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thing, the general mood of the dancers and revelers, gentlemen and ladies alike, was gay and carefree. War and the possibility of disaster seemed the furthest topics from anyone’s mind. Perhaps many of the gentlemen were rejoicing in the fact that they were alive at all. Although some of the officers—and all the military gentlemen who had received invitations to the ball were officers—were in Lisbon on legitimate business, many of them were convalescents from the military hospitals there. Some were quite content to remain convalescent for as long as they could. Others chafed to be back with their regiments, back in the world where their duty lay.
    Such a man was the one who stood in a shadowed corner of the ballroom, a glass of wine in his hand, a look on his face that might have seemed morose to an uninformed observer but was in fact merely uncomfortable. He hated such entertainments and had been dragged protesting to this one by laughing comrades who had refused to take no for an answer. He felt utterly out of his depth, out of his milieu. Though the ballroom was crowded beyond comfort and though his corner was relatively secluded, he felt conspicuous. He looked determinedly and defiantly about him from time to time as if to confront those who were staring at him, only to find that no one was.
    It was the men at whom he glared. Had he looked at the ladies, he might have found that several were in fact giving him covert glances even if good breeding forbade them from staring. He was the sort of man at whom women often looked twice, though it would be difficult perhaps to explain why it was so.
    His uniform was without a doubt the least gorgeous at the ball. It had none of the bright facings and gold and silver lace that abounded on the uniforms about him. It did not even have the advantage of being scarlet. It was dark green and unadorned. Although clean and carefully brushed, it had seen better days. Most men wouldnot deign to be buried in it, Major John Campion had told him earlier with a hearty laugh and a friendly slap on the back.
    â€œBut we all know that wild horses would not separate you from it, Bob,” he had added. “You riflemen are all the same, so bloody proud of your regiment that you would even prefer to look veritable dowds rather than transfer to another.”
    It was the man inside the green coat, it seemed, then, who was the attraction. He was tall, broad-shouldered, muscular, not an ounce of spare fat on his body. And yet he was not an obviously handsome man. His blond wavy hair, perhaps his best feature, was close-cropped. His face was hard and looked as if it rarely smiled, the jaw-line pronounced and stubborn. His aquiline nose had been broken at some time in his life and was no longer quite straight. An old battle scar began in the middle of one cheek, climbed over the bridge of the nose, and ended just where the other cheek started. His face was weathered brown, his blue eyes looking startingly pale in contrast.
    He was not a handsome man, perhaps. He was something better than that, the woman with whom he was whiling away the tedious months in Lisbon had told him several weeks before, propped on one elbow on the bed beside him while she traced the line of his jaw with one long-nailed finger. He was quite irresistibly attractive.
    Captain Robert Blake had laughed shortly and reached up with one powerful arm to draw her head down to his.
    â€œIf it is more of this you want, Beatriz,” he had said to her in her own language, “you have only to ask. The flattery is unnecessary.”
    The dancing had ended and the captain stepped back farther into the shadows. But he was not left to his own thoughts. Three of the officers from the hospital who had insisted that he attend this and several other entertainments over the past few weeks, when he was no longer bedridden with his wounds, were bearing down upon him, Lieutenant João Freire of the Portuguese