Secrets of a Lady (10 page)

Despite her assurances, he nearly called a halt before they reached the caves. He could feel the strength ebbing from her with each passing minute. The younger girl was drooping against Jennings. But the wind had picked up, whistling through the mountains with a bite that cut like glass, and there was an ominous promise of snow in the air. The shelter of the caves would mean a lot.

His memory, at least, had not played him false. The two wine caves were where he remembered, up an even narrower track that cut away from the path they’d been following. The wooden doors were overgrown with gorse and securely locked. Jennings glanced at him with raised brows.

“Not a problem,” Charles said. “Excuse me,” he added to Miss Saint-Vallier, reaching into the pocket of his greatcoat. He drew out his picklocks and swung off his horse. Within a matter of minutes, he had unlocked both caves. The pungent, sour smell of wine spilled out into the mountain air.

“Your talents continue to amaze me, Fraser.” Jennings had dismounted and helped the two women from the horses. “I begin to think a stray diplomat or two would be handy to have on a long campaign.” He jerked his head at his men. “Firewood.”

Whether it was the promise of the wine or the presence of the women, the soldiers worked with a crisp efficiency they had not shown heretofore on the journey. Charles helped the women into one of the caves. The stench was overwhelming as they bent under the low wooden frame of the door, but neither woman hesitated. They sank down on the hard ground and slumped against one of the barrels, as though it had just occurred to them that they were no longer required to move.

Charles gave them blankets he’d taken from the saddlebags. “Give us another quarter-hour and we’ll manage a fire and something to eat.”

Within short order, they had fires going in the mouths of both caves. Jennings sent Baxter and the other five soldiers into one cave, with strict instructions that no man was to drink so much he wouldn’t be fit to march in the morning. He gave Baxter a purse to pay for what they drank. Then he, Charles, and Addison joined the women.

Miss Saint-Vallier and the younger girl were huddled close together, hands held out to the fire. They both started as the men ducked through the doorway. Charles glimpsed a rush of terror in Miss Saint-Vallier’s eyes, swiftly suppressed.

He dropped down on the far side of the fire. “Right. Time we all knew each other’s names. Lieutenant Jennings of the 43rd. Miles Addison, my valet. Miss Saint-Vallier and—?” He looked in inquiry from Miss Saint-Vallier to the younger girl.

“Blanca Mendoza, my maid.” Even in the warmth of the firelight, Miss Saint-Vallier’s face was a ghostly white, but her voice had lost the harsh sound. It had the clear, musical ring of sterling silver clinking against crystal.

Jennings swept his shako from his head and managed to give the semblance of a bow beneath the low ceiling of the cave. “Enchanted.”

While Addison set up a tripod over the fire and filled a cooking pot from the contents of their saddlebags, Charles broached one of the wine barrels and filled five tin cups. Jennings handed them round.

Miss Saint-Vallier smiled her thanks and took a swallow of wine. Her throat worked, her fingers clenched the cup, her shoulders hunched inward. She drew a deep breath and looked from Jennings to Charles. Her eyes were wide and dark and what Charles saw in their depths made him go cold in a way that had nothing to do with the night air. “I suppose,” she said, “that you’re wondering why we were mad enough to be traveling through the mountains in the middle of November without an escort.”

Charles leaned against a barrel across the fire from her. “I imagine you had an escort when you started.”

“Yes.” She looked down into her cup. The firelight flickered over her face, sharpening her delicate bones, exaggerating the shadows round her eyes. “My father opposed Bonaparte. Perhaps too vehemently. A French patrol attacked our house a month ago.” Her voice had gone flat again, as it had when she spoke of her parents earlier. “My mother and father were killed. I was persuaded I’d be safer in Galicia.”

Jennings frowned. “But surely—”

“Our house was burned, Lieutenant.” She tugged at the neck of her gown. The fabric had been rent in two, Charles realized, then tacked together with a hairpin. “The livestock were taken. Half the household were killed, and I had no way to support those who were left. I paid them what I could and bought horses from a neighboring farm. Blanca and I set off for Galicia with one of the grooms.”

Silence hung uneasily in the wine-scented air. The fire gusted smoke out the open door of the cave.

Miss Saint-Vallier twisted her cup in her hands. She seemed to be unaware of the shudders that wracked her body. “We were attacked in the mountains, near where we found you.
Afrancesados,
I think, though I didn’t stop to ask their political affiliations. They killed my groom and took our horses. They debated what to do with us, but they didn’t have the stomach to kill us and it was too complicated to take us with them. So in the end they simply left us.”

“Bastardos,”
the girl Blanca muttered, her voice sharp with venom. She was huddled against the cave wall, legs drawn up to her chin, arms wrapped round her knees. “I bit one of them. I hope his arm turns poisoned.”

Jennings’s eyes widened. Addison was startled into looking up from the cooking pot.

“I hope he suffers a good deal worse,” Charles said. “When was this?”

Miss Saint-Vallier tried to lift her wine cup to her lips, but her fingers were shaking too badly. “Early yesterday.”

More than twenty-four hours with no food and no protection from the elements save their cloaks. “We found a rock to shelter under,” Blanca said. “We drank melted snow.”

Miss Saint-Vallier steadied her fingers, as if from sheer effort of will, and took a sip of wine. “We knew there weren’t any towns within walking distance. Our only hope was that someone would pass by on the road. We couldn’t believe our luck when we saw the British uniforms.”

Jennings lifted his cup in a toast. “It appears you are as courageous and resourceful as you are beautiful, Miss Saint-Vallier. I’m afraid we can’t take you to Galicia, but I hope you will accept our escort to Lisbon.”

Charles didn’t care for the glint in Jennings’s eyes. He told himself it was because Miss Saint-Vallier was in no state for flirtation, but he knew that was only part of the reason. “You may have friends or relatives in Lisbon,” Charles said. “If not, I’m sure the ambassador will offer you assistance.” In fact, the ambassador was all too ready to offer more than that to pretty women, though he wouldn’t go beyond the line with an unmarried girl of good family.

Blanca rubbed her hand over her face. “She doesn’t have anyone. She’s the last of her family, thanks to those foul toads of French soldiers.”

“Blanca.” Miss Saint-Vallier gave a slight shake of her head. Then she smiled at Charles and Jennings with the formality of a lady accepting a gentleman’s escort on a morning ride. “We’d be very glad of your escort, Lieutenant Jennings. Mr. Fraser.”

There was little more that could be said. There was a great deal that remained unspoken. Such as what exactly had happened to Miss Saint-Vallier and Blanca when the French soldiers attacked their house and what the
afrancesados
had done to them before they left. Those incidents had almost certainly left scars, both physical and mental, which should be attended to. But three men they had never met before were scarcely the appropriate choice to minister to either.

Addison had returned his attention to the cooking pot with his usual tact. “Supper,” he said, as he ladled out the stew. “We’ve no meat left, I’m afraid, but I can promise you it’s the best corn and chickpeas you’ve tasted.”

The women ate as though they had thought they would never do so again. Jennings launched into a series of amusing, well-edited battlefield anecdotes. Charles sipped his wine in silence. The wine was sweet, but the bite of irony was bitter on his tongue. He was the last possible person who should be playing the role of protector to vulnerable young women. He had an abysmal past record. But for the moment, at least, it seemed there was no one else.

Miss Saint-Vallier set down her bowl and leaned back against the wine barrel. The skirt of her gown was tangled about her legs, and she twitched the dark blue fabric free. Her hand lingered for a moment, curled over her abdomen.

Charles’s wine cup tilted in his fingers. Damn and double damn. He righted the cup, his fingers clenched hard on the tin. Damn the French soldiers and damn the
afrancesados
and damn this damnable war. Miss Saint-Vallier’s situation was even worse than he’d feared. He’d seen women from harlot to duchess make that fleeting but unmistakable gesture. They’d all had one thing in common.

They’d been carrying a child.

Chapter 6

T
he sound of retching told Charles where to look. He’d heard it every one of the three mornings since they’d found Mélanie de Saint-Vallier and Blanca Mendoza. The first time he hadn’t been sure. The second he’d lain awake, debating what to do, until she slipped back into the camp. This morning he’d been ready. He moved quietly over the rocky ground, past Jennings and the other soldiers, past Blanca and Addison, all still wrapped in their sleeping blankets. The fire he’d kindled flickered red amid the rocks. Fog hung thick in the air, clinging to tree trunks, shrouding the predawn glow in the sky. The brush of damp air on his skin brought a memory of home.

He’d slept little the night before. The meeting with the bandits who claimed to have the Carevalo Ring was to take place later this morning, at a rendezvous point just beyond the clearing where they’d camped for the night. He was ready for anything, including an attempt to take the gold at gunpoint without producing anything that remotely resembled the ring.

But at the moment, the ring seemed of far less consequence than Mélanie de Saint-Vallier. Patches of dirty snow crunched beneath his feet as he picked his way out of the clearing. One of the horses whickered, and he stopped to stroke its muzzle.

She was kneeling by a line of pine trees that bordered a streambed. The fog blurred his view, but he could see that she had one hand wrapped round a moss-covered tree trunk. Her head was bent, her dark hair spilling loose over the green wool of her cloak.

“Miss Saint-Vallier.” He pitched his voice to be heard over the rushing of the stream, but he kept his tone gentle. He knew what cause she had to start when approached unawares.

She went still for a moment, then pulled herself to her feet and turned, gripping the tree trunk. “Mr. Fraser.” Through the curtain of fog, it sounded as though she was farther away than she was. “I didn’t realize anyone else was awake.”

“I thought perhaps you could do with some tea.” He held out the tin cup he carried.

She wiped her hand across her mouth. “Thank you.” She walked forward, her steps firm and deliberate. “The stew last night must not have agreed with me.”

He put the cup into her hand. “Very likely not.”

Her hands curved round the warmth of the cup. A gust of wind riffled through the pine trees, tugging at her cloak. “For once I think Shakespeare got it wrong,” she said, her voice bright with determination. “I don’t think man’s ingratitude could possibly be more unkind than this wind.”

“Shakespeare was a genius, but I doubt he had experience of the Spanish mountains.” He looked into her eyes, seeking a bridge to the painfully personal topic that needed discussing. “Not many Franco-Spaniards quote
As You Like It
in adversity.”

“My father got me to learn English by promising I couldn’t really appreciate Shakespeare in translation.” She took a swallow of tea, gripping the cup in both hands. “You’re fond of him yourself? Shakespeare, I mean.”

“Next to my brother, he was the closest companion of my youth. My brother would tell you I have an unfortunate tendency to prefer the company of books to people.”

She regarded him through the steam that rose from the cup. “You find you’re less likely to be bored or disappointed that way?”

“And then there’s the fact that I don’t have to worry that
I’ll
disappoint the books.”

“I find it hard to imagine you disappointing anyone, Mr. Fraser. I’ve met few people so adept at coping in a crisis.”

The smile that tugged at his mouth was more bitter than he intended. “That depends on the crisis. Some are more easily resolved than others.” He paused. “The first step is always to face the problem. Talking to a friend can help.”

She drew in her breath. For a moment, they looked at each other without speaking. He wasn’t going to force a confession, but he was very much hoping for one. It would make things a great deal easier.

The wind cut the fog so that it swirled and reformed round them. She released her breath, a sound as harsh as the crack of dry needles. “You’re an observant man, Mr. Fraser. Or is it obvious to everyone?”

“I shouldn’t think so. To own the truth, I was concerned from the moment I heard your story.”

She let out a mirthless laugh. He cupped his hand round her own so she wouldn’t spill the precious tea. “My old nurse said a cup of tea soothed any trouble.” He smiled into her bleak eyes. “I’m not sure she was right, but it can’t make it worse.”

Miss Saint-Vallier gave a weak attempt at a smile. Even that brightened her face. He steadied her hand as she lifted the cup to her lips and took a careful sip. Warm metal, cold fingers, soft skin.

“How sure are you?” he asked.

She looked straight into his eyes. “I’m never ill like this, Mr. Fraser. I’m sure.” Her mouth went taut. “‘She is a woman, therefore may be woo’d; She is a woman, therefore may be won.’ But there was precious little wooing about it, and I refuse to say that I was won.”

He kept his hand cupped round her own. “It’s too soon for it to have been the
afrancesados
. The French patrol who attacked your parents’ house—”

“Yes. I’m carrying a French soldier’s bastard. I couldn’t tell you his rank. I doubt I’d recognize him if he passed me on the street. There was more than one, and I didn’t get a very good look at their faces.”