Violet v-5

by Jane Feather

  Tamsyn knew where Longa was. But if news of her capture could reach the guerrilla leader before she broke, then he would be able to disappear. She had to pray that someone was aware of it, that the news was even now traveIing to Pamplona. Her men had scattered in the ambush-those who hadn't been killed-all except for Gabriel. And where was Gabriel? Somewhere in this wretched hole, if they'd left him alive. Perhaps he was even now breaking free. It was impossible to imagine that giant oak of a man held captive by ordinary human bonds. And if Gabriel freed himself, then he would come for her.

  She had to endure.

  The rope slackened and she came back on her feet again, but the colonel's hand was on her shirt. Instead of ripping it, he unbuttoned it slowly and deliberately.

  Her skin was now icy as she saw the knife he held in his other hand. Bitter nausea rose in her throat. Of all things, she dreaded the knife the most. Could Cornichet know that? Know of her invincible terror at the sight of her own torn skin, her own crimson blood escaping… Black spots danced in front of her eyes, and she clung to consciousness with every last fiber of her being.

  One of the other men came over, smiling. He moved behind her and pulled the shirt from her as the last button came undone. He grasped her wrists, dragging her arms behind her so that her breasts were pushed forward. Rough rope cut into her wrists. She could feel the soft tremble of her breasts on her rib cage.

  “Such a pity,” murmured Cornichet, moving the knife around the small swell of her right breast. “Such delicate skin. One wouldn't expect it of a brigand, a thief and a plunderer.” The tip traced the circle of her nipple. “Don't make me do this,” he said, cajoling. “Tell me where Longa is.”

  She said nothing, trying to take her mind away from the hut with the flickering candlelight and the ceaseless drumming of the rain; trying not to feel the cold flat of the knife, pressed now against her breast so that the edge was sharp on her flesh, but not yet cutting.

  “You will tell me where Longa is,” the colonel continued in the same almost pensive tone. “And then you will describe the passes through the Guadarrama heights -the ones you and your friends use.”

  Still she said nothing. Then she was spinning on the end of the rope as the man behind her whirled her to face the wall. The rope was pulled tight, and she came up on her toes again as they fastened it to a hook much higher on the wall. She felt the knife on her back now, and it was worse, much worse, when she couldn't see it. The tip scribbled down her spine, and she waited for the first nick. It would be a slow flaying, she knew; innumerable little cuts, drawing beads of blood until the stream flowed.

  There was a strange smell. For a second Tamsyn didn't recognize it as she fought the terror for control, waiting for the next touch of the knife. Someone coughed behind her. Her breath caught in her throat. The tightness of the collar and her fear… but, no. It was smoke. Thick black smoke creeping under the door. Oily, sullen smoke billowing through the hut, defying the rain. Acrid, choking smoke.

  Cornichet cursed, whirling toward the door. One of the others was there before him, wrenching it open. He fell back before the black rolling cloud.

  A bugle sounded. An impudent clarion call. And then chaos broke out. In the choking smoke men struggled with black-clad wraiths who seemed to appear from nowhere, swords drawn. The sharp crack of rifles mingled with the curses and exclamations. A scream of pain.

  Tamsyn tried to swing herself on her toes away from the wall, but with her hands bound she could get no leverage and could only imagine what was going on in the acrid darkness behind her. Her mind was racing as she tried to think of some way of capitalizing on this amazing piece of good fortune. But strung up as she was, there seemed nothing she could do to help herself. Could it be Gabriel causing this chaos?

  Then miraculously the rope holding her to the wall parted. The tension was abruptly released, and she fell to her knees.

  “Get up!” a voice said in English. A knife sliced through the bonds at her wrists.

  Tamsyn wasted no time questioning her good fortune. She struggled to her feet, choking as the greasy black smoke curled around her.

  “Quickly!” the same voice commanded. “Move!” A hand in the small of her back propelled her forward.

  There was something irritatingly peremptory about her rescuer, but circumstances didn't lend themselves to protest. Her eyes stung with the smoke, and her lungs heaved. She ducked sideways away from the propelling hand to catch up her shirt, glimmering white on the floor at her feet. She thrust her arms in the sleeves before covering her mouth and nose with her forearm, then staggered forward, that hard hand in her back again, pushing rather than guiding her toward the door.

  All around her, men swayed, cursed, coughed, fought for the door. Outside it was hardly better. Every hut seemed to be smoldering, sending greasy clouds into the rain, and men ran hither and thither grabbing up possessions, shouting orders.

  Again the bugle sounded and she recognized the note of retreat. The man still pushing her forward bellowed, “The Sixth to me.” Then her feet left the ground and he was carrying her, running with her through the mud and the rain and the confusion, dodging blue formed Frenchmen.

  Men wrapped in dark cloaks were racing to a clearing where twenty horses pawed the ground and whickered, the whites of their eyes showing as they smelled smoke.

  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 semi-naked, 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, 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 ba
rn. 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 collar 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-Iost 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, senorita,” 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 shuffling 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 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 indentati
on 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.

  Julian found himself looking at her, examining her properly for the first time as his surge of righteous anger died beneath the truth of her counterattack. Pale hair like corn silk formed a close-cut cap around a small head, a roughly chopped fringe wisping on her forehead. Her eyes were almond-shaped, thick-lashed, and deep purple beneath arched fair eyebrows that gave her a rather quizzical air.

  “Good God, comparison with a violet wasn't just whimsy,” he said slowly into the tense silence. “But you belong to a rather thorny species, I suspect.”

  His fingers tightened, and for a moment his mouth hovered over hers so that Tamsyn could feel his breath on her lips and the sense of inhabiting some space and time that held only the two of them intensified. When his mouth met hers, it felt inevitable, and she was sliding down into a warm, musky darkness bounded by the scent of his rain-wet skin, the rasp of stubble against her cheek, the firm pliancy of his lips on hers.

  Then the trance was shattered, and she jerked her head away, bringing her hand up to smash against his cheek. “Bastardo!” Her voice shook. “Bastard!” She spat the words at him. “You rape your prisoners, do you, English Colonel? I thought it was only your English foot soldiers who indulged themselves in such fashion. But I imagine they take example from their officers.”

  The depth of her rage, the power of the hatred that lay beneath it, stunned him for a minute. He stared at her, his hand unconsciously pressed to his stinging cheek. Then suddenly he took her face between both hands and brought his mouth to hers again, this time with a bruising force that crushed her lips against her teeth and forced her head back against the wall.

  When he released her, she didn't move, her face a pale shape in the gloom, her eyes dark pools.

  “In future you won't confuse a mutual kiss with violation,” he declared, his voice tight, his anger directed as much at himself as at the girl. He couldn't imagine what had possessed him. He made it a rule never to amuse himself with women connected even tenuously with any of the armies marching through the Peninsula. “You ever insult me in that fashion again, mi muchacha, and I won't answer for the consequences.”