Fortune's Bride

by Roberta Gellis

  Fortunately, before Esmeralda could disgrace herself by stuttering or dropping a curtsy like a gauche schoolgirl, Sir Arthur’s loud, whooping laugh broke the tension, and he came forward with a flattering comment about Robert’s luck in picking up so handsome and charming a parcel of flotsam on the beach. Reminded by this gallant opening that Robert had told her Sir Arthur greatly enjoyed a gentle flirtation and seeing that, however piercing his look might be, there was genuine kindliness in it now, Esmeralda was able to respond naturally to this opening sally and the later conversation.

  The half hour Sir Arthur had found in which to examine Robert’s bride and assure himself that the young man had not fallen victim to some designing harpy passed most pleasantly. Although actually his doubts had been laid to rest the moment he saw Esmeralda, Sir Arthur was a very thorough man. He assured himself from reminiscences of India that she had, indeed, been a resident for many years, and her enthusiastic response to his offer to write to several Talbot and Connor families he knew in Ireland, among whom there was a strong possibility of discovering her relatives, was a good indication that her story was true.

  Since these matters were Sir Arthur’s first concern and the time he had to bestow on Esmeralda was limited, he never got around to any discussion of her departure. Ordinarily, this subject would have occurred to him at the time the ships were making ready to draw off, but on August 6 he was deep in consultation with General Spencer and on the seventh, the day the disembarkation was completed, he received a message from the Portuguese General Freire, requesting a meeting at a nearby town. Such a minor problem as Esmeralda faded out of Sir Arthur’s mind.

  Lord Burghersh, who had already shown considerable ability at diplomacy, accompanied Sir Arthur and returned in a state of emotional suppression that threatened a violent explosion. Urgently needing an outlet, he made his way at once to the little house that had already become a safe haven to most of the young gentlemen. To those flayed by one of Sir Arthur’s icy outbursts, Robert offered philosophical consolation from his years of similar experience, while Esmeralda soothed the nerves with tea and sympathy. Here they were free to air their military opinions and complaints, get their buttons sewed back on and damage to their uniforms mended.

  Thus, when Burghersh burst in, neither Robert nor Esmeralda, who happened for once to be having tea alone, was much surprised. “I think everyone except us is insane,” he snarled.

  “And I’m not too sure about us,” Robert rejoined placidly. “What’s wrong, John?”

  “Freire, that’s what’s wrong. Damn it, I thought the Portuguese were going to be different from the Spanish. You know we rode over to Montemor-o-Velho with five thousand muskets for that ragtag army of his. You’d think the man would be grateful, wouldn’t you?”

  “No,” Robert replied, his lips twitching. “Native allies seldom are, and native generals, never. Sit down and Merry will give you a cup of tea.”

  “Well, good God, you’re calm about it. I suppose you would have liked to hear him acting as if he were in command, telling Sir Arthur where and how to move his troops—”

  “Where did Freire want Sir Arthur to go?” Robert asked with considerable interest.

  “Inland,” Burghersh said. “He wants us to follow the road to Santarém down to Lisbon.”

  “Why?”

  “He says the road is better, the countryside is very rich there, and the army could live off the land.”

  “Well, there’s nothing wrong with that,” Robert remarked.

  Burghersh took a deep breath and sank into a chair, leaning forward a moment later to take the mug of tea Esmeralda held out to him. “It’s his manner, damn him,” he said, and then, after a few sips, he sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t like him. I don’t trust him.”

  “Don’t let it worry you,” Robert comforted. “I don’t think Sir Arthur cares much for him, either He’ll listen and take any information into consideration, but he knows what’s best for us and he’ll do that.”

  “I know. We’re still going to move along the coast where we’ll be in touch with the fleet. But for a while Freire was threatening to simply take our muskets and go off on his own. Sir Arthur convinced him to meet us in Leiria instead. Freire says there’s a good-sized magazine there, but he acted as if he were doing us a favor, as if—”

  A knock at the door interrupted him. Robert shouted, “Come in,” and an orderly put his head around the opening to say, “You’re wanted by the general, Captain Moreton.”

  Robert got to his feet at once. “I think this means we’ll move out tomorrow, Merry,” he said.

  “Very well,” Esmeralda replied. “I will be ready.”

  Her voice drew Burghersh’s attention, and he smiled at her and said, “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Moreton. I’m afraid I’ve been dreadfully rude, bursting in here and not even giving you a word of greeting, just grabbing cups of tea out of your hand as if you were a servant.”

  “Please don’t apologize,” she replied, smiling back. “I am very glad you feel so much at home in your brother officer’s quarters. It gives me a great deal of satisfaction to be able to forward our purpose, even with so small a thing as cups of tea.”

  “Yes, do stay and finish your tea,” Robert said rather stiffly.

  “I’d better not,” Burghersh answered, but not because he had noticed anything unusual in Robert’s manner “If you’re wanted, I probably will be, too,” he explained.

  Esmeralda, however, had noticed. Nor was this the first time she had been made aware that Robert seemed to dislike it when she was alone with any of the other men. The first time she had noticed the reaction, she had anxiously reexamined her behavior, wondering if Robert had perceived anything vulgarly inviting or flirtatious in her manner toward his friends. She had been somewhat less generous with her smiles for a while, but it was really very difficult to resist the confiding friendliness his fellow ADCs offered.

  This time, after Robert and Lord Burghersh had left, Esmeralda sat for a while allowing hope to rise more strongly than ever before. Was it possible that Robert was jealous? And, if so, what should she do? Was there any way in which she could invite him to make their marriage real without disgusting him or driving him away if her guess was wrong?

  For all her bold use of words like “consummate” and “light-skirt”, Esmeralda really knew very little about sex. Her mother had died before Esmeralda was told anything about the subject, and in recent years she had not been allowed to have friends intimate enough to discuss such matters. She had, of course, heard hints and innuendos, but these were dreadfully confusing. On the one hand, a young and lively matron, married very much to her own taste, would smile and wink with sparkling eyes and hint that her matrimonial duties were a most delightful pleasure. On the other, another would sigh lugubriously and cast up her eyes to heaven like a martyr. Both husbands had seemed pleasant enough to Esmeralda, but since she had never found either of them more physically appealing than the other, she was not a bit the wiser.

  All she knew was that Robert had a very strong effect on her and that as their familiarity grew, the effect not only strengthened but changed. When they had first joined company, she had been satisfied just to look at Robert’s handsome face, and to hear him speak was a pure delight. Now there was a growing sense of dissatisfaction mingled with her pleasure. It was not enough to look. Esmeralda wanted to touch and to be touched.

  It was a most frustrating desire, for there was little opportunity for “accidental” intimacy when they were alone. The tiny house had two rooms, one above and one below, and Robert did not share the upstairs bedchamber with Esmeralda. Although this must have been known to all, as Robert’s cot stood against one wall, it caused no surprise or doubt. Few husbands and wives of Robert’s class shared a bedchamber. In this particular case, the separation was even more natural because Robert might be called out at all hours. To rouse him if he had slept above-stairs would have been more difficult and even emb
arrassing. Moreover, there was no reason for Esmeralda to have her night’s rest broken by the demands of Robert’s duty.

  Nonetheless, living together as husband and wife did affect their relationship. Despite not sharing a bedroom, Esmeralda saw a great deal more of Robert’s body than she would have under more formal circumstances. It would have been unnatural, considering the heat, for Robert not to take off his uniform jacket when he was supposedly at ease at home. Thus, Esmeralda was treated to a frequent display of her husband’s manly form as his thin, sweat-wet cambric shirt clung to him, exposing every curve of muscle as clearly as if he had been naked. Nor did his tight breeches leave much more to the imagination.

  Naturally, Esmeralda did not allow her eyes to linger on these most fascinating aspects of the male body. That, she knew, would be vulgar and unladylike. At least, she did not allow Robert or anyone else to catch her staring. But if she found her husband asleep when she came down from siesta, she would drink in the lines of his body, standing with hands tightly clasped so she would not reach out to caress him. Or at other times, when he was busy with writing some report, she would lift her eyes from her sewing and let her gaze slide from shoulder to thigh as if she were stroking him.

  More puzzling to Esmeralda than her desire to touch Robert—she had long accepted the fact that she loved him, and it seemed logical to her that one should wish to touch a beloved object—was the effect merely looking at him had upon her. When her eyes rested on his strong shoulders and thighs, her skin would grow warm, and she could feel her breasts thrust against her bodice, the nipples hard and almost painfully sensitive. And her thighs would tremble and seem so weak that she had to press her knees hard together to make her legs behave.

  It was very strange but also most fortunate, Esmeralda thought, that his handsome face did not cause nearly as strong a reaction. She giggled. That would have been a major disaster. It would have been impossible to look at him when answering a question or during normal conversation when his friends were present. And then the giggle died. Would it have been unfortunate? If she had given herself away, would Robert have responded? Was he jealous?

  Esmeralda rose and went to look into Robert’s shaving glass, propped on a shelf near the one window. She had to stand on tiptoe and could see no more than her face. She sighed. No, she was allowing her own desire to twist her thinking. There was nothing in the face that looked back at her that could tempt a man into love in two weeks. It was far more likely that Robert, totally unaware that she was in love with him, feared she would be attracted to one of his fellow officers and embarrass him by misbehavior.

  Insofar as Robert’s conscious thoughts went, Esmeralda was quite correct. The word “love” had never entered his mind. He was as troubled by Esmeralda’s presence as she was by his and was having as much difficulty controlling where his eyes rested. But he accepted that as quite natural, for Merry had a fine figure. He had acknowledged that from the day he married her. It was quite normal, from Robert’s point of view, that a man’s eyes should be attracted to a fine feminine figure and that his body should be aroused by it. He did not associate physical desire with love, and aside from sometimes feeling annoyed when it delayed his falling asleep or when he woke with a powerful urge, he could almost completely dismiss that aspect of his feelings about Esmeralda.

  There was, however, one small thing that puzzled him. Robert had never been a three-times-a-night-and-every-night-of-the-week man, even when he was idle. When he was deeply engaged in military activity, as he now was, his sexual appetite was moderate. A girl once or twice in a week, or even less frequently if he was really busy, was enough to quench all desire and even all thought of women. Yet, although he had found a willing girl in the camp the evening after they had arrived, only hours later, when he had taken Merry’s hand and kissed it just before they parted for the night, he was suddenly no better off than if he had not relieved himself.

  A little logical thought as he was lying on his cot half an hour later presented an explanation. The simple fact that there was an attractive woman near him at all times when he was off duty was a constant reminder and inducement. A little more logical thought presented a solution. Get rid of the woman, and he would be rid of the sexual problem. However, instead of relief, this solution produced a profound depression of Robert’s spirit, until he remembered that he had promised Merry not to send her alone to England. He could not, he told himself, go back on his word to her solely to provide himself with a less tempting atmosphere. The immediate lifting of his depression, he assumed, was the reward for his self-sacrifice. Doing right, he knew, always made one feel good.

  It was less easy to explain to himself the uneasiness he felt at the attentions paid to Merry by his friends. Even if she had really been his wife, there would have been nothing to object to in them. In fact, when there was a group laughing and talking in the little house, Robert felt very proud of Merry’s interest and intelligence and her ability to make everyone feel comfortable. However, when any single man settled beside her to talk seriously, or stayed behind when Robert himself had to leave, or arrived before he was himself in the house, Robert could feel a very strange sensation in his spine.

  If he had been a dog, he thought ruefully as he and Burghersh walked quickly toward the headquarters, his hackles would be up. The simile was embarrassing because it made Robert think of a dog in the manger, snapping at an ox to keep it away from the straw the dog itself did not want. Or did he want it? he wondered. But that revelatory thought had no chance to take hold. At the moment it arrived, he entered the room Sir Arthur was using as an office and was enveloped in instructions pertaining to the march to be made the next day.

  Chapter Twelve

  Esmeralda was not totally discouraged by her guess that Robert might fear she would become interested or arouse interest in one of his fellow officers. Even so much as that was a large step forward. When he had rescued her, he would not have believed any man could be interested in her. The very fact that he was thinking about her at all was an achievement, at least so long as he did not start to think in the wrong direction, that she was a nuisance who should be sent away.

  That notion brought Esmeralda hurrying to the door to shout for Carlos. Robert had simply accepted her statement that she would be ready to move out with the army the next day, but there was still time, she feared, for him to change his mind. From long experience Esmeralda knew that the best way to escape unwelcome attention was not to be noticed. And the best way to do that was to be out of sight.

  Esmeralda’s call brought Carlos to the door at once, and again she blessed the twist of fate that had made Robert choose Luisa to carry their baggage. There were countless advantages to having the small Portuguese boy as her manservant. One of these was his youth and small size, which made it possible for him to go almost anywhere without challenge so Esmeralda did not need to bother Robert to obtain passes or identification for him.

  “Go into the women’s area, and ask Mrs. M’Guire to come to me,” Esmeralda told him.

  During the delay necessary for disembarking Spencer’s troops, Esmeralda had had a chance to make inquiries and hire a woman servant. Of the many who had applied, she had chosen Molly M’Guire, a big, strong, fresh-faced Irishwoman who was not new to army service. In fact, M’Guire was Molly’s second husband, her first having died in the West Indies of fever. Two of her three children had died there, too, and Molly had left the one surviving little girl with her mother in Ireland when she had been one of those chosen by lot to accompany the men.

  Esmeralda had asked her about leaving her child behind, because she had been warned that more than a few of the women increased their husbands’ pitiful pay by whoring for the rest of the men or the officers. Molly was good-looking enough to make that a possibility, and she might have wished to be free of the child to be more available. Of course, that did not fit very well with her application to be a servant, but greed might make her think she could manage all thr
ee occupations.

  “I almost did not put me name in th’ lot,” she replied in her appealing brogue, “but Oi tho’ght ibout it ‘nd decided it were M’Guire who’d need me most. Mam’ll take good care o’ Katy, ‘nd if they’re sometimes a wee short ‘nd flat i’ th’ belly, ah weel, it’s loike inough we’ll be short, too. Oi’ve niver bin wit th’ troops that we did no outrun oor pay ‘nd oor commissary carts.”

  It was a most reasonable answer, and Esmeralda was particularly attracted to Molly’s cheerful cynicism bred by useful experience, but it was meeting M’Guire himself that decided the issue. When Esmeralda had presented the problem to Robert, he had asked her to have the husband up and see whether he was willing and capable of being Robert’s batman and groom.

  “It’s best to have a couple, if it can be arranged,” he had said. “And I never heard of an Irishman who couldn’t handle horses, so that will be all right. Find out with what regiment he’s serving if he seems suitable.”

  Not only was M’Guire willing and capable, but Esmeralda liked him at once and liked even more the obvious good feeling that existed between Molly and her husband. It was clear that M’Guire was years younger than his wife, much less experienced, and not at all the type to look elsewhere if Molly played around. Esmeralda therefore settled matters as soon as she was certain that M’Guire was country Irish, not London slum Irish, and thus that his claim to be “well inuff wi’ th’ horses” was probably true. He would be responsible for Hermes, Jupiter, Mars, and Apollo.

  Nor had there been any trouble about M’Guire’s temporary detachment from his regiment. Caitlin Crawfurd did not wish to disoblige a member of Sir Arthur’s staff and, making the stipulation that M’Guire should be with his company in time for any action, excused him from all duties except roll call. And since Robert was far more interested in having his horses and weapons well cared for than in the perfection of the shine on his boots, M’Guire was an adequate servant.