by Mary Balogh
She had left letters behind with Duarte—two of them. She believed that both she and her servants were above surveillance by the French, but she wanted to be thorough. She wanted to take no chances. The letters were to be sent to Matilda, the first to inform her that her brother’s health had taken a turn for the worse, the second to announce his death and beg for Matilda’s return.
The timing perhaps would not be perfect. She and Duarte had discussed that. The whole idea of sending Matilda was so that Duarte would know just when to come. But there was to be a month between the two letters. If possible, Matilda would leave before the second arrived. After all, the first letter would give a gloomy picture of her brother’s future. If she could not leave when the second arrived, then she herself would have to be indisposed. But the letters would eventually give her her reason for leaving.
But the letters, of course, had been traveling from one country to another, and under wartime conditions. The first did not arrive for almost a month. And Joana had not dared to put the final plans into effect before it arrived. Duarte’s arrival—or that of the Spanish partisans—would be crucial to their success.
So though she had flirted with both Colonel Leroux and Captain Blake, though she had drawn Robert into that one close and indecorous embrace, so that she knew it could be done, and though she had begun to hint to the colonel that Captain Blake’s attentions were becoming a little tedious, she had been obliged to hold back and hold back until she felt she could scream with frustration.
For that same close and indecorous embrace was a trial to her nerves. He was a trial to her nerves. She flirted with him and led him on and forced him into an admission of a powerful physical attraction to her. And then she toyed with him and laughed at him.
She wanted to tell him the truth. All of it. She did not like his hatred. She liked his scorn even less. And she could tell him the truth, she reasoned. Now that the French had been misled and now that the chain of events that Lord Wellington had hoped for had been set in motion, there was no need of secrecy any longer. She might have told him.
But she could not do it. Of course she could not. For if he knew the truth, then he would also know that what she was about to do was a daring ruse to effect his honorable escape. If he knew it was a trick, then he would still feel honor-bound to stay. Men were foolish that way.
And so she could not tell him. She had to smile at him and flirt with him and occasionally take him off somewhere where they could be alone. And she had to endure the hatred and the scorn in his eyes—and the desire smoldering behind them. A desire that she could fan and play upon at will. A desire that she must be able to play upon if her plan was to work.
And Colonel Leroux. The very thought of him was enough to make her shudder. She could not glance at his face or his hands or his body without remembering. And she found herself one day early in August after a ride out over the Roman bridge and across the countryside with him and a few other officers, being lifted from her horse’s back by him. He did not step back when her feet touched the ground, but smiled down at her and brushed his thumb across her cheek. The very thumb that had signaled Maria’s death.
She shuddered convulsively and found herself looking up into a smiling face turning to a frowning one.
“Marcel,” she said quickly, breathlessly, “he touched me like that last night. I am afraid of him.”
His frown deepened. “Blake?” he said. “Blake again?”
“Oh,” she said, smiling, “I am so sorry. I am being foolish. It is just that I had to confront him there in General Valéry’s office when I first arrived, and I have the feeling that he hates me, that he would kill me if he could. And who could blame him? He had to listen to me shatter his plans. But he seeks me out, he touches me just as if that unpleasantness had never happened between us. Last night he said he wanted to . . . Well, it does not matter.”
“It certainly does,” he said. “It matters, Jeanne. What did he say?”
“That he wanted to . . . kiss me,” she said, the pause suggesting that the actual words had been rather more suggestive. “I think I would die if he touched me.”
“No, he would be the one to die. At my hands,” he said, his eyes burning fiercely down into hers. “I shall have him confined, Jeanne, without further delay. This is insufferable.”
“No.” She caught at his sleeve. “He has given his parole, Marcel. You are honor-bound to treat him with courtesy, to allow him his freedom within the bounds of his own promise. And he has not actually done anything—yet.”
“If he so much as lays a finger on you . . .” he said.
“I shall tell you,” she said, “if he becomes unmanageable. I do not believe he will. He is, after all a gen . . . No, he is not that either, is he?” She smiled. “But nothing will happen, Marcel. I was merely being foolish. Forget it.” She set her hand in his.
She had spoken sooner than she had planned. She had had to think quickly of some reasonable explanation for that shudder she had not been able to control when he touched her. Matilda was still grumbling and flatly refusing to leave her mistress behind. She would have to be forced on her way the following day. And Joana would just have to hope that she would find Duarte without any difficulty and that he would be able to do the almost impossible task she had set him.
She would give him three weeks. She would send that message with Matilda. Three weeks. It was too long. She would like to act immediately. She would like it all to be over within a few days. But perhaps he would have to make all sorts of preparations. She must not rush him in what would probably be a very difficult operation. She would give him three weeks.
“Don’t look so worried, Marcel,” she said, steeling herself and leaning toward him until she almost brushed against him. “I have you to protect me, I know, and dozens of other officers too if I just ask. But you most of all. I feel better just to have unburdened my mind to you.”
“Jeanne,” he said, and his eyes strayed to her lips, “you know I would do anything for you.”
“Would you?” she said. And she smiled as she passed her tongue slowly across her lips. “Would you, Marcel?”
She thought he would kiss her, and steeled every nerve in her body. But he merely raised her hand to his lips.
“Sometime,” he said, “when we are more private, I shall show you.”
Her eyes dreamed into his.
15
“YOU.” Antonio Becquer pointed one thick blunt finger at Duarte Ribeiro. “You alone. The others wait here.”
Duarte looked about at the ten men of his band who had accompanied him to the border and the meeting with the Spanish partisan. Almost to a man they looked disappointed. And they looked fixedly back at him, as if willing him to change the Spaniard’s mind.
“It is our fight,” Duarte said with a shrug. “We are willing to take the risks. All we need from you is permission to encroach on your territory for a couple of days or so.”
“You.” Becquer repeated his word and his gesture. “You alone. And forget the stupid talk about doing it with your men unassisted. How would you get inside Salamanca? Huh? And how would you find the people you are looking for once there? How would you get out again?” The Spaniard paused to spit on the ground. “Would you give the French pigs an orgy of torture to look forward to?” He looked about at the Portuguese with a grin. “Eleven victims? Not to mention your sister. She would be a special bonus.”
Duarte licked his lips. “It is a dangerous scheme,” he said. “Dangerous almost to the point of foolhardiness. If there are any victims to be tortured, it would seem only fair that they be us. I do not wish to put you in danger over something that is not your concern.”
The Spanish partisan grinned again. “The scheme is to rescue one of their prisoners?” he said. “And to make a fool of them into the bargain? That is just exactly our business, my friend. And our pleasure too. And the danger?” He
shrugged. “What is a little danger when the rewards are so satisfying?”
“You believe we can get inside Salamanca?” Duarte asked.
There was a general rumble of laughter from the Spanish partisans who had accompanied Becquer to the meeting place.
“Let me put it this way,” their leader said. “I have a woman inside Salamanca. She has a hunger that needs frequent satisfying. She remains faithful to me yet is never hungry. Have I answered your question?”
There was another burst of laughter from the Spaniards.
“So only I am allowed to go?” Duarte asked.
“Only you,” Becquer said. “I am sure your sister will not be hard to find or recognize, but it will be more convenient for you to identify her and for her to see you. Women can become a little difficult around masked bandits loaded with guns and knives.”
“Not Joana,” Duarte said. “You will find she is made of stern stuff. Fair enough, then. When do we leave?”
“Tonight.” Becquer grinned once more. “Mention of my woman has given me a hunger of my own.”
“Tonight, then.” Duarte found that his heart was knocking against his ribs. He had never before ventured outside his own country in his war against the French. And he had never worked with Spanish partisans rather than with his own men. The dangers, too, were very real to him. It was something he had agreed to do for Joana, and something he would try to do. But he was not confident of success.
All he hoped was that if he failed, Joana herself would not be implicated. And selfishly he hoped that if he failed, he would be killed instantly and not taken prisoner. The very thought could cause him to break into a cold sweat.
He thought of Carlota and Miguel, whom he had left behind in Mortagoa. At least they would be safe. When the French advanced into Portugal, as they surely would within a few weeks at the latest, they would take the road to Coimbra. Mortagoa was well north of that road, and safe from their advance. At least he had that consolation.
He tried not to think of Carlota, who had taken her leave of him dry-eyed and with a stony expression. She had not tried to stop him or, more surprisingly, to plead to go with him. She had merely hugged him hard, pressing herself against him, closing her eyes.
And Miguel, supremely indifferent to the fact that his father was leaving perhaps never to return, sleepy and yawning, had stared up at him with solemn eyes as he had gazed hungrily at his son and kissed him gently on the lips.
Better not to think of them.
“Yes. Tonight,” he said, getting resolutely to his feet. And he signaled to his men to draw apart.
* * *
More weary weeks had passed. Marshal Ney was besieging Almeida, and the French officers still in Salamanca, polite as they wished to be to their captive, could not help but jeer in his hearing at the British commander in chief, who showed no sign of going to its assistance.
“It seems,” Captain Dupuis said at dinner one evening, “that Viscount Wellington was totally dependent upon your persuading us to go a different way, monsieur. He seems now to be paralyzed with indecision and dismay.”
“Yes,” Captain Blake said. “It seems that way.”
“But it is ill-mannered of me to refer to such matters,” the Frenchman said contritely. “Forgive me, please. Have you sampled the delights the Spanish ladies have to offer? You are popular with them, being English, and being tall and well-favored too. We French have to pay dearly for their favors, I am afraid.”
Captain Blake had not availed himself of the favors that might have been his for the asking. Though why he had not, he could not explain to himself. Certainly the need for a woman was strong in him. Otherwise surely he would not be so obsessed with Joana, a woman he both hated and despised.
He wanted her. It was as simple as that. He had wanted her from his first sight of her in that ballroom in Lisbon. He could remember his feelings on that occasion, his dislike of her even before he had met her, even before he had realized that she was the Jeanne Morisette of painful memory. He had disliked her because she was beautiful and expensive and privileged, because she was far beyond his touch—and because he had wanted her.
He still wanted her, though his dislike of her was ten times intensified, but then, so was his desire. Having experienced the power of her charms directed fully at him, having touched her and enjoyed more than one indecorous embrace with her, he wanted her with a raw passion that he feared no other woman could quell.
Perhaps that was why he had not even tried to taste the charms of the Spanish women of Salamanca. He laughed at himself sometimes—though without any amusement at all—for wanting such a woman. All he should want to do to such as her was kill her.
He did not want to kill her. He did not want her dead. He wanted her . . . Well, he wanted her.
That one embrace behind the vine trees seemed to have satisfied her for the time. Or frightened her. Though he did not really believe that. He was beginning to believe that the Marquesa das Minas was not easily frightened. Or perhaps it had sickened her. Perhaps she wanted no repetition. Though, remembering her fierce participation in the embrace and her panting that had matched his own afterward, he doubted that too. When it came to sexuality, there was nothing of the demure lady about Joana da Fonte.
Whatever the reason, she had not pursued him as actively since. She never ignored him. Whenever she saw him, she smiled at him, or lifted her eyebrows to him, or merely looked and inclined her head. Occasionally she approached, always on the arm of some French officer, to exchange a few words with him. She never tried to get him alone.
Of course, he did not see as much of her as he had done during that first month. He had started to refuse a large number of his invitations. He had always hated grand social occasions anyway, but had felt obliged for very courtesy’s sake to accept his invitations for a while. Now he followed inclination and accepted only those that came from people who had been particularly kind to him.
Time was beginning to hang heavily and more heavily on his hands.
He would have refused his invitation to Colonel Marcel Leroux’s dinner and reception. Of course he would. He could not stand the man. He supposed that under any circumstances he would dislike the man who had led the interrogation against him and had forced him to stand up and remove all his clothing, an article at a time, while two sergeants had searched at a snail’s pace. It was hard to retain one’s dignity, and even one’s sense of identity, he had found, when standing naked to the gaze of several enemy officers in full uniform.
But it was not just that. The colonel had only been doing his job, after all. There was also the fact that wherever he saw Joana these days, Colonel Leroux was not far away. More often than not, she was leaning on his arm and sparkling up at him as if the whole of the universe must rest in his eyes. It was not just flirtation, he sensed. There was something more serious than that. He could not quite put his finger on what it was. But it seemed reasonable to suppose that it must be love. She must be falling in love with the man.
And Captain Blake found himself wanting to commit murder and despising himself for feeling that way and hating the colonel for exposing his feelings so badly to his own view.
And there had been that one occasion when he and the colonel had come face-to-face at someone’s reception, both with a glass in hand, and had exchanged polite nods. But the colonel had decided to speak.
“I trust that all is to your liking in Salamanca, Captain?” he had asked.
“Thank you,” Captain Blake had said. “I have been made perfectly comfortable.”
“Yes.” The colonel had smiled arctically. “We treat our prisoners with respect, as you do yours. We expect our prisoners to return the compliment, of course, and to extend that courtesy to our ladies.”
Captain Blake had raised his eyebrows.
“I should hate there to be any unpleasantness because you had forgotten
to observe that rule,” Colonel Leroux had said. “I believe I do not need to say any more, Captain?”
Captain Blake had pursed his lips. “Oh, absolutely not,” he had said. “I see that you fear competition, Colonel. Please feel free to relax and lose your fear.”
Colonel Leroux had inclined his head to him and moved on.
A small point. A minor incident. But the warning had been given. And they had given each other notice, without one word of incivility, that they hated each other with a passion.
Yes, certainly he would have refused the invitation. And yet on the very same day it came, there came also a perfumed letter addressed in an elegant female hand. A letter from Joana, urging him to attend.
“I need to speak with you,” she had written, “and you have been avoiding me, you naughty man. I do believe you are afraid of me. Are you, Robert? But I do need to speak with you. The matter is very urgent, and I know that your gallantry—oh, yes, and your curiosity too—will bring you. Until tomorrow evening, then. You will be there? You will not fail me? There is no need to reply to this letter. Of course you will not fail me.”
For several minutes he tapped the letter against his palm, trying to find the will and the courage to do what he knew he should do. How could he even pretend that she did not have him dangling on a string just as she had countless other men, unless he could resist running as soon as she crooked a finger?
Very urgent? She needed more kisses, did she? She needed to be reassured that he still desired her?
But very urgent? What if she meant more than that?
He did not struggle with himself for many minutes. He did not waste his own time. He had known from the moment of reading her letter for the first time that he would go. Of course he would go. Why pretend to himself that perhaps he would resist her demands?
Of course he would go.
* * *