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.”

“Perhaps not, but I'm afraid I do object to drinking with cowardly scum.” Tamsyn took the glass, but her eyes, like violet ice, challenged Cedric.

“Then we won't do so,” Cedric agreed equably, leaving the two glasses on the tray. He raised his own, his expression still faintly amused. “To Celia.”

“To Cecile.” Tamsyn sipped the wine, imagining Cecile doing the same. Cedric drained his glass and she followed suit.

“So if we could conclude our business, uncle, I'll bid you farewell.” She smiled as she put the glass on the table, but something strange was happening to her face. Her mouth wouldn't obey her brain. The edges of the room were blurring, a gray haze swimming toward her. Cedric's face danced in the mist before her eyes, suddenly larger than life; his mouth was opening and closing. He was saying something but she could hear nothing.

Imbecile! Overconfident, too clever by half! Cedric had invoked the one person who could get through her guard. Cecile. And she'd fallen for it in her haste and her arrogance, and her certainty of the rightness of her cause.

Gabriel! But the words were stuck in her brain… Cedric bent over the crumpled form. He found the locket around her neck and opened it. For a long moment he examined the two portraits; then he closed it and let it drop back between her breasts. He removed the pistol from her waistband and the knives from their sheaths, observing, “A young woman who clearly comes prepared.”

He stood up, murmuring with a degree of regret, “A pity, my dear… but blackmail was a bad idea. You and your mother knew how to go too far.” He looked across at his dumbfounded nephews, his lip curled contemptuously. “She was worth four of you. Now, get rid of her.”

“I b-beg pardon, sir. What… what should we do with her?”

“Cretins!” It was a bark of angry derision. “What do you think you should do with her? Get rid of her! Remove her! Take her out to sea and drop her overboard! Just make damn sure she's not alive to tell this tale or any other.” He threw his large bulk into an armchair and watched morosely as Charles bent over the inert figure.

“And do it before she comes to,” he said abruptly, seeing the way Charles's hands moved over Tamsyn's body. “Don't you think to start playing with her. She's a damn sight too clever for the pair of you… If she comes to, she'll run rings around you.”

Charles flushed darkly, but he picked up the limp figure. “Should we take the Mary lane, sir?”

“We could row out and drop her off Gribbon Head,”

David suggested, one eyelid twitching with the shocks and anxieties of the last half-hour. “With the crab pots.”

“She'll make a tasty morsel for the crabs.” Charles laughed, and his eyes were full of greedy malevolence as he looked down at her pale face. “Don't worry, sir, we'll make sure she doesn't come back here again.”

“Do it right,” Cedric said wearily. “That's all I ask.”

“WHERE DID SHE SAY SHE WAS GOING?” GABRIEL STARED AT Josefa, slow anger beginning to burn in his eyes. The woman stood her ground, although her lip quivered a little.

“She didn't say. Just that she was going riding and she'd be back by five o'clock.”

Gabriel glanced up at the clock on the stable wall. It was past six. “How did she seem to you? What kind of mood was she in?”

Josefa frowned, considering this while Gabriel tapped his foot with growing impatience on the cobbles. “You know how she is before an engagement,” Josefa said finally. “Her eyes were bright, she wasn't thinking of anything but what she was doing. You know how she is,” she repeated.

“Oh, yes, I know,” Gabriel said grimly. “I'm a fool! I knew she wouldn't have given up on the Penhallan.” He spun on his heel and bellowed in a voice to shake mountains, “Saddle my horse again.”

“But where is she?” Josefa quavered.

“Causing trouble,” Gabriel said softly, his eyes sharply focused. “Alone. And those filthy swine are there… Hurry up, lad!” he snapped at the groom struggling with the girths of his horse. Impatiently, he pushed him aside. “I'll do it.” His large hands were surprisingly deft on the straps, and then he leaped into the saddle and galloped out of the stable yard.

The horse pounded the lanes between the high hedges, sensing his rider's urgency. Gabriel rode low in the saddle, his fury at Tamsyn for deceiving him mingling with dread. She wasn't back when she'd said she would be; therefore, something had happened to her. She was clever and a good fighter and she didn't in general make mistakes, but this issue was an emotional one. To make matters worse, she was worried that the colonel would discover her secrets, so she was acting in haste, and Gabriel didn't trust her to keep a clear head. One slip, one piece of carelessness, was all it would take to destroy one woman up against the three Penhallans.

His horse swung around a corner and then shied into the hedge as it came almost eyeball to eyeball with a massive black that seemed to have come out of nowhere.

Gabriel hauled back on the reins. “Madre de Dios, Colonel, where did you spring from?”

Julian didn't answer. The expression on Gabriel's face sent a shiver of apprehension down his spine. “Where the hell are you going in such a hurry, Gabriel? And where's Tamsyn?”

Gabriel had no time to consider whether it would be in Tamsyn's interests to reveal her secrets to this man. He could do with another pair of hands, and the colonel’s were the hands he would have chosen if he'd had the choice. “Lanjerrick, in answer to both questions, Colonel, and you'd best come along. I don't know what we're going to find.”

“God's grace, but I thought as much!” Julian's skin was clammy, and a cold premonition curled in his belly. “She found out the Penhallans were her family.”

“She's always known it,” Gabriel said shortly, setting his horse to the gallop again.