“Beg pardon, sir. But what's St. Simon's harlot doing here?”
“Don't be any more of a fool than you can help,” Cedric said coldly. He jerked his head at Tamsyn. “Come in here.”
She moved to follow him, aware that David had joined his brother on the stairs. It was very fortunate Gabriel was not with her. They were both regarding her with a lascivious, drunken interest. She glanced up at them. “What a pretty pair of cowardly sots, you are, cousins. Have you had fun with any little girls recently?” Then she followed Cedric into a large paneled library.
“Where have you come from?” He spoke from the sideboard, where he was pouring cognac with hands that weren't quite steady.
Tamsyn didn't answer the question, saying instead, “I look very like her, don't I?” She felt rather than heard the twins stepping into the room behind her.
Cedric tossed back the contents of the glass. “Yes,” he said. “The very image of her. Where is she?”
“Dead. But she lived rather longer than you'd intended.” Tamsyn was beginning to enjoy herself; all her fear had gone. She glanced again at her cousins, who were standing by the door, gawping in incomprehension. “Long enough to ensure that you will pay for what you did to her.” A cold smile touched her lips. “Was it really necessary to send her to her death, uncle?”
“Your mother was a very difficult woman.” Cedric refilled his glass. He seemed almost amused. “She intended to ruin me… to bring disgrace on the name of Penhallan. If she'd been just a silly chit, I could have brought her to heel. But Celia had an iron will… hard to believe, really, to look at her. She was such a little thing.”
“What's St. Simon's doxy got to do with us?” David asked, sounding petulant in his drunken confusion.
“Are you?” Cedric asked Tamsyn with the same amusement.
She shook her head. “Certainly not. I'm a Penhallan, sir. Penhallans are not whores, are they?”
His color deepened, and his breath whistled through his teeth, but his voice when he spoke was as neutral as before. “So just where does St. Simon come into all this?”
“He doesn't,” she said. “He knows nothing about it.”
“I see.” Cedric stroked his chin. “I suppose you have proof of your identity?”
“I'm no fool, sir.”
“No… no more was your mother.” He laughed suddenly, sounding genuinely entertained. “Fancy that. Trust Celia to come back and haunt me. Curiously enough, I miss her.”
''I'm sure she would have been touched to hear it,” Tamsyn said dryly.
He laughed again. “Sharp tongue, just like hers.” He turned back to the decanter and again refilled his glass. “So what do you want?”
“Well, I had in mind the Penhallan diamonds,” Tamsyn said pensively. “They were Cecile's and by rights should come to me.”
“What's she talking about?” Charles demanded.
“Hold your tongue, you idiot!” Cedric surveyed her over his glass. “So she continued to call herself Cecile. Dear God, she was stubborn.”
Apparently he wasn't going to challenge her claim.
Tamsyn was puzzled by the amicability of an encounter that should have been bristling with hostility. “You don't dispute the diamonds are mine by right?”
Cedric shook his head. “No, most certainly they're yours if you can prove you're Celia's daughter.”
“I have the locket. And signed papers.”
He shrugged. “I'm sure you have ample documentation. Enough to ruin me, of course, if the story of your mother's disappearance was made public.”
“Precisely.” It still didn't feel right, but she couldn't put her finger on what was making her uneasy. She knew she had a cast-iron claim, so why should it feel wrong that Cedric would acknowledge it? He was an intelligent man, not given to wasting energy on futile causes. “Actually,” she said, “I don't really need the diamonds, I have plenty of my own. Cecile made rather a good marriage, you see.”
Cedric threw back his head and guffawed. “Did she, indeed?”
“Yes, but I doubt it would have met with your approval.”
“So you don't need the diamonds, but you want them?”
“As you said, they're mine by right. Either you make reparation to my mother's memory, or I shall send a story to the Gazette that will have the entire country humming.”
“You can't let her get away with this!” Charles lurched forward, some of the sense of what was being said finally penetrating his buzzing brain. “It's blackmail!”
“Oh, well-done, sir,” Cedric applauded. “Such perspicacity! You'll take a glass of champagne with me, niece, to seal our bargain.”
It was statement rather than request, and Tamsyn's eyes narrowed. “I don't believe so, Lord Penhallan.”
“Oh, come now, let us at least strive for civility,” he chided. “Your mother was always gracious in victory. She never failed to carry off a situation with finesse.”
He was right, Tamsyn thought with a stab of pain.
Cecile would have won her victory and taken a glass of wine with her brother. She'd have slipped the diamonds into her pocket, shaken his hand, and left him with a smile.
She inclined her head in graceful acceptance. “Then, if you'll excuse me a moment, niece, I shall fetch up a bottle of something very special. Your cousins, I'm sure, will do their best to entertain you.”
“Yes, I've tasted your ideas of entertainment once before,” Tamsyn said coolly to her cousins as their uncle left the room. Gabriel could have them later, for now she would exercise a little revenge of her own. She put one leg up on a chair and slid the knife out of its sheath, then did the same with the other. Thoughtfully, she turned back to the twins; she held the knives by their points between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, just as her father had taught her.
Their eyes widened as they saw her face and saw what Cornichet had seen when she'd come for his epaulets. Then both knives came spinning, arcing through the air, and the twins howled as much in shock as in pain as the two points neatly buried themselves in their right boots, piercing the leather as if it were butter to lodge between two toes. Charles and David stared down in disbelief at the quivering knife handles, shock rendering them momentarily mute.
“you're fortunate I'm in a forgiving mood,” Tamsyn said blandly. “I doubt you'll find too great a wound when you remove your boots.” And they still had Gabriel to deal with, but she'd spare them that knowledge.
“Good God!” Cedric exclaimed from the doorway, taking in the scene. His nephews were struggling for speech like two gobbling turkeys, their eyes darting in disbelief from the shivering knife handles in their boots to the coldly smiling woman who had thrown them.
“I owed them a favor,” Tamsyn said as the two men bent like automatons to pull the knives loose.
Cedric raised his eyebrows. “Of course, I'd forgotten that you'd already made their acquaintance.”
“Yes, I had that pleasure some weeks ago,” Tamsyn said. She moved swiftly and twitched the knives from the twins' slack grasp. She examined the points. “Not much blood at all, really. The baron would have been proud of me.”
“The baron?” Cedric sounded fascinated.
“My father,” she said, wiping the knife tips on her cloak before returning them to their sheaths.
“I should really like to hear more,” Cedric murmured. “But, unfortunately, there won't be time.” Turning his back, he eased the cork off the champagne bottle. It came out with a restrained pop, and there was a fIzzy hiss as he filed four glasses.
“I trust you don't object to drinking with your cousins?” He turned back and handed her a glass. “They're an unworthy pair, I know, but unfortunately one can't choose one's relatives.”