Carla Kelly (22 page)

After smiling at the alcalde to indicate no harm done and no offense taken, Jesse took Elinore’s hand and turned toward the road again. Wilkie began to sing a tune full of home and longing. Jesse had heard the tune before, and he knew it was from Devon, something about watching the water for sailors overdue. He gathered his wife close to him and let the wistfulness and power cover them both like a warm blanket. He could only thank the saint who protected wanderers—whoever that was—for this glimpse into another man’s heart that was as sound as his own.

Harper’s worth he already knew, and finally admitted it to himself the afternoon when Elinore, exhausted by struggling through mud and confined by skirts that made the effort so difficult, simply fell to her knees and stayed there. It killed his heart to see her, but he was already carrying his medical satchel, and David Sheffield’s. He hurried to her side to raise her up, but Harper beat him there. In one motion he picked her up and kept walking. Elinore cried and protested, but Harper only turned to look at him and grinned. “I didn’t think she weighed very much, sir,” he said and kept walking.

He knew he would not understand Armand Leger. The
Frenchman continued to watch them all, saying little, but carrying his share of the load, and then Elinore’s, when she faltered. He did not join in their chat, but at least he no longer regarded them with that irritating superior air that had characterized the early days of their acquaintance.

A few days later, he had his first argument with Elinore. Upon the greater reflection that time and travel by foot allowed him, he did debate whether it was an argument. All he knew for sure was that he lost, to his ultimate relief.

They had come to a more prosperous village, and the rain stopped long enough to allow them to wash the mud from their clothes, and even set up a small clinic in an empty house. They had spent a comfortable night. The two-room house had no windows, but the roof was sound, and that was an almost undreamed-of luxury. He had the satisfaction of setting a fracture for a butcher’s apprentice that earned them a sausage.

An old woman came into the house lugging a wooden case that he recognized the moment she came through the door. He hurried to her side, and he lifted the box onto the table. He knew what was inside. “Elinore, would you look,” he said, touching the bottles with their Latin labels and familiar contents. “Persulphate of iron, quinine sulphatis, iodide of potassium, oh, and tincture of opium. My goodness.”

He understood most of what the woman was telling him, but Elinore filled in the gaps. “Her husband was the town’s physician. He died last year. She wonders if you wanted to buy these medicines.”

With what? he thought, his delight turning to despair. He took a last look at the bottles and closed the box. “Ask her if she will take brass uniform buttons,” he told Elinore. “Tell her I am singularly lacking in funds.” He tried to make a joke when he saw the sadness on Elinore’s face. “Ask her if she will take a draft on the Bank of England.”

“You’re not so far gone,” Elinore said. She tugged at her collar and pulled out her mother’s gold necklace that he had saved from Captain Mason. In a moment she opened the clasp and held out the necklace to the old woman.

“I won’t let you do that,” he said, and took it from her.

Elinore turned on him with a fury he didn’t know she
possessed. “Isn’t what is mine yours now? Aren’t we married? Weren’t you listening?”

“Elinore, this is all you have left from your mother!” he said, raising his voice.

“It’s a necklace, Jesse,” she replied, her voice steely calm. “Think what good you can do with it.” She faltered a moment, then met his gaze with one as determined as his own. “And didn’t you promise the chaplain you would do what I said?”

“You know he was quizzing us!” he replied in exasperation.

“I don’t know any such thing,” she told him, her voice kinder now, more subdued, as though she knew she had overstepped some boundary, but did not wish to back down. She took the necklace, and he made no more protest when she handed it to the woman.

In tight-lipped silence—he didn’t know who he was angry at, but he didn’t think it was Elinore—Jesse replaced the empty bottles in his medical case with the partly filled remnants from the Spanish physician’s box. He wanted to take them all, but he took the most useful, because he didn’t think he was strong enough to carry all the bottles now.

They walked in silence for a mile or two, shoulders touching now and then, but separated by what he knew was a combination of pride and shyness. Medicine is easier than this, Hippocrates, he thought, then redefined his statement when Elinore glanced at him sideways with a little smile in her beautiful eyes.

“Don’t be angry with me,” Elinore said, breaking the silence.

“I’m not,” he told her. “I’m just frustrated that I have a little fortune sitting in a bank in England, and cannot do a thing with it.”

She could have said all kinds of things then, but she chose to tease him. “Oh, does this mean I have married a wealthy man?”

Something about what she said, maybe it was her oddly merry rejection of his money, humbled him. Here was someone who had spent her young life with less than nothing so long that it didn’t seem to bother her. I doubt she even believes me, he thought. What fun it will be someday—if we live to the border—to prove her so wrong.

He could see no regret on her expressive face. I wonder what you will do, my darling, when I dig a diamond necklace out of the family vault in Dundee? he thought. He could hardly wait to find out.

Elinore remained vaguely out of charity with him for that day’s march, still miffed that he would think to question her exchange of a necklace for medicine. He didn’t mind, because he knew there was time to make amends. And that, beyond his epiphany about friendship forged by hardship, was his greatest gift on the retreat: time.

As hungry as he was, as wretched, and as worried about Number Eight, he realized that Major Bones—damn him to perdition, yes—had unwittingly provided him with time. Yes, winter was fast approaching; yes, they feared every day to meet with the French; and yes, he knew they were hurrying as fast as they could to the Portuguese border—all this paled under the reality that he had no patients to tend in the night, and no major cases to fret over and relive again and again, once they left each village in the morning. He could march along with his wife and comrades, no longer tyrannized by medicine. How odd it was that the thing he enjoyed the most could so dictate his life until his life was not his own. Was this something he had allowed to happen, or was it part of his medical calling? He knew he wanted to talk with Elinore about this curious phenomenon, but he watched her struggle and grow weary, and knew this was not the time to crow about his own independence. He decided finally that only another surgeon could fully appreciate the contradictory situation, and kept his own counsel.

They came to Tordesillas, having skirted Valladolid on Leger’s advice, who reminded them that the French had many allies in that fickle city. He could tell that Harper wanted to argue with him, but Jesse decided to believe the Frenchman. He could tell from Elinore’s approving glance that she seconded his decision. Leger seldom spoke to anyone except Elinore, and her approval told him that he had not erred.

They avoided Valladolid and came to Tordesillas, famous for its arrogant treaty between the Peninsular rulers in 1494 that divided the little-known hemispheres beyond the horizon into fiefs of Spain and Portugal. The rain, which had held off for a few days, thundered down again, but he could
see the royal tower—the property years ago of Isabel of Castile—where the treaty was signed. From the march to Burgos in the summer, he remembered other castles—some ruined, some not—in the vicinity.

For Elinore’s sake he wanted shelter more than usual. She had come to him red-faced and head down earlier in the afternoon to tell him that she had begun her monthly flow and could hardly walk from the cramps. She also asked if she could dig into their precious store of bandages. He gave his immediate consent, and sent her into the bushes to make the best effort she could, all the while wishing she could take care of the detail of her woman’s life and then lie down with a warm bottle of water at her feet.

Naturally she said nothing to the others, but when she came out of the bushes, Harper had already attached her satchel and medical bag to his own load. Jesse held his breath, but Elinore was too weary to argue, and too uncomfortable. He took her hand, and they walked into Tordesillas in the rain.

Number Eight had a stroke of luck at the church, a massive structure shabby-grand in that way of buildings constructed during Spain’s Golden Age of conquistadors and wealth from the Indies, and then ignored for a few centuries as Spain declined.

There were no benches in the sanctuary, but Elinore sank gratefully to the floor and drew her knees up tight against her chest. He touched her head. “I hate to ask it, but I need you to translate,” he reminded her. He helped her to her feet.

The priest stood close to the altar, arguing with a well-dressed man who leaned on a cane. They came closer, uncertain. Even though his Spanish was still limited, Jesse could not detect much animosity between the men. Rather, the words had a rehearsed quality to them, as though this was not the first exchange on the same subject. He glanced at Elinore, whose puzzled expression mirrored his.

The man with the cane broke off the discussion first, turning in their direction, then executing a most elegant bow. “
Dama elegante
,” he began.

To Jesse’s amusement, Elinore looked behind her in surprise. “What, my dear, aren’t you elegant enough in your mud?” he interrupted, teasing her in a low voice.

“Silence, you!” the man ordered in English. “Obviously you do not appreciate the beauty beside you.” He addressed himself to Elinore. “Please tell me that this wretched man is not your husband.”

Elinore laughed. “Oh, I wish I could,” she said, her eyes merry, despite her exhaustion. “Senor, your English is impeccable.”

The man bowed again while the priest growled something low in his throat that Jesse strained to hear. “
Dama
, I am el Conde de Almanzor y Talavera, at your service.” He put his fingers to his lips, shut his eyes in something close to ecstasy, and kissed them. “I have never seen a more beautiful lady.”

“Thank you,” Elinore said, and looked at Jesse for help. He shrugged. She collected herself and remembered her purpose. “Father, we were left behind in General Sir Arthur Wellesley’s retreat from Burgos and are on our way to Portugal. My husband here is a surgeon. If you will find us food and lodging tonight, he will be happy to hold a clinic for your town in the morning.”

“We have a physician here in Tordesillas,” the priest said in a tone that while not unkind, dismissed them.

“May we at least stay here for the night, out of the rain? Ask him that, Elinore.”

Before she could reply, the count swung his cane at the priest, who stepped back nimbly, as though expecting the assault. “I believe you are demented!” the priest exclaimed. He jabbed his finger in the air in frustration, then left his own sanctuary.

We must have landed in the lunatic asylum, Jesse thought. “Let’s go, Elinore, before
el conde
here decides to take a swing at us.” He took her hand.

“Oh, no, no, no,” the count exclaimed. “I would never do such a thing.” He glared at the departing priest’s back. “Never was a town blessed with such a bundle of debris in a black sack! No wonder no one has faith anymore.” He came closer to Jesse. “I think he is an
afrancesado
, as well. You cannot trust him.”

“Then we should be on our way at once. Elinore, we dare not stay here.”

“Senor, I would offer you the hospitality of Almanzor y
Talavera,” the count said, before she could speak. “I cannot have you thinking that Tordesillas is inhospitable.”

“We have no money,” Jesse said.

The count clapped his hands in exasperation, and looked at Elinore. “Is your husband the most stubborn man in the British army?”

“I…I’m not really sure,” Elinore replied, thrown off guard. “But see you here, sir, he will be glad to administer any medical treatment that you or your servants might require.”

“We are all in famous health, my dear lovely,” the count replied. “I ask just one thing of you…Captain, is it?”

“Yes. Captain Randall,” Jesse said, hoping he did not sound as skeptical as he felt.

“I would like to paint your beautiful wife.”

“What?” he exclaimed. “Surely you are not serious?”

“You do not think she is beautiful?” the count asked, his eyes wide.

“Count, she is the personification of loveliness,” Jesse said, and he felt his face turning red when Harper and Wilkie started to laugh. “But, Count, you will allow me to say that in her present state,
my
beautiful wife”—he emphasized
my
; he couldn’t help himself, not with the way the count was looking at her—“could use a bath and a clean dress, and even more than that, a place to sleep.”

“Come with me, then, all of you,” Conde Almanzor said, drawing his cape around him with a flourish. “You will be my guests.”

There seemed to be no point in arguing with the man, and Jesse felt no inclination to do so, not after another glance at Elinore’s drawn face, and the way Wilkie’s shoulders slumped. “Let’s follow him,” he said. “It can’t be any worse than a night in the rain.”

They followed the count, who had appropriated Elinore and tucked her arm in his, through a side door to a coach that was probably new when the Bourbons came to power a century earlier. There was room for all inside. Only after a pointed look at the count was Jesse able to wrest Elinore away to sit beside him. “Proprietary, wouldn’t you say?” he whispered to her while the count occupied himself with seating everyone.

“I can overlook almost anything in a man who doesn’t mind me with ten pounds of mud on my shoes and who promises a real bed,” she whispered back.

He shuddered elaborately and pulled her closer. “You are a fast piece, Mrs. Randall,” he teased. “Too bad I am finding this out now, after I made all kinds of extravagant promises at Burgos.” He looked at her. The count was absolutely right; she was beautiful, even with rain on her face and her eyes so tired.