The Captain's Forbidden Miss

by Margaret McPhee

  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 Dammartn’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 Dammartin 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 fa
st, 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.

  She glanced directly down, looking to see the rock face below. Her body tensed further and she clung all the harder to the rocks, laying her face against them.

  He started to move.

  ‘No, I cannot!’ she said, and he could hear the slight note of panic underlying her words.

  ‘Mademoiselle Mallington…’

  ‘It is too high, we cannot…’

  ‘Just do as I say.’

  ‘I cannot…please…’

  There was just the sound of the wind and the rise and fall of her breathing and the feel of her body beneath his.

  ‘I will help you and we will reach the ground safely enough.’ He became conscious of where her hips nestled so snugly and felt the stirrings of his body response.

  She hesitated before giving a tiny nod.

  Josie had thought of nothing other than escape on her way up the cliff, but now she was aware of how very far the ground seemed below, of the loose, insecure surface of the rocks and the wind that pulled at both her and Dammartin. In the darkness she could not see what was safe to grip with her hands, and the skirt of her dress hid her view of her feet and where she might place them. A wave of panic swept through her and she thought that she might be stuck there, unable to move either up or down, but then the French Captain said that he would help her. He edged her to movement and the panic was gone. Slowly they began to descend the rock face.

  The warm press of his body and the clean masculine smell of him pulled her mind from the danger of the rocks beneath. He was gentle, encouraging her with quiet words when she struggled to place her feet, coaxing her to keep moving when she thought she could move no more. There was no anger, no harshness, no danger, and, ironically, as they risked their lives to reach the ground, she felt safer with him now than she had ever done. It did not make sense. She did not know this new Dammartin.

  She heard his exhalation of breath as they made it to the ground. The cold rushed in against her back as he moved away, opening the space between them. She turned, and was able to see him properly for the first time. Words of gratitude hovered on her lips, but she bit them back, not understanding why she wanted to thank him for saving her, when in truth he was the enemy who had just destroyed her chance of escape.

  For a moment Dammartin just stood there by the foot of the slope; the weak silvery moonlight exposing the dark slash of his scar, the lean hard planes sculpting his face, and the rugged squareness of his jaw. Shadow obscured half his face, making it impossible for Josie to read his expression, but there was something in the way he was looking at her, something in his stance, that made her wonder if this was indeed the same man from whom she had run. Her gaze dropped to hide her confusion and her feeling of vulnerability.

  ‘You do not need to take me back,’ she said, ‘you could say that you did not find me. It is a plausible story.’

>   He gave a cynical laugh and shook his head. ‘What part of this do you not understand, mademoiselle? That you would not survive out here alone, or that I do not lose my prisoners?’

  The arrogance of his words rankled with her, urging her pride to deny the truth in his answer. ‘I would survive very well, if you would let me.’

  ‘With no weapon, no shelter, no means to make fire, no food or water?’ he mocked. ‘And what of guerrillas and bandits? You think you can take them on single-handed?’

  ‘As a woman travelling alone, I would present no threat to any such men. They would be unlikely to harm me. I am British.’

  ‘You think they care about that?’ Dammartin raised an eyebrow.

  Josie’s indignation rose. ‘I would have managed well enough.’

  ‘You are a fool if you think so—’ his eyes narrowed slightly ‘—and you would be a bigger fool to try a further escape.’

  ‘You cannot stop me,’ she retaliated. ‘I swear I will be long gone before you are anywhere close to Ciudad Rodrigo.’

  The wolf howl sounded again, and in the moonlight Dammartin transformed once more to a sinister mode. ‘No, mademoiselle,’ he said softly, ‘you are much mistaken in that belief.’

  All of Josie’s fear flooded back at the certainty in his voice.

  She looked at him, not knowing what to say, not knowing what to do, aware only that he had won, and that her failure would cost her dearly when he got her back to the camp.

  There was the sound of the wind, and of quietness.

  ‘Please,’ she said, and hoped that he would not hear the desperation in her voice.

  The scree crunched beneath his boots as he came to stand before her. ‘I will not leave you out here.’

  Her eyes searched the shadow of his face and thought she saw something of the harshness drop away.

  ‘No more questions this night.’ He reached out and, taking her arm, pulled her from where she leaned against the slope.