Jane Feather - [V Series] (22 page)

“If her brother’s still alive.”

“There is that,” she conceded. “If he is, I shall know what to do. If he’s not … then what I do will depend on his successor … on the rest of the family, really. If they had nothing to do with Cedric’s plan, then I can hardly hold them responsible. We shall see what we shall see, Gabriel.”

“Is it blackmail you’re talking, little girl?”

Tamsyn shook her head. “No, I intend to expose Cedric Penhallan’s treachery to all the world. But for it to be credible, I must have a reputation for respectability myself. That’s where the colonel comes in. Once I’m established in society as the protégée of such an eminent aristocrat, my story will carry much more weight than if it came from some unknown who just popped up out of nowhere. And once the truth is known, the diamonds will come to me without question, because they’re indubitably mine by right.”

“And how much of this does the colonel know?”

Tamsyn glanced down the mountainside to where the broader, more frequented, path wound its way through the pass. The tall figure of Colonel, Lord Julian St. Simon rode at the head of the baggage train, six villainous outriders bristling with weapons in escort, the pack mule carrying Josefa plodding steadily in the rear.

“None of it,” she said. “He knows nothing of the Penhallans, of the diamonds, or of the plot to murder Cecile. He and Wellington know only that I’m an orphan with Cornish connections, alone in the world, desperate to find a home and family.”

Gabriel threw back his head with a snort of derision. “And they fell for that story! Och, little girl, shame on you. You could make grown men weep with your tales.”

“Cecile always said the chivalry of an English gentleman was a very useful weakness,” she said with a complacent grin. “I need a base in Cornwall, and I need the right entrees. Under the colonel’s protection, ensconced in his family home, I shall have them.”

“I’d watch my step with the colonel, if I were you,” Gabriel advised. “He’s not one to care for being made game of … however chivalrous he may be.”

“But I’m not making game of him,” Tamsyn said judiciously. “Only use.”

“He’ll not care for that either.”

Tamsyn was inclined to agree. “He won’t be able to do anything about it. I don’t intend to stay in England once I’ve done what I set out to do; besides, the colonel will be so relieved to get back to his beloved war, he probably won’t give a damn by then anyway.”

“You’d better be right, lassie.”

Tamsyn merely shrugged and raised a hand in greeting as the colonel looked up toward the higher path, shading his eyes against the sun.

Julian didn’t acknowledge the wave. It annoyed him that she chose to ride apart as if she and Gabriel were still riding as partisans. It left him journeying in solitary splendor with only the swathed Josefa on her pack mule as companion. One could hardly consider the outriders companions. They were the most ruffianly pack of scoundrels, led by a one-eyed villain who made no secret of his suspicion of the English colonel. However, they looked as if they’d prove effective defenders of Tamsyn’s treasure if pushed to it.

He glanced up again and saw that Tamsyn had left the goat track, and Cesar was picking his way down, surefooted, through the scrub and cactus clinging to the
mountainside. They reached the main path a little ahead of the baggage train in a shower of loose gravel.

Tamsyn had no difficulty riding sidesaddle, but he hadn’t really expected her to. She was as at home in the saddle as if it had formed her childhood cradle. It would be interesting, however, to see how she took to the hard, backless English saddle. She’d certainly have to abandon her exotic cushioned Spanish version for riding the tan in Hyde Park or even the quiet country lanes of England if she expected to be accepted by the highest sticklers.

“Are you lonely?” She greeted him cheerfully, turning her horse neatly on the narrow path to ride beside him.

“You and Gabriel seemed to be having a very intense discussion,” he responded. A spot of color blossomed against the sun-browned cheek, and he wondered why.

“Oh, I was just filling him in on the details of the plan,” she said. “I didn’t really have the time to do it before.”

“I see. And did he embrace your scheme with avid enthusiasm?”

“Why wouldn’t he?” Tamsyn responded a shade truculently to the colonel’s heavily sardonic tone.

“Oh, no reason.” Julian shrugged. “I’m sure he has not the least difficulty in giving up the life and land he’s called home for so many years. And even if he did have, you would still expect him to do as you wished.” His voice was as dry as sere leaves.

Tamsyn’s flush deepened. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“My dear girl, you know exactly what I mean. When you want something, you make damn sure you get it.
Gabriel’s loyalty won’t permit him to refuse you his support, and you’ll use that without compunction.”

“Oh, how horrid you are!” she exclaimed in a low voice. “What a horrid thing to say about me.”

“You forget that I’ve been swept up by your broom as well,” he replied as aridly as before. “You didn’t give a thought to my position or my feelings in the matter.”

Tamsyn bit her lip, startled to find tears pricking behind her eyes at the harshness of a judgment that seemed to have come out of nowhere. A judgment that deep down she recognized had some merit. Since the glorious evening in Aladdin’s cave two days before, they’d hardly met at all. She’d understood that the colonel would have much to do preparing for his journey and arranging to hand over the reins of his brigade, so she’d made no further attempt to seduce him from his work. But when they’d set out from Elvas that morning, he’d been morose and uncommunicative. Hoping that quiet reflection would bring about a change in his humor, she’d chosen to ride apart with Gabriel. A forlorn hope, clearly. There was no dent in his resentment.

She blinked rapidly and urged Cesar forward, drawing away from the colonel, breaking into a trot and then a canter. Cesar threw up his head and sniffed the wind, then lengthened his stride, breaking into a gallop on the narrow, treacherous path.

“Tamsyn!” Julian yelled, his heart in his throat as horse and rider careened round a tight bend in the track where the mountainside fell steeply away; then they were gone from view.

“Said something to upset her, did you?” Gabriel’s horse skittered down the mountainside onto the path beside them.

“She is the most ill-conditioned, unschooled
hellion!
”
Julian exclaimed. “She’ll break her neck, if she doesn’t break one of that animal’s legs first.”

“No.” Gabriel shook his head. “I doubt that. They know each other too well. What did you say to upset her?”

“A couple of home truths,” Julian said. “Long overdue.”

“That’ll do it every time,” Gabriel observed placidly, offering the wineskin. “Doesn’t like to be told she’s wrong. It was the same with the baron … particularly if he
was
wrong.” He chuckled, turning in his saddle to observe the progress of the mule train behind them. “I suggest we get off the road well before sundown. There’s some tricky spots coming up, and I’d not relish a dusk ambush.”

“Those scoundrels you picked look ready for anything.” Julian handed back the skin with a nod of thanks.

“Maybe … but there’s no point taking foolish chances.”

“I agree. We’ll stop at the next village with a hostelry of some kind.”

“Won’t be much, at best,” Gabriel said. “Not in these parts.”

They rode without any sign of Tamsyn for another half hour. Julian tried to conceal his anxiety since Gabriel clearly didn’t seem to feel any. He told himself he had every right to lash out at her as severely as he chose. She’d forced him to leave his brigade at the most inopportune juncture. It had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done. Wellington had marched a detachment of men into Badajos and erected a gallows in the central square. Men had been tried for looting and hanged. It had brought the rest of his demoralized army straggling
out of the city and back to the camp, where their officers had somehow to put them back together again. It was a dreadful time for a commanding officer to leave his brigade, even in the competent hands of the newly promoted Tim O’Connor ably assisted by the rest of his staff.

So Julian had been in a vile temper that morning when they left Elvas and he hadn’t missed the opportunity to chastise the cause of his grievance. For some reason though, anger at his exploitation didn’t preclude worrying about her safety, and he couldn’t deny the surge of relief when she reappeared, cantering toward them.

“There’s a pueblo up ahead, about three miles,” she said, offering the fruits of her reconnaissance. “It’s not much, but there’s stabling for the animals and a stone byre where we could store the goods. It would be hard to mount a surprise attack on it, and it could probably be guarded safely with just two pickets; so if we have several watches, everyone should be able to get a few hours sleep.” She addressed her remarks to Gabriel and avoided the colonel’s eye.

“What kind of shelter does it have for the rest of us?” Julian asked neutrally.

Tamsyn shrugged. “The farmer offered his barn and hayloft. It’ll be cleaner than his cottage, which was crawling with vermin.”

The colonel nodded. They had their own provisions and needed only shelter from the cold mountain nights. He glanced at her, noting that she was still looking rather crestfallen. It surprised him that she should have taken his harshness so much to heart; it didn’t seem to jibe with the manipulative brigand he knew her to be.
However, she deserved whatever treatment he chose to mete out.

“You will oblige me in future by not disappearing in that fashion,” he said shortly.

“I didn’t seem to be very welcome here.”

“Do you expect to be?” He stared ahead down the path, his mouth hard. “Thanks to you, I’ve had to leave my men in the worst possible circumstances.”

Tamsyn nibbled her lip unhappily, then said, “I’ll try to make the journey and … and later … pleasant for you.”

Julian shot her a look of total disbelief. Her anxious returning gaze was candid and ingenuous. She really didn’t understand what she was doing to him? Where had she come from? How could anyone possibly reach adulthood so devoid of a sense of ordinary social responsibility? He took a deep breath and attempted a lesson that he felt was doomed to failure.

“Your compensations, my dear Tamsyn, are certainly pleasant, but that is not the point. You can’t manipulate people and events to your own ends and then calmly offer your body and its admittedly manifold charms and expect that to make everything all right.”

“But it’s only for six months.”

Total failure! He shook his head and gave up. “There’s no point talking about it. I’m stuck with the situation, and I’ll do what I contracted to do. If we can get through the next six months with simple civility, I’ll consider it a major achievement.”

Tamsyn fell in beside him and rode in thoughtful silence until they reached the village. It seemed obvious to her that six months of the colonel’s time … a mere hiatus in his life … wouldn’t have a far-reaching effect on his future, whereas in the scheme of her
own life, those six months could mean everything. It was obvious to her, but totally lost on the colonel.

The village folk crowded out of their cottages when the procession entered the pueblo, bisected by the mountain path as its single street. Ragged children ran onto the path, shouting and waving, black-clad women stood in doorways, shawls drawn over their mouths and noses, black eyes watchful above. Men appeared in the gateways to small malodorous farmyards where scrawny chickens scratched in the dirt fighting for scraps with grubby goats.

A stream trickled down the mountainside into the middle of the pueblo where a rough dam had been built, forming a deep pool to provide the village’s water supply.

Tamsyn hailed a man rather more prosperous looking than the others, standing in the doorway of a relatively substantial cottage. “He’s the village elder,” she explained. “It’s his barn and byre we can use … for a consideration, of course.”

Gabriel dismounted and went over to him.

“He won’t negotiate with me,” Tamsyn explained to the colonel, “because I’m dressed like a woman. If I’d been dressed as a partisan, he would have treated me as an equal.”

Julian merely raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

“At least a riding habit is easier to wear than a dress,” Tamsyn persevered, trying to elicit some conversational response. “I’m wearing britches underneath, so it feels almost normal. But it’s still a disadvantage in situations like this.”

“Get used to it,” he advised as he’d done once before, choosing to respond to her light observations as if they were complaints. “Women don’t act like men in
English society … or not if they wish to be accepted.”

Tamsyn gave up trying to conciliate. “The baron considered Cecile to be his equal in everything,” she said fiercely.

Julian looked politely incredulous. “Then he was a very unusual man.” He swung to the ground and lifted Tamsyn down before she could leap with her usual agility from Cesar’s great height. He closed his mind to the feel of her body in his hands, to the scent of her skin, which made his head spin with voluptuous memory.

“Women also allow men to assist them with certain actions, like mounting and dismounting, alighting from carriages, and taking their seats,” he informed her with the air of a conscientious tutor, setting her firmly on her feet.

“Oh, pah!” Tamsyn said disgustedly. “There’s nothing the matter with my legs.”

“No, but you must learn to pretend that you go along with the myth of the gentler sex and show that you appreciate the little gentlemanly courtesies.”

Tamsyn’s expression was one of acute distaste, and Julian began to enjoy himself. “Unless, of course, you’d prefer to forget the whole thing,” he added nonchalantly.

Tamsyn stuck her tongue out at him in a childish gesture that somehow expressed exactly how she felt. The colonel laughed, infuriating her even more, and strolled over to where Gabriel and the farmer were concluding their negotiations. He stood slapping his gloves into the palm of one hand, looking around the village, assessing its strategic advantages.