For the first time she allowed him to remove her nightgown, and when he touched her, she was moist and open, although her limbs became abruptly rigid, her expression taut with apprehension.

“It'll be all right,” he said softly, hardly able to contain himself, but somehow managing to control the vigorous surge of his entry so that she didn't tighten against him as she had always done in the past. It was over very quickly, but when he rolled away from her, he knew that for once he hadn't hurt her, and his own explosion of pleasure had seared him to his toes.

Lucy lay thoughtfully in the darkness, listening to Gareth's gradually deepening snores. She felt most peculiar, but also quite pleasantly relaxed. But she had the unshakable conviction that what she had just experienced was as nothing to what Tamsyn was experiencing in Julian's bed.

She was Julian’s mistress. How exotic, and how shocking. No wonder she seemed so different, and no wonder she'd offered her opinion so freely. Well, in the morning Lucy would seek more of those opinions. She certainly had a new perspective on her strait-laced brother, though. An involuntary giggle escaped her, and she turned her-face into her pillow. She'd take his strictures a little less to heart in future.

Gareth wasn't sure how to greet his brother-in-law the following morning, but Julian's “Good morning” over the breakfast, table was accompanied by an imperturbable smile and the civil invitation to look over his stud and take any horse that met his fancy, with the exception of Soult.

“I rode Soult from Badajos to Lisbon,” Julian explained. “But the rest of my campaigning string is in the charge of my groom in Spain.”

“When do you expect to return?” Gareth piled kedgeree onto his plate and sat down, filling his tankard from the jug of ale.

“By October at the latest. I have to be in London again next month.” He wiped his mouth and tossed his napkin to the table. “Well, if you'll excuse me, Gareth, I've work to do.”

He strode to the door just as it opened to admit Tamsyn, in a high-necked, long-sleeved dress of sprigged muslin. “Good morning, milord colonel.”

“Good morning, Tamsyn.” His voice was cool, his eye amused, as he noticed that she had chosen a costume that covered every inch of her skin. They'd both acquired a few bruises in the night's rough-and-tumble.

“Don't let me keep you, sir.”

“I won't. Termagant!” he added in a soft whisper. He flicked her cheek carelessly; the residue of passion still lurked in his eyes… that and laughter. He'd woken up laughing, convinced he'd been laughing in his sleep.

“Bully'“ she mouthed, her own gaze sparkling.

“Virago!” He left on the whisper, and Tamsyn turned her attention to Gareth, who tried to pretend he hadn't been straining his ears to catch the whispered colloquy.

“Good morning, Gareth. Is Lucy still abed?” She sat down and took a piece of toast from the rack. “Could you pass the coffee, please?”

Gareth obliged. “Lucy usually takes her breakfast above stairs.” He found himself examining her covertly, his memory alive with the image of her body beneath her clothes. He wondered if she'd be open to a proposition from himself. He ought to be able to match whatever Julian was offering her. Unfortunately, he didn't see how he could make such a proposal while they were both under St. Simon's roof. A man didn't poach on another man's territory while he was enjoying his hospitality. But maybe while Julian was in London, he might sound her out.

The prospect brought a smile to his lips, and unconsciously he touched his mustache, smoothing it with a fingertip.

Tamsyn buttered her toast, wondering what could have brought that irritating smirk to his face. She fervently hoped it was nothing to do with her. Could he have heard anything last night? No, their voices in the corridor hadn't risen above a whisper, and everyone had been asleep.

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.”