Jane Feather - Violet

And soldiers were the enemy… a personal enemy.

The images flooded in again, the screams, the steaming reek of blood. Her father standing in the midst of a yelling circle of men in the tattered uniforms of many nations, their faces twisted with the rapacious viciousness of greed, their senses drunk with blood. His great sword slashed from side to side but they kept on coming; shot after shot pierced his body, and it seemed to the two powerless watchers on the heights that he couldn't still stand there alive with the blood spurting from the holes in his body-and yet still he stayed on his feet and bodies fell beneath his sword.

Cecile lay in the shadows, dead by her husband's hand, a small black smudge on her forehead, where his merciful bullet had entered. El Baron's wife wouldn't fall victim to the rapine hungers of a vile mob of deserting soldiers. And his daughter too would have joined her mother in death if she'd been in the Puebla de St. Pedro that dreadful day, instead of hunting with Gabriel in the hills.

Slowly, she blinked away the images, put the anger and grief behind her. She'd led her own small band since that day. Those who'd escaped the massacre and others who'd joined them, all were prepared to follow El Baron's daughter as they aided the partisans, tormented the French, avoided direct contact with the English, and took what payment came their way.

Until that double-dyed bastard, Cornichet, had set his ambush. Tamsyn had no idea how many of La Violette's band had escaped the French in the pass, but she had been their target. The baron had long ago entrusted his daughter's safety in his own absence to his most trusted comrade, and Gabriel had fought beside her and for her. But one man, even a giant, was no match for fifty. They'd both been swept up like spiders, before the broom.

But what was done was done, and bewailing the past was pointless. It was now a question of making the most of their present situation. There must be some advantage to be gained from it. There was always an advantage if one looked for it.

She tucked her shirt into the waist of her britches and walked toward the two men, carrying her shoes and stockings, enjoying the feel of the cool, mossy turf beneath her feet.

The colonel's bright-blue eyes rested on her as she approached, and Tamsyn's scalp lifted, her heart quickening. What was done was done, she told herself firmly. That moment of madness was in the past. It had nothing to do with the present situation.

JULIAN FASTENED HIS SWORD BELT AT HIS WAIST. ARMED, HE felt immeasurably more secure, although the giant's sword was unsheathed, and the colonel was certain the man would be as fast and deadly with his weapon as any soldier he'd encountered.

The girl was walking toward them along the bank, carrying her shoes and stockings for all the world as if she were on a picnic by the river. He still couldn't get his mind around what had happened between them. His anger and injured pride at the ease with which she'd outsmarted him had turned into something else. Something darker and more powerful than simple lust, so that he'd lost all sense of reality, of duty, of purpose in a scrambling tangle of limbs and the heated furrow of her lithe body.

And it had lost him his prisoner and almost his skin.

His fury at himself was boundless.

He had quickly dismissed the possibility of calling to his men. They'd not hear him from the woods, and they certainly couldn't get to him quickly enough to support him in a fight with Gabriel and his broadsword. La Violette, however, was unarmed-Cornichet had seen to that--so he had only one serious opponent to contend with.

“Colonel, Lord Julian St. Simon, he calls himself,” Gabriel declared as Tamsyn reached them. “Quite the aristocratic gentleman.” He picked his teeth with a fingernail, his mild eyes regarding the colonel with the same dispassionate curiosity. “It seems you owe him a favor, little girl, but I daresay you consider it paid.”

Tamsyn flushed at this barbed comment and said swiftly, “Not in the way you mean, Gabriel. We'll leave what happened back there out of any negotiations.”

“Negotiations?” Julian's eyebrows quirked. “Now, what could that mean, Violette? But, forgive me, I assume you have some other name. Since we're performing formal introduction…” He offered a mock bow and the tension in the air between them crackled. HIS body still retained the memory of hers as his brain fought to banish all such memories, and he knew it had to be the same for the girl, for they'd taken that mad flight together.

“I'm called Tamsyn,” she replied. “If it matters to you.” She shrugged, but both the gesture and the carelessness of her tone lacked conviction.

The name was as much of a puzzle as its owner. “Oh, it matters,” he assured her, adjusting his hastily tied stock, his fingers now moving in leisurely fashion through the linen folds. “Tamsyn. That's a Cornish name. “

“It was my mother's choice. How do you know it's Cornish?”

“I'm a Cornishman myself,” he responded. He was surprised at the sudden flash in her eyes, almost as if someone had lit a candle there.

“Are you?” she said casually. “I believe my mother's family were Cornish aristocrats too.”

The colonel's rather heavy eyelids drooped. His eyes were hooded, his voice a casual drawl. “Forgive me, but what was a Cornish aristocrat doing in a Spanish bandit’s bed?”

Gabriel moved the mighty sword lifting. “Watch your tongue, Englishman,” he said softly. “You insult my lady at your peril.”

Julian raised a hand in placation. He didn't know whether the man was referring to La Violette, who was certainly no lady by any of the standards he understood, or to her mother, but in the face of the broadsword and the fierceness in the giant's eyes, instant retreat struck him as the only option. “Forgive me. I meant no insult to a lady.” He laid a slight inflection on the last word. “But surely it's an understandable question.”

“Perhaps, but it's hardly your business, sir,” Tamsyn said coldly. “It's no business of any soldier.” The bleakness of her expression startled him. The dark-violet eyes were looking through him, and there were ghosts in their depths.

But of course, La Violette had taken over her father's band at his death. Julian had heard some story of a raid on El Baron's mountain village by one of the rogue groups of deserters, composed of disaffected soldiers from the English and French armies, who rampaged through the Peninsula, looting, raping, murdering without qualm.

Gabriel had moved ominously closer, and he judged it politic to change the subject. “You mentioned negotiation, Violette.” It seemed a more appropriate name in present circumstances. His eyebrow lifted again in question.

“There'll be no negotiating with a damned soldier,” Gabriel said harshly. “Come, little girl. Since you owe the man your life, we'll grant him his. But let's be out of here, now.”

“No, Gabriel, wait.” Tamsyn put her hand on his arm. “We owe Cornichet,” she said slowly. There was a gleam in her eye now, a slight twist to her lips. The confusion had dissipated, and her feet were back on solid ground. Cornichet had killed her men, quite apart from his treatment of her, and he should pay for that. She couldn't expect the English colonel and his men to engage in unprovoked battle with the Frenchmen-the rules of war forbade such a personal encounter. But they could help her to have a little vengeful fun with Cornichet.

“The English milord wishes me to talk a little with his commander. I might be willing to hear what Wellington has to say, without agreeing to anything in advance, of course. But I'd wish for something in exchange.”

Gabriel was silent, and Julian recognized now that the man's role was not that of decision maker. St. Simon might have to watch his neck with the bodyguard, but matters of leadership were the province of La Violette.

“In exchange for what, exactly?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral.

She shrugged. “Why, in exchange for my company to Elvas, of course. I make no promises about what I might be willing to discuss with Wellington, and I'll require your assurance-the oath of a Cornish gentleman…” Somehow she invested the words with a wealth of derision. “Your assurance that no attempt will be made to coerce me. I will come willingly and I will leave when I wish.”

Julian wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake the derision from her eyes, make her swallow the dripping contempt in her voice. What possible right or justification did she have for doubting his honor?

“And if I give those assurances,” he said frigidly, “I'm to assume you'll accompany me of your own free will?”

Tamsyn smiled. “In exchange for a small service, sir, yes. I give you my word. My word, Lord St. Simon, is given rarely and is the more precious for that.”

He didn't think it was his own personal honor she was impugning; he was tarred with some brush from her past. There was much here that he didn't understand, but he didn't need to understand this unlikely spawn of an Englishwoman and a Spanish bandit to accomplish his mission. “And the service, senorita?”

Her smile broadened and her eyes danced.

“Cornichet's epaulets, my lord.”

Gabriel's booming laugh rang out again. “Lassie, ye've more tricks in you than all the monkeys on the Rock of Gibraltar.”

Tamsyn chuckled, but her eyes remained on the colonel “Well, sir? You have twenty men. Gabriel and I will join you. Between us we should be able to dock the French colonel of his insignia.”

Julian was astounded. “Good God, girl, this is a war, not some bloody game.” Her eyes were sparkling, her mouth curved in a wicked grin, but the mischief was belied by the determined set of her chin and a steely glimmer behind the sparkle.

“I'm aware of that, Colonel,” she said. The laughter left her face, and suddenly he was chilled by the grimness of her expression, the cold flatness of her voice. “And Cornichet won't consider it a game, either, when he's obliged to show himself to his men in the disgraced uniform of a cashiered officer.”

It was certainly a neat revenge. Such mortification would be a bitter pill for the arrogant, brutal Cornichet to swallow. But how could he justify lending his men for such a trivial purpose?

Julian stared out at the river, his mind working furiously. He'd promised Wellington he'd bring La Violette in five days to Elvas to have her petals plucked. He could do it comfortably if they left now. His twenty men were needed at the siege of Badajos. To go off on some devil-may-care avenging jaunt to humiliate Cornichet was a waste of time and manpower. But if he didn't agree, then La Violette would be lost to him, and for the first time in his career he'd have to return to headquarters to report failure.

His pride wouldn't permit such a thing. It was as simple as that. The girl held all the cards, therefore he had no choice but to play the hand she dealt him. And if he allowed himself to admit it, the thought of outwitting the barbaric Cornichet again and serving him such a trick held its appeal, even if it was an appeal more suited to the youth and boyish amusements of a junior lieutenant than of a full colonel, who was also one of Wellington's intimates. But it was well-known that Julian St. Simon had a devious mind and preferred the trickery and cunning of undercover warfare to the brute force of the battlefield.

Cornichet and his men were presumably still in some disarray outside Olivenza half a day's ride away, repairing the damage to their smoldering outpost. If they could get the business over with swiftly, with some hard riding they could still be back at Elvas within the five days he'd set himself

His mind raced on, examining and discarding possibilities. Somehow they'd have to extract Cornichet from his men.

“Very well,” he said with a shrug of resignation. “It's against my better judgment, but you hold the cards. But if you join with us, Violette, then you do so under my command. Is that agreed?”

Tamsyn shook her head. “No, milord colonel, Gabriel and I operate as free agents, as do all partisan bands when they work with your army. But we'll not be at cross purposes, I assure you.”

She spoke the truth. The guerrilla bands lent their services to Wellington's army when they chose, but they operated under their own command. This band consisted only of a diminutive girl and her giant bodyguard, but La Violette obviously didn't consider that a factor.