by Violet
“No, it’s not,” Tamsyn said stoutly, pulling on her other boot. “But I don’t think your brother would like to know that you know, so you will make sure Gareth doesn’t bumble into a confession, won’t you?” It explained Gareth’s winks and innuendos and the sometimes calculating look she’d encountered. He was probably sizing up his chances of stepping into Julian’s shoes should they become vacant, Tamsyn thought with an inner grimace.
“Of course Gareth wouldn’t say anything,” Lucy declared a touch defensively. “He’s not indiscreet.”
“No,” Tamsyn said, unconvinced. She could well imagine Gareth’s approaching Julian with a hearty masculine laugh and a wink and the invitation to share the juicier aspects of his liaison. But she could as well imagine Julian’s response, and if Gareth could imagine it, too, then he would hold his tongue.
“Well,” she said, “that is one reason why I’m going back to Spain.”
“Do you think you’ll marry Julian?” Lucy was frowning now, nibbling her bottom lip.
Tamsyn swiveled on the stool to face the mirror as she tied the crisp linen stock at her neck. “Do you think I’d make him a good wife?” she countered lightly.
Lucy didn’t immediately reply, and Tamsyn wished she hadn’t asked. Then Lucy said, “If you love him, then of course you would. Do you?”
“Yes.” She turned back to the room. “But I doubt your brother thinks I would make an appropriate Lady St. Simon.”
“Well, you are rather … well, rather unlikely,” Lucy said slowly. “But I don’t think that should make any difference.”
Tamsyn shrugged into her jacket. A full description of exactly how unlikely she was would require several hours of explanation that Lucy would find hard to credit. “Mistresses usually don’t become wives,” she said casually. “Lucy, I have to run an important errand, so you must excuse me. I’ll see you at dinner.” She went to the door and opened it invitingly.
“Where are you going?” Lucy, with obvious reluctance, prepared to leave the room. “Shall I accompany you?”
“No, because I intend to ride Cesar, and there isn’t a horse in the stable that you can ride that would keep up with him.” Tamsyn smiled to soften the statement. Lucy was a dreadful horsewoman, and Tamsyn suddenly vividly remembered the moment outside Badajos when Cesar had shied and the colonel had grabbed her bridle. She’d been furious, and he’d explained that he was used to being on the watch when riding with his sister.
Lucy pulled a face but didn’t argue further. “I’ll see you later, then.”
“Yes.” Tamsyn waved from the door as the other woman trailed rather mournfully down the corridor to her own room.
Tamsyn closed the door with a sigh of relief and began to gather things together.
Copies of the documents Cecile had given her went into the pocket of her cloak; the locket was around her neck, as usual. The original documents were hidden in a jewel cask in the armoire. She thrust her pistol into the waistband of her skirt and strapped knives to each calf over her britches.
She didn’t expect this meeting with Cedric Penhallan to turn violent. But just in case, she was prepared, both physically and mentally. Her head was clear, her heart cold and determined and filled with vengeance. She was going to drop like a bolt from the blue into the vicious, orderly world of Cedric Penhallan. And she was going to claim her mother’s diamonds as the price of her silence. It could be called blackmail, of course, if one was being a particularly fussy stickler for ethics, but she was dealing with an attempted murderer … and goodness knows what other crimes he’d committed in the interests of ambition throughout his long career. It was simple justice. And besides, the diamonds belonged to her.
An inconvenient little voice trilled that Julian would say it was still blackmail, however you painted it. But he was safely in London and never going to find out.
Josefa came bustling in as she was putting on her hat, a rather dashing tricorn. The Spanish woman was wreathed in smiles and hadn’t stopped smiling since they’d returned with the glorious news that they were going home. She rushed around the room, picking up Tamsyn’s discarded afternoon gown, scolding her nurseling for her untidiness, but her smile unwavering.
“Josefa, I’m going for a ride, if anyone wants to know. I’ll be back by five o’clock at the latest.” Tamsyn planted a kiss on one shiny round cheek and left the room, running down to the stables.
Five minutes later she was on the road to Lanjerrick. She and Gabriel had ridden over one afternoon a few weeks before, to get a sense of the extent of the Penhallan estates, but they hadn’t entered the grounds. The gray stone house stood on a promontory overlooking St. Austell Bay and was easily seen from the road. It was a house of turrets and gables, with a steeply pitched roof and transomed windows. Tamsyn had taken an instant dislike to it, finding it forbidding after the soft, golden warmth of Tregarthan.
She turned through the stone gate posts and rode up a weed-infested drive. Apprehension and excitement prickled along her spine as she left the road behind her and rode deeper into Penhallan land. This was Cecile’s home, the place where she had spent the years of her growing. Had it changed much in the last twenty years? Had she missed it much? Tamsyn realized she’d never given that question any thought. Cecile had always seemed so joyful in her life that it was hard to imagine she had any regrets. But perhaps sometimes she had thought of her childhood home with nostalgia, as Tamsyn thought now with an ache of longing of the mountain villages and the icy peaks of her own childhood.
The drive opened out into a gravel sweep, and the house loomed, ivy covered, the stonework cracked in places, its windows curiously blank, like blind eyes. It struck Tamsyn as strange that a man as rich and powerful as Cedric Penhallan should neglect his property. When Cecile had talked of Lanjerrick, she’d described its magnificence, the grand parties, the weekend shooting parties, the endless stream of guests. But there had been women in the house then. Now there was only Cedric and the vile twins. Presumably they didn’t notice the air of neglect.
She rode boldly up to the front door and dismounted. As she did so, the door opened and a liveried flunkey in an old-fashioned powdered wig stepped out. “You have business here?”
“Yes, I’m come to call upon Lord Penhallan,” Tamsyn said cheerfully, tethering Cesar to the stone pillar at the base of the steps leading up to the front door.
The flunkey looked momentarily nonplussed. Taking advantage of his uncertainty, Tamsyn swiftly mounted the steps. “Would you announce me to the viscount?” Without waiting for a response she pushed past him and stepped into the hall. An expanse of black and white marble tiles stretched to the staircase, and light came from a series of arched diamond-paned windows along one wall. As she stood looking around, curiosity now superseding her apprehension, a pair of greyhounds leaped out of nowhere and raced past her.
“Walters, what the devil are you doing?” An irascible voice rasped from the rear of the hall. “Close the bloody door, man, before the dogs get out.”
The door banged shut behind her, and the two dogs sloped back into the shadows.
“Who in the name of the good Christ are you?” the same voice demanded. Cedric Penhallan came forward, glaring into the gloom. Then he stopped as he saw his visitor clearly.
Tamsyn raised her head and looked her uncle full in the face as she had done at the party at Tregarthan. She saw, as then, a choleric countenance, flat black eyes, a shock of iron-gray hair, a beaky nose above a fleshy mouth. A massive, powerful frame beginning to run to fat. Her scalp lifted as she felt that aura of menace flowing around him, and for the first time she felt fear.
Cedric stared at her. The minutes passed, and the only sound in the room was the scratch of a dog’s claws on the tiles. “Who are you?” His voice was suddenly quiet, a strange light enlivening his hard eyes. He knew the answer but he wanted it spoken.
Tamsyn stepped closer to him on a sudden surge of exultation, banishing her fear. He knew and yet he couldn’t b
elieve what he was seeing. “Good afternoon, uncle.”
“Good God, it’s St. Simon’s doxy!” Before Cedric could respond, the slurred voice of Charles Penhallan came from the stairs. He held a wineglass in one hand and his eyes were unfocused. “Look what we’ve got here, David. The little whore’s come back for more.” He laughed and came down the stairs, only then seeing his uncle.
“Beg pardon, sir. But what’s St. Simon’s harlot doing here?”
“Don’t be any more of a fool than you can help,” Cedric said coldly. He jerked his head at Tamsyn. “Come in here.”
She moved to follow him, aware that David had joined his brother on the stairs. It was very fortunate Gabriel was not with her. They were both regarding her with a lascivious, drunken interest. She glanced up at them. “What a pretty pair of cowardly sots, you are, cousins. Have you had fun with any little girls recently?” Then she followed Cedric into a large paneled library.
“Where have you come from?” He spoke from the sideboard, where he was pouring cognac with hands that weren’t quite steady.
Tamsyn didn’t answer the question, saying instead, “I look very like her, don’t I?” She felt rather than heard the twins stepping into the room behind her.
Cedric tossed back the contents of the glass. “Yes,” he said. “The very image of her. Where is she?”
“Dead. But she lived rather longer than you’d intended.” Tamsyn was beginning to enjoy herself; all her fear had gone. She glanced again at her cousins, who were standing by the door, gawping in incomprehension. “Long enough to ensure that you will pay for what you did to her.” A cold smile touched her lips. “Was it really necessary to send her to her death, uncle?”
“Your mother was a very difficult woman.” Cedric refilled his glass. He seemed almost amused. “She intended to ruin me … to bring disgrace on the name of Penhallan. If she’d been just a silly chit, I could have brought her to heel. But Celia had an iron will … hard to believe, really, to look at her. She was such a little thing.”
“What’s St. Simon’s doxy got to do with us?” David asked, sounding petulant in his drunken confusion.
“Are you?” Cedric asked Tamsyn with the same amusement.
She shook her head. “Certainly not. I’m a Penhallan, sir. Penhallans are not whores, are they?”
His color deepened, and his breath whistled through his teeth, but his voice when he spoke was as neutral as before. “So just where does St. Simon come into all this?”
“He doesn’t,” she said. “He knows nothing about it.”
“I see.” Cedric stroked his chin. “I suppose you have proof of your identity?”
“I’m no fool, sir.”
“No … no more was your mother.” He laughed suddenly, sounding genuinely entertained. “Fancy that. Trust Celia to come back and haunt me. Curiously enough, I miss her.”
“I’m sure she would have been touched to hear it,” Tamsyn said dryly.
He laughed again. “Sharp tongue, just like hers.” He turned back to the decanter and again refilled his glass. “So what do you want?”
“Well, I had in mind the Penhallan diamonds,” Tamsyn said pensively. “They were Cecile’s and by rights should come to me.”
“What’s she talking about?” Charles demanded.
“Hold your tongue, you idiot!” Cedric surveyed her over his glass. “So she continued to call herself Cecile. Dear God, she was stubborn.”
Apparendy he wasn’t going to challenge her claim. Tamsyn was puzzled by the amicability of an encounter that should have been bristling with hostility. “You don’t dispute the diamonds are mine by right?”
Cedric shook his head. “No, most certainly they’re yours if you can prove you’re Celia’s daughter.”
“I have the locket. And signed papers.”
He shrugged. “I’m sure you have ample documentation. Enough to ruin me, of course, if the story of your mother’s disappearance was made public.”
“Precisely.” It still didn’t feel right, but she couldn’t put her finger on what was making her uneasy. She knew she had a cast-iron claim, so why should it feel wrong that Cedric would acknowledge it? He was an intelligent man, not given to wasting energy on futile causes. “Actually,” she said, “I don’t really need the diamonds, I have plenty of my own. Cecile made rather a good marriage, you see.”
Cedric threw back his head and guffawed. “Did she, indeed?”
“Yes, but I doubt it would have met with your approval.”
“So you don’t need the diamonds, but you want them?”
“As you said, they’re mine by right. Either you make reparation to my mother’s memory, or I shall send a story to the Gazette that will have the entire country humming.”
“You can’t let her get away with this!” Charles lurched forward, some of the sense of what was being said finally penetrating his buzzing brain. “It’s blackmail!”
“Oh, well-done, sir,” Cedric applauded. “Such perspicacity! You’ll take a glass of champagne with me, niece, to seal our bargain.”
It was statement rather than request, and Tamsyn’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe so, Lord Penhallan.”
“Oh, come now, let us at least strive for civility,” he chided. “Your mother was always gracious in victory. She never failed to carry off a situation with finesse.”
He was right, Tamsyn thought with a stab of pain. Cecile would have won her victory and taken a glass of wine with her brother. She’d have slipped the diamonds into her pocket, shaken his hand, and left him with a smile.
She inclined her head in graceful acceptance.
“Then, if you’ll excuse me a moment, niece, I shall fetch up a bottle of something very special. Your cousins, I’m sure, will do their best to entertain you.”
“Yes, I’ve tasted your ideas of entertainment once before,” Tamsyn said coolly to her cousins as their uncle left the room. Gabriel could have them later, for now she would exercise a little revenge of her own. She put one leg up on a chair and slid the knife out of its sheath, then did the same with the other. Thoughtfully, she turned back to the twins; she held the knives by their points between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, just as her father had taught her.
Their eyes widened as they saw her face and saw what Cornichet had seen when she’d come for his epaulets. Then both knives came spinning, arcing through the air, and the twins howled as much in shock as in pain as the two points neatly buried themselves in their right boots, piercing the leather as if it were butter to lodge between two toes. Charles and David stared down in disbelief at the quivering knife handles, shock rendering them momentarily mute.
“You’re fortunate I’m in a forgiving mood,” Tamsyn said blandly. “I doubt you’ll find too great a wound when you remove your boots.” And they still had Gabriel to deal with, but she’d spare them that knowledge.
“Good God!” Cedric exclaimed from the doorway, taking in the scene. His nephews were struggling for speech like two gobbling turkeys, their eyes darting in disbelief from the shivering knife handles in their boots to the coldly smiling woman who had thrown them.
“I owed them a favor,” Tamsyn said as the two men bent like automatons to pull the knives loose.
Cedric raised his eyebrows. “Of course, I’d forgotten that you’d already made their acquaintance.”
“Yes, I had that pleasure some weeks ago,” Tamsyn said. She moved swiftly and twitched the knives from the twins’ slack grasp. She examined the points. “Not much blood at all, really. The baron would have been proud of me.”
“The baron?” Cedric sounded fascinated.
“My father,” she said, wiping the knife tips on her cloak before returning them to their sheaths.
“I should really like to hear more,” Cedric murmured. “But, unfortunately, there won’t be time.” Turning his back, he eased the cork off the champagne bottle. It came out with a restrained pop, and there was a fizzy hiss as he filled four glasses.
&n
bsp; “I trust you don’t object to drinking with your cousins?” He turned back and handed her a glass. “They’re an unworthy pair, I know, but unfortunately one can’t choose one’s relatives.”
“Perhaps not, but I’m afraid I do object to drinking with cowardly scum.” Tamsyn took the glass, but her eyes, like violet ice, challenged Cedric.
“Then we won’t do so,” Cedric agreed equably, leaving the two glasses on the tray. He raised his own, his expression still faintly amused. “To Celia.”
“To Cecile.” Tamsyn sipped the wine, imagining Cecile doing the same. Cedric drained his glass and she followed suit.
“So if we could conclude our business, uncle, I’ll bid you farewell.” She smiled as she put the glass on the table, but something strange was happening to her face. Her mouth wouldn’t obey her brain. The edges of the room were blurring, a gray haze swimming toward her. Cedric’s face danced in the mist before her eyes, suddenly larger than life; his mouth was opening and closing. He was saying something but she could hear nothing.
Imbecile! Overconfident, too clever by half! Cedric had invoked the one person who could get through her guard. Cecile. And she’d fallen for it in her haste and her arrogance, and her certainty of the rightness of her cause.
Gabriel! But the words were stuck in her brain.…
Cedric bent over the crumpled form. He found the locket around her neck and opened it. For a long moment he examined the two portraits; then he closed it and let it drop back between her breasts. He removed the pistol from her waistband and the knives from their sheaths, observing, “A young woman who clearly comes prepared.”
He stood up, murmuring with a degree of regret, “A pity, my dear … but blackmail was a bad idea. You and your mother knew how to go too far.” He looked across at his dumbfounded nephews, his lip curled contemptuously. “She was worth four of you. Now, get rid of her.”
“I b-beg pardon, sir. What … what should we do with her?”
“Cretins!” It was a bark of angry derision. “What do you think you should do with her? Get rid of her! Remove her! Take her out to sea and drop her overboard! Just make damn sure she’s not alive to tell this tale or any other.” He threw his large bulk into an armchair and watched morosely as Charles bent over the inert figure.