Fortune's Bride (2 page)

As Sabrina rose to ring the bell and to hang Robert’s
pelisse more neatly, she suppressed a sigh. It was not that she desired her
dear Perce to look like his brother—to her, Perce was utterly perfect just as
he was—but Robert’s total indifference to women was such a waste. Any girl he
chose would be a devoted slave for life and would fit herself to any pattern he
desired. That sounded dreadful, but it would not be a bad thing because Robert
was the kindest creature. He seemed completely unaware of how handsome he was
and always picked out the unlovely and neglected girls at any social affair as
if he expected to be rejected by the beautiful, sought-after belles.

Sabrina had once talked to him about his preference for
wallflowers—timidly, for she did not know whether he would be angry—but he had
only smiled and said it was unimportant because he would never marry anyway.
That had frightened her enough to ask Perce if Robert was “different”. It was
as near as she could come to asking if he preferred men or boys, but Perce had
assured her his brother was quite normal and satisfied his sexual urges
regularly, as her foster brother Philip had done for many years before he
married Megaera. Robert, Perce explained, confined himself to light-skirts
because he did not think a soldier had a right to marry. A military man could
spend so little time with a wife and his children that he soon became a
stranger to them.

There was some truth in that, of course. Sabrina agreed that
children must not be exposed to the dangers of a war zone. A wife was another
matter. Sabrina heartily concurred with Robert’s notion that there was no sense
in marriage if one’s husband would be at home only a few months, weeks, or not
at all for years at a time. However, the right woman would think nothing of
accompanying her husband, no matter what the danger. Sabrina knew of several
such women, and she herself had been in situations of considerable peril owing
to her late husband’s diplomatic posts. She had never minded the danger, in
fact, it had exhilarated her. It was William’s personal doings that had caused
her to accept his death with so little grief.

As for any children Robert might have, something could easily
be managed. Even if the wife Robert chose did not have a mother, or he did not
like her, Lady Moreton would gladly oversee the children. Like her son, Lady
Moreton was kindness itself. Or if Robert felt his mother would be too
indulgent, Sabrina would be glad to care for her brother-in-law’s children,
only she might not be in England. But that would not matter, for Leonie would
watch over them as Leonie would watch over her own children if God would only
allow her to have them.

“Brina?”

The anxious note in Perce’s voice woke Sabrina to the fact
that she was standing with her hand on the bell pull and staring blankly at the
wall behind it. She started slightly and pulled the delicate tapestry ribbon
that would ring a bell in the servants’ quarters below. Then she turned and
smiled.

“I was thinking,” she said not quite truthfully, “that if
Spain really has rebelled against Bonaparte, it might be important to us, too,
Perce. If you were to be sent there, or to Portugal, or if we had the
expectation of such an appointment, even if it did not come through, that would
be a good reason to set our marriage ahead.”

Perce’s expression cleared, but before he could answer
Sabrina, Robert said, “There will have to be a government not at war with
England before any diplomats are likely to be appointed. And I tell you right
now that if they replace Sir Arthur with one of those old fools from the Horse
Guards, Spain and Portugal will have to win against Boney on their own. Do you
think Castlereagh can hold out against them?”

“No,” Perce replied, “not indefinitely, anyway, because the
Duke of York has too much influence, but they might not push the matter too
hard until they see whether Sir Arthur makes any headway. In any case, Sir
Arthur may be more fortunate to be relieved of his command than to keep it. I
know the government presently believes Spain only needs a little help to push
out Bonaparte, but I don’t think the Spanish emissaries who are here are
representing the political situation accurately. I’m afraid—”

“I don’t care about Spain’s political situation. All I want
to know is whether Sir Arthur will keep his command.”

Perce sighed with gentle resignation. Robert’s obsession
with military matters did not yet include the recognition that political
maneuvering all too frequently was concluded on the battlefield. Robert was not
unintelligent. He was an ardent student of the art of war, ancient and modern.
He read every book on military history and military tactics he could obtain,
and he remembered everything he had heard from Sir John and Sir Arthur about
the battles they had directed. However, he was still young enough to regard the
subjects of where and why one fought as irrelevant. In a sense he had the
perfect military mind. He was quite willing to obey orders without ever
requesting an explanation.

“But the politics in Spain may make it very hard for Sir
Arthur to accomplish anything,” Sabrina pointed out gently. “And I’m terribly
afraid that this may be our last chance to fight Bonaparte outside of England.”

“The navy will keep him off,” Robert said, more to comfort
Sabrina than because he had any doubts about the success of any campaign Sir
Arthur led.

“For a while.” Perce’s voice was so grim that Robert looked
at him in surprise. “The whole problem is tied up with Boney’s fixed idea that
he has to beat Britain and his realization in 1805 that he couldn’t build
enough ships to make an invasion possible.”

“You can’t mean that he fought Austria, Prussia, and Russia
to beat us,” Robert protested.

“No, of course not. I’m sure Bonaparte intended to be
emperor of all Europe from the beginning, but he wanted to put us down first.
Since he couldn’t do it, part of every victory has been to pick up another
weapon to use against us. Every treaty he’s made includes stoppage of trade
with Britain because he hopes to ruin us so completely that we can’t fight him
or encourage others to fight him.”

“That’s true,” Sabrina put in. “There were a number of
reasons why Tsar Alexander went to war, but one of them was the subsidy that
Pitt offered to pay, a quarter of a million pounds for every hundred thousand
men.”

Perce nodded agreement and continued, “Another part of
Boney’s plan was to grab a ready-built navy. He didn’t dare demand too much
from Russia or Austria, and Prussia doesn’t have a navy worth the name. But he
insists that the small countries that can’t resist give up their navies to the
French. If he had succeeded in grabbing the Danish and Portuguese fleets as
well as the Dutch and Spanish, he would have had about two ships to every one
of ours. I know our men and officers are better, but at two to one, he might
have managed so great concentration of vessels as to pull off an invasion.”

“We would have beaten him,” Robert said.

“Yes.” Perce closed his eyes for a moment, and when he
opened them his face was bleak. “We would have beaten him because the farmers
would have fought in the fields with pitchforks and the cobblers in the streets
with hammers, but what it would have cost in lives…”

They were all silent for a moment, and Sabrina shuddered,
remembering Perce’s physical condition after the battle of Eylau. “That’s what
must be happening in Spain now,” she whispered.

“Yes,” Robert said briskly, “and if the Spanish are that
determined, surely they’ll cooperate right down the line, especially once Sir
Arthur shows them he can beat the French.”

“I wish it were that simple.” Perce sighed.

Robert looked a bit rebellious, but he said nothing.

“The trouble is,” Sabrina said, “that the Spanish probably
don’t realize what they’re up against. They’ve never fought the French.
Remember that Boney didn’t conquer Spain. He took it by a trick. And it’s
useless to say that the Spanish should understand that if Boney beat Austria
and Russia—” She stopped abruptly as the door opened and a footman stepped in.

Sabrina began to order drinks and then realized it was past
noon. She asked Robert if he was free and he assured her he had no duties until
that evening when he was due to appear at a dinner-dance with Sir Arthur. One
of the attractions of serving General Wellesley was that he was a most social
person and expected the young officers of his “family” to attend functions with
him and make themselves agreeable. It had been said, perhaps only half in jest,
that the general chose his staff for their ability and indefatigability on the
dance floor.

However, when this unkind remark came to the general’s
ears—for the truth was that Sir Arthur’s staff was mostly forced upon him by
“recommendations” he could not reject as Robert originally had been—he uttered
his typical, loud whooping “haw, haw” laugh and said it was an excellent
notion. He pointed out, smiling, that grace in dancing indicated good timing,
coordination, and balance, which were also the marks of a fine horseman.
Ability to deal with ladies showed courage and high spirit, and any man who had
the strength to stand up to a full night’s cavorting on the dance floor would
certainly be strong enough for army service.

Robert’s face had lighted as he mentioned the engagement. He
loved to dance and enjoyed social functions as much as Sir Arthur, particularly
when he attended as a member of the general’s staff. Such attendance could
arouse no speculations in any young lady or her matchmaking mama. When he was
with Sir Arthur, any attentions he bestowed must be taken as merely his duty,
since the general’s opinion on the behavior of his young staff officers was
already known.

Sabrina suppressed another urge to sigh over her future
brother-in-law’s fitness for married life and instead merely instructed the footman
to serve luncheon in the small breakfast parlor. On the way down to eat, Perce
reminded Robert that since Bonaparte had beaten Prussia, Austria, and Russia,
the only ports that were still officially open to British goods were those of
Portugal, and he pointed out that because the French navy was still inadequate,
the only way for Boney to close off Portugal was to invade by land. But that
meant marching through Spain.

“I can’t imagine Boney is worried about the Spanish after
wiping up the Russians,” Robert remarked as they seated themselves.

“No, but whatever else Boney is, he’s no fool. Why should he
waste men fighting his way through the Pyrenees when he could trick the Spanish
into welcoming him? The Spanish have always resented the fact that Portugal
defeated them back in the seventeenth century and has managed to remain
independent ever since. Boney got the Spanish to let in his army by promising
to hand Portugal back to Spain.”

“And he didn’t. The more fools they were to think Boney
would keep a promise.”

“They were worse fools than that,” Perce remarked. “I’m not
going to go into the crosscurrents in the Spanish government—”

“Thank God for that,” Robert muttered.

Perce gave him a sardonic look but continued without
comment, “but because they all hated each other and thought they were smarter
than an ‘upstart Corsican’, the king—although you can’t blame him, poor thing,
he’s nearly an idiot—the queen, her chief minister—who’s probably her lover—and
the crown prince all walked right into a trap Bonaparte laid and were forced to
abdicate. Then Boney thought the way was clear to establish another puppet
throne with his brother Joseph on it.”

“It wasn’t unreasonable,” Sabrina commented. “It had worked
in Holland and Italy and other places.”

“But Boney had beaten the Dutch and Italians first,” Perce
reminded her. “He hadn’t beaten the Spanish. He had tricked them. Apparently as
soon as news of the abdication spread, rioting broke out spontaneously all over
the country. By the end of May, Sir Hew Dalrymple, the governor of Gibraltar,
had received an appeal for money and arms from the revolutionary junta of
Seville. But the point is, they seem to think they can beat the French on their
own, and in my book that means trouble for Sir Arthur or whoever else commands
the expeditionary force.”

“If they think they can beat Boney when the Austrians,
Prussians, and Russians couldn’t,” Robert remarked, “they’re plain mad. But
don’t worry about Sir Arthur. He’s used to native allies with swollen heads.”

“I hope so.” Perce looked worried. “The trouble is…” He
allowed the sentence to hang in the air for a moment, then went on, “Canning at
the Foreign Office is a clever devil, but I can’t say I like him much, and he
does have a tendency to jump at opportunities without investigating them
sufficiently.”

“You can’t investigate military opportunities too closely or
for too long, or they disappear,” Robert pointed out.

Perce shrugged, but his voice was bitter when he spoke.
“It’s true, but it works both ways. Maybe if General Bennigsen had taken the
time to investigate a little more closely what he thought was an opportunity,
there wouldn’t have been that bloodbath at Friedland. Maybe Russia would still
have been in the war against Boney. Maybe the Russians could even have defeated
the French. They came damned close a couple of times.”

Robert glanced at his brother with considerable sympathy.
He, too, had been in bloody, hopeless battles, but he had always felt he was
tougher than Perce and that his elder brother should be shielded from such
horrors and employ his considerable brains in seeing that the government
supported the army properly. All he said, however, was “Castlereagh wouldn’t
jump just because Canning did, and Castlereagh is no fool.”

“No, no, he isn’t,” Perce agreed, “but the whole government
is getting pretty desperate for a victory of some kind. The pressure on
Castlereagh at the War Office must be very high. Between trade being badly hit
by the blockade so that the cloth manufactories are closing or turning away workers,
and the bad harvests which have nearly doubled the price of wheat, the Midlands
are in an uproar. There were riots in Manchester—”