AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The foolish English endearment overturned what was left of Hebe’s resolution. ‘Alex,’ she whispered. ‘Last night,’ and burst into tears.
Chapter Fourteen
‘The Major? The Major ravished you?’ Anna sounded incredulous as she gathered Hebe into her arms, wrapping the bedcover round her shoulders, before hugging her tightly.
‘Yes…no. I mean, it was him, but he didn’t know…’
Anna was muttering in Spanish, then she broke into angry English. ‘How can I be so mistaken in a man?’ She produced a choice expression that she had obviously acquired from her sergeant. ‘And he shows no shame, no sorryness. There, there, ducky, you cry and then you have your bath and go to bed and I will talk to him. And if he does not do the right thing, why, then my brother will talk to him also and then he will be sorry!’
‘No!’ Hebe wriggled until she could look Anna in the face. ‘Anna, please, say nothing. He did not know it was happening, he was in a fever, delirious.’ At the look of puzzlement on Anna’s face she stumbled on, recounting the story of the French soldiers, that dreadful night trapped in the secret cupboard bed. ‘He remembered something in the morning, but I made him think he had been dreaming,’ she finished, wiping her eyes on the towel.
‘But why do you not want him to know? He will marry you then.’
‘He cannot, he is betrothed to a lady in England.’ Hebe squared her shoulders. ‘You promise you will not say anything, please, Anna.’ The Spanish woman gave a reluctant nod. ‘Thank you. May I have my bath now?’
Anna helped her off the bed. ‘You want that I stay?’
‘Yes, please.’ Hebe sniffed. ‘I am sorry I am being so feeble, it is just such a relief to feel safe and to have a woman to talk to. Alex has been wonderful, but it is not the same.’
‘Indeed, no,’ Anna agreed grimly, picking up the soap and starting to work a sponge into a lather.
Hebe feel asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow, only to wake, crying out in alarm, ‘Alex!’ to find the room in darkness except for a candle burning on a side table, and Anna hurrying to her side from the big chair by the window where she had been resting. She took Hebe’s hand and talked quietly in Spanish until her eyelids drooped and she drifted off again.
She woke to find herself alone and the room flooded with light from half-opened shutters. The comforting noises of the village going about its everyday life drifted up from the square outside. Hebe sat up, wondering where her clothes were, then heard feet stumping up the staircase and the door opened to reveal the elderly maid, still muttering, and with a tray in her hands.
Hebe summoned up her few words of Spanish and ventured, ‘Buenos dias, señora.’
This earned her a glare and a returned greeting, pronounced with such emphasis that she was made quite aware that her own pronunciation had been sadly lacking. Hebe took the tray, considered trying a ‘thank you’, thought better of it and simply smiled and nodded before the old woman stumped out again.
She must have reported that the Englishwoman was awake because a few minutes later Anna appeared, her arms full of clothes and a frown between her strong, dark brows.
‘Good morning, Anna. Is anything wrong?’ Suddenly anxious, she pushed aside the tray and started to get up. ‘You haven’t said anything to Alex about…you know?’
‘I promised not, so I don’t,’ Anna said, heaping the clothes on the end of the bed. ‘But I talk to him about your journey, and you are right, he does not remember. I say, it is very difficult for you, a young lady to be alone with a man in all that danger, and he agree. So I say, what a good thing you are there, Major, or she would have been ravished by those dogs of Frenchmen. And he agrees, but he is worried that he was sick and you had a bad fright and he could not protect you that night, and says you were very brave and sensible.’
S
he began to shake out a selection of skirts. ‘And so I say, and it is wonderful, there is this nice English girl, so respectable, and she is rescued by a man who treats her just like a brother would.’ She raised an eyebrow at Hebe, ‘And you know, he goes red, what is it you call it?’
‘Blushes?’
‘Yes, blushes. But he does not look guilty like a man who has done something bad, just awkward, like a man who has thought things he should not. So I am not angry with him any more, just worried.’
‘Worried?’ Hebe queried. ‘What about? The more time passes, the more he will be certain it was all a dream in his fever. Oh, what pretty skirts, is one of them for me to borrow?’
‘Yes, whichever you like.’ Anna unrolled some white cotton stockings and laid them out. She added, half to herself, ‘It is not his memory I worry about. Still, time will pass, we will see what we will see.’
She left Hebe to get washed and dressed. Anna’s words puzzled her, then she shrugged her shoulders and began to climb out of bed, shocked to discover just how stiff and sore she felt when she stood up. All her bruises seemed to ache at once, and her leg muscles were protesting violently about their steep climb the day before.
Still, it was a pleasure to wash in warm water and to dress in clean clothes. She pulled on the stockings, tying the red garters, then tried a petticoat. It was much fuller than the English fashion and flounced, although it was plain and untrimmed. There was a chemise with pin tucks and a white cotton blouse with full sleeves. Hebe pulled a skirt in a deep blue home-weave with a narrow red stripe running down it over her head, admiring the way it flared over the petticoat and showed a pretty glimpse of ankle. There was a jacket with short sleeves to go over the blouse and a shawl, which she would probably be expected to wear over her head.
Hebe unplaited her hair, remembering Alex’s fingers gently untangling it, and re-made the plait so it hung smooth and heavy down her back with just of few curls around her face. The face that looked back at her from the glass was subtly different: lightly tanned, thinner, her cheekbones more pronounced and the severe hairstyle showing off her wide brow and grey eyes. Hebe wondered what her stepmother would think when she saw her, and had to fight down the surge of worry about just what Sara would be going through.
When she walked slowly downstairs, the shawl in her hand, the living room was deserted, so she opened the front door and looked out. Someone had set a table and benches in the shade outside their house under a tangle of vines stretched across wires and Alex was sitting on the table, talking to several men. Anna stood on the edge of the group watching him with an unreadable expression.
She turned as Hebe approached, drawing the men’s attention to her and they all got up and greeted her, mostly in Spanish, but with the odd English word thrown in. Hebe smiled, and tried her Spanish again, this time to better effect and they moved away, leaving her with Alex, and the watchful presence of Anna.
He looked at her for a long moment as though he hardly recognised her. ‘Hebe, you look—’
