Fortune's Bride (33 page)

In fact, Esmeralda was already in bed and asleep. She had
had a very exhausting day finishing the packing and worrying about her
reception by Robert’s parents. A good reception would probably mean that Robert
would leave her behind on his next campaign. A bad one would hurt him. Good or
bad, Esmeralda did not like the prospects and, what was worse, it no longer
seemed so simple to tell Robert that she had over half a million pounds. She
had suddenly realized that it might seem to Robert that she had concealed her
wealth for fear he might be greedy or dishonest.

The truth was that most of the time she had simply forgotten
about the money. But he would never believe that. No one would ever believe one
could forget half a million pounds. The thing was that Esmeralda had lived with
that knowledge most of her life but had been forbidden to speak of it, and the
money had been out of her reach. Silence on the subject had become second
nature to Esmeralda. Besides, the things money could buy were not at all as
interesting as the things that had been happening to her lately.

In the beginning, Esmeralda
had
shuddered at the
thought that Robert might pretend devotion for the sake of her wealth. That
fear had long passed, for she knew Robert now and could not believe money had
such influence over him. It was far more likely that he would be indifferent to
the money but very angry about her secrecy. Perhaps she could pretend that she
had not known how much money there was? Only that would get her into still
deeper trouble if Robert ever discovered that she had written most of the
letters to the bankers. Esmeralda had finally fallen asleep without making any
decision.

When he entered the apartment and realized Esmeralda was
asleep, Robert had thought, with relief, that it would be unkind to wake her
and tell her of Sir Arthur’s offer. In the back of his mind was the notion that
she might decide it was not worth the trouble to separate their belongings and
repack if she had to hurry.

As always when she went to bed before Robert—for he had
night duty sometimes—Esmeralda had left a lamp burning low. She had turned into
the light while she slept, and with her bright, knowing eyes closed, her
tumbled hair and stubby, indeterminate nose gave her face the unformed look of
a little girl.

Robert’s conscience stabbed him painfully. He remembered how
she had gone to help the wounded during the battle of Vimeiro and how she had
exhausted herself, and how sickened she had been by the unburied dead. She had
had nightmares for a few nights afterward, waking and clutching at him. And
Robert knew Vimeiro had not been a great or desperate battle. How could he
think of inflicting more horrors of war on her? Furious with himself for
delaying, Robert crossed to the bed and shook Esmeralda by the shoulder.

“Merry. Merry, wake up.”

Esmeralda started upright, her eyes wide and terrified. He
had found out, she thought, mixing her worries and dreams into reality.

“Merry, I’m not going back to England,” Robert said.

“What?” she whispered, still half asleep and thus
half-convinced that he was angry because she had concealed her wealth and was
punishing her by sending her away. “What do you mean?”

“It’s nothing to do with you,” he assured her, his heart
sinking at what he believed to be her disappointment. “Sir Arthur has offered
to escort you and to present you to my parents. I have transferred to Sir John
Moore’s staff.”

“No!” Esmeralda cried, waking up and realizing this was no
dream argument about money. “No! Don’t send me to England alone, Robert.
Everyone will hate me. They’ll…”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Robert said sharply, fighting the
impulse to take advantage of her silly fears and keep her with him. “My parents
aren’t monsters, and it was not a matter left to my choice. Sir Arthur desired
that I remain with Sir John because I know the language and might be of
assistance to him in dealing with the Portuguese.”

“But the war is over,” Esmeralda pleaded. “l will be safe
here. Please. I don’t want to face your family alone.”

“The war isn’t over!” Robert exclaimed, growing more
insistent because he was ashamed of his desire to grasp at any excuse to let
her stay. “Don’t talk like a silly goose. Do you think Boney is going to sit
back and accept Junot’s failure? We will be moving into Spain soon. You will be
much safer with my mother and father in England, and if for some reason you
cannot agree—although I cannot imagine that will be true—or if the life in
Cornwall is too quiet, you can go to my brother and sister-in-law, Perce and
Sabrina. They are young and very active socially.”

“But I like Lisbon,” Esmeralda cried, sobbing, “and it will
soon be cold in England. And you told me that your brother is newly married.
How can you think they would like to have me cluttering up their house?”

They didn’t have a house, Robert thought, remembering that
they were only taking over part of a floor in the Stour mansion. It
might
be inconvenient for Perce and Sabrina to house Merry. Worse yet, they wouldn’t
be in London in September, and it would be very dull for her in Cornwall since
she didn’t shoot or hunt or fish.

“Don’t cry,” he said, seating himself on the bed and taking
her into his arms.

“I don’t want to go to England alone,” Esmeralda whispered,
clinging to him. “I’m not afraid of staying, even if the war begins again. I like
being with the army. Robert…please.”

Her wisp of a nightgown had slipped off one shoulder,
exposing most of one softly rounded breast. Her lovely eyes were magnified by
unshed tears. At the moment to Robert she looked as beautiful as the most
delectable of his images. Heat flashed across his groin and down his thighs,
combining with a feeling of sensitivity and fullness that demanded a familiar
but ever-new and ever-enthralling satisfaction.

“I don’t know,” Robert said uncertainly, his eyes straying
from Esmeralda’s face down her body.

“There will be many ships going to England now,” Esmeralda
murmured softly, running a finger gently over the curves of Robert’s ear.

She had noticed the movement of his eyes and seen the small
changes in expression—a sleepy lowering of the lids, a fulling of the perfect
lips—that betrayed the onset of passion in him. Her lips caressed his cheek,
nibbled at his chin. Robert’s hand rose, tentatively stroked her shoulder, then
slid down toward her breast, pushing her nightgown still lower. Esmeralda slid
the arm that had been propping her erect around her husband’s waist and leaned
against him for support. She kissed his neck just under the ear, above his high
collar. Robert stirred uneasily.

“But Sir Arthur is leaving tomorrow morning,” he muttered,
guilt giving him one last prod.

“I am sure Sir Arthur would honor his offer to help me at
any time,” Esmeralda whispered against Robert’s mouth.

Robert bent his head to facilitate the meeting of their
lips. “I am sure it is wrong for you to stay,” he sighed when the kiss was
over, but the words were meaningless, a phrase left over from an idea he had
forgotten. Even as he spoke, one hand caressed Esmeralda while the other undid
the buttons on his pantaloons.

Briefly the words hurt Esmeralda, and she wondered whether
her long struggle to bind Robert was worthwhile. It seemed, from his reluctance
to let her stay, that even his sexual desire for her was not strong enough to
make her necessary to him. But he had his boots off by then, and her body was
indifferent to the doubts in her mind, for her hands had unbuttoned his coat
and shirt. He stood to push off his pants. Esmeralda forgot hurt and doubts.
She leaned forward to embrace his hips, to run her lips and tongue over the
male beauty displayed.

Robert groaned softly, then bent so that he could reach
around her arms to caress her breasts. Esmeralda shuddered and after a moment
uttered a sound deep in her throat. Sliding his hands up to her arms, Robert
lifted her so that she could get her legs forward and around him. They fell
back together, half on, half off the bed, using the rubbing of their bodies as
they wriggled to a safer position and as Robert lodged himself securely as a
further stimulus to their excitement.

Neither knew at that moment whether this would be the last
time they were together for the question of Esmeralda’s departure had not
really been settled, and that, too, added height and depth to their passion.
Both were unusually aware of each other so that every increase of feeling in
one sparked an immediate reaction in the other, and Esmeralda’s first cry of
bursting pleasure was echoed by Robert’s deep groan as his own culmination
came.

Of course, the question of Esmeralda’s departure
had
been settled. Robert woke barely in time to throw on clothing and rush down to
the dock to see Sir Arthur off. It would have been impossible to send Esmeralda
to England with nothing but the gown she had prepared for boarding the ship and
equally impossible to send all his clothing to England with her. In addition,
Robert told himself, it would be ridiculous to annoy the ship’s captain and Sir
Arthur by asking them to wait just to exhaust Merry with hurried repacking when
there was no emergency. It was true the war was not over, but as Merry had
pointed out, there would be no action for several weeks. During that time, many
ships would come and go from England, carrying couriers and supplies and
probably more men. Merry could leave on any ship.

When he returned from the dock, to ease his conscience
Robert repeated his rationalizations to Esmeralda. She heard him out in silence
and then merely repeated in essence—although with far less emotion—what she had
said the preceding night. It was not, she assured Robert, enlarging on her
theme, that she believed his parents to be monsters, however, to have thrust
upon them a daughter-in-law of whom they had never heard and who could not
prove her antecedents must be an unpleasant shock. But Robert’s presence at the
meeting, owing to their joy at their son’s safe return, would considerably
mitigate the shock and make acceptance easier.

Esmeralda did think of her money, but this was the wrong
moment to confess. Robert might not care enough about her fortune to pretend
love, but he was not a fool. He would know that such a dowry would ensure her a
warm welcome and the kindest consideration from his parents. As uneasy as she
was about the secret, she did not dare give Robert any excuse to be rid of her.
It seemed to her that, although kindness prevented him from forcing her to
leave, he was subtly trying to convince her to do so in every way he could.

This reflection depressed Esmeralda considerably, but she
was a fighter. She had preserved her personality and even achieved most of her
purposes against years of pressure from a considerably more unpleasant opponent
than Robert. Moreover she was sure that Robert was not deliberately opposed to
loving her. There could be no doubt that he enjoyed her body just as much as
she enjoyed his. Nor was he ashamed of her or displeased with her company. He
far more often brought his friends to their quarters for an evening of talk and
cards than went out with them alone. Thus, Esmeralda reasoned, she must simply
have failed to ignite a particular spark in Robert.

Casting about in her mind for what had been lacking in their
relationship, Esmeralda realized that Robert had never courted her as most men
courted the women they hoped to marry. It was too late to worry about that, but
thinking about courtship brought another aspect of difference to her mind.
Robert thought of her as generally unattractive and had never faced any
competition for her favors as most men did during courtship. And then she
remembered the first few days at Figueira when the other ADCs had found her a
novelty and had acted toward her with great courtliness. Robert hadn’t liked
it. He had been more attentive whenever he noticed it.

Once the army was on the move and then facing the French in
battle, their attention had been diverted, of course. And by the time they had
moved into Lisbon, all Robert’s friends were so accustomed to her that they had
treated her like a sister, with kindly affection but no awareness of her as a
woman. But now there would be a whole new group of men, and there would be
balls and rides to places of interest—all sorts of entertainments. Perhaps if
she flirted a little, just a little, and got some response… But she
was
plain. Would she arouse any new interest or would she just make herself
ridiculous?

Esmeralda consulted the mirror on her dressing table. Well,
she was no beauty, but she was more attractive than she had been in India, and
there she had had partners at a dance or a man to ride beside her on an outing,
even though she usually was the last chosen. She had known it was the lack of
Englishwomen that provided most of her company, and the same situation existed
here in Lisbon. There were several new factors, too.

First and foremost, she was married now, not a poor girl
possibly on the lookout for a husband. Second, her gowns in India had been
horrible. Now she was quite fashionably dressed, owing to the fact that Robert
had been able to get money and the Lisbon dressmakers had been very eager to
oblige. Finally, in India most of her escorts had found her boring, owing to
the curb her father had forced her to place on her tongue. Now she was free to
say what she liked, and steady application had given her both interest and
expertise on the subject that would be of greatest interest to army men.

Esmeralda sighed. She did not really want to give her
precious Robert a moment’s uneasiness, and in addition, it would be a most
delicate balancing act. If she were too bold, Robert might send her away
because she was embarrassing him, or keep her out of the way of army officers.
On the other hand, if she were too delicate, Robert would never notice.

In this judgment, Esmeralda underrated Robert’s powers of
perception. True, his attention was firmly fixed on military matters, but he
had been growing increasingly responsive to her moods. Thus, although her
eagerness to stay had pleased him, he had sensed her depression, too. His
conclusion was that she was really disappointed at having to remain in Portugal
with him, but her fear of facing his relatives without his support had been
more powerful than her desire to go to England. This made him uneasy and stung
his conscience so that, without discussing the matter again with Esmeralda, he
wrote and announced his marriage to his parents.

Since Robert still felt unequal to explaining just how Merry
had really become his wife after the initial marriage of convenience, and he
did not wish to explain the delay between the fact and the letter, he
sidestepped all these issues. He told his parents only that he had met
Esmeralda Mary Louisa Talbot, a young woman of respectable family, whom he had
known previously in India, and had married her. He would explain more fully, he
said, when he came home, as the situation was rather too complex for a letter.
And in an attempt to accustom himself to the idea of losing her, since he was
sure his letter would produce a demand from his mother and father to send his
wife to England at once, Robert kept assuring Esmeralda she could go at any
time and that his family would be happy to receive her.

These assurances merely fixed Esmeralda’s intention of
making Robert jealous if she could, and over the next few weeks, while
Dalrymple’s heavy hand lay over all military activity, she pursued this
purpose. There was plenty of opportunity. All conversation might be directed to
some aspect of the future—or nonfuture—of the war, but such mournful
considerations did not deter the officers from enjoying to the full the
amenities of Lisbon. Moreover, although the Portuguese were distressed and
angered by the Convention of Cintra, they were also grateful to be rid of the
French. In any case, they did not blame the English as a whole, and well-born
officers were flooded with invitations to balls and suppers.

Esmeralda was careful, but soon Robert could hardly obtain a
dance with his wife because her ball card was filled so quickly. As she had
foreseen, the combination of a lack of Englishwomen and her deep interest in
military affairs made her an enormous favorite with all British officers,
especially Sir John’s staff, to whom she was a novelty. Eventually she even
became a favorite with Sir John himself, who had not originally been too happy
when Robert informed him that he was married and his wife was following the
drum.

Somehow Esmeralda managed to convince Sir John that, to a
woman raised in India, the hardship endured by an officer’s wife, particularly
the wife of a staff officer, was minimal and that there was no need to feel
uneasy about her comfort or safety. He found her so easy and delightful a
companion, so eager a listener on any aspect of military life he felt suitable
for discussion with a woman, that it became a custom for her to pour tea for
his “family” of aides and other invited guests every evening she and Robert did
not have another invitation.

Esmeralda could only hope that Robert would notice her
popularity without perceiving the reasons for it, and her hopes were fulfilled.
In fact, she very nearly played her game too well. Although he could not point
a finger of blame at anything she did or said, Robert became so uneasy that he
thought of sending her to England to remove her from the ardent attentions of
his fellow officers. However, before he acted on the idea, it occurred to him
that there would be many more men with even more insinuating manners in England
and that he would not be there to recall Esmeralda’s attention to himself. What
was worse yet, he remembered that she had told him she had a competence to live
on. She would not be dependent on his parents and therefore could not be
controlled. It would be much better to keep her with him where he could keep an
eye on her.

At this point Robert was struck by the oddity of his
thoughts. Why should he feel it necessary to “keep an eye” on Merry, and why
should he object to the attentions paid her? Did he feel she would dishonor
him? Every instinct recoiled from such a notion, but Robert forced himself to
examine her behavior objectively. His conclusion was that there was not a hint
of any impropriety. In fact, now that he considered the matter he realized that
Merry was careful never to be alone with any man other than himself. Then why
should he care? What was troubling him? He felt a fool and resolved that, in
fairness, there was nothing he could complain about to her. But he could not
shake off his unhappiness.

Had the situation in Portugal been more satisfactory,
Esmeralda might have attributed Robert’s evident unevenness of temper to her
activities. However, she was too convinced of her own lack of attractions and
Robert’s basic indifference to her. Thus, since he said nothing, even when he
could not get a single dance with her or escort her to supper, she put his
crossness down to his fury over the lack of progress in military operations.
Moreover, there was good practical cause for Esmeralda’s mistake. In his need
to express his anger and confusion and at the same time avoid attacking
Esmeralda, Robert spent all their time alone complaining about Dalrymple’s
political stupidity and military inertia.

Robert’s complaints were justified. Despite the known
intentions of the British government to send the army to the assistance of the
Spanish rebels, Dalrymple had failed to institute any of the basic moves toward
forwarding this purpose. He had made no effort to survey the roads and discover
the best routes by which to move the army to Spain, nor had he made any
arrangements to supply the troops with food, clothing, or even powder and shot
as they moved inland where the navy could not land stores from England. He had,
in fact, paid so little attention to the army that discipline had been
neglected and troops were away from their companies, drunk, sick, and
disorderly. Instead he had dabbled in Portuguese politics, offending the junta
until they complained hysterically to London.

Thus, when Dalrymple’s bubble burst and he and Sir Harry
Burrard were angrily summoned home to answer for promulgating the Convention of
Cintra, a totally unprepared army was thrown into Sir John Moore’s hands. From
that moment Robert’s complaints stopped, which only reinforced Esmeralda’s
despairing opinion that Robert either had not noticed the attentions other men
paid her or had not cared. Certainly he gave no sign of jealousy.

With the dispatches Moore had received on October 6, giving
him the command of the army had been orders to make up for Dalrymple’s delays.
When Esmeralda raised her brows at this statement, Robert admitted that was not
what the orders said, but what they meant. In any case, Sir John was to get the
army into Spain immediately, before winter made any campaign impossible. The
first necessity, of course, was to restore discipline and determine how much of
an army they actually had. Sir John was a hard worker, rising before dawn to
write letters and reports and to make plans. His ADCs were kept on the run from
sunup, sometimes until late into the night.

Within a week, Moore had the reorganization of the army well
underway and turned his attention to how to move and supply it. Since Robert
spoke Portuguese, he was logically one of those chosen to interview people to
discover what roads would be best and where the countryside was most likely to
provide food for the troops. However, all Robert discovered was that the
Portuguese in Lisbon were totally, ignorant of the geography and agriculture of
their own country.

This seemed so unlikely at first that Robert wondered
whether it was his shaky command of the language that was causing
misunderstandings. The doubt produced what Robert considered a brilliant idea.
He asked permission from Sir John to use Esmeralda as a translator, since she
was more fluent in Portuguese than he.

Ever since he had written to his parents, Robert had been
living in dread of receiving a reply that demanded Merry be sent home. It had
occurred to him that, if she were useful to British interests in Portugal, he
would have a legitimate reason to delay her departure. In addition, Robert knew
that Esmeralda had a fine patriotic fervor and was sincerely devoted to the
welfare of the army. She would be delighted to be of use, as she had been that
time she had translated for him about the use of boats in Porto Novo. Perhaps
she would be sufficiently devoted to her task to overcome what he believed to
be her disappointment at his transfer and protracted stay in Portugal.