Harlequin Historical November 2015, Box Set 2 of 2 Read online

  She pulled the shutters closed and turned back to her maid. The drawing room was usually stylishly grand, with new silk wallpaper and a frescoed ceiling arching high above their heads, gilt-and-satin sofas and chairs clustered around for intimate conversations beside the white marble fireplace. But tonight it was shadowed, echoing, empty.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Adriana,’ she said again. ‘Even General Junot could not cross the Pyrenees so fast as that.’

  ‘But he is coming? That is what they say. That Napoleon is angry with Portugal, and is sending his armies. Just as he did in Denmark.’ Adriana crossed herself. Everyone knew now what had happened when Napoleon bombarded Copenhagen, punishing them for siding with the British. The port was firebombed and almost a thousand Danish civilians died. No other country wanted such things for their people.

  ‘Of course not. We would have heard something by now,’ Mary said. Yet she wasn’t so sure. Her father and the rest of the English delegation had been called to the palace complex at Mafra for several days now, trying to persuade the Prince Regent, Dom Joao, to formally ally with the British at last. But Dom Joao was a most indecisive monarch indeed, changing his mind at every moment.

  Soon his mind would be made up for him, one way or the other.

  ‘If you go back to England, senhorita, you will take me with you, yes?’ Adriana asked eagerly. ‘You would not leave me here?’

  ‘I don’t think we will be going back to England any time soon, Adriana. But if we do, I will take you with me. You don’t need to worry about that,’ Mary said with a calm smile. It would do no one any good to panic now. She made her way back to her embroidery hoop by the fire. ‘Would you please fetch some tea now? We should eat something, at least.’

  If there was anyone left in the kitchen to make it for them. Even the Mannings’ servants had been slipping away in the last few days, as rumours of invasion flew around.

  Suddenly, the front door in the hall below the salon banged open, as if pushed by some unseen hand. As Adriana sobbed, Mary ran out to peer over the balustrade, her heart pounding.

  It was her father at last, untying his damp cloak and letting the footman take it. Sir William Manning was generally said, especially by the ladies, to still be extraordinarily handsome, with his silveri-touched dark hair and tall figure. But the long days and nights with the Portuguese court had made his face look more heavily lined, wearier, his shoulders stooped. She worried that he had no rest of late.

  ‘Papa!’ Mary cried, running down the stairs. ‘You’re here at last. I was getting worried.’

  ‘Mary, my dear.’ He kissed her cheek quickly, smiling as if he would try to reassure her. His lips were cold from the rainy night outside. ‘You are certainly a sight for sore eyes. Is all well here?’

  ‘Of course. But what of you? What of the royal court?’

  He glanced up at where Adriana peered down at them, tears still on her cheeks, her lacy cap crooked. ‘Let’s go sit down for a while, Mary, just the two of us. Shall we?’

  Mary swallowed hard. She knew what it meant when her father needed a quiet word with her. There was news. ‘I just sent for some tea. Adriana will fetch it while you warm yourself by the fire. You have been out too long in the chill.’

  ‘We have faced more hardships than a bit of rain, have we not, my dear?’ he said wryly, as Mary took his arm and led him up the stairs. Adriana dashed away towards the kitchens.

  She settled her father next to the fire, wrapping a fur-trimmed blanket around his shoulders. The wind beat at the shutters, the sky releasing the cold torrents of rain on to the tiled roof. It did sound terribly like guns.

  Mary sat on a stool at her father’s feet, studying his face carefully. He smiled down at her, but over the years she had learned to look beyond his smile to the worried depths of his eyes.

  ‘Shall we have to face such things again soon?’ she asked quietly. ‘Has a decisions been made at last?’

  He gave a wry laugh. ‘I have certainly dealt with my share of ditherers and prevaricators in my work, Mary, as you will know. Everyone is most uncertain when it comes to dealing with Napoleon and who can blame them? But Dom Joao is something else entirely. I do wonder for his sanity. The mother, Queen Maria...’

  Mary nodded, thinking of poor Queen Maria, quite mad and shut away in a convent since her husband’s death many years before. ‘But has he decided?’

  ‘Lord Strangford is a persuasive man, I’ll give him that. I had my doubts when he was appointed to Lisbon.’ Lord Strangford, before he was appointed to the Foreign Office, was best known for translating poetry, especially of the Portuguese poet Camões, and was a well-known dandy. But he was also known to be a great defender of British interests everywhere. ‘But he has at last shown Dom Joao that time is now of the essence. Junot’s Army is making its way towards Lisbon and, when it arrives, they will be no friend to the royal family. It will be too late to flee.’

  Mary nodded. She recalled too many stories of what happened to ruling families when Napoleon overran their kingdoms—and of how fast his armies marched. ‘He will go, then?’

  ‘And we will go with him. I have my orders from London.’

  ‘When?’ Mary asked. She had known this was coming, had prepared for it, but it still made her stomach tighten with uncertainty.

  ‘Very soon, though I have no embarkation dates. Several British warships are on their way to serve as escort across the Atlantic, along with some fresh British diplomats to assist us with the transition. Nothing like this has ever been tried before.’ Her father gave a deep sigh and looked into the fire. ‘God knows what will happen, my dear.’

  Mary nodded, wondering about what might lie ahead—and what Brazil would be like. Not like Russia, of course. And surely not like London, either, which she hadn’t seen in so long—and where so many bittersweet memories rested. Brazil would be entirely new. ‘It’s so far...’

  Her father reached down and grasped her hand. ‘Too far for you, my dear Mary? We have been in some strange places, true, but nothing like South America.’

  Mary squeezed his hand and smiled up at him. ‘It will surely be warm there. I would like that after all this chilly rain. South America—it will be quite a grand adventure! I look forward to it.’

  She wasn’t sure that was entirely true. She’d been reading all she could find about Brazil and knew there would be other, not-so-lovely things in addition to the sandy beaches and fresh fruit trees. She read there were few real houses, that there were insects and lizards as large as lapdogs. But it was far away. A new beginning, for herself and for her father. Maybe there he could rest.

  ‘Dearest Mary. You are so like your mama. So full of courage and curiosity.’ He looked away again, into the fire, and his eyes turned misty, as they always did when he spoke of his wife. Maria Manning had been born in Lisbon, leaving it to marry a handsome young diplomat and journey with him around the Continent. She had been so beautiful, Mary remembered, full of laughter and music. What would her mother think of her homeland now? A mad queen, a prince regent who waffled on every decision, his Spanish wife who loathed him and schemed behind his back. A court that now had to flee across an ocean.

  ‘Would Mama really be excited about seeing Brazil?’ Mary asked, hoping to distract her father from his memories and look into the future.

  ‘Of course she would! And what is more, she would be able to persuade everyone else to be excited about it, too. She was a much greater diplomat than I could be.’

  ‘Do some of the royal court still need—persuading? Is there still much reluctance?’

  He snorted. ‘Reluctant? Ha! If it isn’t exactly the way things have been done for five hundred years, these Iberian courtiers won’t even consider it. But they’ll have to now. It’s either go now, or face the French.’ His eyes narrowed as he looked down to Mary again. ‘Are you still good frien
ds with Doña Teresa Fernandes? The lady-in-waiting to Dom Joao’s wife, Doña Carlota?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Mary answered. ‘She is very amusing.’ She thought of Doña Teresa, who had stood next to her at one of Mary’s first diplomatic receptions in Lisbon and explained who everyone was in wicked, gossipy whispers, with much laughter. Stuffy dinners and balls were always more fun when Teresa was there; she was one of the first friends near her own age Mary had ever met, it made leaving Lady Louisa behind in London a little easier. But she hadn’t seen Teresa in several days, everyone had been kept hiding indoors. Doña Carlota and her court hadn’t stirred from their own palace at Queluz.

  ‘Has she said anything about Doña Carlota’s views on the embarkation proceedings?’

  Mary thought of rumours of Doña Carlota, the Prince Regent’s long-estranged wife. She was the daughter of the Spanish King, but had been sent away to marry her cousin when she was only ten years old and was said to have never given up hope she would return to a larger political stage now that her large brood of children were growing. She lived apart from her husband, with her own courtiers, her own schemes. Surely such ambition would follow the Princess across the ocean. ‘Just that the Princess has her own—arrangements. She likes having her own court and keeping in contact with her family in Spain.’

  ‘And having her own grand ambitions, I’m sure,’ her father said. ‘She is certainly a sly one. But she’ll have to go to Brazil, too, will she or nil she. I doubt her Spanish family will want the nuisance of her now, they have their own battles to fight. We must preserve British trade with Portugal, especially their South American holdings, at all costs. You will let me know if you hear anything from Doña Teresa at Queluz?’

  Mary only had time to nod as Adriana came in with the tea tray.

  ‘You must eat now, Papa,’ Mary said, pouring out a cup of tea and cutting a slice of the almond cake. ‘You will need your strength.’

  ‘Yes, and I need sleep, too, I fear. I’m not as young as I once was.’ He leaned closer as Mary handed him the cup, and whispered, ‘You have been packing?’

  She nodded. ‘Just as you instructed, Papa. I also burned the papers you had marked.’

  ‘Good girl. I don’t know what I would do without you.’ He sat back in his chair with a weary sigh. ‘You should think of marrying, my dear.’

  She gave a startled laugh. Her father had never pressed her on such things, not even when she came home from that ball in London red-eyed and silent. ‘Who would I marry?’

  ‘Oh, any number of young men. You would make a perfect diplomat’s wife. Or maybe a Portuguese aristocrat? Your mama would have liked that. Doesn’t your friend Doña Teresa have a handsome brother all the ladies giggle over?’

  ‘Dom Luis Fernandes. Yes. He is rather lovely. Too much for a plain English wren like me,’ Mary said, still laughing. She thought of Teresa’s brother, his handsome dark eyes and flirtatious ways. He was handsome indeed. And he had never betrayed her trust.

  But another face intruded on the thought, an image of brilliant green eyes, and a beautiful smile that had proved so false.

  ‘I shan’t marry, Papa,’ she said.

  ‘Nonsense! You have your mother’s pretty eyes and you are very clever. Much better than all those silly gigglers, eh?’

  Mary shook her head. She had certainly not been so ‘clever’ when it came to Sebastian Barrett. ‘Then perhaps I shall find a wealthy planter in Rio de Janeiro, yes? Live my life out in tropical leisure.’

  ‘You laugh, Mary, but you know I’m right. You can’t wait on an old man like me for ever.’

  Mary swallowed hard. She hated to think of the day when she didn’t have her father, didn’t have their fascinating, peripatetic life together. ‘You said yourself—you can’t do without me now. Especially now that we have such a great undertaking as a sea voyage ahead of us.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Her father wearily closed his eyes. ‘A great undertaking indeed...’

  Chapter Six

  ‘Shall we avert disaster tonight, do you think?’

  Lord Sebastian Barrett glanced across the darkened carriage at his friend Nicholas Warren and laughed. Outside, beyond the curtained windows, he knew the faint lights of Lisbon were falling away as they lurched up into the hills. Rolling meadows and citrus groves, farmhouses and crumbling medieval churches, dashed past, mere shadows in the night as the storm crawled in. But in the carriage, faintly lit by one lamp, was a clutter of letters and diplomatic papers they were supposed to study before they reached the royal palace at Mafra. They had only just arrived and they were being tossed into the maelstrom.

  ‘You and me, Nick?’ he scoffed. ‘Not bloody likely.’

  Sebastian wasn’t even entirely sure what he was doing there in Portugal. It had been many months since he left the Army life, a life of long marches and camp life, a hard existence he loved, to take up his late brother Henry’s role in the diplomatic corps. ‘You must do it,’ his father had raged from his sickbed. ‘There have been Barretts controlling the fate of Britain, the power behind the throne, for generations! No more playing soldiers for you. There is real work to be done now’.

  The unspoken words burned in his father’s feverish eyes and both Sebastian and the earl knew what they were. You won’t be as good at it as Henry. But you’re all there is now. Your older brother must run the estate and he cannot leave the country. But you can.

  So, no—he was not as good at it as Henry. He and Henry had always been the most different of brothers. Sebastian loved his horses, his brandy, pretty women, excitement, danger. Henry was calm, intellectual, methodical. But Sebastian had known his father’s words were true. England was balanced on the edge of a stony precipice, with sharks circling below. Many could be soldiers, could take his place in the Army. Fewer could do what a Barrett could do.

  So Sebastian had gone through a quick education, learning to do what Henry had been prepared to do—to win England allies to help her stand strong against the might force of Napoleon. Months in Spain and Vienna had sharpened his skills, honed his senses to where he could see what was not said, what was only hinted at behind either polite smiles or threatening words.

  The skills he had developed over so many card games and drinking bouts where he outlasted his opponents, the ability to read others and make them like him, even against their wills, stood him in good stead now. All those ‘deplorable habits’ his father once raged against now helped knit England’s allies closer to her side as the French tightened their noose around them all. Army life had taught him how to work as a team with others towards a common goal, as well, how to measure his words when needed. How to gauge whether someone was friend or foe.

  But still—could Henry have done better? He had done another of his duties to their father when he married the daughter of a viscount and took her with him to Madeira, even though Henry had died soon after the marriage. Their father had tried to get Sebastian to marry a ‘suitable’ girl as well, had even suggested the sister of Henry’s widow. Luckily none of those matchmaking schemes had come off before he had to go to Portugal.

  For just an instant, a memory flashed in his mind. A pair of soft, wide grey eyes filling with raw hurt. A small hand turning cold in his, slipping away. Mary Manning turning her back to him when she realised the stark, jagged truth of what he was. A careless rake.

  The truth of what he had been. Sebastian’s fist tightened around the letter he held, crumpling the paper before he even realised it. He was no longer that heedless man. He fought against it every day. Yet remembering Mary Manning, her lovely, heart-shaped face, the way her innocent kiss tasted, made him fight against it all the more. He would never forget the wounded look in her beautiful eyes the last time she had looked at him.

  Perhaps his work could now protect more innocents like her. Perhaps, in some small way, he could make amends to her
. Not that she would ever know. Surely she was married to some worthy country squire now and never thought of Sebastian at all.

  But he thought of her all too often.

  ‘Eh, Seb?’ Nicholas asked, the tinge of worry in his voice, and Sebastian realised he had been lost in his own thoughts for too long. He tossed aside the crumpled letter and looked across at Nick again.

  ‘What was that, Nick?’ Sebastian said.

  Nick tried to smile. ‘I merely asked if we were going to avert disaster tonight? Or has it already happened?’ Like Sebastian, Nick was a more junior member of the Lisbon delegation, though he had been in the diplomatic service longer. In Sebastian’s view, there was no one more well-meaning than Nicholas Warren, but also none worse at hiding his own worry.

  And when dealing with someone as weak and indecisive as the Portuguese Prince Regent, worry should never be glimpsed at all.

  Sebastian gave Nick his most careless smile. ‘I certainly hope so. If the Prince will agree to get himself and his government out of Napoleon’s clutches before it’s too late, something can be salvaged.’

  ‘And will he?’ Nick swallowed hard.

  ‘I certainly hope so. I am rather eager to see Brazil myself. They say there are the most extraordinary dark-eyed women there...’

  Nick looked comically shocked. ‘Seb! Can you never be serious?’

  ‘Never.’ Sebastian knew very well he had to be serious, though no one could see it. People revealed so much more to him if they thought him silly and careless. It had become an unexpected asset.

  Thunder crashed down over their carriage, as loud as a cannon shot. The storm that had been threatening ever since they docked at Belem was about to break.

  ‘Here, read these,’ Sebastian said, tossing a handful of the documents at Nick. ‘We’ll be at Mafra soon and Lord Strangford says there’s much to be done once we get there.’