The Price of Honour

by Mary Nichols

  The priest had advanced several yards. She reloaded and followed him, passing the body of the man who had been hit. It was Rufus Whitely himself. She did not want to look at him and hurried past, eyes averted.

  A noise immediately behind her startled her. She swung round to see Rufus Whitely getting to his feet. He had a demoniacal grin on his face as he came towards her. She raised her rifle, but she could not fire; her finger seemed frozen to the trigger and would not move. He reached out and wrenched the gun from her hand, but instead of turning it on her he grabbed her and held her close to his chest. Don Santandos dared not fire at him for fear of hitting her.

  ‘Thought I was dead, did you?’ he said with a short laugh of derision as he marched her forward. ‘Rufus Whitely is not that easy to kill.’ He shouted to his men, ‘I’ve got the girl, you get the preacher. Keep the one in the monastery covered.’

  She was forced to watch as Father Peredo was surrounded and disarmed, but not before he had downed two of them. It made them angry but Rufus would not let them kill the priest, or her. ‘Later,’ he said. ‘We need them. Fetch their horses.’

  Thor proved troublesome, much to Olivia’s delight, but they brought them both up at last and put them with their own mounts, a handful of bedraggled horses and a few mules — except for one. Olivia was delighted to see Pegasus, though he was in poor condition and she concluded he had been ridden hard. The sight of him put new life into her; they were not beaten yet. She remained alert for an opportunity of turning the tables on the bandits as they forced her, Father Peredo and the animals towards the bridge, using them as shields while Don Santandos watched helplessly from the monastery windows.

  A shot from among the boulders on the other side of the bridge spattered into the road ahead of them. Thor reared up, snorting his terror. The man who was leading him could not hold him and he galloped over the bridge and up into the hills. His going panicked the other animals and they began to mill round in the road, rearing and whinnying. In the confusion no one noticed Olivia slip away and dash back towards the monastery. Miguel Santandos, who had seen her coming, ran down to meet her and thrust a gun into her hand. ‘Who was that shooting from the other side?’ he asked.

  ‘I didn’t see, probably one of your men. Father Peredo sent Pedro to find them.’

  ‘Pick them off,’ he said, firing as he spoke. ‘And let’s have no more of your woman’s squeamishness.’ He reloaded as she fired. ‘Watch out for the father.’

  Father Peredo, more agile than she had ever seen him, had thrown himself over the parapet of the bridge. She did not see how he could survive the dive towards the water so far below and his unthinking courage gave her the spur she needed to continue firing and reloading and firing again. The bandits, caught on the bridge, were being shot at from both sides and several of them dropped, but she did not pause to consider who had felled them; Don Santandos was right — it was no time to begin behaving like a woman.

  Whitely’s force was down to three men besides himself before they surrendered, and not a moment too soon; Olivia and Don Santandos were out of ammunition. She walked forward with the guerrilla, holding the empty gun in front of her; their adversaries were not to know she could not fire. She almost dropped it when she saw Robert come out from behind a rock on the far side of the bridge and walk towards them. He was, she noted as she cried his name, wearing his red coat again. Held together with cross-belts, it still had no buttons on it, but he was wearing it with pride.

  She was about to fling her weapon away and run towards him when she heard Don Santandos chuckle beside her. ‘Now is not the time to be a woman either, señora. Keep your place and keep your eyes open.’

  Slowly, oh, so slowly, she approached the bridge, while her head whirled. What should she say to him? What would he say to her? She should be miles away on the high seas on the way to England, he should be in Salamanca with Juana. She had been searching for him without any real hope of finding him and now he was here, here where he had first met her. She watched him coming nearer. His face was drawn with fatigue, his hazel eyes clouded, the lines about his mouth a little deeper, but he was smiling. Soon he would be able to reach out a hand and touch her. Her body tingled with anticipation.

  Rufus Whitely, standing with the remnants of his men, suddenly produced a pistol from his belt and raised it to his shoulder. Olivia heard the sharp report of a gun going off at the same instant as she hurled herself at Robert and dragged him to the ground. They lay sprawled together, clinging to each other, unable to believe they were both still alive, but she could feel the beating of his heart against her ear and he could see the soft rise and fall of her breasts as she tried to regain her breath. Both laughed aloud with the joy of it. Only when she rolled off him and sat up did she realise it had not been Rufus Whitely who had fired but Don Santandos. The guerrilla leader had saved one bullet, knowing exactly what he meant to do with it. Rufus Whitely lay dead at his feet.

  Robert scrambled to his feet and bent towards her, holding out his hand to help her to her feet. ‘Of all the foolhardy things to do,’ he said sharply, knowing how close she had come to being shot in the back in her effort to save him and unable to express his concern in any other way. ‘You could have been killed…’

  Still laughing, she took his proffered hand and found herself standing in his arms. ‘But I was not,’ she retorted. ‘Robert, I…’ The laughter suddenly turned to tears. Sobs of relief and remorse at the killing, of love and despair shook her slight frame and she could not stop them. She wept uncontrollably. ‘Robert.’ She could find no other words.

  He held her close against him, cradling her head into his shoulder and stroking the back of it with a hand that shook. ‘Don’t cry, my darling, don’t cry,’ he murmured. It was so unlike her to burst into tears that he did not know what to do. He felt big and awkward and completely inadequate. ‘It is all over now.’

  She leaned back and lifted a tear-streaked face to him. ‘All over,’ she repeated, then suddenly laughed. ‘What is all over?’

  ‘That.’ He jerked his head back towards the killing ground.

  ‘Oh, and what about your claws?’

  ‘I have decided I do not need claws. I will go home with you.’

  ‘And Juana?’

  ‘That is most decidedly over and done with. I have known that since the day I met you.’ He smiled. ‘There is no one quite like you and I love you more dearly than I know how to say.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Didn’t you realise that?’

  ‘How could I? You never gave so much as a hint. Come to think of it,’ she added, ‘you didn’t have much to say at all about how you really felt. Strong and silent, that’s you.’

  ‘I did not want a put-down.’

  ‘A put-down!’ Her laughter rang out, startling the prisoners who had been tied up by Don Santandos and were morosely watching him round up the horses. ‘Oh, Robert, how comical you are!’

  ‘Being laughed at is worse than a put-down,’ he said, pretending hurt.

  She was immediately serious. ‘Oh, my darling, I am not laughing at you, I am laughing at my own stupidity. Married twice before and still I have not learned that a man sometimes needs a push in the right direction. I longed for you to tell me you loved me.’

  ‘You said you would not marry again, you said you had done with men.’

  ‘That was before I met you and fell in love for the very first time.’

  ‘But I tried to ask you to marry me and you stopped me. You would not let me go on.’

  ‘It would have been for the wrong reason. I did not want you to marry me out of duty. I wanted you to say it was because you loved me.’

  ‘I am saying it. Like this.’ He bent his head to kiss her. They forgot where they were, forgot the prisoners watching them in sullen silence, forgot the dead Rufus and the faithless Juana, forgot Tom and Philippe, forgot everything except the pleasure of that kiss and the promise of more delights to come. He did not want to release
her, afraid she would disappear on the wind that sighed down the pass and rustled the leaves of the trees.

  ‘In truth, this will never do,’ said a voice which sounded uncommonly like Father Peredo’s. ‘I advised you before to do something about your unholy liaison but now I really must insist on it.’

  She twisted out of Robert’s arms and flung herself at the priest. ‘Father, you are alive! I thought…’

  ‘Clung to the struts,’ he said. ‘Climbed down and then came up the path. Now, what is the state of the play?’

  ‘Four dead and three prisoners,’ Miguel answered him. ‘And Lolita is avenged.’

  ‘And Robert loves me,’ Olivia said, laughing with the sheer joy of it.

  The priest turned to her and cocked one eyebrow. ‘So what’s new?’

  ‘You knew?’ She was astonished.

  ‘It seems everyone but you knew it,’ he said laconically. ‘Now, I think a wedding before you go on, don’t you?’ He paused. ‘Has the good captain been told of his next assignment?’

  ‘Next assignment?’ Robert queried.

  ‘Now, you did not suppose this young lady came all the way back from Bussaco with me just for the pleasure of being kissed, do you?’

  Robert turned from the priest to Olivia; it had only just occurred to him to wonder why Olivia was in Spain when he had supposed her to be crossing the Bay of Biscay, if not actually back in England. Had he misunderstood her yet again? ‘Why did you come back?’

  She laughed. ‘Father Peredo was right — for the pleasure of a kiss.’ She watched the changing expressions cross his face, then added, ‘And because I was asked to find you by Viscount Wellington himself. It had been Captain Whitely’s mission, but he failed to complete it. I have orders for you.’

  ‘What orders?’

  ‘Number one.’ She held up her hand with one finger pointing skywards. ‘You must marry me tomorrow.’

  ‘That is one order it will be a pleasure to obey.’

  ‘Number two,’ she went on, holding up a second finger. ‘You are to proceed forthwith to Santander and there meet with a representative of Lord Rothschild who will give you gold for the army’s coffers.’

  He groaned. ‘Just when I thought I was going back to England with you. It really is most unfair.’

  ‘Three,’ she said, ignoring his protests, ‘you are to report back to his lordship to have the verdict of the court-martial rescinded and promotion to major confirmed. That is,’ she added with a twinkle in her eye which warned him to be on his guard, ‘that is if we come safely back from Santander with the gold…’

  ‘We?’ he yelled. ‘We? What are you talking about, woman? If you think…’

  ‘I go with you.’

  ‘Oh, no, you do not! You will go back to England and wait for me like a good wife. God knows I do not want to part from you…’

  ‘Then don’t.’

  ‘You could be killed. We both could.’

  ‘So, in the words of the good father, what’s new? It could have happened any time in the last two months and I did not hear you complaining about the danger then.’ She laughed suddenly and stood on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his nose. ‘I will not leave you. You know perfectly well you cannot manage without me…’

  He sighed, knowing he had lost, but he took pleasure in the defeat. What he would have done if she had conceded, he did not know. He did not want to go anywhere without her, now or ever. She was all woman, argumentative, provocative creature that she was, and he would not have her any other way.

  ISBN: 978-1-474-03565-1

  THE PRICE OF HONOUR

  © 1993 Mary Nichols

  Published in Great Britain 2015

  by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited

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