Fortune's Bride (26 page)

Robert looked surprised. “That had nothing to do with the
fight at Roliça,” he said, quite truthfully but giving Esmeralda a totally
false impression. “That was at Brilos when I had to leave my horse and go
climbing around on a stupid hill to tell those idiots in the Sixtieth and the
Ninety-fifth that help was on its way.”

“Then you weren’t in the fighting?” she asked.

“Not really,” Robert said regretfully. “Fa won’t hear of my
taking a line command. I’m going to have to talk to him about it again. I
really think I need some field experience before I command a regiment of my
own. But what I did isn’t in the least important.”

As far as Robert was concerned, he had told the truth. He
did not consider riding through shot and shell or even the hand-to-hand combat
in which he had engaged as taking part in the fighting. To his mind, to take
part in the fighting meant leading men into action and being responsible for
what they did. But, of course, Esmeralda did not know this. She was therefore
left with the notion that he had probably torn and stained his coat and
breeches scrambling through brush and over rough ground.

Comforted and content, she turned her full attention to
Robert’s detailed explanation of the overall significance of the battle of
Roliça. The actual advantage gained militarily was far less important than the
significance in terms of morale. “If we could have pursued them, cut them off
from Loison’s force and from Lisbon, and wiped them out, it would have hurt
Junot. As it is, I’m afraid we haven’t done the main French force much harm,
but we’ve done ourselves a lot of good.”

“Did Sir Arthur think it too dangerous to follow?” Esmeralda
asked eagerly. “Would we have been caught between the two armies?”

“Sir Arthur never says too much about what he thinks,”
Robert admitted. “It’s one of the things I don’t like about serving with him,
but I can usually figure it out afterward or if I ask after the action, he’ll
explain. And he’s so good a general that it’s worth waiting for. But anyway,
coming to Vimeiro hasn’t much to do at all with French movements. Sir Arthur
received word that Acland and Anstruther are off the coast with four thousand
men. We have to protect the landing site. And it’s important to have the extra
men because those idiots in Whitehall—or maybe the old fools at the Horse Guards—got
the wrong information about what Junot has to put up against us.”

“Is the difference serious?” Esmeralda frowned with concern
but her voice was steady and her expression was not in the least fearful.

Robert smiled at her “It might have been if these two
brigades had not arrived. Once they are ashore, I believe we will be strong
enough to throw off any attack by Junot.”

“Did not the Spanish troops desert as expected?” Esmeralda
asked.

“Yes and no.” Robert grinned. “There are still about six
thousand Spanish troops in Lisbon, but they’re doing more for us than for
Junot. In fact, he only managed to prevent them from deserting by arresting
them in small batches, and now he’s got a whole battalion tied up guarding
them.”

“From what you have said about the abilities of the Spanish
army, keeping the troops prisoner may cost the French more men than allowing
them to return to Spain and fight,” Esmeralda remarked.

Robert laughed aloud. “You are becoming a better general
than Junot,” he teased. “But there is another funny part to this. There is a
Russian fleet in Lisbon harbor with about six thousand seamen under Admiral
Siniavin. They haven’t done a thing since they arrived but eat. When the
Portuguese started to rebel, Siniavin refused to help the French. He said that
the tsar had never declared war on the Portuguese nor recognized the French
annexation of Portugal. He wouldn’t even let his men guard the Spanish
prisoners.”

“But why?” Esmeralda was puzzled. It seemed very odd
behavior for an ally.

“Because there is a strong party in Russia violently opposed
to the peace Alexander made with the French, and Siniavin is in sympathy with
this party. It also seems that Siniavin is Royal Navy trained and served with
our fleet for a few years. He has no intention of helping the French against us
if he can avoid it. Naturally, he can’t disobey orders, but he can draw the
line pretty tight and do
only
what his instructions specifically
command. And that, I gather, is nothing. He’s been at sea since before Russia
declared war on England, and I don’t think he’s got any orders.”

“How convenient,” Esmeralda remarked.

“Yes, isn’t it?” Robert responded, grinning.

“Then what does Junot have?” Esmeralda asked, returning to
the point of the discussion that affected them most directly.

“A lot more than the fourteen or fifteen thousand men Sir
Arthur was led to expect—at least twenty thousand, we think.”

Esmeralda thought for a moment and then said, “So all in
all, the numbers are about even, aren’t they? The French may have a little
edge, but—”

“But they don’t have Sir Arthur,” Robert replied with grim
enthusiasm. “He’s really the best general I’ve ever seen in action. And he’s
used to being the underdog and winning anyway. That’s important. And because of
Roliça, for the first time our men and officers
believe
they can beat
the French.”

Esmeralda looked so astonished that Robert laughed again. He
realized that she had accepted as gospel his conviction that under Sir Arthur’s
direction, a British victory was inevitable. It was a very pleasant feeling
that she trusted him so completely.

“I guess you never paid much attention to what Boney was
doing in Europe, did you, Merry?” Robert asked.

“No…”

“Well, Boney beat everyone to flinders,” Robert told her.

“I knew that, I mean, I knew he rolled up the Austrians,
Russians, and Prussians.”

Robert nodded. “Yes, well, you see that’s been part of the
trouble. Everyone is so afraid of Boney’s French troops that they’re
half-beaten before they start. I’m pretty sure, although no one said it outright,
that our own men and officers felt the same way. But we’ve had phenomenally
good luck. That little action at Brilos—I’ll swear it was half bravado and half
hysteria that made those four companies chase the French pickets too far. But
they held out like heroes after they’d run into the whole rear guard, and then
we
beat
them at Roliça.”

“You said you would,” Esmeralda put in, smiling.

But Robert did not return the smile, and he shook his head.
“I swear God’s on our side, Merry. Everything went wrong at Roliça. Colonel
Lake got a rush of heroism to the head—or maybe he didn’t understand the
orders. We’ll never know because he’s dead now, but he started the attack long
before he should have—before the artillery had a chance to soften up the troops
and before there was any hope of support on the flanks from Ferguson or Trant.”

“But Robert, if everything went wrong—” Esmeralda hesitated,
unsure of how she wanted to finish the sentence.

“We beat them anyway,” Robert pointed out with blazing eyes.
“We drove the French out of a very strong position by sheer courage and
fighting skill.” He drew a deep breath then and smiled wryly. “At least, that’s
how the men and officers see it. And it’s put them on top of the world. They
may even believe they’re better soldiers—that’s not true, but it doesn’t
matter—”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Esmeralda remembered the tears and
stains on Robert’s clothing and was suddenly frightened. “Overconfidence can
lead to rash actions. You said Lake had behaved rashly and upset Sir Arthur’s plan.”

“You don’t have to worry about overconfidence. Sir Arthur
will let all the officers have the rough side of his tongue for not obeying
orders. They’ll be more careful—”

“Moreton!”

A roar from the stairwell cut off whatever more Robert had
been about to say. Esmeralda saw his lips tighten and his nostrils flare with
temper, and a thrill went through her. It was the first time Robert had ever
shown the smallest sign that he preferred her company to his duty. Nonetheless,
as Robert went and flung open the door, a definite feeling of relief was
mingled with her joy. She could have kept him talking for a while longer, but
eventually he would have resumed the amorous activities he had begun earlier.

Not that Esmeralda objected to that. Despite the pain she had
suffered, she was eager to renew the experience, partly out of curiosity,
partly out of a recollection of the pleasure and excitement that mingled with
the pain, and partly because she understood it was a way to bind Robert to her.
Her problem was that she felt she could not be very appetizing at the moment.
She wanted to wash and comb her hair and put on a pretty new dress so that she
would not fall too far below the standards to which Robert was accustomed.

Thus, although she lowered her eyes, she was not really
disappointed when Robert came back from the door still tight-lipped with
displeasure to say, “I’m wanted. I hope it won’t be for long, but I don’t
know.”

“It’s all right,” she said, putting out her hand to him. “I
have to clear up anyway. Whenever you come, I’ll be waiting.”

As soon as Robert’s footsteps died away down the stairs,
Esmeralda tumbled all the plates together onto the tray and carried them to the
kitchen. She did not bother to wash them. Molly would do that in the morning.
Getting herself sweet and clean was more important than anything else,
particularly as it would not be easy to do. First, water had to be heated.
Esmeralda emptied what Robert had left in the bucket into the kettle and set it
on the stove. Then she lugged the bucket out to the pump and filled it, brought
it back to the kitchen, topped up the kettle, and emptied the remainder of the
water into several other pots—as many as could be set on the stove.

While those heated, she searched the house, the pantry, and
finally the outhouses, but she could not find a bath. In the end she found a
pan, possibly used for baking, that would be wide enough for her to kneel in.
It was far too flat to bathe in, but it would catch the excess water while she
sponged herself clean.

Esmeralda first took the large pan upstairs, then filled the
bucket with cold water and carried that up. At that point she realized that she
needed a second bucket for the hot water. She recalled seeing one while she was
looking for the bath, but she was getting flustered because everything was
taking so long and she could not remember where she had seen it. She ran about
looking in all the least likely places only to discover the bucket in the most
logical spot, under the sink. When she saw that it was dirty, she almost wept
with anxiety and scrubbed it clean with frantic haste.

She had a vision of herself elegantly dressed, with her hair
neatly combed, sitting quietly by the lamp sewing. She felt that was how Robert
would expect to see his wife. He would not like to see her carrying buckets of
water. He had been surprised when he saw her working in the kitchen, and it
would be most unromantic for Robert to see her sweating, or struggling to get
clean.

By the time she had the old bucket suitably scrubbed, the
water in the smaller pots was boiling and that in the kettle too hot to touch.
With trembling haste, she emptied all the hot water into the bucket and started
for the stairs. Voices outside made her freeze for a moment, but they passed
and Esmeralda hurried up the stairs, gasping for breath and shifting the bucket
from one hand to the other as she felt her arm might be wrenched from its
socket by the weight.

Having assembled her paraphernalia and found the soap and
sponge, Esmeralda finally removed her clothing and began to add cold water to
the hot until the temperature was reasonable. Then she knelt down in the baking
pan, dipped her sponge, soaped it, and began to wash. The removal of dust and
old sweat soothed her immediately. Her breathing slowed and so did her
movements. When her face and neck were clean, it occurred to her that until she
was ready to wash her legs, she could sit in the pan with her knees raised.
That would be more comfortable.

Esmeralda got up, emptied the water that had accumulated in
the pan into the slop bucket, and sat down. It worked quite well, the sides
being low enough not to cut into her thighs, but when she tried to rise to
empty the water again, she found it very awkward. By now, however, she was
feeling much better and she giggled happily as she tried to find a way to lever
herself upright without tipping the pan. At which point the door flew open, and
Robert said, “Merry—”

Shock deprived Esmeralda of voice and movement for the one
second it took Robert to look around and see her His eyes opened wide, his lips
parted—and then he stepped in and shut the door behind him. Blushes dyed her
face and throat scarlet and even reddened the upper portion of her chest. In
contrast, her breasts were very white. She and Robert stared at each other for
another moment in a silence that was less shocked than appreciative on Robert’s
part, and more calculating than embarrassed on Esmeralda’s. Slowly she moved
her hands, which had been braced against the floor, up toward her breasts as if
to shield them.

Robert grinned. “It’s too late now,” he said cheerfully.
“I’ve seen all there is to see, and very nice it is. Merry, you need a keeper.
You didn’t lock the door.
Anyone
could have walked in on you.”

As he spoke, he reached out and turned the key, but his eyes
were on his wife. Her color had started to fade and then intensified when he
teased her, but after another short silence, she lifted her head defiantly,
dropped one hand, and held the other out to him.

“I can’t get up without spilling the water,” she said with
only the smallest tremor in her voice. “Will you help me?”

“With the greatest pleasure in the world,” Robert replied,
coming forward, but he did not take her hand. He bent and lifted her.

“Oh, you idiot!” Esmeralda exclaimed. “Now you’ve got your
one clean coat all wet with soapy water.”

“It is not in the proper mode to call your husband an
idiot,” Robert said gravely, and kissed her.

“It is not in the proper mode to intrude on a lady naked in
her bath,” Esmeralda retorted as soon as her lips were free. “You should have
apologized and stepped out.” She had, however, spoiled whatever effect the
reprimand might have had before she delivered it by putting her arms around
Robert’s neck and responding enthusiastically to his kiss.

“But then the door would still be unlocked, leaving you at
the mercy of less well accredited trespassers,” he pointed out.

He bent his head to kiss Esmeralda again, but she
recollected what she had just complained about and said, “Put me down, Robert,
do, and let me sponge off your coat.”

“Just as you are?”

He began to laugh so hard that he almost dropped her, and
she slid to her feet.

“You said yourself that it was too late for modesty.” She
started to bend down to retrieve and rinse the sponge, but saw Robert move, and
came upright. “Don’t you dare pat my…my…me there,” she warned,

“Perish the thought,” Robert replied, widening his eyes into
a look of angelic innocence. “Would I be so crude? Am I not a gentleman? Don’t
you like it?”

“Do I have to answer those questions?” Esmeralda giggled,
sidling around the bath to a place where she could safely clean the sponge.

Having accomplished that, she advanced on Robert, holding
the sponge out almost as if it were a white flag signaling a truce. He eyed her
speculatively, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips, but he allowed her
to clean off the front of his coat and sleeves without interference.

“Have you finished your bath?” he asked blandly when
Esmeralda was satisfied that the coat would dry cleanly.

She hesitated, then said with a note of defiance, “No, I
haven’t. Why don’t you take off your coat so it can dry?”

“Why don’t I take off everything?” he suggested. “You cannot
have washed your back yet. If I wash your back, will you wash mine?”

A flash of doubt crossed Esmeralda’s face, and she half
turned away, color rising in her cheeks again.

“Merry,” he said softly, “I know you are a good, innocent
woman. Don’t be afraid to be playful. But if you will be made uncomfortable by
my nakedness, I will not force you—”

“Oh, no,” she murmured. “I am only afraid of passing the
line of what is pleasing. I am so very ignorant.”

“There is no line,” Robert said firmly. “Anything that gives
us both pleasure in private is right and proper, so long as it is kept
private.”

Esmeralda lifted her eyes to his, smiling wryly. “My good
sense tells me that such a warning implies we are already beyond the line.”

Robert’s grip on her tightened, and he drew her closer. “Who
knows?” he remarked. “But I doubt we are the only couple who has ever shared a
bath.”

“If we share this one, it will be by miraculous
intervention.” Esmeralda laughed, looking at the pan in which she had barely
fit, and then said hastily, “No, Robert. If you pull me against you, I will
have to sponge your coat again.”

“You are right,” he admitted, promptly letting her go. “And
that will only waste time. Besides, it will be much more fun to kiss you when
we are both soapy.”

“I am sure this is wrong,” Esmeralda said in a small voice,
watching him tug off his coat. He laughed aloud, raking her with his eyes. “You
are growing more and more outrageous,” she complained, but bubbles of joy were
exploding inside her. “Robert, really, when you think of this tomorrow, will
you not also think I should have checked you and put on some clothes?”

“Before you finish your bath?” He had his shirt off and
kicked off his pumps as he unbuttoned his pantaloons. “No, you ninny. When I
think of this tomorrow, I will be trying to discover something still more
outrageous to make you blush. You are very pretty when you blush, Merry. It
makes your eyes shine.”

He began to push off pantaloons and smalls at the same time
and had his wish, for Esmeralda blushed hotly again. Not knowing what else to
do, she knelt and emptied the dirty water from the pan. When she looked up, he
was standing very close, and her eyes widened in astonishment. Before she could
move, he knelt beside her and took her in his arms.

“Do I frighten you, Merry?” he asked gently.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “It…it seems impossible, but
I know—”

“I was drunk last night,” he said. “I’ll be more careful.
Don’t think about that now. Let me wash your back.”

But it was more than her back he attended to, and it was not
only the sponge he ran over her body. And he took her place in the pan and
urged her to wash him, allowing her to grow accustomed to handling him. She
grew bolder slowly, finding his sighs and wordless exclamations as exciting as
the caresses he lavished on her even while she bathed him.

Like most other young men of his class, Robert had read a
fair amount of erotic literature. In fact, it was the only reading aside from
military history and theory that he did voluntarily. His physical experience,
however, was limited mostly to camp followers, upon whom he wasted no time.
Both parties, in fact, were concerned more with the speed and completion of the
act than with elegance or technique.

During periods in England, Robert had tried one or another
high-class courtesan, but those experiences, although much pleasanter, had been
blurred by the intake of far too much wine. The fact that he had been so drunk
also obscured the details of his previous night’s lovemaking. Actually, this
time with Merry was Robert’s first experience with a gentlewoman when he was
stone-cold sober. He had never enjoyed anything so much in his life and was
quite determined to discover whether the rapturous litanies in the books he had
read could be reproduced by putting into practice the techniques described.

Esmeralda was only too ready to assist him in this laudable
purpose. She had come to the conclusion that she had already offered enough
protests to prove her maidenly modesty. She thus put away all doubts,
determined as she had been from the first to enjoy every moment of what had
been an impossible dream and nonetheless had come true.

The light was failing by the time they got around to drying
each other off. The water had long since cooled to room temperature, but
neither of them noticed. Robert carried Esmeralda to the bed then and lay down
beside her. Both were nearly ready, owing to the lingering caresses they had
mingled with the more practical activities of washing and drying each other,
and there was a special delight in the sweet, clean smell and taste of each
other’s fresh body.

Innocent and curious, Esmeralda copied every movement of
arousal Robert practiced on her. He was so perfectly beautiful to her that
there was no part of him she was unwilling to caress with fingers, lips, and
tongue. His disjointed remarks were somewhat puzzling to her at first, for he
would sigh, “Oh my God, how wonderful,” and then, almost instantly, “no,
don’t.” And when, obediently, Esmeralda paused, he would whisper, “Please,
please, again.” She understood later, however, when he groaned, “Stop, Merry,
stop. I’ll go too fast, and I’ll hurt you.”

But by that time, Esmeralda did not think anything could
hurt her. And, in fact, when Robert finally mounted and entered, the pain of
stretching only seemed to excite her more. She thrust and writhed against him,
impelled by age-old instinct, for she no longer really had any conscious
thought. Her body independently sought a satisfaction she did not know existed.
It came in explosive spasms of pleasure that wrung moans and near shrieks from
her.

Her frantic movements had surprised Robert. By and large,
the army whores lay still, unwilling to waste unnecessary energy. The
courtesans had, of course, simulated pleasure—or may really have felt it, since
Robert was a dish that did not come often to a paid companion’s table—but they
had complete control. Merry’s total abandonment was new to him and, coupled
with the long foreplay, brought him in moments to an unthinking state of
instinctive drive toward climax in which the convulsive spasms of her body
completed his act as well as hers.

Robert, more accustomed to the results of sexual activity,
recovered first, although this particular experience exceeded any in his
memory. Faint tremors still ran from his groin through his abdomen and down his
thighs, but he became aware of Merry gasping for breath under him and he tried
to lever himself up to relieve the pressure on her, only to discover that his
arms were shaking and weak as reeds.

“Good Lord,” he said softly, and then, with a shock, he
associated the sounds that had rung in his ears during his climax with his
wife. “Merry,” he whispered urgently, “Merry, are you all right?”

“It’s hard to breathe,” she said faintly.

A second, more determined attempt to raise himself
succeeded, and Robert tilted sideways. “God in heaven,” he mumbled, “I was right
out of my head. I didn’t even realize you were screaming. What—”