Читать книгу The Captain's Forbidden Miss - Margaret McPhee - Страница 7

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.