Beyond the Sunrise (35 page)

And now she really was about to do it. She had not been mistaken. The man she loved lived in the only world that could challenge her and ultimately make her happy. There was only one sensible thing to do.

So for once in her life, Joana thought with a smile, she was going to do the sensible thing.

*   *   *

He
had been billeted in a small house in Arruda, one that he had shared with Captain Davies for a short while until that gentleman
had had to leave for Lisbon to have a festering wound sustained at Bussaco attended to. Now he was there alone—very much alone since the house had been abandoned by its tenants, who did not quite believe that the French army would be held back.

But it did not bother him to be alone. In fact he welcomed the opportunity of a place to which he could retire and be away from everyone. It was a luxury not often attained in the army. And he needed to be alone for certain stretches of time, until he had learned to cope with his emotions and not take out his own unhappiness on men who were at the mercy of his moods.

One of the women from the train of the army, the widow of a private soldier killed earlier in the year who bad not yet remarried, came in the evenings to cook for him. She had indicated a few times, without the medium of words, that she would be willing to stay to offer other services too, but he had always sent her away as soon as he sat down to his meal. She was a good cook but he did not need her in any other capacity.

He was tired. Sometimes drilling his men and watching them as they did their part to keep careful guard over the Lines was as taxing on the time and energy as moving into battle was. It had been a long day, and there had seemed to be no time at all for relaxation. It was good to be home. And yet his nose wrinkled in some distaste as he lowered his head to pass through the low doorway into the house. Mrs. Reilly had burned his dinner?

He walked through the small living room to stand in the archway that led through to the kitchen. And he came to a stop there, feet apart, hands clenched into fists at his sides.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked quietly.

“Burning your food,” she said, throwing him a glance over her shoulder to reveal a flushed, bright face. Her hair was tied back loosely at the neck. She was wearing a neat and serviceable green dress. “I put only one more stick of wood on the stove, but now it is burning like a furnace in hell. And what sort of a welcome home was that?”

He strode across to the stove, lifted the pot with its offensive mess of burned stew, and set it down away from the heat. He took her by the upper arm and swung her to face him.

“What the hell are you doing here, Joana?” he asked again. He was feeling furious enough to commit murder.

“Apart from burning your dinner?” she asked, raising her hands to play with one button on his coat. “I came here to marry you, Robert.”

“I don't remember asking you,” he said roughly. “I shall find someone to escort you to Lisbon. And then you will stay the hell out of my life.”

“How lovely,” she said, smiling. “I love you too, Robert. That is why I have come to marry you. Though if you do not wish to marry me, it does not matter. I shall just live in sin with you as I did before.”

“Joana,” he said, “we have talked about this before. You know it is madness.”

“And you know that I am mad,” she said. “If you will not allow me either to marry you or to live in sin with you, then I shall attach myself to the camp followers and become a cook or a laundrywoman. And when you find out how poorly I cook—have you already guessed it?—and how poorly I wash clothes, you will put me in your bed, where I can do less harm.” She smiled up at him from beneath her lashes.

“When did you get this mad idea?” he asked. Despite himself he could feel his fury ebbing away and a desperate longing taking its place. And a certain suspicion that he was wasting his time arguing with her.

“At Lord Wellington's ball,” she said. “You said that neither of us could be happy in the other's world, and of course it was the sensible thing to say and ought to be true. But it was not true, for all that, and I realized it there. But I wanted to be quite sure. I did not want to rationalize merely because I did not want to part from you. I have never been happy in the world I am supposed to be happy in,
Robert. You cannot know how tedious my life has been, how empty and meaningless. How stupid. And what a dreadful waste of my life it would be to spend the rest of it in that world.”

“And yet you have everything you could possibly want,” he said.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Only material things and a stupid title, Robert. Of what value are they? I want freedom and challenge and excitement—and even a little danger now and then. Those things I can never find in my own world, where I might as well be wrapped tightly and safely in cotton wool. Sometimes I think I should have been a man, but not always, for I like being a woman. I would hate to be a man and not be able to love you without creating the most dreadful scandal. But there must be something to make life meaningful for women too, otherwise life is even more unfair than I have always thought it. I can find meaning with you in the world I have lived in with you.”

“Joana,” he said. “You have no idea . . .”

“Don't I?” She leaned forward until her breasts touched his coat, and looked up into his face. “Don't I, Robert? I think I do. I have never been more happy than I was after we left Salamanca—until we reached Torres Vedras. I was so very happy being with you, not just because we were lovers, but because . . . oh, because at last life was alive.”

“And lived on the verge of death,” he said. “Either one of us could have died at any time, Joana. Did you not realize what danger we were in? And how could I let you stay with me now and share my life? I am a soldier. A soldier's business is to fight—with real weapons. I could be killed at any moment.”

“And I,” she said. “The ceiling might fall upon my head.” She looked up, and his eyes followed hers despite himself. “Death will come, Robert, whether in the next moment or sixty years from now. In the meantime, there is life to be lived—and love to be loved.”

He closed his eyes and lowered his head until his forehead touched hers. “Joana,” he said, “this is madness. There must be
arguments I can use. There must be thousands of them. I have nothing to offer you.”

“Stupid words,” she said. “Oh, imbecile. You have love to offer and yourself to offer. You once told me that you would give the woman you loved a cluster of stars and the sunrise. Give me those stars, then, and give me that sunrise and I will be more happy than I have words to express. Give me the sunrises, Robert, all of them, every day of our lives, until there is only a sunset left. And then we will remember that we did not waste a single moment of the single life that we each have—or of the two lives we shared.”

“Joana,” he said, and there was longing in his voice, and agony.

“I know you are trying to find the words to send me away,” she said. “But you cannot do that, Robert. You do not have the authority. I have made my decision, and I have told you what it is. There is only your own decision to make. In what capacity do you want me? That is all you have to decide. I am not going away.”

He inhaled deeply and drew her into his arms. He held her head against his chest and turned his cheek to rest against it. “Very well, then,” he said, and he drew a deep breath before continuing. “We'll marry. I'll sell out. I am not as penniless as you may think me, you know. My father died recently and he left me property and a considerable fortune. You can live the life of an English lady, even though I will never be quite an English gentleman. You can have your dream and me both, Joana, if you are sure that is what you want.”

She jerked back her head and glared up at him. “Dolt!” she said. “Fool! I will not accept you on such terms. How stupid you are. I want you as you are, as I fell in love with you. Do you think I would be happy if you gave up everything that makes you who you are and everything that gives your life meaning and happiness?”

“You
make me happy,” he said.

“Oh, yes,” she said scornfully. “And being with me can make up for everything that you would give up? How foolish you are, Robert. For we are very different in that one way, you know. You would have to give up a great deal, while I give up nothing except that ridiculous
title and all those tedious white gowns and all the other things that mean nothing to me.” She smiled brightly at him suddenly. “But how I love you for being willing to do such a foolish thing. Is there a preacher to marry us, then, or is it to be a life of sin?”

“God,” he said, “I love you. How you tempt me, Joana.”

“My mother should have named me Eve,” she said. “
Is
there a preacher?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Can we afford a servant?” she asked him. “I am afraid I will starve you if we can't, Robert.”

“Wives of officers are not expected to do for themselves,” he said. “Of course we will afford a servant.”

“Oh, good,” she said, smiling. “It is all settled, then?”

He gazed at her for a long moment. “Am I being given a choice?” he asked.

“Only if you can tell me that you really do not want me and really do not love me,” she said. “But you cannot do either, can you?”

“No,” he said.

“Then you have no choice,” she said. “Are you going to take me to bed? Since I have no dinner to offer you, I had better offer myself instead. Is it a good-enough meal to compensate you for a lost dinner?”

“Hush, Joana.” He lowered his head to hers and kissed her lingeringly. “My mind is befuddled. There must still be nine hundred and ninety-nine arguments, but I cannot think of a single one of them. I suppose you are manipulating me as you have always done?”

“Yes.” She smiled up at him. “But you are without a doubt the most difficult man to manipulate I have ever known, Robert. Take me to bed and let me love you witless. Otherwise, you are going to think of some of those stupid arguments, and I shall have to think of new wiles to convince you. I don't want to use wiles. I want to love you.”

He sighed, then looked down into her eager face and somewhat anxious dark eyes and smiled slowly. “I suppose we will always fight, won't we?” he said. “Every day of our lives? Because I will always insist on being the man, Joana. I give you fair warning.”

She lowered her lashes and peeped up at him from beneath them. “Good,” she said, “because I will always insist on being the woman. I give you fair warning.”

“This, for example,” he said. “This is my job, not yours. Joana, will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

She gazed up into his eyes and her own grew luminous as she circled his neck with her arms. She bit her lower lip and surprised both him and herself when her eyes filled with sudden tears.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes, please, Robert.”

He cupped her face in his hands and brushed two tears away with his thumbs. “Tomorrow,” he said, “I will find someone to marry us. Tomorrow. In the meantime, there is no dinner, is there?”

She shook her head.

“What
did you offer as an alternative?” he asked, lowering his head to touch his lips lightly to hers.

She laughed, her laughter all mixed up with a sob. “I'll make you forget that you are hungry,” she said. “I will, Robert. All night long. I promise.”

“And you,” he said, touching his forehead to hers again. “Are you hungry?”

“Ravenous,” she said. “You are going to have to feed me, Robert.”

“All night long?” he asked.

“All night long.”

“And then at the end of it,” he said, “I have something to give you.”

“What?” she asked as he stooped down to lift her into his arms.

“The sunrise,” he said. “And everything that is beyond it.”

“Oh.” She hid her face against his neck as he carried her through to his—their—bedchamber. “Robert, I do love you so. I do. I wish there were words to say it. Oh, I wish there were.”

He set her down on the bed and leaned over her, smiling fully and warmly down at her. “But then,” he said, “who needs words?”

She smiled back and reached up her arms for
him.

I
HAVE
tried to keep as closely as possible to history in my description of the events leading up to and including the French advance into Portugal in the summer of 1810—the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, the Battle of Bussaco, and the allied retreat behind the Lines of Torres Vedras.

The existence of the Lines really was one of the best-kept secrets in military history. Very few even of Wellington's senior officers knew of their existence before the army arrived at Torres Vedras and found itself suddenly and unexpectedly safe from French pursuit. There is no historical evidence that the French had any idea at all of the existence of the Lines. That is my invention.

I have taken two other deliberate liberties with history, neither very serious, I hope. First, the Convent of Bussaco was in reality lived in by monks, not by nuns, as in my story. Second, the French paused for several days before the Battle of Bussaco at Mortagoa, not at Viseu. It was more convenient for my plot to make the change.

Any other errors of historical fact are unintentional.