Carla Kelly (18 page)

She sat up, too. “I think you understand.”

“I think I do.”

She bowed her head suddenly, as if the break from terror was over, and she had to get back to the dirty work of telling a story that no woman of any age should ever be forced to think of, much less endure. “I did an awful thing then, senor, God forgive me.”

“Tell me,
querida.
”

She scrubbed at her eyes like a child. “When I could walk, I went to the entrance of the alley looking for water.” She clutched his hand and held it to her cheek. “I found some in a rusty bucket and started to go back, but I couldn’t find the alley again!” She sobbed against his hand. “She died all alone.”

I must say the right thing now, he thought. Sergeant Carr, what would you say to this dear woman? Don’t let me blunder here, Sergeant. Be like most sergeants, and keep this officer doing right. “Liria, I am certain she was already dead before you left the alley,” he told her finally, his voice firm. “You didn’t abandon Rosario.”

“You don’t know she was dead,” Liria said bitterly. “You weren’t there.”

“Yes, I do know. Trust me now. She was a child and could not have survived those injuries, even if the gag hadn’t choked her already. You didn’t abandon her,” he repeated. “It never was in you to abandon her. I know you that well.”

Liria sighed then, and leaned against him. He kissed the top of her head. She tipped her head a little to look at him. “You’re sure?”

“Positive,” he said, his voice crisp.

“Then, why did my family abandon
me?
” she burst out suddenly. “You need to tell me that now.” She grabbed his shirt. “Benedict, I am not done yet.”

Chapter Fourteen

Liria was silent for a long time then. Finally, to his joy, she settled against him. “It’s perfect here,” she said, keeping her voice neutral. “I think you know who I am.”

“I do,
dama,
” he said. “I confess to meddling. I took what little you told me, and added some from my own source . . .”

“Amos Yore,” she interrupted, with just a hint of the regal indignation he knew now that she was capable of.

“Well, yes and no,” he temporized. “He reminded me that Private Allenby in the regiment had a brother in the Nineteen.”

“Tom Allenby,” she said, her voice was soft. “I wrote a letter to his mother after . . . after Quatre Bras when the sergeant could no longer write.”

His hand went involuntarily to the ledger in his coat pocket, but he left it there. “And then I went to your country’s ambassador in London.”

She sat up and looked at him intently. “I think you should tell me why you are going to all this trouble,” she said quietly. “Why can you not just leave it alone? Why do you think you know what is best for me and my son?”

Because I love you, he thought, more than I thought I could ever love any woman. But would you believe me now? “Put it down to my curiosity, Liria,” he told her. “Maybe I am more like my sister Augusta than I wish to admit.”

She did not look as though she believed him. “Who is the ambassador?”

“Jaime Gonzales Almeida, Duke of Montressor y . . .”

“. . . Calatrava,” she finished. “He is my godfather. Did he tell you that, too?” she asked. “There was a time when Napoleon appealed to him. Don’t look so shocked! We Spanish are remarkably adaptable.” She leaned back again and pulled his arm closer.

He enveloped her in a protective gesture, and spoke into her ear. “We can discuss Spanish politics some evening this winter when we are bored and there is nothing to do,
dama.
” She nodded, and he wondered if she was even aware of the turn in their relationship that implied. “Liria, you were telling me . . . what happened after Badajoz?”

“You won’t let me stop?” She sounded so forlorn that he almost hated himself.

“I can’t,” he said reasonably. “We’ve already agreed that I am a meddler. Besides, I have promised someone . . .” He stopped, but she did not question him. He could feel her tensing again, and he knew that she was thinking about Badajoz, and not what he said. “Tell me, Liria. You have told me so much, but you must give it all away now.”

“I hid in a well all day and all night, and then stole a cloak from a dead woman,” she said, her voice hushed, as though she could not believe that a grandee’s daughter would do such a thing. “My mama would have been shocked.”

“I would call you resourceful,” he said.

“Then, why weren’t you there when I needed you?” she burst out. “But you were there, weren’t you?”

“I was. I told you that before,” he said without flinching. “I was one of those officers who turned my men loose on the women and children of Badajoz.”

“Please tell me that you did not do what that horrible man who laughed did?”

“Never. We can dissect my sins later. Go on, Liria.”

“I waited for a long time before I left the town. I went out the gate with a crowd of people. I suppose we all thought we had somewhere to go. I thought I did.”

“Where were you going?”

“To Mérida, senor, where my sister Blanca lived.”

“The one married to El Garrote?” he asked, and felt a distinct chill. Oh, God, please don’t let this go where I think it is going, he pleaded silently. “That is thirty miles, isn’t it?” he asked, striving to keep his voice as neutral as hers.

“I don’t know. I just knew that was where she lived. There were two armies, neither I could trust now, between me and Blanca, but I had to get there. I couldn’t walk too far that first day,” she said. He could hear her humiliation. “I was in too much pain. I knew Blanca could help me.” She sobbed then, a dry wracking sob that startled him with its unexpected despair. “Papa used to scold her for showing me favoritism.” Her tears returned full force, and he marveled that she had any left at all. “‘But she is my little doll, my
menina,
’ she would tell Papa.
Ay de mi!
”

He shuddered at the sound of her wail, remembering too many widows and orphans in Spain, lamenting at too many cemeteries.

“I hid out during the day and traveled a little at night. There were wild dogs, and I was afraid. I . . . I tried to tell myself that nothing was worse than what already had happened to Rosario and me, but I was still afraid when they growled and showed their teeth.”

“I don’t imagine anyone had ever been unkind to you before in your life.”

“Never.” She chuckled, which sounded worse than her tears. “There is something about being mounted and ridden by an entire troop of soldiers that wipes away any sense of privilege, senor! When they unbuttoned their trousers, they weren’t too concerned that my father was a
grande.
Why should I worry about wild dogs? But I did.”

He could say nothing to her artless admission, so weary in one so young. He stirred restlessly, and she quickly straightened herself and moved away from him. “Oh, no, Liria,” he said, and tried to gather her back again. She shook her head; the humiliation in her eyes frightened him.

“I arrived at my brother-in-law’s
estancia
at night. The porter let me in.”

“Thank God for that,” Nez murmured.

“Yes, let us thank God,” she mocked. “How awful if He had ignored me! I was even allowed to sit down before my sister entered the room. Oh, I cannot!”

“After all you have been through? Of course you can. I insist,” he ordered.

“You are a heartless man,” she said calmly, “and a meddler and a drunkard still, for all I know. You probably even rewarded you soldiers when they came back with handfuls of earrings. How many Spanish women did
you
mount? You are scum that my servants skim off our ponds. I could spit on you, but that would be a waste of my spittle.”

He was silent, letting her, in her sorrow, berate him with words this time. I can take that, too, Liria, he thought, as she called him every terrible name she could think of in three languages. She stopped for breath finally, and it was his turn. “You can call me anything you want, but I still insist that you give away your story to me, Liria.”

“She never came any closer to me than the doorway,” she continued promptly, as though she had been waiting for his cue. Her voice was again that of the young girl. “I told her what had happened in Badajoz, and that Papa was dead for all I knew, and that probably Rosario was, too.” She knelt then, sobbed, and bowed her head to the ground. “She demanded to know why I had been so stubborn to live, when there was no place in her household for an
afrancesada.
”

He reached for her then, but she moved away, holding up her hand to ward him off. He sat back, desperate to hold her, but equally aware of the emotion that compelled her to reject any comfort. Is this your Gethsemane, my love? he thought.

“‘You are dead to your family,’ she told me, then took a stick and drove me from her house,” Liria said simply. “My own sister! I was starving, and hurt, and bloody, and desperate, and she drove me away like a skinny-ribbed dog! And you think you have a troublesome sister? Viva España, Señor.”

Tentative, he reached out his hand to her, and held his breath until she took it. “When did you meet the Nineteen, my dear?”

He could see the gratitude in her eyes as his calm question bridged the awful chasm of her family’s rejection and carried her to what he hoped and prayed was something better. Please, Sergeant Carr, he thought. Be the man I think you were.

“I met them in Mérida, at the crossroads. Perhaps you knew it?”

He nodded. “Yes. Daddy Hill took his troops south, and Picton’s division went north with Wellington to Salamanca.”

“Daddy Hill! I have not heard that in a while,” she said, and her tone was lighter. “Yes. It was raining and I sat at the crossroads. I didn’t know what to do. I was so hungry that I think I would have eatén sweepings from a pigsty.”

“Private Allenby told me that the Nineteen needed an interpreter.”

“Yes. There were Spanish camp followers with them, of course, but none who could speak enough English to exchange information.”

“Why did you get involved?” he asked. “Weren’t you afraid of them?”

“I was so hungry,” she said simply. “I thought someone might toss me a scrap.” She shrugged. “All they could do was throw me down on my back again, and what was that to me anymore? I wanted to eat,” she said, emphasizing her words with a jab to his chest. She sat back and smiled then, and he watched the despair leave her eyes. “Sergeant Carr let me translate. He picked me up and set me on a caisson, and gave me a hunk of cheese. I would have followed him anywhere after that.” Her voice was soft. “I suppose I did.”

She relaxed then and leaned against the tree, her eyes on the river. “He took me in to his tent that night and found me another dress from a camp follower. He never asked me any questions about Badajoz, but I suppose he did not have to, did he? When . . . when I discovered that I was with child, I was terrified. That was the only night he ever held me on his cot. I had my heart back by morning, and we went on from there. I translated for the Nineteen, and helped in interrogation of French prisoners.” She sighed.

“He called you ‘La Duquesa’?” Nez said. “Did you tell him about your background?”

“No. The only person rude enough to ask or meddle is you, senor,” she said with just a touch of asperity. “I don’t know how he knew, or even if he did.”

Nez smiled and took her hand again. “Oh,
dama,
you have an air about you. I can’t imagine what the other camp followers thought!”

“They were my friends,” she said simply. “We shared food with each other, they delivered Juan, and gave me a blanket for him.”

“And Sergeant Carr?”

“He cared what happened to me and Juan.” She looked at him shyly this time. “He told me once that his happiest time in the world was just watching me with my son.”

“I don’t doubt that,” he told her. “Battery sergeants don’t have many pleasant moments, I’ll wager.”

“Then he had three good years,” she said, and got up finally. She swayed a little, and put her hand on the tree to steady herself. She looked at him then, and folded her hands in front of her waist, as was her habit. He looked more closely at her, and noticed the difference now. She still looked sad, but there was nothing hopeless or blank in her expression now. Thank God. Sergeant you were right, he thought. He stood up, too. His eye throbbed in good earnest.

“
Oh, Dios,
I can’t believe I did that to you,” she said, reaching out to touch his face with delicate fingers. “Why was I so hard on you? Why did I call you those awful names? I don’t understand this, except . . .” She sighed. “I did not know I was that angry. You should have stopped me.”

“No. I couldn’t. You needed to do what you did.”

She clasped her hands in front of her waist again. “Do you know what else, senor? I was never an
afrancesada.
I love my country.”

“I know you do.” He offered her his arm, and she took it without hesitation. They started to walk back slowly. “
Dama,
there is a commission I have been asked to fulfill.”

“I do not understand you.”

When he pulled out the artillery ledger, she backed away, holding up her hand in that imperious way. Gently he took her hand and turned it palm-up and laid the little book across it. “Liria, you need to look at something in there.”

Her eyes pleaded with him. “I cannot! After I finished those letters for Sergeant Carr, I gave the book to Juan for his drawings. Don’t make me.”

“My dear, I swear before God this is the last time I will make a decision for you. You missed a page from the book, something your sergeant added, I suppose, before he could no longer write. Please, Liria, I’ll open it to the page. I insist that you read it.”

She nodded, unable to speak, her eyes haunted again. While she held out the book to him, he turned to the page. “There. Just read it.”

She did as he said, taking a deep breath as she began. The tears began to slide down her face before she finished the short entry. As he had known she would, she read it again then closed it gently. Her voice was low and unsteady, and he leaned closer to hear her. “Benedict, he was forty-three when he saved me. I teased him once about being the daughter he never had. I was more, wasn’t I?”

“You were much more,” he said simply. “When I read that, I couldn’t turn down his request.” He took her hand. “Liria, after Waterloo, I failed so many of my men in hospital. This was a chance to do a good turn for another sergeant.” He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Thank you for trusting me.”

She laughed a little through her tears. “
Trusting
you? You were a bully, and you know it. Ten shillings!”

She stood on tiptoe, not to kiss him, but to rub her cheek against his in a gesture so intimate that he had to remind himself to breathe. Her tears wet his cheek. She did not let go of his hand, so he risked one more question. “Liria, this is truly none of my business—I know! I know! When did that consideration ever stop me? Don’t give me that look!—I am curious about one thing: I know that there were other January babies after Badajoz. I also know that many January babies ended up in orphanages. A nun told me so once. Why did you keep Juan? There was no earthly reason for you to do that.”

“There was.” Her voice was kind, as though she spoke to a child. “I did not know who Juan’s father was, but before God and all the saints, I knew who his mother was.”

He let that sink in. He pocketed the artillery book that she had handed back to him. Sergeant Carr, you have helped me, too, he thought. He started to walk again, but she held him back.

“I hope you will not tell this to anyone, senor,” she said softly, and he heard the plea in her voice. “As much as I love my son, what happened is shameful, and I bear the sin of it. You understand why I do not wish others to know.”