“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.

She was so deep in her musing that she didn't notice the two men keeping their distance behind her.

David and Charles had kept to the side of the narrow, climbing streets in the village, pausing casually in doorways, taking little alleys between cottages that would bring them up onto the next street without its looking as if they were following her. Now, as they dogged her steps along the deserted lane, they both had their hands in their pockets, fingers twisting around the black silk loo masks, and they both wore the same expression-an eager, predatory glimmer in their eyes, their mouths twisted into the same grim quirk.

Tamsyn left the lane, slipped through a kissing gate beside a stone cattle grid, and turned along the edge of the field in the shade of the hedge. David and Charles silently drew out their masks and as silently tied them on.

Tamsyn heard the gentle buzz of a bumblebee in the honeysuckle, the frantic crackle as a startled pheasant took wing from the ripening corn. The sun was hot, the earth dry; a frog hopped out of the ditch beside the hedge. It was quiet, almost somnolent, and the hairs on the back of her neck lifted and her scalp crawled.

She stopped and very slowly turned around. Two masked men stepped toward her, malevolent intent wreathing around them. Tamsyn stood stone still. There was no one in the field but herself and the two men. A herd of cows raised their heads and stared with bovine curiosity through sleepy brown eyes, their jaws rhythmically working as they chewed the cud.

“Well, well,” Charles said, approaching her. “If it isn't St. Simon's doxy of the seashore.”

The men of the cliff top. Were they her cousins? She said nothing.

David chuckled. “Fancy St. Simon housing his harlot under the precious roofs of Tregarthan… with his sister, no less.” He reached out and touched her cheek. Charles stepped up beside him, and she was backed against the hedge. No chance to outrun them. Still she said nothing.

“So how about you tell us something about yourself?” David invited, pinching her cheek so the flesh whitened as the blood fled.

Tamsyn shook her head. “Perdon?” she whispered.

“Your name, whore.” He pinched her other cheek, bringing her face very dose to his. “Your name and where you come from.”

“No comprendo,” Tamsyn whispered, praying that her fear wasn't showing in her eyes. If these two smelled her fear, there would be no stopping them.

“Oh, don’t play dumb with me, whore!” David released her cheeks, took a swift, darting step, and moved behind her, grabbing her arms, pulling them hard behind her, pushing them up her back.

Tamsyn knew that she couldn't hope to defend herself physically. There were two of them and they were twice her size, for all their willowy stature. If she'd had a weapon, a knife, anything, maybe she would have had a chance. But she had nothing.

Except for the needle and thread she'd bought for Josefa.

Her mind raced as she continued to stand immobile. She had the absolute sense that if she was not to be badly hurt, she must offer no resistance unless she was certain it would work. There was something about them that sent ice down her spine. Worse than Cornichet, she thought distantly. At least Cornichet had a reason for what he did, a reason she understood.

Charles's eyes laughed at her, and yet they were as cold and deadly as a viper's. David released her arms and she breathed again but it was a false respite. Charles took her chin between finger and thumb in a hurtful grip, and his other hand grabbed a handful of her hair, jerking her head toward him. Then he brought his mouth to hers in a violent assault that made her want to vomit. His tongue pushed into her mouth and battered against her throat; her head swam as she gagged, fighting for breath. Her hand closed over the packet of needles.