Fortune's Bride Page 29

  Having forded the little tributary of the Maceira, Robert paused and listened. He was now too far north to see the battle, which was around a bend and screened by trees and brush, but it did not seem to be moving either way. The French, he thought, were stout fellows to withstand the heavy fire pouring in on them from both flanks. They were good soldiers with great pride, but they would not break through now, not unless Junot had another brigade or two to push into the valley and attempt a three-pronged assault. Robert shook his head. Not after those two bloody attacks on Vimeiro hill and sending all those regiments north.

  He wondered how the battle on the left flank was going and began to walk again more quickly, despite the discomfort of his wet boots. If he wanted news, he had better get back to Sir Arthur. Nonetheless, Robert made no attempt to cut the distance by angling south. In his present condition he had no intention of coming closer to the action than necessary. His pistol was wet, and while afoot his saber was a poor weapon to oppose either a gun or bayonet.

  Robert came into Vimeiro by the back lanes, but it was a small village and he had no difficulty finding the hospital buildings. Stepping into the nearest, he stopped dead in the doorway and watched as Esmeralda, with infinite gentleness and patience, dribbled water into the mouth of a man whose jaw had been half shot away. She was covered with blood, but her voice was steady as she murmured comfortingly.

  Swallowing back a bellow of outrage, which he knew would make Esmeralda jump and hurt the wounded man, Robert waited until she rose to her feet and then said sharply, “Merry, what the devil are you doing here? I can’t turn my back on you for a minute—”

  She whirled to face him, her features illuminated by joy, which changed to terror as she took in his appearance. Her tanned skin turned pasty gray, her lips parted as if to scream, and her eyes began to roll upward in their sockets.

  “Merry!” Robert exclaimed, startled. He jumped forward, dropping his coat and shirt, grabbed at her, and held her against him with his good arm. “It’s all right, my dear. I didn’t mean to sound so angry.”

  She clung to him dizzily, reassured by the strength of his grip. Then, reminding herself that a soldier’s wife must not show such faintheartedness, she pulled herself together and straightened up. Still, she could not prevent herself from asking breathlessly, “What happened to you? How badly are you hurt?”

  Robert smiled and let her go. “Hardly at all. It’s nothing but a crease, and all my own fault, too.” Then the smile disappeared, and his clear blue eyes clouded. “Jupiter’s dead. I stupidly rode right into the enemy’s forward scouting parties instead of going around behind the village. I should have known that Acland was too canny to let the French cut him off from the rest of our army, but I was so—”

  He stopped abruptly, realizing that he could not tell Esmeralda it was fear the French would break into Vimeiro and harm her that had sent him, against his better judgment and his military experience, across the face of the oncoming enemy battalions. He did not wish her to feel guilty or frightened by the nearness of the fighting. His decision was correct, but he had made it for the wrong reasons. Esmeralda would, indeed, have been terrified, but only by the risk he had run, for she was far less concerned with her own safety than with his.

  “Oh, poor Jupiter,” she cried, knowing that Robert felt much worse about the horse than his single statement betrayed.

  Before she could say more, however, an orderly came up behind Robert, sidestepped him without looking, although he glanced at the blue coat Robert had dropped on the floor, and said, “Mrs. Moreton, there’s a man who’d like you to write to his wife for him.”

  “But—” Esmeralda began to protest.

  Still without a glance at Robert, the orderly continued, “I don’t think the man has much time, and I wouldn’t bother with a Frenchie—not if he’s walking. He can wait.”

  Robert had to laugh at Esmeralda’s affronted expression. He had now recovered from the shock of finding her employed in an activity that he could not imagine his mother or sisters undertaking and which he knew must frighten and disgust her. On second thought, he felt proud rather than horrified that she should be willing to subdue her own feelings in order to help the men who were fighting.

  “This is not a Frenchman but my husband, Captain Moreton,” Esmeralda had exclaimed.

  The orderly turned sharply, looking rather frightened, but Robert laughed again. It was obvious to him, if not to Esmeralda, how the mistake had come about. The rags of his blue coat and stained white breeches could easily be mistaken for the ruins of a French uniform.

  “That’s all right,” he said to the orderly, who was stammering apologies. “Just go and ask one of the surgeons if he’ll stitch me up at once. I have to get back to duty.”

  The fright those words caused Esmeralda paralyzed her momentarily and prevented her from crying out in protest as the orderly hurried away. She felt dizzy again and stiffened to resist the sensation. Robert would not annul their marriage, but he could still insist that she be sent to England if he felt her to be an encumbrance. She swallowed hard and moistened her dry lips.

  “You seem to have lost a lot of blood, Robert,” she said, her voice flat and cold with the effort she was making to keep it from quavering into tearfulness. “Is it wise to go back to Sir Arthur?”

  “Oh, most of the blood isn’t mine,” Robert said easily, but he was aware of the rigidity of Esmeralda’s stance and the coldness of her tone. It was an odd contrast, both to the words of concern she had spoken and to the soft sympathy her voice had held when she had been talking to the wounded soldier. Robert wondered whether she was angry or simply indifferent, and then dismissed both notions as ridiculous. There was nothing for her to be angry about, and she could not be indifferent to his welfare. He was her passport to the social connections she needed in England.

  That idea, clearly and suddenly stated in his mind, was so unpleasant, although it had been implicit in their relationship from the beginning, that Robert hastily urged Esmeralda to find the dying man who wanted a letter written at once.

  “But I would rather wait until—” Esmeralda began.

  “There’s no need to wait,” Robert said. “There isn’t much wrong with me, and the orderly will be back. See, there he is now. Go along, Merry, a dying man’s last wish is more important than a scratch on the arm.”

  It was not, of course, more important to Esmeralda, not if the scratch was on Robert, but she was still too insecure about their relationship to oppose him in anything. She did not realize that Robert would have welcomed her insistence on remaining with him or any other sign of affection. It had not entered Esmeralda’s head that Robert could have fallen in love with her. That had not even been a part of her impossible dream. The most she had hoped for was that he would grow accustomed to her company and find it pleasant. And of course, Esmeralda knew that men could enjoy sexual intercourse with women for whom they had not the slightest regard.

  In fact, Esmeralda associated Robert’s urging her to go to the dying soldier with his own stated intention of returning to his duty. She believed Robert felt that, having taken on the task of assisting the wounded, she must perform it. Thus, she turned away in the direction from which the orderly had originally come without saying anything more. In a sense, it was a relief to go, because her struggle with tears was growing momentarily more difficult. Esmeralda had already become somewhat hardened to the dreadful sights around her, but the wounded men were not Robert. She was not at all sure she would have been able to maintain her composure had she actually seen her husband’s torn flesh.

  Once Robert could not see her face, Esmeralda allowed the tears she had been withholding to flood her eyes. The rigidity went out of her body, and sobs of fear rose in her throat. Blindly she hurried forward, afraid that by some mischance Robert would hear or notice that she was crying. Unfortunately, although his eyes followed her, all he perceived was the relaxation of her tension and a seeming eagerne
ss to get away, which puzzled him very much and hurt him, too.

  Like Esmeralda, Robert did not associate mere sexual pleasure with love and thus did not reason that, because she obviously enjoyed their physical relationship, Merry loved him. Actually, he had not yet even associated his own eagerness to be with her or his anxiety about her safety with the fact that he loved her. If he had been asked at that moment by someone he trusted implicitly whether he loved his wife, Robert would probably have answered no. He still thought of his marriage as an act of compassionate duty, although he would have admitted freely that it had turned out far better than he could have expected, and he felt no regret.

  The orderly’s voice drew Robert’s attention from Esmeralda’s hasty retreat. “What?” Robert said dully.

  “Mr. Neale will attend to you right away if you will come with me, sir,” the man repeated.

  “Oh, yes,” Robert replied, finally taking in what had been said to him, and feeling a sense of relief.

  What a fool he was, he thought. Here he was blaming Merry for the unpleasant sinking feeling he was experiencing and thinking she was behaving in an unnatural way, when probably he was just trying to avoid contemplating his visit to the surgeon. This conclusion was so satisfactory that Robert’s spirits rose at once. Strangely, he did not notice the contradiction, and by the time Adam Neale had finished sewing him up, Robert had convinced himself that there had not been anything at all unusual in Merry’s manner. Nothing could be more reasonable than that she should hurry to write a letter for a dying man, particularly when he had twice told her to go.

  Although the surgeon insisted Robert rest for a little while after he had sewn the wound, no time was lost as Mr. Neale permitted his patient to send one of the lightly wounded men to find him a horse. And he smiled when he advised Robert to keep his arm in the sling he had fixed for him, raising his brows at the ruins of coat and shirt the orderly had brought in from the outer room. It appeared the sling would cover almost as much of him as what was left of his clothes.

  Of course Robert could have asked for Esmeralda so that she could bring him fresh clothing, but for some reason he refused to define or even think about, he did not mention that his wife was in the building. Instead he simply abandoned the shirt, thinking it too far gone to bother about, and inserted his good arm into the coat, which he had the orderly button at the waist.

  By the time he returned, Sir Harry Burrard, who had finally come ashore at Porto Novo late in the morning, had arrived at Sir Arthur’s command post and was inquiring of Lord Burghersh where General Wellesley was. Burghersh was unable to answer his question, since he himself had only just ridden up. Under the circumstances, Robert’s appearance was fortunate, as it diverted Sir Harry’s attention. That gentleman was at first considerably shocked by Robert’s dishabille and then seriously concerned that Captain the Honorable Robert Moreton, son of the Earl of Moreton, should have so little regard for his health and safety as to return to the battlefield after having been wounded.

  Sir Harry was too much of a gentleman to give orders to another officer’s ADC, but he was gently suggesting that Robert report himself unfit and retire, when Sir Arthur rode up. General Wellesley did not at first notice Sir Harry because his eye had been caught by Robert’s golden hair and bedraggled condition, and he cried out sharply, “Where the devil have you been, Moreton?”

  Burrard’s eyes widened slightly at this seemingly unfeeling remark and Sir Arthur’s expression of cold disapproval, but Robert grinned. He knew Sir Arthur well enough to recognize the question as a mark of great anxiety. “Doing something stupid, sir,” Robert replied, “but General Acland had already gone into action, so it didn’t matter. And General Burrard has arrived, sir.”

  As he spoke, Robert backed his horse so that Sir Arthur’s view would be unobscured. Although he was as sorry as all the other ADCs about the fact that General Wellesley had been superseded, he was grateful that Burrard had arrived at this precise moment. He knew that he had been saved a scathing, but deserved, reprimand by Burrard’s presence. In the next instant, however, he was punished for the brief, selfish emotion. Instead of turning immediately to his superior, Wellesley took the time to look searchingly at Robert and then to ask, “Are you fit?”

  “Yes, sir,” Robert replied. “It was only a crease, and Mr. Neale has sewed me up.” Now he felt horribly guilty and wished that Burrard were back in England, even if it cost him a hundred of Sir Arthur’s painful scolds.

  “Good day to you, Sir Harry,” Wellesley said courteously, if with no marked enthusiasm. “The situation—”

  “No need for any details, Wellesley,” Sir Harry said. “You seem to have everything well in hand, and you must finish what you have so ably started.”

  “Thank you.”

  A note of warmth appeared in Sir Arthur’s voice, a recognition of Burrard’s generosity. It was not every general who would allow a subordinate officer to reap the reward of a victory. Usually the superior officer grabbed the credit, even if he arrived after the fighting was over. Although Sir Arthur was not often forthcoming with military information, he understood generosity and responded to it.

  “But,” he continued, “I should like to tell you, as exactly as I know it myself, just what is happening.”

  “Very well.”

  Robert exchanged glances with Sir Arthur’s other ADCs. The lack of enthusiasm in Burrard’s reply was noticeable. Although each young man had a different interpretation of the cause, all were equally appalled. As Sir Arthur’s voice had cooled noticeably again, it was obvious that the general also felt Burrard’s lack of interest was not a good sign.

  Having summed up the disastrous results of Junot’s attempts to dislodge the British from Vimeiro hill, Sir Arthur concluded, “The attack along the valley has also been checked with heavy losses for the French. I have just ordered that the Forty-third be brought in from the east, and that action should begin at any moment. If you would like to ride down with me, sir, we will be able to see the results more clearly.”

  Sir Arthur told Colin Campbell to remain where he was and direct any messengers down to the small knob of high land above the station of the Twentieth Light Dragoons, whereupon he began to ride downhill toward the battle scene. Indeed, he had come up principally to make certain no extremely urgent messages had come from the left flank. Robert had guessed that and guessed also that the quick turns of Sir Arthur’s head and the frequent use of his glass implied some uneasiness with regard to the silence from that area.

  Robert’s mind was divided between those thoughts and a new wash of anger and disgust. It was clear that Burrard was surprised by Sir Arthur’s intention of surveying the battle at close range. Not that Sir Harry was the least afraid. He was merely astonished at Wellesley’s notion that a commanding general should go and see for himself. However, Robert was soon distracted by the action itself. The French were still resisting stubbornly, and by this time both sides were in near chaos because the outlying houses and walls had broken the formation of the regiments. The charge of the Forty-third only added to the confusion. Volleys were exchanged at almost point-blank range, and there was fierce hand-to-hand fighting with very free use of the bayonet.

  It was soon apparent that the courageous French grenadiers could not turn the tide. Sullenly the drums rolled the order to retreat. It would have been virtually impossible for the disordered masses to pull out and protect themselves, and Junot sent out a regiment of dragoons to cover the retreat.

  Sir Arthur, of course, did not want an orderly French withdrawal. He decided at once to use his handful of cavalry, the two hundred and forty light dragoons, supported by two hundred and sixty Portuguese in two squadrons, which were drawn up below the rise. Lifting his already well-known cocked hat, Wellesley waved it and cried, “Now, Twentieth, now is the time!”

  Colonel Taylor, who had been watching anxiously for some signal from Wellesley, wheeled his regiment from behind the sheltering hill and
charged at the retreating French. At first the Portuguese rode even with the British, but when the French paused and began to fire, the Portuguese broke and fled back to the safety of the re-forming lines of Anstruther’s brigade, who greeted them with hoots and catcalls.

  Sir Harry uttered a shocked exclamation, and smothered groans came from the ADCs of both generals. Sir Arthur alone watched with unmoved expression. Taylor’s men rode on, crashed through the lines of French dragoons, and plunged in among the fleeing infantry, sabering right and left and taking prisoner those who threw down their arms. Now Sir Harry was smiling and if he had not been, so to speak, a guest of Sir Arthur’s, he would no doubt have waved and cheered them on. However, as the Twentieth continued onward right through the terrified infantry, Wellesley’s mouth tightened in furious disapproval.

  A short while later the result Sir Arthur had foreseen came about. The overenthusiastic troopers were checked by a stone wall on the hill and simultaneously charged by two fresh regiments of French horse, which had been kept in reserve. Sir Arthur disliked and distrusted cavalry regiments, having said more than once that they were never properly disciplined and got carried away, thereby turning a victory into a defeat.

  Robert had to admit that the charge had been carried far beyond reason. The end result, which he learned about the next day, was, however, not quite disastrous, for by some miracle the overexcited troopers were not annihilated.

  Actually at the moment the action was taking place, Sir Arthur had essentially lost interest in it. He had mentally given up the Twentieth for lost. Moreover, a muted roar had come down from the slopes north of the Maceira, which could only have been produced by a full regimental volley. That meant the troops Junot had sent north to flank the British had finally come into contact with the forces Wellesley had set up to oppose them. Sir Arthur politely lifted his hat to Sir Harry, who was still contemplating the headlong rush of the Twentieth, and spurred his horse away in the direction of the new fighting, with his staff streaming along behind him.