Jane Feather - [V Series] by Violet Page B

am
not
your sister,” she declared, still furious.
    “Fortunately, in the circumstances,” he murmured, unable to help himself, a wicked glimmer in his eye.
    Tamsyn glared at him for a minute, then went into a peal of laughter. “How right you are, Colonel. There are some vices too heinous even for mercenary bandits.”
    His amusement, misplaced as it was, died as quickly as it had arisen. “We will not speak of that incident again, if you please,” he said with an awkward formality.
    Tamsyn glanced sideways at his set face, and a mischievous smile twitched her mouth. “You’d not wish your commander in chief to know you’d been dallying with a prisoner, I daresay.”
    “No, damn you, I would not!” he snapped.
    “And you wouldn’t wish it to occur again?” she mused. “How unflattering of you, Colonel. I confess I would enjoy a repetition.”
    “Forgive my bluntness, but I would not,” he stated flatly, turning his horse aside. “Sergeant, you and the men may leave us here and return to the brigade. I intend to cross the river by the east pontoon.”
    “Right you are, sir.” The sergeant barked an order to the troop behind him, and they cantered off toward the city of tents forming the army’s encampment between the Guadiana and the siegeworks. The colonel and his companion rode along the river bank toward one of the pontoon bridges connecting the siegeworkings with headquarters at Elvas.
    Tamsyn nodded to herself. Somehow she didn’t think the colonel was telling the truth. How could anyone, having once enjoyed that explosion of ecstasy, not hanker for more. Cecile’s voice spoke in her memory, soft with sensual laughter, telling her daughter that love-making was an appetite that grew whereon it fed. Tamsyn could hear the baron’s answering chuckle, see his dark hawk’s eyes fixed on her mother’s face as if he would devour her.
    A familiar wave of sorrow washed over her. She didn’t resist it, simply waited for it to recede. The grief was for her own loss, since it was not possible to imagine two such joined souls as separated, even in death.
    They crossed the pontoon into the small town of Elvas, the guards coming to attention as the colonel passed. The cobbled streets were thronged with soldiers in the green tunics of riflemen or the scarlet of infantry and cavalry; aide-de-camps hurried between command posts; laden commissary drays lumbered through town on their way to supply the troops in the trenches. Cesarshied as a mangy dog darted out of an alley pursued by a tribe of ragged urchins.
    “That animal is too high-strung for his own good,” Julian observed as Tamsyn soothed the horse.
    “He’s not accustomed to towns,” she said, reacting with asperity to this criticism of her beloved Cesar. “He’s not used to being surrounded by people. But he’ll carry me without flagging for a hundred miles along a mountain track, and he’d outrun any beast you have in your stables, and over any terrain, milord colonel.”
    “Doubtless.” He contented himself with the dry observation, wishing she wouldn’t call him that, it had such a sardonic ring to it.
    He turned his horse aside into the stableyard at the rear of Wellington’s headquarters. “Presumably that sensitive beast will behave himself with the grooms here?”
    “Cesar has beautiful manners,” she retorted, swinging down to the cobbles with an agile movement that belied her fatigue. A groom came running over, his eyes wide at the sight of the magnificent Arab.
    “Eh, that’s a beauty an’ no mistake, sir,” he said admiringly to the colonel, his eyes darting curiously to St. Simon’s unusual companion.
    “Yes, but he’s high-strung,” the colonel said. “So be careful with him. I don’t want to find myself looking for a replacement.”
    “You wouldn’t find one,” Tamsyn declared, handing the reins to the groom. “He’s unique.” She stroked the animal’s neck, murmuring incomprehensible sounds that clearly