But it was done now, and he wouldn't wait until the morning to set off for London. If he left just before daybreak, he would reach Bodmin in time to break his fast, and he could cross the moor in daylight.

Tamsyn went up to her tower room without a word to anyone. Josefa was waiting for her, dozing in a low chair by the fireplace. She sprang up full of eager inquiry as her nurseling entered, but her eagerness changed to a cry of distress as she saw the girl's face.

“I don't wish to talk of it tonight,” Tamsyn said. “Go to bed now, and in the morning we'll talk, the three of us.”

Josefa left reluctantly, but she knew the tone-she'd heard it often enough from the baron, and one didn't argue with it.

Tamsyn shivered as a sudden gust of wind blew through the open window. She could hear the surf pounding on the beach as the wind rose. Hugging her breasts, she went to the window. Clouds scudded across the moon in an ever-thickening band, and the soft sea breeze had suddenly changed into a cold, damp wind. The glorious spell of summer weather seemed to be breaking.

She could hear the voices from the driveway as carriages were called for and the last of the guests left, hurrying now to get home before the weather turned.

Tamsyn didn't know how long she stood at the window, watching the storm clouds gather, feeling the increasing sharpness of the wind as it rattled the panes of the open window and set the curtains swirling immobile figure. The first drops of rain woke her from her reverie. She closed the window, drew the curtains to shut out the now unfriendly night, and undressed, her mind working furiously, finally overcoming the paralysis of shock.

She hadn't expected Julian to bring everything to a close so abruptly. If only it hadn't come on the heels of her encounter with Cedric, she knew she would have responded differently. But she'd been too absorbed in the encounter that had opened the game of vengeance to think clearly, to respond intelligently to anything outside her immediate preoccupation. Cedric had known who she was-the recognition had been clear in his gaze as he had picked up the glove she'd thrown at his feet. She had wanted to play with him a little, let him see her moving comfortably in this society, let him wonder what she intended, wonder about her history. And Julian had blundered into her excitement, dropping a bombshell into her carefully constructed scheme, throwing all her plans awry. So instead of analyzing his proposal, working out how it could bring them closer together, she'd heard only the words and reacted with blind emotion. And blind emotion was an indulgence she could not afford. Not in her schemes of vengeance, and not in her schemes of love.

She climbed into bed, pulling the bedclothes up to her chin.

If Julian was going back to Spain, then she would go with him. Half a loaf was better than none, and half a loaf could grow.

Rolling over, she blew out her candle and lay in the darkness, listening to the rain now beating heavily on the window. The crash of the surf could be heard clearly above the rain, and the night grew ever wilder.

She loved him, loved him as Cecile had loved the baron. The only love of her life… a love for all life. And if he could only offer her half of himself, then for now she would take that. But she had to tell him so. And then she had to deal with Cedric. But in the light of this new scheme, how was she to do that?

An answer would come to her in the morning. As soon as she'd rested and was calm again, she would tell Julian that she'd changed her mind.

The storm abated just before daybreak, and in the damp chill Julian swung onto Soult, his portmanteau strapped to the saddle behind him. The sky was gunmetal-gray, the sea dark, the lawns sodden, the gravel of the parterres studded with puddles. He glanced upward at the east tower, at the ivy-garlanded window overlooking the drive. Then he turned his face north and cantered down the drive.

Tamsyn, hollow-eyed after a sleepless night, stood at the window and stared into the rain-dark morning as Julian rode away. Had he gone so soon? How could he be so perverse as not to know that she would change her mind once her temper had died down?

She moved in a whirlwind, racing out of her room, down the back stairs, out into the stable yard, and up the stairs to Josefa and Gabriel.

“Och, little girl, steady now,” Gabriel said, leaping from his bed as she came in, her eyes wild. “Tell me, now.” He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly against his barrel chest so that she couldn't have spoken if she'd wished to.

But at last she was able to tell them what had happened. “I have to go after him,” she.said simply, sitting on the end of their bed, her hands twisting in her lap. I love him… it's like Cecile and the baron, it's something I can't do anything about. It hurts.” She looked between them. Josefa's eyes were bright and sharp and Gabriel pulled at his chin.

Slowly, he nodded. “Then we'd best be on our way. Josefa will stay here. She'll no' relish charging around the countryside riding pillion behind me.” He glanced at the woman, who nodded phlegmatically. It wouldn't be the first time she'd waited behind while they'd gone off on some campaign or another.

“I'll tell Lucy that we have some vital business in Penzance and we'll be back in a week or two.”

“You're coming back for the Penhallan, then?” Tamsyn looked at him in helpless uncertainty. “Yes, I must. I promised the baron… and Cecile… In my mind, I did. But I don't know anymore, Gabriel. I don't know what will happen.”

“Och, aye, dinna fash yourself, bairn. What will be will be,” he said comfortably. “I should go and ask Miss Lucy for the direction to the colonel's house in London. Best we know where to find him.”

Tamsyn flung her arms around his neck. “What would I do without you… without you both?” Tearfully, she hugged Josefa, who had been calmly dressing herself all the while.

“We should pack some clothes,” the woman said, patting her back. “It's not seemly to make such a journey without clean drawers.”

“No, Josefa,” Tamsyn said meekly, allowing herself to be hustled out of the left room and into the dark morning, hearing Gabriel's low, reassuring chuckle behind her.

THE HOUSE ON AUOLEY SQUARE HAD A SMALL GARDEN AT the back, reached through a gate from the mews. Lucy had said that her brother's book room opened onto the garden.

Tamsyn sat in the railed garden in the center of Audley Square as dusk fell, waiting for Gabriel to return from his reconnaissance. She was pleasantly weary after five days of riding close to fifty miles a day. Their horses were now stabled in a coaching inn near Charing Cross, where Gabriel would also stay that night, while Tamsyn sprang her surprise on the colonel.

She hoped a pleasant surprise.

She could, of course, walk up to the front door and bang the knocker, but she had a taste for something a little more dramatic, something in keeping with the shocking abruptness of Julian's departure.

The click of the gate made her jump, and she realized how very nervous she was-as apprehensive as if the man she was intending to surprise was a stranger one whose reactions she couldn't predict-instead of a man whose life and bed she had been sharing for the last four months.

Gabriel's boots scrunched on the gravel path winding through privet hedges to the middle of the garden where Tamsyn sat on a stone bench.

“Well, it seems simple enough,” he said without preamble, sitting beside her. “The gate from the mews is locked, but I can put you over it without difficulty. The colonel's book room has two windows, both low, easy for you to hitch yourself up without my help.”

“Not open, I suppose.”