The Perfect Stranger (36 page)

Morton Black coughed and looked away. “I mean after…of course. I apologize, it was indelicate of me to be presuming before—er, anything had happened.”

Faith frowned. “Please don’t speak in such negative terms. I won’t have it! You cannot know how dangerous this mission he’s on is. He has emerged from a number of dreadful battles with only superficial wounds, and I, for one, am certain he will manage to survive thi—” She broke off. “What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Morton Black’s jaw had dropped open with surprise. “You don’t—!” He broke off and swore under his breath. When he looked at her again, his face was deeply troubled. “I was certain from the way you was crying fit to break your heart just now that you must’ve known.”

“Known what?”

He shifted his feet uncomfortably and looked away.

“Known what?” she repeated more anxiously. She clutched his arm and said, “Mr. Black, if it is something about my husband, you must tell me!”

Morton Black’s face puckered with concern. He hesitated, cleared his throat, and said, “There’s no easy way to say this, Miss Faith, so I’ll just spit it out. He’s dying.”

“Dying?” she whispered, unable to take it in. “How can he be—?” She thought about the long period a few days back when he hadn’t woken. But he was just insensible, and he’d recovered perfectly. “No! He can’t be dying!”

Morton Black patted her shoulder awkwardly and said in a sorrowful voice, “It’s true, I’m afraid. Some disease of the brain—the doctors don’t know what has caused it.”

Faith stared at him, profoundly shaken. “But, they’re just migraines.”

He shook his head somberly. “No. I’m sorry, my dear, but there’s no hope.”

“How do you know? There’s always hope.”

He said nothing.

“How did you discover this?”

“Mr. Reyne and your sister had me investigate Mr. Blacklock on your behalf. Mrs. Reyne was worried; she wanted to find out what sort of man you’d married. So I did.”

“And what did you find out?”

Morton Black glanced around. The port of Bilbao was just a speck in the distance, the breeze was freshening, and their boat was bobbing up and down. He took Faith by the arm, “Come on, miss, let us go below, where we can talk in comfort.”

She shook off his hand impatiently. “No, tell me here, tell me now!”

“Very well, Lady Blacklo—”

“Don’t call me that! He never called me that. He always called me—calls me Mrs. Blacklock.” Her voice broke. “Tell me what you found out.”

“You say he gets headaches. Have the headaches been getting worse? More frequent?”

She nodded dumbly.

“I spoke to his mother and to his doctor. His doctor said it was only a matter of time, that the headaches would get more frequent and more severe, and that eventually he would most likely descend into—” He broke off suddenly and cleared his throat. “That eventually he would die, Miss Faith.”

“That isn’t what you were going to say, is it?”

He cleared his throat again and looked impenetrable.

“‘Eventually he would most likely descend into’…What is it that people descend into?” she pondered. “Descend into…madness?”

Some flicker of emotion passed across his face, and she took a swift intake of breath. “Madness!”

“From the pain, I gather. But it’s not certain.”

She gripped the rail with white-knuckled hands and stared unseeing at the distant shore. “So…there’s no military mission?”

“Not that I’m aware of. That Stevens chap, we had a bit of a yarn last night, and he said they were revisiting the various battlegrounds where Mr. Blacklock fought. A lot of his friends died and are buried in various parts of Spain and Portugal—Stevens’s own son was one of them. It’s a kind of pilgrimage, I gather.”

She gripped the rail harder and nodded her head slowly. “So, there’s no military mission, and my husband is dying of a nasty and painful unknown disease, which in the end might drive him mad with pain.”

Morton Black blinked at her blunt summation. “Yes, that’s what his doctor said. He had several others confirm the opinion—though they are not unanimous on the question of the ma…” He tailed off, awkwardly.

“And Nicholas has taken himself away from his home and his country and everyone who loves him so that he can die alone in an obscure foreign village somewhere.” She felt sobs thicken in her chest and forced them back down. Now was not the time to give in to emotion. She had to think.

“Apparently he prefers it like that. Not wanting a fuss, I expect.”

Faith understood now why Nicholas had told her about his father last night, why he’d told her how his mother had been forced to suffer along with her husband. He knew she’d find out eventually. He meant her to understand why he’d done it this way.

But if his mother really had loved her husband, she’d have wanted to be there. Even if she’d had the option, wild horses probably wouldn’t have dragged her away from her husband’s side in his hour—or weeks or months—of need. Not if his mother had felt about her husband the way Faith felt about Nicholas.

She said in a distant voice, needing to get it all clear in her mind, “And he has sent me off in complete ignorance of it, so that I will not have to be subjected to any unpleasantness.”

“Yes, I must say it is very considerate and gentlemanly of—”

“Considerate? Gentlemanly?” She turned, and her eyes were wet with tears and blazing with fury. “How dare he?”

He took a step backward. “I beg your pardon?”

She dashed the tears from her cheeks. “How dare Nicholas decide what I can or cannot bear! How dare he conspire to keep me in ignorance, while he goes off to suffer and die alone!”

“It’s a very noble act, Miss Faith.”

“Pshaw!” She snapped her fingers. “I don’t give a fig for nobility. If my husband is going to suffer and die, he will not damn well do it alone!” Her face crumpled. “He will have every comfort I can possibly give him!”

“My dear, I know it is hard, but you must face—!”

She cut him off. “Turn the boat around! I’m going back!”

“Now, Miss Faith, you know you can’t do that—”

“Why not? We’re the only passengers, and we’re only a few miles offshore. Please inform the captain that I wish to return to Bilbao immediately.”

“But—”

“I am not leaving my husband to face the unimaginable alone.”

“He has his men—”

“But I love him, Mr. Black, really love him!” Her voice cracked with emotion. “If Nicholas has to face the worst, then I will face it with him. And I will do my utmost to make every single day he has left of his life as full and joyful as I can possibly make it.” Now, finally, she understood why Nicholas only wanted to live in the moment, why he refused to think about the future. Because he had no future. Every moment counted. The thought stiffened her resolve.

“And that is why you must tell the captain to turn the boat around.”

“But—”

She could see he was going to try to reason with her. “At once, if you please. Mr. Black!” Not for nothing had she watched Nicholas give orders.

Morton Black opened his mouth to argue, then apparently thinking better of it, trudged up to where the captain stood at the helm. Faith watched as he spoke to the captain. The man looked at Faith, then shook his head. Morton Black said something more. The captain shook his head more vigorously and waved his hands as he gave some explanation.

Black returned. “He said he cannot, that he is making good time and wishes not to be any further delayed.”

“Offer him money,” Faith said bluntly. “I am going back!”

Morton Black blinked. “You’ve changed, Miss Faith.”

“Yes, I have, more than you know. And from now on, please call me Mrs. Blacklock, not Miss Faith. As my husband pointed out to you yesterday, we are married”—she gave him a determined look—“until death us do part. Only death will part me from my husband, not muttonheaded, well-meaning, misguided Englishmen or Scotsmen or stubborn Spanish sea captains! Now offer him money and get this boat turned around.”

Black returned and attempted to bribe the captain, but returned unsuccessful. Faith swallowed. “I shall speak to him.” She could see only two courses of action open to her. She hoped the captain would succumb to the first.

She picked her way delicately between the ropes to where the captain stood at the helm. She introduced herself and found her hand being kissed by a dark-haired piratical fellow with a gleaming gold tooth and an earring in one ear. He looked exactly as she imagined a Bay of Biscay pirate would look, except he wore no eye patch. He was Basque, but also spoke Spanish, Portuguese, and some English.

“Captain, I believe Mr. Black has informed you of my urgent need to return to Bilbao,” she said in a voice that attempted to be crisp and decisive.

The man shook his head with sorrow that was patently insincere. “Not possible, beautiful lady. The wind, she is fresh, and the sailing good. Is bad luck to put back to port.”

“What if I offer to pay you?” She named a sum that was large enough to have Morton Black hissing between his teeth at the unwisdom of letting such a man know how much money she had, but Faith didn’t care.

It was a large enough sum to give the captain pause, but he shook his head and repeated the nonsense about bad luck. He was just being stubborn, Faith decided, unwilling to bow to the wishes of an Englishman or a woman.

“Then perhaps I can help you change your mind.”

The captain turned a smile full of raffish charm on Faith, “Ah, perhaps, beautiful lady. What did you have in mind?”

“This,” said Faith, and pulled out her pistol and pointed it at him. Behind her she heard a strangled moan from Morton Black.

The captain’s smile froze.

“Now, turn the boat around, please,” she ordered in a voice that shook. She had never before pointed a gun at a man.

The captain noticed her shaking voice. He eyed the pistol shrewdly. “Is not loaded, I think.”

“It is loaded, I promise you.”

“But your hand is shaking too much to be of danger to me or any of my men.”

She steadied the gun by holding it with both hands.

He smiled, though his eyes were sharp and hard. “Beautiful lady, you are too gentle and lovely a creature to shoot a poor man—”

“I will shoot any man who stands between me and my husband, and right now, you are in my way, Captain. Now, are you going to turn this boat around, or—” She cocked the pistol.

He met her gaze squarely. “I do not think you have it in you to shoot anyone.”

Faith swallowed. “I have killed before,” she said, and thinking of the hare, she shuddered uncontrollably. “It was—” She shuddered again and licked dry lips. “It was dreadful, and I had nightmares about it for weeks. But—” She looked him full in the face so he could see just how determined she was. “I must return to Bilbao and find my husband. It is the most important thing in the world to me, and if I have to shoot you to achieve it, I will.” It was a desperate bluff.

He looked at her for an endless moment, eyed her shaking hands, her trembling lips, and her determined eyes. He pushed the cap back on his head and scratched his thick curls meditatively. Then he gave a shrug, “Very well, señora, I turn the ship.”

Faith’s knees sagged with relief. She fought not to let it show. She said as coolly as she could manage, “Thank you, Captain. I knew you would see reason.” From the corner of her eye she saw Morton Black pull out a large handkerchief and mop his face with it.

In a short time they were back in Bilbao. As the sailors dropped the gangplank and hurried to fetch her belongings, the captain held out his hand to help her to shore. “You not shoot me, I think.”

She bit her lip. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Probably not.”

“Before, when you kill—who you kill?”

Faith stepped down onto the wharf before she answered. “It was a hare,” she confessed.

His jaw dropped. “But you go all pale and shaky when you tell me!” He threw back his head and laughed. “The face of an angel, the heart of a lion, the cunning of a fox! You are crazy, beautiful lady.”

“No.” Faith tucked the gun back in her reticule. “Just desperate.”

“Your husband, he lucky man, I think.”

Faith bit her lip and shook her head. “I wish that was true.”

“Is true! God go with you, beautiful lady.”

The road to Vittoria was just a narrow track that zigzagged up into the mountains. The air was cool and moist, and the track was slippery with mud, making progress slow, but none of them minded. There was no hurry.

The higher they climbed, the lower Nicholas felt. It was the right thing to do, but oh, God, if only he’d realized how she’d interpreted his words, all that time ago. In retrospect he could see her learning all the skills she thought a soldier’s wife needed: food preparation, taking care of her own horse, setting up a camp—the shooting of that damned hare! She’d even forced herself to stay with him while Stevens stitched the cut in his foot. She’d stubbornly seen it through, her face pale green and clammy, her stomach queasy.

He hadn’t understood it at the time, but now he saw; she was earning her right to stay, a right that didn’t exist; he’d always intended to send her home. It was just a matter of when.

He’d been, he saw now, inadvertently cruel. His evasiveness in explaining exactly what he’d come to Spain to do had rebounded to hurt the person he’d most intended to protect.

His horse plodded on, skirting terrifying drops. Nicholas barely noticed.

God, he would miss her. But it was better this way. She would force herself to cope with his illness the way his mother had forced herself. The idea of his golden, joyful, sensual Faith fading into a pale, sad wraith of a woman, worn out by witnessing his suffering, was a prospect Nicholas could not, would not bear. Better by far that she think him on a mission and be taken by surprise by news of his death…Eventually she would learn the truth, but she would remember him telling her about his mother, and she would understand why.

Ahead of him rode Mac, hunched over his horse in deep Scottish gloom. Maybe they should have tried harder to trace the gypsy girl. Mac would never go after her; he had no belief in his power to keep a woman. He was fatalistic about the loss. But the girl had been so careful to keep her great-grandmother’s dwelling place a secret from them all. God knows why she thought he’d want to hurt the old woman.