Sharpe 3-Book Collection 2. Bernard Cornwell

it proved blessedly cool in summer and so the Savage family would move there each June and stay till October when they took themselves back to the House Beautiful high on Oporto’s slope. Then Mister Savage had died of a seizure and the house had stayed empty ever since except for the half-dozen servants who lived at the back and tended the small vegetable garden and walked down the long curving drive to the village church for mass. There was a chapel in the Quinta do Zedes and in the old days, when the owners of the coats of arms had lived in the long cool rooms, the servants had been allowed to attend mass in the family chapel, but Mister Savage had been a staunch Protestant and he had ordered the altar to be taken away, the statues removed and the chapel whitewashed for use as a food store.

      The servants had been surprised when Miss Kate came to the house, but they curtsied or bowed and then set about making the great rooms comfortable. The dust sheets were pulled from pieces of furniture, the bats were knocked off the beams and the pale-blue shutters were thrown open to let in the spring sun. Fires were lit to take away the lingering winter chill, though on that first evening Kate did not stay indoors beside the fires, but instead sat on a balcony built on top of the Quinta’s porch and stared down the drive which was edged with wisteria hanging from the cedar trees. The evening shadows stretched, but no one came.

      Kate almost cried herself to sleep that night, but next morning her spirits were restored and, over the shocked protests of the servants, she swept out the entrance hall which was a glorious space of chequered black and white marble, with a white marble staircase curving up to the bedrooms. Then she insisted on dusting the fireplace in the great parlour which was decorated with painted tiles showing the battle of Aljubarrota where Joao I had humiliated the Castilians. She ordered a second bedroom to be aired, its bed made and the fire lit, then she went back to the balcony above the porch and watched the driveway until, just after the morning bell had rung in Vila Real de Zedes, she saw two horsemen appear beneath the cedars and her soul soared for joy. The leading horseman was so tall, so straight-backed, so darkly handsome, and at the same time there was a touching tragedy about him because his wife had died giving birth to their first baby, and the baby had died as well, and the thought of that fine man enduring such sadness almost brought tears to Kate’s eyes, but then the man stood in his stirrups and waved to her and Kate felt her happiness flood back as she ran down the stairs to greet her lover on the house steps.

      Colonel Christopher slid from his horse. Luis, his servant, was riding the spare horse and carrying the great valise filled with Kate’s clothes that Christopher had removed from the House Beautiful once her mother was gone. Christopher threw Luis the reins, then ran to the house, leaped up the front steps and took Kate into his arms. He kissed her and ran his hand from the nape of her neck to the small of her back and felt a tremor go through her. ‘I could not get here last night, my love,’ he told her, ‘duty called.’

      ‘I knew it would be duty,’ Kate said, her face shining as she looked up at him.

      ‘Nothing else would keep me from you,’ Christopher said, ‘nothing,’ and he bowed to kiss her forehead, then took a pace back, still holding both her hands, to look into her face. She was, he thought, the most beautiful girl in creation and charmingly modest for she blushed and laughed with embarrassment when he stared at her. ‘Kate, Kate,’ he said chidingly, ‘I shall spend all my years looking at you.’

      Her hair was black and she wore it drawn back from her high forehead, but with a pair of deep curls hanging where the French hussars wore their cadenettes. She had a full mouth, a small nose, and eyes that were touchingly serious at one moment and sparkling with amusement the next. She was nineteen years old, leggy as a colt, full of life and trust and, at this moment, full of love for her handsome man, who was dressed in a plain black coat, white riding breeches and a cocked hat from which hung two golden tassels. ‘Did you see my mother?’ she asked.

      ‘I left her promising that I would search for you.’

      Kate looked guilty. ‘I should have told her …’

      ‘Your mother will want you to marry some man of property who is safe in England,’ Christopher said, ‘not some adventurer like me.’ The real reason Kate’s mother would disapprove was because she had hoped to marry Christopher herself, but then the Colonel had discovered the terms of Mr Savage’s will and had turned his attention to the daughter. ‘It would do no good to ask her blessing,’ he went on, ‘and if you had told her what we planned then she would most certainly have stopped us.’

      ‘She might not,’ Kate suggested in a small voice.

      ‘But this way,’ Christopher said, ‘your mother’s disapproval does not matter, and when she knows we are married then I am persuaded she will learn to like me.’

      ‘Married?’

      ‘Of course,’ Christopher said. ‘You think I do not care for your honour?’ He laughed at the shy look on her face. ‘There is a priest in the village,’ he went on, ‘who I am sure can be persuaded to marry us.’

      ‘I am not …’ Kate said, then she brushed at her hair and tugged at her dress, and blushed deeper.

      ‘You are ready,’ Christopher anticipated her protest, ‘and you look enchantingly beautiful.’

      Kate 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