by Mary Balogh
“And I,” she said. “The ceiling might fall upon my head.” She looked up, and his eyes followed hers despite himself. “Death will come, Robert, whether in the next moment or sixty years from now. In the meantime, there is life to be lived—and love to be loved.”
He closed his eyes and lowered his head until his forehead touched hers. “Joana,” he said, “this is madness. There must be arguments I can use. There must be thousands of them. I have nothing to offer you.”
“Stupid words,” she said. “Oh, imbecile. You have love to offer and yourself to offer. You once told me that you would give the woman you loved a cluster of stars and the sunrise. Give me those stars, then, and give me that sunrise and I will be more happy than I have words to express. Give me the sunrises, Robert, all of them, every day of our lives, until there is only a sunset left. And then we will remember that we did not waste a single moment of the single life that we each have—or of the two lives we shared.”
“Joana,” he said, and there was longing in his voice, and agony.
“I know you are trying to find the words to send me away,” she said. “But you cannot do that, Robert. You do not have the authority. I have made my decision, and I have told you what it is. There is only your own decision to make. In what capacity do you want me? That is all you have to decide. I am not going away.”
He inhaled deeply and drew her into his arms. He held her head against his chest and turned his cheek to rest against it. “Very well, then,” he said, and he drew a deep breath before continuing. “We’ll marry. I’ll sell out. I am not as penniless as you may think me, you know. My father died recently and he left me property and a considerable fortune. You can live the life of an English lady, even though I will never be quite an English gentleman. You can have your dream and me both, Joana, if you are sure that is what you want.”
She jerked back her head and glared up at him. “Dolt!” she said. “Fool! I will not accept you on such terms. How stupid you are. I want you as you are, as I fell in love with you. Do you think I would be happy if you gave up everything that makes you who you are and everything that gives your life meaning and happiness?”
“You make me happy,” he said.
“Oh, yes,” she said scornfully. “And being with me can make up for everything that you would give up? How foolish you are, Robert. For we are very different in that one way, you know. You would have to give up a great deal, while I give up nothing except that ridiculous title and all those tedious white gowns and all the other things that mean nothing to me.” She smiled brightly at him suddenly. “But how I love you for being willing to do such a foolish thing. Is there a preacher to marry us, then, or is it to be a life of sin?”
“God,” he said, “I love you. How you tempt me, Joana.”
“My mother should have named me Eve,” she said. “Is there a preacher?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Can we afford a servant?” she asked him. “I am afraid I will starve you if we can’t, Robert.”
“Wives of officers are not expected to do for themselves,” he said. “Of course we will afford a servant.”
“Oh, good,” she said, smiling. “It is all settled, then?”
He gazed at her for a long moment. “Am I being given a choice?” he asked.
“Only if you can tell me that you really do not want me and really do not love me,” she said. “But you cannot do either, can you?”
“No,” he said.
“Then you have no choice,” she said. “Are you going to take me to bed? Since I have no dinner to offer you, I had better offer myself instead. Is it a good-enough meal to compensate you for a lost dinner?”
“Hush, Joana.” He lowered his head to hers and kissed her lingeringly. “My mind is befuddled. There must still be nine hundred and ninety-nine arguments, but I cannot think of a single one of them. I suppose you are manipulating me as you have always done?”
“Yes.” She smiled up at him. “But you are without a doubt the most difficult man to manipulate I have ever known, Robert. Take me to bed and let me love you witless. Otherwise, you are going to think of some of those stupid arguments, and I shall have to think of new wiles to convince you. I don’t want to use wiles. I want to love you.”
He sighed, then looked down into her eager face and somewhat anxious dark eyes and smiled slowly. “I suppose we will always fight, won’t we?” he said. “Every day of our lives? Because I will always insist on being the man, Joana. I give you fair warning.”
She lowered her lashes and peeped up at him from beneath them. “Good,” she said, “because I will always insist on being the woman. I give you fair warning.”
“This, for example,” he said. “This is my job, not yours. Joana, will you do me the honor of marrying me?”
She gazed up into his eyes and her own grew luminous as she circled his neck with her arms. She bit her lower lip and surprised both him and herself when her eyes filled with sudden tears.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes, please, Robert.”
He cupped her face in his hands and brushed two tears away with his thumbs. “Tomorrow,” he said, “I will find someone to marry us. Tomorrow. In the meantime, there is no dinner, is there?”
She shook her head.
“What did you offer as an alternative?” he asked, lowering his head to touch his lips lightly to hers.
She laughed, her laughter all mixed up with a sob. “I’ll make you forget that you are hungry,” she said. “I will, Robert. All night long. I promise.”
“And you,” he said, touching his forehead to hers again. “Are you hungry?”
“Ravenous,” she said. “You are going to have to feed me, Robert.”
“All night long?” he asked.
“All night long.”
“And then at the end of it,” he said, “I have something to give you.”
“What?” she asked as he stooped down to lift her into his arms.
“The sunrise,” he said. “And everything that is beyond it.”
“Oh.” She hid her face against his neck as he carried her through to his—their—bedchamber. “Robert, I do love you so. I do. I wish there were words to say it. Oh, I wish there were.”
He set her down on the bed and leaned over her, smiling fully and warmly down at her. “But then,” he said, “who needs words?”
She smiled back and reached up her arms for him.
Historical Note
I HAVE tried to keep as closely as possible to history in my description of the events leading up to and including the French advance into Portugal in the summer of 1810—the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, the Battle of Bussaco, and the allied retreat behind the Lines of Torres Vedras.
The existence of the Lines really was one of the best-kept secrets in military history. Very few even of Wellington’s senior officers knew of their existence before the army arrived at Torres Vedras and found itself suddenly and unexpectedly safe from French pursuit. There is no historical evidence that the French had any idea at all of the existence of the Lines. That is my invention.
I have taken two other deliberate liberties with history, neither very serious, I hope. First, the Convent of Bussaco was in reality lived in by monks, not by nuns, as in my story. Second, the French paused for several days before the Battle of Bussaco at Mortagoa, not at Viseu. It was more convenient for my plot to make the change.
Any other errors of historical fact are unintentional.
Read on for a look at the next book
in the Survivors’ Club series,
Only a Promise
by Mary Balogh
Available from Signet in May 2015.
THERE could surely be nothing worse than having been born a woman, Chloe Muirhead thought with unabashed self-pity as she sucked a globule of blood off her left forefinger and looked to see i
f any more was about to bubble up and threaten to ruin the strip of delicate lace she was sewing back onto one of the Duchess of Worthingham’s best afternoon caps. Unless, perhaps, one had the good fortune to be a duchess. Or else a single lady in possession of forty thousand pounds a year and the freedom to set up one’s own independent establishment.
She, alas, was not a duchess. Or in sole possession of even forty pence a year apart from her allowance from her father. Besides, she did not want to set up somewhere independently. It sounded suspiciously lonely. She could not really claim to be lonely now. The duchess was kind to her. So was the duke, in his gruff way. And whenever her grace entertained afternoon visitors or went visiting herself, she always invited Chloe to join her.
It was not the duchess’s fault that she was eighty-two years old to Chloe’s twenty-seven. Or that the neighbors with whom she consorted most frequently must all have been upward of sixty. In some cases they were very much upward. Mrs. Booth, for example, who always carried a large ear trumpet and let out a loud, querulous “Eh?” every time someone so much as opened her mouth to speak, was ninety-three.
If she had been born male, Chloe thought, rubbing her thumb briskly over her forefinger to make sure the bleeding had stopped and it was safe to pick up her needle again, she might have done all sorts of interesting, adventurous things when she had felt it imperative to leave home. As it was, all she had been able to think of to do was write to the Duchess of Worthingham, who was her mother’s godmother and had been her late grandmother’s dearest friend, and offer her services as a companion. An unpaid companion, she had been careful to explain.
A kind and gracious letter had come back within days, as well as a sealed note for Chloe’s father. The duchess would be delighted to welcome dear Chloe to Manville Court, but as a guest, NOT as an employee—the not had been capitalized and heavily underlined. And Chloe might stay as long as she wished—forever, if the duchess had her way. She could not think of anything more delightful than to have someone young to brighten her days and make her feel young again. She only hoped Sir Kevin Muirhead could spare his daughter for a prolonged visit. She showed wonderful tact in adding that, of course, as she had in writing separately to him, for Chloe had explained in her own letter just why living at home had become intolerable to her, at least for a while, much as she loved her father and hated to upset him.
So she had come. She would be forever grateful to the duchess, who treated her more like a favored granddaughter than a virtual stranger and basically self-invited guest. But oh, she was lonely too. One could be lonely and unhappy while being grateful at the same time, could one not?
And, ah, yes. She was unhappy too.
Her world had been turned completely upside down twice within the past six years, which ought to have meant if life proceeded along logical lines, as it most certainly did not, that the second time it was turned right side up again. She had lost everything any young woman could ever ask for the first time—hopes and dreams, the promise of love and marriage and happily-ever-after, the prospect of security and her own place in society. Hope had revived last year, though in a more muted and modest form. But that had been dashed too, and her very identity had hung in the balance. In the four years between the two disasters, her mother had died. Was it any wonder she was unhappy?
She gave the delicate needlework her full attention again. If she allowed herself to wallow in self-pity, she would be in danger of becoming one of those habitual moaners and complainers everyone avoided.
It was still only very early in May. A largish mass of clouds covered the sun and did not look as if it planned to move off anytime soon, and a brisk breeze was gusting along the east side of the house, directly across the terrace outside the morning room, where Chloe sat sewing. It had not been a sensible idea to come outside, but it had rained quite unrelentingly for the past three days, and she had been desperate to escape the confines of the house and breathe in some fresh air.
She ought to have brought her shawl out with her, even her cloak and gloves, she thought, though then of course she would not have been able to sew, and she had promised to have the cap ready before the duchess awoke from her afternoon sleep. Dratted cap and dratted lace. But that was quite unfair, for she had volunteered to do it even when the duchess had made a mild protest.
“Are you quite sure it will be no trouble, my dear?” she had asked. “Bunker is perfectly competent with a needle.”
Miss Bunker was her personal maid.
“Of course I am,” Chloe had assured her. “It will be my pleasure.”
The duchess always had that effect upon her. For all the obvious sincerity of her welcome and kindness of her manner, Chloe felt the obligation, if not to earn her living, then at least to make herself useful whenever she was able.
She was shivering by the time she had completed her task and cut the thread with fingers that felt stiff from the cold. She held out the cap, draped over her right fist. The stitches were invisible. No one would be able to tell that a repair had been made.
She did not want to go back inside, despite the cold. The duchess would probably be up from her sleep and would be in the drawing room bright with happy anticipation of the expected arrival of her grandson. She would be eager to extol his many virtues yet again though he had not been to Manville since Christmas. Chloe was tired of hearing of his virtues. She doubted he had any.
Not that she had ever met him in person to judge for herself, it was true. But she did know him by reputation. He and her brother, Graham, had been at school together. Ralph Stockwood, who had since assumed his father’s courtesy title of Earl of Berwick, had been a charismatic leader there. He had been liked and admired and emulated by almost all the other boys, even though he had also been one of a close-knit group of four handsome, athletic, clever boys. Graham had spoken critically and disapprovingly of Ralph Stockwood, though Chloe had always suspected that he envied that favored inner circle.
After school, the four friends all took up commissions in the same prestigious cavalry regiment and went off to the Peninsula to fight the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte while Graham went to Oxford to study theology and become a clergyman. He had arrived home from the final term at school upset because Ralph Stockwood had called him a sniveling prig and lily-livered coward. Chloe did not know the context in which the insult had been hurled, but she had not felt kindly disposed toward Graham’s erstwhile schoolmate ever since. And she never had liked the sound of him. She did not like boys, or men, who lorded it arrogantly over others and accepted their homage as a right.
Not many months after they had embarked for the Peninsula, Lieutenant Stockwood’s three friends had been killed in the same battle, and he had been carried off the field and then home to England so severely wounded that he had not been expected to survive.
Chloe had felt sorry for him at the time, but her sympathies had soon been alienated again. Graham, in his capacity as a clergyman, had called upon him in London a day or two after he had been brought home from Portugal. Graham had been admitted to the sickroom, but the wounded man had sworn foully at him and ordered him to get out and never come back.
Chloe did not expect to like the Earl of Berwick, then, even if he was the Duke of Worthingham’s heir and the duchess’s beloved only grandson. She had not forgiven his description of her brother as a lily-livered coward. Graham was a pacifist. That did not make him a coward. Indeed, it took a great deal of courage to stand up for peace against men who were in love with war. And she had not forgiven the earl for cursing Graham after he had been injured without even listening to what he had come to say. The fact that he had undoubtedly been in great pain at the time did not excuse such rudeness to an old school friend. She had decided long ago that the earl was brash, arrogant, self-centered, even heartless.
And he was on his way to Manville Court. He was coming at the duchess’s behest, it must be added, not because he had chosen of
his own free will to visit the grandparents who doted on him. Chloe suspected that the summons had something to do with the duke’s health, which had been causing her grace some concern for the past couple of months. She fancied that he was coughing more than usual and that his habit of covering his heart with one hand when he did so was a bad sign. He did not complain of feeling unwell—not, at least, in Chloe’s hearing—and he saw his physician only when the duchess insisted. Afterward, he had called the doctor an old quack who knew no better than to prescribe pills and potions that served only to make the duke feel ill.
Chloe did not know what the true state of his health was, but she did know that he had celebrated his eighty-fifth birthday last autumn, and eighty-five was an awfully advanced age to be.
However it was, the Earl of Berwick had been summoned and he was expected today. Chloe did not want to meet him. She knew she would not like him. More important, perhaps, she admitted reluctantly to herself, she did not want him to meet her, a sort of charity guest of his grandmother’s, an aging twenty-seven-year-old spinster with a doubtful reputation and no prospects. A pathetic creature, in fact.
But the thought finally triggered laughter—at her own expense. She had whipped herself into a thoroughly cross and disagreeable mood, and it just would not do. She got determinedly to her feet. She must go up to her room without delay and change her dress and make sure her hair was tidy. She might be a poor aging spinster with no prospects, but there was no point in being an abject one who was worthy only of pity or scorn. That would be too excruciatingly humiliating.
She hurried on her way upstairs, shaking herself free of the self-pity in which she had languished for too long. Goodness, if she hated her life so much, then it was high time she did something about it. The only question was what? Was there anything she could do? A woman had so few options. Sometimes, indeed, it seemed she had none at all, especially when she had a past, even if she was in no way to blame for any of it.