The Sometime Bride

by Blair Bancroft

  “I thought you might be. ”Thomas maintained a commendable calm in the face of rising excitement. It was possible he had found someone capable of learning all he could teach him. “Are we agreed then? I’ll find you a position here at the Casa. Anything else I ask you to do will be decided as we go along.” Agreement was instantaneous, the young man’s eyes lighting with enthusiasm. “You’d best give me a name so I’ll know what to call you,” Thomas added.

  An arrested expression crossed the young Englishman’s face. “I call myself Blas, Sir. Just Blas. I’m afraid my real name’s a bit of a problem. It’s my only condition, sir—that no one ever ask me my name or where I come from. You see”—he paused, momentarily betraying a strong discomfort—”my father doesn’t know I’m here. And if he should find out . . . well, he’s not above having me brought back by force.”

  “Shall I be taken up for kidnapping?” Thomas asked, arching an inquiring brow.

  “I’ve reached my majority, Sir. The only one in danger is myself.” The two men measured each other in silence. Thomas Audley would have agreed to a pact with the devil himself to keep the boy in Portugal. A curt nod of his head sealed the bargain.

  “Shall I choose a Portuguese name?” Blas inquired.

  “Spanish, I should think,” Thomas returned after a moment’s consideration. “We’ll discuss it in the morning. It’s time I set up the faro bank. You’ve met Marcio Cardoso? Good. Tell him you are to have food and a bed.”

  As Thomas Audley rose from his desk, Blas jumped to his feet. He thrust out his hand. The older man allowed some warmth to color his voice as he said, “Welcome to my house, young Blas.”

  Blas. Catarina savored the name. Blas. Very much pleased with the outcome of the conversation, she wiggled her way out of the closet, straightened her hair and clothing and walked lightly across the room. Her timing was poor. As she opened the door, a whirlwind grabbed her, propelling her back into the room. The door was slammed firmly shut behind her.

  “What are you doing here?” Blas demanded, amber eyes ablaze. His grip on her arm was so tight tears sprang to her eyes. In all her fourteen years Catarina had never had cause to fear physical violence. Nearly speechless, she stared at the grim face hovering over her.

  No! She would not let him intimidate her! She stopped struggling, straightened to her full height, only to find he still towered over her by at least six inches. “I am Catherine Audley,” she informed him with supreme dignity. In English. “My father owns the Casa Audley. I have been in charge of his household since I was ten. This is my workroom where I prepare menus, keep the accounts, consult with the housekeeper. It is you who are the intruder here, not I.”

  “Daughters of the house don’t wield feather dusters,” he countered with considerable truculence. In truth, the girl’s precise, upper class English, only faintly overlaid with the musical cadence of the Iberian peninsula, had already warned him she was likely telling the truth.

  “They do if they have a Dona Felipa for a governanta,” said Catarina with some bitterness. “Shall I ring for someone to tell you exactly who I am?”

  She winced, and Blas realized he was still holding her in a grip of iron. “I’m sorry,” he apologized, releasing her, “but if you hadn’t been listening to every word between your father and myself, you would scarcely have spoken to me in English, now would you?”

  Fairly caught, Catarina scowled up at him. “My father’s business is a dangerous one, but it is not a secret from me. So listening is only a very little dishonest, you understand?”

  “It’s damned dangerous!” the young man snapped. “Knowing too much always is. You’re to stop it this instant!”

  “And who are you to tell me what to do?” In spite of her fear that her father might hear them, Catarina’s voice rose alarmingly.

  “I’m . . . “ The young Englishman’s voice trailed away as he realized he was nameless, a nobody, his power and authority far less than that of the very young female confronting him. “For the moment,” he conceded, making a deliberate effort to shock her, “I’m Blas the Bastard, the Spanish ox-cart driver. And you are correct, I have absolutely no right to question your conduct.”

  Now that his temper had cooled, Blas examined Thomas Audley’s daughter with the appreciation of a connoisseur. He found women delightful. A welcome and necessary part of his life. But this one was beyond delightful. Young as she was, she took his breath away.

  Long waves of red gold hair framed a heart-shaped face of classic beauty. Sparks shot from large green eyes set under long lashes so dark he rather thought she must have been into the paint pot. Her nose, a bit larger than one might expect in a face of such porcelain fragility, merely added character to the perfection of her face. Women matured early in Spain and Portugal, and this one seemed to be caught in the flow of the world around her, teetering on the brink between the child on the balcony and the dignified daughter of the house. He wouldn’t mind being around when she fell into womanhood. That alone might be worth his long hazardous journey from England to Portugal by way of France and Spain.

  Blas gifted her with the slow, easy, infinitely enigmatic smile which had been intriguing women since he was little older than she. He was offering a truce. But not without having the last word. It was, after all, necessary to his twenty-one-year-old self-esteem. “The French could be here any time now, young Catherine, and knowing anything at all about Thomas Audley and his business could mean your death. We must all learn to be more cautious.”

  With the tip of his fingers he touched her chin, running his thumb lightly over her lips. “Keep that lovely mouth shut, child. And your ears away from knotholes. It would be a shame to lose so much beauty while still in bud.”

  Reduced to speechless idiocy by sensations far beyond her realm of experience, Catarina darted around him and ran for the door, leaving Blas with a very thoughtful look on his angular bronzed face.

  In the course of the next five days not even the youngest stable boy was left unaware that the little senhorita was enamored with the young Spaniard who spent so much time talking to Senhor Tomás. It was understood, naturalamente, that he was not truly Spanish, for the Senhor would never hire one of the enemy to work at the Casa. So he must be one of the fine English gentlemen who would save them from the Corsican monster.

  A proper match for their young mistress, all agreed. At fourteen she was of an age to be married. It was not good to leave such succulent fruit too long on the vine. Sin hovered over the Casa Audley. Such temptation was too much for a man to bear. And the English cavalheiro did not appear to be a saint. To be sure, he had not greased the wheels of his cart—had they not all heard the squeal as he approached? But the devil was strong in this one, and possibly the screaming of the wheels had not been enough to frighten the demons away. Heads shook from the kitchen to the stables. Senhor Tomás would have to have a care with this one.

  Catarina, blissfully oblivious to the avid interest of her father’s staff, had managed to contrive a half dozen accidental meetings with her hero. She had even been allowed to participate in the choosing of a proper name for her father’s new protégé. Yet for all her effort, her conversations with Blas had been cool and stilted, his manner faintly condescending. A stranger might have taken him for a candidate for holy orders. For Thomas Audley had indeed taken a care, revealing with a notable lack of subtlety his daughter’s precise age and her exalted position in the household. A position which placed her far above an anonymous spy, no matter how bright and talented he might be. As a result, Catarina’s temperament had deteriorated from besotted to hurt to vast indignation. As her anger increased, Blas—who was far from accustomed to being warned off—grew colder. It might be said his attempt to please Thomas Audley had resulted in a fit of the sullens.

  None of which, fortunately, were apparent the night he made his debut in the gaming rooms.

  Catarina was waiting for him, tucked up in her favorite hidey-hole. Red velvet draperies enclosed a minstrel’s
gallery which overlooked the largest of the Casa’s gaming rooms. An affectation from another age, the gallery had been included for sentiment’s sake when the house was rebuilt, as was most of Lisbon, after the disastrous earthquake of 1755.

  By the time Caterina was ten, her surreptitious use of the minstrel’s gallery had become an open secret. If Thomas Audley had been a more conventional father, that might have been the end of it. But he was heard to say that anything his Cat might learn from her perch in the small gallery could only be of use to a female attempting to survive in a wicked male world. So leave her alone. Soon enough she would be called upon to take her place in the gamble of life. She might as well know what to expect.

  For the last two years Catarina had been allowed to play hostess, upon occasion, in the gaming rooms. But now, this night, when she so wanted to be present, Papa had told her to stay away. Hovering over the poor boy would make him nervous. Nervous, indeed! Cat fumed. Blas had the hide of an ox and ice water in his veins.

  The Casa Audley was a quadrangle occupying a full square block in one of Lisbon’s better neighborhoods. Its two-story stucco walls, punctuated by balconies on the street side, rose directly from the narrow sidewalks. On the inside, the casa’s rooms were built around a central courtyard, with a staircase to the upper story at each of the four corners. A covered walkway at ground level and a roofed gallery above provided access to each room. At the rear of the quadrangle were the stables and storage areas, with rooms for the male servants above.

  The Casa’s entrance hall, tiled in an intricate pattern of Moorish azulejos in turquoise, white, and black, provided a striking welcome to the Casa Audley. Its walls were hung with pictorial Moorish rugs, and a small two-tiered marble fountain, elaborately decorated with sea creatures, greeted visitors with a continuous tinkling of soothing sound. The gaming rooms, three on each side of the entrance hall, were as finely decorated. Indeed, many of the locals—Portuguese, Spanish, and English—considered the Casa Audley more of a gentile club than a gaming establishment.

  If the two strong, brightly uniformed young Portuguese at the door recognized the young Spanish dandy who sounded the knocker, they gave no indication. He was, however, admitted without demur. The Spaniard paused just inside the impeccably decorated room to the left of the hall and surveyed it with a look compounded of mild curiosity and a soupçon of disdain. He, Don Alexis Perez de Leon, had seen better establishments in Madrid and Barcelona . . . and possibly Paris. In actuality, he was wishing that quizzing glasses were in fashion in this part of the world.

  Not too arrogant, Thomas Audley had warned. At the moment Spain is the enemy and we don’t need hot words. Be gracious. Blend. You are charming . . . only reasonably intelligent. Don’t win too much money. No clever remarks, no peeking down the wrong bosoms. Wait ‘til I tell you which ones are fair game. With such instructions, what fun could a young man have? Obviously, spying was not as glamorous as he had hoped.

  Catarina widened the gap in the red velvet draperies and stared, awed by the transformation. Almost every trace of the scurrilous singer of bawdy ballads was gone. Blas’s strangely pale face was surrounded by gently waving short black curls which gleamed in the light of the multi-faceted chandeliers. Folds of white lace fell from his neck nearly to his waist and were framed by a short black velvet jacket decorated down the front edges with a row of modest-sized mother-of-pearl buttons. Lace ruffles flowed from the cuffs of his shirt, falling gracefully over his fingers. His tight-fitting black velvet breeches were also decorated with shining pearl buttons down the sides. His broad satin waistband was black, as were his knee-high silk leggings. On his left hand gleamed two ornate gold rings. A diamond winked from among the lacy layers of his jabot.

  And it was not just the clothes, Cat realized. Everything about her hero had changed. He seemed smaller. Lithe and graceful. A man who had never thought of doing something so menial as hefting a cask of wine. The bold carter who had bowed to her from the ox cart had been replaced by a pleasant, somewhat supercilious hidalgo of Spain who might possibly be regarding his Portuguese neighbors as some sort of backward poor relations. Then again, the Portuguese fidalgos and the many foreigners present were all the society there was, so it behooved him to make the best of it. An infinitesimal shrug of his shoulders, and Blas moved into the crowded room, watching the play at the various tables, nodding occasionally to those who caught his eye. How he conveyed so much without saying a word Catarina could not imagine, but he had done it. She pushed the drapery a bit farther out, peeked at her father who was holding the faro bank at a table on her right. Thomas was blandly returning his eyes to his card box, but Catarina was quite sure she caught a quirk of satisfaction on his lips.

  Blas passed through the largest gaming room, which was devoted to faro tables and two of the new roulette wheels, imported from France. He listened politely to the click of dice in a room where hazard was featured, paused to observe the action at the vingt-et-un tables, an ancient game not much seen in London’s clubs. The smallest of the six gaming rooms was set up for intimate games of piquet with a few tables occupied by elderly Portuguese gentlemen playing the card games of their youth.

  Deciding to indulge in what he knew best, Blas returned to the faro salon and joined the group at a table where the major domo of the Casa Audley, Lucio Cardoso, presided over a less expensive bank than Thomas Audley’s. Although Blas was loathe to admit it, he felt more comfortable initiating his masquerade under the aegis of Marcio’s father than under the eagle eye of his mentor, Thomas.

  Catherine’s arm grew stiff from holding her peephole open, but she never took her eyes off Blas. When he finally scooped up his winnings and stepped out into the courtyard, she hurriedly vacated the tiny gallery, flying down the wrought iron stairs into the courtyard. He was seated on one of the curved marble benches by the softly tinkling fountain, smoking a pungent cigarillo, patently enjoying the quiet courtyard and the cool night air.

  “Curling tongs?” Catarina challenged, poised before him, a picture of demure innocence as she clutched her shawl high around her neck.

  Flaunting her innocence was how Blas saw it. “Boa noite, senhorita Audley,” he replied without a hint of expression, adding somewhat succinctly, “Natural. I have to use oil to keep it straight.”

  “And your face?”

  “Lemon juice and a dusting of powder.”

  She nodded her approval. He was a worthy addition to her father’s stable of spies. And strangely handsome with the irregular planes of his face softened by moonlight and the faint red glow of his cigarillo. The mist from the fountain blended with the smell of earth still warm from the afternoon sun and the courtyard flowers whose blooms lingered through the gentle Lisboan autumn.

  Catarina was too young to know any other word for what she felt but love. He was strong and brilliant, gifted beyond any other she had ever known. She could no more have left him sitting there alone than she could have drowned herself in the Tagus. Still clutching her shawl high under her chin, all trace of the proud daughter of the house swept away by shy awakening, she lowered herself onto a scant few inches of marble at the far end of the bench.

  With some vehemence Blas threw his cigarillo onto the tiled walkway and ground it under his heel. Hell and the devil! Why must the most beautiful woman in Portugal be fourteen years old? And his employer’s daughter, to boot. Since coming to Lisbon, he could have had a different woman each night. Had had . . . almost. So why in the name of all that was holy did he have to want this one? This was not the kind of chit a man played with. Definitely not. Even sitting with her in the moonlight was compromising. No need to touch. In the strict culture of the Iberian peninsula his unchaperoneed presence was enough to see the knot tied. His choice, if caught? Parson’s mousetrap or pistols at dawn.

  Abruptly, Blas stood, sketching a bow while making a supreme effort not to look at the pale heart-shaped face looking up at him so appealingly. Nor at the great green eyes shining with adoration in the m
oonlight. “For God’s sake, go to bed!” he growled. And what a singularly inappropriate remark, you dolt! With a show of stern indifference Blas the Bastard scowled as Catarina took herself off across the courtyard and climbed the outside staircase to the gallery above. She walked with immense dignity, a queen on her way to the guillotine.

  When Catarina reached the door to her room, desire triumphed over dignity. She turned and looked down toward the fountain. He was still standing there, bathed in moonlight, like the statue of some ancient Greek God. Heart pounding, she bolted into her room, slamming the door behind her.

  The next day Catarina shut herself up in her room and read Romeo and Juliet from cover to cover. Since Thomas Audley would not allow a copy of Thomas Bowlder’s A Family Shakespeare to disgrace his house, Catarina read the play as William Shakespeare wrote it, blushing mightily over passages which had quite escaped her when she first read it at the age of twelve. If only Dona Felipa were more like Juliette’s nurse! Then again, for all its grand romance, the silly twits managed things rather badly. Blas would never have made such a mull of it.

  Chapter Two

  Catarina glared at her image in the mirror. Untying the drawstring on the front of her peasant-style blouse, she tugged at the gauzy fabric until the neckline drooped far enough to reveal an expanse of budding young bosom. Cat cocked her head to one side. No . . . perhaps not, she conceded. It was highly likely Blas would only laugh. And, deus me livre, if her father should see her! Reluctantly Cat tightened the strings until the neckline was only a scant two inches lower than approved by Dona Felipa.

  She lifted the hem of her full black skirt, smiling in satisfaction at the many layers of brightly colored petticoats beneath. Sucking in her breath, Catarina tightened her gold satin sash another half inch before draping a black shawl, colorfully embroidered with flowers of gold, red and purple, around her shoulders. One more look in the mirror. She rubbed her lips together to enhance their color, angled her head to make sure her long dangling earrings were not tangled. With a satisfied shake of the bracelets on her arm, Cat left her room, descending the gallery staircase to the courtyard where Blas was waiting.