Читать книгу A Regency Captain's Prize: The Captain's Forbidden Miss / His Mask of Retribution - Margaret McPhee, Margaret McPhee - Страница 12
ОглавлениеJosie avoided both Lieutenant Molyneux and Sergeant Lamont and headed straight for her tent. The smell of dinner filled the air, but Josie was not hungry. Indeed, her stomach tightened against the thought of eating. She sat in the darkness and thought of what Captain Dammartin had said, thought of the absurdity of his accusation and the certainty of his conviction. His words whirled round in her head until she thought it would explode. He never made it a mile outside the camp before he was murdered by your father’s own hand. She squeezed her eyes shut. Not Papa, not her own dear papa. He would not murder a man in cold blood.
Josie knew full well that her father, as a ruthless commander in Wellington’s army, had been responsible for the deaths of many men, but that was on a battlefield, that was war, and there was a world of difference between that and killing a man who had been given his parole.
Josie could think of nothing else. She did not move, just sat as still as a small statue, hunched in her misery within the tent.
A voice sounded from the flap. ‘Mademoiselle.’ It was Lieutenant Molyneux.
‘Please, sir, I am tired and wish to be left alone.’
‘But you have not eaten, mademoiselle.’
‘I am not hungry.’
‘You must eat something.’
‘Perhaps later,’ she said, wishing that the Lieutenant would go away, and then, feeling ungracious, added, ‘but I thank you, sir, for your concern.’
He did not reply, but she knew he had not moved away.
‘Mademoiselle,’ he said softly, ‘has the Captain upset you?’
She paused, unwilling to reveal the extent to which Dammartin had hurt her. Then finally she said, ‘No, I am just tired, that is all.’
‘He does not mean to be so…’ Molyneux searched for the right word in English and failed to find it. ‘He is a good man, really. He just never got over the death of his father.’
Something twisted in her stomach at his words. Slowly she moved to the front of the tent, pulling back the flap that she might see Lieutenant Molyneux.
He smiled and held out the mess tin of stew that he had collected for her.
‘Thank you.’ She took it, but did not eat. ‘What happened to Captain Dammartin’s father?’ she asked, and inside her heart was thumping hard and fast.
The smile fled Molyneux’s face. ‘Major Dammartin was a prisoner of war,’ he said quietly.
She waited for his next words.
He flushed and shifted uncomfortably. ‘It was a dishonourable affair.’ He cleared his throat and glanced away.
‘What happened?’ she prompted.
He did not look at her. ‘He was killed by his English captors.’
‘No,’ she said softly.
‘Unfortunately, yes, mademoiselle. It is a story famous throughout France. Major Dammartin was a very great war hero, you see.’
‘Do you know who held him? Which regiment?’
He looked at her then and she could see the pity in his eyes. And she knew.
But Molyneux was much more of a gentleman than Dammartin and he would not say it. ‘I cannot recall,’ he said. He gave a small smile. ‘You should eat your dinner, mademoiselle, before it grows cold.’
She raised her eyes and looked across the distance, to the other side of the fire that burned not so very far away from the tents. Dammartin was standing there, talking to Sergeant Lamont. But his face was turned towards her and she felt the force of his gaze meet hers before it moved on to take in Lieutenant Molyneux. She felt herself flush, remembering what Dammartin had said, and knowing what it must look like with her standing by the tent flap, and the Lieutenant so close outside, their conversation conducted in hushed tones.
‘Thank you,’ she said to Molyneux, and she let the canvas flap fall back down into place.
The morning was as glorious as the previous evening’s sunset had predicted. A cloudless blue sky filled with the soft, gentle light of pale sunshine. A landscape over which drifted small pockets of mist that had not yet blown away, and which during the night an ice maiden had kissed so that everything within it glittered with a fine coating of frost.
Josie noticed none of the beauty.
She thought again and again of what the Frenchmen had said, both of them. And the thing that she could not forget was not the terrible words of Dammartin’s accusation with his fury and all of his bitterness. No, the most horrible thing of all was Molyneux’s kindness. I cannot recall, he had said, but he could and he did. She had seen the pity in his eyes, and his silence roared more potent than all of Dammartin’s angry words.
She knew now why the French soldiers looked at her as they did, and understood the whispers. Yet Josie clung with every ounce of her being to her father’s memory, refusing to believe her gentle papa guilty of such a crime.
Molyneux was ever present during the long hours of the day, attempting to cheer and amuse her when in truth what Josie needed was time alone to think—time away from all of the French, even Molyneux. No sentries, no feeling of being for ever watched, for ever guarded, and definitely no Dammartin, just space to think clearly.
As they struck camp that evening, Josie waited until Dammartin and his men were at their busiest before making her excuse of the need to relieve herself. It was the one place to which neither Molyneux nor his men would accompany her.
Looking up into the Lieutenant’s face, she felt a twinge of guilt at her dishonesty, for Molyneux alone in this camp had tried to help her. But her need for some little time alone overcame all such discomfort.
‘Come, sit down, take a drink with me.’ The Major steered Dammartin back to the table and sat down. He unstoppered the large decanter of brandy and poured out two generous measures. ‘Here.’ He pressed one of the glasses into Dammartin’s hand.
‘Thank you, sir.’ Dammartin took a sip.
‘Snuff?’ The Major extracted an exquisitely worked silver snuffbox from his pocket and, opening the lid, offered it to Dammartin.
Dammartin shook his head. ‘Thank you, but, no, sir.’
‘Forget the “sir”. We are alone now. You are Jean’s son, and since my old friend is no longer with us, I look upon you as my own son.’ La Roque took an enormous pinch of snuff, placed it on the back of his hand, sniffed it heartily up into his nose and then gave the most enormous sneeze. He lifted his own glass of brandy from the table and lounged back in his chair.
‘So tell me, how are you really doing, Pierre? I’ve been worried about you since Telemos.’
Dammartin took another sip of brandy, and gave a wry smile to the man who had helped him so much since his father’s death. ‘There’s no need. I told you I am fine.’
‘Who would have thought that Mallington would have been holed up in that shit-hole of a village? There truly must be a God, Pierre, to have delivered that villain into our hands. I am only sorry that he died before I got to him. At least you had the satisfaction of looking into the bastard’s eyes while he died.’
‘Yes.’ And even La Roque’s finest brandy could not mask the bad taste that rose in Dammartin’s throat at that memory. ‘Yet I found no joy in Mallington’s death.’
‘Come, come, boy. What is this? At long last your father’s murder has been avenged.’
‘I know.’
‘We both waited a long time for that moment.’
‘Indeed we did.’ But the sourness in Dammartin’s throat did not diminish. He took another sip of brandy.
‘Jean can now rest in peace, and you can move on with your life.’
‘At last,’ said Dammartin, but his voice was grim.
La Roque drained the last of the brandy from his glass and reached again for the decanter. ‘Come along, hold your glass out, time for a top-up.’
‘I need a clear head for the morning,’ protested Dammartin.
‘I insist,’ said the Major, ‘for old times’ sake.’ He refilled Dammartin’s glass. ‘Let’s drink to your father. The finest friend a man ever did have and a hero for all of France.’ La Roque raised his glass. ‘Jean Dammartin.’
Dammartin did likewise. ‘Jean Dammartin, the best of fathers.’
They drank the brandy and sat in silence for some minutes, Dammartin lost in memories of his father.
And then La Roque asked, ‘What of the woman, Mallington’s daughter? Her presence cannot be easy for you.’
‘Mademoiselle Mallington does not affect me in the slightest,’ said Dammartin, and knew that he lied. ‘She is a prisoner to be delivered to Ciudad Rodrigo as you instructed, nothing more.’
‘That is what I like to hear, Pierre.’ La Roque smiled. ‘Drink up, boy, drink up.’
Josie sat perched near the edge of the ravine, looking out over the swathe of the rugged Portuguese landscape beyond. The air had grown colder with a dampness that seemed to seep into her very bones. She did not know how long it would be before Molyneux missed her, so she just savoured each and every moment of her solitude.
The fingers of her left hand kneaded gently at her forehead, trying to ease the knotted confusion of the thoughts that lay within. From beyond the trees and bushes behind her through which she had passed came the now-familiar sound of tent pegs being hammered in the distance, and the faint chattering and laughter of the soldiers.
She breathed deeply, allowing some of the tension, which had since Telemos been a part of her, to slip. Within this light the rocks in the ravine looked as brown as the soil that encased them. A bird called from the cool grey sky, gliding open-winged on a current of air, and Josie envied its freedom. The breeze fluttered the ribbons of her bonnet beneath her chin and loosed some strands of hair to brush against her cheeks.
She thought again of Dammartin and of his accusation, and as terrible and ridiculous as it had been, at least she now understood something of the French Captain’s darkness. He was a man drowning in bitterness and vengeance…and hurt. And all because of a lie.
Dammartin’s father was dead, but not by her papa’s hand, not by murder. Papa had been honest and steadfast, a strong man whose integrity was not open to compromise. But Dammartin believed the lie; she had seen the absolute conviction in his eyes. That knowledge explained all of his hatred, but little else.
Why had he taken her from the monastery in Telemos? For she knew now that he had never intended to honour her father’s dying wishes. For information? Yet he had known of the messengers, and not from her. And why had he come after her across the Portuguese countryside? What did it matter to him if she lived or died?
She thought of his coaxing her down the rock face, and giving her his cover in the night, of his kiss that had gentled to become… Josie did not want to think of that. So many questions, to which she did not have the answers.
A twig snapped behind her, the noise of a footstep upon the pebbled soil. Josie glanced round to tell Molyneux that she was just coming. But it was not Molyneux that stood there.
‘What do you mean she has not come back?’ demanded Dammartin. ‘Where the hell is she?’
‘She wished to use the latrine,’ said a white-faced Molyneux.
‘And you let her go alone?’
Molyneux wetted the dryness of his lips. ‘I could not expect her to attend to her…needs…in front of me.’
‘No? You were instructed not to leave her side.’
Molyneux faced Dammartin with a slight air of defiance. ‘She is a lady, Captain.’
‘I know damn well what Mademoiselle Mallington is,’ snapped Dammartin, peering into the bushes. ‘Fetch your musket, Lamont, and a couple of troopers. We have not much time before the light is lost.’
Molyneux saluted and moved away.
‘And, Molyneux,’ Dammartin called after him. ‘You’ll be tracking her on foot down towards the ravine.’
* * *
A calloused hand clamped over Josie’s mouth, a brawny arm fastened tight around her chest and upper arms, hauling her to her feet.
She kicked out, her boot hitting hard against the man’s shin.
He grunted and, drawing back his hand, dealt her a blow across the face.
She made to scream, but his hand was already around her throat, squeezing tight, and she was choking and gasping with the need for air. She heard his words, fast and furious Portuguese, as he lifted her clear of the ground by that single hand encircling her neck.
A cracked, grubby finger with its dirt-encrusted fingernail touched against his lips, as he looked meaningfully into her eyes.
She nodded, or at least tried to, knowing that he was demanding her silence. The world was darkening as at last his grip released and she dropped to the ground, limp and gasping for breath.
More voices, talking, and she raised her eyes to see five more shabby, dark-bearded men coming out from among the bushes. They were all lean to the point of being gaunt, their clothes dirty and faded, their faces hard and hostile as they encircled her, like wolves closing in around a kill. Bandits, realised Josie, just as Dammartin had warned.
‘Inglês,’ she said hoarsely, and raked through her brain for some more Portuguese words that would make them understand. ‘Não francês.’
But the men were talking quietly among themselves, gesturing in the direction of the French camp.
‘I am British,’ she said, swallowing through the pain of the bruising on her throat. ‘British,’ she said, and tried to scramble to her feet.
The large man, her attacker, pushed her back down and crouched low to look into her face. ‘I like British,’ he said, and traced a thick tongue slowly and deliberately over his lips in a crude gesture that even Josie in all her innocence could understand.
‘General Lord Wellington will pay well for my return,’ she lied. ‘W-e-l-l-i-n-g-t-o-n,’ she said enunciating slowly so that they must be sure to understand, and ‘g-o-l-d, much gold.’
But the bandit just leered and spoke words to the men behind him to make them laugh. He spat and something brown and moist and half-chewed landed close to her leg.
Josie’s heart was racing and fear flowed icy in her veins at the realisation of her situation. She skittered back, driving her heels against the ground, trying to put some space between her and the bandit, but he grabbed hold of her ankle and with one wrench, she was flat upon her back with the man climbing over her. She kicked and punched and tried to scream, but his mouth was hard upon hers, the unwashed stench of him filling her nostrils, the weight of him crushing her down upon the rocky soil so that she was staked out, unable to move. His hand ranged over her, rough and greedy and grasping, ripping aside her bodice, tearing at her petticoats and shift. She bucked beneath him, trying to throw him off, but he smiled all the more, and she felt him pressing himself against her, forcing his brown-stained tongue into her mouth. The foul taste of him made her gag, but he did not stop, not until she bit him. He drew back then, his face contorted, his filthy hand wiping the blood from his lower lip.
‘Bitch!’ he cursed, and lashed out, slapping her face hard.
The men behind him were saying something, looking back nervously towards the dragoons’ camp.
Josie knew she had only one hope. She prayed that Dammartin would come, and unleash all of his darkness, and all of his fury, upon these bandits. I do not lose prisoners, he had said. In her mind she called out his name again and again, as if that mantra would summon the devil to deal his revenge and save her.
But the bandit’s hands were at her skirts, bunching them up, ripping at them, clawing to reach beneath so that she could already feel his ragged fingernails raking the soft skin of her thighs. The others gathered closer to watch, smiling with lust, and cruelty and anticipation.
Josie’s hope weakened and began to wither, and just as it had almost died, she heard the French war cry, and knew that Dammartin had come.
Dammartin saw the ruffians gathered round, and he knew without seeing what they were watching. He signalled to his men, sending Molyneux and a trooper silently through the undergrowth to cover one side, and Lamont with a second trooper to the other. And even while they moved into place, he was priming his musket ready to fire.
He roared the war cry, the sound of it echoing throughout the hills and down across the ravine.
The bandits reacted with a start, some reaching for their weapons, the others trying to run.
He saw the flash of exploding gunpowder and the shots rang out, deafening in their volume. Three of the bandits were downed, but Dammartin was not focusing on them. He looked beyond to where the man was scrabbling up from a woman’s prostrate body, saw him snarl at her as he turned towards Dammartin, his hands raised in the air in submission.
‘Surrender! Surrender!’ the bandit shouted in garbled French.
Dammartin did not even pause in consideration. His finger squeezed against the trigger, and the man dropped to his knees, a neat, round, red hole in the middle of his forehead, his eyes wide and staring, before he crashed facedown to the ground.
When Dammartin looked again, Josephine Mallington was on her feet, clutching what was left of her bodice against her breasts, and standing over the bandit’s body. She was staring down at the gore the dripped from his head, her breast heaving, her eyes flashing with barely suppressed emotion.
‘Villain!’ she shouted, ‘Damnable blackguard!’ and delivered a kick to the dead man. ‘Rotten evil guttersnipe!’ Dropping to her knees, she lashed out, hitting again and again at the body. ‘Wretched, wretched brute!’
‘Mademoiselle,’ Dammartin said, and tried to guide her from the corpse, but she just pushed him away.
‘No!’ she cried. ‘Leave me be!’ She struck out all the harder.
‘Josephine.’ Dammartin stayed her flailing arms, pulling her up, turning her in his encircling arms so that her face looked up to his.
And all of her anger seemed to just drop away, and in its place was devastation. Her eyes met his then, wide and haunted. Beneath the smears of dirt, her face was so pale as to be devoid of any colour, save for beginnings of bruises where a fist had struck, and the thin trickle of red blood that bled from the corner of her mouth.
‘He was going to…’
‘I know.’ Dammartin felt his outrage flare at the thought.
‘Like a rutting animal…’ And her voice was hoarse with distress and disgust. ‘Like a great, filthy beast.’
‘Josephine—’ he tried to calm her ‘—he is dead.’
‘And I am glad of it!’ she cried in her poor, broken voice, ‘So very glad! Me, a Christian woman, my father’s daughter.’ Her eyes squeezed shut and he thought that she would weep, but she did not. Her head bowed so that she stood, resting her forehead lightly against his chest. And he could not imagine the strength with which she held back her tears. Within his arms, he felt the rapidity of her breathing and the tremble that ran through her.
‘I prayed that you would come,’ she said so quietly that he had to strain to catch her words. ‘I prayed and prayed.’
Dammartin stroked a gentle hand against her hair, and held her to him. ‘You are safe now, mademoiselle,’ he said, ‘safe, I promise.’
He stood for a few moments and the wind blew, and the sky grew darker, and he was overwhelmed with the need to protect her, to make all of her terrible hurt disappear. And then Molyneux moved, Lamont cleared his throat, and Dammartin forced himself to think straight.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington,’ he said softly, and stripping off his jacket, wrapped it around her. ‘We must return to the camp.’
She focused down at the ground. ‘Of course.’ There was nothing left of resistance, nothing of the fight she had so often given in the past.
He kept his arm around her waist, supporting her, as she walked by his side.
In silence and with grim expressions upon each of their faces, Dammartin and his men made their way back to their camp.
Dammartin sat her down on the chair at the table within his tent, speaking fast words of command over his shoulder, to Molyneux or Lamont, she supposed, but she did not look to see. She could not, for all that her eyes were open and staring. She was frozen, unable to move from beneath the terrible, heavy emptiness that weighed her down.
There was the trickle of water, a cloth being wrung out over a basin. The water was warm, his touch gentle, as he cleansed away the blood and the dirt, carefully wiping and dabbing and drying her face and hands, while his jacket hung warm and protective around her shoulders.
She looked at him then and there was nothing of bitterness in his eyes, only compassion.
‘I told him I was British,’ she said, and the words crawled like glass through the rawness of her throat. ‘And it made no difference, just as you said.’
‘Josephine,’ he said softly. ‘I should have guarded you better.’
She shook her head. ‘I was not escaping.’ It seemed important to make him understand and she did not know why. ‘I just wanted some time alone, some place where I might sit and think of all you had said…of my father.’
They sat in silence and the flicker of the lantern danced shadows upon the canvas walls. Outside all was quiet.
She felt the touch of his fingers, as light as a feather, against the bruising at her throat and the tenderness of her mouth.
‘He hurt you very badly, mademoiselle—for that I am sorry.’
And his gentleness and compassion almost overwhelmed her.
‘But you are safe now, I swear it.’
She looked deep into the darkness of his eyes, and saw a man who was resolute and strong and invincible, and she believed what he said.
The smallest of nods. And she sat there, dazed and battered and not knowing anything any more.
And when he unlaced her boots to ease them from her feet, and laid her down upon the bed beneath the blankets, she let him.
‘Do not leave me alone,’ she heard her lips murmur.
He gave a nod and returned to sit upon the chair. ‘I will be here all the night through. You can sleep safe.’
She could hear his breathing, the creak of the chair at his small movements, and every so often she opened her eyes just by the slightest to check that he was still there. Checking and checking until finally the blackness of sleep stole over her.
But sleep brought no refuge, only more horror, so that she could smell the stench of the villain and feel the claw of his hands upon her, and hear again the thunder of Dammartin’s musket shot. The wound in the bandit’s skull gaped, leaking the dark, rich liquid to drip into an expanding pool. So much blood. Just like in Telemos.
Blood and more blood. Upon the bandit, upon the men of the 60th and her father, upon herself as she hit out at the bandit’s dead body. One blow and then another, and as she reached to strike him a third time the bandit sat up with an evil grin. She felt her heart flip over, for in his hand was the musket that had shot her father, all sticky and dark with blood. The barrel raised, the bandit took aim directly at Josie’s heart. Death was certain. She cried out, pleading for him to stop.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington. Josephine.’ Dammartin’s voice was close and quiet, his hands on her arms, dragging her from the nightmare. She stared through the darkness, reaching out to find him.
‘Captain Dammartin,’ she whispered, and on her tongue was the saltiness of tears and in her nose was the congestion of weeping.
‘It is a bad dream, nothing more. I am here. All is well.’ He stroked a hand against her hair. ‘Go back to sleep.’
But when he would have left, she caught at his fingers, unable to bear being alone. ‘Stay,’ she said.
He stilled in the darkness.
‘Please.’
In answer he lay down beside her, and covered them both with the weight of his greatcoat. He was warm even through the blankets that separated them and she could feel the linen of his shirt soft against her cheek and smell the clean, masculine smell of him. With his strong arm draped protectively over her, holding her close, the nightmare receded and Josie knew, at last, that she was safe.
As Dammartin rode the next day his thoughts were all with Josephine Mallington. She had been seconds from being raped. In his mind’s eye he could still see the bandit lying over her, and the memory made his blood run cold so that he wanted to smash the butt of his musket into the man’s face again and again. Death had come too quickly for the bastard.
He remembered her anger, and her devastation, and the way she had clung to him in the night. I prayed that you would come, she had said. Him. Her enemy.
And he thought of Lieutenant Colonel Mallington firing the shot into his father’s body, just as he had thought of it every day for over the last eighteen months. She was the murderer’s daughter, his flesh and blood. He had every right to hate her, but it was no longer that simple. She had not known of her father’s crime, and she did not deserve what had happened to her, not in that room in Telemos, not his contempt, nor the assault by the bandits. Lamont had been right. She was a woman, a woman who had watched her father die, who was alone and afraid and the captive of an enemy army.
But there was still the matter of what Mallington had done, and Dammartin could not forgive or forget. The wound ran too deep for that. If he could have understood the reasons underlying Mallington’s crime, perhaps then there might have been some sort of end to it all, a semblance of peace. But Mallington had died taking his answers to the grave, leaving Dammartin with his anger and his bitterness… and his desire for Josephine Mallington.
As Lamont had said, it would be a long way to Ciudad Rodrigo, a long way indeed.
Josie rode silently by Molyneux’s side that day. The Lieutenant had been kind and understanding, trying to make the journey as comfortable as he could for her, but she could see that he did not know what to say to her. Even Sergeant Lamont had brought her a cup of hot coffee when they stopped to rest and eat, his gruff expression belying the small kindness. She could see the way they looked at her, with pity in their eyes, and Josie hated it. Their contempt would have been more welcome. She did not want to be vulnerable and afraid, an object of sympathy, and she resented the bandit even more that he could have made her so. And she knew what the bandit would have done had not Dammartin arrived.
Saved by the one man she had hated. It was under his command that her father and his men had been killed. He could be nothing other than her enemy. But Josie thought of the hole that his bullet had made within the bandit’s head, she thought of how he had taken her in his arms and held her. He had washed away the dirt and the stench and the blood, and stayed with her the whole night through, and lain his length beside her when she had begged him to stay. She had begged him. And that thought made Josie cringe with shame, yet last night, in the darkness the fear had been so very great that there had been no such embarrassment. Last night she had needed him, this man who hated with such passion.
Your father was a villain and a scoundrel, he had said, and she thought again of the terrible accusation he had made. Dammartin believed in it with all his heart. And she wondered why he should ever have come to think such a thing. How could he be so misled? There was only one man who could answer her questions.
Yesterday she would not have considered entering into a discussion with Dammartin over his accusation, but much had changed since then, and she knew that, for all the darkness and danger surrounding him, he would not hurt her. For all else that Dammartin was and for all else that he had done, he had saved her, and Josie would not forget that.
She rode on in silence, biding her time until evening when she would speak to the French Captain.
