The Soldier's Rebel Lover

Chapter Four

Isabella peeled an orange and carefully separated it into segments. Xavier had breakfasted hours ago, setting off on his business trip to Pamplona before the sun had risen. Across the large, ornately laid table in the breakfast room, Finlay had finished his substantial selection of ham, cheese and bread, and was taking a second cup of coffee. He was chatting to Consuela about the latest French fashions. Isabella knew nothing about such things, and so could not tell if he was extremely knowledgeable or merely extremely plausible. Her sister-in-law was more animated than Isabella had ever seen her. Several times she had broken into a ripple of girlish laughter. Now, she was reading him a mock lecture, wagging her pretty beringed finger at him and fluttering her long lashes. Consuela never teased Xavier like this, but then Xavier, though handsome, had not a fraction of Finlay’s charm and even less interest than Isabella in women’s fripperies.

She ate a piece of her orange. The fruit was at its best at this time of year, succulently sweet, rather like Consuela. And that, Isabella reprimanded herself, was a shrewish remark quite unworthy of her.

She slanted a look at Finlay. He caught her eye and flashed her a smile. She looked down at her plate. It had seemed complicit, that smile. As if they had a secret. As if they knew something Consuela did not. A flutter of nerves sent her back to her coffee cup. She took a reviving sip, reminding herself that Finlay had no grounds for whatever suspicions he was nurturing. If he challenged her again about playing the demure lady, she would invoke the need to behave as her brother expected her to while under his roof. And in the meantime, she would pursue her own suspicions regarding him.

‘Xavier tells me that you are taking Mr Urquhart on a tour of the wine cellars,’ Consuela said, getting to her feet. ‘That was generous of you. They are horrible, Mr Urquhart, cold and I am sure swarming with rats. It is no wonder my husband is reluctant to go down there. I only wonder that Isabella is so fond of them. Now you will excuse me, if you please. I must go and tend to my son.’

‘So your brother is uncomfortable in his own wine cellars,’ Finlay said, closing the door behind Consuela. ‘That explains why he was so easily persuaded to allow his sister to spend time in the company of a mere wine merchant.’

‘It is not the dark or the rats Xavier fears, it is the fact that the cellars are so far underground. He has never liked them.’

‘And yet you, according to the lovely Señora Romero, are very fond of them.’

‘I don’t share my brother’s temperament. I have been wondering, Mr Urquhart—Finlay—what it was that made you turn to the trading of wine, when you left the army?’

‘It is a lucrative business. As a canny Scot, that was reason enough.’

‘With the right contacts I am sure that it is indeed lucrative. I wonder, you see, since you told me that you had not been home to England—I beg your pardon, Scotland—for so many years, I wonder how you have managed to establish sufficient customers so quickly.’

Isabella took a sip of coffee, but kept her eyes on Finlay. Did his eyes flicker? Did his fingers tighten on his cup? She could not be sure.

‘I’m wondering,’ he replied, ‘if it is any of your business. Are you worried that I’ll sell your brother’s wine to someone who has not the palate to tell the difference between your fine Rioja and the stuff they drink from the barrel in the village bodegas? Are you thinking I should test the colour of a man’s blood before I sell to him? Blue—yes, you can have as much as you like. Red—no, sorry, laddie, not good enough.’

He was still sitting, seemingly relaxed, at the table, but there was an edge to his voice that should have warned her to drop the subject. Isabella popped another segment of orange into her mouth. ‘It is not a question of blood, Mr—Finlay. It is a question of money.’

‘They all too often go hand in hand, I find, señorita. One begets the other. Lack of one tends to mean lack of the other.’

‘But you are the son of a farmer, and yet you became a major in Wellington’s army, and now you are a wealthy merchant. You are, as I seem to remember you telling me before, the— I forget the English phrase.’

‘The exception that proves the rule.’

Isabella nodded. ‘That was it.’

‘The Jock Upstart, is what Wellington calls—called me. A man who does not know his allotted place in the scheme of things.’

‘The Jock Upstart,’ Isabella repeated slowly. ‘Ah, I see, because it rhymes with Urquhart. That is clever. Though also condescending.’

‘Add in licentious, ruthless and charming, and you have encapsulated the essence of the Duke of Wellington, taking the fact that he is on the whole a brilliant strategist as given.’

Isabella raised her brows. ‘You don’t like him very much.’

‘No, but then he does not like me very much, either. It doesn’t stop him thinking me useful.’

‘You use the present tense, I think?’ Isabella asked sharply. ‘But you have left the army...’

This time she was sure she saw a flicker of unease in his eyes, though he smiled blandly. ‘Useful in terms of supplying him with the best wine in Spain. If your brother will sell it to me.’

Isabella could not argue with the sense of this, though still, she was sure he was not telling the whole truth. ‘You know, for a man who is so successful, you are very—I don’t know, contradictory? You look down your nose at the Duke of Wellington and at my brother, and at me, too, I think, and you say to yourself, you are our equal, if not our superior. But you don’t really believe it.’

‘What precisely do you mean by that?’

She had no idea what she had meant, save to rile him into betraying himself. He was sitting perfectly still, but his expression was forbidding. She ought to back down, but she was exceeding tired of biting her tongue and eating her words and quelling her so unladylike thoughts. ‘You don’t realise how lucky you are,’ Isabella said. ‘You are a man.’

‘I’m lucky because I’m a man? You’ll have to explain yourself a bit more, if you please.’

On the contrary, what she ought to do was keep her mouth closed. Isabella pushed her plate away with some force. ‘It is obvious. When you walk into a room, people do not think, there is that—what was it?—Jock Upstart? They don’t think about your family tree or your bloodlines or any of those things. They think, there is a man who knows who he is. A confident man. A man who commands respect as well as admiration. Do you think my brother would be taking such pains to cultivate you if he thought anything else?’

‘I’m still not getting your point, lass.’

Exasperated, she jumped to her feet and threw back the curtains that kept the sunlight Consuela dreaded from the room. ‘You are a man! Do you not understand, that is the most salient point! You can do what you want with your life, make of it what you want. I am a mere woman. All I have is my bloodline and my family tree. When I walk into a room, people think, there is Señorita Romero, sister of Xavier Romero, whose dowry would make an excellent addition to our family coffers.’

‘That’s not what I think when you walk into a room, I can tell you, and I’d be very surprised indeed if it was the first thing any man thought.’

‘If you are going to mention my derrière again...’

His low chuckle made her turn away from the window. The wicked look was back in his eyes. ‘There, that’s the problem, you see. When you walk into a room, you do not make a man want to treat you like a lady. Well, not this man, at any event. And that was a compliment, incidentally, just in case you weren’t sure.’

Isabella folded her arms. ‘You make it very difficult to argue with you.’

‘I wasn’t aware that we’ve been arguing.’

‘I think that behind the bravado, you have a very low opinion of yourself, Major Finlay Urquhart.’

‘No, Señorita Romero, I leave that to other people.’

‘You don’t. That is what we were arguing about.’ Smiling triumphantly, Isabella got to her feet. ‘You see, contrary to popular opinion, I am not just a pretty face,’ she said, patting Finlay lightly on the cheek. ‘I will meet you at the winery in half an hour, Mr Urquhart, and you shall have your tour of the cellars. Although I am sure an acknowledged expert such as yourself should be giving me the tour.’

She left that remark hanging in the air as she swept from the room.

* * *

The entrance to the wine cellars was through a huge trapdoor set in the floor of the main pressing room. The heavy oak and iron hinges were lifted by means of a pulley that Isabella attached to the ringed handle. Finlay found it turned very easily, revealing a steep set of stone steps disappearing into the gloom below.

‘This is the original entrance. There is another, much wider one, cut when oak casks were introduced to the process, but I thought you would like to see this,’ Isabella said.

She was wearing a long cloak over her cotton gown. The thick walls of the winery’s working buildings kept the rooms cool. The air coming up from the cellar entrance was chilly. Finlay was glad of his coat. Isabella lit two lamps and handed him one. ‘Be careful—the steps are very worn in places.’

His instinct was to insist on going first, but he managed to restrain himself and follow in her wake, just as he had done on the hillside track two years previously. The staircase was narrow enough for him to touch the rock on either side. In places as they descended, the arched roof was no more than a few inches from the top of his head. Isabella moved sure-footedly, swiftly enough for her cloak to flutter out behind her. Señora Romero was in the right of it; Isabella was obviously no stranger to this place.

As they stopped at the bottom of the steps and Finlay lifted his lamp high, he whistled. ‘What a place for a wean to play.’

‘Wane?’

‘Wean, bairn, child,’ he clarified.

‘Ah, yes. When I was a little girl I loved to come here.’

‘I’ll bet you did. It’s absolutely cavernous.’

‘Oh, this is just the beginning. Wait till you see.’

The passageway led off in both directions. They turned to the right through an arched entranceway into a wider corridor, one side of which was stacked high with oak barrels. The individual cellars themselves led off the passage, each with vaulted ceilings cut directly out of the limestone. Dusty bottles, some shrouded with cobwebs, lay in wooden racks, stacked along every wall and set in islands on the stone floors.

‘Each cellar is devoted to a different vintage,’ Isabella told him, pointing to the marked boards. ‘Farther along there are some very old vintages, indeed. This year’s wine is still maturing in the casks, which are stored on the other side of the cellars.’

The lamps made shadows on the pale limestone. As they made their way farther into the cellars the rooms became smaller, the ceilings lower. ‘So you and your brother played here as children, then,’ Finlay said, looking round one of the smallest rooms, where the bottles were encrusted by a thick film of dust.

‘I told you, Xavier has a fear of very small spaces, he rarely comes down here if he can help it.’

‘And you—you are not afraid of the rats, señorita? I’d imagine there are plenty down here.’

‘They are more afraid of me than I of them.’

There seemed to be another archway at the end of the room, smaller than the rest, and the gap covered by one of the tall wine racks. ‘What’s through here?’ Finlay asked.

‘Nothing. It is blocked off.’ Isabella put her lamp down on a small table in the centre of the room, and after a few moments’ pondering in front of one of the racks, selected a bottle. Blowing the dust off the neck, she produced a corkscrew from a cupboard built into the table and expertly opened the bottle, sniffing the cork delicately. ‘It is far too cold, of course, and it should be allowed to breathe, but this is one of our better wines, I think you’ll find.’

Two glasses were produced from the same cupboard. They sat down on the stools by the table, and Isabella poured the wine. ‘Salud!’

‘Salud!’ The wine was soft and fruity, to Finlay’s untutored palate. ‘It’s very nice,’ he said, taking a second appreciative sip.

Isabella laughed. ‘I hope you manage to be a little more enthusiastic with Xavier.’

‘It’s extremely nice?’ he suggested, grinning.

Isabella picked up her glass. ‘You must first talk to him about the nose,’ she said, swirling the wine around before sniffing. ‘So this one, it is sweet, like cherry, do you smell it?’

Finlay nodded, mimicking her actions, though his eyes were on Isabella. She was explaining the layers of taste now, swirling the wine around in her mouth. There was a cobweb clinging to her hair. Her eyes really were golden, like a tiger’s. And her mouth— He had an absurd wish to be the wine swirling around in her mouth. Her lips would taste of it. What had she said, cherries? Yes, her lips would taste of cherries, and...

‘You are not tasting, Mr—Finlay.’

He took a sip of wine. ‘Cherries,’ he said.

‘And?’

‘Strawberries,’ he answered, looking at her mouth.

‘Really? I do not...’

Finlay leaned over to touch his lips to hers. ‘Strawberries,’ he said. ‘Definitely.’ He tucked back a silky strand of hair from her face and pressed his mouth to the pulse behind her ear. ‘Lavender?’

‘My soap.’

Her voice was low, breathy. Her fingers touched his hair. He pressed fluttering kisses down the column of her neck, then placed his lips on the pulse at her throat. ‘Lavender.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed.

He lifted his head. She was looking at him, her lips slightly parted, tense, waiting for what he would do next. Nothing, was what he ought to do. He bent his head and kissed her again. Her lips clung to his. Her fingers curled into the sleeve of his coat. He was trying to muster the courage to stop when her tongue touched his.

Finlay slid his arms around her, under her cloak. Isabella swayed towards him on her stool, her mouth pressed to his. She tasted so sweet. Wine and strawberries and a sizzling heat that sent the blood surging to his groin. Their kisses became wilder, deeper. Her fingers tangled in his hair, fluttered over his cheek, curled into his shoulders. He flattened his hands over the narrow span of her back. He could feel her shoulder blades through the cotton of her gown, the complicated strings and boning of her corsets. He licked along her plump lower lip, kissing each corner of her mouth.

‘You taste delightful,’ he said. ‘Delicious. Like vintage wine.’

She kissed him deeply, her tongue tangling with his. Fast learner. Very fast. He could not keep up with her. ‘Vintage kisses,’ Finlay said. ‘If only they could be bottled, you would have an elixir beyond price.’

He kissed her eyelids. He kissed her nose. He kissed her mouth again. And again. And again. Their knees bumped as they tried to get closer. He was hard. It would not do at all to get any closer. It was all he wanted. He kissed her again. She gave a tiny whimper that sent his pulses racing.

Slowly, he lifted his head and let her go. Her mouth was dark pink. Her eyes were wide, dark. He could feel the flush of passion on his cheeks, and lower down—Finlay shifted uncomfortably on the stool. ‘I don’t expect you’ll believe me if I tell you I’d resolved not to do that,’ he said.

‘We could blame it on the wine.’

‘We’ve not even finished one glass yet.’

Isabella picked hers up and swallowed the contents in a single gulp. ‘That was sacrilege,’ she said, wiping her lips.

‘Then, we must not waste a drop.’ Finlay licked the wine from the back of her hand. She shuddered. He didn’t mean to, but somehow his lips found hers again, and somehow they were kissing again, and this time they were very different kisses. Dark and hot, tongues stroking, touching, thrusting. The kind of kisses that demanded more. The stools clattered to the stone floor as they stood, pressing their bodies hard against each other, still kissing, and kissing and kissing, until Finlay knocked against the table, and the wine bottle fell over and the precious wine began to spill out over the wood and drip onto the stone floor.

He grabbed it and set it upright. There was less than a third left.

‘Now, that really is sacrilege,’ Isabella said.

‘Or a warning. I should not have— I did not mean— Have you any idea how ravishing you look?’ Finlay groaned. ‘What am I thinking!’

‘I sincerely hope that it is not leading to an apology.’

He laughed drily. ‘I’m not sorry, though I should be.’

‘Good, because neither am I.’ Isabella was tidying her hair, concentrating on adjusting the fastenings of her cloak, pouring the last of the wine. Finally, she met his eyes. ‘I wanted you to kiss me. I wanted—after the last time, I wanted to get it right.’

‘You got it a trifle too right.’

‘Did I?’

‘I’d have thought, from the way I couldn’t keep my hands off you, that it was obvious.’ Finlay brushed the cobweb from her hair. ‘But I should not have taken advantage.’

She flinched away from him, the light dying from her eyes. ‘You think I kissed you because you wanted me to, and not because I wanted to?’

‘No, I don’t. You really are a prickly—but you probably have cause. Look at me. Please.’ He touched her cheek gently. ‘The fact is that I’ve a deal of experience in these things and you have none. To put it bluntly, I am not a seducer of virgins.’

She coloured, but held his gaze. ‘It was just a few kisses, Finlay.’

He laughed softly. ‘There, you see, your innocence is showing if that’s what you think. Those were the kind of kisses to keep a man awake at night, wanting more. Now, shall we drink this excellent wine and get on with the rest of the tour?’

* * *

She took him back through the wine vaults to the barrel vaults, and began to explain the process of ageing. The cellars were so familiar to her that Isabella could lead the way without a lamp if necessary. The questions Finlay was asking were intelligent enough. Some wine merchants knew more, true, but not all. Their field of expertise was in the tasting. Had Finlay been teasing her when he had pretended to know nothing of the nose? Or flirting? Back up the stairs to the main winery, she took him through to the coopering shed. Here he surprised her, clearly knowing a great deal more than she of the process.

‘From my father,’ he told her when she asked. ‘He learned from his father, who most likely learned from his. There has always been a still in our family for the whisky.’

Isabella perched on the top of a finished barrel to watch as he ran his hands over the staves waiting to be formed into another barrel. ‘Will you take it over from your father, then—the farm, making the whisky?’

Finlay turned his attention to one of the finished barrels. ‘I used to joke about it in the mess, my wee Highland hame.’ He picked up a coopering hammer. ‘Some of them—the other officers, I mean—to hear them talk, you’d think I was born in a sheep pen. They think everyone north of Glasgow lives off porridge and neeps—that’s turnip, which I know you have here.’ He grinned. ‘I used to come up with some fine tall tales for them.’

‘Tell me what it is really like,’ Isabella said. ‘Your family farm, and the place where they live—it is by the sea, yes? You said before that your father has a fishing boat.’

‘He does. Nothing fancy, just a single sail. They are built wide and shallow where I come from, not like the Spanish fishing boats, and they catch very different fish.’

‘And the farm?’

‘We call it a croft. Our farmers are crofters, which means they do a bit of everything. The croft sits up on the hill above the village. The house is long and low, with a thatched roof. Half of it forms the barn for the beasts. We have harsh winters, and it rains a lot. Warm rain in the summer, freezing in the winter. I don’t miss that at all.’

‘And your sisters, do they live in the farm—croft? I think you said you had four?’

‘Three. It can feel like five or six mind, when they are all in the same room. Mhairi, Sheena and Jean. They are all married now, with their own crofts, and have a gaggle of bairns between them.’

He talked of them all with obvious affection. As she listened, Isabella couldn’t help comparing his childhood with her own. It had been harsh, there was no doubt about it, though he did not dwell on it, but they were obviously a loving family.

‘You have been back then, since the war?’ she asked. ‘I think you told me it had been many years since you had been home.’

Finlay’s smile faded. ‘Aye, I’ve been back.’

‘After such a long time away, you must have found it very changed.’

He looked troubled. ‘No, it was almost exactly the same.’

‘And your family, they were all well?’

‘Aye.’ He put the hammer down with a sigh. ‘They were all very well, and very pleased to see me, and I—ach, it doesn’t matter.’

‘It obviously does.’

‘What I meant was, I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘I can see that from the way you are scowling at me.’

‘I don’t scowl.’

She wrinkled her face into a fair imitation of his expression. ‘What is that, then?’

Finlay was forced to laugh. ‘What it means is, when I say I don’t want to talk about something, I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘After the war,’ Isabella said, picking her words carefully, ‘I found it very difficult to go back to being Señorita Romero again. I felt as if I was acting a part.’

‘You look to me as if you’re still acting. Not now, but with other people, your brother—’

‘Who thinks it’s high time I was married,’ Isabella interrupted hurriedly. He was suspicious. It was imprudent of her to have embarked upon this comparison between them, but she had never been able to discuss how she felt before, and most likely would never be able to discuss it again. ‘Xavier is right,’ she continued. ‘I am much older than most Spanish brides, but I—I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘I am afraid Gabriel will be disappointed in his side of the bargain. He is a nice man. He is a perfect husband for me. Everyone thinks so. Perfect. Only I am not sure that I could be such a perfect wife. Or—or want to be. Do you understand what I mean?’

Finlay shrugged, picking up the hammer again, turning it over in his hand.

Deflated, Isabella slid down from the barrel. ‘Never mind.’

He caught her arm as she passed him. ‘I do understand.’ His smile was crooked. ‘I do. It’s what I thought I wanted, what I used to think about on the nights before a battle, when it seemed morning would never come. Going back to the croft. Taking over from my father. Settling down. It’s what I always thought I’d do, when peace came. Thing is, I never really thought peace would come, and now it’s here...’

‘You are not so sure anymore?’

He flinched. ‘That’s the problem,’ he said sadly. ‘It’s one thing I’m very sure of. I’m not cut out to be a crofter.’

‘So that is why you became a wine merchant?’ She waited, but he merely shrugged. ‘Do you miss the war, Finlay?’

‘Not exactly. Certainly not the bloodshed and the suffering.’

‘But the excitement of it. Knowing you made a difference, that your contribution was vital. Knowing that so many men relied on you. The responsibility.’ Isabella smiled. ‘And the danger.’

‘Aye. All of that. People don’t understand it, but the army has been my life.’

‘It was my life, too, for a time, during the occupation. I miss it, too, just as you do.’

‘Do you? Aye, I can see that you might, though it’s not the same.’

The empathy she was feeling trickled away. ‘Why not? Why is it not the same? Because I am a...’

‘For the love of— It has nothing to do with your being a woman, if that’s what you were about to say. What a chip on your shoulder you have,’ Finlay exclaimed. ‘It is not the same because I have spent my entire adult life in the army. I know nothing else, whereas you had a life before, and a life to come back to. The war here has been over two years. You must be accustomed to peacetime life by now.’

She clenched her fists and was about to retort angrily, when the incongruity of his remark struck her. ‘Your entire adult life has been in the military? You told me you left the army when Napoleon was sent to Elba, which was nearly two years ago, and since then you have been assiduously building up your wine business.’

Finlay waved his hand dismissively. ‘What I meant is that the army has dominated my life so much that it feels as if I have always been a soldier. And speaking of my new career,’ he said, looking at his watch, ‘it is high time we were getting back to change for dinner. It wouldn’t enhance my negotiating position with your brother if I were to insult him by having the bad manners to keep his wife waiting.’

* * *

In his room, taking a quick bath before dinner, Finlay cursed himself for a fool. What an eejit he’d been, to get caught out so easily. Luckily it had not been too costly a faux pas but he would have to be much more careful in future.

‘Aye, for example, please refrain from mentioning over dinner that you fought at Waterloo a matter of months ago, Finlay, there’s a good chap!’

The fair Isabella was as sharp as a tack, and he had once again allowed himself to be sidetracked by those big eyes of hers, and those luscious lips. He poured another jug of hot water over his head. He wasn’t doing her justice. Her kisses were delightful, sure enough, but it was her, Isabella herself, who intrigued him. She was an enigmatic mixture, and a fascinating creature. ‘And a gie clever one, you’d do well to remember, Finlay Urquhart.’

He’d recovered the situation, but only temporarily. Her suspicions had been aroused, which meant he had to be a step ahead of her by the morning.

He’d think of something. He always did. In the meantime, there were other, more delightful things to think of. Such as the fact that Isabella’s chamber was only a few doors down the corridor. Most likely she was taking a bath, too. Her hair would be all damp curls, clinging to her back. Her face would be flushed from the heat of the water. She’d be lying back as he was, her eyes closed, as his were. The water would be lapping at her breasts. There would be tantalising glimpses of her nipples through the suds. Her soapy body would be slippery to the touch, and when the bubbles burst as the water cooled, so much more would be revealed...