The Sometime Bride

by Blair Bancroft

  Alvaro Dominguez had been a wealthy man, his country home a mecca for those who enjoyed good company, good food, and refined entertainment. Fortunately, the formal rooms and the family bedrooms above had been untouched by the flames. At night, when the blackened ruin of the north wing could not be seen, only the terrible lingering odor of smoke and charred wood remained as an unrelenting reminder that none of their lives would ever be the same.

  Two candelabra of four candles each had been set on parquet tables near a grouping of chairs and a sofa. Their glow illuminated so little of the immense room Cat felt as if she were walking into the wine cellars under the mountain rather than into the Dominguez drawing room. Adding to the gloom were the women’s dresses. Each was swathed in yards of black silk in the Spanish style. At that moment Cat doubted she would ever again wear clothes designed in the graceful Grecian column popularized by Napoleon’s empress Josephine.

  With a faint sigh Dona Blanca sank down onto the sofa and spread her skirts about her. Cat was not above her own silent sigh of envy as she eyed the older woman’s voluptuous figure, which was lush enough to arouse the admiration of a saint. A tiny bit plump, perhaps, but was that not the fashion in Portugal? Men preferred an ample armful. Which, Cat conceded, she herself most certainly was not.

  “I like your Blas,” Dona Blanca declared. “I admit I had grave reservations about this wild plan of a marriage and did not hesitate to say so. You have been kind not to remind me of all the warnings I gave you. I did not think you too young for a true marriage, but for a travesty of marriage? No woman would be ready for such a thing.” Dona Blanca smoothed the black silk of her gown before once again raising her dark eyes to her young guest. “I feared you would not be sufficiently wary, that he would take advantage of you. That only pain could come of such a marriage. But in the months he has been coming here to report to Thomas—and now with his so kind help in this time of trouble—I must tell you I like him. Is he good to you, child? Are you happy?”

  Happy. Cat ran the toe of her slipper over the finely patterned carpet, shifted her weight in her chair. She had been too young for woman-to-woman talks before Elspeth Audley died. And since then there had been no one. The three weeks she had spent at the Casa Dominguez prior to her marriage were as close as she had come to having a woman to talk to, someone in whom she could confide. But she had remained aloof. Angry that this older woman who was not of her family could criticize her beloved Blas. Who was Dona Blanca Dominguez to question her marriage? To counsel Thomas Audley against giving his only child, and his lucrative business, to a stranger?

  But now, Cat acknowledged, she was older and wiser. Though not older and wiser enough. She had led a solitary existence in a household of men, her petite frame constantly hiding bottled-up emotions she refused to let others see. But had not Thomas taught her that confidences given elicited confidences in return?

  Her small stubborn chin jutted forward. Perhaps shock was the best weapon. “I wish to be truly married,” she declared.

  Dona Blanca had to repress a smile. Ah! But of course the child wished to be truly married. To so fine a man as Blas, what woman would not? “So he has not touched you?” was all she said aloud.

  “No.” Cat’s defiant stance crumpled, her reply so faint Blanca almost missed it.

  “Do you believe he loves you?” the older woman challenged.

  “Sometimes,” Cat whispered. “There is a way he looks at me, I can scarcely breathe. But most of the time he is a brother,” she added with disgust. “A bossy brother. Giving orders. Do this, do that. No, Cat! And again, No! He is almost as bad as my old governanta.”

  Dona Blanca continued her relentless catechism. “Does he ever speak of the future?”

  This was something Cat had tried to ignore. A numbing chill crept into her heart as she considered Blanca’s question. “No,” she admitted. “No, never has he spoken of any time beyond the war.”

  Ah, bah! This was not good. “He looks at you with great affection,” said Blanca hastily, regretting the pain she had caused. But surely it was best for Catarina to see reality more clearly.

  “We do not speak of affection,” Cat declared with the fully affronted dignity of the very young.

  The subject was closed. Each women understood the matter was too painful to be discussed again unless the need was urgent.

  “Dona Blanca?” Tentative, uncertain, Cat raised the dreaded topic.

  “Surely we are friends now, Catarina. It would give me pleasure if you would call me Blanca.”

  “Thank you,” Cat murmured, still frantically searching for a way to introduce the unthinkable. “There is . . . there is something I have wished to ask you. Please do not think me impertinent, but when I came here that first night, I felt your pain went beyond the death of Don Alvaro, beyond the injuries to my father. That there was something more . . . “ Cat’s voice trailed away. At last she had given Dona Blanca an opportunity to speak. She could not find words to go farther.

  For a moment Blanca sat very still, a rush of tears threatening her dark eyes. It was not right a child of fifteen should bear the burden of such knowledge, and yet . . . “You are not to worry yourself, Catarina,” Blanca demurred. “Your father and Brother Basilio have already spoken to me. I admit your instincts were sound. You have inherited your father’s gift of perception. Blas spoke to Brother Basilio of your fear for me. Your father, like you, needed no one to tell him.”

  Blanca paused, the silk of her skirts rustling under her restless fingers. She had been mistaken. Catarina was not a child, but a ravishingly tempting target for male lust. She needed to understand it was not just men who suffered the violence of war. Blanca sighed. “You are old enough to hear of this thing, Catarina. May you never have to endure what I did, but you must know your father is right. You and I, women everywhere, are made for life, not death. We are the givers of life, we do not take it away.”

  The windows were open. An errant breeze blew through the room, causing the candlelight to flicker and dance. With it came the nasty stench of charcoaled wood. Death. And terror.

  “Rape is an ugly thing, Catarina. Only those who have endured it can truly comprehend the horror. It is rape of the soul as well as of the body. And yet Portuguese men see this ugly thing only as a dishonor to themselves. If my Alvaro had lived, I do not think he would have touched me again. That is why it is assumed a woman will kill herself before she is dishonored. And if that is not possible, then surely afterwards she must do so.

  “You perhaps heard about poor Adela, the scullery maid. She had only thirteen years, but there are many knives in the kitchen . . . and she did not hesitate to use one.” Blanca’s voice trailed away as the horror came rushing back, the young girl’s body lying on the kitchen tiles in a pool of blood. Blanca’s personal stab of guilt because she had not done the same.

  Cat sat in absolute stillness, unable to move. She should be offering comfort but was stunned into silence. She had not heard about the maid, younger by two years than herself.

  Blanca’s slumped shoulders straightened; she stiffened her back into a rigid line. “But Alvaro did not live to know of my disgrace,” she continued. “And I knew I must care for your father. By the time the worst of the crisis was past, I had been strongly reminded of the sanctity of life by Brother Basilio. And only a day ago, your father has given me his more earthly views on the matter of a fate worse than death. He can be very profane, your father. But of course you know that,” Blanca concluded with a faint smile.

  Cat rose and crossed the short space between them, kneeling at Blanca’s feet. In the tones of one who makes a solemn vow, she said, “I am very glad to have you as a friend. And I am exceedingly glad you have had the good sense to listen to my father. We need you, Blanca. Both he and I.”

  And finally the tears came. For both of them.

  When Catarina returned to the Casa Audley, everything had changed. Her world had gone awry, and there seemed to be nothing which could make it right
.

  Two months passed before Brother Basilio acquiesced to Thomas’s increasingly vociferous demands to return to work. The damn war was happening without him! He might not be able to get around, but he could still think, by God!

  Catarina would not allow Dona Blanca to say no to her entreaties to accompany them to Lisbon. “We need you,” Cat insisted. “Now that we know each other so well, I cannot imagine living without your calm and steady counsel. And Papa? I think he will drive me insane if he does not have you to bully as well. Please, Blanca cara, say you will come!”

  Dona Blanca, never dreaming how far from home her consent would take her, did not require much urging. The Casa Dominguez held only sad memories; the winery could get along without her. Thomas, possibly even his self-sufficient child, could not.

  “You’d think this was a damned funeral procession!” Thomas complained as their coach inched toward Lisbon with Blas setting a pace slower than his ancient ox cart. But Blanca, who seemed to have a gift for dealing with the difficult invalid, merely patted his hand, assuring him it would of a certainty be his funeral procession if he did not stop fussing himself into a fever.

  Cat’s sympathies were with her father. The thirty mile journey did indeed seem to go on forever. She wished to be home. She wished to be back to a time when she could share private moments with Blas.

  And yet, when the journey was finally over, she found she did not like to be back in the room of her childhood. There before her was the flounced bedcover of pristine white muslin embroidered with flowers of pastel silk. The matching canopy, the plain white hangings gracefully draping the bedposts. More pastel embroidery at the sides of the double doors to the balcony. Her utterly feminine dressing table in white and gold. All so totally, immaculately . . . virginal.

  Cat ground her teeth. She threw open the doors to the balcony which overlooked the street, letting in the golden glow of the October sun. Just so had it been the day a voice, singing to the accompaniment of squeaking cartwheels, had stolen her heart and changed her life. But where was he? She had expected him to come to her as soon as Thomas was settled in his room. He would tell her all that had been happening in Lisbon, the small funny moments as well as the dramatic events of the day. Yet, after supervising Thomas’s move from the coach to his room—the room Blas had occupied for so many months—he had disappeared. It was, Cat suddenly realized, very odd indeed.

  Once a week, Blas had traveled the road from Lisbon to the Casa Dominguez to make his reports to Thomas and satisfy himself that all was going well with his adopted family. At all times he had been his dynamic self. And determinedly cheerful. He seemed, in fact, to thrive on the responsibilities Thomas has heaped upon his young shoulders. And yet this morning, when he had greeted Cat with a dutiful and somewhat distracted peck on her cheek, she had sensed something was not right. Blas had avoided her on the journey, riding in advance of the carriage, cautioning the coachman, in a manner quite out of character, over every bump and pothole in the road.

  Cat told herself he was merely overly concerned for Thomas’s health and safety. But in truth a nervous, even skittish, Blas the Bastard was a contradiction of basic character. Prickles flickered across the back of her neck. Something was wrong.

  There was no answer when she knocked on the door next to hers. She turned the knob and walked in. So . . . Blas had arranged things as they had planned. Dona Felipa’s old room now belonged to Don Alexis Perez de Leon. Refurbished to eliminate all traces of the testy old governess, the room was wholly and firmly the masculine chamber of her husband Blas. And it was empty.

  Virgin she might be, but in the past year Cat had grown accustomed to many of the little joys of being married. The shared confidences, the laughter. The glow of Blas’s presence. Of entering a room and finding his eyes locked with hers. He always knew when she was there. Frequently, they seemed to know each other’s thoughts.

  And now . . . he was gone. Deliberately avoiding her? But why? She was no longer a child who did not understand desire. Was he afraid to be near her? Had Papa warned him off? Again. Those were, of course, the most obvious explanations. But, somehow, neither explanation felt right. Cat’s first glimpse of her husband came only as night descended on the Casa Audley and Don Alexis Perez de Leon assumed his accustomed place at the faro table.

  As was expected of her, Cat made a grand entrance through the elaborately tiled front hall. Pragmatism forced aside her memories of the black days at the winery. No matter what she thought of the French, a fashionable appearance in the Empire style was necessary in the gaming rooms of the Casa Audley. Cat floated past the courtyard’s bubbling fountain in a gown of seafoam green, the bodice and hem embroidered with delicate white vines and flowers. She was Catarina Perez de Leon. It was a night like any other at the Casa Audley.

  On the threshold of the largest gaming room she paused in shock. The room had changed color. As if a magician had waved a wand and redecorated the rooms in an instant. The solid phalanx of French blue had become a multi-colored panoply of uniforms of nearly overwhelming brilliance. British infantry scarlet, rifleman green, cavalry blue, plus the gamut of primary colors signifying Spain and Portugal, each jacket faced in a contrasting color and smothered in gold braid. The faces were still young and eager, but even the languages and accents had changed.

  Sternly, Cat took herself in hand, stepping forward to greet her father’s customers as she had so many times before. She proffered a particularly warm welcome to the Portuguese officers who had never come near the Casa during the Occupation, partly from shame and partly from fear of creating trouble. The Spanish officers, who had been among the occupation troops in the garrison at Lisbon, had changed from stern soldiers doing their duty for their French ally to debonair caballeros eager to drive the invader from their country.

  One and all, they nearly smothered her with attention, kissing her hand, begging to be allowed to bring her some wine . . . supper. Would she not like a cool walk by the fountain? The British officers new to Lisbon hovered in the background, waiting for an opportunity to beg an introduction. During a moment when the crowd briefly parted, Catarina looked up, expecting to catch Blas’s sardonic acknowledgment of her triumphal return. His eyes were fixed on the faro card box. Without looking up, he casually tossed a card to one of the players and continued the round. Cat addressed the glowing smile planned for Blas toward a very young lieutenant, allowing him to lead her to the refreshment table. With rueful laughter her other admirers returned to the play.

  “You’ve heard what’s being said?” Marcio asked Catarina later that evening.

  “About Napoleon? I heard it from Papa this afternoon. The great monster himself has come to rescue his generals in Spain. Papa says Boney has two hundred thousand men and will probably push us into the sea.” So much had happened in Catarina Audley’s young life that this latest rumor failed to arouse even a flicker of fear.

  “And assuredly twenty-five thousand of them are the men Dalrymple and Burrard returned to France!” Marcio growled.

  “I do not at all blame Sir Arthur for resigning,” said Cat sadly, “ but he will be sorely missed.”

  “But not Dalrymple and Burrard,” Marcio retorted.

  “Papa says their recall means somebody in the government has finally shown a bit of sense. But with Wellesley gone to Ireland, there’s no one left but Sir John Moore.”

  “You are forgetting the Portuguese and Spanish armies,” Marcio reminded her indignantly. “Five thousand of us helped Wellesley at Vimeiro! Now they have given us General Beresford, we will soon be able to fight as well as the British.”

  “I am sorry,” Cat apologized swiftly. “You are right. But Papa says all three countries together will still be no match for Boney. It is true, you know. Father and I have done little else but talk for the past month. I have had lessons in tactics using Blas’s maps and drawings—he is very good, you know. Papa says I probably know more of what is going on than any but the generals themselves. And I ca
n tell you it does not look good.”

  As Marcio began a muttered catalog of what the allied troops would do to the famed army of France, Catarina bit her lip. Peeking at her friend from under lowered lashes, she asked, “Marcio? Do you think . . . have you noticed that Blas seems . . . well, different? Has anything happened I do not know about?”

  Marcio shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking decidedly uncomfortable. “Don Alejo has seemed a bit absent-minded,” he admitted. “But he has been very busy doing the work of Senhor Tomás as well as his own. Things should be better now that your father is back.” He hesitated before adding, “You know, Cat, you should not mind about other women. It is just part of his job.”

  “Of course.” Trembling, she dashed upstairs to her room, buried her outburst of tears in her pillow. She lay awake, listening for Blas to enter the room next door. It was her first night home. He would come to her, she knew.

  From the gaming rooms below sounds of the evening’s special entertainment drifted up to her room. The haunting, mournful strains of the fado. The lament for lost souls, lost lives. Lost love. It was an accompaniment perfectly attuned to Cat’s vigil.

  For at dawn, wide-eyed and cold of heart, she was still waiting.

  Sing fado, sing fado. Sing fado for me.

  Chapter Eight

  It was over. As if it had never existed. Gone was the intense camaraderie of the days of the Occupation. The excitement and fear. The sharing of small moments . . . the laughter. The sheer joy of living. The secret joy of loving.

  Cat spent many a lonely moment in her room puzzling over what had gone wrong. Blas may not have loved her, but she had reveled in finding an occasional delicious telltale sign that he truly cared for her, no matter what that emotion might be called. But now . . . they were not even as close as they had been in Blas’s early days at the Casa Audley. Sometimes—if Cat looked up very quickly—she would catch him watching her, his expression as inexplicable as his behavior. A look compounded of wariness . . . and awe. With perhaps, just perhaps, a soupçon of regret.