She left the breakfast parlor while Gareth was just settling into his second plate of sirloin. Those pudgy thighs weren't going to get any the less so, she reflected, but one woman's meat was another's poison.
“Tamsyn, good morning.”
Lucy's voice aptly broke into Tamsyn's charitably philosophic reflection. Lucy was coming down the stairs, her expression both excited and a little shy.
“Good morning.” Tamsyn greeted her pleasantly, relieved to see that she seemed to have recovered her good humor over night. ''I'm going for a walk. Do you care to accompany me?”
“Oh, yes, I should love to. I'll just fetch my parasol and pelisse.”
“Oh, you won't need those. It's very warm out, and I intend to go to St. Catherine's Point. It's quite a scramble over the cliff, so you won't want to carry clutter.”
Lucy, expecting a gentle, chatty stroll through the shrubbery, was aghast at such a prospect; however, she said stoically, “No, of course I won't. Are you leaving now?”
“If you're ready,” Tamsyn said politely.
They were halfway down the drive when Gabriel appeared through the trees, on foot, a gun over one shoulder, a game bag over the other. “Where are you going, little girl?”
“To St. Catherine's Point. Then into Fowey to buy some needle and thread for Josefa.”
He nodded, smiled amiably at Lucy, and continued on his way.
“Your servant is very familiar.”
“Gabriel is no servant, and don't ever treat him as one,” Tamsyn said. “He becomes very upset. He was my father's most trusted friend, and he looks after me.”
“You must do things very differently in Spain,” Lucy observed, feeling for a way to start the conversation she had in mind.
“You could say that.” Tamsyn struck out toward the steeply rising cliff path, her stride long and easy. Lucy puffed behind her, waving at flies that swarmed around her as the sweat started to break out on her forehead.
“You talk about things differently.” They reached the crest of the path and Lucy stopped, gasping in the cool breeze now blowing fresh from the sea stretched out below them. “I mean the things you said your mother had told you.” Her cheeks were hot, and she knew it wasn't just the result of exertion.
Tamsyn's laugh lilted on the wind. “Your mother didn't tell you such things, I imagine?” She started off again, running down the path toward a ledge that hung out over the Fowey estuary, just above the ruined walls of St. Catherine's fort, which once had commanded the entrance to the river as part of Henry VIII's coastal defense system.
By the time Lucy had reached her, Tamsyn had kicked off her sandals and was stretched on her stomach, gazing down at the fort, and across the wide mouth of the estuary. A clipper, laden with china clay, was tacking out of the estuary to the sea.
“No, she didn't,” Lucy said, dropping to the grass beside her, wondering if she would get grass stains on her pale cambric gown. “The only thing she ever said to me about marriage was that there were some aspects that were not pleasant, but it was one's duty to endure them.”
“Lie back and think of England!” Tamsyn said in disgust, chewing on a strand of grass. “And I don't suppose your brother mentioned anything either?”
“Julian!” Lucy stared at her in horror. “He couldn't talk about things like that to me!”
“Oh.” Tamsyn decided it would be dangerous to discuss Julian in such a context in case she inadvertently gave something away.
“I know it's not at all respectable of me to want to talk about such things,” Lucy ventured.
Tamsyn laughed and rolled onto her back, squinting against the sun. “Respectability can make life very dull. I'll wager you anything that Gareth would much prefer an unrespectable woman in his bed.”
“He has plenty of those,” Lucy said tartly, and then gasped, amazed at herself for saying such a shocking thing.
Tamsyn merely grinned. “But if he had one at home, then he probably wouldn't need to wander off quite so often.”
“So what do I have to do to be unrespectable?” Lucy demanded. “Since you seem to know so much about it.” It was on the tip of her tongue to say what she and Gareth had seen in the night, but she was too embarrassed to admit to having watched in secret… and far too embarrassed to admit that they'd both found the watching curiously exciting.
“I'll tell you, if you promise not to say a word to your brother. If he thinks I've been corrupting you, he'll throw me out of the house.”
“Would he?” Lucy breathed. She found her brother thoroughly intimidating, but after what she'd seen last night, she couldn't imagine Tamsyn accepting such a decree without a murmur.
“Probably,” Tamsyn said. “So you must promise.”
“I promise.”
Tamsyn smiled into the sunshine and began to impart to the wide-eyed innocent beside her some of the joys of love.
It was a very thoughtful Lucy who walked alone back to Tregarthan an hour later at a much slower pace than the one set by Tamsyn on the way to the point.
Tamsyn took the steep, winding path down to the town, deep in thought. It was gratifying to put someone else's life in order, even if she couldn't understand what Lucy could possibly see in Gareth Fortescue. He didn't strike her as seriously unpleasant so much as lazy, conceited, and self-indulgent. Quite usual characteristics of the English male aristocrat, if Cecile was to be believed. He wasn't a man to be solely contented with the marriage bed, however satisfying that bed might be, but presumably Lucy would find it easier to accommodate her husband's wanderings if she was herself no longer dissatisfied. They'd certainly seem less threatening to the stability of her marriage.
She made her purchases in the draper's and strolled in the sunshine along the quay. David and Charles Penhallan saw her from the steps of the white Customs House, where they were talking with the Revenue Officer, a portly gentlemen who struggled daily with the paradox of having to do a job that went against his own interests. For a man who loved his wine and cognac as Lieutenant Barker did, preventing the Gentlemen from making their runs was the devil's own work. He was an expert at turning a blind eye, and the smugglers generally let him know when it would be expedient for him to do so.
“Lord Penhallan was remarking only the other day that since he started using mantraps at Lanjerrick, his gamekeepers have noticed much less poaching.” He stroked his rotund belly and belched softly. Kippers for breakfast always sat heavily, but he couldn't resist them. “I was thinking of mentioning it to Lord St. Simon. His bailiff was lamenting how many pheasants they were losing…” His voice faded as he realized that he was talking to thin air. The Penhallan twins had moved away and were sauntering down the street.
Tamsyn walked back up the narrow, steep streets of the little town, pausing now and again to look over the jumbled roofs below her, looking down· into small walled cottage gardens fragrant with roses, fishing nets drying in the sun, crab pots piled in corners.
Could she live here? Leave the wild passes and the soaring eagles, the smell of crushed thyme beneath her feet, the ice-capped mountain peaks, the clear, frigid mountain rivers? Leave the punishing summer sun for this gentle cousin; leave the air so sharp it pierced your lungs for this soft air, as gentle as spring rain?
But the question was academic. She knew there was no way to expose Cedric Penhallan as she intended and keep Julian in ignorance. And if she couldn't do that, then she couldn't persuade the colonel to look into his heart and see what she believed was there. So she was going back to Spain as soon as she'd done what she had come here to do, and she'd take with her memories of a man and a love that would have to last a lifetime.
She turned out of the town as she reached the top street, and took the high-hedged lane that wound its way to Tregarthan. Firmly, she forced herself to dwell on the glories of her homeland, to think how wonderful it would be to be back with the partisans, to have a clean, dear-cut purpose in life again. To put this emotional quagmire behind her.