The Sometime Bride (21 page)

Cat re-examined the closely written sheet of paper and the drawings which accompanied it. “So this is Tonio’s work. It is very good for a beginner. I truly thought Blas had done it. Even the sketch of the new street barricades in Madrid has his style.”

“
There are times,” sighed Thomas, “when I find it difficult to accept the wall Blas has built around himself. For all I know, he and Tonio may be old friends, schoolmates who shared the same masters. I swore to accept the boy on his own terms, but he leaves me with far too many questions.” Thomas rubbed a hand over eyes which were bothering him more and more of late. “Then I remember it must be even more difficult for you. Or is he more forthcoming in private?” he added blandly. Struck by a rare stab of guilt, Thomas realized he was probing his own daughter’s knowledge of her husband.

Catarina sat very still, her hand resting on Tonio’s report. “No, Papa,” she said very quietly, “he is not.” Picking up her pen, she returned to her work.

“
Listen to this, Cat! George swears he has written it about you.” Don Alexis Perez de Leon, who had surprised them all by a mid-summer visit, lounged against the fireplace mantel in the family’s private salon. Lifting an elegant piece of heavy parchment to eye level, he struck a pose and declaimed:

Hath aught like thee in truth or fancy seem’d.

Nor, having seen thee, shall I vainly seek

to paint those charms which varied as they beam’d:

to such as see thee not my words were weak;

to those who gaze on thee what language could they speak?

“
He cannot be talking of Cat,” declared Marcio Cardoso who was looking over Don Alejo’s shoulder. “See . . . down here . . . it says ‘guileless beyond Hope’s imagining!’“

Catarina gave both young men a withering glance before turning to smile at the startlingly handsome gentleman seated next to her on the sofa. “You know quite well you had some charming English—or is it Scottish?—lady in mind when you wrote those lines, my lord. But I am flattered by your attempt to hoodwink me.”

The classically perfect features of George, Lord Byron, might have been the model for the gods of ancient Greece. The young man raised Catarina’s hand and brushed it with his lips. He favored her with the appreciative smile of a connoisseur of beauty in all its forms. “But it was you, Dona Catarina, who suggested I visit the Serra de Sintra whose magnificent panorama has inspired me to begin my new epic.”

Catarina was so accustomed to the adulation of young gentlemen that she had no difficulty taking the words of this particular British lord with a grain of salt. “Have you named your poem, my lord?” she inquired politely.

“
I have determined to name it after its adventurous young hero,” said Byron. “
Childe
Harold
.”

“
Sinful young hero would be more like,” interjected John Hobhouse, Byron’s traveling companion. “By the time we have completed our journey, Dona Catarina, I expect George will have enough first-hand experience for several cantos.”

His noble companion ignored this gentle irony. “Lisbon and its inhabitants will always be close to my heart,” vowed his lordship, “for here we have begun our journey into history.”

Marcio and Don Alejo exchanged glances, struggled to keep their faces straight. Catarina had more sympathy for these two very young gentlemen who had set out on a journey of exploration in the midst of a war. After all, their spirit seemed only slightly less daring than Blas had exhibited at the same age.

She had no difficulty understanding that Byron, surrounded by hale and hearty soldiers involved in a war as old as he was, suffered intensely from the deformity of his club foot. Pain of the soul, not of the body. Nor did she have trouble distinguishing Byron’s professed admiration for women from the real thing. He admired her as a work of art, not as a woman. He might profess to love women, but she suspected he did not like them. Cat was not quite sophisticated enough to recognize the young poet’s sexual ambivalence, but the vibrations of misfit were almost as strong as the vibrations of genius. Byron would have been shocked to know she pitied him.

“
I still say I have seen you somewhere before.” Lord Byron raised a quizzing glass and examined Catarina’s husband from black wavy hair and burgundy velvet jacket to tight black breeches and shining black books. Don Alejo straightened his shoulders and stood away from the mantel, allowing Byron to look his fill. He returned the young poet’s regard with an unblinking gaze from limpid amber eyes.

“
Surely in London . . .?” Lord Byron suggested.

“
I have never been in London,” said Don Alejo with supreme disregard for the truth. “I have heard,” he added thoughtfully, “that Spanish looks appear in Britain from time to time. The inevitable result of all those sailors who swam to shore after the unfortunate incident of the Armada. But, alas, I regret I have never had the opportunity to visit your illustrious country.”

Cat came close to a giggle. Blas was overdoing it, playing with the earnest young poet.

Lord Byron and John Hobhouse soon set out on the second leg of their journey, traveling south to Seville, then on to Cadiz, Malta and Greece. A not too different itinerary than Blas had once planned to take.

Catarina wondered if anything would ever come of the young lord’s epic poem. Don Alejo, who had been considerably more worried than he had revealed, breathed a sigh of relief. He was soon off again on the dangerous journey back to Spain.

In late July Sir Arthur Wellesley won the battle which set his feet firmly on the road to fame, defeating Marshal Victor at Talavera, Spain. The triumph lasted but a few days; the approach of his old foe Marshal Soult forced Sir Arthur to retreat back into Portugal. Britain’s days of glory were yet to come.

For his victory at Talavera Arthur Wellesley was made Viscount Wellington. His struggle to coordinate his small British force with the armies of Spain and Portugal and a multitude of fiercely independent
guerrilleros
was seldom successful. With each passing day the French extended their hold on Spain.

In the fall of 1809, in a back room of a tavern on the outskirts of Madrid, two young men came face to face for the first time in many months. Sounds of music, raucous voices, the aroma of cigar smoke, sour wine and unwashed bodies drifted through the closed door. The war was not going well for the allies. Their personal part of the war was just as bad. Perhaps it was simply not possible to take a vast number of balky independent mules and harness them into a team which could face down the might of France.

The two young men talked through the night, parting just before dawn to travel their separate ways. Guerrilla warfare in Spain had not been their only topic of conversation.

After the horror of the winter of 1809, the armies of France, Britain, Spain, and Portugal planned their campaigns with better care. Throughout the long winter months and the mud of early spring of 1810 the armies hunted foxes instead of each other. They danced, gambled, and loved their nights away.

Something Catarina Perez de Leon was not privileged to do. Though her wedding had occurred well over a year earlier, she had yet to see her husband in her bed. From time to time Blas’s body visited the Casa Audley, but only Don Alejo was inside it. Vanilla pudding when she wanted hot pepper! She was nearly seventeen. Unwanted. Unloved!

Yet love had not totally missed the Casa Audley. Cat wished to rejoice in her father’s new-found happiness, but found it difficult. She was jealous. Why should Thomas be so happy when she was so miserable?

Cat could not have said when she first realized her father no longer slept alone, that he and Blanca had found comfort in each other. Inevitable, it had simply happened. And, truly, Catarina was glad. In her heart she knew Thomas was not getting any better—would never get any better.
God forgive her jealousy. Papa deserved all the happiness he could find.

If only there were a bit left over for herself. Surely, the next time Blas came home . . .

To Cat’s surprise, in May—with the armies of both sides once again on the move in the north—her husband appeared one morning at breakfast, smiling and urbane. Don Alejo to the inch. This time she would not, absolutely would not, allow him to get away with his indifference. She was no longer the child who had gritted her teeth and bitten her tongue while he took the gift she willingly gave to ease his pain. A pain which surely had been greater than her own.

Sometimes . . . sometimes she wondered why he bothered to come home at all. Their courier system was remarkably efficient. Why then did Blas risk the guerrilla leaders surging in twenty different directions while he relinquished his grip to travel the long road back to Lisbon? It did not make sense. Unless, despite their estrangement, he really wished to see her.

The gaming rooms were quiet that night, nearly all the brilliant-coated officers gone north with Wellington’s army. Cat swore she had heard a collective sigh of relief from the old gentlemen in the Portuguese cardroom.

Patiently, she waited for nearly an hour after the gaming rooms closed. Then she put on her most alluring and transparent nightgown, topped it with an almost equally transparent confection of white ruffles and lace, and boldly knocked on her husband’s door. She was beyond beautiful. Infinitely appealing. Seductive. He could not possibly resist her.

And yet . . . her confidence wavered. Blas had been so . . . odd. For so long. So maddeningly, utterly indifferent. What if he truly did not care? Then again, it might be months before he returned to Lisbon. She could not cry craven now.

The door opened abruptly. He wore only his breeches—and the long shirt which brought back a rush of sensuous, titillating memories. Instead of a blush, Cat’s face paled to marble. No words came.

“
Catarina?” His heavy black brows rose in cool inquiry.

She wet her lips. “I should like to speak with you,” she managed in a very small voice.

“
Very well.” He stepped back, body stiff and uncompromising. Obviously, she was far from welcome.

Catarina had prepared a speech. Instead, she said the first thing that came into her head. “I forgave you long ago, you know. In truth, there was little to forgive. That you should mistake me for one of your women was not nice, but it is a thing to be endured.”

She stopped, appalled. This was not at all the message she wished to convey. “But when we are truly married,” she amended firmly, “this I will not tolerate. You are mine and mine alone. There will be no other women.”

There was a flash from Don Alejo’s usually bland eyes. “Really?” he said and rocked back on his heels, arms crossed, amusement plainly visible on his rough-hewn features.

Cat stamped her foot. A very unladylike, immature, thing to do, but he was quite impossible. Maddening. “There will not!” she declared, her lower lip jutting into a pout.
Ah, deus
, this was not at all how she had planned it. She should be in his arms by now. In his bed.

“
I am sorry,” she gasped. “I wanted only for you to know that I have forgiven you. That I have always loved you, that there will be no one else for me. Ever. In less than four weeks I shall be seventeen. I am old enough. Even by your so stuffy English standards. Do not shut me out, Blas, I beg of you.”

As Catarina poured out her soul, she was unable to identify the waves of conflicting emotions which broke through her husband’s carefully crafted barrier. She knew only that, at long last, she had touched him.

What would he do? Pride forbade her from throwing herself in his arms. Cat dropped her gaze, examining the bare toes which peeked from beneath the wide ruffle edging her elegant flowing robe. When she looked back up, his emotions had clarified into the last she expected to see. His eyes blazed, his fists were clenched, his jaw quivered. He was angry. Furious. With an oath, he flung himself from her, crashing his fist down on a solid mahogany chest of drawers. The small objects on the top rattled and chinked. Quiet descended. Except for a soft steady chant which barely reached her ears: “Damn him, damn him, damn him . . .”

“
Damn who?” Cat asked, too puzzled to be anything but direct.

He was still standing by the dresser, both hands braced against the top edge. Head bowed, shoulders shaking with rage. At her question, the chant abruptly ceased. Straightening stiffly, he turned and faced her.

“
Blas the Bastard,” he replied through clenched teeth. “He does not deserve you. Be wary,
querida
. Do not give yourself to a man you know nothing about.”

By now Cat was so accustomed to thinking of her husband as two different people she did not find his words startling. She knew only that she had failed. He would not have her. With her fist pressed to her lips to stifle her anguish, Cat stumbled backward toward the door.

“
I’m sorry!” he called after her. “I am so sorry, Cat, but I can’t explain. Not why I’m so bloody angry. Not why I’m refusing the most beautiful, the most desirable woman in the world. Not even why I’m babbling nonsense at three in the morning. Just try to forgive me, Cat. That’s all I ask.”