She felt tired out from her worrying, shattered by her father’s reactions to the Englishman. She had hardly slept in weeks for the dread of finding him with his throat cut or simply not there when she hovered outside his chamber just to see that he still breathed.
She did not want to be this person, this worrier. But no matter how the day started and how many hours she could stretch it out between making sure he was neither dead nor gone, she also couldn’t truly relax until the continued health and welfare of Captain Lucien Howard had been established.
A knock on the door had her standing very still and she glanced at herself in the mirror opposite. She looked as if she had been crying, her eyes red and swollen. The knock came again.
‘Who is it?’ Her tone was strong.
‘Your father, Alejandra. Can I come in?’
Concealing the maps in a drawer, she wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket and rubbed her cheeks. If the skin there was a little redder, her eyes would not show up quite so much. Then she flicked the lock.
Enrique Fernandez y Castro strode in and shut the door behind him. Slowly. She knew the exact second he recognised she had been upset.
‘If your mother were here...’ he began, but she shook that train of thought away and he remained silent.
Rosalie Santo Domingo y Giminez stood between them in memory and sometimes this was the only thing they still had in common, their love for a woman who had been good and brave and was gone. Both of them had dealt with her death in different ways, her father with his anger and his wars and her with a sense of distance that sometimes threatened to overcome her completely. But they seldom spoke of Rosalie now. To lessen the anguish, she surmised, and to try to survive life with the centre of their world missing.
‘The English earl is gaining his strength back.’ This was not phrased as a question. ‘I have heard he is a man of intellect and intuition. What do you make of him?’
‘A good man, I think, Papa. A man who might do your bidding in London well if you let him.’
‘He could be dangerous. To you on the way west. Others could take him.’
Alejandra knew enough of her father to feign indifference, for if she insisted on accompanying Lucien Howard she also knew that he would surely change his plans, so she stayed silent.
‘Tomeu says he can read minds.’
At that she laughed. ‘And you believe him?’
‘I believe there might be more to him than we can imagine, Alejandra, and we need to take care that he knows only so much about us.’
‘The house, you mean. The security of this place and the manpower?’
‘Take him out blindfolded. I do not wish for him to see the gates or the bridges. Or the huts down by the river.’
‘Very well.’
‘And leave him in Corcubion, no further. You should be able to find him a boat to England from there and it is a lot closer.’
‘Adan has family in Pontevedra.’
‘Almost a week away by the mountain paths. I want you back sooner.’
‘Very well.’ Her mind reeled with the implications of sending him from a town that did not have the protections of the others.
‘Here is a purse.’ The leather bag was tied with plaited rope and it was heavy. ‘He costs me much, this British spy. If you feel at any time he is not worth the danger, then kill him. I have instructed Adan and Manolo to do the same. Anything at all that might bring trouble. You will leave here three days from now.’
‘But he is not well enough, Papa.’
‘If he can’t walk out of here by then, he will never do anything else. Do you understand me, daughter? No more.’
‘Indeed.’ Her father wanted the English captive gone and if it could not be done with any sense of decorum, then he would simply get rid of the problem altogether. ‘But we will leave when it is dark for it will be safer that way.’ She needed to give Captain Howard time to acclimatise and the night-time would help. If they went late, it would mean only a few hours of walking.
‘Good. I shall not see him before he goes for I am off to Betanzos before dawn on the morrow and will be there for a week. Give him my promise that someone will be contacting him. Soon.’
‘I shall.’
He smiled at that, a quiet movement that made him look more like the handsome and kind father of old. It seemed so long since she had felt such kinship.
‘Go with God, Alejandra.’ He tipped his head and left the room, the sound of his steps on the tiles outside fading.
She had three days to prepare the English captain for the gruelling walk, though now they would not go into the mountains, it seemed, but along the coast. That might be easier for him, but harder for them with the lack of cover. Juan’s family, the Diego y Betancourts, inhabited this part of the land and they would need to take care to avoid notice.
Swearing softly, she thought of the difficult steps the captain had managed today. No more than a few hundred hard-fought yards till he needed to rest.
In three days he would not have that luxury. Extracting her rosary from her top pocket, she prayed to the Lord for strength, courage and perseverance. For both of them.
* * *
Lucien took in breath.
The new day was cloudless but cold and Alejandra stood beside him watching. Further afield he saw a group of others turn and stare.
‘Don’t come with me,’ he instructed as she took the first step when he did. ‘Wait here and I will be back.’
‘The orujo will warm you, señor.’ No ‘good luck’ or whispered encouragement. He was glad for it.
He was neither dizzy today nor light-headed and he had eaten a substantial breakfast for the first time in weeks. He was also aware of the heavy shadows beneath Alejandra’s eyes.
Taking the first step, he kept on going. The hedges of lavender were at each side of him now, he could smell the scent of the leaves, heady and pungent. Then the small space of chipped stones and the three rising steps.
He stopped before them and redrew in breath. He was sweating and the bravado that he had started with had waned a little, the stairway requiring a lot more in effort than the flatness of the path.
There was no handrail, nothing to hold on to as he raised one foot and transferred his weight. One. Two. Three. The deck welcomed him and shaded him, another flower he had no notion of sending a pungent odour into the air all around.
When he turned he saw her, standing still against the olives in the distance, her hands knotted before her as if she had been certain he might fall.
He smiled and she smiled back, the journey now easier in its return.
He could do it, the steps, the pathway, the lavender hedges and then back to the trees where he had left her. He did not even need to sit down when he reached the olives, but stood there, snatching the hat from his head and taking the ornate glass cup that she had filled from her hand.
‘Salud.’
‘Good health,’ Lucien gave back in English and their beakers touched, the cold of the tipple drawing trails across glass. He was elated with his progress and far less exhausted than he imagined he might have been.