by Shana Galen
Tentatively at first, she leaned into him, pressing her lips against his with the barest pressure. His hands tightened on hers, but he did not pull away. Imitating his earlier actions, she passed her lips over his. The heat from the friction she caused made her sigh, and it was on that sigh that he swept her into his arms and brought his mouth down upon hers.
Catarina had never been kissed. She’d never been held tenderly in a man’s arms. Never felt the all-consuming need engendered by passion. Now all the new sensations rushed at her with a suddenness she could hardly understand much less make sense of. So she did the only thing she could.
She kissed him back, her lips moving against his, her tongue making shy advances to meet with his.
The world around them seemed to fade away. She no longer smelled the flowers in Tia Alda’s window box or the damp soil from the rains. She didn’t feel the cool night swishing her skirts against her legs or the hard cobblestones beneath her thin, ragged shoes. She only knew Benedict’s warm body pressed to hers, his skilled lips teasing hers into doing things she had never even imagined, and the scent of him—all masculine and foreign and delicious.
And then with a groan he placed his hands on her waist and gently separated from her. Catarina might have swayed if he hadn’t been holding on to her. Gradually, she opened her eyes and blinked at him.
“Let me remember you like this,” he said, his voice low and husky. He raised her hand, kissed it, and then with a stiff bow, walked away and into the night. Catarina might have followed. She knew he would go to the nearby stable and fetch the horses. She would have time to catch him, time to beg him to take her with him.
Time to plead for one last kiss.
Instead, she clutched the handkerchief more tightly in her hands then raised it to her nose, inhaling the scent of him. For though she might wish differently, this was all she would ever have.
HE SHOULDN’T HAVE KISSED her.
Benedict repeated the refrain at least a hundred times before he reached camp. The ride back to camp seemed longer and colder than the ride into the village. But everything was cold after that kiss.
Why had he done it?
Well, he knew why he’d done it. She was a beautiful woman and saying the vows in the church, no matter how dubious their legality, had made him think of her as his. How could he walk away from her without one kiss, without one taste of her?
And now he’d spend the rest of the night wishing he hadn’t had that taste. He’d probably spend the rest of the week thinking about her, imaging her lush body in his arms and her soft skin beneath his hands. If he’d known she would kiss him back—and that she would kiss him so eagerly and so absolutely without guile—he would have...still kissed her.
Damn. How was he supposed to leave her now? How was he supposed to ride away for glory and honor when that sweet, warm kiss was waiting for him? How—
“Colonel Draven, sir!” Ward rushed up to him as Benedict entered camp. Just before he could turn around again and ride back to Catarina. Benedict looked down at his batman, noting the frenzy of activity around him. The men were packing up belongings and gulping down hastily prepared meals.
“Ward.” Benedict nodded.
“General Wellesley has given the order to march, sir. We are to leave in about an hour as the roads may be drier by then.”
Benedict already felt Catarina Neves slipping away. “Very good, Ward. Would you see to this horse while I make sure Majeed is taken care of?”
Ward gave the horse Catarina had ridden a puzzled look. “Of course, sir.” He took the animal’s reins and walked him back toward the paddock.
Benedict made to follow, but he spared one last look over his shoulder at the little town. The sun was peeking over the horizon, washing the tiled roofs with golden light. Catarina Neves slept under one of those roofs, and today he would ride away, quite possibly to his death at the hands of an enemy soldier.
But as he watched the sun’s rays chase the shadows away, there was one fact Benedict knew to be true. If he survived this war, somewhere and somehow, he would see Catarina Neves again.
The Claiming of the Shrew
One
“But when I came, alas, to wive,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain”
Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare
CATARINA ANA MARCIÁ Neves ran into the London rain storm without so much as a cloak or an umbrella. She didn’t care. She was glad for the rain that washed the hot tears away. If anyone were to see them—if he were to see them, she’d be shamed.
She swiped at her eyes and looked fruitlessly for one of those conveyances that transported people for a fee. She didn’t know why she was crying. Of course, he had another woman. What had she expected? She hadn’t seen him for five years. And though they were married in God’s eyes, this country did not recognize the union. She had supposed Benedict Draven had considered himself wed, but clearly she had been wrong.
About a great many things.
Oh, why could she not find one of those carriages for hire?
“Catarina!”
She spun around in time to see her husband exit the door to his lodgings and barrel into the storm. He was the sort of man who barreled or shouldered or plowed into most things—war and marriage chiefly among them. He had broad shoulders and a wide chest and the unruliest red hair she’d ever seen, and unless her eyes had deceived her, that red hair was not yet streaked with gray. It was too dark outside to see anything but shadows now.
She gave him her back. “Go away.”
“You didn’t come all the way from Portugal to tell me to go away,” he replied, speaking loudly to be heard over the pouring rain.
“I did not come from Portugal at all.” It gave her a small measure of pleasure to point out his mistake. “Leave me alone, adulterer!” She lifted her valise and took a few steps.
“I am not an adulterer. The woman you saw in my flat is not my lover.”
She gave him a scathing look over her shoulder. “No decent woman would go to the home of a man unchaperoned.”
“Catarina, come inside and let me explain.”
“No, thank you.”
He frowned at her. “We haven’t seen each other for five years, and I come home to find you in my parlor. Now you plan to leave without even saying more than a dozen words to me?”
“Go speak to your harlot!”
He rolled his eyes and seemed to reach for patience. “You can’t stand in the rain all night.” His voice was oh so reasonable.
“I do not plan to. I am seeking a hacking or hackly...I forget the name.” She waved a hand.
“A hackney. Come inside, and I’ll have my man flag one. In this weather, it might be some time before one passes.”
“I will not.” She set the valise on the wet walkway. “There is nothing for me to say to you, at any rate. I only came to tell you that I want an annulment.”
Even in the dim light she saw the shock on his face. His ruddy complexion paled, and his mouth opened and closed uselessly. He took a step back from her, as though she had struck him.
Good. She wanted to wound him.
“Why?” he asked, voice barely audible in the downpour.
“I want to marry someone else, of course.”
He didn’t speak, and she watched as water cascaded down his forehead and across his face. His unruly hair lay flat for once, finally tamed.
“I have all the papers, senhor,” she said, hoping they hadn’t become wet along with the rest of the items in her valise. “I need your signature before I send them to the Holy Father.”
“I’m not even Catholic.”
She nodded. “That may help my petition. That and the fact that you never intended to—” Even with the cold rain pounding down on her, she felt her cheeks heat. “Never intended to produce children with me.”
His eyes locked on hers, and she was the first to look away.
And that’s when she saw the hackney. She raised her hand and the d
river veered toward her.
Her husband grasped her hand and lowered it, turning her to face him at the same time. “Catarina, don’t go. Come inside and talk this over with me.”
His voice was deep and compelling, and even in the cold, his hand was warm and comforting. But she could not give in to his charms. Slowly, she drew her hand away.
“I cannot stay. You may find me at Mivart’s.”
“I see.” His shoulders straightened at the mention of the exclusive hotel. Now he would know she was not the same impoverished girl he’d known, a girl who had not even been able to afford shoes.
“Where to, gov?” The hackney’s driver directed his question to her husband, of course.
“Mivart’s in Mayfair. I can see to the door.” He opened the door for her and helped her inside, his hand colder now than it had been earlier. A moment later he set her valise on the straw lining the floor.
“Thank you, senhor.”
“I have...business to attend to, but I will call on you at my earliest convenience. Perhaps the day after tomorrow.”
“Fine.” She gave a pointed look at the door, but he didn’t close it. Instead he continued to stare at her, almost as though he thought she might be a spirit.
“Me ‘orse shouldn’t stand long in this weather,” the driver called.
“You’re right,” Draven said. “Good night, Catarina.” And he shut the door.
Catarina did not cry on the ride back to the hotel. She didn’t know what to feel. When Draven had walked into his receiving room with the woman, Catarina had been angry. But then when he’d said she was not his lover, Catarina had wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe his reaction to her request for an annulment was one of shock and dismay. She wanted to believe he did not want to let her go.
But she was no longer a child, and she could not afford to hold on to such childish fantasies. For years she’d prayed and hoped and yearned that he would come for her. If he’d wanted her, he would have. She had mistaken his reaction tonight. He probably cared only for the inconvenience she caused him.
She was barely inside the doors of the hotel when Juan Carlos stepped out from behind the chair where he’d been lurking. His face blushed red with anger and his mustache quivered with impatience. “You are late,” he said in Spanish. He took her arm then abruptly dropped it, looking down at his damp hands. “What happened to you?” His gaze flew to her face. “You look like a street rat.”
“I was caught in the storm,” she answered in his language. She continued walking, heading for the staircase. “If you do not mind, I would like to change before I catch cold.” She lifted the hem of her heavy skirts.
His dark eyes dropped to her valise. “Did he sign the papers?”
“No,” she said simply. “Not yet.”
“What do you mean, ‘not yet’?” He followed her up the staircase. “You said this would be simple.”
“It will be simple, but it will also take more than a quarter hour. Benedict Draven is not the sort of man who acts without thinking.”
“Then he will sign tomorrow?” They reached the landing and she turned in the direction of the room she shared with Ines.
“He said he would call on me here the day after tomorrow.”
Juan Carlos made a sound of disgust. Catarina paused outside her room. “Do not fret, senhor. You will have control of my business soon enough.”
“Nonsense,” he said, reddening further. “I think only of your happiness and your marriage to my son.”
She gave him a hard look. “You think only of your own finances.”
“I am helping you, my dear.”
“I hardly consider blackmail a charitable endeavor. Buenas noches.”
She opened the door and Ines was immediately before her. Her younger sister had obviously been waiting on the other side and had probably heard the conversation with Juan Carlos. That was no matter. Ines knew all of her secrets, scant as they were.
“It seemed you were away forever. Oh!” Ines immediately began unbuttoning Catarina’s spencer. She was relieved as her own hands were too cold to manage. “You are wet to the bone.” She tugged the spencer off and turned Catarina around to begin unfastening her dress. Catarina felt as though she were the younger sister, though she was eight years older than Ines, who was barely eighteen.
“The weather is very bad.” Catarina stepped out of her gown and Ines started on her stays. “Cold and damp and wet.”
“I miss home.” By home Ines meant Portugal, not Barcelona, where the two had lived for the past three years.
“I do too.” But not as much as she would have thought. Catarina had liked the bustling city of Barcelona, and she found much in London to like as well. She might have wished to see the sun a bit more often than she had since arriving in England, but this was the land of knights and round tables. She found it enchanting. “Did Tigrino eat?”
“A little. He still hides under the bed and swats at the chamber maids’ feet when they walk by.” That sounded like her ill-tempered cat.
“I can do the rest,” Catarina said when Ines had loosened her stays. “Would you send for hot water?”
While Ines rang for footmen to bring hot water for a bath, Catarina stripped out of her wet stockings and chemise and wrapped a large blanket around her shivering body. She stood near the fire until she could feel her fingers and toes again.
“I am guessing your husband did not sign or Juan Carlos would have sounded happier.”
“I only spoke with Benedict Draven briefly,” Catarina said. “I waited for him at his home, but he did not return alone.” She gave her sister a meaningful look.
Ines furrowed her brow. “Why should that matter?”
Catarina wondered if she had ever been so innocent. “He had a woman with him.”
“His wife?”
Catarina had never even considered that possibility. Thankfully so. “No. He claims she is not his lover.”
“Do you believe him?”
Catarina shrugged. She had no reason not to believe her husband. To her knowledge, he had never lied to her before. He had always treated her with dignity, honor, and respect. “I lost my temper.”
“Oh.”
Her sister’s tone was one of horror.
“It was not so bad.”
Ines pursed her lips, looking dubious.
“We argued in the rain and—”
“And then he kissed you!”
Catarina rolled her eyes. Ines was in love with love. She supposed that was why her father had tried to marry the girl when she’d been fourteen. If Catarina hadn’t convinced her sister to run away with her, the girl would have a house full of babies by now, like four of her other sisters did. Perhaps five were married by now as Beatriz was sixteen already. Ines had been the only one of her six sisters who was anything like Catarina, though to be fair Joana had been only six when Catarina had left home and her personality still developing. But like all the others, Joana had shown signs of being shy and obedient and utterly subservient. It was difficult to be otherwise when one’s father was a tyrant who demanded submission and subservience from the women in his household.
Only Ines had shown a spark of rebellion. It wasn’t the stubborn, pig-headed rebellion her father said Catarina possessed. Ines was a dreamer and a romantic. She was also overly idealistic, which in itself did not recommend her to Catarina, except that she was willing to fight for her ideals. When she saw injustice, she challenged it.
Thank the Holy Mother Catarina had been able to spirit the girl away or she would have had her spirit crushed by whatever old man her father chose for Ines’s husband.
Her father hadn’t been able to touch Catarina by then. After twenty years of enduring her father’s control in every aspect of her life—from what she wore to what she ate to when she spoke—she had escaped. She had married and left her father’s house to live with Tia Alda, but after she’d convinced Ines to leave home, she thought it wise to leave her aunt’s house.
She’d always wanted to go to Lisbon, and that was where she and Ines had first set up shop.
“He did not kiss me,” Catarina said.
“Oh.” Ines looked disappointed. No doubt she wanted to hear about the kiss in detail. Her favorite story about Colonel Draven was when he’d kissed Catarina after their wedding. Catarina had made the mistake of telling her sister about the kiss and regretted it ever since. She’d made it sound too perfect, too magical, too...everything. Now even she doubted if it could have ever been as wonderful as it was in her memory.
But then again, she’d thought her husband could not possibly be as handsome as she remembered him, and tonight that had proven untrue. If nothing else, he was more attractive to her. He wasn’t handsome, not in the way some of the boys she’d flirted with in her village had been. But he drew her nonetheless. It was more in the way he carried himself, the way he spoke, the way she felt when he looked at her.
“I told him I wanted an annulment, and he agreed to come and sign the papers the day after tomorrow.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“But he is supposed to fight for you. He is supposed to save you from Juan Carlos.”
“I do not need saving from Juan Carlos. Marriage to his son will not be so bad.”
Ines’s expression turned stricken. “But all you have worked for will be taken away. You will be his property, and you always said you never wanted to be a man’s property.”
Catarina blew out a breath. She should learn to stop talking so much. “I was foolish to say so. I was already a man’s property.”
“Not really. Senhor Draven made no demands on you. You were free and independent.”
She was forgotten, which was not quite the same thing. “Yes, but those days are over. I have no one to blame but myself.”
“How can you blame yourself? It is not your fault you were attacked!”