by Sherry Gloag
“I don’t understand. Why have our own men attacked him, and why did no one go to his aid?”
“Those men are not members of Wellington’s army.”
Phillipe’s certainty had her spinning round. “Not our soldiers? They wear our uniforms.”
“Not correctly, which means they are from either one of Marmont’s divisions or partisans in captured uniforms.”
When Phillipe tugged on her arm, she wrenched out of his grip. Why go anywhere with anyone if she’d never see Dev again, and then his words came back to her. "Remember your promise…"
She remembered, and straightening her shoulders, nodded at Phillipe before following him when he walked them through the mud at a steady pace and in the opposite direction.
Chapter Two
London - August 1812
Arthur Kemp grabbed his cousin’s arm in an effort to prevent him from leaving. “The night’s young, Vidal. You can’t leave yet. You’ve won a deal too much of my money and I declare you must give me time to win it back.”
“I do not stay to fleece a babe too drunk to know when to call a halt to his misfortunes.” Lord Charles Vidal pushed back his chair and stood. Resting a hand on his cousin’s shoulder he smiled down at him. “Join me for dinner tomorrow, and you can tell me more about this outlandish title your father has chosen for his new Dukedom. Krinkle, did you say? Where on earth did he get such a peculiar name from?”
“Kringle!” Arthur Kemp strived for outrage, and managed a hiccup of laughter instead. “Beware Charles, do not let my father hear you disparage his choice, he thinks he’s up to the knocker in choosing the name. Apparently while on his Grand Tour he met another traveller in Italy who told him about a German market that began way back somewhere in the fifteen-hundreds.
“You’re a well-read fellow, perhaps you have heard of it? ‘Christkindlmarket?’ It’s held in December, and Father claims his companion promised it is a derivation of the Christ Child. My father’s convinced people will remember the name.”
“That it is,” Vidal laughed, “I hope for the right reasons, my friend. I like your father and would hate to learn of people ridiculing him.”
While Vidal joked with his cousin, the viscount scanned the room. The smell of fine wine, whiskey and cigar smoke blended into a rich aroma that was as much a part of Whites as the card games, the background chatter, and outbreaks of lewd laughter from the younger members of the club.
One member in particular interested Vidal tonight, and he watched Robert Dundas, second Viscount Melville, and First Lord of the Admiralty, take leave of his friends and head in his direction.
He wondered why the man spent the best part of the night watching his every move, and paused in the act of fobbing his snuff box while he waited for the viscount to join him.
“Take a walk with me?” Although couched as a question, Vidal noted the quiet steel of command in the other man’s voice. Dundas laid a hand on his arm; a companionable gesture for anyone interested enough to observe the two men leaving the club together. “I believe I live not far beyond your own house. I’d appreciate your company, and this is not the place for such a discussion. ”
With an indolent twist of the wrist Vidal returned the modish lacquered box, unopened, to his pocket and nodded agreement. A man’s club was no setting for private conversation, and it was plain the man wanted to talk about something away from flapping ears.
Together they strolled across the room stopping to take leave of several mutual friends.
* * * *
Mist, rising from the Thames, snaked along the ground, while a brisk, dank wind blew any remaining alcoholic fumes from their brains. The call of a distant night watchman informed anyone who cared to listen the morning had advanced two hours beyond midnight. Vidal drew out his watch and confirmed the time as they walked in silence for several minutes.
“What ails you?” He didn’t waste time skirting round the situation. Dundas had not invited his company for simple pleasure.
“There’s been another incident, this time on a magnitude so great it could impact the outcome of the earl’s next campaign,” the First Lord of the Admiralty said without preamble. “I assume you are aware Joseph Bonaparte ordered Marshal Marmont to cut off Wellington’s march upon Madrid?”
“I am.”
“They had the numbers to succeed, fortunately Marmont thought Nosey was retreating and extended his troops enough to guarantee Wellington’s success.” He paused, sighed, and began again. “It distresses me to admit it, Vidal, but there’s been another breach of security. Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minster, wants the culprit uncovered.”
“There’s always a leak of information in the War Office or the Admiralty,” he dismissed. “They have more holes than a colander.”
“True. I cannot deny it, for it’s all too true.” Dundas shook his head. “This is serious,” he said before stopping midway across the bridge and staring down at the fast flowing water below.
Vidal walked several paces ahead before realising his companion no longer trod beside him and retraced his steps to lean his elbows on the balustrade, glancing left and right before he spoke.
“How so?”
“Do you know one of our best agents was killed in Spain just before the engagement at Salamanca?”
“I do,” Vidal confirmed.
“The devil of it is The Turk was ambushed hours before the action began, and in full view of his men.”
Pain seared through his chest. "The Turk," one of the King’s men, also Vidal’s life-long friend. The thought of never see Devlin Beaumont again devastated him, while grief and guilt still warred within him. Grief for the loss of his friend and guilt because he’d put a distance between them when Dev won the affections of the only woman Vidal had ever loved, would ever love.
He’d stood up for his friend at his wedding, listened to Honor Adversane pledge her love to her new husband, and within hours he’d been on his way to the Peninsula uncaring whether he lived or died.
“His wife is still in Spain,” Dundas interrupted his thoughts.”Until this latest leak, we believed the French didn’t know about her. Now they are hunting her down and offering a huge reward for her capture. It’ll not be easy…”
“What are you saying?” Startled out of his grief, Vidal grabbed Dundas’s arm and yanked him round to face him. “Do you expect me to believe Honor is still alive and the French think she and Dev were working together?” He let go and reeled back when he saw the truth in his companion’s eyes. “Don’t be absurd. Why would she risk her life so? Dev worshipped his wife. No way would he allow her to work alongside him. No! I tell you, you are mistaken.”
“I am not mistaken, Vidal, and you understand I speak nothing but the facts. She is a woman of immense courage and strong will.”
He didn’t need the viscount to tell him. Honor had the heart of a lioness.
Dundas brushed out the creases in his coat sleeve and looked up at Vidal. “Did anyone ever tell you she threatened me?”
“What?” Unable to hold back a shocked laugh at the revelation, the immediate deluge of worry that encompassed him regarding Honor’s whereabouts snuffed it out. In his personal letter, Arthur Wellesly had informed Vidal of Lady Beaumont’s disappearance. His face grew serious when Dundas held his gaze. “Don’t tell me she threatened you into letting her travel with Dev.”
“She did.” Dundas’s chuckle rumbled in his chest. “She’s an incomparable woman.”
“Why in the name of all that’s h— Why would she threaten you and put herself at risk, when Dev was attached to the army?”
“To quote her,” Dundas said, “If Dev did not come home she’d have nothing to live for, so she may as well stand and fall beside him if that was her destiny.”
“And you say someone in London has betrayed her?”
Fury, as cold as an Arctic wind, roared through him. Dev had won the one woman Vidal had ever loved, and now some nameless fiend had informed on her to the French. The
least he owed his friend was to bring his widow back home unharmed, and he owed it to himself to protect the woman left defenceless in the face of such terrible danger. “Are the French near to discovering her?”
“We believe so. But they are looking for a female. One, moreover, still attached to the army marching on Madrid.”
“Well, of course they are,” Vidal bluffed.
“You do not understand.”
Approaching footsteps silenced the men and they leaned against the balustrade of the bridge in a misleading, companionable silence until the group of revellers passed them. When the general sound of the night surrounded them once more, Dundas spoke again.
“We gather she is travelling in the guise of a young man with a band of local guerrilleros, already making for the French Pyrenees. We cannot reveal our hand and try to discover her whereabouts. Other than she’s still over there, no one can determine how much information the French have. It’s imperative we bring her home as soon as possible. Oh, and one more thing. Lord Beaumont’s batman, a Spaniard, disappeared just after Beaumont was captured. We’re not sure whether Lady Beaumont went missing at the same time, or later.”
Sir Robert Dundas thumped the top of the balustrade. “Tare ‘n hounds, Vidal, if she’s still alive, we don’t even know if Lady Beaumont’s aware of the danger she’s in.”
“And you are telling me this, because?”
“Because you are under observation and Lord Liverpool knows if he approaches you, those trailing you will report the contact back to their agent. He hopes that in talking with me, we may gain a little time before those watching you discover the truth.”
“Watching me?” Vidal denied the compulsion to turn and look about him. “Are you saying I’m under observation by some French spy?” He paused, weighed up his companion in the dim light. “If you know someone is following me, then you’ve uncovered the identity of your agent. Why not take him in for questioning?”
“We will, after your boat leaves port. That’s another reason why I, and not Liverpool, approached you. I have a ship bound for Gibraltar on tomorrow’s tide. You’re expected on board before dawn.” He paused, rested a hand on Vidal’s arm and lowered his voice. “You will not return to your home tonight.”
For the next five minutes Vidal listened to Dundas’s instructions, then stepped away from the balustrade and stared at Sir Robert. “It’s madness! You are not serious? Why not bring her back through Gibraltar? The voyage may be longer but the risks…”
“I am not in a position to give you more details other than to say the French have accessed the shipbuilding resources of Holland and Italy and intend to blockade Britain, in an effort to maintain an upper hand in the Mediterranean. It is too dangerous for us to risk Lady Beaumont entering Gibraltar to come home on a regular vessel.”
Vidal paced away from his friend and back again, while he raked his fingers through his hair.
“You can’t ask a woman to endure the rigours of travelling such distances across a war-torn country. Consider the conditions she’ll face crossing the mountains. And to smuggle her through France, it’s madness. That’s if she even reaches the border. How do you expect her to cross the Spanish plains undetected?”
A vision of Honor, on her wedding day, standing at the altar beside Devlin, her elegance, her beauty, her radiant smile, filled his mind. Could the same woman tolerate the hardships Dundas advocated? An Adversane, she came from good stock.
Could Honor endure the difficulties of such a journey over the Pyrenees, let alone escape detection from her enemies while crossing the mountains into France? It’s hard enough in good weather but with the oncoming threat of winter snow…?
It was madness to even consider it.
Chapter Three
Beginning of September 1812
“You cannot remain here any longer. It is five weeks since…” Phillipe’s words ended in a cough. “It is time for you to go.”
Honor struggled to force her words beyond the shock closing her throat. “Not stay? You mean leave?” She swept a panicked glance round the single-roomed adobe hut. The bare walls, the few items loaned to her by the village women, the small fire in the hearth. “Why? Where will I go?”
Phillipe’s stark comment shattered Honor’s frail defences against her grief.
“The longer you stay here the more chance someone will talk and then the soldiers will come.”
Unable to persuade her mind to act, Honor failed to understand how her presence could jeopardise her new friends. “Why would they come because I am here?”
“Your husband provided your Admiralty and War Department with vital information about movements and activities of the French armies. Information they passed on to other divisions. He set up a network of underground units, men, rebels who objected when Napoleon installed his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne. No man survives long in that kind of work.”
She wanted to dismiss Phillipe’s revelations as nonsense. Unbelievable nonsense, but if it had been, her husband would still be alive. “Do you expect me to believe Dev was some sort of spy? An agent?”
“Those men ambushed Lord Beaumont in the open, therefore they not only knew he was more than a scout for Lord Wellington, but had details of his orders for that day.”
Honor tried to grapple with Phillipe’s words. He was mistaken. Had to be wrong! With a shake of her head she marshalled her thoughts together.
“Are you trying to tell me Napoleon’s agent was — is — someone close to the commander in chief?”
“When Wellington routed Marmont at Arapiles it would not be difficult for them to merge with Marmont’s retreating army without detection.” He shrugged, shifted his feet. “When they failed to turn up at the end of the engagement everyone would believe they’d been lost in the battle.”
It made sense, a horrible, logical kind of sense and Honor wanted to deny it all. One look into Phillipe’s face told her there was more.
“The French assume that because you are The Turk’s widow you must have information they’d find useful.”
“The Turk? Who or what is The Turk? I know nothing about any Turk.”
“You do not have to tell me this, but the French; they are convinced your husband shared his secrets with you.”
“He didn’t, but even if he did, what’s that got to do with this Turk person you mention?”
Astonishment laced Phillipe’s voice. “You did not know my lord was called The Turk?”
“No.”
For the past five weeks Honor had cocooned herself from thoughts of Dev. Phillipe had told her, the day after they arrived in the village, he’d discovered the French had executed her husband. Now she struggled to process Phillipe’s words. Was Dev really some kind of agent?
“Yes.”
“What?”
“You asked whether your husband worked as an agent. The answer is ‘yes’.”
“Is that why he was taken?” She still refused to say it, to acknowledge the truth. If she spoke the words aloud it made everything final, unredeemable.
“We think Lord Beaumont was about to reveal the identity of the French spy within the ranks, and they killed him to prevent him unmasking them.”
The harsh tones of Phillipe’s voice belied the sadness in his eyes. Honor shivered. Even the September sun failed to stop the sudden chill that swept through her.
Honor sank down onto the only chair in the small room, before her legs gave way.
If Phillipe was to be believed, her wonderful Dev, the man who loved her so tenderly, protected her so tenaciously, and danced with her in the moonlight only hours after their wedding, had been a spy.
Upon reflection she was unable to deny the possibility.
Dev always carried an aura about him. A charismatic air of authority mixed with charm that drew men and women alike to him. It had been one of the things that attracted her to him and at the same time caused her the greatest disquiet when he had asked her to marry him. It seemed absurd, in hin
dsight, that she’d ever doubted his fidelity, or wondered for a moment whether he’d remain faithful to her.
His integrity strengthened his hand and made it possible for him to do the work he carried out for his country.
She didn’t want to leave this isolated village where Phillipe and his wife had opened their home to her, and where she’d begun to make friends with some of the other villagers. “How could they believe I have any secret information?”
“It’s more than probable they don’t think you do have any details, but Bonaparte wants every stone turned to uncover the information Lord Beaumont took to the grave with him.”
“Let me get this clear, you think the French want me because they assume I know more than I do?”
“No!” Phillipe snapped. “I know they are looking for you. If they find you here, they will not only take you away, as a punishment for protecting you they will wipe out the entire village.”
Shocked into silence, Honor fought to make sense of Phillipe’s horrific prediction. Wipe out the village? She couldn’t bear it. The thought that she could be responsible for the deaths of people who’d offered her nothing but kindness horrified her. “Then you better tell me what arrangements you have made, for I assume you have already put plans into action. But first, tell me —” Honor paused and searched the Spaniard’s features. “If bringing me here was such a huge risk to your people, why did you do it?”
“I promised Lord Beaumont I’d get you away to safety and if possible arrange for you to go home to England.”
Could one Spaniard, living in the middle of his country and surrounded by French and partisan soldiers, arrange for her safe return home? “And you have done this?”
“Of course.”
Of course he had.
While Dev’s batman, Phillipe had worked miracles, obtaining information and supplies no one else managed to find, let alone acquire.