‘Yes.’ Josie moved to open the flap. ‘I am Josephine Mallington.’
The woman that stood there was of similar height and build to Josie. But she was as dark as Josie was fair, and her face showed that she was perhaps five years older. Her hair was hidden in the main by the great hood of the plain brown cloak that she wore, but around the edges of her face a riot of dark brown curls clustered. Her eyes were soft and brown and tinged with quite the longest lashes that Josie had ever seen. Her lips were full and luscious, her face barely lined and a warm honey colour within the light of the lantern. Her expression was neither friendly nor hostile, but her eyes flickered over Josie and the interior of the tent, appraising and summing up in a matter of seconds.
‘Captain Dammartin, he say you need clothes. I give you mine.’
The two women looked at each other for a minute before Josie gave a nod. ‘Please come in.’ Josie stepped back. ‘It is kind of you to lend me a dress. My portmanteau is missing and my own clothes are rather wet.’
‘Wet, yes,’ said the woman and flicked a glance over the garments spread the length of the floor.
Josie’s eyes followed the woman’s. ‘I thought perhaps the clothes might dry a little.’
The woman looked at her with the same unruffled expression. ‘They no dry in here. Too cold, too wet.’
‘You are probably right,’ said Josie, ‘but it seemed better than leaving them in a pile in the corner.’
Whether the woman understood Josie did not know, for she gave no reply.
‘Please sit down, take off your cloak.’ Josie pointed a hand towards the table and chairs.
At first she thought the woman would decline, but then she pushed back her hood and sat down on one of the small wooden chairs.
‘Gracias.’
Josie looked at the woman. She was beautiful, with her wet hair pinned up and its escaping curls tumbling down the sides of her face and across the bareness of her shoulders. Her skin was smooth and unblemished. She did not look as if she had spent the day marching or sitting on a donkey for hours in the rain. No, the woman that sat in Josie’s tent looked damp but untroubled. Her cloak might be of coarse homespun wool, but everything in her bearing was fiercely, almost violently proud.
‘For you.’ The woman held out a bundle of red-and-black material.
‘Thank you.’ Josie took it.
‘I am Rosa,’ said the woman.
Josie gave a small smile. ‘Thank you, Rosa.’
Rosa unfastened the ties of her cloak and pushed the garment back, flicking off droplets of rainwater as she did.
Josie’s eyes slid down to the dress that Rosa was wearing. It was of a red-and-black material that flattered the olive hues of her skin, cut in the style of Spanish ladies and worn over a white chemise. But it was not the colour that brought a widening to Josie’s eyes—that was readily accomplished by the tight-fitting bodice and extreme décolletage of the white chemise that she wore beneath.
The sleeves were pushed off her shoulders. Unlike the high waistlines that were so fashionable with the ladies of Britain and France, this dress was reminiscent of the style of an earlier time, with its waist set lower and pulled in small and tight before the skirt swept out with a fullness of material. The dress revealed much of Rosa’s figure and left little to the imagination.
Oh, my! thought Josie and, finding that she was staring, hastily averted her gaze.
‘You wish me to help you dress?’
‘No, thank you.’ Josie could feel a slight warmth wash her cheeks. ‘I can manage.’ She hoped that the dress that was folded so neatly in her hands was not a match for the one that Rosa was wearing.
There was a moment of silence before Rosa said, ‘You are the English Lieutenant Colonel’s daughter.’ Her eyes were dark and bold.
Josie prepared herself for a defence. ‘Yes.’
‘The one who murdered the Captain’s father.’
‘My father did not murder Major Dammartin.’ Josie’s hackles rose. She eyed the woman angrily. ‘The story is a lie perpetrated by the French.’
Rosa shrugged her beautiful bare shoulders in an insolent gesture.
‘Thank you, Rosa,’ said Josie icily, ‘I shall return your clothes as soon as my own are dry.’ She got to her feet, signalling to the woman that their conversation was at an end.
‘No return,’ said Rosa. ‘Captain Dammartin, he give me money. You keep clothes.’
‘Captain Dammartin paid you?’
Rosa nodded, and her lips curved to a seductive smile. ‘Yes, he pay me money. He is very kind.’
A horrible suggestion made itself known to Josie. She blushed at the thought of just what kind of relationship Captain Dammartin might have with this woman. ‘You are not a prisoner of the French, are you?’
‘A prisoner?’ Rosa seemed almost to be laughing at her. ‘No, mademoiselle, I am not a prisoner… Nothing is simple in love and war,’ said Rosa, pulling the hood back up over her head. ‘Adios, Señorita Mallington,’ she said, and left the tent.
Dammartin sat his helmet in the corner of the tent and raked a hand through his hair, pushing the sodden strands back from his eyes. The tent was empty. He stood there, relishing the few minutes of solitude. He was tired and cold. His bones were aching and he was hungry. Nothing different from any man that served beneath him. That was not what was bothering Dammartin. He rubbed damp fingers over the rough growth of stubble that had appeared on his face with the progress of the day, and released a sigh. Uneasiness sat in his gut. He sighed again and rubbed harder at the stubble. A noise from the tent flap alerted him. Sergeant Lamont entered.
‘Captain.’ The small man nodded. ‘Rosa has taken the clothes to Mademoiselle Mallington.’
‘Good. Thank you, Lamont. You gave Rosa the money?’
‘Yes. I told her she should not accept it, sir, but she wants to save.’
‘For your future together?’
Lamont laughed. ‘She will not stay with an old man like me. Soon she will be off.’
‘No, my friend,’ said Dammartin. ‘I do not think so. You saved her from an ordeal abhorrent to any woman. She will not forget.’
‘I demand nothing from her.’
‘And that is why she stays. Following the drum is not easy for any woman. There must be something here that makes her wish to stay,’ Dammartin said teasingly.
Lamont shrugged as if he did not know, but Dammartin knew better.
‘The mademoiselle’s portmanteau, it has not appeared?’
‘All the baggage, including the women’s, has been searched, every tent. It is not to be found.’
‘It could not have fallen,’ said Lamont.
The two men looked at one another.
‘And,’ said Lamont, ‘a portmanteau is not so easy to steal from the officers’ mule train during a day’s march.’
‘You do not ask the question as to why anyone would want to steal an Englishwoman’s portmanteau?’ said Dammartin.
‘It was not the women. Rosa knows everything that goes on with them. They do not like the mademoiselle, but they would not dare to steal from the officers’ train. They did not take it.’
‘No, the women are not behind this, Claude. Even had they wanted the portmanteau, they could not have lifted the damn thing.’
‘There is another possibility, sir.’
Dammartin waited for what the Sergeant would say.
‘Mallington is a much hated man and there is no one in this company that does not know she is his daughter. The rain has poured from the skies. She is cold. She is wet. And now she has no dry clothes to change into? Perhaps they play a petty trick to make the mademoiselle suffer.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Dammartin, but in his heart he did not believe that to be the case. If he guessed right, Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s journals lay behind the theft. ‘Ask around the men, informally. A portmanteau cannot just disappear. Someone must have seen something.’
‘Yes, sir.’ said Lamont. �
�The food is almost ready. Do you want me to take a tray to Mademoiselle Mallington?’
‘I will do that myself. I wish to speak to her.’
Lamont looked at his captain and there was just the suggestion of a smile upon his lips.
‘Do not give me that look, Lamont. If I wanted female company of the sort you are thinking, then I would find it in the baggage train. I am not likely to forget who Mademoiselle Mallington’s father was.’ But even as he said it Dammartin knew that it was not true. He had never used a woman from the baggage train, and as for the other, he had already come too close to forgetting about Mademoiselle Mallington’s father.
Lamont laughed and walked off, leaving Dammartin to see to Josephine Mallington.
Josie had just finished lacing the bodice of the dress.
‘Excusez-moi, mademoiselle.’ The voice from the other side of the tent flap was unmistakably that of Captain Dammartin.
She looked down at just how much that the neckline of Rosa’s chemise revealed, and winced. ‘A moment, please.’ She glanced around the tent in panic, scanning for something with which she could preserve her modesty. There was nothing save the wet clothes spread across the floor or the covers of the makeshift bed. She nipped over to her makeshift bed, whipped off the top blanket and hastily pulled it around her shoulders.
‘Mademoiselle Mallington?’ he said again and, without waiting further, let himself in through the tent flap.
‘Captain Dammartin.’ She spun to face him, ensuring that the blanket was firmly in place.
He was no longer wearing his greatcoat, but just his green jacket with its decorated brass buttons. His head was bare, and his dark hair had been slicked back from his face. ‘Your dinner.’
Her eyes dropped from his face, lower, to the tray that he held between his hands and the mess tin and half-skin of wine and tumbler upon it.
He sat the tray upon the table.
‘Thank you, Captain,’ she said, and darted him a glance, suspicious that he had brought the food himself.
He gestured to the table.
She sat down on one of the chairs.
Dammartin sat down in the other.
Josie’s heart began to beat a warning tattoo. ‘You have news of my portmanteau?’ she said slowly.
‘Unfortunately, no.’
She waited.
He unstoppered the wine skin and filled the pewter tumbler that sat by its side, clearly intent on staying. ‘Eat…’ he gestured to the mess tin ‘…before it grows cold.’
Josie gave a nod and, lifting the spoon, began to eat the watery stew.
She saw his gaze sweep down over the blanket around her shoulders to the full red-and-black skirt covering her legs. ‘Rosa brought you the dress, then.’
Another nod.
Dammartin’s scar stood prominent and dark against the pallor of his skin. His eyes were dark, but showed nothing of either his intent or his mood. A strange tension sat around him, a stillness almost, as if he were poised, as if he were waiting, and her stomach fluttered with anticipation. She wondered why he was here and what this undercurrent was that flowed between them.
She focused her gaze upon her dinner as her spoon scraped against her tin, the noise seeming too loud in the silence that filled the tent. ‘I will return the clothes as soon as I can.’
‘There is no need,’ he said. ‘Rosa has been recompensed for her loss.’
‘So I have been told.’ Josie looked up at him then, and in her ear whispered the beautiful dark-haired woman’s words seemingly taunting her naïvety. For the first time she saw him not as the French Captain who had stormed the monastery at Telemos, nor an officer of Bonaparte’s man, not even as her enemy—but just as a man.
She realised that she knew scarcely anything of Dammartin, other than the story of his father. Whether he was married. Whether he had children. Whether he took the beautiful Rosa to his bed at night. Josie did not know why she found the thought of him with the Spanish woman so discomforting. It should not have mattered one iota to her, but, as she sat there in Rosa’s dress, she knew that it did matter, very much. She did not want to think of Rosa.
She took a swig of wine. ‘Are you married, Captain Dammartin?’
Surprise registered in his eyes. He hesitated before answering. ‘I am not married, mademoiselle.’
Her heart beat a little faster. She fortified herself with some more wine. ‘Rosa is not a prisoner of the French.’
A single dark eyebrow raised at that. ‘No, she is no prisoner.’ And he looked at her with that too-perceptive gaze.
Silence, and the tension within the tent seemed to tighten a notch.
Josie regretted her impulsiveness. He was the enemy. She was his prisoner. What did it matter what he did? Why was he even here in the tent with her?
‘Rosa is Sergeant Lamont’s woman,’ said Dammartin.
Another silence. Awkward. Tense.
‘I just thought…’ Josie sipped at the wine and started again. ‘I am surprised, that is all, given that she is Spanish.’
‘Lamont saved her from being raped and flogged by a group of Spanish guerrillas near her village.’
Josie felt her stomach tighten with shock and the memory of her own experience at the bandit’s hands. She pushed the thought away, forced herself to concentrate on Rosa. ‘Why would her own people do that to her?’
‘They thought she was fraternising with the enemy.’
‘And was she…fraternising?’
‘She was innocent of the charges, but passions run high when it comes to our army in Spain. She would have been killed had she returned to her village.’
‘So she has travelled with your army ever since.’
‘She follows Lamont, and only Lamont,’ he said.
‘Because he saved her.’ And the breath was shaky in her throat as she looked into his eyes. ‘Yes.’
They stared at one another, knowing that the subject had come much closer to something that touched them both.
It was Josie that looked away.
‘Thank you for bringing me the dinner,’ she said, moving the empty mess tin upon the tray. She stood up, hoping that Dammartin would take the hint and leave.
Dammartin lifted the wine skin and refilled the tumbler.
‘It has been a long day, sir. I am tired and—’
‘Sit down, mademoiselle,’ he said quietly.
Despite the flair of alarm in Mademoiselle Mallington’s eyes, Dammartin knew he could defer his questions no longer. She had eaten, they were both tired…and he had to know for sure.
‘You were most distressed by the loss of your portmanteau.’
‘I was,’ she admitted, but he could hear the note of caution in her voice.
‘Clothes can be replaced.’ His eyes dropped to the thick, grey blanket draped around her shoulders, knowing that it hid the low-cut Spanish dress beneath.
A slight nod as her gaze wandered over the empty mess tin, the cup and the tray.
‘I find myself wondering over your reaction to your missing baggage.’ He watched her very carefully.
‘I do not understand what you mean, sir.’ Still she did not look at him, but her fingers began to toy with the spoon.
‘You were distraught, panicked, afraid.’
She forced a dismissive smile. ‘I was cold and wet, and I had just learned that all of my possessions had been stolen. What reaction did you expect, Captain?’
‘For how long have you followed your father, Mademoiselle Mallington?’
‘Most of my life.’ He could see her trying to fathom his line of questioning.
‘How many years have you, mademoiselle?’
‘I am two and twenty years old,’ she replied. Her fingers played against the spoon’s handle.
So young, Dammartin thought. Too damned young to be caught up in this situation. He thought again of Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s utter selfishness. ‘Then you know well the rigours of campaign life?’
‘Yes, but…’
she frowned ‘…I do not understand what this has to do with my missing portmanteau.’
‘I ask myself why Mademoiselle Mallington, who has shown such bravery, such resilience, should be so very upset by a few missing clothes.’
She sat very still.
‘And the thought comes to me that perhaps the lady has within her portmanteau something more precious than clothes.’
The colour drained from her cheeks.
‘Something that she wishes very much not to fall into French hands.’
Her grip tightened around the spoon.
‘Might that be the case, mademoiselle?’
Her gaze stayed on the spoon, and he saw how white her knuckles shone.
He let the silence stretch, increasing the tension that was already wound taut between them.
‘I begin to think of what is most precious to Mademoiselle Mallington.’
Her breath held.
‘And I find the answer is her father.’
There was the slightest widening of her eyes.
He leaned forward, bringing his face closer to hers. ‘Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s journals were within your portmanteau.’
The spoon dropped with a clatter. Her gaze swung to his, showing all of her shock and her hurt and her anger. ‘It was you!’ she whispered, and then she was on her feet, the chair falling over behind her. ‘You stole my portmanteau!’
‘Mademoiselle Mallington.’ He rose.
But she backed away, increasing the space between them, staring at him with outrage blatant upon her face. ‘And now that you cannot find what you seek, you come back to me to discover…’ She touched her knuckles to her mouth, as if to stopper the words and her breath came in loud ragged gasps.
He moved towards her.
But she trod back farther, shaking her head, warning him away. ‘Not once did I think that it might have been you.’
He stepped closer. ‘Mademoiselle.’
‘Leave me alone,’ she said, and her face was powder white.
The Captain's Forbidden Miss Page 13
