Beyond the Sunrise by Mary Balogh Read Free Book Online Page A

and she had turned to look at him.
    â€œShe is tired of meeting only gentlemen pretending to be soldiers,” Major Hanbridge said with another grin. “She wishes to meet the real thing. Captain Robert Blake, Joana. A bona fide hero, I do assure you. The scar is real, as are the others you cannot see—all of them courtesy of various French soldiers. Bob, may I present Joana da Fonte, the Marquesa das Minas?”
    He felt like a gauche boy and wished more than anything that he had stayed in his safe corner. He inclined his head curtly and then realized that he should have made a more courtly bow, though with so many interested spectators he would doubtless have made an utter idiot of himself. He took the gloved hand she offered and shook itonce and then was thankful that he was past the age of blushing. Obviously he should have raised the hand to his lips.
    â€œMa’am?” he said, looking into her face for the first time. It was as lovely and as flawless as the rest of her person. Her eyes were large and dark—but gray, not brown, as he had expected—and thick-lashed.
    â€œCaptain Blake.” Her voice was low and sweet. “You were wounded at Talavera?” Her English was flawless and only slightly accented.
    â€œNo, ma’am,” he said. “My regiment arrived there one day too late, after a forced march. I am afraid I was no hero of that battle. I was wounded in a rearguard action during the retreat that followed it.”
    â€œAh,” she said.
    â€œHe makes it sound quite ignoble, does he not?” Major Hanbridge said. “Shot in the back as he was running away? He just happened at the time to be holding back a surprise attack across a bridge almost single-handedly until his bellowings—and mighty profane ones at that, from all accounts—brought the whole of his company and others running. Several battalions might have been cut to pieces if he had run in fright as any normal mortal would have done.”
    â€œAh,” she said, “you are a genuine hero after all, then, Captain.”
    How could one reply to such a comment? He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
    â€œYou were leaving,” she said. “Do not let me detain you. I have invited some friends to a reception at my home two evenings from now. You will attend?”
    â€œThank you, ma’am,” he said, “but I am hoping to be allowed to return to the front within the week. I am well-recovered from my wounds.”
    â€œI am happy to hear it,” she said. “But you will not be leaving within two days, surely? I shall expect you.”
    He bowed a little more deeply than he had done initially, and she turned away to make some comment to a colonel of dragoons whohad hovered at her elbow since her arrival. He was dismissed, Captain Blake assumed. He left the ballroom and the house without further delay.
    He had watched her from across the room for surely fifteen minutes, he thought. Of course, the distance had been great and the crowds milling. But even when he had been close to her he had looked into her face and not immediately recognized her. She was so very changed—a mature and assured woman. He had recognized her only gradually—something in her gestures and facial expressions, perhaps.
    She had not recognized him. She had talked to him as to a stranger—a stranger who she assumed had come to pay homage to her beauty. A stranger whom she had invited to an entertainment he had no intention of attending, under the assumption that he would be only too eager to join her court of devoted admirers.
    Joana da Fonte, Major Hanbridge had called her. Jeanne Morisette when he had known her.
    Jesus, he thought as he strode uphill to a less-aristocratic part of Lisbon, where Beatriz awaited him. Sweet Jesus, she was French!

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    Joana da Fonte, the Marquesa das Minas, tapped Colonel Lord Wyman on the arm with her