Pedro had no patience for his brother's information digging. He must have heard the rumors. Soon Lisbon's court would talk of nothing else. "Why the sudden interest in my mistress? Ask what you wish to know."
"You sent her away because you are courting the princess? The one who lives in England?"
At this point, Pedro had not set eyes on Isabel, but that would happen in the fall. "If by courting you mean to pay for her brother's debts and not require a dowry, then yes."
"But... why?" Cris frowned, his brows meeting above his aquiline nose. Political life baffled him. Even more than the intricacies of war strategy.
Pedro exhaled and spoke in measured tones. "The princess is a cousin to Queen Victoria and Frederick of Prussia. She has blood connections to all the royal houses of Europe."
Connections that would ensure no one ever ousted him from power as they did to his father last year.
"There was a time when you wanted to marry for love."
Pedro's shoulders tensed, and he fisted his hands. Erebus sensed the change in his mood and pranced. "There was a time when you didn't question my tactics."
Cris’s naivete kept him from seeing people's true nature. In their world, Pedro either advanced or he would perish, and with him, Cris, the Almoster legacy, and all he possessed. No one would steal from him again. His marriage to the princess would be the concrete to reinforce the foundations of his future.
Pedro pointed to the brick tower flanking the Mafra palace. “She will be my Torres Vedras.”
The fortified construction could hold twelve eight-pounders and three infantry brigades. A line of a hundred and fifty-three similar forts defended Lisbon—the Torres Vedras. During the first Empire, only two obstacles halted Napoleon's advance: the Russian winter in the north and Torres Vedras in the south.
While the army relied on earthworks, high grounds, and bridgeheads for defense, Pedro would construct a fortification carved on influence and power.
"I don't like it. These people are treacherous. I fear for you. With the duke gone, you are vulnerable."
Pedro closed his eyes, remembering his father's defeated face. A misplaced son's obligation had urged him to act and help the Duke of Titano flee to England before his imprisonment. He forced a smile. "Fretting like an old lady doesn't become you."
"I don't understand you, really. Since Mozambique, you have faced some challenges, but after last summer, you changed. I—"
"Don't say it."
Cris prodded on, a mulish expression on his face. "I much preferred when you fought for Julia, for the woman you loved."
What good had love done to him? Ten years waiting to make Julia his, only to have her stolen by the Englishman. "Love. A mockery of a word poets invented to justify lust, jealousy, hate, the need to possess. Unreliable emotions we are better off without."
Cris’s mouth dropped open. "You cannot mean that. You sound like our father."
The comparison pierced him as Cris knew it would, which proved the closer people got, the higher their power to strike. Pedro gritted his teeth. "More reason foryou to heed my words. Were you not the one who licked Father's boots when he was the prime minister?"
Cris's face blanched, and his eyes took on a haunted look. No one could say Pedro was selfish with pain. Cris had a bourgeois need for their father's affection. Their father, on the other hand, had never recognized his bastard son. To the Duke of Titano, Cris had been a by-blow of his baser needs and a rotten influence on Pedro’s life.
"Have a nice training, brother." Cris dragged his feet to the exit, leaving tracks over the arena's sand.
Pedro had gone too far. He despised the duke's disdain for Cris, and had even fought with his father to keep his brother close. Pedro was striving to push an apology out of his throat when Cris stopped at the gate.
"Julia is pregnant, and she goes by Mrs. Maxwell now."
Chapter 3
ThelastoftheSaint John's party fireworks had exploded over the night sky when Maxwell's carriage rolled to a stop at Vesuvio's courtyard. Pedro gulped port straight from the bottle and moved past the orchard to catch a better view. Last year, he had arrived here, the guest of honor, confident in his ability to marry Julia and reclaim the fate his father had taken from him. Now he lurked in the shadows, exiled from his own destiny. Vesuvio's scent, old wood and wine, invaded his being, carrying memories of the long-ago summer when Julia had healed more than his wounds. The sense of peace it had brought then, before Maxwell had sailed into their lives, now reeked like an empty cellar.
What the hell was he doing here? What was it to him if she expected the poacher's child? For once, his brother had been right. He shouldn't have come back to the Douro. He should've summered in Paris and resumed his campaign to win the princess's hand in September. Still, his legs would not carry him away.
Maxwell alighted first and helped Julia descend the steps to the paved walkway. Pedro stared at them together, and the port singed his empty stomach. It should have been Pedro helping Julia out of the carriage on St. John's eve. It should have been him shedding his coat to shield his wife from the cold. It should have been him ushering her into the safety of the house. It should have been him sleeping through the night by her side, free from nightmares.
Pedro's chest tightened, and he gripped the port with enough force to shatter the bottle. A single torch burned on the wall, and Pedro could not see their faces, but Julia's shape was unmistakable.
Cris had been right. She was pregnant.
