скачать книгу бесплатно
The Price Of Honour
Mary Nichols
Olivia Pledger, through her own willfulness, found herself stranded in Portugal in the middle of the Peninsular War! A resourceful lady, she was determined to work her way back to the British lines and so get herself home to England.But in foraging a deserted mansion, she was discovered by Robert Lynmount, who had been cashiered in disgrace from Wellington's army. Although intent on scouting unofficially for Wellington until he could clear his name, now Robert felt responsible for Olivia's safety. In such circumstances, falling in love was crazy, and personal feeling could not be allowed to count….
The Price of Honour
Mary Nichols
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#ud7c627cd-b696-5e0b-8006-7e89074483e4)
Title Page (#u888908e6-08cc-5f28-9d5a-bc1534c1daba)
PROLOGUE (#uf95ed153-ceed-5844-a02d-95005dbca127)
CHAPTER ONE (#u2d7201b9-49a5-5b91-a269-e15d743d356a)
CHAPTER TWO (#ua1bd9852-9cd7-5426-a2d7-3cb90703126f)
CHAPTER THREE (#uda6ccfe5-1951-53c7-ab5a-f4e357748cc0)
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)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_49c72f5b-aad9-5162-b76b-9906496cb1ff)
‘YOU have done what?’
‘We have cashiered him, my lord, for unofficerlike and ungentlemanlike behaviour — after a proper court-martial, of course. In Lisbon.’
The heat in the room was intense and made no cooler by the temper of the commander-in-chief of the British forces, whose names included Hooknose, Nosey, the Peer and the Leopard, a name given to him by Napoleon, to which he had added the epithet ‘hideous’. It did not bother the newly created Viscount Wellington in the slightest; he had adopted it with some amusement and was often heard to refer to his men as ‘my leopards’.
For six months hardly a shot had been fired by either side and the inaction was causing boredom among the troops, not to mention impatience at Westminster. But now the enemy was on the move. Across the Pyrenees they had come, the hordes of Napoleon, eighty thousand strong, marching down through Salamanca towards the Portuguese frontier, mile upon mile of blue and white uniforms, led by Marshal André Masséna and accompanied by heavy cavalry and light horsemen, their coloured plumes moving up and down with the rhythm of their mounts; cuirassiers, whose breastplates glinted in the glaring heat of a Spanish summer; heavy guns on limbers pulled by teams of huge horses, baggage wagons by the thousand, kicking up the dust, advertising their presence to the bands of guerrilleros who watched from their mountain hideouts, ready to pick off stragglers and raid the supply wagons.
They were still a long way from Celerico Da Beira where the British commander-in-chief had his headquarters, and he showed no sign of going out to meet them. While they waited, the officers filled their time with horse racing and shooting matches and the rank and file went fishing and whoring. There were times when the colonel wished the French would hurry their advance and mount an attack, just to give the men something gainful to do, but even if they did it would not happen here. Between them and the enemy front line stood General Craufurd and his Light Division. The colonel envied the dashing general who had found something better to do than keep discipline and worry about supplies.
‘Dammit, he is one of my best scouts.’ Wellington’s voice broke in on his thoughts.
‘Yes, my lord, but you did issue an order that there was to be no looting, and he was caught red-handed. No exceptions, you said, and the officers must set a good example.’ The colonel stood his ground. He had only carried out orders, and how was he to know his lordship would ask for the man specifically? As far as he had been aware, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the fellow.
‘To be sure I did.’ The angry tone of the commander’s voice softened as he realised the justice of what the colonel was saying. ‘Looting, you say?’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘Of all the ignoble things to be cashiered for,’ his lordship mused. ‘If he had to fall foul of regulations, why could it not be for duelling? At least that has something gentlemanly about it. I could forgive him for that.’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘I do not know, my lord. He left.’
‘Has he returned to England, do you think?’
‘I doubt it, my lord; he would not want to face his father, the viscount, and the public disgrace.’
‘Then find him. Find him and bring him to me.’
There was no arguing with Wellington in his present mood; the colonel inclined his head and left the villa which was his regiment’s temporary headquarters. The heat, as he stooped below the lintel and stepped outside, rose to meet him from the baked earth and the strong midday sun almost blinded him. Clapping his cocked hat on his head, he marched across what had once been a field but which now resembled a parade ground as a group of English drill sergeants endeavoured to make soldiers of the untidy riff-raff which made up the Portuguese army. There was a good deal of ribald comment from the red-coated British troops but the untested Portuguese cacadores took it all in good part. They were, after all, going to fight in defence of their homeland and were perhaps the only ones to be glad of the long period of inactivity, in which to train.
Where was Robert Lynmount? the colonel asked himself. Where was the one-time captain of Hussars, hero of the battle of Talavera and now disgraced? And how, in the middle of a war, when he had better things to do, was he going to find him and bring him back? And, what was more, how was he going to reverse the verdict of a properly convened court-martial when there was no doubt about the fellow’s guilt? He swore loudly and sent a trooper in search of Captain Rufus Whitely.
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_a4a7f951-4065-5f04-be39-e40c26dd550b)
SHE would go home, Olivia decided, back to England, to cool green glades and soft summer rain, to winter fires and roast beef, even to the censure of her friends and Papa’s anger. Papa. If he could see her now, he would most decidedly tell her ‘I told you so’; that was if he even recognised her as the daughter who had stood in his library three years before and rebelliously stamped her foot at him. She had, she remembered, been dressed in a becoming blue gown of watered silk, which had cost him a pretty penny, but then he had always been the most generous of papas—until she’d defied him.
Now she was wearing an old uniform jacket of Philippe’s over a white blouse and green skirt which had certainly seen better days. On her feet were a pair of French infantry boots, nothing like as good as those worn by the British forces but certainly more serviceable than ladies’ shoes, and on her head was a large straw hat tied down with a scarf. Her face, she had no doubt, was suntanned and dirty, and she was painfully thin. No, he would hardly recognise her.
She smiled to herself as she strode along the narrow pot-holed road, empty except for a bearded brown goat which had wandered down from the mountainside to crop the wayside grass, and a buzzard which tore savagely at the remains of a hare, anxious to have its dinner done before it was interrupted. It looked up as she approached, a juicy morsel hanging from its bloodied beak, but, deciding she was no threat, it resumed its meal.
It was funny how easy it was to lose the knack of thinking constructively, especially when all her thoughts kept coming back to the same thing — it was her own fault she was in the mess she was in; she could blame no one but herself. She would go home and face the music. Would the fact that she had been widowed twice in as many years elicit any sympathy from her father? But was it sympathy she wanted? She had never been one to feel sorry for herself, so why should she expect others to be sorry for her?
Tom Beeston was not a suitable husband for her, Papa had said; he was a nobody and she was rich enough to marry a title; he wanted her to marry a title. Besides, they were both too young to know their own minds on the subject. If she married Tom, she could expect no help from him if things went wrong. Young she had been, but she had also been determined and accustomed to having her own way, and this unexpected opposition had taken her by surprise and strengthened her determination. Married they were. Tom, she discovered within a month of the wedding, was a gambler, and before long was so deep in debt that she was in despair. But he had not been prepared for her to be equally stubborn about refusing to ask her father for help.
At his wits’ end, he had fallen victim to the blandishments of a recruiting sergeant, so what else could she have done, she asked herself, but to stick by him and follow the colours? Not for a moment had she anticipated being lucky in the ballot which would allow her to accompany him abroad a few months later. They had hardly set foot in Portugal when the army, under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley, had marched to free Oporto from the occupying French, and two days after that she was a widow for the first time.
It was the usual practice for women in her position to marry one of her late husband’s comrades and carry on as before, but there was no one she liked well enough and she had had enough of the army. In the torrential rain which followed the battle and hampered the British advance, she had tried to make her way back to Oporto, hoping to find a ship’s captain softhearted enough to carry her back to England. Instead she had blundered into the rearguard of the fleeing French troops. They had seen in her an easy target and would have taken their anger and humiliation out on her if Philippe had not arrived to stop them. Not that she had given in without a struggle; she had seized one of their muskets and turned it on them before they had overpowered her, laughing at her furious kicking and scratching.
It was his sense of fair play and his admiration for her courage that made him defend her in the first place, he had told her, but within days he had declared he loved her to distraction and no one would harm her while he was at hand to protect her. He was a lieutenant and very young, lonely too, she suspected, and highly susceptible. She had liked him enough to agree to marry him when the alternative was too horrible to contemplate, but she did not think she had ever been in love with him, any more than she had, on reflection, been in love with Tom.
That had been over a year ago, and since then she had followed the French camp in much the same way as she had followed the British with Tom, living each day as it came and refusing to think of the future. It had been the same the night before; her only thought had to been to escape from the band of guerrilleros who had killed Philippe, not what she would do afterwards. But with the coming of day she knew she had decisions to make.
The land on either side of the road was parched, the grass dried to the colour of ripe wheat which shimmered in a heat haze that made it look as if it were on fire. Behind her the mountain rose to a craggy peak; to her left the ground fell sharply away so that she was looking down on the tops of the pines which covered the lower slopes and partially hid the village in the valley. It was set on either side of a small river which reflected the cobalt-blue of the sky and looked cool and inviting. Should she make her way down there? Would it be safe? The problem was that she did not know if she was in Spain or Portugal, nor whether the area was in French or allied hands.
To the French with whom she had lived for the past year she was English, and without Philippe to protect her she had no idea how they would view her reappearance, even supposing she could find them again. The British would, she was almost sure, look on her as a traitor, and she had no idea what punishment would be meted out for that, but whatever it was she would have to face it. It might be mitigated by the fact that she did have something to tell them. She knew the dispositions and the strength of the French army in the north and that it was unlikely that Marshal Soult, comfortably ensconced in the south, would come to their aid; Philippe had been more than a little indiscreet. But she would say nothing of that until she could speak to the right person, Viscount Wellington himself, if necessary.
The goat made for the hills again as she neared it and the buzzard, replete, soared into the sky. She stopped to watch it go, shading her eyes with her hand, but, alerted by the sound of the clip-clop of a horse behind her, she turned, poised for flight, though there was nowhere to hide. But the rider seemed in no hurry, certainly not as if he was pursuing a fugitive. He came slowly into view over the rise behind her and she stood to one side to allow him to pass. The black stallion, she noticed, was beautiful — in much better shape than its owner.
He wore a dusty red uniform jacket without braid or buttons to denote his rank, if rank he had, though he held his back straight and his head up as if he was used to command. His dark breeches and riding boots, though of good quality, were covered in the grime of many days’ travel. His hair, beneath his shako, was cut very short, and his face, though tanned, was unlined. He could not have been more than thirty, but there was about him an air of detachment, almost as if he cared not whether she was a helpless female or a well-armed enemy soldier. He might have been out for a quiet hack in the English countryside, though a new rifle slung on his saddle struck a jarring note. He seemed indifferent to her, or too exhausted even to bid her good day.
She watched him pass, his hands relaxed on the reins as the horse took him down the steep slope and round the next hairpin bend.
Why had she not hailed him? He might have been able to tell her exactly where she was, how far she was from the allied lines. He might even have offered to take her up. Long gone were the days when she would have been horrified at the very thought of sharing a horse with a complete stranger. But his whole demeanour had discouraged her from speaking, and a British coat meant nothing; it could have been stolen from a body on a battlefield. He could have been a deserter and going away from the British lines, not towards them. She wondered what would happen if he ran into the guerrilleros she had fled from during the night. He would need to be more convincing than Philippe had been.
Poor Philippe! He had been badly wounded at Talavera and they had spent the winter at his home in France while he recovered. His parents had tried to be kind to her for his sake, but she was only too aware that they thought of her as the enemy and she could hardly blame them. Although she had been more than grateful for Philippe’s protection in those terrible days after Tom had died, she had never truly changed sides. Philippe himself had been restless and keen to return to the war, even though his regiment had been all but wiped out and the survivors had been posted to other units. They had arrived back in Spain in July 1810, just in time to be with Napoleon’s army when it took the Spanish border post of Ciudad Rodrigo. The French troops had poured into the town, only to find it bereft of food and supplies.
Foraging parties had been sent out immediately and as the army was unlikely to continue its advance until it had been fed and provisioned — as always by the inhabitants of the surrounding countryside — Philippe had suggested a day out in the hills with a gun; they would shoot themselves a meal, he had said, and it would make a pleasant day out, just the two of them, away from everyone. The idea cost him his life and very nearly hers. And she was not sure yet if she was out of danger.
She blinked hard in an effort to erase the gruesome image of Philippe swinging from the branches of a cork oak, his legs kicking frantically as the life was choked from him. She had not wanted to watch, but her head had been jerked back by the leader of her captors. ‘Too much for you, is it? You watch, madame, you watch and learn.’ He had spoken in French and yet he’d looked no different from the rest of his band. All had been bearded and roughly dressed in goatskin coats and woolly hats and armed to the teeth with knives, swords and stolen muskets. ‘That’s one Frenchman who won’t pull the tail of the leopard, though I could wish it were not his tail being presented to our enemies. It is his teeth we need to see.’ He had moved round to face her. ‘Now what shall we do with madame?’
She had recoiled as he’d advanced on her, which made him laugh. ‘You are afraid of me?’
She had nodded. Ever since she and Philippe had been brought into the camp, she had been struck dumb and had not uttered a word, neither plea nor protest. Had she become so hardened to life in the raw, she asked herself, or was it simply a numbness, which crept over her as kind of self-protection, a notion that if she kept a tight hold of herself she could endure anything?
‘We don’t make war on women.’ He had laughed loudly while his men had looked from one to the other and grinned, though she was sure they had not understood. ‘Women we make love to.’
‘Why do you speak in French?’ she had asked in English, and watched with satisfaction the look of surprise on his swarthy face. ‘That is the language of your enemy.’ She had paused, praying that Philippe would forgive her, then added, ‘And mine.’
‘You are English?’ The lecherous look had left his face as he sat down beside her and leaned against the tree to which she had been tied.
‘Yes. And I thank you for my deliverance from that…’ She had made herself jerk her head towards Philippe, whose futile kicking had ceased. His body hung limp, spiralling slowly as the rope untwisted. ‘I was his prisoner.’
‘When did that happen?’ He had changed to speaking English. ‘And how?’
Better not say Oporto, she had decided, that was too long ago and might arouse his suspicion; better make it more recent. ‘A skirmish,’ she said. ‘A week ago.’
‘You are a camp follower?’
She had drawn herself up and looked into his face with all the dignity she could muster. ‘I am a soldier’s wife.’
‘What regiment?’
Where was Tom’s regiment now? She was not sure, but then the guerrilleros might not know that either. ‘The Twenty-ninth.’
‘Hmm, we shall see.’
‘Perhaps you would be kind enough to take me to the British lines?’
‘You think we have time to spare to escort women about the countryside? No, madam, you must wait on our convenience. Besides, how do we know you are telling the truth?’
‘Would I ask to be taken to the British if I were not?’
‘To save your hide perhaps?’
‘Am I in danger?’ she asked sweetly, wishing they would take Philippe’s body down and bury it decently. ‘You said you did not wage war on women; I ask you to show that chivalry for which Spanish men are renowned and take me to my friends.’
He laughed at her flattery although not taken in by it. ‘Perhaps you are a spy, sent to find out where the troublesome flea is that keeps biting the backside of the French cur. We could not let you take that information back to them.’
‘Why should I do that?’
‘It is not unknown for women to do such work.’
‘Not I.’
‘We shall see.’
‘What are you going to do with me?’
‘Keep you here while we find out where you have come from.’ He paused and grinned. ‘Do not worry, madam, we will not touch a hair of your head until we know the truth, but if you are lying…’ He nodded towards Philippe. ‘We will not hesitate to carry out the same punishment. You understand?’
She understood all too well. Could they prove she had lied? She was very much afraid that they could, and then what? She inclined her head in acquiescence. ‘I will wait.’
‘Good. Now you will eat.’ He untied her hands and beckoned to another of the band and issued orders. Olivia, who had been in the Peninsula long enough to pick up a little Spanish and Portuguese, though she found speaking the latter difficult, understood he was ordering food and wine and a blanket for her. That meant they intended to spend the night in the camp, high up in the rugged mountains somewhere on the border between Spain and Portugal.
By the time the food was brought, they had taken Philippe’s body down and carried it off, presumably to bury it, or perhaps to send it back to the occupiers of Ciudad Rodrigo as a lesson to any who strayed outside the perimeter of the town. Whichever it was, she forced herself to pretend indifference, though she was glad when she no longer had to see it.
The food was good and the blanket welcome and she spent the rest of the evening pretending she was pleased to be among friends. Only after they had all settled down on the hard ground to sleep did she decide to test whether they had posted sentries. Stealthily she crept away, but before she had gone far a man stepped out of the shadows and barred her way. ‘I must relieve myself,’ she whispered, clutching at her abdomen and grimacing. ‘I have a pain.’
He waved her on. She walked slowly at first, even going so far as to pause and pretend to be squatting down, but when he moved over to the other side of the camp she started to run and did not stop until she was sure they were not pursuing her. By the time the sun had risen above the distant mountains and felt warm on her back, she estimated she had put several miles between herself and her husband’s murderers.
It was strange that they had not come after her, but then perhaps they did not think she was worth the effort. Now she had to make up her mind whether to go into the village in the valley, which might contain the homes of those same partisans, or keep to the high ground and try to find her own way.
She had become so used to the distant rumble of guns that she ignored the sound, but when the wind blew suddenly chill and the sky became overcast she realised it was not guns but thunder which reverberated round the mountains. At the same moment she became aware of huge spots of rain splashing on to the road. She began to run.
The road dipped into the tree-covered lower slopes and she noticed an iron gate with a crest on top, guarding a long drive. There was bound to be a house at the end of it, and a house meant shelter. The gate creaked noisily as she pushed it open but no one came out of the nearby gatehouse to ask her business. She ran up the drive, pulling Philippe’s coat up over her head, and arrived, panting, on the steps of a considerable mansion.
She pounded on the door, but there was no response. She ran round to the back, found a door unlocked and let herself in. It had once been a luxurious home, she decided, as she moved through the kitchen quarters into the main hall with its grand staircase and beautifully tiled floor. Shouting in Spanish and then Portuguese, ‘Is anyone at home?’ produced no reply. She took off her wet coat and threw it over a chair, then made her way up the stairs and checked every room. The house was completely deserted. The few pieces of furniture which remained were of good quality, and those curtains which still hung at the windows were sumptuous, though covered in thick dust. She found a huge bedchamber with a carved and gilded four-poster and in the next room a hip-bath. She looked in the cupboards and discovered soap and towels and, thrown in the back of a wardrobe, a quilted dressing-gown. It was unclear whether the owners had had time to pack before leaving or whether the clothes and more easily carried furniture had been looted. She began a more systematic search and discovered a few more garments which, apart from the dust, were infinitely better than the skirt and blouse she had been wearing for the past week. They would have to be cleaned before she could wear them but that could be done later.
She had become so accustomed to watching French soldiers looting for their needs that she had no compunction about appropriating what she found for her own use. Here was luxury she had not seen since leaving her father’s home. It was heaven. She dashed down the stairs again to look for food. There was nothing to be found in any of the storerooms except a few large onions, but outside there were thick-stalked cabbages growing in the vegetable garden; she could make herself caldo verde, a rich green cabbage soup which seemed to be the staple diet of the Portuguese.
In no time she had a fire lit in the kitchen stove and set a cauldron of water on it. Hungry as she was, a bath came before food. She dragged the bath down the stairs and set it before the kitchen fire, then went out to gather the cabbage leaves. By the time she had sliced the onions, set them on to boil and shredded the cabbage finely, the water in the pan was hot enough to add to the cold water she had already poured into the tub. She smiled to herself as she threw off her clothes and climbed into it. Once upon a time she had had a maid to fill her bath, help her dress and see to her hair. Her clothes had been clean and pressed and were always ready to put on. As soon as the slightest sign of wear or a tear had appeared, they had been discarded. She looked across at the peasant skirt and blouse she had been wearing for weeks and smiled; they were fit for nothing but the bonfire.
She slid down among the soap bubbles and imagined herself back at home. Her bath would be in her bedroom, where a fire would be blazing and all her clean clothes laid out on the bed. Jane would be fussing round her, soaping her back and helping to wash her red-gold hair. It had been long in those days but that had become impractical while she was following the colours, not only because she had no one to dress it for her, but because of the difficulty of keeping it clean and free from vermin. She had cut it very short and been surprised when it sprang into curls all over her head. She soaped it now and ducked beneath the water to rinse it, then came up laughing.
She was free! Gloriously and happily free! She felt no guilt because she had always done her very best for both Tom and Philippe, sharing the hardships of the march, scavenging for food, cooking in almost impossible conditions, cleaning their uniforms and even, on occasion, carrying their packs, when they were utterly exhausted. She had taken both for better or worse and now it was all over. Over!
Never again! She had had her fill of marriage. From now on she would keep her independence. She still had to find her way back to England, still had to face up to her father, but that was nothing compared with what she had endured in the last two years. Two years. Two years wasted. No, she decided, not entirely wasted; she had learned a great deal about herself, not all of it good, but she had emerged, she hoped, a little wiser. She began to sing as she soaped herself and the bath filled with bubbles.
‘The noble Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men,
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
