‘Yes, that is true, but I was his commanding officer, Finlay. He died for the cause, but it was under my watch.’
He could not argue with that, and it would be insulting to do so. At a loss, he poured her the last of the coffee.
She nodded her thanks and cupped her hands around the tin mug, staring into the fire. ‘How do you reconcile that, Finlay? You must have sacrificed many of your men for the cause, the greater good. How do you do it?’
Her question caught him unawares. ‘You do it by not thinking about it and simply obey the orders you are given. It is for others to weigh the moral balance,’ Finlay said. It was the stock answer. The army answer. It was a steaming mound of horse manure, and Isabella knew it.
She drained her coffee again, and narrowed her eyes at him. ‘You told me that if you had not been so insubordinate you would have been promoted beyond major by now. There are some orders you do not obey. You choose, on occasion, your own path. You follow your own instincts.’
He smiled wryly. ‘I’ve always had a penchant for intelligent women, but until I met you, I never thought there could be such a thing as a lass who was too clever.’
‘Don’t mock me.’
‘Isabella, I wouldn’t dare, I was simply— You’ve a habit of asking difficult questions, do you know that?’
She raised her empty cup in salute. ‘I am not the only one.’
‘Aye, well, there you go.’ Finlay picked up his knife and began to cut the piece of uneaten bread before him into smaller and smaller cubes. ‘You’re right. Of course I make choices. While there’s always someone up the ranks to blame if things go awry, that’s not my way, any more than it’s my way to ask my men to do something I would not.’
‘Such as cross enemy lines to reconnoitre a French arms dump?’
‘Ach, that was more a case of my being bored and needing to see a wee bit of action. I’m wondering, though, if you were not in the habit of actually fighting, what you were doing there that night?’
‘Ach,’ Isabella replied in a fair attempt at his own accent, ‘that was a case of my being bored and needing to see a wee bit of action, too. I did not fight,’ she continued, reverting to her own voice, ‘but I did try to ensure that El Fantasma’s reputation for infallibility was preserved, since it was good for morale. It was my father, as usual, who heard the rumours of French activity. He thought that I had others investigate them, but towards the end of the war, more often than not I did that myself.’ Isabella gazed into the fire. ‘I think—I thought that Papa would be proud of me, of El Fantasma, but Consuela, all the things she said... I don’t know, Finlay. I am not so certain now. For Papa, his family came before everything, while I—I think, I think I have been putting myself first.’ She sniffed. ‘I am sorry. More self-pity. Excuse me.’
She got to her feet, but before she could move towards the door of the hut, Finlay caught her. ‘How can you be so daft?’ he said, pulling her into his arms, tilting her face up to force her to look at him. ‘You’ve not been wielding a gun, but you’ve been fighting for your country all the same. You’ve put everyone but yourself first, Isabella. Selfish—that’s the very last thing I’d call you.’
‘Daft, that is what you called me. You mean stupid.’
‘No. It can mean stupid right enough, but these auld Scots words, they’ve a wheen of other meanings.’
He was pleased to see that her tears had dried, her lips forming a shaky smile. ‘Such as?’
‘Such as brave, and bold. Such as beautiful and bright. Such as surprising.’
‘Because I admit I was wrong?’
‘Because you question yourself.’ Reluctantly, he let her go. She was too distracting, and what was more she deserved an honest answer to her original question—or as honest as he could muster. He sat down on the mud-packed floor once more. ‘You asked me how I choose between duty and human life, and I don’t really know how to answer that. I’ve fought on battlefields where people make their homes. I’ve staged sieges in towns where women and children and old men and old women are living. I’d like to think that it’s been worthwhile. Whenever my men have crossed the line in the aftermath of a battle—and there have been times—I’ve made sure they faced the consequences.’ The memories of some of those times made him wince. Finlay rubbed his eyes. ‘I’ve gone against some orders where my conscience has pricked me, but I’ve acted on others where I’ve been faced with the consequences only afterwards.’ More images, worse ones, flickered through his mind. He shook his head in an effort to disperse them. ‘I’m a soldier. I am trained to obey orders. I’m not supposed to question them. I’m supposed to trust that my superiors will act honourably, in the name of our country, but war...it isn’t like that, not all the time. Sometimes the lines are blurred and I—I have not always questioned as perhaps I ought.’
He had not noticed her sitting down beside him until she took his hand in hers. ‘But you did question the orders you were given when you came here,’ she said gently. ‘When I told you who I was, you could have acted then, but instead of taking me by force you waited, tried to persuade me to leave voluntarily.’
‘Not very successfully.’ Her fingers were long and slender, so small compared to his.
‘On the contrary,’ Isabella said. ‘You have saved my life.’
Gazing at her liquid amber eyes, holding her delicate hand between his, Finlay had the strangest feeling. Heartache? ‘Not yet, I haven’t. We’re not out of the woods yet,’ he said, as much to himself as Isabella.
‘What is more, you are committing treason to protect me,’ she said. ‘Your orders from the great duke were to silence me.’
‘Aye, well, that was one of those orders I’d never find it in my conscience to obey, but it’s not treason, Isabella, not really. As far as the duke is concerned, El Fantasma will be silenced, just not in the way he’s expecting.’
‘But surely lying to the Duke of Wellington is as good as committing treason? Finlay Urquhart, I do believe you are a hero. Foolish, reckless, but a hero nonetheless.’
‘Stop it, or you’ll have me blushing like a wee lassie.’
Isabella’s mouth curved into a smile. She closed the gap between them, reaching up to touch his cheek. ‘You’re no lassie. You’re a man, a beautiful man.’
‘Well, there, you see, you’re wrong. Nobody could describe me as beautiful.’
‘Oh, but you are.’ She ran her fingers through his hair. ‘The first time ever I met you, I thought, there is a man who will attract a second and a third glance.’
Her smile did terrible, wonderful things to him. It stirred his blood, that smile. It made him want to devour her. For she was a feast. A banquet.
Her mouth was only a few inches from his. Her fingers were feathering the skin at the nape of his neck. ‘You can’t call a rough, burly Highlander beautiful,’ Finlay said in a vain attempt to change the subject.
‘I just did,’ Isabella said with a mischievous smile. ‘And I’m not referring to your appearance. You are a beautiful man, Finlay Urquhart, because you have saved my life. You have risked your life—are risking your life for me. I am completely in your debt, as are my family, though they do not know it. You will always have a special place in my heart because of that, regardless of what the future holds.’
‘Then, that is all the reward I need,’ Finlay said, surprising himself by the depth of emotion in his voice. Forcing himself to get to his feet, he stamped out the fire and began to pack up. ‘As to the future, that can keep for later. We’ve a few more miles to put between us and Hermoso Romero first.’
Chapter Ten
They headed west once more, travelling at a fast pace for some hours, which precluded conversation, before slowing to a walk to give the horses a breather in the late afternoon. ‘Tafalla is just ahead,’ Isabella said. ‘Were you ever there?’
Finlay shook his head. ‘No. I think it was used as a garrison late in the campaign, but I was never quartered there.’
‘It was one of the towns in the Navarre most heavily fortified by the French,’ Isabella told him. ‘Our partisan, Mina, he liberated it with the help of some of your British navy guns.’
‘I’ve heard of Mina, though I have never met him.’
‘Nor did I.’ Isabella made a face. ‘He would not have been interested in a mere woman, I don’t think. Now, if he had known I was El Fantasma—but no, I will not talk of that. El Fantasma no longer exists. Now I am merely Isabella Romero—whomever she may turn out to be. A woman of means, you need not worry about that,’ she said, with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. ‘Not only do I have all my jewellery, which will fetch a pretty penny, but I have the bulk of this quarter’s allowance. My papa left me well provided for, you know. I must find a way to make alternative arrangements with the bank to have the payments sent on to me.’
‘Isabella.’ Finlay drew his horse to a halt, leaning over to catch her reins at the same time. His expression was stern. ‘You can’t touch that money.’
All morning, as they rode, she had been trying to imagine herself in America, but the more she tried, the more terrified she became. She had promised Finlay she would go, she desperately wanted to fulfil that promise, but as the prospect became more real with every mile they travelled—the sheer terror of being on her own, of a future without shape ate away at her resolve. Her courage deserted her. ‘Finlay,’ she beseeched him now, unable to stop herself, ‘is there no alternative to my going to America? May I not remain in Spain and make a new life for myself where no one knows me? It is a big country.’
His expression became grim. ‘Not big enough. I thought I’d made it clear—those men will not give up. I know this is hard for you, and I’m right sorry to have to be the one to open your eyes, but you can’t carry on living as Isabella Romero.’
‘You mean I must take a new name, a new identity?’
‘Aye.’
‘That is why I cannot claim my allowance?’
‘Not the only reason.’
There was a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Finlay looked like a man trying to swallow poison. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’ she asked.
He ran his fingers through his hair, then straightened his shoulders, giving her a direct look. ‘Isabella Romero has to die. There’s no other way to put an end to this.’
‘Die.’ She clutched at her breast. For a horrible moment she thought he had tricked her and meant it literally. But this was Finlay; he would not harm her, she knew that instinctively. She furrowed her brow. She remembered, vaguely, that conversation on the hillside the day before Estebe died. It seemed so long ago. ‘You mean that the world—Xavier, Consuela, my nephew, even the bank—must believe that I am dead?’
‘It is the only way to guarantee your safety. I thought you understood that. I thought I’d made it clear.’
‘Did you? I don’t know. I can’t remember. No, that is not fair of me, I know you did, only...’ Her voice was rising in panic. She tried breathing deeply, tried to remember. ‘I can’t go to America, Finlay,’ she said. ‘Please, there must be another way. I know that’s what you said, I know it’s what I promised, but I didn’t think— I mean, I have not thought— Surely there must be a safe haven somewhere that does not require me to go halfway across the world.’
Her horse was twitching nervously. Finlay dismounted and pulled her unresisting from the saddle, tethering both sets of reins to the stump of a fallen tree before taking her hands in his. ‘You can’t stay in Spain. You can’t come to England with me. I know a wee bit of the ways of these government men, Isabella, from my friend Jack. Their reach is frightening, and those in power across the Continent, they’re all in each other’s pockets. I doubt very much that there would be anywhere in Europe safe for you.’
‘But America!’
‘The New World, they call it. Think about it,’ he said, with a reassuring smile. ‘A place where you can start again, completely afresh. A place where none of the old rules apply, where the restrictions you’ve been fighting don’t exist. They say a man—or a woman—can do anything, achieve anything there, just by dint of hard work. It’s a land of equal opportunity, a blank canvas. Isn’t that precisely what you’ve been fighting for?’
‘I’ve been fighting to have such a society in my own country.’
‘A country that regards you as a traitor. You could help shape society in America, Isabella, not waste your time trying to dismantle the existing one in Spain.’
‘You make it sound like utopia.’
Finlay’s smile faltered. His grip on her tightened. ‘I’m sure it’s not, but there exists the opportunity to make it so. If anyone can contribute to that it’s you.’
‘You’re just saying that to reassure me.’
His eyes darkened. His smile disappeared all together. For a moment, she thought he looked quite desolate, but then he shook his head. ‘I’m saying it because I believe it to be true. You’re apprehensive, and no wonder. It will be a—a challenge. You’ll be lonely. Things will be strange and unfamiliar. But you’ll be alive, Isabella. I look at you, and I know you can do anything you set your mind to. Take this chance, lass, I’m begging you to take this chance, because it’s the only one you have.’
He meant it. He was telling her the plain, unvarnished truth, just as he had told her the plain, unvarnished truth about the horrors she’d be subjected to if she was captured. If she did not leave Spain, she would die. If she went to England, she would die. If she travelled to France or to Italy, or to Prussia, or even Russia, they would find her eventually, and she would die. She did not want to die. Faced with the very real prospect, she was filled with defiance and determination, and a very strong will to live, indeed. ‘I don’t want to die,’ she said.
He pulled her into his arms and held her so tight she could hardly breathe. ‘You won’t. I won’t let them get to you. I’ll keep you safe, I promise you.’
Her face was muffled against his coat. She could feel his heart beating against her cheek. She knew he would lay down his life for her if he had to. She had already witnessed one life sacrificed for her. She could not risk another. And especially not this one. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said wretchedly. ‘I’m so sorry, Finlay. I will do as you say.’
‘Don’t cry. Oh, God, Isabella, don’t cry.’
‘I’m not crying.’
‘You’ve every right to.’ Finlay mopped her tears with his handkerchief. ‘You’re being so brave.’
‘I’m not. I’m being—what is it? Feart. I am feart.’
‘If you were not, I’d worry about your sanity. If it was me, I’d be feart. If I could find a way to escort you myself...’
‘Don’t be daft,’ she said softly. ‘You have to arrange El Fantasma’s tragic death, and then you have to go back to England and tell the great duke what has happened, and then you have to go back to the army and once again become Major Finlay Urquhart, the Jock Upstart, and forget all about me.’
‘I’ll never forget you, Isabella. I will never, ever be able to forget you.’
‘I can see how it might be difficult to forget a woman who put your life in mortal danger,’ she said lightly, in an effort to lighten the mood.
‘It’s not that I will remember. I have much more pleasant memories of our time together than that to keep me warm at night.’
Isabella felt herself blush slightly. His visage was no longer grim. His sea-blue eyes were no longer pained. She would have to be very careful not to make him fret for her. She did not want to be a source of worry. She had caused him enough worry. She would do her very best to be the bold, bright, brave partisan he thought her. She would not only comply with the future he had arranged for her, she would embrace it. ‘So I’
m to sail for America,’ Isabella said. ‘Should we not then be heading north, for the coast?’
‘In good time. They will be searching for us there. It’s the obvious place to look.’
‘Which is why we’re heading west. For how much longer?’
‘It’s been nigh on a week and there’s been no sign of any pursuers. Another day and I think we will be safe enough.’ Finlay looked up at the sky, which had turned from blue to grey, with clouds like lumps of charcoal. ‘In fact, I see no reason why we should not sleep in a decent bed tonight, partake of a decent dinner.’
‘You think that’s wise?’
‘I reckon you deserve it.’ Finlay touched her cheek. ‘Not a word of complaint have I heard from you about living and sleeping rough for the past week. You’ve been a trooper.’
Isabella beamed. ‘That is the best compliment you could pay me, but I do not need a feather bed and a proper dinner if you think it is too risky.’
‘You shall have both. And a bath, too, in water that’s a wee bit warmer than melted ice. It’s the least I can do.’ He leaned into her. She thought he was going to kiss her, but his lips brushed her forehead, and then he let her go, turning toward the horses. ‘To Tafalla it is, then.’
* * *
The town was set on a wide cultivated plain, reached by traversing another ancient trail over the Valdorba Mountains. The warren of narrow medieval streets clustered with houses built from mellow honey-coloured stone rose steeply up towards a citadel. The more modern part of the town was built on the flatter land around the Cidacos River, and it was here that they had found lodgings at a small inn, hiring a private salon and two bedchambers. Finlay had made all the arrangements, under the name of Mr and Mrs Upstart, in his halting Spanish. ‘Just my little joke,’ he had told her with a grin.
Now clean, shaved and dressed in fresh linen, he waited for her in the small salon, gazing morosely into a glass of sherry that he had barely touched. With every passing day she was becoming more precious to him. And yet, with every passing day, the inevitability of losing her forever loomed larger. Their worlds had collided all too briefly, but soon, very soon, they would part forever. Isabella was destined for a brand-new world, and he to return to his old, familiar one, where his career and his family awaited. It made him heartsore to think of it, and pointlessly so. He would not think of it.
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