Tarleton's Wife (23 page)

Previous problems diminished to nothingness. “You cannot mean for me to stay here!” Julia blurted out.

“Do you think I spent all this time looking for you to let you get away again?” Nicholas retorted. “I did not think you that foolish, Julia.”

“But the annulment? Surely it is not proper for me to stay here?”

“At this moment you are undoubtedly my wife.” Nicholas seized the bottle of port and stalked across the room to the warmth of the fire.

Chapter Eleven

What she needed was a deep dark hole. A private place to nurse her wounds. A place where no one could see her face or read her soul. A place where the heart on her sleeve was not so visible. Instead—with nowhere left to run—Julia returned to her chair by the fire. Nicholas, snug behind his maddening air of detachment, calmly handed her a glass of port before fixing his gaze in a brooding contemplation of the dancing firelight.

She was trapped. With no way to combat the pain of the Nicholas of her Dream regarding her with the well-remembered indifference Major Tarleton had once conferred upon young Julia Litchfield. And yet…with his insistence that she stay, Nicholas was acknowledging their marriage. Claiming her as his wife. Accepting the responsibility that went with marriage.

In the past two weeks she had learned the hazards of independence. The dreadful fear of finding herself without a roof over her head, no food to eat, ripe for plucking by those who preyed on the destitute and helpless. So she would sit here, Julia thought and be her sensible self. Even if it killed her. She drew a deep breath, willing herself to civilized conversation.

“I believe we are a year short of finishing your story,” Julia prompted. While Nicholas recounted his days in Spain, she could lose herself in his story, gaze at him while he talked, count the new lines in his face, the small scars. Memorize his beloved features for all the years of loneliness to come.

She was mistaken. The hurt was a sharp stab which spread out into numbing waves of despair. For with the second part of Nicholas’ tale came Doña Violante Modestia Vila Santiago.

* * * * *

Fall 1809, Northern Spain

Nicholas swung the scythe with the accuracy of countless repetitions. When a suitable swath of golden wheat stalks lay prone at his feet, he bundled them into sheaves. He straightened, smiling as he wiped the sweat from his brow. His days at the monastery were numbered. He could now handle a full day’s backbreaking labor. He was, in fact, in better condition than he had been when riding across Spain with Moore’s army. And at long last he was to be granted his freedom. Brother Bonifacio had promised the next time Carlos came to the monastery, the young
hidalgo
would not return to the mountains alone.

When the angelus rang, Nicholas paused, arm in mid-swing. It was not a bell of the finest quality but since his awakening that first evening so many months before, he had grown quite fond of it. Slowly, he lowered the scythe to the ground. On some evenings he joined the monks at their prayers but tonight… Nicholas set off across the fields at a rapid pace, soon leaving the fields behind, slowly descending through a flower-strewn meadow to a stream which wound its way down from the wooded foothills above the monastery.

He made a quick survey of the area before peeling off his monk’s robe. He was alone, thank God, for there was little doubt his body could never withstand the inspection of unfriendly eyes. White skin which had not been exposed to the sun contrasted sharply with the deep tan of his face, arms and lower legs.

The water beckoned with a siren call Nicholas did not want to deny. The humble, circumscribed role of monk was becoming harder and harder to bear. He stripped and plunged in, diving below the surface of the one pool deep enough to swim in. The sparkling water was cold and clear, allowing him a view of shiny pebbles, waving fronds of water grass, the silver flashes of small fish skittering away from this splashing monster. Finally, clean and newborn, he settled to swimming in lazy circles, luxuriating in the stimulation of the mountain-fed water. With his body at peace, Nicholas’ mind was free to roam.

The course of the war was slow and frustrating. It was damned hard to find a ray of hope in what little news penetrated to northern Spain. Although Lisbon was now defended by British troops, the remainder of Portugal teetered on the verge of a second French invasion. A few fortress cities in Spain still stood against the French. But with Napoleon pouring wave after wave of troops onto the soil of his former ally, Britain’s small army could do little more than struggle to stay alive and plan for better days ahead.

The
guerrilla
, the little war, was going better. Constant attacks by marauding raiders sweeping down from the mountains forced the French to assign more and more troops to protect their couriers and supplies. Nicholas was proud of the men he had trained but he had no illusions—they would have managed without him. Throughout the Iberian Peninsula
guerrilleros
were bringing honor back to the greatness of Spain and Portugal. He suspected his training of the local patriots was intended more as a cure for Major Nicholas Tarleton than a necessity for Carlos’ ragtag band of resistance fighters.

He had to admit the cure had worked, bringing his mind back from death as surely as Brother Bonifacio and Brother Miguel had done for his body. Perhaps Brother Bonifacio was right. It had been a miracle after all. There was nothing like the better part of a year in a monastery to inspire a man to search his soul. Nicholas was eager to return to the war but not unaware of what he would leave behind. He should be dead, yet he was alive. Thanks to men of a country and a religion not his own.

The war had become personal. If protecting this place of peace and goodness meant once again risking his life, he would do it. Not only with a soldier’s ready will but with the strong conviction he was defending his own.

“
Eh, inglès
, may I join you?” The laughing dark eyes of Don Carlos Guillermo Vila Santiago gazed down at the major. “The water here is like a hot springs compared to farther up the mountain. This is your last warm bath for a long time, Major. I will enjoy it with you, no?”

As the young man sat down to pull off his boots, Nicholas swung his palm in a broad arc, scooping a swath of icy water onto the recumbent figure. With a few choice oaths which Nicholas promptly added to his Spanish vocabulary, Carlos stripped himself of his soggy clothing and plunged in, as naked as his tormentor. The two men wrestled until laughter overcame them and they struggled back into their clothing, setting off across the fields toward the monastery in the red glow of the final rays of the setting sun.

* * * * *

Nicholas expected to revel in the world outside the monastery, the company of fighting men, the thunder of hooves, the acrid odor of black powder, the clash of steel. Instead, he was appalled. Falling back into the exhilarating familiarity of battle was easy enough but he soon discovered the ways of the little war were hard and cruel. Atrocity met with atrocity, acts of venality and brutality a common occurrence on both sides. Nicholas had no quarrel with attacks on French columns or outposts. But he had no taste for revenge against collaborators or raids on Spanish citizens whose only sin was the possession of too much gold.

“This is how you fight?” he roared at Carlos late one night. “Hanging a man by his balls because he gave a French colonel houseroom!” Nicholas broke off as a fit of coughing racked his body.

“The man was
enfrancesado
, a lover of the little Emperor,” Carlos retorted. “He was lining his pockets with French gold, betraying Spanish secrets to curry favor with his new masters.” The young Spaniard spat into the flames of the campfire. “He was a pig.”

“Of course!” Nicholas mocked, overcome by sudden revelation. “I forgot. This is the land of the Inquisition. You’re all a bunch of bloody butchers.”

“
They
began it!”

“I don’t give a damn who began it, I don’t have to be part of it.” Nicholas rose and stomped off toward their makeshift hut, his stiff-backed indignation marred by another bout of coughing. Hell and damnation. His sense of honor, his soldier’s love of order and discipline, the reaffirmation of the human soul he found in the monastery—all were equally offended by these miserable lords of misrule. No, dammit, he was merely sick, tired and not as strong as he had thought. War was a hellish business. Whether it was fought in columns, in lines, or from behind rocks and trees, in the end a man was just as dead from bullet, cannon, or sword as he was from hanging on an olive tree or spread-eagled on a cruciform.

What day was it anyway? Nicholas wondered. Christmas was gone, the New Year… He removed a worn piece of paper from his leather saddlebag and carefully unfolded it, marking off another day on his makeshift calendar. Ten days since Twelfth Night. January 16, 1810. The anniversary of the battle of La Coruña. Paper rustled as Nicholas’ hands shook.

“I am sorry, English,” Carlos apologized as he entered the hut, carefully pulling the oxhide flap of the door closed behind him. “You are right. It is not your war. It is not your home, your soil you are defending. We should not expect you to understand.”

Nicholas returned the apology, holding out his hand.

“You are burning with fever!” Carlos exclaimed as he grasped Nicholas’ hand. “Into bed.
Pronto
! Tomorrow I will take you home—to the house of my father. The winter closes in and there will be little fighting. If you are to see another spring, I think you must leave this place for a while.”

Nicholas protested but without conviction. The next morning two lowly peasants, riding mules, set out for the warmth of the coastal plain. It was hoped no one would notice one of the peasants was so long-limbed that makeshift rope stirrups had been devised to keep his feet from dragging on the ground.

* * * * *

The family home of the Vila Santiagos lay nestled among rolling hills not far from a river which rushed toward the sea. As Nicholas and Carlos paused on a high hill above the sprawling hacienda, the dull blue of the Atlantic shone in the distance. Herds of long-horned cows dotted the sheltered valleys below. Between the cows and the sea stretched a vast rolling stubble of wheat fields.

“We will wait until nightfall,” Carlos said. “All looks quiet but one cannot be sure.”

As beautiful and welcome a sight as the hacienda was, Nicholas’ thoughts flew beyond the horizon. To a world of sanity protected from continental madness by that same broad moat of blue which now blocked his pathway home. England might send her troops to war but her women were not being raped by foreign troops, nor her men tortured and hanged on the village green.

It must be his illness, Nicholas mused. He had been a soldier all his adult life. Never before had he been overwhelmed by such a poignant desire for the quiet peace and prosperity of his homeland. A pack of nonsense! When he got rid of this damned cough, he’d be himself again. Old Nick, ready to take on the world.

The Vila Santiago might not be The Willows but Nicholas had to admit it enveloped him with every comfort of home. He had forgotten the comfort of goose feathers—their enticing softness inside mattress, pillows and quilts. Sheets of the finest linen. A large fireplace crackling with heat. Green velvet bed hangings and matching window draperies, fought off what little cold remained. And then the ministering angels appeared. An entire coterie, from plump maids to severe housekeeper, to his miraculous angelic violet, young Violante Modestia who hovered over him, fed him and read to him. Smiled at him. A winsome virginal smile full of innocent promise.

Violante. Seventeen and just out of the convent. Shy, beautiful, raised for the sole purpose of making a good marriage. An English officer was not what Carlos’ father, Don Raimondo, had envisioned for his only daughter. But a wealthy Englishman who owned a manor house was not to be despised, particularly when he was fighting for Spain and a close friend of his son. Nor was Nicholas displeased by his attraction to the daughter of the house of the family Vila Santiago. How could he possibly ignore the lure of a lovely, delicate young girl whose sole purpose in life was to please the man her family chose for her? Particularly when Violante made no secret of the fact she found him equally attractive. By mid-February, when Nicholas was once again able to face the rigors of the mountains, an understanding of courtship had been established. Expectations of a future betrothal were an accepted fact.

The day before Nicholas and Carlos returned to the mountains, Don Raimondo presented them with two fighting stallions. Moorish bred, they were fleet of foot and trained to battle.

“Ah, Papa,” Carlos said with a grin, “the French will fight ten times as hard to capture such magnificent beasts.”

“If our own men don’t slit our throats to get them first,” Nicholas murmured, not entirely sure he was joking.

When Nicholas and Carlos returned to camp, there were envious glances, a few ribald remarks about the privileges of being a Son of a Somebody but no overt hostility. As the leader of the
guerrillero
s, Pablo Garcia, admired the stallions, Nicholas seized the moment to plead for a favor. He would ride on all attacks against the French. He would not, however, participate in reprisal raids or tortures.

Garcia was far from a fool. The English major was a skilled fighter, an expert in battle tactics. In truth, he was too valuable to risk on reprisal raids. Wellington—stupid
inglès
—did nothing but retreat. The English major never retreated. So be it. If he did not wish to cut off the
cojones
of traitors, he would not insist. How could such a lily-white
inglès
be expected to understand the bloodier aspects of the code of vengeance?