by Carla Kelly
‘That is indelicate,’ she agreed, then laughed. ‘Just do your business! We’re not standing much on ceremony, are we?’
‘No, indeed. We cannot.’
She helped the Colonel to his feet when he found he could not stand, after all those hours of holding her on his lap. It took him a moment to stand up straight.
‘Good God, Brandon. I will announce to you right now that I am feeling every single year this morning! I am also never going to joke again about men on horseback. How do they do it? I am still in pain from gripping that damned beast. My kingdom for an ocean.’
He stood another moment in silence. She was too shy to ask him if he needed assistance in walking across the granary. After copious cursing under his breath that she chose to ignore, he got himself in motion. In another moment, she heard the homely sound of water against the wall.
When he returned to her side, it was her turn, moving slowly in the other direction until she found the bucket. When she finished, she groped along the wall, following the sound of the Colonel’s voice until she ran into him again. When she sat by his side this time, his arm seemed to go around her automatically.
He yawned. ‘I think I could eat a whole pig, but something tells me we’re not going to be well fed on this journey.’
‘I must be philosophical,’ she told him. ‘I told myself when I came to Portugal that this would be a good time to get rid of what Miss Pym called my baby fat.’
‘Miss Pym be damned,’ he replied mildly, ‘and spare me skinny females. I might remind you that you’re supposed to be eating for two.’
‘Wretch!’ she said with feeling. ‘Perhaps to while away the hours, we should play a game of “It Could Be Worse”.’ The words weren’t out of her mouth before she saw Sister Maria Madelena, kneeling in the church. ‘No. No. Not that.’
‘No,’ the Colonel agreed. ‘We know it could be worse.’ He touched her head with his. ‘Tell me something about yourself that I don’t know already, Brandon.’
She thought a moment, remembering what he already knew about her that she had divulged on the trip across the Channel. ‘You already know I am the illegitimate daughter of a scoundrel whom you have resurrected and made into a wealthy man, for Sergeant Cadotte’s benefit, if I am taken care of. That was a nice touch, husband.’
‘Why, thank you,’ he said modestly. ‘If raising the dead to provide money in desperate situations doesn’t paint me as a Scot, I don’t know what would, considering my own French ancestry.’
She laughed. ‘Hugh, darling, I would say your ancestors were quick studies.’
‘They were, indeed, Polly, dear,’ he teased, unruffled. ‘There’s nothing like political intrigue, plus menace from Queen Elizabeth and her Privy Council, to sharpen the mind, apparently. The original Philippe d’Anvers Junot obviously knew when to fold his tent and steal away. Evidently he also discovered he preferred oats and Calvinism to truffles and popes. What a resourceful man.’
Her laughter bounced back at her from the opposite wall. ‘Your French is so good. Does the ghost of Philippe Junot the First linger in your family’s schoolroom?’
The Colonel pulled her on to his lap again, and she couldn’t think of a single reason to object. ‘Our estate is too new to be haunted, Brandon! Your brain is overactive. We “Junnits” have always learned to speak French. It’s a family tradition. I was luckier than most—I have no particular ear for language, but in 1803 before that laughable Peace of Amiens, I spent six months cooling my heels in a French prison. What a tutorial.’
Polly squinted into the darkness, trying to see some evidence of dawn. ‘I hope you had more light than in here.’
‘Light and then some, Polly, dear. That southern coast of France is devilish hot.’
He didn’t say anything else, but she suddenly found herself longing for him to keep talking, to distract her from the granary, her hunger and the itch between her shoulder blades, and the fear that seemed to overlay every rational part of her brain.
‘I’m afraid,’ she said finally, speaking low, maybe not even wanting him to hear her. ‘Please keep talking.’
He did, to her relief, telling her about his childhood in Kirkcudbrightshire, where it rained six days out of seven; the gardens of madly blooming roses in everyone’s front garden; the hours he spent in small boats in the Firth of Solway; the year he chafed away at the University of Edinburgh until he convinced his father to see him into the Royal Marines; and his years in deepwater service, doing exactly what he loved.
As she listened to his musical accent and soothing voice, she realised how little her life was, in relation to his, how modest and unexceptionable. She knew that most women lived quiet lives at home. Her beloved sister Nana waited, agonised, and bore up magnificently under the strain of loving a man too often gone. Her equally well-loved sister Laura had chosen a different path, but it still revolved around her husband and her son, even as she used her own medical skills quietly in the shadow.
‘Women don’t amount to much,’ she said, when the Colonel finished.
‘What brought that on?’ he asking, laughing.
‘I was just thinking about how little I do, compared to you. We women wait, mostly.’ She smiled in the dark, casting away whatever of her reserve that remained of the intimate situation in which she now found herself. ‘We have husbands and babies, real or imagined, and that is all.’
‘“That is all”, eh? I doubt even Nana Worthy realizes how much her Captain yearns for her. I suspect she is his centre of calm in a world gone mad. He probably even calls her his True North. I would, and I don’t even know your sister.’
Leaning back against the Colonel, Polly digested what he had said. Her first reaction was embarrassment, because this man she admired had no compunction about speaking his mind in such a frank way. She was struck also by her own words. ‘We women’ had seldom entered her mind before, let alone her vocabulary. Maybe her years as a student, and then the cushion, three years ago, of discovering her own protective sisters, had helped to keep her young. Maybe it was the casual way she now sat on the Colonel’s lap and how suddenly she was so aware of his arms around her. Something stirred inside her, and it wasn’t hunger or fear.
Maybe it had even stirred yesterday on the barco, when she dragged the partially conscious Colonel Junot on to her lap to protect him. Protect him from what, when women were so easily thrown aside and trampled on? I thought I could save him, she told herself in the gloom of the granary. I felt stronger than lions, just then.
‘Maybe you’ll understand better when you fall in love some day, Polly, dear,’ the Colonel said in her ear.
She had to think of something to lighten her mood, which was troubling her almost more than the total darkness and the potential brevity of her life. ‘You sound like someone who knows,’ she told him.
‘Aye, Polly, dear, I know what it is to love someone,’ he said after a lengthy pause.
I am put in my place, Polly thought, embarrassed. Of course Colonel Junot had a lover somewhere. Why would he not? Who could there possibly be in the universe who did not think him attractive and worth more than gold?
She couldn’t think of another thing to say, but it didn’t matter, because the bolt was thrown on the granary’s small door, and it swung open to reveal bright morning outside. She squinted in the light, then glanced at the Colonel, who was doing the same thing. She also knew she should get off his lap, but his arms tightened around her.
‘I wish I knew what was coming, Polly, dear,’ he murmured. He loosened his grip. ‘Up you get, but I’m going out first.’
She willingly let him, not eager to have a soldier on the outside grab her hand. With a groan that made the soldiers outside laugh, the Colonel crawled through the entrance. Captured by the irrational terror that someone would slam the door now and leave her there in eternal darkness, Polly wanted to race after him. In another moment, Colonel Junot’s hand reached for her. She grasped it for a second, then crouched her way out
of the granary.
Polly took his hand again and they stood shoulder to shoulder, watching the enemy, looking this morning like most men campaigning in any army: dirty, smelly, and barely awake. She thought of her brother-in-law Philemon glowering at the breakfast table until Laura brought him tea.
It was obvious there wouldn’t be any tea, and not even anything beyond yesterday’s hardtack, doled out in a smaller amount. When Hugh asked Cadotte if he could fetch water for all of them from the well in the square, the NCO only shrugged.
‘You would not wish it, Junnit,’ he replied. ‘The well is full of either Portuguese corpses or French ones. I didn’t look too closely.’
Polly shuddered and moved closer to the Colonel. Cadotte unbent enough to nod to her. ‘Madame Junnit, I do wish we had something more to offer you than hardtack. I truly do.’
It stung her to think the Sergeant was worried about her non-existent unborn child. All she could do was blush and avert her gaze from his, which—all things considered—was probably the correct attitude. Coupled with her lie, the knowledge of her hypocrisy only stung her more.
‘You are too kind, Sergeant,’ she murmured.
It was Cadotte’s turn to appear uneasy. He frowned and looked away, growling at some fictitious misdemeanor perpetrated by one or another of his hardened Dragoons to alleviate his embarrassment. Or so she thought, as she watched. ‘I must keep reminding myself that he is some woman’s husband,’ she whispered to the Colonel.
‘That will render the Sergeant less odious?’ Hugh asked, amused.
‘Certainly,’ she replied crisply. ‘Hugh, darling,’ she added, which made him chuckle.
Because there was no food, there was little preparation before the Sergeant gave the order for his men to mount. Lips twitching, he watched Colonel Junot heave himself into the saddle with a sigh and a grimace. Without a word, Cadotte tied his hands together again, then tied Polly’s together before lifting her gently into the saddle in front of the Colonel.
‘I wish you would trust me enough to leave my hands untied,’ Hugh grumbled as he lifted his arms and encircled Polly again.
‘Trust you enough? I don’t trust you at all,’ the Sergeant said frankly, as he mounted his own horse. ‘We are riding north and east now, covering rough terrain and staying off the roads. If we see partisans, we will hide, because we are a small squad that probably never should have survived our mission to São Jobim, so close to the British lines.’
‘I thought as much,’ Hugh murmured. ‘You were some Lieutenant’s forlorn hope, weren’t you?’
Cadotte looked down his long nose at them until Hugh was silent. ‘That is hardly your business, Colonel. If we encounter partisans and you do anything to attract them, I will shoot you and turn Madame Junnit over to my troopers. Am I perfectly clear?’
‘As crystal,’ Hugh snapped.
The two men glared at each other. Cadotte handed the reins of Hugh’s horse to his Corporal and spurred his horse to the head of the line. The squad began to move at a moderate gait, leaving the deserted village behind and turning away from the Douro.
Polly looked ahead at the mountains and shook her head. ‘We’re to cross those?’ she asked.
‘It would seem so,’ Hugh replied. ‘Our Sergeant knows he is in dangerous territory. I’m a little surprised he didn’t make me take off my red tunic.’ He sighed. ‘Of course, any remaining mountain people—montagnards—are probably no more fond of the British than they are the French. Portugal is a carcass picked clean.’
‘Do you wonder why he didn’t just shoot us back there?’ Polly asked.
‘Polly, dear, I’m actually surprised he let us out of the granary,’ the Colonel replied, and tightened his arms around her at her sudden intake of breath. Glancing at the Sergeant, who was watching them, he nuzzled her cheek. ‘I don’t think he believes I will give him any money for his farm. Men at war tend to be cynical, and who can blame them?’
‘Then why are we alive?’
‘Polly, dear, I wish I knew his game.’
It was no game, she decided, after three days of weary riding through narrow mountain passes that made her close her eyes and turn her face into Hugh’s tunic. Her jaws ached from gritting her teeth as the horses—the big-boned animals that French cavalry used—sidled along nearly imaginary trails far above boiling mountain streams.
She knew the heights bothered Hugh, although he did not admit as much. Once when their horse stumbled, sending rocks plunging down into the gorge, he came close to admitting his own fear. ‘Polly, dear, I would trade about five and a half years off my life this moment if we were suddenly transported to the deck of a frigate.’
You must be sorely tried, to admit as much, Polly thought, as she screwed her eyes shut against that awful moment when they would plunge off the mountain face. ‘Hugh, darling, you must have mice in your pockets,’ she managed to squeak out, when she could talk. ‘You know how I feel about life on the rolling wave.’
He was silent for a long moment, then all he said was, ‘Bless your heart, Brandon, you’re a rare one.’
She didn’t feel like a rare one. She was grimy, smelly, and hungry, with filmy teeth and a constantly growling stomach. The blood from the noisome floor of the church at São Jobim had stained her light blue muslin dress, which was also torn now, and muddy from a night spent shivering in the Colonel’s arms as they were tied to a tree. Still, she decided the tree was better than the claustrophobia of the granary, if only she weren’t so cold.
Somewhere, far below in the lovely coastal valleys of the Rio Douro, it was late summer. Here in the tras o montes region, autumn had begun, and with it a light mist that fogged the upper valleys and brought relief only to the Dragoons. Now the troopers travelled with caution, but visible relief, because the mist obscured their presence from watchful partisans. They stopped for nothing after the second day, when even the hardtack gave out.
‘Tell me, Hugh, darling, are the French so poor they cannot even feed their soldiers?’ she asked the Colonel after one noon stop when the only refreshment was cold water from a stream.
‘It’s not that they cannot, but that they choose not,’ Hugh said, as they walked shoulder to shoulder along the bank. ‘Napoleon believes that his Grand Armée should feed itself in the field.’
‘I don’t think much of that,’ she retorted.
Hugh laughed softly. ‘You should demand that Sergeant Cadotte take you to Napoleon so you can give him a piece of your mind.’
Polly glared at him. ‘I know you’re hungry. Don’t try to tell me you’re not.’
‘I’m hungry,’ he agreed, ‘but I’ve been hungrier. Brandon, as long as we get drinking water, we’ll be all right. You’ll be amazed how long we can last without food.’
‘Mostly I’m tired,’ she admitted, and stopped walking. ‘What can I do about that?’
‘Get something to eat,’ he said wearily. ‘Bit of a vicious circle, ain’t it?’
She couldn’t help the tears that spilled on to her cheeks then, even though she tried to brush at them. It would have been easy to do that if her hands hadn’t been tied. As it was, she couldn’t hide them.
To comfort her, Hugh raised his tied hands and dropped them around her, pulling her close to him. With a shudder, she rested her cheek against his chest as his chin came down on the top of her head.
‘Why did Sister Maria Madelena do what she did?’ Polly asked.
‘For love of her country, I expect, and fierce anger at the French and the way they treated her,’ the Colonel replied. He peered at her face. ‘Have you never loved something enough to risk everything, even your life, for it?’
‘I suppose I have not,’ she said, after some thought. ‘Have you?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said, more promptly than she. ‘Perhaps that is why I am a Royal Marine until I die.’
She thought that over, then dismissed the idea. Maybe I will understand when I am older, she told herself. ‘But why did she involve me?’
‘That we will never know, Polly, my love,’ he said.
‘It’s “Polly, dear”,’ she reminded him.
‘I thought I would change the dialogue a little, Polly, dear,’ he replied. ‘Variety is, after all, the spice of life, or so I am told. I doubt you want a boring, predictable husband.’
She had to smile then. ‘When I get home to England, I am going to vie for the attention of an apothecary or perhaps a comptroller.’
‘Too boring by half,’ he said, his voice light. ‘You’ll rue it the moment you get in bed with him.’
Startled, she looked up at him, and saw the laughter in his eyes. He glanced over at the bank. ‘Uh oh, the Sergeant is watching.’
He kissed her then, pressing his bound hands against the small of her back and then raising them to her neck. She had never been kissed on the lips by a man before, but she knew better than to draw back or act surprised, not with the Sergeant watching. She returned his kiss, surprised a little at the softness of his lips, since he did not look like a soft man. Their lips parted, and he kissed her again and again, little kisses that made her lean into his hips, to her surprise and embarrassment.
When they finished, he asked in a low voice, ‘Is he still watching?’
Suddenly shy, she turned her head to look. Sergeant Cadotte was looking at the water, then tapping his boot with his riding whip.
‘You’re a scoundrel, Hugh, darling,’ she whispered into his neck. ‘I’m not so certain he was ever looking.’ She laughed then, and stirred in his arms, which was the Colonel’s cue to raise his arms and release her.
‘Perhaps he wasn’t,’ he said with remarkable aplomb, ‘but at least you are not so unhappy now.’
She certainly wasn’t, she reflected, as they travelled into the afternoon of another dreary day. Only the warmth in her middle, which began and spread downwards when she leaned so close to the Colonel, gave her any satisfaction. That she was out of her element, she knew beyond a doubt. So was the Colonel, and for all she knew, despite their hardness, the Dragoons, too. They were captives riding with hunted men trying to get back to their own lines. Sergeant Cadotte must have been a farmer before Napoleon came calling, yet here he was.
