The Captain's Forbidden Miss

by Margaret McPhee

  ‘He believed the lie that my father had murdered his.’

  ‘He did.’ La Roque’s mouth twisted up at that and the smile was filled with pain and bitterness and anger. ‘Until Mademoiselle Mallington inveigled herself into his life and, with her charms…’ he swept a glance down over her body ‘…captured him.’

  The smile had gone and his expression was grief-stricken. ‘Pierre is too like Jean. Once he was no longer convinced of Mallington’s guilt, there was a very great risk that he would discover the truth. I have known Pierre all his life, watched him grow from a boy to a man. I love him as if he is my own son.’

  ‘And yet you would kill him!’ she cried.

  ‘I have no choice!’ She saw the tears well within his eyes. ‘I could not let him know what I had done. Thanks to you, mademoiselle, he questioned my word. Everything between us has changed.’

  It was she who had unwittingly signed Pierre’s death warrant. ‘No, you are wrong, sir. You are his godfather. Pierre looks up to you. He respects you. He does not believe my protestations of my father’s innocence.’

  ‘Indeed?’ La Roque looked cynical. ‘And yet he has kept you against all of my advice, Mademoiselle Mallington—the daughter of the man he is supposed to believe murdered his father. He craves you in a way I have never seen Pierre act over a woman. I begin to fear the worst—that there is more between the two of you than just lust.’

  She felt the heat rise in her cheeks. ‘Call off the attack, please. I am begging you. I will do anything that you want. I will give you anything that you want.’

  ‘You will do that regardless, mademoiselle.’ And when he looked at her, she could see the cold hatred blazing in his eyes. ‘Besides, it is too late. What has been set in motion cannot be stopped. Indeed…’ he glanced out at the sun’s position in the sky ‘…the deed should be long done. There can never be any going back.’ He smiled and it was filled with a melancholic bitterness. ‘As you are so committed to revealing the truth, Mademoiselle Mallington, I will tell you a little truth that you do not know.’ He leaned forwards so that his face was close to hers.

  Her fingers gripped the chair behind her.

  ‘Molyneux told me that you are unaware of the fate of your father’s messengers.’

  She grew very still.

  There was a pause before he continued. ‘They did not reach Wellington. We found them, and we shot them like the dogs that they were.’

  Josie felt the words hit her like bullets. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘They were not caught.’

  La Roque just stood there and looked at her.

  ‘No!’ she said again. ‘You’re lying; you’re lying now just as you lied about my father.’

  He smiled a small, icy smile that made her shiver. ‘It is because of you that I have sent Pierre to his death, and broken my own heart and that of his dear mother in doing so. Now you will suffer as I suffer. I wish to God that you had died in Telemos that day, Josephine Mallington.’

  The tears streamed silently down her face. Her father had sacrificed himself and his men in vain. The man that she loved was dead. She had nothing left to lose, and all of the fear left her, and her devastation was so great that it seemed to Josie that she felt nothing at all. She looked at the man who had started the whole cycle of destruction with the murder of his friend.

  ‘Why did you do it? Why did you kill Jean Dammartin?’ As she looked, she saw that hatred and fear had eaten away at him to leave only the shell of a tired old man who had killed those he loved best.

  ‘Does it matter?’

  She opened her mouth to reply, but the door suddenly thumped back hard, reverberating against the wall.

  ‘Yes, it damn well matters!’ said Pierre Dammartin as he strode into the room.

  ‘Pierre?’ Josie heard La Roque utter his name with incredulity.

  She did not know how much of the conversation Pierre had overheard, and she did not care. She stared at him, not quite believing that he was really here in the little room with her, and not dead by La Roque’s traitorous order miles away in the desolation of the Spanish countryside. She was unsure whether he was real or a ghost or a vision willed by her imagination. The tears were still welling in her eyes, dripping down her cheeks. She scrubbed them away, stared at him all the harder. The steel of his blade hissed as he drew it from its scabbard. Then he glanced over at her, his gaze meeting hers momentarily, and his eyes were dark and simmering with something that Josie had never seen in them before.

  ‘Has he hurt you?’

  She shook her head, not trusting her voice to answer.

  He gave a tiny nod of acknowledgement, then turned his attention back to La Roque. ‘Drop the knife.’

  The knife clattered to the floor.

  ‘P-Pierre, you should be on your way to Valladolid,’ said La Roque. ‘The letter for General Foy—’

  ‘We were attacked by guerrillas and many good men were lost, but then you already know that, Frederic, do you not? Their leader squealed like a pig with my blade at his throat, and told me of the French major who had paid him to kill his own French dragoons.’

  ‘The villain was lying. I would never—’ La Roque began.

  ‘Do not waste your breath,’ said Dammartin. ‘Now, Major La Roque, you were about to explain why you murdered my father.’

  La Roque’s face had turned ashen. ‘I—I…’ He seemed to stumble over the words and looked at Dammartin beseechingly. ‘You are mistaken—’

  The sharp edge of Dammartin’s sabre raised to point at La Roque. ‘Your explanation, if you would be so kind, Major.’

  La Roque moved his eyes from the blade to his godson. ‘It is not as it seems.’

  Dammartin just stared at him in stony silence. He did not utter one word. He made not one movement. Just stood there, with his blade pointed at La Roque, and his very stillness was more threatening than if he had slashed and shouted and swore.

  ‘You would not kill me, Pierre,’ said La Roque slowly, ‘after all that we have been through together. A lifetime, your mother, your brother…’

  Dammartin moved and the sabre blade touched ever so gently against La Roque’s heart.

  ‘Very well.’ La Roque inhaled a shaky breath and gave a nod. ‘I suppose that you, of all people, have a right to know.’ He cleared his throat nervously and began to speak. ‘I worked hard all my life, harder than anyone else I have known, harder by far than Jean, and as a result I was good at many things. Good, but never quite as good as Jean. It was always that way—as boys and as men. Jean always won the race while I always came second—even with Marie.’

  ‘Leave my mother out of this.’

  ‘I loved her, but it was Jean that she chose to marry, not me. He had the woman that I wanted. He had the sons that should have been mine. He had a bigger house, more money. He outranked me in the army. And then there was the Battle of Oporto when we were captured by Lieutenant Colonel Mallington. I saw the way that even his enemy looked at him—with respect, with admiration, as a friend. Mallington barely looked at me at all. I knew then that beside Jean I would always be nothing, no matter how hard I tried.

  ‘Mallington gave us our parole and we rode away. Jean was in front of me, as always, and…’ he swallowed ‘…and— I shot him. I could not help myself. There was just one minute when the idea came to me, one minute to make a choice to change a lifetime.

  ‘I had a chance to escape from his shadow, a chance that people might actually see me for once, and I took it. And I was right. Marie needed me. You and Kristoffe needed me.’ He stopped talking and looked at Dammartin.

  ‘I shot myself in the arm—a minor wound that amounted to nothing. You know the rest.’ He stopped again. ‘I am so sorry, Pierre.’

  ‘Not half as sorry as I am.’ Dammartin’s voice was low and filled with deadly promise.

  La Roque’s face crumpled in entreaty. ‘Forgive me.’

  Dammartin gave a hollow, mocking laugh. ‘You killed my father and sent me for vengeance again
st an innocent man. You lied to me and would have had my lieutenant rape Josie, and you think that I will forgive you?’ Dammartin’s lip sneered as he pressed the blade hard and made to slash.

  ‘No, Pierre!’ The words tore from Josie.

  ‘You know what he has done, to your father and to mine, to you and to me. How can you tell me to stay my hand?’

  ‘If you kill him, you will be court-martialled and executed.’

  ‘I do not care.’ His eyes, still focused on La Roque, were hard and ruthless. She saw how hard his blade pressed against La Roque’s chest.

  ‘But I do,’ she said. ‘I have lost everyone, do not make me lose you too.’ She paused. ‘I love you, Pierre. I should have told you that this morning.’

  He looked round at her and as he did so La Roque moved, throwing himself away from the blade and towards Josie. The Major wrenched her back hard against the front of his body and drew his sword.

  ‘I think you might want to drop your weapons, Pierre,’ La Roque said as he pressed the edge of his sword to her throat.

  ‘Do not! He will kill you regardless,’ she managed to shout before the cold touch of the blade became an unbearable pressure that threatened to choke her.

  ‘Do it!’ urged La Roque in a coarse whisper, and she gasped as he began to tilt the blade edge towards her skin.

  Dammartin’s gaze met Josie’s, and she saw the agony in them and heard the clatter of his sabre and pistol hitting the floor. ‘Release her.’

  La Roque smiled. ‘Kick them over here.’

  Dammartin watched La Roque like a hawk watches its prey, his eyes locked on those of his godfather’s, as he did as he was bid. ‘This is not about Josie. Let her go.’

  La Roque gave a chuckle. ‘On the contrary, this is very much about Mademoiselle Mallington. She has destroyed everything for which I worked so hard.’

  He began to walk towards Dammartin, driving Josie before him as a shield.

  She could barely breathe for the blade, which seemed to press ever harder. He was going to kill Dammartin, she knew it, and there was nothing she could do, and still Dammartin just stood there, letting La Roque close the distance, and she wanted to cry out to him to run, that La Roque would kill her anyway. Dammartin must have known that, too, but there was nothing on his face save the cold hunger of a hunter.

  Just as they reached Dammartin, La Roque threw her away, before he lunged with his sword at Dammartin.

  She landed hard beneath the window. Her ears were filled with a scream and she did not know that it was her own voice that cried. Everything seemed to slow: movements, words, time itself as La Roque’s blade headed directly for Dammartin’s heart.

  To Josie there was no way he could evade the death-blow and she was yelling, her eyes widening with horror, scrambling to her feet—all too slow, too useless. And just as she thought the blade would strike she saw Dammartin react, sidestepping to come in so close to La Roque that their faces were almost touching, jerking La Roque’s wrist until the sword dropped to lie upon the floor. Then the two men were fighting, with fists and feet, kicking and punching, so that their blood began to splatter as each hit thumped home—flesh pounding against flesh, the sheer ferocity awful to watch.

  Josie tried to reach Dammartin’s sabre and pistol, or La Roque’s knife where they lay, but the two men were moving around the room so much that she could not get to them. She glanced around for anything that could be used as a weapon, anything to help Pierre. But there was nothing. When she looked again, Dammartin was punching and punching at La Roque, harder and harder, until his cuffs were soaked with La Roque’s blood, and La Roque lay limp upon the floor.

  Only then did Dammartin look at her.

  He stood there with his face cut and bruised and bleeding, and his coat torn and stained dark with blood, and in his eyes was such intensity that it took her breath away.

  He came to her then, walking slowly, and, reaching down to where she stood, pulled her up to him. ‘I did not believe you.’

  ‘It does not matter.’ He was alive, alive, and she was dizzy with the relief of it.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he whispered, and feathered kisses to the top of her head, her eyebrows, the tip of her nose. ‘So very sorry, for you and for your father.’

  She could feel that her cheeks were wet, and taste her tears mixed with his blood as his lips brushed hers.

  ‘My love.’ He caressed her face as he kissed her again and again, his eyes imploring her forgiveness. ‘My sweet Josie.’

  His arms wrapped around her, crushing her to him as if he would never let her go, as if he would merge their two bodies together.

  ‘What he said about your father’s messengers was a lie told to hurt you. We did not catch them, chérie.’

  Josie clung to him, as he clung to her, and in his caress, in his kiss, in his very touch he offered her all of his comfort, all of her strength, all of his love, and she accepted them wordlessly, weeping silently against his chest.

  They stayed that way until, at last, her eyes grew dry.

  Dammartin summoned two men to carry La Roque from the room. Only then did he leave to set in motion the accusation that would tell the world the truth of La Roque.

  The grey light of day had begun to fade by the time Dammartin returned to the bedchamber. He could see that the blood had been cleaned from the floor and walls and the room tidied.

  Josie was standing by the window when he entered, just as she had been when he had left for Valladolid earlier that day. Only a few hours had passed, and yet, in that small time, everything that was important in his life had changed. Nothing was the same.

  Her silhouette showed a slim figure; although she was looking at him, the fading light cast her face into shadow. His woman. His love.

  ‘It is done. La Roque is arrested. He is denying all, saying that you have driven me mad.’

  ‘But he confessed.’ He saw the worry on her face.

  ‘Only to us.’

  ‘There is my father’s journal.’

  ‘It alone does not prove La Roque’s guilt,’ he said.

  ‘He cannot murder your father and just get away with it.’ She stepped towards him, away from the window, and as she did so the dying light lit her face and he could see the outrage upon it.

  ‘He will not get away with it, Josie. The provost marshal shall have the sworn word of Jean Dammartin’s son of La Roque’s confession. The Spanish guerrilla leader will point out the man who paid him to kill my dragoons and me’

  ‘You brought him back with you?’

  ‘I could not leave such good evidence behind. There is also your father’s journal from Oporto, witness statements from my men that in Telemos your father could not fire a musket even when his daughter’s and his own life depended on it, and…’ he paused ‘…Molyneux’s testimony of the Major’s actions these past days.’

  ‘Molyneux will stand against him?’

  ‘Oh, yes. La Roque arranged for him to be killed along with the rest of us. That, together with the fact that he now understands exactly why La Roque was so determined to obtain the journal, has persuaded him most thoroughly. The evidence should convince a military court, but even if it does not, it is enough that people will know the truth of La Roque. All of France will know it and that, not death, is the greatest punishment for a man like him.’ He smiled a small smile. ‘Your father’s name will be cleared, Josie.’

  She looked at him and he could see the sparkle of moisture in her eyes. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It is I who should thank you.’ His eyes scanned hers.

  ‘Then we are even,’ she said, and her voice sounded husky. ‘What will happen now to us…to me?’

  ‘Your father asked that I keep you safe until I could return you to the British. I have failed on the former.’

  ‘You did not fail—I am safe, am I not?’

  Sorrow and regret weighed heavy upon him. ‘I exposed you to La Roque, and…’ he thought of his interrogating her, of his kissing her, bedd
ing her ‘…my treatment of you has hardly been honourable.’

  She sighed and shook her head. ‘Pierre.’

  ‘I should take you to Lisbon, give you into Wellington’s keeping.’ He walked forwards, only stopping when there was no space between them. ‘And I will do it…if that is what you want.’ He waited, and Dammartin was truly afraid. He felt the beat of his heart and the throb of the pulse in his throat. He waited because he loved her and it was her decision to make.

  Her gaze clung to his. ‘And if that is not what I want?’

  He smiled and took her hands in his. ‘Marry me, Josie.’

  He saw the surprise and joy light her face.

  ‘Marry me because I cannot face my life ahead without you, because I want you in my bed each and every night. Marry me because I love you, Josie Mallington.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and she was smiling with overflowing joy. ‘I will gladly marry you, Pierre Dammartin.’

  ‘I will speak to General Gardanne’s chaplain in the morning; we will be married before the week is out.’

  And then she was in his arms and he was kissing her, kissing her with all the love and tenderness that was in his heart.

  He lifted her into his arms and carried her over to lay her on the bed and as the sun set low in the sky, he showed her just how very much he loved her, again and again and again.

  Afterwards, they wrapped the blankets around their nakedness and stood together in comfortable, sated silence by the window, looking up at the clear white disc of the moon and the glitter of the scattered stars.

  Dammartin’s voice sounded through the quietness. ‘Next week, we march with the convalescents and the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo to meet up with the main French army.’ He paused. ‘We are for Santarém. We are part of Massena’s reinforcements.’ The moonlight showed the planes of his face all stark and angular, and the gouge of his scar and the concern upon his face. She saw the intensity of his gaze. ‘You know what that means, do you not you, Josie?’