by Mary Balogh
He tried, as he had tried for five days and nights—or was it six?—to put her from his mind so that he might sleep. But he could forgive Colonel Leroux and his thugs more easily than he could forgive her. At least the colonel thought he had good reason to punish him, even if the punishment was somewhat excessive. But she? What reason had she had for what she had done? He had already been in captivity. There could be only one reason. Although he had admitted to a physical attraction to her and had acted on that attraction more than once, he had refused to fawn on her, to follow her about, to make himself her slave.
It seemed that she needed to enslave men. And he had refused to be enslaved. And so he had had to be punished. He wondered if she knew about this dungeon and about all the extra beatings since the one she had witnessed that evening. He wondered if she was satisfied, if she ever even thought of him now.
He wished that for just fifteen minutes—ten even—he could get his hands on her.
A key was rattling in the lock of his cell door and he drew a few deep and steadying breaths without moving. The door only ever opened for one reason. Hell! And he thought it was night. Perhaps it was. Perhaps they were going to start on his nights now.
“You—up!” a voice ordered.
“Go to hell,” he said automatically. One thing they had not broken yet was his spirit, and he intended to keep it that way.
“You have to come,” the voice said. “Now. General’s orders. There is no time to waste.”
Come? Out of the cell? Jesus, he thought, and he fought to keep control of his breathing. Torture. Jesus, he prayed silently, help me not to give them the satisfaction of breaking.
“On your feet, you.” The soldier’s voice, Captain Blake noticed suddenly, sounded nervous. But then the man stood aside and the cell seemed to fill with them. It was familiar stuff except that they all stood back from him and he could see in the light of some torches in the passageway outside that they were all pointing muskets at him.
He got slowly to his feet.
“Hands on your head,” one of them barked at him.
He obeyed slowly, pursing his lips and staring at the barker. And then one of them stepped forward and took his arms one at a time from his head and bound them tightly at his back. Then muskets were poking at his back—at least they did not have bayonets attached, he thought—and he was being ordered to step out into the passageway.
Even though it was night, the light of torches while he was still indoors and then the light shed by the moon and stars when he was outdoors almost blinded him and hurt his eyes like a thousand devils. He was marched along one street, around a corner, and along another street to a familiar house—General Valéry’s. He was prodded inside.
Well, he thought, wondering if there were a single spot on his body that did not ache, the general must have run out of entertainment for his guests. The prisoner was now to become an entertainer. Charming!
“Drop them right there,” someone said in heavily accented French as soon as he stepped inside the hallway of the house with his guards. “Yes, in a heap right there.” There was a clattering of dropped muskets behind him. “They communicated with no one, Emilio? And had no chance to load their guns? Good. And this is he?” The speaker switched to Spanish and nodded toward Captain Blake. “Step this way, señor, if you please.”
Captain Blake looked around and noticed for the first time that one of the five men who had brought him there was not dressed in the uniform of a French soldier. The man grinned.
“Only my gun was loaded, señor,” he said with a shrug, “and it was trained on the French pigs, not on you.”
Captain Blake looked back to the first speaker, who was motioning him toward the open door of the drawing room in which he had been entertained on more than one occasion.
The man wore a handkerchief up over his mouth and nose.
* * *
Four days passed after the incident at Colonel Leroux’s reception before Joana heard from Duarte. She was almost at the point of panic, but she spent her days as before, strolling in the splendid Plaza Mayor, surrounded by her court of admirers, riding out over the Roman bridge with them, attending evening entertainments, and always smiling and gay and flirting.
She turned her charm with particular force on Colonel Leroux himself, and even allowed him one kiss on the lips—closed lips—when he escorted her home one evening. She thought she would surely die, but she spent the few seconds before she pushed him gently away and smiled dreamily up at him picturing his dead face.
“Jeanne,” he said to her, catching at her hands, “have I offended you? I do apologize if I have. But you must know how I feel about you.”
“Must I?” She looked up at him with large innocent eyes.
“You must know that I love you,” he said, his own eyes burning back into hers. “I have made no effort to disguise the fact. Tell me that you are not indifferent to me.”
“Marcel.” Her lips parted as she gazed up into his eyes. “I am not indifferent to you. Oh, no, you know I am not. But do not force me to say any more. This is moving too fast, I believe.”
“Any day now,” he said, taking her hand and holding it close to his lips, “Almeida will fall and the advance on Portugal will begin. Perhaps I will not see you for several weeks or even months after that. Forgive me for rushing you, Jeanne. Soldiers are not the most patient of men, I am afraid.”
“If you are forced to leave in a hurry,” she said, raising her free hand and running it lightly over his wrist, “then perhaps I will be persuaded to say more, Marcel. But not now.”
He kissed her hand.
Duarte’s messenger, a thin and none-too-clean Spaniard who came to the kitchen to deliver eggs, arrived on the fourth day. Duarte needed to know that all had gone according to plan so far. And he needed to know the time and the place. By good fortune there was to be a dinner at General Valéry’s house the following evening, to which both Joana and Colonel Leroux had been invited. Also fortunate was the fact that it was to be a private dinner rather than a large assembly, with no more than a dozen guests.
Ten o’clock on the evening of the following day, she told the Spaniard. At General Valéry’s house.
That evening she allowed Colonel Leroux to kiss her again, and she smiled warmly at him when he told her again that he loved her, and opened her mouth as if to return the words, but closed it and smiled apologetically at him.
Dinner the following evening was interminable, and again the food seemed to be made of cardboard. Joana listened to her own voice and her own laughter as if she were observing from a long way off. The other two ladies present were far quieter than she. She was seated next to Colonel Leroux—they seemed to have been accepted as a couple, though other officers had certainly not ceased their attentions to her.
It was almost half-past nine, she saw in a nervous glance at a large clock in the hallway, when they adjourned to the drawing room. Her heart was beating so fast that she was feeling breathless. She was laughing too much, she thought. But she was always laughing. It would seem strange if she stopped.
There was no clock in the drawing room. The half-hour dragged by. Surely a whole hour must have passed, she thought eventually, and a little later she was certain it must be so. Madame Savard was even suggesting to the colonel, her husband, that it was time to leave.
And then Joana thought that she heard noises in the hallway beyond the drawing room, and then she was certain.
The drawing room door burst open.
There must have been at least a dozen of them, though when she tried to count she found that her mind was not functioning rationally. There were more who stayed out in the hallway. They all wore scarves or handkerchiefs up over their noses and would have been difficult to recognize anyway. But she knew a moment of panic when she realized that they were all strangers. She could not recognize even one member of Duarte’s
band among them.
And then she saw Duarte himself and she felt herself sag with relief before the tension and danger of the moment grabbed at her again. Perhaps five seconds had passed—perhaps not so many—since the door had burst open.
One of the other ladies—perhaps both—was screaming. The men had all scrambled to their feet. Joana felt her arm being grabbed and she was pulled firmly behind Colonel Leroux.
“Stand exactly where you are,” a voice said in heavily accented French, and Joana located with her eyes a great mountain of a man, his black hair wild about his head and shoulders, his dark eyes fanatic. “Move a muscle and you die.”
They were all carrying firearms.
“Do as you are told,” the large man said, “and no one will be hurt.”
General Valéry took one step forward, and something exploded at his feet.
“That is your warning that we are serious, señor,” the Spaniard said. “We have come for an Englishman. Captain Robert Blake.”
“I have never heard of him,” the general said. “The English are in Portugal.”
“You will have him fetched, if you please,” the partisan said. He chuckled. “Or if you do not please. Here is a sergeant.” One stepped into the doorway, his arms raised above his head, a musket at his back. “Send him.”
The general pursed his lips. One of the ladies screamed again and was instantly silenced.
Duarte took a step forward, and Joana felt her breathing grow ragged. He looked directly at her and stabbed a finger at her. “You,” he said. “Come here.”
“Leave the lady alone, you cowardly bastard,” Colonel Leroux said.
“Come here.” Duarte kept his eyes on Joana and ignored the colonel.
“Stay where you are, Jeanne,” the colonel commanded.
“Come here.”
Joana threw back her head and stepped out from behind the colonel. “I am not afraid of him,” she said. “You will find, monsieur, that Frenchwomen do not cringe easily before scum.” She stepped forward just before the colonel’s arm came out to prevent her.
The next moment she had been swung around, her back against Duarte, his arm tight about her shoulders, his knife at her throat. She could feel the edge of it against her bare flesh as she swallowed. He had killed with that knife. She knew that he kept it razor sharp.
“I suggest, monsieur,” he said quietly, addressing General Valéry, “that you send for the Englishman without delay. My hand might grow unsteady after a while. And I am sure that your digestion and that of your guests would not be helped by the sight of the lady’s blood.” He leered down at Joana. “And such a lovely lady, too.”
Joana closed her eyes, her head resting on Duarte’s shoulder, the blade of his knife grazing her throat.
Very little was said during the interminable minutes that passed after the French sergeant had been sent about his errand, presumably under guard. They all stood like statues, the masked partisans at one side of the room, all of them except Duarte with pointed firearms, the French at the other side. Colonel Savard was granted permission to allow his lady to be seated.
“You will not get away with this,” General Valéry said after a few minutes.
“Will we not, señor?” the mountain of a man asked politely.
“I will kill you,” Colonel Leroux said steadily a few minutes later, looking intently at Duarte.
“Will you, monsieur?” Duarte asked politely.
That was the extent of the conversation.
And then there were voices in the hallway and the clattering of dropped guns. Joana held her breath. She swiveled her eyes sideways—she dared not move her head—and within seconds he appeared.
She drew in a sharp breath. He was almost unrecognizable. He looked thin—surely he had lost weight even in five days—and dirty. His hair was a darker blond than usual, and there was a heavy stubble of beard on his cheeks and chin. His face—every part of it—was swollen and raw. But surely in five days he would have recovered somewhat from that beating, when he had been cruelly outnumbered, thanks to her.
The truth dawned on Joana, and she closed her eyes again.
* * *
The first thing he saw, though he was instantly aware of the whole tableau, was Joana, her back hard against the chest of one of the masked partisans, the blade of a knife resting against her throat. His first foolish instinct was to rush forward to her assistance, though his arms were still bound behind his back. But at the same moment he recognized Duarte Ribeiro, and beyond him, the mountainous form of Antonio Becquer.
What the hell? he thought. Joana had closed her eyes, but he did not believe she had fainted. He felt a reluctant admiration for her, uncowed by even such terrifying circumstances.
“Ah, señor,” Antonio Becquer said, glancing his way quickly, “I see the French pigs have been using your face as a punching ball. They have done nothing to improve your looks.” He chuckled. “Free his hands.” He nodded to someone behind the captain, and a few moments later Robert’s arms were free and he was rubbing his wrists and looking warily about him.
“We will be leaving, señores and señoras,” Becquer said, also looking about the room, “now that we have what we want. No one has been hurt, you see? And no one will be hurt if you do not try to pursue us or raise the alarm against us.”
A French colonel laughed shortly.
Duarte Ribeiro spoke, and Captain Blake’s eyes returned to Joana. “If there is pursuit,” Duarte said, and he grinned unpleasantly down at Joana, “some harm may come to the lady.”
Captain Blake watched her close her eyes again and swallow. And he felt a surging of exultation. Yes, of course, these men would need a hostage. And who better than Joana? Oh, yes. Perhaps he would get his fifteen minutes with her yet. Perhaps longer.
Colonel Leroux took one step forward, and instantly half a dozen muskets were leveled at his chest.
“Let her go,” he said, his voice tight. “If you must have a hostage, take me instead.”
Antonio Becquer laughed heartily. “But who would think twice about a colonel having a bullet shot between his eyes when the alternative would be to capture a band of Spanish partisans and an escaped British officer?” he said. “Remember, señor—señores—that the lady dies if anyone tries to prevent our leaving Salamanca.”
“Marcel,” Joana said, and Captain Blake felt that twinge of admiration again when he heard not a tremor of fear in her voice, “I am not afraid of them. You will come after me?”
“Never fear otherwise, Jeanne,” the colonel said, his hands opening and closing into fists at his sides. “This is now my personal war. The man who holds you will die slowly. Every other man will die, including Captain Blake.”
“Come after me,” she said, and she gazed across the room, seeing no one but the colonel. Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. “I love you.”
“Very affecting,” Duarte said as the other partisans withdrew from the room.
Captain Blake stood where he was until Antonio Becquer caught at his sleeve. “Come, señor,” he said. “We have come for you. Never tell us now that you are reluctant to leave.”
Duarte was backing slowly from the room, the last to leave, his knife still at Joana’s throat. Her eyes were open, Captain Blake saw, and they turned and met his as she drew level with him. He smiled slowly at her, though he doubted that his damaged face registered his expression as a smile.
“So, Joana,” he said, “we are to be traveling companions for a while. How pleasant—for me.”
And he turned and strode into the hallway. The only unmasked Spaniard, the one who had accompanied him from his prison, was holding out his sword to him in one hand and his rifle in the other. He was grinning, just as if he had conjured them out of thin air.
“You will not wish to be naked on your travels, señor,” he said.
C
aptain Blake grinned back.
“You will be sorry,” Joana was saying in a clear voice behind him. “You have made a powerful enemy tonight, monsieur. He will come after me, you see. He will not rest until he has found me and rescued me—and killed you.”
Captain Blake strapped on his sword belt with hasty fingers—God, but he was sore all over—and wondered at the strange good fortune that had brought both Antonio Becquer and Duarte Ribeiro right inside Salamanca to rescue him. And for the first time he blessed the woman’s spite that had unwittingly helped release him from his parole. And he exulted at the chance that had made her their hostage—his hostage.
Joana da Fonte, the Marquesa das Minas, would rue the day she was born before he had finished with her, he decided.
Within a matter of seconds they were all outside the house and had divided up. At least half of the partisans melted into the darkness. The reason for the masks, Captain Blake guessed, was that several of the men actually lived in Salamanca. They were the ones he had not recognized. The others strode at a brisk pace through the darkened streets of the city. It was not easy to keep up when every bone in his body ached, but keep up he did. He was, after all, accustomed to pain.
Duarte Ribeiro’s knife had disappeared. He had an arm about Joana’s waist, hurrying her along with them. Captain Blake kept behind them. He would not risk her escaping, and with Joana nothing was impossible. If he had to carry her every inch of the way beneath his arm or slung up over his shoulder, he would do it. He did not intend to take his eyes off her until they had reached safety, wherever that happened to be, and he could deal with her at his leisure.
They left Salamanca on foot, mounting onto horseback only when they reached an old monastery beyond its walls. And they rode all night and on into the morning, frequently at a gallop, always at a trot.
Joana rode up behind Duarte, her arms firmly about his waist.
“You are all right?” he asked her as he led his horse at a walk from the monastery courtyard.
