A Regency Captain′s Prize: The Captain′s Forbidden Miss / His Mask of Retribution
A Regency Captain's Prize: The Captain's Forbidden Miss / His Mask of Retribution
Margaret McPhee
The Captain’s Forbidden MissBattle-weary Captain Pierre Dammartin has secured the ultimate bargaining tool: holding his enemy’s daughter as his captive. Josephine Mallington is the one woman he should hate…yet her vulnerable beauty soon leads Pierre to want her for reasons other than revenge…His Mask of RetributionHeld at gunpoint on Hounslow Heath, Marianne is taken prisoner by a mysterious masked highwayman. Her father owes this man a debt and now Marianne must pay the price…but she finds more than vengeance in the highwayman’s smouldering amber eyes…
A
Regency
Collection
MARGARET MCPHEE loves to use her imagination—an essential requirement for a scientist. However, when she realised that her imagination was inspired more by the historical romances she loves to read rather than by her experiments, she decided to put the stories down on paper. She has since left her scientific life behind and enjoys cycling in the Scottish countryside, tea and cakes.
A Regency Captain’s Prize
The Captain’s Forbidden Miss
His Mask of Retribution
Margaret McPhee
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#u58c9f8c0-196a-5987-93be-568ce599e47e)
About the Author (#u7fa09df4-cd7f-53da-9033-d58e1df0e120)
Title Page (#uaa8a7363-99f2-5a3d-a8ae-9bd11aa12386)
The Captain’s Forbidden Miss (#uc376916b-f8d4-5e63-a06d-34606029c328)
Chapter One (#u04a59884-d894-5041-b663-a8d788858d58)
Chapter Two (#u4c7b99d6-6e66-5c64-b4c8-20ea47980c9f)
Chapter Three (#u3c7c3644-2490-5300-b40e-76c1fe00224c)
Chapter Four (#ub9f27f1b-70f4-573b-8b11-2546376c18e0)
Chapter Five (#u2b634e92-bbf0-5228-b063-98863dc7678b)
Chapter Six (#u009b1381-ea8d-511d-b8c9-c1802bb151ff)
Chapter Seven (#u1be84a9d-a2b8-531d-a4f9-637820f7e2e3)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
His Mask of Retribution (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Endpage (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
The Captain’s Forbidden Miss (#ulink_a46f67b6-95fa-5120-806c-2526ff7251d5)
Margaret McPhee
Chapter One (#ulink_79e138fd-b35c-5f2c-b1ce-f4dc5ee99a7e)
Central Portugal—31 October 1810
High up in the deserted village of Telemos in the mountains north of Punhete, Josephine Mallington was desperately trying to staunch the young rifleman’s bleeding when the French began their charge. She stayed where she was, kneeling by the soldier on the dusty stone floor of the old monastery in which her father and his men had taken refuge. The French hail of bullets through the holes where windows had once stood continued as the French dragoon troopers began to surge forwards in a great mass, the sound of their pas de charge loud even above the roar of gunpowder.
‘En avant! En avant! Vive la République!’ She heard their cries.
All around was the acrid stench of gunpowder and of fresh spilt blood. Stones that had for three hundred years sheltered monks and priests and holy Mass now witnessed carnage. Most of her father’s men were dead, Sarah and Mary too. The remaining men began to run.
The rifleman’s hand within hers jerked and then went limp. Josie looked down and saw that life had left him, and, for all the surrounding chaos, the horror of it so shocked her that for a moment she could not shift her stare from his lifeless eyes.
‘Josie! For God’s sake, get over here, girl!’
Her father’s voice shook her from the daze, and she heard the thudding of the French axes as they struck again and again against the thick heavy wood of the monastery’s front door. She uncurled her fingers from those of the dead soldier and, slipping the shawl from her shoulders, she draped it to cover his face.
‘Papa?’ Her eyes roved over the bloody ruins.
Bodies lay dead and dying throughout the hall. Men that Josie had known in life lay still and grotesque in death—her father’s men—the men of the Fifth Battalion of the British 60th Regiment of Foot. Josie had seen death before, more death than any young woman should see, but never death like this.
‘Stay low and move quickly, Josie. And hurry—we do not have much time.’
On her hands and knees she crawled to where her father and a small group of his men crouched. Dirt and blood smeared their faces and showed as dark patches against the deep green of their jackets and the blue of their trousers.
She felt her father’s arms around her, pulling her into the huddle of men.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘I am fine,’ she said, even though ‘fine’ was hardly the word to describe how she was feeling.
He nodded and set her from him. She heard her father speak again, but this time his words were not for her. ‘The door will not hold them much longer. We must make for the uppermost floor. Follow me.’
She did as her father instructed, responding to the strength and authority in his voice as much as any of his men would have done, pausing only to collect the rifle, cartridges and powder horn from a dead rifleman, and taking care to keep her eyes averted from the gaping wound in his chest. Clutching the rifle and ammunition to her, she fled with the men, following her father out of the hall, past the door through which the French axes had almost hacked, and up the wide stone staircase.
They ran up two flights of stairs and into a room at the front of the building. Miraculously the key was still in the lock of the door. As it turned beneath her father’s hand, she heard the resounding thud of the front door being thrown open and knew that the French were in. They heard the sound of many French feet below running into the great hall and then the booted footfalls began to climb the stairs that would lead them to the room that housed the few remaining riflemen.
There was little to mark Lieutenant Colonel Mallington from his riflemen save his bearing and the innate authority that he emanated. His jacket was of the same dark green, with black frogging, scarlet facings and silver buttons, but on his shoulder was a silver thread wing and around his waist was the red sash of rank. His riding boots were easily unnoticed and his fur-trimmed pelisse lay abandoned somewhere in the great hall below.
Within their hiding place, Josie listened while her father spoke to his men. ‘We need to draw this out as long as we possibly can, to give our messengers the best chance of reaching General Lord Wellington with the news.’ Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s face was strong and fearless. He looked each one of his men in the eye.
Josie saw the respect on the riflemen’s faces.
Her father continued, ‘The French force are marching through these hills on a secret mission. General Foy, who leads the column of French infantry and its cavalry detachment, is taking a message from General Massena to Napoleon Bonaparte himself. He will travel first to Ciudad Rodrigo in Spain and then to Paris.’
The men stood quiet and listened to what their lieutenant colonel was saying.
‘Massena is requesting reinforcements.’
‘And General Lord Wellington knows nothing of it,’ added Sergeant Braun. ‘And if Massena gets his reinforcements…’
‘That is why it is imperative that Wellington is forewarned of this,’ said Lieutenant Colonel Mallington. ‘It is only half an hour since our men left with the message. If Foy and his army realise that we have despatched messengers, then they will go after them. We must ensure that does not happen. We must buy Captain Hartmann and Lieutenant Meyer enough time to get clear of these hills.’
The men nodded, thin-lipped, narrow-eyed, determined in their conviction.
‘And that is why we will not surrender this day,’ the Lieutenant Colonel said, ‘but fight to the death. Our sacrifice will ensure that Wellington will not be taken unawares by a reinforced French army, thus saving the lives of many of our men. Our six lives for our messengers.’ He paused and looked solemnly at his men. ‘Our six lives to save many.’
Within the room was silence, and beyond rang the clatter of French boots.
‘Six men to win a war,’ he finished.
‘Six men and one sharpshooting woman,’ said Josie, meeting her father’s gaze and indicating her rifle.
And then one by one the men began cheer. ‘For victory!’ they shouted.
‘For the King and for freedom!’ boomed Lieutenant Colonel Mallington.
A raucous hurrah sounded in response.
‘No man shall come through that door alive,’ said Sergeant Braun.
Another cheer. And one by one the men positioned themselves at either side of the door and readied their weapons.
‘Josie.’ Her father’s voice had quietened and softened in tone.
She came to him, stood beside him, knowing that this was it, knowing that there were no more escapes to be had. For all the men’s bravado, Josie was well aware what her father’s order would cost them all.
A single touch of his fingers against her cheek. ‘Forgive me,’ he said.
She kissed his hand. ‘There is nothing to forgive.’
‘I never should have brought you back here.’
‘I wanted to come,’ she said, ‘you know how I hated it in England. I’ve been happy here.’
‘Josie, I wish—’
But Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s words were cut short. There was no more time to talk. A French voice sounded from beyond the door, demanding surrender.
Lieutenant Colonel Mallington drew Josie a grim smile. ‘We will not surrender!’ he bellowed in English.
Twice more the French voice asked that they yield, and twice more Lieutenant Colonel Mallington refused.
‘Then you have sealed your fate,’ said the highly accented voice in English.
Josie cut the paper of a cartridge with the gunflint to release the bullet, poured the gunpowder into the rifle’s barrel and rammed the bullet home before priming the lock. Her father gestured her to crouch closest to the corner furthest from the door. He signed for the men to hunker down and aim their weapons.
The French unleashed their musket fire, their bullets thudding into the thick wooden door.
Wait, instructed the Lieutenant Colonel’s hand signal.
For Josie that was the hardest time, crouched there in the small room, her finger poised by the trigger, her heart racing somewhere near the base of her throat, knowing that they were all going to die, and disbelieving it all the same. Never had the minutes stretched so long. Her mouth was so dry she could not swallow, and still her father would not let them fire. He wanted one last stand, one last blaze of glory that would hold the Frenchmen at bay until the very last moment. And still the bullets kept on coming, and still the six men and Josie waited, until at last the door began to weaken and great chunks of wood fell from it, exposing holes through which Josie could see the mass of men crammed into the corridor outside, their uniforms so similar in colour to that of her father and his men that she could have imagined they were British riflemen just the same.
‘Now!’ came the order.
And what remained of their section of the Fifth Battalion of the 60th Foot let loose their shots.
Josie could never be sure how long the mêlée lasted. It might have been seconds; it seemed like hours. Her arms and shoulders ached from firing and reloading the rifle, yet still she kept going. It was an impossible cause, and one by one the riflemen went down fighting, until there was only Sergeant Braun, Josie and her father. Then Lieutenant Colonel Mallington gave a grunt, clutched a hand to his chest, and through his fingers Josie could see the stain of spreading blood. He staggered backwards until he slumped against the wall, the blade of his sword clattering uselessly to the floor. As Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s strength failed, he slithered down the wall to land half-sitting, half-lying at its base.
‘Papa!’ In two steps she had reached him and was pressing the sword back into his hand where he lay.
His breathing was laboured and the blood was spreading across his coat.
Sergeant Braun heard her cry, and positioned himself in front of the Lieutenant Colonel and his daughter, firing shot after shot, and reloading his rifle so fast as to make Josie’s paltry efforts seem laughable, and all the while roaring his defiance at the French force that had not yet crossed the threshold where the skeleton of the door still balanced. It seemed that he stood there an eternity, that one man holding back the full force of the French 8th Dragoons, until at last his body jerked with the impact of one bullet and then another and another, and he crumpled to the ground to lie in a crimson pool.
There was no more musket fire.
Josie moved to stand defensively in front of her father, aiming her rifle through the gun smoke, her breathing ragged and loud in the sudden silence.
The holed and splintered wood that had been the door fell inwards suddenly, landing with a crash upon the floor of the barren room that housed the bodies of the riflemen. There was silence as the smoke cleared to show Josie exactly what she faced.
The French had not moved. They still stood clustered outside around the doorway, in their green coats so reminiscent of the 60th’s. Even the facings on their coats were of a similar red coloration; the difference lay in their white breeches and black riding boots, their brass buttons and single white crossbelts and most of all in the brass helmets with black horsehair crests that they wore upon their heads. Even across the distance she could see their faces beneath those helmets—lean and hard and ruthless—and she saw the disbelief that flitted across them when they realised whom it was that they faced.
She heard the command, ‘Ne tirez pas!’ and knew that they would hold their fire. And then the man who had issued that command stepped through the doorway into the room.
He was dressed in a similar green jacket to that of his men, but with the white epaulettes upon his shoulders and a leopardskin band around his helmet that was given only to officers. He looked too young to wear the small, silver grenades in the carmine turnbacks in the tail of his jacket. He was tall and well muscled. Beneath the polish of his helmet his hair was short and dark, and down the length of his left cheek he carried a scar. In his hand was a beautifully weighted sabre, from the hilt of which hung a long, golden tassel.
When he spoke his voice was hard and flinty and highly accented. ‘Lieutenant Colonel Mallington.’
Josie heard her father’s gasp of shock and she raised the rifle higher, aiming it at the Frenchman.
‘Dammartin?’ She could hear the incredulity in her father’s voice.
‘You recognise me from my father, Major Jean Dammartin, perhaps. I understand that you knew him. I am Captain Pierre Dammartin and I have waited a long time to meet you, Lieutenant Colonel Mallington,’ said the Frenchman.
‘Good Lord!’ said her father. ‘You are his very image.’
The Frenchman’s smile was cold and hard. He made no move, just stood there, seemingly relishing the moment.
‘Josie,’ her father called with urgency.
Josie kept the rifle trained on the French Captain, but she glanced down at her father. He was pale and weak with lines of pain etched around his eyes.
‘Papa?’
‘Let him approach. I must speak with him.’
Her gaze swung back to the Frenchman, whose eyes were dark and stony. They watched one another across the small distance.
‘Josie,’ her father said again. ‘Do as I say.’
She was loathed to let the enemy any closer to her father, but she knew that she had little choice. Perhaps her father had a trick up his sleeve, a small pistol or a knife with which to turn the situation to their advantage. If they could but capture the French Captain and bargain for just a little more time….
Josie stepped to the side, leaving the approach to her father free, yet never taking her eyes from the Frenchman’s face.
The French Captain’s sabre sat easily in his hand as if it were an old friend with which he was so comfortable that he ceased to notice it. He advanced forwards to stand before the Lieutenant Colonel, taking the place that Josie had just vacated, waiting with a closed expression for what the older man would say.
And all the while Josie kept the rifle trained upon the Frenchman’s heart, and the French soldiers kept their muskets trained upon her.
‘Captain Dammartin.’ Her father beckoned him closer.
The Frenchman did not move.
Lieutenant Colonel Mallington managed to smile at the young man’s resistance. ‘You are of the same mould as your father. He was a most worthy opponent.’
‘Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel.’ Dammartin’s mouth was grim. ‘A compliment indeed.’
The Lieutenant Colonel’s eyes slid to Josie. ‘She is my daughter, all that I have left in this world.’ Then his gaze was back fixed on Dammartin. ‘I do not need to ask that you treat her honourably. I already know that, as Jean Dammartin’s son, you will do nothing other.’ He coughed and blood flecked red and fresh upon his lips.
Dammartin’s eyes glittered dangerously. ‘Do you indeed, Lieutenant Colonel?’ He slowly extended his sword arm until the edge of the blade was only inches from the Lieutenant Colonel’s face. ‘You are very certain for a man in your position.’
The French dragoons in the background smiled and sniggered. Dammartin held up a hand to silence them.
Josie took a step closer to the French Captain, the weight of the raised rifle pulling at her arms. She showed no weakness, just tightened her finger slightly against the trigger and took another step closer, keeping the rifle’s muzzle aimed at Dammartin’s chest. ‘Lower your sword, sir,’ she said, ‘or I shall put a bullet through you.’
‘No, Josie!’ came her father’s strained voice.
‘Think of what my men will do if you pull the trigger,’ Dammartin said.
‘I think of what you will do if I do not,’ she replied.
Their gazes locked, each refusing to look away, as if that would determine whether the sabre blade or the rifle trigger moved first.
‘Josie!’ Her father coughed again, and she heard his gasp of pain. ‘Lay down your weapon.’
Her eyes darted to her father’s face, unable to believe his words. ‘We will not surrender,’ she said in a parody of his earlier words.
‘Josie.’ His bloodstained fingers beckoned her down, their movement weak and fluttering with a control that was fast ebbing.
One last look at Dammartin, who let his blade fall back a little, and, keeping the rifle pointed in his direction, she crouched lower to hear what her father would say.
‘Our fight is done. We can do no more this day.’
‘No—’ she started to protest, but he silenced her with a touch of his hand.
‘I am dying.’
‘No, Papa,’ she whispered, but she knew from the blood that soaked his jacket and the glistening pallor of his face that what he said was true.
‘Give up your weapon, Josie. Captain Dammartin is an honourable man. He will keep you safe.’
‘No! How can you say such a thing? He is the enemy. I will not do it, Papa!’
‘Defiance of an order is insubordination,’ he said, and tried to laugh, but the smile on his face was a grimace, and the effort only brought on a fresh coughing fit.
The sight of the blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth brought a cry to Josie’s lips. ‘Papa!’ Without so much as a glance as Dammartin, she abandoned the rifle on the floor, and clutched one hand to her father’s. The other touched gently to his face.
The light was fading from his eyes. ‘Trust him, Josie,’ he whispered so quietly that she had to bend low to catch his words. ‘Enemy or not, the Dammartins are good men.’
She stared at him, unable to comprehend why he would say such a thing of the man who looked at them with such hatred in his eyes.
‘Promise me that you will yield to him.’
She felt the tremble in her lower lip and bit down hard upon it to hide the weakness.
‘Promise me, Josie,’ her father whispered, and she could hear the plea in his failing voice.
She said the only words that she could. ‘I promise, Papa.’ And she pressed a kiss to his cheek.
‘That’s my girl.’ His words were the faintest whisper.
Josie’s tears rolled, warm and wet.
‘Captain Dammartin,’ Lieutenant Colonel Mallington commanded, and it seemed that something of the old power was back in his voice.
Josie’s heart leapt. Perhaps he would not die after all. She felt him move her fingers to his other hand, watched him reach out towards Dammartin, saw the strength of his hand as he gripped the Frenchman’s fingers.
‘I commend Josephine to your care. See that she is kept safe until you can return her to the British lines.’
Her father’s gaze held the Frenchman’s. It was the last sight Lieutenant Colonel Mallington saw. A sigh sounded within the cold stone room of the Portuguese monastery, and then there was silence, and her father’s hand was limp and lifeless within Josie’s.
‘Papa?’ she whispered.
His eyes still stared unseeing at the Frenchman.
‘Papa!’ The realisation of what had just happened cracked her voice. She pressed her cheek to his, wrapped her arms around his bloodstained body, and the sob that tore from her was to those that had heard a thousand cries and screams of pain and death still terrible to hear. Outside the room men that had both perpetrated and suffered injury for the past hour stood silent with respect.
When at last she let her father’s body go and moved her face from his, it was Dammartin’s fingers that swept a shutting of the Lieutenant Colonel’s eyes, and Dammartin’s hand that took hers to raise her to her feet. She barely heard the order that he snapped to his men, or noticed the parting of the sea of men to let her through. Neither did she notice Captain Dammartin’s grim expression as he led her from the room.
* * *
The French camped that night in the same deserted village in which they had fought, the men sleeping within the shells of the buildings, their campfires peppering light across the darkness of the rocky landscape. The smell of cooking lingered in the air even though the meagre stew had long since been devoured.
Pierre Dammartin, Captain of the 8th Dragoons in Napoleon’s Army of Portugal, had wanted the English Lieutenant Colonel taken alive. The only reason that he had tempered his assault against the riflemen hiding in the empty monastery was because he had heard that it was Mallington who commanded them. He wanted Mallington alive because he wanted the pleasure of personally dispatching the Lieutenant Colonel to his maker.
For a year and a half Dammartin had wanted to meet Mallington across a battlefield. He had dreamt of looking into Mallington’s eyes while he told him who he was. He wanted to ask the Englishman the question he had been asking himself for the past eighteen months. Barely an hour ago it had seemed that his prayers had been answered and Mallington delivered into his hands in the most unlikely of places.
Mallington had not been easily beaten despite the difference in numbers, one section of a British company against one hundred and twenty mounted men backed by a whole battalion of infantry. Indeed, Mallington’s men had fought to the death rather than let themselves be taken, refusing Dammartin’s offers that they surrender. The fight had lasted longer than Dammartin could have anticipated. And even at its conclusion, when Dammartin had walked into that blood-splattered room in the monastery, he had not been satisfied. True, Dammartin had looked into Mallington’s face and revealed his identity. But Mallington’s reaction had not been what he expected, and there had been no time for questions. The moment for which the Captain had so longed had left him unexpectedly disgruntled. Especially because of Mallington’s daughter.
He stood by the window in the dilapidated cottage that was situated at the foot of the road that led up to the monastery. A few men still drifted around the place. He could hear the soft murmur of their voices and see their dark shapes by the light of the fires. Soon they would be bedding down for the night, just as the thousands of men in the canonments around Santarém not so far away to the south would be doing. Above, the sky was a spread of deep, dark, inky blue studded with the brilliance of diamond stars. And he knew that the temperature was dropping and that the cold would be biting. Tomorrow General Foy would lead them across the mountains towards Ciudad Rodrigo and they would leave behind the ruined monastery at Telemos and the dead riflemen and Mallington. He heard Lamont move behind him.
‘Your coffee, Pierre.’
He accepted the tin mug from his sergeant’s hands. ‘Thank you.’ The brown liquid was bitter, but warming. ‘Has Major La Roque sent for me yet?’
‘No.’ Lamont smiled, revealing his crooked teeth. ‘He is too busy with his dinner and his drink.’
‘He is making me wait until morning then,’ said Dammartin, ‘to haul me over the coals.’
Lamont shrugged his shoulders. He was a small, wiry man with eyes so dark as to appear black. His skin was lined and weatherbeaten, his hair a dark, grizzled grey. Lamont knew how to handle a musket better than any man in Dammartin’s company. Despite the fact he had grown up the son of a fishmonger and Dammartin the son of a distinguished military major, the two had become close friends.
‘The riflemen refused the option of surrender. They were like demons. Never before have I seen the British fight until there is not a man left alive. It was no easy task to overcome them. The Major must know that.’
Dammartin met his gaze, knowing that his sergeant understood very well that the fight had been unnecessarily prolonged by Dammartin’s refusal to storm the monastery until the last. ‘The Major will only be concerned with the delay this has cost us. General Foy will not be pleased. One day of marching and we do not even make it past Abrantes.’
Lamont sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘The cost was worth it. You wanted the English Lieutenant Colonel alive so that you might watch him die.’
Dammartin said nothing.
‘You have waited a long time to kill him, and now he is dead.’
‘But not by my hand.’
‘Does it make any difference? He is dead just the same.’
‘I wanted to look into his eyes while I killed him. I wanted to watch his reaction when I told him who I was, to see that he understood, to feel his fear.’
‘And today that is what you did. This Mallington looked upon you with his dying breath. It is done, Captain. Your father is avenged.’
The line of Dammartin’s mouth was hard. He said nothing. It was true that Dammartin had looked into Mallington’s face and revealed his identity. But thereafter nothing had been as the French Captain anticipated, and he was left feeling cheated.
Lamont fetched his own battered tin mug and sat down on his pack by the fire he had lit on the hearth. Steam rose in wisps from the steaming-hot coffee. Lamont wrapped his hands around the mug, seemingly impervious to the scald of the heat, and gazed into the flames. ‘Perhaps my ears deceived me, Captain, but I thought the Englishman said the girl was his daughter.’
‘He did.’
‘Sacré bleu!’ cursed the Sergeant. ‘It shows the nature of this Lieutenant Colonel Mallington. Only a crazy Englishman would bring his daughter with him to war.’ The Sergeant drilled a forefinger against the side of his head. ‘Crazy.’
‘So it would seem,’ said Dammartin, remembering the image of the girl standing alone and seemingly unafraid before the men of the 8th Dragoons to defend her father.
‘She is so young, so fragile looking. It does not seem possible that she could have survived this hell of a country.’
‘So fragile that her bullets are lodged in half our men,’ said Dammartin sourly.
‘That is the truth,’ Lamont said soberly, and took a gulp of his coffee.
Dammartin retrieved a small, silver hip flask from his pocket and loosened the cap. ‘Brandy? To keep the damp from your bones tonight.’
Lamont gave a grin and nodded, holding the still-steaming tin mug up.
Dammartin poured a liberal dousing of the amber liquid into the proffered mug before doing likewise with his own. ‘Why should Mallington have sacrificed his men over a deserted village in the middle of nowhere? It makes no sense. Wellington’s forces are all down at the lines of Torres Vedras and Lisbon. What was Mallington even doing up here?’
The sergeant shrugged. ‘A scouting party? They were riflemen after all.’
‘Perhaps—’ Dammartin sipped his coffee ‘—Mademoiselle Mallington may be able to shed some light on her father’s actions.’
Lamont glanced up quickly at the young captain. ‘You mean to interrogate her?’
‘She is the only one still alive. Who else can tell us?’ Dammartin’s expression was unyielding.
‘The English Lieutenant Colonel gave her into your care,’ protested Lamont. ‘She’s only a girl.’
Dammartin glared unconvinced.
‘She’s the daughter of a gentleman, and today she watched her father die.’
‘She is the daughter of a scoundrel, and an English scoundrel at that,’ Dammartin corrected. ‘Shehandled that rifle as good as any man and she is not to be trusted. Where is Mademoiselle Mallington now?’
‘Locked in the cellar below.’
Dammartin drained his mug and set it down. ‘Then it would seem that I have work to do this evening.’
Lamont stopped nursing his coffee to look at Dammartin. ‘I pray, my friend and captain, that you are certain as to what you are about to do.’
‘Never more so,’ said Dammartin, and walked from the room.
Chapter Two (#ulink_a1a6ef17-da8d-5638-984f-2e1d8a55aeaf)
Josie sat perched on one of the dusty wooden crates, hugging her arms around her body, trying to keep out the worst of the damp chill. Wherever she looked, it seemed that she saw not the darkness of the cellar in which the French soldiers had locked her, but her father’s face so pale and still in death, the blood seeping from his mouth to stain his lips and dribble down his chin. Even when she squeezed her eyes shut, she could not dislodge that image. All around in the dulled silence she heard again the crack and bang of rifles and muskets and the cries of dying men. She stoppered her hands to her ears, trying to block out the terrible sounds, but it did not make any difference, no matter how hard she pressed.
That morning she had been part of a section of twenty-five men and three women. She had collected the water from the spring behind the monastery and boiled it up to make her father’s tea, taking the place of his batman for that short time as was her habit. They had laughed and drunk the brew and eaten the porridge oats that were so warming against the cold.
She remembered just those few hours ago in the afternoon when her father had told her of the column of Frenchmen marching through these hills and how he would have to go in closer to discover what they were about. Papa and a handful of men had gone, leaving Josie and the others in the old monastery, cooking up a stew of rabbit for the evening meal. But the small party’s return had been panicked and hurried, retreating from the pursuit of the French, scrambling to send their captain and first lieutenant with news to General Lord Wellington. And then Josie’s world had exploded. Papa would not laugh again. He was gone. They were all gone. All except Josie.
Even though she had seen their broken bodies and heard her father’s last drawn breath, she could not really believe that it was so. It was like some horrific nightmare from which she would awaken. None of it seemed real. Yet Josie knew that it was, and the knowledge curdled a sourness in her stomach. And still the images flashed before her eyes, like illustrations of Dante’s Inferno, and still the racket roared in her ears, and her throat tightened and her stomach revolted, and she stumbled through the blackness to the corner of the cellar and bent over to be as sick as a dog. Only when her stomach had been thoroughly emptied did she experience some respite from the torture.
She wiped her mouth on her handkerchief and steadied herself against the wall. Taking a deep breath, she felt her way back to the wooden box on which she had been seated.
It seemed that she sat there an eternity in the chilled darkness before the footfalls sounded: booted soles coming down the same stairs over which the French soldiers had dragged her. One set only, heading towards the cellar. Josie braced herself, stifling the fear that crept through her belly, and waited for what was to come. There was the scrape of metal as the key was turned in the lock, and the door was thrown open.
The light of the lantern dazzled her. She turned her face away, squinting her eyes. Then the lantern moved to the side; as her eyes began to adjust to the light, Josie found herself looking at the French captain whom her father had called Dammartin.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington,’ he said, and crossed the threshold into the cellar. His lantern illuminated the dark, dismal prison as he came to stand before her.
He seemed much bigger than she remembered. The dust and dirt had been brushed from the green of his jacket, and its red collar and cuffs stood bright and proud. The jacket’s single, central line of brass buttons gleamed within the flickering light. His white breeches met knee-high, black leather boots and, unlike the last time they had met, he was not wearing the brass helmet of the dragoons. Beneath the light of the lantern his hair was shorn short and looked as dark as his mood. She could see that the stare in his eyes was stony and the line of his mouth was hard and arrogant. In that, at least, her memory served her well.
‘Captain Dammartin.’ She got to her feet.
‘Sit down,’ he commanded in English.
She felt her hackles rise. There was something in the quietness of his tone that smacked of danger. She thought she would defy him, but it seemed in that moment that she heard again her father’s voice, Trust him, Josie. Trust him, when her every instinct screamed to do otherwise? She hesitated, torn between obeying her father and her own instinct.
He shrugged a nonchalant shoulder. ‘Stand, then, if you prefer. It makes no difference to me.’ There was a silence while he studied her, his eyes intense and scrutinising.
Josie’s heart was thrashing madly within her chest, but she made no show of her discomfort; she met his gaze and held it.
Each stared at the other in a contest of wills, as if to look away would be to admit weakness.
‘I have some questions that I wish to ask you,’ Dammartin said, still not breaking his gaze.
Josie felt her legs begin to shake and she wished that she had sat down, but she could not very well do so now. She curled her toes tight within her boots, and pressed her knees firmly together, tensing her muscles, forcing her legs to stay still. ‘As I have of you, sir.’
He did not even look surprised. ‘Then we shall take it in turns,’ he said. ‘Ladies first.’ And there was an emphasis on the word ‘ladies’ that suggested she was no such thing.
‘My father’s body… Is he… Have you…?’
‘Your father lies where he fell,’ he said harshly.
‘You have not given him a burial?’
‘Did Lieutenant Colonel Mallington take time to bury Frenchmen? Each side buries its own.’
‘In a battle situation, but this is different!’
‘Is it?’ he asked, and still their gazes held. ‘I was under the impression, mademoiselle, that we were engaged in battle this day.’
She averted her gaze down to the floor, suddenly afraid that she would betray the grief and pain and shock that threatened to overwhelm her. ‘Battle’ was too plain, too ordinary a word to describe what had taken place that day in the deserted village of Telemos. Twenty-seven lives had been lost, her father’s among them. Only when she knew that the weakness had passed did she glance back up at him. ‘But there is no one left to bury him.’
‘So it would seem.’
His answer seemed to echo between them.
‘I would request that you give him a decent burial.’
‘No.’
She felt her breath rush in a gasp of disbelief. ‘No?’
‘No,’ he affirmed.
She stared at him with angry, defiant eyes. ‘My father told me that you were an honourable man. It appears that he was grossly mistaken in his opinion.’
He raised an eyebrow at that, but said nothing.
‘You will leave him as carrion for wild animals to feed upon?’
‘It is the normal course of things upon a battlefield.’
She took a single step towards him, her fingers curled to fists by her sides. ‘You are despicable!’
‘You are the first to tell me so,’ he said.
She glared at him, seeing the dislike in his eyes, the hard determination in his mouth, this loathsome man to whom her father had entrusted her. ‘Then give me a spade and I will dig his grave myself.’
‘That is not possible, mademoiselle.’
Her mouth gaped at his refusal.
‘You wish Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s body to be buried? It is a simple matter. It shall be done—’
‘But you said—’
‘It shall be done,’ he repeated, ‘as soon as you answer my questions.’
Fear prickled at the back of Josie’s neck, and trickled down her spine. She shivered, suspecting all too well the nature of the French captain’s questions. Carefully and deliberately, she fixed a bland expression upon her face and prayed for courage.
Pierre Dammartin watched the girl closely and knew then that he had not been wrong in his supposition. ‘So tell me, Mademoiselle Mallington, what were riflemen of the Fifth Battalion of the 60th Regiment doing in Telemos?’
‘I do not know.’
‘Come now, mademoiselle. I find that hard to believe.’
‘Why so? Surely you do not think my father would discuss such things with me? I assure you that it is not the done thing for British army officers to discuss their orders with their daughters.’
He smiled a small, tight smile at that. ‘But is it the done thing for British army officers to take their daughters on campaign with them? To have them fight alongside their men?’
‘It is not so unusual for officers to take their families, and as for fighting, I did so only at the end and out of necessity.’
He ignored her last comment. ‘What of your mother, where is she?’
The girl looked at him defiantly. ‘She is dead, sir.’
He said nothing. She was Mallington’s daughter. What had Mallington cared for Major Dammartin’s wife or family? The simple answer was nothing.
‘Tell me of your father’s men.’
‘There is nothing to tell.’ Her voice was light and fearless, almost taunting in its tone.
‘From where did you march?’
‘I cannot recall.’
He raised an eyebrow at that. The girl was either stupid or brave, and from what he had seen of Mademoiselle Mallington so far, he was willing to bet on the latter. ‘When did you arrive in Telemos?’
She glanced away. ‘A few days ago.’
‘Which day precisely?’
‘I cannot remember.’
‘Think harder, mademoiselle…’ he stepped closer, knowing that his proximity would intimidate her ‘…and I am sure that the answer will come to you.’
She took a step back. ‘It might have been Monday.’
She was lying. Everything about her proclaimed it to be so: the way her gaze flitted away before coming back to meet his too boldly, too defiantly; her posture; the flutter of her hands to touch nervously against her mouth.
‘Monday?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many men?’
‘I am not sure.’
‘Hazard a guess.’ Another step forward.
And again she edged back. ‘A hundred,’ she uttered with angry defiance.
‘A large number.’ He raised an eyebrow, knowing from the scattering of corpses that there had been nowhere near that number of men.
‘Yes.’
He watched her. ‘Did you ride with your father, or walk with the men, mademoiselle?’
She looked up at him, and he could see the puzzlement beneath the thick suspicion. There was the shortest of pauses before she said, ‘I rode a donkey, the same as the other women.’
‘You are telling me that the unmarried daughter of the Lieutenant Colonel rode with the company’s whores?’
‘They were not whores,’ she said hotly. ‘They were wives to the men.’
‘And your father was happy to leave you with them while he rode ahead with his officers on horseback? How very caring of him,’ he ridiculed.
‘Do not dare to judge him. You are not fit to speak his name!’
‘Only fit to kill the bastard,’ he murmured in French.
‘Scoundrel!’ she cursed him.
He smiled. ‘Who took the horses?’
All of the anger drained from her in an instant. She froze, caught unawares. He saw the tiny flicker of fear in her eyes and knew that he had guessed right.
‘I do not know what you mean,’ she said, but the words were measured and careful.
‘There are only two horses stabled at the monastery. Where are the others?’
Beneath the glow of the lantern her face paled. There was a pause. ‘We shot the others for food.’
‘Really,’ he said, ‘you shot the horses and left the donkeys?’
‘Yes.’ One hand slid to encase the other and she stood there facing him, with her head held high, as demure as any lady, and lying through her teeth.
‘I see.’ He watched her grip tighten until the knuckles shone white. He looked directly into her eyes and stepped closer until only the lantern separated them.
She tried to back away, but her legs caught against the wooden crate positioned behind her and she would have fallen had he not steadied her. Quite deliberately, he left his hand where it was, curled around her upper arm.
‘You would do better to tell me the truth, Mademoiselle Mallington,’ he said quietly. He saw the pulse jump in her neck, could almost hear the skittering thud of her heart within the silence of the cellar. Her eyes were wide and her skin so pale as to appear that it had been carved from alabaster. She was smaller than he remembered from the shoot-out in the room in the monastery, the top of her head reaching only to his shoulder. Perhaps it was the rifle that had lent her the illusion of height. They were standing so close that he could see the long lashes that fanned her eyes and hear the shallowness of her breath.
‘Do you want to start again?’ The softness of his words did not hide the steel beneath them.
She shook her head, and he noticed the fair tendrils of hair that had escaped her pins curl around her neck. ‘No, sir.’ Her words were as quiet as his, and Dammartin could only admire her courage.
‘Very well.’ He knew what he must do. The task was not pleasant, but it would give him the answers that the girl would not. Yet still he stood there, staring at her, as much as she stared at him, until he stepped abruptly away. ‘We shall continue our conversation at a later time.’ And he was gone, leaving her once more in the dark solitude of the cellar.
Josie still glared at the door long after it had closed behind him. Her heart was racing so fast that she thought she might faint, but still she did not move to sit down. Her eyes strained through the darkness, seeing nothing, her ears hearing the steady climb of his feet back up the stairs. Her arm throbbed where his hand had been even though his grip had been so light as to barely be a restraint.
She pressed her fingers hard to her lips as if to catch back all of the words she had spoken.
What had she revealed? Nothing that he would not already have known, yet Josie knew that was not true. The Frenchman’s face had told her it was so. He knew about the horses, and if he knew about that, then it would not be so very long before he knew the rest.
Her lies had been feeble, obvious and pathetic. Dammartin did not believe her, that much was evident. And he would be back. Her stomach turned over at the thought.
It had taken an hour for twenty-seven men and women to die so that General Lord Wellington might be warned of Massena’s scheme. In the space of a matter of minutes Josie had almost negated their sacrifice if Captain Hartmann and Lieutenant Meyer had not yet reached Wellington. How much time would it take the two men to weave their way back to Lisbon? The future of the British army at the lines of Torres Vedras rested on that and Josie’s ability to prevent, or at least delay, Dammartin’s discovery that the messengers had been sent. And that was not something in which she had the slightest degree of confidence.
Not for the first time Josie wondered if her father would have done better to let her die with him in the monastery. For all Papa’s assurance of Pierre Dammartin’s honour, she had a feeling that the French Captain was going to prove a most determined enemy.
* * *
It took almost half an hour for Dammartin, his lieutenant, Molyneux, and his sergeant, Lamont, to finish the gruesome activity that the girl’s reticence to talk had forced them to. The night was dark, the moon a thin, defined crescent. They worked by the light of flambeaux, moving from corpse to corpse, examining the uniforms that garbed the stiffened, cold bodies that had once been a formidable fighting force for Britain, noting down what they found. And with each one Dammartin felt the futility of the loss. As prisoners of war they would have lost no honour. They had fought bravely, and the French had acknowledged that. Yet they had laid down their lives seemingly in a pointless gesture of defiance.
Three times Dammartin had given them the opportunity to surrender, and three times Mallington had rejected it. Time had been running out. Dammartin knew he had already delayed too long, that General Foy and Major La Roque would arrive to take over if Dammartin did not bring the matter to a close, and Dammartin’s chance would have been lost. In the end he had been forced to storm the monastery, just as La Roque had ordered.
He pushed such thoughts from his mind and forced himself to concentrate on the task before him. It seemed a long time before they had finally been able to rinse the blood from their hands and make for the stables.
With the flambeaux held low, they scrutinised the marks and patterns of feet and hooves impressed upon the ground.
‘What do you think?’ Dammartin asked of his lieutenant. Molyneux had been trained in tracking, and when it came to his expertise in this field, there was no one’s opinion that Dammartin trusted more.
‘Two men and two horses heading off in the direction of the track over there. Prints are still fairly fresh. They probably left some time this afternoon.’
‘It is as I thought,’ said Dammartin. ‘We have found what we were looking for.’ It all made sense. Now he understood why Mallington had fought so hard for so long. Not for Telemos. The village was of little importance to the British regiment. But time was, and time was what they had bought for their messengers, and paid for with their lives. He gave a sigh and moved to instruct a pursuit team.
Josie was in the midst of a dream in which the battle of Telemos was being fought again. She shouted the warning to her father, snatching up the dead man’s weapon, running up the staircase, loading and firing at the pursuing French. Her bullet travelled down the gun’s rifled barrel, cutting with a deadly accuracy through the air to land within the Frenchman’s chest. Smoke from the gunpowder drifted across her face, filling her nose with its stench, catching in her throat, drawing a curtain before her eyes so that she could not see. She heard the stagger of his footsteps, and then he was there, falling to his knees before her, his blood so rich and red spilling on to the hem of her dress. She looked down as the enemy soldier turned his face up to hers and the horror caught in her throat, for the face was that of Captain Pierre Dammartin.
She opened her eyes and the nightmare was gone, leaving behind only its sickening dread. Her heart was thumping in her chest, and, despite the icy temperature of the cellar, the sheen of sweat was slick upon her forehead and upper lip. She caught her breath, sat up from her awkward slump against the stack of wooden boxes, and rubbed at the ache in her back. As she did so, she heard the step of boots upon the stairs and knew that he was coming back, and her heart raced all the faster.
She struggled up to her feet, ignoring the sudden dizziness that it brought, felt herself sway in the darkness and sat rapidly back down. The last thing she wanted Dammartin to see was her faint.
And then he was there, through the door before she was even aware that the key had turned within the lock.
He looked tired and there was fresh dust upon his coat and a smear of dirt upon his cheek. The expression on his face was impassive, and she wondered what he had been doing. How much time had passed since he had questioned her? Minutes, hours? Josie did not know.
He set the lantern down upon a box at the side of the room and moved to stand before her. Josie knew that this time there was a difference in his attitude. His eyes were filled with such darkness and determination that she remembered the stories of interrogation and torture and felt the fear squirm deep in the pit of her stomach. Tales of bravery and singular distinction, men who had defied all to withhold the information that their enemy sought. And something in Josie quailed because she knew that she had not a fraction of that bravery and that just the prospect of what Dammartin could do to her made her feel nauseous. She swallowed and wetted the dryness of her lips.
If Dammartin noticed that she had forsaken her defiance of refusing to remain seated, he made no mention of it. Instead he drew up a crate and sat down before her, adjusting the long sabre that hung by his side as he did so.
She waited for what he would do.
‘Do you wish to tell me of the horses, Mademoiselle Mallington?’
‘I have told you what I know,’ she said, feigning a calmness, and looked down to the darkness of the soil below her feet.
‘No, mademoiselle, you have told me very little of that.’
In the silence that followed, the scrabble of rodents could be heard from the corner of the cellar.
‘Your father sent two men to warn your General Wellington of our march.’
She felt the shock widen her eyes, freeze her into position upon the discomfort of the hard wooden crate. He could not know. It was not possible. Not unless… She stayed as she was, head bent, so that he would not see the fear in her eyes.
‘Have you nothing to say, mademoiselle? Nothing to ask me?’
The breath was lodged, unmoving in her throat at the thought that Hartmann and Meyer might be captured. She forced its release and slowly raised her head until she could look into his eyes. There she saw ruthlessness and such certainty as to make her shiver.
‘No,’ she said. ‘There is nothing.’ Her voice was gritty with the strain of emotion.
His eyes were black in the lantern light as her gaze met his. They stared at each other with only the sound of their breath in the dampness of the cellar, and the tightness of tension winding around them.
‘Denial is pointless. I know already the truth. Make this easier for us both, mademoiselle.’
She could hear the chilling determination in those few words so quietly uttered. The worst of imaginings were already crowding in her mind.
He was still looking at her and the distance between them seemed to shrink, so that the implacable resolution of the man was almost overwhelming.
It was as if there was something heavy crushing against her chest, making it hard to pull the breath into her lungs and she could feel a slight tremble throughout her body. She curled her fingers tight and pressed her knees together so that the Frenchman would not see it. She swallowed down the lump in her throat, praying that her voice would not shake as much as the rest of her.
Part of her argued that there was no point in lying anymore. Dammartin knew about the messengers already. And the other part of her, the small part that had kept her going throughout that nightmare year in England, refused to yield.
‘I will not.’ Her words seemed to echo in the silence and she felt her teeth begin to chatter.
‘What would you say if I told you that we have captured your messengers?’
She got to her feet, ignoring the way that the cellar seemed to spin around her and the sudden lightness in her head that made her feel that she would faint. ‘You are lying!’
Dammartin stood too. He smiled, and his smile was wicked and cold. ‘Am I?’
They faced each other across the small space, the tension stretched between them.
‘If you wish to know of the messengers, mademoiselle, you will tell me what your father and his men were doing in these hills.’
From somewhere she found the strength to keep standing, to keep looking him in the eye. All of the fear was crowding in around her, pressing down on her, choking her. If the French had captured Hartmann and Meyer, all hope was gone. Her father’s message would never reach Wellington. It had all been in vain. All of today. All of the sacrifice.
‘I am not privy to my father’s orders.’ Her gaze held his, refusing to look away, angry disbelief vying with grief and misery and wretchedness.
A terrible desolation swept through her. The tremble had progressed so that her legs were shaking in earnest now, and the cold sweat of fear prickled beneath her arms. She thought again of what it would mean if the French truly had captured her father’s messengers. A fresh wave of hopelessness swept over her at the thought, and as the moisture welled in her eyes she squeezed them shut to prevent the tears that threatened to fall. Yet, all of her effort was not enough. To her mortification, a single tear escaped to roll down her cheek. She snatched it away, praying that Dammartin had not noticed, and opened her eyes to stare her defiance.
‘Are you crying, mademoiselle?’ And she thought she could hear the undertone of mockery in his words. He looked at her with his dark eyes and harsh, inscrutable expression.
She glared at him. ‘I will tell you nothing, nothing,’ she cried. ‘You may do what you will.’
‘Mademoiselle, you have not yet begun to realise the possibilities of what I may do to you.’ He leaned his face down close to hers. ‘And when you do realise, then you will tell me everything that I want to know.’
Her heart ceased to beat, her lungs did not breathe as she looked up into the dark promise in his eyes.
His hand was around her arm, and he pulled her forwards and began to guide her towards the door.
‘No!’ She struggled against him, panicked at where he might be taking her and felt him grab her other arm, forcing her round to look at him once more.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington,’ he said harshly. ‘The hour grows late and the ice forms in the air. If I leave you here, without warmth, without food or water, it is likely that you will be dead by morning.’
‘Why would you care?’ she demanded.
He paused and then spoke with slow deliberation, ‘Because you have not yet answered my questions.’
Josie shivered. She did not know if he was lying about Hartmann and Meyer, but she did know that despite all of her fear and despair she had no wish to die. She ceased her struggle and let him lead her out of the cellar and up the creaking staircase into the heart of the little cottage.
The room into which he took her was small and spartan, its floor clean but littered with makeshift blanket beds and army baggage. A fire was roaring in the fireplace at which a small, grizzled man in a French sergeant’s uniform was toasting bread and brewing coffee. His small, black eyes registered no surprise at her appearance.
‘Capitaine,’ the man uttered, and gave a nod in Dammartin’s direction.
She sat down warily on the edge of the blanket that Dammartin indicated, trying to clear the fog of exhaustion from her brain, trying to remain alert for the first hint of a trap. There was nothing.
The small sergeant placed some toasted bread and raisins and a cup of coffee on the floor by her side before he and Dammartin busied themselves with their own bread. Josie looked at the food set before her. The smell of the toasted bread coaxed a hunger in her stomach that had not been there before. Slowly, without casting a single glance in the Frenchmen’s direction, she ate the bread and drank the coffee. And all the while she was aware of every move that the enemy made and the quiet words that they spoke to one another, thinking that she could not understand.
The logs on the fire cracked and gradually the room grew warm and no matter how hard she fought against it, Josie felt the exhaustion of all that had happened that day begin to claim her. She struggled, forcing her eyes open, forcing herself to stay upright, to stay aware of Captain Dammartin until, at last, she could fight it no more, and the French Captain faded as she succumbed to the black nothingness of sleep.
It was late and yet Pierre Dammartin sat by the fire, despite the fatigue that pulled upon his muscles and stung at his eyes. His gaze wandered from the flicker of the dying flames to the silhouette of the girl lying close by. The blanket rose and fell with the small, rhythmic movement of her breath. Mallington’s daughter. Just the thought of who she was brought back all of the bitterness and anger that her father’s death ought to have destroyed.
Sergeant Lamont sucked at his long clay pipe and nodded in the girl’s direction. ‘Did you get what you wanted from her?’
What had he wanted? To know why Mallington had been up here, the details of his men, of his messengers; her realisation that her defiance was useless, that she could not hide the truth from him. ‘Unfortunately, my friend, Mademoiselle Mallington proved most unhelpful.’
Lamont’s gaze darted in Dammartin’s direction, his brow rising in surprise. ‘You were gentle with her, then?’
The firelight flickered, casting shadows across Dammartin’s face, highlighting his scar and emphasising the strong, harsh line of his jaw. ‘Not particularly.’
‘Pierre.’ Lamont gave a sigh and shook his head.
‘Did you really think that she would be in such a hurry to spill the answers we seek? The woman faced us alone with a rifle to defend her father.’
‘She is just a girl, Pierre. She must have been afraid.’
‘She was frightened, for all she tried to hide it.’
‘Yet still she told you nothing?’
‘The girl has courage, I will give her that.’
Lamont sucked harder on his pipe and nodded.
Dammartin thought of the girl’s single teardrop and the tremble of her lips. Tears and emotion were ever a woman’s weapons, he thought dismissively, but even as he thought it, he knew that was not the case with Mademoiselle Mallington. Given half a chance she would have taken a rifle and shot him through the heart, and that knowledge wrung from him a grudging respect.
‘Do you mean to question her again tomorrow?’
‘Yes. I suspect that she knows more than she is telling.’
Lamont frowned. ‘Interrogating women goes against the grain.’
‘We must make an exception for Mademoiselle Mallington.’
‘Pierre…’ admonished the Sergeant.
Dammartin passed Lamont his hip flask of brandy. ‘What the hell am I going to do with her, Claude?’
‘I do not know,’ Lamont shrugged. ‘That Mallington entrusted her to you makes me wonder as to the old man’s mind. Why else would he give his daughter over to the son of the man that he murdered?’
‘To appease his own conscience, leaving her to face the revenge from which he himself fled?’ Dammartin’s eyes glittered darkly as he received the flask back from Lamont and took a swig. He sat there for a while longer, mulling over all that happened that day, and when finally he slept, the sleep was troubled and dark.
Dammartin slept late, not wakening until the light of morning had dawned, and with a mood that had not improved. Disgruntlement sat upon him as a mantle even though he had reached a decision on what to do with the girl. He rolled over, feeling the chill of the morning air, and cast an eye over at Mademoiselle Mallington. Her blanket lay empty upon the floor. Josephine Mallington was gone.
‘Merde!’ he swore, and threw aside the thickness of his great coat that had covered him the whole night through. Then he was up and over there, touching his fingers to the blanket, feeling its coldness. Mademoiselle Mallington had not just vacated it, then.
He opened the door from the room, stepped over the two sentries who were dozing.
They blinked and scrabbled to their feet, saluting their captain.
‘Where is the girl?’
The men looked sheepish. ‘She needed to use the latrine, sir.’
Dammartin could not keep the incredulity from his voice. ‘And you let her go unaccompanied?’
‘It did not seem right to accompany your woman in such things,’ one of the men offered.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington is not my woman,’ snapped Dammartin. ‘She is my prisoner.’
‘We thought—’
Dammartin’s look said it all.
The sentries fell silent as Dammartin strode off to find Mallington’s daughter.
Chapter Three (#ulink_5c4f8f20-0d58-5447-a052-78bca13ac34a)
Josie hitched up her skirts and ran up the worn stone stairs within the monastery. She could not help but remember the last time she had made this journey. Only yesterday afternoon, and already it seemed a lifetime ago. This time she was alone with only the echo of her own footsteps for company. She reached the top of the stairs, and, hesitating there, braced herself to see once more the horror of what lay not so very far beyond. Her hand clutched upon the banister, tracing the bullet-gouged wood. Then she walked slowly and steadily towards the room in which the 60th had made its last stand.
The doorway was open; the wood remnants that had formed the once sturdy door had been tidied to a pile at the side. Blood splatters marked the walls and had dried in pools upon the floor. The smell of it still lingered in the room, despite the great portal of a window within the room and the lack of a door. Of her father and those of his men that had fought so bravely there was no sign. Josie stared, and stared some more. Their bodies were gone. Their weapons were gone. Their pouches of bullets and powder were gone. Only the stain of their blood remained.
She backed out of the room, retraced her steps down the stairs and peeped into the great hall. The rabbit stew still hung in the corner above the blackened ashes of the fire. The stone floor flags were stained with blood. Yet here, as in the room upstairs, there were no bodies. She turned, moving silently, making her way through to the back and the stables. The two horses were no longer there; nor were the donkeys. Of the supplies there was no trace.
Josie’s heart began to race. Her feet led her further out on to the land that had once been the monastery’s garden. And there they were.
She stopped, her eyes moving over the mounds of freshly dug earth. At the front, one grave stood on its own, distinct from the others by virtue of its position. She moved forwards without knowing that she did so, coming to stand by that single grave. Only the wind sounded in the silent, sombre greyness of the morning light. For a long time Josie just stood there, unaware of the chill of the air or the first stirrings that had begun to sound from the Frenchmen’s camp. And for the first time she wondered if perhaps her father had been right, and that Captain Dammartin was not, after all, a man completely without honour.
It was not difficult to trace Josie’s path. Several of his men had seen the girl go into the monastery. No one challenged her. No one accosted her. Some knew that she was the English Lieutenant Colonel’s daughter. Others thought, as had the sentries, that she was now their captain’s woman. The misconception irked Dammartin, almost as much as the thought of her escape had done. Yet he knew that it was not the prospect of escape that had led her back to the monastery.
He found her kneeling by her father’s grave.
Dammartin stood quietly by the stables, watching her. Her fair hair was plaited roughly in a pigtail that hung down over her back and her skin was pale. Her head was bowed as if in prayer so that he could not see her face. She wore no shawl, and Dammartin could see that her figure was both neat and slender. He supposed she must be cold.
Her dress was dark brown and of good quality, but covered in dirt and dust and the stains of ot hers’ blood. The boots on her feet were worn and scuffed, hardly fitting for a Lieutenant Colonel’s daughter, but then holding the 8th at bay with a single rifle was hardly fitting for such a woman, either. He watched her, unwilling to interrupt her grieving, knowing what it was to lose a father. So he stood and he waited, and never once did he take his eyes from Josephine Mallington.
Josie felt Captain Dammartin’s presence almost as soon as he arrived, but she did not move from her kneeling. She knew that she would not pass this way again and she had come to bid her father and his men goodbye in the only way she knew how, and she was not going to let the French Captain stop her. Only when she was finished did she get to her feet. One last look at the mass expanse of graves, and then she turned and walked towards Captain Dammartin.
She stopped just short of him, looking up to see his face in the dawning daylight. His hair was a deep, dark brown that ruffled beneath the breeze. Despite the winter months, his skin still carried the faint colour of the sun. The ferocity of the weather had not left him unmarked. Dammartin’s features were regular, his mouth hard and slim, his nose strong and straight. The daylight showed the scar that ran the length of his left cheek in stark clarity. It lent him a brooding, sinister look and she was glad that she was much more in control of herself this morning.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington,’ he said, and she could see that his eyes were not black as she had thought last night, but the colour of clear, rich honey.
‘Captain Dammartin.’ She glanced away towards the graves, and then back again at him. ‘Thank you.’ She spoke coolly but politely enough.
A small tilt of his head served as acknowledgement.
‘After what you said…I did not think…’ Her words trailed off.
‘I was always going to have the men buried. They fought like heroes. They deserved an honourable burial. We French respect bravery.’ There was an almost mocking tone to his voice, implying that the British had no such respect. ‘And as for your father…’ He left what he would have said unfinished.
Beyond the monastery she could hear the sound of men moving. French voices murmured and there was the smell of fires being rekindled.
They looked at one another.
‘What do you intend to do with me?’
‘You are Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s daughter.’ His expression did not change and yet it seemed that his eyes grew darker and harder. ‘You will be sent to General Massena’s camp at Santarém until you can be exchanged for a French prisoner of war.’
She gave a nod of her head.
‘You may be assured that, unlike some, we do not ride roughshod over the rules of warfare or the protection that honour should provide.’ His face was hard and lean, all angles that smacked of hunger and of bitterness.
It seemed to Josie that Captain Dammartin disliked her very much. ‘I am glad to hear it, sir.’
He made some kind of noise of reply that said nothing. ‘If you wish to eat, do so quickly. We ride within the hour and you will leave before that, travelling with the escort of Lieutenant Molyneux.’
Side by side, without so much as another word between them, Josephine Mallington and Pierre Dammartin made their way back down into the village and the French soldiers’ camp.
‘What were you playing at, Pierre?’ Major La Roque demanded.
Dammartin faced the Major squarely. ‘I wanted his surrender, sir.’
‘Foy is asking questions. What am I supposed to tell him? That it took one of my captains almost two hours to overcome twenty-five men, without artillery, holed up in a ramshackle village. Given our fifty dragoons, seventy chasseurs and four hundred infantrymen, it does not look good for you, Pierre. Why did you not just storm the bloody monastery straight away like I told you?’
‘I wanted to interrogate him. I would have thought that you, of all people, would understand that.’
‘Of course I do, but this mission is vital to the success of the Army of Portugal and we have lost a day’s march because of your actions. Not only that, but your men failed to catch the British messengers that were deployed! Only the fact that you are my godson, and Jean Dammartin’s son, has saved you from the worst of Foy’s temper. Whether it will prevent him from mentioning the débâcle to Bonaparte remains to be seen.’
Dammartin gritted his teeth and said nothing.
‘I know what you are going through, Pierre. Do you think I am not glad that Mallington is dead? Do you think that I, too, do not wish to know what was going on in that madman’s mind? Jean was like a brother to me.’
‘I am sorry, sir.’
La Roque clapped his hand against Dammartin’s back. ‘I know. I know, son. Mallington is now dead. For that at least we should be glad.’
Dammartin nodded.
‘What is this I hear about an English girl?’
‘She is Mallington’s daughter. Lieutenant Molyneux will take her back to General Massena’s camp this morning.’
‘I will not have any of our men put at risk because of Mallington’s brat. These hills are filled with deserters and guerrillas. We cannot afford to lose any of the men. The child will just have to come with us to Ciudad Rodrigo. Once we are there, we can decide what to do with her.’
‘Mademoiselle Mallington is not a child, she is—’
But La Roque cut him off, with a wave of the hand. ‘It does not matter what she is, Pierre. If you jeopardise this mission any further, Foy will have your head and there will not be a damn thing I can do to save you. See to your men. Emmern will lead through the pass first. Fall in after him. Be ready to leave immediately.’ The Major looked at Dammartin. ‘Now that Mallington is dead, things will grow easier for you, Pierre, I promise you that.’
Dammartin nodded, but he took little consolation in his godfather’s words. Mallington being dead did not make anything better. Indeed, if anything, Dammartin was feeling worse. Now, he would never know why Mallington had done what he did. And there was also the added complication of his daughter.
Whatever he was feeling, Dammartin had no choice but to leave the house that Major La Roque had commandeered in the valley and return to Telemos.
Josie was standing by the side of the window in the little empty room as she watched Dammartin ride back into the village. She knew it was him, could recognise the easy way he sat his horse, the breadth of his shoulders, the arrogant manner in which he held his head. Condensed breath snorted from the beast’s nostrils and a light sweat glimmered on its flanks. She wondered what had caused him to ride the animal so hard when it had a full day’s travel before it.
He jumped down, leaving the horse in the hands of a trooper who looked to be little more than a boy, and threaded his way through the men that waited hunched in groups, holding their hands to fires that were small and mean and not built to last.
Even from here she could hear his voice issuing its orders.
The men began to move, kicking dust onto the fires, fastening their helmets to their heads and gathering up the baggage in which they had packed away their belongings and over which they had rolled their blankets. He walked purposefully towards the cottage, his face stern as if he carried with him news of the worst kind.
She watched him and it seemed that he sensed her scrutiny, for his gaze suddenly shifted to fix itself upon her. Josie blushed at having being caught staring and drew back, but not before he had seen her. Her cheeks still held their slight wash of colour when he entered the room.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington, we are leaving.’
Her hands smoothed down the skirts of her dress in a nervous gesture.
He noticed that the worst of the dirt had been brushed from her dress and that she had combed and re-plaited her hair into a single, long, tidy pigtail that hung down her back. He moved to take up his baggage, then led her out into the sunlight and across the village through which her father and his men had run and fired their rifles and died. The French dragoons around ceased their murmuring to watch her, wanting to see the woman who had defied the might of the 8th to stand guard over her dying father.
She followed him until they came to the place she had seen him leave his horse. The boy still held the reins. Dammartin handed him the baggage and the boy threw them over the chestnut’s rump and strapped them into place. Beside the large chestnut was a smaller grey. He gestured towards it.
‘You will find Fleur faster than a donkey.’ Dammartin took a dark blue cloak from the boy and handed it to Josie. ‘There was a portmanteau of women’s clothes alongside Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s. I assumed that they were yours.’
Her fingers clutched at the warmth of the wool. She touched it to her nose, breathing in faint lavender and rosemary, the familiar scent of her own portmanteau and its sachets that she had sown what seemed an eternity ago on sunny days at home in England. The last time she had worn this cloak her father had been alive, and twenty-seven others with him. She still could not believe that they were dead.
‘It is my cloak, thank you, Captain Dammartin,’ she said stiffly, and draped the material around her.
‘We have not a side-saddle.’
‘I can ride astride.’
Their eyes held for a heartbeat before she moved quickly to grasp her skirts and, as modestly as she could manage, she placed her foot in the stirrup and pulled herself up on to the grey horse.
The troopers cast appreciative gazes over Josie’s ankles and calves, which, no matter how much she pulled at and rearranged her skirts, refused to stay covered. Several whistles sounded from the men, someone uttered a crudity. She felt the heat rise in her cheeks and kept her gaze stubbornly forward.
‘Enough,’ Dammartin shouted at his men in French. ‘Look to your horses. We leave in five minutes.’
Another officer on horseback walked over to join them, his hair a pale wheaty brown beneath the glint of his helmet.
Dammartin gave the man a curt nod of the head before speaking. ‘Mademoiselle Mallington, this is Lieutenant Molyneux. Lieutenant, this is Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s daughter.’
Molyneux removed his helmet, and still seated firmly in his saddle, swept her a bow. ‘Mademoiselle.’
Dammartin frowned at his lieutenant.
Josie looked from the open friendliness on the handsome young lieutenant’s face to the brooding severity on his captain’s, and she was glad that she would be making the journey to Massena’s camp in Lieutenant Molyneux’s company rather than that of Captain Dammartin. Dammartin looked at her with such dislike beneath his thin veneer of civility that she was under no illusions as to his feelings towards her. Still, there were formalities to be observed in these situations, and she would not disgrace her father’s name by ignoring them.
‘Goodbye, Captain Dammartin.’
‘Unfortunately, mademoiselle, this is no goodbye.’
Her eyes widened.
‘You travel with us.’
‘But you said…’ She glanced towards Lieutenant Molyneux.
The lieutenant gave a small, consolatory smile and said, ‘I am afraid, mademoiselle, that there has been a change of plan.’ He dropped back, so that it seemed to Josie that he was abandoning her to Dammartin.
Dammartin’s face was unreadable.
‘Am I to be exchanged?’
‘Eventually,’ said Dammartin.
‘Eventually? And in the meantime?’
‘You are a prisoner of the 8th,’ he replied.
A spurt of anger fired within her. ‘I will not ride to act against my own country, sir.’
‘You have no choice in the matter,’ he said curtly.
She stared at him, and the urge to hit him across his arrogant face was very strong. ‘I would rather be sent to General Massena’s camp.’
‘That is my preference also, mademoiselle, but it is no longer an option.’
‘Then release me. I will make my own way to the lines of Torres Vedras.’
‘Tempting though the offer is, I cannot allow you to do so.’
‘Why not?’ she demanded, feeling more outraged by the minute.
‘I have my orders.’
‘But—’
A drum sounded, and a second company of French cavalrymen, not dragoons but Hanoverian Chasseurs, began to ride into the village.
Dammartin shouted an order and his men began to form into an orderly column. The chasseur captain, who was dressed in a similar fashion to Dammartin, but with yellow distinctives on the green of his jacket and a dark fur hat upon his head, drew up beside Dammartin, saluting him. His face broke into a grin as he spoke a more informal greeting.
‘Emmern.’
For the first time Josie saw Dammartin smile. It was a real smile, a smile of affection, not some distortion of his mouth out of irony or contempt. And it changed his whole face so that he looked devastatingly handsome. Shock jolted through her that she could think such a thing and, pushing the thought aside, she forced herself to concentrate on what the two men were discussing. They spoke in rapid French, discussing the land that lay beyond the village, and the quickest and safest method by which their men might traverse it.
‘Foy is like a bear with a sore head this morning.’ Captain Emmern laughed. ‘The delay has not pleased him.’
‘I am aware,’ agreed Dammartin. ‘I will have the joy of reporting to him this evening.’
‘The day has started well, then,’ teased the chasseur.
‘Indeed,’ said Dammartin. ‘It could not get much worse.’
Emmern’s eyes flicked to Josie and the grey on which she sat. ‘I would not look so gloomy if I had spent the night in such pleasant company.’ He inclined his head at Josie in greeting. ‘Come, Pierre, introduce me. Surely you do not mean to keep her all to yourself? I swear, she is utterly delicious.’
Josie felt the blood scald her cheeks. She ignored the chasseur captain, fidgeted with the grey’s reins, and focused on a peculiarly shaped rock high up on the hill to the side.
‘She is Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s daughter.’ Dammartin’s eyes were cold and his jaw rigid.
Captain Emmern’s brow lifted slightly with surprise. ‘They said there was a woman, but I did not realise that she was his daughter. What the hell could the man have been thinking?’
‘Who knows the workings of a madman’s mind?’ replied Dammartin drily.
Josie’s fists clenched at the Frenchmen’s words of insult. With blazing eyes she glared at them, words of defence for her father crowding in her mouth for release. Yet the suspicion that flashed across Dammartin’s face served as a timely reminder that she must feign ignorance of their conversation.
Dammartin edged his horse closer towards her, his brows lowered. ‘Parlez-vous français, mademoiselle?’
Even had she not understood his language, there was no doubting the accusation in his demand. This was dangerous ground, for she realised that by showing her emotions too readily she was in danger of revealing the one advantage that she had over her captors. The Frenchmen would let down their guard and talk easily in front of her if they thought that their words could not be understood by their prisoner. Any information she could glean might be of use, for Josie had every intention of passing on all she could learn to General Lord Wellington. She straightened her back and, squaring her shoulders, faced Dammartin, meeting his penetrating gaze directly.
‘I have not the slightest idea of what you are saying, sir. If you would be so good as to speak in English, then I may be able to answer you.’
Dammartin’s face cracked into a cynical disbelieving smile, yet he switched to English. ‘Do not tell me that you understand not one word of my language, for I will not believe such a ridiculous assertion.’
Josie did her best to appear outraged. ‘Are you suggesting that I am lying?’
‘You have been lying all along, mademoiselle…about that which you know, and that which you do not: the details of your father’s men, his purpose in these hills, his messengers…’
She flinched at that and there was no longer any need for pretence; her outrage was all too real.
‘You are the daughter of a senior officer; your father must have arranged your education. I believe that in England even the lowliest of governesses teach the rudiments of French.’
The heat scalded Josie’s cheeks, and her chest tightened at his words. She might have been fluent in French, but that had nothing to do with governesses and everything to do with her mother. Mama and Papa had been the best of parents, yet she felt Dammartin’s implied criticism as sharp as a knife.
‘What time was there for schooling or governesses following my father around the world on campaign? There is more to education than such formality, and besides, my mother and father ensured that both my brother and I were educated in those matters that are of any importance.’ She negated to mention the truth of the situation.
Silence followed her inferred insult.
Still she did not drop her gaze from his so that she saw his eyes narrow infinitesimally at her words. He twitched the rein between his fingers and the great chestnut horse brought him round to her side.
‘Have a care in what you say, Mademoiselle Mallington. Such words could be construed by some of my countrymen as offensive, and you are hardly in a position to abuse our hospitality.’
‘Hospitality?’ Her eyebrows raised in exaggerated incredulity, and so caught up in her own anger was Josie that she did not notice the scowl line deepen between Dammartin’s brows. ‘You kill my father and his men, you lock me in a cellar for hours on end and interrogate me. Forgive me if I am surprised at your notion of hospitality, sir!’
He leaned in closer until his face was only inches above hers. It seemed to Josie that the angles of his jawline grew sharper and the planes of his cheeks harder, and his eyes darkened with undisguised fury. As awareness dawned of how much bigger he was, of his strength, his overwhelming masculinity, all of Josie’s anger cooled, leaving in its stead the icy chill of fear.
‘I assure you, mademoiselle, that I have been most hospitable in my treatment of you…so far.’ His voice was the quiet purr of a predator. ‘Do you wish me to prove it is so, by demonstrating how very inhospitable I can be?’
Josie’s heart was thumping nineteen to the dozen. She wetted the dryness of her lips, and swallowed against the aridity of her throat. ‘You are no gentleman, sir.’ Still, she forced herself to hold his dark, menacing gaze.
‘And you, no lady.’
She could have argued back. She could have called him the scoundrel that he was, but there was something in his eyes that stopped her, something fierce and impassioned and resolute that shook her to her very core.
‘I ask you, sir, to release me,’ she said, and all of the bravado had gone so that her voice was small and tired. ‘You do not want me as your prisoner any more than I wish to be here. It is madness to drag me all the way to Ciudad Rodrigo. Allowing me to walk away now would be the best solution for us both.’
There was a moment’s silence in which he made no move to pull back from her, just kept his gaze fixed and intent, locked upon her, as a hunter who has sighted his prey. ‘Ciudad Rodrigo?’ he said softly.
Her heart gave a shudder at what she had unintentionally revealed.
‘What else do you know of General Foy’s mission, I wonder?’ His question was as gentle as a caress.
Josie dropped her eyes to stare at the ground, an involuntary shiver rippling through her.
He leaned in closer until she could feel the warmth of his breath fanning her cheek.
Her eyelids closed. The breath stalled in her throat and her fingers gripped tight around the reins, bracing herself for what was to come.
‘Pierre.’ Captain Emmern’s voice sounded, shattering the tight tension that had bound her and Dammartin together in a world that excluded all else.
She opened her eyes and blinked at the chasseur captain, allowing herself to breathe once more.
‘Captain Dammartin,’ said Emmern more formally this time. He looked from Dammartin to Josie and back again with a strange expression upon his face. ‘We should get moving, before the General grows impatient.’
Dammartin gave a nod in reply, then, with a small nudge of his boots against the chestnut’s flank, he and the horse began to move away.
Relief softened the rigidity throughout Josie’s body, so that she felt that she might collapse down against the little mare’s neck and cling on for dear life. She caught her fingers into the coarse hair of the mane, stabilising herself once more now that the danger was receding.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington,’ he called softly.
She froze at the sound of his voice, saw him turn back to look at her.
‘We shall finish this conversation later.’
She felt the blood drain from her face, and she stared at him aghast, unable to move, unable to utter a single word in response.
‘I promise that most solemnly.’ And with a twitch of his reins he was finally gone.
* * *
Foy’s column with its cavalry detachment travelled far that day, twenty miles across terrain that was rocky and high and inhospitable. The ground was frozen hard beneath their feet and great chunks of ice edged the rivulets of streams that carved passageways down the hillsides. And in all the hours that passed, Josie could not find a way to escape the officers of Bonaparte’s 8th Dragoons.
She had hoped that she might be able to fall back or just slip away unnoticed, but there was no chance of that. The 8th Dragoons were neatly sandwiched between Emmern’s Hanoverian Chasseurs in front and a whole regiment of French infantry to the rear. And were that not bad enough, Lieutenant Molyneux rode nearby, offering occasional polite conversational words, checking on her welfare and ensuring that she was served the hard bread rolls and wine when they stopped to water the horses. There seemed no way out. Yet when Josie looked in front to where Dammartin rode, she knew that escape was an absolute necessity.
Dammartin did not look back at her and that was something at least for which she felt relief. His attention was focused upon his men, on the ragged drops that fell away from the sides of the narrow rough roads along which they trotted, and the precipices so high above. If a trooper wandered too close to the edge, Dammartin barked a warning for him to get back in column. If they moved too slowly, one look from Dammartin was enough to hurry them onwards.
Throughout the long hours of riding he ignored her, but his promise lay between them as threatening as the man himself. He would interrogate her in earnest. She knew it with a certainty, had seen it in his eyes. She thought of the danger that emanated from him, of the darkness, a formidable force waiting to be unleashed… upon her. She trembled at the prospect of what he might do to her, knowing that for all her bravado, for all her own tenacity, he was far stronger. He would lead her in circles until she no longer knew what she was saying. Hadn’t she already inadvertently revealed that her father had known of Foy’s destination? What more would she tell the French Captain?
The thoughts whirred in her head, churning her gut with anticipation. No matter her father’s instruction or the promise she had made him, she knew that she had to get away, to somehow make her way back towards the British lines. She would be safe from Dammartin there, and she would ensure that the news of Foy’s mission had reached Wellington. Papa would have understood, she told herself.
Having made up her mind, Josie no longer looked ahead to the breadth of Dammartin’s shoulders or the fit of his green dragoon jacket across his back and, instead, focused every last ounce of her attention on a way of evading her captor.
They had reached the site of their camp in a small valley between Cardigos and Sobreira Formosa before the opportunity that Josie had been waiting for arose. Most of Dammartin’s dragoons were busy pitching the tents. The air rang with the sound of small iron-tipped mallets driving narrow iron tent pegs into the frozen soil. Those troopers not helping with the tents, gathered wood and lit fires upon which they placed kettles and pots to boil, cooking that evening’s rations. All along the massive camp both cavalrymen and infantrymen were orderly and disciplined and—busy. Even Molyneux seemed to have disappeared.
Josie knew that this was the best chance of escape she would get. She stood were she was, eyes scanning around, seeking the one man above all that she sought to evade, but of Dammartin there was no sign, and that could only be construed as a very good omen.
Slowly, inconspicuously, she edged towards a great clump of scrubby bushes at the side of the camp until she could slip unseen behind them. And then, hitching up her skirts in one hand, Josie started to run.
Dammartin was making his way back from reporting to Major La Roque and all he could think about was the wretched Mallington girl. She was too defiant, too stubborn and too damned courageous. When she looked at him, he saw the same clear blue eyes that had looked out from Mallington’s face. A muscle twitched in Dummartn’s jaw and he gritted his teeth.
The old man was dead and yet little of Dammartin’s anger had dissipated. His father had been avenged, and still Dammartin’s heart ached with a ferocity that coloured his every waking thought. All of the hurt, all of the rage at the injustice and loss remained. He knew he had been severe with girl. She was young, and it was not her hand that had fired the bullet into his father’s chest. He had seen that she was frightened and the pallor of her face as she realised her mistake over Ciudad Rodrigo, and even then he had not softened. Now that he was away from her he could see that he had been too harsh, but the girl knew much more than she was saying, and if Dummartin was being forced to drag her with him all the way to Ciudad Rodrigo, he was damn well going to get that information—for the sake of his country, for the sake of his mission…for the sake of his father.
The dragoon camp was filled with the aroma of cooking—of boiling meat and toasting bread. Dammartin’s stomach began to growl as he strode past the troopers’ campfires, his eyes taking in all that was happening in one fell swoop. Lamont had a pot lid in one hand and was stirring at the watery meat with a spoon in the other. Molyneux was sharing a joke with a group of troopers. The prickle of anticipation whispered down Dammartin’s spine, for Josephine Mallington was nowhere to be seen.
‘Where is Mademoiselle Mallington?’ The stoniness of his voice silenced Molyneux’s laughter. Lamont replaced the pot lid and spoon and got to his feet. The troopers glanced around uneasily, noticing the girl’s absence for the first time.
A slight flush coloured Molyneux’s cheeks. ‘She was here but a moment since, I swear.’
‘Check the tents,’ Dammartin snapped at his lieutenant, before turning to Lamont. ‘Have the men search over by the latrines.’
With a nod, the little sergeant was up and shouting orders as he ran.
Dammartin knew instinctively that the girl would not be found in either of these places. He strode purposefully towards the horses. None were missing.
Dante was saddled by the time that Molyneux reappeared.
‘The tents are empty, Captain, and Lamont says that there’s no sign of her down by the latrines.’ He bent to catch his breath, tilting his head up to look at Dammartin. ‘Do you want us to organise a search party?’
‘No search party,’ replied Dammartin, swinging himself up on to Dante’s back. ‘I go alone.’
‘She cannot have got far in such little time. She is on foot and the harshness of this countryside…’ Molyneux let the words trail off before dropping his voice. ‘Forgive me, but I did not think for a minute that she would escape.’
Dammartin gave a single small nod of his head, acknowledging his lieutenant’s apology. ‘Mademoiselle Mallington is more resourceful than we have given her credit for.’
‘What will happen if you do not find her? Major La Roque did not—’
‘If I do not find her,’ Dammartin interrupted, ‘she will die.’ And with a soft dig of his heels against Dante’s flank he was gone.
Chapter Four (#ulink_547ef7eb-d0ce-5d45-bda4-28781dd261d1)
The wind whispered through the trees, straining at their bare branches until they creaked and rattled. Josie’s run had subsided to a half-walk, half-scurry as she followed the road back along the route the French army had travelled. The track ran along the ridge of a great hill in the middle of even more hills. The surrounding landscape was hostile: jagged rocks, steep slopes and scree, with nothing of cover and nowhere that Josie could see to shelter.
She knew from the day’s journey that some miles back there had been the derelict remains of a cottage and it was to this that Josie was heading. All she needed to do was to follow the road back up over the last hill and keep going until she came upon the cottage. She pushed herself on, knowing that it was only a matter of time before her absence was noticed. They might already be after her; he might already be after her. Her lungs felt fit to burst and there was a pain in her side. Josie willed her legs to move faster.
The light was rapidly fading and soon everything would be shrouded in darkness, making it impossible to see the rubble and pot-holes littering the road, and more importantly the cliff edge over to her right. Somewhere far away a wolf howled, a haunting sound that made the hairs on the back of Josie’s neck stand erect. She knew what it was to be hunted, but it was not the wolf from which she was running.
Her foot twisted suddenly into an unseen dip on the unevenness of the road’s surface, tipping her off balance, bringing her down, landing her hard. The fall winded her, but almost immediately she was scrabbling up to keep on going, ignoring the stinging in her hands and knees.
Dammartin cursed the charcoal-streaked sky. Once darkness fell she would be lost to him, and lost to herself too, he thought grimly. Little idiot, without shelter, without warmth, she would die out here. And no matter who her father had been, Dammartin did not want that to happen.
His eyes swept over the surrounding land, before flicking back to the road over the hill that loomed ahead. The French Captain’s instinct told him which route the girl had chosen. Taking the spyglass from his pocket, he scanned the road over which they had travelled that day, and as the daylight died Pierre Dammartin felt the wash of satisfaction. He snapped the spyglass away.
A lone wolf’s howl rent the air, urging Dammartin to move faster. He had not reached her yet, but he soon would.
Josie stopped and glanced back, her scalp prickling with foreboding, her ears straining to listen. There was only the wind and the ragged panting of her own breath. A noise sounded to her left, a rustling, a rooting. She stared suspiciously through the growing darkness, but there was nothing there save a few spindly bushes at the foot of the great rock wall. To her right a trickle of pebbles slid over the cliff edge, making her jump nervously.
She was being foolish, she told herself, these were the normal noises of the night, nothing more sinister. But as she hurried on, she remembered the stories of the bandits that roamed this land and she pulled her cloak more tightly around herself, only now beginning to see just how very dangerous her predicament was.
Come along, Josie, she told herself sternly, and she was in the middle of reciting the Mallington family motto, audaces fortuna juvat—fortune favours the brave—when she heard the gallop of a horse’s hooves in the distance.
Dammartin.
She looked back into the deep inky blueness, her eyes examining every shadow, every shape, but seeing nothing through the cover of the night. For a moment Josie was so gripped with panic that she did not move, just stood there staring for a few moments before the sensible part of her brain kicked back into action.
It would be impossible to outrun him, he was coming this way and fast, and the few bushes around were too small to hide her. Glancing swiftly around she realised that just ahead, to the left, the sheer wall of rock and soil seemed to change, relaxing its gradient, leaning back by forty-five degrees to give a climbable slope. Her eyes followed it up to the flat ground at the top, which merged into the darkness of the other hills. Josie did not wait for an invitation; she began to run again.
* * *
A thin crescent moon hung in the sky and Dammartin could just about see the small, dark shape moving on the road ahead. He kicked Dante to a gallop to close the distance between them. One more curve in the road and she would be his, but as he rounded that last corner, with Dante blowing hard, the road was deserted.
Dante pulled up, clouds of condensation puffing from his nostrils, the sweat upon his chestnut coat a slick sheen beneath the moonlight. Dammartin was breathing hard too, his heart racing, a sudden fear in his chest that she had gone over the edge of the cliff rather than let herself be taken.
A small noise sounded ahead, somewhere high up on the left, a dislodged pebble cascading down. Dammartin’s gaze swivelled towards the sound, and what he saw made his mouth curve to a wicked smile.
Josie heard the horse draw up below. Just a single horse. She could hear the rider dismount and begin to climb.
One man.
She had to know. Her head turned. She dared a glance below…and gasped aloud.
The thin sliver of moon lit the face of Captain Dammartin as he scaled the rock face at a frightening speed.
Josie redoubled her efforts, clambering up as fast as she could.
She could hear him getting closer. Her arms and legs were aching and she could feel the trickle of sweat between her breasts and down her back, but still she kept going, puffing her breathy exertion like smoke into the chill of the night air.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington.’
She heard his voice too close. Keep going, Josie, keep going, she willed herself on, climbing and climbing, and still, he came after her, closing the gap between them.
‘Cease this madness, before you break your neck.’
She glanced back and saw that he was right below her. ‘No!’ she cried in panic, and pulling off her hat, she threw it at him.
A hand closed around her ankle—firm, warm fingers. She felt the gentle tug.
‘No!’ she yelled again. ‘Release me!’ And she tried to kick out at him with her foot, but it was too late; Josie’s grip was lost and she slid helplessly down over the rock and the dirt, towards her enemy.
Dammartin leaned out, away from the slope, so that the girl’s body slid neatly in beneath his. Her back was flush against his chest, her buttocks against his groin. The wind whipped her hair to tickle against his chin. She seemed to freeze, gripping for dear life to the rock face, before she realised that he had caught her, that she was safe. He heard her gasp of shock as she became aware of her position, and braced himself.
‘Unhand me at once!’ She bucked against him.
He pressed into her, gripping tighter. ‘Continue as you are, mademoiselle, and you will send us both to our deaths,’ he said into her ear.
She ceased her struggles. ‘What are you going to do?’ Her words were quiet.
‘Save your life.’
Only the wind whispered in return, but he could feel the rapidity of her breathing beneath his chest, and the tremor that ran through her slight frame.
‘It is not in need of saving. Leave me be, sir. I will not return with you to the camp.’
‘Then you will be clinging to this rock face beneath me all damn night, for I have no intention of returning without my prisoner,’ he said savagely.
She tried to turn her head, as if to glance at what lay beyond, but her cheek touched against his chest, and he knew she could see nothing other than him.
‘I do not think you so foolish as to throw your life away, Mademoiselle Mallington, no matter how tempting it may be to dispense with mine.’
There was a silence before she said, ‘You climb down first and I will follow.’
His mouth curved cynically. ‘We climb down together, or not at all. You cannot answer my questions with a broken neck.’
He felt her tense beneath him. ‘You are wasting your time, Captain, for I will never answer your questions, no matter how many times you ask them. I would rather take my chances here on this rock face.’
Dammartin understood then why Mademoiselle Mallington had run. The lavender scent of her hair drifted up to fill his nose. ‘And if I tell you there will be no questions tonight, will you come down then?’
Another silence, as if she were contemplating his words, reaching a decision, just a few moments, but time enough for his awareness of the soft curves moulded against him to grow.
She gave a reluctant nod of the head.
They stood like two spoons nestled together, the entire length of their bodies touching. And it was not anger at her escape, or the jubilation of her recapture of which Dammartin was thinking; it was not even the difficulty of the descent they had no choice but to make. For the first time, Dammartin saw Josie not as Mallington’s daughter, but as a woman, and a woman that stirred his blood.
She glanced directly down, looking to see the rock face below. Her body tensed further and she clung all the harder to the rocks, laying her face against them.
He started to move.
‘No, I cannot!’ she said, and he could hear the slight note of panic underlying her words.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington…’
‘It is too high, we cannot…’
‘Just do as I say.’
‘I cannot…please…’
There was just the sound of the wind and the rise and fall of her breathing and the feel of her body beneath his.
‘I will help you and we will reach the ground safely enough.’ He became conscious of where her hips nestled so snugly and felt the stirrings of his body response.
She hesitated before giving a tiny nod.
Josie had thought of nothing other than escape on her way up the cliff, but now she was aware of how very far the ground seemed below, of the loose, insecure surface of the rocks and the wind that pulled at both her and Dammartin. In the darkness she could not see what was safe to grip with her hands, and the skirt of her dress hid her view of her feet and where she might place them. A wave of panic swept through her and she thought that she might be stuck there, unable to move either up or down, but then the French Captain said that he would help her. He edged her to movement and the panic was gone. Slowly they began to descend the rock face.
The warm press of his body and the clean masculine smell of him pulled her mind from the danger of the rocks beneath. He was gentle, encouraging her with quiet words when she struggled to place her feet, coaxing her to keep moving when she thought she could move no more. There was no anger, no harshness, no danger, and, ironically, as they risked their lives to reach the ground, she felt safer with him now than she had ever done. It did not make sense. She did not know this new Dammartin.
She heard his exhalation of breath as they made it to the ground. The cold rushed in against her back as he moved away, opening the space between them. She turned, and was able to see him properly for the first time. Words of gratitude hovered on her lips, but she bit them back, not understanding why she wanted to thank him for saving her, when in truth he was the enemy who had just destroyed her chance of escape.
For a moment Dammartin just stood there by the foot of the slope; the weak silvery moonlight exposing the dark slash of his scar, the lean hard planes sculpting his face, and the rugged squareness of his jaw. Shadow obscured half his face, making it impossible for Josie to read his expression, but there was something in the way he was looking at her, something in his stance, that made her wonder if this was indeed the same man from whom she had run. Her gaze dropped to hide her confusion and her feeling of vulnerability.
‘You do not need to take me back,’ she said, ‘you could say that you did not find me. It is a plausible story.’
He gave a cynical laugh and shook his head. ‘What part of this do you not understand, mademoiselle? That you would not survive out here alone, or that I do not lose my prisoners?’
The arrogance of his words rankled with her, urging her pride to deny the truth in his answer. ‘I would survive very well, if you would let me.’
‘With no weapon, no shelter, no means to make fire, no food or water?’ he mocked. ‘And what of guerrillas and bandits? You think you can take them on single-handed?’
‘As a woman travelling alone, I would present no threat to any such men. They would be unlikely to harm me. I am British.’
‘You think they care about that?’ Dammartin raised an eyebrow.
Josie’s indignation rose. ‘I would have managed well enough.’
‘You are a fool if you think so—’ his eyes narrowed slightly ‘—and you would be a bigger fool to try a further escape.’
‘You cannot stop me,’ she retaliated. ‘I swear I will be long gone before you are anywhere close to Ciudad Rodrigo.’
The wolf howl sounded again, and in the moonlight Dammartin transformed once more to a sinister mode. ‘No, mademoiselle,’ he said softly, ‘you are much mistaken in that belief.’
All of Josie’s fear flooded back at the certainty in his voice.
She looked at him, not knowing what to say, not knowing what to do, aware only that he had won, and that her failure would cost her dearly when he got her back to the camp.
There was the sound of the wind, and of quietness.
‘Please,’ she said, and hoped that he would not hear the desperation in her voice.
The scree crunched beneath his boots as he came to stand before her. ‘I will not leave you out here.’
Her eyes searched the shadow of his face and thought she saw something of the harshness drop away.
‘No more questions this night.’ He reached out and, taking her arm, pulled her from where she leaned against the slope.
He led her across to the great chestnut horse that stood waiting so patiently, his grip light but unbreakable around her arm, releasing her only long enough to mount and lift her up before him. She was sitting sideways, holding on to the front of the saddle with her left hand, and trying not to hold on to Dammartin with her right
Dammartin looked pointedly at where the hand rested upon her skirts. ‘We shall be travelling at speed.’
She gave a nod. ‘I know,’ she said.
‘As you will, mademoiselle.’
As they reached the surface of the road, the horse began to canter, and Josie gripped suddenly at Dammartin to stop herself from being thrown from the saddle. By the time the canter became a gallop, Josie was clinging tight to the French Captain’s chest, while he secured her in place with an anchoring arm around her waist.
Stars shone like a thousand diamond chips scattered over a black velvet sky. The silver sickle of the moon bathed all in its thin magical light, revealing the road ahead that would lead them back to the French camp.
For Josie there would be no escape.
Dammartin swigged from the hip flask, the brandy burning a route down to his stomach. The fire burned low before them, and most of the men had already retired for the night. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and offered the flask to Lamont.
‘The men were taking bets on whether you would find her.’ Lamont took a gulp of the brandy before returning the flask.
‘Did you win?’ asked Dammartin.
‘Of course,’ replied the little Sergeant with a smile, and patted his pocket. ‘I know you too well, my friend.’
They sat quietly for a few minutes, the sweet smell of Lamont’s pipe mingling pleasantly with that of the brandy, the logs cracking and shifting upon the fire.
‘She has courage, the little mademoiselle.’ It was Lamont who broke the silence.
‘She does,’ agreed Dammartin, thinking of Josie halfway up that rock face, and the way she had defied him to the end. He glanced towards the tents.
Lamont followed his captain’s eyes, before returning his gaze to the glow of the burning logs. ‘What will you do with her?’
‘Take her to Ciudad Rodrigo as I am commanded.’
‘I mean, this night.’
‘What does one do with any prisoner who has attempted to escape?’ Dammartin poked at the embers of the fire with a stick.
‘She is gently bred, and a woman. You would not…?’ Lamont’s words petered out in uncertainty.
There was a silence in which Dammartin looked at him. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think you are too much your father’s son.’
Dammartin smiled at his old friend, and fitted the top back on to his hip flask, before slipping it into his pocket. ‘But she is too much Mallington’s daughter.’
There was the soft breath of the wind while both men stared wordlessly into the fire.
‘Why did she run, Pierre? The girl is no fool; she must have realised her chance of survival was slim?’
‘She was afraid.’ Dammartin’s gaze did not shift from the warm orange glow of the dying fire as he remembered Mademoiselle Mallington’s face in the moonlight as she stood at the foot of the slope. He had felt the tremor in her body, heard the fear beneath the defiance in her words. I will never answer your questions, no matter how many times you ask them. He heard the whisper of them even now. ‘Afraid of interrogation.’
Lamont gave a sigh and shook his head. ‘There is nothing of any use she can tell us now.’
‘I would not be so certain of that.’
‘Pierre…’ the older man chided.
‘I will question her again,’ interrupted Dammartin. ‘But her only fear need be what answers she will spill.’
‘And when we reach Ciudad Rodrigo, what then?’
‘Then she is no longer my problem,’ said Dammartin.
Lamont sucked at his pipe for a few moments, as if weighing Dammartin’s answer. ‘It is a long way to Ciudad Rodrigo.’
‘Do not worry, Claude,’ Dammartin gave Lamont a clap on the back. ‘Mademoiselle Mallington will give us no more trouble. I will make certain of that.’ He got to his feet. ‘Sleep well, my old friend.’ And began to make his way across the small distance to where the officers’ tents were pitched.
‘And you, my captain,’ said Lamont softly, as he sat by the fire and watched Dammartin disappear beneath the canvas of his tent.
* * *
The girl was sitting at the little table, busy working her hair into a plait when Dammartin entered the tent. She jumped to her feet, her hair abandoned, the ribbon fluttering down to lie forgotten upon the ground sheet. From the corner of his eye he could see a white frilled nightdress spread out over the covers of his bed.
‘What are you doing here, Captain Dammartin?’ she demanded, her face peaked and shocked.
‘Retiring to bed.’
Her eyes widened with indignation and the unmistakable flicker of fear. ‘In my tent?’
‘The tent is mine.’ He walked over to the small table and chair.
Even beneath the lantern light he could see the blush that swept her cheeks. ‘Then I should not be here, sir.’ Hurrying over to the bed, she slipped her feet into her boots sitting neatly by its side, before grabbing up the nightdress and rolling it swiftly to a ball. ‘There has clearly been some kind of misunderstanding. If you would be so kind as to direct me to the women’s tent.’
‘You are a prisoner, mademoiselle, not a camp follower. Besides, the women’s tent is within the camp of the infantry, not my dragoons. As a prisoner of the 8th, you stay with me.’
‘Then you can show me the tent in which I am to stay the night.’ She stood facing him squarely, clutching the nightdress in a crumpled mass like a shield before her, ready to do battle.
‘You are already within that tent.’ He turned away and began to unbutton his jacket.
‘Indeed, I am not, sir!’ she exclaimed with force, and he could see the colour in her cheeks darken. ‘What manner of treatment is this? You cannot seriously expect that I will spend the night with you!’ Her nostrils flared. She stared at him as if she were some great warrior queen.
‘You speak of expectations, mademoiselle. Do you expect to be left overnight all alone, so that you may try again to escape?’
She gave a shake of her head, and the loose blonde plait hanging down against her breast began to unwind. ‘I would try no such thing. The night is too dark, and I have no torch.’
‘These things did not stop you this evening.’
‘There was still daylight then.’
‘Hardly,’ he said, and shrugging off his jacket, hung it over the back of the wooden chair by the table.
‘I give you my word that I will not try to escape this night.’
‘Only this night?’ he raised an eyebrow.
‘It is this night of which we are speaking.’
‘So you are planning another attempt tomorrow.’
‘No!’
‘Tomorrow night, then?’
‘Very well, I give you my word that I will not attempt another escape.’ She looked at him expectantly. ‘So now will you arrange for another tent?’
‘Your word?’ He heard his voice harden as the memories came flooding back unbidden, the grief and revenge bitter within his mouth. He gave an angry, mirthless laugh. ‘But how can I trust that when the word of a Mallington is meaningless.’
‘How dare you?’ she exclaimed, and he could see the fury mounting in her eyes.
He smiled a grim determined smile. ‘Most easily, mademoiselle, I assure you.’
‘I have nothing more to say to you, sir.’ She spun on her heel, and began to stride towards the tent flap.
Dammartin’s hand shot out and, fixing a firm hold around her upper arm, hoisted her back. She struggled to escape him, but Dammartin just grabbed hold of her other arm and hauled her back to face him. Her arms were slight beneath his hands and he was surprised again at how small and slender she was, even though he had felt her body beneath his upon the rock face only a few hours since. He adjusted his grip so that he would not hurt her and pulled her closer.
She quietened then, looked up at him with blue eyes that were stormy. The scent of lavender surrounded her, and he could not help himself glance at the pale blonde hair that now spilled loose around her shoulders.
‘But I have not finished in what I have to say to you, mademoiselle.’ The nightdress slipped from her fingers, falling to lie between them.
They both glanced down to where the white frills lay in a frothy pool against the black leather of Dammartin’s boots.
And when he looked again, her eyes had widened slightly and he saw the fear that flitted through them.
He spoke quietly but with slow, deliberate intent, that she would understand him. ‘All the tents upon this campsite are filled, and even were they not, my men have travelled far this day and I would not drag a single one from their rest to guard against any further escape attempt that you may make. So tonight, I guard you myself. Do not complain of this situation, for you have brought it upon yourself, mademoiselle, with your most foolish behaviour.’ He lowered his face towards hers until their noses were almost touching, so close that they might have been lovers.
He heard the slight raggedness of her breathing, saw the rapid rise and fall of her breast, and the way that the colour washed from her cheeks as she stared back at him, her eyes wide with alarm.
The silence stretched between them as the soft warmth of her breath whispered against his lips like a kiss. His mouth parted in anticipation, and for one absurd moment he almost kissed her, almost, but then he remembered that she was Mallington’s daughter, and just precisely what Lieutenant Colonel Mallington had done, and all of the misery and all of the wrathful injustice was back.
His heart hardened.
When finally he spoke his voice was low and filled with harsh promise. ‘Do not seek to escape me again, Mademoiselle Mallington. If you try, your punishment shall be in earnest. Do you understand me?’
She gave a single nod of her head; as Dammartin released his grip, she stumbled back, grabbing hold of the chair back, where his jacket hung, to steady herself.
He turned brusquely away, pulling two blankets and a pillow from the bed and dropping them on to the ground sheet beside the bed. ‘Make yourself a bed. We leave early tomorrow and must sleep.’
She just stood there, by the table, looking at him, her face pale and wary.
He did not look at her, just sat down on the bed and removed his boots.
And still she stood there, until at last his gaze again met hers.
‘Make up your bed, unless you have a wish to share mine, mademoiselle.’
An expression of shock crossed her face and she hurriedly did as she was bid, extinguishing the lantern before climbing beneath the blankets on the groundsheet.
Dammartin did not sleep, and neither did the girl. The sound of her breathing told him that she lay as awake as he, so close to his bed that he might have reached his arm down and touched her. The wind buffeted at the canvas of the tent, but apart from that everything was silent.
He did not know how long he lay listening, aware of her through the darkness, turning one way and then the next as if she could find no comfort on the hardness of the ground. He rolled over, conscious of the relative softness of his own mattress, and felt the first prickle of conscience.
Goddamn it, she was his prisoner, he thought, and he’d be damned if he’d give his bed up for Mallington’s daughter. Just as he was thinking this, he heard her soft movements across the tent, and with a reflex honed by years of training, reached out through the darkness to grab at her dress.
He felt her start, heard her gasp loud in the deadness of the night.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington,’ he said quietly, ‘do you disregard my warning so readily?’
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I seek only my cloak. The night is cold. I am not trying to escape.
Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he sat up, guiding her back towards him, turning her in the blackness and tracing his hands lightly around her, like a blindman, until he found her hands. Even through the wool of her dress he could feel that she was chilled. Her fingers were cold beneath his before she pulled away from his touch.
‘Go back to your bed, mademoiselle,’ he said curtly.
‘But my cloak…’
‘Forget your cloak, you shall not find it in this darkness.’
‘But—’
‘Mademoiselle,’ he said more harshly.
He heard the breath catch in her throat as if she would have given him some retort, but she said nothing, only climbed beneath the blankets that he had given her earlier that night.
Dammartin swept his greatcoat from where it lay over his bed, and covered the girl with it.
‘Captain Dammartin…’ He could hear her surprise.
‘Go to sleep,’ he said gruffly.
‘Thank you,’ came the soft reply.
He turned over and pulled the blanket higher, knowing himself for a fool and slipping all the more easily into the comfort of sleep because of it.
Josie awoke to the seep of thin grey daylight through the canvas overhead. Sleep still fuddled her mind and she smiled, burrowing deeper beneath the cosiness of the covers, thinking that her father would tease her for her tardiness. Voices sounded outside, French male, and reality came rushing back in, exploding all of her warm contentment: Telemos, her father’s death, Dammartin. Clutching the blankets to her chest she sat up, glancing round apprehensively.
The bed in which Dammartin had slept lay empty; she was alone in the tent. The breath that Josie had been holding released, relief flowed through her. She got to her feet, her head woolly and thick from her lack of sleep.
How may hours had she lain awake listening to the French Captain’s breathing, hearing it slow and become more rhythmic as he found sleep? For how many hours had the thoughts raced through her head? Memories of her father and of Telemos. She had spoken the truth; the night was black and most of the fires would be dead; she had no torch, and she did not doubt that there would be sentries guarding the camp. Her chance of escape had been lost. He would watch her more carefully now.
A shudder ran through her as she remembered how he had held her last night, his face so close to hers that the air she breathed had been warmed by his lungs. His dark penetrating gaze locked on to hers so that she could not look away. For a moment, just one tiny moment, she had thought that he meant to kiss her, before she saw the pain and bitterness in his eyes. And she blushed that she could have thought such a ridiculous notion. Of course he did not want to kiss her, he hated her, just as she hated him. There was no mistaking that. He hated her, yet he would not let her go.
I do not lose prisoners, he had said. And she had the awful realisation that he meant to take her all the way to Ciudad Rodrigo—far away from Torres Vedras, and Lisbon and the British—and in the miles between lay the prospect of interrogation.
Her eye caught the thick grey greatcoat, still lying where he had placed it last night, on top of her blankets. When she looked at the bed again, she saw its single woollen cover. The chill in the air nipped at her, and she knew that the night had been colder. She stared at the bed, not understanding why a man so very menacing, so very dangerous, who loathed her very existence, had given her his covers.
More voices, men walking by outside.
She glanced down at the muddy smears marking her crumpled dress, and her dirty hands and ragged nails—souvenirs of the rock face and her failed escape.
She was British, she reminded herself, and she would not allow the enemy to bring her down in such a way. So she smoothed the worst of her bed-mussed hair, and peeped out of the tent flap. Molyneux lingered not so very far away. He was kind; he spoke English…and he came when she beckoned him. It seemed that the Lieutenant was only too happy to fetch her a basin of water.
‘I apologise, mademoiselle, for the coldness of the water, but there is no time to warm it.’ He smiled at her, his skin creasing round his eyes, and the wind ruffling the pale brown of his hair.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and meant it.
Taking the basin from the Lieutenant’s hands, she glanced out at the campsite beyond. All around dragoons were busy putting out fires, packing up, dismantling. She recognised Dammartin’s sergeant, Lamont, speaking to a group of troopers, but Dammartin himself was nowhere that she could see.
‘Thank you,’ she said again, and disappeared within the tent flaps.
Dammartin glanced over towards his tent, but there was still no sign of Mademoiselle Mallington. Coffee had been drunk, bread eaten, portmanteaux packed, and the girl slept through it all. At least he had had the foresight to set Molyneux to guarding his tent, lest the girl took the notion into her head to try to slip away again. And truth be told, this would be the best time to do it, when the camp was in chaos, the men’s attentions distracted, and a full day of light ahead.
Lamont appeared. ‘The men will be ready to leave in twenty minutes. Only the officers’ tents remain. Mademoiselle Mallington…’ He looked enquiringly at Dammartin.
‘Shall be ready to leave with the rest of us,’ Dammartin replied.
‘You look a little tired this morning, Captain,’ said Lamont, his gaze fixed on Dammartin’s tent. ‘Perhaps something disturbed your sleep?’
Dammartin gave a wry smile and shook his head at his sergeant’s teasing, before walking off towards his tent.
‘She is in there still?’ he said to Molyneux as he passed, indicating his tent.
‘Yes, Captain.’
Dammartin closed the last of the distance to his tent.
‘But, sir, she…’
Molyneux’s words sounded behind him, but it was too late. Dammartin had unfastened the ties and was already through the tent flap…and the sight that met his eyes stilled him where he stood. A basin of water sat upon his table; Mademoiselle Mallington stood by its side, washing, bare to her waist.
Chapter Five (#ulink_0903be8f-0fc1-5167-a342-e43455d01764)
Josie gave a small shriek and, trying to cover herself with one arm, reached for her towel with the other. In her panic she succeeded only in dropping the soap into the basin and knocking the towel off the back of the table. She clutched her arms around herself, acutely aware of her nakedness and the man that stood not four feet away, staring. She saw his gaze move over her, saw the darkening of his eyes as they met hers, yet she stood there gaping like a fool, staring at him in utter shock.
‘Captain Dammartin!’ she managed to gasp at last, those two words conveying all of her indignation.
He held her gaze for a moment longer, that second seeming to stretch to an eternity. ‘Pardon, mademoiselle,’ and, with a small bow of his head, he was gone as suddenly as he had arrived.
It was over in less than a minute, yet Josie stood there still, staring at the tent flap, before hurrying round to the other side of the table to snatch up the towel. She barely dried herself before pulling up her shift and petticoats from her waist with hands that were shaking. Humiliation set a scald to her cheeks, and a roughness to her fingers as she pulled down the hair pinned up high and loose upon her head to coil it into a tight little pile stabbed into place at the nape of her neck.
She was angry beyond belief, angry and embarrassed. ‘How dare he!’ she muttered to herself again and again as she stuffed her belongings back into her portmanteau. ‘The audacity of the man!’
Her indignation still burned so that when she left the tent, standing outside with her cloak fastened around her, and her hair neat and tidy beneath her best hat and her fresh blue dress, she was intent on snubbing the French Captain, but Dammartin was only a figure at the other end of the camp and it was Lieutenant Molyneux who waited some little distance away.
The wind dropped from her sails.
‘Mademoiselle.’ Molyneux appeared by her side, his grey eyes soft with concern. ‘I am here to escort you this day.’
Dammartin had assigned his lieutenant to guard her, thought Josie, and her anger at Dammartin swelled even more.
‘If you will come this way, it is time we were upon our horses.’
‘Thank you, Lieutenant,’ she said, as if she were not furious and outraged and humiliated, and walked, with her head held high, calmly by his side.
It soon became clear that her supposition regarding Molyneux was correct for, unlike the previous day, the Lieutenant stuck closely by her side. In Molyneux’s company the events of that morning ceased to matter so much to Josie. The young Lieutenant had such an easy and charming manner that she felt her ruffled feathers smooth and her anger dispel.
It was true that Molyneux had been in the monastery at Telemos just as much as Dammartin, but as the hours passed in his company she saw that he was like so many young men who had served beneath her father. His eyes were clear and honest and he seemed every bit the gentleman that Dammartin was not.
When the dragoons stopped to rest and eat, Molyneux sent a boy to fetch them bread and cheese, and then sat beside her on a boulder while they ate together.
‘You are kind to me, Lieutenant,’ she said, thinking of how much Molyneux contrasted with his captain.
‘Why should I not be kind? You are a lady, alone, in a difficult situation.’
She raised her gaze to his. ‘I am a prisoner.’
Molyneux’s lips curved in a small half-smile but there was a sadness in his eyes. ‘I believe that prisoners should be well treated.’
‘I do, too, as did my father.’
He gave no reply, but a strange expression stole upon his face.
‘It seems that Captain Dammartin does not share our opinion, sir.’
‘The Captain, he has his reasons, mademoiselle.’ Molyneux glanced away.
‘What reason could he possibly have to act as he has done?’ she demanded, feeling nettled just at the thought of Dammartin. ‘There is nothing that could excuse that man’s behaviour.’
Molyneux’s eyes returned to hers and she saw something of astonishment and pity in them. ‘You truly do not know.’
‘Know?’ She felt the prickling of suspicion. ‘What is it that I should know?’
Molyneux’s gaze held hers for a moment longer than it should, then he turned away and got to his feet. ‘Come, mademoiselle, we should make ready to ride again.’
‘Lieutenant—’
‘Come,’ he said again, and did not meet her eyes.
And when they resumed the journey, Molyneux was quiet, leaving Josie to wonder as to exactly what the Lieutenant had meant.
Dammartin rode at the head of the 8th Dragoons crossing the bleak terrain before them, but it was not the harshness of the Portuguese countryside of which he was thinking, nor the perils of the mission in which they were engaged. Something else entirely filled Dammartin’s mind—Josephine Mallington.
A vision of her standing there in his tent that morning, her clothing stripped aside to reveal her naked skin, so smooth and white and inviting that he longed to reach out and touch its silky surface. The slender column of her throat with the gold chain that hung around it, leading his eye down in invitation over a skin so pale and perfect, to the swell of her breasts.
He had seen them, just a glimpse, firm and thrusting and rosy-tipped, before his view was partly obscured. That slim arm crushing hard against them in a bid to hide herself from him, and in truth, serving only to tantalise even more in what it revealed. He could have traced his fingers over the bulging swell of that smooth white flesh, slipping them down behind the barrier of her arm to cup her breasts in his hands. To feel her nipples harden beneath his palm, to taste what he touched, taking her in his mouth, laving those rosy tips with his tongue…
Dammartin caught his train of thought and stopped it dead. Hell, but she was Mallington’s daughter. The one woman who should repulse him above all others, and all he could think of was her naked, and the sight of her soft lips, and the feel of her beneath him as they perched upon that rock face. He was already hard at the thought of her, uncomfortably so. And that knowledge made him damnably angry with Mademoiselle Mallington, and even more so with himself.
Hour after hour of a ride in which he should have been alert, aware, focused on his duty, spent distracted by Mallington’s daughter. Well, no more of it, he determined. Dammartin hardened his resolve. He was here to safeguard Foy’s journey to Ciudad Rodrigo—and that is what he would do. He could not refuse the order to take Mademoiselle Mallington with him to the Spanish city, and so he would take her there as he must.
And he thought again that Mallington was dead and all of his questions regarding Major Jean Dammartin’s death were destined to remain unanswered for ever.
His mind flicked again to Josephine Mallington and the fact that her father had brought her with him into these hills, and her knowledge of the messengers and of Dammartin’s own destination—a girl very much in her father’s confidence. Had she been there at the Battle of Oporto, just over eighteen months ago? He felt his lip curl at the thought that she might have witnessed his father’s murder, and his heart was filled once more with the cold steel of revenge. There would be no more distractions; Dammartin would have his answers.
Lieutenant Molyneux’s pensive mood allowed Josie time to think. She spent much time pondering the Lieutenant’s strange remarks, but came no nearer to fathoming of what he had been speaking. There was definitely something that she did not know, something to do with Dammartin and the hatred that he nursed.
Her eyes followed ahead to where the French Captain rode, and she thought how she had caught him looking at her several times that day with an expression of such intensity as to almost be hunger. He was not looking at her now.
She remembered his face from this morning when he had strode so boldly into her tent, his tent. The hours spent with Molyneux had mellowed Josie’s anger and indignation. There had been an initial shock in Dammartin’s eyes before they had darkened to a dangerous smoulder. The camp had been disbanding and she had overslept. And it had all happened so quickly that she doubted he could have seen very much at all.
She thought of the long, cold hours of the night when he had given her his greatcoat, and she wondered as to that small kindness. Josie had heard the stories of what French soldiers inflicted upon the towns that they took and the people who went against them. She knew of the interrogations, and the torture…and the rape. That she was an innocent did not stop her from knowing what enemy soldiers did to women. Within the Fifth Battalion of the 60th Regiment of Foot gossip reached the Lieutenant Colonel’s daughter just the same as it reached everyone else. Yet for all the dislike in his eyes, Dammartin had not touched her, nor allowed his men to do so. He had not beaten her, he had not starved her when he could so easily have done so. She knew all of these things, yet whenever Dammartin looked at her, she could not prevent the somersaults of apprehension in her stomach, or the sudden hurry of her heart.
They broke for camp in the late afternoon, before the light of day was lost. Fundao—another day’s march closer to General Foy fulfilling his mission, another day’s march between Josie and the British lines.
Molyneux stood some distance away, talking with Sergeant Lamont, but the Lieutenant was careful to keep Josie within his sight.
Josie sat on her portmanteau, watching while the tents were erected, wondering how fast Molyneux could move if she were to make a run for it. She could not imagine him with the same harsh rugged determination of his captain.
There was something single-minded and ruthless about Dammartin, something driven. And she thought of the deadly earnest of his warning, and knew that even if Molyneux did not catch her, Dammartin most certainly would. Her eyes closed, trying to stifle the intensity of the memory. Dammartin was not a man to make promises lightly.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington.’
The sound of his voice behind her made her jump. She rose swiftly to her feet and turned to face him. ‘Captain Dammartin.’
He instructed a young trooper to carry her portmanteau to his tent. Everything about him was masculine and powerful. His expression was closed, his dark brows hooding eyes that were as hard as granite and just as cold.
‘You will sleep in my tent tonight—alone.’
Alone? She felt the surprise lighten her face and relief leap within her. ‘Thank you,’ she said, wondering if she really did have the measure of Dammartin. She did not dare to ask him where he would be spending the night.
He continued as if she had not spoken. ‘There will be a guard posted outside all of the night, so do not think to try to escape, mademoiselle. I trust you remember my warning.’
She gave a wary nod and made to move away towards the tent.
‘I am not yet finished,’ he said icily.
Josie hesitated, feeling his words rankle, but she turned back and raised her eyes calmly to his. ‘You wish to say something further, sir?’
‘I wish to ask you some questions.’
It seemed that her chest constricted and her heart rate kicked to a stampede. ‘You said there would be no more questions.’
‘No more questions last night,’ he amended.
She held her head high and looked him directly in the eye. ‘Perhaps I did not make myself clear, Captain. You will waste your time with questions—there is nothing more that I can tell you.’
‘We will see, mademoiselle.’
She breathed deeply, trying to keep her fear in check. He could not mean to interrogate her, not now, not when she was so unprepared. ‘I am tired, sir, and wish only to retire.’
‘We are all tired,’ he said harshly.
She clutched her hands together, her fingers gripping tight.
‘You may retire when you have told me of your father.’
‘My father?’ She stared at him in disbelief, feeling all of her anger and all of her grief come welling back. ‘Is it not enough that you killed him? He is dead, for pity’s sake! Can you not leave him be even now?’
‘It is true that he is dead, mademoiselle,’ admitted Dammartin, his face colder and harsher than ever she had seen it, ‘but not by my hand…unfortunately.’
She was aghast. ‘Unfortunately?’ she echoed. ‘Our countries may be at war, but my father does not deserve such contempt. He was the bravest of soldiers, an honourable man who gave his life for his country.’
‘He was a villain,’ said Dammartin, and in his eyes was a furious black bitterness.
‘How dare you slur his good name!’ she cried, her breast heaving with passion, all fear forgotten. All of her anger and hurt and grief welled up to overflow and she hated Dammartin in that moment as she had never hated before. ‘You are the very devil, sir!’ And, drawing back her hand, she slapped his cruel, arrogant face as hard as she could.
The camp fell silent. Each and every dragoon turned to stare.
No one moved.
No one breathed.
The audacity of Josie’s action seemed to slow time itself.
She saw the ruddy print of her hand stain his cheek, saw his scar grow livid, and she could not believe that she had struck him with such violence, with such hatred, she who was his captive at his mercy.
His eyes grew impossibly darker. There was a slight tightening of the muscle in his jaw. His breath was so light as to scarce be a breath at all. The air was heavy with a rage barely sheathed.
She stared in mounting horror, every pore in her body screaming a warning, prickling at her scalp, rippling a shiver down her spine, and she knew that she should run, but beneath the force of that dark penetrating gaze her legs would not move.
‘I…’ She gasped, knowing she had to say something, but the way that he was looking at her froze the very words in her throat.
Her eyes swept around, seeing the faces of all his men, and all of the incredulity and anticipation so clear upon them, waiting for the storm to erupt.
Josie began to tremble and slowly, ever so slowly, as if she could move without his noticing, she began to inch away, her toes reaching tentatively to find the solidity of the ground behind her.
When he struck it was so sudden, so fast, that she saw nothing of it. One minute she was standing before him, and the next, she was in his arms, his body hard against hers, his mouth claiming her own with a savagery that made her gasp with shock.
Dammartin’s lips were bold and punishing, exploring her own with an intimacy to which he had no right.
Josie fought back, struggling against him, but his arms just tightened around her, locking her in position, so that she could not escape but just endure, like a ship cast adrift while the lightning flashed and the thunder roared, and the waves crashed upon its deck.
He claimed her as if she were his for the taking, his lips plundering and stealing her all, his tongue invading with a force she could not refuse. And all the while the dark stubble of his chin rasped rough against her.
She felt as his hands slid around her back, one tangling within her hair, anchoring her to him, the other pulling her closer still until her breasts were crushed mercilessly against the hard muscle of his chest. This was no kiss, but a possession, an outright punishment.
And then the anger and violence were gone and she felt his mouth gentle against hers, still kissing her but with a tenderness that belied the ravishment. His lips massaged, stroked, tasted, his tongue dancing against hers in invitation. Kissing her, and kissing her until she could no longer think straight; kissing her until she no longer knew night from day.
Josie forgot where she was, and all that had just happened—Telemos and her father and just who this man was. There was only this moment, only this feeling, only this kiss—so slow and thorough and seductive. And just as she gave herself up to the sensation his lips were gone, and it was over as suddenly as it had started.
The men were cheering as Dammartin released her, the idiotic grins splitting their faces hitting her like a dowse of cold water, revealing reality in all its starkness.
Josie stumbled back, the full horror of the situation hitting her hard, knocking the breath from her lungs, buckling her legs, and she would have fallen had not Dammartin moved to support her, catching her weight against him. She looked up into the dark smoulder of his eyes, and just for that moment their gazes held, before she pushed away, and turning, fled towards the safety of his tent.
She lay that night, fully clothed, in Dammartin’s tent, on the makeshift bed, alone, but for Josie there was no sleep—there was only the blood-splattered room in Telemos, and the death of her father…and the terrible weight of what she had just done.
Dammartin lay on his bed within the tent shared by Molyneux and Lamont, listening to their snores, awake, as he had been for hours, running the events of that evening through his mind for the hundredth time. The full-blown argument, her slap, and he would have let it go, done nothing, had not his men been watching.
She was a prisoner, a captive, Mallington’s daughter and he knew he could not let her action go unpunished. And he wanted so very much to kiss her, to show her that she could not defy him. And hadn’t he done just that? But what had started as a punishment had ended as something very different.
It seemed he could feel her against him still, so small and slender and womanly, her lips gaping with the shock of his assault. She had fought him, struggled, tried to escape, and he, like a brute, had shown no mercy. He had taken from her that which she did not know she had to give, and the taste of her innocence was like water to a man parched and dying.
He did not know what had changed, only that something had, and he found that he was kissing her in all honesty, kissing her as if she was his lover, with tenderness and seduction. And the sweetness of her tentative response, the surprise of it, the delight of it…so that he lost himself in that kiss, completely and utterly. It had taken the laughter and jeering of his men to bring him back from it, awakening him from her spell.
She was as shocked as he. He could see it in her face—shocked and ashamed and guilty.
Too late, Mademoiselle Mallington, he thought bitterly, too damned late, for there was no longer any denying what he had known these days past: he wanted her—the daughter of the man who had murdered his father. The knowledge repulsed him. God help him, his father must be turning in his grave. But even that thought did not stop him wanting to lay Josephine Mallington down naked beneath him and plunge his hard aching flesh deep within her. He wanted her with a passion that both excited and appalled.
Dammartin took a deep breath and forced himself to think calmly with the same hard determination that had driven him these past months. He might want her, but it did not mean that he would take her. More than lust would be needed to make Pierre Dammartin disgrace his father’s memory. He had been too long without a woman and that simple fact was addling his brain. He would stay away from her, assign all of her care to Molyneux, and finish this journey as quickly as he could. And on that resolution, Dammartin finally found sleep.
In the days that followed, Josie saw little of Dammartin. He was always somewhere in the distance, always occupied. Not once did he look at her. And strangely, despite that she hated him, Dammartin’s rejection made Josie more alone and miserable than ever.
But there was Lieutenant Molyneux and he was so open and handsome and so very reasonable. It did not seem to matter to him that she was British and his prisoner. He was respectful when there was nothing of respect anywhere else, and friendly when all around shunned her.
A hill rose by the side of the camp that evening, smaller and less jagged than those through which they had spent the day trekking. Up above, the sky was washed in shades of pink and violet and blue as the sun began to sink behind its summit. Something of its beauty touched a chord in Josie and she felt the scene call out to the pain and grief in her heart.
She turned to Molyneux in appeal. ‘Lieutenant, I would dearly like to climb that hill and watch the sunset. I would not wander from the route, which is clear and within your view from this position. I give you my most solemn word that I would not try to escape and that I would return to you here as soon as possible.’ Her voice raised in hope as she willed him to agree.
‘I am sorry, mademoiselle…’ his voice was gentle ‘…but Captain Dammartin…’ His words faltered and he started again. ‘I would be very happy to accompany you in your walk up the hill, if you would permit me. The sunset does indeed look most beautiful.’
She gave a nod of her head. ‘That would be most kind, Lieutenant.’
‘Then we should go quickly before we miss it,’ he said.
Josie smiled and wrapped her cloak more tightly around her and pulled her hat lower over her ears.
Together they walked up the hill by the camp side. And when the slope grew steeper, it seemed perfectly natural that Lieutenant Molyneux should take her arm in his, helping her to cover the ground with speed.
The summit was flat like a platform specially fashioned by the gods with the sole purpose of viewing the wonder of the heavens. Josie and Molyneux stood in awe at the sight that met their eyes. Before them the sky flamed a brilliance of colours. Red burned deep and fiery before fading to pink that washed pale and peachy. Great streaks of violet bled into the pink as if a watercolour wash had been applied too soon. Like some great canvas the picture was revealed before them in all its magnificence, a greater creation than could have been painted by any mere man. And just in the viewing of it, something of the heavy weight seemed to lift from Josie’s heart and for the first time since Telemos she felt some little essence of peace. Such vastness, such magnificence, as to heal, like a balm on her troubled spirit. Words were inadequate to express the beauty of nature.
Josie stood in silent reverence, her hand tucked comfortably within Molyneux’s arm, and watched, until the sound of a man’s tread interrupted.
Josie dragged her eyes away from the vivid spectacle before her to glance behind.
Captain Dammartin stood not three paces away. His face was harder than ever she had seen it, his scar emphasised by the play of light and shadows. He looked at where Josie’s hand was tucked into his lieutenant’s arm, and it seemed that there was a narrowing of his eyes.
‘Lieutenant Molyneux, return to your duties,’ he snapped.
‘Yes, sir.’ Molyneux released Josie’s hand and made his salute. He smiled at her, his hair fluttering in the breeze. His eyes were velvety grey and sincere and creased with the warmth of his smile. In the deep green of his jacket and the white of his pantaloons tinged pink from the sky, he cut a dashing image. ‘Please excuse me, mademoiselle.’
‘Immediately, Lieutenant.’ Dammartin’s voice was harsh.
The Lieutenant turned and hurried away, leaving Josie and his captain silhouetted against the brilliance of the setting sun.
‘I have tolerated your games long enough, Mademoiselle Mallington.’ The colours in the sky reflected upon his hair, casting a rich warmth to its darkness. The wind rippled through it making it appear soft and feathery. It stood in stark contrast to the expression in his eyes.
All sense of tranquillity shattered, destroyed in a single sentence by Dammartin.
‘Games? I have no idea of what you speak, sir.’ Her tone was quite as cold as his.
‘Come, mademoiselle,’ he said. ‘Do not play the innocent with me. You have been courting the attention of my lieutenant these days past. He is not a lap-dog to dance upon your every whim. You are a prisoner of the 8th Dragoons. You would do well to remember that.’
Shock caused Josie’s jaw to gape. Her eyes grew wide and round. It was the final straw as far as she was concerned. He had kissed her, kissed her with violence and passion and tenderness, and she, to a shame that would never be forgotten, had kissed him back—this man who was her enemy and who looked at her with such stony hostility. And she thought of the blaze in his eyes at the mention of her father’s name. He had destroyed everything that she loved, and now he had destroyed the little transient peace. In that moment she knew that she could not trust herself to stay lest she flew at him with all the rage that was in her heart.
‘Must you always be so unpleasant?’ She turned her face from his, hating him for everything, and made to walk right past him.
‘Wait.’ He barked it as an order. ‘Not so fast, mademoiselle. I have not yet finished.’
She cast him a disparaging look. ‘Well, sir, I have.’ And walked right past him.
A hand shot out, and fastened around her right arm. ‘I do not think so, mademoiselle.’
She did not fight against him. She had already learned the folly of that. ‘What do you mean to do this time?’ she said. ‘Beat me?’
‘I have never struck a woman in my life.’
‘Force your kiss upon me again?’ she demanded in a voice so cold he would have been proud to own it himself.
Their gazes met and held.
‘I do not think that so very much force would be required, mademoiselle,’ he said quietly.
She felt the heat stain her cheeks at his words, and she wanted to call him for the devil he was, and her palm itched to hit him hard across his arrogant face.
His grip loosened and fell away.
She stepped back and faced him squarely. ‘Well, Captain, what is of such importance that you must hold me here to say it?’
‘What were you doing up here?’
‘Surely that was plain to see?’
His eyes narrowed in disgust and he gave a slight shake of his head as if he could not quite believe her. ‘You are brazen in the extreme, Mademoiselle Mallington. Tell me, are all English women so free with their favours?’
Josie felt the sudden warmth flood her cheeks at his implication. ‘How dare you?’
‘Very easily, given your behaviour.’
‘You are the most insolent and despicable of men!’
‘We have already established that.’
‘Lieutenant Molyneux and I were watching the sun set, nothing more!’ Beneath the thick wool of her cloak her breast rose and fell with escalating righteous indignation.
‘Huddled together like two lovers,’ he said.
‘Never!’ she cried.
Anger spurred an energy to muscles that had not half an hour since been heavy and spent from the day’s ride. All of Josie’s fury and frustration came together in that minute and something inside her snapped.
‘Why must you despise me so much?’ she yelled.
‘It is not you whom I despise,’ he said quietly.
‘But my father,’ she finished for him. ‘You killed him and you are glad of it.’
‘I am.’ And all of the brooding menace was there again in his eyes.
‘Why? What did my father ever do to you, save defend his life and the lives of his men?’
He looked into the girl’s eyes, the same clear blue eyes that had looked out from Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s face as he lay dying, and said quietly. ‘Your father was a villain and a scoundrel.’
‘No!’ The denial was swift and sore.
‘You do not know?’ For the first time it struck him that perhaps she was ignorant of the truth, that she really thought her father a wondrous hero.
‘No,’ she said again, more quietly.
All that was raw and bloody and aching deep within Dammartin urged him to tell her. And it seemed if he could destroy this last falsehood the Lieutenant Colonel had woven, if he could let his daughter know the truth of the man, then perhaps he, Dammartin, would be free. Yet still he hesitated. Indeed, even then, he would not have told her. It was Mademoiselle Mallington herself with her very next words that settled the matter.
‘Tell me, Captain Dammartin, for I would know this grudge that you hold against my father.’
The devil sowed temptation, and Pierre Dammartin could no longer resist the harvest. ‘You ask, mademoiselle, and so I will answer.’
Dammartin’s gaze did not falter. He looked directly into Josephine Mallington’s eyes, and he told her.
‘My father was a prisoner of the famous Lieutenant Colonel Mallington after the Battle of Oporto last year. Mallington gave him his parole, let him think he was being released. He never made it a mile outside the British camp before he was murdered by your father’s own hand. So, mademoiselle, now you have the answer to your question, and I will warrant that you do not like it.’
She shook her head, incredulity creasing her face. ‘You are lying!’
‘I swear on my father’s memory, that it is the truth. It is not an oath that I take lightly.’
‘It cannot be true. It is not possible.’
‘I assure you that it is.’
‘My father would never do such a thing. He was a man to whom honour was everything.’
‘Were you there, mademoiselle, at Oporto?’ The question he had been so longing to ask of her. ‘In May of last year?’
She shook her head. ‘My father sent me back to England in April.’
He felt the stab of disappointment. ‘Then you really do not know the truth of what your father did.’
‘My father was a good and decent man. He would never have killed a paroled officer.’
‘You are mistaken, mademoiselle.’
‘Never!’ she cried. ‘I tell you, he would not!’
He moved back slowly, seeing the hurt and disbelief well in her face, knowing that he had put it there. He said no more. He did not need to. The pain in her eyes smote him so hard that he caught his breath.
‘What do you seek with such lies? To break me? To make me answer your wretched questions?’
And something in her voice made him want to catch back every word and stuff them back deep within him.
She walked past him, her small figure striding across the ragged hilltop in the little light that remained, and as the last of the sky was swallowed up in darkness Pierre Dammartin knew finally that there was no relief to be found in revenge. The pain that had gnawed at him since learning the truth of his father’s unworthy death was no better. If anything, it hurt worse than ever, and he knew that he had been wrong to tell her.
He stood alone on the hill in the darkness and listened to the quiet burr of the camp below and the steady beat of a sore and jealous heart.
Chapter Six (#ulink_3d5e17f7-d48f-57c5-8740-fe4c036c5914)
Josie avoided both Lieutenant Molyneux and Sergeant Lamont and headed straight for her tent. The smell of dinner filled the air, but Josie was not hungry. Indeed, her stomach tightened against the thought of eating. She sat in the darkness and thought of what Captain Dammartin had said, thought of the absurdity of his accusation and the certainty of his conviction. His words whirled round in her head until she thought it would explode. He never made it a mile outside the camp before he was murdered by your father’s own hand. She squeezed her eyes shut. Not Papa, not her own dear papa. He would not murder a man in cold blood.
Josie knew full well that her father, as a ruthless commander in Wellington’s army, had been responsible for the deaths of many men, but that was on a battlefield, that was war, and there was a world of difference between that and killing a man who had been given his parole.
Josie could think of nothing else. She did not move, just sat as still as a small statue, hunched in her misery within the tent.
A voice sounded from the flap. ‘Mademoiselle.’ It was Lieutenant Molyneux.
‘Please, sir, I am tired and wish to be left alone.’
‘But you have not eaten, mademoiselle.’
‘I am not hungry.’
‘You must eat something.’
‘Perhaps later,’ she said, wishing that the Lieutenant would go away, and then, feeling ungracious, added, ‘but I thank you, sir, for your concern.’
He did not reply, but she knew he had not moved away.
‘Mademoiselle,’ he said softly, ‘has the Captain upset you?’
She paused, unwilling to reveal the extent to which Dammartin had hurt her. Then finally she said, ‘No, I am just tired, that is all.’
‘He does not mean to be so…’ Molyneux searched for the right word in English and failed to find it. ‘He is a good man, really. He just never got over the death of his father.’
Something twisted in her stomach at his words. Slowly she moved to the front of the tent, pulling back the flap that she might see Lieutenant Molyneux.
He smiled and held out the mess tin of stew that he had collected for her.
‘Thank you.’ She took it, but did not eat. ‘What happened to Captain Dammartin’s father?’ she asked, and inside her heart was thumping hard and fast.
The smile fled Molyneux’s face. ‘Major Dammartin was a prisoner of war,’ he said quietly.
She waited for his next words.
He flushed and shifted uncomfortably. ‘It was a dishonourable affair.’ He cleared his throat and glanced away.
‘What happened?’ she prompted.
He did not look at her. ‘He was killed by his English captors.’
‘No,’ she said softly.
‘Unfortunately, yes, mademoiselle. It is a story famous throughout France. Major Dammartin was a very great war hero, you see.’
‘Do you know who held him? Which regiment?’
He looked at her then and she could see the pity in his eyes. And she knew.
But Molyneux was much more of a gentleman than Dammartin and he would not say it. ‘I cannot recall,’ he said. He gave a small smile. ‘You should eat your dinner, mademoiselle, before it grows cold.’
She raised her eyes and looked across the distance, to the other side of the fire that burned not so very far away from the tents. Dammartin was standing there, talking to Sergeant Lamont. But his face was turned towards her and she felt the force of his gaze meet hers before it moved on to take in Lieutenant Molyneux. She felt herself flush, remembering what Dammartin had said, and knowing what it must look like with her standing by the tent flap, and the Lieutenant so close outside, their conversation conducted in hushed tones.
‘Thank you,’ she said to Molyneux, and she let the canvas flap fall back down into place.
The morning was as glorious as the previous evening’s sunset had predicted. A cloudless blue sky filled with the soft, gentle light of pale sunshine. A landscape over which drifted small pockets of mist that had not yet blown away, and which during the night an ice maiden had kissed so that everything within it glittered with a fine coating of frost.
Josie noticed none of the beauty.
She thought again and again of what the Frenchmen had said, both of them. And the thing that she could not forget was not the terrible words of Dammartin’s accusation with his fury and all of his bitterness. No, the most horrible thing of all was Molyneux’s kindness. I cannot recall, he had said, but he could and he did. She had seen the pity in his eyes, and his silence roared more potent than all of Dammartin’s angry words.
She knew now why the French soldiers looked at her as they did, and understood the whispers. Yet Josie clung with every ounce of her being to her father’s memory, refusing to believe her gentle papa guilty of such a crime.
Molyneux was ever present during the long hours of the day, attempting to cheer and amuse her when in truth what Josie needed was time alone to think—time away from all of the French, even Molyneux. No sentries, no feeling of being for ever watched, for ever guarded, and definitely no Dammartin, just space to think clearly.
As they struck camp that evening, Josie waited until Dammartin and his men were at their busiest before making her excuse of the need to relieve herself. It was the one place to which neither Molyneux nor his men would accompany her.
Looking up into the Lieutenant’s face, she felt a twinge of guilt at her dishonesty, for Molyneux alone in this camp had tried to help her. But her need for some little time alone overcame all such discomfort.
‘Come, sit down, take a drink with me.’ The Major steered Dammartin back to the table and sat down. He unstoppered the large decanter of brandy and poured out two generous measures. ‘Here.’ He pressed one of the glasses into Dammartin’s hand.
‘Thank you, sir.’ Dammartin took a sip.
‘Snuff?’ The Major extracted an exquisitely worked silver snuffbox from his pocket and, opening the lid, offered it to Dammartin.
Dammartin shook his head. ‘Thank you, but, no, sir.’
‘Forget the “sir”. We are alone now. You are Jean’s son, and since my old friend is no longer with us, I look upon you as my own son.’ La Roque took an enormous pinch of snuff, placed it on the back of his hand, sniffed it heartily up into his nose and then gave the most enormous sneeze. He lifted his own glass of brandy from the table and lounged back in his chair.
‘So tell me, how are you really doing, Pierre? I’ve been worried about you since Telemos.’
Dammartin took another sip of brandy, and gave a wry smile to the man who had helped him so much since his father’s death. ‘There’s no need. I told you I am fine.’
‘Who would have thought that Mallington would have been holed up in that shit-hole of a village? There truly must be a God, Pierre, to have delivered that villain into our hands. I am only sorry that he died before I got to him. At least you had the satisfaction of looking into the bastard’s eyes while he died.’
‘Yes.’ And even La Roque’s finest brandy could not mask the bad taste that rose in Dammartin’s throat at that memory. ‘Yet I found no joy in Mallington’s death.’
‘Come, come, boy. What is this? At long last your father’s murder has been avenged.’
‘I know.’
‘We both waited a long time for that moment.’
‘Indeed we did.’ But the sourness in Dammartin’s throat did not diminish. He took another sip of brandy.
‘Jean can now rest in peace, and you can move on with your life.’
‘At last,’ said Dammartin, but his voice was grim.
La Roque drained the last of the brandy from his glass and reached again for the decanter. ‘Come along, hold your glass out, time for a top-up.’
‘I need a clear head for the morning,’ protested Dammartin.
‘I insist,’ said the Major, ‘for old times’ sake.’ He refilled Dammartin’s glass. ‘Let’s drink to your father. The finest friend a man ever did have and a hero for all of France.’ La Roque raised his glass. ‘Jean Dammartin.’
Dammartin did likewise. ‘Jean Dammartin, the best of fathers.’
They drank the brandy and sat in silence for some minutes, Dammartin lost in memories of his father.
And then La Roque asked, ‘What of the woman, Mallington’s daughter? Her presence cannot be easy for you.’
‘Mademoiselle Mallington does not affect me in the slightest,’ said Dammartin, and knew that he lied. ‘She is a prisoner to be delivered to Ciudad Rodrigo as you instructed, nothing more.’
‘That is what I like to hear, Pierre.’ La Roque smiled. ‘Drink up, boy, drink up.’
Josie sat perched near the edge of the ravine, looking out over the swathe of the rugged Portuguese landscape beyond. The air had grown colder with a dampness that seemed to seep into her very bones. She did not know how long it would be before Molyneux missed her, so she just savoured each and every moment of her solitude.
The fingers of her left hand kneaded gently at her forehead, trying to ease the knotted confusion of the thoughts that lay within. From beyond the trees and bushes behind her through which she had passed came the now-familiar sound of tent pegs being hammered in the distance, and the faint chattering and laughter of the soldiers.
She breathed deeply, allowing some of the tension, which had since Telemos been a part of her, to slip. Within this light the rocks in the ravine looked as brown as the soil that encased them. A bird called from the cool grey sky, gliding open-winged on a current of air, and Josie envied its freedom. The breeze fluttered the ribbons of her bonnet beneath her chin and loosed some strands of hair to brush against her cheeks.
She thought again of Dammartin and of his accusation, and as terrible and ridiculous as it had been, at least she now understood something of the French Captain’s darkness. He was a man drowning in bitterness and vengeance…and hurt. And all because of a lie.
Dammartin’s father was dead, but not by her papa’s hand, not by murder. Papa had been honest and steadfast, a strong man whose integrity was not open to compromise. But Dammartin believed the lie; she had seen the absolute conviction in his eyes. That knowledge explained all of his hatred, but little else.
Why had he taken her from the monastery in Telemos? For she knew now that he had never intended to honour her father’s dying wishes. For information? Yet he had known of the messengers, and not from her. And why had he come after her across the Portuguese countryside? What did it matter to him if she lived or died?
She thought of his coaxing her down the rock face, and giving her his cover in the night, of his kiss that had gentled to become… Josie did not want to think of that. So many questions, to which she did not have the answers.
A twig snapped behind her, the noise of a footstep upon the pebbled soil. Josie glanced round to tell Molyneux that she was just coming. But it was not Molyneux that stood there.
‘What do you mean she has not come back?’ demanded Dammartin. ‘Where the hell is she?’
‘She wished to use the latrine,’ said a white-faced Molyneux.
‘And you let her go alone?’
Molyneux wetted the dryness of his lips. ‘I could not expect her to attend to her…needs…in front of me.’
‘No? You were instructed not to leave her side.’
Molyneux faced Dammartin with a slight air of defiance. ‘She is a lady, Captain.’
‘I know damn well what Mademoiselle Mallington is,’ snapped Dammartin, peering into the bushes. ‘Fetch your musket, Lamont, and a couple of troopers. We have not much time before the light is lost.’
Molyneux saluted and moved away.
‘And, Molyneux,’ Dammartin called after him. ‘You’ll be tracking her on foot down towards the ravine.’
* * *
A calloused hand clamped over Josie’s mouth, a brawny arm fastened tight around her chest and upper arms, hauling her to her feet.
She kicked out, her boot hitting hard against the man’s shin.
He grunted and, drawing back his hand, dealt her a blow across the face.
She made to scream, but his hand was already around her throat, squeezing tight, and she was choking and gasping with the need for air. She heard his words, fast and furious Portuguese, as he lifted her clear of the ground by that single hand encircling her neck.
A cracked, grubby finger with its dirt-encrusted fingernail touched against his lips, as he looked meaningfully into her eyes.
She nodded, or at least tried to, knowing that he was demanding her silence. The world was darkening as at last his grip released and she dropped to the ground, limp and gasping for breath.
More voices, talking, and she raised her eyes to see five more shabby, dark-bearded men coming out from among the bushes. They were all lean to the point of being gaunt, their clothes dirty and faded, their faces hard and hostile as they encircled her, like wolves closing in around a kill. Bandits, realised Josie, just as Dammartin had warned.
‘Inglês,’ she said hoarsely, and raked through her brain for some more Portuguese words that would make them understand. ‘Não francês.’
But the men were talking quietly among themselves, gesturing in the direction of the French camp.
‘I am British,’ she said, swallowing through the pain of the bruising on her throat. ‘British,’ she said, and tried to scramble to her feet.
The large man, her attacker, pushed her back down and crouched low to look into her face. ‘I like British,’ he said, and traced a thick tongue slowly and deliberately over his lips in a crude gesture that even Josie in all her innocence could understand.
‘General Lord Wellington will pay well for my return,’ she lied. ‘W-e-l-l-i-n-g-t-o-n,’ she said enunciating slowly so that they must be sure to understand, and ‘g-o-l-d, much gold.’
But the bandit just leered and spoke words to the men behind him to make them laugh. He spat and something brown and moist and half-chewed landed close to her leg.
Josie’s heart was racing and fear flowed icy in her veins at the realisation of her situation. She skittered back, driving her heels against the ground, trying to put some space between her and the bandit, but he grabbed hold of her ankle and with one wrench, she was flat upon her back with the man climbing over her. She kicked and punched and tried to scream, but his mouth was hard upon hers, the unwashed stench of him filling her nostrils, the weight of him crushing her down upon the rocky soil so that she was staked out, unable to move. His hand ranged over her, rough and greedy and grasping, ripping aside her bodice, tearing at her petticoats and shift. She bucked beneath him, trying to throw him off, but he smiled all the more, and she felt him pressing himself against her, forcing his brown-stained tongue into her mouth. The foul taste of him made her gag, but he did not stop, not until she bit him. He drew back then, his face contorted, his filthy hand wiping the blood from his lower lip.
‘Bitch!’ he cursed, and lashed out, slapping her face hard.
The men behind him were saying something, looking back nervously towards the dragoons’ camp.
Josie knew she had only one hope. She prayed that Dammartin would come, and unleash all of his darkness, and all of his fury, upon these bandits. I do not lose prisoners, he had said. In her mind she called out his name again and again, as if that mantra would summon the devil to deal his revenge and save her.
But the bandit’s hands were at her skirts, bunching them up, ripping at them, clawing to reach beneath so that she could already feel his ragged fingernails raking the soft skin of her thighs. The others gathered closer to watch, smiling with lust, and cruelty and anticipation.
Josie’s hope weakened and began to wither, and just as it had almost died, she heard the French war cry, and knew that Dammartin had come.
Dammartin saw the ruffians gathered round, and he knew without seeing what they were watching. He signalled to his men, sending Molyneux and a trooper silently through the undergrowth to cover one side, and Lamont with a second trooper to the other. And even while they moved into place, he was priming his musket ready to fire.
He roared the war cry, the sound of it echoing throughout the hills and down across the ravine.
The bandits reacted with a start, some reaching for their weapons, the others trying to run.
He saw the flash of exploding gunpowder and the shots rang out, deafening in their volume. Three of the bandits were downed, but Dammartin was not focusing on them. He looked beyond to where the man was scrabbling up from a woman’s prostrate body, saw him snarl at her as he turned towards Dammartin, his hands raised in the air in submission.
‘Surrender! Surrender!’ the bandit shouted in garbled French.
Dammartin did not even pause in consideration. His finger squeezed against the trigger, and the man dropped to his knees, a neat, round, red hole in the middle of his forehead, his eyes wide and staring, before he crashed facedown to the ground.
When Dammartin looked again, Josephine Mallington was on her feet, clutching what was left of her bodice against her breasts, and standing over the bandit’s body. She was staring down at the gore the dripped from his head, her breast heaving, her eyes flashing with barely suppressed emotion.
‘Villain!’ she shouted, ‘Damnable blackguard!’ and delivered a kick to the dead man. ‘Rotten evil guttersnipe!’ Dropping to her knees, she lashed out, hitting again and again at the body. ‘Wretched, wretched brute!’
‘Mademoiselle,’ Dammartin said, and tried to guide her from the corpse, but she just pushed him away.
‘No!’ she cried. ‘Leave me be!’ She struck out all the harder.
‘Josephine.’ Dammartin stayed her flailing arms, pulling her up, turning her in his encircling arms so that her face looked up to his.
And all of her anger seemed to just drop away, and in its place was devastation. Her eyes met his then, wide and haunted. Beneath the smears of dirt, her face was so pale as to be devoid of any colour, save for beginnings of bruises where a fist had struck, and the thin trickle of red blood that bled from the corner of her mouth.
‘He was going to…’
‘I know.’ Dammartin felt his outrage flare at the thought.
‘Like a rutting animal…’ And her voice was hoarse with distress and disgust. ‘Like a great, filthy beast.’
‘Josephine—’ he tried to calm her ‘—he is dead.’
‘And I am glad of it!’ she cried in her poor, broken voice, ‘So very glad! Me, a Christian woman, my father’s daughter.’ Her eyes squeezed shut and he thought that she would weep, but she did not. Her head bowed so that she stood, resting her forehead lightly against his chest. And he could not imagine the strength with which she held back her tears. Within his arms, he felt the rapidity of her breathing and the tremble that ran through her.
‘I prayed that you would come,’ she said so quietly that he had to strain to catch her words. ‘I prayed and prayed.’
Dammartin stroked a gentle hand against her hair, and held her to him. ‘You are safe now, mademoiselle,’ he said, ‘safe, I promise.’
He stood for a few moments and the wind blew, and the sky grew darker, and he was overwhelmed with the need to protect her, to make all of her terrible hurt disappear. And then Molyneux moved, Lamont cleared his throat, and Dammartin forced himself to think straight.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington,’ he said softly, and stripping off his jacket, wrapped it around her. ‘We must return to the camp.’
She focused down at the ground. ‘Of course.’ There was nothing left of resistance, nothing of the fight she had so often given in the past.
He kept his arm around her waist, supporting her, as she walked by his side.
In silence and with grim expressions upon each of their faces, Dammartin and his men made their way back to their camp.
Dammartin sat her down on the chair at the table within his tent, speaking fast words of command over his shoulder, to Molyneux or Lamont, she supposed, but she did not look to see. She could not, for all that her eyes were open and staring. She was frozen, unable to move from beneath the terrible, heavy emptiness that weighed her down.
There was the trickle of water, a cloth being wrung out over a basin. The water was warm, his touch gentle, as he cleansed away the blood and the dirt, carefully wiping and dabbing and drying her face and hands, while his jacket hung warm and protective around her shoulders.
She looked at him then and there was nothing of bitterness in his eyes, only compassion.
‘I told him I was British,’ she said, and the words crawled like glass through the rawness of her throat. ‘And it made no difference, just as you said.’
‘Josephine,’ he said softly. ‘I should have guarded you better.’
She shook her head. ‘I was not escaping.’ It seemed important to make him understand and she did not know why. ‘I just wanted some time alone, some place where I might sit and think of all you had said…of my father.’
They sat in silence and the flicker of the lantern danced shadows upon the canvas walls. Outside all was quiet.
She felt the touch of his fingers, as light as a feather, against the bruising at her throat and the tenderness of her mouth.
‘He hurt you very badly, mademoiselle—for that I am sorry.’
And his gentleness and compassion almost overwhelmed her.
‘But you are safe now, I swear it.’
She looked deep into the darkness of his eyes, and saw a man who was resolute and strong and invincible, and she believed what he said.
The smallest of nods. And she sat there, dazed and battered and not knowing anything any more.
And when he unlaced her boots to ease them from her feet, and laid her down upon the bed beneath the blankets, she let him.
‘Do not leave me alone,’ she heard her lips murmur.
He gave a nod and returned to sit upon the chair. ‘I will be here all the night through. You can sleep safe.’
She could hear his breathing, the creak of the chair at his small movements, and every so often she opened her eyes just by the slightest to check that he was still there. Checking and checking until finally the blackness of sleep stole over her.
But sleep brought no refuge, only more horror, so that she could smell the stench of the villain and feel the claw of his hands upon her, and hear again the thunder of Dammartin’s musket shot. The wound in the bandit’s skull gaped, leaking the dark, rich liquid to drip into an expanding pool. So much blood. Just like in Telemos.
Blood and more blood. Upon the bandit, upon the men of the 60th and her father, upon herself as she hit out at the bandit’s dead body. One blow and then another, and as she reached to strike him a third time the bandit sat up with an evil grin. She felt her heart flip over, for in his hand was the musket that had shot her father, all sticky and dark with blood. The barrel raised, the bandit took aim directly at Josie’s heart. Death was certain. She cried out, pleading for him to stop.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington. Josephine.’ Dammartin’s voice was close and quiet, his hands on her arms, dragging her from the nightmare. She stared through the darkness, reaching out to find him.
‘Captain Dammartin,’ she whispered, and on her tongue was the saltiness of tears and in her nose was the congestion of weeping.
‘It is a bad dream, nothing more. I am here. All is well.’ He stroked a hand against her hair. ‘Go back to sleep.’
But when he would have left, she caught at his fingers, unable to bear being alone. ‘Stay,’ she said.
He stilled in the darkness.
‘Please.’
In answer he lay down beside her, and covered them both with the weight of his greatcoat. He was warm even through the blankets that separated them and she could feel the linen of his shirt soft against her cheek and smell the clean, masculine smell of him. With his strong arm draped protectively over her, holding her close, the nightmare receded and Josie knew, at last, that she was safe.
As Dammartin rode the next day his thoughts were all with Josephine Mallington. She had been seconds from being raped. In his mind’s eye he could still see the bandit lying over her, and the memory made his blood run cold so that he wanted to smash the butt of his musket into the man’s face again and again. Death had come too quickly for the bastard.
He remembered her anger, and her devastation, and the way she had clung to him in the night. I prayed that you would come, she had said. Him. Her enemy.
And he thought of Lieutenant Colonel Mallington firing the shot into his father’s body, just as he had thought of it every day for over the last eighteen months. She was the murderer’s daughter, his flesh and blood. He had every right to hate her, but it was no longer that simple. She had not known of her father’s crime, and she did not deserve what had happened to her, not in that room in Telemos, not his contempt, nor the assault by the bandits. Lamont had been right. She was a woman, a woman who had watched her father die, who was alone and afraid and the captive of an enemy army.
But there was still the matter of what Mallington had done, and Dammartin could not forgive or forget. The wound ran too deep for that. If he could have understood the reasons underlying Mallington’s crime, perhaps then there might have been some sort of end to it all, a semblance of peace. But Mallington had died taking his answers to the grave, leaving Dammartin with his anger and his bitterness… and his desire for Josephine Mallington.
As Lamont had said, it would be a long way to Ciudad Rodrigo, a long way indeed.
Josie rode silently by Molyneux’s side that day. The Lieutenant had been kind and understanding, trying to make the journey as comfortable as he could for her, but she could see that he did not know what to say to her. Even Sergeant Lamont had brought her a cup of hot coffee when they stopped to rest and eat, his gruff expression belying the small kindness. She could see the way they looked at her, with pity in their eyes, and Josie hated it. Their contempt would have been more welcome. She did not want to be vulnerable and afraid, an object of sympathy, and she resented the bandit even more that he could have made her so. And she knew what the bandit would have done had not Dammartin arrived.
Saved by the one man she had hated. It was under his command that her father and his men had been killed. He could be nothing other than her enemy. But Josie thought of the hole that his bullet had made within the bandit’s head, she thought of how he had taken her in his arms and held her. He had washed away the dirt and the stench and the blood, and stayed with her the whole night through, and lain his length beside her when she had begged him to stay. She had begged him. And that thought made Josie cringe with shame, yet last night, in the darkness the fear had been so very great that there had been no such embarrassment. Last night she had needed him, this man who hated with such passion.
Your father was a villain and a scoundrel, he had said, and she thought again of the terrible accusation he had made. Dammartin believed in it with all his heart. And she wondered why he should ever have come to think such a thing. How could he be so misled? There was only one man who could answer her questions.
Yesterday she would not have considered entering into a discussion with Dammartin over his accusation, but much had changed since then, and she knew that, for all the darkness and danger surrounding him, he would not hurt her. For all else that Dammartin was and for all else that he had done, he had saved her, and Josie would not forget that.
She rode on in silence, biding her time until evening when she would speak to the French Captain.
Chapter Seven (#ulink_a2e7b36b-fea8-5c2d-ba8d-3261045cec27)
It had been a long day, long and cold and hard, and the dust of it still clung to Dammartin’s boots. Smoke drifted from the newly lit fires and the men busied themselves with cooking pots and rice and beans. The air was filled with the smell of wood smoke and the damp air of impending night.
‘We head for Sabugal tomorrow,’ he said to Lamont. ‘The maps show that the mountains do not grow less and Foy is demanding we speed our current pace.’
‘Men will be lost if we push them too hard.’
‘More of Massena’s men are lost with every day that we delay.’ Dammartin rubbed wearily at the dark growth of stubble that peppered his jaw. ‘Our army is dying in this damned country for need of reinforcements.’
Lamont’s gaze focused over Dammartin’s right shoulder before swinging back to meet the Captain’s. ‘I think perhaps the mademoiselle wishes to speak with you. She keeps glancing over here.’
Dammartin’s expression remained unchanged. ‘I am busy. There remains much to be done this evening.’ He had no wish to speak to Mademoiselle Mallington. Matters concerning the girl were already too complicated for his liking.
Lamont sniffed and scratched at his chin. ‘After last night, I thought…’
Dammartin forced the images from his mind. ‘I would not wish what happened last night upon any woman, but she is still Mallington’s daughter, Claude. I cannot allow myself to forget that.’
Lamont said nothing for a few moments, just looked at his captain before giving a nod. ‘I will see to our evening meal.’ And he walked off.
Dammartin nodded over at Molyneux, and began to move towards his lieutenant. A woman’s step sounded behind him and there was the scent of lavender.
‘I wondered if I might speak with you, Captain Dammartin.’ There was a slightly awkward expression upon Mademoiselle Mallington’s face; she seemed almost embarrassed, and he knew that she was remembering last night, just as he was.
He opened his mouth to refuse her, noticing as he did the tendrils of fair hair that had escaped her bonnet to feather around her face and the shadow of the bruise that marked her jaw.
‘Concerning my father.’
Mallington. And he knew he would not refuse her after all. ‘Very well, mademoiselle.’
‘Perhaps we could talk somewhere more private.’
He felt the register of surprise, along with a sliver of excitement at the prospect of what it could be that she wished to tell him.
‘If that is what you desire.’
He saw Molyneux standing not so far away, the Lieutenant’s gaze darting between the girl and Dammartin.
‘There is a river down through the woodland.’
She nodded her agreement.
Dammartin headed towards the trees, leaving Molyneux staring after them.
They walked in silence through the woodland, down the slope that ran towards the river, with only the tread of their boots over soil and the snapping of twigs between them, until they left the clearing where the 8th Dragoons were camped some distance behind at the top of the gorge. Slightly to the east they could hear the sounds of the infantry’s camp, but it was not close enough to challenge their privacy.
He led her to the edge of a fast-flowing river, to where great boulders of rock clustered along its bank.
‘We shall not be overheard here,’ he said, and, leaning easily against a giant rock, looked out over the river.
Back up through the trees, from where they had come, he could just about see the carmine-coloured lapels of his men’s jackets as they moved about the camp. Had the red lapels not been there, the green of their uniform would have made an effective camouflage even though the woodland was bare and barren. Beyond the great stones the water flowed fast despite the lack of rain. In the fading light it was a deep greeny grey that foamed to white where the water splashed hard over its rocky bed. The noise of it was so loud and gushing as to be almost a roar.
Josie turned from the river to face him, feeling suddenly nervous. ‘There is not much time, Captain Dammartin. The daylight shall soon be gone and I would prefer to be back at the camp before it is dark.’ She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and prepared to speak the words she had come here to say.
He did not look round, just stayed where he was. ‘You are recovered from last night, mademoiselle?’
The question unsettled her, reminding of things best forgotten: bandits and nightmares and the warmth of Dammartin’s body sharing her bed. ‘Yes, thank you, sir.’
His eyes met hers, and they were a clear honey brown, rich with emotion that she could not name—compassion, affinity, protectiveness. ‘I am glad.’
And to Josie there was an intensity about the moment that set the butterflies fluttering in her stomach so that she had to look away.
The water rushed on. Somewhere in the distance was the thumping of axes splitting wood, and through the trees ahead she could see the sun was setting: a vibrant red halo surrounding the dark branches of the trees, as if a fire had touched against them, deep and hot and burning.
Still leaning his elbows on the stone boulder with the rosy pink light softening his face, he appeared to Josie ruggedly handsome. ‘What is it, then, that you wish to say?’
She turned her mind from its observations, reminding herself of why she had come here. ‘I wished to ask you of this…this accusation that you level at my father.’
He resumed his study of the river scene before him. ‘It is no mere accusation, mademoiselle, but the truth.’ And there was a weariness in his voice.
‘That is your belief, but it is not correct, sir.’
‘And this is what you wished to tell me?’ He stopped leaning against the rock and turned to face her, and she could see that anything of softness had vanished, that he was once again the dark and dangerous French Captain who had stormed the monastery in Telemos.
‘I did not come here to argue,’ she said quickly.
‘Really?’ He arched an arrogant eyebrow.
She glanced away, suddenly very aware that they were alone down here. ‘Did you witness your father’s death?’
There was only the sound of the river in reply.
She thought she saw the flicker of pain in his eyes, so brief that she could not be sure.
The muscle in his jaw clenched. ‘I did not.’
‘But you were there, with him, at Oporto?’
‘Unfortunately, no.’
The smallest of pauses, before she asked gently, ‘Then how do you know the manner of his death?’
‘Mademoiselle,’ he said with the hard cynical breath of a laugh, ‘all of France knows what your father did to him!’
She bit back the retort that sprang to her lips. ‘Then, there were witnesses…to the crime?’
‘Yes, there was a witness,’ he said harshly. ‘An honourable man who is beyond reproach, if it is his word that you are seeking to discredit.’
His words stung at her. ‘What is there of honour in dishonesty?’ she replied.
A twig snapped close by, and Josie jumped. Both of them peered in the direction of the trees from whence it had come.
There was only silence and the dying light and stillness.
‘It is nothing,’ said Dammartin dismissively. ‘There is nothing to be gained in this, mademoiselle, we should return to the camp. The light begins to fade, and you said yourself that you are in a hurry to be back there.’ He made to move.
‘No, wait.’ She stepped forwards, blocking his path, needing to show him that he was wrong. ‘Before he died my father told me that you were an honourable man. He bade me trust you. If your accusation is true, I do not understand why he would say such a thing. When he saw you…when you came into that room in the monas-tery…when it was all but over, there was nothing of guilt or regret or fear in his eyes. He looked at you with respect. Given what you say, sir, how do you explain that?’
‘I cannot, but it does not mean that he was innocent.’
‘But will you not at least admit that his was not behaviour in keeping with a man that is guilty?’
‘It was not in keeping with what is expected of a man that is guilty,’ said Dammartin carefully.
‘He was dying, for goodness’ sake!’ she said, and the pain stabbed in her heart. ‘Do you really think that he would have bothered with pretence at such a time? What would have been the point?’
‘As you said, Lieutenant Colonel Mallington was dying, and leaving his beloved daughter alone with the son of the man he had murdered. I think he had every reason to behave as he did.’
‘You did not know him,’ she said quietly, and stared up into his now-shadowed face. ‘He was not such a man.’
‘You are his daughter. Of course you do not wish to believe the unpleasantness of the truth.’
‘No, you are wrong.’ But with the denial came the first whisper of doubt in Josie’s mind.
‘You were not there. You can never really know what happened in Oporto last year, can you, mademoiselle?’
She bent her head, pressing the tips of her fingers to the tightness across her forehead. The thought came to her in a flash, and she wondered why she had not realised it before. Her father’s journals—a log of all that had happened to Lieutenant Colonel Mallington and his men over the years—recorded by her papa’s own hand in book after precious book. She raised her chin, staring at him with renewed confidence, feeling the excitement of her realisation flow through the entirety of her body.
‘Oh, but you see, I can, sir,’ she exclaimed. ‘Every detail of every day.’ She smiled her relief.
It seemed that Dammartin’s lungs did not breathe, that his heart did not beat. ‘And how might that be, mademoiselle?’ he asked in a deathly quiet voice.
His very stillness alerted her to her mistake. ‘I…’ She swallowed, and glanced away, searching her mind frantically for a safe answer and finding none. She backed away. ‘You were right; we should be returning to camp. It will soon be dark and the trees—’
His hand snaked out and caught gently around her wrist, preventing her escape. ‘No, no, mademoiselle,’ he said softly, ‘our discussion, it begins to grow most interesting.’ The angles of his face seemed to sharpen and his eyes darken, as he became the hunter once more.
‘Captain Dammartin—’
‘Every detail of every day,’ he said slowly, repeating her words. ‘Where might you learn that, I wonder?’
She tried to free her wrist, but Dammartin’s hold was unbreakable. The thudding of her heart was so loud that she could no longer hear the river. Her breath was shallow and fast.
Foolish, foolish tongue, she cursed, to almost reveal what had remained hidden for so long. Her words had been too few, she told herself; he could not know, he could not. The journals would be safe.
Dammartin slowly pulled her closer, so that they were standing toe to toe within the twilight. ‘From your British newspapers of the time?’ His face tilted so that he was staring down at her.
‘I meant nothing by my words. You are mistaken…’ She tried to step away, but Dammartin secured her other wrist, locking her in place.
His head lowered towards hers so close that she could feel his breath, warm and soft against her face, and see the passion and determination within the darkness of his eyes. ‘From your father’s friends?’ he asked.
She felt the jolt that jumped between them as his mouth brushed against her cheek, light and transient.
‘Or perhaps from your father’s journals?’ he whispered softly into her ear.
The breath froze in Josie’s throat. The blood in her veins turned to ice. She could not suppress the shiver. ‘This is madness,’ she breathed at last. ‘My father kept no journal. Take me back to the camp at once.’ She pulled her face back from his, staring up at him.
‘Where are they, mademoiselle?’ Darkness had crept to cover the sky, but she could still see him through the dim silver moonlight.
‘You are quite, quite mistaken, sir.’
‘We can stay here all night and play this game. Or perhaps you prefer to tell me now where the journals are kept, so that we may eat something of our rice and beans.’
There was silence in which neither moved nor spoke.
‘At home, in England,’ she said at last, knowing that it was not the journals’ existence that was the secret to be protected, but their location. She thought of the irony of the journals’ true hiding place. ‘I will read them when I return to Winchester and then I will know exactly what happened between your father and mine in Oporto.’ She stared at him defiantly, knowing that she could not allow one shred of fear to show. ‘And I will warrant that it is not the lie that you French have told.’
He looked at her with his dark, penetrating stare, and it seemed to Josie that he could see into her very soul.
For too long their gazes held, as if locked in some kind of strange battle of wills, and if battle it was, then Dammartin was the loser, for it was he who looked away first.
‘Let us return to the camp, mademoiselle,’ he said, and, taking her hand in his, he began to lead her back towards the woodland.
She let her fingers lie where they were, warm and comfortable within his own, despite knowing that she should be fighting his touch. But the night was dark and their route through the woodland steep and uneven, and her sense of relief and of triumph was greater than anything else.
Hand in hand, without a further word between them, Josie and Dammartin walked through the trees that would lead them back to the camp of the 8th Dragoons.
The campaign portmanteau which contained all of Josie’s worldly possessions sat opposite her makeshift bed within Dammartin’s tent. It was made of brown leather, battered and scratched from its many miles of travel following her father.
Josie unbuttoned the top of her dress and let the woollen material fall back to expose the chain that hung around her neck. Its golden links glinted within the soft light of the lantern. Her hand disappeared down her dress. From just above her breasts she retrieved what had been threaded to hang upon the chain: a small brass key. Kneeling down upon the groundsheet, she leaned forward towards the portmanteau, neatly turned the key in first one lock and then the other. The fastenings opened easily beneath her fingers. She opened the lid and rested it carefully back.
Inside were piles of neatly folded clothes. They were, in the main, garments that had been purchased with the practicalities of life on campaign in winter in mind. There were two woollen travelling dresses, a sensible pelisse, scarves, a shawl, gloves, a pair of sensible shoes that could be worn instead of her boots, and of course, a large pile of plain white warm underwear, the warmest that she had had. There were stockings and two nightdresses and ribbons and hairpins. Near the top there was a tiny silver and ivory set that included a comb and brush and hand-held looking glass. But Josie was interested in none of these things.
She moved with deliberate care, removing the items one by one, laying them in tidy bundles across the groundsheet, until at last the portmanteau was empty, or so it seemed. Then she pressed at the rear left-hand corner of the portmanteau and smoothly lifted away the false floor. Beneath it, spread in neat piles over the entirety of the base of the portmanteau, as if a single uniform layer, were notebooks.
Each book was backed in a soft paper cover of a deep pinky-red coloration; some were faded, others stained. Josie picked one from the closest corner and opened it. The white of the pages was scarcely visible beneath the pale grey pencil script that covered it. She checked the date at the top right-hand side of the page—21st June 1807—closed the book, set it back in its place in the pile, moved on to the next, until she found the book that contained the date for which she was searching.
The false floor was slotted back into position. The bundles of clothes were returned in neat order to the portmanteau, as was every other item that had been removed. The lid was carefully closed, the key turned within the locks and the straps rebuckled. Only then did Josie make herself comfortable upon the wooden chair and sit down at Captain Dammartin’s little table to lay the notebook upon its surface. She adjusted the direction of the light within the lantern and, taking a deep breath, began to read her father’s journal for the Battle of Oporto.
Josie could barely concentrate on Molyneux’s chatter the next day, for thinking of the words that her father had written. Dammartin had been correct in saying that his father had been captured by hers. It was true, too, that the French major had been paroled, but that is where any similarity between the two stories ended. Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s telling of the two men’s meeting could not have contrasted more sharply with Dammartin’s.
Her papa had written of respect and admiration between two men who happened to be fighting on opposite sides of a war. Those faded grey words conveyed an underlying sense of something bordering on friendship.
Why should there be such a discrepancy between the two accounts? It made no sense. The more she thought about it, the more she became convinced that there was something very strange about such a blatant contradiction. And she longed to question Dammartin more on his story.
Who was the man who claimed to have witnessed the murder? Someone honourable, who was beyond reproach, Dammartin had said.
She glanced ahead to where the French Captain rode, her eyes skimming his broad shoulders, and the sway of the long, black mane of horsehair that hung from his helmet. She wanted to show him the journal entry, to prove to him that he was wrong, to show him that her father was indeed an innocent man, but she could not.
Trust was a fickle thing, and Dammartin was still the enemy. Even had she torn that single page from its binding so that he might have read only that and nothing else, then he would have known that the journals were in her possession and she knew that Dammartin would not stop until he had them from her.
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Margaret McPhee
The Captain’s Forbidden MissBattle-weary Captain Pierre Dammartin has secured the ultimate bargaining tool: holding his enemy’s daughter as his captive. Josephine Mallington is the one woman he should hate…yet her vulnerable beauty soon leads Pierre to want her for reasons other than revenge…His Mask of RetributionHeld at gunpoint on Hounslow Heath, Marianne is taken prisoner by a mysterious masked highwayman. Her father owes this man a debt and now Marianne must pay the price…but she finds more than vengeance in the highwayman’s smouldering amber eyes…
A
Regency
Collection
MARGARET MCPHEE loves to use her imagination—an essential requirement for a scientist. However, when she realised that her imagination was inspired more by the historical romances she loves to read rather than by her experiments, she decided to put the stories down on paper. She has since left her scientific life behind and enjoys cycling in the Scottish countryside, tea and cakes.
A Regency Captain’s Prize
The Captain’s Forbidden Miss
His Mask of Retribution
Margaret McPhee
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#u58c9f8c0-196a-5987-93be-568ce599e47e)
About the Author (#u7fa09df4-cd7f-53da-9033-d58e1df0e120)
Title Page (#uaa8a7363-99f2-5a3d-a8ae-9bd11aa12386)
The Captain’s Forbidden Miss (#uc376916b-f8d4-5e63-a06d-34606029c328)
Chapter One (#u04a59884-d894-5041-b663-a8d788858d58)
Chapter Two (#u4c7b99d6-6e66-5c64-b4c8-20ea47980c9f)
Chapter Three (#u3c7c3644-2490-5300-b40e-76c1fe00224c)
Chapter Four (#ub9f27f1b-70f4-573b-8b11-2546376c18e0)
Chapter Five (#u2b634e92-bbf0-5228-b063-98863dc7678b)
Chapter Six (#u009b1381-ea8d-511d-b8c9-c1802bb151ff)
Chapter Seven (#u1be84a9d-a2b8-531d-a4f9-637820f7e2e3)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
His Mask of Retribution (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Endpage (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
The Captain’s Forbidden Miss (#ulink_a46f67b6-95fa-5120-806c-2526ff7251d5)
Margaret McPhee
Chapter One (#ulink_79e138fd-b35c-5f2c-b1ce-f4dc5ee99a7e)
Central Portugal—31 October 1810
High up in the deserted village of Telemos in the mountains north of Punhete, Josephine Mallington was desperately trying to staunch the young rifleman’s bleeding when the French began their charge. She stayed where she was, kneeling by the soldier on the dusty stone floor of the old monastery in which her father and his men had taken refuge. The French hail of bullets through the holes where windows had once stood continued as the French dragoon troopers began to surge forwards in a great mass, the sound of their pas de charge loud even above the roar of gunpowder.
‘En avant! En avant! Vive la République!’ She heard their cries.
All around was the acrid stench of gunpowder and of fresh spilt blood. Stones that had for three hundred years sheltered monks and priests and holy Mass now witnessed carnage. Most of her father’s men were dead, Sarah and Mary too. The remaining men began to run.
The rifleman’s hand within hers jerked and then went limp. Josie looked down and saw that life had left him, and, for all the surrounding chaos, the horror of it so shocked her that for a moment she could not shift her stare from his lifeless eyes.
‘Josie! For God’s sake, get over here, girl!’
Her father’s voice shook her from the daze, and she heard the thudding of the French axes as they struck again and again against the thick heavy wood of the monastery’s front door. She uncurled her fingers from those of the dead soldier and, slipping the shawl from her shoulders, she draped it to cover his face.
‘Papa?’ Her eyes roved over the bloody ruins.
Bodies lay dead and dying throughout the hall. Men that Josie had known in life lay still and grotesque in death—her father’s men—the men of the Fifth Battalion of the British 60th Regiment of Foot. Josie had seen death before, more death than any young woman should see, but never death like this.
‘Stay low and move quickly, Josie. And hurry—we do not have much time.’
On her hands and knees she crawled to where her father and a small group of his men crouched. Dirt and blood smeared their faces and showed as dark patches against the deep green of their jackets and the blue of their trousers.
She felt her father’s arms around her, pulling her into the huddle of men.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘I am fine,’ she said, even though ‘fine’ was hardly the word to describe how she was feeling.
He nodded and set her from him. She heard her father speak again, but this time his words were not for her. ‘The door will not hold them much longer. We must make for the uppermost floor. Follow me.’
She did as her father instructed, responding to the strength and authority in his voice as much as any of his men would have done, pausing only to collect the rifle, cartridges and powder horn from a dead rifleman, and taking care to keep her eyes averted from the gaping wound in his chest. Clutching the rifle and ammunition to her, she fled with the men, following her father out of the hall, past the door through which the French axes had almost hacked, and up the wide stone staircase.
They ran up two flights of stairs and into a room at the front of the building. Miraculously the key was still in the lock of the door. As it turned beneath her father’s hand, she heard the resounding thud of the front door being thrown open and knew that the French were in. They heard the sound of many French feet below running into the great hall and then the booted footfalls began to climb the stairs that would lead them to the room that housed the few remaining riflemen.
There was little to mark Lieutenant Colonel Mallington from his riflemen save his bearing and the innate authority that he emanated. His jacket was of the same dark green, with black frogging, scarlet facings and silver buttons, but on his shoulder was a silver thread wing and around his waist was the red sash of rank. His riding boots were easily unnoticed and his fur-trimmed pelisse lay abandoned somewhere in the great hall below.
Within their hiding place, Josie listened while her father spoke to his men. ‘We need to draw this out as long as we possibly can, to give our messengers the best chance of reaching General Lord Wellington with the news.’ Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s face was strong and fearless. He looked each one of his men in the eye.
Josie saw the respect on the riflemen’s faces.
Her father continued, ‘The French force are marching through these hills on a secret mission. General Foy, who leads the column of French infantry and its cavalry detachment, is taking a message from General Massena to Napoleon Bonaparte himself. He will travel first to Ciudad Rodrigo in Spain and then to Paris.’
The men stood quiet and listened to what their lieutenant colonel was saying.
‘Massena is requesting reinforcements.’
‘And General Lord Wellington knows nothing of it,’ added Sergeant Braun. ‘And if Massena gets his reinforcements…’
‘That is why it is imperative that Wellington is forewarned of this,’ said Lieutenant Colonel Mallington. ‘It is only half an hour since our men left with the message. If Foy and his army realise that we have despatched messengers, then they will go after them. We must ensure that does not happen. We must buy Captain Hartmann and Lieutenant Meyer enough time to get clear of these hills.’
The men nodded, thin-lipped, narrow-eyed, determined in their conviction.
‘And that is why we will not surrender this day,’ the Lieutenant Colonel said, ‘but fight to the death. Our sacrifice will ensure that Wellington will not be taken unawares by a reinforced French army, thus saving the lives of many of our men. Our six lives for our messengers.’ He paused and looked solemnly at his men. ‘Our six lives to save many.’
Within the room was silence, and beyond rang the clatter of French boots.
‘Six men to win a war,’ he finished.
‘Six men and one sharpshooting woman,’ said Josie, meeting her father’s gaze and indicating her rifle.
And then one by one the men began cheer. ‘For victory!’ they shouted.
‘For the King and for freedom!’ boomed Lieutenant Colonel Mallington.
A raucous hurrah sounded in response.
‘No man shall come through that door alive,’ said Sergeant Braun.
Another cheer. And one by one the men positioned themselves at either side of the door and readied their weapons.
‘Josie.’ Her father’s voice had quietened and softened in tone.
She came to him, stood beside him, knowing that this was it, knowing that there were no more escapes to be had. For all the men’s bravado, Josie was well aware what her father’s order would cost them all.
A single touch of his fingers against her cheek. ‘Forgive me,’ he said.
She kissed his hand. ‘There is nothing to forgive.’
‘I never should have brought you back here.’
‘I wanted to come,’ she said, ‘you know how I hated it in England. I’ve been happy here.’
‘Josie, I wish—’
But Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s words were cut short. There was no more time to talk. A French voice sounded from beyond the door, demanding surrender.
Lieutenant Colonel Mallington drew Josie a grim smile. ‘We will not surrender!’ he bellowed in English.
Twice more the French voice asked that they yield, and twice more Lieutenant Colonel Mallington refused.
‘Then you have sealed your fate,’ said the highly accented voice in English.
Josie cut the paper of a cartridge with the gunflint to release the bullet, poured the gunpowder into the rifle’s barrel and rammed the bullet home before priming the lock. Her father gestured her to crouch closest to the corner furthest from the door. He signed for the men to hunker down and aim their weapons.
The French unleashed their musket fire, their bullets thudding into the thick wooden door.
Wait, instructed the Lieutenant Colonel’s hand signal.
For Josie that was the hardest time, crouched there in the small room, her finger poised by the trigger, her heart racing somewhere near the base of her throat, knowing that they were all going to die, and disbelieving it all the same. Never had the minutes stretched so long. Her mouth was so dry she could not swallow, and still her father would not let them fire. He wanted one last stand, one last blaze of glory that would hold the Frenchmen at bay until the very last moment. And still the bullets kept on coming, and still the six men and Josie waited, until at last the door began to weaken and great chunks of wood fell from it, exposing holes through which Josie could see the mass of men crammed into the corridor outside, their uniforms so similar in colour to that of her father and his men that she could have imagined they were British riflemen just the same.
‘Now!’ came the order.
And what remained of their section of the Fifth Battalion of the 60th Foot let loose their shots.
Josie could never be sure how long the mêlée lasted. It might have been seconds; it seemed like hours. Her arms and shoulders ached from firing and reloading the rifle, yet still she kept going. It was an impossible cause, and one by one the riflemen went down fighting, until there was only Sergeant Braun, Josie and her father. Then Lieutenant Colonel Mallington gave a grunt, clutched a hand to his chest, and through his fingers Josie could see the stain of spreading blood. He staggered backwards until he slumped against the wall, the blade of his sword clattering uselessly to the floor. As Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s strength failed, he slithered down the wall to land half-sitting, half-lying at its base.
‘Papa!’ In two steps she had reached him and was pressing the sword back into his hand where he lay.
His breathing was laboured and the blood was spreading across his coat.
Sergeant Braun heard her cry, and positioned himself in front of the Lieutenant Colonel and his daughter, firing shot after shot, and reloading his rifle so fast as to make Josie’s paltry efforts seem laughable, and all the while roaring his defiance at the French force that had not yet crossed the threshold where the skeleton of the door still balanced. It seemed that he stood there an eternity, that one man holding back the full force of the French 8th Dragoons, until at last his body jerked with the impact of one bullet and then another and another, and he crumpled to the ground to lie in a crimson pool.
There was no more musket fire.
Josie moved to stand defensively in front of her father, aiming her rifle through the gun smoke, her breathing ragged and loud in the sudden silence.
The holed and splintered wood that had been the door fell inwards suddenly, landing with a crash upon the floor of the barren room that housed the bodies of the riflemen. There was silence as the smoke cleared to show Josie exactly what she faced.
The French had not moved. They still stood clustered outside around the doorway, in their green coats so reminiscent of the 60th’s. Even the facings on their coats were of a similar red coloration; the difference lay in their white breeches and black riding boots, their brass buttons and single white crossbelts and most of all in the brass helmets with black horsehair crests that they wore upon their heads. Even across the distance she could see their faces beneath those helmets—lean and hard and ruthless—and she saw the disbelief that flitted across them when they realised whom it was that they faced.
She heard the command, ‘Ne tirez pas!’ and knew that they would hold their fire. And then the man who had issued that command stepped through the doorway into the room.
He was dressed in a similar green jacket to that of his men, but with the white epaulettes upon his shoulders and a leopardskin band around his helmet that was given only to officers. He looked too young to wear the small, silver grenades in the carmine turnbacks in the tail of his jacket. He was tall and well muscled. Beneath the polish of his helmet his hair was short and dark, and down the length of his left cheek he carried a scar. In his hand was a beautifully weighted sabre, from the hilt of which hung a long, golden tassel.
When he spoke his voice was hard and flinty and highly accented. ‘Lieutenant Colonel Mallington.’
Josie heard her father’s gasp of shock and she raised the rifle higher, aiming it at the Frenchman.
‘Dammartin?’ She could hear the incredulity in her father’s voice.
‘You recognise me from my father, Major Jean Dammartin, perhaps. I understand that you knew him. I am Captain Pierre Dammartin and I have waited a long time to meet you, Lieutenant Colonel Mallington,’ said the Frenchman.
‘Good Lord!’ said her father. ‘You are his very image.’
The Frenchman’s smile was cold and hard. He made no move, just stood there, seemingly relishing the moment.
‘Josie,’ her father called with urgency.
Josie kept the rifle trained on the French Captain, but she glanced down at her father. He was pale and weak with lines of pain etched around his eyes.
‘Papa?’
‘Let him approach. I must speak with him.’
Her gaze swung back to the Frenchman, whose eyes were dark and stony. They watched one another across the small distance.
‘Josie,’ her father said again. ‘Do as I say.’
She was loathed to let the enemy any closer to her father, but she knew that she had little choice. Perhaps her father had a trick up his sleeve, a small pistol or a knife with which to turn the situation to their advantage. If they could but capture the French Captain and bargain for just a little more time….
Josie stepped to the side, leaving the approach to her father free, yet never taking her eyes from the Frenchman’s face.
The French Captain’s sabre sat easily in his hand as if it were an old friend with which he was so comfortable that he ceased to notice it. He advanced forwards to stand before the Lieutenant Colonel, taking the place that Josie had just vacated, waiting with a closed expression for what the older man would say.
And all the while Josie kept the rifle trained upon the Frenchman’s heart, and the French soldiers kept their muskets trained upon her.
‘Captain Dammartin.’ Her father beckoned him closer.
The Frenchman did not move.
Lieutenant Colonel Mallington managed to smile at the young man’s resistance. ‘You are of the same mould as your father. He was a most worthy opponent.’
‘Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel.’ Dammartin’s mouth was grim. ‘A compliment indeed.’
The Lieutenant Colonel’s eyes slid to Josie. ‘She is my daughter, all that I have left in this world.’ Then his gaze was back fixed on Dammartin. ‘I do not need to ask that you treat her honourably. I already know that, as Jean Dammartin’s son, you will do nothing other.’ He coughed and blood flecked red and fresh upon his lips.
Dammartin’s eyes glittered dangerously. ‘Do you indeed, Lieutenant Colonel?’ He slowly extended his sword arm until the edge of the blade was only inches from the Lieutenant Colonel’s face. ‘You are very certain for a man in your position.’
The French dragoons in the background smiled and sniggered. Dammartin held up a hand to silence them.
Josie took a step closer to the French Captain, the weight of the raised rifle pulling at her arms. She showed no weakness, just tightened her finger slightly against the trigger and took another step closer, keeping the rifle’s muzzle aimed at Dammartin’s chest. ‘Lower your sword, sir,’ she said, ‘or I shall put a bullet through you.’
‘No, Josie!’ came her father’s strained voice.
‘Think of what my men will do if you pull the trigger,’ Dammartin said.
‘I think of what you will do if I do not,’ she replied.
Their gazes locked, each refusing to look away, as if that would determine whether the sabre blade or the rifle trigger moved first.
‘Josie!’ Her father coughed again, and she heard his gasp of pain. ‘Lay down your weapon.’
Her eyes darted to her father’s face, unable to believe his words. ‘We will not surrender,’ she said in a parody of his earlier words.
‘Josie.’ His bloodstained fingers beckoned her down, their movement weak and fluttering with a control that was fast ebbing.
One last look at Dammartin, who let his blade fall back a little, and, keeping the rifle pointed in his direction, she crouched lower to hear what her father would say.
‘Our fight is done. We can do no more this day.’
‘No—’ she started to protest, but he silenced her with a touch of his hand.
‘I am dying.’
‘No, Papa,’ she whispered, but she knew from the blood that soaked his jacket and the glistening pallor of his face that what he said was true.
‘Give up your weapon, Josie. Captain Dammartin is an honourable man. He will keep you safe.’
‘No! How can you say such a thing? He is the enemy. I will not do it, Papa!’
‘Defiance of an order is insubordination,’ he said, and tried to laugh, but the smile on his face was a grimace, and the effort only brought on a fresh coughing fit.
The sight of the blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth brought a cry to Josie’s lips. ‘Papa!’ Without so much as a glance as Dammartin, she abandoned the rifle on the floor, and clutched one hand to her father’s. The other touched gently to his face.
The light was fading from his eyes. ‘Trust him, Josie,’ he whispered so quietly that she had to bend low to catch his words. ‘Enemy or not, the Dammartins are good men.’
She stared at him, unable to comprehend why he would say such a thing of the man who looked at them with such hatred in his eyes.
‘Promise me that you will yield to him.’
She felt the tremble in her lower lip and bit down hard upon it to hide the weakness.
‘Promise me, Josie,’ her father whispered, and she could hear the plea in his failing voice.
She said the only words that she could. ‘I promise, Papa.’ And she pressed a kiss to his cheek.
‘That’s my girl.’ His words were the faintest whisper.
Josie’s tears rolled, warm and wet.
‘Captain Dammartin,’ Lieutenant Colonel Mallington commanded, and it seemed that something of the old power was back in his voice.
Josie’s heart leapt. Perhaps he would not die after all. She felt him move her fingers to his other hand, watched him reach out towards Dammartin, saw the strength of his hand as he gripped the Frenchman’s fingers.
‘I commend Josephine to your care. See that she is kept safe until you can return her to the British lines.’
Her father’s gaze held the Frenchman’s. It was the last sight Lieutenant Colonel Mallington saw. A sigh sounded within the cold stone room of the Portuguese monastery, and then there was silence, and her father’s hand was limp and lifeless within Josie’s.
‘Papa?’ she whispered.
His eyes still stared unseeing at the Frenchman.
‘Papa!’ The realisation of what had just happened cracked her voice. She pressed her cheek to his, wrapped her arms around his bloodstained body, and the sob that tore from her was to those that had heard a thousand cries and screams of pain and death still terrible to hear. Outside the room men that had both perpetrated and suffered injury for the past hour stood silent with respect.
When at last she let her father’s body go and moved her face from his, it was Dammartin’s fingers that swept a shutting of the Lieutenant Colonel’s eyes, and Dammartin’s hand that took hers to raise her to her feet. She barely heard the order that he snapped to his men, or noticed the parting of the sea of men to let her through. Neither did she notice Captain Dammartin’s grim expression as he led her from the room.
* * *
The French camped that night in the same deserted village in which they had fought, the men sleeping within the shells of the buildings, their campfires peppering light across the darkness of the rocky landscape. The smell of cooking lingered in the air even though the meagre stew had long since been devoured.
Pierre Dammartin, Captain of the 8th Dragoons in Napoleon’s Army of Portugal, had wanted the English Lieutenant Colonel taken alive. The only reason that he had tempered his assault against the riflemen hiding in the empty monastery was because he had heard that it was Mallington who commanded them. He wanted Mallington alive because he wanted the pleasure of personally dispatching the Lieutenant Colonel to his maker.
For a year and a half Dammartin had wanted to meet Mallington across a battlefield. He had dreamt of looking into Mallington’s eyes while he told him who he was. He wanted to ask the Englishman the question he had been asking himself for the past eighteen months. Barely an hour ago it had seemed that his prayers had been answered and Mallington delivered into his hands in the most unlikely of places.
Mallington had not been easily beaten despite the difference in numbers, one section of a British company against one hundred and twenty mounted men backed by a whole battalion of infantry. Indeed, Mallington’s men had fought to the death rather than let themselves be taken, refusing Dammartin’s offers that they surrender. The fight had lasted longer than Dammartin could have anticipated. And even at its conclusion, when Dammartin had walked into that blood-splattered room in the monastery, he had not been satisfied. True, Dammartin had looked into Mallington’s face and revealed his identity. But Mallington’s reaction had not been what he expected, and there had been no time for questions. The moment for which the Captain had so longed had left him unexpectedly disgruntled. Especially because of Mallington’s daughter.
He stood by the window in the dilapidated cottage that was situated at the foot of the road that led up to the monastery. A few men still drifted around the place. He could hear the soft murmur of their voices and see their dark shapes by the light of the fires. Soon they would be bedding down for the night, just as the thousands of men in the canonments around Santarém not so far away to the south would be doing. Above, the sky was a spread of deep, dark, inky blue studded with the brilliance of diamond stars. And he knew that the temperature was dropping and that the cold would be biting. Tomorrow General Foy would lead them across the mountains towards Ciudad Rodrigo and they would leave behind the ruined monastery at Telemos and the dead riflemen and Mallington. He heard Lamont move behind him.
‘Your coffee, Pierre.’
He accepted the tin mug from his sergeant’s hands. ‘Thank you.’ The brown liquid was bitter, but warming. ‘Has Major La Roque sent for me yet?’
‘No.’ Lamont smiled, revealing his crooked teeth. ‘He is too busy with his dinner and his drink.’
‘He is making me wait until morning then,’ said Dammartin, ‘to haul me over the coals.’
Lamont shrugged his shoulders. He was a small, wiry man with eyes so dark as to appear black. His skin was lined and weatherbeaten, his hair a dark, grizzled grey. Lamont knew how to handle a musket better than any man in Dammartin’s company. Despite the fact he had grown up the son of a fishmonger and Dammartin the son of a distinguished military major, the two had become close friends.
‘The riflemen refused the option of surrender. They were like demons. Never before have I seen the British fight until there is not a man left alive. It was no easy task to overcome them. The Major must know that.’
Dammartin met his gaze, knowing that his sergeant understood very well that the fight had been unnecessarily prolonged by Dammartin’s refusal to storm the monastery until the last. ‘The Major will only be concerned with the delay this has cost us. General Foy will not be pleased. One day of marching and we do not even make it past Abrantes.’
Lamont sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘The cost was worth it. You wanted the English Lieutenant Colonel alive so that you might watch him die.’
Dammartin said nothing.
‘You have waited a long time to kill him, and now he is dead.’
‘But not by my hand.’
‘Does it make any difference? He is dead just the same.’
‘I wanted to look into his eyes while I killed him. I wanted to watch his reaction when I told him who I was, to see that he understood, to feel his fear.’
‘And today that is what you did. This Mallington looked upon you with his dying breath. It is done, Captain. Your father is avenged.’
The line of Dammartin’s mouth was hard. He said nothing. It was true that Dammartin had looked into Mallington’s face and revealed his identity. But thereafter nothing had been as the French Captain anticipated, and he was left feeling cheated.
Lamont fetched his own battered tin mug and sat down on his pack by the fire he had lit on the hearth. Steam rose in wisps from the steaming-hot coffee. Lamont wrapped his hands around the mug, seemingly impervious to the scald of the heat, and gazed into the flames. ‘Perhaps my ears deceived me, Captain, but I thought the Englishman said the girl was his daughter.’
‘He did.’
‘Sacré bleu!’ cursed the Sergeant. ‘It shows the nature of this Lieutenant Colonel Mallington. Only a crazy Englishman would bring his daughter with him to war.’ The Sergeant drilled a forefinger against the side of his head. ‘Crazy.’
‘So it would seem,’ said Dammartin, remembering the image of the girl standing alone and seemingly unafraid before the men of the 8th Dragoons to defend her father.
‘She is so young, so fragile looking. It does not seem possible that she could have survived this hell of a country.’
‘So fragile that her bullets are lodged in half our men,’ said Dammartin sourly.
‘That is the truth,’ Lamont said soberly, and took a gulp of his coffee.
Dammartin retrieved a small, silver hip flask from his pocket and loosened the cap. ‘Brandy? To keep the damp from your bones tonight.’
Lamont gave a grin and nodded, holding the still-steaming tin mug up.
Dammartin poured a liberal dousing of the amber liquid into the proffered mug before doing likewise with his own. ‘Why should Mallington have sacrificed his men over a deserted village in the middle of nowhere? It makes no sense. Wellington’s forces are all down at the lines of Torres Vedras and Lisbon. What was Mallington even doing up here?’
The sergeant shrugged. ‘A scouting party? They were riflemen after all.’
‘Perhaps—’ Dammartin sipped his coffee ‘—Mademoiselle Mallington may be able to shed some light on her father’s actions.’
Lamont glanced up quickly at the young captain. ‘You mean to interrogate her?’
‘She is the only one still alive. Who else can tell us?’ Dammartin’s expression was unyielding.
‘The English Lieutenant Colonel gave her into your care,’ protested Lamont. ‘She’s only a girl.’
Dammartin glared unconvinced.
‘She’s the daughter of a gentleman, and today she watched her father die.’
‘She is the daughter of a scoundrel, and an English scoundrel at that,’ Dammartin corrected. ‘Shehandled that rifle as good as any man and she is not to be trusted. Where is Mademoiselle Mallington now?’
‘Locked in the cellar below.’
Dammartin drained his mug and set it down. ‘Then it would seem that I have work to do this evening.’
Lamont stopped nursing his coffee to look at Dammartin. ‘I pray, my friend and captain, that you are certain as to what you are about to do.’
‘Never more so,’ said Dammartin, and walked from the room.
Chapter Two (#ulink_a1a6ef17-da8d-5638-984f-2e1d8a55aeaf)
Josie sat perched on one of the dusty wooden crates, hugging her arms around her body, trying to keep out the worst of the damp chill. Wherever she looked, it seemed that she saw not the darkness of the cellar in which the French soldiers had locked her, but her father’s face so pale and still in death, the blood seeping from his mouth to stain his lips and dribble down his chin. Even when she squeezed her eyes shut, she could not dislodge that image. All around in the dulled silence she heard again the crack and bang of rifles and muskets and the cries of dying men. She stoppered her hands to her ears, trying to block out the terrible sounds, but it did not make any difference, no matter how hard she pressed.
That morning she had been part of a section of twenty-five men and three women. She had collected the water from the spring behind the monastery and boiled it up to make her father’s tea, taking the place of his batman for that short time as was her habit. They had laughed and drunk the brew and eaten the porridge oats that were so warming against the cold.
She remembered just those few hours ago in the afternoon when her father had told her of the column of Frenchmen marching through these hills and how he would have to go in closer to discover what they were about. Papa and a handful of men had gone, leaving Josie and the others in the old monastery, cooking up a stew of rabbit for the evening meal. But the small party’s return had been panicked and hurried, retreating from the pursuit of the French, scrambling to send their captain and first lieutenant with news to General Lord Wellington. And then Josie’s world had exploded. Papa would not laugh again. He was gone. They were all gone. All except Josie.
Even though she had seen their broken bodies and heard her father’s last drawn breath, she could not really believe that it was so. It was like some horrific nightmare from which she would awaken. None of it seemed real. Yet Josie knew that it was, and the knowledge curdled a sourness in her stomach. And still the images flashed before her eyes, like illustrations of Dante’s Inferno, and still the racket roared in her ears, and her throat tightened and her stomach revolted, and she stumbled through the blackness to the corner of the cellar and bent over to be as sick as a dog. Only when her stomach had been thoroughly emptied did she experience some respite from the torture.
She wiped her mouth on her handkerchief and steadied herself against the wall. Taking a deep breath, she felt her way back to the wooden box on which she had been seated.
It seemed that she sat there an eternity in the chilled darkness before the footfalls sounded: booted soles coming down the same stairs over which the French soldiers had dragged her. One set only, heading towards the cellar. Josie braced herself, stifling the fear that crept through her belly, and waited for what was to come. There was the scrape of metal as the key was turned in the lock, and the door was thrown open.
The light of the lantern dazzled her. She turned her face away, squinting her eyes. Then the lantern moved to the side; as her eyes began to adjust to the light, Josie found herself looking at the French captain whom her father had called Dammartin.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington,’ he said, and crossed the threshold into the cellar. His lantern illuminated the dark, dismal prison as he came to stand before her.
He seemed much bigger than she remembered. The dust and dirt had been brushed from the green of his jacket, and its red collar and cuffs stood bright and proud. The jacket’s single, central line of brass buttons gleamed within the flickering light. His white breeches met knee-high, black leather boots and, unlike the last time they had met, he was not wearing the brass helmet of the dragoons. Beneath the light of the lantern his hair was shorn short and looked as dark as his mood. She could see that the stare in his eyes was stony and the line of his mouth was hard and arrogant. In that, at least, her memory served her well.
‘Captain Dammartin.’ She got to her feet.
‘Sit down,’ he commanded in English.
She felt her hackles rise. There was something in the quietness of his tone that smacked of danger. She thought she would defy him, but it seemed in that moment that she heard again her father’s voice, Trust him, Josie. Trust him, when her every instinct screamed to do otherwise? She hesitated, torn between obeying her father and her own instinct.
He shrugged a nonchalant shoulder. ‘Stand, then, if you prefer. It makes no difference to me.’ There was a silence while he studied her, his eyes intense and scrutinising.
Josie’s heart was thrashing madly within her chest, but she made no show of her discomfort; she met his gaze and held it.
Each stared at the other in a contest of wills, as if to look away would be to admit weakness.
‘I have some questions that I wish to ask you,’ Dammartin said, still not breaking his gaze.
Josie felt her legs begin to shake and she wished that she had sat down, but she could not very well do so now. She curled her toes tight within her boots, and pressed her knees firmly together, tensing her muscles, forcing her legs to stay still. ‘As I have of you, sir.’
He did not even look surprised. ‘Then we shall take it in turns,’ he said. ‘Ladies first.’ And there was an emphasis on the word ‘ladies’ that suggested she was no such thing.
‘My father’s body… Is he… Have you…?’
‘Your father lies where he fell,’ he said harshly.
‘You have not given him a burial?’
‘Did Lieutenant Colonel Mallington take time to bury Frenchmen? Each side buries its own.’
‘In a battle situation, but this is different!’
‘Is it?’ he asked, and still their gazes held. ‘I was under the impression, mademoiselle, that we were engaged in battle this day.’
She averted her gaze down to the floor, suddenly afraid that she would betray the grief and pain and shock that threatened to overwhelm her. ‘Battle’ was too plain, too ordinary a word to describe what had taken place that day in the deserted village of Telemos. Twenty-seven lives had been lost, her father’s among them. Only when she knew that the weakness had passed did she glance back up at him. ‘But there is no one left to bury him.’
‘So it would seem.’
His answer seemed to echo between them.
‘I would request that you give him a decent burial.’
‘No.’
She felt her breath rush in a gasp of disbelief. ‘No?’
‘No,’ he affirmed.
She stared at him with angry, defiant eyes. ‘My father told me that you were an honourable man. It appears that he was grossly mistaken in his opinion.’
He raised an eyebrow at that, but said nothing.
‘You will leave him as carrion for wild animals to feed upon?’
‘It is the normal course of things upon a battlefield.’
She took a single step towards him, her fingers curled to fists by her sides. ‘You are despicable!’
‘You are the first to tell me so,’ he said.
She glared at him, seeing the dislike in his eyes, the hard determination in his mouth, this loathsome man to whom her father had entrusted her. ‘Then give me a spade and I will dig his grave myself.’
‘That is not possible, mademoiselle.’
Her mouth gaped at his refusal.
‘You wish Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s body to be buried? It is a simple matter. It shall be done—’
‘But you said—’
‘It shall be done,’ he repeated, ‘as soon as you answer my questions.’
Fear prickled at the back of Josie’s neck, and trickled down her spine. She shivered, suspecting all too well the nature of the French captain’s questions. Carefully and deliberately, she fixed a bland expression upon her face and prayed for courage.
Pierre Dammartin watched the girl closely and knew then that he had not been wrong in his supposition. ‘So tell me, Mademoiselle Mallington, what were riflemen of the Fifth Battalion of the 60th Regiment doing in Telemos?’
‘I do not know.’
‘Come now, mademoiselle. I find that hard to believe.’
‘Why so? Surely you do not think my father would discuss such things with me? I assure you that it is not the done thing for British army officers to discuss their orders with their daughters.’
He smiled a small, tight smile at that. ‘But is it the done thing for British army officers to take their daughters on campaign with them? To have them fight alongside their men?’
‘It is not so unusual for officers to take their families, and as for fighting, I did so only at the end and out of necessity.’
He ignored her last comment. ‘What of your mother, where is she?’
The girl looked at him defiantly. ‘She is dead, sir.’
He said nothing. She was Mallington’s daughter. What had Mallington cared for Major Dammartin’s wife or family? The simple answer was nothing.
‘Tell me of your father’s men.’
‘There is nothing to tell.’ Her voice was light and fearless, almost taunting in its tone.
‘From where did you march?’
‘I cannot recall.’
He raised an eyebrow at that. The girl was either stupid or brave, and from what he had seen of Mademoiselle Mallington so far, he was willing to bet on the latter. ‘When did you arrive in Telemos?’
She glanced away. ‘A few days ago.’
‘Which day precisely?’
‘I cannot remember.’
‘Think harder, mademoiselle…’ he stepped closer, knowing that his proximity would intimidate her ‘…and I am sure that the answer will come to you.’
She took a step back. ‘It might have been Monday.’
She was lying. Everything about her proclaimed it to be so: the way her gaze flitted away before coming back to meet his too boldly, too defiantly; her posture; the flutter of her hands to touch nervously against her mouth.
‘Monday?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many men?’
‘I am not sure.’
‘Hazard a guess.’ Another step forward.
And again she edged back. ‘A hundred,’ she uttered with angry defiance.
‘A large number.’ He raised an eyebrow, knowing from the scattering of corpses that there had been nowhere near that number of men.
‘Yes.’
He watched her. ‘Did you ride with your father, or walk with the men, mademoiselle?’
She looked up at him, and he could see the puzzlement beneath the thick suspicion. There was the shortest of pauses before she said, ‘I rode a donkey, the same as the other women.’
‘You are telling me that the unmarried daughter of the Lieutenant Colonel rode with the company’s whores?’
‘They were not whores,’ she said hotly. ‘They were wives to the men.’
‘And your father was happy to leave you with them while he rode ahead with his officers on horseback? How very caring of him,’ he ridiculed.
‘Do not dare to judge him. You are not fit to speak his name!’
‘Only fit to kill the bastard,’ he murmured in French.
‘Scoundrel!’ she cursed him.
He smiled. ‘Who took the horses?’
All of the anger drained from her in an instant. She froze, caught unawares. He saw the tiny flicker of fear in her eyes and knew that he had guessed right.
‘I do not know what you mean,’ she said, but the words were measured and careful.
‘There are only two horses stabled at the monastery. Where are the others?’
Beneath the glow of the lantern her face paled. There was a pause. ‘We shot the others for food.’
‘Really,’ he said, ‘you shot the horses and left the donkeys?’
‘Yes.’ One hand slid to encase the other and she stood there facing him, with her head held high, as demure as any lady, and lying through her teeth.
‘I see.’ He watched her grip tighten until the knuckles shone white. He looked directly into her eyes and stepped closer until only the lantern separated them.
She tried to back away, but her legs caught against the wooden crate positioned behind her and she would have fallen had he not steadied her. Quite deliberately, he left his hand where it was, curled around her upper arm.
‘You would do better to tell me the truth, Mademoiselle Mallington,’ he said quietly. He saw the pulse jump in her neck, could almost hear the skittering thud of her heart within the silence of the cellar. Her eyes were wide and her skin so pale as to appear that it had been carved from alabaster. She was smaller than he remembered from the shoot-out in the room in the monastery, the top of her head reaching only to his shoulder. Perhaps it was the rifle that had lent her the illusion of height. They were standing so close that he could see the long lashes that fanned her eyes and hear the shallowness of her breath.
‘Do you want to start again?’ The softness of his words did not hide the steel beneath them.
She shook her head, and he noticed the fair tendrils of hair that had escaped her pins curl around her neck. ‘No, sir.’ Her words were as quiet as his, and Dammartin could only admire her courage.
‘Very well.’ He knew what he must do. The task was not pleasant, but it would give him the answers that the girl would not. Yet still he stood there, staring at her, as much as she stared at him, until he stepped abruptly away. ‘We shall continue our conversation at a later time.’ And he was gone, leaving her once more in the dark solitude of the cellar.
Josie still glared at the door long after it had closed behind him. Her heart was racing so fast that she thought she might faint, but still she did not move to sit down. Her eyes strained through the darkness, seeing nothing, her ears hearing the steady climb of his feet back up the stairs. Her arm throbbed where his hand had been even though his grip had been so light as to barely be a restraint.
She pressed her fingers hard to her lips as if to catch back all of the words she had spoken.
What had she revealed? Nothing that he would not already have known, yet Josie knew that was not true. The Frenchman’s face had told her it was so. He knew about the horses, and if he knew about that, then it would not be so very long before he knew the rest.
Her lies had been feeble, obvious and pathetic. Dammartin did not believe her, that much was evident. And he would be back. Her stomach turned over at the thought.
It had taken an hour for twenty-seven men and women to die so that General Lord Wellington might be warned of Massena’s scheme. In the space of a matter of minutes Josie had almost negated their sacrifice if Captain Hartmann and Lieutenant Meyer had not yet reached Wellington. How much time would it take the two men to weave their way back to Lisbon? The future of the British army at the lines of Torres Vedras rested on that and Josie’s ability to prevent, or at least delay, Dammartin’s discovery that the messengers had been sent. And that was not something in which she had the slightest degree of confidence.
Not for the first time Josie wondered if her father would have done better to let her die with him in the monastery. For all Papa’s assurance of Pierre Dammartin’s honour, she had a feeling that the French Captain was going to prove a most determined enemy.
* * *
It took almost half an hour for Dammartin, his lieutenant, Molyneux, and his sergeant, Lamont, to finish the gruesome activity that the girl’s reticence to talk had forced them to. The night was dark, the moon a thin, defined crescent. They worked by the light of flambeaux, moving from corpse to corpse, examining the uniforms that garbed the stiffened, cold bodies that had once been a formidable fighting force for Britain, noting down what they found. And with each one Dammartin felt the futility of the loss. As prisoners of war they would have lost no honour. They had fought bravely, and the French had acknowledged that. Yet they had laid down their lives seemingly in a pointless gesture of defiance.
Three times Dammartin had given them the opportunity to surrender, and three times Mallington had rejected it. Time had been running out. Dammartin knew he had already delayed too long, that General Foy and Major La Roque would arrive to take over if Dammartin did not bring the matter to a close, and Dammartin’s chance would have been lost. In the end he had been forced to storm the monastery, just as La Roque had ordered.
He pushed such thoughts from his mind and forced himself to concentrate on the task before him. It seemed a long time before they had finally been able to rinse the blood from their hands and make for the stables.
With the flambeaux held low, they scrutinised the marks and patterns of feet and hooves impressed upon the ground.
‘What do you think?’ Dammartin asked of his lieutenant. Molyneux had been trained in tracking, and when it came to his expertise in this field, there was no one’s opinion that Dammartin trusted more.
‘Two men and two horses heading off in the direction of the track over there. Prints are still fairly fresh. They probably left some time this afternoon.’
‘It is as I thought,’ said Dammartin. ‘We have found what we were looking for.’ It all made sense. Now he understood why Mallington had fought so hard for so long. Not for Telemos. The village was of little importance to the British regiment. But time was, and time was what they had bought for their messengers, and paid for with their lives. He gave a sigh and moved to instruct a pursuit team.
Josie was in the midst of a dream in which the battle of Telemos was being fought again. She shouted the warning to her father, snatching up the dead man’s weapon, running up the staircase, loading and firing at the pursuing French. Her bullet travelled down the gun’s rifled barrel, cutting with a deadly accuracy through the air to land within the Frenchman’s chest. Smoke from the gunpowder drifted across her face, filling her nose with its stench, catching in her throat, drawing a curtain before her eyes so that she could not see. She heard the stagger of his footsteps, and then he was there, falling to his knees before her, his blood so rich and red spilling on to the hem of her dress. She looked down as the enemy soldier turned his face up to hers and the horror caught in her throat, for the face was that of Captain Pierre Dammartin.
She opened her eyes and the nightmare was gone, leaving behind only its sickening dread. Her heart was thumping in her chest, and, despite the icy temperature of the cellar, the sheen of sweat was slick upon her forehead and upper lip. She caught her breath, sat up from her awkward slump against the stack of wooden boxes, and rubbed at the ache in her back. As she did so, she heard the step of boots upon the stairs and knew that he was coming back, and her heart raced all the faster.
She struggled up to her feet, ignoring the sudden dizziness that it brought, felt herself sway in the darkness and sat rapidly back down. The last thing she wanted Dammartin to see was her faint.
And then he was there, through the door before she was even aware that the key had turned within the lock.
He looked tired and there was fresh dust upon his coat and a smear of dirt upon his cheek. The expression on his face was impassive, and she wondered what he had been doing. How much time had passed since he had questioned her? Minutes, hours? Josie did not know.
He set the lantern down upon a box at the side of the room and moved to stand before her. Josie knew that this time there was a difference in his attitude. His eyes were filled with such darkness and determination that she remembered the stories of interrogation and torture and felt the fear squirm deep in the pit of her stomach. Tales of bravery and singular distinction, men who had defied all to withhold the information that their enemy sought. And something in Josie quailed because she knew that she had not a fraction of that bravery and that just the prospect of what Dammartin could do to her made her feel nauseous. She swallowed and wetted the dryness of her lips.
If Dammartin noticed that she had forsaken her defiance of refusing to remain seated, he made no mention of it. Instead he drew up a crate and sat down before her, adjusting the long sabre that hung by his side as he did so.
She waited for what he would do.
‘Do you wish to tell me of the horses, Mademoiselle Mallington?’
‘I have told you what I know,’ she said, feigning a calmness, and looked down to the darkness of the soil below her feet.
‘No, mademoiselle, you have told me very little of that.’
In the silence that followed, the scrabble of rodents could be heard from the corner of the cellar.
‘Your father sent two men to warn your General Wellington of our march.’
She felt the shock widen her eyes, freeze her into position upon the discomfort of the hard wooden crate. He could not know. It was not possible. Not unless… She stayed as she was, head bent, so that he would not see the fear in her eyes.
‘Have you nothing to say, mademoiselle? Nothing to ask me?’
The breath was lodged, unmoving in her throat at the thought that Hartmann and Meyer might be captured. She forced its release and slowly raised her head until she could look into his eyes. There she saw ruthlessness and such certainty as to make her shiver.
‘No,’ she said. ‘There is nothing.’ Her voice was gritty with the strain of emotion.
His eyes were black in the lantern light as her gaze met his. They stared at each other with only the sound of their breath in the dampness of the cellar, and the tightness of tension winding around them.
‘Denial is pointless. I know already the truth. Make this easier for us both, mademoiselle.’
She could hear the chilling determination in those few words so quietly uttered. The worst of imaginings were already crowding in her mind.
He was still looking at her and the distance between them seemed to shrink, so that the implacable resolution of the man was almost overwhelming.
It was as if there was something heavy crushing against her chest, making it hard to pull the breath into her lungs and she could feel a slight tremble throughout her body. She curled her fingers tight and pressed her knees together so that the Frenchman would not see it. She swallowed down the lump in her throat, praying that her voice would not shake as much as the rest of her.
Part of her argued that there was no point in lying anymore. Dammartin knew about the messengers already. And the other part of her, the small part that had kept her going throughout that nightmare year in England, refused to yield.
‘I will not.’ Her words seemed to echo in the silence and she felt her teeth begin to chatter.
‘What would you say if I told you that we have captured your messengers?’
She got to her feet, ignoring the way that the cellar seemed to spin around her and the sudden lightness in her head that made her feel that she would faint. ‘You are lying!’
Dammartin stood too. He smiled, and his smile was wicked and cold. ‘Am I?’
They faced each other across the small space, the tension stretched between them.
‘If you wish to know of the messengers, mademoiselle, you will tell me what your father and his men were doing in these hills.’
From somewhere she found the strength to keep standing, to keep looking him in the eye. All of the fear was crowding in around her, pressing down on her, choking her. If the French had captured Hartmann and Meyer, all hope was gone. Her father’s message would never reach Wellington. It had all been in vain. All of today. All of the sacrifice.
‘I am not privy to my father’s orders.’ Her gaze held his, refusing to look away, angry disbelief vying with grief and misery and wretchedness.
A terrible desolation swept through her. The tremble had progressed so that her legs were shaking in earnest now, and the cold sweat of fear prickled beneath her arms. She thought again of what it would mean if the French truly had captured her father’s messengers. A fresh wave of hopelessness swept over her at the thought, and as the moisture welled in her eyes she squeezed them shut to prevent the tears that threatened to fall. Yet, all of her effort was not enough. To her mortification, a single tear escaped to roll down her cheek. She snatched it away, praying that Dammartin had not noticed, and opened her eyes to stare her defiance.
‘Are you crying, mademoiselle?’ And she thought she could hear the undertone of mockery in his words. He looked at her with his dark eyes and harsh, inscrutable expression.
She glared at him. ‘I will tell you nothing, nothing,’ she cried. ‘You may do what you will.’
‘Mademoiselle, you have not yet begun to realise the possibilities of what I may do to you.’ He leaned his face down close to hers. ‘And when you do realise, then you will tell me everything that I want to know.’
Her heart ceased to beat, her lungs did not breathe as she looked up into the dark promise in his eyes.
His hand was around her arm, and he pulled her forwards and began to guide her towards the door.
‘No!’ She struggled against him, panicked at where he might be taking her and felt him grab her other arm, forcing her round to look at him once more.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington,’ he said harshly. ‘The hour grows late and the ice forms in the air. If I leave you here, without warmth, without food or water, it is likely that you will be dead by morning.’
‘Why would you care?’ she demanded.
He paused and then spoke with slow deliberation, ‘Because you have not yet answered my questions.’
Josie shivered. She did not know if he was lying about Hartmann and Meyer, but she did know that despite all of her fear and despair she had no wish to die. She ceased her struggle and let him lead her out of the cellar and up the creaking staircase into the heart of the little cottage.
The room into which he took her was small and spartan, its floor clean but littered with makeshift blanket beds and army baggage. A fire was roaring in the fireplace at which a small, grizzled man in a French sergeant’s uniform was toasting bread and brewing coffee. His small, black eyes registered no surprise at her appearance.
‘Capitaine,’ the man uttered, and gave a nod in Dammartin’s direction.
She sat down warily on the edge of the blanket that Dammartin indicated, trying to clear the fog of exhaustion from her brain, trying to remain alert for the first hint of a trap. There was nothing.
The small sergeant placed some toasted bread and raisins and a cup of coffee on the floor by her side before he and Dammartin busied themselves with their own bread. Josie looked at the food set before her. The smell of the toasted bread coaxed a hunger in her stomach that had not been there before. Slowly, without casting a single glance in the Frenchmen’s direction, she ate the bread and drank the coffee. And all the while she was aware of every move that the enemy made and the quiet words that they spoke to one another, thinking that she could not understand.
The logs on the fire cracked and gradually the room grew warm and no matter how hard she fought against it, Josie felt the exhaustion of all that had happened that day begin to claim her. She struggled, forcing her eyes open, forcing herself to stay upright, to stay aware of Captain Dammartin until, at last, she could fight it no more, and the French Captain faded as she succumbed to the black nothingness of sleep.
It was late and yet Pierre Dammartin sat by the fire, despite the fatigue that pulled upon his muscles and stung at his eyes. His gaze wandered from the flicker of the dying flames to the silhouette of the girl lying close by. The blanket rose and fell with the small, rhythmic movement of her breath. Mallington’s daughter. Just the thought of who she was brought back all of the bitterness and anger that her father’s death ought to have destroyed.
Sergeant Lamont sucked at his long clay pipe and nodded in the girl’s direction. ‘Did you get what you wanted from her?’
What had he wanted? To know why Mallington had been up here, the details of his men, of his messengers; her realisation that her defiance was useless, that she could not hide the truth from him. ‘Unfortunately, my friend, Mademoiselle Mallington proved most unhelpful.’
Lamont’s gaze darted in Dammartin’s direction, his brow rising in surprise. ‘You were gentle with her, then?’
The firelight flickered, casting shadows across Dammartin’s face, highlighting his scar and emphasising the strong, harsh line of his jaw. ‘Not particularly.’
‘Pierre.’ Lamont gave a sigh and shook his head.
‘Did you really think that she would be in such a hurry to spill the answers we seek? The woman faced us alone with a rifle to defend her father.’
‘She is just a girl, Pierre. She must have been afraid.’
‘She was frightened, for all she tried to hide it.’
‘Yet still she told you nothing?’
‘The girl has courage, I will give her that.’
Lamont sucked harder on his pipe and nodded.
Dammartin thought of the girl’s single teardrop and the tremble of her lips. Tears and emotion were ever a woman’s weapons, he thought dismissively, but even as he thought it, he knew that was not the case with Mademoiselle Mallington. Given half a chance she would have taken a rifle and shot him through the heart, and that knowledge wrung from him a grudging respect.
‘Do you mean to question her again tomorrow?’
‘Yes. I suspect that she knows more than she is telling.’
Lamont frowned. ‘Interrogating women goes against the grain.’
‘We must make an exception for Mademoiselle Mallington.’
‘Pierre…’ admonished the Sergeant.
Dammartin passed Lamont his hip flask of brandy. ‘What the hell am I going to do with her, Claude?’
‘I do not know,’ Lamont shrugged. ‘That Mallington entrusted her to you makes me wonder as to the old man’s mind. Why else would he give his daughter over to the son of the man that he murdered?’
‘To appease his own conscience, leaving her to face the revenge from which he himself fled?’ Dammartin’s eyes glittered darkly as he received the flask back from Lamont and took a swig. He sat there for a while longer, mulling over all that happened that day, and when finally he slept, the sleep was troubled and dark.
Dammartin slept late, not wakening until the light of morning had dawned, and with a mood that had not improved. Disgruntlement sat upon him as a mantle even though he had reached a decision on what to do with the girl. He rolled over, feeling the chill of the morning air, and cast an eye over at Mademoiselle Mallington. Her blanket lay empty upon the floor. Josephine Mallington was gone.
‘Merde!’ he swore, and threw aside the thickness of his great coat that had covered him the whole night through. Then he was up and over there, touching his fingers to the blanket, feeling its coldness. Mademoiselle Mallington had not just vacated it, then.
He opened the door from the room, stepped over the two sentries who were dozing.
They blinked and scrabbled to their feet, saluting their captain.
‘Where is the girl?’
The men looked sheepish. ‘She needed to use the latrine, sir.’
Dammartin could not keep the incredulity from his voice. ‘And you let her go unaccompanied?’
‘It did not seem right to accompany your woman in such things,’ one of the men offered.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington is not my woman,’ snapped Dammartin. ‘She is my prisoner.’
‘We thought—’
Dammartin’s look said it all.
The sentries fell silent as Dammartin strode off to find Mallington’s daughter.
Chapter Three (#ulink_5c4f8f20-0d58-5447-a052-78bca13ac34a)
Josie hitched up her skirts and ran up the worn stone stairs within the monastery. She could not help but remember the last time she had made this journey. Only yesterday afternoon, and already it seemed a lifetime ago. This time she was alone with only the echo of her own footsteps for company. She reached the top of the stairs, and, hesitating there, braced herself to see once more the horror of what lay not so very far beyond. Her hand clutched upon the banister, tracing the bullet-gouged wood. Then she walked slowly and steadily towards the room in which the 60th had made its last stand.
The doorway was open; the wood remnants that had formed the once sturdy door had been tidied to a pile at the side. Blood splatters marked the walls and had dried in pools upon the floor. The smell of it still lingered in the room, despite the great portal of a window within the room and the lack of a door. Of her father and those of his men that had fought so bravely there was no sign. Josie stared, and stared some more. Their bodies were gone. Their weapons were gone. Their pouches of bullets and powder were gone. Only the stain of their blood remained.
She backed out of the room, retraced her steps down the stairs and peeped into the great hall. The rabbit stew still hung in the corner above the blackened ashes of the fire. The stone floor flags were stained with blood. Yet here, as in the room upstairs, there were no bodies. She turned, moving silently, making her way through to the back and the stables. The two horses were no longer there; nor were the donkeys. Of the supplies there was no trace.
Josie’s heart began to race. Her feet led her further out on to the land that had once been the monastery’s garden. And there they were.
She stopped, her eyes moving over the mounds of freshly dug earth. At the front, one grave stood on its own, distinct from the others by virtue of its position. She moved forwards without knowing that she did so, coming to stand by that single grave. Only the wind sounded in the silent, sombre greyness of the morning light. For a long time Josie just stood there, unaware of the chill of the air or the first stirrings that had begun to sound from the Frenchmen’s camp. And for the first time she wondered if perhaps her father had been right, and that Captain Dammartin was not, after all, a man completely without honour.
It was not difficult to trace Josie’s path. Several of his men had seen the girl go into the monastery. No one challenged her. No one accosted her. Some knew that she was the English Lieutenant Colonel’s daughter. Others thought, as had the sentries, that she was now their captain’s woman. The misconception irked Dammartin, almost as much as the thought of her escape had done. Yet he knew that it was not the prospect of escape that had led her back to the monastery.
He found her kneeling by her father’s grave.
Dammartin stood quietly by the stables, watching her. Her fair hair was plaited roughly in a pigtail that hung down over her back and her skin was pale. Her head was bowed as if in prayer so that he could not see her face. She wore no shawl, and Dammartin could see that her figure was both neat and slender. He supposed she must be cold.
Her dress was dark brown and of good quality, but covered in dirt and dust and the stains of ot hers’ blood. The boots on her feet were worn and scuffed, hardly fitting for a Lieutenant Colonel’s daughter, but then holding the 8th at bay with a single rifle was hardly fitting for such a woman, either. He watched her, unwilling to interrupt her grieving, knowing what it was to lose a father. So he stood and he waited, and never once did he take his eyes from Josephine Mallington.
Josie felt Captain Dammartin’s presence almost as soon as he arrived, but she did not move from her kneeling. She knew that she would not pass this way again and she had come to bid her father and his men goodbye in the only way she knew how, and she was not going to let the French Captain stop her. Only when she was finished did she get to her feet. One last look at the mass expanse of graves, and then she turned and walked towards Captain Dammartin.
She stopped just short of him, looking up to see his face in the dawning daylight. His hair was a deep, dark brown that ruffled beneath the breeze. Despite the winter months, his skin still carried the faint colour of the sun. The ferocity of the weather had not left him unmarked. Dammartin’s features were regular, his mouth hard and slim, his nose strong and straight. The daylight showed the scar that ran the length of his left cheek in stark clarity. It lent him a brooding, sinister look and she was glad that she was much more in control of herself this morning.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington,’ he said, and she could see that his eyes were not black as she had thought last night, but the colour of clear, rich honey.
‘Captain Dammartin.’ She glanced away towards the graves, and then back again at him. ‘Thank you.’ She spoke coolly but politely enough.
A small tilt of his head served as acknowledgement.
‘After what you said…I did not think…’ Her words trailed off.
‘I was always going to have the men buried. They fought like heroes. They deserved an honourable burial. We French respect bravery.’ There was an almost mocking tone to his voice, implying that the British had no such respect. ‘And as for your father…’ He left what he would have said unfinished.
Beyond the monastery she could hear the sound of men moving. French voices murmured and there was the smell of fires being rekindled.
They looked at one another.
‘What do you intend to do with me?’
‘You are Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s daughter.’ His expression did not change and yet it seemed that his eyes grew darker and harder. ‘You will be sent to General Massena’s camp at Santarém until you can be exchanged for a French prisoner of war.’
She gave a nod of her head.
‘You may be assured that, unlike some, we do not ride roughshod over the rules of warfare or the protection that honour should provide.’ His face was hard and lean, all angles that smacked of hunger and of bitterness.
It seemed to Josie that Captain Dammartin disliked her very much. ‘I am glad to hear it, sir.’
He made some kind of noise of reply that said nothing. ‘If you wish to eat, do so quickly. We ride within the hour and you will leave before that, travelling with the escort of Lieutenant Molyneux.’
Side by side, without so much as another word between them, Josephine Mallington and Pierre Dammartin made their way back down into the village and the French soldiers’ camp.
‘What were you playing at, Pierre?’ Major La Roque demanded.
Dammartin faced the Major squarely. ‘I wanted his surrender, sir.’
‘Foy is asking questions. What am I supposed to tell him? That it took one of my captains almost two hours to overcome twenty-five men, without artillery, holed up in a ramshackle village. Given our fifty dragoons, seventy chasseurs and four hundred infantrymen, it does not look good for you, Pierre. Why did you not just storm the bloody monastery straight away like I told you?’
‘I wanted to interrogate him. I would have thought that you, of all people, would understand that.’
‘Of course I do, but this mission is vital to the success of the Army of Portugal and we have lost a day’s march because of your actions. Not only that, but your men failed to catch the British messengers that were deployed! Only the fact that you are my godson, and Jean Dammartin’s son, has saved you from the worst of Foy’s temper. Whether it will prevent him from mentioning the débâcle to Bonaparte remains to be seen.’
Dammartin gritted his teeth and said nothing.
‘I know what you are going through, Pierre. Do you think I am not glad that Mallington is dead? Do you think that I, too, do not wish to know what was going on in that madman’s mind? Jean was like a brother to me.’
‘I am sorry, sir.’
La Roque clapped his hand against Dammartin’s back. ‘I know. I know, son. Mallington is now dead. For that at least we should be glad.’
Dammartin nodded.
‘What is this I hear about an English girl?’
‘She is Mallington’s daughter. Lieutenant Molyneux will take her back to General Massena’s camp this morning.’
‘I will not have any of our men put at risk because of Mallington’s brat. These hills are filled with deserters and guerrillas. We cannot afford to lose any of the men. The child will just have to come with us to Ciudad Rodrigo. Once we are there, we can decide what to do with her.’
‘Mademoiselle Mallington is not a child, she is—’
But La Roque cut him off, with a wave of the hand. ‘It does not matter what she is, Pierre. If you jeopardise this mission any further, Foy will have your head and there will not be a damn thing I can do to save you. See to your men. Emmern will lead through the pass first. Fall in after him. Be ready to leave immediately.’ The Major looked at Dammartin. ‘Now that Mallington is dead, things will grow easier for you, Pierre, I promise you that.’
Dammartin nodded, but he took little consolation in his godfather’s words. Mallington being dead did not make anything better. Indeed, if anything, Dammartin was feeling worse. Now, he would never know why Mallington had done what he did. And there was also the added complication of his daughter.
Whatever he was feeling, Dammartin had no choice but to leave the house that Major La Roque had commandeered in the valley and return to Telemos.
Josie was standing by the side of the window in the little empty room as she watched Dammartin ride back into the village. She knew it was him, could recognise the easy way he sat his horse, the breadth of his shoulders, the arrogant manner in which he held his head. Condensed breath snorted from the beast’s nostrils and a light sweat glimmered on its flanks. She wondered what had caused him to ride the animal so hard when it had a full day’s travel before it.
He jumped down, leaving the horse in the hands of a trooper who looked to be little more than a boy, and threaded his way through the men that waited hunched in groups, holding their hands to fires that were small and mean and not built to last.
Even from here she could hear his voice issuing its orders.
The men began to move, kicking dust onto the fires, fastening their helmets to their heads and gathering up the baggage in which they had packed away their belongings and over which they had rolled their blankets. He walked purposefully towards the cottage, his face stern as if he carried with him news of the worst kind.
She watched him and it seemed that he sensed her scrutiny, for his gaze suddenly shifted to fix itself upon her. Josie blushed at having being caught staring and drew back, but not before he had seen her. Her cheeks still held their slight wash of colour when he entered the room.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington, we are leaving.’
Her hands smoothed down the skirts of her dress in a nervous gesture.
He noticed that the worst of the dirt had been brushed from her dress and that she had combed and re-plaited her hair into a single, long, tidy pigtail that hung down her back. He moved to take up his baggage, then led her out into the sunlight and across the village through which her father and his men had run and fired their rifles and died. The French dragoons around ceased their murmuring to watch her, wanting to see the woman who had defied the might of the 8th to stand guard over her dying father.
She followed him until they came to the place she had seen him leave his horse. The boy still held the reins. Dammartin handed him the baggage and the boy threw them over the chestnut’s rump and strapped them into place. Beside the large chestnut was a smaller grey. He gestured towards it.
‘You will find Fleur faster than a donkey.’ Dammartin took a dark blue cloak from the boy and handed it to Josie. ‘There was a portmanteau of women’s clothes alongside Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s. I assumed that they were yours.’
Her fingers clutched at the warmth of the wool. She touched it to her nose, breathing in faint lavender and rosemary, the familiar scent of her own portmanteau and its sachets that she had sown what seemed an eternity ago on sunny days at home in England. The last time she had worn this cloak her father had been alive, and twenty-seven others with him. She still could not believe that they were dead.
‘It is my cloak, thank you, Captain Dammartin,’ she said stiffly, and draped the material around her.
‘We have not a side-saddle.’
‘I can ride astride.’
Their eyes held for a heartbeat before she moved quickly to grasp her skirts and, as modestly as she could manage, she placed her foot in the stirrup and pulled herself up on to the grey horse.
The troopers cast appreciative gazes over Josie’s ankles and calves, which, no matter how much she pulled at and rearranged her skirts, refused to stay covered. Several whistles sounded from the men, someone uttered a crudity. She felt the heat rise in her cheeks and kept her gaze stubbornly forward.
‘Enough,’ Dammartin shouted at his men in French. ‘Look to your horses. We leave in five minutes.’
Another officer on horseback walked over to join them, his hair a pale wheaty brown beneath the glint of his helmet.
Dammartin gave the man a curt nod of the head before speaking. ‘Mademoiselle Mallington, this is Lieutenant Molyneux. Lieutenant, this is Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s daughter.’
Molyneux removed his helmet, and still seated firmly in his saddle, swept her a bow. ‘Mademoiselle.’
Dammartin frowned at his lieutenant.
Josie looked from the open friendliness on the handsome young lieutenant’s face to the brooding severity on his captain’s, and she was glad that she would be making the journey to Massena’s camp in Lieutenant Molyneux’s company rather than that of Captain Dammartin. Dammartin looked at her with such dislike beneath his thin veneer of civility that she was under no illusions as to his feelings towards her. Still, there were formalities to be observed in these situations, and she would not disgrace her father’s name by ignoring them.
‘Goodbye, Captain Dammartin.’
‘Unfortunately, mademoiselle, this is no goodbye.’
Her eyes widened.
‘You travel with us.’
‘But you said…’ She glanced towards Lieutenant Molyneux.
The lieutenant gave a small, consolatory smile and said, ‘I am afraid, mademoiselle, that there has been a change of plan.’ He dropped back, so that it seemed to Josie that he was abandoning her to Dammartin.
Dammartin’s face was unreadable.
‘Am I to be exchanged?’
‘Eventually,’ said Dammartin.
‘Eventually? And in the meantime?’
‘You are a prisoner of the 8th,’ he replied.
A spurt of anger fired within her. ‘I will not ride to act against my own country, sir.’
‘You have no choice in the matter,’ he said curtly.
She stared at him, and the urge to hit him across his arrogant face was very strong. ‘I would rather be sent to General Massena’s camp.’
‘That is my preference also, mademoiselle, but it is no longer an option.’
‘Then release me. I will make my own way to the lines of Torres Vedras.’
‘Tempting though the offer is, I cannot allow you to do so.’
‘Why not?’ she demanded, feeling more outraged by the minute.
‘I have my orders.’
‘But—’
A drum sounded, and a second company of French cavalrymen, not dragoons but Hanoverian Chasseurs, began to ride into the village.
Dammartin shouted an order and his men began to form into an orderly column. The chasseur captain, who was dressed in a similar fashion to Dammartin, but with yellow distinctives on the green of his jacket and a dark fur hat upon his head, drew up beside Dammartin, saluting him. His face broke into a grin as he spoke a more informal greeting.
‘Emmern.’
For the first time Josie saw Dammartin smile. It was a real smile, a smile of affection, not some distortion of his mouth out of irony or contempt. And it changed his whole face so that he looked devastatingly handsome. Shock jolted through her that she could think such a thing and, pushing the thought aside, she forced herself to concentrate on what the two men were discussing. They spoke in rapid French, discussing the land that lay beyond the village, and the quickest and safest method by which their men might traverse it.
‘Foy is like a bear with a sore head this morning.’ Captain Emmern laughed. ‘The delay has not pleased him.’
‘I am aware,’ agreed Dammartin. ‘I will have the joy of reporting to him this evening.’
‘The day has started well, then,’ teased the chasseur.
‘Indeed,’ said Dammartin. ‘It could not get much worse.’
Emmern’s eyes flicked to Josie and the grey on which she sat. ‘I would not look so gloomy if I had spent the night in such pleasant company.’ He inclined his head at Josie in greeting. ‘Come, Pierre, introduce me. Surely you do not mean to keep her all to yourself? I swear, she is utterly delicious.’
Josie felt the blood scald her cheeks. She ignored the chasseur captain, fidgeted with the grey’s reins, and focused on a peculiarly shaped rock high up on the hill to the side.
‘She is Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s daughter.’ Dammartin’s eyes were cold and his jaw rigid.
Captain Emmern’s brow lifted slightly with surprise. ‘They said there was a woman, but I did not realise that she was his daughter. What the hell could the man have been thinking?’
‘Who knows the workings of a madman’s mind?’ replied Dammartin drily.
Josie’s fists clenched at the Frenchmen’s words of insult. With blazing eyes she glared at them, words of defence for her father crowding in her mouth for release. Yet the suspicion that flashed across Dammartin’s face served as a timely reminder that she must feign ignorance of their conversation.
Dammartin edged his horse closer towards her, his brows lowered. ‘Parlez-vous français, mademoiselle?’
Even had she not understood his language, there was no doubting the accusation in his demand. This was dangerous ground, for she realised that by showing her emotions too readily she was in danger of revealing the one advantage that she had over her captors. The Frenchmen would let down their guard and talk easily in front of her if they thought that their words could not be understood by their prisoner. Any information she could glean might be of use, for Josie had every intention of passing on all she could learn to General Lord Wellington. She straightened her back and, squaring her shoulders, faced Dammartin, meeting his penetrating gaze directly.
‘I have not the slightest idea of what you are saying, sir. If you would be so good as to speak in English, then I may be able to answer you.’
Dammartin’s face cracked into a cynical disbelieving smile, yet he switched to English. ‘Do not tell me that you understand not one word of my language, for I will not believe such a ridiculous assertion.’
Josie did her best to appear outraged. ‘Are you suggesting that I am lying?’
‘You have been lying all along, mademoiselle…about that which you know, and that which you do not: the details of your father’s men, his purpose in these hills, his messengers…’
She flinched at that and there was no longer any need for pretence; her outrage was all too real.
‘You are the daughter of a senior officer; your father must have arranged your education. I believe that in England even the lowliest of governesses teach the rudiments of French.’
The heat scalded Josie’s cheeks, and her chest tightened at his words. She might have been fluent in French, but that had nothing to do with governesses and everything to do with her mother. Mama and Papa had been the best of parents, yet she felt Dammartin’s implied criticism as sharp as a knife.
‘What time was there for schooling or governesses following my father around the world on campaign? There is more to education than such formality, and besides, my mother and father ensured that both my brother and I were educated in those matters that are of any importance.’ She negated to mention the truth of the situation.
Silence followed her inferred insult.
Still she did not drop her gaze from his so that she saw his eyes narrow infinitesimally at her words. He twitched the rein between his fingers and the great chestnut horse brought him round to her side.
‘Have a care in what you say, Mademoiselle Mallington. Such words could be construed by some of my countrymen as offensive, and you are hardly in a position to abuse our hospitality.’
‘Hospitality?’ Her eyebrows raised in exaggerated incredulity, and so caught up in her own anger was Josie that she did not notice the scowl line deepen between Dammartin’s brows. ‘You kill my father and his men, you lock me in a cellar for hours on end and interrogate me. Forgive me if I am surprised at your notion of hospitality, sir!’
He leaned in closer until his face was only inches above hers. It seemed to Josie that the angles of his jawline grew sharper and the planes of his cheeks harder, and his eyes darkened with undisguised fury. As awareness dawned of how much bigger he was, of his strength, his overwhelming masculinity, all of Josie’s anger cooled, leaving in its stead the icy chill of fear.
‘I assure you, mademoiselle, that I have been most hospitable in my treatment of you…so far.’ His voice was the quiet purr of a predator. ‘Do you wish me to prove it is so, by demonstrating how very inhospitable I can be?’
Josie’s heart was thumping nineteen to the dozen. She wetted the dryness of her lips, and swallowed against the aridity of her throat. ‘You are no gentleman, sir.’ Still, she forced herself to hold his dark, menacing gaze.
‘And you, no lady.’
She could have argued back. She could have called him the scoundrel that he was, but there was something in his eyes that stopped her, something fierce and impassioned and resolute that shook her to her very core.
‘I ask you, sir, to release me,’ she said, and all of the bravado had gone so that her voice was small and tired. ‘You do not want me as your prisoner any more than I wish to be here. It is madness to drag me all the way to Ciudad Rodrigo. Allowing me to walk away now would be the best solution for us both.’
There was a moment’s silence in which he made no move to pull back from her, just kept his gaze fixed and intent, locked upon her, as a hunter who has sighted his prey. ‘Ciudad Rodrigo?’ he said softly.
Her heart gave a shudder at what she had unintentionally revealed.
‘What else do you know of General Foy’s mission, I wonder?’ His question was as gentle as a caress.
Josie dropped her eyes to stare at the ground, an involuntary shiver rippling through her.
He leaned in closer until she could feel the warmth of his breath fanning her cheek.
Her eyelids closed. The breath stalled in her throat and her fingers gripped tight around the reins, bracing herself for what was to come.
‘Pierre.’ Captain Emmern’s voice sounded, shattering the tight tension that had bound her and Dammartin together in a world that excluded all else.
She opened her eyes and blinked at the chasseur captain, allowing herself to breathe once more.
‘Captain Dammartin,’ said Emmern more formally this time. He looked from Dammartin to Josie and back again with a strange expression upon his face. ‘We should get moving, before the General grows impatient.’
Dammartin gave a nod in reply, then, with a small nudge of his boots against the chestnut’s flank, he and the horse began to move away.
Relief softened the rigidity throughout Josie’s body, so that she felt that she might collapse down against the little mare’s neck and cling on for dear life. She caught her fingers into the coarse hair of the mane, stabilising herself once more now that the danger was receding.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington,’ he called softly.
She froze at the sound of his voice, saw him turn back to look at her.
‘We shall finish this conversation later.’
She felt the blood drain from her face, and she stared at him aghast, unable to move, unable to utter a single word in response.
‘I promise that most solemnly.’ And with a twitch of his reins he was finally gone.
* * *
Foy’s column with its cavalry detachment travelled far that day, twenty miles across terrain that was rocky and high and inhospitable. The ground was frozen hard beneath their feet and great chunks of ice edged the rivulets of streams that carved passageways down the hillsides. And in all the hours that passed, Josie could not find a way to escape the officers of Bonaparte’s 8th Dragoons.
She had hoped that she might be able to fall back or just slip away unnoticed, but there was no chance of that. The 8th Dragoons were neatly sandwiched between Emmern’s Hanoverian Chasseurs in front and a whole regiment of French infantry to the rear. And were that not bad enough, Lieutenant Molyneux rode nearby, offering occasional polite conversational words, checking on her welfare and ensuring that she was served the hard bread rolls and wine when they stopped to water the horses. There seemed no way out. Yet when Josie looked in front to where Dammartin rode, she knew that escape was an absolute necessity.
Dammartin did not look back at her and that was something at least for which she felt relief. His attention was focused upon his men, on the ragged drops that fell away from the sides of the narrow rough roads along which they trotted, and the precipices so high above. If a trooper wandered too close to the edge, Dammartin barked a warning for him to get back in column. If they moved too slowly, one look from Dammartin was enough to hurry them onwards.
Throughout the long hours of riding he ignored her, but his promise lay between them as threatening as the man himself. He would interrogate her in earnest. She knew it with a certainty, had seen it in his eyes. She thought of the danger that emanated from him, of the darkness, a formidable force waiting to be unleashed… upon her. She trembled at the prospect of what he might do to her, knowing that for all her bravado, for all her own tenacity, he was far stronger. He would lead her in circles until she no longer knew what she was saying. Hadn’t she already inadvertently revealed that her father had known of Foy’s destination? What more would she tell the French Captain?
The thoughts whirred in her head, churning her gut with anticipation. No matter her father’s instruction or the promise she had made him, she knew that she had to get away, to somehow make her way back towards the British lines. She would be safe from Dammartin there, and she would ensure that the news of Foy’s mission had reached Wellington. Papa would have understood, she told herself.
Having made up her mind, Josie no longer looked ahead to the breadth of Dammartin’s shoulders or the fit of his green dragoon jacket across his back and, instead, focused every last ounce of her attention on a way of evading her captor.
They had reached the site of their camp in a small valley between Cardigos and Sobreira Formosa before the opportunity that Josie had been waiting for arose. Most of Dammartin’s dragoons were busy pitching the tents. The air rang with the sound of small iron-tipped mallets driving narrow iron tent pegs into the frozen soil. Those troopers not helping with the tents, gathered wood and lit fires upon which they placed kettles and pots to boil, cooking that evening’s rations. All along the massive camp both cavalrymen and infantrymen were orderly and disciplined and—busy. Even Molyneux seemed to have disappeared.
Josie knew that this was the best chance of escape she would get. She stood were she was, eyes scanning around, seeking the one man above all that she sought to evade, but of Dammartin there was no sign, and that could only be construed as a very good omen.
Slowly, inconspicuously, she edged towards a great clump of scrubby bushes at the side of the camp until she could slip unseen behind them. And then, hitching up her skirts in one hand, Josie started to run.
Dammartin was making his way back from reporting to Major La Roque and all he could think about was the wretched Mallington girl. She was too defiant, too stubborn and too damned courageous. When she looked at him, he saw the same clear blue eyes that had looked out from Mallington’s face. A muscle twitched in Dummartn’s jaw and he gritted his teeth.
The old man was dead and yet little of Dammartin’s anger had dissipated. His father had been avenged, and still Dammartin’s heart ached with a ferocity that coloured his every waking thought. All of the hurt, all of the rage at the injustice and loss remained. He knew he had been severe with girl. She was young, and it was not her hand that had fired the bullet into his father’s chest. He had seen that she was frightened and the pallor of her face as she realised her mistake over Ciudad Rodrigo, and even then he had not softened. Now that he was away from her he could see that he had been too harsh, but the girl knew much more than she was saying, and if Dummartin was being forced to drag her with him all the way to Ciudad Rodrigo, he was damn well going to get that information—for the sake of his country, for the sake of his mission…for the sake of his father.
The dragoon camp was filled with the aroma of cooking—of boiling meat and toasting bread. Dammartin’s stomach began to growl as he strode past the troopers’ campfires, his eyes taking in all that was happening in one fell swoop. Lamont had a pot lid in one hand and was stirring at the watery meat with a spoon in the other. Molyneux was sharing a joke with a group of troopers. The prickle of anticipation whispered down Dammartin’s spine, for Josephine Mallington was nowhere to be seen.
‘Where is Mademoiselle Mallington?’ The stoniness of his voice silenced Molyneux’s laughter. Lamont replaced the pot lid and spoon and got to his feet. The troopers glanced around uneasily, noticing the girl’s absence for the first time.
A slight flush coloured Molyneux’s cheeks. ‘She was here but a moment since, I swear.’
‘Check the tents,’ Dammartin snapped at his lieutenant, before turning to Lamont. ‘Have the men search over by the latrines.’
With a nod, the little sergeant was up and shouting orders as he ran.
Dammartin knew instinctively that the girl would not be found in either of these places. He strode purposefully towards the horses. None were missing.
Dante was saddled by the time that Molyneux reappeared.
‘The tents are empty, Captain, and Lamont says that there’s no sign of her down by the latrines.’ He bent to catch his breath, tilting his head up to look at Dammartin. ‘Do you want us to organise a search party?’
‘No search party,’ replied Dammartin, swinging himself up on to Dante’s back. ‘I go alone.’
‘She cannot have got far in such little time. She is on foot and the harshness of this countryside…’ Molyneux let the words trail off before dropping his voice. ‘Forgive me, but I did not think for a minute that she would escape.’
Dammartin gave a single small nod of his head, acknowledging his lieutenant’s apology. ‘Mademoiselle Mallington is more resourceful than we have given her credit for.’
‘What will happen if you do not find her? Major La Roque did not—’
‘If I do not find her,’ Dammartin interrupted, ‘she will die.’ And with a soft dig of his heels against Dante’s flank he was gone.
Chapter Four (#ulink_547ef7eb-d0ce-5d45-bda4-28781dd261d1)
The wind whispered through the trees, straining at their bare branches until they creaked and rattled. Josie’s run had subsided to a half-walk, half-scurry as she followed the road back along the route the French army had travelled. The track ran along the ridge of a great hill in the middle of even more hills. The surrounding landscape was hostile: jagged rocks, steep slopes and scree, with nothing of cover and nowhere that Josie could see to shelter.
She knew from the day’s journey that some miles back there had been the derelict remains of a cottage and it was to this that Josie was heading. All she needed to do was to follow the road back up over the last hill and keep going until she came upon the cottage. She pushed herself on, knowing that it was only a matter of time before her absence was noticed. They might already be after her; he might already be after her. Her lungs felt fit to burst and there was a pain in her side. Josie willed her legs to move faster.
The light was rapidly fading and soon everything would be shrouded in darkness, making it impossible to see the rubble and pot-holes littering the road, and more importantly the cliff edge over to her right. Somewhere far away a wolf howled, a haunting sound that made the hairs on the back of Josie’s neck stand erect. She knew what it was to be hunted, but it was not the wolf from which she was running.
Her foot twisted suddenly into an unseen dip on the unevenness of the road’s surface, tipping her off balance, bringing her down, landing her hard. The fall winded her, but almost immediately she was scrabbling up to keep on going, ignoring the stinging in her hands and knees.
Dammartin cursed the charcoal-streaked sky. Once darkness fell she would be lost to him, and lost to herself too, he thought grimly. Little idiot, without shelter, without warmth, she would die out here. And no matter who her father had been, Dammartin did not want that to happen.
His eyes swept over the surrounding land, before flicking back to the road over the hill that loomed ahead. The French Captain’s instinct told him which route the girl had chosen. Taking the spyglass from his pocket, he scanned the road over which they had travelled that day, and as the daylight died Pierre Dammartin felt the wash of satisfaction. He snapped the spyglass away.
A lone wolf’s howl rent the air, urging Dammartin to move faster. He had not reached her yet, but he soon would.
Josie stopped and glanced back, her scalp prickling with foreboding, her ears straining to listen. There was only the wind and the ragged panting of her own breath. A noise sounded to her left, a rustling, a rooting. She stared suspiciously through the growing darkness, but there was nothing there save a few spindly bushes at the foot of the great rock wall. To her right a trickle of pebbles slid over the cliff edge, making her jump nervously.
She was being foolish, she told herself, these were the normal noises of the night, nothing more sinister. But as she hurried on, she remembered the stories of the bandits that roamed this land and she pulled her cloak more tightly around herself, only now beginning to see just how very dangerous her predicament was.
Come along, Josie, she told herself sternly, and she was in the middle of reciting the Mallington family motto, audaces fortuna juvat—fortune favours the brave—when she heard the gallop of a horse’s hooves in the distance.
Dammartin.
She looked back into the deep inky blueness, her eyes examining every shadow, every shape, but seeing nothing through the cover of the night. For a moment Josie was so gripped with panic that she did not move, just stood there staring for a few moments before the sensible part of her brain kicked back into action.
It would be impossible to outrun him, he was coming this way and fast, and the few bushes around were too small to hide her. Glancing swiftly around she realised that just ahead, to the left, the sheer wall of rock and soil seemed to change, relaxing its gradient, leaning back by forty-five degrees to give a climbable slope. Her eyes followed it up to the flat ground at the top, which merged into the darkness of the other hills. Josie did not wait for an invitation; she began to run again.
* * *
A thin crescent moon hung in the sky and Dammartin could just about see the small, dark shape moving on the road ahead. He kicked Dante to a gallop to close the distance between them. One more curve in the road and she would be his, but as he rounded that last corner, with Dante blowing hard, the road was deserted.
Dante pulled up, clouds of condensation puffing from his nostrils, the sweat upon his chestnut coat a slick sheen beneath the moonlight. Dammartin was breathing hard too, his heart racing, a sudden fear in his chest that she had gone over the edge of the cliff rather than let herself be taken.
A small noise sounded ahead, somewhere high up on the left, a dislodged pebble cascading down. Dammartin’s gaze swivelled towards the sound, and what he saw made his mouth curve to a wicked smile.
Josie heard the horse draw up below. Just a single horse. She could hear the rider dismount and begin to climb.
One man.
She had to know. Her head turned. She dared a glance below…and gasped aloud.
The thin sliver of moon lit the face of Captain Dammartin as he scaled the rock face at a frightening speed.
Josie redoubled her efforts, clambering up as fast as she could.
She could hear him getting closer. Her arms and legs were aching and she could feel the trickle of sweat between her breasts and down her back, but still she kept going, puffing her breathy exertion like smoke into the chill of the night air.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington.’
She heard his voice too close. Keep going, Josie, keep going, she willed herself on, climbing and climbing, and still, he came after her, closing the gap between them.
‘Cease this madness, before you break your neck.’
She glanced back and saw that he was right below her. ‘No!’ she cried in panic, and pulling off her hat, she threw it at him.
A hand closed around her ankle—firm, warm fingers. She felt the gentle tug.
‘No!’ she yelled again. ‘Release me!’ And she tried to kick out at him with her foot, but it was too late; Josie’s grip was lost and she slid helplessly down over the rock and the dirt, towards her enemy.
Dammartin leaned out, away from the slope, so that the girl’s body slid neatly in beneath his. Her back was flush against his chest, her buttocks against his groin. The wind whipped her hair to tickle against his chin. She seemed to freeze, gripping for dear life to the rock face, before she realised that he had caught her, that she was safe. He heard her gasp of shock as she became aware of her position, and braced himself.
‘Unhand me at once!’ She bucked against him.
He pressed into her, gripping tighter. ‘Continue as you are, mademoiselle, and you will send us both to our deaths,’ he said into her ear.
She ceased her struggles. ‘What are you going to do?’ Her words were quiet.
‘Save your life.’
Only the wind whispered in return, but he could feel the rapidity of her breathing beneath his chest, and the tremor that ran through her slight frame.
‘It is not in need of saving. Leave me be, sir. I will not return with you to the camp.’
‘Then you will be clinging to this rock face beneath me all damn night, for I have no intention of returning without my prisoner,’ he said savagely.
She tried to turn her head, as if to glance at what lay beyond, but her cheek touched against his chest, and he knew she could see nothing other than him.
‘I do not think you so foolish as to throw your life away, Mademoiselle Mallington, no matter how tempting it may be to dispense with mine.’
There was a silence before she said, ‘You climb down first and I will follow.’
His mouth curved cynically. ‘We climb down together, or not at all. You cannot answer my questions with a broken neck.’
He felt her tense beneath him. ‘You are wasting your time, Captain, for I will never answer your questions, no matter how many times you ask them. I would rather take my chances here on this rock face.’
Dammartin understood then why Mademoiselle Mallington had run. The lavender scent of her hair drifted up to fill his nose. ‘And if I tell you there will be no questions tonight, will you come down then?’
Another silence, as if she were contemplating his words, reaching a decision, just a few moments, but time enough for his awareness of the soft curves moulded against him to grow.
She gave a reluctant nod of the head.
They stood like two spoons nestled together, the entire length of their bodies touching. And it was not anger at her escape, or the jubilation of her recapture of which Dammartin was thinking; it was not even the difficulty of the descent they had no choice but to make. For the first time, Dammartin saw Josie not as Mallington’s daughter, but as a woman, and a woman that stirred his blood.
She glanced directly down, looking to see the rock face below. Her body tensed further and she clung all the harder to the rocks, laying her face against them.
He started to move.
‘No, I cannot!’ she said, and he could hear the slight note of panic underlying her words.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington…’
‘It is too high, we cannot…’
‘Just do as I say.’
‘I cannot…please…’
There was just the sound of the wind and the rise and fall of her breathing and the feel of her body beneath his.
‘I will help you and we will reach the ground safely enough.’ He became conscious of where her hips nestled so snugly and felt the stirrings of his body response.
She hesitated before giving a tiny nod.
Josie had thought of nothing other than escape on her way up the cliff, but now she was aware of how very far the ground seemed below, of the loose, insecure surface of the rocks and the wind that pulled at both her and Dammartin. In the darkness she could not see what was safe to grip with her hands, and the skirt of her dress hid her view of her feet and where she might place them. A wave of panic swept through her and she thought that she might be stuck there, unable to move either up or down, but then the French Captain said that he would help her. He edged her to movement and the panic was gone. Slowly they began to descend the rock face.
The warm press of his body and the clean masculine smell of him pulled her mind from the danger of the rocks beneath. He was gentle, encouraging her with quiet words when she struggled to place her feet, coaxing her to keep moving when she thought she could move no more. There was no anger, no harshness, no danger, and, ironically, as they risked their lives to reach the ground, she felt safer with him now than she had ever done. It did not make sense. She did not know this new Dammartin.
She heard his exhalation of breath as they made it to the ground. The cold rushed in against her back as he moved away, opening the space between them. She turned, and was able to see him properly for the first time. Words of gratitude hovered on her lips, but she bit them back, not understanding why she wanted to thank him for saving her, when in truth he was the enemy who had just destroyed her chance of escape.
For a moment Dammartin just stood there by the foot of the slope; the weak silvery moonlight exposing the dark slash of his scar, the lean hard planes sculpting his face, and the rugged squareness of his jaw. Shadow obscured half his face, making it impossible for Josie to read his expression, but there was something in the way he was looking at her, something in his stance, that made her wonder if this was indeed the same man from whom she had run. Her gaze dropped to hide her confusion and her feeling of vulnerability.
‘You do not need to take me back,’ she said, ‘you could say that you did not find me. It is a plausible story.’
He gave a cynical laugh and shook his head. ‘What part of this do you not understand, mademoiselle? That you would not survive out here alone, or that I do not lose my prisoners?’
The arrogance of his words rankled with her, urging her pride to deny the truth in his answer. ‘I would survive very well, if you would let me.’
‘With no weapon, no shelter, no means to make fire, no food or water?’ he mocked. ‘And what of guerrillas and bandits? You think you can take them on single-handed?’
‘As a woman travelling alone, I would present no threat to any such men. They would be unlikely to harm me. I am British.’
‘You think they care about that?’ Dammartin raised an eyebrow.
Josie’s indignation rose. ‘I would have managed well enough.’
‘You are a fool if you think so—’ his eyes narrowed slightly ‘—and you would be a bigger fool to try a further escape.’
‘You cannot stop me,’ she retaliated. ‘I swear I will be long gone before you are anywhere close to Ciudad Rodrigo.’
The wolf howl sounded again, and in the moonlight Dammartin transformed once more to a sinister mode. ‘No, mademoiselle,’ he said softly, ‘you are much mistaken in that belief.’
All of Josie’s fear flooded back at the certainty in his voice.
She looked at him, not knowing what to say, not knowing what to do, aware only that he had won, and that her failure would cost her dearly when he got her back to the camp.
There was the sound of the wind, and of quietness.
‘Please,’ she said, and hoped that he would not hear the desperation in her voice.
The scree crunched beneath his boots as he came to stand before her. ‘I will not leave you out here.’
Her eyes searched the shadow of his face and thought she saw something of the harshness drop away.
‘No more questions this night.’ He reached out and, taking her arm, pulled her from where she leaned against the slope.
He led her across to the great chestnut horse that stood waiting so patiently, his grip light but unbreakable around her arm, releasing her only long enough to mount and lift her up before him. She was sitting sideways, holding on to the front of the saddle with her left hand, and trying not to hold on to Dammartin with her right
Dammartin looked pointedly at where the hand rested upon her skirts. ‘We shall be travelling at speed.’
She gave a nod. ‘I know,’ she said.
‘As you will, mademoiselle.’
As they reached the surface of the road, the horse began to canter, and Josie gripped suddenly at Dammartin to stop herself from being thrown from the saddle. By the time the canter became a gallop, Josie was clinging tight to the French Captain’s chest, while he secured her in place with an anchoring arm around her waist.
Stars shone like a thousand diamond chips scattered over a black velvet sky. The silver sickle of the moon bathed all in its thin magical light, revealing the road ahead that would lead them back to the French camp.
For Josie there would be no escape.
Dammartin swigged from the hip flask, the brandy burning a route down to his stomach. The fire burned low before them, and most of the men had already retired for the night. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and offered the flask to Lamont.
‘The men were taking bets on whether you would find her.’ Lamont took a gulp of the brandy before returning the flask.
‘Did you win?’ asked Dammartin.
‘Of course,’ replied the little Sergeant with a smile, and patted his pocket. ‘I know you too well, my friend.’
They sat quietly for a few minutes, the sweet smell of Lamont’s pipe mingling pleasantly with that of the brandy, the logs cracking and shifting upon the fire.
‘She has courage, the little mademoiselle.’ It was Lamont who broke the silence.
‘She does,’ agreed Dammartin, thinking of Josie halfway up that rock face, and the way she had defied him to the end. He glanced towards the tents.
Lamont followed his captain’s eyes, before returning his gaze to the glow of the burning logs. ‘What will you do with her?’
‘Take her to Ciudad Rodrigo as I am commanded.’
‘I mean, this night.’
‘What does one do with any prisoner who has attempted to escape?’ Dammartin poked at the embers of the fire with a stick.
‘She is gently bred, and a woman. You would not…?’ Lamont’s words petered out in uncertainty.
There was a silence in which Dammartin looked at him. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think you are too much your father’s son.’
Dammartin smiled at his old friend, and fitted the top back on to his hip flask, before slipping it into his pocket. ‘But she is too much Mallington’s daughter.’
There was the soft breath of the wind while both men stared wordlessly into the fire.
‘Why did she run, Pierre? The girl is no fool; she must have realised her chance of survival was slim?’
‘She was afraid.’ Dammartin’s gaze did not shift from the warm orange glow of the dying fire as he remembered Mademoiselle Mallington’s face in the moonlight as she stood at the foot of the slope. He had felt the tremor in her body, heard the fear beneath the defiance in her words. I will never answer your questions, no matter how many times you ask them. He heard the whisper of them even now. ‘Afraid of interrogation.’
Lamont gave a sigh and shook his head. ‘There is nothing of any use she can tell us now.’
‘I would not be so certain of that.’
‘Pierre…’ the older man chided.
‘I will question her again,’ interrupted Dammartin. ‘But her only fear need be what answers she will spill.’
‘And when we reach Ciudad Rodrigo, what then?’
‘Then she is no longer my problem,’ said Dammartin.
Lamont sucked at his pipe for a few moments, as if weighing Dammartin’s answer. ‘It is a long way to Ciudad Rodrigo.’
‘Do not worry, Claude,’ Dammartin gave Lamont a clap on the back. ‘Mademoiselle Mallington will give us no more trouble. I will make certain of that.’ He got to his feet. ‘Sleep well, my old friend.’ And began to make his way across the small distance to where the officers’ tents were pitched.
‘And you, my captain,’ said Lamont softly, as he sat by the fire and watched Dammartin disappear beneath the canvas of his tent.
* * *
The girl was sitting at the little table, busy working her hair into a plait when Dammartin entered the tent. She jumped to her feet, her hair abandoned, the ribbon fluttering down to lie forgotten upon the ground sheet. From the corner of his eye he could see a white frilled nightdress spread out over the covers of his bed.
‘What are you doing here, Captain Dammartin?’ she demanded, her face peaked and shocked.
‘Retiring to bed.’
Her eyes widened with indignation and the unmistakable flicker of fear. ‘In my tent?’
‘The tent is mine.’ He walked over to the small table and chair.
Even beneath the lantern light he could see the blush that swept her cheeks. ‘Then I should not be here, sir.’ Hurrying over to the bed, she slipped her feet into her boots sitting neatly by its side, before grabbing up the nightdress and rolling it swiftly to a ball. ‘There has clearly been some kind of misunderstanding. If you would be so kind as to direct me to the women’s tent.’
‘You are a prisoner, mademoiselle, not a camp follower. Besides, the women’s tent is within the camp of the infantry, not my dragoons. As a prisoner of the 8th, you stay with me.’
‘Then you can show me the tent in which I am to stay the night.’ She stood facing him squarely, clutching the nightdress in a crumpled mass like a shield before her, ready to do battle.
‘You are already within that tent.’ He turned away and began to unbutton his jacket.
‘Indeed, I am not, sir!’ she exclaimed with force, and he could see the colour in her cheeks darken. ‘What manner of treatment is this? You cannot seriously expect that I will spend the night with you!’ Her nostrils flared. She stared at him as if she were some great warrior queen.
‘You speak of expectations, mademoiselle. Do you expect to be left overnight all alone, so that you may try again to escape?’
She gave a shake of her head, and the loose blonde plait hanging down against her breast began to unwind. ‘I would try no such thing. The night is too dark, and I have no torch.’
‘These things did not stop you this evening.’
‘There was still daylight then.’
‘Hardly,’ he said, and shrugging off his jacket, hung it over the back of the wooden chair by the table.
‘I give you my word that I will not try to escape this night.’
‘Only this night?’ he raised an eyebrow.
‘It is this night of which we are speaking.’
‘So you are planning another attempt tomorrow.’
‘No!’
‘Tomorrow night, then?’
‘Very well, I give you my word that I will not attempt another escape.’ She looked at him expectantly. ‘So now will you arrange for another tent?’
‘Your word?’ He heard his voice harden as the memories came flooding back unbidden, the grief and revenge bitter within his mouth. He gave an angry, mirthless laugh. ‘But how can I trust that when the word of a Mallington is meaningless.’
‘How dare you?’ she exclaimed, and he could see the fury mounting in her eyes.
He smiled a grim determined smile. ‘Most easily, mademoiselle, I assure you.’
‘I have nothing more to say to you, sir.’ She spun on her heel, and began to stride towards the tent flap.
Dammartin’s hand shot out and, fixing a firm hold around her upper arm, hoisted her back. She struggled to escape him, but Dammartin just grabbed hold of her other arm and hauled her back to face him. Her arms were slight beneath his hands and he was surprised again at how small and slender she was, even though he had felt her body beneath his upon the rock face only a few hours since. He adjusted his grip so that he would not hurt her and pulled her closer.
She quietened then, looked up at him with blue eyes that were stormy. The scent of lavender surrounded her, and he could not help himself glance at the pale blonde hair that now spilled loose around her shoulders.
‘But I have not finished in what I have to say to you, mademoiselle.’ The nightdress slipped from her fingers, falling to lie between them.
They both glanced down to where the white frills lay in a frothy pool against the black leather of Dammartin’s boots.
And when he looked again, her eyes had widened slightly and he saw the fear that flitted through them.
He spoke quietly but with slow, deliberate intent, that she would understand him. ‘All the tents upon this campsite are filled, and even were they not, my men have travelled far this day and I would not drag a single one from their rest to guard against any further escape attempt that you may make. So tonight, I guard you myself. Do not complain of this situation, for you have brought it upon yourself, mademoiselle, with your most foolish behaviour.’ He lowered his face towards hers until their noses were almost touching, so close that they might have been lovers.
He heard the slight raggedness of her breathing, saw the rapid rise and fall of her breast, and the way that the colour washed from her cheeks as she stared back at him, her eyes wide with alarm.
The silence stretched between them as the soft warmth of her breath whispered against his lips like a kiss. His mouth parted in anticipation, and for one absurd moment he almost kissed her, almost, but then he remembered that she was Mallington’s daughter, and just precisely what Lieutenant Colonel Mallington had done, and all of the misery and all of the wrathful injustice was back.
His heart hardened.
When finally he spoke his voice was low and filled with harsh promise. ‘Do not seek to escape me again, Mademoiselle Mallington. If you try, your punishment shall be in earnest. Do you understand me?’
She gave a single nod of her head; as Dammartin released his grip, she stumbled back, grabbing hold of the chair back, where his jacket hung, to steady herself.
He turned brusquely away, pulling two blankets and a pillow from the bed and dropping them on to the ground sheet beside the bed. ‘Make yourself a bed. We leave early tomorrow and must sleep.’
She just stood there, by the table, looking at him, her face pale and wary.
He did not look at her, just sat down on the bed and removed his boots.
And still she stood there, until at last his gaze again met hers.
‘Make up your bed, unless you have a wish to share mine, mademoiselle.’
An expression of shock crossed her face and she hurriedly did as she was bid, extinguishing the lantern before climbing beneath the blankets on the groundsheet.
Dammartin did not sleep, and neither did the girl. The sound of her breathing told him that she lay as awake as he, so close to his bed that he might have reached his arm down and touched her. The wind buffeted at the canvas of the tent, but apart from that everything was silent.
He did not know how long he lay listening, aware of her through the darkness, turning one way and then the next as if she could find no comfort on the hardness of the ground. He rolled over, conscious of the relative softness of his own mattress, and felt the first prickle of conscience.
Goddamn it, she was his prisoner, he thought, and he’d be damned if he’d give his bed up for Mallington’s daughter. Just as he was thinking this, he heard her soft movements across the tent, and with a reflex honed by years of training, reached out through the darkness to grab at her dress.
He felt her start, heard her gasp loud in the deadness of the night.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington,’ he said quietly, ‘do you disregard my warning so readily?’
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I seek only my cloak. The night is cold. I am not trying to escape.
Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he sat up, guiding her back towards him, turning her in the blackness and tracing his hands lightly around her, like a blindman, until he found her hands. Even through the wool of her dress he could feel that she was chilled. Her fingers were cold beneath his before she pulled away from his touch.
‘Go back to your bed, mademoiselle,’ he said curtly.
‘But my cloak…’
‘Forget your cloak, you shall not find it in this darkness.’
‘But—’
‘Mademoiselle,’ he said more harshly.
He heard the breath catch in her throat as if she would have given him some retort, but she said nothing, only climbed beneath the blankets that he had given her earlier that night.
Dammartin swept his greatcoat from where it lay over his bed, and covered the girl with it.
‘Captain Dammartin…’ He could hear her surprise.
‘Go to sleep,’ he said gruffly.
‘Thank you,’ came the soft reply.
He turned over and pulled the blanket higher, knowing himself for a fool and slipping all the more easily into the comfort of sleep because of it.
Josie awoke to the seep of thin grey daylight through the canvas overhead. Sleep still fuddled her mind and she smiled, burrowing deeper beneath the cosiness of the covers, thinking that her father would tease her for her tardiness. Voices sounded outside, French male, and reality came rushing back in, exploding all of her warm contentment: Telemos, her father’s death, Dammartin. Clutching the blankets to her chest she sat up, glancing round apprehensively.
The bed in which Dammartin had slept lay empty; she was alone in the tent. The breath that Josie had been holding released, relief flowed through her. She got to her feet, her head woolly and thick from her lack of sleep.
How may hours had she lain awake listening to the French Captain’s breathing, hearing it slow and become more rhythmic as he found sleep? For how many hours had the thoughts raced through her head? Memories of her father and of Telemos. She had spoken the truth; the night was black and most of the fires would be dead; she had no torch, and she did not doubt that there would be sentries guarding the camp. Her chance of escape had been lost. He would watch her more carefully now.
A shudder ran through her as she remembered how he had held her last night, his face so close to hers that the air she breathed had been warmed by his lungs. His dark penetrating gaze locked on to hers so that she could not look away. For a moment, just one tiny moment, she had thought that he meant to kiss her, before she saw the pain and bitterness in his eyes. And she blushed that she could have thought such a ridiculous notion. Of course he did not want to kiss her, he hated her, just as she hated him. There was no mistaking that. He hated her, yet he would not let her go.
I do not lose prisoners, he had said. And she had the awful realisation that he meant to take her all the way to Ciudad Rodrigo—far away from Torres Vedras, and Lisbon and the British—and in the miles between lay the prospect of interrogation.
Her eye caught the thick grey greatcoat, still lying where he had placed it last night, on top of her blankets. When she looked at the bed again, she saw its single woollen cover. The chill in the air nipped at her, and she knew that the night had been colder. She stared at the bed, not understanding why a man so very menacing, so very dangerous, who loathed her very existence, had given her his covers.
More voices, men walking by outside.
She glanced down at the muddy smears marking her crumpled dress, and her dirty hands and ragged nails—souvenirs of the rock face and her failed escape.
She was British, she reminded herself, and she would not allow the enemy to bring her down in such a way. So she smoothed the worst of her bed-mussed hair, and peeped out of the tent flap. Molyneux lingered not so very far away. He was kind; he spoke English…and he came when she beckoned him. It seemed that the Lieutenant was only too happy to fetch her a basin of water.
‘I apologise, mademoiselle, for the coldness of the water, but there is no time to warm it.’ He smiled at her, his skin creasing round his eyes, and the wind ruffling the pale brown of his hair.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and meant it.
Taking the basin from the Lieutenant’s hands, she glanced out at the campsite beyond. All around dragoons were busy putting out fires, packing up, dismantling. She recognised Dammartin’s sergeant, Lamont, speaking to a group of troopers, but Dammartin himself was nowhere that she could see.
‘Thank you,’ she said again, and disappeared within the tent flaps.
Dammartin glanced over towards his tent, but there was still no sign of Mademoiselle Mallington. Coffee had been drunk, bread eaten, portmanteaux packed, and the girl slept through it all. At least he had had the foresight to set Molyneux to guarding his tent, lest the girl took the notion into her head to try to slip away again. And truth be told, this would be the best time to do it, when the camp was in chaos, the men’s attentions distracted, and a full day of light ahead.
Lamont appeared. ‘The men will be ready to leave in twenty minutes. Only the officers’ tents remain. Mademoiselle Mallington…’ He looked enquiringly at Dammartin.
‘Shall be ready to leave with the rest of us,’ Dammartin replied.
‘You look a little tired this morning, Captain,’ said Lamont, his gaze fixed on Dammartin’s tent. ‘Perhaps something disturbed your sleep?’
Dammartin gave a wry smile and shook his head at his sergeant’s teasing, before walking off towards his tent.
‘She is in there still?’ he said to Molyneux as he passed, indicating his tent.
‘Yes, Captain.’
Dammartin closed the last of the distance to his tent.
‘But, sir, she…’
Molyneux’s words sounded behind him, but it was too late. Dammartin had unfastened the ties and was already through the tent flap…and the sight that met his eyes stilled him where he stood. A basin of water sat upon his table; Mademoiselle Mallington stood by its side, washing, bare to her waist.
Chapter Five (#ulink_0903be8f-0fc1-5167-a342-e43455d01764)
Josie gave a small shriek and, trying to cover herself with one arm, reached for her towel with the other. In her panic she succeeded only in dropping the soap into the basin and knocking the towel off the back of the table. She clutched her arms around herself, acutely aware of her nakedness and the man that stood not four feet away, staring. She saw his gaze move over her, saw the darkening of his eyes as they met hers, yet she stood there gaping like a fool, staring at him in utter shock.
‘Captain Dammartin!’ she managed to gasp at last, those two words conveying all of her indignation.
He held her gaze for a moment longer, that second seeming to stretch to an eternity. ‘Pardon, mademoiselle,’ and, with a small bow of his head, he was gone as suddenly as he had arrived.
It was over in less than a minute, yet Josie stood there still, staring at the tent flap, before hurrying round to the other side of the table to snatch up the towel. She barely dried herself before pulling up her shift and petticoats from her waist with hands that were shaking. Humiliation set a scald to her cheeks, and a roughness to her fingers as she pulled down the hair pinned up high and loose upon her head to coil it into a tight little pile stabbed into place at the nape of her neck.
She was angry beyond belief, angry and embarrassed. ‘How dare he!’ she muttered to herself again and again as she stuffed her belongings back into her portmanteau. ‘The audacity of the man!’
Her indignation still burned so that when she left the tent, standing outside with her cloak fastened around her, and her hair neat and tidy beneath her best hat and her fresh blue dress, she was intent on snubbing the French Captain, but Dammartin was only a figure at the other end of the camp and it was Lieutenant Molyneux who waited some little distance away.
The wind dropped from her sails.
‘Mademoiselle.’ Molyneux appeared by her side, his grey eyes soft with concern. ‘I am here to escort you this day.’
Dammartin had assigned his lieutenant to guard her, thought Josie, and her anger at Dammartin swelled even more.
‘If you will come this way, it is time we were upon our horses.’
‘Thank you, Lieutenant,’ she said, as if she were not furious and outraged and humiliated, and walked, with her head held high, calmly by his side.
It soon became clear that her supposition regarding Molyneux was correct for, unlike the previous day, the Lieutenant stuck closely by her side. In Molyneux’s company the events of that morning ceased to matter so much to Josie. The young Lieutenant had such an easy and charming manner that she felt her ruffled feathers smooth and her anger dispel.
It was true that Molyneux had been in the monastery at Telemos just as much as Dammartin, but as the hours passed in his company she saw that he was like so many young men who had served beneath her father. His eyes were clear and honest and he seemed every bit the gentleman that Dammartin was not.
When the dragoons stopped to rest and eat, Molyneux sent a boy to fetch them bread and cheese, and then sat beside her on a boulder while they ate together.
‘You are kind to me, Lieutenant,’ she said, thinking of how much Molyneux contrasted with his captain.
‘Why should I not be kind? You are a lady, alone, in a difficult situation.’
She raised her gaze to his. ‘I am a prisoner.’
Molyneux’s lips curved in a small half-smile but there was a sadness in his eyes. ‘I believe that prisoners should be well treated.’
‘I do, too, as did my father.’
He gave no reply, but a strange expression stole upon his face.
‘It seems that Captain Dammartin does not share our opinion, sir.’
‘The Captain, he has his reasons, mademoiselle.’ Molyneux glanced away.
‘What reason could he possibly have to act as he has done?’ she demanded, feeling nettled just at the thought of Dammartin. ‘There is nothing that could excuse that man’s behaviour.’
Molyneux’s eyes returned to hers and she saw something of astonishment and pity in them. ‘You truly do not know.’
‘Know?’ She felt the prickling of suspicion. ‘What is it that I should know?’
Molyneux’s gaze held hers for a moment longer than it should, then he turned away and got to his feet. ‘Come, mademoiselle, we should make ready to ride again.’
‘Lieutenant—’
‘Come,’ he said again, and did not meet her eyes.
And when they resumed the journey, Molyneux was quiet, leaving Josie to wonder as to exactly what the Lieutenant had meant.
Dammartin rode at the head of the 8th Dragoons crossing the bleak terrain before them, but it was not the harshness of the Portuguese countryside of which he was thinking, nor the perils of the mission in which they were engaged. Something else entirely filled Dammartin’s mind—Josephine Mallington.
A vision of her standing there in his tent that morning, her clothing stripped aside to reveal her naked skin, so smooth and white and inviting that he longed to reach out and touch its silky surface. The slender column of her throat with the gold chain that hung around it, leading his eye down in invitation over a skin so pale and perfect, to the swell of her breasts.
He had seen them, just a glimpse, firm and thrusting and rosy-tipped, before his view was partly obscured. That slim arm crushing hard against them in a bid to hide herself from him, and in truth, serving only to tantalise even more in what it revealed. He could have traced his fingers over the bulging swell of that smooth white flesh, slipping them down behind the barrier of her arm to cup her breasts in his hands. To feel her nipples harden beneath his palm, to taste what he touched, taking her in his mouth, laving those rosy tips with his tongue…
Dammartin caught his train of thought and stopped it dead. Hell, but she was Mallington’s daughter. The one woman who should repulse him above all others, and all he could think of was her naked, and the sight of her soft lips, and the feel of her beneath him as they perched upon that rock face. He was already hard at the thought of her, uncomfortably so. And that knowledge made him damnably angry with Mademoiselle Mallington, and even more so with himself.
Hour after hour of a ride in which he should have been alert, aware, focused on his duty, spent distracted by Mallington’s daughter. Well, no more of it, he determined. Dammartin hardened his resolve. He was here to safeguard Foy’s journey to Ciudad Rodrigo—and that is what he would do. He could not refuse the order to take Mademoiselle Mallington with him to the Spanish city, and so he would take her there as he must.
And he thought again that Mallington was dead and all of his questions regarding Major Jean Dammartin’s death were destined to remain unanswered for ever.
His mind flicked again to Josephine Mallington and the fact that her father had brought her with him into these hills, and her knowledge of the messengers and of Dammartin’s own destination—a girl very much in her father’s confidence. Had she been there at the Battle of Oporto, just over eighteen months ago? He felt his lip curl at the thought that she might have witnessed his father’s murder, and his heart was filled once more with the cold steel of revenge. There would be no more distractions; Dammartin would have his answers.
Lieutenant Molyneux’s pensive mood allowed Josie time to think. She spent much time pondering the Lieutenant’s strange remarks, but came no nearer to fathoming of what he had been speaking. There was definitely something that she did not know, something to do with Dammartin and the hatred that he nursed.
Her eyes followed ahead to where the French Captain rode, and she thought how she had caught him looking at her several times that day with an expression of such intensity as to almost be hunger. He was not looking at her now.
She remembered his face from this morning when he had strode so boldly into her tent, his tent. The hours spent with Molyneux had mellowed Josie’s anger and indignation. There had been an initial shock in Dammartin’s eyes before they had darkened to a dangerous smoulder. The camp had been disbanding and she had overslept. And it had all happened so quickly that she doubted he could have seen very much at all.
She thought of the long, cold hours of the night when he had given her his greatcoat, and she wondered as to that small kindness. Josie had heard the stories of what French soldiers inflicted upon the towns that they took and the people who went against them. She knew of the interrogations, and the torture…and the rape. That she was an innocent did not stop her from knowing what enemy soldiers did to women. Within the Fifth Battalion of the 60th Regiment of Foot gossip reached the Lieutenant Colonel’s daughter just the same as it reached everyone else. Yet for all the dislike in his eyes, Dammartin had not touched her, nor allowed his men to do so. He had not beaten her, he had not starved her when he could so easily have done so. She knew all of these things, yet whenever Dammartin looked at her, she could not prevent the somersaults of apprehension in her stomach, or the sudden hurry of her heart.
They broke for camp in the late afternoon, before the light of day was lost. Fundao—another day’s march closer to General Foy fulfilling his mission, another day’s march between Josie and the British lines.
Molyneux stood some distance away, talking with Sergeant Lamont, but the Lieutenant was careful to keep Josie within his sight.
Josie sat on her portmanteau, watching while the tents were erected, wondering how fast Molyneux could move if she were to make a run for it. She could not imagine him with the same harsh rugged determination of his captain.
There was something single-minded and ruthless about Dammartin, something driven. And she thought of the deadly earnest of his warning, and knew that even if Molyneux did not catch her, Dammartin most certainly would. Her eyes closed, trying to stifle the intensity of the memory. Dammartin was not a man to make promises lightly.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington.’
The sound of his voice behind her made her jump. She rose swiftly to her feet and turned to face him. ‘Captain Dammartin.’
He instructed a young trooper to carry her portmanteau to his tent. Everything about him was masculine and powerful. His expression was closed, his dark brows hooding eyes that were as hard as granite and just as cold.
‘You will sleep in my tent tonight—alone.’
Alone? She felt the surprise lighten her face and relief leap within her. ‘Thank you,’ she said, wondering if she really did have the measure of Dammartin. She did not dare to ask him where he would be spending the night.
He continued as if she had not spoken. ‘There will be a guard posted outside all of the night, so do not think to try to escape, mademoiselle. I trust you remember my warning.’
She gave a wary nod and made to move away towards the tent.
‘I am not yet finished,’ he said icily.
Josie hesitated, feeling his words rankle, but she turned back and raised her eyes calmly to his. ‘You wish to say something further, sir?’
‘I wish to ask you some questions.’
It seemed that her chest constricted and her heart rate kicked to a stampede. ‘You said there would be no more questions.’
‘No more questions last night,’ he amended.
She held her head high and looked him directly in the eye. ‘Perhaps I did not make myself clear, Captain. You will waste your time with questions—there is nothing more that I can tell you.’
‘We will see, mademoiselle.’
She breathed deeply, trying to keep her fear in check. He could not mean to interrogate her, not now, not when she was so unprepared. ‘I am tired, sir, and wish only to retire.’
‘We are all tired,’ he said harshly.
She clutched her hands together, her fingers gripping tight.
‘You may retire when you have told me of your father.’
‘My father?’ She stared at him in disbelief, feeling all of her anger and all of her grief come welling back. ‘Is it not enough that you killed him? He is dead, for pity’s sake! Can you not leave him be even now?’
‘It is true that he is dead, mademoiselle,’ admitted Dammartin, his face colder and harsher than ever she had seen it, ‘but not by my hand…unfortunately.’
She was aghast. ‘Unfortunately?’ she echoed. ‘Our countries may be at war, but my father does not deserve such contempt. He was the bravest of soldiers, an honourable man who gave his life for his country.’
‘He was a villain,’ said Dammartin, and in his eyes was a furious black bitterness.
‘How dare you slur his good name!’ she cried, her breast heaving with passion, all fear forgotten. All of her anger and hurt and grief welled up to overflow and she hated Dammartin in that moment as she had never hated before. ‘You are the very devil, sir!’ And, drawing back her hand, she slapped his cruel, arrogant face as hard as she could.
The camp fell silent. Each and every dragoon turned to stare.
No one moved.
No one breathed.
The audacity of Josie’s action seemed to slow time itself.
She saw the ruddy print of her hand stain his cheek, saw his scar grow livid, and she could not believe that she had struck him with such violence, with such hatred, she who was his captive at his mercy.
His eyes grew impossibly darker. There was a slight tightening of the muscle in his jaw. His breath was so light as to scarce be a breath at all. The air was heavy with a rage barely sheathed.
She stared in mounting horror, every pore in her body screaming a warning, prickling at her scalp, rippling a shiver down her spine, and she knew that she should run, but beneath the force of that dark penetrating gaze her legs would not move.
‘I…’ She gasped, knowing she had to say something, but the way that he was looking at her froze the very words in her throat.
Her eyes swept around, seeing the faces of all his men, and all of the incredulity and anticipation so clear upon them, waiting for the storm to erupt.
Josie began to tremble and slowly, ever so slowly, as if she could move without his noticing, she began to inch away, her toes reaching tentatively to find the solidity of the ground behind her.
When he struck it was so sudden, so fast, that she saw nothing of it. One minute she was standing before him, and the next, she was in his arms, his body hard against hers, his mouth claiming her own with a savagery that made her gasp with shock.
Dammartin’s lips were bold and punishing, exploring her own with an intimacy to which he had no right.
Josie fought back, struggling against him, but his arms just tightened around her, locking her in position, so that she could not escape but just endure, like a ship cast adrift while the lightning flashed and the thunder roared, and the waves crashed upon its deck.
He claimed her as if she were his for the taking, his lips plundering and stealing her all, his tongue invading with a force she could not refuse. And all the while the dark stubble of his chin rasped rough against her.
She felt as his hands slid around her back, one tangling within her hair, anchoring her to him, the other pulling her closer still until her breasts were crushed mercilessly against the hard muscle of his chest. This was no kiss, but a possession, an outright punishment.
And then the anger and violence were gone and she felt his mouth gentle against hers, still kissing her but with a tenderness that belied the ravishment. His lips massaged, stroked, tasted, his tongue dancing against hers in invitation. Kissing her, and kissing her until she could no longer think straight; kissing her until she no longer knew night from day.
Josie forgot where she was, and all that had just happened—Telemos and her father and just who this man was. There was only this moment, only this feeling, only this kiss—so slow and thorough and seductive. And just as she gave herself up to the sensation his lips were gone, and it was over as suddenly as it had started.
The men were cheering as Dammartin released her, the idiotic grins splitting their faces hitting her like a dowse of cold water, revealing reality in all its starkness.
Josie stumbled back, the full horror of the situation hitting her hard, knocking the breath from her lungs, buckling her legs, and she would have fallen had not Dammartin moved to support her, catching her weight against him. She looked up into the dark smoulder of his eyes, and just for that moment their gazes held, before she pushed away, and turning, fled towards the safety of his tent.
She lay that night, fully clothed, in Dammartin’s tent, on the makeshift bed, alone, but for Josie there was no sleep—there was only the blood-splattered room in Telemos, and the death of her father…and the terrible weight of what she had just done.
Dammartin lay on his bed within the tent shared by Molyneux and Lamont, listening to their snores, awake, as he had been for hours, running the events of that evening through his mind for the hundredth time. The full-blown argument, her slap, and he would have let it go, done nothing, had not his men been watching.
She was a prisoner, a captive, Mallington’s daughter and he knew he could not let her action go unpunished. And he wanted so very much to kiss her, to show her that she could not defy him. And hadn’t he done just that? But what had started as a punishment had ended as something very different.
It seemed he could feel her against him still, so small and slender and womanly, her lips gaping with the shock of his assault. She had fought him, struggled, tried to escape, and he, like a brute, had shown no mercy. He had taken from her that which she did not know she had to give, and the taste of her innocence was like water to a man parched and dying.
He did not know what had changed, only that something had, and he found that he was kissing her in all honesty, kissing her as if she was his lover, with tenderness and seduction. And the sweetness of her tentative response, the surprise of it, the delight of it…so that he lost himself in that kiss, completely and utterly. It had taken the laughter and jeering of his men to bring him back from it, awakening him from her spell.
She was as shocked as he. He could see it in her face—shocked and ashamed and guilty.
Too late, Mademoiselle Mallington, he thought bitterly, too damned late, for there was no longer any denying what he had known these days past: he wanted her—the daughter of the man who had murdered his father. The knowledge repulsed him. God help him, his father must be turning in his grave. But even that thought did not stop him wanting to lay Josephine Mallington down naked beneath him and plunge his hard aching flesh deep within her. He wanted her with a passion that both excited and appalled.
Dammartin took a deep breath and forced himself to think calmly with the same hard determination that had driven him these past months. He might want her, but it did not mean that he would take her. More than lust would be needed to make Pierre Dammartin disgrace his father’s memory. He had been too long without a woman and that simple fact was addling his brain. He would stay away from her, assign all of her care to Molyneux, and finish this journey as quickly as he could. And on that resolution, Dammartin finally found sleep.
In the days that followed, Josie saw little of Dammartin. He was always somewhere in the distance, always occupied. Not once did he look at her. And strangely, despite that she hated him, Dammartin’s rejection made Josie more alone and miserable than ever.
But there was Lieutenant Molyneux and he was so open and handsome and so very reasonable. It did not seem to matter to him that she was British and his prisoner. He was respectful when there was nothing of respect anywhere else, and friendly when all around shunned her.
A hill rose by the side of the camp that evening, smaller and less jagged than those through which they had spent the day trekking. Up above, the sky was washed in shades of pink and violet and blue as the sun began to sink behind its summit. Something of its beauty touched a chord in Josie and she felt the scene call out to the pain and grief in her heart.
She turned to Molyneux in appeal. ‘Lieutenant, I would dearly like to climb that hill and watch the sunset. I would not wander from the route, which is clear and within your view from this position. I give you my most solemn word that I would not try to escape and that I would return to you here as soon as possible.’ Her voice raised in hope as she willed him to agree.
‘I am sorry, mademoiselle…’ his voice was gentle ‘…but Captain Dammartin…’ His words faltered and he started again. ‘I would be very happy to accompany you in your walk up the hill, if you would permit me. The sunset does indeed look most beautiful.’
She gave a nod of her head. ‘That would be most kind, Lieutenant.’
‘Then we should go quickly before we miss it,’ he said.
Josie smiled and wrapped her cloak more tightly around her and pulled her hat lower over her ears.
Together they walked up the hill by the camp side. And when the slope grew steeper, it seemed perfectly natural that Lieutenant Molyneux should take her arm in his, helping her to cover the ground with speed.
The summit was flat like a platform specially fashioned by the gods with the sole purpose of viewing the wonder of the heavens. Josie and Molyneux stood in awe at the sight that met their eyes. Before them the sky flamed a brilliance of colours. Red burned deep and fiery before fading to pink that washed pale and peachy. Great streaks of violet bled into the pink as if a watercolour wash had been applied too soon. Like some great canvas the picture was revealed before them in all its magnificence, a greater creation than could have been painted by any mere man. And just in the viewing of it, something of the heavy weight seemed to lift from Josie’s heart and for the first time since Telemos she felt some little essence of peace. Such vastness, such magnificence, as to heal, like a balm on her troubled spirit. Words were inadequate to express the beauty of nature.
Josie stood in silent reverence, her hand tucked comfortably within Molyneux’s arm, and watched, until the sound of a man’s tread interrupted.
Josie dragged her eyes away from the vivid spectacle before her to glance behind.
Captain Dammartin stood not three paces away. His face was harder than ever she had seen it, his scar emphasised by the play of light and shadows. He looked at where Josie’s hand was tucked into his lieutenant’s arm, and it seemed that there was a narrowing of his eyes.
‘Lieutenant Molyneux, return to your duties,’ he snapped.
‘Yes, sir.’ Molyneux released Josie’s hand and made his salute. He smiled at her, his hair fluttering in the breeze. His eyes were velvety grey and sincere and creased with the warmth of his smile. In the deep green of his jacket and the white of his pantaloons tinged pink from the sky, he cut a dashing image. ‘Please excuse me, mademoiselle.’
‘Immediately, Lieutenant.’ Dammartin’s voice was harsh.
The Lieutenant turned and hurried away, leaving Josie and his captain silhouetted against the brilliance of the setting sun.
‘I have tolerated your games long enough, Mademoiselle Mallington.’ The colours in the sky reflected upon his hair, casting a rich warmth to its darkness. The wind rippled through it making it appear soft and feathery. It stood in stark contrast to the expression in his eyes.
All sense of tranquillity shattered, destroyed in a single sentence by Dammartin.
‘Games? I have no idea of what you speak, sir.’ Her tone was quite as cold as his.
‘Come, mademoiselle,’ he said. ‘Do not play the innocent with me. You have been courting the attention of my lieutenant these days past. He is not a lap-dog to dance upon your every whim. You are a prisoner of the 8th Dragoons. You would do well to remember that.’
Shock caused Josie’s jaw to gape. Her eyes grew wide and round. It was the final straw as far as she was concerned. He had kissed her, kissed her with violence and passion and tenderness, and she, to a shame that would never be forgotten, had kissed him back—this man who was her enemy and who looked at her with such stony hostility. And she thought of the blaze in his eyes at the mention of her father’s name. He had destroyed everything that she loved, and now he had destroyed the little transient peace. In that moment she knew that she could not trust herself to stay lest she flew at him with all the rage that was in her heart.
‘Must you always be so unpleasant?’ She turned her face from his, hating him for everything, and made to walk right past him.
‘Wait.’ He barked it as an order. ‘Not so fast, mademoiselle. I have not yet finished.’
She cast him a disparaging look. ‘Well, sir, I have.’ And walked right past him.
A hand shot out, and fastened around her right arm. ‘I do not think so, mademoiselle.’
She did not fight against him. She had already learned the folly of that. ‘What do you mean to do this time?’ she said. ‘Beat me?’
‘I have never struck a woman in my life.’
‘Force your kiss upon me again?’ she demanded in a voice so cold he would have been proud to own it himself.
Their gazes met and held.
‘I do not think that so very much force would be required, mademoiselle,’ he said quietly.
She felt the heat stain her cheeks at his words, and she wanted to call him for the devil he was, and her palm itched to hit him hard across his arrogant face.
His grip loosened and fell away.
She stepped back and faced him squarely. ‘Well, Captain, what is of such importance that you must hold me here to say it?’
‘What were you doing up here?’
‘Surely that was plain to see?’
His eyes narrowed in disgust and he gave a slight shake of his head as if he could not quite believe her. ‘You are brazen in the extreme, Mademoiselle Mallington. Tell me, are all English women so free with their favours?’
Josie felt the sudden warmth flood her cheeks at his implication. ‘How dare you?’
‘Very easily, given your behaviour.’
‘You are the most insolent and despicable of men!’
‘We have already established that.’
‘Lieutenant Molyneux and I were watching the sun set, nothing more!’ Beneath the thick wool of her cloak her breast rose and fell with escalating righteous indignation.
‘Huddled together like two lovers,’ he said.
‘Never!’ she cried.
Anger spurred an energy to muscles that had not half an hour since been heavy and spent from the day’s ride. All of Josie’s fury and frustration came together in that minute and something inside her snapped.
‘Why must you despise me so much?’ she yelled.
‘It is not you whom I despise,’ he said quietly.
‘But my father,’ she finished for him. ‘You killed him and you are glad of it.’
‘I am.’ And all of the brooding menace was there again in his eyes.
‘Why? What did my father ever do to you, save defend his life and the lives of his men?’
He looked into the girl’s eyes, the same clear blue eyes that had looked out from Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s face as he lay dying, and said quietly. ‘Your father was a villain and a scoundrel.’
‘No!’ The denial was swift and sore.
‘You do not know?’ For the first time it struck him that perhaps she was ignorant of the truth, that she really thought her father a wondrous hero.
‘No,’ she said again, more quietly.
All that was raw and bloody and aching deep within Dammartin urged him to tell her. And it seemed if he could destroy this last falsehood the Lieutenant Colonel had woven, if he could let his daughter know the truth of the man, then perhaps he, Dammartin, would be free. Yet still he hesitated. Indeed, even then, he would not have told her. It was Mademoiselle Mallington herself with her very next words that settled the matter.
‘Tell me, Captain Dammartin, for I would know this grudge that you hold against my father.’
The devil sowed temptation, and Pierre Dammartin could no longer resist the harvest. ‘You ask, mademoiselle, and so I will answer.’
Dammartin’s gaze did not falter. He looked directly into Josephine Mallington’s eyes, and he told her.
‘My father was a prisoner of the famous Lieutenant Colonel Mallington after the Battle of Oporto last year. Mallington gave him his parole, let him think he was being released. He never made it a mile outside the British camp before he was murdered by your father’s own hand. So, mademoiselle, now you have the answer to your question, and I will warrant that you do not like it.’
She shook her head, incredulity creasing her face. ‘You are lying!’
‘I swear on my father’s memory, that it is the truth. It is not an oath that I take lightly.’
‘It cannot be true. It is not possible.’
‘I assure you that it is.’
‘My father would never do such a thing. He was a man to whom honour was everything.’
‘Were you there, mademoiselle, at Oporto?’ The question he had been so longing to ask of her. ‘In May of last year?’
She shook her head. ‘My father sent me back to England in April.’
He felt the stab of disappointment. ‘Then you really do not know the truth of what your father did.’
‘My father was a good and decent man. He would never have killed a paroled officer.’
‘You are mistaken, mademoiselle.’
‘Never!’ she cried. ‘I tell you, he would not!’
He moved back slowly, seeing the hurt and disbelief well in her face, knowing that he had put it there. He said no more. He did not need to. The pain in her eyes smote him so hard that he caught his breath.
‘What do you seek with such lies? To break me? To make me answer your wretched questions?’
And something in her voice made him want to catch back every word and stuff them back deep within him.
She walked past him, her small figure striding across the ragged hilltop in the little light that remained, and as the last of the sky was swallowed up in darkness Pierre Dammartin knew finally that there was no relief to be found in revenge. The pain that had gnawed at him since learning the truth of his father’s unworthy death was no better. If anything, it hurt worse than ever, and he knew that he had been wrong to tell her.
He stood alone on the hill in the darkness and listened to the quiet burr of the camp below and the steady beat of a sore and jealous heart.
Chapter Six (#ulink_3d5e17f7-d48f-57c5-8740-fe4c036c5914)
Josie avoided both Lieutenant Molyneux and Sergeant Lamont and headed straight for her tent. The smell of dinner filled the air, but Josie was not hungry. Indeed, her stomach tightened against the thought of eating. She sat in the darkness and thought of what Captain Dammartin had said, thought of the absurdity of his accusation and the certainty of his conviction. His words whirled round in her head until she thought it would explode. He never made it a mile outside the camp before he was murdered by your father’s own hand. She squeezed her eyes shut. Not Papa, not her own dear papa. He would not murder a man in cold blood.
Josie knew full well that her father, as a ruthless commander in Wellington’s army, had been responsible for the deaths of many men, but that was on a battlefield, that was war, and there was a world of difference between that and killing a man who had been given his parole.
Josie could think of nothing else. She did not move, just sat as still as a small statue, hunched in her misery within the tent.
A voice sounded from the flap. ‘Mademoiselle.’ It was Lieutenant Molyneux.
‘Please, sir, I am tired and wish to be left alone.’
‘But you have not eaten, mademoiselle.’
‘I am not hungry.’
‘You must eat something.’
‘Perhaps later,’ she said, wishing that the Lieutenant would go away, and then, feeling ungracious, added, ‘but I thank you, sir, for your concern.’
He did not reply, but she knew he had not moved away.
‘Mademoiselle,’ he said softly, ‘has the Captain upset you?’
She paused, unwilling to reveal the extent to which Dammartin had hurt her. Then finally she said, ‘No, I am just tired, that is all.’
‘He does not mean to be so…’ Molyneux searched for the right word in English and failed to find it. ‘He is a good man, really. He just never got over the death of his father.’
Something twisted in her stomach at his words. Slowly she moved to the front of the tent, pulling back the flap that she might see Lieutenant Molyneux.
He smiled and held out the mess tin of stew that he had collected for her.
‘Thank you.’ She took it, but did not eat. ‘What happened to Captain Dammartin’s father?’ she asked, and inside her heart was thumping hard and fast.
The smile fled Molyneux’s face. ‘Major Dammartin was a prisoner of war,’ he said quietly.
She waited for his next words.
He flushed and shifted uncomfortably. ‘It was a dishonourable affair.’ He cleared his throat and glanced away.
‘What happened?’ she prompted.
He did not look at her. ‘He was killed by his English captors.’
‘No,’ she said softly.
‘Unfortunately, yes, mademoiselle. It is a story famous throughout France. Major Dammartin was a very great war hero, you see.’
‘Do you know who held him? Which regiment?’
He looked at her then and she could see the pity in his eyes. And she knew.
But Molyneux was much more of a gentleman than Dammartin and he would not say it. ‘I cannot recall,’ he said. He gave a small smile. ‘You should eat your dinner, mademoiselle, before it grows cold.’
She raised her eyes and looked across the distance, to the other side of the fire that burned not so very far away from the tents. Dammartin was standing there, talking to Sergeant Lamont. But his face was turned towards her and she felt the force of his gaze meet hers before it moved on to take in Lieutenant Molyneux. She felt herself flush, remembering what Dammartin had said, and knowing what it must look like with her standing by the tent flap, and the Lieutenant so close outside, their conversation conducted in hushed tones.
‘Thank you,’ she said to Molyneux, and she let the canvas flap fall back down into place.
The morning was as glorious as the previous evening’s sunset had predicted. A cloudless blue sky filled with the soft, gentle light of pale sunshine. A landscape over which drifted small pockets of mist that had not yet blown away, and which during the night an ice maiden had kissed so that everything within it glittered with a fine coating of frost.
Josie noticed none of the beauty.
She thought again and again of what the Frenchmen had said, both of them. And the thing that she could not forget was not the terrible words of Dammartin’s accusation with his fury and all of his bitterness. No, the most horrible thing of all was Molyneux’s kindness. I cannot recall, he had said, but he could and he did. She had seen the pity in his eyes, and his silence roared more potent than all of Dammartin’s angry words.
She knew now why the French soldiers looked at her as they did, and understood the whispers. Yet Josie clung with every ounce of her being to her father’s memory, refusing to believe her gentle papa guilty of such a crime.
Molyneux was ever present during the long hours of the day, attempting to cheer and amuse her when in truth what Josie needed was time alone to think—time away from all of the French, even Molyneux. No sentries, no feeling of being for ever watched, for ever guarded, and definitely no Dammartin, just space to think clearly.
As they struck camp that evening, Josie waited until Dammartin and his men were at their busiest before making her excuse of the need to relieve herself. It was the one place to which neither Molyneux nor his men would accompany her.
Looking up into the Lieutenant’s face, she felt a twinge of guilt at her dishonesty, for Molyneux alone in this camp had tried to help her. But her need for some little time alone overcame all such discomfort.
‘Come, sit down, take a drink with me.’ The Major steered Dammartin back to the table and sat down. He unstoppered the large decanter of brandy and poured out two generous measures. ‘Here.’ He pressed one of the glasses into Dammartin’s hand.
‘Thank you, sir.’ Dammartin took a sip.
‘Snuff?’ The Major extracted an exquisitely worked silver snuffbox from his pocket and, opening the lid, offered it to Dammartin.
Dammartin shook his head. ‘Thank you, but, no, sir.’
‘Forget the “sir”. We are alone now. You are Jean’s son, and since my old friend is no longer with us, I look upon you as my own son.’ La Roque took an enormous pinch of snuff, placed it on the back of his hand, sniffed it heartily up into his nose and then gave the most enormous sneeze. He lifted his own glass of brandy from the table and lounged back in his chair.
‘So tell me, how are you really doing, Pierre? I’ve been worried about you since Telemos.’
Dammartin took another sip of brandy, and gave a wry smile to the man who had helped him so much since his father’s death. ‘There’s no need. I told you I am fine.’
‘Who would have thought that Mallington would have been holed up in that shit-hole of a village? There truly must be a God, Pierre, to have delivered that villain into our hands. I am only sorry that he died before I got to him. At least you had the satisfaction of looking into the bastard’s eyes while he died.’
‘Yes.’ And even La Roque’s finest brandy could not mask the bad taste that rose in Dammartin’s throat at that memory. ‘Yet I found no joy in Mallington’s death.’
‘Come, come, boy. What is this? At long last your father’s murder has been avenged.’
‘I know.’
‘We both waited a long time for that moment.’
‘Indeed we did.’ But the sourness in Dammartin’s throat did not diminish. He took another sip of brandy.
‘Jean can now rest in peace, and you can move on with your life.’
‘At last,’ said Dammartin, but his voice was grim.
La Roque drained the last of the brandy from his glass and reached again for the decanter. ‘Come along, hold your glass out, time for a top-up.’
‘I need a clear head for the morning,’ protested Dammartin.
‘I insist,’ said the Major, ‘for old times’ sake.’ He refilled Dammartin’s glass. ‘Let’s drink to your father. The finest friend a man ever did have and a hero for all of France.’ La Roque raised his glass. ‘Jean Dammartin.’
Dammartin did likewise. ‘Jean Dammartin, the best of fathers.’
They drank the brandy and sat in silence for some minutes, Dammartin lost in memories of his father.
And then La Roque asked, ‘What of the woman, Mallington’s daughter? Her presence cannot be easy for you.’
‘Mademoiselle Mallington does not affect me in the slightest,’ said Dammartin, and knew that he lied. ‘She is a prisoner to be delivered to Ciudad Rodrigo as you instructed, nothing more.’
‘That is what I like to hear, Pierre.’ La Roque smiled. ‘Drink up, boy, drink up.’
Josie sat perched near the edge of the ravine, looking out over the swathe of the rugged Portuguese landscape beyond. The air had grown colder with a dampness that seemed to seep into her very bones. She did not know how long it would be before Molyneux missed her, so she just savoured each and every moment of her solitude.
The fingers of her left hand kneaded gently at her forehead, trying to ease the knotted confusion of the thoughts that lay within. From beyond the trees and bushes behind her through which she had passed came the now-familiar sound of tent pegs being hammered in the distance, and the faint chattering and laughter of the soldiers.
She breathed deeply, allowing some of the tension, which had since Telemos been a part of her, to slip. Within this light the rocks in the ravine looked as brown as the soil that encased them. A bird called from the cool grey sky, gliding open-winged on a current of air, and Josie envied its freedom. The breeze fluttered the ribbons of her bonnet beneath her chin and loosed some strands of hair to brush against her cheeks.
She thought again of Dammartin and of his accusation, and as terrible and ridiculous as it had been, at least she now understood something of the French Captain’s darkness. He was a man drowning in bitterness and vengeance…and hurt. And all because of a lie.
Dammartin’s father was dead, but not by her papa’s hand, not by murder. Papa had been honest and steadfast, a strong man whose integrity was not open to compromise. But Dammartin believed the lie; she had seen the absolute conviction in his eyes. That knowledge explained all of his hatred, but little else.
Why had he taken her from the monastery in Telemos? For she knew now that he had never intended to honour her father’s dying wishes. For information? Yet he had known of the messengers, and not from her. And why had he come after her across the Portuguese countryside? What did it matter to him if she lived or died?
She thought of his coaxing her down the rock face, and giving her his cover in the night, of his kiss that had gentled to become… Josie did not want to think of that. So many questions, to which she did not have the answers.
A twig snapped behind her, the noise of a footstep upon the pebbled soil. Josie glanced round to tell Molyneux that she was just coming. But it was not Molyneux that stood there.
‘What do you mean she has not come back?’ demanded Dammartin. ‘Where the hell is she?’
‘She wished to use the latrine,’ said a white-faced Molyneux.
‘And you let her go alone?’
Molyneux wetted the dryness of his lips. ‘I could not expect her to attend to her…needs…in front of me.’
‘No? You were instructed not to leave her side.’
Molyneux faced Dammartin with a slight air of defiance. ‘She is a lady, Captain.’
‘I know damn well what Mademoiselle Mallington is,’ snapped Dammartin, peering into the bushes. ‘Fetch your musket, Lamont, and a couple of troopers. We have not much time before the light is lost.’
Molyneux saluted and moved away.
‘And, Molyneux,’ Dammartin called after him. ‘You’ll be tracking her on foot down towards the ravine.’
* * *
A calloused hand clamped over Josie’s mouth, a brawny arm fastened tight around her chest and upper arms, hauling her to her feet.
She kicked out, her boot hitting hard against the man’s shin.
He grunted and, drawing back his hand, dealt her a blow across the face.
She made to scream, but his hand was already around her throat, squeezing tight, and she was choking and gasping with the need for air. She heard his words, fast and furious Portuguese, as he lifted her clear of the ground by that single hand encircling her neck.
A cracked, grubby finger with its dirt-encrusted fingernail touched against his lips, as he looked meaningfully into her eyes.
She nodded, or at least tried to, knowing that he was demanding her silence. The world was darkening as at last his grip released and she dropped to the ground, limp and gasping for breath.
More voices, talking, and she raised her eyes to see five more shabby, dark-bearded men coming out from among the bushes. They were all lean to the point of being gaunt, their clothes dirty and faded, their faces hard and hostile as they encircled her, like wolves closing in around a kill. Bandits, realised Josie, just as Dammartin had warned.
‘Inglês,’ she said hoarsely, and raked through her brain for some more Portuguese words that would make them understand. ‘Não francês.’
But the men were talking quietly among themselves, gesturing in the direction of the French camp.
‘I am British,’ she said, swallowing through the pain of the bruising on her throat. ‘British,’ she said, and tried to scramble to her feet.
The large man, her attacker, pushed her back down and crouched low to look into her face. ‘I like British,’ he said, and traced a thick tongue slowly and deliberately over his lips in a crude gesture that even Josie in all her innocence could understand.
‘General Lord Wellington will pay well for my return,’ she lied. ‘W-e-l-l-i-n-g-t-o-n,’ she said enunciating slowly so that they must be sure to understand, and ‘g-o-l-d, much gold.’
But the bandit just leered and spoke words to the men behind him to make them laugh. He spat and something brown and moist and half-chewed landed close to her leg.
Josie’s heart was racing and fear flowed icy in her veins at the realisation of her situation. She skittered back, driving her heels against the ground, trying to put some space between her and the bandit, but he grabbed hold of her ankle and with one wrench, she was flat upon her back with the man climbing over her. She kicked and punched and tried to scream, but his mouth was hard upon hers, the unwashed stench of him filling her nostrils, the weight of him crushing her down upon the rocky soil so that she was staked out, unable to move. His hand ranged over her, rough and greedy and grasping, ripping aside her bodice, tearing at her petticoats and shift. She bucked beneath him, trying to throw him off, but he smiled all the more, and she felt him pressing himself against her, forcing his brown-stained tongue into her mouth. The foul taste of him made her gag, but he did not stop, not until she bit him. He drew back then, his face contorted, his filthy hand wiping the blood from his lower lip.
‘Bitch!’ he cursed, and lashed out, slapping her face hard.
The men behind him were saying something, looking back nervously towards the dragoons’ camp.
Josie knew she had only one hope. She prayed that Dammartin would come, and unleash all of his darkness, and all of his fury, upon these bandits. I do not lose prisoners, he had said. In her mind she called out his name again and again, as if that mantra would summon the devil to deal his revenge and save her.
But the bandit’s hands were at her skirts, bunching them up, ripping at them, clawing to reach beneath so that she could already feel his ragged fingernails raking the soft skin of her thighs. The others gathered closer to watch, smiling with lust, and cruelty and anticipation.
Josie’s hope weakened and began to wither, and just as it had almost died, she heard the French war cry, and knew that Dammartin had come.
Dammartin saw the ruffians gathered round, and he knew without seeing what they were watching. He signalled to his men, sending Molyneux and a trooper silently through the undergrowth to cover one side, and Lamont with a second trooper to the other. And even while they moved into place, he was priming his musket ready to fire.
He roared the war cry, the sound of it echoing throughout the hills and down across the ravine.
The bandits reacted with a start, some reaching for their weapons, the others trying to run.
He saw the flash of exploding gunpowder and the shots rang out, deafening in their volume. Three of the bandits were downed, but Dammartin was not focusing on them. He looked beyond to where the man was scrabbling up from a woman’s prostrate body, saw him snarl at her as he turned towards Dammartin, his hands raised in the air in submission.
‘Surrender! Surrender!’ the bandit shouted in garbled French.
Dammartin did not even pause in consideration. His finger squeezed against the trigger, and the man dropped to his knees, a neat, round, red hole in the middle of his forehead, his eyes wide and staring, before he crashed facedown to the ground.
When Dammartin looked again, Josephine Mallington was on her feet, clutching what was left of her bodice against her breasts, and standing over the bandit’s body. She was staring down at the gore the dripped from his head, her breast heaving, her eyes flashing with barely suppressed emotion.
‘Villain!’ she shouted, ‘Damnable blackguard!’ and delivered a kick to the dead man. ‘Rotten evil guttersnipe!’ Dropping to her knees, she lashed out, hitting again and again at the body. ‘Wretched, wretched brute!’
‘Mademoiselle,’ Dammartin said, and tried to guide her from the corpse, but she just pushed him away.
‘No!’ she cried. ‘Leave me be!’ She struck out all the harder.
‘Josephine.’ Dammartin stayed her flailing arms, pulling her up, turning her in his encircling arms so that her face looked up to his.
And all of her anger seemed to just drop away, and in its place was devastation. Her eyes met his then, wide and haunted. Beneath the smears of dirt, her face was so pale as to be devoid of any colour, save for beginnings of bruises where a fist had struck, and the thin trickle of red blood that bled from the corner of her mouth.
‘He was going to…’
‘I know.’ Dammartin felt his outrage flare at the thought.
‘Like a rutting animal…’ And her voice was hoarse with distress and disgust. ‘Like a great, filthy beast.’
‘Josephine—’ he tried to calm her ‘—he is dead.’
‘And I am glad of it!’ she cried in her poor, broken voice, ‘So very glad! Me, a Christian woman, my father’s daughter.’ Her eyes squeezed shut and he thought that she would weep, but she did not. Her head bowed so that she stood, resting her forehead lightly against his chest. And he could not imagine the strength with which she held back her tears. Within his arms, he felt the rapidity of her breathing and the tremble that ran through her.
‘I prayed that you would come,’ she said so quietly that he had to strain to catch her words. ‘I prayed and prayed.’
Dammartin stroked a gentle hand against her hair, and held her to him. ‘You are safe now, mademoiselle,’ he said, ‘safe, I promise.’
He stood for a few moments and the wind blew, and the sky grew darker, and he was overwhelmed with the need to protect her, to make all of her terrible hurt disappear. And then Molyneux moved, Lamont cleared his throat, and Dammartin forced himself to think straight.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington,’ he said softly, and stripping off his jacket, wrapped it around her. ‘We must return to the camp.’
She focused down at the ground. ‘Of course.’ There was nothing left of resistance, nothing of the fight she had so often given in the past.
He kept his arm around her waist, supporting her, as she walked by his side.
In silence and with grim expressions upon each of their faces, Dammartin and his men made their way back to their camp.
Dammartin sat her down on the chair at the table within his tent, speaking fast words of command over his shoulder, to Molyneux or Lamont, she supposed, but she did not look to see. She could not, for all that her eyes were open and staring. She was frozen, unable to move from beneath the terrible, heavy emptiness that weighed her down.
There was the trickle of water, a cloth being wrung out over a basin. The water was warm, his touch gentle, as he cleansed away the blood and the dirt, carefully wiping and dabbing and drying her face and hands, while his jacket hung warm and protective around her shoulders.
She looked at him then and there was nothing of bitterness in his eyes, only compassion.
‘I told him I was British,’ she said, and the words crawled like glass through the rawness of her throat. ‘And it made no difference, just as you said.’
‘Josephine,’ he said softly. ‘I should have guarded you better.’
She shook her head. ‘I was not escaping.’ It seemed important to make him understand and she did not know why. ‘I just wanted some time alone, some place where I might sit and think of all you had said…of my father.’
They sat in silence and the flicker of the lantern danced shadows upon the canvas walls. Outside all was quiet.
She felt the touch of his fingers, as light as a feather, against the bruising at her throat and the tenderness of her mouth.
‘He hurt you very badly, mademoiselle—for that I am sorry.’
And his gentleness and compassion almost overwhelmed her.
‘But you are safe now, I swear it.’
She looked deep into the darkness of his eyes, and saw a man who was resolute and strong and invincible, and she believed what he said.
The smallest of nods. And she sat there, dazed and battered and not knowing anything any more.
And when he unlaced her boots to ease them from her feet, and laid her down upon the bed beneath the blankets, she let him.
‘Do not leave me alone,’ she heard her lips murmur.
He gave a nod and returned to sit upon the chair. ‘I will be here all the night through. You can sleep safe.’
She could hear his breathing, the creak of the chair at his small movements, and every so often she opened her eyes just by the slightest to check that he was still there. Checking and checking until finally the blackness of sleep stole over her.
But sleep brought no refuge, only more horror, so that she could smell the stench of the villain and feel the claw of his hands upon her, and hear again the thunder of Dammartin’s musket shot. The wound in the bandit’s skull gaped, leaking the dark, rich liquid to drip into an expanding pool. So much blood. Just like in Telemos.
Blood and more blood. Upon the bandit, upon the men of the 60th and her father, upon herself as she hit out at the bandit’s dead body. One blow and then another, and as she reached to strike him a third time the bandit sat up with an evil grin. She felt her heart flip over, for in his hand was the musket that had shot her father, all sticky and dark with blood. The barrel raised, the bandit took aim directly at Josie’s heart. Death was certain. She cried out, pleading for him to stop.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington. Josephine.’ Dammartin’s voice was close and quiet, his hands on her arms, dragging her from the nightmare. She stared through the darkness, reaching out to find him.
‘Captain Dammartin,’ she whispered, and on her tongue was the saltiness of tears and in her nose was the congestion of weeping.
‘It is a bad dream, nothing more. I am here. All is well.’ He stroked a hand against her hair. ‘Go back to sleep.’
But when he would have left, she caught at his fingers, unable to bear being alone. ‘Stay,’ she said.
He stilled in the darkness.
‘Please.’
In answer he lay down beside her, and covered them both with the weight of his greatcoat. He was warm even through the blankets that separated them and she could feel the linen of his shirt soft against her cheek and smell the clean, masculine smell of him. With his strong arm draped protectively over her, holding her close, the nightmare receded and Josie knew, at last, that she was safe.
As Dammartin rode the next day his thoughts were all with Josephine Mallington. She had been seconds from being raped. In his mind’s eye he could still see the bandit lying over her, and the memory made his blood run cold so that he wanted to smash the butt of his musket into the man’s face again and again. Death had come too quickly for the bastard.
He remembered her anger, and her devastation, and the way she had clung to him in the night. I prayed that you would come, she had said. Him. Her enemy.
And he thought of Lieutenant Colonel Mallington firing the shot into his father’s body, just as he had thought of it every day for over the last eighteen months. She was the murderer’s daughter, his flesh and blood. He had every right to hate her, but it was no longer that simple. She had not known of her father’s crime, and she did not deserve what had happened to her, not in that room in Telemos, not his contempt, nor the assault by the bandits. Lamont had been right. She was a woman, a woman who had watched her father die, who was alone and afraid and the captive of an enemy army.
But there was still the matter of what Mallington had done, and Dammartin could not forgive or forget. The wound ran too deep for that. If he could have understood the reasons underlying Mallington’s crime, perhaps then there might have been some sort of end to it all, a semblance of peace. But Mallington had died taking his answers to the grave, leaving Dammartin with his anger and his bitterness… and his desire for Josephine Mallington.
As Lamont had said, it would be a long way to Ciudad Rodrigo, a long way indeed.
Josie rode silently by Molyneux’s side that day. The Lieutenant had been kind and understanding, trying to make the journey as comfortable as he could for her, but she could see that he did not know what to say to her. Even Sergeant Lamont had brought her a cup of hot coffee when they stopped to rest and eat, his gruff expression belying the small kindness. She could see the way they looked at her, with pity in their eyes, and Josie hated it. Their contempt would have been more welcome. She did not want to be vulnerable and afraid, an object of sympathy, and she resented the bandit even more that he could have made her so. And she knew what the bandit would have done had not Dammartin arrived.
Saved by the one man she had hated. It was under his command that her father and his men had been killed. He could be nothing other than her enemy. But Josie thought of the hole that his bullet had made within the bandit’s head, she thought of how he had taken her in his arms and held her. He had washed away the dirt and the stench and the blood, and stayed with her the whole night through, and lain his length beside her when she had begged him to stay. She had begged him. And that thought made Josie cringe with shame, yet last night, in the darkness the fear had been so very great that there had been no such embarrassment. Last night she had needed him, this man who hated with such passion.
Your father was a villain and a scoundrel, he had said, and she thought again of the terrible accusation he had made. Dammartin believed in it with all his heart. And she wondered why he should ever have come to think such a thing. How could he be so misled? There was only one man who could answer her questions.
Yesterday she would not have considered entering into a discussion with Dammartin over his accusation, but much had changed since then, and she knew that, for all the darkness and danger surrounding him, he would not hurt her. For all else that Dammartin was and for all else that he had done, he had saved her, and Josie would not forget that.
She rode on in silence, biding her time until evening when she would speak to the French Captain.
Chapter Seven (#ulink_a2e7b36b-fea8-5c2d-ba8d-3261045cec27)
It had been a long day, long and cold and hard, and the dust of it still clung to Dammartin’s boots. Smoke drifted from the newly lit fires and the men busied themselves with cooking pots and rice and beans. The air was filled with the smell of wood smoke and the damp air of impending night.
‘We head for Sabugal tomorrow,’ he said to Lamont. ‘The maps show that the mountains do not grow less and Foy is demanding we speed our current pace.’
‘Men will be lost if we push them too hard.’
‘More of Massena’s men are lost with every day that we delay.’ Dammartin rubbed wearily at the dark growth of stubble that peppered his jaw. ‘Our army is dying in this damned country for need of reinforcements.’
Lamont’s gaze focused over Dammartin’s right shoulder before swinging back to meet the Captain’s. ‘I think perhaps the mademoiselle wishes to speak with you. She keeps glancing over here.’
Dammartin’s expression remained unchanged. ‘I am busy. There remains much to be done this evening.’ He had no wish to speak to Mademoiselle Mallington. Matters concerning the girl were already too complicated for his liking.
Lamont sniffed and scratched at his chin. ‘After last night, I thought…’
Dammartin forced the images from his mind. ‘I would not wish what happened last night upon any woman, but she is still Mallington’s daughter, Claude. I cannot allow myself to forget that.’
Lamont said nothing for a few moments, just looked at his captain before giving a nod. ‘I will see to our evening meal.’ And he walked off.
Dammartin nodded over at Molyneux, and began to move towards his lieutenant. A woman’s step sounded behind him and there was the scent of lavender.
‘I wondered if I might speak with you, Captain Dammartin.’ There was a slightly awkward expression upon Mademoiselle Mallington’s face; she seemed almost embarrassed, and he knew that she was remembering last night, just as he was.
He opened his mouth to refuse her, noticing as he did the tendrils of fair hair that had escaped her bonnet to feather around her face and the shadow of the bruise that marked her jaw.
‘Concerning my father.’
Mallington. And he knew he would not refuse her after all. ‘Very well, mademoiselle.’
‘Perhaps we could talk somewhere more private.’
He felt the register of surprise, along with a sliver of excitement at the prospect of what it could be that she wished to tell him.
‘If that is what you desire.’
He saw Molyneux standing not so far away, the Lieutenant’s gaze darting between the girl and Dammartin.
‘There is a river down through the woodland.’
She nodded her agreement.
Dammartin headed towards the trees, leaving Molyneux staring after them.
They walked in silence through the woodland, down the slope that ran towards the river, with only the tread of their boots over soil and the snapping of twigs between them, until they left the clearing where the 8th Dragoons were camped some distance behind at the top of the gorge. Slightly to the east they could hear the sounds of the infantry’s camp, but it was not close enough to challenge their privacy.
He led her to the edge of a fast-flowing river, to where great boulders of rock clustered along its bank.
‘We shall not be overheard here,’ he said, and, leaning easily against a giant rock, looked out over the river.
Back up through the trees, from where they had come, he could just about see the carmine-coloured lapels of his men’s jackets as they moved about the camp. Had the red lapels not been there, the green of their uniform would have made an effective camouflage even though the woodland was bare and barren. Beyond the great stones the water flowed fast despite the lack of rain. In the fading light it was a deep greeny grey that foamed to white where the water splashed hard over its rocky bed. The noise of it was so loud and gushing as to be almost a roar.
Josie turned from the river to face him, feeling suddenly nervous. ‘There is not much time, Captain Dammartin. The daylight shall soon be gone and I would prefer to be back at the camp before it is dark.’ She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and prepared to speak the words she had come here to say.
He did not look round, just stayed where he was. ‘You are recovered from last night, mademoiselle?’
The question unsettled her, reminding of things best forgotten: bandits and nightmares and the warmth of Dammartin’s body sharing her bed. ‘Yes, thank you, sir.’
His eyes met hers, and they were a clear honey brown, rich with emotion that she could not name—compassion, affinity, protectiveness. ‘I am glad.’
And to Josie there was an intensity about the moment that set the butterflies fluttering in her stomach so that she had to look away.
The water rushed on. Somewhere in the distance was the thumping of axes splitting wood, and through the trees ahead she could see the sun was setting: a vibrant red halo surrounding the dark branches of the trees, as if a fire had touched against them, deep and hot and burning.
Still leaning his elbows on the stone boulder with the rosy pink light softening his face, he appeared to Josie ruggedly handsome. ‘What is it, then, that you wish to say?’
She turned her mind from its observations, reminding herself of why she had come here. ‘I wished to ask you of this…this accusation that you level at my father.’
He resumed his study of the river scene before him. ‘It is no mere accusation, mademoiselle, but the truth.’ And there was a weariness in his voice.
‘That is your belief, but it is not correct, sir.’
‘And this is what you wished to tell me?’ He stopped leaning against the rock and turned to face her, and she could see that anything of softness had vanished, that he was once again the dark and dangerous French Captain who had stormed the monastery in Telemos.
‘I did not come here to argue,’ she said quickly.
‘Really?’ He arched an arrogant eyebrow.
She glanced away, suddenly very aware that they were alone down here. ‘Did you witness your father’s death?’
There was only the sound of the river in reply.
She thought she saw the flicker of pain in his eyes, so brief that she could not be sure.
The muscle in his jaw clenched. ‘I did not.’
‘But you were there, with him, at Oporto?’
‘Unfortunately, no.’
The smallest of pauses, before she asked gently, ‘Then how do you know the manner of his death?’
‘Mademoiselle,’ he said with the hard cynical breath of a laugh, ‘all of France knows what your father did to him!’
She bit back the retort that sprang to her lips. ‘Then, there were witnesses…to the crime?’
‘Yes, there was a witness,’ he said harshly. ‘An honourable man who is beyond reproach, if it is his word that you are seeking to discredit.’
His words stung at her. ‘What is there of honour in dishonesty?’ she replied.
A twig snapped close by, and Josie jumped. Both of them peered in the direction of the trees from whence it had come.
There was only silence and the dying light and stillness.
‘It is nothing,’ said Dammartin dismissively. ‘There is nothing to be gained in this, mademoiselle, we should return to the camp. The light begins to fade, and you said yourself that you are in a hurry to be back there.’ He made to move.
‘No, wait.’ She stepped forwards, blocking his path, needing to show him that he was wrong. ‘Before he died my father told me that you were an honourable man. He bade me trust you. If your accusation is true, I do not understand why he would say such a thing. When he saw you…when you came into that room in the monas-tery…when it was all but over, there was nothing of guilt or regret or fear in his eyes. He looked at you with respect. Given what you say, sir, how do you explain that?’
‘I cannot, but it does not mean that he was innocent.’
‘But will you not at least admit that his was not behaviour in keeping with a man that is guilty?’
‘It was not in keeping with what is expected of a man that is guilty,’ said Dammartin carefully.
‘He was dying, for goodness’ sake!’ she said, and the pain stabbed in her heart. ‘Do you really think that he would have bothered with pretence at such a time? What would have been the point?’
‘As you said, Lieutenant Colonel Mallington was dying, and leaving his beloved daughter alone with the son of the man he had murdered. I think he had every reason to behave as he did.’
‘You did not know him,’ she said quietly, and stared up into his now-shadowed face. ‘He was not such a man.’
‘You are his daughter. Of course you do not wish to believe the unpleasantness of the truth.’
‘No, you are wrong.’ But with the denial came the first whisper of doubt in Josie’s mind.
‘You were not there. You can never really know what happened in Oporto last year, can you, mademoiselle?’
She bent her head, pressing the tips of her fingers to the tightness across her forehead. The thought came to her in a flash, and she wondered why she had not realised it before. Her father’s journals—a log of all that had happened to Lieutenant Colonel Mallington and his men over the years—recorded by her papa’s own hand in book after precious book. She raised her chin, staring at him with renewed confidence, feeling the excitement of her realisation flow through the entirety of her body.
‘Oh, but you see, I can, sir,’ she exclaimed. ‘Every detail of every day.’ She smiled her relief.
It seemed that Dammartin’s lungs did not breathe, that his heart did not beat. ‘And how might that be, mademoiselle?’ he asked in a deathly quiet voice.
His very stillness alerted her to her mistake. ‘I…’ She swallowed, and glanced away, searching her mind frantically for a safe answer and finding none. She backed away. ‘You were right; we should be returning to camp. It will soon be dark and the trees—’
His hand snaked out and caught gently around her wrist, preventing her escape. ‘No, no, mademoiselle,’ he said softly, ‘our discussion, it begins to grow most interesting.’ The angles of his face seemed to sharpen and his eyes darken, as he became the hunter once more.
‘Captain Dammartin—’
‘Every detail of every day,’ he said slowly, repeating her words. ‘Where might you learn that, I wonder?’
She tried to free her wrist, but Dammartin’s hold was unbreakable. The thudding of her heart was so loud that she could no longer hear the river. Her breath was shallow and fast.
Foolish, foolish tongue, she cursed, to almost reveal what had remained hidden for so long. Her words had been too few, she told herself; he could not know, he could not. The journals would be safe.
Dammartin slowly pulled her closer, so that they were standing toe to toe within the twilight. ‘From your British newspapers of the time?’ His face tilted so that he was staring down at her.
‘I meant nothing by my words. You are mistaken…’ She tried to step away, but Dammartin secured her other wrist, locking her in place.
His head lowered towards hers so close that she could feel his breath, warm and soft against her face, and see the passion and determination within the darkness of his eyes. ‘From your father’s friends?’ he asked.
She felt the jolt that jumped between them as his mouth brushed against her cheek, light and transient.
‘Or perhaps from your father’s journals?’ he whispered softly into her ear.
The breath froze in Josie’s throat. The blood in her veins turned to ice. She could not suppress the shiver. ‘This is madness,’ she breathed at last. ‘My father kept no journal. Take me back to the camp at once.’ She pulled her face back from his, staring up at him.
‘Where are they, mademoiselle?’ Darkness had crept to cover the sky, but she could still see him through the dim silver moonlight.
‘You are quite, quite mistaken, sir.’
‘We can stay here all night and play this game. Or perhaps you prefer to tell me now where the journals are kept, so that we may eat something of our rice and beans.’
There was silence in which neither moved nor spoke.
‘At home, in England,’ she said at last, knowing that it was not the journals’ existence that was the secret to be protected, but their location. She thought of the irony of the journals’ true hiding place. ‘I will read them when I return to Winchester and then I will know exactly what happened between your father and mine in Oporto.’ She stared at him defiantly, knowing that she could not allow one shred of fear to show. ‘And I will warrant that it is not the lie that you French have told.’
He looked at her with his dark, penetrating stare, and it seemed to Josie that he could see into her very soul.
For too long their gazes held, as if locked in some kind of strange battle of wills, and if battle it was, then Dammartin was the loser, for it was he who looked away first.
‘Let us return to the camp, mademoiselle,’ he said, and, taking her hand in his, he began to lead her back towards the woodland.
She let her fingers lie where they were, warm and comfortable within his own, despite knowing that she should be fighting his touch. But the night was dark and their route through the woodland steep and uneven, and her sense of relief and of triumph was greater than anything else.
Hand in hand, without a further word between them, Josie and Dammartin walked through the trees that would lead them back to the camp of the 8th Dragoons.
The campaign portmanteau which contained all of Josie’s worldly possessions sat opposite her makeshift bed within Dammartin’s tent. It was made of brown leather, battered and scratched from its many miles of travel following her father.
Josie unbuttoned the top of her dress and let the woollen material fall back to expose the chain that hung around her neck. Its golden links glinted within the soft light of the lantern. Her hand disappeared down her dress. From just above her breasts she retrieved what had been threaded to hang upon the chain: a small brass key. Kneeling down upon the groundsheet, she leaned forward towards the portmanteau, neatly turned the key in first one lock and then the other. The fastenings opened easily beneath her fingers. She opened the lid and rested it carefully back.
Inside were piles of neatly folded clothes. They were, in the main, garments that had been purchased with the practicalities of life on campaign in winter in mind. There were two woollen travelling dresses, a sensible pelisse, scarves, a shawl, gloves, a pair of sensible shoes that could be worn instead of her boots, and of course, a large pile of plain white warm underwear, the warmest that she had had. There were stockings and two nightdresses and ribbons and hairpins. Near the top there was a tiny silver and ivory set that included a comb and brush and hand-held looking glass. But Josie was interested in none of these things.
She moved with deliberate care, removing the items one by one, laying them in tidy bundles across the groundsheet, until at last the portmanteau was empty, or so it seemed. Then she pressed at the rear left-hand corner of the portmanteau and smoothly lifted away the false floor. Beneath it, spread in neat piles over the entirety of the base of the portmanteau, as if a single uniform layer, were notebooks.
Each book was backed in a soft paper cover of a deep pinky-red coloration; some were faded, others stained. Josie picked one from the closest corner and opened it. The white of the pages was scarcely visible beneath the pale grey pencil script that covered it. She checked the date at the top right-hand side of the page—21st June 1807—closed the book, set it back in its place in the pile, moved on to the next, until she found the book that contained the date for which she was searching.
The false floor was slotted back into position. The bundles of clothes were returned in neat order to the portmanteau, as was every other item that had been removed. The lid was carefully closed, the key turned within the locks and the straps rebuckled. Only then did Josie make herself comfortable upon the wooden chair and sit down at Captain Dammartin’s little table to lay the notebook upon its surface. She adjusted the direction of the light within the lantern and, taking a deep breath, began to read her father’s journal for the Battle of Oporto.
Josie could barely concentrate on Molyneux’s chatter the next day, for thinking of the words that her father had written. Dammartin had been correct in saying that his father had been captured by hers. It was true, too, that the French major had been paroled, but that is where any similarity between the two stories ended. Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s telling of the two men’s meeting could not have contrasted more sharply with Dammartin’s.
Her papa had written of respect and admiration between two men who happened to be fighting on opposite sides of a war. Those faded grey words conveyed an underlying sense of something bordering on friendship.
Why should there be such a discrepancy between the two accounts? It made no sense. The more she thought about it, the more she became convinced that there was something very strange about such a blatant contradiction. And she longed to question Dammartin more on his story.
Who was the man who claimed to have witnessed the murder? Someone honourable, who was beyond reproach, Dammartin had said.
She glanced ahead to where the French Captain rode, her eyes skimming his broad shoulders, and the sway of the long, black mane of horsehair that hung from his helmet. She wanted to show him the journal entry, to prove to him that he was wrong, to show him that her father was indeed an innocent man, but she could not.
Trust was a fickle thing, and Dammartin was still the enemy. Even had she torn that single page from its binding so that he might have read only that and nothing else, then he would have known that the journals were in her possession and she knew that Dammartin would not stop until he had them from her.
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Margaret McPhee
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: The Captain’s Forbidden MissBattle-weary Captain Pierre Dammartin has secured the ultimate bargaining tool: holding his enemy’s daughter as his captive. Josephine Mallington is the one woman he should hate…yet her vulnerable beauty soon leads Pierre to want her for reasons other than revenge…His Mask of RetributionHeld at gunpoint on Hounslow Heath, Marianne is taken prisoner by a mysterious masked highwayman. Her father owes this man a debt and now Marianne must pay the price…but she finds more than vengeance in the highwayman’s smouldering amber eyes…