by Mary Balogh
“But she saw the wisdom of not bringing the baby here,” he said with a grin. “And where Miguel is, there Carlota has to be too for at least the next few months, whether she likes it or not.”
He hugged Joana and shook Captain Blake’s hand before slapping him on the back.
“I heard about the fight,” he said. “Lucky devils. What I would not have given to be there. You had to stay close, Joana? You could not be persuaded to go back to safety?”
“Go back to safety?” Captain Blake said scornfully. “Joana? She actually came into the thick of the fighting. The shells and bullets could not kill me, but the sight of her waving my rifle almost did.” He set an arm about her shoulders.
Duarte smote his forehead with the heel of his hand. “My sister and my woman both,” he said. “Two of a kind.”
“Duarte,” she said, “I had to go into that battle. I had to kill him.”
“Him?” He looked at her, at first blankly and then with gradually widening eyes.
“I recognized him in Salamanca,” she said. “It was Colonel Marcel Leroux, the one who said he would kill you, the one I begged to come after me. I had to kill him, Duarte, and I did—with Robert’s rifle. I have never fired a rifle before, but I knew I would not miss. I could not miss. He was mine.”
“Joana,” he whispered, and all the carefree vitality had gone from his face. “Oh, my God, I might have lost you too. Why did you not tell me, madwoman? It was my job to do, not yours.”
And he pulled her from Captain Blake’s arm and hugged her to him.
“He is dead,” she said, “and they can rest in peace. They can finally be at peace. I killed him, Duarte.”
Captain Blake turned away tactfully and watched a sergeant nod to him to confirm that all buildings in that particular street had been checked and found empty of food and other supplies. Brother and sister wept in each other’s arms behind his back.
“So you are on your way to Lisbon?” Duarte asked Joana when they finally drew apart.
“Yes.” She smiled at him.
“I hope you will be safe there,” he said. “I hope Viscount Wellington plans to make another stand somewhere between here and there. And you, Captain?”
“Not as far as Lisbon,” Captain Blake said. “I will be a part of that stand you talk about.”
“Ah.” Duarte looked from the captain to his half-sister. “Joana has finally convinced you of the truth about herself, I gather? But fate and circumstances are about to take you in different directions. Well, that is the way of the world—or of this particular world in which we are living. I had better be taking myself off. I just wanted to see that Joana was safe.”
He hugged her again and shook Captain Blake by the hand, looked once more from one to the other, and shrugged.
“I shall see you,” he said. “Both of you. Together perhaps. Perhaps separately. I will not be happy until this bloody war is at an end and the French back in the country where they belong and our lives back to normal. I don’t like what war is doing to our lives. But enough of that.” He grinned. “On your way, or you will be having a grand French escort.”
They continued on their way south with the Light Division.
The rains held off until October 7, the last full day of the march for the bulk of the army, and then they came down with full fury, lashing the long line of refugees and the longer line of weary, ragged soldiers into misery as they dragged themselves through mud that was knee-deep in places. And the French drew ever nearer, their cavalry sometimes within sight of the Light Division as they rode up into the hills to left and right of the road.
The men trudged on, expecting ignominious defeat.
And then the allied army reached Torres Vedras, and the lines were there in the mountains to greet them—one of the closest-kept secrets in military history and one that was not even then immediately obvious to the eye. Every pass through the mountain had been barred, every road made impassable to an enemy. Guns hidden behind earthworks or set up in old towers and castles and redoubts pointed down from every height. Trenches had been dug, streams dammed to form bogs, houses and forests leveled to allow no hiding place for an approaching foe, hillsides smoothed out into glacis or blasted into precipices—the story went on.
The defenses stretched from the sea in the west to the River Tagus in the east, three solid concentric lines of them. And the British navy was on guard both at sea and on the river.
It was only as the regiments were met on the road and directed to their new posts that they began to realize what had been awaiting them and what would be awaiting the enemy hot on their heels. It was only then that elation began to replace the deepest depression.
And it was only as the French came up, drenched and miserable from the rains, hungry from the lack of food, far from their own supply lines, cut off from retreat by the fierce Ordenanza in the mountains, totally barred from a forward advance, that Massena realized finally how he had been tricked, how his advisers had made the wrong guess and given him the wrong advice. It was only then that some men realized whose side in the conflict the Marquesa das Minas was really on.
All Massena could do was settle his men in for a long siege and hope that something before them would give way.
* * *
The Light Division arrived in Torres Vedras, drenched, muddy, and miserable—and not yet in a place where they could rest. They were to march south and east to a position at Arruda, not far from the River Tagus. They were to rest for only a few hours before resuming their march.
“Well,” Joana said, smiling at Captain Blake, “it does not really matter, does it, Robert? I don’t believe we can get any wetter or any muddier. What difference do a few more miles make?”
But he was in a deep depression. Although he had been the only one of his men to know about the Lines, to know that they were marching into safety, he had been quite unable to feel the elation he should have been feeling. He was wet and dirty and tired. Not that those conditions meant anything. He had long been accustomed to physical discomforts.
No, his mood had nothing to do with conditions. It had everything to do with arriving at last at Torres Vedras—a destination that the soldier in him had been longing for and the man in him had been dreading. Torres Vedras—it represented the end of heaven, the end of everything that he had come to live for.
He did not believe he would have the courage to say it until it was said. She was still smiling at him ruefully, but with her usual indomitable courage. “You will not be going any farther, Joana,” he said quietly, taking her by the arm and leading her away from his company after nodding to Lieutenant Reid to take over for him for a while.
“What?” There was fear and understanding and denial in her glance. “I am coming with you to Arruda, Robert.”
“No.” He deliberately did not look at her, but at the street ahead of them, along which he was guiding her. “You have friends here. It is on the direct road to Lisbon. You must go, Joana. This is where our ways must part.”
“No.” She jerked her arm free of his and whirled to face him. “Not like this, Robert. I will come with you and spend a few more nights with you and see where it is you are going to be stationed for the winter. I want to be able to picture it in my mind. I will leave in my own time. Soon.”
“The time is now,” he said, taking her arm again and walking resolutely on with her.
“No. Stop this.” She jerked at her arm again, but he kept his firm hold on it. She kicked at his shin so that he swore. “How can we say good-bye now, without any preparation, any privacy? Are you planning to say good-bye in the street?” She looked wildly about her, and he knew that she realized he was taking her to her friends’ house.
“It will not be any easier at another time or in another place,” he said. “It is better now, Joana. A clean break. Go to your friends and forget about me. Go to Lisbon and marry
your colonel.”
“Imbecile. Barbarian. Bastard!” she hissed at him as he increased their pace along the street. She had to half-run to keep up with him. “Robert, don’t do this. Oh, please don’t do this. I am not ready.” There was panic in her voice at last.
“Would you ever be?” he asked her. “If we had a night to spend together, knowing that the end would be tomorrow, would you be able to enjoy the night? Would you be ready to say good-bye tomorrow?”
“Not now,” she said. “Not today. Oh, not today, Robert.”
“Today and now,” he said, and he could hear the harshness of his voice but could not soften it without giving in to his own panic. They had turned a corner and he could see the whitewashed wall that surrounded her friends’ house at the end of the street. “It is better so, Joana.”
“Let me go.” Her voice was cold suddenly, and she had stopped struggling.
He released his hold on her arm and stopped walking when she stopped.
“Very well, then,” she said, and her face was expressionless and her voice toneless. Her hair was plastered to her face and her dress to her body, but she lifted her chin and looked suddenly regal. “If I mean so little to you, Robert, you must not even trouble yourself by walking all the way with me. I shall be quite safe, thank you. I will say good-bye.”
He had thought he had the length of the street left. He had thought that he would allow himself the indulgence of taking her once more into his arms at the door of her friends’ house and of kissing her once more.
This was too sudden, too cruel.
“Good-bye, Joana,” he said, and it was still the same harsh voice he heard.
She turned from him and walked away along the street without hurry and without a backward glance. He watched her until she disappeared into the courtyard beyond the white wall.
And then he continued to watch the empty street, some of the rain streaming down his face hot and salty.
It could not be over, he thought. Not so suddenly. Not without some definite and climactic ending. Not this way. It could not be over.
But it was.
29
JOANA did not leave Torres Vedras for Lisbon even when her friends, the owners of the house at which she stayed, did so for safety’s sake. She stayed on in the house alone with the servants.
Not that being alone spelled loneliness. She was not lonely. She was the Marquesa das Minas again—Matilda had had the presence of mind to leave a trunkful of her clothes and other possessions at the house—and she was attending entertainments galore. Her court of admirers was as large as it had ever been, and she sparkled among them as brightly as she ever had.
And yet she was lonely for all that. For he had gone, and in all likelihood she would never see him again. Indeed, she hoped she would not, for there could be no future for them, and the pain of seeing him would be too great. And yet she pined for one glimpse of him, hoped against hope that he would be sent to Torres Vedras on some errand.
She had not forgiven him for their abrupt parting. She could understand why he had done it, could even admit that perhaps it had been a good idea. But she could not forgive him. For a relationship like theirs, since it had had to come to an end, needed a definite end, painful as it would have been. It would have been agony—he had pointed it out himself—spending a last night with him knowing that in the morning she was to leave, never to return. But it would have been a necessary agony. It was something she needed to remember. And yet it had never happened. The void was far more difficult to bear than the agony would have been.
But Joana would not mope, even for one moment. By the time she had reached her friends’ house, dripping with rain and spattered with mud and indescribably tattered and shabby, she had already been cheerful and had greeted their shock with laughter.
She did not stop smiling and laughing for days afterward—in public. The terrible depression that touched on despair was given rein only in the privacy of her own rooms. But even there she would not allow tears. There were to be no telltale signs, like puffy or reddened eyes, that others might notice.
But oh, she missed him. God, she missed him.
And then Lord Wellington decided to host a grand dinner and ball and supper at Mafra in honor of Lord Beresford, who was being created a Knight of the Bath. Several officers of Joana’s acquaintance from Torres Vedras were to attend, and several more were coming from Lisbon. It was altogether possible, she thought, that Colonel Lord Wyman would be one of them.
It would be good to see him again. It would be good to touch reality again and put dreams permanently behind her. And it was no unpleasant reality. She liked Duncan. Marriage to him, life with him, would be a good experience.
Joana accepted the invitation. And she smiled rather sadly at the thought of Robert, many miles away at Arruda. She thought of his aversion to glittering events such as the Mafra ball was likely to be. And she did not allow herself even a glimmering of hope.
At least, she did not do so with her mind. The heart cannot be ordered to do what the mind knows to be sensible.
* * *
“You’re not going?” Lieutenant Reid looked at his superior officer with incredulity. “Isn’t it more in the way of an order than an invitation, sir?”
“Not going?” Captain Rowlandson said. “You are the only damned officer in the whole regiment to be invited, Bob, except for the general himself, and you shrug casually and say you are not going?”
“I’ll not be missed,” Captain Blake said. “I don’t think the Beau is going to personally notice my absence and be upset by it. I have been invited only because I was able to do him a little favor.”
“That little favor being going to Salamanca and allowing yourself to be taken prisoner there so that you could lure the French into this trap with false information,” Captain Rowlandson said. “Don’t think the details have remained a secret, Bob. You’re a bloody hero, man, but afraid to show your nose in public.”
“Fear has nothing to do with it,” Captain Blake said impatiently.
“Go,” Captain Rowlandson said. “Give your men a break, Bob. You have been barking at them and over-drilling them ever since we got behind these damned Lines.”
“That’s not true.” Captain Blake’s head snapped up, but his friend merely nodded to him. He looked at Lieutenant Reid. “Is it, Peter?”
“The men don’t mind,” the lieutenant said, “because they know that you always look after them when there is danger. Besides, they all understand that you are missing the lady, if you don’t mind my saying so, sir.”
“I damned well do mind.” Captain Blake was on his feet, his chair toppled behind him, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “I’m a damned soldier, Lieutenant, not a bloody womanizer.”
“Bob,” Captain Rowlandson said firmly, “go to the ball. And come back and break our hearts with the details. Life is going to be dull if we are staying here for the winter. You would think at least Massena would try to make an attack, wouldn’t you, for sheer pride’s sake? But apart from that one rush on Sobral there has been nothing. Absolutely nothing. Go to the ball, man.”
Captain Blake sighed. “Sorry, Peter,” he said. “I don’t know what has got into me lately. This damned rain, I think. All right, then, I’ll brush my coat and wash a shirt and polish my boots and cut my hair and dazzle the elite with my splendor. And I’ll even dance, goddammit. Are you satisfied now, the two of you?”
His two friends exchanged grins. “A happy devil when he is invited to a party, ain’t he?” Captain Rowlandson said. “Can’t contain his excitement.”
Captain Blake swore and his friends laughed outright.
A ball and supper. It was all he needed. Such entertainments could send his spirits plummeting even when they were not in his boots to start with. He thought about the last two balls he had attended—one at Lisbon and one at Viseu. And he tried t
o shutter his mind.
No, he would not remember. And yet how could he not do so? Joana, glitteringly beautiful in pure white. Joana—the same woman who had trudged through the hills with him and endured all of the hardships of the journey without complaint and with unfailing good humor and high spirits. Joana—the woman who had been his lover. No, he would not remember.
He wondered if she was still in Lisbon or if Wyman had sent her off to England already. Were they betrothed? Had they even married hastily, perhaps before her departure? He would not think of it.
He would go to the ball at Mafra. Maybe it would be the best thing for him. And he would dance too. Doubtless there would be some Portuguese beauties there. He would dance and perhaps flirt. And he would find some woman in Mafra to sleep with. Perhaps some of his devils would be banished if he could just get his life back to normal again, to the way he had lived it for the eleven years of his service in the army.
He had told Joana that he would love her all his life, and he believed that he had spoken the simple truth. But he was not going to pine for her. He was not going to ruin his life—and make the life of the men under his command hell—for an impossible love. She was in his past, however agonizing that realization was. But in the meanwhile he had a present to live through, and perhaps something of a future too.
* * *
It was a wonderful, glittering occasion. Almost everyone who was anyone was at Lord Wellington’s dinner and ball. All the officers wore their most splendid dress uniforms, making the Portuguese noblemen who were not in the army look quite drab in contrast. The ladies had all worn their brightest colors and their most sparkling jewels in order not to be outshone by the officers. Only Joana wore pure white.
She looked about her when she entered the ballroom after dinner to see what other guests had come, invited only for the ball and the supper. She was determinedly enjoying herself. It was difficult to believe that she was the same person as the one who had retreated through the hills of Portugal as Joana Ribeiro. She was quite irrevocably the Marquesa das Minas again.
