“At ninety-six, young man, one doesn't answer such a question,” she said with a cackle of laughter. “Help me to a chair and procure me a glass of negus; I can't think where that ninny has disappeared to.”
Julian obeyed with a smile. Letitia Gunston was a local institution. She never refused an invitation, and her long-suffering companion, almost as old as she was, bore the social round with almost as much fortitude as she endured her employer's acerbic and continual complaints.
“Here you are, ma'am.” He handed her the negus and sat down beside her. “I added a little extra wine, knowing how you like to taste it.”
Lady Gunston cackled again and took a critical sip of the sweetened flavored wine and hot water. “I've had worse.” She nodded and allowed her rheumy eyes to wander around the room again. “Quite an astonishing resemblance, don't you think?”
“Who, ma'am?” He leaned closer to catch the thin voice.
“That gal.” She gestured with her stick across the room. “Haven't seen her before. But she's the spitting image of Celia.”
“I don't follow you, ma'am.” Julian’s blood seemed to slow.
She turned to look at him. “No, of course not. Celia died when you were still in short coats, I should imagine. Lovely gal, she was, but a mite too lively for propriety. Never knew what she'd be up to next.” She laughed, coughed vigorously, and took another hearty swallow of negus.
“Celia who, ma' am?” He was very cold, his entire body suspended, waiting for the information he knew was coming… the information that would bring his adventure with a brigand to a close.
“Why, Penhallan, of course. Celia Penhallan, she was. Died of some fever in Scotland.” Lady Gunston nodded her head again, peering across the room to where Tamsyn was dancing with some young scion of local nobility. “The hair's the thing,” she mused, her voice dropping so Julian had to lean even closer to catch her words. “Never seen hair that color before. Can't see her eyes, though.”
“Violet,” Julian said, his voice seeming to come from a great distance.
“Ah, yes, they would be.” The old woman smiled, toothless and smug. “Celia had violet eyes.” Her head jerked suddenly, and she said, “Fetch that ninny of mine, young man. It's time I went home.”
Julian went in search of Miss Winston. He was moving through a void, his mind numb. He saw the old lady to her old-fashioned berlin. The liveried footman half lifted her inside, little Miss Winston weighed down with an armful of cloaks and spare reticules struggling up behind her. The driver touched his cocked hat cracked his whip, and the cumbersome vehicle lurched down the driveway.
Julian stood in the doorway, listening to the strains of music, the muted voices, an occasional burst of laughter wafting from the rooms behind him. Lucy had surpassed herself, he thought distantly. If this was her idea of a small reception, he dreaded to think what she'd do with a proper ball.
Celia Penhallan. Cecile. But how did Celia Penhallan become Cecile, the mate of a Spanish robber baron? How did a death in Scotland square with an abduction in the Pyrenees?
Cedric Penhallan presumably would know the answer.
He walked out on the driveway and turned to the side of the house, heading for the dark seclusion of the orchard. His absence wouldn't be noticed for a while in the crush inside, and he couldn't face returning to the social inanities, the fatuous smiles, the mindless chatter. Not until he'd cleared his head.
Penhallan blood ran in her veins. The blue blood of one of the greatest families in the land. But it was bad blood. Tainted with the ruthless ambition of the viscount and the vile and vicious antics of the twins.
God in heaven! In those delicate blue veins so clearly visible beneath the white skin of her wrists, the blood of an outlaw mingled with the blood of a tyrant. He thought of the way she stood, the arrogant tilt of her chin, the way her eyes flared if she was challenged, the set of her mouth if it looked as if she wasn't going to get her way. Penhallan traits, every one. And the ruthless determination, the blind pushing for her own goals, the way she swept all obstacles from her path.
But Cedric Penhallan would never acknowledge her, even if her claim was cast iron. Not only would his personal pride never permit him to acknowledge a relationship with such a creature from such a wildly impossible background, but if he accepted her claim of kinship, he'd have to explain publicly that the death and the burial and the ceremonious mourning for his sister had all been a sham. And why, in the name of grace, had he perpetrated that hoax? Knowing Cedric, to avoid some scandal. Perhaps Cecile… Celia… had run away from home. Had fled to Spain to escape her brother's long reach, and Cedric had simply concocted an explanation for the public domain. It made perfect sense.
Julian's head felt as if it were going to burst. He loathed the Penhallans and everything associated with them. Twenty years ago Cedric had manipulated the lives of those around him for his own purposes, and Tamsyn was the unforeseen product.
And that unforeseen product was beginning to raise Cain with his own view of his world and all his preconceived ideas of the future of Lord St. Simon of Tregarthan. In some perverse fashion he was caught up in a web of Penhallan spinning, and that old manipulation was now at work on his own life.
He faced it clearly, but it did nothing to clarify his present turmoil. It was inconceivable that he should make a life with Tamsyn, and yet he found he couldn't formulate the thought of leaving her. He couldn't imagine what it would be like now to live his life without her.
And should he tell her what he'd discovered? Would it do her any good to know? Cedric Penhallan would laugh in her face, destroying that eager dream to discover a family who would make up for the loss of her own.
While Julian was walking through the orchard, Cedric Penhallan drove up to Tregarthan. He was deliberately late, and his hostess had left her post at the head of the stairs long before he strolled up them.
He paused at the double doors standing open onto the main salon thronged with brightly clad women like so many butterflies and their more somberly dressed escorts. The musicians were playing a waltz, and he saw Celia's daughter immediately, twirling gracefully in the hold of a young man in scarlet regimentals.
Cedric remained standing in the door, fixing his gaze on the slight figure. Celia had worn those colors, he remembered. And she too had danced with that lively grace.
“Lord Penhallan, we're honored.” Lucy hurried across the room toward him, sounding breathless and startled. Her eyes darted in search of Julian, who surely should be there to greet this important guest, but there was no sign of her brother. She bowed and shook hands with the viscount.
“May I procure you a glass of wine… Oh, Gareth.” With relief she saw her husband a few paces away. “Gareth, here is Lord Penhallan.”
Gareth too looked for his brother-in-law. He didn't feel in the least competent to deal with a man who moved in lofty circles far out of his own orbit, and who was gazing at him with a look of derision from beneath his bushy gray eyebrows. But he searched manfully for a suitable topic of conversation and asked his lordship about his stud.
Tamsyn had felt her uncle's arrival, just as she'd felt his eyes on her. As the music died, she smiled at her partner and excused herself, refusing his eager offer to accompany her into the supper room.
She walked steadily across the floor. Cedric's eyes met hers as she approached.
“Oh,” Lucy said, relieved at the diversion. “Permit me to introduce Lord Penhallan, Tamsyn. Viscount, this is my brother's ward, Senorita Baron. She's come to us from Spain, the Duke-”