Jane Feather - Violet

“But you weren't going for another two weeks.” She nibbled her bottom lip, frowning. “Why so sudden, Julian?” There was a look in his eye that filled her with a deep apprehension. He looked like a man steeling himself to jump off a cliff.

He didn't immediately reply but drew her backward into a deep window embrasure. His voice was low and grave. “Come back to Spain with me, Tamsyn.”

Whatever she'd been expecting, it hadn't been that.

“Now?”

“Yes.” He brushed a wisp of hair from her brow.

“Come back with me and we'll go campaigning together. And we'll stay together and enjoy each other until it's over.”

Until it's over. Her heart wept at the finality of the words and the closed mind of the man who couldn't embrace a future with the woman who loved him because she didn't fit the right mold.

“But I haven't done what I came here to do,” she said quietly.

“Does it really mean that much to you, Tamsyn?

What kind of life would you have in England, even supposing you found your mother's family and persuaded them to accept you? This isn't right for you, you know it isn't.” He gestured to the emptying room, where the musicians still played, though desultorily now. “Let's go back to Spain. We can be together there in a way we can't here.”

“Do you care for me?” Her voice was small, her face as pale now as it had been flushed before.

“You know I do,” he said, touching a finger to her lips. “That's why I'm asking you to do this.”

“But we have no future together? No real future?” His silence was answer enough.

“I suppose not,” she said dully, answering her own question. “A St. Simon could never have a future with an illegitimate brigand. I know that.” She tried to smile but her lip quivered.

“That sounds so harsh,” he said helplessly.

“The truth often is.” She stepped backward and her eyes focused, the sheen of tears vanishing as anger and pride abruptly came to her aid. She would not permit this man to look down upon her, to decide she was not good enough for him. The daughter of El Baron and Cecile Penhallan had no need to stoop to placate and beg a St. Simon. “No, I can't come back with you. I will do what I came here to do. But I absolve you from the contract, milord colonel, since you can no longer see your way to honoring it.”

She was pure Penhallan now, cold and arrogant, and he fought his own surge of anger at her insolence.

He bowed stiffly. “Of course, you may stay at Tregarthan for as long as you wish. Lucy will continue to sponsor you, I'm sure. I believe you'll find her a more appropriate sponsor than myself, anyway.”

Appropriate! What had that to do with anything? She turned from him with a curt gesture of farewell, her mouth hard, her jaw set. “I bid you Godspeed, Colonel, and a safe journey.”

He stood there in the embrasure as she walked away, across the nearly deserted salon, and out of the room. Silently, he cursed his own stupidity in making the offer that he'd known she wouldn't accept. He had made it partly for himself, but also partly for her, a desperate attempt to prevent her from discovering who she was and the inevitable hurt that would follow when Cedric Penhallan laughed her from his door.

But it was done now, and he wouldn't wait until the morning to set off for London. If he left just before daybreak, he would reach Bodmin in time to break his fast, and he could cross the moor in daylight.

Tamsyn went up to her tower room without a word to anyone. Josefa was waiting for her, dozing in a low chair by the fireplace. She sprang up full of eager inquiry as her nurseling entered, but her eagerness changed to a cry of distress as she saw the girl's face.

“I don't wish to talk of it tonight,” Tamsyn said. “Go to bed now, and in the morning we'll talk, the three of us.”

Josefa left reluctantly, but she knew the tone-she'd heard it often enough from the baron, and one didn't argue with it.

Tamsyn shivered as a sudden gust of wind blew through the open window. She could hear the surf pounding on the beach as the wind rose. Hugging her breasts, she went to the window. Clouds scudded across the moon in an ever-thickening band, and the soft sea breeze had suddenly changed into a cold, damp wind. The glorious spell of summer weather seemed to be breaking.

She could hear the voices from the driveway as carriages were called for and the last of the guests left, hurrying now to get home before the weather turned.

Tamsyn didn't know how long she stood at the window, watching the storm clouds gather, feeling the increasing sharpness of the wind as it rattled the panes of the open window and set the curtains swirling immobile figure. The first drops of rain woke her from her reverie. She closed the window, drew the curtains to shut out the now unfriendly night, and undressed, her mind working furiously, finally overcoming the paralysis of shock.

She hadn't expected Julian to bring everything to a close so abruptly. If only it hadn't come on the heels of her encounter with Cedric, she knew she would have responded differently. But she'd been too absorbed in the encounter that had opened the game of vengeance to think clearly, to respond intelligently to anything outside her immediate preoccupation. Cedric had known who she was-the recognition had been clear in his gaze as he had picked up the glove she'd thrown at his feet. She had wanted to play with him a little, let him see her moving comfortably in this society, let him wonder what she intended, wonder about her history. And Julian had blundered into her excitement, dropping a bombshell into her carefully constructed scheme, throwing all her plans awry. So instead of analyzing his proposal, working out how it could bring them closer together, she'd heard only the words and reacted with blind emotion. And blind emotion was an indulgence she could not afford. Not in her schemes of vengeance, and not in her schemes of love.

She climbed into bed, pulling the bedclothes up to her chin.

If Julian was going back to Spain, then she would go with him. Half a loaf was better than none, and half a loaf could grow.

Rolling over, she blew out her candle and lay in the darkness, listening to the rain now beating heavily on the window. The crash of the surf could be heard clearly above the rain, and the night grew ever wilder.

She loved him, loved him as Cecile had loved the baron. The only love of her life… a love for all life. And if he could only offer her half of himself, then for now she would take that. But she had to tell him so. And then she had to deal with Cedric. But in the light of this new scheme, how was she to do that?

An answer would come to her in the morning. As soon as she'd rested and was calm again, she would tell Julian that she'd changed her mind.

The storm abated just before daybreak, and in the damp chill Julian swung onto Soult, his portmanteau strapped to the saddle behind him. The sky was gunmetal-gray, the sea dark, the lawns sodden, the gravel of the parterres studded with puddles. He glanced upward at the east tower, at the ivy-garlanded window overlooking the drive. Then he turned his face north and cantered down the drive.

Tamsyn, hollow-eyed after a sleepless night, stood at the window and stared into the rain-dark morning as Julian rode away. Had he gone so soon? How could he be so perverse as not to know that she would change her mind once her temper had died down?

She moved in a whirlwind, racing out of her room, down the back stairs, out into the stable yard, and up the stairs to Josefa and Gabriel.

“Och, little girl, steady now,” Gabriel said, leaping from his bed as she came in, her eyes wild. “Tell me, now.” He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly against his barrel chest so that she couldn't have spoken if she'd wished to.