Beyond the Sunrise Page 3

  “No,” she said. “You are making that up, Papa. That is not true. Robert would not do that.”

  “You call me a liar, then?” he said coldly. “He would take your honor and then laugh in the face of the French bitch who thought herself so much better than he—his very words, Jeanne, spoken to the stablehand and doubtless to all the other servants too. His very words—the French bitch.”

  “No.” She shook her head.

  “Who first mentioned marriage?” he asked. “Which one of you?”

  “I did,” she said. “I wanted him to know that I was willing to marry him no matter what.”

  “And he agreed?” her father asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Eventually.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Eventually. And did he tell you he loved you before you told him?”

  “No,” she said, “but he said it immediately after me.”

  “Jeanne,” he said harshly, “you are a green girl. Love and marriage have no part in the plans of such a man. Only revenge on those more respectable than he. You are ‘the French bitch’ to him. Do you think I will ever forget or forgive those words? I would thrash him within an inch of his life if I were not a guest in his father’s house. As it is, I will have a word with the marquess. Respectable people are not safe around such a boy.”

  “No,” she said. “Please, Papa, say nothing. I would not wish to get him into trouble.”

  “You will stay in this room,” he said. “I shall say you are indisposed. You are not to leave under any circumstances without my permission. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Papa,” she said.

  But she would not believe any of those things he had said, she thought after he had left. He had said them to turn her against Robert, whom he would of course consider ineligible. She would believe none of it. Robert loved her. Robert wished to marry her even if he had realized all along, as she had, that they would never be able to marry. She would not believe her father.

  But in the silence of her room during the ensuing hours she could not help remembering that he had not said that he loved her until she had said the words first and begged him to say them too, and that he had avoided several times telling her that he wished to marry her. She remembered the fact that his kisses had become more prolonged and more ardent each day and that he had touched her breasts that afternoon.

  How much further had he planned to go in the three remaining days before she and her father were to leave Haddington Hall? If he had planned ahead, of course. Or had all his words and actions been spontaneous, as she had believed all along? But she recalled his saying that they should not think of impossibilities but enjoy the days that remained to them. Enjoy? How?

  And those words stuck in her mind, the words by which he had reputedly described her to a stablehand. The French bitch. Was it possible? But would Papa have made up such words? Or would the stablehand have made them up and repeated them to her father if they were not true?

  Doubt and anguish and youth gnawed at her through the endless remainder of the day and the sleepless night that followed. Mostly it was youth. She was fifteen years old, she reminded herself. She knew nothing about men, except for the fact that the teachers at her school had always emphasized their wickedness and their eagerness to prey upon a young lady’s innocence. Papa, on the other hand, had lived in several different countries and had been a diplomat for years before fleeing to England during the Terror. Papa knew far more about life than she. And he loved her. He had always told her that, and she had no reason to doubt him.

  She had been made a fool of—because she was fifteen and eager to be a woman and to be loved and appreciated.

  Robert was seventeen, a man already. How he must have been laughing at her. How he must have been enjoying the free favors she had been handing him. How he must have been looking forward to the remaining three days, when distress over their impending parting would have made her a great deal freer with her favors. Oh, yes, he would have enjoyed those days.

  And how she hated him!

  Perhaps she was only fifteen, she thought finally. But she had done a deal of growing up within a few hours. She would never fall in love again. She would never allow any man to have any power whatsoever over her again. She would learn how to have that power herself, and how to wield it too. If there were any more fools to be made, it would be the men in her life who would be at the receiving end.

  * * *

  Robert loved the early morning. Most days, unless it was raining too hard, he rode for miles, enjoying the sense of freedom and solitude. He did not like being at the house, where there was always the chance that he would come face-to-face with his father’s wife. Even his father’s company made him uncomfortable now that they no longer met in the familiar surroundings of his mother’s cottage just beyond the boundaries of Haddington. His father no longer seemed like the same cheerful and indulgent papa who had used to bring him presents and play with him and sit sometimes talking with him while Mama sat on his lap.

  Robert was returning from his morning ride the day after he had kissed Jeanne at the lake and promised to ride off with her on a white charger on her eighteenth birthday. He smiled at the memory, though the smile was somewhat rueful. There were only three afternoons left and then he would see her no more. He would love her all his life, but he would never see her again once she left Haddington. Her father was talking about returning to France when they could, she had said. And even if that were not so, there was no possibility of a future for them. None whatsoever.

  Once again the reality of his situation as an illegitimate son stabbed home. And yet he was growing to manhood. Reality had to be faced and accepted. There was no point in raging against it.

  There was a carriage drawn up on the terrace before the house, he saw as he neared the stables. The Comte de Levisse’s carriage. He frowned as he swung down from the saddle and hailed a passing groom.

  “The count is going somewhere?” he asked.

  “Leaving,” the groom said. “Grumbling, his coachman was about it, Master Robert. Likes the tavern at the village here, he does. But the orders were given last night.”

  Leaving! The bottom felt rather as if it had fallen out of Robert’s stomach as he handed the reins of his horse absently to the groom—he usually looked after his own mount—and strode in the direction of the terrace.

  But he halted at the corner of the house. Both his father and the marchioness were outside bidding farewell to the count and Jeanne. The latter was dressed in a dark green traveling dress and bonnet and looked slender and very young in company with the three adults. And very beautiful. He knew now that her dark hair was more brown than black, that her dark eyes were gray, not brown. He knew a great deal more about her than he had known the night of the ball.

  Jeanne!

  But though he stood quite still and was some distance away, she saw him as she turned toward the open door of the carriage. She hesitated for a moment and then hurried toward him. Her father stretched out a hand toward her but then dropped it to his side and watched.

  Robert said nothing. Why ask her if she was leaving? Obviously she was leaving. He looked at her in anguish. Even a private good-bye was to be denied them.

  “Robert.” She smiled brightly. “How glad I am that I have seen you before I leave. I wish to say good-bye.”

  He swallowed. Unlike her, he did not have his back to the three watching adults and the servants. He felt very exposed to public view.

  “I want to thank you for four lovely afternoons and for the dance on the terrace,” she said, her voice light and teasing. She was looking up at him from beneath her lashes.

  “I need no thanks,” he said. He found it difficult to get the words beyond his teeth. “Jeanne.” He whispered her name.

  “Oh, but you do.” She smiled dazzlingly. “The days would have been so very dull if I could not have amu
sed myself with you.”

  She was out of earshot of the people on the terrace and she had her back to them. She did not need to act a part.

  “Jeanne,” he said again.

  “Why are you looking so sad?” she asked. “We are leaving early, is that it? But I asked Papa to take me back to London because life is so dull here. Oh, Robert, you are not feeling sad, are you? You did not take those kisses seriously, and all that foolish talk about love and marriage?”

  He looked at her and swallowed again.

  “Oh, poor Robert.” Her eyes fell to his Adam’s apple, and he felt overtall and gangly again. She laughed merrily. “You did, did you not? How foolish and rustic of you. You did not think I would seriously fall in love and consider marriage with a bastard, did you? Did you, Robert?”

  He merely looked at her as her eyes swept up to meet his again.

  “Oh, poor Robert,” she said again, and her laugh tinkled about him like broken glass. “How droll. The bastard and the daughter of a French count. It would make a wonderful farce, don’t you think? Papa is waiting. Good-bye.” She held out a gloved hand to him.

  He ignored it. He did not even see it. He did not see her even though he looked directly into her eyes. He felt only the blinding hurt of a reality that he had thought he was growing accustomed to.

  She shrugged and turned from him. And two minutes later her father’s carriage was bearing her away from Haddington Hall. Robert had not moved. He had not noticed the approach of one of his father’s servants.

  “His lordship would have you wait upon him in the library immediately, Master Robert,” the servant said.

  Robert looked at the man and made no reply. But he began to move along the now-deserted terrace.

  * * *

  “And so you see why they decided to cut their visit short by three days,” the marquess was saying to his son. He was reclining in a deep leather chair behind the oak desk in the library, his elbows on the arms, his fingers steepled beneath his chin. His son was standing before the desk. “It is an embarrassment to me and a disappointment to her ladyship.”

  Robert said nothing. He looked steadily back.

  “She is a pretty and alluring little thing,” the marquess said with a laugh. “I can hardly blame you for having an eye to her, boy. And she must be a hot little piece to go off secretly with you as she did for several afternoons. French, you know. They are usually hot to handle. But she is not for the likes of you, Robert.”

  No, obviously not. He had not needed to be told that.

  “You are seventeen,” the marquess said with a chuckle. “Ready for a woman, are you, boy? It would be strange if you were not. You haven’t had one yet? No rolls in the hay with a willing wench? I have been neglecting your education, it seems. Name the wench you want and I shall buy her for you. But there are limits, Robert.” He laughed heartily. “You cannot aspire to a respectable woman, you know. Not above a certain class, anyway. You are my bastard, after all. That must not be forgotten, lad, despite who I am.”

  No, he would not forget it.

  “Your mother was my mistress, not my wife,” the marquess said. “You understand the difference, boy?”

  “Yes.” It was one of the few words he had spoken during the interview.

  “I loved her,” the marquess said, his joviality deserting him for a moment. “She was a good woman, boy, and don’t you forget it even is she was a fallen woman.”

  She was his mother. He had loved her too. And he had never doubted her goodness. Or thought about the fact that she was not respectable.

  “But I had to marry within my own class,” the marquess said with a shrug. “And so you were born a bastard. My only child. Fate can deal strange tricks, eh? Now, what woman do you fancy?”

  “I don’t,” Robert said. “I don’t want a woman.”

  His father threw back his head and laughed. “Then you must be no son of mine,” he said. “Did your mother play me false after all? Come now, lad, you are not going to be moping over a little bit of French skirt, are you?”

  “No,” Robert said.

  “Well.” His father shrugged. “When you are hot for a wench, boy, come and tell me. Though you are a handsome enough lad, or will be when you have a little meat on your bones. Perhaps you can entice your own wenches into the hay. You are a restless boy, aren’t you? Out riding or walking at all hours of the day.”

  “I like the outdoors,” Robert said.

  “Perhaps you need more to occupy you,” the marquess said. “Perhaps I should purchase that commission for you before your eighteenth birthday. What do you say? Her ladyship would be glad enough to be rid of you.” He chuckled again. “The sight of you is a constant reproach to her. And no one would be able to say that I had not done handsomely by my bastard, would they now?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I have never shirked responsibility for you anyway, lad,” his father said heartily. “Even though you look as unlike me as you could. It is a good thing that your mother had your blond and wavy hair and blue eyes, is it not? But I never denied you, Robert, and I’ll not do it now. You can boast to all your regiment that the Marquess of Quesnay is your father. I’ll not try to impose silence on you.”

  Robert said nothing.

  “Run along, then,” the marquess said. “You had better stay in your room for, ah, the rest of today and the next three days. I promised her ladyship that I would punish you harshly for your presumption in lifting your eyes to a lady. Wives must be humored, Robert. It seems a small matter to me, though you must learn for your own good to keep to your station in your wenching. I suppose I had better impose bread and water as well. Yes, that will please her ladyship. I shall tell her that I thrashed you too. She won’t know the truth since she is unlikely to go to your room to check the evidence for herself.” He laughed heartily. “Away you go, then. I shall do something about that commission as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, sir,” Robert said, and turned away.

  * * *

  That same night Robert packed a few belongings—no more than he could carry in a small bundle—and left both his room and his home to seek his own way in the world.

  Two days later, in a town not twenty miles distant from Haddington Hall, he listened to the persuasions of a recruiting sergeant and enlisted as a private soldier in the Ninety-fifth Rifles infantry regiment.

  Three months passed before his father discovered him. It was less than a week before new recruits to the regiment, Private Robert Blake among them, were to embark for service in India.

  Robert refused the marquess’s urgings that he be allowed to buy a commission for his son. He took leave of his father with a stony face and no visible emotion at all.

  If he was a nobody, he had decided—and clearly he was—then he would prefer to enter adult life with no label at all. Not son of the Marquess of Quesnay. Not bastard. He was Private Robert Blake of the Ninety-fifth. That was all. He would make his own way in the world—if there was a way to be made—by his own efforts or not at all.

  And he would know his place in the world for the rest of his life. His place was at the bottom—in the line of an infantry regiment as a private soldier.

  From now on, he decided, he needed no one—man or woman. Only himself. He would make a success or a failure of life alone, without help and without emotional ties.

  He would never love again, he decided. Love had died with his mother and innocence.

  PORTUGAL

  AND SPAIN,

  1810

  3

  NO one standing invisible in the ballroom at the Lisbon home of the Count of Angeja would have guessed that there was a war in progress. No one would have known that the British troops sent to Portugal under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley to defend that country from occupation by the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte and to help free Spain of their domination had been pu
shed back in ignominious retreat the previous summer despite their magnificent victory over the French at Talavera on the road to Madrid.

  No one would have guessed that it was generally believed in both Portugal and England that once the summer campaign of 1810 began and the French armies then poised beyond the border with Spain finally made the expected advance, the Viscount Wellington’s army—Sir Arthur had acquired his new title as a reward for Talavera—would be pushed into the sea, leaving Lisbon to the mercy of the enemy.

  No one would have guessed it despite the fact that the silken and gaily colored gowns of the ladies were quite overshadowed by the splendor of the gorgeous military uniforms of the majority of the gentlemen. For one thing, most of the divisions of the English and Portuguese armies were not stationed at Lisbon or anywhere near it. They were in the hills of central Portugal, awaiting the expected attack along the northern road to Lisbon, past the Spanish fort of Ciudad Rodrigo and the Portuguese fort of Almeida. Only a relatively small detachment had been posted closer to Lisbon on the chance that the French would choose the southern road past the more formidable Spanish fort of Badajoz and the Portuguese Elvas.

  For another thing, the general mood of the dancers and revelers, gentlemen and ladies alike, was gay and carefree. War and the possibility of disaster seemed the furthest topics from anyone’s mind. Perhaps many of the gentlemen were rejoicing in the fact that they were alive at all. Although some of the officers—and all the military gentlemen who had received invitations to the ball were officers—were in Lisbon on legitimate business, many of them were convalescents from the military hospitals there. Some were quite content to remain convalescent for as long as they could. Others chafed to be back with their regiments, back in the world where their duty lay.