Winter Dreams Read online

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Winter Dreams

  A Signet Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2004 by Sandra Heath

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

  http://www.penguinputnam.com

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-1004-8

  A SIGNET BOOK®

  Signet Books first published by The Signet Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  SIGNET and the “S” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Electronic edition: October, 2004

  Chapter One

  Judith shadowed Daniel through the dark gardens of the British ambassador’s house in the leafy Lisbon suburb of Buenos Ayres, where lived the diplomatic corps of many countries. The March night was chill as she slipped along a newly graveled path between clipped myrtle hedges topped with topiary pyramids. A sea mist had crept up out of the Tagus, from the shores of which the Portuguese capital and its environs spread over seven hills.

  Beneath her velvet evening cloak, Judith wore a spangled yellow sarcenet dinner gown, and there was a heavy black lace veil over her head to hide the diamond comb in her rich brown curls. Such fine clothes made her particularly aware of the need for circumspection if, as she suspected, Daniel was about to go into Lisbon.

  Pausing at the postern in the high wall, she watched him hail one of the many hooded, two-mule calashes that were to be found in the area. A dim corner lantern shone upon his fair hair and untanned complexion, so very Anglo-Saxon in this southern land of dark eyes and raven hair. It was sad that the long bitterness between them now forced her to address him as Lord Penventon, but he had never forgiven her for spurning him.

  Tonight he too was wearing the clothes in which he’d dined at the Residence. He was utterly peerless in his black velvet coat, white silk breeches, stockings, and buckled black shoes.

  His romantically handsome looks, at once strong yet sensitive, still caused her a sharp pang of heartbreak, and she marveled that one of England’s most desirable, eligible, and wealthy aristocrats should remain unmarried. He was thirty-five now, and known as a man of bravery who did not shrink from the courage and passion of his convictions. He was also sensuous, tender, considerate, and adored by women—yet there was no Lady Penventon. Oh, his name had been linked with many, but there hadn’t been anything that might be termed serious in the twelve years since the former Miss Judith Nicholls, then a naïve and impressionable eighteen, had so foolishly spurned him in favor of Richard Callard. Foolishly indeed, for Richard had soon revealed himself to be a heartless rakehell and harsh husband.

  Judith’s existence had been filled with regret ever since, as she’d been only briefly infatuated with the dashing man of the world who had merely laid siege to her for a wager; she, of course, knew nothing of the hundred guineas that rested upon her submission. She had been silly, headstrong, and completely taken in by an older man who seemed so much more exciting and attractive than Daniel, with whom she had been linked until then. It had always been her belief that Daniel only courted her because their fathers wished them to marry. Although she thought she loved him, her proud spirit had rebelled. Richard had seemed the ideal means through which to show Daniel—and her father—that she was her own woman. She had never meant it to go as far as it did, but also hadn’t reckoned with her furious father finding out about the dalliance. Richard was forced to utter his wedding vows with a shotgun jabbing between his shoulder blades, a humiliation for which he punished her ever afterward. Throughout that wretched marriage she had known she truly loved Daniel after all; she still loved him all these years later. Richard’s well-deserved demise in a duel nine months ago, on the last day of June 1805, had not changed anything. The gulf between Daniel and her was as wide today as ever, and it was all her doing.

  But that was all over and done with, she thought, again forcing herself to concentrate on the present. Misgivings had tormented her for a week now, ever since Daniel had arrived in Portugal. He had brought with him various government dispatches, as well as the new attaché to replace her twin brother, Jamie, at the British embassy. But a third man, Louis O’Reilly, son of a Breton mother and a sailor from Cork, had come ashore as well. A conspiratorial air now pervaded the embassy, and Judith’s sixth sense warned that O’Reilly’s arrival meant peril for Jamie.

  They were all guests at the Residence, as the British ambassador’s house was called, and her former intimacy with Daniel still made her sensitive to his moods and ways, so much so that she could no more have stayed meekly behind tonight than she could have flown. Her clairvoyant bond with Jamie was such that even had she not been visiting she would have sensed he was in danger. Every nerve tingled with foreboding that something dreadful was going to happen before the Falmouth packet ship, Lord Auckland, sailed the day after tomorrow, taking Jamie and her home to England.

  As Daniel’s calash drove off, she emerged through the postern into the street. Another calash was already approaching, for they plied for hire constantly. She didn’t hesitate to hail it, or to instruct the postilion to follow the other vehicle. The second calash was closed as much against the slight chill of the spring night as against the likelihood of bandidos, and it smelled disagreeably of goat—or at least some far from aromatic creature. It pulled away from the Residence, taking her she knew not where in Lisbon. But for Jamie she was prepared to risk life and limb.

  As she sat back on the rough upholstery she knew that if she’d had any sense at all tonight, she’d at least have brought Josefa, her Portuguese maid, with her. Most of all, she wished Rachel Woolridge were beside her now. Rachel had been her dear friend since school days in Cheltenham, but had been in Jamaica for six years now, on her uncle’s plantation near Kingston. Rachel’s temperament was perfect for an expedition such as this, but their friendship was now confined to reams of letters. r />
  She followed Daniel for two miles to Bairro Alto, the city’s old upper town, and now found herself among narrow and precipitous streets. Most of Lisbon had once been a colorful, impossible jumble, but the catastrophic earthquake of 1755 had resulted in great destruction. The lower town close to the quays had been worst affected, but was now rebuilt as a splendid example of eighteenth-century planning and architecture, with magnificent avenues and squares. Bairro Alto, however, remained the labyrinth it had always been.

  But as she looked through the calash’s slatted blinds at a wrought-iron lantern over a shabby doorway, something took place that demonstrated just how close a rapport she had with her twin. Suddenly the city scene seemed to disappear, and instead she was looking at the Residence’s brilliant red-and-gold salon. Jamie, smiling, was nodding at Lord Robert Fitzgerald. “Certainly, Ambassador, a game of billiards would be most diverting.” The gentlemen were all adjourning to the billiard room in order to enjoy brandy and political discussion without the hindrance of polite female conversation. The incongruous scene disappeared after a few seconds, and once again she saw the streets of Lisbon. She wasn’t in the least alarmed or perturbed by the vision—throughout her life she had experienced random glimpses into her twin’s world. Sometimes the oddest things came to her. Jamie, on the other hand, possessed little or no sixth sense, for which he was frankly relieved.

  The calash drove on through streets Judith had never seen before. It was Lent and the only premises still open were the occasional disreputable tavern or coffee house prepared to defy the Church. There were some lanterns and street lamps, and a sprinkling of candlelit windows, but otherwise everything was in darkness. From the tops of Lisbon’s seven hills it was possible in daytime to admire panoramic views south over the city to the sparkling Tagus, which was an inland sea up to nine miles wide at this point, and always crowded with shipping. After dark, however, the pastel and white buildings, mostly early seventeenth century, seemed to close in over the cobbled streetways. Dense shadows amplified sound, so that her calash rattled loudly on the ancient cobbles, as if trying to alert Daniel he was being followed. Only too conscious of the seediness of her surroundings, Judith began to wish she had not come out on her own.

  Daniel’s calash suddenly turned right from the particularly steep hill up which they had been toiling into a transverse street—narrow, ramshackle, and ill paved—that seemed almost level after the long climb. Through the blinds, Judith glimpsed the name on a wall in peeling paint, Rua do Calvário. Everything was closed and shuttered, excepting one tavern outside which Judith’s calash came to an abrupt, and in her opinion unwise, halt. Her heart quickened, and she glanced around uneasily, feeling sure there were bandidos watching her from the corners and alleys. Why had her postilion stopped here? Surely Daniel wouldn’t come to a street quite as shabby as this?

  She sat well back from the window. A guitar played in the tavern, and a woman sang a particularly sad folk song. Through the open door Judith saw a crowded, candlelit room, its walls covered with traditional blue-and-white tiles depicting a scene of grape harvesting. The guitarist was young and brooding, his eyes fixed upon the pretty singer, who was dressed entirely in black. She stood with her head back and her eyes closed as she sang to her rapt audience.

  The only person not interested in the music was a large, burly friar in a rope-belted habit. His cowl shaded his face as he devoured the last of a plate of bread and cheese, and drank deeply from a large tumbler of wine. No slave to Lent he. Suddenly he pushed his plate away, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and rose to his feet, revealing himself to be unexpectedly tall and wide. Her dear late father would have said that he was built like a brick privy.

  The friar looked out at the calash as if he had perceived her behind the blinds. A wall lamp revealed his eyes for a moment: sharp, shrewd, and shifty. This was no jolly Friar Tuck. Judith became quite frightened as he came to the tavern doorway, but he halted on the threshold, still regarding the calash with what seemed like deep suspicion. She knew with a start that she had seen him somewhere before. Yet there were literally thousands of friars in Portugal, and she hadn’t had dealings with any of them. As she looked, he calmly slipped his hands into his sleeves, then walked away along the street, his head bowed piously.

  The feeling that she knew him persisted. Her fear subsided a little now that he was leaving, and she leaned forward to watch him. A piece of paper fluttered from his habit and fell unnoticed to the cobbles. She wondered what it was, then brought herself sharply back to the matter in hand. She was here to follow Daniel, not watch enigmatic friars!

  The other people in the tavern were too intent upon the singer to pay any attention to what was happening in the street, so she cautiously opened the carriage door and leaned out to see if Daniel’s calash was nearby. The March days were warm in Lisbon, but the nights were still cool enough for her breath to be visible. She was aware of the smell of dried cod, which seemed to pervade everything. There were said to be three hundred and sixty-five ways of cooking it, one for each day of the year, and as she craned her neck to see the friar, she did not find that impossible to believe. The mist was not thick in the Rua do Calvário, so she was able to observe the heavy-set friar begin ascending a steep flight of steps between two tenements. Of Daniel’s calash there was no sign at all. Perplexed, she drew back inside. If the other calash had driven on, why on earth had her postilion stopped here? She slid swiftly along the seat to look out of the other window. To her relief, Daniel’s calash was just a little further ahead on the opposite side of the street. Daniel himself had just alighted; she felt that he had waited until the friar had gone.

  He paid little attention to her calash as he crossed the street toward the steps. She was obliged to slide back to her original place in order to see what he did next. For a moment she thought he was going to follow the friar, but he walked past the steps toward a house that she had not particularly noticed before. Like every other building in the nondescript street, it was four stories high, with elegant wrought-iron balconies, and stood directly on the cobbles. It seemed almost as shabby as its neighbors, but not quite, for Judith noticed it had recently been painted. The shutters were closed, but lights could just be made out behind them all. Whoever lived there did not shy from extravagance.

  On the spur of the moment, Judith opened the calash door and climbed down. Her elderly Portuguese postilion, small, swarthy, and wearing clothes that were a little too large for him, twisted around on his mule to give her an inquiring look. She put a finger to her lips, then caught up her skirts to hurry into a doorway across the road, a little behind Daniel’s calash, from where she could see the house more directly. Daniel had halted in front of the house, but then from the corner of her eye Judith noticed a stealthy movement by the steps. The friar was there again, and appeared to be observing Daniel as keenly as she was. What should she do? Warn Daniel? Even as the thought crossed her mind she remembered Jamie. For his sake she had to stay silent and simply witness what happened.

  She didn’t have long to wait. Daniel knocked at the door of the house, and almost immediately shutters were flung back at tall French windows on the second floor. Light flooded out as a woman in a décolleté scarlet silk gown came to lean over the balcony, look down and blow him a kiss. Judith could see that she was very beautiful, with a curvaceous figure and long black hair that cascaded past her bared shoulders. Then the woman withdrew; moments later the door opened and she came out to fling her arms around Daniel’s neck. He pulled her close, and they kissed passionately, their bodies cleaving in a way that told Judith this was far from their first meeting. Daniel pulled away, glanced around rather uneasily, then ushered the woman into the house and closed the door.

  Judith felt more foolish than ever before in her life. An assignation! She had been so preoccupied with fears for her twin that she had quite overlooked the obvious reason why any gentleman would come out alone at such an hour. Her sense of utter foolishness was tinged wit
h heartbreak. She had no right to feel anything at all, for she’d had her chance with Daniel and thrown it away. But she simply couldn’t help herself. Was he in love with this woman, whom he could surely only have met within the last week? That was all the time he’d been in Lisbon! Was it a great amour, or a passing liaison that would be forgotten as soon as he left Lisbon again? Please let it be transient, Judith thought, for she could not bear it if he found true love at last.

  The friar emerged from the bottom of the steps, his cowl still raised and his hands thrust into his sleeves. There remained something oddly familiar about him, perhaps something in his gait. He advanced to the middle of the street and looked up at the balcony, which remained brightly illuminated. Daniel and his ladylove appeared in the room, where Judith could just make out the hangings of a rather old four-poster bed. They paused to kiss again, then the woman leaned back teasingly in his arms and began to untie his lace-edged neckcloth. Judith heard her kittenish laughter as he bent his head to kiss her shoulder. Then the woman moved from his embrace to close the windows and shutters. Judith did not need to see more to know what happened next.

  “Be sensible, Judith Callard,” she whispered. “He’s not for you, nor ever will be again.” But tears stung her eyes all the same.

  The friar looked toward her again, and this time he plainly knew she was there. He hesitated, as if he would come over, then to her relief walked quickly away in the opposite direction and disappeared into a swirl of mist that had crept over the far end of the street.

  The singing ended suddenly in the tavern; there was a burst of enthusiastic clapping and cheering that seemed to racket through the otherwise quiet spring night. As the applause died away into a low murmur of conversation, Judith hurried back to her calash, then on impulse went to retrieve the piece of paper the friar had dropped. By the light from the tavern she was able to see that far from being some mysterious secret document, it was only a handbill announcing tomorrow night’s farewell recital at Lisbon’s opera house, the Teatro de São Carlos. The renowned prima donna, Madame Bella Barnardi, would be performing a program specially chosen for Lent—recitatives and airs from Handel’s Messiah, and solemn works by Telemann, Gluck, and Mozart.