Jane Feather - Violet

Julian was sitting at a desk with his back to the window. He was writing, his pen flowing over the parchment. As she watched, her heart in her throat, he paused, leaned back in the chair, and stretched, arching his neck; then he dipped his quill into the inkwell again and resumed writing. Her blood seemed to speed through her veins as she watched him in his absorption, imagining his face when he turned and saw her. He would be delighted… of course he would.

Tamsyn scratched on the window, then stepped back into the shadows.

Julian was preparing a report to present to the prime minister in the morning. Lord Liverpool had asked for yet more information on the action and casualties of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos to bolster the Peer's request for more men and more money.

At the first scratching sound he glanced over his shoulder at the window. A branch tapping against the pane, presumably. Wearily, he rubbed his eyes. He was finding it difficult to concentrate, and he couldn't seem to connect with the words he was writing. He kept hearing Tamsyn's sensual chuckle in his head, and her smile, mischievously inviting, hung disembodied in his mind's eye. He supposed the images would fade in time. Once he got back to Spain, he wouldn't have time to think about her. But even as he told himself that, he knew that in Spain it would be even harder to forget her. The memories would be even more achingly vivid in the land that had produced that extraordinary, impossible creature, with her Penhallan blood and…

Frowning, he squeezed the back of his neck, trying to massage a crick; then resolutely he returned to his report.

The scratching came again, more insistent this time.

He ignored it. Then it changed to a drumming, a rhythmic tap-tap-tap. He spun round in his chair. There was nothing at the window. Impatiently, he pushed back his chair and went over to the window, flinging it wide. There were no bushes or trees near enough for an errant twig to be scratching the pane. He stared into the garden but could see nothing.

Then an unmistakable voice said from somewhere below him, “Good evening, milord colonel.”

He dropped his gaze to below the level of the windowsill. Her eyes gleamed purple in her pale face, the hood of her cloak had fallen back, and her silver hair was a beacon in the shadow of the wall.

“I was beginning to think you'd never come to the window,” she said when he seemed dumbstruck. Turning her back, she reached up to rest her hands on the broad sill, then jumped her backside up. Turning in the window, she smiled, and if he'd been less stunned, he would have read the anxiety behind the smile. “Aren't you going to say anything?”

“You… you imp of Satan!” He found his voice.

“How the hell did you get here?” Catching her around the waist beneath the cloak, he lifted her off the windowsill into the room, but instead of setting her on her feet, he held her up as easily as if she were a rag doll, his large hands spanning her waist, her face on a level with his. Her cloak fell to the floor, revealing the britches and shirt of the brigand.

“On Cesar, of course,” she said, smiling.

“Don't play games, girl!” He shook her as he held her off the ground, but she couldn't tell whether he was really annoyed or still just surprised. Either way, though, he didn't seem overjoyed to see her.

“I had to come,” she said. “You went off without a word and-”

“I was under the impression we'd had all the words necessary,” he interrupted flatly. “You'd made it very clear-”

“Yes, but you took me by surprise,” Tamsyn protested, still dangling from his hands. “How was I to know you would just waltz off into the night without a backward glance?” She tried an experimental kick to encourage him to put her down, but it didn't seem to have any effect.

“Oh?” A red-gold eyebrow lifted. “So that little exchange in the salon was merely an opening skirmish? You tell me with that goddamned arrogance of yours that you want no more to do with me, and I'm supposed to interpret that as an invitation?”

“It wasn't quite like that,” she said, her voice low.

“You were the one bringing everything to a close, not me.”

“I thought I was suggesting the opposite,” he replied quietly, his gaze fixed steadily on her face.

This wasn't getting them anywhere. He was still holding her as if she were a scarecrow stuffed with straw, and she was damned if he was going to put her in the wrong when it was as plain as day to anyone with eyes open that he was the one causing the difficulties. He was the one who couldn't see straight.

“You talk about my arrogance. Well I tell you, Colonel, that you're stubborn and stiff-necked and twice as arrogant as I am!” she snapped.

To her fury tears suddenly clogged her voice and filled her eyes. She wanted to say she loved him, but the words wouldn't come. She wanted to tell him that he loved her, he had to love her, because she couldn't feel the way she did if he didn't feel the same.

“You,” Julian said deliberately, “are a stubborn, spoiled, manipulative siren.” He thought he'd accepted that the adventure was over, that she would leave his life as decisively as she'd entered it, but now he knew that he hadn't accepted anything of the kind.

“Well, I'm sorry I came, then,” Tamsyn declared, sniffing crossly. “And if you'll put me down, I'll go away again.”

“No, you will not, you lawless hellion!” The wonderful, familiar urgency of passion was sweeping through him as he held her, feeling the lissome slenderness in his hands, inhaling the honeysuckle fragrance of her skin, losing himself in the great drowned pools of her eyes. And now as he held her and the silence became charged, he felt that seductive energy pulsing from her, and he realized that, as always, she'd caught his arousal and without volition was responding with her own. Her eyes were luminous, the long lashes dark and sticky with unshed tears, her lips now slightly parted as she acknowledged what was happening and waited for him to move.

“Never let it be said I looked a gift horse in the mouth.” With a deft twist he tucked her under his arm, as he'd done in Badajos, and strode out of the room with her.

He marched up the stairs, and Tamsyn, keeping very still, could only be thankful that they met no member of the household. Julian opened the door of his bedroom, stalked in, and dropped his bundle onto the bed.

He stood looking down at her, his hands resting lightly on his hips, a smile playing over the well-shaped mouth.

“Irresistible,” he said in a musing tone. “I don't understand why such a scrawny, ill-schooled, unprincipled little manipulator should be irresistible. But it seems to be the case.”

Tamsyn's eyes narrowed seductively, but she said nothing. She'd done enough pushing and plotting and arranging for the moment. Maybe the time would come when he would no longer resist what was happening between them, would no longer believe that the currents flowing between them were only and ephemerally sexual… would look into his own heart. But until then she'd settle for what she had, and “irresistible” was a good start.

She heeled and toed her boots, and they fell with a soft thud on the Aubusson carpet.

Her hands went to the buttons of her britches. With a deft wriggle she pushed them off her hips, then eased them down her legs with her heels.

Julian bent and helpfully yanked them over her feet.

While he was there, he pulled off her stockings, then straightened to resume the voyeur role.

“Must I do this all on my own?” She offered a mock plaintive smile.

“Yes.” His eyelids drooped, lazily seductive and he remained immobile, hands back on his hips, looking down at her.

Tamsyn squiggled out of her drawers, unbuttoned her shirt, and stripped it off; then she lay naked on the coverlet and regarded him quizzically.