Stripping off his clothes, Blas made his way to the basin and pitcher. When he was satisfied he was reasonably presentable, he slid into bed beside his wife. She smelled of lavender and roses. Of woman. Of all his dreams and fears. She came awake and pounced on him before he had time to so much as nuzzle her ear. Months of pent-up passion whirled into a maelstrom of desire, and they plunged into a mystical fantasy world of love and delight. With no thought but to become as close as two people could become as fast as it was possible to do so, each rode the other until exhaustion devoured them. They slept at last.
The pale light of dawn was filtering into the room as Blas came wide awake at the slight murmur which reached him from the bundle still lying on the carpet by the bed. A smile lit his face as he peered over the edge of the bed at the small head sticking out of the cocoon of the blanket. Oh, lord, what would Cat say? Would she think the boy his? That was one of the questions which had haunted him on the long journey home.
Blas turned his attention to the lovely woman sleeping beside him, her glorious hair spread in a halo around her. He had no difficulty picturing her with his own son suckling at her breast, growing strong and proud. And a girl just like her mother. And another boy or two. Two girls surely—such perfection deserved duplication. Soon now . . . soon the damned war would be over. After Vitoria the road to Paris could only be months away. He kissed his wife awake, lowering the eager hands which reached for him back to her sides. “I’ve brought you a present,” he said.
Thomas knew he was dying. He seldom left his room now. The headaches were more frequent, almost unbearable. He was nearly blind. Whether it was God or the devil who forged his life, he had managed to last long enough for the war to pass him by. Intelligence information, troops and supplies now entered Spain from ports to the north. Lisbon, secure in its relegation to a backwater, was no longer the spearhead of the allied army. He had lived to see it through, his work complete. He had trained Blas who had, in turn, trained Tonio, and with Catarina’s help they had made a significant contribution to the final victory which was now in sight.
He had suffered enough. He was ready to go. There was but one last thing he must do. Damned convenient the boy chose this time to come home. Sometimes . . . yes, sometimes it was necessary to be cruel.
Blas had not been home in eight months. When he entered Thomas’s room on the morning after his return, he thought himself prepared by the warnings from Blanca and Cat, but he was mistaken. Thomas’s hair was more silver than blond, his cheeks sunken. There were dark smudges under his eyes; his body was lighter by twenty or thirty pounds. Blas thought life with the guerrilleros had taught him to endure anything. He was wrong. Sickness curled through him, sending stabs of pain from the old scars on his frostbitten toes.
Bloody hell! Thomas should have had at least another quarter century of life. This was the man who had shown him the seamier sides of Lisbon, who knew more ways to charm a woman than Blas had known existed. The man who had offered an unknown boy the opportunity to do something useful with his life, who had given that boy something even more precious—his one and only child. Blas loved this man with a warmth and tenderness he could never feel for his own father no matter how hard he tried.
With his gift for donning any personality, or any of a gamut of emotions, Blas managing a brilliant smile, moved forward to greet his mentor. Twice a day he returned to visit Thomas during the week he spent at the Casa. Stoically, he endured Thomas’s profane and pithy comments on Catarina’s birthday present. By what right did Blas bring home a child? Some bloody French whelp? No matter what the circumstances under which he found him?
Since Blas had had two weeks on the road from Vitoria to marshal his explanations, he talked Thomas round, playing quite outrageously on his sympathies and his love of his daughter. For Catarina was so enchanted with her “gift” that Blas had been shocked to find himself suffering twinges of jealousy over a four-year-old child.
During his remaining visits with Thomas, Blas spiced their talks with laughter and tall tales. Neither mentioned what they actually were thinking. Later, Blas would suppose he should have been prepared for their final conversation. Strangely, he was not. It came out of the blue and nearly destroyed him.
He had come to say goodbye, knowing it was for the last time. Quietly, hugging his emotions to himself, he told Thomas he would be leaving that night.
It was the moment Thomas had been waiting for. “We both know we won’t meet again in this life,” he said without preliminaries.
Blas closed his eyes, swallowed. “Sir,” he murmured, forcing himself to look Thomas directly in the eye.
“I have some final orders for you,” Thomas continued, his voice remarkably deep and steady, the well-remembered voice of authority. “In no more than a month from now I want word to be sent that Don Alejo has been killed. In battle, in a duel, in bed by an outraged husband—I do not care what you choose. Just do it.”
“Why?” Blas breathed, stunned.
“You know I wish Catherine to have a season in London as she should have had long ago.”
“But she is my wife!” Blas’s protest resounded out into the courtyard, but only the pigeons were there to hear him, scattering in a flurry of wings toward the shelter of the eaves.
“I am doing this for both of you,” Thomas declared, his mouth thinned into a grim line, his chin as stubborn as it had been when fighting his way through the maze of French troop movements on the Peninsula. “I placed the pair of you in an untenable position. I was the adult, you both were children. I should have been responsible enough to see what would happen.”
“It was my idea!”
“But I wanted it all,” Thomas continued as if he had not heard the protest. “I wanted to be the master spy, wanted to keep the Casa, wanted to keep my wealth, my reputation, my position with my government, my position in the community. I was greedy. And you and Cat have paid for it.”
“You’re mad,” said Blas flatly. “The whole thing was my idea. I knew what I was doing.”
“Did you?” said Thomas mildly. “I think not.” Their gazes locked, and it was Blas who broke away to stare blindly down at his sturdy black boots.
Thomas sighed. “I am not saying you must give her up. I am only granting each of you the freedom to choose. Cat has never so much as thought of another lover, but we both know that cannot be said of yourself.”
“The others were different, they did not matter.”
“Be quiet,” Thomas ordered, not unkindly. “Catarina must have the opportunity to look at men through new eyes. The opportunity to live in a world not filled from horizon to horizon by Blas the Bastard. Whether you like it or not, it’s going to happen. It is all arranged. I have left my widowed daughter Catherine Elizabeth to the guardianship of Sir Giles Everingham, who, as you may recall, is our superior officer. Our employer, if you will. When I am gone, she will be in Everingham’s care.”
“Like hell she will!”
“You have no choice in the matter.”
“We are married. Truly married. By an Anglican chaplain with the army.”
“If you think I did not know that, you have sadly underestimated my intelligence network. I also know why. If you had not married her, war or no war, I would have killed you.”
Speechless, Blas could only stare at the man in the bed, remembering Thomas as he once was. A very dangerous man.
“I grant that you married her,” said Thomas in a less deadly tone of voice. “But it is Don Alexis Perez de Leon who married her. And he is about to meet his unfortunate demise, making Catarina a widow.”
The logic of it was diabolical. “But she–she’s mine,” Blas stuttered.
“And who are you to claim her?” Thomas taunted. “Arrogance such as yours comes only from those who have never had to accept the word no. Not only does your breeding scream aristocracy, it reeks of heir. A privileged, pampered son of the nobility. Can you honestly tell me you do not have parents who expect you to make
a match far above the daughter of a younger son of a younger son, the child of a gaming house in Portugal?”
“You know I cannot.” His voice low, mortally wounded.
“Was she to be your mistress then?”
“No!” It was a problem he had put from his mind, refusing to deal with it until he must.
“This separation does not have to be forever,” Thomas said, far from indifferent to the suffering he was causing. God knew he loved the boy as if he were his own. “If you wish to court her, you will know where to find her.”
Blas ran his fingers through his hair, tousling the waves of black. Before the well-known gesture could soften his determination, Thomas added, “I will have your promise, Blas. You will not deny me this last request.”
“I was wrong,” said Blas, his eyes gone hard. “It is you who is the bastard, Thomas.”
Thomas allowed himself a grin. He knew when he had won. “Your promise,” he repeated.
Blas stood, looking down at the dying man. Perhaps leaving in anger was the better way. It was becoming more and more difficult to ignore his emotions, as demanded by his British heritage. “You are not, surely, forbidding me to explain to Cat what you are doing?” Blas inquired, his face the epitome of aristocratic arrogance.
“Not at all,” said Thomas airily. “If you think you know,” he added kindly. And in a sterner tone, “Your promise, boy. Now.”
“You know bloody well you have it,” Blas grated. “And be damned to you.”
“Undoubtedly.”
Oh, God. Blas fell on his knees beside the bed, buried his face in Thomas’s outstretched hand. He had not cried since he was eight.
Perhaps the Iberians had the right of it. Hot tears scalded away grief more thoroughly than icy reticence.
“Of course I am not going to London,” said Cat when Blas told her. “Leave Papa? Do not be absurd.”
Blas drew a deep breath, captured her hands in his. “Catarina, Thomas is talking about after he is gone. You know he is dying. I have seen it in your face. In Blanca’s. He is only doing what he believes is best for you.”
Cat buried her crumpling face into the hard wall of his chest, clinging desperately to the vibrant life of him. No words came.
“Do as he asks, Cat. Take Blanca and the boy with you. I promise you money will not be a problem. Because of Thomas I cannot beg you to wait for me. I can only tell you I will come to you there. I swear it.”
She allowed herself to be comforted. In many ways it was little different from the last seven years. Blas was going back to war. She would be there when he returned. Even if there were far, far away in a land she had never seen.
But neither of them had credited Thomas with the full extent of the Machiavellian plans he had been polishing for years. If these two young people were truly intended for each other, they would have to work at it. Marriage was easy. Staying married another matter entirely.
On the morning following Blas’s departure, Thomas had a talk with his daughter. For years he had used words as bullets, his skill legendary. If his carefully chosen words had a double-meaning, Catarina was too stunned to recognize it.
With careful cunning Thomas managed to convey a not-so-nice portrait of his favorite spy. He assured his daughter Blas intended to stand by his commitment to her. But as a woman brought up to understand the code of honor, he knew Catarina would wish to release her husband to the illustrious world into which he had been born. A world far above her. A world in which she would never be accepted. Wartime relationships were transient, after all. No sensible person expected them to last. And he knew his daughter to be intelligent. Sensible. And honorable.
Catarina locked herself in her room and contemplated her shattered life. The imminent loss of the two people she loved most in the world. The loss of the culture into which she had been born. The unknown world into which she was being forced to go.
When she entered the gaming rooms that night, her eyes were bright and hard, her color courtesy of paint. Her mouth was set in a brittle line which curved in a mechanical smile while her eyes remained cold and disdainful of a world which could be so harsh.
Could it be true? That Blas did not want her? That only honor bound him to her? There were all those strange times when he had not wanted her . . .
She could not, would not, believe it. When the war was over, he would come to her as he had said he would. He would come to this other world, to England. He would come.
It might not be marriage he offered, but he would come.
Interim
1813 - The Pyrenees
The rock-walled room was icy cold. Winter had come to the barren, windswept slopes of the high Pyrenees while the dying days of summer still cast warm golden sunlight on the Spanish plains below.
The man bending over a small rude table occasionally put aside his quill pen to flex his stiffening fingers. His chiseled features, sculpted by a craftsman of imperfect skills, glowed amber in the flickering light of the one candle which was precariously perched beside an oversized piece of parchment whose edges flopped over the side of a rickety table. He swore, slapped the paper down as the insistent howling of the mountain wind rose in pitch, penetrating the stone sides of the shepherd’s hut to lift the corners of his precious drawing.
Bloody hell! Blas anchored the paper with one large, skillful hand and shielded the nearly extinguished candle with the other. The gust blew itself out, the candle steadied and glowed into life. He tossed his overly long mane of black hair back off his face and frowned down at his work, his lips curling into a sneer at the ineptitude of his icy fingers. He’d been making maps for how long? Four years? Five? Six years since he had set out on a summer odyssey and traveled the length of enemy France from Calais to the Pyrenees. Then into Spain, and finally to the great port of Lisbon where he had planned to take ship for Greece.
Greece! Blas groaned. One look at Catarina Audley, plus an offer of adventure from her father, and he’d cast the lure of ancient Greece to the four winds. And now, after thousands of miles by mule, ox, horse, and shank’s mare, chasing the length and breadth of Portugal and Spain, he had come full circle, huddled in a hut built into the side of a mountain in the high Pyrenees. He was the forerunner of an army which had just accomplished what no army had been able to do before: push Napoleon Bonaparte’s troops back behind the borders of France.
And to march the British army across the Pyrenees from Spain into France, the Marquess of Wellington needed this particular map which seemed to have a mind of its own, rustling and skittering every time Blas’s quill sought to trace the most delicate lines. He swore with considerable fervor, paused to examine his work.
Before him were the intricate details of a pass, the same pass he had trod through these mountains in another lifetime. Silly young fool that he was. Arrogant idiot, more like! He had ridden a mule train from France into Spain right under the noses of Boney’s troops and thought himself very clever indeed. Napoleon’s Grande Armée as seen through the eyes of a child! His journey had been little more than a boyish prank. He had barely noticed the spectacular mountain scenery as he congratulated himself on outwitting the enemy. Now, five years later, he saw rushing mountain streams as life’s blood for Wellington’s army, a small plateau as a campsite for a division, giant granite outcroppings as cover from the enemy, a ravine as nature’s trap of death . . .
“It is late, querido. Come to bed.” Strong feminine hands moved beneath the straight black hair which fell below his collar and began to knead his shoulders, providing exquisite relief to his tense muscles. Blas closed his eyes, laid down his pen. As he leaned into the sensual comfort of the woman behind him, she basked in the glow of his roughhewn features and wondered, as she often did, how she had been blessed with so powerful and generous a lover.
For a little while only he was hers. His black hair gleamed in the candlelight. His warmly glowing amber eyes were the color of his skin which had been bronzed by years of Iberian sun and wind. A secret
smile touched her lips at the thought of what only she was privileged to know. That the pale color of his most private parts betrayed an origin far to the north of Spain.
Maria Josephina was justifiably proud of her lover. No one who knew Don Blas well ever noticed the irregularity of his face. They saw only a man of towering energy, born to command. His power and quick wit were ruthlessly kept in check behind a façade of nearly blank normality. Don Blas allowed others to see only what he wished them to see.
Though not as tall as some of the fine English officers, Don Blas frequently had to hunch himself into a round-shouldered ball to keep from towering over the other guerrilleros. He was lithe, quick, and strong. A very fine lover. And, oh, so clever. How many times had she laughed behind her hands when the proud angles of his face softened into jelly and his brilliant amber eyes grew dim as he sat stolidly on his mule and pretended not to understand a word of a French soldier’s so very bad Spanish. Oh yes, Don Blas was a man of many faces and many names, though he always called himself—with wide-eyed cheerfulness—Blas the Bastard. A joke, naturalamente. They all knew he was the Son of a Somebody, no one ever doubted it. An hidalgo from Somewhere. Which was why they called him Don Blas. He had long ago given up trying to stop them.
He was, Maria knew, far more than a maker of maps. When the guerrilleros worked with Don Blas, they were doing more than killing the enemy. They were part of a greater force, driving the French dogs forever from Spain. And that was reason enough to do anything he wanted. Including warming his bed. Her lips curved into a smile. A most willing sacrifice, that—making sure that Don Blas was warm and well fed. And comforted.
Maria Josephina leaned forward and brushed her lips down his cheek, her long black hair mixing with his, falling across his sleeveless leather jacket into his lap. Definitely more provocation than even the most dedicated spy could stand. In a blur of movement Blas shoved the rickety table with the precious map to one side, caught the candle and the inkwell before they obliterated his past week’s work, and swept Maria into his lap. Cold forgotten, his mouth searched hers in a sudden furious attempt to blot out this miserable hovel in the midst of nowhere. “Damn it, woman!” he swore in frustration as his hand fought to find the bottom of her many layers of skirts.
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