And then it was over, and she stood trembling, her knees week, her gown clinging to her sweat-slick skin. Julian smiled a long, slow smile of sensual satisfaction. Lightly he ran his fingers over her mouth so she could taste the scents of her own arousal.
“What would they say in that convent of yours?” he murmured. “That strict order in the mountains?”
Tamsyn merely shook her head. For once Colonel, Lord Julian St. Simon had defeated her, rendered her speechless.
Chapter Seventeen
“ST. SIMON'S BACK AT TREGARTHAN,” CEDRIC PENhallan announced, sniffing the claret in his glass. He took a considered sip, then nodded to the butler, who proceeded to fill up the glasses of the Penhallan twins sitting opposite each other at the oval table. The last rays of the setting sun caught the sapphire signet ring as the viscount raised his glass.
“We saw him this morning, sir.” David helped himself to a dish of squab.
“Stark naked, playing in the sea with a doxy,” Charles expanded with a throaty chuckle.
“You were on Tregarthan land?” Cedric's black eyes were agate, a white shade appearing around his fleshy mouth.
Charles turned scarlet. “Just on the cliff top above the cove. We were shooting crows and accidentally strayed-”
“You did not accidentally stray, sir,” his uncle pronounced with deadly calm.
“We didn't know St. Simon was at home, Governor,” David put in, a sulky note in his voice. “He's been out of the country for two years… except for his sister's wedding.”
“And two years ago you were warned off St. Simon land,” Cedric stated with the same venomous calm. “And why were you so warned?” He looked between the two, his black eyes seething with contempt.
There was no response. The two young men bent their heads to their plates. The butler moved discreetly into the shadows.
“Well?” Cedric demanded softly. “One of you must remember, surely.”
The twins squirmed; then David said with the same sulkiness, “She was a whore. We played with her, that's all.”
“Oh, is that all?” His uncle's eyebrows lifted. He regarded a platter of brook trout swimming in butter, selected the largest, and slid it onto his plate. He ate for· a few minutes in a charged silence where no one but himself moved, and the squab on David's plate congealed in its gravy.
“Is that all?” he said again in a musing tone. “You waylaid a child… how old was she? Fourteen, I believe?” He looked between the two again, politely waiting for a response.
“She was ripe for it,” Charles said. “Her mother was a whore. Everyone knew it.”
“Oh, I thought her mother had died the year before,” Cedric said questioningly. “I was under the impression that the child lived alone with her father… a man much respected by St. Simon people. One of St. Simon's favored tenants. But perhaps I'm mistaken.” He gestured to the butler to refill his glass.
“Am I mistaken, sir?” His black glare arrowed into David, who stared down at the table, concealing the naked hatred in his eyes.
“No,” he muttered finally. “But we weren't to know that.”
“No, of course you weren't.” Cedric sounded almost soothing. “When you raped and beat her and left her naked on the beach, barely alive, you weren't to know that you had interfered with one of St. Simon's tenants on Tregarthan land.”
The viscount took another deep draft of his wine and with seeming placidity allowed the silence to build around them. He cut into the pigeon pie, and if he was aware that only he had any appetite for dinner, he gave no sign of it.
“Of course you weren't to know that,” he reiterated in the same tone. “Just as of course it wouldn't occur to you that the girl might tell someone… might even know who it was who had assaulted her throughout one long summer afternoon. It wouldn't occur to you, of course, that everyone knows you in these parts. You've only lived here since you were infants.” His voice was suddenly sharp, spitting his angry derision.
“I don't give a tinker's damn what you do, you pair of bumbling idiots. You can rape a regiment of women if you wish. But not even dogs soil their own turf!”
The two inhaled sharply, flushed, and then paled in unison. Cedric smiled. Their anger at this public humiliation pleased him, and the fear that made them swallow their anger pleased him even more, although it increased his contempt.
Only Celia, of all the Penhallans, had stood up to him.
Suddenly he lost interest in tormenting his nephews.
The image of Celia filled his head. And the girl he'd seen yesterday. The girl who for a minute he'd mistaken for Celia. It was absurd, of course. His memory was hardly accurate after all these years. He'd been fooled by the fair hair and the slight frame. Nevertheless, it had been an extraordinary resemblance. The girl was probably about the same age Celia had been when he'd sent her away. That was what had given him such a start.
She'd been traveling with St. Simon. He looked up again at his nephews, an arrested light in the piercing black eyes. “What did you say about seeing St. Simon with some doxy this morning?”
Charles and David visibly relaxed, knowing that their uncle had lost interest in his malign castigation. “They were in the sea in the cove, sir,” David said hurriedly. “We couldn't see very clearly from the cliff top, but they were naked. The girl was so scrawny, she could have been a boy, we thought.” He chuckled, looking at his twin for corroboration.
“We thought perhaps St. Simon had developed new tastes in the Peninsula,” Charles said with a curl of his thin mouth.
“Don't be a fool,” his uncle said wearily. “What was she like?”
“Small, very fair hair.” Charles made haste to repair his error. “That was all we could see.”
Cedric frowned, stroking his chin thoughtfully. It fitted with the girl he'd seen in Bodmin. “St. Simon bringing his mistress to Tregarthan?” He shook his head. “That's not his style. Who the hell could she be?”
He didn't realize he'd spoken out loud, and he didn't notice the quick look that flew between the twins. He helped himself from a platter of roast potatoes and chewed steadily. Silence returned to the dining room, but the twins now felt safe enough to resume their own dinner.
Cedric found his mind returning yet again to his sister. He rarely thought about her these days, but the girl in Bodmin had triggered a host of involuntary memories. Celia had been clever, very quick-witted. She could have been very useful to him if she'd agreed to follow his direction and mingle with the right people. He could have used her as a conduit for his influence. She would have been a worthy partner in his ambition if she'd agreed to be molded.
He wiped a dribble of gravy from his chin. But Celia had been so devilishly unpredictable, with no sense of family duty. And she'd threatened to ruin him. He'd had no choice but to take drastic measures to deal with her. A pity, really… it might have been amusing to have her companionship at this stage in life, when he was surrounded by people who wouldn't even look him in the eye. As for his brother's two sons…
Nasty pair they were… had been from the moment they'd passed into his guardianship at the age of seven. But they'd surpassed themselves over that business with the girl and St. Simon. If he hadn't opened his purse generously to the wench's father, it could have been very ugly. St. Simon had been insisting on hauling them before the justices, but the girl's father had settled for the equivalent of a handsome pension to keep his daughter quiet, and St. Simon hadn't been able to persuade him to change his mind. But St. Simon had sworn his own retribution if the Penhallan twins set foot on his land again, and Cedric had no doubt he meant it.