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Blackmail
He blinked and looked again. The cryptic notes obviously referred to different terraces and ps probably meant posts, but blackmail? It was hardly an ambiguous word. Was someone trying to extort money from her, or did she believe her aunt was blackmailing her in some way to return? Perhaps she was marshalling more arguments to throw at him if he tried to persuade her again.
Arguments were not all she might throw, he thought whimsically. She had a knife in a slim sheath attached to her belt. It lay beside her now, a workmanlike blade that she had used to probe rot in a post and lop off a broken trail of vine.
The erratic shape of the fig threw a comfortable patch of shade jus
t where he sat, but the October sunshine was warm on his back and he felt his muscles ease, his shoulders drop. Had he really been this tense? He supposed he must, because he could not recall feeling consciously relaxed since he had heard of his father’s death and had left the familiar army life for one of ancient obligations, new duties, half-understood roles.
Home had held the children, yes, but they had been upset and confused because their beloved Gran’papa was no longer there, only Gran’mama and she was sad. And he had felt himself struggle to feel at home in a house that held memories of his own marriage and his singular failures as a husband.
He thought he had left everything better than he had found it. Jamie and Joanna ran to him now when they saw him, smiled at him, held up their arms to be lifted. His mother was slowly coming to terms with her loss and he was throwing himself at all he had to learn as though the outcome of a battle depended on it.
But when he got back to England again he was going straight home and paying no heed to any demands but those of his immediate family and the estates. He was going to live for the present and the future. He’d had enough of guilt and regrets.
Meanwhile he could practise living in the moment by basking in the sun and looking at a lovely, if maddening, woman and listening to the birds and the rush of the river far below.
* * *
She had been asleep, Gaby realised. She felt too limp and comfortable to do much about waking up, not for a minute or two, although she opened her eyes just a little. The weave of her straw hat was a light open work and through it she could see Gray sitting cross-legged in front of her, shoulders in a comfortable slump. For the first time he did not look like an ex-officer, just a big, rather weary, distractingly attractive man.
And he was looking at her mouth. She licked her lips and his gaze sharpened, fixed and, in the moment, she was hot and there was a disturbing, throbbing ache low down. Then Gray moved, swivelled the satchel on his hip and took out the water flask and the heat ebbed, leaving only a distracting tingle.
He is the first new, interesting man who has come into your life since you have begun to recover from losing Laurent, she told herself.
One had to be practical and recognise this for what it was: a rather inconvenient attack of lust. To which the interesting man in question was contributing by tipping back his head to drink and showing off a long bare throat with a gleam of sweat and the slightest hint of dark chest hair escaping at the point where his neckcloth was pushed aside.
Gaby sat up rather too fast, pushed her hat back on her head and reached for her own water. ‘Have I been asleep long?’
Her voice sounded surprisingly normal without, to her ears, any hint of ‘let me bite your neck and discover what you taste like.’
‘Ten minutes.’ Gray pushed the cork back into the flask. ‘A catnap.’ He got to his feet, casually letting the satchel swing down in front of him, but not before Gaby was aware that she had not been the only one becoming a trifle...heated.
Mischief made her reach up to him in an invitation to pull her to her feet. His hand was big and hard with rider’s calluses and she had a sudden desire to see him on horseback.
‘This is almost the top terrace.’ She released his hand with a nod of thanks. One could tease a man too far and she had no intention of provoking anything. At least, she hoped she had not. ‘We can eat up there. The view is excellent.’
They climbed in silence, checked the final terrace, then walked along to where the shell of a stone pigeon tower gave both shade and a support for their backs. Gaby checked for ants and scorpions, kicked aside a few pebbles and settled down on a flat stone that had fallen from the parapet. Above their heads wild rock doves flew out in a noisy clatter of alarm.
‘I remember these towers.’ Gray eyed it, staying on his feet. ‘They were perfect for snipers.’
‘And they make good watchtowers. I think centuries ago they were both dovecotes and lookouts.’ She tried to keep her voice neutral. One could not, after all, go around flinching from a feature that was scattered throughout the length of the valley.
‘Yes.’ He sat almost reluctantly, as though he could feel the sights of a rifle trained on his chest. ‘I can see three more from up here.’ He pointed across the river and eastward. The furthest was the most tumbledown, a haunt for owls and jackdaws now.
When she did not answer Gray looked at her sharply. ‘What is wrong?’
‘That one.’ She pointed to the furthest, the half ruin. ‘That was where the French found Thomas. They had sent a scouting party down, and he was watching for them. He would have seen them, crept out intending to make his way down to the river, taken his small boat and let the current carry him swiftly down to Régua, where there were still Allied troops. You had not all fallen back on Lisbon then.’
‘But he didn’t make it?’
‘They must have known he was there. Someone had circled round behind him and they caught him as he left the tower. They beat him, shot him, left him for dead.’ She said it calmly, clinically, so she did not have to think about the reality behind those bland words, her brother’s battered, bleeding, abused body.
‘How do you know this? Were there others with him?’
‘He was alone. I know it because my lover brought him to me. He found him barely conscious and brought him home. He did not approve of treating idealistic boys as though they were hardened guerrilheiros.’
Gray would work it out in a moment, he was not stupid or slow.
