Vidal's Honor (12 page)
Authors: Sherry Gloag
* * * *
She hadn't expected her reaction to Vidal's curt response. One moment they'd been talking about Cedric, the next he sent a look, hot enough to melt her bones and then walked away. A look that haunted her dreams through the night and followed her into the morning and kept her company at they continued their trek.
A wife for nearly three years and a widow for only a few weeks, she recognised the sexual tension thrumming through her body. How could he bring her back to life with one look? Why would she want him too?
In a vain effort to redirect her thoughts she focussed on the home she thought she'd return to, and according to Vidal, would never be allowed to re-enter. Devlin had taken her there immediately after their wedding. “We'll spend our honeymoon at home, since in a few weeks we'll be away from it for several years.”
Now it seemed she'd never set foot in it again.
A fatigue that owed nothing to the difficulty of maintaining their footing on the ever increasing steep inclines and narrow tracks littered with loose rocks and boulders settled over her. The mules stumbled beneath the weight of their own fodder and the packs they carried for the four travellers who'd all taken to walking.
“Keep up.” The ever present thread of urgency in Juan's voice brought her out of her thoughts. What ailed the man? At times she almost persuaded herself that they'd lost those who'd trailed them long before her fever.
“Why the urgency, have you arranged some personal meeting you cannot afford to miss?” Annoyance propelled the words through her lips; shock clamped them shut. The fury shooting from Juan's eyes was almost as sharp as arrows and, she decided as she hastened to catch up with the others, nearly as deadly.
Without responding to her barb, Juan strode to the front of the line. He usually led, with Consuela holding onto his hand or his bandana, while Vidal normally fell in behind her. Not today. Vidal had taken the lead and continued walking when Juan had stopped to chastise her.
Now she had two angry men to contend with and one sulky woman. For the last three days, as swathes of green gave way to barren rock denuded of vegetation by wind, weather, and height, she struggled for breath. Did the men have to go so fast? They'd never wasted time over the weeks they'd travelled across Spain but she swore they'd increased their pace over the last day or two. And unlike Consuela, she had no one to hold on to.
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Halfway through the next morning Juan brought their trek to a halt with an upturned open palm. “You must all stay out of sight.”
“I beg your pardon.” Vidal's natural resort to cold disdain simply earned him a scornful look from the Spaniard.
“There is a hamlet not far beyond the corner, and it is better I approach alone.”
After a beat of silence Vidal nodded.
“I suppose if we all entered the community together, the locals would take more notice of us.” She'd spoken to Consuela, and jumped when Juan agreed.
“You are correct,” he said raising an eyebrow. “We have failed in our hunt for food on the last two days. How long do you suppose we can continue our journey if we do not eat? So I go to see if I can bargain for food.” Glancing down at his clothes and then at theirs, he offered I rueful grin. “They'd take one look at us and refuse to believe we have anything to barter with.”
While Juan may consider her a stupid fool, it made sense he'd try to barter something worthwhile for even a sparse exchange of food. But what?
She'd exchanged the britches she started off in for a Spanish skirt and blouse. Mud caked the hemline of Consuela's skirt, and she'd torn a ragged hole in her shawl two nights ago. And they'd both demanded the use of the men's knifes to hack the tangled knots out of their hair.
On one occasion Juan had stopped long enough to show the women how to cushion their feet from the rough terrain by lining their shoes with grass. It didn't prevent water from leaking through the cracks in the soles, but did help to ease the discomfort of rough walking for hours.
And Vidal? His understated elegance upon his arrival had given way to peasant garb. Loose legged breeches replaced the fine cloth pantaloons he'd arrived in. And his immaculate shirt? Struggling to silence her choke of laughter, she remembered the shock on Vidal's face when Juan presented him with a colourful vest gifted by one of the village elders after she'd recovered from the insect bite. His once neat hair blew unrestricted in the breeze, and a sudden urge to run her fingers through it shocked her out of her memories and back to the sight before her. No, they had little to offer anyone in exchange for rations and fresh water.
Stunned, she watched Juan size up the three remaining mules. After the fuss he'd made when she'd lost hers to injury, did he intend to swap one of their animals for food? How could they afford to lose another one? How could a small hamlet offer them a fair trade of food for a mule, and at this time of year would they want to? Would they want the additional burden of having to feed the creature through the winter? Thus its value at the beginning of autumn would not be as great as in the spring or summer.
And that, of course, applied to the people as well. Did they have enough provisions for themselves, let alone even a small quantity for strangers passing through?
“Why are you taking two animals with you?” she asked, having long since reached a stage of not caring that Juan had lost patience with her.
“Take a good look at them, Mrs. Beaumont. They are skin and bones. We cannot find food for ourselves, let alone the animals. We need food, and they need a chance to survive.”
“Why not take all three?”
“A man with two animals is understandable. If one goes lame â do I need to remind you what happens then?”
Honor fought the rising anger his contemptuous response provoked. “I remember you shot the poor creature and left the evidence in full view.” A small and quite useless repost, she knew, but hunger, weariness and a growing mistrust for the people around her fuelled her need to protest.
“Well, this time, in order to avoid further sinecure from you I intend to try and protect the lives of at least two of the mules who have brought us so far in exchange for a little food for us.” He pointed towards the range of high mountains ahead. “It doesn't get any easier from here, Mrs. Beaumont, so I suggest you concentrate on making a better effort to keep up with us in future.”
With that Juan grabbed the reins of the nearest animals, strode off up the track, and disappeared round the corner.
“Why do you always have to annoy Juan so?” With her hands on her hips, Consuela stepped in front of her. “Always you have to have the last word. Anyone would think you did not trust him.”
“Think what you like.” Too weary for diplomacy, Honor swung away and came face to face with Vidal.
“It's a valid question,” he said, his voice almost as cold as the wind whipping down from the snow-capped Pyrenees. “I do think you should answer it.”
Stunned by Vidal's antipathy, Honor stepped back. What had gone on, what had she done to deserve his sudden contempt?
“I repeat, think what you like.”
Honor swung away from him, desperate to put distance between them while she strove to contain the tears clogging her throat.
What entitled him to demand she share her thoughts and fears, when he'd turned from a friend to a stranger overnight and without any explanation?
Adrift in her confusion, she sought a sheltered spot from the wind and soaked up the meagre warmth of the sun. Although Devlin never talked of his work, he had always spent the evening with her, sharing amusing anecdotes of his day. Sometimes it was just the two of them talking together. At other times, they would be surrounded by friends and then the stories would turn into lively discussions with ribald laughter. And of course, the earl, famous for his ability to lift jaded spirits after a hard march, had always managed to arrange a dance at the shortest of notice.
The other evening she'd shared the guilt that sometimes assailed her for pestering to travel to the Peninsula with Devlin, and yet â hadn't Dev told her, he should have said "no" but didn't want to? Had she mistaken the assumption that Vidal had understood?
* * * *
The sound of Juan's return, his hasty conversation with the others, and his curt demand she stop sulking and keep up today, stiffened her spine. For a moment there she'd considered sitting down and staying put until hunger and cold took her away from a world suddenly barren of people she could trust.
Like a mantra the names churned in an endless circle within her mind.
Juan? Vidal? Consuela? Andâ
Tears burned behind her eyes. Who had betrayed Dev? Had anyone? Or were Vidal and Lord Dundas wrong? What had Vidal said the night they'd talked beside the fire?
“
The viscount
knows the traitor's identity.”
When she'd asked, Vidal swore he had no idea, and said the Viscount refused to share the information.
And Juan? Why had her unintended barb infuriated him so? Did he mean to pass her and Vidal over to the French?
He'd certainly managed to dispel any thoughts about Vidal's brief display of desire for her. So many questions, and no way of discovering the truth.
Without warning, the ground beneath her feet crumbled and she found herself tumbling back down the track she'd recently laboured up.
Stones, large and small rolled with her; like a magic carpet they carried her faster and faster down the incline. She tumbled over and over, too fast to focus on anything to grab hold of or use to stop her fall. If this was her destiny, she prayed the end would come quickly.
The leather boot that filled her vision and stopped her ungainly descent was as shocking as her initial tumble. The agony of her fall increased on impact with the boot and knocked all her breath from her body; for a moment she lay too stunned to take in the latest incident.
“Honor?”
Surely she imagined Phillipe's voice? They'd left him behind weeks ago. Had the fall caused her to hallucinate? A hand, more gentle than she expected, clasped her arms and brought her to her feet, and arms strong, comforting and familiar wrapped around her.
“Honor. Are you hurt?”
Definitely Phillipe's voice. She allowed herself a few moments within his careful embrace. Took comfort from his body warmth that shortly dispelled the trembling cold that had overtaken her.
Leaning back, Honor looked into Phillipe's face. Concern pinched at his cheeks and thinned his lips.
“What are you doing here?” She shook her head to clear the confusion, still unable to believe her eyes.
“Why are you here? How did you know where to find us?”
Her knees buckled and she sank to the ground. So much pain, so many aches racked her she couldn't identify where they started or finished. Her right arm and shoulder, and her ribs throbbed. Her ankle ached, and her hands wouldn't hurt as much as they did now if she'd scrubbed them on cook's cheese grater.
And the world floated from paste-white to black and back again. Wordlessly she tried to reach out to Phillipe and found her arms to heavy to lift, her head too sore to try and formulate a plea for help.
Angry voices drifted in and out, but she couldn't remember whose they were or what they were arguing about.
* * * *
The roar of loose rocks gathering speed behind him spun Vidal round in time to see Honor disappearing from view. With a cry he shoved Juan out of his way and sprinted to her help.
“Stop!”
Instinctively he reacted to Juan's command, and realised the sense of it. Like an avalanche, the rocks and stones tumbled down the slope with increasing speed, so far carrying Honor on top of it. It would only take one surge of rocks to swallow her in the maelstrom. Casting about him, Vidal sprung up onto the nearest outcrop of solid land not engulfed in the slide, jumped and slid his way down the firm ground as swiftly as he dared while he kept on eye on Honor's plummet down the slope.
As fast as it started the rock-slide came to a shuddering halt. Vidal heaved a sigh of relief, then pulled himself up a few feet away from the man who'd broken Honor's fall.
An eerie stillness replaced nature's roar, and for a second the two men stared at each other. In the next, Vidal fell to his knees beside Honor, his hands swiftly searching for the extent of any damage. The swelling round her eye would restrict her vision for several days, and the cut beneath it travelling to the corner of her mouth bothered him. Blood ran down the side of her face into her hair, loosened from its pins by her fall.
When Phillipe dropped to the ground beside him, Vidal ignored his anxious enquiry. He did not know the extent of Honor's injuries, but they were severe, he could tell that much.
Cheerful birdsong cut through the silence and twanged Vidal's jangled nerves. How could a bird find something to sing about when his Honor lay in a crumpled heap on the ground?
“Can't the woman do anything right?” Juan glared at Honor, then Vidal, before stepping back with an oath when he became aware of Phillipe's presence.
“What are you doing here?”
The fury in Juan's voice had Vidal's head snapping round in disbelief before disquiet took over. If Honor had spoken the truth, Juan asked a good question. How had Phillipe discovered their adjusted route, and why had he followed them? He didn't stop his examination of Honor's injuries while he waited for the older Spaniard's response.
Vidal recognised the terror Dev's batman displayed. “We have been betrayed.”
Phillipe cast a glance over his shoulder, then reached out to grasp Juan's arm.
“You are wrong.” Juan stepped back, and with a curl of his lip, continued. “
You
were not betrayed.
You
were never betrayed. You are the one who deceived the man who called you âfriend', the man you served for nearly six years, and for what?”
“No. You don't understandâ“ Phillipe struggled to his feet and Vidal swore to himself he and Honor were forgotten.
“I had to do itâ”
Still trying to come to terms with the fact Phillipe had been instrumental in his best friend's capture and death, Vidal froze at the anguish in Phillipe's voice.
“He impregnated my daughter then threatened to shame her in front of all her family and friends if I did not do as he said.”
Although she hadn't made a sound, Vidal was aware the instant Honor regained her senses. Knew she'd heard Juan's accusations and Phillipe's excuses. Only the slight pressure of her fingers on his and the steady stare from her good eye, and something more in that glance told him he wouldn't like what Phillipe was about to reveal.
“Does that include leading him straight to us?” Juan glanced over Phillipe's shoulder, and it didn't take Vidal long to see what had caught their guide's attention. Nor did it surprise him to recognise the newcomer, though he wished it did.
“It seems nature has almost done what I intended.” The latest arrival upon the scene stepped forward, surveying every member of the group before his glance honed in on Honor, then swept past Vidal to rest on Phillipe. “Because you have saved me a great deal of time and effort, I might even spare your life,” he said in a congenial tone. “It's more than you deserve, for I'm nearly convinced you have cheated me.
“Oh!” he added with a sneer. “You need not fear for your daughter's disgrace any longer. I have dealt with her andâ“ he paused, casting another deliberate glance over each member of his audience before refocusing on Phillipe, “âyour wife.”
Pulling a pistol from his pocket he stepped forward and aimed it at the figure on the ground.
“It is time, dear sister-in-law, for you to join your dearly departed husband.”
As if in slow motion, Cedric Chiltern, now Lord Beaumont, raised his pistol, aimed, and squeezed the trigger.
Before any defensive thought reached Vidal's mind, Phillipe launched himself at Honor's brother-in-law. The explosion just above his head almost deafened him. Only the thud of Phillipe's body slumping to the ground galvanised him into action. Using his momentum, Vidal leaped at Cedric and with an upper-cut to the chin knocked him down.
He landed one blow after another, not stopping until the click of the hammer on a second firearm drew him out of his red-hot fury.
