Fortune's Bride (Heiress, Book Four)

by Roberta Gellis

  On those last words, Esmeralda’s voice trembled. It was so easy to say, and if the sum involved were small, perhaps that would indeed have been all that was necessary. But bankers do not hand over huge estates just because a strange girl comes and says Henry Bryan Talbot is dead and I am his daughter, Esmeralda Mary Louisa. How was she to prove who she was?

  “It is true that he who holds the money might not be willing to part with it if there is only a letter and from a woman, too.” Tia Maria, who had been watching Esmeralda, was aware of her uncertainty. “It would be even better,” she said, “if you had a husband who could speak for you.”

  At the thought of Pedro in the offices of her father’s bankers speaking for his wife, Esmeralda choked. It was true she had never seen those offices, but she was sure her father had chosen the oldest, most reliable, most august banking house in London. Henry did not speculate with the money sent to England. He ordered his bankers to invest it in the soundest of securities. Nonetheless, the situation was not funny. It seemed as if her fear that pressure would be applied to her to make her marry Pedro might be true.

  “But that would mean the payment of two passages to England,” Esmeralda protested, saying the first thing that came into her mind.

  “Perhaps not,” Tia Maria remarked, smiling slyly. “We in this village have no boat large enough to sail so far, but one might be found.”

  Esmeralda was growing frightened. “No,” she said. “I do not wish to marry Pedro. I am English. I wish to live in my own country among my own people. You have all been very kind to me, but I am homesick.”

  “Ah, and so was I when I came from my village to this one, but it passes quickly. A strong, young husband and a few babies, and one thinks no more of such things. Besides, all the English are rich. There you will be nothing. Here you will be a great lady.”

  “No!” Esmeralda exclaimed. “No! I will not marry Pedro!”

  “No? But I tell you, no one will help you get to Oporto. And even if you should be mad enough to try to go alone, without money or a man to speak for you, you will starve in the street. Think it over. It will be good for you to be married. You should be glad Pedro will take you, even with the money, for you are not so young or so pretty that many would offer. Pedro will do his duty by you, for he has the interest of the village at heart. Think it over.”

  Chapter Three

  In the small boat being rowed out to the berth of the fast cruiser Crocodile in the harbor of Corunna, Robert Moreton and Fitzroy Somerset sat still and silent. Usually Sir Arthur’s relations with the young men of his staff were very friendly, but Wellesley, who was sitting across from them, had a ferocious temper, which had been severely tried by the gentlemen of the revolutionary junta. Under the circumstances, Robert and his fellow aide-de-camp neither spoke nor fidgeted, either being likely to bring down on his head the wrath of his superior officer.

  Sir Arthur was not particularly generous with information, but the young men had easily discovered for themselves that, although British money and supplies were welcome to the Spanish, the British army was not. The elaborate welcome Sir Arthur had received did not include an offer of a landing site for the troops following in slower transports. In fact, nothing beyond high-sounding phrases had been provided, and the sincerity of those was becoming rapidly more questionable as facts were wrenched with considerable difficulty from the officials of the junta.

  The Spanish officials had, for example, initially told Sir Arthur that their General Blake had gained a great victory over the French, although he had failed to complete the work by destroying the enemy. But Robert and another ADC, John Fane, Lord Burghersh, had picked up rumors around the city that hinted at a different story. Robert could not be entirely sure of what he had heard. He knew a little Portuguese, which he had learned in India during the treaty negotiations in Bassein but Portuguese and Spanish were not the same.

  Nonetheless, he had mentioned the less favorable rumors to Sir Arthur, who in turn had pressed the Spanish for more information.

  They had continued to insist that Blake had been victorious but admitted that the general had thought it wiser to withdraw. Alerted by the inconsistency, Wellesley asked more questions, whereupon it appeared that “perhaps” Blake had really suffered a slight check. Worse yet, no junta officials to whom Wellesley spoke seemed to have the slightest idea about what was going on in the rest of the country or at least none would tell Sir Arthur.

  “We will try Portugal,” Sir Arthur said suddenly to his ADCs in the boat, without a hint of anger in his voice.

  “I hope they are more welcoming, and more truthful,” Somerset remarked.

  Sir Arthur smiled without amusement. “One should not expect truth from native allies. I learned that lesson in India.” He paused, then went on dispassionately, “But I must confess that I was somewhat disappointed to learn it to be equally true of European allies.”

  “Do you think the Spanish were lying about anything else, sir?” Robert asked. “I don’t think the people in the town know any more, but surely the officials have better sources?”

  “It’s very hard to say,” Sir Arthur replied. “If the unrest in the country is as great as reported, there may be confusion about who is an official. In addition, the French move very fast. And then, there is always the possibility of interregional jealousies. In that case, they wouldn’t tell each other the truth any more than they would tell it to us.”

  “Then all we have done is waste two days,” Somerset commented angrily.

  “No, I wouldn’t say that.” Sir Arthur smiled again. “There is considerable value in having learned that we cannot rely too firmly on any intelligence supplied by the Spanish or at least not on that supplied by official sources.” He looked out past Somerset in the direction of the Crocodile, but he was not seeing the ship. “Knowing what not to do is worthwhile.”

  The Crocodile made quick work of the sail around the northwest coast of Spain and on July 24 landed in Oporto, Portugal. Here the situation was somewhat more hopeful. Antonio José de Castro, Bishop of Oporto, head of the local insurgent junta, had convinced a few hundred ragged Portuguese regulars and a crowd of peasants armed with pitchforks to drive out the French. Moreover, the information that the whole country north of the Tagus River was free of French and that General Andoche Junot and what was left of his army were confined to the area around Lisbon seemed to be true.

  Neither the bishop nor General Bernadim Freire, who was in charge of the remnants of the Portuguese army in Oporto, voiced any active objection to a British landing, but Sir Arthur knew that it was not practical to bring troops ashore so far from the enemy. It would be best to land somewhere along the Tagus estuary, however there was little possibility of that. Junot was said to have about twenty-six thousand men, and even if that was an exaggeration, the French marshal was far too experienced to leave the sea gate to Lisbon open to the British.

  The most hopeful site for a landing was at Figueira da Foz at the mouth of the Mondego River. However, Figueira was still more than one hundred miles from Lisbon, making necessary overland transport for food, guns, ammunition, and the other endless materiel of war. A discussion—some of it acrimonious—about the alternatives ensued among Sir Arthur, the junta, the bishop, and General Freire. However, the Portuguese were truly enraged by the robbery, sacrilege, and oppression the French had visited on them and were at least marginally more interested in driving out General Junot and his army than in personal glory or aggrandizement. In addition, owing to an avid taste for port wine and long-standing business dealings, the British were relatively well liked and trusted at Oporto. Thus, Sir Arthur was able to carry nearly all of his points.

  If it was possible for the fort at Figueira da Foz, which had been taken from the French by a heroic troop of students from Coimbra, to be secured by British marines, Sir Arthur would order the troop transports to Mondego Bay, which was just north of the fort. Wellesley himself would sail south in the Crocodile to consult with Sir
Charles Cotton, the admiral in charge of the ships blockading Lisbon. If Sir Charles agreed with Sir Arthur that it would be impossible to make a landing nearer Lisbon, the troops would be brought ashore at Figueira. Meanwhile, the bishop would undertake the task of gathering up the hundreds of oxen and pack mules necessary for transport, and General Freire would march those troops he could supply south along the road to Leiria.

  However, although Sir Arthur obtained the agreement of Bishop Antonio and General Freire, he did not feel any very strong conviction that the promises they had made would be fulfilled. He hoped, because the agreement had been relatively voluntary, that at least part of the assistance offered would actually be provided, but he was much too wise to rest the success of a military action on the promises of men he could not control.

  Sir Arthur felt he could accomplish his purpose even if the bishop and the general did nothing at all, but he must at least know that no help would be forthcoming from them. Thus, he assigned Colonel Trant to act as liaison officer between General Freire and the British forces and left Robert, who could speak some Portuguese, to assist the bishop. Sir Arthur provided Robert with a sum of money to be judiciously used for bribery or minimal but tempting payment to the muleteers and ox drivers. Robert’s instructions were to scour the countryside himself for transport animals if the bishop grew indifferent or was too busy.

  Neither of Sir Arthur’s fears about Bishop Antonio was true, but it was obviously not possible for the bishop to go about from village to village personally. He preached about the coming of the British in Oporto and instructed his aides and the other members of the junta to spread the word to the priests and to the regadors of the towns to urge compliance. However, with harvest coming and the countryside already ravaged by the foraging of the French, it was a bad time to collect draft animals.

  On July 25, Sir Arthur left and Robert spent the day arranging for the quartering and victualing of the animals and drivers that were collected. With the support of Bishop Antonio and the other members of the junta, this was easily settled, and there was nothing more Robert could do in Oporto until the transport animals began to come in. Considering the circumstances, it seemed wise to him to spend the time out in the countryside himself, assuring the owners of the oxen and mules that they would be paid for their time and the use of their animals.

  Bishop Antonio agreed heartily to this proposal, saying that word of actual payment would spread from hamlet to hamlet and do much good, and he offered a young priest as a guide. Although he was relatively certain of the genuine goodwill of the bishop, Robert did not propose to go far from the city, since he was eager to start the animals south toward Figueira da Foz within the six days stipulated Sir Arthur. However, he decided he could range out about twenty miles from Oporto, starting northeast early in the morning, going as far as he could until noon, and making his way back south and west by a different road, stopping at each town and large village to solicit help and offer payment. The next day, he would go due east.

  There had been more than one unpleasant interview between Esmeralda and the elder and younger Pedro in the weeks hat followed Tia Maria’s first suggestion that Esmeralda marry the headman’s son. Inducements were offered and then threats, but neither Pedro nor his father had Henry Talbot’s strength of character. Esmeralda had learned in a hard school how to resist without infuriating, and she pointed out many difficulties that stood in the way, even had she been willing. She was not a Catholic, was not willing to convert, and she would tell that to any priest, who would then certainly refuse to marry them. Even more important, Esmeralda said most untruthfully, was the fact that she did not know what arrangements her father had made. He might have appointed guardians for her who were directed to arrange her marriage and who might be able to cut her off without a penny if she disobeyed them. The last argument was particularly telling. It was most reasonable to both Pedros that no woman should be allowed to pick her own husband.

  In addition, the younger Pedro was growing less and less willing to take to his bosom a woman with so sharp a tongue, which was not even compensated for by beauty when he knew he could have his pick of the village maidens or, if he wanted a better dowry, of girls from nearby villages. How did they know, he asked his father, whether Esmeralda really had any money? The old man had been very sick and very frightened. Perhaps he had offered most of what he had, or more than he had in order to buy safety. The refugees’ clothing, young Pedro pointed out, was not like that of great ones. A fine situation he would be in, he complained, if the girl’s father had lied and he was trapped in a marriage with a wife who could not perform the simplest household duties.

  Because he was not the one who would have to live with the plain, sharp-tongued wife, the elder Pedro was unwilling to give up so easily. He tried repeatedly to pry information from Esmeralda about her late father’s business and fortune, but she was more than a match for him, partly because of his total ignorance of the world outside his own immediate surroundings and partly because he expected her to be ignorant of the very facts he was seeking. Esmeralda did not even have to lie. Old Pedro asked her such things as whether her jewels and fine clothes had been lost, and she could say, quite truthfully, that she had no jewels except for the gold locket containing a miniature of her mother, which she was still wearing, and that her finest clothes had been two party dresses, which were several years old.

  By July 26, when Robert and his guide approached the village, the headman was almost as sick of Esmeralda as she was of him. Despite his greed, old Pedro was not bad at heart. Thus, when a shepherd rushed down from the grazing grounds to give warning that there were riders on the road and one of them wore a blue coat and a cocked hat, Esmeralda was hustled into the darkest corner of the hut in which she lived. Robert’s staff uniform, much plainer and more serviceable than the gaudy full dress of the Fourteenth Light Dragoons, had been mistaken for that of a French soldier. And, threats or no threats, old Pedro did not intend to give Esmeralda up to the French.

  The young priest rapidly cleared up the misunderstanding and explained that the English had come to help them drive out the French for good but that draft and pack animals were needed. Instantly old Pedro began to shake his head. In his fear that a new wave of foraging would denude the hamlet of what few animals they had managed to hide from the French, he completely forgot his other “English problem”. But Robert was accustomed to this reaction. He had met it in almost every foreign country in which he had served. Before the headman could maintain that they had no such animals and then perhaps be afraid to admit later that he had lied, Robert spoke his carefully rehearsed lines stating that he would buy the animals or hire them and any driver who would come to Oporto with cart and oxen and serve the British army. Then he took silver from his pouch, being careful to expose the long-nosed pistols he carried at the same time.

  “We are a small, poor village,” old Pedro said. “If we do not have oxen for the harvest, we will starve. And much has been stolen from us already. The few animals we have are worth a great deal to us.”

  Although Robert’s Portuguese was not very fluent, he understood more than he spoke and made out enough of what old Pedro was saying to recognize a standard gambit for bargaining. Nevertheless, it was plain to him that what old Pedro had said was true. At most, such a place could supply no more than one or two mules and one yoke of oxen. He had already arranged for a dozen mules and four yoke of oxen in somewhat larger villages and did not think it worth his while to spend an hour bargaining for so small a return. He shook his head and made another prepared speech.

  “It is the Bishop of Oporto who has set the price.” This was not actually a lie. Bishop Antonio’s secretary had discussed with Robert what he would be likely to have to pay for the purchase or hire of mules and oxen. Robert recognized, of course, that it would cost the British army more than the Church—if the Church paid at all—and he continued with his set lines. “Naturally, there will be extra pay for serving a foreign army. If
you have animals to sell or hire out to us, bring them to the field opposite the Church of Santa da Lapa. They must be fit for work, not lame or starved or too old.”

  “But how can we know—” old Pedro began.

  Young Pedro, like every other villager who was not out fishing, had come into the open area near old Pedro’s house as soon as the priest had established Robert’s bona fides. But young Pedro was not listening to his father. Unburdened by any responsibility for the welfare of the village, he did not allow himself to be distracted by talk of mules and oxen. The foreigner was English and he had money. Here was his opportunity, young Pedro thought, to get what had been promised to them and also to rid himself of the threat of a plain, sharp-tongued wife, who said openly she did not want to marry him and thus would grow uglier and sharper tongued with every year.

  Quietly young Pedro eased himself through the group of men and women who were listening intently and made his way to Tia Maria’s hut. There he grasped Esmeralda by the wrist and began to pull her out. He did not explain. Although he, no more than his father, would have given Esmeralda up to the French, she had hurt his pride, and he was spiteful enough to wish to give her a good fright.

  He succeeded completely in this purpose. Esmeralda struggled violently, believing that she had gone too far and convinced father and son that she would not be able even to pay what Henry had promised them and that they were thus about to rid themselves of the danger her presence posed to the village. However, this time her struggles were ineffective, since Pedro knew she would resist and was prepared. The only thing he feared was that she would scream, for he did not want the Englishman who had the ear of the Bishop of Oporto to think that he or anyone in the village had harmed a countrywoman of his. But, frightened as she was, Esmeralda did not make a sound. To scream would only attract the attention she was fighting to avoid.