Fortune's Bride (35 page)

But fortunately Robert was not attending to Colborne’s
rather lame excuses. Although he had been offended and had reacted
automatically, that was a minor matter in comparison with a revelation that
grew momentarily more astounding. He was not really as ignorant about love as
Colborne thought. No man can avoid the effusions of his friends on the subject,
whether or not he is interested. Robert simply had never associated all the
things he had been told with himself. However, stripped of the flowery
language, which Robert still found embarrassing, what they had said about a
desire to be with, talk to, possess their beloveds applied very well to him and
explained his reactions accurately.

“By God,” Robert burst out, cutting across Colborne’s
flounderings, “you’re right! I’m in love with Merry!” And then, to Colborne’s
great relief, he burst out laughing himself and sank back down into the chair
from which he had jumped. “How ridiculous not to have known it,” he went on,
still chuckling, “but with one thing and another I’ve been so busy and had so
much on my mind, and she grew on me slowly—”

“For God’s sake!” Colborne gasped, struggling against
renewed mirth, for though a man may laugh at himself he does not like to have
others do so. “Will you please stop talking as if Mrs. Moreton is some kind of
loathsome disease? I understand that because of the reasons for your marriage
you would naturally avoid thinking of her in a romantic light, and that might
become a habit. And God knows we’ve got enough to keep our minds busy with a
chance of French reinforcements advancing and the Spaniards disappearing like
smoke in the wind. It’s not really so very odd that you should misunderstand a
personal problem, but the expressions you use and the look on your face
are
comical, Moreton.”

“Then laugh,” Robert said, but he was frowning again.

“Now what’s the matter?” Colborne asked, returning to the
chair he had vacated and not laughing although he was still amused.

“Since you know so much, tell me how to get Merry to love
me
,”
Robert snapped.

“Don’t be a fool,” Colborne replied. “She must love you.
I’ve never seen a girl that wouldn’t follow you around like a dog if you so
much as blinked an eye.”

“Oh, yes,” Robert snarled, “all the brainless little ninnies
fresh out of the schoolroom. Merry’s not a fool. You just pointed out that a
pretty face isn’t everything, and it’s damned near all I’ve got.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself, Moreton. You aren’t a fool
either—”

“Yes, I am,” Robert interrupted, “about everything but the
army. And don’t tell me I’m an earl’s son and I have an easy competence with
which to support a wife. I don’t want to hear the reasons why a woman would
marry. I know them, and they don’t necessarily include love. And I know that
Merry will never cheat on me, that she’ll be loyal and agreeable, the best wife
any man could ever have. But I want her to love me…”

“Why the devil do you think she
doesn’t
love you?”
Colborne asked, rather exasperated by Robert’s doubts, considering his
appearance and his advantages.

“She’s too…too calm,” Robert answered in a rather depressed
voice, and went on to describe Esmeralda’s seeming indifference to his going
into action and to whether or not he spent his time with her.

“Well, she’s a sensible woman,” Colborne said, “and from the
beginning she has known your profession.”

But there was now a note of uncertainty in his voice. It did
seem odd that a young woman in love should accept with so little protest the
constant necessity of dining alone and, what was more, be so casual about the
danger into which her husband was going.

“That’s what I said,” Robert rejoined, a little bitterly.
“She’s a sensible woman. What would she see in me?”

“Come, come, now you are talking nonsense,” Colborne
remonstrated, “and indulging, if you will forgive me for saying so, in
self-pity.” He hesitated, frowned, and then said, “You know, Moreton, I still
think you are mistaken and that your wife does love you, but if she has
resisted, does it not occur to you that it might be for her own protection?”

“Her own protection?” Robert echoed. “What the devil does
that mean?”

“Simply that Mrs. Moreton is no less aware than you of the
circumstances under which you married and…er…under which the marriage changed
from one of convenience, to be dissolved as soon as possible, to a permanent
arrangement. Might she not feel that you do not love her and might…er…give your
affection elsewhere in the future? Under those circumstances, she would spare
herself a great deal of pain if her own heart were not engaged.”

“You mean Merry might expect me to be unfaithful to her?”
Robert asked.

“Will you stop sounding like an idiot!” Colborne exclaimed,
exasperated again. “You’ve got more brains than you want to admit. Use them.
You married her out of pity. You consummated the marriage when you were drunk.
You then did the honorable thing and offered permanence. What is there in that
to imply more than a dutiful arrangement? Have you ever told her you loved
her?”

“I must have,” Robert said, but the truth was that he could
not remember doing so. “After all, we—” He stopped abruptly as an officer
entered to report that the first regiments were entering Salamanca, and after
that, he and Major Colborne were too busy to resume the discussion.

Neither really wished to do so anyway. What had been said
had sprung naturally from the time and place and their own fatigue, which had
stripped away their usual defenses. Now Colborne could only thank God that he
had not mortally offended Robert by his interference and his levity—although he
still burst out laughing each time he thought of Robert’s amazement at
discovering he was in love with his wife, but he did that in privacy. And
Robert, who had stopped short just as he had been about to describe the
frequency and intensity of his lovemaking, realized that that would, indeed,
have been going too far.

Robert was relieved when Major Colborne showed no
inclination to return to the subject of his relationship with Merry. He did not
believe he needed any more advice. Once the initial shock of feeling an
absolute fool was over, he began to perceive the reasons for his blindness and
to understand them. Understanding brought relief. He no longer felt such an
insensitive ass, and he was able to apply his brains to the realities of the
situation.

His first instinct was to rush to their quarters and tell
Merry about the revelation that had come to him. He now thought it very
possible that Colborne had been right and Merry had been guarding her heart
against future hurt. Robert was well aware of the frequency with which husbands
found women more to their taste than those they had married for money or
family. Thus, if he told Merry he loved her, she would surely drop her defenses
and love him. However, an ADC could not leave until dismissed, and once Sir
John woke, Robert was fully employed until it was time to dress for dinner.

Naturally, since most of his employment required physical
rather than mental activity, Robert continued to think of his own affairs while
he carried out his superior officer’s orders. It soon occurred to him that to
make the announcement he had been considering would be more likely to induce
contempt than love in Merry. What would she think of a man who did not even
know when he was in love? And with his own wife, at that. Even Colborne had
laughed despite the fact that he understood that Robert had more important
things on his mind than love. And to say that to Merry was impossible. It would
more likely make her very angry than make her love him. Robert did not know
much about women, but he knew that the majority of them regarded love as the
most important thing in life.

This conclusion left him momentarily discouraged, but once
Robert started to use his brains, they worked very well. Besides, he soon found
a military analogy to help him. If you can’t take a place by assault and it is
imperative that you take it, you besiege it. Since it was too dangerous simply
to tell Merry he already loved her and win her by shock tactics, he could show
her he was falling in love with her and break down her resistance.

Robert was satisfied with this decision because it not only
provided for all eventualities but also because he could foresee a period of
relative inactivity during which he would have leisure to court his wife. Once
the divisions that had accompanied Sir John were settled—a matter of a few
days, he thought—there would be about a week or ten days more to wait for
Hope’s and Baird’s contingents. During that time, he could ask for a few days’
leave and devote himself completely to Merry. The idea was extremely pleasant,
but when he began to plan
how
to court her, he realized he had a new
problem.

Although he’d never used them in the past, Robert did know
the correct moves. In addition to a distinguishing attention, one made little
gifts, flowers, for example, at first, then trinkets like a pretty brooch or
jeweled hair combs. But this was not London, where he could order nosegays. Nor
could he purchase jewels. There might be a jeweler or two in Salamanca, but
Robert doubted they would be willing to give him credit or take English paper
money in exchange for gold and gems.

Now Robert blamed himself for accepting Merry’s filled ball
cards so tamely. As her husband, he had a right to as many dances as he wanted.
In fact, if there were to be another ball, he would be sure to write his name
across the whole card at once. That would be a clear way to demonstrate his
feelings. However, there were not likely to be any more balls.

Sir John, although sweeter tempered than Sir Arthur, was not
gregarious in the same way. Sir John was more prone to excellent dinners in a
select male company, followed by good talk over fine wine. In any case, Sir
John was scarcely in the mood for balls. Thus, Robert was puzzled as to just
how to go about showing Merry what he felt, but it was a pleasant subject to
ponder. Moreover, Merry seemed even more than usually cheerful and content, so
he was not impatient about getting on with his wooing—after all, he was not
being denied the physical pleasures that accrued to an accepted lover. But
those physical pleasures proved to Robert that he must, indeed, make an effort.
Alert now to more than Merry’s overt pleasure, he discovered that among all her
sighs and little cries there was no word of love, at least not while he was in
a condition to listen. However, it was just as well that he was able to contain
his eagerness to win Merry’s love without real anguish because the military
situation did not resolve itself as quickly as Robert had expected.

First, General Anstruther misunderstood his orders and
detained some of the troops at Almeida. Then, General Baird, who had finally
managed to get the head of his columns as far as Astorga, received the
unpleasant news that there was no Spanish army between his mere nine thousand
men and the tens of thousands of French under Soult and Lefebvre. To continue
his march toward Salamanca would bring him right across the front of the French
forces. Baird sent word of his situation to Moore and halted at Astorga,
preparing to retreat to Corunna if Soult or Lefebvre moved in his direction.

Then, in the middle of the night of November 15, Sir John
was wakened with an urgent message from General Pignatelli, the governor of the
province. His hasty letter informed Sir John that the French army had entered
Valladolid. Worse yet, Pignatelli had fled the province, leaving the people
without leadership or even authority to resist the French. Nor could Sir John
obtain any intelligence about the numbers or positions of the French in the
vicinity.

Under the circumstances, Sir John felt he had no recourse
but to warn the junta of Salamanca that if the French pushed forward, he would
be forced to retreat to Ciudad Rodrigo. However, Sir John’s staff and general
officers protested these plans hotly. Encouraged by this support, Sir John sent
out the senior members of his staff—Robert among them—with strong patrols to
try to obtain some reliable information.

The result of these investigations set to rest the immediate
alarm. It was not a French army that had entered Valladolid but only one corps
of Lefebvre’s hussars, and they had withdrawn to Palencia the very next day.
This fact did not really diminish the seriousness of the situation, nonetheless,
Moore sent orders to Hope to hurry forward if he could do so without danger and
instructed Baird to assemble all his troops at Astorga while an attempt was
made to find out more surely where the French were and what they intended.

By November 23 all the troops directly under Moore’s command
were assembled in and around Salamanca, Hope’s men were moving with all the
speed they could make, and Sir John had written to Baird to urge him also to
combine forces at Salamanca. At the moment, there was little for the staff to
do but run errands, and the weather suddenly turned clear and unseasonably
warm. On the morning of the twenty-fourth Robert asked for five days’ leave.
Not only was his request granted but, to his surprise, he was told he had
better start that very day.

Robert had been racking his brains for a method of courtship
that did not require balls to show distinguishing attention—or gifts to show
the attentions were serious. He had once or twice found a free hour to spend
with his wife and tried to change his ordinary manner to one that he considered
romantic. But when he sighed, Merry had disconcertingly looked up from the
accounts she was doing and asked what disaster had now befallen them; and when
he had managed to catch her in an infrequent idle moment—actually she was
mending his socks—and attempted to look soulful, she had made him laugh by
asking whether she was undone somewhere.

It was also very difficult, Robert found, to be romantic
when he expected a knock on the door at any moment to call him to duty and
where the small apartment that had been assigned to them was full of military
paraphernalia, which somehow made him feel silly and a little guilty when he
tried to act like a lover. These minor irritations brought to his mind the fact
that, aside from the few days on the road from Oporto to Figueira, he and Merry
had never really been alone. There had always been the pressure of his duties
and the casual interruptions of his fellow ADCs.

Suddenly Robert realized that what he needed to do was to go
back to the beginning. The ideal situation in which to court Merry was one that
would recall their first meeting, but this time he would display his admiration
for her instead of treating her like a scarcely endurable burden. On his leave,
they could stay in country inns, where he and Merry would have only each other
for company and entertainment. They could picnic by the roadside as they did
before, except that now he would not be exhausted by his responsibilities. So
when he was told he could go, he rushed back to their quarters and asked
Esmeralda if she would like to spend five days exploring the attractive
mountain areas not far to the south of Salamanca.

“Oh, yes,” Esmeralda cried. “I didn’t think any country
could be as dull as the plains in India, but really this part of Spain is.”

“And do you think we could just forget the army for a while
and pretend we’re ordinary people doing a tour?” Robert asked.

This question astonished Esmeralda so much that she was
incapable of replying to it aside from stammering a simple yes.

It was inconceivable to Esmeralda that Robert should
deliberately put aside military concerns, and her amazement held her immovable
for a little while after he advised her to provide a picnic lunch and pack only
a few changes of clothing because they would be staying at very simple places.
She racked her brains for a reason, but nothing logical came to mind, and she
was forced back to her old device of enjoying while she could whatever came.
Nor, after they were mounted, could she determine anything from Robert’s manner
when she asked where they were going.

“I don’t know,” he said lightly. “There aren’t any French to
the west or south, so we can take any road in those directions. Aside from
Ciudad Rodrigo and Béjar, there’s nothing but villages on the order of small,
smaller, and minuscule. Maybe they aren’t even large enough to have an inn, but
I think Tamames might. Anyway, any big farm will give us supper and a bed,
although there might be more than straw in the mattress.”

Esmeralda laughed dutifully, acknowledging that the fleas in
Spain were just as lively as those in Portugal. “As long as we don’t go to
Ciudad Rodrigo,” she said. “It seems a shame to waste our time on a place we’ve
already seen.”

“Good,” Robert acceded cheerfully. “I didn’t intend to go
there unless you wanted to particularly.” He was delighted with Esmeralda’s
caveat, for he had wondered a little whether she might want to spend the time
at an army base where there would be other officers to pay her attention. “Then
let’s ride toward Tamames.”

Since Esmeralda had no idea where that village was, she
agreed, and they set out on a road that ran almost due south of Salamanca. At
first they talked about the countryside, which was obviously grazing land, but
the land soon began to rise toward the mountains. Eventually they came to a
village, but it was a poor tumbledown place, and they did not stop except to
ask about the road, for it divided into two tracks ahead. The right-hand fork,
a woman told them, went to Tamames; the left ran along the base of a long spur
of the mountains, climbed a pass, and eventually joined the road that ran from
Tamames to Guijuelo. There was a small village at the meeting of the roads, she
said, and perhaps they could stay there.

“Shall we be sensible or adventurous?” Robert asked,
laughing.

“Oh, adventurous,” Esmeralda replied. “At the very worst, we
have food enough for supper and sheets and blankets. I thought about the fleas,
you see.”

At which, Robert caught her hand and kissed it, saying, “You
are a woman after my own heart, I think the only woman in the world I could
ever live with in comfort.”

For the second time in only a few hours, Esmeralda was
rendered speechless by surprise. It was not so much the actual words Robert had
spoken or the gesture— he had kissed her hand before and praised her before—
but there was an intensity and deliberateness in his manner that added a deeper
meaning. Was it possible, Esmeralda wondered, that Robert had begun to feel
more than she had permitted herself to hope for? Her heart leapt, and she
checked the emotion fiercely.
Do not hope too hard
, she cautioned
herself,
or you will assume too much and startle or disgust him
.

For a mile or two the track they had chosen was clear
enough. After that, however, it began to look as if, despite what the woman
said, the way might become impassable. They began to climb right up the
mountain, and the road, which had been little more than a rutted cart track to
begin with, degenerated until there was no significant difference between it
and the sheep or goat trails that meandered over the mountainside. Esmeralda
glanced nervously at Robert, but he grinned at her cheerfully.

“We won’t get lost, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he
assured her. “All we have to do is keep going up. At the top, we go down,
keeping the main ridge to our right. The road—such as it is—will improve once
we come to the valley.” Then he laughed. “I cheated, you know. Sir John has
fairly good maps of this area because we had patrols riding all over it for the
past ten days.”

“I can see that there are enormous advantages to being
married to a staff officer,” Esmeralda replied, laughing also.

“Do you mean that?” Robert asked.

This time Esmeralda was not so unprepared. “Indeed I do. I
always—” But at that inconvenient moment Boa Viagem stumbled, and Esmeralda’s
full attention was taken up for a moment in steadying her mount.