“Por Dios!” she muttered, absently walking away from Josefa's fingers busily hooking her gown.
“Ay… ay… ay!” Josefa cried, following her.
“Stand still, nina.”
Tamsyn stood still, staring down at the carpet. If only there was a way she could do what she had come there to do and keep the colonel in ignorance. If she could do that, then just possibly she might be able to change his view of her. Show him another side to the unscrupulous adventuress that he believed her to be. It didn't seem possible that she could feel for him the way she did without there being some reciprocation. Perhaps he just needed to look into his heart, and then all his preconceived prejudices would vanish.
But first they had to make up their quarrel. She examined her reflection in the mirror, putting her head to one side, trying to see herself as the colonel would see her. She saw an insignificant figure in a green muslin gown. He'd teased her about her height often enough, but usually only when he was annoyed. Perhaps she should wear some of the jewels. Maybe the emeralds would give her more stature. Then she shook her head. She was as she was, and she'd never given it a second thought before. But later tonight, when they were at peace with each other again, she would ask Julian exactly what he did see when he looked at her.
Sir Gareth was the only occupant of the drawing room when she entered. He turned from the sideboard where he was pouring himself sherry. “Ah. Good evening Miss…uh, Tamsyn.” He smiled. We’re ahead of the others. But Lucy always takes hours over her toilette.” His eyes ran over her, automatically appraising. “May I offer you a glass of sherry, or Madeira, perhaps.”
“Sherry, please.” Tamsyn was aware of the appraisal.
She'd come across Gareth Fortescue's type before. Lord Pendragon had been a case in point. Such men habitually examined all women who might be considered even vaguely eligible to receive male attentions. It was second nature.
She took the glass he offered. “I understand from the colonel that your family home is in Sussex. I've never been there. Is it as pretty as Cornwall?”
“Softer,” he said. “We have a quieter sea and the South Downs instead of the blasted moors. Bodmin, Exmoor… and of course Dartmoor; that's in Devon, but it's close enough.”
“We crossed Bodmin Moor on our way here. It was certainly a bleak, unfriendly spot.” She sat down, returning his scrutiny. He had a large, sensuous face with fleshy lips topped by a bushy curled mustache, gray eyes under drooping lids, curly dark hair. Attractive in his way… and he knew it.
The frankness· of her gaze startled Gareth. He was accustomed to covert assessments of his charms; women didn't in general make their interest quite so blatant. He stroked his mustache in a habitual gesture and smiled, his eyes narrowing.
Tamsyn supposed he couldn't help this performance.
Kindly, she changed the subject. “You're something of a judge of horseflesh, I gather.”
“I pride myself on being so,” he said, taking a seat opposite her, his inviting lethargy banished by enthusiasm for the topic. “But I've never seen an animal like that beast of yours. You must be a capital rider.”
“The colonel has his reservations on that subject,” she said demurely, taking another sip of sherry.
“On what subject?” Julian inquired from the doorway.
Tamsyn looked up quickly, seeing him now with the eyes of acknowledged love. He was in morning dress, gleaming tasselled Hessians, coat of gray superfine, plain waistcoat, and cream pantaloons, his cravat simply tied. She was so accustomed to seeing him in uniform that it always took her a minute to adjust to his civilian dress. She glanced at Gareth, also informally dressed, but his cravat fell in elaborate folds, and he wore several gold and diamond fobs in his striped waistcoat. His coat didn't sit as well on his shoulders, Tamsyn thought critically, suspecting pads. And his thighs in the skin-tight pantaloons were a mite pudgy.
“My horsemanship, milord colonel,” she replied. “I was about to explain to Sir Gareth that I was permitted to ride Cesar only around the grounds.”
Her smile was both complicit and appealing, and it stunned him. There was a quality to it he didn't remember seeing before. Something beyond the sensuous, inviting mischief her smiles usually implied. She took another sip of her sherry, draining her glass, as she waited for a response to what she hoped he would accept as an overture.
“There's nothing wrong with your horsemanship, Tamsyn,” he stated, keeping his voice light, hiding his response to that smile. He turned aside to pour himself sherry. “Not when it comes to mountain passes. It's just a trifle unorthodox for the English countryside.”
“May I have some more?” She extended her empty glass.
He refilled her glass and offered Gareth the decanter.
“I imagine Lucy's still fussing with her dressing.”
“Women,” Gareth said largely. “You know what they're like.”
It seemed a frequent refrain of his brother-in-law's, Julian reflected acidly. He glanced again at Tamsyn; she was trying to hide her laughter, and his own sprang unbidden into his eyes.
“Not all women, Sir Gareth,” she said sweetly.
“Convent-reared Spanish girls are taught to eschew all the vanities. Hence my short hair. It makes one's toilette very simple.”
“Ah… ah, yes, of course,” Gareth agreed, somewhat nonplussed. He examined her again over the lip of his glass. A most unusual-looking girl, he concluded. But there was something devilishly appealing about her… devilishly inviting… despite the short hair and the slight figure in the unadorned gown.
“Am I late?” Lucy came tripping into the room, a vision in her dark-blue silk gown over a half slip of cream lace, a diamond comb in her soft hair, that had been coaxed into ringlets drifting over her bare shoulders.
“It was worth waiting for, my dear,” Gareth said gallantly, taking her hand and raising it to his lips.
Lucy blushed, unaccustomed to compliments from her husband. Suddenly she became aware of a curiously charged atmosphere in the drawing room, a pulsating tension as if something forbidden and dangerous lurked below the surface. She looked at the other three and could detect nothing in their expressions to explain such an odd sensation.
“Shall we go in to dinner?” Julian put down his glass, offering his sister his arm.
Gareth, with alacrity, offered Tamsyn his, and they went into the dining room. Julian drew out the chair at the foot of the table for Lucy, and she looked startled, then laughed. “I've never sat here before. But I suppose I must… just until you get a wife, Julian.” She gave him a shy smile as she took her place. His eyes were unreadable and he made no response, merely taking his own place at the head of the table.
Lucy was flustered, wondering if she'd said something indiscreet, but she couldn't imagine how such a self-evident truth could be construed as tactless or inappropriate. She glanced at Tamsyn, who was helping herself to a dish of devilled chicken legs with hungry enthusiasm. Gareth, busily approving the Claret in his glass, also didn't appear to notice anything untoward in her statement, so she decided it was just her brother's manner. He'd never welcomed personal comments.
Tamsyn, however, had heard both the remark and the conspicuous silence it generated. Perhaps Julian found the subject uncomfortable in her presence. Maybe he thought it would be indelicate to refer to the possibility of marriage in front of his mistress. It was probably just one of those gentlemanly conventions Cecile had told her about. Thrusting the melancholy conclusion to the back of her mind, she picked up a succulent chicken leg and took a delicate bite.
Julian noticed Gareth's eyes fixed on Tamsyn across the table as she deftly stripped the meat from the bone with her teeth. His brother-in-law was fascinated by her, and Julian could understand why. There was something astonishingly sexy about Tamsyn gnawing on a bone.