Jane Feather - [V Series] (17 page)

“Colonel St. Simon, isn’t it?”

He was startled from his morose reverie as he ducked into the first tent. A surgeon brandishing a butcher’s knife looked up from the trestle table where a man lay strapped and unconscious, his right leg bared to the knee where jagged bone stuck through the skin.

“Yes.” Julian paused politely. He didn’t think he knew the surgeon.

“Forgive me … I came across a most unusual young woman last night, said she was a friend … a
close
friend of yours.” The surgeon wiped his damp
forehead with his sleeve, “She was most insistent I give her wounded my immediate attention … very persuasive with it. Said the Peer would know who she was.”

“La Violette,” Julian said almost to himself. “What exactly was she doing?”

“Bringing men in from the field on a magnificent white charger … never seen a horse like it.” The surgeon bent again to his patient, who had stirred and groaned. “Forgive me, he’s coming round. I need to get this leg off before he does.”

Julian nodded and walked away, closing his ears to the scrunch of knife through bone. So Tamsyn had spent the night bringing in the wounded on that fidgety Cesar. Offering such aid didn’t quite match with her outspoken hatred for all soldiers, but it didn’t surprise him that she’d had some part in last night’s ghastly proceedings; he was beginning to wonder why she hadn’t been with Picton’s men scaling the walls of the castle.

He’d learned much in the hour he’d spent with her in his tent. She’d talked in a low voice through her tears, but with perfect coherence. She’d told him of the horror of Pueblo de St. Pedro, and he’d had no difficulty imagining it. He too had seen such things.

But now Colonel, Lord Julian St. Simon was troubled. La Violette had taken on different contours. He was beginning to see complexities where before he’d seen only the opportunistic, gloriously sensual brigand … one whose seductive wiles he must resist with every fiber. Now he saw a young woman left alone in the world by the horrific murder of her beloved parents. A young woman who had lost all the framework of the only existence she’d known, cast upon a world at war to make her future as she could.

It was a disturbing picture, not least because beneath it he still saw the other Tamsyn. He still believed she’d been playing on Wellington’s known susceptibilities with her pathetic story, and yet he knew in his bones that she had been manipulating no heartstrings in his tent when she’d painted the unvarnished picture for him.

He didn’t know what to make of any of it. He stopped by a stretcher where a private from his brigade lay breathing raggedly through his mouth, his face smothered in bloodstained bandages.

“The surgeon says you’ll be on your way to Lisbon in the morning, Carter,” Julian said. “Out of it for good.”

“I’ll not be sorry, sir,” the swathed face said. “But I’ve lost me nose, sir. What’ll the missus say?”

“She’ll be glad to have you back with two legs and two arms,” Julian said, touching his shoulder and moving on, aware of how inadequate such reassurance was, and yet it was all he had.

Tamsyn, lying in a hip bath of steaming water in her room in Elvas, was trying to decide whether her emotional collapse had done her any good with Julian St. Simon. She hadn’t planned it, but it had happened, and it just might be turned to good purpose.

The colonel had clearly been moved by her story. He’d been gentle and comforting, ordering his servant to make tea when her tale was told and her tears had finally dried. He’d sat with his arm around her on the narrow cot, saying nothing because there was nothing to say. She’d been more grateful for his silence than anything else. It took a sensitive man to resist the temptation to wade in with clumsy words of comfort that would only trivialize her pain.

Later he’d walked her back to Elvas and left her at her lodgings.

Thoughtfully, Tamsyn soaped her legs, grimacing at the filthy scum forming on the surface of the water. She’d need a jug of clean water to wash off the soap.

As if in answer to the thought, Senhora Braganza came puffing up the stairs with a copper jug of fresh water. Tamsyn thanked her and stood up in the tub. The senhora poured the hot stream over her hair and body, and Tamsyn shuddered with pleasure as the dirt flowed from her body.

Her own shirt and underclothes had been laundered by the senhora, but they were beginning to show serious signs of wear, and her britches were almost beyond help. She needed new clothes, and the shops in Elvas were plentifully stocked, but she had no money until Gabriel returned. Of course, once Gabriel returned, she wouldn’t need to buy clothes, since he’d be bringing all her possessions as well as the treasure—her inheritance from her father that had been well hidden from his murderers.

Perhaps Colonel St. Simon could be induced to make her a small loan. It would give her an excuse to go in search of him again.

She dressed in her threadbare garments. The senhora hadn’t been able to get the bloodstains out of her britches, but they blended with all the other stains accumulated in the two weeks that she’d been wearing them. At least her skin and hair were clean.

Tamsyn examined herself in the spotted glass that served as a mirror. Not too bad, considering. She felt purged in some way, as if by exposing herself to the horrors of Badajos, she’d lanced a festering boil. And somewhere inside her lurked a warm flicker of pleasure
and relief that Julian St. Simon had survived the horrors of the assault.

She sniffed hungrily at the rich aromas coming from the kitchen and ran downstairs.

The senhora had prepared a hearty soup of cabbage, potatoes, and spicy sausage and watched with satisfied nods as her lodger consumed two large bowls and several thick hunks of crusty bread. Then, feeling ready for anything, Tamsyn went to fetch Cesar and rode out to the encampment in search of the colonel.

But as it happened, while Tamsyn was in the encampment, the colonel was in Wellington’s headquarters, obeying an urgent summons that had taken him from his hospital visiting back into Elvas.

It was clear to Julian that the commander in chief was in a strange mood. His satisfaction in his victory was tainted by the loss of so many thousands of his best men, and his ruthless decision to give the survivors the run of Badajos did little to comfort him for that loss. Like St. Simon, he believed that if he’d made an example of the garrison at Ciudad Rodrigo in January, the garrison at Badajos would have yielded in a timely fashion and spared both sides indescribable agony. But public opinion would not have supported the uncivilized slaughter of a surrendered garrison, though it would turn a blind eye to the hideous sack and rape of the now-defenseless town.

“Julian, this business of La Violette.” He came straight to the point as the colonel entered. “Have you thought any more about it?”

“There’s hardly been time,” Julian pointed out. “But my answer must be the same, sir. I can’t possibly agree to such a thing.”

Wellington frowned and began to pace the room,
hands clasped at his back. “We need her information, Julian. I’m going to drive the French out of Spain this summer and march into France by autumn. I need to know about those passes, and I need to have more freedom of movement where the partisans are concerned. Violette can make that possible.”

“I don’t deny it.” Julian was beginning to feel he had a desperate rear-guard action on his hands. “But I also believe she’ll sell the information for something other than my soul,” he added caustically.

“Oh, come now, man, don’t exaggerate!” the duke chided. “Six months of your time, that’s all.” His eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Forgive me for saying so—she must feel she has some grounds for believing you might agree to such a proposal.”

“She has
no
grounds,” Julian stated flatly. “No claims on me whatsoever.”

“I see.” Wellington scratched his nose. “Well, she is a most unusual young woman.”

“A manipulative, thieving mercenary,” the colonel declared as flatly as before. “I will not be a party to her games. I’ll lay odds, if you offer sufficient money, she’ll spill her guts without blinking an eye.”

“Possibly, but I doubt it.… Claret?” The duke strolled to the decanters on the table.

“Thank you.” Julian waited, knowing the battle was far from won. He took the glass offered him with a nod of thanks.

“I doubt it,” the duke continued as if there’d been no break in the conversation. “I have the unmistakable conviction that she knows her price and won’t budge. She wants only one thing … and, Lord in heaven, I can’t fault her for it. The poor little creature’s all alone in the world; she can’t be more than nineteen. What
kind of a future is there for her here with neither friends nor family?”

Julian sipped his wine and didn’t reply, remembering the girl’s anguish and desolation. Despite that, he was convinced that “poor little creature” was not an accurate description of the orphaned daughter of El Baron and his English mate.

“I’m sure she’ll be able to locate her mother’s family,” the duke continued pensively. “But it would be better for her to present a more orthodox appearance. More convincing … more appealing, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps,” Julian agreed dryly, not giving an inch.

Wellington glanced up at him thoughtfully. “Well, if you won’t, you won’t. But there is something else I want to discuss with you.”

Julian waited during a lengthening silence, unconvinced that his commander in chief had given up.

“I don’t need to tell you how skeptical the government is about this campaign,” Wellington said at last. “They say we exaggerate the importance of the victories, that we win them at too great an expense of men and money. God knows, they’ll have fodder enough for plaint when the casualties from this filthy business appear in the
Gazette
.”

Julian nodded. Everyone knew the opposition Wellington encountered from the English government and how near impossible it was for him to get the financial and material support he needed for the Peninsular campaign.

“I need someone to go and present our case at Westminster,” the duke said. “Someone reliable, someone the government will respect, who’ll give a firsthand account of the campaign. Dispatches don’t present the
case adequately, and civilian observers are the very devil! They haven’t the faintest notion of what’s going on even when it’s under their noses.”

“And you’re fingering me for the task,” Julian said without inflection. He refilled the commander’s glass and then his own.

“You’re the perfect emissary,” Wellington said. “You’re the youngest colonel in my army, you’ve had a brilliant career thus far and are clearly headed for a general’s baton in a year or two. You’ve been mentioned countless times in dispatches, so your name’s well-known in government circles. They’ll give credence to what you say.”

Julian again made no immediate response, and the commander regarded him with the same shrewd look as before. What Wellington didn’t mention, because it went without saying, was that Colonel, Lord Julian St. Simon’s title was one of the oldest in the land. His fortune was beyond the dreams of avarice, and his estates, not including Tregarthan, covered entire counties. Such a position and influence made him an even more powerful spokesman to the lords of Westminster.

Julian walked to the window and stood frowning down into the street. “You’re asking me to leave the army just as the summer’s campaigning is to begin,” he said finally. “To abandon my brigade when they’re going to be facing months of marching and fighting.”

“I deem this mission to London to be of vital importance, St. Simon.” Wellington spoke now in the clipped tones of the commander in chief, the note of intimacy vanished. “I’ve colonels aplenty to take over your brigade, but I’ve no one better suited than you to undertake this diplomatic business. If you wish, I’ll give O’Connor field rank as colonel in your absence. I understand
his wound isn’t going to send him home.” He paused, then said deliberately, “You’ll have regimental rank as brigadier immediately on your return.”

Julian’s heart jumped. From brigadier to general was a small step, and he’d promised himself he’d carry a general’s baton by the time he was thirty. But he thought he’d achieve it through fighting … leading his men to victory … not by smooth talk and careful politics in the corridors of Westminster.

“Am I to understand you’re ordering me to London, sir?”

“Precisely, Colonel.”

Julian turned from the window. “And this other business?”

“Oh, come now, Julian.” Wellington was smiling now. “You could surely shepherd her to England, help her make contact with her mother’s family. You’re going there, anyway.”

“Oh, escort duty would be simple enough,” Julian said aridly. “But that isn’t what Violette is demanding. She wants a schoolmaster, if you recall.”

Wellington chuckled. “Nervy little thing, isn’t she?”

Julian sighed. “I wouldn’t disagree with that, sir.”

“So you’ll do it?”

“Supposing I arrange to hire a suitable house and a governess for her?” the colonel suggested, his back now to the wall. “I’ll escort her to England and leave the tutoring to some respectable female. Then I can be back here in a couple of months.”

Wellington shrugged. “We’ll put it to Violette. If she accepts that price, then it’s fine by me. I only want her information.”

“I’ll send Sanderson to fetch her.” Julian went to the door and gave the order to the brigade-major, then
returned to the room. The commander was standing at the open window now, listening to the confused riot of noise coming from Badajos.

“I’ll give them until tomorrow; then, if we can’t get them out of there, we’ll erect a gallows in the square,” he said evenly. “Hang a couple of looters, that should bring them to their senses.”

“They’ll be in bad shape, sir.”

“Oh, I know. Demoralized, hung over, ashamed. Sieges are filthy work, Julian.”

“None worse,” Julian agreed somberly, sipping his wine.

Sanderson returned in five minutes with the information that La Violette was not in her lodgings and had taken her horse from the stables.

“Left us?” Wellington raised an eyebrow at the colonel.