Love's Reward (22 page)

“I don’t care.” Joanna reached up her paint-stained hand to stroke the enchanting line of his jaw.
My husband
. Slowly she trailed a line of yellow ochre along his chin. “Now is all that counts.”

* * *

Foolish words. Joanna woke in the morning to a disordered bed, the pillows streaked here and there with paint. Her smock and her old dress lay neatly folded on a chair.

Fitzroy had gone.

She touched a place on the sheet where the colors had smudged together, blue and ochre and crimson.

Now I am married.

Pushing back the covers, she looked at herself, her naked limbs dappled with pigment like a savage. How did she let it sink in? The meaning of it.
To be carried together on the flood tide
. Pretty words that had swirled into deeper and deeper layers as the night unfolded. Until she had cried out and buried her face in his shoulder, enfolded and pierced to the heart.

I love you, Fitzroy. I love you. I love you.

And demonstrated it to him again and again.

What if he did not truly return it? She had ambushed him, hadn’t she? What if he had taken her to his bed out of pity, or duty, or masculine pride?

Oh, dear Lord, that was the risk she had taken by inviting him. She would never know.

And Fitzroy was gone. As she expected. He had gone back to that harried, tormented, mysterious life that he led, leaving her still closed out.

She climbed out of the bed.

And now she knew something else, too. She had discovered his scars, the long ridge on one thigh, the injury to his back, brutal reminders of his years fighting Napoleon. Her husband had been a warrior. It brought home with a dreadful finality the gulf in experience between them.

What could she—in truth not much more than a schoolgirl—ever really offer him?

A note lay on the dresser:
Joanna. Remember. Whatever happens later, I love you
.

The words of a rake, whispered to myriad women, to soften them and make them pliable—as she had become? It hadn’t mattered so very much, until now.

The note lay on a slim volume of Wordsworth’s poetry. Joanna idly turned to the page that was marked by a ribbon and skimmed over the familiar lines about Proteus and Triton, the poem he had begun to quote that evening in the folly at King’s Acton.

“The world is too much with us . . . We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! . . . The sea . . . The winds . . . It moves us not . . . Great God! I’d rather be / A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn . . .”

She set down the book and heard Fitzroy’s voice as clearly as if he were there in the shadowed chamber.

You are a pagan, Joanna, whether you know it or not.

Last night he had proved it. For the sea had surged in her, the wind had moved. Fitzroy had taken her to that world where Nature’s gods dance beneath a wild moon, until nothing remained but the purity of creation. She would never be the same again.

You don’t know what you ask, Joanna. There’ll be no turning back.

She had thought herself in love with him because he was beautiful and mysterious and wild, but that had been only a pale shadow of the love she knew for him now.

I give you my soul to dance upon, if you like.

But what if he hadn’t meant it? When now she did.

Features crazily marked with paint looked back at her from the mirror. Did it show? This transformation, this awakening?

Joanna took a long bath. Though she scrubbed her face till it shone, a blue shadow still faintly marked her cheekbone.

* * *

She was dressed in her smock, ready to go to her studio, when she was instead summoned away by a servant. Her eldest brother was waiting in the drawing room.

Richard’s smile died as she entered.

“Joanna, dear child, is that a bruise? By God, if he has struck you—”

She ran up to him and kissed his cheek.

“Don’t be silly! It’s paint. Prussian blue, a slightly too permanent pigment. Do I look as if I’ve been beaten?”

“No, you look luminous, as if you’ve— Are you happy, Jo?”

“Of course, why shouldn’t I be? I have everything. Now, sit down, brother, and tell me about things.”

They talked for some time about family news, then generalities, avoiding the one topic that lay like a monster between them.

At last Richard stood and took up his cane, making ready to leave.

Gathering her courage, Joanna forced herself to say it. Out loud. Now there was no turning back.

“Richard. How did Juanita die? You do see that you must tell me, don’t you?”

He spun about, the cane gripped hard in his right hand.

“I’d rather not, Jo. It’s all in the past, irrelevant now.”

Tension stretched between them.

“No. He’s my husband, for better, for worse. I think I have the right to know.”

She could see the struggle in him, the desire to leave it unsaid, but Richard sat down again, carefully laying aside his cane, and faced her.

“You insist on this? Whatever it says about him?”

“I do. I must, Richard. Please, tell me everything you know about Juanita.”

“God, where to begin?” He sighed. “Life in the Peninsula wasn’t easy.”

“Yes, I know that. I know it was hard.”

“Most of the officers’ wives stayed safely behind in the towns. Yet Juanita came with us on every campaign. She was always charming, exquisite. She carried an aura of culture and brilliance with her, even in camp. Any of the officers would have done anything for her. There was a general envy of Tarrant, I’m afraid.”

“Did he love her very much?” Joanna couldn’t keep the emotion out of her voice.

Richard steepled his fingers together and dropped his forehead onto them.

“I believe anyone in the regiment would have said he was besotted. He shared everything with her. Yet she confided to me that he was unfaithful at every opportunity.”

Joanna closed her eyes against the pain. “Go on, Richard. You can’t stop now. What happened at the end?”

“We had made camp near Orthez. They had another argument. I was coming back from the horse lines when I heard the noise of it, though not the words. I assumed he’d been unfaithful again and Juanita had found out. She tore out of their tent and took a horse, riding away as if the hounds of hell were at her heels. The country was hardly safe, so I mounted and followed her.”

“And?”

He glanced up, his face drawn. “Tarrant caught up with me within a few miles. He begged me to go back, but we rode on together. He seemed frantic. I assumed he was afraid that harm would come to her. The French were camped pretty close by, after all.”

It is only a story
, Joanna told herself,
about long ago and far away.

“Then it was foolish for her to ride out alone like that. Was she often impulsive?”

“Impulsive? No, I don’t think so. She had hinted before that he was cruel to her, but I always had the impression that she was fiercely loyal to her ideals. She was Spanish and he was her husband. Something very exceptional must have made her run away like that.”

“But you found her?”

“Her horse was tied outside a ruined farm. Other horses whinnied from the barn, so she wasn’t alone. Tarrant reacted with that feral, derisive humor that he’d developed. It made me want to knock him down.”

“That he laughed?” She gulped down a stab of pain.

“Yes, of course. The French would have shown her no mercy, if they’d captured her.”

“Perhaps he knew it wasn’t the French?”

“How could he have known? Anyway, we left our horses in the woods, crept up to the farmhouse, and managed to look inside without being seen. A group of partisans were arguing in the local patois. Juanita was sitting on a chair near the door, very pale.”

“Partisans? On our side, then. So why didn’t you identify yourselves and rescue her?”

“Because a French patrol appeared at the end of the lane and opened fire. After that it was nothing but confusion. The partisans returned fire from the farmhouse. The French dismounted and took cover behind a stone wall. Tarrant and I took what slim shelter we could in the ruins of the porch. Meanwhile, more French arrived, and the partisans rushed out of the house to scatter among the ruins. It would have been madness for them to remain pinned inside. As Juanita ran out, Tarrant caught her and thrust her behind him. She cursed at him.”

Richard stopped and looked down at his hands.

“Go on,” Joanna said. “I have to hear this, Richard.”

He looked ill, drawn and tired, the crease deep between his brows.

“Juanita panicked, I think. She tried to break away to her horse, yelling something. Gunfire drowned her words, and one of the partisans took aim at her from the barn. He couldn’t have known that she was a British officer’s wife, and he was too far away to hear us, even if we had shouted.”

“Then it was this partisan killed her?”

“Yes. But Tarrant saw it all clearly and he had just reloaded. He’s a superb shot. He could have winged the fellow and spoiled his aim, even though it might have exposed his own body to French fire for a moment.”

“Yet he did not?”

“On the contrary, he laughed as the man shot her down. I was the only one close enough to hear him. ‘
We can die by it, if not live by love
,’ he said. Then he dropped like a stone and rolled to safety behind a piece of broken wall. Juanita never made it to her horse. Her husband willingly sacrificed her, rather than risk himself. She was killed instantly.”

“Oh, dear God! And no one else could stop it?”

“I tried. My shot missed. When I tried to get to a better position, I was knocked over the head. It was moving into hand-to-hand combat. A skirmish like that is nothing but chaos anyway, and it was getting dark. I learned afterward that the French finally scattered. Juanita was left where she’d fallen, and Tarrant got me away. He carried me back to camp unconscious, slung over my horse’s back.”

“Did you never confront him? Ask him why he let it happen?”

Richard stood and stalked to the fireplace, poking fiercely at the coals.

“Of course. We had been close friends. He looked at me with that bitter sarcasm and said, ‘Don’t preach to me about chivalry, please, Acton. It’s better like this. I was mad to marry her.’ He seemed to be playing host to the devil.”

“Yes,” Joanna said faintly. “I have seen him like that.”

Richard spun about. “When I tried to express sympathy over her death, he laughed aloud. ‘Do you really believe that a black-hearted rake could bring a Spanish wife back to England when he is heir to an earldom? What the devil would the Black Earl have said?’ I had hoped that he could offer me some reason, some excuse for what he’d done. Instead, I wanted very badly to kill him. Before he could say more, I told him so.”

She had no idea where the strength came from to continue. She felt faint and ill, but now she had to hear it till the end.

“Did you call him out?”

“He had been wounded in the leg and was in the hospital tent.” Richard gave a wry smile. “And he had saved my life, of course. So I had to content myself with avoiding him, until the war anyway separated us. I wish I hadn’t had to tell you this, Jo. And I wish to God that you hadn’t married him. I did tell Father, but he didn’t care.”

Joanna stared at the curtains. A tiny pattern of flowers was worked into the fabric.

“Why?” she said at last. “Why did he save himself and let Juanita be killed?”

After Richard left, Joanna sat on the chaise longue and thought about it.

She had taken Fitzroy into her arms and her heart. Yet he had not hesitated to abandon his first wife to save his own hide. Then he had joked with Richard, her brother, the man who had witnessed it, with that violent, wild levity.

She had seen that he was driven and haunted. She had not thought him capable of this.

Putting both hands over her eyes, she lay back. A crunch and rustle startled her upright.

Joanna jumped up before she remembered: Mrs. Morris, and a package for Fitzroy.

She felt behind the cushion and pulled out a small, flat parcel wrapped in brown paper. Something that Mrs. Morris’s brother, Ned Flanders, who had been Fitzroy’s groom and had died in a brawl, wanted his old Peninsular officer to have.

Yesterday it had seemed none of her business, but now, after what Richard had told her!

And after what had happened with Fitzroy last night.

He had warned her. There was no turning back.

Joanna crossed the room to Fitzroy’s desk and found his paper knife. She cut open the brown wrapping and tore it away. Inside lay a book with shabby leather covers, marked with a water stain. It had seen serious wear and bad weather.

As she opened the cover to look inside, a footman stepped into the room to announce a visitor.

Joanna thrust the book into her pocket as the lady swept in.

Lady Carhill, impeccably dressed, her blond hair arranged in an enchanting confection of curls beneath a smart little driving hat. A faint dusting of powder marked her face, but it was not enough to hide the redness around her eyes. Lady Carhill had been crying.

“Lady Tarrant,” she said, holding out one hand in a pleading gesture. “Something dreadful is going to happen. Can you come with me? Now? My carriage is outside.”

* * *

Fitzroy sat quietly on his exhausted horse and surveyed the house. Lady Kettering had given him explicit instructions. He had followed them to the letter. A trail of meetings and journeys, exhausting and absurd, had finally resulted at six that morning in directions to this forgotten relic of a more dangerous age.

Yet by riding like the devil he was here an hour early.

The Peninsula had taught him that it usually paid to reconnoiter the ground before facing enemy fire.

Yet he had the unholy suspicion that his mysterious enemy would know that and would be counting on it, reading his mind, guessing his every feint and counterattack. It had been happening ever since this vile business began.

Forcibly he was reminded of similar times in the Peninsula and the deaths to his comrades that had resulted.