And yet . . . London in late October was cold and drab, the buildings shadowed by soot from thousands of chimneys, their dull facades decorated only by a glistening coat of damp left by fog drifting up from the river in soft swirls of white. In Lisbon there would be sunshine reflecting in dazzling rays off white stucco walls under a colorful canopy of red tile roofs. Balconies with flowers spilling from pots in brilliant cascades of color through every month of the year. And hills. Marvelous hills where one could stand on top of the world with the city and the harbor spread out below. The Tagus. So much broader, so much longer than the Thames.
London. Cat shivered, then raised her proud head still higher. If London and Lisbon were not different, what was the point in being here? She would explore this new world. Tame it. Unlike many young women coming to London for the first time, the city would hold no terrors. She was no innocent eighteen-year-old being brought to the marriage market with little or no experience of cities or the male of the species. Perhaps . . . just perhaps Thomas had not been completely wrong when he insisted on this visit.
“This is more acceptable,” Blanca approved as their coach passed into the West End, revealing shops with neatly painted signs or discreet brass plates beside elegant doorways. Some homes were row houses; others, individual dwellings set back behind wrought iron fences with green lawn and trees and a glimpse of garden and mews behind.
Cat gasped as a high-perch phaeton trotted by, the handsome young driver easily able to look down at the occupants of the coach. His full-face view of Catherine Audley Perez de Leon surprised a wide grin from his formerly blasé countenance. The gentleman tipped his beaver, gave her an appreciative wink.
Cat pressed back against the bronze velvet squabs of Sir Giles’s coach, folding her hands primly in her lap. “You need not frown,” she muttered to Blanca from under lowered lashes. “I know my conduct must be more perfect than Caesar’s wife, but it is not possible to see London when I sit like a statue in a corner.”
“A man has only to look at you to love you,” said Blanca severely. “With ladies it will be quite the opposite. Society in London cannot, I think, be very different from society on the continent. So I tell you that in society the women rule, and it is the women you must please. And since you will inspire lust in their men, I fear their friendship will not be easy.”
“Blanca!”
“Do not be naive, Catarina. We can only hope Sir Giles has married well, that Lady Everingham is not of a jealous disposition.”
Cat, who was already suffering qualms about her reception in her guardian’s home, felt her stomach churn. Blanca was right. She had no idea how to deal with a world of women. Dismissing the fascinating sights and sounds of London, Cat clenched her hands in her lap and wished herself back behind the comfortable, familiar walls of the Casa Audley.
The residence of Sir Giles and Lady Everingham was at the corner of a row of houses on a modest square not far from Hyde Park. Although set close to the sidewalk with stairs leading up to a pedimented front door, its rear prospect opened to a fine expanse of gardens leading to fenced mews behind. It was, Cat discovered, not so different from the courtyard and carriage house of the Casa Audley. As the butler showed them into the tastefully furnished drawing room, Cat could see the gardens were alight with a colorful display of chrysanthemums.
To complete the pleasant picture, Sir Giles had indeed married well. Lady Clara Everingham was a woman of good countenance, cheerful temperament, and possessed of that incredibly scarce commodity, good sense. For twenty years she had raised her sons and managed an active participation in the ton with very little assistance from a husband who had devoted himself to the demands of his country through two decades of nearly ceaseless war. While the nobility of England, including many who sent sons to war, spent long hours attempting to alleviate their boredom with an endless round of mindless activities from games of chance to criticizing the extravagance of their Prince to the latest tales of illicit lovers, Sir Giles Everingham had merely adjusted his spectacles and seen the guttering of countless midnight candles.
Cat could scarcely have been more fortunate in her sponsor into society. Since Clara Everingham had never had the opportunity to hang on her husband’s sleeve, even if she should have wished to do so, she had no difficulty understanding the independence of a young woman who had had a similar experience with her father and her husband. Lady Everingham also had had the time to cultivate a vast acquaintance among the females in the upper echelons of society, a characteristic devoutly to be wished in a lady sponsoring a young woman into the beau monde.
Cat knew Sir Giles to be the father of a hopeful heir in his last year at Cambridge and a slightly younger son who was with the troops besieging Pamplona, so she expected Lady Everingham to be firmly into the middle years of her life. The actuality was a surprise. Tall and elegant, Clara Everingham did not appear a day over thirty-five. Waves of soft brown framed her oval face. Fine gray eyes opened wide as she took the time for a leisurely perusal of Catherine’s person from the high poke of her black velvet bonnet to the tips of her fine leather half boots.
“Good God!” she exclaimed at last. “Giles didn’t tell me the half. My dear, you will be the sensation of the season.”
Not surprisingly, this remark dispelled any remaining tension, and the three women were soon immersed in the practicalities of planning a social debut, a task which involved nearly as many details as Wellington planning one of his campaigns. The ladies became so absorbed in lists and dates they were totally surprised by the arrival of afternoon tea.
“My dear,” Lady Everingham reiterated as she poured, “remember what I said about London being sadly thin of company. The Little Season is coming to a close, and many are returning to the country for the holidays. But most of our friends are in government and must stay close. With our marvelous Wellington doing so well, there is a constant stream of news which sends everyone scurrying to arrange whatever the Field Marshal wants. You had heard he was made Field Marshal after Vitoria, had you not?” Without pausing for a reply, Clara Everingham added, “We shall not be without company, I assure you.”
When the teacups had been handed round, Lady Everingham fortified herself with a satisfying sip before bringing up a delicate topic. “Black becomes you so well, my dear,” she said to Catherine, “that perhaps I should not ask, but when do you plan to put off your mourning? Forgive me if I seem to pry, but it will make a great deal of difference in the selection of your wardrobe for the next few months.”
“It is quite all right, Lady Everingham,” Cat assured her. “My father knew he was dying and was quite insistent that neither Blanca nor I wear mourning. He said he would not have his women going around like two crows on a fence. I fear we had quite an argument. It was quite absurd. I rather think he enjoyed it.”
Cat managed a rueful smile. “In the end we compromised. I agreed to put off my blacks on Christmas Day.”
Suddenly realizing she had revealed a bit more than she should have, Cat made matters worse by attempting to explain. “Dona Blanca is a widow, of course, and will remain in black as is the custom of her country.”
Clara Everingham gave no indication she had noticed Catherine’s slip of the tongue. His women, indeed. Not that she hadn’t known Blanca Dominguez had been Thomas Audley’s mistress for years. Perhaps later, when she and Blanca were better acquainted and Catherine was not present, she might be able to get the Portuguese woman to talk about her legendary lover. Blanca had loved and lost two men in her life. The burden of sorrow could not be easy.
Lady Everingham forced herself back to the subject at hand. “I know a remarkably talented dressmaker,” she said, “an emigrée of good family who has only recently opened her own salon after many years of slaving in other people’s workrooms. Mark my words, when Madame Hèlene sees you, she will be aux anges. You will be the making of her reputation.
“And now, Catherine,” said Clara, her effervescence turning to a slight frown, “
you must explain to me why you are masquerading as a widow. And what is this I hear about a child?”
It was not an easy tale to tell. After apologizing to her hostess for dragging her into Thomas Audley’s complex machinations, Cat told her the whole story from the day of Blas’s arrival at the Casa Audley to the promises extracted from him by a dying man. She told of a small child abandoned among the dead and dying in the aftermath of battle. Of the shock of learning the source of Branwyck Park. And, without quite saying the words, she revealed to Clara Everingham her confusion, loneliness, and pain.
Lady Everingham was a good listener, interrupting only occasionally with an exclamation, a sharp question, or a soft “tsk” of disapproval. “It is most fortunate you must play the widow,” she pronounced when Catherine had finished. A jeune fille with a child in the country would be one of society’s more luscious scandals. There would be no hope of retrieving your reputation.”
It was also most fortunate, Blanca thought from her silent position near the fire, that Lady Everingham was well acquainted with the world of intrigue. By now most London ladies—ladies of any country—would have been having a fit of the vapors.
“But a French child?” Clara Everingham shook her head. “I would not put it about, my dear. Allow people to think the child yours. There are few among society who could be called charitable. I would not tempt fate.”
Cat bit back a sharp retort. Lady Everingham’s advice was undoubtedly sound.
And now,” Clara continued briskly, “let me see if I have understood what you have said. You are officially widowed, but in actuality you are still married. To Blas. Who is really an Englishman.” Clara was ticking off the points gleaned from Catherine’s story as if doing an inventory of her household. “And you believe Blas has made you the gift of Branwyck Park?”
Both Catherine and Blanca nodded their agreement.
“The war is nearly over,” Clara continued, moving down the list, “and if Blas is a member of ton as your father seemed to think, it is altogether possible he will return before the Season even begins. Have you considered what you will do if this happens?”
Cat laughed out loud, a cry of pure joy. “I shall throw my arms around him, love him, and never let him go!”
Cold sheets of rain, driven by gusts swirling down the mountains, hurled themselves against the large Spanish farmhouse, nearly drowning the knock on the rear door in a waterfall of sound. In the wee hours of this exceptionally miserable night Captain Jeremy Frayne, who had a tendency to keep very odd hours indeed, was still awake. Bent over a well-worn kitchen table, he was attempting to decipher the execrable handwriting of one of his nearly illiterate informants. Warmth from the huge stone fireplace turned his makeshift workplace into the coziest room in this rambling structure, the latest in a long series of Allied headquarters.
Since Captain Frayne was accustomed to visitors who came and went in the far reaches of the night, he did not fail to hear the knock which sounded so faintly over the storm outside. He was out of his chair and had the door unbolted in seconds. “Good God, man,” he exclaimed in passable Spanish, “urgent didn’t mean you had to drown yourself!”
The newcomer paused just inside the doorway while Captain Frayne slammed and bolted the door in the face of the elements. Water dripped from his heavy woolen cloak and off the wide brim of the black flat-crowned hat pulled low over his eyes, creating an ever-widening puddle on the rough stone floor. In truth, the Captain’s visitor was nearly faceless. The broad-brimmed hat shadowed his upper face; a black scarf, wound round his neck and pulled up over his mouth and nose, transformed him into an anonymous shadow of the night. Only long acquaintance kept the captain silent, waiting for his notoriously reticent visitor to make the first move. When it came, it was not at all what he expected.
After a decisive shake of his shoulders, not unlike a large dog ridding itself of excess water, the newcomer strode to the fireplace. With oddly deliberate movements he removed his cloak and hat, unwound his scarf. With exaggerated, nearly ritualistic care, he hung them on a peg set into the stone of the great fireplace. There was no sign of the casual nonchalance Frayne had come to expect from this particular visitor.
The newcomer swung a chair away from the table, placed it close to the hearth. With a dramatic sigh of contentment, he sat down, stretching his legs out in front of him before reaching inside his sturdy sheepskin-lined jacket, produced a bulging packet encased in oil cloth. Casually, he tossed it onto the table.
“I’m glad you’re back, Frayne,” said the weary traveler in clear, cultured English. “What’s the latest news from our demi-paradise?”
The bloody, bloody bastard! Captain Jeremy Frayne came close to kicking his visitor’s chair out from under him. Four years. Four years he’d know the effing devil and they’d never spoken a word of English. Bloody hell . . . in those early days when he was first out from England, he’d damn well suffered to make himself understood in Spanish. The captain mumbled a few more profanities as he recalled the times he’d fumbled, red-faced, through a battered Spanish dictionary in an attempt to understand what the supposed Spanish guerrillero was saying. No wonder Wellington always saw him privately. Bloody bastard! Frayne winced. He should have known . . . he should have known.
Ignoring the packet of precious papers, Jeremy Frayne stared in fascination at the visitor who had evidently shed a long-term disguise along with his cloak, hat and scarf. Long black hair straggled in wet strands down the man’s neck. There were dark smudges beneath his warm brown eyes. His chiseled features would only be called handsome by those who preferred men of strong character. Captain Frayne, as chagrined as he was by the long deception, acknowledged the Englishman for what he was: a man to be respected. A man who at the moment was bone weary and perhaps a bit . . .
“Yes, captain, I fear I’ve had a drop too much to keep me warm,” Blas drawled, draining the last of a small flask of brandy which he had taken out of an inside pocket of the now steaming cloak. “And since I’m sick to death of masquerades and I’m damned if I’ll ride back through this storm tonight, we might as well talk. I’ve an interest in what’s happening in England these days.” His voice ceased abruptly as he discovered his flask to be empty. “Surely, good Captain Frayne, the French left behind a bottle or two?”
Jeremy bounded back to life, a quick trip to the pantry producing a bottle of France’s best abandoned by the French general who had previously occupied the farmhouse. “You really are a bastard, aren’t you?” said the captain conversationally as he poured for them both. “I’m having a bit of difficulty maintaining the proper British sangfroid in face of discovering someone I’ve known for four years as a Spanish guerrillero is as English as I am.”
“So look at what you needed so urgently,” Blas said with the truculence of the man who has indeed had a drop too many.
“I thought you wanted to hear about England?”
“Later. Look at the damn maps.”
They were works of art of course. As always. “How did you get these details of Nivelle?” the captain exclaimed. “Pose as a sheep?”
“Close enough. Bribed a shepherd boy. I’ve used all my disguises once too often. Spyglass was a bit of a help. I couldn’t trust the child to count the embrasures correctly. Nasty little fortress, that. It’ll be the devil of a fight. But short. It’s makeshift. Not like the citadel cities. I take it Pamplona won’t last much longer?”
“A week. Possibly two.” Captain Frayne’s boyish face lit in a grin of pure glee. “Then we go! By mid-November, I should think, over the mountains and into France.”
Blas raised his earthenware mug in a silent toast. Five years to go five hundred miles. It was likely they’d be the first Allied troops to push Boney back into his own territory. “There’s a letter in there too,” Blas added with the elaborately casual air he affected for matters of importance.
Captain Frayne found the letter, addressed as usual to a firm of solicitors in London. He set it aside t
o be added to the next set of dispatches. At least he now had an answer to the question of why a Spanish guerrillero corresponded with a firm of London solicitors. “Wait a minute . . . what have we here?” The captain pulled yet another paper from the bottom of the stack. “How in the name of all that’s holy did you manage to do all three passes?”
“I didn’t.”
“Don’t be an ass, you’re not that foxed, Blas. Here they are right in front of me. Three passes plus the detailed drawings of Nivelle.”
“Only two are mine.”
“The style is identical.”
“Not quite. A compadre of mine found himself bored now that his work in the south is finished, so I enlisted his help to map the passes. A satisfactory job, I think you’ll agree.”
“I suppose he’s a bloody Englishman too,” Frayne growled as he began to fold each map and pack it away with care.
“Naturally,” Blas murmured. Provocatively. “So tell me, Frayne, does the monarchy still stand. or has Prinny put paid to it all?”
Captain Frayne shook his head in disgust. The antics of the Prince Regent were like a glimpse into a world of sick fantasy. A world where the wrong choice of word, the cut of a coat, the crease of a cravat, the careless mention of a woman’s name could end a life as effectively as a bullet. A world so strange Frayne was glad he had not been born to it, would never have to suffer its vagaries.
The Sometime Bride Page 24
