Fortune's Bride (15 page)

Esmeralda went up, searching for a reason that would sound
natural to have at least one cot carried in and, at the same time, hoping there
would be an absolutely inescapable reason not to do so. Then she could share
the bed with Robert. She could make herself small, pressed against the wall so
that he might not at first notice she was there. And then… And then, she
admitted, staring blankly at the bed, he would be furious with her and so
disgusted that he would probably give up the pretense and quarter himself with
the other ADCs until the first opportunity to be rid of her.

At that moment her eyes focused on the bed, and she
shuddered. “Bring up
both
cots,” she ordered, “but don’t set them up
yet. Just put them as far away as you can manage from that nest of six-legged
pests. And take the mattress out. Leave it in the corridor or carry it
downstairs, but get it out of here.”

The shock of disgust did her good, however. She had managed
to keep herself reasonably clean in old Pedro’s village by insisting that she
sleep on clean straw and by bathing frequently, a habit all residents of India
established for the sake of the cooling effect. The rooms she had stayed in on
the road from Oporto had been the best available, and she had insisted on clean
sheets in each place. The little house in Figueira da Foz had been cleaned out
for the young men who lodged in it before she arrived. Now, Esmeralda realized,
she would be faced with the problem of making her quarters habitable.

Forgetting her personal problems for the moment, Esmeralda
went out to discover whether the few shops in the village carried such things
as soap and brushes. Once in the stores, she remembered the other things she
had intended to buy. Cloth of a sufficiently delicate quality was not
available, but there was rice and other dry grain in plenty, dried fruit of
various kinds, and other provisions. Clearly the French had not foraged
excessively in this area or the inhabitants of Lavos were more clever at hiding
things than most. Certainly they were hiding nothing now. Word that the English
would pay had apparently preceded them.

However, this information had also raised the expectations
of the merchants. Esmeralda’s need to get the best price on everything
stretched the time she spent in the shops, and in the end she ran into Robert
in the street as she was edging her way around a group of men pushing and
jostling to get into a wine shop. His arms were full of bottles, as hers were
full of bundles, and he stopped short and glared at her.

“You are incorrigible!” he exclaimed. “Did I or did I not
tell you to keep M’Guire with you as a guard?”

“Oh dear, I forgot,” Esmeralda admitted guiltily. “But if
you had seen the bed in the room and the fleas on the walls—”

“Don’t tell me about it.” Robert groaned. “You should have
seen the look on the Beau’s face when we were escorted into ‘the finest house’
in the village.”

“You should have seen the look on mine!” Esmeralda
countered. “Anyway, the only thing I could think of was soap and scrubbing
brushes. I’m sorry I forgot to take M’Guire along, but the whole town is so
small, he would have heard me if I called him from anywhere. And there wasn’t
any danger. The people
are
well disposed.”

“They should be,” Robert replied dryly. “They will make a
year’s profit on this visit of ours.” But he smiled at her with easy good humor
as he nodded at the packages she was carrying.

“Not out of me, they didn’t,” Esmeralda responded with
pretended indignation, although she could have wept with relief at seeing the
smile. He must have realized, she thought, that he had misunderstood her. “I’m
no downy chick for plucking,” she added, laughing. “I learned to bargain in
Indian bazaars.” Then she nodded in turn at the collection of wine bottles he
was carrying. “You will be late tonight, I gather?”

“Not unless I’m the lucky boy who will have to ride back to
Figueira with the dispatch Sir Arthur is writing. The general officers are
invited to dinner and, I imagine, to a planning and scolding session. I’m not
sure the Beau will want to have the ‘messenger boys’ present.”

“Scolding?” Esmeralda repeated. “But—”

Just then an altercation broke out among the men around the
wine shop, and Robert glanced back over his shoulder. “I’ll tell you later,” he
said. “Get into quarters now, Merry, and stay there. The natives won’t make
trouble, but these drunken devils may. I’ll come when I can.”

She hurried away obediently, not afraid at the moment but
realizing Robert was right. Sober, not a man in the army would have dreamed of
touching her. In fact, most would hardly dare smile at her or speak to her. Her
clothing and speech marked her as “officer class”. However, blind with drink,
any one of them might play too rough before he realized who she was. It would
be a disaster for Esmeralda to be involved in that kind of trouble. Even if she
escaped unhurt, she would be sent away at once.

Molly was already in the room, cleaning. She was startled,
almost horrified, when Esmeralda proposed sharing the task. “Ye’re no used t’
sich work,” she exclaimed.

“Well, I certainly was not used to it in the past,”
Esmeralda admitted. “When I lived in India there were plenty of servants. But I
am not so fine anymore. In the village where I was shipwrecked, I scrubbed my
own clothes, and I helped in the house. There is too much for you to do alone,
Molly, and I would rather help scrub than put up with the fleas. I’ll have to
find something to wear, though.”

She settled on a shirt of Robert’s that was already soiled
and needed washing. Since there was nothing else and it was very warm, she just
put it on over her pantalets. Molly choked with laughter, and Esmeralda giggled
at the sight she knew she must make, however, under the laughter she was
strangely stirred by wearing Robert’s garment. She soon forgot, though, and
became sufficiently absorbed in what she was doing that she lost count of time.
Nor did she pay any attention to the sound of footsteps on the stairs. M’Guire
had been emptying slops and bringing up fresh water, but he had been warned not
to enter the rooms. Molly had just left to put out the last of the dirty
buckets.

Thus, Esmeralda straightened up without concern from giving
a last wipe to the wall and looked with satisfaction at her work. She did not
turn as the door opened but said, “It’s odd, but despite the work there is a
real pleasure in seeing a room properly put to rights.”

Since the only reply she received was a shocked intake of
breath, Esmeralda whirled about to confront Robert, who still had his hand on
the door and looked paralyzed with surprise. Esmeralda could feel the blood
rising in her face. Both of them stood staring, unable to speak or move. Robert
swallowed convulsively as Molly’s voice came through the open door calling down
to M’Guire that when he had emptied the bucket he should set up the cots.

Somehow the combination of Molly’s voice and Robert’s
astonished face recalled to Esmeralda how ridiculous she must look. Although
she was mortified, she had very little personal vanity, and the whole thing
struck her as extremely funny. Her hands flew up to her mouth, but they could
not repress the giggles that shook her. “I am so sorry,” she gasped. “Molly
wouldn’t think to warn you, and I am afraid I forgot the time.”

The unnatural color faded from Robert’s face, and he
grinned. “Shall I go out again?” he asked, but his eyes flicked appreciatively
over her legs, bared from the knee down by her unusual attire, before they were
tactfully averted.

“No, I will go next door and make myself decent,” she
replied, still smiling, not at all ill pleased with the flash of admiration she
had seen. “Shall I tell Molly to bring in your bags so you can change to
regimentals? You will wish to change for dinner if the general officers are
invited, I expect.”

Robert burst out laughing at a sudden vision of himself in
full formal dress escorting Esmeralda in her present costume, then choked. “I
beg your pardon,” he said, striving desperately for gravity. “I will change if
you like, but I am not dining with Sir Arthur tonight. If you will give me the
honor of your company, I will dine with you this evening. The staff is excused,
as there is not room enough at the table for us and the general officers.”

“I know
just
what you are thinking,” Esmeralda
remarked, trying to look severe and failing lamentably because she thought it
was funny, too, “However, it will not do. We cannot count on being alone with
our little joke. If Lord Burghersh or one of the others should come in—”

The mischievous sparkle in Robert’s eyes was quenched at
once, and he stood away from the door. “Go and get dressed immediately,” he
said.

Esmeralda fled, embarrassed all over again as soon as the
light teasing between them ended. She would have liked a few minutes to think
over the implications of Robert’s manner from the beginning to the end of the
incident, but she did not dare leave him alone with
his
thoughts. They
might, of course, be greatly to her advantage, but they might also lean the
other way, emphasizing the embarrassment and discomfort of sharing quarters
with a woman with whom he was not genuinely intimate.

Thus, Esmeralda tore off Robert’s shirt while she told Molly
to go out and see if she could get an adequate dinner cooked for them
somewhere, pulled on her one gown, and rushed back—only to find Robert stripped
down to his breeches. This time it was Esmeralda’s gasp of surprise that drew
attention, but when their eyes met, both burst out laughing.

“Oh, I am so sorry,” Esmeralda cried. “I thought I had told
you not to change. I have sent Molly out to bring in dinner. We will both be
more comfortable here, I think, than trying to struggle through the crowds in
the town. Shall I go?”

“Not if you don’t mind seeing me put on a shirt,” Robert
replied.

Esmeralda smiled and moved toward a chair near the window.
“I hope you do not think me shockingly bold,” she said, “but you know, after
living in India all my life, I cannot really feel much dismayed by a bare upper
body. Really, there is little of the male form with which I am not acquainted.
The men working in Papa’s go-downs wore hardly anything at all.”

“You should not have been in the go-downs,” Robert remarked.
“I do not wish to speak ill of your father, particularly since he is dead, and
even more because I have profited by his peculiarities in that you are very…”
He hesitated and then, as if he had not left the sentence unfinished, went on,
“But it was most improper. You will need to be more careful in England.”

He turned away to rummage in his bag. Esmeralda forgot to
reply while her eyes rested on his broad shoulders, then slid down his
hard-muscled back to his narrow waist. She had done it before, but only when he
was asleep or deeply absorbed in some task. This time he seemed to feel her
gaze on him, and he turned back toward her, but in the split second it took
Robert to look at her, Esmeralda was staring most innocently out the window.

“I don’t think I am likely to be in the same situation in
England,” she said blandly, and then when he did not answer, she grew nervous
and retreated from the personal conversation to what she knew would interest
him and put him at ease. “What did you mean when you said Sir Arthur was going
to scold his general officers?” she asked.

For the first time in his life, Robert had to exert
considerable effort to focus his mind on a military subject. “The march,” he
said vaguely, thinking that he must be more careful in the future. He kept
seeing Merry in those provocative pantalets, damp with sweat, and clinging to
her buttocks and thighs. With considerable haste, Robert pulled his shirt on
and reached for his coat.

“You’ll be too warm if you wear your coat,” Esmeralda
commented innocently, her voice tinged with surprise, for Robert seldom wore
more than a shirt during the heat of the day in their own quarters.

Robert wondered irritably whether he should inform her of
certain facts of life, but when his eyes met hers and saw the puzzled concern
in them, the words froze in his throat.

“What was wrong with the march?” Esmeralda asked.

“Good God, didn’t you notice that about a third of the men
fell out along the way?” he retorted.

“I did see a number of men along the road,” Esmeralda
admitted, “but I am very ignorant of what is usual under these circumstances.”

“Well, the troops are very raw,” Robert conceded, “but Sir
Arthur felt that the officers were not sufficiently attentive, and he wishes
them to know that he was not satisfied with the performance of the men. It did
not really matter today and probably will not until we reach Leiria. After
that, however, we may meet the French any time, and we cannot have a third of
our forces lying along the roadside, complaining of the heat.”

“Have you received definite information about where the
French are?” she asked.

“No, but that almost certainly means that they are not
close,” Robert replied soothingly. “There is nothing to fear.”

“I am not—” Esmeralda began, but her denial was interrupted
by the sound of several pairs of boots on the stairs, which heralded a polite
scratch on the door.

“Come in,” Robert called, and grinned as he remembered that
Merry had warned him they were not likely to be left alone for long.

“I just thought I would let you know that it would be better
to keep Mrs. Moreton off the street,” Lord Burghersh said immediately after
greetings had been exchanged. Then he stared around the room and twisted up his
face. “You are a lucky dog, Moreton,” he sighed. “You’re likely to be the only
one who sleeps tonight. The rest of us will be too busy scratching.”

The remark was fervently echoed by the others and led
naturally enough to jokes about Robert having all sorts of unfair advantages.
He responded to the teasing in his usual way, but he was aware of a very odd
mixture of feelings. He felt guilty because he now realized why Esmeralda had
been wearing that odd costume, she had been cleaning the room. Yet the
knowledge that she had done it and made nothing of it, adapting so easily and
uncomplainingly to each new situation, gave him a sense of satisfaction. It
also aroused in him an uneasy indecisiveness regarding his once firm conviction
that following the drum was no life for a woman. It certainly seemed to agree
with Merry.