The Soldier's Rebel Lover

His face hardened. Waterloo, the battle that had finally defeated Napoleon, the battle that had brought peace to Europe, had taken place five months ago. He sat back heavily, causing a limestone rock to clatter down the path. Peace was a fine thing and to be welcomed. No more death. No more bloodshed. He had not lied when he’d told Isabella he didn’t miss that. Peace would bring prosperity, the press said.

‘To the likes of Wellington, to those who had always been prosperous, aye, that it would, but what about the rest of us?’ Finlay muttered. London was already full of ex-soldiers, cast out of the military once their usefulness had expired, reduced to begging on the streets. Back home, in the Highlands, things were just the same as ever, the crofters just as poor as ever. And it was as Jack had said—no one wanted to know. Nothing had really changed, despite all the sacrifice. Was this what he’d fought for?

Here in Spain, it was worse. Here in Spain, they’d taken a few more steps backwards. But Isabella had not given up. Isabella was still fighting, though it was, in Finlay’s opinion, a very lost cause, indeed. Did that make her wrong? Was her deluded optimism better or worse than his pragmatism?

An unanswerable question. But one thing he did know, Isabella’s deluded optimism was clouding her judgement. She thought herself a hardened soldier, she thought her cause more important than her life, but she had no idea. It was all very well to wave away a theoretical threat, but the reality was something else entirely. Finlay, all too easily able to imagine what would happen if she was caught, shuddered at the horrors Isabella would be forced to endure. Indeed, not only Isabella, but her brother and his wife, too, like as not. Yet she seemed quite unable to grasp this fact. Or mayhap she simply didn’t want to acknowledge it? Aye, that was more likely.

He picked up a rock and threw it so forcefully down the mountainside that the limestone split into a cloud of powder. Reluctant as he was to spell it out to her, that was what he had to do. Better to fill her head with horrors than to have to face the reality of them, surely? He picked up another small rock, rolling it over in his palm. The idea was extremely unpalatable. Isabella’s idealism was her Achilles’ heel but it was also her shield. What right had he to tell her to stop fighting her battles? What right had he to destroy her illusions? None, and what was more, he did not want to.

Yet what he wanted was quite beside the point. The case was simple. Isabella’s life was in mortal danger. Finlay had been sent here to get El Fantasma out of Spain. He was here under Wellington’s, albeit indirect, orders. More important, he was here to keep a solemn promise made to Jack. More important still, if he could not get Isabella to see sense, she might very easily be taken, tortured or executed before he spirited her away.

Still, the thought of acting against her very decided wishes and taking matters into his own hands gave him pause. Finlay got to his feet and hurled the rock down the mountainside. One more chance. He’d give her one more chance to see sense. There was time yet for that.

Chapter Six

Isabella pushed her papers aside with a sigh of frustration. El Fantasma’s next pamphlet was due to be printed this week, but Estebe was still confined to bed, and though she could set the type and do all the preparation, she could not work the printing press alone. She scanned the piece she was working on, making a few changes before casting it aside once more. There was nothing wrong with it, but nor did it contain anything fresh. The demand for the pamphlets was increasing, but when would talk turn to action?

Would it ever take that definitive step? Pulling back the long voile curtains, Isabella threw a soft cashmere shawl over her nightdress, opened the window and stepped out onto her balcony. The night air was invigorating. It had a sharpness to it that told her winter was not too far away. There would be snow on the mountains soon, perhaps within a few weeks. And before that, perhaps within as little as a few days, Finlay would be gone.

It was for the best, she told herself, gazing up at the stars with the usual pang of regret that she could no longer look at them through the telescope with Papa. Another thing Xavier had appropriated. Star gazing, it seemed, was not a pastime fit for females, though neither was it a pastime her brother had shown any inclination to take up. She wished that she could love Xavier as she ought. She wished that she could trust him with her secret. She wished that he could see her for who she truly was. She sighed, irked with herself. There were more important things to wish for.