Free The Spanish Bride by Georgette Heyer Page A

the back, cutting a jest, giving that laugh of his that was like the neighing of a horse, that Soult was on the march, that the Spanish garrison he had left at Ciudad Rodrigo was proving itself utterly incapable, that his own troops were out of hand, and most of them roaring drunk, that he must break camp, and march as soon as possible.
    Such preoccupations, shelved for the moment in his lordship’s mind, were yet present in Harry’s brain, when he received Juana’s little hand in his. No moment, surely, could have been more inauspicious for an officer in Lord Wellington’s army to take a wife to himself. The month was April, the summer lay ahead: charming for a civilian, of course; but for a soldier summer meant campaigning. No cosy, happy-go-lucky winter quarters for Harry
    ’s child-wife, with balls, and amateur theatricals, or trips to Lisbon to break the monotony of a domestic existence. Lord Wellington kept his plans to himself, but everyone knew that in a very short time now he would launch his summer campaign, driving a wedge into Spain, making Marshal Marmont, who had succeeded to Massena’s uneasy command and was reported to be a conceited fellow, look as silly as every other French general who had come against him.
    ‘Blur-an-ouns, boys, ain’t he the man to stand by? Don’t he take the rough and the smooth with us, and ain’t he afther kicking the French before him, just as we’d kick an old football?’ No one doubted that that was just how his lordship would serve the French. He might have political opponents in England who declared his victories to be exaggerated, too hardly won; but the men who fought under his Generalship had a serene faith in him which only defeat could shake. For his lordship had never lost a battle. Roliça, Vimiero, Talavera, the Coa, Bussaco, Sabugal, Fuentes de Onoro, El Bodon: the long list of his Peninsular victories stretched over three years—difficult, hampered years, when lack of money, the incompetence of some of his Generals, scepticism at home, jealousies in Spain, machinations in Portugal, all combined to build up obstacles that would have driven a lesser man to suicide or insanity. They made his lordship querulous (awful, his temper was, some days), but they never made him lose heart. Harry, as much as his friends, had tried to warn Juana of what lay before her. He spoke Spanish like a native, so she could have no excuse for misunderstanding him. Jack Molloy thought that words conveyed little to a girl whose life had been bounded by convent walls; he thought she listened to Harry, yet, through her inexperience, formed no mental picture of the hardships and the alarms lying in wait for a lady travelling with Wellington’s army. She insisted that she would enjoy the life very much. No qualms shook her; she knew no virginal shrinking; when she and Harry were pronounced man and wife, she looked up at him trustingly, her eyes quite unshadowed. Johnny Kincaid saw that look, and his smile was more twisted than ever, but he was the first to step forward and wish the bride good luck.
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    No honeymoon for this bride; no driving away in a chaise-and-four, with the wedding-guests waving farewell, and corded trunks full of bride-clothes piled high on the roof. One small portmanteau contained the few necessaries which had been procured for Juana at Elvas, and one small tent was her first home. She and Harry walked to it by moonlight through the silent camp, when they rose from the wedding feast which the officers of Harry’s regiment had given in their honour. Juana leaned lightly on Harry’s arm, and felt it trembling. When they reached his tent, he would have trimmed the lamp which hung there, but Juana said no, that was her work. She stood on tiptoe to do it, absorbed in this first wifely duty. He watched her, wondering at her, amused by the little serious air she had. The lamplight filled the tent; Juana took off her cloak, and folded it, and laid it neatly away; and