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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.
