Page 52

Luke nodded. “She used it to torture him—oh, she used her knife with wicked skill, but she also described what she and I had done together. In great detail.” His eyes were bleak and somber.

“That’s the real reason Michael gave in, why he told her what she wanted to know.

Because he had no will to resist. Because between us, La Cuchilla and I broke Michael’s heart.

” His voice was harsh, scalding with self-recrimination, as he added, “I might not have betrayed my country, but I sure as hell betrayed my friend.”

Luke couldn’t bring himself to look at his wife or his host, knowing the condemnation he would see in their eyes.

“Of course you didn’t.” Bella slid her arms around him and rubbed her cheek gently against his chest. “That evilbitch was the one to blame, not you. You were her victim as much as Michael.”

Luke blinked. Absolution didn’t come as easily as that, surely?

“Exactly!” the old marqués said. “You only think that because your friend died and my w—La Cuchilla killed him. As she had killed many a good and true man before. That’s what she did, my boy.

It was her particular skill, to find men’s weaknesses and exploit them.

She was Michael’s weakness, Michael was yours.

She tortured you both, that day, remember?

And she didn’t only use her blade on you, either. ”

Luke stared at the old man, struck by the truth of the old man’s words, yet still unwilling to believe.

The marqués continued, “If it hadn’t been you, she would have seduced another of Michael’s friends—and of course you were seduced, do not pull that face at me!

Who was just twenty, still wet behind the ears, and who was thirty and had no doubt had more men than you’d had hot dinners?

” He patted Luke’s arm. “A pair of young, idealistic boys would have been putty in La Cuchilla’s hands.

Don’t blame yourself over such a thing. Look at me, I am old and consider myself a man of the world, but I am just as foolish.

More so—I married her.” He gave a humorless laugh.

“To tell you the truth, I am heart-sore, but also… embarrassed.” He shook his head.

“To marry my mortal enemy…” He contemplated hisfolly for a moment, then said as an afterthought, “And letme tell you, a young man’s heart doesn’t break so easily,not over an unfaithful woman.

Perhaps, since you say your friend was young and naive, it was a painful awakening, butit would have happened anyway.

It was inevitable.” He grimaced and added, “And better before the wedding than after it.”

He leaned forward and poked Luke firmly on his uninjured shoulder.

“So cease this self-recrimination, young man, else it will poison your life. Terrible things happen in war, but the war is over. The dead cannot be brought back, but in the matter of La Cuchilla, justice has at last been done. Your friend is dead, but not at your hand or by your will, and he is revenged and will be at peace now. And you, my boy, are alive—spared again this very day! And you have this lovely young wife, so do not waste the gift that God has given you—live well and be happy.” He rose to his feet and said wearily, “Now, I must be off. I must bury my wife.” There was both grief and acceptance in his voice.

After the marqués had left, Luke, dazed, turned to Isabella. “I’ve always blamed myself for Michael’s death. Now I don’t know what to think.”

“Don’t think,” she told him. “Sleep. You will feel better in the morning.”

Luke, exhausted by his injury and his admissions, obeyed and soon slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.

L ater that night the fever started. Bella sat up with Luke all night, feeding him willow bark tea and spongingdown his heated flesh.

As she sponged, she thought about the story he’d told. Two young men’s lives had been destroyed by that woman. Almost destroyed.

Luke felt such guilt over his betrayal, but even Bella, with her limited experience of life, could see that an eager and impressionable young man would have no chance against the wiles of a clever and beautiful woman. Witch.

The rose carved into Luke’s flesh was a constant reproach. A brand of guilt.

It was too late to save Michael, but as she tended Luke’s feverish body, Bella vowed she would make the rest of Luke’s life as happy as she possibly could.

L uke’s fever passed quickly, and in two days he was well enough to insist they continue on their way.

Bella, of course, gave it a flat veto. “It’s ridiculous to think you can travel yet. Riding is out of the question! You’ll open up that wound again, and then it will get infected and—and, people die from such infections, Luke!”

The marqués had intervened. He owed them a debt, he insisted.

If it was ever discovered that he, a known patriot, had married a notorious French agent, a traitor, and a torturer…

No, no, and no! That woman was never to be mentioned in the Castillo de Rasal again.

He had wiped the whole unpleasant incident from his mind.

The old gentleman was putting a brave face on it, Bella thought. Deep down he was grieving. His wife’s betrayal had cut deep. He had been intensely humiliated, and yet… he loved her.

Love is pain.

The marqués was also, Bella suspected, only too glad to get rid of herself and her husband; reminders of his grievous mistake in judgment, as well as witnesses to his killing of his wife, so when Luke had proved so stubborn about traveling on, the marqués had seized on the excuse and pressed his best traveling carriage on them so Luke could travel in the utmost comfort.

He’d provided a coachman and grooms and two outriders and had sent riders on ahead to arrange the change of horses with minimum delay.

Apart from sleeping overnight at various inns, they’d traveled almost nonstop for four days. Bella was weary of it.

Luke was dozing again. He’d spent a good part of the journey sleeping.

It was good for his recovery, she knew, but carriage travel, even in a well sprung, comfortable carriage, was so dull.

She’d attempted to read one of the books the marqués had pressed on her as a parting gift, but the carriage bounced so much, trying to concentrate on the print made her feel ill.

They hit a pothole, and Luke grabbed a strap with his good hand. Good, he was awake.

“I’ve done a lot of thinking in the last few days while you’ve slept, Luke, and I’ve made a few decisions.”

“Sounds ominous,” Luke said with a faint smile. There was a new ease to him since they’d left the Castillo del Rasal. A lightness. As if he’d started to forgive himself. Not that he talked about it, or probably ever would, but she was hopeful.

“It’s not quite that, but you might not like what I’ve decided to do,” she said seriously. “It concerns my mother’s fortune.”

“Your fortune,” he reminded her.

“Yes, exactly,” she said, leaning forward. “It is my fortune, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And I can do with it whatever I want, and you won’t try to stop me?”

He considered that for a moment. “I suppose it depends what you want to do. If it seems to me unwise or imprudent, I will voice my opinion, possibly quite strenuously.”

“But you won’t actually stop me?”

“I can’t stop you,” he said. “It’s your fortune.”

Bella could still hardly believe it. For so long she had owned nothing, and before that she hadn’t had any choice in any of her life.

But this man, this beautiful wonderful man had signed away all his rights to her fortune—and though she had no exact idea of the extent of it yet, she knew it must be substantial.

“I’ve decided what I want to do with it—part of it, I mean, not the whole.”

“I see.”

“I’m going to give some of it to the other girls in the convent.

” And before he could say anything, she rushed on, “You see they’re all stuck there because they have no dowries and their families are too proud to admit it or to let their daughters marry men not of their class.

It’s such a waste. They’ll end up having to become nuns and nobody should be a nun unless they want to! And they’re my friends.”

He nodded. “So you’re going to give them a dowry? All, what is it, six of them? That’s quite a sum.”

“I know, but you said I could spend—”

“I’m not arguing,” he pointed out gently.

“Oh. Good. But that’s not all. I want to give a share of the fortune to Perlita.”

“Perlita?” He stared at her, dumbfounded for a moment, then burst out laughing.

“What is so funny?”

“After all the trouble we went through to keep Ramón’s greedy paws off it! You know she’ll give it all to him, don’t you?”

She grinned triumphantly. “Ah, but it will be Perlita’s dowry. Ramón will only get it if he marries her.”

“And if he doesn’t marry her?”

“He will,” she said confidently. “He loves her. He’s only considering marrying someone else because he’s desperate to bring Valle Verde back to its former glory.

And I want that, too, for it was once my home and I love it.

So…” She tilted her head and gave him a quizzical look. “What do you think of my plan?”

“It’s an excellent solution to all your worries.”

“My worries?”

“You have a tendency to fret about other people’s welfare,” he told her. “This way you’ll only have one person to fuss over.”

She frowned. “Who?”

He leaned forward and tugged her out of her seat and onto his lap. “Me.”

“Luke! Your wound.”

“Treat me gently,” he murmured.