The Sometime Bride (10 page)

Cat stifled a giggle as Blas continued. “You can try out your limp tonight then. I must leave earlier than usual and will need you to cover for me at the faro table. Cat, you will leave the gaming rooms when I do. Hopefully it will be assumed we are snatching a few moments of marital bliss.”

Fiery red suffused her face, rising from neckline to hairline, clashing with her red-gold curls. Marcio chuckled. “You make a good pair,” he approved. “Until tonight then.” He rose to his feet, stepped determinedly toward the door. The insert in his left boot created a noticeable but not incapacitating limp. Blas nodded his approval. With Marcio back at the Casa Audley, his freedom was considerably enhanced.

Hours later Catarina woke to a hand firmly clamped over her mouth, an urgent whisper in her ear. “My boots, Cat. Quick!” Still struggling with sleep, she slipped out of bed and knelt on the floor, tugging at Blas’s scuffed leather boots. “Hurry, damn it,” he hissed, reaching down from his perch on the edge of her bed in an attempt to help her. Loud pounding sounded on the Casa’s front door. Cat struggled so hard with the second boot that when it came off, she fell over backward, her pristine white muslin nightgown flying up to her thighs.

Blas suffered a moment of regret that there was no time to enjoy the view. Moving fast, he pulled open a drawer built beneath the bed, tossed his boots inside, covered them with one of the extra quilts stored there. Grabbing Catarina from the floor, he tossed her onto the bed and jumped in after her. Blas jerked the quilted coverlet up over them both. Then, instead of lying quietly feigning sleep as Cat expected, he began to wiggle and twist in a manner she found most alarming, particularly when she realized what he was doing.

“
Ah, no, you must not!” she gasped.

“
I’m not about to ravish you, for God’s sake! A naked body in your bed is a damn sight better than a husband taken off to jail in the middle of the night.”

The pounding had long since ceased. The sounds of tramping feet and the murmur of voices could be heard on the gallery outside Blas’s room next door. As the sounds moved into his bedroom, Blas made a sudden movement, tugging Cat’s gown up over her head, hushing her shocked protests with an urgent command to lie still and be quiet or they’d all be dead. A moment before the connecting doorway was thrown open, he tossed the nightgown onto the elaborately patterned Persian carpet and seized his wife in his arms, kissing her shock and terror into silence.

Don Alexis Perez de Leon froze in the midst of the embrace of his wife, turning slowly toward the phalanx of French soldiers who had just burst into his wife’s bedchamber. His eyes opened wide, as if he had been too occupied to notice his home was being invaded. Behind the soldiers stood Lucio and Marcio Cardoso in varying states of undress, the relief on their faces so evident that Blas almost laughed. Fortunately, the French never took their eyes from the bed where Cat was having no difficulty at all playing her role. Being found stark naked in bed with an equally naked Blas by armed French soldiers was quite enough to set her body trembling. Shimmering drops began to fall from her large green eyes.

“
Boa noite, Major
,” said Don Alexis with no more than mild curiosity. “To what do we owe the honor of your visit?”

Major Martineau eyed the pristine white nightgown, its lacy ruffles spilling over the colorful carpet. For Dona Catarina nothing but the best. A nice touch, that. He raised his eyes to his adversary. “We were following a man who was in a place he had no right to be. He came here to the Casa. We saw him climbing to a balcony on the far side of the house.”

Don Alexis pondered this remarkable statement. “On the far side of the house,” he repeated. “And yet you came to
my
room? For shame, Major. I have been with my wife the entire evening, have I not,
queridissima
?” He favored the major with a conspiratorial wink. “We are newly wed, you understand.”

She would die of mortification.

A tear fell off the tip of Cat’s quivering chin. Slowly, she wiped her face with the coverlet she was clutching up around her neck. “He has indeed been with me all evening, Major,” she vowed, her pale face as deeply crimson as the flowers on the quilt.

Martineau fervently wished himself anywhere but here. Against these two children his thirty years weighed like a century. “Don Alexis, you will be good enough to stand up. I should like to see what an
hidalgo
wears to bed.”

“
What else?” said Don Alejo, sliding his body out from under the covers and standing, nonchalantly naked, before his pre-dawn guests. With all eyes focused in embarrassed silence on the young owner of the Casa Audley, Cat surreptitiously moved her toes beneath the heavy quilt, shoving Blas’s clothes farther toward the foot of the bed. She did not intend to look, but her eyes were drawn inexorably toward the lean back and buttocks only inches from the bed. Hastily she averted her eyes, intently studying the design of the quilt.

“
My apologies, Don Alexis, Dona Catarina,” said the Major, who knew when he had been bested. His eyes gleamed as he added, “Perhaps another time.” With a wave to his men, he stalked out the main door to the upper gallery, leaving the Cardosos, father and son, to breathe heartfelt sighs of relief.

“
You’re a bit pale for a Spaniard,” said Marcio with an attempt at an insouciance to match his friend’s. “I trust the major did not notice.”

“
He noticed,” said Blas, “but he knew he’d been outmaneuvered. It’s definitely time for me to consider leaving town for a while.”

“
If you wish to speak of
leaving
. . . “ interjected Lucio Cardoso in a voice of stern disapproval.

“
Ah, perdão
!” Marcio exclaimed. “
Boa noite
.” The Cardosos made a hasty departure.

Blas bent down to pick up Catarina’s gown. His legs buckled, depositing him hard on the edge of the bed. “It occurs to me I am not quite as much the brave warrior as I had thought,” he admitted in a rare moment of honesty. Careful not to turn around, he reached back over his shoulder to hand Cat her nightgown. “I’m sorry, Cat. If Lucio tells your father about this, there’ll be the devil to pay.”

Catarina wiggled the gown over her head, then ducked her head beneath the covers, groping until she found the various pieces of Blas’s clothing. “Even Lucio assumes we are properly married,” she said as she returned the items, handing them over his shoulder.

“
I suppose so,” Blas responded idly, shrugging into the shirt which was just long enough to cover the bare essentials. When it was properly in place, he turned back toward his bride with a rueful apology. “When I suggested all this, Cat, I had no idea what occupation by an enemy was like. I should have let you go with your father. Better yet, I should have kidnapped you and put you on board a British ship myself. I should not have used you like this. I am truly sorry.”

“
You are very strange when you are humble,” Cat retorted. “Not at all like yourself. I like the old Blas better.”

“
That’s fortunate,” he conceded, “as it looks to be a long war.” He paused, regarding her closely from under his thick black lashes. “It is best for both of us that I leave for Spain as soon as we see how things go with Marcio.”

Desolation. Relief. “I will miss you,” was all she said.

Blas made the mistake of looking at her, sitting there so demurely with the coverlet to her chin, shining strands of red-gold framing a face on which tears still glimmered. He bounded off the bed, clutching his pants, sash and knee socks, making such a hasty departure he left his boots lying in the drawer under the bed.

Catarina returned them a few hours later, softly humming to herself as she tucked them into the chest in the secret closet where the clothes of Blas the Bastard were kept. The sheepskin jacket had been found by one of the maids in the laundry press in a small service room off the upper gallery. Cat returned that also. He would need it in Spain.

Chapter Six

The road to Madrid rose swiftly from the coastal plains of Portugal to the high plateaus and mountains of Spain. Blas, however, moved toward the Spanish capital at a snail’s pace, singeing the ears of his long-horned oxen with his complete repertoire of Spanish expletives. With a few Portuguese variations thrown in for good measure. He had, God help him, forgotten how slow an ox-cart could be. He was carrying a load of crucifixes and bibles, the only cargo which might not be instantly confiscated by the hordes of ravenous French soldiers swarming through Spain. (He had balked at Cat’s suggestion, presumably facetious, that he haul manure for the well-over-three hundred miles to Madrid.)

He wore an eye patch, a vacant expression, and a ragged stocking cap. And hoped the grinding of his teeth could not be heard over the squeals of the wooden wheels. But it was not a time when a young
hidalgo
could ride his Arabian across Spain without being challenged by troops in every village. Nor in the yet-to-be famous cities of Talavera and Badajoz which he passed through on his way to Madrid.

Blas’s return journey, some five weeks later, was accomplished in less than a week as, abandoning caution, he hitched and hiked his way across Spain, using any means of transportation he could lay his hands on from stolen mules and horses to farm carts, even the carriage of an elegant condesa, for which service he did not pay in coin. On his mad dash to Lisbon, his night with the Condesa de Mascarenas was the only stop he made.

Wearily, Cat climbed the stairs to her room after yet another evening of fending off Major Martineau’s questions about her absent husband, only to find Blas sound asleep in her bed. She was so delighted to see him, she never questioned his choice of beds. For long breathless moments she stood beside him, admiring the rugged planes of his face, now softened in sleep and strangely vulnerable. Thick black lashes rested against bronzed cheeks. His full, sensual mouth murmured as she slipped into bed beside him. An arm—well-muscled, tanned, possessive—stretched over her breast before, with a sigh of contentment, Blas went back to sleep.

Cat smiled. All fears forgotten, she snuggled into his warmth. Blas was back, and all was right with the world.

In the morning, when she waked, he was gone. If she had not found him at breakfast in the Casa’s bright, comfortable kitchen, she might have thought him a dream.

“
You’ll not believe!” Blas chortled as he wolfed down sausage, eggs and ale with Cat and the Cardosos in anxious attendance. “Charles and Ferdinand kept thinking Boney was supporting each of them against the other until mid-February when the French simply took over the citadels at Pamplona and Barcelona.”

Blas downed a large portion of sausage and continued almost without pausing to chew, waving his fork in the air like a sword. “So what does Charles do? If it weren’t so serious, it would be like some ghastly French farce. Instead of calling out his troops to fight, he packs up the entire court, including his wife and her miserable lover Godoy, and makes a run for the coast. Thinks he’ll flee to the New World like Dom João and Carlota. He gets about thirty miles out of town—to Aranjuez to be exact—and his entourage is attacked by a mob.” At this crucial point Blas broke off to continue his personal attack on his breakfast.

Cat fidgeted while she watched him savor the spicy concoction of sausage, eggs, onions and green peppers. “Well?” she prompted impatiently.

Blas swallowed. “The mob mostly wanted to lynch Godoy. But in the end Charles was forced to abdicate in favor of Ferdinand, who definitely seems to be the choice of the people.”

“
But Ferdinand is a cowardly idiot!” Cat protested.

“
Your grasp of Spanish political realty is considerably better than his, I assure you,” returned Blas. “Would you believe they call that miserable whelp ‘Ferdinand the desired’? So what does Ferdy do? Does he call out the troops? Oh, no, not Ferdinand
el deseado
. He returns to Madrid—which he finds is now occupied by Marshal Murat—and writes a letter to Napoleon promising his cooperation . . . and won’t Boney please select a wife for him?”

This bit of nonsense elicited a collective groan from Blas’s rapt audience. “Are you saying the Spanish won’t fight?” Marcio demanded incredulously.

Suddenly serious, Blas took a long swallow of ale before replying. “Boney thinks they won’t. I had some interesting conversations with French officers in Madrid—I look almost handsome in blue, by the way. Boney’s too far away to get the feel of the people. There is enormous unrest. News of the mob at Aranjuez is traveling fast and I think it needs only a spark. In the end, the Spanish will fight, I’m certain of it.”

“
And the British will come?” Lucio Cardoso’s tone was skeptical.

“
And the British will come,” Blas asserted. “Hopefully under a young general who fought well in India. Arthur Wellesley. He was with the campaign in Denmark last summer, but Thomas thinks he’ll lose out to seniority.”

Catarina let out a gusty sigh. “It is better than a novel,” she pronounced. “And ever so much more exciting. But you should not have worn a French uniform, Blas. For that they will shoot you.”

He reached out and tousled her hair. “They will shoot me for any of the things I do, so mind your manners in the gaming rooms and try not to think about it. I’m off to tell Thomas the news. I should be back from the winery in a day or two.”