by Galen, Shana
When she was bound, he stepped back, giving her space. She supposed the gesture was to make her feel less threatened. It did not work. He was such a presence in the tent that she could not help but feel overwhelmed by him. Even the tent, which was larger than her little stone and tile-roofed cottage, seemed small when he stood.
He drew the pistol, her pistol, from his pocket and studied it. Then he looked at her and back at the pistol. “If you have actually fired this antique, you’re braver than I am. It must be sixty years old.”
“Eighty,” she corrected. “It was my grandfather’s.”
“And you planned to fire it and kill both of us?” He examined it closer then made a sound of disgust. “No, of course you weren’t. It isn’t even loaded or primed.” He looked up at her, his blue eyes narrowed in anger. “You’ve made quite the fool of me.”
“That was not my intention. If I had come here with no weapon, you would not have listened.”
“Wouldn’t I? You know me so well then?”
She only knew what she had heard about the English soldiers. They were proud and haughty and took what they wanted. She had seen him and thought he looked powerful enough to serve her purposes but also fair and honest. She’d watched him for several days and he always treated his men with dignity.
But she had never considered asking him if he would marry her without the pistol pointed at him,. Why would he, a powerful English soldier, want to marry her, a Portuguese peasant? She wasn’t even beautiful—not like the pale, flaxen beauties who resided in England. She was dark with coarse curly hair and what her mother liked to call a strong personality. She was not dainty or demure. She was not quiet or obedient. No wonder her father wanted to be rid of her.
She lifted her chin. “Very well, senhor. If I had asked you to marry me, would you have said yes?”
“The name is Draven. Lieutenant Colonel Draven.”
Draven. It sounded odd to her ears, but she liked it nonetheless.
“And to answer your question, Miss Neves, no. I am not looking for a wife at present.”
“And I am not looking for a husband. I would not have asked you to remain my husband. I do not even think the marriage would be considered legal in your country.”
“No doubt it wouldn’t. You are a Catholic, I presume.”
“And you are a heathen, but I do not hold that against you.”
To her surprise, he laughed. His face looked younger when he laughed, even more handsome. His cheeks reddened slightly and his eyes looked even bluer. “That is something then. Tell me, Miss Neves, why are you in such desperate need of a husband?”
She sighed. “My father is the mayor of our town.”
“The little one on the other side of the hill?”
“Yes.”
“I met him. He seemed a good man. Has he treated you ill?”
She tried to wave a hand, but she couldn’t as it was tied to the chair. “Nothing like that, Senhor Draven. It is that he has had the misfortune to be given seven daughters, and I am the eldest.”
“Seven? Gad, one would think he would have stopped after four or five.”
“He is a man with much...how do you say? Optimism?”
“Yes, obviously.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest. “And so he must marry you off in order to make a good match for your sisters.”
“Yes. It is the same in your country?”
“The older girls do generally marry before the younger.”
“Yes, well, the men of the town are eager to marry my two next younger sisters, Ana and Luisa. They are both quiet and shy and very beautiful.”
“And no one is vying for your hand?”
“I scare them off.”
He laughed again, but this time she was somewhat annoyed. “I am happy to amuse you, senhor! But I do not find it amusing. My father is also not amused, and he has made arrangements to marry me in two days’ time.”
“And you do not like his choice?”
“The man is ancient! He must be fifty.”
“Ah, only ten years my senior then.”
She was genuinely surprised. He did not look forty. Or perhaps Senhor Guerra was older than she had thought.
“I will not marry him.”
“And you think me a better alternative?”
“No! I do not want to marry you, either. But I want to escape, and I can think of no better way. If you marry me, I will have the protection of your name. I need but a year’s time to save money so I might travel to Lisbon or perhaps farther—Paris or London.”
“You wouldn’t be safe in London.”
“That is not your concern, senhor.”
“It is if I marry you.”
She held her breath. “Will you marry me?”
Part II
“If I be waspish, best beware my sting.”
The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare
HE ACTUALLY CONSIDERED saying yes. If he’d been a superstitious man, he might have suspected her of witchcraft. After all, she’d certainly beguiled him with those large brown eyes and that soft mouth. And now the look on her face was one of pure desperation. He would have been a man of little honor indeed if he had not wanted to help her.
But she was no child. Both her figure and her mind proved to him she was very much a woman. If he’d had to guess, he would have put her age at somewhere between one and twenty and five and twenty. She was certainly old enough to stand up to her father and reject any unacceptable marriage prospects he might offer her.
“No,” he said, with a stab of regret. She was beautiful and lush and the part of him that was male was drawn to her. But he was also a soldier with a duty to his country. He couldn’t take care of a wife, and he did not believe for a moment she planned to stay behind when the British army moved out. She’d follow him back to England, and how would he explain her to his family? What if, after this business with Napoleon had ended, he wanted to retire and marry for love? How would he explain a Portuguese peasant woman?
Her eyes widened. “No?” she said, her voice edged with just enough steel to give him pause.
“I cannot marry you.” He crossed to her and began to free her from the bindings. Now that he knew the pistol was useless, she was really no threat. “I do apologize, but you will simply have to return home to your father and explain to him—”
She jumped to her feet, causing him to stumble back. Perhaps untying her had been hasty.
“Do you think I have not tried that?” She sputtered a stream of words in Portuguese. His understanding of the language was rudimentary, but he could have sworn he heard stupid man. “You tie me up and ask me to tell you my story and then you send me on my way? No compassion!”
He straightened. “I have compassion. I have compassion for hungry dogs and injured horses, but I don’t marry them either.”
Her eyes grew larger. “Do you call me a dog?”
“No!” This had gone horribly wrong somehow. “You misunderstand.”
“Yes. I see that now.” The direct way she looked at him told him she meant she had misunderstood more than his comment. “I will leave you in peace.”
With that, she whirled on her heel and swept out of the tent, looking more like the Queen of Spain than a barefoot peasant.
Christ! The woman didn’t even have shoes on! He had to go after her. But when he emerged from his tent, he stepped into darkness. A few low fires burned but most of the men had gone to sleep. The sentries kept watch—little good they had done since she’d slipped past them—but the camp was quiet and all but deserted.
Catarina Neves had disappeared.
A day later Wellesley gave the order to move out. At first light the men and horses marched north, away from Sabugal and toward yet another battle with the French. To his annoyance, Draven hadn’t forgotten about the woman. Every time he turned he seemed to catch sight of her, but what he took for black hair was a horse’s tail and a woman’s skirts was the flapping of a tent.
After a
long day of marching, he was finally tired enough—or perhaps far enough away—to forget her. Major Wraxall had given him a list of names, and Benedict had spent the evening discussing the list with Ward, his batman and a trusted friend. Wraxall had chosen well and carefully. Benedict couldn’t help but notice the major had not selected any men with children or wives.
So Wraxall knew what he was in for. He knew he would most likely not ever return home to England. It was a sacrifice thousands of men had made in this war, but Benedict hated to see another make it nonetheless.
“Is there anything else, sir?” Ward asked.
“No. You are dismissed.”
Alone, Benedict started to shed his coat. The ride today had been long and tomorrow would be equally arduous. He should sleep, but he couldn’t seem to settle. Instead of removing his coat, he paced the floor and considered the orders he would send before the end of the month—orders to the men of the suicide troop. Orders to meet him on the border of Spain and France to receive the details of their first mission.
His legs had grown stiff in the saddle, but still restless, Benedict decided to make a tour of the camp and then turn in for the night. He left his tent and shoved his hands in his pockets against the chill of the night. He strolled confidently between the tents and campfires. He nodded at his men, stopping at times to exchange a few brief words.
Finally, he came to the edge of the camp and stood staring out into the rocky landscape and the distant mountains. The night was still young, but the moon had risen early. It was a full moon and sat low in the sky, appearing so close Benedict felt like he could reach out and touch it. Just as he was about to return to his tent, he spotted a furtive movement a few yards away. Two figures, visible in the moonlight, emerged from the crowd of tents and started away from the camp.
Benedict waited for the sentries to call out to them, but the sentries were not at their posts. He’d have a word with them. But as he watched the two figures move away, their shapes became more distinct. One was most certainly a man, a soldier. The other was a woman.
And he was willing to wager all he possessed that he knew the woman.
“Bloody hell,” he swore. He moved quickly now that the stiffness had eased from his muscles. His legs ate up the ground dividing the couple and himself so that it was only a few moments before he was close enough to call out. “Halt!” he shouted.
The soldier skidded to a stop, clearly used to following orders. The woman only peered over her shoulder with a look of annoyance.
He’d known. He’d known it would be her.
She tugged at the soldier—just a boy, really, barely old enough to need a razor—urging him forward.
“Miss Neves,” Benedict said before she could persuade the lad to behave as stupidly as she. “If you wish to see this lad in the stocks or worse, then by all means, continue luring him from camp.”
Now she too halted and gave him a look of exasperation. “You!”
“My thoughts exactly. You should be back in Sabugal.”
She tossed her head. “I have an aunt who lives nearby.”
“Do you, now?”
The lad straightened. “Sir, I can explain. I was not deserting—”
Benedict waved a hand for silence. “Oh, I know exactly what is happening here, and I will give you ten seconds to march back to camp and go directly to bed.”
“But, sir! I cannot leave the lady—”
“Ten, nine—”
The lad looked from Miss Neves to Benedict. “Sir!”
“The clock is ticking, soldier. Eight, seven...”
With an apologetic look, the boy took off running back into camp.
The woman gave a long, loud sigh. Then she turned her glare on Benedict. “Are you following me?”
He should take pity on her. Clearly, she was daft. “Need I remind you, Miss Neves, this is my regiment. You are the one who does not belong.” And in more ways than one. In a camp full of soldiers and the usual spattering of camp followers, she was young and bold and, in the silvery moonlight, impossibly beautiful. Her hair had been pulled back and away from her face, but she’d left it down so it hung in long, dark waves about her shoulders. Her face was pale, her eyes larger than he remembered. And she seemed smaller as well. She wore a dark peasant blouse and a long dark skirt, cinched about her small waist with some sort of scarf.
She was weary, most likely from walking these past days and surviving only on what food she could gather or beg from the soldiers. If she’d gone to these lengths, she was more desperate than he’d thought. “Quite obviously, you are following me.”
She gestured in the distance, toward what he assumed was the location of a small village. “I told you, my aunt—”
“I don’t believe a word of it. There is no aunt. You have followed the soldiers in the hopes you might persuade one of the more gullible to marry you.”
She stabbed her hands on her hips. “And what is the harm if the man agrees? I would have brought him back after the ceremony.”
“He does not have permission to marry.”
“No one need know he had even left the camp. I went to much trouble to make sure!” She closed her mouth abruptly, seeming to realize she had said something incriminating.
“What trouble?” Benedict narrowed his eyes then looked about. “Where are the sentries?”
“They are unharmed, although I cannot vouch for the ache in their heads tomorrow.”
Benedict closed his eyes in frustration. He could see her hanged for this. She’d singlehandedly ensured the camp had weakened defenses. What if the enemy was nearby, waiting for a chance to attack? “We could win the war in a fortnight if I could but set you on the French,” he grumbled. “They would never see it coming.”
“Try it, and I will gut you like a fish.”
He opened his eyes and saw she’d moved to a crouching stance and held a knife out in front of her. Benedict raised a brow. “This again?”
“I assure you this knife works perfectly. It may be old, but it is wickedly sharp.”
Benedict put his hands on his hips, affecting boredom. In truth, this was the most entertainment he’d had in months—perhaps years. “Yes, but do you know how to use it?”
“Come a little closer, and I will give you a demonstration.” She shifted her weight, keeping on the balls of her feet. Someone had given her a tip or two, quite possibly one of his men. But Benedict had been a soldier when she was still in swaddling clothes. She was no threat to him.
“Very well.” He started toward her. Her eyes widened in surprise. She hadn’t expected him to take her up on the offer, but she was braver than he’d expected and she held her ground.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said as he came within striking range.
“Don’t worry. You won’t.”
Now she moved backward, suddenly on the defensive. “If you leave me in peace, I promise to go straight to my aunt’s house. You won’t see me again.”
He advanced. She retreated.
“I don’t believe you.”
They circled each other now, she brandishing the knife and he with his arms hanging loosely at his sides.
“I cannot take the risk that I will come across you again and lose one of my men to your schemes.”
“Schemes? I do not know that word, but I do not like it.” She was light on her feet, moving just out of reach every time he thought he had a chance to take hold of her.
“You shouldn’t. To be called scheming is not a compliment.”
“You insult me? Then I shall do likewise, old man.”
His brows shot up. Old? At forty he was in better shape than most of the youths he commanded. And he had the wisdom to complement the strength. Yet the insult stung. He was not as young as he had been.
“Old, am I? I will show you exactly how old and feeble I am.” He reversed directions, taking her off guard. As he’d expected, she swung the knife at him. He ducked and moved agilely behind her, kicking her feet out from
under her. He’d expected her to go down with a thud, but at the last moment she rolled.
She lost the knife. It thumped on the rocky ground between them, and Benedict reached out with the toe of his boot and flipped the knife into his hand.
She gasped. “How did you—”
And then she must have realized he had her knife and she stood defenseless. She whirled and started to run, but she had to skirt some of the larger rocks and he easily caught up to her and grasped her around her slender waist.
She fought him, kicking and attempting to bite through the thick wool of his coat. With a curse, he sheathed the dagger and struggled to hold her still. Leaning close to speak in her ear, where he knew she could hear him, he said low, “Do not make me tie you up again.”
She stilled then, and Benedict noted several details, all of them quite unwillingly. Firstly, she smelled irresistible. He could not describe it, but later when he was in a market in Spain, he would think her scent akin to the mixture of cinnamon and cloves. She was rich and mysterious and he could have breathed her in all night.
Secondly, she was not quite so small and slender as he had thought. Beneath the modest peasant clothing, her body was rounded, firm, and lush. He had to resist the urge to run his hands over the bounty of her flesh.
Thirdly, she was terrified. This last point made acting the gentleman a good deal easier. He would never have known it from her behavior, but touching her, he could feel how she trembled and shook. He considered that it might be out of anger or from the cool night air, but Benedict could not believe that even a hardened soldier would not have felt some fear in her position.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said. He didn’t know why he said the words. He did not want to comfort her. He wanted to throttle her. But though his brain told his arms to release her, his arms had ideas of their own.
“Then let me go,” she said, finally stilling, though still tense in his embrace. He could not see her face, but he could imagine the pleading in the large brown eyes and the determined set of her full mouth.