by Sophia James
‘Buy another one, then. Begin again.’
She swore. ‘The people here, Capitán, those who have been maimed or raped by a force that was supposed to free them, know how impossible it ever is to go back, to be who you were before. The cost of life is sometimes just too much to pay, don’t you see? Some things that are broken just cannot be fixed.’
She thought of Ross and the hospital of La Latina, cold and quiet and bare. She remembered walking home without him, the rain in her boots and the tears on her cheeks. Maria had been there when she got back to Segovia Street and she had set a fire and rubbed her feet and put her to bed beneath the warmth of a duck-feather eiderdown, tucked around both slumber and pain.
But she had woken up a different person: harder, angrier, less able to believe in the goodness of anything or anyone.
‘How old are you now?’
‘Twenty-six.’
‘So you are saying that you will be this broken for all of your life. Fifty or so more years of anger and guilt?’
Now, this was new. He was not telling her that what had happened to her was not her fault. No. He was telling her to sit up and take responsibility. And live. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps it was the secrets she carried that kept her from life, the dreadful creeping sadness that had emptied any joy. What was that saying Maria had recited to her on numerous occasions? Shared sorrow is half a sorrow. Perhaps it was the case with the right person?
She took a shaky breath and made herself speak. ‘We had a son, you and I, a little boy and I named him Ross. After you. He lived for two minutes and then he simply stopped breathing. The nurse said that happens sometimes when babies are very little because their lungs are not formed or just perhaps because God wanted them back again.’
‘God.’ His expletive was shocked.
‘He had dark hair and he was tiny. Too tiny. He had a purple birthmark on the very top of his left arm, just here, and he was warm when I held him until he wasn’t.’
‘God,’ he repeated, the stillness in him magnified by the night.
‘I sent you a letter, with the postage paid through the correct channels of communication. A month later I had a reply back. It said do not write again and that if I did you would set the law upon me for making false claims. It held your seal in wax and your signature.’
He stood and walked to stand by her bed. ‘I did not send the letter, Alejandra. I swear it by all that is holy. If you believe nothing else of me, at least believe that.’
‘I do.’
The anger in him vibrated, coldly held under control by sheer and utter force. She could see the way the knuckles of both fists were pressed white. ‘Ross, you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘A strong name that claimed his birthright.’ There was a catch in his voice, a tremor, each word enunciated with tremendous care.
‘He did not suffer at all, at least there was that. He looked just like he was sleeping.’ She suddenly wanted to comfort him, this soldier who had fought his way all across Europe and was still fighting, injustice, wrongness, terror. ‘He died peacefully in my arms on October the second. At six minutes past eleven at night. It was raining.’ Specifics. Details. She remembered each and every one of them as if they had been engraved in blood upon her skin.
‘We will bring him home.’
‘Pardon?’
‘We will bring him home to England and bury him at Linden Park, my family seat at Tunbridge Wells. At least he won’t be alone then.’
‘You would do that?’
‘He is ours, Alejandra. He needs to be with his family.’
Ours. No longer just hers. A shared sadness.
And just like that a dam long held back by hardship and circumstance began to crack; the water at first a tiny drip and then a stream and after a river in full flood and rushing across the bleak landscape of her emotions. She stood, only thinking to escape, but he was by her in a second, letting her cry against his warmth and strength. And she did cry for herself and for Ross, for Lucien and her father and mother and for Spain. For San Sebastian, too, with its deaths and its violence, and for Maria, who had only ever tried to help her.
She could not remember a time when she had done this before, to just let go, no longer trying to control things.
He mopped her eyes finally with the edge of his sleeve, her hair wet, too, from the exertion and her heart sore.
‘Who was there to help you, Alejandra?’
‘Maria was there after he died and she said that I had only two choices, to go on or not to go on. The brothel needed a younger hand, a steadier one, and I found I was good at the business side of things, tallying the finances and seeing that the house was...in order. Even in a brothel there is some sense of arrangement and structure, you see, Capitán, and it had long been left to run down.’
‘You became Maria’s right-hand woman?’
‘I did and it was an honour. She had no one left and neither did I.’
‘And so you wrote the letter for help?’
‘No, it was for the truth I wrote. For Ross. Not for me. I wanted you to know that he would be...that he would have a life and a name and a time.’
His ripe curse had her hands rising up to her chest, about to make the sign of the cross, but she stilled them. To ask the Lord for help now was hypocritical and disingenuous. She could not expect it, not after so long of turning away from his ministry.
‘Did you keep the letter?’
She shook her head. ‘Everything that I had left of you is gone.’ With that she moved away and lay down on her bed, turned towards the wall. She did not want false promises. She did not want him to capitulate only in pity. She was glad when he did not speak again.
* * *
When she woke he was missing from the bed by the window, his bag neatly packed and the blanket pulled up. Outside it was blue, the rain and storms across the past few days disappeared and the temperatures warmer again. Hot, in fact, she thought as she loosened the few top buttons on the man’s shirt Lucien had given her.
For the first time in a long while she felt hungry, as if she should eat well before greeting the day. Another difference. She folded her jacket into the small sack she carried and put on her boots before washing her face in the cold water someone had left in a china bowl on the table between the beds. Her heel ached and although she had tried to wash it when she could, in both rivers and smaller streams, an inflammation had set in.
Then Lucien was there, offering bread and cheese.
‘We can’t stay here in San Sebastian. Wellington has his own worries and there are no boats in the harbour to take us north.’
‘North?’ She could not quite understand what he meant.
‘England. You can’t go west because of the Betancourts and the south and east are still controlled by the French. We should have safe passage towards Bilbao, though, in the smaller ports on the Costa Vasca.’
‘I cannot come with you to England. How would you explain me to your family?’
‘We will think on that on the road,’ he returned and lifted up his bag. ‘When you have finished breakfast we will go.’
* * *
An hour later they were riding through the countryside on two steeds Lucien had managed to procure.
The closeness of last night had not been lost altogether and the tight dread of her life seemed to have been unwound a little. Lucien had not left her in San Sebastian and he had promised to bring Ross home. For that alone she was grateful, but there were other things that ran around her body and in her mind that owed no tether to simple gratitude.
When he had held her last night against him in comfort she had wanted what they had enjoyed on the high passes of the Galician Mountains, to feel him inside her once again, to know the passion and the glory of a connection that she had never forgotten.
She looked away from him so that he would not see that which burnt in her eyes. But when she glanced up at the sun streaming through the trees and leaving beams of light on the air
she felt hopeful.
The word surprised her. It had after all been so long since she had once felt that.
* * *
Lucien watched the landscape about him. It was still dangerous to ride through these passes without an escort from the military, but Wellington could not spare any men and Lucien did not wish to wait for a week or two until he could.
So he was cautious and wary as the miles passed, checking distance, listening for sounds and watching the horizon for any sign of movement that could be risky.
He felt flattened from her news of their baby son, all his defences down and the loss of what could have been. He was also furious that she had written to him when she was pregnant asking for help and that somebody had sent an answer back refusing it.
His mother, probably. The wrath inside made him shake.
‘Where do you live when you are not in London?’ They’d slowed the horses to give them a break and so were able to talk.
‘At Linden Park, in Kent, to the south of the city,’ he qualified as she frowned.
‘And your family is there? You said once that there were lots of them.’
‘Two brothers and my sister, Christine. And my mother. The estate had been left to run down, so that is why I left the army, to try to build it up again and make it prosperous. I am having some success with manufacturing.’
And he was. The textile business had become most lucrative and the power mills and new technology meant everything could be done faster and better. He had poured what was left of the family fortune into the sector, and so far the odds looked to be paying off.
Business. Profits. Manufacturing. Why was he not asking more personal questions of Alejandra or simply getting off his horse and dragging her into the substantial undergrowth around them to see if they could rediscover all they had felt before? He wanted her with such a violence he could barely breathe and it worried him.
Last night had been a revelation, but he was wary, too. He needed to get Alejandra to England first and home to a place where she would not be able to simply disappear. He no longer trusted that she would not flee in the environs of her own land given that the freedom from Spain’s independence was creeping back in.
She had always said she would never leave Spain, but if he brought Ross to England, would that not engender a different loyalty? A base. A place to put down roots and grow from?
He could not afford to harm the small trust that was developing between them by going too fast, by expecting too much closeness.
Hence he turned the subject to other things.
‘When I left Spain after Pontevedra the boat hit a storm in the Bay of Biscay and it took us a lot longer to reach England than Alvarez had imagined. At times I wondered if the ship would not just sink into oblivion.’
‘And your wounds? How did you fare by the time you did reach it?’
‘Badly. I was ill for a long time and then convalesced at Montcliffe, a friend’s family seat in Essex. Daniel Wylde. He was in Spain with me.’
She nodded. ‘You spoke of him in your fever dreams at the hacienda, calling him to help you. And of some others. Francis and Gabriel. Like the angels in the Bible,’ she qualified and reddened. It was the first religious reference he had heard her make since he’d met up with her again.
‘I grew up with them all. Daniel has a wife now called Amethyst and children and Gabriel is married to Adelaide. They are not women who covet society and its frippery.’
The fright and distance in her eyes was evident. Once, he had imagined Alejandra in the city with her bravery and confidence dressed in a fine gown, but now...all he saw was fear and uncertainty, the red in her hair strangely contrasted against the sheen of her skin.
But she had smiled four times today, which was twice more than she had yesterday and four times more than the day before that.
He did not want her to meet his family looking beaten. He wanted her to lift her eyes and become the woman she once had been.
* * *
The small port town of Bermeo came into view towards the late afternoon and as luck would have it the tide was in and they managed to find passage to England on a fishing boat that would leave in an hour.
Lucien was pleased to pay the fare and pleased, too, for the hammocks slung on the deck that were to be theirs for the two-day journey. Alejandra had barely spoken to him and he knew without being told that she was more than wary of finding herself in England.
Chapter Thirteen
London
‘I did not realise that she was a woman you had strong feelings for, Lucien. I thought she was a charlatan cashing in on a quick way to an easy life, a woman who would hoodwink and dupe you with the threat of a pregnancy. That was what I thought.’
His mother was crying, large tears falling down both cheeks.
‘But to never consult me on it. To simply burn the letter and never tell me anything at all? It is that I cannot forgive you for.’
He had confronted his mother about the letter after introducing her to Alejandra. The meeting had been tense and he could see on her face that she had recognised the name. After taking Alejandra to the library and asking the maid to bring her refreshments Lucien had gone back in order to find out the exact story.
‘I know it was wrong, Lucien, but you were so sick I thought another problem might simply finish you off. I was going to talk to Daniel Wylde of it, but he was never here in London, what with his leg and the problems he was facing at Ravenshill Manor, and after a time...I felt ashamed. Too ashamed to ever bring it up again even when you were better.’
‘She lost the child. Our child. Your grandson. Alejandra named him Ross. He was too little to live.’
A fresh wave of tears had him almost feeling sorry for his mother, but he refrained from moving towards her because the anger that had stifled him all of the journey home was still too raw and fresh to dismiss. He wanted her to be as hurt as they had been.
‘Do you think that my reply might have caused...?’ She did not finish, her face an ashen white.
Of a sudden Lucien’s anger changed to grief and he could no longer say what he thought he might have.
Turning, he simply walked out the door and back to the library. Alejandra was there, sitting on a chair by the fire, and he thought that although it was not very cold, to her it must seem so.
The gown he had found in a shop in Bournemouth which had been serviceable and appropriate there was old and tatty in London. The colour did not suit her, either, the orange against red only bringing out the garishness of both clashing shades.
‘She does not like me? Your mother. She did not look happy at all when we arrived. I am sorry for it.’
‘Don’t be. She is a woman who takes a while to warm to those she does not know. We will leave for Linden Park on the morrow, but you will need a chaperon.’
‘A chaperon?’
‘In England it is not done for a young unmarried lady to spend time alone with a man.’
‘But we have been alone for nearly two weeks now.’
‘The very height of scandal,’ he returned, ‘and better not to mention that to anyone at all.’ She smiled. ‘My sister, Christine, will come with us to Kent and also my aunt. Mama will no doubt venture down at some time, too, but for now...’
‘She was the one who sent the letter, wasn’t she?’
He nodded. ‘She had a dream I would die in Spain and she thought...’
‘To save you from harm. A mother’s prerogative, I should suppose, to try to protect her son.’
He shook his head. ‘No, it was unforgivable. If she had been honest, I could have been there to help you when Ross was born.’
For the first time since he had found her in Madrid she stepped forward and touched him willingly. One finger placed gently against his lips.
‘You are here now. It is enough.’
‘Enough for what?’
‘For me. This now. For being here with you and safe in England.’
He took her han
d and held it to his heart, liking the warmth of it and the littleness. The pulse in her wrist beat fast.
‘I am not sure of anything any more, Lucien,’ she whispered, but she did not pull away. ‘I am not sure of who I am or of what I might become. I used to be more sure, but now...it is cold in this land and grey and all I can be to you is a...nuisance...’
The last word was whispered as if it were too terrible to say louder.
‘I bled a lot when Ross was born and the doctor who attended me at the hospital said...’ She took in a breath and kept going. ‘He said I would probably never have another child. It could be true.’
The green in her eyes burnt with shame and sorrow.
‘So you see your mother is right. I should not be here with you like this...’ Her hands ran across the shabby fabric of the dress before rising to her hair, pulled from its fastening after a day’s hard ride from the coast. ‘I cannot fit in here even if I wanted to.’
As he was about to answer the doorbell rang and voices were heard booming over the silence.
‘Where is he?’
‘Where’s Luce?’
* * *
When the door opened, a man and two women spilled into the room.
They were all beautiful. That was Alejandra’s first thought. Beautifully dressed, beautifully presented, beautifully English, their manners instantly harnessed into politeness as they caught sight of her standing by the fire.
‘You are Alejandra?’
The tall man with pale green eyes came forward first. He limped slightly and had the air of a soldier. ‘My God, Luce actually found you? I never thought he would.’
Lucien had now moved over to her side. She felt his presence there and was pleased for it.
‘Alejandra Fernandez y Santo Domingo, this is Daniel Wylde, the Earl of Montcliffe, his wife, Amethyst, and my sister, Christine Howard.’
The two women smiled, but there was puzzlement on their faces.
‘Is most nice to meet with you.’ Alejandra hoped her grasp of English was correct. It had been so long since she had spoken the language aloud with her mother and Rosalie herself had not been in any way fluent.