, although her limbs became abruptly rigid, her expression taut with apprehension.
“It'll be all right,” he said softly, hardly able to contain himself, but somehow managing to control the vigorous surge of his entry so that she didn't tighten against him as she had always done in the past. It was over very quickly, but when he rolled away from her, he knew that for once he hadn't hurt her, and his own explosion of pleasure had seared him to his toes.
Lucy lay thoughtfully in the darkness, listening to Gareth's gradually deepening snores. She felt most peculi
ar, but also quite pleasantly relaxed. But she had the unshakable conviction that what she had just experienced was as nothing to what Tamsyn was experiencing in Julian's bed.
She was Julian’s mistress. How exotic, and how shocking. No wonder she seemed so different, and no wonder she'd offered her opinion so freely. Well, in the morning Lucy would seek more of those opinions. She certainly had a new perspective on her strait-laced brother, though. An involuntary giggle escaped her, and she turned her-face into her pillow. She'd take his strictures a little less to heart in future.
Gareth wasn't sure how to greet his brother-in-law the following morning, but Julian's “Good morning” over the breakfast, table was accompanied by an imperturbable smile and the civil invitation to look over his stud and take any horse that met his fancy, with the exception of Soult.
“I rode Soult from Badajos to Lisbon,” Julian explained. “But the rest of my campaigning string is in the charge of my groom in Spain.”
“When do you expect to return?” Gareth piled kedgeree onto his plate and sat down, filling his tankard from the jug of ale.
“By October at the latest. I have to be in London again next month.” He wiped his mouth and tossed his napkin to the table. “Well, if you'll excuse me, Gareth, I've work to do.”
He strode to the door just as it opened to admit Tamsyn, in a high-necked, long-sleeved dress of sprigged muslin. “Good morning, milord colonel.”
“Good morning, Tamsyn.” His voice was cool, his eye amused, as he noticed that she had chosen a costume that covered every inch of her skin. They'd both acquired a few bruises in the night's rough-and-tumble.
“Don't let me keep you, sir.”
“I won't. Termagant!” he added in a soft whisper. He flicked her cheek carelessly; the residue of passion still lurked in his eyes… that and laughter. He'd woken up laughing, convinced he'd been laughing in his sleep.