by Mary Balogh
Captain Blake felt bone weary. It was a feeling he recognized as one that always succeeded the excitement and even exhilaration of battle. A ball had grazed his temple. He felt the soreness suddenly and lifted a hand to touch the crusted blood on the side of his face. But there were no more injuries. He was fortunate. Hundreds of men—thousands, if he counted the unfortunate French—had died that day in a battle that was, after all, indecisive. The French would either attack again the next day or find a way past the hill, and the British would resume their retreat on Lisbon.
They had played one more hand in the deadly game of war. That was all.
He wondered where Joana was. If she were wise, she would have taken herself off back to the convent and thrown herself on the mercy of Lord Wellington or whatever senior staff officers were likely to defend her against him—and all of them, to a man, would be only too happy to do so. Though he was far too weary to do to her the things he had contemplated doing when he last saw her.
And far too puzzled as well. She had killed Colonel Leroux.
He came up over the crest of the hill alone, his task done. And amidst all the milling masses of men and guns and horses there, he saw her immediately. She was standing on the far side of the track, and was apparently sending a staff officer reluctantly on his way to the convent without her. She was favoring the man with her usual beguiling smile.
He stood and watched her with narrowed eyes until she looked about her again and saw him. She smiled as he approached.
“I was afraid to come to the top of the hill,” she said. “I was afraid to look down. I was afraid that perhaps you were dead.”
“You were not afraid earlier,” he said harshly. “Not when there was a chance of escaping to your own people.”
“Robert.” She was no longer smiling. She set her head to one side and looked very directly into his eyes. “You know that was not what I was doing. You saw me shoot him. I did kill him, did I not?”
He stared back at her. “Yes,” he said. “He is dead.”
And then she did something he least expected her to do. She bit at her upper lip, and her eyes filled with tears, and her whole face trembled.
“Well, I meant it,” she said, her voice a whisper. “I meant to kill him. That has been the sole purpose of my life for the past three years. And I am glad that it is done at last. I just wish I could have told him the reason why.”
“Joana,” he said as her hands came up to cover her face. “Oh, Joana.”
And she was in his arms while noise and confusion swirled about them, gulping and sobbing against his chest, beating against it with the sides of her fists.
“Fighting to the end,” he said. “The battle is over, Joana. And your private war too, whatever it was.”
27
“WHAT was it all about, Joana?” he asked her, and she stopped pounding at his chest and stopped the stupid crying and looked up at him. His face was powder-blackened, the dark blood crusted down one side of his face.
“You were hit,” she said, raising one hand but not quite touching the wound.
“Grazed,” he said. “It is nothing.”
“You must bathe it,” she said. “I shall do it for you.”
He surprised her by grinning. His teeth looked very white in contrast to the rest of his face. “You behaving like a normal woman?” he said. “I never thought to live to see the day.”
“Had you been standing one inch farther to your right,” she said, “you certainly would not have. Is it sore?”
“Excruciatingly,” he said. “What was going on, Joana? There is a great deal about you I do not know, isn’t there?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but a group of horsemen passing along the track reined in suddenly, distracting her attention, and she found herself looking up into a stern and frowning face.
“Joana?” Viscount Wellington said. “Whatever are you doing here?” His stare shifted to Captain Blake, who had swung around to salute him. “Captain? Did you not have orders to escort the Marquesa das Minas with all haste to Lisbon?”
“No, he did not, Arthur,” Joana said quickly. “I passed your orders on to him, you see, but I somewhat twisted them in the telling.”
Lord Wellington’s lips twitched. “I can imagine,” he said. “Well, it seems I have the two of you to thank for a job well done. Marshal Massena has certainly been tricked into coming this way. I am sorry I could not take you more fully into my confidence before you left for Salamanca, Captain Blake. But I thought your behavior would be more convincing if you really did believe that the marquesa was betraying you and us.”
“It worked wonderfully well,” Joana said, glancing hastily at the stony face of the captain. “Didn’t it, Robert?”
“Yes, sir,” he said. “It worked well.”
The viscount nodded curtly. “This victory today is little more than a booster of morale,” he said. “Might I beg you to leave without further delay, Joana, and make for the safety of Lisbon?”
She smiled brightly at him. “Yes, Arthur,” she said. “I shall withdraw with everyone else.”
“With everyone else, not ahead of them,” he said with a sigh. “Well, I shall not waste any more breath on someone who is not directly under my orders. But take care of yourself. You had no more success than usual with your other mission?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Full success, Arthur. I hope you will not need me to make any future visits to my aunts in Spain. I have no plans to go there again.”
He looked at her keenly and nodded once. “I am pleased for you,” he said. And he saluted her, nodded to Captain Blake, and continued on his way to the convent, his aides in close attendance.
“Have you seen Private Higgins?” Joana asked, turning back to the captain. “I lost him, I am afraid.”
“I plan to take him apart limb from limb once he has recovered from his bullet wound,” he said. “He will wish the bullet had lodged in his heart rather than his leg before I have finished with him.”
He was deadly serious, the steely soldier from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. She smiled at him and linked her arm through his.
“But, Robert,” she said, “you know how difficult it is for any man to obey orders when I am involved. I am a match for any man, am I not? It would be unfair to chastise an inexperienced boy for allowing me to get away. He is a very sweet boy and was very concerned for my safety.”
“He had a strange way of showing it,” he said curtly. “And I have no room in my company for sweet boys.”
“And yet,” she said, smiling up into his face, “you were one yourself no more than eleven years ago, Robert. It took time and experience to mature and toughen you. And what about your orders to take me to Lisbon yesterday? They have not been obeyed. We are still here.”
“For the simple reason that I did not receive those orders,” he said.
“And why not?” she asked. “Because of me, that is why. But they were orders nevertheless, Robert—and from no less a personage than the commander in chief. If I had not spoken up just now, Arthur would have been very vexed with you. Perhaps he would even have torn you limb from limb and made you wish that you had been standing one inch to your right earlier this morning.”
He looked down at her, his granite look broken only by exasperation. “All right, Joana,” he said, “you have made your point. I shall go and kiss the boy and tuck him up in his bed while he rests his leg.”
“Don’t kiss him,” she said. “He may be embarrassed.” She laughed gaily.
But he was not to be teased out of his vexation. “And what sort of a fool have you been making of me?” he asked. “You have been, haven’t you, and enjoying every minute of it?”
“Not quite every minute,” she said. “There have been times when I have been remorseful, Robert. But yes, on the whole it has been fun. Are you going to forgive me?”
And he strode off away from her, leaving her standing staring after him—and feeling less confident than she could ever remember feeling. If only Arthur had not come along at that precise moment. Robert had known already, but she had not had a chance to explain fully to him. She had been about to do so, but she had been too late.
And so he had learned the truth from Viscount Wellington and felt humiliated and betrayed. Drat Arthur!
I don’t suppose you have ever failed, have you? he had just said to her. Well, she just had. And she felt a chill somewhere in the region of her heart and a feeling that must be very close to panic. He had been very serious. Perhaps too serious. Perhaps he would never forgive her. And even if he did, there was very little left for them. Only the retreat behind the Lines of Torres Vedras and the inevitable parting of the ways—a week, perhaps two.
Joana shrugged and looked about her at all the moaning wounded being carried up over the hill and in need of tending. She would help tend them even though she had never done such a thing before. Later she would think about Robert and how she might smile her way back into his good graces again. Later she would think about the future. But not now. Now there was plenty to keep her busy.
But she would think about those things later, and do something about them too. For never in her life had she been able to resist a challenge, and she was not about to start now.
* * *
He lay on his back in his tent, one arm thrown across his forehead, staring up into the darkness. He was exhausted. The battle seemed days ago, not just earlier that same day. There had been so much to do since—writing up reports, gathering his men together and making sure they were prepared for further action in the unlikely event that the French should attack again, writing to the relatives of those who had been killed, visiting the sick of his company again.
Visiting Private Higgins and arriving just at the moment when a surgeon’s assistant was digging the bullet out of his leg. Standing watching as Joana cupped the boy’s face in her hands and smiled at him and talked soothingly to him as sweat broke out all over his face and he gritted his teeth and refused to shame himself by screaming.
She had moved off after the ordeal was over and the boy had fainted, without looking his way at all. She had moved off to another, even younger boy—not of his regiment—who was screaming for his mother. She had been incredibly dirty and untidy—incredibly beautiful.
He had waited by the boy’s side until consciousness came back, and talked quietly to him until he saw hope and pride come back into the pain-filled eyes. And then he had squeezed his shoulder and moved on. Perhaps after all, the boy would make a good soldier. He had thought of a lieutenant, long dead, who had talked quietly to him when he was blubbering with terror after coming under fire for the first time and had made him feel that perhaps his behavior was not quite shameful after all.
He had caught sight of Joana several times during the day. But he had not approached her, nor she him. He felt bruised and hurt. She had been laughing at him the whole time, playing with him. While he had been falling in love with her and fighting his feelings because she was the enemy, she had been enjoying herself immensely. She had even admitted it.
He was as much a fool as any of those men in that ballroom in Lisbon whom he had so despised. More of a fool because he had allowed her to make him so much more her toy than she had any of those men.
He closed his eyes but he knew he would not sleep. Where had she gone? he wondered. To the convent? To some other man’s tent? But he did not care. He would not think of her any longer. His mission was at an end, and everything else along with it.
Against his closed eyes he saw her, standing straight and reckless in the midst of battle, aiming his rifle at Colonel Leroux and shooting him almost through the heart, though she had probably never used a rifle before. She never had told him what that had been all about. But he did not care.
He saw her quietly watching him that morning as he prepared to leave to join his men. And telling him that she loved him. He felt sick. But he did not care. She was not worth caring about. She was not worth a sleepless night. Not when the coming day promised to be almost as busy as the one just past.
There was a rustling suddenly at the opening of his tent, but he did not open his eyes. He only stiffened slightly. He did not move as she settled beside him, her arm brushing against his in the close confines of the tent.
“I had nowhere else to go,” she whispered to him.
“The convent,” he said harshly. “The arms of any other man in this damned army.”
“All right,” she said. “Perhaps I did not quite tell the truth. I meant that there was nowhere else I wished to go. Not that I wished to come here either. You are as cross as a bear.”
“Joana,” he said, “go away, or at least be quiet. I have no desire to be teased into a more congenial mood. Or to listen to any of your lies or wiles.”
“Would it help,” she asked, and he could feel her turning onto her side to face him, “if I promised never ever to lie to you again?”
“Not at all,” he said. “You would not be able to keep the promise for five minutes.”
She was quiet for a while as he lay beside her rigid with tension. “Did you think I was lying this morning?” she asked.
He drew in a slow breath. And he cursed himself for not having the courage or the good sense to order her from his tent.
“I was not,” she said. “I was never more serious in my life.”
“Don’t, Joana,” he said. “It will simply not work this time.”
She touched his arm but removed her hand immediately. “You are not relaxed,” she said. “I would be mortally afraid if you were. As it is, I am only afraid. Robert, is there nothing I can say?”
“Nothing,” he said.
She sighed and he felt her forehead against his shoulder. It was impossible to move away from her in the tent. But she seemed to have nothing more to say. There was a long silence, a silence during which he listened to the rustlings of the camp about them.
“He killed Miguel and Maria,” she said quietly into the silence. Her voice was toneless. “Duarte’s brother and sister, my half-brother and -sister. Or at least he ordered their killing—with a jerk of a thumb.”
He could feel the rigidity of his own body. He could scarcely draw breath.
“He raped Maria first,” she said. “On the floor while some of his men looked on. And then they took their turns. And then the jerk of the thumb.”
Breathing had become a conscious effort. “How do you know?” he asked her at last.
“I watched,” she said. “From the attic. His face will be forever burned on my memory. I searched for that face for three years. Thank God I could go among the French because I am French. But he had returned to Paris and only recently came back again. Duarte wanted me to tell him when I saw that face again. He wanted to be the one to kill him. But it was something I had to do myself. I always knew I had to do it myself or carry the nightmares with me to the grave.”
He opened his mouth to suck in air.
“I had to make him follow me here,” she said. “I thought it would be easy. I thought he would catch up to us early, and I thought I would have my musket and my knife. But when he did come, I had no weapon and you tied my hands. But he did come eventually, and justice
has been done. A measure of justice. There were those other men too, but I do not care about them. Only him. For he was their leader and honor-bound to uphold decency. I am not sorry I killed him, Robert, even though I know that the horror of having killed someone will live with me for a long time; I am not sorry. He deserved to die—and at my hands.”
“Yes,” he said. “He deserved to die.”
He heard her at his side trying to bring her own breathing under control. “You believe me?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, his voice dull. “I believe you.”
“You will forgive me, then?” Her voice was still toneless.
“No.” He tried to fight her story from his mind. “I might have helped you, Joana. But you were having too much fun making a fool of me. Men are only idiots to you, not people. I don’t believe you could resist trying to enslave a man if you tried. I have no interest in being any woman’s slave.”
Her forehead pressed harder against his shoulder. “It was partly your fault,” she said. “I told you the truth but you would not believe me. It has never been in my nature to beg and plead. If you would not believe me, then you would not. But I could not resist keeping you always guessing. I was teasing you, Robert, not trying to enslave you.”
“Well,” he said, “I cannot see much difference, I’m afraid, Joana. I’m sorry about your family. And I’m glad that you have avenged them at last, though how you did not lose your life in the attempt, I will never know. Don’t you know that it is sheer suicide to stand up in the skirmish line?”
“No,” she said. “I know nothing about skirmish lines except that you fight in one and this morning I thought I would die until I came over that hill and saw that you were still alive. But I will not keep you awake. If you will not forgive me, then so be it. I will not beg or grovel. Don’t ask it of me, Robert. It is not in my nature to do so.”
She turned her back on him and wriggled into a comfortable position—leaving him still rigid with tension and now furiously angry as well.