Jane Feather - Violet

“Hold your tongue, you idiot!” Cedric surveyed her over his glass. “So she continued to call herself Cecile. Dear God, she was stubborn.”

Apparently 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 filed four glasses.

“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.

“And do it before she comes to,” he said abruptly, seeing the way Charles's hands moved over Tamsyn's body. “Don't you think to start playing with her. She's a damn sight too clever for the pair of you… If she comes to, she'll run rings around you.”

Charles flushed darkly, but he picked up the limp figure. “Should we take the Mary lane, sir?”

“We could row out and drop her off Gribbon Head,”

David suggested, one eyelid twitching with the shocks and anxieties of the last half-hour. “With the crab pots.”

“She'll make a tasty morsel for the crabs.” Charles laughed, and his eyes were full of greedy malevolence as he looked down at her pale face. “Don't worry, sir, we'll make sure she doesn't come back here again.”