Page 114 of Bride By Mistake
“It was in 1812. Not long after our victory at Salamanca. I’d just turned twenty-one; Michael was twenty-two. The war was going well, we were young and full of the confidence of youth…” He sighed. “Such extraordinary confidence. We’d been at war for years, and despite horrendous casualties all around us, none of us—our friends, the five of us who’d been at school and joined the army together—had even been seriously wounded.”
He lay quietly, recalling that time. Seven years ago, yet it felt in some ways like a hundred years. And in others, like yesterday. “We half believed ourselves invincible. Life was painted in bold bright colors, no shades of gray for us. It was all a big adventure; we lived for danger.” He shook his head. “Such fools young men can be.”
“Tell me what happened,” she said softly.
“We were riders—glorified messengers, really—taking messages from headquarters, liaising between different sections of the army, delivering information, money, orders—whatever was required.
“This day we’d come—Michael and I—from an important briefing, and we’d been ordered to take messages to—” He broke off. Even after all this time, the habit of secrecy was strong. “Suffice it to say Michael was riding to meet a general and I was taking the same information to our Spanish allies in the hills.”
“Theguerrilleros.”
“Yes. But just out of camp we were… waylaid. A stupid thing; we should have known better. A… a woman in distress.”
“It was a trap?”
He nodded. “Next thing, Michael and I were in the cellar of a house being… questioned.”
“Tortured,” she whispered.
“He was in the next room. I could hear him… hear what they were doing to him. And he could hear what they were doing to me.” His breathing grew harsher with the memory. “It was… bad.” He’d thought he would die of the pain. “I wanted to die.”
She held him tightly, her lips against his temple.
“But you didn’t give in,” she whispered, “didn’t give up the information.”
Luke closed his eyes. So tempting to let it pass, to let her think he was the hero she wanted him to be.
Trust, she’d said.
So he told her. “I don’t know. I think I did. I don’t remember.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
He made a helpless movement. “We were found, Michael and I, in the cellar of that cottage a week later. Michael had been dead a week by then. I was out of my head with fever. Michael’s body and mine bore identical marks of torture, but he’d had his throat cut and I—I had been left with a blanket, water, and this.” He gestured to the hideous rose.
“We learned soon afterward that the French had the information.” Bitter shame washed through him as he forced himself to admit, “It seems pretty obvious who talked.” He waited for her response. Isabella was a Spanish patriot, the daughter of a leader of theguerrilleros.
She made no comment, no exclamation of horror or disgust, and gave no false comfort or meaningless sympathy. She just held him tight for a long time, then kissed him.
The breath he didn’t know he’d been holding escaped in a long sigh.
“I’ve never told anyone that. Not my friends, not my family.” He felt lighter already. “My superiors knew we’d been tortured, of course, and that the French had the information, but there was no way of telling who’d given it—Michael and I weren’t the only ones with the same information—so no action was taken.” No court-martial, he meant.
“Of course no action was taken,” she said. “They saw you were a hero.”
He turned his head and stared at her. Had she not understood what he’d just told her?
She made an impatient gesture. “It was Michael who talked, of course.”
“You don’t know that,” he croaked.
She shrugged. “I never knew Michael, of course, but I do know you.” She smoothed cool fingers across his furrowed brow and said softly, “Luke, even in your dreams you fight this La Cuchilla. You did not give in, my love, I know it, and if you were not so hard on yourself, you would know it, too. Now come to bed. It’s almost dawn, but I think we both need a little more sleep before we ride on, don’t you?” And she snuggled down in the bed, pulling him with her.
Luke lay in her arms, feeling empty, drained, and wakeful. So simple. Such an easy absolution. He wanted desperately to accept it, to embrace the notion that it hadn’t been all his fault.
Except he hadn’t told her the whole story. Not quite. Not his deepest shame.
They made a late start in the morning and reached Ayerbe as the sun was sinking low. Luke paused on the outskirts of the village. “How tired are you?”
