Portugal
“So what's behind this journey, little girl?”
Tamsyn looked up at the sky, following the flight of an eagle as it soared above the mountain pass, its magnificent wingspan black against the brilliant, cloudless blue.
“We're going to be avenged upon Cedric Penhallan, Gabriel.” Her mouth was set, her eyes suddenly hard. She looked across at him as they rode abreast, following the line of a goat track etched into the mountainside. “And we're going for the Penhallan diamonds. They were rightfully my mother's, and now they're rightfully mine.
Gabriel drew a wineskin from his belt and tilted the ruby stream down his throat. He knew the story as well as Tamsyn did. He passed her the skin, saying thoughtfully, “You think the baron would have wanted you to seek his revenge, lassie?”
“I know he would,” she said with quiet certainty.
“Cecile was cheated out of her inheritance by her brother. He planned her death.” She tilted the skin, enjoying the cool stream as it ran down her dry throat. “The baron swore he would be avenged. I used to hear them talking at night.”
She fell silent for a minute at the memory of those evenings when she lay in her own bed, the door ajar, listening to the soft voices, the baron's rich chuckle, Cecile's musical laugh, and occasionally the chilly ferocity of El Baron roused to anger by some stupidity or perceived failure of loyalty. Cecile would defuse his anger, but she never interfered in his dealings with his men, and she'd never been able to soften his icy rage at what Cedric Penhallan had paid the robber baron to do.
Gabriel frowned, his customary placid demeanor disturbed. He wasn't sure what position to take on Tamsyn's plan because he wasn't sure what position the baron would have taken. “The baron had a powerful grudge against your mother's family,” he said, feeling his way. “But I don't believe he considered it your grudge, too. And Cecile always said there was nothing to avenge because her brother's plans went so far awry.”
Tamsyn shook her head, screwing the top back onto the skin and passing it across to him. “And you know the baron always denied that Cedric's plans had failed. He wanted his sister out of the way, he wanted to bilk her of her rightful inheritance. He succeeded. The baron always intended to redress that wrong. He's not here to do it, so I will do it for him.”
Gabriel's frown deepened. “Cecile counted that wrong as a good,” he said. “There's never been a love like theirs, and she always said it was the Penhallan who put them in the way of it.”
“Cedric Penhallan paid for Cecile's abduction and murder.” Tamsyn's voice was almost without expression. “The fact that she found a lifetime's happiness instead with the man Cedric paid to do his dirty work is no thanks to him. It's time he paid the price.”
Gabriel clicked his tongue against his teeth, considering. The baron had confided his intention to concoct an appropriate vengeance on the Penhallans. It could be said that that confidence had laid the burden now upon his old friend to do what he could no longer do. Gabriel certainly had the responsibility to protect the baron's daughter, and if she chose to exact her father's vengeance, then it seemed he had no decision to make.
For a man of action rather than decision, the conclusion came as a relief. “So how will you prove your kinship?”
“I have the locket, the portrait, and other documents. Cecile gave me all I would need to prove that I'm her daughter.” Tamsyn adjusted her position in the unfamiliar side-saddle. “She also told me that her real name was Celia. She started to call herself Cecile when she was fourteen because she thought it was prettier.” A misty smile touched her lips as she heard again her mother's laughing description of her own youthful romanticism.
“She said she had some romantic notion about the name when she was a girl, and it annoyed her brother almost more than anything else when she refused to answer to anything but Cecile.” She looked.across at Gabriel. “She said that should I ever need to prove my identity to the Penhallans, it would be the final confirmation for Cedric if I told him that, because it was not something anyone else knew about.”
Gabriel whistled through his teeth, nodding. “If she gave you all that, little girl, I'd guess she wasn't totally against the idea of vengeance, after all.”
“No,” Tamsyn agreed. “But she would have called it restitution.” She chuckled. Cecile's delicacy of phrase had always amused her robber-baron mate. “And she also gave me a written and witnessed account of her abduction,” she continued, serious again. “If that found its way into a London newspaper, vouched for by her daughter, it might cause her brother some considerable embarrassment, don't you think?”
“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 protegee 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, sure”'“ footed, 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.