by Jane Feather
He didn't think it was his own personal honor she was impugning; he was tarred with some brush from her past. There was much here that he didn't understand, but he didn't need to understand this unlikely spawn of an Englishwoman and a Spanish bandit to accomplish his mission. “And the service, senorita?”
Her smile broadened and her eyes danced.
“Cornichet's epaulets, my lord.”
Gabriel's booming laugh rang out again. “Lassie, ye've more tricks in you than all the monkeys on the Rock of Gibraltar.”
Tamsyn chuckled, but her eyes remained on the colonel “Well, sir? You have twenty men. Gabriel and I will join you. Between us we should be able to dock the French colonel of his insignia.”
Julian was astounded. “Good God, girl, this is a war, not some bloody game.” Her eyes were sparkling, her mouth curved in a wicked grin, but the mischief was belied by the determined set of her chin and a steely glimmer behind the sparkle.
“I'm aware of that, Colonel,” she said. The laughter left her face, and suddenly he was chilled by the grimness of her expression, the cold flatness of her voice. “And Cornichet won't consider it a game, either, when he's obliged to show himself to his men in the disgraced uniform of a cashiered officer.”
It was certainly a neat revenge. Such mortification would be a bitter pill for the arrogant, brutal Cornichet to swallow. But how could he justify lending his men for such a trivial purpose?
Julian stared out at the river, his mind working furiously. He'd promised Wellington he'd bring La Violette in five days to Elvas to have her petals plucked. He could do it comfortably if they left now. His twenty men were needed at the siege of Badajos. To go off on some devil-may-care avenging jaunt to humiliate Cornichet was a waste of time and manpower. But if he didn't agree, then La Violette would be lost to him, and for the first time in his career he'd have to return to headquarters to report failure.
His pride wouldn't permit such a thing. It was as simple as that. The girl held all the cards, therefore he had no choice but to play the hand she dealt him. And if he allowed himself to admit it, the thought of outwitting the barbaric Cornichet again and serving him such a trick held its appeal, even if it was an appeal more suited to the youth and boyish amusements of a junior lieutenant than of a full colonel, who was also one of Wellington's intimates. But it was well-known that Julian St. Simon had a devious mind and preferred the trickery and cunning of undercover warfare to the brute force of the battlefield.
Cornichet and his men were presumably still in some disarray outside Olivenza half a day's ride away, repairing the damage to their smoldering outpost. If they could get the business over with swiftly, with some hard riding they could still be back at Elvas within the five days he'd set himself
His mind raced on, examining and discarding possibilities. Somehow they'd have to extract Cornichet from his men.
“Very well,” he said with a shrug of resignation. “It's against my better judgment, but you hold the cards. But if you join with us, Violette, then you do so under my command. Is that agreed?”
Tamsyn shook her head. “No, milord colonel, Gabriel and I operate as free agents, as do all partisan bands when they work with your army. But we'll not be at cross purposes, I assure you.”
She spoke the truth. The guerrilla bands lent their services to Wellington's army when they chose, but they operated under their own command. This band consisted only of a diminutive girl and her giant bodyguard, but La Violette obviously didn't consider that a factor.
“I'm thinking that we should surprise him at night,” Tamsyn continued, not even pausing to consider that the English colonel would object to her condition. “He usually retires at around midnight, and he's generally foxed, but he always goes around the pickets. We can ambush him. Then… swish, swish!” She chuckled, drawing her hand through the air in two slashing motions. “It's a small enough revenge for what he did to me; let alone what he intended to do. But I'm not overly vindictive,” she added with a cheerful grin.
“Is that so,” St. Simon muttered. “You could have fooled me. I'd have thought losing his captive and having his camp burned around his ears would have been enough for most people.”
“But that was not my revenge,” Tamsyn pointed out, sounding surprised that he couldn't see the difference. “Taking me for yourself was your mission. It had nothing to do with making Cornichet pay for what he'd done to me and my men. Not to mention Gabriel.”
“Och, don't count me in this,” Gabriel said comfortably. “I had my revenge, little girl. I broke a few heads on my way out of there. They'll not forget Gabriel McFee in a hurry.”
“But there's Gilles and Pedro and Joseph and Stefan… “
“Aye, I've not forgotten.” The giant held up his hand to halt the list of their fallen comrades. “I'm with ye, lassie.”
“Well, if that's settled, perhaps we could get on with it,” Julian said impatiently, glancing up at the sun that was now well risen. “The problem is mounting you. You'll have to ride with me, Violette. But we don't have a mount among us that could take the weight of your man in addition to one of mine.”
“Dinna fash yourself wi' that,” Gabriel said with an easy smile. “I've my own mount, and the lassie's is tethered over yonder.” He gestured to the high ground.
“You have Cesar?” Tamsyn exclaimed. “You brought him out of there?”
“Sure, I did, little girl. I'd not leave him behind.
Shame on you for thinking such a thing.”
Tamsyn reached up on tiptoe and kissed him. “I don't know how you did it, but you're a miracle worker, Gabriel. Let's go and fetch them.” She turned to the colonel. “We'll meet you in your bivouac.”
St. Simon hesitated, reluctant to let her go off with her giant bodyguard, yet unsure what he could do to prevent it.
“I gave you my word,” she said, her chin tilting, her eyes flashing. “Do you doubt me, milord colonel?”
He remembered the sardonic challenge she'd thrown at him the previous night about whether he could trust the parole of a brigand. She'd offered no assurances then, and he'd chosen not to trust her. Why he should now trust the honor of a self-confessed bandit, thief and mercenary he didn't know.
He shrugged again. “It makes little difference whether I do or not.” Turning on his heel, he strode off to the small wood and the camp.
“I hope ye know what y'are doing, lassie,” Gabriel observed as they walked rapidly along the bank. “El Baron would have had no truck wi' soldiers. Going off to Wellington's headquarters like this. It's not right.” He shook his head, his queue swinging against his shoulders.
“I haven't said I'll tell them what they want to know,” she pointed out.
“And what makes ye think they can be trusted not to squeeze it out of ye?”
“Oh, I believe milord colonel can be trusted to keep his word,” she said airily, then broke into a run. “Oh, there's Cesar. And you have my rifle, and my knife. However did you get them back?”
Gabriel snorted. “Piece o' cake, lassie. They were a dozy lot, and once I'd broken a few bones, they weren't goin' to stand in my way.” He tossed her onto the back of the milk-white Arabian steed before mounting his own charger, an ugly brute whose massive shoulders and powerful hocks looked well up to the weight of his huge rider.
“Besides, I have a plan,” Tamsyn went on as if there'd been no interruption. She settled into the saddle and pulled the stallion's ears affectionately. “I think this milord colonel might prove useful, if I can buy his services.”
“Useful to do what?” Gabriel's tone was wary. He knew from experience that her plans were rarely simple. “Buy them with what?”
Tamsyn smiled and said mysteriously, “All in good time, Gabriel.”
Unreassured, but resigned, he held his peace, and they cantered back along the river, turning into the trees.
The men of the Sixth were packed up and ready to leave, standing beside their horses as the fires were put out. Julian whis
ked at the sight of La Violette's magnificent mount, whose Mameluke training was as obvious as the Arabian blood.
“I should imagine you had a fight to wrest that beast from Cornichet,” he observed to Gabriel as they rode up.
“Ye could say that,” Gabriel said, shrugging off his fight with six brawny French infantrymen. “But I had a cudgel and my broadsword. And thanks to yourself there was enough smoke around to create some difficulties for them.”
Julian ran his hand along the Arab's creamy neck, inspecting him with a cavalry officer's expertise.
“Cesar was a gift from my father on my eighteenth birthday,” Tamsyn volunteered, pleased at the colonel's knowledgeable admiration for her pride and joy.
“A supreme animal,” Julian said with an ironic smile.
He saw that she had a knife in the sheath at her saddle and a long rifle attached to the pommel, a bandolier slung across her chest. He'd seen women armed in this way many times among the partisan bands, but the contrast of the weapons with La Violette's diminutive fairness was startling. And yet it was obvious from her easy posture that she was perfectly at home bristling with arms in her high saddle of magnificently tooled leather.
“Plunder from some Spanish grandee's stud, no doubt,” he added, his ironic smile unwavering.
“A Turk, as it happens,” she retorted. “He was crossing the Sierra Nevada with a complete stud and a mule train laden with gold and emeralds. My father relieved him of everything, I believe.”
“Och, little girl, such lies!” Gabriel exclaimed. “El Baron had his own stud, Englishman. It was renowned throughout Spain and Portugal, and men came from all over to buy a colt, but the baron would sell only to those he chose. I've seen grown men weeping and carpeting the ground with gold for one of his horses, but the baron wouldn't budge if he took agin a man.”
“Such a vivid imagination you have, senorita,” St. Simon murmured, glancing at Tamsyn, who was looking annoyed at Gabriel's intervention.
“Not as vivid as yours, Colonel,” she snapped.
He shrugged. “I suggest you devote your imagination to a plan for exercising your vengeance on Cornichet. Let's get going. I've no desire to waste any more time than necessary on this ridiculous expedition.”
He swung onto his mount and called, “Sergeant, give the order to move out.”
Flushed with anger, Tamsyn drew aside with Gabriel as the cavalcade trotted out of the clearing. For two pins she would have turned Cesar and galloped in the opposite direction, and there wasn't a cavalry officer under the sun who could have caught her. But her old life was over now, brought to an end first by the massacre in Puebla de St. Pedro, and then by Cornichet's ambush. Now she must plan a future, and the English colonel had somehow woven himself into that future. She needed his help in this little matter of Cornichet, but the large picture was beginning to take shape in her mind, and Colonel, Lord Julian St. Simon rode through that canvas. A Cornishman who seemed to be in the right place at the right time-although whether he would put it that way himself was open to question. A question to be answered when they reached Elvas, once Cornichet had paid his dues.
Chapter four
SIX HOURS BROUGHT THEM TO THE OUTSKIRTS OF Olivenza. Tamsyn and the colonel had exchanged no words, and she'd ridden with Gabriel in the manner of the partisans, keeping apart from the English soldiers, riding in the hills alongside the road. Gabriel, like the phlegmatic magician he was, had produced bread, cheese, dried dates, and a wineskin of rioja from his saddlebags, and they'd eaten in the saddle as they were accustomed to doing.
Julian had kept an eye on them through his glass as they rode in the distance, bet as they reached the town, the two of them rode down to the cavalcade of soldiers.
“Beggin' yer pardon, Colonel, but this seems like a rum deal to me,” the sergeant muttered. “I wouldn't want to meet that bleedin' great bloke in a dark alley.”
“No,” Julian agreed, feeling that he owed the sergeant some explanation. “But they say La Violette always has her price, and if this lime junket is the cost of bringing her to headquarters, then we must pay it.”
He hadn't told the sergeant how it had happened that he'd left the bivouac with a firmly tethered prisoner and returned alone to be joined by the girl armed to the teeth on her Arab, accompanied by a gigantic bodyguard. His men could draw what conclusions they wished. They were soldiers accustomed to the strange fancies of their officers and to obeying incomprehensible orders.
“We should wait until dark before approaching the outpost,” Tamsyn declared, trotting up to him. She squinted up at the dimming ball of the setting sun. “Gabriel is going to reconnoiter, to make sure Cornichet's still there.”
“You may do as you wish, Violette. But my men and I will reconnoiter on our own account,” he said icily. “I don't commit my men to an action on the basis of someone else's observations.”
Tamsyn shrugged. “As you wish, milord colonel. But it seems a great waste of energy. I'll lay odds Gabriel is better at this sort of thing than any English soldier.”
“You are, of course, entitled to your opinion.” Julian turned his mount aside, signaling that his men should follow him, and they trotted away from the road and into the wood surrounding the town.
Pompous ass! Tamsyn shook her head in irritation but followed with Gabriel. In a small clearing in the cool, dim seclusion of the woods, they halted. The colonel gave soft-spoken commands to his scouts, and the two men dismounted and disappeared into the undergrowth.
“Might as well let 'em do it,” Gabriel said with a cheerful shrug, pulling out his wineskin. He threw back his head, and the dark-red stream arched from the neck of the skin and into his mouth.
“Colonel?” Aware of Julian's eyes on him, he offered the skin courteously.
“Thanks.” St. Simon took a welcome draft of the robust wine. As he handed it back to Gabriel, Tamsyn intercepted the skin and deftly drank herself.
Her teeth flashed pearly white as she opened her mouth and tilted her head back. Julian found himself gazing with rapt fascination at the graceful curve of her throat, the little movements as she swallowed the wine, the ruby stream pouring unbroken between her parted lips. The short cap of her hair was almost white in the gathering gloom, contrasting with the gold of her skin and the dark fringe of her eyelashes. She was like some barbarian maiden, he thought, sitting her magnificent warhorse with her rifle and her bandolier, one brown ungloved hand gripping the reins, her serviceable britches and shirt mud splattered, her boots of soft cordovan leather shabby and well-worn like the favorite riding boots of someone who spent most of her life in the saddle.
And yet there was something delicate about her too. Something distinctly flowerlike.
He dismissed this whimsy with a disgusted head shake and tore his eyes away from her. “Sergeant, the men may dismount and take a break while we wait for the scouts. They should eat, but we'll be lighting no fires. “
“Aye, sir.” The sergeant gave the order and the men dismounted with relief. It had been six hard hours ridding over ill-paved roads, and there was much stretching and cursing as they opened saddlebags and made what supper they could with cold provisions.
Gabriel and La Violette, however, remained on horseback, looking as comfortable as if they were in armchairs. Not for the first time Julian thought that the hard English saddles with their low pommels were a poor exchange for the high-cushioned Spanish type.
The scouts returned within the hour. The French under Cornichet were still in the encampment, about half an hour deeper into the woods, busily repairing the damaged huts. They had doubled the pickets, however, and another raid would be more difficult. Not least because the night promised to be clear and pleasant, and they wouldn't have the advantage of drenching rain and thick cloud cover.
Julian frowned. He was not prepared to lose any of his men over a personal vendetta. This would have to be done with stealth, not by force. “Sergeant, keep the men here. Keep your ears open, and be ready to com
e up in support at the first sound of trouble.”
He turned to Tamsyn. “You,” he said, pointing an imperative forefinger, “and Gabriel, come with me. If we can't do this with the three of us, then it won't be done.”
Tamsyn considered this. It seemed as if he were reneging on the bargain, but the bright-blue eyes were like diamond chips, the forceful mouth tight, the jutting chin set, and it rather looked as if this was the best she was going to get. But the colonel was no lightweight. She'd had ample evidence of his physical strength, and though he couldn't compete with Gabriel, he cut an impressive figure, exuding an internal power that made him an opponent to be reckoned with. And at least his men would be there to cover their retreat.
With an equable nod she dismounted, slinging her rifle over her shoulder. “We'd best approach on foot.”
They crept through the undergrowth, Julian, his scarlet tunic once again concealed beneath his black boat cloak, astonished at how Gabriel, despite his size, seemed to flit and melt into the brush. Tamsyn was like a fawn, her feet barely touching the ground, hardly crushing a blade of grass as she passed. He was not as practiced at this guerrilla warfare and felt like some clumsy great ox beside his companions.
They halted about fifty yards from the encampment, where they could see a patrolling picket. Another man joined him after a minute, his rifle resting against his shoulder. They spoke together and resumed their march in opposite directions.
Staging an ambush along the picket lines was not going to be easy. “How about the latrines?” Tamsyn whispered, her eyes shining wickedly in the now-full dark. “When Cornichet pays his nightly visit, we could be waiting for him. He's a creature of habit. Every evening at around eleven he goes to the jakes, taking a glass of cognac with him.”
“How do you know?” Julian peered at her in the gloom, infected, despite his attitude toward this time wasting and dangerous jaunt, by the wicked mischief emanating from the slight figure at his elbow.