Dark Angel Read Online Free PDF Page A

love him enough."
    It was more than Caroline had confided in all the months of their friendship, but Adela merely nodded in her quiet way. Caroline knew Adela had seen little of her own husband since the start of the war, for he had joined one of the bands of guerrilleros opposing the French, but at least Adela did not doubt her love for him. On the other hand, Adela had been forced to cope with the ravages of war while Caroline was still living in the relative comfort of her lodgings in Lisbon.
    "I'm sorry," Caroline said, getting to her feet. "I didn't mean to be morbid." She went to a low shelf against the wall and began collecting dishes for the midday meal. Adela smiled and for a moment looked like the young woman she was. As she set the earthenware bowls out on the table, Caroline wondered how much she herself had aged in the past three months. She had long since ceased looking in her battered mirror save to be sure her face was clean, but she could feel how dry her skin had become, and the looseness of her gown told her she had grown as thin as everyone else in the village.
    "When spring comes, the army will begin to march again," Adela said, returning to the fire.
    "Which one?" Caroline asked with a dry smile.
    Adela grinned. "Both. But surely one of the English officers will see you to safety."
    Caroline nodded, though she knew even the most chivalrous soldier would not be able to leave his regiment in order to return a woman and child to Lisbon. She and Emily might find protection traveling with the army. Many other women did, though they were wives, not widows. But even if she managed in some way to reach Lisbon, what then? Her money was virtually gone and Jared's family would have nothing to do with her. If she returned to England, she would be forced to rely on her brother's charity—not a pleasant prospect. What worried her more, though, was that the army itself would never come within miles of Acquera, and all they would see were foraging parties from both sides. Some of these men might be polite and orderly, leaving receipts for what they took, but most would simply take what they could get. And in addition to food and livestock, that might include women.
    Caroline pushed some loosened strands back into the straggling knot in which her hair was confined. She was no longer the girl Jared had married, nor even the foolish young woman who had so recklessly tried to plead with Adam five years ago. She had traveled from Lisbon to northern Spain in the dead of winter, when everyone claimed it could not be done. She had nursed Jared, and watched him die, and buried him. She had seen to it that neither she nor Emily starved. Somehow, she would manage.
    A cry from the baby ended her reflections. While Adela coped with her youngest child's demand for food, Caroline spooned the stew into the bowls and called the children in from the garden. They fell upon the food with enthusiasm, scarcely seeming to notice that the stew contained no meat and few enough vegetables. Adela had a genius for using herbs to create savory dishes out of virtually nothing.
    Emily seemed to have forgot her disappointment over the stream. When she and Caroline at last left for their own cottage, she skipped happily over the rough cobblestones of Acquera's single street, stopping to call greetings to friends or to pet some of the goats that had survived the winter. Caroline smiled and nodded at acquaintances. When she had first arrived, the villagers had viewed her with a mixture of suspicion and hostility, but the trials of the past months had done much to destroy any sense that she was different from them.
    Though it was still afternoon, the sun had drifted behind a bank of clouds and there was a chill in the air. The cold never seemed to bother Emily, but Caroline could not grow used to it. Wondering if the fire had gone out, she opened the door of the cottage, abandoned when its owners fled south the previous summer, that she and Emily now