Tainted Angel

by Anne Cleeland

  As the light flickered over his face she thought, I cannot seem to help myself, either, even though this is not the season to dally in romance—too much is at stake. They sat in silence for a few moments. “So what will you tell them?”

  “I will tell them you jumped ship to avoid capture and I was unable to recover your lifeless corpse despite diligent search.”

  Frowning, she pointed out, “But my reanimated corpse is going to appear at some point, certainly.”

  “Yes, but in such a way that you are cleared of any taint.”

  Arching her brows, she had to shake her head slightly in disbelief. “This sounds an excellent plan, and I am all attention.”

  He shrugged his shoulders in rueful acknowledgment. “My plan is unfledged as yet—but it cannot hurt to have a lapse of time with no further suspicious activity on your part.”

  Her gaze upon the candle, she thought, ah—he is careful not to mention Brodie and the inconvenient fact they hope to catch him red-handed in a treasonous plot. She decided she’d not bring up the subject as it seemed certain to be a point of contention and things were going along so well—she would swear that Carstairs had been completely honest with her from the time they emerged from the sea—perhaps it had not been such a bad idea to leap overboard, after all.

  “First things first. Help me think of a way to bring you back to London without every man jack who sees you remembering your face.”

  She rested her chin on her knees and hid a smile. It pleased her that he spoke of her beauty as though it were a thing separate from herself, and an annoyance besides. “I could wear a veil.”

  He shook his head. “A woman wearing a veil is an object of scrutiny—we’d be no better off.”

  She thought of other resorts she had used. “A nursemaid? Or a nun?”

  Meeting her eyes in apology, he said, “We cannot run the risk—you may have to hide in a sack.”

  “Like the Flemish ambassador?”

  “Only without the coshing and the laundry chute. Would you do it, do you think?”

  They regarded each other, both aware that she would not want to be so constrained, and thus forced to trust him. “I will think on it,” she conceded.

  At this point the door opened and Maisie came through, bearing a drawn-up cloth and a stoneware flagon. She paused when she saw Carstairs and made no acknowledgment to him. As this was an ominous sign, Lina said hurriedly, “Thank you, Maisie—that will be all.”

  The maidservant made no comment as she set the flagon down and unfolded the cloth to reveal cheese and sliced bread.

  Carstairs addressed her. “Maisie, you and I must come to terms.”

  Lina looked from one to the other with alarm. It was best not to square off against Maisie on any subject—she was a gunnery sergeant’s widow, after all.

  Maisie faced him, folding her hands before her. “Permission t’ speak, sir.”

  He nodded. “You have it. Proceed.”

  “Ye’re nowt to put that look on ’er face again.”

  “Understood.”

  The woman turned and left, shutting the door with a click behind her, and Lina didn’t know where to look. “Forgive her—she has the luxury of only one allegiance.” She realized as soon as she had said the words that it may not have been the wisest thing to say to him, but he did not press her and moved down beside her on the floor so as to eat. Watching his profile in the firelight, she felt a wave of longing so strong that it nearly suffocated her. “I am not much of a courtesan, truly—despite what I said earlier.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me, Lina.” Reaching in, he held up a slice of cheese to her. “Come; you must try to eat.”

  “I ate a fish this afternoon.” She tentatively nibbled on the cheese even though she had little appetite. Watching her, he put cheese to bread and ate with his fingers, obviously hungry. When he drank from the flagon he grimaced in disappointment. “Water.”

  “I do not drink, Lucien,” she reminded him.

  He paused and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “That first night,” he said slowly. “You told me I tasted of cheap whiskey. It surprised me at the time—you are a notorious teetotaler.”

  “Yes—I remember,” she hedged. Deus, it seemed they knew everything; well, she amended—almost everything.

  He didn’t press but lifted her hand to kiss it. “That was without a doubt the best assignment I have ever received.”

  “And well-done of you,” she noted in an ironic tone. “And here I felt so guilty that you thought I was Marie.”

  “There is no confusing the two of you.”

  She nibbled on a crust and decided not to probe the undercurrent that lay beneath the last comment.

  He glanced over at her. “However well-done my role was, you were not misled.”

  “You mistake,” she disagreed in a mild tone. “It is not that I was not misled, it is that I am not tainted.”

  There was a pause as he stared at her, turning over what she had said. He then spoke slowly, “I would like to believe you—I would, Lina. But what is at work here, then? It makes little sense.”

  Her voice gentle, she replied, “I’m afraid I cannot say—leastways, not yet.”

  Trying to control his exasperation, he ran a hand over his head, his hair still damp from his bath. “Then I should simply trust you? Even though you cannot tell me and there is so much at stake?”

  “If you would—I swear to you that England will not suffer for it.”

  There was a silence for a few moments. A novelty, she thought. For either of us to trust anyone an inch.

  “All right,” he said finally.

  Emotion closed her throat as she bowed her head and thought about how foolish it was to have weaknesses, and how she would very much like to give in to this particular blue-eyed weakness and tell him of Brodie’s plan.

  But he had moved on to another topic. “And now I would like to hear how Lina became Invidia.”

  She thought about it, studying the floorboards in the small, sparse room as the fire crackled. “It is not a pretty tale,” she warned.

  “Nevertheless, I would like to hear it.”

  And so she told him.

  Chapter 31

  I married Tom when I was seventeen, in Spain.”

  He interrupted her. “How did you meet?”

  She gave him a look. “I was a hostess in a gaming ken.”

  Brows drawn together, he regarded her intently. “How did you come to be in Spain?”

  “Are you going to interrupt me every step of the way? This is not an easy tale to tell.”

  He leaned forward, his gaze very blue in the flickering firelight. “Could you start at the beginning, perhaps?”

  She contemplated the fire, debating how much to tell him. She decided she may as well start at the very beginning—he had no one to blame but himself. “My mother had a liaison with my father, who was a traveling gambler and not one to be settling down with a family. I was born. I lived with my mother for a time, but then she married another ne’er-do-well against the advice of her relatives. He tended to drink away the money my father sent to support me.” She paused. “When I was fourteen I began to avoid my stepfather as he was a bit too friendly.”

  She heard him make an involuntary sound of dismay, but she lifted her face to his and assured him, “I was very adept at defending myself—even then. My appearance was already beyond that of ordinary girls, and so I was forced to learn at an early age. One of our neighbors was an old man who had been a soldado a long time ago—when the Portuguese fought Spain.” She smiled, remembering. “He taught me to fight and to use a knife. He gave me his dead wife’s pistol and told me I would need it—if he was twenty years younger he would abduct me himself.”

  Carstairs smiled to hear it. “An ally, then.”

  She nodded. “Of a sort. He despised my stepfather and thought my mother a fool, but then again, he thought everyone a fool.”

  Gently, he asked, “Did your moth
er refuse to believe ill of your stepfather?”

  Lina rendered a soft smile. “No, she was very protective of me. She began to bring me to work—she sold flowers, ten reis a dozen—at a booth at the center of town. Lilies, mostly. We discovered if I hawked the flowers to gentlemen, sales were brisk.” She paused again, lost in the memory. “She told me my father had opened a gaming ken in Sevilla and was doing well—I believe she was thinking of leaving my stepfather and seeking him out. Then the invasion came.”

  “Where was this?”

  “Guarda.”

  Carstairs whistled softly.

  Swallowing, Lina tried to keep her voice level. “Well, you know what came next. The Portuguese army was guarding the ports and so there was literally no one to defend the villages when the French came marching through. The clergy and the old soldado closed the gates and mounted a defense—although it was hopeless from the first. My mother was never one to sit idly by; she hid me in the root cellar and manned a musket at the wall for a half-day before it was overrun and she was killed, as was everyone.”

  There was another pause while Lina gently placed a finger under her eye and drew it away, observing the tip. Why, she thought in surprise, I am weeping—how strange.

  His voice gentle, he asked, “Were you able to bury your mother?”

  She drew a breath. “No. The soldiers took revenge for our resistance, but fortunately the pillaging could not last for long as they were on the march. After hiding another day in the cellar, I escaped at night and made my way to the east, avoiding the roads.” Impossible to describe to him the stench of the corpses that had already lain a day in the sun; or the acrid smell of gunpowder that still lingered as she picked her way through the rubble of her old neighborhood, alone and terrified of discovery.

  Carstairs was quiet for a moment. “And your stepfather?”

  She shook her head. “I know not—I assume he was killed also. I left for Sevilla to find my father. I had a romanticized notion that he was heroic, you see, and would rescue me from my difficulties.”

  “And did he?”

  She shook her head, but with a smile. “No—he had not the first clue what to do with a sixteen-year-old girl. To his credit, he looked after me in his own way and taught me cards. I have a good head for numbers, as it turned out, which was very helpful. He expanded his business and we moved northward. The Allied Armies were an excellent source of gaming revenue, but Napoleon’s troops were kept on a tighter string so he tended to avoid the areas occupied by the French.”

  “Where was this?”

  “San Pablo.”

  He nodded.

  Tracing a finger on the hearth beside her, she reflected, “It was not a bad life—I learned to read people, and to calculate odds and be patient until the odds were in my favor. And I made some friends.”

  “Is that how you met Tom?”

  She made a wry face. “Not exactly. My father wanted to buy another building but did not have the funds. The owner was an older widower—very wealthy—and my father arranged for my marriage to him in exchange for the building. I was seventeen and very unhappy with such a plan.”

  “Infamous.”

  But Lina only shook her head. “No, not infamous, in retrospect. Marriages for worldly gain are arranged every day, and I imagine I would have been treated very well. At the time, however, it seemed the end of the world.”

  She paused, so he prompted, “Did you run away?”

  She sighed. “No; there was no need as I was never without champions—but I was too young, as yet, to judge the quality of those champions. I was sitting on the garden wall and weeping with frustration when Tom wandered by—he was a sergeant stationed with the 59th at Corunna, and I was acquainted with him; I was acquainted with everyone in the area. He heard my story and promptly offered to elope with me.”

  “Lucky man, to be in the right place at the right time.”

  “Not so lucky—my father discovered the plan because Tom was boasting to his fellows and I was locked in my room pending my nuptials to the elderly widower.”

  “And then? Did Tom rescue you?”

  She shrugged. “I rescued myself; I tied the sheets together in the best tradition and climbed down the wall. My father had taken my clothes away so that I wouldn’t attempt an escape—as a result I turned up at the barracks in my nightdress.”

  Carstairs grinned in appreciation and leaned back, resting on his hands. “Holy God—I can only imagine.”

  Remembering the scene, she couldn’t help but smile herself. “Yes—it created quite the ruckus. But we managed to find the chaplain, a romantic soul who married us on the spot.”

  “And your father?”

  “I left with the regiment and never spoke to him. I imagine he was furious, but no more furious than I.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  She shrugged. “As far as I know.”

  There was a pause while she drew her knees closer to her, and a small silence stretched out between them. Carstairs walked over to stir up the embers with the poker and place another piece of wood in the grate. He stood watching the fire for a moment in the silence, one boot resting on the fire jack. “How long did you follow the drum?” he prodded gently.

  “Over a year.”

  There was another silent pause, which was broken when he said in a quiet tone, “If you’d rather not tell me you needn’t, you know.”

  She ran a hand through her hair, gauging its dryness and then fingered the very tip of a curl for a moment. “We were caught behind enemy lines in San Sebastian, after the French had turned on the Spanish—a small distance from Saragossa.”

  This caught his interest and he turned his head toward her. “During the Spanish retreat?”

  “Yes, our regiment was heading westward and didn’t anticipate the extent or the speed of the retreating Spanish. Some of the regiment managed to break through but the remainder were captured and held at San Sebastian. The Spanish soldiers were fresh from the misery of their own campaign and the French betrayal; they were bitter and undisciplined.”

  He nodded, as they were both aware of the tumult at the time, when the French had suddenly turned on the Spaniards—their former ally—and all hell had broken loose. “Why did the Spanish bother to capture you? They should have been pelting back to Portugal to escape from the port.”

  She explained, “The Spanish company who captured us had become separated from the rest of their regiment and were hoping for leverage, I think, to get them through the British lines and away to the port. They were panicked; rumors flew and no one knew where the main French force was.”

  “It was chaos,” he agreed.

  She looked up at him. “Were you there?”

  “Southern Spain—in the hills.”

  “With El Halcon,” she remembered. “I would like to hear your tale.”

  He nodded. “Willingly—but let us finish your own, first.”

  Dropping her gaze again she traced her knee through the blanket as the new wood crackled in the fire. “The Spanish captain found me attractive.”

  “Did you shoot him?”

  She met his eyes and realized he was serious, which she thought a fine compliment. “No. I wasn’t given the chance—or at least not at first.”

  He settled in beside her on the hearth, stretching his long legs out before him. “Did he pay for his impertinence?”

  She nodded and bit her lip. “Oh yes. He—and the others, they paid.”

  “Good.” He took her hand. “Tell me.”

  Chapter 32

  Our group was comprised of a dozen soldiers and three camp followers; Johanna and Libby were the other two women. We were captured at the Convent of Santa Isabella after a gun battle in the church; the Spanish held the altar and the sacristy at one end and we held the nave and the vestibule at the other end—it was absurd, truly. After we ran out of ammunition, we were forced to surrender, much to the relief of the Holy Sisters, who did not even wait until we were marched ou
t before they swarmed the altar rail to begin prying the musket balls loose.”

  He made a sound reflecting his sympathy while Lina put her chin on her knees and continued, “We were held in the general barracks on the outskirts of the town overnight; the Spanish had sustained terrible losses and were on edge—they had been betrayed and were not certain they could escape to Portugal. They believed, I think, that they could use us to force the English to come to their aid. A soldier was sent out as a scout to discover the status of their regiment, where the French were, and whether it would be worth their while to hold us as hostages.”

  Carstairs interrupted her recital. “There is nothing worse than being captured—I’d as soon be wounded.”

  “I agree—recall how we took a swim this night.” She slid him a sidelong look.

  He ducked his head in acknowledgment. “Touché. Pray continue.”

  “We thought it best to try to engage the captain and prevail upon him to let us go, and Tom went to parlay. When he returned to the barracks he was in high spirits—a false heartiness, as it turned out. He reported that the captain was a reasonable man and would let us go if I came to his quarters and played cards with him over a bottle of wine.” Color flooded her cheeks at the memory. “Of course, the unspoken condition was that I would let him bed me. Tom tried to make it sound as though this was a reasonable request.” She realized her voice was rising and took a breath to calm herself. “I refused, and we quarreled, but at least I thought that was the end of it.”

  Soberly, her companion watched her in the flickering firelight. “But it wasn’t?”

  “No. Later in the evening the mood seemed to change—our captors were friendlier, joking with our men, and we were informed we would be released the following morning when they retreated westward. We were fed the soldiers’ fare; a spicy stew with peppers and bread. The only drink was home-brewed whiskey—powerful stuff. I was unused to spirits, but our men kept toasting me, encouraging me to drink. A deal had been struck, with me unaware.” She could not contain the bitterness in her voice.