Dark Angel (27 page)

"Caro." Her name came out more harshly than Adam intended. But then, he had never before felt a twinge of jealousy because a child preferred Hawkins to himself. "Caro," he said more gently, "what happened?"

Caroline waved to Emily, then turned to him, her eyes wide and direct. "It was the thin man with the long face. I saw him clearly, Adam. There was no mistaking him." She turned back to the window and pointed across the yard. "He was there, talking to a soldier. I'd seen the soldier before. His name is Bob Colborne, and he's Talbot Rawley's batman."

"Rawley?" Adam looked at her in astonishment. Jared's cousin and the Spaniard they last saw in a dark alley in Salamanca? "Do you think he's involved in this? Or is Colborne playing some game on his own?"

Caroline drew him away from the window, as though afraid someone outside would overhear. "That's what I thought at first, that Colborne was augmenting his pay by spying for the French. But there's no reason for an English soldier to pay a Spaniard to steal a dispatch that was already on its way to the British army." Caroline sat down suddenly at the small table that occupied the center of the room. "I told Hawkins about it, and he tried to follow them, but the Spaniard was already gone. Then Hawkins asked people in the yard about him and found a boy in the stable who'd overheard him talking to Coborne. 'The colonel isn't going to like this,' the boy heard Colborne say. Talbot's involved."

"My God." Adam sat down across from her and seized her hands. "Headquarters will have to know. I'll talk to Somerset."

"No!" Caroline snatched her hands away. "Who'll believe me? Who'll take my word for what I saw? Or Emily's? An exhausted woman who's made a dangerous journey and starts at shadows? A child who still has nightmares from her abduction? Who will believe what Hawkins overheard? A former soldier who wasn't even an officer. Talbot's a colonel, Adam."

Adam felt a moment of intense frustration. He could confront Rawley, but Rawley had only to deny everything. And Rawley stood high with Wellington. For the same reason it would do little good to deal with Colborne. He was too well protected. "The thin man," Adam said. "He may still be in Freneda."

"He isn't. Hawkins spent the afternoon combing the streets and the taverns for word of him. The thin man was seen in one of the taverns on the outskirts of the village. He was going home, he said, he was half drunk, and he was flashing a lot of money. I suppose Colborne paid him off."

Adam watched her closely, knowing there was more. "It has nothing to do with the dispatch, does it?"

Caroline shook her head. "No. The men who shot at us on the bank of the Carrión. They could have been shooting at me. They didn't follow because they hoped I'd be drowned. And when I wasn't, they were afraid to come after us directly. There were only two of them. For all they knew, you and Hawkins were armed."

It made a kind of twisted sense. As much as that the two Spaniards had somehow learned of the dispatch. Rage was building in Adam's head. "The tavern in Norilla. I thought I was the target. But if they'd grown tired of trying to get you directly, they'd try to separate you from your protectors. Or at least from one of them."

Caroline shivered. "And Emily—Emily was a mistake. They expected to find me in that room. The meeting in the alley was an ambush. Lescaut thought the bearded man was there only to threaten me. But the stableboy heard the thin man tell Colborne, 'We almost had her in Salamanca.'" Caroline looked at him as if she could scarcely believe it herself. "They didn't want the dispatch. They never meant to give me Emily. They wanted my life."

"Caro." Adam covered her hands with his own to still their trembling. "Why would Talbot Rawley want you dead?"

"I don't know, Adam." Caroline's face was pale with shock. "At first I was convinced there must be some mistake. I've never been very fond of Talbot, but I couldn't believe—but then I remembered something Jared said. He was desperately ill when I reached him in Acquera. We didn't talk much, and when we did he didn't often make sense. Most of the time he was out of his head with fever. He talked about Vimeiro, over and over. It preyed on him, what he had done. And then, toward the last, he said, 'I should never have listened to Talbot.' I thought he was talking about his gambling and drinking. Now I'm not so sure. What if Talbot knew about the fraud?"

"Talbot was assigned to the Ordnance Office at the time of Vimeiro," Adam said, holding her hands more tightly as he realized the danger she had been in. "He must have known the war would grow. He must have known how much demand there would be for ordnance as the war progressed. But Talbot had nothing to do with the foundry. We went into it carefully at the time. And Jared denied that Talbot was involved."

Caroline leaned toward him. "Talbot could have used his position to steer contracts Jared's way."

Adam smiled. "It's not unlikely. That's the way these things are done."

"But suppose Talbot knew about the faulty cannon. Suppose he helped arrange the bribe. Talbot would know the artillery inspectors better than Jared. If that's true, he might have been afraid Jared would talk."

"And if Jared told you, you'd be a threat as well."

Caroline's face was drained of color. "Adam, what are we saying?"

Adam pushed himself away from the table and stood looking down at her. "That your husband's cousin, Lieutenant-Colonel Talbot Rawley of the Royal Horse Artillery, is afraid of something you might know that is so dangerous to him he'd risk murder to keep it from coming to light. It must be more than simply helping arrange the bribe. If his family covered up Jared's guilt, they could cover Talbot's as well. There must be more to it. Something that could ruin Talbot."

Caroline's eyes darkened with realization. "Talbot asked me if Jared said anything about him before he died. I lied and Talbot knew it. Now he must be convinced I know something."

Adam grasped her by the shoulders. "I want you nowhere near your cousin, Caro. We'll leave for Lisbon at first light— no word to him, you understand?—and then I'm taking you to England."

"England? But—"

"It's safer. You mustn't go alone." He paused, then added, "Wellington told me that Rawley is bound for Oporto. He sugested that Rawley escort you there and put you on a ship for England."

Caroline drew a sharp breath. "No."

"Of course, no." Adam turned and walked toward the widow. The girls were still dancing in the inn-yard. He stood there a moment watching them, feeling the thrill of the hunt. Not a defenseless fox, a man who lived on the suffering of others. Caroline had given him a trail to follow. A trail he should have been clever enough to find five years ago. But his guilt about what he was doing to Jared had not been enough to make him clever. The truth was, he had hated Jared. The truth was, he had been furious with Caroline for using his passion for her to save her husband. The truth was, he had failed.

He was falling into a pit of self-loathing. Adam forced himself back from the brink. "Caro," he said, "I'm sorry Jared had to take all the blame."

Caroline's eyes widened in surprise and something that might have been sympathy. "It wasn't your fault," she said. "Jared was weak and foolish, I know that. He would have followed anyone who promised him an easy way to money. We never had enough. But that doesn't make him any less guilty."

It was absolution of a sort and it was sweet. Adam felt his spirits lift. "He paid a hard price," he said.

"He could have paid worse. Adam, don't blame yourself. What's done is done." Caroline leaned across the table and spoke with sudden vehemence. "But if Talbot drove him to it, he has to pay a price too. If he was responsible for what happened to Emily—"

The door flew open and Emily ran into the room, followed by Hawkins. "Mama! I was dancing!"

Caroline leaned down and lifted the girl to her lap. "I saw you. Do you like to dance?"

Emily slipped off her mother's lap. "Yes, yes, yes," she chanted, stamping her feet and clapping her hands in imitation of the girls.

She was still at it when Somerset arrived to tell Adam that he had found them rooms in a private house. They could have them, he said, for the next few days.

"Tonight only, I fear." Adam drew Somerset aside. "We leave early tomorrow, but I don't want any notice taken of our departure."

"As you like." Somerset's eyes glinted with amusement. "Is there anyone in particular who should not take notice?"

Adam hesitated, then came to a decision. Whatever their differences, Somerset could be trusted. "Colonel Talbot Rawley."

They left before dawn the following morning. Caroline was both frightened and exhilarated. She was appalled at her suspicions of what Talbot had done. There were still moments when she was sure it could not be true. And then she remembered Hawkins's story and was sure that it was. She knew that Talbot might follow them and that she was still in danger. But they were out of enemy territory, and any soldiers they met would be British.

Lisbon was some two weeks away, an eternity of time. It was too soon to think of collecting her boxes and finding passage to England. England was even farther away, another two weeks at least. Two plus two. A month, more than a month before she had to think of home, or which of the several homes to which she had some claim would house herself and Emily. A month before she had to admit that her journey with Adam was at an end.

Adam was riding before her, his head bare, his body cloaked against the dawn chill, while Emily, half asleep, sagged against his chest. In the rear Hawkins was whistling cheerfully. He at least was eager to reach Lisbon. Caroline wondered if Adam was eager too, eager for the long journey to be over, eager to resume his own life. She had never thought much about his life, not till Salamanca where she had got some glimpse of what he did and how important it was to him. More important, she suspected, than the passion they had shared and the comfort they had taken from each other's bodies.

Caroline shivered and drew her cloak more tightly about her. It had to end. She knew that. She would part from Adam in England without looking back, but for now she wanted him, oh, how she wanted him. It was growing light and she could see how his hair curled against his neck, dampened by the morning mist. She checked an impulse to ride up beside him and run her hand through it. Hawkins would not mind, for he knew what had passed between them, but they were entering Sabugal and the town was beginning to stir.

They passed through quickly, dodging small groups of soldiers slapping their arms to keep warm, shawl-covered women carrying jugs to fetch water, and a drove of what looked like zebras but proved to be donkeys wearing the familiar black-and-white striped blankets. The wind was cold, as it was most mornings and evenings, the snow-covered range of the Serra da Estrela was behind them, and ahead lay a range of desolate and rocky hills. Emily laughed in delight and her high spirits infected them all.

Hawkins had a light, pleasing voice and a great repertoire of bawdy songs. Emily managed to learn a number of them in the course of the day, and Caroline could not bring herself to protest. She was feeling curiously lighthearted. She and Adam were friends once more. The new questions about the fraud should have opened old wounds between them, but instead they were easier together. She had accepted Jared's guilt and knew now that Adam's accusations had had nothing to do with her. Adam knew she had accepted it too, and if she suspected that neither of them could forget all the hurtful things they had said to each other the night she had gone to his rooms, at least the bitterness was less. She owed Adam a great deal for recovering Emily and for the risks he had run in making the trip to Acquera and back. True, Adam ran risks with every journey he made, but he knew what they would be. He had not expected Talbot.

They left the hills and came down into flat land, passing through fields of rye and white clover. A covey of red-legged partridges flew up before them. Hawkins reached for the rifle he had acquired in Freneda. "Hawkins, no!" Emily shouted. "Don't shoot. I'll give you all my dinner."

Hawkins sighed and put up his gun. "You eat them readily enough," he grumbled.

"But these are pretty." Emily twisted round to look up at Adam. "Do you shoot birds?"

Adam hesitated. Caroline knew he hated guns. "I don't shoot at all," he said.

"Even if you're hungry?"

"He leaves it to me," Hawkins said. "Though with you along, little one, we'll none of us have much dinner tonight."

Which was, of course, untrue. They were well provisioned, thanks to Somerset, and Adam carried an order requiring the billet-master of any town or village they passed through to find them accommodation. This sounded more impressive than it was, for most of the villages were nothing but clusters of roofless hovels, victims of the marauding armies of two foreign countries who slaughtered each other and took what they pleased from the land through which they passed.

This night they did better than a hovel, for the house, one of the better in the village, had a roof. They were given two rooms and supper as well and retired gratefully after a day spent on horseback. Caroline lay in the inner of the two rooms beside Emily, thinking of Adam. He was lying in the outer room, intended for servants, with Hawkins by his side. It was unthinkable to go to him, even without the issue of Hawkins's comfort. There was no terror to drive her to Adam's arms, and she could not face him with her naked need. Then there was Emily, who still woke crying in the night, needing instant comfort. And it was the wrong time of the month. Her courses had started a few days after she last lay with Adam, but this time she might not be so lucky. After the lies she had told Adam about Emily, she dared not become pregnant with his child again.