Beyond the Sunrise (4 page)

Robert said nothing. He looked steadily back.

“She is a pretty and alluring little thing,” the marquess said with a laugh. “I can hardly blame you for having an eye to her, boy. And she must be a hot little piece to go off secretly with you as she did for several afternoons. French, you know. They are usually hot to handle. But she is not for the likes of you, Robert.”

No, obviously not. He had not needed to be told that.

“You are seventeen,” the marquess said with a chuckle. “Ready for a woman, are you, boy? It would be strange if you were not. You haven't had one yet? No rolls in the hay with a willing wench? I have been neglecting your education, it seems. Name the wench you want and I shall buy her for you. But there are limits, Robert.” He laughed heartily. “You cannot aspire to a respectable woman, you know. Not above a certain class, anyway. You are my bastard, after all. That must not be forgotten, lad, despite who I am.”

No, he would not forget it.

“Your mother was my mistress, not my wife,” the marquess said. “You understand the difference, boy?”

“Yes.” It was one of the few words he had spoken during the interview.

“I loved her,” the marquess said, his joviality deserting him for a moment. “She was a good woman, boy, and don't you forget it even is she was a fallen woman.”

She was his mother. He had loved her too. And he had never doubted her goodness. Or thought about the fact that she was not respectable.

“But I had to marry within my own class,” the marquess said with a shrug. “And so you were born a bastard. My only child. Fate can deal strange tricks, eh? Now, what woman do you fancy?”

“I don't,” Robert said. “I don't want a woman.”

His father threw back his head and laughed. “Then you must be no son of mine,” he said. “Did your mother play me false after all? Come now, lad, you are not going to be moping over a little bit of French skirt, are you?”

“No,” Robert said.

“Well.” His father shrugged. “When you are hot for a wench, boy, come and tell me. Though you are a handsome enough lad, or will be when you have a little meat on your bones. Perhaps you can entice your own wenches into the hay. You are a restless boy, aren't you? Out riding or walking at all hours of the day.”

“I like the outdoors,” Robert said.

“Perhaps you need more to occupy you,” the marquess said. “Perhaps I should purchase that commission for you before your eighteenth birthday. What do you say? Her ladyship would be glad enough to be rid of you.” He chuckled again. “The sight of you is a constant reproach to her. And no one would be able to say that I had not done handsomely by my bastard, would they now?”

“No, sir.”

“I have never shirked responsibility for you anyway, lad,” his father said heartily. “Even though you look as unlike me as you could. It is a good thing that your mother had your blond and wavy
hair and blue eyes, is it not? But I never denied you, Robert, and I'll not do it now. You can boast to all your regiment that the Marquess of Quesnay is your father. I'll not try to impose silence on you.”

Robert said nothing.

“Run along, then,” the marquess said. “You had better stay in your room for, ah, the rest of today and the next three days. I promised her ladyship that I would punish you harshly for your presumption in lifting your eyes to a lady. Wives must be humored, Robert. It seems a small matter to me, though you must learn for your own good to keep to your station in your wenching. I suppose I had better impose bread and water as well. Yes, that will please her ladyship. I shall tell her that I thrashed you too. She won't know the truth since she is unlikely to go to your room to check the evidence for herself.” He laughed heartily. “Away you go, then. I shall do something about that commission as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir,” Robert said, and turned away.

*   *   *

That
same night Robert packed a few belongings—no more than he could carry in a small bundle—and left both his room and his home to seek his own way in the world.

Two days later, in a town not twenty miles distant from Haddington Hall, he listened to the persuasions of a recruiting sergeant and enlisted as a private soldier in the Ninety-fifth Rifles infantry regiment.

Three months passed before his father discovered him. It was less than a week before new recruits to the regiment, Private Robert Blake among them, were to embark for service in India.

Robert refused the marquess's urgings that he be allowed to buy a commission for his son. He took leave of his father with a stony face and no visible emotion at all.

If he was a nobody, he had decided—and clearly he was—then
he would prefer to enter adult life with no label at all. Not son of the Marquess of Quesnay. Not bastard. He was Private Robert Blake of the Ninety-fifth. That was all. He would make his own way in the world—if there was a way to be made—by his own efforts or not at all.

And he would know his place in the world for the rest of his life. His place was at the bottom—in the line of an infantry regiment as a private soldier.

From now on, he decided, he needed no one—man or woman. Only himself. He would make a success or a failure of life alone, without help and without emotional ties.

He would never love again, he decided. Love had died with his mother and innocence.

N
O
one standing invisible in the ballroom at the Lisbon home of the Count of Angeja would have guessed that there was a war in progress. No one would have known that the British troops sent to Portugal under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley to defend that country from occupation by the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte and to help free Spain of their domination had been pushed back in ignominious retreat the previous summer despite their magnificent victory over the French at Talavera on the road to Madrid.

No one would have guessed that it was generally believed in both Portugal and England that once the summer campaign of 1810 began and the French armies then poised beyond the border with Spain finally made the expected advance, the Viscount Wellington's army—Sir Arthur had acquired his new title as a reward for Talavera—would be pushed into the sea, leaving Lisbon to the mercy of the enemy.

No one would have guessed it despite the fact that the silken and gaily colored gowns of the ladies were quite overshadowed by the splendor of the gorgeous military uniforms of the majority of the gentlemen. For one thing, most of the divisions of the English and Portuguese armies were not stationed at Lisbon or anywhere near it. They were in the hills of central Portugal, awaiting the expected attack along the northern road to Lisbon, past the Spanish fort of Ciudad Rodrigo and the Portuguese fort of Almeida. Only a
relatively small detachment had been posted closer to Lisbon on the chance that the French would choose the southern road past the more formidable Spanish fort of Badajoz and the Portuguese Elvas.

For another thing, the general mood of the dancers and revelers, gentlemen and ladies alike, was gay and carefree. War and the possibility of disaster seemed the furthest topics from anyone's mind. Perhaps many of the gentlemen were rejoicing in the fact that they were alive at all. Although some of the officers—and all the military gentlemen who had received invitations to the ball were officers—were in Lisbon on legitimate business, many of them were convalescents from the military hospitals there. Some were quite content to remain convalescent for as long as they could. Others chafed to be back with their regiments, back in the world where their duty lay.

Such a man was the one who stood in a shadowed corner of the ballroom, a glass of wine in his hand, a look on his face that might have seemed morose to an uninformed observer but was in fact merely uncomfortable. He hated such entertainments and had been dragged protesting to this one by laughing comrades who had refused to take no for an answer. He felt utterly out of his depth, out of his milieu. Though the ballroom was crowded beyond comfort and though his corner was relatively secluded, he felt conspicuous. He looked determinedly and defiantly about him from time to time as if to confront those who were staring at him, only to find that no one was.

It was the men at whom he glared. Had he looked at the ladies, he might have found that several were in fact giving him covert glances even if good breeding forbade them from staring. He was the sort of man at whom women often looked twice, though it would be difficult perhaps to explain why it was so.

His uniform was without a doubt the least gorgeous at the ball. It had none of the bright facings and gold and silver lace that abounded on the uniforms about him. It did not even have the advantage of being scarlet. It was dark green and unadorned. Although clean and carefully brushed, it had seen better days. Most men would
not deign to be buried in it, Major John Campion had told him earlier with a hearty laugh and a friendly slap on the back.

“But we all know that wild horses would not separate you from it, Bob,” he had added. “You riflemen are all the same, so bloody proud of your regiment that you would even prefer to look veritable dowds rather than transfer to another.”

It was the man inside the green coat, it seemed, then, who was the attraction. He was tall, broad-shouldered, muscular, not an ounce of spare fat on his body. And yet he was not an obviously handsome man. His blond wavy hair, perhaps his best feature, was close-cropped. His face was hard and looked as if it rarely smiled, the jaw-line pronounced and stubborn. His aquiline nose had been broken at some time in his life and was no longer quite straight. An old battle scar began in the middle of one cheek, climbed over the bridge of the nose, and ended just where the other cheek started. His face was weathered brown, his blue eyes looking startingly pale in contrast.

He was not a handsome man, perhaps. He was something better than that, the woman with whom he was whiling away the tedious months in Lisbon had told him several weeks before, propped on one elbow on the bed beside him while she traced the line of his jaw with one long-nailed finger. He was quite irresistibly attractive.

Captain Robert Blake had laughed shortly and reached up with one powerful arm to draw her head down to his.

“If it is more of this you want, Beatriz,” he had said to her in her own language, “you have only to ask. The flattery is unnecessary.”

The dancing had ended and the captain stepped back farther into the shadows. But he was not left to his own thoughts. Three of the officers from the hospital who had insisted that he attend this and several other entertainments over the past few weeks, when he was no longer bedridden with his wounds, were bearing down upon him, Lieutenant João Freire of the Portuguese skirmishers—the
cacadores
—with a curly-haired young lady on his arm.

“Bob,” he said, “why are you not dancing? Never tell me that you cannot.”

Captain Blake shrugged.

“Sophia wishes to dance with you,” the lieutenant said. “Don't you, my love?”

He grinned down at the girl, who looked blankly at him and at Captain Blake.

“It would help if you talked Portuguese to the poor girl,” Major Campion said. “I suppose she speaks not a word of English, João?”

The lieutenant continued to grin at her. “She is hot for me,” he said, still in heavily accented English. “Now, if I could just separate her from her chaperone and her mother and father, perhaps . . .” He raised the girl's hand to his lips. “You want to dance with her, Bob? I daresay I will not be permitted the next.”

“No,” the captain said shortly.

“Bob, Bob,” Captain Lord Ravenhill said with a sigh, reaching up with a finger and thumb to smooth the outer edges of his mustache, “what are we to do with you? You have none of the social graces.”

“And have never craved any of them,” Captain Blake said, nettled despite the fact that he knew his friends' teasing to be good-natured.

“If you could dance as well as you fight,” the major said, “the rest of us might take ourselves back to our beds while the ladies flocked to you, Bob. From private to captain in how many years?”

“A little over ten,” the captain said, shifting uncomfortably on his feet. He did not particularly enjoy being reminded that he had taken the almost insurmountable step up from the ranks to a commission without the aid of either influence or purchase. It was easier, he had found since being promoted from sergeant to ensign in India, to do the deed of exceptional bravery that had made possible the promotion than to live with the fact that his place was now with officers rather than the enlisted men. Socially he did not belong. “I was fortunate. I happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

Lord Ravenhill slapped him on the back and bellowed with laughter. “You have been in more right places at more right times
than anyone else in the army, if I have heard the facts correctly,” he said. “Come out of the corner, Bob. There are doubtless people here who would be fascinated to converse with a genuine hero. Let me introduce you to some of them.”

“I am going home,” Captain Blake said.

“Home being the hospital or the arms of the delectable Beatriz?” Lord Ravenhill asked. “No, really, Bob, it won't do, old chap. The marquesa is supposed to be coming tonight. She has been in Lisbon for a few days already. If you think your Beatriz lovely, you must stay and gaze upon true beauty.”

“The marquesa?” Captain Blake frowned. “Who in hell is she?”

“In heaven, my boy, in heaven,” Lord Ravenhill said, kissing two fingers. “The Marquesa das Minas, the toast of Lisbon. The streets are strewn with her slain admirers—slain by one glance from her dark eyes, that is. And you ask ‘Who in hell is she?' Stay and you will see for yourself.”

“I am leaving,” the captain said firmly. “I agreed to an hour and have been here an hour and ten minutes.” He downed the wine that remained in his glass.

“Too late, Bob,” the major said with a laugh. “That extra buzz and excitement at the door is the signal that she has arrived. One glance will root you to the spot for another hour and ten minutes at the very least, take my word on it.”

“And how,” Lieutenant Freire said in English, smiling pleasantly down at the girl on his arm, “am I to divest myself of this encumbrance so that I may fall at the feet of the marquesa and pay my homage?”

“You return her to her chaperone and sigh over the fact that propriety does not permit you to dance the next set with her,” the major said.

“Ah,” the lieutenant said, “of course. Come, my dear,” he said to the girl in Portuguese, “I shall return you to your chaperone. It would not do, alas, for me to sully the reputation of so delicate a
flower by keeping you with me one moment longer. But the memory of this half-hour will sustain me through a lonely night.”

Lord Ravenhill snorted. “It would serve him right if the girl were a secret student of languages,” he said. “I suppose he was taking his leave with protestations of undying love for the girl. Was he, Bob?”

“Something like that,” the captain said.

But his attention had been distracted. Ravenhill had not exaggerated—not much, anyway. It was as if the crowds had parted and the Queen of Portugal—or of England—had entered the room. Not that all the noise or activity had ceased. Conversations continued and gentlemen were choosing their partners for the next set of dances. But somehow the focus of general attention had suddenly centered on the new arrival.

She was dressed rather simply in a white gown. And her hair, dark and glossy, and yet a shade lighter than that of most Portuguese women, was not elaborately dressed. It was combed back smoothly from her face and her ears and dressed in curls at the back of her head. Her gloves and fan and slippers were all white. It was difficult at first glance to understand why her presence commanded such attention. But there were several reasons, he realized as he continued to gaze at her across almost the entire length of the large ballroom.

She was dressed all in white. Amid the rich and glorious colors of the gentlemen's uniforms and the lesser brightness of the ladies' gowns, she was as startlingly noticeable as the first snowdrop of winter. And the contrast of her dark hair and the creaminess of her skin—there was plenty of it visible about her shoulders and bosom—made the whiteness of her clothing all the more dazzling.

He could not tell if her face was beautiful. She was too far away. But she had an exquisite figure, slim but curved lavishly in all the right places. It was the sort of figure that could make a man's loins ache without even a glance at the face above it.

But it was not just her appearance or her figure that accounted
for the disproportionate amount of male attention she was attracting. There were other women in the room who were perhaps almost as beautiful—almost if not quite. Captain Blake watched her through narrowed eyes. There was a presence about her, a sense of pride in the lifted chin and the curve of her spine, an expectation of homage.

And homage was what she was getting. There were copious amounts of scarlet regimentals and gold lace about her, their owners dancing attendance on her, taking her shawl, fetching her a glass of wine or champagne, taking her hand, kissing it, being tapped on the arm with her white fan.

“One would willingly spend eternity in hell in exchange for one night—just one night, eh?” Lord Ravenhill said, reminding Captain Blake that he had been staring at the woman and that he had not taken himself off home after all.

“I daresay the body between the sheets and in the darkness would give no more pleasure than that of a willing whore,” he said, watching the woman smile as both she and the small court who had gathered about her ignored the fact that the dancing was beginning again.

Both the major and Lord Ravenhill laughed. “I don't think you believe that any more than we do, Bob,” Major Campion said. “Just the thought of my hand in the small of that little back is enough to send me in search of a pail of cold water. Has anyone seen one anywhere?”

The marquesa was looking about her while her court danced attendance on her. Captain Blake felt an unreasonable resentment growing in him. She was everything that was exquisite and expensive—and beyond his reach. Not that he ever hankered a great deal after what he could not have. He could have had more had he wanted. He could have started his military career in the ranks of the officers instead of having to claw his way upward the hard and almost impossible way. He might have been a major or a lieutenant colonel by now. And he might have been known as the son of the Marquess of
Quesnay. The illegitimate son, it was true, but still the son. The only son.