The Sometime Bride

by Blair Bancroft

  Someone will be watching you, Blas had cautioned. Don’t look at anything, don’t do anything! Just sit there like the dear sweet child you are. His obvious sarcasm had not improved her temper, but sit she did, growing more nervous with each passing minute. Eyes were staring at her, she knew it.

  “Dona Catarina.” Marshal Junot entered, all smiles, dismissing his entourage with a wave of his hand.

  Catarina jumped to her feet, executed a curtsey fit for royalty. She did, in fact, have a great deal more respect for this French general than she did for any of the royalty to whom she supposedly owed allegiance.

  Androche Junot was resplendent in the dress uniform of a Marshal of the French Empire. His midnight blue military tailcoat was so heavily embroidered in leaves of gold that it might have stood alone. A gold satin sash and medals, crossed by a broad red ceremonial ribbon added color above his white breeches and tall shining black boots. A dress sword completed his elegant ensemble.

  The Marshal lingered over Catarina’s hand, then led her to his desk, picking up a sheaf of drawings which were lying there. “Did you not peek, my dear?” he inquired. “I had thought surely you would.” Cat murmured a denial.

  “Ah, pauvre petite!” Junot exclaimed. “You did not believe I truly wished to show you my designs. Come, regardez, my dear. They are all here.” He spread a series of very fine drawings across the entire expanse of his broad desk.

  Catarina struggled to ignore the intimacy as he stood just behind her, his head bent next to hers as he displayed his work. It’s the oldest ploy in the world! Blas had warned. “They are–um–very geometric,” she whispered.

  “You understand mathematics,” he applauded. “Refreshing in so young a lady.”

  “My father saw that I was well educated in all disciplines,” Catarina replied with dignity. Estupida! How could she have raised such a sensitive subject?

  “Ah, yes, your father . . . Tell me, my dear, does he chafe at the change of government?”

  Catarina stood very still, her skin prickling where this Marshal of France had suddenly placed light fingers upon her shoulder. She forced a bland smile. “Surely you are aware my father was among those who returned to England.”

  Junot transformed his caress into a small pat. “But of course. How strange I had not remembered. That is why you married at such a tender age, is it not? A most fortunate occurrence for your husband . . . in every way.” The Marshal turned her around to face him, the desk hard against her back. “And your husband . . . he is–ah–comfortable with his new masters?”

  “My husband does not have any masters,” Catarina retorted before she could stop herself.

  “An unfortunate choice of words,” Junot amended smoothly. “I merely wished to assure myself Don Alexis is content with French government.”

  “My husband is Spanish. An ally of France,” Cat countered, her chin jutting up to meet his rapt gaze. “How can you possibly question his loyalty?” Defiance instead of proper feminine terror. Once again, Blas was right. She was a fool.

  Androche Junot fingered one of the strawberry gold curls which had been allowed to fall from Cat’s upswept hair. A slight smile flickered across his handsome features. “Winds of change are in the air, Dona Catarina. Spanish nationality may no longer be enough protection.” He dropped the curl, trailing his fingertips across her face to cup her chin in his hand. “It may be necessary to have friends in high places . . .”

  Cat wrenched away from his caress, bolting to the far end of the massive desk. “My husband is a fop. As much threat to France as I am. Everyone knows he married me for control of the Casa. His sole interests are money and other women. Protecting him does not particularly interest me!”

  The Marshal, warming to the duel which was developing into a far better challenge than he had anticipated, snatched Catarina to him, locking his powerful arms behind her back, his body pressed close to hers. “Ah, but who will protect you, my dear?” he breathed. And kissed her, shaking off her struggles with insulting ease.

  “Excuse me, Marshal, but have you seen . . .? Ah, there you are!” Major Henri Martineau declared heartily from the doorway. “A thousands pardons, Your Excellency, but Don Alexis has been looking for his wife. She has perhaps stayed here long enough?” A significant look passed between the two Frenchmen. Androche Junot bade Catarina a politely formal goodnight, then bent to straighten the drawings on his desk, stacking them with studied care.

  Major Martineau, one hand firmly on Cat’s elbow, marched her down the hallway, past the colorfully uniformed guards stationed in front of each door. At the far end of the corridor he propelled her into a small room not much bigger than a butler’s pantry. The room was empty. “Where is Don Alexis?” Cat blazed.

  For a moment Henri Martineau looked as if he longed to spank her. An infinitesimal Gallic shrug twitched his shoulders. “Androche Junot did not become a Marshal of France without a fine understanding of tactics,” he reminded her sternly. “Your husband”—sarcasm dripped from each syllable—”has been carefully maneuvered into a position where he could not come to your aid.”

  Catarina’s eyes widened. “But why . . . you?”

  The major’s dark eyes deepened from cool to cold. “Your father has long been an enemy of France, your husband is not above suspicion. But, me, I find I do not care to make war on children. The Marshal was playing with you. He is surprisingly devoted to his wife, but no man can be totally immune to such beauty . . . and innocence. Not even myself. Consider that tonight I succumbed to a moment of weakness. Do not expect it to happen again.”

  Catarina hung her head, lips quivering. The world was not at all the way it should be. “Merci mille fois,” she murmured. She had never felt so much a child. Blas was going to kill her.

  Fortunately, she was wrong.

  On the trip back to the heart of Lisbon, Cat never moved from the circle of Blas’s arms. He held her in a fierce grasp, vowing that never again while the French roamed the streets of Lisbon would he let her out of the safety of the Casa Audley.

  “Lord, but I wish I knew what was happening in Spain!” Blas muttered some two weeks later.

  “Do you wish me to find out?” Marcio Cardoso asked with barely repressed enthusiasm.

  “No!” cried Catarina sharply. “Your Spanish is good enough only for a português.”

  Marcio’s indignant protest was cut off as Blas jammed his finger onto the large-scale map spread out on Thomas Audley’s desk. “Something is going on in Madrid, and I have to find out what. Junot would not have talked so openly of winds of change if the thing were not past fixing.” Blas stared unseeing at the map of Spain. “Boney talked Charles into letting Ferdinand go,” he mused, “but it’s said they’re both at it again, each one petitioning the little Emperor for support against the other. So Boney keeps smiling from both sides of his face, saying, ‘See all the lovely troops I’m sending to help,’ and by the time the fools wake up, they’ll have a hundred thousand Frenchmen up their—”

  “So when do you leave?” Cat inquired, her face a study in bland disinterest.

  “And abandon you to the tender mercies of Junot and Martineau?” Blas shot back.

  “She has me now,” Marcio declared stoutly. Father and I know how to protect our own.”

  Blas quickly apologized to Marcio who had just returned from the mountains. “If Cat’s little trick with your foot works and there is no problem about your being conscripted,” he added, “it’s possible I may be able to go within the next week or two. I’m sorry, Cat, but Thomas says there is nothing more important than the news from Spain. London is screaming for a first-hand report.”

  “And how is your foot?” Cat asked Marcio, accepting Blas’s trip as inevitable, though her insides quivered like a blancmange. “Does it pain you?”

  Marcio lifted his left leg and shook his booted foot, his dark eyes sparkling with mischief. “Ah, it pains me a great deal, senhora, so much so that I may not be able to climb to the balcony of my
Concha.”

  “You are quite terrible,” Cat retorted. “I think it does not pain you at all!”

  Marcio slammed his boot back onto the floor. “In truth, Cat, I would not like to quick march with this boot on. But I now have a limp which ill becomes a soldier and which will, I hope, make me an object of sympathy to all the kind-hearted senhoritas.” He put a hand over his heart and raised his eyes heavenward. “I undoubtedly acquired it in the line of duty, defending the city to my last moment of consciousness.”

  “If you can find a woman stupid enough to believe you!” Blas snorted. “I suggest you tell the French you did indeed fall while climbing your Concha’s balcony. They will far more readily understand the wounds of love than believe you were injured defending an unresisting Lisbon.”

  Cat stifled a giggle as Blas continued. “You can try out your limp tonight then. I must leave earlier than usual and will need you to cover for me at the faro table. Cat, you will leave the gaming rooms when I do. Hopefully it will be assumed we are snatching a few moments of marital bliss.”

  Fiery red suffused her face, rising from neckline to hairline, clashing with her red-gold curls. Marcio chuckled. “You make a good pair,” he approved. “Until tonight then.” He rose to his feet, stepped determinedly toward the door. The insert in his left boot created a noticeable but not incapacitating limp. Blas nodded his approval. With Marcio back at the Casa Audley, his freedom was considerably enhanced.

  Hours later Catarina woke to a hand firmly clamped over her mouth, an urgent whisper in her ear. “My boots, Cat. Quick!” Still struggling with sleep, she slipped out of bed and knelt on the floor, tugging at Blas’s scuffed leather boots. “Hurry, damn it,” he hissed, reaching down from his perch on the edge of her bed in an attempt to help her. Loud pounding sounded on the Casa’s front door. Cat struggled so hard with the second boot that when it came off, she fell over backward, her pristine white muslin nightgown flying up to her thighs.

  Blas suffered a moment of regret that there was no time to enjoy the view. Moving fast, he pulled open a drawer built beneath the bed, tossed his boots inside, covered them with one of the extra quilts stored there. Grabbing Catarina from the floor, he tossed her onto the bed and jumped in after her. Blas jerked the quilted coverlet up over them both. Then, instead of lying quietly feigning sleep as Cat expected, he began to wiggle and twist in a manner she found most alarming, particularly when she realized what he was doing.

  “Ah, no, you must not!” she gasped.

  “I’m not about to ravish you, for God’s sake! A naked body in your bed is a damn sight better than a husband taken off to jail in the middle of the night.”

  The pounding had long since ceased. The sounds of tramping feet and the murmur of voices could be heard on the gallery outside Blas’s room next door. As the sounds moved into his bedroom, Blas made a sudden movement, tugging Cat’s gown up over her head, hushing her shocked protests with an urgent command to lie still and be quiet or they’d all be dead. A moment before the connecting doorway was thrown open, he tossed the nightgown onto the elaborately patterned Persian carpet and seized his wife in his arms, kissing her shock and terror into silence.

  Don Alexis Perez de Leon froze in the midst of the embrace of his wife, turning slowly toward the phalanx of French soldiers who had just burst into his wife’s bedchamber. His eyes opened wide, as if he had been too occupied to notice his home was being invaded. Behind the soldiers stood Lucio and Marcio Cardoso in varying states of undress, the relief on their faces so evident that Blas almost laughed. Fortunately, the French never took their eyes from the bed where Cat was having no difficulty at all playing her role. Being found stark naked in bed with an equally naked Blas by armed French soldiers was quite enough to set her body trembling. Shimmering drops began to fall from her large green eyes.

  “Boa noite, Major,” said Don Alexis with no more than mild curiosity. “To what do we owe the honor of your visit?”

  Major Martineau eyed the pristine white nightgown, its lacy ruffles spilling over the colorful carpet. For Dona Catarina nothing but the best. A nice touch, that. He raised his eyes to his adversary. “We were following a man who was in a place he had no right to be. He came here to the Casa. We saw him climbing to a balcony on the far side of the house.”

  Don Alexis pondered this remarkable statement. “On the far side of the house,” he repeated. “And yet you came to my room? For shame, Major. I have been with my wife the entire evening, have I not, queridissima?” He favored the major with a conspiratorial wink. “We are newly wed, you understand.”

  She would die of mortification.

  A tear fell off the tip of Cat’s quivering chin. Slowly, she wiped her face with the coverlet she was clutching up around her neck. “He has indeed been with me all evening, Major,” she vowed, her pale face as deeply crimson as the flowers on the quilt.

  Martineau fervently wished himself anywhere but here. Against these two children his thirty years weighed like a century. “Don Alexis, you will be good enough to stand up. I should like to see what an hidalgo wears to bed.”

  “What else?” said Don Alejo, sliding his body out from under the covers and standing, nonchalantly naked, before his pre-dawn guests. With all eyes focused in embarrassed silence on the young owner of the Casa Audley, Cat surreptitiously moved her toes beneath the heavy quilt, shoving Blas’s clothes farther toward the foot of the bed. She did not intend to look, but her eyes were drawn inexorably toward the lean back and buttocks only inches from the bed. Hastily she averted her eyes, intently studying the design of the quilt.

  “My apologies, Don Alexis, Dona Catarina,” said the Major, who knew when he had been bested. His eyes gleamed as he added, “Perhaps another time.” With a wave to his men, he stalked out the main door to the upper gallery, leaving the Cardosos, father and son, to breathe heartfelt sighs of relief.

  “You’re a bit pale for a Spaniard,” said Marcio with an attempt at an insouciance to match his friend’s. “I trust the major did not notice.”

  “He noticed,” said Blas, “but he knew he’d been outmaneuvered. It’s definitely time for me to consider leaving town for a while.”

  “If you wish to speak of leaving . . . “ interjected Lucio Cardoso in a voice of stern disapproval.

  “Ah, perdão!” Marcio exclaimed. “Boa noite.” The Cardosos made a hasty departure.

  Blas bent down to pick up Catarina’s gown. His legs buckled, depositing him hard on the edge of the bed. “It occurs to me I am not quite as much the brave warrior as I had thought,” he admitted in a rare moment of honesty. Careful not to turn around, he reached back over his shoulder to hand Cat her nightgown. “I’m sorry, Cat. If Lucio tells your father about this, there’ll be the devil to pay.”

  Catarina wiggled the gown over her head, then ducked her head beneath the covers, groping until she found the various pieces of Blas’s clothing. “Even Lucio assumes we are properly married,” she said as she returned the items, handing them over his shoulder.

  “I suppose so,” Blas responded idly, shrugging into the shirt which was just long enough to cover the bare essentials. When it was properly in place, he turned back toward his bride with a rueful apology. “When I suggested all this, Cat, I had no idea what occupation by an enemy was like. I should have let you go with your father. Better yet, I should have kidnapped you and put you on board a British ship myself. I should not have used you like this. I am truly sorry.”

  “You are very strange when you are humble,” Cat retorted. “Not at all like yourself. I like the old Blas better.”

  “That’s fortunate,” he conceded, “as it looks to be a long war.” He paused, regarding her closely from under his thick black lashes. “It is best for both of us that I leave for Spain as soon as we see how things go with Marcio.”

  Desolation. Relief. “I will miss you,” was all she said.

  Blas made the mistake of looking at her, sitting there so demurely with the coverlet to her chi
n, shining strands of red-gold framing a face on which tears still glimmered. He bounded off the bed, clutching his pants, sash and knee socks, making such a hasty departure he left his boots lying in the drawer under the bed.

  Catarina returned them a few hours later, softly humming to herself as she tucked them into the chest in the secret closet where the clothes of Blas the Bastard were kept. The sheepskin jacket had been found by one of the maids in the laundry press in a small service room off the upper gallery. Cat returned that also. He would need it in Spain.

  Chapter Six

  The road to Madrid rose swiftly from the coastal plains of Portugal to the high plateaus and mountains of Spain. Blas, however, moved toward the Spanish capital at a snail’s pace, singeing the ears of his long-horned oxen with his complete repertoire of Spanish expletives. With a few Portuguese variations thrown in for good measure. He had, God help him, forgotten how slow an ox-cart could be. He was carrying a load of crucifixes and bibles, the only cargo which might not be instantly confiscated by the hordes of ravenous French soldiers swarming through Spain. (He had balked at Cat’s suggestion, presumably facetious, that he haul manure for the well-over-three hundred miles to Madrid.)

  He wore an eye patch, a vacant expression, and a ragged stocking cap. And hoped the grinding of his teeth could not be heard over the squeals of the wooden wheels. But it was not a time when a young hidalgo could ride his Arabian across Spain without being challenged by troops in every village. Nor in the yet-to-be famous cities of Talavera and Badajoz which he passed through on his way to Madrid.

  Blas’s return journey, some five weeks later, was accomplished in less than a week as, abandoning caution, he hitched and hiked his way across Spain, using any means of transportation he could lay his hands on from stolen mules and horses to farm carts, even the carriage of an elegant condesa, for which service he did not pay in coin. On his mad dash to Lisbon, his night with the Condesa de Mascarenas was the only stop he made.