Fortune's Bride (Heiress, Book Four) Read online

  “My goodness,” Esmeralda exclaimed, “however did Joseph lay his hands on such a thing?”

  “By a miraculous accident. Oh, we would have gotten it anyway, but probably three weeks from now when it would not have been the slightest use. Let me tell it in order. Joseph was making his way—”

  “What have you done with him, Robert?” Esmeralda interrupted. “He seems like a very gentle, almost innocent person, perhaps not too clever—”

  Robert’s laugh cut her off. “You’re quite right. I would say he was downright simple.” Then he frowned. “In fact, I think the other members of the troupe sort of took care of him. I tried to convince him to stay with us, but he refused.”

  “Couldn’t you make him understand that it would be safer, that he wouldn’t have to fight or anything like that?”

  “Oh, he understood that, but he seems to be afraid of so large a concentration of armed men. You see, the troupe he was with was entertaining the French, and most of the soldiers were very good to them, paid them well, and enjoyed their performances. Then they ran into a group of bullies who teased Bear, mistreated the two women, beat up the men when they protested, and wouldn’t let them go. My guess is that they let Joseph go into the woods only because they thought he wasn’t bright enough to do anything on his own. He’s afraid of running into the same thing in this army and, of course, he has been roughed up a bit twice. Braun and Landsheit tried to explain to him, but…he’s just frightened.”

  “But what will happen to him and to Bear?”

  “He has either friends or relatives not too far from here,” Robert soothed. “He wouldn’t say where. Maybe he’s afraid we’ll come and get him or… I don’t know. Anyway, that’s what the troupe he was with was doing in Spain, visiting these people and paying their way by traveling around and performing during the summer. I guess they didn’t expect to get caught up in a war.”

  “Do you think it’s true, Robert?” Esmeralda asked anxiously. “I mean, that he has somewhere to go? Could he have said it just so you’d allow him to leave?”

  Robert shook his head. “It’s true enough. We didn’t really press him, of course. Why should we? Anyway, he can certainly take advantage of a situation—which was how he got the dispatches.” He smiled into her worried eyes. “You’ll feel better when I tell you.”

  “I hope so. Frankly, I don’t feel Joseph is any more fit to be on his own than Carlos.”

  “Oh, yes he is,” Robert insisted. “At least Joseph doesn’t look for trouble unless it’s forced on him.” Then he grinned. “But he is simple. It never occurred to him to lie low and come back to us with a pack of lies that he could blame on bad information others had given him—which is what I expected. He went off toward, of all places, Madrid, to find something to tell us.”

  “Oh my God,” Esmeralda cried.

  “Well, he apparently had been there before, and he had no way of knowing the French had taken the city. After all, we didn’t know ourselves when he was here. He said it was the biggest city he had ever seen, and he decided, logically enough, that it would be the best place to get information.” Robert paused and laughed. “I guess it’s true that God takes care of babes and idiots. Apparently he got rides quite easily from people who pitied him. Anyway, he had been dropped at a posthouse at Valdestillos just when a mob of peasants recognized some poor French ADC, set on him, and murdered him. Joseph seems to have understood that all right because he hung around close by. The Spaniards put the dispatches aside while they were arguing about what to do with the body and dividing up the money, so Joseph just helped himself to them.”

  “But how did he know they were important?” Esmeralda asked in a wondering voice.

  Robert laughed again. “It was the seals. To him, any paper with seals is important. My God, it could have been a deed to property or a list of promotions.” He sighed and stretched. “Can you make some good strong tea for me, Merry? I’ve got to go out again. Everything’s been changed around, of course. Sir John and Colborne are writing as fast as they can drive their pens, and the rest of us will be riding all over the landscape with new orders.”

  On December 14, loaded with gifts of food, money, and a sturdy mule, Joseph and Bear took their leave. Carlos wept bitterly into Bear’s fur, and Esmeralda sniffled a trifle herself, as she scratched behind Bear’s ears for the last time. However, she was as relieved as she was worried. Bear had been growing more and more sluggish as the year advanced into winter, and she knew it would not have been long before they could not rouse the animal and induce her to travel with them. Then they would have faced the agonizing choice of killing her or leaving her to fend for herself, possibly to be found and mistreated. All in all, letting Joseph go off seemed the least of the evils, particularly since he appeared happy and confident.

  The next day they themselves set out toward their new destination. At first everything went very well. The weather had changed. The rain had stopped, though it was bitterly cold. For the army, the drop in temperature was mostly advantageous, as the roads, which had previously been sloughs of mud, hardened to a good marching surface. By December 20, they had gone as far north as Mayorga and connected with Baird’s column. In addition, the cavalry had a series of minor successes, cutting off several detachments of French dragoons, capturing a colonel and more than one hundred men, even raiding into Valladolid itself, where a hundred hussars of the Eighteenth carried off the intendant of the province and three hundred thousand reals from the treasury.

  The spirits of the whole army were high, but Robert was so busy that he did not spend a single night with Esmeralda, barely managing a flying visit or two along the route as he carried orders or messages. This was just as well, because he would have been worried sick if he had realized what his wife was enduring. Esmeralda was suffering bitterly from the cold, to which she was not accustomed. Her misery was increased by the fact that quarters on the road were dreadful and, on two nights, nonexistent. She spent those in the open, huddling with Molly and Carlos for warmth.

  She managed not to complain, not so much from fear of being sent away now as from the realization that Robert probably could no longer arrange for her to be conveyed elsewhere. Again Molly was her model and support.

  “If ye’re an army woife, ye must no expec’ inny better,” Molly said with a wry grimace and a resigned shrug. “Fleas in summer ‘nd freezin’ in winter ‘s ye’re lot fer loife. Thit, or stay hoom.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  There was a hovel for them at Mayorga, with a shed at the back for the horses and mules. Esmeralda insisted that Molly and Carlos share it with her until Robert came in to sleep, if he did. And to Molly’s argument that it was not proper, Esmeralda smiled wanly and retorted, “Perhaps not, but it’s warm.”

  Under the circumstances the smell of the horses and mules might have been offensive, but Esmeralda’s nose had ceased to function. Neither she nor any other member of the party had taken off the clothes they were wearing for a week. If Esmeralda gave the animals a thought, it was of gratitude that they added a mite of warmth to the back wall and stood buffer against the wind. Firewood was scarce, and it had begun to snow. That they had any firewood at all was owing to Carlos’s enterprise, for he picked up every stick he saw and tucked it into Luisa’s pack.

  Robert had no more time for his wife at Mayorga than before. To Moore’s disappointment, Soult had not yet begun the advance into Léon ordered by the intercepted dispatch. He could only assume that no copy of those orders had reached Soult or that the French marshal had other reasons for remaining in the position to which the dispatch had been addressed. However, a light cavalry brigade was stationed at Sahagun, only nine miles from the pickets guarding the extreme front of the English lines.

  Lord Paget, a highly enterprising officer, sent for permission to attempt a surprise, and Robert rode back with the messenger to observe the action. Sir John knew Lord Paget to be in deep personal trouble. It was most unlikely that so responsible an offi
cer would lead his men into a disaster because of a private death wish, however, Sir John had a cautious streak and felt that Robert’s presence might be reminder to Paget of his responsibilities.

  Robert stopped at Esmeralda’s quarters to change to his hussar uniform and was horrified, but he had no time to do more than say, “I’m sorry, Merry. If we stay, I’ll see what I can do when I get back, but I don’t think we’ll be here for more than the one night.”

  In this assumption, Robert was correct. Lord Paget’s action was a brilliant success—two lieutenant colonels, eleven other officers, and one hundred and fifty-seven men were taken prisoner, twenty were killed, and many were wounded at a cost of fourteen casualties for Paget’s troops. More important, Sahagun was cleared of Soult’s cavalry screen, and Moore’s army moved forward on December 21. Here Esmeralda’s quarters were a little better, but that did nothing to lift her spirits. Robert sent M’Guire to say that he was back safe, and strangely, Esmeralda was grateful that he did not come himself. It saved her from the necessity of putting a good face on her misery. But why she was so downspirited she had no idea. All she knew was that she felt weepy and irritable and sometimes even slightly nauseated.

  She did her best to control herself, but she snapped at Carlos so often that he found duties to keep him in the stable despite the cold. Molly also got the sharp edge of Esmeralda’s tongue. At first Molly assumed that the cold or the prospect of more fighting was upsetting her mistress’s usually equable temper, but several times she found Esmeralda crying when she knew there could be no specific reason for tears, and that was completely unnatural. Mrs. Moreton, Molly thought, did not give way easily to tears.

  Then a new idea occurred to her. Molly had not thought much about the fact that Esmeralda had been married since late July and had not conceived. Fine ladies, she understood, had their ways of preventing such things. When she was free of the child she was carrying, if Mrs. Moreton’s mood improved, she might ask. But Molly suddenly recalled Esmeralda’s failure to recognize her pregnancy and her mistress’s confession of complete ignorance concerning so vital a female concern as childbearing. Molly wrinkled her brow in thought. When was the last time she had washed rags bloodied with Mrs. Moreton’s “time”? It had not been recently. It had been…not since they were in Lisbon. Could that be right? But on thinking it over, Molly became certain. Not since Lisbon.

  Once that was clear in her mind, Molly leaned back against the wall and looked speculatively at her mistress’s back. Esmeralda was huddled near the fire, staring into the flames. Poor little creature, Molly thought, no wonder she was so interested in all the little details of carrying and bearing a child. And now she was frightened, poor little bird. Molly’s eyes filled with tears, but not only for Esmeralda. She was worried herself. She was very near her time now, and although in general, childbearing held no terrors for her, the circumstances were not good. She had hoped they would remain in Salamanca, where she had excellent quarters, until the baby was born.

  Molly had considerable military experience, having followed the drum for over fifteen years. It had seemed to her, since she was ignorant of the real situation, that it was too late in the season to begin a campaign. She glanced again at Esmeralda, leaning forward a little, and saw her mistress was crying again. Molly sighed. If Mrs. Moreton hadn’t spoken of her private fears, it wasn’t her place to push in where she wasn’t wanted, but it seemed that two women with the same burden should comfort each other.

  Another few minutes passed in silence while Molly considered how very kind Mrs. Moreton had been. She had bought the mule and extra blankets and—Molly put up a hand to wipe the few drops from her cheeks—and even some special linen for the baby. It was true Mrs. Moreton knew her place and did not often invite familiarity, but she was not so high and mighty as some officers’ wives. Molly watched the trembling shoulders. Surely Oi owe her a word o’ comfort, she thought. ‘Nd even if she doesno’ wan’ it, she will do no more thin not answer or tell me t’ be quiet.

  “It’ll be long ‘til yer toime, ma’am,” Molly said softly. “Ye’ll no be brought t’ bed ‘til Juloy, mebbe. Weel be in a better place thin. There’s naught t’ fear.”

  Esmeralda jerked upright and turned so sharply on her chair that she nearly tipped over. “What?” she asked.

  The question was puzzled, but not bad tempered. Molly thought her mistress had not heard her because she had spoken so softly, and she repeated herself, enlarging on the fact that Esmeralda’s baby would not be born until the early summer, an excellent time owing to the warmth. And, she added, the time was at least seven months away. Since Esmeralda did not check her and encouraged her, if not with words, then by wiping away her tears, Molly continued to talk about the event, assuring her mistress that she would not be inconvenienced by the child for a long time, that there would be plenty of time even to go to England, if she should wish to do so, although Spain and Portugal both seemed to have healthy climates.

  Meanwhile, Esmeralda’s mind had been racing wildly, not over what Molly was now saying but over what she had said weeks before, in Salamanca. Now Esmeralda realized that she had been so concerned over many different things—Robert’s inexplicable sadness, which had, thank God, disappeared, Bear, the prospect of more fighting, Molly’s revelation of her pregnancy… A faint smile appeared on Esmeralda’s lips. Goodness, what an idiot she had been. She had never noticed that her regular bleeding had stopped—of course, she had never paid much attention to it since it caused her no trouble—but she had not connected Molly’s description of the early stages of pregnancy with herself.

  Hastily, while Molly was rambling on about what she had heard of the dry, pleasant weather of the peninsula in the spring, Esmeralda made the same calculations that had convinced Molly her mistress was pregnant. Joy flooded her. She was carrying Robert’s child! She nearly choked, suppressing the laughter at her own foolishness, but she would not admit that she had not recognized her condition. It would be too embarrassing, after failing to recognize Molly’s.

  “So ye see,” Molly was concluding, “there’s no need t’ fret yerself, an’ Oi’ve heerd ‘tis bad fer the choild.”

  “Oh dear,” Esmeralda said, “then I must surely make an effort to be more cheerful.”

  At that moment it did not seem to her that it would take much effort at all. Molly had said nothing about feeling downhearted for the first month or two, but Esmeralda connected her depression with the mild nausea she had been experiencing. Now that she knew what it was, she was sure she could combat it. And for the remainder of that day, anyway, she was successful. She busied herself with their quarters, although she had almost given up hope of Robert joining her.

  But thinking of him gave her a double qualm of fear. The first sent her to her baggage for a mirror, comb, and brush. Had she, in her senseless sadness, allowed herself to deteriorate in appearance? She was shocked at what she saw. Her face was dirty, and her hair looked like a rat’s nest. Was that why Robert no longer spent his nights with her? She told herself it was ridiculous, that he and all the other ADCs were frantically busy because they were the links of communication that held the strung-out chain of the army together.

  Nonetheless, a seed of doubt remained. Robert had not been too busy to come back to her in the early days in Portugal. She felt tears rising again over his neglect—and then wondered whether she really felt neglected or if this was another part of her recent unevenness of spirits. She fought down the self-pity and tried to consider the situation calmly, which brought her to the conclusion that Sir Arthur’s army had been smaller, and Sir Arthur did not seem to change his mind so often or communicate so frequently with his general officers so that the ADCs had much less to do. Perhaps Sir Arthur’s situation had been less critical—she could not judge that.

  But thinking about the military situation brought a new problem to mind. Esmeralda knew that as soon as Robert heard of her pregnancy, he would move heaven and earth to get her away to England. As she
washed her face and straightened her hair, she considered her state with considerable satisfaction. Surely Robert would request leave and take her home himself. Then he would be spared whatever dreadful battle was coming.

  The trouble was that it would only be the one battle, Esmeralda was sure. And then she began to wonder whether if there was a battle in the offing, would Robert ask for leave? Would he not consider it his duty to remain? Sir John sent messengers to Lord Castlereagh with relative frequency. Would Robert send her off with one of those messengers to be delivered to his parents? No man who loved his wife would do that, she thought—and there were tears coming again, for she was not in the least sure that Robert loved her. A few times when they had started on his leave, before they had found Bear, it had seemed as if…

  She was afraid to continue that line of thought, particularly in view of how little effort he had made these past few weeks to be with her. But how could any man be so cruel as to send her to strangers to bear his child? She would rather have Molly. And then it occurred to her that even if Robert took her to England, he would leave her there and himself return. And after the child was born—could she take an infant into a war zone? There was no question of it, the choice would not be hers. Robert would never permit it.

  Esmeralda’s emotions seesawed up and down, joy alternating with tears. At last, when heavy sobs began to shake her, she realized she was pushing herself into hysterics. If Robert came by and found her crying, she would have to confess. Esmeralda’s thought checked, and so did her tears. There was no need to tell Robert of her pregnancy—not for months. He would not notice any change in her body, particularly, she thought wryly, if he did not share her bed.

  Then she would not be sent to England. And who knew what would happen in two or three months? The war would probably not be over, but with the onset of really bad winter weather, there might be a hiatus. If there was no prospect of action, Robert would surely come to England with her. She rose briskly and washed her face once more to remove all trace of tears, vowing she would not permit herself to fall into the dismals again, and she did not, firmly controlling her impulses to lapse into lachrymose self-pity over her dilemma.