“Wherever we are going cannot be far,” she said. “Even Sir John cannot expect men to march for much more than twenty-four hours without rest.”
This conclusion, reached more out of hope than out of reason, was quite correct. Before M’Guire had got his fire going, Carlos came running back to tell Esmeralda that he had seen a file of men in good order just coming over the rise. There was little to pack. M’Guire lifted Molly to Luisa’s back, Esmeralda mounted Boa Viagem, and they came out to the side of the road and waited. When the company was close, Esmeralda rode forward and explained who she was and what had happened. The captain was courteous, but not enthusiastic. If they could keep up, he said, he would do his best for them.
Had any of them known how close they were to Lugo, where Sir John had halted the army, Esmeralda would not have bothered to wait for a company in good order and the captain would have been warmly welcoming in the hope of making a friend in high places. Still, they were all satisfied with the outcome when they arrived about an hour later. One more unpleasant task lay before Esmeralda—reporting herself to Colonel Wheatley. However, he was so glad to see her alive and well that his strictures on her foolishness were minimal.
Relieved of immediate problems and shrinking from any contemplation of the horrors she had seen, Esmeralda’s mind reverted to its lodestar. Now she grieved at having parted from Robert in anger. She knew, wryly, that he probably had not realized she was angry, but she had a vague feeling that his hesitation before he left had been a silent appeal that she had not answered. She was worried about him, too, although she had no idea that he had been in great danger. From the vagueness of his answer when she had asked where he would be, she assumed that he was detailed to do observation or possibly act as liaison with the Spanish.
She knew, too, that it was pointless to ask for information about Robert at headquarters. Major Colborne was doubtless aware of where she had been quartered, or could find out, and Esmeralda trusted him to send her any news he had. Thus, to occupy her mind and also to accustom herself to an experience she expected to have, she offered to bathe Molly’s little son that evening. The fire had warmed the room reasonably well, and she took the infant on her lap, dipped a cloth into a bowl of warm water, and started to uncover the child.
Esmeralda was aware, of course, of the impropriety of becoming involved too personally with servants, but she and Molly had been through too much together to worry about that. Thus, she did not hesitate to ask a question that handling the baby had brought to her mind. As she exposed one and then another small portion of the infant and cleaned it, she said, “Is it always so quick, Molly?”
“Quick?” Molly repeated, looking up from the supper she was preparing.
“The birthing,” Esmeralda explained. “It could not have been fifteen or twenty minutes between the time you told us the baby was coming and when it was born.”
Molly laughed. “No, ma’am, ‘twasn’t so quick as ‘t seemed. Th’ pains started whin th’ mule fell, but loight they were, ‘n Oi kept hopin’ they’d stop, as sometoimes happens, or thit we’d git where we was goin’ before ‘t came.”
Esmeralda’s eyes were round with astonishment. “You mean you walked all night—while you were in labor? Oh, Molly, I’m sorry I didn’t notice. I was—” Suddenly the horrors she had deliberately excluded from her mind surfaced. “All those people,” she whispered, “the soldiers, the women—” Unconsciously, she wrapped the linen protectively around the infant in her lap and caught him up in her arms. “The children.” A sob caught her voice. “The poor little children…”
“‘Tis no use thinkin’ o’ thit,” Molly said sharply. “‘Twas noon o’ yoor doin’ nor o’ moine. ‘Nd walkin’s good fer birthin’.” Then her lips tightened. “But from whut wuz we runnin’? We niver saw iny inimy. Oh, as Oi have th’ hope o’ hivin, so Oi hope thit th’ giniral rode up ‘n doon th’ road ‘nd saw whut we saw— ’Nd Oi hope he roides thit road feriver in hell, seein’ those babe’s froze ‘nd th’ little ‘uns limpin’, leavin’ bloody tracks ‘n th’ snow.” Her voice began to shake, and she stopped abruptly.
There was nothing Esmeralda could say. She liked Sir John, who had been very kind to her personally, and up until now Robert respected his military ability, but she had seen too much to utter platitudes about necessity.
“Oi big yer pardon, ma’am,” Molly said softly. “’Tisn’t me place t’ say sich things t’ ye, but ‘t would’ve bin me lyin’ there if no fer ye.”
“And if not for you,” Esmeralda said, forcing a smile, “I would be very frightened and very ignorant about many things I need to know. And I would not have had the pleasure of meeting—good gracious, Molly, have you decided what to call him?”
“Kivin, ‘tis his father’s name.” Molly turned from the fire and smiled as the infant, who had been making little whimpering sounds despite Esmeralda’s rocking him in her arms, began to squall loudly again. She held out one arm for him while she bared a breast, then sat down and offered it to the blindly seeking mouth. The babe suckled eagerly, strongly, and Molly smiled again. “He’s strong,” she said. Then the smile faded and her eyes shadowed. “Whoile ye were wit th’ colonel, we had ‘im baptized—jist…jist in case.”
“Nothing will happen to Kevin,” Esmeralda said firmly. “Colonel Wheatley told me that we will be here for several days. We have plenty of food now, and blankets, and Luisa and Boa will be rested. We will—”
Her voice cut off, and her breath drew in sharply as a fist pounded on the door and a voice called, “Are these Mrs. Moreton’s quarters?”
Chapter Thirty
“Robert!” Esmeralda shrieked, leaping up and rushing to the door, “Robert, is that you?”
The door flung open, and they fell into each other’s arms, Robert saying thickly, “Oh, Merry, Merry, I never meant you to suffer so. I never meant you to see—”
While Esmeralda, not paying the slightest attention, cried, “Oh, you’re safe, you’re safe. You must be so tired—”
The disjointed ejaculations went on for a little while until Robert said, “Merry, I love you. I love you so. I’ve tried to find a sensible way of telling you, but there’s no time.”
Both statements shocked Esmeralda into silence. She stood staring up into Robert’s face, her big eyes wide, incapable of any reply because joy and despair were struggling so violently inside her. She had been given the crowning perfection of her life in one phrase and what amounted, in her opinion, to a death sentence in the next. Robert loved her. It was more than she had ever dreamed, but if there was no time and they must continue the march that night, she really did not expect that any of them would survive.
“It’s all right, my dear,” Robert said, pulling her tight against him. “I know I’ve probably shocked you. I always seem to burst out with things that should be introduced slowly and carefully. I don’t expect you to be in love with me this moment—”
Molly had done the best she could by moving into a dark corner and turning her back. She knew she should not be present, witnessing this nakedly emotional moment, but there was nowhere for her to go except out into the stable shed at the back. Had she been alone, she would have slipped out gladly, but she would not take her infant into the cold unless she were actually ordered to do so.
She had also tried not to hear, but it was impossible. Thus, though she did her best to concentrate on suckling her baby, Robert’s ringing declaration of love forced itself on her. She missed the end of the sentence, spoken more softly, but she also heard his last statement, which was so silly that a hiccup of laughter escaped her before she could stifle it.
The sound checked Robert’s speech, and he turned affronted eyes in its direction. “It must be the baby,” Esmeralda said quickly. “Molly had a baby, a little son, early this morning.”
Robert stared at her, forgetting in his amazement even the delicate matter of his passion and Esmeralda’s reaction to it. “How? Where? A baby! You mean she…er…produced a b
aby! On the road!”
Desperately Esmeralda bit her lips. This was no time to laugh. “Come upstairs, Robert,” she gabbled. “Molly must watch the supper. I am sure you must be starved as well as soaking wet. I have your clothes. Do come up.”
He followed docilely, still too stunned to protest, and as soon as they were in the loft room, Esmeralda ensured further silence by throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him, murmuring when their lips finally parted, “Oh, Robert, I do love you. I have always loved you.”
“Have you?” he asked delightedly. “That’s what Colborne said, but I thought you would have too much sense to love a fool like me.”
Rendered speechless again by another violent urge to laugh simultaneous with a desire to weep over Robert’s modesty, Esmeralda bent her head and pressed her face against his chest.
He kissed the top of her head, and then said, “I don’t think you ought to stand with your nose buried in my coat. I can’t imagine how I smell, I’m too used to it, but it must be awful.”
That remark released Esmeralda’s pent-up mirth, and she kissed him again. “I cannot believe I smell any better. We can only heat water in very small quantities because I discarded all the large pots to lighten Luisa’s…” Her voice faded, as reference to the deadly trek they had just finished reminded her that Robert had said there was no time.
Robert’s arms went around her protectively. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, “I’m sorry, my love. I could kill myself for being so stupidly selfish, for keeping you with me at such a cost. You must hate me for exposing you to—”
“I will never hate you for anything, Robert, never, but…” Tears rose in her eyes. “Must we go on tonight? Must we really? Is there no way—?”
“Tonight! Of course not. Whatever put that into your head?”
“You said there was no time.”
He touched her face, running an index finger along the hollow that had not been in her cheek when they left Salamanca. “I meant there was no time for me to court you, to show what I feel instead of just saying it. But I do love you, Merry. You’ve become the center of my whole life. I hope you don’t mind if the flowers and pretty things come after the declaration rather than before. I swear you won’t be cheated of them.”
Esmeralda laughed again. “I never cared for that and never will. I can—”
She stopped. She had been about to say she could buy all the pretty things she wanted, but realized that this was still not the right time to mention that she was very, very rich. Robert had had enough shocks for one day. He must be even more physically exhausted than she was—he certainly looked it. And to confess about the money right after he said he loved her would make it sound as if she had been deliberately concealing the information all this time out of lack of trust.
“But that’s all nonsense,” she went on hurriedly. “How long can you stay? Can you eat with me? Will you have time to sleep for a while?”
Robert had been looking slightly puzzled. He felt there was something more to that aborted “I can—” that Merry’s quick change of subject was a cover over something she was hiding. He was about to revert to the words, more interested in those than in inessentials like eating, but her last question diverted him. A slow smile curved his lips.
“I am a bit short on sleep,” he admitted, “but that isn’t what I want time in bed for.”
“There isn’t any bed,” Esmeralda murmured, burying her face in his coat again.
She felt ridiculously shy, far more like a virgin bride on her wedding night than an experienced married woman. Robert’s confession of love had somehow made a tremendous difference. He held her against him, feeling her tremble, and then lifted her face and kissed her very gently.
“No, and it’s cold, and we’re both filthy and tired,” he said. “I want you very much, but not this way, my darling, not in a dirty huddle where we can’t even take off our clothes.”
“Oh, Robert—” she began to protest.
He put his fingers gently over her lips. “No. I’m sending you on ahead of the army tomorrow, Merry. I don’t often pull rank and influence, but I’ve done it. It’s less than sixty miles to Corunna, and I’ve got a carriage and horses—”
“No,” she interrupted him, pushing herself out of his arms, “I don’t want to go. I can’t leave you. I can’t.”
“Don’t fight me, Merry,” Robert said tiredly. “Whatever you fear in England can’t happen. The worst—”
“I was never afraid to go to England,” she cried. “I only wanted to stay with you. It was all an excuse, only an excuse so you wouldn’t send me away.”
His face lighted. “Oh, my darling, my sweet, sweet Merry. How glad I am. But it doesn’t change anything. You must go.” He saw her expression and shook his head, then, made perceptive by his own feeling for her, said the only thing that could have silenced her. “You are a danger to me, my love. I can’t concentrate on what is going on around me because all I can think about is you and whether you are falling by the wayside, about to become one of those pitiful bodies…”
She stared at him, realizing that it was useless to tell him that she would be protected, that the Guards would have carried her if necessary. He knew it as well as she. Fear for a loved one cannot be cured by reason.
“But what about Molly and the baby?” she whispered. “And Carlos.”
“They can go with you. And don’t tell me that Carlos will not go without Luisa—I know it. Luisa and Boa Viagem can follow the carriage. The only one who must remain is M’Guire, and, frankly, I can use him.”
Tears welled into her eyes and then ran over, streaking her hollow cheeks. “Let me wait at Corunna for you,” she pleaded brokenly. “Oh, please. I will be in no danger there. I will be warm and safe. Let me wait at Corunna.”
Robert could not resist this plea, and he agreed without argument that she should wait. On thinking it over after he had seen the carriage off, he did not regret it. Merry would be safe, and there was another, more practical reason for allowing her to wait until he arrived. He intended to pull rank and influence once more to be sure that she went on the best and safest ship and that the captain of the vessel was properly impressed with his father’s connections in the Royal Navy.
Robert realized that he, personally, might not make it to Corunna, but that would make no difference to the pressure exerted on Merry’s behalf. Colborne would see to it, or any of Sir John’s other ADCs, or even Sir John himself. Robert’s mouth hardened. He was not quite so fond of Sir John as he had been. There were aspects of this retreat that he was unable to understand or even excuse. There had been no need for such haste. The French could have been held for days at Astorga while the army left, one detachment at a time, properly supplied with the stores that had been burnt. But it was useless to think about that now.
Robert knew that he would be exposed to a second dose of resistance when he arranged Merry’s passage at Corunna, but he was armored against that now. The French were closing in.
Sir John allowed the army to wait at Lugo for three days, drawn up to resist an attack, and during that time the men, although still sullen, were better behaved. But Soult did not move. Sir John’s general officers urged him to initiate the action, saying that a good drubbing of the French would ensure that the remainder of the retreat would be carried out in better order. It would make Soult less eager to pursue closely and put heart into the Spanish, who felt they were being abandoned. Most important of all, it would restore the pride of the men.
But Moore would neither attack nor, as a suggested alternative, await Soult’s attack, which everyone agreed must come very soon, as the French were worse supplied than the English and would soon starve if they were not doing so already. Instead, at midnight on January 8–9, leaving the bivouac fires burning to fool the enemy, the army resumed its retreat.
This notion might have been a good one on a clear night in an open area. Near a town in a mountainous countryside where there were walls and fences and
many small byroads to farms and in a pouring rain, it was a disaster. The troops, even more surly and mutinous, feeling their commanding officers were fools and cowards, became little more than a disorderly mob. Coming along with the rear guard, Robert was disgusted by the scenes of pillage, worse now than ever before.
On January 11 the army, such as it was, reached Corunna. M’Guire came in the next day, leading Mars, who had lost a shoe and was already limping. Had they not been so close to their destination, he would have had to be destroyed, like Apollo, whom Robert had been forced to shoot outside Villa Franca. Quite innocently, M’Guire gave Esmeralda a terrible shock when he came to her room in the hotel to deliver a note from Robert. The note said little—that he was well but held by duty at El Burgo and did not wish to stress his one remaining horse by riding back and forth for short visits. Esmeralda smiled, thinking how those words would have hurt her before Robert’s confession of love and how easily she could accept them now.
Happy herself, she asked M’Guire how he liked his son, and he beamed proudly and told her that if they all lived long enough, the captain had promised to be Kevin’s sponsor.
“He couldn’t have a better,” M’Guire said. “A divil th’ capt’in is in action.”
“Action? What action?” Esmeralda gasped.
“Ach, the Frenchies needed a lissin t’ keep thim frum gettin’ too boold.”
But then, equally unwitting, M’Guire withdrew the sting of fear, for when Esmeralda asked fearfully if there was now fighting, he laughed.
“No, nor wull be. They’ve blowed the bridges.”
On January 13, Robert himself came. The French had discovered a passage of the river, and Sir John had ordered his rear guard back into the heights in front of Corunna. When Robert rode in to report, he was recalled to ordinary staff duty, the rear guard now being close enough for Moore to oversee it himself. Sir John was busy writing a long report of the present situation to Castlereagh, and Robert asked Colborne who was going to carry it.
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