The Sometime Bride (19 page)

Blanca and Dona Felipa had been right. Men were very strange creatures.

Although the news had not yet reached Lisbon, two weeks earlier Napoleon Bonaparte packed his bags and returned triumphant to Paris. He had defeated the armies of Spain. The British army had tucked its tail between its legs and sailed back to the safety of their tight little island. Bonaparte now had more important matters on his mind. His Marshals were quite capable of administering the
coup de grace
to the Iberian Peninsula on their own.

Chapter Ten

Marshal Soult made no effort to retake Lisbon. His troops were as exhausted, starved and battered as the British army they had pursued across northern Spain. Nor would there be a baby at the Casa Audley. Catarina was torn between relief and sorrow. Blas would go away now, and she would have nothing left of him at all. For a fleeting moment she toyed with the idea of not telling him.

When she saw Blas take a break from the gaming tables, she followed him into the courtyard. Shadowed by the covered walkway, he was leaning back against the wall, smoking a cigar. The tip glowed red in the chill winter night, the odor warm and pungent. Cat recognized her father’s favorite brand. Blinded by the sudden darkness and a mist of tears, Cat could not see her husband’s face as she stumbled through the necessary words. Blas, obviously, did not suffer from mixed feelings. Breath gushed from his lungs in a heartfelt sigh of relief. He threw his cigar onto the tiles, ground it out beneath his shining patent leather shoes. Briefly, his hand rested on her shoulder. Murmured words of apology, farewell . . . and he was gone.

Stunned, Cat clutched one of the gallery supports, gasping on a sob of anguish.
Wicked, abominable man!
She hated him. He could not wait to get back to the war. To his
guerrilleros,
maps, the supplying of arms. To the careful manipulation of men who wanted only to take what Britain offered and do exactly what they pleased when they got it. The cause which consumed him was hopeless. Stupidly, utterly hopeless. Surely he would die of it.

And for this he would leave her. With
eagerness
he would leave her. Damn him, damn him, damn him! Tears slid slowly out of the mists of Cat’s green eyes to run down her pale cheeks, losing themselves in the cream silk of her gown. She did not return to the gaming rooms that night.

The next morning Blas was gone. And, weeks later, it was Don Alejo who returned. Don Alejo who said all the right words, performed all the correct motions of a Spanish
hidalgo
. Don Alejo who was shallow as a saucer and slippery as an eel. Don Alejo who bedded other women with only a minimum of discretion. Don Alejo whose visits to the Casa Audley were blessedly infrequent for they always left her puzzled. And in pain.

Of Blas, her Blas, there was no sign at all.

Three months later the gloom of the winter of 1809 was blown away as Lisbon went wild with joy. To the sound of castanets and drums, colorful throngs in fiesta attire filled Black Horse Square, the heart of the city. The cries of vendors, beggars and ballad singers rose in an excited cadenza above the excited shouts of the crowd. After a nasty political struggle at home, Sir Arthur Wellesley was back as Marshal-General of all the forces in Portugal. His former superiors, generals Dalrymple and Burrard who had returned twenty-five thousand soldiers to France in British ships, would never command armies again.

Because Wellesley was a soldier above all else, he had his army on the march when most newly arrived commanders would have been sitting in headquarters assessing the situation. Leaving nearly half his force to guard Lisbon, he set out for northern Portugal with the intention of taking Porto, that city so close to the hearts of all Englishmen, the source of port wine. He was a young general, teetering on the verge of political hot water. He badly needed a dramatic gesture for the critics at home.

In the university city of Coimbra, south of Porto, he paused his troops long enough to reorganize the eager but inexperienced Portuguese army. While there, he sent out scouts to see how strongly Marshal Soult—the French general who had pushed the British into the sea at La Coruña—was situated in the city of Porto.

“
Sir,” said Lord Fitzroy Somerset to his commanding general, “the scout Audley recommended is back from Porto.”

“
Then show him in.” As usual, the words were abrupt, the voice of a man impatient to be about the business of winning the war.

Wellesley’s twenty-year-old aide-de-camp hesitated only momentarily. “He’s being a tad difficult, Sir. For some reason he seems reluctant to talk with you. Wants to leave his maps and go.”

“
Nonsense. Bring him in.”

After sounds of a brief but intense scuffle outside the door, a young man catapulted into the room, closely followed by the three guards who had assisted his entrance. They were accompanied by a junior officer and a priest. Arthur Wellesley regarded the sea of angry faces. The black-haired, strong-jawed young man sprawled on the floor in front of the general’s desk pushed himself up to a half reclining position, amber eyes blazing with barely suppressed fury.

The general examined the scout with leisurely interest. “Out!” he bawled at the men around him.

“
But, Sir . . .” Fitzroy Somerset protested.

“
Out! All of you.”

“
Even the interpreter, sir?” Somerset persisted, nodding at the priest.

Wellesley did not bother to answer. An impatient wave of his hand sent them all into hasty retreat. When the door was shut behind them, the general got up from his desk, walked around to the young man and gave him a hand up. The scowling young man in Portuguese peasant clothes stood stiffly straight, crossed his arms in front of his chest and glared defiantly back at the Marshal-General of the allied forces in Portugal.

“
Harriet Wilson’s, was it not?” Wellesley inquired smoothly.

The young man stared fixedly at an elaborately framed painting of King Henry the Navigator hanging on the wall behind the general’s desk.

“
I’d heard you were dead,” Wellesley said, his notorious temper seemingly unruffled. “The Horse Guards were anxious to find out what you’d learned on your little tour of Europe, but you never came back. We got the information from Audley instead.” The general paused, a thin smile creasing his face. “How singularly stupid of me. Audley got his information from
you
.” He gave the still angry young man a sharp glance. “Does Audley know?”

Blas was young enough to resent having his secret discovered so early in the game. Stubbornly, he remained silent, loathe to give in, even to this man he so much admired.

“
Never been manhandled before, have you, my lord?” said Wellesley. “Too toplofty by half. However do you pass yourself off as a peasant?”

“
I am usually not so clumsy, Sir,” Blas replied, giving in at last. “Being tossed at the feet of my commanding general was not my most fond ambition.”

“
And your parents? I trust they know you are alive?” Wellesley did not bother to disguise the implied criticism.

“
Yes, Sir,” Blas ground out. “But not where I am,” he added with a steady significant gaze straight into the general’s piercing blue eyes.

Wellesley held the look for some time before giving a curt nod of acceptance. “Sit down, my lord. Tell me about Porto.”

“
I am called Blas. Blas the Bastard.” Fists clenched, eyes flashing, the young man radiated defiance.

And what would his mother, whose reputation was among the most irreproachable in British society, say to that? the general wondered. What the boy’s father would say, there was no doubt. “Then sit, Blas,” Wellesley commanded. “Tell me what I need to know.”

Much later, as Blas stood to take his leave, he added, “About Thomas Audley, Sir . . . no, he doesn’t know, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“
Very well.” The young man’s maps and detailed observations were so useful the general would have granted him almost anything.

Blas, with his hand on the door knob, managed a parting shot. “And, Sir,” he said, “you were quite right. We did meet at Harriet Wilson’s.” Amber eyes dancing with mischief, Blas slipped through the door, closing it softly behind him.

Cheeky bastard, the general mused. The boy must have been about Somerset’s age when he’d met him at Harriet Wilson’s. Too young for courtesans. Much too young. They were all too young, his boys. The boys who would push Boney back to France.

Wearily, General Sir Arthur Wellesley turned to the meticulous maps drawn by his aristocratic scout.

As the pale light of dawn revealed swirling mists rising from the wide expanse of the River Douro, Blas stood on top of the high south bank of the river and studied the far shore through a spyglass.

If I were a boat, where would I be?

At two that morning French sappers had blown up the bridge across the Douro. And Soult was too good a general not to have ordered the destruction of all boats as well. For the French, however, the city of Porto was enemy territory. They would have had little cooperation. Porto, the second largest port city in Portugal, earned its living from wine. Wine floated downriver from the high country where grapes thrived on terraced hillsides. The square-sailed barges,
ribelhos
, which brought the great casks of wine from the vineyards to the docks of Porto tilted up at each end, much like the gondolas of Venice, but were larger and sturdier. They were the bearers of the life blood of the region. Of Portugal’s economy. If there was a wine warehouse which had not hidden as many of its boats as possible to save them from destruction by the French, Blas would be very much surprised.

So . . . where were they? Surely not every
ribelho
had been sneaked upriver in the dead of night. Blas lowered the spyglass and swept the river with his naked eyes. On the far bank to the left were tiers of houses stretching up the tall slope of the cliff. Almost directly across from him were the twin towers of the Cathedral. To the right and somewhat isolated from the rest, a large square tower rose from behind a high wall. A Seminary, someone had told him on his scouting expedition a few days earlier.

As the sun rose higher, the mists began to dissipate. Blas made another slow, careful sweep of the far bank. Nothing. Strangely nothing. There should have been some sign of French pickets, the answering flash of other spyglasses looking southeast into the morning sun. Though wide and deep, the Douro was not the Tagus. The movement of guards, troops, horses, artillery should be clearly visible. Yet there was nothing at all. The city appeared deserted. Had Wellesley truly outsmarted the wiley Marshal Soult? Had the French general concentrated all his forces to the west, expecting an attack from the sea, abandoning the south shore in the surety that the British could not cross the Douro?

Or had Wellesley merely outsmarted himself? Bringing twenty-three thousand men to the banks of a river which was too wide and deep to cross without bridge or boat?

Blas packed away his spyglass and set off on foot down the side of the cliff. If there were boats too well hidden for the French to find, then they were too well hidden for the British to find as well. He would have to try another tack. It was nearly eight o’clock when, as he slogged his way through the reeds at the bottom of the cliff, his heart leaped at a glimpse of wood. Not the uprising tilt of a wine barge but clearly the prow of a boat of some kind. Arms flailing, Blas batted the reeds aside. A skiff. Flat-bottomed, narrowed at both ends. Not sufficient to hold more than eight men, but the oars were laid along its bottom, and it would take him where he wanted to go.

The sun was well up as the skiff’s prow broke through the edge of the reeds. Blas paused, once again scanning the north shore. Still no sign of life. It crossed his mind that his father would not be pleased if he knew what his son and heir was about to do. Nor would Cat. Thomas, however, would be proud of him.

The day was warming rapidly. Over the smell of the wetlands and the river he caught the pungent odor of wine. Tons of wine in the warehouses across the river. Above him seagulls swooped and soared, their raucous cries the only sound above a city whose population had been swelled by the massed armies of nearly fifty thousand men.

The world waited. For Blas the Bastard to move onto the river and find the bloody boats.

It was too beautiful a day to die. He drew a deep breath and poled the skiff out of the reeds. As the current caught the little boat, Blas sat down, settled the oars and began to row. He was halfway across, with at least a hundred yards of turbulent tidal river on each side of him, when he remembered he had never made provision for his wife. Not that Thomas couldn’t provide for her, but Cat was
his
wife,
his
responsibility now. And he’d muffed it. Hell and the devil! What a time to remember he was married.

Blas made a few private vows. And kept rowing.

Nothing happened. Surely the devil looked after his own. He crossed the Douro in broad daylight in a boat which was not supposed to have existed, and nothing happened. No shouts, no shots, no alarms of any kind. He shipped his oars and drifted under the overhang of the north bank, now completely out of sight of anyone on the cliffs above.