Violet v-5

by Jane Feather

  “Bully'“ she mouthed, her own gaze sparkling.

  “Virago!” He left on the whisper, and Tamsyn turned her attention to Gareth, who tried to pretend he hadn't been straining his ears to catch the whispered colloquy.

  “Good morning, Gareth. Is Lucy still abed?” She sat down and took a piece of toast from the rack. “Could you pass the coffee, please?”

  Gareth obliged. “Lucy usually takes her breakfast above stairs.” He found himself examining her covertly, his memory alive with the image of her body beneath her clothes. He wondered if she'd be open to a proposition from himself. He ought to be able to match whatever Julian was offering her. Unfortunately, he didn't see how he could make such a proposal while they were both under St. Simon's roof. A man didn't poach on another man's territory while he was enjoying his hospitality. But maybe while Julian was in London, he might sound her out.

  The prospect brought a smile to his lips, and unconsciously he touched his mustache, smoothing it with a fingertip.

  Tamsyn buttered her toast, wondering what could have brought that irritating smirk to his face. She fervently hoped it was nothing to do with her. Could he have heard anything last night? No, their voices in the corridor hadn't risen above a whisper, and everyone had been asleep.

  She left the breakfast parlor while Gareth was just settling into his second plate of sirloin. Those pudgy thighs weren't going to get any the less so, she reflected, but one woman's meat was another's poison.

  “Tamsyn, good morning.”

  Lucy's voice aptly broke into Tamsyn's charitably philosophic reflection. Lucy was coming down the stairs, her expression both excited and a little shy.

  “Good morning.” Tamsyn greeted her pleasantly, relieved to see that she seemed to have recovered her good humor over night. ''I'm going for a walk. Do you care to accompany me?”

  “Oh, yes, I should love to. I'll just fetch my parasol and pelisse.”

  “Oh, you won't need those. It's very warm out, and I intend to go to St. Catherine's Point. It's quite a scramble over the cliff, so you won't want to carry clutter.”

  Lucy, expecting a gentle, chatty stroll through the shrubbery, was aghast at such a prospect; however, she said stoically, “No, of course I won't. Are you leaving now?”

  “If you're ready,” Tamsyn said politely.

  They were halfway down the drive when Gabriel appeared through the trees, on foot, a gun over one shoulder, a game bag over the other. “Where are you going, little girl?”

  “To St. Catherine's Point. Then into Fowey to buy some needle and thread for Josefa.”

  He nodded, smiled amiably at Lucy, and continued on his way.

  “Your servant is very familiar.”

  “Gabriel is no servant, and don't ever treat him as one,” Tamsyn said. “He becomes very upset. He was my father's most trusted friend, and he looks after me.”

  “You must do things very differently in Spain,” Lucy observed, feeling for a way to start the conversation she had in mind.

  “You could say that.” Tamsyn struck out toward the steeply rising cliff path, her stride long and easy. Lucy puffed behind her, waving at flies that swarmed around her as the sweat started to break out on her forehead.

  “You talk about things differently.” They reached the crest of the path and Lucy stopped, gasping in the cool breeze now blowing fresh from the sea stretched out below them. “I mean the things you said your mother had told you.” Her cheeks were hot, and she knew it wasn't just the result of exertion.

  Tamsyn's laugh lilted on the wind. “Your mother didn't tell you such things, I imagine?” She started off again, running down the path toward a ledge that hung out over the Fowey estuary, just above the ruined walls of St. Catherine's fort, which once had commanded the entrance to the river as part of Henry VIII's coastal defense system.

  By the time Lucy had reached her, Tamsyn had kicked off her sandals and was stretched on her stomach, gazing down at the fort, and across the wide mouth of the estuary. A clipper, laden with china clay, was tacking out of the estuary to the sea.

  “No, she didn't,” Lucy said, dropping to the grass beside her, wondering if she would get grass stains on her pale cambric gown. “The only thing she ever said to me about marriage was that there were some aspects that were not pleasant, but it was one's duty to endure them.”

  “Lie back and think of England!” Tamsyn said in disgust, chewing on a strand of grass. “And I don't suppose your brother mentioned anything either?”

  “Julian!” Lucy stared at her in horror. “He couldn't talk about things like that to me!”

  “Oh.” Tamsyn decided it would be dangerous to discuss Julian in such a context in case she inadvertently gave something away.

  “I know it's not at all respectable of me to want to talk about such things,” Lucy ventured.

  Tamsyn laughed and rolled onto her back, squinting against the sun. “Respectability can make life very dull. I'll wager you anything that Gareth would much prefer an unrespectable woman in his bed.”

  “He has plenty of those,” Lucy said tartly, and then gasped, amazed at herself for saying such a shocking thing.

  Tamsyn merely grinned. “But if he had one at home, then he probably wouldn't need to wander off quite so often.”

  “So what do I have to do to be unrespectable?” Lucy demanded. “Since you seem to know so much about it.” It was on the tip of her tongue to say what she and Gareth had seen in the night, but she was too embarrassed to admit to having watched in secret… and far too embarrassed to admit that they'd both found the watching curiously exciting.

  “I'll tell you, if you promise not to say a word to your brother. If he thinks I've been corrupting you, he'll throw me out of the house.”

  “Would he?” Lucy breathed. She found her brother thoroughly intimidating, but after what she'd seen last night, she couldn't imagine Tamsyn accepting such a decree without a murmur.

  “Probably,” Tamsyn said. “So you must promise.”

  “I promise.”

  Tamsyn smiled into the sunshine and began to impart to the wide-eyed innocent beside her some of the joys of love.

  It was a very thoughtful Lucy who walked alone back to Tregarthan an hour later at a much slower pace than the one set by Tamsyn on the way to the point.

  Tamsyn took the steep, winding path down to the town, deep in thought. It was gratifying to put someone else's life in order, even if she couldn't understand what Lucy could possibly see in Gareth Fortescue. He didn't strike her as seriously unpleasant so much as lazy, conceited, and self-indulgent. Quite usual characteristics of the English male aristocrat, if Cecile was to be believed. He wasn't a man to be solely contented with the marriage bed, however satisfying that bed might be, but presumably Lucy would find it easier to accommodate her husband's wanderings if she was herself no longer dissatisfied. They'd certainly seem less threatening to the stability of her marriage.

  She made her purchases in the draper's and strolled in the sunshine along the quay. David and Charles Penhallan saw her from the steps of the white Customs House, where they were talking with the Revenue Officer, a portly gentlemen who struggled daily with the paradox of having to do a job that went against his own interests. For a man who loved his wine and cognac as Lieutenant Barker did, preventing the Gentlemen from making their runs was the devil's own work. He was an expert at turning a blind eye, and the smugglers generally let him know when it would be expedient for him to do so.

  “Lord Penhallan was remarking only the other day that since he started using mantraps at Lanjerrick, his gamekeepers have noticed much less poaching.” He stroked his rotund belly and belched softly. Kippers for breakfast always sat heavily, but he couldn't resist them. “I was thinking of mentioning it to Lord St. Simon. His bailiff was lamenting how many pheasants they were losing…” His voice faded as he realized that he was talking to thin air. The Penhallan twins had moved away and were sauntering down the street.

  Tamsyn walked
back up the narrow, steep streets of the little town, pausing now and again to look over the jumbled roofs below her, looking down· into small walled cottage gardens fragrant with roses, fishing nets drying in the sun, crab pots piled in corners.

  Could she live here? Leave the wild passes and the soaring eagles, the smell of crushed thyme beneath her feet, the ice-capped mountain peaks, the clear, frigid mountain rivers? Leave the punishing summer sun for this gentle cousin; leave the air so sharp it pierced your lungs for this soft air, as gentle as spring rain?

  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, dear-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. “Perdon?” she whispered.

  “Your name, whore.” He pinched her other cheek, bringing her face very dose 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 oh 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 voiced 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?”