by Mary Balogh
“I am all right,” she said. “What took you so long, Duarte?”
“I came,” he said. “That is what matters.”
“They will come after us,” she said. “He will, at least. Colonel Leroux.”
“You do not really love him, do you, Joana?” he asked. “Lord, it was a most affecting scene. Did you have to say that, knowing that now he will move heaven and earth to rescue you?”
“I had to convince them that I was reluctant to come,” she said. She had decided long before that she would not tell Duarte who Colonel Leroux was. The pleasure of killing him was going to be all hers. She would not deny herself that. Not after having suffered for the privilege. She thought of the colonel’s kisses and shuddered.
There was no chance for further conversation. There was no sign of pursuit, but they had to reach the mountains and Portugal before they could breathe with any ease.
It was a long, long night. At first she was cold. Later she was cold and stiff and sore. Eventually she was cold and stiff and sore and tired. Very, very tired. A few times she even almost nodded off to sleep.
“Bite on your lips,” her brother told her as he felt her arms slip from his waist and lifted a hand to restore them there. “Flex your toes. Open your mouth wide and gasp air. Sing. Stay awake, Joana.”
“Oh, I shall,” she said. “Never fear.”
And she concentrated her mind on the horse and its rider just behind them. Always just behind. Tomorrow—in just a few hours’ time—she was going to be able to tell him all. And she was going to help bathe his wounds. Were there wounds on his body too? She shivered at the thought, though not with cold this time. Yes, there were bound to be. They would not have worked only on his face.
She was going to bathe and bandage his wounds and apologize for having been the necessary cause of them. And he would forgive her. Once he knew all, he would forgive her.
And then . . . ?
Joana shivered again at all the possibilities.
She had said something to him just before she had caused him that dreadful and savage beating. She had said it out of desperation, out of the urgent need to draw him into an embrace before Colonel Leroux came through the door. She had said it out of desperation and yet she had frightened herself with the truth of her words.
Perhaps she would be able to say them again to him.
Perhaps he would say the same words to her.
How pleasant—for me, he had said. She shivered again. But of course it would all be different once she had told him everything. He would know that she had done it all for him, that her loyalty had never wavered from her half-brother’s country and from her mother’s.
She could feel his presence at her back almost like a large and menacing hand.
17
IT was still early morning, though the sun had been up for some time, when they rode into a deep wooded gorge between bare and rugged hills. They passed two men on guard—Captain Blake recognized one of them as Teófilo Costa—and paused while Duarte exchanged a few words with them, and then rode on to the welcome sight of several rough huts built in the shelter of the trees. Even more welcome to the captain was the sight of a stream bubbling its way down the center of the gorge. He had not washed even so much as his hands in almost a week.
“Portugal. Home,” Duarte said, a note of relief and elation in his voice.
But the Spanish partisans who had ridden with them drew back. “Safely delivered,” Antonio Becquer said. “Now we must safely deliver ourselves to the northern hills, señores, before the avengers discover our tracks.” He saluted Captain Blake and grinned broadly. “It has been a pleasure, Captain. It is a long time since I and my men enjoyed ourselves more.”
Captain Blake extended his right hand, and the Spaniard caught it in a strong clasp.
“I shall not forget,” the captain said. “Thank you, my friend.” He held his horse still and watched the partisans ride out of sight up one hillside. They had not even stopped for a rest or a bite to eat.
And then he turned his head back to watch a crowd of Duarte’s band gather around their leader as he dismounted and reached up his arms to lift Joana to the ground. She set her hands on his shoulders and slid along his body until her feet touched the ground. And then she wrapped her arms about his neck and kissed him on the cheek.
“Duarte,” she said, “you are wonderful. It is so good to feel Portuguese soil beneath my feet again.” She looked around at the other men with a dazzling smile. “You are all wonderful.”
Duarte Ribeiro caught her in a close hug and swung her once around while Captain Blake watched, as if turned to stone. The devil! She must have been whispering sweet nothings into his ear all through the night, and he had fallen under her spell—as all men did. He had fallen despite the feisty woman and the dark-haired baby he had left behind in Mortagoa. All the men were falling under her spell. They stood around watching and grinning.
“Aren’t we, though?” Duarte said, looking down at her with a grin and bending his head to kiss her firmly on the lips. “You owe me a number of favors in return, Joana.”
She smiled at him almost impishly and turned to address the other men. “Which hut is mine?” she asked eagerly.
Captain Blake felt his jaw tighten. She would probably expect a feather bed and a case full of perfumes and jewels inside too. She was soon hurrying toward the closest hut.
He swung down from his saddle, schooling himself not to wince, and not sure that he had succeeded. “Ribeiro,” he said sharply.
The Ordenanza leader looked around with a smile. “You will want a bath and a shave and a meal and a sleep,” he said. “In that order? Are there any broken bones?”
“No,” Captain Blake said, “and in that order, yes, please. Keep an eye on the marquesa. More than an eye. Keep ten eyes on her. She must not escape.”
Duarte’s smile turned to a grin. “She is a handful, yes,” he said. “You have realized that too? But she is mortally tired and will not be going anywhere alone. At least, she had better not try if she knows what is good for her.”
One of the other men—Francisco Braga—had just come out of another hut and was holding out soap, a towel, and a razor to the captain.
“I am afraid we cannot supply warm water,” he said with a grin. “But this water will wake you up for your breakfast at least.”
The need for a bath and a shave overcame all other needs, Captain Blake found. He glanced uneasily at the hut into which Joana had disappeared and around him at the half-dozen or so men who were there to guard against her escape. She would not be able to do it. And if she did somehow get away, then he would go after her. There was no way on this earth she was going to get away from him until he could deliver her to headquarters for imprisonment as an enemy agent.
“Thank you,” he said, and he took the articles gratefully and looked about him for a secluded part of the stream where he could strip off all his clothes and bathe at his leisure.
The cold water caught at his breath ten minutes later when he plunged into a deep part of the stream. But it felt strangely good against his bruises, at first soothing and then numbing them. And the luxury of water and soap against his skin and in his hair was more delicious than he could have imagined possible.
He shaved with care. His jaw was sore and bruised, his lips still swollen. But he put up with some discomfort for the sake of being able to rub his hands along smooth jaws and chin. He flexed the shoulder that had been so badly wounded the year before. It felt no stiffer than the rest of his body—which was not saying a great deal, he supposed.
He floated on his back, feeling clean and pleasantly cold all over, and marveled at the freedom the morning had brought. Looking about at the trees and the hills and the blue sky, one would not have thought that war was not far off and all around. But he was free at least, free to fight the enemy again—after a few ho
urs’ sleep. It struck him suddenly that he was bone weary. And hungry. Hungry enough to eat a bear. And Francisco Braga had said something about breakfast?
He waded out of the water, shaking his arms and legs before toweling himself dry and rubbing at his hair, which had grown longer than he had worn it in years. And of course, he thought, the enemy was right at hand. There was an enemy to be fought that very day. And she was within his grasp. The thought brought renewed energy. He strode back toward the Ordenanza camp as soon as he had dressed.
And stopped short when he was still several yards away. He had not realized that the men had brought a woman with them. She was wearing a faded blue peasant dress, which reached barely to her ankles, and leather sandals. Her dark hair was in a wavy cloud about her head and shoulders. She was small and slender. The musket that was slung over one of her shoulders looked as if it must be very much too heavy for her.
And then she turned and looked at him with dark eyes from a beautiful face. There was a wicked-looking knife tucked into her belt, he saw at a downward glance.
It was only when he looked up again into her face, startled, that he recognized her. Christ Almighty! She was looking at him rather warily, but when his eyes met hers for the second time, she smiled slowly.
Joana! What the hell?
* * *
Joana had stepped outside the hut, where she had changed from the trappings of the Marquesa das Minas into the self she enjoyed most, and threw back her head and closed her eyes.
“Ah,” she said to no one in particular, “fresh air and freedom. Blessed freedom.” And then she lowered her chin and looked about her. “Where is Robert?” She was talking directly to Duarte.
“Having a bath,” he said. “I guessed that it would be more important to him than either eating or sleeping.”
“He is going to kill me,” she said cheerfully, “unless I can explain everything to him first. He must have a dreadfully low opinion of me, don’t you think? I had him imprisoned just so that he would be freed from his parole. I did not imagine that he would be so severely beaten.”
“He does not know anything of your part in all this?” Duarte asked, grimacing.
“As far as he knows, I am a hostage,” Joana said. “He does not know that you are my half-brother. Don’t say anything, Duarte. I want to tell him in my own way.” She laughed lightly. “Unless he kills me first, of course.”
“I don’t think the knife and gun are necessary at the moment, are they?” Duarte gestured toward her weapons and grinned.
But his words merely made Joana shade her eyes and squint off along the valley and up the hillsides in the direction from which they had come.
“He will come after me, you know,” she said. “And he will bring men with him. He fancies himself in love with me. He was on the verge of proposing marriage to me. I know. I can sense these things. He will come, Duarte, and soon.”
“But not too soon,” he said. “He does not know this country as we do. And Teófilo and Bernardino are still on watch back there. There will be time to eat and to sleep for a few hours. Before nightfall we will be gone from here.”
“But he will find us,” she said almost anxiously. He had to find them.
And then she turned at the sound of loose stones being displaced behind her. Robert was standing some distance away, looking quite magnificent, she thought, his face clean and shaven, his hair wet and waving close to his head. His face also looked as if he had come out at the wrong end of a fight, but it was a look that somehow enhanced the tough soldier quality that was uniquely his—and his virility.
She felt self-conscious and naked to his gaze. He had never seen her in her peasant clothes. He had never seen her with her hair down. And she knew that he was looking with some incredulity at her weapons. She felt breathless suddenly, and peculiarly uncertain of herself.
She reacted in the only way she could under such circumstances. She met his eyes and smiled. It was totally against her nature to show anxiety.
He did not smile back. But then, she did not expect him to.
“Your breakfast, Joana,” Francisco Braga said, holding up a plate to her from his squatting position at the fire. “And yours, Captain.” He held up another plate to Captain Blake. Duarte was already eating.
They both accepted their plates in silence and took their places on the ground beside Duarte. Joana was between the two men.
“I hope the knife is blunt and the musket unloaded,” Captain Blake said over her head to Duarte, just as if she were deaf and dumb or did not understand the Portuguese language. “She is a hostage, Ribeiro. A hostile hostage. And if she has spun you a tale about really belonging here and really being loyal to your cause, don’t believe a word of it. The woman is incapable of telling the truth.”
Joana lifted a piece of fish to her mouth and chewed on it steadily.
Duarte grinned. “But women’s wrists are weak,” he said. “And muskets are notorious for never hitting what they are aimed at.”
“Nevertheless,” Captain Blake said, “I would not like to wake up to find either one pointing at my stomach from two feet away. Keep a guard on her, Ribeiro. I warn you she is dangerous.”
Duarte shrugged and grinned down at his half-sister. “Perhaps I will take them before you go to sleep, Joana,” he said. “I would not, after all, like to have you roll over onto the point of your knife.”
It was not the time for explanations. They were both very tired and everything was too public. She would suffer the humiliation of handing over her gun and knife, she decided, and explain later. She was so very tired. She did not believe she had ever felt more tired in her life. There was a broad and green-clad shoulder close to her cheek. How wonderful it would be to rest her head against it and close her eyes. But one glance upward showed her the hardness of his expression and the hostility in his eyes.
She laid both her knife and her musket on the ground before her. It would have been just too shameful to actually place them in Duarte’s hands.
“There was a message from Lord Wellington,” Duarte was telling Robert. “One of my men brought it on here while I was in Salamanca. He is hoping that Almeida will hold out for another month and that after that the autumn rains will come early. They will slow down the French and make things that much worse for them.”
“Almeida has not fallen yet, then?” Captain Blake said. “Good. I was afraid that I was going to miss all the fun. Whose idea was it, by the way, to come to rescue me?”
Duarte ignored the question. “Our task, apart from the usual,” he said, “is to visit as many of the farms and villages between here and Coimbra as we possibly can and persuade the people to flee west with as many of their possessions as they can carry, and to burn everything else, including their homes. It will not be a pleasant or an easy task, I think.” He shrugged. “But Wellington swears that he will not abandon our country or leave us to occupation by the French. And against all the odds, I believe him. I suppose there is nothing else I can do and remain sane.”
“It is essential that the French armies be unable to live off the countryside in Portugal as they usually do on their advances,” Captain Blake said. “They must be stranded far from their supplies. It is the surest way to defeat them.”
“You have your part too,” Duarte said. “Lord Wellington specifically mentioned you and directed that if your escape from Salamanca was effected in time, you must join us in our task. A soldier’s uniform may do much to convince the doubtful, he feels. And who knows? Perhaps he is right.”
“I am not simply to rejoin my regiment, then?” the captain asked.
“It would seem not.” Duarte smiled at him apologetically.
But Joana could concentrate no longer. The words had drifted a long way off, so that she could hear only sound but no meaning. Her head was just too heavy for the rest of her body. The side of it touched something warm
and solid and she gave in to the temptation to relax and to sleep.
“She is very tired,” Duarte said, looking at his sister asleep against Captain Blake’s shoulder. The captain had not moved a muscle except to harden his jaw. “As we are too. I don’t know why we sit here talking when time is so short. We must be well away from here before dark. In the meantime, let’s sleep.”
He scrambled to his feet and leaned down to pick up Joana. But she awoke with a start as soon as he touched her, and looked up, startled, at Captain Blake, who was not even looking down at her. She was glad he was not. She was not one for blushes in the normal course of events, but she knew she was blushing now.
How unspeakably mortifying.
“Go to bed, Joana,” Duarte said. “And that is an order.”
Normally she would have had to refuse out of mere principle. But now she scurried toward her hut rather like a frightened rabbit, she thought in disgust. But she could not think. It was almost painful to think, too much of an effort. She lay down on the blanket spread on the ground and slept.
* * *
It was late afternoon. Almost all of them were squinting off to the east, but if Colonel Leroux and the men he would bring with him were coming, it was not yet. The two sentries had just been withdrawn from the entrance to the valley and had reported that all was still quiet.
Even so, camp had been broken and they were to be well on their way from the ravine before nightfall. They would split up into small groups, Duarte had ordered, there being many places to visit if they were to carry out their orders from Lord Wellington with any thoroughness. Besides, small groups would form a smaller target for the French to spot.
“And we must never forget what our primary reason for existence is,” Duarte said, his eyes narrowing in an expression that made his face look cruel for a moment. “Our purpose is to keep Frenchmen out of our country and to kill those who try to enter it.”
