Tarleton's Wife (22 page)

“So, English,” said a voice behind him, “you are not, I think, a farmer.”

Nicholas shut his eyes, fighting a wave of dizziness. In the old days he would have been off his knees, swinging round on his heels in one swift movement, his sword tip at the stranger’s throat. And here he sat, rocked back on his ass, streaked with runnels of sweat, dye and dirt, in the midst of a patch of vegetables like a Goddamned peasant!

But the stranger had spoken in Spanish, native Spanish. Not French. Slowly, painfully, Nicholas struggled back to his knees, turning to look up at the newcomer. At this confident, almost swaggering stranger whose greeting could have been a death knell. The overall impression of menace was not decreased by a musket slung on the young man’s back, the sword at his side, or the ten-inch blade stuck into his boot.

Nicholas wiped his sleeve over his face, hoping to erase any telltale rivulets of dye. “
Si, señor
?” he inquired meekly, eyes wide and blank.

“My apologies,” said the dark-eyed young man, his rough clothing an odd contrast to his fine-boned features, his arrogant stance and Castilian accent. “I did not intend to startle you. My name is Don Carlos Guillermo Vila Santiago. I have been sent to talk with you because I am
hildago
, you understand and it was felt that I was best suited to speak with a man of your distinguished rank.”

“Who sent you?” Nicholas countered bluntly.

“Friends of mine—in the mountains,” replied the young man evasively, unconsciously shifting the weight of his musket as if to reassure himself it was still there. “Brother Bonifacio told me I might find you here. He is a friend of my friends, you understand.”

Imperceptibly, Nicholas relaxed. He had dealt with far too many young officers not to recognize the pride and wariness of a young aristocrat entrusted with a mission and taking himself very seriously indeed.

Although only of medium height, the young Spaniard towered over the kneeling figure of the man he had come to see. This bedraggled field worker, his face smudged with black dye, did not look at all the image of the English officer he had thought to find. With sudden clarity, Don Carlos recognized the slow flush of embarrassment suffusing the major’s face, the embarrassment of an officer caught weeding carrots. The young man stretched out his hand, his strong wiry body quickly bringing the Englishman to his feet.

“You are tall,
señor
,” Don Carlos approved, now finding the English major somewhat closer to his expectations. “It is good the French have not come here. Even with black hair, you do not blend well with the others. Come, let us sit in the courtyard and talk. Brother Bonifacio has promised to find us some ale.”

When they were seated on a stone bench in the shade of the inner courtyard, Don Carlos approached his mission with caution. Not until the monk retreated into the monastery after depositing his offering of bread, cheese and ale did the young Spaniard speak. “Brother Bonifacio says that you are now well enough to chafe at the life of a monk, that you are a man of action who is as yet unable to act. Is this not so?”

“An apt summary,” Nicholas agreed grimly, while privately regretting the times his frustration had caused him to snap at his rotund benefactor.

“We—my friends and I—have thought of something you might be able to do if you are willing. It would not, I think, overtax your strength and it would be of great help to us.” Don Carlos took a deep breath, savoring the gentle aromas wafting from the kitchen herb garden which filled nearly half the courtyard. “Not far from here we are raising a band of men—
hidalgos
, merchants, peasants, anyone who wishes to serve. We plan to fight the
guerrilla
, the little war. Lisbon remains free and word has come that the English have sent back most of the men who escaped from La Coruña. They are commanded by a general called Sir Arthur Wellesley. You know of him?”

Nicholas, who had begun to listen to the young man with something more than polite curiosity, snapped to attention, his eyes gleaming with avid interest. Wellesley! So he had found the post of Irish Secretary too tame after all. “A good man,” Nicholas approved, “though I’d heard he swore off the army for life after Dalrymple returned the French prisoners we took in Portugal. The garrison in Lisbon survives, you say?”

Carlos smiled, relaxing for the first time. “Ah,
si, señor
. Lisbon remains free with a garrison of ten thousand and it’s said Wellesley has brought fifteen thousand more.”

“
My
men,
guerrillero
,” said Nicholas proudly. “My men—and the rest of the survivors of Moore’s army. Come to pay the Frenchies back. Now that’s a sight I would dearly love to see.”

“It will be a long time,
señor
,” the young man admitted. “I hear talk we will push the French back to their border in a few months but wiser heads say it is not so.” Carlos shrugged. “It will be years, I think. You need not fear you will miss it.”

Nicholas studied the young man in the loose black breeches cut short below his boot tops, the flowing white shirt, the square-cut black vest. Though perhaps ten years the major’s junior, the young Spaniard wore his responsibilities with dignity and intelligence. “So tell me what a cripple may do to help you,” said Nicholas wryly.

Don Carlos Guillermo Vila Santiago answered with humble sincerity, “Teach us to be soldiers,
señor
.”

* * * * *

October 1810, London

The three occupants of the suite at the Clarendon ignored the elaborate tea sitting in front of them, though the brandy continued to flow freely. Candelabra had been lit, the fire restoked.

“I started training Carlos the very next day,” Nicholas said, “beginning with how to load a musket rapidly and efficiently.”

A sympathetic smile lit Julia’s face. “A horrifying task for a rifleman,” she teased. “I have heard your opinion on the efficiency of muskets.”

Nicholas responded with a rare sheepish grin. “I admit to a few ill-chosen remarks about Spanish and French muskets but the boy’s pride was so great and his earnestness so complete I soon learned to be more cautious. I taught him what I could and showed him how to teach others. The monastery was in the foothills of a mountain range. A week later young Carlos went dashing back into the hills as if I had gifted him with the crown jewels.”

“Did he come again?”

“Oh, yes. Many times.” A sadness crossed Nicholas’ face. He gazed into the fire, seeing a hundred campfires, a sea of tanned faces, the gleam of white teeth, the shining metal of swords and guns.

To Julia none of it was real. Nicholas was the man from her dreamtime. She was listening to a tale told by a ghost. Firelight flickered over his bronzed face, turning his silver eyes to rosy gold. Was this truly Nicholas? Stern elder brother. Friend. Knight errant. Phantom lover.

It was so tempting, so insidiously easy not to think at all, to ignore the pain and slip back into their old camaraderie. To be Julia Litchfield once again.

“I should like to have seen you sitting among the beans and carrots,” she said.

Nicholas’ head snapped round, eyes flashing. “Oh, no, you would not, my girl, or I would have made you swear a solemn oath never to reveal it to a soul. It was most ignominious, I assure you.”

“Did you make Carlos swear?”

“Quite unnecessary. Young Carlos was an
hidalgo
and understood such things. No one needed to point out that I had nothing left but my pride.”

“How long…”

“All that spring and summer. He was soon bringing other
guerrilleros
with him. Fortunately, our regiment was accustomed to fighting independently, so it was not too difficult to adapt our riflemen’s methods of fighting to the needs of the
guerrilleros
. Word reached us that Wellesley had defeated the French at Talavera but, truthfully, the war was far away, a tale from another world.

“It was early fall before Brother Bonifacio would let me go.” Nicholas’ face softened, the deeply etched lines smoothed by an inner peace Julia had never known him to have. “I was anxious to join the
guerrilleros
but when the time came, I realized the monks had given me more than my life. It was a hard parting.” Nicholas fell silent, once again seeing things far beyond the confines of the Clarendon.

“Beggin’ your pardon, missus, major,” said Daniel, “but the chef has sent up a fine supper. Be a right shame not to eat it.”

Impeccable manners sustained them through soup and fish and tender roast beef, the glazed carrots accompanying them provoking a distinct giggle from Julia which caused Nicholas to choke on a mouthful of beef.

After a well-sherried trifle had been set before them, Nicholas thanked the servants and dismissed them. For a long moment he toyed with his wineglass before remarking casually, “I understand that I am not the only gardener in the room.” While Julia caught her breath, a spoonful of trifle halfway to her mouth, he added, “I started out in the monastery’s herb garden, you know. A scant twenty minutes a day in the courtyard. The first time I tried it Brother Bonifacio had to carry me back to my room.”

“Who told you?” Julia whispered. Loss piled upon loss. This moment the destruction of the one good thing she’d managed to do.

“Is it such a secret?” Nicholas, at his most innocent, returned. “Daniel and I have been together for nearly two weeks now. We’ve had little else to do but talk.”

Julia’s heart pounded, her nails bit into her palms. Nicholas hated Willow Herbals, she knew he did. As if things were not complicated enough already! “Did he tell you
why
?” she demanded. “That Mr. Woodworthy would not pay the cottagers enough to keep alive. They were starving, truly starving. Something had to be done, and Willow Herbals was the only solution I could think of.”

“What I can’t understand,” Nicholas said, continuing in the maddeningly calm voice which always characterized his greatest anger, “is how you got round Louis Tyler. A more conservative staunch Tory I have yet to see. And a misogynist as well. Come, let’s have it, my girl. How did you manage it?”

Julia was incredulous. “Two years gone and you wish to talk about Louis Tyler?”

“I wish to know how you went into the herbal trade without his name etched into a gravestone.”

“Surely Daniel explained…” Her mind whirled. So
that’s
where this was heading. What a devil he was!

“Daniel was grandly, eloquently evasive, as only an Irishman can be,” Nicholas responded steadily. “Now tell me please how you managed to get my esteemed estate agent to agree to such an…ah…
unusual
enterprise.”

Julia licked her lips, studying her trifle as if she expected to find a bug in it. “It was quite simple really,” she said at last, raising her eyes only to the level of Nicholas’ chest. “Jack Harding had a talk with him.”

“And what in the hell has Jack Harding to say about The Willows, if I may be so bold as to ask?”

A peek at his face revealed eyes gone to flint, a jaw flattened into Major Tarleton at his most uncompromising. Julia kept her voice steady, matter-of-fact, only by the exercise of extreme willpower. “We met Jack Harding at The Bell and Candle the night we arrived in Grantley. He did us a kindness…and has remained our friend, frequently giving advice and aid when neither Mr. Woodworthy nor Mr. Tyler were willing to be of service.”

Nicholas examined this pregnant bit of information, not liking what he found. “If we ignore for the moment the inference that my most trusted employees failed to do their duty during my absence,” he said with deliberate emphasis, “we still must face the question of how Jack Harding came to have influence over events at The Willows.”

“He is estate agent for the largest landowner in the area. How could his opinion fail to carry weight with other estate agents?” Though her voice remained calm and reasonable, Julia was nearly certain she was about to disgrace herself by losing her supper.

Nicholas leaped to conclusions even faster than she had feared. It was at least a better conclusion than the truth, which was that Captain Hood…
Oh, God. Oh, dear God, what had she done?
It was a masked Captain Hood who had frightened Louis Tyler into allowing the herbal trade. And one day all too soon Nicholas was sure to discover it. How could she have been such a fool?

“Answer me,” Nicholas demanded for the second time. “Is Harding your lover?”

Julia was so horrified by what she had done to Jack that her mind refused to take in Nicholas’ unexpected conclusion. When his accusation finally sank in, she could think of nothing clever, nothing evasive. Only the truth, which tumbled out in a nervous rush. “We have grown close, Jack and I, but not in that way. Sometimes, when I thought I might be alone forever, I realized I wished to marry again… To have a family. I cannot deny I wondered if my future might be with Jack. Somewhere far away, of course, where we could start over. But we have not been…intimate. If he were my lover, do you think I would have run away to London to seek work as a governess?”

“It’s gettin’ late, Major. Shouldn’t I be fetching the missus’s things?”

And God bless Daniel Runyon!

With no more than a frown of annoyance Nicholas accepted the interruption. “Write your direction and a note authorizing Daniel to pack up your things,” he ordered curtly, pushing back his chair with some violence. “Come. We’ll take port by the fire.”