The Sometime Bride

by Blair Bancroft

  This might be the only night of love she would ever know, Cat thought. Blas could disappear back into his English lair . . . to whatever unknown world he had sprung from. But now . . . tonight, even if he was just a man who wanted a woman, she would still have this night to remember.

  First, however . . . he must suffer. For all the days and nights of his long absences. For his indifference. His rejection. Ah, yes, Blas the Bastard must work harder for redemption.

  And, besides, his efforts at atonement were so deliciously enjoyable. And, surely, no one could call it defeat. Wasn’t this what she had always wanted? Blas. Aware he had a wife. Offering love.

  Blas was too experienced not to realize he had won. Even as Cat contemplated with smug satisfaction the effect of continued resistance, her delicate bones dissolved into molten welcome. She accommodated herself to the hills and valleys of him, the tensile strength, the vibrant warmth of him. Her body sent messages her mind had forbidden.

  Blas’s chuckle rumbled through both of them as Cat wilfully turned her head away from the lips which drifted from her ear down to her mouth. Silly chit. Did she think to continue the game even after they both knew she had lost? Undaunted, his lips butterflied their way down the side of her cheek and kept on going. There were many ways to kiss a woman, and he would be happy to prove that her luscious mouth was not his sole quarry.

  By the time he had nibbled his way to her breast, she was no longer able to stifle a sharp gasp as, this time, his teeth tweaked her nipple. Blas heaved his own sigh of contentment as, having survived the preliminary skirmishes, he now settled down to demonstrating his skill in the contest called love. At long last he had his wife where he wanted her. He approached her breast with all the concentration of a skilled general to a battle. He nibbled, licked, blew upon the wet tip, causing Cat’s muscles to quiver and clench from her womb to her toes. Her heart threatened to hammer its way through her chest. Blas pulled a good portion of her breast into his mouth and sucked upon it as if only this one thing could give him life. And when he had done all that he could with one of his wife’s amply rounded mounds, he turned his attention to the other, finding it as perfect as its twin.

  Cat never remembered the exact moment she stopped trying to make her own rules for the game. One moment she lay there, ostensibly inert, and the next she had one hand twined through his long mat of hair, the other running up and down his back, urging him on. Surely, it must be a sin to know so much pleasure. To be overwhelmed by sensations she had not known existed.

  Particularly, if one were not quite sure one was married.

  Although it was a hot June night, Cat felt a chill when he abandoned her breast, but her loss was momentary as his lips continued their travel downward, pausing once again at her navel, her lower belly, her . . . Ah, deus! What was he doing? This must be a sin.

  Blas groaned as Cat stiffened beneath him. With an effort he forced himself away from his wife’s most secret flesh. It was not necessary to teach her everything in one night. For a moment he sank his teeth into his lower lip, clenched his fists. Tonight was a far greater demand on his control than he had ever exercised in their Game. He had come so far, waited so long. And had no idea why she was so angry.

  Gently, warily, Blas took his wife’s hand in his, leading her fingers to his swollen flesh. “Don’t be afraid,” he murmured. “Last time I hurt you . . . because you were a virgin and because you were not ready for me. Tonight will be different, I swear it. Touch me, Cat. Feel me. It will be all right, I promise you.”

  He was hard and wet, throbbing with life. And terrifying. Cat thought she had forgotten the pain. Love conquered all, did it not? A whimper escaped her lips. She pulled her hand away, burrowed back into her pillows. She was an idiot. A coward.

  She could not help herself.

  “Listen to me, Cat,” Blas said with only the smallest quaver to betray what his patience cost him. “I am going to touch you and love you in every way I know until you are certain in your mind as well as your heart that I am not going to hurt you. Do you understand what I’m saying? I am not going to hurt you. Nor am I going away. We are going to stay right here until you feel, right down to your toes, that what we are doing is right and beautiful and meant to be. And when I’ve shown you what exquisite pleasure it can be, we’ll rest awhile and do it all over again. I wanted tonight to be perfect, but it doesn’t have to be. We have tomorrow and all the rest of our lives. So, come and be my wife. In all the best that wife can mean.”

  It was as close to a declaration of love as she would ever hear from him, Cat thought. The only mention of a possible future together which had ever passed his lips. All else became unimportant. When his fingers traced her inner thighs, she smiled into the darkness. When he parted the lips of her cleft, she welcomed the invasion. She arched her back and moved against his fingers, astonished by the building waves of something far beyond her wildest imaginings. There was room in her only for this mysterious entity, this awesome, incredible something which took her out of herself, out of time and space and into some fantasy of unknown and inexplicable delight.

  Ah, no, he could not leave her now! The parting was brief, his fingers replaced by what had seemed so impossibly huge and hurtful. There was no pain, only a gentle pressure as he moved farther and farther inside her. Exactly where she wanted him. Exactly where he belonged. When he began to move inside her, Cat knew everything he had told her was true . . . and yet, it was far more than words could ever describe.

  Blas dug his nails into his fingers, using pain to keep his body in control. He would not hurt her, would not frighten her, would not give in to the frenzy to spill his seed in her until she had taken her full measure of pleasure from this night. When he felt the waves of convulsions ripple through her, Blas held her tight, murmuring words of love. Then, and only then did he give in to his need, plunging hard inside her only twice before he was overwhelmed by the little death, the stuff of dreams. The night exploded into showers of sparkling color. His tanned body, glistening with sweat, fell heavily onto her petite frame. He buried his soaking waves of black hair in her shoulder and knew he had truly come home at last.

  In the morning Cat told him about Major Martineau. For if she did not, someone else would.

  Blas had been leaning on one elbow, quietly studying the perfection of his wife’s sleeping form, indulging in the satisfied glow of knowing he had finally done something right. That never again would he have to restrain his need for her . . . that, God willing, she would be with him forever. Her eyes fluttered open. She gave him a lazy, tantalizing smile, and he knew her thoughts were the same as his own.

  And then the loving green eyes clouded as Cat realized she must tell him he was not the only man to sleep in her bed. A shudder shook her small frame. Steadying her nerves by reaching for Blas, she pressed her fingers against lips opening to question her change of mood. “There is something I must tell you,” she whispered.

  He kissed the tips of her fingers . . . and waited. Before she was three sentences into her tale, Blas was gripping her arm so tightly it was all she could do to keep from crying out. “You must understand!” Cat interjected. “He did not touch me. Not in that way. Truly, Blas. Truly he did not!”

  He unleashed her arm and bounded out of bed, pacing the room like a lion at bay, muttering something which sounded like “bleeding bugger,” but Cat thought she must be mistaken. If it was English, the words had no meaning for her. “Tell me,” he rasped. “Just tell me.”

  “How can I talk when you are so . . . raging? Like a bull in the arena.”

  “Finish it!”

  So she told him, choking out the story, warily gauging his reaction to her every word as he stomped up and down, his emotions as naked as his body.

  In the end he came back to the bed, sinking down beside her, locking his gaze to hers. “And that was all there was to it?”

  “Yes. Absolutamente, yes.”

  Whatever Martineau was, Blas admitted, the man was
shrewd and clever. And absolutely right that Blas the Bastard had been in a good many situations where the aid of a woman meant the difference between life and death. Nor had he ever taken sexual favors which were not freely offered. He would grant Martineau the courtesy of being of similar mind. That his Cat would have offered her favors never entered his head.

  “So perhaps I shall not kill him,” Blas conceded.

  Relieved to find his temper cooling, Cat tried for the light touch. “Silly. He is probably in France by now.”

  Blas’s eyes lit with a feral gleam. “Ah, but it will be long war, my Cat. And in the end France will be the occupied country, and we the victors who walk her streets in triumph. And then, if not before, I would find him.”

  “He has a wife and three children and has done us more than one kindness,” she babbled. “Promise me you will not kill him.”

  Blas’s amber eyes sharpened into sudden suspicion. “Such passion, queridissima. Do you care for him, after all?”

  Though the endearment was tinged with sarcasm, Cat was appalled. “You cannot think . . . you cannot believe there could ever be anyone else. Never, never, never! I have loved you from the moment I saw you. Nearly three years now. For me there will never be anyone but you.”

  His fierce glare persisted for only a moment, dissolving into sparks of chagrined mischief in the rays of the early morning sun. “Of course I know it. I am simply made mad by the thought of another man putting his hands on you.” He raised his right hand, looked her straight in the eye. “I promise I will not kill him. Are you satisfied, wife? May I come back to bed?

  With a smile of pure joy, Cat threw both her arms around his neck and pulled him down on top of her. It was well into the afternoon before the residents of the Casa Audley discovered the peripatetic Don Alexis Perez de Leon had come home.

  1

  In the four days Blas stayed at the Casa Audley Cat learned many things. Some she found erotically titillating; others, naughty-but-oh-so-nice. Only one thing shocked her. Late in the afternoon of his first day home Blas took her into the heart of old Lisbon, to a rabbit warren of small, low-ceilinged shops set in a maze of walls and tiny courtyards. To streets so narrow, they were forced to leave Thomas’s barouche behind and walk the last few blocks. When Blas found the place he wanted, he had to lower his head to get through the door. The room was dark with a floor of hard-packed earth. The smell was heavenly.

  As Cat’s eyes adjusted to the shadows, she saw they were in an apothecary shop, though not one accustomed to catering to wealthy foreigners. It was, however, a Blas kind of place. He fitted in as surely as all the other fidalgos (or their women) who had found their way to this and similar shops through the centuries. Herbs hung from the ceilings and stuck haphazardly out of earthen jugs. Jar after jar sat upon wooden racks which canted at odd angles, threatening to tip their contents onto the floor. Cat took a deep breath of the indescribable mix of scents which filled the shop.

  She caught a stir of movement and found herself under the intense scrutiny of an old woman who was crouched on a stool amidst her wares.

  Blas greeted the old crone with polite deference. Though forced to practice in the shadows, she was renowned for the extent of her knowledge and the soundness of her skills. He grasped Cat’s and hand and drew her forward. “I am a soldier, you understand, old woman? I do not wish my wife to bear a child when I cannot be by her side. I have been told you may be able to give her instruction.”

  Cat snatched her hand away, her stomach turned to ice. He should have warned her, said something. Anything. “No!” she gasped.

  “I wish it,” he said, uncompromising. “Well, velha, will you do this thing?”

  The old woman named a price three times her usual fee. A handsome fidalgo with such a well-dressed wife could afford to pay well for a service of such delicacy.

  Grinning to show he fully understood the old woman was taking advantage of him, Blas handed her the coins. “I will leave you with the velha,” he said.

  “No!”

  The amber eyes turned to marble. “There is no harm in knowledge,” he declared. “Whether you use it or not we will discuss later. I will return in an hour. Will that be sufficient?” he asked the old woman.

  She nodded and motioned for Cat to follow her past a drapery into a back room. Panicked, Cat did not move. Blas grabbed her by the hand and dragged her through the inner doorway. “Stay,” he ordered. And stalked out, tossing the cloth hanging aside so savagely that it nearly fell.

  By the time he returned well over an hour later Cat was torn by such a mix of fury, hurt, and embarrassment she did not notice where they were going. Ostentatiously, she turned her back to her husband who was sitting next to her on the burgundy velvet squabs of Thomas’s elegant barouche. She thrust her open parasol over her shoulder, maneuvering it until she was totally screened from his view.

  He did not want her to have his children, Cat mourned. She was to be barren. No babies. No warm tiny bodies to love. No little mouths suckling at her breasts. No family laughter. No moments of parental panic. No . . . Ah, deus, he could not make her do this!

  But he could. He only had to threaten to leave her, and she would hasten to do his bidding. Love was a terrible thing. A tyrant.

  The carriage stopped. Blas stepped down, walked round to his wife’s side of the open barouche. His fingers closed over the parasol. With a thrust of his strong hands he snapped it shut. “The sun is not so strong now, you won’t need this.”

  As Cat grabbed for the parasol, Blas tossed it to the startled coachman who caught it one-handed, accidentally twitching the reins. The horse whinnied and bucked as the reins shifted in the startled coachman’s hand. When the barouche stopped shimmying, Blas clamped his hands around Cat’s waist and lowered her to the ground. Slowly. Inch by inch. Making sure none of her missed his body on the long slide down.

  For a moment they stood pasted together, breathing hard, before Cat broke away, walking over the cobbles as fast as her thin slippers would allow on the uneven slippery stones. With a minimum of effort Blas caught her, supporting her as she nearly fell, then turned her inexorably back toward the edifice behind them.

  “You can’t go in there,” Cat hissed. “It’s closed.

  Without a word he continued to pull her along behind him. As they approached the arched entrance to the imposing structure, there were a few rapid words, the flash of gold coins. Suddenly, they were out of the sunlight, moving through a tunnel. At the far end of the cool darkness was an arched splash of sunlight. Inexorably, Blas dragged her toward it.

  “I don’t want to go out there,” she protested. “Let us stay where it is cool.”

  “The guard would hear us.” Blas continued on, moving back into the blinding sunlight and beginning to climb. Up and still up to the top tier of seats where an arcaded roof jutted from the curved outside wall, a protection from the full strength of the Iberian sun.

  “Why here?” Cat stormed as he seated her on the bench and sat down beside her. “Whyever here?”

  “It seemed appropriate,” he said.

  Spread out below them was a bull ring, its circumference lined with tier upon tier of seats. There were no banners, no bulls, no roaring crowd. No cavlheiros mounted on the finest Peninsular stallions. No campinos, forcados or espadas. Yet the heat of summer wavered over the scene, turning it into shimmering fantasy. For a moment Cat could see the charging bulls, a cavalheiro with banderilla in hand, a forcado whirling dizzily at the end of a bull’s tail.

  Then she registered what Blas had said. “The bull ring is appropriate?’ she queried with an ominous purr.

  “It was the only place I could think of where you could scream at me on so delicate a subject and not be heard.”

  Cat opened her mouth. Closed it. Having climbed over thirty tiers of steps, she had no breath left for screaming. “It was not,” she inquired sweetly, “because you thought to bully me into doing as you wished?”

  “Perhaps you t
hought I called it appropriate because you wished to put a ring through my nose?” he snapped back. A bit more loudly than was necessary.

  “Ring through your nose? Bah!” Cat spat out. “You can say this when you know how everyone jumps to do your bidding. It is truly abominable. Yes, Blas. No, Blas. Of course, Blas. Imediatemente, senhor.” Her voice was steadily rising. “Ring through your nose! As if anyone could ever control you. It is you who must always have the upper hand.”

  Cat broke off abruptly, staring. She cocked her head to one side, studying him as if she had never seen him before. “You are afraid of me,” she breathed. “You are afraid of losing control. Is that not true? Quickly, admit that is so.”

  Blas leaned back against the outer wall and closed his eyes. “That is not why we’re here, Cat.”

  “I think it is. You wish to control my life, my body, my soul. I find I do not like it.”

  At nearly eight o’clock, the sun was dipping closer to the high rim of the bull ring. “I never meant to,” Blas said at last.

  “No,” Cat agreed with resignation. “It was born in you, this need to tell us all what to do. I think you cannot help it.”

  The shadows lengthened. As did the silence.

  “You are right,” Blas conceded. “I am arrogant, high-handed, and insensitive. You are also right that I feel my power slipping through my fingers. I lose myself in you, Cat. And yes, dammit, I fear it.”

  “I am a very small thing to be afraid of.” Softly. Humbly.

  Blas groaned, leaned forward to cup her chin between his palms. “Listen to me, Cat. There can be no end to this argument. We are the people we are, and we each must learn to live with it. And with each other.”

  Blas dropped his hands, turned to stare out over the deserted arena. “I should have told you where we were going, discussed with you the reason why. But in my whole life I have never been accountable to anyone but my father. Or yours. My father I fought every step of the way on every conceivable subject. Your father I admire, respect. I acknowledge he has the right to command me for the sake of the cause we serve.”