Dark Angel (Lescaut Quartet)

by Tracy Grant

  When they reached the bottom of the ravine, the path leveled off, and the wind diminished. A few dark-green plants appeared, clinging to the base of the rocks as though to draw nourishment from their hard faces. Adam halted and looked back at the others. "There are French at Castroxeriz," he said. "We'll go north and cross the Odra above them."

  North. Their way lay due southwest. Caroline felt a moment of irritation at this delay but knew it was useless to complain. Adam was right, of course, and she had no more wish to see another Frenchman than did he. Reluctantly she turned her horse away from the road they had been traveling and followed the mule up a rocky slope.

  It proved to be a path of sorts, steep and winding like their descent, and like their descent it required complete concentration. When it leveled off near a trickle of a stream Adam called a halt to water the animals. Grateful for the respite, Caroline slipped off her horse and found Emily before her. "Mama," she said, her eyes bright, "Hawkins told me stories." Caroline turned to thank him but he was busy with the animals and did not seem to hear.

  "You're not tired?" Caroline asked her daughter.

  "Oh, no." Emily ran to help Hawkins with the mule, leaving her mother to reflect on the resilience of the young.

  "Are you?"

  Startled, Caroline turned to see Adam before her, offering a tin cup of stream water. "Of course not," she said sharply, not wanting to be shown lacking in resilience of her own. She took the cup and sipped the water slowly. It was icy and hurt her throat, but it was more refreshing than the finest champagne. "Thank you," she said when she was finished, ashamed of her want of graciousness. She handed him the cup, and looked up to meet his eyes. They seemed darker than usual, showing resolution and perhaps a hint of concern, but there was nothing in them that recognized their past friendship nor their past intimacy.

  Confused, Caroline turned away. Whatever Adam had done, he was now trying to help. He had journeyed two hundred miles, much of it through French territory, to rescue her and Jared, a man he must often have wished dead. He had saved her from rape and had nearly got himself killed for his pains. She had sworn never to trust him again, but she knew she could trust him to see her and Emily to safety. For the moment, surely that was enough. For the moment they could cease the war that raged between them.

  Caroline walked up to Adam and touched him gently on the arm. "Your wound," she said.

  "It's all right." Adam turned abruptly and walked away. Rebuffed, Caroline watched Emily run up and down the bank of the stream, playing some game known only to herself. After a while Hawkins brought out a loaf of bread and with the knife he carried in his belt carefully cut a thick piece for each of them. They ate it standing, then remounted and continued on their way.

  Caroline lost all track of distance and direction. From the position of the sun she knew it was scarcely mid-afternoon and they would be traveling some hours yet. She gave herself up to the rhythm of the horse and let the events of the past two days wash over her.

  She had not had time to feel fully her terror at Gazin's attack nor her fear when Adam had collapsed at her feet. She had not had time to mourn leaving Jared, unwept, amid the bleak rocks of Acquera's graveyard. She had scarcely had time to comprehend the dangers of the weeks ahead nor to understand the welter of her feelings at Adam's unexpected appearance. She shivered, this time not from cold, and drew in upon herself. She would think of nothing but today, and she would survive this journey as she had survived the one that had brought her from Lisbon.

  Only the dimming of the light told her that they would soon be stopping for the night. Their final descent brought them to a sizable flatland on the banks of the Odra River. The umber of the ever-present rock gave way to the green of vegetation. There were trees to provide shelter for the oncoming night and wood for a fire. A half-mile or so upstream, out of sight of the path by which they had descended, Adam motioned them to halt. "We make camp here," he said. "The trees will give us some protection."

  Through all the long weeks of her journey from Lisbon, Caroline had never slept out of doors. In Portugal, where the British were in control, a bed in an inn or private house was not hard to come by. Once they had left the British Army encampment just inside the Spanish border, it had been more difficult. But it had been winter and the French who controlled most of the country were not moving about. Easy enough for her guide to avoid the French encampments. He had been clever and he knew the people. There had always been a village where a welcome house was to be found, or a barn, or an abandoned shed.

  Now, after a day's riding over mountainous, rocky terrain, even a bed on the hard ground seemed a blessing. Caroline slipped down from her horse and clung to the mare’s neck for support. Her legs throbbed, her back ached, and her arms felt useless. "Mama?" Emily said, coming up beside her.

  "I'm all right, querida. I'm just not used to spending a day in a saddle."

  Emily gave her mother a judicious look, then seemed to decide that nothing was really wrong. "I am," she said. "I like to ride." She ran off to join Hawkins.

  Adam had disappeared. When he returned some minutes later with an armful of brush, Caroline had recovered enough to unsaddle her horse and help Hawkins and Emily unpack the mule.

  It was not, Caroline thought some half-hour later, much different from making a home on an earthen floor in a hut of sun-dried bricks. There was a small fire, and there were piles of boughs for their beds and blankets that the mule had carried. Hawkins had got a pot going over the fire for their supper, and the smell of onions and garlic and dried meat—it had been weeks since she had tasted meat—made her dizzy with hunger. Emily was delighted by their outdoor abode. She ran around the fire chanting, "I want supper, I want supper," making everyone laugh. They were all hungry.

  As the evening turned colder they moved closer to the fire. The soup was delicious, thickened with dried corn and accompanied by another of the loaves baked that morning in Acquera. There was wine too, their last skin, Adam informed her. "I couldn't ask for more in the village," he said, "not after what the French had taken. But it's been a long day, and Hawkins and I need it. If you don't care for it—"

  "But I do," Caroline said, reaching for the wineskin as though it might vanish. Adam laughed and poured some in a cup. She drank it gratefully, though not before offering Emily a small sip. In Acquera even the children were given wine.

  "Here," said Hawkins in seeming surprise, "you're a bigger girl than I thought."

  "I'll be four in June," Emily said with dignity.

  "Four is a great age, Emily Rawley."

  "Some day I'll be five."

  "Some day you'll be as old as your mother."

  Emily shook her head. "Mama will always be older than me.

  "Ah, there you have the right of me," Hawkins said with such seriousness that Emily laughed.

  Caroline looked up and saw Adam staring at her across the fire, his eyes dark with surprise as though an extraordinary thought had just occurred to him. Caroline's throat closed. This was what she had feared most from the moment she saw him in her cottage in Acquera. She should have known that sooner or later something would make him wonder.

  Unable to bear the question in his eyes, she rose suddenly and took Emily by the hand. "It's late, we must get ready for bed."

  Adam had never heard such sharpness in her voice when she talked to her child. He watched them walk along the river bank, heard Emily chattering to her mother. Then her voice faded and they disappeared behind a clump of bushes some distance away. Adam put down his plate, wrapped his arms round his knees, and stared into the fire, calculating years and months. Emily was a small child. He would have sworn that she was younger, by six months at least. He had never doubted she was Jared's daughter. But if her birthday was in June, she had been conceived in September. And if she was nearly four, the year was 1808.

  Adam stood up abruptly and added wood to the fire, watching it flare as though he would read the answer to the riddle in the flames. Emily could be
his. But God in heaven, if it were true, why hadn't Caroline told him?

  Hawkins, perhaps sensing his mood, walked off in the direction of the horses. Adam picked up a pail and went to the river for water, but when he reached the bank he could not remember why he had come. He stared into the dark depths of the water, as endlessly moving as the flames. There was no permanence. One tried to seize life, but it slipped out of one's grasp and was gone. And yet—his daughter. There was so much wrong between him and Caroline, so much deceit and betrayal. But Emily, Emily was sheer joy. If she were his...Adam felt a great lightening of his spirit. Then he remembered why he had come to the riverbank and why he was holding a pail.

  He was washing the dishes when Caroline and Emily returned to the fire. "Hawkins is seeing to the horses," he told Emily in answer to her question. "You'd best be getting some sleep. We leave at daybreak tomorrow."

  Emily lay down on the boughs Adam had gathered for a bed, and Caroline wrapped her in a black-and-white striped blanket. Within minutes Emily was asleep. Adam stood and looked down at her, watching the even rise and fall of her breathing. "Caroline," he said softly.

  Caroline looked up, knowing the question he was about to ask.

  "Is she mine?"

  Caroline lowered her eyes and tucked the blanket more closely about her daughter. It was one thing not to tell Adam about Emily. It was another to lie when he questioned her directly. But there were reasons she could not tell him, reasons of the head and of the heart. She would not let Emily grow up with the stigma of bastardy. Jared had known she was another man's child, but he had accepted her as his own. That should be protection enough before the world. Even to Adam she would not betray the secret of her daughter's birth.

  "Is she mine?" Adam said again, his tone insistent.

  Caroline's throat tightened painfully, but when she spoke her voice was calm. "She is Jared's child."

  Adam did not answer, and she looked up again to meet his eyes. They caught the firelight and burned with the intensity of his gaze. "I remember what happened between us, Adam, but she is Jared's child. Women know these things."

  Caroline watched the light die in Adam's eyes and saw the bleak look return to his face. He stared at her a moment, then walked round to the other side of the fire, turned up the collar of his coat, and wrapped a blanket about him. Caroline realized that the boughs he had gathered were intended for her comfort and for Emily's. He and Hawkins would sleep on the ground. She was going to voice a protest, then thought better of it. The lie she had told Adam hung thick in her throat and she dared not speak to him. She drew her cloak about her, and then her blanket, and lay down close to her daughter, listening to the hissing of the dying fire, remembering the joy and shame of their encounter nearly five years ago. Adam had taken her trust and shattered it. How could she possibly give him Emily?

  It was her last thought before she was overtaken by sleep.

  Hawkins returned, gave Adam a searching look, then grunted and settled by the fire. His regular breathing soon served notice that he, at least, had no trouble falling asleep. Adam continued to stare into the flames, his knees drawn up to his chin, his arms clasped round his legs. Caroline had been the reason for his journey and in the last two days he had thought of nothing but her safety. Now, when they were safely away from Acquera and the rigors of the first day's journey were past, he allowed himself to truly think about her.

  She was changed, grievously so. He had been shocked by her thinness and pallor when he first entered the primitive hut she called home, by the dark smudges round her eyes, by the loss of the willful spirit that had been, since their first chilhood meeting, both his joy and his despair.

  She was older, of course. It was nearly five years since their last disastrous encounter, and four long years before that since they had been inseparable friends. War and privation had taken their toll. And then there was Emily, symbol of her attachment to the husband she had so recently lost. Caroline had betrayed her husband that night nearly five years ago, but in the end it was Adam she had betrayed. He had been mad then to think he could recover what had once been between them. He was mad now to think he could find what he had lost.

  The fire sputtered and Adam added a few twigs, coaxing the flames back to life. The truth was, he wanted her still, no matter how pale the image of the girl she had once been. He remembered the softness of her breast beneath his hand when Gazin had burst into her cottage and he had claimed her as his mistress. The moment was always there, not quite out of consciousness. Caroline's name filled his throat. His need for her was like a great wave of heat, blotting out the feeble warmth of the fire and the chill of the night.

  You're a fool, he told himself. He lay down, drawing the blanket more closely about him, and willed himself to sleep.

  Adam woke, cramped and cold, to the welcome smell of coffee. Hawkins was up before him. "You shouldn't have let me sleep," Adam said, untangling himself from the blanket.

  "You look like cold death." Hawkins handed him a tin cup of the dark brew. Adam took it by the handle, swore, and placed it on the ground. "Use a cloth," Hawkins said. "You know better."

  "I'm not much awake."

  "You're not much of anything. How's the wound?"

  "Painful. What did you expect?"

  "I told you to let me have a look at it last night."

  "We could scarcely see to feed ourselves last night."

  Hawkins looked at the sky. The day was still gray but it promised to be clear. "There'll be light enough soon. We'll change the dressing before we leave."

  "All right, all right." Adam took another swallow of coffee, removed his coat, and stumbled to the bank of the river where he doused his head and neck with the icy water. It helped take his mind off the pain, which was worse than he had expected. He returned to the fire, now blazing with the boughs that had formed Caroline's and Emily's bed, and found both mother and daughter well awake, holding their hands to the fire.

  "I'm cold," Emily announced.

  Adam reached for his coat. "So am I."

  "I'm hungry too."

  "Bread, little one," Hawkins said, handing her a slice from last evening's loaf. "And a bit of cheese I begged from your mother's friend."

  "Hawkins, you didn't." Caroline was appalled. "Adela needs every morsel she can find for her children."

  Hawkins shrugged. "The lady insisted. And I paid good coin for it. Now," he said, turning to Emily, "you keep moving back to front or you'll find one half of you is too cold to follow the other half."

  Emily laughed, her mouth full of bread, and began turning about in a kind of dance before the fire.

  Adam busied himself with packing up their gear. Caroline had loosened her hair to comb it and the sight recalled his errant thoughts of the night before. Even now, unwashed and limp, it lent her drawn face a haunting beauty. "I'll see to the horses," he said and strode away abruptly, cursing himself for his weakness.

  They were packed and saddled a short time later. Hawkins insisted on looking at Adam's wound. Caroline, her hands light and cold, cleaned it without flinching and rebandaged it tightly. "It's not festering," she said with relief.

  Emily, to whom everything was a source of new information, followed the procedure intently. "Does it hurt?" she asked.

  Adam refastened his shirt, ignoring memories of another time when Caroline had helped him undress. The touch of her hands, mingled with the pain of his wound, was a torment. "It does, but not enough to keep me from riding. It's time we were off."

  They crossed the Odra, which here reached only to the horses' knees. The animals, even the mule, seemed refreshed by the overnight rest and the grazing they had found. They left the river behind and began to climb again. Soon even the trees had vanished. The land was barren, which suited Adam's mood. He was plagued by images of Caroline combing her hair by the fire and tormented by the sound of Emily's voice. For one brief joyous instant he had thought Emily might be his own. Caroline's firm denial had made him aware of how m
uch he had lost.

  As they crested the hills and saw the expanse of the Pisuerga River far below them, the rain began. The day had begun clear, but for the past hour the clouds had been gathering and the wind rising. No scattered raindrops warned them. The rain came abruptly, a heavy sheet of water that quickly turned the ground to mud, making for a dangerous descent to the river.

  Adam went slowly, checking frequently on the progress of the mule. His cloak and boots were drenched, but the wind had died, rendering the cold less intense. He looked back at the others. Caroline's pale face was half obscured by the hood of her cloak, but he saw her smile in reassurance. Emily, hidden beneath Hawkins's cloak as well as her own, was trying to catch the rain in her outstretched hand.

  Bare rock gave way to scrub and then to trees and shrubs. By the time they reached the Pisuerga the rain had stopped, but the river before them was swollen by the deluge. Adam handed the mule's bridle to Hawkins and rode to the river's edge. Deeper than the Odra and far less quiet, the water here moved by swiftly, carrying branches and leaves on its roiling surface. Adam was not sure that he could trust the mule or even Caroline's small horse to swim it. Wearied by the long ride, conscious of the sharp throbbing of his wound, he turned his horse about and rode back to the others.

  "Can we have a camp?" Emily asked. She had been uncharacteristically quiet during the last hour of their descent, and fatigue showed in her drawn face.

  Adam hesitated, weighing prudence against present need. "It's a busy country," Hawkins said quietly, a frown marring his normally cheerful countenance. Adam looked round, not too quickly, and saw two men watching them from a turn of the river a hundred yards or so downstream. They were peasants, to judge by their black caps and shabby black coats, and though it was too far to see their faces, neither appeared young. They had apparently been on a foraging expedition, for they carried great packs of twigs and branches on their backs. Aware of his scrutiny, the men turned away and proceeded down the river.