“Yes, Violette. Your price?”
Tamsyn paused before answering, her eyes on her lap, her fingers playing cat's cradle; then she looked up and met the colonel's eye before switching her gaze to Wellington. “My price, sir, is the colonel… Lord St. Simon.”
The silence in the room was as deep and impenetrable as the grave. The two men stared at Violette, who sat back in her chair, a picture of relaxation, no sign of the ferment in her head. It was a stroke of such boldness, she was actually amazed at herself for conceiving the plan, let alone executing it.
“This is some lunatic raving,” Julian declared, breaking the silence, his voice harsh as a scouring pad. “Either that or you're making game of His Majesty's army, girl, and that will cost you dear!” He crossed to her chair and leaned over her, bracing his hands on the chair back on either side of her head. She was impaled on the bright-blue ferocity of his eyes as he said very slowly and distinctly, “Cease this idle foolishness, or I'll have you thrown in irons in the stockade.”
“Hear me out,” she said simply, not flinching, although it cost her some effort.
“Let her speak, Julian.”
“Speak!” The colonel whirled toward his commander, his eyes stark in his white face, his mouth a thin slash in a clenched jaw. “The girl's either moon mad or she's making game of us. Must I remind you, sir, that men are going to die tonight and this… this distempered chit is playing us for fools.”
“No, I'm not,” Tamsyn said swiftly. “I do assure you I'm not. Only hear me out.”
“Go on,” Wellington instructed, holding up a hand to silence the younger man's seething tirade. “But keep to the point. I warn you, if this is some kind of game, then I'll send you back to Cornichet gift wrapped and with my compliments.”
The threats were flowing thick, fast, and most unpleasantly. Tamsyn swallowed the little nut of fear in her throat, reminding herself that the stakes were very high, and began to explain the plan that would require the cooperation of Lord St. Simon.
“I explained that my mother was English. Her family came from Cornwall… your home county, Colonel.”
Julian's expression was dark. “What has that to do with me?”
“Well, I thought you could help me rediscover my mother's family,” she said simply. “My mother wouldn't tell me their name. She… she had not been happy with them, and when she met my father, she chose to cut herself off completely from that part of her life and heritage.”
Reaching behind her neck, she unfastened the locket and held it out to Wellington. “This is a picture of her. With my father. The locket is a family heirloom, and I thought perhaps with this and the portrait I might be able to locate them. My mother implied that they were quite a prominent family.”
Wellington examined it and then handed it to Julian, who looked at it without really taking it in, his mind running over Cornwall's powerful families. The St. Simons and the Penhallans were the greatest landowners with the most political influence. Tregarthan, the St. Simon estate, and the Penhallan estate of Lanjerrick took up half the county. His lip curled unconsciously at the thought of the Penhallans. The viscount pursued his political ambition with utter ruthlessness, but his character was a shining example of moral rectitude compared with his nephews, the loathsome twins.
He dropped the locket onto a side table, and the delicate filigree chain chimed as it fell. “There's no heraldic device on this… no insignia to identify it.”
“But there's her picture inside,” Tamsyn stressed.
“Look inside.”
Wellington picked it up again, snapping it open. The woman was undoubtedly Tamsyn's mother; the likeness was striking: the same locket hung around her neck, and she was smiling, radiating perfect happiness. He handed it to St. Simon, who read the signature on the back of the woman's portrait. She'd signed herself simply Cecile, in a flowery hand, full of energy. The date was a mere three years ago.
He glanced at Tamsyn, who sat quietly, waiting. He examined the man's portrait, struck by the elegant features of this notorious robber baron. Black eyes like a hawk's regarded him with a quizzical air from the delicate frame. Tamsyn had her father's mouth and that particularly resolute set of the jaw; her mother's eyes and coloring.
“So?” He handed back the locket. “Even if we believe your mother was English, what is that to do with anything?”
“Why, everything,” she said. They listened while she explained that her parents had been killed six months earlier, that her own men had either been killed in Cornichet's ambush or had disbanded; that, with the exception of Gabriel, she was alone in the world.
The pathos of her story was somehow accentuated by the scarcity of detail. She said nothing as to how her parents had met their deaths, merely stated the fact. Her appeal when she made it was to Wellington. St. Simon still bore the look of a man seething and impatient, definitely not one to respond sympathetically to a sad tale, but she thought she might be able to tug the commander’s heartstrings.
“I would like to discover my mother's family,” she said, twisting her hands in her lap, offering the duke a tremulous smile. “I have no one in the world to care for me or to give me a home. I thought if I could find them, they might take me under their wing. Only I see some difficulties.”
The colonel made a sound between a snort and an oath and exchanged a comprehending glance with the duke. Some difficulties. This girl clearly didn't know the first thing about English society, how closed and prideful it was.
“And supposing you do identify them, just how do you intend to introduce yourself?” Julian demanded scornfully. “Are you going to walk up to them and say, 'I'm your long-lost cousin,' or whatever relationship you are?”
“No, I can quite see that that wouldn't do,” she said in a doleful tone that caused the duke to look reproachfully at the colonel. “I don't think they'd be prepared to accept me as I am. I don't know how to go on in such society… indeed, I know nothing of England but what Cecile told me. And besides”-a delicate flush mantled the sun-browned cheeks-”there is one other awkwardness… “
“Do go on, my dear.” Wellington had quite lost his earlier harshness.
“It's somewhat embarrassing… but, you see, I'm not entirely sure that Cecile and the baron were ever properly married… in the eyes of the Church,” she said in a rush, twisting her fingers into impossible knots.
“Oh,” said the duke.
“Well, my mother's family might consider that I didn't have a claim on them if they knew that, don't you think?” she said anxiously, fixing her great purple eyes on his face.
He cleared his throat. “It is possible, yes.”
“Why on earth wouldn't they formalize their relationship?” Julian demanded “If they were inseparable, as you implied last night, and· they had a child.”
“I don't believe they considered it in the least important,” Tamsyn said truthfully. “And as for me, well, I know I was an accident-”
“Sweet heaven, what a euphemism!” Julian broke in with a harsh laugh. “Would to God the world had been spared such an accident”
“That is unkind,” Tamsyn protested, looking tremulously at Wellington.
He scratched his nose. What did Julian have against the girl? She seemed a plucky little creature. “I'm at a loss to know what this is leading to, senorita. How can Lord St. Simon assist you?”
“Oh, that's simple,” Tamsyn said, cheering up immediately. “I don't think it should take me more than six months to learn to be an English lady. My plan is that the colonel will accompany me to England… to Cornwall… and teach me what I need to know; then I can try to discover my mother's family. Someone must have heard the story of a daughter vanishing twenty years ago on a visit to Spain. And I hope, when I'm presentable, I can effect an introduction. We could say that my mother married a Spanish grandee of true hidalgo blood and I was told of my English heritage only at her deathbed. I thought we could say that the colonel met my father in some circumstances and because of an obligation to him agreed to take me under his protection when I was orphaned.