by Lucy Ashford
He guided her quickly over to his makeshift camp, where they would have some privacy. He offered her some of the rough army wine, and Verena told him swiftly what she’d remembered when he left her in Oporto. ‘When you mentioned the place, Busaco,’ she told him, ‘I knew that I had heard or seen the name somewhere before’. She was reaching into her pocket. ‘Here’. She held out some folded sheets of paper. ‘This map, and these sketches, were drawn on the back of a letter to me from my father. They refer to the old mine shafts at Busaco…’
At that point her lovely face clouded and Lucas knew she was thinking of her father, was still trying to reconcile herself to his treachery. But she pressed on steadily. ‘Because I knew you were making for the ridge of Busaco, to meet Lord Wellington, I had no alternative but to ride to you up here’.
‘Your sense of duty to the fore as ever, Miss Sheldon,’ he teased gently. ‘So you—persuaded Bentinck to escort you?’
She pulled a slight face. ‘I as good as forced poor Bentinck, yes. Unfair of me. I said, if he didn’t come with me, I’d find you by myself. He was not very pleased, and the climb was a little—difficult. But—Lucas, I hope I did right?’
‘Difficult!’ He chuckled at her understatement. ‘You have done very well indeed. You are brave and wonderful, and, minha querida, I love you more than I can say’.
He got his aide to bring her hot soup and a blanket. She chided him for fussing over her, but the temperature was dropping sharply as night approached and the moon, silvery and full, rose above them. He’d set her by the fire, building it up while she talked. The pages of Jack’s letter were spread out between them, but his eyes never left her face.
‘Verena,’ Lucas confirmed softly, ‘these plans could mean the difference between victory and defeat tomorrow’.
‘As important as that?’ she breathed.
‘As important as that’. But he saw the shadows that still clouded her lovely face, and said gently, ‘I’m sorry. This must be painful for you’.
She shook her head defiantly. ‘Bentinck has been more than kind. He warned me…’ she swallowed on the lump in her throat ‘.…not to use my father’s name, in case—in case anybody knew’.
His heart missed a beat. Indeed.
‘But, Lucas, I keep telling myself,’ she said, steadfastly gazing up at him, ‘that whatever my father did, he did for his family. What he tried to do was wrong. Terrible. But he still loved us’.
He put his arms round her and kissed her with great tenderness. ‘I understand everything. You must stop reproaching yourself. You have done your duty—more than your duty’.
Letting her go reluctantly, he picked up the letter that mapped the tunnels of Busaco. ‘And now I must go now to his lordship. There is still just time. If we can find these old mine entrances, tonight, we can get men with rifles, perhaps cannon even, into these hideouts. But your part in this is done. Now you must let Bentinck take you to the safety of the old convent, half a mile back on the Oporto road, which is Wellington’s staff headquarters. And then, tomorrow, you can head for home’.
‘No!’ she protested. ‘No, you don’t understand! You need me, Lucas, to interpret these maps!’
‘I can read Portuguese’.
‘But the notes he’s written on them are in the old dialect that my father learned from his mother, Lucia—look, do you see?’ She pointed her finger at the page. ‘He has written everything down: where the old tunnels are, in relation to the ridge and the convent; their width, their height, and where they lead to, back within the hillside. I can understand, I know the dialect, he taught it to me, but do you?’
‘No,’ said Lucas simply. ‘I don’t’.
Chapter Twenty-Five
And so it was that Verena ended up combing the mountainside at night, with Lucas and the sappers, and with two gunners-in-chief also, searching for the mine entrances by the light of the moon.
Alec was with them all the time. His face was racked with tiredness, but his optimism never failed. She felt hot with shame when she remembered how she had branded him a wastrel and a rake.
Some of the tunnels marked on the map had been hopelessly blocked by falls of shale, and would require hours of digging, hours they couldn’t spare. But others were more easily accessible, and Lucas ordered men to swiftly clear these of fallen stones and undergrowth. Then the cannon were heaved in by the gunners, and some of the army’s most expert riflemen, all done as swiftly, as silently as possible. The passage of the big guns was muffled by the armfuls of heather thrown under their wheels; the men were ordered to communicate quietly, in case French scouts were already moving up the valley in advance of their army. The soldiers were supplied with ammunition, food and water for twenty-four hours. Then the furze bushes were pulled across to conceal the entrances.
As they climbed back up to the camp, Verena, white with tiredness yet determined not to rest, saw Wellington talking to his commanders. She gazed, rapt, at this famous general, who with his gift for leadership and his tactical genius was slowly turning the tide of the war. He was not tall, but his figure, distinctive in his grey cloak and cocked hat, commanded respect wherever he went.
‘We need to take the French utterly by surprise tomorrow,’ she heard him warning his commanders. ‘We must inflict as much damage as possible on their guns and supply wagons, so we’ve got a head start in what is, I fear, going to be a most damnably hellish race for the safety of Lisbon—’
Then suddenly Lord Wellington broke off. He’d spotted Verena, who stood between Lucas and Bentinck.
She shrank back. What if he knew about her father?
But if anything his face grew less harsh. ‘So you, young lady, are the saviour who brought us this valuable knowledge, are you?’ he said in a gentler voice. ‘You have done well, ma’am. Exceedingly well’.
That, as Bentinck told her later, was praise indeed. Lucas was smiling down at her and nodding. She hoped he was thinking, as she was, This, at least, has gone some way towards righting my father’s wrong.
Lucas persuaded her to take some sleep before her journey, and obediently she wrapped herself up in blankets near the embers of the fire. She slept, though he stayed awake. Alert.
* * *
At the first light of dawn, as the pennants of the approaching French glinted sporadically two miles away through the thin valley mist, he said to her, ‘Now, Verena, you leave. Understood? No arguments’.
‘But, Lucas—’ She could hear the steady thud of the enemy’s drums. Her heart constricted in fear for the lives of all these men. For him.
He kissed her softly. A caress, a promise, made by his lips brushing hers, his arms enfolding her, his harsh, unshaven cheek pressed with the utmost gentleness against her delicate skin. ‘I will see you down in Coimbra’. A smile softened his features. ‘From there we will travel home. Together’.
* * *
With the ominous drums of the advancing French still echoing in her ears, with the same stubborn mule to ride sidesaddle on, she and Bentinck made the journey south to Coimbra, only a few miles away.
By the time they got there, she was weary and saddlesore. Her heart tightened with apprehension when she realised that Coimbra was in a state of sheer panic. Its Portuguese inhabitants were convinced, in spite of everything the small British force there could do, that Wellington’s army was about to be defeated, and that the French monsters would be on them at any minute, to massacre them in revenge for siding with the British.
Peasants from the stony hillsides, lost children, nuns from rural convents, Portuguese gentlemen and their wives—all had crowded into Coimbra, loudly clamouring for protection. Bentinck, somehow—a miracle worker, she was beginning to believe—managed to find her a small room in a little backstreet hotel where several respectable English travellers were staying.
* * *
Verena found it impossible to do nothing except sit there and wait; so she offered herself as a translator to the commander of the British troops, helping to in
terpret the news brought in by the various Portuguese scouts; while Bentinck, his expression by now one of weary resignation, acted as her unofficial chaperon. And thus she—and he—were amongst the first to hear the report of the battle to be known as Busaco. Fast riders galloped into Coimbra late that day. The huge French army under Massena had marched up the valley alongside the long, steep ridge and straight into the trap. Massena’s men did not understand where so much gunfire was coming from, or how such a small English army could pin them down.
‘The hillside itself has opened to shelter the English!’ the French were heard to cry in disbelief. They had been forced to flee in disarray. The British had managed to capture some of their vital supply wagons and were already on the march; heading first to Coimbra, and after that, Lisbon.
Bentinck was grinning from ear to ear. ‘That’ll show ‘em!’ He even gave Verena a little hug.
Verena breathed, ‘So the French are defeated?’
Bentinck hesitated. ‘Not exactly. There’s still far more of them, and they’ll be after the British just as soon as they’ve got over their fright and pulled themselves together. But Lord Wellington, he knows what he’s doing, he’ll get to Lisbon before them! And—’ his face brightened ‘—Lord Conistone will be here in no time, you’ll see! He’ll be lookin’ forward to a good meal and a hot bath. And somewhat pleasanter company than wot ‘e’s been getting lately!’
She was beginning to hope that the impediments which had continually hindered their love were almost overcome. She held to her heart the knowledge that Lucas had forgiven her, firstly for doubting him, and secondly for her father’s treachery. ‘That was none of your doing, Verena!’ Lucas had reminded her forcefully. She hurried back to the little hotel and her first floor bedchamber, a sanctuary from the pandemonium of the city’s streets.
Now all she had to do was wait. And soon afterwards she heard horses. Heard the servants running outside, calling, ‘English. English soldiers are here…’
Lucas? Her heart began to thump.
She checked herself briefly in the looking-glass. The gown she’d bought in Oporto had been worn to shreds by her travelling, so she’d managed to purchase a new dress in one of Coimbra’s almost-empty shops. The shade of emerald green, vividly adorned with embroidery, suited her colouring well, and the shopkeeper had pulled out, from under the counter, a lovely gold shawl. ‘Take it, minha senhora! It matches your golden eyes; you will look beautiful tonight for o seu marido, your husband, yes?’
Tonight. Surely before they left for home, as he’d promised, he would spend tonight with her, here! She would bathe the dust and dirt from his body and rub oils into his aching muscles. Would kiss away his bruises, until he forgot the battle in the flame of mutual passion.
Verena, you are becoming little better than a whore! she rebuked herself. But she was smiling as she whispered the words. She felt her own body respond with tumultuous desires at the thought of his need for her. She would answer and return her lover’s passion a hundredfold.
She could hear voices—Englishmen’s voices—outside. Bentinck would have found him, told him she was here. With a secret smile, she went tiptoeing out on to her balcony that overlooked a tiled and paved courtyard full of scented flowers, where fountains played. And her heart leaped, because Lucas was indeed there.
He looked travel-worn. His long coat and boots were covered with dust; his thick black hair curled roughly past his collar. But even so he looked so handsome, so desirable, that her heart raced almost painfully with longing. And she was glad to see that Alec was safely there also. She was about to call out to them, to tell them she was here—but then she paused, frowning. Something was wrong.
They should have been relaxed, joyful even, for Lord Wellington had gained a crucial victory. But Lucas looked sombre. Even—angry. Alec was remonstrating with him, gesticulating in his usual flamboyant manner.
‘In God’s name, Lucas, haven’t you told her everything yet?’ Alec was exclaiming. ‘About the whole damnable business?’
They were talking about her. Verena.
Lucas was saying tightly, ‘I told her as much as she needed to know, Alec. That her father wanted to sell information to the French. I don’t see that she needs to know any more. I’ll go and speak to her soon, but first I’ve got dispatches for the commander here’.
‘See the commander by all means,’ declared Alec. ‘But when you come back—you must tell her it all! And I’ll tell you why! Because some day someone else will tell her, you idiot! That it was actually you who pursued her father through the mountains, thinking he had that damned diary. Pursued him to his death!’
If she hadn’t been leaning against the balustrade of the balcony, she would have fallen. Her whole body started to tremble.
Oh, dear God. The old Earl’s words rang like a funeral bell in her head. ‘They killed your father for what he knew…’
* * *
Somehow she got back into the coolness of her room and pressed her hands to her face. Lucas was a secret agent. A spy. His task had been to pursue her father and get that diary from him before he could sell it to the enemy. That, she already knew. But what she hadn’t realised was that then—then, of course, Lucas’s final duty would be to kill him.
Lucas’s grandfather had the diary, all the time. But Lucas had not known that as he chased after the traitor Jack Sheldon.
Dizzily she remembered hearing the news of her father’s death. Fell into a raging mountain river… Was swept away downstream…. The news had been a terrible shock, but not as great as the one she felt rocking her heart and soul at this moment. She dragged breath after breath into her lungs, as if just to exist was an effort.
‘Your father loved you,’ Lucas had said to her on board the Goldfinch. ‘Always remember that. To the end, he loved you’.
How could Lucas have known that, unless he was actually there?
The enormity of it crushed her soul.
No wonder Bentinck had warned her not to use her full name as they’d climbed up to the army at Busaco. Not only would Lucas’s comrades know Jack Sheldon was a spy, they’d also know that Lucas had killed her father in retribution.
Even if it was a righteous execution, she could not live with Lucas, day after day, and wonder, Was my father afraid? Did he plead with Lucas for his life?
Her stomach clenched until she felt nauseous. Now, at last, she understood all of Lucas’s hesitancy, his reluctance to declare himself fully. Although he loved her—yes, she believed that now, and the knowledge was cruel indeed—he must have known, as Alec had just so brutally pointed out to him, that some day, she was bound to find out.
She could not marry the man who had killed her father. Oh, Verena. This is going to take all your courage.
Gathering up her few possessions, she made fresh plans and set her face to a new life. Without Lucas.
It had been such a beautiful, impossible dream.
* * *
It took the impatient Lucas Conistone much longer than he’d thought to give his report to the British commander of the small force here in Coimbra, then make his way back to the hotel—only to learn that Verena had gone.
Bentinck defended himself hotly. ‘One moment she was here in the hotel, milord, happy as a lark ‘cos the battle’s been won. Next—she’s upped and vanished!’
‘She can’t have vanished. She must be here, somewhere!’ Lucas paced the hotel room in a state of mounting rage and dread.
Not fair, he reminded himself bleakly, to round on Bentinck. Even Bentinck couldn’t be with her every minute of the day. Alec hovered anxiously in the background as Lucas demanded, ‘When did she go, Bentinck? You must at least know that roughly!’
Bentinck pursed his lips. ‘Must’ve been around the time you and Captain Stewart arrived, or near enough, milord’.
‘So we just missed her. Damn it all! Find her, will you? There are all kinds of ruffians around. Find her!’
Lucas secured the aid of some soldiers;
with them and Alec he scoured every narrow street. But it was Bentinck who was first with some news.
‘Think I’ve got something, milord,’ he panted. ‘I heard that an English wine merchant and his wife were heading back to England today. They had a carriage booked to take them to the coast’.
‘And?’ Lucas was brittle with impatience; Alec at his side was also listening anxiously.
‘They took someone else with them in their carriage,’ explained Bentinck, ‘a young lady with chestnut-coloured hair. Her name, they say, was Miss Lucia…’
Verena’s grandmother’s name. Lucas was wild-eyed. ‘To England… Where were they sailing from? ‘
‘No one’s sure, milord. The carriage left an hour ago’.
Alec muttered, ‘There’s something else you ought to know, Lucas old fellow. A French spy’s been locked up in the Coimbra gaol, and now the British army’s almost here, he’s started offering information in the hope of saving his skin. He appears to know a little about Wild Jack, and he says some French agents actually went over to England a few months ago, thinking they might find something useful at Jack’s home. Wycherley’.
As he had suspected. ‘Go on,’ breathed Lucas.
‘Well, there’s an English soldier involved,’ Alec went on. ‘A captain, who was captured at Talavera and let out of a French prison camp after swearing he’d be able to track down Jack Sheldon’s precious diary…’
Lucas swore aloud.
‘What, Lucas?’ Alec looked distraught. ‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost, man!’
Lucas breathed, ‘I know who it is, Alec. And oh, God, oh, God, I should have realised it, a long time ago…’
He was already on his way as he spoke, striding towards the stables, Bentinck hard on his heels. Alec, too, was chasing after him.
‘Lucas! Where, dear fellow, are you going?’
Lucas called back over his shoulder, ‘To get my horse. To find a ship to England. Even if it’s captained by that damned Jed Brooks!’