Charles started to release the woman he held, but she swayed on her feet. He put a steadying hand on her shoulder. Her breath shuddered through her in quick, painful gasps. He could feel the chill in her body through the folds of her cloak. “Breathe,” he said. “Deeply. It’s all right, whatever else we are, we’re safe.”
The woman drew a harsh breath. She held a bandbox in one hand and a stick in the other, with a bit of torn petticoat knotted to it to make a white flag. She dropped both to the ground and pushed her tangle of dark hair back from her face. Clear eyes the color of the Hebridean sea stared at him from beneath dark, winged brows. Her pale skin was smeared with dirt, but it would take more than dirt to dim a face such as hers. For a moment, he forgot to breathe.
“Thank you.” The woman’s voice had a raw, cracked sound, as though her throat was parched from fear or cold or thirst. Or all three.
He reached into the pocket of his greatcoat for a flask of whisky, unstopped it, and put it into her chilled fingers.
She took a quick swallow, then turned and gave the flask to her companion, who now stood within the protective circle of Sergeant Baxter’s red-coated arm.
The other girl dropped the bandbox that she, too, carried, gripped the flask in both hands, and took a grateful swallow. Her eyes looked enormous in her thin, heart-shaped face. She was a slip of a thing, even younger than the other woman. Her hair was darker than her companion’s, inky black against skin tanned by the Spanish sun.
The aquamarine-eyed vision turned back to Charles. “I’m afraid we’re in rather desperate straits.” She gave a wobbly attempt at a smile. Her lips were full, and they curved sweetly. He wouldn’t be human if he didn’t feel the force of that smile. Without looking round, he knew that every other man present, from the phlegmatic Addison to the world-weary Jennings, had felt it as well.
Charles returned the smile. Then he realized that some of the dirt on her face wasn’t dirt at all. It was dried blood.
“You’ll have to tell us about it,” he said. “When we’ve found shelter and built a fire.” He shrugged out of his greatcoat and wrapped it round her shoulders. Addison took off his own greatcoat—he was the only other man wearing one—and handed it to Baxter to put round the younger woman.
Charles exchanged a quick glance with Jennings, then looked back at the woman before him. “Can you sit a horse?”
She nodded. Charles boosted her into the saddle and swung up behind her. Baxter handed the younger woman up to Jennings, who for once didn’t ask any questions. Addison picked up the bandboxes.
Charles set his horse into motion, riding in the lead this time. “There are wine caves not far off,” he told the woman. “Don’t try to talk if it’s too much of an effort.”
She twisted her head round to look at him. “My name’s Saint-Vallier.” Her voice was a little less raw. “Melanie de Saint-Vallier.”
His eyes must have widened at the French name, for she added, “All Frenchmen—or women—aren’t supporters of Bonaparte.”
“I’m well aware of it. But you’re a long way from home, Miss Saint-Vallier.”
She shivered beneath the greatcoat. “Not so very far. My home is near Acquera. We moved there during the Terror, when I was a baby. My mother was Spanish, my father French.”
Her voice was curiously flat as she said this last. He noted the past tense, but this was not the time to ask what had happened to her parents or what had left her stranded on the road with only another young girl for a companion. “My name’s Fraser,” he said, in the tone he’d use in a London drawing room. “Charles Fraser. I’m an attache at the British embassy in Lisbon.”
“You’re a long way from Lisbon.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“Whatever you’re doing, it must be important.”
“That depends on the definition of importance. At the moment, my sole objective is to find shelter and build a fire. We should reach the caves in half an hour. Can you make it that far?”
“Yes,” she said, though her shivering was more pronounced and he didn’t think it was entirely owed to the cold. She was a tall woman, but she felt fragile within the circle of his arms. Her unpinned hair, a rich walnut-brown, fell forward, exposing the curve of her neck. He turned the collar of the greatcoat up round her throat.
“Thank you.” Beneath the hoarse voice was an echo of governess-trained manners. But he hadn’t missed her instinctive moment of recoil when his fingers brushed her throat. It stirred uncomfortable images of the events that might have left two women alone and bloodstained on a mountain pass.
Despite her assurances, he nearly called a halt before they reached the caves. He could feel the strength ebbing from her with each passing minute. The younger girl was drooping against Jennings. But the wind had picked up, whistling through the mountains with a bite that cut like glass, and there was an ominous promise of snow in the air. The shelter of the caves would mean a lot.
His memory, at least, had not played him false. The two wine caves were where he remembered, up an even narrower track that cut away from the path they’d been following. The wooden doors were overgrown with gorse and securely locked. Jennings glanced at him with raised brows.
“Not a problem,” Charles said. “Excuse me,” he added to Miss Saint-Vallier, reaching into the pocket of his greatcoat. He drew out his picklocks and swung off his horse. Within a matter of minutes, he had unlocked both caves. The pungent, sour smell of wine spilled out into the mountain air.
“Your talents continue to amaze me, Fraser.” Jennings had dismounted and helped the two women from the horses. “I begin to think a stray diplomat or two would be handy to have on a long campaign.” He jerked his head at his men. “Firewood.”
Whether it was the promise of the wine or the presence of the women, the soldiers worked with a crisp efficiency they had not shown heretofore on the journey. Charles helped the women into one of the caves. The stench was overwhelming as they bent under the low wooden frame of the door, but neither woman hesitated. They sank down on the hard ground and slumped against one of the barrels, as though it had just occurred to them that they were no longer required to move.
Charles gave them blankets he’d taken from the saddlebags. “Give us another quarter-hour and we’ll manage a fire and something to eat.”
Within short order, they had fires going in the mouths of both caves. Jennings sent Baxter and the other five soldiers into one cave, with strict instructions that no man was to drink so much he wouldn’t be fit to march in the morning. He gave Baxter a purse to pay for what they drank. Then he, Charles, and Addison joined the women.
Miss Saint-Vallier and the younger girl were huddled close together, hands held out to the fire. They both started as the men ducked through the doorway. Charles glimpsed a rush of terror in Miss Saint-Vallier’s eyes, swiftly suppressed.
He dropped down on the far side of the fire. “Right. Time we all knew each other’s names. Lieutenant Jennings of the 43rd. Miles Addison, my valet. Miss Saint-Vallier and—?” He looked in inquiry from Miss Saint-Vallier to the younger girl.
“Blanca Mendoza, my maid.” Even in the warmth of the firelight, Miss Saint-Vallier’s face was a ghostly white, but her voice had lost the harsh sound. It had the clear, musical ring of sterling silver clinking against crystal.
Jennings swept his shako from his head and managed to give the semblance of a bow beneath the low ceiling of the cave. “Enchanted.”
While Addison set up a tripod over the fire and filled a cooking pot from the contents of their saddlebags, Charles broached one of the wine barrels and filled five tin cups. Jennings handed them round.
Miss Saint-Vallier smiled her thanks and took a swallow of wine. Her throat worked, her fingers clenched the cup, her shoulders hunched inward. She drew a deep breath and looked from Jennings to Charles. Her eyes were wide and dark and what Charles saw in their depths made him go cold in a way that had nothing to do with the night air. “I suppose,” she said, “that you’re wondering why we were mad enough to be traveling through the mountains in the middle of November without an escort.”
Charles leaned against a barrel across the fire from her. “I imagine you had an escort when you started.”
“Yes.” She looked down into her cup. The firelight flickered over her face, sharpening her delicate bones, exaggerating the shadows round her eyes. “My father opposed Bonaparte. Perhaps too vehemently. A French patrol
