The Sometime Bride (25 page)

“
So perhaps I shall not kill him,” Blas conceded.

Relieved to find his temper cooling, Cat tried for the light touch. “Silly. He is probably in France by now.”

Blas’s eyes lit with a feral gleam. “Ah, but it will be long war, my Cat. And in the end France will be the occupied country, and we the victors who walk her streets in triumph. And then, if not before, I would find him.”

“
He has a wife and three children and has done us more than one kindness,” she babbled. “Promise me you will not kill him.”

Blas’s amber eyes sharpened into sudden suspicion. “Such passion,
queridissima
. Do you care for him, after all?”

Though the endearment was tinged with sarcasm, Cat was appalled. “You cannot think . . . you cannot believe there could ever be anyone else. Never, never, never! I have loved you from the moment I saw you. Nearly three years now. For me there will never be anyone but you.”

His fierce glare persisted for only a moment, dissolving into sparks of chagrined mischief in the rays of the early morning sun. “Of course I know it. I am simply made mad by the thought of another man putting his hands on you.” He raised his right hand, looked her straight in the eye. “I promise I will not kill him. Are you satisfied, wife? May I come back to bed?

With a smile of pure joy, Cat threw both her arms around his neck and pulled him down on top of her. It was well into the afternoon before the residents of the Casa Audley discovered the peripatetic Don Alexis Perez de Leon had come home.

1

In the four days Blas stayed at the Casa Audley Cat learned many things. Some she found erotically titillating; others, naughty-but-oh-so-nice. Only one thing shocked her. Late in the afternoon of his first day home Blas took her into the heart of old Lisbon, to a rabbit warren of small, low-ceilinged shops set in a maze of walls and tiny courtyards. To streets so narrow, they were forced to leave Thomas’s barouche behind and walk the last few blocks. When Blas found the place he wanted, he had to lower his head to get through the door. The room was dark with a floor of hard-packed earth. The smell was heavenly.

As Cat’s eyes adjusted to the shadows, she saw they were in an apothecary shop, though not one accustomed to catering to wealthy foreigners. It was, however, a Blas kind of place. He fitted in as surely as all the other
fidalgos
(or their women) who had found their way to this and similar shops through the centuries. Herbs hung from the ceilings and stuck haphazardly out of earthen jugs. Jar after jar sat upon wooden racks which canted at odd angles, threatening to tip their contents onto the floor. Cat took a deep breath of the indescribable mix of scents which filled the shop.

She caught a stir of movement and found herself under the intense scrutiny of an old woman who was crouched on a stool amidst her wares.

Blas greeted the old crone with polite deference. Though forced to practice in the shadows, she was renowned for the extent of her knowledge and the soundness of her skills. He grasped Cat’s and hand and drew her forward. “I am a soldier, you understand, old woman? I do not wish my wife to bear a child when I cannot be by her side. I have been told you may be able to give her instruction.”

Cat snatched her hand away, her stomach turned to ice. He should have warned her, said something. Anything. “
No!
” she gasped.

“
I wish it,” he said, uncompromising. “Well,
velha
, will you do this thing?”

The old woman named a price three times her usual fee. A handsome
fidalgo
with such a well-dressed wife could afford to pay well for a service of such delicacy.

Grinning to show he fully understood the old woman was taking advantage of him, Blas handed her the coins. “I will leave you with the
velha
,” he said.

“
No!”

The amber eyes turned to marble. “There is no harm in knowledge,” he declared. “Whether you use it or not we will discuss later. I will return in an hour. Will that be sufficient?” he asked the old woman.

She nodded and motioned for Cat to follow her past a drapery into a back room. Panicked, Cat did not move. Blas grabbed her by the hand and dragged her through the inner doorway. “Stay,” he ordered. And stalked out, tossing the cloth hanging aside so savagely that it nearly fell.

By the time he returned well over an hour later Cat was torn by such a mix of fury, hurt, and embarrassment she did not notice where they were going. Ostentatiously, she turned her back to her husband who was sitting next to her on the burgundy velvet squabs of Thomas’s elegant barouche. She thrust her open parasol over her shoulder, maneuvering it until she was totally screened from his view.

He did not want her to have his children, Cat mourned. She was to be barren. No babies. No warm tiny bodies to love. No little mouths suckling at her breasts. No family laughter. No moments of parental panic. No . . . Ah,
deus
, he could not make her do this!

But he could. He only had to threaten to leave her, and she would hasten to do his bidding. Love was a terrible thing. A tyrant.

The carriage stopped. Blas stepped down, walked round to his wife’s side of the open barouche. His fingers closed over the parasol. With a thrust of his strong hands he snapped it shut. “The sun is not so strong now, you won’t need this.”

As Cat grabbed for the parasol, Blas tossed it to the startled coachman who caught it one-handed, accidentally twitching the reins. The horse whinnied and bucked as the reins shifted in the startled coachman’s hand. When the barouche stopped shimmying, Blas clamped his hands around Cat’s waist and lowered her to the ground. Slowly. Inch by inch. Making sure none of her missed his body on the long slide down.

For a moment they stood pasted together, breathing hard, before Cat broke away, walking over the cobbles as fast as her thin slippers would allow on the uneven slippery stones. With a minimum of effort Blas caught her, supporting her as she nearly fell, then turned her inexorably back toward the edifice behind them.

“
You can’t go in there,” Cat hissed. “It’s closed.

Without a word he continued to pull her along behind him. As they approached the arched entrance to the imposing structure, there were a few rapid words, the flash of gold coins. Suddenly, they were out of the sunlight, moving through a tunnel. At the far end of the cool darkness was an arched splash of sunlight. Inexorably, Blas dragged her toward it.

“
I don’t want to go out there,” she protested. “Let us stay where it is cool.”

“
The guard would hear us.” Blas continued on, moving back into the blinding sunlight and beginning to climb. Up and still up to the top tier of seats where an arcaded roof jutted from the curved outside wall, a protection from the full strength of the Iberian sun.

“
Why here?” Cat stormed as he seated her on the bench and sat down beside her. “Whyever here?”

“
It seemed appropriate,” he said.

Spread out below them was a bull ring, its circumference lined with tier upon tier of seats. There were no banners, no bulls, no roaring crowd. No
cavlheiros
mounted on the finest Peninsular stallions. No
campinos
,
forcados
or
espadas
. Yet the heat of summer wavered over the scene, turning it into shimmering fantasy. For a moment Cat could see the charging bulls, a
cavalheiro
with
banderilla
in hand, a
forcado
whirling dizzily at the end of a bull’s tail.

Then she registered what Blas had said. “The bull ring is
appropriate
?’ she queried with an ominous purr.

“
It was the only place I could think of where you could scream at me on so delicate a subject and not be heard.”

Cat opened her mouth. Closed it. Having climbed over thirty tiers of steps, she had no breath left for screaming. “It was not,” she inquired sweetly, “because you thought to bully me into doing as you wished?”

“
Perhaps you thought I called it appropriate because you wished to put a ring through my nose?” he snapped back. A bit more loudly than was necessary.

“
Ring through your nose?
Bah!” Cat spat out. “You can say this when you know how everyone jumps to do your bidding. It is truly abominable.
Yes, Blas. No, Blas. Of course, Blas. Imediatemente, senhor.”
Her voice was steadily rising. “Ring through your nose! As if anyone could ever control you. It is you who must always have the upper hand.”

Cat broke off abruptly, staring. She cocked her head to one side, studying him as if she had never seen him before. “You are afraid of me,” she breathed. “You are afraid of losing control. Is that not true? Quickly, admit that is so.”

Blas leaned back against the outer wall and closed his eyes. “That is not why we’re here, Cat.”

“
I think it is. You wish to control my life, my body, my soul. I find I do not like it.”

At nearly eight o’clock, the sun was dipping closer to the high rim of the bull ring. “I never meant to,” Blas said at last.

“
No,” Cat agreed with resignation. “It was born in you, this need to tell us all what to do. I think you cannot help it.”

The shadows lengthened. As did the silence.

“
You are right,” Blas conceded. “I am arrogant, high-handed, and insensitive. You are also right that I feel my power slipping through my fingers. I lose myself in you, Cat. And yes, dammit, I fear it.”

“
I am a very small thing to be afraid of.” Softly. Humbly.

Blas groaned, leaned forward to cup her chin between his palms. “Listen to me, Cat. There can be no end to this argument. We are the people we are, and we each must learn to live with it. And with each other.”

Blas dropped his hands, turned to stare out over the deserted arena. “I should have told you where we were going, discussed with you the reason why. But in my whole life I have never been accountable to anyone but my father. Or yours. My father I fought every step of the way on every conceivable subject. Your father I admire, respect. I acknowledge he has the right to command me for the sake of the cause we serve.”

“
And for me you have no admiration or respect?”

“
Hell and the devil, Cat!
You’re doing it again! Blas’s shout echoed out over the empty tiers of seats. “It’s not at all the same.”

“
Yes, it is.”

He had no answer. “You promised to love and obey,” he ground out, appalled at the surly defensiveness of his tone.

Cat’s stubbornness did not waver. “The vow should be changed. It is not fair.”

“
No, I suppose not,” he admitted. As usual, his Cat deserved better from him than he had given. “Let me explain, as I should have done before.” He glanced at her from the corner of his eye and wished he hadn’t. He wanted to take her from this place, go to bed with her, and not get up for days.

Instead, he drew a long, shuddering breath and said, “Look around you, Cat. We are small specks in the immensity of this place. Think of us—just the two of us—as Lisbon. All else—everything in the enormity of this arena—is Napoleon’s empire. We are an outpost, a tiny fly speck marring Bonaparte’s domination of Europe. And we won’t go ignored. By the end of the summer Napoleon will have four hundred thousand men in Spain and northern Portugal. We can’t win against such odds, Cat. The war is going to last for years. There is no hope until something, God alone knows what, changes in our favor.

“
Surely the lines at Torres Vedras will hold.” It was more a question, a prayer, than the confident statement Cat had thrown at Major Martineau.

“
I think so, but what if they do not? Could you endure another Occupation? You have seen what can happen. Now that Martineau has found his way to your bed, do you think he will not find his way back? Or someone far worse? War can turn even the best of men into beasts. There is no place to hide. You have seen even the winery was not far enough away to escape them. I will not have a child born into this uncertainty, Catarina. If Lisbon is taken, the thought of you here, with a babe as hostage drives me mad. I could not bear it. I could not do my work.”

Still without looking at her, Blas reached for her hand, clasped it hard, his knuckles whitening around hers. “The work—my work, Thomas’s work—must be done, Cat, or there will never be a future. We’re young yet. My birthday is in March, by the way. I was twenty-four.” This concession he could give her. “My father was not even married until he was well past thirty. We’ll have plenty of time to make children, Cat. As many as you wish. But not now. Please. Not now.”

Quietly, gently, Cat placed her free hand over the one he was squeezing so tightly. She rested her head on his hunched shoulder. The waning sun sank behind the red tile rooftops in the distance, the onset of dusk heralded by the stirring of a breeze. “Do you remember the
taberna
you took me to once?” she asked. “When I was fourteen and had never seen such a place? I think I should like to eat garlic sausage, drink sour red wine and hear the
fado
once more.”