A Mummers' Play

by Jo Beverley

  He was staring into space, now, looking into the past, perhaps reliving it. “It was a beautiful place even at that time of year—rich golden stone and fertile fields all around. The house was scarcely marked by the war, which was suspicious in itself, since the French armies generally left scars.”

  Just as you are suspiciously unmarked, Justina thought. But then she remembered that he was not totally unmarked and claimed to have other scars besides his hand.

  He was alive, though.

  He was also haunted by many ghosts.

  Suddenly enough to startle her, she realized that her interest was no longer solely to reveal the truth and punish the traitor. She needed, quite desperately, to understand this man’s secrets.

  “Many of their servants had fled or been conscripted into armies,” he said. “We certainly saw no young, healthy males. But the family was managing to keep in quite a good state with just women and older men. However, when we were admitted, we were told that the conde was absent and the condessa was ill, so the three daughters were the only ones available to handle our inquiries.” He came back to the present and looked at her with a hint of humor. “Did Simon mention in his letter that they were three very pretty and seemingly very silly young women?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But how did you know about the letter?”

  Humor died. “How could I not know? He wrote it that night, while . . . Later . . . later I saw to it that it was sent to you.”

  He’d sent it, that tragic, blessed letter? She didn’t know whether to curse him or thank him. Had he read it first to check that nothing there incriminated him?

  Oh, surely he had, damn him.

  “Now, where was I?” he asked, returning to the past. “Ah, yes, the three pretty sisters. The war had assuredly been dull for them, when it wasn’t being terrifying. The oldest was twenty-two and a widow, the younger two betrothed but unwed. They would all have been married and mothers in more normal times. They were clearly starved of company, especially male company. Since it was Christmas, they begged us to stay and eat the Christmas Eve feast with them, despite the disapproval of some elderly maids who were acting as duennas. There seemed no reason not to, and we could already smell the roasting pork. . . .”

  He looked across at her, and though he still held his glass in his hand, he hadn’t drunk from it for some time. “It was a misjudgment on my part, as was the amount of wine I drank and permitted the others to drink. As was,” he added after a pause, “agreeing to comfort the eldest daughter through the night. It had been a long and dreary war, but that is no excuse.”

  “Did Simon . . . ?” Then she wished the question unasked.

  “No. I told you, he spent the evening writing a letter to you, then slept the sleep of the virtuous. If the troopers visited the younger sisters, I am unaware of it. It seems unlikely. They were virgins, one assumes.”

  “I wish he had. Gone to bed with one of the ladies, I mean.” Oh, God, why was she saying these things to this man, above all? She stared in horror at her glass, again half-empty. Perhaps she, too, was a foolish drunk.

  “Perhaps you wish you had gone to bed with him,” he said, understanding altogether too much. “But it would have distressed him in his final moments, you know, to have used you that way and had to leave you unwed.”

  The last thing she wanted was his awareness of her secret regrets. She firmly put her treacherous wine aside. “Was it true, what the colonel wrote, that Simon’s last words were of me? That was not a polite fiction?”

  “Of course not.” As if discussing the weather, he said, “His precise words, if you want them, were ‘Oh, God, Jack. She’s going to be so unhappy. She takes things so hard. I wish . . .’” But then his composure broke and he looked at her with bitter memories in his eyes. “I honestly don’t know what he wished done or undone, Justina, except that he did not want to die.”

  It was Justina who looked away, looked down, then covered her eyes with her hand. Jack must have a gift for mimicry, for it had been as if Simon were there speaking exactly as he would have said those words. . . .

  And of course Simon would have known how harshly she would take his death. She had always been intense in her emotions, while he’d slid more lightly through life. They’d quarreled about it sometimes, she saying he was a careless wretch, he complaining that she had the makings of a worrywart.

  If she could believe those words, and she did, Simon had not suspected Jack Beaufort of causing his death. Perhaps there was a blessing in that.

  She took a deep breath and straightened to look at him again. “So, how did the ambush occur?”

  He, too, had put aside his glass. Now he tented his hands and rested his chin on them. “We set out in the morning in pretty good order despite the festivities, collecting the rest of the men as we went. I’d decided that the conde had fled to join the retreating French, but I could see nothing at the estancia that would endanger the route to Ciudad Rodrigo. So, despite the pleas of my partner of the night, we went on with our mission.”

  Justina was tempted to say something tart about his remarkable attractions, but controlled herself and acted the lady.

  “We were to go on to another estate nearby,” he continued, “one solidly anti-French, to warn them to prepare supplies for the coming army. We had to go a little closer to the French lines, but we didn’t expect trouble. The countryside was quiet. We thought that was because it was Christmas Day.” He paused for a moment, then added, “The French were ready for us at just the right spot, a place with no concealment other than leafless bushes. They picked us off like straw targets.”

  For a moment she couldn’t speak, then she said, “All except you.”

  “Lucky Jack,” he admitted.

  “A strange kind of luck. How did it come about that you were spared?”

  She did not really expect an answer to that blunt question, but she got one, tossed out idly as if of no account.

  “My sexual prowess,” he said with a grimace. “Senorita Dona Maria Bianca was apparently so grateful for the comfort offered that she begged that I be spared.”

  “What? I never heard anything of that!”

  He quirked a brow. “It is hardly the sort of detail a colonel would relate to a young lady. I shouldn’t have spoken of it myself, but you seemed to want the whole story.”

  Justina tried to weigh his words, his tone, and the look in his eye. If there was any expression there, it was embarrassment, not guilt.

  Surely that couldn’t be the explanation for everything, however—that he had been spared because he was a good lover! No, there must be more to it than that.

  “Why were you ambushed at all?” she demanded. “One small English troop was hardly worth the bother.”

  “Another detail that could not be told to you. As Wellington suspected, El Conde and his family were still on the side of the French. Seeing the way the war was running, however, they’d decided to move behind the French lines, but taking as much of their movable wealth as possible. We had the bad timing to arrive in the middle of the business and so had to be distracted by the pretty senoritas. Unfortunately our route on Christmas Day meant we would overtake the line of carts carrying the first of the goods. Dona Maria did try to detain us, but when she failed it was decided it would be simpler to dispose of us.”

  He studied her face and remarked, “War is like that, my dear. Few of the deaths make heroic sense.”

  Could she believe this story of petty matters? What of his talk of ghosts and damnation. No, this was just a clever tale honed by years of telling. She’d already detected a hole in it. “Why,” she asked, “could I not be told about the conde’s movements?”

  He shrugged slightly. “The military like to keep secrets. Cabrera is a powerful man, and everyone knew that in time both the Spanish and the British would want his support.”

  She gripped the arms of her chair. In fact, she almost shot out of it. “What? Despite the murder of a whole troop of English soldiers, th
e British would deal with him again?”

  “But the French slaughtered the troop, my dear. El Conde, of course, had no notion of the plan. He was properly horrified when he heard.”

  Justina had thought her rage was old, consisting mostly of bitter cinders and ash, but now it flamed anew. “And where is the Conde de Cabrera now?”

  “Back on his lands in Spain.”

  Justina collapsed back, as confused as if she’d been blindfolded and spun around. If this story was true, then this conde was her enemy and must not be allowed to enjoy his honors and his fine estate.

  But this story couldn’t be true, so Jack Beaufort must still be her enemy.

  And yet, so convincing was he that her original grief and rage were collapsing into formless misery.

  A touch of humor twitched his lips. “Simon always said you were ferocious. Are you thinking of going to Spain to denounce Cabrera and demand that he be brought to justice?”

  “Yes, if it is true.”

  “Oh, it’s true. He is back on his estates already.”

  She had meant if Jack Beaufort’s story was true. Had he really misunderstood her, or was that more sneaking cleverness?

  “You are painting a picture of remarkable sophistry and wickedness,” she accused, but she knew that Charles would have no difficulty with such a story. Politics and war were a series of cynical accommodations.

  In fact, she realized angrily, Charles had doubtless heard this version of the story and not thought it proper to pass it on to her.

  Desperately seeking an anchor point in all this, Justina grabbed onto her original suspicions and Jack Beaufort’s words. He couldn’t evade the fact that he had condemned himself. “Why did you describe yourself as damned rather than lucky?”

  His eyes snapped to hers, and she saw guilt there. In a bitter way it was a relief. It steadied her, caused her mind to click together like a clever machine. Lucky Jack was guilty, no matter what story he told.

  “Well?” she asked, even though she knew the danger of persistence. He must guess now that she suspected him, that she would pursue him to hell and beyond.

  When he rose and came to her, when he reached for her, she thought it might be to throttle her, but he simply pulled her to her feet. “Damned? Can you not imagine what it feels like to lose friend after friend, colleague after colleague, until you don’t dare make friends or care for colleagues again? Is that not to be damned?”

  If it was, she shared that hell, for after one loss she had not allowed herself to love again.

  And he knew it. He tilted her chin and looked at her, looked, it seemed, deep into her soul. “Justina, you must put all this behind you. You have life and must live it to the full.”

  Oh, that would suit him, to have her forget. “I have a very full life.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He kissed her then, gently at first, giving her time and opportunity to resist if she wanted, but she didn’t. They’d played out the first part of the battle with no resolution. He knew who she was, and probably suspected something of her intent. She knew he felt guilty, and even damned.

  Now he was going to bring out his heavy guns and try to seduce her into forgetting her suspicions. Perhaps he even thought he could drive the memory of Simon from her heart.

  With a start, she realized that even his strange proposal of marriage could be part of an underhanded scheme. A wife could not testify against her husband, so anything she learned here tonight could be rendered safe.

  Very well, then. She could encourage his base lust, but turn the weapons against him. At some point he would lose control and then, like Delilah, she would shear him down to raw truth.

  She framed his face, wider and heavier-boned than Simon’s, dark-stubbled now as Simon’s never was, but still almost as beautiful.

  Devil beauty.

  She kissed him back, opening her lips, teasing at him with her tongue. His eyes widened with surprise, then closed, almost as if in pain. But she had him in her power. She sensed it in the tension of his body and the change in his breathing.

  She deepened the kiss, and never stopped kissing him as he swung her into his arms and carried her into his bedroom, kicking the door shut behind him.

  He freed his mouth and smiled, a strangely tender, almost concerned smile that threatened to disturb her sense of purpose.

  He was the dragon, she reminded herself. Or Samson. Or even Lucifer himself. She mustn’t let herself think of him as a man.

  As he slid her to her feet she closed her eyes and held onto her vision of wickedness cloaked in charm. It was supported by the expertise with which he unfastened buttons and peeled her gown down to pool around her feet on the carpet.

  He’s handled hundreds of women like this, Justina.

  Bare fingers touched bare shoulders and she caught her breath, reminding herself that she must not succumb.

  But then a silent stillness forced her to open her eyes. He was staring at the locket nestled between her breasts.

  “May I?” he asked, sliding fingers down to touch it.

  She wanted to refuse, but she nodded, and he flicked open the silver case.

  “It’s an excellent picture,” he said gruffly, his expression satisfyingly full of guilt. She carefully didn’t look at the picture herself.

  “Does it bother you?” she asked. “I won’t take it off.”

  If there had been dark guilt in his face, it disappeared. “No,” he said, snapping the locket shut. “It doesn’t bother me.”

  He turned her and unlaced her stays as deftly as any maid. Resisting an urge to cling to the locket, Justina studied a picture on the wall. It was a singularly unpleasant painting of dead pheasants, necks drooping over the edge of a table alongside the knife that would sever them.

  It strengthened her. She was the knife, and soon he would feel it against his neck.

  He slipped off her corset and tossed it aside, so she was only in her knee-length shift. When he turned her back, she was careful to look at his ruffled shirt, not his beguiling features.

  “Nervous?” he asked softly.

  “A little.” It wasn’t a lie.

  He drew her into his arms. “Do you want to stop? We can. I’m offering a gift tonight, nothing more.”

  The sensation of being nearly naked in a man’s strong arms was new to her. It alarmed her, but in ways she didn’t entirely expect. “No. I don’t want to stop.” It was half-truth, half-lie.

  Fingers threaded into her hair, moving there in a distressingly soothing gesture. “My offer of marriage still stands, Justina. I think perhaps you have not wed because you still love Simon, because you are too honest to offer a man half your heart.” His other hand slid down her back to rest there, low and comforting. “I, above all men, can understand your feelings about that. I will be satisfied by half. By less.” His hand slid around to raise her chin. “I will be grateful for whatever you can give me.”

  A cinder, she thought, trying to see the monster in his somber, gentle face. That’s all that’s left. A black, brittle, sharp-edged cinder.

  But the cinder was suddenly trembling high in her chest, warming and glowing as if it still had life in it. “Are you doing this just for Simon, then?” she asked.

  His soothing hand on her back paused. “In part. He would want you to be rescued.”

  “From your great-aunt, the dragon?”

  “Not entirely. From this living death.”

  “Why?”

  “He would have done as much for me.”

  And to her own astonishment, she smiled. “Made love to some chance-met sad woman? I do hope not.”

  He laughed then, joy sparking in his eyes, and picked her up to swing her around, to carry her, circling, to his huge bed, where he tucked her, dizzy, between the warm sheets.

  Then he began to undress himself, folding his clothes with military precision and laying them neatly on a chair. He’d been an excellent soldier, they said, and well-loved by his men.

&n
bsp; The men who had died, so many of them, under his leadership, while he lived on.

  But that was the fate of an officer. Even Simon had spoken of it once or twice.

  As her Sampson, her dragon, her devil undressed, she saw his scars. A long one ran down his upper arm, distorting the muscles there. A wide one—a burn perhaps—splashed across his thigh. Neither muted the power of his solid body. She knew the dark hair on legs, chest, and groin was nothing like Simon’s would have been, had she ever seen it. She had never seen Simon’s naked legs or chest.

  Or his private parts.

  The effect of a naked, muscular man was so unsettling to Justina’s nerves that she fought back with a question. “What did Simon die of?”

  He stopped halfway to the bed, unconcernedly naked, but frozen by her question. “Of bullet wounds.”

  “But where?”

  “Justina, it won’t help to know.”

  “I need to know. I need to know everything.”

  It was a warning of sorts, though she didn’t know why she felt compelled to give it. Perhaps because they were both finally running out of disguises and balanced on the razor edge of truth.

  His hand tightened around the bedpost. “In the gut.”

  “Did he suffer?”

  He released that white-knuckled grip. “Yes.” But then he was in the bed and silencing her questions with kisses.

  Then she discovered why Senorita Dona Maria Bianca had begged that he be spared, for Jack Beaufort knew how to touch a woman. He knew when to be strong and when to be gentle, and he gave his knowledge as a generous gift this Christmastide.

  And Justina found it was a gift she could not spurn. Her long-neglected body responded to him as a parched man might respond to a fountain of sweet water.

  She hardly noticed when he stripped away her last trivial disguise, her shift. She made no complaint when he pushed back the covers to absorb her with his all-too-perceptive eyes, for it let her study him in turn. When he ran his hand over her body, she moved toward it like metal to a lodestone and only wanted to touch him as he touched her.