by Sherry Gloag
* * * *
When the shot rang out her tears flowed again, and try as she might, Honor failed to bring them under control. She’d spent three years following the drum and never once shed a tear, not for lack of sorrow, simply because she had to remain strong. How, she wondered now, could she hold herself together if she kept dissolving into tears every five minutes?
The loss of her mule cut as deeply as the loss of a friend. Regardless of what Juan said, no mule could carry two women day after day without suffering, and since it was her mule they’d lost, it seemed fair she should be the one to walk. After all, she’d walked with the army on the occasions when she’d given her horse to a soldier in need. Fortunately, it hadn’t happened too often.
“You take her up behind you,” Juan told Consuela when he rejoined them at the edge of the wood and earned a look as sharp as a dagger for his command.
“I can walk.”
“You have caused enough problems. Get up behind Consuela, and let us be gone.”
Far from obeying Juan’s curt demand, Honor strode up to the side of his mount.
“I don’t know why you are leading us to the Pyrenees, but if my memory serves me right, no one asked you. You offered to do this, and I can’t help wondering why.”
For a moment she thought Juan was going to bring his whip down on her head before he managed to restrain himself and lashed it against his unfortunate mule’s haunches.
With studied deliberation, the Spaniard dismounted and leaned forward, his nose almost touching hers. “And what do you mean by that?”
“You tell me.” She drummed her finger into his chest. “You were given specific directions to follow, and from the first day out you’ve deviated from the route Phillipe gave you.” Honor refused to back down despite the chill in his voice that sent shivers down her spine. She’d seen the depth of depravity men would go to in the name of war, and until she established Juan’s true allegiance she wouldn’t take anything at face value any more.
She failed to contain her cry of pain when Juan grabbed her wrist and dragged her towards Consuela’s mule. Without warning he stopped several yards before they could reach the beast and swung round in challenge.
“To understand why I help you, though I begin to wonder if you are worth the effort, you only have to remember those women and girls you saw back in the woods.” His face paled before her eyes, while his eyes turned dark with fury. “You think this is the first village the French have sacked? Have you forgotten what Consuela told us? Well, I tell you now. I have seen this before.“ He pointed behind her. “Only they left my wife and daughter on the top of the pile.”
“Oh, no!” Shock froze her to the spot.
“Oh, yes!” Juan’s grip on her wrist tightened. “And do you know why?”
Beyond answering, Honor shook her head. The image of the women and girls, their clothes dishevelled, their eyes staring sightlessly into the sun, robbed her of the desire to argue any more. She’d suffered loss under horrific circumstances, and read the same experience in Juan’s eyes.
“There are some in my country,” Juan’s voice seethed with fury, “who do not support our royal family and have sworn their allegiance to the French.” He swung away, stopping long enough to shoot a scathing glance over his shoulder. “It is an insult to all honourable Spaniards to see another of their countryman fighting against their own.” He stormed back and leaned forward, almost nose to nose. “An insult. Do you understand?”
Honor stood her ground and nodded. She understood because Devlin had warned her...
“My brother led the troops that sacked my village and made sure I knew he would come after me while he had breath in his body.”
Whatever Juan was seeing, it was not the woods behind them anymore. No one broke the extended silence.
“I agreed to lead you across Spain and into France in the name of the wife and child I failed to save.”
He glared down at her. “Does that answer your question?”
She wanted to offer sympathy and understanding, and saw Juan step back in rejection. Had Phillipe told him about the circumstances of her own loss? How much had Phillipe told him, or for that matter, how much information had Vidal passed on to the Spaniard?
“Get on that mule, and don’t waste any more time.”
He strode back to his own mount without waiting to see if she obeyed him. Honor climbed up behind Consuela, and hearing her discontented mutter, decided to keep silent. With a look at each of her companions Honor wondered if she was losing her mind or whether one of them was out to betray her.
* * * *
Riding behind Consuela wore on nerves Honor didn’t know she had and left her legs chafed and muscles aching and sore after the first week.
She missed the companionable silence they’d travelled in before. Juan, his back as stiff as a ram-rod as he rode ahead, exuded a rage fuelled by loss that Honor knew all too well. Consuela kept shifting back in her saddle and had her wondering whether the continuous movements were a deliberate display of her aggravation at being denied the opportunity to ride beside Juan. And Vidal — she risked a glance over her shoulder and discovered he’d fallen right back. When she tried to shift her position, Consuela started muttering Spanish curses, forcing Honor to readjust her seat on the mule.
What are you going to do when we reach the border?” she asked Consuela.
“I go with Juan.”
“He has agreed?” After his recent revelations, Honor wondered whether Juan would accept her plans.
“We are discussing it.” Consuela tossed the words over her shoulder with an air of false bravado.
Was that what they’d been arguing about earlier?
“And if he refuses?”
“Then I will come to England with you and find myself a new husband. The English, they have no passion. That’s acceptable to me, I do not want that. It is false.” She waved a hand at the scenery below. “Like that,” she said, pointing to the sinking sun. Tranquil. “It looks so calm, and it is not. Deception comes in many guises.”
Was Consuela warning her? If so, what about? Leaning forward, Honor risked another question. “Was your marriage not a happy one?”
“For a Spanish woman it is not the same as it is in your country.”
”In what way?”
“Our parents arrange our marriage when we are children. Sometimes as soon as we are born.”
While she’d married for love, Honor knew many English girls were forced to marry men years older than themselves. “Maybe not arranged from the cradle,” Honor conceded, “but it has been known. Marriages are arranged for financial benefits.”
“In other words you are sold to the highest bidder. Is that what you are saying? I did not think it was so for you. I understood you loved your husband very much.”
The verbal blow nearly pushed her off the mule. What had the Spaniards found out about her and Devlin? “You are right. We did love each other, but how you know that is a mystery to me.” Honor didn’t try to conceal her irritation
Consuela brought her mule to a halt and swung round with a glare. “It is in your eyes. Just as I see it in Lord Vidal’s eyes when he looks at you. You are fortunate to have the love of two good men. I have not had that from one.”
“You are right my husband and I loved one another.” She wouldn’t argue with Consuela’s first comment, but her second?
There’d been a time a few months before Devlin’s proposal when she hadn’t known her own mind. Her love for both men had confused her and filled her with a sense of guilt and shame. How could she love two men at the same time? And them as close as brothers, too.
She’d set tongues wagging and had caused many a fond mama to frown down at her when she entered a ballroom only for Devlin and Vidal to make sure they were always the first to sign her dance card.
“It’s a disgrace the way the girl keeps those boys dangling on a string.” Lady Randall declared it loudly enough for her to hear. But then, she woul
d, wouldn’t she? That the woman’s public humiliation had come at her own instigation didn’t appease Lady Randal at all. Rather it fuelled it to such a level that Devlin and Vidal had both cautioned her to watch her back. "For if she does not retaliate, you can be sure she’ll get that odious son of hers to act against you," Vidal had warned her when she’d repeated the incident to him.
Then Devlin’s brother had come clean up to her a few evenings later and told her to take her claws out of Devlin if she meant to have Vidal. “And I, for one,” he’d added, “will be more than glad if you choose Vidal.”
When, soon after their marriage, she’d asked Devlin why Cedric disapproved of her so, he’d dismissed it as nothing important. It hadn’t taken her long to discover Cedric’s deep seated jealousy for his elder brother.
“Stay away from Cedric,” Vidal had advised before Devlin proposed. “He’s a nasty piece of work.”
After that she’d followed Vidal’s advice and kept a wary eye on her brother-in-law. When she next had an opportunity to talk with Vidal, she’d ask him if he’d seen Cedric before setting out to rescue her.
* * * *
As dusk stole the daylight and offered the cover of the darkness, Vidal wondered whether Juan intended to keep travelling. The gruesome discovery in the woods three days ago had unsettled them all and by unspoken agreement they’d skirted all forms of habitation since. In his opinion they should have stopped to forage for food or find a river with the prospect of tickling a fish for their dinner. Goodness only knew the few birds they flushed from the brush were so small they wouldn’t feed a mouse. Water too was becoming a problem. The little they had left tasted brackish from the warm sunshine during the day, and Juan still refused to let them fill their bottles from the streams they waded through.
“We find a spring the French have not contaminated first.”
“The women need something to drink.”
“It is no use to them if it is poisoned, my friend,” Juan had said in one of the few moments he’d come out of his brown study.
Vidal wanted to argue but to argue against the truth was a waste of time. If they couldn’t burn, sack or destroy everything in their path the enemy deliberately contaminated the waters as they went.
“And when are we going to come upon a spring we can trust?”
A brief smile lit up the Spaniard’s face. “Very soon if we keep going.”
For a moment Vidal wondered why Juan’s response surprised him.
“How do you know this country so well?”
“It is my home,” Juan said, with a wave at the mountains ahead and a flicker of a smile on his lips. “When the war began I wanted to fight, but was rejected. They told me my sight was not good enough.” He cast a glance at the women riding in front of them. “Bah! What do they know? I learned of a guerrilla group in the south and made my way there. From there they sent me into Gibraltar. Why would I want to stay there? It is so small.”
“So you decided to use me as an excuse to leave Gibraltar and return to your home country?”
“No, my fine friend, I see you have not yet worked it out. Indeed you are wrong. My instructions were to either take over the job of getting you aboard a boat to England or maintain a close contact with your party to ensure your guides undertook to do the same.”
“Heading for the Pyrenees is not the easiest or most direct route to the coast and a boat.”
Chapter Nine
“I never imagined you’d find such beauty at the top of a mountain.” He heard the wonder in Honor’s voice. They’d scaled the first line of mountains and travelled west along the path for most of the afternoon, before dropping into the small valley where they’d stopped for the night.
“We’ve been fortunate,” Vidal agreed. “At this time of year rain and mists often obscure the view.”
“Seeing the mountains running off in the distance takes my breath away. The colours and shades, it reminds me of a tapestry hanging in my mother’s favourite room.” She sighed, turned it to a smile, and began again. “I thought we’d be struggling through snow and ice.”
“And so we may in a few more days. October is only seven days away and is known to bring snow blizzards severe enough to cut off the passes.” They’d start their trek towards the steep slopes on the other side of the valley the next day.
After they’d cleared away all traces of their evening meal, Vidal sat and watched the glow from the small camp fire Juan considered safe to light. The light turned Honor’s hair a warm shade of bronze and lit up her features. He couldn’t pull his gaze away and shifted uncomfortably when the sight fired his blood. The more he learned about her, the higher his admiration and physical frustration levels rose.
“‘Lucky in love, unlucky in cards.’ Who’s the woman, Charles?” His friends had teased him when his luck at the tables turned days after Honor accepted Dev’s proposal. As soon as Vidal entered the room, his friends groaned and declared their pockets to let. It didn’t stop them sitting at Vidal’s table and continue grumbling good-humouredly all the while they lost to him.
Both women had remained quiet for several days after the gruesome discovery in the woods; indeed Honor’s outburst with Juan had surprised him. Her innuendos garnered no new information and succeeded in distancing the Spaniard farther from them.
Nor did Juan hide his impatience when the women’s pace slowed as they climbed to the higher altitudes. They’d rebelled when he demanded they alternate riding their shared mount, and in all honesty Vidal didn’t blame them. For two days Honor and Consuela took turns riding until the extra burden and the thinning air caused the animal to tire more easily.
“We’ll all take turns,” he said, challenging Juan to defy him. “The walker leaves their pack on the mule.” Only the women’s immediate agreement brought Juan’s reluctant consent.
While the tenacity of both women surprised him, he found it hard to come to terms with Honor’s stoic acceptance of the situation. Consuela, more conditioned to the long-drawn ascent, suffered less with her breathing as they climbed. She came from this country and didn’t hide her contempt for the few village elders they met who swore their isolation from the major war zones would protect them. Others had thought the same and been proven wrong.
“Are those lights in the distance coming from a couple of villages?” Consuela asked the previous evening.
He’d sympathised with the cautious excitement in her voice. What little warmth they garnered during the day was soon depleted with the approaching dusk.
“They may be, or perhaps they are army camps,” Juan muttered and chose the first diverging track from their path, increasing the distance between them and the communities.
During the day he and Juan took turns scouting for food and unwanted company. Most nights they’d sat down to rabbit stew or soup. At first, Juan had grumbled when both women stopped to pull leaves and berries from bushes growing along the path, until he realised they were harvesting herbs to add to their meagre rations.
“Did you see Dev’s brother before leaving England?”
Honor’s query jolted Vidal back to the present. She didn’t need to spell out the question left unsaid.
“I did, and discovered he’d already been informed. I’m sorry to say he showed no grief at all. Indeed he set about squandering his inheritance before even I learned the truth of the matter.”
Remembering Cedric’s jealousy, Honor offered no comment and turned the conversation. “We intended to open the house and throw a huge anniversary party when we returned to England, but now…” Honor’s sigh joined the murmur of flames licking round the twigs and dry scrub they’d found. “Apart from collecting my things, I don’t suppose I’ll ever revisit the place.”
“I’m afraid Cedric is not likely to permit you to enter the grounds again. He moved into the house soon after you and Devlin left for Spain, and disregarded all attempts to shift him.”
He remembered Cedric’s sneering claim, "It’s mine."
; “He made no secret of his wish that neither of you would ever return, and told everyone he intended to ‘make hay while the sun shone’. Sadly, Devlin’s steward was too afraid of Cedric, and too uncertain of whether you and Devlin would come home, to defy him.”
Even in the firelight, Vidal saw her pain. She’d faced the loss of her husband and now had to come to terms with the knowledge that her brother-in-law had taken over her home even before his entitlement to do so.
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of such unpleasant news, Honor, but you have to know, Cedric has fallen in with a bad set of friends.”
“I never understood how someone so uncouth managed to be at the centre of society. We’d meet him wherever we went.”
Her bewilderment equalled his own. He remembered Cedric Chiltern and his cronies always frequented the most prodigious events of the Season, and were indeed, accepted everywhere in the heart of society. And yet—
Only her nod indicated she’d heard him. He reached out a hand of comfort, then withdrew it before he touched her. Her scent — where it came from he didn’t know — fired his blood even in the peaks of the mountains.
He couldn’t prevent himself from looking at her, taking in her features, her strength, her loyalty, and marvelled how he could see it all in one look.
Had he become so used to her beauty, he no longer noticed it? Oh, but he did, and laughed when his body reacted to the direction of his thoughts.
Honor cradled in his arms, Honor kissing him as ardently as he’d like to kiss her — and more, much more.
Once, for a while, he’d hoped, but hoping got him nowhere. He’d thought, but taken it no farther than dreaming, and then his dreams turned to nightmares when Honor chose Devlin.
As dusk slipped into night, Vidal settled down to rest. The climb tomorrow would a hard one and he needed his strength.