Fortune's Bride

by Roberta Gellis

  “I don’t know,” Robert said uncertainly, his eyes straying from Esmeralda’s face down her body.

  “There will be many ships going to England now,” Esmeralda murmured softly, running a finger gently over the curves of Robert’s ear.

  She had noticed the movement of his eyes and seen the small changes in expression—a sleepy lowering of the lids, a fulling of the perfect lips—that betrayed the onset of passion in him. Her lips caressed his cheek, nibbled at his chin. Robert’s hand rose, tentatively stroked her shoulder, then slid down toward her breast, pushing her nightgown still lower. Esmeralda slid the arm that had been propping her erect around her husband’s waist and leaned against him for support. She kissed his neck just under the ear, above his high collar. Robert stirred uneasily.

  “But Sir Arthur is leaving tomorrow morning,” he muttered, guilt giving him one last prod.

  “I am sure Sir Arthur would honor his offer to help me at any time,” Esmeralda whispered against Robert’s mouth.

  Robert bent his head to facilitate the meeting of their lips. “I am sure it is wrong for you to stay,” he sighed when the kiss was over, but the words were meaningless, a phrase left over from an idea he had forgotten. Even as he spoke, one hand caressed Esmeralda while the other undid the buttons on his pantaloons.

  Briefly the words hurt Esmeralda, and she wondered whether her long struggle to bind Robert was worthwhile. It seemed, from his reluctance to let her stay, that even his sexual desire for her was not strong enough to make her necessary to him. But he had his boots off by then, and her body was indifferent to the doubts in her mind, for her hands had unbuttoned his coat and shirt. He stood to push off his pants. Esmeralda forgot hurt and doubts. She leaned forward to embrace his hips, to run her lips and tongue over the male beauty displayed.

  Robert groaned softly, then bent so that he could reach around her arms to caress her breasts. Esmeralda shuddered and after a moment uttered a sound deep in her throat. Sliding his hands up to her arms, Robert lifted her so that she could get her legs forward and around him. They fell back together, half on, half off the bed, using the rubbing of their bodies as they wriggled to a safer position and as Robert lodged himself securely as a further stimulus to their excitement.

  Neither knew at that moment whether this would be the last time they were together for the question of Esmeralda’s departure had not really been settled, and that, too, added height and depth to their passion. Both were unusually aware of each other so that every increase of feeling in one sparked an immediate reaction in the other, and Esmeralda’s first cry of bursting pleasure was echoed by Robert’s deep groan as his own culmination came.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Of course, the question of Esmeralda’s departure had been settled. Robert woke barely in time to throw on clothing and rush down to the dock to see Sir Arthur off. It would have been impossible to send Esmeralda to England with nothing but the gown she had prepared for boarding the ship and equally impossible to send all his clothing to England with her. In addition, Robert told himself, it would be ridiculous to annoy the ship’s captain and Sir Arthur by asking them to wait just to exhaust Merry with hurried repacking when there was no emergency. It was true the war was not over, but as Merry had pointed out, there would be no action for several weeks. During that time, many ships would come and go from England, carrying couriers and supplies and probably more men. Merry could leave on any ship.

  When he returned from the dock, to ease his conscience Robert repeated his rationalizations to Esmeralda. She heard him out in silence and then merely repeated in essence—although with far less emotion—what she had said the preceding night. It was not, she assured Robert, enlarging on her theme, that she believed his parents to be monsters, however, to have thrust upon them a daughter-in-law of whom they had never heard and who could not prove her antecedents must be an unpleasant shock. But Robert’s presence at the meeting, owing to their joy at their son’s safe return, would considerably mitigate the shock and make acceptance easier.

  Esmeralda did think of her money, but this was the wrong moment to confess. Robert might not care enough about her fortune to pretend love, but he was not a fool. He would know that such a dowry would ensure her a warm welcome and the kindest consideration from his parents. As uneasy as she was about the secret, she did not dare give Robert any excuse to be rid of her. It seemed to her that, although kindness prevented him from forcing her to leave, he was subtly trying to convince her to do so in every way he could.

  This reflection depressed Esmeralda considerably, but she was a fighter. She had preserved her personality and even achieved most of her purposes against years of pressure from a considerably more unpleasant opponent than Robert. Moreover she was sure that Robert was not deliberately opposed to loving her. There could be no doubt that he enjoyed her body just as much as she enjoyed his. Nor was he ashamed of her or displeased with her company. He far more often brought his friends to their quarters for an evening of talk and cards than went out with them alone. Thus, Esmeralda reasoned, she must simply have failed to ignite a particular spark in Robert.

  Casting about in her mind for what had been lacking in their relationship, Esmeralda realized that Robert had never courted her as most men courted the women they hoped to marry. It was too late to worry about that, but thinking about courtship brought another aspect of difference to her mind. Robert thought of her as generally unattractive and had never faced any competition for her favors as most men did during courtship. And then she remembered the first few days at Figueira when the other ADCs had found her a novelty and had acted toward her with great courtliness. Robert hadn’t liked it. He had been more attentive whenever he noticed it.

  Once the army was on the move and then facing the French in battle, their attention had been diverted, of course. And by the time they had moved into Lisbon, all Robert’s friends were so accustomed to her that they had treated her like a sister, with kindly affection but no awareness of her as a woman. But now there would be a whole new group of men, and there would be balls and rides to places of interest—all sorts of entertainments. Perhaps if she flirted a little, just a little, and got some response… But she was plain. Would she arouse any new interest or would she just make herself ridiculous?

  Esmeralda consulted the mirror on her dressing table. Well, she was no beauty, but she was more attractive than she had been in India, and there she had had partners at a dance or a man to ride beside her on an outing, even though she usually was the last chosen. She had known it was the lack of Englishwomen that provided most of her company, and the same situation existed here in Lisbon. There were several new factors, too.

  First and foremost, she was married now, not a poor girl possibly on the lookout for a husband. Second, her gowns in India had been horrible. Now she was quite fashionably dressed, owing to the fact that Robert had been able to get money and the Lisbon dressmakers had been very eager to oblige. Finally, in India most of her escorts had found her boring, owing to the curb her father had forced her to place on her tongue. Now she was free to say what she liked, and steady application had given her both interest and expertise on the subject that would be of greatest interest to army men.

  Esmeralda sighed. She did not really want to give her precious Robert a moment’s uneasiness, and in addition, it would be a most delicate balancing act. If she were too bold, Robert might send her away because she was embarrassing him, or keep her out of the way of army officers. On the other hand, if she were too delicate, Robert would never notice.

  In this judgment, Esmeralda underrated Robert’s powers of perception. True, his attention was firmly fixed on military matters, but he had been growing increasingly responsive to her moods. Thus, although her eagerness to stay had pleased him, he had sensed her depression, too. His conclusion was that she was really disappointed at having to remain in Portugal with him, but her fear of facing his relatives without his support had been more powerful t
han her desire to go to England. This made him uneasy and stung his conscience so that, without discussing the matter again with Esmeralda, he wrote and announced his marriage to his parents.

  Since Robert still felt unequal to explaining just how Merry had really become his wife after the initial marriage of convenience, and he did not wish to explain the delay between the fact and the letter, he sidestepped all these issues. He told his parents only that he had met Esmeralda Mary Louisa Talbot, a young woman of respectable family, whom he had known previously in India, and had married her. He would explain more fully, he said, when he came home, as the situation was rather too complex for a letter. And in an attempt to accustom himself to the idea of losing her, since he was sure his letter would produce a demand from his mother and father to send his wife to England at once, Robert kept assuring Esmeralda she could go at any time and that his family would be happy to receive her.

  These assurances merely fixed Esmeralda’s intention of making Robert jealous if she could, and over the next few weeks, while Dalrymple’s heavy hand lay over all military activity, she pursued this purpose. There was plenty of opportunity. All conversation might be directed to some aspect of the future—or nonfuture—of the war, but such mournful considerations did not deter the officers from enjoying to the full the amenities of Lisbon. Moreover, although the Portuguese were distressed and angered by the Convention of Cintra, they were also grateful to be rid of the French. In any case, they did not blame the English as a whole, and well-born officers were flooded with invitations to balls and suppers.

  Esmeralda was careful, but soon Robert could hardly obtain a dance with his wife because her ball card was filled so quickly. As she had foreseen, the combination of a lack of Englishwomen and her deep interest in military affairs made her an enormous favorite with all British officers, especially Sir John’s staff, to whom she was a novelty. Eventually she even became a favorite with Sir John himself, who had not originally been too happy when Robert informed him that he was married and his wife was following the drum.

  Somehow Esmeralda managed to convince Sir John that, to a woman raised in India, the hardship endured by an officer’s wife, particularly the wife of a staff officer, was minimal and that there was no need to feel uneasy about her comfort or safety. He found her so easy and delightful a companion, so eager a listener on any aspect of military life he felt suitable for discussion with a woman, that it became a custom for her to pour tea for his “family” of aides and other invited guests every evening she and Robert did not have another invitation.

  Esmeralda could only hope that Robert would notice her popularity without perceiving the reasons for it, and her hopes were fulfilled. In fact, she very nearly played her game too well. Although he could not point a finger of blame at anything she did or said, Robert became so uneasy that he thought of sending her to England to remove her from the ardent attentions of his fellow officers. However, before he acted on the idea, it occurred to him that there would be many more men with even more insinuating manners in England and that he would not be there to recall Esmeralda’s attention to himself. What was worse yet, he remembered that she had told him she had a competence to live on. She would not be dependent on his parents and therefore could not be controlled. It would be much better to keep her with him where he could keep an eye on her.

  At this point Robert was struck by the oddity of his thoughts. Why should he feel it necessary to “keep an eye” on Merry, and why should he object to the attentions paid her? Did he feel she would dishonor him? Every instinct recoiled from such a notion, but Robert forced himself to examine her behavior objectively. His conclusion was that there was not a hint of any impropriety. In fact, now that he considered the matter he realized that Merry was careful never to be alone with any man other than himself. Then why should he care? What was troubling him? He felt a fool and resolved that, in fairness, there was nothing he could complain about to her. But he could not shake off his unhappiness.

  Had the situation in Portugal been more satisfactory, Esmeralda might have attributed Robert’s evident unevenness of temper to her activities. However, she was too convinced of her own lack of attractions and Robert’s basic indifference to her. Thus, since he said nothing, even when he could not get a single dance with her or escort her to supper, she put his crossness down to his fury over the lack of progress in military operations. Moreover, there was good practical cause for Esmeralda’s mistake. In his need to express his anger and confusion and at the same time avoid attacking Esmeralda, Robert spent all their time alone complaining about Dalrymple’s political stupidity and military inertia.

  Robert’s complaints were justified. Despite the known intentions of the British government to send the army to the assistance of the Spanish rebels, Dalrymple had failed to institute any of the basic moves toward forwarding this purpose. He had made no effort to survey the roads and discover the best routes by which to move the army to Spain, nor had he made any arrangements to supply the troops with food, clothing, or even powder and shot as they moved inland where the navy could not land stores from England. He had, in fact, paid so little attention to the army that discipline had been neglected and troops were away from their companies, drunk, sick, and disorderly. Instead he had dabbled in Portuguese politics, offending the junta until they complained hysterically to London.

  Thus, when Dalrymple’s bubble burst and he and Sir Harry Burrard were angrily summoned home to answer for promulgating the Convention of Cintra, a totally unprepared army was thrown into Sir John Moore’s hands. From that moment Robert’s complaints stopped, which only reinforced Esmeralda’s despairing opinion that Robert either had not noticed the attentions other men paid her or had not cared. Certainly he gave no sign of jealousy.

  With the dispatches Moore had received on October 6, giving him the command of the army had been orders to make up for Dalrymple’s delays. When Esmeralda raised her brows at this statement, Robert admitted that was not what the orders said, but what they meant. In any case, Sir John was to get the army into Spain immediately, before winter made any campaign impossible. The first necessity, of course, was to restore discipline and determine how much of an army they actually had. Sir John was a hard worker, rising before dawn to write letters and reports and to make plans. His ADCs were kept on the run from sunup, sometimes until late into the night.

  Within a week, Moore had the reorganization of the army well underway and turned his attention to how to move and supply it. Since Robert spoke Portuguese, he was logically one of those chosen to interview people to discover what roads would be best and where the countryside was most likely to provide food for the troops. However, all Robert discovered was that the Portuguese in Lisbon were totally, ignorant of the geography and agriculture of their own country.

  This seemed so unlikely at first that Robert wondered whether it was his shaky command of the language that was causing misunderstandings. The doubt produced what Robert considered a brilliant idea. He asked permission from Sir John to use Esmeralda as a translator, since she was more fluent in Portuguese than he.

  Ever since he had written to his parents, Robert had been living in dread of receiving a reply that demanded Merry be sent home. It had occurred to him that, if she were useful to British interests in Portugal, he would have a legitimate reason to delay her departure. In addition, Robert knew that Esmeralda had a fine patriotic fervor and was sincerely devoted to the welfare of the army. She would be delighted to be of use, as she had been that time she had translated for him about the use of boats in Porto Novo. Perhaps she would be sufficiently devoted to her task to overcome what he believed to be her disappointment at his transfer and protracted stay in Portugal.

  In addition, Merry’s work as a translator would mean they would be together much more. Busy as he had been, they had hardly seen each other since Sir John’s appointment as commander. To Robert’s mind, anything that forwarded the successful prosecution of the war was of greater impor
tance than the inclinations and pleasures of any person.

  Thus, although he was aware of his ulterior motives, Robert’s conscience twinged only slightly.

  Although Esmeralda’s help did not really produce any better results than Robert had obtained on his own—the Portuguese were ignorant of the roads and available supplies in their countryside—she was so thrilled by being employed in a useful capacity that his remaining guilt was assuaged. Moreover, he found her infinitely capable in many other ways. He discovered that she had a remarkably good head for business, far better than his. She could keep accounts and would certainly have made a better commissariat officer than those presently employed by the British army. Sir John, learning of Esmeralda’s expanding activities, was at first slightly shocked, however, her enthusiasm disarmed him and prevented him from reprimanding Robert, and he very soon became accustomed to, and even depended on, her efficiency.

  Thus, at the end of October, when the army began to move, it took very little to convince Sir John not to oppose Esmeralda’s stated intention of traveling with them.

  To Robert’s surprise, he had received no answer to his letter home. At first he had felt only relief, assuming that its arrival had been delayed and that he would have a reply in good time. Then, between the fact that he was busy and that Esmeralda seemed so content, he had almost forgotten having written. Finally it occurred to him that either his parents were showing their displeasure by refusing to answer him, or, what Robert preferred to believe, his letter had somehow been lost.

  In either case, he was in a quandary. He could write again, giving a fuller explanation that would absolve Merry of anything other than misfortune, but it was really too late for an answer to his second letter to arrive before they moved. And without a direct invitation from his parents, Merry would be afraid to go alone to England. Perhaps since he did not speak Spanish or have any particular knowledge of Spain, it was his duty to ask for leave from Sir John to take his wife to safety, but Robert did not want to miss the campaign, and from day to day he delayed his request for leave.