* * *
‘Finlay!’
The panic in Isabella’s voice was unmistakable. He ran to the bothy just as she jumped out of the makeshift bed and grabbed him by the arm. ‘What is it?’
‘I have to go back. Xavier—they’ll never believe him. I have to go back.’
She was dressed only in her underwear. Her hair was tumbling down her back, free from the long plait she usually wore. Her face, which had been so pale and set for days, was now flushed, her eyes bright. Thank the stars she was back to something like herself. He caught her hands between his. ‘Wheesht, now, you know that’s not possible.’
‘I have to,’ she said urgently. ‘They will come for him, and even with the letter— Finlay, they won’t believe him. They’ll take him away. I can’t let them take him away. I can’t let them— We have to go back, Finlay.’
‘We can’t. There’s no going back. I’m sorry.’
‘But...’
‘No, Isabella. Listen to me now,’ he said, before she could speak again. ‘You’re in the right of it. That confession of yours won’t protect your brother. It’s an unlikely story, I’d be the first to admit, that the great El Fantasma is a mere woman. Indeed, I’d have had a great difficulty believing it myself, had I not become acquainted with you in that ditch beside an arms cache during the war.’
He had meant her to smile. Instead, she frowned deeply. ‘No one will believe it. If only I had been Xavier’s brother, and not his sister, things would have been so very different.’
‘Aye, well, I’m not denying that would have made things a mite easier,’ Finlay said, unable to suppress his smile, ‘but a lot less interesting. I wouldn’t have missed meeting you again for the world.’
‘I have been a great deal of trouble to you. You told me not to go to Estebe, and...’
‘Isabella, you did only what I’d have done myself, in your shoes.’
‘You’re not angry with me?’
‘If I’m angry at anyone it’s with myself for faffing about, for not getting you out of there sooner.’
‘I made it very difficult for you. I was so stubborn, and I didn’t listen, and I thought I knew best, and—Finlay, what will he do? Xavier, I mean. When they come for him, how will he save himself if they do not believe him?’
He had stupidly hoped she would not ask him this question. No doubt about it, the shock had worn off, and her mind was as sharp as ever. He could lie to her, but she’d work it out for herself soon enough, and besides, he would not lie to her. ‘Sit down,’ Finlay said, steering her onto the bench and taking a seat beside her.
She did as he bid her, but without the docile obedience of the past few days. ‘What is it? What do you know?’
‘I don’t know anything for sure.’
‘You think they will discount my confession, don’t you?’
‘I do, I’m afraid.’
‘So they will arrest Xavier? Finlay, I can’t allow that.’
‘Haud your wheesht a minute. The authorities have been meticulous and thorough in their pursuit of El Fantasma, Isabella, we know that. They might struggle to believe that a wee lassie could be El Fantasma, but they couldn’t dismiss it out of hand. They’d be obliged to check it out—to eliminate the possibility. They are not the type to leave any stone unturned.’
‘So they will be looking for me.’ Isabella paled. ‘And Xavier will— Do you think he will— What do you think he will do?’
‘You know your brother better than I do, Isabella. What do you think?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘Think about it,’ Finlay said with a heavy heart. ‘What is most important to him?’
‘His son, his wife.’
‘No, there is something even more important than that.’
Now she was nodding to herself, clearly beginning to follow his meaning. ‘My brother has been raised to believe that he is the custodian of Hermoso Romero. It is his—I don’t know what to call it—duty? His heritage? His destiny? If he was shamed, if they took him, accused him of being El Fantasma, he would lose everything.’ Another little nod. ‘So what you think is—what you think is that he would do anything to avoid that?’
Though she had paled, she looked him straight in the eye. ‘Aye,’ Finlay said. ‘I do.’
‘Sí. And the only way to avoid it, is to— You do not think he will try to stop them coming after me, do you?’
‘I’m right sorry, but I don’t see how he can. Even he has not that power, and frankly, it is not in his best interests.’
‘I see.’ Isabella clasped her hands together tightly. ‘So that is why you have been so eager to put so many miles between us and Hermoso Romero. That is why you have been standing guard every night while I slept.’
‘Aye,’ he said, heart sore at watching it dawn on her just how alone she was.
‘If they capture me, Xavier will be safe.’
‘I’ve no intentions of letting anyone capture you, or me for that matter.’
Another faint smile greeted this remark. ‘But if they do not, then suspicion will fall on my brother.’
Romero would be in the clear. The plan Jack had hatched would leave neither the British nor the Spanish in any doubt that El Fantasma had been silenced, but Finlay couldn’t bring himself to explain this to Isabella just yet. She was only just recovering from one huge shock, only just starting to reassess her future. Time enough to explain just exactly what that future would entail another day. ‘Your brother is a powerful man and not without influence. I wouldn’t bet against him finding a way of convincing the authorities of his innocence.’
Her lips tightened. ‘If that is true, then had there been a way to save me, he could have found it. The fact that you did not even consider giving him the opportunity to do so...’
Finlay managed a wry smile. ‘Actually, I did, but I concluded the result would be your spending the rest of your life locked away in a nunnery.’
She stared at him in astonishment. ‘You are probably right. I think you know my brother better than I. It would have been the perfect solution for you, too, I think. I could not betray the Duke of Wellington from a nunnery. You would not have been burdened with me. You could have gone back to England, having done your duty. Why did you not...?’
‘Would you have liked to spend the rest of your life in a nunnery?’
‘No, but—I do not like being a burden to you.’
‘You’re not.’ He took her hand again, stroking the back of it with his thumb. ‘You’re not a burden.’
‘But I am. My actions have put your life in danger as well as mine. I have been so blindly selfish. I am so very, very sorry.’
‘Don’t be daft. I was sent to protect you.’ He carried on stroking her hand. Her fingers curled into his. ‘And I won’t be leaving your side until you’re safely on that boat to America.’
‘Because you promised your friend Jack?’
It was what he ought to say. It was the truth, but looking at her now, at those big golden eyes shadowed with lack of sleep, and the determined set of her shoulders, and thinking of the fearless way she had confronted the most unpalatable of facts, Finlay knew it was only a very small part of the truth. He could not tell her the whole of it, but he could not resist telling her a wee bit. ‘Because you’re a brave and honourable woman, the finest one I’ve ever met, and you deserve a future,’ he said.
‘I’m not feeling very brave right now.’
Her smile was shaky, but it was a smile. ‘It’s precisely because you’re feart, and yet you are still ready to face the truth, that makes you brave,’ Finlay said.
She touched his cheek, the pad of her thumb soft against the roughness of his stubble. ‘Almost, I believe you, but I think you are just trying to make me feel better.’
‘And is my ploy
working?’
‘Yes.’ She brushed his hair back from his brow. She leaned into him, and brushed her lips to his forehead. ‘It is working, but I think I have an even more effective ploy,’ she said, twining her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his.
She’d caught him unawares. She tasted so sweet, he could not resist her. His arms slid around her back, pulling her tight up against him. Her tongue touched his, and his shaft sprang immediately to life. He ran his fingers through the long, silken weight of her hair, spanned the slim indent of her waist, slid them up to cup the swell of her breasts, covered only by her chemise. Her nipples were hard buds beneath the soft linen. She moaned, a soft, guttural sound that sent his blood racing.
Their kisses deepened, grew wilder. She lay back on the wooden bench. Tugging his shirt free from the waistband of his breeches, she stroked her fingers up his spine. He shuddered with delight. He kissed her throat. He kissed the mounds of her breasts above her chemise. He took one of her nipples between his lips and sucked. The fabric of her undergarments became damp from his mouth, making the dark pink nub beneath clearly visible. He turned his attention to her other nipple. She moaned again, digging her nails into his back, arching up under him, brushing her belly against the hard, throbbing rod in his breeches.
He had never wanted any woman so much. He ached to slide into her tantalisingly slowly, inch by inch by inch, relishing every single moment of it, until he was as high inside her as he could be, and then he’d tilt her delightful behind up and push deeper. His shaft pulsed in anticipation. As if she could read his mind, Isabella’s hands roved down his body, cupping his buttocks, pulling him tighter against her.
‘Finlay,’ she said, in that hoarse, breathy voice that set his blood on fire. ‘Finlay.’
He kissed her again, hard on the lips, and she met his passion with a fire of her own. If he could only have her this once... If they could make love just this once... He’d give almost anything for that.
Almost, but not quite. He tore himself away, too appalled at his lack of control to care how it must look, jumping down from the bench and tucking his shirt back into his breeches, swearing furiously in Gaelic.
Isabella sat up, pushing her hair back from her face. Her eyes were huge, desire giving way to confusion. Confusion! She should take a look inside his head! ‘You are under my protection,’ Finlay said raggedly. ‘A fine way I have of discharging my duty, taking advantage of you like that.’
‘I rather think that it was I who took advantage of you. I thought it might make us both feel a little better.’
‘I’ve absolutely no doubt that it would, temporarily,’ he said, running his hands through his hair. ‘Isabella, I know that I have been—before— I know that I have been very much— Ach, for heaven’s sake, you know perfectly well that I find it almost impossible to keep my hands off you. But the fact is we are fleeing for our very lives with half of Spain looking for us, so it’s no surprise if neither of us is thinking quite straight. But that is precisely what we need to do. Keep our heads and focus on the task in hand.’
‘So what do you propose we do?’ Isabella asked.
‘I don’t know about you,’ Finlay said, with as much gravitas as he could muster, ‘but I’m going to sort the horses out.’
* * *
‘Well, that certainly put me in my place,’ Isabella muttered to herself as she stared at his retreating back in disbelief. ‘Spurned for a horse!’ Her body was still throbbing with unsated desire as she padded over to the doorway of the hut. Dawn was just breaking. In the growing light she could see that Finlay was not tending the horses, but standing on the banks of the stream that ran through the valley, less than ten yards away. Which I suppose is some sort of consolation, she thought, managing a self-deprecating smile.
She watched as he pulled his shirt over his head. He was close enough for her to see the ripple of his muscles as he stretched. Her breath caught in her throat. His skin was paler than she had imagined. His waist tapered down to the band of his leather breeches, which hung low on his hips. A silvery line of darker, puckered skin ran the full length from his left shoulder down close to the line of his spine. It must have been a horrific wound to leave such a scar. He rarely talked of the army, yet he had been a soldier his entire adult life. It’s not the same, he’d told her, when she had compared her time as a soldier to his. She had been annoyed, she recalled. Looking at that scar, remembering how she had fallen apart when Estebe had shot himself, she was forced to acknowledge that she had been presumptuous. In fact, she knew very little about Finlay. Always, he turned their conversations away from himself. This man she was watching, this man who shared her biggest secret, whose body she ached for, was in many ways still a stranger. He joked about being called the Jock Upstart, but he was no mere soldier. A major, and promoted rather than commissioned. A hardened campaigner. A man accustomed to command. It was a wonder that he had tolerated her equivocation as long as he had. Not that he had any right to order her about, but...
Isabella sighed. Actually, under the circumstances, he had every right, and yet he had refrained from doing so. He was an honourable man. A very honourable man. An extremely honourable man. She had offered herself to him, and he had refused, not for lack of desire, but because she was under his protection. Even if she could persuade him that gratitude had played no role in her kissing him, he would still have torn himself free of her. She couldn’t help wishing he was not quite so honourable. But then he would not be Finlay.
He had picked up the leather bag that contained his shaving things, and was heading a few yards upstream now, towards the small cascade that fed the stream. The water would be ice-cold. Isabella looked on, mesmerised, as Finlay undid the buttons of his leather breeches. She should not be watching. She should look away. This was an invasion of privacy. Her mouth went dry as he slid the last item of clothing to the ground. His legs were long and well muscled. There was a tan line that stopped just above the knee. His buttocks were unexpectedly shapely. She really should not be looking. He stepped out of his breeches, kicking them to one side, and she had a brief glimpse of him from the front. Colour rushed to her cheeks as she saw the jutting length of his arousal. Her knowledge of male anatomy came only from art. In the flesh—Isabella put a hand to her fluttering heart as Finlay splashed into the stream and stood under the waterfall—in the flesh, this man at least was quite blood-heatingly delicious.
Not a feast, but a banquet. She recalled Finlay’s words in the printing-press room. He had his back to her now, stretching his arms high over his head, letting the freezing water fall in rivulets over his body. He seemed to be relishing the cold, embracing it. It occurred to her, with a shock, that the icy cascade was an antidote to his passion, and she looked with fresh eyes at the waterfall, thinking that she, too, could cool her throbbing body there. What would Finlay say if she joined him? She smiled, allowing herself to picture the scene, but she could not imagine having the nerve to carry it off, and even if she did, Finlay would most likely reject her.
He would be right to do so. Their perilous situation was clouding her judgement, making her foolish and rash, and she was neither. Her smile faded. As he began to lather himself, Isabella turned slowly and returned to the shack. The time had come to take back responsibility for her own life, for better or for worse. She had a lot to think about. Simple things, such as her entire future! Not to mention the small matter of getting out of Spain in one piece. No, Finlay was right. They needed to focus. She could not afford to be distracted by a pair of sea-blue eyes, a mane of auburn hair and a body that Michelangelo himself could have sculpted.
* * *
Isabella, her skin glowing from the shower she had taken under the waterfall after he had returned from his own ablutions, her hair restrained in a long wet braid, had a decidedly mulish look on her face. Trouble, Finlay thought, though he couldn’t help but smile at this further evi
dence of the return of the feisty partisan he admired so much. Desired so much. No, he wouldn’t think of that.
The sparkle had returned to her eyes. ‘We need to talk,’ she said.
‘We do.’ Finlay handed her a cup of coffee, pleased to note the pleasure with which she took it, the admiring glance she gave the small portable trivet he always carried with him to heat the pot on. ‘I always travel prepared for anything,’ he said by way of explanation, ‘although I can think of no item of field equipment that could have prepared me for you.’ He was rewarded with a smile. ‘Here, take this, you must be hungry.’
‘Thank you. I am ravenous.’ She took the toasted bread and cheese, sitting cross-legged on the hard-packed mud floor, looking quite at home.
‘You’ll have found bothies like these useful places during the war, no doubt,’ Finlay said.
‘Bothies?’
‘A hut. A bothy is what we’d call it in the Highlands,’ Finlay explained. ‘A place for the cattle drovers to rest overnight on their way to market.’
‘This land is too mountainous for cattle, but, yes, to answer your question, during the war, such places were often used for storing arms. And hiding partisans, just as this one is doing now.’ Isabella finished her breakfast, and set her cup down, obviously bracing herself. ‘You were right,’ she said.
‘In what way?’
‘I was never a soldier as you were. I carried a gun, I witnessed some fighting, but I did not fight in the way you did. Estebe was not the first dead man I have seen, but it was the first time I had ever witnessed the barbarity of what a gun can do used in that way.’
‘I regret that you did.’
‘It is something I will never forget. Never.’ She gazed into the fire, blinking rapidly. ‘I know I was not wholly responsible for Estebe’s death, but I must take some of the blame.’
‘Isabella, Estebe was a grown man and he was a hardened soldier. He knew the risks and accepted them.’
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