Beyond the Sunrise by Mary Balogh Page B

when she turned her head to look at him now, he was reminded afresh that she was now a woman, with all a woman’s allure.
    â€œDid you know,” she said, “that centuries and centuries ago, when Dom Dinis was passing through here with his young bride and she admired these ramparts twining like ribbon about the white houses inside, he made her a present of the town? And from that time on Obidos was always the wedding present given to Portuguese queens? Did you know that?” She laughed. “And do you feel enriched by the knowledge?”
    â€œHistory is always interesting,” he said, watching the breeze blow the ribbons of her bonnet.
    â€œDo you not think it a wonderfully romantic story?” she asked. “Would you give such a present to the woman you loved, Captain?”
    â€œOn a captain’s pay,” he said, “I could not give anything so lavish.”
    â€œAh,” she said, “but would you want to? What would you give the woman you loved?”
    She was still looking at him over her shoulder, her eyes sweeping over him in a manner that was clearly meant to make him uncomfortable, and was succeeding. He took a few steps forward and stood beside her at the wall. He gazed out at the lowering sun.
    â€œA length of real ribbon perhaps,” he said.
    She laughed softly. “Only ribbon?” she said. “It must be that you do not love her enough.”
    â€œThe ribbon would be beneath her chin when she wore herbonnet, and tied in a bow beneath her ear,” he said. “A part of me would be that close to her.” He had not thought of love for a long time.
    â€œOh, well done,” she said. “You have exonerated yourself.”
    â€œOr a star perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps a whole cluster of stars. They are free and bright and would always be there for her.”
    â€œShe is a fortunate woman,” she said, looking sideways up into his face. “Is she Beatriz?”
    He looked down at her, startled.
    â€œI told you that I like to know something about the men who are my servants or escorts,” she said. “Do you love her?”
    â€œShe is—or was—my mistress,” he said stiffly.
    â€œAh.” She laughed softly and they fell silent, watching the lagoon—the Lagoa de Obidos—below them and the ocean in the distance. And the growingly lovely sunset beyond.
    It was a setting most men would kill to have alone with her, Joana thought with a wry smile. And yet she was not sorry that she did not have to share it with a man who would have ruined it with courtly speeches and abject worship. And certainly Captain Blake could not be accused of abjectly worshiping her. She turned her head and looked up at him. His features were sharpened by the light of the sinking sun. He looked almost relaxed.
    And she felt a sudden sharp stab of nostalgia and reached about in her mind for its source. A tower. Ramparts. Wind and sun. A dreamy, gentle, handsome boy whom she had kissed when she came down off the tower.
    Robert.
    And yet the walls of Obidos were nothing like that old castle at Haddington Hall, and Captain Blake was nothing like Robert, except that they shared a given name and except that they had the same hair and eye coloring. And an indefinable something that escaped herconscious mind. Would Robert—
her
Robert—have resembled him in any other way had he lived? Would Robert have grown as broad and muscular? And would his face have grown as tough and disciplined? Would he have become a military hero? She was sure the answer to all those questions was no. Robert had dreaded being bought a commission. He had thought it would be impossible to kill.
    Perhaps, she thought, it was as well that he had died. And yet for a moment she felt a surging of the old grief— for the first and only man she had loved, for the young girl she had been, with her belief in the happily-ever-after. For a long-ago dream.
    She