Vidal's Honor

by Sherry Gloag

  And now he found himself in the centre of a fierce argument between Juan and one of the village elders.

  Juan left the bunch of angry men and came across to Vidal. “These people deny having a stranger among them, apart from Phillipe’s cousin, and she kept to her bed with a fever nearly all the time she was here.”

  “Is she still here?”

  His guide shook his head. “No she returned home several days ago, and then Phillipe left a day after the French soldiers came and searched the village.”

  “And of course—” Vidal swept his arm out in frustration. “None of these people know where the cousin or Phillipe have gone.”

  “They say not, but they did tell me Phillipe headed west.”

  “And the significance of that?”

  If he remembered correctly, his study of the local maps on board ship indicated the most direct road to the French Pyrenees would be north and east. But then what did he know of troop movements away from the battle grounds on route to Madrid?

  Juan shrugged and returned to the huddle of men watching them.

  South west. Were they trying to make for Portugal? Surely they’d be aware of the futility of attempting to enter, let alone leave that country, especially by sea, due to the blockades.

  The voices were too low for Vidal to overhear. He knew enough Spanish to carry on basic conversations, but an argument on the scale and intensity of the one in progress a few feet away was beyond him. He let his gaze roam over the compound. "Village" was a grandiose term for the collection of adobe-huts circling the gathered men. When a movement caught his eye, he slowly sauntered over to where a young man lingered beneath the sparse shade of a stone-pine. He expected the man to disappear as he approached; instead he stood his ground, only moving closer to the tree when Vidal turned sideways apparently enjoying the view.

  “You have information for me?” The ease with which the man attracted his attention bothered Vidal. Had this man done the same when the French soldiers arrived?

  “You seek the strange woman?” The lip of the local man’s cap shielded his face from scrutiny.

  “You mean Phillipe’s cousin?” Vidal asked. Could it be the "cousin" and Lady Beaumont were one and the same, he wondered.

  “She’s no relative of Phillipe’s.” A snort accompanied the shuffle of feet. “I don’t know who she is, but she is not Spanish.”

  “And did you tell this to the French?” For the life of him Vidal failed to mask his contempt.

  “Of course not! I wouldn’t do that.” Indignation won over caution and the man stepped in front of Vidal, his face red with fury.

  “Then why tell me?”

  “You are English. The woman was talking with Sancia, Phillipe’s wife, one day when I was passing her hut and I didn’t think she spoke like a native. The door was open, you see, and she did not speak like a true Spaniard.”

  “Go on.” Vidal waited for his informer to continue.

  The villager cast a glance at the huddle of men still talking with Juan then shrugged before refocusing on Vidal. “She left before nightfall.”

  The significance of this information did not escape Vidal. “How long ago?”

  “Several nights. The French came the next day, and on the next Phillipe disappeared.”

  “You say you heard her discussing recipes with Sancia?” Vidal asked. “Did you ever see her?”

  “As she left the village. She wasn’t alone. The men with her were not from here, but Phillipe knew them.”

  “Describe her.”

  “She was dressed in breeches, waistcoat and boots.” He paused, his eyes unfocused in thought. “A cap,” he said. “She wore a cap, but it didn’t hide her hair well. She had golden hair. The colour of the sun before sunset, unlike the people here.” True enough, Vidal acknowledged. Other than those who’d turned grey, everyone else had dark hair.

  The man stepped back, his hands behind him, when Vidal tried to offer him money. “Phillipe does not tell us all, but whatever he decides we support him.”

  “Then why talk to me?”

  “Because if the French return and find Phillipe gone, they will not rest until he is found. If this girl is your affair you need to find her and let Phillipe come home.”

  He offered his hand to his informant and shook it. “Thank you. I will endeavour to see Phillipe returns safely.”

  Taking his time to stroll further round the collection of buildings, Vidal made his way back to where Juan waited. “Did they tell you where Phillipe has gone?”

  “You have to understand,” Juan began, “with the turmoil in our country, and Joseph Bonaparte on our throne, there are those who support him and his brother, while others, like us—“ he indicated the men he’d spoken with who were still watching them “—who fight to restore our rightful monarch, communication is difficult. Trust is broken. Links are gone. We rely on our own and pray we do not fall into the enemy’s trap when we connect with those who claim to champion our cause. Phillipe told them little and they are offended with his lack of faith, even though they accept he acted for their protection. Few of them believed Phillipe’s assertion the newcomer was his cousin, so although they’re not sure, they think he’s gone to warn them how close the enemy is getting.”

  “If he can’t trust your team of agents, do you suppose Phillipe will try to take the woman across Spain himself?”

  Juan shook his head. “To do so would risk his neck, not that it would stop him, but if he was uncovered it would bring retribution to his family and the rest of this community. They are afraid.”

  “Please thank them for talking with us and that I fully understand and will go at once.”

  Juan passed on Vidal’s message and returned, a basket in his hand. “If we are going, we must do so immediately while we have enough light. They have given us food and water.”

  “We?”

  “I am coming with you. Surely you don’t think I’d leave you on your own. A lone traveller would draw attention.”

  “How so?”

  “Most would assume you to be a deserter and attack you for it.”

  “What about your family?”

  Juan’s eyes hardened, his lips thinned, and he thrust his fists into his pockets. “I have no family. They were taken.”

  With a nod and a quick touch on Juan’s shoulder Vidal strode to the waiting mules. “Then I’ll be pleased for your company.”

  With a bow to the congregated men, Vidal mounted and followed Juan out of the village. He didn’t need more words to fill in what Juan was telling him.

  “While you were with the elders, I spoke to someone who thinks Phillipe was headed for a hut they often use as a meeting point that is just over a day’s ride away,” Vidal said after the small community disappeared from view.

  * * * *

  “The French, they have searched our village. If this lord fails to arrive you must go on with Tom and Harry.” The sight of Consuela standing in the doorway of the hut silenced Phillipe.

  “What is this?” He gestured to the newcomer. “Where did she come from?”

  Before either Tom or Harry could speak, Honor informed Phillipe of the events leading up to Consuela’s inclusion in their party.

  “It is not good. Not good at all,” he muttered, but loud enough, Honor was sure, for Consuela to hear. He stroked his chin, his eyes focussing on each of them in turn. “Perhaps not. Two women and two men… Come here.”

  In answer to the imperious command, Consuela left the doorway and joined them.

  “Your name, girl.”

  “Consuela.”

  “If you intend to benefit from the safety of these people, you will tell me your full name.”

  “Consuela López.”

  Hiding a grin behind her hand, Honor waited for an explosion. Even she knew most Spanish women had multiple surnames, taken from both parents.

  “Very well, Consuela Loìpez, how did you come to join these people?”

  “I was deserted by my com
panions. When I couldn’t keep up they took my animal, and I would have died where I fell if your friends had not helped me.”

  Tom nodded in confirmation when Phillipe looked his way.

  “I see, and where were you going?”

  “They promised to take me to Madrid.”

  “And who are ‘they’, exactly.”

  “Two of my brothers-in-law.”

  “So you are married?”

  “No, my husband was killed by the French when they raided the village. We had been out searching for food and hid when we saw what was happening to our people.”

  “Phillipe?” Honor moved to her new friend’s side. “Can you not see her distress? I know what it is like when that happens.”

  “I understand, but I must be sure. I promised your husband to get you safely back home. If she is a spy set to trap us, then I will deal with her.”

  In spite of the look of compassion he gave her, Phillipe’s glance was cold when he refocused on Consuela.

  “Your village?”

  Consuela offered a name that sounded vaguely familiar to Honor as she watched the colour leach out of her friend’s face.

  “What is it?” Grabbing his arm Honor spun Phillipe round, away from the men’s interested gaze.

  “My wife comes from that place.”

  He didn’t need to say more. When Phillipe forbade Sancia to visit her family two days before her own departure from his village his wife had been very angry with him and spent the rest of the day with her.

  “Were there any survivors?”

  Tears streamed down Consuela’s cheeks now and only Phillipe’s grasp on her arm prevented Honor from going to the distraught woman.

  “I wanted to see, but my brothers said it was too risky and we m-must leave at once.”

  “Were the soldiers still there when you left?”

  At Consuela’s nod, Phillipe released her. “Go to the girl,” he snapped his order to Honor. “She can travel with you. If your Lord Vidal does not arrive by midday tomorrow, the four of you must continue together until they put you on a boat to England.”

  Tom and Harry’s muttered oaths confirmed her assumption they’d be praying Vidal turned up in time to save them the exertions of such a dangerous trip into and across France.

  Later that evening while she and Consuela remained inside the shack, the men sat outside talking.

  “This lord who is expected, what is the delay?”

  Honor moved closer when Tom’s low tone just the other side of the thin wooden wall reached her.

  “They were waiting in Gibraltar for him and his guide.” Phillipe’s anger couldn’t be misunderstood.

  “They’ve taken a circuitous route to get here to keep our people safe. London said this man is a good man who knows how to avoid the enemy.” A snort punctuated the comment. “He is either an idiot or his brush with the patrol boats in Gibraltar has washed his brains away. They’ve been followed almost the whole way here.”

  “Followed! And you let them come? We’re as good as dead, you old fool.”

  “If you believe that, then it is you who is brainless! Do you think I’ve come alone? They might shadow Vidal from Gibraltar, but they’ll never return.”

  Honor shivered and moved away. She didn’t want to hear the details and hoped whatever solution Phillipe intended, he’d wait until after she and Consuela had gone tomorrow, and railed at Vidal for being so careless.

  * * * *

  She couldn’t believe her eyes. As the distant figures trekking up the hill to the isolated shack approached, her heart began to pound in her chest. What was Devlin’s best friend, the viscount Lord Charles Vidal doing in Spain? Not only in Spain but this particularly isolated spot in Spain?

  His companion was a big man, but in Vidal’s presence he seemed insignificant to Honor.

  “Who are they?” Consuela, her hand on Honor’s shoulder watched the visitors head straight for Phillipe.

  “The one on the right, with the dark hair, is an English man.”

  “And the other?”

  Honor shook her head. “I don’t know, but look Phillipe welcomes them, well considering how annoyed he is with them for causing such a delay he is being courteous to them.”

  Vidal here? She couldn’t take it in. Couldn’t understand why her heart leaped at the sight of him, then she sighed when a logical explanation came to mind. A familiar face. That was it, she told herself. A friend among friendly acquaintances. Someone who knew her before her world had come crashing down around her ears. Yes, a friend. Everyone needed a friend in times of trouble.

  And now…

  Now she watched Vidal stop in front of Phillipe and wondered whether he could hear her heart beating hard enough to burst out of her body.

  Guilt at the emotions stirring inside her buckled her knees and she clung to Consuela for support.

  “Are you ill?” Concern narrowed the Spanish woman’s eyes, the newcomers forgotten for the moment.

  “No. No, it is nothing, the heat perhaps.” How could Vidal’s unexpected appearance shake her so badly… and so soon after she’d lost her husband? Guilt replaced Consuela’s hand on her shoulder — a far heavier burden, and one so unexpected it almost robbed Honor of her reason.

  “Why are they here?”

  The petulance in the Spanish woman’s tone broke through Honor’s shock. “How can I answer that? But I would hazard a guess the English man at least intends to escort us out of Spain.”

  Consuela shook with anger. “We do not need an interloper interfering with our task.”

  Stunned by Consuela’s reaction Honor turned her attention to the woman at her side rather than try to work out why, since his arrival, the viscount hadn’t so much as looked in her direction. His companion had nodded to them in passing, but Vidal kept his attention fixed on Phillipe.

  “What do you mean, your task?”

  Instead of answering the question, the Spanish woman spun round at the sound of the raised voices outside. “What are they arguing about now? Do these men not realise the longer we remain here the more chance we will be discovered and captured? This is intolerable. You must speak to the Englishman and let him know we do not have time for all this disagreement.”

  She agreed with Consuela. Every moment’s delay increased the danger they faced. Even that reality failed to propel Honor to approach the men. Would Vidal treat her as the friends they’d once been, or was his arrival for purely business reasons? Government business, of course, she scolded herself for even thinking it might be otherwise.

  The sound of the men’s voices penetrated her thoughts. Perhaps if she and Consuela made their way to the mules, patiently waiting beneath the shade of the only tree in the area, it would persuade the men to remember the passing time.

  “I still maintain we should return to Gibraltar. We’ve met no resistance since entering Spain.”

  Vidal’s frustration filtered across to where Honor stood ready to mount her mule.

  “And have you asked yourself why that is?”

  Phillipe’s anger carried more fully on the rising wind. If these two men didn’t settle their differences soon, she and Consuela may as well go back to the hut and bed down for the night. If they did not set out shortly… in roughly two hours the daylight would fade beyond what would be safe for travel before morning.

  “Have you considered…” Phillipe persisted, “…the enemy may be following your progress and waiting for your return? And if they are, you would walk straight into their trap.”

  The two men now stood nose to nose.

  “My orders carry here,” Phillipe continued, “and I am ordering you to adhere to your instructions from London, and leave us to deal with those who have followed you all the way here. Fortunately for you we were expecting them.”

  “You were?”

  Vidal stepped back, clearly shocked, both by the Spaniard’s admission and because, for all his experience, he’d failed to realise they were being pursued and that th
e followers were waiting for their return.

  It bothered Honor that Vidal hadn’t expected to be followed from Gibraltar into the hills. Devlin had always told her, his life-long friend never put a battle foot wrong, but perhaps as a woman she encompassed the meaning of that comment incorrectly. To her it meant two armies, in this case the French and English, skirting each other before engaging in fierce and dangerous battles.

  “Do you know this English lord?” Consuela came to stand beside her.

  Honor nodded. She’d known the Viscount Charles Vidal as well as she’d known Dev. Indeed, at one point she’d struggled to decide between them, for both men stirred her heart. All these years later she still didn’t understand how she had fallen in love with the two of them. When Charles suddenly upped and joined Wellington’s staff she assumed his feelings were less than she’d thought; when Dev had proposed, she’d accepted.

  Now she stepped from the hut.

  “Vidal.”

  Would he acknowledge her or continue to spar with Phillipe? He hesitated for interminable seconds before offering a nod to the other man and striding across to where she waited.

  “You called, my lady.”

  “Save your derision for your London socialites, Vidal. If we are to leave today we must go now before we lose the light.”

  A dull red crept into his face at her words. Being righted by a woman in this setting would not sit well with him, but if he’d been tracked this far, they needed to leave — now. Not only for their own safety, but for that of the people who’d rescued her.

  “A timely reminder. Let me assist you to mount.”

  She sighed as she settled astride the saddle. After a brief look of surprise, Vidal re-crossed the space, extended his hand and shook Phillipe’s warmly. “I owe you an apology, and my heartfelt thanks for taking care of Lady Beaumont. If ever I can repay your kindness, send word.”

  If Phillipe replied, Honor never heard him, but she was aware of a message passing between the two men, and watched Vidal spin on his heel and head for his own mount. He sprang onto its back unaided and moved up beside her. Together they joined Consuela and Juan.

  “What is this?” Honor pulled her mule to a halt. “Consuela? What are you doing here? Phillipe said he was providing two of his men as guides.”