The Captain's Forbidden Miss

by Margaret McPhee

  His thumb stroked against hers. ‘How am I to believe you, that man’s daughter?’

  She looked deep into his eyes and she saw the darkness of his pain and anguish, and the hope that her words had lit.

  ‘Show me the journal, Josephine,’ he said quietly. ‘Let me read the words with my own eyes.’

  ‘You will tell La Roque. He will take it like he took the others.’

  ‘No, I promise.’ He moved, his hands slipping up to cup her face. ‘Please, Josephine. I will beg if that is what you want.’

  Seconds seemed to stretch to minutes, and minutes to hours, in which they sat there like that—until at last Josie nodded.

  She moved away, turned her back to him and began to unlace her dress.

  Dammartin watched across the small distance between them while Josephine loosened her dress. For a moment he thought she had misunderstood, that what she would offer him was something quite different from the journal, but something that he wanted just the same. He felt himself harden at the thought, but then he realised that she was not stripping off the clothes, but seeking beneath and within, and he knew that she had not lied about the journal.

  He waited, unable to take his eyes from her, anticipation spiralling within, until at last she fixed her clothing back in place and turned towards him.

  She brought the notebook to the table and laid it down before him like some precious offering.

  His eyes slid down to the small, battered book with its deep red covers all blotched and warped.

  She sat down in the empty chair. ‘The rain soaked through the leather of my satchel to reach its pages, but the writing is still legible.’

  He stared at it, knowing that this was it, at last— Mallington’s voice from the past; Mallington’s thoughts on Jean Dammartin.

  His heart was beating fast now, and he could feel the prickle of sweat upon his palms. It was feeling that came before battle. That time of tense stillness, when fear churned in every man’s gut, and his nostrils filled with it and his fingers grew numb with it, that time when one could scent his own death and the urge to run to safety was strong. The worst time, when men could do nothing but endure until with relief the order came to charge, or to fire, or to move, and the waiting was over. It was the same now.

  ‘Read it,’ she said.

  He took a deep breath and with infinite care opened the book’s covers, feeling them still warm with the heat from her body. Within, the pages were stained a pinky red where the dye had seeped from the covers. But it was as Josephine had said, the pencilled flowing script with its small, neat letters and its words crammed close together was still clear enough. Mallington had filled the page one way, and then turned it upside down and continued his writing in the spaces between his original lines.

  His skin tingled as his fingers touched the paper. He turned the delicate pages, one by one, until he came at last to the date he was looking for: May 1809.

  His heart was racing, his blood pumping hard. He held his focus on the date and breathed before allowing it to slip along the line and read the words that Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s hand had written.

  He read the entries for the days from 12th May 1809 onwards, from the time that Wellington had routed the French from Oporto. His eyes raced over the words, pausing over the pertinent ones: Dammartin…a most worthy adversary…confess to liking the fellow heartily…regret that fate has seen fit to place us each on opposing sides of this war…La Roque is scarcely to be noticed beside Dammartin…the two officers will be paroled…I bid adieu to Major Dammartin…agreed that should we survive this war then when peace is instilled we should become friends…invited me to his villa in Evran…I made a reciprocal invitation that he should come to Winchester…I returned their swords and provided them with weapons with which they might defend themselves against attack…it is the first time I pray that an enemy’s journey shall be safe…having witnessed Dammartin’s and his men’s bravery and met the man himself…I can do nothing else as a gentleman.

  Dammartin closed the journal and sat back in his chair. There was a curious numbness within. All that he had believed these past months, all that he had done, were contrary to what was written in these few fragile pages. Mallington wrote of respect and honour and admiration. Josephine had been right: they did not sound to be the words of a murderer.

  Upon the table her fingers wrapped gently around his. ‘I am sorry,’ she said gently.

  ‘Why should you be sorry?’ He tried to smile, but the curve of his lips was bitter. ‘You have achieved what you wanted.’

  ‘No.’ She bit at her lip and looked at the flame’s flicker within the lantern. ‘I never wanted any of this.’

  He lifted her hand, still entwined with his, and touched it to his mouth before placing it back down upon the table. ‘Fate has played a cruel game with us.’

  Her eyes met his. ‘What are we to do?’

  He shook his head, feeling empty and set adrift from all that was real. ‘I do not know, Josephine. I honestly do not know.’

  There was such a note of despondency and despair in his voice that it seemed to Josie that a hand had reached into her chest and squeezed upon her heart.

  She reached to touch his arm, patting a comfort.

  And when he looked round at her, she could see the teardrop that ran down his ravaged cheek.

  ‘Oh, Pierre,’ she whispered, and went to him, wrapping her arms around him, cradled his head against her breast. She rocked him gently, soothing him, dropping small kisses to his hair. And with every breath she felt his pain, so raw and bleeding, as he wept silently into her heart. She held him for what seemed like hours, until the tight tension had gone from his body, and anguish had left, leaving in its place an empty quietness.

  All was silent.

  He rested against her, his arms around her waist, his cheek against her heart. Her fingers were threaded through his hair, massaging a slow rhythm. He raised his face and looked up into her eyes, and she knew in that moment that nothing would ever be the same again.

  Gently she cupped a hand against his scarred cheek and moved her mouth to his. She kissed him with all that was in her heart, seeking to take away his pain, to heal the wound he had been dealt. And as she kissed him, she felt his lips awaken beneath hers, and he was kissing her back, his mouth sliding against hers.

  He pulled her on to his knee, kissing her harder, with the same urgency that was rising within Josie. Their tongues danced together, teasing and moist. He kissed her and licked her and sucked her, while his hands worked at her dress’s laces until her breasts were free beneath his fingers.

  She knew what he would do, and she wanted it, wanted to feel his tantalising caress, wanted to feel his mouth roving over her breasts.

  Her nipples were heavy and sensitive as he rolled them between his fingers, plucking at them to make her pant with a desire that could no longer be suppressed. And when he licked at those hardened, rosy peaks, she closed her eyes and almost drowned in the ecstasy of it, arching her back, driving herself deeper into him.

  He carried her to his bed, laid her down within the blankets. Stripping off his boots and his jacket, he discarded his shirt, until only his breeches remained. Beneath the low lantern light his naked skin was honey-gold, his body lean and hard with muscle. She reached up and trailed her fingers down the taut plane of his stomach, feeling the twitch of his muscles beneath her touch. His eyes closed momentarily and he groaned before his hand closed over hers and he lifted it to his mouth.

  ‘Josephine,’ he pleaded, and his voice was low and guttural as if in pain.

  ‘Not Josephine,’ she said, ‘but Josie.’

  ‘Josie.’ Her name was like a caress from his lips.

  He kissed the tip of her smallest finger before taking it into his mouth and sucking gently upon it.

  The heat in Josie’s thighs burned hotter.

  He did the same to her ring finger and the finger next to it.

  She dragged the air noisily
into her lungs.

  By the time he had reached her forefinger, her eyes were closed and she wanted to beg him to do whatever it was that her body was crying out for.

  And then came her thumb.

  ‘Pierre!’ She arched upon the bed, thrusting her nipples into the air so that he would take them again. But he did not. He lowered himself over her and kissed her mouth. He kissed her face, her hair, her neck. He kissed every inch of each pale breast, teasing round their rosy summits, but his tongue stopping agonisingly short of taking them. ‘Pierre!’ she cried again, and tried to guide his mouth to suckle.

  He raised his face to look into hers, the intensity of his gaze searing her. ‘Josie,’ he said, and seemed to stare into her very soul. ‘Mon amie.’ He lowered his mouth and kissed her, deeply, passionately, giving all as she had done. She revelled in it, and felt his hand move beneath her skirts, his fingers sliding against the bare skin of her thighs, creeping ever up towards her most secret of places.

  His face drew back and he looked into her eyes as he touched her.

  Josie gasped loud.

  ‘Sweet Josie,’ he murmured and, holding her gaze with his, he began to caress her, sliding against her moist heat, slowly at first, then a little faster, building to a rhythm. She arched her neck, panting, feeling the blush of heat spreading throughout the entirety of her body. And still, he gazed into her eyes and she into his, as he stroked her in her most intimate of places. There was nothing of shame, nothing of embarrassment, only the most pressing of needs, escalating, urging his fingers to move faster, to never cease their magic.

  ‘Pierre!’

  He threaded the fingers of his left hand through the fingers of her right, pressing her hand into the softness of the pillow above her head. And all the while his other fingers worked busily.

  Through the pleasure was a desperation, a need so utterly overwhelming that she could not help herself reaching for it. She needed him, needed him more than life itself. And the urgency was so great and the pleasure so strong that she could not help herself panting faster and faster as she strained towards it. Her eyes shuttered with the intensity of it. She felt his mouth close over her nipple, sucking at it, laving it, and at this final touch that she had so craved the world seemed to explode in a myriad of pleasure. She cried out loud as a thousand sunbeams danced throughout her body and a wave of total bliss rippled out from the warm pulsating centre between her legs.

  Dammartin’s hand was no longer moving, his fingers cupped her still, warm and gentle as they lay there.

  She opened her eyes to find that he was watching her.

  He smiled. ‘My sweet girl.’ Then he lay down by her side, curving his body around hers so that she could feel the strong steady beat of his heart against her back, and he held her.

  And Josie knew that she had given herself to him completely, holding nothing back. She was his. She did not think of what the future would bring, only of here and now, of Pierre Dammartin…and how she loved him.

  ‘She is not to be found because she is with Dammartin. There has been a change of plan.’ La Roque swilled the brandy around the glass. ‘He knows that you have been watching the girl for me.’

  Molyneux’s eyes bulged. ‘He will kill me!’

  ‘He will not. Captain Dammartin understands that you were acting under my orders and that it was for his own good.’

  ‘He is a hard man, sir, a cold-hearted, ruthless killer who—’

  La Roque raised his eyes from the brandy glass. ‘He is my godson, Lieutenant.’

  Molyneux stared down at the ground. ‘I apologise, Major.’ There was a pause before he looked back up. ‘Then Mademoiselle Mallington is to stay with the Captain?’

  ‘For now.’ La Roque smiled and pulled at his moustache. ‘Do not worry, Molyneux. Dammartin will soon tire of shagging her. And when he does, you must be ready to act. The journal must be found…and the girl, Lieutenant, will be yours.’

  ‘What if Dammartin finds the journal first? Do I still get her?’

  ‘Dammartin knows nothing of the missing journal, and he is the last person that Mademoiselle Mallington will reveal it to. You, on the other hand, Molyneux, must be a little more persuasive. Do whatever it takes to get me that journal. Make the most of her in Ciudad Rodrigo, for we will leave her to General Gardanne’s men when we return to Santarém. Then maybe Mallington’s influence will be destroyed and my godson can resume his life once more.’ La Roque filled Molyneux’s glass with brandy. ‘To Ciudad Rodrigo and all that awaits.’

  The glasses chinked, and the two men drank in silence.

  Dammartin sat by the rekindled fire and watched the beginnings of the new day dawn as over in the east the darkness of the night sky began to pale. The tin mug was warm between his hands, the steam from the coffee within rising up as wisps of smoke to drift into what was left of the night.

  He needed time to think, even though he had lain awake most of the night hours doing just that. Could the man who had written such words of Jean Dammartin within his journal then have killed him? It was not impossible, he supposed, but the Mallington that the journal conjured was the same Mallington that had given his daughter into Dammartin’s keeping as he lay dying within a cold monastery room. The scene from Telemos was etched upon Dammartin’s mind. He had replayed it a hundred times in his head, studying each of Mallington’s words, his every nuance. He was a most worthy opponent, Mallington had said. I do not need to ask that you treat her honourably. I already know that, as Jean Dammartin’s son, you will do nothing other.

  More than eighteen months of hatred, eighteen months of planning a revenge…against a man who it now seemed was not guilty. It had to be Mallington. La Roque had witnessed the murder, La Roque had seen his father die by Mallington’s hand. Could his godfather have been mistaken? Could he be lying as Josie had said? Lying about his father, lying about the journals, and about Molyneux? Major Frederic La Roque—a man that he had known all of his life, a man that had kissed his father’s cheek, and dangled his brother upon his knee, who had laughed with his mother, who had eaten at his parents’ table and slept beneath their roof. The thought was anathema.

  Maybe Mallington had not pulled the trigger, but there had to be some reasonable explanation as to why La Roque had thought it was so. Or maybe Mallington had truly been insane and killed the man he had written so warmly of, avoiding a record of the crime to spare his daughter the truth. Maybe Mallington really was guilty after all.

  He heard the soft tread behind him and did not need to look round to know that she stood there.

  ‘Pierre?’ she whispered.

  She was standing with a blanket wrapped around her, the crumpled red-and-black skirt visible below. Her eyes were wide and cautious, as if she doubted what she would find in him this morning. An image of her beneath him flashed in his mind, her face flushed with passion as his fingers slid within her secret silken folds. And he thought how he had entered his tent last night so intent upon taking her to satisfy only himself, and how differently the night had unravelled. He had wanted to pleasure her, to show what heady delights there could be. He had needed to give to her as she had given to him, just to give, not to take. That his own passion, his own desperate need, had gone unslaked did not matter.

  There was such selflessness within her as to wrap around him like a quilt of the warmest softest down. No one, save his father, had ever seen beyond the armour that he wore in this life, until last night. Josie had witnessed the full extent of his weakness, looked upon his despair, vulnerable and raw, and she had gathered up the shattered pieces of his soul and fitted them back together—the daughter of the man he had so hated.

  He was ashamed of his weakness, and that she had witnessed it. But his shame was all the greater for knowing how harshly he had treated her for a crime that he was no longer sure that Mallington had committed. Last night had been of despair and guilt and gratitude. None of it was Josephine Mallington’s fault.

  He held out his arm to her i
n an encompassing gesture, and she came to him, sitting down beside him, as he snuggled her in close by his side.

  ‘You could not sleep,’ she said.

  He shook his head gave a wry smile. ‘Coffee?’ He offered her his mug.

  She accepted the cup from his fingers.

  ‘You said that your mother was French.’

  She nodded and sipped at the coffee. ‘My parents met when Maman came to England in 1784, the year after the last war had ended. She was very young and very pretty.’

  ‘Like you,’ he said.

  She smiled. ‘Her parents did not wish the marriage, for my father was English and a military man. He was also older than her—sixteen years, to be precise. But she loved him, and he loved her, and so she defied her parents to marry him.’

  He looked into her eyes, noticing the way that they seemed to light up when she spoke of her parents. ‘Then your father was a lucky man.’

  She smiled again and passed the coffee back to him. ‘My mother followed him all around the world with the army and I never once remember hearing her complain of it. First they were in North America, but I remember little of that. Then my father was sent to the West Indies—to Jamaica. That is were my mother died. Yellow fever, the doctor said. There was nothing that could be done for her.’

  His arm tightened around her to pull her closer as they sat side by side before the small, weak flames of the fire.

  ‘You stayed alone with your father.’

  ‘And Edward, my brother. Papa was eventually recalled to England before being sent to Ireland. Edward joined the 20th Light Dragoons and was posted to Portugal. I accompanied my father when he was sent here too.’

  ‘Where is your brother now?’

  ‘He died at the Battle of Vimiero; he was three and twenty years old.’

  ‘I am sorry, Josie. You have suffered too much loss.’

  ‘We both have,’ she said, and lifted the back of his hand from her waist to briefly touch against her lips. ‘May I ask you of your father?’

  He nodded, even though he had no wish to reveal any more of his pain.