
1
The Pyrenees---Winter, 1813
The rock-walled room was icy cold. Winter had come to the barren, windswept slopes of the high Pyrenees while the dying days of summer still cast warm golden sunlight on the Spanish plains below.
The man bending over a small rude table occasionally put aside his quill pen to flex his stiffening fingers. His chiseled features, sculpted by a craftsman of imperfect skills, glowed amber in the flickering light of the one candle precariously perched beside an oversized piece of parchment whose edges flopped over the side of a rickety table. He swore, slapped the paper down as the insistent howling of the mountain wind rose in pitch, penetrating the stone sides of the shepherd's hut to lift the corners of his precious drawing.
Devil it! Blas anchored the paper with one large, skillful hand and shielded the nearly extinguished candle with the other. The gust blew itself out. The candle steadied and glowed into life. He tossed his overly long mane of black hair back off his face and frowned down at his work, his lips curling into a sneer at the ineptitude of his icy fingers. He'd been making maps for how long? Four years? Five? Six years since he had set out on a summer odyssey and traveled the length of enemy France from Calais to the Pyrenees. Then into Spain, and finally to the great port of Lisbon where he had planned to take ship for Greece.
A ship that sailed without him.
"It is late, querido. Come to bed." Strong feminine hands moved beneath the straight black hair that fell below his collar and began to knead his shoulders, providing exquisite relief to his tense muscles. Blas closed his eyes, laid down his pen. As he leaned into the sensual comfort of the woman behind him, she basked in the glow of his roughhewn features and wondered, as she often did, how she had been blessed with so powerful and generous a lover.
He was lithe, quick, and strong. A very fine lover. And, oh, so clever. How many times had she laughed behind her hands when the proud angles of his face softened into jelly and his brilliant amber eyes grew dim as he sat stolidly on his mule and pretended not to understand a word of a French soldier's so very bad Spanish. Oh yes, Don Blas was a man of many faces and many names, though he always called himself---with wide-eyed cheerfulness---Blas the Bastard. A joke, naturalamente. They all knew he was the Son of a Somebody---no one ever doubted it. An hidalgo from Somewhere. Which was why they called him Don Blas. He had long ago given up trying to stop them.
Maria Josephina leaned forward and brushed her lips down his cheek, her long black hair mixing with his, falling across his sleeveless leather jacket into his lap. Definitely more provocation than even the most dedicated spy could stand. In a blur of movement Blas shoved the rickety table with the precious map to one side, caught the candle and the inkwell before they obliterated his past week's work, and swept Maria into his lap. Cold forgotten, his mouth searched hers in a sudden furious attempt to blot out this miserable hovel in the midst of nowhere. "Damn it, woman!" he swore in frustration as his hand fought to find the bottom of her many layers of skirts.
A knock on the slatted wood door went unheard. A second knock. The knotty boards abruptly swung back. Marcio Cardoso's brown eyes flashed their disapproval.
"Marcio?" It was not an attack of modesty---or even guilt---that froze Blas in his chair. There was only one reason for Marcio Cardoso to be here. His old friend had not made the hazardous five-hundred mile journey from Lisbon to the Pyrenees to bring him good news.
Blas closed his eyes, rubbed his long fingers across his forehead. When he spoke, his voice was little more than a whisper. In the name of God, tell me what's happened."
P A R T I
Lisbon, Portugal---September 1807
She had been naughty, and Dona Felipa---shriveled old prune that she was---had confined her to her room. At fourteen. When she was a lady grown!
"For shame that you scatter your things about, making so much work for poor Juana," the elderly governanta had scolded. "A lady does not make unnecessary work for her servants."
"Pooh!" Catarina retorted, "Juana does not mind. Is that not why Papa pays her?"
So here she was in her room expected to do the work of her maid! It was not at all fair. Particularly on a fine September day when the heat of the summer was beginning to wane, and there were many fine places to go and people to see. With a moue of disgust, Catarina grabbed a petticoat from the floor, crumpled it into a ball and shoved it into a drawer, which she slammed shut with a satisfying thump.
Hands on her hips, she surveyed her spacious room with a jaundiced eye. Not even the most sympathetic survey could find that the removal of one petticoat had made a noticeable improvement. She would be here forever! Certainly well beyond the time she had agreed to meet Marcio in the alley behind the Casa Audley. He was to take her to the harbor to see the vast array of ships assembling for the evacuation of the Portuguese royal court and all British citizens. Including herself.
But she would not go. Her Papa would not go, so neither would she.
The evacuation momentarily thrust aside, Catarina stood quite still in the middle of the beautifully carpeted floor, her lower lip extended into a stubborn and unbecoming pout. If she refused to clean her room, she would go to bed without supper, and the litter of shawls, gloves, bonnets, and slippers would still be there to be picked up---by Catarina Audley---on the morrow. For Dona Felipa, although quite, quite ancient, had the memory of an elephant. But if she worked very hard and very fast, she might yet escape into the beauty of late afternoon in Lisbon. Then again, her act of compliance would be as good as admitting she had been wrong!
Feeling the need to lash out at something---anything!---Catarina grabbed up the large feather duster Dona Felipa had pointedly placed on her dressing table and took a hearty, though useless, swing at a fly that had been buzzing its way around her room. Her hand froze as a sound penetrated her fit of petulance. Her head came up; long-lashed green eyes lit with interest. A fine tenor voice was bawling out a particularly bawdy ballad, and the sound was coming closer.
Blithely dropping all thought of her dilemma, Catarina dashed onto the balcony overhanging the narrow cobbled street outside. A team of oxen with long curling horns was wending its way up the hill toward the Casa Audley, effectively blocking all other traffic. The ungreased wooden wheel joints sang a weird high-pitched descant above the rollicking rhythm of the carter's song.
The sturdy cart was loaded with wooden casks of wine destined for the cellars of the Casa Audley. The young man on the rough bench seat guided the team with seeming nonchalance, evidently more interested in entertaining himself and passersby with his rollicking song. Some of the song's words Catarina didn't recognize, but she understood the gasps and giggles from his female listeners, the broad smirks lighting the faces of the men. The carter was bawling out a bawdy ditty on the cobbled streets of Lisbon in broad daylight. Catarina's green eyes gleamed with delight.
He was a virile young man, the cart's driver, his skin weathered to a warm amber by the summer sun. Unkempt black hair straggled onto his shoulders. His white shirt was confined by a roughly woven brown vest, leaving his full shirt sleeves free to billow in the breeze. The planes of his face were irregular but strong, his eyes set deep above a chiseled nose, his lips full and inviting. Heedless of her fourteen-year-old dignity, Catarina leaned over the balcony and stared in unashamed fascination.
The carter emphasized the end of a verse with a flick of his whip. As he urged his oxen up the hill toward the house marked by a wooden plaque displaying a colorful British coat of arms, his eye was caught by a flash of white on a balcony. An apparition surely. A childlike nymph with glorious red-gold hair that cascaded well below the intricate wrought iron railing edging the balcony. A very un-Portuguese vision swallowed up in an oversize white apron and monstrous white mobcap. Clutched in her hand was a feather duster.
In one swift movement the carter stood up and swept her a bow without missing a note of his song. Not a mean feat from the bed of an ox-cart bouncing over cobblestones on wooden wheels. They were almost on a level now, the young man still standing on the cart and the girl leaning so enticingly over the balcony railing. He blew her a kiss. She betrayed her youth and inexperience by blushing a fiery red. With a wave he passed on by, seeking the massive wooden doors that would allow him entrance to the inner courtyard of the Casa Audley.
Catarina gazed after him until he disappeared from sight. Then, sulks forgotten, she tackled her room like a whirlwind. An ox-cart driver he might be, but see him again she must. When the last item had been hastily tossed into her wardrobe, she threw off the hated apron and mobcap and dashed toward the door to the courtyard gallery and freedom.
She halted abruptly, one hand on the knob, took a deep breath and looked back at her room. A frown touched her lovely face, a hint of the pout returned. She marched across the room, picked up the apron and mobcap and tossed them onto the floor of the wardrobe with most of the other things she had picked up. Poor Juana! She would simply have to give her the yellow sprigged muslin Papa had ordered and which so ill became her . . .
Catarina paused in the shadow of the upper gallery that extended around three sides of the enclosed courtyard of the Casa Audley. Walkways of patterned ceramic tiles added to the riotous colors of the garden, not least of which were the masses of bougainvillea vines in shades of purple, fuschia and glowing orange that encircled the columns supporting the gallery. In the center of the courtyard was a spot of peace where a fountain's graceful movement cooled a group of white marble benches.
Accustomed as she was to this small oasis of beauty, Catarina Audley saw only what she wanted to see. Yes, there he was. Unloading the casks into the yawning blackness of the cellar, aided by Marcio Cardoso and one of the brawny footmen who worked in the gaming rooms. The three young men handled the wine casks with seeming ease, keeping up a running banter in Portuguese and Spanish. Catarina thought them a very fine sight indeed, but the newcomer---the one speaking Spanish---provoked an attack of unaccustomed shyness . . . and other mysterious feelings for which she had no name. He was not handsome. But he was quite the most splendid sight she had ever seen.
Catarina had grown up in this sprawling house in Lisbon, surrounded by servants, never thinking to question her father's way of life. Though she had no recollection of purse-pinching, she understood Thomas Audley had had to make his own way in the world and accepted her father for what he was. An expatriate Englishman who, six nights a week with elegance and discretion, opened the public rooms of his home to an international clientele of gamesters. At fourteen, Catarina was far more accustomed to conversing with a wide variety of people, mostly male, than English misses many years her senior.
But now she clung to the shadows, her back against the rough stucco wall, and could not move. Nervously, she finger-combed her hair, smoothed her skirt, bit her lip. The iron stairs leading down to the courtyard were only a few feet away, but descend them she could not. The carter's elegant bow had been a mockery. He thought her a child. At best, a servant. And when he discovered she was the daughter of the house? Catarina muttered a few words she had learned while eavesdropping on the gaming rooms. It wasn't fair. To be only fourteen when she wished to dazzle him with her sophistication and experience. No, it was not fair at all!
Thomas Audley sat at his broad mahogany desk, one elbow propped on a sheaf of papers, chin in his hand, studying a closely written document. As he read, he occasionally ran a hand through his sandy brown hair, which at thirty-eight years of age showed not a hint of gray. A well-favored and modestly wealthy man, he had surprised most of his acquaintances by showing no inclination to remarry in the four years since the untimely death of his wife in her third attempt to give him a son. Though all who knew him agreed he had never expressed a wish for a male heir, many thought him inclined to give his only child, a female, too much freedom by far. "Thinks she's a boy, she does," was so often heard on Dona Felipa's lips that the words had become a household joke. Not that it wasn't true. For all that, however, even at fourteen, Catarina Audley was one of the most beautiful women in Lisbon.
A knock sounded at the heavy wooden door to his study. Thomas hastily turned the documents on his desk face down before bidding the person outside to enter. Throughout his fifteen years in Portugal many strangers had found their way into Thomas Audley's study---soldiers, priests, noblemen, merchants, farmers, fishermen, tavern keepers, students---but somehow, almost at once, he knew this one was special.
As the young man, dressed in rough workman's clothes, asked for a moment of Senhor Tomás's time in perfect Castilian Spanish, there was something about the flash of intelligence in the glowing tawny eyes, the arrogant hint of "you'll be sorry if you don't, damn your eyes!" Thomas decided his papers could wait. He eyed the young man, little more than a boy, with keen interest.
The arrogant, and musical, carter endured Thomas Audley's inspection with studied indifference. Never before had anyone dared look at him in such a fashion, as if to read not just his mind but his soul as well. It was a disconcerting experience, but he'd be damned if he'd let it show. Audley would discover he had a surprise or two up his sleeve, torn and dirty though it was.
In the next room---once the domain of Thomas's wife Elspeth and now the room from which her daughter directed the Audley household---a small figure tiptoed across the rug. She opened a closet door on the side next to Thomas Audley's study and slipped inside, leaving the door slightly ajar behind her. Catarina had long ago learned she could eavesdrop on her father's fascinating variety of visitors, and never had she been more eager to do so. With great caution she settled down on the floor of the closet and put her ear to the wall.
"I've spent the last three months traveling across France, Spain, and Portugal," the young man was saying in the cultured English of London's upper crust. "A friend in the Foreign Office suggested that if I should survive long enough to make it to Lisbon, I should look you up. He thought you might wish to talk with me."
And damn my eyes, indeed, thought Thomas Audley, making a heroic effort not to blink at the incongruity of the accent of a British nobleman flowing from the mouth of an ox-cart driver. He opened his lips to tell the boy to thank his friend for steering a customer to the Casa Audley, then thought better of it. Every instinct said this boy truly had friends in high places, and if he had just crossed France, Spain, and Portugal---almost literally one step ahead of the French army---then there was no one Thomas Audley would rather talk to. "Your friend's name?" he enquired blandly.
The young man, his nonchalant pose still intact despite Thomas Audley's penetrating regard, gave his informant's name. There was a moment of silence as Thomas privately acknowledged the boy was very likely telling the truth. "I thought to make the grand tour, Sir," the erstwhile carter drawled, obviously striving for the ultimate in nonchalance. "Seemed a pity not to do as my father did."
Young pup! Thomas had to look down to hide his twitching lips. "Came over with the free traders, I suppose?" he drawled with matching nonchalance.
"Yes, Sir. Then worked my way through France. Had to pretend to be a bit simple, to explain why I wasn't part of the Grande Armée. Also helped to explain my halting French. Not that I can't speak it, you understand," he added hastily, betraying his youth. "It's just that my French is too good for the role I was playing."
As the young man warmed to his subject, he came down off his high horse, revealing further glimpses of the eager boy beneath. Intrigued, Thomas waved him to a seat. An hour later Thomas leaned back and regarded the young man with something akin to awe. The boy had not only traveled across two hostile countries but had gone out of his way to observe army encampments and file every scrap of fact and rumor into an amazingly retentive memory. Detailed questioning on certain points brought out a remarkable ability to sketch what he had seen. Also vague references to a French mother and a Spanish grandmother, which would account for his dark coloring and his fluency in both languages.
"Are you planning to continue your grand tour?" Thomas asked with feigned disinterest.
A question of great importance. In the closet Catarina pressed her ear even tighter to the wall.
"I had thought to go on to Greece, Sir, but it appears that things may be more lively around here."
"Indeed." Thomas, fingers drumming restlessly on his desk, decided to throw caution to the winds. This boy was almost too good to be true. And far too talented to be allowed to slip away. "Since you already seem to know what I do here, I see no point in denying I could use you. Portugal is trying to remain neutral, but Boney is demanding the ports be closed to British trade. He may very well send an army to force the issue . . . possibly the one you say Junot is putting together. We may all have to run for it before the year is out."
Thomas paused, shrewd eyes veiled by half-lowered lids. "Perhaps you should continue your tour after all."
The young man's reply came without a moment's pause. "I'll take my chances here, Sir."
He was so young . . . so sure of himself, Thomas thought. No doubt the quintessential sprig of a noble British house, too full of nous to be satisfied by the life of a London rakehell. Not even wine, women, gaming, and duels were enough to keep this one occupied. "I suppose you have some knowledge of gaming?" Thomas inquired with only the barest hint of irony.
For the first time the young Englishman smiled. "I've been on the town for three years, Sir. I'm considered rather good at cards."
"I thought you might be. "Thomas maintained a commendable calm in the face of rising excitement. It was possible he had found someone capable of learning all he could teach him. "Are we agreed then? I'll find you a position here at the Casa. Anything else I ask you to do will be decided as we go along." Agreement was instantaneous, the young man's eyes lighting with enthusiasm. "You'd best give me a name so I'll know what to call you," Thomas added.
An arrested expression crossed the young Englishman's face. "I call myself Blas, Sir. Just Blas. I'm afraid my real name's a bit of a problem. It's my only condition, sir---that no one ever ask me my name or where I come from. You see"---he paused, momentarily betraying a strong discomfort---"my father doesn't know I'm here. And if he should find out . . . well, he's not above having me brought back by force."
"Shall I be taken up for kidnapping?" Thomas asked, arching an inquiring brow.
"I've reached my majority, Sir. The only one in danger is myself." The two men measured each other in silence. Thomas Audley would have agreed to a pact with the devil himself to keep the boy in Portugal. A curt nod of his head sealed the bargain.
"Shall I choose a Portuguese name?" Blas inquired.
"Spanish, I should think," Thomas returned after a moment's consideration. "We'll discuss it in the morning. It's time I set up the faro bank. You've met Marcio Cardoso? Good. Tell him you are to have food and a bed."
As Thomas Audley rose from his desk, Blas jumped to his feet. He thrust out his hand. The older man allowed some warmth to color his voice as he said, "Welcome to my house, young Blas."
Blas. Catarina savored the name. Blas. Very much pleased with the outcome of the conversation, she wiggled her way out of the closet, straightened her hair and clothing and walked lightly across the room. Her timing was poor. As she opened the door, a whirlwind grabbed her, propelling her back into the room. The door was slammed firmly shut behind her.
"What are you doing here?" Blas demanded, amber eyes ablaze. His grip on her arm was so tight tears sprang to her eyes. In all her fourteen years Catarina had never had cause to fear physical violence. Nearly speechless, she stared at the grim face hovering over her.
No! She would not let him intimidate her! She stopped struggling, straightened to her full height, only to find he still towered over her by at least six inches. "I am Catherine Audley," she informed him with supreme dignity. In English. "My father owns the Casa Audley. I have been in charge of his household since I was ten. This is my workroom where I prepare menus, keep the accounts, consult with the housekeeper. It is you who are the intruder here, not I."
"Daughters of the house don't wield feather dusters," he countered with considerable truculence. In truth, the girl's precise, upper class English, only faintly overlaid with the musical cadence of the Iberian peninsula, had already warned him she was likely telling the truth.
"They do if they have a Dona Felipa for a governanta," said Catarina with some bitterness. "Shall I ring for someone to tell you exactly who I am?"
She winced, and Blas realized he was still holding her in a grip of iron. "I'm sorry," he apologized, releasing her, "but if you hadn't been listening to every word between your father and myself, you would scarcely have spoken to me in English, now would you?"
Fairly caught, Catarina scowled up at him. "My father's business is a dangerous one, but it is not a secret from me. So listening is only a very little dishonest, you understand?"
"It's damned dangerous!" the young man snapped. "Knowing too much always is. You're to stop it this instant!"
"And who are you to tell me what to do?" In spite of her fear that her father might hear them, Catarina's voice rose alarmingly.
"I'm . . . " The young Englishman's voice trailed away as he realized he was nameless, a nobody, his power and authority far less than that of the very young female confronting him. "For the moment," he conceded, making a deliberate effort to shock her, "I'm Blas the Bastard, the Spanish ox-cart driver. And you are correct, I have absolutely no right to question your conduct."
Now that his temper had cooled, Blas examined Thomas Audley's daughter with the appreciation of a connoisseur. He found women delightful. A welcome and necessary part of his life. But this one was beyond delightful. Young as she was, she took his breath away.
Long waves of red gold hair framed a heart-shaped face of classic beauty. Sparks shot from large green eyes set under long lashes so dark he rather thought she must have been into the paint pot. Her nose, a bit larger than one might expect in a face of such porcelain fragility, merely added character to the perfection of her face. Women matured early in Spain and Portugal, and this one seemed to be caught in the flow of the world around her, teetering on the brink between the child on the balcony and the dignified daughter of the house. He wouldn't mind being around when she fell into womanhood. That alone might be worth his long hazardous journey from England to Portugal by way of France and Spain.
Blas gifted her with the slow, easy, infinitely enigmatic smile which had been intriguing women since he was little older than she. He was offering a truce. But not without having the last word. It was, after all, necessary to his twenty-one-year-old self-esteem. "The French could be here any time now, young Catherine, and knowing anything at all about Thomas Audley and his business could mean your death. We must all learn to be more cautious."
With the tip of his fingers he touched her chin, running his thumb lightly over her lips. "Keep that lovely mouth shut, child. And your ears away from knotholes. It would be a shame to lose so much beauty while still in bud."
Reduced to speechless idiocy by sensations far beyond her realm of experience, Catarina darted around him and ran for the door, leaving Blas with a very thoughtful look on his angular bronzed face.
In the course of the next five days not even the youngest stable boy was left unaware that the little senhorita was enamored with the young Spaniard who spent so much time talking to Senhor Tomás. It was understood, naturalamente, that he was not truly Spanish, for the Senhor would never hire one of the enemy to work at the Casa. So he must be one of the fine English gentlemen who would save them from the Corsican monster.
A proper match for their young mistress, all agreed. At fourteen she was of an age to be married. It was not good to leave such succulent fruit too long on the vine. Sin hovered over the Casa Audley. Such temptation was too much for a man to bear. And the English cavalheiro did not appear to be a saint. To be sure, he had not greased the wheels of his cart---had they not all heard the squeal as he approached? But the devil was strong in this one, and possibly the screaming of the wheels had not been enough to frighten the demons away. Heads shook from the kitchen to the stables. Senhor Tomás would have to have a care with this one.
Catarina, blissfully oblivious to the avid interest of her father's staff, had managed to contrive a half dozen accidental meetings with her hero. She had even been allowed to participate in the choosing of a proper name for her father's new protégé. Yet for all her effort, her conversations with Blas had been cool and stilted, his manner faintly condescending. A stranger might have taken him for a candidate for holy orders. For Thomas Audley had indeed taken a care, revealing with a notable lack of subtlety his daughter's precise age and her exalted position in the household. A position which placed her far above an anonymous spy, no matter how bright and talented he might be. As a result, Catarina's temperament had deteriorated from besotted to hurt to vast indignation. As her anger increased, Blas---who was far from accustomed to being warned off---grew colder. It might be said his attempt to please Thomas Audley had resulted in a fit of the sullens.
None of which, fortunately, were apparent the night he made his debut in the gaming rooms.
Catarina was waiting for him, tucked up in her favorite hidey-hole. Red velvet draperies enclosed a minstrel's gallery which overlooked the largest of the Casa's gaming rooms. An affectation from another age, the gallery had been included for sentiment's sake when the house was rebuilt, as was most of Lisbon, after the disastrous earthquake of 1755.
By the time Caterina was ten, her surreptitious use of the minstrel's gallery had become an open secret. If Thomas Audley had been a more conventional father, that might have been the end of it. But he was heard to say that anything his Cat might learn from her perch in the small gallery could only be of use to a female attempting to survive in a wicked male world. So leave her alone. Soon enough she would be called upon to take her place in the gamble of life. She might as well know what to expect.
For the last two years Catarina had been allowed to play hostess, upon occasion, in the gaming rooms. But now, this night, when she so wanted to be present, Papa had told her to stay away. Hovering over the poor boy would make him nervous. Nervous, indeed! Cat fumed. Blas had the hide of an ox and ice water in his veins.
The Casa Audley was a quadrangle occupying a full square block in one of Lisbon's better neighborhoods. Its two-story stucco walls, punctuated by balconies on the street side, rose directly from the narrow sidewalks. On the inside, the casa's rooms were built around a central courtyard, with a staircase to the upper story at each of the four corners. A covered walkway at ground level and a roofed gallery above provided access to each room. At the rear of the quadrangle were the stables and storage areas, with rooms for the male servants above.
The Casa's entrance hall, tiled in an intricate pattern of Moorish azulejos in turquoise, white, and black, provided a striking welcome to the Casa Audley. Its walls were hung with pictorial Moorish rugs, and a small two-tiered marble fountain, elaborately decorated with sea creatures, greeted visitors with a continuous tinkling of soothing sound. The gaming rooms, three on each side of the entrance hall, were as finely decorated. Indeed, many of the locals---Portuguese, Spanish, and English---considered the Casa Audley more of a gentile club than a gaming establishment.
If the two strong, brightly uniformed young Portuguese at the door recognized the young Spanish dandy who sounded the knocker, they gave no indication. He was, however, admitted without demur. The Spaniard paused just inside the impeccably decorated room to the left of the hall and surveyed it with a look compounded of mild curiosity and a soupçon of disdain. He, Don Alexis Perez de Leon, had seen better establishments in Madrid and Barcelona . . . and possibly Paris. In actuality, he was wishing that quizzing glasses were in fashion in this part of the world.
Not too arrogant, Thomas Audley had warned. At the moment Spain is the enemy and we don't need hot words. Be gracious. Blend. You are charming . . . only reasonably intelligent. Don't win too much money. No clever remarks, no peeking down the wrong bosoms. Wait 'til I tell you which ones are fair game. With such instructions, what fun could a young man have? Obviously, spying was not as glamorous as he had hoped.
Catarina widened the gap in the red velvet draperies and stared, awed by the transformation. Almost every trace of the scurrilous singer of bawdy ballads was gone. Blas's strangely pale face was surrounded by gently waving short black curls which gleamed in the light of the multi-faceted chandeliers. Folds of white lace fell from his neck nearly to his waist and were framed by a short black velvet jacket decorated down the front edges with a row of modest-sized mother-of-pearl buttons. Lace ruffles flowed from the cuffs of his shirt, falling gracefully over his fingers. His tight-fitting black velvet breeches were also decorated with shining pearl buttons down the sides. His broad satin waistband was black, as were his knee-high silk leggings. On his left hand gleamed two ornate gold rings. A diamond winked from among the lacy layers of his jabot.
And it was not just the clothes, Cat realized. Everything about her hero had changed. He seemed smaller. Lithe and graceful. A man who had never thought of doing something so menial as hefting a cask of wine. The bold carter who had bowed to her from the ox cart had been replaced by a pleasant, somewhat supercilious hidalgo of Spain who might possibly be regarding his Portuguese neighbors as some sort of backward poor relations. Then again, the Portuguese fidalgos and the many foreigners present were all the society there was, so it behooved him to make the best of it. An infinitesimal shrug of his shoulders, and Blas moved into the crowded room, watching the play at the various tables, nodding occasionally to those who caught his eye. How he conveyed so much without saying a word Catarina could not imagine, but he had done it. She pushed the drapery a bit farther out, peeked at her father who was holding the faro bank at a table on her right. Thomas was blandly returning his eyes to his card box, but Catarina was quite sure she caught a quirk of satisfaction on his lips.
Blas passed through the largest gaming room, which was devoted to faro tables and two of the new roulette wheels, imported from France. He listened politely to the click of dice in a room where hazard was featured, paused to observe the action at the vingt-et-un tables, an ancient game not much seen in London's clubs. The smallest of the six gaming rooms was set up for intimate games of piquet with a few tables occupied by elderly Portuguese gentlemen playing the card games of their youth.
Deciding to indulge in what he knew best, Blas returned to the faro salon and joined the group at a table where the major domo of the Casa Audley, Lucio Cardoso, presided over a less expensive bank than Thomas Audley's. Although Blas was loathe to admit it, he felt more comfortable initiating his masquerade under the aegis of Marcio's father than under the eagle eye of his mentor, Thomas.
Catherine's arm grew stiff from holding her peephole open, but she never took her eyes off Blas. When he finally scooped up his winnings and stepped out into the courtyard, she hurriedly vacated the tiny gallery, flying down the wrought iron stairs into the courtyard. He was seated on one of the curved marble benches by the softly tinkling fountain, smoking a pungent cigarillo, patently enjoying the quiet courtyard and the cool night air.
"Curling tongs?" Catarina challenged, poised before him, a picture of demure innocence as she clutched her shawl high around her neck.
Flaunting her innocence was how Blas saw it. "Boa noite, senhorita Audley," he replied without a hint of expression, adding somewhat succinctly, "Natural. I have to use oil to keep it straight."
"And your face?"
"Lemon juice and a dusting of powder."
She nodded her approval. He was a worthy addition to her father's stable of spies. And strangely handsome with the irregular planes of his face softened by moonlight and the faint red glow of his cigarillo. The mist from the fountain blended with the smell of earth still warm from the afternoon sun and the courtyard flowers whose blooms lingered through the gentle Lisboan autumn.
Catarina was too young to know any other word for what she felt but love. He was strong and brilliant, gifted beyond any other she had ever known. She could no more have left him sitting there alone than she could have drowned herself in the Tagus. Still clutching her shawl high under her chin, all trace of the proud daughter of the house swept away by shy awakening, she lowered herself onto a scant few inches of marble at the far end of the bench.
With some vehemence Blas threw his cigarillo onto the tiled walkway and ground it under his heel. Hell and the devil! Why must the most beautiful woman in Portugal be fourteen years old? And his employer's daughter, to boot. Since coming to Lisbon, he could have had a different woman each night. Had had . . . almost. So why in the name of all that was holy did he have to want this one? This was not the kind of chit a man played with. Definitely not. Even sitting with her in the moonlight was compromising. No need to touch. In the strict culture of the Iberian peninsula his unchaperoneed presence was enough to see the knot tied. His choice, if caught? Parson's mousetrap or pistols at dawn.
Abruptly, Blas stood, sketching a bow while making a supreme effort not to look at the pale heart-shaped face looking up at him so appealingly. Nor at the great green eyes shining with adoration in the moonlight. "For God's sake, go to bed!" he growled. And what a singularly inappropriate remark, you dolt! With a show of stern indifference Blas the Bastard scowled as Catarina took herself off across the courtyard and climbed the outside staircase to the gallery above. She walked with immense dignity, a queen on her way to the guillotine.
When Catarina reached the door to her room, desire triumphed over dignity. She turned and looked down toward the fountain. He was still standing there, bathed in moonlight, like the statue of some ancient Greek God. Heart pounding, she bolted into her room, slamming the door behind her.
The next day Catarina shut herself up in her room and read Romeo and Juliet from cover to cover. Since Thomas Audley would not allow a copy of Thomas Bowlder's A Family Shakespeare to disgrace his house, Catarina read the play as William Shakespeare wrote it, blushing mightily over passages which had quite escaped her when she first read it at the age of twelve. If only Dona Felipa were more like Juliette's nurse! Then again, for all its grand romance, the silly twits managed things rather badly. Blas would never have made such a mull of it.
Catarina glared at her image in the mirror. Untying the drawstring on the front of her peasant-style blouse, she tugged at the gauzy fabric until the neckline drooped far enough to reveal an expanse of budding young bosom. Cat cocked her head to one side. No . . . perhaps not, she conceded. It was highly likely Blas would only laugh. And, deus me livre, if her father should see her! Reluctantly Cat tightened the strings until the neckline was only a scant two inches lower than approved by Dona Felipa.
She lifted the hem of her full black skirt, smiling in satisfaction at the many layers of brightly colored petticoats beneath. Sucking in her breath, Catarina tightened her gold satin sash another half inch before draping a black shawl, colorfully embroidered with flowers of gold, red and purple, around her shoulders. One more look in the mirror. She rubbed her lips together to enhance their color, angled her head to make sure her long dangling earrings were not tangled. With a satisfied shake of the bracelets on her arm, Cat left her room, descending the gallery staircase to the courtyard where Blas was waiting.
With him was Marcio Cardoso, who had obviously been imparting some last minute man-to-man instructions. Until Blas arrived at the Casa Audley, Cat considered Marcio her ideal of young manhood. Though only of medium height, his figure was lithe and graceful. A mass of dark curls topped a face handsome enough to turn female heads wherever he went. His deep brown eyes had soulful depths. Or so Cat thought. Now . . . now she tended to think rugged imperfection far more appealing. Obviously, she was growing up, Cat decided, with smug satisfaction as her feet touched the final stair.
As she approached the two young men, Lucio Cardoso came out of the house. Solemnly, he handed her a wicker basket whose bulging contents were covered with a red and white checked cloth.
The major domo of the House of Audley then directed his attention to Blas. "You will be careful," Lucio Cardoso commanded the young man who was so obviously unaccustomed to taking orders. "Catarina has done this many times, so do not fail to do exactly as she says. No, you will not protest this! She is experienced, you are not. We are allowing you to take Marcio's place because you have done well in the other tasks we have given you. So tonight you are to be entrusted with the most precious possession of Senhor Tomás---his Catarina and the contents of this basket. Now off with you. Do as she tells you. And nothing else!"
Inside his study Thomas Audley let the drapery fall back in place. Sitting down heavily at his desk, he breathed a deep sigh,. With his country's secrets he would trust the enigmatic young Englishman without a qualm. With Catarina he was not so sure.
The gaming rooms of the Casa Audley were just beginning to fill with customers when Blas, dressed in the peasant's clothes he had worn the day he arrived, and Catarina slipped out a small door set into the massive wooden gates at the rear of the house. The gates through which Blas, a month earlier, had driven his ox-cart with the eerily squeaking wheels. As they entered the dark narrow street, Catarina pulled the shawl up over her head, draping it into a cowl that hid her face from view.
"Blast it, girl," Blas protested, "this isn't the harim. Or is this the approved ensemble for baby spies? If so, let me assure you it's a tad obvious!"
"You think you know everything!" Cat hissed, quivering with youthful indignation. "Portuguese women are almost as sheltered as the women of the harim. Inside the Casa I am allowed freedom because I am the daughter of a mad inglês and only to be pitied because I was not brought up in the proper manner. But in the streets I must be modest. I must also carry the basket, for it is not expected a man would so lower himself."
"Shouldn't you walk three paces behind me?" Blas inquired sweetly. Catarina made a rude noise. "So tell me how long you've been making these trips," he inquired. After all, it was his responsibility to maintain some sort of polite conversation with Thomas Audley's only child, was it not? No matter what the provocation.
Catarina slowed her pace, glanced around at the nearly deserted street. (For most Lisboans the evening was as yet too young for socializing.) "Since I was ten," she replied, confident they would not be heard. "After my mother died, father arranged for me to meet other English children once or twice a week, usually at different homes, occasionally at the Embassy. It seemed perfectly natural for him to ask me to deliver letters when my governanta took me there." Cat broke her train of thought to add: "Of course we did not tell Dona Felipa what I was doing."
With a shrug of her delicate shoulders, she continued walking, her musical voice echoing mysteriously out of the depths of her black shawl. "As the war came closer, Papa decided it would be better to vary the trips as much as possible. He arranged dancing classes, picnics, birthday parties, garden parties, any means we could think of. And he gave me more freedom. It was fun to be a peasant girl and make night deliveries of baked goods to the Embassy kitchens. In the past year---since the Somersbys were quartered at the Embassy---we have slipped into the habit of having Gordy---he is their son, you understand---come down to meet me, as if he were interested in me. De fato, I rather think he is," Cat added lightly.
Bloody Hell! Blas came to an abrupt halt, propelling Catarina into the shadow of a deep doorway. With heroic effort he confined himself to a hoarse whisper: "You're telling me you've been a courier for your father's work since you were ten years old!"
"But of course. It has been neither arduous nor dangerous. In fact, it is very exciting. I enjoy it."
"Your father is indeed a mad inglês!"
"How dare you criticize him? You who must live by your wits as he does. You of all people should understand!"
The fight went out of him. When Catarina Audley was ten years old, he had been playing cricket and tormenting his tutors at Eton. He had been pampered, privileged, arrogantly indifferent to the world around him.
Slowly, Blas uncurled the hands clenched at his sides. The chit was right. This was a world not his own; he, the stranger who must adapt. He was Blas, a Spanish peasant, escorting a young Portuguese servant to the British Embassy. Time to play his role in this masquerade. "What are we carrying tonight?"
Catarina's breath whooshed out on a sigh of relief. An angry Blas was not part of her vision for their walk through the dark streets of Lisbon. "I have no idea," she admitted. "There is a specially marked loaf, with a swirl of dough on top. I give it to Gordon Somersby, and he takes it to his father. The other loaves are left in the kitchen for general use. So, you see, there is no danger. But if you do not wish to be part of it, I assure you Marcio will be happy to return to the role of escort."
"Vamanos," Blas growled, disconcerted by a sudden rush of anger at the thought of Marcio Cardoso and Catarina Audley walking these dark streets together. A tight-lipped silence stretched between them until they were admitted to the warmth of the brick-floored kitchens of the British Embassy.
"You're late, Cat," cried a pleasant-faced young man of some sixteen years. His open cheerfulness dissolved into grim suspicion as he caught sight of the black-haired peasant coming out of the shadows behind Catarina.
"He is called Blas," Cat replied to the unspoken question, "but you might as well know he is English as it will be stupidly uncomfortable if we must pretend with each other."
Gordon Somersby examined Blas with the rudely critical gaze of the young. "You don't look English," he said.
"Spanish grandmother and maybe a Moor or two on the family tree." How dare this young whelp challenge him?
Cat regarded the two young men with dismay. They looked like fighting cocks just entering the ring. The contest, however, was remarkably short-lived. The only casualty was to a young man's pride. Gordon Somersby, for all his years in diplomatic circles, was still a boy. Blas could give him five years and infinitely more experience.
Young Somersby, conceding defeat in the silent duel, squared his shoulders and recalled his manners. "Come sit with us then. Cat and I usually talk for a while."
As Catarina seated herself at the large kitchen table, she threw off her shawl. Tantalizing strands of burnished copper hair, dangling over an expanse of creamy skin, highlighted her décolletage. A slow flush spread up Gordon Somersby's face. Blas merely leaned back in his chair, his eyes never leaving Catarina's bosom. A wry smile of appreciation tinged his lips.
Gordon sent Blas a ferocious scowl, swallowing hard before he was able to speak. "Cat, my mother said to tell you she has made all the arrangements for you to return to England with us. Father thinks the French could be here within the month."
"Never! I will not go."
"Cat, you have to!" Gordon's boyish features mirrored his earnest concern. "Dom João has been resisting Boney's ultimatum about not trading with us, but father says . . . well, you know how wishy-washy the prince is. And the Portuguese army is leaderless, next to useless. Father says that if Marshal Junot comes with an army, as everyone says he will, the royal family will go into exile in Brazil, and Portugal will give up without a fight."
"At the very first echo of the pas de charge," Blas agreed drily. "And down will go any Englishman foolish enough to still be in Lisbon. Confiscation of property will be just a starting point."
"Been doing your homework, I see," said Gordon, not quite covering his resentment of the intruder.
"Which is why, Cat," said Blas---if the puppy could use this short form of her name, so could he!---"Somersby is absolutely right. You must return to England."
"It is out of the question," Catarina stated flatly. "But you must give my thanks to your good mama, Gordon, and tell her that my father has made other arrangements. I am sure he has discussed it with Lord Strangford," she added airily, not hesitating to cast the name of the British Ambassador before the two young men frowning at her so fiercely.
Outmaneuvered, Gordon Somersby changed the subject. "I can't understand why the Spanish don't see what's coming. Father says he'd wager a pony Boney will turn on Spain within the year."
"Oh, undoubtedly," Blas agreed with the touch of dry superiority to be expected from a young man addressing his juniors, conveniently forgetting both were products of households where politics, diplomacy, and intrigue were daily topics of discussion. "I fear all our monarchs leave a good deal to be desired. Too much intermarriage, one presumes."
"Incest," Cat nodded, startling both young men. "Papa says the Braganzas are nearly as bad as the ancient Egyptians."
"You shouldn't know about such things," Gordon declared hotly. "I do wish your father would learn . . ."
"Enough!" said Blas. "You won't win Catarina's regard by criticizing her father. Shall we simply say a number of European monarchies suffer from too little strong red blood? Since we are all at the mercy of our monarchs, let's be realistic, Cat. Take a look at what we face."
Blas swept the red and white checked cloth from atop the wicker basket and poked among its contents until he found a fat round loaf. He plunked it down on the far end of the rectangular wooden table. "Here," he announced, "is Britain. Snug behind its oversized moat, quite content to let the rest of Europe fight its battles. No, little Cat, sheathe your claws. That's the God's truth. Hear me out."
Blas tapped the top of the fat loaf of bread. "We have a mad king who is not quite mad enough for anyone to declare a Regency. Our new Secretary for War is willing to send men to fight in Denmark and Egypt and against the Spaniards in South America. But no one in merrie olde England, my lovely Cat, is willing to challenge Boney directly. So there will be no help from home."
Gordon Somersby nodded sage agreement. His father's opinion was exactly the same. After all, Thomas Audley was his expert consultant.
Blas grabbed up a modest-sized oval loaf and placed it in the center of the kitchen table. "And here," he declared, "is Portugal, which is blessed with a mad queen whose son Dom Jãoa has been Regent for eight years and is cursed with a sour and ugly wife who begs her father, the King of Spain, to invade her husband's country.
"And in Spain"---Blas slapped down a considerably larger loaf next to "Portugal"---"King Charles and his son Ferdinand squabble for power like princes of a petty principality instead of the third most powerful country in Europe."
Blas picked up the wicker basket full of the remaining loaves and placed it with dramatic flair at the opposite end of the table from the round loaf of Britain. "And here, beyond the Pyrenees," he pronounced, "is France with the best-trained army and the most brilliant commander since Julius Caesar. Believe me, Boney will not tolerate Spain's idiocy. So in the end, Somersby is right. Boney will have no choice but to gobble up Spain, leaving Charles and Ferdinand without a kingdom to govern."
Gordon turned to Catarina, solemn earnestness suffusing his young countenance. "He is absolutely right, Cat. You have to understand. There's no chance of rescue. Castlereagh won't send troops to Portugal, not even to protect the supply line to Gibraltar. There's no lack of ships---the French haven't had a navy since Nelson licked 'em at Trafalgar. But father says that even if our troops were ready, the government wouldn't send 'em. Boney's just too strong for us, and that's a fact."
Catarina's shoulders drooped, but a sharp eye could detect a stubborn set to her chin. "I think we'd best be going," she murmured. Cat picked up "Spain"---distinguished by a decorated swirl of raised dough---and handed it to Gordon before putting the remaining loaves on the pantry shelf.
"You have ruined it, Blas," said Cat with soft sadness as she returned to the table, the empty basket drooping at her side. "This has been our game, you see, a lark that added a bit of sparkle, a satisfaction to our lives. But you are too grown up. You make us see what we do not wish to see."
Blas's amber eyes regarded her with unexpected sympathy . . . and a dash of guilt. "I set out to cross a hostile continent in the midst of a war. An enemy in a strange land. That was far more foolish than anything you two have done. It's just that reality has caught up with us all. We are about to be invaded, and there's not a damn thing any of us can do about it." He held out a placating hand. "Come, Cat. It would appear we need to have a talk with your father."
The brace of candles in the Embassy kitchen was extinguished, leaving Gordon to find his way to his family's quarters with a candle in one hand and the loaf of bread in the other. Blas and Cat exited into the blackness of the stable area, their journey home illuminated only by the light of a harvest moon.
The streets were no longer deserted. Past ten in the evening, Lisbon was coming to life. Restaurants now cast their glow onto the cobbled streets. Music drifted through open doors, the keening sadness of the fado sounding over throbbing guitars. The lament of a baritone echoed from a taberna to meet and mix with a rich contralto from its counterpart across the street. Delicious shivers rose up Catarina's spine. Enthralled by the contrasting laments echoing between the two tabernas, she nearly missed one of the Casa Audley's frequent gamesters who was gazing idly out the window of a restaurant. With a sharp gasp Cat turned away, hastily drawing her embroidered shawl farther over her face.
Blas suddenly gave a hard yank on her empty basket. He strode across the narrow street, dragging Cat behind him. Giving her no opportunity to protest, he plunged into a dark tavern and maneuvered his way to a small secluded table at the back. Cat was struck by the smell of cigar smoke, garlic sausage, sour wine, and rank humanity. She plunked the basket onto the floor under the table, then clutched her shawl up under her chin. "You're mad! Father will kill you," she hissed.
Blas dismissed Thomas Audley with a negligent wave of his hand. "Anybody who looked the way you did when you heard the music deserves to see as well as hear. Look there, the fadista is almost as hidden in her shawl as you are. Come, Cat, take a peek! Now that you're here, it would be quite stupid to see nothing but the tablecloth."
Slowly, warily, Cat adjusted her shawl, raising her gaze from the checked cloth in front of her. The room was dark, lit by flickering candle stubs. The singer---dressed entirely in black, her head covered by a black shawl---stood flanked by two guitarists, also dressed in black. The obligatory costume for songs of lost love, unrequited love, of lovers separated by family, war, desertion, or death.
Cat felt her whole life beginning to expand. She was sitting in a long-forbidden taberna, listening to songs of love with Blas at her side. Idly, she sipped the dark frothy wine which appeared by her hand and thought it the best she had ever tasted. The French were forgotten. Life was good.
It was only when the musicians retired for a well-deserved rest that Catarina returned to some semblance of reality and realized Blas was not unknown in this place. He had been greeted with warmth by the patrão. He nodded to a remarkable variety of customers at other tables, received openly flirtatious smiles from at least three young women. Cat sniffed. Ladies they were not.
At the moment Blas was engaged in conversation with a man of middle years who looked more like a felon than a customer. Cautiously, Cat surveyed the room, peeping around the edges of her shawl. Aiyee! There were few women at all. And of a certainty she was the only respectable female present. With frantic urgency she tugged on Blas's arm. "We must go!" she hissed. "Instantamente!"
Blas gave the flowered shawl a measured look, then wound up his conversation with a laughing comment, a jovial backslap. Carelessly throwing some coins on the table, he made an elaborate show of pulling out Catarina's chair and helping her to her feet. With a firm hand, he steered her through the crowd and out into the welcome coolness of the October night. Cat was surprised when he conceded, "You're right. Thomas will kill us both."
"I think we must have had a very long conversation with Gordon. All this talk of a French invasion . . ."
Blas laughed. "Are you truly fourteen, Cat? You're a far cry from any fourteen-year-old I've ever known."
"You probably haven't known many," Cat replied demurely. "Young men don't. Papa does not believe girls should be kept separated from boys until they are sprung upon them full blown at age eighteen. It is one of the reasons he does not wish me to go to England. He says I would be quite miserable. And, besides, I would have to go to his cousin Ailesbury who is head of the family, and Papa says he would not have me raised by my Aunt Malvinia if she were the last female on earth. Also, I would drive her to distraction. So, you see, we must contrive something else. Papa needs me."
"He needs you alive!"
"Then you must find a solution. For you must understand, inglês. When the royal family abandons us for Brazil, when the British ships take away the English colony, when the Portuguese army fades before Marshal Junot's troops, Papa and I will still be here, doing what he has been doing since before I was born. I will not go, Blas. Absolutamente, I will not go!"
They continued their walk in seething silence. When they reached the deep archway of the massive carriage entrance to the Casa Audley, Blas paused outside the small door into the courtyard. Suddenly, he swung Catarina around, her back hard against the brick wall of the house. He swept the shawl from her head, tossed the basket onto the ground. His hands hit the wall, one on either side of her head. "You and Thomas are both fools!" he growled. "The French will gobble you up like so much froth on their just desserts."
Blas's eyes roamed boldly from the shining crown of Cat's hair, which even the faint light under the archway could not dim, to the creamy expanse above her décolletage. Then back to rosy lips which noticeably trembled. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath. "Ah, my lovely Cat, if only you were older . . ."
"I will be," she vowed, thinking each pulsing breath might be her last. Her heart threatened to explode through her skin. The chill night air did nothing to alleviate the heat consuming her.
"God knows I've tried to think of you as a child," Blas ground out, "but you make it excessively difficult. Yet I have to admit you are right. You'll grow . . . and then we shall see." He straightened, with every intention of removing the hands pinning her to the wall. Then slowly, he sagged back toward her, his face bending to within inches of her own. "Perhaps something to remember me by," Blas breathed. He meant the kiss to be chaste, brotherly.
It was not.
Catarina was far too beautiful to have escaped the experience of snatched kisses, and tonight she was a more than willing partner. But Blas's kiss was far from the innocent flirtatious nonsense with which she was familiar. His lips touched hers with the lightness of butterfly wings, a gentle brushing against the soft warmth of her, and Cat was quite, quite certain he was the one and only love of her life. This was Blas, and he was hers. Forever. A surge of terrifying sensation kept her frozen to the wall, unable to move, unable to think. A butterfly on the end of a pin.
A momentary taste of innocence and beauty. That was all, absolutely all, he planned to take. Blas drew back, reached for the basket . . . And then his lips were on hers, tasting the cheap red wine, its sourness banished by the sweet taste of her, the lemon scent of her hair. He explored Cat's mouth at leisure, hands moving to cup her body tight against his. His kisses strayed to her cheek, her ear, his breath gently blowing, penetrating as if into her soul itself. He bent his lips to her neck, to the cleavage between breasts not yet ripened to full womanhood. When Cat could not stifle a sharp gasp at this intimate invasion, Blas promptly returned to her mouth, kissing it into silence.
Hell and damnation! With all the willing women in the world, what was he doing here in the dark with a child? An English child. His employer's child. A child who had shaken him to the core, stripping him of reason. Very likely his heart as well. He had celebrated his twenty-first birthday that summer, having carefully contrived to be in Paris for the occasion. He had no intention of marrying before thirty or thirty-five, so---hell and the devil confound it!---what was he doing in a dark alleyway with an English child of good family?
If Thomas found out, he'd kill him.
Abruptly, Blas pulled the shawl up around Cat's shoulders, drawing it tight across her bosom. He thrust the basket into her hands, marched her through the small door, across the courtyard and up the gallery stairs to the door outside her room. "I'll think of something, Cat, I promise," he vowed before striding off into the shadows of the cloistered walkway.
Think of something? Cat's confusion was so great it took her some minutes to realize he was talking about the expected French invasion. It was another invasion entirely that occupied her mind. Surely it was a very great sin to feel so strongly. Graças a Deus the British rector did not hear confessions. Her guilt dissolved into a giggle as she pictured the reaction of stiffly proper Mr. Perceval Greenlea if she should tell him the tale of this night with Blas.
But it was of course not funny at all, for now she knew why chaperones were required for young ladies. She had always had confidence in herself. She was a fidalga, the daughter of a good family. She was intelligent, attractive, and much admired. She held her head high. Now she knew her feet were made of the same clay as anyone else's. Sin could be delicious, but sin it was. There could be no more flirtation, no more teasing. It was far too dangerous. As Cat undressed, slowly, dreamily, in a room lit only by moonlight, she willingly gave up the last of her childhood.
She was a woman. And growing.
"Are you busy, Sir?" Blas paused in the doorway to Thomas Audley's study, regarding his mentor's aristocratic features with unaccustomed apprehension. "I can come back later," he added hopefully, as an inner voice mocked his willingness to run from this interview. Ragged recollections of uncomfortable sessions with his father ran through his head.
A smile lit Thomas's handsome face. He waved Blas into the room, bidding him pour two glasses of madeira. When Blas was settled in a chair before his desk, Thomas raised an eyebrow and waited.
Blas, who thought himself master of all situations, had not been so uncomfortable since age seven when he had blundered into his parents' bedroom at an inopportune moment. What he was about to propose was totally outrageous. Preposterous. But say it he would. Though not without a certain amount of circumlocution. "Please do not think me impertinent, Sir---I have a very good reason for asking---but have you decided what you will do if the French invasion comes?"
Thomas ran a hand through his dark blond hair and pursed his lips, avoiding the disconcerting gaze of the brash young Englishman. Trust the young devil to make a thrust at his weakest point. "You are correct, it's none of your damn business," he replied without heat, "but since I encouraged you to stay in Lisbon, I suppose I must concede you have a right to ask."
"I'm not thinking of myself, Sir," Blas returned quickly, "but . . . well, Sir, young Somersby seems to expect Catarina to go with them to England. She is adamant she will not. I cannot help but wonder . . . " Blas's voice trailed away under his mentor's piercing glare.
Thomas drummed his fingers on his desk top, gazing past Blas to stare into the unknown. "You really are a bastard, boy. And you're quite right. I have plans for everyone but Catarina. It is not that I haven't thought about it. It's simply that I have found no solution. I suppose, deep down, I keep hoping Dom João will strengthen his spine and order out his troops or Castlereagh will decide to send us ships of the line instead of floating hotels for British evacuees!"
"Catarina seems to think there's no one in England to whom she could go."
"She's right," Thomas concurred, taking half his wine in one swallow. "I cannot send Cat to my parents. She is no more suited to a country vicarage than I was. And her mother's parents are Scottish Presbyters who considered their daughter lost to them when she married an Anglican who had the temerity to take her to live among papists. And as for my cousin Ailesbury . . . " Blas, who had met the Earl of Ailesbury, nodded his understanding.
"Malvinia Audley," Thomas continued, "would try to bully Catarina into becoming a proper English miss, and Cat would fight back with all that magnificent temperament I've never wanted to curb. She would be utterly miserable. And probably ostracized."
Thomas raised a clenched fist, brought it down with a soft thud of frustration onto the piles of papers on his desk. "No, I fear England is out of the question. If the French come, I will have to take her with me into hiding."
"May I ask where you will go?"
"To friends in the Estremadura. They have a winery staffed by old family retainers who will be loyal. 'Tis but a short distance from Lisbon, yet close to the coast so I can arrange for a fishing boat to courier messages to British ships. It is too far from the action, but we have little choice."
"And the Casa Audley?"
"All British property will be confiscated," said Thomas flatly. "Someday, when all this is over, I might be able to get it back. Right now, I have to plan for what is possible and not mourn what is not."
"Is there any chance Castlereagh will change his mind about sending troops to Portugal?"
Thomas drained the last of his wine. "One chance. If the Spanish discover who their enemy really is. If Spain rises against France . . . then old John Bull might not be so skittish."
So we could be talking months . . . or years," Blas said quietly, the challenge of the problem serving to steady his nerve.
"Yes. I'm sorry, but that's the truth of it. You should go home as well, you know."
An arrested expression crossed Blas's face, then he laughed aloud. "Lord, Sir, now I know how Cat feels! Go home? Just when things are getting interesting?" Restless energy propelled him to his feet. Before returning to his seat, he refilled their glasses. Determination settled over his customary insouciance.
"I have a solution, Sir." The room was so quiet Blas could hear the fountain in the courtyard, the doves cooing on the red tile roof.
"Go on."
"You won't like it. You would have to trust me more than any man should trust another, but I think it will serve." Blas bit his lip and plunged on, allowing a trace of rueful humor to lighten his determined face. "You may have noticed I am accustomed to command. I may be young, but it is my heritage to be in charge, to be arrogant enough to carry off the most outrageous masquerade."
Fascinated, Thomas made an impatient gesture for Blas to continue.
Within the hour he sent for his daughter. One look at the grim faces confronting her and Catarina knew this would no ordinary conversation. She seated herself and waited, hands folded primly in her lap.
"Catherine," Thomas said, "Blas has suggested a way to save the Casa Audley and maintain our base of operations in Lisbon. And since Napoleon, to give the devil his due, is inclined to run his conquered countries by law, it might just work. Blas's plan is risky, however, and cannot be accomplished without your cooperation, so the decision is up to you."
Thomas eyed his beautiful child with grave misgivings. "I may be a fool to consider this, Cat, but it is my nature to take chances. I have asked Blas to explain his plan to you. I will leave you in private as the matter is somewhat delicate in nature and is best settled between you."
Thomas rose and paused with his head bent, hands flat upon his desk. He took a deep breath, raised his gray eyes to those of his daughter, which were fixed on him with intense faith. "If you have any doubts at all, Cat . . . if you cannot feel comfortable with this, then say no. Nothing is more important to me than your safety. I will take you with me to the winery. Dona Blanca will be glad of your company." With determined steps, Thomas crossed the room, leaving Blas and Catarina facing each other in awkward silence.
For the first time in all his planning it occurred to Blas that what he was offering Catherine Audley was total ruin. Somehow, in his effort to keep the Casa, its secrets, and its young chatelaine safe during a French occupation, he had thought about the next months, even the next years, but never about the far-reaching consequences. Until now. By the rules of English society Catherine Audley would be irretrievably compromised by his actions. Ineligible for marriage. The alternative? He would be morally obligated to her for the rest of his life.
"Cat . . . perhaps we should forget the whole thing."
"I did not think you such a coward. Tell me!"
"Your father . . . your father knows people with a wide variety of talents," Blas began with cautious circumspection. "Among them is a very good forger. As the base of our plan, there would be marriage lines between Don Alexis Perez de Leon and yourself, plus settlements giving me the Casa Audley as your dowry. The marriage lines would allegedly be signed by the Anglican rector, who by that time would be safely out to sea with the British fleet." He paused and regarded Catarina with wary eyes.
She surprised him, replying only as a co-conspirator, not a very young woman being offered a counterfeit husband. "You believe the French will respect Spanish ownership?"
"It's a chance I'm willing to take. I would, of course, keep you in hiding until I see how they react. Believe me, Cat, I am not asking you to stand at my side while French troops march through the streets of Lisbon."
Catarina had been well schooled, her gamester's face properly frozen in place. Never would she let him see what she was feeling. She would do what must be done . . . and think about all else later.
"It is not such a bad plan," she conceded judiciously. "I would very much hate to lose the Casa. It is the only home I have ever known."
"I have made a solemn promise to your father that I will protect you. In every way. To the outside world you will be my wife. In private we will be as brother and sister. I have sworn it, you have nothing to fear from me."
Cat hung her head, contemplating the fingers which were still clutched together in her lap. "What if . . . what if I do not wish to be your sister?"
Blas jumped up, strode over to the window overlooking the courtyard. Standing with his back to her, he damned green-eyed girls, Thomas Audley, the Portuguese, the French, and the whole stupid war. "You have no choice," he growled. "I have already sworn. And you're too blasted young," he added with a touch of boyish petulance as he turned back to face her.
They glared at each other in silence. It was Blas who finally broke the tension. "Are we agreed then, Cat? Your father is awaiting your decision."
Catarina stood tall, her fourteen-year-old dignity very much intact. "You may consider me your sister if you must," she said. "As far as I am concerned, I am your wife." She swept out of the room, leaving Blas feeling very much the Bastard.
On the 27th of November 1807, mad queen Maria of Portugal, her son Dom João, his disaffected wife Carlota, the Portuguese court, their servants and guards packed themselves into the intensely crowded confines of ships of the Portuguese navy and set sail for Brazil. They went reluctantly, harassed into fleeing by the commander of British naval forces in Lisbon harbor, for the British were intent on keeping Princess Carlota from running to the protection of her father, King Charles of Spain. An ally of Napoleon, Charles might deliver the Portuguese fleet into the hands of the French.
When the invasion came, the fall of Lisbon was far from history's list of dramatic moments. Marshal Androche Junot marched into Portugal with a mixed contingent of French and Spanish troops, all of whom were a far cry from the might of the famed Grand Armée. Young, ill-trained, poorly fed, drenched by storms, decimated by drowning in swollen streams, Marshal Junot's troops tramped through the streets of Lisbon in a ragged nervous column of blue. They need not have feared. Lisbon, and Portugal, surrendered without a shot.
Even winter could not dim the exotic beauty of the Serra de Sintra, the high country which lay between Lisbon and the sea. But Cat's warring emotions blinded her to the tumbling streams, jagged rocks, and gnarled trees passing by outside the windows of the coach.
Three weeks had passed since she accompanied her father to the home of his friend Don Alvaro Dominguez and his wife Dona Blanca. Cat had spent the time on pins and needles, fretting at being away from the home, worrying about the Casa, about Blas . . . And now, armed with a French passe-partout, she was returning. Her personal role in the masquerade was about to begin.
Strangely, after all the excitement and anticipation, Catarina found she was not at all ready to return to the Casa Audley alone. To Blas. Her husband. Her husband on a forged piece of parchment. Her husband in fictitious name only. Six months shy of her fifteenth birthday, she was a wife. With no father, no Thomas, to protect the suddenly doubtful bride.
Protect. Silly thought, Cat mocked herself. Why should she need protection? She was madly in love with Blas. She had scoffed at his archaic ideas of chivalry and restraint. She wanted him, did she not?
Wanted him for what? At this point Cat's thoughts were inevitably forced to a halt. For whatever men and women did together, she supposed. For more of that strange, overwhelming . . . melting she felt when he touched her. That delicious, frightening loss of reason teetering on the loss of self. The urge to plunge into . . . what?
Cat made a swift grab for the hangstrap beside her as the coach bounced over a rut cut by a rivulet tumbling down over the side of a cliff to cross the road and plunge into the valley on the far side. Once again, reality reared its ugly head. She was not ready. She could not do it. To live with Blas . . . to live with Blas as master of the Casa. To live with Blas who was so . . .
To live with Blas was what she wanted. Longed for. Dreamed of.
She was terrified.
As the coach rumbled over the cobblestones outside the Casa Audley, Cat examined the familiar façade with some anxiety. Except for the plaque which had displayed the British coat of arms, the Casa was as it always had been. No broken glass, no bullet holes, no sign that the government of Portugal was now in foreign hands. She was home. Blas would be waiting to greet her.
She would go up the gallery steps to her room, open the door, and all would be exactly the same. A sea of blue uniforms on the streets would not affect the smooth running of the Casa Audley. All would be well. She was a weak, silly fool to conjure up such fears. She was unworthy of the name of Audley.
"Dona Catarina!" Lucio Cardoso threw open the door of the coach himself, welcoming the mistress of the Casa Audley with grand formality. Eagerly, Catarina took his hand and stepped down. The warmth of her reunion with the Casa's large staff did not quite assuage her disappointment as she discovered two faces conspicuously absent from the gathering. Lucio Cardoso led her toward the house, saying quietly, "Marcio must play least in sight for yet a while. Junot is forming a Portuguese army to fight for the French, and no young man is safe from recruitment. Marcio is with his grandparents in the mountains near Mafra."
Lucio steered Catarina past the stairs leading up to the covered walkway outside her room. "Don Alejo is waiting in your fa . . . " The major domo paused, gave Catarina a rueful smile. "Don Alejo waits for you in the study."
Don Alejo! Since when had Blas become Don Alejo instead of the formal Don Alexis, as if it Lucio knew him better than she did?
"Dona Catarina Perez de Leon," Senhor Cardoso announced grandly, adding a deeper, more respectful bow to Catarina than she had ever before received from the strong-minded manager of the Casa Audley. Lucio then backed himself out of the room, quietly shutting the door behind him.
As Blas unfolded himself from Thomas Audley's chair, Catarina glared at him, her fists clenched into balls. "You have no right to sit there! Papa's study is not part of this masquerade. This is my house, and I won't have it!"
Blas, dressed in the casual daywear of a wealthy young hidalgo of Spain, blinked. The ruffled front of his full white shirt was unbuttoned halfway to his waist. An elaborate design in red embroidery decorated the front of his black jacket and the sides of his tight black pants. A black neckerchief was knotted casually about his throat. "Sit down, Cat," he invited with remarkable calm.
After a few additional moments of pouting, she complied, but not without a loud sniff of disdain.
"Let us understand one another, Cat. This is my house. And I will sit where I will and do what I will. And you will never again mention the word masquerade. From this moment you will assume every word you utter can be heard by the French. Is that clear?"
Tears blurred her eyes. Hurt and confused by a homecoming quite different from her expectations, Cat knew only that Blas the boy was gone. In three weeks her alleged husband had aged five years. He was alive and well, obviously successful in his plan to save the Casa Audley from the French. But who was to save it from Don Alexis Perez de Leon?
"There's no point in crying," he added without a sign of sympathy. "How can you think it possible for me to run the Casa without sitting at your father's desk? Don't be such a goosecap---I thought you had better sense. Now stop sniveling and listen to me!"
Catarina rummaged in her reticule until she found a handkerchief, then wiped her face and vigorously blew her nose. She glared at him from reddened eyes.
"Our plan worked, Cat," Blas reported. "I stayed out of it and let your father's solicitor handle everything. Marriage lines, settlements, signed deeds. Fortunately, the French have a respect for legal documents. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I didn't even have to make a stand at the door. One night the Casa closed under the government of Portugal, the next it opened under the government of France.
"We've been lucky . . . or perhaps a bit more clever than most. All the property of those who fled has been confiscated, a fine has been levied against the country itself, and Junot is busy conscripting a Portuguese army to fight for Boney. How long our immunity will last I can't say, but I do everything I can to cultivate the French officers who come to the Casa. Hopefully, we shall remain a friend in their eyes."
He broke off, regarded her bleakly. "You didn't really think I meant to keep the Casa, did you?" he asked in tones more reminiscent of the old Blas.
Her lips quivered. "It's all so strange," Cat confessed. "I have never seen anyone else in that chair. Ever. We are here alone, just you and I. The city is overflowing with soldiers in blue coats . . . and we are married." Cat's usually lovely voice was on the verge of shrill. "I do not want to take orders from you. You are a stranger. I do not like it!"
Blas leaned back in the chair, regarding her with some relief . . . and a touch of amusement. "Why, Cat, I do believe you have bridal nerves."
"I do not!"
"Do you expect to be ravished?"
"You did not come out to meet me!" she wailed.
Blas held his head in his hands, struggling between exasperation and laughter. "Most of the servants think I married you for your dowry, Cat. They accept the situation as an eminently practical solution to a difficult problem, but they believe us truly bound in a marriage of convenience. I must at all times---and so must you!---consider how my actions look to others. This is not a game, Cat, it's a damned dangerous situation."
Catarina grimaced as she attempted to wipe her face with the soggy handkerchief which had been crumpled in her fist. Blas tossed a fresh one to her and watched while she restored herself to some semblance of normalcy. It was the first time he had ever seen Cat anything but spectacularly beautiful. She looked small and lonely and lost.
"Very well," Blas pronounced bracingly when Catarina's hands were once more folded in her lap. "Listen carefully so you will understand how we must go on. I have instructed that your things be moved into your mother's room . . ."
"No!" Cat screamed. She flew out of her chair to stand with her hands flat on the desk, her contorted face bent over him. "You cannot do this. My mother died in that room. No one has used it since."
Shocked, Blas rose slowly to his feet as Catarina hiccuped on a sob.
"It was very quiet, you know," she continued in an abrupt change of tone, her eyes fixed on the past. "Mama refused to scream. Papa had the English doctor, the best midwives, nothing helped. Three days she suffered. They wouldn't let me in, but I sneaked by them at night. I promised her I would be good . . . and take care of Papa. But I have failed so many times . . ."
Blas had promised himself he would not touch her. But there was no hope for it. He strode round the desk and held her against his chest, letting her weep. After a minute or two, he scooped her up, securing her on his lap when he returned to Thomas Audley's chair. While Cat's sobs gradually diminished, Blas had ample time to contemplate the magnitude of the problem he had created. He had been hopelessly naive. His body was already reacting to the soft, infinitely appealing curves cuddled against him. Five minutes in Cat's company and his good intentions were sorely tried. As they would undoubtedly be time and time again over the months to come.
Hell and devil confound it!
As Cat dried her streaming face on her petticoat ruffle, Blas forced himself to speak firmly. "I am sorry, Cat, more sorry than you know, but appearances are vitally important. You and I must seem to be husband and wife. I have moved into your father's room. You must have the chamber next door. No matter what pain it causes you. Just consider it part of what you must suffer because we are at war."
Cat drew a deep breath. Blas held his. When she finally nodded her head, he stifled a sigh of relief. Gently, Blas put her from him, steering her back to the chair in front of the desk. He needed a clear head for the remaining discussion.
"It is necessary to be ingratiating with the French," Blas decreed from the throne of Thomas Audley's chair. "You will spend an hour or so each evening in the gaming rooms. So far, the explanation that I sent my wife into the country for safety has sufficed, but expectations have developed. Rumors that I have married an English beauty abound, but there are also some doubts about whether I really have a wife and a right to the Casa. Therefore you will perform your routine duties during the day, but do not go out without at least two footmen. At night you will grace the gaming rooms. You will be charming, gracious. And circumspect. Under no circumstances are you to flirt. I do not wish to give the impression that Don Alexis Perez de Leon wishes to curry favor through his wife's services. Comprende?"
"You are despicable," Cat gasped.
"I am a realist." Bloody hell. Nothing about this interview was going as planned, and the worst was yet to come. "Which brings me to another topic," Blas added inexorably. "I have heard a great deal of nonsense spoken by portuguêsas, young and old, these past few weeks. I wish to know if you have been infected by this insanity of a fate worse than death?"
It was Catarina's turn to blink. "But of course. That is understood by women everywhere. Dona Felipa says it is a matter of honor. A woman must kill herself rather than submit. Else her husband would be dishonored."
Blas swore softly. "Has your father not discussed this matter with you?"
"Of a certainty. He says, 'Honor be damned. It is better to be raped than to be dead.' But that is not at all what women say."
"Well, in this particular case I don't give a damn about honor either. Not that I expect trouble, but if the worst should happen, you are to survive. Any way you can. Is that understood?"
She considered his words. "You would not mind?"
"I'd mind a great deal, and I'd hope to have the pleasure of killing the bastard, but I would mind a good deal more if you were dead."
Cat digested this, then favored him with a ghost of a smile, the first he had seen since she walked through the door. "That is a relief then. I had no wish to die so young."
Blas ran his hands through his hair, clutching at his waving black locks. How could any man expect a woman to . . .? What if he hadn't raised the issue . . .? Damn and damn and damn and damn!
He stood abruptly. "Come, Cat. Let me take you up to your room. You can redecorate it if you like," he offered, taking refuge in the commonplace.
Catarina allowed him to take her arm as they traversed the courtyard, still green in the chill of December. "I used to have a room on this side," Cat confided, "but several months after Mama died, Papa hired Dona Felipa and moved me across the courtyard. I suppose he thought I would not know about his women."
Blas stumbled, tightened his grip on her arm, propelling her up the wrought iron staircase a bit more rapidly than he had intended.
"There is no need to be angry," Cat hissed. "Even Dona Felipa says it is not expected that a man be celibate. Oh!" she exclaimed. "What have you done with Dona Felipa?"
"She has gone to the house of her eldest son. With a very generous pension. A married lady has no need of a duenna."
"Graças a Deus!" Cat stopped short at the top of the stairs, nearly sending Blas tumbling backwards in an effort not to run into her. Her hand flew to her mouth. "Ah, I am sorry, that was unkind. But she was so stern." A tentative smile lit Catarina's ravaged face. "I think perhaps I shall like to be married."
With a sigh of long suffering, Blas took her by the shoulders and turned her toward the large suite of rooms once occupied by Thomas and Elspeth Audley. A fire was burning, warming the long-disused room which had been dusted and polished until it shone. Blas pointed out the connecting door to his own room, adding, "I would offer to let you keep it locked, but again we cannot because of appearances." He caught her eye and held it. "Understand me, Cat. You have nothing to fear from me. I will abide by my promise to your father."
"I know," Catarina acknowledged. "And it is quite insulting."
Blas stared, opened his mouth, then closed it with a snap. He made an abrupt turn toward the door, then swung back to face her, digging into an inner pocket of his jacket. "Here," he said curtly, grabbing her hand and thrusting a simple gold band onto her ring finger. In the center was a small but finely cut amethyst. "Thomas says it was your mother's."
Perfectly aware his behavior was abominable, Blas was now more furious with himself than with his counterfeit bride. He stalked into the hall and slammed the door. When he caught himself swearing in basic Anglo-Saxon, he switched to Spanish. It was not as satisfying.
The great port city of Lisbon is rumored to have been founded by the Phoenicians. Or possibly by Ulysses himself. By the time of the Roman occupation under Julius Caesar, it was a thriving municipality. Stretching along the north bank of the Tagus River some twenty miles upstream from the Atlantic, Lisbon has one of the finest harbors in the world. Lisbon's famed sailor-explorers made their country one of the wealthiest and most powerful in the world.
For the same reason Portugal suffered a host of conquering hordes, including the Romans, Visigoths, Moors, and neighboring Spain. Spanish treasure ships, loaded with Incan and Mayan gold and precious artifacts, unloaded their cargos on the docks of Lisbon. Finally, England's control of Portugal's most famous export reduced the once proud nation to a British protectorate. A role the island nation was now abandoning, leaving Portugal to fend for itself.
Lisbon's great harbor now lay empty. The ships of Portugal and Britain had escaped the Emperor's clutches. Outwardly, the population was resigned. France was just one more country in a long line of invaders.
"You are a spineless toad!" In total disregard of her husband's modesty, Catarina burst through the door to Blas's room while he was dressing for the day. "You let him . . . " She gulped, startled by the sight of his well-muscled naked chest. She swallowed hard, forced her gaze up to his face. "You let him maul me," she accused. "Me! Catarina Audley. That miserable excuse of a man put his hands on me. How could you?"
"Catarina Perez de Leon," Blas corrected calmly. With no other reaction to his wife's hot words, he shrugged himself into his shirt, allowed his valet to arrange his cravat. When he had run a hand through his hair, tousling it to his satisfaction---which he carefully checked in the mirror---he dismissed the young português who served as his valet and turned to Catarina with a bland lift of his eyebrows.
"When that little weasel of a captain touched you," Blas explained with great patience, his patronizing tone causing his wife to grind her teeth, "he was being closely watched by Major Henri Martineau who just happens to be the second ranking officer in French Security. Which means he is a counterspy. His job---his duty---is to search out spies. Like us. My job, my duty, is to remain in character. To be the innocuous, supercilious Don Alexis who was not above marrying for money. The Spanish fop who is interested only in appeasing his new masters. I am not about to start a quarrel with a French officer, particularly in front of someone as dangerous as Martineau. I told you to be careful! And, besides, Cat," Blas added in a more conciliatory tone, "he only put his arm around you."
"He leered!"
"For God's sake, Cat, grow up! Men are always going to leer at you. You were born for leering."
Hands clenched at her sides, Catarina turned her back and stalked toward the door. Only to pause on the threshold, deflating from indignant wife to a fourteen-year-old whose world had disappeared with the slap of French boots on Portuguese cobbles. "Tomorrow is Christmas Eve," she ventured. "Will you take me to midnight mass?"
Blas stared. "I didn't know you were Catholic."
"I am not, but there are no Anglican services, and the mass is very beautiful. Papa never minded when I attended with Dona Felipa."
Blas proffered a slight bow. "Then of course I will take you. And, Cat . . . please try to be patient. It's unfortunate that Major Martineau seems to have joined your coterie of admirers but, remember, it is possible he hopes to use your youth to trip us both. The French are not stupid. We cannot help but be suspect. So, please, I beg of you, be sweet and charming." Blas's lips angled upward in a smile that begged her understanding. "And perhaps just a wee bit stupid." He crossed the room, raised Cat's hand to his lips, granting her one of his quizzical smiles. "I look forward to tomorrow night." As his lips brushed her hand, his eyes never left hers. Catarina felt the light caress all the way down to her toes. She turned and fled.
The gaming rooms were crowded that night, the swirling sea of blue-coated Frenchmen coagulating into segregated groups, playing each other, while the portuguêses sat, stiff-backed, at tables with their own kind. Only in rare instances did a few daring or politically indifferent players mix French blue with the dark evening wear of Portugal.
Except for courtesans and a few elderly eccentrics, the scattering of women present clung to the sides of their escorts and kept their eyes upon the play. Nearly all were dressed in the French Empire fashion introduced by Madame Laure Junot, wife of Marshal Androche Junot, Portugal's most recent conqueror. Catarina glanced down with satisfaction at her own gown of filmy turquoise silk heavily embroidered with silver and pearls on the minuscule bodice and tiny puffed sleeves. A long column of soft folds fell from just under her bosom to the hem which was decorated with six inches of matching embroidery. She was not only guilty of vanity, Cat conceded, she was---like the other women in the room---guilty of complimenting the enemy by imitation.
A small sin, surely. She sighed. The dress was so lovely. And no one could deny the French excelled in fashion. If only they did not excel in battle as well . . .
Catarina moved through the gaming rooms, nodding and smiling at the young French officers whose gaiety, charm and quick wit made them quite impossible to dislike. These . . . these boys were the French bogeymen who had conquered half the world? No, not all boys. She looked up to see the lean features of Major Henri Martineau regarding her steadily from his place at one of the high-stakes faro tables. A dark-haired, wiry man of medium height, his appearance was not particularly frightening. It was the shrewd intelligence that shown from his deep-set brown eyes that caused chills to rise up her spine. Recalling Blas's scold, Cat acknowledged the major's inspection with a half-smile and a gracious inclination of her head before turning abruptly away before Martineau could note her clenched teeth. Aiye! It was all Blas's fault. If he had not invented this charade, she would not be enduring the dictates of a husband who was not a husband and smiling at Frenchmen, while wondering how Papa was faring at the winery.
How could Blas expect . . .?
Ingrate! She could hear Dona Felipa's stern voice echoing in her head. You hold the Casa Audley. You have a fine, strong husband. What more can you want?
Cat struggled to stifle a giggle inappropriate to the hostess of the Casa Audley. To go from Dona Felipa to Don Alejo inside a month was not such a bad thing.
Catarina snuggled down into her beautiful royal blue velvet cloak. The hood's soft border of gray chinchilla framed her heart-shaped face, tickling her cheeks and offering a heady grown-up sense of luxury she had never known before. Unconsciously, she leaned toward the giver of this magnificence, as the carriage taking them to the cathedral bumped its way over the cobbles.
Just before they were to leave for the Cathedral, Blas had come to her room. In a tone far closer to gruff than kindly, he had announced, "I was going to give this to you tomorrow, but it would be foolish to wait when you could use it tonight."
When a dive into the large mound of silver paper revealed a cloak fit for a queen, Catarina reverted to the child she still was. Throwing her arms around Blas's neck, she kissed him somewhere in the vicinity of his mouth before prancing about in front of the mirror, admiring the picture she presented in midnight blue velvet trimmed in chinchilla.
Later, as they drove through the quietly festive streets of Lisbon, Cat wished she had remained dignified and grown-up, accepting the gift as a proper demonstration from a husband to his wife. With conscious dignity, she straightened her shoulders and moved away so they were no longer touching.
Blas almost snatched her back. Devil it! The carriage was too intimate, too private. Arriving at Christmas Eve services in a state of full arousal was simply not done. Time for a distraction. "Yesterday I met with some Portuguese nobles who still hope England will send troops. I had to tell them what you already know. I don't believe there's a prayer of help unless Spain rises against France."
Cat sighed, resigning herself to the abrupt disruption of a rare private moment. "Is there news from Spain? Does King Charles still insist on trying poor Prince Ferdinand?"
Blas swore softly, then begged Cat's pardon. "The idiocy is almost beyond belief! The king accuses his son of treason while Boney licks his lips and waits to pounce. When the Grand Armée, a hundred thousand strong, marches into Madrid, the king will finally understand who the enemy is. I talked with my grandmother's family on my way through Spain last summer. The sight of a sea of blue uniforms would be intolerable to the Spanish. They will turn on Boney and fight."
"Which Portugal did not," Cat murmured.
"Portugal is small and has been under British domination for too many years. It lacked the leadership necessary to stand and fight."
"Blas? . . . have you sent word to your relatives in Spain that you are now Don Alejo? What if the Major should make inquiries?"
"I wish him luck then," he retorted. "It took my messenger a month round trip but, yes, I did remember. Martineau will hear: 'Ah, yes, Don Alexis . . . is he not the younger son of the brother of my aunt's second cousin once removed? The one who went to Lisbon to seek his fortune?'"
Cat's giggle was interrupted by the jingle of harness, the thump of steps being let down. Blas bent his head close to hers. "I intended to ask you for instruction. I've never been to a Catholic service."
Catarina rounded on him. "You, the great spy, you think of everything but this! It is you who is supposed to be Catholic. There will be a hundred . . . a thousand soldiers present, and you don't even know what to do!" Estúpido!" She caught her breath, gritted her teeth and added, "When we go into the pew, I will go first. You must kneel exactly as I do. For goodness sake, do not trip over me! It is to be hoped you will be considered one of the sinners who attends only when his conscience plagues him at Christmas and Easter. Well, come then, it is you who likes masquerades."
"I think," Blas whispered in her ear as they descended from the carriage into the throng of lisboetas entering the vast cathedral, "that we are only a few years removed from being taken up by the Inquisition."
"Sh-sh-ush!" Cat hissed with vigor. Throwing back her hood, she adjusted a white shawl over her shining waves of burnished copper.
Fortunately, they were among the last to arrive, so there would be very few rows behind them to witness their blunders. The Sé Cathedral, rumored to have once been a mosque, had seen so many additions to its architecture through the years that its medieval simplicity had long ago been obscured by every sort of architectural fantasy. Some of its pillars stood askew, a result of the great earthquake of 1755, but tonight, Christmas Eve, it was dressed in awe and majesty. The glow of thousands of candles was reflected in the intricate gold adornments of the chancel. The faces of the multitude turned toward the brilliant procession of clergy in robes of red and white satin enhanced with elaborate gold embroidery.
As Blas breathed in incense from censers swung by angelic dark-eyed altar boys, he realized he was seeing pageantry very little different from Christmas Eve at home. Cat gave him a sharp poke in the ribs. He fell to his knees beside her feeling exceedingly foolish to have been sight-seeing like a gawking foreigner when his life depended upon being Don Alexis Perez de Leon.
As he knelt, knees pressed hard against the low wooden bench, Blas glanced sideways at Cat, her face and shining hair completely covered by the shawl of purest white. And, suddenly, he was filled with a sense of inevitability. He had taken a wife and there was no going back. He and Catarina would be like this forever, side by side. Caught up in the beauty and sanctity of the service, he found he did not want to be anywhere else.
He could not, of course, tell Cat how he felt. By British standards, she was too young, a child wearing her heart on her sleeve. She slept in a bed separated from his by an unlocked door. So Blas knelt at her side and knew that in the eyes of God they were married, and said nothing at all.
He had told the coachman not to try to fight his way through the surging throng outside the church, so when the service was over, they threaded their way through narrow streets down to the harbor. Moonlight reflected off gentle waves on the broad expanse of the Tagus. Except for fishing boats, the great harbor of Lisbon was empty.
"It's so strange," Cat breathed. "I knew the ships were gone . . . but I never thought how odd, how frightening it would look. I didn't really feel abandoned until now."
"Ah, but think how many ships Boney didn't get," Blas reminded her. "He would have loved to replenish his lost fleet with the Portuguese Navy and maybe snatch a laggard British ship or two. So be glad they're gone. Our ships at least will live to fight another day. And, Cat, I will protect you, you know."
She had been holding his hand since they left the cathedral, and now she squeezed it tight. "Yes, I know," she whispered into the raw December night.
The following morning Blas woke to the sound of silence. The usual morning bustle was gone. Only the faint tinkle of the fountain and the cooing of doves broke the morning stillness. Christmas Day. And Catarina had given nearly everyone the day off. The brawny sentinels were gone from the front door, which was bolted shut. A stout wooden board barred the carriage gates to the rear. He and Cat were shut inside this vast quadrangle with the cook's assistant, the second footman, and two stableboys whose homes in the Ribatejo were too far to be reached in a day.
Blas groaned. He should never have agreed to this isolation. He spread his body in a stretch of frustration---his toes hit something that should not have been there. Shocked fully awake, he shot up to a sitting position, banging his head against Thomas Audley's elaborately carved mahogany headboard. A basic Anglo-Saxon expletive burst through the façade of Don Alexis de Peron.
The something turned out to be nothing more than a wrapped package about the size of the one that had held Cat's cloak. Blas closed his eyes, took a deep breath and looked again. Feeling exceedingly foolish over his alarm, he tore off the wrapping.
He sat for a long time staring at the sleeveless brown leather jacket with its warm sheepskin lining and a multitude of clever pockets. How many nights had he needed it when he slipped out of the gaming rooms and roamed the winter streets and country byways, meeting people who seldom appeared in daylight. Though freezing temperatures seldom invaded the mild climate of Lisbon, the high plateaus and mountains, even in summer, could be bitterly cold. Don Alejo was well cloaked, but the Blas who roamed the night had been too busy to notice how cold he was. Until now, when he suddenly recognized there were times he had damn near frozen to death.
He was half way across the floor to Cat's room when he recalled there would be no maid or valet bringing morning coffee. No third person. No margin of safety. Blas paused on the balls of his bare feet, thoughtfully tightening the sash on his black velvet banyan. To hell with it! His Cat had given him a very special gift and deserved to be thanked.
A mistake. She was still asleep, her golden-red hair tumbled about the lace-trimmed white pillowcase, the colorful quilted bedcover pulled up to her chin. She lay on her side, her soft youthful profile turned slightly away from him, a slight smile on her lips as if her dreams were full of joy.
Blas swallowed hard and bent to kiss her cheek. "Merry Christmas, Cat." Her eyes flew open. The look that suddenly blazed from them was so full of love that he bounded back off the bed, clutching the tall bedpost in panic. "I--I came to say thank you. For the jacket," Blas stammered, horribly embarrassed she might notice his intense physical reaction to the intimacy of the moment.
He swallowed, tried again. "It's just what I've needed." She was staring at him, breathing hard, obviously not quite sure why the tension was so strong between them. "And, Cat, I have your father's Christmas gift here." He fished in the pocket of his robe, and produced a small key. "He said now you are married, you would have need it. That you would know what it was."
Catarina seized the key with relief. Later she would puzzle out what had just happened, but for now her father's gift was a welcome distraction. She turned the key over as if she had never seen it before, then raised her eyes to Blas. "He has given me mother's jewels," she explained. "The case is kept in the secret room under the study." She stared at the key in some awe. "I did not expect to have this for many years."
"Then get dressed and let's go on a treasure hunt," said Blas briskly. "For jewels and breakfast as well."
She smiled at him so glowingly, so trustingly, that he cursed himself for nearly giving in to his baser instincts. They spent the rest of the day in peaceful pursuits, admiring Elspeth Audley's surprisingly fine collection of jewels, catching up on the paperwork which kept Thomas Audley's underground network running. They made what they hoped were safe plans for Mario Cardoso's return, played a few desultory games of chess. Desultory because as nighttime approached, neither could keep their minds on the game.
As the servants began to return and Blas was certain the two strong guards were once more standing guard in front of the house, he abruptly discontinued the chess game, informing Cat he had work to do. Swiftly, as if the devil were after him, he changed into the clothes of Blas the Bastard. Adding the brown leather jacket over his peasant attire, he stalked out through the small door set into the carriage gates.
Catarina, who had aged a month for every one of the past twenty-four hours, was not insulted by his departure. She was actually grateful Blas had had sense enough to run. With this Christmas Day came knowledge. Awareness. What she'd felt when she waked to his kiss, when she saw him sitting there so large and beautiful and nearly naked, his face poised above hers, was an emotion far too overwhelming for a girl of fourteen. She was excited. And terrified.
She was too young.
But, whispered the voice of reason, that first time . . . was one ever old enough?
Androche Junot, Marshal of France, owed his high office to his father. A wealthy Burgundian farmer, the elder Junot saw to his son's education so well that at age twenty-two the young man's ability to write earned him a post as Napoleon Bonaparte's first aide-de-camp. The young Junot, who had an eye for the finer things of life, amply demonstrated this by his marriage to a woman of taste and intelligence and a lively interest in French politics. Now, after his quiet conquest of Lisbon, Marshal Junot chose as his residence the shell pink Queluz Palace, one of the finest and most livable palaces on the European continent.
"Maravilloso!" Catarina gasped as her image---sometimes complete, sometimes fragmented into a hundred sparkling slivers of light---leaped at her from every angle. The swirling colorful costumes of the ball guests had turned the mirrored throne room of the Queluz Palace into a kaleidoscope of shimmering brilliance. Oddly angled portions of her white diamanté gown, half a pale face, a flash of upswept red-gold hair reflected back to her from one of the octagonal mirrored columns. Cat closed her eyes and clutched Blas's arm more tightly, fixing her wide green eyes on the solid reassuring black of his jacket.
"Just keep your eyes on the dancers," he advised. "Remember what happened to Narcissus." Cat wrinkled her nose at him before swirling about to drink in the marvels of her very first ball.
Shortly after Christmas, Marshal Junot had deigned to visit the gaming rooms of the Casa Audley, where he immediately expressed his enchantment with la petite anglaise, whose presence did not seem to offend him in the least. He had, in fact, complimented Don Alexis on the fine bargain he had made and on his ability to recognize a good thing when he saw it. Catarina, not at all insulted by the Marshal's words, was in alt when a card of invitation was delivered for a ball at the Palace. Since Major Martineau was still showing considerable interest in the residents of the Casa Audley, the patronage of a Marshal of France was a precious favor to be courted at all costs.
Almost all.
A costly new dress for Cat, eveningwear even more elegant than Don Alejo's usual style, a fresh coat of paint for the Audley carriage, and the young couple set out with an impressive array of outriders to drive the nine miles northwest of Lisbon to the Queluz Palace. Once there, however, Blas discovered there was a limit to his accommodation. With no attempt to hide his scowling face, he guided Catarina out of the glare of the ballroom into a small ante-chamber.
"Now," he said sternly, "what did Junot say to you in the reception line?" Bloody hell, the man had bent his lips almost to Cat's shell pink ear, whispering something no one else could hear.
Cat carefully studied the diamanté trim on one silver kid slipper that peeped out from under her gown. "He is making sketches for an addition to the gardens."
"Sketches?" Blas's dark brows rose to meet the black waves tumbling onto his forehead.
"The gardens are famous," Cat replied primly. "They were designed by a French sculptor nearly fifty years ago. Marshal Junot wishes to make another French contribution by expanding them." She shrugged her small, bare shoulders. Men could be so difficult at times. "Truly, mi Alejo, that is all there is to it."
"He said all this to you in the reception line." A lightning flash of Blas's amber eyes accompanied his ominous tone.
"Estúpido! Of course not. We talked of the gardens when he came to the Casa. Tonight he merely said he wished to meet me in his office at half after midnight so that he could show me the sketches."
Sketches, by God. Blas gulped back an urge to shout at his young bride. "You made an assignation with Junot!"
"How could I say no?" A devastatingly simple reply to which he had no response.
"My God, Cat." Blas did a turn around the small room, hands raking through his already fashionably disheveled hair.
"I thought you would be glad I would see his office," she said in a small voice. "Perhaps I shall see something of importance."
"You will not even think of looking for something of importance, do you hear me?" Blas gave her a long considering look. Cat had never been more beautiful. There wasn't a man in the world who would not be tempted. Lord, what were they to do? "You'll have to go, I suppose," he heard himself say. "How are you to find the place?"
"He will send an equerry for me," Cat replied airily, clearly enjoying a bit of smug satisfaction at acquiring the admiration of the most powerful man in Portugal.
Blas stared at her, torn between despair, fear, and what he had to admit was a nearly overwhelming attack of jealousy. "Cat, this is definitely not an occasion on which you are expected to give your all for your country. If the bastard so much as touches you, scream!"
"And how many of those women out there have you bedded?" she retorted. "You can't deny you and father get a good deal of information from other men's wives!"
Blas did another turn around the room. Otherwise he was quite sure he would strangle her. "You don't know what you're talking about!"
She opened her eyes very wide.
"That's not what I meant," he muttered. "It's true your father and I sometimes find women a convenient source of information, but under no circumstances are you to emulate us. Is that clear?" He felt like his own father, for God's sake, lecturing on some long-forgotten youthful peccadillo.
"If I were a virgin, I should know how to handle him," Cat mused.
"You are a virgin!"
"But he does not think so," she replied with inescapable logic.
Blas groaned.
"Excusez-moi." A young French captain, shepherding an attractive partner, began to back out of the doorway.
"No, please," said Cat in the impeccable Parisian French taught to her by Thomas Audley, "we are just leaving. I have already missed far too many dances." She sailed out of the room, leaving an angry and frustrated husband to follow in her wake.
Later that night, after being ushered into Marshal Junot's empty study a maze of rooms away from the ballroom, Cat's attitude was not so jaunty. Blas was lost somewhere among a bevy of officers intent on discussing the intricacies of gaming, and now, having achieved her goal of taunting him with the Marshal's attentions, she felt very much alone. Young and naive. Carefully averting her eyes from Junot's tempting stack of papers, Cat folded her hands in her lap and waited. She was an Audley. She would not be afraid.
Someone will be watching you, Blas had cautioned. Don't look at anything, don't do anything! Just sit there like the dear sweet child you are. His obvious sarcasm had not improved her temper, but sit she did, growing more nervous with each passing minute. Eyes were staring at her, she knew it.
"Dona Catarina." Marshal Junot entered, all smiles, dismissing his entourage with a wave of his hand.
Catarina jumped to her feet, executed a curtsey fit for royalty. She did, in fact, have a great deal more respect for this French general than she did for any of the royalty to whom she supposedly owed allegiance.
Androche Junot was resplendent in the dress uniform of a Marshal of the French Empire. His midnight blue military tailcoat was so heavily embroidered in leaves of gold that it might have stood alone. A gold satin sash and medals, crossed by a broad red ceremonial ribbon added color above his white breeches and tall shining black boots. A dress sword completed his elegant ensemble.
The Marshal lingered over Catarina's hand, then led her to his desk, picking up a sheaf of drawings which were lying there. "Did you not peek, my dear?" he inquired. "I had thought surely you would." Cat murmured a denial.
"Ah, pauvre petite!" Junot exclaimed. "You did not believe I truly wished to show you my designs. Come, regardez, my dear. They are all here." He spread a series of very fine drawings across the entire expanse of his broad desk.
Catarina struggled to ignore the intimacy as he stood just behind her, his head bent next to hers as he displayed his work. It's the oldest ploy in the world! Blas had warned. "They are--um--very geometric," she whispered.
"You understand mathematics," he applauded. "Refreshing in so young a lady."
"My father saw that I was well educated in all disciplines," Catarina replied with dignity. Estupida! How could she have raised such a sensitive subject?
"Ah, yes, your father . . . Tell me, my dear, does he chafe at the change of government?"
Catarina stood very still, her skin prickling where this Marshal of France had suddenly placed light fingers upon her shoulder. She forced a bland smile. "Surely you are aware my father was among those who returned to England."
Junot transformed his caress into a small pat. "But of course. How strange I had not remembered. That is why you married at such a tender age, is it not? A most fortunate occurrence for your husband . . . in every way." The Marshal turned her around to face him, the desk hard against her back. "And your husband . . . he is--ah--comfortable with his new masters?"
"My husband does not have any masters," Catarina retorted before she could stop herself.
"An unfortunate choice of words," Junot amended smoothly. "I merely wished to assure myself Don Alexis is content with French government."
"My husband is Spanish. An ally of France," Cat countered, her chin jutting up to meet his rapt gaze. "How can you possibly question his loyalty?" Defiance instead of proper feminine terror. Once again, Blas was right. She was a fool.
Androche Junot fingered one of the strawberry gold curls which had been allowed to fall from Cat's upswept hair. A slight smile flickered across his handsome features. "Winds of change are in the air, Dona Catarina. Spanish nationality may no longer be enough protection." He dropped the curl, trailing his fingertips across her face to cup her chin in his hand. "It may be necessary to have friends in high places . . ."
Cat wrenched away from his caress, bolting to the far end of the massive desk. "My husband is a fop. As much threat to France as I am. Everyone knows he married me for control of the Casa. His sole interests are money and other women. Protecting him does not particularly interest me!"
The Marshal, warming to the duel which was developing into a far better challenge than he had anticipated, snatched Catarina to him, locking his powerful arms behind her back, his body pressed close to hers. "Ah, but who will protect you, my dear?" he breathed. And kissed her, shaking off her struggles with insulting ease.
"Excuse me, Marshal, but have you seen . . .? Ah, there you are!" Major Henri Martineau declared heartily from the doorway. "A thousands pardons, Your Excellency, but Don Alexis has been looking for his wife. She has perhaps stayed here long enough?" A significant look passed between the two Frenchmen. Androche Junot bade Catarina a politely formal goodnight, then bent to straighten the drawings on his desk, stacking them with studied care.
Major Martineau, one hand firmly on Cat's elbow, marched her down the hallway, past the colorfully uniformed guards stationed in front of each door. At the far end of the corridor he propelled her into a small room not much bigger than a butler's pantry. The room was empty. "Where is Don Alexis?" Cat blazed.
For a moment Henri Martineau looked as if he longed to spank her. An infinitesimal Gallic shrug twitched his shoulders. "Androche Junot did not become a Marshal of France without a fine understanding of tactics," he reminded her sternly. "Your husband"---sarcasm dripped from each syllable---"has been carefully maneuvered into a position where he could not come to your aid."
Catarina's eyes widened. "But why . . . you?"
The major's dark eyes deepened from cool to cold. "Your father has long been an enemy of France, your husband is not above suspicion. But, me, I find I do not care to make war on children. The Marshal was playing with you. He is surprisingly devoted to his wife, but no man can be totally immune to such beauty . . . and innocence. Not even myself. Consider that tonight I succumbed to a moment of weakness. Do not expect it to happen again."
Catarina hung her head, lips quivering. The world was not at all the way it should be. "Merci mille fois," she murmured. She had never felt so much a child. Blas was going to kill her.
Fortunately, she was wrong.
On the trip back to the heart of Lisbon, Cat never moved from the circle of Blas's arms. He held her in a fierce grasp, vowing that never again while the French roamed the streets of Lisbon would he let her out of the safety of the Casa Audley.
"Lord, but I wish I knew what was happening in Spain!" Blas muttered some two weeks later.
"Do you wish me to find out?" Marcio Cardoso asked with barely repressed enthusiasm.
"No!" cried Catarina sharply. "Your Spanish is good enough only for a português."
Marcio's indignant protest was cut off as Blas jammed his finger onto the large-scale map spread out on Thomas Audley's desk. "Something is going on in Madrid, and I have to find out what. Junot would not have talked so openly of winds of change if the thing were not past fixing." Blas stared unseeing at the map of Spain. "Boney talked Charles into letting Ferdinand go," he mused, "but it's said they're both at it again, each one petitioning the little Emperor for support against the other. So Boney keeps smiling from both sides of his face, saying, 'See all the lovely troops I'm sending to help,' and by the time the fools wake up, they'll have a hundred thousand Frenchmen up their---"
"So when do you leave?" Cat inquired, her face a study in bland disinterest.
"And abandon you to the tender mercies of Junot and Martineau?" Blas shot back.
"She has me now," Marcio declared stoutly. Father and I know how to protect our own."
Blas quickly apologized to Marcio who had just returned from the mountains. "If Cat's little trick with your foot works and there is no problem about your being conscripted," he added, "it's possible I may be able to go within the next week or two. I'm sorry, Cat, but Thomas says there is nothing more important than the news from Spain. London is screaming for a first-hand report."
"And how is your foot?" Cat asked Marcio, accepting Blas's trip as inevitable, though her insides quivered like a blancmange. "Does it pain you?"
Marcio lifted his left leg and shook his booted foot, his dark eyes sparkling with mischief. "Ah, it pains me a great deal, senhora, so much so that I may not be able to climb to the balcony of my Concha."
"You are quite terrible," Cat retorted. "I think it does not pain you at all!"
Marcio slammed his boot back onto the floor. "In truth, Cat, I would not like to quick march with this boot on. But I now have a limp which ill becomes a soldier and which will, I hope, make me an object of sympathy to all the kind-hearted senhoritas." He put a hand over his heart and raised his eyes heavenward. "I undoubtedly acquired it in the line of duty, defending the city to my last moment of consciousness."
"If you can find a woman stupid enough to believe you!" Blas snorted. "I suggest you tell the French you did indeed fall while climbing your Concha's balcony. They will far more readily understand the wounds of love than believe you were injured defending an unresisting Lisbon."
Cat stifled a giggle as Blas continued. "You can try out your limp tonight then. I must leave earlier than usual and will need you to cover for me at the faro table. Cat, you will leave the gaming rooms when I do. Hopefully it will be assumed we are snatching a few moments of marital bliss."
Fiery red suffused her face, rising from neckline to hairline, clashing with her red-gold curls. Marcio chuckled. "You make a good pair," he approved. "Until tonight then." He rose to his feet, stepped determinedly toward the door. The insert in his left boot created a noticeable but not incapacitating limp. Blas nodded his approval. With Marcio back at the Casa Audley, his freedom was considerably enhanced.
Hours later Catarina woke to a hand firmly clamped over her mouth, an urgent whisper in her ear. "My boots, Cat. Quick!" Still struggling with sleep, she slipped out of bed and knelt on the floor, tugging at Blas's scuffed leather boots. "Hurry, damn it," he hissed, reaching down from his perch on the edge of her bed in an attempt to help her. Loud pounding sounded on the Casa's front door. Cat struggled so hard with the second boot that when it came off, she fell over backward, her pristine white muslin nightgown flying up to her thighs.
Blas suffered a moment of regret that there was no time to enjoy the view. Moving fast, he pulled open a drawer built beneath the bed, tossed his boots inside, covered them with one of the extra quilts stored there. Grabbing Catarina from the floor, he tossed her onto the bed and jumped in after her. Blas jerked the quilted coverlet up over them both. Then, instead of lying quietly feigning sleep as Cat expected, he began to wiggle and twist in a manner she found most alarming, particularly when she realized what he was doing.
"Ah, no, you must not!" she gasped.
"I'm not about to ravish you, for God's sake! A naked body in your bed is a damn sight better than a husband taken off to jail in the middle of the night."
The pounding had long since ceased. The sounds of tramping feet and the murmur of voices could be heard on the gallery outside Blas's room next door. As the sounds moved into his bedroom, Blas made a sudden movement, tugging Cat's gown up over her head, hushing her shocked protests with an urgent command to lie still and be quiet or they'd all be dead. A moment before the connecting doorway was thrown open, he tossed the nightgown onto the elaborately patterned Persian carpet and seized his wife in his arms, kissing her shock and terror into silence.
Don Alexis Perez de Leon froze in the midst of the embrace of his wife, turning slowly toward the phalanx of French soldiers who had just burst into his wife's bedchamber. His eyes opened wide, as if he had been too occupied to notice his home was being invaded. Behind the soldiers stood Lucio and Marcio Cardoso in varying states of undress, the relief on their faces so evident that Blas almost laughed. Fortunately, the French never took their eyes from the bed where Cat was having no difficulty at all playing her role. Being found stark naked in bed with an equally naked Blas by armed French soldiers was quite enough to set her body trembling. Shimmering drops began to fall from her large green eyes.
"Boa noite, Major," said Don Alexis with no more than mild curiosity. "To what do we owe the honor of your visit?"
Major Martineau eyed the pristine white nightgown, its lacy ruffles spilling over the colorful carpet. For Dona Catarina nothing but the best. A nice touch, that. He raised his eyes to his adversary. "We were following a man who was in a place he had no right to be. He came here to the Casa. We saw him climbing to a balcony on the far side of the house."
Don Alexis pondered this remarkable statement. "On the far side of the house," he repeated. "And yet you came to my room? For shame, Major. I have been with my wife the entire evening, have I not, queridissima?" He favored the major with a conspiratorial wink. "We are newly wed, you understand."
She would die of mortification.
A tear fell off the tip of Cat's quivering chin. Slowly, she wiped her face with the coverlet she was clutching up around her neck. "He has indeed been with me all evening, Major," she vowed, her pale face as deeply crimson as the flowers on the quilt.
Martineau fervently wished himself anywhere but here. Against these two children his thirty years weighed like a century. "Don Alexis, you will be good enough to stand up. I should like to see what an hidalgo wears to bed."
"What else?" said Don Alejo, sliding his body out from under the covers and standing, nonchalantly naked, before his predawn guests. With all eyes focused in embarrassed silence on the young owner of the Casa Audley, Cat surreptitiously moved her toes beneath the heavy quilt, shoving Blas's clothes farther toward the foot of the bed. She did not intend to look, but her eyes were drawn inexorably toward the lean back and buttocks only inches from the bed. Hastily she averted her eyes, intently studying the design of the quilt.
"My apologies, Don Alexis, Dona Catarina," said the Major, who knew when he had been bested. His eyes gleamed as he added, "Perhaps another time." With a wave to his men, he stalked out the main door to the upper gallery, leaving the Cardosos, father and son, to breathe heartfelt sighs of relief.
"You're a bit pale for a Spaniard," said Marcio with an attempt at an insouciance to match his friend's. "I trust the major did not notice."
"He noticed," said Blas, "but he knew he'd been outmaneuvered. It's definitely time for me to consider leaving town for a while."
"If you wish to speak of leaving . . . " interjected Lucio Cardoso in a voice of stern disapproval.
"Ah, perdão!" Marcio exclaimed. "Boa noite." The Cardosos made a hasty departure.
Blas bent down to pick up Catarina's gown. His legs buckled, depositing him hard on the edge of the bed. "It occurs to me I am not quite as much the brave warrior as I had thought," he admitted in a rare moment of honesty. Careful not to turn around, he reached back over his shoulder to hand Cat her nightgown. "I'm sorry, Cat. If Lucio tells your father about this, there'll be the devil to pay."
Catarina wiggled the gown over her head, then ducked her head beneath the covers, groping until she found the various pieces of Blas's clothing. "Even Lucio assumes we are properly married," she said as she returned the items, handing them over his shoulder.
"I suppose so," Blas responded idly, shrugging into the shirt which was just long enough to cover the bare essentials. When it was properly in place, he turned back toward his bride with a rueful apology. "When I suggested all this, Cat, I had no idea what occupation by an enemy was like. I should have let you go with your father. Better yet, I should have kidnapped you and put you on board a British ship myself. I should not have used you like this. I am truly sorry."
"You are very strange when you are humble," Cat retorted. "Not at all like yourself. I like the old Blas better."
"That's fortunate," he conceded, "as it looks to be a long war." He paused, regarding her closely from under his thick black lashes. "It is best for both of us that I leave for Spain as soon as we see how things go with Marcio."
Desolation. Relief. "I will miss you," was all she said.
Blas made the mistake of looking at her, sitting there so demurely with the coverlet to her chin, shining strands of red-gold framing a face on which tears still glimmered. He bounded off the bed, clutching his pants, sash and knee socks, making such a hasty departure he left his boots lying in the drawer under the bed.
Catarina returned them a few hours later, softly humming to herself as she tucked them into the chest in the secret closet where the clothes of Blas the Bastard were kept. The sheepskin jacket had been found by one of the maids in the laundry press in a small service room off the upper gallery. Cat returned that also. He would need it in Spain.
The road to Madrid rose swiftly from the coastal plains of Portugal to the high plateaus and mountains of Spain. Blas, however, moved toward the Spanish capital at a snail's pace, singeing the ears of his long-horned oxen with his complete repertoire of Spanish expletives. With a few Portuguese variations thrown in for good measure. He had, God help him, forgotten how slow an ox-cart could be. He was carrying a load of crucifixes and bibles, the only cargo which might not be instantly confiscated by the hordes of ravenous French soldiers swarming through Spain. (He had balked at Cat's suggestion, presumably facetious, that he haul manure for the well-over-three hundred miles to Madrid.)
He wore an eye patch, a vacant expression, and a ragged stocking cap. And hoped the grinding of his teeth could not be heard over the squeals of the wooden wheels. But it was not a time when a young hidalgo could ride his Arabian across Spain without being challenged by troops in every village. Nor in the yet-to-be famous cities of Talavera and Badajoz which he passed through on his way to Madrid.
Blas's return journey, some five weeks later, was accomplished in less than a week as, abandoning caution, he hitched and hiked his way across Spain, using any means of transportation he could lay his hands on from stolen mules and horses to farm carts, even the carriage of an elegant condesa, for which service he did not pay in coin. On his mad dash to Lisbon, his night with the Condesa de Mascarenas was the only stop he made.
Wearily, Cat climbed the stairs to her room after yet another evening of fending off Major Martineau's questions about her absent husband, only to find Blas sound asleep in her bed. She was so delighted to see him, she never questioned his choice of beds. For long breathless moments she stood beside him, admiring the rugged planes of his face, now softened in sleep and strangely vulnerable. Thick black lashes rested against bronzed cheeks. His full, sensual mouth murmured as she slipped into bed beside him. An arm---well-muscled, tanned, possessive---stretched over her breast before, with a sigh of contentment, Blas went back to sleep.
Cat smiled. All fears forgotten, she snuggled into his warmth. Blas was back, and all was right with the world.
In the morning, when she waked, he was gone. If she had not found him at breakfast in the Casa's bright, comfortable kitchen, she might have thought him a dream.
"You'll not believe!" Blas chortled as he wolfed down sausage, eggs and ale with Cat and the Cardosos in anxious attendance. "Charles and Ferdinand kept thinking Boney was supporting each of them against the other until mid-February when the French simply took over the citadels at Pamplona and Barcelona."
Blas downed a large portion of sausage and continued almost without pausing to chew, waving his fork in the air like a sword. "So what does Charles do? If it weren't so serious, it would be like some ghastly French farce. Instead of calling out his troops to fight, he packs up the entire court, including his wife and her miserable lover Godoy, and makes a run for the coast. Thinks he'll flee to the New World like Dom João and Carlota. He gets about thirty miles out of town---to Aranjuez to be exact---and his entourage is attacked by a mob." At this crucial point Blas broke off to continue his personal attack on his breakfast.
Cat fidgeted while she watched him savor the spicy concoction of sausage, eggs, onions and green peppers. "Well?" she prompted impatiently.
Blas swallowed. "The mob mostly wanted to lynch Godoy. But in the end Charles was forced to abdicate in favor of Ferdinand, who definitely seems to be the choice of the people."
"But Ferdinand is a cowardly idiot!" Cat protested.
"Your grasp of Spanish political realty is considerably better than his, I assure you," returned Blas. "Would you believe they call that miserable whelp 'Ferdinand the desired'? So what does Ferdy do? Does he call out the troops? Oh, no, not Ferdinand el deseado. He returns to Madrid---which he finds is now occupied by Marshal Murat---and writes a letter to Napoleon promising his cooperation . . . and won't Boney please select a wife for him?"
This bit of nonsense elicited a collective groan from Blas's rapt audience. "Are you saying the Spanish won't fight?" Marcio demanded incredulously.
Suddenly serious, Blas took a long swallow of ale before replying. "Boney thinks they won't. I had some interesting conversations with French officers in Madrid---I look almost handsome in blue, by the way. Boney's too far away to get the feel of the people. There is enormous unrest. News of the mob at Aranjuez is traveling fast and I think it needs only a spark. In the end, the Spanish will fight, I'm certain of it."
"And the British will come?" Lucio Cardoso's tone was skeptical.
"And the British will come," Blas asserted. "Hopefully under a young general who fought well in India. Arthur Wellesley. He was with the campaign in Denmark last summer, but Thomas thinks he'll lose out to seniority."
Catarina let out a gusty sigh. "It is better than a novel," she pronounced. "And ever so much more exciting. But you should not have worn a French uniform, Blas. For that they will shoot you."
He reached out and tousled her hair. "They will shoot me for any of the things I do, so mind your manners in the gaming rooms and try not to think about it. I'm off to tell Thomas the news. I should be back from the winery in a day or two."
"A thousand pardons, Dona Catarina, but I fear I must flirt with you." Pedro de Sousa Holstein was seated at a card table in what aficionados of the Casa Audley had begun to call The Portuguese Cardroom. He seized Cat's hand in his and lingered over it, whispering, "The good major is observing us . . . and now comes this way."
With seeming indifference Major Martineau noted the unbroken decks of cards on the table, the conscious looks on the faces of the two who had just broken apart. Catarina's hands were now folded in her lap, de Sousa's gracefully displayed on the top of the card table. The portrait of guilty lovers, or clever conspirators, was nearly perfect.
The major favored them with a curt nod. "Dona Catarina, de Sousa." The child was so very good at this that sometimes he actually wondered if she really were a young wife disenchanted with her husband. But no . . . she was the daughter of her father, and he would wager a year's salary her husband was neither cuckolded nor at the bedside of a dying rich relative.
"Have you heard from your errant husband, Dona Catarina?" the major inquired politely, as he had each time he had visited the Casa for the past month.
"Ah, no, not a word, major," Catarina murmured with a mournful shake of her head. "I fear he has found Another Interest." Her eyes grew wide. "Or perhaps he has been taken by bandits. Do you think it possible?" She gave Pedro de Sousa a quick glance of heightened interest. De Sousa, hard put not to laugh, squeezed her hand and assured her Don Alexis would soon return, he was certain of it.
This blatant truth was almost too much for Cat's equilibrium. Absurd! Major Martineau was not a fool to be played with in such a manner. If he had overheard her telling the Portuguese diplomat about Blas's journey to Spain, they were both in serious trouble.
Mildly, Cat agreed it was too soon to worry about Don Alexis. It was, after all, a long journey he had been forced to make. Hopefully, his aunt, who positively doted on him, would provide for him quite handsomely. If so, his long absence would be well worthwhile.
Major Martineau, who expected to hear nothing else, had now satisfied his personal code of honor. No one could say he had ignored the sight of Dona Catarina in conversation with one of the most important young noblemen in Portugal.
As the major disappeared into one of the larger gaming rooms, Pedro de Sousa bid Catarina a hasty goodnight and left to spread the news which would stir dampened hopes from the Minho to the Algarve.
Don Alexis Perez de Leon returned to the gaming rooms the next evening with the sad tale of an aunt who still lingered at death's door. Only his concern for his wife and the Casa Audley had brought him back to Portugal. Alas, he feared he would soon have to make the long journey once again. For, after all, what was more important than money? He winked at the long-suffering major to whom he was confiding this patent falsehood. His poor Catarina . . . so fortunate she had the Cardosos, father and son, to provide their excellent protection and aid with the Casa. The major digested this fairytale in silence, shook his head, then walked away. They both knew he did not believe a word of Don Alejo's tale.
In mid-April rumors reached Lisbon that the master puppeteer Napoleon was once again playing Punch and Judy with the Spanish royal family. While pitting Charles and Ferdinand in a vicious scramble for the throne, he turned around and offered the crown of Spain to his brother Joseph Bonaparte.
Within forty-eight hours Blas was back on the road to Spain, his remarkable sense of timing putting him in Madrid on the day a child's tears provided the spark which ignited one of the most massive uprisings in the history of the world and added a new word to the language of nations. The Spanish word for "small war." Guerrilla.
Madrid, Spain, May 1808
Blas woke early that morning. And wondered why. Accustomed as he was working to working through most of the night and sleeping the morning away, a return to the life of a carter for another journey to Madrid was not enough to bring him awake so soon after dawn.
It was the silence. The hushed expectancy of a great city on the verge of . . . something.
When he arrived in Madrid in late afternoon of the day before, the city was rife with rumors. The French had sent that miserable cur Godoy to France, thus helping him escape trial for his crimes against the state during his years as first minister of Spain. Ferdinand el deseado, the desired of his people, had been lured into France by the promise of a Bonaparte bride. Instead, when he entered Bayonne, he was arrested. With the former Charles IV and his queen already in custody, Napoleon proceeded to goad all three members of the Spanish royal family into greater and greater idiocies, even to the extent of the queen claiming that Charles had not fathered Ferdinand. Ferdinand, it would seem, was not desired by his mother.
As Blas wandered from tavern to tavern, listening, nodding, watching, wondering, only one thing seemed clear. The Spanish government had deserted its people. They were leaderless and alone.
There was authority in Madrid, make no doubt about that, said Blas's drinking partners in sibilant whispers through slitted mouths. Napoleon Bonaparte's brother-in-law, the French Marshal Joachim Murat, controlled the city. His army, camped on the outskirts of town, was not described---at least not aloud---as an army of occupation only because Spain was still nominally an ally of France.
The last rumor Blas heard that night was in a smoky taberna where the ale was strong and the fandango suggestive enough to make his manhood rise. But the words whispered into his ear were enough to make him dismiss any thought of buying the dancer's favors for the night. Blas gave his full attention to the young Spanish guardsman at his side. Marshal Murat had ordered the remaining members of the Spanish royal family to be transported to France. Tomorrow.
Which was now today. The city seethed. Behind thick walls, in back streets, in quiet courtyards, under the rounded arches of arcaded walkways. People whispered and worried. And wondered. What to do? Who would help? Did anyone care?
Their government was worse than incompetent, but it was theirs. The French were not. If the last of the royal family were taken to France, there would be no Spain . . .
Quietly, anxiously, in small worried knots, people began to move through the streets. Workers, students, merchants, hidalgos, lawyers, priests. Worried, curious, they gravitated toward the Plaza de Oriente and the royal palace of Spain.
They had no plan, no weapons except perhaps a small knife for cutting meat and as a token of protection against a wicked world. Blas fell in step with a group of men who had left their wives in charge of their stalls in the marketplace and set out to see for themselves if the rumors were true. Few words were spoken as they passed through the quiet streets. They were not angry, only worried. And wondering if life as they knew it was about to end.
It was.
On that long walk to the Plaza de Oriente the wives in the market were the only women Blas saw. There was an occasional flash of a face in a window, the soft click of a closing door, but that was all. No lovely bosoms dangling next to the red geraniums on the balconies, no rustling of skirts, no voices raised in song, no flirtatious glances from liquid chocolate eyes. Madrid had become a world of men. And of women who shut themselves inside their stuccoed walls and told their beads. And wondered, as did their husbands and fathers and lovers, what was to become of Spain. And their own small corner of it.
Madrid is a city of rosy cream and pink and beige. A capital city of ornate architecture and strong Moorish influence. The royal palace, like the Casa Audley, was an open square surrounding a central courtyard. The scale, however, was so massive that the entire House of Audley might have fitted inside the courtyard of the palacio real. At the rear of the palace were the gardens of Campo del Moro. At the front, the handsome tree-lined open space called the Plaza de Oriente. It too was decorated with masses of flower beds in full bloom. In its center a handsome fountain spilled a steady hiss of water into the blue depths of a large oval pool.
As Blas and the men from the market approached the plaza, it became apparent that at least one of the rumors was true. Above the heads of the crowd, which was still streaming into the plaza, could be seen a line of heavy traveling coaches drawn up before the columns of the front entrance to the palace. In a protective semi-circle surrounding the coaches was a guard of mounted horsemen. French dragoons, their blue jackets trimmed in red with tight white pants and gleaming gold helmets, were armed not only with sabers but with muskets as well. Even more colorful was the troop of mameluke guards mounted on fine Arab stallions, their only uniformity the broad white turbans wound about their heads. Their short jackets and full trousers were of nearly every shade imaginable. Although Napoleon's opinion of Spain had long since turned to contempt, he had ordered a formidable guard to escort the remnants of the Spanish royal family to France.
The crowd grew larger, crept closer to the circle of armed and mounted guards. And still they waited. The coachmen sat slumped on their high perches. The horses twitched their tails, their riders never moved. The dragoons did not bother to hide their boredom, their indifference to the crowd. The faces of the mamelukes showed no expression at all.
Whispers, murmurs ran through the crowd. Rumors, speculation. Nothing a man could sink his teeth into. They waited, the sun rising higher over the buildings surrounding the Plaza de Oriente.
Suddenly, from a corner of the plaza nearest the palace the murmurs rose in pitch, the crowd surged forward. "There! You see him?" declared a stranger as Blas's group drew close to the source of the growing noise. "He is a locksmith, just now come from the palace."
The locksmith, overcome by emotion, moved further into the crowd, once again wailing his message. "Kill the French! They have taken the king, and now they will take the rest of the family. They take our government! I tell you it is true. I was hired to change the locks on the minister's cabinets. Kill them! You must rise and kill them. Kill the French dogs!"
Blas stared, awed by the small man's fervor. He was mad. Suicidal. Magnificent.
Though not loud enough to reach Napoleon's guards, the locksmith's words burned through the crowd. Voices rose, tempers flared. The dragoons lost their boredom. The dark eyes of the mamelukes betrayed a spark of interest. Shock poured through the crowd. They had come to the plaza out of anxiety and curiosity. They had not come to die.
They hesitated. There was no sign of the royal family. Quite possibly the locksmith was mad.
Blas put his back to a tree and checked the knife in his boot. He was now much closer to the side door from which the locksmith had escaped the palace, so he was among the first to hear the words from the next bearer of news. A young Spanish palace guard, wild-eyed, tears streaming down his face, burst out of the palace and into the crowd which had spilled out of the plaza, surrounding the locksmith's exit.
"The young prince will not go," the Spanish guard cried. "Prince Francisco refuses to leave Spain. Refuses to leave the palace. He is above in his apartments, throwing a great tantrum. He has only thirteen years, yet he is a braver man than his father, braver than Ferdinand, his brother. He cries, the young one, but he cries for Spain. He cries for us all. Do not let them take him away."
It was impossible. Intellectually, Blas knew the whole thing was absurd. He also knew it was the moment for which they had waited so long. The unknown spark which could set off a revolution. Split Spain from France. Create an Achille's heel to Napoleon's mighty empire.
Blas tensed against his tree, feeling the rough bark bite into his back. What now?
The noise of the crowd swelled to a roar as news of the Prince Francisco's defiance raced through the plaza. Knives appeared, branches were torn from trees and stout shrubs, cobbles pried out of the roadway. As the crowd erupted into motion, Blas stayed pinned to his tree, his knife still in his boot. Thomas would kill him if he got himself killed in Madrid. Cat would kill him. And yet all these glorious fools around him had as much to lose as he. No, they had one thing more. It was their country they were about to lose.
With his back still hugging the tree, Blas drew the knife from his boot. Ahead of him was a vast melee of men and horses as the crowd surged forward, attempting to overwhelm armed and mounted troops by the force of sheer numbers. The curved sabers of the mamelukes rose high and slashed down, rose and slashed . . . rose yet again. The French dragoons raised their muskets, fired point blank into the crowd. But muskets took time to reload, time the dragoons were not allowed. They were left with only their sabers as a multitude of eager hands reached up to pull them from their horses.
One dragoon, braver or more foolhardy than the others, got all the way to the tree where Blas was standing. As his saber arced down toward the head of a young Spaniard, Blas mustered all the strength of his twenty-two-year-old body and leaped at the dragoon, dragging him from his saddle. To his relief, he did not have to use his knife. A half dozen Spaniards rushed forward to do the job for him.
The battle could not last. The odds were impossible. For every enemy down, ten Spanish bodies lay crumpled in the plaza. But something else was happening. The sound of the dragoon's volley of musket fire reverberated through the city. Voices screamed the news from balcony to balcony. And they came, the men of Madrid, armed with ice picks and axes, meat cleavers, shovels, and even some swords.
It was afternoon before silence once again descended on the Plaza de Oriente. A silence broken only by the moans of the wounded, the soft whimpers of the dying. Blas looked down at the bloody knife in his hand and thought he might be sick. He was not a soldier. His world was not the black and white of friend or enemy. He was a creature of the shadows, a man of plans and schemes who had never hurt anyone in his life. Until now. He bent down and wiped his blade with a broad leaf from one of the flower beds, then stuck it back in his boot. Finally, recalling his primary role was that of spy, he began to examine the scene before him.
There were perhaps thirty dragoons and mamelukes lying dead in the plaza. The remainder of Napoleon's guards had disappeared, evidently retreating to safer ground. Thirty enemy dead, yet the plaza was littered with bodies. Bodies which crushed the flower beds, stained the fountain pool red with blood. Bodies draped over the sides of the coaches which had been rocked until they lay tilted at crazy angles. The horses, useless, had been cut loose from their traces. These coaches would not set out for France today. Because hundreds of Spaniards had died to keep them here.
Why he himself was still alive, Blas could only wonder.
The battle was won. The day was won. The night to come and the days to follow would be another story. A terrible tale of retaliation and terror. But this day, like the independence day of the American colonies, would go down in Spanish history by a simple date. Dos de mayo. The second of May.
"I got the hell out," said Blas ten days later in Lisbon. "There wasn't a prayer the revolution could last. Murat had an army just outside the city. By nightfall they were lining up people against walls and executing them or simply shooting anything in the streets that moved. There were bodies everywhere . . . "
Blas caught himself and paused. There was no need to fill Cat's head with the horror of massacres and dismembered bodies. He managed a rueful grin. "Scarcely a triumphal beginning to a rebellion, but a beginning nonetheless. On my way back, I saw evidence of uprisings everywhere. I suppose I should not gloat over terrorism, but to see people defy Boney at long last . . . Ah, Cat, it was a marvelous sight!"
That night Blas came to her room. Sheepishly, he told her about his fleeting thought in the midst of the Plaza de Oriente. If I get myself killed in Madrid, Cat will kill me. Cat did not find it amusing. She threw herself against his chest and clung to him as if he were her only hold on life. Blas wondered at the certainty of his feelings. She was his, this child of not yet fifteen years. His wife. His woman. When he left her, much later that night, she was still a virgin, though he could have sworn the effort cost him five years off his life.
The Spaniards at the Plaza de Oriente had not died in vain. Massive guerrilla uprisings in every province of Spain prodded the British into action at last. In July, shortly after Catarina's fifteenth birthday, Sir Arthur Wellesley landed in the bay of the Mondego, north of Lisbon, with a small force of thirteen thousand men which was soon swelled by the addition of five thousand Portuguese troops. Together, the allies started their march toward Lisbon.
Catarina was beside herself, dancing around the private family salon of the Casa Audley, clapping her hands in an irrepressible expression of joy." Estupendo! Magnifico! Maravilhoso! Is it really, really true, Blas? The British are coming at last? We will be free! And Papa will come home."
Blas, draped over the sofa with one booted leg thrust nonchalantly out in front of him, offered little support for her raptures. "We are fortunate the riots forced Junot to send some of his troops to Madrid and that those left in Portugal are a far cry from France's finest. Wellesley may win through to Lisbon this time, but Boney isn't going to let such a prize go lightly. As I've told you, it's going to be a long war."
Cat suddenly stopped her twirling and stared at him. During these many tumultuous months, an item of importance had escaped her attention. "It is nearly one year since you came to us, Blas. I am now fifteen, but never have you said that you had a birthday."
"I don't have birthdays . . . I just grow older."
"Estúpido!" She stood glaring down at him, arms akimbo. "You will tell me. When was your birthday?"
He leaned back against the sofa, locking his hands behind his head. "I'm not going to tell you, you know."
"Why?" she demanded, scowling fiercely.
"Because that was a condition of my employment, as you very well know since you were listening so avidly at the knothole. No personal questions, remember?"
"Your birthdate is not that personal." And you are, after all, my husband."
"There are other things you should be considering," Blas offered in a blatant attempt to change the subject. "Things will be different when your father comes back." And he was quite sure he was not going to like it. A wise man might welcome more conventional chaperonage as Catarina grew older. Blas did not.
"Oh." Catarina considered the problem, her face registering a variety of conflicting emotions. "Do we become unmarried?" she asked at last.
"That's just it, I don't think we can. Half of Lisbon knows us as a couple, and marriage is for life. It is also very likely the French will be back. They have well over a hundred thousand men in Spain. I doubt they will leave us in peace."
Cat, who had heard little beyond marriage is for life, said, "Then you must have Dona Felipa's old room next to mine. There is no connecting door, but it will do."
He doubted it. Thomas Audley would probably post a guard on the upper gallery. Blas had been faithful to his promise, but he had grown accustomed to having his Cat close at hand, secure in the knowledge she was within easy reach. To return to life as it had been before his "paper" marriage was nearly unthinkable.
Blas sat up with a jolt, his arms falling to his sides. When Thomas came back to the Casa Audley, by the letter---if not the spirit---of their agreement he was released from his promise to protect Cat's virginity. There had never been any mention of a time beyond the French occupation. Not a little ashamed by the wave of sensual excitement which flooded his far-from-deprived body, Blas murmured something about seeing Cat later that evening in the gaming rooms. And fled the house.
"Such stupidity is not possible!" Marcio Cardoso, hands clenched at his sides, spit the words into the air. "This cannot be. The British would not do such a thing!"
"Obviously, inbreeding affects the upper echelons of the British army as well as our monarchs," Blas murmured in disgust. He and Cat sat slumped in their chairs in Thomas's study, each dejected face a mirror of the other. Marcio Cardoso leaned against the carved mantel while his father paced the floor.
"But your Wellesley won!" Lucio spat out. "Junot lost. His army must be made prisoner, yes? Not sent back to the Emperor!"
"On British ships," Cat moaned, shaking her head.
"Is there nothing General Wellesley can do?" Marcio demanded.
Blas unclenched his jaw, searching for words that might make sense out of insanity. Words that could explain the Treaty of Sintra to men---friends---whose country had just been betrayed. Blas, as glib as he was, found he could not explain the inexplicable, excuse the inexcusable.
"Wellesley is outranked by the armchair generals who showed up after the battle was safely over," Blas told his companions. "If Britain honors the Treaty of Sintra, I think Wellesley will resign and go back to his job as Irish Secretary. His response to such idiocy, such an insult, can be nothing less."
"But without him we will again be defenseless," Cat cried. "These other generals are fools!"
"Sir John Moore knows what he's doing," Blas assured her. "Perhaps Dalrymple and Burrard will be happy to stand aside and let him get on with it. But you are right . . . Wellesley is one of the few generals in the world who can say he won a battle, however minor, against the French. He would be a sad loss."
A loud pounding resounded on the study door. Miguel, the young courier who carried messages between the Casa and Thomas Audley at the Dominguez winery, burst into the room. His eyes were wild, his face haggard and streaked with soot. "Don Alexis, Dona Catarina, there is very bad trouble!" The young man's eyes focused on Catarina. "Last night," he gasped, "French soldiers on their way to the British ships in Lisbon. They wanted wine, revenge . . . who can tell? They demanded casks from the winery and were granted them most graciously by Don Alvaro, but they drank and kept on drinking. And when it was dark, they built a fire of any wood they could find . . . and kept on drinking."
Blas rose and stood behind Cat's chair, his hand firm against her shoulder, giving her his strength. Whatever the courier was trying to say, the news was not good.
"When the casks ran out," the courier continued, "they attacked the cave where the wine is stored. They set fire to the great wooden doors. Don Alvaro ran out to join the workers who were defending it. They killed him. And your father---when he tried to save Don Alvaro---they beat him until we all thought he must be dead. But he lives. Dona Blanca has sent me to bring you to him." The young man's face crumpled in despair. "A thousand pardons, Dona Catarina, for bringing such terrible news."
Blas's hand tightened on Cat's shoulder as she stifled a moan. Even as he felt her pain, and his own, his mind was already flying, reassessing his plans, speculating on the possible disintegration of Thomas Audley's Iberian intelligence organization.
Marcio found his voice first. "And these are the monsters they will put aboard British ships and send back to the little Corsican to commit atrocities all over again!"
"Marcio, see that Miguel gets food and rest." Blas's orders were brisk. There was no time for anger, nor even sympathy. "Pack what you will need, Cat. We'll leave as soon as you are ready."
Thirty miles of fear and hate. Queluz. Sintra. The coastal plain. Once again, Cat ignored the most beautiful scenery in Portugal, seeing only the long columns of blue coats marching toward Lisbon. Twenty-five thousand Frenchmen on the move toward British ships which would graciously convey them back to France.
Waves of hatred burned. These were no longer the young men she had found so congenial, so flattering at the Casa. They were beasts, spawn of the devil, Napoleon. If she summoned enough hatred, perhaps she could shut out the anguish which threatened to engulf her.
Miguel had not reported the full extent of the destruction at the Dominguez winery. At least a third of the beautiful home of Alvaro and Blanca Dominguez was a blackened ruin, the roof fallen through to the cellars below. The outbuildings were little more than smoking ruins. In the distance, hard against the rise of a hill, charcoaled streaks of black scarred the great doors to the wine cave.
"May the ships sink and take them all to hell," Cat hissed.
Grimly, Blas took Cat's arm and steered her toward the servant who had come to guide them around the blackened ruins and into the undamaged portion of the house.
Although the smell of smoke permeated the room where Thomas Audley lay, the ornate furnishings were untouched by fire. Cat scarcely noticed the other two people in the room as she stared at her father's motionless body. Dona Blanca sat on one side of the bed, a brown-robed monk on the other, but Cat saw only Thomas. Her beloved Papa. Pale, lifeless, his radiant vitality extinguished as if by some evil spell. His patrician nose was blue-black, bent out of shape, his eyes swollen shut. Full lips drooped, dotted with dark streaks of dried blood. With an added rush of horror, Cat realized the rest of him must be similarly battered.
"He will live, Catarina. I promise you he will live." Dona Blanca, who had been sponging Thomas's forehead and wrists with cool aromatic water, paused long enough to reassure her young friend. A handsome dark-eyed matron of some thirty years, Dona Blanca Dominguez had not been blessed with children. In her quiet, unobtrusive way she had thoroughly enjoyed the days she and young Catarina had spent together while they awaited the outcome of the French occupation of Lisbon.
Hastily, Cat recalled her manners. She embraced Dona Blanca, murmuring condolences and thanks in an emotional jumble of words which neither woman found odd. As Cat's babbling ceased and their conversation became more coherent, she began to sense something beneath the surface of their reunion. Something beyond Dona Blanca's grief. With an instinct born of emerging womanhood, Cat began to suspect the death of Alvaro Dominguez and the beating of Thomas Audley were not the only wounds suffered by Blanca Dominguez.
As the women spoke in low tones, Blas got his own report on Thomas's condition from the monk, Brother Miguel. After paying his respects to Dona Blanca, whose calm good nature he had grown to admire during his frequent visits to Thomas Audley, Blas once again took his wife's arm. "Before Dona Blanca explains how you may help, Cat, I should like to speak with you. Come outside a moment."
"He is going to die!" Cat wailed as the door closed behind them.
"No," Blas declared flatly. "Dona Blanca did not lie. Brother Basilio is the most experienced doctor available. I have seen his work before, and I would trust him over any other I have seen in Portugal . . . and most of England as well. He tells me that Thomas will live. But . . . "
Cat swallowed hard, her unwavering gaze never leaving Blas's face.
"But Thomas may never be as strong as he once was," Blas continued gently. "There may be internal injuries . . . possible head injuries. It is too soon to know. It is foolish to tell you to be brave, for you have been nothing else in all the time I have known you. But you must smile when you look at him. Think only of the time you have been granted and not of what may be lost." Blas's voice turned brisk as he registered the pallor of Cat's skin, the blank shock in the depths of her green eyes. "Go to him, cara. Do what Dona Blanca tells you. I will sit with him tonight, but now I must assess the damage here and see what I can do."
Blas, concentrating on Catarina and her pain, gave no indication of the burden which had just fallen on his young shoulders. There was no one else who had the knowledge, skill, and gift of command needed to run Thomas Audley's spy network.
But Cat knew. Inwardly, she sighed. Always it would be like this. Blas doing what must be done, no matter how strong the personal demands on his time. So she would endure because she must. As Dona Blanca was doing. Dona Blanca! Cat grabbed Blas's sleeve as he started to turn away.
"Blas? I do not know what to say to Dona Blanca. I have no words. She has lost her husband, her care of Papa has saved his life. But I think---I am not sure---but I think more happened here, things no one will speak of. I must not ignore it, but I do not know what to say."
"Dear God, Cat, I wish I knew." Blas groaned. Hell and the devil! Was there no end to this disaster? At twenty-two he had thought himself immortal. Until he saw his mentor's nearly lifeless body, shrunken from vivid color to pale nothingness. And now . . . what Cat was trying to tell him was far beyond his experience. "You might ask Dona Blanca if she has spoken to Brother Basilio," he ventured. "He strikes me as a man who is able to understand the darker side of this world.
"And, Cat," he added, suddenly recalling their conversation in Lisbon at the beginning of the occupation. "Tell Dona Blanca what Thomas and I told you. About survival. If you had been here with those French beasts, and I rushed back to find you nobly dead by your own hand, it would have been the end of my life as well as yours. How could such a senseless sacrifice benefit God or man?"
Wordlessly, she stared at him. Was it possible Blas truly loved her? Certainly, she had never loved him more. In the midst of tragedy she had found a shining gem of hope. Cat stood on tiptoe, kissed him lightly on the mouth.
Neither recognized the moment for what it was. The last emotional intimacy they would share for months to come.
A pall of pain, as thick as the permeating stench of charcoaled timbers, clung to the occupants of the Casa Dominguez. Thomas Audley's quick mind made a rapid recovery, but his body was slow to follow. In the first days after the disaster at the winery his three devoted attendants submerged their own problems in the demanding routine of his care. By the fifth day of his confinement Thomas was recovered enough to confirm what they already suspected. Blas the Bastard must take over Thomas's far-flung intelligence network. Blas, who had had time to come to terms with his new responsibility, was eager to comply, obeying a whisper from Thomas Audley far more readily than he had ever obeyed a roar from his father.
As much as he exalted in his new power, a cloud dimmed his excitement. He was going to have very little time for his young bride. Perhaps no time at all. Which was probably a good thing, considering the thoughts which continually insinuated themselves into his mind. And, besides, Cat would be busy with Thomas, and had Dona Blanca to watch over her. So no need to suffer guilt. They were, after all, at war, and wars took precedence over personal considerations. Of that, he had no doubt.
Blas was off to Lisbon within the hour, leaving Cat and Dona Blanca to stare after the cloud of dust diminishing in the distance.
During the first nightmare days after Thomas was injured, there had been little time for conversation. Catarina, Blas, and Dona Blanca had taken turns caring for Thomas with no thought beyond how to keep his feverish tossing from injuring him still further or what medicinal drafts, foods, and soothing herbal washes might give their patient ease.
With Dona Blanca totally absorbed in Thomas's needs, Cat was relieved of the terrible urgency of her fears for Blanca's life. And her soul as well. For Cat was confident Blanca Dominguez would never willingly leave this world while Thomas Audley needed her. But on the morning after Blas's departure, as Catarina gathered her courage to face another day, she wondered if she was fooling herself. Was she creating a fantasy to excuse her own cowardice, her failure to ask Dona Blanca what had happened that night? And yet, Cat reminded herself, Blanca Dominguez was twice her age, mistress of the house in which they were living. How could a girl of fifteen years initiate a conversation of such adult immensity?
But now, with Blas gone and Thomas well enough to begin issuing orders, life was becoming more normal. Servants were allowed to assist with the invalid's care, particularly the chore of sitting with him while he slept. On the first night of their new freedom Catarina and Blanca shared the luxury of a formal meal in the dining room before withdrawing to the elegant vastness of the salon.
Alvaro Dominguez had been a wealthy man, his country home a mecca for those who enjoyed good company, good food, and refined entertainment. Fortunately, the formal rooms and the family bedrooms above had been untouched by the flames. At night, when the blackened ruin of the north wing could not be seen, only the terrible lingering odor of smoke and charred wood remained as an unrelenting reminder that none of their lives would ever be the same.
Two candelabra of four candles each had been set on parquet tables near a grouping of chairs and a sofa. Their glow illuminated so little of the immense room Cat felt as if she were walking into the wine cellars under the mountain rather than into the Dominguez drawing room. Adding to the gloom were the women's dresses. Each was swathed in yards of black silk in the Spanish style. At that moment Cat doubted she would ever again wear clothes designed in the graceful Grecian column popularized by Napoleon's empress Josephine.
With a faint sigh Dona Blanca sank down onto the sofa and spread her skirts about her. Cat was not above her own silent sigh of envy as she eyed the older woman's voluptuous figure, which was lush enough to arouse the admiration of a saint. A tiny bit plump, perhaps, but was that not the fashion in Portugal? Men preferred an ample armful. Which, Cat conceded, she herself most certainly was not.
"I like your Blas," Dona Blanca declared. "I admit I had grave reservations about this wild plan of a marriage and did not hesitate to say so. You have been kind not to remind me of all the warnings I gave you. I did not think you too young for a true marriage, but for a travesty of marriage? No woman would be ready for such a thing." Dona Blanca smoothed the black silk of her gown before once again raising her dark eyes to her young guest. "I feared you would not be sufficiently wary, that he would take advantage of you. That only pain could come of such a marriage. But in the months he has been coming here to report to Thomas---and now with his so kind help in this time of trouble---I must tell you I like him. Is he good to you, child? Are you happy?"
Happy. Cat ran the toe of her slipper over the finely patterned carpet, shifted her weight in her chair. She had been too young for woman-to-woman talks before Elspeth Audley died. And since then there had been no one. The three weeks she had spent at the Casa Dominguez prior to her marriage were as close as she had come to having a woman to talk to, someone in whom she could confide. But she had remained aloof. Angry that this older woman who was not of her family could criticize her beloved Blas. Who was Dona Blanca Dominguez to question her marriage? To counsel Thomas Audley against giving his only child, and his lucrative business, to a stranger?
But now, Cat acknowledged, she was older and wiser. Though not older and wiser enough. She had led a solitary existence in a household of men, her petite frame constantly hiding bottled-up emotions she refused to let others see. But had not Thomas taught her that confidences given elicited confidences in return?
Her small stubborn chin jutted forward. Perhaps shock was the best weapon. "I wish to be truly married," she declared.
Dona Blanca had to repress a smile. Ah! But of course the child wished to be truly married. To so fine a man as Blas, what woman would not? "So he has not touched you?" was all she said aloud.
"No." Cat's defiant stance crumpled, her reply so faint Blanca almost missed it.
"Do you believe he loves you?" the older woman challenged.
"Sometimes," Cat whispered. "There is a way he looks at me, I can scarcely breathe. But most of the time he is a brother," she added with disgust. "A bossy brother. Giving orders. Do this, do that. No, Cat! And again, No! He is almost as bad as my old governanta."
Dona Blanca continued her relentless catechism. "Does he ever speak of the future?"
This was something Cat had tried to ignore. A numbing chill crept into her heart as she considered Blanca's question. "No," she admitted. "No, never has he spoken of any time beyond the war."
Ah, bah! This was not good. "He looks at you with great affection," said Blanca hastily, regretting the pain she had caused. But surely it was best for Catarina to see reality more clearly.
"We do not speak of affection," Cat declared with the fully affronted dignity of the very young.
The subject was closed. Each women understood the matter was too painful to be discussed again unless the need was urgent.
"Dona Blanca?" Tentative, uncertain, Cat raised the dreaded topic.
"Surely we are friends now, Catarina. It would give me pleasure if you would call me Blanca."
"Thank you," Cat murmured, still frantically searching for a way to introduce the unthinkable. "There is . . . there is something I have wished to ask you. Please do not think me impertinent, but when I came here that first night, I felt your pain went beyond the death of Don Alvaro, beyond the injuries to my father. That there was something more . . . " Cat's voice trailed away. At last she had given Dona Blanca an opportunity to speak. She could not find words to go farther.
For a moment Blanca sat very still, a rush of tears threatening her dark eyes. It was not right a child of fifteen should bear the burden of such knowledge, and yet . . . "You are not to worry yourself, Catarina," Blanca demurred. "Your father and Brother Basilio have already spoken to me. I admit your instincts were sound. You have inherited your father's gift of perception. Blas spoke to Brother Basilio of your fear for me. Your father, like you, needed no one to tell him."
Blanca paused, the silk of her skirts rustling under her restless fingers. She had been mistaken. Catarina was not a child, but a ravishingly tempting target for male lust. She needed to understand it was not just men who suffered the violence of war. Blanca sighed. "You are old enough to hear of this thing, Catarina. May you never have to endure what I did, but you must know your father is right. You and I, women everywhere, are made for life, not death. We are the givers of life, we do not take it away."
The windows were open. An errant breeze blew through the room, causing the candlelight to flicker and dance. With it came the nasty stench of charcoaled wood. Death. And terror.
"Rape is an ugly thing, Catarina. Only those who have endured it can truly comprehend the horror. It is rape of the soul as well as of the body. And yet Portuguese men see this ugly thing only as a dishonor to themselves. If my Alvaro had lived, I do not think he would have touched me again. That is why it is assumed a woman will kill herself before she is dishonored. And if that is not possible, then surely afterwards she must do so.
"You perhaps heard about poor Adela, the scullery maid. She had only thirteen years, but there are many knives in the kitchen . . . and she did not hesitate to use one." Blanca's voice trailed away as the horror came rushing back, the young girl's body lying on the kitchen tiles in a pool of blood. Blanca's personal stab of guilt because she had not done the same.
Cat sat in absolute stillness, unable to move. She should be offering comfort but was stunned into silence. She had not heard about the maid, younger by two years than herself.
Blanca's slumped shoulders straightened; she stiffened her back into a rigid line. "But Alvaro did not live to know of my disgrace," she continued. "And I knew I must care for your father. By the time the worst of the crisis was past, I had been strongly reminded of the sanctity of life by Brother Basilio. And only a day ago, your father has given me his more earthly views on the matter of a fate worse than death. He can be very profane, your father. But of course you know that," Blanca concluded with a faint smile.
Cat rose and crossed the short space between them, kneeling at Blanca's feet. In the tones of one who makes a solemn vow, she said, "I am very glad to have you as a friend. And I am exceedingly glad you have had the good sense to listen to my father. We need you, Blanca. Both he and I."
And finally the tears came. For both of them.
When Catarina returned to the Casa Audley, everything had changed. Her world had gone awry, and there seemed to be nothing which could make it right.
Two months passed before Brother Basilio acquiesced to Thomas's increasingly vociferous demands to return to work. The damn war was happening without him! He might not be able to get around, but he could still think, by God!
Catarina would not allow Dona Blanca to say no to her entreaties to accompany them to Lisbon. "We need you," Cat insisted. "Now that we know each other so well, I cannot imagine living without your calm and steady counsel. And Papa? I think he will drive me insane if he does not have you to bully as well. Please, Blanca cara, say you will come!"
Dona Blanca, never dreaming how far from home her consent would take her, did not require much urging. The Casa Dominguez held only sad memories; the winery could get along without her. Thomas, possibly even his self-sufficient child, could not.
"You'd think this was a damned funeral procession!" Thomas complained as their coach inched toward Lisbon with Blas setting a pace slower than his ancient ox cart. But Blanca, who seemed to have a gift for dealing with the difficult invalid, merely patted his hand, assuring him it would of a certainty be his funeral procession if he did not stop fussing himself into a fever.
Cat's sympathies were with her father. The thirty mile journey did indeed seem to go on forever. She wished to be home. She wished to be back to a time when she could share private moments with Blas.
And yet, when the journey was finally over, she found she did not like to be back in the room of her childhood. There before her was the flounced bedcover of pristine white muslin embroidered with flowers of pastel silk. The matching canopy, the plain white hangings gracefully draping the bedposts. More pastel embroidery at the sides of the double doors to the balcony. Her utterly feminine dressing table in white and gold. All so totally, immaculately . . . virginal.
Cat ground her teeth. She threw open the doors to the balcony which overlooked the street, letting in the golden glow of the October sun. Just so had it been the day a voice, singing to the accompaniment of squeaking cartwheels, had stolen her heart and changed her life. But where was he? She had expected him to come to her as soon as Thomas was settled in his room. He would tell her all that had been happening in Lisbon, the small funny moments as well as the dramatic events of the day. Yet, after supervising Thomas's move from the coach to his room---the room Blas had occupied for so many months---he had disappeared. It was, Cat suddenly realized, very odd indeed.
Once a week, Blas had traveled the road from Lisbon to the Casa Dominguez to make his reports to Thomas and satisfy himself that all was going well with his adopted family. At all times he had been his dynamic self. And determinedly cheerful. He seemed, in fact, to thrive on the responsibilities Thomas has heaped upon his young shoulders. And yet this morning, when he had greeted Cat with a dutiful and somewhat distracted peck on her cheek, she had sensed something was not right. Blas had avoided her on the journey, riding in advance of the carriage, cautioning the coachman, in a manner quite out of character, over every bump and pothole in the road.
Cat told herself he was merely overly concerned for Thomas's health and safety. But in truth a nervous, even skittish, Blas the Bastard was a contradiction of basic character. Prickles flickered across the back of her neck. Something was wrong.
There was no answer when she knocked on the door next to hers. She turned the knob and walked in. So . . . Blas had arranged things as they had planned. Dona Felipa's old room now belonged to Don Alexis Perez de Leon. Refurbished to eliminate all traces of the testy old governess, the room was wholly and firmly the masculine chamber of her husband Blas. And it was empty.
Virgin she might be, but in the past year Cat had grown accustomed to many of the little joys of being married. The shared confidences, the laughter. The glow of Blas's presence. Of entering a room and finding his eyes locked with hers. He always knew when she was there. Frequently, they seemed to know each other's thoughts.
And now . . . he was gone. Deliberately avoiding her? But why? She was no longer a child who did not understand desire. Was he afraid to be near her? Had Papa warned him off? Again. Those were, of course, the most obvious explanations. But, somehow, neither explanation felt right. Cat's first glimpse of her husband came only as night descended on the Casa Audley and Don Alexis Perez de Leon assumed his accustomed place at the faro table.
As was expected of her, Cat made a grand entrance through the elaborately tiled front hall. Pragmatism forced aside her memories of the black days at the winery. No matter what she thought of the French, a fashionable appearance in the Empire style was necessary in the gaming rooms of the Casa Audley. Cat floated past the courtyard's bubbling fountain in a gown of seafoam green, the bodice and hem embroidered with delicate white vines and flowers. She was Catarina Perez de Leon. It was a night like any other at the Casa Audley.
On the threshold of the largest gaming room she paused in shock. The room had changed color. As if a magician had waved a wand and redecorated the rooms in an instant. The solid phalanx of French blue had become a multi-colored panoply of uniforms of nearly overwhelming brilliance. British infantry scarlet, rifleman green, cavalry blue, plus the gamut of primary colors signifying Spain and Portugal, each jacket faced in a contrasting color and smothered in gold braid. The faces were still young and eager, but even the languages and accents had changed.
Sternly, Cat took herself in hand, stepping forward to greet her father's customers as she had so many times before. She proffered a particularly warm welcome to the Portuguese officers who had never come near the Casa during the Occupation, partly from shame and partly from fear of creating trouble. The Spanish officers, who had been among the occupation troops in the garrison at Lisbon, had changed from stern soldiers doing their duty for their French ally to debonair caballeros eager to drive the invader from their country.
One and all, they nearly smothered her with attention, kissing her hand, begging to be allowed to bring her some wine . . . supper. Would she not like a cool walk by the fountain? The British officers new to Lisbon hovered in the background, waiting for an opportunity to beg an introduction. During a moment when the crowd briefly parted, Catarina looked up, expecting to catch Blas's sardonic acknowledgment of her triumphal return. His eyes were fixed on the faro card box. Without looking up, he casually tossed a card to one of the players and continued the round. Cat addressed the glowing smile planned for Blas toward a very young lieutenant, allowing him to lead her to the refreshment table. With rueful laughter her other admirers returned to the play.
"You've heard what's being said?" Marcio asked Catarina later that evening.
"About Napoleon? I heard it from Papa this afternoon. The great monster himself has come to rescue his generals in Spain. Papa says Boney has two hundred thousand men and will probably push us into the sea." So much had happened in Catarina Audley's young life that this latest rumor failed to arouse even a flicker of fear.
"And assuredly twenty-five thousand of them are the men Dalrymple and Burrard returned to France!" Marcio growled.
"I do not at all blame Sir Arthur for resigning," said Cat sadly, " but he will be sorely missed."
"But not Dalrymple and Burrard," Marcio retorted.
"Papa says their recall means somebody in the government has finally shown a bit of sense. But with Wellesley gone to Ireland, there's no one left but Sir John Moore."
"You are forgetting the Portuguese and Spanish armies," Marcio reminded her indignantly. "Five thousand of us helped Wellesley at Vimeiro! Now they have given us General Beresford, we will soon be able to fight as well as the British."
"I am sorry," Cat apologized swiftly. "You are right. But Papa says all three countries together will still be no match for Boney. It is true, you know. Father and I have done little else but talk for the past month. I have had lessons in tactics using Blas's maps and drawings---he is very good, you know. Papa says I probably know more of what is going on than any but the generals themselves. And I can tell you it does not look good."
As Marcio began a muttered catalog of what the allied troops would do to the famed army of France, Catarina bit her lip. Peeking at her friend from under lowered lashes, she asked, "Marcio? Do you think . . . have you noticed that Blas seems . . . well, different? Has anything happened I do not know about?"
Marcio shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking decidedly uncomfortable. "Don Alejo has seemed a bit absent-minded," he admitted. "But he has been very busy doing the work of Senhor Tomás as well as his own. Things should be better now that your father is back." He hesitated before adding, "You know, Cat, you should not mind about other women. It is just part of his job."
"Of course." Trembling, she dashed upstairs to her room, buried her outburst of tears in her pillow. She lay awake, listening for Blas to enter the room next door. It was her first night home. He would come to her, she knew.
From the gaming rooms below sounds of the evening's special entertainment drifted up to her room. The haunting, mournful strains of the fado. The lament for lost souls, lost lives. Lost love. It was an accompaniment perfectly attuned to Cat's vigil.
For at dawn, wide-eyed and cold of heart, she was still waiting.
Sing fado, sing fado. Sing fado for me.
It was over. As if it had never existed. Gone was the intense camaraderie of the days of the Occupation. The excitement and fear. The sharing of small moments . . . the laughter. The sheer joy of living. The secret joy of loving.
Cat spent many a lonely moment in her room puzzling over what had gone wrong. Blas may not have loved her, but she had reveled in finding an occasional delicious telltale sign that he truly cared for her, no matter what that emotion might be called. But now . . . they were not even as close as they had been in Blas's early days at the Casa Audley. Sometimes---if Cat looked up very quickly---she would catch him watching her, his expression as inexplicable as his behavior. A look compounded of wariness . . . and awe. With perhaps, just perhaps, a soupçon of regret.
It made no sense. A Blas wary of his Cat, awed by his Cat, was even more unbelievable than a Blas who fussed over potholes. The Blas she knew---confident, arrogant---might have shouted curses at the potholes, the horses, even the coachman. He would not have fussed. If his frustration with his wife---with his lack of a wife?---grew too strong, he might have stalked the corridors in panther-like rage. He might have seized her, kissed her, whacked her bottom and pushed her away. And, late that night, he would have come to her room, and . . .
It was a game they played. An exhilarating game, almost as dangerous as Russian Roulette. Sometimes during the long months of the Occupation---after the last patron had left the gambling rooms, the last bolt on the great doors had been shot home, the last echo of footsteps on the courtyard tiles had died away---Blas would come to her room. He would simply stand there with his back against the door, saying nothing, doing nothing. Willing her to come to him.
On these nights he was Blas the Daring, Blas the Hunter, playing a game with himself as well as his young bride. Cat, understanding him very well, plunged into the game with no qualm about propriety. She was eager, every nerve alive and tingling. Each of them an adventurer, living tamely did not suit them. Though always restricted by Thomas's expectations of their behavior, they would push the confines of their odd marriage to its outer limits. But with their combined age less than Thomas's thirty-eight years, neither had yet learned caution.
When Blas came to her, it would be late---at a moment he could be certain his young wife wore nothing more than her nightgown. He himself wore only a shirt, ruffles flowing down the front, dangling from the cuffs. The shirt reached his thighs. Barely. The game, after all, must be as dangerous as each could make it.
After the first of Blas's visits, Cat---more than willing to participate in this Game of Temptation---ordered a panoply of nightgowns suitable to the wife of a man who was known as a connoisseur of fine things, particularly women. The gowns---what little there was of them---did not go unappreciated. One more bit of spice added to the game.
Many times Cat was already in bed when he came to her room. If it were a night for talk---for the serious business of war and politics---Blas would simply sit on the edge of her bed while she reclined against her pillows, covers up to her chin. He would give her his Big Brother smile, tweak the end of the shining night braid which fell over her shoulder, and be off, walking jauntily back to his room, long legs golden below his robe of black silk, under which he wore nothing at all. If Blas owned a nightshirt, she had never seen it. Her eyes would always follow him every step of the way until the door shut behind him, obliterating her view.
But on the nights they played the Game, Blas's sole garment was the white dress shirt he had worn in the gaming rooms. The very first time, not long after Major Martineau's invasion of their rooms, Cat had not understood. As he stood there, mysteriously rooted to the floor just inside the door between their rooms, she started to speak, to ask if anything was wrong. Her mouth snapped shut as he raised a finger to his lips. Then his hands fell to his sides, palms out, and he remained immobile, never taking his eyes from hers.
Slowly, tentatively, as yet unaware of the rules, Cat laid back the covers, swung her feet over the side of the bed. Blas's amber eyes were luminous, reflecting sparks from the flames in the fireplace. She stood, bare feet against the soft plush of the rug, a splash of white against the rug's sea of navy, royal blue, summer sky and azure. Though armored in massive folds of muslin, Cat felt as naked as the night Blas had stripped her of her clothes moments before the major burst through the door.
She was short of breath, her lungs refused to function. In a world out of time, out of place, she took a tiny step forward. Toward the unknown. Drawn as certainly as if there were a stout rope stretched between them.
She was not the only one who moved. Inch by inch, they crossed the soft expanse of blue, bare feet soundless, moving forward one infinitely slow, tantalizing half-step at a time. A test of control. How long could one resist the irresistible? How long remain frozen before taking the next step? How small a step could one take? How long without blinking? How long without breathing?
Cat was frightened that first time, not knowing how the game was supposed to end. How did one win? What was the winner's prize? She knew only that she was not ready to find out.
A terrifying dilemma. Deliciously so. She could not break away. Yet what if the forfeit was more than she was prepared to pay?
They stood at last with no more than a hair's breadth between them. Not touching. Pulses racing. Barely breathing.
Control. A contest of wills. Blas testing himself. And her.
Cat's insides turned to jelly; the folds of muslin shook in rhythm with her quivering body. But even now, so close to discovering the end of the game, she did not move, she did not blink.
They stood for . . . how long, the tension so high the room crackled with it? With a sudden agonizing rush of pent-up air from lungs ready to burst, Blas threw himself away from her and plunged, unsteadily, toward the doors to the balcony. He tore back the heavy draperies, threw open the doors, gulped great breaths of the cool night air.
Behind him Cat watched in awe. She had just exercised a power she did not know she had. All in all, she rather thought she had won.
Without a glance in her direction Blas carefully closed the doors to the balcony, pulled the draperies back into place, stalked across the soft carpet and disappeared into his own room. Softly, the door clicked shut behind him.
After that, they played the game as often as they dared. They were young, accustomed to living dangerously. They treated temptation like the living, breathing, treacherous adversary it was. And learned striking lessons in the power of mind over matter. And the astonishing, nearly overwhelming, power of desire.
But now? Now Blas did not come at all. Not even to talk. And only now did Cat realize how foolish, how childish she had been to play his game. Next time---if there ever was one---she would close the gap.
And Blas would not run away.
No, Cat amended. They had been children. And now they were grown. Forced to let reality invade the private world, the fantasy, they had built for themselves during the Occupation.
And, besides, next time seemed as far away as the end of the war. By daylight, Blas avoided her, somehow contriving never to be alone with her. At night, Cat saw him only in the gaming rooms. Pride settled over her like protective armor, encasing the soft vulnerability of her hurt in a coat of chain mail, the holes in the center of each ring very small indeed. Blas would not have the satisfaction of seeing what his rejection had done to her.
Catarina held her head high. She worked long hours helping her father as he recaptured the reins of his spy network. She smiled. She flirted with customers, young and old. Older men are so much kinder, she told Blanca. So grateful. Blanca bit her tongue and kept silent.
In November, after an absence of nearly a year, Thomas Audley resumed his customary place at the high-stakes faro table. Two days later Catarina's sometime husband deigned to pay her a late-night visit. Cat's green eyes opened very wide when she saw him standing in the doorway. Ah, deus! For one brief moment she thought she would die of joy. But the moment did not last. What she saw at first was a balm to her heart. Amber eyes glowed in the beloved rugged face crowned with waves of jet black hair. He had put off the clothes of the Spanish dandy Don Alejo and was dressed as Blas the ox-cart driver. Surely he was the Blas of old. And yet . . . the nonchalant arrogance she expected from Blas was softer, subdued, his stance almost that of a supplicant. Almost as if . . . as if he were afraid of her.
That was the moment Catarina first separated her husband into two men. Although he was dressed as Blas, the man who stood before her was Don Alejo. Don Alexis Perez de Leon, the supercilious hidalgo who was known to be both indifferent and unfaithful to his child bride. It was Don Alejo who had come to the winery to bring Thomas home. Don Alejo who had been here ever since. A Don Alejo still in character when visiting his bride at three in the morning.
"May I come in?"
When had Blas ever asked permission to enter her room? Cat had a swift vision of the first time their game had become more daring. Of Blas's fingers moving down his broad chest, unbuttoning his shirt one slow and calculating movement at a time. A wave of telltale red stained Cat's cheeks. Blas knew her for the daring headstrong minx that she was, so why did she have the feeling tonight's Blas---Don Alejo---was attributing her blush to maidenly modesty? As if he were a stranger?
Cat stepped back, the wave of her hand inviting him in perhaps a trifle mocking. Was it a trick of the candlelight, or did his cheeks, which were no longer as tanned as they once were, flush as he took in her dishabille? She had pulled on a light robe over her nightgown but had not fastened it. The robe gapped open to reveal a gown of white silk so delicate that little of Cat's developing figure was left to the imagination, from the points of her nipples surrounded by aureoles of rose to the darker intriguing shadow between her thighs. Her heart might be wounded, but she had not closed the door on love. Each night she dressed as if Blas would come to her. And now he had. Cat was not above allowing him to see as much as he wished. Had they not played this game many times before?
The challenge was made. Instead of a glove, she cast her heart before him.
He pressed back against the door, not in his customary stance, but as if to place as much distance between them as possible. "I've come to say goodbye," he told her, his words mechanical and stiff. "Now that Thomas is better, I'm going to follow Sir John Moore's army to Salamanca. Napoleon was not best pleased at having his brother forced out of Madrid within days of his arrival. He plans to take it back---and the rest of Spain along with it." He tossed off a diffident Don Alejo shrug. "There's little chance we can stop him, but I hope to make myself useful."
Catarina stared. She had seen him speak with more animation when discussing the latest fashions with Dona Blanca. Where was her Blas? Blas the patriot? Blas the spy? The Blas filled with a passion for life. And love.
"Thomas is recommending Moore withdraw until we have stronger forces," Don Alejo continued inexorably on. "He fears the damned politicians, having sent too little too late, will think we should march to the defense of Madrid. In any event, I am ordered to carry Thomas's analysis to Moore and stay to help where I can."
Obviously ill at ease, Don Alejo shifted his feet, bit his lip, stared past her toward the balcony as if he longed for escape. This man was so unlike her Blas that Cat could only stare in fascination, wondering at the transformation. Wondering what could have caused it. What had she done to change him so?
At last, with a sudden burst of life, he focused on Catarina. The amber eyes struck sparks, wiping away the indifference of Don Alejo. "I will not be here for Christmas, Catarina, but I have designed a gift for you. I made a sketch." He fumbled his way into one of the pockets of the sheepskin jacket. "It would please me if you had it made up as my gift to you." With a humility, almost embarrassment, which fitted neither Blas nor Don Alejo, he withdrew a sheet of paper and handed it to her. Designing gowns was not the most usual pastime for an intrepid spy.
And there in her hand was a gown . . . a gown reminiscent of the great age of Exploration or possibly some mythical time between medieval maidens and the resounding names of Elizabeth, Philip, Isabella, Cristobal Colón. It was magnificent. She loved it . . .
"Why?" she raged at him. "Why be nice to me now, when you are going away?"
He looked so startled, so stricken, she almost laughed in triumph. Her turn to be cruel.
"For three whole months you have avoided me! You, my best friend, have destroyed me. And now you design a dress for me? This I do not understand . . . you are as crazy as poor King George or mad Maria. Go away. Instantamente. I am glad to see you go!" Eyes blazing, Cat tore the drawing into four pieces, threw them at his feet.
An involuntary lift of his hand. In supplication. He should have been more aware. Should have known his attitude was hurting her. Stupid, impossible, untenable situation! He had thought only of his own problems, his own feelings. Surely he could have managed better. Damned good thing he was leaving. There were some things that were more than a man could bear.
"I am sorry, Catarina, truly sorry. I know things have been different. I have been different. Forgive me, be patient. Things should be better when . . . when I return."
Cat glared at him. Apology unaccepted. Unacceptable.
His lips narrowed into a thin line. The man Cat had come to think of as Don Alejo instead of Blas turned on his heel and walked out. He did not bother to close the door behind him. Cat heard him continue along the gallery, his footsteps echoing on the stairs as he descended to the courtyard below. A murmur of voices, the soft clop of a horse's hooves, and he was gone. Cat lifted a corner of the draperies covering the doors to the balcony and peeked through. She was just in time to see a still stiff-backed Don Alejo disappear into the dark shadows of Lisbon's narrow streets.
With a sigh Cat let the heavy draperies fall back into place. She stood quite still, her forehead resting against the silk-embroidered fabric, clutching it as if she would never let it go. When she finally unclenched her fingers and turned back toward her bed, the drifts of white paper scattered over the rose and blue of the carpet caught her eye. Narrowly, Cat eyed the candle flame, her feelings warring within her. She should complete the obliteration of Blas's gift. She should. She really should.
With the surrealistic grace of a sleepwalker, Cat bent down, retrieving the pieces of the drawing. In the morning she would glue them onto a fresh piece of paper.
The warm rays of the Iberian sun stole into Thomas Audley's study to send a glinting shaft of light darting from the magnifying glass in his hand straight into his eyes. Pain stabbed through his head as his eyes reacted with violence to this seemingly innocuous bolt of light. Hell and damnation! Was he to be a cripple forever?
Eyes closed, Thomas leaned back in his chair, fighting both pain and frustration. His eyes were unreliable, the fingers of his right hand remained stiff and awkward. Occasionally, stabbing pain wrenched his gut, his knees buckled and he went almost totally blind from the pain in his head. If he had been caught spying . . . if he had been tortured by the French, he could have borne the anguish, the frustration. But the bloody ignominy of Thomas Audley falling victim to random violence was more than a man should be expected to bear.
The pain receded. Thomas willed his eyes open, his gaze focusing on his daughter. Catarina was bent over a smaller desk in the corner of his study, copying his latest report to London in her neat schoolgirl hand. Her shining hair was swept back and tied at the nape of her neck with a ribbon which matched her gown of robin's egg blue. The demure high neckline did not disguise the fact that, petite as she was, her figure was that of a woman grown.
Thomas nearly groaned aloud. This glorious child . . . No! Catarina was a child no longer. She was a young woman whose honor had been sacrificed for the sake of England. For the Audley business. Hell and the devil! How could he have been such a selfish ass? He had thought only of his work . . . and the Casa. And the boy had been as blind as himself. Oh, he never doubted Blas's motives. The boy was neither grasping nor venal. But there was no denying the two of them---Thomas Audley and Blas the Bastard---had seized the moment. And lost a child.
"Catarina?" She looked up with a smile so loving guilt attacked Thomas with a wave of anguish as strong as his earlier pain. With any other woman he would have known what to say, but with Catarina he could only fumble through a mountain of circumlocution. "Is it my imagination," Thomas ventured, "or was there something strange about Blas these past few weeks?"
Cat's hand slowed, came to a stop. Graças a deus, such a relief! She was not simply young, foolish, and madly in love---an emotional female creating mountains and chasms out of the slightest ripple of male indifference. With great care she placed her quill into its holder before raising her eyes to her father.
"He has been . . . distant," she admitted quietly. "I suppose it is not easy to realize the masquerade must continue. He is not the type of man who wishes to be married at so young an age. In truth, I think he was . . . relieved when he left."
As Cat's voice trailed away, Thomas felt a further stab of guilt. A woman could weigh a man down. The relief Cat spoke of was an emotion he had experienced all too often in his checkered career. She could very well be right.
Damn young pup! Thomas raged as parental instincts triumphed over the man-of-the-world. "Catarina, look at me! While you were here alone with him, he did not . . .?" Thomas tried again. "Did he . . .?"
"Ah, no, Papa! He was the perfect gentleman." Well, at least he had not . . . They had not . . . Cat failed to control a blush, giving her father grave doubts about her veracity.
"I must know, Catarina," Thomas urged. "You will tell me if he has touched you."
Touched. Cat thought fast. Far better to answer the meaning of her father's question than the literal truth.
Since she was unaccustomed to being reproved by her father, or anyone else, Cat had no trouble replying with asperity. "It is a little late for concern, Papa, but, no, I assure you Blas kept his promise. Far too well."
The moment stretched into silence. Thomas levered himself up from his desk, turning away from his daughter's remonstrance to fix his gaze on the gallery and the courtyard beyond. Dust motes glimmered in the afternoon sun. The faint sound of the fountain, the soft coo of doves filtered into the room. In the garden, though muted by fall, flowers still bloomed. The Casa Audley. One square block of Lisbon. And he, Thomas Audley, had sacrificed his only child's honor to keep it.
There was also the little matter of Britain's spy network on the Iberian Peninsula. Surely he could be forgiven for saving that.
Bloody, bloody, bloody hell! He would find a way to salvage Cat's honor. His own, he knew, was beyond hope. Thomas turned back to face his daughter. Never before had he found his role of father so difficult. If only his Elspeth were here to help.
"Catarina," Thomas said, keeping a tight hold on his agitation, you do understand you are not legally married. That is very likely why Blas has been so circumspect. He knows you have been compromised but does not know how to deal with it. Even men a good deal older would find such a situation difficult. In Portuguese society---and by the weight of responsibility placed on you---you are a woman grown. I will not dictate to you, but I would like to offer some advice."
Cat did not want advice. How could anyone else, most particularly a father, understand? What was between Blas and herself was private. If he made love to her, just once, surely he would not leave her. She was not like his other women. She was his Cat. His wife. No matter what Papa said, Blas would never abandon her.
And if he were a grand seigneur, someone quite above her touch, as Thomas had warned her before they began their masquerade? Then Blas would still keep her. As a mistress perhaps . . . but he would keep her.
Ah, deus, no! Thomas could not be right. Was that how it was to be? The life of a woman kept in shadows. Her children bastards. Never knowing when a careless word, a moment's flash of discontent might send her world tumbling into destitution?
No! She could not listen to what Thomas was saying. This terrible new thought, this ugly reality, had gashed a wound so raw Cat felt she might die of it if her father did not stop talking.
Thomas, whose pragmatism extended to his very soul, missed his daughter's anguish. He was offering sensible advice, and Catarina should be wise enough to accept it.
"Many of England's finest young gentlemen are in our house each evening," Thomas said. "Younger sons . . . but you cannot expect to set your sights any higher than that. Do not reject them out of hand. You are far too young to devote yourself to the first man who catches your fancy. And if you cannot find one you like, I shall send you to London where you can make your come-out like any other English miss." God knew he had enough money for a dozen come-outs, thanks to his daughter's sacrifice. And the cleverness of a young Englishman, who was undoubtedly as much of a bastard as he claimed to be.
"I will not go to London," Cat cried, chin jutting up in open defiance. "And you must realize the young men here know I am married. From many I have certainly received offers, but not of the kind you have in mind."
Thomas swore, then begged his daughter's pardon. "When this war is over, Don Alexis Perez de Leon is going to be among the dead," he vowed. "Is that clearly understood? Good God, child, do not look at me so! I do not mean to murder him." Thomas shook his head, reduced his anger to a low growl, and spoke with slow, deliberate clarity so his daughter could not fail to understand him. "You are, in effect, married to Don Alexis Perez de Leon. Don Alejo did not exist until I invented him. He will cease to exist when I say so. You will be decently widowed and free to lead the life you should have had without this blasted war."
"And what of Blas?"
"Blas can go to the devil," declared Thomas coldly.
"Papa!"
Thomas walked with the gait of an old man as he returned to his desk, lowered himself into his chair. "We both know I cannot do without Blas," he admitted softly. "Blas is my eyes, my ears, my strong right arm, my talented artist. The only thing keeping our network from falling apart. I will use him, as I use you. Because I must."
As Thomas sat in his ornately carved chair, his handsome features etched in greater clarity by his physical suffering, he might have been a king issuing decrees of life and death. Certainly, that was how he appeared to his daughter. "Understand this, Catarina," he intoned, playing the outraged father more heavily than any of the other characters he had played in his chameleon life. "I will not allow you to fall into a relationship with Blas because it is expedient. I will separate the two of you, this I promise. If Blas is to be part of your future, you must, each of you, work at making it happen. You must want each other beyond life itself."
But of course. Was that not what love was? Cat thought. Poor Papa must be feeling his injuries to be so intense over something so obvious. It was not nice of him to make her suffer as well. Yet somehow it was comforting, almost amusing, to see him play the father. It was a role he so seldom undertook. He was of course, in the manner of fathers with virgin daughters, quite mad. Blas was hers. Would remain hers. Forever.
"And, Catarina," Thomas added, suddenly less sure of himself, "you would do well to speak with Blanca. She is wise in the ways of the world and may be of some help to you."
Help? In keeping Blas from her bed? When that was the last thing she wished to do? "Yes, Papa," Cat murmured. Meekly, she dropped her eyes to the long lines of writing on her desk. She reached for her quill, dipped it in ink, frowning at Thomas's almost illegible scribbles. She drew in a deep breath and began to write.
Christmas was quiet that year. Word came that Napoleon had retaken Madrid, placing his brother literally as well as figuratively on the throne of Spain. Thomas Audley found a ray of hope in the accompanying news that the little Emperor had closed two-thirds of the churches in Madrid. "That will do it," he chortled. "Boney's little revenge will cost him dearly. Closing churches with Christmas coming on! God, I wish I knew where Moore was."
"Can he relieve Madrid?" Catarina asked in surprise. "I thought you said he had a mere handful of troops."
"I am sorry," Thomas apologized swiftly. "I did not mean to get your hopes up. I merely fear that some idiot politician will think he should try to do so. As for Madrid, the closing of the churches will undoubtedly add many to the forces of the guerrilleros. I think, in the end, they will be more help against the French than the Spanish army. It is the guerrilleros I sent Blas to contact. There are hundreds of different groups. London wants him to scout the possibilities of establishing order amidst the chaos." Thomas's eyes sparkled with humor as he added, "I never bothered to tell them his age!"
Catarina sat with her hands frozen in her lap contemplating with loathing a world in which women---even such a liberated woman as herself---could be kept in ignorance of so important a matter. Blas could be gone for years!
Thomas Audley allowed himself a moment of deep satisfaction before returning to the perusal of the papers on his desk. Young as he was, Blas was a perfect choice for this assignment. His lively intelligence, his natural flair for leadership combined with his Spanish heritage made him uniquely qualified to move freely among the guerrilleros. The diverse rebel bands included bandits as well as patriots. It would take time, but the boy could do it. And the herculean task would keep Blas away from the Casa Audley for months at a time. A most satisfactory plan. Why accomplish only one thing when two were infinitely better?
For Christmas 1808 Catarina did not give the entire household a day off. Their only duties, however, involved a Christmas feast planned and overseen by Dona Blanca who had assumed nearly all household duties so Cat could assist Thomas with his work. When Catarina entered the family salon just prior to the Christmas feast, the men present---Thomas, Lucio Cardoso, and Marcio, all long accustomed to Catarina's extraordinary beauty---paused in their conversation and stared.
"Ah, deus, but you are angel!" Marcio breathed.
"Oh, my dear! It is marvelous!" cried Dona Blanca. "But wherever did you find such a design? It is not at all in the current mode, though it becomes you to perfection."
Cat had planned to share her secret but found she could not. The design of her glorious gown was a thing of privacy which she hugged to herself in an invisible cloak of warmth and love. "The dressmaker copied it from an old portrait," she replied carelessly. "I am surprised it has turned out so well."
The sole decoration of the gown fashioned of soft white silk was its design. A double flounce of flowing circular cut enhanced the decolletage of a neckline low enough to reveal an intriguing glimpse of a figure fast approaching womanhood. At the back of the neck the silk had been stiffened with fine wire so it stood up in a fan-shaped Elizabethan collar. The elbow-length sleeves and the gown's hemline were also flounced with the soft flow of circular-cut fabric. A narrow band of pearls topped Cat's long waves of red-gold hair which cascaded over her white shoulders, nestling into the soft silk of the gown.
Cat also wore a single band of pearls around her throat, pearl drops in her ears. She was every man's fantasy vision of virginal perfection. Inside, hidden from all admiring eyes, pain warred with her pleasure. How could Blas design this beautiful gown and not be here to see it?
But Blas had not designed the gown, she reminded herself. It was the stranger, this person she did not know, who had drawn this magnificent creation. Surely with the same fingers Blas used so well to draw maps. Yet why did her mind insist on separating him into two people. Blas who worked with the guerrilleros. Don Alejo who designed gowns for a woman he admired only from a distance. A Don Alejo who never played games.
Thomas interrupted Cat's reverie. "Your mother would be very proud of you, Catherine," he said softly. "As I am." He offered her the arm he should have given to Dona Blanca, escorting her into the ornate dining room with its heavy mahogany furnishings and gold-framed paintings of Portugal's nautical glories.
It was a merry meal. No one was so gauche as to speak of the ghost at the feast. Of Blas. The Bastard.
Access to the balcony outside Catarina's bedroom---the balcony where Blas first saw her in snow white mobcap and apron---was guarded by two rows of iron spikes, one pointing up, the other out. Since the balcony was also located on a quiet side street, Blas had long ago chosen it as his private route in and out of the Casa Audley. He had filed through the iron band holding the spikes in place, fitted it with a hinge and hasp, and carefully put it back in place. Three sets of spikes were now movable, a narrow opening but enough to allow access without gelding himself. With the exception of the night Major Martineau had caught a flash of movement as Blas tumbled over the side of the wrought iron railing, his little trick for getting in and out of the Casa Audley unnoticed had been remarkably successful.
In the months since the French had been evacuated from Lisbon on British ships, the hinge had not been touched. And now, tonight, when he so desperately needed to climb to Cat's room, it would not budge. He could feel the flow of blood where his left hand, clinging to balcony, brushed against one of the sharp points as his right struggled to lift the hasp. He had come from Galicia, the far northwest corner of Spain, through hundreds of miles of snow-clad mountains and icy rushing streams, his heart and mind more frozen than the winter landscape around him. Just one pinpoint of light had kept him moving. He was going home to Cat. And now---bloody hell!---he couldn't get in! He needed his Cat. To hold her, to lie in the warmth of her arms. To be comforted. To blot out where he had been, what he had seen.
With a sharp profanity, Blas abandoned the hasp. Cautiously, he shifted his right hand to a piece of wrought-iron scrollwork which he could only pray would hold his weight. He let go his left hand and swung hard right, arcing his body around the vicious spikes. His right foot came up, searching for a toehold between the vertical bars that extended down to the balcony floor. His left hand took another gash from the spikes but found a hold. For a moment he clung there, cradled against the black scrollwork until he caught his breath and was able to bring his left foot up to join the right. After that, with his last vestige of strength, Blas hauled himself up and over the spikes atop the three foot balcony railing. He tumbled hard onto the tiles and stayed there, on his knees, amazed by his weakness. When had he eaten . . . or slept? Was today Sunday? Let it be so, or Cat would be in the gaming rooms. And he needed her. Now.
Blas cursed himself, the French, the Spanish, the goddamn British army, and the whole miserable unspeakable war. The balcony door was locked.
Like the twenty kinds of a bloody fool he was, he had come back like a thief in the night, shunning hearty welcomes, bright lights, the fatted calf. He needed Cat. No one but Cat. Or he would die of what he had seen. And done.
He scratched lightly on the door. She had to be there!
A long moment. Two. Three. A pair of eyes peeped through a crack in the draperies. The door swung open, Cat's pale face, inquiring eyes shifting to joy, shone before him. Her long white gown billowed in the January wind. Blas surged forward, one hand propelling her back into the room while the other firmly closed the door behind him.
Cat went into his arms with a soft incoherent murmur. Immediately, she could feel his distress, the intensity of his need. And by some mysterious means she knew this was her very own Blas, not the oddly reticent Don Alejo. In the past Blas had supported her with his strength. Now he was the one in need. Even though he held her so close she thought she might be smothered against his jacket, Cat endured without a murmur. His grip as nothing compared to the inexorable force which bound them together.
"Better light a candle before I ruin the carpet," Blas said at last.
Cat gasped as the flickering light revealed his bloodied hand. Well aware a great fuss was the last thing he wanted, she moved quickly and efficiently. After wrapping his hand in a towel, she dashed down to the kitchen, struggling into her robe as she ran. Cook always kept a pail of water warming in a niche inside the great fireplace. Cat found cloth for bandages and paused long enough to stuff bread, cheese and a bottle of wine into a bag hastily contrived from a large white apron. By the time she returned, Blas had stripped himself down to his boots. The only other item he was wearing was the towel which he had secured around his waist. He had built up the fire and was sitting, head propped in his hands, in a chair drawn up close to the flames.
Catarina plunked the heavy pail and her makeshift carryall down onto the hearth, then paused to catch her breath as Blas devoured the food she had brought. He drank straight from the bottle, tilting the strong red wine down his throat in long, panting gulps, as if to wash away the nightmares which seemed to haunt him.
His hands . . . ah, deus, his hands! Horrified, Cat stared. Blas, like Thomas, had seemed invulnerable. Untouchable. And now . . . the long slim patrician fingers which dealt cards to perfection and brought blank pieces of paper to glorious life were battered and blackened, the nails broken and dirty, knuckles red and swollen.
Cat opened her mouth to ask what had happened, then snapped it firmly closed. This was not the time for talk.
When Blas finished the last crumb of bread and cheese, Cat went to work. The cuts were not so bad, she discovered as she wiped away blood that was already drying. Basilicum powder, a soft bandage across the palm. It did not matter that Blas seemed lost in thought, moving only to tilt his head back for another gulp of wine. He was her man, and she was caring for him. Never had Cat been more aware her next birthday would be her sixteenth. Most of her Portuguese friends were already married. One was about to bring a new life into the world.
And Catarina Audley Perez de Leon had a husband who would not touch her.
But tonight, obviously in distress, Blas had come to her for aid and comfort. Surely, that was good.
A smile lurked in her eyes as she finished off the bandage with a soft knot on the back of Blas's wrist. "There," she murmured. "Come to bed." Blas did not resist as she grasped the half empty bottle and set it aside. Clasping his good hand in hers, Cat attempted to coax him to his feet.
"I'm filthy," Blas protested. A simple fact Cat could not deny. Only his bandaged hand was clean.
"There is plenty of warm water," Cat ventured a shade doubtfully as she eyed the water's pinkish cast. She also had doubts about Blas's state of undress. She had not seen so much of him since the night Major Martineau had chased a phantom into her bedroom. Even their game had never gone this far. Blas had grown, filled out. Though slumped in exhaustion and grimed with dirt, his shoulders and arms rippled with firm, strong muscles.
The towel seemed to have shrunk. Blas's bronzed skin went on forever. Cat swallowed. Coherent thought disintegrated. Blindly, she reached for the lavender-scented soap she had used to clean his hand. After lathering a cloth, Cat began with his face. His beloved face which had aged ten years since she had last seen him. Ah, deus, where had he been? What had he done?
Once again, Cat dipped her cloth in the pail, wrung out the excess water. Her hands visibly trembled as they moved from the crevices of his neck and arms to the long, powerful length of his arms. The cloth moved gently over scrapes and bruises, lingered in the black curls shadowing his chest. She knew now why Blas had never taken their game beyond looking. Touching was lethal. She was consumed by emotions which, before, had only been tantalizing visions. Just out of reach. Forbidden.
Her hand slowed. Bypassing the towel, she knelt down to pull off his boots. They were so badly worn they nearly disintegrated at her touch. The boots would never be used again. Blas's leggings were nearly as bad. A series of holes held together by strands of yarn instead of the fine wool knit they once had been. And his feet . . . Catarina slumped back onto the hearth, fearing for a moment she might be sick. How was it possible he could walk at all? She was a very great fool to be thinking of love when her Blas was so badly hurt.
Cat spent a long time on Blas's feet, teeth clenched, her stomach threatening to revolt. Though his feet might heal, they would never again look normal, of that she was certain. Through all her ministrations Blas remained stoically unmoving---even when Cat knew she was hurting him. He had retrieved the bottle; while she worked, he finished it. When Cat finally looked up, tears running down her cheeks, Blas was regarding her with a glint which showed the first sign of revival of his spirits.
Wine. It was the wine, Cat told herself. Whatever the cause, a glimpse of the Blas of old could only be good. Cat rubbed the sleeve of her robe over her eyes, managed a watery smile. It was not the first time she had seen Blas with a full bottle inside him. He was quite funny when he was drunk, his humor bubbling into playfulness. Tonight seemed no exception as, with slow deliberation, he started to unwrap the towel.
"In Medieval times," Blas said blandly, "the lady of the castle was expected to bathe each itinerant knight. It was part of the ritual of hospitality."
Fiercely, Cat bent to scrub a spot of blood which had stained the soft pastels of the carpet. "I cannot," she whispered, shaking her head.
With a rather wicked smirk, he took the cloth from her limp hand and finished the wash himself. Through lowered lashes, Cat peeked. This was the only part of him she had never seen, though the uncensored contents of Thomas Audley's library had provided her with a more than adequate supply of artist's renderings of the nude male body. He was quite large, her husband. Very, Cat amended, as his maleness seemed to swell before her eyes. With a tiny gasp, She ducked her head and turned her face away.
Blas found the sight of his Cat peeping at him while attempting to look as if her thoughts were elsewhere as exciting as it was amusing. Though a glance downward revealed that he was perhaps overdoing the exposure a virgin wife might find acceptable. With a grimace for his frostbitten feet, Blas levered himself to his feet and flopped onto the bed, face down. "My back, Cat, he ordered. "That ought not to offend your modesty."
The damp cloth had moved over only a portion of his broad shoulders when her hand slowed to a stop. "You may as well tell me," she said. "I will find out when I write father's report to London."
Though muffled by the pillow, the stark tragedy and bitterness of Blas's reply was all too clear. "Moore's dead, six thousand men lost, the remains of the army en route back to England. The Lisbon garrison is all that's left of our troops on the Peninsula. Napoleon has two hundred thousand men in Spain. He could retake Lisbon in the twinkling of an eye.
"At her sharp gasp of horror, Blas added harshly, "You knew this could happen, Cat. It was the way it happened that was so bloody awful."
Automatically, Catarina returned to washing his back. He needed her touch, that she understood. "Tell me," she commanded fiercely.
"When Moore saw he was vastly outnumbered, he ordered a retreat to La Coruña . . . but that idiot Frere---the British minister in Salamanca---asked him to go to the aid of Madrid. So Moore called off the retreat, and Boney himself came after him with eighty thousand men. Our army was nearly surrounded, but they broke through and started back toward La Coruña, harassed by the French nearly every step of the way."
"And you went with them?" cried Cat incredulously.
Blas's English heritage betrayed him. "It seemed the sporting thing to do." He pounded his fist into the pillow, startling her hot reply into silence. "Cat, I saw what happened in Madrid, what happened to your father and Dona Blanca. I've seen the guerrilleros do much the same in return. But never . . . never did I think to see our own men---a British army---act like rats deserting a sinking ship. Fighting, clawing their way over each other's dying backs, humanity forgotten. Camp followers, Spanish peasants, the ill and wounded used as human bridges across icy swamps, killed for a scrap of bread . . ."
The cloth had come to rest, unheeded, on the small of his back. "Surely . . . not all?"
Blas rolled over and stared up at her. "No, of course not all. There were good men, brave men. But, believe me, it was an incident to be swept into the dustbin of history. When we finally made it to La Coruña, our ships weren't even there yet. Three days we waited! Soult was able to bring up his troops and attack in force. That's when Moore was killed . . . but nearly fifteen thousand finally made it to the ships." Blas paused. The evacuation of Britain's army may have been a triumph of logistics. For Lisbon it could be a death knell. "Once again we've been abandoned, Cat," he admitted, "and who can say if our government will have the stomach to fight again."
She could not go through it again, Cat thought. The constant fear. The rapacious looks of the conquering French. The little humiliations, the terror of the slightest slip of the tongue. The shadow of death which would once again envelop them all, most particularly Thomas Audley and Don Alexis Perez de Leon.
"Will Soult march south?" Cat inquired with what she hoped was an admirable appearance of calm.
"He could still be in La Coruña or hot on my heels just outside the city," Blas murmured. "At the moment I'm just too damn tired to care." As Catarina gently pulled the covers over his battered body, Blas's eyes closed. Cat tiptoed around the room, cleaning up the mess. Trying not to think. Of war. Defeat. Of Blas. To whom she was only a sometime bride.
When she removed her robe and climbed into bed, Cat kept her eyes averted, refusing to look at the enigma who was called Blas. Don Alexis. Don Alejo. She stayed at the edge of the bed, careful not to touch him. It was a long time before she slept.
Hours later, she woke to the touch of a hand . . . stifled a cry as the hand squeezed her breast, a thumb rubbed across her nipple. She knew instinctively Blas was half asleep, still full of wine and dreaming of one of his women. If she cried out, she never doubted he would stop. As much as he needed her, Blas would not go this far. Their game---that childish bit of daring---was the outside limit of their relationship. He would never, ever, touch her so.
But she did not cry out. She did not move.
Suddenly, her gown was up around her neck. Blas's mouth followed his hand. Cat thought she might die of it. The delicious horror of what he was doing, the warmth . . . Ah, deus! What was he doing now?
The shock as his hand drifted lightly across her navel and down to places where she had never been touched before. She froze, torn between the joy of his tongue and teeth nibbling her breast and horror at what his hand was doing as he parted her thighs. A soft contented hiss of breath escaped his mouth. As he caressed her breast with one hand, he cupped the seat of her femininity with the other.
No, no, no, he must not do this!
But Blas was doing it. And she could not bring herself to stop him. She loved him. He was hurt, he needed someone.
Even if that someone could have been anyone.
Cat bit her lip and was silent even when his sudden weight brought claustrophobia. And fear. The teasing, tantalizing, terrifying hand returned to part the lips which could bring him peace. Surely he could not be doing what she suspected he was doing. Conversations with Dona Blanca had been considerably more specific than those with Dona Felipa, but for this small detail she was unprepared. It was not physically possible. She had just seen him naked. He was too big. Much too big.
The pain was sharp, searing her inside. She would not cry out. Cat covered her mouth with her fist and gritted her teeth, inadvertently increasing her pain. Perhaps Dona Felipa's strictures on the marriage bed had been correct after all.
Why then did men enjoy it so much?
As the bed rocked with his demanding rhythm, Cat tried to disappear into the mattress. Anything to escape the pain. Fortunately, it did not last long. She could not know he had not touched a woman in months. In Blas's great need for release, Cat's pain was blessedly short-lived.
Deus! He had hurt himself! What was this terrible thing which wracked his body and made him cry out? Horrified, Cat lay very still, suffocating under his full weight, quite sure he must be dead.
When Blas rolled away as abruptly as he had begun, she knew with awful clarity that it was quite, quite terrible to be so stupidly young and ignorant. Even more terrible to have lost her virginity and still be so stupidly young and ignorant. She had not even known it was possible to do that without even kissing. While Blas slept without stirring, Catarina pulled her gown back down to her ankles, firmly turned her back on her sometime husband. It was not rape of course. It only felt like it. She had been willing. Intellectually, she had been willing. Her body had not.
This could not possibly be the thing the poets acclaimed, that women whispered of behind their fans. The end result of starry eyes and flirtatious glances, the goal of swaggering men with a gleam in their eyes. This could not be the act of love. Surely not.
Cat did not want to move. She wished to stay frozen, to stop time in its movement across the heavens, to keep the morning sun from revealing this night's work. But move she finally did, using the remains of Blas's washwater and a great deal of the lavender-scented soap to clean away the telltale traces of blood. There was little of Blas to wash away. The seed he had spilled was inside her.
Carefully, quietly, she climbed back into bed. She pulled the covers up to her chin, keeping so close to the edge of the bed she nearly fell off. Blas slept sprawled across the bed. When her toes touched his, she jerked back as if scalded, pulling her knees nearly up to her chin. Wide-eyed, Cat stared into the darkness which was lit only by the fading glow from the fireplace.
It was not rape. She was not expected to kill herself.
They were not really married. She might have a baby.
Perhaps then she was supposed to kill herself.
It was not rape. Blas did not realize what he had done.
It was not rape. Nor was it love.
She could not cry.
The fire faded to embers. A gray January dawn came up over Lisbon.
Cat finally slept . . . and woke to find Blas gone. Every trace of clothing, bandages and water pail gone with him. Perhaps it had all been a dream. She threw back the covers . . . and turned fiery red. No dream then. When she thrust her feet over the side of the high bed, muscles she never knew existed added their protest to her agony. Grimly, chin set in a determined line, she did something Catarina Audley had never done before in her life. She stripped her bed and remade it with fresh sheets, thrusting those with the telltale stains far down into the laundry basket, praying no one would notice. As she left her room, she caught a glimpse of Blas across the courtyard, just closing the door to her father's room. Without a glance in her direction he limped down the far staircase, crossed the courtyard and disappeared into the stables at the rear of the house.
Cat stared blankly out over the courtyard. Was that it then? He was off on his adventures once again. Without so much as a word.
The wine. He did not remember.
Cat winced, glared at the fountain which continued to send its innocent song throughout the courtyard. She straightened her shoulders, took a deep breath. She willed away Dona Felipa's dire warnings about men. She was Catarina Audley Perez de Leon. She would survive.
Spinning on her heel, Cat headed down to breakfast.
At dusk, when Cat went to her room to dress for the evening, Blas was there, rummaging through her wardrobe. He did not bother to speak but peered at each gown in succession until his hand paused at last over a creation in purest white. "Put this on," he commanded. "Wear your mother's pearls and bring your cloak. We're going out."
Out. Cat's eyes were wide as she accepted the dress, but truthfully she was too relieved to quibble over a minor matter. Blas had not gone. He wanted her company. It was enough.
When he tapped on her door a half hour later, she was ready . . . and so was he. Blas wore the short, elegant, black velvet jacket with mother-of-pearl buttons he had worn the evening of his debut in Casa's gaming rooms. Even his hair was shining clean, curling lightly about his ears and onto his neck. Though how he had gotten his damaged feet into those tall black boots Cat refused to imagine.
When the carriage turned away from the heart of the city, Cat still did not question their destination. Obviously, Blas planned to surprise her, and she was pitifully grateful for his attention, brusque and impersonal though it might be. He had not left her, as Dona Felipa had always warned, a despoiled and withered flower, forever beneath an hidalgo's notice. He was here beside her. Taciturn but solid. Dependable.
Sometimes.
Cat's mild curiosity gave way to genuine surprise as she recognized the glow of campfires, the murmur of a large body of men, the faint white blur of a field of tents. The British garrison? But why?
They bypassed the imposing headquarters, drawing up in the inner courtyard of a sprawling farm complex about half a mile past the British tents. Cat held her cloak and gown high to avoid the muck of the well-trodden yard as she allowed herself to be led into the farmhouse. It was surprisingly neat and cheery, the parlor warmed by a fire and the glow of candles. But Cat blanched at the sight of the people who rose to greet them. A man of middle-years, his face seamed by some fifty years of strong Portuguese sunlight, his rotund wife smiling with shy but gracious welcome. Both were dressed in what was undoubtedly their Sunday best. The third person would have been recognizable even without the Book of Common Prayer clutched in his hands, for he was wearing a white ecclesiastical robe and gold vestments.
Introductions flew over Catarina's head. Without conscious volition she murmured appropriate greetings, then blurted out, "A thousand pardons . . . you will please excuse us a moment." She dragged Blas back out into the hallway.
"We will not discuss this!" Blas decreed, mouth set in the inflexible arrogance she knew so well.
"You do not want to marry me, you know you do not," Cat exploded. "It is all a matter of your stupid honor! I will not be the cause of making you miserable because then I too will be miserable."
"We are being married now. This moment." Blas grabbed her arm, started back into the parlor.
"Imbecil! I will not have a husband who thinks he is a martyr. Do you hear me? I will not do this!"
Blas backed her into the wall, his arms on either side of her head. He held her there with his body, as he had done that long ago night in the alley. "You will marry me now or I will confess to Thomas that I have been using you as my whore for all this past year, and he will stand over us with the proverbial shotgun. Your choice. You can be married in shame while breaking his heart, or you can settle for doing things my way."
Cat squeezed her eyes shut, drew a ragged breath. When Blas felt the fight go out of her, he reached for her left hand and gently drew off the ring he had placed there so rudely more than a year before. He slid it onto the ring finger of her right hand. When Cat's gaze flew to his, she saw only grim determination. Resigned, she let him lead her back into the cozy parlor. Blas removed her blue velvet cloak, laid it over a chair. They stood before the Anglican chaplain and repeated their vows, the farmer and his wife smiling benignly in the background. The ancient words flowed from both their mouths as if they had always known they would make these vows to each other. I, Catherine Elizabeth Audley, take thee Alexis António Perez de Leon . . .
When it was time for the ring, Blas produced a band of Moorish gold filigree studded with small diamonds. It was exquisite, a perfect fit. Surely, Cat thought, not something he had picked up on the spur of the moment while running around Lisbon arranging a wedding. A very strange man, her Blas. Unfathomable.
The Casa Audley was its usual quietly elegant bustling self when they returned. If they had gone into the gaming rooms, they would have found Thomas, Lucio Cardoso and Marcio in their customary places at the tables, the brilliant array of uniforms, the gentle murmur of voices, the clink of glasses, the old gentlemen holding forth in the Portuguese cardroom.
And yet, Cat's whole world had changed. "Blas," she hissed as he dragged her up the gallery stairs, "why was Papa not at our wedding?"
He hushed her into silence, continuing to pull her along the walkway. He opened the door to her room, thrust her inside. Blas sat her down on the embroidered cushion of the boudoir chair in front of her dressing table, then perched himself on the wooden footrail at the end of her bed. Tongue-tied, he simply stared at her, not knowing how to begin. Many things had happened since his dramatic homecoming the night before. Meaningful conversation had not been one of them. He had been brought up to a rigid and exacting code of honor, and he would find the correct words. But, devil a bit, at not-quite twenty-three years of age he found himself well and truly married. To a bride of fifteen.
"Why is our wedding such a secret?" Cat demanded.
That at least was easy to answer. "Because we were already married," Blas returned with elaborate patience. "More than a year ago, if you will recall."
"But Papa knew we were not . . ."
"I am a fool, an irresponsible idiot," Blas declared with strong emotion. "I am not suicidal,"
For a moment Cat looked at him blankly. The emotional assaults of the past day had dulled her usually sharp intelligence. "Oh," she said at last in a very small voice. "Papa would have realized that you . . . that we . . ."
"Precisely."
Blas shifted uncomfortably on his perch, ran one long artist's finger lightly down the bedcurtains, the light, airy, utterly feminine hangings of his child bride's bed. "Cat, this is not easy," he muttered. "I think you must know . . . must have realized that I thought you were . . ."
"Someone else," she supplied helpfully.
"God help me, yes," Blas ground out between tight lips. "You know I would never hurt you." He grimaced. "I was certain I would never hurt you. I've been an arrogant ass. I had no right to play God with your life. And I most sincerely apologize. I assure you nothing like this will ever happen again."
Green eyes wide, Cat watched him in fascination. An apology she had not expected. It was not a Blas-like thing to do.
He ran an agitated hand through his hair, tousling the thick waves of black. "Cat, listen to me," he demanded. "I am going to stay in Lisbon a while. If you think you might be with child, you must tell me immediately. We will face Thomas together. There's no problem with anyone else, except Blanca. Everyone believes us to be married long since."
Blas crossed the short space between them. Placing strong fingers beneath her chin, he tilted her small heart-shaped face up to his. "I will have your promise, Catarina. Now."
"But of course I would tell you," she said simply.
With a curt nod Blas dropped his hand and stepped back. "We will not live as husband and wife, Catarina. I am still enough of an Englishman to feel I have committed a crime by bedding you. I have hurt you in body and in mind and know no way to mend either. I hope, in time, you may be able to forgive me. Goodnight, Catarina." He turned and walked out, softly closing the door behind him.
He might as well have said, "Goodbye." For that was what he meant. She knew it.
With so many thoughts chasing through her head, it was hours later before Cat recalled some other disturbing facts about her wedding. For all the strange beauty of the ceremony, she could not truly be married because Don Alexis Perez de Leon did not exist. And Thomas Audley had already guaranteed her widowhood.
And, perhaps strangest of all, never by so much as a raised eyebrow had Blas acknowledged her wedding gown. The gown he had designed for her Christmas gift. The gown which was her most cherished possession. The gown he had chosen for her wedding with no sign that he recognized it at all.
Blanca and Dona Felipa had been right. Men were very strange creatures.
Although the news had not yet reached Lisbon, two weeks earlier Napoleon Bonaparte packed his bags and returned triumphant to Paris. He had defeated the armies of Spain. The British army had tucked its tail between its legs and sailed back to the safety of their tight little island. Bonaparte now had more important matters on his mind. His Marshals were quite capable of administering the coup de grace to the Iberian Peninsula on their own.
Marshal Soult made no effort to retake Lisbon. His troops were as exhausted, starved and battered as the British army they had pursued across northern Spain. Nor would there be a baby at the Casa Audley. Catarina was torn between relief and sorrow. Blas would go away now, and she would have nothing left of him at all. For a fleeting moment she toyed with the idea of not telling him.
When she saw Blas take a break from the gaming tables, she followed him into the courtyard. Shadowed by the covered walkway, he was leaning back against the wall, smoking a cigar. The tip glowed red in the chill winter night, the odor warm and pungent. Cat recognized her father's favorite brand. Blinded by the sudden darkness and a mist of tears, Cat could not see her husband's face as she stumbled through the necessary words. Blas, obviously, did not suffer from mixed feelings. Breath gushed from his lungs in a heartfelt sigh of relief. He threw his cigar onto the tiles, ground it out beneath his shining patent leather shoes. Briefly, his hand rested on her shoulder. Murmured words of apology, farewell . . . and he was gone.
Stunned, Cat clutched one of the gallery supports, gasping on a sob of anguish. Wicked, abominable man! She hated him. He could not wait to get back to the war. To his guerrilleros, maps, the supplying of arms. To the careful manipulation of men who wanted only to take what Britain offered and do exactly what they pleased when they got it. The cause which consumed him was hopeless. Stupidly, utterly hopeless. Surely he would die of it.
And for this he would leave her. With eagerness he would leave her. Damn him, damn him, damn him! Tears slid slowly out of the mists of Cat's green eyes to run down her pale cheeks, losing themselves in the cream silk of her gown. She did not return to the gaming rooms that night.
The next morning Blas was gone. And, weeks later, it was Don Alejo who returned. Don Alejo who said all the right words, performed all the correct motions of a Spanish hidalgo. Don Alejo who was shallow as a saucer and slippery as an eel. Don Alejo who bedded other women with only a minimum of discretion. Don Alejo whose visits to the Casa Audley were blessedly infrequent for they always left her puzzled. And in pain.
Of Blas, her Blas, there was no sign at all.
Three months later the gloom of the winter of 1809 was blown away as Lisbon went wild with joy. To the sound of castanets and drums, colorful throngs in fiesta attire filled Black Horse Square, the heart of the city. The cries of vendors, beggars and ballad singers rose in an excited cadenza above the excited shouts of the crowd. After a nasty political struggle at home, Sir Arthur Wellesley was back as Marshal-General of all the forces in Portugal. His former superiors, generals Dalrymple and Burrard who had returned twenty-five thousand soldiers to France in British ships, would never command armies again.
Because Wellesley was a soldier above all else, he had his army on the march when most newly arrived commanders would have been sitting in headquarters assessing the situation. Leaving nearly half his force to guard Lisbon, he set out for northern Portugal with the intention of taking Porto, that city so close to the hearts of all Englishmen, the source of port wine. He was a young general, teetering on the verge of political hot water. He badly needed a dramatic gesture for the critics at home.
In the university city of Coimbra, south of Porto, he paused his troops long enough to reorganize the eager but inexperienced Portuguese army. While there, he sent out scouts to see how strongly Marshal Soult---the French general who had pushed the British into the sea at La Coruña---was situated in the city of Porto.
"Sir," said Lord Fitzroy Somerset to his commanding general, "the scout Audley recommended is back from Porto."
"Then show him in." As usual, the words were abrupt, the voice of a man impatient to be about the business of winning the war.
Wellesley's twenty-year-old aide-de-camp hesitated only momentarily. "He's being a tad difficult, Sir. For some reason he seems reluctant to talk with you. Wants to leave his maps and go."
"Nonsense. Bring him in."
After sounds of a brief but intense scuffle outside the door, a young man catapulted into the room, closely followed by the three guards who had assisted his entrance. They were accompanied by a junior officer and a priest. Arthur Wellesley regarded the sea of angry faces. The black-haired, strong-jawed young man sprawled on the floor in front of the general's desk pushed himself up to a half reclining position, amber eyes blazing with barely suppressed fury.
The general examined the scout with leisurely interest. "Out!" he bawled at the men around him.
"But, Sir . . ." Fitzroy Somerset protested.
"Out! All of you."
"Even the interpreter, sir?" Somerset persisted, nodding at the priest.
Wellesley did not bother to answer. An impatient wave of his hand sent them all into hasty retreat. When the door was shut behind them, the general got up from his desk, walked around to the young man and gave him a hand up. The scowling young man in Portuguese peasant clothes stood stiffly straight, crossed his arms in front of his chest and glared defiantly back at the Marshal-General of the allied forces in Portugal.
"Harriet Wilson's, was it not?" Wellesley inquired smoothly.
The young man stared fixedly at an elaborately framed painting of King Henry the Navigator hanging on the wall behind the general's desk.
"I'd heard you were dead," Wellesley said, his notorious temper seemingly unruffled. "The Horse Guards were anxious to find out what you'd learned on your little tour of Europe, but you never came back. We got the information from Audley instead." The general paused, a thin smile creasing his face. "How singularly stupid of me. Audley got his information from you." He gave the still angry young man a sharp glance. "Does Audley know?"
Blas was young enough to resent having his secret discovered so early in the game. Stubbornly, he remained silent, loathe to give in, even to this man he so much admired.
"Never been manhandled before, have you, my lord?" said Wellesley. "Too toplofty by half. However do you pass yourself off as a peasant?"
"I am usually not so clumsy, Sir," Blas replied, giving in at last. "Being tossed at the feet of my commanding general was not my most fond ambition."
"And your parents? I trust they know you are alive?" Wellesley did not bother to disguise the implied criticism.
"Yes, Sir," Blas ground out. "But not where I am," he added with a steady significant gaze straight into the general's piercing blue eyes.
Wellesley held the look for some time before giving a curt nod of acceptance. "Sit down, my lord. Tell me about Porto."
"I am called Blas. Blas the Bastard." Fists clenched, eyes flashing, the young man radiated defiance.
And what would his mother, whose reputation was among the most irreproachable in British society, say to that? the general wondered. What the boy's father would say, there was no doubt. "Then sit, Blas," Wellesley commanded. "Tell me what I need to know."
Much later, as Blas stood to take his leave, he added, "About Thomas Audley, Sir . . . no, he doesn't know, and I'd like to keep it that way."
"Very well." The young man's maps and detailed observations were so useful the general would have granted him almost anything.
Blas, with his hand on the door knob, managed a parting shot. "And, Sir," he said, "you were quite right. We did meet at Harriet Wilson's." Amber eyes dancing with mischief, Blas slipped through the door, closing it softly behind him.
Cheeky bastard, the general mused. The boy must have been about Somerset's age when he'd met him at Harriet Wilson's. Too young for courtesans. Much too young. They were all too young, his boys. The boys who would push Boney back to France.
Wearily, General Sir Arthur Wellesley turned to the meticulous maps drawn by his aristocratic scout.
As the pale light of dawn revealed swirling mists rising from the wide expanse of the River Douro, Blas stood on top of the high south bank of the river and studied the far shore through a spyglass.
If I were a boat, where would I be?
At two that morning French sappers had blown up the bridge across the Douro. And Soult was too good a general not to have ordered the destruction of all boats as well. For the French, however, the city of Porto was enemy territory. They would have had little cooperation. Porto, the second largest port city in Portugal, earned its living from wine. Wine floated downriver from the high country where grapes thrived on terraced hillsides. The square-sailed barges, ribelhos, which brought the great casks of wine from the vineyards to the docks of Porto tilted up at each end, much like the gondolas of Venice, but were larger and sturdier. They were the bearers of the life blood of the region. Of Portugal's economy. If there was a wine warehouse which had not hidden as many of its boats as possible to save them from destruction by the French, Blas would be very much surprised.
So . . . where were they? Surely not every ribelho had been sneaked upriver in the dead of night. Blas lowered the spyglass and swept the river with his naked eyes. On the far bank to the left were tiers of houses stretching up the tall slope of the cliff. Almost directly across from him were the twin towers of the Cathedral. To the right and somewhat isolated from the rest, a large square tower rose from behind a high wall. A Seminary, someone had told him on his scouting expedition a few days earlier.
As the sun rose higher, the mists began to dissipate. Blas made another slow, careful sweep of the far bank. Nothing. Strangely nothing. There should have been some sign of French pickets, the answering flash of other spyglasses looking southeast into the morning sun. Though wide and deep, the Douro was not the Tagus. The movement of guards, troops, horses, artillery should be clearly visible. Yet there was nothing at all. The city appeared deserted. Had Wellesley truly outsmarted the wiley Marshal Soult? Had the French general concentrated all his forces to the west, expecting an attack from the sea, abandoning the south shore in the surety that the British could not cross the Douro?
Or had Wellesley merely outsmarted himself? Bringing twenty-three thousand men to the banks of a river which was too wide and deep to cross without bridge or boat?
Blas packed away his spyglass and set off on foot down the side of the cliff. If there were boats too well hidden for the French to find, then they were too well hidden for the British to find as well. He would have to try another tack. It was nearly eight o'clock when, as he slogged his way through the reeds at the bottom of the cliff, his heart leaped at a glimpse of wood. Not the uprising tilt of a wine barge but clearly the prow of a boat of some kind. Arms flailing, Blas batted the reeds aside. A skiff. Flat-bottomed, narrowed at both ends. Not sufficient to hold more than eight men, but the oars were laid along its bottom, and it would take him where he wanted to go.
The sun was well up as the skiff's prow broke through the edge of the reeds. Blas paused, once again scanning the north shore. Still no sign of life. It crossed his mind that his father would not be pleased if he knew what his son and heir was about to do. Nor would Cat. Thomas, however, would be proud of him.
The day was warming rapidly. Over the smell of the wetlands and the river he caught the pungent odor of wine. Tons of wine in the warehouses across the river. Above him seagulls swooped and soared, their raucous cries the only sound above a city whose population had been swelled by the massed armies of nearly fifty thousand men.
The world waited. For Blas the Bastard to move onto the river and find the bloody boats.
It was too beautiful a day to die. He drew a deep breath and poled the skiff out of the reeds. As the current caught the little boat, Blas sat down, settled the oars and began to row. He was halfway across, with at least a hundred yards of turbulent tidal river on each side of him, when he remembered he had never made provision for his wife. Not that Thomas couldn't provide for her, but Cat was his wife, his responsibility now. And he'd muffed it. Hell and the devil! What a time to remember he was married.
Blas made a few private vows. And kept rowing.
Nothing happened. Surely the devil looked after his own. He crossed the Douro in broad daylight in a boat which was not supposed to have existed, and nothing happened. No shouts, no shots, no alarms of any kind. He shipped his oars and drifted under the overhang of the north bank, now completely out of sight of anyone on the cliffs above.
His search did not take long. Four marvelously sturdy wine barges were tucked up under the cliffs, strung together in a long line invisible to anyone not sitting in a boat right in front of them. His return trip to the south bank was also uneventful. An hour later he crossed the river yet again, accompanied by six Portuguese volunteers---a barber, a Prior and four farmers. By ten-thirty that morning an advance guard of Britain's finest, thirty to a barge, crossed the Douro into Porto. At first, they barricaded themselves inside the square walls of the Seminary. Then, finding no opposition, they moved out into the city itself. The French pickets, finally realizing they were being invaded, simply abandoned their posts and fled. The good citizens of Porto swarmed out of their hiding places, unearthed their boats and ferried the British soldiers across the Douro in rapidly increasing numbers.
The French army remained west of the city, still looking for British ships on the horizon.
The surprise was so complete Marshal Soult was forced to abandon any serious attempt at defense. A hasty retreat was his only option. Late that afternoon, General Wellesley dined on the meal which had been cooked for the French Marshal. That evening the Marshal-General of the allied forces summoned his aristocratic scout and the Portuguese volunteers who had played such a significant role in the taking of Porto. In words which were formally translated by the priest whose services had been scorned the week before, the general publicly thanked them for their contribution to the French rout. With gleaming eyes and scarcely concealed grins, Wellesley's young staff officers noted that the honored scout was the same angry young man who had been tossed at the general's feet in Coimbra. They would not forget Blas the Bastard.
A good day's work. For the rest of the war Wellesley's Portuguese troops, and not a few of his own, would call him "Old Douro."
The scout who had told a general to call him Blas the Bastard retired to a comfortable room in a nearby taberna and wrote the first of many letters to his family's solicitor in London. He was a married man now. He had responsibilities.
"It was a glorious sight, all those red coats crossing the Douro. I wish you might have seen it," Blas exclaimed to Cat and Marcio Cardoso a week later. The three friends had found a private spot in the music room of the Casa Audley.
Blas had thought himself above indulging in boyish enthusiasm, but his part in Wellesley's victory over Marshal Soult gave him a remarkable feeling of personal triumph. He had barely escaped from Soult with his life at La Coruña. It was all too easy to blame the French general for his long trip home, his disastrous reunion with Cat. The British victory at Porto was sweet. Hard to understand why his companions were looking at him with such horror.
"You are telling us," said Marcio carefully, "that you rowed across the Douro in full view of the French pickets?" An appalled Cat had not yet found her voice.
"They were asleep, I think," said Blas airily. "Or thought I was some ignorant fisherman who didn't know what was going on."
"But the barges couldn't be missed," Cat pointed out. "Particularly when filled with red coats," she added with heavy sarcasm.
"It is true that a French soldier should be able to distinguish between wine casks and red coats," Blas allowed drily, "but given any modicum of doubt, a Frenchman could not really be expected to fire on a barge load of wine. Not even Portuguese wine."
Marcio laughed. Cat did not.
"You are a madman," she said. "Even Papa has not said you must win the war by yourself."
Blas's self-satisfied grin faded. "What Thomas says," he admitted, "is that any daring fool can scout for the army, but only a black-haired, black-hearted, Spanish-speaking devil can hold his own with the guerrilleros. So I'm off to Spain again within the week, probably before Wellesley returns from chasing Soult.
"Do not look so!" he added sharply to Cat. "Life in the mountains is much safer than life with Old Douro. And I'll get back now and then. After all, there are some things I cannot put into writing. I will have to speak directly with Thomas on occasion."
It was deliberate provocation. Marcio backed rapidly toward the door. At times like this he was very much aware of why he stayed single.
"So now it is said!" Cat spit out as Marcio left, carefully closing the door behind him. "You will come back to see Thomas, but not to see me."
"You may recall we're at war," said Blas stiffly. "Personal considerations are not allowed."
Arms akimbo, Cat marched up to him, tilting her face to look up into the amber eyes in which no warmth shone. "I expect you to do your duty," she snapped. "I did not expect you to do it with such obvious relish!"
Blas refused to look at her, staring straight ahead at the vase of flowers sitting on the long black expanse of the grand piano. "I have made provision for you," he said as if reciting from a court document. "If you are in need, you have only to contact the firm of Bentham, Bentham and Wembley in London, and you will never want for anything. Is that clear? Bentham, Bentham and Wembley. Repeat it."
"I do not want your miserable money."
"But you're going to have it."
"No!"
"Yes!" It was much like their game. They stood, not quite touching, eyes locked, pulses racing, bodies quivering, forgetting to breathe. Tossing out the eternal challenge of male and female.
With a sharp gasp for air, Blas threw up his hands in defeat, sweeping Cat into his arms. He cupped her head hard against his chest. "Cat, Cat, don't you understand? It's not just the war. I can't be near you without wanting you, and you're too damn young. I love you, you idiot. You're my wife. No matter what happens to me, I have to know you'll be protected. Stop being so damn stubborn and let me do what's right."
"You love me?" Cat gasped, the words muffled in his ruffled shirt.
"When did I ever not?"
Cat peeped up at him, studying the hard jaw, sensuous mouth, the eyes which were no longer cold. She supposed she would have to believe him. The gulf which separated them was not quite so wide as she had feared.
With only a small show of hesitation she tilted up her face, offering her lips to his. It was quite some time before the door of the music room opened and the revealingly tousled young couple came out.
Thomas sent Blas off to Spain that very night.
Catarina, flashing her most dazzling smile, gave the dice box a hard spin. Wearing the white dress which had served as her wedding gown five months earlier, she had never looked more lovely. A sea of Britain's finest surrounded her, each more determined than the other to lose his money in honor of Dona Catarina's sixteenth birthday. On a small table near the wall an array of gifts and glasses of champagne were accumulating so fast Marcio signaled a footman to bring a second table.
"I cry foul, Dona Catarina," said Lieutenant Reggie Wareham. "When I look at you, I am so dazzled I don't know what my bet is or whether I'm winning or losing. 'Tis no wonder they call this Hazard."
"Shame, Wareham!" chided Captain Miles Ormonde. "One does not complain of being dazzled. It is always a privilege to lose to Dona Catarina Perez de Leon." He swept her a bow which displayed more than a hint of Moorish salaam. Cat laughed and spun the dice box once again.
Another young lieutenant eyed her worshipfully. "I shall never enjoy White's after this. So damnably dull, don't you know . . ."
He was interrupted by Catarina's sharp intake of breath. Her eyes fixed on the doorway, she clutched Marcio's arm. "Is it? . . oh, quickly, tell me!"
Together they stared at the newcomer, who was nearly the only Englishman besides Thomas Audley not wearing a uniform. The man's long handsome face was marked by a nose of distinction. Blue eyes glowed with an intense brilliance which contrasted with the simplicity of his black tailcoat and breeches. Cat had heard he actually wore a plain blue jacket of superfine into battle. A murmur rose throughout the room. All eyes turned toward the doorway. Catarina's hand dropped from the dice box. She moved forward, making a deep curtsey to the forty-year-old general whose esteem in Portugal was only slightly below the holy Savior and well above that of the distant Portuguese royal family.
Somehow Catarina got through a speech of welcome, quickly seconded by Thomas Audley who had come up behind her. Sir Arthur kissed the hand of his hostess, his piercing gaze regarding her with great appreciation. Never could it be said that Arthur Wellesley did not have an eye for the ladies. There were times in the years to follow, that for all the bloody horror of the British battles, his troops were accused of dancing their way into Spain.
"Dona Catarina," the general said with a twinkle in his eye, "My felicitations on your birthday. Since I have suffered the mass desertion of my staff to the Casa Audley, I decided to investigate its considerable attractions myself."
Sir Arthur gave not the slightest indication he had spent a goodly portion of the afternoon conferring with Thomas Audley. The general favored Catarina with the smile that inevitably sent people scurrying to do his bidding, leaving no doubt which of the Casa Audley's attractions met with his greatest approval. "I am delighted to confirm that my officers have excellent taste." A very deliberate wink dimmed one bright blue eye. "And will I have the pleasure of meeting your husband this evening?"
Since the general had asked Thomas some very penetrating questions about the scout sent to him at Coimbra, he was now aware of the young Englishman's double identity in Portugal. Sir Arthur wondered, with wry amusement, if Blas the Bastard's parents had any idea their eldest son and heir was married to a child bride from a Portuguese gaming house. Since Wellesley was well aware Don Alexis Perez de Leon was somewhere in the mountains of northern Spain, Catarina's apologies for her husband's absence were quickly made and accepted.
After a glance to Fitzroy Somerset who hovered at his side, Sir Arthur produced a small black velvet box which he handed to Catarina with a gracious bow and admiring eye.
General Wellesley was giving her a gift! Sophisticated as she was, Cat's hands shook as she opened the box to reveal a gold necklace of delicate filigree work with a bracelet to match. Her exclamation of delight was cut off when the general leaned forward to whisper in her ear, "Your father described your ring and has approved your acceptance of this gift. It is a very small thing in return for your service to your country."
Abruptly, Sir Arthur turned away to greet the many officers who were eager for his attention. Thomas returned to his faro bank. The commanding general of the allied forces did them the honor of staying for over an hour and partaking of a bite of supper. Before taking his leave, Sir Arthur once again raised Catarina's hand to his lips. He had the knack, she thought, of making her feel she was the only woman in the room. Her birthday celebration was complete. The only thing which would have made her happier was to see Blas striding across the room toward her.
"Did you ever see the like!" exclaimed a well-known voice as the general's entourage disappeared out the door. Gordon Somersby had joined the young men regrouping around the hazard table. When the Somersby family returned to Portugal after the French occupation, he had been philosophical about finding his childhood sweetheart married. He had, after all, recognized the totality of his loss the moment Blas walked through the door of the Embassy kitchen that night so long ago. The night they had defined the situation in Europe with loaves of bread strewn across the tabletop. Gordon Somersby was one of very few persons who knew Catarina was not married to a Spanish dandy but to one of Britain's most able spies.
"Next month I'll be eighteen," Gordon told Cat. "Father has promised to buy me my colors. What shall it be? Scarlet, blue or green?"
Catarina's hand froze on the dice box. "Must you, Gordy? Do you not wish to be a diplomat like your father?"
"Well, of course, silly. But right now there's a war to be fought. Come, Cat, is it to be the cavalry, the infantry, or the rifles?"
"Don't you care?"
Gordon favored her with a broad grin. "I'm inclined to think green makes the poorest target."
A general guffaw greeted this sally, recalling Catarina to her duties. As she smiled and smiled and indulged in the light flirtation which was expected of her, she found time to be glad her old friend was not quite as blinded by the so-called glory of war as she had feared.
Thomas Audley, bent nearly double over the papers he was struggling to read, glanced up in surprise as his daughter uttered a sharp exclamation. "I thought this report was from Blas," Cat explained. "That it did not look quite the same as usual because he was writing under difficult conditions. But here, at the end, I find there is a T instead of a B."
"I am surprised he did not tell you," said Thomas, genuinely puzzled, but the bloody boy was born secretive. Took to being a spy like a duck to water. "Blas has found a young hidalgo among the guerrilleros," Thomas explained. "Tonio. Some sort of distant cousin, I believe. Blas has begun to train him to work in the parts of Spain he cannot cover himself. The guerrilleros are keeping at least six French divisions occupied full time. But unless we can organize them into some sort of coordinated movement, we stand little chance of doing more than stinging Boney's tail. Tonio is going to work with the groups from Madrid to the south while Blas handles the mountains of the north."
Cat re-examined the closely written sheet of paper and the drawings which accompanied it. "So this is Tonio's work. It is very good for a beginner. I truly thought Blas had done it. Even the sketch of the new street barricades in Madrid has his style."
"There are times," sighed Thomas, "when I find it difficult to accept the wall Blas has built around himself. For all I know, he and Tonio may be old friends, schoolmates who shared the same masters. I swore to accept the boy on his own terms, but he leaves me with far too many questions." Thomas rubbed a hand over eyes which were bothering him more and more of late. "Then I remember it must be even more difficult for you. Or is he more forthcoming in private?" he added blandly. Struck by a rare stab of guilt, Thomas realized he was probing his own daughter's knowledge of her husband.
Catarina sat very still, her hand resting on Tonio's report. "No, Papa," she said very quietly, "he is not." Picking up her pen, she returned to her work.
"Listen to this, Cat! George swears he has written it about you." Don Alexis Perez de Leon, who had surprised them all by a mid-summer visit, lounged against the fireplace mantel in the family's private salon. Lifting an elegant piece of heavy parchment to eye level, he struck a pose and declaimed:
Hath aught like thee in truth or fancy seem'd.
Nor, having seen thee, shall I vainly seek
to paint those charms which varied as they beam'd:
to such as see thee not my words were weak;
to those who gaze on thee what language could they speak?
"He cannot be talking of Cat," declared Marcio Cardoso who was looking over Don Alejo's shoulder. "See . . . down here . . . it says 'guileless beyond Hope's imagining!'"
Catarina gave both young men a withering glance before turning to smile at the startlingly handsome gentleman seated next to her on the sofa. "You know quite well you had some charming English---or is it Scottish?---lady in mind when you wrote those lines, my lord. But I am flattered by your attempt to hoodwink me."
The classically perfect features of George, Lord Byron, might have been the model for the gods of ancient Greece. The young man raised Catarina's hand and brushed it with his lips. He favored her with the appreciative smile of a connoisseur of beauty in all its forms. "But it was you, Dona Catarina, who suggested I visit the Serra de Sintra whose magnificent panorama has inspired me to begin my new epic."
Catarina was so accustomed to the adulation of young gentlemen that she had no difficulty taking the words of this particular British lord with a grain of salt. "Have you named your poem, my lord?" she inquired politely.
"I have determined to name it after its adventurous young hero," said Byron. "Childe Harold."
"Sinful young hero would be more like," interjected John Hobhouse, Byron's traveling companion. "By the time we have completed our journey, Dona Catarina, I expect George will have enough first-hand experience for several cantos."
His noble companion ignored this gentle irony. "Lisbon and its inhabitants will always be close to my heart," vowed his lordship, "for here we have begun our journey into history."
Marcio and Don Alejo exchanged glances, struggled to keep their faces straight. Catarina had more sympathy for these two very young gentlemen who had set out on a journey of exploration in the midst of a war. After all, their spirit seemed only slightly less daring than Blas had exhibited at the same age.
She had no difficulty understanding that Byron, surrounded by hale and hearty soldiers involved in a war as old as he was, suffered intensely from the deformity of his club foot. Pain of the soul, not of the body. Nor did she have trouble distinguishing Byron's professed admiration for women from the real thing. He admired her as a work of art, not as a woman. He might profess to love women, but she suspected he did not like them. Cat was not quite sophisticated enough to recognize the young poet's sexual ambivalence, but the vibrations of misfit were almost as strong as the vibrations of genius. Byron would have been shocked to know she pitied him.
"I still say I have seen you somewhere before." Lord Byron raised a quizzing glass and examined Catarina's husband from black wavy hair and burgundy velvet jacket to tight black breeches and shining black books. Don Alejo straightened his shoulders and stood away from the mantel, allowing Byron to look his fill. He returned the young poet's regard with an unblinking gaze from limpid amber eyes.
"Surely in London . . .?" Lord Byron suggested.
"I have never been in London," said Don Alejo with supreme disregard for the truth. "I have heard," he added thoughtfully, "that Spanish looks appear in Britain from time to time. The inevitable result of all those sailors who swam to shore after the unfortunate incident of the Armada. But, alas, I regret I have never had the opportunity to visit your illustrious country."
Cat came close to a giggle. Blas was overdoing it, playing with the earnest young poet.
Lord Byron and John Hobhouse soon set out on the second leg of their journey, traveling south to Seville, then on to Cadiz, Malta and Greece. A not too different itinerary than Blas had once planned to take.
Catarina wondered if anything would ever come of the young lord's epic poem. Don Alejo, who had been considerably more worried than he had revealed, breathed a sigh of relief. He was soon off again on the dangerous journey back to Spain.
In late July Sir Arthur Wellesley won the battle which set his feet firmly on the road to fame, defeating Marshal Victor at Talavera, Spain. The triumph lasted but a few days; the approach of his old foe Marshal Soult forced Sir Arthur to retreat back into Portugal. Britain's days of glory were yet to come.
For his victory at Talavera Arthur Wellesley was made Viscount Wellington. His struggle to coordinate his small British force with the armies of Spain and Portugal and a multitude of fiercely independent guerrilleros was seldom successful. With each passing day the French extended their hold on Spain.
In the fall of 1809, in a back room of a tavern on the outskirts of Madrid, two young men came face to face for the first time in many months. Sounds of music, raucous voices, the aroma of cigar smoke, sour wine and unwashed bodies drifted through the closed door. The war was not going well for the allies. Their personal part of the war was just as bad. Perhaps it was simply not possible to take a vast number of balky independent mules and harness them into a team which could face down the might of France.
The two young men talked through the night, parting just before dawn to travel their separate ways. Guerrilla warfare in Spain had not been their only topic of conversation.
After the horror of the winter of 1809, the armies of France, Britain, Spain, and Portugal planned their campaigns with better care. Throughout the long winter months and the mud of early spring of 1810 the armies hunted foxes instead of each other. They danced, gambled, and loved their nights away.
Something Catarina Perez de Leon was not privileged to do. Though her wedding had occurred well over a year earlier, she had yet to see her husband in her bed. From time to time Blas's body visited the Casa Audley, but only Don Alejo was inside it. Vanilla pudding when she wanted hot pepper! She was nearly seventeen. Unwanted. Unloved!
Yet love had not totally missed the Casa Audley. Cat wished to rejoice in her father's newfound happiness, but found it difficult. She was jealous. Why should Thomas be so happy when she was so miserable?
Cat could not have said when she first realized her father no longer slept alone, that he and Blanca had found comfort in each other. Inevitable, it had simply happened. And, truly, Catarina was glad. In her heart she knew Thomas was not getting any better---would never get any better. God forgive her jealousy. Papa deserved all the happiness he could find.
If only there were a bit left over for herself. Surely, the next time Blas came home . . .
To Cat's surprise, in May---with the armies of both sides once again on the move in the north---her husband appeared one morning at breakfast, smiling and urbane. Don Alejo to the inch. This time she would not, absolutely would not, allow him to get away with his indifference. She was no longer the child who had gritted her teeth and bitten her tongue while he took the gift she willingly gave to ease his pain. A pain which surely had been greater than her own.
Sometimes . . . sometimes she wondered why he bothered to come home at all. Their courier system was remarkably efficient. Why then did Blas risk the guerrilla leaders surging in twenty different directions while he relinquished his grip to travel the long road back to Lisbon? It did not make sense. Unless, despite their estrangement, he really wished to see her.
The gaming rooms were quiet that night, nearly all the brilliant-coated officers gone north with Wellington's army. Cat swore she had heard a collective sigh of relief from the old gentlemen in the Portuguese cardroom.
Patiently, she waited for nearly an hour after the gaming rooms closed. Then she put on her most alluring and transparent nightgown, topped it with an almost equally transparent confection of white ruffles and lace, and boldly knocked on her husband's door. She was beyond beautiful. Infinitely appealing. Seductive. He could not possibly resist her.
And yet . . . her confidence wavered. Blas had been so . . . odd. For so long. So maddeningly, utterly indifferent. What if he truly did not care? Then again, it might be months before he returned to Lisbon. She could not cry craven now.
The door opened abruptly. He wore only his breeches---and the long shirt which brought back a rush of sensuous, titillating memories. Instead of a blush, Cat's face paled to marble. No words came.
"Catarina?" His heavy black brows rose in cool inquiry.
She wet her lips. "I should like to speak with you," she managed in a very small voice.
"Very well." He stepped back, body stiff and uncompromising. Obviously, she was far from welcome.
Catarina had prepared a speech. Instead, she said the first thing that came into her head. "I forgave you long ago, you know. In truth, there was little to forgive. That you should mistake me for one of your women was not nice, but it is a thing to be endured."
She stopped, appalled. This was not at all the message she wished to convey. "But when we are truly married," she amended firmly, "this I will not tolerate. You are mine and mine alone. There will be no other women."
There was a flash from Don Alejo's usually bland eyes. "Really?" he said and rocked back on his heels, arms crossed, amusement plainly visible on his roughhewn features.
Cat stamped her foot. A very unladylike, immature, thing to do, but he was quite impossible. Maddening. "There will not!" she declared, her lower lip jutting into a pout. Ah, deus, this was not at all how she had planned it. She should be in his arms by now. In his bed.
"I am sorry," she gasped. "I wanted only for you to know that I have forgiven you. That I have always loved you, that there will be no one else for me. Ever. In less than four weeks I shall be seventeen. I am old enough. Even by your so stuffy English standards. Do not shut me out, Blas, I beg of you."
As Catarina poured out her soul, she was unable to identify the waves of conflicting emotions which broke through her husband's carefully crafted barrier. She knew only that, at long last, she had touched him.
What would he do? Pride forbade her from throwing herself in his arms. Cat dropped her gaze, examining the bare toes which peeked from beneath the wide ruffle edging her elegant flowing robe. When she looked back up, his emotions had clarified into the last she expected to see. His eyes blazed, his fists were clenched, his jaw quivered. He was angry. Furious. With an oath, he flung himself from her, crashing his fist down on a solid mahogany chest of drawers. The small objects on the top rattled and chinked. Quiet descended. Except for a soft steady chant which barely reached her ears: "Damn him, damn him, damn him . . ."
"Damn who?" Cat asked, too puzzled to be anything but direct.
He was still standing by the dresser, both hands braced against the top edge. Head bowed, shoulders shaking with rage. At her question, the chant abruptly ceased. Straightening stiffly, he turned and faced her.
"Blas the Bastard," he replied through clenched teeth. "He does not deserve you. Be wary, querida. Do not give yourself to a man you know nothing about."
By now Cat was so accustomed to thinking of her husband as two different people she did not find his words startling. She knew only that she had failed. He would not have her. With her fist pressed to her lips to stifle her anguish, Cat stumbled backward toward the door.
"I'm sorry!" he called after her. "I am so sorry, Cat, but I can't explain. Not why I'm so bloody angry. Not why I'm refusing the most beautiful, the most desirable woman in the world. Not even why I'm babbling nonsense at three in the morning. Just try to forgive me, Cat. That's all I ask."
Warm amber eyes. Passionate. Kind. Sweat beaded under the black waves which fell onto his brow. This was neither Blas nor Don Alejo, but a stranger she had never seen before.
The puzzle was too great. Whoever he was, she had offered this man her soul as well as her body. And had been rejected. Without another word, Catarina slunk out of her husband's room, too hurt to even pretend to hold her head high.
Don Alejo's visit was unusually short that time. Though not so short the residents of the Casa Audley, from the stable boy to cook to Thomas himself failed to notice how exceedingly polite Don Alejo and his wife were to each other. A quarrel. There could be no doubt. Possibly a quarrel of magnitude. When, three days after his arrival, Don Alejo failed to appear for breakfast, an almost audible sigh of relief swept the Casa. Time. Only time . . . and distance could mend the matter.
"You are growing up, Dona Catarina," said a rotund colonel---one of the Casa's more frequent gamesters---as he raked in his winnings. "I am relieved I may now admire you without the guilt of considering myself a nasty old man."
"You are mistaken, Colonel Murray," Catarina returned with a demure smile. "I have been grown up for some time. In Portugal we say that an unmarried woman of seventeen has been too long on the vine."
"Ah, but the finest vintage comes only with age." A captain of rifles, one sleeve of his tattered green uniform pinned up over the stump of an arm, grinned at Catarina, daring her to argue with him.
"Then I may only hope I shall prove you right," she replied with a gracious nod and a twinkling eye.
Catarina always played her role well. After months of riotous young soldiers, she was enjoying the relative peace of gaming rooms which were filled with middle-aged supply officers and the walking wounded waiting for ships back to England. They were good men. Whether wounded hero or aging paymaster, most had served their country well. Cat's smiles were genuine, her flirtations were not. In her heart there was a chill which the strong Iberian sun could not dispel.
Near midnight she slipped into the courtyard, wandering dejectedly past the fragrant beds of spring flowers before sinking down onto one of the white marble benches by the fountain. The heat of late May had mellowed with the coming of night and the gentle breeze which came with the change of tide. The sweet scent of jasmine mingled with the smell of warm earth. A fine mist from the fountain touched her face, mixing with the tears which threatened to overflow her eyes. A burst of laughter sounded from the Casa . . . a shout for more wine. Hastily, Cat gathered her skirt and crossed to the staircase. She needed time at her dressing table. It would never do for someone to see her perfect façade in disarray.
Once onto the stairs and out of sight of the gaming rooms, Cat's steps slowed. Head down, hand trailing along the balcony railing, she moved quietly toward her room. Absorbed in her misery, she failed to notice the thin sliver of light glowing under her bedroom door. She opened the door and walked in.
Joy surged as she saw the flickering candlelight. Blas was back! He . . .
A hand came hard over her mouth. She was pulled back against a solid male body. The body heaved, the door slammed shut. A knife gleamed in the hand which clamped her hard against him.
"You would be wise not to scream, Dona Caterina," said a familiar voice. "I should not like to hurt you, but . . ." The voice trailed into a Gallic shrug Cat felt all the way down to her toes. The knife jiggled ominously, all too close to her heart. At her careful nod, the hand slowly moved away from her mouth.
"Are you mad?" she hissed at Major Henri Martineau. "What are you doing here? How did you get in?"
Still holding her tightly against his chest, the major turned the key in the lock. As he turned away from the door, he staggered and nearly fell. Somehow he managed to drag Caterina with him as he limped to her bed and sat down hard, pulling her down beside him. His face was pale. Blood, welling up through a high tear in his black breeches, had made an ominous dark stain all the way down to his boots. Wounded and without the authority of his uniform, the usually dynamic Frenchman appeared strangely vulnerable.
"In truth, I have some knack with locks and came in through your Judas gate," the major explained. "Very apt, don't you think? As for why? When a man is without friends, it is sometimes necessary to turn to an enemy who owes him a favor. Shall we call it repayment of debt? Undoubtedly, a young lady from the Casa Audley understands the code of honor on the payment of debts. And, I assure you, I am not talking about the small matter of rescuing you from Junot."
Candlelight glinted off the six-inch blade clutched in the major's lap, but anger outweighed Cat's fear. "You think that after what the French did to my father, I would help you? You may bleed to death right here on my bed!"
Wearily, Martineau waggled the knife in front of Cat's nose. She swallowed, trying not to follow its movement with her eyes. "I don't know what we could have done to your father since he was in England during the Occupation."
A fine brave heroine she was! At the first sight of a knife, an amateur's mistake. Just when she most needed to be clever. "I beg your pardon," Cat murmured. "You have of course done nothing to my father, and I do not like to see anyone suffer. If you will be good enough to move the knife a bit, I will do what I can to help."
Major Martineau looked down at the razor-sharp blade as if he had forgotten he was holding it. "I was just about to cut away the cloth when you walked in," he admitted ruefully. "Your British rifles are much too accurate, I fear. You will have to manage with what is here in the room, but I am grateful for your . . . humanity." The major lowered the hand with the knife to his side, unclasped the other which had been gripping her arm. "Tell me, child, may we expect a visit from your husband at any moment?"
A lie would only make her look foolish when her husband failed to materialize. "Your timing is excellent, major," Cat replied with admirable sangfroid. "Don Alejo is not in Lisbon." Moving carefully, she stood up and crossed to the corner of the room where a bowl and pitcher of water rested on a small table, towels and wash clothes neatly folded beside them.
"So he is off doing what I am doing, n'est-ce pas? A most fortunate man if he is being cared for by a woman as beautiful as yourself."
"Slit your breeches," Catarina ordered, pointedly ignoring his remark.
The major gritted his teeth and did as he was told, laying bare a gash just below his left thigh. "You are fortunate," Cat pronounced a few minutes later. "'Tis only a deep graze. If you would let me get basilicum powder and proper bandages . . . " The knife came up swiftly, the tip within an inch of her throat. The major's voice was harsh. "We both know I cannot allow you to leave this room, Dona Catarina. Do what you can . . . for the sake of the time I did not search under your bedcovers. Or because you would wish someone to do a similar kindness for Don Alejo."
By the light of one candle they stared at each other, green eyes to brown. He was right, of course, Cat acknowledged. Henri Martineau had not been as much of an enemy as he might have been. With a curt nod of submission she began to clean his wound. As she worked, Cat recalled the brandy she kept on hand for a husband who no longer entered her room. It was possible the pain of the fiery liquid on his wound might prove too much for the major, giving her a moment to escape. At the mention of brandy, the major's reaction was anything but fearful. He grabbed the bottle from her hand and took a long revivifying gulp. "Merveilleux!" he breathed. "French, of course."
"Naturalamente," Cat agreed, a trifle pertly. "My father declares he has never argued France's ability to produce the finest brandy." Her jaws clamped shut. Thomas Audley was not the best topic of conversation.
Cat eyed the major's open wound with some misgiving. It was known that brandy could keep a wound from festering, but recalling the pain when she had used some on a tiny cut on her hand, Cat found she was fainthearted about hurting someone so cruelly. Even an enemy someone.
"I know," sighed the major, "but it must be done." He laid the knife on the bedcovers, grasped her firmly by the wrist. After another long swig of brandy, he tilted the bottle over the wound.
Cat grabbed the brandy bottle as the major's face twisted in agony. Nothing more than a sharp gasp escaped his lips. The hand holding her wrist barely wavered. He was a hard man, Major Martineau, almost as tough as her Blas. She might have been able to pull free, but she could not bring herself to try. It was becoming more and more difficult to see the major as anything other than a person in need. When his eyes opened, Cat returned the bottle.
"If you'll let go," she said quietly, looking down at the whitened knuckles gripping her wrist, "I'll see what I can find for bandages."
Martineau's fingers snapped free of her wrist. While Catarina tore an old muslin chemise into strips, the major took his eyes off her only long enough for long pulls on the contents of the bottle of his country's finest. It was fortunate for the little one, he admitted ruefully, that he was so weak. Even a happily married man with three hopeful children could not fail to be aroused by the fingers of so beautiful a woman moving across flesh so close to the seat of his manhood.
Cat sensed his change of mood. Suddenly acutely uncomfortable, she made an attempt at conversation, babbling in her effort to distract him. "What will you do now, major? You are in no condition to travel. You are married, are you not? Do you not wish to see your wife and children again? Let me call Marcio. You will undoubtedly be high on the list of officers to be exchanged."
"I am out of uniform, my dear," the major pointed out, exerting considerable effort to restore the cool, controlled demeanor for which he was known. "I leave here before morning or your bandages will have been wasted on a dead man. Now bring me all your scarves and shawls."
Scarves. Shawls. Dear God, he was going to tie her up. And then? . . .
"There is no need to look at me with those great green eyes," Martineau snapped. "I am not capable of ravishing a butterfly. Just get the scarves, child. Now!"
When Cat returned from rummaging through her dresser, the major ordered her to lie down on the bed, then heaved himself to his feet. Lie still!" he snapped as she instinctively wiggled away from his outstretched hands. Cat shut her eyes, gritted her teeth while he tied her left hand and left foot to the bedposts, then tied her right wrist to his left arm. He blew out the candle and with a heartfelt sigh stretched out on the bed beside her. If there was any luck left in this miserable world, the major thought, he would be recovered enough to leave before dawn brought life to the city streets.
Strangely enough, they both slept.
Predawn light was just touching the rooftops of Lisbon when Catarina waked to find her right arm was now stretched above her head and tied to the far bedpost. Soon her right foot was similarly tied, and her stomach heaved at the ignominy of being spreadeagled on her own bed. Completely helpless. With an enemy officer---a spy---casually inspecting her bonds to make certain they would hold. The night before, her feminine sympathies had been aroused by his plight. With the coming of day, she was humiliated. And angry.
"I know why you're here," Cat taunted, "and nothing you can tell your marshals will make a bit of difference. It is too late. Wellington has outfoxed you all. He has moved the hills themselves to build a line so impregnable that your generals will never take Lisbon. Never, do you hear? Never! The lines at Torres Vedras are the greatest fortification in history---thirty miles from the Tagus to the sea. Your fine generals may sit in front of them forever. They will get no farther! So, go . . . go tell this to Napoleon. May he come himself to see what Wellington has done!"
Through the predawn gloom she thought she saw the major smile. "You are very likely right, my dear. By the time I return to headquarters, the armies will already be on the march. I think they will pay little attention to what I say. But it was my duty to see for myself what Wellington has conscripted nearly every man in Portugal to build. Now I have seen it, I must return and tell Marshal Massena what he does not wish to hear. What he probably will not believe."
With a shrug of Gallic acceptance of fate, the major bent down and tied one last scarf around her mouth. "My apologies, but I need as much head start as I can get. Your maid will be here all too soon. Au revoir, my dear. Merci mille fois! Tell Don Alejo I said he is a most fortunate man."
Martineau picked up a handful of white which lay in a heap on the dressing table chair. Not until he opened the door to the balcony and began to tie the white cloth to the wrought iron grillwork could she see it was two more of her muslin chemises, tied together. Perhaps the knot would part, the fabric rip? Did she really want it to? The major was too vulnerable to inspire her hate. He was not a bad man. Now that the fortifications were operational, the great secret could be told. Ah, how she wished she might see Napoleon's face when he heard the details of the fortifications at Torres Vedras.
The major opened the now well-oiled hinges and hasp, then paused as he crouched at the balcony's edge. His eyes met hers. With a brief rueful smile he dropped over the side of the balcony and was gone.
Tonight Cat was queen of the Casa Audley. Reigning sovereign of the gaming rooms. Darling of the allied officers, the Portuguese card players, the staff. Of Lucio and Marcio Cardoso. Of Blanca. And Thomas. Tonight she was a woman grown, celebrating her seventeenth birthday with a hundred best wishes, a small mountain of gifts, and too many glasses of champagne.
It was a wonderful world. Beautiful. It did not matter that, for the third year in a row, Blas was not there to share the occasion. The major was undoubtedly back in France. Blas could follow him for all she cared. Straight to the heart of Paris. Into the arms of Napoleon himself.
Someone handed her another glass of champagne. Cat's green eyes sparkled over the bell of the glass, dazzling the young Portuguese officer who had brought it to her. As she sipped, Cat flirted outrageously, quite spoiling her air of sophistication by dissolving into giggles. "I cannot help it," she apologized to the gentlemen surrounding her. "It's the bubbles, you see. The more I drink, the more they tickle my nose."
Thomas looked up from the faro table at the sound of male laughter. He had long been accustomed to Caterina's ring of admirers, but tonight he thought perhaps . . . Her laughter trilled above the appreciative murmurs around her. Her smile was too bright, her eyes glittered. It took only the lift of Thomas's eyebrow to summon Marcio to his side.
In no time at all Cat found herself out on the courtyard walkway heading toward the stairs. "I did not say goodbye to everyone," she protested. "We did not see the old gentlemen in the Port . . . Portu . . . in the card room." She stopped abruptly. "I did not say goodnight to Papa. I must go back."
Her determined steps jarred to a halt as Marcio tightened his grip around her shoulders. "He knows, Catarina," he assured her. "Believe me, Don Tomás knows you have gone to bed. And you can apologize to the old gentlemen tomorrow." Resolutely, he turned her back toward the stairs.
Catarina moved forward a few steps . . . and stopped. "Marcio," she said in a very different voice, "why does he always miss my birthdays?"
Marcio had no need to ask whom she meant. "The war, Catarina," he chided. "You know it is the war."
"No, I do not. The war keeps him here. On the Peninsula. Without the war he would not be here at all. He would be back in his precious England. He does not love me, you know. He loves the war. But me, no."
Her beauty dazzled, even in the pale light of the moon. Catarina was mistaken. No man could fail to love her. "You are not thinking clearly, Catarina. You have had too much champagne and are imagining things."
"He does not want me. The last time he was here . . . " Cat's lower lip quivered into a pout. "He does not want me. Believe me, I know it."
Of her own accord Catarina started up the stairs, murmuring to Marcio as they climbed, "You are right. I have had too much champagne, but I know what I know. When the war is over, he will leave me. Thomas says I will be a widow. And go to London."
At the top of the steps Cat paused, her small hands gripping the gallery railing as she gazed out over the shimmering moonlit beauty of the courtyard. "I do not want to go to London, Marcio. I do not want to be a widow."
"Of course you do not," Marcio comforted, "nor will it happen. Blas will never leave you." But men did such things. Throughout the history of the world men made war, men made love, men went home to the lives they led before. "Come, Cat," Marcio coaxed, gently lifting her fingers from the railing. "Life will look better in the morning."
"I think not, but going to bed is a very good idea." With docile resignation she allowed him to walk her to her door. He would, she knew, light her candle and inspect the room, as he had done each night for the two weeks since Major Martineau's unexpected invasion of the Casa Audley.
This night's perusal of the room startled a quickly stifled gasp from Marcio's throat. Cat, intent only on sinking into the haven of the chair before her dressing table, crossed the room without noticing anything unusual at all. Marcio, a smile broadening rapidly into a grin, said a brief goodnight and backed out the door, closing it softly behind him.
Through eyes brimming with tears Cat stared blankly at the forlorn face reflected in her mirror. Idiota! It was fortunate Blas was not here to see what a weak little fool she was. To discover she cared so much when he cared so little.
She wiped away her tears, blew her nose, then set to cleansing her face with a sweet-smelling herbal lotion. The champagne-induced euphoria and succeeding despair had settled into dull pervading depression. Wearily, Cat removed the pins from her hair. Golden red strands cascaded over the white silk of the gown she had worn for her wedding. It was a magnificent dress. She cherished it. Which is why she wore it for all special occasions. Sometimes, like tonight, she thought it was all she had left of her sometime husband.
With a sigh Cat pushed herself up from the chair and began to work on the long row of buttons down her back. She never expected her maid to keep the late hours of the gaming rooms and had long since become adept at getting out of her gowns. After only a few minor contortions, Cat was once again fighting a rush of tears as she carefully hung her husband's treasured gift in the wardrobe. Her chemise she left puddled on the floor. After all, Juana must have something to do, must she not? Completely naked, Cat walked toward the bed where the long-suffering Juana always laid out her nightgown.
Through all the days and months of heat, cold and discomfort, the frustration of attempting to bend men to a will other than their own, Blas had frequently imagined lying in his wife's bed, loving in his wife's bed; but he had never conjured anything as erotic as watching from that haven of comfort while his wife unpinned her magnificent hair, cleansed her face and wiggled, so enticingly, out of her clothes. Nor of the perfection of her nakedness haloed by soft candlelight. He could not have improved on this welcome home if he had orchestrated it himself.
As Catarina approached the bed, her nightgown rose out of the curtained darkness and fluttered down into a heap on the floor. A voice sounded from the shadows: "Don't bother. You won't need it."
Cat leaped back to her discarded clothing, snatched up her chemise. She clutched it to her body, shielding herself from rapacious eyes. Between the shadows and the voluminous hangings draped around the bedposts, she could see almost nothing of the source of the voice. Warily, she took a step backwards, then another before coming up hard against the wardrobe door. The carving on the solid mahogany bit into her bare buttocks, jarring her into reality.
She felt clear-headed but knew it could not be so. She had definitely had too much champagne. Major Martineau was not here. Don Alejo was not here. Most certainly, Blas could not be here. This glorious moment was undoubtedly conjured by the dearest desire of her heart. The gown had simply slipped off the bed. The voice, a fantasy from better times. Catarina squared her fragile shoulders, started back toward the bed. She did not, however, drop the chemise.
A ghost rose from the shadows. A solid black-haired ghost. Wearing nothing but the dress shirt he wore in the gaming rooms. The dress shirt he wore for the private game he played with his wife. Had played. A very long time ago.
Neither gratified nor amused by the resurrection of their game, Catarina snapped, "You are not here. Go away!"
"Damn it, Cat," said the apparition. "I've traveled a week to get here and must travel a week to get back, and all you can do is tell me I'm not here?"
He took a small step forward.
"I have had too much champagne," she declared. "You are not real." She peered at the partially shadowed form. "I think," she amended.
After a moment's hesitation, Cat took a tentative step forward.
Without a word he moved again, playing out the drama. The apparition was no longer hidden in the shadows, but close enough for her to see the candlelight reflected in the amber eyes, the sensuousness of his full lips. Near enough to smell the scent of him. Of Blas. Only Blas.
The champagne must have been very strong. "You are a figment of my imagination," said Cat stubbornly. "You cannot be real."
He took another step forward.
As if drawn by a magnet, Cat took the final step, coming to rest a scant inch from his chest. Nostrils quivering, pulses racing, they breathed the scent of each other, choked on the certainty of reality, knowing that from this moment the outcome of their game would never be the same.
In that instant Blas changed the rules. His hand moved up to caress the red-gold strands of hair, her cheek . . . her lips. Suddenly she was pressed to every inch of him, the all-too-solid, fully aroused maleness of him digging into her belly. Her nerveless fingers dropped the chemise, leaving only the shirt between them.
"Do I feel like a figment?" Blas inquired fiercely.
Cat had never thought to be angry with her beloved for more than a woman's customary exasperation with the ways of men, but this was not to be borne. She had wanted, longed for, prayed for this moment for years. But for him to come to her like this, blithely expecting her to fall into his arms after he had so cruelly rejected her only three weeks earlier . . .
She moved her hands up to his chest, shoved with all her might. Startled, Blas released her, eyeing her with amazement. Cat picked up her chemise, swiftly wiggled it over her head. Feeling not quite so vulnerable, she faced him squarely.
"How dare you come to me like this?" she demanded. "Is seventeen such a magic number you must wait until now? Was I not old enough three weeks ago? Come, husband, speak to me. Why am I desirable now when three weeks ago you would not have me?"
Speechless, Blas ruffled his hand through his hair and looked at her as if he had just been attacked by a kitten. In actuality, he was thinking very fast. "I rejected you?" he murmured, stalling for time.
"You know you did."
"Sometimes . . . sometimes I find it difficult . . . " Bloody hell, he couldn't think of a reason. Excuses were the farthest thing from his mind. "I--uh--sometimes find it difficult to break away from a character I've been playing. I fear Don Alejo is a slippery fellow, an idiot who does not properly appreciate his treasure of a wife."
"No doubt he had his eye on another woman at the time."
"No! Damn it, Cat, don't be difficult." Definitely not the glorious reunion he had planned.
"Me? Difficult?"
"I'm sorry," Blas shouted. "Whatever I did, I'm sorry. I was mad. It was a mistake. I've crossed Portugal and half of Spain to be with you. Come and be my wife!"
"I am very tired of sorry," said Cat distinctly. She marched past him to the bed where she dropped the chemise to the floor and made a show of donning her nightgown. She climbed under the covers, ostentatiously pulled them up to her chin. "Goodnight," she said to her husband. And rolled into a ball, presenting him with her back.
Bloody, bloody hell! What a mull he'd made of it. He was making more progress with the guerrilleros than he was with his wife. Which wasn't saying much.
A tiny smile replaced his frown. The time was only shortly after midnight. There was a long night yet to be lived.
For Blas stealth and deception were a way of life. It never occurred to him this was the moment for truth. He had come home with but one thing on his mind and, by God, he was going to have it.
He skinned the long shirt over his head, dropping it with a gleam of amusement in his eyes on top of his wife's crumpled chemise. Two long strides, a puff from his powerful lungs, and the single candle winked out. The room settled into welcoming darkness.
If only his transgressions were so easy to erase.
After a journey across hundreds of miles of summer-wracked Iberian plains to reach his wife's side, Blas accomplished the final few feet to the bed with the agility of a homing pigeon. Gingerly, he crawled in on the opposite side of the wide bed from Cat's cocoon of covers. He kept his hands carefully to himself. The infinite possibilities, the anticipation of this new game, intrigued him, dissipating his anger and frustration. This was a game he was going to win, and he fully intended to enjoy it.
Though Cat did not move, not so much as a tiny wiggle to flex the muscles bunched into a protective fetal ball, Blas knew she could not be asleep. Cupping his hands behind his head, he stretched his long naked inches full length beside her. He, too, remained motionless. Silent. Except for a long sigh which was a calculated blend of exasperation, frustration, and mournful longing. A sigh produced with the skill a professional actor might have envied.
A quarter of an hour. Half. Cat's muscles were screaming their outrage. The sheet was tickling her nose. The devil! She absolutely had to move. Now. This minute! She batted away the sheet, pushing it down beneath her chin. Defiantly---she was, after all, admitting Blas had won this round---Cat uncurled her feet and stretched her legs, keeping them as far from her husband's side of the bed as possible.
Still Blas did not move. But out of the darkness beside her Cat heard a tune. His soft baritone humming the exceedingly naughty song he had been singing the first time she saw him, rattling over the cobbles in an ox-cart loaded with casks of wine. He was a Bad Man, her Blas. How could he use such a precious moment as a weapon against her? Cat's face crumpled into a mask of pain. She turned farther onto her side, presenting her husband with nothing more inviting than her stiff back.
The tightness in her stomach must be the champagne, she told herself. This awful gripping something that refused to go away. This fluttering, demanding pull towards the unknown. It had to be the champagne. Why then was it so much like the wondrous burgeoning excitement she felt when they played their daring game? That flood of feeling that must be teased and teased and ultimately controlled until one of them finally gave in. Not to the demanding waves of sensation but to reality. Breaking the spell by running away.
Cat stifled a gasp as warm fingers feathered across her skin. On the soft mound of one buttock, a place where even Blas had never touched her before. Her body skyrocketed into panicked sensation. As his fingers traced small circles against her soft vulnerable skin, Cat clamped her jaws shut and remained frozen to the bed. After a series of butterfly caresses, the fingers climbed to the small of her back. She thought she would go mad. Cat tensed, gulped a lungful of air. But never moved. This was merely a new wrinkle on a well-known game. Her only defense was control.
His caresses remained light and teasing, until he reached her shoulders. At the base of her neck he moved into a different rhythm, kneading and pulling at the knotted cords of her shoulders and neck. Tears of frustration stung her eyes. He had no right to be so good at this. To be able to bring such exquisite pleasure. To drag such feelings from her when she wished to be a woman of marble. But of course he had had a great deal of experience. On how many women had he practiced these wiles?
Eyes tight shut, Cat concentrated on fanning her jealousy while his lips followed the movement of his hands, tickling her nape, her back . . . When his mouth reached that incredibly sensitive area at the base of her spine, she nearly raised right off the bed. Nearly. Never, never would she let him know what he was doing to her.
Blas swore to himself with considerable fluency. In Spanish, Portuguese, and basic Anglo-Saxon. He might as well be caressing a woman of stone atop a sarcophagus. Undoubtedly, stronger measures were called for. Yet . . . he had hurt her once. In mind and body. And he was not going to do it again.
At least she had not run screaming from the room. Blas grinned, struck by the absurdity of Cat ever doing such a thing. No matter what he did, she would never leave him. Persistence was the only key to unlocking the prize. His Cat was a worthy opponent.
In one lithe movement he tipped her over onto her back and shoved the bedcoverings down to her toes. A long finger to her lips shut off Cat's sharp protest. Wordlessly, their eyes sought each other through the gloom. Blas loosened his grip on the soft silk in his hand, ruthlessly repressing the violent need which had brought him to the brink of stripping his young wife bare. A vision of the night he returned from La Coruña rose up before him. He had taken the virginity of a young woman he had sworn to protect. He would douse his arousal in the courtyard fountain before he would repeat the sin of that night.
He should leave the Casa, return to Spain.
He wouldn't, of course. He had waited for this moment too long. She was his wife. Wed and witnessed in a proper Anglican ceremony, the ancient words sounding through the cozy parlor of the old farmhouse, joining them together. Irrevocably.
There was nothing anyone could do to part them. Not the laws of church or state. The war. His parents. Thomas. Cat was his. Even if she still seemed to think they were playing the Game with only frustration at its end.
But when he reached for the hem of her nightgown, he found his hand gripped in the velvet vise of fingers half the size of his own. Blas groaned her name aloud. "Damn it, woman, it's you I want, not a handful of silk." Instinctively, he held her down as she tried to roll back onto her side.
"Beast!" she hissed. "Go away, I do not want you."
"Oh, yes, you do." In the next instant Cat found herself naked, flat on her back with her husband's face buried in her belly, blowing kisses into the navel which had given her life. She thought she might die of it. He had no right to touch her in such treacherous places.
Of course he did. With my body I thee worship . . .
With a long series of nibbled kisses and warm breaths Blas worked his way up her body, varying his path to coax each rosy nipples to a peek. Though they were as tempting as they were succulent, he kept on moving. His quest ended with Cat's ear. He blew soft puffs of life which radiated through her, melting the marble into soft earthy clay open to the master's touch.
This might be the only night of love she would ever know, Cat thought. Blas could disappear back into his English lair . . . to whatever unknown world he had sprung from. But now . . . tonight, even if he was just a man who wanted a woman, she would still have this night to remember.
First, however . . . he must suffer. For all the days and nights of his long absences. For his indifference. His rejection. Ah, yes, Blas the Bastard must work harder for redemption.
And, besides, his efforts at atonement were so deliciously enjoyable. And, surely, no one could call it defeat. Wasn't this what she had always wanted? Blas. Aware he had a wife. Offering love.
Blas was too experienced not to realize he had won. Even as Cat contemplated with smug satisfaction the effect of continued resistance, her delicate bones dissolved into molten welcome. She accommodated herself to the hills and valleys of him, the tensile strength, the vibrant warmth of him. Her body sent messages her mind had forbidden.
Blas's chuckle rumbled through both of them as Cat wilfully turned her head away from the lips which drifted from her ear down to her mouth. Silly chit. Did she think to continue the game even after they both knew she had lost? Undaunted, his lips butterflied their way down the side of her cheek and kept on going. There were many ways to kiss a woman, and he would be happy to prove that her luscious mouth was not his sole quarry.
By the time he had nibbled his way to her breast, she was no longer able to stifle a sharp gasp as, this time, his teeth tweaked her nipple. Blas heaved his own sigh of contentment as, having survived the preliminary skirmishes, he now settled down to demonstrating his skill in the contest called love. At long last he had his wife where he wanted her. He approached her breast with all the concentration of a skilled general to a battle. He nibbled, licked, blew upon the wet tip, causing Cat's muscles to quiver and clench from her womb to her toes. Her heart threatened to hammer its way through her chest. Blas pulled a good portion of her breast into his mouth and sucked upon it as if only this one thing could give him life. And when he had done all that he could with one of his wife's amply rounded mounds, he turned his attention to the other, finding it as perfect as its twin.
Cat never remembered the exact moment she stopped trying to make her own rules for the game. One moment she lay there, ostensibly inert, and the next she had one hand twined through his long mat of hair, the other running up and down his back, urging him on. Surely, it must be a sin to know so much pleasure. To be overwhelmed by sensations she had not known existed.
Particularly, if one were not quite sure one was married.
Although it was a hot June night, Cat felt a chill when he abandoned her breast, but her loss was momentary as his lips continued their travel downward, pausing once again at her navel, her lower belly, her . . . Ah, deus! What was he doing? This must be a sin.
Blas groaned as Cat stiffened beneath him. With an effort he forced himself away from his wife's most secret flesh. It was not necessary to teach her everything in one night. For a moment he sank his teeth into his lower lip, clenched his fists. Tonight was a far greater demand on his control than he had ever exercised in their Game. He had come so far, waited so long. And had no idea why she was so angry.
Gently, warily, Blas took his wife's hand in his, leading her fingers to his swollen flesh. "Don't be afraid," he murmured. "Last time I hurt you . . . because you were a virgin and because you were not ready for me. Tonight will be different, I swear it. Touch me, Cat. Feel me. It will be all right, I promise you."
He was hard and wet, throbbing with life. And terrifying. Cat thought she had forgotten the pain. Love conquered all, did it not? A whimper escaped her lips. She pulled her hand away, burrowed back into her pillows. She was an idiot. A coward.
She could not help herself.
"Listen to me, Cat," Blas said with only the smallest quaver to betray what his patience cost him. "I am going to touch you and love you in every way I know until you are certain in your mind as well as your heart that I am not going to hurt you. Do you understand what I'm saying? I am not going to hurt you. Nor am I going away. We are going to stay right here until you feel, right down to your toes, that what we are doing is right and beautiful and meant to be. And when I've shown you what exquisite pleasure it can be, we'll rest awhile and do it all over again. I wanted tonight to be perfect, but it doesn't have to be. We have tomorrow and all the rest of our lives. So, come and be my wife. In all the best that wife can mean."
It was as close to a declaration of love as she would ever hear from him, Cat thought. The only mention of a possible future together which had ever passed his lips. All else became unimportant. When his fingers traced her inner thighs, she smiled into the darkness. When he parted the lips of her cleft, she welcomed the invasion. She arched her back and moved against his fingers, astonished by the building waves of something far beyond her wildest imaginings. There was room in her only for this mysterious entity, this awesome, incredible something which took her out of herself, out of time and space and into some fantasy of unknown and inexplicable delight.
Ah, no, he could not leave her now! The parting was brief, his fingers replaced by what had seemed so impossibly huge and hurtful. There was no pain, only a gentle pressure as he moved farther and farther inside her. Exactly where she wanted him. Exactly where he belonged. When he began to move inside her, Cat knew everything he had told her was true . . . and yet, it was far more than words could ever describe.
Blas dug his nails into his fingers, using pain to keep his body in control. He would not hurt her, would not frighten her, would not give in to the frenzy to spill his seed in her until she had taken her full measure of pleasure from this night. When he felt the waves of convulsions ripple through her, Blas held her tight, murmuring words of love. Then, and only then did he give in to his need, plunging hard inside her only twice before he was overwhelmed by the little death, the stuff of dreams. The night exploded into showers of sparkling color. His tanned body, glistening with sweat, fell heavily onto her petite frame. He buried his soaking waves of black hair in her shoulder and knew he had truly come home at last.
In the morning Cat told him about Major Martineau. For if she did not, someone else would.
Blas had been leaning on one elbow, quietly studying the perfection of his wife's sleeping form, indulging in the satisfied glow of knowing he had finally done something right. That never again would he have to restrain his need for her . . . that, God willing, she would be with him forever. Her eyes fluttered open. She gave him a lazy, tantalizing smile, and he knew her thoughts were the same as his own.
And then the loving green eyes clouded as Cat realized she must tell him he was not the only man to sleep in her bed. A shudder shook her small frame. Steadying her nerves by reaching for Blas, she pressed her fingers against lips opening to question her change of mood. "There is something I must tell you," she whispered.
He kissed the tips of her fingers . . . and waited. Before she was three sentences into her tale, Blas was gripping her arm so tightly it was all she could do to keep from crying out. "You must understand!" Cat interjected. "He did not touch me. Not in that way. Truly, Blas. Truly he did not!"
He unleashed her arm and bounded out of bed, pacing the room like a lion at bay, muttering something which sounded like "bleeding bugger," but Cat thought she must be mistaken. If it was English, the words had no meaning for her. "Tell me," he rasped. "Just tell me."
"How can I talk when you are so . . . raging? Like a bull in the arena."
"Finish it!"
So she told him, choking out the story, warily gauging his reaction to her every word as he stomped up and down, his emotions as naked as his body.
In the end he came back to the bed, sinking down beside her, locking his gaze to hers. "And that was all there was to it?"
"Yes. Absolutamente, yes."
Whatever Martineau was, Blas admitted, the man was shrewd and clever. And absolutely right that Blas the Bastard had been in a good many situations where the aid of a woman meant the difference between life and death. Nor had he ever taken sexual favors which were not freely offered. He would grant Martineau the courtesy of being of similar mind. That his Cat would have offered her favors never entered his head.
"So perhaps I shall not kill him," Blas conceded.
Relieved to find his temper cooling, Cat tried for the light touch. "Silly. He is probably in France by now."
Blas's eyes lit with a feral gleam. "Ah, but it will be long war, my Cat. And in the end France will be the occupied country, and we the victors who walk her streets in triumph. And then, if not before, I would find him."
"He has a wife and three children and has done us more than one kindness," she babbled. "Promise me you will not kill him."
Blas's amber eyes sharpened into sudden suspicion. "Such passion, queridissima. Do you care for him, after all?"
Though the endearment was tinged with sarcasm, Cat was appalled. "You cannot think . . . you cannot believe there could ever be anyone else. Never, never, never! I have loved you from the moment I saw you. Nearly three years now. For me there will never be anyone but you."
His fierce glare persisted for only a moment, dissolving into sparks of chagrined mischief in the rays of the early morning sun. "Of course I know it. I am simply made mad by the thought of another man putting his hands on you." He raised his right hand, looked her straight in the eye. "I promise I will not kill him. Are you satisfied, wife? May I come back to bed?
With a smile of pure joy, Cat threw both her arms around his neck and pulled him down on top of her. It was well into the afternoon before the residents of the Casa Audley discovered the peripatetic Don Alexis Perez de Leon had come home.
1
In the four days Blas stayed at the Casa Audley Cat learned many things. Some she found erotically titillating; others, naughty-but-oh-so-nice. Only one thing shocked her. Late in the afternoon of his first day home Blas took her into the heart of old Lisbon, to a rabbit warren of small, low-ceilinged shops set in a maze of walls and tiny courtyards. To streets so narrow, they were forced to leave Thomas's barouche behind and walk the last few blocks. When Blas found the place he wanted, he had to lower his head to get through the door. The room was dark with a floor of hard-packed earth. The smell was heavenly.
As Cat's eyes adjusted to the shadows, she saw they were in an apothecary shop, though not one accustomed to catering to wealthy foreigners. It was, however, a Blas kind of place. He fitted in as surely as all the other fidalgos (or their women) who had found their way to this and similar shops through the centuries. Herbs hung from the ceilings and stuck haphazardly out of earthen jugs. Jar after jar sat upon wooden racks which canted at odd angles, threatening to tip their contents onto the floor. Cat took a deep breath of the indescribable mix of scents which filled the shop.
She caught a stir of movement and found herself under the intense scrutiny of an old woman who was crouched on a stool amidst her wares.
Blas greeted the old crone with polite deference. Though forced to practice in the shadows, she was renowned for the extent of her knowledge and the soundness of her skills. He grasped Cat's and hand and drew her forward. "I am a soldier, you understand, old woman? I do not wish my wife to bear a child when I cannot be by her side. I have been told you may be able to give her instruction."
Cat snatched her hand away, her stomach turned to ice. He should have warned her, said something. Anything. "No!" she gasped.
"I wish it," he said, uncompromising. "Well, velha, will you do this thing?"
The old woman named a price three times her usual fee. A handsome fidalgo with such a well-dressed wife could afford to pay well for a service of such delicacy.
Grinning to show he fully understood the old woman was taking advantage of him, Blas handed her the coins. "I will leave you with the velha," he said.
"No!"
The amber eyes turned to marble. "There is no harm in knowledge," he declared. "Whether you use it or not we will discuss later. I will return in an hour. Will that be sufficient?" he asked the old woman.
She nodded and motioned for Cat to follow her past a drapery into a back room. Panicked, Cat did not move. Blas grabbed her by the hand and dragged her through the inner doorway. "Stay," he ordered. And stalked out, tossing the cloth hanging aside so savagely that it nearly fell.
By the time he returned well over an hour later Cat was torn by such a mix of fury, hurt, and embarrassment she did not notice where they were going. Ostentatiously, she turned her back to her husband who was sitting next to her on the burgundy velvet squabs of Thomas's elegant barouche. She thrust her open parasol over her shoulder, maneuvering it until she was totally screened from his view.
He did not want her to have his children, Cat mourned. She was to be barren. No babies. No warm tiny bodies to love. No little mouths suckling at her breasts. No family laughter. No moments of parental panic. No . . . Ah, deus, he could not make her do this!
But he could. He only had to threaten to leave her, and she would hasten to do his bidding. Love was a terrible thing. A tyrant.
The carriage stopped. Blas stepped down, walked round to his wife's side of the open barouche. His fingers closed over the parasol. With a thrust of his strong hands he snapped it shut. "The sun is not so strong now, you won't need this."
As Cat grabbed for the parasol, Blas tossed it to the startled coachman who caught it one-handed, accidentally twitching the reins. The horse whinnied and bucked as the reins shifted in the startled coachman's hand. When the barouche stopped shimmying, Blas clamped his hands around Cat's waist and lowered her to the ground. Slowly. Inch by inch. Making sure none of her missed his body on the long slide down.
For a moment they stood pasted together, breathing hard, before Cat broke away, walking over the cobbles as fast as her thin slippers would allow on the uneven slippery stones. With a minimum of effort Blas caught her, supporting her as she nearly fell, then turned her inexorably back toward the edifice behind them.
"You can't go in there," Cat hissed. "It's closed.
Without a word he continued to pull her along behind him. As they approached the arched entrance to the imposing structure, there were a few rapid words, the flash of gold coins. Suddenly, they were out of the sunlight, moving through a tunnel. At the far end of the cool darkness was an arched splash of sunlight. Inexorably, Blas dragged her toward it.
"I don't want to go out there," she protested. "Let us stay where it is cool."
"The guard would hear us." Blas continued on, moving back into the blinding sunlight and beginning to climb. Up and still up to the top tier of seats where an arcaded roof jutted from the curved outside wall, a protection from the full strength of the Iberian sun.
"Why here?" Cat stormed as he seated her on the bench and sat down beside her. "Whyever here?"
"It seemed appropriate," he said.
Spread out below them was a bull ring, its circumference lined with tier upon tier of seats. There were no banners, no bulls, no roaring crowd. No cavlheiros mounted on the finest Peninsular stallions. No campinos, forcados or espadas. Yet the heat of summer wavered over the scene, turning it into shimmering fantasy. For a moment Cat could see the charging bulls, a cavalheiro with banderilla in hand, a forcado whirling dizzily at the end of a bull's tail.
Then she registered what Blas had said. "The bull ring is appropriate?' she queried with an ominous purr.
"It was the only place I could think of where you could scream at me on so delicate a subject and not be heard."
Cat opened her mouth. Closed it. Having climbed over thirty tiers of steps, she had no breath left for screaming. "It was not," she inquired sweetly, "because you thought to bully me into doing as you wished?"
"Perhaps you thought I called it appropriate because you wished to put a ring through my nose?" he snapped back. A bit more loudly than was necessary.
"Ring through your nose? Bah!" Cat spat out. "You can say this when you know how everyone jumps to do your bidding. It is truly abominable. Yes, Blas. No, Blas. Of course, Blas. Imediatemente, senhor." Her voice was steadily rising. "Ring through your nose! As if anyone could ever control you. It is you who must always have the upper hand."
Cat broke off abruptly, staring. She cocked her head to one side, studying him as if she had never seen him before. "You are afraid of me," she breathed. "You are afraid of losing control. Is that not true? Quickly, admit that is so."
Blas leaned back against the outer wall and closed his eyes. "That is not why we're here, Cat."
"I think it is. You wish to control my life, my body, my soul. I find I do not like it."
At nearly eight o'clock, the sun was dipping closer to the high rim of the bull ring. "I never meant to," Blas said at last.
"No," Cat agreed with resignation. "It was born in you, this need to tell us all what to do. I think you cannot help it."
The shadows lengthened. As did the silence.
"You are right," Blas conceded. "I am arrogant, high-handed, and insensitive. You are also right that I feel my power slipping through my fingers. I lose myself in you, Cat. And yes, dammit, I fear it."
"I am a very small thing to be afraid of." Softly. Humbly.
Blas groaned, leaned forward to cup her chin between his palms. "Listen to me, Cat. There can be no end to this argument. We are the people we are, and we each must learn to live with it. And with each other."
Blas dropped his hands, turned to stare out over the deserted arena. "I should have told you where we were going, discussed with you the reason why. But in my whole life I have never been accountable to anyone but my father. Or yours. My father I fought every step of the way on every conceivable subject. Your father I admire, respect. I acknowledge he has the right to command me for the sake of the cause we serve."
"And for me you have no admiration or respect?"
"Hell and the devil, Cat! You're doing it again! Blas's shout echoed out over the empty tiers of seats. "It's not at all the same."
"Yes, it is."
He had no answer. "You promised to love and obey," he ground out, appalled at the surly defensiveness of his tone.
Cat's stubbornness did not waver. "The vow should be changed. It is not fair."
"No, I suppose not," he admitted. As usual, his Cat deserved better from him than he had given. "Let me explain, as I should have done before." He glanced at her from the corner of his eye and wished he hadn't. He wanted to take her from this place, go to bed with her, and not get up for days.
Instead, he drew a long, shuddering breath and said, "Look around you, Cat. We are small specks in the immensity of this place. Think of us---just the two of us---as Lisbon. All else---everything in the enormity of this arena---is Napoleon's empire. We are an outpost, a tiny fly speck marring Bonaparte's domination of Europe. And we won't go ignored. By the end of the summer Napoleon will have four hundred thousand men in Spain and northern Portugal. We can't win against such odds, Cat. The war is going to last for years. There is no hope until something, God alone knows what, changes in our favor.
"Surely the lines at Torres Vedras will hold." It was more a question, a prayer, than the confident statement Cat had thrown at Major Martineau.
"I think so, but what if they do not? Could you endure another Occupation? You have seen what can happen. Now that Martineau has found his way to your bed, do you think he will not find his way back? Or someone far worse? War can turn even the best of men into beasts. There is no place to hide. You have seen even the winery was not far enough away to escape them. I will not have a child born into this uncertainty, Catarina. If Lisbon is taken, the thought of you here, with a babe as hostage drives me mad. I could not bear it. I could not do my work."
Still without looking at her, Blas reached for her hand, clasped it hard, his knuckles whitening around hers. "The work---my work, Thomas's work---must be done, Cat, or there will never be a future. We're young yet. My birthday is in March, by the way. I was twenty-four." This concession he could give her. "My father was not even married until he was well past thirty. We'll have plenty of time to make children, Cat. As many as you wish. But not now. Please. Not now."
Quietly, gently, Cat placed her free hand over the one he was squeezing so tightly. She rested her head on his hunched shoulder. The waning sun sank behind the red tile rooftops in the distance, the onset of dusk heralded by the stirring of a breeze. "Do you remember the taberna you took me to once?" she asked. "When I was fourteen and had never seen such a place? I think I should like to eat garlic sausage, drink sour red wine and hear the fado once more."
Blas closed his eyes, offered a heartfelt thanks to his maker. Pulling his wife to her feet, he carefully guided her down the steep tiers of steps, her long skirt gathering dust behind her.
By the time they entered the taberna, the long June day had ended and cooling shadows were being welcomed to the streets of Lisbon. The tavern had not changed. The patrão was delighted to see such a well-known face from the past. The fadista, the guitarists, covered head to toe in black, were exactly the same. They sang of loss. And heartbreak. Of the sorrow of living. And loving.
Sing fado. Sing fado. Sing fado for us.
As it turned out, Catarina had little need of the potions provided by the velha. In the next three years Don Alexis Perez de Leon came home just seven times. Four times as Blas, a lover so ardent Cat felt it was more a quirk of fate than the old woman's instruction which kept her from increasing. On three occasions the man who returned from Spain was the world-weary young man who wore Don Alejo's face, but wiggled into the slithery persona of a superficial Spanish don only during the hours he spent in the gaming rooms. The remainder of the time, when he shared the family portion of the Casa Audley with Cat, he was the steady, usually gentle big brother whose inner anguish had revealed itself only once---the night he pounded his dresser top, swearing, "Damn him, damn him, damn him!"
Each time he came home, it took only one swift glance for Cat to know which personality had returned to her. Would it always be like this? she wondered. Was she destined to live with these inexplicable contrasting moods for the rest of her life?
It was months before she noticed one other odd quirk in her husband's behavior. On his brief visits, never more than a week at a time, Alejo spent hours in the gaming rooms. Blas never went near them. Cat's lips turned up in a secret smile. This, at least, was easily explained. She and Blas, by moon or by sun, spent a great amount of their time in bed.
Thomas Audley bided his time and said nothing.
Although few were astute enough to recognize the momentous moment, the seeds of Napoleon's ultimate defeat had been sown in 1809 when Wellington returned to Portugal at the head of the army rescued by a British armada at La Coruña. But now, after wrestling Lisbon back from the French and holding them at bay with the fortifications of Torres Vedras , he was confronted by an army which had grown to ten times the size of his own. And yet Lisbon survived, an Achilles heel, a tiny spot of British might on the rump of Napoleon's vast empire. There were a few good moments when Wellington made forays into enemy territory, but always, inevitably, he was forced back behind the thirty-mile line of Torres Vedras.
The waiting game dragged on.
In the stalemate winter of 1811, when the British army was tucked up behind its massive miles of fortifications, with the French stubbornly aligned on the other side, Blas returned to England for the first time in three and a half years. Ever mindful of the constant threat hanging over Lisbon, he had business which could be done by himself alone. A task he would not delegate.
He had thought never to see his father cry. The misted eyes, so out of place on that severe autocratic face, were decidedly unnerving. Blas wondered at it. Possibly, just possibly his father was not so disappointed in him as he had imagined. Melisande, his petite and elegant mother, cried unashamedly.
Since Blas was careful not to be seen in society, he had to hear from his father the details of the Prince of Wales's ascension to the Regency of England. On February 6, 1811, poor mad George III, who had been an abstemious man in all but the number of his children, was succeeded by his eldest son. The not-so-young prince was already known as the most profligate and hedonistic son of royalty in a Europe sorely lacking monarchs of high character and good judgment.
Blas did not wonder at his father's gloom. The Prince of Wales, with his Whiggish leanings and spendthrift ways could inspire nothing but fear and disgust in the heart of a staunch Tory aristocrat. Yet Blas found he was not as pessimistic as his father. The Prince was noted for being enamored with the military. If the new Regent could be persuaded to spend money on something other than elaborate new designs for uniforms, perhaps . . . just perhaps the much-needed arms and supplies for the guerrilleros would be more forthcoming.
The peace with his father could not last, of course. From the moment he arrived home Blas told his parents he must return to the Peninsula. His father, as always, would not accept his decision. Napoleon could be defeated without the services of his eldest son and heir. The resulting explosion was worse than the long-ago spring he had informed his father he was going to travel through a Europe caught in the midst of war. The end result was the same. Blas stormed out of his family's country house, finished the business he had come to do, and talked his way on board the next naval vessel sailing for Lisbon.
At no time during his brief few weeks with his parents had he mentioned he was married.
That same winter Napoleon Bonaparte's luck ran out. Whether prompted by an unbridled craving for power or simple greed, he made one of the most serious military blunders in history. After finally conceding he was not going to be able to mount a successful invasion of England, he turned his eyes eastward. In June of 1811, as Catarina Audley was turning eighteen, he broke his alliance with Russia and moved toward distant Moscow with a force of six hundred thousand men. Many of them the veteran troops who had held Spain and Portugal at bay.
Wellington's days of glory had begun at last. With an army composed of criminals, the homeless of city and countryside, the sons of tailors and the sons of earls, he sent the names of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca and Vitoria resounding forever through British history.
"Boney's gone mad," cried Alejo, swinging Cat in an arc which brought her dangerously close to a drenching in the courtyard fountain. "Division after division. Whole armies. Marching off to conquer the largest country on earth. Windmills in his head, that's what he has. Makes Don Quixote look quite sane."
"So the miracle has come." Panting, Cat pulled Alejo down onto the marbled rim of the fountain, gazing at him with intense satisfaction. He was a far cry from the bone-weary, scowling Blas who had come to Lisbon for Christmas of 1811. Nor was he the elusive chimera of the Spanish hidalgo called Don Alexis Perez de Leon. This was the stranger who had, in a moment of rage and frustration, popped out from behind the mask of Don Alejo and, as far as Catarina was concerned, discarded the supercilious Spaniard forever. This was her friend, Alejo. Kind, caring, an easy companion. He was the man who kissed her on the cheek and never accompanied her farther than her bedroom door. He was more likable than Blas, less hard about the edges. More eager to please. If the two personalities could be coaxed into merging, she might find herself liking her husband as much as she loved him.
"If we end up with odds of only four to one," said Alejo, "Wellington will be off and running all the way to France."
"After so long," Cat breathed. "Nearly five years."
He gave her a sharp glance, reached down to trail his fingers through the water. The fountain gurgled and hissed, an oasis of constancy in a world which was not as well ordered as it should be. He flicked his fingers, scattering Cat with a glistening shower of drops. When her laughing shriek died away, Alejo's grin faded. His amber eyes were still warm but now contained the air of mystery which was so much a part of him. "We've known each other a long time, have we not?" he inquired.
Sensing there was more than nostalgia behind his words, Cat simply nodded, waiting to hear what would follow.
"Would you say we were friends?" he asked.
"A great deal more than friends, surely?"
Abruptly, Alejo looked away. He examined the bougainvillea, the hibiscus, the coral vine, the hanging baskets of geraniums. His gaze followed a chameleon skittering over the azulejos at his feet until it disappeared under a bush. Still avoiding Cat, he stared fixedly at the lavender mass of a young jacaranda tree on the far side of the courtyard. "Cat, there is going to come a time when you will be very, very angry with me. I hope . . . when that time comes . . . you will remember this conversation. You may find you need a friend. And I'll always be there for you. Even if you hate me."
She took him by both shoulders and turned him to face her. "How could I possibly hate you?"
"I think you will. I am very much afraid you will." With a start of guilt, Alejo realized that by indulging his own personal agony he was frightening her, ruining her birthday. He should not feel such dread. The future was a blank book, with all the pages yet to be written. "Come," he said, covering his gaffe with determinedly ebullient high spirits. "I have something to show you." In truth, he was not so confident about the gift he had prepared for her, but wallowing in fear was not part of any of his many personas.
From a hidden corner behind the grand piano in the music room, he retrieved a large box wrapped in silver paper and decorated with delicate roses of pink silk and silver lace. As Cat eased the flowers from the box and slid her fingers under the edges of the silver paper, Alejo felt more like the frightened eight-year-old he had been on his first day at Eton than an experienced man of the world. "If you cannot like it," he murmured, "I will have it made in another fabric."
Cat's fingers trembled as she gripped the edge of the open box. Her hands froze, unable to touch the creation inside. She had known what her gift was the instant she lifted the lid. The exquisite silver-shot white silk misted and blurred before her eyes.
"I noticed you always wear that gown for your birthday and for holidays. And it's . . . ah--um, it doesn't fit you as well as it once did. You were only fifteen the winter it was new. You've--um--grown." Alejo gulped. "And besides, after three years a lady is certainly entitled to something new," he added, striving to bring a smile back to her lips. "Perhaps I should have had it copied in the same fabric, but I thought the touch of silver might . . . might suit you." Hell and the devil confound it, he was stammering like a boy who had never been near a woman before.
Cat swallowed, brushed a hand across her eyes to chase away any stray tears which might fall upon the precious gown. "I cannot imagine anything I would rather have," she told him. "Though I wish I could understand how your mind works. You designed this gown for me, chose it for my wedding, have watched me wear it for each of my birthdays and for Christmas. Yet never, never before have you said you liked it. Sometimes you glare at it, as if you did not like how it had turned out."
Cat searched his rugged features as if to find an answer to the enigma which was always there, just below the surface. She sighed. "There are times, Blas, when I think I know you, that I understand you. And then there are times, such as now, when I think I never will."
"I'm going to kill him," Alejo declared. Quite distinctly.
Cat's eyes narrowed to slits. "Bonaparte is not the only one who is mad." she declared.
"It is nothing," said Alejo grandly. "Pay me no mind."
"You know perfectly well you are making no sense," she said primly, even as her mind raced. So many unexplained oddities, the surety of a tantalizing mystery hovering just out of reach.
Alejo offered a rueful smile. "Go and try on the gown. Let me see if I still have an eye for female clothing. "Off with you," he urged, holding the box until he had helped her to her feet. "I did not mean to frighten you with my melancholy. Wear the dress so I may see you have forgiven me."
It was a lovely birthday. Eighteen was a very fine age, Cat decided. She was truly a woman grown. Thomas, Blanca, Marcio, Lucio, the servants, the men who worked the gaming rooms, the Casa's many customers complimented her beauty, her charm, the magnificence of the new gown. All agreed the beautiful green-eyed young bride had been transformed into a dazzling woman of the world.
But that night Cat hung the gown over her wardrobe door and stared at its pristine beauty, the tiny streaks of silver shimmering in the candlelight. Then she cried herself to sleep. Alone.
Neither Blas nor Alejo were present for Cat's nineteenth birthday. The Allies were on the march, taking full advantage of Napoleon's blunder in Russia. Of the six hundred thousand men who set out for Moscow, only slightly more than one hundred thousand returned. Prussia, finding its courage at last, broke with Napoleon and joined the Russians to harry the Little Emperor from the east. To the west, Wellington swung the other side of the pincer which would squeeze Napoleon Bonaparte back behind the borders of France.
Nor did any of the multiple personalities of Don Alexis Perez de Leon attend Catarina's twentieth birthday. Joseph Bonaparte, erstwhile king of Spain, was fleeing northward on the long road back to France. Wellington intended to make sure he never got there. Fully occupied with the guerrilleros who were finally taking back their country, piece by bloody piece, Blas had missed the string of allied victories. For this decisive battle, however, he delegated himself as one of Wellington's scouts. No way in hell was he going to be left out of this one!
News of the great battle at Vitoria reached the Casa Audley several days before Blas himself, as for some unknown reason he was not traveling at his usual swift rate of speed. A great victory, everyone agreed, even if King Joseph, Bonaparte's brother, had escaped. The French were in head-long retreat to Pamplona, their remaining days in Spain now numbered by months instead of years. The tide had not only turned but was sweeping Napoleon's empire back over the Pyrenees into France.
Nearly two weeks after the battle, Blas finally came home. He made no attempt to climb the balcony, but let himself in through the Judas gate in the wee hours of the night. He brought with him a birthday gift far more stunning than a re-creation of his wife's wedding gown. He moved through the familiar courtyard by starlight, greedily breathing in the scent of flowers and warm earth, of lingering odors from the kitchen. He even enjoyed the sharp smell of the stable. Home at last. It had been a very long time.
He had no idea it would be years before he passed this way again.
Blas carried his burden up the stairs, shifted the weight to free his right hand and turned the knob to his wife's room. Long ago he had told her to keep it locked, but she never did. Nor did she ever move her furniture. The room was always as he remembered it, ready for him whatever time of the day or night he chose to return. With great care he laid his burden down on the soft thick rug. For a moment his hands stayed in place as he was struck by yet another qualm of doubt. Had he made the right choice, done the right thing? Who was he to play God? In the darkness he smiled. His father had indeed brought him up to play God. Lord of all he surveyed. I wish it, therefore it is.
And if Cat did not care for her present? Or, worse yet, if she cared too much?
Stripping off his clothes, Blas made his way to the basin and pitcher. When he was satisfied he was reasonably presentable, he slid into bed beside his wife. She smelled of lavender and roses. Of woman. Of all his dreams and fears. She came awake and pounced on him before he had time to so much as nuzzle her ear. Months of pent-up passion whirled into a maelstrom of desire, and they plunged into a mystical fantasy world of love and delight. With no thought but to become as close as two people could become as fast as it was possible to do so, each rode the other until exhaustion devoured them. They slept at last.
The pale light of dawn was filtering into the room as Blas came wide awake at the slight murmur which reached him from the bundle still lying on the carpet by the bed. A smile lit his face as he peered over the edge of the bed at the small head sticking out of the cocoon of the blanket. Oh, lord, what would Cat say? Would she think the boy his? That was one of the questions which had haunted him on the long journey home.
Blas turned his attention to the lovely woman sleeping beside him, her glorious hair spread in a halo around her. He had no difficulty picturing her with his own son suckling at her breast, growing strong and proud. And a girl just like her mother. And another boy or two. Two girls surely---such perfection deserved duplication. Soon now . . . soon the damned war would be over. After Vitoria the road to Paris could only be months away. He kissed his wife awake, lowering the eager hands which reached for him back to her sides. "I've brought you a present," he said.
Thomas knew he was dying. He seldom left his room now. The headaches were more frequent, almost unbearable. He was nearly blind. Whether it was God or the devil who forged his life, he had managed to last long enough for the war to pass him by. Intelligence information, troops and supplies now entered Spain from ports to the north. Lisbon, secure in its relegation to a backwater, was no longer the spearhead of the allied army. He had lived to see it through, his work complete. He had trained Blas who had, in turn, trained Tonio, and with Catarina's help they had made a significant contribution to the final victory which was now in sight.
He had suffered enough. He was ready to go. There was but one last thing he must do. Damned convenient the boy chose this time to come home. Sometimes . . . yes, sometimes it was necessary to be cruel.
Blas had not been home in eight months. When he entered Thomas's room on the morning after his return, he thought himself prepared by the warnings from Blanca and Cat, but he was mistaken. Thomas's hair was more silver than blond, his cheeks sunken. There were dark smudges under his eyes; his body was lighter by twenty or thirty pounds. Blas thought life with the guerrilleros had taught him to endure anything. He was wrong. Sickness curled through him, sending stabs of pain from the old scars on his frostbitten toes.
Bloody hell! Thomas should have had at least another quarter century of life. This was the man who had shown him the seamier sides of Lisbon, who knew more ways to charm a woman than Blas had known existed. The man who had offered an unknown boy the opportunity to do something useful with his life, who had given that boy something even more precious---his one and only child. Blas loved this man with a warmth and tenderness he could never feel for his own father no matter how hard he tried.
With his gift for donning any personality, or any of a gamut of emotions, Blas managing a brilliant smile, moved forward to greet his mentor. Twice a day he returned to visit Thomas during the week he spent at the Casa. Stoically, he endured Thomas's profane and pithy comments on Catarina's birthday present. By what right did Blas bring home a child? Some bloody French whelp? No matter what the circumstances under which he found him?
Since Blas had had two weeks on the road from Vitoria to marshal his explanations, he talked Thomas round, playing quite outrageously on his sympathies and his love of his daughter. For Catarina was so enchanted with her "gift" that Blas had been shocked to find himself suffering twinges of jealousy over a four-year-old child.
During his remaining visits with Thomas, Blas spiced their talks with laughter and tall tales. Neither mentioned what they actually were thinking. Later, Blas would suppose he should have been prepared for their final conversation. Strangely, he was not. It came out of the blue and nearly destroyed him.
He had come to say goodbye, knowing it was for the last time. Quietly, hugging his emotions to himself, he told Thomas he would be leaving that night.
It was the moment Thomas had been waiting for. "We both know we won't meet again in this life," he said without preliminaries.
Blas closed his eyes, swallowed. "Sir," he murmured, forcing himself to look Thomas directly in the eye.
"I have some final orders for you," Thomas continued, his voice remarkably deep and steady, the well-remembered voice of authority. "In no more than a month from now I want word to be sent that Don Alejo has been killed. In battle, in a duel, in bed by an outraged husband---I do not care what you choose. Just do it."
"Why?" Blas breathed, stunned.
"You know I wish Catherine to have a season in London as she should have had long ago."
"But she is my wife!" Blas's protest resounded out into the courtyard, but only the pigeons were there to hear him, scattering in a flurry of wings toward the shelter of the eaves.
"I am doing this for both of you," Thomas declared, his mouth thinned into a grim line, his chin as stubborn as it had been when fighting his way through the maze of French troop movements on the Peninsula. "I placed the pair of you in an untenable position. I was the adult, you both were children. I should have been responsible enough to see what would happen."
"It was my idea!"
"But I wanted it all," Thomas continued as if he had not heard the protest. "I wanted to be the master spy, wanted to keep the Casa, wanted to keep my wealth, my reputation, my position with my government, my position in the community. I was greedy. And you and Cat have paid for it."
"You're mad," said Blas flatly. "The whole thing was my idea. I knew what I was doing."
"Did you?" said Thomas mildly. "I think not." Their gazes locked, and it was Blas who broke away to stare blindly down at his sturdy black boots.
Thomas sighed. "I am not saying you must give her up. I am only granting each of you the freedom to choose. Cat has never so much as thought of another lover, but we both know that cannot be said of yourself."
"The others were different, they did not matter."
"Be quiet," Thomas ordered, not unkindly. "Catarina must have the opportunity to look at men through new eyes. The opportunity to live in a world not filled from horizon to horizon by Blas the Bastard. Whether you like it or not, it's going to happen. It is all arranged. I have left my widowed daughter Catherine Elizabeth to the guardianship of Sir Giles Everingham, who, as you may recall, is our superior officer. Our employer, if you will. When I am gone, she will be in Everingham's care."
"Like hell she will!"
"You have no choice in the matter."
"We are married. Truly married. By an Anglican chaplain with the army."
"If you think I did not know that, you have sadly underestimated my intelligence network. I also know why. If you had not married her, war or no war, I would have killed you."
Speechless, Blas could only stare at the man in the bed, remembering Thomas as he once was. A very dangerous man.
"I grant that you married her," said Thomas in a less deadly tone of voice. "But it is Don Alexis Perez de Leon who married her. And he is about to meet his unfortunate demise, making Catarina a widow."
The logic of it was diabolical. "But she--she's mine," Blas stuttered.
"And who are you to claim her?" Thomas taunted. "Arrogance such as yours comes only from those who have never had to accept the word no. Not only does your breeding scream aristocracy, it reeks of heir. A privileged, pampered son of the nobility. Can you honestly tell me you do not have parents who expect you to make a match far above the daughter of a younger son of a younger son, the child of a gaming house in Portugal?"
"You know I cannot." His voice low, mortally wounded.
"Was she to be your mistress then?"
"No!" It was a problem he had put from his mind, refusing to deal with it until he must.
"This separation does not have to be forever," Thomas said, far from indifferent to the suffering he was causing. God knew he loved the boy as if he were his own. "If you wish to court her, you will know where to find her."
Blas ran his fingers through his hair, tousling the waves of black. Before the well-known gesture could soften his determination, Thomas added, "I will have your promise, Blas. You will not deny me this last request."
"I was wrong," said Blas, his eyes gone hard. "It is you who is the bastard, Thomas."
Thomas allowed himself a grin. He knew when he had won. "Your promise," he repeated.
Blas stood, looking down at the dying man. Perhaps leaving in anger was the better way. It was becoming more and more difficult to ignore his emotions, as demanded by his British heritage. "You are not, surely, forbidding me to explain to Cat what you are doing?" Blas inquired, his face the epitome of aristocratic arrogance.
"Not at all," said Thomas airily. "If you think you know," he added kindly. And in a sterner tone, "Your promise, boy. Now."
"You know bloody well you have it," Blas grated. "And be damned to you."
"Undoubtedly."
Oh, God. Blas fell on his knees beside the bed, buried his face in Thomas's outstretched hand. He had not cried since he was eight.
Perhaps the Iberians had the right of it. Hot tears scalded away grief more thoroughly than icy reticence.
"Of course I am not going to London," said Cat when Blas told her. "Leave Papa? Do not be absurd."
Blas drew a deep breath, captured her hands in his. "Catarina, Thomas is talking about after he is gone. You know he is dying. I have seen it in your face. In Blanca's. He is only doing what he believes is best for you."
Cat buried her crumpling face into the hard wall of his chest, clinging desperately to the vibrant life of him. No words came.
"Do as he asks, Cat. Take Blanca and the boy with you. I promise you money will not be a problem. Because of Thomas I cannot beg you to wait for me. I can only tell you I will come to you there. I swear it."
She allowed herself to be comforted. In many ways it was little different from the last seven years. Blas was going back to war. She would be there when he returned. Even if there were far, far away in a land she had never seen.
But neither of them had credited Thomas with the full extent of the Machiavellian plans he had been polishing for years. If these two young people were truly intended for each other, they would have to work at it. Marriage was easy. Staying married another matter entirely.
On the morning following Blas's departure, Thomas had a talk with his daughter. For years he had used words as bullets, his skill legendary. If his carefully chosen words had a double-meaning, Catarina was too stunned to recognize it.
With careful cunning Thomas managed to convey a not-so-nice portrait of his favorite spy. He assured his daughter Blas intended to stand by his commitment to her. But as a woman brought up to understand the code of honor, he knew Catarina would wish to release her husband to the illustrious world into which he had been born. A world far above her. A world in which she would never be accepted. Wartime relationships were transient, after all. No sensible person expected them to last. And he knew his daughter to be intelligent. Sensible. And honorable.
Catarina locked herself in her room and contemplated her shattered life. The imminent loss of the two people she loved most in the world. The loss of the culture into which she had been born. The unknown world into which she was being forced to go.
When she entered the gaming rooms that night, her eyes were bright and hard, her color courtesy of paint. Her mouth was set in a brittle line which curved in a mechanical smile while her eyes remained cold and disdainful of a world which could be so harsh.
Could it be true? That Blas did not want her? That only honor bound him to her? There were all those strange times when he had not wanted her . . .
She could not, would not, believe it. When the war was over, he would come to her as he had said he would. He would come to this other world, to England. He would come.
It might not be marriage he offered, but he would come.
Interim
1813 - The Pyrenees
The rock-walled room was icy cold. Winter had come to the barren, windswept slopes of the high Pyrenees while the dying days of summer still cast warm golden sunlight on the Spanish plains below.
The man bending over a small rude table occasionally put aside his quill pen to flex his stiffening fingers. His chiseled features, sculpted by a craftsman of imperfect skills, glowed amber in the flickering light of the one candle which was precariously perched beside an oversized piece of parchment whose edges flopped over the side of a rickety table. He swore, slapped the paper down as the insistent howling of the mountain wind rose in pitch, penetrating the stone sides of the shepherd's hut to lift the corners of his precious drawing.
Bloody hell! Blas anchored the paper with one large, skillful hand and shielded the nearly extinguished candle with the other. The gust blew itself out, the candle steadied and glowed into life. He tossed his overly long mane of black hair back off his face and frowned down at his work, his lips curling into a sneer at the ineptitude of his icy fingers. He'd been making maps for how long? Four years? Five? Six years since he had set out on a summer odyssey and traveled the length of enemy France from Calais to the Pyrenees. Then into Spain, and finally to the great port of Lisbon where he had planned to take ship for Greece.
Greece! Blas groaned. One look at Catarina Audley, plus an offer of adventure from her father, and he'd cast the lure of ancient Greece to the four winds. And now, after thousands of miles by mule, ox, horse, and shank's mare, chasing the length and breadth of Portugal and Spain, he had come full circle, huddled in a hut built into the side of a mountain in the high Pyrenees. He was the forerunner of an army which had just accomplished what no army had been able to do before: push Napoleon Bonaparte's troops back behind the borders of France.
And to march the British army across the Pyrenees from Spain into France, the Marquess of Wellington needed this particular map which seemed to have a mind of its own, rustling and skittering every time Blas's quill sought to trace the most delicate lines. He swore with considerable fervor, paused to examine his work.
Before him were the intricate details of a pass, the same pass he had trod through these mountains in another lifetime. Silly young fool that he was. Arrogant idiot, more like! He had ridden a mule train from France into Spain right under the noses of Boney's troops and thought himself very clever indeed. Napoleon's Grande Armée as seen through the eyes of a child! His journey had been little more than a boyish prank. He had barely noticed the spectacular mountain scenery as he congratulated himself on outwitting the enemy. Now, five years later, he saw rushing mountain streams as life's blood for Wellington's army, a small plateau as a campsite for a division, giant granite outcroppings as cover from the enemy, a ravine as nature's trap of death . . .
"It is late, querido. Come to bed." Strong feminine hands moved beneath the straight black hair which fell below his collar and began to knead his shoulders, providing exquisite relief to his tense muscles. Blas closed his eyes, laid down his pen. As he leaned into the sensual comfort of the woman behind him, she basked in the glow of his roughhewn features and wondered, as she often did, how she had been blessed with so powerful and generous a lover.
For a little while only he was hers. His black hair gleamed in the candlelight. His warmly glowing amber eyes were the color of his skin which had been bronzed by years of Iberian sun and wind. A secret smile touched her lips at the thought of what only she was privileged to know. That the pale color of his most private parts betrayed an origin far to the north of Spain.
Maria Josephina was justifiably proud of her lover. No one who knew Don Blas well ever noticed the irregularity of his face. They saw only a man of towering energy, born to command. His power and quick wit were ruthlessly kept in check behind a façade of nearly blank normality. Don Blas allowed others to see only what he wished them to see.
Though not as tall as some of the fine English officers, Don Blas frequently had to hunch himself into a round-shouldered ball to keep from towering over the other guerrilleros. He was lithe, quick, and strong. A very fine lover. And, oh, so clever. How many times had she laughed behind her hands when the proud angles of his face softened into jelly and his brilliant amber eyes grew dim as he sat stolidly on his mule and pretended not to understand a word of a French soldier's so very bad Spanish. Oh yes, Don Blas was a man of many faces and many names, though he always called himself---with wide-eyed cheerfulness---Blas the Bastard. A joke, naturalamente. They all knew he was the Son of a Somebody, no one ever doubted it. An hidalgo from Somewhere. Which was why they called him Don Blas. He had long ago given up trying to stop them.
He was, Maria knew, far more than a maker of maps. When the guerrilleros worked with Don Blas, they were doing more than killing the enemy. They were part of a greater force, driving the French dogs forever from Spain. And that was reason enough to do anything he wanted. Including warming his bed. Her lips curved into a smile. A most willing sacrifice, that---making sure that Don Blas was warm and well fed. And comforted.
Maria Josephina leaned forward and brushed her lips down his cheek, her long black hair mixing with his, falling across his sleeveless leather jacket into his lap. Definitely more provocation than even the most dedicated spy could stand. In a blur of movement Blas shoved the rickety table with the precious map to one side, caught the candle and the inkwell before they obliterated his past week's work, and swept Maria into his lap. Cold forgotten, his mouth searched hers in a sudden furious attempt to blot out this miserable hovel in the midst of nowhere. "Damn it, woman!" he swore in frustration as his hand fought to find the bottom of her many layers of skirts.
"Not here! Come to bed, mi corazon," she breathed against his lips. "Not even for you will I freeze myself!"
Since he was as single-minded in his love-making as he was in his work, Blas paid her no mind, returning to his search with renewed determination which was soon rewarded by the warmth of a finely shaped bare leg. As his hand slid gradually upward, he deepened his exploration of her mouth.
Even as he attempted to lose himself in Maria's ever willing warmth, he was aware their days together were numbered. He would not take her into France. When the British army moved through the passes he was mapping, Maria Josephina, the guerrilleros, even the Spanish regulars would not be with them. Five years of French occupation had seen such atrocities in Spain that Wellington was willing to send the Spanish half of his army home rather than turn them loose on the French population. In any event Blas would not risk the reverse for Maria Josephina. She had been with him for most of the war. He was not a poor man---she would live well and never again have to take a lover. Unless she wished to.
But their time together was nearly over. Suddenly the whole damn war came crashing down on his head. Blessed be the fact Maria never wore anything under her quantity of skirts. His fingers plunged inside her. He buried himself in the feel of her, the warmth and wetness of her. His lips bruised her mouth as he felt his flesh rise to aching hardness.
A knock on the slatted wood door went unheard. A second knock. The knotty boards abruptly swung back. Marcio Cardoso's brown eyes flashed their disapproval.
"Marcio?" It was not an attack of modesty, or even guilt, which froze Blas in his chair. There was only one reason for Marcio to be here. His old friend had not made the hazardous five-hundred mile journey from Lisbon to the Pyrenees to bring him good news.
Blas had been trained from birth to show no emotion, and what lay beneath the surface had been well scorched in the crucible of war. With rigid calm he touched his lips to Maria Josephina's jet black hair, pulled her skirts down over her knees, gently set her on her feet. She stood, looking uncertainly from her lover to the intruder, and back again. Tension charged the icy air.
"Don Alexis." The young Portuguese regarded his old friend with cold eyes, his words and tone stiff with formality. In the old days he and Blas might have roistered their way through Lisbon, but somehow Marcio had not pictured this particular ending to his long, arduous journey. It was not fitting. He stood stubbornly in the doorway, saying nothing.
"Brandy, Maria!" Blas growled. "Then leave us."
Silently, she did as she was told. After making a show of wiping two clay mugs with her shawl, she poured from a bottle of France's finest which rested on the stone floor not far from the small table. A last worried frown at the two men, then she left to join the guerrilleros who were clustered around a smoky fire in the outer room.
"Well?" Blas ground out. "I doubt you've come to tell me Boney's resurrected the French navy and is sailing up the Tagus. Tell me quickly. Is it Tomás? Out with it!"
"Charming as ever, I see. Do you think I might have the privilege of speaking with Don Alejo instead?" Marcio downed his brandy in one swallow, almost banging the mug down on the map before he saw what it was. With a growl of exasperation he retrieved the brandy bottle from the floor where Maria had left it and poured a refill.
Blas closed his eyes, rubbed his long fingers across his forehead. When he spoke, his voice was little more than a whisper. "Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I am a fool and a bastard, and at this particular moment speaking in the civilized tones of Don Alejo Perez de Leon isn't going to make me any nicer. In the name of God, tell me what's happened."
Marcio tossed off his second brandy, then carefully placed the mug on the floor beside the bottle. Slowly, he unfastened the many layers of his heavy clothing, retrieving a letter from an inner pocket. Blas had not been aware of the full extent of his fear until he recognized the writing on the envelope. Things were not quite the worst case he could imagine. It was Cat's hand. She at least was still among the living. After motioning his old friend to a seat on the bed, Blas broke the seal on the letter. Turning in his chair, he held the closely written lines up to the thin glow of the candle.
The sound of men's voices, a woman's giggle drifted through the rough slatted door. Wood smoke. The ripe odor of unwashed bodies. A foreign world. Marcio was suddenly grateful his role in the war had been to guard the Casa Audley and its residents.
When Blas finally lowered the letter to the table, Marcio murmured, "I am sorry, very sorry. Senhor Tomás was a great man. I know you truly cared for him."
"He was more of a father than my own," Blas admitted. And a friend as well." Emotions, long stifled, threatened to overwhelm him. "Do you know when Catarina goes to England?" he asked with care. Marcio would, of course, tell him Cat had refused to leave. She would be there in the Casa Audley, where she had always been. Waiting for him.
"She does not wish to go," Marcio replied blandly, "but it was necessary to notify the English immediately because of Senhor Tomás's work. It is expected someone will come soon to go through his papers and take Catarina back to London."
Blas dropped his head into his hands. Thomas had done it. Just as he said. Cat, his Cat, was going to England.
Hidalgos did not sit with their heads clutched in their hands. Nor the sons of English noblemen. Nor bastards. Blas lifted his head, straightened his shoulders, his face a grim version of the bland mask Don Alejo always wore so well.
"I am sorry for this," he said, waving his hand to encompass the tiny room. By birth and upbringing he was unaccustomed to apologizing for anything, but he was not above guilt at being caught with his mistress by Marcio Cardoso. "You have reason enough to know I am no saint, but I could have wished you had come five minutes earlier. Guilt on top of grief is not at all comfortable."
"It is forgotten."
"But not forgiven, I think." A rueful smile curled Blas's generous lips. "Go warm yourself by the fire---Maria will find you some food. I need time alone." He stood, clasped his old friend in a hug which brought sharp memories of a time when he was first learning a new and warmer culture. It was Marcio who had shown him how to laugh without cynicism, to love without a veil of ennui. A luxury, an indulgence, Blas could no longer afford.
He stepped back, letting his artist's hands fall to his sides. "Marcio, I thank you. We'll talk in the morning."
The young Portuguese studied the shuttered face before him, regretting the loss of the hero he had expected to find at the end of his journey. With a slight shake of his head Marcio bid Blas goodnight and walked, with a guilty feeling of relief, into the outer room. He welcomed the wood smoke, leather, damp wool, the unwashed bodies, the lingering scent of roast mutton which permeated the air. The murmuring voices, bursts of laughter and general bonhomie which made the shepherd's hut a universe apart from the man now alone in the chill little room set against the side of the mountain.
Blas folded the map with elaborate care, stowing it in oiled paper inside a leather saddlebag, his mind spinning with old memories. From the same bag he fished out a letter-sized sheet of parchment, dipped his quill in ink and began to write, words spilling from his pen as a pent-up river rushes through a broken dam. Half way down the back of the paper, a roar of laughter penetrated from the adjoining room, and he paused, gazing blankly at what he had written. He sat for some moments with his head in his hands, then picked up the letter and held it to the candle flame. He watched with deliberate detachment as it disintegrated into ash.
Blas read his wife's letter once again, brushing his hands across the neat feminine writing, as if to feel some essence of the woman who wrote it. Then that, too, was consigned to the flame. He ground the last tiny scraps of the two letters into the rocky floor with the toe of his well-worn black boot.
It was as if no message had ever come to this rocky refuge on the edge of a high pass through the northern Pyrenees.
P A R T II
"Immediately the fairy gave a stroke with her wand, and in an instant all in the hall were transported into the prince's own land. His subjects received him with joy. He married Beauty, and lived with her many years, and their happiness was compleat."
Steadfastly ignoring the pain of the classic fairytale ending, Cat translated into French the final sentences from the well-worn book which was one of her childhood treasures. She held up an elaborate drawing of Beauty hugging the great rat-like beast. "See," she said in English to the small fair-haired boy sitting on her lap. "La Belle, la Beauté. Beauty. Et la bête. The Beast. Dutifully, as if trying to please her, the little boy reached out a chubby finger and touched the picture.
"The Beast is a Prince," said Cat slowly and clearly. "He and Beauty are married. And very happy. Forever." The little boy turned his thin face to hers, blue eyes wide in anxious inquiry. Abruptly, Cat closed the book and laid it aside, sweeping the solemn child into a warm embrace.
Perhaps it was wrong to try to teach the boy English. No one was sure of his age---probably somewhere between three and four---and he had already had more grief than any child should bear. And a surfeit of languages. French, Spanish, Portuguese, and now English. Was it better to leave him alone, Cat wondered. Love was perhaps the only thing that could help him, and of that, she had more than enough to give. Catarina kissed the child's cheek, told him he was a very good boy (in French), then allowed his nurse Rosalía Santos to carry him off for the lunch which the ship's cook had prepared with great care for the vessel's youngest passenger.
Unlike Cat's maid Juana who did not wish to leave her association with one of the Casa's footmen, the plump, middle-aged Rosalía Santos had agreed to uproot her life to accompany a young French boy into a foreign land. She might be able to speak only Portuguese, but her heart made up for what she lacked in words.
With the child gone, Catarina was once again overwhelmed by the enormity of what she was doing. The well-appointed ship's saloon was suddenly stifling. She threw on the chinchilla-trimmed cloak Blas had given her so many years before and went out on deck. Overhead, the slap of the sails beat a rippling tattoo under sunshine which became steadily weaker and less warming as they traveled north. The October wind was brisk and chill. And welcome, for it cut through the miasma of grief, the pain of losing everything she loved. Father. Lover. Friends. Home. All that was customary, familiar. The very fabric of her life.
Think about the child. The child was all she had left.
"He was just sitting there," Blas had said as they looked down at the small fair head sticking out of the blanket roll on Cat's carpet. "Like a little statue in his blue jacket and big white collar. His bonne was lying dead at his side."
"Are you sure the woman was not his mother?" Cat asked automatically, still unable to credit the sight revealed by the pale morning light filtering into her bedroom.
"She was dressed as a nanny. In black with a neat little cap still in place on her head. I doubt she'd been raped," Blas added hastily. I think she was trampled. You can't imagine the chaos, Cat. The French were so confident of victory, they even set up seats so their women could watch. When we routed them and cut off the road to San Sebastian, the soldiers dropped everything and ran down the track to Pamplona, their women and children following as best they could. Among the everything they left behind was all the treasure they'd looted from Spain. Gold, silver, jewelry, great works of art. Just lying there, spilling out of every wagon and carriage. Our soldiers went mad. Wellington could scarcely put together enough men to chase the French down the road to Pamplona.
"I only found him," Blas continued, "because one of our guerrillero scouts was missing." I was searching the field for anyone not in uniform. And there he was, Cat, clutching his bonne's crucifix, too shocked and frightened even to cry." Blas's eyes darkened. "There's no way of knowing exactly how the nanny died---she could have been trampled by either side---but I believe she threw herself on top of the child to protect him. I couldn't very well leave him there, now could I?" Blas added defensively.
The question was not worthy of a reply. "And he couldn't tell you who he was?" Cat asked, wondering why she was so sure Blas was telling the truth. A fleeting cynical whisper noted that the small blond boy bore absolutely no resemblance to Blas. And somehow Cat was quite certain any children of his would be a butterstamp of himself.
Blas glanced down at the child who was still sleeping soundly. "I made inquiries among the French prisoners. There was an infantry lieutenant who thought he might be the child of a colonel of chasseurs whose name he didn't know, but he'd seen the boy up before a colonel on a horse."
"And the mother?"
"That was all the lieutenant knew." Blas raised his amber eyes in the helpless male appeal which had melted hearts from London to Lisbon to Madrid. "Don't be angry, Cat. I couldn't leave him with the camp followers. He seemed so fragile, so alone. I just picked him up and brought him home."
"Angry? How could I be angry?" She looked down at the small sleeping child and swallowed hard. Until that moment she had not realized just how much she wanted a child of her own. "What is his name?"
"That's just it." Blas shrugged. "I don't know."
"Surely he's old enough to know his own name."
"He doesn't talk."
"O quê?" Startled, Cat lapsed into Portuguese.
"Shock, I would think. He hasn't said a word since I found him. Just looks at me with those big solemn eyes. I haven't even managed to get a smile out of him. And believe me, I've tried. All I know is that he understands when I speak to him in French, so he certainly isn't deaf. And his bonne must have called him 'petit chou' because that's what he answers to."
"I refuse to call a child a cabbage," Cat declared indignantly.
"In France it's a term of endearment. If that's what he's used to, I suggest you not be so stubborn."
"I shall call him Pierre," she declared. "Anything is better than cabbage."
"He likes to be called a little cabbage," Blas assured her. "Just wait, you'll find out."
But Cat's attention had somersaulted into a look of horror. "He was here last night. All night," she accused. "How could you . . . how could we? . . . Blas, how could you leave him there like that?"
"He was perfectly comfortable. That's the softest bed he's had since we left Vitoria."
"You know what I mean!" Cat hissed.
Blas frowned, genuinely puzzled. "Oh . . . that," he said at last. "Believe me, I've spent two weeks on the road with him. He sleeps like the dead. Which reminds me . . .," he added with a leer, falling on top of his wife and pushing her back into the soft mattress, his mouth hovering over hers.
She kicked him. Hard. But not where it would hurt the most.
Cat's lips tilted in reminiscence as the cold Atlantic wind whipped her hair, the salt spray stinging her face. Only Blas himself would she treasure as much as the gift he had brought her from the battlefield at Vitoria.
A gift she might not be able to keep.
When Blas returned to Spain he carried four identical letters, each with a different address. The letters would be passed across the French lines in one of the not uncommon exchanges between French and English pickets. With luck, one or more of the letters would find the man they sought. And one day . . . one day Pierre would go home.
If there was no one left to claim him, however, then he was hers. Something . . . someone to love.
Later that evening, after dining at the captain's table, Sir Giles Everingham and his party made themselves comfortable in the ship's well-appointed saloon. Still on the right side of fifty, Sir Giles was a quietly attractive man. His straight brown hair was not yet thinning, his love of good food and excellent wine had thickened his waistline by only a few pounds. When working, he covered his penetrating gray eyes with a pair of spectacles. No stranger would ever take him for anything other than a typical English gentleman, except to speculate that he might be more given to his books than to his hounds.
Sir Giles Everingham was, in fact, the spymaster's master, the man who had just inherited the spymaster's only child. He had come to Lisbon to wind up Thomas Audley's affairs, both business and personal, and to escort his new responsibility back to England. He had not expected the supposed widow to be accompanied by a companion, a child and a nurse but, long accustomed to surprises, Sir Giles had adjusted with grace and aplomb.
A low, musical laugh drifted above the murmured conversations in the saloon. Sir Giles turned his deceptively mild eyes toward Catherine, who was sitting on a sofa with one of the younger ship's officers, her face tilted up to his in apparently rapt attention. Her shining hair was swept into a chignon under a very proper black lace cap which, on her, merely managed to look provocative. Wisps of golden red curls strayed onto her cheeks and forehead, swaying seductively as she continued her animated conversation. She was the epitome of a young widow totally at home in a world of men.
So like her mother. Whose great beauty had been expected to bring wealth and prominence to her border family. And who, instead, had run off with the youngest son of an English vicar. Sir Giles had first seen Thomas and Elspeth Audley when he had been sent to assess the situation in Lisbon in the early days of the French Revolution. The two expatriots were managing quite well on Thomas's extraordinary skill with cards and his genius for organization. Thomas Audley was already well known as a talented middleman in dealings with the English who, as all Portuguese knew, were quite mad.
Sir Giles, recognizing a kindred spirit and appreciating Thomas's brilliant mind, his flair for meticulous planning as well as daring exploits, had recruited him on the spot. Their long collaboration eventually grew into the Casa Audley and a spy network rivaling Napoleon's own. And now, more than twenty years later, he had been given the responsibility for all that was left of his friends' many lives. And somewhere out there was a young man, following in the same tradition, on whose actions young Cat's life hinged.
It was the one subject Sir Giles had not yet brought up with his new ward, sensing that the topic was delicate. Being named guardian for a young woman who had been married, in truth or in fiction, for six years was one of his more interesting challenges. Thomas might have solved the irregularities of the matter by arbitrarily removing Don Alexis Perez de Leon from the ranks of the living. But as matters stood at the moment, the girl was not truly widowed unless Sir Giles's most independent, strong-willed and secretive spy chose to stay dead.
Sir Giles stood with a glass of brandy idly listening to the First Officer reassure an anxious English banker that the Atlantic, except for a few annoying Americans, was an English sea since Nelson's great victory at Trafalgar in 1805. "Letting the Portuguese fleet slip off to Brazil completely ended the Frogs' chances for renewing their navy," the ship's officer added. "Boney hasn't had a navy for years."
Sir Giles allowed himself a small moment of congratulation as he recalled his and Thomas's part in the frantic efforts to get the royal family and the Portuguese navy out of Lisbon harbor and on their way to Brazil. Thus making sure there were no ships left for France to confiscate, no royal family to get in the way of England's plans in Portugal.
Once again, Sir Giles's eyes strayed to his ward and he wondered just what he was doing, unleashing Thomas Audley's offspring on an unsuspecting London society. And on his dear Clara.
A genuine beauty, young Catherine---just entering the height of a loveliness whose fine bones and delicate skin would still be with her when dandling great-grandchildren on her lap. But the cool independence in her great green eyes caused Sir Giles's not a few qualms. Without a doubt there was fire behind the cool façade. Over the years Thomas had interspersed his reports with many a dryly humorous reference to the problems of raising a willful young sprite with a temper which could rival Vesuvius. And now . . . she was his. Willed to him, as it were, by a man who in a better world would have lived to regale his grandchildren with tales of how he once helped Wellington chase old Boney all the way back to France.
The young officer, making the rounds to ensure the passengers' comfort, moved on and Sir Giles ambled over to take his place on the sofa next to Catherine. Dona Blanca occupied a well-upholstered chair beside them. As was her custom at home or at sea, year in and year out, she was working on her embroidery. Both women wore gowns of full mourning, black from their small lace caps to their shining patent slippers.
"I have wondered," Sir Giles began tentatively as Catherine welcomed him with a gracious nod, "if you have heard from Blas since Thomas's passing."
She did not evade the question, as he half expected her to. "Marcio Cardoso took the news to him in person and brought back a letter." The white of the knuckles clenched in her lap betrayed the calm of her voice. "It was . . . brief. He expressed his regrets, wished me well on my new life in England. He sent his love to Pierre."
Appalled, Sir Giles could only stare at the shuttered, heart-shaped face. What in God's name had Thomas done to the boy? Or did Blas truly not want her?
"I cannot help wonder," Cat continued quietly, tacitly admitting the rejection in Blas's letter, "if I shall be accepted in London. It is most kind of your wife to offer to sponsor me," she added hastily, "but I do not wish to shame her. I cannot but think the daughter of a Portuguese gaming house can scarcely be acceptable to the beau monde."
"You are the granddaughter of a much-respected vicar, the great-granddaughter of the Earl of Ailesbury," said Sir Giles firmly. "That your father was the younger son of a younger son and forced to earn his living does not keep your birth from being above reproach. And your mother was from a distinguished Scottish family, I am told."
"There will be a hundred officers in London who know me only as the girl from the Casa Audley," Cat persisted. "I can just hear them," she mimicked: 'You remember, don't you, Sinjun? That house where all the public rooms were used for gambling. Deuced good suppers they had too! Quite a few fortunes whistled down the wind at the Casa Audley.'" Catherine ended with a delicate shudder followed by a defiant tilt of her head against this all too realistic possibility.
Sir Giles found the faint quaver in Catherine's voice, the valiant thrust of her chin even more appealing than the aura of quiet sophistication which had previously surrounded her. "With luck, they'll all be fighting in France," he muttered under his breath.
Aloud, Sir Giles said: "You are far from penniless, Catherine. Your father prospered with his many enterprises in Portugal, and he has been well paid for his invaluable services to the crown. All in all, you have more to offer a husband than all but the most wealthy young women on the marriage mart."
The words were said. The course clearly laid. Catherine Audley Perez de Leon, widow, was going to London to find a husband. Because she had been rejected by the young devil of a husband she already had.
Blas. The Bastard. Who was her husband only if he chose to be resurrected.
Sir Giles switched smoothly to a more comfortable topic. "I think you will be pleased with Branwyck Park," he said. "It is not a pretentious property, but the prospect is delightful, the tenants prosperous and the short distance to the city monstrously convenient. I assure you, my dear, a young woman with a country home and a comfortable income will not be scorned."
Blanca had been listening with fierce intensity in an effort to follow the English conversation. English beasts! If they should dare to reject Catarina . . . Ah, no, my Tomás. I, Blanca Magdalena Inez Dominguez, will not let that happen! And Blas? The English dog who had not had the courage to say no to Tomás. Who perhaps had found it convenient not to say no. May he burn in hell if he did not come for Catarina. If he did not love his wife enough to keep her.
Blanca jabbed her needle into the cloth with the ferocity of a sword into the heart.
"Ah, mon brave, mon petit chou, tu es un ange!" To Cat's chagrin, Blas had proved to be right. Only being called a little cabbage could coax a small, thin smile from Pierre's solemn face.
"He is too much an angel," declared Blanca over the boy's head as he sat in Cat's lap. "He should be driving us insane on this interminable journey, and he simply sits there and looks out the carriage window with those great blue eyes like some solemn old owl perched in a tree."
Cat nodded her agreement, her voice exhausted from pointing out the wonders along the road. At times it seemed she had not missed a single cow, pig, sheep, chicken, dog, cat, farm cart or horse between Plymouth and this, the last few miles to Branwyck Park.
Worn by two weeks at sea followed by four endless days in a post chaise, young Pierre had weathered the ordeal with more aplomb than his elders. When not eating or sleeping, he had regarded the passing scenery with careful attention, listened, without squirming, to each story told (whether in French, Portuguese or English) and in general amply demonstrated he had been born following the drum and was a seasoned traveler. The ladies had nodded wisely to each other when Sir Giles had elected to ride beside the coach on the long journey north, but in truth he need not have worried about traveling with a child. It was almost as if the small boy was capable of fearing that bad behavior might forfeit the security of his new life.
A particularly nasty hole in the road nearly jolted the ladies out of their seats. Cat grasped Pierre so hard he squeaked in protest. "Pauvre petit!" she cried. "Sir Giles says we are nearly there. Home, Pierre, connais-tu? Une grande maison. Our new home." The little boy gazed back in silence, blue eyes wide, his gently waving blonde hair adding fullness to thin, patrician features which already gave promise of the handsome youth he would become.
"How loudly he cried out, Dona Catarina," said Rosalía Santos from the rear-facing seat. "Perhaps the good lord sends us a sign." Fervently she crossed herself before reaching out to relieve Catherine of her burden.
Cat studied the little boy who was settling himself into Rosalía's ample lap, one small thumb tucked into his mouth. "Perhaps you are right," she said softly. "Except for the time his toy soldier fell off the balcony and was run down by a cart, that is certainly the most sound I have heard him make. Perhaps England will be good for all of us."
"God be thanked we are almost there," said Blanca with considerable fervor. "I can only hope Tomás's man of affairs has seen to hiring a staff . . . and that there are beds to lay our heads on."
Since Blanca had said exactly the same thing on numerous occasions over the past month, Catherine merely murmured reassurance while another question tugged at the back of her mind. "Blanca, did Papa ever mention how he happened to acquire Branwyck Park? He did not tell me of it until just before he died, and a very great surprise it was. Do you suppose it was an inheritance? He cannot have bought it himself for he never left Portugal."
"Never has he mentioned the house to me until"---Blanca's eyes darkened with sorrow---"until the very end when he begged me to go with you to this Branwyck. I know nothing of how the house came to him."
Catherine leaned back against the cushions, trying to find a spot where the continual jouncing was less noticeable. "I shall have to ask Sir Giles," she said wearily. "It cannot be such a mystery, after all. I am simply enormously grateful we have a house." And if the man riding beside the carriage had had black hair, amber eyes and the look of a roughhewn devil about him, all weariness and fears would be forgotten. If Blas were with her, she would not be going into exile. She would be going home.
As the heavy traveling coach turned off the main road onto a narrow avenue nearly overhung by tall oaks, four noses were pressed to the glass, the occupants blissfully unmindful of their dignity. A gasp, a murmured exclamation, as Blanca caught sight of Branwyck Park. A swift exchange of seats, and it was Catherine's turn to gasp in amazement. Set in a well-scythed park studded with oaks, copper beech, giant rhododendron and other ornamental shrubbery, Branwyck was neither the quaint thatched cottage Catherine half-expected, nor foursquare Georgian, nor classic Palladian. Confronting her was her dream of what a house should be---a seventeenth century manor house of mellow rose brick with mullioned windows and a series of asymmetrical gables which gave its façade a charming, almost lopsided appearance. It was a marvelously appealing structure, a house which welcomed residents and guests alike. Though larger than Catherine expected, it was modest enough compared to the great country houses of the nobility which she had glimpsed on their journey north.
In her haste to exit the carriage, Catherine nearly tripped down the steps, provoking the young footman assisting her to forget his place long enough to welcome her with a friendly grin. He was later to regale the staff with how he was that close to being bowled over himself when he saw what a looker she was. And who'd a thought she was the missus, a young chit like that. Fallen on his feet with this job, he had!
In response to a letter sent by Sir Giles the moment their ship had docked in Plymouth, the staff had been kept in readiness. Swiftly, they assembled in the entrance hall, the smallest tweeny skidding down the back stairs from the nursery with a feather duster still clutched in her hand. A frown from Arthur Goggans, who was hoping his new position as butler would eventually lead to a great house in the city, sent the littlest maid scurrying into line just as the footman threw open the door and Dona Catarina Perez de Leon swept into the hall closely followed by the rest of her party. Sir Giles brought up the rear.
Fatigue forgotten, Catherine smiled charmingly upon her staff, managing words of sincere appreciation to Goggans and the housekeeper Mrs. Mary Plumb, for even an initial glance revealed the house had been polished into splendor for the arrival of its new residents. As Cat reached the little tweeny at the end of the line, who was introduced as the nursery maid, she took careful stock of the small, wide-eyed face. "I am so glad you are to help with the nursery, Nan. It will be good for Pierre to have a young person about."
Suddenly, Catherine found she was shaking. Safely at journey's end, her stamina was crumbling into the reality of physical and mental exhaustion. She managed a quirk of a smile for Mrs. Plumb. "If you would be so good as to have Pierre and Rosalía taken to the nursery and given hot water for baths and whatever food Rosalía desires for the boy, I would be exceedingly grateful."
Although Mrs. Plumb was of the opinion the young mistress was far too gracious in her manners---"Needs to be higher in the instep," she later confided to Goggans---she was pleased to demonstrate the competency of her housekeeping. Within five minutes the weary travelers had been dispatched to their rooms and the entry hall was once again quiet. Only the tramp of footmen carrying heavy trunks up the graceful curves of the matching marble staircases broke the stillness of Branwyck Park.
That evening, when the weary travelers gathered in the drawing room after supper, their opinion was unanimous: Catherine was most fortunate in her new home.
"The nursery needs some work," Blanca pronounced. "All else is perfection. I cannot understand how Tomás managed it. I would have said he was so occupied with his work that buying a home or hiring an agent to decorate it---as anyone can plainly see has been the case---were the very last things on his mind."
"And I would have said he could not afford it," Cat added thoughtfully. Branwyck Park was far more than she had expected.
Sir Giles paused in the act of pouring brandy from a cut-glass carafe which the butler had placed on a small Chippendale table near the fireplace. The look on his face was very odd indeed. He resumed his task, then lowered himself into a gold brocade wingback chair close to the ladies. Sir Giles was a man who spent most of his days analyzing a mountain of data. He clasped his hands around the snifter to warm the liquid to the desired temperature. Patiently, he waited to hear more.
"My rooms are also perfection," Cat said. "I was not aware Papa had the slightest idea I loved those particular shades of blue and green."
"Yet nothing overwhelms," Blanca approved. "It is a most comfortable house. I am now not so fearful of living in this cold damp country."
"Shall I send for another shawl?" Sir Giles enquired solicitously. "After Portugal, our climate must seem quite inclement."
"Another shawl would be most excellent, Sir Giles. You are kindness itself. We are grateful for your care of us on our long journey."
There was a mystery here, Cat thought. Something which teased at the edge of her consciousness. Something familiar. An old problem . . . which had nothing to do with Thomas Audley.
"Sir Giles, when you met with my father's man of affairs Ralph Carswell," Cat inquired, "did he tell you when, or how, my father acquired Branwyck Park?"
Sir Giles Everingham twisted his brandy glass around in his hands, then placed it on the small table with a determined thump. "I know Thomas devoted himself to his work with single-minded determination," he muttered, almost to himself, "but I cannot understand why he never told you about Branwyck Park." Sir Giles steepled his hands for a moment, staring into the flames reflecting off the carved white marble of the fireplace. "Branwyck is not part of your inheritance, Catherine." At her startled expression Sir Giles quickly added, "Branwyck Park was deeded to you outright. Your father was only acting in the capacity of guardian until you reached your majority."
"That is quite impossible," Cat declared.
"Not at all, my dear," Sir Giles assured her. "Since the transaction was so unusual, your man of affairs went over the details with me at some length. Mr. Ralph Carswell received the deed in your name from the firm of Bentham, Bentham and Wembley, nearly three years ago, sometime early in 1811. In addition, there was a transfer of a substantial amount in the Funds which was to provide money for refurbishing and maintaining the property and for hiring a staff when the time came for you to occupy your new home."
Certain that his words could bring only pleasure to his hearers, Sir Giles was startled to see that both women were regarding him as if he were a candidate for Bedlam. Absently, Blanca accepted the extra shawl from a footman without taking her eyes off the baron.
Bentham, Bentham . . . The words should have meaning, but Cat could not quite place it. "You are saying my father knew about this for several years and did not tell me," she said with ominous calm.
"As I indicated, there must have been a good reason. The donor wished to remain anonymous, so perhaps . . ."
"Anonymous!" The word burst from Blanca Dominguez. "How, I ask of you, can a gift of this magnificence be anonymous? It is an insult to a young woman of good family to receive such a gift unless from a relative." The shawls heaved in agitation as she swept her hand around the room. "Anonymous is not possible! You must tell us at once who has done this thing."
"That is precisely the problem, Dona Blanca," Sir Giles replied gently. "I do not know the answer. Nor does Carswell."
"My father would have rejected the gift if it were not proper," Cat said, absently toying with one of the black velvet ribbons which decorated her gown. "I do not believe," she pondered softly, "that we have any relatives who would be so generous. As far as I know, we have no relatives capable of such a gift, except possibly Papa's cousin Ailesbury, and I believe he considered Papa quite the black sheep. Which leaves only one possibility. And that, I assure you, I find even more strange."
"Blas?" The single word from Dona Blanca was little more than a long sibilant hiss.
"Blas might have won such a house in a game of cards," Cat speculated. "That I can picture, for many English fortunes have changed hands in Portugal. But to have the money for all this . . . the furnishings, the servants . . . surely I would have known if he had such wealth."
"There is no one else?" Sir Giles inquired.
Catherine considered a moment, then shook her head. "No. No one."
Blas's words came back in rush of memory. From that day in the music room when they had quarreled over his going to the mountains of Spain with such right good cheer. If you are in need, you have only to contact the firm of Bentham, Bentham and Wembley in London, and you will never want for anything.
She had always assumed he dipped into the Casa's profits to buy the chinchilla-trimmed blue velvet cloak. Fool, fool, fool! Papa had been right. Blas was a nobleman who would no more think of keeping his wartime wife than he would consider flying to the moon.
Catherine's cheeks blanched so white, her hair seemed to flame around her face in a mockery of the maquillage of another age. "Forgive me," she murmured. "I must be private . . ." She picked up her skirts and rushed from the room, leaving her companions staring after her in consternation.
Blanca broke the silence. "She knows it must be Blas who has done this thing. She has loved him for so very long---since she was fourteen years of age. But Blas . . . he is the very devil of a man. It was never expected he would be faithful, of course. And always there has been a question whether his passion would outlast the war. But now . . ?" Blanca shrugged. "Now it becomes obvious he had more secrets than we imagined. To know a man so very well, and yet not know he could command such wealth and power as this, is not a good thing. It makes a woman wonder how much else she does not know."
"If his intentions were honorable," said Sir Giles carefully, "surely Thomas would not have urged Catherine to have a Season. And yet, if he knew the boy was ready to give her a slip on the shoulder, he would have rejected the house outright . . . " Baffled, Sir Giles rose to pour himself another brandy. If only he knew something about Blas besides the young man's undoubted talent for spying . . .
"Ah, poor child, it is too much to comprehend," Blanca murmured, shaking her head. "Excuse me, baron, I must go to her."
Blanca found Cat in her room, seated on the rug before the fireplace, her black gown spread in a dark pool around her. Her head was bent, hands folded in her lap. "I understand your fears, querida," said Blanca gently, "but you are a woman of the world. You know a man of wealth may give his inamorata sapphires or diamonds, even an annuity . . ."
At this Catherine lifted her head, distracted from her own anguish by a wave of sympathy for the older woman. "Yes, like mine," Blanca agreed calmly. "Your father was indeed generous. When you are safely married, I shall have enough to repair the winery and live in comfort. But enough of me. We now speak of you."
Cat returned her gaze to the glowing coals. Blanca was forced to speak to a pair of hunched shoulders. "Catarina, a man does not give such a thing as Branwyck Park as a parting gift. This . . . this magnificence is the gift of a wealthy young man to his wife. Blas is not an easy man, Catarina, and he has surely become too accustomed to playing games. But no one can deny he has more duende, more soul, than any man I have ever known. Now go to bed, and thank the good lord that you have a man who has taken such care of you. He is more a fidalgo, a cavalheiro, than I had thought." With this magnanimous pronouncement Blanca swept from the room, leaving Cat to the private pain of her thoughts.
Some time later, she slowly uncurled from the rug. Lighting a candle from the wall sconce, Cat glided across the floor toward a door on the far side of the room. A moment's hesitation as she gathered her courage, a twist of the knob, and she was into the dressing room connecting her suite to the bedchamber of the master of the house.
The empty bedchamber of the master of the house.
The candle cast a small glow into a room which was as dark as Catherine's was light. Wooden paneling, furnishings of black and scarlet with touches of gold. If nothing else, she thought, this room should have told her who had ordered the decorating of the house. She sank to her knees beside the imposing bed with its black velvet coverlet and bedcurtains elaborately embroidered in gold. Her hand caressed the thick nap of the cloth. Cat laid her cheek onto the sleek smoothness. If Blas had gone to the trouble of specifying the colors of their rooms, did that not mean he planned to live here? Or was this merely the most sumptuous gift a man could give to a woman he had once loved?
A woman he intended to love again . . .?
But not, perhaps, to marry.
And where was he, the dolt? Crossing the Pyrenees into Spain? Swallowed by an anonymous grave? Eaten by carrion? A flyspeck among the thousands upon thousands already lost to Napoleon Bonaparte's overweening ambition?
Only the guttering of the candle finally broke the spell. As Cat raised her head, she became aware the metallic threads of gold had scratched her face. How very like the man was this soft black velvet coverlet with pain hidden in its smooth façade. Her enigmatic Englishman, who had carelessly waved a golden arm and created this small miracle, was too tough to kill. Blas the Bastard was not among the anonymous dead. And in typical style, when not chasing the French, he was undoubtedly chasing other women.
It was surely not right for a man to have so many secrets, Cat decided, her exquisite face grim in the flickering candlelight. If the time should come when Blas wished to court his wife, it was altogether possible she would no longer be available.
Catherine Audley Perez de Leon woke slowly, vaguely aware of yet another strange bed . . . of ghosts banished with the night. A whole new world beckoned beyond the bedcurtains. This was Branwyck Park. Her house. Her bed. She gave the bell pull behind her head a determined tug, threw back the aquamarine velvet bedcurtains to let in the bright . . .
It was England, she discovered. Not Portugal. The day was gray, with a steady drip against the mullioned window panes. With a sigh Cat swung her feet back into bed, fluffed up the pillows behind her back and waited for the maid assigned to her by Mrs. Plumb. A cheery, homespun country girl whose name completely eluded her.
The ornately flowered china clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour of ten as a brief scratching at the door heralded the arrival of Bess Fielding, who had been waiting several hours for this summons. When it came, she had rushed about so quickly she was nearly breathless from the long journey up from the kitchen.
"I'm Bess, Ma'am," she panted, as she unfolded the legs on the tray she carried and set it over Cat's lap. "Bess Fielding. Mrs. Plumb says I'm to do fer you 'til you go to London, and if you're that pleased with me, you might let me stay on to serve ye when you're at Branwyck. This here's your chocolate, Ma'am, and Cook 'oped as how you'd like some toast and Old Miz Avery's jam. She makes jam a treat, she does." Bess gasped for breath, plunged on: "And Mrs. Plumb says to tell ye that there's still plenty in the breakfast room, though the Spanish lady and the London gentlem'n 'av surely eaten more than Cook was expectin' and the little master and his nurse too. Made Cook that happy to have such fine appetites in the house!"
During this monologue Cat nibbled her toast and took a tentative sip of the chocolate while surreptitiously studying the voluble young maid. Bess Fielding was close to her own age, with a riot of brown curls severely bound back by a dark blue ribbon at the nape of her neck. Her face was round, her blue eyes open and honest. Cat was suddenly very grateful for the young maid's cheerful presence.
"And what would you be wearing today, Ma'am?" Bess inquired, throwing open the wardrobe in which she had carefully hung Cat's gowns. A pity they were all black, Bess thought. She longed for the dressing of a lady whose wardrobe contained all the colors of the rainbow in silks and satins and fine muslin.
Cat chose an unadorned gabardine which would not suffer too much from the exploration of the house which was her the primary task for the day. Task! She could scarcely wait to begin.
"Ah, Ma'am, you'd look good in anything!" cried Bess as she finished the last of the long row of buttons up the back of Cat's gown. Stricken, Bess clapped her hand to her mouth. "Oh, Ma'am, I'm that sorry. Me mum says I'm as thoughtless as sparrow. I shouldn't be talkin' so bright and cheery when you're newly widowed and all." The maid heaved a deep sigh. "You would 'a been the han'somest couple in London, you so bright and 'im so dark. A fair treat it would 'a been to see the two of you together."
Shocked, Cat turned to stare at Bess Fielding. "Can it be you have met my husband?" she inquired faintly.
"Only seen 'im, m'am. When he was looking at the 'ouse. Nearly three years back, it was. Me pa's one of your tenants---market gardeners we are---so we all saw him when he come by t'cottage. A devil of a man, he was, beggin' your pardon, Ma'am. Fair took our breath away. Me mum and m'sister and me. We peeked out the window quite shameless like. Arrogant as a prince, he was, me mum said. And givin' orders 'bout everythin'. New paint and thatch for all the cottages, new ditches and dams, new tools. Me mum cried, I can tell you! Things have been ever so much better since. It's a right shame about 'is passing."
"I--I thought perhaps my husband sent an agent to choose the house," said Cat, not hesitating to pry for information. "Was the man fairly tall with black hair, medium brown eyes, long eyelashes and a good deal of strength in his face?"
"Like the Prince o' Darkness 'imself!" said Bess with fervor. "And sat 'is 'orse like billy-be-damned to the world! Oh! I surely beg your pardon, Ma'am, but I'm thinkin' you know what I mean!"
Yes, indeed. Cat knew quite well what she meant.
And however was she to stay widowed if---when---Blas came back to England? Cat could not resist a smile, a surge of hope. If Blas did not wish to acknowledge her, he had gotten himself into a bit of a pickle. A very un-Blas-like thing to do.
By the time Cat descended to the ground floor, Sir Giles Everingham was waiting to bid her farewell, promising to send his carriage for the ladies in two weeks time so they might meet his Clara and begin to become acquainted in the ton. After an outpouring of thanks for Sir Giles's escort into their new life, Cat and Blanca waved him on his way.
A visit to the nursery found Rosalía and Pierre exploring the contents of long-disused cupboards for toys and books of another age. After a quick hug for the little boy who seemed not at all disturbed by yet another place to lay his fair head, Catherine and Blanca met with Mrs. Plumb in the morning room, which overlooked the now rained-soaked rear park and gardens of the charming old house.
"I am pleased we are blessed with a cook who is as competent in her position as you are in yours," Cat said, bringing a flush of pleasure to Mrs. Plumb's cheeks as the housekeeper murmured her thanks, "but I fear I do have one request. Would you be so good as to procure some coffee, even if you must send to town for it. I was raised on Brazilian coffee, and chocolate is not at all what I can like in the morning. At bedtime, perhaps, but never in the morning." Cat evinced a delicate shudder. "Please do not apologize, Mrs. Plumb. I am aware that it is the custom. Dona Blanca---Mrs. Dominguez---and I are attempting to accustom ourselves to English ways, but we are agreed that mornings without coffee are simply not possible."
After repeated apologies and assurances that coffee would be procured that very day, Mrs. Plumb ventured hesitantly onto another tack. "I was wishful of knowing about Bess Fielding, Ma'am. I realize she cannot be what you're accustomed to either. But knowing you'd be going up to the city where you'd want to hire a fine London dresser, I hoped Bess might do while you were at the Park." Nervously, Mrs. Plumb plucked at the heavy keys dangling from her waist, setting them to jingling. "She's the oldest of seven children---her father Jem Fielding is one of your tenants---and she fair leaped at a chance to come to the Park. But she's been helping out at home for so long that I fear she has no notion of how to go on. Shall I send to London for a proper maid for you, Ma'am?"
The thought crossed Cat's mind that if Pierre was exposed for very long to Bess Fielding and Mary Plumb he could not help but learn to talk. Then again, he might stay silent for lack of finding a way to get a word in edgewise. "I find Bess Fielding quite satisfactory, Mrs. Plumb. In fact, I plan to take her with me to London if she cares to go."
Cat swept away Mrs. Plumb's astonished protests, as she later dismissed Bess Fielding's tearful cries of gratitude. A young and cheerful presence would be a much needed asset in the vast and unknown city of London.
There were no neglected corners in Branwyck Park. According to Mrs. Plumb who had served the former owners, many fine pieces of furniture had come with the house, but every room had been refurbished, worn furniture reupholstered or carted to the attics; rugs, draperies and bedhangings cleaned or replaced. In short, an astonishing amount of time, effort and money had been spent on Branwyck Park. Except for the nursery, Cat would not change a thing. Creating a bright, cheerful place for Pierre was, in fact, the only challenge left her. She could not, however, refrain from wondering at the significance of Blas leaving the nursery untouched.
Cat spent the remainder of the dreary afternoon in the library writing letters to her relatives in England. Over the years she had kept up a desultory correspondence with her grandparents and with the titular head of the family, the present Earl of Ailesbury. The last time she had written was to inform them of the death of her father. That Catherine Audley was now resident in England would come as a surprise. That she was Catherine Audley Perez de Leon would come as a shock. The circumstances of her marriage, and her age at the time, had led Thomas to forbid her to mention it in her letters to her English relations.
Cat quickly discovered the letters were not easy to write. The unceasing pounding of the rain against the library windows did not help. She was eminently grateful when she heard the pad of small feet on the carpet followed by small arms clutching her knees.
"Ah, bonjour, Pierre. Good morning!" Cat cried, sweeping the little boy up into her lap as Rosalía came huffing and puffing into the room behind him, apologizing for allowing her charge to get away from her.
"Sit down, catch your breath," said Cat in Portuguese. And to Pierre in precise English: "I am glad you have come to see me. This is the library. See all the books. Beaucoup, beaucoup des livres, non?" Dutifully, the little boy turned his head and stared at one long wall which was covered from floor to ceiling with books. Many of the shelves were so far above the floor that a tall wooden ladder ran on a track set into the shelves.
Cat pushed back her chair and set Pierre on his feet. Taking his hand, she led him to the shelves which were solidly filled with leather-bound volumes imprinted in gold. She encouraged Pierre to touch the books, feel their texture, trace the shining letters of the titles. "One day," she promised, "you will be able to read all these books." Owlishly, Pierre stared at her. He either did not understand her English or he found the prospect of all that reading quite daunting.
Almost hidden behind the sliding ladder Cat saw a book in a bright burgundy binding which looked as if it might have drawings in it. She pushed the ladder aside and reached for the book, her hand freezing on the cover at the sound of a distinct, "Ah!" from Pierre. The book was of no interest at all. His small hands grasped the ladder and tugged. Nothing happened. Frowning mightily, he put his full weight into a forceful push. Fascinated, Cat watched his face light up as the ladder moved a few inches.
Without a moment's hesitation, Cat picked Pierre up and put him on the ladder, his shoes on the bottom rung. After making sure his hands were tightly clasped on the sides of the ladder, she gently moved it about a foot . . . then stopped.
Glee turned to swift disappointment. Almost . . . almost she saw his lips move. Expectantly, encouragingly, she waited.
He was trying. She could see it clearly. Then the light faded from his clear blue eyes; he hung his head, turning his face away. He started to step down from the ladder.
"Ah, no!" Cat cried, setting him firmly back in place, horrified she had caused him pain. It was too soon. He would talk when he talked. Never again would she push him. "Let us go for a ride," she said brightly. Placing her body behind his to shield him if he slipped, she slid the ladder the full length of the wall. The second time they tried it, Cat moved twice as fast; the third time, she ran. Gleeful, if unintelligible, cries of merriment tumbled from both young woman and boy.
When, breathless, Cat swung Pierre off the ladder, it was to find an audience hovering in the doorway. Rosalía, Arthur Goggans, Mrs. Plumb, two housemaids, and a footman. There wasn't a soul in the house who had not heard the story of the little boy who didn't talk. The little boy left alone in the midst of a battlefield. Frenchie or not, he was nothing but a poor lost tyke and he had already won their hearts. Mrs. Plumb was crying, as was Rosalía Santos.
Goggans hastily shooed the staff back to work. Cat promised Pierre they would ride the ladder again soon and returned him to Rosalía. When the room was once again quiet, she had difficulty returning to her letter-writing. There was a great hollow in her heart. No one would abandon such a child. Someday the war would be over, and a colonel of chasseurs would come looking for his son. Somehow she was certain of it.
However would she be able to give the boy up?
Cat was a child of the city. As she rode into London, accompanied by Blanca and Bess, she could not resist lowering the window of Sir Giles's traveling coach. Eagerly, she leaned forward to absorb the sights and sounds of the great city. The rumble of wheels over cobbles, the bustle and hum of people working, shopping, hustling to survive. Buildings towering above narrow side streets, glimpses of a women slouched doorways. Even the smells---from the glorious odor of baking bread to the stench of the sewers---were wonderfully familiar. Not Lisbon, but close enough. Exciting, yet exotic. This was London. Heart of her father's homeland.
And yet . . . London in late October was cold and drab, the buildings shadowed by soot from thousands of chimneys, their dull facades decorated only by a glistening coat of damp left by fog drifting up from the river in soft swirls of white. In Lisbon there would be sunshine reflecting in dazzling rays off white stucco walls under a colorful canopy of red tile roofs. Balconies with flowers spilling from pots in brilliant cascades of color through every month of the year. And hills. Marvelous hills where one could stand on top of the world with the city and the harbor spread out below. The Tagus. So much broader, so much longer than the Thames.
London. Cat shivered, then raised her proud head still higher. If London and Lisbon were not different, what was the point in being here? She would explore this new world. Tame it. Unlike many young women coming to London for the first time, the city would hold no terrors. She was no innocent eighteen-year-old being brought to the marriage market with little or no experience of cities or the male of the species. Perhaps . . . just perhaps Thomas had not been completely wrong when he insisted on this visit.
"This is more acceptable," Blanca approved as their coach passed into the West End, revealing shops with neatly painted signs or discreet brass plates beside elegant doorways. Some homes were row houses; others, individual dwellings set back behind wrought iron fences with green lawn and trees and a glimpse of garden and mews behind.
Cat gasped as a high-perch phaeton trotted by, the handsome young driver easily able to look down at the occupants of the coach. His full-face view of Catherine Audley Perez de Leon surprised a wide grin from his formerly blasé countenance. The gentleman tipped his beaver, gave her an appreciative wink.
Cat pressed back against the bronze velvet squabs of Sir Giles's coach, folding her hands primly in her lap. "You need not frown," she muttered to Blanca from under lowered lashes. "I know my conduct must be more perfect than Caesar's wife, but it is not possible to see London when I sit like a statue in a corner."
"A man has only to look at you to love you," said Blanca severely. "With ladies it will be quite the opposite. Society in London cannot, I think, be very different from society on the continent. So I tell you that in society the women rule, and it is the women you must please. And since you will inspire lust in their men, I fear their friendship will not be easy."
"Blanca!"
"Do not be naive, Catarina. We can only hope Sir Giles has married well, that Lady Everingham is not of a jealous disposition."
Cat, who was already suffering qualms about her reception in her guardian's home, felt her stomach churn. Blanca was right. She had no idea how to deal with a world of women. Dismissing the fascinating sights and sounds of London, Cat clenched her hands in her lap and wished herself back behind the comfortable, familiar walls of the Casa Audley.
The residence of Sir Giles and Lady Everingham was at the corner of a row of houses on a modest square not far from Hyde Park. Although set close to the sidewalk with stairs leading up to a pedimented front door, its rear prospect opened to a fine expanse of gardens leading to fenced mews behind. It was, Cat discovered, not so different from the courtyard and carriage house of the Casa Audley. As the butler showed them into the tastefully furnished drawing room, Cat could see the gardens were alight with a colorful display of chrysanthemums.
To complete the pleasant picture, Sir Giles had indeed married well. Lady Clara Everingham was a woman of good countenance, cheerful temperament, and possessed of that incredibly scarce commodity, good sense. For twenty years she had raised her sons and managed an active participation in the ton with very little assistance from a husband who had devoted himself to the demands of his country through two decades of nearly ceaseless war. While the nobility of England, including many who sent sons to war, spent long hours attempting to alleviate their boredom with an endless round of mindless activities from games of chance to criticizing the extravagance of their Prince to the latest tales of illicit lovers, Sir Giles Everingham had merely adjusted his spectacles and seen the guttering of countless midnight candles.
Cat could scarcely have been more fortunate in her sponsor into society. Since Clara Everingham had never had the opportunity to hang on her husband's sleeve, even if she should have wished to do so, she had no difficulty understanding the independence of a young woman who had had a similar experience with her father and her husband. Lady Everingham also had had the time to cultivate a vast acquaintance among the females in the upper echelons of society, a characteristic devoutly to be wished in a lady sponsoring a young woman into the beau monde.
Cat knew Sir Giles to be the father of a hopeful heir in his last year at Cambridge and a slightly younger son who was with the troops besieging Pamplona, so she expected Lady Everingham to be firmly into the middle years of her life. The actuality was a surprise. Tall and elegant, Clara Everingham did not appear a day over thirty-five. Waves of soft brown framed her oval face. Fine gray eyes opened wide as she took the time for a leisurely perusal of Catherine's person from the high poke of her black velvet bonnet to the tips of her fine leather half boots.
"Good God!" she exclaimed at last. "Giles didn't tell me the half. My dear, you will be the sensation of the season."
Not surprisingly, this remark dispelled any remaining tension, and the three women were soon immersed in the practicalities of planning a social debut, a task which involved nearly as many details as Wellington planning one of his campaigns. The ladies became so absorbed in lists and dates they were totally surprised by the arrival of afternoon tea.
"My dear," Lady Everingham reiterated as she poured, "remember what I said about London being sadly thin of company. The Little Season is coming to a close, and many are returning to the country for the holidays. But most of our friends are in government and must stay close. With our marvelous Wellington doing so well, there is a constant stream of news which sends everyone scurrying to arrange whatever the Field Marshal wants. You had heard he was made Field Marshal after Vitoria, had you not?" Without pausing for a reply, Clara Everingham added, "We shall not be without company, I assure you."
When the teacups had been handed round, Lady Everingham fortified herself with a satisfying sip before bringing up a delicate topic. "Black becomes you so well, my dear," she said to Catherine, "that perhaps I should not ask, but when do you plan to put off your mourning? Forgive me if I seem to pry, but it will make a great deal of difference in the selection of your wardrobe for the next few months."
"It is quite all right, Lady Everingham," Cat assured her. "My father knew he was dying and was quite insistent that neither Blanca nor I wear mourning. He said he would not have his women going around like two crows on a fence. I fear we had quite an argument. It was quite absurd. I rather think he enjoyed it."
Cat managed a rueful smile. "In the end we compromised. I agreed to put off my blacks on Christmas Day."
Suddenly realizing she had revealed a bit more than she should have, Cat made matters worse by attempting to explain. "Dona Blanca is a widow, of course, and will remain in black as is the custom of her country."
Clara Everingham gave no indication she had noticed Catherine's slip of the tongue. His women, indeed. Not that she hadn't known Blanca Dominguez had been Thomas Audley's mistress for years. Perhaps later, when she and Blanca were better acquainted and Catherine was not present, she might be able to get the Portuguese woman to talk about her legendary lover. Blanca had loved and lost two men in her life. The burden of sorrow could not be easy.
Lady Everingham forced herself back to the subject at hand. "I know a remarkably talented dressmaker," she said, "an emigrée of good family who has only recently opened her own salon after many years of slaving in other people's workrooms. Mark my words, when Madame Hèlene sees you, she will be aux anges. You will be the making of her reputation.
"And now, Catherine," said Clara, her effervescence turning to a slight frown, "you must explain to me why you are masquerading as a widow. And what is this I hear about a child?"
It was not an easy tale to tell. After apologizing to her hostess for dragging her into Thomas Audley's complex machinations, Cat told her the whole story from the day of Blas's arrival at the Casa Audley to the promises extracted from him by a dying man. She told of a small child abandoned among the dead and dying in the aftermath of battle. Of the shock of learning the source of Branwyck Park. And, without quite saying the words, she revealed to Clara Everingham her confusion, loneliness, and pain.
Lady Everingham was a good listener, interrupting only occasionally with an exclamation, a sharp question, or a soft "tsk" of disapproval. "It is most fortunate you must play the widow," she pronounced when Catherine had finished. A jeune fille with a child in the country would be one of society's more luscious scandals. There would be no hope of retrieving your reputation."
It was also most fortunate, Blanca thought from her silent position near the fire, that Lady Everingham was well acquainted with the world of intrigue. By now most London ladies---ladies of any country---would have been having a fit of the vapors.
"But a French child?" Clara Everingham shook her head. "I would not put it about, my dear. Allow people to think the child yours. There are few among society who could be called charitable. I would not tempt fate."
Cat bit back a sharp retort. Lady Everingham's advice was undoubtedly sound.
And now," Clara continued briskly, "let me see if I have understood what you have said. You are officially widowed, but in actuality you are still married. To Blas. Who is really an Englishman." Clara was ticking off the points gleaned from Catherine's story as if doing an inventory of her household. "And you believe Blas has made you the gift of Branwyck Park?"
Both Catherine and Blanca nodded their agreement.
"The war is nearly over," Clara continued, moving down the list, "and if Blas is a member of ton as your father seemed to think, it is altogether possible he will return before the Season even begins. Have you considered what you will do if this happens?"
Cat laughed out loud, a cry of pure joy. "I shall throw my arms around him, love him, and never let him go!"
Cold sheets of rain, driven by gusts swirling down the mountains, hurled themselves against the large Spanish farmhouse, nearly drowning the knock on the rear door in a waterfall of sound. In the wee hours of this exceptionally miserable night Captain Jeremy Frayne, who had a tendency to keep very odd hours indeed, was still awake. Bent over a well-worn kitchen table, he was attempting to decipher the execrable handwriting of one of his nearly illiterate informants. Warmth from the huge stone fireplace turned his makeshift workplace into the coziest room in this rambling structure, the latest in a long series of Allied headquarters.
Since Captain Frayne was accustomed to visitors who came and went in the far reaches of the night, he did not fail to hear the knock which sounded so faintly over the storm outside. He was out of his chair and had the door unbolted in seconds. "Good God, man," he exclaimed in passable Spanish, "urgent didn't mean you had to drown yourself!"
The newcomer paused just inside the doorway while Captain Frayne slammed and bolted the door in the face of the elements. Water dripped from his heavy woolen cloak and off the wide brim of the black flat-crowned hat pulled low over his eyes, creating an ever-widening puddle on the rough stone floor. In truth, the Captain's visitor was nearly faceless. The broad-brimmed hat shadowed his upper face; a black scarf, wound round his neck and pulled up over his mouth and nose, transformed him into an anonymous shadow of the night. Only long acquaintance kept the captain silent, waiting for his notoriously reticent visitor to make the first move. When it came, it was not at all what he expected.
After a decisive shake of his shoulders, not unlike a large dog ridding itself of excess water, the newcomer strode to the fireplace. With oddly deliberate movements he removed his cloak and hat, unwound his scarf. With exaggerated, nearly ritualistic care, he hung them on a peg set into the stone of the great fireplace. There was no sign of the casual nonchalance Frayne had come to expect from this particular visitor.
The newcomer swung a chair away from the table, placed it close to the hearth. With a dramatic sigh of contentment, he sat down, stretching his legs out in front of him before reaching inside his sturdy sheepskin-lined jacket, produced a bulging packet encased in oil cloth. Casually, he tossed it onto the table.
"I'm glad you're back, Frayne," said the weary traveler in clear, cultured English. "What's the latest news from our demi-paradise?"
The bloody, bloody bastard! Captain Jeremy Frayne came close to kicking his visitor's chair out from under him. Four years. Four years he'd know the effing devil and they'd never spoken a word of English. Bloody hell . . . in those early days when he was first out from England, he'd damn well suffered to make himself understood in Spanish. The captain mumbled a few more profanities as he recalled the times he'd fumbled, red-faced, through a battered Spanish dictionary in an attempt to understand what the supposed Spanish guerrillero was saying. No wonder Wellington always saw him privately. Bloody bastard! Frayne winced. He should have known . . . he should have known.
Ignoring the packet of precious papers, Jeremy Frayne stared in fascination at the visitor who had evidently shed a long-term disguise along with his cloak, hat and scarf. Long black hair straggled in wet strands down the man's neck. There were dark smudges beneath his warm brown eyes. His chiseled features would only be called handsome by those who preferred men of strong character. Captain Frayne, as chagrined as he was by the long deception, acknowledged the Englishman for what he was: a man to be respected. A man who at the moment was bone weary and perhaps a bit . . .
"Yes, captain, I fear I've had a drop too much to keep me warm," Blas drawled, draining the last of a small flask of brandy which he had taken out of an inside pocket of the now steaming cloak. "And since I'm sick to death of masquerades and I'm damned if I'll ride back through this storm tonight, we might as well talk. I've an interest in what's happening in England these days." His voice ceased abruptly as he discovered his flask to be empty. "Surely, good Captain Frayne, the French left behind a bottle or two?"
Jeremy bounded back to life, a quick trip to the pantry producing a bottle of France's best abandoned by the French general who had previously occupied the farmhouse. "You really are a bastard, aren't you?" said the captain conversationally as he poured for them both. "I'm having a bit of difficulty maintaining the proper British sangfroid in face of discovering someone I've known for four years as a Spanish guerrillero is as English as I am."
"So look at what you needed so urgently," Blas said with the truculence of the man who has indeed had a drop too many.
"I thought you wanted to hear about England?"
"Later. Look at the damn maps."
They were works of art of course. As always. "How did you get these details of Nivelle?" the captain exclaimed. "Pose as a sheep?"
"Close enough. Bribed a shepherd boy. I've used all my disguises once too often. Spyglass was a bit of a help. I couldn't trust the child to count the embrasures correctly. Nasty little fortress, that. It'll be the devil of a fight. But short. It's makeshift. Not like the citadel cities. I take it Pamplona won't last much longer?"
"A week. Possibly two." Captain Frayne's boyish face lit in a grin of pure glee. "Then we go! By mid-November, I should think, over the mountains and into France."
Blas raised his earthenware mug in a silent toast. Five years to go five hundred miles. It was likely they'd be the first Allied troops to push Boney back into his own territory. "There's a letter in there too," Blas added with the elaborately casual air he affected for matters of importance.
Captain Frayne found the letter, addressed as usual to a firm of solicitors in London. He set it aside to be added to the next set of dispatches. At least he now had an answer to the question of why a Spanish guerrillero corresponded with a firm of London solicitors. "Wait a minute . . . what have we here?" The captain pulled yet another paper from the bottom of the stack. "How in the name of all that's holy did you manage to do all three passes?"
"I didn't."
"Don't be an ass, you're not that foxed, Blas. Here they are right in front of me. Three passes plus the detailed drawings of Nivelle."
"Only two are mine."
"The style is identical."
"Not quite. A compadre of mine found himself bored now that his work in the south is finished, so I enlisted his help to map the passes. A satisfactory job, I think you'll agree."
"I suppose he's a bloody Englishman too," Frayne growled as he began to fold each map and pack it away with care.
"Naturally," Blas murmured. Provocatively. "So tell me, Frayne, does the monarchy still stand. or has Prinny put paid to it all?"
Captain Frayne shook his head in disgust. The antics of the Prince Regent were like a glimpse into a world of sick fantasy. A world where the wrong choice of word, the cut of a coat, the crease of a cravat, the careless mention of a woman's name could end a life as effectively as a bullet. A world so strange Frayne was glad he had not been born to it, would never have to suffer its vagaries.
"I suppose you've already heard what Brummel said to Alvanley at the Argyle rooms?" the captain inquired.
"I've been out of touch for some time, I fear. English gossip is not the stuff of Spanish campfires."
Jeremy Frayne dragged his own chair to the hearth and stretched out his long legs, his boots only inches from those of his guest. "As you may know, Brummel and Prinny have been on the outs for some time, but the Beau's finally overreached himself. There's no hope for a reconciliation. It seems they were both at a ball at the Argyle rooms. Prinny, who was miffed about some fool thing, ignored Brummel. Cut him dead. And what does the bloody fool do? He turns to Alvanley and says---loud enough for Prinny to hear of course---'Alvanley, who's your fat friend?'"
Blas choked on his brandy, coughed 'til the tears ran down his cheeks. "I always admired George for dragging himself up from nothing," he said at last, "but that remark was false pride and will do him no good. Prinny's life is not to be envied. A mad father, a huge assortment of brothers panting at his heels. The old king has much to answer for in the raising of his children. Prinny was kept idle for so many years, it's a wonder he's able to function as Regent at all."
Captain Frayne eyed Blas with intense curiosity. "You speak with good authority, I think."
"I know what it is to be idle when one wishes to be active," Blas agreed blandly. "So what else has been happening at home?"
"Madame de Stael has come to London with her children and a handsome young husband. The so-called wits---Sheridan, Brummel, Alvanley and Byron---have seen fit to mock the poor woman at every opportunity. The why of it escapes me."
"For shame, captain. It's as plain as the nose on your face. A clever woman is too much of a challenge for them. She must be revealed to be no match for them, else they might lose their omnipotence."
"I suppose you're right," the captain admitted. "Rather ironic that the sharpest minds in London concern themselves with a French bluestocking when all Europe is at war." The captain suddenly grinned. "There's another point for Prinny. He doesn't forget. London celebrated Vitoria all summer long. Fêtes, parades, fireworks and all. Vauxhall staged a reenactment every night. Grand stuff, I can tell you. Rumor has it that Prinny has convinced himself he was actually at the battle."
Blas nodded, too weary to be surprised. "Playing soldier. Just like the rest of us."
"You can't call what you do playing," the captain chided.
"You don't include yourself?"
"I push papers around," Frayne returned with modesty. "I accumulate information and try to make sense out of it."
"I knew a man who did that," said Blas somberly. "Since well before the war came to Lisbon. He was Britain's master spy on the Peninsula. And that's all he ever did: accumulate information and make sense out of it. He lived just long enough to see his job well done . . . then he simply gave up and died."
Blas reached for the French brandy, splashed another dollop into his mug. "I know how he felt, I think. For more than six years I've lived a giant masquerade. I've been back to England just once. In truth, I have not the slightest idea what to do with myself when all this over. If I go home, I will once again be forbidden to do nearly everything I want to do. If I stay on the continent, I will have to continue the masquerade. With no war to justify the deception of so many friends."
Not to mention his wife.
The captain was startled. "You are considering not going home?"
Blas glowered at the toe of his well-worn boot. His toes, frostbitten so long ago, were shooting sparks of pain as they began to warm from the heat of the fire. "I do not care to be idle," he said. "And of course there is a woman. I fear she will find England a cold and heartless place."
Blas straightened his shoulders, visibly shook off his melancholy. "Tell me your plans, Frayne. Will you settle down to the so-called normal life?"
"I won't have to worry about being idle, I wasn't born it," replied the captain without a hint of bitterness. "I'll still be dealing with details. I'm to read law. And I have a fiancée waiting. That makes it easier to settle down.
The sound of the storm rose to fill the room, overcoming the crackling of the fire which Blas had built up until the flames rose almost to the level of the heavy spit. "Sometimes, Frayne," he replied wearily. "Sometimes."
After a searching look at his visitor, the captain abandoned the subject of women. "I should think," he ventured, "that you would do well in Foreign Service. Anyone who could deal with guerrilleros should find no problem with diplomats, and you've a gambler's face. None knows better than I you never show anything you don't wish to be seen."
Blas raised his head and stared at the captain, his eyes suddenly sharply focused and alert. "Odd," he murmured. "I've been so busy with the bloody war, I never thought how lost I'll be without it until the past few weeks. And when I did, I was too damn tired to figure what to do about it, except possibly become an expatriate gambler like my friend the spymaster. And in five minutes, Frayne, you've opened a window to a new life. How fortunate you came back from leave."
"And that you bloody well decided to speak English," the captain grumbled, embarrassed by the unexpected praise. He left his visitor staring blindly into the fire, and went to fetch some blankets. Both men settled down before the fire for the brief remainder of the night before they were routed out by Wellington's cook.
When Captain Frayne awoke to the predawn light, the storm was gone, and so was his visitor.
I shall throw my arms around him, love him, and never let him go! The words were no sooner out of Cat's mouth than she knew how foolish they were. The return of Bla---whoever he might be---could bring pain instead of joy. Rejection. Scandal. Heartbreak. Any, or all, were far more likely than an ending of Happily Ever After.
Blas was a man of too many secrets. In Lisbon, their life had not seemed so strange. The war made a convenient villain for Blas's idiosyncracies. Yet the truth was stark. In essence, she had been married for nearly seven years to a man whose name she did not know. Was she the victim of a capricious God of War who turned friends into enemies, enemies into friends? Who glorified death, nullified honor. Made beasts of men who wished only the complacent lives of their fathers. Whores of women who wished only to live in love and peace.
And just where did these inconsistent truths leave Dona Catarina Audley Perez de Leon? Widow. Of Lisbon and Branwyck Park, Surrey?
Lady Everingham was intrigued. Catherine Perez, beauty extraordinaire, teetering on the brink of scandal, was the most excitement she had had since her sons went away to school. She was about to launch one of the most spectacular beauties ever to grace the London season, and hanging over them like the sword of Damocles was a dashing and temperamental young spy who could bring disaster down about their ears. Not to mention that Catherine was acquainted with London's current literary sensation George Gordon, Lord Byron. Clara could hear the voices, male and female echoing over the teacups.
Since she was fourteen . . . All a sham, don't you know . . . Never used his real name . . . 'Struth, I swear it. Heard it from Byron himself. Rum go, George, but he ain't a liar . . . Girl's not the thing, old man. Not the thing.
Beneath the Pale, my dear. Lived with some Spaniard. At fourteen! And her companion . . . the father's mistress. Quite true, I assure you. Freddy, my youngest, was twice stationed in Lisbon.
Fortunately, Clara Everingham was made of sterner stuff than most. She would present Catherine to the ton, then sit back and enjoy the roar of the social lions vying for the favor of the latest Beauty. She would worry about the beasts turning ravenous only if the need arose.
And if it were Blas who chose to play the Beast?
That was another bridge they would cross, Clara decided firmly, only when they must. Steel glinted in her blue eyes as she swept her guests off to Madame Helène, the French modiste.
Accustomed to the leisured dignity of life in Lisbon, Catherine and Blanca were astounded when their shopping did not end after two hours with Madame Helène. Dutifully, they followed their hostess through a variety of Bond Street shops, perusing the latest in bonnets, gloves, and footwear. But when the indefatigable Lady Everingham announced they would round out their afternoon by changing into more elaborate gowns for an excursion to Hyde Park, Cat and Blanca exchanged wide-eyed glances of shock.
Blanca barely repressed a moan. "We are most grateful for your thoughtfulness, my lady," she pronounced a bit breathlessly, "but we do not wish you to so fatigue yourself on our behalf. Surely we may go to the park on another afternoon."
"No, no, Mrs. Dominguez," Lady Everingham protested, "I simply cannot wait to see the heads turn. Did you not notice the young man who nearly drove his curricle onto the sidewalk when he saw Catherine walking down Bond Street. Do not concern yourself, there is a decided nip to the air so we shall not stay out long. Catherine, you must wear your new pelisse and bonnet. How fortunate you look so well in black. The ladies on promenade will turn positively green with envy."
With a collective sigh Cat and her weary companion ascended the stairs behind Lady Everingham. "I have worked all day with father, then played hostess in the gaming rooms 'til three in the morning and not felt as tired as I do now!" Cat whispered to Blanca. "I thought London ladies did nothing but drink tea all day."
"I have decided," said Blanca with feeling as they reached the upper landing, "you will be more comfortable in the carriage without me. I shall ask young Bess to prepare coffee . . . and my bed. Some bonbons, perhaps a book . . . You may tell me about this park when you return. Tomás will forgive me. One dragon---yes, I heard a nasty young man use that word of me this morning---will be sufficient to protect you." So saying, Blanca raised a hand to her forehead in a patently theatrical gesture and staggered off to her bedchamber.
Cat, chuckling, was far from bereft. Clara Everingham was a much less formidable dragon.
Even in the last week of October, Hyde Park was not without its ritual late afternoon parade of society's minions. Cat found it difficult to maintain the aloof decorum Lady Everingham insisted was de rigueur for a young lady of quality. She had seen a plethora of London ladies that morning in Bond Street. But here---mounted on horseback or driving smartly customized curricles and high-perch phaetons---was an assortment of the ton's finest young gentlemen. How very different they were from their uniformed brothers on the Peninsula, Cat thought. Instead of sparkling gold or white on jackets of infantry red, rifleman green or cavalry blue, the gentlemen of London blended with the landscape in the subtle plumage decreed by that arbitrary arbiter of fashion Beau Brummel. Coats of deep blue, forest green or brown wool of the finest quality, white starched cravats tied in elaborate designs nestled between shirt points so high that many a young dandy was forced to turn his whole body in order to look around. Their tall finely sheared beaver hats in shades of gray and brown and black featured upturned brims, most of which were set at jaunty angles above faces fixed in the supercilious yet somehow debonair attitude which distinguished the English gentleman.
Cat tried to picture Blas among them . . . and found the comparison ludicrous. All she could see was Blas bellowing his bawdy ballad at the top of his lungs as he guided the ox cart full of wine casks through the park, scattering genteel members of the ton as if they were jackstraws. Hopefully, Lady Everingham would not ask why she was smiling.
Foremost among the Corinthians of society was Clifford Longford Bourne, Earl of Wrexham. He had come to Hyde Park on this chilly October afternoon because his interest in his latest chère amie was rapidly waning and he thought to look over the women who brazenly displayed their charms on the very same paths with society's ingenues. He had progressed no further than tipping his beaver to a beauty whose ample endowments were so lightly clad the earl thought she was likely to succumb to an inflammation of the lungs before she could find herself a protector. This flippant speculation was interrupted by a high-pitched shriek.
The Earl of Wrexham surveyed the area, his body tensed in expectation of a gallop after a runaway horse. What he found was the startling sight of a somberly clad young lady waving wildly from the seat of her barouche, shouting to two young bucks trotting away on a path which angled across to the far side of the park. Not the behavior expected from a woman in deepest mourning. Nor of a companion of Clara Everingham. Nor of any member of the ton. Wrexham, manners forgotten, simply stared as the young woman's high-poke bonnet came off. Her chignon disintegrated, allowing long waves of red-gold to cascade over her lavishly fur-trimmed black velvet pelisse.
She rose to her feet. Bracing herself with one hand on the side of the barouche, she continued to wave with the other. "Gordy, Gordy!" the girl cried. "Over here. It's Cat." She was on tiptoes, waving and bouncing up and down like an India rubber ball. "Gordon Somersby . . . Gordy!" Lady Everingham, one hand clutched to her heart, vainly tugged at the young woman's skirts.
A minx, a veritable minx. But surely, Wrexham thought, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Former Captain Gordon Somersby let out a whoop that was heard even by those who had not been stopped in their tracks by Cat's cries. He spurred his horse toward the Everingham barouche, his companion valiantly following behind, as they wound their way around carriages and past outraged riders. As Gordon reined in beside the barouche, smartly kicking up the sacred turf of Rotten Row, Clara Everingham was reduced to rummaging through her reticule in a frantic search for her vinaigrette.
"Cat Audley!" cried Mr. Somersby. "As I live and breathe! Where did you spring from?" He leaned down, seized both of Cat's hands, and pulled her into as close an embrace as could be managed between a barouche and a mounted rider. Recollecting his manners at last, he made his bow to Lady Everingham and turned to introduce his companion. "You won't credit it, Cat. You must have tempted the fates today. This young jackanapes with me is none other than some kind of a cousin of yours. First met him on the Peninsula. May I present Lieutenant William Audley, General Sir Quinton's Audley's son."
Heedless of the cascades of shining hair streaming down her back and the elegant black bonnet hanging askew over one shoulder, Cat grasped her unknown cousin's hand with joy. William Audley was a young man of nearly her own age. Of medium build with curling brown locks and a pleasant open smile, he was very finely arrayed in a uniform of rifleman green. General Audley was, she knew, her father's first cousin.
"I am so pleased to make your acquaintance, Lieutenant," Cat said. "I had the sad duty of writing to Sir Quinton about the death of my father. But knowing you to be a rifleman, I never dreamed I would have the pleasure of meeting you here in London."
"Made a botch of it, don't you know?" said Lieutenant Audley quite cheerfully. "Caught the fever during the siege of San Sebastian. Beastly thing to do. Missed the final assault entirely. Pamplona too. I say, has Sir Giles heard any news? It's said Pamplona will fall any day, and then it's straight on to France!"
Cat's face sobered on the instant. "No, cousin, I am sorry, there's been no news. No news at all." Not from the army. Not from Blas. She turned back to her old friend. "And you, Gordy? Are you also on leave?"
"Inherited," that gentleman replied gloomily. "M'mother felt she couldn't do without me. Sold out after Vitoria, been in the country 'til this week." Sympathy suffused his thin face as he noted Catherine's mourning. "Your father too?" he asked.
Clara Everingham was not so shocked by Catherine's behavior that she failed to note she was confronted by two stellar examples of England's finest. Swiftly steering the conversation into a more cheerful vein, she invited both young men to attend the dinner party she was arranging for Catherine in a week's time.
As the young men rode off, Cat---in response to a hissed instruction from Lady Everingham---reaffixed her black velvet bonnet and began to tuck her unruly hair under the high poke of its up-to-the-minute style. She had just firmly retied the black silk ribbons at a jaunty angle under her ear when she noticed their barouche had not moved on. A stranger had appeared beside them. Lady Everingham was eyeing the elegant gentleman on horseback with some disapproval.
"Go away, Wrexham," Clara snapped. "You are not at all the sort of person Mrs. Perez should meet."
It was Cat's turn to be shocked until the gentlemen's slow quizzical smile revealed he was not insulted. He recognized Lady Everingham's words were mere social jousting. A warning to Cat. As well as to himself.
Wrexham shook his head. "And here I have been thanking Fortune you and I are acquainted, my lady, so I might have the pleasure of an introduction to your companion."
The earl turned the full force of his deep-set gray eyes toward Catherine. His appraisal, open and patently admiring sparked an unexpected frisson of interest. The earl was taller than Blas, she judged. Older. Over thirty, she judged. Faint lines of dissipation were beginning to appear in a long face marked by a hawk nose and topped by dark brown hair waving gently over his high starched collar.
"My lord." Cat acknowledged Lady Everingham's reluctant introduction. She extended her hand, knowing full well he would take advantage of the opportunity to kiss it, although the gesture was almost entirely out of fashion in London. She was correct. Nor did the earl's lips stay respectfully short of her hand but slipped close enough to brush lightly against her glove. A practiced courtier, this one. But fascinating. No wonder Lady Everingham had warned him off. She seemed to have forgotten Cat had spent a lifetime dealing with men like the Earl of Wrexham.
In spite of her misgivings, Clara Everingham was well aware Wrexham's admiration, if carefully controlled, could only enhance her protégé's debut. A rake he might be, but he was also a leading member of the ton. The earl soon found himself added to the Everingham's guest list for the dinner party. He rode away quite satisfied with his afternoon's prospecting. He did not so much as glance at the well-displayed charms of the other ladies in the park.
As the barouche continued its slow journey, Lady Everingham ignored the speculative and disapproving looks cast on her charge by some of the high sticklers who had witnessed Catherine's farouche behavior. To each acquaintance she made a point of introducing Catherine as a widow - to whom far greater license was granted than to a young woman venturing into society for the first time. With charming insouciance Clara rattled on about how far Mrs. Perez was from home, how delighted to see a familiar face. Particularly, one of the gallant young men who had defended his country on the Peninsula. By the time the ladies left the park, Clara Everingham was satisfied she had pulled the claws of the ton's sharpest tabbies. She was now free to wonder which acquaintances might have daughters of a suitable age to balance a table which had suddenly been gifted with three extra men.
"No! Absolutamente, não!" Quivering, Cat glared at Monsieur Claude, the ton's most talented coiffeur.
"But it is the fashion, Catherine," Lady Everingham protested. "Your hair is very fine, impossible to dress in the latest fashion. You look---forgive me, my dear---but you have the look of a-a courtesan."
"Catarina, pobrecita, what is the matter?" cried Blanca, hastening into Clara Everingham's sitting room from the hallway. She found Cat with her fists clenched at her sides, nearly nose-to-nose with her astonished hostess while Monsieur Claude stood, mouth agape, waving his scissors in Gallic outrage.
"I made a solemn promise to Blas I would not cut my hair," Cat hissed. "A solemn promise, you understand. It is not possible, I cannot do it. Even if I wished to. Which I do not," she added with a hiccup of a sob.
Clara Everingham threw up her hands. "My dear, I had no idea you felt so strongly." She took a deep breath, summoned the pleasant dignified smile expected from a well-bred hostess. "Monsieur Claude, with your exceptional talent I know you will be able to contrive something suitable for Mrs. Perez for our little party this evening. I leave her in your capable hands." With a significant glance at Blanca Dominguez, Lady Everingham wisely retired to the far reaches of the house.
That evening, when all of his guests were seated in the mahogany paneled dining room, Sir Giles Everingham remained standing at the head of the table in a gesture unusual enough to capture the attention of all in the room. "As you know," he announced, "the Grand Armée was decimated by our European allies at Leipzig in mid-October. Today we have received word the fortress of Pamplona fell on October 25th." Sir Giles paused, savoring the moment, as exclamations of joy echoed through the room. When he continued, his words were slow and clear. Closer to a prayer of thanksgiving than triumphant joy. "With the fall of this final French bastion in Spain, the road to France is clear at last."
"To the Peer, God bless him!" cried Lieutenant Audley, forgetting his lowly rank as he sprang to his feet to propose the toast.
"And to all his gallant men," Sir Giles returned as everyone rose to drink to the Peninsular army and its Commander in Chief.
"His men took to calling Wellington The Peer as soon as he was made viscount after Talavera," Cat whispered to Lord Wrexham as he seated her once again at his side. "It was their way of showing their pride in his title."
"Which they won for him," said Wrexham drily.
"It takes more than hard fighting to win battles, my Lord," Cat chided. And not just the military genius of Wellington. Among the unsung heroes were Thomas, Blas, Sir Giles . . . and Tonio. The will-o-the-wisp she had never met, but who spiced his reports with humorous remarks which never failed to bring a smile to her lips. And all the other members of Britain's network of spies. The Portuguese and Spanish guerrilleros. Their wives, children, and lovers who had suffered such horrible reprisals.
Cat was relieved as the next change of course signaled a conversational switch to the person on her left. This was scarcely the place to talk of atrocities on the Peninsula, and with Wrexham she might well have been tempted to do so. Though why she felt an empathy with this admitted rake, she did not have time to analyze.
Wrexham's reaction to the change of partners was quite different. His dinner partner's face proclaimed her an idle beauty with no thoughts beyond her reflection in a mirror. Yet he suspected she was so much more. He experienced keen disappointment when she turned her back to converse with an elderly gentleman widely known as Britain's foremost expert on codes.
Later, as footmen began to serve a delicate blancmange, the words of a middle-aged Member of Parliament rose above the general polite table talk: "Is it true Wellington will send his Spanish troops home before he moves into France?" Directed to Sir Giles, the question effectively silenced all conversation.
The only censorship was a gentleman's discretion, and Sir Giles, after only a moment's hesitation, responded with the truth. "Your information is correct, Bennington. Wellington will not take Spanish troops into France."
"But that's nearly half his army," Lieutenant Audley sputtered.
"Forty thousand men," echoed Gordon Somersby.
Sir Giles's lips firmed into a thin line. "The general has good reason for his decision." He returned to his dessert, obviously bringing the discussion to a close.
Lord Wrexham raised an enquiring brow to Catherine.
"Reprisals," Cat explained. "Terrible, unbelievable things were done by the French. You have perhaps seen some of Goya's drawings?" Wrexham nodded, his patrician face devoid of his customary cynicism. "It was not just soldiers who suffered, you understand," Cat continued, "but women, children, priests, nuns. Everyone. The guerrilleros exacted revenge of course, but if Wellington goes into France . . ." Cat shrugged. "There would be no way to control the Spanish troops. It would be far worse than after Salamanca and Badajoz."
"Is it true our own troops sacked those cities?" It was something Wrexham, as a member of the House of Lords, found difficult to believe.
"Oh, yes," said Cat simply. "It was their reward, you see. So many of their friends died to take those fortresses. For the survivors there must be something."
Wrexham could not remember ever finding a woman so unsettling to his peace of mind. To his surety he was an Englishman and therefore superior to the rest of the world. Catherine Perez did not merely come from another country but from a world beyond his imagination. Loosing her on the ton would quite literally set the Cat among the pigeons.
She was also unsettling to an entirely different portion of his anatomy. His eyes insisted on following Catherine Perez from the room when the ladies, at Clara Everingham's signal, left the gentlemen to their port. He was a fool, Wrexham thought. A blithering idiot. Tumbled back in time to the infatuations of callow youth. Women like Catherine Perez should be kept locked up, the key thrown into a bottomless pit.
As long as he was locked up with her.
As Catherine entered the drawing room, a young woman detached herself from a group near the pianoforte and moved forward to greet her. "You probably don't remember my name with such a sea of new faces," she said, the lively intelligence glowing in wide gray eyes belying the shy diffidence of her tone. "I am Amabel Lovell, Mrs. Perez, and I hope we will be friends. Mr. Somersby, who sat next to me at dinner, has told me all about you, and I know I shall like you immensely."
By this time Miss Lovell had succeeded in guiding Cat to a window seat in the far corner of the drawing room. "Mr. Somersby says you will understand the problems of a young lady raised in a household where her father actually does something," Amabel Lovell confided with scarcely a pause in her monologue. "Here in London I sometimes think government work is almost as bad as being a Cit. My papa works with Sir Giles, you see, and I am to make my come-out this Season. And my mama says it is not at all easy for someone who has been raised in a political household to be enough of a widgeon to get by without being called a bluestocking. But Mr. Somersby says you do it superbly, that you actually hoodwinked Marshal Junot himself!"
Cat's lips twitched. She might understand the Wrexhams of the world, but Amabel Lovell was a new experience entirely. "Gordon Somersby has a very odd memory if he recalls that ancient news," Cat said with a deprecating gesture, "yet ignores my outrageous behavior in the park earlier this week."
"Oh, but he said Lieutenant Audley and he might not have seen you otherwise. Just think how tragic it would have been if they had not heard you. How could you have found them in a city the size of London?"
Catherine eyed her new acquaintance with interest. Short golden curls framed a heart-shaped face whose open countenance betrayed not only intelligence but a gentle good nature. Catherine rather thought she herself had once been as sunny and open as this charming young lady, but after the French occupation of Lisbon a mask had come down, hiding fourteen-year-old Catherine Audley from the world. And sunny? When had her naturally ebullient disposition disappeared? To be replaced by this icy wall of calm which so seldom cracked to reveal the woman inside? Was it with her father's beating? That fateful night before her wedding? When Blas left that last time? When her father died?
"I would be ever so grateful if you could help me," Miss Lovell was saying. "My papa says gentlemen wish to discuss hunting or horses. The Corn Laws, The Rights of Women, even the mention of a novel will frighten them faster than a flat purse. Of course, I suppose I don't really have to worry," she offered a bit doubtfully. "I am practically betrothed. A long-standing family arrangement which, I take leave to tell you, I am most happy to honor. You won't see me running away like those silly chits in novels. Anthony is quite splendid. Handsome, and so charming."
Miss Lovell peeked at her mother who frequently scolded her for her enthusiasms, but that lady was immersed in conversation with several other ladies who frequently met in the drawing rooms of London's political families. Providing a musical background was Miss Flora Hawley, singing a group of country songs, accompanied her sister Adelaide.
Amabel leaned closer, confiding to Cat, "Mama has warned me not to wear my heart on my sleeve. You see, I have been too young for Anthony to take much notice of me, and he may not come up to scratch. That is why I wish so very much to have someone who can help me know how to go on. Mr. Somersby says you are ever so sophisticated and know exactly how to talk to men."
Cat was suddenly aware she was enjoying herself. Between the satisfaction of Lord Wrexham's open admiration and the friendship being offered by this vivacious girl only slightly younger than herself, she was beginning to feel alive again. "Tell me about your Anthony," Cat encouraged.
"He is Anthony Trowbridge, a younger son," Miss Lovell confessed. But the younger son of a duke---Marchmont, you know---so he is quite well fixed. His father has given him one of his smaller estates. It is some distance away - in Derbyshire. I fear he has become so enamored with farming that he seldom comes to town. His father and mine did the grand tour together and hatched this betrothal scheme over a vast number of bottles one night in Venice. Long before either was married, of course, but for some reason they never gave it up."
Amabel suddenly clapped a hand to her mouth, eyes widening at the immensity of her faux pas. "What an idiot you must think me, rattling on like this. I have not even offered you my condolences. Please forgive me."
After Catherine's reassurances, Miss Lovell plunged straight on. "Mrs. Perez, do you have any children?"
When the gentlemen entered the drawing room some time later, Gordon Somersby and Lieutenant Audley headed with alacrity toward the two young ladies still ensconced on the window seat, deep in conversation. And yet, within minutes, the two young men discovered their prize had been winkled out from under their noses. Catherine was now seated on a love seat at the opposite end of the room. Where, both young men noted sourly, her companion, the Earl of Wrexham, was favoring her with the anticipatory smile of a predator about to devour his prey.
"That was well done, my lord," Catherine approved. "I have not seen such an outstanding maneuver since Wellington left Portugal."
"The prize was well worth the effort," Wrexham murmured, lifting her hand to his mouth for a kiss which he daringly placed on the inside of her wrist. Catherine, shocked by the flash of physical response which shook her, snatched her hand back into her lap.
Lord Wrexham felt a surge of satisfaction. For a moment he had managed to disturb the young lady's remarkable façade of sophistication. "That is quite the most stunning mourning gown I have seen," he continued smoothly. "Surely not the design of a London modiste?" While casting his highly appreciative eye over his dinner partner, he had not failed to note the unusual design of her high-collared gown of soft black silk.
"I asked Madame Helène to copy a gown of which I am particularly fond. The original design," she added meaningfully, "was by my husband."
The earl's mouth turned up at one corner. Light sparkled in his gray eyes. "I do believe you are trying to tell me something," he murmured.
"That I am not available for dalliance," said Cat plainly, her eyes steadily holding his. "But I am much in need of a friend."
The earl considered her thoughtfully. "I am not at all sure either of us would be wise to embark on the precarious adventure of friendship, for as you must know that is only a small portion of what I desire from you."
"Then I must remain alone, my lord."
Wrexham, no one's fool, caught the loneliness and regret in her voice. But, above all, the integrity. The lady meant what she said. Inwardly, he groaned. There was, however, some slight hope. The earl knew his own worth---his vast consequence as well as his wealth. To coax a lady so young and lovely from her mourning was a challenge which mightily intrigued him.
"Very well," he agreed. "Friendship it is."
Shortly after breakfast the next day, Clara Everingham went in search of Blanca Dominguez, finally locating her in the sunny morning room which overlooked the rear garden. As usual, Blanca was bent over her embroidery, diligently adding to the drawer full of pillowcases, silken bellpulls, slippers, undergarments and handkerchiefs she was decorating for Christmas gifts. The relatively small room, enhanced by the sparkle of the sun through the double doors to the garden and the coziness of a cheerful fire in the grate, was a haven of quiet contentment.
With a heartfelt sigh Clara lowered herself into a comfortable chair next to the sofa where Blanca was sitting. "Catherine seemed to enjoy herself last night," she ventured, keeping a close eye on Blanca's serene features.
"I believe you are correct," Blanca agreed, holding her embroidery hoop up to the light to check the delicate white-on-white stitchery.
"She has such charm and wit. Yet, many time since she came to us I have thought she seemed . . . unnaturally quiet, even . . . unhappy."
"She was most certainly not unhappy to see Mr. Somersby. Nor her cousin the lieutenant," Blanca pointed out as she threaded fresh white silk through her needle.
Clara's smile was rueful as she pictured the scene in Hyde Park. "No, that she was not," she agreed mildly. "And I was pleased to see her warming to Amabel Lovell last night. An excellent connection." Lady Everingham paused, choosing her words with care. "But frequently Catherine seems closed off, as if nothing and no one can affect her. There are a few marvelous moments of animation, and then she is gone again. As shut off as if she were one of those glorious mums out in the garden, separated from us by a wall of glass. Beautiful but untouchable."
"But the doors may be opened, the flower touched," said Blanca calmly.
"But not by just anyone, I fear."
"Ah, no," Blanca agreed, laying her embroidery aside. "Only Blas has that power."
"She loves him that much?"
"À corps perdu. I fear she is like her father. There will be only one great love in her life."
"Thomas?" Clara had heard a great deal about Thomas Audley, but certainly nothing which indicated he had but one woman in his life.
Blanca's eyes were fixed on the garden, but what she saw was the Casa Audley. With all its joys and infinite sadness. "Elspeth, Catarina's mother, was the love of his life. No one could ever take her place."
"My dear . . . " Clara's words dwindled to a halt, her social poise shattered by what this admission must be costing Blanca Dominguez.
"They are very special men," Blanca continued, "Thomas and Blas. And much alike. They love with great passion, but nothing, absolutely nothing, is allowed to get in the way of their duty. Men like that are greatly needed in this world, but they are not easy to live with."
Clara shut her eyes. No one could understand that better than the wife of Sir Giles Everingham. "You believe Blas will come back to her then?"
"I try to make myself believe it, but there is something secretive about him. He is like a chameleon who changes his coat with every situation."
"You do not like him?" Clara asked in surprise.
"I do not trust him," was the brief reply.
Some ten days later the ladies were enjoying what had become an almost daily visit from Captain Audley and Gordon Somersby when the card of an unexpected morning caller was presented to Lady Everingham by Rankin, the butler. "Ailesbury!" Captain Audley exclaimed. "Oh, lord, Cat, forgive me if I play least in sight! A more pompous, puffed-up, boring as--ah--gudgeon than the head of the house of Audley cannot be found. Come all the way from the country to look you over. Lydia must be in a rare twit you might steal her thunder. And won't you just!" he added with considerable relish.
"Hush!" hissed Dona Blanca as Rankin announced the Earl of Ailesbury.
Archibald Courtland Audley, first cousin to both Thomas Audley and William's father, General Sir Quinton Audley, regarded the other occupants of the room with the superior mien of a man who is fully aware of his own consequence, though perhaps a trifle doubtful of the social standing of those around him. He made his formal bow to Lady Everingham, deigned to accept the introduction to his startlingly beautiful young relative and her foreign chaperone, and to Mr. Somersby who was not known to him. "Well, William," said the earl, weighting each word as if his sentences were crafted of gold, "I did not expect to find you here. I believed you to be laid up with the fever."
Catherine was left with the impression that William had been audacious indeed to rise from his sickbed without the earl's permission.
"I leave for the Peninsula just after Christmas, my lord."
"Returning to Wellington, are you? Well, that is all right then. I am confident you will bring honor to the family, my boy. And if you should see your father, render him my felicitations on a job well done at Pamplona." Ailesbury rocked back on his heels, looking down his nose at William with the benign superiority of his exalted rank. "And now, young man, I fear I shall have to ask you to take yourself off, for I have come a long way to speak with your cousin Catherine and bear greetings from Lady Ailesbury and Lydia."
Refusing to be routed, Lieutenant Audley inquired, "What? No greeting from Edmund, my lord?"
"Do not be absurd, William. You are well aware that Norwell is safely tucked up at Oxford. Naturally, he would have sent his greetings if he had known I was to be in London. Now off with you, young sirs," he added with a forced attempt at joviality. "I wish to be private with cousin Catherine."
When the two young men had made their hasty farewells, Lady Everingham asked if Lord Ailesbury wished to be completely private with his young cousin. He tut-tutted and allowed that although it might be proper for the head of the family to be private with a married lady, though of tender years, he fancied he had nothing to say which might not be said before all three ladies. After this ponderous judgment, the earl settled himself into a chair next to Catherine.
Cat, well aware she owed her father's family her most polished manners, turned the full force of her smile on Lord Ailesbury, only to discover her noble cousin was regarding her as if she were some unknown creature dropped from the sky. Or more like---as she later confided to Bess Fielding---crawled out from under a rock. Accustomed to nothing but blatant admiration from even the most stiff-necked and monogamous of men, Catherine found herself speechless.
"I do not understand," declared the earl a bit querulously, "why your father should not have left you in my charge. I am, after all, his own first cousin and head of the family."
Catherine's gaze flew to Lady Everingham. Was it possible this pompous nobleman was not even aware of the implied insult to his hostess? She could scarcely tell him that Thomas Audley had said he'd be damned before he'd let Archibald and Malvinia Audley have any say over his daughter's life. Clara Everingham's bosom heaved dangerously, her mouth flattened into a grim line.
Catherine reaffixed her smile. "Surely, uncle, you are aware my father worked for the government for many years. It was only natural he should ask his colleague Lord Everingham to look after me during the few short months until my majority. I am certain he felt your good wife was quite occupied with her own two children."
It was apparent Lord Ailesbury had heard very little after the word government. "What's that you say? What can you mean by worked for the government?"
Catherine raised her golden eyebrows, widened her eyes. "Oh," she breathed, "you did not know. Papa was a spy, you see. I am told I may talk about him now that he is gone," she added ingenuously. "He was a very superior spy. He headed our intelligence service on the Peninsula for as long as I can remember. And I assure you he enjoyed it immensely."
The Earl of Ailesbury removed a large handkerchief from his well-filled brown kerseymere jacket and mopped his brow. His ponderous volubility was reduced to a single, "Good God!"
Clara Everingham and Blanca Dominguez exchanged surreptitious smiles of satisfaction before returning their rapt attention to the principal combatants.
Ailesbury recovered sufficiently to present his next bone of contention: "Is it true you have married a foreigner, Catherine? Surely this is not what is expected of an Audley?"
Catherine's good intentions cracked completely. "I was born in Portugal, my lord. To me, Blas is not a foreigner."
"Blas? Blas?" Lord Ailesbury frowned. "Not the name I recall . . ."
"Blas is . . . was a nickname," Cat said hastily. "And you may rest easy," she added with considerable bitterness. "He was Don Alexis Perez de Leon, and he is dead. So you will not be called upon to acknowledge a Spanish connection.
Lord Ailesbury had the good grace to apologize and offer his condolences before his enormous sense of self-worth sent him plunging back to the topics he had come to discuss. "Lady Ailesbury---my dear Malvinia---keeps up a goodly correspondence with acquaintances in London. Certain--ah--things have come to her attention, Catherine. You must admit, my dear, your behavior must reflect on all the family, most particularly your cousins Lydia and Edmund, It was outside of enough when we heard about the incident in the park and that you had taken up with Wrexham---Wrexham of all people!---whose intentions are quite shockingly apparent. But when news reached us of the child and your letter to Napoleon . . . well, you can imagine, my dear---poor Lady Ailesbury nearly had strong hysterics. It took vinaigrette and burnt feathers, let me tell you. I fear you must explain yourself, my girl."
As the earl paused for breath, silence reigned. Catherine sat very still indeed, while Lady Everingham and Blanca stared at her in consternation.
"Napoleon?" Blanca hissed. "I cannot have heard correctly, Catarina. He could not have said Napoleon."
"Catherine?" queried Clara Everingham with great deliberation.
Cat sat still as a statue. It was rather like the time she had found herself in Marshal Junot's study. For all the maturity of her twenty years, she once again felt very young and not nearly as clever as she had thought.
"All my life I have been trained to secrecy," Cat admitted quietly. "But when I met Amabel Lovell, I was so happy to have found a friend of my own age, I was careless. I thought I was finished with the years of silence, that what I did or said could no longer matter. I was wrong, and I am sincerely sorry."
"Sorry pays no toll, young lady," said the earl severely. "Explain yourself."
"Knowing second-hand tales had a way of exaggerating the truth, Cat did not hesitate to offer full details of how Pierre had come into her life. The portrait she painted of a small boy sitting beside his dead nurse, surrounded by the carnage of battle, was enough to silence even Ailesbury's insensitivity. "There were four letters in all," Cat ended. "We did not know the name of the colonel thought to be Pierre's father, so I wrote to the general commanding the chasseurs at Vitoria. To Marshal Jourdan, to the staff of Joseph Bonaparte, and to the staff of Napoleon Bonaparte. All the letters were alike. Each said we had been told the boy might be the son of a colonel of the chasseurs. That's the French light cavalry," Cat explained politely. "We---Blas and I---explained how Pierre had come to us, that he was alive and well, and where he could be found when the war is over. Surely, my lord, there can be no wrong in attempting to reunite a father with his child?"
The Earl of Ailesbury fished out a large white handkerchief, wiped his brow. "You are telling me," he said with ominous emphasis, "that---never mind how you accomplished it, for I am sure I do not want to know---you actually sent a letter to the French general staff, not to mention the Bonapartist king of Spain?"
Carefully refraining from glancing at the other two ladies, Catherine nodded her head. "Yes, my lord."
"We are ruined," Ailesbury groaned. "Utterly ruined. I will be struck from the role at White's, booed in the House . . ."
"Don't be nonsensical, Ailesbury!" Clara Everingham snapped. "I confess this tale had not yet reached my ears, but I know the ton well. Catherine is more like to be the heroine of the hour. As if her beauty weren't enough, she will now be known as the woman who cared enough about a child to reach across enemy lines, risking the wrath of both Horse Guards and the Corsican monster himself."
"You are all quite mad," pronounced Dona Blanca. "I am going to my room. Where you will join me, Catarina, when your cousin Ailesbury has left us." Blanca's tone of command was so unlike her usual calm self, Cat blinked.
After a further quarter of an hour of dire predictions interspersed with scoldings and a lecture on the conduct expected of an Audley, the Earl of Ailesbury departed, still shaking his head.
"You may not be aware, Catherine," said Clara through lips thinned into a grim line, "but we have just been insulted in more than the obvious."
Her mind fixed on how she was going to make peace with Blanca, Cat stared in surprise. "It can be worse?" she inquired drily.
"Malvinia Audley and your cousin Lydia should have bestirred themselves to come to town to meet you. No, my dear, do not make excuses for them. They do not live so far from town. They have sent Ailesbury to look you over when they should have come with him to welcome you to England themselves."
Cat digested this in silence. It was, she decided, a pity one could not choose relatives as one chose friends. "I find it difficult to believe that Ailesbury, Sir Quinton, and Papa shared the same grandfather," she pronounced with considerable feeling.
And finally, belatedly, it occurred to Cat the Earl of Ailesbury was not alone in giving offense. With her small chin tucked down in unaccustomed humility, Cat went to stand in rigid formality before her hostess, where she apologized for the actions which threatened to bring scandal to Everingham House. Abject and articulate, Cat cited her thoughtlessness, her carelessness, her selfish disregard for anyone's pain but her own. She had brought disgrace to those who had been her dearest friends and benefactors.
"You may disregard it, my dear," said Clara grandly when Cat had poured out her heart. "It is merely another challenge to be met. Until your arrival I was not aware of what a staid and boring life I led."
"Nonetheless," said Cat firmly, "I believe we have overstayed our visit. After guests such as we, you will need a few weeks to recover."
"As long as you return for Christmas." Clara bounced to her feet, gave Catherine's stiff shoulders a hug. "Like our dear Wellington's efforts on the Peninsula," she said with conviction, "it may be a long struggle, but in the end we will prevail."
Cat climbed the stairs to the third floor of Branwyck Park, an eager smile softening the porcelain perfection of her features into a radiance which had seldom been seen in recent years. She was home. Strange it should be so easy to call Branwyck home. But Blas had bought it for her, and at the moment it was all of him she had.
Cat's smile broadened into outright joy as she threw open the door of the nursery. An array of bright colors brought life to the large rectangular room. New red and white check curtains adorned the windows, with matching covers on the chairs and window seats. The book shelves had been augmented with a large number of new volumes which Cat had had sent down from London. A child's drawings decorated a portion of one wall. On a large rectangular table two armies of tin soldiers confronted each other, long thin lines of red against masses of blue. Stunned, Cat stared at the mock battle. Who had been teaching Pierre tactics? His father? For surely no one at Branwyck Park knew the contrasting methods of attack used by the warring Peninsular armies. The boy was truly a ranking officer's son.
Pierre, abandoning his precious new rocking horse, catapulted across the room and launched himself at Cat. As she swung him up into her arms, he hugged her so tightly about the neck she was forced to gasp for breath.
"Easy, my pet," she cried, "or I shall think you missed me."
He buried his blond head in her shoulder and hung on for dear life. She was, of course, consumed by guilt. Her stay in London had been longer than expected, nearly a month. A lifetime to a four-year-old who had already had too many people disappear from his life.
She had, however, done all she could for Pierre, short of her physical presence. In addition to refurbishing the nursery and providing him with the youth and cheerfulness of Nan, the nursery maid, as well as the motherly Rosalía. Cat had also employed the seventeen-year-old daughter of the local vicar to read to him in her beautifully modulated English. The girl also practiced her French on Pierre, something the small boy found vastly amusing. The two had quickly developed a rapport in which Pierre indicated his approval of her pronunciation by a wide range of smiles, frowns and grimaces. All this had been relayed to Cat by letters from Mrs. Plumb.
It would seem, Cat admitted grudgingly, that life in England was not quite so bad as either she, Blanca, or Pierre had feared.
Much later that afternoon Cat wandered back down the stairs, her mind a whirl of contradictory emotions. Not feeling up to conversation, she slipped into the spacious sitting room next to her bedroom and firmly shut the door. Sinking onto one of the window seats, she contemplated the complexities of her London relationships.
She had promised to return to London in time for Christmas at the Everinghams. And there, except for occasional visits to Branwyck, she was expected to stay. Meeting people, fitting an entire new wardrobe, learning to cope with the frequently odd mannerisms and expectations of London society. Fulfilling her promise to her father.
Oddly enough, a Season in London was no longer a duty she dreaded. Sir Giles, Clara, Gordon Somersby, her cousin William, Amabel Lovell . . . Wrexham. All were giving her a more tolerant view of the strange world that was London. Even Wrexham was not as useless and frivolous as she had thought. She had learned from Sir Giles that the earl spoke regularly in the House of Lords, supported a wide variety of charities, and was a well-respected landlord of his country estate.
He was also making a considerable impact on her life. She was using him, Cat freely admitted it. An occasional qualm of conscience was assuaged by her certainty he knew it. The Earl of Wrexham was exactly the fine gentleman her father wished for her, but she had few doubts about his intentions. There was little possibility of cracking the earl's hide-bound heart, even if she wished to do so. He would marry for family, for dynasty, for proper bloodlines and wealth untainted by gaming halls or mysteries. A charming, elegant rake, Wrexham, but one harboring a surprisingly conventional core. He respected her mourning because she demanded it, but he was playing a waiting game. Wrexham was in search of a mistress, not a wife. He was, however, good company, his consequence enormous. And his attentions were particular enough to keep potential suitors away. Including those who would have courted any woman who came with a country estate such as Branwyck Park. In short, the Earl of Wrexham was both entertaining and useful.
And then there was Amabel. Cat smiled as she recalled one particular afternoon when her lively new friend was visiting Everingham House.
"Listen to this," Amabel cried, waving a handsomely bound book at Catherine. "You simply will not credit it." With a dramatic gesture worthy of Mrs. Siddons, Amabel held the book out before her and declaimed: 'It is of the last importance to their happiness in life that they should early acquire a submissive temper and a forbearing spirit. They must ever endure to be thought wrong sometimes, when they cannot but feel they are right.' Now, I ask you, how could anyone write such nonsense for a princess of the blood? Poor unhappy Charlotte to be instructed by Hannah More! It is the outside of enough for any woman to be so taught, but what is the point in being a princess if one must be forbearing?"
Miss Lovell tossed the book onto the sofa, a mischievous smile suddenly lighting her face. "Of course I can quite understand why your cousin Ailesbury sent you such an edifying treatise, Catherine. Oh, do not look so, my dear, I did not mean to tease you. It is all my fault you are in such a pickle. I was a complete ninnyhammer to repeat what you told me."
Catherine, a scant two years senior to Amabel Lovell, suddenly felt closer to Methuselah. "Amabel, ordinarily I find your intelligence of the first order, but I fear you have entirely missed the point of Miss More's words. You and I may say we find them appalling for what they advocate, but that is precisely what you asked me to teach you. How to repress your feelings and do as others think you ought rather than what you would wish to do. And a sad example I have set, to be sure. I can create a false impression with ease if the cause if just, but for my own benefit I find I am too stiff-necked to bend to the ways of the ton."
Amabel rushed to Catherine's chair and knelt at her feet, clasping her hands in her own. "You must not take it to heart, dear Catherine. There is absolutely no point in your attempting to be deemed 'unexceptional.' In your case it is simply not possible. You must accept you are unique and pay no mind to what lesser mortals think."
Lesser mortals. Lesser mortals indeed. Only Clara Everingham's social consequence and the obvious and arrogant support of the Earl of Wrexham had turned aside the potential disaster of her letters to France.
Cat's thoughts returned to Branwyck Park with reluctance. Her first day back and already she was discovering it was considerably easier to keep the ghosts at bay in London. Amabel's gay chatter and kind heart, Clara's competence and good sense, Wrexham's admiring glances ---sensual and exciting, a balm on the hurt of Blas's silence. These new friends steadied her, gave her strength.
But here . . . here at Branwyck she was alone. For it was Blas's house. And he was not here.
And then there was Thomas. His insistent whispers echoed through the halls. Don't trust so blindly, Catarina. Look around you. Blas is not the only fish in the sea.
But for her there was no one else. Would never be anyone else. Since that brief, horribly impersonal note Marcio had brought back in late August, there had been no word, no sign. Always before there had been a steady stream of reports decorated with odd little caricatures, whimsical faces, fantastical sketches of castles in the clouds, ogres, and maidens in varying stages of distress. And undress. Occasionally, a tiny folded note. A few precious personal words. In Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian. Sometimes even in Greek which sent her scrambling for a dictionary as there was no way she would ask Thomas to help her decipher the oddly shaped characters.
Now . . . for three months there had been nothing. Because Blas was obeying Thomas's wishes? Because he was lying in a shallow grave in the mountains of Spain? Mourned only by guerrilleros who had already turned their backs on the inglês who had been their friend?
Blas. Mourned by his guerrillera mistress. For Cat was not naive enough to believe he did without. It was one of the many things they did not discuss.
Cat gazed out the window at the broad expanse of Branwyck Park. What did any of it matter if there was no Blas to share it? Was he dead?
Or dead only to his sometime wife?
Before her, the broad gardens stretched almost as far as the woods, the precisely clipped green of boxwood hedges nearly the only signs of color in the dull landscape of late fall. Here and there a few mums, dried on their brown stalks, glowed faintly in faded shades of orange and yellow and white. English gardens, unlike their Portuguese counterparts, must have their winter sleep. Their bleak months of brown earth and gray skies. Chill rain. Snow and ice.
Like her heart. Which knew only one cure.
When Papa asked you to agree to my going to England, Blas---you might have said No.
"Viscount Norwell," Rankin announced. The butler's precise monotone was tinged by the faint warmth he reserved for visitors who met with his discriminating approval. Blanca and Catherine, who had returned to London only two days earlier, joined Clara Everingham in regarding the newcomer with lively curiosity.
Edmund Wareham Audley was a slight young man who looked even younger than his nineteen years. An owlish squint marred his not unhandsome features as he studied the ladies, for his mother had positively forbidden him to wear his spectacles except for reading. Though it must be admitted he had the backbone to resist this dictate when driving or he most surely would have found himself in the ditch on his way from Oxford. As Lord Norwell greeted the ladies, it could be seen that, though his manners were pleasing, a closer look at his cousin Catherine had rendered him speechless.
The head of the House of Audley might be a sad bore, but Catherine suspected she was going to like his heir. By the time Lady Everingham had rung for refreshments, Cat's youthful cousin had recovered his voice.
"I thought to pay my respects before returning home for the holidays, my lady," Lord Norwell said to Lady Everingham, adding a few more dutiful words to his hostess before turning to Catherine. Dazzled, he swallowed painfully, ducking his head to study the pattern of the Aubusson carpet. He looked up to find Catherine regarding him intently. "I--I wished you to know, cousin," said Edmund with determination, "I am very glad you have come to England. You see, Grandfather Audley---the old Earl, you know---was eldest brother to your grandfather Audley, and he told me many a tale about your father. He must have been quite a handful at the vicarage!" Young Edmund seemed to lose his shyness, his eyes suddenly alight with admiration. Not for herself, Cat realized, but for Thomas Audley. Nothing could have pleased her more.
"I suppose you know he lived in border country," Edmund said. "That's how he met your mother. But you must have heard this a hundred times," the young man apologized, embarrassed that he was babbling to these three polished ladies of the ton.
"Oh, no," Cat protested. "Please go on. My parents never spoke of their life in England."
"Truly?" Gratified by his beautiful cousin's rapt attention, Edmund continued his tale. "I don't recall all the details, I'm afraid, but they were both very young. Your mother came from a good Scottish family. Very strict Presbyters. How she ever met the son of an Anglican vicar who lived on the English side of the border no one quite knew, but . . . well . . ." Edmund stumbled to a halt, then rushed on. He might be shy and without town bronze; a coward he was not.
"If Elspeth Drummon looked anything like you, cousin," he said manfully, "a connoisseur like Thomas Audley would have found her. Even if she'd lived in the Highlands."
Unlike the compliments of so many men of the ton, her cousin Edmund's words rang with simple sincerity. Cat acknowledged this striking compliment with her most brilliant smile and waited in fascination to hear more.
"You mother was expected to make a fine match of course," Edmund continued, "and cousin Thomas certainly was not what her family had in mind. According to Grandfather, they never even bothered to ask. They just disappeared one night and never stopped until they got to Lisbon. I always suspected Grandfather rather admired his nephew's daring. I doubt he would have told me so many Thomas stories else." Edmund paused, shifted his weight in his chair and added softly, "I've often wondered if he wanted me to be . . . um . . . a bit more like Thomas, don't you know."
"They were very happy," Cat said, almost to herself. "I don't recall a harsh word or so much as a hint of another woman." Horrified as she recalled Blanca's presence, Cat clamped her lips shut, grateful for the arrival of Rankin with an elaborate tea tray. One day, in private, she would get her cousin Edmund to relate all his grandfather's tales of Thomas Audley's undoubtedly colorful youth.
As Lady Everingham took her place behind the teapot, Lord Norwell reached a momentous decision. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out his spectacles, polished them with his handkerchief and set them upon his nose.
"There are many kinds of courage," Cat murmured with a winsome smile as she passed her cousin a plate of macaroons. Edmund, blushing to the roots of his hair, chose a macaroon, adjusted his spectacles, and fell in love with his cousin on the spot.
"I cannot imagine," said Clara Everingham a half hour later as the door shut behind the heir to the House of Audley, "how a pompous idiot and a sharp-tongued shrew managed to produce a boy like that."
"Character will out," said Catherine blithely. "We Audleys are too strong to let the line stray far from the mold."
She added one more reason to the growing list of why a future in England no longer appeared impossibly bleak.
The day before Christmas Catherine received a visitor she had not seen since her first days in London, her father's man of affairs Ralph Carswell. After reading the note he sent round to tell her he was coming, Cat spent most of the two-hour wait pacing the floor. Solicitors, she well knew, were frequently the bearers of bad news. Blanca, abandoning her embroidery, begged Catarina to sit and talk, to occupy herself with a book. Cat made an effort, settling at the delicate desk in her bedroom, only to jump up a few minutes later to resume her pacing. In succession, she tried a comfortable chair in the library, the cozy sitting room at the rear of the house. Each time she found it impossible to sit still. Her black silk skirt rustled in accompaniment to her agitation. Cat ended her wanderings in the drawing room which was at least large enough to allow her pacing the scope it needed.
Another hour to wait. It seemed a lifetime.
With equal foreboding, Blanca followed Cat's odyssey. She too feared the worst. While Cat measured the length of the drawing room, Blanca found the new novel Pride and Prejudice which Clara was reading and, with grim determination, began to read aloud, although she found herself unable to understand all the nuances of language. Nor did Cat, who heard not one word in ten.
Ralph Carswell, a young forty with a comfortable wife and two small children, was thinking of the Christmas holiday, the excitement of gifts, the satisfaction of good food and good company. Believing himself on a mission of joy, he was blithely unaware of his client's fears. Since Sir Giles had solicited his opinion on the state of Catherine Perez's marriage, he was aware of her anomalous relationship with Don Alexis Perez de Leon. He had thoroughly enjoyed the complexity of the problem, pronouncing after great deliberation that Catherine Audley was indeed legally married to Don Alexis Perez de Leon. But since Don Alexis was not a real person, the marriage was only as valid as the participants chose to make it. After careful examination of Catherine's marriage lines, Carswell had, however, ventured a personal opinion. It would appear, he announced, that in the eyes of God the marriage was valid.
Ralph Carswell had colleagues who would have snorted and termed this opinion romantic. Nonetheless, he was convinced Catherine Perez was a married woman with a living husband. A wealthy and generous living husband. He was therefore shocked by his client's obvious distress when he was ushered into the drawing room at Everingham House.
"I am here on a somewhat mysterious errand, Mrs. Perez, but I don't doubt it's a happy one," Carswell said hastily.
While Blanca accepted the solicitor's best wishes for the holiday, Cat slowly, still fearfully, settled herself onto the sofa. Carswell declined an invitation to be seated. "I'll be brief, Mrs. Perez," he said. "A package was delivered to me yesterday from the firm of Bentham, Bentham and Wembley---which as you know purveyed to us the deed to Branwyck Park. The instructions were to deliver the package to you in person prior to Christmas Day. Since it is clearly marked Rundell & Bridges, I should think the nature of the gift should be obvious. Young Jonathan Bentham brought the box round himself and unbent enough to say that the items had been custom-made to a sketch by his client." With a broad, reassuring smile Carswell handed Catherine a quilted black velvet jewelry box.
Her reaction was not at all what he expected. "Was there no letter?" she asked, green eyes huge with disappointment.
Mr. Carswell's Christmas spirit, already shaken, plummeted further still. "Perhaps in the box?" he suggested lamely.
Cat tore at the velvet box with such eagerness some of the contents spilled onto the carpet in a brilliant shower of precious glitter. Resting among the remaining gems was a small folded slip of paper sealed with a plain blob of red wax. Ignoring the diamond and emerald parure, Catherine snatched at the paper, ripped open the seal. The note was painfully short. "Queridissima - Do not worry. The war is nearly over. Have faith. Christmas of 1814 will be a better one." Scrawled at the bottom was Blas's characteristic signature, the single letter B.
Graças a deus! He was alive. He spoke of the future.
But what kind of a future? Cat wondered. The man with the wealth and power to give her Branwyck Park and gems worth a king's ransom might want a lover. But not a wife who was the spawn of a spy, the darling of a gaming house in a foreign land.
Blanca, alarmed by Cat's colorless face, deftly plucked the paper from her hand while Ralph Carswell rang for brandy. The solicitor's eyes widened as he bent down to retrieve the forgotten jewels from the floor. No royal princess had anything finer. With great care he added a bracelet and an earring to the gems sparkling in the afternoon sun on their background of black velvet. Whoever his client's husband was, he was even wealthier than Carswell had imagined.
"It is not so bad, Catarina," Blanca comforted as Cat sipped her brandy. "He is alive and expects to come home. What more do you wish? Has he ever written you a love letter? Not once in six years! This is Blas. He has sent you a fortune in jewels, designed just for you. And he has told you not to worry, that all will be well. I can tell you it is a great deal more than I expected from him."
"He has said nothing!" Cat cried. "Nothing. Since August, not a word, and now he sends me this!" She shook the scrap of paper in fury. A small blob of red wax fell off onto her skirt, glowing against the cream silk as if it were blood.
With the discretion of his profession, Ralph Carswell took his leave, considerably relieved to return to the conventional trappings of his own family's holiday celebrations.
"I think we must accept that Blas has a great deal of money," declared Blanca, holding the stunning necklace of diamonds and emeralds up to the glow of the chandelier. A delicate tiara, a matching bracelet, pendant earrings and a ring remained in the case in her hand.
"He treats his mistresses well, does he not?"
"Catarina!"
"He talks of a better future, but where, I ask you, do you see the word marriage?"
"You are too young to be so cynical," said Blanca severely. "Although Tomás is much to blame."
"A few jewels and Blas becomes a hero?" Cat mocked. "Ah, deus, forgive me," she cried, throwing her arms around Blanca's comfortable plumpness. "A thousand pardons. I am a beast. A veritable beast."
Accustomed to Cat's volatility, Blanca merely shrugged. "You may call them a few jewels, Catarina, but they are worth a king's ransom. Like Branwyck Park, they are not the gift of a man to his mistress, but of a man to his beloved wife. You are woman enough to know he is saying quite clearly he will come home to you. He is, in fact, cheating a bit on his promise to your father to cut the cord which binds you together. But that is only to be expected. Tomás and Blas are who they are because they never accept the rules of others."
With a rueful smile, Cat nodded. Blanca's logic could not be faulted. "It will be months yet," she said with a sigh. "It's a very long way from the Pyrenees to Paris. And you know Blas will not leave until Wellington rides down the Champs Elysée. But, as Papa always said, I am stubborn as a Spanish mule. So I shall wait. When Blas comes, he will know where to find me. After that . . . after that we shall see. I have had enough of secrets. I shall not make it easy for him, I think."
"Oh, Ma'am, you do look something like!" said Bess Fielding with fervor. Catherine, regarding herself in her bedroom mirror, saw a young woman she had sometimes thought lost forever. Miraculously, the gown of silver-shot silk, the magnificent reproduction of her wedding gown, still fit. It was Christmas Day and, as promised, Cat had put off her mourning. In honor of the occasion, she had donned the design she had worn for Christmas and her birthday each of the six years since Alejo handed her the original sketch and she had torn it into pieces and thrown it at his feet. The gown Blas had chosen for her wedding, but had not seemed to recognize. The gown she loved so much she had even had it copied in black.
Reverently, Bess Fielding clasped the diamond and emerald necklace around her mistress's slender neck. The largest emerald, perfect in clarity and cut and surrounded by diamonds, hung invitingly just above the cleavage of her breasts. Bess added the bracelet and earrings, then slipped the ring onto Catherine's right hand. An hour earlier Monsieur Claude had made the tiara a focal point of Catherine's elaborate coiffure. The overall effect was stunning. Catarina, the child bride, was gone forever. But Catherine Audley Perez de Leon was a woman of grace, beauty and intelligence. A woman to be reckoned with.
Cat accepted her gloves and reticule from a wide-eyed Bess and started down the staircase toward the Everingham's Christmas Day gathering of friends and colleagues. Beside her walked Thomas Audley and Blas the Bastard. And ever so faintly, in a mysterious realm of which she was barely conscious, walked the shadow of the man who had designed her gown. Don Alexis Perez de Leon.
In mid-November Wellington and his troops, minus their Spanish and Portuguese allies, had successfully crossed the Pyrenees into France. Although bogged down by torrential rains, the army's rest would be short. While English noblemen such as the Earl of Wrexham enjoyed Christmas at their country estates, those responsible for sending fresh troops, arms, food, and the latest intelligence coming in from all over Europe, were still hard at work in London. And on Christmas Day 1813 a goodly portion of them were at Everingham House.
In time-honored custom the men were clustered around the punch bowl at one end of the large drawing room, the older ladies formed a comfortable circle around the fireplace, while the younger women grouped themselves near the piano where, after the buffet, one of the Hawley sisters was expected to sing. Throughout the room, no matter how varied the point of view, there was only one topic of conversation. After twenty years, the war with France was coming to an end. What would life be like when Boney's teeth were drawn at last?
"By summer they'll be home," breathed Adelaide Hawley, eyes shining with romance. "Perhaps even by late spring, Papa says. I truly can't believe it. After all this time, our soldiers will be coming home."
"And we all know which soldier you mean," her sister Flora teased. "I declare she is quite besotted," she confided to Catherine and Amabel Lovell as Adelaide blushed quite prettily.
"Do you think they will send the men home as soon as Napoleon surrenders?" Adelaide asked anxiously.
Catherine smiled indulgently. "I am sure they will send them home as soon as possible---if only because it takes such an effort to feed them all!" When the giggles had died down, Cat added, "I fear the men I know will be among the last to leave. They are the kind who will wish to personally turn the key on the emperor's cell."
"Oh, my dear Catherine," cried Adelaide, suddenly aware of the enormity of her faux pas. "Forgive me for talking of what can only cause you pain."
"I have put off my blacks, Adelaide," Catherine assured her. "After twenty years of war, nearly every family has suffered a loss. Be comfortable with your joy, you give no offense."
In a deliberate effort to restore the lightheartedness of the holiday, Cat turned to Amabel. "Not all the eagerly awaited are soldiers, I believe," she said, a mischievous glint in her green eyes. "Tell us about your Anthony, Amabel. I don't believe you have ever mentioned what he looks like."
"He is not my Anthony," she said in the tone of one who has repeated the statement many times. "Though I hope he may be," she admitted quietly. Amabel cocked her head to one side, considering Catherine's question. "I think him quite gorgeous of course, but Anthony's features are what are generally described as strong. A Lord Byron he most certainly is not. I fear Anthony Trowbridge is a farmer at heart, for he is seldom coaxed away from his acres. Indeed, I have seen him only three times in the last five years."
"He will come for the Season, will he not?" Flora inquired, her kind heart roused to sympathy.
"Oh, yes. Now that I am making my come-out, he is expected to reach a decision about our betrothal. So undoubtedly he will be here to look me over," Amabel said with understandable asperity.
"That does not sound very comfortable," Cat said with a frown.
"Comfortable?" cried Amabel. "You are spoiled, Catherine, marrying so young. "Society's mating season is never comfortable."
"But why then do you wish to marry him if you feel like a--a porco being taken to market?"
Amabel took the question seriously. "Because there are very few gentlemen whom I would describe as capable. And because he does not mind that I am clever."
"You must snap him up immediately," Catherine approved with a wry smile. "You have my complete blessing. He is a veritable treasure indeed."
Christmas Day 1813. The four young women talked, laughed, drank champagne, and hugged to themselves their thoughts of the promised joys of 1814. Not once was there a hint of the devastating drama to come.
The weather continued cold and miserable. By mid-January there was no doubt London was in the grip of one of the worst winters in memory. On the Peninsula the Duke of Wellington's troops were encountering similar harsh conditions. Little progress had been made after crossing the Pyrenees into France. In London Catherine was en route to a ball at the home of Baron and Lady Hawley, parents of Adelaide and Flora.
"When does Wrexham return?" Clara Everingham asked as their carriage slowly moved up in the long line outside the Hawley's townhouse.
"Another fortnight, I believe," said Cat.
"You may have made a conquest there, my dear," said Clara. "I admit I am quite surprised. With a bit of encouragement you might actually bring him up to scratch."
"I thought you did not approve of him," said Cat, surprised.
"I do not approve of his rakishness," Clara declared, "but as a husband he is a superb parti."
"I assure you, my lady, your original opinion was correct. Wrexham wants me, but not as a bride. Please do not concern yourself. I am long accustomed to the Wrexhams of this world. I find him charming. And useful. Nothing more. I do not wish him to find himself twenty paces from Blas with a pistol in his hand.
"Merciful heavens, child, you believe it could come to that?"
"I think---no matter what his promise to Thomas and no matter whether he considers me wife or mistress---Blas will not tolerate poachers," Cat declared without hesitation."
There was a clang as the groom put down the carriage steps. The conversation came to an abrupt halt with Clara still shaking her head over this unexpected complication.
As they stood in the line of guests waiting on the gracefully curving marble staircase, Cat was very aware of the raised quizzing glasses, avid eyes peering over unfurled fans, the whispers and conjectures. Clara and Blanca were hard put not to beam in triumph. They had not yet been announced, and already their protégé was causing a sensation.
The nap of Cat's gown of jade green silk velvet rippled in the reflection of hundreds of candles in their crystal chandeliers. The utter simplicity of the gown was designed solely as a backdrop for her jewels---tiny puffed sleeves, décolletage revealing the swell of her fine figure, the straight Grecian fall of her skirt from bust to hem. The delicate diamond and emerald tiara nestled in swaths of red-gold hair, the elaborate tiers of the necklace, the swing of pendant earrings, the matching bracelet, the ring---all caught the candlelight, dazzling those who were not already dazzled by the beauty of the newcomer.
Long before Catherine Perez de Leon reached the ballroom, she was the cynosure of all who had glimpsed her. They saw a woman of wealth, beauty, and good taste. The ton, forever on the qui vive for something new, was intrigued.
Thomas Audley would have loved it.
For a ball held when most of the ton were visiting their country estates, the rooms at Hawley House were a surprising squeeze. Catherine did not have an opportunity to seek out Amabel, for her cousin William seized her before she was three steps into the ballroom, stating that a soldier about to depart for the wars was entitled to the first dance with the most beautiful woman in the room. Not averse to such flattery from a cousin whose handsome boyish face grinned at her above the silver and white trim on his green dress uniform, Catherine followed him into the line for a country dance.
"I leave within the week," William declared with ill-concealed glee as the dance brought them together for a few moments. "The weather's brought the Peer to a standstill, so I daresay I shall not miss any battles after all." Cat forced herself to respond with a smile to her cousin's eagerness. Without the Audley men---William, his father the general, and Thomas---the world would be a less safe place. The possible sacrifice of this delightful newfound cousin cast a pall over the gaiety around them. She could not be happy to see him go.
Cat was twirling around the ballroom in the arms of Gordon Somersby when she finally located Amabel Lovell sitting out the daring dance under the watchful eye of her mother. "When our dance is finished, Gordy, please take me to Amabel. This is her very first ball, and I must tell her how charming she looks."
"She does indeed," agreed Mr. Somersby, following Cat's eyes. "And how old were you, my ancient one, when you attended your first ball?"
"Fourteen. You may recall my telling you about it when you returned to the Embassy after the Occupation. When I think on it, it doesn't seem possible I was ever that young."
"Sometimes I wonder if you were ever young at all," Gordon replied. "You must have been carrying messages by the time you were ten or eleven. There we were---two innocent English children exchanging a few words, a basket of bread, fresh-gathered eggs, a flagon from the Casa Audley for the evening table." He broke off. "Do you miss it, Cat? Do you wish you were back in Lisbon?"
For several measures Cat did not reply. The colorful gowns of the women swirled around her, punctuated by the precise black and white Beau Brummel dictated for the men. Suddenly, there was a glitter of mirrors. The dress of the men changed to a sea of blue. She was fourteen. Dancing with Blas. Flirting---badly---with a Marshal of France. Terrified. Rescued by a French major who, more rightly, should have been arresting her.
"No," she replied to Gordon, "I don't miss it as much as I thought I would. If I could go back and find Papa there, and Blas not forever running off to the mountains, then I would leave all this behind without a backward look. But that life is gone now. It will not come again." Cat looked up into the sympathetic eyes of this, her oldest friend, and added quite truthfully, "What lies ahead is unclear. We shall simply have to wait and see."
As the musicians brought the lilting music to a lingering note of finale, Cat shook off her melancholy. "Now, if you please, take me to Amabel," she commanded.
"It is not at all nice you may dance the waltz and I may not," Amabel cried. "But you and Mr. Somersby quite outshone them all!" She clapped her hands. "I have it. We shall have a waltzing party. And then I shall be ready when I have been given permission to waltz. Oh, mama, do say we might. Catherine and Mr. Somersby shall show us all how to go on, for I know the waltz will be all the rage this season. There is bound to be the most grand celebration when the war is ov---"
"Hush!" said Catherine sharply. "Do not say it aloud. There is too much talk of victory. I have grown superstitious, I fear. Say rather that we expect to have cause to celebrate."
Catherine looked up to find an expression of astonishment on Gordon Somersby's normally pleasant features. "Cat!" he muttered in strangled tones.
Amabel, following his gaze, shrieked then clapped a hand firmly over her mouth. Her mother's horrified gaze turned to delight as all eyes focused on the newest guest to enter the ballroom. A broad-shouldered young man in impeccable evening clothes was nonchalantly surveying the ballroom through his quizzing glass.
"It's Anthony!" Amabel bubbled. "I cannot believe he has left his cows or sheep or whatever it is he raises in Derbyshire." Amabel's adoring gaze was drawn back to the striking young man who was now being greeted with enthusiasm by several of the younger gentlemen in the crowded ballroom. Eyes clinging to Anthony Trowbridge, her heart on her sleeve, Amabel added, "I am so glad you are going to have an opportunity to meet him, Catherine. You will like him excessively, I know you will."
Frantically, Gordon Somersby tried to catch Cat's eye, but she was staring at the newcomer with as much fascination as Amabel. She had no difficulty understanding his attraction for Amabel Lovell. At that moment, however, she doubted she would like him excessively.
He did not look at all like a farmer. He stood there in the doorway, every inch of his arrogant stance proclaiming him the son of one of England's premier dukes. His waving black hair was arranged in a halo around his aristocratic head. His black and white evening ensemble was exactly as proclaimed by Beau Brummel. Even across the room a diamond could be seen glittering in the perfection of his cravat. He was Anthony Trowbridge, son of Sebastian, Duke of Marchmont.
He was Don Alexis Perez de Leon. Blas. The Bastard.
Each was so adept at deception, Lord Anthony and his sometime bride had no trouble finding a private moment later in the evening. "There is a morning room at the rear of Everingham House," Cat stated from behind a set social smile designed to allay the curiosity of anyone who might be observing their momentary tête-à-tête. "Overlooking the gardens," she added on a hiss. "Be there. Tonight. I shall light a candle." Cat's eyes glittered as coldly as the emeralds which framed the pale perfection of her face. Lord Anthony's white teeth flashed. Don Alejo at his most charming. An almost imperceptible nod, and he was gone. Moving off into a welcoming bevy of old acquaintances.
Lord Anthony Trowbridge regarded the brick wall behind Everingham House with a jaundiced eye. Cat had not mentioned it. Nor the close proximity of the mews and the sleeping stable boys. Obviously, she wished him to suffer a bit. Not that he blamed her.
Peeling off his tight-fitting black tailcoat, Anthony handed it to the hackney driver along with his waistcoat and cravat. His white shirt shone like a beacon in the London night. His lips tilted in a wry grin. How fortunate detection would bring only embarrassment instead of death.
Women could be a very great trial, Anthony decided as he gazed at the forbidding wall. And this woman in particular had brought him more than his share of anguish. Yet he was not free to say the words which could cut the tangle they had made of their lives. Anthony's heartfelt sigh of resignation echoed through the dark alley. He leaped for the top of the fence, clung there a moment, thinking what the watch would say if they saw him. Then he hauled himself up, scrambled over the top, and dropped lightly down onto the crunchy brown of plants frozen under a thin blanket of snow.
He scanned the rear of the house. Light a candle, would she? The sarcasm had not escaped him. As he drew closer to the house, a faint sliver of light shone through a slit in the draperies covering a pair of French doors. He had been at war too long not to be cautious. Approaching from the side, he peered into the room. And swallowed hard. Cat en déshabillé was a sight which inevitably unnerved him.
She had definitely undressed for the occasion. Artfully, carefully arrayed, she was stretched full length on the sofa, a quilted robe of turquoise silk not quite concealing a nightgown of white. Nearly transparent white. Anthony swallowed hard. Cat's hair was loose, the red-gold strands tumbling to her waist. He leaned back against the door and shut his eyes, his mind echoing with anguished words said long ago. Damn and damn and damn! She was taunting him. This would be the last time. Absolutely the last time. He could not maintain the masquerade much longer.
With a soft click of the latch he opened the door and went in.
For Catherine and the man she always thought of as Alejo, there would be no longed-for joyful reunion. Even during Amabel's bubbling introduction, she had known. This was her husband's other persona. Her friend. Not her lover. Which had not kept her from making one last effort, the careful selection of her most seductive silk nightwear.
Silently, Cat watched as this English stranger, son of a duke---this man she thought she knew as well as herself---sat in the chair she had arranged with as much care as she had arranged herself. By the dim light of a single candle, they faced each other at a distance of less than two feet.
As had happened so frequently in the past, Cat's first words were not at all what he expected to hear.
"What are you doing here?" she challenged. "And do not say because I asked you to come," she added tightly, "because that is not at all what I mean."
"What am I doing in England," he murmured, thinking fast. Easy enough. He could actually tell the truth. "My work with the guerrilleros was finished. Thomas's network is shut down. Wellington is bogged in the cold and the mud. I am out of a job, so I came home."
The reply suited Don Alejo. But not Blas. Never Blas. Blas the Bastard would stay 'til he could forge Napoleon's chains himself. "You will go back, then?" Cat inquired.
Not bloody likely. "Of course," he agreed, tossing off the expected response. "You can't think I'd miss the glorious finale."
Cat caught the underlying cynicism, but was not overly surprised. Alejo's view of the world was frequently more detached than the fire and passion of Blas. She had known and loved both personalities for so long she seldom questioned the oddity. It simply was. As the war was. A reality she could neither understand nor change.
He was so close she could reach out and touch him. The tousled black hair, the aristocratic forehead and black brows, the strong nose, the full sensuous mouth. So familiar. So well-loved. And yet a stranger. Named Anthony. If she threw herself into his arms and cried the rivers of tears bottled up inside, what would he do? Pat her awkwardly on the back and exit rapidly into the darkness of the night?
Her path was clear. She would have to bear this latest blow alone, as she had always done.
She should be furious, but this was not her Blas. Blas would fight back. Or laugh at her. This was Alejo, so sorrow, not anger, colored her words.
"What was such a deep dark secret that you could not tell me who you were?" Cat asked. "If I had known . . . perhaps I might have had the sense to be realistic. To know there could be no dreams of the future. I would have understood father was right, that I must look elsewhere. I might even have been sensible enough to save myself for marriage. A real marriage. Certainly I would not have pictured us living in Lisbon, operating the Casa, raising our children."
Her words---so horribly true---stabbed him to the heart. To hide his anguish, Anthony turned his face toward the double doors leading to the garden.
Cat steepled her hands in front of her mouth, squeezed her eyes together in a vain effort to shut out her humiliation. "At least I choose to believe I would not have indulged in such stupidly false hopes," she amended quietly.
Silently, Anthony chanted a litany of the most profane words he knew. He ran his hand behind his neck, rumpled his artistically arranged black locks into a tangled mess. His fingers moved down to rub his forehead in guilt and frustration above amber eyes filled with pain. He reached out and took her hand. "It will come right, Cat, I promise you. Somehow I will make it right."
When he touched her, Cat stifled a gasp. This was Alejo who took such great care not to keep his distance. The Alejo who never came to her room, let alone her bed.
His hand should have been comforting. It should have sent shivers up her spine. But it felt . . . wrong. Firmly, Cat drew free of his grip. She twisted the sash of her quilted silk robe, winding it around her fingers, then tugged at the front of the robe, closing the gap which revealed the transparency of the nightgown beneath. Her gaze fixed on her lap, she said, "Amabel loves you, you know."
"She's a child. She knows nothing of love."
With sudden intensity Cat's eyes focused on his. "That is not true! Can you have forgotten so easily that other child who loved you?"
"Don't be absurd. You and I lived together, Cat. For years. I've had perhaps five conversations with Amabel Lovell in my entire life. And, believe me, none of them was intimate!" She was a child. With considerable feeling, he added, "Sometimes I think you never were."
As the silence stretched between them, Cat decided to let it go. Amabel was too sensitive a subject to be discussed at three in the morning. "When will you return to the continent?"
"I'm not sure." He lied with an ease which he had had some difficulty learning. "I should visit my estate in Derbyshire, then anything is possible. I might even decide to enjoy the Season with the rest of the beau monde. You may not believe it, Cat, but you are more important to me than witnessing Wellington march through the streets of Paris."
That nagging doubt again. The words pleasing, yet not right. Not Blas.
Anthony unfolded himself from the chair. Gruffly, he told her to go to bed, not to worry; they would talk again tomorrow. He kissed his fingertips, then laid them, lingeringly, against her quivering lips. For a moment his eyes glowed with a fierce light, then he was gone, out into the garden as silently as he had come.
For a long time Cat lay on the sofa staring at the draperies slowly settling back into place. What was in her mind was so monstrous she could not force herself to clarify her thoughts. How long had she known Alejo? When had the personality of Anthony Trowbridge first appeared in her life?
Not until after the French Occupation. The day she and Blanca had brought Thomas back to Lisbon. With Alejo/Anthony fussing every step of the way.
No child could have grown up around Thomas Audley without instruction in logic and deductive reasoning. Cat had, however, lacked perspective. War turned relationships to black and white. One did not question friends, no matter how odd their behavior might sometimes be.
Now---in London at three in the morning, when she had just held a conversation with a dear friend who was not, and never had been, Blas---she knew in her heart there was only one explanation.
An explanation which was totally, completely unacceptable. For it meant she must live without love for the rest of her life.
Alone in the library of Marchmont House, an imposing edifice on Grosvenor Square, Anthony Trowbridge raised his brandy glass to his lips with one hand while taking careful, if unsteady, aim at the fireplace with the object in his other hand. The object arced up, plopped down with a soft rustle, rolled to a stop just short of the glowing logs, joining several similarly crumpled pieces of parchment. Owlishly, Anthony surveyed the rejected letters which littered the hearth and rug. After a few choice murmurs of profanity, a fiercely determined scowl descended over his deeply tanned face. He dipped his pen into the inkwell yet again, dashing off two brief sentences. The fold of the parchment was askew, the wax an undistinguished red blob. The address gave him pause. What the hell---he'd have to wait 'til his head cleared in the morning. Disgusted, he tossed the missive onto the center of the Duke of Marchmont's imposing desk, glaring at it for some time before he proceeded to finish the bottle of brandy. Unlike Cat, he never made it to bed at all.
Late the following morning Cat discovered Blanca stretched out on the small sofa in the morning room, frowning over Pride and Prejudice, which had evidently struck some chord despite the difficulty of the English. Cat paused a moment in the doorway, appreciating the irony of Blanca occupying the same sofa where she had had her strange meeting with Anthony Trowbridge only a few hours earlier.
Although a fire was roaring only a few feet from the sofa, Blanca was covered from neck to toes by a heavy woolen shawl. She was holding the book up to the feeble winter sunlight filtering through the panes of glass in the French doors. Beyond the glass . . .
Ah, deus! Cat choked. Beyond the glass, footsteps were clearly visible in the thin layer of snow which covered the garden. With a sharp exclamation Cat grabbed the hearth broom from the fireplace, flung open one of the doors. Frantically, she brushed the snow until the footprints leading from the garden walkway to the morning room doors were dispersed into the frosted yard.
"Have you gone mad?" Blanca exclaimed. "Is not this English cold of mine bad enough without your wishing to give me an inflammation of the lungs?"
Instantly contrite, Cat closed the door, put away the dripping fireplace broom. She threw her arms around her friend, begging her forgiveness. "It is a very good thing you were not at the Hawley's last night," Cat added cryptically, seating herself in the chair Anthony had used. "Your cold would have been as nothing compared to the shock to your nerves."
Blanca carefully laid aside her book and regarded Cat with inquiring dark eyes. Which widened---suitably interspersed with exclamations of surprise, joy, disgust and finally anger---as she learned of the return of the Duke of Marchmont's prodigal son.
"Miss Lovell's Anthony!" Blanca fumed. "It is just as Tomás said! Blas was not to be trusted. He is a beast! A monster. Ah, if only I had been in this room last night, I would have defended you with the poker."
"There was no need for defense," said Cat with a sigh. "He had no interest in my person."
"But it has been months!" Blanca was horrified. As wife to a highly virile português and mistress to an Englishman of similar proclivities, she found Blas's attitude incomprehensible. No promise should be sufficient to keep a man from his wife. Particularly when he had just come home from a war. Blanca paused to blow her reddened nose on the fine lawn handkerchief tucked into her reticule. "Did he say nothing of what he intends to do?"
"Not a word. It was like a scene from a play. We mouthed words dictated by someone else, feeling our way, saying what we thought we should, not what we truly wished to say."
Outside, the sun had disappeared, the wind had come up, and it looked as if it might come on to snow at any moment. Cat pulled her own woolen shawl more tightly about her shoulders. "We were two people who knew each other in another lifetime. Last night we were not only strangers, we did not even speak the same language."
"I cannot believe Tomás wished you to suffer in this manner," Blanca declared. "Do you wish to return to Lisbon? If so, I do not think you should feel bound by your promise."
Large wet snowflakes began to fall, drifting down to cover Cat's frantic brushings with a pristine coat of white. The sunny days and gently chilly nights of Lisbon had never seemed so far away. "I have this terrible fear," Cat admitted. "I want to run back to Lisbon where everything is warm and familiar. Where I knew love. And yet . . . somehow I have begun to suspect Papa was right---my life lies here in England. It would be so easy to turn tail and run, but can you not see the scorn in his eyes if I did so? Even Blas would think me a coward. No, I will play the hand that has been dealt, even though I fear it is obvious someone is fuzzing the cards."
Blanca studied Cat with some anxiety before nodding her acceptance. "Then it is settled. We will contrive. Does Lady Clara know of this thing?"
"No! No one must know." Cat's face fell, eyes widening as further complications struck her. "Gordon knows, of course. And when the soldiers start to return . . . Ah, it is impossible! The devil! How could he do this to me?"
The son of the Duke of Marchmont, whom no one had seen in London in years, was inevitably the most sought-after guest in London. Cat was not at all surprised to see him at a rout party that very night. In a few snatched moments behind a pillar he attempted to calm her fears. "I see no sense in pretending we don't know each other," said Anthony calmly. "It's bound to come out that I haven't spent the last few years in Derbyshire, and there's no reason we could not have met in Lisbon."
"But what if someone recognizes you as Don Alejo?"
"I shall simply put my quizzing glass and come the son of a duke all over them. 'I, my dear sir? In mother-of-pearl buttons and a satin sash? Surely you jest!'"
Cat swatted him on the arm. "Don't be absurd. This is serious---my reputation would be in shreds."
"Part of the reason I came back early was to protect you. To control any rumors."
Protect her! After all he had done to ruin her. "The son of a duke may be forgiven anything," Cat snapped. "A girl from a gaming house in Lisbon is ruined if her marriage should be shown to be false."
"A virgin would be ruined. A widow with a shady past is merely found to be more intriguing."
In the nick of time Cat remembered where she was and did not hit him. Later, she realized it was the most Blas-like remark she had ever heard Alejo make.
The weather did not cooperate with Anthony's plan to visit his estate in Derbyshire where he had hoped to keep a safe distance between himself, his alleged widow, and his prospective fiancée. The bitter cold increased each day. Within two weeks of the fateful ball at Hawley House, the winter of 1814 surpassed itself. Not since Elizabethan times had the Thames frozen solid. From London Bridge to Blackfriars signs were posted at every cross street announcing that citizens could now walk across frozen river. And, as in bygone times, enterprising merchants quickly erected a hodgepodge city of tents along what was dubbed "Freezeland Street," an icy thoroughfare running down the center of the river.
An enthusiastic discussion of this winter phenomenon in the Lovell's drawing room during a visit from Lord Anthony resulted in the organizing of an excursion to the Frost Fair. The Earl of Wrexham arrived back in London just in time to be dragooned into joining what he sourly termed "the infantry." His consolation was that he was expected to escort Catherine Perez. No one but Lord Anthony seemed surprised by this assumption.
It was a thoughtful Lord Wrexham who arrived at Everingham House early on the chosen afternoon. His welcome on his return two days earlier had been filled with gratifying warmth, but he sensed that something momentous had happened in his absence. There was a brittle edge to Catherine Perez's cool self-possession, a droop to a carriage which had been proud and regal. A grimness about a mouth which had been soft and inviting. Lord Wrexham, his considerable intelligence alert to every nuance, set out for the Frost Fair with more interest than he had expected. He was a man with a puzzle to solve.
With the addition of Gordon Somersby and Adelaide Hawley, the Frost Fair excursion party numbered six. Flora Hawley, who was susceptible to the cold, elected to stay home. As they approached the area north of the Frost Fair, the crush was so great they were forced to walk several blocks through the dirty trampled snow. The ladies were in high spirits, rather enjoying the slippery conditions which allowed them to cling to the strong arms of the gentlemen.
As Catherine turned to smile her thanks for the earl's tight grip which had just saved her from slipping into the gutter, Lord Wrexham was pleased to note she seemed to have put off her melancholy. As they negotiated the last block down to the river, the raucous notes of an impromptu band could be heard over the growing murmur of the crowd. As one, their small group increased its pace, plunging down the sloping street to the mound of snow and ice along the riverbank.
"Oh, I can scarce believe it!" cried Amabel. They stood out of the way of the streams of fairgoers and simply gazed at the striking scene along the frozen Thames.
"It would seem Red Indians are not the only ones who know how to build teepees," said Wrexham in his usual dry manner.
"Ingenious," Gordon Somersby agreed.
Anthony did not hear either comment. Having decided, quite arbitrarily, that he was tired of playing other people's games, he was completely himself that afternoon. He would indulge his long-standing camaraderie with Cat with blithe disregard for how it might appear to others. Intrigued by the logistics of this solid but fleeting city on ice, Anthony was busy analyzing how it was possible to build a city of tents in an area where a peg hammered into the ice could mean disaster. "Look at that, Cat," he said, pointing to the wooden platform on which the nearest tent was built. "Two pairs of triangular beams, some rope, a crosspole, a large canvas---et voilà, instant fair booth."
Catherine, Wrexham noted wryly, was as fascinated as Lord Anthony expected her to be, her green eyes sparkling as they took in the ephemeral expanse of ice and snow. How could Trowbridge know she would be interested? And how was it he addressed her with such familiarity when the earl himself would not take such a liberty in public? Wrexham glanced up in time to surprise a look of anxiety from Gordon Somersby. So Somersby had also noticed Trowbridge's familiarity with Mrs. Perez . . . and hoped her escort had not. A trifle annoyed, as well as intrigued, Lord Wrexham heightened the intensity of his vigil.
In spite of gray skies and a further threat of snow, the fair was far from colorless. The ice and snow provided an ideal backdrop for the colorful raiment of the fairgoers, the raucous cries of vendors of every sort of food and drink from gin to gingerbread, and booths featuring nearly everything from barbering to books to games of chance.
With a cheerful cry of "Tally Ho!" Lord Anthony suddenly plunged down the snowbank, turning to proffer a hand to each of the ladies, leaving Lord Wrexham and Gordon Somersby to bring up the rear. The group had no sooner started down the nearest row of booths along Freezeland Street when Gordon called a halt.
"You're not!" cried Cat. "Gordy, you cannot actually eat those things."
"A shocking comment from someone who was practically raised on fish," Gordon retorted. "I like oysters," he added plaintively. "Ale---Lord Anthony likes 'em too, do you not?"
Since Anthony was in the midst of casting some coins down onto the counter while the vendor dished up a platter of raw oysters floating in their pearly gray shells, he could scarcely deny it. Though he had to stifle a groan over Somersby's slip of the tongue. It was rapidly becoming plain they were destined to pay dearly for their long years of masquerade.
Amabel Lovell and Adelaide Hawley stood by during the purchase of the oysters, both girls wide-eyed and murmuring unladylike noises for which their mothers would have chastised them severely. As Anthony tilted a crusty shell, sliding the whole oyster into his mouth, Cat caught sight of the shining inside of the empty shell and her lips began to twitch. She caught Anthony's eye. "Mother of pearl," she murmured. Anthony came perilously close to choking on his oyster.
The Earl of Wrexham was not opposed to oysters, but somehow the thought of slurping raw crustaceans only slightly warmer than the ice all around them, and in the company of three young ladies who looked horrified at the very thought, stayed his hand. He was not unconscious of the irony of the situation. That he had reached the age where he considered his dignity before his appetite was not the most salubrious revelation of the day. He escorted the ladies to the next tent where he bought four extremely savory sausage pies.
By the time the last pie had disappeared, Wrexham's dignity had flown off with the icy wind whipping up the basin of the Thames. The three ladies twisted and turned, thrusting their faces forward past the hems of their heavy cloaks as they attempted to eat their pies while avoiding the juices dripping from the succulent creations. Their giggles became bubbling trills of laughter, which dissolved Wrexham's composure into outright amusement. As the group of six set off for further exploration of the booths along Freezeland Street, Lord Wrexham was rewarded by a look of warm regard from Catherine's sparkling green eyes.
The ladies paused over the bookstalls; the gentlemen hovered over the games of chance. Cat and Anthony exchanged reminiscent glances as Gordon Somersby indulged in two turns of the Wheel of Fortune. "Oh, look!" Amabel called. "We must try the swings. Do say that we might, Catherine."
Until that moment Cat had not considered herself a chaperone to the two younger girls. Adelaide Hawley was, in fact, nearly her own age, but being married gave Catherine Perez seniority. Firmly, she turned her head away from the dancing lights in Anthony's eyes. "Of course we will try the swings," Cat declared. "I trust you gentlemen do not consider yourself above such fun?" she added dryly, peeking up at Wrexham.
"I am at your service," he returned, though his jaw could be seen to be working under some strong emotion. It could only be hoped none of his friends would think of attending the Frost Fair, or he would never hear the end of it!
The swings were two large boats shaped like half-moons. Each was suspended from heavy beams constructed in similar fashion to the tent supports. There was a bench wide enough for two on each side of the swings. Cat found herself seated beside Wrexham and across from Anthony and Amabel. Gordon and Adelaide Hawley shared the second swing with a young couple who had been waiting for two more to balance their ride.
As the stalwart operators began to push the swings, Adelaide Hawley let out a tiny shriek, then blushed crimson, glancing at Catherine in apology. Cat, however, clung unashamedly to Wrexham's arm as the swing rose higher and higher. Her eyes shone as she looked out over the crowds thronging the nearby tents; her grip tightened on the earl's arm. With a smile of satisfaction Wrexham steadied Cat with one hand while extending his other until he was holding her firmly about the shoulders. When he looked up, it was straight into a glare from Anthony Trowbridge's outraged eyes. Ah, but there was a puzzle. The earl began to suspect his relationship with Catherine Perez might be as insubstantial as the ice beneath the swing.
"That was wonderful!" Amabel declared when the swing finally slowed to a stop and they were all back on the snow-covered ice.
"Exhilarating!" Catherine agreed.
Gordon grinned down at his companion. "I am not at all sure Miss Hawley agrees with you."
"Oh, no," Adelaide demurred, "but I think perhaps I did not find it as exhilarating as Amabel and Mrs. Perez did."
Wrexham was still smiling. If it were not for his exalted rank, one might have called his expression smug. Anthony Trowbridge remained grim about the mouth.
They indulged in gingerbread and brandy balls, washed down with ginger beer for the ladies and something stronger for the gentlemen. The skies were growing darker, their toes beginning to feel little warmer than the ice they walked on. Just as they were considering bringing their day to a close, Cat spotted a printing press and darted off to view the freshly made prints. Anthony followed her, while the others were still finishing their refreshments. "Look at this," said Cat with great enthusiasm as he joined her. "A sketch of the fair with the city in the background. With such detail! And there is St. Paul's towering over it all. Is it not wonderful that someone could do this practically overnight?" As she spoke, she reached into her reticule to take out some coins.
"You can see it was done early on," Anthony noted. "There are only a few tents here and there, not the whole city on ice we have now."
He waved Cat's coins aside. As he reached into his pocket, they heard, "I believe this is my privilege." Lord Wrexham, shoulders set in a stiff line, moved up beside them to pay the vendor. Anthony, overcoming a strong urge to see Wrexham stretched full length upon the ice, bought two more prints to present to the other ladies. Cat, trapped between two strong-willed men, could feel the tension crackling through the icy air.
She stepped away from the bristling gentlemen and was returning her coins to her reticule when she felt a sudden tug as it was snatched from her fingers. A street urchin of some ten or twelve years streaked off down Freezeland Street, attempting to lose himself in the crowd. Without conscious thought Cat started to give chase. Her leather boots slipped on the ice and she sat down hard, her cry of alarm filled with more anger than fear. With all she had been through in the war, no one had ever before tried to rob her. Long years of reacting to emergencies had Anthony off and running twenty feet ahead of the Earl of Wrexham. Gordon, coming late to the scene, realized he could be most useful as escort to the ladies. After helping Cat to her feet, he turned to soothe the nerves of the other ladies who seemed more upset than the victim. "That's the girl, Cat," Gordon said softly. "Always was a Trojan." Al--Anthony will get him. Boy doesn't stand a chance."
Lord Anthony was not as fortunate on the ice of London as he had been in the mountains of Spain. The urchin darted around the back of a particularly large tent. As Anthony dashed after him, the heel of his right boot caught on the edge of the wooden platform. With his left foot still on the slippery ice there was only one chance of breaking his fall. He grabbed for the canvas of the tent and missed. He came down hard, slid nearly fifteen feet, demolishing a game of skittles on his way. His slide halted abruptly when he hit the hard edge of another wooden platform. He was still lying on his side trying to catch his breath when Wrexham caught up with him.
"Damned imp of Satan," muttered Anthony, much chagrined, as Wrexham helped him sit up. "Got clean away."
"Are you hurt?"
"Only my pride, I think." But when Wrexham attempted to help him stand, Anthony collapsed back onto the ice with a groan just as Cat hurtled through the crowd to his side. "Ankle," Anthony admitted through clenched teeth. "Don't think it's broken but it hurts like hell. So here's a pretty pass, my Cat," he said with rueful grin. "Survived five years of war to be struck down by a child in the center of the Thames."
"You must have the boot off," said Wrexham, momentarily ignoring the revealing byplay, "or lose it to the knife as your ankle swells." He started to kneel by Anthony's injured foot only to find that Catherine was already there. Fascinated, the earl watched as she deftly removed the boot, leaving little doubt she had had a good deal of experience with men's boots. Trowbridge's? Wrexham wondered.
Anthony had gone pale during this painful process, but by the time Cat finished removing his stocking in order to take a look at his ankle, he managed a lopsided grin. "Well, Doctor Cat, is it becoming an ankle of many colors? Cat? What's wrong? You're the least squeamish girl I know."
Wrexham gave Catherine a sharp glance but could see no sign of faintness. She had, however, gone quite still as she gazed down at Lord Anthony's injury. The earl knelt beside her. "Catherine, Mrs. Perez, are you all right?"
"Yes, yes, I'm fine," she asserted, returning with a start to the world of the Frost Fair. "Forgive me, I was merely remembering an incident long ago."
Lord Wrexham, deciding it was time to assume the responsibility expected from a man of his years and rank, took charge of the rescue operations. He sent for his coach and arranged for Lord Anthony to be transported to it. As they returned to their respective homes. the Earl of Wrexham was not the only person who found the day full of food for thought. Amabel Lovell was uncharacteristically quiet. Catarina Perez de Leon was the most quiet of all.
Catherine Audley Perez de Leon sailed through the front door of Everingham House. Ignoring Rankin's white-gloved hands stretched out to take her cloak, as well as his announcement that Clara and Blanca were entertaining callers, she ascended the stairs. Her damp cloak swirled about her ankles as her steps grew faster. Bypassing the murmur of voices, the chink of teacups in the drawing room, she entered her bedchamber, turned the key in the lock, dropped her fur-lined cloak onto the floor, tossed her bonnet onto the dresser. She sank down, knees shaking, on the edge of the bed.
Numb to her very soul, Cat sat without moving. Without seeing. Without hearing. The world, as she knew it, was gone. Had never existed. She had no idea how much time passed before her mind began to function, gradually coming to grips with the enormity of her problem.
She made an effort, fleeting and ineffectual, to apply logic. The pain should not be so bad, she told herself. Nor the surprise so great. Her head had long known what her heart would not accept. But now, for the first time, there was proof her worst nightmare imaginings were true.
Alejo had come home from the war. Blas had not.
Alejo had been at war for five years, he said so himself. For Blas, who left home in the spring of 1807, the war had lasted closer to seven. And Blas did not have five perfectly formed, undamaged pink toes. Not since he had come limping home from the hell of La Coruña. Had she herself not bathed his frostbitten feet that awful night so long ago?
When had she begun to suspect there were two of them? When Blas did not recognize the gown Alejo designed? Or before that, when Alejo pounded the top of his dresser, swearing at some unspecified villain, Damn him, damn him, damn him! Or, more certainly, when Blas came to her the night of her seventeenth birthday and did not seem to remember they had quarreled. Not seemed to recall that, only weeks earlier, he had rejected her.
Whatever . . . whenever . . . the truth was incontrovertible. For five years she had lived with two husbands. No matter that she had not slept with Alejo; it had not been for lack of trying.
A choked sob escaped her lips as she lowered her head into her hands. Oh, dear God, please grant me a miracle. Make it not so. Blas is my life. He would never do this to me.
In the late afternoon gloom Alejo's---Anthony's---words rang as loudly as if he were at her side. Cat, there is going to come a time when you will be very, very angry with me.
How very true.
But her anger toward Anthony was nothing to what she felt toward Blas.
Blas and Alejo/Anthony. Identical. Absolutely identical. Except for their feet. And their slippery souls.
Cat winced as she acknowledged the pun conjured by her errant mind. Thomas would have enjoyed it. As would Blas. Alejo's reaction, she suspected, would be profane.
As for herself, she could find no amusement at all in this diabolical coil. Somehow, her own stupidity seemed worst of all. She should have known . . . she should have known.
Had she not wanted to know? Was it so much easier to see just one, a master chameleon with a Joseph's coat of personalities? Or perhaps Judas was the better word?
Forgiveness was out of the question.
Forgiveness. Cat cringed as she recalled her behavior at the Frost Fair. She and Anthony had flaunted their friendship in front of two people who might be hurt by their thoughtlessness. Particularly Amabel who was a sheltered young miss with no way to fight her friend's careless appropriation of her adored Anthony. Wrexham, made of sterner stuff, was not quite so serious a problem.
Amabel . . . Amabel Lovell adored Anthony Trowbridge, and must be hurting almost as much as herself. There was little to be done for her own acute loss, Cat decided, but perhaps it was not too late for Amabel and Anthony. Cat penned a short note to Amabel, telling her friend she would call at eleven the next morning. Amabel, who was no one's fool, would understand the reason behind the brief message. Hopefully, her night would not be as sleepless as Cat's was going to be.
To Lord Wrexham Cat wrote a vague, general apology, promising to explain more fully when next she saw him. Her note to Anthony was more direct: You were right. I am very, very angry. When you are able, come to me. The front door will do. I shall not require you to climb the fence. It seems so odd---I always wished to meet Tonio.
All three notes were immediately dispatched to their respective destinations via a discreet footman. The reply from Lord Anthony was prompt. Can't even hobble, sister dear. Wednesday. Midnight. Scrawled at the bottom was a very familiar "T."
For a moment Cat was struck by the teeniest twinge of sympathy. No! She hoped his ankle was causing him excessive pain. Two days. It was just as well. If she saw him now, she'd be tempted to shoot him.
Lady Lovell, well aware of her daughter's misery since the Frost Fair, took Blanca Dominguez aside the next morning on the pretext of asking her opinion on the chair seat she was embroidering. The two younger women were left alone at one end of the Lovell's drawing room. Amabel's customary cheerfulness was subdued, her smile brittle as she regarded Cat with something close to hostility.
"Your father has been in government service a long time, has he not?" Cat began slowly. "As my father was. We both understand there are certain things we can never talk about." The hurt in Amabel's eyes sharpened into intense interest. "Anthony Trowbridge was one of those things," Cat continued with determination. She had not expected breaking her many years of silence would be so difficult. "Anthony was one of the men who worked for my father. As liaison with guerrilleros in Spain. That is how I happen to know him so well."
Amabel's eyes reflected a rush of consternation, pride, and a myriad questions as clearly as if she had been able to put her jumbled thoughts into words.
"I never knew his real name," Cat admitted. "When you first told me about Anthony Trowbridge, I had no idea he was anyone I knew. I was shocked when you pointed him out at the Hawley's ball. Quite frankly, we are both so accustomed to dissembling we reacted as if we were in the midst of a war instead of an English ballroom."
Cat leaned forward, earnestly willing her friend to understand. "There was no deliberate intention to deceive you, Amabel. We simply did what we have been doing for years---we pretended everything was as people expected it to be. Later, we realized playacting was no longer necessary. Unfortunately, we never thought how our sudden familiarity might look to others. I am deeply sorry if we have hurt you. However unintentionally."
Even the "we" hurt, placing Anthony and Catherine Perez on one side, Amabel Lovell on the other. Amabel's clasped hands tightened until the knuckles turned white. She bit her lip. "Do you love him?" she asked.
"As a friend, nothing more." Oh yes, of that she was certain.
A very special, very close friend. Even if she wished to wring his neck.
At almost the same moment Lord Anthony Trowbridge was enduring a similarly uncomfortable interview with Lord Wrexham. Anthony, ensconced in a wingchair with his injured leg propped up on a padded stool, waved the earl into the room with a wry smile. "Laid low by a street urchin," he mocked, motioning Wrexham to a similar chair before the fire. "All those years on the Peninsula with nary a scratch, and I come home to this."
Wrexham appreciated the deliberate candor. "I judged you had not spent the last few years in Derbyshire."
"I must offer you my apologies, Wrexham, but being secretive about what we did on the Peninsula is a difficult habit to break. Ca---Mrs. Perez---and I never intended to deceive anyone. It was mere thoughtlessness on our part. I was one of many who worked for her father, spending far more time in the mountains of Spain than in the comfort of Lisbon, I might add. I have known Catarina Perez for many years and count her as a friend."
Wrexham accepted a glass of madeira from the butler and sipped it slowly. When they were once again alone, he inquired, "I do not wish to offend, but I find myself highly curious as to your intentions in that direction."
"Really?" Lord Anthony was instantly his father's son. "I have no difficulty at all ascertaining your intentions."
The Earl of Wrexham froze, his glass of wine suspended half way to his mouth. Though illegal, duels were still fought over far less insulting words than those just uttered. "It is fortunate you cannot stand up, boy," he growled, "or we would find ourselves with pistols at dawn."
"Knee deep in snow," drawled Anthony, once again the languid invalid. "Very well, I don't mind divulging my intentions. I am going to enjoy the season while making sure that Dona Catarina Perez de Leon is treated with the respect and honor she deserves for her birth and for her service to her country. I will not stand idly by while she is besieged by men who want only her beauty in their bed or by those who see only a comfortable fortune wrapped in a particularly enticing package." Lord Anthony, his ducal forbears clearly imprinted on his proud face, added, "Is that perfectly clear, my lord?"
"Perfectly. But you have avoided the crux of the matter. Your own intentions, if you please."
Anthony studied his bandaged ankle with extreme interest. "You might say I look upon her as a sister," he said with deliberation. "A well loved and highly respected sister. I trust I make myself perfectly clear?" The scowl he directed at Lord Wrexham was sadly incongruous from his nearly supine position.
Wrexham's lips quirked upward in a rueful smile. "I admit my intentions were less than honorable when I first saw the beautiful widow but believe me, Trowbridge, she has enough integrity for both of us! Now, like you, I am her friend and hope to be more if she is ever free of her rocklike devotion to this mythical husband of hers."
"I would not count my chickens just yet, my lord," Anthony advised with his most gracious smile.
Recognizing the fragility of Amabel's emotions, Cat had been careful not to pursue the topic of Anthony Trowbridge beyond her basic apology. But on the following evening she made certain she was at a musicale Amabel and her mother planned to attend. At the interval, on the pretext of providing Lady Lovell with a glass of ratafia, Cat quietly engaged Amabel's mother in private conversation. "You have known the Trowbridge family for years, have you not, my lady?"
"Oh, indeed, yes," Lady Lovell replied. "Their primary seat is in Sussex, not far from Ridgewood, our own estate, you know."
"I believe Amabel mentioned that Anthony is a younger son?" Cat remarked blandly.
"A dear boy." Lady Lovell gave Catherine a small conspiratorial smile. "I must admit we have hopes in that direction. Alexander of course was expected to marry very grandly, but both fathers agreed Anthony would be an excellent match for Amabel."
"Alexander?" Cat asked, her voice far steadier than she felt.
Lady Lovell's kindly eyes reflected pain. "Such a tragedy, my dear. We never speak of Alexander, you know. There were such stories at the time, but poor Melisande, the boys' mother, never wished to speak of it, and Marchmont of course is quite unapproachable. There was some incident over the long vacation while they were still up at Oxford. I've heard several stories. Some say young Alex was injured in a riding accident, others that it was in a brawl. Whatever the manner of it, 'tis said he is incapacitated---either dreadfully mangled or mad from an injury to his head. He is believed to be shut up in his estate at Harborough---somewhere on the coast in Somerset, I believe."
Lady Lovell paused to wipe away a tear. "They were such a sight when they were on the town. The Trowbridge twins. They were as alike as two peas in a pod. On dit they could even fool their parents. And frequently did. And, my dear"---Lady Lovell leaned closer---"I have heard that on one occasion they actually traded mistresses. On a bet that neither chère amie could tell the difference." She sighed, drying her eyes as the audience began to return to their seats. "They were so close, those two. But now . . . now it is felt to be a kindness never to mention dear Alexander." She patted Catherine's frozen fingers. "I am sure you understand."
Yes, of course. She understood all too well.
Alexander. The Bastard Brother.
Cat left the Huntingdon's musical evening as early as manners permitted. At midnight she was seated on a Sheraton chair in the Everingham's entry hall, still wearing the modest gown she had worn to the musicale, a richly embroidered silk shawl with long black fringe pulled tightly about her shoulders against the cold. When she heard slowing carriage wheels, the cessation of hoofbeats on the cobblestones, Cat jumped to her feet and had the front door open before Anthony hobbled up the walk, leaning heavily on a silver-headed walking cane.
He was Blas to the life. Waving black hair, longer than the current fashion, amber eyes dark in the faint light from the gas lamps in the square. A face which had seen death, created death. Full lips that promised passion and fulfillment. He was Don Alejo. Anthony.
One of her husbands.
One half of her betrayers.
Balanced on his cane, the effort of movement clearly written on his face, Anthony came to a halt at the bottom of the short flight of steps. His eyes locked with hers. Guilt. Remorse.
From Cat, accusation. Yet once again, she felt an insidious stab of sympathy. This was indeed Alejo. Her friend. The designer of her wedding gown.
Heedless of the cold, Cat rushed down to help him, thrusting aside the heavy cane and taking his weight on her own slim shoulder. She was panting by the time they made it into the hall. "I should have let you suffer," she muttered as they moved slowly down the corridor to the cozy morning room at the rear. "I should stand and watch and gloat over your pain." She shifted her weight, maneuvering until her hand could reach the handle of the door, which was closed to trap the warmth of the fire within. The door swung open. Warm air enveloped them as Cat guided his steps to the sofa. "I should take your cane and make you crawl," she muttered as she closed her hand over the silver wolf's head which formed the handle of the cane. "Or perhaps I shall simply beat you."
Cat slipped out from under his weight, pushing him, none too gently, onto the sofa. He sat, looking utterly dejected, like a prize hunting dog discovered with a mouthful of feathers. She sank onto the opposite end of the sofa and simply stared at him. "How could you?" she asked softly. "How could you be party to such a thing?"
Anthony drew a deep breath, looked her straight in the eye. "He's the other half of myself, Cat. Older by only twenty minutes."
And that gave you the right to live as my husband?"
"No! I never . . . we never . . . Bloody hell!" Anthony grabbed a handful of jet black hair, tugging hard. "Do you have any idea how it was?" he grated through clenched teeth. "I was as ignorant as you. It was a lark, just another schoolboy prank. I scarcely took it seriously, never imagined it would last so long."
There was no doubt his anguish was genuine. Cat recalled the mysterious times she had seen him suffer and failed to understand the cause. "He has used you almost as badly as he has used me," she acknowledged.
"The difference," said Anthony, facing her squarely, "is that I knew I was being used."
Cat took a deep breath, dropping her eyes to the long black fringe she was winding round her fingers. "Did Thomas know?" she asked at last.
"No. He sensed something, though. I think that's why he was so determined to send you to England. He could feel there was some secret hanging over us all."
A log burned through and fell onto the hearth, scattering a shower of sparks. Streaks of dancing light lit Anthony's face to which the deep tan of the Spanish sun still clung. "Could you not have told me?" Cat whispered, close to tears. "Was I---who knew the strengths and weaknesses of armies and cities and generals and guerrilleros ---was I not to be trusted with this? Can you imagine the humiliation of knowing I have lived with two men? At the same time?"
"Cat, you've got to understand! You were a child. Thomas had been badly injured. Alex couldn't manage alone. No matter what happened, he and I always backed each other. He needed help. He sent for me and I went. Without hesitation. I was twenty-two, you were fifteen. A child involved in a false marriage to my brother who was always getting himself into one scrape or another. That you and Alex would actually marry never occurred to me."
"It was a game," said Cat flatly. "And I the most negligible piece. You were the sons of an English duke playing make-believe with a portuguesa of dubious background."
"It wasn't like that!"
"Yes. It was."
Anthony tightened his grip on the wolf's head, wishing there were something he could lash out at, someone to blame besides himself. Wishing he were not once again carrying his brother's burdens. Trying to make amends for his brother's wrongs.
Unfair. They were his wrongs as well.
"My British gentleman's illusions didn't last long," Anthony said quietly, "but the damage was done. Alex---we both---decided not to burden you with the deception."
"I cannot decide," said Cat thoughtfully, "if Papa would have killed you both or laughed until his sides ached."
"Thomas was a bit of a rogue. The complete pragmatist. I think he would have forgiven us."
"But I shall not," said Cat softly. "You . . . perhaps. Blas . . . no." She held up a hand. "No, do not argue about this. It is not something I can discuss. It hurts too much."
Changing the subject was a small grace in face of the massive apologies she was owed. "Tell me," Anthony asked, "what was it about my feet that gave me away?"
After explaining about Blas's damaged feet, Cat added a question of her own. "How did you manage to keep things straight between you? In all those years there were so very few mistakes."
"We had a pied-à-terre in the Alfama. A place where we kept duplicate clothing. For example, we had the jacket you gave to Alex copied. Left it out in the sun and rain for a month before I ever wore it. Things like that. We'd leave each other notes there, reports of what had been happening, incidents in the gaming rooms. Those last few years we were home so seldom it scarcely mattered. Alex stayed out of the gaming rooms entirely as he knew he had no way of keeping up with old faces. I was the only one left playing Alejo. On his personal visits to you he was always Blas."
Cat nodded. They were very clever, the two of them. Arrogantly, ruthlessly clever.
"There is another thing I don't understand," Cat added. "Amabel must have been thirteen when you left for Lisbon. And yet she speaks of seeing you more than once in the past five years."
"I was home twice," Anthony admitted. "Working with the guerrilleros in the south was never as demanding an assignment as Alex's in the north. It was easier for me to get back and keep the parents happy. And the Lovells. Though I didn't encourage the chit," he added hastily. Then, daringly, "After all, I had a wife in Lisbon."
He fought off the deliberately slow slap aimed at his bad leg. Cat glared. "To be precise, Amabel told me she had seen you three times in the last five years."
"Uh, well, yes," Anthony hedged.
"You will explain."
"Well . . . you probably know Alex came back the winter of 1811. That's when he made peace with the parents. And bought Branwyck Park." Anthony fidgeted with the wolf's head, shifted his bad ankle which was suddenly sending stabbing pains up his leg. Undoubtedly, an attack of bad conscience. "I'm not sure why he did it" Anthony murmured obscurely. "It's possible he was making sure my future was thoroughly attached to Lovell acres. But, to be truthful . . . I think he was doing his best to ensure my destiny was turned away from--um--from Lisbon. Whatever the reason, he visited the Lovells three years ago. As me."
"The devil," Cat hissed.
"Oh, surely," Anthony agreed amiably. "I didn't know about it until Lady Lovell told me just last week that I was particularly charming on that occasion. Even endeared myself to old auntie and her elderly cousin once removed. Gave me quite a turn, I can tell you. According to Lady Lovell, that was the visit that turned Amabel's head completely."
"Ah, deus," Cat breathed. "Hanging is too good for the two of you."
"Tell me what you know about the Duke of Marchmont and his wife," said Catherine to Clara Everingham the next morning. She had steered Clara and Blanca into the morning room directly after breakfast, not even waiting for Lady Everingham's daily meeting with her housekeeper.
"You are well acquainted with young Anthony, are you not?" Clara asked with her customary shrewdness. "You must be careful there, Catherine, my dear. It's quite well known he's intended for Amabel Lovell, and I cannot believe you wish to hurt the poor child."
"I shan't, I promise you," said Cat absently. "Now, please, my lady, tell me about Marchmont."
"The duke," said Clara firmly, "is a cold, arrogant, difficult man. As high in the instep as they come. But I have to grant him the courage of his convictions.
"The title dates back to Norman times," Clara explained. "Old enough to make the Hanovers seem johnny-come-latelies. But the family has been in semi-exile for years. Some blame Marchmont for the king's last fit of madness. I fear he favored Catholic Emancipation. There was a great deal of controversy at the time. Mutterings about marriage to foreigners. The poor king took Marchmont's defection very badly. 'Tis said he didn't stop talking to himself for days; he was ill for months afterwards. Marchmont was forced to resign from government, and he and Melisande retired to the country and have not come to town since."
"Melisande. She is French?"
"Yes. And Marchmont's mother was Spanish. The twins took after her, as you have only to look at Anthony to see. Alexander, the heir, is said to be mad. Or disfigured in a hunting accident. A very great tragedy which even a martinet like Marchmont surely did not deserve."
"So Lady Lovell told me," said Cat. "Clara," she added carefully, while Blanca watched in fascination. "There is something I must tell you."
Letters to the Marquess of Wellington in his winter quarters at St. Jean de Luz in France---particularly those forwarded from military headquarters at the Horse Guards---reached the continent in remarkably short order. As did the letter to the Marquess of Harborough enclosed inside one of the packets addressed to Britain's commander-in-chief.
When the two similarly titled Englishmen returned in a flurry of hounds and weary riders from a satisfying day of hunting, Lord Fitzroy Somerset, himself the son of a duke, passed along the letter written by Anthony Trowbridge to his brother Alexander. Wellington barely had time to change his clothes when he was asked to grant an interview to the Duke of Marchmont's eldest son and heir.
"Request permission to return to England, my lord," said Blas with uncharacteristic formality, his eyes grim, his normally full lips thinned into a determined line.
"You'd desert me, Harborough?" Wellington snapped. "Just as we're about to start our run to Paris?"
"Family problems, Sir. You've a dozen men who can scout France as well as I. And captured French maps which leave me with nothing more to do."
"True," the general agreed, "but friends are always needed." Wellington, who surrounded himself with young men of high intelligence and impeccable lineage, was loathe to see this one go. Alexander Trowbridge had never hesitated to speak his mind, even when ranking officers quailed before their commander's stinging tongue. "Sit, boy," the general ordered, "and tell me about it. Nothing wrong with Marchmont, I trust."
"No, Sir." Blas sank onto a chair close to Wellington's desk. "Wife trouble, actually."
The general heaved a profound sigh. "I had hoped to be of some help to you, Harborough, but I am the last man to give advice on wives."
Silence stretched awkwardly as each pictured poor ineffectual Kitty, Lady Wellington, so woefully mismatched with the abrupt dynamic genius already hailed as one of the greatest generals in the history of the world. There were worse things, Blas realized, than fearing half the men in London, including your brother, were in love with your wife. Or she with one of them. He might have found himself married to someone chosen by others. Some fragile, spineless daughter of the beau monde without two thoughts to rub together.
But he had not. He had married the right woman. The only woman. And---with Thomas Audley's help---made a terrible hash of it all. As his brother had made quite clear: By the time you read this letter, I fear Cat will know all. I can see it in her eyes. She has not yet realized what we did to her, but when she does, I'm damned if I'll handle this one alone. Come home and settle your own bloody problems. Before I take your place. Permanently.
"Sir?" Embarrassed, Blas looked blankly at his commander-in-chief.
"Catherine. Audley's girl," Wellington repeated. "Is she not in Lisbon?"
"London, Sir. Since September."
The general was never one to hesitate over asking what he wished to know. The scandals in his own family made it easier for him to speak of the unconventionality of others. "You'll recognize her then?"
"Oh, yes," Blas vowed with a rueful smile. "Though it may be more a case of, will she recognize me?"
For a fleeting moment Arthur Wellesley pictured the monumental confrontation destined to occur between the Duke of Marchmont and his eldest son. The equally dramatic reunion between the daring spy and his wife. What could be serious enough to send the boy flying ventre à terre back to a wife he had successfully lived without for years?
Wellington shrugged off the eternal war of the sexes. It could not compare to the game at hand. They were about to march into history. They would shatter the vast empire of Napoleon Bonaparte, forge the final links of his cage. And yet . . . Wellington was one of very few who knew what this boy, now a man, had done in the nearly seven years since he left Oxford and sailed to France under a smuggler's moon. The heir to the Duke of Marchmont had casually informed a friend at Horse Guards that he planned to spend his long vacation traveling to Spain by way of France. Would there, perhaps, be some interest in knowing what he saw along the way?
The logic was inescapable. If Blas the Bastard thought he must go home, he had more than earned the right.
Wellington scribbled a short note, handed it to Blas. "This will get you on board the next ship out of Passajes." He rose, clasped Blas's hand as the younger man bounded to his feet. "Come back to me if you can. I shall miss you."
Blas had never worn a British uniform---though he had spent brief periods of time wearing a remarkable array of other country's colors. But he stood at attention and sketched a creditable salute before turning on his heel and striding smartly out the door.
After a slow shake of his head, the Marquess of Wellington returned to his plans for the march on Toulouse.
Blas had a long journey ahead. Back over the mountains into northern Spain, across the Bidoassa to the port of Passajes. Then two weeks at sea. Ample time to contemplate his sins. To remember he was an Englishman. With a wife who just might have a strong grievance. A wife who might be very angry.
Furious.
A wife who might prefer his brother's kindly nature and even temperament.
Blas had a long time to curse Thomas Audley. And the fates keeping him from the final, triumphant march through France.
In spite of a continuing barrage of snow and ice, Cat fled to Branwyck Park. She fled from Anthony. From Amabel. From Wrexham. From the shock and speculation on Clara Everingham's face when she learned the truth. From Clara's excited surety her protégé was destined to be a duchess.
It was, in fact, the thought of being a marchioness, of one day becoming a duchess, that forced Cat to realize the futility of it all. Her marriage could not be salvaged. Even if Blas had not wronged her beyond her power to forgive, the enormity of the mésalliance hung like a wall of iron between them. Thomas had been right after all, Cat acknowledged. Her future lay elsewhere.
Wrexham? Honor demanded she tell him. The earl had been graciousness itself when Cat blamed the French occupation for the oddity of her marriage at fourteen. Even when she admitted her husband still lived, however tenuous their relationship might be, she had caught a mix of emotions in the earl's cool gray eyes. Keen interest in hearing the whole at last, an annoying hint of amusement. Bitterly, Cat supposed her tale was providing the elegant nobleman with the most entertainment of the Season. Did she also catch a flash of relief? If the Earl of Wrexham had succeeded in making the wife of the Marquess of Harborough his mistress, it would have been pistols at dawn.
Or would Blas not care? Cat wondered. Would he feel nothing but relief she had been passed along to a suitable successor? Isn't that what gentlemen did with discarded mistresses?
The day of reckoning had come. The moment she had deliberately ignored all these years. Cat pulled the oversized woolen shawl closer about her shoulders. She was sitting next to the fire in her sitting room at Branwyck Park, toasting her toes, attempting in vain to warm her soul.
When Britain's fighting men came home, a goodly number of them would look at Anthony Trowbridge and see Don Alexis Perez de Leon. And when Alexander Trowbridge came home, they would see the same. And recall a very young woman with red-gold hair who was married to them both.
They would remember. Speculate. Whisper. The whisper would become a roar.
Cat closed her hands over her ears, rocking back and forth. She would not be frightened off by the first hint of disaster. She was Thomas Audley's daughter, and she would return to the Everinghams for the official start of the Season at Easter. She had promised, and she would be there.
She would hold her head high. And smile. And smile. At the ton. At Anthony and Amabel. At the Earl of Wrexham.
And hold her breath, waiting for the sword to drop.
She had just one lifeline. A silent four-year-old who dispensed love as easily as he absorbed it. A small sturdy rock in the precarious sea of her existence. Somehow, Cat vowed, they would survive. A small French boy and a child of Portugal. Both lost. And far from home.
Alexander Blasius de Rochefort Trowbridge, Marquess of Harborough, sailed into Portsmouth on a naval frigate, promptly hired a coach and set out for London. As he left the coast and moved northeast, the roads showed more and more evidence of Britain's long hard winter. If it were not for the decidedly Anglo-Saxon curses which drifted down from the coachman's box, he might have thought himself back in the Pyrenees.
Blas propped his booted feet on the opposite seat, leaned back against the well-worn squabs and tried to rest. But now that he was close to the end of his journey every thought and fear of the last three weeks crowded in to overwhelm him. The heirs to titles such as his rarely had the occasion to experience jealousy. Particularly when the title belonged to a man of strikingly powerful appearance and equally dynamic personality. Blas had known jealousy only twice before. When he discovered his wife's wedding gown had been designed by his brother. And when that same brother had made her so damnably, ecstatically happy by having a copy made for her newer, marvelously fuller feminine figure. Something he should have thought of himself.
And now this. Come home before I take your place. Permanently.
But Tony wouldn't.
Cat wouldn't.
Hell and damnation! He'd given her a house, a damn fine house. Servants. Plenty of money. She had the sponsorship of a noble family, the companionship of Dona Blanca. He had even given her a child. What more could a woman want? It wasn't as if they weren't at war. Half the women in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland hadn't seen their men in years. Scarcely a family remained untouched by twenty years of war. What did she expect him to do? Stay home like some toothless tom?
He was being absurd and he knew it. Defensive. Guilty. Guilty of the deception of an innocent child. Of taking that innocence from her. Of falling in love when he was little more than a child himself.
What a glorious sight she had been that day, leaning over the balcony, red hair gleaming where it peeked out from under the oversized mob cap to fall in wild abandon over the pristine white of her bibbed apron. He had nearly lost the words of his song when he saw her. Green eyes wide and sparkling in the sunlight, an incredulous smile curving her lips as she stared at him. He had risen on his precarious perch atop a pile of kegs and sketched a bow. And something passed between them. A bond which held firm through seven years. A bond which he knew in his heart had not been broken. Could not be broken.
Would never be broken.
The bawdy ballad he had been singing that day was not the right sentiment for a homecoming. For his Cat. His lover and wife. The words of an old English ballad drifted up from the depths of school days memories. Minor. Modal. And haunting.
When I was apprenticed in London,
I went to see my dear.
The candles they were burnin',
The moon shone bright and clear.
I knocked upon her window
To ease her of her pain.
She rose, she let me in,
Then she barred the door again.
Lost in a lover's secret dreams, Blas almost missed the warning nagging at the back of his mind. His boots hit the carriage floor with a thud. Hell and the devil! What if she weren't in London? The village of Walmsley Oaks, a scant mile or two from Branwyck Park, was not far off the post road from Portsmouth to London. An icy blast hit him as he pulled open the window and shouted to the coachman. The change of destination accomplished, Blas readjusted his feet and lay back across the seats, thoughts of his fine, red-headed woman once again, more urgently, leaping through his agile mind. His Cat in the warmth of another world. Bare skin white in the moonlight, lying full length, flesh to flesh, a stark contrast against his own deep tan. The swelling perfection of her breasts tightening beneath his tongue. The small dark patch between her legs. The other lips his tongue did not neglect.
Arousing to aching stiffness, Blas groaned, shifting irritably on the unyielding squabs as he tried to find a spot of comfort. He bit his tongue, hoping pain might help, then forced himself back to the music, recalling long-forgotten words.
I like your well behavior,
And thus I often say,
I won't rest contented, love,
While you are far away.
The roads they are so muddy,
I cannot gang about.
Come, roll me in your arms, love,
And blow the candles out.
The haunting old song was still chasing through his head later that night as he rode toward Branwyck Park on a horse he hired at the inn in the village. He had changed his clothes, made a good meal, and seen his coachman and horses settled for the night. For he had not completely forgotten his promise to Thomas Audley. He could not simply drive up to the front door of Branwyck Park and declare that Don Alexis Perez de Leon had been miraculously resurrected.
His most charming smile won the undying devotion of the chambermaid at the inn as he asked if the mistress of Branwyck Park was in residence. So dazzled was the young maid by his rugged good looks and the indefinable aura of danger which clung to him, she scarcely noticed the coin he slipped into her hand. His instincts were as sound as ever, it seemed. His Cat was at Branwyck. Where she belonged. In the haven he had bought for her, the place he had created for her in case Napoleon overran the last outpost of English might on the continent. In case he himself had not come back at all.
And now peace was just around the corner. His wife was waiting. He was nearly home. All was well in Blas's world. Napoleon could meet his destiny without the Marquess of Harborough.
The night was so cold and clear he could hear branches crackling in the frozen stillness. A half moon glimmered on the thin layer of ice coating the endless blanket of snow. By day the warming sun of late March was beginning to melt the upper layer of snow, which turned to ice at night. The thawing of the long hard winter had begun at last. As well as the thawing of the long winter of his soul.
Blas was wearing the same heavy woolen cloak and scarf he had worn in the mountains. Beneath it was the well-worn sleeveless sheepskin jacket Cat had given him that first Christmas in Lisbon. He was so accustomed to the cold, he scarcely felt it. At that point he could have stripped naked and his thoughts would have been enough to keep him warm. The house loomed out of the darkness, a hulking black shape without so much as a pinprick of light. He smiled to himself. Midnight and all was well. Reached into one of his jacket's many pockets, he found the key he had carried for three long years. The key to a small door at the back of the house, not the great oaken panels of the front.
Moonlight glinting over snow and ice cast an eerie glow through the house, lighting his way to the impressive suite of rooms he had ordered redecorated for himself and his young bride. The hiss of tinder, a candle flickered, steadied into a solid glow. Blas lit an entire wall sconce of candles and turned to stare in wonder at what a few casual words had wrought. Rich red brocade, miles of black velvet, the gleam of gold embroidery. A lopsided grin quirked his full lips. Hopefully, he could be forgiven the dramatic follies of his youth. But gold embroidery? Surely he had never said anything about gold embroidery.
Blas's deep-set amber eyes drifted toward the dressing room door and the entrance to his wife's bedchamber beyond. Grabbing one of the candles, he strode across the room and slipped through the dressing room with the stealth of vast experience. He had always come home quietly. Even the night he had returned from La Coruña and struggled to climb Cat's balcony, he could have called out, roused the house. But, heartsick, desperate, he had fought the dagger-like spikes alone. To have her to himself. To drown in her love. And comfort.
To casually, unforgivably, rape his fifteen-year-old wife.
Shoulders bent, Blas leaned his forehead against the door to Cat's room, recalling his horror when he had waked the next morning to full consciousness of how badly he had used her. Later, with the quiet dignity of her fifteen years, she had assured him that she understood. Which in itself shamed him still further. His little Cat should not have been knowledgeable enough to understand that, in pain and exhaustion, he had mistaken her for his mistress. They never talked about it again, but theirs was a marriage born in violence. In a time of violence. And it was damn well going to survive the coming of peace.
Blas drew a ragged breath. Slowly, his fingers tightened around the doorknob, turned, gently tugged. A gap widened to reveal hot embers glowing in the fireplace of white marble. A rush of warm air hit him in strong contrast to the clammy chill of the disused chamber behind him. He slipped through the door, closing it softly behind him. An expanse of French blue velvet was drawn closely about the bed. He expelled a long-held breath. She was there. He was home. Truly home.
In one swift movement his scarf and the old broad-brimmed hat hit the floor; the cloak, the precious jacket thudded down on top. Boots were the devil's own brand of torture. If he'd said what he was thinking aloud, the air would have turned blue with his frustrated curses. One boot bounced onto the hearth, narrowly missing the fire; the other plunked hard against the rug near the bed. Socks, his Spanish breeches. His knee-length knit undergarment seemed almost as difficult as the boots. And damned uncomfortable to peel off, considering the rock-hard urgency of his need.
When Blas finished, he was wearing only the full white shirt, the wondrously ruffled shirt he wore just for her. For its marvelous wealth of exciting memories. The sharp, poignant recollections of temptation. And denial. The game they had continued to play even when there was no need. When they were no longer forced to turn away. When, at the end of the game, there was only the all-consuming culmination of their love.
In his eagerness Blas had lost his customary caution. Since the thud of his boot hitting the hearth, large green eyes had been peeping through a crack in the bedhangings. Heart thudding as loudly as the falling boots, Cat watched a shadowy figure scatter clothing across the wide expanse of carpet. There had been only the tiniest moment of doubt, a hiccup of time when she had nearly called out a stern challenge to Anthony. But the thought was fleeting. And unworthy. Everything about this shadow man was Blas. When he did not remove the shirt, there was no doubt at all. Perhaps the war was over and she had not yet heard the news. For whatever reason, Blas had come home. At long last.
Cat twitched the curtain back into place, snuggled into her pillow, closed her eyes. She was a pragmatist. Talk could come later. Much, much later.
Blas moved toward the canopied and curtained bed, his need urgent, tearing at him like some ruthless phantasm, spinning him out of control. He was on the verge of disgracing himself, he realized, like some virgin school boy, spilling his seed with the very first touch of flesh to flesh.
But no bloody school boy knew what he knew, had memories such as his. He thought he'd die of it. And he hadn't yet touched the blue velvet cage which cloaked his wife from his eyes, tantalizing his always vivid imagination like some carefully orchestrated prurient fantasy. Bloody hell! If he got any harder, he was going to succumb to pain before he so much as caught sight of the remedy.
And then his mind played a very nasty trick. What if, when he pulled back that curtain of blue, his wife was not alone? What if . . . what if the face he saw was his own?
For minutes on end he stood frozen, inches from the soft covering of velvet, unable to move, to reason, his manhood collapsing into limp ineffectuality.
Inches from him, Cat waited. And wondered.
Blas knew with all the certainty of twenty-eight years of brotherhood that Tony would never do such a thing. He might want Cat, be willing to challenge his brother for her, but he would do it openly, not sneak into Cat's bed like some thief in the night.
Intellectually, he knew it. As he knew Cat had had but one love in her whole life. And that love was himself. Her honor was, as always, strong, firm, and faithful. But while his love had remained faithful to her, his body had not. Sauce for the gander.
His stomach knotted tight. Heart in his mouth, Blas slowly drew back the bed hanging. For the rest of his life he would recall his shame in this moment of weakness. For she was there. Alone. As he should have known she would be.
He was so grateful, so shaken, he simply slipped into bed beside her and closed his eyes. Tremors ran through him, shaking him from head to toe.
"Blas? Blas, are you ill?" Cat hovered above him, her hair drifting down over his face. Her fingers caressed his forehead, his cheeks, rested against the quivering fullness of his lips.
Blas groaned. He had survived the war. And was about to die at home in his wife's bed.
Her hair tickled his senses as well as his skin. He was drowning in the scent of English lavender instead of Iberian musk and lemon, but she was his still his Cat. He was a man out of time, seeing, feeling---ah, God, how he was feeling!---but he could not move, could not react, could not speak.
"Blas! Are you hurt? Ah, deus, say something!" In her anxiety Cat threw back the covers. Frantically, she tugged at his shirt, their game forgotten in blind terror as she searched for wounds, the telltale heat of fever.
He choked on sensation. The soft swish of fragrant hair, the questing, anxious movement of her hands, tracing his shoulders, his chest, his belly, his hips, his . . .
He had made a rapid, and rigid, recovery from the shock of his imagined cuckolding. No ramrod for Wellington's cannon was more stiff.
With a gasp of outrage Cat rocked back on her heels, bracing both hands behind her on the soft down quilt. "There is nothing wrong with you at all, I see," she hissed. "Except that you were a long time at sea."
Blas licked his lips. No words came. No denial. No apology. His mind-numbing desire, his guilt, had accomplished what war never could. Rendered him powerless. Slave to only one thought. To become one with his wife. To touch and see and feel every inch of her. To measure her length with his. To melt body to body, flesh to flesh, until neither knew where one left off and the other began.
He could not remember skinning off his shirt, nor any movement at all, but suddenly Cat was flat on her back, pinned to the bed by the weight of his body. He needed eight arms, four mouths to do the things he wanted to do. To kiss her everywhere at once. To kiss the shining crown of lavender-scented hair, her ears, her eyelids, her lips. Neck. Breasts. Belly button. Thighs.
Oh, God, he mustn't hurt her. Not this time. He groaned. It had been so damnably long.
Blas nearly shot off the bed as her hand fastened around his manhood. A chuckle welled up from her throat. "There's no need to wait," she murmured. And guided him home. Opening herself to him as easily as if they had been apart only hours instead of eight months.
As he feared, in a matter of moments he had spilled his seed inside her. By the time he came back to the world of the living and could breathe again, his power of speech had returned. "That doesn't count," he growled against her shoulder. "Give me a minute and we'll try again."
She wrapped her legs and arms around him and held on tight. It was not a time for talk. The night would not end well, that she knew, but for now there was only love. The sheer joy of feeling his heart pound against her flesh. Of knowing she had power she had never fully examined. Power she had only begun to explore. Power she would never fully discover in this one night they had left of their love.
Cat held him tight, and waited. The next time, the initiative must be his. Her lips twitched in a secret little smile. Now they had satisfied pure animal lust, she never doubted his ability to love her as a woman should be loved.
Blas shook himself, clearing the lingering miasma of frenzy. With a long, shuddering sigh he rolled off her. She was cold. Bereft.
Without warning, Cat found herself flat on her stomach, Blas's hands riffling through her hair, caressing the golden red strands shining in the candle's flickering light. He smoothed his fingers over her shoulders, added pressure, found the tightness of her, the tension of desire that quivered beneath his touch. He kneaded and soothed, following his hands with featherlight kisses to her neck and back, to that small exquisitely sensitive place at the base of her spine. He skimmed the smoothness of her buttocks, trailed down across the backs of her legs, kneecaps, ankles, the inner arch of her small feet.
It was Cat's turn to die. From torture most perfect. She was boneless, mindless, long before he turned her over and proceeded to apply the same slow exquisite torture to her ears, cheeks, lips, and every inch he had not yet caressed with his hands and lips and tongue. Long before he reached the most private part of her, Cat was begging him to stop, to get on with it, else she would not live long enough to enjoy it.
He laughed and continued what he was doing. Until he was satisfied she had experienced enough little deaths to make up for his earlier loss of control. With a sigh of blissful satisfaction he drove himself inside her at last. This time he had earned the right to lose himself in her, to forget everything but the moment. There was no world but theirs. He moved slowly until he felt her breathing quicken yet again, then gave himself up completely to sensation, movement, color, light. When Blas felt her shudder beneath him, he gave up his tight grip on control and plunged over the edge into dazzling mists of delight far greater than he had ever known before.
Cat thought she knew the power of the act of love. She was wrong. It had never been quite like this before. Was it the long abstinence? Or that she did not have to share him with a war or a mistress? Perhaps it was simply a rare and beautiful moment sometimes granted to lovers. Though not, surely, a rapture which could be repeated.
Exhaustion swept them both away. In the predawn light Blas woke to the touch of hands applying every erotic skill he had blithely, shamelessly, taught his young and innocent wife. He lay there, a series of smug, satisfied smiles playing over his face, as she did to him what he had done to her hours earlier. Still drugged by sleep and sexual satiation, he was more amused than aroused until her fingers found his semi-limp manhood and began to move in a slow, insistent rhythm. Bloody hell. The little witch! Within moments he was once again stiff with desire. She took him into her mouth and teased him. Hell and damnation! It was wrong. All wrong. No woman should have the power to turn a man into a mindless idiot.
The first time, years earlier, when she had been on top, he had had to coax her, tease her to try it. Now there was no need. Cat shifted her weight over him, took him in. His hands came up to knead her breasts. She gasped, reveling in the thrill of it, the control that was now all hers. Dawn was nearly upon them. This would be the last time. Ever. The end of the life that had been hers for so long.
She would make it a fitting climax for them both.
Together, as one, they drove past heights thought unsurpassable, to a pinnacle where they spun out of control, so consumed there was no sensation left unexperienced, the world lost as they plunged into a timeless void. La petite mort. The little death.
The return to the land of the living was slow. The sun was sparkling off the icicles outside the window when Blas stirred, prying open his eyes to find his wife staring at him with wide, solemn eyes.
Time had run out.
An hour later, Blas, stunned by his wife's insanity, rode back toward the inn at Walmsley Oaks. It wasn't possible. She could not have sent him away.
She would change her mind. He'd change it for her.
Something else might change it for her.
Surely from a night such as this there was the possibility of new life. Not that he wanted her to come to him for that reason . . . Then again, he would settle for any reason at all. Blas's hands tightened on the reins; the startled horse slithered to an abrupt stop. Fantasy. Pure fantasy. He himself had given Cat the knowledge to deny him even that hope. A faint chuckle of laughter from the old witch in the Alfama seemed to whisper through the cool morning air.
Blas dug in his heels, the horse moved forward. To the rhythm of the soft squish of his horse's hooves through the snow and the mud, the last verse of the old ballad echoed through his mind. A mockery of his hopes and dreams.
And if we prove successful,
Pray name it after me.
And keep it neat and kiss it sweet,
And damp it on your knee.
When my three years are ended,
My time it will be out,
And I shall double my indebtedness
By blowing the candles out.
Blas slumped in the saddle, allowing the horse to find its own pace. Thin clouds obscured the sun, its pale sickly glow doing nothing to dispel the damp chill of the night. Mist drifted up from the snow, dulling the landscape. Except for the tight knot in his stomach---compounded of despair, guilt, and burgeoning anger---he might as well have been back in the mountains of Spain. Exhaustion, cold, and hunger were old, familiar problems, easily lost in strange new sensations of shock, fury, sickness of heart. He was Alexander Trowbridge. Marquess of Harborough. No one treated him like this. Most certainly, not his wife.
Bloody nonsense!
Then again, she had a right to be angry. He should have told her the whole when they were married. Well and truly married by the Anglican chaplain. At fifteen, Catarina Audley had been a woman grown. Strong. Intelligent. Capable. She would have hugged his secret to her, kept it from Thomas himself. But he had had to be the consummate Englishman. An arrogant, secretive bastard who could lust after her and still insist she was only a child. A child to be protected. A child whose decisions should be made by others.
He should have told her. Admitted that when he discovered he could not do it alone---could not run Thomas's network, the Casa Audley, scout for Wellington, and whip guerrilleros into line all by himself. When he sent for his brother, he should have told her.
Tell a child of fifteen she had two false husbands? Hell, no!
But later---when they were truly lovers . . . After a night of passion when she was soft and sleepy and satisfied. Too tired to fight. He should have told her.
But tonight, in his eagerness to be home, he had not thought about guilt, the possibility of anger. Nor had she. At least he had thought not. Their passion had been soul shattering, an affirmation of a new beginning. Of love which could burst to full bloom without secrecy or pain of separation. They had immersed themselves in a new, better world. Not an end.
Never an end. He would not accept it.
Blas forced himself to relive the pain of his last few minutes with his wife. She sat beside him in bed---prim as a nun, the covers pulled up to her chin---and told him to go.
Unconcerned, he murmured his lies with practiced ease. "No need to worry about the servants. I'm your husband's cousin, stopped for the night on my way to London."
"You will leave now. And not come back."
Still unalarmed, he had closed his eyes, settled his shoulders further into the soft feather mattress. "I've not forgotten my promise to Tomás, but we'll manage. We always have. And I can't leave without seeing the boy."
Cat had had several agonizing weeks to plan this moment. Her arguments were ready. "You do not understand," she explained patiently. "Whether you wish me to be your mistress or your wife, I am rejecting your suit. You will not share my bed again."
Blas's eyes popped open. He stared at her. A smile curved his lips. "Really?" he inquired sweetly.
"Realmente."
"You and what army are going to keep me out?"
"Your promise to Thomas will keep you out. There is some honor left in you, I think."
Abruptly, Blas sat up, eyes narrowed in disbelief. She could not possibly mean it. For a moment his agile mind went blank, words of protest dying unborn.
"I shall love you all my life," Cat declared with stoic calm, "but I cannot be with a man who would allow me to live with such a deception. Forgiveness is not possible. I shall find someone who will be kind, who will take Pierre and myself and demand only a good and faithful wife in return. If I do not find such a man, I shall return to Lisbon, to the life to which I was born. The child from the Casa Audley was never intended to be a duchess."
"If that's what's bothering you . . ."
"No! That is the least of it," Cat hissed. "You deceived me. Cruelly. And hurt your brother as well. His honor, and possibly his heart. You were thoughtless. Arrogant. Unkind. I can never trust you again. There is no way I can live with you."
He refused to take her seriously. Cat's fit of temper was his punishment. Well deserved. But he'd suffered enough. Time to end this nonsense. Blas drove his wife down hard, back into the pillows in a tangle of flying hair and arms. He crushed his mouth to hers, stopping her words, demanding she take them back. His body followed the rest of him, flattening her to the bed, ruthlessly pinning her beneath him. Cat bit his lip, startling herself almost as much as he. She tugged a hand out from under his elbow. Grabbing a handful of waving black curls, she yanked with the strength of weeks of pent-up fury. Blas's head snapped back. His teeth opened on a snarl.
Her hands were suddenly above her head, painfully gripped by his. Eyes glittering, he rose above her like some ominous black cloud. "You can't do this, Cat."
"I can. I will." In that moment he saw the love in her blazing green eyes turn to hate. The line between the two was so thin, so frighteningly, horribly thin.
With an oath he rolled off her, rolled out of bed. Consumed by guilt at his primitive response to his wife's intransigence and not above a good healthy rage at her idiocy, he hunted for his clothes with the stiff movements of a mechanical toy. Cat did not mean it. She would get over it. He would make sure she got over it. Thomas had said he could court her. Bloody hell! If that's what she wanted, then he'd court her.
Court her? After what they'd done tonight?
As Blas struggled to pull on his boots, visions---romantic, cynical visions---danced through his head. Flowers, bonbons, rides in the park, waltzing at Almack's. Jesus, he might be sick. Blas slammed his foot hard into the second boot, glanced at the bed from under lowered lashes. Cat was buried under the covers. Even her flaming hair was invisible. Extinguished from his life.
So here he was on the bloody cold road to Walmsley Oak. Cast out of the house he had bought for her.
No wife. No reunion with a small waiting child who had already had a bitter lesson in abandonment.
When Blas left the inn later that morning, he gave a new direction to the coachman. He would go home. To Marchmont. To Sebastian and Melisande Trowbridge, Duke and Duchess of Marchmont. His parents. It was time.
"You are mad," said Blanca flatly. "A fool. A woman does not refuse to be a marquesa."
"How can you say so?" Cat cried. "You know how he used me. I have no choice. Honor demands it!"
Blanca gave a most unladylike snort of derision. "Me, I am practical. A woman of reason. A woman who will one day be a duchess does not throw away her husband, his title, or his wealth. Nor does honor warm your bed."
"My husband is dead. I have an elegant piece of parchment suitably edged in black, signed with a flourish, and sealed with black wax, stating that Don Alexis Perez de Leon died nobly in the defense of his country on 3 August 1813 during the siege of San Sebastian. I am therefore free to live my life as I please."
"In the eyes of the law, perhaps," said Blanca most awfully. "Not in the eyes of God."
"Then you are as much my father's wife as I am the wife of Blas the Bastard."
Cat was sitting on the edge of Blanca's bed, where she had gone early that morning to tell her friend of Blas's return. Horrified at what she had just said, Cat clutched Blanca's hand in hers and fell to her knees beside the bed, her forehead burrowed into the soft comfort of the quilt. "Forgive me, Blanca," she begged. "Never, never did I mean to hurt you. I am so miserable, I do not know what I am saying. I want only to run away, to hide from what lies ahead. I think I shall die of this."
Only a slight quaver tinged Blanca's voice as she assured Catarina there was nothing to forgive. "No one understands anguish better than I," said Thomas Audley's mistress. "There is nothing to forgive. As I have told you, with things as they are, I do not believe Tomás would require you to go through with this Season. We may pack and leave immediately. You have only to say so."
"No," Cat declared, "I will not run away. Not yet. There must be someone with whom I can live my life. In Lisbon I already know there is no one."
"So be it." Absently, Blanca patted Catarina's hand. If only there were a church in this benighted country where she could light a candle to the blessed virgin.
Then again, like Blas, she did not really believe Catarina meant it.
She was wrong.
"Are you quite sure Catherine understands you truly wish her to be your wife?" the Duchess of Marchmont interjected before her son had finished all of his long and complicated tale. With grave intensity, Melisande Trowbridge regarded her eldest son from warm amber eyes which were the exact match to those of her twins. A petite Frenchwoman, she was the high-born daughter of the ancien regime who had been safely in England well before the Terror destroyed the remainder of her family. Her fierce hatred of the Revolution had shaped the lives of the sons whose birth had been so difficult there could be no other young Trowbridges to follow.
Owing to the skill of the duchess's maid, not a single gray hair showed itself among the waves of dark hair which framed her deceptively fragile face. Not all of the twin's single-minded determination could be laid at the feet of their father.
"But she is my wife, Maman," Alex insisted, pronouncing her name in the French manner, as he had from childhood. "How could she think anything else?"
"You must remember that I too came to this country as a foreigner . . ."
"Catherine is as English as I!" Alex interjected. "I beg your pardon, Maman. Pray continue."
"In truth, it is a great mésalliance," said the duchess. "If I were a young woman in Catherine's circumstances and a gentleman gave me a house and an income, I should assume one of two things. That the gift was a most elaborate thank you for services rendered or that you wished to establish me there as your mistress."
"It was a manor house, not a cottage in St. John's Woods!" Alex exploded. "Forgive me, Maman," he apologized once again. "Castle Harborough is entailed on the heir," he explained. "If anything happened to me, I wanted to make sure Cat had a home and the means to live in comfort. At the time I bought it, the French outnumbered our troops in the Peninsula ten to one. Lisbon could have fallen at any moment. Cat was my wife, I had to provide a safe haven for her." His eyes pleaded with his mother. "Surely Cat understood my reason?"
Or did she, he wondered, forcing himself away from his own arrogant assumptions. What had Cat said? Whether you wish me to be your mistress or your wife . . .
Hell and the devil! Did Cat think Branwyck Park was . . . No, she couldn't possibly believe . . . Alexander Trowbridge, Marquess of Harborough, ran agitated fingers through his hair. "Maman, do you think she believes I want her only as a mistress?" he stammered, light reviving in the depths of his amber eyes.
"It would make things much simpler," she returned thoughtfully, "for such a misunderstanding is easily corrected. But are you completely certain you wish to?" she inquired carefully.
Alex swallowed hot words. His shoulders stiffened into the proud carriage which was so much a part of him, whether he was Alex or Blas the Bastard. "I know what Marchmont will say, but I thought I could count on your understanding, Maman." His gentle reproach was soft, dignified, his hurt all too apparent. "And, Maman, I am certain. But you have not yet heard the worst of it," he added on a sigh.
Once again, Alex ran his fingers through his overly long waves of black hair. He stood, took a turn about his mother's sitting room, before sinking back into the chair he had vacated and telling his mother how Catarina Audley Perez de Leon acquired two husbands. And became a widow. All before the age of twenty-one.
"Ma foi, tu es fou! Et Antoine aussi!" cried the duchess. "It is no wonder the poor child has sent you away. That I should have raised two sons with no more sense than a flea. Bah!" she spat at him. "I am ashamed of you both. That I should live to see the day my sons---both of them---would compromise a poor innocent child. A close connection of Lord Ailesbury's! You are mad, the pair of you. Quite, quite mad!"
"Yes, Maman," Alex agreed meekly.
"You will tell this tale to your father," the duchess decreed, as if her son were eight instead of eight and twenty. "And I hope it may not kill him," she added ominously.
"Maman?" Alex pleaded, nearly as appalled as if he were still the wild young boy who suffered almost daily chastisement from the austere duke.
She hardened her heart to his look of entreaty. "Now," she commanded. "You will find him in the library."
Even as her eyes followed her son, her idiot son, from the room, Melisande Trowbridge was making plans. They were much alike, the Trowbridge men. So sure they knew what was right for the world, they simply failed to see problems from another person's point of view. Thus had the duke lost his influential position in the government. But now the old king was too far into madness to be aware of the Duke of Marchmont.
First, however, there was the no small matter of persuading Sebastian Trowbridge he wished to aid his son in the battle to regain his wife. For a young woman who had enough character to reject the lofty position of Marchioness of Harborough was to be cherished. Possibly, at long last, there would be a daughter worthy of the Trowbridge name.
Sebastian Trowbridge was not at his desk. He sat before the fire toying with a snifter of brandy, as he had been since his eldest son followed his brief greeting with an urgent request to speak with his mother in private, neatly bypassing his father who was waiting to greet the son he had not seen in three years. Only a few strands of charcoal black remained among the long gray hair the duke wore caught back and banded by a black velvet ribbon in the style of an earlier age. Though his next birthday would be his sixtieth, the duke's thin face was still handsome, as blatantly patrician as his son's was not.
The Duke of Marchmont never doubted the amount of mischief his son had got up to in the past seven years. There had scarcely been a peaceful moment since the day Alex preceded his brother into the world. The only thing which had changed in seven years was the duke himself. He had mellowed with age. He already knew most of what Alexander was telling his mother, for Anthony had thrown discretion to the winds and done his best to smooth his brother's homecoming. Nor had the duke failed to read his younger son's role between the lines of praise for Alex. His sons were heroes. There was almost nothing they could have done at that point to make him angry.
The matter with Ailesbury's young cousin was unfortunate but, knowing Alexander, the boy might well have come home with some Spanish whore. Best to swallow his tongue and leave well enough alone. Marchmont was aware he had no talent for reconciliation. His own or his son's. But family pride demanded that he try. It was time for the Trowbridges---all of them---to return to London. No doubt Melisande would be pleased. It had been a long exile. And it seemed someone must keep an eye on their dashing, headstrong sons.
A knock on the library door was followed by the entrance of his heir, for once looking suitably contrite instead of defiant. The duke waved a negligent hand toward the wing chair opposite his own. "Sit, Harborough," he commanded. "Pour yourself a brandy, I presume you will need it. Even the highlights of your past seven years will undoubtedly be demanding. Should I, perhaps, order the killing of a fatted calf?"
The war ended almost quietly, without the Trowbridge twins or Arthur Wellesley, Marquess of Wellington, who had shown them all the way. On the last day of March the combined troops of Austria, Prussia and Russia marched into Paris. Ten days later, on Easter Sunday, a captive Napoleon attempted suicide. The Duke of Wellington, unaware twenty years of war had come to an end, took Toulouse in the last, and bloodiest, battle of the Peninsular War. Within two weeks Napoleon sailed into exile on the Island of Elba. As word spread, all Europe breathed a sigh of relief.
Too soon.
As the Season of 1814 opened in London, word had not yet come of the eight thousand casualties at Toulouse. There was only mass rejoicing and eager anticipation of the most glittering Season in the memory of even the most elderly aristocrats.
Catherine's first action upon her return to London was to send for Monsieur Claude.
"For the love of God, he will kill you!" Blanca exclaimed as the golden-red tresses fell, one by one, like splashes of blood onto the white sheet spread over the floor. "In Portugal it would be considered he had just cause," she added ominously.
"C'est merveilleux," an insouciant and unrepentant Cat assured the stricken Monsieur Claude. "Continue, please. I know I shall enjoy the freedom immensely."
"Freedom to be a fool," Blanca muttered and quit the room, leaving the frightened haircutter to do his worst.
"O--oh, Catherine!" Amabel sighed on a long drawn-out breath. "I do not know if I love it or if I shall cry." She had arrived, brimming over with news an hour after Monsieur Claude's departure. Amabel stood, gaping, just inside the drawing room door as she took in the immensity of Cat's short cap of curls bound with a bandeau in the Grecian manner, a few artfully arranged longer curls tumbling over her ears and onto the nape of her neck.
Slowly, Cat pirouetted, displaying the full extent of the dramatic shearing, her red-gold fall of hair now shorter by at least twelve inches. "You will have to like it, I fear," she said lightly, "for there is no putting it back."
Amabel, recalling the reason for her visit, drew Cat away from Clara, Blanca and her own mother. "I have the most astonishing news," she confided as the two young women found chairs in a corner far from the others. "Anthony's brother Alexander is back in London. It was all a hum. He is not mad or disfigured but has been with Wellington all this time. As a spy! And, Cat . . ." Amabel was forced to pause for breath. "They are as alike as two sides of a clam---say nothing!---but Papa says Anthony was a spy too. They are both heroes. Is that not the most exciting thing?" Amabel's blue eyes shone with adoration.
Unable to summon kind words about either Trowbridge twin, Cat merely smiled and nodded, agreeing with Amabel's every word. So Blas, the miserable bastard, was in London, staying at Marchmont House with Anthony. His first act, to call upon the Lovells.
Cat's smile faded to a grim line; her eyes glittered. Just because she had sent him away did not mean he was entitled to call upon the Lovells before he called upon the Everinghams. Of course, if he did call, his wife would not be at home. Former wife.
Catherine Audley Perez would not be at home.
"Catherine? Catherine!" Amabel, satisfied she once again had her friend's attention, looked over her shoulder at her mother and the other ladies huddled near the fire. She pulled her chair closer to Cat. "You simply must tell me about Lord Byron," she said in an urgent whisper. "Simply everyone is talking, but when I come near they fall silent and will not say a word beyond the usual bland on dits. I know about Caroline Lamb, of course. Who does not? She threw herself at him so shockingly Mama says everyone felt quite sorry for him." Amabel fixed her friend with beseeching eyes. "He is so beautiful, Cat, and his poetry is so-so . . ."
"Naughty," Cat supplied drily.
Amabel grinned. "That too," she agreed, but I was searching for something more grand. It's wonderful. Exciting. And makes me feel so--so . . ."
"You and half the women in Britain," Cat said, cutting off Amabel's effusions. "I recommend taking his tales with more than a few grains of salt, my dear."
"He is so tragic." Amabel heaved a sigh. "You can see how he glowers when people are dancing and he cannot. I know he must suffer far worse pain than that of his poor foot."
"You have a good heart," Cat murmured, her cynicism slipping just a bit. She still thought of the now famous poet as the earnest young man who had come to Portugal to find inspiration for his first epic poem Childe Harold. The young man they---she and Blas . . . no, she and Alejo---had found vaguely pathetic and amusing. Although she had not fallen under Byron's spell, Cat had to sympathize with his circumstances. Lame since birth, poverty-stricken, George, Lord Byron, had to struggle to survive on flamboyant genius in a world which worshiped conventionality. Living a life of exception rather than the rule was something Cat could understand all too well. She should grant the young poet a bit more tolerance.
"Really, Catherine, you must tell me," Amabel was urging. "What has he done that is so bad no one will tell me of it?"
Cat frowned. It truly was not a tale for an eighteen-year-old just out of the schoolroom. Her lips twitched. At eighteen she had been married for three years, was intimately acquainted with most of the Peninsular War's military secrets, and spent her evenings as hostess in a gaming house. And if Amabel Lovell was in danger of falling under the poet's spell, a healthy dose of reality might be best.
"Very well," Cat agreed with a decisive nod, but not before a swift glance to make sure the three older women were still chatting before the fire. She leaned closer to Amabel, keeping her voice low. "As you said, Caroline Lamb's conduct was so shocking everyone felt sorry for Byron. Lady Oxford even took it upon herself to--um--give him comfort."
Amabel's eyes danced. Here was scandal she had heard and vaguely understood. "Is it true they call her children the Harleian Miscellany?"
"I fear so. Lord Oxford must have been more disturbed over Byron than the others for, even though the war was still on, he took Lady Oxford abroad. And of course," Cat added with the worldly detachment of a young woman whose acquaintances had been primarily male, "Byron is not one to be alone for long. Unfortunately"---Cat took a deep breath---"this time he turned to his sister, his half-sister Augusta, for comfort."
"But surely that is commendable," said Amabel with a frown. "She is an older sister, is she not? Just what the poor young man needs."
"It was more than that," said Cat simply. "Augusta has just given birth to a daughter."
Cat felt old, infinitely world-weary, as she watched Amabel's eyes widen in shock. She had lowered herself to sullying the mind of a child. "I think he cannot help what he is, Amabel," she added gently. "We ask too much if we expect him to be like other people. Enjoy his poetry, but do not, I beg of you, make him into a hero. For he is not."
Cat patted Amabel's hand. Together, the two young women joined the older ladies for tea.
Two days earlier Alexander Trowbridge had walked through the front door of Marchmont House in London for the first time in seven years, calling the elderly butler by name, asking if his brother Anthony was at home. The butler, believing he was opening the door to Anthony, dropped the marquess's greatcoat and hat onto the black and white marble floor. He had to be helped to a chair by the grinning heir to the house of Marchmont. When the old man tottered into the library fifteen minutes later with a bottle of brandy, there were tears in his eyes. The housekeeper openly wept.
When Anthony returned from a satisfactory bout of sparring at Gentleman Jackson's, he walked into a house pregnant with emotion. Since the duke and duchess had not occupied Marchmont House in years, the place was lightly staffed, but it seemed every one of the servants was in the front hall, waiting for him, eyes gleaming with excitement. Since Tony had received a letter from his mother only the day before, he had no difficulty interpreting the situation. At the butler's nod, he moved toward the library with eager steps.
During their years on the continent the Trowbridge twins had managed to meet two or three times a year. Their natural bond strengthened by five years of shared experiences, they were, in fact, closer than they had ever been.
Except for one small problem.
Alex rose to his feet as his brother strode in. They grinned at each other quite foolishly until each stepped forward to wrap his arms around each other, their cool English upbringing forever warmed by their long days in Iberia. Alex poured his brother a brandy, and they fell into opposite chairs, legs stretched out, boots nearly touching.
"I have been told I owe you an apology," Alex said without preliminaries. "That I had no right to ask so much of you."
"Good God, who told you that?" said Anthony lazily. "You know I would have done anything for you."
"That seems to be the problem. I asked, and you did just that. Even as children, I was always the one who led you astray. And this time I seem to have outdone myself."
"Guilt? From you?" Tony mocked.
"That's all I've known since I got home. You'd think I'd murdered someone!"
"That too," Anthony agreed mildly. A man didn't win the respect of Spanish guerrilleros without accounting for his share of the enemy. And both Trowbridge twins had accumulated a great deal of respect.
Alex poured himself another brandy, downed it in one gulp. "I am indebted for what you said to Marchmont. You always could get round him better than I. Tony, the good twin. Tony with the kind heart and the silver tongue. You should have been born first, old man. Made everyone's life easier."
"If there's one position I've never aspired to, it's to step into father's shoes. Or yours," said Anthony with feeling. "And you bloody well know it."
"A-ah," Alex breathed, "but that's not what you said in your letter. You threatened to take my place, I believe. Permanently."
Anthony's hands went very still, his knuckles white on the brandy snifter. "You know I wasn't talking about father. And I downed two bottles before I wrote that bloody letter."
"In vino veritas?" Alex inquired mildly.
"It was a threat designed to bring you home. No one knows better than I that I can never take your place." Tony could not quite keep the bitterness from his voice. "Every time I came home, I had to watch the excitement drain out of her when she saw it was just poor, simple Alejo. How she could tell us apart when she didn't know there were two of us, I'll never understand. But she always recognized which of us was with her. The one she loved as a husband, the one she loved as a brother. Believe me, she knew. And, yes, it hurt. There were moments, I admit---there were moments I almost forgot . . ."
Anthony broke off, amber eyes challenging eyes exactly the same shade and shape as his own. "You do plan to marry her, do you not?"
"And if I don't?" drawled Alex, curious to discover his twin's reaction.
"Then perhaps I will take your place."
Alex gave up the game. His brother had suffered enough on his behalf. "I came home assuming I was married, that I had only to arrange a proper ceremony at St. George's and the widow Perez would become the Marchioness of Harborough. We would live happily ever after, our union blessed by the family, the ton, the Regent, and all the powers that be. Instead, I have been cast out of Branwyck Park, told not to darken the threshold of my wife's life, roundly scolded by mother, and sent to London to recoup my losses as best I may."
"Only to be challenged by me," Tony murmured, thoroughly enjoying his brother's discomfort. "Just what game were you playing, by the way, when you decided to charm Amabel Lovell in my name?"
'Insurance," Alex admitted smoothly. "It finally occurred to me I had created something which might turn on me. Cat's mine, Tony. Then. Now. Always."
"You might have told her."
"I married her. It never occurred to me there was a need to say it was forever." Simple. So very simple. Yet it had gone so wrong.
Anthony drew a long sigh of relief. One of them owed Catarina Audley marriage. And if Alex rejected his responsibility, Tony would indeed have taken his place. But, in truth, as much as he loved her, he frequently found Cat awesome. Even frightening. Far too independent and headstrong to make a comfortable, and conformable, wife. Nor did he care to be at outs with his brother. Now, together, they would find a way around Cat's anger. She had loved the man called Blas for seven years. How difficult could it be?
The next day the twins made their London debut by calling on the Lovell family. Each was burningly aware of the duty they owed Sir Giles and Lady Everingham, to Dona Blanca Dominguez. To their wife. But they let the day slip by without paying a call at Everingham House. And the next. On Alex's fourth day in London he sent a note of apology to Lady Everingham, explaining he was only honoring his wife's orders to stay away. He thanked Lady Everingham quite prettily for her care of his wife. And would the ladies of Everingham House attend Miss Flora Hawley's come-out ball the next evening?
Clara's eyes danced as she read the note from the Marquess of Harborough. It was quite as good as a play. More so. For she herself was one of the actors upon this particular stage.
Dona Blanca also received a note from Alexander Trowbridge, Lord Harborough. Clara and Blanca got together for a very interesting private chat. Both were women of the world. Neither approved Catherine's stand against her husband. With no effort at all, they crossed the line into the enemy camp, leaving Cat alone in the cold comfort of her pride and honor. If Alexander Trowbridge needed help in his campaign to win back his wife, Clara Everingham and Blanca Dominguez were more than willing to provide it.
Both ladies were forced to hide their smiles as Cat, eager for the satisfaction of turning Alexander Trowbridge from the door, seethed with rage because he had not given her the opportunity to do so. Clara sat down to pen a reply to the marquess's note, asking Blanca with tongue in cheek, if she thought she should warn Lady Hawley that Flora's ball might not go as smoothly as planned.
Malvinia, Lady Ailesbury, and her daughter Lydia were among the members of the ton pouring into London for what promised to be the grandest Season of them all. As much as they might have wished to ignore the widow Perez, they made the obligatory duty call to Everingham House. Archibald, Earl of Ailesbury---in spite of his stodgy and determinedly conventional behavior---had a strong sense of family. He left his wife and daughter with no doubt he expected them to recognize his cousin Thomas's child.
When Lady Ailesbury and Lydia were shown into the drawing room at Everingham House, they were perfectly composed, coolly correct, determined to be gracious even if they should choke on their own words. Until they saw Catherine Perez and realized the men in their family had failed to tell them all. Lydia had endured numerous broad hints from her brother over the Christmas holidays, but nothing had truly prepared her for the startling beauty of her cousin Catherine. Beauty which eclipsed even the most celebrated Incomparables of the ton. Including herself.
Only if one cared for red hair, of course.
Lydia was beginning her third Season, her statuesque brunette beauty regrettably overshadowed by a tongue as sharp as her wit. She was almost exactly her cousin Catherine's age, but there the resemblance ended. A good six inches taller, with a thin, willowy figure and large gray eyes, Lydia towered over her cousin. Her oval face was classically patrician with a fine nose, well-shaped lips, and delicately arched brows. Her dark brown hair made an intriguing halo around her damask rose complexion. If asked for an example of classic English beauty, most of the ton would have put forth only one name. Lady Lydia Audley.
The cousins greeted each other, smiling politely through gritted teeth. On Lydia's part, dislike was instantaneous. Cat, who had hoped for a friend, realized with regret that it was not to be. Lydia had inherited the handsome Audley looks, which had skipped her father the earl, but not the kind heart.
The ladies conversed, took tea with graciousness and charm. The atmosphere remained just somewhat above freezing. Lady Ailesbury, however, was no one's fool. On the carriage ride home she informed her daughter she was to make herself a part of the coterie of admirers which would undoubtedly form around her cousin. If the rumors which had begun to fly through the ton in the last few days were true, Catherine was very likely acquainted with the two most eligible men in England, Alexander and Anthony Trowbridge. And at least half the officers in Wellington's army. Good God, imagine that blacksheep Thomas Audley a spy!
Lydia, who was far from stupid, took her mother's words to heart. The exalted position of duchess would suit her rather well.
As early as half after nine, the Hawley's ball was brimming over with guests. A thousand candles glittered in crystal chandeliers and wall sconces, illuminating the color and gaiety of society's finest. Many had been trapped on their estates by the bitter winter, and now, on top of the freedom granted by the spring thaw, they felt the exhilaration, the surety, of knowing the Season of 1814 would be one of society's most triumphant moments.
Defiant of spring's rebirth, Cat had chosen a gown almost as dark as her mourning clothes. A rich midnight blue silk satin whose severity was offset only by a bibbed cascade of her mother's pearls which fell from neck to waist. The emerald parure was now shut away in Sir Giles Everingham's safe.
From the moment Cat left the receiving line she had been surrounded by eager admirers. She turned away from a charming viscount and was startled to discover her cousin Lydia hovering among the crowd. Cat forced a polite smile and drew her cousin into the circle around her.
They were between sets, the music silent. Cat was introducing Lydia to her admirers when the general buzz of conversation rose to a crescendo. Heads swiveled, as if by magic, toward the entrance of the crowded ballroom. Cat followed their gaze, felt her stomach heave. It couldn't be . . .
But of course it could. Frantically, she looked for a place to hide. An alcove, a door to the garden, a convenient pillar. Anything.
"It's only Byron," said Lydia with deliberate ennui. "I truly cannot see why everyone fawns over him. Caroline Lamb was quite right when she called him 'mad, bad, and dangerous to know.'"
Cat's stomach settled, only to plummet to her toes. Byron had not simply seen Don Alexis Perez de Leon from behind a faro table. On at least two occasions during his stay in Portugal, he had sat in the drawing room of the Casa Audley and talked at length. Cat pictured the long-ago scene. Yes, the Don Alexis with whom Byron had spoken was Anthony. An Anthony who had taken it upon himself to inform Catherine about men who, in spite of appearances, did not really like women. A capital offense in England, though not on the continent. A pity, Cat mused, that the young women of England had not had the benefit of Anthony's shrewd advice. A warning about this young genius who flitted from flower to flower to flower, never finding what he was seeking, very possibly because it was forbidden by the laws of church and state.
"Mrs. Perez, how delightful to see you again." Adonis stood before her. Lord Byron, had not wasted time in seeking out the evening's newest sensation.
He was, Cat conceded, the most beautiful man she had ever seen, though his famed fatal attraction for women caused her heart not so much as a single flutter.
Lady Lydia could not repress an indrawn gasp of shock. How like Catherine to be acquainted with someone as notorious as Lord Byron. She watched in fascinated disapproval as her cousin and the famed poet conversed in the easy banter of acquaintances of long standing.
"Well met, my lord," said Cat, gently retracting her hand from his lingering clasp. "I have a bone to pick with you. You once told me you were delighted with my recommendation to explore the Serra de Sintra, and then you wrote such words about my country. I was quite shocked."
Byron, obviously enjoying the change from a steady diet of adoration from females of all ages, flashed a wicked smile. "But I wrote only praise for the beauties of the Serra de Sintra," he protested, one shaggy brow twitching upward to match the lopsided curve of his full lips.
"But not for the country," said Cat. "Do you not recall? A nation swoln with ignorance and pride, Who lick yet loathe the hand that waves the sword To save them from the wrath of Gaul's unsparing lord.
"Oh, that," said Byron with a careless wave. "Surely I only spoke the truth. We have turned the greatness of Portugal into a British colony where the natives fawn upon us on one side and despise us on the other. I saw the beauty, and the rot as well. Can you honestly say I was wrong?"
"No, you were not wrong, my lord," Cat admitted. "But where would Portugal be without Wellington?"
"With fifty thousand more citizens," Byron riposted without so much as a second's pause.
"You have been listening to the Sousa family," said Cat, her face turning somber. The family of her old friend Pedro de Sousa had been severely critical of the great loss of life suffered by Portuguese displaced by Wellington's scorched earth policy north of the lines at Torres Vedras. "I cannot deny many died," Cat acknowledged sadly. "At the time I had no idea how many. To some the freedom of Portugal was worth the sacrifice. But, in truth, I find it difficult to blame those who would rather be ruled by Napoleon than dead."
In Byron's agile mind Cat's words set off another unpopular passion. "I am sending my books to the Emperor on Elba," he declared. "Perhaps they may bring him some comfort. Exile is a terrible fate for a man of such genius."
A pool of silence had grown around them as Catherine and Lord Byron talked. Bristles of hostility vibrated on the air. Appalled, Cat wondered if Byron's words were intended to shock, or did he simply not care what he said or where he said it.
"Napoleon brought his country out of disaster into true equality," Byron declared, his voice ringing with passion. "And now they are once again to be ruined by fat Louis and his Bourbon sycophants. 'Tis said he's to parade through the streets to Grillon's where Prinny will grant him the Order of the Garter." Byron snorted with disgust. "Imagine, if you will, Prinny's fat hands clasping the garter around Louis le Gros's even fatter leg. Monarchy triumphant! I, for one, will stay in my rooms at the Albany. I'll not lower myself to watch the spectacle."
As if he had only now become aware of the disapproving audience around them, Bryon shot a disdainful glance at his open-mouthed audience, then suggested he and Cat go in search of the refreshment room. "For I believe we have something further to discuss," the poet announced, adding an arch look calculated to inspire salacious speculation in even the purest minds.
Catherine made her excuses to her cousin and her admirers, while endeavoring to project nothing but innocence. Byron offered his arm, and they made a slow progression toward the refreshment room. Behind them Cat could hear the outbreak of indignant, derisive chatter. She stiffened her back and kept smiling.
Strangely enough, she had to admit Byron's radical views seemed genuine. Somehow honest emotions were not something she expected from him. Was there, after all, more to this exceptional young lordling than she had thought?
It was well before the traditional midnight supper hour, and the servants were still laying out the platters of delicacies with which Lady Hawley hoped to tempt her guests' discriminating palates. Catherine and her provoking companion had no trouble finding two chairs in a corner where they might be private. Lord Byron allowed himself an openly admiring survey of Catherine Perez from the pearls entwined in her short, shining curls, over the pale perfection of her complexion, down the length of the intriguingly rounded dark blue satin to the shining tips of her matching shoes. His admiration was sincere. She was, after all, the epitome of a romantic poet's dreams. A pity there was not so much as a smoldering ember of desire between them. Then again, as he recalled what he intended to tell her, it was undoubtedly just as well.
"Harborough and Lord Anthony paid me a visit," Byron confided, a gleam of amused self-mockery dancing in the depths of his eyes. "I wish to assure you, you need have no fear I shall mention either's remarkable resemblance to your ah--late husband. As you can well imagine, I am a strong adherent to 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.' My lips are sealed." Lord Byron clasped one hand over his heart in a gesture which almost sent Catherine into whoops despite the seriousness of the situation. No matter how outrageous his conduct, no one could dispute the poet's talent, intelligence, or charm.
Recovering quickly, Cat expressed her sincere gratitude. Which was somewhat dimmed when Byron added, in a confiding tone, that he was not yet ready to depart this vale of tears and, really, two Trowbridges were a most frightening prospect. The noble poet stood up to take his leave but bent back down and whispered in her ear, "Tell me, my dear, what can it have been like to be married to both of them?" A wink, a slight smirk, and he was out the door, leaving Cat to regard a tray of lobster patties with utter loathing.
"Scarcely a wise choice of companion," Lord Wrexham chided a few minutes later as he claimed a promised waltz.
Catherine shrugged it off. "We met in Portugal when he was only a boy struggling to become something more."
"Best to keep it that way, my dear," the earl cautioned. "The scandals that follow that young man are not at all what a widow needs. It is all too easy to fall from Beauty of the Hour to the Cut Direct."
They moved onto the dance floor, joining the throng of dancers swirling to the lilting sound of strings. Wrexham danced well and could be depended upon for conversation as lively as the music. Light flirtation, a soupçon of cool admiration were just what Cat needed after a half hour with Lord Byron. Her nerves settled back into place; she began to enjoy herself.
"I fear I cannot like it," said Wrexham, his head angled judiciously to one side as he stared down at her.
Wanting only to lose herself in the music, Cat's quick wit was pardonably slow. "Cannot like what, my lord?"
Wrexham swung them into a daring spin, scattering several less adept waltzers toward the sides of the dance floor. "Your hair, my dear. No man could possibly approve such a profligate waste of magnificence."
Dear God. Her hair. She had forgotten about her hair. Blas---Alex---could walk through the door at any moment. He was going to see her hair. Now. Tonight. Blanca was right. He would kill her.
Cat continued to examine the gold buttons of Lord Wrexham's waistcoat. "It seemed quite necessary at the time," she murmured.
A gentleman did not divulge private conversations. Particularly to the female subject of such a conversation. The circumstances, however, were highly unusual. After a relatively sedate circumnavigation of the ballroom floor, Wrexham broke through his scruples. "I received a pair of fascinating callers yesterday," he said.
Cat missed the beat, stumbled, was swept off both feet by Wrexham as he kept moving. He allowed her slippers to touch the floor only when her eyes came back in focus. "It gave me great satisfaction," Wrexham continued smoothly, "to inform them I already knew most of the story. They were excruciatingly polite, I assure you. But somehow I received a clear picture of pistols at dawn if I ever repeated anything I knew. And as for my relationship with you, my dear, you must grant me the courage of a lion for claiming this dance. They protect their own, the young Trowbridges. I am forced to admit there is something exceptionally intimidating about the two of them together. Almost, I felt sorry for the French. I wonder if Wellington ever had to deal with them both at once," he mused.
Cat was waltzing by instinct, relying on the strength of Wrexham's hand in hers, his other firmly around her waist. The world was crumbling in on her. The twins hovered like malevolent gods on high, controlling her life. Oddly, it had not occurred to her to picture them together. Alex and Anthony. Blas and Tonio. Side by side, shoulder to shoulder. United against her. It was too much.
Unfair.
Cruel.
But she was Thomas Audley's daughter. This was a battle she would not lose. Cat turned her face up to Wrexham and smiled. The perfectly brilliant, smoothly confident smile she had perfected in the gaming rooms of the Casa Audley. She settled into the rhythm of the dance. The game, as always, must go on.
After the waltz with Wrexham, Cat begged Gordon Somersby to allow her to sit out the Quadrille. The two old friends retreated to an area of gilded chairs where Blanca and Clara were seated, watching, and commenting upon, the panorama of the London ton at play.
The orchestra re-tuned its instruments, then commenced the opening strains of the Quadrille. The sets of dancers ceased their conversations and moved into the series of intricate figures. Ordinarily Cat loved the challenge of the Quadrille. Tonight she commanded a cheerfully compliant Gordon to fetch punch for the three ladies, then proceeded to pour out her anger and frustration at the twins for thinking they could take over her life.
"For shame, Catarina," Blanca scolded. "They are protecting you,"
"She is quite right, my dear," Clara added. "They are not interfering. I am exceedingly grateful they are so obviously aware of their obligations. Honor demands they attempt to right the wrong they have done to you."
"Honor!" Cat sputtered. "May they choke on it! I want them out of my . . ."
Cat's voice trailed away in the sudden silence which enveloped the ballroom. Those immersed in the complexity of the Quadrille turned to look, missed their figure, faltered to a halt. As the dancers slowed to a stop, the band dwindled to a single violin and an oboe, then faded into nothingness. An entire roomful of society's sophisticates swallowed by silence. They gaped, they gawked, they swore oaths for which they forgot to beg pardon.
"Madre de deus!" breathed Dona Blanca, and made the sign of the cross.
"I knew it, but I still cannot believe it," murmured Clara Everingham. Sir Giles left his game of piquet to pause in the door of the cardroom, completely fascinated by the tableau before him.
The Trowbridge twins had been formally introduced to London at the age of eighteen. Their father had sponsored their membership at White's, introduced them to Gentleman Jackson's and Manton's shooting gallery. They had found Harriet Wilson and her sisters on their own. Both brothers were up at Oxford. The idea of spending what few precious days they could manage in London at any affair sanctioned by their parents was unthinkable. It was, therefore, close to a decade since society had seen the two of them together.
Everyone had heard the gossip, knew of the heir's resurrection, knew both brothers were heros. But being aware of the Trowbridge twins and seeing them standing next to each other, as identical as two persons ever were, were vastly different things. Cat had been drawn to her feet, as had even the most elderly dowager, by the desire to see what had silenced the ballroom. And there the twins stood, shoulder to shoulder, at the top of the shallow flight of steps leading down to the dance floor. They were surveying London's finest through matching quizzing glasses with what appeared to be a very nice sense of their own worth and more than a little amusement at the sensation they were causing.
Their waving black locks matched the sheen of their black silk coats, their black silk breeches, their finely knit black stockings and black patent dancing slippers. Their modestly ruffled white silk shirts, their pearl gray waistcoats embroidered silver, each crease in their perfectly starched white linen cravats, the number of sparkling carats in the single diamond nestled among the folds were as well matched as the two strikingly powerful faces. A far cry from black velvet and mother-of-pearl buttons, yet Cat was overwhelmed by memories of the debut of Don Alexis Perez de Leon at the gaming tables of the Casa Audley. He had been so calm, so sure of himself. So perfect for the part.
She recalled the little girl---for fourteen was not at all the mature woman she had thought herself at the time---the foolish child who hid behind red velvet draperies, watching. Wearing her heart on her sleeve. The child who loved. Read Romeo and Juliet. And dreamed.
Was it prophetic? Shakespeare's play was, after all, a tragedy.
The first violinist hissed at his musicians. The sets of the Quadrille reformed. The music swelled; the dancers once again bent to the intricate figures, though their loss of concentration resulted in a less elegant performance than usual. Gordon Somersby thrust a glass of punch into Cat's hand. "Do you wish to go home?" he inquired anxiously.
The liquid sloshed over the rim of the cup as her hand shook. Her eyes clouded, her heart pounded with alarm. She was sick. She should go home. Gordy would take her. Gordy. Always reliable. And safe.
Receiving no answer, Gordon lowered his white-faced friend back into her chair. Clara plied her fan in front of Catherine's face, while Gordy went in search of something stronger than punch. Blanca could only sit and stare at Catarina in perfect understanding. She too was speechless.
Gordy was urging brandy down Cat's paralyzed throat when he heard Blanca's gasp of alarm. There they both stood, Anthony clutching his brother's arm, fiercely murmuring, "Not here, Alex. Not now! Remember what we planned. Later, dammit, later!"
Clara Everingham watched in fascination as the Marquess of Harborough took the brandy snifter from his wife's hand, handed it with a curt nod to Gordon Somersby. After an equally brief acknowledgment of Blanca Dominguez, he simply swept an arm around his wife's waist. Ignoring the shocked audience, he propelled Cat out the French doors behind the rows of gilded chairs and into the cool damp stillness of the April night. He did not stop until he found his way down a path between tall yew hedges. Until they were fully out of sight of the light spilling out of the ballroom.
Anthony stood just inside the French doors which his brother had kicked shut in his face. After a long, resigned sigh, he went back to comfort Blanca and Lady Everingham. And do what he could to stem the tide of disaster.
All their carefully laid plans blown to hell the instant Alex had gotten a good look at his wife.
The Marquess of Harborough was so furious, he was shaking. Which for Blas, Don Alexis, Alex, or whoever he was, was an extremely rare loss of control. "How could you?" he hissed at Cat. "I know you think you hate me, but to butcher your hair, your goddamn bloody beautiful hair? How could you do it, Cat? How?" By the time Alex finished, he was shouting.
The cool air revived Cat's wits. And her courage. "You know perfectly well why I did it."
He did know. She had done it to hurt him. And succeeded all too bloody well. He adored her hair, every shining glorious inch of it. She could grow it out for the rest of her life and it would never be the same. That golden red spill of hair dangling over the balcony rail, splashing the white of her apron with a waterfall of color. Burnished copper spilling over the white of her pillow, fisted in the bronze of his hand, tickling his chest, his stomach, his . . .
Alex threw himself back away from her, loosing the grip on Cat's arms which he suddenly realized must be painful. It was war. And this battle he had lost.
"As if that were not enough," he ground out, his tone more controlled but still deadly, "I had not been in the receiving line five minutes before I heard the on dit circulating about Byron and his latest flirt. And of whom were they talking? My wife." He stepped back, close enough to shock them both with the intense recollection of games once played. "You will have nothing to do with Byron, Catarina. Frankly, I thought you had better taste."
"You can say that when I slept with Blas the Bastard?" Cat inquired sweetly, her nerves steadying into the satisfaction of the quarrel.
"At least I never tried boys."
"Blas!" She almost laughed. And yet, to her astonishment tears welled up and trickled down her cheeks. "It's over, don't you see?" she whispered. "We can only hurt each other. With trust gone, there is nothing left to hold us together. Accept it and let me go." A shiver rippled over her, the fine hairs on her arms bristling in the cool night air.
In silence, never taking his eyes from hers, Alex shrugged himself out of his tightly fitted black jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. His hands found the flapping sleeves, pulled them tight, swiftly knotting them in front of her, pinioning her arms inside. "I'll let you go when hell freezes over," he murmured. He threw her up over his shoulder, headed toward the gate in the fence at the rear of the garden. This part of the evening had been scouted and planned in advance. He knew exactly what he was doing. Dragging his wife bodily from the ballroom in front of hundreds of people had not been part of the plot, but Tony would manage. He always did.
The blatant kidnapping of his wife was no impulse, but yet another daringly executed raid to be brought to a swift and successful conclusion.
Hell, even a hairless wife was better than no wife at all.
"You can scream," said Alex, "but the Hawleys wouldn't welcome the scandal. Nor Sir Giles and his wife. O--oof!" Cat's arms may have been immobilized, her head and shoulders dangling down his back, but she managed to connect the sharp point of her slipper with his groin, barely missing her goal of his most tender part.
Alex reacted with a vicious kick to the mews gate, which had cost him a hefty bribe to find unlocked. None too gently, he thrust his still struggling wife through the yawning blackness of a carriage door. The upholstery was neither soft nor welcoming as Cat was pitched against it, helpless to direct her fall. If she exaggerated her cry of pain as her knee hit the floor and her chin smashed onto a cushion causing her to bite her tongue, it was not by much. With the taste of blood in her mouth, anger swelled into a red haze of fury.
"Go!" Alex barked to the coachman as he slammed the carriage door, then groped frantically for his wife. Hell and damnation! He had not meant to hurt her. Beside him, where she should have been, there was nothing. "Cat!" With a stifled cry Alex flailed about in the dark. There! The soft smoothness of satin, the stiff silk of his jacket, soft curls, a handful of pearls. She was kneeling on the floor, forehead against the seat cushion, body quivering. Pain? Tears? Rage?
"God, Cat, I'm sorry!" Alex gathered her up, pulled her onto his lap. Alternately murmuring apologies and endearments, his lips sought, but did not find, hers as Cat frantically twisted away from what could only be danger.
"Don't touch me!" she hissed. "And get this jacket off!"
"Make up your mind," Alex retorted, guilt drowned in a rush of temper. "Unless I touch you, you'll be wearing that jacket 'til hell freezes over."
With a quick intake of breath, Cat went very still.
Admittedly, his hand strayed as he fumbled over the knot he had made in the heavy silk. By the time the jacket had found its way to a far corner of the carriage, they were breathing considerably harder than the simple exercise warranted. Each from passion, though not necessarily of the same kind.
The carriage turned from the cobblestoned street onto the hard-packed earth of Hyde Park. The movement of the wheels became slow, fluid, peaceful. No sound but the steady clip-clop of the two horses, the call of an occasional nightbird breaking the steady background chirp of nocturnal insects.
Alex had planned this stolen hour with the care he gave to planning an attack by Spanish guerrilleros. Tony would explain the situation to Blanca and Clara Everingham, whose cooperation he never doubted. The ladies would announce Cat had been taken ill and returned to Everingham House. Tony would then circle the ballroom, sometimes as himself, sometimes as his brother. A dozen people would be able to swear they had spoken with the Marquess of Harborough well after midnight. Nor did Alex doubt one of his co-conspirators would concoct some story about Cat feeling faint and Harborough gallantly rushing her out for air. Then finding her no better, he escorted her to her carriage before returning to the ball. Considering the Trowbridge twins' enormous consequence at the moment, they would very likely get away with it.
But all the words Alex planned to say welled up in his throat, choking him into silence. He wanted to gallop to Marchmont House, carry Cat up the stairs to his bed, make love 'til morning. And through all the evenings and mornings to come. But first, there must be peace between them.
Forcing himself to a gentleness he did not feel, Alex wrapped his arms around his wife, pulling her tight against the white blur of his shirt, the pearl gray brocade of his waistcoat. The momentary resistance he encountered melted away as, with a small sigh, she nestled against him, tucking her head beneath his chin. He lost himself in the feel of her, the scent of her, the aura of fierce contentment which enveloped him, overwhelmed him, as it always did when he took her in his arms. She was his, and he would never let her go.
"Do you remember the night Major Martineau followed me to the Casa?" he asked, his voice low and husky, "The night I had to hide in your bed?" Rhetorical question. Neither of them would ever forget. "You were so damn young and innocent, Cat. I've never seen eyes as wide as yours when I started to peel off my clothes. You must have thought I'd gone mad. And there I was, all of twenty-one, feeling like the ultimate old lecher. In a way, I was. I was shockingly, secretly, delighted to have such a fine excuse to jump into your bed. It's a good thing my back was toward you when I stood up. You would have gotten the shock of your young life."
"You mean . . . you were . . . Martineau saw you . . . like that. His men? Marcio . . . Lucio?" Cat choked. Not even many years of marriage could keep her from blushing fiery red. "No wonder they believed you," she murmured when she got her voice back.
"Oh, God, Cat, we were both children," Alex groaned. "Yet we thought ourselves so worldly and wise." He shifted a hand to cup her chin. "Cat, you do understand I want to marry you. Properly. At St. George's with all the pomp and circumstance anyone could want. I never had any other intention."
She could find no words to answer him. No way to make him understand her terrible, lonely hours of doubt and pain, the certainty he loved her dissolved by an unrelenting succession of events. Her father's caution that Blas might put her aside, the sterile letter of condolence Marcus had brought back from the Pyrenees, the odd behavior of the Blas who was Anthony Trowbridge. The tragedy of discovery. Of betrayal. The ultimate loss of trust.
In that awful moment when Cat realized her husband was not one person but two, she had lost what remained of her faith in the power of love. If Blas could keep a secret such as this, there was no life left for them to live. No chance for harmony or peace.
Bitterness helped focus her thoughts, the coldness of her tone. "When would you be off on new adventures, my lord? Three months, four? And then there is the matter of fidelity. We both know having a wife has never kept you out of other women's beds. Tell me, please, what is your opinion of Tit for Tat? What if I wished to have your privileges? What if I wished to be a Lady Oxford and start my own Miscellany? How would you feel about that, I wonder."
Alex's groan echoed through the darkness. She had a right to taunt him. To twist the knife. It didn't make her words more palatable. "Damn it, Cat, I'm not a bloody monk! I'd never mount a mistress when we're together, and you damn well you know it. And if you ever so much as thought of starting a Trowbridge Miscellany, I'd lock you up first and kill your lover directly after. Believe me, complacency is not one of my virtues. If it can be called a virtue," he added on a feral growl.
"Nor is it mine," was Cat's pointed response.
Silence.
Alex found his wife's face, tilted up her chin. He brushed her lips with his. "That night, Cat, when we were first naked in your mother's bed," he whispered against her mouth, "I should have been ashamed of myself. But I wasn't. Not then or ever, because I always thought of you as mine. We were meant to be together. So stop fighting. Come and be my wife."
Cat's rage wavered, dimmed. Always---forever---his body could do that to her. The only solution was separation. She knew it, but could not force herself to move.
Beneath her cheek the sharp facets of the diamond in his cravat bit into her soft flesh. She welcomed the reality of this pinprick of pain. Desire was a terrible thing. As was rage. Sapping a person's will, plunging reason into a black pit where compromise and common sense dared not go. If only the carriage could roll on forever, shutting out the world, carrying them to some fantasy land where they could pretend the war never happened. That they were two strangers newly met at the Hawley's ball. Strangers who could marry and live the fairy tale lives which only happened in books.
Mistaking Cat's silence for assent, Alex was shaken by a wave of relief. He had been certain, given time alone with her, he could make her understand. He warmed her bare skin with slow, rhythmic movements of his powerful hands. His fingers slid down, the thumbs alone toying with the swell of her breasts. Cat's head screamed No! while her body refused to deny him.
The bodice of her gown seemed to fall of its own accord, parting before him, revealing what he could not see but needed with all his being to feel. He took the fullness of her into his mouth, nibbling, sucking. He backed away, gloried in her murmured protest. He returned to lick, nibble, a valiant attempt to swallow her whole.
It was too dark for him to see the grim set of Cat's mouth, the flash of her eyes as she twined her fingers in his hair, murmured his name: "Blas." If only he were. If only she could have her Blas again, this terrible pain would go away. There would be only love.
Rational thought eluded her. There were, after all, no rules which said she could not enjoy herself. Mindlessness, complete loss of self, were only a caress away. And blessedly welcome. For this small moment of time she would pretend the man who was driving her mad was not Alexander Trowbridge, Lord Harborough. He was Blas. Husband. Love. Friend.
With a soft sigh Cat plunged into the world of sensation and desire. Rage and sorrow fell away, drowned in delirium as her husband knelt on the floor of the carriage and threw her gown up into her lap. She scarcely noticed as her slippers were discarded, her garters and stockings following hard on their heels. There was no way in this world or any other she could have resisted the exploration of his tongue from her toes, up to her ankle, along her calf, behind her kneecap. Up her inner thigh to the source of their very personal and private delight.
To Alex's intense satisfaction, Cat gasped, shudders wracking her body almost as soon as he touched her there. In moments his pantaloons were peeled down around his ankles and he was sheathed hotly inside her. For all the driving power of his need, he held back, bringing her with him, back to a need as great as his own, a wanting that demanded two become one in nature's oldest rite.
Only later, much later, as the stars were fading and horses growing tired, was Cat able to feel guilt at what she had done. She had deliberately allowed him to believe their differences were settled. And they were not. Loving him and living with him were two quite separate things.
"Blas?" She trailed her fingers over his face. He was lying on the seat, his back propped against one side of the carriage, clutching her firmly in his arms even as he slept. "Alex?" She ran a finger down the bow of his full, sensual lips. His eyes flew open. He gave her a lazy smile, kissing the fingertip that lingered on his mouth. A smile which faded when he saw the misery on her face.
"I have been very bad," Cat confessed, her face pale and wan in the faint gray light. "I have always loved you. Will always love you. There will never be a time when I do not need you or want you. But tonight I took from you unfairly. I should have found the strength to tell you nothing has changed, but I couldn't. I loved you, and let you love me. Knowing you thought you had won, I let this happen. And that was cruel. I am sorry. "No, don't say anything!" she cried, placing her fingers against his mouth. "I have been lying here thinking of what I must say, so you will please allow me to finish." Cat took a deep breath and plunged on. "Nothing is changed from what I told you at Branwyck. We must lead separate lives, you and I. I must find someone else to marry, for then honor will keep me out of your arms and out of your life. It is my only protection. The only way I can live with myself. If you suffer at all from my little deception tonight, keep in mind it is only a tiny portion of the hurt you have done to me. The good Lord may someday forgive you, Blas, but I shall not. Now, if you please, tell the coachman to take me home."
As his grip went lax, Cat moved away to sit primly on the opposite seat. Slowly, mechanically, she put her clothing back in order, tying on stockings, smoothing her hair, searching out her slippers and her reticule. Alex watched, fascinated, through half-closed lids, swearing softly. As much as he loved her, as well as he knew her, he had underestimated her. He should have explained about the foreign service, about adventuring together, about his never ever needing another woman if he could have her at his side. But the moment was past. He would have to bide his time. Find other ways. For he would never let her go.
Wearily, Alex ordered the driver to take them to Everingham House, his disappointment somewhat allayed by the thought that eyes might be peering through the neighbors' curtained windows when he delivered the widow Perez to her door as the sun was rising. Almost he was sorry he had left his father's crested carriage at home in favor of the discretion of a hired vehicle. If scandal was what it took . . . Alex leaned back into the corner of the squabs, folded his arms and closed his eyes, shutting out the sight of his wife now sitting there so properly with her hands folded in her lap. There would be another day.
That same afternoon the Marquess of Harborough drove his newly acquired curricle on the road south into Surrey. Arthur Goggans, who was still set on becoming an unflappable London butler, was unable to conceal his shock when he opened the door of Branwyck Park to the young man who had purchased the house three years earlier. The young man to whom the Widow Perez was married. The young man who should have been dead. Mrs. Plumb screamed, two maids fainted, and Cook, when she heard the news, dropped a pound of salt into the soup pot, spoiling that course even as slops for the pigs.
Alex, who was thoroughly enjoying the scene he had created, introduced himself as the Marquess of Harborough, and without further explanation asked to see Pierre. Rosalía Santos, Pierre's nurse, was not at all shocked by the return of the master of the house. Don Alexis was a man of many names and personalities. And not an easy man to kill. No matter what he might call himself, she would recognize him, though it were at the gates of Hell itself. So in the nursery there was only joy.
Pierre let out one high-pitched squeak and charged across the room to throw himself into the arms of the man who had come along when he was so alone and afraid. The man who had taken him far way to live with Mrs. Cat. Mrs. Cat was good to him. Very pretty. And smelled nice. But she could never be a man. Like his papa. Who would come for him. Mrs. Cat had told him so. And if he did not, Blas would be his papa. That too had been a promise. It had been a long time ago. In Spain. But Pierre remembered. As Alex knelt on the floor, Pierre's small arms clung to his neck, determined never to let go.
When Alex left after a visit of several hours, his dark mood was considerably eased. Children were a very fine thing. He would provide Pierre with younger brothers and sisters as rapidly as possible. If he had not already gotten a start on that pleasing process. And if we prove successful, pray name it after me . . . Alex's face lightened into a grin as he hummed the old tune. Oh, yes, he would definitely be successful. If he had to lock his wife into a tower and keep her there until she saw reason. Barefoot and pregnant. Wasn't that the old expression? Harborough Castle had a very fine tower. Fourteenth century. Perhaps he should consider a visit to Somerset and set in motion the design of a velvet-lined prison.
She'd kill him. But it would be a magnificent battle. Daydreams, Alex mocked himself. Castles in the air. Yet, he suspected, Thomas would approve his daring. As he would have approved today's visit to Branwyck Park. Thomas Audley understood the breaking of rules, the underhanded plotting that twisted fate to the direction you wished it to go. Thomas had wanted Blas to be willing to fight for his daughter. And that he was surely going to do. The opening skirmishes had begun. The real battle was yet to be joined.
Over the next ten days the Marquess of Harborough squelched all rumors about his acquaintance with Catherine Perez by setting up a flirtation with her cousin Lydia Audley. Lady Ailesbury was ecstatic, Lydia merely pleased she had finally attracted the attention of a nobleman worthy of her beauty and ancient bloodlines. Lord Anthony continued to call upon the three ladies at Everingham House, but the Marquess of Harborough was seen only at social events, where he nodded graciously to the ladies and passed on by. Cat danced, chatted, and laughed with Anthony, Wrexham, Gordon Somersby, and a coterie of other admirers. With her husband she exchanged not a single word. The smug smile which continually creased Lady Lydia's fine features was enough to incite Cat to nausea. And yet she was too fair-minded to blame her cousin. Blas was up to his tricks again, and another poor female was going to be hurt.
Word of Harborough's visit to Branwyck Park reached Cat the day after it happened. She recognized a battle cry when she heard it but kept her tongue between her teeth. Blas had undoubtedly saved Pierre's life, and in all fairness each was entitled to enjoy the other whether Harborough's sometime bride liked it or not. Within three days rumors of the shocked servants at Branwyck Park and speculative whispers about the child had made their insidious way into the on dits of the ton. Bored ears pricked up, straining toward the next delicious whiff of scandal.
On the day before Amabel Lovell's come-out ball, Anthony called at Everingham House and asked to speak with Cat in private. When they were seated in the room overlooking the garden, which was now alight with tulips and daffodils, Tony spoke with unaccustomed seriousness. "I wanted you to know Alex hasn't given up, Cat. He's planning something. If I knew what, I'd certainly tell you. I just--ah--thought you ought to know."
Cat frowned. "Are you sure? He has not so much as spoken to me in over a week."
"I'm sure. Last night at the Billingsley's rout Lady Lydia mistook me for Alex. I got the impression she may be aware she's merely part of some plot he's hatching. He has that gleam in his eye---you know the one I mean."
Oh, yes. She knew quite well. "You never stop playing tricks, do you?" said Cat absently. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "That was unkind. Tell me of yourself, Tony. Are you . . . all right?"
"Have I gotten over my tendre for my brother's wife?" he inquired lightly. "The answer is I doubt I ever shall, but I long ago realized we would not suit. At heart I am much more conventional, much less dashing than big brother. If you were mine, I should treat you like a fragile flower, and you would be bored to tears inside a month. Believe me, I shall do much better with Amabel. But it is much like a divorce, I think. I need time to adjust to the idea of a new wife."
Cat swallowed hard. "Anthony, I want you to have passion and romance, not just a suitable alliance."
"Do you not care for Amabel?" he asked, startled.
"She is a darling. I cannot think of a better wife for you, but if you are not happy . . ."
Tony took both her hands in his, looked her straight in the eye. "Frankly, Cat, if passion and romance are what you and Alex have, I think I am better off with simple love. It's you I'm worried about right now, not myself. Amabel and I will make a good life together, but you and Alex seem hell bent on destroying yourselves. Think, girl! You're making a mistake. When Alex does whatever it is he's planning to do, I beg a favor of you. Go along with it, listen to him. Don't reject him out of hand. Think what a future without him means."
"Do you think I haven't?" Cat cried, pulling her hands from his. "Day after day. Night after night after ni---" Her voice broke, choking off her last words.
"Promise me you'll listen to him."
"I can't!"
"Dammit, why not?"
Cat fished in her reticule for a handkerchief, blew her nose. "Because I'm a stubborn fool."
Tony threw up his hands. She was as bad as Alex. It was like talking to a wall. He stood up, unsure if he had made any impression on her at all. Driving in the park with Amabel was going to be a refreshing change from the doom and gloom which seemed to surround him on all sides.
With one last admonitory look, Tony placed a chaste kiss on Cat's cheek and left.
Late that afternoon, when Anthony arrived back at Marchmont House after his drive with Amabel, he found two heavy traveling coaches in the circular drive and a succession of footmen struggling to unload mountainous piles of luggage. Evidently, the Duchess of Marchmont was certain the London house, which had been closed for so many years, was bare of all necessary luxuries and had packed vast quantities of items from Marchmont to bring to town. Thus, the duke and duchess were arriving only in the nick of time for the debut of Miss Amabel Lovell, an event in which they had considerable interest. They were also aware that Catherine Perez was to be one of the guests at the Lovell ball.
Tony found his father and Alex sharing a bottle of brandy in the library. His mother was already touring the house, planning the renovations needed after so many years of neglect. The duke and his eldest son wore matching scowls, their customary expression when confined in the same room for more than five minutes. Anthony had no desire to discover what had set them off this time. Perhaps it was merely force of habit. After a dutiful greeting to his father, he poured a glass of brandy, sank into a comfortable chair, and propped his feet up before the fire. Thank God for the peaceful people of the world. The cheerful ones. Like Amabel.
Captain Percy Markham regarded the glittering crowd in the Lovell's ballroom with great satisfaction. It was by far the finest event to which he had been invited since he had sold his commission after taking a ball in the shoulder at the siege of Pamplona. He usually did not have entrée into the higher levels of the ton, but his mother and Lady Lovell had been friends since girlhood. Markham was prepared to enjoy his good fortune. And take advantage of it if he could.
He was not above reading the society items in the newspapers and not surprised when he spotted Catherine Perez dancing in the arms of another familiar face, Gordon Somersby. How like old times in Lisbon. Except he had no money left to lose at the Casa Audley's gaming tables. Poor as the proverbial church mouse, he could still see the blank unsmiling face of the miserable chit's husband---who dared call himself a Don---as he swept the captain's coins into the bank at the faro table. All of it. Gone in a week of non-stop fever. His pay, his winnings from countless games with brother officers, his battlefield lootings. Don Perez Something or Other had refused his vowel for his small estate in East Anglia. Damn his supercilious hide! And bloody good thing he was dead. He just might have called him out. Though it was beneath a gentleman to go to the field of honor with a dealer from a gaming house. A Spaniard at that. Surprising they let the Perez woman into a place like this. The little bitch thought she was so grand. When he'd cornered her in the Casa's courtyard one night and tried to snatch a kiss, she'd had one of her Portuguese bullies throw him out. Wouldn't have done it he hadn't lost all his money, the little whore.
Percy Markham watched as Catarina lifted her laughing face to her partner as she romped her way through a lively country dance. What right had a gaming house girl to enjoy an endless round of ton parties when he, the perfectly respectable son of a country squire could not? Markham caught himself glowering. He had come to take advantage of this rare invitation, to meet the right people, to be charming enough to be remembered as a suitable single gentleman worthy of future invitations to even greater houses. Temper tantrums were a mistake.
The ex-captain of infantry pasted a smile on his innocuous face and went in search of a drink. He would then concentrate on charming the chaperones and their bevy of innocent charges---wealthy innocent charges---before he would allow himself the self-indulgence of slipping into the sanctuary of the cardroom.
Cat was not surprised when Amabel begged she stay close by on this exciting night of the younger girl's official debut in society. They had, after all, become the closest of friends over the past six months. Between each set Amabel and Cat returned to chairs set next to Lady Lovell, Clara, and Blanca. It was only when Cat looked up to see an unknown, exceptionally distinguished gentleman of a certain age advancing steadily toward them, the crowd parting around him like the Red Sea before Moses, that Cat realized even Amabel had defected to the enemy. With the gentleman was a highly attractive woman of middle years, as autocratic and distinguished as the man at her side. And behind them, thoroughly enjoying the sensation caused by the return of the Duke and Duchess of Marchmont from their years in exile, were the roughly handsome faces of Alexander and Anthony Trowbridge. All five ladies rose, sinking into deep curtseys as Alex made the necessary introductions.
Cat doubted her legs were going to bring her upright. She was going to crumple in an ignominious heap at their feet. She could not get up. Could not look up. The other ladies were already upright, embarking on a spritely conversation, while Cat prayed for the floor to open and swallow her up. A strong hand gripped her arm and pulled her to her feet. Golden amber eyes glittered as Alex leaned close to whisper, "It's all right, you know. They don't bite."
He straightened and turned to his father, pronouncing a low-pitched private introduction with grave formality. "Your Grace, "I have the honor of presenting to you my wife."
Sebastian Trowbridge raised Catherine's lifeless hand to his lips and kissed it. He no longer wondered if his son had made this mésalliance merely to spite him. The girl was exquisite. And presentable, thank God. "Welcome to the family, my dear," said the Duke of Marchmont, and found the words did not stick so hard upon his tongue.
Cat was never able to remember if she made the correct polite response. She only knew she was trapped. Alex had brought up the heavy guns, and she was pinned down for the slaughter to follow. She could not let him get away with it. He was so sly, so sure of his ultimate triumph. Gratefully, she escaped into the arms of Lord Wrexham, who had come to claim a promised waltz.
Fortunately for all concerned, Percy Markham had been occupied on the far side of the ballroom during the dramatic entrance of the Duke and Duchess of Marchmont. Having done his homework well, he had discovered a young lady whose purse was as plump as her body, and was thoroughly occupied with making an impression on the young lady and her two guard dog aunts. So he did not witness the parental approval bestowed on Catherine Perez. Less fortunately, an hour later he had the shock of discovering he was in the same room with two men who could claim the name of a dead man. Don Alexis Perez Whatever. Gambler. Cheat. And now, surely, whoremaster. For Markham had no trouble discovering the identity of the twin ghosts. And how else to explain one or both of the sons of the Duke of Marchmont passing themselves off as a Spaniard?
While doing their duty for their country, the twins had used the beauteous Catarina to amuse themselves. Which made the arrogant little bitch who had had him thrown out of the Casa Audley nothing more than the twins' shared whore. For a few sweet moments Markham contemplated blackmail. But, like other gentlemen before him, he recognized the twins were as dangerous as they were powerful. He would settle for revenge. He had, after all, made excellent progress with an heiress tonight. His fortunes were looking up. A hint here, a word there, and he would dine out for weeks on this story, carving a niche among bored sophisticates constantly on the lookout for the most titillating on dits. The twins would be tarnished, the little whore ruined.
As he wended his way toward yet another dip into the punchbowl, Percy Markham was smiling.
In the manner of rumors, the people most closely involved were the last to hear. The consequence of the Duke and Duchess of Marchmont was such that, at the beginning, only the scavengers lurking on the outer fringes of the ton chose to believe Percy Markham's winks, nods and intimations that London's finest had been sadly deceived into making a heroine of Harborough's Portuguese whore. But, all too soon, the possibility---which Markham always added in a sly aside---that both Trowbridge twins had enjoyed Catherine Audley's generous nature, was enough to erode the better judgment of a surprising number of society's more righteous members. Nothing but trouble, the Trowbridge twins, from the day they were born. Within three days it was generally conceded---with sad shaking of heads while hearts thrilled to such a titillating scandal---the twins had taken shocking advantage of their illustrious parents by introducing them to their mistress. Not done, old boy, simply not done.
At Everingham House all was unusually peaceful. On the day after Amabel's ball Cat received a note from Alex. He would be leaving London for a week or so. He wanted to be sure Harborough Castle, which he had not seen in seven years, would be ready for them. Both of them.
Cat gritted her teeth, opened a nearly identical note from Anthony. Tony, it seemed, planned to accompany his brother to Somerset. In short, he did not trust Alex out of his sight. He hoped Cat would enjoy her few days' respite.
Although Cat would never admit it, the absence of her twin nemeses had more than a little to do with her decision to send her regrets for the multiple ton events scheduled on the next few evenings. She spent much of the time in her room, quietly puzzling out her next moves in the chess game she and Blas---Alex---were waging. She would not be manipulated.
The Duchess of Harborough called upon the ladies of Everingham House. To Cat's relief the duchess confined herself to a few innocuous questions about Catherine's mother's family and life in Lisbon during the war. At no time did Lady Marchmont, who was well aware her consequence could intimidate the stoutest heart, indicate anything more than polite interest in someone her sons had known while on the continent. The duchess, well pleased with the quality of her daughter-in-law and of her companions as well, went away with an enigmatic smile on her lips. Cat, though vastly relieved to have survived the encounter, was even more strongly convinced she could never, ever, achieve the regal consequence of a Duchess of Marchmont.
At teatime on the afternoon of the fourth day after the Lovell's ball, Sir Giles entered the drawing room where the ladies were having a desultory discussion about why they had received no callers that afternoon. He appeared more puzzled than worried as he said, "Catherine, my dear, I've just had a most peculiar conversation with Wrexham. He has requested a private interview with you. You have told him the truth, have you not? Usually, a request to be private with a young woman is tantamount to an offer of marriage."
Marriage? Cat strongly doubted it. But something was surely wrong. Since the start of the season, there had not been a day when the ladies had not been inundated with callers. With instincts heightened by seven years of war, Cat experienced an intense frisson of alarm.
"You'll find him in the morning room," Sir Giles directed. "That is, I'm told, the favored spot for entertaining gentleman callers." Looking like an innocent middle-aged cherub, Sir Giles raised one brow and gave Cat a knowing smile. Behind him, Clara and Blanca stared at each other, uncertain if they should rejoice or be horrified that the elusive Earl of Wrexham might be on the verge of offering marriage.
Wrexham was pacing the floor when Cat walked in, a scowl deepening the lines of dissipation which creased his cheeks. "Sit down, Catherine," he ordered abruptly. Startled by his tone, she did as he commanded. "When I spoke with Sir Giles," said the earl, "I determined he had not heard what is being said about town, and I did not choose to enlighten him. I know you would not care to put him in the position of defending your honor." Ignoring Cat's gasp of alarm, Wrexham continued: "But with you I have no choice, Catherine." His gray eyes examined her, all the way to the soul. Incredulous, he added, "Are you truly ignorant of the latest on dit?"
"Have you run mad, Wrexham? I have not the slightest idea what you are talking about."
So he told her.
"Madre de deus!" Cat breathed softly. "I knew there might be trouble, but I did not think it would be this . . . this vicious."
"An appropriate word," said Wrexham grimly. "I've been to Marchmont House, but it seems Harborough and his brother are in Somerset. Their timing is unfortunate. Though, admittedly, it's too late to silence Markham. The damage has been done." The earl paused, a dark smile flitting across his saturnine features. "I wonder if the captain realizes just how foolish he has been. When Harborough hears of it, Markham will be fortunate to survive this with his life."
The earl paused, regarding Cat with an uncharacteristic moment of hesitation. "Catherine," he ventured, "I don't suppose you would consider an offer of marriage?"
"From whom?" Cat inquired, genuinely puzzled.
Not even when Cat told him the truth about her years in Portugal had Wrexham been so taken aback. "From myself," he snapped, sparks flying from the flint of his eyes.
"Oh, my dear!" Cat jumped up from the sofa, clasped her hands around his. "Forgive me. It's just that I have always been so sure you would never make me anything but the most improper of offers."
"We have been friends, have we not?" Wrexham retorted angrily, conveniently dismissing his earlier less than honorable intentions. "If I had been going to defect from your side, I should have done so when you told me about Harborough."
"You are quite right," Cat admitted with sincere humility. "Once again I have been a fool." She sank back down on the sofa, struggling to find words which would not compound her offense. "Wrexham . . . I am truly humbled by your offer. That I did not expect it, I lay to my own most unbecoming cynicism. But the truth is, I like you too well to marry you. I would not see you with a wife who could not give you the devotion you deserve."
The earl took it well, his mind was relieved, if his heart was not. "Then you must send for Harborough," he declared. "This is not a scandal which is going to disappear with the next on dit which drifts to the surface. You are about to be ostracized, Catherine. It will take not only a great deal of power and influence to mend matters, but a wedding as well. And quickly."
Wrexham bent down, picked up her hand, placed a kiss on the inside of her wrist. "It has been a pleasure, Catherine," he murmured. "I shall inform the twins they may call upon me if help is needed."
Cat was still sitting, motionless, on the sofa in the morning room when Rankin came to inform her that yet another caller had arrived.
When she returned to the drawing room, her cousin Edmund Audley, Viscount Norwell, was attempting to carry on a conversation with Lady Everingham and Dona Blanca. His brown hair was windblown, his brow creased; a sheen of perspiration overlaid his earnest young features. He was wearing his spectacles. At his cousin's entry he sprang to his feet, bolting to her side.
"You have heard, have you not?" he whispered fiercely. "I can see it in your eyes." He nodded toward the two older ladies. "It is apparent they have not, and I have told them nothing." The young viscount ran an agitated hand through his hair. "They will think me run mad," he said, "but I must speak with you alone, Catherine."
Cat took a deep breath. "No, cousin, I fear we must have it all out in the open." She drew him back to his chair, then gave the ladies a brief account of what she had learned from Wrexham.
"That's why I've come," Lord Norwell burst out as soon as she had finished. "You must marry me, Catherine. "It's the only solution. Papa won't care for it, of course, but I've plenty of income of my own. Great Aunt Matilda left me her fortune, don't you know? And we shall go on very well. Believe me, cousin, marriage is all that will save you."
"He is right," Clara agreed with a significant look straight into Cat's green eyes. "But not to your cousin, I think."
Blanca added her fierce endorsement. "Listen to Clara, Catarina. Stop this stubbornness and accept Harborough's offer."
"Harborough?" said Edmund blankly. "Harborough made you an offer?"
It seemed to be Cat's afternoon for apologies. While she was struggling to explain the complexities of her situation to her cousin and thank him for his truly noble offer, Rankin announced additional visitors.
"Edmund, what are you doing here?" demanded his mama as she paused just inside the door, her daughter Lydia and the Earl of Ailesbury close behind.
Norwell rose to his feet with great dignity, adjusted his spectacles, and faced his family with considerable bravery. "I--I am making cousin Catherine an offer, mama. S--she has been much wronged, and I am determined to m--mend matters."
"Fiddlesticks!" scoffed his mother.
"But you can't!" cried his sister, who knew a great deal more about Catherine's anomalous situation than her innocent young brother.
"Nonsense!" added Lord Ailesbury. "Your cousin is well provided with protectors." He choked for a moment on the unfortunate choice of words. "She does not need a young pup like you to defend her honor. Though I cannot deny your family feeling does you credit."
Ailesbury paused to properly greet the ladies before turning to his cousin's child. "Catherine, I presume you have heard the tales that whelp Markham has been spreading. Lady Ailesbury, Lydia, and I have come to inform you that we reject such aspersions on a member of our family and will lend you the full support of the Audleys against such dastardly lies."
As the earl drew breath, Catherine glanced at his wife, who looked as if she were being forced to suck upon a lemon. "Whatever the truth of the matter," Malvinia Audley intoned, "we cannot accept such a scurrilous tale. Particularly as it reflects so poorly on the Audley family. We do, however, believe you should retire from society, Catherine, until Markham can be dealt with. Ailesbury seems to think Harborough and his brother should take the matter in hand."
The earl seconded his wife's words. "Catherine, Malvinia is correct. You must avoid the Cut Direct." The earl so far forgot himself as to issue a spontaneous remark. "Those demmed boys will be forgiven, Catherine, but you will not. You're an outsider, m'dear, and far too beautiful for your own good."
"That's why she must be married, Papa," Edmund cried. "It's the only way."
"Don't be a nincompoop, boy," Ailesbury snapped. "Harborough and his brother would put you to grass before breakfast and make a hearty meal over your lifeless corpse. Honor is all well and good, but it's cold comfort in your grave. Not that the thought of Markham there is all that repugnant," he added thoughtfully.
Cat was struggling through a suitable, if inwardly stunned thank you, to her Audley relations when a not-so-discreet cough interrupted her words. Startled, the occupants of the drawing room looked up to discover a Rankin who was obviously laboring under strong emotion, his professional aplomb completely shattered. He swallowed hard, coughed yet again, and announced, "Colonel Auguste Beaufort."
The butler stepped aside to reveal an elegant gentleman of slightly more than thirty years, dressed in clothing which could only have come from a Parisian tailor. Colonel Beaufort's brown curly locks topped a thin face from which shone a pair of bright blue eyes which Cat instantly recognized. He was tall, lean, and shockingly handsome. Stunned, the Everingham House ladies rose slowly to their feet as the Frenchman surveyed them with astute regard.
Colonel Auguste Beaufort was a man of the middle classes raised to power by the egalitarian ideals of the Revolution. And by Napoleon Bonaparte. He had the calm, clear-eyed confidence of a man who has commanded a regiment of light cavalry in the most victorious army in the world. In short, he had spent his entire adult life campaigning for the glory of France; a roomful of women, even Englishwomen, would not daunt him.
A tiny smile played across his handsome face as he looked from one to another. "Ladies, Sirs, I hope I have not intruded at an awkward moment. I seek Mrs. Catherine Perez de Leon." His English was clear, with a faint accent which could only add to his undoubted appeal. As the silence lengthened, his finely arched brows rose in delicate question.
Cat expelled the breath she had been holding. "I--I am she," she stammered.
Colonel Beaufort found himself face to face with the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. His blue eyes---his son's eyes---lit with unabashed admiration. He smiled. A smile of singular charm. "You then are the lady who writes letters to Napoleon Bonaparte." He brought Catherine's hand to his lips, kissed it, his eyes never leaving hers.
"I cannot believe you are here," Cat said in a voice barely above a whisper. You are Pierre's father, are you not?"
"His name is André," said Auguste Beaufort, "and from your description, yes, I believe myself to be his papa."
The Marquess of Harborough returned from a week in Somerset eagerly anticipating the execution of his scheme to kidnap his wife and shut her up in Harborough Castle until she came to her senses. Tony, who had become an accomplice in the plot, conceded it might be the only solution, but was far less confident of the outcome. Cat had backbone which had not yet been tapped. She was no longer a child, but an independent woman with strong will and equally strong pride. It was quite possible imprisonment in Harborough Castle would only fix her stubborn resistance forever in place.
As the traveling coach pulled up in the driveway of Marchmont House, the twins leaped down and ran nimbly up the steps, casually handing their hats, gloves and driving coats into the arms of the butler, who immediately passed his burden to a waiting footman. "Milords," said the butler with unusually grave face, "there is a note here of some urgency. Lord Wrexham requested that you receive it immediately upon your return." He picked up a silver salver with a small envelope on it and held it out, uncertain as to which twin was Lord Harborough.
Alex wasted no time as he scanned the name, ripped open the envelope, and read the short note. If the cool, unflappable Earl of Wrexham said the matter was urgent, it undoubtedly was. "The devil's in it," said Alex to Tony. "Let's go. This doesn't sound like something we'd wish the parents to hear."
Fortunately, the earl was at home when the Trowbridge twins came pounding on his door. "Well?" Alex demanded the moment the door to the library shut behind the butler. "Out with it, Wrexham. Cryptic notes annoy me. What's going on? Is it Cat?"
"Madeira, my lords?" Wrexham inquired smoothly. "I believe you're going to need it."
Alex took a menacing step toward the earl before his brother grabbed him by the arm. "Madeira would be excellent, my lord," said Tony. "We've just returned from Somerset, and traveling always brings on a thirst."
"Ah, the civilized one," breathed Wrexham drily, and poured wine for them all.
When they were seated, with Alex still looking as if he were ready to pounce on anything and everything, Lord Wrexham told them about Percy Markham. In a way, Tony thought, it was a relief. Markham had provided Alex a very real target on which to vent his fury and frustration. It also made kidnapping unnecessary. Cat could not possibly refuse his brother now.
"I suppose Cat knows," said Alex, taking a moment from the enormity of his rage to consider his wife's feelings in the matter.
"Um . . . yes," Wrexham replied, his customary aplomb showing a slight crack of unease.
Alex pounced on the hesitation. "And just what does that mean," he snapped.
"It means," said Wrexham carefully, "that Catherine was informed of the rumors several days ago. Lady Everingham tells me that as soon as the scandal broke Catherine received at least two offers of marriage." There was, after all, no reason he had to tell Harborough one of the offers had been his own. "Both of which she refused, although everyone told her only marriage could stem the viciousness of this particular rumor. When she continued in her stubbornness, Ailesbury, his wife, and Clara Everingham agreed her only recourse was to retire to the country and hope the whole thing would blow over."
"So she's at Branwyck Park?"
"Um . . . no," murmured the earl.
"Damn it, Wrexham, where is she?"
"It would seem she has gone to France," Wrexham said, keeping wary eyes on the marquess.
"France!" echoed the twins in chorus.
"I believe Catherine has been fostering a French child?" the earl countered softly.
"Pierre?" Tony questioned blankly.
"What are you saying?" Alex demanded.
Two pairs of matching amber eyes, glowing with curiosity, stared at the Earl of Wrexham.
"It seems that in the midst of Markham's scandal a Colonel Auguste Beaufort arrived at Everingham House looking for his son. Naturally, they drove that very day to Branwyck Park. The reunion was particularly touching, I'm told. According to Clara Everingham, the boy took one look and ran across the room, sobbing, 'Papa, Papa.' I'm told the child had not said a word since you took him from the field at Vitoria, Harborough, so as you can well imagine, there was a veritable flood of tears. Not a dry eye in the house. You know," the earl added with a sympathy at odds with his customary cynicism, "there's not a man in the world can compete with the tears of a child."
"Finish it," said Alex grimly.
"Beaufort's gratitude was overwhelming. Quite naturally, he assured Catherine anything he might be able to do for her, she need only ask. So she did."
Slowly, Alex got to his feet, walked to the table and refilled his wine glass, tossing it off in one swallow. He turned back to face Wrexham and his brother. "And just what did she ask?" he inquired, his voice as dark and still as a primeval swamp.
"She asked his escort to Paris."
"Escort. A nice euphemism, wouldn't you say, Tony?" said Alex, his eyes holding a glitter which even Anthony found frightening.
"That's all it was, Harborough," Wrexham insisted quickly. "I'm sure of it. Catherine's world fell in on her. You and your brother weren't here to defend her. She needed to get farther away than Branwyck Park. So, overnight, she simply packed and left."
"But how?" Tony asked. "I'd heard so many are rushing to Paris now the war is over that the ships are full to overflowing."
"I believe Beaufort had his own transportation," said Wrexham carefully.
"And what the devil does that mean?"
"He was unsure of the reception of a Frenchman in England, so I understand he came by way of the Gentlemen."
"Smugglers!" Tony exclaimed.
"I got the impression, again from Clara Everingham," Wrexham continued smoothly, "that money was not a problem with the colonel." "He could afford to hire any service he needed. According to Clara, his family was Napoleon's own banker. "Beaufort and the boy, Catherine, Dona Blanca, the child's nurse, and Catherine's maid all returned the same way he had come. They've been gone two days now."
Into the ensuing silence a faint sound erupted. The slight hiccup grew into a chuckle and then outright guffaws as Tony was overcome with hilarity. Shoulders shaking, he laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks. When he was able to focus on the stunned features of his outraged brother, he wiped his eyes and gasped, "Don't you see? She's finally outsmarted you. Not all your plots and schemes or your bloody title and consequence could make her into your docile little puppet."
'I'll kill him," said Alex, only half hearing his brother's taunts.
"You won't kill Pierre's papa, and you damn well know it," Tony countered. "Cat's gotten clean away. Run off with a bloody Frenchman. The perfect revenge, brother. The ultimate betrayal. Now you know how it feels."
Alex braced both hands against the mantel, resting his forehead on the cool green marble between. "I do believe you're enjoying this, baby brother," he groaned.
"If I might point out," Wrexham interjected, "before the pair of you go haring off to France, I believe we should consider the simpler problem of Percy Markham."
Alex raised his head, pain tightening into slow, deadly anger. "By all means, Markham first," he agreed calmly. "Then Beaufort. I'll kill them both."
"Can't do that, brother," said Tony. "I might become the heir, and it doesn't suit me. Even a Marquess can't go round murdering people. Besides, killing's too good for Markham. If we put our heads together, I'm sure we can come up with something infinitely more satisfying.
As the Earl of Wrexham watched in fascination, he saw the veneer of civilization drop away from the Marquess of Harborough, the lion of society sharpening into a beast of prey. Never again would he wonder how an English nobleman had survived years of violent, underhanded warfare in the mountains of Spain.
"I have an idea," said Blas the Bastard.
P A R T I I I
Paris was a seething cauldron. The restored monarch Louis XVIII and his supporters scattered sparks of gaiety through a city still simmering with the exiled Napoleon's egalitarian ideals. The smouldering fires of conflict haloed the beauty of Bonaparte's architectural triumphs even as violence bubbled beneath the surface, bursting daily into explosions of desperation and death.
Returning French officers, rather than slinking home in defeat, strutted the sidewalks of Paris, quite literally cutting a swath through the colorful ranks of the British, Austrian, Russian, and Prussian officers who had the temerity to think they had won the war. While Byron's Louis the Fat held court, the streets of Paris echoed with the riotous living of thousands of men who had fought through twenty years of war and now found themselves plunged into the boredom of sudden peace. To many, continuing the war on a personal level seemed completely logical. Challenges from the French were issued with gusto and panache. With frightening regularity, bodies began to pile up in the Bois de Boulogne and the streets near popular restaurants and cafes.
On the fourth day of May the new British ambassador to France rode into Paris astride a white horse. While those wearing the white cockade of Louis XVIII went wild with joy, belligerent French soldiers ground their teeth in anger and the citizens of Paris, ever fickle, turned out to view the spectacle. The triumphal ride down the Champs-Élysées had been a long time coming. Field Marshal, Lord Arthur Wellesley, newly made Duke of Wellington, had arrived at last in the heart of France.
The Hôtel Beaufort was an imposing mansion on the west side of the city, overlooking the near wilderness of the Bois de Boulogne. Cat, who was sorely in need of the peace and solace of natural beauty, pulled a chair to the open window of her spacious bedchamber and gazed out over the vast sea of trees freshly tipped with the soft new green of spring. It looked so peaceful. Yet each of the two days since her arrival there had been sounds of gunfire. Pistols. How many other duels had gone unnoticed? Auguste Beaufort had told her the French preferred swords, scorning the English officers who usually chose pistols for the daily round of impromptu duels.
Cat shivered. Rejecting thoughts of death, she concentrated on the reality of the life which was passing by outside her window. For the moment, it seemed everyone in Paris was out to enjoy the burgeoning beauty of spring. Elegant people in open carriages, mounted on horses, or sauntering along on foot. Some men wore stylish jackets and trousers; far more shone in an almost limitless variety of military colors. Ironically, among the bevies of gracious ladies only the English still wore the columnar fashion set by Josephine Bonaparte. The women of France were easily distinguished by the new fashion of bouffant sleeves, bell skirts and enormous sweeping hats which towered above their heads like a crazily canted windmills. Cat's mouth quirked up at the corners as one of the great hats was swept away on the wind. A Hussar chased after it, his blue pelisse flying in the wind. A long-drawn sigh shook Cat's small frame as the officer retrieved the hat and returned it, with a bow and a smile, to a grateful young lady. A few moments of conversation, the Hussar offered his arm, and off they went, the scent of romance drifting clearly on the breeze.
There must have been a time, Cat thought, when she was that young and gay, without a care beyond the loss of a hat or admiration on a handsome face. And now . . . now she had made a complete wreck of her life. Letting stubborn, foolish pride tear out her heart. And, perhaps worst of all, she had thoughtlessly endangered a friend.
They had left England so hastily there had been no time to analyze what she was doing. She knew only she must go. Call it escape. Running away. Cowardice. The opportunity presented itself and, right or wrong, she had taken it. Cat's recollections of the past few days were a fragmented kaleidoscope of scenes: André crying, "Papa!" Tears misting the handsome colonel's deep blue eyes. Blanca's face when Cat told her they were leaving for France. The sheer excitement of the moonless journey back to France on a ship, now empty, which reeked of brandy. Standing at the rail and watching England fade into the blackness of the night. Feeling blackness creep into her soul.
Since her arrival in Paris, Cat had tried to assure herself that what she had done was logical. Sensible. She could no longer fight the forces ranged against her. To have the ton believe she had played the whore to both brothers was . . . was beyond her ability to stand and fight. She had lost the heart for battle.
So she ran away. Abandoning England and its inhabitants in the dark of night to flee to an enemy country with an enemy officer at her side. What would Thomas say if he could see her now?
She would marry Auguste Beaufort. Or so Cat had thought in the dark hours of the passage to France. It was the sensible thing to do. She would be André's maman. She would live comfortably in Paris with a man who was still in love with the wife who had died of a fever in Spain less than a year before. They had not discussed it, but a mariage de convenance lurked there between them. In the way a woman understands such things, Cat knew the possibility of marriage was as strongly fixed in the colonel's mind as in her own.
With magnificent savoir faire Auguste Beaufort had simply accepted that Catherine Perez wished to leave England and he would be responsible for her, not only on the voyage but for her stay in Paris, offering the hospitality of his parents' home. Anything, anything at all, would be granted to the woman who had reunited André Beaufort with his father and grandparents.
So here she was, a guest of Emile and Marguerite Beaufort, in a household run by a major domo named François Gautier who reminded Cat all too poignantly of Luis Cardoso. She and Blanca had a spacious suite of rooms. Bess Fielding found herself taking precedence over all the household servants save the housekeeper and Madame Beaufort's own maid. Rosalía Sanchez was overwhelmed by the luxury of her room off the nursery---and gratified to discover her Portuguese was far more readily understood in France than among the English who seemed to have no gift for languages at all. In fact, one of Cat's few reservations about their situation in the Beaufort household was a strong suspicion André was likely to become the most overindulged child in Paris. And the certainty her relationship with Auguste Beaufort required clarification.
As the wondrous beauty of Paris provided nothing more than a thin veneer over the seething conflicts bloodying the streets, so their physical well-being in the Hôtel Beaufort was mere camouflage. Auguste Beaufort was not yet aware he owed a far greater debt. That the man who had rescued his son from the battlefield was not dead but very much alive. And very likely on his way to Paris to add another Frenchman to the list of those he had already dispatched into the hereafter.
Perhaps Blas would not come, Cat thought with an odd mixture of hope and sorrow. What she had done was truly unforgivable. He would wash his hands of her and allow Lydia to console the affront to his dignity. But if he loved enough to follow her? No. Love was not necessary. Arrogance and honor were enough to send him hot-footing after her. Was she not Harborough's whore? Blas would keep what was his. Whether he wanted her or not, he would make sure no son of a French banker would take what had belonged to Alexander Trowbridge, Marquess of Harborough.
So he would come.
How did she tell her handsome host the man who had saved his son's life was on his way to Paris to kill him?
"Catarina?" Blanca came in from the sitting room which they shared. "Colonel Beaufort has returned. I asked Monsieur François to tell him you wished to speak with him. The colonel is waiting for you in the library."
Cat stood up, shook out her skirts, patted her hair in place. After two days of observing the women of Paris, she was all too aware her clothes were outmoded. The fashion of the Empress Josephine was now reduced to English dowdiness. Tant pis. Cat shrugged. Her gown would have to do, whether the colonel thought her unfashionable or not. There were a great many things which must be said to Auguste Beaufort.
Over an hour later, when Cat finished her long and complex confession, Beaufort studied her anguished face for several moments in silence. He could not deny he had already pictured this ravishingly beautiful woman as his wife. They would live in quiet contentment, if not passion. Provide André with younger brothers and sisters. Discovering Catherine Perez had a living husband, however tenuous, exploded a number of pleasant daydreams. Surprisingly, his heart seemed to have suffered a wound as well.
"Do you love him?" Auguste asked at last.
Cat closed her eyes, drew a deep breath. "Yes," she admitted. "I fear I always shall."
"Then when he comes, you must go with him." Beaufort was pleased at the steadiness of his tone.
Cat, unaware of the wound she had dealt, shook her head. "It is not that simple. How can we live together after all that has happened?"
"How can you not?"
Cat allowed her annoyance to show. "How can you reduce all this to such simplicity?"
"But it is simple, ma chère. Would you be better off with him or without him? From what you have told me, the answer is that you must follow your heart, whether you wish to or not."
"You are like all the others!" Cat burst out. "How can you take his side?"
The colonel shrugged. "I am a man, Catherine. Do you think your Blas the only man to have sinned in this war? Do you think I have not tortured myself about taking Marguerite and André into danger? If I had left them here in Paris, Marguerite would be alive, André would not have been abandoned on a battlefield. We are all guilty of something, Catherine. Granted, some have more sins than others, but, yes, I fear I see your Blas's point of view. We French are pragmatists. We see life as a business to be lived with good sense and as much enjoyment as one can manage. You should rejoice your husband is still alive, Catherine, and take advantage of the life that is being offered."
"How can you be so sure he will want me?" she asked in a small voice. "To all intents and purposes, I have run off with another man."
Beaufort laughed aloud. "Frankly, ma chère, I cannot imagine him not wanting you. If you were my wife, I should follow you to the ends of the earth. Believe me, your Blas---le marquis Harborough---will want you."
"But I have told you," Cat pursued, annoyed by his sangfroid. "If he comes, he will wish to kill you!"
Colonel Beaufort considered the matter. "I certainly should not wish to fight him," he admitted, straight faced, "though I may not have a choice. I do not choose to stand there and let him shoot me." He cocked his head to one side. "Of course, as the challenged party, I may choose swords. Is he good with a sword, your Blas?"
"Stop it! Cat cried. "You are teasing me. This is absurd."
Gently, Beaufort lifted her chin, brushed an errant copper curl back from her forehead. "But of course it is absurd. Duels are absurd . . . as wars are absurd. As life is frequently absurd. I would very much like to talk with this husband of yours, but he is a fire-eater, no? I doubt that when he appears conversation will be uppermost in his mind."
Cat burst into tears. "I never . . . ever meant to use you so! You have been so kind . . . you are André's papa . . . my friend. Ah, mon Dieu, I must go away. I shall return to Lisbon . . ."
"Believe me, Catherine, from what you have told me this Blas would pause only long enough to kill me before he boarded a packet for Lisbon. So you will stay in Paris and face the music. And if the fates are kind, who knows?---you may be able to keep us from killing each other."
But Alexander Trowbridge, Marquess of Harborough, did not come. Blas, who had also been Don Alexis Perez de Leon, did not come. Neither nobleman nor spy was seen or heard from.
Cat was desolate. She had accomplished exactly what she thought she wanted. She had given him a disgust of her.
He was not coming. He did not want her.
She would die of it.
She would not. Though Thomas's mocking laughter was strong inside her head, Cat stood her ground. She was Catherine Audley Perez de Leon. Far from a fragile flower. She had Auguste Beaufort. André. Blanca and Bess Fielding.
Who needed Blas the Bastard?
Alex.
Somehow it was not so painful if she thought of him as Alex. A new character on the stage. Alexander Trowbridge, Lord Harborough, villain extraordinaire.
Alex. A name to hate.
Alex, Alex, Alex . . .
Ten days after their arrival in Paris Cat and Blanca sat in the family barouche in front of the Hôtel Beaufort, patiently waiting while the colonel spoke with the coachman. Blanca leaned close to hiss into Cat's ear. "Monsieur François has just told me there has been a great storm in the Channel. For nearly a week boats have not been able to leave port." Conflicting emotions drifted across Cat's face as Blanca added, "Monsieur François says the storm is dying out. He expects shipping to venture out with the next tide."
The eggs and country bacon Cat had consumed for breakfast rose in her throat. Was it possible Alexander the Great had not rejected her? That he might yet come? Could she once again expect to see him around the next corner, at the door, climbing in her window? Into her bed? She should be horrified. But what she felt was a surge of excitement, a thin, flickering flame of hope. A poor, sickly thing. But hope, nonetheless.
Colonel Beaufort ended his cautions to the coachman and swung himself into the barouche. With a reassuring smile he seated himself on the rear-facing seat opposite the two ladies. He had hesitated to take his guests into the maelstrom that was Paris---even the dressmaker brought her swatches and her minions to the Beaufort mansion---but one look at his guests' wan faces that morning had changed his mind. A healthy dose of Paris in the springtime was needed. He could only hope there had been time to remove whatever bodies had been abandoned in the streets after any early morning affaires d'honeur.
Cat---lost in visions, terrible and romantic, of her lover's arrival---became aware of her surroundings only after they had driven some distance down the Champs-Élysées. Embarrassed by her preoccupation, she straightened her shoulders and made a concerted effort to show her appreciation for this excursion into the Parisian spring. As she looked around, it immediately became apparent the new French fashions were even more startling at close range. "Regarde, Blanca," said Cat with determined gaiety. "The sleeves on that gown are so enormous I think the lady must take to flight at any moment. And the bonnets! The brims are so wide 'tis a wonder the parisiennes can find their way about. They need an escort to keep them from being run over!"
"I shall look like a balloon in my new gowns," Blanca moaned, shaking her head. "The skirts must be four times the width to which we are accustomed. And you, child, will be lost in all those yards of cloth. Ah, deus!" she exclaimed. "Do not, I pray you, choose one like that. You have not the height for it." Blanca nodded toward a young woman whose gown was composed of successive layers of ruffles which fell from its slightly raised waistline all the way to the hemline.
"You will notice all the ladies are well escorted," Beaufort pointed out. "As I have warned you, Paris is not a safe place at the moment."
"I would not have missed it for the world," Cat countered swiftly. "There may be tension, but there is excitement as well. When Lisbon was occupied, it was not at all the same. The city was quiet . . . sullen, if you will. Here there is a feeling almost anything could happen at any moment. They say Napoleon is on his way to Elba, but I should not be surprised to see him come riding down the street, gathering his troops behind him."
Colonel Beaufort turned his head away, staring sightlessly out over the beauty of the city. "He was a great man," he said. "He carried us farther than most of us wished to go, but he was a man whose name will echo through the centuries. We were proud to follow wherever he led."
Catherine laid a comforting hand on the colonel's arm. "You have a right to be proud, Auguste. No one can fault a man for being loyal to his country."
The colonel suddenly ordered the coachman to stop. The ladies gazed up at a vast three-story building which stretched along the bank of the Seine. "Come," said Beaufort, leaping from the carriage and offering a hand to help the ladies down. "Let us do something which will bring smiles back to your faces. We can be among the few who will see the best of Europe's art before we are forced to give it back," he added with only a trace of bitterness.
"This is the Louvre?" Cat inquired, wide-eyed.
"Napoleon brought so many treasures to the museum his architects had to add a third story. The basements are full as well. At the moment this building houses the greatest collection of art ever assembled under one roof."
The colonel's stiff-necked pride radiated from every pore. If there was one thing his hero Napoleon Bonaparte was not, Catherine knew, it was a barbarian. "Surely not all of it must be returned?" she murmured.
"By no means," Beaufort declared. "The kings of France acquired a great many treasures long before Napoleon decided to become the premier art collector of the world. The Louvre will still be a great museum." The colonel tossed off a Gallic shrug, aware he had revealed too much of himself. "With the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo, how can it not?" he added on a lighter note.
All too quickly they discovered the impossibility of seeing, let alone appreciating, the Louvre's vast array of treasures in one visit. By the time Cat paused before the warm and roiling colors of a Fragonard, she could have sworn her slippers were worn to nearly nothing between her stockings and the marble floor.
"Catherine," Beaufort said with a sudden frown, "Joseph Bonaparte was carrying some of Spain's finest paintings at Vitoria. Do you know what happened to them? Were they looted along with everything else?"
"Amazingly, I do know," Cat replied. "I'm told King Joseph escaped his coach out one side while the British pulled open the door on the other. The paintings were in the coach and, fortunately, rolled canvas does not have the glitter of gold. They escaped the looting. I only know because six months later the entire story was the talk of London when the paintings were given to Wellington by a grateful Spanish government."
"So the great and proper Wellington ended up with the finest loot of all," Beaufort mused. "I rather like the irony."
He cut off Cat's sputtering with a quick smile and a suggestion they end their visit for the day and sample the ices at Tortoni's.
Famed for the tastiness and variety of its ices, Tortoni's seemed an odd place to find a large group of young men unaccompanied by ladies or even by their chère amies. Some were lounging at tables with a view of the entrance; others, by windows overlooking the street and the Bois de Boulogne. This, combined with an intense atmosphere of expectation, left the colonel wondering if he should return the ladies to the barouche immediately.
"Colonel!" a voice cried. "Colonel Beaufort." An eager young man sprang up from one of the window tables and came forward, hand outstretched in greeting. In his mid-twenties, he had the confident, straight-shouldered bearing of a soldier. Dark eyes shone from a thin face topped by brown hair cut short in the style of his Emperor.
"Lambert." Auguste Beaufort wrung the young man's hand. "I am glad to see you made it back."
"Moi aussi, colonel." The young man grinned.
"Madame Perez, Dona Blanca, allow me to present my aide-de-camp Captain Jean Paul Lambert. We were separated after I was wounded at Vitoria and I have not seen him since." Beaufort completed the introductions and asked Lambert to join them.
"Alas, colonel, I deeply regret I cannot join two such lovely ladies, for I have an obligation to my companions. We are in momentary expectation of some action, you understand?" He winked at the colonel and nodded toward a table of young Frenchmen, all obviously very fit. Eager specimens of Napoleon's finest.
"Don't be a fool, Jean Paul," Beaufort snapped. "You have too much to offer to risk your life when it is no longer necessary."
"It is different for you, colonel. You are a family man. But me, I do not care to see foreign troops walking the streets of my city. I have never known anything but war. How can I have a place in this world of peace?" He shrugged. "I must do what I must. For honor, for glory. Because I am bored. Do not mourn for me, colonel. What else is left for a soldier of France?" With a gracious bow to the ladies, Jean Paul Lambert returned to his fellow officers. Grimly, the colonel turned to a hovering waiter and placed their order.
The ladies were thoroughly enjoying their strawberry ices when they became aware of a sudden cessation of conversation around them. Slowly, Cat put down her spoon and raised her eyes to Auguste. "What is happening?" she whispered.
"Trouble, I think," he hissed back. "Some Prussian soldiers have just entered. Death's Head Regiment. Eat your ice and keep your eyes on your plate." Hastily, Cat and Blanca did as they were bid, but their ears were attuned to the slightest sound. With something close to revulsion, Cat suddenly realized she was enjoying the resurgence of excitement, the call to danger. If she could feel like this, it was no wonder the young officers of both sides were turning the cafés of Paris into a war zone.
As the Prussians passed their table, swords clinking in time to their synchronized steps, Cat sneaked a look from beneath lowered lashes. Her shock was intense. Never before had she encountered the Death's Head Regiment. Except for the tall white feather and the skull and crossbones which decorated their shakos, all three officers were dressed in black from their heads to shiny booted toes. Cat felt the hair rise on her arms. The messengers of Death had come to Tortoni's.
The three Prussian officers, obviously as bent on a quarrel as their French counterparts, walked up to the table by the window where Jean Paul Lambert and his companions were sitting and demanded that it be vacated so they might sit there. The four Frenchmen slouched down in their chairs, smiling in satisfaction. At last, some action! A rapid series of insults, a scraping of chairs. A general murmur of satisfaction from the other customers, followed by a mass exodus of young men crossing the street into the Bois de Boulogne.
Beaufort shot to his feet, grabbed Cat by the arm. "You will not be among those who watch this thing." Having been forbidden to do far too few things in her life, Cat glared at him, refusing to move.
"Come," said Blanca, who had long since learned how to compromise with her young friend, "no one is by the windows now. We may watch from there."
Across the street nods of approval from the spectators met the choice of swords for the duel. Prussians had a proper understanding of honor. Swords were a much more elegant weapon, a contest of skill, almost a thing of beauty, not the roar of a single ball, the smell of powder, and---poof!---all was over in an instant.
The cluster of young men, clearly visible in a small grassy area surrounded by towering trees, suddenly scattered into a rough ring, leaving at the center two pairs of duelists. Two Prussians handed their shakos with the grinning Death's Heads to their companions, clicked their heels and bowed to the two young men who were no longer allowed to wear the uniform of France. One of the Frenchman was Jean Paul Lambert.
"Ah, no!" Cat breathed. "Prussians are reputed to be the best swordsmen in Europe."
"Nonsense," said the colonel. "They are clumsy oxen compared to Frenchmen. You will see."
Someone had left the door to Tortoni's open, and in the absolute silence inside the building the clash of swords rang clear and true. Cat had seen very little swordplay but had little doubt she was witnessing a remarkable demonstration of skill. Was that not what Captain Lambert had been trying to say? The duel was not simply a life and death struggle with the enemy but a matter of honor. Perhaps even more important than winning was the manner in which the battle was fought.
And then, as if to prove her wrong, the contest turned ugly. One of the Prussians stumbled, on a tree root perhaps, as he stepped back from his opponent's lunge. As he fell to his knees, his sword almost touching the ground, his opponent surged forward to ram his sword through the Prussian's shoulder.
A cry of disapproval rang out from men of both nationalities. In battle such conduct was necessary, but not on a field of honor. Then again, the war was only a month past. It was all too easy to forget it was over.
Disregarding the presence of the ladies, Beaufort swore softly and fluently, feeling personally dishonored by the Frenchman's conduct. The wounded Prussian was dragged clear of the field as the second duel suddenly intensified into deadly combat. The black-clad Prussian, engaged with Jean Paul Lambert, had truly become a relentless messenger of death.
Lambert was gradually driven back toward the trees. His feet stepped nimbly over roots and branches, but he was not able to recapture the forward momentum of the aggressor. A final step back, and he was trapped against a broad tree trunk with no room to maneuver. He made a desperate sweep of his sword from left to right in an attempt to parry the Prussian's flying blade, but his opponent's final thrust moved inexorably on, piercing the Frenchman's chest. The sword slipped from Lambert's lifeless fingers as he slid down the rough bark to sit with his back against the tree trunk, his blood draining onto the gnarled roots beneath him.
The silence of Tortoni's was split by a sob. Cat realized it was her own. Blanca turned her head away, her face covered by a lace handkerchief. With her other hand she made the Sign of the Cross. Colonel Beaufort, his face grim, shepherded the ladies into the waiting barouche and headed for home. His first duty was to his guests. He would return to make sure the body of Jean Paul Lambert was not among those left to be picked up by the ghoulish squads now making regular marches of death to the cemetery at Père Lachaise.
Upon their return to the Hôtel Beaufort, Cat and Blanca assured Auguste's mother they had had a most delightful excursion. Cat spent an hour in the nursery, clinging to the warmth and love of the boy who would, she hoped, grow to maturity in a world where he would never have to go to war. At supper she contrived an entertaining, if not animated, tale of their visit to the Louvre and the fine flavor of the ices at Tortoni's. But later that night, when the house was quiet, she fastened a robe over her nightgown and crept down the stairs. She was quite sure she had not heard Auguste's swift and confident stride along the upper hallway. She found him in the library reading, a book in one hand, a glass of brandy in the other. Startled, the colonel jumped to his feet, the brandy sloshing dangerously close to the edge of his glass.
"May I have some?" Cat asked with a wan smile, sinking into the chair opposite his.
Beaufort was not surprised by her request. Even before he met her, he was aware Catherine Perez was unique. No matter how delicate her appearance, the fragile flowers of this world did not write letters to Napoleon Bonaparte. "With my compliments, ma chère," said the colonel as he handed her the brandy and once again took his seat. "The tale you told for my parents' benefit was truly remarkable."
Cat acknowledged his thanks with a small nod. "I suppose . . . he was dead, was he not?"
"Yes." In the dim light Beaufort's blue eyes seemed almost black. "I am very sorry," he apologized with a grave formality designed to cover his strongly suppressed emotions. "I am deeply disturbed you should see my beautiful country at such a terrible time."
Cat pleated a fold in her robe, then smoothed it flat. "It's strange. I am nearly twenty-one. For all my life France has been the enemy. And yet, today, I wanted, so very much, for Captain Lambert to win. I knew him for five minutes, and yet I grieve. It is almost as difficult to understand as my feelings for Blas. Alex."
Cat took a deep swallow from her glass, welcoming the fierce sting as it coursed down her throat. "Today, just as we were leaving for our drive, Monsieur François told Blanca ships are just beginning to sail again after a week of bad weather." Cat nodded toward the double doors leading to the terrace outside. "Which means that Alexander Trowbridge could walk through those doors at any moment. Or be lying in wait at Tortoni's, the Louvre, or the Palais-Royal. Anywhere. Anytime. Any place."
She raised her eyes and held Auguste's steady gaze. "I will not have either of you die for me. Do you understand, Auguste? You will remember that Blas---le marquis de Harborough---saved your son's life. When you meet, you will assure him I am a guest in your parents' home. That you have at all times treated me with honor."
The colonel stiffened, his eyes sparking with offended pride. "A Beaufort does not need to attest to his honor."
"I don't care whether you need to or not," Cat hissed. "There has been enough killing. If you love your son, if you are grateful for his care, you will say whatever you have to. No one is going to die because of me. Is that clear?"
"Perfectly," Beaufort agreed with deceptive meekness. "But somehow I do not think a man who fought with the guerrilleros in Spain is going to agree with you."
"Auguste!"
"Ne fâche pas, Catherine," he said gently. "The debt I owe him is too great. I have survived a lifetime of war, I shall survive this as well. Now go to bed before I forget you are married and a guest in my house. Almost I find it insulting you come to me begging favors in the wee hours of the night wearing only your bedgarments. Do you think I am not a man?"
Cat shot to her feet, blushing fiery red, murmuring her apologies. As she said goodnight and moved rapidly across the room, the colonel's parting words stopped her just short of the door. "If your Blas should not want you," Auguste declared, "believe me, Catherine, you will always have a place at my side."
Unable to summon any coherent thoughts, Cat could only acknowledge his words with a slight nod before she left the room, closing the door softly behind her.
"Your Grace? General? . . . uh, Field Marshal Wellington, Sir?" Captain Jeremy Frayne attempted to pry the Duke of Wellington from his frowning perusal of one of the documents on his desk. The newly appointed ambassador to France was not in the best of moods. Before he could formally assume his new position, he had just learned he must make a quick trip to Spain where Ferdinand the Desired was already wrecking havoc with the reforms promised by the British. Then he would have to make an obligatory trip to England for what might be rather more adulation than he thought he could stomach. Particularly when he should be in Paris which was all too obviously in a state of turmoil.
Wellington was, however, grateful for the recommendation which had made him aware that one of his intelligence officers might be as useful in peace as he had been in war. That scamp Harborough had a sharp eye for talent---Frayne was proving himself damned helpful.
"My lord duke?" Captain Frayne was as persistent as he was competent, making yet another effort to attract the ambassador's attention.
"If it's another British traveler wishing to shake my hand," Wellington snarled, "I'll have you court-martialed, Frayne."
Now that he finally had his general's attention, Jeremy Frayne ruthlessly repressed a smile. No need to give the game away too soon. "I believe you may wish to see these particular travelers, Sir."
"Out with it, captain!"
"The Marquess of Harborough and his brother Lord Anthony Trowbridge. Sir."
The duke put down the page he was scanning and gave Frayne his full attention. "Twins, aren't they?" Wellington asked sharply.
"As alike as can be, Sir. I must admit I can't tell one from the other. Which one was our Blas? Or was it both?"
Wellington stared at his aide, his blue eyes beginning to take on the old glint of challenge. "Let's have them in and find out, shall we, Frayne?"
Since the Duke of Wellington had no more idea than the Foreign Office, the Horse Guards, or the Prince Regent himself that they had employed two Trowbridges for most of the years of the Peninsular War, the next few minutes were occupied by a good many exclamations and explanations, punctuated by wry humor and general camaraderie.
The general finally sat back in his chair, a small smile playing across his stern features. "Your contribution is greatly appreciated, gentlemen," he told the twins. "I dare say if your mother had managed quadruplets, we'd have been in Paris years ago." When the laughter subsided, the duke added, "So what brings you to Paris, my lords?"
Neither of the twins believed for one moment that Wellington did not already know the answer to his question. "I have come in search of someone, Your Grace," Alex replied readily enough. "Captain Frayne assures me he will have an address for me shortly." When the duke lifted an eyebrow, his mouth thinning into an impatient line, Alex reluctantly added, "I am looking for Thomas Audley's daughter, Catherine. I believe you may recall her, Sir."
Wellington maintained the blank façade of the gambler, but inwardly he was intrigued. It seemed his intrepid young spy was encountering more difficulty in peace than he had in war. "There's not a soul in Paris who is not aware Catherine Perez is at the Hôtel Beaufort," the duke admitted. "She is the heroine of the hour. The talk of all Paris. The rescue of the colonel's son, Beaufort's dash to England to retrieve the boy, his bringing the beautiful savior of infants back with him. Catherine Perez is famous. She has not yet gone into society, but I am looking forward to hearing the entire tale from her own lips." The duke's piercing blue eyes fastened on the man who had once called himself Blas. "So you still have an interest in the girl?"
There were few men in the world who would dare question the Marquess of Harborough so closely. Thomas Audley would have enjoyed the telltale clenching of Alex's jaw, the faint grinding of his teeth before he replied, "Yes, Sir, nothing has changed since our last conversation."
"Something must have changed for Audley's daughter." The duke's tone was uncompromising. He rose slowly from his chair, Alex and Anthony instantly rising with him. "You may not have heard, Harborough, but the streets of Paris are already littered with the corpses of men who thought themselves heroes. I will not have yours---or Beaufort's---joining them."
"We intend no violence, your grace, Tony interjected swiftly. We only wish to speak with Catherine. A mere matter of a lover's quarrel, I'm sure you understand."
"I understand," said the duke sternly, "that Catherine Audley has come to Paris under the escort of Colonel Auguste Beaufort. In effect, Harborough's wife has run off with a Frenchman."
Wellington strode out from behind his desk, to stand nose to nose with his former spy. "The day will come, Harborough," he said, "when you will outrank me, as the Marchmont title is considerably older than mine, but at this moment I am giving you an order I expect you to obey. Thomas Audley's daughter has my protection and that of Colonel Beaufort as well. No matter what the provocation, there will be no blood shed over this. Neither English nor French. Is that clearly understood?"
For a moment Tony feared his brother was going to floor Britain's ambassador to France right there in his ornately gilded office. Sparks flew, amber eyes to blue. The moment passed.
"Sir!" said Alex Trowbridge. He turned on his heel and stalked out. As he strode down the corridor outside the ambassador's office, Jeremy Frayne ran after him, thrusting into his hand the piece of paper just given him by the embassy's French liaison officer.
The direction of the Hôtel Beaufort.
Auguste Beaufort, seated at the desk in the library of the Hôtel Beaufort, paused to pour brandy into his glass before forcing himself back to the Annual Report of the Banque de France, which his father had asked him to read. Dull stuff indeed . . . but the life's blood of the famille Beaufort, whose fortune had been established by being banker to Napoleon and whose wealth and prominence would survive the Emperor's fall from grace.
Auguste, idly fingering the edge of one of the closely written sheets of parchment, was tempted to consign it to the fireplace. He must soon come to a decision about his future. What did soldiers do when their armies were disbanded and there were no wars to fight? Dona Blanca had given him an idea. Perhaps a small winery . . . the freshness of the country. André would like that. The life of a gentleman farmer would be preferable to being shut away inside a building in the heart of a city which was rapidly losing its appeal for him. A beautiful city. A great city. Bonaparte had seen to that. But no longer his city . . .
The tiniest sound, a whiff of night air, a prickling of hair on his neck, sent the colonel reaching for the pistol in the upper drawer of the desk. He welcomed the surge of excitement, the familiar challenge of battle. Swiftly, Beaufort turned to face the double doors behind him. A man was standing there, his arms casually extended away from his body. He was impeccably dressed in tailcoated jacket, waistcoat, pantaloons and shining spotless boots. All black. Even his tousled hair was jet. A menacing figure, he bore an all too obvious resemblance to the Prussians. Only the Death's Head insignia was missing.
"Monsieur le marquis," Beaufort murmured in greeting.
"I have been told by a goodly number of people, including Wellington and my mother, that I may not kill you," said Alex with ill-concealed truculence, his empty hands still extended to each side. "So, as you can see, I am unarmed. I am carrying a knife inside my boot, but that is only for protection on your somewhat doubtful Parisian streets."
For a long moment Auguste studied the strong planes of his visitor's casually arrogant features before placing his pistol down on the desk and waving his visitor to a chair. He poured his guest a glass of brandy and waited with some interest while Harborough sampled it. He accepted the English nobleman's grudging nod of approval in silence.
The colonel had expected this moment to be awkward. Somehow it was not. In this man he recognized a fellow warrior. His tongue did not trip on the words honor demanded. "I was wounded at Vitoria, my lord, and awoke a week later in Pamplona to find my son gone. If you had not rescued him, he would be lost to me forever. I must tell you there is no way I can adequately thank you for saving the life of my child."
"That remains to be seen," said Alex. Their eyes met. Held. Neither found the other wanting.
"You have a right to know my intentions toward Catherine," Beaufort acknowledged without prompting. "I owe her so much that when she asked for my escort to Paris, I could scarce refuse. I assure you she has been properly chaperoned at all times by Dona Blanca and by my mother who is a bourgeoise of the most proper. If Catherine would have me, I would marry her in an instant, but . . ." He shrugged. "I believe for a short while she even considered it, but now . . . now I would have to be blind not to see her heart is wholly yours."
Alex stared morosely at the dregs of brandy in his glass. "The giving of her heart and the living of her life seem to be two quite different things."
"If you talk to her now," Beaufort ventured, "you may find she is of a different mind. I will be blunt. She expected you to follow her ventre à terre, and when you did not appear, I saw the heart go out of her. When she learned of the storm which kept you in England, I saw life return. Her smiles, laughter, spirit---the very essence of her---flowed back. She was herself again."
Alex's cool façade faltered. He had feared . . . had been nearly certain Cat would marry the Frenchman and be lost to him forever. But he'd be damned before he'd let Beaufort see his relief. "Can you arrange a meeting?" Alex asked. "You may then consider yourself relieved of any obligation you might feel."
Beaufort's head snapped up. "I may be the son of what you call a 'cit,' but I assure you my honor is as strong as your own. If I aid you, it will be because I believe that is Catherine's desire, not because of any gratitude I might feel."
"Touché," Alex acknowledged. "I have the devil of a temper and am rather annoyed with everyone at the moment. You guard her well. I cannot get to Cat without your cooperation. I might be able to spirit her away, but honor would demand that you follow . . ."
"Is that what brought you here?" Auguste demanded harshly. "Honor?"
Alex leaned back in his chair and crossed his booted feet at the ankles, an almost sheepish smile playing across his face. "No, colonel," he admitted, "only love could humble Blas the Bastard at the feet of a French chasseur."
After only a moment's pause, Beaufort leaned forward, replenishing his guest's brandy. Smiles glimmered at the corners of both men's mouths as they raised their glasses in a gesture of mutual respect.
"I have one further request," Alex said some time later. "Tell the boy I will come back to see him before the year is out. And that I hope someday to have a son as fine as he."
Mellowed by these soft words, Colonel Beaufort ventured an impertinent question. "What will you do now, Harborough, join the idle rich?"
Alex glowered, but his voice remained even. "That seems to be a difficulty second only to recovering my wife," he admitted. "I suppose it will have to be diplomacy. I am told I have some talent at it, though I suspect those who said it have yet to experience my temper. A year in the country to discover what normal life is like, and then . . . who knows?"
"Catherine was born to be a diplomat's wife," Beaufort approved. "A far better use of her skills than being immured in the country with a gentleman farmer dreaming of past glories."
"So . . . you too find peace a strange bedfellow."
"It must be the country for me, I fear. Since I may no longer be a soldier, I would wish to bury myself as far from my old life as I can get."
"And if Bonaparte comes marching down the Champs Elysée?"
"I would follow him. To the ends of the earth. Or to hell."
Alex nodded. "May it never come to that." Solemnly, the two men shook hands. When Alex had his hand on the door to the terrace, Beaufort called out. "We have talked, monsieur le marquis, and we are both still alive. I would say you show great promise as a diplomat."
Alex waved a hand in casual salute. "If I succeed with my wife, then I may believe you. He turned and stepped outside, departing as swiftly and quietly as he had arrived.
"It will not do, it will not do at all!" Cat protested, regarding herself in the elegant pier glass adorning the wall of her bedchamber. "I wished to look . . . elegant, sophisticated, breathtaking." She flicked a disdainful finger at the huge puff of emerald silk billowing far out beyond her slim arms. "Instead I look like a great bird too fat to fly." Once again she peered into the glass. "Or perhaps a green ship in full sail." She stepped back to take in the full length of the wide bell of her skirt. "A very fat ship."
"Hush, my dear, it is not so bad as all that," Blanca soothed.
"It's a fine color for you, Missus," Bess Fielding assured her.
"You could scarcely let these French laugh at you behind their dainty fingers because you are so gauche as to still wear the fashions of the Empire," Blanca continued.
"That is well enough for you to say," Cat retorted. "All those yards of cloth do not look so . . . so huge in black."
"No matter what you wear, you will be the most beautiful woman in the room," Blanca assured her. "And I doubt anyone in the royal family will have finer jewels," she added as Bess Fielding fastened the last of the emerald and diamond parure around Cat's wrist. "Our Blas is a man of taste. The set is truly magnificent. It's high time you took it out of the case."
"The other women will wish to scratch out your eyes," Bess asserted. "They'll be as green as them jewels."
Cat sneaked another look in the pier glass. "You are both mad," she declared. "I look like a green cow tarted up for some pagan procession."
"Catarina!"
"Cow à la mode. C'est moi!"
"You are beautiful!" Bess insisted, standing on tiptoe to adjust her mistress's tiara.
"And so are you," said Cat, giving her maid's hand a grateful squeeze. "I have dragged you far from home, and all I get are smiles and superb care. You are a treasure, Bess Fielding. If I have been difficult lately, please forgive me. And the same to you, my darling Blanca. How you have put up with my fits and starts, I cannot imagine."
"What is it, cara?" Blanca asked, made suddenly fearful by Cat's tone. "You are about to make your debut in the new French society, not ride a tumbril to the guillotine."
"There is something I did not tell you," Cat admitted. "Yesterday afternoon I received a note from Lord Wellington kindly informing me Harborough and his brother visited the Embassy and were given our direction."
"Catarina, how could you not tell me?" Blanca cried.
"Perhaps because I did not care to witness your joy," Cat with considerable irony.
"But why has he not come?
"That is precisely the problem. Alex is plotting something. "Can you not picture him striding into tonight's soirée, throwing me over his shoulder and carting me off as he did in London? C'est affreux! Even if I wished it---which of course I do not---I would be mortified."
"And the good colonel will attempt to stop him . . . Ah, madre de deus!" Blanca wailed.
"There's not a hostess in Paris would turn away the Marquess of Harborough," Cat added glumly. Her stomach churned, she was terrified. Excited. She would not miss the coming encounter for a gift of the world itself.
A brisk rap on the sitting room door was followed by the appearance of Monsieur François. "Mesdames, Colonel Beaufort waits."
"Poor Auguste. I am a trial to him," said Cat. "En avant, m'amie. It will be an evening of some interest, I believe."
Auguste Beaufort found no fault with Cat's gown, his eyes lighting with pleasure as she descended the stairs. Graciously, he complimented both ladies and helped them don the cloaks which would protect their bare shoulders and semi-exposed bosoms from the damp night air.
In spite of the colonel's warnings, Cat was not prepared for the Beaufort coach to look like part of an army column about to venture into enemy territory. In addition to a guard sitting up with coachman, his shotgun gleaming in the light of the carriage lanterns, there were two outriders, each armed with sword and pistols, with a musket slung across each saddle. Altogether, they made a formidable cavalcade. Cat had not seen so much armament for a social engagement since the night Alex had taken her to Marshal Junot's ball at the Queluz palace. She shivered, pulling her silk cloak more tightly around her. "Is it far?" she asked the colonel who was seated across from her.
"Nearly an hour if we go around the woods," said Beaufort casually, "so I have decided to drive through them. That way, a quarter of an hour only." A quarter of an hour until she was lost to him forever. It was, perhaps, possible to be too noble. Who, after all, expected noblesse oblige from one of Napoleon's middle-class upstarts?
As they left the dark street and turned into the Bois de Boulogne, even the moonlight was obscured by the newly leafed trees which formed a canopy overhead. In the jouncing glow of the four carriage lanterns, shadows flickered across the interior of the carriage, twisting, turning, slithering away, only to rear up as giant black shapes to begin their nightmare dance once again. Another bout of shivers raised the fine hairs on Cat's arms. "Perhaps I should have hidden my jewels until we arrived," she murmured.
"Ne fâche pas, Catherine," returned Auguste with a smile. "I promise you all will be well." After all, how could plans laid by a guerrilla warfare expert and a colonel of chasseurs go astray? Briefly, he clasped one of her hands in a reassuring grip. This was goodbye. For her sake he must be happy, but he would miss her. Oh, yes, he would miss her.
The last winking lights from the great houses along the Bois disappeared. The darkness closed in around them like a glove of black velvet. Even the dancing shadows seemed to grow quieter, as if waiting . . .
Nervously, Cat fingered the bracelet which was fastened over her elbow length white gloves, every instinct tuned to the tension hovering around her. The pounding of her heart drowned the crunch of the wheels, the steady rhythm of hoofbeats. She bit her lip. Alex was near. She knew it. If not now, then in an hour. But tonight. Surely tonight.
Beside Cat, Blanca had taken a rosary from her reticule and was telling the beads, murmuring softly in Latin. Outside, the sounds changed so rapidly there was no time at all to react. The shadows erupted into a grotesque jig. Shouts. Shots. A strangled cry followed by the thud of a body hitting the roadway.
After a fatal moment of uncharacteristic hesitation, Auguste Beaufort---incredulity suffusing his face---lunged for the pistol which was holstered on the inner wall of the carriage. He was a moment too late. The coach doors were wrenched open on either side, a pistol cocked within an inch of his ear. "Hand over the gun, colonel," a voice growled from behind a face obscured by a ragged black scarf, "or my friend will make sure the lady never gets to her party at all."
A glance from the corner of his eye revealed a second highwayman, similarly masked, pointing an unwavering pistol at Cat's heart. Both men wore the ragged, faded remnants of uniforms of the French heavy cavalry. Something had gone very wrong indeed. After he agreed to cooperate in Harborough's plan to kidnap his wife, Beaufort had given his men meticulous instructions. Only token resistance to attackers. Any shots fired must be sure to miss. His men had obeyed him to the letter. And because of it, they all might die. Beaufort had been sitting back in his seat, confident of the Englishman's ability to carry out their little plan. Only when one of his men had taken a bullet and plunged off the box had the colonel realized these bandits were all too real.
Beaufort studied the darkness beyond each of the open carriage doors. The bandits seemed to number at least four, one at each door, two others holding pistols on the bewildered coachman and outriders, who still thought they were part of a carefully staged performance. Resistance was out of the question. Slowly, Auguste lowered his pistol, handed it to the man who seemed to be the leader.
Jacques Pelletier was a burly man, an ex-sergeant of heavy cavalry who, having survived the retreat from Moscow, vowed never to be cold or hungry again. He had gathered around him a group of similarly bitter ex-soldiers whose greed had been sharpened by orgies of looting on the battlefield. In fifteen years of fighting he had looted as many dead and dying French soldiers as English. To Jacques Pelletier, the wealthy and privileged Auguste Beaufort was as bad as the aristos who had gone before. Vive Madame Guillotine.
Pelletier, his actions well covered by the highwayman at the opposite door, tore Cat's cloak aside. "Merde!" he hissed in reverent tones as he saw the elaborate necklace of diamonds and emeralds sparkling above the fullness of her breasts. When his hand grabbed at her décolletage, Cat hastily unclasped the necklace and handed it to him. Pelletier was so absorbed in the rise of her breasts as her hands reached up behind her neck that his hand dropped away. His eyes gleamed in the dim lantern light like a greedy beast of prey.
As Cat began to unfasten her earrings, Pelletier, annoyed with himself, ripped at her hair, quickly adding the tiara to the loot in the sabretache slung over his shoulder. The other highwayman was busy relieving Colonel Beaufort of his money and Blanca of her more modest jewelry. When Cat's unsteady fingers had trouble with the clasp of her bracelet, Pelletier swore and yanked it from her arm. Chin jutting up in anger, she glared at the man hidden behind the black scarf.
Dazzled by the magnificence of the jewels and the swell of her breasts which rose halfway out of her low neckline, Jacques Pelletier had not taken a full look at his victim until now. What he saw was almost as exciting as the jewels. He was not a stupid man. He had deliberately targeted the Beaufort carriage, knowing the wealth of the family. Robbery was his sole intention, but no man alive would fail to pay ransom for this little beauty, and Beaufort had far more francs than most. Meanwhile . . . the girl would provide most excellent sport.
With no warning, Pelletier clubbed the colonel on the side of head with the butt of his pistol. Cat cried out, reaching toward Beaufort as he slumped to one side, unconscious. Thoroughly satisfied with his brilliant alteration of their plans, the highwayman chortled deep in his throat. "Allons, ma belle!" He jammed his pistol in a pocket, reached out to grab her.
Cat's anger had remained cold and clear-headed while she stripped off her jewels, but the sudden inexplicable blow to Auguste, the trickle of blood down his pale cheek, ignited her fury. Balancing herself with the carriage's hand strap, she surged forward, the toe of her slipper hitting its mark, just as Thomas had taught her. Although the emerald silk slipper was too soft and pliable to do incapacitating damage, the highwayman howled with rage, lost his balance, and fell backward out the coach door. Rage triumphed over his agony. As he fell, one powerful hand clamped over Cat's arm, taking her with him in a tangle of tall leather boots, green silk skirts, and tumbling copper hair.
Lost in a haze of outrage, Cat beat at the bandit's rock-hard body with her fists, dug a furrow down his cheek with her nails. Pelletier's breath came back with a roar. With his back to the ground, his fist propelled upward, clipping her neatly on the chin.
Damned vixen! Jacques Pelletier scrambled to his feet, dusted himself off and looked down with no small satisfaction at the bundle of emerald silk crumpled at his feet. Thirty seconds later he was mounted, eyeing the small figure in the dirt with cold-minded consideration. The jewels alone would provide a life of luxury for years to come. Then again . . . the famille Beaufort had a bankful of money. And the notorious widow was the surely most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Spirited too. A real handful. Armful. Bedful.
Pelletier gestured to one of his men. "Hand her up." She was small and pliant and warm, lolling unconscious on the saddle in front of him. The ex-sergeant felt himself grow hard. His voice husky with desire, he gave the command to move out. "En avant!" A good night's work, this. With the best still to come.
Jacques Pelletier could have snapped Cat's neck with one blow. He did not. Furious as he was at her defiance, he had pulled his punch, not wishing to damage his prize. Only a few minutes passed before Cat stirred to life. The jouncing of the galloping horse sent shooting pains through her head. Nausea gripped her stomach.
"I'm going to be sick," she gasped.
After a particularly foul epithet, Pelletier shoved Cat's head roughly to one side so she hung out over the horse's withers. "Be sick on my boots and I'll throw you in the lake," he growled. "In that gown you'll go down like a stone."
Cat gagged, willing the contents of her stomach to stay in place. The world around her was a swirling black void. There was only pain, the bandit's arm hard about her waist, the ground rushing by beneath them. She had no thought beyond a determination to survive. Cat gritted her teeth, grabbed at the saddle and hauled herself upright. They were galloping through the deepest part of the woods, the road a barely visible opening winding through the impenetrable black of the forest. Heavy branches hung only a few feet above their heads. Cat gulped in the cool night air, trying to steady her mind as well as her stomach. If they got out of the woods before Auguste recovered, they would simply disappear into the vastness of the city.
Cat shuddered. Only now was she willing to admit there were worse things in the world than a husband's deceit.
She would survive. No matter what happened, she would remember Blas's words of long ago. Honor be hanged, she would survive. And if Blas---Alex---still wanted her . . .
"Head down, Cat. Hang on!" a voice shouted in Portuguese.
She never hesitated. Cat threw herself onto the horse's neck, clinging to the mane for dear life.
A dark shape launched itself from a branch overhead, flying over Cat's prone figure to cannon into Jacques Pelletier. Both men flew over the horse's flank and hit the road with a vicious thud.
"To me, Cat!" ordered another well-known voice. As Tony pulled his horse alongside, Cat went into his outstretched arms with all the panache of a stuntrider at Astley's Amphitheatre. It had to be Tony, she knew, because Alex would never let someone else fight this particular battle. As usual, she was to be left in his brother's keeping. But somehow the thought was no longer bitter.
Alex, who had been aching for a fight---with anyone, over anything---finished off the burly ex-sergeant in remarkably short order. When Pelletier found himself flat on his back with a knife at his throat, he went very still, not hesitating to beg for his life.
"Are you all right?" Alex tossed over his shoulder to Cat.
"Only a little damaged. But he has my jewels in his sabretache."
"Only a little damaged," Alex repeated as he gazed down at the highwayman. "Then perhaps I shall do only a little damage in return." Slowly, steadily, he drew the tip of the knife down Pelletier's cheek, blood springing darkly from the wound. The highwayman was silent, jaws clenched, wondering only where the knife would stop.
"Perhaps I should geld you," said Alex thoughtfully. "I have no doubt, you see, about your plans for my wife." With his left hand he reached for the buttons below Pelletier's belt. The knife tip pointed downward.
"I barely touched her," Pelletier babbled. "Ransom, that's all I wanted. Ransom."
Alex smiled. The kind of smile the devil undoubtedly used to welcome his guests to hell. "You forget. She's my wife. And I know that's not all you wanted."
For a moment there was complete silence, not so much as the whickering of a horse or the hoot of an owl broke the stillness. Alex unfastened one of the buttons. "Beaufort," he called, "how is your guard?"
"He will live."
Alex eyed the next button with considerable anticipation, drawing out the moment. Then, with a look of infinite regret, he sheathed his knife and stood up, motioning for Pelletier to do the same. The highwayman rose with great caution. Two of the ring of menacing figures around him carried torches. The bandit could clearly see he was outgunned and outmanned. Pelletier dug into his sabretache and produced the jewelry, ordering his men to do likewise.
"Beaufort," Alex called, "what shall we do with them?"
For a moment Cat took her eyes off Alex and looked around. She had been vaguely aware of the sound of shots and curses. Now it was apparent the bandits had had the tables turned on them by an ambush of six or seven very competent-looking men. Alex's men. And just what was he doing in the Bois de Boulogne with a well-armed private army?
"They are swine," Colonel Beaufort declared, "a disgrace, but they wear the uniform of the Emperor. It is not easy for soldiers to come home to find their country occupied by foreign armies. Believe me, this I know."
"I fear 'Go and sin no more,' is entirely inappropriate for such as these," said Alex dryly, but I've seen enough killing to last me a lifetime. And, strangely enough"---he gave his wife a long look---"these canailles may have done me a favor. Allez. Allez-vous-en! Go on, get out of here."
Startled, the four bandits hesitated, then scrambled for their horses. When Jacques Pelletier was mounted, he looked down at Alex and sketched a salute. He wheeled his horse and disappeared into the darkness after his men.
The colonel's coach came rattling up the road, and Blanca burst from the door. Never before had Cat she seen Blanca run. "Catarina, are you all right?" Blanca panted. "Oh, my child, I was terrified for you. Tomás would have haunted me, I know it, if I let anything happen to you." Gently, Tony lowered Cat to the ground. The two women hugged each other, murmuring incoherent reassurances.
Alex swung up onto a horse one of his men had been holding. "It's time for goodbyes, my friends." He turned to Blanca, bent down to kiss her hand. "As always, my greatest admiration and my thanks for keeping watch over my wife. Tony will take care of all arrangements to see you and the maid safely back to England. I would send you straight to Portugal," he added with the tilt of a bushy black brow, "but I know you would not wish to miss the wedding."
Ignoring the sharp gasps from both women, Alex nodded to the man who had brought his horse. Cat suddenly flew through the air straight into the saddle in front of him. The evening had finally come right. But when Blas tightened his arm around Cat's waist, he found a stiff, unyielding bundle.
Cat gritted her teeth, doing her best to be grateful, but her body was battered, her head ached. Blas had let the culprits go, and now---once again---he was kidnapping her. Not that she hadn't secretly wanted him to, but he was so impossibly, arrogantly high-handed. "You planned it," Cat hissed. "Were the highwaymen on your payroll too?"
"Good God, no! Word of honor. If we hadn't been lying in wait with our own ambush and seen what happened, you'd be lost somewhere in the stews of Paris right now."
Cat sniffed, her shoulders remaining stiffly erect. He was incorrigible. Yet anyone attempting to take her off Alex's horse at that moment would have had the greatest fight of the night on their hands.
"Tony," said Alex, gesturing toward his small army, "this lot will be enough escort. If you'll be good enough to go with Blanca and Beaufort . . . And get the colonel a doctor whether he likes it or not. That's a nasty cut he has there." Alex sidled his horse toward Beaufort and held out his hand. "A more exciting evening than we planned, colonel, but we seem to have survived rather well. This is not goodbye. You may tell André Cat and I will be back to see our special son." The two men eyed each other with considerable understanding, their handshake the beginning of a lifelong friendship.
"And now, Dona Blanca, gentlemen, if you will excuse us, I am taking my wife on a long overdue wedding trip." Alex flashed them all a wicked grin. "Seven years is a long time to wait. Bon soir, mes amis."
Cat gave up her token struggle, snuggling into Alex's chest. Was this not what she wanted? He had come for her. With an army at his back. What more could a woman ask? It was rather like solving the problem of the Gordian knot by slicing it with a sword. Alex's solution appealed to the pragmatist in Cat, as well as to her romantic soul. There were things yet to be said, but at the end of a very long darkness there was at last a glimmering of light.
As they rode at a steady pace toward the center of the city, surrounded by their private army, Cat was forced to admit, though only to herself, that she did not care where they were going. With the enormous width of the belled skirt allowing her to ride astride, she was pressed against Alex's thighs and torso as tight as a second skin. A surge of satisfaction as she felt him grow hard. Cat closed her eyes and drifted, allowing the marvelous security of Blas's presence to wash away the terrors of the night. She was where she was always meant to be. Whether or not she could stay there, however, was still in question. In her long quiet days shut up in the Hôtel Beaufort Cat had discovered a possible way out of their impasse. But could she humble herself enough to use it?
A sudden whiff of the pungent odor of the Seine snapped Cat's eyes wide open. In the light of the torches the men were carrying, the dark shapes of boats of every size and description loomed out of the darkness. There were so many, they were moored side by side, extending out into the broad river. Waves lapped gently against the dark hulls. Just ahead, a large barge was in sole possession of the quaiside, its access to the channel unobstructed by other boats. A flambeau stuck on top of a rough wooden post marked a narrow plank which stretched from the quai up to the deck of the barge.
Their cavalcade drew to a halt next to the plank. Alex thanked his men, who had more than earned their night's pay, and handed over a bag of gold which made their leader's eyes gleam in the torchlight. The man grinned. "Merci beaucoup, monsignor." Silently, he motioned his men to form a protective semi-circle facing the barge. "Will you need help?" he inquired politely, eyeing the plank, then Cat's voluminous skirts.
Alex dismounted, lifted Cat down to stand beside him. "I think not. My wife has remarkably steady nerves. Pick up your skirts," he said to Cat, "and hang on tight." Clasping her firmly around the wrist, he started up the narrow plank, walking steadily, towing Cat behind him. Outwardly, Alex was calm; inwardly, he could not imagine negotiating that plank in a skirt. Any other woman would have been launching herself on his neck, tumbling them both into the river.
When their feet were firmly planted on the deck, a collective sigh of relief drifted up from the men below. The anglaise was very brave. It had been a privilege to serve her.
Alex and Cat waved goodbye. A seaman pulled up the plank, dropped it onto the wooden deck with a resounding thud.
There was no going back.
The barge's interior, Cat discovered, was remarkable. From somewhere the ever resourceful Alex had found a wealthy man's toy, an intimate cocoon of gleaming brass lanterns and handrails, mahogany paneling, fine upholstery. The heavy curtains covering the windows were of the same gold silk brocade which covered the well-padded built-in furniture. On the far side of the large room there was a highly polished mahogany dining table. Obviously, they had been expected. A bottle of champagne protruded from a silver bucket, beside it a silver platter with an array of bread and cheese.
One lantern was already glowing when they entered. Alex lighted a second hanging from the ceiling, Cat took off her torn and muddied silk cloak and dropped it onto the highly polished mahogany floor, not wishing to dirty the furnishings.
"Good God!" Alex exploded, caught off guard. "What's that you're wearing? You look like a pouter pigeon! As if the hair weren't bad enough . . ." He broke off, groaning at his own ineptitude, running his hands through his hair. "God, I'm sorry, Cat," he cried as she burst into tears, the events of the evening finally catching up with her. "I don't give a damn what you wear as long as you're all in one piece. And here with me."
Cat fought off his efforts to put his arms around her, gasping through her tears, "You are the greatest beast in nature! Tonight I have been robbed. Assaulted. Kidnapped. Now I am marooned in the midst of a river . . . and all you can do is criticize what I am wearing. Enfin, I will jump overboard and you will not have to look at me." With determined tread she stalked toward the door.
She never reached it. With little regard for her dignity or the sensitivity of certain parts of her anatomy, Alex picked her up. Pushing his wife's head down to protect her from the low ceiling, he plunged down the steps into the stern cabin and threw her onto the broad bed which occupied the center portion of the spacious cabin. His romantic plans for champagne and seduction by lantern light were as shot to hell as the benign kidnapping he had planned in the Bois de Boulogne.
Furious at her husband's high-handedness, as typical as it was, Cat fixed her gaze on the paneled ceiling overhead. She would not give him the satisfaction of looking at him.
Then again, Cats are afflicted with insatiable curiosity. Or so she excused herself. She lowered her chin, peeked out from beneath her long lashes.
A dim glow drifted down the companionway from the lanterns in the saloon---she could see him quite clearly. Alex had already stripped off the jacket he had been wearing. Briefly, he struggled with his boots, his breeches seemed to peel away of their own accord. In the end, all that was left was his long white shirt. The long white ruffled shirt. Cat clenched her jaw, wondering how long she would be able to hold out on nothing more than pique. Her tears had been only a sudden cloudburst of nerves, already drying in salty patches on her cheeks.
Ostentatiously, she turned onto her side, offering him nothing but her back. But he did not join her. No weight sagged against the mattress.
Cat sneaked her head around, took another peek. Alex was rummaging through a small trunk placed under one of the portholes. When he drew out a nightgown of white silk and lace, Cat knew the ultimate betrayal. The gown was her own.
"Where did you get that?" she demanded.
"Blanca and your maid---Bess, is it?---packed a trunk for you.
"Merde!" declared Cat deliberately. Outrageously.
"I believe there's some soap in here somewhere," Alex threatened, making a show of a further foray into the trunk.
"Even Auguste betrayed me," said Cat forlornly, ignoring Alex's remark.
"Certainly," said Alex, the quintessence of infuriating reason. "They all knew what you yourself should have admitted long since. We were meant for each other, we love each other. Only your stubbornness is keeping us apart."
"I have told you love is not enough." Cat knew she sounded like a truculent child. Shades of the fourteen-year-old cleaning her room on a fine September day in Lisbon.
"That line needs more conviction, my dear. I can see why no one took you seriously. Mine isn't the only life you've played havoc with, you know."
Gingerly, Alex lowered himself onto the bed. He was quite willing to take advantage of his wife's distraction while she contemplated her sins. His fingers paused just short of her glorious fall of shining hair. He had always been so sure of himself. Of her. Of her joyous response. Of her love. Now, suddenly, it was as if they were back at the Casa Audley. So young, so very young. And foolish. Daring fate. Teetering on the thin edge of a passion each was too young to embrace.
Alex touched tentative fingers to the red-gold cascade. Holding his breath, he lifted a handful of the fine strands aside, brushed his lips across the back of her neck.
Cat could not control her gasp, or the shiver which shook her petite frame. Mortified by her show of weakness, she stiffened her back, thrust up her chin.
"Damn it, Cat," Alex exploded, "I've loved you since you were fourteen years old."
"Me and how many others?"
"No one else mattered." Alex overrode his wife's scathing reply, adding, "Bloody hell, Cat, you knew I was no saint. And since I came back, there's been no one else, I swear it. Nor will there be as long as you're well and truly my wife."
Silence.
With one finger Alex touched the top button of the long row which ran down the back of her hideous green gown. When she didn't flinch, he slowly, cautiously, undid the button. Cat's back was still stiff as a board, but she did not protest. Alex began to work his way down.
"I not only love you, Cat," he breathed against the nape of her neck, each word sending a shiver up her spine, "I have so much faith in you that even when you ran off with Beaufort, I was willing to believe you were not lovers. Surely that kind of trust counts for something."
Cat remained stubbornly silent as he tugged yards and yards of offensive emerald silk over her head. He started on the ribbons of her chemise. His actions were not seductive---merely those of a husband attempting to soothe his wife. "Tonight we were waiting not far up the road," he explained, as if making idle conversation instead of fighting for his life. "When we heard the shots, we came as quickly as we could. We were just in time to see their leader take you up on his horse. With you as hostage, there was nothing we could do. We had to improvise rather quickly."
The chemise came off, Cat wriggled out of her pantaloons. Alex took time for a good long look before allowing the silk bedgown to drift down over her head. A sharp glance from her wide green eyes. She scarcely expected him to clothe her. But he needed her covered up. It was not yet time. With loving care---and a demanding surge of desire---Alex smoothed the shining fabric over all her softest parts. He sat up abruptly, forcing his hands to rest behind him on the counterpane. "I had thought your running away the worst pain possible. I was wrong. I realized tonight I could lose you forever."
Her chin came up, their eyes clashed.
"Now you know how I felt each time you left me," Cat told him. "And all the days and nights between. For seven long years."
Their gazes held, the only sound the gentle slap of the Seine, the creaking of the wooden hulls along the quai. It was Alex who dropped his head in defeat. Point well taken. "Go to bed, Cat," he said wearily. "It's been a bad night. We can talk tomorrow."
"No! We will finish this tonight. I can stand no more of this agony." She slid away from him to sit with her legs tucked under her, arms crossed in stubborn intransigence.
He might as well tell her, Alex groaned to himself. She couldn't be much more angry than she already was. His hopes had flared when he performed his unplanned rescue, but now he seemed to have ruined his advantage. So she might as well know it all.
"There's no need to finish this tonight, Cat, because I'm not going to let you go. Where I go, you go. We're a pair. If you won't marry me, I'll keep you anyway. If necessary, I'll shut you up in a tower like some medieval maiden. But I am not letting you go."
"An inconvenience for your mistresses." Sarcasm was her only weapon.
"Damn it, Cat, that's not fair! It was a long war."
"With all the conveniences of home."
Alex ran agitated fingers through his hair, unconsciously adding to his look of a deranged demon contemplating a plunge into the abyss. "Think, Cat! Was there ever a time I didn't love you?"
"In your mistress's bed." Her tone was scathing.
"Not even then," he declared. "And there's been no one but you for months now. "I assure you that's as close to celibacy as I've ever been and, believe me, I have not enjoyed it. I want my wife in my bed, Cat. All night. Every night."
She made an elaborate show of cocking her head to one side, considering his words. "If I stay with you, no more women?"
Alex raised his right hand. "I swear."
"And Tony?"
"What about Tony?" Alex growled, his surge of triumph quickly stifled.
"He must live his own life. He is a person, not an extension of yourself. Let him go, Alex. He has lived too long in your shadow."
"Mea culpa," Alex admitted readily. "But he is the other half of myself, Cat. The better half. "I never meant to hurt him. I just . . . didn't think."
"He is not a shadow, even if he is cast in your image."
"Tony and I have done everything together all our lives, Cat. You are the first thing that ever came between us. You and the war. For seven years, even though we played the same role, we had precious little time together---and still the bond is too strong to be broken. The best I can do is promise I will make an effort to lengthen the chain."
Cat nodded. It was the best she could expect.
And now it was her turn. Alex was sitting on the edge of the bed wearing only the long white shirt which had come to symbolize so much between them. He had at last given her the ultimate gift of his trust. He accepted her denial of intimacy with Auguste Beaufort. And he had agreed to mend matters with Tony. Now it was time to humble herself. As difficult a task for an Audley as it was for a Trowbridge.
Cat took a deep breath, bit her lip. "In London things were so very bad, I only knew I had to get leave---" She stopped abruptly, a new thought interrupting her confession. "Markham. What did you do about Percy Markham?"
"Ah, yes, Captain Markham," Alex said, forcing his mind back to England. "It seems Mr. Markham became bored with the army. He fancied the navy instead."
"A--Alex," Cat breathed, awed. "You didn't. You couldn't have."
"In order to serve in the navy, I fear Captain Markham had to take a somewhat reduced rank," Alex murmured. "Alas, he is now serving as a common seaman on one of His Majesty's frigates."
"Alex, you cannot have had him impressed."
"Frankly, Tony and I took great pleasure in it. It was either that or kill him. Of the two options, impressment may have been the greater cruelty. Forget Markham. I wish to hear what you were about to tell me."
Cat tore her mind away from a satisfying vision of Percy Markham being forced to climb the mizzenmast, a cat-o-nine tails at his heels. "In London . . . at the end I saw all my dreams crumble into dust, my courage with them. When Auguste appeared, it was like an answer to my prayers. He was kind, strong, dependable. He was André's papa. I didn't run away as a conscious act of defiance, Alex. It was something which simply happened, an opportunity I could not refuse. I never thought how it would appear to others. It was only later, when I had time to think, that I realized the enormity of what I had done."
Alex nodded. "Wrexham told me he believed you made the ultimate quixotic gesture---giving me my freedom in no uncertain terms."
"That was part of it," Cat conceded. "I thought if you truly cared enough to follow me to France, there might be hope."
Alex reached out tentative fingers to stroke her cheek. Gently but firmly, she pushed his hand away. "There is more. You must hear it all."
Cat clasped her hands tightly in her lap. "In a way my enlightenment began with Wrexham. He was so relieved when I refused his offer."
"Of marriage?" Alex questioned, clearly incredulous.
"Yes," Cat confirmed, well beyond being insulted. "I was truly surprised. And then there was Norwell."
"Norwell?" Alex echoed. "Your cousin . . . Ailesbury's heir?"
"That was when reality overwhelmed me. It was very lowering. I found myself refusing him not only because he was a charming boy with whom I would have been bored in as little as half a day, but because he was far too good for me. Even if I had thought we would suit, I would not have accepted him. I was, you see, not a proper wife for the future Earl of Ailesbury.
"No! Tais toi!" Cat commanded, holding up her hand. "It is true. I have led a most irregular life. Though it is only recently I have understood just how shocking it was."
"And Beaufort?" Alex inquired, pressing the advantage of Cat's burst of contrition.
Idly, Cat traced a design on the counterpane, avoiding his steady regard. "If you had not come to France, I would have married him. With Auguste I felt I had a much better chance for a life of peace and contentment than I had any right to expect. He is an honorable man. I assure you he never touched me. So honorable, in fact, he made it clear that if I reject you, I may still return to him. And still his offer will be marriage. But when you came after me . . . I had to accept you truly wanted me. It could have been injured pride but, no matter how angry you made me, I have never felt you were that small a person."
Cat bowed her head, dropping her eyes to hands which were still tightly clasped in her lap. She and Alex were little more than a foot apart, yet it was still a chasm. Now was the time to find out if she could make this final, vital concession. "You see," she said, unable to meet his eyes, "you see, there was something else I had to face. I did not consciously plan it, but when I came away with Auguste, I did to you something quite as terrible as you had done to me."
When Cat peeped at him from under her lashes, she saw a blaze of hope shining from his amber eyes. "No . . . hear me out," she added swiftly. "I also realized your own conduct has been so dreadful I need not feel you are making a mismatch. We are both quite improper and shockingly exceptional. We are undoubtedly destined for each other, as who else could stand us?"
Once, in the mountains, Alex had had a knife wound followed by a raging fever. The weakness he felt now was just as bad. He sagged into the bed, his head dropping into his hands. Somehow it had all come right, and he was too bloody weak to move.
Cat came up on her knees, shuffling the short distance between them. She clasped her arms around his chest, fingering the soft folds of the white shirt, knowing she had come home at last. Her head snuggled into the hollow beneath his shoulder. "I am most shockingly in love with you, you know," she whispered huskily. "Now that we have done such dreadful things to each other, perhaps we shall be able to live out our lives more peacefully than most."
With fierce joy Alex's arms tightened around her. "Who wants peace?" he growled.
Still tightly locked together, they tumbled full length onto the bed.
Hours later, Cat was roused from a sleep of emotional satiation as well as physical exhaustion as the rocking of the barge changed from gentle to purposeful. "Alex, wake up!" she whispered to the sleeping figure beside her. "We're moving!"
Instantly awake, he pulled her tightly against him, once again fitting together the full length of their naked bodies. Calmly, he agreed with her. "Well, of course we are. I told them to cast off before dawn."
"Cast off?" Cat was aghast. "Where are we going, if I may ask?"
"Down the Seine to Le Havre."
"Le Havre! On a barge. You are quite mad!"
She felt him chuckle, a deep throaty sound which quite distracted her from her annoyance at his customary high-handedness. "I would have you know it was not the easiest thing in the world to pry this barge loose from the sybaritic gentleman who owns it. I had to appeal to the romance in his soul. I told him my wife and I had never had a wedding trip and I felt his boat would provide the absolute privacy we desired. That, and a great deal of money, did the trick. We have a captain, a cook and two crewmen, so we neither have to steer nor fend for ourselves. We might peek at the cathedral in Rouen, but frankly, queridissima, I'd prefer to spend all our time in bed."
Cat signified her agreement with this suggestion by snuggling a hand into the crevices of her husband's inner thigh.
When Alex got his breath back, he added, "Father's yacht will meet us in Le Havre and take us to England." He paused, his ebullience momentarily ebbing. "I fear mother has her heart set on a grand wedding at St. George's. Will you mind? She wishes to invite half the ton and Prinny as well so there will be no doubts this time."
Oh, Lord, he'd done it again. Her silence unnerved him. Had he offended her? Alex congratulated himself on his choice of transportation. At least his Cat had nowhere to run.
"It is some days journey to Le Havre," Cat mused, her lips brushing his ear, "and large weddings take a good deal of preparation. I fear we may be married later than I could have wished."
"If you think I mean for you to play propriety until we're properly wed . . ." Abruptly, he broke off his sentence, raising his head to stare at his wife whose sparkling eyes were now clearly visible in the rays of early sunlight penetrating the portholes. "Just what did you mean?" he inquired sharply.
"Well . . ." Cat refused to meet his look, fastening her gaze firmly on the patterning in the counterpane. "I should not care to be embarrassed by having to explain to the next Marquess of Harborough why he was nearly the bastard his father only pretended to be."
Cat waited for the explosion.
"I don't know whether to kiss you or wring your neck!" Alex roared. "My God, what if I hadn't followed you? You would have let Beaufort raise my child?"
"I was raising his," Cat replied with sweet reasonableness. "Besides, it is only very recently I have been sure," she added, injured innocence radiating from every pore.
Alex sat up in the luxurious bed, hugging his knees, staring blindly at Paris sliding by outside. What a devil of a coil it had been. Damn you, Thomas, I hope you're satisfied.
"I believe," said Blas the Bastard to his sometime wife, "that this is where I say, 'Come on and kiss me, Cat.'" Well satisfied with his quote, he pronounced, "For our sins I sentence us to a week in bed." Alex slid beneath the covers, suiting his actions to his words, raising his lips from his wife's only long enough to murmur, "Maybe two."
The barge drifted quietly down the Seine. It was, most happily, a long, slow journey to Le Havre.
June 19,1815 - Belgium
It was just past noon. The Trowbridge twins sat slumped on their horses on the ridge of a hill overlooking a shallow valley. Beside them was the elm tree which marked the place where, the day before, the Duke of Wellington had directed the battle which put a final end to Napoleon Bonaparte's dreams of empire.
Alex raised his spyglass and began to search the field, the sudden magnification of the carnage below causing his stomach to clench in agony. Beside him he heard Tony swear as his glass reflected similar images of horror.
Wisps of smoke still rose over a tangle of dead horses and mules, gun caissons, ammunition carts and all the other detritus of war. Among the debris lay fifty thousand men, the dead and the dying, the wounded too badly injured to crawl away in the dark of the night. But the field was far from lifeless. Grim and determined men of both sides moved among the bodies, searching for those who could be helped. Scattered among them were wives, children, friends. And scavengers---the inevitable underbelly of battle.
"Do you recall the position of the chasseurs?" Alex asked.
"I think they were part of that big cavalry charge toward the west, but with all the smoke I couldn't really tell. How Wellington could see what was happening, I'll never know."
"Then just look for bright green. I doubt any but the chasseurs wear that particular shade."
The twins guided their horses farther along the ridge of the hill, pausing frequently to search the field below with their spyglasses. "I hope you appreciate the irony," Tony said, tight-lipped, after their fourth stop to make yet another painstaking perusal of a section of the valley below. "Any one of hundreds of men we know could be down there. And here we are, looking for a bloody Frenchman. For all we know he's halfway back to Paris."
"I can do it by myself."
But Tony didn't hear his brother's testy reply. "To the right," he called out, then once again put his glass to his eye. "Bright green . . . and horses. Looks like the remains of a chasseur regiment to me."
Alex gave a curt nod. "That's it then." He shoved his spyglass back into its case and snapped the lid.
"I doubt we can maneuver the horses down there," Tony said.
"No, best leave them here," Alex agreed. They tied their horses to an overturned British gun limber, slung their satchels of food and canteens over their shoulders and started down the hill.
Tony was probably right, Alex admitted to himself as they began their slow descent into the hell below. What was he doing here? A married man. Father of a six-months-old daughter. It had not seemed so reckless when they had first come to Brussels---an amazing number of the ton had done the same. And all because a man of short stature and quicksilver mind refused to pass quietly into history.
When Lady Elspeth Blanche Trowbridge was three months old, Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from the island of Elba and marched through France, gathering his troops behind him. The cream of Britain's Peninsular veterans, including Captain William Audley, had been sent to teach the upstart Americans a lesson, and had been led into disaster by generals who thought they could fight the swamps of New Orleans like the plains of Spain. There was no way to get the remnants of Britain's once proud army home in time to fight the resurrected little Emperor.
So it was men like Gordon Somersby who had sold their commissions and William's father, General Sir Quinton Audley---on the verge of retirement---who took up the gauntlet and hurried back to Wellington's side. The Trowbridge twins who never expected, or wanted, to go to war again packed up their wives and the first of the next generation of seven young Trowbridges and headed for Brussels where the Duke of Wellington was hastily assembling an allied army a hundred thousand strong.
Arrayed against Wellington's few old soldiers and thousands of raw recruits were proud French veterans like Colonel Auguste Beaufort, who were appalled by Fat Louis's monarchy, and rank upon rank of bitter soldiers like Jacques Pelletier and his cohorts. The odds for an allied victory were not good.
Tony and Alex went back to making maps, scouting possible battlefield sites. And yet, they had been as surprised as everyone else when the French, moving with the legendary speed of old, crossed into Belgium where no one expected them. When the massed armies met in a final climactic battle in a shallow valley not far from Brussels, it seemed impossible the French could lose. Only as the last rays of the setting sun revealed the Prussian army arriving to Wellington's relief; only as the fading light cast a final benediction over six square miles of dead and wounded, could the Duke of Wellington draw breath and declare the allies victorious.
Napoleon's empire had been washed away in the blood of Europe's best and brightest. Wellington, never without a strong sense of history, chose to name his epic victory after a nearby Belgian village, very possibly because it would be easy for his countrymen to pronounce.
He called the battle Waterloo.
At nearly midnight on June 18, 1815, Alex and Tony had ridden into Brussels to the waiting arms of their anxious wives. And now, twelve hours later, they were back on the battlefield. Searching for an enemy.
Unable to pass by the wounded and the dying without giving aid, the twins' passage down the hill toward the area where the bright green of the chasseurs could be seen was slow. Painstakingly, the twins examined every body clad in the spring green jacket and trousers of Auguste Beaufort's regiment. A few still lived. None were Auguste Beaufort.
Alex leaned back against an overturned cart. Shading his eyes against the sun, he gave the area a last lingering look. If Beaufort was here, they had missed him. They had given away the last of their food and water to those who still lived. Nowhere else was there any sign of the distinctive uniform of the chasseurs. They would have to return to Brussels and admit they could not find André's father.
"Monsieur le marquis," came a whisper. Very close.
"Where are you?" Alex choked out, his throat raw from lingering smoke and the stench of death.
"I fear you are leaning on me," said Auguste Beaufort.
Swearing softly, Alex dropped to his knees behind the cart on which he had been resting. Only Beaufort's muddy, blood-smeared head and shoulders were visible. "The leg is broken, I think," said the colonel, "but the rest are mere scratches, I believe. May I ask what you're doing here?" he added with his customary sangfroid.
"We did not care to see André become an orphan," said Alex blandly. "And it may be I felt I owed you a debt. N'importe. What matters is that we get you out of here."
August 1815---Paris
Nearly two months after the battle of Waterloo a strange cavalcade drew up in front of the Hôtel Beaufort. There were three carriages in all and a phalanx of outriders. At the head of the procession was a carriage with the Marchioness of Harborough, her sister-in-law Lady Amabel Trowbridge, baby Elspeth and her nurse, the redoubtable Rosalía Sanchez. The proud father and his twin rode beside the carriage. In the second coach were Auguste Beaufort, his erstwhile enemy General Sir Quinton Audley, and Dona Blanca Dominguez. In the third carriage, servants and a mountain of luggage.
With no regard for dignity, Emile and Marguerite Beaufort ran down the steps to greet their guests. After personally assisting his son out of the carriage and onto his crutches, the Parisian banker, Emile Beaufort, stepped back to allow his wife to rain tears of joy on her son's chest. He turned to the two identical and equally distinguished young gentlemen who had just dismounted.
Alex Trowbridge held out his hand. "Monsieur Beaufort, I'm Harborough, and it's a pleasure to meet you at last."
"Why, my lord?" the elder Beaufort cried, tears shimmering behind his gray eyes. "First the boy, and now his father. To search for my son when you did not even know if he was there . . . Why would you, an Englishman, do such a thing?"
"I suppose it never occurred to me not to," Alex said at last, carefully avoiding his brother's eyes. "I could no more leave the father than I could leave the son."
Marguerite Beaufort, having finally pried herself loose from her son, was now exclaiming over the baby who was already showing signs of being a perfect miniature of her mother. "Elle est très belle," bubbled Auguste's mother, "comme sa maman!" And then she fell into a tearful and voluble speech of appreciation for all that the Trowbridge ladies and Blanca Dominguez had done to nurse her son back to health.
"C'est rien, madame," Cat insisted. "We had many wounded officers in our house in Brussels. That is one of the reasons it has taken us so long to bring him home. Auguste recovered quickly, I assure you, and will be walking without his crutches in no time at all."
"Crutches!" exclaimed Marguerite Beaufort with scorn. "What are crutches when you have saved his life? There are no thanks enough for what you have done, my lady." With great pride and dignity, Madame Beaufort turned and led her distinguished visitors into her home.
Later that night, when the house was quiet at last, the travelers gathered in Auguste Beaufort's sitting room, all of them well past bone weary but unable to sleep without some personal closure to the strange odyssey which had brought them here. Auguste Beaufort was stretched full-length on the sofa, his bad leg propped up on a fat pillow. Tony and Amabel sat, arms entwined, on a loveseat. Alex occupied a large wingchair, his wife unabashedly curled up on his lap, her head snuggled into his shoulder.
"We are not all here," said Auguste idly. "Where is Blanca?"
"Where else?" Amabel giggled.
"Ah, I see," said Auguste, noting the additional absence of General Audley. "This is a good thing, no?"
"A very good thing," said Cat firmly. "We were in Brussels nearly two months before the battle, and Sir Quinton frequently came to call. He is my father's first cousin and in some ways remarkably like him. Certainly in his taste for women. There was interest there from the moment they met. I believe Sir Quinton has ideas of retiring to Portugal," she added with a knowing grin.
"Speaking of Thomas---and as long as we're matchmaking---" Alex broke off, pausing until he had everyone's attention.
"Oh-oh," murmured Tony. Amabel clamped her fingers tightly over his arm.
"I think we should make our children's lives as miserable as Thomas made ours," said Alex, keeping his face straight with some effort. "I think we should arrange a marriage contract, then sit back and see what our children do about it when they come of age."
"Alex!" Cat choked, sitting up abruptly. "You are joking. Tell me you are joking."
"Absolutely not. As angry as he made me, I think Thomas had the right of it. Sometimes it is too easy to take something for granted. If our children are at all like us, they will rebel against anything which has been arranged for them. But, hopefully, in the end they will learn to truly appreciate what was in front of them all the time."
"It is Elspeth and André you mean, is it not?" Tony inquired sweetly, as if to make his brother's madness quite, quite clear.
"Those are all the children we have at the moment, brother. Or are you making an announcement?"
Tony's jaws snapped shut. Amabel blushed.
"What about it, Auguste?" Alex urged. "Are you willing?"
Auguste Beaufort struggled to pull himself up into a sitting position. "You would join your family to mine?" he inquired with considerable surprise.
"My family has a history of foreign brides," Alex returned blandly.
Beaufort's mouth quirked into a wry smile. "You are right," he said to Cat. "Our children will not like it, I think. But we French are a practical people. Who am I to reject an alliance with the daughter of an English marquis? Though, you understand, my egalitarian ideals are sorely offended."
"As long as it is not a formal contract," Cat conceded, "then I too will agree." With a wicked gleam in her eye she added, "But before you say yes, Auguste, you must remember this truly terrifying fact: twins run in the family."
Amid laughter, they toasted the pledge of Elspeth Blanche Trowbridge to André Emile Beaufort before the twins retired to their respective rooms and demonstrated their own personal pledge of love to their wives. In less than a year both brothers had sons to prove it.
And, to everyone's astonishment, the young Trowbridges had a new cousin the same age. William Audley, back from his sojourn as a prisoner in America, found himself with a brother young enough to be his son. No one seemed to mind. To Blanca, who named her son Thomas Quinton Audley, there was no other word but miracle.
And far above, Thomas Audley sighed and retired from his vigil. At long last he could rest.
Historical Notes
The historical events in this story are as accurate as I could make them within the confines of fiction. I tried, wherever possible, to give the events the flavor of the factual account. For example, the style of language at the revolt of Dos de Mayo is taken from actual accounts of what happened that day.
No one could write about this period without the invaluable information found in Wellington: The Years of the Sword by Elizabeth Longford. I am also particularly indebted to The Age of Napoleon by Christopher Herold, The Prince of Pleasure by J. B. Priestly and Our Tempestuous Day by Carolly Erickson. Each provided outstanding information and insight to this exciting period of history.
Blair Bancroft
About the Author: Although I'm best known for my Regency romances, I love to venture into new genres and have written romantic suspense, mystery, medieval romance, and futuristic. At the moment I'm working on my first steampunk. Coming soon: O'Rourke's Heiress, a saga incorporating characters from both Tarleton's Wife and The Sometime Bride. For a list of my books currently available online, please see below.
In addition to making my backlist available online, I plan to upload some new works in the not-too-distant future. I'm always delighted to hear from my readers. I can be contacted at blairbancroft@aol.com. And please visit my blog at http://mosaicmoments.blogspot.com/
Blair's books currently online:
Mistletoe Moment (Nov. 2011)
The Sometime Bride
Paradise Burning
Shadowed Paradise
The Captive Heiress
The Courtesan's Letters
The Temporary Earl
The Harem Bride
A Season for Love
A Gamble on Love
Lady Silence
Steeplechase
Tarleton's Wife

