William’s new light of love was both shrewd and practical. Sabrina’s collapse played right into her hands, which was very fortunate for Sabrina. Donna Francisca Maria da Silviera de Brito promptly directed the party to an inn with a cool, dark parlor and attended Sabrina herself until she revived. They would stay until the cool evening breeze began, she assured Sabrina, and settled her to sleep off her weakness. And when William whispered in her ear that Sabrina was acting up because she was jealous, Donna Francisca shook her head.
“It is the whiteness,” she said. “She is not fair as our women from the Minho are fair. They are blond, yes, but their skin is more golden. Lady Elvan is white, all white, even her hair, all pale, like silver.”
William’s forehead creased. He was really annoyed with Sabrina. Deliberately or not, she was causing more trouble than she was worth. If she were going to faint every time she stepped out of the house, she would be utterly useless.
“I will have to send her home,” he said.
Donna Francisca cast him a flickering glance from under long black lashes. Her large almond-shaped brown eyes were hard but beautiful. Sending Sabrina home would not fit in with her plans at all.
“Ah, no!” she exclaimed. “How cruel you are to send so fragile and delicate a woman on so long a journey all alone.”
Instantly alerted by the tone of Donna Francisca’s voice, William glanced across the room to where Sabrina was slowly recovering, lying on a sofa. “But she cannot endure the heat. You saw that she was ill at the party last week. This time it was worse. However little love there is between us,” he lowered his voice seductively over those words, “for she is as cold as her ice-maiden appearance, she is my wife. I could not permit harm to come to her.”
“No, indeed,” Donna Francisca purred. “It is the last thing I should wish. But there is no need to send Lady Elvan home. It would be…uncomfortable for a man to send away his wife… It would be…remarked upon. It would be far better to take her to the mountains. There it is cool and pleasant.”
William looked sidelong at the ripe and beautiful woman sitting across from him. “But I do not know your country. I would not know where to take her.”
“That is easy. Poor Lady Elvan. My sympathy is engaged for her. There is a house, small but well appointed—it was built for my grandmother when my own mother came to La Casa des Ermidas. I am sure it could be arranged that Lady Elvan spend the summer there. It is cool, quite high, and it is no great distance from Coimbra, so that a good physician could be fetched from the university should she be ill.”
William stared into the dark eyes. “But will it be too lonely for Sabrina? There will be times when I must be in Lisbon on business.”
“Ah, no! How could you think I would suggest such a thing? So delicate a lady, all alone. The town of Lousa, a lovely little town, is no more than a half-hour walk, a fifteen-minute drive or ride. Lady Elvan rides, does she not?”
“Yes, very well.”
“And for little things, a few moments’ chat perhaps, La Casa des Ermidas is only a mile up the hill by road or a quarter mile by the path behind the house. I will be there, at des Ermidas. Of course, the path is somewhat overgrown but it could be cleared.”
“I would not think of putting you to the trouble of clearing it,” William said with a significant glance. “The hill would be too steep for Sabrina, and walking is not a favorite activity of hers.” That was a flat lie, but William uttered it without a blink. “Naturally I will look over the path and if she insists I will have it cleared. Surely that must be my responsibility.”
“Certainly I will be happy to leave it to your judgment.”
Donna Francisca’s smile was brilliant. William’s answering smile was caressing. If it held a glint of triumph, the lady who received it did not mind. She was willing to allow her pursuer to think he had won a victory. She had a use for this Englishman.
Both were very pleased with themselves, and when eventually Sabrina stirred and sat up, William found he was very pleased with her, also. Her weakness, instead of being detrimental, had provided the opportunity for which he had been searching. In addition, she had remained asleep for just the right amount of time—enough for hints and suggestions, for an “accidental” touch or two—and wakened before it became embarrassing to go no further. Her awakening, moreover, invested the conversation with a spicy aura of wrongdoing.
William knelt beside Sabrina to ask tenderly whether she felt well enough to come to the table if he supported her. Donna Francisca came also, extending a hand to touch Sabrina’s forehead and exclaim that she was better, since the clammy sweat was gone. Sabrina smiled seraphically at both of them, begging pardon for being such a trouble. She had not been asleep nearly as long as they thought, and she was almost as pleased as they were with the arrangements. It would have been dreadfully dull to be imprisoned in the house all summer.
Arrangements were made with remarkable rapidity. That was not surprising when tenant and landlord outdid each other in courtesy and willingness to please. Donna Francisca’s husband, Dom José, was very sorry for the lovely blanca, the so fair English lady who could not endure the heat. He was also glad to please the English milord. The court might be stupidly cold, but Dom José knew it was the British who bought his wine. France and Austria made their own; Germany drank beer. It was the English, whose taste favored the sweet sherries and rich dark ports and whose climate would not permit the grapes to grow properly, who made his father a rich man and him still richer.
Thus, Dom José was well pleased and complimented his wife on her wisdom in first considering his business. He was not at all surprised; Donna Francisca had a nice discernment about what was best for the business. Dom José smiled, although he was alone in his office. Everyone had warned him against marriage with her. Everyone said she was prouder of her lineage than the royal family, that she would treat him like dirt, that all she wanted was his money to save her family estates.
It was true about the money, of course, but Dom José did not mind at all. It was the estates he wanted. Now they were his and would be his sons’ after him. And most of the other warnings had not been fulfilled. Although she was cold and most reluctant to couple with him, she did not treat him with contempt. In fact, she took a most lively interest in the business, eagerly studying every aspect of its management. Dom Jose smiled again. Perhaps he should have taken her as a partner instead of a wife. In six months she had learned so well and so quickly that he almost thought she could take his place as head of the firm if he should die.
On the other hand, she had not yet conceived. The smile disappeared. Nor was it likely she would if she continued to refuse him constantly. Well, that was partly his fault. Dom Jose was aware that he was not exactly a girl’s dream suitor. She had been repelled by him in the beginning, he knew. He had been willing to allow her to grow accustomed slowly, since she was so frigid. Also, he had been very busy.
The handwriting on the wall had been plain to Dom José for months. Unless a miracle occurred, trade would be disrupted. Dom José had needed his time and energy to dispose of his stock and secure his wealth as best he could. He was no boy who could work all day and play all night. He needed his rest and had not pressed his wife about sexual congress. Soon there would be little business to attend to. Francisca probably knew that, Dom José thought wryly, and had decided to go to La Casa des Ermidas to escape him. He laughed.
It suited him very well that she had decided to go and to take the Englishwoman as company. The English would make no trouble and might be out of the country soon. When his business was all settled in a few weeks, he would go up to La Casa des Ermidas himself. Then he would stand no nonsense from Francisca and do his duty until he got her with child. A good beating or two in the privacy of des Ermidas, where her bruises would heal unremarked, would quickly make her receptive if not enthusiastic.
It was important that his sons would be what he could never be. Dom José knew he was
barely tolerated among the nobility for his wealth. His own land was nothing, a few vineyards. There was no ancient castle on it; there was no tomb in which ancestors lay with legs crossed to show they had gone on crusade. But his sons would come down from La Casa des Ermidas knowing their forefathers had owned the land for six hundred years, had fought the Moors from the ruined keep on the river below. His family’s financial success joined with his wife’s regal lineage would create sons with the advantages of both backgrounds.
Oddly enough, at the same moment Donna Francisca was also thinking about Dom José’s sons. She was not speaking of that subject. In fact, she was inquiring civilly but coolly of William when she should send a servant to the dower house to have it opened, cleaned, and stocked with food. However, whenever she spoke to William, she thought of Dom José’s sons. She thought this Englishman would be ideal for her purpose. He was not some jumped-up diplomatic lackey. One could tell his breeding in the beautifully shaped head, the long, slender hands and feet. The employment at the embassy, that was noblesse oblige, the duty a man owes his country—a man of honor, then. To take him—yes. It would be better if Lord Elvan fathered the son she must provide than that crude, common toad of a merchant she had been forced to marry for his wealth. Once she had the child, she could be rid of Dom José, the money and business would be the child’s—and thus, hers.
She had understood her husband far better than he guessed. She knew for what purpose he had bought her. She knew that she herself—beautiful, educated, intelligent, and nobly born—meant nothing to him. He would have taken a mewling idiot, coarse and deformed, to have sons of a noble line. He made her nothing! Less than nothing! How she hated him! She could not refuse when he had offered, but she would have her revenge. Sweet, full, and sure, she would first have her revenge—and then everything.
First, the son she bore would not be José’s. That was most important. It would be tricky too. He had not the pride of a grandee, who might well keep silent to save his own face. José would tell the world and repudiate her and the child if he suspected. She would need to sleep with him several times after she missed the first flux, but she would manage that somehow. Perhaps she could say she had had special prayers for conception and felt they would be answered at that particular time.
“As for me,” William said, startling Donna Francisca, who had forgotten that she had asked when she should open the house, “immediately would not be too soon, but,” his smile caressing, suggestive, ”I would not wish to hurry you in any way.”
Donna Francisca managed to control her faint start when William’s voice woke her from her thoughts. She found she was staring into his eyes, and lowered her lids slowly while she made sense of what he had said.
“I assure you,” William murmured, “I wish we could all be whisked away there by magic at this moment.”
“Oh, I agree,” Francisca said with a slow smile. “It is so dreadfully hot. Even I feel it. Poor Lady Elvan must be prostrate.”
William’s eyes held hers for a moment while a flicker of laughter crossed his face. Francisca read it clearly enough and blushed. His expression had implied that, shame though it might be, William was not interested in Sabrina even prostrate. That was flattering, but for practical reasons Francisca wanted to leave as soon as possible. José was still tied to urgent business matters and would be unable to make the trip to des Ermidas for several weeks. After that, he might have more time free to come up, and at des Ermidas José always demanded his conjugal rights. Francisca disguised a shudder under a soft laugh.
“Then I will send a man out today, and if Lady Elvan can be readied, you could start the day after tomorrow. There will be no need to bring anything more than clothing. Everything else will be there and ready.”
This news was as welcome to Sabrina as to William. Although she had not collapsed again, the growing heat was beginning to affect her even in the house during the hottest hours of the day. Katy was frantic, begging her to go home to England, but Sabrina did not wish to return. One of her reasons for agreeing to accompany William had been to dull her fear for Perce, and in that sense the journey had been relatively successful.
Although Sabrina had not been occupied by diplomatic duties as she believed she would be, there had been the distractions of learning a little of a new language, setting up a new household, and seeing a new city. The distance, too, lent a kind of calm. Because Sabrina knew it would be several weeks before news from East Prussia could come to Lisbon, something inside her blocked the black, sick, unreasoning fear that had darkened every day after the battle of Pultusk. She thought of Perce all the time, but with patient eagerness.
Thus, she was looking forward to her trip to the mountains. Lord Strangford also hoped the cooler and purer air would enable her to stay. He had been annoyed with William for having brought his wife, but—quite aside from having grown rather fond of Sabrina—he did not wish her to leave. It would look entirely too much like a retreat in the face of Carlota Joaquina’s hostility if Sabrina returned to England. Therefore, Lord Strangford gave William several weeks’ leave to take Sabrina to the mountains and to settle her there comfortably.
Two days after the Elvan’s left Lisbon, Lord Strangford received a dispatch reporting that there had been a major battle at Friedland. The Russians had been defeated by the French. They had lost ten thousand men and eighty guns and had retreated in some disorder. But they had inflicted twelve thousand casualties on the French. The news was bad, but not bad enough for Strangford to recall William. The Russians were far closer to their home territory than were the French. They could replace men and guns more easily than could Bonaparte.
There was one hopeful aspect to the news. The defeat had been owing to a disastrous mistake on the part of General Bennigsen, the commanding general on the Russian side. He had allowed himself to be trapped in an untenable position, his troops outnumbered two to one. Even at these odds the Russians had apparently outfought the French, inflicting more casualties than they received. Had numbers and ground been more equal, it was possible the Russians would have won. If only this idea could be presented compellingly enough to the tsar, the war would continue.
Chapter Fifteen
Some days after the battle, General Bennigsen had been trying to accomplish just that. He had assured Tsar Alexander passionately that he could defeat Bonaparte. He had come near doing it twice, he averred. This defeat was owing only to bad information. Their men had fought better than the French. They had been tricked, tired, unfed, and still had stood their ground. If reinforcements could have reached them, they would have won. But Alexander was not listening. He did not even say, which he could have done with justification, that Bennigsen had been a fool and had fallen into a deliberately laid trap. Alexander was again in the grip of a deep depression.
Early on the eighteenth of June the tsar had heard without apparent emotion that Königsberg had been taken by the French marshal Soult on the sixteenth, but the next day he told Bennigsen that he had already sent Prince Dimitri Lobanov-Rostovsky, a lieutenant general under Bennigsen’s own command, to ask for an armistice. Bennigsen was furious. This was the end of his dream of glory, his obsessive hope of being the man who conquered Bonaparte. Instead of being the most powerful and important general in Europe, he would sink into obscurity—one more name on the list of those whom Bonaparte had destroyed. In fact, his fate would be worse than others’ because he would be the scapegoat.
The tsar would be willing to sacrifice him. Alexander knew he owed Bennigsen a debt of gratitude. Very likely the general had saved Alexander’s life by removing Tsar Paul from the throne; otherwise, Paul would have killed his son. But, of course, the dowager empress hated Bennigsen. She called what he had done murder, and never allowed her son to forget his own or Bennigsen’s guilt.
The fury and frustration Bennigsen felt had to be expressed. Nor were his fears diminished by the fact that Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky was handling the negotiations. To Bennigse
n the use of his subordinate instead of himself was a sure sign that he was in disfavor. Worse yet, all the other officers seemed in perfect sympathy with the tsar, delighted that peace would be made. Even his own aides-de-camp had no enthusiasm for continuing the fight. Although not to his face, they said—all except Lord Kevern—it was not Russian business what Bonaparte did in Germany.
Bennigsen knew that Kevern’s desire to continue the war sprang from his belief that it was best for England, and not from any special sympathy for him. Kevern had never denied that. However, in a way, Kevern was a symbol for another scapegoat. It was well known that the tsar now loudly blamed the English for dragging him into a war he had not wanted, then abandoning him. Alexander claimed the British had not paid the subsidies that they had promised him, but he was far more bitter about what he called their cowardice. He had been promised a diversion that would draw off some of Bonaparte’s troops to another front, and it had not materialized.
There was no danger in telling Kevern what he thought. Bennigsen was sure he was a safe confidant. He was not Russian and owed no loyalty to the tsar. How could he, when Alexander’s first words on meeting Bonaparte were, “I hate the English as much as you do and am ready to assist you in any undertaking against them.” Bennigsen, who had been present at the meeting, informed Perce of this remark himself. There was a moment of silence, after which Perce, had offered to resign if his presence would cause his superior any more problems.
“Nothing can make my situation worse,” Bennigsen snarled. “Alexander might blame the English now, but as soon as he returns to St. Petersburg, the dowager empress will make sure the blame falls upon me.”
Perce had already been the recipient of several heated defenses of Bennigsen’s conduct. In his personal opinion the general had been a fool. He had allowed his eagerness to obtain one clear victory to deceive him into accepting unconfirmed and suspicious reports. Perce felt that the defeat at Friedland had been Bennigsen’s fault; however, it was useless to worry about that now. Considering what Alexander had said and Bonaparte’s mania on the subject of the British, it was clear, that part of the peace treaty would affect England. Perce’s duty to his homeland was to discover what was planned for England by France and Russia in the terms of their treaty. His only key was Bennigsen, and he must do his best to hold onto it.
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