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‘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
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.