“Goodness me,” Tamsyn murmured, examining herself in the cheval glass the following Saturday. She'd become accustomed to seeing herself in gowns, but the light cambrics and muslins she'd worn hitherto hadn't prepared her for this image. The gown left her shoulders and arms bare, and was cut low across her bosom, revealing both the upper swell of her breasts and the deep valley between them..
She rarely gave her body more than a passing thought and was as comfortable in her skin as she was clothed, but drawing attention to parts of her anatomy in this way struck her as almost indecent. She remembered Cecile describing some of the gowns she'd worn as a debutante, cut so low that her nipples were barely covered. And she remembered how Cecile had laughed, her violet eyes mischievous as she'd demonstrated with her fan how she used to draw attention to her bosom while seeming modesty to hide it.
Tamsyn swallowed the lump in her throat and turned to Josefa. “So what do you think, Josefa? Do I look at all like Cecile?”
Josefa's bright black eyes darted up and down the slender figure. “To the life, querida,” she pronounced, and her own eyes misted; then she smiled and bustled over, bending to smooth down the skirt and adjust the train.
There was a tap at the door. “May I come in?” Lucy popped her head around. “Oh, Tamsyn,” she said, coming fully into the room. “How beautiful you are.”
“Nonsense,” Tamsyn said, blushing slightly. ''I'm thin and brown-skinned, and my hair's unfashionably short.”
“No,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “You're quite wrong. You look wonderful. Different… but lovely.” She turned to examine herself critically in the mirror. “I quite liked this gown a minute ago, but now it seems dull and boring compared with yours.”
“Nonsense,” Tamsyn said, laughing. “You're fishing for compliments. Shame on you, Lucy.”
Lucy laughed self-consciously and patted a ringlet into place. She knew she looked both pretty and elegant. However, she thought, examining Tamsyn's image in the mirror, Tamsyn's appearance took one's breath away… perhaps because she was so unusual.
“Well, if you're ready, let us go down. I'm sure Julian and Gareth are already downstairs.”
“You go on,” Tamsyn said, suddenly needing to gather her thoughts. “I'll follow in a few minutes.”
Lucy hesitated, then went off with an equable shrug of her creamy round shoulders.
Tamsyn went to the window, drawing aside the curtain, gazing out across the lawn to the sea. It was a delightful summer evening, a crescent moon swinging low on the horizon, the first pale glimmer of starlight against the darkening sky.
Cecile had once described her favorite gown. It had been of silver lace and cream silk. Tonight her daughter would appear to Cedric Penhallan in the same colors. A vastly different style of dress, of course. Where Cecile had worn swaying side panniers and a tightly corseted bodice, her daughter wore a slip of a gown that glided like gossamer over her figure. But her violet eyes were as deep and luminous as her mother's, and they glowed against the pale shimmer of her gown. Her hair was the same burnished silver, and her frame was as slight and slender.
Would Cedric Penhallan see his sister?
She touched the locket at her throat, drawing strength and determination from the images of Cecile and the baron smiling beneath the delicate filigree silver. Then she went to the door, her step vigorous, the energy of purpose coursing through her veins.
Julian was in the hall, waiting for her at the bottom of the staircase with a degree of impatience. The first guests could arrive at any minute, and he wanted to be certain Tamsyn hadn't committed any serious solecisms, like smothering herself in rubies and diamonds.
He saw her in the shadows at the top of the stairs and called up to her. “Hurry, Tamsyn, people will be arriving at any minute.”
She came running down the stairs toward him with her usual impetuous vitality, one hand carelessly holding up her skirt, her half train swishing behind her. ''I'm sorry. I didn't mean to keep you waiting.” She jumped the last step and flashed him a smile, tilting her head to one side in her robin imitation. “So what do you think, milord colonel? Will I pass muster?”
“Good God,” he said softly.
“Is something wrong?” Her smile faltered.
“Yes,” he said. “Ladies don't hurtle down the stairs as if all the devils in hell were on their heels. Go back and come down properly.”
“Oh, very well.” With an exaggerated sigh Tamsyn gathered up her skirts again and scampered back up the stairs. At the top she stopped, turned, laid one hand on the banister, and floated gracefully down the curving sweep to the hall.
Julian stood, one hand on the newel, one foot on the bottom step, watching, his critical expression masking his whirling senses. The exquisite gown did nothing to disguise the deep currents of sensuality that flowed through her, glowing in her eyes and in the translucent depths of her skin. The pale colors and delicate material merely accentuated her thrumming vibrancy. And he wanted to catch her up in his arms, bury his lips in the delicate curve where her neck met her shoulder, inhale the mingled honeyed scents of her skin, run his fingers through the shining cap that clung to the small, well shaped head.
He wanted to claim her. Hold her in his arms, secure in the knowledge and rights of possession. He wanted to proclaim his possession to the world.
He took her hand as she reached him, raising it to his lips in a formal salute. “Try to remember for the rest of the evening not to gambol like a colt.” Then he released her hand and turned back to the drawing room.
Tamsyn bit her lip. She hadn't expected fulsome compliments, but something other than a schoolmasterly castigation would have been nice.
Over the next two hours, as the house filled with a laughing, chattering crowd, Julian watched her. She stood beside Lucy at the head of the stairs as Lucy welcomed the stream of guests and introduced Tamsyn. He noted with wry appreciation how, while she spoke English fluently, she adopted an exaggerated Spanish accent that made her seem even more exotic and foreign than she appeared. And he saw how the young men gathered around her, laughing uproariously at her every conversational sally, gazing with rapt admiration into her glowing face. And the older men, taking advantage of the license of age, touched her arm and patted her hand, and she smiled up at them and flirted with an innocent charm that clearly entranced them.
It was an amazing performance, Julian thought. No one looking at her now would credit the fierce, lean warrior that he'd first met; or the indomitable fury of Badajos; or the weary, blackened powder monkey on the decks of the Isabelle. All those characters were his, he thought, with an overpowering surge of longing in the maelstrom of his confusion. This consummate performer belonged to the room. She was acting a part and only he knew it.
But the essential Tamsyn belonged only to him. And he wanted to leap forward, sweep her out of that circle of besotted, spotty youths, and proclaim his possession to the world.
Madness. Utter madness. He was as seduced by her performance as the rest of the room. He- knew what she was. An illegitimate, half-breed brigand without a scruple to her soul or an ethical bone in her body.
“Amazing likeness, isn't it?” a voice quavered at his elbow.
He snapped out of his reverie and turned with a polite smile to the ancient lady beside him, bent double over a silver-topped cane. “Lady Gunston, how are you?”