Her knees trembled, and Sergeant Atkins offered her a steadying arm. “You’re very brave, Mrs. Arrington.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “But I’ve never been more terrified in my life.”
He shook his head, and one corner of his mouth turned up in a tender half smile. He drew her hand more securely into the crook of his elbow. “Brave,” he said firmly.
Their eyes locked, and Anna wished she could melt against his side for shelter from the clamoring fears that beset her.
Sergeant Reynolds cleared his throat, and they jumped guiltily apart.
The two mounted French officers appeared again, flanked by about a dozen of their infantry. When the riflemen saw them, they stood straighter. Anna recognized their angry, affronted pride at being forced into this surrender and determined to emulate it. She didn’t want their captors to see her trembling and fearful. She had her own pride. She was a Gordon, from a long line of Highland warriors. She wouldn’t dishonor her heritage.
So she held her head high as the officers rode up to them and dismounted. At a word from the younger officer, the infantrymen stepped forward and divested the riflemen of their weapons. Glancing down the line of wagons, Anna saw similar scenes playing out. Here and there bodies, British and French alike, lined the road, and wounded groaned and called for help in two languages. Already Mr. Timperley and his colleagues worked among them.
The older officer, the smug, triumphant one, spoke first. “I see no officers on their feet,” he said in French, “so I must treat with you.”
His arrogance pushed Anna past her breaking point. Rather than murmuring a translation to Sergeant Atkins, she lashed out in her careful schoolroom French. “Why did you fire upon us? Could you not see we only carry wounded?”
The officer blinked at her, then examined her from head to toe. Anna flushed, conscious of her mud-coated dress, her disheveled hair, and the fact that her bonnet had tumbled off and been abandoned when Sergeant Atkins first threw her to the road.
“I see that we shall be honored with an English lady guest,” he said at last.
“Guest? That is a strange word for prisoner.”
“Ah, but madame, these grasshoppers will be our prisoners. You will be our honored guest.”
His words should have reassured her, but they had the opposite effect. “The only honor I wish for is to continue my journey home unimpeded.”
“Home, you say? I thought, perhaps, you were the wife of the officer we shot at the first, but already you are in black…you are a widow, on your way back to England, yes?”
The predatory gleam in his eyes grew, and the chill of fear down Anna’s spine intensified. If only she hadn’t given so much away already. Had she not said she was on her way home, had she not made her rank obvious by speaking decent French, she could’ve claimed to be a soldier’s wife and stayed in safety among the captive riflemen.
“Oui,” she said curtly.
He bowed. “I am Colonel Robuchon. And you, my dear Madame…”
“Arrington,” she said reluctantly.
“Enchanté, Madame Arrington. I shall look forward to our time together, but now I must return to my duties. My second, here, Commandant Pelletier, speaks English, and he will arrange all the tiresome little details. Until this evening, madame.” With another bow, he mounted his chestnut gelding and rode away.
“What was that about?” Sergeant Atkins muttered.
“The colonel assuring me I would be treated as an honored guest,” she said bleakly.
“I don’t like the way he looked at you.”
“Neither do I. The other one speaks English, by the way.”
His brows narrowed. “I see. Go find Mrs. Kent and Juana, and stick together, all three of you.”
She nodded. Surely Mrs. Kent’s mature years and dignified demeanor would lend added respectability to them all.
“Flaherty, go with her.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” said a fair-haired, freckled young rifleman with a strong Irish accent.
Guarded by her new escort, Anna hurried down the line of wagons in search of the other women. Surely the worst of her fears were baseless. The French were not brutes, no matter how oddly Colonel Robuchon behaved, and she had Sergeant Atkins and all the others on her side.
Chapter Seven
Will stood with Commandant Pelletier as the surgeons treated the wounded, a burial detail gathered the dead, and the French soldiers disarmed his company. They were to be marched to a nearby village, where the rest of the French force awaited them, and held prisoner for a time. Will gathered their captors numbered a little under a thousand altogether. He still wasn’t sure why they had been attacked, but based on certain of Pelletier’s remarks, he suspected they had stumbled upon a force awaiting something or someone important. To keep from alerting the British army to their presence, they must hold this little convoy that had blundered into them captive until their business was complete.
Pelletier had a worried, careworn face. He couldn’t have been more than a few years older than Will himself, but his fears were well on the way to making him old before his time. He leaned over to speak in Will’s ear. “I think it only right to warn you that Colonel Robuchon is a madman.”
Madness in a commanding officer would explain why he had opened fire when he should’ve negotiated, but Will instinctively shook his head. “Mad?”
“Oui.”
“He didn’t look mad when he spoke to Mrs. Arrington,” Will said.
“Ah, but you did not like the way he looked at her, did you?”
Will shook his head. “But if every man who ogled a woman were mad, there wouldn’t be asylums enough to hold us all.”
“The colonel’s madness is not of the obvious, raving kind,” Commandant Pelletier said. “Did you hear the shouting, after your surrender?”
“I did.”
“I argued with him. He wanted to kill you all, even after you had surrendered. Only a dead man cannot bear tales, he said. I persuaded him that he must not do a thing so dishonorable.”
Will whistled through his teeth. “He would’ve killed us all?”
Pelletier nodded.
“Butchered the wounded in the wagons?”
“Them as well.”
Juana and Mrs. Arrington came into view, escorted by Flaherty. Both women looked pale, and they held hands. Juana clutched her baby tightly against her shoulder. Mrs. Kent was nowhere in sight. They stopped twenty yards away and waited. Mrs. Arrington looked at him. He knew that she was afraid and brave enough to hide it, and that she saw him as her protector.
He swallowed. “And the women? The baby?”
The commandant wouldn’t meet his eyes. “The women might be allowed to live—for a time, given as rewards to his favorites.”
Will felt sick. “And what will happen to them now? What’s to stop him from doing the same?”
Pelletier shrugged. “I will try to persuade him that it is to his credit to treat them honorably. I believe I can prevent him from sharing them out as spoils, but I am very much afraid Madame Arrington has inflamed him with her defiance. If I know him at all, he means to have her for himself.”
Will instinctively reached for his missing rifle. “No,” he growled.
“What do you intend to do about it, Sergeant?” Pelletier asked wearily.
In his anger at his powerlessness he rounded on Pelletier. “If the man is so mad, why do you serve under him? Wouldn’t mutiny be better?”
“I have dreamed of it a dozen times over, but it cannot be. He has too many well-placed friends, above him in the army and beneath him in this command. He was a fine officer once, before this madness came upon him, and many are still unwilling to believe he has changed. There is nothing you or I can do for the woman, so you had best forget her.”
Will looked at Commandant Pelletier with a contempt he didn’t bother attempting to hide. He stalked off to join the women, his mind working furiously. The least he could do was warn Mrs. Arrington.
Beyond that, he didn’t know, but he had no intention of abandoning her.
***
“Will does not like what the Frenchman tells him,” Juana commented.
“Not in the least,” Anna agreed. Sergeant Atkins made a splendid figure in his barely suppressed rage, standing tall, anger and contempt etched on his strong-boned features.
He joined them, his expression softening a trifle. “Juana, you are well?” he asked.
She nodded.
“And the baby?”
“Sí. The noise frightened her, but she is well.”
“Where is Mrs. Kent?”
Anna and Juana exchanged glances. “Dead,” Anna said. “We found her near one of the wagons.”
She didn’t so much grieve her traveling companion as simmer with fury over the senselessness of her death. To die in such a fashion, when all she had wanted was to go home!
Sergeant Atkins nodded. “I see. I’m sorry. She seemed like a kind lady.”
“She was.”
He sighed. “Flaherty, you can go join your messmates. Juana, Mrs. Arrington, walk with me.”
“Will they keep us long, do you think?” Anna asked as they made their way toward the front of the column.
“A week, maybe,” Sergeant Atkins replied. “They’re waiting for something—or someone—and they can’t let us go until it’s too late for us to warn our army. And they need a surgeon, too. They’ve a captain near death from a fever—the colonel’s pet, a son of one of Boney’s advisors.”
Anna nodded.
“In the meantime,” he said, “I’d feel better if the two of you stuck together. Juana, would you mind posing as Mrs. Arrington’s maid? I hate to take you away from Dan, but you’ll probably be better quartered and fed.”
“Of course I’ll do it,” Juana said.
Anna thanked her, and Sergeant Atkins nodded. “Good. Both of you, be on your guard. The less attention you attract, the better. Mrs. Arrington, you especially. That colonel has an eye for you, and from what Pelletier told me, he’s not to be trusted, maybe not even sane.”
Anna felt the blood drain from her face.
“I know, ma’am,” he said. “I know. I wish I’d tried longer for a clear shot at him. Try to befriend Pelletier—he’s a weak man, but maybe if he knows you a little, he’ll show some backbone for your sake. I’ll warn the surgeon, Timperley, as well. I doubt we’ll be quartered anywhere near you, but if there’s any way I can help you, I will.”
She forced a smile. “Thank you.”
“Be brave,” he said. “And both of you, look out for each other. We’ll get through this.”
Sergeant Atkins squeezed her arm in reassurance, and somehow she felt that as long as he was near, all would be well.
***
When they reached the front of the column, Will left the women with Dan. As they began their march, he sought out Mr. Timperley.
“Can you treat this captain of theirs?” he asked.
The surgeon shrugged. “I’ll have to see him even to guess. All Commandant Pelletier could tell me was that he has a high fever and is delirious. Fortunately we left camp well-stocked with medicines. I’ll take Grant with me when I examine him. He knows more of physic than I do—I’m better at surgery, and the quick and clean amputation.”
Will shuddered.
“It’s an important skill, Sergeant,” Mr. Timperley chided. “You wouldn’t want to drag a useless, mangled limb behind you wherever you went.”
“If I can’t live whole, I’d as soon die.”
“You would die. Slowly, of inflammation or gangrene. If it were your friend, that other sergeant, would you want him dead?”
“No,” Will admitted.
“Doubtless your friends would say the same of you.”
“I hope it never comes to that.”
“As do I. The fewer opportunities I have to practice my skills, the happier I am.”
They walked in silence for a few moments. The French soldiers who marched alongside them sang a song. Even without understanding a word of it, Will knew it was triumphant, and his bitterness grew.
“Sir, would you ask that the women, Mrs. Arrington and Juana Martínez, be given leave to nurse our soldiers?” he asked. “I’d feel better if they were where some of our own people could keep an eye on them. Anything you can do to keep Mrs. Arrington away from Colonel Robuchon, in particular, would be a blessing.”
“I’ll do all that I may, Sergeant. I take your point. They are both remarkably pretty, and it would be a shame if anyone took advantage, with the one so newly a mother and the other so freshly a widow.”
Will thanked him, though Juana’s motherhood and Mrs. Arrington’s widowhood were hardly the point. But at least the surgeon was willing to help. The more people there were between Mrs. Arrington and that colonel, the better.
Mr. Timperley excused himself to consult with Mr. Grant. Will kept to himself for the rest of the journey. Out of habit he noted the terrain—there to the left a bit of woods that offered good cover, to the right a steep, rocky outcropping that would slow both flight and pursuit—though he saw no use in trying to escape.
The shame of the surrender still smoldered, and he was half-frantic with his fears for Mrs. Arrington, but he forced himself to stay clear-headed. He must see to it that his men and the British wounded were treated well. He must also make it clear to the men of the company just how important it was that they behave themselves.
He glanced at Mrs. Arrington, not daring to let his gaze linger. She walked with her head high and her jaw set defiantly. Will admired her all the more for her pride and anger.
They entered the village, and Will noted its layout, typical of larger villages in the area. Several streets of houses and shops clustered around the inevitable church. By now it was midafternoon and hot, so there were few locals about, but Will sensed many eyes peering at them through half-shuttered windows and doorways left open in hopes of catching a breeze. How must they feel, made to play host to their enemies, especially now that they saw their allies led in as captives?
Colonel Robuchon met them in the village square. He and Commandant Pelletier conferred, and Pelletier spoke to their junior officers, who began barking orders. The wagons full of English and French wounded trundled toward the church—ever a popular choice for a field hospital. Will and the rest of the company were led, with a certain amount of jeering and shoving, to a barn behind the largest house. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Mrs. Arrington and Juana enter the house itself. Colonel Robuchon had Mrs. Arrington on his arm, though she touched it only with the tips of her fingers. Fear and distaste radiated from her frame. Will swallowed hard.
The French had emptied the barn, but hadn’t mucked it out. It was a small space, divided into half a dozen stalls. The seventy non-wounded riflemen would barely have room to lie down. The only light came from two high windows at opposite ends of the barn and from the open doorway, where two soldiers stood guard.
Will spoke briefly to the men, telling them that if they provoked their captors now, it would only lead to empty slaughter, but if they kept their heads, they would live to avenge the company’s honor on the battlefield.
When he was done, he left it to the corporals to sort out the jumble of soldiers. He and Dan stood near the door and talked in low voices. Will repeated all Pelletier had told him of Robuchon’s nature.
Dan shook his head. “So we had a narrower escape than we knew. Poor Mrs. Arrington.”
Will peered through the open doorway and over the guards’ shoulders at the big house. “I wish I knew where she was.”
“You can’t protect her, Will. None of us can. If you really think having Juana with her is going to help—”
Will bit his lip. “I don’t want to put Juana in danger. You know that, don’t you?”
“What I know is that only one woman matters to you now.”
“That’s not true,” Will protested. “Juana is my friend.”
“I know,” Dan
said wearily. “And she’s my woman, and I wouldn’t have let her stay with Mrs. Arrington if I thought it was too dangerous. She’s not the one he’s after.”
Will noticed movement at a window on the ground floor. “Look there.”
Juana and Mrs. Arrington stood together at an open window. Juana had her baby cradled against her shoulder. Will doubted the women could see them where they stood in the shadows. Even if they could, they were wise enough not to draw attention to themselves by making any sign. He and Dan watched silently until the women closed the shutters.
***
Anna stepped away from the window and took stock of their quarters. Were they not prisoners, she would have considered this room luxurious. A heavy four-poster bed with hangings and coverlet of crimson brocade dominated the space. She and Juana would have to share it, but as long as Colonel Robuchon stayed away she was content. She had spent many nights in the same bed with Helen and the children when there wasn’t space enough in a billet to quarter all the married officers separately.
They also had a washstand, a low table, and two ornately carved chairs whose upholstery matched the bed hangings. A thick rug in an even darker red cushioned her feet with unaccustomed softness.
Just after their arrival, a servant girl had brought a pitcher filled with fresh water. Half an hour later, two soldiers under Commandant Pelletier’s supervision had brought in a cradle and set it at the foot of the bed, followed by two more bearing Anna’s trunk. She couldn’t deny that they were being treated well, but still she was nervous and ill at ease.
“I suppose I should dress for dinner,” Anna said. “At least the other officers will be there, not just Colonel Robuchon, and our surgeons. Still, I dread it. I only wish they’d treat our sergeants like officers and ask them to dine. After all, with Lieutenant O’Brian gone and Lieutenant Montmorency injured, they are in command.”
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