Beyond the Sunrise (23 page)

“Actually,” she said, “it would not bother me, Robert. I am quite accustomed to being gazed at naked by all the men who desire me—though usually one at a time, I must admit. But I would hate to see you blush. Will you let me have my gun if Marcel and his company of men come up with us? You will be horribly outnumbered. Perhaps I can kill a few for you.”

“Forget it, Joana,” he said. “I will be giving you a great deal of pleasure during the coming days and nights—according to your decision. But I will not give you the pleasure of killing me, I do assure you.”

“Then I shall kill Marcel instead,” she said. “I am tired of him and he is not as good a lover as you, Robert. Not nearly. I shall kill him for you, and all his men will go running back to the safety of Spain and the waiting arms of the partisans.”

“Lie down,” he said. “I want to be on our way by dawn, and this has been a long day. How is your heel?”

“Sore,” she said. “You must give me a bullet to bite upon during tomorrow's march, Robert. Are you going to hold me imprisoned in your arms with your leg thrown across mine as you did last night?”

“Yes,” he said. “Lie down.”

“You know, Robert,” she said, obeying him and wriggling against him to find a comfortable position while his arms came about her and one leg came over hers, “I could grow quite comfortable with being a prisoner. Do you think Arthur will appoint you my guard? But you are going to have to let me up again.”

“Forget it,” he said.

“You did not allow me my five minutes of privacy,” she said. “I am afraid I need them.”

He swore and released his hold on her. “Five!” he said. “Not one second longer.”

“Robert.” She laughed lightly as she got to her feet. “You really should not have said that. Now you must realize that I will have to be away for six minutes. Oh, yes, and for one second longer than that too.” She whisked herself off through the trees. What a delight it was to tease him, she thought. And she felt almost guilty, considering all the circumstances she might have enumerated in her mind, to be feeling so wonderfully happy.

H
E
was not sure at first what had woken him. But whatever it was had woken Joana too. She stiffened in his arms, and he set three warning fingers over her lips.

“Sh,” he murmured against her ear.

But it had not been voices or the sound of footsteps or hooves. He knew that as soon as full consciousness returned.

“What was it?” she breathed against his fingers. “The earth shook.”

“An explosion,” he said. “A great one. Quite a long way off, I think. It must be Almeida.”

“Shelling?” she asked.

He frowned. “It was just one big boom,” he said. “It would be continuing if it were shelling. Come on. It's time we were on our way.”

It was not quite dawn and he had planned during the hour or so after their second loving—when he had lain awake thinking about her and about himself, about them as they had been eleven years before and as they were now—he had planned to have her again before they set out on their way to find Almeida and to find food. The best way to quell his disturbing thoughts, he had decided, was to take her again and again and again for his pleasure, to use her as the whore she was. A high-class whore who did not take money for what she did, but a whore nevertheless.

But there was no thought now to delaying for pleasure. God, the earth had shaken. Whatever it was, it had been one hell of an explosion.

Joana was rolling her blanket and pointedly leaving his for him
to roll. She might have agreed to be his sex partner for as long as they were together, he thought with a grim smile directed at himself, but she was not going to play the part of his woman. He could expect no favors from Joana other than the sexual. And even in that she demanded as many favors as she gave.

God, but she was wonderful to make love with, he thought, bending to roll his blanket and turning to lift his weapons into place on his shoulder. He had to use all his willpower when having sex with her not to lose himself in emotion, not to be murmuring sweet nothings in her ear, not to be wooing her with his hands and his mouth and his body instead of merely concentrating on pleasure given and received.

Wouldn't she just love that? he thought, straightening up and looking to see if she was ready to go. Wouldn't she love to know how very close she was to having total power over him? Fortunately she would never know. He would die rather than give any part of his inner self to such a woman—or to any woman, for that matter.

Though she had really loved him at the age of fifteen, he thought suddenly, and the thought almost weakened him as it had very nearly done the evening before. She had spoken those words to him all those years ago out of hurt, because she had thought that he had hurt her. But she had since recognized the fact that her father had lied to her over that incident without in any way suspecting that he had lied to her about the other too. She had been told that Robert was dead—because she had been pining for him. But that had all happened a long, long time ago, during another lifetime.

“Ready?” he asked. “How is the heel?”

“It is all right,” she said. “I shall keep the strap down. I shall not slow you down, Robert, or ask to be carried. And if I feel the need to scream, I shall bite down on my lower lip until it is raw.”

She smiled that dazzling, teasing smile that could make his heart somersault inside him. And it was true, he knew. She had boundless courage. She had to have in order to be a French spy. But
now he knew that she had physical courage too. She had not once complained the day before about the heat or the dust or about hunger or the deliberately killing pace he had set. She had not once lagged behind. He felt an unwilling admiration for her.

“Let's go, then,” he said. But the words were no sooner out of his mouth than he reached for her, whirling her around so that her back was against him, and clamped one hand hard over her mouth. “Hush!” he whispered harshly.

This time the sound was definitely that of horses' hooves, and many of them. And voices. He pushed Joana to the ground and came down beside her. He hooked one leg over hers and kept his hand over her mouth. He shrugged the guns off his shoulder until they were lying on the ground beside him.

He would not have a hope in hell, he thought, if they were seen. But at least he would take two Frenchmen down with him if he was to go, one with the rifle and one with the musket. And if he were fortunate, perhaps one or even two with the knife or his sword if he had a chance to draw it.

Someone cursed in French. “We were camped just a mile or so away without even realizing that this was here,” the same voice said.

“All right,” Colonel Leroux said. “Give the order for the men to drink and water their horses. Ten minutes. That explosion must have come from Almeida. The bastards must have been blown to glory.”

“Ney will be inside the walls by now?” the first voice asked. “Lucky dog. Plunder and wine . . .”

“And women,” the colonel said. “Women by the dozens while they live. Give that order. We must move on. They came this way, I am certain of it. Probably heading for the safety of Almeida.”

The first man sniggered and turned to give the order to fall out.

Captain Blake was easing a handkerchief from his pocket. He lifted himself half over Joana and brought down his weight on her. He set his mouth to her ear.

“Not a sound or a movement,” he murmured, “or you may be the first to go.” And he folded the handkerchief into a thick strip, covered
her mouth with it, and tied the ends firmly at the back of her head. His hand went beneath her to unbuckle her belt. He brought her hands one at a time to her back and bound them firmly with the leather band. And he moved off her again, keeping one leg across hers. She had not struggled at all, he thought in some surprise.

The eastern sky was beginning to lighten, he noticed for the first time. When he peered cautiously through the trees, he could see horses and men at the water's edge, and Leroux, still on his horse's back, a short distance away. The captain lifted his rifle silently from the ground, braced himself on his elbows, and sighted along it, training it on the right temple of the colonel. Another horse sidled up on the far side of him.

“It would make more sense to travel alone or with only one or two others,” Colonel Leroux said. “We can never hope to surprise them with the noise this company makes, can we? God, I hate this sort of warfare. They have all the advantages in this type of country, those damned partisans.”

“But traveling in a large group is the only way to protect ourselves,” the other man said. “They would think twice before attacking a whole company, Colonel. Your life would not be worth the snap of two fingers if you traveled alone.”

“If they have touched one hair of the marquesa's head,” the colonel said, “they will all die—very slowly. The Englishman most slowly of all. I will strip him of his uniform and swear, if there are any questions, that he was not wearing one. And then I shall strip him of his flesh, one painful inch at a time. I shall do it personally.”

Joana had turned her head to one side and was looking at him, Captain Blake knew, though he did not take his eyes off the colonel for even one moment. Doubtless she was gloating over what she was hearing.

“They could even be hiding here,” the other man said. “They know the country better than we do. They would have known about this water.”

“There is not enough cover,” the colonel said as Captain Blake tensed and his finger steadied on the trigger of his rifle. “There are at least a dozen of them.”

“Unless they split into smaller groups,” the other man said.

“With a whole company of the best soldiers in the world after them?” the colonel said scornfully. “They would have to be foolish in the extreme.”

“Or clever,” the other man said.

“Time is up,” the colonel said impatiently. “We must move on. We need food and there were only the two farms yesterday. Besides, I intend to pick up her trail today. It has been too long. She is such a delicate little thing.”

He moved his own horse down into the water as the rest of his men were recalled and formed up to resume their journey. Captain Blake's rifle followed the colonel. They were mad not to search, he thought. It was such an obvious camping place. But there was very little shelter. He owed his survival, he knew—if he did survive; the Frenchmen had not moved off yet—to the fact that Colonel Leroux assumed that he and Joana and Duarte Ribeiro's band had stayed together. All of them could not possibly have hidden in this valley.

He did not lay his rifle down until the last man had disappeared over the top of the opposite bank and until the sound of hoofbeats had died completely away. Then he laid it down carefully and set his forehead against it. He knew from long experience as a soldier that the cold sweat and the thumping heart and the weakened knees and the dizziness came only after the danger was over. He knew also that they were best dealt with by giving in to them for a brief spell. He drew deep slow breaths.

The darkness was lifting fast. It was easy to see the hatred and the fury in Joana's eyes when he raised his head to look at her. He
released her wrists from the leather belt first and then undid the knot of the handkerchief.

And she was on him like a fury, her fists pounding his chest and crashing into his face, her legs and feet kicking him, her teeth bared in a snarl.

“You bastard!” she hissed at him. “You bloody, bloody imbecile. I hate you. I wish they had cut you down with a hundred bullets. No, I wish they had taken you alive. I would have asked Marcel to let me watch them strip away your flesh. I would have listened to your screams. I would have laughed at you while you were still sane enough to know that I was laughing.”

The words came jerking out of her piecemeal while they fought. He tried to imprison her arms at her sides, but she was kicking him painfully in the shins, and then he squirmed away only just in time when she brought up her knee sharply.

“Have done, Joana,” he ordered her. “You have me at a disadvantage. I cannot hit you back.”

“But you can bind my hands behind me and gag me,” she said, lifting her head to try to bite the hand that had clamped onto one of her wrists. “You bully. You bloody coward. Hit me! Fight me properly. Don't hold me.
Don't hold me!
Hit me if you dare. I want to fight you. Coward. Bully. Bastard.”

He released his hold on her wrist and slapped with stinging force at the leg that was kicking him. His anger was up at last. Perhaps they both needed release from the tension of the past half-hour. He jumped to his feet, grasping both her arms firmly and lifting her up with him. He unbuckled his sword belt and threw it from him with her knife.

“If it is a fight you want,” he told her grimly, “then I am your man, Joana. Hit for hit. Come on.”

She came at his chest with her fists and he reached around her to smack her ungently on one buttock. She drew back and punched his chin with a closed fist. He slapped one of her cheeks smartly. She kicked at his shin and he caught her leg before she could return it to
the ground, almost throwing her off-balance, and slapped it with an open palm.

She stood before him panting loudly, her bosom heaving, her eyes flashing, looking for an opening through which to attack him.

“I wish . . .” she said after a few moments. “Oh, I wish I could have the strength of a man for just ten minutes. I would not stop until I had beaten you insensible.” Her hands were opening and closing into fists at her sides. “But this is humiliating. You are not fighting me. You are playing with me. I should have a broken jaw and two black eyes by now. Hit me, damn you! Fight, you coward.”

He looked at her reddened cheek and took her suddenly by the shoulders and drew her hard against him. “I can imagine how it must feel, Joana,” he said, “to have been so close to freedom, to have seen and heard your chance gallop away into the distance. Have done now. There is no point in raging.”

“Oh, God,” she said, her face pressed to his coat, “he was so close. I could almost have touched him. And my musket not two feet off. I may never see him again. I may have lost my chance forever.”

“Hush,” he said, one hand coming up to stroke the back of her head.

“Hush?” Her head came up and her eyes were still blazing. “How can I hush? I want to fight you, and you will not fight. I wish I were not a woman. Oh, I wish and wish I were a man. You would regret the day you were born if I were a man.”

“Yes, I would.” Both his tension and his anger had dissipated, he realized suddenly, and he could not resist grinning down at her. “I would be embarrassed and horrified too to be holding you like this if you were a man, Joana, and feeling as I am feeling.”

She was still panting. Her breasts were heaving against his chest. “You might have been dead,” she said, “and I was trussed up so soundly that I could not have lifted a finger to help you or uttered a word in your defense. And now all you can think of is making love, you fool. You imbecile!”