“Harlot! You'd sell yourself-”

“No,” Tamsyn, interrupted, the seductive gleam leaving her eyes. I’m not selling myself. The only thing I’m selling is information that your commander in chief would dearly like to buy. I was offering you compensation, that's all.”

“Compensation for dancing attendance on the bastard brat of a murdering robber!”

“Oh!” Tamsyn exclaimed, rendered momentarily speechless. “You have all the chivalry of a wood louse!

In all honesty and… and desirous affection, I suggest we make love and you-l.”

“Desirous affection!” He gave a short crack of disbelieving laughter. “Where the hell did you dredge up an expression like that? And what kind of gull do you think I am to fall for such a line?”

“It's true,” she insisted fiercely.

Julian stood very still for a minute. His gaze ran slowly down the lean, tensile frame in front of him. She was thrumming with energy and indignation, and something else. That determination and purpose he'd felt the first moment he'd touched her. She was fully prepared to use her body to persuade him to do what she wanted. Well, it was time La Violette learned that not everyone could be molded to her purpose.

“Desirous affection, eh?” he mused, his hands on his belt buckle. “Prove it to me, Violette.” He unfastened the buckle and swung free the heavy belt weighted with his sword, placing it on the table beneath the window. “What are you waiting for?” He glanced at Tamsyn, who still stood in the middle of the room. “Take your clothes off.”

Somehow this was not going according to plan. It seemed as if it was, and yet something was amiss. However, having started on this course, Tamsyn felt compelled to continue. She kicked off her boots and undressed swiftly, tossing her clothes to the floor.

The colonel stood naked, feet apart, hands resting on his hips when she turned back to him. “I'm eager to see this demonstration of desirous affection,” he drawled. “But I should warn you that I have very little time, so I hope your harlot's tricks are effective.”

Tamsyn quivered and her eyes narrowed. “Oh, I believe you'll find them so, milord colonel,” she said, stepping up to him.

Something warned him just in time, and he spun sideways as she brought her knee up in a vicious jab to his groin. “Fieral” he bellowed, his nostrils flaring. His thigh throbbed where her knee had made savagely jarring contact, and he felt sick at the thought of what would have happened if it had met its intended target.

“You dare to insult me in such fashion!” she yelled back, rubbing her knee where it had made bruising contact with his hard-muscled thigh. “Get out of here! I wouldn't touch you if you were the last man on earth.”

“Oh, wouldn't you? And just what happened to desirous affection?” He swooped on her, catching her around the waist, carrying her to the bed. “That died pretty quickly, didn't it?”

Tamsyn was aware of his vitally aroused body as he dropped her onto the coverlet. Obviously, the man liked a good fight… annoyingly, in the circumstances, so did she. Her body was tingling where his skin touched her, and there was a whirling excitement in the pit of her belly.

He leaned over her, pushing a knee between her thighs, and there was a predatory hunger in the bright blue eyes. “Or did it?” he demanded, nudging her thighs apart.

“The affection part did,” Tamsyn declared, moistening suddenly dry lips. His hand had found her now. His eyes never left her face as he played on her as if she were a lute string, plucking and stroking until she sang beneath his touch. When her little whimpering cries of ecstasy filled the small room, he slid his hands beneath her bottom and lifted her to meet him as he drove deep within her body while it still pulsated with her pleasure.

Satisfaction glittered in his eyes now as he moved above her, still watching her face with rapt intensity. He ran a finger over her lips, and she could taste the musky fragrance of her own body. He smiled. She smiled back, moving easily with his rhythm, as the deep, warm joy began to fill her belly and flow like honey in her veins. It was hard to imagine that a few short minutes before, they'd been fighting like a pair of mongrel curs.

His eyes glowed and he lowered his mouth to hers, the speed of his movements increasing as his tongue plunged and danced with hers and their cries of pleasure became as entangled as their bodies and the sweet liquid flow of arousal.

Tamsyn fluttered down to earth, a fragile leaf dropped finally by the airborne currents of ecstasy. She stroked Julian's back, where sweat glistened in the morning sunlight, feeling her own sweat gathering between her breasts, crushed by his weight.

Reluctantly, he moved away from her, his breath still ragged as he dropped onto the narrow cot beside her. Then he pushed himself into a sitting position, swinging his legs over the side, turning to look at her as she lay on her back. He passed a hand over her belly in a gesture that was as much farewell as acknowledgment of shared joy, then heaved himself to his feet.

Tamsyn lay and watched him dress in silence. If that demonstration of naked desire and its delicious fulfilment had altered his determination to deny her his assistance, he gave no sign. He buckled on his sword belt and came back to the cot, bending to kiss her, a light, friendly farewell.

“Take care of yourself,” he said. “Give Gabriel my regards when he comes to fetch you.”

The door closed, and she heard his booted feet hurrying down the wooden stairs as if he couldn't get away fast enough.

Colonel, Lord Julian St. Simon was proving to be more resistant than she'd expected. Tamsyn got off the bed and went to the window, watching him stride up the street. Next time she saw him, the battle for Badajos would be over. It was neither reasonable nor feasible to renew her attack until then.

Always assuming he was alive in the morning.

Chapter Eight

IT BEGAN AT TEN O'CLOCK THAT NIGHT.

Tamsyn had ridden out of Elvas in the late afternoon.

She rode through the army encampment, noticing the air of low-key excitement as men, fortified by an extra ration of grog, gathered in groups, checking their equipment, exchanging anecdotes of past campaigns. A few looked up as she passed, but their attention was taken more by Cesar than by the Arab's rider.

Tamsyn wondered where Julian could be in this tent city. The senior officers' tents were easily identified by their size, and she rode past several, hearing voices within raised in laughter, the sound of crockery and glass chinking as Wellington's officers dined together in the hours before the battle.

It didn't occur to her to attempt to find St. Simon; he would need all his concentration for the night to come. Her solitary reconnaissance was as much for something to do as anything else. She'd been brought up in a warrior encampment, knew the apprehension and the excitement before an engagement, and it was impossible for her to stay in Elvas, a useless spectator, watching and waiting.

With dusk came an eerie silence as the daytime gunfire and shelling tailed off. The atmosphere in the camp changed. Officers appeared from their tents, orders were given in low, crisp tones, and men began to move in groups toward the trenches. The night was dark, heavy clouds obscuring the moon.

Tamsyn rode outside the camp to a small hill, where she sat her horse and waited. Sentry lights wavered on the ramparts of Badajos, but apart from that it was still and dark across the plain, no indication of the army of men creeping through the trenches to drop their ladders into the ditches before the breaches in the city walls, or of the storming parties massed behind them.

But the French would know they were coming.