Regency Surrender: Passionate Marriages: Marriage Made in Rebellion / Marriage Made in Hope

Close up the green in her eyes held other colours, brown, gold and yellow, and her lashes were long and dark. He had never had these sorts of conversations with a woman before, full of challenge and debate. He suddenly wished that they could sit here and simply talk for ever. The medicine, he supposed, the concoction of some drug that scattered his mind into foolishness and maudlin hope.

He stood unsteadily and put his clothes back on, watching as she arched up, her bag at her feet. A much more sizeable sack than the one he held, Lucien noted, angered by his weakness.

With her hat removed the long thick length of dark hair fell across one shoulder and down towards the curve of her waist. He glanced away. He would be gone in a matter of days and she would not be interested in his admiration. But the green eyes had held his with the sort of look that on any other woman might be deemed as flirtatious.

After a few moments she sat down opposite to him. When she gave him a strip of dried meat to chew he took it thankfully.

‘The rain has stopped, at least, but even in good weather it will take us two more days to reach the port town of Pontevedra. More if you become sicker.’ The impatience in her words told him she had little time for illness.

‘Will your father not wonder where you are?’

‘Papa has gone down to Betanzos for a week. I shall be home soon after, using the coastal route.’

‘A quicker option when I am not with you, holding you back?’

Frowning, she observed him more closely. ‘Are you very rich, Capitán Howard?’

Her question surprised him. Alejandra Fernandez y Santo Domingo did not strike him as a woman who would be so much enchanted with the size of one’s purse.

‘Your query reminds me of the debutantes in the court of London who weigh up the fortune of each suitor before they choose the most wealthy.’

At that she smiled. ‘I was only wondering whether offering you up for a bounty would be more beneficial to our cause than the other option of sending you home. The rebel movement has a great deal of need for money.’

‘I have an ancient pile in Kent and a town house in London. Expensive in their own right, I suppose, but not ready cash, you understand, and all entailed. Other than that...’ He spread his hands out palm upwards.

‘You are penniless?’

He did not mean to, but he laughed and the sound echoed around the clearing. ‘Not quite, but certainly heading that way.’

‘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?’