Sophia James - Regency Surrender - Passionate Marriages

‘In truth, you are blessed by such a state, then. My fortune was what led me into marriage in the first place.’ Her teeth pulled at the dry piece of meat. ‘Papa chose Juan for me as a husband because he was older and a man of means and power.’ Her words held a flat tone of indifference.

‘And what happened?’

‘I married him in the middle of winter and he was dead before the spring.’

‘Because he betrayed your father?’

‘And because he betrayed me.’

Her glance held his across the darkening space and Lucien saw all that was more usually hidden.

‘So El Vengador dealt with him and you made the marks in the limewash to record his death?’

She nodded. ‘I struck them off one by one by one. To remember what marriage was like.’

‘And never do it again?’

Tipping her chin, she faced him directly. ‘You may not believe this, but in my life men have liked me, Capitán. Many men. Even since Juan I have had offers of marriage and protection. And more.’

In the dusk he could so easily believe this, the deep dimples on her cheeks showing as shadow and her dark eyes flashing.

‘But they also know I am my father’s daughter and so they are wary.’

‘A lonely place to be, that? Caught in the middle.’

‘More so than you might imagine, Capitán.’

God. Such an admission would normally have sent his masculine urges into overdrive, but the sickness had weakened him and she knew it.

The moon had risen now, a quarter moon that held only a little light in the oncoming darkness. The noises of birdsong had dimmed, too, and it was as if they sat on top of a still and unmoving world, the tones of sepia and green and grey overwhelming. Far, far away north through the clouds and the mist would be the sea and England. Sitting here seemed like a very long way from home, though he felt better with the rest and the medicines, his strength returning in a surprising amount.

* * *

Lucien Howard was watching her closely and had been ever since leaving the hacienda, the roots of his hair in the rising night filled with the pale of moonlight.

If he had not been so sick, she might have simply moved forward and wrapped herself about him just to satisfy her curiosity about what he might truly feel like. Juan had been the sort of man who spoke first and thought about things later, but this army captain, this English earl, was different. Every single thing he said was measured by logic and observation and there was something in the careful cut-edged words he used that appealed.

‘Are you married?’ She had not meant to ask this so baldly and was glad when he smiled.

‘No?’ The small inflection he used lifted the word into question.

‘Have you ever been?’ She caught the quick shake of his head and breathed out.

‘You are wise, then. Marriage takes large pieces of one away.’ Alejandra was glad that he could not see her hands fisting at this confession. ‘With the wrong person it is both a trap and a horror.’

She’d never told anyone this. She wondered why she was speaking of it now out here in the silence of night. She frowned, thinking that she did know, of course. It was the residue of shame and wrath that still sat in her throat as a constant reminder of humiliation. And it was also because of Lucien Howard’s courage.

Her fingers found the cross she wore at her neck, the gold warming in her hands.

‘A few people seem to manage the state of holy matrimony quite well.’ He gave her this very quietly.

‘A fortuitous happenstance that in my experience is not often repeated.’

The deep rumble of his laughter was comforting. She wished she could build a fire to see him better but did not dare to risk the flame. Her stomach rumbled after eating the dried meat and she longed for heartier fare, especially now they would be traversing the high passes instead of the faster and easier coastal roads.

She saw him abruptly turn his head, tipping it to one side and listening as he pushed himself up. Then his knife was thrown, a single flash in the almost dark, the metal catching moonlight as it rifled across the space in the clearing to fall in a heavy thump.

He was back in a moment with a large rabbit skewered by steel, his eyes going to the dark empty space before them. ‘I will build a fire to cook it, but not here.’

Gathering dried sticks, he dug a hole in the ground a good ten yards away behind the trunk of the oak and bent to the task of finding flame.

Alejandra was astonished. She had never seen anyone kill prey with such ease. Even she, who was used to these woods and this clime, would not have aimed with such a precision through the dark. And now they would have a decent meal and warmth.

He was making her look like a woman without skill. Leaning forward, she took the rabbit and brought out her own blade, skinning it in a few deft swipes and laying it back down on a wide clean oak leaf that was browned but whole.

‘Thank you.’ His words as he threaded the carcass on a stick and balanced it across other branches he had fashioned into carriers. The flames danced around the fare, blackening the outer skin before dying down.

‘Will you be pleased to return home, Capitán?’

She caught the quick nod as he rolled the meat above the embers. The smell of the cooking made her stomach rumble further and, hoping he would not hear it, she shifted in her hard seat of earth.

‘Did your dead husband ever hurt you?’

The question came without any preamble and the shock of it held her numb.

‘Physically, I mean,’ he continued when she did not answer.

‘No.’ Her anger was so intense she could barely grind the lie out.

‘Truly?’

He turned the rabbit again, fat making the fire flare and smoke rise.

‘Truly what?’

‘I am trained to know when people do not tell the truth and I don’t think that you are.’

In the firelight his eyes were fathomless. She had never seen a man more beautiful than him or more menacing.

Just her luck to be marooned in the mountains with a dangerous and clever spy-soldier. She should tell him it all, spit it out and see the pity mark his face. Even her father had failed to hide his reaction when he had found her there, hurt and bound in the locked back bedroom at Juan’s family house, a prisoner to his demands.

‘I think you should mind your own business, Capitán.’

After this the silence between them was absolute and it magnified every other sound present in a busy forest at night.

* * *

Finally, after a good half hour’s quiet, he spoke.

‘Perhaps conversation will be easier again if you eat.’

Taking a small offering from the flame, he split it with his knife, laying it out on another leaf to protect it from the dirt.

Despite herself she smiled. Not a man to give up, she surmised, and not a man to be ignored, either. The rabbit was succulent and well-cooked, but his gaze was upon her, waiting.

‘Do you ever think, Capitán, that if you had your life again you would do some things very differently?’

He took his time to answer, but she waited. Patience was a virtue she had long since perfected.

‘My father and youngest brother drowned in an accident on our estate. It was late winter, almost spring, you understand, and it was cold and the river was running fast.’ He looked at her over the flames and she could see anger etched upon his brow. ‘I couldn’t save them. I couldn’t run fast enough to reach them at the bridge.’

‘How old were you?’

‘Fifteen, so old enough, but I made a mistake with the distance. There was a bend a little further upstream. I could have reached them there if I had thought of it sooner.’

Precision and logic. Everything he ever said or did was underpinned by his mastery of both. He had failed his family according to his own high standards, something that was the core of her shame, as well.