Sharpe 3-Book Collection 2: Sharpe’s Havoc, Sharpe’s Eagle, Sharpe’s Gold. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ blushed more deeply and plucked at the neckline of her dress which she had chosen very carefully from among the summer frocks stored in the Quinta. It was an English dress of white linen, embroidered with bluebells entwined with acanthus leaves, and she knew it suited her. ‘My mother will forgive me?’ she asked.

      Christopher very much doubted it. ‘Of course she will,’ he promised her. ‘I’ve known such situations before. Your dear mother wants only the best for you, but once she has come to know me she will surely recognize that I will care for you as no other.’

      ‘I am sure she will,’ Kate said warmly. She had never been quite certain why Colonel Christopher was so sure her mother would disapprove of him. He said it was because he was twenty-one years older than Kate, but he looked much less, and she was sure he loved her, and there were many men married to wives much younger, and Kate did not think her mother could possibly object on grounds of age, but Christopher also claimed to be a relatively poor man and that, he said, would most definitely offend her mother, and Kate thought that more than likely. But Christopher’s poverty did not offend her, indeed it only seemed to make their love more romantic, and now she would marry him.

      He led her down the Quinta’s steps. ‘Is there a carriage here?’

      ‘There’s an old gig in the stables.’

      ‘Then we can walk to the village and Luis can fetch the gig for our return.

      ‘Now?’

      ‘Yesterday,’ Christopher said solemnly, ‘could not be too soon for me, my love.’ He sent Luis to harness the gig, then laughed. ‘I almost came with inconvenient company!’

      ‘Inconvenient?’

      ‘Some damn fool engineer – forgive my soldier’s vocabulary – wanted to send a broken-down Rifle lieutenant to rescue you! Him and his ragamuffins. I had to order him away. Be gone, I said, and “stand not upon the order of your going”. Poor fellow.’

      ‘Why poor?’

      ‘Dear me! Thirty-something years old, and still a lieutenant? No money, no prospects and a chip on his shoulder as big as the Rock of Gibraltar.’ He put her hand under his elbow and walked her beneath the avenue of wisteria. ‘Oddly enough I know the Rifle Lieutenant by reputation. Have you ever heard of Lady Grace Hale? The widow of Lord William Hale?’

      ‘I’ve never heard of either of them,’ Kate said.

      ‘What a sheltered life you do lead in Oporto,’ Christopher said lightly. ‘Lord William was a very sound man. I worked closely with him in the Foreign Office for a time, but then he went to India on government business and had the misfortune to return on a naval ship that got tangled up in Trafalgar. He must have been an uncommonly brave fellow, for he died in the battle, but then there was an almighty scandal because his widow set up house with a Rifle officer and this is the very same man. Ye gods, what can Lady Grace have been thinking of?’

      ‘He’s not a gentleman?’

      ‘Certainly not born one!’ Christopher said. ‘God knows where the army fetch some of their officers these days, but they dredged this fellow up from beneath a rock. And the Lady Grace set up an establishment with him! Quite extraordinary. But some well-bred women like to go fishing in the dirty end of the lake, and I fear she must have been one of them.’ He shook his head in disapproval. ‘It gets worse,’ he went on, ‘because she became pregnant and then died giving birth.’

      ‘Poor woman!’ Kate said and marvelled that her lover could tell this tale so calmly for it would surely remind him of his own first wife’s death. ‘And what happened to the baby?’ she asked.

      ‘I believe the child died too. But it was probably for the best. It ended the scandal, and what future could such an infant have faced? Whatever, the father of the child was this same wretched rifleman who was supposed to whisk you away across the river. I sent him packing, I can tell you!’ Christopher laughed at the recollection. ‘He scowled at me, he looked grim and claimed he had his orders, but I wouldn’t stand his nonsense and told him to make himself scarce. I hardly wanted such a disreputable rogue glowering at my wedding!’

      ‘Indeed not,’ Kate agreed.

      ‘Of course I didn’t tell him I knew his reputation. There was no call to embarrass the fellow.’

      ‘Quite right,’ Kate said and squeezed her lover’s arm. Luis appeared behind them, driving a small dusty gig that had been stored in the Quinta’s stables and to which he had harnessed his own horse. Christopher stopped halfway to the village and picked some of the small delicate wild narcissi that grew on the road’s verge and he insisted on threading the yellow blossoms into Kate’s black hair, and then he kissed her again and told her she was beautiful and Kate thought this had to be the happiest day of her life. The sun shone, a small wind stirred the flower-bright meadows and her man was beside her.

      Father Josefa was waiting at the church, having been summoned by Christopher on his way to the Quinta, but before any ceremony could be performed the priest took the Englishman aside. ‘I have been worrying,’ the priest said, ‘that what you propose is irregular.’

      ‘Irregular, Father?’

      ‘You are Protestants?’ the priest asked and, when Christopher nodded, he sighed. ‘The church says that only those who take our sacraments can be married.’

      ‘And your church is right,’ Christopher said emolliently. He looked at Kate, standing alone in the white-painted chancel, and he thought she looked like an angel with the yellow flowers in her hair. ‘Tell me, Father,’ he went on, ‘do you look after the poor in your parish?’

      ‘It is a Christian duty,’ Father Josefa said.

      Christopher took some golden English guineas from his pocket. They were not his, but from the funds supplied by the Foreign Office to smooth his way, and now he folded the priest’s hand around the coins. ‘Let me give you that as a contribution to your charitable work,’ he said, ‘and let me beg you to give us a blessing, that is all. A blessing in Latin, Father, that will enjoin God’s protection on us in these troubled times. And later, when the fighting is over, I shall do my best to persuade Kate to take instruction from you. As I will too, of course.’

      Father Josefa, son of a labourer, looked at the coins and thought he had never seen so much money at one time and he thought of all the difficulties the gold could allay. ‘I cannot say a mass for you,’ he insisted.

      ‘I do not want a mass,’ Christopher said, ‘and I do not deserve a mass. I just want a blessing in Latin.’ He wanted Kate to believe she was married and, so far as Christopher was concerned, the priest could gabble the words of the funeral rite if he wanted. ‘Just a blessing from you, Father, is all I want. A blessing from you, from God, and from the saints.’ He took another few coins from his pocket and gave them to the priest, who decided a prayer of blessing could not possibly hurt.

      ‘And you will take instruction?’ Father Josefa asked.

      ‘I have felt God pulling me towards your church for some time,’ Christopher said, ‘and I believe I must heed His call. And then, Father, you may marry us properly.’

      So Father Josefa kissed his scapular and then draped it about his shoulders and he went to the altar where he knelt, made the sign of the cross and then stood and turned to smile at Kate and the tall, handsome man at her side. The priest did not know Kate well, for the Savage СКАЧАТЬ