I was carried off to Brazil and I succeeded in maintaining the fiction there until I could arrange with the Captain of a British frigate to give my wife and myself passage to England. After a short spell there I persuaded another British Captain to take us across to Algeciras. From thence we came overland.'
Junot nodded. 'Tell me now about your wife.'
'Willingly. I had intended to. She is a most lovely creature but our present situation is a difficult one, and I would be grateful for your help.
'Her father died recently, so she is heir to a great inheritance and has returned to Lisbon to claim it. Naturally I have accompanied her, but now that Portugal is subject to France I could not come here as the Englishman her people supposed me to be when I married her in Brazil. For the moment we are keeping our marriage a secret and have been compelled temporarily to separate. She has returned to her family mansion; I have secured quarters at the Leao d'ouro. There is naught to prevent my calling on her frequently as her servants are aware that I was previously acquainted with, and enamoured, of her when she was in Persia and I was there as a member of Gardane's mission. We shall go about together and shortly let it be known that we intend to marry.'
'What an amusing farce! But the sooner your situation is regularised the better. Bring her to dine with us tomorrow. I will tell no-one but Laure your secret. She will be delighted to see you again, and both of us will look forward to meeting the lovely heiress you have captured.'
Roger happily accepted. For a while the two old friends talked on together then, having satisfactorily established his position in Lisbon, Roger took his departure.
He had known the vivacious Laure Junot, Duchesse d'Abrantes, when she had been Mademoiselle Permon. She received him with a radiant smile and made much of Lisala. Some thirty people sat down to the meal, most of them soldiers with whom Roger had served in past campaigns, and it proved a gay occasion. When he condoled with the Duchesse on the Emperor's not having made Junot a Marshal, she exclaimed :
'The ingratitude of the man! Of course, he is now "Sire" to everybody; but time was when to his face I used to call him "Puss-in-Boots". I am now writing my memoirs, though, so I'll pay him out with posterity.'
During the days that followed, all went well. Roger paid frequent visits to Lisala and, in front of her servants, she welcomed him more warmly on each occasion. It was soon clear to the de Pombal household that their mistress was having a hectic affaire with the handsome Colonel de Breuc; but while they might privately disapprove of this fraternisation with one of their conquerors, they were too well trained to show it.
Meanwhile, Lisala had summoned her steward and the family lawyers to a series of conferences. They had recently learned of the Marquis' death, but had heard only garbled accounts of it. All reports agreed that he had met his death in a fracas caused by an Englishman's attempt to abduct Lisala. Some said he had died as a result of a heart attack, others that he had been murdered by a mad slave, and others again that it was the Englishman who had killed him. But a two-month-old Brazilian news-sheet that had recently reached Lisbon gave an account of his funeral service in the Candelabra Church, so there could be no doubt that he was dead.
Fortunately for Lisala, practically the whole of the Portuguese Court had accompanied Don Joao to Brazil, so there remained in Lisbon no relatives or elderly, close friends of the family, who might have questioned her; and no-one suspected for a moment that M. le Colonel Chevalier de Breuc could be the Englishman mixed up in the affair.
Roger spent a lot of his time with his old comrades-in-arms, and had several more long conversations with Junot. The curly-haired Pro-Consul was confident that he could hold down the Portuguese, at least for the time being; but news kept coming in of further uprisings in Spain.
A week after Roger had landed, he wrote a long appreciation for Mr. Canning. In it he gave as much reliable information as he could gather about the areas in rebellion, and strongly advised the sending of representatives to the rebel leaders with a view to their arranging for the arrival of a British Expeditionary Force.
That night he rode out with his despatch to the deserted cove ten miles north of the city. Unfortunately, there was a high wind, and it was raining hard, so visibility was too poor for him to make out whether the sloop was lying offshore or if her Captain had decided that the weather made it too dangerous to keep the rendezvous. After waiting for three hours, he gave up and, soaked to the skin, returned to his inn.
All next day he was greatly worried, as it was possible that the sloop's failure to send a boat ashore might be due to her having been sunk or captured. If so, his only line of swift communication with England was cut, and it might be many weeks before he would be able to get to the Foreign Minister information, the use of which could give a new turn to the war in Britain's favour.
At night he again rode out to the bay. To his relief, he could discern Gadfly half a mile out and, presently, she sent a boat in to the beach. Lieutenant Higgins had come himself. Roger handed him the despatch and impressed upon him the importance of delivering it in London as a matter of the utmost urgency.
He was now free to give his attention solely to Lisala's affairs. Like men of the law the world over, the Portuguese attorneys were habitually dilatory. Normally, while their fees piled up, they would have taken many months to secure for Lisala an order of the Court that she was at liberty to deal with her father's estate.
To expedite matters, Roger sought Junot's help. Following the example of their Emperor, his representatives had become accustomed to taking swift decisions and asserting their authority to have them quickly carried out. Junot sent for the Chief Justice, told him curtly that he would be very displeased if Lisala's affairs were not settled within the next ten days, and that, should the Court rule against her, he would have those responsible clapped into prison.
It was an arbitrary pronouncement that ignored any pretence of maintaining justice. But in the lands the French had conquered they rode roughshod over every law. Feeling slightly guilty, but also a shade contemptuous, Roger watched the old Chief Justice submissively walk with bowed head from the palatial salon in which the resplendent Junot gave audience.
On June 20th, the Court met and, cowed by fear, gave the decision required of them. As Lisala's petition could hardly be challenged, they would almost certainly have done so in any case; but her right to dispose of her father's estate as she wished had been granted to her many months sooner than it otherwise would have been.
After the case had been heard, Roger accompanied Lisala back to the de Pombal mansion. Over a dinner a deux that evening, he said to her, 'Now, my love, that your business has been formally settled, I suggest that during the next few days you give detailed instructions to your steward about how you desire your property and revenues to be handled. Then I will devise a means by which we can return to England.'
'No,' she replied sharply. 'Why should we? I now see the Duchess almost every day, and she has been sweet to me. I find, too, that the French officers are much more amusing than your stodgy friends in London. We have ample money; the ground has now been made ready for us to announce our engagement, we will then go through another marriage ceremony and you can move in here and live with me, instead of our putting up any longer with making love at odd hours and infrequent intervals.'
An argument ensued. Having accomplished his mission, Roger was most averse to remaining in Portugal. More than ever he was anxious to settle down in the comfortable home that for so long he had been unable to occupy.