Secrets of a Lady (aka Daughter of the Game)

The Cantabrian Mountains, Spain
November 1812

Even in winter, their rocky slopes dusted with snow, the mountains looked parched. The sight reminded Charles that he could do with a drink. Perhaps it was in keeping with the barren waste he had made of his life that he was riding along a barren waste of a mountain track, in the midst of what increasingly seemed to be a barren waste of a war.

The track was so narrow that they had to go single file. Lieutenant Jennings led the way, his shoulders set with weary nonchalance. Charles’s valet, Addison, Sergeant Baxter, and five soldiers of the 43rd Foot tramped behind Charles, their booted feet thudding rhythmically against the frozen, rocky ground.

The track widened a bit. Jennings fell back beside Charles. “We should look for a place to make camp. There’s little more than another hour of daylight.” He squinted at the slate-gray sky. “And it looks like we may have snow.”

Charles nodded. “There are wine caves a mile or so on.”

Jennings lifted his brows. “You know these mountains well.”

“I’ve been here once or twice.”

Jennings regarded him for a moment. His blue eyes held a glint of mockery. “I suppose you still wouldn’t care to tell me why the devil we’re traipsing across the mountains in the middle of winter?”

Charles smiled and shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Jennings.”

Jennings gave a laugh that was sharp with the cynicism of the hardened soldier. “Very likely not. As I suspect the last thing you’d tell me would be the truth. You’re a damned cold bastard, Fraser.”

“I don’t know about the bastard part,” Charles said without inflection, “but I’d have to be inhuman not to be cold in this weather.”

In truth, the cold was so intense you could taste it on your tongue. It sliced like a knife blade through the wool of his greatcoat and the Cordoba leather of his top boots. Patches of snow littered the ground, though none was falling at the moment, thank God for small mercies. He wondered what Jennings would have said if he’d told him they’d come all this way, in the chill of oncoming winter, in search of a piece of jewelry.

Charles turned up the collar of his greatcoat. If he were warm and dry before a fire in Lisbon, the search for the Carevalo Ring would be an excuse for a good laugh. Even now, cold and tired and saddle-sore, he suspected he ought to see the humorous side of the situation.

He flicked a sidelong glance at Jennings. Tempers were frayed to the breaking point. None of the soldiers were happy at having been sent on this mission when they had expected to be snugly bivouacked for the winter. It was understandable that they were curious about what Charles expected to receive in exchange for the gold they were escorting north.

Charles tightened his grip on the reins. The leather of his riding gloves crackled in the chill air. As missions went, this was not a particularly complicated one. Perhaps if it presented more of an intellectual challenge, he would care more.

But even as the thought crossed his mind, he knew it was untrue. Long before he reached adulthood he had developed a personal code of sorts, based on the idea that one’s actions mattered, that though the world might be a bleak and unfair place, with perseverance one could make a difference. The events of the last few months had shattered that code. Guilt gnawed away at him until nothing was left but numbness.

The track curved sharply, snaking round a lichen-crusted wall of rock. Charles pulled up to let Jennings go first. Spiny bunches of rosemary and thyme and gorse clung to the ground above. Pine trees towered over them, misshapen by the wind, an endless mass of gray and green. And suddenly, in the midst of it, an unexpected flash of white.

Something crackled in the bushes. A musket rattled behind Charles. He flung out an arm to stop the soldier from shooting. “No.”

A cry came from the hill above. The white flashed again.

Jennings had wheeled his horse round. “Don’t shoot,” Charles said, both to Jennings and to the men behind. “They’ve got a white flag.”

“We’re unarmed.” A voice, speaking in accented English, came from the mountainside. A woman’s voice, sharp with desperation. More crackling in the bushes, tearing cloth, slithering feet.

Charles swung down from his horse. Two figures burst through the pine trees, half running, half tumbling down a break in the rock in a swirl of dark hair and wool cloaks. Charles caught the first woman as she slid to the track. She fell hard against him in a shower of loose pebbles. Sergeant Baxter steadied the second woman.

Charles started to release the woman he held, but she swayed on her feet. He put a steadying hand on her shoulder. Her breath shuddered through her in quick, painful gasps. He could feel the chill in her body through the folds of her cloak. “Breathe,” he said. “Deeply. It’s all right, whatever else we are, we’re safe.”

The woman drew a harsh breath. She held a bandbox in one hand and a stick in the other, with a bit of torn petticoat knotted to it to make a white flag. She dropped both to the ground and pushed her tangle of dark hair back from her face. Clear eyes the color of the Hebridean sea stared at him from beneath dark, winged brows. Her pale skin was smeared with dirt, but it would take more than dirt to dim a face such as hers. For a moment, he forgot to breathe.

“Thank you.” The woman’s voice had a raw, cracked sound, as though her throat was parched from fear or cold or thirst. Or all three.

He reached into the pocket of his greatcoat for a flask of whisky, unstopped it, and put it into her chilled fingers.

She took a quick swallow, then turned and gave the flask to her companion, who now stood within the protective circle of Sergeant Baxter’s red-coated arm.

The other girl dropped the bandbox that she, too, carried, gripped the flask in both hands, and took a grateful swallow. Her eyes looked enormous in her thin, heart-shaped face. She was a slip of a thing, even younger than the other woman. Her hair was darker than her companion’s, inky black against skin tanned by the Spanish sun.

The aquamarine-eyed vision turned back to Charles. “I’m afraid we’re in rather desperate straits.” She gave a wobbly attempt at a smile. Her lips were full, and they curved sweetly. He wouldn’t be human if he didn’t feel the force of that smile. Without looking round, he knew that every other man present, from the phlegmatic Addison to the world-weary Jennings, had felt it as well.

Charles returned the smile. Then he realized that some of the dirt on her face wasn’t dirt at all. It was dried blood.

“You’ll have to tell us about it,” he said. “When we’ve found shelter and built a fire.” He shrugged out of his greatcoat and wrapped it round her shoulders. Addison took off his own greatcoat—he was the only other man wearing one—and handed it to Baxter to put round the younger woman.

Charles exchanged a quick glance with Jennings, then looked back at the woman before him. “Can you sit a horse?”

She nodded. Charles boosted her into the saddle and swung up behind her. Baxter handed the younger woman up to Jennings, who for once didn’t ask any questions. Addison picked up the bandboxes.

Charles set his horse into motion, riding in the lead this time. “There are wine caves not far off,” he told the woman. “Don’t try to talk if it’s too much of an effort.”

She twisted her head round to look at him. “My name’s Saint-Vallier.” Her voice was a little less raw. “Mélanie de Saint-Vallier.”

His eyes must have widened at the French name, for she added, “All Frenchmen—or women—aren’t supporters of Bonaparte.”

“I’m well aware of it. But you’re a long way from home, Miss Saint-Vallier.”

She shivered beneath the greatcoat. “Not so very far. My home is near Acquera. We moved there during the Terror, when I was a baby. My mother was Spanish, my father French.”

Her voice was curiously flat as she said this last. He noted the past tense, but this was not the time to ask what had happened to her parents or what had left her stranded on the road with only another young girl for a companion. “My name’s Fraser,” he said, in the tone he’d use in a London drawing room. “Charles Fraser. I’m an attaché at the British embassy in Lisbon.”

“You’re a long way from Lisbon.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“Whatever you’re doing, it must be important.”

“That depends on the definition of importance. At the moment, my sole objective is to find shelter and build a fire. We should reach the caves in half an hour. Can you make it that far?”

“Yes,” she said, though her shivering was more pronounced and he didn’t think it was entirely owed to the cold. She was a tall woman, but she felt fragile within the circle of his arms. Her unpinned hair, a rich walnut-brown, fell forward, exposing the curve of her neck. He turned the collar of the greatcoat up round her throat.

“Thank you.” Beneath the hoarse voice was an echo of governess-trained manners. But he hadn’t missed her instinctive moment of recoil when his fingers brushed her throat. It stirred uncomfortable images of the events that might have left two women alone and bloodstained on a mountain pass.

Despite her assurances, he nearly called a halt before they reached the caves. He could feel the strength ebbing from her with each passing minute. The younger girl was drooping against Jennings. But the wind had picked up, whistling through the mountains with a bite that cut like glass, and there was an ominous promise of snow in the air. The shelter of the caves would mean a lot.

His memory, at least, had not played him false. The two wine caves were where he remembered, up an even narrower track that cut away from the path they’d been following. The wooden doors were overgrown with gorse and securely locked. Jennings glanced at him with raised brows.

“Not a problem,” Charles said. “Excuse me,” he added to Miss Saint-Vallier, reaching into the pocket of his greatcoat. He drew out his picklocks and swung off his horse. Within a matter of minutes, he had unlocked both caves. The pungent, sour smell of wine spilled out into the mountain air.

“Your talents continue to amaze me, Fraser.” Jennings had dismounted and helped the two women from the horses. “I begin to think a stray diplomat or two would be handy to have on a long campaign.” He jerked his head at his men. “Firewood.”

Whether it was the promise of the wine or the presence of the women, the soldiers worked with a crisp efficiency they had not shown heretofore on the journey. Charles helped the women into one of the caves. The stench was overwhelming as they bent under the low wooden frame of the door, but neither woman hesitated. They sank down on the hard ground and slumped against one of the barrels, as though it had just occurred to them that they were no longer required to move.

Charles gave them blankets he’d taken from the saddlebags. “Give us another quarter-hour and we’ll manage a fire and something to eat.”

Within short order, they had fires going in the mouths of both caves. Jennings sent Baxter and the other five soldiers into one cave, with strict instructions that no man was to drink so much he wouldn’t be fit to march in the morning. He gave Baxter a purse to pay for what they drank. Then he, Charles, and Addison joined the women.

Miss Saint-Vallier and the younger girl were huddled close together, hands held out to the fire. They both started as the men ducked through the doorway. Charles glimpsed a rush of terror in Miss Saint-Vallier’s eyes, swiftly suppressed.

He dropped down on the far side of the fire. “Right. Time we all knew each other’s names. Lieutenant Jennings of the 43rd. Miles Addison, my valet. Miss Saint-Vallier and—?” He looked in inquiry from Miss Saint-Vallier to the younger girl.

“Blanca Mendoza, my maid.” Even in the warmth of the firelight, Miss Saint-Vallier’s face was a ghostly white, but her voice had lost the harsh sound. It had the clear, musical ring of sterling silver clinking against crystal.

Jennings swept his shako from his head and managed to give the semblance of a bow beneath the low ceiling of the cave. “Enchanted.”

While Addison set up a tripod over the fire and filled a cooking pot from the contents of their saddlebags, Charles broached one of the wine barrels and filled five tin cups. Jennings handed them round.

Miss Saint-Vallier smiled her thanks and took a swallow of wine. Her throat worked, her fingers clenched the cup, her shoulders hunched inward. She drew a deep breath and looked from Jennings to Charles. Her eyes were wide and dark and what Charles saw in their depths made him go cold in a way that had nothing to do with the night air. “I suppose,” she said, “that you’re wondering why we were mad enough to be traveling through the mountains in the middle of November without an escort.”

Charles leaned against a barrel across the fire from her. “I imagine you had an escort when you started.”

“Yes.” She looked down into her cup. The firelight flickered over her face, sharpening her delicate bones, exaggerating the shadows round her eyes. “My father opposed Bonaparte. Perhaps too vehemently. A French patrol attacked our house a month ago.” Her voice had gone flat again, as it had when she spoke of her parents earlier. “My mother and father were killed. I was persuaded I’d be safer in Galicia.”

Jennings frowned. “But surely—”

“Our house was burned, Lieutenant.” She tugged at the neck of her gown. The fabric had been rent in two, Charles realized, then tacked together with a hairpin. “The livestock were taken. Half the household were killed, and I had no way to support those who were left. I paid them what I could and bought horses from a neighboring farm. Blanca and I set off for Galicia with one of the grooms.”

Silence hung uneasily in the wine-scented air. The fire gusted smoke out the open door of the cave.

Miss Saint-Vallier twisted her cup in her hands. She seemed to be unaware of the shudders that wracked her body. “We were attacked in the mountains, near where we found you. Afrancesados, I think, though I didn’t stop to ask their political affiliations. They killed my groom and took our horses. They debated what to do with us, but they didn’t have the stomach to kill us and it was too complicated to take us with them. So in the end they simply left us.”

“Bastardos,” the girl Blanca muttered, her voice sharp with venom. She was huddled against the cave wall, legs drawn up to her chin, arms wrapped round her knees. “I bit one of them. I hope his arm turns poisoned.”

Jennings’s eyes widened. Addison was startled into looking up from the cooking pot.

“I hope he suffers a good deal worse,” Charles said. “When was this?”

Miss Saint-Vallier tried to lift her wine cup to her lips, but her fingers were shaking too badly. “Early yesterday.”

More than twenty-four hours with no food and no protection from the elements save their cloaks. “We found a rock to shelter under,” Blanca said. “We drank melted snow.”

Miss Saint-Vallier steadied her fingers, as if from sheer effort of will, and took a sip of wine. “We knew there weren’t any towns within walking distance. Our only hope was that someone would pass by on the road. We couldn’t believe our luck when we saw the British uniforms.”

Jennings lifted his cup in a toast. “It appears you are as courageous and resourceful as you are beautiful, Miss Saint-Vallier. I’m afraid we can’t take you to Galicia, but I hope you will accept our escort to Lisbon.”

Charles didn’t care for the glint in Jennings’s eyes. He told himself it was because Miss Saint-Vallier was in no state for flirtation, but he knew that was only part of the reason. “You may have friends or relatives in Lisbon,” Charles said. “If not, I’m sure the ambassador will offer you assistance.” In fact, the ambassador was all too ready to offer more than that to pretty women, though he wouldn’t go beyond the line with an unmarried girl of good family.

Blanca rubbed her hand over her face. “She doesn’t have anyone. She’s the last of her family, thanks to those foul toads of French soldiers.”

“Blanca.” Miss Saint-Vallier gave a slight shake of her head. Then she smiled at Charles and Jennings with the formality of a lady accepting a gentleman’s escort on a morning ride. “We’d be very glad of your escort, Lieutenant Jennings. Mr. Fraser.”

There was little more that could be said. There was a great deal that remained unspoken. Such as what exactly had happened to Miss Saint-Vallier and Blanca when the French soldiers attacked their house and what the afrancesados had done to them before they left. Those incidents had almost certainly left scars, both physical and mental, which should be attended to. But three men they had never met before were scarcely the appropriate choice to minister to either.

Addison had returned his attention to the cooking pot with his usual tact. “Supper,” he said, as he ladled out the stew. “We’ve no meat left, I’m afraid, but I can promise you it’s the best corn and chickpeas you’ve tasted.”

The women ate as though they had thought they would never do so again. Jennings launched into a series of amusing, well-edited battlefield anecdotes. Charles sipped his wine in silence. The wine was sweet, but the bite of irony was bitter on his tongue. He was the last possible person who should be playing the role of protector to vulnerable young women. He had an abysmal past record. But for the moment, at least, it seemed there was no one else.

Miss Saint-Vallier set down her bowl and leaned back against the wine barrel. The skirt of her gown was tangled about her legs, and she twitched the dark blue fabric free. Her hand lingered for a moment, curled over her abdomen.

Charles’s wine cup tilted in his fingers. Damn and double damn. He righted the cup, his fingers clenched hard on the tin. Damn the French soldiers and damn the afrancesados and damn this damnable war. Miss Saint-Vallier’s situation was even worse than he’d feared. He’d seen women from harlot to duchess make that fleeting but unmistakable gesture. They’d all had one thing in common.

They’d been carrying a child.