Jane Feather - [V Series] by Violet Read Free Book Online

executioner, and she was as afraid as he was of what the man would do. He remembered how she’d flung herself from his horse when he’d rescued her from Cornichet, saying she had to find Gabriel. It seemed that Gabriel, whoever he was, had found her.
    “You were running mighty fast for someone who wanted to be caught, little girl,” the voice at the end of the sword said slowly and full of doubt. The cold steel tip remained pressed against Julian’s bare back.
    Tamsyn thought rapidly. How to explain something she didn’t understand herself. “It’s very confusing, Gabriel.” She fixed the man’s gaze with her own. “I can’t explain it, but truly nothing happened that I didn’t wish for.”
    A silence that seemed to Julian to last an eternity was abruptly broken by a roar of laughter. The cold tip of steel left his back.
    “Och, little girl! And what would El Baron say to see you rolling in the grass like a wanton milkmaid?”
    “ ‘Things happen,
hija
,’ ” Tamsyn said, her voice slightly shaky as she tried to sound humorous. She thought the danger was over, but you could never be absolutely certain with Gabriel.
    The colonel inched away from her, easing himself from between her thighs and away from the sword, whose tip now rested lightly on the ground beside his hip.
    Tamsyn sat up. “You know that’s what he would have said, Gabriel. He would have given one of his shrugs and smiled at Cecile as he said it.”
    The laugh boomed again. “Och, aye, lassie. I reckon y’are right, at that.” He stared at Colonel, Lord St. Simon with a curiosity that was not exactly friendly, but neither was it threatening. “So who’s your gallant, little girl?”
    “Good question.” Tamsyn regarded the colonel quizzically. His immediate danger was over, but with Gabriel’s arrival she herself now had the upper hand, and the thought of a little revenge was very tempting. “We haven’t been formally introduced as yet. But he’s a colonel in Wellington’s army.”
    Julian said nothing until he’d managed to pull on his sodden undergarments, discarded somehow in that crazy conflagration. He felt a little less vulnerable with them on, but not much. The new arrival was a giant oak of a man with massive limbs, bulging muscles beneath his jerkin, graying hair caught in a queue at the nape of his neck. His complexion bore the blossoming veins of a man fond of his drink; his washed-out gray eyes were sharp, however. Crooked teeth gleamed in a wide, full-lipped mouth, and he handled a two-bladed broadsword as easily as if it were a kitchen knife.
    “If you wish a formal introduction, Violette, I’d prefer to make it in my clothes,” St. Simon said dryly.
    “Make yourself decent, little girl,” the giant instructed, keeping his eyes on Julian. “The colonel and I will discuss a few matters while he dresses.” He gestured with his sword along the bank to where Julian’s clothes lay.
    Julian shrugged acceptingly. The ball was no longer in his court, but he had twenty men a quarter of a mile away, and the situation would change as soon as he was in a position to do something about it. With the appearance of nonchalance he strolled back to his clothes, La Violette’s defender walking beside him, his great sword still unsheathed but his expression bland, his pale eyes mild.
    Julian was not, however, disposed to relax. He had the unshakable conviction that the giant’s mood could change in the beat of a bird’s wing.
    Tamsyn scrambled into her clothes, casting half an eye along the bank where the English colonel was dressing, Gabriel leaning against the rocks, idly tracing patterns in the grass with the tip of his sword as they talked.
    It had been many months since she’d succumbed to such an impulsive fit of passion. She knew, because she’d been told often enough, that she shared her mother’s devil-may-care impulses, and the passion that ran deep in the veins of both her parents had flowed undiluted into