A Lady In Need Of An Heir. Louise Allen
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‘Ten minutes.’ Gray pushed the cork back into the flask. ‘A catnap.’ He got to his feet, casually letting the satchel swing down in front of him, but not before Gaby was aware that she had not been the only one becoming a trifle...heated.
Mischief made her reach up to him in an invitation to pull her to her feet. His hand was big and hard with rider’s calluses and she had a sudden desire to see him on horseback.
‘This is almost the top terrace.’ She released his hand with a nod of thanks. One could tease a man too far and she had no intention of provoking anything. At least, she hoped she had not. ‘We can eat up there. The view is excellent.’
They climbed in silence, checked the final terrace, then walked along to where the shell of a stone pigeon tower gave both shade and a support for their backs. Gaby checked for ants and scorpions, kicked aside a few pebbles and settled down on a flat stone that had fallen from the parapet. Above their heads wild rock doves flew out in a noisy clatter of alarm.
‘I remember these towers.’ Gray eyed it, staying on his feet. ‘They were perfect for snipers.’
‘And they make good watchtowers. I think centuries ago they were both dovecotes and lookouts.’ She tried to keep her voice neutral. One could not, after all, go around flinching from a feature that was scattered throughout the length of the valley.
‘Yes.’ He sat almost reluctantly, as though he could feel the sights of a rifle trained on his chest. ‘I can see three more from up here.’ He pointed across the river and eastward. The furthest was the most tumbledown, a haunt for owls and jackdaws now.
When she did not answer Gray looked at her sharply. ‘What is wrong?’
‘That one.’ She pointed to the furthest, the half ruin. ‘That was where the French found Thomas. They had sent a scouting party down, and he was watching for them. He would have seen them, crept out intending to make his way down to the river, taken his small boat and let the current carry him swiftly down to Régua, where there were still Allied troops. You had not all fallen back on Lisbon then.’
‘But he didn’t make it?’
‘They must have known he was there. Someone had circled round behind him and they caught him as he left the tower. They beat him, shot him, left him for dead.’ She said it calmly, clinically, so she did not have to think about the reality behind those bland words, her brother’s battered, bleeding, abused body.
‘How do you know this? Were there others with him?’
‘He was alone. I know it because my lover brought him to me. He found him barely conscious and brought him home. He did not approve of treating idealistic boys as though they were hardened guerrilheiros.’
Gray would work it out in a moment, he was not stupid or slow.
‘Your lover was French?’
‘Yes, he was a French officer, although he was not my lover until later. I did not know him then.’ Gaby let her head fall back against the warm stones, closed her eyes. She did not particularly want to see the expression in his, just at that moment. ‘He found Thomas, gave him water, bandaged the gunshot wound, asked him where home was and Thomas trusted him enough to tell him.’
‘An honourable man, your French officer.’
That she had not expected. Gaby twisted round to look at him. ‘Yes, he was.’ For a moment she thought she saw sympathy, understanding even, before she realised that the very direct look held questions and suspicions. ‘And I am an honourable woman. An Englishwoman. I had nothing to tell him, no intelligence to give him, no safe harbour for him or his comrades and I would have given none of those things if I had. We were two people who came together in the middle of an...an earthquake. There was no politics, no war for us. It lasted a few nights over many weeks, that was all.’ She turned away again, hunched her shoulder in rejection. What did it matter what he thought of her?
‘How did you know of his death?’
‘I gave Laurent a locket. It had the crest of Quinta do Falcão on it and a lock of my hair. Six months after the battle, it reached me with a note inside. My hair was missing but there were a few strands of Laurent’s blond hair and a scrap of paper with the name of the battle and the date. He must have confided in a friend, told him what to do if he was killed.’
‘Did you love him?’ Any trace of sympathy, softness, had left his voice.
‘Do you think me wanton?’ She watched the sunlight on the water below. She had no need to read whatever his thoughts were in those steely eyes, she could guess. ‘That I would sleep with any man who happened by?’
Had I loved Laurent?
She would never know whether that potent mixture of attraction, gratitude, liking—need—would ever have amounted to love because she was never going to become emotionally entangled with another man, ever again. Thank goodness. There would be nothing to compare. But there might be the love for a child if she could only find her way through the maze of problems, actual and moral, that her insane idea was throwing up.
‘Are you going to report all this back to my aunt?’ That would certainly put the cat among the pigeons.
‘Hell, no,’ Gray said. He sounded properly outraged. ‘What do you think I am? A spy for her? She should have sent one of her moralising friends if that is what she wanted. She is correct. You should not be here, alone. You should come back to England, make a proper marriage. I promised her I would try to persuade you of that and give you escort, but I undertook nothing else. Certainly not to critique your morals.’
‘Thank you for that, at least.’
There was silence, strangely companionable. Gaby let out a sigh she had not realised she had been holding and let her shoulders relax back against the rough stones.
This was becoming all too comfortable. Confession was clearly a weakening indulgence. She sat upright again, opened her satchel and began to take out the food. ‘Would you like to come with me to a dinner party tomorrow night?’
Gray had found a chicken leg and paused in midgnaw. He really does have a fine set of teeth... A sudden flash of where those teeth might be employed made her grab for a bread roll.
‘Yes, very much, thank you. But will your hosts not mind an uninvited stranger?’
‘Not at all. I will write a note when I get home. It is only up there, see? To the left of that big rock on the shore? The next quinta along. Their house is close to our boundary and the estate stretches away to the east. They are another Anglo-Scottish-Portuguese family, the MacFarlanes, and they have been here as long as the Frosts.’ Gaby stuffed the roll with cheese and found a tomato. ‘I like him a lot. She is a terrible snob, so she will be delighted to have an earl at her table, but other than that and the fact that she wears pink too much, she is tolerable.’ She bit into the tomato, then sprinkled salt on the exposed flesh and decided she had been fair to Lucy MacFarlane. ‘Her husband, Hector, has been like an uncle to me. They throw big dinner parties so there will probably be at least a dozen other guests.’
‘Will they not have invited a gentleman to balance you?’
Gaby shook her head, her mouth full, and swallowed. She never tired of the sweet tang of the tomato juices on her tongue, the warm pungency of the cheese, the springy resistance of the fresh-baked crust of the bread. Here in the sunlight, with the scent of herbs and the distant sound of the river, was a kind of sensual little heaven.
‘There are so many spare gentlemen around, what with visiting buyers and partners and officials from the government making inspections,’ she explained as she split another roll. ‘The ladies are always outnumbered.’
‘Stops the gentlemen becoming complacent.’ Gray reached for another chicken leg.
She was not going to watch him eat it. Her imagination was doing a perfectly good job of visualising those muscles