Her hands fell to her sides. “There, now,” she said. “That's all of it. I've tricked you, and I've used you. I've lied to you, and I've rearranged your life to suit my own purposes. I forced you to leave Spain, and I'm the illegitimate daughter of a Penhallan and a robber baron. But I love you with my heart and soul, and I'd give my last drop of blood if you ever needed it.”

She stood up. “But of course you won't ever need it, so I'll go now. And you need never fear that our paths will cross again.” Turning from him, she began to walk back across the sand.

“You omitted to mention puking all over my boots in that catalog of wrongs,” Julian said.

Tamsyn stopped. She turned slowly. “I suppose you're entitled to that,” she said. “Entitled to mock. Why should you believe in my love? Anyway, it's a poor thing. I know it can't excuse or make up for what I've done to you.”

“Dear God,” he said. “I'm assuming this extraordinary show of humility was brought on by that drug Penhallan gave you. I trust its effect isn't permanent.”

It was too much! All Tamsyn's sorrow and weakness went up in a puff of smoke. She was not going to walk out of his life a broken reed. Colonel, Lord Julian St. Simon was going to have something else to remember her by. “Oh, you despicable bastard! You are an unmitigated cur!” She swooped down, grabbed a handful of sand, and threw it at him. Darting sideways, she picked up the empty cognac bottle. It flew through the air and caught him a glancing blow on the shoulder, before rolling onto the sand.

“Diablillo! Virago! Termagant!” Julian taunted, grinning as he ducked one of Gabriel's boots.

“Espadachin! Brute! Bully! Unchivalrous pig!” she hurled back, searching for another missile. “You can't even accept an apology gracefully!”

Julian dived for her, bringing her down onto the sand. He felt extraordinary, struck by a blinding epiphany. He'd been reborn in some fashion, his hurt and anger vanished in the mists of incomprehension. It no longer mattered how or why this had all started. What mattered was the now. She loved him. He did believe her, every word of her declaration. He believed it because he knew it was how he felt himself He'd fought the knowledge… he'd been fighting it for weeks… and now he'd lost the battle. She was a lawless, unethical, manipulative, illegitimate half-breed, no possible wife for a St. Simon, and he didn't give a damn.

Scissoring her legs with his own, he pinned her arms above her head, subduing her with his weight. “When did you decide you loved me?”

“Weeks ago,” she said, lying quiet now beneath him, reading the light in his eye, a trickle of incredulous hope beginning to seep into her veins. “But I knew you didn't think you could love me in the same way, although I knew that you did… and I was hoping that when we were together in Spain, maybe you could learn to look into your heart. But I still had to deal with Cedric… it was something I felt I had to do… for Cecile, and for my father. But I gave up my big plan to ruin him publicly, because then you'd have known the whole story, and I thought you'd be unhappy to discover how I'd been deceiving you.”

“Unhappy, eh? You're a mistress of euphemism,” he declared with a wry quirk of his lips. “But maybe you can find a euphemistic explanation for blackmail? Just to enable me to live with it, you understand.”

“It wasn't blackmail, it was restitution.”

“A little better. Keep trying.”

“The diamonds were my mother's,” she said quietly, and finally told him the full story. “It was only justice,” she finished.

“Only justice,” Julian mused, his body still pinning her to the sand. “I suppose I can live with that. A woman with a fine sense of justice, not a blackmailer at all.” He nodded judiciously. “Yes, I think I can live with that.”

“You're very heavy,” Tamsyn said. “I don't want to puke all over you again.”

Julian with a muttered exclamation promptly rolled off her.

“I have to go back to Lanjerrick.” Tamsyn sat up.

“My sense of justice hasn't been appeased… and Cesar is still there.”

Julian got to his feet and pulled her up. “Then let's pay your uncle a visit.”

“You don't have to come with me.”

“Oh, but I do,” he said. “I too have a very fine sense of justice.”

“You don't mind too much that I have Penhallan blood?” she asked hesitantly as they climbed the path to the cliff top.

“Oh, I hardly think so,” he responded with a dry smile. “Your kinship with a murderous viscount is probably the most respectable thing about you.”

Cedric was in the library, cradling a brandy goblet, morosely awaiting the return of his nephews, when there came a violent hammering on the front door. He sat up abruptly, listening to the servant's footsteps on the marble tiles, the sound of the bolts being drawn back on the front door.

Then the library door was flung open, and Julian St. Simon stepped into the room, Celia's daughter behind him.

“The cretins bungled it,” Viscount Penhallan said wearily. “I might have known they would.” He gestured to the decanters on the sideboard. “Help yourself to a drink.”

“I wouldn't risk it in this house,” Tamsyn said tartly. “Oh, there's no fear with the cognac, or the port,” her uncle said, leaning back in his chair, regarding her through narrowed eyes. “Did you kill them?”

“No.” Julian poured himself a glass of cognac. Tamsyn helped herself to an apple from a fruit bowl. “Not all Penhallans are murderers, uncle.” She scrunched into the apple. “Where's my horse?”

“That magnificent beast is in my stables,” he said. “I congratulate you, he's a superb animal.”

“A present from my father,” she said through a mouthful of apple. “I told you Cecile made a good marriage.”

“So you did.” He turned his head against the cushions and let his gaze rest lazily on St. Simon. “So how can I help you, St. Simon?”

“All in good time,” Julian said calmly, leaning back against the sideboard, long legs stretched in front of him, casually crossed at the ankle. He took a critical sip of his cognac.

“I've decided you can keep the diamonds,” Tamsyn said. ''I'm going to do what my father would have wanted and tell the world every last detail of your infamy… including what you tried to do to me. I couldn't do it before because the colonel didn't know the whole story, but now he does…” She paused, catching Julian's raised eyebrows. “You do agree that I must do this, don't you?”

“Who am I to question the baron's wisdom and wishes?”

“If you really don't wish me to… if it will involve you in scandal, then I won't,” she said slowly. “I'll just settle for the diamonds instead. But that would be blackmail, and I know you don't approve of that.”

“Blackmail?” he queried, his eyebrows disappearing into his scalp.

“Restitution. I forgot that was what we're calling it,” she said lamely.

“And a fine sense of justice, if you recall.” “Yes, that too.”

“So you're going to do what your mother threatened to do twenty years ago?” Cedric held out his empty glass toward Julian, who pushed himself away from the sideboard and brought the decanter over to him. Cedric nodded his thanks. “Is that so?”

“Yes.”

Cedric inclined his head and took a deep draft of brandy. “Then if we've concluded our business, perhaps you'd get out of my house.”

“Certainly.” Julian put down his glass and walked to the door. “But just one more thing… a mere formality, but one should observe the proprieties, as I'm sure you'll agree.” His smile was sardonic as he offered his host a small bow. “Since it appears that you're Tamsyn's nearest male relative, however much she might regret that fact, I suppose I must ask your permission to pay my addresses to your niece.”

“So long.as you don't expect me to walk her down the aisle,” Cedric said equably. “You may both go to the devil for all I care.”