Tarleton's Wife

by Blair Bancroft

  “Who sent you?” Nicholas countered bluntly.

  “Friends of mine—in the mountains,” replied the young man evasively, unconsciously shifting the weight of his musket as if to reassure himself it was still there. “Brother Bonifacio told me I might find you here. He is a friend of my friends, you understand.”

  Imperceptibly, Nicholas relaxed. He had dealt with far too many young officers not to recognize the pride and wariness of a young aristocrat entrusted with a mission and taking himself very seriously indeed.

  Although only of medium height, the young Spaniard towered over the kneeling figure of the man he had come to see. This bedraggled field worker, his face smudged with black dye, did not look at all the image of the English officer he had thought to find. With sudden clarity, Don Carlos recognized the slow flush of embarrassment suffusing the major’s face, the embarrassment of an officer caught weeding carrots. The young man stretched out his hand, his strong wiry body quickly bringing the Englishman to his feet.

  “You are tall, señor,” Don Carlos approved, now finding the English major somewhat closer to his expectations. “It is good the French have not come here. Even with black hair, you do not blend well with the others. Come, let us sit in the courtyard and talk. Brother Bonifacio has promised to find us some ale.”

  When they were seated on a stone bench in the shade of the inner courtyard, Don Carlos approached his mission with caution. Not until the monk retreated into the monastery after depositing his offering of bread, cheese and ale did the young Spaniard speak. “Brother Bonifacio says that you are now well enough to chafe at the life of a monk, that you are a man of action who is as yet unable to act. Is this not so?”

  “An apt summary,” Nicholas agreed grimly, while privately regretting the times his frustration had caused him to snap at his rotund benefactor.

  “We—my friends and I—have thought of something you might be able to do if you are willing. It would not, I think, overtax your strength and it would be of great help to us.” Don Carlos took a deep breath, savoring the gentle aromas wafting from the kitchen herb garden which filled nearly half the courtyard. “Not far from here we are raising a band of men—hidalgos, merchants, peasants, anyone who wishes to serve. We plan to fight the guerrilla, the little war. Lisbon remains free and word has come that the English have sent back most of the men who escaped from La Coruña. They are commanded by a general called Sir Arthur Wellesley. You know of him?”

  Nicholas, who had begun to listen to the young man with something more than polite curiosity, snapped to attention, his eyes gleaming with avid interest. Wellesley! So he had found the post of Irish Secretary too tame after all. “A good man,” Nicholas approved, “though I’d heard he swore off the army for life after Dalrymple returned the French prisoners we took in Portugal. The garrison in Lisbon survives, you say?”

  Carlos smiled, relaxing for the first time. “Ah, si, señor. Lisbon remains free with a garrison of ten thousand and it’s said Wellesley has brought fifteen thousand more.”

  “My men, guerrillero,” said Nicholas proudly. “My men—and the rest of the survivors of Moore’s army. Come to pay the Frenchies back. Now that’s a sight I would dearly love to see.”

  “It will be a long time, señor,” the young man admitted. “I hear talk we will push the French back to their border in a few months but wiser heads say it is not so.” Carlos shrugged. “It will be years, I think. You need not fear you will miss it.”

  Nicholas studied the young man in the loose black breeches cut short below his boot tops, the flowing white shirt, the square-cut black vest. Though perhaps ten years the major’s junior, the young Spaniard wore his responsibilities with dignity and intelligence. “So tell me what a cripple may do to help you,” said Nicholas wryly.

  Don Carlos Guillermo Vila Santiago answered with humble sincerity, “Teach us to be soldiers, señor.”

  * * * * *

  October 1810, London

  The three occupants of the suite at the Clarendon ignored the elaborate tea sitting in front of them, though the brandy continued to flow freely. Candelabra had been lit, the fire restoked.

  “I started training Carlos the very next day,” Nicholas said, “beginning with how to load a musket rapidly and efficiently.”

  A sympathetic smile lit Julia’s face. “A horrifying task for a rifleman,” she teased. “I have heard your opinion on the efficiency of muskets.”

  Nicholas responded with a rare sheepish grin. “I admit to a few ill-chosen remarks about Spanish and French muskets but the boy’s pride was so great and his earnestness so complete I soon learned to be more cautious. I taught him what I could and showed him how to teach others. The monastery was in the foothills of a mountain range. A week later young Carlos went dashing back into the hills as if I had gifted him with the crown jewels.”

  “Did he come again?”

  “Oh, yes. Many times.” A sadness crossed Nicholas’ face. He gazed into the fire, seeing a hundred campfires, a sea of tanned faces, the gleam of white teeth, the shining metal of swords and guns.

  To Julia none of it was real. Nicholas was the man from her dreamtime. She was listening to a tale told by a ghost. Firelight flickered over his bronzed face, turning his silver eyes to rosy gold. Was this truly Nicholas? Stern elder brother. Friend. Knight errant. Phantom lover.

  It was so tempting, so insidiously easy not to think at all, to ignore the pain and slip back into their old camaraderie. To be Julia Litchfield once again.

  “I should like to have seen you sitting among the beans and carrots,” she said.

  Nicholas’ head snapped round, eyes flashing. “Oh, no, you would not, my girl, or I would have made you swear a solemn oath never to reveal it to a soul. It was most ignominious, I assure you.”

  “Did you make Carlos swear?”

  “Quite unnecessary. Young Carlos was an hidalgo and understood such things. No one needed to point out that I had nothing left but my pride.”

  “How long…”

  “All that spring and summer. He was soon bringing other guerrilleros with him. Fortunately, our regiment was accustomed to fighting independently, so it was not too difficult to adapt our riflemen’s methods of fighting to the needs of the guerrilleros. Word reached us that Wellesley had defeated the French at Talavera but, truthfully, the war was far away, a tale from another world.

  “It was early fall before Brother Bonifacio would let me go.” Nicholas’ face softened, the deeply etched lines smoothed by an inner peace Julia had never known him to have. “I was anxious to join the guerrilleros but when the time came, I realized the monks had given me more than my life. It was a hard parting.” Nicholas fell silent, once again seeing things far beyond the confines of the Clarendon.

  “Beggin’ your pardon, missus, major,” said Daniel, “but the chef has sent up a fine supper. Be a right shame not to eat it.”

  Impeccable manners sustained them through soup and fish and tender roast beef, the glazed carrots accompanying them provoking a distinct giggle from Julia which caused Nicholas to choke on a mouthful of beef.

  After a well-sherried trifle had been set before them, Nicholas thanked the servants and dismissed them. For a long moment he toyed with his wineglass before remarking casually, “I understand that I am not the only gardener in the room.” While Julia caught her breath, a spoonful of trifle halfway to her mouth, he added, “I started out in the monastery’s herb garden, you know. A scant twenty minutes a day in the courtyard. The first time I tried it Brother Bonifacio had to carry me back to my room.”

  “Who told you?” Julia whispered. Loss piled upon loss. This moment the destruction of the one good thing she’d managed to do.

  “Is it such a secret?” Nicholas, at his most innocent, returned. “Daniel and I have been together for nearly two weeks now. We’ve had little else to do but talk.”

  Julia’s heart pounded, her nails bit into her palms. Nicholas hated Willow Herbals, she knew he did. As if thi
ngs were not complicated enough already! “Did he tell you why?” she demanded. “That Mr. Woodworthy would not pay the cottagers enough to keep alive. They were starving, truly starving. Something had to be done, and Willow Herbals was the only solution I could think of.”

  “What I can’t understand,” Nicholas said, continuing in the maddeningly calm voice which always characterized his greatest anger, “is how you got round Louis Tyler. A more conservative staunch Tory I have yet to see. And a misogynist as well. Come, let’s have it, my girl. How did you manage it?”

  Julia was incredulous. “Two years gone and you wish to talk about Louis Tyler?”

  “I wish to know how you went into the herbal trade without his name etched into a gravestone.”

  “Surely Daniel explained…” Her mind whirled. So that’s where this was heading. What a devil he was!

  “Daniel was grandly, eloquently evasive, as only an Irishman can be,” Nicholas responded steadily. “Now tell me please how you managed to get my esteemed estate agent to agree to such an…ah…unusual enterprise.”

  Julia licked her lips, studying her trifle as if she expected to find a bug in it. “It was quite simple really,” she said at last, raising her eyes only to the level of Nicholas’ chest. “Jack Harding had a talk with him.”

  “And what in the hell has Jack Harding to say about The Willows, if I may be so bold as to ask?”

  A peek at his face revealed eyes gone to flint, a jaw flattened into Major Tarleton at his most uncompromising. Julia kept her voice steady, matter-of-fact, only by the exercise of extreme willpower. “We met Jack Harding at The Bell and Candle the night we arrived in Grantley. He did us a kindness…and has remained our friend, frequently giving advice and aid when neither Mr. Woodworthy nor Mr. Tyler were willing to be of service.”

  Nicholas examined this pregnant bit of information, not liking what he found. “If we ignore for the moment the inference that my most trusted employees failed to do their duty during my absence,” he said with deliberate emphasis, “we still must face the question of how Jack Harding came to have influence over events at The Willows.”

  “He is estate agent for the largest landowner in the area. How could his opinion fail to carry weight with other estate agents?” Though her voice remained calm and reasonable, Julia was nearly certain she was about to disgrace herself by losing her supper.

  Nicholas leaped to conclusions even faster than she had feared. It was at least a better conclusion than the truth, which was that Captain Hood… Oh, God. Oh, dear God, what had she done? It was a masked Captain Hood who had frightened Louis Tyler into allowing the herbal trade. And one day all too soon Nicholas was sure to discover it. How could she have been such a fool?

  “Answer me,” Nicholas demanded for the second time. “Is Harding your lover?”

  Julia was so horrified by what she had done to Jack that her mind refused to take in Nicholas’ unexpected conclusion. When his accusation finally sank in, she could think of nothing clever, nothing evasive. Only the truth, which tumbled out in a nervous rush. “We have grown close, Jack and I, but not in that way. Sometimes, when I thought I might be alone forever, I realized I wished to marry again… To have a family. I cannot deny I wondered if my future might be with Jack. Somewhere far away, of course, where we could start over. But we have not been…intimate. If he were my lover, do you think I would have run away to London to seek work as a governess?”

  “It’s gettin’ late, Major. Shouldn’t I be fetching the missus’s things?”

  And God bless Daniel Runyon!

  With no more than a frown of annoyance Nicholas accepted the interruption. “Write your direction and a note authorizing Daniel to pack up your things,” he ordered curtly, pushing back his chair with some violence. “Come. We’ll take port by the fire.”

  Previous problems diminished to nothingness. “You cannot mean for me to stay here!” Julia blurted out.

  “Do you think I spent all this time looking for you to let you get away again?” Nicholas retorted. “I did not think you that foolish, Julia.”

  “But the annulment? Surely it is not proper for me to stay here?”

  “At this moment you are undoubtedly my wife.” Nicholas seized the bottle of port and stalked across the room to the warmth of the fire.

  Chapter Eleven

  What she needed was a deep dark hole. A private place to nurse her wounds. A place where no one could see her face or read her soul. A place where the heart on her sleeve was not so visible. Instead—with nowhere left to run—Julia returned to her chair by the fire. Nicholas, snug behind his maddening air of detachment, calmly handed her a glass of port before fixing his gaze in a brooding contemplation of the dancing firelight.

  She was trapped. With no way to combat the pain of the Nicholas of her Dream regarding her with the well-remembered indifference Major Tarleton had once conferred upon young Julia Litchfield. And yet…with his insistence that she stay, Nicholas was acknowledging their marriage. Claiming her as his wife. Accepting the responsibility that went with marriage.

  In the past two weeks she had learned the hazards of independence. The dreadful fear of finding herself without a roof over her head, no food to eat, ripe for plucking by those who preyed on the destitute and helpless. So she would sit here, Julia thought and be her sensible self. Even if it killed her. She drew a deep breath, willing herself to civilized conversation.

  “I believe we are a year short of finishing your story,” Julia prompted. While Nicholas recounted his days in Spain, she could lose herself in his story, gaze at him while he talked, count the new lines in his face, the small scars. Memorize his beloved features for all the years of loneliness to come.

  She was mistaken. The hurt was a sharp stab which spread out into numbing waves of despair. For with the second part of Nicholas’ tale came Doña Violante Modestia Vila Santiago.

  * * * * *

  Fall 1809, Northern Spain

  Nicholas swung the scythe with the accuracy of countless repetitions. When a suitable swath of golden wheat stalks lay prone at his feet, he bundled them into sheaves. He straightened, smiling as he wiped the sweat from his brow. His days at the monastery were numbered. He could now handle a full day’s backbreaking labor. He was, in fact, in better condition than he had been when riding across Spain with Moore’s army. And at long last he was to be granted his freedom. Brother Bonifacio had promised the next time Carlos came to the monastery, the young hidalgo would not return to the mountains alone.

  When the angelus rang, Nicholas paused, arm in mid-swing. It was not a bell of the finest quality but since his awakening that first evening so many months before, he had grown quite fond of it. Slowly, he lowered the scythe to the ground. On some evenings he joined the monks at their prayers but tonight… Nicholas set off across the fields at a rapid pace, soon leaving the fields behind, slowly descending through a flower-strewn meadow to a stream which wound its way down from the wooded foothills above the monastery.

  He made a quick survey of the area before peeling off his monk’s robe. He was alone, thank God, for there was little doubt his body could never withstand the inspection of unfriendly eyes. White skin which had not been exposed to the sun contrasted sharply with the deep tan of his face, arms and lower legs.

  The water beckoned with a siren call Nicholas did not want to deny. The humble, circumscribed role of monk was becoming harder and harder to bear. He stripped and plunged in, diving below the surface of the one pool deep enough to swim in. The sparkling water was cold and clear, allowing him a view of shiny pebbles, waving fronds of water grass, the silver flashes of small fish skittering away from this splashing monster. Finally, clean and newborn, he settled to swimming in lazy circles, luxuriating in the stimulation of the mountain-fed water. With his body at peace, Nicholas’ mind was free to roam.

  The course of the war was slow and frustrating. It was damned hard to find a ray of hope in what little news penetrated to northern Spain. Although L
isbon was now defended by British troops, the remainder of Portugal teetered on the verge of a second French invasion. A few fortress cities in Spain still stood against the French. But with Napoleon pouring wave after wave of troops onto the soil of his former ally, Britain’s small army could do little more than struggle to stay alive and plan for better days ahead.

  The guerrilla, the little war, was going better. Constant attacks by marauding raiders sweeping down from the mountains forced the French to assign more and more troops to protect their couriers and supplies. Nicholas was proud of the men he had trained but he had no illusions—they would have managed without him. Throughout the Iberian Peninsula guerrilleros were bringing honor back to the greatness of Spain and Portugal. He suspected his training of the local patriots was intended more as a cure for Major Nicholas Tarleton than a necessity for Carlos’ ragtag band of resistance fighters.

  He had to admit the cure had worked, bringing his mind back from death as surely as Brother Bonifacio and Brother Miguel had done for his body. Perhaps Brother Bonifacio was right. It had been a miracle after all. There was nothing like the better part of a year in a monastery to inspire a man to search his soul. Nicholas was eager to return to the war but not unaware of what he would leave behind. He should be dead, yet he was alive. Thanks to men of a country and a religion not his own.

  The war had become personal. If protecting this place of peace and goodness meant once again risking his life, he would do it. Not only with a soldier’s ready will but with the strong conviction he was defending his own.

  “Eh, inglès, may I join you?” The laughing dark eyes of Don Carlos Guillermo Vila Santiago gazed down at the major. “The water here is like a hot springs compared to farther up the mountain. This is your last warm bath for a long time, Major. I will enjoy it with you, no?”

  As the young man sat down to pull off his boots, Nicholas swung his palm in a broad arc, scooping a swath of icy water onto the recumbent figure. With a few choice oaths which Nicholas promptly added to his Spanish vocabulary, Carlos stripped himself of his soggy clothing and plunged in, as naked as his tormentor. The two men wrestled until laughter overcame them and they struggled back into their clothing, setting off across the fields toward the monastery in the red glow of the final rays of the setting sun.