by Carla Kelly
The men looked at each other. “Well, it is over now, my dear,” the consul said. “I am sending you and Mr. Winslow to Holland with the ambassador, where you will be transferred to a ship for Boston. You’ll sail in two days.”
She flinched as though someone had slapped her. “So soon?” she managed.
The consul stared at her. “My dear Miss Whittier, did you notice the fortifications that the Viscount of Wellington is ringing around this city?’
She shook her bead.
“He expects this city to be attacked by Napoleon’s marshals this fall. Even now British troops are falling back into Lisbon and bringing hordes of wounded. God knows where they are putting them all. I am sending my own wife and family to safety with the ambassador. Of course you will go. This is not a matter for argument.”
Hannah rose and the men stood up. “Then I would like to say goodbye to Captain Spark before we sail,” she said. She stared down their amazed expressions. “I owe him that for his kindness to me.”
“Out of the question!” the consul exclaimed slamming his fist on the desk for emphasis. “We should be at war with those rascals and you want to pay a hospital visit? Miss Whittier, you are out of order. Go back to your room, please.”
She turned on her heel and hurried from the bookroom, her face blank of all expression. She stood in the empty hallway, shaking with rage and helplessness until she felt more calm, then moved slowly toward the stairs. She put her hand on the railing and stopped. “No,” she said distinctly and looked back at the closed door to the bookroom. “I will not, and thee cannot make me.”
The hall was still empty. She walked swiftly toward the front door, holding her breath as she passed the parlor where the consul’s wife sat at the piano with her daughter. She opened the front door carefully and slipped out into the Lisbon afternoon.
It was downhill all the way to the harbor, past large residences shielded behind walls with iron gates, and then smaller houses, and finally shops. She moved purposefully, trying to walk along with the crowds of shoppers, her mind in turmoil over how to find one wounded man in a foreign city swollen with the injured. She had no money to tempt anyone to help her, and nothing beyond a fierce desire to see that he was alive and well.
The docks frightened her, filled as they were with milling soldiers and sailors wearing uniforms of many countries. The men eyed her as she hurried past, calling out remarks that made her ears burn. She hurried on, wondering where to look, who to speak to, praying that no one would touch her or drag her into one of the numerous dark alleys that bisected the waterfront like veins.
“Miss Whittier! I say, Miss Whittier!font>”
She whirled around to see Mr. Futtrell, clad in a new uniform, shouldering his way through the crowds toward her. She gave a sob of relief and threw herself into his arms, hugging him and crying at the same time. “Mr. Futtrell, you have to help me find the captain!”
He held her off from him and peered down into her tear-stained face. “I thought I left you safe in the hands of the American consul,” he said, pulling out his handkerchief. “My God, madam, we can’t have you wandering about the Lisbon docks.”
She nodded and thanked him for his handkerchief. She blew her nose and let him lead her to a bench in front of a chandler’s shop. “You did leave me with the consul, but he was beastly and kept asking me the same questions over and over again, and when I said I wanted to see how Daniel did, he said it was out of the question and I ran away,” she finished in a rush of words.
“Miss Whittier, I do believe you have changed a great deal since you came on board the Dissuade,” he said, a grin on his face.
“What has that to do with anything?” she demanded, and clutched his arm. “I have to know how Daniel is. They are going to put me on a ship for Holland and then home, and I have to know. I still have the dispatch, and he needs it.”
He stood up then and offered her his arm. “Miss Whittier—Hannah—let us find the captain.”
She burst into tears again and had to blow her nose more heartily before the lieutenant would allow her to accompany him. “After all, I have appearances to keep up,” he told her, his voice stem, but his eyes merry. “You certainly are a tenacious bit of shark chum.” He paused a moment “I suppose if the American consul finds us, I will be clapped in irons and charged with attempted kidnap.”
“I suppose it’s possible,” she said, twinkling her eyes back at him. “I suggest we hurry.”
His grip tight on her arm, Lieutenant Futtrell led her through the crowd of sailors and soldiers and onto a quieter side street leading up from the harbor. “Lord Wellington is in the city,” he explained as they hurried along. “He is supervising the construction of breastworks around Lisbon to keep Boney from pushing us into the sea. We will see some hot work here soon.”
Hannah hurried to keep up with his long stride, and he shortened his steps obligingly. “What will happen to you?” she asked.
“I’m to be shipped out on the next tide back to Portsmouth,” he said, and stopped before a church. “He is here, Hannah, at All Saints.” He tipped his tall hat to her. “I would come in, but he and I have already spoken, and I have to catch the tide. I’ll probably see you in London quite soon.”
“Not if I am bound for Holland,” she said, retaining her clutch on his arm.
He leaned down and kissed her cheek, gently tugging off her fingers. “What little I know of you tells me that you will find a way to get to London, Hannah. Do you know you still smell of tunny?”
She laughed and dabbed at her eyes, hugged him one last time, and slipped into the cool gloom of the church. When her eyes became accustomed, she looked around in shock and horror. The nave was filled with wounded men from the entrance to the chancel, lying practically shoulder to shoulder on pallets and tended by nuns, who glided up and down the rows. “War, I hate thee,” she said softly, clasping her hands tightly together.
There were doctors here and there, kneeling beside the patients. She thought of Andrew Lease, swallowed a huge lump in her throat, and went from surgeon to surgeon until she found an English physician. His eyes red from lack of sleep, the surgeon pointed to a side door and turned back to his patient.
There were more pallets in the lady chapel off the main sanctuary. She gasped with relief when she saw a redcoated Marine sitting on the floor by a pallet closest to the altar. He looked up at her approach and grinned, and she recognized him from the Dissuade.
“Well, as I barely live and faintly breathe, it’s Lady Amber,” came a voice from the pallet. “Corporal, go find someone else to watch for a while, will you?”
With another grin and a tip of the hat, the Marine left the chapel as she ran forward and flung herself across the man who lay on the pallet.
“Ow! Gently, my dear,” Captain Spark said. “My ribs are still sore and look out for my arm. But before you get discouraged, let me add that my lips are fine, however.”
She sat up, put her hands gently on each side of his face and kissed him. His good arm went around her and he pulled her back down to the pallet, kissing her with a fervor that belied his convalescing condition. One kiss was not enough; two scarcely served to slake her own thirst for him. Thee is an idiot, Hannah Whittier, she told herself as she ran her tongue inside his eager mouth and wished the world somewhere else.
Spark finally stopped for breath. She sat up then as he sighed and grasped her hand. “My dear Hannah, I hope the next words out of your mouth are ‘I love you,’ or I will think you an unconscionable tease.”
“I love you,” she said. “And I’ve never kissed anyone like that.”
“I am profoundly grateful,” he said. “I would have to call him out.”
“Come to think of it, Captain Sir Daniel, I’ve never kissed anyone but you,” she said.
“Better and better,” he said, pulling her closer again. “Let’s keep this Yankee abandon our little secret, all right?”
She nodded and rested her head carefully o
n his chest. “The American consulate wouldn’t let me come to see you, but I did anyway. Mr. Futtrell showed me the way.”
“That boy continues to rise in my estimation,” he murmured, his hand in her hair. “I see a brilliant future for him in the Royal Navy. And a future for you in my Dorsetshire manor.”
The moment the words were out of his mouth, she wished he had not said them. It was as though they were a cold dousing of seawater from the wash pump, a brutal reminder of her situation. As she lay in his arms in the chapel in Lisbon, she thought of her home, and a wave of agony washed over her. “Oh, Daniel, I don’t know,” she whispered.
“Trust me. I do know,” he replied. When she said nothing, he sat up. “You have the dispatch?”
“Not with me,” she replied, sitting up more decorously and moving away slightly, wondering at the power of words to make her feel so dispirited suddenly. “This expedition was decidedly spur of the moment. I can get it to you tomorrow, now that I know where you are.”
“Good. I probably will be here a few more days, at the very least.”
She sat closer again and told him of the consul’s determination to ship her and Adam to Holland tomorrow. “I do not see how we can avoid it.”
“Avoid it any way you can,” Spark replied firmly. “Didn’t I once promise you almond cake and fresh water in my home?”
So thee did, she thought as she left the hospital in the careful company of the Marine. We have talked about a great many things, and I have kissed thee too much for my own peace of mind. I do not know what I was thinking, but does anyone think enough, under those sweet circumstances? She doubted it.
“I think we’ll have to walk, ma’am,” the Marine said, intruding on her thoughts. “Seems like every spare conveyance is already taking someone to or from the earthworks.”
She nodded and followed his lead through the streets crowded with a weird collection of local citizens haggling in the marketplaces for their supper, soldiers heading for the fortifications, wounded coming from distant battlefields, and sailors prowling the waterfront All around was noise and confusion; she longed for the quiet coolness of the church where she had said goodbye to Daniel after another kiss that went on far too long and left her feeling restless.
“A bit disorderly,” the Marine commented, looking about him with some distaste. He kept his hand at her elbow and hurried her along through a crowd of drunken Light Bobs. “Give me the open sea any day, where the decks are well scrubbed and the canvas tight.”
Hannah nodded. She looked up at her protector. “Thank you for your help. I can put that dispatch in your hands as soon as we get to the consulate.”
“And I will take it right back to the captain,” he replied. He hesitated a moment, whether to confide something, and then continued. “He called for you last night. I think he had a touch of fever.”
And I wasn’t there, she thought. Nor will I be there if he should call again. “I will trust you to see that he gets the care he needs,” she told the Marine, her eyes on the long driveway up to the consulate. “I do not think he and I will meet again. I am bound for Holland.”
The Marine frowned down at her. “I call that a bl ... blinking shame, ma’am, if you’ll pardon me. He really is a good man. I wouldn’t have served with him through three cruises, if I didn’t know that.”
They climbed the hill in silence as the sun set over the harbor, turning the water into a silver sheet. So many ships rode at anchor, so many troops streamed ashore to continue the fight against Napoleon. She thought of her own peaceful home on Nantucket, where each day was pretty much like the one before it. Her life could take its own quiet course there, with no more of the rude shocks she had experienced during this summer’s adventure.
The consul’s house was brightly lit and the door wide open, discounting any hopes Hannah may have harbored about sneaking back inside. As she walked wearily up the front steps, her Marine in tow, the consul stormed out the open door.
“Where have you been?” he thundered after a look at the Marine behind her.
“You would not let me go to the hospital, but I went anyway,” she said, raising her chin up to look him squarely in the eyes.
Before she could protest, the consul grabbed her and pulled her inside, slamming the door after him. The Marine knocked on the door and then pounded upon it, but the consul ignored his efforts. “Go away!” he roared at last, not relinquishing his hold on Hannah.
He let her go when the knocking stopped and shook his finger in her face. “You will go right to your room and remain there, Miss Whittier! Don’t you know there is a war on out there?”
“I know better than you do!” she stormed back. “The British have their backs to the sea here and no one to depend on but themselves.”
He pulled her further into the house toward the stairs and gave her another shake for good measure. “One would think you sympathized with those who destroy our shipping and impress American citizens. I do not want to see your face again until the ambassador sails for Holland, Miss Whittier.< />”
With a sob, she ran up the stairs and into her room, slamming the door behind her. She sat on the bed a moment to collect her thoughts, then hurried to the window drapery, where she had hidden the Bergeron dispatch in the wide hem. It was still there. She flung open the window, but the Marine was long gone. “Drat!” she exclaimed and threw herself down on the bed. Somehow she would have to leave the consulate again in the morning, this time with the dispatch, and take it to the captain.
She sat up. Perhaps Adam could do it. She went to the door, and turned the handle, but it was locked. She pounded on the door. No answer. “I was better treated by the British!” she shouted through the heavy oak paneling.
The house was silent. She went to the window again, looked down two floors to the paving stones below, and sighed. She lay down on her bed and curled herself into a little ball.
The morning brought breakfast on a tray, delivered by a tight-lipped servant and followed by Adam Winslow. The maid set the tray on the table by the bed and Adam lifted the cloth that coveted it. He whistled and rolled his eyes at her.
“At least it is not bread and water, which I am sure is all the consul thinks thee deserves,” he observed as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Hannah, what is the matter with thee? I disremember thee ever behaving like this on Nantucket.”
She ignored him, eating her way steadily through the food on the tay, and looking around for more. When she could find none, she went to the drapery and pulled out the Bergeron dispatch and slapped it in Adam’s hand.
“We have to get this to Captain Spark.” she said.
“I can assure that the consul has no intention of letting thee wander the streets of Lisbon again,” Adam told her. “And don’t get those tears in thy eyes and look so stubborn! Hannah, this is still not our fight”
“How can thee say that?” she replied. “There is a traitor in the British government.”
“What is that to us?” he asked baldly, taking her by both hands. “Hannah, thee is behaving like a school miss.”
She shook off his grip. “Thee will not help me, Adam Winslow?” she asked.
“I will not help thee,” he replied. “We sail tomorrow morning for Holland, and then home.” He left the room then. In another moment, the key turned in the lock.
Her first impulse was to bang on the door, and rage and scream until her voice was raw, but she quickly discarded both ideas as unproductive in the extreme. All that remained was the window. She went to it again and opened it wide, hoping that during the night the house had shrunk two floors and the ground underneath her window was flowerbeds of soft dirt instead opaving stones. Nothing had changed. If anything, the ground looked farther away. This is not fair, she thought, resting her chin on her hands and staring out the window.
She noticed the narrow ledge that ran from her window to the next room, which had a balcony, and climbing ivy. It was a matter of some twenty feet along the ledge, whic
h was tenanted now with doves, cooing and puffing themselves up and strutting back and forth as though they strolled on a broad highway.
It wasn’t a moment that demanded deep thought, she decided as she stuck the dispatch down the front of her dress and climbed onto the window ledge. A moment’s thoughtful consideration would only lead to rejection of the plan as dangerous as it was foolhardy. I must seize the moment, she thought as she inched along the ledge, her eyes on the balcony, and not the ground. I must pretend I am in the rigging and not look down. At least the building does not sway. Oh, the things I have done for thee, Daniel Spark, she thought as she edged along. She reached for the balcony finally and pulled herself onto it.
Adam Winslow stared back at her from the other side of the glass. With a shake of his head, he opened the door onto the balcony. “Thee is certifiable, of course, and I suppose I am, too,” was all he said as he straddled the balcony railing and started down the climbing ivy. “I will test it first and then thee should follow. If we are both hanged for aiding and abetting the enemy, I will make sure thee swings first so I can have the satisfaction of watching thy neck stretch!”
He wouldn’t speak to her all the way to the hospital, but kept his eyes straight ahead. Not until they entered the sanctuary of All Saints did he make a sound, and then it was a sigh that went all the way to his toes as he stared at the rows and rows of wounded men from Wellington’s last encounter with Marshals Soult and Ney. He took her hand then. “Hannah,” was all he could say as he tugged her closer.
She leaned against his shoulder. “Adam, doesn’t thee see? If we can help unmask a traitor in the British government, perhaps it wi even the odds here in Portugal and Spain.”
He nodded. “And there would not be so many wounded, eh, Hannah? Well, let’s get this dispatch to our captain and be done with it.”