There was only the sound of their breath between them.

‘Ma’moiselle,’ he whispered, and not once did the intensity of his gaze falter. His eyes had darkened to a smoulder that held her so completely she could not look away. It seemed as if she were transfixed by him, unable to move, unaware of anything save him, and the strange tension that seemed to bind them together.

Her eyes flickered over the harsh lean angles of his face. She was acutely conscious of the hardness of his chest and hip and, against her, the long length of his legs. The breath wavered in her throat, and she was sure that he would hear its loud raggedness.

‘Josephine,’ he said, and she could hear the hoarse strain within his voice. ‘God help me, but you tempt me to lose my very soul.’

His hand moved round to cradle her head. His face lowered towards hers, and she knew that he was going to kiss her. Slowly Josie tilted her face up in response, and the blanket slipped from her shoulders to fall upon the groundsheet.

A noise sounded from outside: a tread over the grass, a man clearing his throat.

They froze.

‘Captain Dammartin,’ a man’s voice said.

The spell was broken.

Margaret McPhee loves to use her imagination—an essential requirement for a trained 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 ideas down on paper. She has since left her scientific life behind, retaining only the romance—her husband, whom she met in a laboratory. In summer, Margaret enjoys cycling along the coastline overlooking the Firth of Clyde in Scotland, where she lives. In winter, tea, cakes and a good book suffice.

Recent novels by the same author:

THE CAPTAIN’S LADY

MISTAKEN MISTRESS

THE WICKED EARL

UNTOUCHED MISTRESS

AUTHOR NOTE

I was reading a book on the Peninsular War when, instead of concentrating on all the facts and figures, my mind wandered off (as it is wont to do!) and I began imagining the meeting between a handsome French dragoon captain and the rather brave daughter of a British lieutenant colonel. They are enemies simply because one is French and the other English. Can love overcome that? Probably so, I thought, particularly if he is wickedly attractive! But what if there is more to it than that? What if there is a more personal grudge that lies between them? Whether love will flourish in such hostile circumstances is a much trickier question, to which Pierre and Josie’s story provides the answer.

Just a very brief note on the history: General Foy’s mission across Portugal and his large escort of protective troops are fact, although it is not certain that the 8th Dragoons formed a part of the convoy. The fifth battalion of the 60th Regiment of Foot were deployed in the region at the time, but the village of Telemos and the confrontation between these specialist riflemen and Foy’s escort belong only with Pierre and Josie.

I am indebted to Professor Tony Payne for all the wonderful information he supplied, on the Peninsular War in general and specifically on the details of military uniforms and Napoleonic armies, although any mistakes are, of course, my own. I hope that he will forgive me the certain liberties I have taken with accuracy for the sake of the story. My thanks also go to Carole Verastegui, for her kind help with French language translations.

Pierre and Josie’s is a story of love against all odds, and I really do hope that you enjoy reading it.

THE CAPTAIN’S FORBIDDEN MISS

Margaret McPhee

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

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

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

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

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.

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