Carla Kelly (31 page)

Harper sat up a little straighter. “Gor, Mrs. Randall, Wilkie’s an expert.”

Saddling gave them something to do. Elinore stood by one of the horses, patting his long nose to keep him quiet while Jesse and Harper tightened the cinch, then moved on to the next animal. She knew the horses were hungry, and prayed they would not catch the scent of other horses, and try to strike up an equine conversation.

Time passed; she grew drowsy again. She was just nodding off, leaning against Jesse’s shoulder, when he tensed. She opened her eyes to see Harper waving at them. “They’ve left the clearing, Captain.”

Alert now, Elinore watched the door, but Wilkie appeared almost before she was aware. Not even breathing hard, he went to Jesse. “You call us poor troopers, Captain, but the chasseurs didn’t even have a guard on the horses.” He looked at Harper. “’ow do they plan to conquer the world? I’m sure
I
don’t know.”

In a matter of minutes, they led the horses from the
cottage, mounted, and struck out across country to avoid even the cow path they had followed. They rode in earnest now, everyone silent, intent, watchful. Wilkie led, scouting the path. When they stopped a few hours later, he rode ahead to the closest promontory. He was even more serious than usual when he returned as the others prepared to mount.

“What did you see?” Jesse asked.

“The whole army, sir.” He scratched his head, not happy to be the bearer of evil tidings. “They’re between us and the river. What’s more, there is a little dust to the south and east.” He grimaced. “Not much dust. We’ve had too much rain for that. I think that Clausel and Soult haven’t joined yet.”

Jesse nodded. “So we have nine thousand troops in front of us, instead of twenty thousand. That relieves my mind, Private.” He looked around. “I propose that we move north and west upstream. Perhaps there is a ford.”

The rain stopped. They traveled into a raw afternoon, crossing one small bridge over a nameless tributary of the Douro, only to retrace their movement and tug their horses underneath the bank. Silent, shivering in knee-deep water, they listened as a regiment of infantry passed overhead, all moving toward the Douro, seeking Clausel’s army. Darkness had never seemed so welcome, the rain such a blessing.

Their search for a ford or another bridge took them far from the Salamanca Road. Every slow plop of the horses’ hooves taunted Elinore that they were foolish to dream that their army of four could ever reach the comparative safety of Ciudad Rodrigo’s battered walls. She wanted to rein in her horse and just sit there and cry, except that she refused to be the first to give up.

The sun was setting as they rode toward the Douro again, far upstream from the Roman bridge where armies had crossed for centuries. A path took them single file down the slippery approach where the river had cut deep into the bank. As they moved so slowly along the trail now, she could only gulp and look away from the river, swollen by the heavy rains of autumn, the water gathering speed as it raced toward the rocky gorge above the Roman bridge.

“God bless us, will you look at that, Captain?”

“’pon my word, Harper, is that a ferry?”

It was. What’s more, the large raft, bobbing on the current, was conveniently tied to a dock. Elinore let out her breath in a sigh of relief and started to edge her horse forward. To her dismay, Jesse grabbed the reins from her hands. “Let Wilkie go first, my love,” he said. “This is just entirely too easy.” He put the reins into her hands again. “I suppose that matrimonial cares have made me a changed man. Next thing you know, I’ll…oh, what is this?”

She peered closer at the open door where Wilkie stood now, motioning them closer. Another man stood silhouetted there as well, a form so familiar that she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’m dreaming, she thought, until Jesse slapped her horse and set her in motion.

“Go on, Elinore,” he told her. “Isn’t it fun to be proved wrong now and then?”

She didn’t need any further urging. When her tired horse slowed his pace, she lifted her leg out of the saddle and jumped down. With a cry of delight she ran between the dock and the ferryman’s house and threw herself into her father’s arms.

“Nellie, surely you didn’t think I would abandon you?” Bertie Mason said as he held her close.

S
he clung to her father. “I didn’t know. How could I, Papa?”

He tightened his grip. “You ask a very good question, my dear. If I had an adequate answer, probably none of this would have happened.”

He released her from his embrace, and with an arm around her shoulder, led her into the house. Wilkie grinned at her from his place in front of the fire, where he warmed his hands. In another minute Harper came through the door, followed by her husband.

“Dare we hope that you have commandeered the ferry?”

That’s not much of a greeting, Elinore thought. There was no mistaking the wariness in Jesse’s words. She knew of her father’s legendary thick skin—how else could he have skated so nimbly through the army for so many years?—but the words grated like a bone saw. She looked at her father. This is where you usually leave the room, she thought. I’ve never known you to face anything unpleasant a minute longer than necessary.

He surprised her by looking Jesse in the eye. “I am going to have to prove myself, am I not, sir?” he asked.

“You are,” Jesse replied, his voice as hard as flint. “Your past actions put your daughter in deep peril, Captain Mason. You’ve secured the ferry?” he asked again.

Jesse looked at her then, and in the look she saw all his love and longing, and the strain he had been under, trying to see his little army to safety and still preserve that part of himself that demanded a higher level of obedience to medicine. Without complaint, for three weeks he had done things she could never do. The sacrifice of his own peaceful
inclinations for a woman of breathtaking insignificance and two nondescript soldiers struck her with the force of a slap.

She left her father’s side and walked to her husband. “Let me take your coat,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady, her hands calm, when she wanted to grab him and never let go. “I can drape it over this chair by the fire. Harper, have we any food? You know how the Chief likes toasted cheese, and no one toasts it better than you.”

Her calm words seemed to soothe the situation. Bertie managed a light bow. “The ferry is mine. I bought the use of it for a week, and the services of the ferryman. Captain, I am amazed how many of our erstwhile allies are reluctant to take a government chit.”

There was something in the offhand way he said it that made Jesse smile. “Do you suppose, sir, that the Spanish are as tired of us as we are of them?”

It was a good start, Elinore reasoned. She looked at her father, and for a change, he did not fail her. “Too true, Captain, too true.” He made an apologetic face. “As much as it pained me, when he would not honor a government chit, I was forced to pay him in pounds sterling.” He smiled at his daughter. “Imagine that, Nell, if you can.”

She could not. Her jaw dropped and her eyes opened wide, to Bertie Mason’s obvious amusement. He put his hand to his heart, and she saw a little of the old actor in him. “Do I see a certain disbelief in your eyes—aren’t they lovely, Captain Randall? She takes after me—that I actually have two coins to rub together?”

“It astounds
me
, sir,” Jesse replied frankly.

Mason laughed. “Too much reclamation in the last chapter is the stuff of bad novels, Captain! I fear I am too old for reform of a permanent nature. Forgive me, my dear daughter. Let us bask in this temporary virtue as long as possible, and let us do it over dinner.” He turned toward the fireplace, hesitated a second, then turned around suddenly and took her by the arms again. When he spoke, his voice held no assurance, no polish, no Bertie Mason dash, no pluck. “I did not know that I would ever see you again, Nell,” he said, his voice so filled with genuine emotion that her heart seemed to stop.

She put her hands on each side of his face and kissed him. “Papa, I was in excellent hands, truly I was.” She sighed and looked at Jesse, only to have to adjust her gaze
again when her husband seemed to be struggling, too. She took a deep breath. “Private Harper, do let us see to that cheese. Papa, did you make soup?”

Wilkie located spoons while Harper toasted the cheese. Elinore stood with her back to the fire, lifting her sodden skirts, until her father called them to the table. With a flourish, he sat them down, and gestured for them to begin. No one argued.

Harper started on his second bowl, and Jesse finally set down his spoon when Bertie Mason cleared his throat. “It was the worst retreat imaginable,” he began. “Two of our darling generals even got lost, if you can imagine such a thing, and there were the French, chewing at our heels. Captain, your hair will curl—well, yours is already curled—when you finally get to read Wellington’s memo to the army.” He shuddered elaborately. “No one knew where anyone was, and I suppose we all assumed that you were safe somewhere.”

“
Assume.
I do hate that word now,” Jesse murmured.

“The regiment was beyond Ciudad Rodrigo before anyone questioned the whereabouts of Number Eight,” Mason said. His lively expression grew somber then. “It probably would have been weeks before we knew, except that Major Bones just had to gloat. I suppose it is the nature of bullies.” He looked down at the table. “We drank together one night. My apologies, Elinore, but I told you I am not a reformed man.”

She made some motion with her hand, then allowed Jesse to take it and hold it. He kissed her fingers, then put her hand on his leg in a possessive gesture she knew he would never have dreamed of doing two weeks ago.

“He told me what happened, gloating and laughing. God damn the man!” Mason said, not disguising his bitterness. “‘That surgeon thought he was so clever,’ he told me. ‘He thinks he can have her, and you thought you could make me a laughingstock, Mason, by paying me back like that.’” Mason rose suddenly. “I humiliated him, he said.”

“Did you mention this to General Picton or Sir Arthur?” Jesse asked.

Mason shook his head. Red spots burned in his cheeks. “Do you know anyone in the army who takes Bertie Mason seriously?”

“No, I do not,” Jesse replied. “You assumed they wouldn’t believe you.”

“Yes,” Mason said, his voice equally frank. “I have said how disorganized the retreat was. I am certain that General Picton would have laughed, patted my shoulder—you know how he is—and told me to give it a few days when we were all together in Lisbon again.”

“I can see that, sir,” Jesse agreed. “Just wait a few more days, and then Number Eight would probably materialize.” He leaned forward across the table. “Do you know that Bones is directly responsible for the death of Surgeon Sheffield, and the ruin of a Spanish family?”

“Sir, if you’ll pardon me, he almost got
us
all killed,” Harper added.

“Dear God,” Mason said. He paused a moment to collect his emotions. “I feared as much.” He smiled, but there was no humor in it. “What do I generally do in extreme distress? Besides drink myself into a wrinkled wad?”

“Cards,” Elinore said at once.

“Exactly. I knew I needed some money, if I was going to go back to Spain.”

“I would suggest you also needed some permission, Captain,” Jesse said dryly.

“You may, but we can’t have everything, can we?”

Elinore gasped. “Papa, are you on French leave?”

“Just a brief one, daughter.”

“For me?”

She knew that if she lived to be old, blind, and toothless, she would never forget the look he gave her. “For you alone.” Never one to invest in too many solemn moments, he winked at Jesse. “Oh, perhaps for you, too, but let me say here that no father ever looks with total approval on the man who beds his daughter. And don’t you forget that!”

Jesse laughed, even as his face turned crimson. He moved Elinore’s hand higher up his leg. “My blushes, Captain. I say, may I call you Bertram?”

“Yes, if we have advanced that far…Jesse.” He looked around at them. “I told that bastard Bones I would play cards. I still had that ten pounds extra that you gave me.”

“I believe it was twenty pounds, Bertram.”

“Why must surgeons be so damned exact? I passed a number of wineries on the road to Ciudad Rodrigo.”

“Obviously not without stopping.”

“I played and I won, and I got up from the table with my winnings. The ferryman has a heavy pouch of sovereigns, and the promise of more, if he will ferry us and be silent. I have been here four days, wondering if you would arrive before the French.”

“Only just,” Jesse said. “I recommend a departure with the dawn.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” Mason laughed. “This place is slow indeed. The wine is gone, the river seems to be rising, and the ferryman reeks of garlic from every pore.”

“Poor Papa,” Elinore said.

“Do you know what we will find on the other side of the Douro?”

“The French, I fear. The ferryman’s uncle is watching for us on the opposite bank—Lord, he was expensive. He says the Frogs have crossed, but seem indecisive about advancing on Ciudad Rodrigo yet again. The armies appear not to be joined yet.”

“A good run will get us into Rodrigo?”

“I think so, Jesse.” Bertie touched his shoulder. “We should retire. You and Elinore will have the room beyond. I will split the watch with your soldiers here in the front room.” He yawned. “I have been trying to stay awake. I wish we could eventually engage in a war where we could entirely trust our allies.”

“I could watch, too,” Jesse said.

“You could,” Mason replied in a low voice, “but the way you keep inching my daughter’s hand up your leg makes me suspect that, good intentions aside, you would be useless.” He winked at Elinore. “I’m certain I did not suspect that our quiet little surgeon would be a Don Juan. Nell, I hope you are not disappointed how things have turned out.”

“Quite the contrary, Papa.”

He clutched her hand. “I did not do anything right.”

She thought of the years behind her: following the drum, forced to be the adult in the Mason family, working in the marching hospital to equalize family debts real or imagined,
and the scorn of other officers’ families. I could be bitter, she thought, and not even Jesse would blame me. I could argue successfully that I have learned more of virtue and character from both of Number Eight’s surgeons rather than from my own parents. I can also be charitable.