by Anne Gracie
Bella heaved a sigh of relief and straightened, her heart still pounding. She couldn’t have done that sidesaddle. Not so easily.
On this side of the mountain the morning sun shone bright and warm. The sun was well up. About now her husband would be discovering his only option was to ride sidesaddle.
He’d be furious, that went without saying, but would he come after her, or would he do what she’d suggested in her note, and go on to England? And would he try to ride her horse?
She smiled. Lord Ripton wouldn’t be caught dead riding with a lady’s saddle. No man would.
He’d comb the village and find there was no other horse, let alone a saddle—the groom had assured her there were only donkeys in the village, not even a mule, and she couldn’t imagine Lord Ripton on a donkey, not with those long legs of his.
He’d either have to send to the next town for a saddle or ride bareback, which she very much doubted he would. Bareback was all right for short distances and emergencies, but a whole day bareback would be very hard.
Whatever he did, she had an excellent head start, and though she didn’t know the roads very well, all she had to do was keep heading east, and the mountains and the sun told her where east was.
Valle Verde was about two days’ ride from here, she guessed; three if she’d miscalculated. The land immediately around her might be unfamiliar, but the mountains were in her blood. It was so good to be out from behind the high convent walls, with nothing between her and the horizon.
She wasn’t sure where she’d sleep tonight. Perhaps she might find a barn or a derelict building. She was a little nervous about the prospect, but Papa had taught her how to live off the land, she reminded herself, even if it was more than eight years ago.
What would it be like, living in England? The thought of it was more unnerving than the possibility of having to sleep under a bridge. But she’d always dreamed of going to England. Mama was half English, after all, and Bella had vague memories of a tall, black-bearded English grandfather who’d given her a small dolphin statue cunningly carved from whalebone and told her marvelous stories. He’d died not long after Mama had died, Papa told her.
She shivered. Almost every one of her relatives was dead. Apart from horrid Ramón, and a few distant cousins she’d never even met, there was only Reverend Mo— No, Aunt Serafina in the convent, and Perlita.
Was that why she was so desperate to find Perlita? She hardly knew her half sister. She’d hated her for most of her life. And yet now she was risking everything to find her.
Why? Family feeling? Or guilt and atonement? A little of each? Bella didn’t know. Mama used to say Bella should always try to listen to her heart and do what she thought was right. Mama, who had listened to her heart and married Papa—and where had that got her?
Right or not, all Bella knew was that before she started her new life as the wife of Lord Ripton, she had to make sure Perlita was all right. She was determined to be happy with Lord Ripton, to build a good life in England and make him a good wife, and she couldn’t do that with Perlita on her conscience.
And that, thought Bella bleakly as she rounded the mountainside into full, bright sunlight, was the answer to her question.
Riding sidesaddle took a bit of getting used to, Luke decided, but as long as a man didn’t mind looking ridiculous—and the applauding peasants were far behind him now—it wasn’t so bad. Surprisingly comfortable. More secure than he’d expected— He caught himself up on that thought. Had he really believed all this time that riding sidesaddle was precarious, even a little bit dangerous?
He had, and yet he’d never questioned the necessity for it, even though his mother and Molly rode sidesaddle—and his wife. The people whose safety he should care for most.
The worst thing about it was the difficulty of remounting. He’d stopped once to relieve himself, and getting back up was much more awkward than it should be—he was sure he made a ludicrous sight—and he wasn’t hampered by a long-skirted riding habit. If Isabella had been riding sidesaddle she might have been stranded without anyone to boost her up.
The thought mollified his anger with her. Slightly.
If by some miracle he found her—and please God it was soon and she was unharmed—he’d teach her a lesson she’d never forget. Run away from him, would she? Two bedrooms indeed! Never again would she trick him thus. When he caught up with her it would be one bedroom, and one bed.
He’d show her who her husband was, and by God, she’d learn to obey him as she’d vowed to do. Just one day into their marriage and she had him careering all over Spain—sidesaddle!—on a wild-goose chase!
A hare burst from beneath a bush and went bounding across the stony ground, causing Luke’s horse to shy. Bringing it under control was trickier than usual. Normally he controlled a mount with his thighs, but on sidesaddle it was all about reins and whip.
What if a hare startled Isabella’s horse and she fell? Out here in the mountainous wilderness she could lie injured and helpless for days with nobody any the wiser. And wolves still roamed these mountains.
He shoved the thought from his mind. He’d learned years ago the futility of worrying about things he could not control.
She was making for Valle Verde, he knew, but by which route? He’d chosen the quickest way through the mountains, cutting along the edge of the escarpment, the roughest and most dangerous route. With luck she’d taken the more well-traveled, slower, longer, and less dangerous route. Either way, he hoped to intercept her before nightfall.
He knew these mountains, had crossed and recrossed them during the war. His perfect Spanish and his dark hair and eyes were a boon to the gathering of local intelligence, and a large part of his job had been liaison with the various bands of Spanish guerrillas.
Some of them were little better than bandits, terrorizing the local population as much as they terrorized the French; stealing, murdering, raping—all in the name of patriotism. And from all accounts some of them hadn’t disbanded after the war ended.
The mountains—as always—offered endless opportunities to lawless men.
And lawless women.
He urged the mare faster and hoped to God Isabella had taken the safer route. If she hadn’t…
Accident, bandits, wolves—the number of possible dangers she faced made his blood run cold. The last time she’d found herself alone in these mountains… No, he wasn’t going to think about that—though dammit, she should have! No blasted common sense!
If—when—he did find her, he’d school her, dammit, and teach her what those blasted nuns had failed to. Obedience to her husband.
A small flutter of white caught his eye, something pale moving at the base of a precipice. Fear sliced through him. Isabella?
He leapt from the horse and scrambled to the edge of the drop for a closer look, his heart thudding in his chest. Wordless prayers came from a place he hadn’t realized was still in him.
He hung over the edge, straining to see. The pale thing moved again… and a small tan and white goat wandered out from the shadows, nibbling at the grass as she went.
Tension flowed out of him in a gust of relief.
He collected the mare and remounted. The moment had shaken him more than he wanted to believe. How could one small, disobedient scrap of femininity have the power to make him feel so…
He cut off the thought before he could complete it. Feel? He barely knew her.
Women simply didn’t have that power over him anymore. He’d learned his bitter lesson seven years ago, and he wouldn’t make the same mistake again. Since then various women had tried to worm their way into his affections, and he’d never had any trouble resisting them.
He’d always had a strong sense of responsibility; that was all. She was his wife, and it was his duty to protect her.
It was duty, nothing less. And nothing more.
The farther east Luke rode, the more familiar the territory, and the more his spine prickled.
The war was ov
er, he reminded himself. It was years ago. Everything had changed.
And so had he. The trick was to remember that.
As a boy he’d loved this country. His memories of boyhood summers in the vineyard were tinged with golden magic. Running wild in the fields and forests, having his pick of his uncle’s fine horses, swimming in the hot summer sun, learning to hunt with falcons and hawks, and his first, tentative forays into the glorious and intoxicating world of girls.
In those days Spanish girls were the embodiment of all his ideas of feminine beauty, with their lush curves, golden skin, dark eyes and hair, and full, red lips. English girls seemed somehow pale and uninteresting by comparison, and everything about England—the land, the food, the life—had seemed anemic to him then.
Of course it was just the difference in the life he lived. England was school and duty and gray skies, and home was a grieving, newly widowed mother. Spain was freedom and sunshine and adventure.
Luke paused, took off his hat, and wiped his brow, scanning the miles of rolling hills below the fault line. No small figure on a black horse with one white foot. No sign of anyone.
High above the valley a hawk floated effortlessly, making slow circles above an olive grove. Wondering what prey the bird was intent on, Luke looked down at the ancient, twisted trees, and without warning he remembered the evening where the silent peace of an olive grove was shattered as twenty men rose up from their hiding places like wraiths in the night, slaughtering the handful of French troopers who’d camped there, as well as a couple of local peasant girls who’d joined them for the night. Traitorous whores, the guerrillas called them.
Luke had been raised to protect women, but it all happened so swiftly there was nothing he could do.
The next day he’d walked through the silent camp, the morning sun gilding the still, dead faces. He’d heard Napoleon was drafting boys as young as twelve into the army, and now he saw the rumor was true. Not one of the soldiers looked a day over sixteen; some were just boys. And the girls—perhaps fifteen or younger.
So young, so dead.
He’d thrown up in that olive grove, a thin stream of vomit steaming on crisp, dewy grass. The guerrillas had laughed at his weak English stomach.
Now, gazing down at the ageless olive grove, Luke recalled the clammy horror of that morning once again.
He itched to be gone…
Once he’d felt a part of this country, felt more at home here than he did in his own home. Now he couldn’t bear to stay a moment longer than he had to.
He couldn’t simply blame it on the war. He’d always known the bloodthirsty, almost savage violence that lay beneath the surface. It was a hot-blooded, quarrelsome land.
The England he knew currently wore a smooth veneer of civilized behavior, but then he’d never seen England conquered, its people ground beneath the heel of a ruthless invader. He prayed he never would.
But England’s wars with Scotland, in his grandfather’s day, were hardly civilized. His grandfather would never talk about it, but from everything Luke could gather it was cold savagery, a bloody and pitiless process of annihilation. And the aftermath… the clearances…
Wars did that to people, to countries, stripped off their polite, civilized veneer. Skin-deep… Absently Luke rubbed his shoulder. The hard part was replacing the veneer, trying to regain some semblance of civilization once you’d gazed into the black depths of the human soul… your own soul. Trying to forget.
It was easier in London. The dreams were not so frequent, and when they got too bad he could always find some distraction, an entertainment of some sort, a race…
Here, everything conspired to remind him, to stir up memories he’d tried to obliterate; the jagged lines of the high harsh mountains, the scent of wild thyme and oregano, and of the wind blowing through the juniper pines, the sight of a cluster of whitewashed, red-tiled houses perched on a hillside, the clank of bells on sheep and goats—even the taste of wine, warm and squirted straight into his mouth from a leather flask, and the aroma of a bubbling stew, rich with tomatoes and peppers and garlic.
Each carried the essence of Spain. Each tasted bitter to him now.
But it wasn’t the war, wasn’t the slaughter in the olive grove or any of a dozen or more ghastly incidents he’d witnessed in his years at war.
Luke was under no illusion: this was a purely personal antipathy, and he knew exactly where it originated. And with whom. He hoped the bitch had long since received her just deserts.
T he sun was sinking low in the sky, casting long shadows from the mountains and streaking the high threads of clouds with lilac, pink, and touches of gold. Luke was despairing of finding his wife before dark, when a movement on the road far below him caught his eye: a small figure on foot, leading a black horse with one white foot. Thank God. Thank God.
Luke rode down the mountainside as fast as he dared, crashing through the scrubby undergrowth, ignoring the whippy branches that smacked him in the face and body, stinging and scratching him. He didn’t care; he just wanted to get down to Isabella and see for himself that she was all right.
But when he reached the road that wound along beside the river at the base of the valley, there was no sign of Isabella, no sign of anyone at all.
He scanned the way in both directions, but the road was silent and empty. Not even any raised dust to show if someone had raced away. Where the hell was she? He was certain the small figure leading the horse was his wife.
Then, “Oh, it’s you!” a familiar voice exclaimed from behind a clump of beech trees, and Isabella emerged, leading his horse.
Luke swung his leg over the pommel, leapt to the ground, took two long strides, and seized her by the shoulders.
She stiffened, bracing herself for whatever was to come.
Luke, having rehearsed the Speech to an Errant Wife a dozen times, honing it to withering perfection, found himself unable to recall a single word. He stared down at her, gripped by uncharacteristic indecision. He didn’t know whether to hug her, shake her, or strangle her.
Or kiss her.
There was a long pause.
She tilted her head and looked up at him. “You mastered the art of the sidesaddle very quickly. The speed with which you came down the side of that mountain was very impressive. I don’t suppose you even fell once, did you? I mean this morning.” The minx sounded almost hopeful.
“No,” Luke ground curtly. Not the slightest speck of guilt or even apology in her voice or attitude.
Her eyes were a clear honey brown and thickly fringed with short, dark lashes. They seemed to draw him closer. He carefully loosened his grip on her and stepped away. It was imperative that he establish and maintain control of this situation, and he couldn’t think straight when she was looking at him like that and he was touching her.
The moment he released her, she shook herself, like a little cat who’d stepped in water. She gave him a tentative smile. “I thought you were a bandit at first.”
He wrenched his gaze from her mouth, stepped back another pace, and found himself staring at her long legs and slender female curves.
Perhaps it was the artlessness of her response, or perhaps it was that she was perfectly safe and well when all day he’d been imagining her facing some disaster.
Or perhaps it was the sight of her standing in the middle of a public road clad in nothing but a pair of buckskin breeches, boots, a white cotton shirt, and a leather jerkin. Easy—and tempting!—bait for any blackguard who happened upon her.
“Where the devil is your skirt?” he snapped.
“In my bag. I thought it would be safer and more convenient to travel as a boy.”
“As a boy?” She couldn’t possibly be that naive.
“Yes, a boy traveling alone is much less remarkable than a lone woman.”
“You don’t look the least bit like a boy.”
She smiled. “Not to you, perhaps, but then you already know I’m not a boy.”
“God give me stre
ngth!” he muttered. “You look nothing like a boy.”
“But I do. I’ve worn these clothes for years, and nobody has ever suspected I was anything but a boy.”
“Traveling in the land of the blind, were you?”
“Of course not.”
“Dress-ups in the convent? And the nuns told you that you looked just like a boy?”
“No, it wasn’t a game. There were times when—” She broke off. “Reverend Mother sometimes allowed me to go outside the convent dressed this way, among ordinary people. They all took me for a boy.”
He didn’t believe her. “Why would Reverend Mother allow you to take such a foolish risk? Besides, she was scandalized when she saw you in those breeches yesterday.”
“Because she saw your face when you saw the breeches.”
Luke had no doubt of it. She probably saw the raw lust he’d felt, too. “You say you’ve had these breeches for years. When did you last wear them?”
She frowned. “Three or four years ago. But they still fit perfectly well.”
He snorted. “A lot tighter, I’ll wager.”
She bridled. “Are you saying I’m fat?”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m saying you look nothing like a boy.”
“I don’t agree. The girls in the convent were forever telling me I looked like a boy. I barely have breasts.” She gestured, but he refused to even glance down.
He was not going to be drawn into a discussion of her breasts. He knew for a fact she had them; he could see their gentle curves even beneath the leather jerkin. Her stupid school friends were blind.
She continued, “The fact is—”
“The fact is, you willfully disobeyed me, you look nothing like a boy in that attire, and I could easily have been a bandit!” Why the devil was he explaining it to her? He never explained himself in the army. He gave orders and people obeyed.
Men obeyed.
“But I haven’t seen a soul,” she assured him blithely. “And when I thought you were a bandit, I hid—quite successfully, you have to admit. You wouldn’t have known I was here if I hadn’t called out to you.”
“I saw you from above,” Luke grated.