Bar Sinister (12 page)

"Explain."

He lowered his hand. "Richard is an author. In the past three years, since Doña
Isabel's death, he has sold four novels."

"Novels?"

"Yes."

"He produced the money by scribbling books!" Emily digested the idea. "Are they good
novels?"

"You are a remarkable woman."

She met his admiring grey gaze. "Don't rush your courtship. I collect the literary merit of
Major Falk's works is immaterial. What is material is that he lied to me, from first to last. What
other deceits has he practised on me, I wonder?"

There was a pause. Major Conway frowned. "Is it so important? You cannot have been
under any illusion that Richard is prosperous. He seemed to think there would be enough to
educate the children and provide Amy's dowry."

"Ample." Emily's mouth set.

"What do you mean to do?"

Emily exploded. "Do? I shall give him a piece of my mind. That arrogant, satirical,
deceitful--why do you smile?"

"Relief, ma'am, believe me. I thought I should find myself with two children on my
hands."

Emily was shocked. She contrived to assure him that, far from abandoning the children,
she meant to keep them by her as long as she might. She grew emotional on the subject. It was a
good thing that the tea cart arrived in the midst of her high flight, or she might have betrayed her
feelings. All her feelings.

The tea cart was a miracle of gleaming china, starched linen, and exquisite cakes and
sandwiches. Aunt Fan dealt with the footman in short order. As Emily and, she suspected, the
major had quite forgot her aunt's presence, they exchanged guilty glances.

"Better adopt the brats." Aunt dispensed the steaming Bohea with the competence of
thirty years' practice. "Sugar, Major?"

"Er, no. Thank you."

"Ought to. Perk up your spirits. Very invigorating, sweet tea."

"I am wholly restored," Major Conway said. "Adopt, Miss Mayne?"

Aunt, having wrested a table, another chair, and the tea apparatus into place before the
fire without discommoding herself in the least, had taken up her position as behind a redoubt. "Eat
a sandwich, sir. Put some flesh on your bones. Not the cucumber."

Major Conway meekly consumed a slice of bread and butter. "Adopt?" he repeated,
rather thickly.

Emily had heard this exchange in stunned silence.
Adopt.
She did not at all like
the implications of the word. Perhaps Aunt Fan sensed her revulsion.

She addressed Emily directly, eyes sharp. "Your father won't balk. Attached to young
Amy. Taking little thing. Only sensible course, Emma. Mother dead, father in foreign parts, no
relations. Bring 'em up as your own. Doing it already."

Emily tried to order her thoughts. In the early days of her acquaintance with the children,
adoption had occurred to her, though she had supposed her widowed state might cause legal
complications. Now it was the last thing she wanted, for it would sever her only link with their
father. She took a gulp of tea. Richard Falk's single revealing moment with his daughter presented
itself before her mind's eye.

"It won't do," she blurted, relieved to have found the right argument. "Major Falk would
never consent."

"I wonder how you know that," Major Conway said quietly. "Richard's attachment to his
children is more than a matter of duty. He needs them." He set his cup on the table. "More than
they need him, I fancy."

"Often the case with parents," Aunt Fan offered.

Emily stared at her.

"Don't be a fool, gel. Look at your father. Like a broody hen. Always has been. Should
have let young James go up to London. Couldn't bear it."

Major Conway drew a sharp breath.

Emily turned. "Are you well, sir?"

"Yes, quite. A thought merely."

"What if Major Falk is indeed dead?" Aunt asked in practical tones. "Likely to be kin to
kick up a dust? What about the mother's family? Foreigners."

Emily's stomach knotted. She set her cup down.

"If Richard were dead then Mrs. Foster would be free to act as she wished." Major
Conway accepted the fresh cup Aunt Fan thrust into his hands. "Doña Isabel's
family--excepting
el Jefe
--are all dead. I don't believe he would raise objections. He gave his sister
to Richard freely, and in Spain the father provides for his children."

How could he speak so coolly of the unspeakable? Emily pushed the thought of Major
Falk's death aside. "Will you tell me something of the children's mother, sir? They will be asking
questions."

Major Conway discovered the teacup and set it down three quarters full. "Doña
Isabel... Lord, I daresay I should give you the whole story, or as much of it as I know. Then
perhaps you'll comprehend what I mean by Richard's propensity for scrapes."

"Scrapes?" Emily echoed, mechanical.

The major smiled at her. "And no, the marriage was not a scrape. I chose my words
clumsily. It was, so far as an observer can judge, a very good thing for both parties--though not, of
course, in a worldly sense." He turned to Aunt Fan. "I daresay you recall the retreat we made on
Corunna."

"Eighteen eight and nine," Aunt Fan said tersely. "Sir John Moore killed. Should never
have happened." Whether she meant the retreat or Moore's death at the battle that was fought to
cover the embarkation was unclear. Matt had been teething, Emily recalled, and Edward was still
alive.

"I was with the Light Bobs," the major said. "Rifles. Richard, of course, stayed with the
Fifty-second through the war, so we saw rather more of each other then than later."

"Rear guard," Aunt interposed.

He smiled. "Paget would wish you to mention the cavalry."

"Uxbridge."

"His lordship's conduct of the rear guard was held to be brilliant, though we didn't feel
brilliant. We had made our way past Astorga, and we'd kept the French at bay, though the other
regiments left a damned shambles in our path. Sorry."

"Justified," said Aunt Fan. "No supplies."

Major Conway grinned. "I should leave you to tell it, ma'am. My memory is befogged at
some points."

Aunt Fan nodded graciously. "Bound to be. Go on."

"There we were, stretched out blocking the
correo
in a storm of sleet. We'd
fought off and on all day, none of us had eaten--in fact there was nothing to eat, and we'd been on
short commons for some days before that. It was cold and miserable."

Emily shivered.

"We'd holed up in the shell of a half destroyed barn," the major was saying. "At least it
was shelter. Someone had unearthed a little wine. We contrived a fire and settled in for the night.
Into this charming scene rode Richard. He said we were to pull back another half mile. You may
imagine the huzzas with which he was greeted. We weren't in a reasonable frame of mind. Neither
was he. We gave him a swallow of the wine and sent him on his way. He'd four more outposts to
reach."

He looked up at the ladies and smiled. "On the edge of your seats, I see. Perhaps I should
take up writing narrative."

"Do go on," Emily snapped.

"Very well. You may wonder why an officer of the line was doing staff duty, but the
truth is no one else was to hand with a living, breathing horse on which to trundle through the
sleet. It goes without saying Richard was in no better case than the rest of us, all grime and beard
and sarcasm. I didn't think he could make it. He didn't."

"Captured?" Aunt Fan asked.

"No. He gained the last outpost and came back with the platoon part of the way. Then
they lost him. He was supposed to be guiding them, so they went back a few yards. His horse had
fallen dead. Richard had cracked his skull on a rock in the fall and didn't seem to want to wake
up."

Emily made a noise.

He looked at her briefly. "To their credit they carried Richard as far as they could, which
was to our ruined barn, I fancy. We'd left it by then. He was still unconscious, and doesn't recall
any of it to this day. They laid him in shelter, but his chances of surviving and not being taken by
the French were remote. He was posted missing. Everyone assumed he was dead."

Aunt Fan sniffed.

The major drew a long breath. "When I heard, I kept imagining him lying in a snowbank
with the wolves at him." He shook his head frowning. "We were no longer very close, Richard and
I. There were men I was closer to who were lost in the retreat, but I kept thinking about Richard. I
daresay it was because we were schooled together. We've known each other a long time."

Aunt sniffed again, loudly, and poured him another cup of tea.

He didn't touch it. "You may imagine my relief when Richard joined us after Talavera,
looking fit as a fiddle with his Spanish wife riding pillion behind him on a captured French horse."
He smiled at their reaction. "Richard's colonel was taken aback--to see him again, and to find he
was wed. Spanish marriages were not yet allowed, but Richard presented him with a
fait
accompli.
Doña Isabel's brother was a
guerrillero
chief of some stature and
ferocity. It was not thought prudent to cross
el Jefe.
And young Amy was, er, on the
way."

"My word," Emily said faintly. "What was Mrs. Falk like?"

"Small. Richard is not above the middle height and she came to his shoulder. Black hair,
olive complexion, snapping black eyes with lashes about a yard long. I daresay she was more
striking than pretty. She was capable of being haughty when she chose to, and she had a temper like
a rocket, soaring off in every direction at once. She was ferociously jealous."

Emily tried to repress a surge of jealousy. She cleared her throat. "Did you like Mrs.
Falk?"

"Oh, we all tumbled in love with her at once." Major Conway smiled reminiscently,
oblivious to Emily's feelings. "She could have trod on red jackets all the way to Lisbon, but she
never had eyes for anyone but Richard. They had wonderful arguments."

That sounded familiar. "Go on," Emily said, glum. Clearly the marriage was made in
Heaven.

"Such arguments. Crescendoes of insults in the most lisping Castillian." Major Conway
laughed. "Doña Isabel was from the region of Old Castile near Aranda del Duero. It was a
treat to hear them go at it. Richard speaks fluent Spanish. He'd have had to, after a sixmonth with
el Jefe's
little band of cutthroats."

"Heavens."

"They had found Richard wandering in a daze, half frozen. Doña Isabel nursed him
back to health. That sounds romantical and perhaps it was, but it cannot have been an easy time.
The
guerrilleros
were pressed by the French, and the region was devastated from two
armies having fought over it. The band came south when Wellington moved on Oporto. Richard
reported in but he stayed with the irregulars as liaison until the Fifty-second rejoined the
army."

"Doña Isabel was with the
guerrilleros
the whole time?"

"Her family and village had been destroyed by the French. She had no one to turn to but
el Jefe,
and indeed she was lucky to enjoy a brother's protection."

"I see." Emily wondered whether she would have had Doña Isabel's
courage.

Major Conway misread her hesitation. "If you're asking yourself whether she was a lady,
ma'am, I think the answer is yes. Her father was
alcalde--a
sort of J.P.
Hidalgos,
I fancy, but not wealthy. She could read and write in Spanish."

"But not in English, I take it."

He looked surprised. "She couldn't even speak English, Mrs. Foster. No need to. Richard
spoke Spanish with her. We all admired Doña Isabel," he added, rather stiffly, as if
disapproval were written on Emily's face. "She had great courage, and she was devoted to Richard
and her children."

"I'm sure she was. A heroine." The model for Doña Inez? Gloom swept over
Emily. How could she hope to rival such a splendid ghost?

"Follow the camp?" Aunt asked.

"Not until after Amy was born. After Busaco. When Masséna finally withdrew
things were easier, and that became possible. Before that Richard found quarters for her near
Lisbon. I think she preferred the camp." Major Conway looked at his hands. "They did not have a
great deal of time. Tommy was born early in eighteen twelve and Isabel died in April."

"But Major Falk didn't bring the children to me until the autumn of that year," Emily
protested. "Tommy was nearly nine months old. Creeping."

"Richard would not have left his company in other hands during a campaign, and I collect
he hadn't heard from Hitchins either. Hitchins is his publisher."

That brought Emily crashing back into the present. She cast her eyes heavenward.
"Publisher!"

"Fairy godmother?" Major Conway offered tentatively.

Emily fell into the whoops. "Oh dear, I ought not to laugh. Your friend, sir, is a
blackguard."

"A lunatic," the major agreed. "And a Grub Street hack. But not, I think, a bad
father."

"Letters most particular," Aunt said. "Good grasp of detail. Bought Amy a pony."

"The pony belongs to Amy and Matt," Emily corrected. "In that respect, sir, your friend
has been most considerate. He always includes Matt in his gifts, and that has averted considerable
strife. Matt is not used to playing second fiddle."

Major Conway's mind was elsewhere. "I wonder if you have considered the difficulties
attendant upon keeping Richard's children. Surely mine is not the only offer of marriage you have
received, ma'am. Are not three children, two of them a stranger's, an encumbrance?"

"To my many suitors? I've found Amy and Tommy exceedingly convenient, sir. They
saved me from two solicitors and the Master of Hounds. The master was most importunate."

He laughed at that. "How if you form an attachment, ma'am?"

Emily's blood froze.
Does he know? Ah, he means an attachment to someone other than
Richard Falk.
"I daresay it's possible."