Jane Feather - [V Series] (3 page)

Colonel St. Simon threw his light burden upward onto the back of his charger and was up behind her in almost the same movement.

“Gabriel!” the girl shouted incomprehensibly. “I
must find Gabriel.” Taking the colonel by surprise, she hurled herself sideways, landing neatly on the balls of her feet.

St. Simon had no time to think. He leaped from his horse and plunged after his prize as she darted into the darkness. He caught her before she’d gone more than a few yards, his hand closing over her wrist.

“Goddamn it! Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

Tamsyn couldn’t see him clearly, was conscious only of the shape and mass of his body in the shadowy, flickering darkness. Again his tone set her hackles rising, but remembering that whoever he was, she owed him some considerable debt, she bit back a sharp rejoinder and spoke with impatient moderation.

“Thank you very much for rescuing me from such an uncomfortable situation, sir. I don’t know why you should have done so, but I’m truly grateful. However, I can manage perfectly well now, and I must find Gabriel.” She tugged at her captive wrist.

An uncomfortable situation! She called seminaked, strung up by the neck, facing the slow agony of the knife, an uncomfortable situation! And she was thanking him as if she believed either he’d acted out of pure altruism or her rescue was a coincidence. In any other circumstances St. Simon might have found such a wild misapprehension amusing.

Flame shot up in the air from somewhere in the encampment, and a burst of rifle fire punctuated the confused shouts and bellows. Julian heard one of his own men yell urgently from the clearing behind them. This was no time to be bandying words with La Violette. His grip on her wrist tightened as she fought to break his hold.

“You seem to be laboring under a misapprehension,” he declared, unclasping his heavy black boat cloak with his free hand. “You are now a guest of His Majesty’s Army of the Peninsular, my dear girl. I trust you’ll find our hospitality quite satisfactory.”

With a flick of his wrist he set the cloak whirling through the air. It swirled around the slight twisting figure, capturing her limbs in its folds. Her stream of invective was cut off abruptly as he swaddled her tightly in the garment and scooped her into his arms again, turning her head against his chest.

Tamsyn had had time to see the scarlet tunic and the insignia of a colonel before the cloak enfolded her, and her nose was now pressed against gold braid and glittering buttons. Her situation seemed to have changed dramatically for the second time in as many minutes, and if she was still being held by soldiers, it couldn’t have changed that much for the better.

Her rescuer turned captor mounted, apparently unhampered by his burden. An order rang out in the clearing, and the small group of black-cloaked figures wheeled their horses and melted into the darkness.

Tamsyn realized rapidly that struggling against the swaddling folds was futile. The arm holding her was an iron band, preventing her from twisting away from the broad expanse of scarlet chest, and the horse beneath her was pounding the ground at such a speed that it would be suicidal to attempt to fling herself from his back, even if such a thing were possible.

She let her body relax while her mind raced. What did the English want with her? The same as the French, presumably. Would they use the same tactics? Goddamned soldiers—they were the same savage animals
whatever uniform they wore. Blue, red, green, black. And gold braid and epaulets made no difference either.

Her mind filled with the nightmare images of that hideous night when the soldiers had come to Pueblo de St. Pedro. Her ears rang with the screams, and the hot reek of blood was in her nostrils as vividly as if she and Gabriel, helpless, were watching the massacre again.… Where was Gabriel?

The thought that Gabriel was still in the hands of the French while she was being carried away God knows where by an English cavalry officer banished the ghastly images under a clear wash of fury, and she fought against her bonds with a sudden desperate energy.

The arm tightened around her, a hand pressed against her scalp, forcing her face into his tunic so that she gasped for air. It was an effective way of discouraging her struggles.

Tamsyn lay still again. This mad ride would end at some point, and she’d do well to preserve her energies for an escape then. She focused her mind on possible courses of action once she felt solid ground beneath her feet. Some pompous, peremptory English cavalry officer would be no match in wits or speed for La Violette. She knew this territory like the back of her hand, and she was a past master at getting out of tight corners.

Julian could feel the currents of energy surging through the seemingly fragile bundle he held pinioned against him. Even when she was lying still and apparently compliant, he sensed determination and purpose. La Violette was a law unto herself, as her father, El Baron, had been, and she’d proved expert at outwitting the cumbersome mechanisms of two armies when she went about her profitable and lawless business. Julian had no intention of dropping his guard simply because
at the moment he had this brigand’s spawn physically secured.

The cavalcade reached the bank of the Guadiana and halted. There was no sound of pursuit, only the rushing water of the river. The night sky was black as pitch, and it was impossible to tell in the dark whether the river could be safely forded at this point.

“Sergeant!”

“Sir.” One of the black-cloaked figures separated itself from the men and rode up to the colonel.

“We’ll bivouac here until dawn and then look for a ford. Let’s see if we can find some shelter from this blasted rain. Try those trees.” The colonel gestured with his whip to an isolated clump of trees on the plain.

The sergeant gave the order and the cavalcade cantered off, the colonel following, his brow furrowed as he considered what he was to do with his captive once they were on the ground.

The copse yielded a deserted wooden shack, half its roof intact, and a ruined barn. The men of the Sixth were accustomed to bivouacking in the most unpromising circumstances. During the four-year struggle to drive Napoleon out of Spain and Portugal, the broiling summers and freezing, rain-swept winters in the Iberian Peninsula inured a man to ordinary discomforts. The horses were tethered under the trees, and men gathered sticks to make fires in the shelter of the barn walls. Even wet wood could be coaxed to produce a sullen flame with the dry tinder they all carried with them.

The colonel swung down from his horse, still holding his presently unresisting captive, and strode into the shack.

“Light a fire in ’ere, sir, an’ you’ll be snug as a bug in a rug,” the sergeant pronounced, following him inside.
“The men ’ave got dry tinder left from the attack on the Froggies, an’ I reckon a pannikin of tea wouldn’t come amiss.”

“Sounds wonderful, Sergeant,” the colonel said somewhat absently. “Post pickets around the wood. We don’t want the fires drawing unwelcome attention.”

He glanced down at the figure in his arms. La Violette had turned her head away from his chest as his grip had changed, and he found himself looking into a pair of dark eyes in a heart-shaped face. She returned his scrutiny with an expression of mild curiosity that could have lulled a less cynical man into a false sense of security.

“What now, English Colonel?” Her English was so faintly accented, it would take a sharp ear to detect it, he thought in surprise.

“You speak good English?”

“Of course. My mother was English. Are you going to put me down?”

“If I do, will you give me your word you’ll not attempt to run?”

A glint of mocking laughter appeared in her eyes. “You’d accept the parole of a brigand, English Colonel?”

“Should I?”

She laughed aloud. “That’s for me to know and you to find out, Colonel.”

There was something unpleasant beneath her mocking laughter. A wealth of antagonism that struck Julian as almost personal. Obviously it had slipped the brigand’s mind that her present comfort was dependent upon his goodwill.

“Thank you for the warning,” he said dryly. “I’ll heed it.” He glanced around the small, inhospitable
space. “I suppose I could utilize that neat dollar Cornichet put on you and secure you in that fashion.”

Tamsyn pulled herself up sharply. This was not a man to mock, clearly. A different attitude was required.

“That won’t be necessary,” she said swiftly, her eyes suddenly soft and conciliatory. “Please put me down, Colonel. How could I possibly escape with all your men around?”

Quite a little actress, La Violette, Julian thought with a grim inner smile. But that little-girl-lost look wasn’t fooling him. “I’ll put you down with pleasure,” he drawled. “But you’ll have to forgive me if I take certain precautions. Sergeant, bring me a length of rope.”

Tamsyn cursed her stupidity. Clearly she’d underestimated this particular example of the flower of Wellington’s cavalry. She’d allowed her anger to get the better of her and indulged her contempt and loathing for the entire pompous, conceited breed with their gold braid and their buttons, but it seemed this colonel was not quite as blind and stupid as her prejudice had dictated.

She was set on her feet, her limbs still immobilized by the tight folds of the cloak.

“Do seat yourself,
señorita,”
the colonel invited, his voice as smooth as silk. “The floor is a trifle damp, but I’m afraid my hospitality is somewhat limited at present.” He took the length of rope the sergeant handed him, and when Tamsyn didn’t immediately avail herself of his invitation, he placed his hands on her shoulders and pushed her down.

Resistance was again futile. Tamsyn didn’t fight the pressure but folded herself onto the floor, leaning against the wet wall. It was a horribly familiar position, and she reflected dismally that she’d been flipped from the frying pan to the fire with remarkable ease. She
waited grimly for him to fasten the rope to the collar she still wore, but to her relief, he bent and hobbled her ankles and then tied the free end to the buckle of his sword belt. The rope was long enough to allow him to move around the small space while effectively restraining his prisoner, but it was nowhere near as uncomfortable or as hideously humiliating as to be tethered by the neck.

With her hands free she was able to loosen the folds of the cloak, and it was always possible she’d have the opportunity to untie her ankles if this sharp-eyed colonel dropped his guard, or fell asleep. She reached up to unbuckle the loathsome leather collar and threw it as far from her as she could.

The colonel raised an eyebrow but said nothing and made no attempt to retrieve the collar. Presumably, he preferred his own methods of restraint. Tamsyn huddled into the cloak and settled down to await developments.

A small fire crackled now under the roofed half of the hut, and the sergeant had balanced a pannikin of water over the flames. An oil lamp flickered, throwing grotesque shadows as the colonel loosened his tunic, unfastened his saddlebags, rustled through the contents. Tamsyn could hear shufflings and low voices from outside as the men settled into their own makeshift camp.

Her mouth watered as she watched the colonel unwrap a loaf of bread and a packet of cold meat. The sergeant was making tea, wetting the precious leaves in a mug so they were thoroughly infused before pouring on the rest of the boiling water.

These English certainly knew how to see to their comforts, Tamsyn reflected. Even in such dismal and unpromising circumstances.

Julian ate his supper with relish. He took the mug of
tea from the sergeant with a word of thanks, and the man went outside to join the men bivouacking under the trees. The colonel studiously avoided looking at his captive as he drank thirstily and with obvious enjoyment. He’d decided that La Violette could go hungry for a salutary period. It might improve her attitude.

“What did you tell Cornichet?” he asked suddenly.

Tamsyn shrugged and closed her eyes. For some reason her usual resistance was deserting her, and she felt remarkably like crying. She wanted a cup of tea. More than food. In fact, she thought she could kill for a cup of that hot, steaming, reddish-brown liquid, so strong it would make her tongue curl. “Nothing.”

“I assume they’d only just started on you.”

She didn’t reply.

“What did he want to know?”

“What right do you have to take me prisoner?” she countered. “I’m no enemy of the English. I help the partisans, not the French.”

“As long as there’s some profit in it for you, as I understand it,” he said, his voice a whip crack in the dim hovel. “Don’t pretend to patriotic loyalty. We all know where La Violette’s interests lie.”

“And just what business is it of yours?” she demanded furiously, forgetting her hunger and fatigue. “I’ve done you no harm. I don’t interfere with the English army. You trample all over
my
country, behaving like God-given conquering heroes. All complacence and pomposity—”

“Hold your tongue, you!” The colonel was on his feet, his eyes blazing. “The blood of Englishmen has watered this damnable peninsula for four interminable years, doing the work of your countrymen, trying to save you and your country from Napoleon’s heel. I have
lost more friends than I can count in the interests of your miserable land, and you speak against those men at your peril. Do you understand that?”

He towered over her, and Tamsyn tried not to flinch. Suddenly he swooped down on her, his hand catching her chin, turning her face to the flickering lamplight. “Do you understand?” His voice was very quiet, but his fury was a naked blade in the bright-blue eyes, his close-gripped mouth a hard, thin line.

“The English have their own reasons for being here,” she retorted, forcing herself to meet his eye. “England couldn’t survive if Napoleon held Spain and Portugal. He’d close their ports to English trading, and you’d all starve to death.”

They both knew she spoke the unvarnished truth. There was silence. He still held her face, his own very close to hers, and she could feel the bruising indentation of his fingers on her chin and the warmth of his skin. He seemed to fill her vision, to expand before her eyes until he was all she could see, and their miserable surroundings, even the dull spurt of firelight, vanished into the shadows.