by Barbara Kyle
He shrugged.
“I take it that signifies consent,” she said with a wry smile. His curtness was so familiar to her now. “And I am—”
“Isabel.”
“Yes.” She wondered how he knew, then suddenly remembered her father shouting her name when he’d seen her with the jailer. She felt a twisting inside her stomach at the recollection of Mosse, like nausea threatening—and, again, the mortification that Carlos had seen it all. She could speak of anything but that. “You know a lot about horses, don’t you?” she asked to quickly change the subject.
He jerked his chin toward the corner straw where the stable boy lay sleeping. “Since I was his age.”
“That little waif? He can’t be more than five. Didn’t your parents—” She stopped, recalling her stupid insult yesterday about his parentage. “Sorry,” she mumbled, “I forgot.”
He seemed undisturbed. “My mother had an old horse,” he said as he picked the hoof. “She followed the soldiers around Castile. I threw our bundles onto that nag before I could talk. And when I was his age"—he glanced again at the stable boy—"one of my mother’s men was a German re-iter captain, a cuirassier. I tended his warhorses.”
“What’s a cuirassier?”
“Light cavalryman. A cuirass is armor, here.” Still holding the hoof in one hand, he gestured with the other hand to illustrate a coupled breastplate and backpiece. “A reiter is—you know German?”
“Yes. A rider, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “Cavalry. A cuirassier is a special reiter. Fights with lance and pistol. When the captain took me on, my mother left.”
“She abandoned you?”
He pried a stone out of the hoof. “Best thing for me. The captain’s squire died of plague soon after and the captain gave me the job.”
“So you lived with this captain?”
“A few years. He was killed. Then I got work with a Spanish knight. Sailed with him across the ocean sea. Conquistadores.”
Isabel’s eyes widened. “You mean … to the New World? Peru?”
Carlos nodded. “With Francisco Pizarro.”
“But you must have still been a child.”
“Eight, I think. Old enough to blow a bugle and groom a horse.” He set down the hoof and straightened, and the curtness in his voice changed, warmed by a satisfying memory. “Cajamarca. That is where I saw the power of cavalry. One hundred and seventy Spaniards on horseback. Five thousand Indian soldiers on foot.” His flattened hand made a swift, leveling gesture. He smiled. “The horsemen won.”
Isabel was amazed. She had read the accounts of the near-mythological conquest of the Incan empire, twenty-two years before. The Spaniard Pizarro had captured the Inca leader, Atahualpa, at Cajamarca with a mere handful of conquistadores, and with them had then taken control of a land of millions, a strange civilization that had never seen a wheel—or a horse. And Carlos had been part of that legendary campaign as a boy. As a bugler! “What a feat,” she said, “against such odds.”
“There is always a way,” Carlos said. He added, in the tone of someone instilling a lesson, “Surprise. And attack without mercy.”
Fascinated, she asked, “What was it like—the New World?”
“Beautiful,” he said with feeling. “The altiplano—the mountain plateaus—they are so high, the air so thin, you can see the strong wind bend the grasses, but you hear no sound.”
She thought it sounded beautiful indeed. “Did you stay long?”
He shook his head, and moved to pick up the mare’s other rear hoof to clean it. “Left with Trujillo, the conquistador I came with. He sailed home to Spain with his parte … his share of the Inca silver. He was rich with that silver. Did not need his warhorses anymore. Or me.”
“What did you do? You were so young.”
“Joined an Italian captain with a troop of light horse. We worked through the Emperor’s lands for years. The captain died of a chest wound in Maintz when I was"—he thought for a moment—“diecisiete … seventeen. He left me his horse. A Clevelander, big and brave. She could smash a fallen man in armor with her hooves. Fearless.”
Isabel had to smile at his sudden talkativeness. Perhaps, she thought with amusement, it was only when he spoke of horses. “What happened to her?” she asked.
“Shot out from under me at a battle near Maastricht. A mortar hidden in a ridge of pines. It blew off her foreleg.”
“Maastricht? I spent a summer in the country near Maastricht as a child. My mother and I. We were visiting friends, and we picked meadow flowers and ate wild strawberries.” This memory of her mother was bittersweet. “And, as I recall,” she added, struck by the coincidence, “there was aridge of pines there. Do you think,” she asked in wonder at the contrast in their lives, “it might have been the same meadow?”
Their eyes met, sharing the wonder. He was the first to look away. “Hand me that file,” he said, pointing as he kept holding the hoof. “On the ledge.”
She stood and passed it to him, then sat again. “So you’ve been a soldier all your life,” she mused.
He nodded, filing smooth an abrasion on the mare’s hoof.
“But how do you come to be in England?” she asked.
“A paymaster in Cologne was hiring for the English King. He needed cavalry to go against the Scots. That was six years ago. I had just fought with the Emperor’s troops at Mühlberg. But I had spent all my dead pay on new gear. I needed work.”
“Dead pay?” she asked with raised eyebrows. “Don’t you have to be dead to draw that?”
He smiled—for the second time, she noted. A lopsided smile that somehow suited his rugged face. “No,” he said. “It means double pay. Recruiting officers promise it to attract soldiers who are …"—again he searched for the word—”experimentado …”
“Experienced?”
“Si” He shrugged. “But my pay was gone. And we had destroyed the Emperor’s enemies at Mühlberg, so things were quiet.”
“So you sailed to Scotland?”
He nodded. “Brought over a company of light horse.”
“You brought them? You mean, as a captain?” Here was an even more surprising image of him.
He nodded. “After Scotland most of them went home. I stayed on with the Duke of Northumberland’s troops on patrol in East Anglia.”
“Things were quiet,” she said thoughtfully, repeating his phrase. “How odd. Most people pray for peace. You search for war.”
He let down the mare’s hoof and straightened, easing his sore shoulder. “I am ready for some peace now.”
“You mean you’ve giving up fighting?”
He snorted. “Giving up work is another luxury. Only a man with a full purse can do that. Or with land.”
His face darkened. He kicked away a hard clump of dung and said quietly, bitterly, “A few months ago I was given both.” He seemed about to say more then decided against it. He came around to the mare’s foreleg and lifted it. He began to scrape the hoof.
But Isabel’s curiosity had been sharpened. “Given land? How? What happened?”
He glanced up at her. “Northumberland’s reward to me. A manor by the sea. I moved in, ready to grow a rich man’s paunch. I was going to breed horses.” She heard bitterness creep back into his voice. “But somebody took the land away.”
“Somebody? You do enjoy being secretive, don’t you? Who?”
He shrugged. “Not important.”
He set down the hoof. “I tried to stop him, though.”
“I see.” She offered a small, sly smile. “I’ve watched how you ‘stop’ people.”
He gave a short laugh. She laughed too. It was absurd—laughing about killing. But it felt good, like a burden being lifted. Their eyes met. He was still smiling. Isabel had a vision of Martin looking at her that way. It unsettled her, as though in some indefinable way she was betraying Martin. She stood abruptly, setting the coat down, and moved toward a jumble of leather harness hanging on a post near the mare. She fidg
eted at untangling the harness. “I am going to be married,” she said suddenly. “As soon as this madness is over.”
There was no reply. When she looked back at Carlos he had begun brushing the mare’s mane. His smile had vanished. She watched his hands, how as one hand brushed, the other smoothed the mare’s glossy neck. She noticed the horse’s muscles quiver under his touch. She thought of his hands on her own body on the taproom floor and felt a shiver. Of course, it was cold out here, she told herself; she’d come without her cloak. She wondered how he could be comfortable in just a shirt. But then, he was working. And once again he was silent, expressionless. There were aspects of him that were foreign, unknowable. “Have you always fought for pay?” she asked.
He did not look at her. “What else?” His tone had reverted to its usual terseness.
“What else? Why, for justice. Like Wyatt and my … like the rebels are doing. For a cause.”
“There is no such thing.”
“Of course there is! Do you mean you fought for the Emperor all those years without believing that his cause was right?”
“War is for land. Or for power, the same thing.”
“So you fight whoever you are told to fight, just for the money?”
“That is how I live.”
“But that’s wrong.”
Her accusation hung in the chilly air. The mare stomped its hoof. Carlos looked at Isabel, scorn on his face. “You do the same,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“You do as you are told. You live off your father, yes? He feeds you and clothes you and in return you obey him.”
Her smile was sardonic. “As it happens, I’ve just disobeyed his order to go to Antwerp.”
“Your father may not like that.”
She glared at him.
“And when you marry,” he went on, “you will live the same way. Your husband will feed you and clothe you and protect you, yes?”
“Of course.”
“And in return you will share his bed and keep his house and bear his children.”
“But I want to. I choose that.”
“As long as you choose what the one in power wants. But what if you married against your father’s will? He could throw you out. And when you are married, what if you go into another man’s bed? Your husband would throw you out. The rules are the same for you as for me. People do what they must. To live.”
Isabel blinked, incredulous. “By these standards, if you call yourself a mercenary you are calling me a harlot.”
“I am a mercenary.”
The inference was too plain. Her hand flew up to slap him. He caught her wrist and held it. “Words,” he said calmly. “They mean nothing. It is what people do that counts.”
She tugged free her arm. Her elbow struck the harness and knocked it from its nail, sending it clattering to the floor. The noise startled the mare. Its huge head swung around and violently banged Carlos’s wounded shoulder. He winced at the pain.
Isabel gasped. “You’re bleeding again.”
He looked at the red stain widening on the clean shirt. “A little. It will stop.”
“More than a little. You need a fresh bandage. Come inside.”
“I will finish with the mare first,” he said.
“That’s nonsense. I’ll tell the groom to finish.” She touched his elbow. He stiffened. She said sternly, “Come inside. You’re no good to me if you bleed to death.”
He stood by the bed in his room, waiting, restless, as she used scissors to cut a linen sheet for a bandage. She set down the scissors and began to tear the cloth. He watched her profile in the light of the candle on the table. He wanted to get away from her, away from her overtures of friendship that had seduced him in the stable—most of all, away from the memory of that first time he had seen her, when Mosse had had her. That vision of her practically naked was impossibleto forget. And then, this afternoon in the Fleet, the feel of her beneath him, the bud-like hardness of her nipple in his mouth. Remembering, his body instantly responded.
He looked away, willing his thoughts elsewhere. “You leave at first light of the morning?” he asked, forcing himself to concentrate on the thread of smoke from the candle as it curled toward the ceiling.
“Yes.” She sighed deeply. “My problem is that I need to be in two places at the same time.” She looked at him. “Have you ever made promises to two different people that conflicted?”
Yes, he thought. I promised the visitor in Colchester jail that I will kill your father, and I have promised you that I will save him. But the visitor offered a hundred pounds. And that, he told himself, was what he must concentrate on.
“Well,” she continued, tearing the strip, “there is a promise I must honor. But a more fundamental promise, to rescue my father, is keeping me from it.”
“Promises cannot always be kept.”
She looked at him. “Promises are all we have,” she said simply. “They’re all that make us different from the beasts.” She went back to tearing the bandage.
Carlos watched her with a frown. When she said things like that—so assured despite her worries—he felt confounded, mystified. She had had the same effect on him in the jail when she had forced Mosse, even as he grunted over her, to look her in the eye. In fact, her very reason for agreeing to satisfy Mosse had amazed him: to save her father. Watching her, he could not help wondering about Thornleigh. What kind of man produced such a passionately loyal daughter? “Your father,” he said. “How did he land in jail?”
It seemed to Carlos that she tore at the linen with extra fierceness. “My mother was shot, almost died. My father killed the man who shot her. His name was Anthony Grenville.”
Carlos was surprised. ”Lord Grenville?”
She glanced up. “You knew him?”
“He was the one who took my land.”
Her eyes widened with astonishment. “He was the one you tried to stop?”
“Not him. His lawyer.”
“Oh, if only it had been Grenville and you had killed him. Then, all my family would still be biding peacefully at home.” He heard the tightness in her voice, as if she were trying not to cry. She closed her eyes for a moment. “The Grenvilles,” she said, controlled now. “Lady Maud and her sons. I’m sure they hired that assassin in Colchester jail to kill my father.”
Carlos said nothing. For all he knew she was right; the visitor who’d hired him had been some gentleman’s servant.
“They won’t give up,” she went on. “And they have great power behind them. Their daughter is the Queen’s best friend. That’s why we must find him before they do. Do you understand?” Without waiting for his reply, she tore the strip free and said flatly, “Now let’s get this done. Your shoulder must hurt.”
He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it on the bed. The wound actually was not painful. The knife had only grazed him. The fresh bleeding had already stopped. He was unwrapping the blood-stained bandage as she came to him. He caught her staring at his bare chest. He had seen that look before in other women’s eyes. He knew what it meant. Maybe that was the answer. Maybe if he took her, now, he could get her out of his blood for good. He allowed desire to surge back.
In one sudden motion he grabbed the back of her head, grabbed her buttock with his other hand, and yanked her to him. He pressed her hard against his groin. His top hand slid down to her breast.
She jerked violently out of his grasp. “How dare you!” she cried.
“What? I thought—”
“Thought what? That I’d swoon at your feet? My God, I’ve seen more finesse in coupling dogs!”
He flushed with anger. ”Mira! I thought—”
“Well, don’t think! You’re a hired brute. I’m not paying you to think.”
He resisted the urge to strike her. The other urge, inflamed by the softness of her body against his, was not so easy to subdue. And its very power in the face of her insults made him feel ridiculous—and more angry.
“I am betrothed!” she was saying. She had moved halfway across the room. Did she think he was going to rape her, for God’s sake? For a moment the raw appeal of it held him. He could do it. Force her, here and now. Make her insults whimper to a stop. It would be easy. But it would also be stupid. He was dependent on her. Until he found Thornleigh.
“I am betrothed,” she repeated, like a catechism to keep her from harm.
“I heard you,” he said, snatching up his shirt. “But I see you are alone in searching the rat holes of London, so maybe your man changed his mind.”
“He was called away. He doesn’t know what’s happened.”
“Lucky for him.” He was wrestling with the shirt, trying to find the neck opening, but he only succeeded in making a stubborn ball of twisted material. And a thin line of blood was trickling from the scab on his shoulder.
“Stop,” she said, more gently. “Don’t. You cannot leave your wound like that.”
“I’ve had worse,” he growled.
“But this you suffered for my sake. What happened was my fault. In the Fleet, I mean. Let me tend it. I owe you that much. Please,” she urged. “Stop.”
He did, and stood motionless, as much in anger as in compliance. She approached him warily, the way he himself would approach a half-wild horse that he knew had only paused in its fight. She extended the bandage like a peace offering. He lifted his arm and let her wrap the bandage over his shoulder and under his arm. She wrapped it several times. Her eyes were fastened on the bandage as she worked, but her breathing was still agitated. He stared across the room, trying not to notice the rise and fall of her breasts. Trying not to breathe in the scent of her hair, of her skin.
“There,” she said, tying off the bandage. But she did not move away from him. She looked at the floor. She spoke very softly. “I am betrothed. It is a vow I hold more dear than my life.” She looked up. His eyes met hers. He suddenly saw in their troubled depths what she was really saying—that she would be faithful despite the temptation. Faithfulness. It was a quality he had never encountered in women. Once again she had astonished him.
Her lips parted slightly as she took a breath as though to say more, and he felt desire for her course through him again. He would take her. Have her. The impulse jolted through him. But he did not move. He could not move. Because even more strongly, and far more strangely—for never in his experience had such a sensation competed with carnal desire—he wanted her to look at him and smile.
