Vidal's Honor (11 page)
Authors: Sherry Gloag
* * * *
As dusk stole the daylight and offered the cover of the darkness, Vidal wondered whether Juan intended to keep travelling. The gruesome discovery in the woods three days ago had unsettled them all and by unspoken agreement they'd skirted all forms of habitation since. In his opinion they should have stopped to forage for food or find a river with the prospect of tickling a fish for their dinner. Goodness only knew the few birds they flushed from the brush were so small they wouldn't feed a mouse. Water too was becoming a problem. The little they had left tasted brackish from the warm sunshine during the day, and Juan still refused to let them fill their bottles from the streams they waded through.
“We find a spring the French have not contaminated first.”
“The women need something to drink.”
“It is no use to them if it is poisoned, my friend,” Juan had said in one of the few moments he'd come out of his brown study.
Vidal wanted to argue but to argue against the truth was a waste of time. If they couldn't burn, sack or destroy everything in their path the enemy deliberately contaminated the waters as they went.
“And when are we going to come upon a spring we can trust?”
A brief smile lit up the Spaniard's face. “Very soon if we keep going.”
For a moment Vidal wondered why Juan's response surprised him.
“How do you know this country so well?”
“It is my home,” Juan said, with a wave at the mountains ahead and a flicker of a smile on his lips. “When the war began I wanted to fight, but was rejected. They told me my sight was not good enough.” He cast a glance at the women riding in front of them. “Bah! What do they know? I learned of a guerrilla group in the south and made my way there. From there they sent me into Gibraltar. Why would I want to stay there? It is so small.”
“So you decided to use me as an excuse to leave Gibraltar and return to your home country?”
“No, my fine friend, I see you have not yet worked it out. Indeed you are wrong. My instructions were to either take over the job of getting you aboard a boat to England or maintain a close contact with your party to ensure your guides undertook to do the same.”
“Heading for the Pyrenees is not the easiest or most direct route to the coast and a boat.”
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“I never imagined you'd find such beauty at the top of a mountain.” He heard the wonder in Honor's voice. They'd scaled the first line of mountains and travelled west along the path for most of the afternoon, before dropping into the small valley where they'd stopped for the night.
“We've been fortunate,” Vidal agreed. “At this time of year rain and mists often obscure the view.”
“Seeing the mountains running off in the distance takes my breath away. The colours and shades, it reminds me of a tapestry hanging in my mother's favourite room.” She sighed, turned it to a smile, and began again. “I thought we'd be struggling through snow and ice.”
“And so we may in a few more days. October is only seven days away and is known to bring snow blizzards severe enough to cut off the passes.” They'd start their trek towards the steep slopes on the other side of the valley the next day.
After they'd cleared away all traces of their evening meal, Vidal sat and watched the glow from the small camp fire Juan considered safe to light. The light turned Honor's hair a warm shade of bronze and lit up her features. He couldn't pull his gaze away and shifted uncomfortably when the sight fired his blood. The more he learned about her, the higher his admiration and physical frustration levels rose.
“â
Lucky in love, unlucky in cards.
'
Who's the woman, Charles?” His friends had teased him when his luck at the tables turned days after Honor accepted Dev's proposal. As soon as Vidal entered the room, his friends groaned and declared their pockets to let. It didn't stop them sitting at Vidal's table and continue grumbling good-humouredly all the while they lost to him.
Both women had remained quiet for several days after the gruesome discovery in the woods; indeed Honor's outburst with Juan had surprised him. Her innuendos garnered no new information and succeeded in distancing the Spaniard farther from them.
Nor did Juan hide his impatience when the women's pace slowed as they climbed to the higher altitudes. They'd rebelled when he demanded they alternate riding their shared mount, and in all honesty Vidal didn't blame them. For two days Honor and Consuela took turns riding until the extra burden and the thinning air caused the animal to tire more easily.
“We'll all take turns,” he said, challenging Juan to defy him. “The walker leaves their pack on the mule.” Only the women's immediate agreement brought Juan's reluctant consent.
While the tenacity of both women surprised him, he found it hard to come to terms with Honor's stoic acceptance of the situation. Consuela, more conditioned to the long-drawn ascent, suffered less with her breathing as they climbed. She came from this country and didn't hide her contempt for the few village elders they met who swore their isolation from the major war zones would protect them. Others had thought the same and been proven wrong.
“Are those lights in the distance coming from a couple of villages?” Consuela asked the previous evening.
He'd sympathised with the cautious excitement in her voice. What little warmth they garnered during the day was soon depleted with the approaching dusk.
“They may be, or perhaps they are army camps,” Juan muttered and chose the first diverging track from their path, increasing the distance between them and the communities.
During the day he and Juan took turns scouting for food and unwanted company. Most nights they'd sat down to rabbit stew or soup. At first, Juan had grumbled when both women stopped to pull leaves and berries from bushes growing along the path, until he realised they were harvesting herbs to add to their meagre rations.
“Did you see Dev's brother before leaving England?”
Honor's query jolted Vidal back to the present. She didn't need to spell out the question left unsaid.
“I did, and discovered he'd already been informed. I'm sorry to say he showed no grief at all. Indeed he set about squandering his inheritance before even I learned the truth of the matter.”
Remembering Cedric's jealousy, Honor offered no comment and turned the conversation. “We intended to open the house and throw a huge anniversary party when we returned to England, but now⦔ Honor's sigh joined the murmur of flames licking round the twigs and dry scrub they'd found. “Apart from collecting my things, I don't suppose I'll ever revisit the place.”
“I'm afraid Cedric is not likely to permit you to enter the grounds again. He moved into the house soon after you and Devlin left for Spain, and disregarded all attempts to shift him.”
He remembered Cedric's sneering claim,
"It's mine."
“He made no secret of his wish that neither of you would ever return, and told everyone he intended to
âmake hay while the sun shone'.
Sadly, Devlin's steward was too afraid of Cedric, and too uncertain of whether you and Devlin would come home, to defy him.”
Even in the firelight, Vidal saw her pain. She'd faced the loss of her husband and now had to come to terms with the knowledge that her brother-in-law had taken over her home even before his entitlement to do so.
“I'm sorry to be the bearer of such unpleasant news, Honor, but you have to know, Cedric has fallen in with a bad set of friends.”
“I never understood how someone so uncouth managed to be at the centre of society. We'd meet him wherever we went.”
Her bewilderment equalled his own. He remembered Cedric Chiltern and his cronies always frequented the most prodigious events of the Season, and were indeed, accepted everywhere in the heart of society. And yetâ
Only her nod indicated she'd heard him. He reached out a hand of comfort, then withdrew it before he touched her. Her scent â where it came from he didn't know â fired his blood even in the peaks of the mountains.
He couldn't prevent himself from looking at her, taking in her features, her strength, her loyalty, and marvelled how he could see it all in one look.
Had he become so used to her beauty, he no longer noticed it? Oh, but he did, and laughed when his body reacted to the direction of his thoughts.
Honor cradled in his arms, Honor kissing him as ardently as he'd like to kiss her
â and more, much more.
Once, for a while, he'd hoped, but hoping got him nowhere. He'd thought, but taken it no farther than dreaming, and then his dreams turned to nightmares when Honor chose Devlin.
As dusk slipped into night, Vidal settled down to rest. The climb tomorrow would a hard one and he needed his strength.
* * * *
Unable to sleep, Honor tucked her chin on her knees and wrapped her arms round her up-drawn legs. Staring into the dying embers of the fire, she sifted through Vidal's words. The difference between Devlin and his brother had always puzzled her. It bothered her that she couldn't understand how two boys, well, men by the time she'd come to know them, had managed to turn out so differently. While Devlin knew he had no choice but to accept his destiny, his only rebellion being that he joined Wellington's army, Cedric had been free to live a life of his own choosing.
While Cedric never crossed the line of the courtesy owed to Devlin's fiancée, she'd never-the-less always felt uneasy in his presence. That the
ton
embraced him so wholeheartedly she found equally disconcerting.
She watched the sleeping forms of her companions. Consuela, wrapped in her shawl, lay beside Juan and beneath the comfort of his outstretched arm. Shifting her gaze to the prone, lone figure across from her, with the fire between them, she wondered how it would feel to follow the Spanish woman's example and cosy up beside Vidal. She missed the feel of Devlin's arms around her while she slept. For practical reasons alone, it made sense, but taking that final step and lying down beside Vidal seemed like a betrayal. More so, she discovered, because she wanted to, not just to share his body warmth against the increasingly cold winds but because⦠She inhaled deeply, slowly, and chased the whimsical longing away. After all, once they reached England he'd go his own way, pick up his life again and forget about her. Why would it be any other way?
“Can't you sleep?”
Vidal's voice by her shoulder shocked her out of her contemplation. “It's nothing unusual. Since coming to Spain⦓ Her voice trailed off.
In one lithe movement Vidal lowered himself down beside her. “Go on.” Without looking at her, he poked the embers, groped around for any nearby twigs and then drew his knees up too, propping his elbows on them.
“I used to help the medics, I think I've mentioned it before,” she began, and when Vidal nodded, continued, “For many of the injured soldiers, death came in the night. The thought of them being aloneâ“ She shifted, straightened her spine, and looked directly at Vidal.
“I'd talk with them or, if they couldn't speak, I simply talked to them, or read. I had several books, and because it seemed to soothe them, I used to read to the soldiers.
“Those that could often told me about their families, and after a while I took it upon myself to write to them and tell them what brave soldiers their sons, husbands, or fathers were.”
Night sounds replaced her voice when it ceased. A rustling nearby, the howl of an animal, or the hoot of an owl.
Not wolves, Juan had once told them, but he'd never gone on to explain what other animal made that sound. It had taken her several days to understand how far sound travelled on a still night in the mountains and understanding forbade her to seek the answers.
“You know, I fought in Portugal and lay awake watching the stars on many a night. I'm sure you gave great comfort to those men.”
“They told me that knowing I'd contact their families when I could eased their worries. Indeed⦔ She sighed and studied the glowing embers again. “For many, âthank you' were their final words to me.”
“Why did you do it?” The image of Honor sitting beside and comforting the dying squeezed his heart.
“How could I not? It was little enough to give those valiant men some peace in their final moments.”
“I'm not talking about that.”
Vidal's impatient hiss startled Honor into looking at him again. “What then?”
“Follow Dev out here, get mixed up with his work.”
“I don't know what you're talking about. How could I get mixed up in Dev's work? He was a soldier.”
“He was a spy,” Vidal snapped, “and according to Lord Dundas, you were working with him.”
Jumping to her feet, Honor no longer cared about keeping her voice low and not disturbing the others. “Well, he's wrong.”
“Whether it's true or not doesn't matter. Too many people believe you were and are prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to silence you.”
His words hit her like a musket ball, and one look at Vidal's face told her he hadn't intended for her to know the extent of the danger they faced. Her legs gave way and she landed where she'd sat seconds ago. When Phillipe told her he'd promised to get her home to England safely, she'd thought whatever the dangers they would be left behind in Spain. Now she wondered whether these disbelievers would come after her once she stepped back onto English soil.
A circle of glowing ash failed to give off enough light for her to see Vidal's face. “Then why are you bothering to try and take me home?” Wrapping her arms round her up-drawn knees again she struggled to keep the panic at bay. Dev would never claim she'd worked with him. Hadn't he always told her never to ask for details of his work, for he wouldn't ever talk about it? At first she'd taken his words as an insult to her integrity, and seeing her disquiet, Devlin had broken his silence only the once.
“To know what I do, my dearest, would put your life at risk, and I should never have agreed to let you come to Spain. It was my selfish desire to have you close that overcame my common sense.”
He'd never spoken of his work to her again, and she'd never asked.
“Do you seriously think there are people who believe I have some sort of information?” She gasped, as a new and appalling thought struck her. “Do they believe I am a spy? That I have been spying against my country?”
“There are those who believe you have spied
for
your country.”
The warmth of Vidal's hand on her knee alerted her to the chill of the wind on her back.
“Some want you back to discover what you know because they believe you can help your country, and there are others who'll go to inordinate lengths to prevent you from doing so.”
She tried to take in his words, to believe what he told her. The chill within her body no longer came from the wind keening round them.
Indignation jammed in her throat. “Who would presume I would ever do such a thing?” Thoughts, vying for attention, jumbled in her head. Images like cracked glass caught in a shaft of sunlight then dimmed by a passing cloud, shifted and coalesced. Dev â Phillipe â their departure from the camp â Juan â Consuelaâ How could she be a part of all this? She couldn't, but why had she decided to join them in their flight across Spain? Suddenly the other woman's comments no longer ran true.
“Why you?”
“Why me, what?”
“Don't bandy words with me, Vidal. Why were you sent out to bring me back?” In the darkness she couldn't see him, but instinctively knew he'd stiffened. Well, too bad. From leading an unorthodox but mainly happy life with Dev and assuming everyone her friend, she found herself wondering whether she could trust anyone around her. “Why did Lord Dundas send you?”
The chill in his tone matched the wind. “Because he thought you would be happier if a friend accompanied you back to England”
“And when we reach England? What then?”
“That will be for Whitehall to decide.”
“Not an encouraging thought.” It didn't help that her own sarcasm backfired on her.
“You say Cedric has taken possession of the estate and is unlikely to welcome me back there?”
“He seemed to think you'd never retâ” The slap of his hand on his knee roused Juan from his sleep.
“What is going on here?”
“Nothing.” Vidal waved the Spaniard off. “Go back to sleep.”
“How can I sleep when I think someone has taken a shot at us and woken me up?”
When Consuela stirred, Juan brushed the hair from off her face, whispered a few soothing words to her and waited until her breathing evened out again before rising. For a moment he watched the sleeping woman at his feet, then crossed to where Vidal sat and dropped down beside him.
“What is going on? If you do not sleep now, you will fall asleep on your animal and drop off, and then we will have even more disruption.”
“Problems?” Ignoring the impatience lacing Juan's voice, Vidal swung round to face him. “We have more trouble? What?”
